WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 13 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:02.480 Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let 0:00:02.480 --> 0:00:06.160 you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:09.360 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:13.240 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:15.760 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:17.720 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:19.919 there's gonna be nothing new here for you, But you 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:26.639 can make your own decisions. Robert doing the grune so 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:30.200 we can start the podcast. Um, I think we should 0:00:30.240 --> 0:00:32.560 just start the podcast with you asking Robert, do you 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:35.560 want to grunt so we can start the podcast. Um? 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.440 That that seems avant garde. I don't know what I'm 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:40.360 on guard means, but this is it could happen here, 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:43.239 a podcast about how things are falling apart and how 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:45.680 maybe maybe they don't always need to be falling apart. 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:48.080 Maybe we could do better. Uh. Speaking of doing better, 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:51.800 you know one thing that sometimes helps us do better 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:55.320 getting getting in the face of people fucking ship up 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:58.160 and being like, Hey, that's not that's not cool. Don't 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:02.920 be doing that, Garrison. That's your leading take it from here. Yeah, Hi, 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:07.880 So we I've been I've been trying to keep better 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:13.600 a better job of like following ecological defense movements happening 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:16.200 both in the States and in other countries. I know 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:19.280 there was there was a big one up in Canada recently. 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:21.800 There was a huge one in Germany too, just the 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:25.560 other day. Yeah, I know the one, the one in Canada. 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:30.120 There's a uh the uh I forget, I forget what 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:35.280 the actual indigenous group is called. Um maybe maybe someone else. 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:41.800 So the the um house on Sauti Um. Yeah, the 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:47.199 people who who who took back their land and blocked 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:51.920 the road off and now there and the wet suit end. 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:55.200 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, thank you. Um there 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:58.600 we go, Yeah, basically taking their land back, blocking off 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:00.200 the road and now our same piece getting call then 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:03.680 and we'll see how that develops. And in Guatemala there's 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:09.600 protests against Canadian mining UM in Maya indigenous community that 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:13.240 have have have gotten pretty heavily militarized at this point. 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:15.600 There's fun, there's a lot of stuff. There's a lot 0:02:15.600 --> 0:02:20.200 of stuff of stuff on the psychological defense side of things, UM, 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:23.600 including including in you know, the Pacific Northwest here with 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:27.480 all of with all of the forests and and as such, 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:31.520 in this area and part of this kind of exploration 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:34.840 into into ecological defense, I wanted to talk with some 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:37.480 people who are a little a little bit more well 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:41.000 versed in this type of thing than I am. So 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:45.320 I've there's the two people have agreed to talk with us, 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:49.919 Um salmon Cat, both people who work who work on 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:54.040 the kind of thing from like an activism standpoint. Yeah, 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:59.360 say hi, hello, hey y'all. So very very thankful that 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:02.520 they are to be talking with us today. So I 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:04.480 thought we could we could probably just start by kind 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:09.240 of discussing what forest defense is and how it kind 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:11.720 of has a history specifically in this area, but but 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:13.920 kind of more broadly, like if if people listened to 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:16.360 the Earth First episodes, you know, that kind of that 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:19.880 covered like anti pipeline stuff. We didn't really get much 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:22.600 into like forest defense and you know, like the traditional 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:25.720 like tree sits and that kind of thing. UM. So, 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:28.800 so yeah, what's what's up with defending the forest? What's 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:32.560 what's what's going on with that? Um? Yeah, thanks for 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:37.160 that great intro. UM. I mean, forest defense is I 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:40.920 think probably the most characteristic um type of direct action 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:44.320 in this bioregion. And here we're talking from Cascadia right now. 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:46.720 I actually moved out here from the East Coast ten 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:49.600 years ago specifically to get involved with forest defense, because 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:53.000 this place has an incredibly rich history UM of people 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:56.520 basically just throwing down, risking life and limb to stop 0:03:56.600 --> 0:03:59.120 jain saws from taking down some of the oldest and 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:02.880 most special for rists out here. UM. And so i'd say, 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:05.400 you know, for forest defense direct action is in a 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:08.160 lot of ways rooted right here UM, in this bioregion. 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:12.440 And obviously, UM, like all kinds of movements, things have 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:16.560 changed over the course of time. UM. Back in the eighties. UM, 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:19.640 when in seventies, when forest defense was really really kicking 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:22.920 up and stopping old growth logging, specifically out here, when 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:27.000 it was kind of like rampant old growth, UM clear cutting. UM, 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:30.720 it really took the shape of trying to focusing on ecology, 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:34.200 focusing on the integrity of these ecosystems, and basically like 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:38.200 doing everything possible to stop the chainsaws. And UM. Now 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:41.239 obviously a lot has changed. We have the Northwest Forest 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:44.159 Plan and some policies which are doing better to kind 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:47.080 of like protect old places and old forests. But at 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:50.680 the same time, the same ship is happening. UM. You know, 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:54.520 the timber industry is great at using euphemisms to kind 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:58.560 of cover up it's clear cutting anyways, and finding policy 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:03.040 loopholes to get some incredible places. And now I think, um, 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:05.200 where we're at with like the direct action movement is 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:07.279 we're in the context of climate change, So we're not 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:09.880 just defending forests for the stake of these like incredible 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:14.240 ecological strongholds, but we're also defending them because we recognize 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:17.000 that forest defense is climate defense. This is a like 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:21.080 environmental justice issue, it's a human issue, it's a community issue. Um. 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:24.680 And so now direct action I think is um, you know, 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:26.360 happening not just the name of our forests, but in 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:28.960 the name of our communities in our future. Um. But 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:32.480 it's just as rich um now as it has ever been, 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:36.599 and especially right now and especially since which I know 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:40.240 we'll get into, people have been throwing down all over 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:43.960 this bio region to protect what's left of our forests. Yeah, 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:45.640 and I think it's it's good to get into kind 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:49.200 of why how the fires have impacted this because one 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:51.200 of the shady things that has been done is we 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:53.440 had I think most people in the country are where 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:58.080 Oregon had unprecedented wildfires this year, and we had unprecedented 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:03.839 wildfires last and we we're going to have unprecedented wildfires 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:07.280 every year for a while. Um And whenever these fires 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:10.039 run through, they don't like destroy every tree in their wake, 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:13.560 but they char them. And logging companies then come in 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:15.440 under the guise of like, well, we have to make 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:17.719 this area safe so that like the fires don't burn 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:19.320 here next year, So we've got to cut down all 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:23.000 of these trees, um and and clear cut this part 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:25.640 of area of public forests. So like as you're driving 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:28.520 around in forests that you used to be able to 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:30.560 do stuff, and you'll find areas that are just like 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:34.320 blocked off because mining companies are coming or logging companies 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:36.200 are coming through and clear cutting all of these trees 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:40.320 that could very easily recover from the fire um or 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:42.160 that weren't even burned by it. But we're just like 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:43.960 in this area that they said, Okay, well we have 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:45.880 to clear this out in order to make it safe. 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:48.920 And it's kind of this way to like back door 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:53.719 and the guise of fire protection like expand logging. Yeah, 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:56.200 and just to add that to the logging companies love 0:06:56.240 --> 0:06:59.680 to say that the reasons we have increased wildfires because 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:03.120 there's an overgrowth in the forest because of the Northwest 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:06.520 Forest plant. Because there's more protections for the forest. Fires 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:09.440 are happening worse because we're not getting there bogging the 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:13.120 forest and removing all the fuel. Mh. So we have 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:15.560 like this two part thing that like Kat just mentioned, 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:17.720 where like, on the one hand, companies are like, we 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:20.880 need to log more to prevent wildfire, which is bullshit 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:23.120 and we can talk about why. And on the other hand, 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:25.560 after fires burned through an area, they're like, we need 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:29.640 to log because we need to help the forest recover ecologically. Also, 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:33.040 we need to salvage all of the timber before it 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:36.200 rots and goes bad, and like all of these reasons 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:38.760 and so basically it's just like fire has become the 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:42.640 excuse to just like log preemptively and log after the fact. 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:45.840 And yeah, it's a total total ship show. Yeah, I 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:49.640 mean the think this this kind of falls into capitalists 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:52.640 trying to use climate change is just another way to 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:55.760 find things to extract and things to grow on. Right, 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:57.600 it's there they're going to try to find their own 0:07:57.600 --> 0:07:59.920 way to sneak in when all of this, you know, 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:03.920 ecological disaster is happening to you know, sell you whatever 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:07.160 green safe product is going to help against the collapse, 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:09.720 or you know, package things in a way that makes 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:12.480 it seem like it's solving this you know problem, but 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:14.480 it's actually it's part of it's part of the same 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:19.320 thing from the yeah yeah, yeah, yeah right. It's it's 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:21.440 you see, that's in every single industry, and it's always 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:23.040 it's it's gonna be like this because this is the 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:26.720 only way that capitalism knows how to address this issue 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:29.800 is abouty just turning it into another turning it into 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:33.120 another thing to consume and another thing to sell in package. 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:37.720 Pretty pretty grib Yeah. And there's I mean, there's cascading 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:41.880 effects too, because they cut down these trees under the 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:44.439 guise of making it safe for the next fire season, 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:47.440 but which also makes a big chunk of land a 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:50.320 lot more vulnerable to like mud slides and the torrential 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:53.320 raining that we're having right now. Um, and that's also 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:55.680 going to get more common because that's how fucking climate 0:08:55.760 --> 0:09:01.320 change works. It's it's just like comprehensive factory, comprehensive fatory. 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:05.080 And let us be clear to that logging doesn't actually 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:08.680 work to prevent wildfire, you know, even you know, they 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:11.000 say that it does, but the kind of logging that 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:13.760 they do in the name of wildfire prevention just looks 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:17.120 like clear cuts. And we have a pretty robust body 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:20.480 of science now showing that those kinds of activities actually 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:24.440 make fire hazard more severe for local communities. So that's 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:26.719 like one of the things they're doing. And we've been 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:29.720 calling it just gaslighting, Like they're gas lighting all of 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:32.000 us by saying, you know, there's nothing to see here, 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:34.720 there's nothing to see here, we're taking care of you all. 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:37.040 You know, we're barely logging at all. And then we've 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:40.160 got community members on the ground, um, despite the closure 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:43.200 orders who are like, actually there's a lot to see here, 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:46.080 and you all are like completely devastating the landscape and 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:51.720 further harming our communities. Um. So yeah, it's total gaslighting. Yeah, 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:54.560 an Oregon has both in terms of like watching fires 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:58.080 and watching logging, some like rules that are not in 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:01.480 place in other areas, especially for like even for for 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:04.160 press and the like. Like it's it's actually hard to 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:07.520 get in to look at this stuff, um without you know, 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:13.080 breaking some sort of law technically, which is not at 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:17.000 all shady. Um. Yeah, Yeah, I feel like that's another 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:19.200 important thing and maybe cat can jump onto is just 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:23.280 um basically, I mean, I think what people aren't understanding 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:27.800 is that after the fires, the these federal forest managers 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:35.000 closed gates and essentially are converting public land into private 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:38.320 land by you know, using the threat of violence to 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:41.120 kick people out if they go onto their public land. 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:45.959 And since and they say until at least the only 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:49.360 folks allowed behind these gates are cops and loggers, and 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:52.360 so this is like literally, um, you know, the enclosure 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:55.280 of our public lands and like the privatization of our 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:57.560 public lands so that cops and loggers can do whatever 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:01.800 the hell they want. Yeah, And it's the kind of 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:04.760 thing I mean, it's the kind of thing that people 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:08.640 if you're if you're if the if the Bundy's and 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:11.160 that group actually meant the stuff they were saying, like 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:12.880 the rhetoric they were putting out, it's the kind of 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:15.000 thing they would be piste off about. Two, Because you're right, 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:19.000 it is the enclosure of public land by the government, 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:23.760 um and corporations without any kind of consent from the 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:26.800 people who are supposed to be the collective owners of 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:30.600 that land. It's it's a again, something that a lot 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:33.640 of people should be angry about, who aren't angry about 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:36.280 because there's been this huge propaganda campaign in the Northwest 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:39.320 about timber unity and the like and like supporting the 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:44.720 timber industry, um by destroying like the single greatest gift 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:47.719 this entire part of the world has. Uh it's it's 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:52.520 pretty frustrating yeasting. Anyway, I have to we have to 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:54.480 actually have a quick break so I can go watch 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:58.719 my soccer game at the Timber Stadium. Uh, completely unrelated. 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:02.400 So I'm an drive out to Wheeler, Oregon myself. But 0:12:02.520 --> 0:12:05.560 we all have different things to do during the break, um. 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:07.360 But also in the break, I guess we could probably 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:09.880 do an AD break here, because why not? All right, Yeah, 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:15.360 everybody loves ads. And we're back still talking about force defense. 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:17.959 I wanted there's something that people should probably know before 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:20.560 we go further about the way that that Oregon works. 0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:23.000 So for a while, Oregon is a place where you 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:26.600 can't get elected um in a lot of parts of 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:30.160 a lot of populated parts of Oregon if you're a Republican. 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:35.480 So the Republicans just plain ice um and and pretend 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:38.280 and like throw out some some social justice. The language 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:41.360 while while still doing all of the extract of stuff 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:43.720 they were going to do anyway. And that's the story 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:46.680 with like Ted Wheeler, um and his family. So Ted 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:49.880 Ted Wheeler, the mayor of Portland, comes from timber money. 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:52.360 His father was a major Republican dontor. Not that the 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:55.040 Democrats don't have a lot of extractive history behind them, 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:57.040 but like it's it's very obvious what's happening with the 0:12:57.080 --> 0:13:00.720 Wheelers where um, they were huge republic and donors and 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:04.000 huge backers of the right, and then Oregon had this 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:07.960 kind of switch politically, um, and so Ted Wheeler just 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:11.120 started throwing out nice social justice e language. But the 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:13.400 the whole you know, he's he's I'm sure going to 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:15.120 make a run for governor at some point in the 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:20.920 near future. And you've got this like this dressed up 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:27.920 very extractive logging industry and politicians that always find a 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:30.320 way to kind of make it seem palatable to the 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:33.760 liberal majority. Um that and they've gotten pretty good at 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:37.360 that because it doesn't I don't know, I think maybe 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:39.280 we're coming to the end of this period, but like 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:42.160 I haven't, I haven't seen up until this last year 0:13:42.640 --> 0:13:45.480 a lot of widespread kind of outrage about the clear 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:47.960 cutting um, and they also hide it pretty well. Like 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:51.840 if you're driving through these beautiful public forests in Oregon, 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:55.040 the areas that are right along the road will generally 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:58.080 be pristine and you'll see old growth and everything. But 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:00.280 sometimes you can see, as you like turn a corner 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:02.800 or something that like, oh, that old growth only goes 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:06.080 back a couple of couple of dozen yards and then 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:09.040 it's a clear cut um, and they'll they'll they'll hide 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:11.000 it so that it's it's not as obvious because they 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:13.960 know what upsets people. So there's this, there's this kind 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:21.520 of surprisingly um surprisingly thorough campaign to do as much 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:26.120 of this as possible without upsetting people, um, which which 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:28.560 means there's a potential to upset people, which means there's 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:32.280 a potential to actually stop this if enough people get upset. 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:35.200 But it's you know, you're you're you're going against folks 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:37.160 who have thought a lot about how to do this 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:39.880 in a way that isn't going to upset the apple cart. 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:43.000 So how do you upset the apple cart? I guess 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:49.200 that is what I'm asking. Well, I think one way 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:51.480 that we upset the apple cart is by bringing people 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:53.960 out to these places. And you know, in the action 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:57.520 that happened on Tuesday that looked like disrupting and disobeying 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:00.480 a federal closure order in order to bring people out 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:04.400 to these places. UM. You know, basically metaphorically walking behind 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:07.080 what you were describing the beauty strip along the highway 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:10.600 and seeing what's behind it. Um. And you know, as 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:13.960 we were saying earlier, unfortunately, because of all these federal 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:17.640 closure orders after the fire, that looks like risking um, 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:22.360 you know, repercussion, state repression, arrest even um, in order 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:24.160 to just lay eyes on it. But that is the 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:26.960 way that we chipped the apple cart. We get people 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:29.920 to see these places so that it cuts through the 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:32.400 gas lighting that the industry is doing and people can 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:36.320 literally viscerally feel and see the damage. Um. And there's 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:38.800 no way to convince them that that's okay once they 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:41.200 see it. And how do you do go about like 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:44.000 finding people to bring into this, convincing people to come, 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:49.040 Like what does kind of that effort look like? You 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:50.440 want to answer this one cat, You did a ton 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:54.280 of recruitment, Yeah, totally. UM. I think a big part 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:56.960 of it is getting them while they're young. UM. I 0:15:57.000 --> 0:16:00.720 think that like young people right now are already pretty radicalized, 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:03.920 um compared to ten years or so, probably because of 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:06.200 I think George Floyd and Black Lives Matter and social 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:08.960 the use of social media and those movements. UM. So 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:12.280 I I am a college student and we're seeing like 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:14.520 so many people coming in and ready to throw down, 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:17.320 like they just cannot wait to get involved, and we'll 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:19.920 kind of just show up to anything. Um. So I 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:22.960 think that that's like a major tactic for sure. UM. 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:25.240 And then also making sure that when you have like 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:27.840 a an action that you're recruiting people for that it's 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:31.240 I'm very easy to plug in. It's like very accessible, 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:35.120 um and kind of just like having it organized very 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:38.680 well so it's not daunting to come in. Do you 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:40.760 want to add to that, Sam, Well, just to like 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:42.600 share a little more about like how we did that 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:47.119 with this particular action that happened on Tuesday. Um. Basically, 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:54.200 you know, we it was a Tuesday, brainy, freezing middle 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:57.720 of the forest planning this action, did not think and 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:00.800 behind a federal closure order. So every one on site 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:04.400 risking arrest, um and planning this action, it felt like 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:07.120 we would be lucky as ship if we got ten 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:10.399 people out there UM. But I will say, UM, it 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:12.600 was easy as ship to get fifty people out there, 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:17.159 and that's because people care. UM. And you know, I 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:20.600 think we did. In terms of organizing strategy, we used 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:23.359 the affinity group model, and so we had a core 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:25.600 you know, there was a core group of organizers, and 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:29.200 those organizers recruited through affinity groups and their affinity groups 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:32.160 and UM. That helped to keep kind of information secure 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:36.880 and UM, you know, everything tightly organized. But UM, people want. 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:40.399 People were really desiring to get together and do something, 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:42.560 especially the past couple of years of COVID, people are 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:46.400 just like eager to do something. UM. And on top 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:48.840 of that, you know, we we promised that this isn't 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:52.399 just an opportunity to potentially get arrested, but this is 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:56.119 an educational opportunity and a movement building opportunities. So while 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:58.760 the road was blocked with a slash pile and a 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:02.800 fire truck, there were workshops going on. There were hikes 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:05.640 going on in the forest that's supposed to be cut. UM. 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:09.399 There was discussions about know your rights trainings and affinity groups. 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:12.879 We had a band um playing on top of a 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:15.520 fire truck, and there was a dance party and basically 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:19.720 you know, we're like building community and solidarity UM in 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:23.320 a positive way while sucking shut up. I think that's 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:29.600 the key. And I mean, where do you uh, how 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:31.800 do how do you have like what is the I 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:35.280 let me think of a way to phrase this. What 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:38.600 is kind of the next step here? Because they haven't 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:42.760 started logging this area yet, but they're kind of doing 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:45.960 like the pre prep work. Um, what do you what 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:49.199 do you think actually can be done to to halt it? 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:51.560 Like is it? Is it a problem? Like? Because it 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:53.320 seems to me that it's there's got to be like 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:55.919 a mix of tactics there to actually get them to stop. 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:59.600 And you're dealing with a number of different UM threats 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:02.639 include not just at the state level, but these federal 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:05.399 closure orders Like what is I don't know what what 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:09.880 does the path forward look like to you? Yeah, So 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:14.439 there's a preliminary injunction being forth by some nonprofits and 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:16.720 so this is a really good example of different tactics 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:20.679 coming in and so UM. The preliminary injunction is basically 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:22.960 to state that what they're doing before a service is 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:26.880 doing is illegal. UM. But before that that can be passed, 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:29.359 they can come in at any point and log the area. 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:32.200 And so that's where direct action comes in to slow 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:34.280 them down and halp them as much as possible until 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:38.240 the courts can process that injunction. And that feels really 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:41.200 huge to Like what Kat just said is like where 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:44.200 is the place of direct action in forest defense? This 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:47.800 is like the golden moment for direct action while there's 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:49.920 like an open legal case that we're waiting on a 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:52.560 judge to settle, and the timber industry is like coming 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:55.000 in ready to moot out the case by logging before 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:57.400 it can even be decided. And like to just add 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:00.320 a little bit more backstory to on, Like another reason 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:03.240 why people are so pissed about this um is that 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:07.840 you know, this watershed has been I think like beloved 0:20:07.880 --> 0:20:11.800 and also embattled since the eighties. Like the infamous Easter 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:16.400 massacre logging event happened in the same watershed. Where could 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:22.919 you explain, Yeah, yeah, no, totally um it M. A 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:27.320 timber company was planning to clear cut log old growth 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:30.119 forest out there and started moving on it on Easter 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:34.320 um in the snow, and a bunch of badass direct 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:38.760 action activists set up a five tiered blockade on a 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:42.720 logging road to hold off the logging and successfully did 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:45.919 for um days and days until a bunch of them, 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:47.960 I think over a dozen folks got arrested, thrown in 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:51.439 jail and the forest was clear cut. UM. So hence 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:54.840 you know the Eastern massacre name UM. But a ton 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:58.520 of folks who you know still work in forest defense 0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:00.080 in the spy A region. We're there and remember for 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:03.320 that story, and we're with us UM when we were 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:05.919 out there this week telling that story. And you know 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:09.600 since then, between and now, people have been showing up 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:11.800 again and again and again in this watershed because it 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:14.080 is so special to try and fight off flogging. And 0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:17.280 myself and Cat have been a part of efforts over 0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:20.440 the past handful of years to um fight off a 0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:23.240 number of logging projects out there. We were successful in 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:26.400 doing that. We actually like snacked the Forest Services grubby 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:28.640 hands off of a bunch of oil growth because our 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:33.560 scrappy friends spent days exploring this watershed and documenting, doing 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:38.159 like site specific science citizen science documentation and giving it 0:21:38.200 --> 0:21:40.400 to the Four Service and we fought them and one 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:43.119 and protected a bunch of the forest. And then the 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:45.840 fires came through and they closed the gates and they 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:50.040 secretly changed all of these contracts to include clear cut logging. 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:52.960 And so that is why there's an open lawsuit because 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:57.200 we believe it's illegal what they're doing. It's sketchy and illegal. Yeah, 0:21:57.240 --> 0:21:59.399 but it does. It does illustrate like kind of the 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:03.159 depth of the fight necessary, not just in forest defense, 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:06.120 but at all efforts of kind of resisting the extract 0:22:06.200 --> 0:22:08.920 of industries that are driving a lot of climate change. 0:22:08.960 --> 0:22:11.639 It's it's not enough, it's never enough to win the 0:22:11.680 --> 0:22:14.160 first victory. They're going to find some way to to 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:16.720 to swoop around to the flanks and try to take 0:22:16.720 --> 0:22:20.119 it away from you like they're doing right now. Um, 0:22:20.160 --> 0:22:24.960 which is exhausting. Um, it seems exhausting, but it doesn't 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:30.040 mean you can ignore it. It's fucking exhausting. Yeah. I 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:32.960 always say it is like our forests, our federal management agencies, 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:35.679 they suffer from this powerful amnesia where they just like 0:22:35.800 --> 0:22:38.840 keep coming back with the same bullshit proposals. But like 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:41.440 our movement does not suffer from that, and we are 0:22:41.480 --> 0:22:44.800 just like building power and getting stronger and getting more successful. 0:22:44.920 --> 0:22:48.480 So like when people left on Tuesday, um, there was 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:51.160 a promise that people will be back if logging happens 0:22:51.200 --> 0:22:53.320 and we're very sure that that will be the case. 0:22:54.119 --> 0:22:58.920 And if if people are in the Cascadian bioregion and 0:22:59.280 --> 0:23:02.840 are like, well this sounds pretty sweet, I wanna, I wanna, 0:23:03.000 --> 0:23:06.919 I wanna keep keep some trees where they are as 0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:09.040 opposed to putting them on the back of a truck 0:23:09.080 --> 0:23:12.920 to drive somewhere else. How could they get involved? Where 0:23:12.920 --> 0:23:18.640 where might they reach out to? Well, there's a few 0:23:18.680 --> 0:23:22.800 different groups who were a part of this UM definitely UM, 0:23:22.960 --> 0:23:27.119 the Portland Rising Tide, Cascadia Forest Defenders, UM CAT can 0:23:27.119 --> 0:23:30.399 talk about Climate Justice League and UM maybe the action 0:23:30.440 --> 0:23:32.320 that you all put on yesterday as a follow up 0:23:32.359 --> 0:23:34.720 and like how folks can get involved with that UM 0:23:34.760 --> 0:23:37.520 But basically, yeah, you can follow us on Twitter, UM 0:23:37.560 --> 0:23:40.359 and Instagram and and please, UM, you know, keep a 0:23:40.359 --> 0:23:42.600 lookout because we will be we'll be getting it out 0:23:42.640 --> 0:23:44.600 far and wide if there is a call for folks 0:23:44.640 --> 0:23:49.480 to get out there again. Yeah. And Climate Justice League 0:23:49.560 --> 0:23:53.080 is an organ UM at the University of Oregon and 0:23:53.600 --> 0:23:56.879 people are free to just join the organization. Community members 0:23:56.880 --> 0:23:59.800 are also involved. UM. But we did put on an 0:23:59.800 --> 0:24:03.680 event it yesterday where Tyler Ferris of Ferris Logging or 0:24:03.800 --> 0:24:08.399 First Timber UM who is actually the company that bought 0:24:08.640 --> 0:24:11.240 the rights to Brighten Bush, which was the area where 0:24:11.240 --> 0:24:14.640 we did UM the action. On Tuesday, he was giving 0:24:14.680 --> 0:24:17.520 a speech at the University of Oregon UM to talk 0:24:17.560 --> 0:24:20.640 about post fire logging, which was just like crazy timing. 0:24:20.720 --> 0:24:22.320 They kind of just like put it in our lap. 0:24:22.880 --> 0:24:25.200 And so we recruited from that action or like, let's 0:24:25.240 --> 0:24:28.359 just dropt the hell out of this UM talk. And 0:24:28.400 --> 0:24:30.359 so we like showed up and kind of tried to 0:24:30.359 --> 0:24:33.520 sneak in. They were having zoom issues, which like luckily 0:24:33.560 --> 0:24:36.080 distracted them from the fact that there was like forty 0:24:36.160 --> 0:24:41.040 or fifty like pretty punk anarchy looking kids in the room. Um. 0:24:41.080 --> 0:24:43.600 But we like let him go on for a little bit, 0:24:43.960 --> 0:24:46.040 and then we started to ask him questions that he 0:24:46.080 --> 0:24:48.840 obviously didn't know the answer to. Um. We kept like 0:24:48.880 --> 0:24:51.840 asking questions about, you know, the science says this, but 0:24:51.880 --> 0:24:54.320 you're stating this where you getting your science from? And 0:24:54.320 --> 0:24:56.080 you kept saying things like, well, that's more of a 0:24:56.119 --> 0:24:59.439 political question and the statistics don't really back up what 0:24:59.480 --> 0:25:03.040 you're saying. Um. And then yeah, we just chanted and 0:25:03.200 --> 0:25:06.080 made him really nervous. Yeah, and as a heads up, 0:25:06.119 --> 0:25:08.080 if you're if you're looking to win an argument on 0:25:08.119 --> 0:25:10.880 a zoom call. You can just say, uh, the statistics 0:25:10.880 --> 0:25:13.840 don't back you up without citing statistics. It's it's it's 0:25:13.840 --> 0:25:16.560 really the easiest way to do that. I guess I 0:25:16.560 --> 0:25:19.360 am kind of curious for like you guys said, you've 0:25:19.400 --> 0:25:21.879 you've prevented you know, some of the stuff in the 0:25:21.920 --> 0:25:26.760 past by doing stuff like documentation. Um, and you know 0:25:27.400 --> 0:25:30.560 when when when that kind of thing becomes not enough. 0:25:30.600 --> 0:25:33.400 You know that this this area does have a rich 0:25:33.560 --> 0:25:38.040 history of kind of direct action stuff to protect forests 0:25:38.280 --> 0:25:40.679 with a get also like a mixed success, like by 0:25:40.680 --> 0:25:44.199 no means does direct action always always work to do anything? 0:25:44.320 --> 0:25:46.760 Right now, we still have the line three pipeline, We 0:25:46.760 --> 0:25:48.720 still have all of these things that direct action has 0:25:48.760 --> 0:25:51.480 tried to prevent. But it turns out a lot of 0:25:51.560 --> 0:25:53.800 the kind of direct action that's associated with these types 0:25:53.800 --> 0:25:58.200 of like ecological things is kind of more performative than 0:25:58.240 --> 0:26:00.600 anything else, you know, Like it it's kind of like 0:26:00.760 --> 0:26:04.560 a tree set is about gaining media media like publicity, 0:26:04.600 --> 0:26:07.720 because they're gonna get you down right like eventually, and 0:26:07.720 --> 0:26:10.760 it's and it's and it's gonna be painful because like 0:26:10.960 --> 0:26:13.000 you're not going to be sitting up there for years 0:26:13.080 --> 0:26:15.680 to to to to to to prevent the treat from 0:26:15.680 --> 0:26:18.920 being logged. So how close do you think we are 0:26:18.920 --> 0:26:21.520 into too, like reaching that kind of territory like it 0:26:21.600 --> 0:26:23.720 was in like the nineties and eighties where it is 0:26:23.760 --> 0:26:25.399 like a lot of a lot of people like blocking 0:26:25.400 --> 0:26:28.200 off roads and doing and and doing that kind of thing. 0:26:28.480 --> 0:26:31.160 You know, more like you know what what it crosses 0:26:31.200 --> 0:26:33.119 into that it's more like autonomous. It's not it's not 0:26:33.200 --> 0:26:35.640 like led by a single organization by any means. See, 0:26:35.640 --> 0:26:38.600 it's more it's more decentralized. But did you see that 0:26:38.680 --> 0:26:42.880 kind of happening soon? And you know, how, how how 0:26:42.880 --> 0:26:45.919 do you think we can balance out direct action with 0:26:46.080 --> 0:26:49.440 like other like thoughtful means of trying to draw attention 0:26:49.520 --> 0:26:51.960 to these things and maybe actually and and other things 0:26:52.000 --> 0:26:55.719 like actually physically physically preventing the logging of certain areas. 0:26:57.880 --> 0:27:01.600 That's such a good question. And um, I'm really thankful 0:27:01.640 --> 0:27:04.879 that we're talking about strategy because um, kind of, like 0:27:04.920 --> 0:27:07.360 I mentioned, I moved out here like ten years ago 0:27:07.440 --> 0:27:10.160 to do force defense work and have seen so many 0:27:10.160 --> 0:27:12.440 instances in where people are trying to do direct action 0:27:12.480 --> 0:27:14.320 in a in a time and space where it doesn't 0:27:14.320 --> 0:27:17.400 make sense. Um, where it's like basically slated too, it's 0:27:17.400 --> 0:27:20.880 gonna lose because um, it's just impossible too. As you said, 0:27:20.920 --> 0:27:23.919 you know, hold this blockade for weeks and weeks and 0:27:23.960 --> 0:27:27.400 weeks and the snow um indefinitely, you know, as we 0:27:27.600 --> 0:27:29.480 you know, as they continue to try to log indefinitely. 0:27:29.560 --> 0:27:32.679 So there's definitely a sweet spot for where um the 0:27:32.760 --> 0:27:34.760 sort of kind of the sort of direct action that 0:27:34.800 --> 0:27:39.040 we're talking about, like blockading, where that is most useful. 0:27:39.359 --> 0:27:42.640 And that sweet spot is definitely when there is another 0:27:43.040 --> 0:27:46.840 decisive move, like another like legal victory that's waiting in 0:27:46.880 --> 0:27:49.159 the wings or um, you know, we won one in 0:27:49.200 --> 0:27:51.960 Washington without a legal victory because we shamed the ship 0:27:52.080 --> 0:27:54.520 out of the Department of Natural Resources in the Seattle 0:27:54.560 --> 0:27:57.760 Times and they were like, whoa, We're sorry. Um. And 0:27:57.800 --> 0:28:00.400 so direct action held off something until we are able 0:28:00.440 --> 0:28:03.760 to sufficiently shame them and deter them. But typically they 0:28:03.760 --> 0:28:07.679 don't shame well um and so typically, um, you know, 0:28:07.720 --> 0:28:10.600 we need illegal there needs to be a legal element 0:28:11.080 --> 0:28:13.720 um backing it up. So direct action is a time buyer. 0:28:14.040 --> 0:28:17.439 But that said, like obviously block hating things is not 0:28:17.560 --> 0:28:19.560 the only type of direct action, and part of the 0:28:19.640 --> 0:28:21.720 rich history of force events in the Spyer region is 0:28:21.760 --> 0:28:25.880 other kinds of more um necessarily you know, discrete kinds 0:28:25.880 --> 0:28:29.679 of direct action that obviously you know I'm um not 0:28:29.800 --> 0:28:31.959 a part of speaking on this radio show, but UM 0:28:32.000 --> 0:28:35.280 would would publicly, um, you know, say like those things 0:28:35.320 --> 0:28:38.200 probably need to happen, and I hope they fucking ha 0:28:38.360 --> 0:28:40.480 what what What I could say is that I've I've 0:28:40.520 --> 0:28:43.680 seen these things happening in other places, like in like 0:28:43.760 --> 0:28:47.920 in the Atlanta Defending Forest movement right now, I have 0:28:48.120 --> 0:28:51.360 I I have seen evidence that individuals not associated with 0:28:51.360 --> 0:28:54.560 any group are putting spikes and trees and that is 0:28:54.600 --> 0:28:57.200 that is, that is something that is happening, right, And 0:28:57.240 --> 0:28:59.760 all that takes is one person, right, It's that's not 0:28:59.840 --> 0:29:02.520 like a group of twenty people going into the forest 0:29:02.600 --> 0:29:05.520 to do that. That's the one person in an afternoon, right. 0:29:05.760 --> 0:29:08.360 So those are the types of like single person direct actions, 0:29:08.360 --> 0:29:10.760 which again, yeah, any type of direct action is going 0:29:10.840 --> 0:29:14.560 to be scary, right You're you're once you start doing that, 0:29:14.560 --> 0:29:16.680 that is you know, that introduces certain things that will 0:29:16.800 --> 0:29:18.440 is is kind of is kind of more frightening to 0:29:18.960 --> 0:29:22.440 you as a person, um, but but it's it is 0:29:22.480 --> 0:29:25.720 something that is happening in other places. Um, and it 0:29:25.800 --> 0:29:28.840 has showed to at the very least upset the people 0:29:28.920 --> 0:29:32.000 who are wanting logging to happen. Generally, they're not thrilled 0:29:32.040 --> 0:29:34.960 when they when they find when they find these things. 0:29:35.680 --> 0:29:39.000 Um yeah, yeah, because like it's like it's I mean, 0:29:39.040 --> 0:29:40.680 I think like when it comes down to it, it's 0:29:40.720 --> 0:29:44.560 like about knowing what your goal is with this tactic, 0:29:44.720 --> 0:29:48.280 like on you know, in in the action that happened 0:29:48.400 --> 0:29:52.000 this past week, there was an understanding that the goal 0:29:52.400 --> 0:29:55.000 was to you know, shine a light on this thing 0:29:55.040 --> 0:29:58.880 that's happening in secrecy, shame the Forest Service, and build 0:29:59.040 --> 0:30:03.200 movement move mint buildings so that we're ready when people 0:30:03.240 --> 0:30:05.560 need to throw down for real and in that might 0:30:05.600 --> 0:30:08.920 happen soon. We weren't trying to hold the space for 0:30:08.960 --> 0:30:10.920 weeks and weeks and weeks. Um, that wasn't the goal. 0:30:11.000 --> 0:30:12.959 So like going in being like what kind of an 0:30:12.960 --> 0:30:14.240 action are we trying to do? What are we trying 0:30:14.240 --> 0:30:16.160 to complish? Are we trying to be decisive? Are we 0:30:16.200 --> 0:30:19.000 trying to like shape the conditions necessary for success and 0:30:19.040 --> 0:30:20.880 like culture build or were trying like what are we 0:30:20.920 --> 0:30:23.560 actually trying to do? And then like coming away with that. 0:30:23.960 --> 0:30:27.800 Having having that, having a clear sense of that beforehand, 0:30:27.800 --> 0:30:31.760 I think really really is crucial. Bec I've definitely observed 0:30:32.200 --> 0:30:34.600 direct actions where that is not the case, that people 0:30:34.640 --> 0:30:37.840 have not thought those things through, and it becomes the 0:30:37.920 --> 0:30:42.880 kind of un fun version of chaos, um where you know, things, 0:30:42.960 --> 0:30:44.920 things don't really get done and you're just kind of 0:30:44.920 --> 0:30:47.640 sitting around and everyone's kind of slightly miserable because again 0:30:47.640 --> 0:30:50.600 you're in a freezing forest of and no one really 0:30:50.600 --> 0:30:53.640 knows what the hell they're doing. Um. So definitely having 0:30:53.640 --> 0:30:58.040 those kind of things thought through beforehand is extremely useful 0:30:58.480 --> 0:31:02.240 when you're deciding to trudge your way into some cold, 0:31:02.360 --> 0:31:06.680 dark woods. Yeah, we're going for chaotic good, not chaotic evil. Yeah, 0:31:06.760 --> 0:31:09.280 well a little bit of chaotic. Well, it depends, it 0:31:09.280 --> 0:31:11.880 depends what it depends what we mean by evil evil 0:31:12.040 --> 0:31:16.600 evil to some people, we we yeah anyway, Um, and 0:31:16.720 --> 0:31:19.960 any other kind of historical notes on forest defense or 0:31:19.960 --> 0:31:23.280 any other kind of random random tidbits like to mention 0:31:23.320 --> 0:31:26.560 before before we close out. The one thing that I 0:31:26.600 --> 0:31:29.080 feel like it's super important to say to people is 0:31:29.120 --> 0:31:35.120 that forest defense is not just about protecting forests. It's 0:31:35.160 --> 0:31:39.520 about protecting all of us. We know now like forest defenses, 0:31:39.560 --> 0:31:43.400 climate defense. Our forests are our best natural tool for 0:31:43.560 --> 0:31:46.880 fighting climate change. And also like we need them here. 0:31:47.320 --> 0:31:51.080 Most of Oregonian get their drinking water from forests with watersheds, 0:31:51.080 --> 0:31:53.960 like they literally are sustaining all of us. And so yeah, 0:31:54.000 --> 0:31:55.960 we hope folks join, like not just for the sake 0:31:56.000 --> 0:31:59.120 of like being you know, hippie tree huggers, even though 0:31:59.320 --> 0:32:01.320 you know some of us are, but also because like 0:32:01.440 --> 0:32:05.280 we need to survive as a people and as a planet, 0:32:05.360 --> 0:32:07.840 and sorry, best way to do that it's it's the 0:32:07.920 --> 0:32:11.240 cheapest most advanced form of carbon capture we have yet. 0:32:11.520 --> 0:32:16.240 So yeah, it seems seems kind of asinine to chop 0:32:16.320 --> 0:32:19.800 that all down to build some shitty sheds. Mm hmm. 0:32:22.120 --> 0:32:41.440 All right, well that's a sude. It's it could happen here. 0:32:41.720 --> 0:32:46.479 The podcast that occasionally has ads from Washington State Highway Patrol. 0:32:46.680 --> 0:32:49.640 On a completely unrelated note, Garrison, you want to talk 0:32:49.640 --> 0:32:53.400 about the Washington State Highway Patrol today, I sure would 0:32:53.440 --> 0:32:56.360 love to talk about our our good friends at the 0:32:56.400 --> 0:33:01.360 Washington State Patrol um because yeah, they just uh they've've 0:33:01.400 --> 0:33:04.160 they've come up on my radar. And in an unrelated matter, 0:33:04.680 --> 0:33:07.200 and now we're gonna talking about So now we're talking 0:33:07.240 --> 0:33:09.320 about them. Yeah. So this is the show about things 0:33:09.360 --> 0:33:12.640 falling apart and kind of part of societal and political 0:33:12.640 --> 0:33:17.200 stuff kind of crumbling. Usually that gets related to some 0:33:17.240 --> 0:33:20.960 type of law enforcement agency more often than not. And uh, 0:33:21.040 --> 0:33:24.240 in terms of like tensions rising in stuff, there's a 0:33:24.320 --> 0:33:27.680 lot of you know, force gets force gets exerted via 0:33:27.760 --> 0:33:31.160 law enforcement, and uh, one such law enforcement Yeah. Well, 0:33:31.160 --> 0:33:33.920 and one such agency that does this is called the 0:33:33.920 --> 0:33:40.160 Washington State Patrol. UM. So they were I I don't know, 0:33:40.200 --> 0:33:44.200 I I just discovered them recently. UM. So they were 0:33:44.280 --> 0:33:47.560 founded exactly one hundred years ago. UM. And they were 0:33:47.600 --> 0:33:51.680 originally called the Washington State Highway Patrol. UM. Now they're 0:33:51.680 --> 0:33:53.959 just the Washington State Patrol. They removed highway, but they 0:33:53.960 --> 0:33:57.520 still do the same thing. They're basically glorified traffic cops, 0:33:58.000 --> 0:34:03.320 um who operate all around all around Washington State. UM. 0:34:03.360 --> 0:34:05.959 And we're gonna talk about some of the ways that 0:34:06.680 --> 0:34:11.680 they've been making things worse within the past decade. UM. 0:34:11.719 --> 0:34:13.879 I'm since they have a one hundred year history, I'm 0:34:13.920 --> 0:34:17.600 sure we can find lots of historical examples. UM. But 0:34:17.680 --> 0:34:20.040 we're we're gonna we're gonna do stuff that's more that 0:34:20.200 --> 0:34:22.840 is more recent, because this is you know, generally trying 0:34:22.840 --> 0:34:27.600 to keep things around the current, the current crumbling. Um. 0:34:27.640 --> 0:34:30.719 And because we're gonna talk about police, the first the 0:34:30.760 --> 0:34:33.880 first thing we're gonna be discussing, oddly enough, is a 0:34:34.000 --> 0:34:38.880 racism um because I know, um, when you think of 0:34:38.880 --> 0:34:41.920 Washington State Patrol, that's you know, it's it's kind of 0:34:42.080 --> 0:34:45.880 shocking that they might have a race issue. Um. So, Anyway, 0:34:46.600 --> 0:34:50.520 twelve years ago, researchers working with working with Washington State 0:34:50.520 --> 0:34:54.200 Patrol found that troopers were searching drivers from minority communities, 0:34:54.239 --> 0:34:59.240 particularly um local Native American tribes, at a much higher 0:34:59.360 --> 0:35:03.560 rate than than white people. And they recommend an additional study, 0:35:03.880 --> 0:35:08.400 which the Washington State Patrol declined to UH to investigate further. 0:35:08.800 --> 0:35:14.560 They they're like, no, um, no, no more studies. So meanwhile, 0:35:14.719 --> 0:35:17.239 since then, the troopers have continued to continue to search 0:35:17.320 --> 0:35:20.000 Native Americans at a at a rate much higher, more 0:35:20.000 --> 0:35:23.040 than five times than that of of of white people 0:35:23.120 --> 0:35:27.480 in the area. Yeah, so, but there are five times 0:35:27.480 --> 0:35:31.040 as the popular there. There's five times as many Indigenous 0:35:31.040 --> 0:35:33.719 people in Washington as white people right there, there's not 0:35:34.640 --> 0:35:41.279 oh yeah, so An analysis by Investigate West showed that 0:35:41.320 --> 0:35:45.000 the Patrol continued to do searches at a much elevated 0:35:45.200 --> 0:35:49.720 rates for for black people, Latino, Pacific Islanders, and natives 0:35:49.920 --> 0:35:54.080 within Washington State. UM. And yet when when troopers did 0:35:54.120 --> 0:35:57.239 decide to search white motorists, they were more likely to 0:35:57.239 --> 0:36:01.080 find drugs in contraband. UM. Which is something to Washington 0:36:01.080 --> 0:36:03.600 State Patrol actually acknowledges is that when when they search 0:36:03.680 --> 0:36:07.160 people of minority communities, they are less likely to find 0:36:07.640 --> 0:36:12.120 to find illegal things. Yeah, I mean that's yeah nationwide 0:36:11.920 --> 0:36:18.239 and very very robust data. So UM, government records obtained 0:36:19.040 --> 0:36:23.360 via like information requests and various other you know of 0:36:24.520 --> 0:36:28.440 public records searches UM also show that there there there 0:36:28.520 --> 0:36:31.240 is a state law that Washington State Patrol is supposed 0:36:31.239 --> 0:36:34.520 to collect and report semi annually to the Criminal Justice 0:36:34.520 --> 0:36:37.920 Training Commission in Washington. UM about you know, race and 0:36:37.920 --> 0:36:41.120 ethnicity data of motorists is stopped by troopers. But uh 0:36:41.280 --> 0:36:43.799 so this is supposed supposed to happen semi annually, but 0:36:43.920 --> 0:36:46.759 the agency report of those findings only three times in 0:36:46.760 --> 0:36:51.279 the past fifteen years, which isn't sounds kind of like 0:36:51.320 --> 0:36:54.239 the Portland Police not doing the things that federally they're 0:36:54.239 --> 0:36:58.680 supposed to do because they're so violent. Yeah, being out 0:36:58.680 --> 0:37:01.880 of compliance with a bunch of federal three three times, 0:37:01.920 --> 0:37:05.280 three times in fifteen years is not semi annually. Based 0:37:05.320 --> 0:37:10.000 on what I know, the term semi annually to semi decade. 0:37:10.440 --> 0:37:15.040 So yeah, UM based on responses for over thirty public 0:37:15.120 --> 0:37:18.879 records requests UM from from three different agencies looking looking 0:37:18.920 --> 0:37:21.600 at Washington State Patrol and more than like fifty interviews 0:37:21.600 --> 0:37:24.520 with current and formal law enforcement officials and people with 0:37:24.560 --> 0:37:28.080 experience interacting with Washington State Patrol UM and also data 0:37:28.080 --> 0:37:30.719 from millions of traffic stops. All this was looked at 0:37:31.000 --> 0:37:34.319 in total, examined about eight million traffic stops from two 0:37:34.400 --> 0:37:35.960 US and nine to US in fifteen. This is what 0:37:36.200 --> 0:37:38.600 Investigate West was doing UM. Which was which was the 0:37:38.600 --> 0:37:41.600 most recent data available, and the analysis found that UH 0:37:42.080 --> 0:37:45.600 it focused on twenty incidents of what researchers called like 0:37:45.680 --> 0:37:48.600 high discretion searches. That's when troopers had the most like 0:37:48.719 --> 0:37:51.880 personal leeway to decide whether or not to pull over 0:37:52.000 --> 0:37:54.759 and search a vehicle. UM. Black drivers were twice as 0:37:54.800 --> 0:37:57.320 likely to be searched as white drivers, and Latino specific 0:37:57.360 --> 0:38:00.680 calenders were eight percent more likely to be searched of 0:38:00.680 --> 0:38:03.640 of these incidents where officers had discretion and like they 0:38:03.640 --> 0:38:05.960 could choose whether or not to pull someone over. Um, 0:38:06.040 --> 0:38:07.600 so it wasn't like it wasn't like they were like 0:38:07.640 --> 0:38:09.759 obviously speeding or doing you know, like like you know, 0:38:09.840 --> 0:38:13.560 like like regular like actually observable traffic violations. This is 0:38:13.600 --> 0:38:16.520 when like people can choose when they investigate. West thing 0:38:16.560 --> 0:38:20.080 got published, they contact Washington State Patrol and the spokesperson 0:38:20.360 --> 0:38:25.080 said that, uh, here's here's here's the quote. The race. 0:38:25.200 --> 0:38:28.040 Race was not the only factor when troopers decided whom 0:38:28.080 --> 0:38:31.320 to search, and that's partially because blacks, Native Americans and 0:38:31.400 --> 0:38:33.680 Latinos are more like more more likely to be searched 0:38:33.719 --> 0:38:37.880 regardless of how much discretion troopers have, which that doesn't 0:38:37.880 --> 0:38:40.799 really make very much sense. Um, I don't know what 0:38:41.160 --> 0:38:45.359 the person, I don't know what they mean is they're 0:38:45.360 --> 0:38:52.120 more likely to be searching regardless what the who was 0:38:52.320 --> 0:38:56.680 that bad a checking the copy? Which is weird because 0:38:56.800 --> 0:39:02.200 later on the spokesperson said that, um, in, same guy, 0:39:02.600 --> 0:39:04.960 we're in the basically we're agrees that we're in a 0:39:05.000 --> 0:39:07.400 basic agreement that minorities are searched at higher rates, but 0:39:07.440 --> 0:39:13.840 we find less contraband so um. And he also he 0:39:13.920 --> 0:39:17.600 also noted that complaints about like a racial bias encounted 0:39:17.680 --> 0:39:21.000 for little more than ten percent of all complaints of 0:39:21.040 --> 0:39:26.120 the state patrol filed last year. So I guess he 0:39:26.160 --> 0:39:28.200 thinks that's a good He thinks that's a good stat 0:39:29.840 --> 0:39:35.359 that yeah. Um. And another kind of not great thing 0:39:35.800 --> 0:39:38.319 is that the analysis found that not only are Native 0:39:38.320 --> 0:39:41.000 Americans more likely to be searched, but all of the 0:39:41.280 --> 0:39:43.960 most of those searches happen always that like the edges 0:39:44.160 --> 0:39:47.960 of reservations UM. The analysis found that the two highest 0:39:47.960 --> 0:39:51.080 concentration of searches in Native Americans by state troopers are 0:39:51.120 --> 0:39:55.000 on the US nineties seven, where it encounters um a 0:39:55.880 --> 0:39:59.600 reservation at OLC about about a mile from its intersection 0:40:00.040 --> 0:40:03.799 at a state road to one and more than one 0:40:04.239 --> 0:40:07.520 thirty miles south of the same when the same highway 0:40:07.840 --> 0:40:12.759 enters another reservation. So nearly one third of high discretions 0:40:12.920 --> 0:40:15.480 of high discretion searches. So when troopers can decide whether 0:40:15.520 --> 0:40:18.680 or not to pull someone over like like they they 0:40:18.719 --> 0:40:21.359 they have more discretion whether they can. So one third 0:40:21.360 --> 0:40:24.120 of those happened on these two stretches of highway right 0:40:24.160 --> 0:40:27.800 on the edges of these reservations, Like they're patrolling outside 0:40:27.840 --> 0:40:32.280 these reservations to specifically do this. Um there was I 0:40:32.280 --> 0:40:34.239 I saw an interview on this topic that we talked 0:40:34.360 --> 0:40:36.680 that talked to to Native Americans in this area and 0:40:36.680 --> 0:40:38.840 they're like, yeah, every time we leave the reservation, we 0:40:38.840 --> 0:40:40.919 get pulled over. But then we watched tons of white 0:40:40.920 --> 0:40:43.040 motorists go by and no one cares, like and like 0:40:43.080 --> 0:40:45.520 and they're like you're doing like they're just speeding by, 0:40:46.200 --> 0:40:50.480 it doesn't matter. Um So, yeah, that is. That is 0:40:50.520 --> 0:40:55.600 the first first you know, unsurprising tidbit about uh, some 0:40:55.719 --> 0:40:58.120 an organization who started as a highway patrol is, yeah, 0:40:58.120 --> 0:41:01.520 they're gonna pull people over who are not white more often. 0:41:01.600 --> 0:41:07.480 That is that's pretty not not super shocking. Yeah, and 0:41:07.520 --> 0:41:12.240 then make a public statement like l o O yeah, 0:41:12.320 --> 0:41:14.359 yeah that that does. That does sound a lot like 0:41:14.400 --> 0:41:19.640 with the Washington State Patrol. Uh sounds like, um so 0:41:19.880 --> 0:41:22.480 we're gonna So that that was that was the first 0:41:22.480 --> 0:41:26.000 obvious thing. Uh. This next part is a little bit 0:41:26.040 --> 0:41:29.239 more fun. Um. So in in in two thousand nine, 0:41:29.560 --> 0:41:33.000 the Washington State Patrol made made the decision to fire 0:41:33.080 --> 0:41:37.239 eight troopers, which is you know, pretty pretty rare um 0:41:37.280 --> 0:41:39.839 And the reason why they got fired is because they 0:41:39.960 --> 0:41:45.960 used fake diplomas to claim pay raises. Yeah, so there 0:41:46.040 --> 0:41:49.120 was there was this whole scheme about getting fake diplomas 0:41:49.160 --> 0:41:53.239 to get the troopers more money, like like like individual 0:41:53.280 --> 0:41:56.040 people that there's this whole, this whole operation going on. 0:41:56.480 --> 0:41:58.560 It resulted in the in in eight in eight people 0:41:58.560 --> 0:42:02.240 getting fired. So troopers can can boost their pay about 0:42:02.239 --> 0:42:04.960 two percent by earning two a two year degree or 0:42:05.000 --> 0:42:07.480 four percent with a four year degree. And there was 0:42:07.560 --> 0:42:11.040 this group of of a troopers who just uh started 0:42:11.040 --> 0:42:18.520 just forging diplomas see Garrison. This is a separate conversation. 0:42:18.760 --> 0:42:20.759 But they didn't need to forge diplomas. They could have 0:42:20.840 --> 0:42:24.920 just become doctors of of of of of magic, like 0:42:26.120 --> 0:42:30.439 that's what I've tried to do religious PhD. Yeah, so 0:42:30.560 --> 0:42:33.640 there's all sorts of fake diploma mills come on Washington 0:42:33.719 --> 0:42:40.520 State Highway Patrol. This this is pretty funny. So so 0:42:42.400 --> 0:42:46.320 the investigation began after federal agents shut down a diploma 0:42:46.360 --> 0:42:50.400 mill in the Spokane. Criminal charges were not filed, but 0:42:50.640 --> 0:42:54.400 the patrol to decide to fire these eight troopers. Yeah, 0:42:54.400 --> 0:42:56.799 so that is one of the more funny things we'll 0:42:56.840 --> 0:42:58.960 be talking about today, and I think it's time for 0:42:58.960 --> 0:43:03.000 an ad break. So yeah, speaking of funny, here's these 0:43:03.040 --> 0:43:05.000 ads that may or may not be the people we're 0:43:05.000 --> 0:43:11.399 talking about. Rob No unrelated, unrelated. Uh We're back, which 0:43:11.440 --> 0:43:15.600 is also unrelated. Yeah. Another thing that's putting pretty common 0:43:15.640 --> 0:43:20.080 around police is that the past few years, they generally 0:43:20.080 --> 0:43:22.880 don't think COVID is really real or I think that 0:43:22.960 --> 0:43:29.920 it is the past few years. Now that Robert, we're 0:43:29.960 --> 0:43:33.600 less than a month away from two. Yeah, I hate that. 0:43:33.680 --> 0:43:36.680 It's like, I mean, fun it's it's like, it's almost two. 0:43:36.880 --> 0:43:39.680 Almost ten percent of your entire life has been COVID. 0:43:40.000 --> 0:43:43.120 I'm not going to think about math um yea. So 0:43:43.719 --> 0:43:46.359 generally they don't think COVID is real. And also they 0:43:46.360 --> 0:43:49.640 think vaccines are the mark of Satan or something. Well 0:43:49.680 --> 0:43:53.080 obviously they are, but yeah, so in in in mid 0:43:53.080 --> 0:43:56.919 October this this past October, Washingtons Tate Patrol announced that 0:43:57.600 --> 0:44:00.880 one twenty seven of its employee is at lost their 0:44:00.960 --> 0:44:05.120 job after the state's COVID nineteen vaccine mandate deadline of 0:44:05.160 --> 0:44:09.560 October eighteenth. So unlike the Portland Police Bureau who WHO, 0:44:09.640 --> 0:44:12.160 the port who port and many other cities where city 0:44:12.200 --> 0:44:15.920 officials caved to the demands of the police that vaccine 0:44:15.960 --> 0:44:19.480 mandates not be not be extended towards police. Uh, this 0:44:19.520 --> 0:44:22.600 did not happen in Washington, and they actually got it enforced. 0:44:22.680 --> 0:44:27.680 So over a hundred uh patrol employees quit quit their job, 0:44:27.760 --> 0:44:32.200 including a sixty four commissioned officers. It was like six 0:44:32.239 --> 0:44:37.840 sixty seven troopers, six sergeants, and one captain. Um. Yeah, 0:44:37.960 --> 0:44:42.040 So you know, Washingtonate Patrol has about two thousand personnel 0:44:42.120 --> 0:44:46.200 within like between like eight districts. UM. So losing like 0:44:46.239 --> 0:44:48.880 a hundred and twenty seven of them is not a 0:44:49.080 --> 0:44:53.560 is not an insignificant loss. Um And it's it's been 0:44:53.600 --> 0:44:56.160 a it's it has been been trying to hire a 0:44:56.200 --> 0:44:58.759 lot more people in the in the past. In the 0:44:58.760 --> 0:45:01.239 past like a few months speak. Because of this, they've 0:45:01.280 --> 0:45:03.120 been they've been trying to do a lot more recruitment, 0:45:03.160 --> 0:45:05.680 which is why they're UM. I've heard from other people 0:45:06.040 --> 0:45:09.040 that they are putting uh advertisements out on the internet 0:45:09.239 --> 0:45:12.200 to become a Washington State trooper. That makes sense. This 0:45:12.239 --> 0:45:15.279 is something I've I've heard from from people online. When 0:45:15.280 --> 0:45:18.480 I've been doing all of this uh deep deep, extensive 0:45:18.480 --> 0:45:22.480 research so yeah, they are, they are, they are recruiting. 0:45:22.760 --> 0:45:26.120 Uh So, if you uh want to be uh Washington 0:45:26.160 --> 0:45:29.919 Patrol officer, don't don't. Actually that's a bad idea. Um, 0:45:30.160 --> 0:45:33.400 don't do that. Yeah. I means as you want to 0:45:33.440 --> 0:45:37.120 like really funk with people who live on a reservation. 0:45:37.360 --> 0:45:40.320 If that's if that's your goal. It seems like Washington 0:45:40.360 --> 0:45:43.000 State Highway Patrol is your your dream career, or have 0:45:43.040 --> 0:45:46.200 another option for you. You You could also just get COVID 0:45:46.200 --> 0:45:48.560 and die. Well, yeah, that is an option. That's an 0:45:48.560 --> 0:45:51.600 option to thing I think might be freedom is what 0:45:51.719 --> 0:45:55.600 makes this nation great. Uh so I think you know 0:45:56.120 --> 0:46:00.440 of the choice. Anyway, continue, I'm going to send a 0:46:00.480 --> 0:46:03.799 picture inside our group chat first because we're gonna we're 0:46:04.040 --> 0:46:09.200 talking about one one specific evil dude. Next, I'm setting 0:46:09.200 --> 0:46:10.520 a picture in the group chat that I want you 0:46:10.560 --> 0:46:12.399 to look at first, just so you get a sense 0:46:12.440 --> 0:46:16.320 of who we're talking about. Oh based, okay, I'm I'm excited. 0:46:16.840 --> 0:46:24.080 Yeah alright? Oh no, oh no, the bow tie really 0:46:24.120 --> 0:46:27.800 brings it all together. Oh no, you said bow tie, 0:46:27.840 --> 0:46:32.360 which does not make me optimistic? And Robert, oh no, 0:46:32.520 --> 0:46:37.680 what is wrong with it? Who? Yeah? Who puts a 0:46:37.760 --> 0:46:40.840 bow tie on a uniform. Like, guys, I found a 0:46:40.880 --> 0:46:44.680 better quality image. Um, good god, there we go, same 0:46:44.719 --> 0:46:48.040 image better he looks like Tucker Carlson and the Starship 0:46:48.080 --> 0:46:51.640 Troopers universe when he gets drafted. So this is the 0:46:51.640 --> 0:46:54.480 next guy we're talking about. Um, somehow feels like I 0:46:54.560 --> 0:46:59.080 hate crime towards the Weasley family. So yeah, it feels 0:46:59.120 --> 0:47:01.840 like a hate crime towards the guy based off Tucker 0:47:01.880 --> 0:47:05.919 Carlson in Starship Troopers. So this would be a big 0:47:05.960 --> 0:47:10.760 fan of ron Ron Weasley's family. This this is This 0:47:10.880 --> 0:47:14.799 is Sean carr Um, a former Washington State Patrol a 0:47:14.960 --> 0:47:22.080 sergeant um who resigned for reasons. We will discuss fun. 0:47:22.200 --> 0:47:28.000 That's exciting. Yeah yeah anyway. Um So in two US 0:47:28.040 --> 0:47:31.040 and fifteen and associated press investigation uncovered about a thousand 0:47:31.120 --> 0:47:33.879 officers in the United States who lost their badges over 0:47:33.880 --> 0:47:37.080 a six year period for sex crimes or misconduct such 0:47:37.120 --> 0:47:39.080 as like, uh, this is this is a quote here, 0:47:39.080 --> 0:47:41.600 which I disagree with framing here, But this is this 0:47:41.640 --> 0:47:46.839 is a quote propositioning citizens or having consensual but prohibited 0:47:47.000 --> 0:47:52.160 on duty intercourse, which is, uh, a pretty bullshit way 0:47:52.160 --> 0:47:55.920 to frame that because basically you're it's it's police raping people. 0:47:56.480 --> 0:47:59.680 Um and police officers being accused of like using their 0:47:59.680 --> 0:48:03.680 power over people to rape them is extremely common. Yeah, 0:48:03.680 --> 0:48:05.960 and it's often just like yeah, well the person said okay, 0:48:05.960 --> 0:48:07.880 And it's like, well they said okay to a person 0:48:08.040 --> 0:48:10.920 with a gun in the legal power to murder anyone 0:48:10.960 --> 0:48:13.600 they want or put them in jail. Like, like there's 0:48:13.640 --> 0:48:15.960 a lot of Yeah, you know, I would argue, you 0:48:16.040 --> 0:48:20.240 can't consent uh to sex with a police officer who's 0:48:20.239 --> 0:48:23.440 on duty in an uniform because it's they have the 0:48:23.520 --> 0:48:26.000 power to murder anybody they want or or who just 0:48:26.120 --> 0:48:28.200 arrest you. Like, like, it's a lot of stuff. So, 0:48:28.239 --> 0:48:30.479 like there's a studied at least a few years ago 0:48:31.200 --> 0:48:33.719 that an analyzed data of like a five hundred and 0:48:33.760 --> 0:48:36.480 fifty arrest cases from the years of two US and 0:48:36.520 --> 0:48:39.520 five to two US and seven just two years and 0:48:39.640 --> 0:48:43.279 uh a four hundred officers employed by like three D 0:48:43.520 --> 0:48:48.200 twenty non non federal law enforcement agencies located throughout a 0:48:48.280 --> 0:48:51.960 forty three states. Um and findings indicated that a police 0:48:52.000 --> 0:48:56.160 sexual misconduct includes a serious forms of sex related crimes, 0:48:56.480 --> 0:49:00.000 and the victims of sex related crimes by police are 0:49:00.040 --> 0:49:04.160 typically younger than eighteen years old. Um So it's it 0:49:04.239 --> 0:49:07.360 happens a lot with miners. So there's a lot like 0:49:07.360 --> 0:49:10.839 like more like a ridiculously common like if you if 0:49:10.840 --> 0:49:13.360 you google is, which I honestly don't recommend, but you 0:49:13.400 --> 0:49:17.280 can find like dozens of stories coming out like basically 0:49:17.320 --> 0:49:20.840 every like not you'll find at least one new story 0:49:20.960 --> 0:49:24.640 every month of a kid getting raped by police. It 0:49:24.719 --> 0:49:28.440 happens pretty commonly. So over the past ten years in 0:49:28.480 --> 0:49:32.400 the Washington State Patrol, they've investigated and confirmed four cases 0:49:32.440 --> 0:49:36.279 of what they call sex on duty UM, according to 0:49:36.320 --> 0:49:41.160 the agency, and this is including including Shan Karr now 0:49:41.560 --> 0:49:46.040 Sean Car's cases particularly sensitive for the agency because he 0:49:46.239 --> 0:49:50.040 was married to the uh the daughter of the Washington 0:49:50.040 --> 0:49:54.040 State Patrol Chief UM and and Shaun Carr was also 0:49:54.160 --> 0:49:57.680 himself a sergeant, so he was connected to like the 0:49:57.719 --> 0:50:01.640 big leagues at the Washington State Patrol. So Carr met 0:50:01.680 --> 0:50:04.760 a civilian woman who also works at Washington State Patrol 0:50:04.800 --> 0:50:06.600 but as like you know, like has like an office job, 0:50:06.640 --> 0:50:09.759 so they isn't isn't a trooper um. They met in 0:50:09.840 --> 0:50:13.120 twelve and struck up an online friendship, and a few 0:50:13.160 --> 0:50:15.560 months later they both of them told investigators that the 0:50:15.600 --> 0:50:20.800 relationship did turn sexual. Um Car admitted to six sexual 0:50:20.840 --> 0:50:22.919 encounters for the next like five years with the woman, 0:50:23.239 --> 0:50:24.840 of five of which happened when he was on duty 0:50:25.120 --> 0:50:27.800 and like on state property or driving a vehicle or 0:50:27.880 --> 0:50:30.600 while in uniform. UM. But the woman recalled as many 0:50:30.640 --> 0:50:32.759 as as twenty and all but one of them were 0:50:32.800 --> 0:50:35.640 when he was on duty and well. And so the 0:50:35.680 --> 0:50:38.160 woman said that most of their encounters were were what 0:50:38.320 --> 0:50:41.960 she would describe as consensual, but she described three incidents 0:50:42.239 --> 0:50:47.120 where Carr did uh pushed the boundary, and she she 0:50:47.239 --> 0:50:52.200 she has described being raped by him multiple times. UM, 0:50:52.239 --> 0:50:54.640 so there was there was an incident. I think the 0:50:54.640 --> 0:50:59.719 first one happened in the beginning of UH with inside 0:50:59.800 --> 0:51:03.279 his patrol car in a church parking lot. UH. The 0:51:03.320 --> 0:51:06.400 woman had recently started dating another man, and Carr wanted 0:51:06.440 --> 0:51:08.879 to know who it was. When she wouldn't say so, 0:51:09.200 --> 0:51:13.239 he UH he grabbed her arm hard enough to leave bruises, 0:51:13.680 --> 0:51:15.279 and the woman said that Car made her pick from 0:51:15.320 --> 0:51:17.799 two options, give up the name of the man or 0:51:18.000 --> 0:51:23.840 give car oral sex. Um Car later told investigators that 0:51:23.920 --> 0:51:27.280 he said this in a quote joking context. Oh that's 0:51:27.800 --> 0:51:31.280 you know, I was thinking, because that's almost exactly my 0:51:31.280 --> 0:51:34.680 my tight five for my stand up set. I mean 0:51:34.840 --> 0:51:38.000 some some comedians for some reason do like making jokes 0:51:38.040 --> 0:51:41.000 like that and not not not great usually not great 0:51:41.040 --> 0:51:44.000 to normalize that kind of thing. So um. The woman 0:51:44.080 --> 0:51:47.520 said that she did like like sea his his like 0:51:47.760 --> 0:51:50.839 commands and she's which she said, we're like very much 0:51:50.920 --> 0:51:54.719 not done. Yeah, and she said it's very much not consensual. Um. 0:51:54.800 --> 0:51:57.160 She she told investigators that he raped me on the 0:51:57.200 --> 0:51:59.600 side of the road. Um and if and if it 0:51:59.640 --> 0:52:02.279 was any and else besides car, she she she she 0:52:02.320 --> 0:52:05.719 said she would have called nine one one. Um. So 0:52:05.800 --> 0:52:09.520 the second time happened when a car backed her into 0:52:09.520 --> 0:52:12.120 a corner of a highway away station and forced her 0:52:12.160 --> 0:52:14.880 to have sex with him. Um. She called it a 0:52:14.920 --> 0:52:19.920 coerced Car said that consent was mutual. So despite the 0:52:19.960 --> 0:52:23.239 sexual assaults, uh and and and like and you know 0:52:23.360 --> 0:52:25.440 and and like assaults you know, like you know, grapping 0:52:25.480 --> 0:52:28.440 someone's arm hard to leave a bruise, she said. The 0:52:28.440 --> 0:52:30.480 woman said she kept in touch with Car because she 0:52:30.560 --> 0:52:32.440 was going through a difficult time in her life and 0:52:32.480 --> 0:52:37.160 she needed somebody to talk to. Complicated. That's yeah, that 0:52:37.360 --> 0:52:39.800 this is even as not like people who are imbutive 0:52:39.920 --> 0:52:43.080 can also be emotionally supportive sometimes like that's one of 0:52:43.160 --> 0:52:45.960 the things about abuse, that said, a real, real motherfucker. 0:52:46.640 --> 0:52:49.080 It's not simple. So yeah, Car, Car may not have 0:52:49.120 --> 0:52:51.840 gotten in trouble had the woman not confided in another 0:52:51.920 --> 0:52:55.480 patrol employee after she left her job. UM. Then the 0:52:55.560 --> 0:52:59.440 other other patrol employee mentioned the situation to someone higher up, 0:52:59.480 --> 0:53:03.320 triggering in investigation UM. And then in nineteen the woman 0:53:03.400 --> 0:53:06.960 formally reported Car to uh TO to like the Patrol 0:53:07.000 --> 0:53:10.560 Office of Professional Standards. SO records story that the patrol 0:53:10.640 --> 0:53:13.600 of pretty quickly confiscated cars, badge, and gun and placed 0:53:13.640 --> 0:53:16.600 him on home assignment, where he remained until he and 0:53:16.719 --> 0:53:21.479 he resigned voluntarily. UM. The patrol gave gave the case 0:53:21.560 --> 0:53:24.160 to the Sheriff's office to investigate because of the criminal 0:53:24.239 --> 0:53:29.000 nature of the allegations. SO. Car's personal file includes other 0:53:29.080 --> 0:53:32.280 on job violations, including using a taser on a drunk 0:53:32.400 --> 0:53:37.040 driving suspect. He was handcuffed, and records show that in February, 0:53:37.800 --> 0:53:41.799 Car was accused of a frequenting a coffee stand and 0:53:41.840 --> 0:53:45.279 making unwanted advances on an employee by waiting near her 0:53:45.320 --> 0:53:48.879 car until her shift ended, and making derogatory comments about 0:53:48.880 --> 0:53:54.040 her boyfriend. Um, so he was also stalking this barista, 0:53:54.280 --> 0:53:58.640 is what it sounds like. Um? Yeah, yeah, that's that 0:53:58.800 --> 0:54:03.640 is what that sounds like. Pretty terrifying. So yeah, so 0:54:04.320 --> 0:54:08.399 car after the woman told investigators that she was raped. 0:54:08.760 --> 0:54:14.320 After UM, the the county sheriffs recommended hard to be filed. 0:54:14.560 --> 0:54:18.440 But she wasn't willing to. Um. She wasn't willing to testify. 0:54:18.520 --> 0:54:19.840 She did not want to. She did not want to 0:54:19.880 --> 0:54:23.040 do that. Um. But but she she didn't tell prosecutors 0:54:23.080 --> 0:54:26.120 that she didn't have one wish that that car again, 0:54:26.239 --> 0:54:28.840 the son in law of the state patrol chief be 0:54:29.040 --> 0:54:32.680 be not not allowed to police again. UM. Yeah, that's 0:54:32.680 --> 0:54:36.640 a pretty reasonable request. Car of obviously denied all the 0:54:36.719 --> 0:54:41.239 accusations of non consensual sex and assault. But you know, 0:54:41.400 --> 0:54:45.680 I did admit to a to a consensual sexual relationship 0:54:45.800 --> 0:54:48.480 on duty um, as well as other you know, like 0:54:48.920 --> 0:54:56.480 patrol regulation violations. Um. He he resigned in July before 0:54:56.520 --> 0:54:59.760 the patrol could decide whether or not to fire him. Um. 0:54:59.760 --> 0:55:02.000 And then the state went about trying to strip him 0:55:02.000 --> 0:55:04.799 of his law enforcement cert of occasion requirement to carry 0:55:04.800 --> 0:55:07.480 a gun and badge and be hired as law enforcement 0:55:07.760 --> 0:55:12.080 in Washington, getting de certified for misconduct by the Criminal 0:55:12.080 --> 0:55:16.319 Justice Training Center in Washington is very hard. Very few 0:55:16.320 --> 0:55:22.200 people have actually been decertified. Yeah, and to to be certified, 0:55:22.280 --> 0:55:24.400 the panel must be a panel must be convinced that 0:55:25.040 --> 0:55:29.440 on duty behavior rose to the level of official misconduct 0:55:29.520 --> 0:55:33.719 and constituted a crime committed under the color of authority 0:55:33.760 --> 0:55:37.000 as a peace officer. That's the that's the color of 0:55:37.040 --> 0:55:42.600 authorities an interesting way to phrase that. Cars attorneys argued 0:55:42.640 --> 0:55:44.640 that the state failed to make to meet this high 0:55:44.680 --> 0:55:47.520 bar and there was quote no legal basis to de 0:55:47.600 --> 0:55:51.920 certify car. Meanwhile, the c j a t C, the 0:55:51.960 --> 0:55:55.560 Criminal Justice Training Center alleged his behavior did constitute official 0:55:55.560 --> 0:55:59.799 misconduct and failure of duty, but without actually they didn't 0:55:59.800 --> 0:56:04.000 act actually include the sexual assault allegations. Instead, it contended 0:56:04.360 --> 0:56:07.400 that he used state resources for his own benefit or 0:56:07.800 --> 0:56:10.719 neglected to do his duties when he was engaged in 0:56:10.760 --> 0:56:14.640 sexual activity on duty. So they didn't actually include sexual 0:56:15.360 --> 0:56:17.839 assault or anything in this. They just said you were 0:56:17.880 --> 0:56:22.120 basically like you were because you were doing because you 0:56:22.160 --> 0:56:25.160 were having like sexual activity on duty, you weren't doing 0:56:25.160 --> 0:56:27.280 your job, and that's the reason that we want to 0:56:27.320 --> 0:56:30.919 decertify you. Um. So the date of Washington has about 0:56:30.960 --> 0:56:34.200 eleven thousand certified officers at any given time UM, and 0:56:34.200 --> 0:56:37.800 since to us in three they've decertified like two hundred 0:56:37.840 --> 0:56:40.480 and thirty and at least four of them for on 0:56:40.560 --> 0:56:43.840 duty sex and one of those cases was overturned on 0:56:43.920 --> 0:56:48.480 appeal UM. But in one around mid May, the c 0:56:48.680 --> 0:56:52.360 j TC in its final order said that Cars constituted 0:56:52.560 --> 0:56:57.359 UH crimes of of failure of duty and official misconduct by, 0:56:57.800 --> 0:57:00.879 among other things, quote, intentionally choosing to to his own 0:57:01.000 --> 0:57:03.799 sexual gratification rather than using his on duty time to 0:57:03.840 --> 0:57:07.879 perform his lawful responsibilities as a peace officer. So he 0:57:07.880 --> 0:57:11.080 he did get de certified, but again not actually discussing 0:57:11.120 --> 0:57:17.200 the actual like assaults and rapes. Um. Yeah. So the 0:57:17.200 --> 0:57:22.400 the the Sheriff County Prosecutor's office designed declined to pursue 0:57:22.480 --> 0:57:24.920 charges on the case last year when the woman was 0:57:25.000 --> 0:57:29.720 unwilling to testify, but the the deputy prosecuting attorney UM 0:57:30.200 --> 0:57:33.440 did say that she she believed they just happened, like 0:57:33.600 --> 0:57:35.800 like she she believes this that the stuff happened. But 0:57:35.840 --> 0:57:38.600 because of the lack of evidence due to time passing 0:57:39.040 --> 0:57:41.600 and the woman not wanting to testify, there it's hard 0:57:41.680 --> 0:57:44.160 to prove guilt in court, So they're not going to 0:57:44.320 --> 0:57:49.680 pursue these charges at the moment. Yeah, So that that 0:57:49.840 --> 0:57:52.280 is UH, that is Shawn Karr. So that yeah, he 0:57:52.360 --> 0:57:57.440 is not not not allowed to police as of That 0:57:57.600 --> 0:58:01.160 is a cursory glance at off in the Washington State Patrol. Oh, 0:58:01.160 --> 0:58:03.000 I guess one of one other thing I found out 0:58:03.200 --> 0:58:07.840 today is that so Washington State Patrol has a has 0:58:07.880 --> 0:58:12.120 a psychologist for recruitings basically for if you want to 0:58:12.240 --> 0:58:14.560 join the patrol, you have to go like through like 0:58:14.600 --> 0:58:20.080 a psychological screening. Sure, that makes sense. And he just 0:58:20.080 --> 0:58:22.600 just resigned because he was he was he was probably 0:58:22.640 --> 0:58:26.680 going to get fired. Um. This was after Seattle Times 0:58:26.760 --> 0:58:30.840 and Public Radio Northwest News Network UH published a piece 0:58:31.360 --> 0:58:38.640 show showing that since UH the psychological screenings rejected where 0:58:38.680 --> 0:58:42.840 is it? UH rejected of white candidates over the past 0:58:42.840 --> 0:58:47.919 four years. Um, but the psychologists that they hired, UH 0:58:48.000 --> 0:58:53.000 rejected of black candidates, of Hispanic candidates, and forty one 0:58:53.040 --> 0:58:56.000 percent of Asian candidates. So again, I'm not pro people 0:58:56.040 --> 0:58:59.960 being police in general, but there is a clear disparity 0:59:00.040 --> 0:59:03.600 on who they are wanting to become police, like who 0:59:03.720 --> 0:59:05.880 like who are they they're letting in a lot more 0:59:05.880 --> 0:59:09.560 white candidates than they are letting in candidates of color. 0:59:10.120 --> 0:59:14.680 Uh so this this uh, this psychologist screener is is 0:59:14.720 --> 0:59:16.560 no longer on the job as of like a few 0:59:16.640 --> 0:59:22.680 days ago. Um. Yeah, so just another another level of 0:59:22.760 --> 0:59:25.440 stuff because yeah, you know, there's they want there to 0:59:25.480 --> 0:59:30.160 be more white officers than anything else. Um so yeah, 0:59:30.200 --> 0:59:32.760 that is that is the Washington State Patrol. I guess 0:59:32.800 --> 0:59:34.240 the one other thing I want to do is I'm 0:59:34.240 --> 0:59:38.280 gonna again send in the group chat. Their their current logo, 0:59:39.040 --> 0:59:45.000 their current logo current You're I hate it when you 0:59:45.040 --> 0:59:48.320 do this. I'm afraid. I don't know, Sophie. Maybe it'll 0:59:48.360 --> 0:59:51.520 be fine. I mean, it's actually it's it's it's kind 0:59:51.560 --> 0:59:56.000 of fun. That's their logo. That is their current logo. 0:59:57.160 --> 1:00:03.400 They design it in like paint. Yes, they probably. They 1:00:03.440 --> 1:00:07.080 probably did design it an m S paint. Oh man, Yeah, 1:00:07.120 --> 1:00:10.160 that that looks like it belongs in an angel Fire website. 1:00:10.160 --> 1:00:13.200 Gar So do you know what angel Fire was? Oh 1:00:13.240 --> 1:00:17.360 my god, you fucking teenagers. Um yeah, that looks like 1:00:17.400 --> 1:00:20.120 it belongs in an angel I will I will let 1:00:20.160 --> 1:00:22.560 all of the other people who feel very old right 1:00:22.600 --> 1:00:24.640 now know that it looks like something you'd see in 1:00:24.680 --> 1:00:29.280 an angel Fire website, like shittlely animated blinking across the screen. Yeah, 1:00:29.280 --> 1:00:31.959 you know, like it looks like something from a ninet 1:00:32.160 --> 1:00:36.040 nineties website. All right, well now I'm both angry about 1:00:36.040 --> 1:00:38.240 the police and I feel a thousand years old. So 1:00:38.280 --> 1:00:41.600 this is good? What a good? What a good? What 1:00:41.640 --> 1:00:45.040 a good feeling? Well that that wraps that. That wraps 1:00:45.040 --> 1:00:49.080 it up for today. Um and hey again I have 1:00:49.160 --> 1:00:50.960 heard that they are recruiting and they should have a 1:00:51.000 --> 1:00:55.680 new psychological screener soon. So great, there we go. I'm 1:00:55.720 --> 1:01:00.960 imagining the primary psychological screening is you're white, right, that's 1:01:00.960 --> 1:01:03.480 that's that is what it used to be. I mean, 1:01:03.520 --> 1:01:06.320 I'm imagining that's what it's going to be still, but 1:01:06.480 --> 1:01:10.760 probably Garrison maybe not. All right, well this has been 1:01:10.800 --> 1:01:16.000 a great time. I'm sure everybody's feeling good. Uh goodbye, 1:01:16.680 --> 1:01:32.560 get out of my house. Welcome to the hug Cast. 1:01:32.800 --> 1:01:36.480 This is a crypto podcast where we talk about the 1:01:36.520 --> 1:01:40.000 best n f T investments and how you can get 1:01:40.120 --> 1:01:42.840 rich to bro if you just accept the wave of 1:01:42.880 --> 1:01:47.360 the future and decentralize your finance and invest in a 1:01:47.440 --> 1:01:50.960 bank that can take all of your money overnight. And 1:01:51.080 --> 1:01:53.520 disappeared because it was really just being run by a 1:01:53.560 --> 1:01:57.040 guy in Macedonia and he it was just a rug 1:01:57.080 --> 1:01:59.640 pole the entire time. And you lose your life savings 1:02:00.000 --> 1:02:02.880 and you have no recourse. And that's the fucking future 1:02:02.880 --> 1:02:07.400 of investments. Bro. Hey, bro, you're fired. Yeah, that's fair. 1:02:10.080 --> 1:02:12.360 This is it could happen here podcast about how things 1:02:12.400 --> 1:02:15.320 are bad, sometimes a podcast about how to make them 1:02:15.400 --> 1:02:18.439 less bad. Today we're talking about the former how things 1:02:18.440 --> 1:02:23.000 are bad, and we're talking about financialization, um, and specifically 1:02:23.000 --> 1:02:26.920 the financialization of like human beings and the endeavor to 1:02:27.000 --> 1:02:31.040 create art. Uh and so well, art art is a 1:02:31.120 --> 1:02:35.000 broad broad term. I mean, I said the endeavor to 1:02:35.640 --> 1:02:38.320 I'm sure they all want to be creating art. Well, 1:02:38.360 --> 1:02:40.080 this won't make any sense to people yet, so I'm 1:02:40.080 --> 1:02:42.280 gonna I'm gonna give a brief overview. There's an article 1:02:42.320 --> 1:02:44.640 in the Atlantic that dropped down November twenty nine called 1:02:44.680 --> 1:02:49.520 what Happens when You're the Investment. It's by Rex Wouldbury, um, 1:02:49.600 --> 1:02:55.160 who I hate. UM. So as a note, okay, let 1:02:55.280 --> 1:02:57.920 let me just get the the the nut of the 1:02:58.040 --> 1:02:59.960 article is, and that there's been a couple of other 1:03:00.080 --> 1:03:04.479 articles on this guy. Um. His name is Alex mass 1:03:04.520 --> 1:03:08.640 mesh Um and he is a French kid I think, 1:03:09.040 --> 1:03:12.400 who decided to token ize himself. And what that means 1:03:12.600 --> 1:03:16.480 is so like, you've got the ethereum blockchain, right, he 1:03:16.880 --> 1:03:21.720 basically he's he's putting he's carving up aspects of his 1:03:21.840 --> 1:03:25.440 like potential future earnings, and he's putting those on the 1:03:25.480 --> 1:03:29.480 Ethereum blockchain as like tokens that people can buy. And 1:03:29.560 --> 1:03:32.240 the idea is that this kid had wanted to like 1:03:32.280 --> 1:03:34.360 start a business and be an entrepreneur, but he didn't 1:03:34.360 --> 1:03:37.720 have any money. So using like on the ether blockchain, 1:03:38.120 --> 1:03:41.880 he turned himself into tokens basically like his potential future 1:03:41.920 --> 1:03:45.440 earnings and his time. And basically people are able to 1:03:45.560 --> 1:03:50.200 buy up coins effectively, I mean not coins, but tokens shares. 1:03:50.640 --> 1:03:53.160 Yeah yeah, dollar sign Alex is like the name of 1:03:53.200 --> 1:03:56.240 the token, which basically shares they're buying. He's turned himself 1:03:56.320 --> 1:04:00.680 essentially into a publicly traded company kind of um. And 1:04:01.320 --> 1:04:04.400 holders of his coins are like, he's splitting up fifteen 1:04:04.440 --> 1:04:07.440 percent of his income for the next three years basically 1:04:07.440 --> 1:04:11.040 among people who like hold his coins. And he raised 1:04:11.040 --> 1:04:13.960 like twenty grand this way um. And it's not just 1:04:14.200 --> 1:04:16.320 like it's not just his future earnings that are being 1:04:16.400 --> 1:04:18.760 kind of tokenized. You can also use tokens to like 1:04:18.840 --> 1:04:22.160 buy retweets from him, or one on one conversations or 1:04:22.640 --> 1:04:25.120 and here's a line I love and introduction to someone 1:04:25.160 --> 1:04:29.040 in his network. And and it's the overall idea. Because 1:04:29.040 --> 1:04:31.280 there's you can find some other good articles. Good as 1:04:31.320 --> 1:04:34.880 an interesting word to use. You can find other interesting, 1:04:34.960 --> 1:04:38.920 fascinating articles about this, this idea, which is like human 1:04:39.040 --> 1:04:44.640 beings token izing their future earning potential um in order 1:04:44.720 --> 1:04:50.040 to uh raise money um and and it's uh the 1:04:50.080 --> 1:04:52.400 way this is usually sold as a good thing. In fact, 1:04:52.400 --> 1:04:54.480 I should probably just read a quote from this Atlantic 1:04:54.560 --> 1:04:57.240 article to give you an idea of how uh mass 1:04:57.280 --> 1:05:00.680 measure is or of how um um the the author 1:05:00.680 --> 1:05:04.440 of the article, Rex good would Bury is is trying 1:05:04.480 --> 1:05:08.160 to sell this ship. We all have the slightly annoying 1:05:08.200 --> 1:05:10.360 friend who insists that she knew about so and so 1:05:10.400 --> 1:05:12.840 before they were even famous. When it comes to Taylor Swift, 1:05:12.880 --> 1:05:15.320 I'm that friend, and I'm more than slightly annoying about it. 1:05:15.360 --> 1:05:17.400 I was a Taylor fan in her pre fearless full 1:05:17.440 --> 1:05:20.480 on Country days, years before Conway interrupted her on stage 1:05:20.480 --> 1:05:23.160 at the v m as, But in our current constructive fandom, 1:05:23.200 --> 1:05:25.960 I'm treated no differently than a fan who discovered Swift 1:05:26.000 --> 1:05:28.840 on SNL a few weeks back. This would be different, though, 1:05:28.880 --> 1:05:31.000 if Taylor had done what mass Measure did and turned 1:05:31.000 --> 1:05:33.960 herself into an investment, she could have issued a social token. 1:05:34.240 --> 1:05:36.880 Whereas non fungible tokens or n f t s are 1:05:36.920 --> 1:05:39.080 so called because of the uniqueness of a digital asset, 1:05:39.360 --> 1:05:42.480 social tokens are fungible. In other words, each Alex token 1:05:42.560 --> 1:05:44.840 is interchangeable with every other Alex token, just like a 1:05:44.840 --> 1:05:47.000 dollar bill can be traded for any other dollar bill. 1:05:47.520 --> 1:05:50.160 Say Taylor issued had issued her own token, Let's call 1:05:50.240 --> 1:05:53.000 it a dollar signs swift, and say she had sold 1:05:53.040 --> 1:05:56.400 dollar signed Swift to her biggest fans. Yeah, say I 1:05:56.480 --> 1:05:59.400 was one such fan. Over time, as Taylor's popularity grew, 1:05:59.440 --> 1:06:02.560 the value of the Swift token would have appreciated. As 1:06:02.600 --> 1:06:04.760 an early believer, I would have shared in the financial 1:06:04.840 --> 1:06:07.160 upside of her growing fame. The Swift token I had 1:06:07.160 --> 1:06:09.080 brought for a hundred dollars in two thousand seven might 1:06:09.080 --> 1:06:12.200 be worth a hundred thousand dollars today. The Taylor Swift 1:06:12.240 --> 1:06:14.840 mini economy would serve both the singer and early fans 1:06:14.880 --> 1:06:16.880 like me. As an artist, Taylor could have funded her 1:06:16.920 --> 1:06:20.000 work by selling dollar signs or swift tokens. She might 1:06:20.000 --> 1:06:21.920 not have needed to sell ownership of her master's and 1:06:21.960 --> 1:06:23.920 she might not have been forced to re record her 1:06:23.920 --> 1:06:26.800 albums to take back control over her art. Taylor's fans, 1:06:26.800 --> 1:06:28.440 for their part, would have been rewarded for a decade 1:06:28.480 --> 1:06:31.520 of patronage. Were all evangelists for our favorite artists, Yet 1:06:31.520 --> 1:06:33.840 we capture little of the value that we helped create. 1:06:34.360 --> 1:06:38.439 And then there's a lot that, like I find unsettling there. 1:06:38.480 --> 1:06:41.320 One of them is the idea that like, yeah, the 1:06:41.360 --> 1:06:43.120 fact that I was a fan of someone earlier means 1:06:43.120 --> 1:06:45.040 I should get some sort of reward for it, Like 1:06:45.080 --> 1:06:47.560 I should be treated differently because I liked it earlier, 1:06:47.560 --> 1:06:50.360 which you might recognize like the thing that everybody has 1:06:50.360 --> 1:06:53.600 been shipping on for like fandoms for years now, Like 1:06:53.680 --> 1:06:55.880 it's been a it's been a huge thing where like, yeah, 1:06:55.920 --> 1:06:57.760 you're being an asshole if you're if you're talking about 1:06:57.840 --> 1:07:00.240 like if you think you have some additional ownership of 1:07:00.240 --> 1:07:02.840 Star Wars because you watched it ten years before the 1:07:02.840 --> 1:07:04.920 fans today, and so you like different stuff in it, 1:07:04.960 --> 1:07:08.520 Like that's we all recognize that is like toxic um. 1:07:08.600 --> 1:07:11.400 But the the whole argument of this article is that like, no, 1:07:11.560 --> 1:07:14.640 this is how the entire future of creativity should work. 1:07:14.880 --> 1:07:18.439 We find unsettling. And it also it also ties into 1:07:18.480 --> 1:07:23.840 like a really concerning development in paras social relationships of 1:07:23.880 --> 1:07:28.240 like able to invest in someone to buy a conversation 1:07:28.320 --> 1:07:32.240 with them in like this really weird way. Um And 1:07:32.280 --> 1:07:34.400 the fact that young artists are going to be pressured 1:07:34.400 --> 1:07:37.919 into this kind of thing is really scary. Yeah, because 1:07:37.920 --> 1:07:40.360 there's like one of the things mass Measure did as 1:07:40.480 --> 1:07:44.200 like um uh as an experiment, was like allow people 1:07:44.240 --> 1:07:47.520 who had bought his tokens to make life decisions for him, 1:07:47.640 --> 1:07:49.520 like tell him when to wake up in the morning 1:07:49.560 --> 1:07:51.560 and whether or not to eat red meat and stuff 1:07:51.600 --> 1:07:54.600 like that. And he stated that like, well, none of 1:07:54.600 --> 1:07:57.320 this is binding, right, Like I'll I might do what 1:07:57.360 --> 1:07:59.000 they say, but like I'm not going to do anything 1:07:59.000 --> 1:08:02.040 crazy or whatever. But also this is like the first 1:08:02.080 --> 1:08:07.240 iteration of this um. And I like this Atlantic article, 1:08:07.280 --> 1:08:09.600 which I think is unhinged for reasons we'll get into, 1:08:09.680 --> 1:08:12.960 but it's purely talking about like look at this incredibly 1:08:13.000 --> 1:08:15.400 successful person I imagine if they've gotten to be incredibly 1:08:15.440 --> 1:08:18.400 successful using this method instead, and it might have like 1:08:19.120 --> 1:08:21.160 spared them this thing. But what I keep thinking about 1:08:21.240 --> 1:08:24.880 is like, Okay, well, the vast majority of people, like 1:08:25.400 --> 1:08:28.360 there's no reason to invest in them, Like yeah, maybe 1:08:28.360 --> 1:08:30.320 if you come out with a great song or a 1:08:30.360 --> 1:08:32.599 great video, like, yeah, you could get investments, and I'm 1:08:32.600 --> 1:08:34.759 sure that could work out. I'm sure, like Taylor Swift 1:08:34.800 --> 1:08:36.760 is a successful enough person, I'm sure she could have 1:08:36.760 --> 1:08:39.519 found a way to succeed under that system too. But 1:08:40.280 --> 1:08:42.599 what I think will be much more common because there's 1:08:42.640 --> 1:08:45.639 no real reason to anticipate that the average person will 1:08:45.680 --> 1:08:48.439 have an earnings potential. If you give them twenty grand, 1:08:48.560 --> 1:08:53.760 that's greater than twenty grand. Um. The most likely thing 1:08:53.800 --> 1:08:55.679 is that like people just buy shares and poor people 1:08:55.680 --> 1:08:57.679 to make them do fucked up ship. Yeah, it's gonna 1:08:57.720 --> 1:08:59.360 be How would you not how would that not be 1:08:59.400 --> 1:09:01.599 where it goes? Yeah, that's that. That's the only way 1:09:01.640 --> 1:09:03.800 that this is going to get like used on a 1:09:03.880 --> 1:09:11.120 large scale. People just selling themselves. People are people are 1:09:11.120 --> 1:09:17.000 gonna use the ether blockchain to like crowdfund and crowd 1:09:17.920 --> 1:09:21.920 h cast a new jackass basically like it's going it's 1:09:21.960 --> 1:09:24.160 not going to be like a thousand Taylor Swift's all 1:09:24.160 --> 1:09:26.960 token izing themselves. It's going to be like millions of 1:09:26.960 --> 1:09:29.920 people in the global self issuing tokens to like vote 1:09:29.960 --> 1:09:32.280 on whether they roll down the hill in a barrel 1:09:32.520 --> 1:09:37.559 or in like a fucking porta potti. Like it's just 1:09:37.640 --> 1:09:41.120 it's a nightmare to be to contemplate people actually adopting this. 1:09:41.840 --> 1:09:44.400 You know, there's there's a lot of Really the thing 1:09:44.439 --> 1:09:46.120 I think is the most incredible part about this is 1:09:46.120 --> 1:09:52.719 that like, okay, so like it basically doesn't matter what 1:09:52.880 --> 1:09:56.599 like economic theory you used to look at it. It's 1:09:56.640 --> 1:09:59.000 like every single one of them tells you something, just 1:09:59.080 --> 1:10:02.439 like absolutely talked about it, and like, you know, because 1:10:02.479 --> 1:10:04.599 because I mean, there there there's there's there's some extent 1:10:04.600 --> 1:10:07.120 to which I look at this and it's like, this 1:10:07.240 --> 1:10:10.439 isn't that much different than the fact, you know, it's like, okay, 1:10:10.439 --> 1:10:12.479 so you're paying someone to do whatever you want, but like, okay, 1:10:12.520 --> 1:10:16.720 like that's not that much different than just a job, right, 1:10:16.800 --> 1:10:20.120 Like it's it's not it's not inherently that much different 1:10:20.120 --> 1:10:22.240 than the fact that everyone is forced to just do 1:10:22.320 --> 1:10:29.840 wage labor. But also like there's one was interesting things 1:10:29.880 --> 1:10:31.120 to me that I thought about this when I was 1:10:31.400 --> 1:10:34.760 what I was reading this was so, do you just 1:10:34.760 --> 1:10:39.160 know what capitalization is? Yeah? So this is this is 1:10:39.200 --> 1:10:43.960 just capitalizing a person, right, Like it's literally taking a 1:10:44.040 --> 1:10:48.240 person public effect putting turning them into like a tradeable 1:10:48.400 --> 1:10:50.800 share and it's like an investment. Yeah, I mean, this 1:10:50.880 --> 1:10:52.559 is all one of the things that like a Forbes 1:10:52.600 --> 1:10:55.120 article I found point is that this is another kind 1:10:55.120 --> 1:10:58.760 of unregulated securities training. Yeah yeah, yeah. But what's what's 1:10:58.800 --> 1:11:00.599 interesting to me about it is that like, okay, so 1:11:00.680 --> 1:11:04.559 you know this is also already how accounting wise, every 1:11:04.560 --> 1:11:06.800 corporation sees a person, right like every every every every 1:11:06.840 --> 1:11:10.040 person in the asset book is you know, yeah, you know, 1:11:10.160 --> 1:11:12.280 like a wage is just capitalization, right, It's like how 1:11:12.320 --> 1:11:14.280 much will you pay now for this much money later? 1:11:14.600 --> 1:11:16.320 You could, but it's like people are doing it to 1:11:16.360 --> 1:11:21.400 themselves now, which just like this. Yeah, you could argue 1:11:21.439 --> 1:11:23.920 that like elements of this or how like banks treat 1:11:23.960 --> 1:11:26.920 you when you get a mortgage, right, um, like, but 1:11:26.920 --> 1:11:32.559 but also that's much more rigorous and limited, like it 1:11:32.560 --> 1:11:36.559 has like regulations and has rules for how those things work. 1:11:36.560 --> 1:11:40.440 It's not some like twelve year old getting of like 1:11:40.439 --> 1:11:43.040 like going on to coin base and buying part of 1:11:43.080 --> 1:11:45.920 you as a joke with your with like his dad's money, right, 1:11:45.960 --> 1:11:48.680 Like because it's like yeah, because what if it's like 1:11:49.120 --> 1:11:53.080 there's no law against a seventeen year old I guess 1:11:53.120 --> 1:11:55.640 if maybe their parents may need to consent, but there's 1:11:55.680 --> 1:11:57.559 no law against the seventeen year old getting a facial 1:11:57.600 --> 1:12:01.320 tattoo of like the doors of a concentration camp on 1:12:01.360 --> 1:12:04.760 their face. But what if some kid tokenizes himself for 1:12:04.760 --> 1:12:07.400 forty grands so he can drop an EP and that's 1:12:07.439 --> 1:12:10.320 what like a bunch of four channers who buy up 1:12:10.360 --> 1:12:13.719 his his shares want him to do um. And maybe 1:12:13.760 --> 1:12:15.400 the fucking kid does that because he knows it's going 1:12:15.439 --> 1:12:17.880 to get him, because his brain is not done and 1:12:17.920 --> 1:12:19.479 he knows it's going to get him. A bunch of 1:12:19.479 --> 1:12:23.479 fucking social media uh clouds and like it's there's a 1:12:23.479 --> 1:12:26.040 lot of and there's no way to regulate that. Like 1:12:26.080 --> 1:12:29.639 it's just an inherently toxic proposition that I don't think 1:12:29.680 --> 1:12:32.160 the government would. I don't know what side of this 1:12:32.240 --> 1:12:34.439 the government would even step in on, Like what is 1:12:34.439 --> 1:12:38.200 the regulation of people deciding I'm letting random strangers who 1:12:38.200 --> 1:12:40.240 pay me money vote on what I do with my life. 1:12:40.840 --> 1:12:42.439 What do you ever think it reminds me of a 1:12:42.479 --> 1:12:45.439 lot is like the micro lending stuff from the nineties, 1:12:46.360 --> 1:12:48.400 where it was like, oh, well, we'll like empower these 1:12:48.400 --> 1:12:51.040 people by we'll go in and uh, We're going to 1:12:51.120 --> 1:12:52.720 give them like a small amount of money and have 1:12:52.760 --> 1:12:54.720 to pay back. And it was like, you know, and 1:12:54.840 --> 1:12:57.840 and all of the same stuff that you're reading, all 1:12:57.880 --> 1:12:59.840 the arguments about why this is a good thing or 1:13:00.000 --> 1:13:02.960 actually the name as the micro lending ones and that stuff. 1:13:03.000 --> 1:13:04.599 You know. There there were two ways it turned out. 1:13:05.000 --> 1:13:10.679 One was basically you get the scenario where both sides 1:13:10.720 --> 1:13:13.880 are scamming each other where you know, all the people 1:13:13.880 --> 1:13:15.439 who are getting these micro loans are just they're just 1:13:15.439 --> 1:13:17.439 taking the money and walking right like that's you know, 1:13:17.520 --> 1:13:19.160 the their their their things. Oh this is what I 1:13:19.200 --> 1:13:20.479 can just get money like this and we can just 1:13:20.600 --> 1:13:22.720 keep I just keep not paying it back, and so 1:13:22.760 --> 1:13:25.400 this I'm scamming them. But then on the other side 1:13:25.439 --> 1:13:27.320 you have these people who are like, oh cool, I 1:13:27.320 --> 1:13:28.880 can give this person this loan and turn them into 1:13:28.920 --> 1:13:31.920 a debt peon and it and you know, and and 1:13:31.960 --> 1:13:34.680 the the the really depressing side about it is so 1:13:34.720 --> 1:13:37.840 that the people who couldn't get away, Like I mean, 1:13:37.840 --> 1:13:40.479 we're literally reduced the debt pions and you know, I 1:13:40.479 --> 1:13:43.800 mean there's a huge wave of suicides in India probably 1:13:43.800 --> 1:13:46.000 don't say examples, wave of suicides, people drinking past a 1:13:46.000 --> 1:13:48.360 side because they couldn't pay off these loans and so 1:13:48.600 --> 1:13:51.679 and and the thing that's different about this is that 1:13:51.720 --> 1:13:54.160 like I mean, ay, you're doing it to yourself. But 1:13:54.240 --> 1:13:58.760 then be again, there's no regulation. But that also means 1:13:58.800 --> 1:14:02.080 there isn't any way to force someone to do what 1:14:02.160 --> 1:14:07.080 you're going It's unclear how it's going to be enforced. 1:14:07.120 --> 1:14:08.519 And the other thing that is clear it is like 1:14:08.960 --> 1:14:11.960 what does losses look like? Like what what happens when 1:14:12.000 --> 1:14:15.480 someone like you cannot make back on like an investment, 1:14:15.520 --> 1:14:19.000 But if the investment is a person, how does that work? 1:14:19.120 --> 1:14:22.040 And if someone's contractually obligated to give a certain share 1:14:22.040 --> 1:14:24.639 of their income, what happens when there's not enough income 1:14:24.680 --> 1:14:28.160 for that? Like like you know, so those types of things. Yeah, 1:14:28.280 --> 1:14:31.240 I mean there's no answer to that, uh, And there's 1:14:31.240 --> 1:14:34.639 nobody like the money that's going to be whatever made 1:14:34.760 --> 1:14:39.479 in this is going to be made before anyone steps 1:14:39.479 --> 1:14:43.840 into to try to answer that if anyone ever does, like, um, 1:14:43.920 --> 1:14:46.719 it's it's gonna be the next because I think we're 1:14:46.760 --> 1:14:48.760 I think we're heading for a crash with with n 1:14:48.800 --> 1:14:51.120 f t s. Like there was just an article today 1:14:51.120 --> 1:14:54.599 about how what of nfc T trading is done by 1:14:54.640 --> 1:14:57.479 like ten percent of people, which further back because the 1:14:57.520 --> 1:14:59.519 allegations of n f t S is that most of 1:14:59.560 --> 1:15:02.439 what's happen opening isn't people actually buying them. It's people 1:15:03.040 --> 1:15:06.519 like the same person using multiple wallets basically trying to 1:15:06.600 --> 1:15:09.080 jack up the perceived value by throwing a bunch of 1:15:09.080 --> 1:15:11.519 other Internet money that they already have. So these these 1:15:11.520 --> 1:15:15.200 whales who have like a bunch of crypto gaming the system, 1:15:15.200 --> 1:15:16.760 and we've seen some of it, and the biggest n 1:15:16.760 --> 1:15:18.559 f t S sale it was like half a billion 1:15:18.600 --> 1:15:20.759 dollars and it was a guy selling it to himself 1:15:20.760 --> 1:15:23.400 and then transferring it back into another wallet to try 1:15:23.400 --> 1:15:25.519 to make it look like it was worth half a 1:15:25.520 --> 1:15:28.160 billion dollars even though no one had actually really paid 1:15:28.240 --> 1:15:32.280 that for it. Um so I and I think you 1:15:32.320 --> 1:15:34.479 know that. And kind of what we've seen with the 1:15:34.720 --> 1:15:36.920 regulations the governments announced for n f t s. I 1:15:36.920 --> 1:15:39.559 think that's a problem for them in the near future. 1:15:40.120 --> 1:15:43.639 And I wouldn't be surprised to see this takeoff next, 1:15:43.760 --> 1:15:46.680 especially given like the creator economy that we're seeing on 1:15:46.760 --> 1:15:52.320 like the kind of that yeah TikTok, Like, I wouldn't 1:15:52.320 --> 1:15:54.160 be surprised if you saw a rash of big TikTok 1:15:54.200 --> 1:15:58.000 stars tokenizing themselves. And like I'm not even sure, I'm 1:15:58.040 --> 1:16:00.320 I'm sure it would be a mix of the person 1:16:00.560 --> 1:16:03.080 making the tokens being the one doing the scam and 1:16:03.120 --> 1:16:06.960 the person receiving or the people buying the tokens being 1:16:07.000 --> 1:16:08.240 the one doing. Like I'm sure it would be a 1:16:08.320 --> 1:16:11.760 mix of different kinds of exploitation. But it's not gonna 1:16:11.800 --> 1:16:14.599 be good, I mean, and and just like it's gonna 1:16:14.680 --> 1:16:17.800 make like I don't know, fifty people super rich when 1:16:17.800 --> 1:16:19.960 they when they first start trying it, right like that 1:16:19.800 --> 1:16:22.439 that is that is like when this happens, like when 1:16:22.439 --> 1:16:25.720 a TikTok star with five million followers, when they do this, 1:16:25.960 --> 1:16:28.640 they will make boatloads of money. It's just unclear what 1:16:28.720 --> 1:16:34.639 happens after that. Yeah, well, Fleet of Mexico, Yeah, I mean, 1:16:34.640 --> 1:16:36.280 that would be the smart thing. That would be the 1:16:36.320 --> 1:16:39.880 smart thing to do. Yeah, In this Forbes article I found, 1:16:39.880 --> 1:16:42.920 which is a thousand times better than the Atlantic article, Like, 1:16:42.960 --> 1:16:45.120 even though it's written by someone I think who's also 1:16:45.880 --> 1:16:49.400 into crypto, it's just it Actually it asks some of 1:16:49.439 --> 1:16:52.200 these questions we've been talking about UM, and it cites 1:16:52.600 --> 1:16:55.320 David Hoffman, who's the CEO of a of a token 1:16:55.360 --> 1:16:58.760 ized real estate platform UM on what he sees as 1:16:58.800 --> 1:17:01.200 some of the problems. Like he, as a guy who's 1:17:01.479 --> 1:17:04.760 supports aspects of this kind of thing, sees is the 1:17:04.800 --> 1:17:10.360 problems with this and uh, it's yeah, let sec um 1:17:10.479 --> 1:17:13.839 Hoffman re returning to his core problem with the personal 1:17:13.840 --> 1:17:17.200 token model model, Hoffman re emphasized that the assurances and 1:17:17.280 --> 1:17:21.240 utility that come with some of these tokens don't exist, 1:17:21.320 --> 1:17:24.120 for with with certain kinds of tokens don't exist for 1:17:24.160 --> 1:17:27.080 like these personal tokens. How risky this investment is is 1:17:27.120 --> 1:17:30.439 completely defined by the individual. In his disclaimer, he's and 1:17:30.520 --> 1:17:32.360 he's talking about one of the guys who's token himself, 1:17:32.600 --> 1:17:35.720 this guy named Kerman. In his disclaimer, he says this 1:17:35.760 --> 1:17:37.639 is a highly risky investment and that you could lose 1:17:37.680 --> 1:17:39.360 all your money, which is a terrible thing to say 1:17:39.400 --> 1:17:42.240 because with personal tokens. The issuer is in complete control 1:17:42.320 --> 1:17:45.479 over exactly how risky the investment actually is. It's largely 1:17:45.560 --> 1:17:47.880 up to them whether there are risks or not, which 1:17:47.920 --> 1:17:51.120 is like a kind of illegal securities trading that I 1:17:51.120 --> 1:17:55.280 don't think we've ever anyone's ever done. Um Like, it's this, 1:17:55.479 --> 1:18:03.679 It's this fascinating new con where you're literally the you're 1:18:03.720 --> 1:18:06.479 you're doing securities trading, but instead of it being over 1:18:06.520 --> 1:18:10.480 a company, it's just you and technically there's no consequences 1:18:10.479 --> 1:18:13.560 if you just take the money and run, Like I 1:18:13.640 --> 1:18:16.080 don't know what kind of contract, Like, you couldn't have 1:18:16.120 --> 1:18:18.560 a contract that says that you could say, they're that 1:18:18.640 --> 1:18:21.880 you're obligated to pay out your future earnings, but you 1:18:21.920 --> 1:18:26.000 couldn't have to work Like that's not enforceable. You can't 1:18:26.040 --> 1:18:33.000 like contractually obligate someone two to like work, like you're 1:18:33.000 --> 1:18:35.640 allowed to quit a job. I mean, I guess you 1:18:35.640 --> 1:18:38.200 could put penalties in it, but I don't, like none 1:18:38.200 --> 1:18:39.840 of the current ones have anything, I mean, or they 1:18:39.880 --> 1:18:42.680 could go to The other option is is that they 1:18:42.720 --> 1:18:45.240 could go to jail for fraud if they try to 1:18:45.360 --> 1:18:47.559 if they try to not follow through on the investment. 1:18:47.600 --> 1:18:49.960 If you say like, yeah, I I invested in you 1:18:50.000 --> 1:18:52.240 and you said that you would do these things, you 1:18:52.320 --> 1:18:54.840 didn't do them. Now you can go to prison. That 1:18:54.960 --> 1:18:58.960 is the other Yeah, and I think that will at 1:18:59.040 --> 1:19:01.720 some point, like will be scams and some of that 1:19:01.760 --> 1:19:03.240 will come in. But like none of these current ones, 1:19:03.320 --> 1:19:05.360 none of them are saying, here's my specific I'm going 1:19:05.400 --> 1:19:09.040 to make this special. It's not like if you like 1:19:09.040 --> 1:19:12.080 like with a Patreon, right, You're you're paying a little 1:19:12.080 --> 1:19:14.600 bit at a time on an ongoing basis for a 1:19:14.680 --> 1:19:18.400 very clear product. Generally, this is so far. These aren't that. 1:19:18.439 --> 1:19:20.479 They're just like, I'm gonna try to do something that 1:19:20.520 --> 1:19:22.160 makes money and if it does, you get a cut 1:19:22.160 --> 1:19:25.840 of it. And that's it's so much like there's nothing 1:19:25.840 --> 1:19:28.400 that's stopping mass Metch from saying like, hey, my my 1:19:28.680 --> 1:19:32.320 and my attempt didn't work. Uh so we're done. No 1:19:32.320 --> 1:19:35.160 no money for anybody like that, and I you're not. 1:19:35.200 --> 1:19:37.960 There's no accounting requirements, there's no there's a bunch of 1:19:37.960 --> 1:19:40.479 ways in which it's sucked up from a financial except 1:19:40.560 --> 1:19:43.880 it's not it's not his, it's not it's not you're 1:19:43.880 --> 1:19:46.080 not investing in his business. You're nesting in him. So 1:19:46.120 --> 1:19:48.240 even if even if even if he takes another job, 1:19:48.760 --> 1:19:52.960 there's still it seems to be contractually obligated to still 1:19:53.080 --> 1:19:56.599 get that of his income. Yes, And I think that's 1:19:56.680 --> 1:19:58.200 that's the area in which I think it would be 1:19:58.240 --> 1:20:02.799 abusive for the person being to ganized because most people 1:20:02.960 --> 1:20:06.120 aren't gonna like most people don't make that much money. 1:20:06.240 --> 1:20:09.640 So they raise someone manages to like raise five or 1:20:09.640 --> 1:20:12.920 ten grand and then just winds up for years giving 1:20:12.920 --> 1:20:15.519 a cut of their income that winds up being more 1:20:15.520 --> 1:20:17.720 than they got initially to a bunch of like it's 1:20:17.720 --> 1:20:21.920 almost like a like a payday loan that you've blockchain. 1:20:22.439 --> 1:20:24.400 Yeah you know, Okay, so this is this is what 1:20:24.439 --> 1:20:26.559 I'm thinking about because so there's I don't know if 1:20:26.560 --> 1:20:28.960 I talked about this on the show, but there's a 1:20:28.960 --> 1:20:32.160 thing in China where they've been kind of cracking down 1:20:32.200 --> 1:20:35.840 it now for stunning nineteen Like literally every single app 1:20:36.160 --> 1:20:38.720 like had a like had a pet a loan thing 1:20:38.720 --> 1:20:41.240 in it, so like like your flashlight app would have 1:20:41.439 --> 1:20:43.000 would offer you a pet a loan, and it was 1:20:43.240 --> 1:20:45.680 basically it was yeah, they were there was originally tied 1:20:45.720 --> 1:20:49.200 in with like people who buy um. You know, I 1:20:49.200 --> 1:20:51.479 was originally tied in with like like the the the 1:20:51.800 --> 1:20:54.920 services that, like their version of Amazon, for example, would like, 1:20:55.200 --> 1:20:56.599 oh hey, we'll give you a loan so you can 1:20:56.640 --> 1:20:58.880 buy this, you can order fried chicken. And I was 1:20:58.920 --> 1:21:02.679 always wondering when it has become to the US, and 1:21:03.360 --> 1:21:05.600 I think it might never hope, I mean hopefully it 1:21:05.600 --> 1:21:07.120 never does. And I think it might not just because 1:21:07.160 --> 1:21:10.360 of how like powerful our paid a loan industry is. 1:21:11.000 --> 1:21:14.200 But it's like we've we've now invented. It seems like 1:21:14.240 --> 1:21:17.880 it's gonna happen, but like dumber, like our our version 1:21:17.960 --> 1:21:22.439 of it is like this thing, which is just you know, 1:21:22.560 --> 1:21:24.760 it's what what if? What if paid a loans but 1:21:24.840 --> 1:21:29.080 on the blockchain? Except you know when I guess this 1:21:29.120 --> 1:21:31.280 is the everything you know that that we've've been getting at, 1:21:31.360 --> 1:21:34.280 is that the difference between this being a paid a 1:21:34.280 --> 1:21:37.400 loan and this being you scammed a bunch of people 1:21:37.720 --> 1:21:42.559 is what the enforcement mechanism looks like. And you know 1:21:43.160 --> 1:21:44.880 this this this comes back to some other things I 1:21:44.920 --> 1:21:49.400 think you're interesting about. This one is that you know, 1:21:49.400 --> 1:21:51.519 so the whole the huntline n f T drift right 1:21:51.680 --> 1:21:56.440 is based on convincing people that there's value in ownership 1:21:56.520 --> 1:22:00.880 right there, Like ownership itself has inherently has value. And yeah, 1:22:00.920 --> 1:22:03.040 but but this this is not that this is this 1:22:03.120 --> 1:22:05.160 is you know, this is going back to know your 1:22:05.240 --> 1:22:09.280 value value is built on labor, right well, yeah, it's 1:22:09.360 --> 1:22:13.200 like labor and like like personhood, like like you as 1:22:13.200 --> 1:22:16.400 a personal brand is the thing that they're trying to 1:22:16.400 --> 1:22:19.000 get at. But the thing, the thing that's missing here though, 1:22:19.120 --> 1:22:22.320 is that in order for like you know, in order 1:22:22.360 --> 1:22:25.800 for like labor to produce value right in this way, 1:22:25.880 --> 1:22:28.120 there has to be like there has to be a 1:22:28.120 --> 1:22:30.120 way for you to force them to pay you like 1:22:30.200 --> 1:22:32.760 you need you need coercion for it. And if there's 1:22:32.800 --> 1:22:34.920 no coercion, then you know, you just take a bunch 1:22:34.960 --> 1:22:37.920 of money and leave. And and that that I think 1:22:38.000 --> 1:22:39.839 is like this, this is going to be the battle 1:22:39.960 --> 1:22:42.640 over like if this becomes a thing, it's gonna be 1:22:43.520 --> 1:22:45.920 you know, the people who buy these things are gonna 1:22:45.920 --> 1:22:48.840 wind up like trying to you know, I think they're 1:22:48.840 --> 1:22:50.160 gonna be the ones you try to put your regulation 1:22:50.160 --> 1:22:52.000 because they're gonna you know, they're gonna go in. They're 1:22:52.000 --> 1:22:54.439 gonna be I want to get my money back, and 1:22:55.320 --> 1:22:59.760 that could end really, really really badly if you know, 1:23:00.479 --> 1:23:03.920 I mean it probably will. I like, I don't know 1:23:03.960 --> 1:23:06.559 how popular I think this will be because I think 1:23:06.600 --> 1:23:09.240 that I hope this is a maybe if there'd never 1:23:09.280 --> 1:23:11.639 been like a Patreon or something, But the actual use 1:23:11.720 --> 1:23:16.599 case of this seems to already be well served by 1:23:16.600 --> 1:23:22.000 the existing capitalist infrastructure. Like people, I think more people 1:23:22.080 --> 1:23:25.120 wanted back a creator's Patreon than they want to like 1:23:25.200 --> 1:23:30.480 own pieces of a person's time and earning potential like that. 1:23:30.479 --> 1:23:33.400 That seems like a more niche and weird desire to 1:23:33.520 --> 1:23:35.320 people than just like, oh, yeah, these guys make a 1:23:35.400 --> 1:23:38.400 video I like every week, so I'll throw them three dollars. Well, 1:23:38.400 --> 1:23:41.160 I think. I think the difference though, is that Patreon 1:23:41.200 --> 1:23:43.439 money gets you money for normal people. This gets you 1:23:43.479 --> 1:23:47.599 money from like tech bros. And that. Yeah, that's always yeah, 1:23:48.160 --> 1:23:51.519 it's it's a griff designed to And I want to 1:23:51.560 --> 1:23:53.840 dive back into this Atlantic article because it's so bad 1:23:53.880 --> 1:23:56.440 in such a comprehensive way that I think it deserves analysis. 1:23:56.560 --> 1:23:58.719 That's what what put a pin in what you said. 1:23:59.040 --> 1:24:01.519 But I want to start with, like how the person 1:24:01.680 --> 1:24:06.479 writing this, this Rerex motherfucker, like his his concept of 1:24:06.520 --> 1:24:11.040 the the history of the Internet. Um, because it's completely wrong. Quote. 1:24:11.360 --> 1:24:13.800 We're on the precipice of the third era of the Web. 1:24:13.920 --> 1:24:16.800 The web's first era was about information flowing freely. Think 1:24:16.880 --> 1:24:19.680 Google giving you access to the world's knowledge. Most of 1:24:19.760 --> 1:24:22.519 us were passive consumers in this era. The second era 1:24:22.600 --> 1:24:25.840 was the social web Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. People began to 1:24:25.880 --> 1:24:28.639 create their own content, and that content became the lifeblood 1:24:28.640 --> 1:24:31.600 of the big platforms. We became active participants, but the 1:24:31.640 --> 1:24:34.799 platforms devoured all the profits. The promise of the Internet 1:24:34.880 --> 1:24:37.360 and the Internet was to erase the gatekeepers. Instead of 1:24:37.400 --> 1:24:39.280 waiting for a record label to sign you, you could 1:24:39.320 --> 1:24:42.680 share your music on Spotify, instead of asking a publication 1:24:42.720 --> 1:24:45.120 to share your words. You could tweet, instead of being 1:24:45.120 --> 1:24:47.680 tapped by a studio execut You could become a YouTuber. 1:24:48.000 --> 1:24:51.280 What happened is that these platforms became the new gatekeepers. 1:24:51.560 --> 1:24:53.840 The third era of the web is about writing the ship. 1:24:54.120 --> 1:24:58.280 Social capital becomes economic capital. Value no longer accumulates to 1:24:58.320 --> 1:25:04.320 brokers and intermediaries. That's number one, completely wrong, But one thing. Yeah. 1:25:04.840 --> 1:25:07.080 The first era of the Internet, I would say, was 1:25:07.120 --> 1:25:10.040 about the idea that information should flow freely, and Google 1:25:10.120 --> 1:25:12.439 came in like a decade or more into that period, 1:25:12.800 --> 1:25:14.599 Like I had been on the Internet five years before 1:25:14.600 --> 1:25:16.960 Google hopped into that ship, and Google was actually the 1:25:17.000 --> 1:25:20.920 start of of the end of that period. Um. And 1:25:20.960 --> 1:25:24.680 it's it's the idea that, like the social web was 1:25:24.800 --> 1:25:29.479 people creating their own content. Most of the social web's 1:25:29.560 --> 1:25:33.200 initial capital and like all of its initial money, came 1:25:33.280 --> 1:25:36.400 from taking content that people were being paid to make 1:25:36.479 --> 1:25:40.160 on legacy platforms that had existed before social media, taking 1:25:40.200 --> 1:25:44.080 that content, putting it on social media, and then monetizing 1:25:44.160 --> 1:25:46.679 that without paying money back to the people had made 1:25:46.680 --> 1:25:49.960 the content. The money in social media did not initially 1:25:50.040 --> 1:25:53.439 come from people making their own content. And the way 1:25:53.439 --> 1:25:56.599 that they mean it, like yeah, you at college humor 1:25:56.800 --> 1:26:00.160 or whatever, we're making your own content and sharing on 1:26:00.200 --> 1:26:02.479 social media, but you've been doing that before social media. 1:26:02.520 --> 1:26:05.880 Social media just actually made it less profitable eventually, Like 1:26:06.120 --> 1:26:09.360 the way he summarizes this is so wrong because what 1:26:09.479 --> 1:26:11.320 the social web actually did. And the other thing I'd 1:26:11.360 --> 1:26:13.840 argue is that the first era of the Internet, the 1:26:13.920 --> 1:26:16.559 like early days when things are happening on like forums 1:26:16.560 --> 1:26:19.040 and and weird little angel fire websites and like even 1:26:19.080 --> 1:26:22.439 my space, um, which I think is kind of my 1:26:22.479 --> 1:26:26.120 Space kind of straddles the first in second eras uh 1:26:26.160 --> 1:26:30.320 that was fundamentally much more an era of people creating 1:26:30.320 --> 1:26:35.080 their own content, because the the lifeblood of uh social 1:26:35.120 --> 1:26:37.559 media today isn't people really making their own content, it's 1:26:37.560 --> 1:26:40.960 people reacting to content that other people made. Um. And 1:26:40.960 --> 1:26:44.040 again it just shows the fact that he's he's summarizing 1:26:44.040 --> 1:26:45.600 it this way in a way that I think is 1:26:45.640 --> 1:26:49.840 so wrong and inaccurate to how things actually developed. Uh. 1:26:50.280 --> 1:26:53.720 Is characteristic of his attitude towards this stuff, where he's 1:26:53.800 --> 1:26:57.839 kind of seeing the only real meaningful evolutions in in 1:26:57.840 --> 1:27:02.560 in the Internet through the corporation that monetized it, um. 1:27:02.600 --> 1:27:05.639 Which is just telling of like how this guy actually 1:27:05.680 --> 1:27:07.920 sees the way the Internet has developed. And you will 1:27:07.920 --> 1:27:10.920 not be surprised to know, Uh, this motherfucker is an 1:27:10.920 --> 1:27:15.920 investor at Index Ventures. UM. Yeah, like he's he's he's 1:27:15.920 --> 1:27:21.040 a guy whose business is capitalizing things, um. And so 1:27:21.120 --> 1:27:23.360 that's the only way he sees the development of the Internet, 1:27:23.400 --> 1:27:25.680 even though that's not the accurate way of looking at 1:27:25.680 --> 1:27:27.920 how the Internet evolved. And I think I think that 1:27:28.000 --> 1:27:30.479 there's one more really important thing that he leaves out here, 1:27:30.520 --> 1:27:33.080 which is that because you know, like we're talking oh, 1:27:33.160 --> 1:27:34.559 this is the third age the Internet. Like, no, the 1:27:34.600 --> 1:27:37.000 third day of the Internet started, like I don't know, 1:27:37.400 --> 1:27:41.599 the mid early tends. When I would say when gamer 1:27:41.640 --> 1:27:43.840 Gate hit is when I would I would I mean, 1:27:43.840 --> 1:27:46.519 it's gonna be a little offend. It depends which it 1:27:46.520 --> 1:27:48.960 depends what you mean by age. So one of my 1:27:49.000 --> 1:27:52.360 friends worst in advertising, and he was talking about this 1:27:52.439 --> 1:27:54.040 where you know, we can we can talk about like 1:27:54.080 --> 1:27:55.800 gammer gating the sort of fascist males, but there was 1:27:55.840 --> 1:27:58.519 something else happening back end, which was the Internet of 1:27:58.600 --> 1:28:01.320 things stuff and the Internet things stuff off like you know, 1:28:01.960 --> 1:28:04.320 like nobody, it's kind of a I don't know, like 1:28:04.360 --> 1:28:06.080 I think we mostly think about it's like it's kind 1:28:06.120 --> 1:28:08.559 of a joke or like it just sucks. But really 1:28:08.600 --> 1:28:10.719 what it was was that that that was the period 1:28:10.720 --> 1:28:12.680 in which people figured out that the thing that the 1:28:12.800 --> 1:28:14.479 actual money and be made on the Internet was from 1:28:14.479 --> 1:28:17.560 selling people's personal information. And that and the and and 1:28:17.600 --> 1:28:21.240 the Internet things like just dramatic, like just indescribably increased 1:28:21.280 --> 1:28:23.439 the amount of data that you could extract from people. 1:28:24.000 --> 1:28:26.960 And that that was that's the actual that was the 1:28:27.000 --> 1:28:29.400 actual change of like like that that that's that's that's 1:28:29.400 --> 1:28:30.760 the thirty of the Internet, and that the earth of 1:28:30.760 --> 1:28:33.439 the Internet will last basically for every until we destroy it, 1:28:33.760 --> 1:28:38.599 which is that you know, the commodity is just all 1:28:38.640 --> 1:28:40.880 of all of the information about who you are, where 1:28:40.920 --> 1:28:43.559 you go, like what you buy, who you talk to. 1:28:44.439 --> 1:28:48.400 That just being sold off to two advertisers is you know, 1:28:49.200 --> 1:28:52.880 the thing that he's very very carefully not talking about 1:28:54.520 --> 1:28:57.240 and instead focusing on, Oh, it was using was creating content. 1:28:57.320 --> 1:29:00.240 And it's like, no, they the Internet, that the just 1:29:00.600 --> 1:29:04.280 they they sold spying on the entire world. Yeah, And 1:29:04.600 --> 1:29:07.799 I think there's there's two good ways to to divide 1:29:07.800 --> 1:29:10.559 the Internet into ages, and the ages would be slightly 1:29:10.560 --> 1:29:12.320 different each way. One is kind of how you're doing 1:29:12.360 --> 1:29:14.680 it is the way in which it was monetized, Right, 1:29:15.080 --> 1:29:17.360 That's that's that's one way too. And and then if 1:29:17.400 --> 1:29:18.760 that's the case, it's going to start with it was 1:29:18.800 --> 1:29:20.559 not at all. It was an entirely public project and 1:29:20.560 --> 1:29:22.720 everybody on it was on it through like a university, 1:29:22.760 --> 1:29:25.559 and like people did not pay to access it. Other 1:29:25.600 --> 1:29:27.640 than that you had to be at an institution or 1:29:27.680 --> 1:29:30.880 a university. And then like we get to the kind 1:29:30.920 --> 1:29:33.160 of the dot the era before for the dot com 1:29:33.200 --> 1:29:35.280 boom and of the dot com boom, and then like 1:29:35.360 --> 1:29:39.040 the early pre social internet stuff like something awful and 1:29:39.120 --> 1:29:43.599 like having stumbled upon and and whatnot, and like those 1:29:43.760 --> 1:29:45.800 sending traffic to sites like where I used to work, 1:29:45.800 --> 1:29:48.759 cracked and um. And then kind of the social media, 1:29:48.840 --> 1:29:50.639 which is the start of as you said, like the 1:29:50.720 --> 1:29:54.280 data being monitored monetize, like individuals data being the thing 1:29:54.680 --> 1:29:57.439 either that's being directly monetized or it's being used to 1:29:57.479 --> 1:30:01.679 deliver like targeted adds to you. Um. And then there's 1:30:01.720 --> 1:30:03.519 like if you think about it in terms of content, 1:30:03.800 --> 1:30:06.679 it's it starts like for the first era wouldn't even 1:30:06.680 --> 1:30:08.960 involve Google because it would be like the start of 1:30:09.040 --> 1:30:12.760 usenet up to eternal September in nine and then you 1:30:12.800 --> 1:30:15.599 know on from there. Um. But either way, this guy 1:30:15.640 --> 1:30:18.320 doesn't like everything he says about the history of the 1:30:18.360 --> 1:30:22.080 Internet is dumb. It's just a very simplified version and 1:30:22.120 --> 1:30:25.719 you don't actually look at like the interocking systems um. 1:30:25.800 --> 1:30:28.040 Because I mean, yeah, I don't know why he describes 1:30:28.080 --> 1:30:31.679 it this way, because it is it is, like it's 1:30:31.880 --> 1:30:35.560 accurate if you squint and don't think about it. Um. 1:30:35.560 --> 1:30:38.200 But it's weird because like this article is like it's 1:30:38.280 --> 1:30:41.320 four tech Bros. So I don't know why he describes 1:30:41.360 --> 1:30:43.439 it this way, because I feel like he could describe 1:30:43.479 --> 1:30:45.840 it a lot more accurately. Um if you if you 1:30:45.880 --> 1:30:48.240 wanted to. Well, it's something i'm gonna get into. I'm 1:30:48.240 --> 1:30:50.080 gonna say this point like twice eveisode. I'm gonna get 1:30:50.080 --> 1:30:52.760 into the neo liberalism episodes. And I'm writing but one 1:30:52.760 --> 1:30:54.760 of one of the key features of neoliberalisms that they 1:30:54.800 --> 1:30:56.960 lie is that the neo liberals have to have two 1:30:57.040 --> 1:30:58.680 versions of what they believe. They have the version that 1:30:58.720 --> 1:31:00.760 they tell everyone else, which is completely a lie and 1:31:00.840 --> 1:31:02.400 is not what they believe at all. And then it 1:31:02.439 --> 1:31:04.120 has they have the version that they tell to each other, 1:31:04.200 --> 1:31:06.320 which is what they actually believe, and they completely they 1:31:06.320 --> 1:31:09.760 contradict each other completely. They mostly believe things. Everything that 1:31:09.760 --> 1:31:11.760 they say in public is just a complete lie. And 1:31:11.760 --> 1:31:13.720 that I think that's what he's doing here, which is 1:31:13.720 --> 1:31:16.080 that this that like that history of the Internet is 1:31:16.080 --> 1:31:18.880 the one you sell the public consumption, because yeah, that 1:31:18.960 --> 1:31:20.720 that's that's that's the lie you tell people to take 1:31:20.720 --> 1:31:22.720 money from them. And then he has the thing that 1:31:22.760 --> 1:31:25.639 he believes, which he will not ever tell you because 1:31:26.080 --> 1:31:27.800 you know if if if he tells you what like 1:31:27.880 --> 1:31:29.559 he actually wanted to do, you would run screaming from 1:31:29.560 --> 1:31:33.920 the room. And you can read between what he wants 1:31:33.960 --> 1:31:37.160 you to believe. I think is made very clear by 1:31:37.240 --> 1:31:39.479 how he divides, by the fact that when he starts 1:31:39.560 --> 1:31:41.200 like dividing up the ages of the Internet, he says, 1:31:41.240 --> 1:31:43.360 the first one is the time in which people wanted 1:31:43.400 --> 1:31:46.080 information to be free. And what he's kind of saying 1:31:46.160 --> 1:31:48.360 by doing that is thing like that was an infant 1:31:48.479 --> 1:31:52.280 stage of the Internet. And obviously the natural evolution of 1:31:52.320 --> 1:31:54.840 the Internet is for every single thing on it to 1:31:54.880 --> 1:31:58.080 become monetized. And because I also believe the Internet should 1:31:58.120 --> 1:32:00.600 be every aspect of our lives, like this is megaverse 1:32:00.640 --> 1:32:02.679 guy or a metaverse guy, like I think the Internet 1:32:02.680 --> 1:32:05.720 should should be involved in every aspect of life. That 1:32:05.760 --> 1:32:09.559 means every aspect of life should be financialized. Um, and 1:32:09.640 --> 1:32:13.840 that's extremely radical, but it does not sound that way. 1:32:13.880 --> 1:32:17.040 When you describe it that way, people's heads go over it. 1:32:17.080 --> 1:32:19.320 But like, what he's saying is deeply radical. And I 1:32:19.360 --> 1:32:22.160 think also like again, you want to talk about like 1:32:22.200 --> 1:32:25.160 the first and not just the early age, because the 1:32:25.479 --> 1:32:27.360 first people who kind of built the backbone of the 1:32:27.400 --> 1:32:32.720 Internet were mostly like very radically anti uh capitalizing on 1:32:32.840 --> 1:32:35.160 like there was this idea that like it absolutely should 1:32:35.160 --> 1:32:37.920 be as free as possible. Like Steve Wozniak, the guy 1:32:37.960 --> 1:32:42.360 who functionally invented the personal computer, had a background like 1:32:42.560 --> 1:32:45.559 as a phone freaker, like literally literally robbing phone companies 1:32:45.600 --> 1:32:47.439 to get like free phone calls and stuff like these, 1:32:47.680 --> 1:32:50.720 Like most of the early Internet pioneers were like some 1:32:50.800 --> 1:32:55.120 kind of criminal um And the early ages of like 1:32:55.200 --> 1:32:59.160 Internet content being monetized mostly started with people doing ship 1:32:59.400 --> 1:33:01.679 for free. Like that was how the people who made 1:33:01.680 --> 1:33:03.640 money on it. That's how all of my bosses and 1:33:03.640 --> 1:33:05.320 that's how fucking I got started. Was like you would 1:33:05.320 --> 1:33:06.920 just start making ship and you would put it out 1:33:06.960 --> 1:33:10.960 for free, and eventually like that would get enough traffic 1:33:11.040 --> 1:33:14.120 that you you you you draw ads to you and whatnot, 1:33:14.200 --> 1:33:16.679 and you'd make money. But it was always like all 1:33:16.720 --> 1:33:19.040 of the content that that made the Internet, and all 1:33:19.040 --> 1:33:22.240 of the content creators who were huge now mostly started 1:33:22.880 --> 1:33:25.000 um doing something like even it was just like throwing 1:33:25.080 --> 1:33:27.880 up videos on YouTube, right or like going on. And 1:33:28.160 --> 1:33:30.800 that's that's less the case with the zoomers now because 1:33:30.800 --> 1:33:33.360 a lot of them got started on at things like 1:33:33.360 --> 1:33:35.880 like twitch, where the idea is to from the beginning 1:33:35.920 --> 1:33:38.639 be trying to monetize yourself and while you're like building 1:33:38.640 --> 1:33:42.719 a brand, you're constantly monetized. But that's a really recent change, 1:33:42.760 --> 1:33:45.639 and I actually I find it kind of unsettling because 1:33:45.680 --> 1:33:48.280 that was I don't know, it's a mix because I'm 1:33:48.320 --> 1:33:50.840 certainly not of the I'm not of the of the 1:33:50.880 --> 1:33:53.040 mind that like, if someone is asking you to do work, 1:33:53.080 --> 1:33:55.120 you should be getting paid for it. But if you 1:33:55.160 --> 1:33:58.759 are trying to if you are trying to like build 1:33:58.760 --> 1:34:01.360 a life as a creator, the best way to do 1:34:01.400 --> 1:34:03.519 that creatively is to just make the things that you 1:34:03.560 --> 1:34:07.559 think are cool and then make like if if other 1:34:07.600 --> 1:34:10.120 people like it, you make money. Like better things get 1:34:10.200 --> 1:34:12.840 made than that that like that that is the way 1:34:12.880 --> 1:34:15.200 the best art gets made. I think it's a few 1:34:15.200 --> 1:34:18.000 things going on here because like the way I think, 1:34:18.120 --> 1:34:19.840 like I think. Actually, the reason why he frames it 1:34:19.880 --> 1:34:21.600 this way is because he's trying to get back to 1:34:21.960 --> 1:34:24.880 his idea of freedom. Right. He describes like the golden 1:34:24.920 --> 1:34:28.040 age of the Internet being information flowing freely. He thinks 1:34:28.080 --> 1:34:30.120 that the blockchain is a new version of that. So 1:34:30.160 --> 1:34:32.439 that's why he's framing it in this way. The second 1:34:32.520 --> 1:34:36.000 thing is in terms of artists and creators. Um, if 1:34:36.040 --> 1:34:37.800 you think about like, yeah, like when like the when 1:34:37.800 --> 1:34:40.439 the early age of what he calls like the of 1:34:40.479 --> 1:34:41.760 what we we kind of all been refrained to it. 1:34:41.840 --> 1:34:43.680 Like the second area when like era of like when 1:34:43.680 --> 1:34:47.439 social media and like content creation like sites are a thing. 1:34:47.600 --> 1:34:51.000 That's like just use YouTube as an example. Um. Because 1:34:51.080 --> 1:34:53.679 there was a low saturation and content, it was easier 1:34:53.720 --> 1:34:56.360 for someone to rise up and gain a platform. Let's 1:34:56.360 --> 1:34:58.240 say someone like Bo Burnham right, who started as just 1:34:58.280 --> 1:35:02.200 a kid and now is like a very popular comedian. Um. 1:35:02.240 --> 1:35:06.679 But then YouTube instead of backing creators like that, um, 1:35:06.720 --> 1:35:08.320 which they did a little bit, but they did not 1:35:08.439 --> 1:35:11.920 as much. They instead started, uh. Like the thing that 1:35:12.000 --> 1:35:16.800 happened was like, uh, YouTube really incentivizing sharing like late 1:35:16.920 --> 1:35:20.320 night content and sharing like like TV clips of TV 1:35:20.439 --> 1:35:23.920 shows and like using like doing using legacy media on 1:35:23.960 --> 1:35:26.240 their platform. And that's the things they really backed. That's 1:35:26.280 --> 1:35:28.120 the things they really pushed into your feet. It's like 1:35:28.280 --> 1:35:31.439 tonight show clips. UM. So a lot of those original 1:35:31.560 --> 1:35:34.120 original content creators kind of got left behind and hour 1:35:34.320 --> 1:35:36.080 are now like just their own are running on their 1:35:36.080 --> 1:35:38.759 own personal brands, some of them use Patreon for example. 1:35:39.120 --> 1:35:41.439 But it's also it's impossible to do this now because 1:35:41.439 --> 1:35:44.280 there's an oversaturation of content. The only thing that's done 1:35:44.280 --> 1:35:46.839 this recently is TikTok because it was a brand new platform. 1:35:47.000 --> 1:35:49.160 There was again a new opportunity for a lot of 1:35:49.240 --> 1:35:52.519 kids to gain to gain a lot of audiences really quickly. 1:35:52.720 --> 1:35:55.400 I mean, I just I to based on what you're saying, 1:35:55.400 --> 1:35:58.040 I think that like TikTok is the closest to how 1:35:59.560 --> 1:36:02.920 couch it happened on the Internet before everything, because because 1:36:02.920 --> 1:36:05.479 it is like, you're not starting from like everyone starts. 1:36:05.479 --> 1:36:07.240 I guess knowing you could make money, but that was 1:36:07.280 --> 1:36:09.200 the same way you start because you're like you're doing 1:36:09.200 --> 1:36:11.519 a thing, and if that thing takes off, then there's 1:36:11.520 --> 1:36:14.479 ways to monetize and like that. Yeah, I think that's 1:36:14.720 --> 1:36:17.479 why probably white bar white is so popular. Generally, growth 1:36:17.520 --> 1:36:21.080 on TikTok is pretty Uh, it's pretty organic. It's not 1:36:21.160 --> 1:36:23.960 it's not it's not boosted by big brands, uh, the 1:36:24.040 --> 1:36:26.479 same way you know, stuff like YouTube is, and now 1:36:26.520 --> 1:36:28.840 it's probably gonna be edging in that direction. But it's 1:36:28.880 --> 1:36:30.720 it's it's it's not, it's it's not there yet. So 1:36:31.320 --> 1:36:33.840 and his argument in this is to get back to 1:36:33.920 --> 1:36:36.760 just being like a small content creator getting your stuff seen. 1:36:37.240 --> 1:36:39.599 His solution to this problem of like YouTube and stuff 1:36:39.640 --> 1:36:43.000 backing like these large like light night shows and back 1:36:43.000 --> 1:36:45.960 in these large like corporately funded things. His solution is 1:36:45.960 --> 1:36:47.719 that if you're a small if you're a small content creator, 1:36:47.840 --> 1:36:51.280 you should sell yourself as an asset to other people 1:36:51.360 --> 1:36:53.880 on the internet. Right, So, because like his his idea 1:36:54.120 --> 1:36:56.440 is that he wants to get rid of the gatekeepers 1:36:56.439 --> 1:36:58.479 of the Internet and go back to how the Internet was. 1:36:58.760 --> 1:37:01.559 But his solution for doing that is just by selling 1:37:01.640 --> 1:37:04.920 you as a person brand to other people on the 1:37:04.960 --> 1:37:07.920 Internet who are like tech bro investors. So that that's 1:37:07.960 --> 1:37:10.400 why it's framed this specific way. So I think when 1:37:10.400 --> 1:37:12.280 we're all are like talking about like, why does he 1:37:12.320 --> 1:37:14.559 describe it this way, what's all this weird stuff going on, 1:37:14.680 --> 1:37:18.360 It's because that's how he's rationalized in his brain, is 1:37:18.680 --> 1:37:21.599 for how what he thinks being a free artist is, 1:37:22.040 --> 1:37:23.439 and he thinks this is going to be the new 1:37:23.479 --> 1:37:27.759 method to get there. There's another important sort of macro 1:37:28.000 --> 1:37:30.559 thing to think about this year, which is that the 1:37:30.640 --> 1:37:33.480 underlying basis of all of this right is the assumption 1:37:33.640 --> 1:37:37.240 that everyone is an entrepreneur, is that you know, like 1:37:37.240 --> 1:37:39.320 every everyone is doing all of their stuff at all 1:37:39.360 --> 1:37:41.000 times because they want, you know, in order to be 1:37:41.040 --> 1:37:45.000 a business owner. And this has been like you know this, 1:37:44.720 --> 1:37:47.960 this has been the great ideological victory of the right 1:37:48.040 --> 1:37:50.599 in the last fifty years, is that they convinced everyone 1:37:51.240 --> 1:37:54.519 that like every single person is you know, like you're 1:37:54.920 --> 1:37:57.519 stime temporary embarrassed Millonariy syndrome. It's like even people who 1:37:57.720 --> 1:38:01.800 are working jobs, right, like working wage labor jobs, think 1:38:01.840 --> 1:38:04.400 of themselves as you know, content creators. And a content creator, 1:38:04.439 --> 1:38:07.559 you know, is a small business owner. And this has 1:38:07.720 --> 1:38:10.280 an immensely coercive while I'll a coerse or two, but 1:38:10.320 --> 1:38:13.640 corrosive effect on you know, anyone working together to do 1:38:13.720 --> 1:38:16.800 something because you know, oh, you're not you're not you're 1:38:16.840 --> 1:38:19.240 not a worker, You're just like you're a content creator, 1:38:19.320 --> 1:38:22.080 You're you know, you're a small business owner. You're like 1:38:22.600 --> 1:38:26.400 you know, you what and and and that's you know this, 1:38:26.400 --> 1:38:29.439 This is a very long running thing that once of 1:38:29.439 --> 1:38:32.559 incredibly powerical people have been trying to do really since 1:38:32.680 --> 1:38:37.839 like i mean arguably like the thirties, but the complete 1:38:37.880 --> 1:38:39.800 success of that and the way that you know, they're 1:38:39.840 --> 1:38:41.960 they're they're selling exactly the same thing that they were 1:38:42.000 --> 1:38:45.920 selling in like the eighties, but now it's this like, 1:38:46.120 --> 1:38:47.360 you know, you're trying to get people to do it 1:38:47.360 --> 1:38:49.680 to themselves. And also they throw all of this like 1:38:50.040 --> 1:38:54.240 sort of nonsense tech jargon at you to get you 1:38:54.280 --> 1:38:56.240 to sort of like stop looking at the fact that 1:38:56.280 --> 1:38:59.000 this is just sort of you know, this is this 1:38:59.080 --> 1:39:03.080 is this is just the the new, even worse version 1:39:03.320 --> 1:39:06.479 of everyone being a worker who thinks that they're like, 1:39:07.720 --> 1:39:10.360 you know, also going to be a SMO this owner someday. Yeah. 1:39:10.680 --> 1:39:12.600 I don't know, I don't have anything else really to 1:39:12.640 --> 1:39:15.240 say about it other than this, but like, I mean, 1:39:15.240 --> 1:39:17.360 this was a good amount to say. I just think 1:39:17.400 --> 1:39:21.479 this is so I think it's such an example of 1:39:21.560 --> 1:39:23.479 kind of the way in which the worst people in 1:39:23.479 --> 1:39:25.800 the world are trying to steer the internet, um, and 1:39:25.840 --> 1:39:29.559 by steering the Internet, steer the soul of like the 1:39:29.640 --> 1:39:33.080 human race. Um. Like this is a vision of the 1:39:33.120 --> 1:39:35.360 future this guy is sharing. And this article that I 1:39:35.560 --> 1:39:39.160 isn't isn't positioning itself as radical, but includes some like 1:39:39.479 --> 1:39:42.080 deeply radical ideas about how the world should go. And 1:39:42.120 --> 1:39:44.040 by the way, I should also note that he's also 1:39:44.160 --> 1:39:46.320 just like blatantly wrong every time he brings up a 1:39:46.400 --> 1:39:49.160 number UM like he taught he he points out in 1:39:49.160 --> 1:39:53.040 this article that forty six million Americans own cryptocurrency. The 1:39:53.080 --> 1:39:55.559 real number is more likely about one million kind of 1:39:55.560 --> 1:39:57.720 it at most, like by every credible I have no 1:39:57.800 --> 1:40:01.880 idea where he's getting forty six milli in Americans own cryptocurrency. 1:40:02.200 --> 1:40:05.920 And again, the stat just came out, and that's part 1:40:05.920 --> 1:40:08.720 of his argument is that like, obviously people love the 1:40:08.760 --> 1:40:11.040 blockchain and these tokens, and like this is this is 1:40:11.080 --> 1:40:14.599 inevitably going to get more and more popular um and 1:40:14.600 --> 1:40:17.120 when again, the reality is that every real thing that's 1:40:17.160 --> 1:40:20.400 happening on the on the blockchain is pretty much versions 1:40:20.439 --> 1:40:22.839 of a security scam that the government has just announced 1:40:22.840 --> 1:40:25.800 they're going to finally start regulating. But yeah, I wanna 1:40:26.120 --> 1:40:28.240 so that the stat the study that just came out 1:40:28.280 --> 1:40:31.320 today was that analysis of six point one million trades 1:40:31.360 --> 1:40:33.640 of like four point seven million n f t s. 1:40:34.040 --> 1:40:36.280 It shows that the top ten percent of traders were 1:40:36.320 --> 1:40:40.960 responsible for of trading UM, which again is more evidence 1:40:41.040 --> 1:40:44.720 that all that's happening is people boosting prices also the average, 1:40:45.000 --> 1:40:47.960 the vast majority, like more of an FT sales are 1:40:48.000 --> 1:40:49.880 for less than two hundred dollars. Some of them are 1:40:49.920 --> 1:40:53.120 for just pennies. Like what the stuff that you're hearing 1:40:53.160 --> 1:40:58.360 about is all ridiculous outliers, and its outliers specifically because 1:40:58.360 --> 1:41:00.680 people are pumping stuff up in order to try to 1:41:00.720 --> 1:41:03.680 call on someone um. And that's the whole basis of 1:41:03.720 --> 1:41:07.839 this guy's the structural argument, the reason that he's attempting 1:41:07.880 --> 1:41:11.400 to argue that like there's actually desire here and that 1:41:11.520 --> 1:41:13.439 this is in fact the future of the Internet is 1:41:13.479 --> 1:41:17.400 based entirely upon like numbers that are either bad or 1:41:17.439 --> 1:41:22.240 he's or he's deliberately using he's deliberately lying about the 1:41:22.320 --> 1:41:25.439 numbers because there is no credible number evidence I've ever 1:41:25.479 --> 1:41:29.040 heard that forty six million Americans currently owned cryptocurrency or 1:41:29.080 --> 1:41:32.559 even have ever owned cryptocurrency. Yeah, and I think the 1:41:32.600 --> 1:41:34.360 other kind of nail on the coffin for this idea 1:41:34.400 --> 1:41:35.920 and why I don't think it's going to catch on 1:41:36.000 --> 1:41:37.920 the same way these guys think it think it does. 1:41:38.000 --> 1:41:40.320 And this is something he acknowledges in the article, is 1:41:40.360 --> 1:41:43.280 like not a lot of people know how the stockic 1:41:43.400 --> 1:41:46.000 change works, Like very like he he says, I think 1:41:46.000 --> 1:41:48.080 it's like I don't know, like he I forget that 1:41:48.120 --> 1:41:50.720 what number he says, but um, but he says like 1:41:50.760 --> 1:41:53.160 not not tons of people actually use or know what 1:41:53.160 --> 1:41:57.320 the stockic stockic changes. Um. And the reason why Patreon 1:41:57.439 --> 1:41:59.800 was so successful and why it's so useful for content 1:42:00.000 --> 1:42:02.160 it is because it's a very intuitive system. It's very 1:42:02.160 --> 1:42:04.439 clear how it works, it's clear what you're doing. There's 1:42:04.479 --> 1:42:06.519 no really questions about where your money is going or 1:42:06.560 --> 1:42:09.120 what's happening this. I don't think this is ever I 1:42:09.120 --> 1:42:10.840 don't think this whole personal investment thing is ever going 1:42:10.880 --> 1:42:13.600 to actually go off because people don't understand what the 1:42:13.600 --> 1:42:15.600 blockchain is and it's too much work to explain it 1:42:15.600 --> 1:42:18.559 to them. Um. And just because of how much work 1:42:18.600 --> 1:42:20.479 it is to wrap your mind around, like so where 1:42:20.520 --> 1:42:22.559 is my money going? What do I have to set up? 1:42:22.600 --> 1:42:24.559 How does that work? That's way too much of a headache. 1:42:24.640 --> 1:42:26.400 Because in order for this to actually work, you need 1:42:26.560 --> 1:42:28.840 this to break out of the tech bro bubble or 1:42:28.840 --> 1:42:31.479 else this is just gonna be this small tech brow 1:42:31.560 --> 1:42:33.720 thing of people handing over the same one dollars to 1:42:33.720 --> 1:42:36.120 all their friends in a circle. Um, which is what 1:42:36.160 --> 1:42:38.760 it is currently, and I in order to break out 1:42:38.760 --> 1:42:41.439 of that circle, they need to get you know, your 1:42:41.479 --> 1:42:44.720 grandmother to learn what crypto is and how blockchains work. 1:42:45.240 --> 1:42:47.800 And that's not gonna happen. Um. So I think that 1:42:47.880 --> 1:42:49.360 is the one other nail in the coffin for this 1:42:49.400 --> 1:42:53.000 type of idea is like Patreon is easy, Patreon makes sense. 1:42:53.160 --> 1:42:56.640 This thing it is not nearly as intuitive for supporting 1:42:56.800 --> 1:43:00.000 a YouTuber you like, yeah, oh, okay, cool. I actually 1:43:00.120 --> 1:43:03.360 found evidence on where that forty six million Americans number 1:43:03.400 --> 1:43:06.360 comes from. Yeah, so basically number one. I found like 1:43:06.680 --> 1:43:09.200 a fucking crypto news source pointing out that, like when 1:43:10.240 --> 1:43:13.320 people started tweeting that forty six million Americans is based 1:43:13.320 --> 1:43:14.920 on a study we'll talk about a second, but like 1:43:14.960 --> 1:43:18.000 when people started tweeting about this, like the immediate response 1:43:18.320 --> 1:43:22.800 in the bitcoin subredit was like, well, that's not fucking possible. Uh. 1:43:22.920 --> 1:43:25.559 Like one of the people in the bitcoin subred it said, 1:43:25.600 --> 1:43:27.639 sounds very high. I don't know a single person who 1:43:27.640 --> 1:43:29.960 owns it. And this says woman, six or seven people 1:43:30.000 --> 1:43:34.519 own it. Yeah, And and it comes from a study 1:43:34.560 --> 1:43:38.599 conducted in January by the New York Digital Investment Group 1:43:39.320 --> 1:43:43.760 servying a thousand participants with incomes over fifty dollars, so 1:43:44.960 --> 1:43:49.599 that that seems valid. Wait, they just said it's over 1:43:49.720 --> 1:43:53.880 fifty This is okay, this method, Yeah, this this method. 1:43:53.920 --> 1:43:55.719 You will get a few like Pew released to studies 1:43:55.760 --> 1:43:59.439 suggesting that like six of Americans have used cryptocurrency at 1:43:59.439 --> 1:44:02.439 some point, and like all of what's coming out as 1:44:02.520 --> 1:44:06.080 kind of sketchy, all of the data. There's like reasons 1:44:06.120 --> 1:44:08.160 to be kind of unsettled about it. But also like 1:44:08.720 --> 1:44:10.280 one of the things that you studies showed is that 1:44:10.320 --> 1:44:14.000 the vast majority of Americans have heard of cryptocurrency, uh, 1:44:14.040 --> 1:44:17.920 and most haven't used it, Like the vast majority have 1:44:18.080 --> 1:44:21.160 not chosen to get involved. Like, however accurate you think 1:44:21.200 --> 1:44:24.040 this is? Like there's another article coming out that says 1:44:24.240 --> 1:44:26.040 that came out and I guess May of this year. 1:44:26.120 --> 1:44:29.479 That's said that's based on a Gemini study, which is 1:44:29.520 --> 1:44:32.400 Gemini is a crypto exchange that over fifty million Americans 1:44:32.479 --> 1:44:35.560 are likely to buy crypto in the next year, um, 1:44:35.600 --> 1:44:38.720 which doesn't seem to have happened. Uh, Like I I 1:44:38.760 --> 1:44:41.639 just don't see. There's all sorts of like weird little 1:44:41.640 --> 1:44:46.160 studies commissioned to buy weird little groups. But it really doesn't. 1:44:46.200 --> 1:44:49.479 It seems like it's it's again kind of part of 1:44:49.479 --> 1:44:52.040 the grift. Like I'm not seeing a lot of rigor 1:44:52.120 --> 1:44:56.200 in any of this um anyway, whatever, We've talked enough 1:44:56.240 --> 1:44:58.960 about this ship. I just I think we all as 1:44:59.000 --> 1:45:00.680 soon as we read the article, well we're so like 1:45:00.880 --> 1:45:03.040 appalled by it that what we should probably we talk 1:45:03.080 --> 1:45:19.519 about this for forty five minutes. Yeah, welcome to It 1:45:19.520 --> 1:45:22.120 Could Happen Here, a podcast about how society is following 1:45:22.160 --> 1:45:24.799 apart and about how to put it back together again. 1:45:25.120 --> 1:45:28.040 I'm your host, Christopher Long and Today and for the 1:45:28.040 --> 1:45:31.720 next few days, we're doing something a bit different. We're 1:45:31.760 --> 1:45:33.320 going to take a deep dive too some of the 1:45:33.360 --> 1:45:36.360 people who got us into the mess we're in today. Now. 1:45:36.880 --> 1:45:39.040 When we've talked about our enemies and it could Happen here, 1:45:39.040 --> 1:45:42.600 we've mostly focused on fascism, and for good reason. But 1:45:42.680 --> 1:45:45.280 for the next few days we're focusing on a different enemy. 1:45:45.880 --> 1:45:52.080 Don't worry, the Nazis will show up. That enemy is neoliberalism. 1:45:52.120 --> 1:45:54.840 New liberalism is the single most successful political movement of 1:45:54.840 --> 1:45:58.679 the twenty centuries. No other political movement in human history 1:45:58.680 --> 1:46:02.360 has directly controlled so much of the globe. It is outmaneuvered, outlasted, 1:46:02.439 --> 1:46:05.120 or simply destroyed every ideology that sought to oppose it, 1:46:05.640 --> 1:46:10.599 and has reigned virtually unchallenged for fifty years. After exploded 1:46:10.640 --> 1:46:13.800 on the political scene in Chili, their victory has been 1:46:13.840 --> 1:46:16.320 so total that even the earthWhile opponents have adopted its 1:46:16.320 --> 1:46:20.840 core principles. Margaret Thatcher famously bragged that her proudest accomplishment 1:46:20.880 --> 1:46:24.080 was creating Tony Blair, basking in the irony that neoliberalism 1:46:24.120 --> 1:46:26.519 would be implemented across the globe, in large part by 1:46:26.600 --> 1:46:31.160 labor and socialist parties. Today, even erstwhile communist countries maintained 1:46:31.200 --> 1:46:35.040 so called special economic zones with the laws of neoliberalism 1:46:35.120 --> 1:46:37.960 are allowed to run rampant in exchange for GDP increases, 1:46:38.360 --> 1:46:40.360 and their communist supporters in the West have come to 1:46:40.439 --> 1:46:43.720 belief that capitalism is a far more powerful engine of 1:46:43.720 --> 1:46:47.320 economic development and the state planning advocated by their forebearers, 1:46:47.760 --> 1:46:50.760 thus internalizing the greatest principle of neoliberalism even as they 1:46:50.760 --> 1:46:54.519 clan to oppose it. All of this, of course, raises 1:46:54.560 --> 1:46:58.800 two questions, what actually is neoliberalism and how did it 1:46:58.840 --> 1:47:02.000 come to rule the world today. We're going to try 1:47:02.000 --> 1:47:04.519 to answer the first question by looking back at the 1:47:04.520 --> 1:47:09.000 original neoliberals and examining what they believed, because it's not 1:47:09.040 --> 1:47:11.719 what you think. There are many places you can begin 1:47:11.760 --> 1:47:16.720 the story of neoliberalism. I'm choosing to start in France ninety. Now, 1:47:16.840 --> 1:47:19.160 the nineteen thirties are a bad time to be a 1:47:19.200 --> 1:47:22.000 free trade market liberal. And just to clear this up, 1:47:22.000 --> 1:47:24.960 early liberal in the European context, which is where a 1:47:24.960 --> 1:47:26.800 lot of the beginning of the story takes place, does 1:47:26.800 --> 1:47:28.080 not mean the same thing as it does in the 1:47:28.080 --> 1:47:31.800 American context. European liberalism up to this point is about 1:47:31.840 --> 1:47:35.080 free trade markets, individual liberty and rights, etcetera, etcetera. But 1:47:35.080 --> 1:47:39.960 it's anti state interference. To be somewhat reductive, It's kind 1:47:40.000 --> 1:47:42.840 of closer to what conservatism is in the US, but 1:47:42.960 --> 1:47:46.280 it's not identical. So here that in mind. As the 1:47:46.320 --> 1:47:49.640 story goes on, dirties saw the rise of fascism and 1:47:49.640 --> 1:47:52.559 social democracy and communism, each with his own form of 1:47:52.600 --> 1:47:57.280 government spending and economic planning, which liberals absolutely detested. Now 1:47:57.360 --> 1:48:00.280 the thirties have been full of liberals gathered you try 1:48:00.320 --> 1:48:02.559 to figure out what to do next. In in in seven, 1:48:02.680 --> 1:48:06.000 Walter Lippmann, an American writer who would become most famous 1:48:06.000 --> 1:48:09.479 for inventing the term cold war, wrote a book called 1:48:09.560 --> 1:48:12.519 an Inquiry into the Principles of the Good Society, which 1:48:12.600 --> 1:48:15.760 argued that totalitarianism is a product of not having individual 1:48:15.800 --> 1:48:18.040 private property at the state needs to be limited to 1:48:18.040 --> 1:48:20.920 a ministering justice and not you know, giving people things 1:48:20.920 --> 1:48:23.720 that they need. And so a lot of liberals read 1:48:23.760 --> 1:48:26.519 this and go, oh cool, we should organize a conference 1:48:26.520 --> 1:48:28.680 to talk about this book and our ideas. And the 1:48:28.680 --> 1:48:32.680 product is in et Litman colloquium. Now, a bunch of 1:48:32.720 --> 1:48:35.479 extremely important near liberals show up at this conference, including 1:48:35.920 --> 1:48:40.840 one Friedrich August von Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Wilhelm rope Ki, 1:48:41.000 --> 1:48:44.960 and Alexander Rusto, and they start talking about the need 1:48:45.000 --> 1:48:48.760 for a new kind of liberalism to oppose communism, Kanadianism, fascism, 1:48:48.760 --> 1:48:52.479 and what they call Manchester or Las Fair liberalism, in 1:48:52.560 --> 1:48:55.320 which the state didn't do defeat it all in political 1:48:55.400 --> 1:48:58.800 life and let the economy run an autopilot. Now, the 1:48:58.840 --> 1:49:02.200 German sociologist Alexander Rousteau, who we're going to talk about 1:49:02.240 --> 1:49:05.320 more in a second comes up with the term neo 1:49:05.400 --> 1:49:08.000 liberalism to define the new set of principles that they're 1:49:08.000 --> 1:49:12.080 trying to develop, and they think the new liberalism should 1:49:12.439 --> 1:49:16.240 prioritize the price mechanism, free enterprise, the system of competition, 1:49:16.360 --> 1:49:20.840 and importantly, a strong and impartial state. Now this is 1:49:20.880 --> 1:49:23.760 the origin of new liberalism as a term. And it's 1:49:23.760 --> 1:49:27.000 important to understand two things from the outset, because the 1:49:27.040 --> 1:49:29.280 new liberals are going to spend the next fifty years 1:49:29.360 --> 1:49:33.519 lying about this. One. Near liberalism favors a strong state 1:49:33.560 --> 1:49:36.800 to make the market work. And to new liberalism is 1:49:36.840 --> 1:49:41.240 not the same thing as classical liberalism. Now, new liberals 1:49:41.680 --> 1:49:44.479 essentially invented the whole I make classical liberal thing in 1:49:44.520 --> 1:49:47.200 the fifties. But if you read the original stuff that 1:49:47.240 --> 1:49:49.280 they wrote, if you if you go back to nineties, 1:49:49.320 --> 1:49:51.040 if you go back to nineteen thirties, and you read 1:49:51.080 --> 1:49:53.640 what they write, the new liberals are extremely clear that 1:49:53.640 --> 1:49:56.200 they are not classical liberals and that in fact their 1:49:56.200 --> 1:50:00.280 political project is different from the twentieth century nineteenth entree 1:50:00.439 --> 1:50:03.040 liberal project, in which the state is supposed to be 1:50:03.080 --> 1:50:05.439 a night watchman and not actually interfere in the markets 1:50:05.439 --> 1:50:09.360 at all. The neoliberals, originally before they you know, start 1:50:09.439 --> 1:50:13.400 lying about their actual origins, reject this principle and come 1:50:13.479 --> 1:50:16.040 to believe that, in fact, a strong state is necessary 1:50:16.200 --> 1:50:20.400 to ensure that markets work. So now you have Lenar 1:50:20.439 --> 1:50:25.360 liberalism as a thing, but nothing really happens much until 1:50:25.400 --> 1:50:28.120 after World War two because world were to almost everyone 1:50:28.240 --> 1:50:31.080 is just doing state economic planning. And so, you know, 1:50:31.240 --> 1:50:33.960 all of these people rambling off to the side about how, oh, 1:50:34.080 --> 1:50:37.600 the market is the most efficient way to plan a system. 1:50:37.720 --> 1:50:40.320 Nobody listens to them because they're fighting a war, and 1:50:40.360 --> 1:50:43.400 the way you fight wars is doing state planning. And 1:50:43.479 --> 1:50:45.599 after a world war to the situation for new liberals 1:50:45.680 --> 1:50:48.559 is even worse because having you know, gone through the 1:50:48.600 --> 1:50:54.479 experience of entire society is turning their entire economies and 1:50:54.520 --> 1:50:58.200 systems into planning agencies in order to you know, mobilize 1:50:58.200 --> 1:51:01.200 the total war effort. People will after the war come 1:51:01.240 --> 1:51:02.680 back and go, oh, hey, we can do this to 1:51:02.720 --> 1:51:05.839 other parts of the economy. So this means that everyone, 1:51:05.960 --> 1:51:07.760 and this is not just the communist states, this is 1:51:07.880 --> 1:51:11.080 you know, this is Britain is doing Kanesianism. They're doing planning, 1:51:11.120 --> 1:51:15.240 they're doing state welfare programs, and the New Deal is 1:51:15.240 --> 1:51:18.479 spreading also across the globe. Now in response to all 1:51:18.520 --> 1:51:22.760 of this, Hiak and his allies do two things. The 1:51:22.840 --> 1:51:26.479 first is found in the Chicago School of Economics, and 1:51:26.560 --> 1:51:29.559 the second is to assemble the avengers of taking food 1:51:29.600 --> 1:51:34.240 from children. The mont Pelion Society. The mont Pellion Society 1:51:34.400 --> 1:51:38.280 is the central neoliberal institution, which is a weird thing 1:51:38.400 --> 1:51:40.439 because in a lot of ways it's essentially just a 1:51:40.479 --> 1:51:43.479 closeted debate society intended to allow Neiler both to work 1:51:43.520 --> 1:51:47.720 out their political principles behind closed doors. Now, at this 1:51:47.800 --> 1:51:50.400 first meeting in n a lot of the people from 1:51:50.439 --> 1:51:54.320 the Littman Colloquium are there, but unfortunately some of the 1:51:54.320 --> 1:51:56.920 French members of the Colloquium and some of the people 1:51:56.960 --> 1:52:01.559 from Germany had collaborated with the Nazis, so they were out. 1:52:02.080 --> 1:52:04.599 And this meant that High I get defined new people 1:52:04.640 --> 1:52:08.040 to bring in. And the mont Peleion Society's first meeting 1:52:08.120 --> 1:52:10.479 is the first time you actually have all three major 1:52:10.479 --> 1:52:12.680 schools of neoliberal thought in the same place at the 1:52:12.720 --> 1:52:16.400 same time, arguing with each other. And they can't agree 1:52:16.400 --> 1:52:19.639 on shit. The only thing they can actually agree on 1:52:20.200 --> 1:52:23.840 is to look into more stuff and to get a 1:52:23.880 --> 1:52:28.080 sense of how far away from moderate neoliberalism. The arguments 1:52:28.080 --> 1:52:30.960 that are being had at the Montpellion Society are The 1:52:30.960 --> 1:52:35.280 Montpellion Society has only ever once actually released a single 1:52:35.360 --> 1:52:39.240 statement stating its principles. And this statement was the only 1:52:39.240 --> 1:52:41.360 thing that could be agreed on at the first meeting 1:52:41.400 --> 1:52:43.240 of the Montpellion Society. And I'm just gonna read it. 1:52:43.960 --> 1:52:48.200 This is what they agreed to research. One the analysis 1:52:48.200 --> 1:52:50.759 and explanation of the present crisis so as to reflect 1:52:50.800 --> 1:52:55.439 its essential moral and economic origins. Two the redefinition of 1:52:55.479 --> 1:52:58.080 the state's functions so as to distinguish more clearly between 1:52:58.120 --> 1:53:02.680 the totalitarian and liberal order. Three methods of re establishing 1:53:02.720 --> 1:53:05.680 the rule of law and assuring its developments that individuals 1:53:05.680 --> 1:53:07.800 and groups are not in a position to encroach upon 1:53:07.840 --> 1:53:10.960 the freedom of others and private property rights are not 1:53:11.040 --> 1:53:15.240 allowed to become a basis of predatory power. Four the 1:53:15.320 --> 1:53:19.360 possibility of establishing minimum standards by means not inimical to 1:53:19.520 --> 1:53:23.519 initiative and the functioning of the market. Five Methods of 1:53:23.560 --> 1:53:26.400 combating the misuse of history for the furtherance of creeds, 1:53:26.400 --> 1:53:30.840 hostiles liberty. Six The problem of creating an international order 1:53:30.840 --> 1:53:33.880 conductive to safeguarding of peace and liberty and permitting the 1:53:33.960 --> 1:53:38.160 establishment of harmonious international economic relations. You know, just by 1:53:38.160 --> 1:53:40.720 looking at this you can immediately see signs of how 1:53:40.760 --> 1:53:44.200 far things are going to move. I mean, you know what, 1:53:44.320 --> 1:53:46.200 one of one of the things that they're talking about 1:53:46.320 --> 1:53:49.080 is again they're trying to research whether or not it's 1:53:49.080 --> 1:53:53.000 possible to just give people things without the markets. And 1:53:53.640 --> 1:53:55.840 it's it's it's not just the sort of left quote 1:53:55.880 --> 1:53:57.920 unquote wing of the neoliberals who are arguing about this. 1:53:58.400 --> 1:54:01.240 Hyek in In will be his most famous book, The 1:54:01.280 --> 1:54:03.600 Road to Serve Them, I mean explicitly says, yeah, you 1:54:03.600 --> 1:54:07.200 should just give people food and housing and stuff outside 1:54:07.240 --> 1:54:11.320 of the market. And you know, like today, if literally 1:54:11.320 --> 1:54:13.640 anyone who says this will be accused of socialism. This 1:54:13.720 --> 1:54:15.720 is the neoliberal This is, you know, a large part 1:54:15.760 --> 1:54:22.240 of the neoliberal position in now. I've mentioned briefly that 1:54:22.280 --> 1:54:25.080 there are three schools of neoliberalism, and we're going to 1:54:25.120 --> 1:54:27.200 spend some time looking at them because people have a 1:54:27.240 --> 1:54:31.040 tendency to look at neoliberalism and assume that, oh, it's 1:54:31.120 --> 1:54:34.400 it's it's just the Chicago School of Economics, you know, 1:54:34.480 --> 1:54:36.920 which is the the neo classical schools most famous members 1:54:36.920 --> 1:54:41.240 Melton Friedman and It's true that that's Chicago School are neoliberals, 1:54:41.280 --> 1:54:45.040 but and and this is critical, there's other intellectual schools 1:54:45.040 --> 1:54:49.160 involved in here. And it's not just it's not just economists. 1:54:49.240 --> 1:54:53.040 Neoliberalism from the beginning is a multi disciplinary international project. 1:54:53.280 --> 1:54:55.600 You have lawyers, you have political scientists, you have journalists, 1:54:55.600 --> 1:54:59.880 you have philosophers, you have anthropologists. And the product of 1:55:00.040 --> 1:55:02.680 this is something is an ideology and a philosophy that 1:55:02.760 --> 1:55:06.400 is much deeper, much richer, and much more dangerous than 1:55:06.440 --> 1:55:09.560 just Chicago School alone. The second of the major schools 1:55:09.600 --> 1:55:12.880 is the Austrian School, which is led by Ludokfung Mesas 1:55:12.920 --> 1:55:17.840 and Hyak and maybe most importantly but least well known, 1:55:18.320 --> 1:55:21.520 the third school that we're actually going to be talking 1:55:21.520 --> 1:55:24.800 about today is the German Ordo Liberals, led by Alexander Rousteau, 1:55:24.840 --> 1:55:29.400 who again invented determina liberalism, and Wilheim Ropek, who almost 1:55:29.400 --> 1:55:31.600 no one has ever heard of, but are incredibly important. 1:55:32.200 --> 1:55:34.920 And I'm gonna I'm gonna insert a disclaimer here before 1:55:34.920 --> 1:55:37.160 I get yelled at by by nerds. Yes, I'm aware 1:55:37.160 --> 1:55:39.080 of the public choice theories at the Virginia School. I 1:55:39.120 --> 1:55:40.600 am also aware of at a group of the deal 1:55:40.600 --> 1:55:42.560 lierbals is called the Geneva School, even though they're just 1:55:42.600 --> 1:55:46.120 regular or the liberals. And there's also the rump of 1:55:46.160 --> 1:55:49.040 the neo institutionalists. Um, I don't care about them because 1:55:49.080 --> 1:55:51.600 they're not irrelevant to this story. Please do not you 1:55:51.800 --> 1:55:56.000 yell at me on Twitter. Now, these people have wildly 1:55:56.120 --> 1:55:59.440 divergent beliefs, and so I'm gonna do my best to 1:55:59.440 --> 1:56:03.360 do once sentence summaries of what these people believe. So 1:56:03.680 --> 1:56:08.680 the Chicago School of Neoclassical economics, humans are all knowing, 1:56:08.880 --> 1:56:12.240 calculating gods, rationally optimizing their behavior to get the most 1:56:12.240 --> 1:56:15.280 out of every single human interaction they engage in to 1:56:15.360 --> 1:56:18.480 maximize the utility the product of this infinite freedom to 1:56:18.560 --> 1:56:24.160 choose economic equilibrium. The Austrian school, humans are pig ignorant foxx, 1:56:24.200 --> 1:56:26.560 you know literally nothing and therefore mostly made to bow 1:56:26.640 --> 1:56:29.480 down to the ever changing disequilibrium of the market, which 1:56:29.520 --> 1:56:34.560 is the only thing that can actually process information order liberalism. 1:56:34.600 --> 1:56:37.760 The markets won't create or balance itself because these uncultured 1:56:37.760 --> 1:56:40.720 proletarian swine keep asking for raises instead of focusing on 1:56:40.760 --> 1:56:42.480 the magic of the families. So we have to use 1:56:42.520 --> 1:56:44.680 the state and laws to force people and companies to 1:56:44.720 --> 1:56:48.120 do competition. And these are obviously some what comical summaries 1:56:48.120 --> 1:56:53.280 of it, but these are very very different conceptions of 1:56:53.320 --> 1:56:55.680 what it is to be a human, of whether the 1:56:55.720 --> 1:57:04.600 market occurs naturally or not, of what the market actually is. 1:57:04.600 --> 1:57:06.480 Is it a product, is it an object in and 1:57:06.520 --> 1:57:08.000 of itself? Is it a product? Is it just an 1:57:08.040 --> 1:57:13.720 inevitable product of humans doing whatever humans do? And this 1:57:13.760 --> 1:57:16.400 is part of the reason why it's always almost impossible 1:57:16.440 --> 1:57:20.680 to get the original neal liberal sugree into anything. But 1:57:20.720 --> 1:57:22.320 this is actually one of the strength of the neo 1:57:22.360 --> 1:57:25.840 libal project. The project only works because it uses the 1:57:25.840 --> 1:57:28.200 products of all three branches. You have neo classical attacks 1:57:28.200 --> 1:57:30.840 on the welfare state, Austrian attacks in sexual planning and order, 1:57:30.840 --> 1:57:33.640 liberal theories of the state, and sort of cultural on 1:57:33.680 --> 1:57:37.720 the non economic nature of markets. And you know, when 1:57:37.760 --> 1:57:40.720 one school essentially fails as an explanation for something, they 1:57:40.720 --> 1:57:43.920 can show to another school, and this gives them a 1:57:44.040 --> 1:57:49.360 very wide range of ability to move between crises and 1:57:49.400 --> 1:57:52.200 move between people attacking any of the individual schools because 1:57:52.200 --> 1:57:55.320 they can simply pull out another set of theories. So 1:57:55.600 --> 1:57:57.520 I'm going to talk a little bit more about each 1:57:57.520 --> 1:57:59.440 of the schools, and we're gonna start with the Chicago 1:57:59.480 --> 1:58:02.560 School because is against the most famous, and because I 1:58:02.960 --> 1:58:05.480 think there's a there's another very interesting story here into 1:58:05.520 --> 1:58:11.680 how the Chicago School change from which origins. So one 1:58:11.680 --> 1:58:13.600 of the people who are supposed to be a founding 1:58:13.640 --> 1:58:16.360 member of the Chicago School was a manner in Henry Simmons, 1:58:17.320 --> 1:58:20.360 and Simmons is unlike the rest of the Chicago School 1:58:20.360 --> 1:58:23.480 because he actually believes in things. So I'm going to 1:58:23.520 --> 1:58:27.440 read a couple of quotes from him. Thus, the great 1:58:27.520 --> 1:58:30.800 enemy of democracy is monopoly in all its forms, gigantic 1:58:30.840 --> 1:58:34.960 corporate trade associations and other agencies of price control, trade unions, 1:58:35.040 --> 1:58:39.680 or in general organization and concentration of power within functional classes. 1:58:40.360 --> 1:58:43.720 Here's another one. A monopolist is an implicit thief because 1:58:43.720 --> 1:58:46.400 this possession of market power leads the exchange of commodities 1:58:46.400 --> 1:58:50.920 at prices that do not reflect underlying social scarcities. And 1:58:51.040 --> 1:58:53.000 you know, you can see this sort of one of 1:58:53.000 --> 1:58:56.120 one of the classic neliberal arguments, which is that okay, 1:58:56.160 --> 1:58:57.640 so you have you have, you have the market. The 1:58:57.640 --> 1:59:00.000 market is efficient, and trade unions get in the way 1:59:00.000 --> 1:59:03.880 of the market because their monopoly. But Simmons has what 1:59:04.320 --> 1:59:06.520 kind of looks like from from our prospective of left 1:59:06.520 --> 1:59:09.000 wink critique of monopolies, which is, yeah, okay, giant corps 1:59:09.000 --> 1:59:12.040 monopolies are thieves because they use their market power to 1:59:12.320 --> 1:59:19.120 rob people by charging higher prices, and it's it's I 1:59:19.160 --> 1:59:22.600 genuinely can't say how differently things would have gone if 1:59:22.640 --> 1:59:25.960 Simmons had actually been around to see the Chicago's go through, 1:59:26.000 --> 1:59:30.760 because he commits suicide in neteen forty six, and unlike 1:59:31.440 --> 1:59:34.200 every single other person who was going to be involved 1:59:34.200 --> 1:59:37.280 with the Chicago School from the beginning until now, Simmons 1:59:37.320 --> 1:59:40.560 had a genuine and commitment to democracy and anti monopoly principles. 1:59:41.000 --> 1:59:43.800 But unfortunately he's he dies in nete forty six, and 1:59:43.800 --> 1:59:45.440 by the by, the Chago School is really up and 1:59:45.520 --> 1:59:48.160 running in the fifties, almost everyone involved in it is 1:59:48.240 --> 1:59:51.280 overtly pro monopoly pro cooperation, and are you know that 1:59:51.320 --> 1:59:53.200 they set up an anti trust school. But the thing 1:59:53.200 --> 1:59:55.520 that the anti trust School is arguing is that monopolies 1:59:55.640 --> 1:59:59.000 are actually essentially impossible because competition will just take care 1:59:59.000 --> 2:00:02.080 of everything, and if you try to stop monopolies from happening, 2:00:02.120 --> 2:00:05.680 that will interfere in the economy. Now, this is this 2:00:05.720 --> 2:00:08.200 is the line that Milton Friedman takes, and it's also 2:00:08.280 --> 2:00:11.920 the line of the Vulcar Fund, who are a sort 2:00:11.960 --> 2:00:14.560 of I guess you could call them a charitable organization, 2:00:14.560 --> 2:00:18.520 but it's basically a billionaire slush funds that funds the school. 2:00:19.320 --> 2:00:22.800 And they've had real fights with Simmons Becauseimmons is like, well, okay, 2:00:22.840 --> 2:00:25.200 monopolies are bad. At Vulcars like, well, we're a monopoly, 2:00:25.720 --> 2:00:27.840 so you guys need to actually work for us. And 2:00:27.880 --> 2:00:31.120 by the time Freedman essentially takes over the Chicago School 2:00:31.280 --> 2:00:35.000 and uh night take it over. They're not just intellectual mercenaries. 2:00:35.000 --> 2:00:38.040 They're extremely proud of the fact that they are, in fact, 2:00:38.120 --> 2:00:42.240 pure intellectual mercenary hacks with absolutely dogshit economics. If you've 2:00:42.240 --> 2:00:45.040 ever read just a or you know, if you've ever 2:00:45.080 --> 2:00:47.920 been forced to take an economics class, you took microeconomics. 2:00:48.640 --> 2:00:51.920 That's basically just what Chicago School believes. It's everyone's a 2:00:52.000 --> 2:00:55.280 rational actor. Every every human being spends all of their 2:00:55.320 --> 2:00:57.960 time trying to calculate the maximum utility of anything that 2:00:58.000 --> 2:01:00.800 they do. Everything is a market. Everything functions by supply 2:01:00.840 --> 2:01:05.440 and demand. Markets are perfectly efficient if you just let 2:01:05.480 --> 2:01:08.320 them alone and don't interfere with them. Everything the state 2:01:08.320 --> 2:01:11.560 does interfered with the markets, et cetera, excepted. This is 2:01:13.040 --> 2:01:15.400 this is the thing that is sort of classically understood 2:01:15.400 --> 2:01:18.920 to be neoliberalisms core content. But it's extremely important to 2:01:19.000 --> 2:01:22.120 understand that these are not the only neoliberals, and in fact, 2:01:22.240 --> 2:01:25.600 not only are these not the only neoliberals, this set 2:01:25.600 --> 2:01:28.440 of political principles, to a large extent, is not what 2:01:28.520 --> 2:01:31.640 the neoliberals actually believe. This kind of stuff is essentially 2:01:31.680 --> 2:01:34.960 what they feed the roots. Small states, tax is bad, 2:01:35.000 --> 2:01:38.640 regulation bad. Everything is a market and has always been 2:01:38.640 --> 2:01:42.000 a market, and all human interactions will nevitably produce markets. 2:01:42.320 --> 2:01:45.800 But to understand what neo liberals actually believe, we need 2:01:45.800 --> 2:01:49.280 to talk about the order liberals. Now, the two most 2:01:49.280 --> 2:01:53.520 important order liberals are Wilheim rope K and W. W. Roustau, 2:01:53.680 --> 2:01:57.000 who were both exilis during the Nazi regime. Now, a 2:01:57.000 --> 2:02:00.640 lot of the other order liberals who stay in Nazi 2:02:00.680 --> 2:02:03.160 Germany collaborated with the Nazi regime, which is something that's 2:02:03.200 --> 2:02:05.320 kind of just overlooked and brush to the side when 2:02:05.320 --> 2:02:08.480 people are right about them. But grope Key and Rousseau's 2:02:08.480 --> 2:02:11.720 status as people who you know, fled the Nazis gives 2:02:11.760 --> 2:02:14.600 them a kind of social cache that their colleagues don't have, 2:02:14.640 --> 2:02:18.840 and they become extremely important. Now. In some ways, the 2:02:18.920 --> 2:02:21.960 Order Liberals could be considered the left wing of of 2:02:22.200 --> 2:02:27.400 the neoliberals. They are significantly less harsh on the welfare 2:02:27.440 --> 2:02:29.800 state than other forms of neoliberalism, and this is in 2:02:29.920 --> 2:02:33.200 large part because the Order Liberals are the first new 2:02:33.240 --> 2:02:36.360 liberals to ever actually hold any power, and I think 2:02:36.360 --> 2:02:38.120 people most people tend to think that the first time 2:02:38.160 --> 2:02:40.320 the liberalism was ever implemented was Chile, but that's not 2:02:40.400 --> 2:02:43.880 really true. The Order Liberals are actually very powerful in 2:02:43.880 --> 2:02:48.000 in nineteen fifties Germany. Now, the problem they face is 2:02:48.040 --> 2:02:52.600 that the left is powerful enough in Germany that they 2:02:52.600 --> 2:02:57.280 cannot actually just completely eliminate the welfare state. So their 2:02:57.320 --> 2:02:59.879 solution is to create this thing called the social markets. 2:03:00.880 --> 2:03:03.920 And the Order Liberals get accused of like being crypto 2:03:03.960 --> 2:03:06.560 socialists by a lot of the other Neil liberals, but 2:03:06.600 --> 2:03:09.840 that's not really what's going on. The very important thing 2:03:09.880 --> 2:03:12.320 about the Order Liberals is that, unlike the Chicago School, 2:03:12.480 --> 2:03:16.879 they're not economists. Both Rockey and Rousto or social scientists. 2:03:16.920 --> 2:03:22.200 Russo's a sociologist, and they argue that the state and 2:03:22.240 --> 2:03:25.879 the market alone cannot maintain market society because market society 2:03:25.880 --> 2:03:30.600 produces dislocation, you know, produces atomization, It destroys social cohesion. 2:03:31.240 --> 2:03:34.480 And this means that you need a social, political, and 2:03:34.560 --> 2:03:38.560 sort of cultural framework to maintain it. And their major 2:03:38.600 --> 2:03:42.440 focus is on providing stability and security for the working 2:03:42.480 --> 2:03:45.120 class and a new sense of sort of identity and 2:03:45.160 --> 2:03:48.040 cultural caohiation, because I think if the working class is 2:03:48.080 --> 2:03:52.000 essentially left to itself, it will create massification, cultural decay, 2:03:52.320 --> 2:03:55.360 and eventually the working class return into the proletariat, and 2:03:55.360 --> 2:03:58.600 that will give these either communism or fascism. The order 2:03:58.640 --> 2:04:01.080 liberals believe that there's the there's a kind of natural 2:04:01.160 --> 2:04:04.200 hierarchical order that they're trying to preserve. That this is 2:04:04.920 --> 2:04:09.440 essentially what order means. It means literally order which accords 2:04:09.480 --> 2:04:11.520 with the essence of humans. This means an order in 2:04:11.560 --> 2:04:16.120 which proportioned measure and balance exists. Now they have a 2:04:16.160 --> 2:04:18.320 few ways that they're going to do this rope case 2:04:18.360 --> 2:04:22.120 obsessed with something called structural policy. And structural policy is 2:04:22.160 --> 2:04:24.000 basically the argument that the conditions from markets have to 2:04:24.000 --> 2:04:28.160 be specifically created, and again they're not just economic positions 2:04:28.160 --> 2:04:34.200 of social conditions. And this is fused with Risteau's vital politique, 2:04:34.560 --> 2:04:38.440 which is essentially about that the power of anthropological and 2:04:38.480 --> 2:04:41.760 human aspects of culture and politics beyond the forces of 2:04:41.800 --> 2:04:45.000 production that they think are vital sort of the functioning 2:04:45.000 --> 2:04:47.880 of society. And part of what they're doing here is 2:04:47.880 --> 2:04:50.080 that they want to give something people a cultural thing 2:04:50.440 --> 2:04:53.240 to focus on, so they stop talking about like wages 2:04:53.320 --> 2:04:56.920 and welfare and who owns production. But the combination of 2:04:57.320 --> 2:05:00.600 vital politic and structural policy gets you order liberalism. So 2:05:00.760 --> 2:05:03.440 nominally they focus on individuals, but really what they're focusing 2:05:03.480 --> 2:05:06.440 on as the family, as this quote unquote decentralized engine 2:05:06.440 --> 2:05:10.880 of economic capitalism with small businesses and hopefully small family 2:05:10.920 --> 2:05:13.200 farms as a sort of a political social support base 2:05:13.280 --> 2:05:16.160 for capitalism, which they're they're they're going to promote and 2:05:16.200 --> 2:05:18.800 set against the radicalism of the sort of industrial proletariat. 2:05:20.960 --> 2:05:23.520 And this this sort of middle class that they're aspiring 2:05:23.560 --> 2:05:25.680 to build is extremely important for a number of reasons. 2:05:25.720 --> 2:05:28.800 Partially is a way to diffuse working class tension. Partially 2:05:28.840 --> 2:05:31.000 as a way to sort of offers work or something 2:05:31.000 --> 2:05:33.680 to inspired to, and partly as a way to fuse 2:05:33.800 --> 2:05:38.360 the sort of traditional natural hierarchy with conceptions and britocracy. Now, 2:05:39.320 --> 2:05:44.640 Roka in particular also begins to look for systems outside 2:05:44.680 --> 2:05:48.480 of just the democratic state to sort of create this 2:05:48.560 --> 2:05:52.879 legal apparatus that the neoliberals want to use to impose markets. 2:05:53.080 --> 2:05:57.560 And this is extremely important because a lot of where 2:05:57.600 --> 2:06:00.560 neo liberalism winds are coming from is not from national governments. 2:06:00.600 --> 2:06:02.840 It's from the sort of international bureaucracy. It's from the 2:06:02.880 --> 2:06:04.800 I m F. It's from the World Bank, it's from 2:06:05.200 --> 2:06:09.760 the World Trade Organization, and those groups are controlled by 2:06:09.840 --> 2:06:12.680 by neoliberal lawyers. And Rock is the person who essentially 2:06:12.680 --> 2:06:16.840 first has this idea. Now, the goal of using these 2:06:16.880 --> 2:06:20.240 international legal institutions as a way of creating law, the 2:06:20.320 --> 2:06:22.880 laws to sort of enforce new liberalism is using it 2:06:22.920 --> 2:06:24.720 as a way to sort of get around democracy. And 2:06:24.760 --> 2:06:29.840 I'm going to read this quote from Roque because oh boy, 2:06:30.200 --> 2:06:33.320 does he absolutely not believe in freedom and democracy in 2:06:33.320 --> 2:06:37.480 the way that he and everyone else talks about publicly. 2:06:38.360 --> 2:06:41.280 It is possible that in my opinion of the strong state, 2:06:41.720 --> 2:06:47.560 I am even more fascist, fascististure than you yourself, because 2:06:47.640 --> 2:06:50.680 I would indeed like to see all economic policy decisions 2:06:50.680 --> 2:06:53.840 concentrated in the hand of a fully independent and vigorous state, 2:06:53.920 --> 2:06:57.600 weakened by no pluralist authorities of a corporative kind. I 2:06:57.600 --> 2:07:00.680 see the strength of the state in the intensity, not extensiveness, 2:07:00.680 --> 2:07:04.480 of its economic policies. How the constitutional legal structure of 2:07:04.480 --> 2:07:06.720 such a state should be designed as a question in 2:07:06.760 --> 2:07:09.520 and of itself, for which I have no patent receipt 2:07:09.600 --> 2:07:13.440 to offer. I share your opinion that the old formulas 2:07:13.440 --> 2:07:17.240 of parliamentary democracy have proven themselves useless. People must get 2:07:17.280 --> 2:07:19.240 used to the fact that there is also a presidential 2:07:19.280 --> 2:07:25.560 authoritarian even yes, horrible thing to say, dictatorial democracy. So 2:07:25.960 --> 2:07:28.880 what he's saying there is that's he's he's he's he's 2:07:28.920 --> 2:07:30.520 sending a letter to one of you his friends, and 2:07:30.560 --> 2:07:33.320 he's going, yeah, I'm I'm even more fascist than you are. 2:07:33.360 --> 2:07:36.839 I think that democracy is actually a threat to the market, 2:07:37.320 --> 2:07:40.160 and that in order to avoid authoritarian democracy, we should, 2:07:40.160 --> 2:07:43.040 in fact concentrate all economic decision making power in a 2:07:43.200 --> 2:07:45.600 in the hands of a narrow elite in a strong state, 2:07:46.240 --> 2:07:48.560 which is, you know, the opposite of everything that near 2:07:48.600 --> 2:07:52.360 liberals opened the claim to be supporting, but behind closed doors. 2:07:52.720 --> 2:07:54.600 And we will get into more of this in a second. 2:07:54.760 --> 2:07:59.480 This is what they actually believe. Now. Rok is somewhat 2:07:59.560 --> 2:08:02.320 unique among Neni liberals in that he is racist by 2:08:02.360 --> 2:08:07.080 neoliberal standards. He's just enormously incredibly racist. So for example, 2:08:07.160 --> 2:08:11.680 he he's a massive apartheid dude. And again I want 2:08:11.960 --> 2:08:14.240 I need to point this out. Roku is one of 2:08:14.280 --> 2:08:16.280 the things, is one of the most important neoliberals. He's 2:08:16.280 --> 2:08:18.600 one of the founding members of the Montpellion Society, although 2:08:18.760 --> 2:08:22.240 he gets kicked out for well, he eventually leaves because 2:08:22.240 --> 2:08:26.000 of some disputes he as with Hyak. But you know, 2:08:26.240 --> 2:08:28.560 I'm gonna read some of the things that he says 2:08:28.640 --> 2:08:32.800 about South Africa because they're horrible. Quote, the South African 2:08:32.800 --> 2:08:35.720 negro is not only a man of an utterly different race, 2:08:35.800 --> 2:08:38.560 but at the same time stems from a completely different 2:08:38.600 --> 2:08:42.400 type and level of civilization. He also calls ending apartheid 2:08:42.480 --> 2:08:46.040 quote national suicide. And you know, so she starts saying 2:08:46.040 --> 2:08:48.600 this stuff and the other neoliberals are like, dude, what 2:08:48.680 --> 2:08:51.400 the fuck? So that the oliberal he needs newspaper like 2:08:51.440 --> 2:08:54.320 he wrote for for thirty years, which is like what's 2:08:54.320 --> 2:08:57.560 and published a bunch of students going stop this. This 2:08:57.640 --> 2:09:00.520 is you cannot seriously be supporting a part tied like this. 2:09:01.040 --> 2:09:03.280 And his response in the newspaper is called the n 2:09:03.360 --> 2:09:05.960 z Z and his response is quote these n z 2:09:06.120 --> 2:09:09.160 Z near intellectuals will not be satisfied until they let 2:09:09.160 --> 2:09:12.840 a real cannibals speak now. Rope is one of his friends, 2:09:12.840 --> 2:09:17.080 another MPs member named Hundled. So Hyak looks at ropek 2:09:17.160 --> 2:09:19.880 support for apartheid and is like what the fuck? Like no, 2:09:20.040 --> 2:09:23.840 absolutely not, Like this is horrible. Why why are you 2:09:23.880 --> 2:09:26.000 doing this? You know? To too high X credit that 2:09:26.040 --> 2:09:27.400 this This is the extent of the credit I will 2:09:27.440 --> 2:09:30.840 give Hik in this episode is that he looks at 2:09:30.880 --> 2:09:33.440 just the open overt racism of rocaine is like no. 2:09:34.360 --> 2:09:39.600 And when when he does this Ropek's friends, Hundled says 2:09:39.640 --> 2:09:42.880 that Hyatt quote now advocates one man, one vote in 2:09:43.000 --> 2:09:46.920 race mixing. Now, you can see a lot of things 2:09:46.920 --> 2:09:51.440 here about Okay that are extremely scary. And one of 2:09:51.480 --> 2:09:56.280 those things is that the language that she's speaking this uh, 2:09:56.320 --> 2:10:02.800 the West is committing national suicide. UH, clash of civilizations, 2:10:03.240 --> 2:10:06.480 race war stuff. You know, this is this is Essentially 2:10:06.600 --> 2:10:09.880 the the I mean literally, the national suicide thing is 2:10:09.920 --> 2:10:12.200 what white nationalists say today. And Ropek is in a 2:10:12.240 --> 2:10:13.840 lot of ways of right nationalist. He's just sort of 2:10:13.880 --> 2:10:19.800 a German one. But what's what's really scary about rope 2:10:19.880 --> 2:10:24.000 K is that he's not sort of bound by by 2:10:24.040 --> 2:10:26.040 the sort of strictures of of of a neo class 2:10:26.040 --> 2:10:28.800 cogo new classical economists. For example, he won't propose that 2:10:28.880 --> 2:10:31.840 like the dating market, like like dating should be a market, 2:10:31.920 --> 2:10:33.720 and that rich like men should be able to like 2:10:34.560 --> 2:10:38.200 I go on an app and like like every every 2:10:38.280 --> 2:10:40.640 every single time a person gets into a relationship, it 2:10:40.680 --> 2:10:42.920 should just be entirely based on market exchange and stuff 2:10:42.960 --> 2:10:45.919 like that, because you know, he doesn't think like an economist. 2:10:45.920 --> 2:10:47.880 He thinks about cultural factors, he thinks about sort of 2:10:49.600 --> 2:10:54.280 social factors. But he also he's cracked the code for 2:10:54.280 --> 2:10:56.440 how new liberalism is going to be implemented the way 2:10:56.440 --> 2:11:01.000 you do neoliberalism is near liberalism plus racism, and he 2:11:01.080 --> 2:11:04.960 realizes that you need you know, neoliberalisms actual sort of 2:11:06.920 --> 2:11:11.320 policies right will cause atomization. What causuals with dislocation will 2:11:11.360 --> 2:11:15.600 cause that the existing social structures to society sort of implode. 2:11:15.920 --> 2:11:17.960 And he realizes that in order to get this to work, 2:11:17.960 --> 2:11:19.880 you need you need a spiritual base, You need some 2:11:19.960 --> 2:11:24.000 kind of new thing that you can use to to 2:11:23.840 --> 2:11:27.160 to sort of bring all these people together. And he 2:11:27.240 --> 2:11:32.320 ficks Catholicism, which doesn't work because I mean, there's never 2:11:32.360 --> 2:11:34.840 reason for this. But you know, partially it's too early. 2:11:34.920 --> 2:11:38.040 Partially it's because he picks a Catholicism, not evangelicalism. But 2:11:38.680 --> 2:11:40.680 this is how the neoliberals are eventually going to take 2:11:40.680 --> 2:11:43.920 power by you know, aligning themselves with the evangelicals who 2:11:43.920 --> 2:11:46.080 promised to solve the atomization. They're creating with you know, 2:11:46.160 --> 2:11:50.920 religion and family and the patriarchy. And he figures this 2:11:51.040 --> 2:11:56.480 out in like the sixties, but it's just you know, 2:11:56.600 --> 2:11:58.920 like twenty years before the rest of the levels figured out. 2:12:00.320 --> 2:12:03.440 Now there's you know, he also, Okay, has like a 2:12:03.480 --> 2:12:05.480 bunch of very similar stuff that he thinks about this 2:12:05.640 --> 2:12:10.560 about Rhodesia. But interestingly, he has more support for his 2:12:10.600 --> 2:12:13.200 positions on Rhodesia than he does for his positions in 2:12:13.240 --> 2:12:16.080 South Africa. And now I'm gonna we're gonna jump back 2:12:16.080 --> 2:12:19.200 to Chicago School. We're gonna read some Milton Friedman stuff 2:12:19.240 --> 2:12:24.760 about Rhodesia because dear God, quote, majority rule for Rhodesia 2:12:24.840 --> 2:12:28.000 today is a euphemism for a black minority government, which 2:12:28.000 --> 2:12:30.560 would almost surely mean both the eviction or exodus of 2:12:30.640 --> 2:12:33.840 most of the whites and also a drastically lower living 2:12:34.200 --> 2:12:37.560 level and opportunity for the black masses of Rhodesia. Here's 2:12:37.560 --> 2:12:40.600 another one where he's describing the system of one person, 2:12:40.720 --> 2:12:44.560 one vote, quote, a system of highly weighted voting in 2:12:44.600 --> 2:12:47.600 which special interests of far greater role to play than 2:12:47.640 --> 2:12:51.120 does the general interest. You know. So that's the decryption 2:12:51.160 --> 2:12:54.840 of what democracy is. In contrast, he thinks the market 2:12:54.840 --> 2:12:59.880 economy is quote a system of effective proportional representation. Now 2:13:00.280 --> 2:13:03.280 Friedman also thinks that, you know, so, so there's there's 2:13:03.320 --> 2:13:06.520 a blockade, like an economic blockade of Rhodesia going on 2:13:06.680 --> 2:13:11.320 because their Rhodesia and they are maybe the worst people ever. 2:13:12.320 --> 2:13:16.160 That's only only in by ald exaggeration. Yeah, it's just 2:13:16.440 --> 2:13:19.839 you know, absolutely fanatical, like what was you promises government. 2:13:20.640 --> 2:13:23.840 And Freedman also calls the isolation of Rhodesia quote the 2:13:23.920 --> 2:13:28.320 suicide of the West. And you know he's doing this 2:13:28.360 --> 2:13:34.440 on racial lines, but he's also doing this along the 2:13:34.480 --> 2:13:39.960 lines of this argument that democracy itself is actually bad, 2:13:40.120 --> 2:13:41.760 and this is the place that he can express it 2:13:41.800 --> 2:13:45.280 because you know, he can leverage racism to get away 2:13:45.320 --> 2:13:48.920 with it. And I'm going to read another Freedman quote 2:13:48.960 --> 2:13:52.560 because I think it's it's important to understand what the 2:13:52.600 --> 2:13:57.040 neoliberals actually think about democracy. Quote. This was sometimes admitted 2:13:57.040 --> 2:13:59.800 by members of Mount Pelion in public, but only when 2:13:59.800 --> 2:14:03.680 they felt that their program was in the sense, let's 2:14:03.680 --> 2:14:06.040 be clear, I don't believe in democracy in one sense. 2:14:06.160 --> 2:14:09.440 You don't believe in democracy. Nobody believes in democracy. You 2:14:09.440 --> 2:14:11.640 will find it hard to find anybody who will say 2:14:11.640 --> 2:14:14.880 that if democracy is interpreted as a majority rule, you 2:14:14.880 --> 2:14:16.960 will find it hard to find anybody who will say 2:14:17.000 --> 2:14:21.640 that of the people believe the other percent of people 2:14:21.680 --> 2:14:25.000 should be shot, that's an appropriate exercise of democracy. But 2:14:25.080 --> 2:14:27.960 I believe is not a democracy but an individual freedom 2:14:27.960 --> 2:14:30.680 in a society in which individuals corroperate with one another. 2:14:31.520 --> 2:14:34.360 So he's he's making a sort of what's in some 2:14:34.400 --> 2:14:36.920 ways a kind of anarchist argument against democracy, which is 2:14:36.960 --> 2:14:39.040 that like, yeah, okay, so if if you interpret democracy 2:14:39.040 --> 2:14:41.160 as premajority rule, that a majority can just do a 2:14:41.280 --> 2:14:44.400 terrible thing the minority. But you know what the new 2:14:44.480 --> 2:14:48.800 lipperals actually mean by this is that of the population could, 2:14:48.960 --> 2:14:52.440 for example, I don't know, take money from the rich 2:14:52.560 --> 2:14:55.440 small part of the of the population and distributed around. 2:14:55.520 --> 2:14:58.680 And they think that is totalitarianism. And in order to 2:14:58.720 --> 2:15:02.440 stop that from happening, they are in fact, absolutely imperfectly 2:15:02.480 --> 2:15:05.840 willing to just back dictatorships. And you know that's in us. 2:15:05.880 --> 2:15:08.880 It's what they what they what they actually want is 2:15:08.880 --> 2:15:11.600 a state, the sole function of which essentially is to 2:15:11.720 --> 2:15:13.840 ensure that nobody ever does this. And you know, if 2:15:14.080 --> 2:15:17.640 you can do this is out of a democratic framework, fine, 2:15:17.720 --> 2:15:20.040 but if you can't, well, I don't know, it's time 2:15:20.080 --> 2:15:22.960 for a coup. We're gonna turn to the two Hyak 2:15:23.000 --> 2:15:25.520 in the Austrians, because Hyak also is known as this 2:15:25.640 --> 2:15:28.520 sort of like as a libertarian, as a person who 2:15:28.560 --> 2:15:33.040 sort of believes in spontaneous order and like thinks that 2:15:33.240 --> 2:15:35.640 I you should you should only have sort of small 2:15:35.720 --> 2:15:42.000 decentralized political institutions. Uh. And so we're gonna watch Hyak 2:15:44.000 --> 2:15:47.480 quote a bunch of stuff from and agree with a 2:15:47.520 --> 2:15:50.480 bunch of stuff from Carl Schmidt, which is again incredible 2:15:50.480 --> 2:15:54.720 because Hyak elsewhere describes Schmidt as quote, uh, the Nazis 2:15:54.800 --> 2:15:58.640 chief jurist, which is true. But here here are some 2:15:58.720 --> 2:16:01.680 other things that Hiak has said about Karl Schmidt. Quote. 2:16:01.960 --> 2:16:04.760 The weakness of the governments of an omnipotent democracy was 2:16:04.880 --> 2:16:08.000 very clearly seen by the extraordinary German student of politics, 2:16:08.080 --> 2:16:11.919 Carl Schmidt, who in the nine twenties probably understood the 2:16:12.040 --> 2:16:14.800 character of the developing form of government better than most people. 2:16:15.880 --> 2:16:17.720 And you know, Hyak believes a lot of the same 2:16:17.720 --> 2:16:19.560 things that Schmick does. So you know, one of them 2:16:20.000 --> 2:16:22.480 things that Schmidt is like big on is that liberalism 2:16:22.480 --> 2:16:25.760 and democracy are opposite things. And Hyak also believes this. 2:16:27.160 --> 2:16:29.040 And okay, so so I'm gonna read I'm gonna read 2:16:29.040 --> 2:16:30.720 some Schmitt, and then we're gonna read some Hyak, and 2:16:30.720 --> 2:16:33.480 they're gonna be saying the same thing. So here, Schmidt, 2:16:33.600 --> 2:16:36.760 only a strong state can preserve and enhance a free markets. 2:16:36.920 --> 2:16:40.360 Only a strong state can generate, generate genuine decentralization and 2:16:40.440 --> 2:16:44.840 bring about free and autonomous domains. Here's Hyak. If we 2:16:44.879 --> 2:16:48.320 proceed on the assumption that only the exercise this is 2:16:48.400 --> 2:16:51.840 of freedom that the majority will are important, we would 2:16:52.160 --> 2:16:54.320 be certain to create a stadiant society with all the 2:16:54.360 --> 2:16:59.240 characteristics of one freedom. So what hi Yak, Yeah, Schmidt 2:16:59.320 --> 2:17:01.560 is saying that only a strong state can support a 2:17:01.640 --> 2:17:04.000 free market and the decentralization. Hyak is saying, if you 2:17:04.080 --> 2:17:09.400 let a democracy exist that has majority rule, it will 2:17:09.520 --> 2:17:14.000 create un freedom. Now we will get into this more 2:17:14.080 --> 2:17:17.240 when we talk about like Chile, because oh boy, is 2:17:17.280 --> 2:17:20.080 there some other ship that Hia cassidy with that. But 2:17:20.959 --> 2:17:23.440 most neoliberals hate democracy, know about it what they say 2:17:23.440 --> 2:17:25.800 in public, and and this is the other important thing here. 2:17:25.879 --> 2:17:29.320 Neo liberals lie, they like constantly. They lie to the 2:17:29.320 --> 2:17:32.040 point where sorting out their actual beliefs becomes almost impossible, 2:17:32.040 --> 2:17:35.240 and even their intellectual enemies believe the lies that they tell. Well, 2:17:35.240 --> 2:17:37.560 most people think the neoliberals believe is that, you know, 2:17:37.560 --> 2:17:40.039 they want a small government and liberty and an unregulated 2:17:40.120 --> 2:17:43.080 market that will occur to actually through spontaneous order, because 2:17:43.080 --> 2:17:45.240 it's human nature to want the truck and barter and 2:17:45.320 --> 2:17:49.160 rationally calculate things. And the neoliberals don't believe any of this. 2:17:49.160 --> 2:17:50.560 This is just what they tell to the roots. What 2:17:50.800 --> 2:17:53.960 they actually want is a large and powerful surveillance in 2:17:54.080 --> 2:17:57.080 legal state in a massive bureaucracy to enforce essentially pro 2:17:57.160 --> 2:18:01.320 corporate policies at gunpoints. Um, I'm I'm gonna read close 2:18:01.360 --> 2:18:05.600 up this episode by by reading a list of things 2:18:05.640 --> 2:18:09.040 that Philip Morowski is an economical story you studies neliberalism. 2:18:09.160 --> 2:18:12.080 His work I've used a lot for for these episodes. 2:18:12.600 --> 2:18:15.880 Wrote about the the sort of, the the sort of 2:18:15.920 --> 2:18:20.879 eleven principles of what newliberals actually believe. One. Free markets 2:18:20.879 --> 2:18:23.680 do not occur naturally. They must be actively constructed through 2:18:23.680 --> 2:18:27.640 political organizing. To the market is an information processor and 2:18:27.800 --> 2:18:30.760 the most efficient one possible, more efficient than any government 2:18:30.840 --> 2:18:33.560 or any single human being could be. Truth can only 2:18:33.560 --> 2:18:37.400 be validated by the market. Three. Market society is, and 2:18:37.440 --> 2:18:40.440 therefore should be, the natural and inexorable state of human kind. 2:18:40.840 --> 2:18:43.240 The political goal of neoliberals is not to destroy this day, 2:18:43.320 --> 2:18:45.240 but to take control of it and to redefine its 2:18:45.240 --> 2:18:47.480 structure and function in order to create and maintain the 2:18:47.520 --> 2:18:52.000 market friendly culture. Five. There is no contradiction between public 2:18:52.040 --> 2:18:56.040 politics citizen and private market entrepreneur consumer, because the latter 2:18:56.120 --> 2:19:00.480 does and should eclipse the former. Six. The most important virtue, 2:19:00.840 --> 2:19:04.760 more important then justice or anything else, is freedom defined 2:19:04.920 --> 2:19:09.120 negatively as freedom to choose, most importantly defined as the 2:19:09.160 --> 2:19:12.440 freedom to acquiesce to the imperatives of the market. Seven. 2:19:12.720 --> 2:19:16.280 Capital has a natural right to flow freely across national borders. Eight. 2:19:16.440 --> 2:19:19.960 Inequality of resources, income, wealth, and even political rights is 2:19:20.000 --> 2:19:23.160 a good thing. It promotes productivity because people envy the 2:19:23.280 --> 2:19:25.720 rich and emulate them. People who complain about inequality are 2:19:25.720 --> 2:19:28.040 either sore looters or old foggies. You need to get 2:19:28.120 --> 2:19:31.880 hip to the way things work nowadays. Nine. Corporations could 2:19:31.879 --> 2:19:34.600 do no wrong. By definition, competition will take care of 2:19:34.600 --> 2:19:39.160 all problems, including any tendency monopoly. Ten. The markets engineered 2:19:39.160 --> 2:19:42.120 and promoted by neoliberal experts can always provide a solution 2:19:42.160 --> 2:19:44.800 to the problems seemingly endlessly caused by the market in 2:19:44.800 --> 2:19:47.640 the first place. There's always an app for that. Eleven 2:19:48.360 --> 2:19:51.400 there's no difference between is and should be free markets. 2:19:51.440 --> 2:19:54.879 Both should be normatively and are positively the most efficient 2:19:54.879 --> 2:19:57.920 economic system and the most just way of doing politics, 2:19:57.959 --> 2:20:00.120 and the most sympirically true description of human beha off 2:20:00.120 --> 2:20:02.160 your and the most ethical and moral way to live, 2:20:02.600 --> 2:20:06.640 which in turn explains, justifies and justifies why there are 2:20:06.879 --> 2:20:11.040 versions of free markets. Should be and as neoliberals build 2:20:11.080 --> 2:20:14.640 more and more power increasingly are universal. Yeah, we we 2:20:14.760 --> 2:20:17.760 we We've read a long list of things. But essentially 2:20:17.840 --> 2:20:19.800 the point of this is that the liberals want to 2:20:19.800 --> 2:20:22.080 transform everything into the market because they think the market 2:20:22.080 --> 2:20:23.680 is a more efficient way of doing things, in a 2:20:23.760 --> 2:20:25.840 better and more moral and more just way of doing 2:20:25.879 --> 2:20:30.040 things than anything else you can possibly imagine, including you know, 2:20:30.440 --> 2:20:34.920 things like democracy and you know, and any problem the 2:20:34.920 --> 2:20:37.800 system like produces will be solved by the system. Now, 2:20:38.120 --> 2:20:41.600 this is this is an incredibly radical political program in 2:20:41.640 --> 2:20:45.160 a lot of ways in that it will you know, 2:20:45.200 --> 2:20:46.840 you can you can you can argue whether it's a 2:20:46.920 --> 2:20:48.959 radical or reactionary program. I mean I think I think 2:20:48.959 --> 2:20:51.000 it's a it's a deeply reactionary one in some ways, 2:20:51.040 --> 2:20:53.120 but it is a is a program that is vastly 2:20:53.120 --> 2:20:56.040 different than anything else that has come before it. Now, 2:20:56.959 --> 2:20:59.400 the challenge, of course, was getting anyone else to agree 2:20:59.400 --> 2:21:02.720 to this, and the answer is that it's really hard 2:21:02.760 --> 2:21:05.800 to It is extremely hard to convince people that, you know, 2:21:06.000 --> 2:21:08.959 everyone should bow down to the market, etcetera, etcetera. And 2:21:09.000 --> 2:21:11.400 so the only way they can actually do this is 2:21:11.400 --> 2:21:17.920 by lying. Now, as as Morowski describes, the neoliberals operate 2:21:17.920 --> 2:21:21.080 an incredibly sophisticated intellectual and political network that forms the 2:21:21.120 --> 2:21:23.360 sort of a choice Goodell with mort Peller own Siety 2:21:23.400 --> 2:21:25.920 at its center, and an ever expanding group of more 2:21:26.000 --> 2:21:29.080 and less specialized think tanks the shell layers. So it 2:21:29.240 --> 2:21:31.960 is where that they mirror the vanguard structure and sort 2:21:31.959 --> 2:21:33.959 of frink group networks of their communist opponents, but they 2:21:33.959 --> 2:21:36.280 have significantly better financial backing. And this means that you know, 2:21:36.320 --> 2:21:39.560 they can run the American Enterprise Institute and uh, you know, 2:21:39.680 --> 2:21:43.840 with with with copious amounts of coke money, they can 2:21:43.920 --> 2:21:46.400 run this entire enormous network of think tanks that allow 2:21:46.480 --> 2:21:48.160 them to sort of act as a government in waiting. 2:21:48.920 --> 2:21:52.080 And the other thing that they're going to attempt to 2:21:52.120 --> 2:21:55.680 do is take over the global regulatory bureaucracy, the I 2:21:55.840 --> 2:21:58.400 m F, the World Bank, eventually welk trade organizations and 2:21:59.760 --> 2:22:05.560 for people to do this at gunpoints by using those organizations. Now, 2:22:05.680 --> 2:22:08.600 all they needed was a crisis that they could use 2:22:08.600 --> 2:22:11.200 to implement their policies. And next week we're going to 2:22:11.280 --> 2:22:13.560 look at the crisis that gave them exactly what they wanted. 2:22:14.320 --> 2:22:16.640 This has been nick. It happen here find us on 2:22:17.120 --> 2:22:20.200 Instagram and on Twitter at Happened Here Pod. Find the 2:22:20.200 --> 2:22:27.840 rest of our stuff at cools Up and goodbye. M 2:22:36.600 --> 2:22:43.640 What's I mean? That's that's all I got today. Who's 2:22:43.680 --> 2:22:48.400 Who's taken over? Come on? It's me? I guess it's me? 2:22:49.000 --> 2:22:51.480 All right? Well then what what show is this? And 2:22:51.560 --> 2:22:54.000 what do we do? This is it could happen here? 2:22:54.120 --> 2:22:58.360 We talked about things being bad and also what you 2:22:58.440 --> 2:23:00.640 can do about them, but this is a this is 2:23:00.680 --> 2:23:03.200 a things are bad episode and not at what you 2:23:03.200 --> 2:23:06.880 can do about them episode? Specifically, this is part two 2:23:07.080 --> 2:23:09.360 of what I guess you could call our mini series 2:23:09.360 --> 2:23:13.440 on neoliberalism. And so you know, yesterday we talked a 2:23:13.440 --> 2:23:17.520 lot about who the originally liberals are. They have a 2:23:17.560 --> 2:23:19.360 bit of power in Germany in the fifties, but for 2:23:19.400 --> 2:23:22.680 the fifties and sixties up to the seventies, they're kind 2:23:22.680 --> 2:23:25.600 of nobody's there. You know, they're they're there. They have 2:23:25.640 --> 2:23:27.039 a couple of think tanks, but they're kind of they're 2:23:27.080 --> 2:23:29.680 kind of just siloed off in the corner and they 2:23:29.760 --> 2:23:32.920 yell at people and people kind of ignore them. And 2:23:33.160 --> 2:23:36.840 what they're waiting for, essentially is the right crisis and 2:23:36.920 --> 2:23:40.560 in the nineteen seventies, they finally find that crisis. Now, 2:23:40.879 --> 2:23:44.360 I think it's kind of hard to remember in a 2:23:44.360 --> 2:23:46.560 lot of ways because of how the eighties went, But 2:23:47.040 --> 2:23:49.640 in the early nineteen seventies, things are not looking good 2:23:49.680 --> 2:23:52.160 for capitalism. I mean, you have so you know, I 2:23:52.440 --> 2:23:54.920 end I end A wins this election nineteen seventy. We'll 2:23:54.920 --> 2:24:00.320 talk about what happened there in another episode. But you know, 2:24:00.720 --> 2:24:04.040 it's it's not just that in nineteen nineteen seventy four, well, 2:24:04.520 --> 2:24:07.760 so to the whole early nineteen seventies, ambl called Carbrial 2:24:07.879 --> 2:24:12.120 is just absolutely annihilating the Portuguese army. And he, you know, 2:24:12.160 --> 2:24:14.039 he he wins. He fights one of like one of 2:24:14.080 --> 2:24:18.400 history's greatest guerrilla wars, and this basically destroys the entire 2:24:18.440 --> 2:24:21.760 Portuguese state and causes the Carnathan Carnation Revolution. The Portuguese 2:24:21.760 --> 2:24:23.960 colonies get free, the Dirt takes part in Ethiopia and 2:24:23.959 --> 2:24:27.520 the net seventy five, the North Vietnam wins the like 2:24:27.520 --> 2:24:29.560 the war in Vietnam. And now you know the product 2:24:29.640 --> 2:24:33.040 of this is that Cambodia falls, Laos falls. There's now 2:24:33.120 --> 2:24:36.359 there's five social estates in Eastern East Asia, in Southeast 2:24:36.400 --> 2:24:39.960 Asia and ye also Mongolea, but nobody really cares about them. 2:24:40.000 --> 2:24:42.520 And as as all of this is happening, as these 2:24:42.520 --> 2:24:44.240 sort of as the anti colonial armies are sort of 2:24:44.280 --> 2:24:49.040 marching their way through the world, there's an enormous economic crisis. 2:24:49.840 --> 2:24:52.720 And yeah, I mean there's a lot of things happening 2:24:52.720 --> 2:24:55.039 at the same time. One of the ones I think 2:24:55.080 --> 2:24:56.840 is probably the thing, the thing that people remember the 2:24:56.879 --> 2:25:02.039 most is there's just unbelievable inflation, and you know, and 2:25:02.040 --> 2:25:06.640 and economic growth starts to slowed down. Although something I 2:25:06.640 --> 2:25:08.600 think that we do need to keep in mind is 2:25:08.600 --> 2:25:11.920 that when I say economic growth slows, so economic growth 2:25:11.959 --> 2:25:18.640 from like sixty seven nine is um from two thousand 2:25:18.720 --> 2:25:20.480 to two thousand and seven, it was two point three 2:25:20.480 --> 2:25:22.840 percent in the US, And so you know, when when 2:25:22.920 --> 2:25:24.880 when when I say there's an economic crisis going on here, 2:25:24.920 --> 2:25:27.080 like economic growth in the seventies is better than any 2:25:27.080 --> 2:25:30.840 decades since, but it's still considered the crisis decade because 2:25:30.879 --> 2:25:34.200 there's much of inflation. And you know, everyone has their 2:25:34.240 --> 2:25:38.520 own theory as to why this is happening. Because the 2:25:39.040 --> 2:25:41.199 sort of Keynesians who who have been in power, whose 2:25:41.240 --> 2:25:43.000 thing is, oh, well, we can you know, if if 2:25:43.000 --> 2:25:45.000 there's every economic crisis, we can sort of we can 2:25:45.000 --> 2:25:47.039 spend money in that field, then the government spending money 2:25:47.040 --> 2:25:50.240 will drag everyone out of the crisis. But in Keynsian theory, 2:25:50.280 --> 2:25:53.680 like there's not supposed to be inflation, if like if 2:25:53.760 --> 2:25:56.000 if unemployment is increasing and there's an economic crisis, there's 2:25:56.000 --> 2:25:58.240 not supposed to be inflation, and suddenly there's both. So 2:25:58.280 --> 2:26:01.000 the Cansians have nothing, and they're sort of running around 2:26:02.240 --> 2:26:04.560 like just with basically like chickens to their head cut 2:26:04.600 --> 2:26:06.240 off and going, oh god, we have no idea what's happening. 2:26:06.240 --> 2:26:09.200 We don't know what's happening. And so into this gap 2:26:09.360 --> 2:26:12.800 steps a bunch of weirdos. And so I'm just gonna 2:26:12.800 --> 2:26:15.760 I'm gonna go through a few of the theories as 2:26:15.800 --> 2:26:20.119 to why this crisis happened, because I don't know, and 2:26:20.160 --> 2:26:22.800 I think there's elements of truth in most of the 2:26:22.879 --> 2:26:26.760 stories ish kind of, but you know, it's this is 2:26:26.800 --> 2:26:31.360 extremely complicated and there's still no consensus on it. So 2:26:31.400 --> 2:26:36.160 I'm gonna start with the most crank, which is so 2:26:36.160 --> 2:26:40.879 so the Ron Paul people. The whole thing is, yeah, 2:26:41.080 --> 2:26:43.200 every everything went to ship has been shipped ever since 2:26:43.240 --> 2:26:47.000 because the usband and the gold standard and like they're 2:26:47.120 --> 2:26:50.879 right into the extent that this happens. So basically Nixon 2:26:50.879 --> 2:26:52.320 has been trying to pay for the Vietnam War and 2:26:52.360 --> 2:26:54.879 he can't. And you know, the the U. S Dollar 2:26:54.920 --> 2:26:56.920 has been pegged to a certain amount of gold, right, 2:26:56.959 --> 2:26:58.200 and you can do this thing where if you get it, 2:26:58.240 --> 2:26:59.800 you have an American dollar, you can exchange it for 2:26:59.800 --> 2:27:04.320 them out of gold, and so travels the goal just's like, Okay, 2:27:04.320 --> 2:27:06.240 we're just gonna we're gonna take all of this gold. 2:27:06.360 --> 2:27:07.800 And so if he does in the US starts running 2:27:07.800 --> 2:27:09.760 out of gold and so bye bye by. In the 2:27:09.760 --> 2:27:12.279 early seventies, Nixon is like, fun, this you can't actually 2:27:12.560 --> 2:27:16.199 exchange dollars for gold anymore. And now every single libertarian 2:27:16.400 --> 2:27:21.960 starts every rant with fiat currency. But you know this, 2:27:21.959 --> 2:27:24.160 this this does have an effect on the economy, which 2:27:24.160 --> 2:27:27.960 we'll talk about more in the bit um. There's you know, 2:27:28.000 --> 2:27:30.400 there's there's there's a lot of other explanations for this 2:27:30.760 --> 2:27:34.040 um the modern monetary three people if you listen to them, 2:27:34.120 --> 2:27:38.160 and also Peter Thiel. Weirdly, I will argue, oh, it's 2:27:38.160 --> 2:27:40.480 all because of the oil shock, because oil prices increased, 2:27:42.160 --> 2:27:46.840 neoliberals will spend Neo liberal Essentially, they blame too much 2:27:46.879 --> 2:27:50.920 government spending welfare programs and then wages being too high, 2:27:51.000 --> 2:27:57.240 and also bad monetary policy. There's like an entire there's 2:27:57.280 --> 2:28:00.240 there's like seventeen different Marxist explanations for it, some of 2:28:00.280 --> 2:28:03.920 which are I'll talk about like one and a half 2:28:03.959 --> 2:28:09.080 of them, um that are more plausible. One of the 2:28:09.160 --> 2:28:14.600 explanations has to do with how essentially, so the other 2:28:14.600 --> 2:28:17.040 thing that's happening in the sixty seventies is that minorities 2:28:17.040 --> 2:28:19.080 and women are entering the workplace and are you know, 2:28:20.320 --> 2:28:23.400 actually demanding to be paid the wages that white men 2:28:23.400 --> 2:28:26.959 have been being paid. And corporations essentially just can't afford this. 2:28:27.560 --> 2:28:30.240 And so you know that they have two choices. It's 2:28:30.240 --> 2:28:32.160 either we pay these people actual wages or we just 2:28:32.240 --> 2:28:36.959 murder everyone, and they took the second one. So it's 2:28:36.720 --> 2:28:38.840 something that that has also been happening through this whole 2:28:38.840 --> 2:28:42.440 period is that profit rates and manufacturing just keep collapsing. 2:28:43.240 --> 2:28:45.480 And there there's there's a whole thing here about some 2:28:45.720 --> 2:28:49.760 Marxist theory stuff, But the thing that's important is that 2:28:50.560 --> 2:28:52.240 that and this this has also happened in the seventies. 2:28:52.280 --> 2:28:57.320 Eventually you hit a point where manufacturing growth becomes zero sum. 2:28:57.360 --> 2:29:00.520 And you know, so you can have manufacturing growth in 2:29:00.600 --> 2:29:02.880 one country, but you can't have it in another because 2:29:03.200 --> 2:29:05.960 at a certain point you're producing too much stuff and 2:29:05.959 --> 2:29:08.720 people start getting kicked out of the labor process. And 2:29:08.760 --> 2:29:10.440 this has a bunch of effects. One is that it 2:29:10.440 --> 2:29:12.000 means you get a bunch of people who are employed 2:29:12.000 --> 2:29:16.880 and too. It means that there's just a bunch of 2:29:16.920 --> 2:29:19.600 money floating around that nobody can actually invest in places. 2:29:19.640 --> 2:29:21.360 And this is you know, like all of the weird 2:29:21.400 --> 2:29:26.879 stuff the Saudis do, it is just basically from this 2:29:26.879 --> 2:29:28.920 this money. There's a wholes these whole piles of oil 2:29:28.959 --> 2:29:31.680 money that are just sitting around that nobody convest in anything. 2:29:32.800 --> 2:29:35.800 And that's going to cause you know, that that that 2:29:35.800 --> 2:29:37.240 that that that that's going to cause a lot of 2:29:37.280 --> 2:29:43.600 stuff down the road. But for now, yeah, we'll talk 2:29:43.640 --> 2:29:45.800 about the dead crisis and causes sort of next episode. 2:29:45.800 --> 2:29:49.160 But for now, I'm going to try to pull all 2:29:49.200 --> 2:29:51.600 of these together and like have something, have a coherent 2:29:51.640 --> 2:29:55.400 thing that makes sense, which is essentially, by by the 2:29:55.480 --> 2:29:58.360 end of the seventies, profit rate or declining, and then 2:29:58.480 --> 2:30:01.200 Nixon pulls you know, Nick and pulls the dollar off 2:30:01.200 --> 2:30:05.480 the gold standard, and this causes the value the dollars 2:30:05.560 --> 2:30:08.680 is plunge. And this this is the thing that sets 2:30:08.720 --> 2:30:12.160 off the nine oil crisis. So the any thing the 2:30:12.240 --> 2:30:14.320 oil crisis is weird because it's not an oil crisis. 2:30:14.520 --> 2:30:16.280 Every everyone looks at the groil crisis and it goes, oh, 2:30:16.320 --> 2:30:18.320 it's an oil crisis. The crisis because there wasn't enough oil, 2:30:18.360 --> 2:30:20.120 and it's it's not it's nothing to do with that 2:30:20.320 --> 2:30:22.039 is literally nothing to do a supply of oil at all. 2:30:22.959 --> 2:30:27.879 What actually happens is that so you have OPEC, right. 2:30:27.920 --> 2:30:29.680 OPEC is this sort of is the Alliance of Oil 2:30:29.720 --> 2:30:34.759 Producing Cartels UM and they have this extremely complicated system 2:30:34.760 --> 2:30:39.280 where they they sell oil to oil companies and then 2:30:39.320 --> 2:30:41.400 the oil companies sell that oil, did they refine it 2:30:41.440 --> 2:30:44.160 and sell it to you, and they have this incredibly 2:30:44.160 --> 2:30:51.320 convoluted tax structured on it. And eventually, so the oil 2:30:51.320 --> 2:30:54.720 companies are having to, like the price of oil starts 2:30:54.760 --> 2:30:57.400 to rise, and the oil companies are basically just taking 2:30:57.400 --> 2:30:59.520 it all off the profit from this, and so OPEC goes, Okay, 2:30:59.520 --> 2:31:02.039 you guys are gon to pay taxes, and the oil 2:31:02.080 --> 2:31:07.400 companies just refuse, and so OPEC just unilaterally, just you know, 2:31:07.560 --> 2:31:09.760 OPEC just unilaterally is like, Okay, you guys are gonna 2:31:09.800 --> 2:31:11.560 pay taxes, and we're gonna make you pay taxes by 2:31:11.879 --> 2:31:14.520 by just increasing the price that we sell you oil at. 2:31:15.959 --> 2:31:19.800 And this gets remembered as like OPEC increasing the price 2:31:19.840 --> 2:31:21.640 of oil, even though it was literally just them saying 2:31:21.680 --> 2:31:27.440 you're gonna pay taxes. Now, this is the part that's 2:31:27.560 --> 2:31:32.200 very weird, which is that, Okay, so if you do heard, 2:31:32.200 --> 2:31:35.400 you too, heard of the oil crisis, like the story yeah, yeah, yeah, 2:31:35.400 --> 2:31:38.320 I mean I are the way it's always gone in textbooks, 2:31:38.320 --> 2:31:40.760 as you talk about like the stagflation of the seventies 2:31:40.840 --> 2:31:43.800 and the fucking you know, lines of cars at gas 2:31:43.800 --> 2:31:48.240 stations going back blocks because OPEC factory. And yeah, that's 2:31:48.240 --> 2:31:50.959 how it's always framed, is that, like there's this big 2:31:51.480 --> 2:31:55.680 political crisis over OPEC that led the gas supply getting throttled, 2:31:55.720 --> 2:31:57.480 and it came at a time when the economy had 2:31:57.520 --> 2:32:00.680 already slowed down and everything got terrible. And then a 2:32:00.720 --> 2:32:04.360 few years later we got RoboCop. Yeah, well we did 2:32:04.400 --> 2:32:06.800 get a pop. But the important thing about the story 2:32:06.920 --> 2:32:09.720 is that every single thing about that story is wrong, 2:32:10.600 --> 2:32:12.879 every part of it. Well, I mean there were lines 2:32:12.920 --> 2:32:14.520 at gas station, Yeah, I mean there there are lines 2:32:14.520 --> 2:32:16.600 of gas stations, but the lines at the gas stations 2:32:16.600 --> 2:32:19.280 have literally nothing to do with OPEC. Wh's just nothing. 2:32:20.040 --> 2:32:25.480 So on October six, the Arab members of of OPEC 2:32:25.640 --> 2:32:27.760 are like, fuck it, We're gonna make the oil companies 2:32:27.760 --> 2:32:29.440 pay more for oil. And then the rest of the 2:32:29.480 --> 2:32:34.440 rest of OPE follows them. Now two days later, is it? Yeah? 2:32:34.560 --> 2:32:38.480 The next day there is a completely unrelated thing to 2:32:38.600 --> 2:32:40.720 all of this, which is that while while this is 2:32:40.760 --> 2:32:44.000 going on, the Yankapoor War starts, and so Egypt and 2:32:44.120 --> 2:32:48.400 Syria attack Israel um basical attack the Israel occupation forces 2:32:48.400 --> 2:32:51.760 in their country, and the war is going really badly 2:32:51.800 --> 2:32:53.680 for them there, I mean it's it's I mean, it's 2:32:53.680 --> 2:32:55.280 not going it's not going as badly as like the 2:32:55.360 --> 2:32:57.760 previous wars had gone for the air powers, but it's 2:32:57.760 --> 2:33:01.240 not going great. And so on October seven and teeth six, 2:33:01.280 --> 2:33:04.360 Arab oil producing countries declare if they're they're cutting the 2:33:04.360 --> 2:33:06.320 amount of oil they exported by five percent per month 2:33:06.400 --> 2:33:10.280 until Israel returns his territories it occupies St. Seven and 2:33:10.360 --> 2:33:13.840 they have an embargo on the US. But and this 2:33:14.120 --> 2:33:16.560 is the very important part. This has nothing to do 2:33:16.600 --> 2:33:20.000 with OPEC. This is not opaque at all. It's not this, 2:33:20.080 --> 2:33:21.440 this is this is this is just a couple of 2:33:21.520 --> 2:33:23.520 random Arab countries are like, we're going to do this. 2:33:24.160 --> 2:33:26.440 And you know, and I think when I think is 2:33:26.480 --> 2:33:29.039 interesting about Robert, what you're talking about is OPEC factory. 2:33:29.120 --> 2:33:31.720 You know, is how this gets remembered and this this 2:33:31.760 --> 2:33:33.880 is one of the things that neoliberals used to sort 2:33:33.920 --> 2:33:36.360 of push their model of the world, right, which is 2:33:36.360 --> 2:33:39.280 that everything functions off the supply and demands and oh look, 2:33:39.320 --> 2:33:40.880 hey the Arabs cut the supply of oil and that's 2:33:40.879 --> 2:33:44.560 why the prices rose. But it's just it's just wrong. 2:33:44.600 --> 2:33:47.039 It's empirically wrong. The price cut happens, I mean, the 2:33:47.040 --> 2:33:54.160 price increases happened the day before the oil the price 2:33:54.200 --> 2:33:57.320 increases the day before the embargo, and the embargo and 2:33:57.360 --> 2:34:00.320 the oil price. People are different groups, they have nothing 2:34:00.360 --> 2:34:04.000 to do with each other. But you know, this, this 2:34:04.080 --> 2:34:06.360 gets sort of systemed like this, this is this is 2:34:06.360 --> 2:34:09.080 how it's it's remembered and and you know, it's not 2:34:09.120 --> 2:34:12.160 even just how to remember like the Encyclopedia Britannica has 2:34:12.200 --> 2:34:13.879 the dates and which all of this stuff happens wrong, 2:34:13.920 --> 2:34:15.640 they have the sequence of events wrong, like all of 2:34:15.640 --> 2:34:18.360 the most of the people who write about this remember 2:34:18.360 --> 2:34:20.120 this whole thing wrong. And and this is this is 2:34:20.160 --> 2:34:22.680 part of the sort of an enormous propaganda effort death 2:34:22.680 --> 2:34:24.320 and Deal liberals are able to do at this moment, 2:34:24.400 --> 2:34:27.080 which is they convince everyone that, oh, yeah, the price 2:34:27.160 --> 2:34:30.640 increases and the gag. Typically the gas shortages are are 2:34:30.720 --> 2:34:33.600 are about opeque. But again also like the US only 2:34:33.640 --> 2:34:37.000 imports like seven percent of its oil from from the 2:34:37.000 --> 2:34:39.680 countries who are doing the embargo at this point. So 2:34:39.760 --> 2:34:42.080 the actual thing that's going on has to do with prices. 2:34:42.080 --> 2:34:43.959 It's a weird thing as do with price controls and 2:34:44.320 --> 2:34:46.360 gas companies are hoarding gas because they don't want to 2:34:46.360 --> 2:34:49.320 sell at price control levels and stuff like that. But 2:34:49.760 --> 2:34:53.039 you know, the oil price increases, you know, the yeah, 2:34:53.080 --> 2:34:55.000 like it it is bad, Like the price of oil 2:34:55.080 --> 2:34:57.560 does go up and there are shortages, but it has 2:34:57.600 --> 2:35:01.320 nothing to do with like there's nothing to do with 2:35:01.320 --> 2:35:04.000 the embargo has nothing to do with you know, like 2:35:04.080 --> 2:35:07.960 the supply of oil going down. It's just companies didn't 2:35:08.000 --> 2:35:09.640 want to pay taxes, and so they started holding the 2:35:09.640 --> 2:35:11.400 oil instead of selling it, and they passed the price 2:35:11.480 --> 2:35:14.120 the tax increase onto the consumers instead of paying it. 2:35:14.920 --> 2:35:17.320 And as we talked about before, once this sort of 2:35:17.360 --> 2:35:19.879 like tax increase goes in that OPEC that well some 2:35:19.920 --> 2:35:21.800 of the open countries want to do goes into place, 2:35:21.840 --> 2:35:24.880 like the price of oil does increase, and this does 2:35:24.920 --> 2:35:27.120 fund the economy even more. But the economy and really 2:35:27.120 --> 2:35:30.920 even sort of a mess before this, and it has 2:35:31.800 --> 2:35:35.000 one other very important effect, and you know this is 2:35:35.640 --> 2:35:37.560 you know, I guess, I guess. The theme of this 2:35:37.600 --> 2:35:39.600 episode is that the oil embargo matters. But the oil 2:35:39.600 --> 2:35:42.680 embargo matters because people think it matters, not because they 2:35:42.680 --> 2:35:45.720 did anything and the other. So it matters in the 2:35:45.800 --> 2:35:48.280 US because everyone thinks that, oh, the scary Arab nations 2:35:48.280 --> 2:35:50.920 are coming for us, But it matters in the rest 2:35:51.000 --> 2:35:56.400 of the world because everyone else looks at this and goes, wait, 2:35:56.480 --> 2:36:00.480 hold on. You can actually use commodities, essincially use commodity 2:36:00.520 --> 2:36:05.600 prices are like countries that like have raw you know, 2:36:05.720 --> 2:36:11.080 commodities can use this control to actually go fight, you know, 2:36:11.360 --> 2:36:12.879 to like to go fight the West and go fight 2:36:12.879 --> 2:36:15.120 the capitalists and go like, you know, get money for themselves. 2:36:17.040 --> 2:36:21.640 And this leads us into something Robert Harrison to have 2:36:21.680 --> 2:36:23.680 you there, you ever heard of the G seventy seven. 2:36:25.640 --> 2:36:28.680 Uh that like the seventies seven countries that have the 2:36:28.680 --> 2:36:32.480 most money. Well that that's the that's the G seven. 2:36:32.959 --> 2:36:35.560 Well yeah, but I was, I was seven might be 2:36:35.640 --> 2:36:39.080 just a longer list. So yeah. So so this is 2:36:39.160 --> 2:36:40.840 this is the other thing from this period that just 2:36:41.000 --> 2:36:43.200 is completely lost as almost completely lost to history. And 2:36:43.240 --> 2:36:45.600 the seventy seven is actually still around. But what what 2:36:45.720 --> 2:36:50.840 they are was so in the sixties, you know, you 2:36:51.120 --> 2:36:54.360 have all of these countries that have recently gained independence, 2:36:54.400 --> 2:36:57.520 and all these countries have gatting deependence um from their 2:36:57.520 --> 2:37:01.120 sort of colonial overlords, and they start to band together 2:37:01.200 --> 2:37:04.040 into basically a voting block in the u N. And 2:37:04.120 --> 2:37:05.840 also this is the other the other weird part about 2:37:05.840 --> 2:37:08.160 the story is that so in the seventies and sixties 2:37:08.320 --> 2:37:11.880 seventies particularly, the un actually matters like it's it's a 2:37:11.959 --> 2:37:14.120 it's a it's a thing that people. There was that 2:37:14.200 --> 2:37:17.520 like twenties years after World War Two, where people were 2:37:18.000 --> 2:37:20.760 maybe I mean a good example of the degree to 2:37:20.800 --> 2:37:24.280 which the u N actually used to be meaningful. Is 2:37:24.320 --> 2:37:28.240 watched the first Street Fighter movie. Um, because the good 2:37:28.240 --> 2:37:30.520 guys and that are clearly based off the u N 2:37:30.720 --> 2:37:33.960 and nobody thinks it's ridiculous that the United Nations are 2:37:34.000 --> 2:37:37.560 actually doing something. Um, it's fine to have Jean Claude 2:37:37.600 --> 2:37:39.640 van dam And be the leader of the United Nations 2:37:39.720 --> 2:37:42.160 fist fighting a guy that that makes total sense in 2:37:42.200 --> 2:37:45.560 the nineteen nineties and you know, and so in part 2:37:45.560 --> 2:37:48.200 of talk about this war next episode. But basically, so, 2:37:48.280 --> 2:37:50.640 the reason the UN is a joke right now is 2:37:50.720 --> 2:37:54.400 because of what the US was doing to stop the 2:37:54.440 --> 2:37:57.160 G seventy seven from doing anything. I mean, I would 2:37:57.240 --> 2:38:01.800 argue that massive failures in ruwan To and uh Bosnia 2:38:01.920 --> 2:38:04.119 had a huge impact on that too. Yeah, I think 2:38:04.160 --> 2:38:06.240 the genocides go down and people are like, well, what 2:38:06.280 --> 2:38:09.000 are these guys doing? But yeah, yeah, yeah, well this 2:38:09.040 --> 2:38:10.879 is this is this is how they got dysfunctional to 2:38:10.879 --> 2:38:13.039 the point where you can get that yeah, which is 2:38:13.240 --> 2:38:16.960 so so okay. So you have, you know, and a 2:38:16.959 --> 2:38:19.360 bunch of countries that call themselves, you know, the term 2:38:19.400 --> 2:38:22.400 they used for themselves is the Third World, and they 2:38:22.400 --> 2:38:24.320 come together the form this group and it's it's it's 2:38:24.320 --> 2:38:27.480 a really weird ideological mixed bag. Like I mean, you 2:38:27.480 --> 2:38:30.119 have you know, you have you have like actual socialists 2:38:30.120 --> 2:38:34.200 like Tanzaniyears and Michael Boley and Jamaica. You've also got 2:38:34.240 --> 2:38:38.840 like Gadaffi and the Bathists and like both was a 2:38:38.920 --> 2:38:48.640 socialist come on Paradise, Kadafi Libya you know, okay, my, my, my, my, 2:38:48.640 --> 2:38:51.480 My most contrarian hot take is that Salat Jaded was 2:38:51.520 --> 2:38:53.720 like actually kind of an m l who was that 2:38:53.760 --> 2:38:56.600 he was He was briefly the Bathist in charge of 2:38:56.640 --> 2:39:00.200 Syria and then he got overthrown by Sad But both 2:39:00.200 --> 2:39:06.000 of them, there's there's definite like actual like Marxist, you know, Linen, 2:39:06.160 --> 2:39:08.640 there's something like especially in the old school Bathists, like 2:39:08.640 --> 2:39:11.400 there were aspects of that, there was socialism kind of 2:39:11.480 --> 2:39:15.720 within it. It just it would be nonsense like for example, 2:39:15.760 --> 2:39:21.160 called Saddam Hussein's boss. Yeah yeah, and you know, and 2:39:21.160 --> 2:39:22.480 you can already see like that this is this is 2:39:22.520 --> 2:39:23.920 this is this is a real grab back. And you 2:39:23.959 --> 2:39:25.760 have there's also just a bunch of random Latin American 2:39:25.800 --> 2:39:28.920 countries like none of whom you can call socialists. And 2:39:28.959 --> 2:39:33.840 then there's also Saudi Arabia and Thailand or in this group. Okay, 2:39:34.000 --> 2:39:35.920 to get a sense of how fractus this is, India 2:39:35.920 --> 2:39:38.160 and Pakistan are also both part of this and they 2:39:38.160 --> 2:39:40.560 fight too full scale wars while they're both in the 2:39:40.600 --> 2:39:42.880 G seventy seven. Actually that's not true. There's two full 2:39:42.879 --> 2:39:45.160 scale wars and then there's like another half war they 2:39:45.160 --> 2:39:48.200 fight in the nineties. This yeah, like all all the 2:39:48.200 --> 2:39:50.440 people in this thing are fighting, are literally fighting wars 2:39:50.440 --> 2:39:53.640 against each other. It's kind of a mess, and you know, 2:39:53.640 --> 2:39:56.240 it's fun. It's fun. In in in the mid sixties and 2:39:56.600 --> 2:39:59.320 until nineteen seventy four, it's kind of their Their whole 2:39:59.360 --> 2:40:02.640 thing is we have moral authority like where yeah, like 2:40:02.640 --> 2:40:04.879 where you know where we're like we we we we 2:40:04.959 --> 2:40:08.160 have the authority of all of these nations have colonizings 2:40:08.200 --> 2:40:09.720 for a long time, and we're going to use that. 2:40:11.120 --> 2:40:14.760 But in the seventies, you know that the oil embargo happens, 2:40:15.240 --> 2:40:18.360 and a lot like most I think all most of 2:40:18.400 --> 2:40:23.440 the OPEC states are are are are in um Are, 2:40:23.520 --> 2:40:27.040 are are in the G seventy seven, and they look 2:40:27.040 --> 2:40:29.320 at they look at the oil embargo and they look 2:40:29.360 --> 2:40:33.520 at OPEC raising prices and they go, wait, we can 2:40:33.520 --> 2:40:36.720 do this too. In the OPEC states are like, oh, hey, 2:40:36.720 --> 2:40:38.560 we can use this to push the hood, you know, 2:40:38.640 --> 2:40:40.560 we can use to like push the whole power of 2:40:40.640 --> 2:40:43.520 like of the Third World. And they they they're planned 2:40:43.560 --> 2:40:46.280 to do this is something called the New International Economic Order, 2:40:47.000 --> 2:40:48.760 which is also something that no one has ever heard 2:40:48.800 --> 2:40:55.400 of that is extremely important. That has just the spoilerer 2:40:55.520 --> 2:40:58.400 is that this this movement gets crushed so thoroughly that 2:40:58.440 --> 2:41:00.320 nobody knows what the New Economic Order is and the 2:41:00.360 --> 2:41:03.480 Third World is now a slur. But you know, the 2:41:03.720 --> 2:41:07.320 thing that they're trying to do is create a it 2:41:07.400 --> 2:41:10.440 calls the New International Economic Order a trade union of 2:41:10.480 --> 2:41:13.199 the poor, and so it's it's this thing they're trying 2:41:13.240 --> 2:41:16.800 to get passed through the u N that would you know, 2:41:16.879 --> 2:41:19.120 just designed to sort of ensure the economic sovereignty of 2:41:19.160 --> 2:41:22.480 these developing nations. Um and I'm going to read a 2:41:22.520 --> 2:41:27.199 list of the stuff that's in here. Um So A 2:41:27.200 --> 2:41:30.880 an absolute right of states to control the extraction and 2:41:30.920 --> 2:41:34.360 marketing of their domestic natural resources be the establishment and 2:41:34.400 --> 2:41:37.840 recognition of state manage managed resource cartels to stabilize and 2:41:37.879 --> 2:41:42.720 raise commodity prices. See the Regulation of Transnational Corporations D 2:41:43.080 --> 2:41:46.560 no strings attached, technology transfers from north to south, e 2:41:47.200 --> 2:41:51.200 the granting of preferential trade preferences to countries in the south, 2:41:51.240 --> 2:41:54.680 and f forgiveness for for certain debts that states in 2:41:54.720 --> 2:41:58.560 the south ode to the north. So this is like 2:42:00.360 --> 2:42:03.920 at this thing, if the international economical Order had ever 2:42:03.959 --> 2:42:06.880 been implemented at all, it would have completely reversed the 2:42:06.959 --> 2:42:11.280 basically completely reverse the balance of economic power, shifting it 2:42:11.320 --> 2:42:15.520 basically from countries like the US, like you know, Western Europe, 2:42:15.560 --> 2:42:19.520 like Japan that are these giant manufacturing powerhouses, two countries 2:42:19.560 --> 2:42:21.920 that produce you know, raw materials, and there would have 2:42:21.920 --> 2:42:23.320 you know, and the everything that would have happened from 2:42:23.360 --> 2:42:27.040 this is you have these the no streams, you have 2:42:27.160 --> 2:42:30.480 a debt relief for the global South, and also these 2:42:30.720 --> 2:42:37.560 technology transfers. And the plan is basically to create a 2:42:37.560 --> 2:42:40.400 bunch of mini opex for just not even many opus. 2:42:40.440 --> 2:42:42.400 Create opex basically for every commodity. So you know, you 2:42:42.480 --> 2:42:45.879 have like an opaque, but it's for like box site 2:42:45.959 --> 2:42:49.800 or like copper, and you know they would use they 2:42:49.800 --> 2:42:53.199 would you know, you have all these opex and each 2:42:53.200 --> 2:42:55.080 one of them uses their power and they all cooperate 2:42:55.080 --> 2:42:57.320 to to to make sure that there's a stable price 2:42:57.480 --> 2:43:01.440 for for all these commodities. And another part of this 2:43:01.760 --> 2:43:04.480 is that it's supposed to basically enshrine the right of 2:43:04.520 --> 2:43:07.640 countries to be able to just like nationalized resource companies. 2:43:07.920 --> 2:43:09.560 So you know, you have like a British oil company. 2:43:09.680 --> 2:43:11.160 I was like, well, we just take it out now 2:43:11.160 --> 2:43:15.360 it's ours. And the threat of this is great enough 2:43:15.440 --> 2:43:17.640 that if you read conservatives in the era, they will 2:43:17.640 --> 2:43:20.440 say things like the Soviet Union is no longer a threat. 2:43:20.480 --> 2:43:24.720 The greatest danger to the West today is the Yeah, yeah, 2:43:24.920 --> 2:43:29.080 this is this, Yeah, it's it's these these people are enormal. Yeah, no, 2:43:29.080 --> 2:43:30.959 no one even rivers this anymore. And and it's it's 2:43:30.959 --> 2:43:35.039 because largely it's because of how just unbelievably badly these 2:43:35.040 --> 2:43:38.080 guys got stopped. Um, you know. And one of the 2:43:38.120 --> 2:43:39.760 other things that happens out the product of this is 2:43:39.840 --> 2:43:42.000 this is where the G seven comes from. And it's 2:43:42.000 --> 2:43:45.440 originally and I think there's another thing, Yeah, the other 2:43:45.440 --> 2:43:47.160 fun part about this, So the G seven is originally 2:43:47.200 --> 2:43:49.280 a secret alliance, Like through this whole through the whole seventies, 2:43:49.280 --> 2:43:52.039 nobody knows G seven exists. It's basically it starts as 2:43:52.080 --> 2:43:55.080 this like secret meeting of a bunch of finance ministers. 2:43:55.120 --> 2:43:58.520 Eventually they add UH, Canada and I think Japan too, 2:43:58.560 --> 2:44:01.640 and it goes up to seven members. And you know, 2:44:02.200 --> 2:44:03.720 they have a couple of things they're trying to deal with. 2:44:03.760 --> 2:44:06.160 They're trying to deal with the economic collapse. But one 2:44:06.240 --> 2:44:07.760 of the big things, like one of the biggest things 2:44:07.760 --> 2:44:09.640 they're dealing with, is the G seventy seven and OPEQ 2:44:10.600 --> 2:44:13.880 And this this the result of this is this, these 2:44:14.080 --> 2:44:18.680 enormous series of fights in UH implausibly the United Nations 2:44:18.680 --> 2:44:22.720 Conference on Trade and Development, which is I think this 2:44:22.720 --> 2:44:24.600 this is this is the last time ever that the 2:44:24.640 --> 2:44:26.840 fate of the entire world would be decided in a 2:44:27.000 --> 2:44:30.360 battle in like a subcommittee of the U N And 2:44:30.400 --> 2:44:36.560 there's there's years and years and years of negotiations between well, 2:44:36.560 --> 2:44:39.400 the G seven hasn't like openly declared itself to G 2:44:39.480 --> 2:44:43.400 seven is sort of just it's basically the rich European countries. 2:44:43.480 --> 2:44:47.199 So it's Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the UK, the US 2:44:47.320 --> 2:44:50.800 and Japan like for form this alliance and are like 2:44:51.800 --> 2:44:54.039 locked in together in order to stop the G seven 2:44:54.040 --> 2:44:59.360 from seventy seven from doing anything. And this is this 2:44:59.400 --> 2:45:01.840 is the This is the other the other crisis that 2:45:01.879 --> 2:45:05.039 the neoliberals are responding to is it's it's not just 2:45:05.120 --> 2:45:06.720 and in many ways, this is the one that scares 2:45:06.760 --> 2:45:09.760 them more because you know, it's not just that there's 2:45:09.760 --> 2:45:11.840 an economic crisis. It's not just that like capitalists are 2:45:11.840 --> 2:45:15.400 afraid because of losing money. It's if this stuff goes through, 2:45:16.800 --> 2:45:20.279 the entire balance of power in the entire global economy 2:45:20.400 --> 2:45:23.080 is going to change, and it's going to swing into 2:45:23.080 --> 2:45:25.680 the favor of a bunch of non Western countries and 2:45:26.400 --> 2:45:29.320 probably more most importantly, from the new Liberals. They're going 2:45:29.360 --> 2:45:32.039 to enshrine the right of states to take things away 2:45:32.040 --> 2:45:37.600 from corporations and regulate them. And this is just absolutely 2:45:37.680 --> 2:45:42.879 completely unacceptable to both the neoliberals and just every single 2:45:42.959 --> 2:45:47.400 other organization that's even tangentially involved with sort of the 2:45:47.440 --> 2:45:51.280 Western nations. So the neoliberals, I talked about this a 2:45:51.320 --> 2:45:54.160 bit in in the last episode, which is that they've 2:45:54.240 --> 2:45:56.959 been working on a strategy in order to take power 2:45:57.840 --> 2:46:01.600 that doesn't rely on states. And so what they've been 2:46:01.600 --> 2:46:06.760 doing for about twenty years is essentially infiltrating and working 2:46:06.760 --> 2:46:10.840 their way up through it like takes basically basically taking over, uh, 2:46:10.920 --> 2:46:15.560 the International Monetary Fund in the World Bank who in 2:46:15.600 --> 2:46:18.840 this period and this is everything I think is very 2:46:19.120 --> 2:46:21.000 weird and hard to remember, which is that the i 2:46:21.160 --> 2:46:24.080 m F and the World Bank, like there was a 2:46:24.120 --> 2:46:27.600 time when they weren't completely evil, Like like the i 2:46:27.720 --> 2:46:29.520 m F was basically set up to make sure that 2:46:29.560 --> 2:46:31.680 countries wouldn't just run out of money, right, I was 2:46:31.680 --> 2:46:33.600 supposed to give people like yeah, and the World Bank 2:46:33.760 --> 2:46:36.800 and it's it's turned into sort of this like international 2:46:36.920 --> 2:46:41.320 debt system for moorer countries where they're always and being 2:46:41.360 --> 2:46:44.879 forced into austerity measures in the like yeah, yeah, and that. 2:46:44.959 --> 2:46:46.800 But that that didn't used to be true. It used 2:46:46.800 --> 2:46:48.879 to be you know, the the i m F had 2:46:48.879 --> 2:46:50.520 a bunch of Kandians in it and sit same with 2:46:50.560 --> 2:46:52.520 the World Bank, and both both the i m F 2:46:52.520 --> 2:46:55.120 and the World Bank's leadership for a lot of this 2:46:55.240 --> 2:47:00.680 period wanted to negotiate and you and I think this 2:47:00.720 --> 2:47:02.200 is this, this is this is this is where We're 2:47:02.200 --> 2:47:07.600 gonna leave it here with basically, the the the entire 2:47:07.640 --> 2:47:11.040 world is an imp apocal crisis. There is the all 2:47:11.080 --> 2:47:14.800 the economies are collapsing, the the the armies of of 2:47:14.840 --> 2:47:18.360 the anti colonial like world or are moving and the 2:47:18.800 --> 2:47:21.400 G seventy seven looks like it's it's literally on the 2:47:21.520 --> 2:47:25.680 verge of of you know, completely restructuring the economic system 2:47:25.680 --> 2:47:27.600 in a way that actually would have been slightly more 2:47:27.680 --> 2:47:31.400 fair and justest than but the system that existed then, 2:47:31.680 --> 2:47:33.760 which was also infinitely more just and fair and the 2:47:33.760 --> 2:47:36.960 system that exist now. And next episode we're going to 2:47:37.040 --> 2:47:40.800 talk about how this all fell apart and how there 2:47:40.840 --> 2:47:44.119 was a choice in the seventies between either corporations can 2:47:44.160 --> 2:47:49.680 make money or people can have things. And the product 2:47:49.800 --> 2:47:51.480 of what the new Liberals are going to do in 2:47:51.520 --> 2:47:54.560 the next episode is that they're going to their solution 2:47:54.600 --> 2:47:56.600 to this problem is to tell the entire retched of 2:47:56.640 --> 2:48:02.640 the earth to each it and die. And yeah, that's 2:48:02.720 --> 2:48:09.760 that's that's the episode. It's yeah, yeah, history. Yeah, it's 2:48:09.800 --> 2:48:14.320 it's a fine. Um okay, uh, well we got any 2:48:14.920 --> 2:48:19.400 we got any any plugables? What do we what do 2:48:19.440 --> 2:48:22.560 we do at the end of episodes? Sophie, where are we? 2:48:23.440 --> 2:48:25.959 Thank you? Are we? Thank you for listening. We'll be 2:48:26.000 --> 2:48:29.959 back on a day at a time. Maybe we're not 2:48:30.040 --> 2:48:33.280 hearing you, Sophie, I think you're muted. I'm not muted. 2:48:35.080 --> 2:48:38.480 I'm not muted. Oh, there we go. I'm not muted. 2:48:38.520 --> 2:48:43.840 I haven't remuted the whole time. We didn't hear you. 2:48:44.160 --> 2:48:48.520 That's so weird. I said, we'll be back on a 2:48:48.640 --> 2:48:51.720 day or a time, and yeah, at some point we'll 2:48:51.760 --> 2:48:56.120 be back. Find us then, uh, and find us tomorrow 2:48:56.200 --> 2:48:58.560 unless this comes out on Friday, in which case is 2:48:58.959 --> 2:49:02.720 Friday with your family the ones this is dropping on. 2:49:03.200 --> 2:49:08.760 Adopt a cat, Adopt two cats, maybe four cats. Adopt 2:49:08.800 --> 2:49:11.600 four cats. Yeah, get a number of cats greater than 2:49:11.640 --> 2:49:13.520 the number you have and put them in your house. 2:49:13.920 --> 2:49:28.840 We'll see you one Monday. Hey, We'll be back Monday, 2:49:28.920 --> 2:49:31.880 with more episodes every week from now until the heat 2:49:31.920 --> 2:49:34.440 death of the universe. It Could Happen Here is a 2:49:34.480 --> 2:49:37.320 production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool 2:49:37.400 --> 2:49:40.080 Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com, 2:49:40.200 --> 2:49:41.920 or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, 2:49:41.959 --> 2:49:45.320 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can 2:49:45.320 --> 2:49:48.040 find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at 2:49:48.040 --> 2:49:51.280 cool zone Media dot com, slash sources. Thanks for listening.