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Speaker 1: Today is Garrison Hello, and Christopher Hello, and Sufi Hi.
Speaker 1: And today we will be tackling or rather, we'll be
Speaker 1: taking a trip to the anarchist activism in Latin America
Speaker 1: with a specifies more. But first we need to get
Speaker 1: into some context here. The first organization to promote the
Speaker 1: concept of a specifies MOO was the Federation Anarchista Uruguaya
Speaker 1: or the FAU, which is founded in nineteen fifty six
Speaker 1: by anarchist Milton's who embraced the idea of an organization
Speaker 1: there was specifically anarchist, but those who don't know, not
Speaker 1: long after, rather two decades after six UM, the U
Speaker 1: s instore the dictatorship in Uruguay. The lasted from nine
Speaker 1: the FA you survived that dictatorship and went on to
Speaker 1: establish connections with other South American anarchists re lutionaries. So
Speaker 1: they helped to support the founding of the FAA Anarchista
Speaker 1: Gaosha or fer g I don't know if I'm pronounced
Speaker 1: that correctly, the Federal Anarchista KOLA and the Ferresha and
Speaker 1: Arkista the Rio de Genero or the arch in their
Speaker 1: respective regions of Brazil. And they also helped to found
Speaker 1: the argentinean organization n as Alka, which means rebel. While
Speaker 1: only coming onto stage in Latin America within the last
Speaker 1: few decades. The ideas that really make up A specifies
Speaker 1: more Tasha a historic threat that's really run through the
Speaker 1: anarchist movement internationally since the beginning. UM. It may as
Speaker 1: we get into like what is and stuff, it may
Speaker 1: sound very similar to platform is UM. Are you all
Speaker 1: familiar with that current? Yeah? I'm familiar with platforms a
Speaker 1: little bit, but we can probably, I don't know, explain
Speaker 1: it for the people at at at home who are
Speaker 1: not as who do not spend as much time thinking
Speaker 1: about old, old, old anarchist terms, right right right, so
Speaker 1: their generic listener or viewer or whatever UM platform is.
Speaker 1: UM began with a document those written in nine by
Speaker 1: the former Peasant Army leader Nestor Mark now either Met
Speaker 1: and other militants of the Yellow Truda or Workers Cause group.
Speaker 1: They published a document called Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists,
Speaker 1: and it was written in response to well being exiled
Speaker 1: from the Russian Revolution UM and having to struggle really
Speaker 1: to find their foots in after the Bolsheviks turn the
Speaker 1: workers Soviets into instruments of one party rule. UM. So
Speaker 1: the Power Space group did truder. They really criticized the
Speaker 1: anarchist movement for a lack of organization. So they proposed
Speaker 1: an alternative that is controversial to some anarchists, but it's
Speaker 1: essentially a general union of anarchists based on anarchist communism
Speaker 1: that would strive for theoretical and tactical unity and a
Speaker 1: focus on class struggle and labor unions. Obviously platform is UM.
Speaker 1: Like all political ideas, it's not a static you know,
Speaker 1: the world has progressed sickness significantly in a century, so UM.
Speaker 1: While there is an emphasis and workers struggle and class struggle. UM.
Speaker 1: When he speak to most platforms today, I would say, UM,
Speaker 1: obviously I don't have stats on that. I would say
Speaker 1: most platforms can recognize that, you know, the no war
Speaker 1: with the class war is a bit reductive. Um. I've
Speaker 1: also noticed, actually that platforms has been getting a bit
Speaker 1: more popularity lately. I don't know if it's just me
Speaker 1: and my perception, but I don't know if you all
Speaker 1: seen that I have. I've not seen tons of it here.
Speaker 1: A lot of the type of anarchism I'm around, or
Speaker 1: at least see is is not is not in this vein.
Speaker 1: But most most of the stuff I see is like
Speaker 1: around UM, like the kind of like live anarchy type
Speaker 1: kind of strains UM and more individualists. Right. But that's
Speaker 1: just I think a very like Pacific Northwest specific thing
Speaker 1: that the anarchists here just kind of generally trend in
Speaker 1: that direction. So I'm not sure what it's literally like
Speaker 1: across like this country in other places around the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, I know, I know, I've definitely seen it
Speaker 1: especially I think I think it's it's I don't know,
Speaker 1: almost like it's bigger a few years ago. But back
Speaker 1: like seen there is a big spike a black Rose
Speaker 1: um serious group for a while. And yeah, people who
Speaker 1: like called themselves like anarcho communists or anarcho syndicalists kind
Speaker 1: of generally swam in this general ocean. Yeah, I definitely
Speaker 1: saw that as a bigger thing in than now, at
Speaker 1: least like locally from my area. And I think I
Speaker 1: will say, yeah, the blacks people, a lot of them,
Speaker 1: like very very specifically were specifi based on a lot
Speaker 1: of it was based on like people who had like
Speaker 1: experiences with a specifics various ways, right, right, Yeah, Because
Speaker 1: I was actually just about to say, I think that
Speaker 1: black Rose is more a specificity than Platformist. But of
Speaker 1: course there is you know, a lot of overlap between
Speaker 1: these two currents. Right. Um, As for my experience with
Speaker 1: like plat with some and stuff, have seen um discussions
Speaker 1: of it happening more. I mean, that's all I can
Speaker 1: really see that I've seen, Um I have you ever
Speaker 1: read once? But at least if discussions are happening the
Speaker 1: likelihood of things coming out of it might be a
Speaker 1: bit In Greece, I guess another current that has been
Speaker 1: part of the anarchist milieu, psycheist wave whatever is organizational dualism,
Speaker 1: which came out to the nineteen twenties Italian anarchist movement.
Speaker 1: So they used the tomb to describe involvements of anarchists
Speaker 1: both as members of anarchists specific political organizations and also
Speaker 1: as militants in the labor movement. In Spain, the Friends
Speaker 1: of Druti group emaged to oppose the Gradual Reviews cell
Speaker 1: the Smash Revolution, and they also ended up emulating some
Speaker 1: of the ideas of the platform by criticizing you know,
Speaker 1: cnt F phase, c ant f aiys gradual reformism and
Speaker 1: collaboration with republican government. Um, So the spars of war
Speaker 1: and stuff. You know, there's a lot of forces that
Speaker 1: play and we're gonna get into now, but it is,
Speaker 1: I would say, as a side note, important to recognize
Speaker 1: that there is no model it when it comes to
Speaker 1: like these sort of civil wars and historical events. Um,
Speaker 1: you really have to look at things in context, and
Speaker 1: you know, it's not trying to strip them away from
Speaker 1: the goings on at the time. Also, the Chinese anarchist
Speaker 1: movement of the nineteen tens um advocated for simil ideas.
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to pronounce the name of the group,
Speaker 1: hopefully don't get castled, but it's the who Shuang Fu
Speaker 1: Kongshan Jui Tong. She's a way, I think, which is
Speaker 1: the Society of Anarchists Communist Comrades. And yeah, they advocated
Speaker 1: for a lot of similar ideas. So there's a lot
Speaker 1: of different currents around the world influenced by you know,
Speaker 1: the historic conditions, but the general thread that you know,
Speaker 1: anarchists need to get together and work as a unit
Speaker 1: is you know what's thrust in it right and specifies
Speaker 1: more is just a fresh continuation of this threat of
Speaker 1: this trend. So what is what is the specifies more exactly?
Speaker 1: The three key concepts UM that I see emphasized again
Speaker 1: and again. One the need for specifically anarchists organization built
Speaker 1: around a unity of ideas and practice. Two the use
Speaker 1: of this specifically anarchist organize san to theorize and develop
Speaker 1: strategic political and organizing work. And three active involvement in
Speaker 1: and building of autonomous and popular social movements, which is
Speaker 1: described as the process of social institution, so kind of
Speaker 1: core to the whole specificity current is which is rather
Speaker 1: anti tectical some of the trends that I've seen in
Speaker 1: the past couple of years. It's sort of a rejection
Speaker 1: of this left unity idea, right, this idea that there
Speaker 1: can be these this sort of big tent organization that
Speaker 1: can somehow establish all these different visions simultaneously. Right. So
Speaker 1: a specificity reject the idea of just unity for unity's
Speaker 1: sake because they feel it boils down to sort of
Speaker 1: Louist common denominate to kind of wishy washy politics. They
Speaker 1: feel that when unity is preferred at all costs, it
Speaker 1: leaves very little room for unified action or developed political discussion.
Speaker 1: In fact, in my experience, when you have like a
Speaker 1: lot of political heterogene um, there tends to be a
Speaker 1: lot of unproductive drama lack of better word. Obviously, people
Speaker 1: of different political stripes should work together um, and there's
Speaker 1: no like harm in that. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: when it comes to certain types of organizations, having a
Speaker 1: sense of ideological unity is I would say pretty important,
Speaker 1: as you know, you don't want to have all these
Speaker 1: different groups constantly butting heads for all these different visions.
Speaker 1: You know, you want to have at least some sense
Speaker 1: that we're moving in sync. Right, So you're not going
Speaker 1: to have some people who are trying to establish social
Speaker 1: democracy and some people who are trying to get like
Speaker 1: this workers state quote and quote, or you know, people
Speaker 1: who just want I don't know, like a higher minimum reach. Right.
Speaker 1: I mean, everyone's on a different stage of their political journey.
Speaker 1: But what specificitys try to emphasize is that while we
Speaker 1: can work within these larger social movements, um, it's important
Speaker 1: that artists specifically come together to try to shape those
Speaker 1: movements in an organized way. And I'll explain because it
Speaker 1: kind of sounds a bit like vanguardism for some people,
Speaker 1: this idea that you know, these this cabal of like
Speaker 1: revolutionaries are trying to manipulate things behind the scenes. But um,
Speaker 1: really what specificitys argue is that and I guess need
Speaker 1: a space. They need space for like common strategy and
Speaker 1: reflection and collective responsibility and you know a place to
Speaker 1: discuss plans and build trust and share analysis and you know,
Speaker 1: put together short and long term goals all that jazz. Um,
Speaker 1: So will the Specificity do reach out to and work
Speaker 1: with social movements regardless of whether they fit this code
Speaker 1: and code anarchist purity test um. And I see that
Speaker 1: with my tongue planted firmly and cheek of course, um.
Speaker 1: They want to make sure that they can sue still
Speaker 1: as an active minority, so that these movements aren't diluted.
Speaker 1: And so I noticed IM like throwing out a lot
Speaker 1: of different woods and freezers and ideas, um, you know,
Speaker 1: things like ideological unity and the need for sort of
Speaker 1: a consensus within the group. Um. And speaking of I've
Speaker 1: spoken about consensus on my channel before, so I have
Speaker 1: a breakdown on it people to check out if they're like, um,
Speaker 1: I was spoke of unified strategy, right, so you're not
Speaker 1: just joking around. You actually have mapped out to the strategy,
Speaker 1: like for example, Black socialists in America. They aren't like
Speaker 1: a specifically a specificity or to my knowledge, but you
Speaker 1: can see um that they have like a unified, like
Speaker 1: clearly leader strategy and they're making moves to make it
Speaker 1: to achieve it, and they're very public about those moves, right. Um.
Speaker 1: I also I want to emphasize, of course, and the
Speaker 1: specifies more the whole idea of this active minority. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not just a bunch of like it sounds like
Speaker 1: a passive book club, right. And a specificity group is
Speaker 1: a group of people who are passionate about you know
Speaker 1: this cause um, and obviously, passion people have this habit
Speaker 1: of before they can more than they can chew. Right.
Speaker 1: So what I would advise like a specificity and specificity
Speaker 1: judgment adjacent groups and really just organizations in general, is
Speaker 1: that keep your size in mind, keep achievable goals within sight,
Speaker 1: because if you don't, you know, it's very easy to
Speaker 1: burn out very quickly. Yeah. Um. With the specificity groups,
Speaker 1: it's important that they understand the responsibility, but also that
Speaker 1: they understand their limits. Lastly, and very importantly, social institution,
Speaker 1: I think is one of the most important parts for
Speaker 1: specifies more. And I think even if you don't take
Speaker 1: anything away from like a specificity specifies more, you at
Speaker 1: the very least like implement social institution or at least
Speaker 1: concepts within social institution into organizing right Because obviously, um,
Speaker 1: and I guess a kind of fewer number. But what
Speaker 1: social institution tries to point out, I guess, or tries
Speaker 1: to develop within a movement. It's just awareness that the
Speaker 1: people who are making these moves from organizing and whatnot,
Speaker 1: that they don't relinquish their power to like other figures
Speaker 1: or forces or parties or whatever the case may be. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: social institutions that in the belief that the oppressed of
Speaker 1: the most revolutionary sector of society and the seed of
Speaker 1: future revolutionary transformation of society lies already in these classes
Speaker 1: and social groupings. So it doesn't mean social institution doesn't
Speaker 1: mean like acting within single issue advocacy campaigns or you know,
Speaker 1: like trying to take over um people's existing struggles. It
Speaker 1: means getting involved in daily fights and daily struggles people
Speaker 1: to better their own conditions. It means, you know, connecting
Speaker 1: with workers, connecting with immigrants, connecting across neighborhoods, working towards
Speaker 1: racial liberation, working within students struggles and tenant struggles. As
Speaker 1: people are like part of these struggles, they become conscious
Speaker 1: of their place in society. Right, And part of our
Speaker 1: rule is to try to develop their consciousness. So as
Speaker 1: people are tempered and tested and recreated, they see their
Speaker 1: position in the what we're looking for in the pecking order. Right,
Speaker 1: They see that there are forces that play that are
Speaker 1: keeping them down. Their structures play that are keeping them down,
Speaker 1: and they change from just being like social classes to
Speaker 1: being active social forces. So they brought together by organic
Speaker 1: methods and by self organized cohesion. What you notice of
Speaker 1: the popular movements, like, for example, Black Lives Matter, is
Speaker 1: that the unlike what some conservatives might assume, the Black
Speaker 1: Lives Matter organization wasn't the one like pulling the strings,
Speaker 1: you know, like the official group wasn't there, you know,
Speaker 1: telling people okay, march here, burn that right here, move that.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like the people themselves came together and
Speaker 1: you know, really expressed the desire for change. And so really,
Speaker 1: as they become self conscious actors away of their power,
Speaker 1: of their voice, of their nemesis, which is the ruling
Speaker 1: elites that control the social order, a specificitys try to
Speaker 1: keep that thrust right. What a specificity argue is that
Speaker 1: essentially there's an anarchist on the current two popular social
Speaker 1: movements that should be preserved and maintained and cultivated. Right
Speaker 1: with popular movements, um, they're very quickly co opted by
Speaker 1: in positions of leadership or by you know, academic elites,
Speaker 1: or by political parties but specificity aren't there to try
Speaker 1: to make groups identify as anarchists, right, They're there to
Speaker 1: just maintain that thrust to be self organized and to
Speaker 1: fight for their own interests, because ultimately that's our natural
Speaker 1: impulse as humans, you know, it's really the propaganda that
Speaker 1: tells us, you know, um, like you have to go
Speaker 1: through these proper channels. You know, you have to vote
Speaker 1: with your dollar or you know, food for these politicians
Speaker 1: or whatever the case may be, can verse and all
Speaker 1: these different things call up your representatives. You're the natural
Speaker 1: thrust of a boost and is not to like relinquished
Speaker 1: control of themselves, you know, is to try to maintain
Speaker 1: that um and so A specifics trying to push against
Speaker 1: the propaganda that keeps us from maintaining that, push against
Speaker 1: the cooptation that ships that from us. Sue, do any
Speaker 1: sort of automatic critiques of a specifies move come to mind?
Speaker 1: You all. I'm not sure about like critiques per se.
Speaker 1: We need to think about it more. But a few
Speaker 1: things that come to mind around so, like you talked
Speaker 1: a bit about like the difference between like left unity
Speaker 1: and creating like an anarchist unity, um, and for people
Speaker 1: at home, I would like to maybe extrapolate why those
Speaker 1: are different things. I know you have a good video
Speaker 1: on left unity already, but like in terms of trying
Speaker 1: to like you know, if one of the goals being
Speaker 1: creating like an anarchist organized station that kind of unifies
Speaker 1: different anarchists, how that is a different type of unity
Speaker 1: than just left unity in general. Um. I think that
Speaker 1: might be a point of clarification. And then the other
Speaker 1: thing I was wondering about is like how does this
Speaker 1: intersect in terms of like individual goals versus like group
Speaker 1: goals or like organizational goals and so like, because like
Speaker 1: there's a there's a back and forth between like personal
Speaker 1: autonomy and then you know these type of social movements
Speaker 1: that kind of almost gained their own thrust right right.
Speaker 1: Yes to the point about the difference between left unity
Speaker 1: and anarchist unity, um well, obviously anarchists soon fairly has
Speaker 1: to rogin Us. Um. I think all a general thrust
Speaker 1: for sattudination and autonomy and that kind of thing it
Speaker 1: brings us together. You know the difference between like say
Speaker 1: anti constunity where they're differently some I would say key
Speaker 1: disagreements within the milieu and left unity is that I
Speaker 1: feel there are some extremely incompatible factors that prevent left
Speaker 1: unity from being viable. Yeah, when there's a thrust among
Speaker 1: significant segments, I mean really every non libertarian segment of
Speaker 1: you know, they couldn't get Left fun known our popular
Speaker 1: energy towards state institutions, whether it be through insurrectionary social
Speaker 1: democracy or reformist social democracy in a case of amounts
Speaker 1: and stock damage respectively. Um, I think that that really
Speaker 1: keeps us from really working together and anything more than
Speaker 1: small goals and small projects. I mean, we've really seen
Speaker 1: the whole left unity idea fall apart, you know, through
Speaker 1: wars and through even just like what should be discussions
Speaker 1: between people, you know, like the First International literally split
Speaker 1: because of the differences between you know, the so called
Speaker 1: left currents, you know, between the anarchists and the other socialists.
Speaker 1: So left unity is not something that I even to achieve.
Speaker 1: I think most people know that about me by now. Um.
Speaker 1: But in regard to like anarchist unity, and of course
Speaker 1: the differences between artists, I think the general thrust to
Speaker 1: maintain the autonomy and sil termination of the people and
Speaker 1: of the social movements via inserting ourselves in is what
Speaker 1: really cluse us together. And of course that alone, I
Speaker 1: don't know if that enough to maintaining a specificity organization
Speaker 1: because you know, like I noted, a specificitys try to
Speaker 1: um develop deeper level you know, strategies and theoretical discussion
Speaker 1: and that kind of thing, And so with those sort
Speaker 1: of discussions, you know, you're gonna see a lot more
Speaker 1: of the distinctions bearing out. But at the very least, um,
Speaker 1: I think anarchists generally could benefit from a degree of
Speaker 1: at least unity in the sense of maintaining or so
Speaker 1: aularity in the sense of maintaining the libertarian thrust of
Speaker 1: popular movements. I asked the other thing that you had
Speaker 1: noted about the sort of friction between individual goals and
Speaker 1: organizational goals, between autonomy and sort of how social movements
Speaker 1: end up taking on like an energy of their own. Um.
Speaker 1: To be quite honest, I don't think I have like
Speaker 1: a fully developed answer for that. Yeah, um, Because on
Speaker 1: the one hand, a social movement that forgets that it
Speaker 1: is about, you know, deliberation of individuals is you know,
Speaker 1: in my view of social movement that's quickly going to
Speaker 1: and obtaining against the people who are you know, fueling it.
Speaker 1: At the same time, I've interacted with like a lot
Speaker 1: of people, what pretty selfish or pretty egotistical or just
Speaker 1: argumentative for the sake of it. Sorry, So if you're
Speaker 1: gonna say something, yeah, I was just like the thing
Speaker 1: that keeps popping up into my head is, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that gets misconstrued all the time
Speaker 1: is who's calling the shots? And I kind of feel
Speaker 1: like what you're saying is everybody in a way, right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that like, which is good sometimes but not
Speaker 1: good other times obviously exactly because I think it's it's
Speaker 1: very easy to fall into this sort of um almost
Speaker 1: reactionary I like island mentality not island mentality is in
Speaker 1: Caribean is mentality isn't. Person isn't as an island around
Speaker 1: like autonomy and you know personal freedom, you know, like
Speaker 1: this rendering idea that you know on step map property,
Speaker 1: you know that kind of thing just let people do whatever.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like most anarchost conception of what like
Speaker 1: freedom and autonomy is I think an important part of
Speaker 1: autonomy and you know freedom and yeah, like this project
Speaker 1: is you know accountability and is you know, like consequences
Speaker 1: like social consequences and how your actions affect others. You know,
Speaker 1: like what an I can say was recognized is that
Speaker 1: we are not in fact islands. You know, our actions
Speaker 1: or behavioral words affect other people. And so I think
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a constant project to sort of balance
Speaker 1: um individual personalities and broader goals. But I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's tricky, right, Like you know, we're you're talking
Speaker 1: about like some kind of you know, group organization to
Speaker 1: work together to kind of you know, think of achievable
Speaker 1: goals and creates steps to get there UM. And I
Speaker 1: feel among a lot of people who proudly declare themselves
Speaker 1: anarchists and at least like and they're extremely vocal. Likely
Speaker 1: these are like people both like online and in person
Speaker 1: organizing that are very are very like vocal and try
Speaker 1: to very much like make their place known. We've seen
Speaker 1: trends away from this direction in terms of like rejecting
Speaker 1: the idea of goals and demands and just you know,
Speaker 1: like this this more insurrectionary kind of tendency of just
Speaker 1: making total destroy for the sake of it and committee, yeah,
Speaker 1: and and and and that. I mean, like I know
Speaker 1: that like platform is UM is kind of like it's
Speaker 1: not like antiens insurrectionary, but it's like it's it definitely
Speaker 1: critiques that type of instructionary trend um. So I'm thinking about, like,
Speaker 1: you know, this idea, and like, how with with with
Speaker 1: this kind of general, you know, decentralized, no no demands,
Speaker 1: no goals kind of general kind of direction that like
Speaker 1: capital a anarchists are are doing. How like what's what's
Speaker 1: maybe some parts of specific that we can actually take
Speaker 1: into account to be like, hey, maybe there's you know,
Speaker 1: like I don't like I don't like being called like
Speaker 1: any adjective anarchist. I think it's silly. I like I
Speaker 1: like the parts um I think early this year, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they last year, Like I just got to the point
Speaker 1: for you, I'm anarchist, you know that's yeah. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: like the parton desert. It's like, I'm an anarchist of
Speaker 1: many adjectives. I'm not. I'm not I'm not always an insurrectionary,
Speaker 1: I'm not always a syndicalist, I'm not always you know,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah blah blah blah um. And I
Speaker 1: feel like that's would be really useful kind of thing
Speaker 1: for people to focus on more in terms of yeah,
Speaker 1: it can be fun to make total destroying that it's
Speaker 1: a very base instinct, but it also would be great
Speaker 1: to like improve people's lives a little bit um and there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's like to to to kind of like dueling things,
Speaker 1: um and in terms that's why I I do really
Speaker 1: like the part of like this type of stuff that
Speaker 1: it's really appealing to me just because I kind of
Speaker 1: already work on this myself. So I'm like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: already doing this. But it's like the it is it
Speaker 1: is like the social the social insertion side of things,
Speaker 1: I think is something that would be a much a
Speaker 1: much better way of thinking about. Like everyone hates talking
Speaker 1: about optics because yeah, it's frustrating, but I think the
Speaker 1: social insertion method is a better framework for kind of
Speaker 1: dealing with some of those same problems. Um and yeah.
Speaker 1: And then like you know, we there is even among
Speaker 1: insurrectionaries and all those you know, all those types, there
Speaker 1: still is like a decent amount of like group projects
Speaker 1: and stuff, and that is I think a really good
Speaker 1: thing to focus on because but yeah, there's not many
Speaker 1: anarchists and it would be cool if there was more,
Speaker 1: and if we just focus on the parts that make
Speaker 1: people go, oh, that's kind of silly and pointless. Then
Speaker 1: we're not really going to grow anarchism that much. Um,
Speaker 1: So highlighting the parts that are like, oh, yeah, you're
Speaker 1: actually helping people, that's gonna convince a lot more people
Speaker 1: who are kind of already trending in that general general direction,
Speaker 1: and then hey, maybe in a few years they can
Speaker 1: also be doing silly destruction for fun because it is
Speaker 1: it is fun sometimes, right, Yeah, like this, as you
Speaker 1: mentioned optics and reminded it is kind of pet peeve
Speaker 1: I have with some you know, instant people where they
Speaker 1: try to treat like ideologies so specifically anarchism as like
Speaker 1: a pr project that we have to like constantly be
Speaker 1: trying to shift the optics and micromanaged like every aspect.
Speaker 1: Like no, I think the best remedy for like, because
Speaker 1: you're not going to match the power of mass media,
Speaker 1: what you can do to push back against the sort
Speaker 1: of propaganda is help people and help people, and identify
Speaker 1: as anarchists as you're helping people, right, Like, that's the
Speaker 1: easiest and quickest way to dispel people's notions and like
Speaker 1: conceptions of what an anarchist is. If we were to
Speaker 1: take like socialization, right and sort of I would say
Speaker 1: there's still it's a bit and individualize it a bit. Um.
Speaker 1: I would say that as a practice, you know, just
Speaker 1: even if you don't know any any other anarchists in
Speaker 1: your area, right, just being there, being in these movements,
Speaker 1: helping people and you know, saying you know, this is
Speaker 1: what I believe. Um, just talking to people about what
Speaker 1: you believe as a place and as you're helping them.
Speaker 1: You know, that goes a long way, much longer than
Speaker 1: any you know, poster um campaign or like wheat pasting
Speaker 1: initiative or artwork, um, you know wall art or whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, like actively helping people. Of course wall Lot
Speaker 1: has this place and double little bit myself. But you
Speaker 1: know it's um, it's not. It's ultimately like talking to
Speaker 1: people and helping people and being there people and being
Speaker 1: honest about your intentions that I think, you know, we
Speaker 1: should working towards. And I think those types of projects
Speaker 1: are something that the specific model like excels that in
Speaker 1: terms of like creating like a unity of anarchists who
Speaker 1: get like who have like a goal in mind and
Speaker 1: then go out to achieve the goal, helping people like
Speaker 1: doing like doing like like like direct directly helping people
Speaker 1: is something that that type of organization model is kind
Speaker 1: of the best at UM because you can, yeah, really
Speaker 1: like organize things much better with a small group like
Speaker 1: that and create goals that are actually very achievable, whether
Speaker 1: it be you know, building a community kitchen or building
Speaker 1: you know, heating centers for like for the winter, like
Speaker 1: under under bridges or whatever. You know, all those types
Speaker 1: of starting comming to the gardens, all those kinds of
Speaker 1: things are I think what this type of model really
Speaker 1: excels that. And yeah, you don't need to change your
Speaker 1: ideology to this one word because that's that's but you
Speaker 1: can pick up different parts of it be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that actually seems like a useful way of world. You
Speaker 1: don't want, you know, a politicians just ruling hen co
Speaker 1: opt our project, you know, like just basic things like that,
Speaker 1: you know. And then from there, you know, as you
Speaker 1: are talking with people and meeting people who are passionate
Speaker 1: about issues in these social movements, you know, not only
Speaker 1: does it keep you from developing this sort of UM
Speaker 1: partumularly online um in group kind of mentality, it also
Speaker 1: opens up opportunities you to develop your and this is
Speaker 1: on the topic of like the individualist social institution, it
Speaker 1: prints or presents opportunities for you to develop your own
Speaker 1: I had no like book club, and then from that
Speaker 1: book club could come and a specificity organization. You know,
Speaker 1: as you begin to develop your politics and your shared politics,
Speaker 1: more can come out of it. So don't underestimate, you know,
Speaker 1: the potential of just putting in the work and talking
Speaker 1: to people. Yeah, you know, just being there on the ground.
Speaker 1: One of the best things you can do to help
Speaker 1: stay alive in the well things are heading in the
Speaker 1: direction that they're heading societally, is like making friends and
Speaker 1: forming a friend group and then yeah, like actually doing
Speaker 1: stuff together. That makes dealing with everything else that's happening
Speaker 1: so so much better. And hey, remember our old friend
Speaker 1: Nest Nest remark started with a book club, so hey,
Speaker 1: you know, you never know where book clubs can lead.
Speaker 1: You never exactly. It's actually really interesting, UM video clip
Speaker 1: of Marie booked Gin talking about book clubs and like
Speaker 1: the power and potential book clubs. Um. I don't know
Speaker 1: if we could probably link that in the show notes,
Speaker 1: but it's like a really interesting make drink. So ultimately,
Speaker 1: a specificity believe that social movements we reached their own
Speaker 1: logic of creating revolution. Not when they all just decide
Speaker 1: to identify as anarchists and wave the black flag, but
Speaker 1: when the majority reach a consensus and a consciousness of
Speaker 1: their power and their ability to exercise their power in
Speaker 1: their daily lives. So even if they do not adopt anarchism,
Speaker 1: they still consciously adopt the ideas embedded within it. Their
Speaker 1: multiple political currents will exist within any movement, and so
Speaker 1: it's important that we as anarchists and I guess specifically
Speaker 1: as a specificity, are there to actively combat the opportunism
Speaker 1: that come from you know, these forces from this whether
Speaker 1: electoral or fin goddess within these social movements as well,
Speaker 1: we can also help to push them further through um,
Speaker 1: you know, pushing for more direct democracy and consensus, through federalism,
Speaker 1: and confederating with other social movements, through you know, building
Speaker 1: up the mutual aid within these movements. Like if you are,
Speaker 1: for example, part of a mutual aid group in one neighborhood,
Speaker 1: you can push them to start reaching out with mutually
Speaker 1: groups and other neighborhoods and creating a network of mutual
Speaker 1: aid groups that can build into something bigger. You know,
Speaker 1: combining resources and manpower to really push the revolution, you know. Lastly,
Speaker 1: we'll say that for those who are trying to like
Speaker 1: get into the whole specifies more thing. Um. I mean,
Speaker 1: you could start a new organization from scratch, but again,
Speaker 1: like the easiest thing to do is suggest getting there
Speaker 1: to people and be honest with the people. I keep
Speaker 1: saying the people, even though I have my critiques of
Speaker 1: this umorphous conception of the people, but the point remains
Speaker 1: that our goal is to spread our ideas, not to
Speaker 1: get people on any particular ideology, but to get a
Speaker 1: liberatory consciousness on the ground and to generalize that consciousness.
Speaker 1: And for those who are curious about the specifies more
Speaker 1: in action and social institutions, specifically the Federal Show. Anarchista
Speaker 1: GAUSHA in Brazil has worked with neighborhood committees and urban
Speaker 1: villages and slums. They've built alliances with the rank and
Speaker 1: file members of the rural land as workers movement the
Speaker 1: must and they've also worked with trash and recyclables collectors. UM. Brazil,
Speaker 1: for those who don't know, has a lot of high
Speaker 1: levels of temporary uh and contingent employment, underemployment and unemployment,
Speaker 1: so the working class isn't how will you traditionally conceive
Speaker 1: it as like just surviving primarily off of wage labor,
Speaker 1: but it's more so this is sort of subsistence week
Speaker 1: informal economy, gig economy can deal so being able to
Speaker 1: connect with these but when charged with collectors, for example,
Speaker 1: who are part of this sort of economy, the ef
Speaker 1: EG has built a strong relationship with them and help
Speaker 1: them to form their own national organization to you know,
Speaker 1: push for their interests and to collectivize their recycling operations.
Speaker 1: Specifies More is also um worked with the has also
Speaker 1: worked in the efforts of the Zabalaza anarchist Communist Front
Speaker 1: in South Africa, as they also are strong opponents of
Speaker 1: social institution and you know, really being embedded in these
Speaker 1: social movements in Argentina, in Brazil, in South Africa, and
Speaker 1: in the US in the case of Black Rois Anarchist
Speaker 1: Federation A specifies More has been building as a key
Speaker 1: point reference and so I'll leave us off with a
Speaker 1: code from the use of Front Collective, an anarchist group online.
Speaker 1: If libertarian socialists merely organized with libertarian socialists, then they
Speaker 1: will lose contact with the broader population. They need to
Speaker 1: be reaching. If libertarian socialists merely joined social movements without
Speaker 1: advocating various libertarian socialist practices that can be used, then
Speaker 1: social movements can easily drift into being susceptible to reformist,
Speaker 1: un strategic, liberal and leninist tendencies and opportunists. If libertarian
Speaker 1: socialists merely joined social movements and try to spread ideas
Speaker 1: and practices in mare individual ways, they'll be far less
Speaker 1: successful than a well thought out, coordinated effort. And if
Speaker 1: theoretically specific libertarian socialist groups try to control social movements
Speaker 1: and poular organizations from the top down, then such specific
Speaker 1: groups sacrifice their own principles and would reproduce hierarchical organizing
Speaker 1: in contrast to authoritarian finding God his conceptions specifies more
Speaker 1: groups and a specificity put the activity towards a self
Speaker 1: organization of movements and organizations. Ultimately, as I honestly love
Speaker 1: this code from Shanti Alston, power to the people, where
Speaker 1: it stays with the people. Peace. Yes, Andrew, please please
Speaker 1: plug your plugables because they are good and people should
Speaker 1: in fact listen to them, right. Thank you. Safety First,
Speaker 1: of course, I will say that you could follow me
Speaker 1: on Twitter at underscore st Drew and on YouTube at
Speaker 1: st andrews um and you can find me here apparently
Speaker 1: twice a month, which is pretty great. Shout out to
Speaker 1: it could happen here. Take care everyone again, He's again
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to our show. I'm Zoe de Chanelle
Speaker 1: and I'm so excited to be joined by my friends
Speaker 1: and cast mates Hannah Simone and Lamar and Morris to
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Speaker 1: revealed the truth behind the legendary game True American, and
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Speaker 1: have been begging us to do a New Girl recap
Speaker 1: for years, and we finally made a podcast where we
Speaker 1: answer all your burning questions like is there really a
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Speaker 1: you'll hear hilarious stories like this at the end when
Speaker 1: he says you got some schmid on your face. I
Speaker 1: feel like I pitched that joke. I believe that I
Speaker 1: feel like I did. I'm not on thous and I
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Speaker 1: U S Department of Health, the Human Services Administration for
Speaker 1: Children and Families, and the ACT Council. Hi. I'm Robert
Speaker 1: sex Reese, host of The Doctor sex Rees Show. And
Speaker 1: every episode I listened to people talk about their sex
Speaker 1: and intimacy issues, and yes, a despise every minute of it.
Speaker 1: And she she made mistakes, took everyone at her wedding.
Speaker 1: But hell is real. We're all trapped here and there's
Speaker 1: no thing any of us can do about it. So
Speaker 1: join me, won't you? Listen to the Doctors Sex re
Speaker 1: Show every Tuesday on the I Heart Radio app, Apple
Speaker 1: podcast or wherever you get your podcast. What's new My
Speaker 1: Year ship? Yeah, new year, same ship. I'm Robert Evans.
Speaker 1: This is behind the we retired, We retired this bit?
Speaker 1: Who where is this time for a new bit? This
Speaker 1: is it could happen here the podcast about how things
Speaker 1: sometimes feel like they're falling apart sometimes and maybe we
Speaker 1: can do things about that. You know what's falling apart
Speaker 1: is me because I during my break woke up at
Speaker 1: like one thirty every day and now it's someone speakable
Speaker 1: hour in the morning. I hate this the time you
Speaker 1: pret the time for for For one of our first
Speaker 1: episodes of the New Year, we have decided to subject
Speaker 1: ourselves to your para social whims um, and we are
Speaker 1: going to be doing maybe one, maybe two Q and
Speaker 1: A episodes um uh, giving AI's to your cues. And
Speaker 1: I've been it's okay. I've been told that our producer
Speaker 1: Sophie has a list of questions already prepared so that
Speaker 1: I can stop talking and she can. Now you've been
Speaker 1: told you're the one who posted the thread. Sophie said
Speaker 1: that she would read them. I did volunteers tribute, but
Speaker 1: I might, I might, I might take that back it
Speaker 1: so how much at some point? Yeah, uh, let's let's
Speaker 1: let's start with let's start with a A simply a
Speaker 1: good one. Uh. What has been your favorite episode slash
Speaker 1: topic to research in this past season so since we
Speaker 1: started season two? Oh god, Um, I enjoyed the metaverse
Speaker 1: Facebook episodes because there's a part of me that really
Speaker 1: likes shipping on bad tech industry stuff. Um. It fills
Speaker 1: a deep part of me just just really comprehensively thinking
Speaker 1: about how how terrible the vision of the future these
Speaker 1: people have it. So that was probably my favorite. I
Speaker 1: liked the Climate Leviathan stuff. Um, the Climate Leviathan, Climate Behemoth,
Speaker 1: Climate Now, Climate X kind of four quadrants. I I
Speaker 1: liked learning about that, like, oh jeez, almost a year
Speaker 1: ago actually by the time I started researching for the show. Um,
Speaker 1: and I'm decently happy with the way that those topics
Speaker 1: were presented and how they keep popping back every once
Speaker 1: in a while. I think in terms of just the
Speaker 1: favorite episode of recorded, it was probably the interview with
Speaker 1: the Common Humanity Collective people, just because like listening to
Speaker 1: a bunch of people who have very sophisticated and well
Speaker 1: developed mutual Aid project and then listening to you know
Speaker 1: them talking about their political development and how they've been
Speaker 1: sort of solving their problems was really reassuring and cheerful
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. And then research wise, it
Speaker 1: was definitely the Spooky Area fifty one episode where I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I'm gonna do a fun episode about uh,
Speaker 1: the government and aliens and it was like, oh no,
Speaker 1: here's every war crime ever and like sixteen people almost
Speaker 1: killing everyone on Earth. I was like, this is this is.
Speaker 1: Probably Probably the most fun I had was with the
Speaker 1: Chaos Magic and Esoteric Pacism episode How Silly It Is? Um? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that one. That one also was just just a pleasure
Speaker 1: to record. I also loved having Corey doctor owen um
Speaker 1: because that was cool. That was cool. That was that
Speaker 1: was very cool, How cool of us. I've enjoyed our
Speaker 1: our fiction episodes with Margaret and with Rebecca those those
Speaker 1: have been great, and I've loved having sat Andrew h Yeah,
Speaker 1: that has been also very cool, fantastic. What were you
Speaker 1: gonna say, Robert nothing? Oh great, this person says, I
Speaker 1: think I've got my head wrapped around mutual aid, community resilience,
Speaker 1: and all the stuff you talk about. Any tips on
Speaker 1: how to effectively communicate it to people who might not
Speaker 1: be at least initially open to it h um. I
Speaker 1: mean it kind of depends on why they're not open
Speaker 1: to it, right. So it's it's a matter of are
Speaker 1: they just somebody who has a lot of faith in
Speaker 1: in systems as they exist, or they someone who's kind
Speaker 1: of coming at it from more of a traditional like
Speaker 1: liberal um status perspective where they think the option is
Speaker 1: to get in line with you know, the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: and support that and that will make things better. Um.
Speaker 1: Like basically, are they a top down er um? Or
Speaker 1: there somebody who rejects it's like communism um, and they
Speaker 1: don't they don't think that people have any kind of
Speaker 1: fundamental responsibility to themselves. Um. Because you are going to
Speaker 1: have kind of a different approach to trying to reach
Speaker 1: either of those people. Um. If they're coming at it
Speaker 1: from kind of more of a right wing standpoint, but
Speaker 1: they're not, you know, uh talking about shooting vaccine doctors. Um,
Speaker 1: they're just kind of conservative. I think the way to
Speaker 1: do it is to sort of hearken back to some
Speaker 1: of these very traditional ideas of like um, American homesteaders
Speaker 1: and and independent you know, communities on the frontier and
Speaker 1: self reliance, and how mutual aid is people taking responsibility
Speaker 1: UM for their communities rather than you know, this idea
Speaker 1: I think a lot of conservatives have of like people
Speaker 1: UM just kind of lazily taking charity. How it's it's
Speaker 1: different from charity, and that it's a community UM seeing
Speaker 1: its own needs and becoming independent as much as is
Speaker 1: possible on the state from the state, UM by trying
Speaker 1: to meet its own needs, and how that UM is
Speaker 1: better for people than just sort of UM begging, like
Speaker 1: being dependent upon government programs. I think that's kind of
Speaker 1: the way in which to reach out to those people
Speaker 1: with that idea if they're coming at it from more
Speaker 1: of a liberal top down approach, UM, I think you
Speaker 1: can get more into the weeds and may argue about
Speaker 1: kind of inefficiencies within the system, problems within the system.
Speaker 1: I think one thing to really point out that will
Speaker 1: probably still be fresh to a lot of people of
Speaker 1: that persuasion is how frightening the first couple of weeks
Speaker 1: of quarantine were and all of the supply line issues
Speaker 1: and kind of the early breakdown to be like, look, um,
Speaker 1: that didn't go away, like right, you can see that
Speaker 1: that we're still dealing with a lot of this and
Speaker 1: we're still having supply line disruptions and the state really
Speaker 1: has not kind of even under Biden sailed and to
Speaker 1: clear the gap. And so we need these community resilient
Speaker 1: and see programs, UM. And you can you know, depending
Speaker 1: on the kind of person there, you can also sort
Speaker 1: of point out, um, the degree to which there is
Speaker 1: our attempts at kind of sabotage of any sort of
Speaker 1: of of of top down government programs by the right
Speaker 1: and how um that's part of why you need community
Speaker 1: resiliency programs because you can't guarantee who's going to be
Speaker 1: in the White House, you can't guarantee what's going to
Speaker 1: continue to get funded. Um. And outside of kind of
Speaker 1: any of the the structural issues um that make that
Speaker 1: stuff difficult. So I think, UM, that's kind of broadly speaking,
Speaker 1: the two different ways you you can broach those conversations
Speaker 1: with people, depending on the tendencies they're they're looking at
Speaker 1: it from uh, let's let's let's get into an unpleasant one.
Speaker 1: What's the gang's outlook on this? Year's election, and how
Speaker 1: do you think it might position us for do we
Speaker 1: see more violence letting up to the next presidential election? Well,
Speaker 1: I know we'll be doing a prediction ze Ish episode later. Um.
Speaker 1: But as for this election, I have I've not looked
Speaker 1: at anything about it. I think the Steelers are going
Speaker 1: to take all what what what's border? Are the Steelers?
Speaker 1: Um one of them? That's great? I mean yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I feel like if Democrats want to keep the
Speaker 1: power that they currently have, they will probably need to
Speaker 1: do some type of symbolic action that makes people think
Speaker 1: they actually do things. They've managed to have control of
Speaker 1: every and done absolutely nothing that they So I'm guessing
Speaker 1: if they want to keep that, they should probably do
Speaker 1: something really soon um or else I don't see people
Speaker 1: being super eager to vote in two for the Democrats. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean one of the issues they've got is this
Speaker 1: this thing that you know, kind of the Technocrats always
Speaker 1: had of where you know, as we as Corey pointed
Speaker 1: out when we had him on, there have been some
Speaker 1: really positive moves by the Biden administration in terms of
Speaker 1: like appointments and how different kind of agencies are being handled. Um.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to the things that he actually
Speaker 1: campaigned on, Like it just hasn't it hasn't happened, should
Speaker 1: it ain't been done? Um, Like the closest we've gotten
Speaker 1: recently is yet another kick the can down the street
Speaker 1: a little bit for student loan repayments, And I agree,
Speaker 1: I think they need to do. There's like two big
Speaker 1: things they could do that might have a significant shifting effect.
Speaker 1: One of them would be student debt forgiveness, and one
Speaker 1: of them would be fucking de schedule marijuana. Even without Congress,
Speaker 1: Biden could could not factively make marijuana not and like
Speaker 1: that would be number one politically, the easiest fucking win
Speaker 1: in the world because the vast majority of Republicans don't
Speaker 1: give a shit about that anymore. Um, it will piss
Speaker 1: off cops, which is probably why you won't do it.
Speaker 1: But like those two things could have an impact on
Speaker 1: in terms, that's certainly a thing that would like you
Speaker 1: can campaign on more, but I don't. I don't know
Speaker 1: that I think he'll do that. And of obviously I
Speaker 1: guess another big old payment to stay home, but I
Speaker 1: think that shipped unsailed, Like honestly, like, I don't think
Speaker 1: they want to win, Like they so they can sit
Speaker 1: there and then and go, oh yeah, we can't do
Speaker 1: anything because Republicans control the House, and you guys need
Speaker 1: to like, you guys need to like save us. This
Speaker 1: is the most important election of our lifetime. It's like,
Speaker 1: and they will keep doing this over and over and
Speaker 1: over again until literally to seize boil and everyone, you know,
Speaker 1: everyone's being heard into concentration camps. Like they will just
Speaker 1: keep doing this and and like I think that's that's
Speaker 1: the thing that's actually important about two cycle is that
Speaker 1: like the Democrats have you know, you know what what
Speaker 1: the rejection of Brine Sanders sort of is is the
Speaker 1: Democrats essentially going, we are not a popular party, right,
Speaker 1: like we we are not a party that is going
Speaker 1: to like like we will not even give the pretense
Speaker 1: of like having a base that we represent and we
Speaker 1: do things for like we're just we're just in it
Speaker 1: for ourselves. We're in it to just like you know,
Speaker 1: give all of our weird like black Rock friends positions
Speaker 1: in the government, and we don't you know, and it's
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's we we don't have a policy agenda,
Speaker 1: and we don't care if we lose, because if we
Speaker 1: lose all you people just have to go put us
Speaker 1: back into office because the alternative is just more death camps. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there's a broad belief like within
Speaker 1: kind of the Democratic Party that things are still business
Speaker 1: as usual and that the Republican Party is still a
Speaker 1: political party, and so kind of the handing off and
Speaker 1: switching of power is fine. That's seen as business as usual,
Speaker 1: rather than the Democrats or the Republicans are continually ratcheting
Speaker 1: away from there being any chance of a switch of power,
Speaker 1: um at least through legal means. Like that's the whole
Speaker 1: thing they're doing. And the failures to pass any kind
Speaker 1: of voting rights and the failures to see like a
Speaker 1: voting right reform as an existential issue for not just
Speaker 1: the party, but like the concept of uh democracy in
Speaker 1: this country is is I think evident that however you
Speaker 1: kind of try to rationalize in your head why it's happening.
Speaker 1: There's a real disconnect between the party leadership and understandings
Speaker 1: of the new nature of reality. Yeah. Well that's the
Speaker 1: other thing. I mean, they'll be fine, right like outside
Speaker 1: of like another January six killing them all, Like they'll
Speaker 1: be fine. It doesn't like for them. It basically doesn't
Speaker 1: matter if Republicans take power. Maybe maybe some of them
Speaker 1: will get impeached, they'll be like a show trial for
Speaker 1: like two people or something, but like they're gonna be fine,
Speaker 1: and you know, that's that's the thing that motivates all
Speaker 1: of their thinking, is that they can survive another public administration.
Speaker 1: Like we're you know, we're dying under both of them,
Speaker 1: and you know, like I mean, this is this is
Speaker 1: partially you know, if you want to talk about sort
Speaker 1: of the COVID response for a second, in the relation
Speaker 1: that has to the election, it's like, yeah, the Democrats
Speaker 1: are just like completely given up even the pretense of
Speaker 1: doing literally anything about COVID literally because literally anything, yeah,
Speaker 1: go out and die, like so we can talk about that.
Speaker 1: That's a separate yeah, yeah, that's a separate issue, do
Speaker 1: I think, just in terms of like how how to
Speaker 1: interpret what they're doing with COVID and the degree to
Speaker 1: which I think they even have a chance of uh whatever. Um,
Speaker 1: But yeah, I was like, like like, they don't care if
Speaker 1: we live or die, Like we care if we live
Speaker 1: or die, and we're gonna have to do stuff on
Speaker 1: our own outside of this because they're just gonna kill
Speaker 1: us all. Yeah, I mean I think that it's hard
Speaker 1: for me to tell where the elections are going to
Speaker 1: go precisely. Uh. Biden's polling certainly isn't great. It's also
Speaker 1: not like wildly out of step with how where presidents
Speaker 1: often are kind of at this point, UM in in
Speaker 1: their cycle. So and also it's pretty normal for the
Speaker 1: party that just won the presidential election to lose at
Speaker 1: the midterms. That's more normal than not UM, I think. So,
Speaker 1: I think the big questions are number one, like the
Speaker 1: degree to which it's a wide sweep, which is going
Speaker 1: to depend on the actual impact a lot of these
Speaker 1: UM efforts to kind of restrict voting and jerrymander, Like
Speaker 1: what the actual on the ground impact is UM, and
Speaker 1: the degree to which we've seen an actual shift, because
Speaker 1: one of the things that the polls don't often tell
Speaker 1: us is like, yeah, Democrats are not popular. Most people
Speaker 1: seem to be aware that a lot of promises have
Speaker 1: gone unfulfilled, But it doesn't also mean that they like
Speaker 1: the Republicans UM, who as the party of Trump, are
Speaker 1: still kind of widely disliked by people. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of unclear to me what precisely is going to go down.
Speaker 1: By which I mean whether or not it's going to
Speaker 1: be a pretty normal midterm, whether Republicans pick up some
Speaker 1: seats or like a nightmare blowout. Um And I do
Speaker 1: think that has a lot to do with whether or
Speaker 1: not Biden and like does a couple of the things
Speaker 1: that a president can do unilaterally that would be really
Speaker 1: easy for other people to campaign on. Um. Like he
Speaker 1: they have to, like if they actually do want to win,
Speaker 1: they have to they have to make a couple of
Speaker 1: big hail mary's they have to do again, Biden has
Speaker 1: to do a couple of the big things that a
Speaker 1: president can do and then say, okay, see I did
Speaker 1: a thing, put more Democrats in, and we can do
Speaker 1: this other big thing that a president can't do on
Speaker 1: its own or something like that. Like I I just
Speaker 1: don't see, Um. I mean, you know, anything could happen. Still,
Speaker 1: it's fucking January. I think there's a positive if you
Speaker 1: want to in terms of things that are making me
Speaker 1: kind of optimistic. Um And and in terms of things
Speaker 1: that are better about when the Democrats are in powder
Speaker 1: and then the Republicans, you can bully the Biden administration
Speaker 1: to taking broadly positive action, which is what happened with
Speaker 1: student loan repayments, right, That's why that did get kicked
Speaker 1: down the can a couple of kick down the road
Speaker 1: a couple of months. Um. And so I do think
Speaker 1: there's potential in um harassing the Biden administration to taking
Speaker 1: actions that can make Democrats more popular. Um. That would
Speaker 1: not be the reason to do it. The reason to
Speaker 1: do it is so that people don't starve trying to
Speaker 1: pay back student loans. Um. But it does point to,
Speaker 1: I think in an avenue of hope. Um, if we're
Speaker 1: trying not to be complete dooomers in January. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: speaking of avenues of hope, it's time for an ad
Speaker 1: by Ah. The only thing that gives me hope is
Speaker 1: the products and services that support this podcast. And we
Speaker 1: are back back, we are, we are, i've i've I
Speaker 1: have a question. I would like us to talk about
Speaker 1: new year book list. Oh yeah, that's simple. So what's
Speaker 1: what's some I think we could answer this like? And
Speaker 1: then they also someone else followed up with saying, recommend
Speaker 1: some books that maybe not just let left this theory
Speaker 1: of climate change also some like fiction stuff as well.
Speaker 1: And I'm just gonna say the books that I'm reading
Speaker 1: or is on my reading list. Not I'm not going
Speaker 1: to recommend books I've already read. I'm just gonna say
Speaker 1: the ones I'm currently reading. UM. I'm still making it
Speaker 1: through hyper objects for an upcoming episode. UM. I picked
Speaker 1: up a really a book I wanted to get for
Speaker 1: a long time called Islands of Abandonment, which is about
Speaker 1: um people, Well, no, it's it's it's about places that
Speaker 1: have kind of been forgotten and regrown or taken to
Speaker 1: have been kind of reclaimed by the area that they were,
Speaker 1: that they were built on. And then I also have
Speaker 1: a random few books on alchemy that I'm going through
Speaker 1: as well. That's most of my books. Horrible. UM. I
Speaker 1: read the last book I finished in one was in
Speaker 1: the Garden of Beasts, which is by what is his name?
Speaker 1: I think it's Eric larson Um. He's a guy who's
Speaker 1: written He wrote like Devil in the White City and
Speaker 1: a couple of other books that people have probably read
Speaker 1: Eric larson Um, And it's about the first US ambassador
Speaker 1: to Nazi Germany or what becomes Nazi Journey. He gets
Speaker 1: sent there right before like like months before Hitler take
Speaker 1: power and The book largely traces he and his family's
Speaker 1: journey in Nazi Germany from like kind of didn't really
Speaker 1: care about German politics, and we're often broadly sympathetic towards
Speaker 1: the Nazis. They melt met like his daughter kind of
Speaker 1: is is very much like on board with the Nazi
Speaker 1: revolution for like the first half year that she's there.
Speaker 1: She's also like simultaneously dating the head of the Gestapo
Speaker 1: and the Soviet um like assistant ambassador, which is fascinating. Like,
Speaker 1: it's a very interesting book, um, And the story, like
Speaker 1: the journey this kind of family goes on realizing like
Speaker 1: what the Nazis are in the perspective of that. It's
Speaker 1: it's very well written. Um, it's very detailed. I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. The thing that I liked the most was
Speaker 1: the detail it goes into about the kind of the
Speaker 1: fates of because it's it's a more you know, obviously
Speaker 1: as much of a nerd on the history of fascism
Speaker 1: as I am, I've read a lot about the Night
Speaker 1: of Long Knives. This did the best job of kind
Speaker 1: of going into detail about the kind of dudes who
Speaker 1: the dudes who were purged in the Night of Long Knives.
Speaker 1: So these guys who were Nazis and that they wore
Speaker 1: swastikas and they were part of the party and whatnot,
Speaker 1: but also weren't Nazis enough to not get purged, and
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases were like starting to fall
Speaker 1: out of love with the party when the Night of
Speaker 1: Long Knives had And so it's these it's really interesting,
Speaker 1: UM and I recommend it to people. And the last
Speaker 1: book I started in the first book I finished in
Speaker 1: two was called Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson,
Speaker 1: who is UM an interesting science fiction author, in part
Speaker 1: because Ministry of the Future is about climate change. UM.
Speaker 1: It is a a science fiction look at about like
Speaker 1: a thousand different potential solutions to climate change. And Kim
Speaker 1: Stanley Robinson is actually like an expert UM. He works
Speaker 1: for the Sierra Center. I think it's called UM. He's
Speaker 1: won a bunch of awards for his work on like
Speaker 1: trying to like posit different solutions to climate change. He's
Speaker 1: he he understands, he's not like coming at this from
Speaker 1: the perspective of an even even a well researched author.
Speaker 1: He's he's writing from the perspective of someone who is
Speaker 1: an actual scientific expert in what happens and how the
Speaker 1: different solutions might work. And the thing that's really interesting
Speaker 1: about Ministry of the Future is it's this fascinating melange
Speaker 1: of UM. Like a number of the character the Ministry
Speaker 1: of the Future is this kind of hypothetical new U
Speaker 1: N agency that's put in place after a horrible wet
Speaker 1: bulb um heat event kills twenty million people in India UM,
Speaker 1: and they're they're kind of trying to push for very
Speaker 1: technocratic solutions to climate change. So, like one of the
Speaker 1: big things the book focuses on a lot is this
Speaker 1: idea of a climate coin, which is a kind of
Speaker 1: um international backed by banks cryptocurrency that that pays as
Speaker 1: a kind of long term bond for sequestering carbon, so
Speaker 1: that like countries like Saudi Arabia that have huge oil
Speaker 1: reserves actually make more money by refusing to pump out
Speaker 1: oil and thus get paid in these coins. So it's
Speaker 1: really technocratic solutions like that. And then also terrorist groups
Speaker 1: that may be funded by this U N Agency building
Speaker 1: fleets of drones to murder people on commercial air flights
Speaker 1: UM in mass in order to cripple the entire air
Speaker 1: travel industry and stop carbon emission and carrying out mass
Speaker 1: assassinations on like CEOs of of oil companies living in
Speaker 1: their private islands. So it's this really interesting mix of
Speaker 1: like kind of liberal politicians and like bankers like working
Speaker 1: out these very wonky solutions to things, and like terrorists
Speaker 1: who have lost people in climate emergencies mass murdering um
Speaker 1: billionaires uh and and so it's it's a very it's
Speaker 1: the whitest possible ranging look at kind of different solutions
Speaker 1: to climate change and how they might work. And it's
Speaker 1: a very optimistic book. Um. And there's there's elements of
Speaker 1: it that I kind of the optimism I kind of
Speaker 1: disagree with. I think oddly enough Kim doesn't give enough
Speaker 1: weight to the dangers of authoritarian populism and and the
Speaker 1: threat I think they present to any of these kind
Speaker 1: of potential solutions. But it's still a very well thought
Speaker 1: out look at climate change and I think really worth
Speaker 1: reading um if you want something that will both bring
Speaker 1: up different because he also goes into a lot of
Speaker 1: like very scientific solutions, like pumping up water from underneath
Speaker 1: glaciers in order to stop glaciers from sliding, and like
Speaker 1: slow the rate of melt and all these these other
Speaker 1: kind of like very much like technical, here's a thing
Speaker 1: that we can do that will reduce the effect of
Speaker 1: this specific um kind of climate change. It's really a
Speaker 1: very good book. Um and it's apparently was Barack Obama's
Speaker 1: favorite book of the year, which, considering the degree which
Speaker 1: it talks about murdering politicians and business leaders, is interesting
Speaker 1: to me. I think he was maybe more paying attention
Speaker 1: to the carbon coins stuff than the shooting oil industry
Speaker 1: executives in their face while they're sleeping. He was also
Speaker 1: a fan of parasite, so he may just have been
Speaker 1: told this is a book you should say you like,
Speaker 1: but it is. It is a very good book. It
Speaker 1: is really worth reading. Um and it's it's it is
Speaker 1: a work of science fiction. But honestly it's like it's
Speaker 1: also it's well again, Kim really understands his stuff from
Speaker 1: a technical level, so I think it's pretty unimpeachable from
Speaker 1: that point of view. There are some kind of sociological
Speaker 1: areas where I don't think the book. I think there's
Speaker 1: some ship missing, particularly as regards the problems authoritarianism is
Speaker 1: going to cause in reaching for these solutions. But I
Speaker 1: think it's still really really valuable. And Chris, we're gonna
Speaker 1: hear your responses. But first capitalism, Chris reading reading a
Speaker 1: few things, Um, really more Chuang which is a theoretical
Speaker 1: journal about China that writes a lot of very very
Speaker 1: good stuff. They have probably the best account have ever
Speaker 1: seen of just what was going on during the socialist
Speaker 1: period and then also the sort of transition to capitalism
Speaker 1: that those are those are those are issues one and two,
Speaker 1: and they just published an issue about it, basically, how
Speaker 1: the pandemic response happens in China. It's it's absolutely fascinating. Um.
Speaker 1: It's also about sort of is this something that yeah,
Speaker 1: I've I've talked about a lot of their stuff on
Speaker 1: the show, sort of obliquely or directly, but like, you know,
Speaker 1: one of one of the big things is about how,
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, the pandemic reveals the sort
Speaker 1: of weakness of the Chinese state and in a way
Speaker 1: that you know it is you don't see really because
Speaker 1: both both you know, both the Chinese state and the
Speaker 1: sort of like American media have this vested interest in
Speaker 1: showing like China's is sort of like all powerful authoritarian
Speaker 1: police state or whatever. Like the miliar image of it
Speaker 1: is like this isn't but you know what what you
Speaker 1: really see is that like this, the state has a
Speaker 1: very strong ability to intervene in like one province at
Speaker 1: a time, and they can you know when when when
Speaker 1: they focus, when they focus all of the sort of
Speaker 1: miss of power on like one area, right, they're extremely effective.
Speaker 1: They can't really do it in you know, multiplayers at
Speaker 1: the same time. And this means that you're dealing with
Speaker 1: all these sort of regional government stuff and it's it's
Speaker 1: very interesting. The the other thing that I have, well, okay,
Speaker 1: so do do we want to talk like a little
Speaker 1: bit about dawn of everything or do you want to
Speaker 1: save that for just like yeah, I I'm down to
Speaker 1: talk about that at any point. Yeah, ok, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: definitely on my list. That is a long one that's
Speaker 1: less of a read I think where most people are
Speaker 1: going to be less of a read in one sweep
Speaker 1: than like maybe for over the course of the year,
Speaker 1: like gradually. Yeah. Yeah, it's very very dense and very long,
Speaker 1: but very readable. Like not to say that it's like
Speaker 1: dense in the I gotta like slog through this textbook.
Speaker 1: It's extremely readable. It's just like there's a lot in
Speaker 1: there and you're gonna want to pause and think about ship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so so they don't have everything is this is the
Speaker 1: last book David Graber ever wrote, and it's David wen
Speaker 1: Grow also. They wrote it together, and it's it's this
Speaker 1: basically an attempt to reassemble I guess, early human history.
Speaker 1: And but the thing that they're doing that that's that's
Speaker 1: really unique is that so they they're David one grows
Speaker 1: as archaeologist David Graeber's and an apologists and they're they're going,
Speaker 1: you know, so they spent a whole bunch of time
Speaker 1: going through the sort of early archaeological records, and what
Speaker 1: they find, basically is that none of the things that
Speaker 1: you see make any sense at all unless you're willing
Speaker 1: to unless you're willing to accept that people you know,
Speaker 1: years ago, and then even you know, people like four
Speaker 1: hive thousand years ago, we're as smart as we are
Speaker 1: and have the have the capacity to recreate and redesign
Speaker 1: their own political arrangements selfconsciously, which is something that doesn't
Speaker 1: sound that weird, except everyone assumes that they can't, and
Speaker 1: that you know, everyone that's you know, One of the
Speaker 1: other things that they're they're really sort of heavily doing
Speaker 1: here is trying to break this idea that you know,
Speaker 1: human society sort of evolves in these this linear progression.
Speaker 1: You know, you start out with like these small hunter
Speaker 1: gatherer bands and they get more complex quote unquote eventually
Speaker 1: they developed farming, and farming developed the state. And the
Speaker 1: answer is just, you know, when you look through the
Speaker 1: actual archaeological record, none of this is true. You have,
Speaker 1: you know, they have a lot of very interesting sort
Speaker 1: of historical examples of this, looking at like what looked
Speaker 1: like incredibly democratic and egalitarian cities, and then you know,
Speaker 1: on the outskirts of those cities you have the emergence
Speaker 1: of the states among things that look like states, among
Speaker 1: barbarian groups. And they have and what I think is
Speaker 1: maybe the most interesting part of it is that they're
Speaker 1: they're very concerned with the question of human freedom, but
Speaker 1: freedom in a way that like, we don't like freedom
Speaker 1: on a level fundamental enough that like we can barely
Speaker 1: imagine it. So they have these things called the Three freedoms,
Speaker 1: which is one of them is so the first one
Speaker 1: is the freedom just move to leave and to it's
Speaker 1: it's the freedom to to you know, be in a
Speaker 1: place and then leave and know that you will be
Speaker 1: cared for when you get to wherever you're going. Yeah,
Speaker 1: these kind of networks that were set up so that
Speaker 1: people could travel that have like the descendant of those
Speaker 1: ideas is sort of the way if you ever if
Speaker 1: you've ever spent time in the Middle East, not in
Speaker 1: like hotels and ship like it's that same idea that
Speaker 1: kind of deeper than religious belief about the importance of
Speaker 1: that has gotten added to like Islam and into a
Speaker 1: number of other faiths in the area. Like, but this
Speaker 1: idea that like there's nothing more sacred than taking care
Speaker 1: of a of a guest um like and and how
Speaker 1: that that that existed to enable kind of a sort
Speaker 1: of cross cultural contract and contact and like recreational travel
Speaker 1: in a way that I think it would be deeply
Speaker 1: surprising to people who just sort of assumed everyone before
Speaker 1: a certain age died within five miles of their house
Speaker 1: or was you know, yeah, part of a band of
Speaker 1: wandering hunters. Yeah. And it's it's interesting in that like,
Speaker 1: like like we we in a lot of ways travel
Speaker 1: less than early people did, because you know that people
Speaker 1: would just leave and people, you know, people just didn't
Speaker 1: like their families, and so they'd walk like five miles
Speaker 1: and they they'd come to a place and they'd be accepted.
Speaker 1: And yeah, and you know, and like the second one
Speaker 1: that I think is the one that is the one
Speaker 1: we have the least capacity, I think to understand, which
Speaker 1: is just the ability to disobey orders. Just like anyone
Speaker 1: tells you do something, you could just tell them know
Speaker 1: at any time. And it's not only can you just
Speaker 1: tell them no, Like the social expectation is that you
Speaker 1: is that you don't act, is that it's it's it's
Speaker 1: it's not just that you have the ability to do it.
Speaker 1: It's that someone giving you an order is treated as weird.
Speaker 1: And this is a thing that you know, like like this,
Speaker 1: this is the thing. This is a freedom that used
Speaker 1: to exist and no longer does and was sort of
Speaker 1: destroying various ways along with sort of the third freedom
Speaker 1: to talk about, which is about how people have the
Speaker 1: right to sort of just shift and recreate their their
Speaker 1: social political arrangements. And yeah, and people used to do
Speaker 1: this sort of I mean people, you know a lot
Speaker 1: of the what the early part of the book is
Speaker 1: about is about how societies you there there's a lot
Speaker 1: of societies that would you know, flip seasonally, right, so
Speaker 1: what like one half of the year you have this
Speaker 1: just like absolutelytatorship. The other half of the year it's like,
Speaker 1: well it looks like a hippie commune. And you know
Speaker 1: the fact that we do not like the fact that
Speaker 1: like we we we just don't like it, cannot conceive
Speaker 1: of completely shifting our political arrangements like that is. It's
Speaker 1: also there's this fascinating discussion of like the fact that
Speaker 1: and this is kind of counter to what I had
Speaker 1: always kind of thought that like once as a group
Speaker 1: groups of people when they when they made the decision
Speaker 1: to like move to agriculture um and like set founded cities,
Speaker 1: that it was kind of a one way street. You know,
Speaker 1: you you just keep going along that road. And there's
Speaker 1: actually multiple examples of people's like this is what what
Speaker 1: happened to the British aisles, or at least in what
Speaker 1: is currently Great Britain. People's like developing agriculture, settling down
Speaker 1: and then being like oh, you know what, fuck this
Speaker 1: and like going back like that that should should happen
Speaker 1: all the time. And one of the things that's really
Speaker 1: kind of optimistic about the vision of of the sweep
Speaker 1: of human history in the dawn of everything is the
Speaker 1: idea that like, no, we don't have to keep like
Speaker 1: it's not inevitable that we just keep doing more of
Speaker 1: what we're doing now. All throughout history, large groups of
Speaker 1: people have been like, it's time to let's do something else,
Speaker 1: let's make a radical change, like it happens um And
Speaker 1: it's probably more normal to do that than it is
Speaker 1: to do what we've been doing. And when you I
Speaker 1: think one of the things that kind of one of
Speaker 1: the things that leads to the sense of inevitability of
Speaker 1: development along the lines that we have is is the
Speaker 1: fact that we only really have about ten thousand years
Speaker 1: of even vaguely reliable like data um or vaguely comprehensive
Speaker 1: data on human history. But people have been around for
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of years longer than that, and for
Speaker 1: most of it we've been a lot more experimental than
Speaker 1: we are now. And it's it's always possible for people
Speaker 1: to try different things in a way that um maybe
Speaker 1: seems impossible to us now but but necessarily won't for
Speaker 1: our kids. Oh yeah, The last thing I would tell
Speaker 1: people to listen to if they're looking for a fictional
Speaker 1: optimistic thing is Corey Doctors walk Away. Um, give it
Speaker 1: a read. And if you're if you're looking for like
Speaker 1: a a like a beautiful like not to get your
Speaker 1: head out of the One of the things I'm really
Speaker 1: passionate about is plants. And I have this beautiful book
Speaker 1: called the Planet Pedia and it's really helpful for caring
Speaker 1: for your house plants. And it's just like aesthetically just such.
Speaker 1: The photographs are beautiful and it's one of my favorite
Speaker 1: things to give friends and family. To check that one
Speaker 1: out as well. Another another plant book that I just
Speaker 1: got for somebody that I really like. I think it's
Speaker 1: called Wicked Plants. It's about all the courses plants that
Speaker 1: you can get um and the ones all the the
Speaker 1: poison plants you can cultivate in your own garden. And
Speaker 1: that's been a lovely read. Um, and I do hope
Speaker 1: to set up a decent poison garden here in the spring.
Speaker 1: So very excited. Yeah me too, It's going to be great. Well,
Speaker 1: let's get to another question. Um, do you guys want
Speaker 1: like a fluff question or like a real question? Uh?
Speaker 1: Let's do a fluff one and we can start the
Speaker 1: next episode with a real, real juicy fluff me daddy,
Speaker 1: all right, Okay, that's a little gift to all of
Speaker 1: you at home. On the topic of hobbies, so so
Speaker 1: I just Garrison likes poisonous plants. I like non poisonous plants. Uh,
Speaker 1: what hobbies are you into that we may not know about? Um?
Speaker 1: I guess I can only say one thing here. Really well,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, you should be really careful about
Speaker 1: how you answer this one. I know what your hobbies are.
Speaker 1: Let's have everyone else go first. UM. I just got
Speaker 1: into three D printing. I'm currently trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how to get a BS to act adhere properly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That was the problem I had with my printer is
Speaker 1: that it would I would get like a decent way
Speaker 1: through the first part of the print, and then part
Speaker 1: of it would like come curl off, so then it
Speaker 1: wouldn't print the next layer on correctly. Then it must
Speaker 1: up the print. And yeah, I was between mental health
Speaker 1: stuff and that at the time. I was s today
Speaker 1: on my printer. This is when I just gave up
Speaker 1: because it was too much. So I'll be excited to
Speaker 1: see how you get past this turtle. Well, I've I've
Speaker 1: got a glass bed coming in, so I'm gonna yeah,
Speaker 1: and I've I've got the enclosure. One of the issues
Speaker 1: I'm having is just that I'm having a heating issue
Speaker 1: with the bed. It won't heat up. It stops before
Speaker 1: it gets to one tin, which is what it should
Speaker 1: be able to go up that high. But it's just, yeah,
Speaker 1: can you manually heat it up hotter? It doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to matter. It doesn't seem to matter if I if
Speaker 1: I said it, like I can't obviously, like you can.
Speaker 1: You can set it up to heat, but it just
Speaker 1: keeps I keep getting that like loud error beep. So
Speaker 1: there's like there's this is going to be It's going
Speaker 1: to be a process of jiggering to to to figure
Speaker 1: it out. Um, but you can, Yeah, I have, I have.
Speaker 1: I've I have a similar problem with my setup right
Speaker 1: now that I've been trying to troubleshoot for the half
Speaker 1: a year. Um, I can manually control the heat bed
Speaker 1: and it does get that hot. But still I think
Speaker 1: it may just be a leveling issue. I may need
Speaker 1: to like clean the bed. I also should have talked
Speaker 1: to someone who has done more three D printing than me. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, but it's it's it's fun. I I
Speaker 1: enjoy it. It's very it's radically different from the stuff
Speaker 1: that I like do for a living um, which is
Speaker 1: always my favorite thing for like a a task to
Speaker 1: engage in in order to be relaxing, because it's it's
Speaker 1: not at all like reading and writing. It's very different.
Speaker 1: It's very different. So so far, I'm enjoying it. And
Speaker 1: I already I printed the thing I need to do
Speaker 1: to make the the bio um the biolab for like
Speaker 1: the Four Thieves stuff. If you want to check out
Speaker 1: our episode with Michael from the Four Thieves Vinegar Collective.
Speaker 1: I've three D printed that part, so I'm ready to
Speaker 1: get the other parts and put that thing together. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to figure out how to print other
Speaker 1: stuff with better plastics and whatnot. But yeah, it's it's fun.
Speaker 1: So far, I'm I'm enjoying it a lot. Um. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'll get bored, Maybe I'll wind up spending way too
Speaker 1: much money on different three D printers, like the ones
Speaker 1: that lift the goo out of the resin printers are there.
Speaker 1: They's so they're much like this is what this is
Speaker 1: what Corey doctor was talking about, Like, like they are
Speaker 1: much better at the filament printers in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: but a lot of like a lot of the stuff.
Speaker 1: A lot of the really useful machines that you can
Speaker 1: make with three printers require you to use filaments right now, um,
Speaker 1: but the resin ones are like so much more elegant.
Speaker 1: They're beautiful. Um. I also am really interested in the
Speaker 1: idea of printing would which I did not realize until
Speaker 1: recently you could do but it's absolutely possible with certain
Speaker 1: kinds of printers. Um, And that seems pretty dope. So
Speaker 1: I don't know, we'll see how. Maybe I'll be tired
Speaker 1: of it in a month because my mental health will
Speaker 1: take a dive, But so far, I'm pretty excited. Cool Chris,
Speaker 1: what do I do? Uh? Well, Okay, so before the pandemic,
Speaker 1: I was getting into rock climbing. But unfortunately, like like
Speaker 1: I like rock climbing, I'm not like, oh, it's like
Speaker 1: the best thing you can do for you. It's a
Speaker 1: lot of fun, but unfortunately, I mean it's not like
Speaker 1: the worst pandemic thing you could possibly do, but like
Speaker 1: it's no So if you get up high enough on
Speaker 1: the rocks. COVID can't get up there. It's like the
Speaker 1: opposite of a bear. It's really bad at climbing. Yes,
Speaker 1: so I guess the other what do I even do?
Speaker 1: Is Okay? So my other thing okay, so so deep
Speaker 1: like deep Twitter lure. People will probably know this about me,
Speaker 1: But I am I have been for a very very
Speaker 1: long time, like an inveterate fan of competitive StarCraft two. Okay,
Speaker 1: I am awful at it, Like I am terrible at
Speaker 1: that game. But I have watched so much StarCraft two,
Speaker 1: like I I StarCraft two has become enough of my
Speaker 1: life that like, like the game was part of my
Speaker 1: radicalization process, like so yeah, I wake up extremely early
Speaker 1: or stay up extremely late and watched Korean StarCraft two
Speaker 1: and non Korean StarCraft two, and yeah, it's it's a
Speaker 1: good time. It's I My favorite thing about StarCraft in
Speaker 1: general is thinking about the fact that Blizzard was initially
Speaker 1: trying to make a Warhammer forty video game, and Games
Speaker 1: Workshop was as always too paranoid of their I p
Speaker 1: to let it happen, and thus lost how many god
Speaker 1: knows how many. They would be worth more money than
Speaker 1: most countries like, yeah, been printing an impossible amount of money,
Speaker 1: like Indie Chambers would have been able to buy a
Speaker 1: mountain of cocaine to live inside, but but no, instead
Speaker 1: we got all of the infrastructure of modern esports. Mm hm,
Speaker 1: which it seems fine, like it's whatever, I don't care,
Speaker 1: but it is very funny to me that they were like, nah,
Speaker 1: this doesn't seem like a good financial decision for games Workshop,
Speaker 1: this StarCraft thing, Like I wonder like that. That's the
Speaker 1: kind of thing where it's like, if they made that
Speaker 1: much money, would they all just retire? Like well, I
Speaker 1: mean it's a publicly traded company, like the stock the
Speaker 1: shareholders would have made a fortune and the but yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's very it's very funny that they
Speaker 1: didn't think that was going to be worth it. Let's see,
Speaker 1: in terms of how these people may not know. I
Speaker 1: do really like cooking. I take cooking classes for a
Speaker 1: long time. Um that's been the main cook in my
Speaker 1: family since I was a very little kid, so I
Speaker 1: definitely definitely enjoy that. Um. I did go to film
Speaker 1: school for a few years. I want to get back
Speaker 1: into making short video projects. I've been writing some random
Speaker 1: kind of new weird genre esque stuff that I would
Speaker 1: love to like rent a studio space and actually shoot
Speaker 1: some silly things in the next year and throw them
Speaker 1: up online just for kind of my own fun. Um.
Speaker 1: And then I also been still doing random occultism stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: that's kind of how I feel my time. Yeah, it's fun. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's an answer. That is an answer. We
Speaker 1: did it. That's an answer, and more importantly, that's an episode.
Speaker 1: That episode that is an answer. That is a single content.
Speaker 1: You all got a content out of us, and will
Speaker 1: be proud of yourselves, replicate and reproduce another content tomorrow
Speaker 1: that's more eased to your cues. So a content every
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Speaker 1: they see you. They're fearless. Guide. Is this fascinating world.
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Speaker 1: We need everything you've got Fast Waiting on Reparations. We'd
Speaker 1: beat the podcast every Thursday, politics and wordplay. We fight
Speaker 1: for the people because they got us in the worst way,
Speaker 1: from the Hill Cooper, the Bomb Bay to Kant, from
Speaker 1: the left enclave to what the neo kanse every th
Speaker 1: heavy conversation and to break us off with some break
Speaker 1: because we're waiting. Listen to Waiting on Reparations on the
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. Raffie is the voice of some of the
Speaker 1: happiest songs of our generation. Baby So who is the
Speaker 1: man behind Baby Bluga? Every human being wants to feel
Speaker 1: respected when we start with you at all good things
Speaker 1: can grow from there. I'm Chris Garcia, comedian, new dad
Speaker 1: and host of Finding Raffie, a new podcast from my
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Fatherly. Listen every Tuesday on the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome
Speaker 1: Back It could happen here, the podcast where Jay your
Speaker 1: Boltonaro was once again in the hospital getting all of
Speaker 1: the feats sucked out of his hospital. The most consistently
Speaker 1: dying man in the world. You know what, this man
Speaker 1: in history, you know, actually literally full of ship again,
Speaker 1: you know what? You know what this means. It approximately
Speaker 1: three four weeks, Stephen Crowder is going to get some
Speaker 1: horrible illness. And if we said to the hospitals, well
Speaker 1: the cycle, this is the only like the cycling. My
Speaker 1: hope for both of them is that they find out
Speaker 1: that each has an obscure disease that can only be
Speaker 1: cured by piping ship from the other into them, and
Speaker 1: so they just hook them up via a tube and
Speaker 1: they're just sucking poop out of each of them and
Speaker 1: putting it into the other person. That would be very
Speaker 1: funny hot all right, what's her first question? Our first question?
Speaker 1: So this was specifically addressed to Chris, So Chris, you
Speaker 1: can answer first. But I think this is a question
Speaker 1: for for everyone. Really, what is your favorite piece of
Speaker 1: history that you haven't been able to talk about yet
Speaker 1: on the show that isn't deserving of a whole episode
Speaker 1: favorite piece of I mean, we ain't talked about the
Speaker 1: Zapatista as yet because I don't I don't yet feel comfortable,
Speaker 1: uh with with my level of knowledge there. But it's
Speaker 1: definitely history that's extremely relevant to the kind of ship
Speaker 1: we talked about on the show. Have I talked about
Speaker 1: the water and gas wars and Bolivia on the show?
Speaker 1: We've talked about that at all? Either? Yeah, I mean althought.
Speaker 1: I mean that that probably is deserving of its own episode.
Speaker 1: But absolutely a bunch of people just literally like blocking
Speaker 1: every road in the entire country and starving out the
Speaker 1: ruling class because they can't like import food into the
Speaker 1: city because they've blocked every single road. Extremely cool, I
Speaker 1: guess in terms of like really short, not deserving of
Speaker 1: its own episode. I don't know either, because I've I've
Speaker 1: been able to elongate all my periods into episodes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know that there's anything we wouldn't cover. There's
Speaker 1: certainly things we haven't covered yet for a variety of reasons.
Speaker 1: Often just like I don't feel like we've had the
Speaker 1: time to do a lot of work. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of work. Yeah, it's like why why haven't why haven't
Speaker 1: we done a MAO episodes? Like do you know how
Speaker 1: much ship that motherfucker got in his life? I have
Speaker 1: been like mentally like psychologically preparing myself to start working
Speaker 1: on Mao. Like this is a ah, that's that Actually, no,
Speaker 1: it's the mango cults. It's definitely the mango colts. Did
Speaker 1: you did you did you know about this? No, the
Speaker 1: mango Colts. Yeah, okay, So so Mao got like I
Speaker 1: forget who was I want to say it was the
Speaker 1: Prime Minister of Pakistan some some like dignitary like gave
Speaker 1: him a man. This is this is like this is
Speaker 1: the beginning of the cultural revolution. Somebody gives him a
Speaker 1: main and he like hands this mango off to like
Speaker 1: a red mango and like they like like this this
Speaker 1: turns into like a cult. Like people like they take
Speaker 1: this mango, they like preserve it. It's it's like they
Speaker 1: have like they have like a shrine to the mango
Speaker 1: and like like there's this whole cult apparatus like builds
Speaker 1: up around just people getting mangoes as like tokens of
Speaker 1: Mao's favors. This just like this this massive things that
Speaker 1: is this. This this spreads like wildfire. It's like people
Speaker 1: are doing this in like the far western reaches of
Speaker 1: China where like like in places where like there's like
Speaker 1: like like there there are places in China where like
Speaker 1: civil wars breakout and it takes people like a week
Speaker 1: to like send representatives like across China to go like
Speaker 1: talk to the Central Committee to argue their case, and
Speaker 1: like even in those places they have mango cults and
Speaker 1: it is it is wild. The culture revolution is a
Speaker 1: is a it is a time. It is. Well, I
Speaker 1: know what I'm getting everyone for Christmas this year. Mango.
Speaker 1: They're my favorite fruit. Like the Well, we'll see if
Speaker 1: the species survives this next summer. Oh we will. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll just be growing, just be growing in Siberia. Mangoes
Speaker 1: sprouting from the corpses of fucking antelope. That is beautiful. Um,
Speaker 1: I can't think of anything. Next question, okay, uh, speaking
Speaker 1: of history, I like this one. If you could fight
Speaker 1: anyone in history, wait for it and lose, who would
Speaker 1: you fight? And why? Who would I fight and lose
Speaker 1: and lose? Like you still get like a few good
Speaker 1: hits in or something, but you'd lose, David Bowie because
Speaker 1: it would be hot. Next question, other people good answering,
Speaker 1: I guess no. I think that's a good that's the
Speaker 1: perfect answer. I would happily be hit by David Bowie,
Speaker 1: so sure, why there? Yeah, And I know that David
Speaker 1: Bowie really loved to hit teenagers. I would be totally hitting.
Speaker 1: In the other sense, I would be fine with anything.
Speaker 1: I don't care when it comes to Bowie. Wow, that's problematic. Problematic.
Speaker 1: Uh huh. We got a few questions about the ethics
Speaker 1: of leaving the United States as things get worse. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's yeah. And this is something that I know we've
Speaker 1: talked about. You've got that get out of America and
Speaker 1: I see. That's the thing is that, like I already
Speaker 1: have my Canadian passport, so that is something that I
Speaker 1: can do at any time. And that's something that I
Speaker 1: probably will do at some point, because one I can
Speaker 1: see myself in my theorties and forties, living in Canada
Speaker 1: will be a lot easier in a lot of ways
Speaker 1: in terms of like how much money it will cost
Speaker 1: for me to live and pay certain things, like living
Speaker 1: in Canada a certain point will just make a lot
Speaker 1: more sense for me. So yeah, I probably will move up. Um.
Speaker 1: And I also know that getting past Canadian border patrol
Speaker 1: not that hard in terms of other people wanting to
Speaker 1: go legally or illegally. That's it is actually pretty easy
Speaker 1: to get to get up there. Um, if you want
Speaker 1: to do it legally, that's definitely a lot a lot
Speaker 1: more work, but also not impossible. Um yeah, I think.
Speaker 1: I mean, like it's important to know that, like moving
Speaker 1: to somewhere else is not escaping the effects, because the
Speaker 1: effects are going to reach everywhere, but it can have
Speaker 1: a lot of advantages, um, especially kids. Yeah. So I
Speaker 1: I say moving up is or moving away from the
Speaker 1: States is a decent thing for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: I don't feel the need to stay and fight for
Speaker 1: something that I don't really care about what's in the
Speaker 1: first place anyway, UM, So sure do what makes you
Speaker 1: happy in the time that you have alive. I feel
Speaker 1: like that's a that says as ethical as you need
Speaker 1: to get Yeah, I don't think anyone has a responsibility
Speaker 1: to like stay in uh fight to the death uh
Speaker 1: in in a collapsing country. Um As as a general rule,
Speaker 1: I'm very sympathetic towards refugees. And that's kind of what
Speaker 1: you would be if you're talking about fleeing the United States,
Speaker 1: because you're it's in the process of falling apart and
Speaker 1: things are you suspect a lot about to get a
Speaker 1: lot more violent, especially if you have again, like a
Speaker 1: family kids. Um I I had options to do that
Speaker 1: that I've I've chosen at this point not to UM,
Speaker 1: not to pursue UM, but UH, I get white people
Speaker 1: would and as a general rule, like I spent I
Speaker 1: spent once when I was UM in UH in Bosnia
Speaker 1: and Serbia talking to survivors of the genocide there in
Speaker 1: the nineties. UM. I took a train ride UM from
Speaker 1: Sarajevo to like a little town own near Strubernitza and Uh.
Speaker 1: During the train ride, I wound up like hanging out
Speaker 1: with this dude who had been born and raised in
Speaker 1: Yugoslavia and had been living in Canada since the Civil War,
Speaker 1: and he, like very through in his kind of broken English,
Speaker 1: explained like, yeah, when the war broke out, all of
Speaker 1: my friends, all of these other young guys I knew,
Speaker 1: were like, well, you know, we're gonna fight, We're gonna fight.
Speaker 1: And I said, no, no, no, no no, went to
Speaker 1: Canada and this is the first time I've been back,
Speaker 1: and that was the smart thing to do. UM. So
Speaker 1: I'm not I mean, if you can get the if
Speaker 1: you can get out and find a place that's safer,
Speaker 1: as Garrison said, like there's there's nothing I think that
Speaker 1: inherently behooves you to spend your uh limited time on
Speaker 1: this planet struggling, And especially if you've got a family,
Speaker 1: like doing what you can to put them in a
Speaker 1: safer position is great. That said, none of it's a
Speaker 1: permanent or even necessarily a long term solution. Like the
Speaker 1: idea of moving to Canada has a lot of appeal,
Speaker 1: but like if you think that Canada is going to
Speaker 1: keep being what a lot of Americans see it as
Speaker 1: as the United States collapses into like fascism, I don't
Speaker 1: know how realistic a proposition that really is. And it's
Speaker 1: the same for a lot of places, Like all of
Speaker 1: these problems are global problems, and moving geographically unless you're
Speaker 1: wealthy enough to move to like some fortified compound protected
Speaker 1: by contractors in a place that is actually insulated from
Speaker 1: climate change to a significant extent, um is not the
Speaker 1: does not bring the degree of security you might expect. Um.
Speaker 1: I do think there is. I do think it is
Speaker 1: generally speaking a noble and positive thing, uh to to
Speaker 1: to stay and try to make things better where you are.
Speaker 1: But um, you know, I think everybody I think everyone.
Speaker 1: I think every single person, whether they admit it or not,
Speaker 1: would leave at a certain point if they possibly could. Um,
Speaker 1: And I don't think anyone is. I don't think anyone
Speaker 1: owes it to the world to like, uh die in
Speaker 1: a place that uh they hate just because um that's
Speaker 1: where they were born. And we're back. Okay, Oh, this
Speaker 1: is a good one. What tool besides bolt cutters should
Speaker 1: we all own in a collapse situation? First of all,
Speaker 1: bolt cutters That should not be your first picture to
Speaker 1: for a tool. No, No, it should be an angle
Speaker 1: grinder with a diamond blade. No. Even like water filters
Speaker 1: gotten me out of a number of types water filtration systems,
Speaker 1: there's more starters, Like, there's a lot of there's a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff, if not even not water filtration, you
Speaker 1: can get tablets or honestly, like you can have a
Speaker 1: little hand pump filter and water purification tablets along with
Speaker 1: a little you know, there's a number of things that
Speaker 1: are that should be in a go bag. A way
Speaker 1: to get some amount of of already clean water, in
Speaker 1: a way to get more clean water, enough food to
Speaker 1: at least deal with three to five days. Um, some rope, um,
Speaker 1: a good knife, multi tool is even better in most
Speaker 1: situations if you have if you don't mind the weight,
Speaker 1: a belt knife and a multi tool would be great,
Speaker 1: or a multi tool in a little hand ax, which
Speaker 1: depending on where you live, might be more useful in
Speaker 1: splitting wood, a good fire starter, UM, some amount of
Speaker 1: rubbing alcohol, which is always a handy thing to have
Speaker 1: on hand. UM. Either maps or you know, batteries for
Speaker 1: an electronic device that might be able to act as
Speaker 1: a map. Um. Yeah, that that's all useful stuff. UM.
Speaker 1: I do I I do keep in the boot of
Speaker 1: my car generally an angle grinder. UM. I have come into,
Speaker 1: especially living out in the middle of nowhere, a couple
Speaker 1: of situations like sometimes somebody has a health emergency and
Speaker 1: there is a fence in the way. Um, and it's
Speaker 1: it has been something that is and is I think
Speaker 1: going to be easier for boat cutters are good at
Speaker 1: what they do. They also require a lot of forearm
Speaker 1: and upper body strength that is not going to be
Speaker 1: as much of an option for people. So angle grinder
Speaker 1: not a bad thing to have in any sort of like.
Speaker 1: It's especially if you like if you're if you're planning
Speaker 1: a kid, like I want to keep ship in my
Speaker 1: car because the wildfires are coming right. Um, well, you're
Speaker 1: probably don't want a battery powered saw. Um because depending
Speaker 1: on the capable even if you have a very capable
Speaker 1: off roading vehicle, everyone I know who does serious overlanding,
Speaker 1: it's like, well you keep a fucking chainsaw in there
Speaker 1: because sometimes you need to cut wood out of the
Speaker 1: way and you're just not going to get your car
Speaker 1: over it. Um. So it really depends on what you're doing,
Speaker 1: and like what the what the the kind of potential
Speaker 1: threats you're worried about are um, But yeah, I think
Speaker 1: the basics are way to get water, some amount of food,
Speaker 1: ability to start a fire. Something like a space blanket
Speaker 1: is useful. If you live in a place where it
Speaker 1: actually gets cold, you should have a space blanket and
Speaker 1: a wool blanket or a couple of wool blankets because
Speaker 1: those will retain heat much better. Wool keeps like eight
Speaker 1: percent of its insulating capacity even when wet, and like
Speaker 1: layering wool and u uh, survival blankets um can be
Speaker 1: a really effective way to keep yourself from dying in
Speaker 1: in in bad weather situations. UM. That said, depending on
Speaker 1: where you are, there may be no realistic way to
Speaker 1: protect yourself in the like if you are in certain
Speaker 1: parts of the Midwest at certain parts of the winter,
Speaker 1: it may not matter so much, like what blankets you
Speaker 1: have access to frustrating in the wilders and there's no
Speaker 1: like structures around you, then yeah it's negative. There's only
Speaker 1: so much. Yeah, I do love collecting a lock bypass tools.
Speaker 1: It's one of my favorite things is just to have
Speaker 1: these practice using them. Um. Something I got for when
Speaker 1: I went to the Earth First Gathering that worked out
Speaker 1: pretty well was a foldable solar panel that connects to USB.
Speaker 1: That's enough to keep my phone alive always. So in
Speaker 1: terms of always wanting a map, this little foldable thing
Speaker 1: is enough to keep my phone able to have a
Speaker 1: map assuming I have cell service. So I was skeptical
Speaker 1: of how much this thing could work. Um, and it
Speaker 1: it did a decent enough job. It even kept it
Speaker 1: even kept like my iPad pro um uh powered as well,
Speaker 1: so it had had a decent amount of square footage
Speaker 1: once you unroll it. So that was very useful. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I I really like luck bypass stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: it's one of one of one of my other hobbies.
Speaker 1: So this is you know a variety of tools in
Speaker 1: that type that it's nice to get, like a decent
Speaker 1: collection of also, like especially now, but probably in general,
Speaker 1: like have masks, like just I mean just in general,
Speaker 1: like have have masks, have lots of them, make sure
Speaker 1: you can change them. Yeah, I have a gas mask
Speaker 1: if that's at all physically like respond like fiscally possible
Speaker 1: for you. Mira is the one I think Garrison and
Speaker 1: I would both recommend to the want like a very
Speaker 1: good gas mask, really good gas It's wonderful. Again all
Speaker 1: of these kids, there's the kid are like, Okay, what
Speaker 1: is the what is what's necessary? And then there's like,
Speaker 1: all right, if you have money or if you have
Speaker 1: time that you want to learn extra skills, what are
Speaker 1: other things like lock picks? If you're just a random
Speaker 1: Joe and you've never like, don't throw lock picks in
Speaker 1: your kid, if you've never done any lock picks ship,
Speaker 1: they're not going to help you. Um. But if that
Speaker 1: that is a skill that is worth picking up and
Speaker 1: that will make you like more resilient. Um yeah um
Speaker 1: Oh and a fourteen point nine millimeter anti material rifle. Um,
Speaker 1: you're always gonna need one of those. They're at they
Speaker 1: stay supersonic it up to three and a half miles UM,
Speaker 1: which is really useful. So definitely, definitely, And they're only
Speaker 1: you probably aren't going to spend more than dollars getting
Speaker 1: one set up, So it's it's really for the price
Speaker 1: of a of a fairly new Toyota Prius, you could
Speaker 1: have UM an anti material rifle that can pierce armored
Speaker 1: vehicles at at several miles distance. And really what is
Speaker 1: more pragmatic a survival tool than that, And for it
Speaker 1: it's only like around that's just a moderately expensive meal
Speaker 1: per bullet. Christopher, Uh, do you think that corporations like
Speaker 1: Walmart or Amazon could become more militaristic? Yeah, I mean yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think absolutely. The trend that worries me
Speaker 1: as Amazon's increasing um collaborations with and deeper connections with
Speaker 1: like the FBI and other kind of law enforcement agencies. Um.
Speaker 1: The degree to which target has also like with the
Speaker 1: FBI and like with other agencies, because they're they're anti
Speaker 1: shrink department and whatnot. They're like, they're the surveillance they've
Speaker 1: built to stop theft is so advanced. They have one
Speaker 1: of the best crime labs in the whole United States. Yeah,
Speaker 1: organizations like Tiger Swan, which is a mercenary group that
Speaker 1: the Dakota Pipeline people, the Dapple folks like hired to
Speaker 1: crack down on the Standing Rock protests and have have
Speaker 1: worked in other There's other organizations like that that we're
Speaker 1: active during the BLM protests and kind of the I
Speaker 1: I do think we're seeing a para militarization of a
Speaker 1: lot of these corporation a lot of these corporations in
Speaker 1: order to protect their but they see their financial interests
Speaker 1: um and that that is that is proceeding rapidly, And
Speaker 1: it's not the thing that I'm not most I'm not
Speaker 1: most worried about them. Like do like having armed forces,
Speaker 1: although there will be some degree of that. There's already
Speaker 1: that's already happen, Like in Portland and downtown Portland there
Speaker 1: are armed effectively like mercenaries guarding certain businesses and certain
Speaker 1: areas like as a result of like you know, to
Speaker 1: deal with quote unquote the gun crime or whatever property
Speaker 1: crime that's raised. But the thing that I think is
Speaker 1: most concerning is the degree to which they are professionalizing
Speaker 1: a paramilitary surveillance apparatus UM and Amazon has done it
Speaker 1: to do stuff like crackdown on union organizing and whatnot like,
Speaker 1: so yeah, I'm very concerned with that. I'm I I
Speaker 1: think that the the dimension of it that's most frightening
Speaker 1: is not necessarily like the shadow run, you know, corporations
Speaker 1: buying armies, but rather corporations buying like intelligence agencies. UM
Speaker 1: is kind of the thing that I think will actually
Speaker 1: be the biggest threat UM because in a lot of cases,
Speaker 1: generally speaking, if I have to deal with an armed
Speaker 1: security guard or a cop, that security guard is going
Speaker 1: to be less of a pain in the ass than
Speaker 1: the cop. UM. Not always, but as a general rule,
Speaker 1: I'm less worried about security guards than cops, even armed ones.
Speaker 1: I think another thing that's important to keep in mind
Speaker 1: is that yeah, I means like I don't, I don't.
Speaker 1: I really don't think there's a danger that we're going
Speaker 1: to go back to like East India company style, like
Speaker 1: people with mass armies, because it's it's literally too expensive,
Speaker 1: like you can't, it's it's too expensive, and the armies
Speaker 1: that exist already do that. Yeah, yeah you don't need them.
Speaker 1: But but I mean, I think that the thing, the
Speaker 1: thing that's like scary outside of the intelligence stuff, which
Speaker 1: is terrifying, but it's the stuff they do down like
Speaker 1: like you call it down the supply chain, which is
Speaker 1: like you know, like cocol and murdering union organizers with paramilitaries, right,
Speaker 1: they tend to work through like like you know, the
Speaker 1: corporations will back rebel groups, right, corporations will back like
Speaker 1: you know, in Colombia, you see a lot of this
Speaker 1: if like you have these sort of like these I
Speaker 1: mean something about some of the back by just directly
Speaker 1: by landholding holding corporations. Some of them are backed by
Speaker 1: just individual large landholders. But you get these, like you know,
Speaker 1: you get basically these paramilitaries that are sort of the
Speaker 1: third wave after the army goes in, and that stuff
Speaker 1: is very scary or probably we're probably gonna see more
Speaker 1: of that, and yeah, but but but but I think
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of important that there's there there's an
Speaker 1: extent to which again you'll see them having their own mercenaries.
Speaker 1: But a lot of the time it's there's some kind
Speaker 1: of thing when when companies really need to kill someone,
Speaker 1: they tend to outsource that to aid like another sort
Speaker 1: of paramilitary organization that's like not directly in their supply chain.
Speaker 1: It's like it's not directly under their training command. Mhm.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's that's a good and fun time that
Speaker 1: we'll probably just get worse mhm. Speaking of corporate uh
Speaker 1: Funkery or whatever. Coca Cola add I hope, I hope
Speaker 1: we do get a Coca Cola add because nothing soothes
Speaker 1: my quench like a cherry vanilla Coca Cola. Nothing soothes
Speaker 1: your quench? Did That's what I said. Those are words
Speaker 1: that came out of a Now we're back, okay, Robert.
Speaker 1: Somebody had a question about an article you wrote back
Speaker 1: when you worked at Crack about a woman who was
Speaker 1: hiding from their family. The end of article, you mentioned
Speaker 1: that you haven't heard from her in a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks leading up to and they want to know if
Speaker 1: you've ever heard from her again. So yeah, that's a bummer.
Speaker 1: The pseudonym I'm I'm not going to use her real
Speaker 1: name in this, but the pseudonym I used for her
Speaker 1: in the article was as Am. She was a woman
Speaker 1: who lived in Um, the EU, and uh was under
Speaker 1: threat of honor killing from her family, who were from
Speaker 1: Pakistan in origin Um because she was an atheist, was
Speaker 1: not um religious hardliner UM and didn't want to be.
Speaker 1: And for years she had kind of hidden that from
Speaker 1: her family, Like she'd moved out on her own, but
Speaker 1: she'd hidden the fact that, like she had a boyfriend.
Speaker 1: She'd hidden the fact that she'd liked played dungeons all
Speaker 1: of this stuff, Like she played D and D and
Speaker 1: was like scared that, like that was like her dad
Speaker 1: would literally fucking kill her. And this is a thing
Speaker 1: that happens. This is a thing that happens in the
Speaker 1: United States and the EU. UM it's a problem with
Speaker 1: like fundamentalist um Islam, and that's not the only religion.
Speaker 1: There's honor killings as a result on. But that was
Speaker 1: her specific situation. One of the things she was frightened
Speaker 1: about is her family would go back to Pakistan regularly,
Speaker 1: and she was concerned. She wanted to go because it
Speaker 1: was the only way to see her grandparents, but she
Speaker 1: was also concerned that if her parents found out when
Speaker 1: they went back, they would basically imprison her somewhere where
Speaker 1: she would not be able to get out and get
Speaker 1: back to her home and she would be forced to
Speaker 1: be married off or something. So she was working with
Speaker 1: an organization UM in the country in the EU where
Speaker 1: she lived that helped people extricate themselves and and the
Speaker 1: kind of one of the last things she told me
Speaker 1: is that, like well, the things she was looking at
Speaker 1: doing because she was so worried about her dad was
Speaker 1: a total break. Was like one day with the help
Speaker 1: of this organization, she would just be gone and in
Speaker 1: another part of the EU and would have a complete
Speaker 1: break from her life and would completely stop living as
Speaker 1: the identity UM she had had her entire life. UM.
Speaker 1: And I never heard from her again after that, after
Speaker 1: like three or four different interview sessions, and I still
Speaker 1: have not uh. And my hope is that she did
Speaker 1: the thing she said she was going to do, and
Speaker 1: she just completely burned that email and every other way
Speaker 1: people had of getting in touch with her. UM. And
Speaker 1: she's doing great now. But I really have no idea. UM,
Speaker 1: I have absolutely no idea what happened to her. Oh uh,
Speaker 1: So we would people want an update on the quest
Speaker 1: for eel horse. Uh. Still no, still no horse. Still
Speaker 1: have not found an entire horse carcass um. But but
Speaker 1: one day it'll happen, you know, it'll happen. Okay, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be good, Garson. That gator that I shoved a
Speaker 1: turkey or a duck inside and a turkey next too,
Speaker 1: was pretty good. It was great after I took it
Speaker 1: out of the pit as you were wrestling people screaming. Well,
Speaker 1: that's the only way to properly cook it. The right
Speaker 1: amount of time is to get drunk enough that people
Speaker 1: have to fight you to remove it from the fire gear.
Speaker 1: That's how cooking works. I don't know, if you've done
Speaker 1: much of it in your life, you'll you'll understand one day.
Speaker 1: This This is a question that I find interesting because
Speaker 1: I feel like it really must understand not to like
Speaker 1: insult the person asking it, But I think that that's
Speaker 1: not That's not what I'm trying to do. The question is, um,
Speaker 1: what population can the post capitalist world sustain and thrive
Speaker 1: on with our ideas and concepts? A billion? Like we
Speaker 1: currently have six billion to a billion less than ability? Like,
Speaker 1: how how do people are you willing to lose to
Speaker 1: achieve sustainability? Because I forget that about the community and
Speaker 1: are optimistic with proper technology and ecosustainability techniques, we can
Speaker 1: maintain a population close to what we have now. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like just the framing of this question kind
Speaker 1: of approaches our current problems and the solutions we have
Speaker 1: in a weird way, because I don't think we're not
Speaker 1: trying to reach a peak population. We're trying to make
Speaker 1: sure the people that we have have enough stuff to
Speaker 1: live well. And we have that right now. We we
Speaker 1: we overproduce everything. We make about one and a half
Speaker 1: times as much food as we need to to feed everybody.
Speaker 1: Yet there are billions and millions of people who go hungry.
Speaker 1: So it's not a so like it's approaching this question. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so approaching this in terms of, like how could the
Speaker 1: post capitalist world thrive on our ideas and like I
Speaker 1: we're not trying to like reach a certain population number,
Speaker 1: where I think going it from that way is kind
Speaker 1: of a little silly because I feel like it should
Speaker 1: be the opposite is. But yeah, I don't know why
Speaker 1: we don't think we need to start the population and
Speaker 1: then go down. The point is is, look what we have,
Speaker 1: here's the people. Let's distribute this like a network instead
Speaker 1: of a top down kind of system. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: that one of the things you have to if you're taught,
Speaker 1: if you're trying to talk about social ecology. One of
Speaker 1: the things you have to resist UM is this idea
Speaker 1: that like they're overpopulation is any part of the problem.
Speaker 1: It is not. Consumption is a problem, UM, But there's
Speaker 1: plenty of resources. The problem is again one of allocation.
Speaker 1: And if you were to actually develop a much more
Speaker 1: equitable society where people were getting enough, one of the
Speaker 1: things that we have seen demographically all over the world
Speaker 1: when um the level of kind of UM, when the
Speaker 1: the sort of resources available per capita and a population increases,
Speaker 1: is people have less kids UM. And And like I
Speaker 1: think that, yeah, it's certainly good to say that, like,
Speaker 1: in a world that is more equitable, the human population
Speaker 1: will naturally level off and decrease somewhat. But that the
Speaker 1: thing that's not the same as saying that, like we
Speaker 1: need to decrease the population. We need to increase um
Speaker 1: equity UM and make sure that people have access to
Speaker 1: the resources that they need UM and also that people
Speaker 1: who are massively over consuming aren't allowed to do that anymore.
Speaker 1: You know, that will solve the problems and scale back
Speaker 1: all of the resources being put towards useless growth and
Speaker 1: predicting towards better distribution. Thus actually mean, like the questioner
Speaker 1: used the term like post capitalists. I don't think we're
Speaker 1: gonna get to a post capitalist world ever, like, at
Speaker 1: least at least not when I'm allowed. I don't think
Speaker 1: like a world No. Will there be post capitalist areas, probably,
Speaker 1: but we're never gonna get there. There's never gonna be
Speaker 1: a post capitalist world. I don't. I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: think that. I also think it's entirely possible that we
Speaker 1: will reach points that people in the time will not
Speaker 1: necessarily consider post capitalists, because it will be the same
Speaker 1: states and a lot of the same institutions organizations that
Speaker 1: were there as a kid. But people who were, you know,
Speaker 1: looking at it from a perspective today might consider post
Speaker 1: capitalist because that's generally how change happens. You know, yeah,
Speaker 1: about like how democracy increased in in the UK, but
Speaker 1: they still had like a king. It's like when did
Speaker 1: they They're not they never really reached post monarchy. But
Speaker 1: it's also not the same system that they were run
Speaker 1: by in like fourteen hundred. You know, it's wildly different
Speaker 1: and there's much more representation for more people, but it
Speaker 1: it's that is not you know that there's also you
Speaker 1: also have your your Soviet unions and your your killing
Speaker 1: of czars, and which which is fine, and and and
Speaker 1: and and I like killing tsars. But change happens in
Speaker 1: a variety of ways, and change can be revolutionary in
Speaker 1: its effect without being a clear break. Yeah, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to think of like how we're talking about like the
Speaker 1: capitalist world thriving, Like I don't I don't view eight
Speaker 1: billion people thriving right now even with that like a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot, Like it's not like it's that's
Speaker 1: not what's happening right now, And we need to change
Speaker 1: the way like distribution of resources works drastically, and doing
Speaker 1: that will make everyone's lives a whole lot better, and
Speaker 1: it will also maybe limit some of the endless growth.
Speaker 1: And those things aren't opposites, um, And I just I
Speaker 1: don't know how like we can say those things, but
Speaker 1: the path to getting there is certainly a lot more ambiguous. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think that that's I think one of the
Speaker 1: ways in which the Left goes wrong often is kind
Speaker 1: of looking at things that have been tried before and
Speaker 1: and didn't didn't didn't do the trick, and saying like
Speaker 1: what we need is we need us another Bolshevik Revolution.
Speaker 1: You know, we need to bring us back that, you know,
Speaker 1: hammer and sickle, And it's like, well, you know, they
Speaker 1: gave it the old College try and they did not win. UM.
Speaker 1: And you can be angry at that or whatever, or
Speaker 1: you can be like, okay, it's the same and hey,
Speaker 1: it's it's every tendency. I can look at the fucking
Speaker 1: Maknos and be like, well, that was based as hell,
Speaker 1: and you know what, it didn't do the fucking trick. UM.
Speaker 1: So I think there's a degree of humility that needs
Speaker 1: to be had in terms of like what actual, what
Speaker 1: actual change that makes a more livable world will look
Speaker 1: like in the way in which That's one of the
Speaker 1: reasons I did enjoy Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry of the
Speaker 1: Future is a lot of it is about the end
Speaker 1: of capitalism in a way that is not UM. It's
Speaker 1: it's it. It doesn't look like a lot of ends
Speaker 1: of capitalism have have kind of been posited by UM.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of uh strong arming bankers into forcing
Speaker 1: high level economic changes that put into like really extractive
Speaker 1: systems and whatnot. UM, And it's it's it's interesting. It
Speaker 1: was kind of an imagining of how the transition could
Speaker 1: begin UM in a way that that isn't commonly talked
Speaker 1: about UM, at least on the left. And I thought
Speaker 1: it was valuable for that, and I think people should
Speaker 1: be I think there's I think that um UM people
Speaker 1: can be more creative in how they envisioned the way
Speaker 1: that might look than they often are. And I feel
Speaker 1: like this question actually relates to like stuff like dual
Speaker 1: power really well, because our our goal as individuals is
Speaker 1: not feeding eight billion people. Our goal is to get
Speaker 1: a garden enough so that we can feed most of
Speaker 1: our friends off of stuff that we grew for like
Speaker 1: the summer, right, Like that's like that's what our goal
Speaker 1: is to is to build it from that way. Instead
Speaker 1: of saying, like, how how can we feed New York
Speaker 1: in a climate sustainable way? That is a very different
Speaker 1: question them being like if we want to integrate solar
Speaker 1: punk and like eco sustainability stuff into our lives now,
Speaker 1: because if we don't do it, no one really else
Speaker 1: is really going to. Let's start with the people you
Speaker 1: actually already have connections with, because a lot of it
Speaker 1: is is about building like horizontal connections as opposed to
Speaker 1: defaulting to this top down system of who has what,
Speaker 1: who needs what, and this is when we when we venture,
Speaker 1: when we dare to venture into the subreddit. One of
Speaker 1: the things I see people like critiquing a lot is like, well,
Speaker 1: you're you know, they keep talking about like all of
Speaker 1: these little like home gardening and like canning and and
Speaker 1: and kind of these community level solutions, But that's not
Speaker 1: going to deal with like this massive systemic problem. It's like,
Speaker 1: it's not all about that. There's there's One of the
Speaker 1: methods in which you can ensure change is keeping you
Speaker 1: and yours alive and committed on change. And part of
Speaker 1: that is ex hyper local solutions UM that also involve
Speaker 1: increasing your own idea of your autonomy and your own
Speaker 1: and your own und standing of things like the food cycle,
Speaker 1: which have an impact on what you like, vote for
Speaker 1: and what you support pushing for on like a societal level,
Speaker 1: the things that you come to better understand in your
Speaker 1: daily life and and so getting involved in all of
Speaker 1: these things guerilla gardening and whatnot UM has an impact
Speaker 1: on that. All I do think people underestimate, like the
Speaker 1: largest crop by acreage in the United States by a
Speaker 1: long shot, is fucking lawns and replacing lawns with either
Speaker 1: zero escaping just to increase carbon capture and reduce water usage,
Speaker 1: or with some sort of food growth. Doing a mix
Speaker 1: of that for the vast majority of like lawn area
Speaker 1: in the United States actually would be a significant thing
Speaker 1: on a global level. Recommend everyone the Book of Food
Speaker 1: not lawns. Yeah, there's it's that that would not be
Speaker 1: a meaningless change, and it is something that people can
Speaker 1: have an impact on because it is the kind of
Speaker 1: thing that if we're it were to get popular enough,
Speaker 1: there's a Pokemon point, you know where it where it
Speaker 1: becomes a trend um and and like Pokemon, if it
Speaker 1: gets popular enough, it will never die. That's what we
Speaker 1: say about all of our stuff on our show. If
Speaker 1: it if it becomes like Pokemon or or n f
Speaker 1: T point, if that's but I don't think in FT
Speaker 1: Pokemon is so much better than any n f T.
Speaker 1: Although the day that this drops, that will probably announce
Speaker 1: the Pokemon n f T game, which will be the
Speaker 1: final coffin in the biosphere. All of all of all
Speaker 1: of my pokemons are gone. I've been had all my
Speaker 1: apes gone. That was my favorite post of the holiday season. Oh, Robert,
Speaker 1: do you want to give an update on After the Revolution?
Speaker 1: That was asked a couple of times. Yeah. See, I'm
Speaker 1: three chapters in um so it'll be done, hopefully at
Speaker 1: some point this year. Garrison. Garrison has a question on that.
Speaker 1: Are you going to pay someone else to code the book? Uh? No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we pay you, Garrison. I don't want to code this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well I have to work on the Daily Show. Now
Speaker 1: I cannot code this game. We all have things to
Speaker 1: do we don't want to do. Oh gosh, alright, I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry, Garrison, so sorry. Well have you code some
Speaker 1: other people's books just to get stuff? No more coding?
Speaker 1: I will not allow it. There are there there are
Speaker 1: experts who can do this a lot prettier than I
Speaker 1: can with my I think, Garrison, I consider you an
Speaker 1: expert now, Oh no, in in in E pub coding.
Speaker 1: I'll put that on my resume. Well, I think that
Speaker 1: does it for us today, folks. If you want to
Speaker 1: follow us on social media so you can watch us
Speaker 1: promote our own shows again, you can go to Cool's
Speaker 1: own media on Twitter, Instagram and happen here pod And
Speaker 1: wouldn't that be lovely? We get so much more connections
Speaker 1: through online. That's wow, that really do I love online? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh we're doing it behind the Bastards live stream
Speaker 1: digital show with prop On. That doesn't sound right, doesn't
Speaker 1: This bit is so not funny everything time. It's not
Speaker 1: a bit. I'm just dreading it. I'm dreading it to
Speaker 1: but we're doing it. February moment House dot com tickets
Speaker 1: still available. They are a moment House. Come slash behind them,
Speaker 1: scalpel them to the fans. I get in there. Scarcity
Speaker 1: is the key. Well do that if you have disposable
Speaker 1: income and want to watch Roberts talk. Yeah, yeah, more
Speaker 1: than we already do. I guarantee you it'll be worth it. Well,
Speaker 1: that's the episode. Thank you for listening. I hope everyone
Speaker 1: has uh better that would be nice. And I hope
Speaker 1: everyone has an identical two down to the day and
Speaker 1: until in May you realize that you're actually in like
Speaker 1: a groundhog Day style loop. Um, and then you would
Speaker 1: achieve nirvana if I'm remembering how the movie Groundhog Day
Speaker 1: went properly. Sure, Uh yeah, that sounds that sounds great.
Speaker 1: Have a good year, make some changes, make connections with
Speaker 1: people around you. There there, you just just define them.
Speaker 1: Talk to people who look like they have cool politics
Speaker 1: or or start doing cool things. You know, and started
Speaker 1: started start doing cool things. Yeah, we should address one
Speaker 1: last thing, which is the question people ask that gets
Speaker 1: asked a lot, but we probably can't address enough, which
Speaker 1: is like, there's no one around me doing any of
Speaker 1: this mutual aid stuff. There's nobody around me engaging any
Speaker 1: of the stuff that I want to get How do
Speaker 1: how do I get organized and get involved? Number one,
Speaker 1: there are people around you doing that kind of ship.
Speaker 1: It may just be hard to find because of where
Speaker 1: you are. UM. But if you start doing ship, if
Speaker 1: you like, the simplest thing I can say is try
Speaker 1: and figure out where there's a need and start filling it. UM.
Speaker 1: Often you will start meeting other people who are engage
Speaker 1: aged in adjacent projects or even the same thing. UM.
Speaker 1: And that's a way to get into it if you
Speaker 1: are trying to start. If you actually get so far
Speaker 1: as to start serving a need in your area in
Speaker 1: a mutual aid capacity UM and trying to start organizing
Speaker 1: and whatnot, and you're doing shit, feel free to hit
Speaker 1: us up on email reach out. We are happy to signal,
Speaker 1: boost and signpost people who are have actually started doing shit. Um.
Speaker 1: It's one of those things. Please don't come to I
Speaker 1: think this might be a cool idea, but if you
Speaker 1: start doing shit, um, and you can provide some evidence
Speaker 1: that you're you're doing something in your community that's not
Speaker 1: currently being done that is a mutual aid type thing,
Speaker 1: or even even a charitable type thing if it's if
Speaker 1: you're doing it, we will try to help signal boost
Speaker 1: and and can be very useful in that capacity. So
Speaker 1: so it's not easy necessarily, especially depending on where you live,
Speaker 1: but like you do, it's always possible to find a
Speaker 1: need and fill it, you know. Yeah, I found that
Speaker 1: uh uh definitely was easier before the pandemic. But a
Speaker 1: way that I've met people that are a little bit
Speaker 1: more open minded to the same things that I'm open
Speaker 1: minded too. Was going to like local comedy shows or
Speaker 1: things that shows. I'm guessing like farmers markets, farmers you know,
Speaker 1: wherever kind of weird not not in the normal culture
Speaker 1: people will go to. You'll probably find someone there with
Speaker 1: radical politics, and that's problem all those types of like
Speaker 1: like you know, countercultural, subcultural spaces. You'll probably find someone
Speaker 1: there who's wearing a back patch that is something like
Speaker 1: smashed or something. You know, so like just like you,
Speaker 1: you have to you know you're not going to find
Speaker 1: them by staying at your in your house and scrolling
Speaker 1: on Twitter. I mean they probably not. You have to
Speaker 1: kind of go into the real world, um as scary
Speaker 1: as the meat space. Maybe yeah. And I would say
Speaker 1: another thing to keep in mind if you are in
Speaker 1: kind of a more conservative area, and even if you
Speaker 1: do identify as an anarchist, you don't have to frame
Speaker 1: it that way. You can always call yourself a libertarian
Speaker 1: municipal list and none of the people who might be
Speaker 1: offended by anarchist will listen past libertarian and they'll decide
Speaker 1: you're fine. And that's a great way to to start
Speaker 1: that ironic it means the same thing more or less.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's other kinds of anarchists who are but
Speaker 1: like most people who say they're anarchists, if you were
Speaker 1: to call them libertarian municipalists would be like, all right, whatever, yeah,
Speaker 1: not me, don't call me that, but call call Chris
Speaker 1: that constantly. That's that's that's, that's, that's it. We'll be
Speaker 1: back tomorrow or maybe not, I don't know, probably tomorrow,
Speaker 1: maybe that's what I'm saying, and it's been said a
Speaker 1: say so. I called the Union Hall, as its about
Speaker 1: of life and death. I thank these people of planning
Speaker 1: to kill Dr King. On April fourth night, doctor Martin
Speaker 1: Luther King was shot and killed in Memphis. A petty
Speaker 1: criminal named James Earl Ray was arrested. He pled guilty
Speaker 1: to the crime and spent the rest of his life
Speaker 1: in prison. Case closed right, James L. Ray was upon
Speaker 1: for the official story. The authorities would parade all we
Speaker 1: found a gun that James L. Ray bought in Birmingham
Speaker 1: that killed Dr King, Except it wasn't the gun that
Speaker 1: killed Dr King. One of the problems that came out
Speaker 1: when I got the Ray case was that some of
Speaker 1: the evidence, as far as I was concerned, did not
Speaker 1: match the circumstances. This is the MLK tapes. The first
Speaker 1: episodes are available now. Listen on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Executive producer
Speaker 1: Harris Hilton brings back the hit podcast How Men Think,
Speaker 1: And that's good news for anyone that is confused by men,
Speaker 1: which is basically everyone. Get an inside look at what
Speaker 1: goes on in the mind of men from the men themselves.
Speaker 1: It's real talk, straight from the source. How Men Think
Speaker 1: podcast is exactly what we need to figure them out.
Speaker 1: It's going to be fun and formative and probably a
Speaker 1: bit scary at times because we're literally going inside the
Speaker 1: minds of men. As much as we like to think
Speaker 1: all men are the same, they're actually very different. Each week,
Speaker 1: a celebrity guest host provides honest advice in his area
Speaker 1: of expertise. When I agreed to do this reboot, I
Speaker 1: had a few conditions. No sugarcoating, no mind games, and
Speaker 1: absolutely no man splaining. Men are hard enough to understand
Speaker 1: without the mind games. Listen to How Men Think on
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcast us. I'm Colleen with joined me the
Speaker 1: host of Eating Wall Broke podcast while I eat a
Speaker 1: meal created by self made entrepreneurs, influencers, and celebrities over
Speaker 1: a meal they once ate when they were broke. Today
Speaker 1: I have the lovely AJ Crimson, the official Princess of
Speaker 1: comfin Asia, Kidding and Asia. This is the professor. We're
Speaker 1: here on Eating Wall Broke, and today I'm gonna break
Speaker 1: down my meal that got me through a time when
Speaker 1: I was broken. Listen to Eating Wall Broke on the
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, on Apple podcast or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. This is gonna be ship, This is
Speaker 1: gonna suck, This is gonna be trash because no one
Speaker 1: knows what's gonna happen. I have not actually come up
Speaker 1: with a prediction yet. I don't know this one. Have
Speaker 1: I hoped one that I came up with before the show?
Speaker 1: Have we have we opened this? Yeah, we've already started.
Speaker 1: Um we were supposed to. This is it can happen here?
Speaker 1: Everybody podcast things falling apart? How to maybe make them
Speaker 1: fall apart less? Um. Sophie pitched the great idea of
Speaker 1: why don't we do an episode that is our predictions?
Speaker 1: It's really not my idea When people ask so this
Speaker 1: that she's the Sophie's idea alone. It's sprang fully formed
Speaker 1: from the sight of her head, like Athena from Zeus's
Speaker 1: skull um. And we all agreed it was a good
Speaker 1: idea for an episode. And then I did not come
Speaker 1: up with the prediction. Did you get You know, that's
Speaker 1: a bit of time thinking about not a second, not
Speaker 1: even a moment. Absolutely love the Athena Zeus reference. That's
Speaker 1: how I tell people I got Anderson. Yeah. Well, my
Speaker 1: prediction for the year is that I'm going to keep
Speaker 1: making references to Athena whenever I do something that pisses
Speaker 1: Sophie off so that she's less angry, I will it
Speaker 1: will absolutely work. Yeah, that's my prediction for uh okay, okay, okay. Wait,
Speaker 1: before we go into the to the to the big,
Speaker 1: bigger thing, I want everybody to give one word prediction
Speaker 1: for how you would describe this coming here. One word
Speaker 1: prediction boring and f t M. I was just gonna
Speaker 1: say fucked, But I don't think because it's going to
Speaker 1: be hot too, I don't think it's going to be
Speaker 1: that fucked. Actually, I think I was gonna say mediocre. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm foreseeing a lot of blandness, a lot of blandness.
Speaker 1: My Here, here's a prediction I'll make. I think that
Speaker 1: one of the things that we were seeing last year,
Speaker 1: especially in the streets, with like the far right being
Speaker 1: so much more uh active um than the left in
Speaker 1: a lot of places and in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: is um really tire A lot of people on the
Speaker 1: left out a lot of organizers, a lot of street
Speaker 1: level people. Um, not just like oh I'm tired, but
Speaker 1: like I was injured, Um, I'm fighting charges. Uh. My
Speaker 1: funds were depleted. I had to I couldn't keep going
Speaker 1: out because I have a family and I had to
Speaker 1: deal with that sort of ship. Um And I think
Speaker 1: I don't think that energy is back yet, but it
Speaker 1: always ebbs and flows, and it does on both sides
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, whether you're a
Speaker 1: fascist or a progressive, people have X amount of energy,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, and I think we are. I believe
Speaker 1: we are kind of at the beginning process of folks
Speaker 1: on the left starting to recover some of that energy.
Speaker 1: Um And I I think that that is a process
Speaker 1: we're going to see building throughout the year. Um. I
Speaker 1: don't think that. Yeah, yeah, and it will be a
Speaker 1: multi year process. And I'm I'm kind of hoping folks
Speaker 1: are ready to throw down again. But but we'll see,
Speaker 1: like where that goes. We might have like a few
Speaker 1: days of people throwing down in the streets for some reason,
Speaker 1: like something bad may happen, like like late summer. I
Speaker 1: I can I can definitely see like a few days
Speaker 1: in July or au gust where it's like, oh, was
Speaker 1: the thing starting again? And it goes on for a
Speaker 1: bit and then it kind of peters out. I kind
Speaker 1: of I definitely see that being a decent possibility, um,
Speaker 1: because yeah, I think there will be more energy for
Speaker 1: that this year and more mental like like like ability
Speaker 1: to to do to do that this year than yeah.
Speaker 1: But overall, I don't see anything super eventful, and I
Speaker 1: hopefully this doesn't like drink anything and then we get no.
Speaker 1: I mean, my my big event is that. And I
Speaker 1: will explain what this is based on in a bit.
Speaker 1: I think we are going to see a significant sized
Speaker 1: urban metropolitan area be rendered uninhabitable either permanently or for
Speaker 1: a significant period of time in the United States due
Speaker 1: to climate change. And part of what this is based
Speaker 1: on is the December wild fires that just destroyed a
Speaker 1: significant chunk of Boulder, Colorado. Right, I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: like New York City gets swallowed by the waves, but
Speaker 1: like a place where there's a couple hundred thousand people living,
Speaker 1: they're not able to be for either ever or an
Speaker 1: extended period of time because a climate based disaster hits. Um,
Speaker 1: maybe it'll be a heat dome type thing. Maybe it'll
Speaker 1: be like a wet bulb event. Maybe it'll be um
Speaker 1: fires obviously always possible, hurricane tornado. You know, we we
Speaker 1: saw enough just in the last couple of months in
Speaker 1: terms of those like record hurricanes that killed like a
Speaker 1: hundred people in um in the South, or the fires
Speaker 1: sweeping Boulder right now and again fucking December. Um. But
Speaker 1: but I do think there's a pretty good chance we
Speaker 1: see something like that this year. I think my big
Speaker 1: one is that, I mean, okay, so the the the
Speaker 1: obvious freebe is that we're going to cross a million
Speaker 1: COVID deaths or like the the the official count. We
Speaker 1: were like, we we've had ways social count. That's that's
Speaker 1: the freebe. The not freebee is like it's not even
Speaker 1: a prediction. If that's that's that's I think it's going
Speaker 1: to be warm in the summer time, yeah, like you know,
Speaker 1: and warm in the summertime is probably like a bigger
Speaker 1: gamble at this point then, yeah, but very very warm.
Speaker 1: But yeah. But but but I think the real thing
Speaker 1: is that like there there is never going to be
Speaker 1: never locked down the U S never like you of
Speaker 1: the United States could die and there would be no
Speaker 1: lockdown like and this is you know, and I think
Speaker 1: this this is the result of I don't know, I
Speaker 1: wonder what you do do this. My thesis for what
Speaker 1: was going on was that, like I actually think the
Speaker 1: like the like liberate Wisconsin stuff, I think that actually worked.
Speaker 1: Like thosebery were all those giant like like wnt of
Speaker 1: people shu up with guns to captain Absolutely it worked. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it worked. And it was like, but but they did
Speaker 1: they did usually works. It's a very effective way to
Speaker 1: get things done well. But I think there's an important
Speaker 1: lesson though, which is that, like, so the state will
Speaker 1: never like very very rarely will the state ever like
Speaker 1: directly like they they won't immediately back down, right. What
Speaker 1: they'll do is like they'll make an enormous show about
Speaker 1: how they didn't grant any concessions, and then they will
Speaker 1: grant concessions. Like you know, this is the thing with
Speaker 1: the riots rights, Like Okay, people are talking about why
Speaker 1: do we not there's not gonna any more stimulus checks, right,
Speaker 1: And the reason there's not gonna be more similar checks
Speaker 1: because nobody's rioting and you know, like what kind of
Speaker 1: stimulus checks you get if a couple of targets get redacted. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you know, if if, if, if you burn down
Speaker 1: another police station, we will get more stimulus checks. It's
Speaker 1: just that you have to you know, there has to
Speaker 1: be another police station burned down. Right, But like this
Speaker 1: is and this is the this is the you know,
Speaker 1: the the right was extremely effective at this right and
Speaker 1: in a way that people just don't really talk about,
Speaker 1: which is that it is now politically impossible in the US,
Speaker 1: Like no, no one, no one will ever do an
Speaker 1: ever lockdown because people will show up with guns and
Speaker 1: they don't want to do that, and they've decided that
Speaker 1: just just just kill just kill a mill, like you know,
Speaker 1: we we've already killed the entire population of Seattle, like
Speaker 1: they're dead. Like we'll just keep killing more people, more people,
Speaker 1: and just never. I think people often are going I
Speaker 1: think people on the left attack the Biden's COVID response
Speaker 1: for a lot of the wrong things. Like the thing
Speaker 1: that I I would go after him for is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we didn't he didn't just say here's a bunch of money,
Speaker 1: don't go to work, We're not going back to school,
Speaker 1: like stay at home. Here's a pile of cash, which
Speaker 1: might have worked. It was worth a shot but past that,
Speaker 1: a lot of this was beyond By the time he
Speaker 1: came into office, the the armed militant cultural movement against
Speaker 1: the idea of COVID precautions was so advanced that like
Speaker 1: what do you what what what more could have been
Speaker 1: realistically done other than trying to give people enough money
Speaker 1: again to actually stay home, which again is the thing
Speaker 1: I think it's most fair to attack him on, Like okay,
Speaker 1: I mean like ships beyond Biden in a lot, but
Speaker 1: like like I don't, like, okay, it was like, well,
Speaker 1: what could have been done? I don't know, like if
Speaker 1: you're looking from the perspection of the state, they could
Speaker 1: actually have deployed the intelligence services against them instead of
Speaker 1: doing like one dumb entrapment plot, right, Like well sure,
Speaker 1: but that's that's also that starts before Biden and by
Speaker 1: again by the time, I mean it's like you know,
Speaker 1: but like like yeah, I call their bluff, right have
Speaker 1: when people show up to the capital and then it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: here's the FBI like like that that that's a thing
Speaker 1: that like if if you're a liberal status, you could
Speaker 1: do and they just don't want to because like partially
Speaker 1: I don't want the conflict of partially because it would
Speaker 1: actually it would look like it would look really bad
Speaker 1: for them heading into the midterms. It would look so
Speaker 1: they're bad. And and also I think this is less
Speaker 1: The FBI is kind of much more centrist in terms
Speaker 1: of their politics as an agency. But like there were
Speaker 1: a lot of state Yeah, well, I mean the most
Speaker 1: federal and state, Like I don't know that they can
Speaker 1: rely on them, like they even even the FBI, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're using the proud ways informants like on against anarchists,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, so yeah, like they're not they're not. They're
Speaker 1: not like the I have an appreciation. What I will
Speaker 1: say is I have an appreciation for the fact that
Speaker 1: by the time Biden was in office, it may have
Speaker 1: been an unsolvable problem, which doesn't let him off the
Speaker 1: hook for things that were objectively bad decisions like not
Speaker 1: doing ship for stimulus, UM, like pushing to open the schools,
Speaker 1: like you know, a number of other things that he's done,
Speaker 1: but also like if he had done all of the
Speaker 1: right things, we still might be at exactly this death
Speaker 1: toll because there are cultural issues here that were very
Speaker 1: advanced by the time he took office. UM. And I
Speaker 1: do think like it's whatever. I'm not. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: this to let Biden off the hook or support the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party. I'm saying this because people need to have
Speaker 1: an accurate conception of the problem. Um. And the problem
Speaker 1: is so much deeper than what a technocrat could have
Speaker 1: handled by making smart policy. At break a break and
Speaker 1: we're back from out of space. Actual prediction, Republicans will
Speaker 1: win the Senate, Yeah, which seems pretty like. I think
Speaker 1: there's a decent chance Democrats can keep House. Um, but
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure, and it's going to go back to
Speaker 1: the Republicans. I mean, they are damn near in control
Speaker 1: of the Senate as it is, but they did Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I I do believe that's gonna happen. Um. And
Speaker 1: let's see other which, yeah, it does does not seem
Speaker 1: that's not that far fetched of a thing. And I
Speaker 1: don't know, there'll be some other kind of tech factory
Speaker 1: the space between Elon Musk, Peter Teel Silicon Valley, there's
Speaker 1: gonna be I think there's gonna be some worsening development
Speaker 1: of like tech like technocratic stuff, possibly in like possibly
Speaker 1: with like the mask of trying to like fix climate
Speaker 1: change or something. But I think they'll be a decent
Speaker 1: growth of tech power, and possibly they're like um cooperation
Speaker 1: with the state or the state like fund giving more
Speaker 1: explicit like funding and permission to tech power to like
Speaker 1: do terraforming, or like some geongineering. Like there's gonna be
Speaker 1: something related to that sphere. That is, it's going to
Speaker 1: get a lot more visible. It is. My big tech
Speaker 1: prediction is that there is going to be a crime
Speaker 1: against humanity at some point this year, like on a
Speaker 1: massive scale, not like just a mass shooting, but like
Speaker 1: a state level crime against humanity. And we're going to
Speaker 1: find out that for the last like eight months, Facebook
Speaker 1: had been paying the perpetrators a significant amount of money
Speaker 1: as a result of like some ill thought out ad
Speaker 1: program that they had. Yeah, like we're going to we're
Speaker 1: going to leave to Facebook actively funding and ethnic cleansing,
Speaker 1: um because some somebody thought up some sort of affiliate
Speaker 1: program that was not well conceived. Um. That's my fun
Speaker 1: tech industry prediction. My fun tech industry prediction is that, uh,
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos will increasingly become the most cringe eest man
Speaker 1: in the world. Yeah, it is very funny that the
Speaker 1: picture him on New Year's he's just wearing a Dan
Speaker 1: Flashes shirts. He's absolutely wearing a Dan Flashes shirt and
Speaker 1: that's incredibly fine. Robert, Robert, that shirt costs him three
Speaker 1: thousand dollars because the pattern is so called, it's very complicated,
Speaker 1: how much the lines criss cross. I I just I
Speaker 1: just don't like you insisting that it's not as much money.
Speaker 1: But despite its complicatedness, that that photo was my version
Speaker 1: of holiday Carne said to everyone I know, Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think we're going to see a lot
Speaker 1: more unions this year. Yeah, that does seem to be
Speaker 1: a positive trend that we're seeing is a lot more
Speaker 1: unionization and some significant successes for and and a lot
Speaker 1: more like like general acceptance of the concept of a union.
Speaker 1: Other prediction related to to tech industry stuff, I think
Speaker 1: one of the billionaire space ships things is going to
Speaker 1: have a disastrous launch. Positive prediction of spaceship is gonna
Speaker 1: blow up with people inside it as it tries to
Speaker 1: take off. That's that's my positive prediction. That it can
Speaker 1: take some people with it. Um, sorry to the people,
Speaker 1: sorry to the workers who are gonna be probably harmed
Speaker 1: at that, but it can take some people out. So
Speaker 1: it's gonna be funny. Um that is that's possibility. Also, Uh,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a there's gonna be a disastrous effect.
Speaker 1: Uh around Austin is right, and that's where that's where
Speaker 1: a lot of the spacehip stuff is getting set up.
Speaker 1: There's no, no, no, it's that's just where the offices are.
Speaker 1: It's like Chica, It's like on the coast of text
Speaker 1: some some piece of a spaceship is gonna fly through
Speaker 1: someone's house. No one's gonna care about it. Um, there
Speaker 1: gets brought, gonna kill a family or something. No one's
Speaker 1: gonna care. Nothing's gonna happen that. Those are my more
Speaker 1: my tech industry predictions related to spaceship stuff. Yeah, um yeah.
Speaker 1: I also think on on a more. I don't know
Speaker 1: how the current civil war in Myanmar is going to
Speaker 1: shake out, but I think there's a chance that it
Speaker 1: becomes the first k place where there is a successful
Speaker 1: or at least partially successful revolutionary movement that is to
Speaker 1: a significant extent armed via three D printed weaponry. Um,
Speaker 1: they've all we've already seen a lot of that deployed
Speaker 1: by the rebels in Myanmar. Um. I'm interested in watching
Speaker 1: that because it's kind of the first time we've seen
Speaker 1: that technology used on a meaningful scale by people that
Speaker 1: aren't like organized crime. Um. And yeah, I think it's
Speaker 1: still too early to tell, like how much of an
Speaker 1: actual like whether or not it's just kind of a
Speaker 1: distraction from the more meaningful aspects of the struggle, or
Speaker 1: the more meaningful like kind of deployments of of weaponry
Speaker 1: and other tools in the struggle, or whether or not
Speaker 1: it will actually play a significant role in the armed struggle.
Speaker 1: But it's it's very much worth watching if you're somebody
Speaker 1: who pays attention to insurgent movements and what is increasingly
Speaker 1: possible as a result of new technology. I have another
Speaker 1: really bad prediction. J K. Rowling is going to release
Speaker 1: a book on gender or fundy YouTube channel, yeah something
Speaker 1: I think. I think there's a decent chance she has
Speaker 1: been writing a book of that gender and she's going
Speaker 1: to release in two I think that as an actual,
Speaker 1: actual series prediction, just go away and a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of liberal moms are gonna buy it for each other
Speaker 1: and they're gonna read it and it's gonna be bad.
Speaker 1: And that is that is my that's my that's my
Speaker 1: horrible prediction. She could be so beloved if she had
Speaker 1: limited her comments after publishing Harry Potter, if she repeatedly
Speaker 1: telling people that are constantly shifting their pants, if she
Speaker 1: just didn't use Twitter after anything at all, and she
Speaker 1: could have been a different person. It's it's the Dave
Speaker 1: Chappelle thing. Just stay off. We all we all would
Speaker 1: have loved you wherever if you just just gone off
Speaker 1: and counted your money and left us alone. Yeah, go
Speaker 1: be rich somewhere. It's fine to be done. It's fine
Speaker 1: to be done being famous and influential. You you had,
Speaker 1: you did great, You did great. You never needed to
Speaker 1: come back. And she, I don't she did. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if she did great? She did? She did? She
Speaker 1: look again, this is all colored. But if she had
Speaker 1: never come back into the public eye, all it would
Speaker 1: have been as like you remember that lady who got
Speaker 1: like twelve year olds to read seven page books that
Speaker 1: one time, Like people would not be as critical of
Speaker 1: the actual content of the Harry Potter books if she
Speaker 1: just hadn't kept coming back and saying ship so that
Speaker 1: and and and and then like didn't stop and then
Speaker 1: did not stop and then was told bad really really bad,
Speaker 1: and then kept doing it and kept doing it, and
Speaker 1: kept doing it and kept doing it. You know what
Speaker 1: people should beat. Look, if you're if you're listening to
Speaker 1: this and you're a millionaire who was like hugely popular
Speaker 1: for some cultural reason in the late nineties and early
Speaker 1: two thousand's, think about Bill Waterson. Bill Waterson ends the
Speaker 1: most popular comic strip in the history of comics and
Speaker 1: spends the rest of his life and fucking Iowa painting
Speaker 1: landscapes and never talks to anybody with a platform again,
Speaker 1: And I everybody loves Bill Waterson. Like not a single
Speaker 1: person has a criticism of Bill Waterson. Um, just do that,
Speaker 1: Just do what he did. Just go paint landscapes in
Speaker 1: Iowa and don't talk to journalists or get on Twitter.
Speaker 1: It's fine. Does Bill Waterson believe regressive things about gender?
Speaker 1: Nobody knows because he doesn't say anything. I think another
Speaker 1: prediction that is actually decently possible. I think we will
Speaker 1: get more and more cities and or states to decriminalize
Speaker 1: hard drugs in in certain possession amounts. UM. I think
Speaker 1: there is a there's a number of bills going around California, UM,
Speaker 1: and a lot of other states and I believe that
Speaker 1: will be start to become more and more common, which
Speaker 1: will be great. It would be nice if they get legalized.
Speaker 1: But you know, get get get what you can for now.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, speaking of drugs, here's oil sponsored by heroin,
Speaker 1: by by big drug. Here we go, have fun, stay safe.
Speaker 1: We're back. And I just want to let everybody know
Speaker 1: that if if everything gets legalized, we will be sponsored
Speaker 1: by meth amphetamine so fucking quickly it will make your
Speaker 1: head spin. I will never turn down a drug sponsor, um,
Speaker 1: except for like super foods. We don't do super foods,
Speaker 1: we don't do brain pills, but heroin. I would advertise
Speaker 1: the ship out of heroin. I'm already ready to advertise
Speaker 1: hair the hair loss drugs we don't do, but heroin.
Speaker 1: H Hey, is life depressing? You know? Heroin? I hated
Speaker 1: that I helped that bit. Uh, Chris, you were you
Speaker 1: were saying something before break My My one serious prediction
Speaker 1: is I don't think we've I think we're we're gonna
Speaker 1: get one more big like Latin American uprising, and it
Speaker 1: will not be in Argentina. I have been eating ship
Speaker 1: for three goddamn years predicting it's gonna be Argentina. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're getting an IMF bailout. Like it's never Argentina. It
Speaker 1: won't be Argentina. It will be somewhere else. But someone is,
Speaker 1: someone is going to spend like two months doing a
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff that's extremely cool outside of Argentina. I
Speaker 1: kind of think, um, I don't know, I'll be interested
Speaker 1: to see what happens in Brazil because um, it's hard
Speaker 1: to get a sense for the exact numbers, but there's
Speaker 1: potential there. There is potential there with what's happened in
Speaker 1: Bolivia and what's happened in Chile. There's there's momentum in
Speaker 1: its exciting broad area, like I mean, like the osis
Speaker 1: there's shoot, there's like enormous protest in Brazil like all
Speaker 1: the time. Yeah, sure, yeah, there's like massive. It just
Speaker 1: hasn't sort of like okay, like it hasn't turned into
Speaker 1: like everyone fighting the cops and like yeah, and maybe
Speaker 1: I don't know if it will because like I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is this is this is my vibes
Speaker 1: based interpretation of it. But it feels like the Workers
Speaker 1: Party has enough of a handle on the protests that
Speaker 1: they're not going to sort of like explode because the
Speaker 1: PT just wants to win its election and get out
Speaker 1: of Bilsonaro. Well yeah, and I mean the possibility of
Speaker 1: any kind of like actual revolutionary insurrection anything relies heavily
Speaker 1: on like that path not working for people, like they're
Speaker 1: not that they're not being that kind of safety. But well,
Speaker 1: I mean I say this, if they arrest Lula again,
Speaker 1: like yeah, I don't think Boson like will die in
Speaker 1: his own ship, Like yeah, that might happen even if
Speaker 1: his party stays in power. I mean that he was
Speaker 1: actively dying as we would record this episode, which is
Speaker 1: very funny. Um I got as a result of one
Speaker 1: of our ad campaigns, several or a picture frames uh
Speaker 1: this year, and right now we're loading one up. That's
Speaker 1: just pictures of sick bowls in yarrow to keep in
Speaker 1: my living room. So anytime I walk past, I can
Speaker 1: look at JayR. Bolton narrow and hacking up a lung
Speaker 1: or having ships sucked out of his nose from a tube. Um,
Speaker 1: I will say, oh, by my one more like very
Speaker 1: fast prediction about this is that Kissinger is gonna live.
Speaker 1: He's not gonna die. Chris I allowed myself to hope
Speaker 1: for one for about I allow myself to hope for
Speaker 1: about eight hours, and I think it's gonna live, but
Speaker 1: immediately wrong. I don't know. It would have been pretty
Speaker 1: cool if Betty White's last action had been some sort
Speaker 1: of anti takeout Kissinger. She becomes the most loved American
Speaker 1: and human history, like goes out just like jumping out
Speaker 1: of an airplane, Like she parachutes into Kissinger's house with
Speaker 1: a flansing knife. Of I'm gonna say, in Colorado, Oregon
Speaker 1: or Washington, we're going to get our first safe uh
Speaker 1: drug injections site opened. I know they've been very pretty good.
Speaker 1: They've been They've been very successful inside different parts of Canada,
Speaker 1: specifically Vancouver, BC. And I believe one of those three
Speaker 1: states is going to get the first one. Um, I
Speaker 1: hope it's all of them. You want to support some
Speaker 1: of those people up in Canada go to Heroin Martin
Speaker 1: by a shoot dope the cops hoodie. Yeah, but say
Speaker 1: like safe safe drug injection and ingestion sites are have
Speaker 1: been have been very good at preventing deaths in Vancouver, BC.
Speaker 1: And there's just a good idea in general. And I
Speaker 1: will be excited at the prospect. They're an incredibly good
Speaker 1: idea and they also if you're trying to again talk
Speaker 1: about this to conservatives in your life, they're cheaper than
Speaker 1: just letting people be addicted to drugs on the street
Speaker 1: because people don't steal stuff. Also, their heroin is free. Also,
Speaker 1: they won't have ridiculous medical bills. They get paid by
Speaker 1: the state, and they're more likely to seek treatment even
Speaker 1: if you don't mandate that, especially if you don't mandate that,
Speaker 1: because as a rule, people don't like having problematic addictions
Speaker 1: to drugs, and if they can deal with their immediate
Speaker 1: needs and also know that there's help available, they will
Speaker 1: often choose to get help. So and I think I
Speaker 1: have I have one more actual prediction is that a
Speaker 1: new Matrix video game will be announced, and that is
Speaker 1: that is all of my predictions. Oh, we should probably
Speaker 1: talk about Matrix for briefly. That's what the people want.
Speaker 1: Garrison and And for the record, this is going to
Speaker 1: be controversial because some people have no taste, but we
Speaker 1: both think it fucking ruled. It is possibly the best
Speaker 1: Matrix film. It was really fun, it's it's very good
Speaker 1: if you think about it, for any amount of time.
Speaker 1: It gets very good in the way it addresses, um,
Speaker 1: the system's power to incorporate revolt as a part of
Speaker 1: the system, which was already teased inside me a monetie,
Speaker 1: it's reloaded. But yeah, like the matrix using the weapon
Speaker 1: that wants to find you against you, and the matrix
Speaker 1: weaponizing all of your ideas against you. UM is very good. UM.
Speaker 1: I know Lana put a lot of thought into this,
Speaker 1: particularly around who she is, how she's developed, and how
Speaker 1: her work has been turned against her and what she believes. UM,
Speaker 1: both by like the people and also like corporately in
Speaker 1: terms of like achieving the correct amount of meta that
Speaker 1: it's not useless drivel while still actually being aware of
Speaker 1: what it is. UM. I think was done well. I
Speaker 1: know there's there's some people and like the postmodern thing,
Speaker 1: who think it don't who think it doesn't go meta enough,
Speaker 1: And I think that's nonsense, because if you go any
Speaker 1: if you if you point out that pointing out that
Speaker 1: pointing out revolting against the system is part of the system,
Speaker 1: then you've lost everybody, Like no one cares because you
Speaker 1: can add on those layers endlessly and it's just dribble. Um.
Speaker 1: So I think they got the correct amount of meta. Well,
Speaker 1: then a bend, not not banning that idea, but moving
Speaker 1: it on me, like you know, you know, it's more
Speaker 1: important than being meta is making friends and finding human
Speaker 1: connections because going through the world like this isolated like
Speaker 1: Thomas Anderson is when he's in the Matrix, as like
Speaker 1: as as games that are a big part of that
Speaker 1: problem is that he's very isolated. And the whole point
Speaker 1: is like, no, you need to find friends, find connections,
Speaker 1: get like like be have people around you to build
Speaker 1: a network of and they actually start like like loving
Speaker 1: other people is really one of the only ways out
Speaker 1: of this looping cycle and layering of Matrix is that
Speaker 1: we always live in Um. It was. It's a wonderful film.
Speaker 1: I can talk I can talk about it for hours,
Speaker 1: but we could do a whole podcast about why we
Speaker 1: enjoyed Matrix four um but it's it's pretty fun and
Speaker 1: my only the only thing I'll add to that is
Speaker 1: a lot of people, fools is what I call them,
Speaker 1: are angry at the fact that it ended with the
Speaker 1: Brass Against cover of he was so good. It was
Speaker 1: so good it was, and it the cover of that
Speaker 1: song opens an exactly so that the singer, the lead
Speaker 1: singer of Brass Against became briefly famous mid late last
Speaker 1: year UM when during while playing that exact song on stage,
Speaker 1: she urinated into a fan's mouth and the song that
Speaker 1: the cover that ends the Matrix starts at exactly the
Speaker 1: moment where she pete in that guy's mouth during the
Speaker 1: live show. And I am certain that Lana Wachowski was
Speaker 1: planning to use the original Rage against the Machine version
Speaker 1: of that song, and then that news dropped and was like, well,
Speaker 1: let's get these Brass Against people. I I want, I
Speaker 1: want the Piste song on other thing I wanted. Theory
Speaker 1: is reflecting on the analyst as a character and how
Speaker 1: he relates to kind of the meat space argument and
Speaker 1: how digital systems and algorithms and social media operates. He
Speaker 1: if you listen to him talk um and within the
Speaker 1: whole context, within the whole context of the film, he um.
Speaker 1: They think there's actually some more insightful points than what
Speaker 1: you might originally suspect around like social media UM and
Speaker 1: digital nous versus realness um just always you know, always
Speaker 1: a factor in in Matrix films, but the way the
Speaker 1: way they handle it in this soil much thing is
Speaker 1: a lot more mature than all the topics they handle
Speaker 1: in their previous films. And I mean there's just so
Speaker 1: many like really good, like single lines that offer like
Speaker 1: really good like oh wow, like that's just like a
Speaker 1: very good point, and then they just move past them
Speaker 1: so like so effortlessly, like you could focus on any
Speaker 1: one of those really good lines, and they just offer
Speaker 1: up so many and at many points. And I like
Speaker 1: that they turned the Mayor of Engian into Ted Kaczynski. Um,
Speaker 1: it's just fun. Like at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it's just actually really fun and it doesn't feel exactly
Speaker 1: like the other movies in the series, which is what
Speaker 1: I want. I don't like reboots. I wasn't a fan
Speaker 1: of the Star Wars reboot because it was like I've
Speaker 1: seen this again, Yeah, yeah, I I like I like
Speaker 1: that it. I like that a lot of the action
Speaker 1: in this movie, right up until kind of the end
Speaker 1: feels perfunctory and like I like like kind of saying
Speaker 1: like I don't care about this part anymore, Like I've
Speaker 1: done the guy's fighting agents and bullet time. Um that
Speaker 1: you know, at the end there's some more some more
Speaker 1: loving action set pieces, but like from the beginning, it's
Speaker 1: very much it's much more like a really fun commentary
Speaker 1: on how Hollywood works and how the video game industry works.
Speaker 1: There's a fucking mass effect joke in there. There's a
Speaker 1: joke about like the nineteen nine, nine or two thousand
Speaker 1: Matrix video game that happened before Garrison was born. It's
Speaker 1: so fun. It's it's just a lot of fun as
Speaker 1: a movie. It's rad mhm. Well, um, any any other
Speaker 1: final final predictions before we wrap up this this extremely
Speaker 1: well thought through episode that we port our hearts and
Speaker 1: minds into. We really did. Dr oz is going to
Speaker 1: go down in flames. Oh I hope so? Oh man.
Speaker 1: I really have no idea what to expect from I
Speaker 1: have no idea. I'm not making I'm not making any
Speaker 1: prediction on that because I too have no idea. The
Speaker 1: only thing that I'll say is that one way or
Speaker 1: the other, it's going to be a bell weather. If
Speaker 1: it like goes great for him and he wins easily,
Speaker 1: we're going to see a lot more like Dr Phil
Speaker 1: is absolutely rolling into Congress. If that works for oz
Speaker 1: Um and other other people who are kind of occupy
Speaker 1: similar cultural spaces, will do the same thing, and then
Speaker 1: we'll have congressional inquiries about whether or not this simple
Speaker 1: trick will burn belly fat. It's gonna if it's like like,
Speaker 1: if that's what happens. Like the thing, the thing Trump
Speaker 1: is going to be remembered for like is being like, well,
Speaker 1: the thing the thing Reagan is going to be remembered
Speaker 1: for is being just like like fifty years ahead of
Speaker 1: his time before. We're literally all entirely ruled just reality
Speaker 1: TV stars mm hm whose wives are great at giving head?
Speaker 1: Should I? Did anyone? Did everyone already forget that Nancy
Speaker 1: Reagan throat goat discourse? Discourse? Everyone was so exhausted. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you didn't catch this, it's a very well known
Speaker 1: secret and has been for like fifty years that back
Speaker 1: before they got married and probably after. Nancy was famous
Speaker 1: for giving the best blow jobs in Hollywood as as
Speaker 1: as Garrison tosses the cat every single episode. So I
Speaker 1: disdained this discourse. Now, yeah, two, it's a year, We're
Speaker 1: in it. Okay. My My last prediction is I actually
Speaker 1: do think this year is gonna suck slightly less? Did me? Now?
Speaker 1: This is probably the big one. I'm gonna eat it on,
Speaker 1: but like, hopefully you don't happen, hopefully you're right about it.
Speaker 1: So I'm um, no, yeah, I think that there's a
Speaker 1: decent chance that we're that it's better. Um, it's at
Speaker 1: least in some ways. The climate stuff, as it nearly
Speaker 1: always will for the foreseeable future, will keep getting worse.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think there's actually a chance that COVID
Speaker 1: will get better, not because of any policy decision, but
Speaker 1: because O Macron literally nine of human beings and in
Speaker 1: the world get it, and those that survive COVID stops
Speaker 1: passing on as much, which is kind of vaguely speaking
Speaker 1: what happened with you know, the influenza. I will be
Speaker 1: probably foolish in making one more prediction, that is, like
Speaker 1: around the fall, we will not see spikes as big
Speaker 1: as we saw this last year. Um. I do think
Speaker 1: there will probably still be some, but I do think
Speaker 1: the numbers are going to be generally trending down. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: after O Macron hits its peak, just because how do
Speaker 1: people will get infected? Many antibodies plus vaccines will be circulating, um,
Speaker 1: and how many people have already been who don't take
Speaker 1: the vaccine have will already have like died off. It's
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that to be like flip into to
Speaker 1: be like, but it's like, I just that's what the
Speaker 1: world that it's the world that we live in. I
Speaker 1: hate it, um, but I do hope and I do
Speaker 1: hope and some slightly predict that we'll have less less
Speaker 1: spiking numbers around this next fall and winter as we
Speaker 1: did of this current you know, fall and winter season.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't mind ending on a note of appreciation for
Speaker 1: the fucking booster because we got it. You and I
Speaker 1: both garrison, as did most of our friends, and had
Speaker 1: just a shipload of COVID flying around us everywhere. I
Speaker 1: love a lot of infections, and we were fine, fine.
Speaker 1: I have one of my friends got COVID and her mom,
Speaker 1: who they live in the same house, did not has
Speaker 1: not gotten COVID because wearing masks and they got the booster.
Speaker 1: And for for all my friends that that did get
Speaker 1: COVID that had that were boosted, the vaccine didn't there.
Speaker 1: You're not in the hospital. You're double test positive on
Speaker 1: a rapid test and then test negative on a PCR,
Speaker 1: probably because by the time he got to the PCR,
Speaker 1: like the next day, his viral load was just so
Speaker 1: fucking low. Um, get the third vacs, the vaccine works.
Speaker 1: Who could have predicted? Who could have predicted? The things
Speaker 1: that are literally the entire basis of our modern concept
Speaker 1: of the value of human life continue to be very effective?
Speaker 1: All right, Well that that doesn't for us. Um, unplugged,
Speaker 1: Go spend time outside, touch grass, touch your mirror, like
Speaker 1: trying to go through it, because you try to go through. Um,
Speaker 1: what's really it's not see if see if maybe you
Speaker 1: were the digital Messiah and you have been trapped in
Speaker 1: a simulation where you work at a food lion, um,
Speaker 1: and and you can break free of it, Um, but
Speaker 1: not fly anymore because now your girlfriends he does he
Speaker 1: does fly with Trinity at the end, he does fly
Speaker 1: with Trinity. Sure, just as we all can only fly
Speaker 1: with with well with Carrie at Masson's Yeah, specifically, who
Speaker 1: has gotten so much hotter as they? All? Right, Well,
Speaker 1: that's that's where we are. The Black Effect presents features
Speaker 1: honest conversations and exclusive interviews, a space for artists, everyday
Speaker 1: people and listeners to amplify, elevate, and empower black voices
Speaker 1: with great conversations. Make sure to listen to the Black
Speaker 1: Effect Presents podcast on I Heart Radio, Apple podcast or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcast. Here's of the great American settlers.
Speaker 1: The millions of you have settled for unsatisfying jobs because
Speaker 1: they pay the bills, and you just kind of fell
Speaker 1: into it, and you know, it's like totally fine, just
Speaker 1: another few decades or so and then you can enjoy yourself.
Speaker 1: Of course, there is something else you could do. If
Speaker 1: you've got something to say, You could, I don't know,
Speaker 1: start up podcast with Spreaker from my heart and unleash
Speaker 1: your creative freedom and spend all day researching and talking
Speaker 1: about stuff you love and maybe even earn enough money
Speaker 1: to one day tell your irritating boss as you quit
Speaker 1: and walk off into the sunset. Hey I'm no settler,
Speaker 1: I'm an explorer. Spreaker dot com. That's spr e a
Speaker 1: k e er Hustle on over today. Hey, everybody, welcome
Speaker 1: to it could happen here. I am Robert Evans, and
Speaker 1: this is the show where we talk about how everything
Speaker 1: is kind of falling apart and how we might put
Speaker 1: it back together again in a way that works better
Speaker 1: than it did before. Um or do something different that
Speaker 1: is even anyway, whatever, it's a show about the future
Speaker 1: and about the messed up present. Um And as a
Speaker 1: result of that, one of the things we talked about
Speaker 1: a lot is self sufficiency. We've had a number of
Speaker 1: episodes kind of covering the values of like replacing your
Speaker 1: lawn with food, guerilla gardening, that sort of stuff. And
Speaker 1: one of the critiques we get is people saying, well,
Speaker 1: you know, that's never gonna work on a large scale.
Speaker 1: It's never going to replace industrial agriculture or whatever. And
Speaker 1: that's perfectly true. But the point we're going for here
Speaker 1: and why we encourage these kind of resilience building activities
Speaker 1: is because they do improve the ability of communities to
Speaker 1: resist when they need to resist, and also provide opportunities
Speaker 1: by which people can reimagine their relationship to, for example,
Speaker 1: the food supply chain, or reimagine the relationship to their
Speaker 1: community and the kind of things that communities provide for
Speaker 1: each other rather than having them shipped in by Amazon. Um.
Speaker 1: And when we start talking about that, when we start
Speaker 1: talking about improving community resiliency for things like, you know,
Speaker 1: a general strike or even potentially more radical stuff, one
Speaker 1: of the big issues that any community has to confront
Speaker 1: is not just food but medicine. I'm I do, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure a lot of other people have friends who
Speaker 1: cannot survive without medications that are very like reliant upon
Speaker 1: existing supply chains UM, and to some extent even the
Speaker 1: stability of the government. You know, UM, getting your insulin,
Speaker 1: getting your medication for whatever kind of disease you have
Speaker 1: that that needs constant medication. There's a bunch of different
Speaker 1: reasons why people are reliant upon the medical UM supply
Speaker 1: lines and upon the kind of pharmaceutical industry. And that's
Speaker 1: one of the big when we talk about building more
Speaker 1: resilient communities, one of the big hurdles to jump. Well. Today,
Speaker 1: my guest is someone who is working on bridging some
Speaker 1: of these problems. UM. His name is Michael Lawfer, and
Speaker 1: he is the founder of an organization called the Four
Speaker 1: Thieves Vinegar Collective. They are bio hackers UM, and they
Speaker 1: are working on cracking certain pharmaceutical medications to allow individuals
Speaker 1: with resources that are generally available to people who are
Speaker 1: not rich or pharmaceutical companies UM, to produce life saving medications. UM.
Speaker 1: The number one thing you would have heard of from
Speaker 1: Four Thieves is the EPI pencil, which we'll talk about
Speaker 1: in a bit. But first, Michael, thank you for coming
Speaker 1: on the show. Thanks so much for having me. It's
Speaker 1: exciting to be able to chat and talk with you
Speaker 1: and all the people surrounding you who are trying to
Speaker 1: just unfun things a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: most of the conversation I want to have today is
Speaker 1: on the unfucking of things variety. But I do think
Speaker 1: we should start with a little bit of technical talk first.
Speaker 1: Can you give people an idea of what kind of
Speaker 1: medications you and other people in the collective have figured
Speaker 1: out how to produce um and what kind of resources
Speaker 1: and individual needs to be able to do some of
Speaker 1: this stuff. Sure. So, from a technical perspective, most of
Speaker 1: the things that we focus on are what's called small
Speaker 1: molecule chemistry. And to kind of describe that blanketly, if
Speaker 1: you can draw the molecule on a cocktail napkin, it
Speaker 1: probably qualifies as a small molecule if it's one of
Speaker 1: these things that, like, you know, if you look at
Speaker 1: the diagram for the molecules approaching, it's got big ribbons
Speaker 1: that are colored and stuff that's a that's a biochem thing.
Speaker 1: And it's a whole different set of problems now. The
Speaker 1: mean focide that we've had have been surrounding access to abortion,
Speaker 1: access to HIV medications, access to hepatitis C medications, and
Speaker 1: access to reversal of drug overdose medications. So that's been
Speaker 1: sort of our main focus, but there's been a handful
Speaker 1: of others. The things that we tend to look for
Speaker 1: our where are there things that there's a great need
Speaker 1: and there's a huge barrier, And so you see those
Speaker 1: in those places a lot, because the three main barriers
Speaker 1: that tend to pop up between somebody and access to
Speaker 1: the medication they need are either price or legality or
Speaker 1: lack of infrastructure. And typically the weirdness that comes up
Speaker 1: mostly surrounds price because of intellectual property laws and marginalization
Speaker 1: of people who suffer from particular ailments or seem to
Speaker 1: suffer predominantly from particular ailments. And so if you're if
Speaker 1: you're poor, and you're in a class of people that
Speaker 1: is seen as something not to be cared about because
Speaker 1: they're not a strong voter base, then the ability to
Speaker 1: move access away from those people and put in more
Speaker 1: barriers and raise prices becomes easier to defend UM. So,
Speaker 1: the first drug that we focused on was a an
Speaker 1: anti parasitic. Um. Toxoplasmosis is a parasite that's pretty innocuous
Speaker 1: for most people anybody when you get from cats, right
Speaker 1: or is this not Gandhi it is. It is the
Speaker 1: one you get from cats. And it's really fascinating parasite too,
Speaker 1: if you if you ever dig into the behavioral biology
Speaker 1: of it, it's really really fascinating parasite. UM. I probably
Speaker 1: have it. Yeah, I have three cats. I definitely have it.
Speaker 1: So and so it's not a big deal for those people.
Speaker 1: But if you have a massively compromised immune system, especially
Speaker 1: with people with HIV or advanced stages of cancer, and
Speaker 1: that's why it was labeled sort of you know HIV drug,
Speaker 1: it's not it's a it's an anti parasitic. But it's
Speaker 1: used almost exclusively by people who are an advanced stages
Speaker 1: of cancer. Uh, people with fairly compromised immune systems from
Speaker 1: HIV or something else, and then pregnant women. Um, And
Speaker 1: it's not that big deal. If you have access to
Speaker 1: the medication, you can merely take it and eradicates from body. Uh.
Speaker 1: The difference was is that something that was a short
Speaker 1: course of treatment you take I think for um, you know,
Speaker 1: four doses the first time around, and then one dose
Speaker 1: each day subsequently for something like ten days, um. And
Speaker 1: that's not a big deal when each shows each pill
Speaker 1: was about thirteen and a half dollars and then Martin
Speaker 1: cry jacked up the price to seven fifty a pill,
Speaker 1: and so I'm like, well, this is ridiculous. That was
Speaker 1: the first one that we went after. Then of course
Speaker 1: access to abortion drugs, um, that's a big one. That's
Speaker 1: pretty topical. Lately. We released a video maybe three months
Speaker 1: ago on how you can make your own abortion pills
Speaker 1: without too much fuss. This would be mythopristone right uh
Speaker 1: Mitho pristone and Mr Pristall. So you can do it
Speaker 1: with just Mr Purstall, or you can do it in combination.
Speaker 1: And when you do it with just the one with
Speaker 1: just Miso, you have about an eighty five pc chance
Speaker 1: of it working. And if you have both. They bumps
Speaker 1: it up to about and what is the like what
Speaker 1: when you're doing this? And we'll talk a little bit
Speaker 1: with the hardware, but like what is the re agent
Speaker 1: that you have for this? Because I know that's been
Speaker 1: A big part of some of the discussions is like,
Speaker 1: how do you get the things you make the medicines from,
Speaker 1: which is easier for some than it is for others. Sure,
Speaker 1: there are a couple different ways that you google about that.
Speaker 1: The the interesting but more difficult way, of course, is
Speaker 1: to do the chemistry from scratch, where like you say,
Speaker 1: you get access from agents, you do some chemistry, and
Speaker 1: you end up with the active pharmaceutical ingredient, which we
Speaker 1: lovingly referred to as the A p I, and then
Speaker 1: you package it somehow into a tablet or a pill
Speaker 1: or or some other means of ingress into the body. Um.
Speaker 1: The instructions that we distributed skip the difficult part because
Speaker 1: Mr Pristal is an ulcer medication, and so, for instance,
Speaker 1: if you have access to Mexico or are in Mexico,
Speaker 1: it's kind of not a big deal because as an
Speaker 1: ulcer medication, it's over the counter and you can just
Speaker 1: go in and say, oh, you know, my grandmother can't
Speaker 1: get out of bed. She needs this ulcer medication. I
Speaker 1: need just a little bit of it to get her
Speaker 1: through the weekend. UM, and then no problem. Uh, not
Speaker 1: so easy in places where it's a little more controlled
Speaker 1: like the US. However, one amazing trick when looking for medicines,
Speaker 1: access to medicines that are generally blocked from people that
Speaker 1: the existing power structure tries to disenfranchise from access is
Speaker 1: you look and see if it's similarly used for other
Speaker 1: classes of person or being that the infrastructure does care about.
Speaker 1: So interestingly, you look for ulcer medication, you say, well, like, well,
Speaker 1: who else has ulcers that you know, people might think
Speaker 1: are important people. That doesn't really come up, and there
Speaker 1: are other ulster medications are a little bit better. However,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of really wealthy people in the
Speaker 1: United States, and really wealthy people tend to keep horses,
Speaker 1: and horses interestingly, um nine or something or maybe more,
Speaker 1: some ungodly percentage of domesticated horses have ulcers. Um. Now
Speaker 1: why that is, I'm not entirely clear about, but my
Speaker 1: own theory is that it has something to do with
Speaker 1: taking a gigantic wild animal and putting it into a
Speaker 1: very small box for most of its life. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like the thing that horses evolved to do. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So so that said, people who are horse owners typically
Speaker 1: have to treat them constantly for ulcers and the best
Speaker 1: thing for that is Mr Prstal. And so you can
Speaker 1: get Mr Crystall powder in a tub from places that, yeah,
Speaker 1: feedstore or something. Yeah, I go to a feed store
Speaker 1: every week. I'm sure I could buy a bucket of
Speaker 1: this ship probably, So it comes in tubs. And the
Speaker 1: other thing that's great about it coming in a tub
Speaker 1: is that it's already in with a buffer. Part of
Speaker 1: the thing about Mr Crystall is that the dosages in micrograms,
Speaker 1: and that's very hard to weigh unless you have a
Speaker 1: really high precision scale. Even your good drug dealers generally
Speaker 1: don't have a scale that can do that, right. So,
Speaker 1: but the magic is this isn't a tub with a
Speaker 1: bunch of inert powder and it's it's already mixed up
Speaker 1: to be homogeneous. And so what you can do is
Speaker 1: you can do a little bit of back of the
Speaker 1: envelope arithmetic and you can measure out much larger quantities
Speaker 1: and know how much active ingredients you have and then
Speaker 1: pack that into a tablet. Now yeah, um, I mean
Speaker 1: that makes so much sense. And it's also like like
Speaker 1: the you have kind of the dark side and light
Speaker 1: side version. It's kind of the light side version of
Speaker 1: all of those people buying up ivermectin for for nonsense.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, no, there's reasons to buy you know,
Speaker 1: like uh, livestock medication especially. Um. I mean, I have
Speaker 1: a lot of friends who took fishing antibiotics back in
Speaker 1: the day, and this is kind of a much more
Speaker 1: um using it in a much more rigorous way to
Speaker 1: provide people with something that can is getting it will
Speaker 1: be getting increasingly difficult to access in a lot of
Speaker 1: parts of the country. Yeah, it's just such a smart
Speaker 1: way of approaching it, I think. Yeah. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that becomes philosophically a bit sticky is when
Speaker 1: you end up talking about the importance of independent management
Speaker 1: of one's own health and just Asian making not coming
Speaker 1: from above. There's this difficult moment that I've had kind
Speaker 1: of having to cop to the reality that if you're
Speaker 1: building mechanisms to empower people to have access to make
Speaker 1: decisions about managing their own health, h part of that
Speaker 1: entails realizing that thou will also lead to a lot
Speaker 1: of people making what I might think are bad decisions,
Speaker 1: but that the important thing is that it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: what I think that people should not be controlled by
Speaker 1: other people, and if they make bad decisions, that sucks,
Speaker 1: and hopefully we can help that, but not not lamenting
Speaker 1: the importance of or not not backtracking, not having some
Speaker 1: sort of retrograde. Yeah, about offering more access even if
Speaker 1: people misuse that access to the miss manage their own health.
Speaker 1: Mismanagement of health happens no matter what right, It happens constantly,
Speaker 1: and people will ignore things that seem like they're bigger
Speaker 1: problems and don't get them addressed. And so I have
Speaker 1: to sort of retreat into this idea that more access
Speaker 1: to more tools is better and that's just the way
Speaker 1: of it. And yeah, the problem, yeah, I mean, the
Speaker 1: problem with ivermectin isn't the problem. The problem is that
Speaker 1: that people have access to ivermectin and so they're taking
Speaker 1: it in a way that is harmful to them. The
Speaker 1: problem is that people have been have have been blinded
Speaker 1: by disinformation and so are making a horrible health care decision.
Speaker 1: The fact that they have it's possessed to veterinary medication
Speaker 1: is fine, right, exactly, And and it's and it's interesting
Speaker 1: that you say that because I have a friend of
Speaker 1: doctors without borders and they are starting a couple of
Speaker 1: pretty strong programs to try and combat misinformation, because just
Speaker 1: from a metric standpoint, they look for sort of like,
Speaker 1: what's killing the greatest number of people at the greatest
Speaker 1: rate in the worst way, And currently the thing that's
Speaker 1: killing the most people in the worst way at the
Speaker 1: greatest rate is misinformation, And so yeah, that's that's really
Speaker 1: the great danger. And one of the things I found
Speaker 1: really interesting about kind of what you all have been
Speaker 1: doing because obviously the question of how to fight the
Speaker 1: misinformation in the medical sphere is a much larger conversation
Speaker 1: without simple answers. When it comes to a question like, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: this pharmaceutical company jacked up the price by what seven
Speaker 1: for this necessary medication for people a lot of people
Speaker 1: who have HIV UM. What are we The solution to
Speaker 1: that is simple, you find a way for them to
Speaker 1: get it without paying hundreds and hundreds of dollars per
Speaker 1: dose um. The question some of the work you all
Speaker 1: have done is with very uh mass needed ducks like
Speaker 1: the methopres don't like the epipencil um where there's large
Speaker 1: numbers of people who need it, But a lot of
Speaker 1: what I think one of the things I think is
Speaker 1: really cool, is y'all are also working on hacking medications
Speaker 1: that are very niche like, very very few people have
Speaker 1: this particular disease, and so the medication is costs as
Speaker 1: much as the fully loaded Toyota tacoma, you know, in
Speaker 1: order to sometimes far worse than that. Because of this
Speaker 1: Orphan Drug Act that got past in the US and
Speaker 1: equivalence that exists in other places. You have all of
Speaker 1: these allowances that are granted to people who invent I
Speaker 1: put in air quotes because really they just purchase the
Speaker 1: rights to it. Uh, these these orphan drugs where when
Speaker 1: you talk about controls, it's kind of the most tragic
Speaker 1: incidents of that in entirely because what's happening is you've
Speaker 1: got somebody who has a very rare disease, and in
Speaker 1: many cases you have something that's the difference between somebody
Speaker 1: who just cannot function and they're dealing with their life
Speaker 1: kind of moment to moment there they're mostly cared for,
Speaker 1: and if they have access to a particular medication, then
Speaker 1: they can go through life in a fairly normal sort
Speaker 1: of way where they don't need to be an assisted living,
Speaker 1: where that they can do sort of basic things for themselves,
Speaker 1: and that that seems so much more predatory. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's important, of course, you know, to look at things
Speaker 1: with that macro lens as well and say what can
Speaker 1: what can do a lot of good for a lot
Speaker 1: of people. But then the sort of micro ethical lens
Speaker 1: needs to come out from time to time and say,
Speaker 1: all right, well, here's something that only affects a few
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people across the world. But the these are
Speaker 1: people who could just go through life normally if only
Speaker 1: they had access to a little bit of medicine. And
Speaker 1: the only reason they don't is because of misplaced average
Speaker 1: or all averice is misplaced because yeah, and you're you're
Speaker 1: you're providing individuals or a way for people to to
Speaker 1: help individuals who have this problem and who can't couldn't
Speaker 1: possibly afford this because they don't have health care or
Speaker 1: something a way to deal with these illnesses. Um and oftentimes,
Speaker 1: like even even people who are ensured get the medication
Speaker 1: that they need or don't get an affordable rate because
Speaker 1: it's not seen as critical. Yeah, it's like, oh, well
Speaker 1: there's a there's a solution that's not as good, but
Speaker 1: it's much less expensive. So that's the only thing we're
Speaker 1: going to cover. And so yeah, and you're saying, well,
Speaker 1: it should be your decision whether or not this is
Speaker 1: something you want to treat this way, and we're this
Speaker 1: is a way if you, you know, have access, This
Speaker 1: is a way for you to kind of, as you've
Speaker 1: been saying, like, take your health care and your ability
Speaker 1: to get medication into your own hands and produce the
Speaker 1: things that you need without needing to beg an insurance
Speaker 1: company or go fund me eight dollars or whatever. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Does go fund me break my heart so much? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's especially when people say, oh, look, how great somebody
Speaker 1: got the money that they needed, and I say, look,
Speaker 1: I am happy that people get healthcare, but this should
Speaker 1: be entirely unnecessary. And the fact that this comes up
Speaker 1: is criminal. Yeah, we can. We can as a species
Speaker 1: produce this ship for less than the cost of like
Speaker 1: a lamp, you know, Like, why why don't why isn't
Speaker 1: this available? Um? Now, I And that's what I think
Speaker 1: is kind of so powerful about what y'all are doing.
Speaker 1: And is that so so often we kind of get
Speaker 1: stuck in this like the horror of how bad health
Speaker 1: care is, of how fund up the pharmaceutical industry is
Speaker 1: and then we get our relief from that in these
Speaker 1: stories of people like crowdfunding so they can get their medication,
Speaker 1: and what you're saying is, well, what's actually much more
Speaker 1: inspiring than that is people just making finding ways to
Speaker 1: make what they need. UM Again, the kind of the
Speaker 1: most popular popular is the wrong word. The most press
Speaker 1: y'all have received, I think is for the epipencil, which
Speaker 1: is an EpiPen is a device that you take that
Speaker 1: is used when people are going into anaphylactic shock, which
Speaker 1: is when they have an allergic reaction that will kill
Speaker 1: them if untreated. Generally, UM and it you injected into
Speaker 1: your muscles or generally, like an EpiPen does the injecting,
Speaker 1: you just kind of put it in place. UM and
Speaker 1: it it is a life saving medication when people need it.
Speaker 1: It's the choice between that and death. UM and they
Speaker 1: are very expensive. There is a company that owns the
Speaker 1: patent because of how the EpiPen actually does the injecting.
Speaker 1: The actual medicine is very cheap and very easy to make,
Speaker 1: but it's unbelievably expensive and people die as a result
Speaker 1: of lack lack of access. UM And you've provided a
Speaker 1: way using both kinds of this thing called a bio
Speaker 1: lab that people You've developed plans that people can build
Speaker 1: it for themselves in order to make this, and also
Speaker 1: using a three D printer, you can make UM an epipencil,
Speaker 1: which is a little less kind of a more analog version.
Speaker 1: I think, I guess you'd say, uh no, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's equivalent. It's equivalent. It works the same way. The
Speaker 1: things that are different about it that UM are critical.
Speaker 1: The first one that you mentioned, of course, is that
Speaker 1: you can you can build it for all over thirty
Speaker 1: dollars US, and you can reload it for about three dollars,
Speaker 1: unlike the EpiPen which is I think it's about fifty
Speaker 1: dollars for yeah, UM, and that might be for a pair,
Speaker 1: but even so to UM. But the other two critical
Speaker 1: differences are that EpiPens are single you, so you can't
Speaker 1: test whether it's faulty or not until you use it,
Speaker 1: and there have been a lot of failures. In fact,
Speaker 1: there was a big EpiPen recall a bunch of years ago,
Speaker 1: and there were just these tragic, tragic stories. Some guy
Speaker 1: had to watch his little kid die. He had had
Speaker 1: a pair of EpiPens. The kid went into shock. He
Speaker 1: used it, the thing failed. He brought the other one.
Speaker 1: The other one failed, and they're in the air and
Speaker 1: you can't land in fifteen minutes and the little kid died,
Speaker 1: which just and I'm sure there are dozens of dozens
Speaker 1: of stories like that that just happens to be one
Speaker 1: of the ones I know. So one of the things
Speaker 1: that's great about the epipencils because you're putting it together
Speaker 1: yourself and it only takes four parts, you can test it.
Speaker 1: You can make sure that it works as many times
Speaker 1: as you need to. You can dry running with saline
Speaker 1: and just double check that it does what it's supposed
Speaker 1: to UM, and so it's safer. So the fact that
Speaker 1: it's you can control yourself, you can reload it, and
Speaker 1: you can test it. All these things fix a lot
Speaker 1: of these immediate problems that come with and it still
Speaker 1: has the benefit that everybody wants from the EpiPen which
Speaker 1: is that it doesn't require um, you know, measurement or
Speaker 1: like knowing how deep to press the needle before you
Speaker 1: depress the plunger. All that happens automatically, and it happens
Speaker 1: very quickly. UM and yeah, we as you say, we've
Speaker 1: got a lot of pressed for that because essentially a
Speaker 1: good timing we've released at the same time that Heather
Speaker 1: Brush was lying to Congress about why they hit raised
Speaker 1: the price on the EpiPens and then so it was
Speaker 1: in the public eye. And and that's that's a huge
Speaker 1: one being able to produce that because that is I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a tremendous number of people who rely on UH
Speaker 1: EpiPens um and and I think the potential of that
Speaker 1: project is staggering. UM And there's some there's some you know,
Speaker 1: we when we talk about kind of the different people
Speaker 1: who are who are working on similar problems to you,
Speaker 1: there's also a group of people who are working on
Speaker 1: um cracking insulin, being able to produce insulin um. And yeah,
Speaker 1: the Open Insulin Project is an amazing group of people,
Speaker 1: incredibly important. They're yeah, they're working on mm hmm, probably
Speaker 1: the largest scale public health crisis. I mean, in terms
Speaker 1: of queries that we get, I think we get people
Speaker 1: asking about insulin more than anything else. And I always say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're very very bright people who already working around this.
Speaker 1: Go talk to the Open Insulin Um and and they're
Speaker 1: just amazing. I want to move on because I want
Speaker 1: to talk about kind of the more um philosophical dimensions
Speaker 1: of some of this. But before we get into that,
Speaker 1: i'd like to so, like, you know, one of the
Speaker 1: things you and I've been talking about a little bit
Speaker 1: behind the scenes is I am not a technically savvy person,
Speaker 1: but I'm I want to try and I'd like to
Speaker 1: be able to like produce an epipencil. I want to
Speaker 1: like understand this it kind of and and potentially be
Speaker 1: able to contribute UM in a more direct sense, in
Speaker 1: part because I'm curious, like how how doable actually is this? For?
Speaker 1: I consider myself a pretty normal person when it comes
Speaker 1: to like technical understanding, right, Like, I'm reasonably handy, but
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not a chemist, I'm not a I'm
Speaker 1: not a I haven't really I have no I have
Speaker 1: no prior experience three D printing or anything like that.
Speaker 1: What is what is required in terms of financial investment
Speaker 1: and what is kind of your general estimate in terms
Speaker 1: of time to get up to, you know, a kind
Speaker 1: of the level where you can start learning how to
Speaker 1: do some of this stuff. I think the barrier to
Speaker 1: entry is pretty low, depending on how you want to start.
Speaker 1: As I said, there are different avenues to doing it.
Speaker 1: You can, of course, one of the one of the
Speaker 1: greatest hacks. If if anybody listening this doesn't pick up
Speaker 1: anything else, here's the best hack in terms of getting
Speaker 1: access to medication. You have a medication you don't have
Speaker 1: access to for whatever reason, Assuming it comes in a
Speaker 1: capsule form, you can nearly go to a chemical supplier,
Speaker 1: purchase the active pharmaceutical ingredient, wait out, put it into
Speaker 1: a capsule, and you've made your medication. That's a very
Speaker 1: simple thing, you know, that takes nothing more than being
Speaker 1: able to read a scale and scooping powder into a
Speaker 1: little you know, capsules. The next step up, there are
Speaker 1: things that you can do. They're little more involved. If
Speaker 1: you want to build an epy pencil, again, this is
Speaker 1: three or four parts, depending on how you count. You
Speaker 1: take a needle from one syringe needle set on, you
Speaker 1: put it onto a different engineel set, and then you
Speaker 1: put it into this auto injector this design for neil
Speaker 1: phobic diabetics. You load it with the up and ron
Speaker 1: and you close it up and you're done. Then, if
Speaker 1: you want to step into this a little bit further,
Speaker 1: if something is so barriered for whatever reason that you
Speaker 1: can't get the actual ingredient, then you might start messing
Speaker 1: around with our micro lab. The micro lab, I would say,
Speaker 1: probably takes around a hundred dollars US to build. Um it,
Speaker 1: but it's not super technical. Our latest version doesn't require
Speaker 1: any soldering. Everything snaps together, which is really nice. You
Speaker 1: can plug everything in. All the wires are just screw terminals,
Speaker 1: which is really convenient. UM. And it takes some time,
Speaker 1: and you do have to load some code, but we're
Speaker 1: looking to release a new set of documentation in the
Speaker 1: summer that will be very very stripped down of here's
Speaker 1: your bill of materials. You can order all of this stuff.
Speaker 1: Here's how you can put the disk image onto the
Speaker 1: SD card that you put in, and you should start
Speaker 1: it and it will wake up and work independently. UM.
Speaker 1: We had a video of our head hardware guy actually
Speaker 1: building the micro lab from just parts that we're sitting
Speaker 1: on lay out on a table, and I think all
Speaker 1: told it took him about forty five minutes. Will be
Speaker 1: a little bit longer, but again, like granted, this guy's
Speaker 1: a hardware specialist and he you know, designed it. So
Speaker 1: for somebody who's not done before, it might take an afternoon,
Speaker 1: but it's not. It's not a prohibitively long or involved
Speaker 1: project that you know, would take you weeks to put together,
Speaker 1: or any specialized under standing of you know, biomedical engineering
Speaker 1: or anything like that. Now, UM, I kind of want
Speaker 1: to move at this point because I think that gives
Speaker 1: people an idea of what's actually necessary and they can
Speaker 1: go to y'all's website, UM or look up you have
Speaker 1: plans on a get hub if they want to kind
Speaker 1: of look at what's what's involved and it's um some
Speaker 1: of it seems a little daunting to me, like look
Speaker 1: looking at the construction of the bio lab, But I'm
Speaker 1: that that's going to be a project that I'll be
Speaker 1: engaging in over the next couple of weeks, so I'll
Speaker 1: keep people updated on how I do there. UM. I
Speaker 1: want to move on to talk Michael about what you
Speaker 1: see as kind of them I don't know the the
Speaker 1: the potential from kind of a revolutionary perspective, from a
Speaker 1: perspective of actually building dual power of this project. And
Speaker 1: obviously you are and I think what would would be
Speaker 1: called the early stages of this idea of kind of
Speaker 1: democratizing and decentralizing the production of life saving medication. UM,
Speaker 1: although I guess you could argue in some ways it's
Speaker 1: kind of a return to more traditional attitudes about health
Speaker 1: care in a lot of ways. Yeah, there's a cyclic
Speaker 1: nature there, and in the sort of zend mind, beginner's mind,
Speaker 1: we'd like to think that the revolution is always in
Speaker 1: its beginning stages, right. UM. That to say, over the
Speaker 1: past decade, roughly looking at trying to find ways to
Speaker 1: give people more independent access that doesn't require infrastructure to
Speaker 1: medicines and medical technologies. The the hope really is to
Speaker 1: create a certain amount of cultural shift. I remember at
Speaker 1: one point a friend of mine, who as a business
Speaker 1: school graduate, asked me a very sort of like business
Speaker 1: school type question where he said, how would you measure
Speaker 1: success of your project? Um? And I said, well, we
Speaker 1: ceased to exist as an organization, and he kind of
Speaker 1: had this moment of like, what do you mean. We
Speaker 1: shouldn't be pushing this right. The ideas that eventually the
Speaker 1: concept of managing your own health is sufficiently normalized that
Speaker 1: it's not something that has to be explained between people.
Speaker 1: But somebody says, oh, yeah, I just I just did
Speaker 1: that up in my micro lab um. In the same
Speaker 1: way that when you look at the shift that happened
Speaker 1: between oh, you know, the mid eighties in the mid nineties,
Speaker 1: where computers were this strange, scary thing that was, you know,
Speaker 1: we're only accessible or usable by people who were very
Speaker 1: specialized something that you know, everybody knew about and everybody
Speaker 1: kind of had and everybody sort of used. And the
Speaker 1: same sort of thing that happened between the period of
Speaker 1: time I don't know, maybe ten twelve years ago and
Speaker 1: now with with three D printing, where like stereo lithography
Speaker 1: and rapid prototyping was again the specialized thing that a
Speaker 1: bunch of people who were essentially at the machine tool
Speaker 1: industry had started to spearhead, and now you say three printing,
Speaker 1: everybody knows what it means. In the same sort of way,
Speaker 1: I'd very much like to see a cultural shift where
Speaker 1: when somebody is unwell, that when discussions between people happened,
Speaker 1: that instead of the have you had that looked at,
Speaker 1: or you might instead here from somebody saying, well have
Speaker 1: you read up on that? You know, to see people
Speaker 1: actually engaged in their own health and not going through
Speaker 1: this very typical process of outsourcing responsibility. Now, it's not
Speaker 1: to say that like experts aren't good people with whom
Speaker 1: to consult, right, Yeah, we're not talking about replacing the
Speaker 1: idea of medical professionals who can help you understand what
Speaker 1: your health and diagnose and stuff like. Yeah, but there
Speaker 1: is again this drastic difference between going to a doctor
Speaker 1: and essentially just like throwing the problem on their desk
Speaker 1: and saying fixed it, call me when it's over, versus
Speaker 1: going to a doctor and saying, hey, I'd like to
Speaker 1: talk about this. I'd like to know more about what's
Speaker 1: wrong here, and i'd like to discuss what the options
Speaker 1: are and what seems best. Um that would be great
Speaker 1: on a lot of levels. And and then these questions
Speaker 1: of access to medication then become even more relevant because
Speaker 1: when you're talking with a doctor and the doctor says, okay,
Speaker 1: well we could try this therapy, but your insurance won't
Speaker 1: pay for it in three hundred thousand dollars, you can say,
Speaker 1: all right, well let's just do a little thought experiment
Speaker 1: and if that fell from a truck, what would I
Speaker 1: do with it? And then maybe you can go home
Speaker 1: and say, you know, I'll call you and let you
Speaker 1: know how it goes. I that's that's really my my grant, Hope,
Speaker 1: And there are so many different ways that can play out.
Speaker 1: In fact, I'll tell you a hilarious story in regards
Speaker 1: to this, which was in I guess it was when
Speaker 1: we presented it, Hope. UM. I called Martin Shakley's cell
Speaker 1: phone from stage to try and ask him what he
Speaker 1: thought about what we were doing, given that I was
Speaker 1: handing his drug out for free, UM and showing people
Speaker 1: how to make it. And he didn't answer the phone
Speaker 1: when I called him then, but he called me back
Speaker 1: a few hours later, which was really hilarious. We actually
Speaker 1: chatted for a while and the guys, I mean a
Speaker 1: little detached from reality, but he's he's no dummy, UM.
Speaker 1: And when I sort of described what we were trying
Speaker 1: to do with the micro lab, he had some interesting
Speaker 1: insights and he said, yeah, you know, one way I
Speaker 1: can imagine that working really well is if somebody with
Speaker 1: a little more knowledge of pharmaceutical medicine were too maybe
Speaker 1: build one of these and serve a small community. I
Speaker 1: think that could be very efficient. And I was like,
Speaker 1: that's a good thought. You Chiseling bastard um. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean that there's a degree which that's that's kind of
Speaker 1: how I see the most realistic potential. This is not
Speaker 1: every individual making all of their medicine, but kind of
Speaker 1: like you know we had during the fires last year,
Speaker 1: when when our local and state governments during the heat
Speaker 1: wave this year like completely shut the bed. We had
Speaker 1: different mutual aid collectives do things like we are providing
Speaker 1: people with like oh, it's a blizzard, We're providing people
Speaker 1: with firewood. We are providing people with cooling stations because
Speaker 1: of the heat. You know, we are providing people with
Speaker 1: they've just fled their houses. We have kits that have
Speaker 1: food and basic necessities so they can get through mutual
Speaker 1: aid collectives that are like, well, we are making we
Speaker 1: specialize and we can produce this and this and this
Speaker 1: medication like these three and we have and here's the
Speaker 1: information you can find online about our process. You know
Speaker 1: that we know what we're doing, and if you need
Speaker 1: these things, you let us know and we we get
Speaker 1: them to you. And here's different ways in which people
Speaker 1: can volunteer if you want to help engage in this
Speaker 1: mutual aid process, even if you're not someone who's going
Speaker 1: to be doing a lot of the technical stuff, but
Speaker 1: we need people to go pick up parts, So we
Speaker 1: need people to do this, and you can help us here.
Speaker 1: You know, I see a lot of potential. I think, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think in a similar way, right, a lot
Speaker 1: of that sort of thing is already happening in other
Speaker 1: realms right where. It's the sort of thing where you
Speaker 1: might be building something, or you you see some project
Speaker 1: on GitHub or whatever, and some there are these STL
Speaker 1: files and you go, oh, gosh, well I don't know
Speaker 1: how to do that, but oh right, x y Z
Speaker 1: down the street as a three D printer. I'll go
Speaker 1: ask her. She's really good at making these things. And
Speaker 1: you say, hey, look, I have this thing. Would this
Speaker 1: be difficult to print? And with their experience, they kind
Speaker 1: of look at me like, I know that that shouldn't
Speaker 1: be too hard. Um, you know, I have some time
Speaker 1: this weekend, maybe I can make that for you. And
Speaker 1: in the same way, you say, hey, it looks like
Speaker 1: I seem to have this rare infection from whatever whatever,
Speaker 1: or I have this odd condition. Um, I wanted to
Speaker 1: try this medication because it might be really helpful, but
Speaker 1: it's not legal in this country. Do you think you
Speaker 1: can put this together again? You know, you call somebody
Speaker 1: and whoever's on the other lines says, oh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: have a micro a. I can try and put a
Speaker 1: program together for that and see if I can make
Speaker 1: it for you. That sort of thing, I think is
Speaker 1: a potentially really positive avenue for that sort of thing
Speaker 1: to proliferate and again eventually to have a cultural shift
Speaker 1: where the idea of medicine and medical technology not being
Speaker 1: something that is comes down from above from some authority,
Speaker 1: but instead is something that's managed by people who are
Speaker 1: part of your community, who you already trust. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's why going to a doctor is so scary. They
Speaker 1: seem to be the arbiter of your fate. They're going
Speaker 1: to tell you whether you're well or not. And and
Speaker 1: that is just the truth, and much better to have
Speaker 1: it where people are making up their own mind based
Speaker 1: on learning about their own health and consulting with people
Speaker 1: who can give them perspective. Um, and if there's more
Speaker 1: of that, and if it's closer to the person who's
Speaker 1: actually suffering, that I think will be on the whole
Speaker 1: much better. Yeah, it's this the and this gets tangled
Speaker 1: up in a lot of the more toxic things we've
Speaker 1: seen this year. But it's this this understanding that with
Speaker 1: any given problem, if individuals trying to solve that problem
Speaker 1: have more autonomy, and part of autonomy is knowledge, that's
Speaker 1: nearly always better. UM. The problem, of course is that
Speaker 1: like we we get into this situation, we are now
Speaker 1: where some people take, I'm take some people some people
Speaker 1: use I want to take control of my health care
Speaker 1: to you know, do stuff that's nonsense, And that brings
Speaker 1: us back to the question of like, yeah, you in
Speaker 1: for the quality of the information that you're getting is
Speaker 1: very important, right because if if you're if you if
Speaker 1: your research is some YouTube video that convinced you that
Speaker 1: you need to you know, take this this horse paste
Speaker 1: or something, then yeah, that's not good. But that doesn't
Speaker 1: change the fact that, like with food, like with with
Speaker 1: everything that you need to survive, the more of a
Speaker 1: role you have in understanding that, deciding what to do
Speaker 1: with that, understanding where it comes from and how it
Speaker 1: is produced. UM. Not just like not only is that
Speaker 1: I think more satisfying as a human, but it's it's
Speaker 1: also critical to to your well being. UM, it's critical
Speaker 1: to like on two levels, right on two levels, because
Speaker 1: not only when your health is taken from you, it
Speaker 1: doesn't deprive you of life, but it deprives you participating
Speaker 1: in any of the acts that make life meaningful. And
Speaker 1: part of that key thing that makes life meaningful is
Speaker 1: having a participatory role in the things that decide the
Speaker 1: trajectory of your life. And so when you go to
Speaker 1: the lengths of managing your own health, two things happen.
Speaker 1: First off, your health improves, assuming you've made good decisions
Speaker 1: and get lucky. But second, you're also having a participatory
Speaker 1: role in your life, and that makes life more meaningful.
Speaker 1: And it beyond just kind of the self actualization benefits
Speaker 1: from from a perspective of actually enabling people to participate
Speaker 1: in the move for radical change in our society. One
Speaker 1: necessary element of that to any of the kind of
Speaker 1: things that we need is a belief in your own
Speaker 1: agency and power. Um. And also and a freedom from
Speaker 1: the kind of fear that comes from feeling helpless. And
Speaker 1: there is I think probably no feeling worse in the
Speaker 1: world than feeling completely helpless about a treatable medical problem. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's one thing I just went through my mom.
Speaker 1: When you get a disease where there's just nothing that
Speaker 1: science can do right, where like, yeah, you've got this
Speaker 1: cancer and there there ain't ship anybody has for you.
Speaker 1: You know, that's one kind of horrible, but I think
Speaker 1: it's a lot less terrible than you. I have this
Speaker 1: thing that we can deal with, but I either can't
Speaker 1: afford it or I don't know that I'll be able
Speaker 1: to afford it. I had a horrible I lost my
Speaker 1: job in my healthcare in seventeen and so did a
Speaker 1: person who was on my healthcare with me that I
Speaker 1: love very much. And I got this, you know, hired
Speaker 1: here in healthcare a couple of years later. And it
Speaker 1: happened that a month before the the I started my
Speaker 1: health care at this new job, this person who was
Speaker 1: on my healthcare with me um got diagnosed with a
Speaker 1: brain tumor, and thankfully not a cancerous one, but the
Speaker 1: one that they had to take medication for that would
Speaker 1: have been would have bankrupted us, you know, with out
Speaker 1: the without insurance, and thankfully it worked out fine. The
Speaker 1: timing worked out okay. But there's not a week that
Speaker 1: goes by that I don't and it it it's it's
Speaker 1: it is something that makes you less willing to take risks,
Speaker 1: less willing to participate in in things that because you
Speaker 1: have in the back of your head, well, I have
Speaker 1: to I have to keep this job, I have to
Speaker 1: keep this insurance, I have to y yeah that. And
Speaker 1: that's another thing that I find so heartbreaking. There's so
Speaker 1: many people that I've I've met totally outside of my
Speaker 1: activism who lament about working a job that they hate,
Speaker 1: and I say, gosh, for you know, I mean, you
Speaker 1: consider just bailing on it and looking for something else
Speaker 1: and trying something else. And they have this total paralysis
Speaker 1: of saying, but if I quit my job, I won't
Speaker 1: have healthcare m hm and and and mind you like,
Speaker 1: these were people who were incredibly healthy. These were not
Speaker 1: people who had any regular visits to healthcare. They're just
Speaker 1: scared that if something comes up, they want people to
Speaker 1: handle it. And it's it's a perfectly well grounded fear.
Speaker 1: But as you point out, what this does is it
Speaker 1: works as this sort of shadow oppressive mechanism to keep
Speaker 1: people from exploring, trying things, as you say, taking risks,
Speaker 1: or or just doing things that that don't involve a
Speaker 1: an optimization toward a stable state of maybe just like yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe I'll start a small business and yeah, it probably
Speaker 1: will fail, but that will be a cool adventure. And
Speaker 1: most people, you know, so many people, maybe not most,
Speaker 1: but many, many people, um get just terrified into this
Speaker 1: state of inertial paralysis. Yeah, and it contributes to people
Speaker 1: being afraid to take to the street to protest the
Speaker 1: police because maybe they get arrested and maybe they get fired,
Speaker 1: and then you know, maybe their kid can't afford their Like,
Speaker 1: there's a thousand ways. I think, honestly, the fear of
Speaker 1: losing your health care is in some ways as great
Speaker 1: a greater counter revolutionary force than any law enforcement agency
Speaker 1: could hope to be, because the fear is so much
Speaker 1: more immediate to so many people. Nobody talks about that,
Speaker 1: And thank you so much for mentioning it, because it's
Speaker 1: something that like, oftentimes I try to bring up when
Speaker 1: I'm discussing things in public for and and oftentimes people
Speaker 1: kind of raise an eyebrow and me and be like,
Speaker 1: that's what's the big deal, And I'm like, no, no no, Like,
Speaker 1: if you look two layers deep, there's something that's really
Speaker 1: working against people being able to exercise protests, and it's, uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's this really link terrifying force that seems
Speaker 1: to underlie everything. And if you could alleviate that, if
Speaker 1: you could get to the point where people are like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the hell with it, you know, I don't need a
Speaker 1: job to take care of me, then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: so many possibilities just blossomed in the mind. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: you have like it, say, if you're a parent who
Speaker 1: has a child with you know who, who's insolent dependent. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of difference in my mind between
Speaker 1: the fact that between someone holding a gun to your
Speaker 1: head and your boss being able to fire you and
Speaker 1: take away your your kids access to that insulent there's
Speaker 1: not a tremendous moral difference. To me. Um, I'd say
Speaker 1: getting a gun to your head is actually more likely
Speaker 1: to survive that it's less inevitable. You could talk your
Speaker 1: way out of that, and yeah, I mean whatever, but
Speaker 1: there are any number of things that might go wrong there.
Speaker 1: But if somebody takes away your insulin, that's the end
Speaker 1: of the story. Yeah, I guess the more salient point
Speaker 1: than the comparison issues. They're both acts of violence, and
Speaker 1: in every way that's meaningful, I think they're both acts
Speaker 1: of violence. Well, and one way that when I reil
Speaker 1: against intellectual property as a concept and intellectual property law,
Speaker 1: the example that I give is they say, if somebody
Speaker 1: were dying and you knew how to save them, would
Speaker 1: you ever not tell them how and just watch them die? Say,
Speaker 1: oh no, that idea belongs to me, and I'm not
Speaker 1: going to share unless you pay me. Like no human
Speaker 1: being that I think I've ever heard of would do that.
Speaker 1: And yet this happens every day because we've sort of
Speaker 1: carried these questions of copyright into patents and despite the
Speaker 1: fact that they are hundreds of years old and not
Speaker 1: applicable anymore, assuming they were ever applicable, and people just
Speaker 1: die because people say, oh, well, we can make more
Speaker 1: money if we do it this way. There's a fascinating
Speaker 1: thing going on there when you when you really drill
Speaker 1: into that idea, because I suspect there are a lot
Speaker 1: of people who have who are are integral in propping
Speaker 1: up this system, both of kind of medical intellectual property
Speaker 1: and of just like the pharmaceutical industry, the way that
Speaker 1: it works people in politics, huge numbers of people who
Speaker 1: are integral in some facet of keeping that going, who
Speaker 1: also were they to see an individual and immediate medical distress,
Speaker 1: would never think of like try getting their debit card
Speaker 1: number or whatever, like asking them would would without thinking
Speaker 1: attempt because that's what people do. And it's I mean,
Speaker 1: this is where we get into kind of some of
Speaker 1: these more philosophical anarchist ideas about what hierarchy does and
Speaker 1: what these structures do, because structures enable people to participate
Speaker 1: in evil that they never would as an individual. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's this easy route that many easy routes that pop
Speaker 1: up that allow people or force I should say force
Speaker 1: people to be displaced from their humanity in that sort
Speaker 1: of way where, yes, of course, you you help somebody
Speaker 1: up off of subway tracks if they've fallen. Yes, of course,
Speaker 1: if somebody were drowning, you drag them out and save them.
Speaker 1: And yet, just because it's a degree removed and it's
Speaker 1: mediated by an agency, suddenly it's so easy to forget
Speaker 1: and ignore and be sort of complicit. And yeah, and
Speaker 1: I just to go back around to what four Thieves
Speaker 1: is doing and what y'all are doing. It's one of
Speaker 1: the few projects going on right now that fits what
Speaker 1: my idealistic nineteen year old brain thought the Internet would
Speaker 1: be sixteen fifteen, like when I when it was when
Speaker 1: things were newer and a little less were like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is like one of these days, Well this kind
Speaker 1: of ship's going to happen. Um, And that is I think,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's not without value from again a
Speaker 1: revolutionary perspective, the fact that it is pretty rad you know. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I will not deny the fact that it
Speaker 1: feels good, you know there. I think that I think
Speaker 1: that we all grow up with that sort of hope
Speaker 1: and belief that we were gonna open these new doors
Speaker 1: and there were going to be these new possibilities and
Speaker 1: things that we have been reading about in science fiction.
Speaker 1: We're going to become real and and there's there's a
Speaker 1: great satisfaction in not just witnessing your childhood dreams become realities,
Speaker 1: but actually, you know, having a hand in it. Uh,
Speaker 1: It's there's there's something quite satisfying about that. I will
Speaker 1: I will admit, well, I think that's a pretty good
Speaker 1: point to close out on today. I don't need to
Speaker 1: take up too much more of your time right now, Michael.
Speaker 1: But but as I told people, I'm going to be
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be trying to get into some of this
Speaker 1: because I find it just both fascinating and incredibly hopeful. Um,
Speaker 1: in a world where it seems like, uh, there are
Speaker 1: constantly forces conspiring to strip people of their ability to
Speaker 1: take control of critical aspects of their lives, you and
Speaker 1: your your colleagues in this are trying to give people
Speaker 1: opportunities to take some some power back for themselves, and
Speaker 1: I just think that's it's pretty dope. Thank you so much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and see your listeners. If there are people out there
Speaker 1: who like what we're doing, you want to support the project,
Speaker 1: please go find somebody who needs your help but doesn't
Speaker 1: deserve it, and then go help them anyway. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's always a good thing to do. Um, Michael, anything else,
Speaker 1: any like a thing else you want to kind of
Speaker 1: put This is normally the section where people plug websites
Speaker 1: or projects or anything. You've got anything in particularly you
Speaker 1: want to throw out there right now. Uh sure, we're
Speaker 1: hoping to do a bunch of big releases in the summer, um,
Speaker 1: so look for those. In the meantime. We're always looking
Speaker 1: for help. So if you're out there and you'd like
Speaker 1: to be assisted in the project, uh, please get in touch.
Speaker 1: There's the contact us page on the website and by
Speaker 1: the way, this do not have to be a technical
Speaker 1: person we're looking for currently, we're looking for writers. We
Speaker 1: have a lot of documentation that we need to do,
Speaker 1: so if you're out there and you have you know,
Speaker 1: background in in language, then that would be great. If
Speaker 1: if you're somebody who feels that you're entirely without skills,
Speaker 1: please get in touch. We have any number of endless
Speaker 1: small tasks that just need to be taken care of
Speaker 1: because we don't have enough people. So if you'd like
Speaker 1: to participate, we'd love to have you. Please get in
Speaker 1: touch and in the meantime, keep each other healthy, keep
Speaker 1: each other. Thank you so much, Michael, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for having me. Hey, we'll be back Monday with more
Speaker 1: episodes every week from now until the heat death of
Speaker 1: the Universe. It Could Happen Here is a production of
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
Speaker 1: visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check
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