WEBVTT - Normalcy feat. Andrew 0:00:02.120 --> 0:00:08.960 The media. So Trump is kind of moving like a 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:13.520 bull in a china shop, or rather a bull and 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:15.880 a missile shop. You know, I think that's a more 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:22.480 apt analogy. The system of government wasn't exactly benign beforehand, 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:25.599 you know. Yeah, I think it really needs to click 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:29.680 for people that Trump is not truly exceptional mm hmm. 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:35.240 Rather he's a product of the normal that people seem 0:00:35.280 --> 0:00:36.000 to be uni for. 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:37.800 Yeah, you know. 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:39.960 And the other issues we're dealing with too. 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:45.040 Yeah. I think like this is the the crux of 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:49.720 what comes next. Right, It's like we have this, like 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:53.040 I don't want to I don't want to disparage people. 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:56.520 We have this tendency in American politics, this liberal tendency, 0:00:56.640 --> 0:01:00.760 progressive liberal tendency. Even to think that, like basically things 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:04.319 have been magnificent until the first week of November in 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:07.240 twenty sixteen, right, that America was progressing on this like 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:11.800 linear pathway towards total quality and justice for all, and 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:14.880 that what's happening now is an aberration. It's the idea 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:17.920 that there's a few individuals conspiring, rather that there is 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:20.800 a system which inherently creates interest which we're opposed to 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:21.160 our own. 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:25.520 I guess, yeah, exactly. It's like all of these these 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:30.560 these problems, the genocide we're waging long before Trump came 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:34.720 into power, you know, the economic strains people are feeling 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:38.000 today that people have been feeling for decades for their 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:42.280 entire lives. You know, the climate crisis that is only 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:44.679 worse and this time is going on. You know, all 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:47.600 of this is a product of that normal, of that 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:51.520 pre Trump normal. And I still hear people asking, you know, 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:53.440 when are things going to go back to normal? When 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:56.760 can we settle down? When will we go back onto 0:01:56.800 --> 0:02:00.920 the track of normalcy? And well, if you're listening to 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:04.120 this podcast, I think you already know what time it is. 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:08.360 This is it could happen here. I'm Andrew Sage and 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:09.440 I'm joined. 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:13.120 By James again here to talk about the new normal. 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:17.240 All right, and welcome, thank you. The new normal, the 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:21.520 ever shifting normal, the phantom of normal and why it 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:24.959 is that it's really not coming back, and why normalcy 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:29.800 as a concept is actually pretty weird. So part of 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:34.000 I think what feeds into this notion of normal is 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:37.680 this myth of progress that people are obsessed with. You know, 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:42.000 recently read this book Progress by Samuon Miller McDonald and 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:43.400 I would like to do a review of it at 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:45.800 some point for the podcast. But the short of it 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:48.520 is that it gets into just how pervasive this concept 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:51.519 of progress is in kind of tripping people up and 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:55.000 keeping us serve insistems that don't serve us. You know, 0:02:55.760 --> 0:03:01.440 you mentioned progressives Eulier, and you know, even that notion 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:05.320 I think of being a progressive. He kind of calls 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:08.440 that into question in the course of the book, going 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:11.880 from ancient times to talking about a religious sense of 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:14.840 a promised land to the sort of modern sense of 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:21.840 a secular or technological progressive improvement or a social progressive improvement. 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:25.679 He identifies it as a story and a story that's 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:29.040 so powerful that it acts like a sedative. You know, 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:31.560 we don't engage with the degree in reality the world 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:35.000 around us, because be wrapped up in this all powerful 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:37.480 feet were balance of progress. The progress is linear, that 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:40.480 we are ever striving forward, you know, and we point 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:44.320 to examples of things like social progress. But as he 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:47.440 quotes in the book, it's like what Malcolm X said. 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:49.880 You know, if I stick a knife into you and 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:52.360 I only pull it out three inches, that's our progress. 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:54.600 Put it out six inches. That's our progress nine inches. 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:59.640 That's a progress. Progress will be, you know, removing the 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:03.400 knife completely and mending the wound. But I would take 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:05.680 it a step further and say that is it really 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:08.840 progress to go back to a state that already was? 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:14.840 Is it progress to abolish slavery when there was a 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:19.400 time when slavery did not exist? You know, going back 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:24.200 to a previous defaulted state is not necessarily contributing to 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:27.000 Thenat same thing with patriarchy, you know, patriarchy did not 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:31.800 always exist. Eroding and abolishing the patriarchy reaching a point 0:04:31.839 --> 0:04:37.040 where the limitations placed on women are no longer there? 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:41.839 Can we call that progress or suggest rectifying a previously 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:44.520 imposed state? And so these are some of the questions 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:48.120 he grapples with. And there's also, of course, the techno 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:51.400 utopian promise of you know, we getting self driving cars 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:55.760 any minute, you know, fusion energy AI and didn't work forever. 0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:59.760 You know, all these things are blind to the social 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.760 ecological reality of collapse. But what else would you say, 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:06.600 might see this myth showing up in politics? I think 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:08.719 I covered a good few, but I might be missing something. 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:12.039 Yeah, Like, I mean it's almost in everything, right, Like 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:15.760 it's a fundamental myth of liberal capitalism. I guess, like 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:21.640 it also underlies a certain logic of colonialism, right, the 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:25.279 idea that like progress towards that then a neoliberal state 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:28.839 is this can be like the logic of explicit or 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:33.760 less explicit colonialism, I guess. But like you see it 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:37.039 there too, right, Like you see it in the sort 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:39.880 of do you see a lot in nineteenth century it's 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:43.320 very explicit the idea to uplift, civilize and christianize our 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:44.360 little brown brothers. 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:48.000 Yeah, the civilizing miss yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:51.760 The white man's burden and these things that became very 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:54.760 very on vogue in the late nineteenth thirty twentieth century. 0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:57.159 I suppose you see it a lot there too, right. 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:00.320 Yeah, that's all notion. I think that Ian's released with 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:04.440 the concept of civilization when you have that civilized other 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:09.000 divide that binary of the civilized and the barber area 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:12.440 and all the civilized and the savage, and how that 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:17.039 gets turned into this mission that civilization expands, that you 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:21.640 bring those savage peoples into the fold and you slowly, 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:25.040 you know, bring them up, make them upright men, and 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:29.000 closer to being human than the state that they were in. Previously, 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:34.039 and the whole narrative around that's what has as it 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:36.640 has evolved with time, led to the situation a bit 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:39.800 in now. Yeah, and there's this idea as well that 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:43.560 even when there are these ruptures in normal, that everything 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:46.039 will go back to its right place. But as of 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:50.760 people say, you know, history is a series of unprecedented things, 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:54.839 you know, And one of the unprecedented things in history 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:58.560 that I wish people would realize is not ever going 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:01.839 to come back, is is that sort of post war 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:08.920 economic boom, you know, that nineteen fifty era growth and 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:14.000 excess that has become the default day that many people 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:17.080 are striving to return to, when in reality, something like 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:21.240 that is a historical normally driven by artificially cheap and 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:25.960 abundant energy. Yeah, you know, the normal that people are 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:29.840 talking about sometimes it's just this fifty to seventy year 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:33.680 fossil fuel binge, a binge that we are reaching the 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:37.520 end of. And I think a fantasy to believe that 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:39.240 we can replicate for all the time. 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:42.600 Right, Yeah, but it's the time that so much of 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:46.040 the like the world that we exist in, was created, right, 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:50.560 and like people almost see themselves as like a different 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:55.040 species from human beings in the in the nineteenth century, right, Yeah, 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:57.320 they can't conceive of society that way. 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:01.080 Exactly, exactly, And it's something that I've been well on 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:05.200 because like, what a time to be alive to see, 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:10.160 you know, personal cars being so ubiquitous. But the ubiquity 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:12.960 of personal cars is an aberration. It's a historical laboration. 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:17.160 It's not one that is likely to be sustainable in 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:20.160 the long term. You know, even if there are electric 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:22.880 cars taking a place of gas powered vehicles and we 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:26.040 run out of gas oil, even the materials necessary to 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:28.600 produce electric cars are not always going to be around. 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:31.320 They're not always going to exist. We can't supplement each 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:35.360 and every individual person with a car for all of time. 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:38.839 You know. Yeah, so many of the rare earth minerals 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:44.440 that are again quite rare, we've we've spent them on 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:49.320 things that may serve a novelty or an interest in 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:52.640 the short term, but it's something that we can maintain forever. 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:57.120 You know. I hear people talking about this EI bubble, 0:08:57.320 --> 0:09:00.440 you know, and it is in the sense of the 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:04.319 financial markets, the financial aspect of AI, and how it's 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:07.480 affecting our perception of the economy and whether that bubble 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:11.640 is going to burst economically. But I'm more interested in 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:14.839 the EI bubble in the sense that how long can 0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:19.960 this EI everywhere thing persist when the material is necessary 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:23.200 to maintain it because it is material, despite the sort 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:26.720 of cloud marketing they get associated with it. How long 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:29.320 until we run out of those materials, until those material 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:31.079 needs cannot be sustained. 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:35.880 Yeah, we keep shifting like the goalposts, but like the terrain, right, 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:38.520 like you know, we okay, well, we've run out of 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:41.440 fossil fuels, so that's fine. We will do electric, okay, 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:44.600 we you know with the electric actually relies on our rares, 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:46.440 so that's fine. We'll find a different thing to make 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:49.600 batteries out of it for other than acknowledging that like 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:51.680 we've created a system, or we'll just go. 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:53.800 To space yeah yeah, yeah, and. 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:57.240 And trash another planet for another few hundred years. You know, 0:09:57.320 --> 0:09:58.640 when you're driving your track and you have a lot 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:00.199 of stuff in it and it's hitting the end of 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:02.679 the rev counter, you know, like you're trying to pass someone, 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:05.240 it's bouncing. It's in the red zone. Like we've been 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:09.160 running in the red zone certainly from most of this century, 0:10:09.320 --> 0:10:11.360 you know, since the Industrial Revolution, or certainly since the 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:14.439 end of the Second World War, and like sustainability is 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:17.360 a phrase that's been co opted, but like it's just 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:18.720 not possible to keep doing it. 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:23.400 Yeah, I mean, it's really an anomaly, a blip in 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:26.520 our timeline, I would say, and I think ruptures in 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:28.960 that normal see, like the ruptural experience and now provides 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:31.600 an opportunity for us to you know, take an egg 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:35.400 at ramp to kind of control the transition, to control 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:38.120 our descent. But instead, you know, it seems like we 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:42.520 were just rapidly moving towards the more forceful transition, the 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:46.679 transition made so by the laws of physics, and that 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:48.959 transition I don't think will be nearly as pleasant as 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:51.120 it could be. You know. That's why a lot of 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:54.680 people call it collapse. And that transition is being delayed 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:58.839 currently with the collapse of the material resources and also 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:02.920 the collapse of the financial economic system. That stuff has 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:06.640 been delayed by rent seeking, by new frontiers of exploitation, 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:10.800 and by ramping up theft in parts of the world 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:13.439 that we're not as pillaged as other parts of the world, 0:11:13.559 --> 0:11:16.559 or ramping up surveillance and violence to make it harder 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:20.400 to resist, but eventually is going to hit, you know, 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:23.240 and I hate that it makes me sound like a 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:26.600 second comment of Jesus conspiracist or something like that, just 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:30.720 like well, yeah, it's coming, it's coming, you know, like 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:34.920 like like I'm a prophet screaming into the into the streets. 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:37.760 But you know, it may not be some kind of 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:41.440 prophesiede end times, but we are approaching that point, you know, 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:46.319 where that sort of narrative of economic roles going back 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:49.080 to normal. You know, there's this big group project of 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:52.440 making the literature because that rise and tide will lift 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:55.120 all boats, you know, the this is this story that 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:58.000 everybody wins, that nobody will have to lose anything because 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:01.160 the power will just keep getting bigger. It has to 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:01.920 come to an end. 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:17.160 It's amazing how long it's lasted, right, Like certain group 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:18.760 of society has been able to make the rest of 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:21.120 society believe that the pie will just keep getting bigger 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:26.000 when the pie has got smaller for most people, you know, 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:29.560 certainly for the last few decades, but arguably you know, 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:33.640 like lives have become worse for us since the Industrial 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:35.040 Revolution in some ways. 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:40.959 Right exactly, And you know, people will point to improvements 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:45.040 in health and sanitation. Sure, you can have improvements in 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:49.479 health and sanitation without all this other baggage though, yeah, 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:52.520 you know. Or you can have improvements in literacy without 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:59.480 literally poisoning our fresh water and bleaching our oceans and 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:03.640 killing off biodiversity by the millions of species. 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:07.360 Yeah, it's not a like a package deal, right, Like 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:12.680 we can have vaccination against diseases without having super fun sites. 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:15.520 We didn't need one to make the other. It's it's 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:19.840 not a like this way or the Dark Ages exactly exactly. 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:24.920 For example, all London had to do, I mean I'm oversimplifying, 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:27.520 but all London had to do was stop dumping their 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:28.960 sewage in the Thames. 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:35.240 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a remarkable. It's 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:38.600 not that hard. But like just look at the disposal 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:43.520 of hazardous waste and the way that rather than being like, huh, 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:47.360 maybe we should stop making waste that will be hazardous 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:52.320 for centuries, for the better part of one hundred years, 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:54.480 we've just been finding somewhere else to put it. 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:57.280 Yeah, just keep just keep dumping it. Yeah. Even as 0:13:57.280 --> 0:13:59.439 a child, I was like, what are we supposed to 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:02.720 do with all these sense the garbage, Like, like are 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:04.680 we just going to keep on piling it up until 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:05.320 we reach the moon. 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:07.600 I mean, yeah, it's like it in San Diego. They 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:09.880 dump these dump it in the bay. There's a whole 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:13.000 part of our bay which used to be a landfill site. 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:16.400 And like I like to to free dive sometimes I 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:18.559 would be practicing or diving in the bay or whatever, 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:21.280 and like you dive down and be like, the fuck 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:24.360 is a barbecue grill doing on the bottom of the ocean, 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:29.080 And people just continue to chuck shit into the bay, right, Like, 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:32.080 even though we have another landfill, what we put it now? 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:35.960 No, but you see, games, it's like that barbecue grill 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:40.360 was seven dollars on TMU. Yeah right, you can't pass 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:41.200 up that deal, you know. 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:45.920 Yeah, and then when it turns out to be absolutely crap, 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:48.560 it will be on our planet for longer than any 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:51.800 of us. But we've created a system where there's no 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:54.800 disincentive to buy a TMU barbecue grill, use it once, 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:58.000 and then throw it into the bay. And like we 0:14:58.080 --> 0:14:59.480 can't see that that's a problem. 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:02.680 Yeah. Yeah. Because of how this system is set up, 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:04.840 you don't have to think about, wait a second, why 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:08.120 is the barbecue grill seven dollars, you know who is 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:09.880 suffering so that this barbecue real. 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:13.440 Resemble Yeah, right, because they were so detached from that, right, Like, 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:17.440 despite being so connected, we're also so far away from 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:20.720 the people who the misery is a consequence of our 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:24.400 consumption or of the system which which makes our consumption 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:26.440 the way it is exactly. 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:30.160 And you know, instead of thinking about how we can 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:35.160 make society resilient, how we can reasonably and ethically and 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:39.120 with consideration for seven generations use the resources that we 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:44.640 have without endless throughput all the years, continue to chase growth, 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:49.880 They continue to chase progress perpetually like a cancer. Yeah, 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:53.520 you know, and everybody is seeing the consequences. At this point, 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:57.920 the work situation is getting worse because these platforms, these 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:01.720 these employers are finding ways to game the laws. You know, 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:05.560 we're seeing shrinking margins and sit in sectors. Because when 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:08.480 you rely on growth, when that growth comes to an end, 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:12.080 there's nowhere else to grow. You have to squeeze what 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:15.560 there is. What's the phrase squeeze blood out of a stone. Yeah, 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:17.800 you know, you have to force over work. You have 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:21.480 to and shittify existing services so that you can extract 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:26.360 more subscriptions. More pay months, more upgrades, whatever the case, 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:29.520 maybe the liverability of entire cities of it has been 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:32.880 wiped out because you know, you have ABNB and a 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:37.880 private companies holing out something as basic as hose in 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:40.760 for all, and so the pressure is to keep the 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:44.560 whole machine run and just how grease any long term considerations. 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:49.440 But like I keep saying, this normal was never sustainable. 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:53.280 I will say, though, when we criticize the system and 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:55.280 we call it out and we talk about how these 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:58.680 leaders are pushing things in a certain direction, they are. 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:03.320 But at the same time, it's easy to fall into 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:08.399 this notion that they are manipulating the whole thing. You know, 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:12.760 that they manage the system in its entirety. It's tempting 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:15.360 to see the system as coherent, you know, to act 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:19.679 like it's all piloted by one vidual or group yea 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:24.919 as some wise or malevolent parental figure. And you know, 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:28.800 these institutions, they all rely to varying degrees under the 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:34.800 appearance of competence. Right. But I think what recent times 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:39.440 has revealed is that things are a lot messier than that. 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:43.960 That political leaders know that they don't know, but won't 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:47.000 admit that they don't know, or they don't know that 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:50.920 they don't know, and in either case they are pretending 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:54.399 or believing that they have this grip on things they 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:57.240 can anticipate and smooth out the shocks to the system. 0:17:57.760 --> 0:18:01.639 You know, there are those who think that if they 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:05.199 share the honest truth that they could trigger a panic 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:07.879 into populace. So they think they're doing something you know, 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:11.320 brave and benevolent by not giving people all the information 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:15.920 they need and whose yet they're failed by sharing all 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:19.520 the information that needed to make accurate decisions, that they 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:22.919 might lose investments, They might lose investors, you know, that 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:25.480 the economy will take a hit as a result. That's 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:29.719 why you have situations where like when the Texas gridfield 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:33.520 in twenty twenty one, that the officials were insistent that 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:37.320 it was stable. Yeah, and so they wasn't, you know. 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:41.200 Or for the years the UK's hass water, it's water 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:44.440 infrastructure is used, continues to claim that things under control 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:47.320 and sewage was still getting into people's reverse. 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:51.800 Yeah, you know. Yeah, Like I think a lot about Flint, Michigan, 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:55.360 where the water that people have to drink to survive 0:18:55.800 --> 0:18:59.600 is killing them. And this has been happening We've known 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:04.600 about did for a decade, and there have been a 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:07.639 series of politicians for both parties who have just been like, yeah, no, 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:09.919 don't worry, we've got this cupboard, and like that. We 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:13.600 fundamentally have not got this cupboard right. But the machine 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:16.840 is moving so far so no one person can can 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:18.639 stop and turn it around because the machine will just 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:19.360 bulldoze them. 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:25.639 Yep. It's not as steady as unstable as it puts forward. 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:28.399 You know. In fact that that whole image of the 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:32.439 system as coherent as stay as stable. I think it 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:37.199 also serves to keep us from defying it. Yeah, you know, 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:39.399 because we get this sense that yeah, this is just 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:43.320 like this, this behema of this all powerful love crafty 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:48.280 and entity that us mayle individuals can truly challenge when 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:50.920 there are things that we can do directly to throw 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:56.400 you know, spooks in the wheel if that's the expression, you. 0:19:56.320 --> 0:20:01.000 Know, it's something in this spooks Yeah, Spanner where sticking 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:03.160 to spokes maybe right? 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:07.840 Yeah? Sure? Would you say there was like a bit 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:11.200 secular moment when you realize that nobody actually knew what 0:20:11.200 --> 0:20:13.240 they were doing though, Yeah, I'm trying. 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:16.800 To think if it was like a momental recognition for me, 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:20.240 or like a sort of gradual one, you know, I 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:23.639 think a few of the times, like you see it 0:20:23.680 --> 0:20:26.560 a lot when you travel more, right, because the perception 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:31.359 that like we are helping here, we've got this under control. 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:35.000 I think with immigration it's a great example actually, right, 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:37.199 Like so I've obviously spent a lot of time with 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:40.040 the immigrants, and I think you see this. I remember 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:42.399 in twenty eighteen we had the migrant caravan, right like, 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:45.560 there have been many migrant caravans. This one was just 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:48.359 coincided with a mid term in a way that allowed 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:51.760 it to become like a political football, and the American 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:53.680 government is like, we are stopping them at the border 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:57.080 so we can check if everyone's okay, and government in 0:20:57.119 --> 0:20:59.520 Mexico is like, well, we are taking care of them. 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:03.800 And get there and you're like fuck, like these people 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:08.639 haven't had water today, and like at that point, you know, 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:10.639 I was already sort of predisposed to thinking that perhaps 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:12.440 the state didn't have all the answers, and like to 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:14.199 be clear that Mexican states a lot more than the 0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:17.199 US state in this instance and provided these people with 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:18.960 a place to be, which it would have been much 0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:22.080 worse if they hadn't had that, But like it was 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:24.920 just this realization. I was with a few friends. All 0:21:24.920 --> 0:21:26.880 of us happened at the time to be full time 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:31.679 bicycle people, so we didn't have jobs that needed us 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:33.720 to be like in a place at nine am. So 0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:36.919 that realization that like, if these people are going to 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:40.199 get water today, it's going to be because we go 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:44.200 to Costco and buy all the water bottles and then 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:48.000 we we ride back whilst slowly destroying the suspension of 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:50.119 this pickup truck because we've got so much weight in 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:54.080 it and give them out, like because no one else 0:21:54.200 --> 0:21:57.639 is going to right, and like there's this whole world 0:21:57.720 --> 0:22:02.640 of NGOs and governments and states, so like didn't matter, right, 0:22:02.680 --> 0:22:03.840 these people stidn't have water. 0:22:04.600 --> 0:22:08.920 Yeah, there's a lot of rule for direct action still, Yeah, 0:22:08.960 --> 0:22:12.960 and the powers that be're not as competent as they 0:22:13.040 --> 0:22:16.200 may a first glance appear. In other words, if they 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:19.880 say they have everything under control, don't believe them. 0:22:20.080 --> 0:22:29.879 Yeah. 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:35.400 I think also that instability within the system is part 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:37.959 of it, you know, it's part of how it works. 0:22:38.520 --> 0:22:40.640 It's part of what's necessary for it to keep going. 0:22:41.640 --> 0:22:46.320 The competitive tune of the gapitalist market, the shifts of 0:22:46.400 --> 0:22:51.159 industries that you know, upgroove people's lives just part of 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:54.600 how the system operates, you know, the booms and bus 0:22:54.600 --> 0:22:58.960 in real estate. They all always for the powers that 0:22:59.040 --> 0:23:01.840 be to expand their wealth in some way, to expand 0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:05.600 their regions and territories, and people, for the most part, 0:23:05.680 --> 0:23:07.639 just go along with it. You know. Daily life is 0:23:07.720 --> 0:23:11.040 complex as it is without having to grapple with the 0:23:11.080 --> 0:23:15.000 full scale of all the global issues, you know, the 0:23:15.080 --> 0:23:17.720 following the leader, just going along with what they say. 0:23:17.760 --> 0:23:20.879 It does give you some psychological breathing room. You know, 0:23:21.240 --> 0:23:24.200 it's hard to grapple the existential threats that we face. 0:23:24.640 --> 0:23:27.880 I don't have time too in many cases, right, especially 0:23:27.880 --> 0:23:33.159 when you have an administrative strategy that involves flooding the 0:23:33.320 --> 0:23:38.240 zone with so much mess. It's so much drama, with 0:23:38.359 --> 0:23:43.919 so many different controversies and lies and incidents, that it 0:23:43.960 --> 0:23:45.840 feels like the best thing to do is just throw 0:23:45.840 --> 0:23:49.840