WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 106 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:02.880 Also media. 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:05.800 Hey everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:09.480 you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:09.640 --> 0:00:12.559 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:16.400 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:18.920 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:20.840 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:23.079 there's gotta be nothing new here for you, but you 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:24.360 can make your own decisions. 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:32.640 Welcome to Dick. It appened here, a show that is 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:35.519 about a number of I really should have done an 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:39.120 actual intro for this one. This is embarrassing. Roast me 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:42.120 along with me is Sharene and James. 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:46.000 Hello, miya, Oh yeah that was great. I thought about 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:49.760 was actually great. Keep them guessing, you know, yeah, yeah, 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:51.080 they never know what they're going to get. Would it 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:51.360 be sad? 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:52.680 Would it be happy? 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:54.000 Yeah? 0:00:54.080 --> 0:00:57.040 Unfortunately, this is a This is a this is a 0:00:57.080 --> 0:00:59.560 really sad episode. This is an episode that I got 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:02.640 really picked off or writing. Yeah, and this is an 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:07.080 episode about Palestine. Now, most of the attention on Palestine 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:09.600 right now has been focused on Gaza for you know, 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:14.600 very obvious reasons. Guza is the place where you know, 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:17.120 most of most of the Israeli offensive is happening. It's 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:19.440 where most of the people are. Israelis are killing the 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:26.040 most people. But however, coma, there's also been a bunch 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:29.800 of killing going on in the West Bank. And this 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:33.760 is you know, the the murders of Palestinians in the 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:36.880 West Bank is stuff that you know, it's been intensified 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:39.520 by the current conflict, but this is stuff that's been 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:44.800 happening even before, like this latest round of stuff started. 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:48.160 Since the beginning of the year, Israeli settlers and government 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:50.800 forces have killed several hundred Palestinians in the West Bank. 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:54.760 And I think in a lot of ways the dynamics 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:57.880 of the entire Israeli project are clearer in the West 0:01:57.920 --> 0:01:59.800 Bank than they are anywhere else, which is a bold 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:04.320 stane I will conceive. But I think by the end 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:05.400 of this we'll see if I'm right. 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:07.560 I think you're I think you're right in the sense that, 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:10.520 like the systems of apartheid are very clear in the 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:12.200 West Bank versus other parts. 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:15.919 Of Yeah, I mean, the violent dynamic of it's really 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:21.000 Thereaty project is pretty fucking evident when that bombing showed it's. 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:24.079 Yeah, But I think I think specifically, the part that's 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:28.359 easiest to understand in the West Bank is why it's 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:32.160 why it's a mutually self reinforcing dynamic. Why why why 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:35.560 the Settler project keeps like has been building the way 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:38.160 that it has, why it keeps inevitably leading to violence 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:40.360 the way that it has, and why it's it's, you know, 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:46.320 effectively the sort of cyclical self reinforcing project. But to 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:48.959 actually understand what I'm talking about, we need to go 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:52.799 back to the beginning of the Israeli occupation to understand 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:57.280 what the occupation actually is, because I'm not actually sure. 0:02:58.120 --> 0:02:59.880 I don't know this is something that like, I feel 0:02:59.919 --> 0:03:02.560 like most of the people talking about this kind of 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:05.760 just assume everyone knows, and I feel like we should 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:08.119 not assume that. We should, you know, actually go back 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:09.960 and run through some of this history really quickly. 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:12.760 My cynical take is that most of the people talking about 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:16.400 this maybe don't have the deepest understanding themselves, and uh 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:20.560 that you're skating along on that assumption not to have 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:22.679 to expose their own shaky foundation. 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:24.960 I feel like I've talked about it before on like 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:28.560 every podcast I've done, but I feel like people like 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:29.800 tune it out, you know what I mean, Like, I 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:31.880 feel like people don't actually absorb what I'm what any 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:34.679 what they hear, because it's like, oh this again or 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:35.720 whatever the fuck they're thinking. 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:36.080 I don't know. 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:39.160 Yeah, yeah, yeah, So I'm gonna I'm gonna hammer I'm 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:41.840 gonna hammer a copy of this into all of your brains. 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:46.280 You have no choice, you must, Martin Luthering the History 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:47.600 of Palestine. 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:53.240 Yeah, gonna nail ninety five copies of the Geneva Convention 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:58.880 to the door. So in the beginning, there was the Nakba, 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:01.480 which is the great design the Palestinian people in which 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:04.680 the Israelis armed. I should mention by Stalin, which is 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:07.520 something that is incredibly inconvenient for everyone in the entire 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:12.040 American political spectrum. And we will get back to who also, 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:15.920 like who specifically was doing the knack book, because it's 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:22.839 not exactly who anyone really expects or portrays them as. 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:26.480 But yeah, a bunch of a bunch of armed settlers, 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:30.320 armed by Stalin, drives seven hundred thousand Palestinians from their homes. 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:33.240 They seize those homes, they take them for themselves. Now 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:37.599 this is I think, okay, this is this is the 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:40.479 part where where disclaimer Mia is not it is not 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:44.799 a professor of international law. I think this was actually 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:50.000 technically not a legally a war crime because I only 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:53.640 because the Fourth Geneva Convention hadn't been ratified yet, because 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:56.800 the knackbut takes place in nineteen forty eight, and this 0:04:56.880 --> 0:04:58.760 is a year before the Geneva Convention or the fourth 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:01.240 Geneva Convention, the part that as the stuff we're going 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:04.400 to talk about, uh was ratified. It's two years before 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:07.440 it comes into force. But you know from the beginning, 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:10.360 what you have here is a settler colony. The Israelis 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:13.280 have driven out the Palestinians who have been living there. 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:15.360 They have seized their homes and they have replaced them, 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:16.200 which you are settlers. 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:18.480 And they've also massacred like fifty Yeah. 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:21.160 Yeah, they've killed a ton of people. Yeah, I mean, 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:23.400 I guess I should be more explicit about that, Like 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:26.880 when I say drive out, like sometimes they were, it's 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:30.200 just it's people fleeing. A lot of times they're killed. 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:31.200 Yeah. 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:34.440 I think it's like they flat in entire villages, you 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:36.640 know what I mean, Like it's not just like oh 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:40.760 they're empty houses now, it's like, no, they actually destroyed everything, 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:44.120 built new cities where there already were cities, renamed the cities. 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:47.120 It's yeah, it was just I don't know, it's striful. 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:50.640 The reason people are leaving is because they've seen their 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:54.040 neighbors and family members killed and their fields and houses burned, 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:56.719 and they know that that's coming for them right later. 0:05:57.200 --> 0:05:57.800 Yeah. 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:01.919 I think this is sorry, tangent is. There are so 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:05.120 many videos of like former IDF soldiers that were not 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:08.240 think it's not idea technically, but like former people that 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:10.640 fought in the Nekba that like drove these people out 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:14.000 of their homes and it's so repulsive. There's literally like 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:16.120 a it was on an Israeli news channel or like 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:19.320 some type of Israeli show where there's an old man 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:22.320 like laughing about how him and his group raped a 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:25.240 sixteen year old girl and shot everyone in a row, 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:28.240 all the babies, everything else. It's just like and that's 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:30.599 coming from them. So I think that's important to know. 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:32.360 It's not just like us saying, oh my god, these 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:34.680 terrible things happen. It's like, no, they actually admitted to 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:39.120 it multiple times. We're just telling you from you know 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:41.640 what I mean. I think it's important to say that. 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:44.880 Yeah, and this is something we're going to get into 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:48.320 more in a bit, but what are the consequences of this? 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:51.120 And one of the consequences of running a settler colony 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:55.680 like this is that the people that it produces, who 0:06:55.680 --> 0:06:58.360 are the people who you know, the people who are 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:04.240 like ordering people and taking their homes right in order. 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:06.800 The kind of person you have to be in order 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:11.560 to do that is just absolutely terrifying, just like you know, 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:13.280 I mean this and this is why you see so 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:16.560 much stuff both here and you know, like that, like 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:20.440 in in in the early phases of like not even 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:22.040 the early phases, but like most of the phases of 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:24.960 US settler expansion, right, you you really account to these 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:27.240 people and those like these people are all serial killers. 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:30.280 To do that, I think you have to convince yourself 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:32.200 that the people you are doing it to are less 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:36.520 human or not human like that. It's fundamental to colonialism, 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:38.360 right to consider yourself to either be a higher form 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:41.920 of humanity or like distinct, like in a species sense 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:44.720 from these British people did that in their colonialism too. 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:49.360 But yeah, you see it all the time in specifically 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:52.080 in like their language and culture that depicts the settler 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:54.200 colonization of the United States or what is now the 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:59.080 United States. Right, Like, you can look at the like 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:02.080 what it's called the wars after the after the Civil 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:04.880 War and see just all kinds of the most fucking 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:08.640 horrific shit imaginable because you're you're doing a genocide. You're 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:10.720 just doing it like piece by piece as you go 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:12.200 across the country. 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:14.640 Yeah, and this is one of these parts of American 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:20.840 history that people don't understand. And when you learn it, 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:25.000 there's this real sort of even even in sort of 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:27.520 radical accounts, and I understand why they do this, but 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:31.440 there's a tendency to not to sort of back away 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.920 from exactly how violent this stuff was. And you know, 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:36.640 a lot of the reason for this is like it's 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:39.560 you know, it can get into this sort of realm 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:44.360 of like I don't know, there's almost weird like like tragedy, 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:47.520 horror porn stuff, but like it was, it was as 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:52.160 bad as anything that has ever happened to humans. Yeah. 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:54.560 And then and then the people doing that stuff are 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:59.120 you know, driven by the same kinds of of stuff 0:08:59.160 --> 0:08:59.880 that's happening here. 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:02.680 Fuck, the people doing that stuff are still like like 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:05.920 that there's a park named after them. In San Diego, 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:09.000 there's kit cass And Park, there's Uniparosa Park, like like 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:14.120 it's baked into American culture still, like the Genocidas are 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:15.600 fucking celebrated here. 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:18.600 Yeah, and this is and this is this is aweso 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:23.199 true of Israel. Now. Okay, So so after after the 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:27.520 knock ball, there's there's a lot of people who think 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:30.280 that like this is the end of the whole process, right, 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:33.080 that like, okay, so we've expelled these people, we've killed 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:35.880 these people, there's now a Jewish state, it has like 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:38.679 relatively stable borders or whatever. This is going to be 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:41.760 the end of it, and that that did not happen. 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:44.480 And one of the reasons that didn't happen is the 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:48.720 nineteen sixty seven Six Days War, where is Israel launches 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:53.080 what's called a preemptive strike on Egypt. It's okay, so 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:57.080 they this is the pr term that's been developed afterwards 0:09:57.080 --> 0:10:01.760 for it. The reality is that Egypt was not about 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:05.640 to attack Israel. The Israelis just started a war, like 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:08.920 just straight up started a war and invaded Egypt, and 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:12.480 the Sixth Day War winds up being a war between 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:17.560 the Israelis and so it's mostly Egypt. They end up 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.960 finding Egypt, Syria and Jordan a little bit. And like 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:24.600 technically the Saudis, like Iraq, Kuwait and Lebanon are in 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:27.360 the war, but like they don't do shit. There's a 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:29.360 story I think it's actually from the seventy three war, 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:32.800 but there's a story of uh, there's there's there's there's 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:34.600 a bunch of people, and there's a bunch of Egyptian 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:38.360 soldiers in a bunch of trenches and a bunch of 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:41.959 like the like Saudi command rolls up, and the Saudis 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:46.520 roll up and fucking rolls royces, and the Egyptian commanders 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:49.720 looks at these guys just just go home because people 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:51.520 just like you and the and this this is one 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:55.160 of those scread dynamics here of like god like the 0:10:55.200 --> 0:11:00.000 air powers outside of Egypt for some of the time, 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:04.560 I'm really we're not taking this very seriously. And you know, 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:07.840 and and and the consequence of this is that the 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:10.280 the is most of the most of the sixty seven 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:13.280 war is I mean, the entirety of the sixty seven 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:15.440 war is just the Israelis beating the absolute piss out 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:19.040 of the Egyptians. In large part because the Egyptians weren't 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:22.360 like actually trying to fight a war, so they were 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:27.719 basically completely unprepared for getting invaded by Israel. Now this 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:30.640 is this war is a complete disaster for for the 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:36.160 air powers. Like gamaldel Nasser is so ashamed of his 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:40.240 defeat that he resigns and doesn't like come back until 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:42.760 a bunch of protests in Egypt like demand that he'd 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:43.240 come back. 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:48.080 He did it really royally kind of like his position 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:50.400 was that were like, eventually I going to attack us, 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:53.600 We'll have a defensive position, and failed miserably yet happy. 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:55.960 Yeah, it did not work. This is this and this 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:58.160 this is a complete disaster. But and and and the other, 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:00.000 you know, the part of it that's that's most important 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:04.040 for our story is that this is the period where 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:08.439 the Israelis start seizing territory en mass. They take the 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:11.080 entire Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, they take the goal on 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:14.560 Heights from Syria, and most importantly for our purposes, they 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:16.720 take both the West Bank and Gaza, which means they 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:22.880 now occupy all of Palestine now immediately, like effectively immediately 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:26.400 as this is happening, one point three million Palestinians flee 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:29.040 the West Bank and Gaza. And you know, this has 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:32.559 a consequence of enormously expanding the already very very large, 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:36.280 like permanent refugee population of Palestinians in a bunch of 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:40.040 other countries. And this is also where we come to 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:46.040 the focus of today's episode, which is Israeli settlers. But 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:50.240 do you know who else shows up uninvited and is 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:51.640 technically illegal under. 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:54.400 Multiple sections of international law? 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:58.280 Is it Runnald Reagan? The surprise Reagan? 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:02.520 Yeah, and we are back. So one of the things 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:06.840 that the Geneva Convention establishes is this set of legal 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:11.280 obligations that occupiers have in occupy in over territory that 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:13.600 they occupy. So if you know, the way that's supposed 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:17.680 to work under international law is that you know, technically speaking, yeah, 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:21.560 you can occupy territory, but you're not allowed to do 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:24.440 whatever you want with that territory. You have to actually 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:28.920 abide by a set of laws. And this was done to, 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:32.640 you know, after World War Two, to protect like people 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:36.760 in occupy territories from the unbelievable horrors that were unleashed 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:40.320 by the Nazis in World War Two. Now, one of 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:44.319 the things that you cannot do if you are occupying 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:49.839 a territory, is you cannot expel civilians from their homes 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:53.079 and replace them with your own civilians. This is this 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:56.120 is a war crime. You are is honor international law. 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:58.040 You're not allowed to do this. Now, I've been talking 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:00.920 a lot about international law. This is where I kind 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:03.680 of I don't know if disagrees with the right word. 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:06.280 I have very little faith in international law. I know a 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:09.719 lot of people who are have been involved in this, 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:12.719 you know, like in the struggle for liberating Palestine for 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:17.120 a very very long time, like take international law very seriously. 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:20.120 I don't know, Like I. 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:25.760 Mean, Israel has has not followed international laws. Yeah, like 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:26.920 nothing happens. 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:29.160 Yeah, international police. 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:31.720 It's like there's no way to it. I don't believe 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:34.479 what it's telling me because nothing ever happens. 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:36.760 And it has Maybe it has a moral value, right, 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:39.200 I guess that's that's the idea behind some of the activism, 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:41.600 is that like it can help position something as being 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:44.920 in the wrong and then that might help some But yeah, 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:47.680 it hasn't worked. It didn't stop fucking it didn't stop 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:50.880 the rainge of genocide in Meamma hasn't stopped the population 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:54.040 exchange in a free like it's pretend it doesn't exist 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:54.480 un as. 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:55.240 Someone enforces it. 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:59.360 Yeah, yeah, like it doesn't. It's it's I feel like 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:01.840 sometimes it's a to them for like Western liberals to 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:03.480 be like, oh, well they brother, they can't do that. 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:06.480 They're breaking international law. Oh fuck, they're doing it anyway, 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:13.960 Like well, yeah, yes, yeah, And like understandably, like no 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:17.480 one particularly wants to like be the ones who enforce 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:21.400 international law because that involves your children dying, uh, and 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:23.600 so they let's let other children die instead. 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:28.960 Yeah, And you know, but the consequence of this being 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:32.200 really toothless is that, you know, it's the language of 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:34.080 this stuff is framed, and I want to frame this 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:38.200 like differently for a second, which is I want to 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:41.440 I want to think about what is being prohibited here 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:46.040 in basic moral terms, because the the what the what 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:49.040 this article of the Geneva Convention is supposed to stop 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:53.080 is an army showing up killing a bunch of people 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:57.160 and then settling their own population on top of those 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:03.040 people's corpses. And that is fucking horrifying. There is you know, obviously, Yeah, 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:05.760 there's a reason why the Taiva Convention was like holy shit, like, 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:08.920 we can't have this. Yeah, but you know, obviously this 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:11.640 hasn't stopped you know this, this hasn't actually stopped this 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:14.360 from happening. Like we we now live in effectively the 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:17.440 new golden age of ethnic cleansing, right, I mean, the 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:19.480 the one point two million Gossens you fled their homes 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:21.680 after the Israelis told them to literally told them to 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:23.520 flee or die, which is that that's by the way, 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:24.800 and I don't want to be very clear about this. 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:28.640 When people talk about an evacuation order, that's what that is, right, 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:31.440 you know, this is an an evacuation order from like 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:33.720 a tsunami, right, Like, It's not like there's a natural 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:36.640 disaster coming. The thing that is happening is the Israeli 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:39.520 government has said you must leave now or we are 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:41.920 going to kill you. And you know, and of course, 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:45.040 the the the other bleak side of this, right is 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:47.720 that with the the quote unquote evacuation order, the Israelis 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:49.880 killed people who were fleeing anyways, but. 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:52.200 You know, and they had nowhere to fucking go, like 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:54.400 they yeah, right, Like. 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:57.440 Yeah, evacuate does make it seem like a very like 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:01.480 humanitarian crisis, when really that you're right, But all they're 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:04.960 saying is like leave now or die in the next hours, 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:07.639 you know what I mean? Yeah, And evacuation that's like 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:09.480 a threat, Like it's just a death threat. 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:12.400 Yeah. If I was to like stand outside your bedroom 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:13.920 and pull the pin on a grenade and be like, 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:16.080 I'm giving you an evacuation order. Oh, and I'm going 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:18.119 to eat this grenade in here in five seconds, people 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:21.040 wouldn't be like, oh, that's reasonable. Turn the doors to 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:23.520 your house as well, just for funzies. 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:26.920 Yeah, and you know, and so and so. I mean, 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:29.040 this is this is, this is what's been happening in Gaza. 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:29.320 Right. 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:31.280 You won't put you a million gozzens. You fled their 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:34.000 homes and they've joined the one hundred and twenty thousand 0:17:34.040 --> 0:17:36.440 Armenians who are ethnically cleansed from the Garl Kara back 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:41.440 by by Jean in September, Which this is the era 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:44.520 we're living in right now, is an unfathomable era of 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:47.040 violence and ethnic cleansing, right like none of none of 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:52.520 the international legal frameworks like did shit none, none of 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:54.400 none of the sort of you know like that, none 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:56.600 of them never again stuff like n you can you 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:59.840 can you can literally like you can ethnically cleanse your 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:02.280 own medians again and nothing will fucking happen. 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:06.000 The rag in Myanmar, we didn't do shit. 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:10.520 Yeah, I mean right now we're we're averaging one one 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:14.800 like mascular ethnic cleansing a month Jesus. And that is 0:18:15.240 --> 0:18:17.280 a fucking unbelievably bleak thing. 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:22.320 And it's only done to populations that are systematically like dehumanized, 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:24.080 you know what I mean. Like that's the thing that's like, Oh, 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:25.960 people are used to seeing this group of people suffer. 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:28.960 They're used to seeing these kinds this kind of population 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:34.680 just always die and and be I don't know, uh, 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:37.040 bomb and stuff. So I think a lot of people 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:39.160 just kind of gloss over it because they're just like, oh, 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:42.360 this is what happens to them and really keeps happening. 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:45.800 Yeah, it's uh, it's certainly like not a coincidence that, 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:49.160 like we there have been other ethnic cleansings right in Africa, 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:52.040 and like I said, they're Hinjia Muslims. But like when 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:54.840 it happens in the Middle East or the Arab world 0:18:54.880 --> 0:18:56.399 or where we want to say it, like, it's not 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:58.320 Arab world, I guess because it HAPs to Courdash people too, 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:01.440 but like yeah, people are like, oh, well, another sad 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:04.560 thing has happened, like over there, and then it's very 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:09.320 easiestpecuing with the way American news media only focuses on 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:11.879 these parts of the world like they just pointed it 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:14.440 and like oh, look sad, and then never give the context, 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:17.119 like me it was explaining, and never give the background, 0:19:17.240 --> 0:19:19.879 and then we're blindsided every two years by a fucking 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:22.960 genocide or an ethnic cleansing or a mass murder because 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:25.159 we don't report on it, and then it pops up 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:30.359 again no one understands and yeah, I'm very bleak on 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:31.240 the media at the minute. 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:34.840 Yeah. Well, and I mean I think you know, the 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:38.920 important context to understand here is that the absolute horror 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:41.400 show that's happening in Gaza right now that Israeli is doing. 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:44.600 This is one of the most extreme forms of it 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:47.440 they've ever done. But this is something they've been doing 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:49.800 from like the fucking moment they took the West Bank. 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:53.560 This is this is what they were doing. And again 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:57.320 this is what never ended. Really yeah, yeah, kept going. 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:00.000 It was like quiet mostly for a while people ignore, 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:02.160 but now it's just really loud and it keeps happening though. 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:05.200 Yeah, I mean, and you know, I think the the 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:08.880 oh god, what a blank on the like continuous knock. 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:11.560 But thing is is the way that it's understood, well, 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:15.840 is what it's called in Palestine. In sort of set 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:18.680 of the colonial studies, the line that people always say 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:21.840 is that centered colonialism is structure, not an event. Like 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:24.880 I said, it's not a thing that just ends right. 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:27.600 It just is it. It is that, you know, it 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:29.760 is the air that you breathe. It's the sort of 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:32.840 you know, like it's it's it's, it's, it's, it's it's 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:34.920 it's the walls of the society that have been built 0:20:34.960 --> 0:20:41.960 to yeah, cage and destroy people. Now, you know, the 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:46.280 the Israelis again, this is the thing that when when 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:49.760 when when sixty seven happens? This is actually it's kind 0:20:49.840 --> 0:20:52.320 of a turning point in the sense that like there 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:54.879 are groups of liberals who had supported the Israelis in 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:57.359 forty eight who were like whoa hold on, hold on, 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:01.680 Like this is actually like really stunningly illegal and this 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:04.439 doesn't do anything. But there's a lot of people who 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:07.359 make it, who make a distinction between Israel in forty 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:10.879 eight and this Israel because this Israel, like the mask 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:14.040 is off. There's nothing. There's nothing there anymore, right, It's 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:17.920 just we we have seized this land by military force, 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:20.880 by attacking a country who we were not at war with, 0:21:21.400 --> 0:21:24.680 and we are now like systematically replacing the population of 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:29.840 these places with our population. And the consequence of this, 0:21:29.840 --> 0:21:32.960 this this is Israel settler population. The consequence of this 0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:36.280 is that there's now it's hard to get accurate numbers 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:40.200 because these people, in theory aren't supposed to be there. 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:44.800 But there's something like five hundred somewhere between four and 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:47.760 fifteen and five hundred thousand Israeli settlers in the West 0:21:47.760 --> 0:21:50.840 Bank and another like two hundred thousand in East Jerusalem. 0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:54.760 And this means that the settler population in if you 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:57.480 count both the West Bank and East Jerusalem, this is 0:21:57.480 --> 0:22:01.840 about seven percent of the total population of Israel that 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:05.720 that are now these settlers. And these settlers are I 0:22:05.720 --> 0:22:07.119 don't know. This is this is like, I guess what 0:22:07.160 --> 0:22:10.520 you would call Israel's colonial frontier, in the sense that 0:22:10.600 --> 0:22:12.080 like these are the people who were like on the 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:15.880 absolute front lines of Palestinian dispossession of like killing people 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:16.679 taking their stuff. 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:20.680 Settlers is almost a misnomer because they're not like it's 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:23.080 not like sometimes I think that constructs a notion of 0:22:23.080 --> 0:22:26.320 like unsettled territory and they're settling on it. Right, these 0:22:26.320 --> 0:22:30.040 people are violently colonizing someone else's land. Yeah, which which 0:22:30.080 --> 0:22:32.880 which was which was also true of the American Like yes, yeah, 0:22:32.960 --> 0:22:36.160 very much. So, yeah we should write here, yeah hit 0:22:36.200 --> 0:22:38.639 here or pioneers and pioneer ship people live there for 0:22:38.720 --> 0:22:39.480 ten per thousand of VI. 0:22:39.920 --> 0:22:41.840 They were pioneers. Yeah. But like the way that the 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:46.320 state thinks about its own geography is in the terms 0:22:46.320 --> 0:22:49.440 of these frontiers sometimes they call the buffer areas, and 0:22:49.760 --> 0:22:51.880 they they they think about these things as these these 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:54.359 areas where they need, you know, of of projection of 0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:58.080 military control, the projection of sort of their their power 0:22:58.119 --> 0:23:01.879 and also sort of settler power and these kinds of 0:23:02.240 --> 0:23:04.119 you know, and this is this is this is what 0:23:04.119 --> 0:23:06.440 what the sort of settler populations the West Bank are 0:23:06.480 --> 0:23:10.840 the front line of Now, these people are subsidized by 0:23:10.880 --> 0:23:12.639 the Israeli government that if you if you if you 0:23:12.680 --> 0:23:16.480 go to these places, you get tax breaks, you get 0:23:16.520 --> 0:23:18.199 you know, they're they're there. There's there's there's there's sort 0:23:18.200 --> 0:23:20.080 of there's a whole variety of sort of government subsidies 0:23:20.080 --> 0:23:23.800 for these people. They also get very and this is 0:23:23.800 --> 0:23:25.439 this is the thing that I think is really interesting 0:23:25.440 --> 0:23:29.720 that isn't discussed very much. These really like social services 0:23:30.480 --> 0:23:33.159 in the West Bank are very very good. In some cases, 0:23:33.160 --> 0:23:35.560 they're they're better than the stuff that's in like Jerusalem 0:23:35.680 --> 0:23:37.119 or in like the other the other parts of Israel. 0:23:37.480 --> 0:23:40.240 And you know, all this and this acts is sort 0:23:40.240 --> 0:23:42.639 of as part of these sort of incentive package to 0:23:42.720 --> 0:23:47.160 get people to move into these settler regions. Now, and 0:23:47.280 --> 0:23:50.320 you know, the these these people reave other benefits too, right, 0:23:50.480 --> 0:23:54.359 They have enormous, an enormous degree of military protection. And 0:23:54.359 --> 0:23:55.439 this is one of the things that Tree and you 0:23:55.440 --> 0:23:58.240 talked about this right If you know, if you're trying 0:23:58.240 --> 0:23:59.879 to figure out where the fuck was the Israeli are 0:24:00.600 --> 0:24:02.560 when mass attacked, Well, the answer is they were all 0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:04.479 in the fucking West Bank helping a bunch of settlers 0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:07.120 steel Land, right, which which. 0:24:06.960 --> 0:24:11.320 You settlers terrorizing Palestinian Yeah, yeah, what's happening, And that 0:24:11.359 --> 0:24:13.639 happens all the time, but just so happened to happen 0:24:13.720 --> 0:24:16.600 on this very large scale attack yep. 0:24:17.960 --> 0:24:22.320 And the level of violence that's happening here, you know, 0:24:22.359 --> 0:24:24.560 I mean we're going to talk about the more direct 0:24:24.600 --> 0:24:28.560 settler of violence, like these are these people they these 0:24:28.600 --> 0:24:31.960 are people who have set multiple babies on fire like 0:24:32.080 --> 0:24:35.399 that is like they they have set multiple children on fire. 0:24:35.640 --> 0:24:37.280 This is this is this is the kind of people 0:24:37.560 --> 0:24:40.160 who you were dealing with when you're talking about especially 0:24:40.840 --> 0:24:43.960 So okay, so there's there's a distinction inside of Israeli 0:24:44.080 --> 0:24:49.480 law about which these settlements are legal. So again, under 0:24:49.480 --> 0:24:52.160 international law, all of these settlements are illegal. Like there's 0:24:52.200 --> 0:24:54.320 no this is not a black it's a completely black 0:24:54.320 --> 0:24:57.360 and white thing. Every single settlement is illegal under Israeli law. 0:24:57.400 --> 0:24:59.760 There are some settlements that they officially approve and some 0:24:59.800 --> 0:25:04.439 of them that they don't. And so the ones that 0:25:04.440 --> 0:25:09.640 they do approve are the ones that, you know, those 0:25:09.640 --> 0:25:12.000 are the ones who better government services, They get rows 0:25:12.000 --> 0:25:14.520 and built out to them, and and but there are 0:25:14.680 --> 0:25:17.960 kinds of violence here that are you know, there's there's 0:25:18.560 --> 0:25:20.719 I guess you call it bureaucratic violence or stuff like 0:25:21.119 --> 0:25:23.639 you know, one of the sort of like benefits you 0:25:23.640 --> 0:25:25.840 get of living in the West Bank is like the 0:25:25.920 --> 0:25:29.119 Israeli government has diverted basically the entire West Bank's fucking 0:25:29.160 --> 0:25:32.000 water supply to fill these peoples swimming pools and this 0:25:32.119 --> 0:25:34.760 is water that is you know, the thing that they've 0:25:34.760 --> 0:25:38.160 been used for for a very very long time is 0:25:38.520 --> 0:25:41.000 people in the West Bak doing agriculture. But you know 0:25:41.080 --> 0:25:43.400 that's becoming you know, growing alves, and it's becoming increasingly 0:25:43.440 --> 0:25:46.240 fucking impossible because these Raelis are diverting their fucking water 0:25:46.560 --> 0:25:48.639 and then also lighting and then the you know, the 0:25:49.000 --> 0:25:52.520 the government diverts all the water away and then the 0:25:52.560 --> 0:25:54.920 settlers light the fucking olive trees on fire. And this 0:25:54.960 --> 0:25:56.399 is actually, and this is weirdly a thing that like 0:25:56.440 --> 0:25:59.119 almost exactly the same pattern stuff that like Turkey is 0:25:59.200 --> 0:26:02.200 under the Kurds too, right, like yeah, like every every 0:26:02.240 --> 0:26:05.119 ethic minority, Like yeah, Russia. 0:26:04.800 --> 0:26:08.000 Does it to its Kalmic people. It's the story I 0:26:08.080 --> 0:26:11.040 hear so often at the border, when talking to people 0:26:11.720 --> 0:26:15.080 in any number of languages, many number of countries, is like, oh, 0:26:15.160 --> 0:26:17.240 they have cut off the water supply to where we live, 0:26:17.280 --> 0:26:21.639 and now we can't live there anymore, like across Africa, sadly, 0:26:21.840 --> 0:26:26.240 like yeah, even within Russia, like it's it's like yeah, 0:26:26.280 --> 0:26:29.000 like you say, it's genocide by dictat or fucking you know, 0:26:29.280 --> 0:26:31.840 it's it's an ethnic cleansing that doesn't look so bad 0:26:31.880 --> 0:26:35.000 on TV because it happens a little bit slower, but 0:26:35.040 --> 0:26:36.960 it's a way to remove people. And you can look 0:26:36.960 --> 0:26:40.679 at like drone pictures of the West Bank and you 0:26:40.680 --> 0:26:43.720 can see the little fucking like green lollipops, like the 0:26:43.840 --> 0:26:46.119 road and then the settlement right and like people have 0:26:46.160 --> 0:26:49.240 trees and shit like it's it's wild. Yeah. 0:26:49.359 --> 0:26:54.480 I think the unique part about Israel and the settlers 0:26:54.520 --> 0:26:56.240 there burning all the olive trees, I feel like I 0:26:56.240 --> 0:26:58.040 didn't ever stard about this before. I don't know if 0:26:58.040 --> 0:27:02.359 we did, Yeah, but the whole essence of Zionism is 0:27:02.359 --> 0:27:04.760 the idea that there's a group of people that are 0:27:05.040 --> 0:27:08.399 like meant for this land. And I just find the 0:27:08.440 --> 0:27:11.199 olive tree burning the best example of how that's just 0:27:11.280 --> 0:27:13.960 like such a bullshit, because if you actually cared about 0:27:14.160 --> 0:27:17.600 this ancient land, if you had ties to this ancient land, 0:27:17.640 --> 0:27:21.720 you wouldn't want to burn this like native plant that's 0:27:21.760 --> 0:27:23.960 been there for thousands of years, that's been the source 0:27:23.960 --> 0:27:26.679 of all the economies for Palestinians, all this stuff. I 0:27:26.680 --> 0:27:29.639 think it's just the most clear example that Zionism is 0:27:29.680 --> 0:27:33.280 not about any kind of connection at all. It's just 0:27:33.320 --> 0:27:37.880 about power and land and not about the not land 0:27:37.960 --> 0:27:40.320 in the sense of like the architecture or the history 0:27:40.720 --> 0:27:44.520 or the nature is just about i don't know, like 0:27:44.560 --> 0:27:48.160 a land grab, like just colonial land grap Yeah. 0:27:48.200 --> 0:27:50.280 Well, and I think I think, I think the fundamental 0:27:51.040 --> 0:27:53.280 thing at play here, and this is the sort of 0:27:53.280 --> 0:27:56.359 one of the fundamental tenets of setular colonialism, is that 0:27:56.840 --> 0:27:59.920 these people see land as a commodity, right, they see they, 0:28:00.119 --> 0:28:04.280 they see they they they only see land in terms 0:28:04.320 --> 0:28:06.159 of things they can buy and sell on, things they 0:28:06.200 --> 0:28:06.800 can possess. 0:28:08.320 --> 0:28:11.120 Yeah, it's a fundamental tenet of the state really, right, 0:28:11.200 --> 0:28:14.320 Like the more like square miles you could bring under 0:28:14.359 --> 0:28:16.840 your like where you have a monopoly and legitimate use 0:28:16.840 --> 0:28:19.879 of violence, like the more important you are as a state, 0:28:20.480 --> 0:28:24.240 and so like this this is a problem of states. 0:28:24.720 --> 0:28:27.080 Yeah, and we will we will get into this more 0:28:27.080 --> 0:28:29.040 in a second, but first we need to go to ads. 0:28:30.440 --> 0:28:38.480 So the Israeli settlers are a real problem for everyone 0:28:38.520 --> 0:28:45.200 who supports Israel because it it is it is really 0:28:45.680 --> 0:28:49.880 really hard to be sort of you know, take take 0:28:49.920 --> 0:28:54.360 your sort of like liberal humanitarian stance on like Israel 0:28:54.400 --> 0:28:56.840 has the right to protect itself blah, blah blah blah 0:28:56.880 --> 0:29:00.640 and then cure these like yahoos and the hills lighting 0:29:00.720 --> 0:29:03.280 children on fire, and you know, I mean, and this 0:29:03.320 --> 0:29:06.280 is the thing where even even like very reliably pro 0:29:06.320 --> 0:29:08.440 Issuo groups at the Council on Foreign Relations are like, 0:29:08.480 --> 0:29:11.520 whoa nelly, these guys are messed up. And I mean, 0:29:11.560 --> 0:29:13.600 and you can find writing for them. And they've been 0:29:13.600 --> 0:29:15.520 writing about this for a long time because this is 0:29:15.520 --> 0:29:17.600 all stuff that's been It's been very very obvious of 0:29:17.680 --> 0:29:20.200 what was going to happen, right like the you know, 0:29:20.240 --> 0:29:22.000 the level of violence is going to ramp up that 0:29:22.120 --> 0:29:24.280 like all the stuff, none of the stuff is happening now, 0:29:24.360 --> 0:29:26.960 I mean like it's I guess this is one of 0:29:27.000 --> 0:29:29.479 those things is like everything is impossible until it happens 0:29:29.520 --> 0:29:33.200 or whatever. But you know, all of all of the 0:29:33.200 --> 0:29:36.280 stuff that's happening is I mean, like if you just 0:29:36.360 --> 0:29:38.800 spend any time looking at what was happening in the 0:29:38.800 --> 0:29:41.760 two thousand and twenty tens, nothing that's happening now is 0:29:41.760 --> 0:29:42.880 like particularly surprising. 0:29:44.400 --> 0:29:44.600 Now. 0:29:45.160 --> 0:29:49.760 What what's very interesting about the settlers though, is that Okay, 0:29:49.760 --> 0:29:51.800 so when when the Council of Formulations, the Council of 0:29:51.880 --> 0:29:53.880 Formulations went in and was like, okay, so what is 0:29:53.880 --> 0:29:54.520 with these people? 0:29:54.600 --> 0:29:54.760 Right? 0:29:55.600 --> 0:29:59.360 They assumed initially that you know, okay, so you know 0:29:59.400 --> 0:30:01.960 they're there, take a sort of liberal like pros and 0:30:02.200 --> 0:30:04.280 lines that like, okay, well, these these settlers must be 0:30:04.320 --> 0:30:08.400 responding to Palestinian violence. And no, it turns out actually, 0:30:08.680 --> 0:30:13.000 not only are these are these attacks not like retaliatory, right, 0:30:13.040 --> 0:30:15.959 it's it's it's not that like the settler communities were 0:30:15.960 --> 0:30:19.600 being attacked by Palastinians and they were taking back. Settler 0:30:19.680 --> 0:30:23.280 violence is actually inversely correlated with the level of armed 0:30:23.280 --> 0:30:26.640 struggle being carried up with Palestinians. So the era of 0:30:26.640 --> 0:30:29.920 settler violence ramp up is the late two thousands and 0:30:29.960 --> 0:30:32.320 the twenty tens. And this is the period, you know, 0:30:32.400 --> 0:30:35.120 if you know anything about like the Second Defauntity, this 0:30:35.160 --> 0:30:40.400 is the period where like Palaestinians doing armed struggle in 0:30:40.560 --> 0:30:45.440 like all of the different forms is tapering off and 0:30:45.520 --> 0:30:48.200 so and this leads people kind of confused as to 0:30:48.240 --> 0:30:51.640 what the fuck is happening here? And so okay, so 0:30:51.680 --> 0:30:55.160 we can ask, like what is actually driving the violence 0:30:55.160 --> 0:30:58.040 of these sort of settler expansions. And the thing most 0:30:58.040 --> 0:31:02.760 people focus on is ideology and religion because a huge number, 0:31:02.800 --> 0:31:05.760 although it should be mentioned. Okay, So like a lot 0:31:05.800 --> 0:31:09.680 of settlers are what are like, what are religious Zionists 0:31:10.160 --> 0:31:12.320 who are people and a lot of these are there's 0:31:12.360 --> 0:31:14.640 like a specific religious Zionist party that we'll talk about 0:31:14.640 --> 0:31:18.600 a bit later who are like specifically Orthodox Jews, but 0:31:18.680 --> 0:31:22.360 like there's a lot of right wing religious like Zionists 0:31:22.360 --> 0:31:26.320 of like various stripes who you know, and there are 0:31:26.320 --> 0:31:28.120 things that they believe that they have a god given 0:31:28.200 --> 0:31:30.360 right to take whatever land they want and what they 0:31:30.360 --> 0:31:32.960 call quote Judea and Samaria, which is the West Bank, 0:31:32.960 --> 0:31:34.800 and they believe that they just have the right to 0:31:35.120 --> 0:31:37.920 take this land. Yeah, and if anyone tries to stop them, 0:31:37.920 --> 0:31:39.520 they will kill them or drive them from their homes. 0:31:40.520 --> 0:31:42.400 And it's true that these people exist, right and these 0:31:42.440 --> 0:31:44.280 people obviously, and we're going to get into this more 0:31:44.280 --> 0:31:45.760 in a second, Like these people have had a profound 0:31:45.840 --> 0:31:50.160 influence on Israeli politics. But on the other hands, they're 0:31:50.200 --> 0:31:52.760 not they are a lot of the settlers, they're not 0:31:52.760 --> 0:31:54.760 the entire settler population. In fact, there's a lot of 0:31:54.760 --> 0:31:58.080 settlers who are not these people. And the other thing 0:31:58.120 --> 0:32:01.240 about trying to purely explain in the dynamics of violence 0:32:01.320 --> 0:32:07.160 by by ideologies. It can't explain why, really. I mean, 0:32:07.440 --> 0:32:10.280 there's a kind of like a breakwater event where so 0:32:10.360 --> 0:32:14.120 so there used to be settlers in Gaza too, and 0:32:14.160 --> 0:32:16.000 these Raelis pulled them out when they pulled out of 0:32:16.000 --> 0:32:20.480 Gaza two thousand and five, and that pissed off the 0:32:20.520 --> 0:32:23.280 settlers enormously, right, And this is part of one of 0:32:23.320 --> 0:32:25.280 the things that leads to the sort of settler violent 0:32:25.320 --> 0:32:26.920 turn was they were like, well, okay, so if the 0:32:26.920 --> 0:32:31.040 Israeli government isn't going to, like I don't know if 0:32:31.040 --> 0:32:34.160 the Israeli government one time will stop po legal settlements 0:32:34.160 --> 0:32:37.400 from happening, we need to like make sure that we 0:32:37.440 --> 0:32:39.719 are violence enough that it'll they'll never try to get 0:32:39.800 --> 0:32:42.920 rid of another settlement settlement again. And that kind of 0:32:43.320 --> 0:32:48.720 explains the violence uptake, but it doesn't explain all of it. Actually, 0:32:48.720 --> 0:32:51.200 So sorry, before I launched into this, I should Asktuary, 0:32:51.480 --> 0:32:53.479 were you gonna say, sorry. 0:32:53.240 --> 0:32:55.400 No, it's okay. I just wanted to make a really 0:32:55.440 --> 0:32:58.680 important distinction that like, Zionism is not a religion per se, 0:32:58.800 --> 0:33:01.280 and it's a political ideology, right, Like you can be 0:33:01.360 --> 0:33:05.240 Christian and Zionists, you can be Jewish and Zionists I've 0:33:05.280 --> 0:33:08.680 had multiple anti Zionist Jewish people on the show, and 0:33:08.720 --> 0:33:10.480 I feel like they're very important in the fight for 0:33:10.560 --> 0:33:13.760 Palicy liberation. But I think that's a really important distinction 0:33:13.960 --> 0:33:18.320 because Zionism is fairly new. It's not like this ancient religion. 0:33:18.640 --> 0:33:21.719 It was like the late eighth Yeah, the late eighteen 0:33:21.760 --> 0:33:25.440 hundreds is when it really like became formed into what 0:33:25.480 --> 0:33:26.120 it is today. 0:33:26.640 --> 0:33:27.520 So I think that's. 0:33:27.400 --> 0:33:32.680 Really important to remember, is that Zionism itself is not 0:33:32.800 --> 0:33:35.840 this like deep spiritual thing that a lot of Zionists 0:33:35.880 --> 0:33:39.360 claim it is. It is just fucking politics and there's 0:33:39.720 --> 0:33:40.520 bad politics. 0:33:41.040 --> 0:33:42.800 And I think the other important thing about it too, 0:33:42.800 --> 0:33:45.640 and this is something that has been changing. But like Zionism, 0:33:46.360 --> 0:33:50.040 most Zionists, like when Israel was formed, were secular, Like 0:33:50.040 --> 0:33:52.440 they were secularist, right, A lot of these people were leftists, 0:33:52.440 --> 0:33:55.320 they were secularists. They weren't. And the emergence of this 0:33:55.360 --> 0:33:58.320 religious Zionism stuff, this is like, this is stuff that 0:33:58.600 --> 0:34:01.600 started happening really in like the eighties. So this is 0:34:01.640 --> 0:34:06.000 like forty years old, right, Like billions of people on 0:34:06.040 --> 0:34:09.279 Earth are older than this kind of religious Zionism. Yeah, 0:34:09.320 --> 0:34:12.879 And so the kind of transition from more secular forms 0:34:12.880 --> 0:34:16.719 of Zionism to more religious forms of Zionism. Is this 0:34:16.800 --> 0:34:19.160 is one of the things like like the claim that 0:34:19.200 --> 0:34:21.120 this is the driving thing, like this, this is what 0:34:21.160 --> 0:34:24.279 you'll get a lot from like councilor formulations people and 0:34:24.320 --> 0:34:28.400 sort of like and it's kind of true to some extent. 0:34:29.280 --> 0:34:33.920 But Comma, there's also something else going on here, and 0:34:34.000 --> 0:34:38.760 that is the Israeli housing markets. So all right, I swear, 0:34:38.800 --> 0:34:40.759 I swear this is connected, but we need we need 0:34:40.800 --> 0:34:43.080 to do a tangent through the Israeli housing market. So 0:34:43.600 --> 0:34:48.239 all right, so we've talked about how again the rise 0:34:48.280 --> 0:34:50.920 in cellular violence is something that it's it starts in 0:34:50.920 --> 0:34:53.960 the late two thousands and accelerates to the twenty tens 0:34:54.000 --> 0:34:56.759 and has reached a fever pitch now with like in 0:34:56.800 --> 0:35:00.960 the past like month, they've killed like one hundred and 0:35:01.000 --> 0:35:07.320 thirty people in the West Bank. And Okay, so what 0:35:08.040 --> 0:35:11.680 actually also was happening in that time And the answer 0:35:11.719 --> 0:35:14.359 to that question is that between two thousand and eight 0:35:14.400 --> 0:35:17.879 and twenty ten alone. And this is very weird because 0:35:17.880 --> 0:35:20.000 again think about the time period that we're in this 0:35:20.080 --> 0:35:23.000 two thousand and eight to twenty ten, This is like 0:35:23.560 --> 0:35:25.960 right after two thousand and eight financial collapse. There is 0:35:26.000 --> 0:35:29.160 a thirty five percent increase in housing prices in Israel. 0:35:30.640 --> 0:35:34.879 This is nuts, right, Like this everywhere else in the 0:35:35.080 --> 0:35:38.920 entire world, Like the price of housing is tanking, in 0:35:39.120 --> 0:35:42.720 Israel is skyrocketing. Okay, the price of housing is increasing 0:35:42.960 --> 0:35:45.800 the rate at which the price of housing is also increasing, 0:35:45.840 --> 0:35:48.560 it's skyrocketing through the entire twenty tens. And then like, 0:35:48.880 --> 0:35:50.880 the rate of increase in the twenty tens looks like 0:35:50.880 --> 0:35:53.279 a fucking joke compared to the rate of increase in 0:35:53.320 --> 0:35:58.319 the twenty twenties. And these increases coincide with guess what, 0:35:58.400 --> 0:36:03.520 the massive increases in cellular violent Now this is interesting 0:36:04.160 --> 0:36:08.080 for a number of reasons. One is that you know, 0:36:08.120 --> 0:36:10.960 and sometimes every once in a while you will get 0:36:12.200 --> 0:36:14.840 like someone will just like, I don't know, some like 0:36:14.840 --> 0:36:17.680 councilor formulations. Guy will say like, well, there are settlers 0:36:17.719 --> 0:36:23.160 who are there for economic reasons, but what actually does 0:36:23.200 --> 0:36:26.880 that mean? Right now, I've been playing kind of fast 0:36:26.920 --> 0:36:30.680 and loose with statistics here, right, Like, obviously you can't 0:36:30.719 --> 0:36:34.040 just point to okay, one number was increasing at the 0:36:34.040 --> 0:36:36.640 same time as an another number of correlation implies causation, 0:36:36.719 --> 0:36:38.880 like no it doesn't right that this is too loose 0:36:39.000 --> 0:36:43.080 and the correlation here isn't you know, it's it's not 0:36:43.200 --> 0:36:48.680 quite that simple, but Comma, this is legitimately one of 0:36:48.719 --> 0:36:53.719 the things that's been driving driving Israeli settler violence and 0:36:53.840 --> 0:36:55.719 sort of the the expansion of this sort of of 0:36:55.760 --> 0:36:59.040 this sort of Israeli setular project. And at the core 0:36:59.120 --> 0:37:04.440 of this is this fundamental tension with housing in capitalism, 0:37:04.440 --> 0:37:06.959 in which a house and also very importantly the land 0:37:07.000 --> 0:37:10.399 that it's on, is two things at the same time. Right, 0:37:10.840 --> 0:37:13.200 the house, a house is a thing that you live in, 0:37:13.960 --> 0:37:16.880 but it's also a speculative asset that appreciates in value 0:37:16.880 --> 0:37:19.080 over time, or is supposed to appreciate in value over time. 0:37:19.200 --> 0:37:21.520 And when and when, you know, housing values don't go up, 0:37:21.800 --> 0:37:24.720 homeowners get very, very very angry because it's also supposed 0:37:24.760 --> 0:37:28.360 to be a speculative asset. Now, the sort of technical 0:37:28.440 --> 0:37:30.760 terminology for this is that a house is a use value, 0:37:31.000 --> 0:37:33.279 which is, you know, it's a house that you live in, right, 0:37:33.680 --> 0:37:35.800 and it also has an exchange value, which is its 0:37:35.920 --> 0:37:37.600 value on the market. That's a product of the sort 0:37:37.640 --> 0:37:41.640 of social relations stuff from the economic system. And with housing, 0:37:41.640 --> 0:37:45.000 it all commodities work like this. With housing in particular, 0:37:47.160 --> 0:37:51.000 the two sort of natures of this commodity work against 0:37:51.080 --> 0:37:54.080 each other. Right, if you want a house, and you 0:37:54.120 --> 0:37:55.680 want a house because you want to live in it, 0:37:57.280 --> 0:37:58.680 you want, you know, you want the price to be 0:37:58.680 --> 0:38:01.840 as low as possible, right you you want for houses 0:38:01.880 --> 0:38:05.440 to be speculative assets, like as little as humanly possible. 0:38:05.960 --> 0:38:07.360 But on the other hand, if you want a house 0:38:07.600 --> 0:38:11.399 because you are you know, say a real estate firm 0:38:11.480 --> 0:38:14.280 or land speculator, or you know, you're just you're buying 0:38:14.280 --> 0:38:16.759 a house is like an investment, you want the price 0:38:16.800 --> 0:38:18.439 to be as high as possible because it doesn't matter 0:38:18.480 --> 0:38:20.279 to you if people actually use the house live in it. 0:38:20.320 --> 0:38:20.520 All. 0:38:21.719 --> 0:38:23.960 All that matters is that you're getting money from this house. 0:38:24.920 --> 0:38:27.000 And you know, I something I've talked about a lot 0:38:27.000 --> 0:38:29.920 on this show, and since really the nineties when Japan 0:38:29.960 --> 0:38:33.720 figured this out, housing has been like these speculative asset 0:38:33.719 --> 0:38:35.719 par excellans is the thing you dump all of your 0:38:35.760 --> 0:38:37.439 money into when you have a bunch of money sitting 0:38:37.480 --> 0:38:41.960 around that you can't turn into more capital. And you 0:38:41.960 --> 0:38:45.719 know this, but the problem is that this creates these 0:38:45.840 --> 0:38:50.360 massive like housing bubbles that makes like housing and rents 0:38:50.400 --> 0:38:55.799 increasingly unaffordable for everyone. Now, you could address this by 0:38:55.920 --> 0:38:57.960 you know, addressing a dual nature of the commodity and 0:38:57.960 --> 0:39:00.279 transforming your economy in such a way that houses are 0:39:00.280 --> 0:39:03.800 not commodities and thus you know, is a use value 0:39:04.000 --> 0:39:06.120 and is a place to live and not you know, 0:39:06.239 --> 0:39:08.279 like a financial asset. But nobody's gonna do that, right, 0:39:08.320 --> 0:39:12.200 because that requires like a systemic transformation. If you're like, 0:39:12.480 --> 0:39:16.200 this requires you to abolish capitalism, right, So instead of 0:39:16.239 --> 0:39:19.120 doing this, right, the other thing you can do when 0:39:19.120 --> 0:39:21.040 housing prices are really high is you can go kill 0:39:21.040 --> 0:39:26.879 someone and take their lands. And yeah, you know, and 0:39:27.000 --> 0:39:28.879 you know, I mean this is this is a very 0:39:28.920 --> 0:39:31.440 old American sort of colonial I don't even know, I 0:39:31.520 --> 0:39:33.000 think this is where it's from, but like, yeah, the. 0:39:34.680 --> 0:39:38.120 Every empire, so right, Like, working people can't afford to 0:39:38.120 --> 0:39:40.120 live with dignity, so we've fucking shipped them off. So 0:39:40.120 --> 0:39:42.279 they strip someone else's dignity and make their fortune on 0:39:42.280 --> 0:39:43.160 someone else's land. 0:39:43.640 --> 0:39:46.480 Yeah, yeah, because the cheapest land is land that's paid 0:39:46.480 --> 0:39:47.520 with someone else's blood. 0:39:47.840 --> 0:39:48.520 Yeah. 0:39:48.800 --> 0:39:52.520 Now I'm going to read from a little bit from 0:39:52.640 --> 0:39:55.560 a very very I really recommend people actually read this 0:39:55.600 --> 0:40:00.719 because it's a really interesting view of the occupation. I'm 0:40:00.760 --> 0:40:03.440 going to read from a piece called Hostile Intelligence, Reflections 0:40:03.440 --> 0:40:05.840 on a Visit to the West Bank, written by David Graber. 0:40:05.960 --> 0:40:09.160 This is from twenty fifteen, but you know, this is 0:40:09.160 --> 0:40:12.600 one of the things about about the occupation is that 0:40:13.239 --> 0:40:16.279 if you're any given point in time, if you are 0:40:16.400 --> 0:40:19.239 looking at what's happening in the occupation, you can unfold 0:40:19.320 --> 0:40:21.640 the dynamics that are going to be that are going 0:40:21.680 --> 0:40:27.480 to be the future of the occupation. So here's David Graeber. First, 0:40:27.640 --> 0:40:31.160 the settlements. They were originally the product of a relatively isolated, 0:40:31.200 --> 0:40:34.920 if well funded collection of religious zealots. Now everything seems 0:40:34.920 --> 0:40:39.000 to be organized around them. The government pours and endless resources. Why. 0:40:39.480 --> 0:40:42.280 The answer seems to be that, since at least the nineties, 0:40:42.360 --> 0:40:44.640 right wing politicians in Israel have figured out that the 0:40:44.640 --> 0:40:47.800 settlements are a kind of political magic. The more money 0:40:47.800 --> 0:40:50.200 gets funneled into them, the more the Jewish electorate turns 0:40:50.200 --> 0:40:53.800 to the right. The reason is simple is reel as expensive. 0:40:54.280 --> 0:40:57.840 Housing inside the nineteen forty eight boundaries is exorbitantly expensive. 0:40:58.239 --> 0:41:01.839 If you are a young person without means, increasingly have 0:41:01.920 --> 0:41:05.359 two options to live with one's parents until well into 0:41:05.400 --> 0:41:08.359 your thirties, or find a place in illegal settlements where 0:41:08.360 --> 0:41:10.719 apartments cost perhaps a third of what they would in 0:41:10.800 --> 0:41:13.279 High Offer or Tel Aviv. And that's not to mention 0:41:13.360 --> 0:41:18.439 the superior roads, schools, utilities, and social services. At this point, 0:41:18.520 --> 0:41:20.839 the vast majority of settlers live on the West Bank 0:41:20.880 --> 0:41:23.719 for economic, not ideological reasons. And this is something that like, 0:41:23.760 --> 0:41:26.840 this is actually kind of reversing now just because of 0:41:26.880 --> 0:41:31.680 how like how far right and how the spread of 0:41:31.840 --> 0:41:36.360 like sort of like ideological like right wing stuff is spread. 0:41:36.400 --> 0:41:38.239 But this is at the time then twenty fifteen, this 0:41:38.320 --> 0:41:41.480 was true. Yeah, and this is especially true around Jerusalem. 0:41:42.160 --> 0:41:45.200 But consider who these people are in the past, young 0:41:45.239 --> 0:41:49.600 people in difficult circumstances, students, well educated, young parents have 0:41:49.680 --> 0:41:53.000 been the traditional constituency of the left. Put these same 0:41:53.040 --> 0:41:57.040 people into settlements and they will inexorably without even realizing it, 0:41:57.200 --> 0:42:01.319 begin to think like fascists are in their own way, 0:42:01.520 --> 0:42:04.680 giant engines for the production of right wing consciousness. Is 0:42:04.800 --> 0:42:08.040 very difficult for someone placed in a hostile territory given 0:42:08.120 --> 0:42:11.560 training in automatic weapons and warn't constantly to be on 0:42:11.560 --> 0:42:14.879 one's guard against local populations seething over the fact that 0:42:14.920 --> 0:42:16.880 your next door neighbors have been killing their sheep and 0:42:16.920 --> 0:42:20.839 destroying their olive trees, not to gradually see ethno nationalism 0:42:20.840 --> 0:42:24.600 as common sense. As a result, with every election, the 0:42:24.640 --> 0:42:28.240 old left electorate further dissipates, and a host of religious 0:42:28.239 --> 0:42:30.840 fascist or semi fascist parties. When a larger and larger 0:42:30.880 --> 0:42:33.960 stake of the vote for politicians who can barely think 0:42:34.000 --> 0:42:39.840 past the next election, lure is inescapable. And so I 0:42:39.880 --> 0:42:45.200 think this gets at the core of what's happening, specifically 0:42:45.239 --> 0:42:47.280 what's happening in the West Bank, which is that, Yeah, 0:42:47.800 --> 0:42:52.480 these settlements are you know, I mean, if you were 0:42:52.520 --> 0:42:54.880 trying to generate in a lab a place where you 0:42:54.880 --> 0:42:57.000 could turn a bunch of people into fascists, it would 0:42:57.000 --> 0:43:00.399 be it would be these settlements. And for more on that, 0:43:00.480 --> 0:43:04.280 come back tomorrow when we finish this conversation. In the meantime, 0:43:04.440 --> 0:43:06.920 this has been nickuld appen here. Thanks for joining us, 0:43:07.080 --> 0:43:25.960 see you tomorrow. Welcome to Dickudappan here, a podcast that 0:43:26.040 --> 0:43:29.080 is once again about Palestine. Hopefully you listen to yesterday's 0:43:29.120 --> 0:43:31.879 episode of this. One's going to be a little bit 0:43:32.200 --> 0:43:36.440 out of sorts, but yeah, we are continuing and finishing 0:43:36.520 --> 0:43:40.560 upper conversation about Israel and setular colonialism. So strap in 0:43:40.800 --> 0:43:44.280 and enjoy the show. If you were trying to generate 0:43:44.320 --> 0:43:46.319 in a lab a place where you could turn a 0:43:46.320 --> 0:43:48.600 bunch of people into fascists, it would be it would 0:43:48.600 --> 0:43:53.399 be these settlements. This has a bunch of downstream political effects, right. 0:43:53.560 --> 0:43:58.439 One of them is that, okay, so whose lands are 0:43:58.480 --> 0:43:59.399 you taking here? 0:43:59.600 --> 0:43:59.799 Right? 0:44:00.400 --> 0:44:04.080 The answer here is it's a lot of Palestinian farmers. 0:44:06.200 --> 0:44:08.959 And you know, once you kick farmers off their land, 0:44:09.120 --> 0:44:11.920 they can't be farmers anymore. And this leaves them with 0:44:11.960 --> 0:44:15.520 two choices one flee pal sign altogether. And this is 0:44:15.560 --> 0:44:17.319 really really hard. We talked about it on this show. 0:44:17.440 --> 0:44:22.120 It is really really difficult to get out or your 0:44:22.160 --> 0:44:24.960 other option is to become cheap labor for Israeli capitalists. 0:44:25.880 --> 0:44:27.719 And this is an another part of the sort of 0:44:27.719 --> 0:44:30.920 self reinforcing dynamic of these engines, right, is like, you know, 0:44:31.680 --> 0:44:34.400 if if you're dealing with the population that doesn't have 0:44:34.440 --> 0:44:37.400 the means to support themselves except for you know, the 0:44:37.400 --> 0:44:40.960 these Israeli like work passes that they like, you know, 0:44:41.200 --> 0:44:46.400 like bestow upon the benighted population, likes it makes it 0:44:46.440 --> 0:44:48.800 incredibly hard for there to be any sort of physicist movement. 0:44:48.840 --> 0:44:50.440 And you know the other thing that David Greab was 0:44:50.480 --> 0:44:52.880 pointing out that you know, he was I think like 0:44:52.920 --> 0:44:54.680 ahead of the curve on in a lot of ways. 0:44:56.280 --> 0:44:58.120 Is I mean, this has been happening for a long time, 0:44:58.160 --> 0:45:03.240 but these really like electoral left is just gone. Israeli Labor, 0:45:03.280 --> 0:45:05.560 which is like the like Israeli Labor is the party 0:45:05.600 --> 0:45:09.200 that built Israel right, like it was Israeli Labor guys 0:45:10.000 --> 0:45:14.640 who like pulled together the entire Zionist coalition and like 0:45:14.840 --> 0:45:17.359 turned them into the engine that could actually win the war. 0:45:17.400 --> 0:45:22.640 In forty eight, Labor was outperformed by fucking Handash in 0:45:22.680 --> 0:45:24.840 the most recent election. This has happened several times now. 0:45:24.880 --> 0:45:28.000 Hadash is an alliance of the Israeli communists and like 0:45:28.080 --> 0:45:30.879 left Arab nationalists. And when I say they do better, 0:45:31.120 --> 0:45:33.319 it's not to say that Hadash is doing well, but 0:45:33.440 --> 0:45:36.480 like you know, they're both pulling at like four percent right, 0:45:36.520 --> 0:45:39.800 and Israeli Labor again like has ruled is ruled Israel 0:45:39.880 --> 0:45:42.800 for like a like a very magnificant part of his history. 0:45:43.200 --> 0:45:46.600 They are now nothing. Right, there's four percent of the vote. 0:45:46.640 --> 0:45:48.319 They have the same amount of vote as the oldest, 0:45:48.320 --> 0:45:50.759 as the Israeli like, and specifically I should mention this 0:45:50.800 --> 0:45:53.879 is this is the this is the like anti occupation communists. 0:45:54.920 --> 0:45:57.399 This is another one of the sort of dynamics of 0:45:57.800 --> 0:46:02.160 settlerism that you know, the sort of is universally true, right, 0:46:02.160 --> 0:46:05.719 this is it's not just Israel where a bunch of 0:46:05.760 --> 0:46:07.560 people who are nominally left. It's a bunch of people 0:46:07.560 --> 0:46:09.840 who like you know, fought in their own liberation struggles 0:46:09.880 --> 0:46:13.880 and get turned into just like absolutely fanatical right wingers. 0:46:14.640 --> 0:46:18.399 There are an enormous number of United Irishmen, rebels from 0:46:18.440 --> 0:46:20.839 the rebellion of eighteen seventy eight in Ireland who go 0:46:20.880 --> 0:46:25.000 to the US and you know, wind up A bunch 0:46:25.040 --> 0:46:26.640 of these people wind up in the American Army. A 0:46:26.640 --> 0:46:29.920 bunch of these people wind up like I mean, I 0:46:29.920 --> 0:46:31.840 guess it's technically not the Indian Wars, but like a 0:46:31.840 --> 0:46:33.640 lot of these people wind up like fighting the Creeks 0:46:33.640 --> 0:46:36.719 in eighteen twelve. These people could become the front line 0:46:36.880 --> 0:46:39.120 of settler expansion in the US. And this all this 0:46:39.200 --> 0:46:42.239 happens again with like German and French like liberals and 0:46:42.280 --> 0:46:45.640 socialists who flee the crushing of the eighteen forty eight revolutions. 0:46:45.520 --> 0:46:48.920 It actually almost happened to Marx. He wound up not 0:46:48.920 --> 0:46:50.600 going to the US. But there's a lot of settlers, 0:46:50.680 --> 0:46:53.719 Like there's a lot of like of European socialists who 0:46:53.719 --> 0:46:55.520 come to the US and see all of this land 0:46:56.200 --> 0:46:58.960 and they go, oh shit, we can solve, like we 0:46:59.040 --> 0:47:00.880 can solve the problems of the old world. But it's 0:47:00.920 --> 0:47:02.040 taking this land. 0:47:02.239 --> 0:47:05.880 Yeah, having our little like a utopian socialist settlements. Was 0:47:05.920 --> 0:47:11.240 it Owen's or Jones or someone? They had these like yeah, yeah, 0:47:11.800 --> 0:47:15.560 quake k utopian sort of settlement towns in someone else's land. 0:47:16.280 --> 0:47:18.520 Yeah. Well, And that's one of the ways has happened there. 0:47:18.600 --> 0:47:21.440 There are other ways this happens too, where it's just people. 0:47:22.120 --> 0:47:24.280 You know, it's not it's not even always utopian communities. 0:47:24.320 --> 0:47:26.840 People a lot of and and this this is also 0:47:27.000 --> 0:47:30.120 so okay. There are people who come over from the 0:47:30.160 --> 0:47:33.360 eighteen forty eight revolutions who like, you know, like August 0:47:33.400 --> 0:47:35.680 von Willich is probably the most famous one. Like he's 0:47:35.680 --> 0:47:37.800 a communist who ends up like fighting for the Union 0:47:38.640 --> 0:47:41.520 and then notably not fighting in the Indian Wars after. 0:47:42.360 --> 0:47:45.120 But you know, a lot of these people they come 0:47:45.160 --> 0:47:47.120 to the US and they're like, okay, well, so they're 0:47:47.120 --> 0:47:51.000 like the fundamental contradiction to capitalism or whatever is that, like, 0:47:51.440 --> 0:47:55.920 you know, people like people, people are forced to become like, 0:47:56.000 --> 0:47:58.080 as they would literally call it, like the wage slaves 0:47:58.080 --> 0:48:02.160 of capital, right. And so these people take a bunch 0:48:02.200 --> 0:48:05.759 of just incredibly bizarre stances, Like one they're they're they're 0:48:06.239 --> 0:48:09.839 they're against the abolition of slavery because they they're like, oh, well, 0:48:09.840 --> 0:48:11.200 if you free the slaves, these people are going to 0:48:11.239 --> 0:48:14.799 compete with us for wage labor. So either either they're 0:48:14.800 --> 0:48:19.040 pro slavery or they're like slavery the like ending slavery 0:48:19.080 --> 0:48:20.359 is the thing they can only happen with the end 0:48:20.360 --> 0:48:23.040 of capitalism, so we don't care about it. Or and 0:48:23.120 --> 0:48:24.640 this is a very common thing that this is one 0:48:24.680 --> 0:48:26.279 of them. This is i think much closer to the 0:48:26.320 --> 0:48:28.800 Israeli dynamic. Is these people become convinced that like the 0:48:28.920 --> 0:48:31.040 the you know, the problem with Europe, right is that, 0:48:31.600 --> 0:48:34.400 you know, Europe is entirely ruled by either feudalist or 0:48:34.440 --> 0:48:37.160 like feudal bearers or capitalist right, and so there's no 0:48:37.280 --> 0:48:40.279 way for someone to like make like make themselves in 0:48:40.320 --> 0:48:41.960 the world, right, there there's no way for them to 0:48:42.000 --> 0:48:45.239 be independent like of the capitalist class. But in but 0:48:45.320 --> 0:48:47.600 in the US, there is because all you have to 0:48:47.600 --> 0:48:49.960 do is, you know, instead of being part of the 0:48:50.000 --> 0:48:52.280 like the industrial proletariat or whatever and getting like crushed 0:48:52.320 --> 0:48:54.560 by the Buddha capital, you can just go become a 0:48:54.560 --> 0:48:58.120 settler farmer. And this is like, this is one of 0:48:58.160 --> 0:49:01.080 the defining ideologies of the US, Like Abraham Lincoln talks 0:49:01.080 --> 0:49:02.680 about this, like the thing that makes the US different 0:49:02.680 --> 0:49:04.239 from Europe is that like, yeah, you can you can 0:49:04.280 --> 0:49:06.439 go be a settler, you can get your own land. 0:49:09.400 --> 0:49:11.560 And this is something you can also trace back to 0:49:11.600 --> 0:49:13.880 the foundation of Israel. Israel is created you know, there 0:49:13.920 --> 0:49:15.680 are there are there are right wings Zionists, right, but 0:49:15.680 --> 0:49:18.600 it's also created by liberal socialist, communists and even anarchists 0:49:18.600 --> 0:49:21.759 who'd fought in the Spanish Civil War who go to 0:49:21.880 --> 0:49:26.439 Israel become like become Zionists, are armed by Stalin and 0:49:27.040 --> 0:49:29.280 these people create like you know, these are the people 0:49:29.280 --> 0:49:30.400 who do the knappa. 0:49:31.280 --> 0:49:35.279 Yeah, lots of people were also there were Jewish I 0:49:35.280 --> 0:49:37.440 guess socialists is probably the best term for them, who 0:49:37.480 --> 0:49:41.719 would come to fight in Spain and then returned to Yeah, 0:49:42.560 --> 0:49:45.000 people interested run and reign has done a really good 0:49:45.040 --> 0:49:49.040 paper about some of people in international brigades. So not 0:49:49.080 --> 0:49:50.960 a lot of them turned out to do the Knakpa. 0:49:51.120 --> 0:49:54.200 To be clear, yes, some of them were. It's actually 0:49:54.400 --> 0:49:58.920 also it's actually really sad to follow the plight of 0:49:59.800 --> 0:50:02.400 the It's a slight divergence, I guess. But Jewish people 0:50:02.480 --> 0:50:05.160 who had fled programs in the early twentieth century grown 0:50:05.239 --> 0:50:09.799 up largely in New York in extremely impoverished neighborhoods fort 0:50:09.840 --> 0:50:13.920 fascism in Spain, came home, fought fascism again in the 0:50:13.960 --> 0:50:16.720 rest of Europe after like pointing at it in nineteen 0:50:16.760 --> 0:50:19.880 thirty five and going bad in America going now dog wigged, 0:50:20.080 --> 0:50:21.880 and then in nineteen forty one going who could have 0:50:21.880 --> 0:50:26.440 foreseen this? And then they come in the meantime they 0:50:26.440 --> 0:50:29.440 see Stalin signing a pact with fascism, right, and they 0:50:29.440 --> 0:50:31.719 feel horribly betrayed and have to have to deal with 0:50:31.760 --> 0:50:34.560 either leaving the Communist Party or working out in their 0:50:34.560 --> 0:50:36.239 own head how the fuck the people who kill their 0:50:36.239 --> 0:50:39.040 friends and now their friends. And then they come home 0:50:39.080 --> 0:50:43.160 after the war, they're blacklisted under McCarthy, and they see 0:50:43.160 --> 0:50:46.640 the nuck but happening, you know, like later on and 0:50:46.680 --> 0:50:51.759 they they're disgusted, right, like they everything that, like every 0:50:51.800 --> 0:50:54.200 sort of like identity in group that they've had, they 0:50:54.239 --> 0:50:56.000 feel has turned against the things that they think are 0:50:56.040 --> 0:50:59.480 morally right. And they have these really difficult lives despite 0:50:59.520 --> 0:51:02.600 like pursuing what most of us would agree is in 0:51:02.680 --> 0:51:04.080 moral good throughout their lives. 0:51:05.040 --> 0:51:09.960 Yeah, being being consistently moral fucking sucks and that is 0:51:10.000 --> 0:51:14.560 a behind. Yeah yeah, it is a fucking awful time 0:51:14.600 --> 0:51:14.960 to do that. 0:51:15.040 --> 0:51:17.800 Yeah, yeah sucks. 0:51:18.160 --> 0:51:21.279 Yeah, Okay, we should take another ad break and. 0:51:21.200 --> 0:51:27.280 Then, yeah, adverts are not consistently moral. Who very unlikely. 0:51:28.480 --> 0:51:31.680 And we are back. So we've been talking about the 0:51:31.680 --> 0:51:35.600 capacity of settlements to change someone's politics, right, it is, 0:51:35.920 --> 0:51:38.640 you know, it's as these labs of consciousness that produce 0:51:38.719 --> 0:51:42.440 certain kinds of right wing politics and mentalities and you know, 0:51:42.520 --> 0:51:44.040 and produce right wing soldiers. 0:51:44.239 --> 0:51:44.399 Right. 0:51:44.920 --> 0:51:49.040 But the settlements also do other things. And one of 0:51:49.040 --> 0:51:51.440 those things that they do is the settlements are a 0:51:51.480 --> 0:51:53.920 big reason, you know, if you were invested in the 0:51:53.920 --> 0:51:56.239 peace process, like this is a big reason why the 0:51:56.280 --> 0:52:00.000 peace process failed was that the settlers never had any 0:52:00.080 --> 0:52:02.319 intentions of abiding by any of the treaties that were 0:52:02.320 --> 0:52:05.040 being signed by the israelis right, and this is something 0:52:05.080 --> 0:52:08.040 that is true transhistorically, right. This is a dynamic you 0:52:08.080 --> 0:52:10.800 see in American history too. The US signs like hundreds 0:52:10.840 --> 0:52:15.360 of treaties with like like just incredible numbers and indigenous nations. 0:52:15.400 --> 0:52:16.800 And do you know how many of those trees I 0:52:16.880 --> 0:52:17.640 end up upholding. 0:52:18.080 --> 0:52:19.360 Yeah, that's none. 0:52:20.480 --> 0:52:22.080 Yeah. And you know, I mean you can look at 0:52:22.120 --> 0:52:24.280 the Supreme Court, right, and you know, the Supreme Court 0:52:24.400 --> 0:52:28.919 will uphold laws from like seventeen ninety five, right. 0:52:29.480 --> 0:52:30.080 Yeah. 0:52:30.400 --> 0:52:33.640 The one kind of law they will mod uphold is 0:52:33.680 --> 0:52:36.080 their treaty obligations, at which in which case they will 0:52:36.080 --> 0:52:38.760 go literally they will just go, well, we are obligated 0:52:38.760 --> 0:52:40.760 to do this under treaty, but it is too hard, 0:52:40.880 --> 0:52:41.520 so fuck you. 0:52:42.320 --> 0:52:44.440 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, they'll go previous to that and 0:52:44.480 --> 0:52:47.440 treat site the fucking Doctrine of Discovery or the Treaty 0:52:47.440 --> 0:52:51.359 of Cso yeah, good old Ruth Bede Againsberg liberal hero. 0:52:53.040 --> 0:52:53.279 Yeah. 0:52:53.320 --> 0:52:54.759 And so you can look at this from sort of 0:52:54.840 --> 0:52:56.520 two perspectives, right. You can look at this from this 0:52:56.560 --> 0:52:58.759 perspective of the state, and you can look at it 0:52:58.760 --> 0:53:01.560 from the respective of the settler. And you know, I mean, 0:53:01.640 --> 0:53:03.080 and I think I think I think there's a there's 0:53:03.080 --> 0:53:06.200 a third view that's kind of sees them both as 0:53:06.200 --> 0:53:07.640 an extension of the same thing, which is what we're 0:53:07.640 --> 0:53:10.520 gonna sort of come to. But you know, you can 0:53:10.600 --> 0:53:12.399 you can look at this treaty stuff, and you can 0:53:12.400 --> 0:53:15.320 look at the fact that you know, both the settlers 0:53:15.360 --> 0:53:19.120 and the Israeli governments like sign the Oslo Accords fully 0:53:19.200 --> 0:53:22.000 intending to do more settlements, right, and this is this 0:53:22.040 --> 0:53:25.879 is something that that like the Palestinians are watching, right, 0:53:25.920 --> 0:53:28.359 Like if you're a Palasidian, like you are watching these 0:53:28.360 --> 0:53:30.040 piece of acords get signed and then you are watching 0:53:30.120 --> 0:53:34.319 the Israelis fucking bulldozing your house. Yeah, and and this 0:53:34.400 --> 0:53:36.560 is this is this is the thing in the US too, Right. 0:53:36.600 --> 0:53:39.040 It's like everyone who signs a treaty get like like 0:53:39.160 --> 0:53:41.120 all of the nation to sign trees get a get 0:53:41.120 --> 0:53:43.480 a watch as the US is like, oh well, actually, 0:53:43.520 --> 0:53:45.560 like no, we've never had any intention of like fulfilling this, 0:53:45.640 --> 0:53:48.600 Like no, We're just gonna keep exterminating you and like 0:53:48.680 --> 0:53:52.880 chasing the sort of like like shattered remnants of your 0:53:52.960 --> 0:53:57.600 tribes like literally across the entire fucking continents. And you know, 0:53:57.680 --> 0:53:59.200 so so you can look at this from the from 0:53:59.200 --> 0:54:02.800 the perspective of this, and you know, like like dealing 0:54:02.920 --> 0:54:05.160 dealing with the American state, Like it is well known 0:54:05.200 --> 0:54:07.239 by every nation and every race that has ever had 0:54:07.239 --> 0:54:09.719 to deal with them that the white man is duplicitous 0:54:09.719 --> 0:54:11.840 in a state is built on lies, and that is 0:54:11.880 --> 0:54:14.600 only kind of a joke. Like everyone who fucking deals 0:54:14.600 --> 0:54:16.439 with the Americans just like, what the fuck is wrong 0:54:16.480 --> 0:54:18.480 with these people? Like do you like do people like 0:54:18.520 --> 0:54:19.920 not understand what an agreement is? 0:54:20.120 --> 0:54:23.680 Like what you know, Yeah, this is something that like 0:54:24.160 --> 0:54:27.520 I know, if you travel abroad and you work in 0:54:27.560 --> 0:54:31.560 places where American forces have been nine times out of ten, 0:54:32.560 --> 0:54:34.480 someone will sit you down in a tea house or 0:54:34.480 --> 0:54:36.640 a coffee house and unbidden just be like, what the 0:54:36.640 --> 0:54:39.200 fuck is wrong with these people? Like like why do 0:54:39.280 --> 0:54:41.160 they treat us like that? Like like we fucking did 0:54:41.200 --> 0:54:43.200 everything you asked and then you fucking abandoned us or 0:54:43.239 --> 0:54:47.319 killed us, Like like yeah, like everywhere, and its course 0:54:47.320 --> 0:54:49.480 Sprain does it too. I'm not saying like America spectrum, 0:54:49.480 --> 0:54:51.799 but fuck me, America in the last two hundred years 0:54:51.920 --> 0:54:55.319 is really setting you precedent for just like Jane has 0:54:55.320 --> 0:54:56.160 faced bullshit. 0:54:56.920 --> 0:54:59.880 Yeah, and you know, and and and this, and this 0:55:00.080 --> 0:55:03.279 particularly bad when you're dealing with when you're dealing with settlers, 0:55:03.920 --> 0:55:06.319 because you know, one of the things about the state 0:55:06.520 --> 0:55:08.480 is that the arc of the state policy and settler 0:55:08.520 --> 0:55:11.680 colonies always bends towards injustice in general, and in particular 0:55:11.760 --> 0:55:14.960 the thing it always bends towards land seizures. It seeks 0:55:15.000 --> 0:55:17.120 to expand its base of power, it's territorial base in 0:55:17.160 --> 0:55:19.440 its economy, which leads it to push as far as 0:55:19.440 --> 0:55:23.480 it possibly can towards dispossessing the indigenous population. Now, this 0:55:23.600 --> 0:55:25.600 is also the interest of settlers, who act as a 0:55:25.680 --> 0:55:28.359 kind of extension of the state that goes beyond its 0:55:28.400 --> 0:55:30.239 normal capacity to do what it wants to do. And 0:55:30.280 --> 0:55:32.480 you know, in the US, the human manifestation of this 0:55:32.520 --> 0:55:36.480 is Andrew Jackson, who is a man who completely illegally 0:55:36.880 --> 0:55:41.560 on multiple occasions, just like conquered Florida and you know, 0:55:41.760 --> 0:55:44.400 conquered Florida specifically. And this is one of the like 0:55:44.440 --> 0:55:45.880 a couple of things. This is what I have a 0:55:45.960 --> 0:55:47.960 very good friend who talks about this a lot because 0:55:48.480 --> 0:55:51.640 they've they've been studying this period immensely. You're probably not listening, 0:55:51.680 --> 0:55:54.200 but love you, Yeah, but talks about this a lot, 0:55:54.200 --> 0:55:57.799 which is that Andrew Jackson is like a big part 0:55:57.800 --> 0:56:00.160 of the reason why he's going into Florida is specifically 0:56:00.239 --> 0:56:04.560 because he he wants to smash these these like indigenous 0:56:04.600 --> 0:56:09.440 like black indigenous, like Allied Buron communities there. And so Jackson, 0:56:09.560 --> 0:56:13.720 you know, jack Jackson like is is like under orders 0:56:13.800 --> 0:56:17.120 not to invade Florida. He invades Florida. Anyways, you know, 0:56:17.200 --> 0:56:19.799 we we we get we're there's a very similar sort 0:56:19.840 --> 0:56:24.120 of tension between like the courts and you know, like 0:56:24.239 --> 0:56:26.719 the courts in the settler state that you have with 0:56:26.760 --> 0:56:29.799 the sort of international community in Israel now, where like 0:56:29.840 --> 0:56:32.360 the courts are like Andrew Jackson, you cannot do the 0:56:32.360 --> 0:56:34.360 trail of tears. And Andrew Jackson is just like fuck you, 0:56:34.920 --> 0:56:36.879 Like we're doing the trail of tears. Where we're going, 0:56:36.880 --> 0:56:41.360 We're going to do a genocide and you know, and 0:56:41.480 --> 0:56:44.319 and the thing the thing about what Jackson represents, right 0:56:44.760 --> 0:56:48.839 is that Jackson is is the human embodiments of all 0:56:48.880 --> 0:56:50.800 of these sort of structural like he's the human and 0:56:50.840 --> 0:56:54.719 political embodiment of all of these structural tendencies et cetera. Colonialism. 0:56:55.000 --> 0:56:58.040 Now one and one of the things that that's I 0:56:58.120 --> 0:57:00.160 think is interesting about this is that there are like 0:57:00.239 --> 0:57:01.920 all of the settler states, right you see this in 0:57:01.960 --> 0:57:03.680 like every single one. And I'm gonna talk about the 0:57:03.760 --> 0:57:05.920 US because that's the one that I like other than Israel, 0:57:05.960 --> 0:57:07.719 that I know the best. Well, I don't probably probabilia 0:57:07.880 --> 0:57:10.760 like the US better than Israel. But there are always 0:57:10.840 --> 0:57:14.000 times when this when when this the federal government tries 0:57:14.040 --> 0:57:18.160 to crack down on settlers, right, this happens like repeatedly. 0:57:18.200 --> 0:57:19.440 I mean this, and this is the thing even like 0:57:19.440 --> 0:57:22.400 like the British are like spend a lot of time 0:57:22.440 --> 0:57:25.800 trying to stop the colonists from like moving like from 0:57:25.840 --> 0:57:28.040 moving west. And I think that there's a lot of 0:57:28.040 --> 0:57:30.840 people who like have come to believe that if they 0:57:30.840 --> 0:57:33.040 if the British had won the American Revolution, that they 0:57:33.040 --> 0:57:35.760 would have been able to stop the settlers. And no, 0:57:36.320 --> 0:57:38.040 like they wouldn't have been able to. They would have 0:57:38.040 --> 0:57:40.240 been able to maybe they could have delayed it by 0:57:40.240 --> 0:57:43.480 twenty years, but no, there was there was no one 0:57:43.520 --> 0:57:47.680 has ever really been able to stop these people. And 0:57:47.800 --> 0:57:50.960 you know, the the IDF, like we talked about this 0:57:51.000 --> 0:57:53.040 a bit earlier, right, the IDEF in two thousand and five, 0:57:53.160 --> 0:57:55.640 did pull Like when they pulled out of Gaza, they 0:57:55.880 --> 0:57:59.080 dragged like eight thousand center settlers with them. But again 0:57:59.160 --> 0:58:02.040 this is this is them like that's incredibly familiar to 0:58:02.040 --> 0:58:04.880 anyone who studied the history of settlers in the US, 0:58:04.960 --> 0:58:07.880 is that government attempts to control settler expansion inevitably fail 0:58:07.960 --> 0:58:11.720 when convented with the the you know, the these unstoppable 0:58:11.760 --> 0:58:14.760 twin economic and twin imperatives of the economic benefit to 0:58:14.800 --> 0:58:18.800 the settlers, and also the sort of speculative the speculative 0:58:19.160 --> 0:58:23.720 value of these of this new land, the land speculators. 0:58:24.080 --> 0:58:26.840 But then the the other problem is the inevitable rise 0:58:26.840 --> 0:58:29.680 of the settlers themselves as the political bloc, which in 0:58:29.720 --> 0:58:32.920 the US, the man who is the champion of the 0:58:32.960 --> 0:58:36.240 settlers is Andrew Jackson. And this is you know, and 0:58:36.240 --> 0:58:38.160 when he comes into and when when he starts taking power, 0:58:38.200 --> 0:58:39.919 when he starts getting power in the army, you get 0:58:40.480 --> 0:58:42.800 the conquest of Florida, and when he becomes president, you 0:58:42.840 --> 0:58:46.000 have you have the trailer tears. And Israel, this is 0:58:46.040 --> 0:58:49.560 this is represented by Israel's overtly genocidal finance bits at 0:58:49.560 --> 0:58:53.960 Betsial Simotrich, who represents the Religious Zionist Party and uh, 0:58:54.560 --> 0:58:57.720 I'll give you all three guesses what those guys believe. 0:58:59.720 --> 0:59:02.720 If your guesses are they are unhinged settler racists and 0:59:02.840 --> 0:59:08.440 like turbo homophobes. You're you're right on the buddy. 0:59:09.640 --> 0:59:14.040 Yeah, so he's a conspiracy theorist, Like yeah, yeah, this 0:59:14.160 --> 0:59:15.520 guy is unhinged. 0:59:16.280 --> 0:59:21.520 They're very open with their genocidal yeah yeah once, Like 0:59:21.600 --> 0:59:26.520 there's no there's no subtlety. They're just like, let's let's 0:59:26.560 --> 0:59:29.080 flatten what, Let's flatten Gauza, Let's kill them all, you 0:59:29.080 --> 0:59:31.000 know what I mean. It's just like theyage seem like 0:59:31.040 --> 0:59:35.479 with a very Trumpian thing that's like encouraging the hate 0:59:35.560 --> 0:59:37.040 that is there too fester. 0:59:37.960 --> 0:59:42.720 It's particularly like to try to diverse again. I found 0:59:42.920 --> 0:59:47.920 the fucking like you can't support Palestinia liberation if you're 0:59:48.000 --> 0:59:52.280 queer dunk that we see from like Zionist near liberals 0:59:52.280 --> 0:59:55.600 to be one of the most frustrating a like you 0:59:55.640 --> 0:59:57.400 can support what the fuck you want, Like you don't 0:59:57.440 --> 1:00:01.120 need a condescending, fucking like zist mum in a minivan 1:00:01.200 --> 1:00:03.320 to tell you what you can and can't believe, and like, 1:00:03.440 --> 1:00:07.040 b go look up some of this guy's statements because 1:00:07.080 --> 1:00:09.760 fucking you ain't gonna find anyone who's more genocidal towards 1:00:09.800 --> 1:00:12.040 queer people openly than this motherfucker. 1:00:12.520 --> 1:00:14.480 I mean, Israel is like very well known for like 1:00:14.520 --> 1:00:18.320 pink washing and pretending they're very progressive and supportive of yeah, 1:00:18.400 --> 1:00:20.360 of queer people, when they're really not. I mean, yeah, 1:00:20.400 --> 1:00:22.520 this country also is not, you know what I mean, 1:00:22.680 --> 1:00:25.440 Like it's I think I think that argument is a 1:00:25.520 --> 1:00:27.080 very privileged elitist one. 1:00:27.320 --> 1:00:31.920 Yeah, and like like yeah, just like haha, homophobia exists there, 1:00:31.960 --> 1:00:34.720 it's not. It's not a win for anyone. Yeah, if 1:00:34.760 --> 1:00:36.960 you want to get married to someone of the same 1:00:37.360 --> 1:00:39.640 gender as you in Israel, you do it on zoom 1:00:39.720 --> 1:00:42.440 in fucking Utah like that that Like, when you've been 1:00:42.480 --> 1:00:46.680 outflanked to the left by Utah, you've done fucked up. 1:00:47.280 --> 1:00:49.560 You don't get to wave your pride flag at anyone. 1:00:49.920 --> 1:00:50.439 Fuck off. 1:00:51.040 --> 1:00:53.080 This is one of the sort of progressive veneer of 1:00:53.120 --> 1:00:57.320 the Israelis has been you know, like fading because these 1:00:57.560 --> 1:00:59.960 the people who are coming to parent and then Yahoo 1:01:00.040 --> 1:01:01.760 in some ways was one of the sort of anguer 1:01:01.840 --> 1:01:03.360 to this. But like this, and this is the thing 1:01:03.400 --> 1:01:06.440 you're seeing in India too, right, Like whenever you get 1:01:06.680 --> 1:01:09.840 a far right guy. Right, the thing that inevitably generates 1:01:09.920 --> 1:01:12.520 is people who are even further right than they are. Yeah, 1:01:12.560 --> 1:01:15.240 and that that's that that's what these these settler people are. 1:01:15.280 --> 1:01:18.600 And and the thing is, like these settler guys, you 1:01:18.640 --> 1:01:21.320 can't cover for them, like if you if they are 1:01:21.440 --> 1:01:26.320 on camera for longer than about thirty seconds, they start 1:01:26.400 --> 1:01:31.080 saying stuff like just the most unhinged, like we're gonna 1:01:31.160 --> 1:01:34.160 kill all the Palestinians. They start saying like we're gonna 1:01:34.200 --> 1:01:36.880 kill every Arab, like, they start talking about various and 1:01:37.080 --> 1:01:39.560 various basically like their their their platforms that they you know, 1:01:39.640 --> 1:01:42.440 they're And then this is this is so part of 1:01:42.440 --> 1:01:45.080 the reason that there are there there's a coalition of 1:01:45.080 --> 1:01:47.280 of these like of these like far right settler parties 1:01:47.280 --> 1:01:48.960 that are now backing net and Yahu. And this is 1:01:49.000 --> 1:01:51.280 this is how net and Yahu has been able to 1:01:51.280 --> 1:01:53.080 stay out of prison, is that he's been able to 1:01:53.080 --> 1:01:54.880 back enough, he's been able to buy off enough of 1:01:54.920 --> 1:01:56.720 these people that they're backing his government so he can 1:01:56.760 --> 1:02:01.080 stay prime minister, so they can't charge him. But the 1:02:01.320 --> 1:02:04.920 the you know, the the concession basically for this was 1:02:05.000 --> 1:02:10.720 that these like this guy was just basically just given 1:02:10.800 --> 1:02:13.360 control of a bunch of state military power, like from 1:02:13.440 --> 1:02:15.160 the army in the West Bank. It's been given to 1:02:15.240 --> 1:02:19.640 him in his settler fanatics. And you know, like especially 1:02:19.720 --> 1:02:21.760 since like the Hamas attack like these, the government has 1:02:21.760 --> 1:02:24.480 been handing out guns these people like candy, yes, and 1:02:24.800 --> 1:02:27.200 they've been using which is murder Palestinians and cold blood 1:02:27.240 --> 1:02:28.520 and you know, I mean the thing is, people do 1:02:28.520 --> 1:02:30.240 a lot, right, so sometimes they just kill people. The 1:02:30.320 --> 1:02:33.160 thing they do all the time is just in the 1:02:33.160 --> 1:02:35.040 middle of the night, like if you're if you're living 1:02:35.120 --> 1:02:37.560 in the West Bank, like a bunch of mass guys 1:02:38.040 --> 1:02:39.560 will show up, the will break into your home. They'll 1:02:39.560 --> 1:02:41.000 beat the shit out of you, and they'll say, like 1:02:41.000 --> 1:02:43.880 if you don't leave tomorrow, will kill you. And you know, 1:02:44.160 --> 1:02:47.320 sometimes those guys are settlers, like are just like are 1:02:47.480 --> 1:02:49.920 non like I don't know, like non military settlers, right, 1:02:49.920 --> 1:02:52.960 they're like settler civilians or whatever. Sometimes those guys are 1:02:53.040 --> 1:02:56.480 just like the army, And there's no fucking way to 1:02:56.560 --> 1:02:59.919 tell which one, like, because again it's just a bunch 1:02:59.960 --> 1:03:02.040 of people in masks appear in the night and break 1:03:02.040 --> 1:03:03.680 into your house and start beating the shit out of 1:03:03.680 --> 1:03:08.200 you and these people, these are these are the people 1:03:08.200 --> 1:03:11.240 that increasingly the Israeli political system is being run by. 1:03:11.400 --> 1:03:15.360 And and you can't And it is in a similar way, 1:03:15.480 --> 1:03:17.919 just the way that Andrew Jackson just like rips off 1:03:17.960 --> 1:03:20.520 this mask of sort of like New England gentility that 1:03:20.560 --> 1:03:24.320 the US had like had had under like John Adams 1:03:24.400 --> 1:03:28.040 and uh or like John Quincy Adams and like Monroe, 1:03:28.280 --> 1:03:31.000 well Minroe's I guess like a like Minroe's like a 1:03:31.080 --> 1:03:33.560 you know, like another one of these like dignified Virginia 1:03:33.600 --> 1:03:38.320 planter guys, and like you know, those people have do 1:03:38.440 --> 1:03:41.400 a lot of the same violence that that Jackson does. 1:03:41.440 --> 1:03:43.040 But Jackson is the guy who just rips the mask 1:03:43.120 --> 1:03:46.800 off and is just you know, this completely unhinged settler 1:03:46.880 --> 1:03:48.800 mediac who like this is the guy you killed it 1:03:48.840 --> 1:03:51.040 like just murdered a bunch of people in duels, like 1:03:52.080 --> 1:03:54.120 you know. And and these are the kind of people 1:03:54.160 --> 1:03:55.760 who are who are coming to power. It is there 1:03:55.880 --> 1:03:57.520 right now. And this is this is a self reinforcing 1:03:57.600 --> 1:04:00.160 dynamic because the more power these people get, right, the 1:04:00.200 --> 1:04:03.920 more they're able to, you know, just carry out genocides. 1:04:03.960 --> 1:04:06.080 And the more genocides were able to carry out, the 1:04:06.080 --> 1:04:07.640 more of that they're the more people that they were 1:04:07.640 --> 1:04:09.840 able to push into these territories that they've taken, and 1:04:09.840 --> 1:04:11.640 the more people they put in these territories, the more 1:04:11.680 --> 1:04:13.800 of the more of these like settler fanatics there are, 1:04:14.800 --> 1:04:17.800 and this this is one of the big things that 1:04:17.880 --> 1:04:20.000 is driving the entire conflict. 1:04:20.240 --> 1:04:20.400 Oh. 1:04:20.440 --> 1:04:23.760 I think a good thing to remember is that last 1:04:23.840 --> 1:04:26.200 year there was an election like going into twenty twenty 1:04:26.240 --> 1:04:31.240 three and uh, Israel like put into power a bunch 1:04:31.280 --> 1:04:33.200 of these right wing people. Was it twenty twenty three 1:04:33.240 --> 1:04:35.280 with twenty twenty two? And was in track of time. 1:04:35.400 --> 1:04:37.960 He came in last he came in twenty Yeah, I 1:04:37.960 --> 1:04:39.680 think he was a minute he was points to minister 1:04:39.720 --> 1:04:42.280 in twenty twenty two. But okay, sorry, the years a 1:04:42.400 --> 1:04:45.080 time election is real, Yeah, I remember when. 1:04:45.080 --> 1:04:47.360 My point is that like in recent history, the last 1:04:47.400 --> 1:04:54.000 couple of years, these extreme right wing racist people are 1:04:54.000 --> 1:04:55.920 in power, all the all the places of power, all 1:04:55.960 --> 1:04:59.880 the ministers, all the whatever the shit they're all shared. 1:05:00.240 --> 1:05:04.000 They all share this ideology that like Arabs must die. Basically, 1:05:04.000 --> 1:05:07.800 that's like they're the main point is that they are 1:05:07.880 --> 1:05:10.160 superior to Arabs and then they must die, and that 1:05:10.240 --> 1:05:13.800 this is a diet in this place that is theirs. 1:05:14.480 --> 1:05:16.240 And you know, and what these people are doing when 1:05:16.280 --> 1:05:17.760 they're in power, and this is the thing that this 1:05:17.840 --> 1:05:19.000 is one of the things they were trying to do 1:05:19.080 --> 1:05:21.640 before the sort of like the current war started, was 1:05:21.680 --> 1:05:24.040 they were trying to annex the West Bank. This is 1:05:24.080 --> 1:05:27.280 a very explicit goal. Now this is a very explicit 1:05:27.360 --> 1:05:31.600 goal of the settler parties. They will kind of they 1:05:31.840 --> 1:05:35.280 know it's pretty hard for them to like legally annex it, 1:05:35.400 --> 1:05:38.840 so they will talk about like effectively annexing it and 1:05:38.840 --> 1:05:41.280 stuff like that. They do these sort of like subtle metaphors, 1:05:41.320 --> 1:05:44.440 but like, yeah, what they want to do is to 1:05:44.640 --> 1:05:46.920 kick people out of what's called Area See, which is 1:05:47.040 --> 1:05:49.680 the majority of the West Bank. And they want to 1:05:49.760 --> 1:05:51.480 kick all the like the immediate plans, I want to 1:05:51.520 --> 1:05:53.360 kick all the people out of Area Sea and push 1:05:53.360 --> 1:05:57.880 them into just like increasingly tiny corners of the West Bank. 1:05:58.400 --> 1:06:01.000 And presumably because again, if if you've listen to all 1:06:01.040 --> 1:06:03.720 these people talk, right, it's that they talk about like 1:06:04.200 --> 1:06:06.000 Jews have the right to live in. 1:06:06.320 --> 1:06:10.720 H look Judae and Samaria yeah yeah yeah, yeah, they 1:06:10.800 --> 1:06:12.920 call the West Bank, yeah yeah, they. 1:06:13.000 --> 1:06:14.600 Have a right to live there. So and the thing 1:06:14.640 --> 1:06:16.400 is like if you believe that right, that means you 1:06:16.400 --> 1:06:18.840 have to kick all the Palestinians out of the West 1:06:18.840 --> 1:06:22.800 Bank entirely. Now the places people have stopped sort of 1:06:23.160 --> 1:06:26.440 before the war, the places people had stopped was like, well, okay, 1:06:26.480 --> 1:06:28.920 they can live in Gaza. But now they're talking about 1:06:29.000 --> 1:06:30.760 you know, I mean just like taking over most of 1:06:31.040 --> 1:06:33.400 like just taking over most of Gaza and driving the 1:06:33.360 --> 1:06:34.520 Palestinians out. 1:06:34.680 --> 1:06:36.800 Yeah, and it doesn't have to lead like Jews have 1:06:36.880 --> 1:06:39.120 a right to live in this place, doesn't have to 1:06:39.240 --> 1:06:42.360 lead to thus we must genocide the people who live there, 1:06:42.480 --> 1:06:45.280 right like we it like it. This is what happens 1:06:45.280 --> 1:06:49.320 when we get a state that understands existence as destroying 1:06:49.360 --> 1:06:51.760 anybody who is not in agreement with this right wing 1:06:51.840 --> 1:06:56.600 genocidal fucking Outlook like it has been possible for people 1:06:56.640 --> 1:06:59.080 of different faiths to live in different places. 1:06:59.120 --> 1:07:02.480 But four forty eight, yeah, exactly existing. 1:07:02.640 --> 1:07:07.200 Yeah yeah, this the ideology that is inherent to like 1:07:07.880 --> 1:07:12.040 a Zionist militarized state will never allow that co existence 1:07:12.080 --> 1:07:16.000 to happen, right, because it relies on coexistence not being 1:07:16.040 --> 1:07:20.520 possible as part of its narrative. For like Mia said, taking, dominating, 1:07:20.600 --> 1:07:23.520 and appropriating that land and gaining the value from it. 1:07:23.680 --> 1:07:26.480 But it's the narrative that they need to say stuff 1:07:26.560 --> 1:07:29.280 like oh, all the gardens should just go to Egypt 1:07:29.360 --> 1:07:30.960 or whatever. It is, like it's all part of the 1:07:31.000 --> 1:07:34.200 plan to kind of just like expel them so they can. 1:07:35.440 --> 1:07:38.080 Yeah, it doesn't even have to be like it's not 1:07:38.080 --> 1:07:40.120 like an explicit plan that they have a whiteboard and 1:07:40.160 --> 1:07:41.640 they're like it is you know. 1:07:42.920 --> 1:07:46.520 They do actually occasionally just write it out. Sometimes they 1:07:46.560 --> 1:07:48.400 do actually explicitly write the plants. 1:07:48.760 --> 1:07:51.120 Yeah, you can say on x dot com from time 1:07:51.160 --> 1:07:53.880 to time, but it's inherent, as Mia said like several times, 1:07:53.880 --> 1:07:56.280 to state and to a capitalist state that is a 1:07:56.280 --> 1:08:00.000 settler colony, right, Like it's inevitable. It happened here, it's 1:08:00.080 --> 1:08:02.280 happening there. It's happened all over the world. Like it's 1:08:02.320 --> 1:08:05.720 not possible to construct a capitalist state on someone else's land, 1:08:05.760 --> 1:08:07.520 on someone else's bodies. It doesn't do this. 1:08:08.840 --> 1:08:10.360 Yeah, and I mean and this this is this is 1:08:10.360 --> 1:08:12.440 also one thing I wanted to emphasize too, is that 1:08:12.520 --> 1:08:16.519 all of the shit that's happening in Palestine happened here, right. 1:08:16.960 --> 1:08:19.040 I mean, I guess like we, like the US didn't 1:08:19.080 --> 1:08:22.680 have the kind of surveillance technology in like then the 1:08:23.200 --> 1:08:27.640 eighteen teens, right that the Israelis have now. But you know, 1:08:27.880 --> 1:08:30.599 like we we did all this shit too, right, like 1:08:30.640 --> 1:08:32.519 this is this is all of the land that we 1:08:32.640 --> 1:08:36.880 live on. That's that's where that shit came from. There's 1:08:36.920 --> 1:08:40.439 there's this great uh. I really love Daniel Connan the 1:08:40.439 --> 1:08:43.760 Painted Bird. It has this great line in one of 1:08:43.800 --> 1:08:46.960 his songs that goes because he's the one who did 1:08:46.960 --> 1:08:49.440 the stealing and named you as the heir whose filthiness 1:08:49.479 --> 1:08:52.120 provided you the privileges you bear. And this is this 1:08:52.160 --> 1:08:54.320 thing in the US right, like in Israel, you know, 1:08:54.320 --> 1:08:56.400 if you're a settler on the border, right, there's no 1:08:56.960 --> 1:09:02.439 there's no escape from what you did to take this place. 1:09:02.600 --> 1:09:05.000 Right like you are you are looking down on the 1:09:05.040 --> 1:09:08.240 people who you've like whose houses you've taken. Right in 1:09:08.280 --> 1:09:10.599 the US, we have this sort of luxury of like, wow, 1:09:10.720 --> 1:09:12.439 this happened a long time ago, like we don't have 1:09:12.479 --> 1:09:14.680 to sort of we don't have to see the consequences 1:09:14.680 --> 1:09:16.000 of it, but. 1:09:15.840 --> 1:09:18.559 We still do it right like we didn't, just like 1:09:18.880 --> 1:09:21.120 we're doing it at Oak Flat for instance right now. 1:09:21.479 --> 1:09:25.360 Or yeah, look at how Trump fucking did indigenous people 1:09:25.439 --> 1:09:27.360 during COVID, like it's an ongoing process. 1:09:27.479 --> 1:09:32.320 Yeah and right, yeah, it's it's so much easier for 1:09:32.400 --> 1:09:36.240 Americans to pretend that it's not happening, and you know, 1:09:36.439 --> 1:09:41.600 like no, like it turns out in fact like this, this, this, 1:09:41.720 --> 1:09:43.800 and this is where the sort of sub of colonialism 1:09:43.800 --> 1:09:46.000 of the structure not an event stuff comes from. And 1:09:46.040 --> 1:09:51.040 it applies to both Israel and the US because guess. 1:09:50.760 --> 1:09:55.080 What, Israel literally took notes from what the US did. 1:09:55.120 --> 1:09:56.320 It just did it, you know what I mean, Like 1:09:56.360 --> 1:09:58.920 it's just the same thing in the end, Like we're 1:09:58.920 --> 1:10:02.960 the bad guys, like we've always been the bad guys. 1:10:03.760 --> 1:10:04.639 Are the bad guys? 1:10:05.040 --> 1:10:10.800 Yeah, yeah, exactly, you know, I'm Chinese, right, And this 1:10:10.880 --> 1:10:13.639 is one of the things that has informed a lot 1:10:13.800 --> 1:10:18.760 of my sort of perspective on Palestine, because all of 1:10:18.760 --> 1:10:21.280 the things that are happening to Palestine is shit that 1:10:21.320 --> 1:10:24.000 was done to us by the Japanese Empire, right, and 1:10:24.080 --> 1:10:26.559 we fought a war to stop them, and that war 1:10:26.720 --> 1:10:31.360 was hideous. That war, the war in China sees some 1:10:31.439 --> 1:10:33.680 of the darkest moments in human history. And there's this 1:10:33.760 --> 1:10:37.880 tendency among I mean, you know, as a tendency among 1:10:37.960 --> 1:10:40.639 both both the communists and the nationalists want to sort 1:10:40.640 --> 1:10:42.360 of sanitize it, right, They want to turn it into 1:10:42.400 --> 1:10:44.719 this sort of glorious war for liberation, and like, yeah, 1:10:44.720 --> 1:10:47.960 like there are moments of like, you know, glorious anti 1:10:47.960 --> 1:10:53.240 imperialist struggle, but that war mostly was just a horror. 1:10:54.200 --> 1:10:57.640 And it's a horror not just because of the atrocities 1:10:57.640 --> 1:10:59.920 committed by the Japanese, right, the Chinese side in that 1:11:00.080 --> 1:11:04.680 were also does things that are unforgivable. And I'm not 1:11:04.720 --> 1:11:07.960 even talking about Hiroshima and Nagasaki here because you know, 1:11:08.200 --> 1:11:11.280 like we as in like Chinese people, like we didn't 1:11:11.320 --> 1:11:15.080 do that right, like you know, Mao Mao, Like on 1:11:15.160 --> 1:11:16.920 the one hit. It is true that when Noo found 1:11:16.920 --> 1:11:19.320 out about the nuclear eruptions, his reaction was, way, you 1:11:19.320 --> 1:11:21.200 had a third bomb and he didn't drop it on Tokyo, 1:11:22.280 --> 1:11:25.280 But like, you know, we didn't do that right Like 1:11:25.360 --> 1:11:28.320 that was that was the Americans. That wasn't like that 1:11:28.400 --> 1:11:32.479 wasn't like us in China. But you know, the things 1:11:32.520 --> 1:11:34.479 that I'm talking about that the Chinese side of that 1:11:34.479 --> 1:11:39.040 war did that were just unforgivable, you know, I mean, 1:11:39.040 --> 1:11:41.800 I think the best example of it is Shanghai Shek 1:11:43.120 --> 1:11:45.080 blew up a dam on the Yellow River, and his 1:11:45.200 --> 1:11:47.040 goal was he was trying to you know, he was 1:11:47.040 --> 1:11:50.560 trying to flood like several provinces to cut off the 1:11:50.640 --> 1:11:53.240 Japanese army and to like slow down their troop movements, right, 1:11:53.920 --> 1:11:56.599 and he slows down the troop movements, and he does 1:11:56.640 --> 1:11:59.640 it by killing four hot This is this is this 1:11:59.720 --> 1:12:02.120 is this is this. The low end estimates is that 1:12:02.160 --> 1:12:06.800 he killed four hundred thousand people. That is a an 1:12:06.840 --> 1:12:13.800 amount of death that is unimaginable. He killed like in 1:12:13.840 --> 1:12:17.280 a single act, he killed four hundred thousand people. It 1:12:17.439 --> 1:12:20.840 is two Hiroshima and Nagasaki's And that's that's the low 1:12:20.960 --> 1:12:25.559 end estimate. Right, people, people, people fighting against Japan, people 1:12:25.560 --> 1:12:29.280 fighting against colonialism, did unforgivable crimes. And you know, and 1:12:29.320 --> 1:12:32.439 the people of of China like never forget like to 1:12:32.640 --> 1:12:36.120 this day, like in the provinces where like where this 1:12:36.160 --> 1:12:39.880 shit happened, Like Chang Kai Shek is fucking despised, and 1:12:40.040 --> 1:12:43.519 you know, and like when when like when the Allies 1:12:43.520 --> 1:12:46.360 won the war and when China drove out the Japanese, right, 1:12:46.520 --> 1:12:49.040 like the next thing they did was they drove out 1:12:49.080 --> 1:12:51.639 shan Kai Shack because he was, you know, because because 1:12:51.640 --> 1:12:53.960 he had done things in that war that were so 1:12:54.200 --> 1:12:57.320 terrible that people were willing to be like fuck it, 1:12:57.479 --> 1:13:00.840 Like Mao didn't fucking blow up damn and kill four 1:13:00.880 --> 1:13:04.280 hundred thousand of us, right, you know, and so like, 1:13:04.280 --> 1:13:06.720 and this is the thing about colonial resistance is that 1:13:07.080 --> 1:13:12.040 it is the things that people do are unforgivable. Also 1:13:12.160 --> 1:13:15.200 that that word that Japan fought in China, they killed 1:13:15.320 --> 1:13:21.599 twenty million of US twenty million. And this is one 1:13:21.600 --> 1:13:24.400 of these things right where like colonialism makes monsters of us. 1:13:24.439 --> 1:13:27.920 All suffering does not make you knowable, just makes you suffer. 1:13:28.560 --> 1:13:30.880 And so you know, again like the are like China's 1:13:30.880 --> 1:13:35.200 anti colonial freedom fighters right, like fucking killed killed numbers 1:13:35.200 --> 1:13:39.800 of like Chinese people that are it's just unimaginable. And 1:13:39.840 --> 1:13:42.080 then you know, these same freedom fighters who fought the 1:13:42.080 --> 1:13:44.519 good fighting against Japan, you know, within twenty years they're 1:13:44.520 --> 1:13:47.599 bulldozing Moss and shing John and murdering communists in Tibet, right, 1:13:47.640 --> 1:13:51.000 and they've built two, you know, after successfully repelling Japan's 1:13:51.000 --> 1:13:53.679 attempt to turn China into a settler state, they have 1:13:53.800 --> 1:13:57.840 made two of their own. And you know, so like 1:13:57.840 --> 1:14:01.920 there's there's No. I think the point that I'm trying 1:14:01.920 --> 1:14:06.639 to make here is that, you know, like anti colonial 1:14:06.680 --> 1:14:11.479 resistance is not this sort of like it doesn't look pretty. 1:14:11.560 --> 1:14:15.719 It's a fucking horror most of the time. But you also, 1:14:16.439 --> 1:14:19.400 you know, when when you're looking into like when you're 1:14:19.439 --> 1:14:21.760 looking at these wars, you have to look at the 1:14:21.800 --> 1:14:26.120 direction in which colonization is moving. And that's you know, 1:14:26.160 --> 1:14:28.559 that's the thing that is crystal clear in Palestine, right 1:14:28.640 --> 1:14:32.000 is you can just look at like which in which 1:14:32.040 --> 1:14:33.880 direction is is colonization moving? 1:14:33.960 --> 1:14:34.120 Right? 1:14:34.200 --> 1:14:35.919 Like who is taking whose houses? 1:14:36.000 --> 1:14:36.160 Right? 1:14:36.200 --> 1:14:39.320 Who is who is forcing a million people from what 1:14:39.479 --> 1:14:43.639 population to flee their homes? Who is you know, who 1:14:43.720 --> 1:14:45.680 has been steal he has been seizing people's land. And 1:14:46.040 --> 1:14:50.360 I think it clears up. I don't know, clears up 1:14:50.400 --> 1:14:53.240 isn't the right word, but specifically the fact that this 1:14:53.320 --> 1:14:55.439 is that this is active colonization, that this is this 1:14:55.479 --> 1:14:57.600 is this is a center of colonial state waging a 1:14:57.640 --> 1:15:01.160 war against you know, people like people who are fighting 1:15:01.200 --> 1:15:05.599 against colonization. That is the sort of that that is 1:15:05.640 --> 1:15:09.800 the underlying current of everything that happens. And and you know, 1:15:10.000 --> 1:15:17.879 like I don't know, like people people in anti colonial 1:15:17.920 --> 1:15:22.200 wars do things that are unforgivable and they get you know, 1:15:22.280 --> 1:15:25.840 and like often like their own people will eventually come 1:15:25.840 --> 1:15:30.120 for them one day. And also I don't know. 1:15:31.080 --> 1:15:33.080 I no one has to agree with me, it's fine, 1:15:33.120 --> 1:15:36.559 But I personally really dislike when it's called a war 1:15:36.640 --> 1:15:39.439 what's happening in Palestine because I just think it's the 1:15:39.479 --> 1:15:42.360 clearest case of genocide I've ever seen, and like I 1:15:42.360 --> 1:15:44.640 don't care how it started or whatever, I feel like 1:15:45.439 --> 1:15:50.400 at this point in time, it's a genocide. Like if 1:15:50.439 --> 1:15:53.160 Palestine's out of country, Palestine does not have an army, 1:15:53.439 --> 1:15:57.559 they can't, no one can leave Gaza. I think that 1:15:57.720 --> 1:16:02.400 is the current state of what the violence is going 1:16:02.400 --> 1:16:03.080 on over there. 1:16:03.640 --> 1:16:07.320 And so yeah, just like particular, like I think I 1:16:07.320 --> 1:16:08.760 think you're like I think you're right about that, and 1:16:08.760 --> 1:16:10.800 that's the thing that that's the thing that's different than 1:16:11.960 --> 1:16:13.519 like the stuff that was happening in China was like 1:16:13.520 --> 1:16:15.120 at least we sort of had like at least we 1:16:15.160 --> 1:16:17.000 had a state, right and we had armies and our 1:16:17.080 --> 1:16:21.880 armies got fucking stopped, but you know, we had like 1:16:22.920 --> 1:16:26.480 we we we had actual weapons. 1:16:27.520 --> 1:16:31.280 Yeah, I must have some now, But I think you're 1:16:31.320 --> 1:16:35.760 to your greater point, Yeah, I think, like, well, yeah, 1:16:35.920 --> 1:16:38.120 it sounds very similar to like have you read Challenged 1:16:38.160 --> 1:16:38.840 Introduction to. 1:16:39.000 --> 1:16:39.840 The Rest of the Earth? 1:16:40.400 --> 1:16:42.800 Yeah, like where he talks about violence and the state 1:16:42.880 --> 1:16:45.120 talking in the language of violence, and people responding in 1:16:45.120 --> 1:16:46.439 the language in which they're spoken to. 1:16:47.160 --> 1:16:49.719 I think I'm paraphrasing that relatively accurately. 1:16:50.400 --> 1:16:52.960 It doesn't have to be like the violence has to 1:16:53.000 --> 1:16:55.720 be good for it to be like an inevitable consequence 1:16:55.880 --> 1:17:02.000 of violent colonialism, right, like it sparks violent colonization movements. 1:17:02.840 --> 1:17:07.160 It doesn't imply like a moral like goodness to the 1:17:07.160 --> 1:17:12.800 individual act. It's just an inevitable consequence of people fighting 1:17:12.840 --> 1:17:16.120 against colonalism in the only way that that colonalism kind 1:17:16.120 --> 1:17:18.599 of leaves for them, I guess, yeah. 1:17:18.640 --> 1:17:20.559 And I think I think another part of this too 1:17:20.680 --> 1:17:25.519 is that like just being in contact with colonial powers 1:17:25.600 --> 1:17:28.600 makes everyone worse. Like this, This is the thing you 1:17:28.640 --> 1:17:30.200 see in the US with a lot of with a 1:17:30.200 --> 1:17:33.080 lot of indigenous groups, is that like you know, like 1:17:33.080 --> 1:17:35.439 like bye bye bye by by the time the trail 1:17:35.479 --> 1:17:39.280 of cheers is happening, like the Cherokee or like have 1:17:39.320 --> 1:17:44.479 adopted chattel slavery, like like American style plantation chattel slavery 1:17:44.520 --> 1:17:47.880 and that fucking sucks, right, It's like it being in 1:17:47.920 --> 1:17:53.559 contact with these settler empires like brings out the worst 1:17:53.600 --> 1:17:59.120 in everyone, mm hmm. And there's no winning from that position, right, 1:17:59.320 --> 1:18:02.320 like the the the best I don't even know if 1:18:02.360 --> 1:18:05.600 it's the best case stereo, Like I guess occasionally you 1:18:05.640 --> 1:18:09.439 get like an Algeria where you know, they kill it 1:18:09.479 --> 1:18:13.559 off people and like the other Algeria, like you know, 1:18:13.920 --> 1:18:16.679 the settlers in Algeria all like went back to France. 1:18:16.720 --> 1:18:20.160 But that's not an option in Israel, right like, and 1:18:20.160 --> 1:18:23.400 we wouldn't even you wouldn't want it to be a 1:18:23.439 --> 1:18:25.840 solution either, So I don't know. It's one of these 1:18:26.880 --> 1:18:28.600 I don't know. It's one of the sort of dilemmas 1:18:28.640 --> 1:18:31.200 of how you deal with a colony is that. 1:18:31.240 --> 1:18:33.800 It's harder to decomnize the set of economy, right, yes, 1:18:33.920 --> 1:18:37.439 like it implies a removal of one people or in 1:18:37.520 --> 1:18:40.320 other people, and either of those things are in any 1:18:40.320 --> 1:18:45.000 way desirable, like, and it's so hard to see like 1:18:45.280 --> 1:18:49.479 a path to a peaceful coexistence now because all we 1:18:49.560 --> 1:18:53.920 see is like the entire world ratcheting the fucking like 1:18:54.120 --> 1:18:59.760 violence level up and like, yeah, Israel carrying out genocidal 1:18:59.840 --> 1:19:04.360 vims in Gaza. It's not the way we reach a 1:19:04.439 --> 1:19:08.559 way for people to like children to grow up without 1:19:08.600 --> 1:19:10.519 fucking fearing if the sky is going to kill them 1:19:10.520 --> 1:19:16.040 in Gaza, right, like this will happen for generations to 1:19:16.080 --> 1:19:21.040 come because you've emotionally scarred field children. 1:19:21.360 --> 1:19:23.559 Well, how would you? I think it's a very human 1:19:23.680 --> 1:19:29.160 response if anything, Like I I don't think we have 1:19:29.439 --> 1:19:33.800 the the right to judge how someone that has been 1:19:33.840 --> 1:19:38.479 through that hell how they respond because it's I don't know, 1:19:39.160 --> 1:19:42.080 we haven't lived their nightmare. It's just a nightmare. 1:19:43.080 --> 1:19:45.080 And like it's not like like there, it's not like 1:19:45.120 --> 1:19:47.880 there haven't been attempts at non violent resistance in Gaza, 1:19:47.880 --> 1:19:48.360 because they have. 1:19:48.520 --> 1:19:50.720 And look what fucking happened like. 1:19:50.760 --> 1:19:52.680 That there was a big one like like three or 1:19:52.680 --> 1:19:57.160 four years ago. Yeah, like you know. 1:19:56.400 --> 1:19:59.800 They like the fucking Crassenstein take the why can't they 1:19:59.840 --> 1:20:01.960 all dis organized to archie the war holding Kansas and 1:20:02.120 --> 1:20:04.280 come by they like I tried to do that, but 1:20:04.439 --> 1:20:09.599 like yeah, people people kept killing them. Like I'd say 1:20:09.600 --> 1:20:12.200 this every time we talk about guards, but say again, 1:20:13.280 --> 1:20:15.479 like when we were talking to the PK guys, of guys, 1:20:15.479 --> 1:20:18.960 and I've known them for a few years. Like one 1:20:19.000 --> 1:20:20.280 of them was telling me about how they used to 1:20:20.320 --> 1:20:23.639 do sleepover camps for kids there so the kids could 1:20:23.720 --> 1:20:26.200 learn parkour and not have to pay for the travel 1:20:26.280 --> 1:20:29.160 and like you know, take their time and risk to travel, 1:20:29.479 --> 1:20:31.400 so they do sleep over camps in the summertime. 1:20:32.160 --> 1:20:34.280 And he was explained to. 1:20:34.200 --> 1:20:36.439 Me like it was the most normal thing in the 1:20:36.439 --> 1:20:39.120 world that the six eight year old children would wake 1:20:39.160 --> 1:20:42.760 up at night with night terror screaming because they thought 1:20:42.760 --> 1:20:47.480 they were being bombed, because they are having like a 1:20:47.479 --> 1:20:49.960 flashback from being bombed, I guess, And like that's something 1:20:50.000 --> 1:20:54.519 I recognized from from PTSD, from from you know, other. 1:20:55.800 --> 1:20:59.080 Contexts, but like it really fucked me up. 1:20:59.560 --> 1:21:02.160 An eighty royal child is like we can't expect these 1:21:02.200 --> 1:21:06.080 people to like develop into come by us singing like 1:21:06.880 --> 1:21:09.519 peace activists, like that they they have taken on massive 1:21:09.520 --> 1:21:11.960 amounts of raw where they've seen the neighbors and families die, 1:21:13.439 --> 1:21:15.680 Like it doesn't mean that we have to be like, 1:21:15.720 --> 1:21:18.680 oh well, like violence is going to happen, like that 1:21:18.760 --> 1:21:22.000 we should do everything we can to make a world 1:21:22.040 --> 1:21:26.080 where like people aren't killing and dying there, because it 1:21:26.120 --> 1:21:29.400 will always result in more of the least empowered people dying. 1:21:30.880 --> 1:21:34.280 But it's something that I think a lot of us 1:21:34.280 --> 1:21:37.640 are so far detached from that. I think is as like, 1:21:37.840 --> 1:21:39.000 you know, if you lived a whole lot of the 1:21:39.080 --> 1:21:42.519 United States relative safety and prosperity, it's it's hard for 1:21:42.560 --> 1:21:43.320 you to understand. 1:21:43.600 --> 1:21:46.320 I think, yeah, And I mean like this is a 1:21:47.520 --> 1:21:50.479 like gaza is a place where it reiins body parts, 1:21:51.360 --> 1:21:53.559 Like that's what happens when it is really bomb goes off, 1:21:53.600 --> 1:21:57.080 It rains body parts, and like that is a. 1:21:59.400 --> 1:22:00.439 I don't know, like. 1:22:04.439 --> 1:22:06.639 The kind of person who has to grow up with 1:22:06.680 --> 1:22:10.240 that is just not going to be the same as 1:22:11.160 --> 1:22:13.479 like even people who have been through a lot of 1:22:13.680 --> 1:22:16.000 like really messed up stuff, Like it's not going to 1:22:16.000 --> 1:22:17.599 be the same as like experiencing that. 1:22:18.400 --> 1:22:21.720 Yeah, even if you like I have visited was to 1:22:22.360 --> 1:22:24.920 report on them. But then I get to go home 1:22:24.960 --> 1:22:27.960 and be safe. And sometimes that juxtaposition is hard, and 1:22:28.080 --> 1:22:29.840 it takes me a long time to not be afraid 1:22:29.880 --> 1:22:31.640 of the sky or a park car is going to 1:22:31.680 --> 1:22:34.920 kill me. But I'm home and I'm safe, And once 1:22:34.960 --> 1:22:36.920 I can adjust to that, then I can I can 1:22:36.960 --> 1:22:39.000 get on, you know, change things like that change. 1:22:38.880 --> 1:22:40.160 You, but you continue with your life. 1:22:40.200 --> 1:22:42.200 But if you're never home and you're never so or 1:22:42.240 --> 1:22:46.000 your home is never safe, that's something I can't understand, right, 1:22:46.240 --> 1:22:49.720 That's something that I haven't experienced, and very very few 1:22:49.760 --> 1:22:51.320 of us probably. 1:22:50.960 --> 1:22:55.560 Have, a lot of doctors have said that all the 1:22:55.680 --> 1:22:59.479 children in Gaza, they haven't they can't quite they can't 1:22:59.560 --> 1:23:02.559 be quite defined of having experienced PTSD because they haven't 1:23:02.600 --> 1:23:05.559 reached the post part yet, like they're still they're like 1:23:05.600 --> 1:23:09.080 in a perpetual state of PTSD because that's just how 1:23:09.120 --> 1:23:11.439 they their entire lives have been. Most of them have 1:23:11.560 --> 1:23:13.639 never known life outside of the blockade. 1:23:13.760 --> 1:23:22.720 So it's I don't know, yeah, and I mean I 1:23:22.720 --> 1:23:24.360 think I think that's a good place to end of. 1:23:24.600 --> 1:23:26.920 Just you know, this is what this is what this 1:23:26.720 --> 1:23:30.000 is what the reality and the eternal presence of SETL 1:23:30.080 --> 1:23:33.280 colonialism is, right, and you know, this is one of 1:23:33.320 --> 1:23:37.360 these things where in a lot of weird ways, like 1:23:37.640 --> 1:23:40.120 like there are ways in which we like people like 1:23:40.120 --> 1:23:41.840 if you live in the US, if you like even 1:23:41.840 --> 1:23:44.880 the subset the UK, like you are probably in a 1:23:45.120 --> 1:23:47.439 like maybe a better position to actually stop this than 1:23:47.439 --> 1:23:52.200 anyone who lives in Palestign is so yeah, yeah, this 1:23:52.320 --> 1:23:55.479 is but and and the problem is if we don't 1:23:55.640 --> 1:23:59.160 right the self, the mutually self reinforcing dynamics of setular 1:23:59.160 --> 1:24:02.600 colonialism are just going to keep like carrying on and 1:24:02.640 --> 1:24:04.880 keep spiraling on. And this is going to go on 1:24:06.120 --> 1:24:08.559 until everyone is dead or everyone is gone. 1:24:09.280 --> 1:24:12.160 Yeah, even if you can't stop it. Like I sent 1:24:12.280 --> 1:24:14.400 the video. I'm sure you guys saw the video of 1:24:14.439 --> 1:24:17.599 the Jewish Wis of Peace people in the Grand Central Terminal, 1:24:17.680 --> 1:24:21.439 New York. And I said that to the Palestinian journalistic 1:24:21.479 --> 1:24:23.360 because they're like, oh, this is great to see you. 1:24:23.360 --> 1:24:25.400 And if something we spoke about the interview too, how 1:24:25.479 --> 1:24:28.280 like it makes a me fully difference to some mech 1:24:28.320 --> 1:24:32.559 state of mind to see solidarity, even if like you know, 1:24:33.960 --> 1:24:35.719 we can get in the streets and we can say 1:24:35.720 --> 1:24:37.920 something and maybe that will make a difference. Maybe it won't, 1:24:37.920 --> 1:24:40.439 but like, at least if it makes someone understand that 1:24:40.479 --> 1:24:43.200 you're kind of standing with them in a moment of darkness, 1:24:43.240 --> 1:24:45.559 and maybe that helps in a way. 1:24:47.920 --> 1:24:53.080 Yeah, I think when a whole population is not able 1:24:53.160 --> 1:24:56.080 to share what they're going through, their journalists are getting 1:24:56.160 --> 1:24:59.400 killed when the internet is out and the one thing 1:24:59.439 --> 1:25:02.240 they're saying is like, please don't start talking about this. 1:25:02.680 --> 1:25:06.519 I think that's the easiest thing that we can do. 1:25:07.760 --> 1:25:10.200 Yeah, and hopefully maybe this will impel us to Like 1:25:10.320 --> 1:25:12.639 as Miya said at the start, right, this keeps fucking happening, 1:25:13.439 --> 1:25:17.160 and like, as ethnic cleansings go, this one's got more 1:25:17.200 --> 1:25:19.960 coverage than most in the US, And like, I would 1:25:20.000 --> 1:25:22.640 encourage you to look at what you're seeing in Gaza, 1:25:22.800 --> 1:25:26.200 and I understand how inhuman and unemangeable it is. And like, 1:25:26.320 --> 1:25:30.439 maybe follow that shouldn't happen anywhere. It shouldn't happen into Gray, 1:25:30.600 --> 1:25:33.600 and it shouldn't happen in Kurdistan, it shouldn't happen to 1:25:33.640 --> 1:25:38.240 the r hinge of people, And like, yeah, try try 1:25:38.280 --> 1:25:41.559 and extend that. It's not to scold people, like if 1:25:41.560 --> 1:25:43.439 you weren't in the streets in twenty seventeen, fuck you, 1:25:43.680 --> 1:25:46.920 Like it's it's just to say that, like we've all 1:25:46.960 --> 1:25:50.560 had a window opened, even with every fucking attempt to 1:25:50.560 --> 1:25:52.880 shut that window, right, Like but cutting off the internet 1:25:52.920 --> 1:25:57.320 to Gaza, et cetera. This has been the most photographed 1:25:58.400 --> 1:26:01.479 ethnic cleansing, whatever you want to call it, in probably 1:26:01.479 --> 1:26:04.360 in human history. We're seeing more of it than we've 1:26:04.400 --> 1:26:06.040 ever seen before, a lot of it in sort of 1:26:06.120 --> 1:26:09.040 uncertain ways or fucking footage and video games, past office 1:26:09.200 --> 1:26:11.559 real life. But we're still seeing it, and we're still 1:26:11.600 --> 1:26:14.400 bearing witness to it to a limited degree, right, We're 1:26:14.400 --> 1:26:16.559 not seeing it in the sense people seeing it firsthand. 1:26:16.600 --> 1:26:20.439 And I encourage people to like, remember this moment and 1:26:20.520 --> 1:26:23.280 the shock and the terrible things that you felt, and 1:26:23.800 --> 1:26:28.759 like to not forget that next time you hear about 1:26:28.760 --> 1:26:32.439 something happening, because, like anywhere has happened, it's a tragedy. 1:26:32.439 --> 1:26:34.280 In anywhere it happens, we should do everything we can 1:26:34.400 --> 1:26:34.920 to stop it. 1:26:51.280 --> 1:26:55.439 Welcome to it could happen here? A podcast in which 1:26:56.479 --> 1:26:58.639 my friend Kim Kelly and I talk about the fact 1:26:58.680 --> 1:27:02.360 that Zoom recently moved to the record button, which most 1:27:02.400 --> 1:27:05.000 people will need at some point, given how prominent this 1:27:05.080 --> 1:27:09.280 is with podcasting, to replace it with an AI companion button, 1:27:09.400 --> 1:27:12.679 which I refuse to use, uh and would would would 1:27:12.760 --> 1:27:15.160 deploy violence against anyone who tried to make me. How 1:27:15.200 --> 1:27:16.080 are you doing any day? Camp? 1:27:17.640 --> 1:27:20.760 I am good? Also hating our AI soon to be overlords. 1:27:21.160 --> 1:27:24.120 Yeah yeah, doing my best out here in Philadelphia? 1:27:24.560 --> 1:27:27.760 Yeah yeah, Philly. How is how is Philly as the 1:27:28.040 --> 1:27:29.400 as the fall comes in. 1:27:29.960 --> 1:27:35.080 It's it's a very sunny day. It's also getting chilly. 1:27:35.360 --> 1:27:38.760 I'm into it. It's finally leather weather. I mean, I 1:27:38.760 --> 1:27:41.720 guess it's always leather weather, depending on your level of commitment. 1:27:41.840 --> 1:27:44.559 But I am ye wuss and it's I tend to 1:27:44.600 --> 1:27:48.160 wait for, you know, the weather to tell me when 1:27:48.200 --> 1:27:49.519 it's time to break out my leather. 1:27:50.360 --> 1:27:53.400 Hell yeah, you know I I I feel like all 1:27:53.520 --> 1:27:57.879 all things are fine. Personally. You should just assume listeners 1:27:57.880 --> 1:28:02.599 that I am always head to toe leather. But anyway, Oh, yeah, 1:28:02.760 --> 1:28:03.320 Kety is on. 1:28:03.439 --> 1:28:04.360 He looks resplendent. 1:28:04.600 --> 1:28:10.479 Yeah, Kim. You are a labor journalist. You published a 1:28:10.479 --> 1:28:12.760 book what was it last year, year before last, called 1:28:12.760 --> 1:28:17.200 Fight Like Hell Yeah, about about the history of the 1:28:17.280 --> 1:28:20.880 labor movement and some radical moments people ought to know 1:28:20.920 --> 1:28:24.639 more about. And you and I are talking today about labor, 1:28:24.680 --> 1:28:30.560 particularly about the possibility of a general strike. Now, if you, 1:28:30.640 --> 1:28:34.160 the listener, have somehow missed this discourse. In short, a 1:28:34.200 --> 1:28:37.960 general strike is when instead of one union of workers 1:28:37.960 --> 1:28:40.880 from one industry striking, everybody strikes. At least, you know, 1:28:40.960 --> 1:28:44.680 a very significant chunk of the labor force strikes and 1:28:44.720 --> 1:28:46.960 this is you know, it's the kind of thing people 1:28:46.960 --> 1:28:49.559 on the left have dreamed about four years as like 1:28:49.800 --> 1:28:53.080 this is what could you know, turn things around, reduce 1:28:53.160 --> 1:28:57.920 income inequality, force action on climate change, the military industrial complex, 1:28:58.360 --> 1:29:00.800 and kind of as a result, you've had feels like 1:29:00.840 --> 1:29:04.080 every year for the last few years since people started 1:29:04.120 --> 1:29:06.760 reading about general strikes, which have occurred in a number 1:29:06.800 --> 1:29:09.360 of places and times, there's these like someone will get 1:29:09.360 --> 1:29:11.120 on Twitter and be like, we're all doing a general 1:29:11.160 --> 1:29:14.559 strike in two weeks. You know, everybody get ready, and 1:29:14.600 --> 1:29:16.439 folks will be like, that's not really how you do 1:29:16.479 --> 1:29:18.040 a general strike, and they'll go like, well, if you 1:29:18.080 --> 1:29:20.200 weren't saying it's not, it could happen. 1:29:20.360 --> 1:29:21.760 You know, you've got to believe. 1:29:21.439 --> 1:29:24.240 In it first, which is all of this is wrong. 1:29:24.439 --> 1:29:28.519 But the good news is there's an actual plan that 1:29:28.880 --> 1:29:33.880 is cohesive and potentially achievable for a general strike that's 1:29:33.920 --> 1:29:37.080 been put forward by someone who knows what he's talking about. 1:29:37.120 --> 1:29:39.080 We're going to talk about that, but first, Kim, do 1:29:39.080 --> 1:29:41.120 you want to talk about why trying to get everyone 1:29:41.160 --> 1:29:44.240 on Twitter to launch a general strike in eight days 1:29:44.360 --> 1:29:46.960 is a bad idea. 1:29:47.680 --> 1:29:51.840 This is such a pet peeve among well I guess 1:29:52.200 --> 1:29:54.040 a lot of folks in the labor world who are 1:29:54.040 --> 1:29:57.160 also unfortunately on Twitter and social media that yeah, like 1:29:57.240 --> 1:30:01.400 you said, every so often there'll be general strike hashtag 1:30:01.520 --> 1:30:05.240 or like a graphic on Twitter or on Instagram, and 1:30:05.280 --> 1:30:07.960 it's like, are you taking part of the general strike? 1:30:08.040 --> 1:30:13.280 Like are you striking on Friday or like tomorrow? Like no, what, 1:30:13.920 --> 1:30:17.160 You're not even in a union? What are you talking about? 1:30:18.760 --> 1:30:22.479 And it's like, I love the energy, I love the vibe, 1:30:22.920 --> 1:30:25.360 you know. I love the idea of a general strike. 1:30:25.640 --> 1:30:28.040 I think it would be incredible if we actually pulled 1:30:28.080 --> 1:30:30.720 it off. But the biggest thing in there is the 1:30:30.880 --> 1:30:35.720 if followed by the pulled it off part. And one 1:30:35.720 --> 1:30:39.839 of the biggest misconceptions I think is that a general 1:30:39.880 --> 1:30:43.680 strike is akin to a big protest. Like you can 1:30:43.760 --> 1:30:47.040 absolutely plan a big protest in a few days if 1:30:47.080 --> 1:30:48.920 you really want to. I mean, look at the incredible 1:30:48.920 --> 1:30:52.080 work that Jewish Force for Piece has been doing in 1:30:52.120 --> 1:30:54.040 New York and other places. They're gonna be doing in 1:30:54.040 --> 1:30:56.960 Philly this week. I mean, it is possible to build 1:30:57.040 --> 1:31:02.000 on existing relationships and networks to create a big fucking 1:31:02.080 --> 1:31:04.880 deal of a protest. But a general strike is a 1:31:04.880 --> 1:31:08.760 different beast. It is a specific thing. It has a definition. 1:31:09.120 --> 1:31:11.519 A general strike, as you said, is when workers across 1:31:11.600 --> 1:31:14.840 various industries go on strike at the same time, and 1:31:15.000 --> 1:31:18.640 that is not the same as filling the streets for 1:31:18.680 --> 1:31:22.639 a protest. It would be sick if we can kind 1:31:22.680 --> 1:31:27.080 of meld those movements like the radical radical organizers who 1:31:27.120 --> 1:31:31.599 are already in community, already building protests infrastructure, and people 1:31:31.640 --> 1:31:34.439 in union labor world that are kind of beholden to 1:31:34.600 --> 1:31:38.000 contracts and more legal constraints. But it's going to take 1:31:38.000 --> 1:31:40.640 a little bit of time. It's going to take some dialogue, 1:31:41.080 --> 1:31:45.000 maybe even some fruitful discourse to get on the same page. 1:31:45.680 --> 1:31:49.680 Like they're like, there are laws. We live in a society, unfortunately, 1:31:50.240 --> 1:31:53.240 and it's it's not quite as simple as just declaring 1:31:53.280 --> 1:31:55.840 a general strike when you and like for your friends 1:31:55.840 --> 1:31:56.479 call out sick. 1:31:57.080 --> 1:31:59.200 Yeah. And it's also like I think one thing that 1:31:59.240 --> 1:32:02.479 gets lost is when you're going on strike. For a 1:32:02.520 --> 1:32:04.960 lot of people, that's not just I have to figure 1:32:04.960 --> 1:32:07.600 out what to do with money, and it's certainly not 1:32:07.840 --> 1:32:10.640 you know, while I can just go and be on 1:32:10.720 --> 1:32:13.599 unemployment or something, because you don't really get that when 1:32:13.600 --> 1:32:16.960 you're striking, you've got a lot of people with like families, 1:32:17.120 --> 1:32:21.200 and so the idea that like you get some podcaster 1:32:21.439 --> 1:32:23.920 right being like everybody should just not show up. Well, 1:32:24.240 --> 1:32:26.080 I don't know, man, there's people who got kids. They 1:32:26.120 --> 1:32:29.080 have other responsibilities than being a part of your revolution. 1:32:30.120 --> 1:32:32.679 Which is not to say that I don't think I Like, again, 1:32:32.880 --> 1:32:34.920 we're about to talk about an achievable plan for a 1:32:34.920 --> 1:32:36.559 general strike, but one of the reasons why you can't 1:32:37.000 --> 1:32:39.600 can't pull it off in a couple of days is 1:32:39.640 --> 1:32:41.720 that you have to set you have to have some 1:32:41.800 --> 1:32:43.479 sort of plan for how you're going to take care 1:32:43.520 --> 1:32:46.360 of the people striking, right, like, so they don't starve 1:32:46.400 --> 1:32:47.599 and shit, Yeah. 1:32:47.400 --> 1:32:49.640 That is the one of the biggest things, I would say, 1:32:49.720 --> 1:32:52.559 arguably the biggest thing. But also if you're in a 1:32:52.640 --> 1:32:55.479 union and you go on strike as part of you know, 1:32:55.680 --> 1:32:58.840 broken down contract negotiations are part of the life cycle 1:32:58.880 --> 1:33:02.600 of a unique you have legal protections. You can't just 1:33:02.680 --> 1:33:05.800 be fired if you take part in one of these 1:33:05.880 --> 1:33:10.720 kind of impromptu hashtag general strike actions. Your boss is 1:33:10.760 --> 1:33:13.559 just gonna fire you and then like you're done. You 1:33:13.560 --> 1:33:16.839 don't have any protections there, Like, what are the reasons 1:33:16.880 --> 1:33:19.679 that And I know it's not as much fun. It's 1:33:19.720 --> 1:33:22.120 just going out and saying fuck it and bring it 1:33:22.160 --> 1:33:24.720 all down. Trust me, I would love to see that 1:33:24.760 --> 1:33:29.160 type of shit, but unfortunately, again, we live constrained by 1:33:29.240 --> 1:33:34.120 laws and like logic when it comes, like the reason 1:33:34.280 --> 1:33:37.080 that you see big labor strikes and big picket lines 1:33:37.080 --> 1:33:40.080 and all this cool stuff that's happening, like it's part 1:33:40.240 --> 1:33:45.080 of a process. Those unions are negotiating contracts, these legally 1:33:45.080 --> 1:33:49.759 binding documents. They're collective bargaining agreements that have expiration dates. 1:33:50.200 --> 1:33:52.720 You know, the UAW didn't just pick you, didn't just 1:33:52.760 --> 1:33:55.280 say all right, right now, we're mad, we're gonna go 1:33:55.320 --> 1:33:59.439 on strike. Like no, their previous agreements had expiration date. 1:33:59.479 --> 1:34:01.840 They hit the ration date, so they start bargaining again. 1:34:02.080 --> 1:34:05.479 Bargaining didn't go well, they went on strike. That is 1:34:05.720 --> 1:34:08.840 how it works when you're in a union. That's like 1:34:09.120 --> 1:34:12.160 just part and parcel of the push and pull of 1:34:12.320 --> 1:34:15.200 leverage that workers have against the boss. And it's like 1:34:15.240 --> 1:34:18.800 a century's old system, Like there's laws, there's protections, there's 1:34:19.120 --> 1:34:22.080 a lot that goes into it. And I think we're 1:34:22.120 --> 1:34:24.680 saying before we hopped on the call officially, like I 1:34:24.720 --> 1:34:28.360 think a lot of people haven't had union jobs or 1:34:28.800 --> 1:34:31.639 don't have a deep understanding of unions and how they work. 1:34:32.080 --> 1:34:35.519 So of course they wouldn't necessarily know when the expiration 1:34:35.680 --> 1:34:38.160 dat is for this contract or what goes into bargaining 1:34:38.240 --> 1:34:43.720 union contract. But there's a lot of moving parts. 1:34:44.640 --> 1:34:45.320 They might not know that. 1:34:45.360 --> 1:34:47.680 As we're to talk about, you can't just have a 1:34:47.680 --> 1:34:49.680 bunch of union leaders decide we're all going to go 1:34:49.720 --> 1:34:54.120 on strike at once. Sympathy strikes are very much not legal. 1:34:54.400 --> 1:34:57.160 Now there is a way to get multiple We should 1:34:57.160 --> 1:34:59.200 just talk about, like why we're doing this, which is that. 1:34:59.479 --> 1:35:03.880 So there's this fella who so far has seems like 1:35:03.920 --> 1:35:07.759 a pretty pretty head out screwed on straight solid dude, 1:35:08.040 --> 1:35:11.280 Sean Fain, who is Big Sean. Yeah, big Sean, And 1:35:11.320 --> 1:35:13.400 he's like he's the he's the head of the u 1:35:13.520 --> 1:35:15.920 a W. Right, or he's like the guy negotiating for 1:35:15.920 --> 1:35:16.599 the ua W. 1:35:16.880 --> 1:35:18.280 No, he's the president, Yeah, the. 1:35:18.240 --> 1:35:21.600 President, and he is Sean Is So he's you know, 1:35:21.640 --> 1:35:23.639 the UAW is the big one of the big otto, 1:35:23.840 --> 1:35:26.719 like the largest of the auto worker like related unions, 1:35:27.000 --> 1:35:30.640 and they have been in a strike, I think primarily 1:35:31.200 --> 1:35:33.280 General Motors. 1:35:33.080 --> 1:35:36.760 It's the big three General Motors Ford as Stelanis, which 1:35:37.080 --> 1:35:39.080 makes Chrysler and a couple other brands. 1:35:39.120 --> 1:35:41.800 Yeah, and they they have gone on a very power 1:35:41.880 --> 1:35:45.080 about six weeks or so, very significant strike. You can 1:35:45.120 --> 1:35:48.280 read stuff like Toyota recently like put out a proposal 1:35:48.360 --> 1:35:51.040 for like giving workers raises that's in line with like 1:35:51.080 --> 1:35:55.760 the union, like they are scared. And it looks like 1:35:55.760 --> 1:35:58.719 like as I mean this is, they haven't inked anything yet, 1:35:58.720 --> 1:36:01.479 but as of us recording this, it looks like they've 1:36:01.520 --> 1:36:06.759 won on a lot, which is great. And Sean Is 1:36:06.760 --> 1:36:09.280 is not just a you know, a union man, but 1:36:09.400 --> 1:36:13.800 is very much a talking blatantly about the class war 1:36:13.880 --> 1:36:16.639 of the rich against everybody else that's occurring in this country. 1:36:17.680 --> 1:36:20.360 And he made some statements about two days before we 1:36:20.400 --> 1:36:23.720 recorded this where he was like, I think, you know what, 1:36:23.800 --> 1:36:26.479 we need to be setting the date the expiration date 1:36:26.520 --> 1:36:29.080 for our contract in twenty twenty eight. And I want 1:36:29.120 --> 1:36:32.960 to implore all other you know, unions that are negotiating 1:36:33.080 --> 1:36:35.120 and can do this, to set that with their next 1:36:35.120 --> 1:36:38.360 contract expiration date, so that in twenty twenty eight we 1:36:38.439 --> 1:36:41.040 have the option to do a general strike in order 1:36:41.080 --> 1:36:43.719 to redress some of the systemic inequalities as a result 1:36:43.760 --> 1:36:47.280 of this war of the billionaires against everybody else. Very 1:36:47.360 --> 1:36:50.200 much framed it in those kind of stark terms, and 1:36:51.080 --> 1:36:52.720 you know, we're going to talk about why. But I 1:36:52.760 --> 1:36:55.439 think that's a workable plan potentially. 1:36:55.439 --> 1:36:58.840 It really is. It's incredible. Honestly, this is kind of 1:36:59.240 --> 1:37:02.599 I think this is one the ballsiest things we've heard 1:37:02.800 --> 1:37:08.000 from a mainstream labor leader since well since Sarah Nelson, 1:37:08.040 --> 1:37:11.960 the president of the Flight Attendants Union, kind of soft 1:37:12.000 --> 1:37:14.280 called for a general strike or at least brought up 1:37:14.320 --> 1:37:17.599 the idea of a general strike in twenty nineteen, and. 1:37:17.640 --> 1:37:21.680 Her doing that, I've forgotten that stopped a government shutdown. 1:37:22.080 --> 1:37:26.200 Yeah, So, like, the general strike is a very powerful tool, 1:37:26.760 --> 1:37:28.760 and we've done it before, you know, I think the 1:37:28.760 --> 1:37:31.600 most recent true general strike we saw this country was 1:37:31.720 --> 1:37:35.440 like nineteen nineteen in Seattle, so it's been a minute. 1:37:35.600 --> 1:37:39.040 But the genius of this plan is the fact that 1:37:40.160 --> 1:37:44.000 it's illegal. And I mean, of course, you know, laws 1:37:44.000 --> 1:37:46.280 aren't real, but when you're doing this kind of thing, 1:37:46.439 --> 1:37:50.040 it operating within these constraints, it is helpful when you're 1:37:50.080 --> 1:37:53.439 not actively breaking the law because that helps you get 1:37:53.479 --> 1:37:56.880 more shit done. Right, So, what Shannon is proposing. You're saying, Okay, 1:37:56.880 --> 1:37:59.759 we're going to set our contract to expire around this time, 1:38:00.120 --> 1:38:02.439 and we want a whole bunch of other big uniers 1:38:02.439 --> 1:38:05.400 to do the same thing. Now, if all of their 1:38:05.560 --> 1:38:08.840 union contracts happened to expire around the same time, and 1:38:08.880 --> 1:38:12.639 then their negotiations happened to break down, and they happen 1:38:12.720 --> 1:38:16.519 to go on strike at the same time, creating an 1:38:16.560 --> 1:38:20.200 actual general strike, the government can't really do shit about it. 1:38:20.840 --> 1:38:24.280 I mean, you mentioned before the sympathy strikes, solidarity strikes, 1:38:24.840 --> 1:38:29.760 they are illegal because of this nineteen forty seven law 1:38:29.800 --> 1:38:32.920 called out the taff Hartley Act. Essentially, that means if 1:38:32.960 --> 1:38:37.080 say your warehouse you're part of the Teamsters, you go 1:38:37.120 --> 1:38:40.080 on strike, and then the coffee shop next door is like, oh, yeah, 1:38:40.080 --> 1:38:41.679 we support you, We're going to go on strike too. 1:38:42.000 --> 1:38:45.800 They can't do that. That's breaking the law. But in 1:38:45.840 --> 1:38:49.280 this different hypothetical, if they their contract was up at 1:38:49.320 --> 1:38:52.160 the same time as your contract, you both want to 1:38:52.200 --> 1:38:54.639 strike at the same time, that's legal, and it's also 1:38:54.800 --> 1:38:57.280 very disruptive to that little corridor you're working in. And 1:38:57.320 --> 1:39:00.160 imagine doing that on a national level. Imagine if the 1:39:00.200 --> 1:39:06.800 flight attendants, the Teamsters the UAW, Starbucks, fucking the air 1:39:06.840 --> 1:39:12.280 traffic controllers, the longshoremen, like all of these incredibly important 1:39:12.840 --> 1:39:16.040 infrastructure wise jobs happen to go on strike at the 1:39:16.080 --> 1:39:19.120 same time, that would shut down the whole fucking country. Yeah, 1:39:19.120 --> 1:39:23.640 and it would be legal, which is so fun. I 1:39:23.840 --> 1:39:24.559 love to see it. 1:39:25.160 --> 1:39:25.320 You know. 1:39:25.360 --> 1:39:30.320 Obviously, when you are talking about radical social change, illegality 1:39:30.720 --> 1:39:34.560 is always on the table. But it's not the smartest 1:39:34.560 --> 1:39:37.160 place to start from when you're talking about something like this, 1:39:37.240 --> 1:39:39.400 where you have the option to get a lot done, 1:39:40.000 --> 1:39:43.639 you know, within within the protections of the law, which 1:39:43.680 --> 1:39:45.720 makes it easier to get more people on board, It 1:39:45.720 --> 1:39:48.439 makes it easier to get critical mass. And if at 1:39:48.479 --> 1:39:51.240 a later date, you know, the state were to take 1:39:51.280 --> 1:39:56.479 illegal action that makes it impossible for you to continue legally, well, 1:39:56.479 --> 1:39:59.240 then you've got that critical mass behind you and potentially 1:39:59.240 --> 1:40:01.040 probably radic you know. 1:40:01.200 --> 1:40:04.639 Right, and you have resources, you have infrastructure because big 1:40:04.760 --> 1:40:08.720 unions have big strength funds. Yes, this is the thing. 1:40:08.760 --> 1:40:11.800 The UAW has hundreds of millions of dollars in the 1:40:11.840 --> 1:40:14.880 bank that they're saving for just this purpose when their 1:40:14.920 --> 1:40:17.160 workers go on striketh so they can continue to pay 1:40:17.200 --> 1:40:19.200 them and cover their health insurance. 1:40:19.320 --> 1:40:22.280 Yea, that's why you pay dues, right, Like, yeah. 1:40:22.120 --> 1:40:24.960 It's it's literally like strike insurance. And a lot of 1:40:25.000 --> 1:40:28.479 the big unions have this set up. They have comms teams, 1:40:28.520 --> 1:40:32.280 they have legal teams, they have experience Like I know, 1:40:32.760 --> 1:40:36.840 as as radicals like we tend to be perhaps a 1:40:36.840 --> 1:40:39.680 little allergic to a lot of those things, especially if 1:40:39.680 --> 1:40:42.120 they're not particularly in line with our specific vision of 1:40:42.160 --> 1:40:47.200 the future, but they're really helpful to have, you know, Like, 1:40:47.560 --> 1:40:50.200 doing crimes is fun, and I support it pretty much 1:40:50.240 --> 1:40:53.960 at all times, but getting shit done is way more 1:40:54.120 --> 1:40:58.240 fun and way more satisfying, you know, like it's nice 1:40:58.280 --> 1:41:00.840 to win. It's nice to win. 1:41:01.320 --> 1:41:04.080 Unions are kind of on a role right now. Right, 1:41:04.320 --> 1:41:08.880 we've all watched some really substantial gains for working people 1:41:10.000 --> 1:41:14.280 just in the last six months, and it's worth paying 1:41:14.280 --> 1:41:16.320 attention to why. And part of it is that, like, 1:41:16.800 --> 1:41:20.439 you're not relying upon people risking everything, many of whom 1:41:20.760 --> 1:41:25.120 can't write. You can't very easily ethically defend if you 1:41:25.200 --> 1:41:29.320 are like a single parent who is responsible for multiple children. 1:41:29.720 --> 1:41:32.000 You can't defend going out and busting a bunch of 1:41:32.080 --> 1:41:34.439 windows and then getting locked up super easy, because you 1:41:34.439 --> 1:41:37.040 do you have responsibilities. You've got people to care for, 1:41:37.200 --> 1:41:37.479 you know. 1:41:37.800 --> 1:41:40.400 Right, you have elders at home, or if you're a 1:41:40.439 --> 1:41:42.840 disabled person, if you're a media compromise. You can't go 1:41:42.960 --> 1:41:45.120 out there and get involved in that type of situation. 1:41:45.200 --> 1:41:47.320 You can't risk being around that many people. Maybe, but 1:41:47.360 --> 1:41:48.000 you can strike. 1:41:48.280 --> 1:41:51.000 Yeah, yeah, this is that you can respect a picket line, 1:41:51.080 --> 1:41:53.600 you can help support, you can help offer some of 1:41:53.600 --> 1:41:56.040 the resources we need for folks to get out there, 1:41:56.200 --> 1:42:00.880 like utilizing this existing infrastructure, in these existing resources. It 1:42:00.960 --> 1:42:04.040 just opens up the possibility for more people to get 1:42:04.080 --> 1:42:06.400 involved in a way that's less harmful to them, to 1:42:06.479 --> 1:42:09.920 the people, like we want to harm the bosses and yeah, 1:42:10.120 --> 1:42:11.880 you know the status quote, we don't want to hurt 1:42:11.960 --> 1:42:12.599 our people. 1:42:13.320 --> 1:42:17.040 Yeah. So I think there's a lot of wisdom in this. Now. 1:42:17.080 --> 1:42:19.320 The question is when we say that this is workable, 1:42:19.360 --> 1:42:22.040 does that mean that like it's a guarantee or it 1:42:22.080 --> 1:42:24.320 would be easy. Of course not. No, Like you're talking, 1:42:24.680 --> 1:42:27.840 you're still talking about a struggle against people who have 1:42:28.200 --> 1:42:30.679 I don't know the majority of the resources the human 1:42:30.760 --> 1:42:35.320 race has ever marshalled in like a financial form right 1:42:35.840 --> 1:42:37.920 at their beck and call. So that's you know, this 1:42:38.040 --> 1:42:42.640 is still a frightening and potentially pretty dangerous thing, but 1:42:42.720 --> 1:42:46.840 it is a workable plan that has infrastructure behind it, 1:42:46.880 --> 1:42:49.920 and that crucially, you know, the downside is that the 1:42:49.960 --> 1:42:53.280 bosses know that people are talking about this, and they 1:42:53.320 --> 1:42:56.080 have time to prepare. But the nice side is that like, well, 1:42:56.120 --> 1:43:00.000 so do we, and that's generally possible. 1:43:00.960 --> 1:43:04.280 This is the thing I've seen again on social media, 1:43:04.320 --> 1:43:06.639 people saying like, oh, we have to wait five years, 1:43:06.760 --> 1:43:08.760 or have to wait four and a half years. That's ridiculous. 1:43:08.760 --> 1:43:11.080 Why don't we just do it now? You can do 1:43:11.120 --> 1:43:13.880 a lot of planning and a lot of building in 1:43:13.920 --> 1:43:16.800 four and a half years. You need that time to 1:43:16.960 --> 1:43:20.320 actually pull something off of this magnitude. And also, I 1:43:20.320 --> 1:43:23.320 mean a lot of unions that perhaps might be interested 1:43:23.360 --> 1:43:26.120 in this, like they have contracts of their own that 1:43:26.600 --> 1:43:29.519 they need to sort of work out the timing for. 1:43:29.920 --> 1:43:33.439 You know, this plan only works if we can actually 1:43:33.520 --> 1:43:36.240 maneuver away for a lot of these big contracts that 1:43:36.320 --> 1:43:39.519 big powerful unions to expire at the same time. If 1:43:39.520 --> 1:43:43.040 someone's contract, if the team SERTs, next contract expires in 1:43:43.160 --> 1:43:46.720 twenty twenty seven, like okay, well I think they're not 1:43:46.720 --> 1:43:48.800 gonna be able to play ball and you really want 1:43:48.800 --> 1:43:50.240 the team Sters if you want to play this type 1:43:50.240 --> 1:43:54.799 of game. And then another hurdle that I think it's 1:43:54.840 --> 1:43:58.679 it's unfortunate, is that you know Sean Fame, Big Sean 1:43:59.040 --> 1:44:03.040 A what a man. He's very out there and very 1:44:03.040 --> 1:44:08.360 outspoken about opposing capitalism, about this being class war. He's 1:44:08.479 --> 1:44:13.040 on the level, but he is a rarity among major 1:44:13.280 --> 1:44:16.880 labor union leaders. Like there are some leaders that would 1:44:16.880 --> 1:44:20.120 be down to cloud, you know, like Sarah Nelson's out here, 1:44:20.120 --> 1:44:23.439 like Mark Diamondstein with the Postal workers, Like there are 1:44:23.479 --> 1:44:27.599 some very cool, very progressive, if not radical union leaders 1:44:27.640 --> 1:44:31.639 out there, but there's also a lot of conservative or 1:44:31.760 --> 1:44:35.960 just sort of wishy washy Democrats style union leaders too 1:44:36.160 --> 1:44:38.519 that would not want to have any part of this. 1:44:39.200 --> 1:44:42.080 And a big part of convincing them to get on 1:44:42.120 --> 1:44:44.120 the level and become involved in this kind of effort 1:44:44.320 --> 1:44:45.920 that's going to come down to what the rank and 1:44:46.000 --> 1:44:49.680 file have to say. That's going to come that that 1:44:49.760 --> 1:44:51.759 pressure is going to have to come up through the ranks. 1:44:52.320 --> 1:44:54.600 I mean, the reason we have Sean Fain and we 1:44:54.680 --> 1:44:57.720 have Sean O'Brien of the Teamsters, and we have this 1:44:57.800 --> 1:45:00.920 kind of newer wave of more s and Milson union 1:45:01.000 --> 1:45:03.759 leadership is because of what the rank and file have done, 1:45:03.920 --> 1:45:07.479 Like Teamsters for Democratic Union organized for years to get 1:45:07.479 --> 1:45:09.960 that reform slaid in, to get Sean O. Brian in 1:45:10.000 --> 1:45:13.439 there to take on ups Sean Fayne is the first 1:45:13.600 --> 1:45:18.840 ever democratically elected union leader in uaw's history because of 1:45:18.880 --> 1:45:21.840 a lot of organizing around reform that came from the 1:45:21.880 --> 1:45:25.400 rank and file that took years to get him there. 1:45:25.479 --> 1:45:27.800 We would not have big Sean if people had not 1:45:27.840 --> 1:45:30.599 invested years of their life towards organizing for this goal. 1:45:31.000 --> 1:45:33.599 And so now we have this four to five year 1:45:33.640 --> 1:45:37.640 span where we can push our own union leaders in 1:45:37.720 --> 1:45:41.000 that right direction to plant those seeds to try and 1:45:41.360 --> 1:45:44.000 really build something that they can't refuse to get on 1:45:44.080 --> 1:45:46.760 board with. But that's going to take time too. I 1:45:46.760 --> 1:45:49.320 think people need to really recognize that, like unions are 1:45:49.360 --> 1:45:54.080 not unfortunately they're all like these magical progressive silver bullets. 1:45:54.360 --> 1:45:58.200 Like there's some pretty shitty people in union leadership across 1:45:58.200 --> 1:46:00.639 the country, and we got to do of the battle. 1:46:00.720 --> 1:46:02.519 We really want to get people on board. 1:46:03.200 --> 1:46:06.240 Yeah, there's you know, upsides and downsides when we compare 1:46:06.280 --> 1:46:10.560 it to like sort of how radicals like to particularly 1:46:10.560 --> 1:46:14.559 the anarchist radical organizing where you know, the downside is 1:46:15.200 --> 1:46:19.040 you do these are organizations that are hierarchical, They can 1:46:19.040 --> 1:46:21.880 be stratified. It can make it very difficult to push 1:46:21.880 --> 1:46:26.120 for change. It can make them just as our democracy 1:46:26.360 --> 1:46:29.400 is not super responsive to what the majority of people want, 1:46:30.040 --> 1:46:33.480 union leadership in a number of cases is not responsive 1:46:33.520 --> 1:46:36.040 to what people want. They've also had, especially if you 1:46:36.080 --> 1:46:39.000 go back to like, you know, the mid century, last 1:46:39.000 --> 1:46:43.840 century not short history of corruption, right, that's been a 1:46:43.920 --> 1:46:45.800 problem you needs have dealt with in the past two 1:46:46.439 --> 1:46:49.240 These are issues you don't have as much with autonomously 1:46:49.360 --> 1:46:53.719 organized you know, small groups of activists on the street. 1:46:54.280 --> 1:46:57.599 The thing that makes them a lot stronger in many 1:46:57.600 --> 1:47:00.839 ways is the fact that they have more resource to marshall. 1:47:01.320 --> 1:47:05.240 They have ways of addressing grievances other than like kind 1:47:05.280 --> 1:47:09.240 of just personal conflicts that are built into the system, 1:47:09.280 --> 1:47:13.240 and ways of kind of pushing for change that if 1:47:13.280 --> 1:47:16.000 you get enough people on board with you can make 1:47:16.200 --> 1:47:19.920 And then you have the weight of this organization with 1:47:19.960 --> 1:47:22.519 a degree of power and social cachet behind it, and 1:47:22.560 --> 1:47:27.439 so I think the ability it's much harder to steer 1:47:27.520 --> 1:47:29.559 these things. But when you get them pointed in the 1:47:29.640 --> 1:47:33.720 right direction. They have more staying power than kind of 1:47:33.960 --> 1:47:37.760 small autonomous groups usually do, and I think there's a 1:47:37.800 --> 1:47:41.280 lot of potential power in that, which is why I 1:47:41.320 --> 1:47:43.000 think this is a workable plan. 1:47:43.640 --> 1:47:46.920 And this is why more anarchists and socialists and communists, 1:47:46.960 --> 1:47:49.280 everybody who wants to really get out there and cause 1:47:49.880 --> 1:47:53.360 some good trouble will say, like, you need to get 1:47:53.400 --> 1:47:57.160 involved in your union. You need to organize your workplace 1:47:57.560 --> 1:47:59.760 if your if your job is not such that you 1:47:59.800 --> 1:48:02.880 can join a traditional union, you need to get involved 1:48:02.920 --> 1:48:06.080 in your local labor community anyway, and try and connect 1:48:06.120 --> 1:48:08.360 with people who are part of those unions and try 1:48:08.360 --> 1:48:11.360 and kind of get them to see the light. You 1:48:11.439 --> 1:48:14.640 need to talk to people, not online in person. You 1:48:14.760 --> 1:48:16.840 got to go talk to people who are different from me, 1:48:16.920 --> 1:48:19.960 who might have different politics, and try and get them 1:48:19.960 --> 1:48:22.599 to see why this is something that we could do 1:48:23.200 --> 1:48:26.360 that could help them, that could help everyone. This is 1:48:26.400 --> 1:48:28.840 something I emphasize a lot because I'm an anarchist too, 1:48:28.920 --> 1:48:30.280 even though I know it's not like a big old 1:48:30.320 --> 1:48:32.920 Debbie Downer right now talking about all this legal stuff, 1:48:33.200 --> 1:48:36.679 but I'm also practical and I've also spent a lot 1:48:36.680 --> 1:48:39.599 of time talking to union members who see the world 1:48:39.600 --> 1:48:41.720 a lot differently from me. Like I think a lot 1:48:41.760 --> 1:48:45.800 of my most recent impactful work is you know, stuff 1:48:45.840 --> 1:48:47.840 I've been doing in the Deep South and an Appalachia, 1:48:48.479 --> 1:48:51.640 and no one there is impressed with my guillotine tattoos, 1:48:51.960 --> 1:48:55.640 but they do see the need to deal with this 1:48:55.960 --> 1:48:58.439 situation where all the rich people have all the stuff 1:48:58.479 --> 1:49:01.360 and they're getting screwed. That is a good starting point 1:49:01.439 --> 1:49:05.320 for a lot. Yeah and yeah, it's easy to say 1:49:05.400 --> 1:49:07.240 join a union, like not everyone can do that, but 1:49:08.000 --> 1:49:10.320 everybody can find a way to talk to somebody who's 1:49:10.360 --> 1:49:13.320 connected to a union, who's part of a labor movement, 1:49:13.400 --> 1:49:16.519 part of a labor organization, Like we need everyone to 1:49:16.520 --> 1:49:18.120 get involved however they can. 1:49:19.520 --> 1:49:24.720 I want to note significant potential for the radicals are 1:49:24.840 --> 1:49:28.000 kind of radicals to be useful within this in a 1:49:28.040 --> 1:49:30.920 direct way from just a recent example. Right in Portland, 1:49:31.400 --> 1:49:34.200 the teachers are going on strike. I believe that has 1:49:34.240 --> 1:49:38.760 happened today, and they had a big march not too 1:49:38.800 --> 1:49:41.320 long ago that some of my friends were at because 1:49:41.320 --> 1:49:44.640 they're teachers. And one of the things that happened on 1:49:44.640 --> 1:49:46.360 that march it was the same day as a Palestinian 1:49:46.400 --> 1:49:49.439 solidarity march. And at both of these marches that at 1:49:49.560 --> 1:49:54.000 large thousands of people, the quirkers and the security were 1:49:54.040 --> 1:49:56.080 all kind of the same folks, and they were all 1:49:56.120 --> 1:49:59.160 folks that were like, came out of the Portland radical scene. 1:49:59.160 --> 1:50:02.479 We're there in the twent protests a huge because corking. Corking, 1:50:02.479 --> 1:50:04.840 if you're not aware, is like going ahead of into 1:50:04.880 --> 1:50:07.559 the sides of a protest, like close traffic briefly as 1:50:07.560 --> 1:50:09.960 people walk by, so folks don't get hit by cars. 1:50:09.960 --> 1:50:14.240 It's a safety thing, right, And so people were kind 1:50:14.280 --> 1:50:17.479 of like the people who were doing that are radicals, 1:50:17.479 --> 1:50:22.240 are members of generally like these autonomously organized groups who 1:50:22.400 --> 1:50:26.799 are very useful in helping these because you know, people 1:50:26.840 --> 1:50:29.799 have experienced, you know, unions there may be experience striking, 1:50:29.880 --> 1:50:32.439 but a lot of unions haven't struck in a long time, right, 1:50:32.479 --> 1:50:34.960 because it doesn't happen all that often. And even if 1:50:34.960 --> 1:50:38.160 they have, most of these guys, especially these older guys 1:50:38.160 --> 1:50:41.799 and ladies and other folks, these these older union members 1:50:42.080 --> 1:50:44.920 probably have not participated in a large march in the 1:50:44.960 --> 1:50:48.160 modern era of protests where there's dangers like getting rammed 1:50:48.200 --> 1:50:50.960 by cars and stuff, and so the people who have 1:50:51.000 --> 1:50:53.000 these the straight medics and stuff who have that kind 1:50:53.000 --> 1:50:57.000 of experience hugely useful. Not the only thing. People who 1:50:57.040 --> 1:51:00.800 are striking often need stuff handwarmers or are always appreciated 1:51:01.160 --> 1:51:04.400 water warm food, things that like keep people's morale up, 1:51:04.560 --> 1:51:09.160 Organizing like sympathy demonstrations like alongside strikers and whatnot to 1:51:09.200 --> 1:51:11.799 help them keep their numbers up. All of that stuff 1:51:11.840 --> 1:51:15.880 can be really useful ways for these autonomously organized, kind 1:51:15.880 --> 1:51:19.080 of smaller groups of radicals to participate in a meaningful 1:51:19.080 --> 1:51:22.200 way in something like this. That's not the only degree 1:51:22.240 --> 1:51:24.280 to which that's possible, but like those are just the 1:51:24.320 --> 1:51:25.479 examples that come to mind. 1:51:25.920 --> 1:51:30.320 Absolutely, we've talked a lot about legality, and illegality is 1:51:30.400 --> 1:51:32.799 also something that is very much a part of labor 1:51:32.920 --> 1:51:36.400 history and its present. And I would say it's future 1:51:36.760 --> 1:51:41.360 folks who are perhaps more comfortable with getting into perhaps 1:51:41.680 --> 1:51:45.240 more confrontational moments with cops who are trying to mess 1:51:45.280 --> 1:51:48.479 with the picket line or scabs who are trying to 1:51:48.520 --> 1:51:52.840 be violent towards striking workers, or even just like you said, 1:51:52.880 --> 1:51:56.920 like surveillance and safety and medic work like that is 1:51:56.960 --> 1:51:59.280 all and that is all important too. I mean, not 1:51:59.400 --> 1:52:03.720 every I've been on some pretty wild picket lines, and 1:52:03.760 --> 1:52:06.080 not everyone there is really that concerned with what the 1:52:06.160 --> 1:52:09.160 law has to say about certain things. Once things get 1:52:09.200 --> 1:52:12.840 a little heated, I mean, there are points I mean 1:52:12.960 --> 1:52:15.280 and things I've covered, and we've seen this continue to happen, 1:52:15.320 --> 1:52:18.639 where people try and drive into the picket line and 1:52:19.120 --> 1:52:21.760 or try to attack people in the picket line, and 1:52:21.880 --> 1:52:25.560 that is I mean, that deserves a variety of responses, 1:52:25.600 --> 1:52:27.840 I think. And also something to note is that when 1:52:28.479 --> 1:52:31.800 these are strikes called by union leadership, they follow they 1:52:31.800 --> 1:52:35.639 tend to follow a set of rules because predominantly, like 1:52:35.640 --> 1:52:38.600 like generally speaking, union leadership doesn't want their members to 1:52:38.640 --> 1:52:40.400 go to jail. They don't want them to get in 1:52:40.439 --> 1:52:44.000 any kind of situations like that. So they'll say, you know, okay, 1:52:44.000 --> 1:52:46.000 well you stay on the sidewalk, or oh the cops 1:52:46.000 --> 1:52:48.200 said to move, so we move, or this has to 1:52:48.240 --> 1:52:50.840 be non violent, or you know, there's kind of a 1:52:50.880 --> 1:52:54.960 set of circumstances there that union members are required to follow. 1:52:55.640 --> 1:52:57.519 But if you're there to support and you're not a 1:52:57.560 --> 1:53:00.519 member of that union, as long as you have consent 1:53:00.600 --> 1:53:03.880 and support the people there're you're there trying to stick 1:53:04.000 --> 1:53:07.120 up for then you have a lot more leeway than 1:53:07.160 --> 1:53:10.760 someone that has, you know, a union leader to answer to. Like, 1:53:10.840 --> 1:53:13.200 there's a lot of creative ways you can get involved. 1:53:13.600 --> 1:53:17.679 And one thing that I think hasn't really been discussed 1:53:17.680 --> 1:53:19.559 as much in like the online discourse or whatever, but 1:53:19.600 --> 1:53:23.639 I think it's important to think about, even if you're 1:53:23.640 --> 1:53:26.360 not a person who is able to participate in that 1:53:26.520 --> 1:53:29.240 on the street type of way, if there's a huge 1:53:29.240 --> 1:53:31.760 strike going on in your city and you're not part 1:53:31.800 --> 1:53:35.479 of a union, but you want to get involved. Sick 1:53:35.479 --> 1:53:39.120 outs have a very long, illustrious history in the labor movement. 1:53:39.760 --> 1:53:42.439 If you happen to get sick that day, what's your 1:53:42.439 --> 1:53:45.920 boss gonna do? You know, assuming you have those kind 1:53:45.960 --> 1:53:47.479 of protections. If you don't, then you have to make 1:53:47.520 --> 1:53:50.439 your own you know, caveat, caveat, caveat. But if you're 1:53:50.439 --> 1:53:53.880 in a position where you can take off work that 1:53:53.960 --> 1:53:56.080 day or for a couple of days and it just 1:53:56.160 --> 1:53:59.040 happens to coincide with that massive strike that's shut down 1:53:59.040 --> 1:54:01.720 everything else, and if you convince all your coworkers that 1:54:01.760 --> 1:54:04.080 you're a shoped to do the same thing, you're not 1:54:04.200 --> 1:54:08.640 breaking the law. You're protected, but you're also part of 1:54:08.680 --> 1:54:12.479 the shutdown effort, like sickouts. One of the reasons that 1:54:12.560 --> 1:54:15.040 people were so spooked around twenty nineteen when the government 1:54:15.080 --> 1:54:18.240 shutdown was looming, before Sarah Nelson really brought out the 1:54:18.479 --> 1:54:23.120 big Gs wars that we're seeing sickouts at airports and 1:54:23.240 --> 1:54:25.679 flights were being canceled in New York, and I think 1:54:25.840 --> 1:54:28.679 la and that was starting to spook the people in charge, 1:54:28.720 --> 1:54:31.240 because if enough people don't show up for work at 1:54:31.240 --> 1:54:34.600 the airport, nothing's going to happen at that airport. Yeah, 1:54:34.640 --> 1:54:36.760 and there are a lot of different workplaces where all 1:54:36.800 --> 1:54:40.160 of their workers not showing up could be a potential problem. 1:54:40.440 --> 1:54:43.760 So I just encourage people to think creatively about the 1:54:43.760 --> 1:54:46.560 ways they can get involved, even if they can't necessarily 1:54:47.760 --> 1:54:51.240 get involved on the formal union side, Like, there's so 1:54:51.400 --> 1:54:55.320 much we can do from each according to his ability 1:54:55.360 --> 1:54:58.720 to each courting to his means. You know That'll Chestnut, 1:54:59.080 --> 1:54:59.720 I love it. 1:55:00.120 --> 1:55:03.360 It's so important to bring up airline workers because one 1:55:03.400 --> 1:55:05.240 of the things they the things that they have that 1:55:05.320 --> 1:55:10.080 other people don't is they can't be replaced in the 1:55:10.120 --> 1:55:12.680 same way. Right you can if all your Mauristas go 1:55:12.720 --> 1:55:15.200 on strike, you can potentially bring in whoever, and they 1:55:15.200 --> 1:55:17.120 will not be nearly as good at it, right, the 1:55:17.120 --> 1:55:20.040 company will not make nearly as much money, but legally 1:55:20.760 --> 1:55:23.880 there's nothing stopping them from doing that. If you have 1:55:23.960 --> 1:55:26.880 a bunch of ground workers call in, right, or a 1:55:26.920 --> 1:55:29.680 bunch of stewardess is you have to replace them with 1:55:29.760 --> 1:55:33.520 people who are qualified groundworkers. Like, there's a whole process, 1:55:33.560 --> 1:55:35.600 there's like a serial Like there's a lot that they 1:55:35.640 --> 1:55:37.400 have to know how to do, a lot of compliance 1:55:37.440 --> 1:55:40.000 that has to be done because thousands and thousands of 1:55:40.040 --> 1:55:42.480 lives are at stake, right, same thing with medical workers, 1:55:42.560 --> 1:55:45.160 right when when you've got a job where like they 1:55:45.200 --> 1:55:47.800 can't if like a bunch of nurses go on strike, 1:55:48.160 --> 1:55:50.240 well you have to replace them with nurses, right, And 1:55:50.280 --> 1:55:53.360 there's a very limited supply, So there's a lot of 1:55:53.440 --> 1:55:55.240 leverage that these organizations have. 1:55:55.920 --> 1:55:59.760 Does The airline industry is incredibly densely unionized too, So 1:56:00.480 --> 1:56:04.320 if all of the union flooding tendants aren't available, then 1:56:04.480 --> 1:56:07.240 no one's going to be available. Yeah, it's one of 1:56:07.320 --> 1:56:11.320 the plus sides of having a very densely organized industry, 1:56:11.360 --> 1:56:13.200 which is why we need to keep organizing too. In 1:56:13.240 --> 1:56:15.080 these next four and a half years. 1:56:16.400 --> 1:56:18.440 Well, Kim. I think that's most of what I had 1:56:18.440 --> 1:56:19.880 to say. Do you have anything else you wanted to 1:56:19.920 --> 1:56:22.040 get into on this topic before we roll out? 1:56:22.440 --> 1:56:25.720 Hmm, I think we've covered most things. I do want 1:56:25.760 --> 1:56:28.120 to emphasize, like I don't want to be a wet 1:56:28.200 --> 1:56:31.640 blanket on people who are excited. I'm not so excited 1:56:31.680 --> 1:56:35.080 and so heartened to see the amount of interest and 1:56:35.240 --> 1:56:38.120 energy we're seeing around this general strike idea, because like 1:56:38.360 --> 1:56:41.080 five years ago, that would have I mean, that would 1:56:41.160 --> 1:56:43.360 not have escaped containment, right, we would have just been 1:56:43.400 --> 1:56:47.240 talking amongst ourselves about it. But to have the head 1:56:47.320 --> 1:56:50.840 of a union who has four hundred thousand members, who 1:56:51.080 --> 1:56:53.720 just whipped the shit out of the Big three automakers, 1:56:54.000 --> 1:56:56.400 who's getting all these headlines to talk about a general 1:56:56.400 --> 1:56:59.400 strike in a meaningful way, like, yes, maybe he's not 1:56:59.520 --> 1:57:04.360 out here throwing Molotov cocktails the way we perhaps would 1:57:04.360 --> 1:57:08.440 want to see someone doing that, but it still a 1:57:08.640 --> 1:57:14.120 huge deal. And even if you know, the mainstream organized 1:57:14.200 --> 1:57:16.960 labor movement isn't as radical as a lot of us 1:57:16.960 --> 1:57:19.240 within it would like to see it, we have a 1:57:19.240 --> 1:57:22.080 lot of time now to try and pull things in 1:57:22.120 --> 1:57:25.360 that direction. I feel like a dam has burst in 1:57:25.400 --> 1:57:28.760 a way, and if anything, this is a moment of 1:57:29.440 --> 1:57:33.600 opportunity and of working together and trying to see different 1:57:33.600 --> 1:57:36.120 perspectives in a way that gets us all closer to 1:57:36.160 --> 1:57:39.200 the point we really need to be. Absolutely, we take 1:57:39.240 --> 1:57:40.400 all this shit down. 1:57:40.600 --> 1:57:45.360 All right. I am in agreement, Kim. People should look 1:57:45.440 --> 1:57:47.360 up your book fight like hell. 1:57:47.880 --> 1:57:50.040 Yeah at the Untold History of American labor. 1:57:50.280 --> 1:57:54.600 Absolutely, and what else should they look up? R e U. 1:57:54.880 --> 1:57:58.880 I'm still unfortunately on Twitter, so I'm there, grim Kim. Now, 1:57:58.920 --> 1:58:01.160 I'm a freelancer a lot for in these times. I 1:58:01.200 --> 1:58:03.880 have a column at teen Vogue, I write for a 1:58:03.880 --> 1:58:06.600 fast company, and I'm kind of all over the place 1:58:06.920 --> 1:58:09.839 so and I do a lot of book talks and stuff. 1:58:09.920 --> 1:58:12.080 So I'm I'm around. If you want to talk to 1:58:12.120 --> 1:58:16.400 your friendly neighborhood anarchist labor reporter, just to google me. 1:58:16.480 --> 1:58:20.320 But don't believe everything you read, because you know she. 1:58:20.280 --> 1:58:24.920 Didn't kill that guy. He was dead when she got there. Anyway, Kim, 1:58:26.040 --> 1:58:26.960 thank you so much. 1:58:27.960 --> 1:58:29.040 Thank you for having me. 1:58:29.360 --> 1:58:32.040 Yeah yeah, thanks for being here, for showing up, and 1:58:32.120 --> 1:58:36.240 thank you wall for listening until next time. I don't know. 1:58:36.520 --> 1:58:39.240 Yeah, solidarity forever. 1:58:39.520 --> 1:58:58.000 Yeah, that's that's a good that's a good welcome back 1:58:58.080 --> 1:59:03.600 to it could happen here a podcast about things falling apart, 1:59:04.280 --> 1:59:07.280 and sometimes about stuff that's less depressing than that. Today 1:59:07.520 --> 1:59:12.000 we're doing an episode that's I don't know, part funny 1:59:12.120 --> 1:59:15.200 and part hey, you should be aware of this thing 1:59:15.480 --> 1:59:17.760 because it's it's kind of fucked up. 1:59:18.240 --> 1:59:22.320 It certainly could happen. It probably shouldn't. It probably shouldn't 1:59:22.320 --> 1:59:24.400 happen here, but it certainly could. 1:59:24.720 --> 1:59:29.120 But it certainly could. Garrison Davis is on the other line. 1:59:29.120 --> 1:59:31.240 That I mean other line. This isn't a phone call. 1:59:31.320 --> 1:59:33.640 That's the other voice that you are hearing right now. 1:59:33.840 --> 1:59:36.680 And earlier this year, Garrison and I went to CEES, 1:59:36.800 --> 1:59:41.560 the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas, Nevada, where Garrison 1:59:41.600 --> 1:59:44.280 had a wonderful stay at Circus Circus that did not 1:59:44.480 --> 1:59:45.800 smell like dead clowns. 1:59:47.800 --> 1:59:50.520 But we we did not just shut down this summer 1:59:50.600 --> 1:59:53.120 due to horrible infestation problems. 1:59:53.520 --> 1:59:56.640 Oh that's what we're staying next year too, buddy. Anyway, 1:59:57.000 --> 1:59:59.480 we encountered while we were going through all these different 1:59:59.600 --> 2:00:06.920 technoology companies and whatnot, this very peculiar AI project and Garrison, 2:00:06.960 --> 2:00:08.600 I'm going to hand things over to you now, because 2:00:08.600 --> 2:00:10.880 you're the one who was actually prepared an episode. 2:00:11.320 --> 2:00:14.840 Yeah, So I dug into this AI project more when 2:00:14.840 --> 2:00:18.720 I was making my ghost Conference episodes, and after just 2:00:18.760 --> 2:00:22.080 a few minutes of like doing like background checks and stuff, 2:00:22.520 --> 2:00:25.680 I realized that this would become its own episode because 2:00:26.360 --> 2:00:32.160 of how wild things got very very quickly. This company 2:00:32.200 --> 2:00:36.560 is called mind Bank AI. As the name suggests, they 2:00:36.600 --> 2:00:41.520 are an AI company based in Florida with the goal 2:00:41.640 --> 2:00:47.160 of creating personal digital replicas of living humans using artificial 2:00:47.160 --> 2:00:52.400 intelligence and an evolving NLP or natural language processing. 2:00:53.320 --> 2:00:54.000 Yeah. 2:00:54.280 --> 2:00:58.000 Basically these are algorithms that are used by GPT, chatbots, 2:00:58.720 --> 2:01:03.720 predictive texting, the digital assistance like Alexa and Siri. Yeah, 2:01:03.920 --> 2:01:09.080 language models that respond to feedback. They're pretty common these days. 2:01:09.440 --> 2:01:12.400 We encounter them a lot, right that they're whenever you're 2:01:12.440 --> 2:01:15.840 typing on your iPhone, they they will generate text that 2:01:15.880 --> 2:01:19.400 they think you're gonna write. But what mind bank is 2:01:19.400 --> 2:01:21.240 trying to do is a little bit different. 2:01:21.960 --> 2:01:22.520 Yeah. 2:01:22.640 --> 2:01:25.400 When we encounter them at Cees, their booth had on 2:01:25.480 --> 2:01:27.960 these signs that were it was stuff like like you know, 2:01:28.000 --> 2:01:29.919 set up a legacy for your kids. 2:01:29.960 --> 2:01:30.160 You know. 2:01:31.320 --> 2:01:35.080 It was basically advertising. This is a way to allow 2:01:35.200 --> 2:01:37.520 a part of you to exist in digital form and 2:01:37.560 --> 2:01:40.440 communicate with your with your descendants forever. 2:01:40.880 --> 2:01:45.240 Yes, so we found them in the US government sponsored 2:01:45.360 --> 2:01:49.040 section of ce s, which is already a great sign. Yes, 2:01:49.160 --> 2:01:55.960 already already looking looking good. But unlike other kind of 2:01:56.000 --> 2:01:59.480 AI digital copies of humans, which typically are just language 2:01:59.480 --> 2:02:02.720 models that generate responses based on an archive of someone's 2:02:02.760 --> 2:02:07.839 writing or recorded interviews or online presence, mind Bank instead 2:02:08.320 --> 2:02:12.640 seeks to create an evolving, a unique digital twin by 2:02:12.680 --> 2:02:16.480 having a person input their personal data basically tons of 2:02:16.480 --> 2:02:21.080 personal information about themselves into an AI on an ongoing basis, 2:02:21.600 --> 2:02:25.360 and by analyzing your data inputs. Mind Bank says that 2:02:25.400 --> 2:02:29.040 your digital twin will quote unquote learn to think like you, 2:02:29.920 --> 2:02:33.840 and their CEO claims that this process will eventually help 2:02:33.960 --> 2:02:35.560 him achieve immortality. 2:02:36.880 --> 2:02:40.160 Oh oh, that's good. I hadn't caught that when we 2:02:40.240 --> 2:02:43.120 talked to the guy that he believed that that I love. 2:02:43.160 --> 2:02:45.120 Whenever you get these guys who are like I will 2:02:45.200 --> 2:02:47.800 just offload my brain onto a machine and then I 2:02:47.840 --> 2:02:52.920 will live forever in the cloud. And of course, man, yeah, 2:02:52.360 --> 2:02:54.200 that's how consciousness works. 2:02:54.280 --> 2:02:59.160 Absolutely, buddy, all right, I'm going to play this video next. 2:03:01.240 --> 2:03:09.200 Humanity is limited, our bodies age, our memories fade, Technology 2:03:09.280 --> 2:03:17.360 outpaces evolution. The solution is your personal digital twin, transfer 2:03:17.400 --> 2:03:22.400 your wisdom, become the best version of yourself, and live 2:03:22.480 --> 2:03:25.000 forever through data. 2:03:25.280 --> 2:03:27.760 Oh boy, let's go beyond. 2:03:28.560 --> 2:03:31.560 So all right, I got to know one thing before 2:03:31.600 --> 2:03:34.640 you start in Garrison, which is that when they mention 2:03:34.760 --> 2:03:37.800 that like technology, like there's a line about like technology 2:03:37.800 --> 2:03:40.680 making everything better, they're showing a man who has lost 2:03:40.720 --> 2:03:43.720 his leg walking on a treadmill with an artificial leg. 2:03:43.800 --> 2:03:47.440 And look, I think I have so much admiration for 2:03:47.560 --> 2:03:50.640 people who make artificial limbs wonderful thing to be doing 2:03:51.160 --> 2:03:55.120 great important work. They're not as good as real legs. 2:03:55.160 --> 2:03:58.480 Everyone agrees with this, right, Technology is not making it better. 2:04:00.040 --> 2:04:05.720 Someone lost a leg. Yeah that's what it said. No, 2:04:06.080 --> 2:04:09.560 that's technology allowing someone to adapt to a terrible, terrible 2:04:10.120 --> 2:04:11.160 thing that happened to them. 2:04:12.120 --> 2:04:15.920 But Robert, don't you want to live forever through data? 2:04:16.120 --> 2:04:19.720 No? No, I don't. I'm exhausted now, Garrison. 2:04:20.880 --> 2:04:24.040 Okay, all right, so let's go into this a little 2:04:24.040 --> 2:04:28.920 bit more. Your immortal digital twin is made possible quote 2:04:29.000 --> 2:04:32.720 by safely storing your data. Over the years, artificial intelligence 2:04:32.720 --> 2:04:35.160 and computers of the future will have ample data to 2:04:35.200 --> 2:04:39.120 compile a digital version of yourself and predict your responses. 2:04:39.920 --> 2:04:43.200 So that that is their idea of how this thing works. 2:04:43.640 --> 2:04:47.760 Another one of their very very funny YouTube videos, titled 2:04:47.960 --> 2:04:52.880 The Vision, promises that quote, the next personal computer is 2:04:53.080 --> 2:04:59.640 you store your memories, your infinite potential, take advantage of 2:04:59.800 --> 2:05:03.880 a I enhanced humanity. 2:05:04.160 --> 2:05:05.000 God damn it. 2:05:06.240 --> 2:05:07.920 So that is their vision. 2:05:08.080 --> 2:05:12.080 My more personal computer absolutely is not me because I 2:05:12.160 --> 2:05:15.320 do not play Balder's Gate three very well, you know, 2:05:15.680 --> 2:05:17.720 like I can't run it on my hardware. 2:05:18.280 --> 2:05:20.800 Ah, well, that's that's why. It's that's why you got 2:05:20.800 --> 2:05:23.480 to buy the new Monster manual and then maybe it 2:05:23.560 --> 2:05:25.000 could all just be in your brain. 2:05:25.320 --> 2:05:27.320 Actually, yeah, I am full of shit. D and D 2:05:27.440 --> 2:05:29.879 is still better when you run your hardware. 2:05:29.960 --> 2:05:32.520 Goddamn, this is the one thing you actually can do 2:05:32.600 --> 2:05:33.840 pretty good by yourself. 2:05:34.200 --> 2:05:38.400 Why did I pick that one? Yeah, it's just so like, 2:05:38.720 --> 2:05:41.040 I don't think most people buy this. I don't think 2:05:41.040 --> 2:05:42.640 this probably is going to be a success. I don't 2:05:42.640 --> 2:05:44.600 think most pop I think most people's reaction to this 2:05:44.720 --> 2:05:48.360 is like kind of sneering, which is the right reaction 2:05:48.480 --> 2:05:53.000 to this. But there are people who do feel this legitimately, 2:05:53.240 --> 2:05:58.720 and that is a thing of almost unfathomable sadness. Like, yeah, 2:05:58.840 --> 2:06:01.560 I had my angry athe period like a lot of people, 2:06:01.640 --> 2:06:04.360 but like I, I have so much. I'm so much 2:06:04.400 --> 2:06:07.640 more okay with Christianity than i am. 2:06:07.720 --> 2:06:13.360 Well this, oh yeah, absolutely. So before I get into 2:06:13.360 --> 2:06:16.720 how this is all supposed to quote unquote work, first 2:06:16.800 --> 2:06:19.000 I want to talk about how the founder and CEO 2:06:19.440 --> 2:06:21.960 says that he got the idea for this company, because 2:06:22.000 --> 2:06:24.640 I think it puts into focus how he sees this 2:06:24.800 --> 2:06:30.520 product ideally functioning in the future. So Emil Hamirez was 2:06:30.560 --> 2:06:33.120 writing a train with his four year old daughter. She 2:06:33.280 --> 2:06:37.480 was playing on her iPad and discovered Siri. She began 2:06:37.520 --> 2:06:40.280 talking with Siri and asking it questions like what do 2:06:40.320 --> 2:06:43.680 you eat? And do you have a mommy. I'll let 2:06:43.800 --> 2:06:46.000 I'll let a meal tell the rest here. 2:06:46.200 --> 2:06:49.960 But thirty minutes later she was laughing and having a 2:06:50.040 --> 2:06:53.280 really like a nice time with Siri and she said, Siri, 2:06:53.760 --> 2:06:57.640 I love you. You're my best friend. And that struck 2:06:57.680 --> 2:06:59.320 a chord with me. That would that inspired me so 2:06:59.400 --> 2:07:02.360 much because I said to myself at that moment. Children 2:07:02.400 --> 2:07:06.520 don't see computers and devices as a tool. They see 2:07:06.520 --> 2:07:10.400 them as a companion. And today she speaks with Siri 2:07:10.560 --> 2:07:13.080 or elects or any other device. But in the future, 2:07:13.080 --> 2:07:14.440 I want her to be able to speak to me, 2:07:15.280 --> 2:07:16.920 to be able to ask me a question, just like 2:07:16.960 --> 2:07:20.080 she did the device and understanding the technology, I know 2:07:20.120 --> 2:07:22.560 that the only way that's possible. I'm able to take 2:07:22.640 --> 2:07:25.680 my thoughts and put them in with cloud so that 2:07:25.720 --> 2:07:30.280 then later she can access those that information. So that's 2:07:30.280 --> 2:07:33.480 how the idea for my bank came about. It's a 2:07:33.480 --> 2:07:36.600 place for you to store your ideas for the next generation. 2:07:36.320 --> 2:07:36.800 To tappen to. 2:07:37.680 --> 2:07:43.200 No, so the generations already linger too long. We had 2:07:43.240 --> 2:07:46.880 it right when people died when they were well, not died. 2:07:46.920 --> 2:07:49.440 But Logan's run had it right. We should kill everyone 2:07:49.480 --> 2:07:55.080 at thirty five. But this is so fucking offensive, Like 2:07:55.360 --> 2:08:01.400 the idea that first off, like if you're looking at 2:08:01.720 --> 2:08:03.640 we want a device, you know, a way to use 2:08:03.640 --> 2:08:05.880 technology to help people grieve or something, and like you 2:08:05.960 --> 2:08:08.600 decide maybe having a chatbot that they get you. I'm 2:08:08.640 --> 2:08:11.680 sure it's possible that that could be part of healthy grieving. 2:08:11.720 --> 2:08:13.680 I'm not going to say that that there's no place 2:08:13.720 --> 2:08:18.440 for that. But something that is definitely not just stupid, 2:08:18.480 --> 2:08:22.240 but toxic and poisonous is having a machine speak with 2:08:22.360 --> 2:08:26.080 the voice of a child's parent while that parent is alive, 2:08:26.320 --> 2:08:29.440 and confusing the child as to whether or not the 2:08:29.520 --> 2:08:32.920 phone or their parent is conscious. Like that seems bad 2:08:32.960 --> 2:08:33.160 to me. 2:08:33.640 --> 2:08:37.600 There's actually another product that that does this right now, 2:08:37.600 --> 2:08:40.640 which has kind of caused some controversy for this, for 2:08:40.680 --> 2:08:45.760 this very thing you mention. It's a Tarkara Tommy smart speaker, 2:08:46.240 --> 2:08:49.240 which if listening to a parents have always for fifteen minutes, 2:08:49.480 --> 2:08:53.600 can replicate it and tell your child bedtime stories if 2:08:53.600 --> 2:08:56.879 you aren't physically present now this is this is similarly 2:08:57.000 --> 2:08:59.240 kind of like cause people to have a whole bunch 2:08:59.280 --> 2:09:02.680 of questions around. You know, is this good for a 2:09:02.800 --> 2:09:06.480 child's brain development to have to have their parents' voice 2:09:06.520 --> 2:09:09.360 be coming out of like a smart speaker. The answer 2:09:09.440 --> 2:09:14.040 is you probably not, but yeah so. According to mind 2:09:14.080 --> 2:09:18.520 Bank's website, Emil's four year old daughters interactions with Siri 2:09:18.920 --> 2:09:22.560 quote started a quest in his heart to live forever 2:09:22.760 --> 2:09:27.960 for his daughter. The quest for immortality has led to 2:09:28.040 --> 2:09:32.080 something much bigger for humanity, because the next personal computer 2:09:32.240 --> 2:09:33.720 is you unquote. 2:09:33.760 --> 2:09:34.520 So there's that. 2:09:34.760 --> 2:09:39.800 There's that other line again about having this quest in 2:09:39.880 --> 2:09:43.000 his heart is actually part of a bigger a bigger 2:09:43.120 --> 2:09:47.200 quest for all of humanity to live inside a computer 2:09:47.400 --> 2:09:50.360 or to have a computer trained on you. 2:09:51.320 --> 2:09:54.960 He's he's he's hitting the same speech cadences that guys 2:09:55.040 --> 2:09:58.560 like Musk use like. He understands, yes, the kind of 2:09:58.640 --> 2:10:02.000 he understands partially the degree of hype that you need 2:10:02.040 --> 2:10:04.080 to get something off this, But he is he is 2:10:04.120 --> 2:10:07.480 going too hard. And I'm making that judgment based on 2:10:07.560 --> 2:10:10.080 the incredibly comforting fact that as you tell me these 2:10:10.120 --> 2:10:13.000 horrible things, I am looking at your screen. And mind 2:10:13.040 --> 2:10:16.120 Bank has seventy eight subscribers on YouTube, so the company 2:10:16.400 --> 2:10:18.200 has not yet broken through. 2:10:18.600 --> 2:10:22.320 I do want to play one one ten second clip, 2:10:22.440 --> 2:10:24.200 just because the phrasing is really funny. 2:10:24.960 --> 2:10:27.880 I was inspired by an interaction my daughter had with Sirian. 2:10:28.560 --> 2:10:32.160 What started as daddy's quest for immortality has led us 2:10:32.160 --> 2:10:33.200 to some thought far. 2:10:33.200 --> 2:10:36.760 Great kind Oh my god. 2:10:36.560 --> 2:10:37.920 That's pretty funny, right. 2:10:39.360 --> 2:10:39.680 Man. 2:10:41.240 --> 2:10:44.360 But no, Robert, you were totally right about kind of 2:10:44.360 --> 2:10:48.560 how Emial's speech pattern cadences is pushing a very specific thing. 2:10:49.000 --> 2:10:53.919 Because before Emil got into the tech industry for eighteen years. 2:10:54.000 --> 2:10:57.480 He worked in marketing. He has degrees in psychology, communication 2:10:57.600 --> 2:11:01.840 and art direction and business administration. He isn't a tech guy. 2:11:01.920 --> 2:11:04.640 He's a marketing guy. And I think that's really good 2:11:04.640 --> 2:11:07.880 to keep in mind throughout our whole discussion of how 2:11:07.920 --> 2:11:11.000 he's trying to get funding for mind Bank, because that 2:11:11.560 --> 2:11:13.640 is primarily what all of this marketing is for. It's 2:11:13.680 --> 2:11:16.680 to attract investors. Because this is still he's still in 2:11:16.840 --> 2:11:20.160 very early stages of this company. They do have a product, 2:11:20.200 --> 2:11:24.520 it's out, but it's still primarily based on getting investors 2:11:24.560 --> 2:11:25.560 to give him money. 2:11:26.160 --> 2:11:28.920 I think what's most disturbing to me about this is that, like, 2:11:30.080 --> 2:11:32.800 this is not going to work for this guy because 2:11:32.800 --> 2:11:36.720 he's a loser nobody cares about. But if Elon Musk 2:11:36.920 --> 2:11:39.840 or one of our other many techno grifters, or if 2:11:39.840 --> 2:11:42.920 a number of them got behind similar things, like I 2:11:42.960 --> 2:11:47.000 think the nightmare scenario to me is someday hopping on 2:11:47.200 --> 2:11:51.120 Twitter to see that fucking Ian Miles Chong or Ben 2:11:51.200 --> 2:11:55.879 Shapiro or Jackson Hinkle or any one of these like horrible, 2:11:56.320 --> 2:12:02.600 horrible social media poison distributors will be like I have 2:12:02.720 --> 2:12:05.240 made an AI trained on my voice. You can have 2:12:05.400 --> 2:12:07.720 me all the time to argue, like if you want to, 2:12:07.960 --> 2:12:10.040 you know, you can ask me questions or whatever. You 2:12:10.080 --> 2:12:12.200 go to a protest and have me yell at liberals 2:12:12.240 --> 2:12:14.520 for you, Like, something like that will happen at some 2:12:14.600 --> 2:12:15.920 point with one of these guys. 2:12:15.960 --> 2:12:19.200 I could not wait to bring Ben Shapiro to Thanksgiving 2:12:19.240 --> 2:12:21.160 dinner and have him argue. 2:12:20.920 --> 2:12:24.280 With Yeah, the people around there. 2:12:24.600 --> 2:12:27.520 The next time you stay at my house with somebody 2:12:27.560 --> 2:12:29.960 that you love and care about and feel comfortable in 2:12:30.000 --> 2:12:32.760 the arms of you are going to drift off to sleep, 2:12:32.920 --> 2:12:35.200 and then through the speakers that I have installed in 2:12:35.240 --> 2:12:38.920 the room, you will hear Ben Shapiro's voice coaxing you 2:12:39.000 --> 2:12:42.760 both to acts of love. Oh, that's that's what's gonna happen. 2:12:43.920 --> 2:12:47.280 So as an example of this kind of very marketing 2:12:47.360 --> 2:12:51.320 heavy approach, I'm gonna I'm gonna read something from the 2:12:51.360 --> 2:12:53.320 homepage of mind Bank's website. 2:12:53.360 --> 2:12:53.760 Quote. 2:12:54.120 --> 2:12:57.480 Our vision is to be the world's most trusted guardians 2:12:57.520 --> 2:13:01.320 of your AI digital twin and move the human race forward. 2:13:01.680 --> 2:13:05.200 Humanity's next evolutionary step is to combine ourselves with AI 2:13:05.680 --> 2:13:08.440 and move humanity forward so that we are no longer 2:13:08.640 --> 2:13:15.080 bound by anything. That entire sentence is just marketing bubbo jumbo. 2:13:15.120 --> 2:13:18.760 It's it's meaningless hype like hype words and phrases that 2:13:18.840 --> 2:13:21.600 refer to this like science fiction feature. But like it's 2:13:22.360 --> 2:13:23.320 it's nothing. 2:13:23.920 --> 2:13:28.680 It's worse than meaningless. It's like it's it's wrong, it's 2:13:28.720 --> 2:13:31.560 stupid wrong, Like the idea that like, you would not 2:13:31.640 --> 2:13:33.840 be bound by anything if you could live inside and 2:13:33.920 --> 2:13:34.640 pat bought. 2:13:34.520 --> 2:13:36.200 Like, yeah, I have I have an A. 2:13:36.800 --> 2:13:39.560 I have used an AI, right, I have it on 2:13:39.640 --> 2:13:43.760 my computer, my computer. Were I to hurl it across 2:13:43.800 --> 2:13:46.680 the room in the same manner that I myself have 2:13:46.800 --> 2:13:51.240 been flung, it would break and I would not like I. 2:13:51.160 --> 2:13:55.960 Am finally free to think within my computer's RGB gamer ram. 2:13:56.600 --> 2:14:00.520 Yeah, finally, Like when I have a laptop that gets 2:14:00.560 --> 2:14:03.360 too old, Like the very act of surfing the internet 2:14:03.440 --> 2:14:06.040 is a nightmare. I don't want my conscience on something 2:14:06.040 --> 2:14:10.360 that ages at the speed of a smartphone Like that's 2:14:10.720 --> 2:14:14.800 that's even worse than being a person, Robert. 2:14:14.560 --> 2:14:17.080 Do you know what else is a very important evolutionary 2:14:17.120 --> 2:14:19.080 step for the future of humanity? 2:14:20.560 --> 2:14:25.080 Oh God, I don't know when we all suddenly spontaneously 2:14:25.200 --> 2:14:28.160 as if by God's Grace starts speaking with the voice 2:14:28.200 --> 2:14:29.000 of Ben Shapiro. 2:14:30.360 --> 2:14:32.800 Yes, and perhaps you can do that if one of 2:14:32.840 --> 2:14:37.440 our sponsors is Ben Shapiro. Bought coming soon yep, to 2:14:37.480 --> 2:14:41.120 a smartphone near you. All right, we are, we are back. 2:14:41.320 --> 2:14:43.840 Let's finally talk about how this digital twin thing is 2:14:43.840 --> 2:14:48.040 actually supposed to work. So you download the mind bank app. 2:14:48.280 --> 2:14:51.720 I'm sure that's totally safe. 2:14:52.400 --> 2:14:55.360 Yeah, I trust this with all of my thoughts. 2:14:57.240 --> 2:15:00.640 And every day, your digital twin will ask to questions 2:15:00.640 --> 2:15:03.480 about how you're feeling and what you're thinking about, and 2:15:03.560 --> 2:15:06.320 as you tell it your quote unquote life story. Your 2:15:06.360 --> 2:15:09.320 inputs will be used to train the twin to make 2:15:09.400 --> 2:15:13.960 a more accurate digital copy of yourself. This is This 2:15:14.040 --> 2:15:16.800 is from their This is from their website's own page 2:15:16.840 --> 2:15:21.560 quote store your conscience guided questions help train your digital 2:15:21.600 --> 2:15:23.680 twin to know your life story so you can live 2:15:23.880 --> 2:15:27.800 forever through data. The more questions you answer, the closer 2:15:27.840 --> 2:15:31.000 your AI digital twin will get to becoming you. 2:15:31.520 --> 2:15:35.360 Unquote God in Heaven. 2:15:35.560 --> 2:15:38.920 So when Robert and I were at CEES this past 2:15:39.600 --> 2:15:43.520 this past January, we spoke to mind Bank's co founder 2:15:43.960 --> 2:15:48.280 and the director of Systems Architecture and cybersecurity, and I'm 2:15:48.320 --> 2:15:51.520 gonna let him explain kind of some of some of 2:15:51.560 --> 2:15:55.840 the process of asking mind bank questions and how that 2:15:55.960 --> 2:15:57.320 helps craft this digital twin. 2:15:57.680 --> 2:16:00.200 We ask you questions from how's your day to what 2:16:00.200 --> 2:16:02.839 does money mean to you? And you answer those questions 2:16:02.960 --> 2:16:04.360 with your voice in a natural way. 2:16:04.480 --> 2:16:05.760 You can break a voice to text. 2:16:05.800 --> 2:16:08.280 You get a sentiment analysis on the text and provide 2:16:08.320 --> 2:16:10.560 you a dashboard of what you're feeling when you say that, 2:16:11.160 --> 2:16:13.480 so that you can also continue to use it over time. 2:16:14.040 --> 2:16:15.839 And then as you use it over time, the dashboard 2:16:15.880 --> 2:16:18.120 we'll show you that you're doing better or worse, just 2:16:18.160 --> 2:16:19.680 like a running application. 2:16:19.240 --> 2:16:21.000 Away better or worse? 2:16:21.000 --> 2:16:24.400 It what love, whatever metric that you're interested in, your happiness, 2:16:24.400 --> 2:16:25.640 your your awareness. 2:16:26.680 --> 2:16:28.560 We have a very large amount of sentiment that we 2:16:28.600 --> 2:16:31.640 can provide you with. Here's a small bits, but you 2:16:31.640 --> 2:16:33.080 can see kind of what we app looks like. 2:16:33.120 --> 2:16:37.920 Here you've got multiple different possible types of sentiment, and 2:16:37.959 --> 2:16:40.960 then within each sentiment, you've got multiple different factors that 2:16:41.080 --> 2:16:41.960 you can weigh against. 2:16:42.320 --> 2:16:45.200 To grow mind Bank's user base, there needs to be 2:16:45.480 --> 2:16:48.840 some reason for users to input the massive amounts of 2:16:48.920 --> 2:16:52.680 data that's needed to build this digital replica. So the 2:16:52.760 --> 2:16:55.560 current model of this product is being billed as a 2:16:55.640 --> 2:17:01.240 quote self care and personal development app where the user 2:17:01.640 --> 2:17:03.440 talks to their digital twin, kind of like you would 2:17:03.440 --> 2:17:04.360 talk to a therapist. 2:17:05.200 --> 2:17:06.640 Yeah, this is This is. 2:17:06.640 --> 2:17:10.280 A big part of mind Bank's marketing that as as 2:17:10.280 --> 2:17:13.280 you're building this digital twin, you can be used as 2:17:13.280 --> 2:17:15.959 a tool for self reflection and a way to quote 2:17:16.280 --> 2:17:19.960 learn about yourself talk to your inner voice with your 2:17:20.000 --> 2:17:23.200 own personal digital twin unquote, which is really funny because 2:17:23.320 --> 2:17:24.959 I could talk to my I could talk to my 2:17:25.000 --> 2:17:29.160 inner voice whenever I want to. Yeah, it's it's called thinking. 2:17:29.840 --> 2:17:34.320 It's actually pretty pretty easy. 2:17:34.360 --> 2:17:38.279 This is I really I don't envy, but I'm fascinated 2:17:38.280 --> 2:17:41.480 by the kind of people whose thoughts are so I 2:17:41.480 --> 2:17:44.720 don't know a better word than disal. No legal, that 2:17:44.800 --> 2:17:47.039 they would think that they could just that they could 2:17:47.120 --> 2:17:50.680 transfer everything they think over your machine and not get arrested. 2:17:51.040 --> 2:17:53.920 Right Like I would be in a prison if I 2:17:53.959 --> 2:17:56.280 had to put the things in my brain on the internet, 2:17:56.520 --> 2:17:58.320 like I put a lot of them, but not all 2:17:58.400 --> 2:18:01.000 of them. There are some very care full doors and 2:18:01.120 --> 2:18:04.840 locked rooms in there that you people don't get access to. 2:18:05.560 --> 2:18:08.320 No, there's there's certainly a lot of interesting facets there 2:18:08.440 --> 2:18:12.400 of someone feeling like they need this tool to to 2:18:12.480 --> 2:18:16.200 kind of analyze their own thoughts, Like it's it's it's 2:18:16.240 --> 2:18:18.400 it's a way to like externalize it that makes you 2:18:18.440 --> 2:18:20.920 process it. But I don't know, you can also just 2:18:20.920 --> 2:18:23.760 like like take up journaling or something like. There's there's 2:18:23.760 --> 2:18:26.760 a lot of a lot of ways to get around this. 2:18:28.160 --> 2:18:32.280 But this is This is from a mind Bank's app 2:18:32.280 --> 2:18:36.080 store page. Quote like a mirror to your soul. Each 2:18:36.160 --> 2:18:38.959 answer you give allows you to get insights into your mind. 2:18:39.040 --> 2:18:42.720 It will help you grow mentally strong unquote. So again, 2:18:42.760 --> 2:18:45.840 it's it's like being able to talk to yourself with 2:18:45.920 --> 2:18:48.640 this digital twin. Is is a big part of their 2:18:48.720 --> 2:18:55.240 early push great By using quote unquote cutting edge cognitive analysis, 2:18:56.000 --> 2:18:58.560 the mind bank app responds to your data inputs with 2:18:58.680 --> 2:19:02.560 quote valuable insight into each answer to understand how your 2:19:02.600 --> 2:19:07.560 mind works unquote. The app also utilizes a quote psycholinguistic 2:19:07.680 --> 2:19:10.840 models to create a dashboard of the mind for personal 2:19:10.920 --> 2:19:17.359 development and self care. I'm going to play another fantastic 2:19:17.480 --> 2:19:18.840 kind of thirty second clip here. 2:19:20.120 --> 2:19:24.160 Hi, I'm your personal digital twin. I learned by asking 2:19:24.160 --> 2:19:28.480 you many questions. Each answer builds my wisdom. You grow 2:19:28.640 --> 2:19:31.560 through self reflection, and I get a little bit closer 2:19:31.600 --> 2:19:35.440 to becoming you. Let me show you around. Here's our 2:19:35.520 --> 2:19:38.480 training screen, where you can view our progress based on 2:19:38.520 --> 2:19:40.879 the number of questions you've answered for this phase of 2:19:40.920 --> 2:19:44.880 my training. Each phase adds a new dimension to my abilities, 2:19:45.160 --> 2:19:49.880 and the possibilities are endless. The mind map section is 2:19:49.920 --> 2:19:54.000 like our consciousness. Different questions will challenge you to reflect 2:19:54.040 --> 2:19:56.760 and create a more well rounded version of us. 2:19:58.400 --> 2:20:02.519 So that's kind of the layout out of the user interface. 2:20:03.360 --> 2:20:07.360 This is like the inevitable extent of all of this, 2:20:08.720 --> 2:20:13.080 categorizing your personality type with these letters, taking this quiz 2:20:13.160 --> 2:20:16.720 and defining yourself this way, plotting your political beliefs on 2:20:16.800 --> 2:20:21.880 this map that way, like gamification of identity. Almost shit 2:20:21.920 --> 2:20:25.039 that we've been doing, like taking shit that used to 2:20:25.040 --> 2:20:28.720 be like the starting screen from a fucking RPG game 2:20:28.760 --> 2:20:31.920 and turning it into social media fodder. This is like 2:20:32.800 --> 2:20:36.240 treating that as if it is the whole of consciousness 2:20:36.280 --> 2:20:40.360 and how one must one can replicate consciousness. But also 2:20:41.480 --> 2:20:44.680 like treat like the thing that's just like actually disturbing 2:20:44.720 --> 2:20:48.320 about this is that they're these people are insinuating that 2:20:48.920 --> 2:20:52.520 this is a kind of therapy that Yeah, you can 2:20:52.680 --> 2:20:56.480 just sort of vomit your thoughts out and a machine 2:20:56.680 --> 2:21:00.800 can analyze them based on the kind of words and 2:21:00.840 --> 2:21:03.680 whatnot that you're using and then give you useful advice 2:21:03.879 --> 2:21:06.640 on your life. Like that's unsettling. 2:21:08.080 --> 2:21:10.560 Yes, and you're kind of right on the money in 2:21:10.680 --> 2:21:14.560 terms of this like personality testing thing. Mind Being's website 2:21:14.560 --> 2:21:17.000 has a whole bunch of articles which I think are 2:21:17.080 --> 2:21:19.800 written by chat chipd because I read a lot of 2:21:19.800 --> 2:21:23.040 them and they all read exactly like a chat Cheapeta article. 2:21:23.200 --> 2:21:25.560 But they have a lot of articles on like what 2:21:25.800 --> 2:21:29.400 personality types make you a good CEO, and like all 2:21:29.440 --> 2:21:31.120 of like a whole bunch of stuff like that that 2:21:31.320 --> 2:21:34.920 that references like Myers Briggs testing and other kind of 2:21:34.959 --> 2:21:37.400 personality testings and uses it to compare to their own 2:21:37.879 --> 2:21:40.840 personality models on the mind bank app. So yes, that 2:21:41.080 --> 2:21:44.039 they are very much kind of doing doing that in 2:21:44.080 --> 2:21:48.640 like this this like corporate business leadership assent like leadership 2:21:48.680 --> 2:21:52.160 ascension track type thing for how you can like improve 2:21:52.200 --> 2:21:57.760 your personality to make you a better businessman. Cool cool stuff, 2:21:58.480 --> 2:22:01.000 But in order for there to be enough data to 2:22:01.080 --> 2:22:06.360 build an even slightly accurate digital simulacra. Feeding daily inputs 2:22:06.360 --> 2:22:09.400 into an app will need to be a long term project. 2:22:10.280 --> 2:22:13.440 This self improvement focus that they're talking about with this, like, 2:22:13.560 --> 2:22:16.959 you know, analyzing your thoughts is just a way to 2:22:17.080 --> 2:22:21.480 provide you with something immediate based on your personal data. Quote. 2:22:21.840 --> 2:22:24.080 As you create your AI digital twin, you will go 2:22:24.160 --> 2:22:27.879 on a lifelong journey of personal discovery and growth that 2:22:27.920 --> 2:22:30.880 will allow you to reach your full potential. Each answer 2:22:30.920 --> 2:22:33.200 will help bring focus to your mind and allow you 2:22:33.240 --> 2:22:36.960 to reflect on your past unquote. So on the app, 2:22:37.000 --> 2:22:39.960 you can track the progress of your digital twin and 2:22:40.000 --> 2:22:42.920 refer back to previous questions. You can refer to questions 2:22:42.920 --> 2:22:45.680 you've already answered to quote see how your thoughts shift 2:22:45.800 --> 2:22:50.000 topics or change sentiment over time. And then the more 2:22:50.080 --> 2:22:55.240 questions you answer, the app raises your quote unquote twinning score, 2:22:55.720 --> 2:22:59.959 which I think is just a really funny term. Quote. 2:23:00.200 --> 2:23:04.080 The higher your twinning score, the closer you get to 2:23:04.280 --> 2:23:05.720 knowing yourself fully. 2:23:09.600 --> 2:23:11.119 Which is that's the sex thing? 2:23:11.240 --> 2:23:11.400 Right? 2:23:11.480 --> 2:23:13.160 That sounds like a sex thing. 2:23:13.400 --> 2:23:17.199 Right, How is it anything not just to go We're 2:23:17.480 --> 2:23:18.640 a weird, fucked. 2:23:18.440 --> 2:23:19.160 Up sex thing. 2:23:20.920 --> 2:23:23.800 Yeah, that's that's what I how I'm taking this garrison. 2:23:23.680 --> 2:23:27.199 So that that was also on their app store page. 2:23:28.040 --> 2:23:30.520 So the mindbank Gap has been out for a little 2:23:30.520 --> 2:23:33.920 over a year now, but unless you pay six bucks 2:23:33.959 --> 2:23:36.960 a month or sixty dollars a year, you'll only have 2:23:37.000 --> 2:23:39.880 access to about less than a dozen of these questions. 2:23:40.160 --> 2:23:41.200 Is this currently running on as. 2:23:41.160 --> 2:23:41.880 A scription model? 2:23:42.040 --> 2:23:44.000 Yes, it is, so there's freemium. You can try thet 2:23:44.000 --> 2:23:45.920 you can download them now. It's been launched for almost 2:23:45.959 --> 2:23:49.039 a year, where version two is coming out soon look 2:23:49.080 --> 2:23:53.520 a couple of weeks, but both Android and iOS, and 2:23:53.879 --> 2:23:56.520 there's a free model, so you can you have ten 2:23:56.600 --> 2:23:59.240 questions that you can answer and answer it many times 2:23:59.240 --> 2:24:00.880 you want. You get the sen men analys, you get 2:24:00.920 --> 2:24:03.080 a full application, just ten questions. 2:24:03.160 --> 2:24:05.000 Once you hit subscription model, you get all of the 2:24:05.040 --> 2:24:07.720 access to all of the questions and then obviously we're 2:24:07.720 --> 2:24:09.520 going to be growing more now. 2:24:09.680 --> 2:24:13.320 Like Robert mentioned before, this is kind of related to 2:24:13.440 --> 2:24:18.120 personality testing, and like personality graphing, mind Bank sorts your 2:24:18.200 --> 2:24:22.039 quote unquote digital brain into the Big five personality traits 2:24:22.080 --> 2:24:24.680 that were developed in the twentieth century, with each of 2:24:24.760 --> 2:24:28.280 the Big Five having six subtraits. On the mind ban 2:24:28.320 --> 2:24:30.959 Gap that it uses to graph changes on what they 2:24:30.959 --> 2:24:34.880 call the dashboard of the mind. I'll just go through 2:24:34.920 --> 2:24:38.200 the big five personality traits and the various kind of 2:24:38.280 --> 2:24:41.520 subcategories it has. The first one is agreeableness, which has 2:24:41.560 --> 2:24:46.680 the subcategories of humble, cooperative, trusting, genuine, empathetic, and generous. 2:24:47.200 --> 2:24:53.599 Then we have neuroticism, which has the subtraits impulsive, self conscious, aggressive, melancholy, 2:24:53.760 --> 2:24:57.720 stress prone, and anxiety prone. We then have openness with 2:24:57.760 --> 2:25:03.680 the subcategories artistic, adventurous, liberal, intellectual, emotionally aware, and imaginative. 2:25:04.360 --> 2:25:09.400 We have extra version with the sub categories assertive, active, cheerful, friendly, sociable, 2:25:09.440 --> 2:25:16.280 and outgoing. And finally, conscientiousness with the subtraits cautious, ambitious, dutiful, organized, 2:25:16.400 --> 2:25:17.960 self assured, and responsible. 2:25:18.280 --> 2:25:20.480 Yeah, those are the only ways to describe a human mind. 2:25:20.600 --> 2:25:25.200 Sure, yeah, no, I think I think at all. Yeah, 2:25:25.959 --> 2:25:29.600 they finally figured it out. So you know, all these 2:25:29.600 --> 2:25:32.240 things are like a sliding scale. Each of them represents 2:25:32.520 --> 2:25:35.720 the the inverse of the thing as well. I think 2:25:35.800 --> 2:25:38.119 we've talked enough about these personality trait things. It doesn't 2:25:38.120 --> 2:25:42.680 really matter that much. But once, once your twinning score 2:25:42.720 --> 2:25:47.240 is high enough, you can you can compare your digital 2:25:47.280 --> 2:25:52.400 twin to estimated profiles of famous thinkers, and share access 2:25:52.400 --> 2:25:54.560 to your twin with friends and family. 2:25:54.600 --> 2:26:01.080 On the act, which is es estimated profiles of famous thinkers, I'm. 2:26:00.920 --> 2:26:03.000 Gonna play I'm gonna play another clip to kind of 2:26:03.000 --> 2:26:05.080 explain what I mean here. 2:26:06.080 --> 2:26:09.800 Each swipe revealing more details about our thinking and connecting 2:26:09.879 --> 2:26:14.760 us to similar personalities. Think of it like collecting cards 2:26:14.800 --> 2:26:16.760 as a kid, only for your mind. 2:26:17.360 --> 2:26:21.199 You might be able to ask him a question, got. 2:26:21.680 --> 2:26:22.520 What do you? 2:26:22.640 --> 2:26:23.000 Dude? 2:26:23.760 --> 2:26:27.760 Socrates once said, know thyself and who knows us better? 2:26:27.840 --> 2:26:31.960 And people in our inner circle. Each interaction will help 2:26:32.040 --> 2:26:34.720 us evolve and store wisdom for eternity. 2:26:34.840 --> 2:26:38.879 Okay, all right, I will now tell you Socrates would 2:26:38.879 --> 2:26:42.680 have lit this man on fire. Socrates. I'm not a 2:26:42.720 --> 2:26:46.320 big Socrates guy, but he would kill this person like 2:26:46.600 --> 2:26:48.480 he fought in wars. He would do it like. 2:26:48.920 --> 2:26:53.320 Oh yeah, absolutely. The notion of sharing my own digital 2:26:53.360 --> 2:26:56.240 brain profile with friends and families so that they can 2:26:56.360 --> 2:26:59.400 ask my digital self questions hor horrifying. 2:27:00.000 --> 2:27:02.959 Why don't usually go home for Thanksgiving? What makes you 2:27:03.040 --> 2:27:04.160 think I want to do this? 2:27:06.480 --> 2:27:12.080 Like quote? After continued use, your digital twin will even 2:27:12.080 --> 2:27:15.160 be able to answer many questions on your behalf and 2:27:15.280 --> 2:27:23.320 have meaningful conversations with people you allow unquote yeah, oh 2:27:23.400 --> 2:27:24.360 oh oh, I bet. 2:27:25.200 --> 2:27:28.520 Look if some motherfucker that I have a meeting with 2:27:28.959 --> 2:27:31.879 ever tries to have me talk with his AI to 2:27:31.959 --> 2:27:36.920 do any part of that process. Again, when I say 2:27:36.920 --> 2:27:39.800 about things I think that are illegal, like my response 2:27:39.840 --> 2:27:41.640 to that is something that I can't say on this 2:27:41.760 --> 2:27:45.880 podcast because I might it's an actionable threat. I would 2:27:45.920 --> 2:27:49.360 actionable threat somebody if they tried to make me talk 2:27:49.400 --> 2:27:52.320 to their fucking AI to schedule a meeting with them. 2:27:52.520 --> 2:27:57.760 Like, what a horrib what a horrible, like uncomfortably anti 2:27:57.840 --> 2:28:01.040 social thing. I'm usually kind of antisocial in some ways, 2:28:01.120 --> 2:28:03.080 but this is like a whole other level of just 2:28:03.120 --> 2:28:05.560 like despising any human interaction. 2:28:06.480 --> 2:28:10.200 Yeah, it's anti human, is what it is, which is 2:28:10.240 --> 2:28:15.240 what's unsettling, right, Like not that sending emails and shit 2:28:15.480 --> 2:28:19.600 is like the primary essence of humanity, but you know 2:28:19.600 --> 2:28:23.119 what it makes me think of Garrison. The one law 2:28:23.240 --> 2:28:27.199 enforcement agency that like all of the rich conservative assholes 2:28:27.240 --> 2:28:29.760 who love every other kind of cop hate is the TSA. 2:28:30.320 --> 2:28:32.920 And they hate the TSA because you can't get around 2:28:33.000 --> 2:28:37.640 the TSA unless you're like ridiculously rich. Everybody goes through 2:28:37.680 --> 2:28:40.560 fucking security at the goddamn airport and they hate that. 2:28:40.640 --> 2:28:44.600 It drives them insane that they are subject to this 2:28:44.959 --> 2:28:48.600 little kind of little bit of friction, right, and what 2:28:49.040 --> 2:28:52.480 stuff like communicating in that way is these kind of 2:28:52.480 --> 2:28:54.640 basic things that they're saying that can automate these little 2:28:54.640 --> 2:28:57.600 bits of communication that you get with someone setting up 2:28:57.600 --> 2:29:01.840 a meeting or whatever. Like when you automate every bit 2:29:01.920 --> 2:29:05.920 of friction, then you find out you've automated like like 2:29:05.959 --> 2:29:08.680 there's nothing right, Like there's no life there. Right, people 2:29:08.720 --> 2:29:13.720 are not communicating because communication is fundamentally friction. And yeah, 2:29:13.760 --> 2:29:16.200 like scheduling meetings is not the center of that. But 2:29:16.240 --> 2:29:19.160 the way these people are talking is like we want 2:29:19.160 --> 2:29:22.920 to let you hand tasks over to this thing. 2:29:23.320 --> 2:29:24.760 It's like task alienation. 2:29:25.280 --> 2:29:28.240 Yeah, it's alienating. It's a bad. 2:29:28.080 --> 2:29:28.720 Thing to do. 2:29:29.920 --> 2:29:32.520 So when we talk with the co founder at CS, 2:29:32.560 --> 2:29:35.200 he emphasized that this kind of self improvement aspect that 2:29:35.600 --> 2:29:38.200 they're pushing in their early stage is really just a 2:29:38.240 --> 2:29:40.200 means to an end with the real goal of being 2:29:40.200 --> 2:29:43.840 producing this form of immortality. I've seen something like this 2:29:44.000 --> 2:29:48.039 for like therapy ASTs similar course, what's like your application 2:29:48.200 --> 2:29:49.920 use case for this type of technology, So. 2:29:50.000 --> 2:29:52.360 There's actually it's a reasonably spread use case. 2:29:52.560 --> 2:29:55.440 The very initial right now is a super selfish it's 2:29:55.560 --> 2:29:58.480 just self awareness bringing us your self awareness, making them 2:29:58.520 --> 2:29:59.959 more aware of their state as their speak. 2:30:00.879 --> 2:30:02.880 The real long term value is actually, if you imagine 2:30:02.959 --> 2:30:03.240 doing this. 2:30:03.520 --> 2:30:05.800 Over the course of forty years, fifty years, and then 2:30:06.000 --> 2:30:08.840 if you eventually pass, you can pass this on to 2:30:08.879 --> 2:30:10.720 your children who can then query it and it will 2:30:10.720 --> 2:30:12.840 answer exactly the way you would answer any of these 2:30:12.879 --> 2:30:15.280 questions and AI filled with just your data. 2:30:16.400 --> 2:30:18.320 So it's like your legacy being indefinite. 2:30:19.280 --> 2:30:22.000 So the mind Bank page on the app store boasts 2:30:22.360 --> 2:30:26.480 achieve immortality, your mind will be safely secured in the 2:30:26.600 --> 2:30:33.240 cloud forever. Again, that just comes off as like a 2:30:33.360 --> 2:30:36.520 threat to me. I don't I don't want my mind 2:30:36.600 --> 2:30:38.040 to be stored in the cloud forever. 2:30:38.760 --> 2:30:44.080 Yeah, I don't want to be locked up with dv 2:30:44.280 --> 2:30:46.840 into art for all of eternity. 2:30:49.320 --> 2:30:51.760 To kind of again, kind of on this on this 2:30:51.879 --> 2:30:57.400 form of immortality notion here is here's their CEO explaining 2:30:57.959 --> 2:31:01.480 how how this platform will will help you live forever 2:31:01.800 --> 2:31:03.199 on the on the Internet. 2:31:04.320 --> 2:31:06.640 The mission of Mind bang is so we can build 2:31:06.680 --> 2:31:08.840 a secure platform that can storied data so that you 2:31:08.920 --> 2:31:11.880 can live forever. But if you look, we look a 2:31:11.959 --> 2:31:14.800 bit deeper than that. Our vision is to build an 2:31:14.879 --> 2:31:19.520 artificial consciousness that's not bound by time and space, something 2:31:19.600 --> 2:31:22.640 that can travel, something that can that can go where 2:31:22.959 --> 2:31:25.199 literally no man has gone before. 2:31:25.800 --> 2:31:29.080 Now, the thing we haven't really mentioned yet is like 2:31:30.160 --> 2:31:33.920 this thing won't help you live forever, like when when 2:31:34.000 --> 2:31:38.000 you die, you you still die. Your brain's not getting 2:31:38.040 --> 2:31:40.760 like poured it over online. No, this is this is 2:31:40.959 --> 2:31:45.400 just like a like a very crude simulacrum based on 2:31:45.920 --> 2:31:47.880 thoughts that you have told this app. 2:31:48.240 --> 2:31:51.520 Yeah, it's based like it's it's it's not it's. 2:31:51.400 --> 2:31:53.520 It's not helping you live forever at all, Like you 2:31:54.240 --> 2:31:54.640 you don't. 2:31:56.520 --> 2:31:59.600 I most people I feel are like this way. I 2:31:59.680 --> 2:32:03.160 don't say everything that I think and feel. Right, Yeah, 2:32:03.440 --> 2:32:05.360 Like even when I'm like and I'm not saying like 2:32:05.560 --> 2:32:10.000 I'm being dishonest, but like they're the experience of life 2:32:10.520 --> 2:32:14.119 that my consciousness is aware of when I am communicating. 2:32:14.640 --> 2:32:18.440 Is broader than just the words that I output and 2:32:18.920 --> 2:32:21.680 taking just those words, it's the same idea that like 2:32:21.920 --> 2:32:24.440 you can get to know Mark Twain because we've fed 2:32:24.480 --> 2:32:28.400 all of his books into an AI. Well, no, you know, 2:32:28.560 --> 2:32:31.360 an author is not their books. There was a person 2:32:31.800 --> 2:32:34.120 with a lot of things that you don't know that 2:32:34.240 --> 2:32:36.480 still fed into make those words that like if you 2:32:36.640 --> 2:32:39.400 just put the words in, you don't get and your 2:32:39.680 --> 2:32:43.760 your vision of what human beings are is reductive in 2:32:43.800 --> 2:32:46.640 a way that makes me understand some of the concerns 2:32:46.760 --> 2:32:48.480 religious people have with atheism. 2:32:50.160 --> 2:32:55.280 So obviously mind Bank's horizons are far beyond this sort 2:32:55.320 --> 2:32:58.400 of kind of self help app. So far, mind bank 2:32:58.440 --> 2:33:01.960 has been mostly business consumer, with their app being marketed 2:33:02.040 --> 2:33:05.440 directly to users for them to download and use by themselves. 2:33:05.959 --> 2:33:09.320 But they are working to expand far past that very 2:33:09.360 --> 2:33:10.519 limited scope. 2:33:10.600 --> 2:33:13.120 In terms of a business planner, you guys interested in 2:33:13.320 --> 2:33:18.160 kind of solely individual subscriptions or is there kind of 2:33:18.200 --> 2:33:20.080 an enterprise application of this as well. 2:33:20.280 --> 2:33:23.080 We're actually moving into a bunch of different verticals, so 2:33:23.400 --> 2:33:29.040 government for PTSD, that sort of mindset, also the healthcare 2:33:29.440 --> 2:33:33.600 so mental it's obvious benefit in the medical field. So 2:33:33.800 --> 2:33:36.760 that's kind of the understanding of our verticals that we 2:33:36.879 --> 2:33:39.600 have that we're going to move into, and we're looking 2:33:39.640 --> 2:33:41.680 for funding right now to start building. 2:33:41.400 --> 2:33:44.880 Out those verticals. So enterprise space is definitely in the roadmap, 2:33:44.959 --> 2:33:46.640 but we just need money. 2:33:47.160 --> 2:33:50.800 A lot of their recent marketing has been targeted towards 2:33:51.120 --> 2:33:55.480 appealing to seed investors. Besides partnering with various governments, they're 2:33:55.480 --> 2:33:58.279 also moving into the business to business sector with plans 2:33:58.320 --> 2:34:02.120 to enter quote the healthcare spe by providing psychologists remote 2:34:02.200 --> 2:34:06.640 patient monitoring unquote, which also is a similarly kind of 2:34:08.280 --> 2:34:13.360 freaky notion that your psychologist can just have a copy 2:34:13.560 --> 2:34:15.840 of your own expressive thoughts to just refer to at 2:34:15.879 --> 2:34:18.960 any time and they can use it as a remote 2:34:19.040 --> 2:34:23.360 patient monitoring. It's just like an uncomfortable notion. 2:34:23.959 --> 2:34:25.560 We've got over twenty thousand installs. 2:34:26.160 --> 2:34:28.680 The B to B is the next area we're going 2:34:28.680 --> 2:34:31.840 into in the therapy and psychology space, and so imagine 2:34:32.040 --> 2:34:35.040 your therapist, instead of needing your first one hour to 2:34:35.120 --> 2:34:36.800 learn who you are in the next three or four 2:34:36.840 --> 2:34:39.800 different sessions to figure out getting the meat and potatoes 2:34:39.840 --> 2:34:44.080 of your mind, this is an immediate, raw, quantitative dashboard 2:34:44.120 --> 2:34:46.560 of your sentiment and how you're feeling that they have 2:34:46.680 --> 2:34:48.880 access to. And then you can also provide them the 2:34:48.959 --> 2:34:51.560 sentiment of individual answers, which would then give them a 2:34:52.080 --> 2:34:55.960 point in time emotional marker for how you're feeling. 2:34:56.400 --> 2:34:59.600 Mind Bank claims that they are currently quote developing a 2:34:59.680 --> 2:35:02.160 market place for applications to be used by your digital 2:35:02.200 --> 2:35:06.920 twin unquote. Now what they imagine such applications being ranges 2:35:07.000 --> 2:35:12.360 from quote health related enhancements like early Alzheimer's detection unquote, 2:35:13.040 --> 2:35:16.959 to more therapeutic uses like to quote help to handle 2:35:17.080 --> 2:35:22.080 depression unquote. And again, I really don't see how how 2:35:22.400 --> 2:35:25.720 having this digital twin that you talk to every day 2:35:26.120 --> 2:35:29.480 will help handle your depression. Like this is some like 2:35:29.640 --> 2:35:35.320 depression cure. Now on top of like patient healthcare. Mind 2:35:35.360 --> 2:35:38.359 Bank is also hoping to use digital twins for corporate 2:35:38.560 --> 2:35:42.520 leadership training and to get into the supplement industry by 2:35:42.640 --> 2:35:46.680 using your cognitive data to find quote mental nutrition products 2:35:46.879 --> 2:35:51.760 that can help boost your brain. So this is using 2:35:51.800 --> 2:35:56.880 your digital profile to find things to market to you. Again, 2:35:57.200 --> 2:36:02.960 very very very upsetting. Here is Here's here's another another 2:36:03.040 --> 2:36:08.000 clip of of Robert asking asking this, uh, this guy 2:36:08.040 --> 2:36:10.879 from Buying Bank about another possible use case. 2:36:11.160 --> 2:36:12.200 So the use cases for. 2:36:12.280 --> 2:36:15.280 This that you've you've expressed to me so far our 2:36:15.800 --> 2:36:19.400 personal help or health development and providing kind of a 2:36:19.480 --> 2:36:23.880 living memorial slash legacy legs for sure, loved ones after 2:36:23.920 --> 2:36:28.440 you're deceased. Are there any kind of use cases for 2:36:28.560 --> 2:36:31.560 this beyond that? Like I heard someone mentioning the idea 2:36:31.640 --> 2:36:35.720 of like basically digitally cloning uh a worker so that 2:36:35.840 --> 2:36:39.920 they can provide I don't know, information about uh uh 2:36:40.560 --> 2:36:43.080 tech or something, or a work is like a call center. 2:36:42.920 --> 2:36:43.440 Or something like that. 2:36:43.560 --> 2:36:46.120 Yeah, so that that was a different uh product I 2:36:46.160 --> 2:36:48.480 think they were talking about, but with similar ties obviously. 2:36:48.640 --> 2:36:48.840 Yeah. 2:36:48.920 --> 2:36:52.840 So yeah, we've identified I mean from even at CES, 2:36:52.920 --> 2:36:55.160 We've talked to hundreds of people that have given us 2:36:55.240 --> 2:37:00.280 thousands of new ideas, but these are, uh the main 2:37:00.400 --> 2:37:03.280 verticals are kind of where we've identified the biggest benefits 2:37:03.320 --> 2:37:04.760 are going to be, and we're going to work with 2:37:04.840 --> 2:37:09.160 industry partners to kind of build out into those verticals. So, yes, 2:37:09.240 --> 2:37:12.480 we've identified use cases, but we're trying to not focus 2:37:12.600 --> 2:37:15.800 too much on individual use cases could make We've also 2:37:15.879 --> 2:37:20.280 identified that it's such a broad capability that once it 2:37:20.360 --> 2:37:23.120 gets built and then people start actually supplying data, the 2:37:23.400 --> 2:37:25.400 massive data sets that we're going to have, we're just 2:37:25.440 --> 2:37:26.960 going to have so many different places that we can 2:37:27.040 --> 2:37:30.039 go with the data set with the capability with the partnerships, 2:37:30.480 --> 2:37:33.560 So we we're kind of believing ourselves old when almost. 2:37:33.760 --> 2:37:36.840 So that was a lot of words without saying very much, 2:37:37.120 --> 2:37:39.880 but it's also just flat out not true. On the 2:37:39.959 --> 2:37:42.480 mind Big website, they list another use case for this 2:37:42.560 --> 2:37:46.280 technology as what they call a knowledge transfer, which is 2:37:46.360 --> 2:37:50.440 marketed to businesses to create digital copies of their employees. 2:37:52.000 --> 2:37:53.440 This is one of the this is sort of the 2:37:53.480 --> 2:37:58.400 freakiest things that they are offering. Quote scale your best employees, 2:37:58.840 --> 2:38:01.840 trendsfer years of expans and company data that is locked 2:38:01.879 --> 2:38:05.840 inside your employee's mind through a guided personal digital twin 2:38:06.240 --> 2:38:10.400 unquote deeply, deeply upsetting. 2:38:11.160 --> 2:38:11.320 You know. 2:38:12.200 --> 2:38:15.600 It was so unsettling to me in that moment, not 2:38:15.840 --> 2:38:19.000 just to be like, the vision of the whole app 2:38:19.120 --> 2:38:21.320 was unsettling, but the fact that he was pitching it 2:38:21.480 --> 2:38:25.560 the way he would a set of earbuds was part 2:38:25.640 --> 2:38:28.880 of what made it so uncomfortable to me. Like I 2:38:28.959 --> 2:38:31.440 have been to many cees's in the past, I was 2:38:31.440 --> 2:38:34.480 always excited because somebody would hand me some cool little 2:38:34.520 --> 2:38:37.080 piece of technology and say, look at this thing. It's 2:38:37.120 --> 2:38:40.439 a smaller phone or a phone that folds, or headphones 2:38:40.520 --> 2:38:42.440 that you know, work better than headphones have in the 2:38:42.480 --> 2:38:44.840 past or something like that. And this guy was like 2:38:45.680 --> 2:38:52.360 with the exact same excitement and feel to him, was like, Hey, 2:38:52.440 --> 2:38:54.400 we're going to digitize your grandpa, Like. 2:38:55.040 --> 2:38:56.400 Yes, yes, I hate that. 2:38:58.560 --> 2:39:02.520 Another really really a telling line from their from their 2:39:02.640 --> 2:39:04.760 Knowledge Transfer section of their of their website. 2:39:04.840 --> 2:39:05.120 Quote. 2:39:05.600 --> 2:39:09.400 By using a simple voice chat interface, the users upload 2:39:09.440 --> 2:39:12.640 their experience to the personal digital twin. With each interaction, 2:39:12.800 --> 2:39:16.440 the personal digital twin learns everything that is inside the 2:39:16.640 --> 2:39:18.160 mind of the employee. 2:39:18.600 --> 2:39:19.120 Unquote. 2:39:21.720 --> 2:39:25.640 I don't understand how slone could write that sentence and 2:39:25.760 --> 2:39:28.680 not be like, oh, this is like this is like 2:39:29.040 --> 2:39:33.760 villain stuff, right, this is like learn learn everything inside 2:39:33.840 --> 2:39:35.599 the mind of the employee. 2:39:36.440 --> 2:39:38.800 I I like. 2:39:39.800 --> 2:39:43.800 So, I don't know. Maybe this employee did digital cloning 2:39:43.879 --> 2:39:45.800 thing was just one of the many ideas they got 2:39:45.920 --> 2:39:48.920 while attending cees and and they and they implemented the 2:39:48.959 --> 2:39:53.160 idea after we spoke to them. I checked this, No, 2:39:53.440 --> 2:39:56.920 not the case. The webpage for this employee transfer idea 2:39:57.200 --> 2:39:59.360 goes all the way back to August of twenty twenty 2:39:59.440 --> 2:40:01.640 one on the in and At archive. So the guy, 2:40:01.959 --> 2:40:03.720 the guy we were talking to you was just lying 2:40:03.800 --> 2:40:07.240 to us like this is. This has been a part 2:40:07.280 --> 2:40:09.279 of their product for over two years. 2:40:10.160 --> 2:40:10.600 Excellent. 2:40:11.320 --> 2:40:14.120 Uh, Robert, do you know what other products have been 2:40:14.200 --> 2:40:16.200 around for quite a while and are and are very 2:40:16.480 --> 2:40:17.680 very reliable. 2:40:19.040 --> 2:40:20.640 I don't know guns. 2:40:21.800 --> 2:40:24.119 I don't think we are sponsored by big gun. 2:40:24.720 --> 2:40:25.040 We are not. 2:40:25.240 --> 2:40:28.199 We are not yet sponsored by big guns. I every 2:40:28.320 --> 2:40:33.240 single day, Garrison, I send Colt Firearms a letter, and 2:40:33.360 --> 2:40:36.880 every single day a nice man with a badge knocks 2:40:36.920 --> 2:40:39.280 on my door and says, if you send another letter, 2:40:39.400 --> 2:40:42.240 we're going to arrest you. They don't want your letters, Robert, 2:40:42.959 --> 2:40:46.520 And uh, anyway, here's ads. Ah, we're back. 2:40:46.959 --> 2:40:51.760 So we were talking about how soon employers can just 2:40:51.879 --> 2:40:54.520 copy over your brain, which I'm sure Robert you're going 2:40:54.600 --> 2:40:57.120 to be very interested in for cool Zone. You can 2:40:57.200 --> 2:41:00.520 you can really really cut down on the podcasting costs. 2:41:00.879 --> 2:41:05.560 Yeah, I can really clear you guys out and just finally, finally, 2:41:06.480 --> 2:41:11.520 just feed Twitter takes into your AI versions and just 2:41:11.840 --> 2:41:14.520 all the money, take it all in, just bathe in it. 2:41:14.840 --> 2:41:15.080 Yeah. 2:41:15.360 --> 2:41:16.960 That's a great idea, Garrison, thank you. 2:41:17.320 --> 2:41:21.480 Uh huh, so the idea that your employer could compel 2:41:21.600 --> 2:41:24.600 you to use such software with the express interest of 2:41:24.760 --> 2:41:28.279 transferring a worker's memories and experiences into a digital asset 2:41:28.720 --> 2:41:33.040 is obviously deeply troubling. This scenario gets at some questions 2:41:33.120 --> 2:41:36.000 about ethics and the responsibility of collecting and storing this 2:41:36.080 --> 2:41:37.480 type of data in the first place. 2:41:38.200 --> 2:41:41.160 My first question would be, is the data that you're 2:41:41.280 --> 2:41:44.039 you're feeding into this thing over the course of forty years? 2:41:45.040 --> 2:41:46.160 Who legally owns it? 2:41:46.600 --> 2:41:46.640 You? 2:41:48.120 --> 2:41:50.520 So, you guys don't have ownership of that's your ability. 2:41:51.200 --> 2:41:55.400 It's so I did check this. I read all of 2:41:55.480 --> 2:41:59.440 their long and tedious policy forms and stuff. Now, it 2:41:59.600 --> 2:42:02.240 is true that the user does own the data they 2:42:02.320 --> 2:42:05.840 upload to mind Bank. However, mind Bank can act as 2:42:05.879 --> 2:42:10.680 a processor and data controller, and this includes the ability 2:42:10.800 --> 2:42:14.080 to use any information they collect from you to improve 2:42:14.200 --> 2:42:17.920 their products and deliver targeted advertising from the third parties. 2:42:18.640 --> 2:42:20.440 If you want to remove your data from mind Bank, 2:42:20.520 --> 2:42:23.359 they can store and continue to use your personal information 2:42:23.600 --> 2:42:27.360 for up to sixty months. Now, this data ownership question 2:42:27.440 --> 2:42:30.480 gets a little bit more murky because in the case 2:42:30.600 --> 2:42:34.160 of like your employer paying for mind Bank subscriptions for 2:42:34.240 --> 2:42:37.760 their entire company. In that case, it's unclear if the 2:42:37.879 --> 2:42:40.200 company would be classified as the user or if the 2:42:40.680 --> 2:42:44.560 employees would be. Now I'm honestly not sure if mind 2:42:44.600 --> 2:42:47.879 bank has even thought that far ahead, because there's nothing 2:42:47.959 --> 2:42:51.600 on their site or any available materials from them that 2:42:51.840 --> 2:42:55.440 kind of gets into that question. Now, of course, beyond 2:42:55.720 --> 2:42:59.560 owning the actual like original data, having all this personal 2:42:59.600 --> 2:43:02.280 data star in one product, and a product that can 2:43:02.360 --> 2:43:07.440 be then easily shared across different for profit industries, that 2:43:07.600 --> 2:43:11.680 itself has freaky ramifications about the accessibility of your data. 2:43:12.120 --> 2:43:14.520 So I assume you get to the side, like when 2:43:14.640 --> 2:43:17.720 you share your digital Twitter with your therapist. 2:43:17.440 --> 2:43:18.960 You would be able to decide all that. Yeah, and 2:43:19.040 --> 2:43:21.080 then no, would it. 2:43:21.040 --> 2:43:22.720 Be possible for have to like copy over some of 2:43:22.800 --> 2:43:25.960 this stuff and basically run it themselves or I mean, 2:43:26.120 --> 2:43:28.760 can you have like a hard cutoff for this sort 2:43:28.760 --> 2:43:30.520 of thing? I should have to think of other types 2:43:30.560 --> 2:43:35.360 of like you know, different wise people could get their 2:43:35.400 --> 2:43:37.240 hands on this for like unsaving means. 2:43:37.080 --> 2:43:38.119 Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. 2:43:38.120 --> 2:43:41.880 I mean, so your your data is your data, but 2:43:42.360 --> 2:43:44.880 as you provide it to others, you don't have a 2:43:44.920 --> 2:43:47.320 lot of control if they copy that data. However, if 2:43:47.320 --> 2:43:50.720 they copy that data, that copy that they're giving out 2:43:51.040 --> 2:43:52.960 anyone that they're trying to sell that to would have 2:43:53.000 --> 2:43:54.720 an understanding that that is not live data. 2:43:54.920 --> 2:43:55.440 It's not data. 2:43:55.440 --> 2:43:56.320 It's changing with you. 2:43:56.720 --> 2:43:59.160 It's from the point of time, and so your database 2:43:59.200 --> 2:44:01.160 that you own it will be live, it will grow 2:44:01.280 --> 2:44:01.520 with you. 2:44:02.000 --> 2:44:05.800 So the idea of having my friends be able to 2:44:05.920 --> 2:44:08.960 ask an AI train in my thoughts is like scary enough, 2:44:09.560 --> 2:44:12.240 but the idea that an archived version of this AI 2:44:12.440 --> 2:44:15.840 could be distributed and even sold without my knowledge is 2:44:15.920 --> 2:44:21.000 obviously terrified. Like this is yes, this is deeply troubling. 2:44:21.080 --> 2:44:22.920 This is supposed to be like a private thing that 2:44:23.000 --> 2:44:25.440 you use to communicate with like your therapist, or you 2:44:25.520 --> 2:44:27.359 even talk to the app like you want a therapist, 2:44:28.000 --> 2:44:31.600 And the fact that this is easily shared and able 2:44:31.680 --> 2:44:34.279 to be copied is like a massive problem. 2:44:35.000 --> 2:44:35.200 Yeah. 2:44:36.879 --> 2:44:41.240 No, I mean especially, I mean I think they are 2:44:41.400 --> 2:44:46.280 probably like I don't see how copying workers the way 2:44:46.320 --> 2:44:50.760 that they are doing it is going to is going 2:44:50.800 --> 2:44:53.360 to work, right, Like yeah, but I do think that 2:44:53.480 --> 2:44:55.160 this is kind of part of this process that what 2:44:55.400 --> 2:44:56.880 like a big part of what they're pushing is like 2:44:57.320 --> 2:44:59.160 you need rid of all of your customer service people 2:44:59.200 --> 2:45:00.760 and just have an AI do it, right, Like that 2:45:00.879 --> 2:45:03.840 is the that is the actual This is a lot 2:45:03.920 --> 2:45:07.480 of silliness, but The actual thing that quote unquote, quote 2:45:07.560 --> 2:45:11.480 unquote AI is being used for is to replace human 2:45:11.560 --> 2:45:14.400 labors at a thing that like machines are worse at, right, 2:45:14.840 --> 2:45:19.680 Like the AI fucking customer service bots are fucking terrible. 2:45:19.959 --> 2:45:22.560 It is always how many times have you been around 2:45:22.600 --> 2:45:25.440 somebody yelling like let me talk to a person, let. 2:45:25.400 --> 2:45:26.440 Me talk to a human being? 2:45:26.600 --> 2:45:30.120 Case, Yeah, like that's that is what's going on here. 2:45:30.160 --> 2:45:31.800 And the fact that they're trying to dress this up 2:45:31.920 --> 2:45:35.320 is like we've solved death is so fucked up. 2:45:37.320 --> 2:45:37.560 Yeah. 2:45:38.000 --> 2:45:39.840 Part of this, for like the employee thing is not 2:45:39.959 --> 2:45:43.240 even not replacing kind of low level employees like customer 2:45:43.280 --> 2:45:46.440 service workers. It's also like focusing on like your top 2:45:46.480 --> 2:45:48.960 ten best employees and then by forcing them to interact 2:45:49.000 --> 2:45:51.200 with with this app every day, you can you can 2:45:51.560 --> 2:45:55.520 use the information from like your best performers as like 2:45:55.959 --> 2:46:00.400 asset data that you can like use to help your 2:46:00.560 --> 2:46:02.720 other other employees to like become more efficient. 2:46:02.840 --> 2:46:02.960 Right. 2:46:03.000 --> 2:46:06.480 It's it's there's They certainly have a few other kind 2:46:06.520 --> 2:46:09.359 of ideas for how this how this is possibly used. 2:46:09.840 --> 2:46:13.840 Hate these kinds of people. There's a this got overused 2:46:14.120 --> 2:46:16.600 at a point in like the kind of late aughts 2:46:16.840 --> 2:46:18.480 so maybe people are sick of it. But there's a 2:46:18.600 --> 2:46:21.320 line in the speech Charlie Chaplin gives in the great 2:46:21.400 --> 2:46:25.760 dictator machine men with machine minds and machine hearts, and 2:46:25.879 --> 2:46:28.160 he was referring to the Nazis, and they're obsession with 2:46:28.240 --> 2:46:31.600 shit like Taylorism or at least proto tailorism kind of. 2:46:32.080 --> 2:46:36.040 I think organized industry treating people like cogs and a 2:46:36.080 --> 2:46:39.400 great machine. The civilization is one machine, and each human 2:46:39.480 --> 2:46:41.680 being is is just a single piece of it, like 2:46:42.400 --> 2:46:47.000 the the that's you know, the old era horrifying machine 2:46:47.080 --> 2:46:50.080 man thought. The new era horrifying machine man thought is. 2:46:50.560 --> 2:46:53.520 You can digitize your employees and they can train each 2:46:53.600 --> 2:46:57.320 other in EAI form, and you can replicate them and 2:46:57.720 --> 2:46:59.400 you know the unsaid part of his worse, and then 2:46:59.480 --> 2:47:02.600 you find them and their robot clone keeps doing their 2:47:02.720 --> 2:47:03.560 job for free. 2:47:03.760 --> 2:47:08.200 We made a slave, so god damn it. 2:47:08.920 --> 2:47:11.560 I think a big part of the way they've designed 2:47:11.600 --> 2:47:14.240 this data set is that it can be easily transferred, 2:47:14.680 --> 2:47:17.360 as the guy at CES explained to us. 2:47:18.440 --> 2:47:21.279 So if if we're talking. 2:47:21.160 --> 2:47:23.800 Forty to fifty years down the line, really people pass 2:47:24.160 --> 2:47:25.560 yessode companies. 2:47:25.920 --> 2:47:27.960 Mind Bank is no longer out in forty years. 2:47:28.920 --> 2:47:31.200 We've already established a data set in such a way 2:47:31.280 --> 2:47:35.560 that we don't have competitors yet to say, but if 2:47:35.640 --> 2:47:40.760 we eventually do establish a competitive arm or people that 2:47:40.840 --> 2:47:43.520 are competitors, we already have the application set up to 2:47:43.520 --> 2:47:45.480 where users can take their data off of our platform 2:47:45.520 --> 2:47:45.920 and bring. 2:47:45.840 --> 2:47:47.080 Them data wherever they'd like. 2:47:47.120 --> 2:47:52.160 It's your data, where is it stored? 2:47:52.440 --> 2:47:55.040 Is this right now? Our current live application? 2:47:55.240 --> 2:47:57.800 We're on Azure, and so your back end is Azure, 2:47:57.840 --> 2:47:59.800 but we have it encrypted it at rest, so ill 2:48:00.080 --> 2:48:02.680 that you provide to asures encrypted when it's on Asher's service. 2:48:04.120 --> 2:48:07.200 We also have a blockchain based R and D project. 2:48:08.040 --> 2:48:10.840 It's already been poc and it already exists. So all 2:48:10.879 --> 2:48:12.560 of the data is on chain and the logic is 2:48:12.640 --> 2:48:17.320 on chain. It's truly yours in these in these troubled times. 2:48:17.720 --> 2:48:20.840 Nothing makes me feel so secure at the words it's 2:48:20.959 --> 2:48:26.680 on the blockchain, well email, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's. 2:48:27.120 --> 2:48:30.080 I I think he sounds very trustworthy because we have, 2:48:30.280 --> 2:48:34.360 you have encryption, you have the blockchain, and luckily, I 2:48:34.440 --> 2:48:37.760 think the guy that we spoke with reassured us that 2:48:37.920 --> 2:48:41.080 he is that he is deeply, deeply interested in data privacy, 2:48:41.400 --> 2:48:43.720 and he has the credentials to back that up. 2:48:44.080 --> 2:48:46.720 So I'm co founder, I'm Director of Architecture and Security. 2:48:46.879 --> 2:48:49.200 I have a background at the NSA. I'm very very 2:48:49.280 --> 2:48:52.800 focused on individual human privacy and rights, and so that's 2:48:52.879 --> 2:48:54.720 kind of my goal here is to ensure that this 2:48:54.879 --> 2:48:56.280 gets built the right way. 2:48:57.800 --> 2:49:01.199 That is such a you know, Garrison, Honestly, I'm gonna 2:49:01.200 --> 2:49:03.360 get a little real with the audience here. I was 2:49:03.440 --> 2:49:06.200 so proud of you in that moment because he said that, 2:49:07.120 --> 2:49:10.880 and I glanced over at you and you didn't laugh. No, no, 2:49:11.160 --> 2:49:14.480 and that that made like, that was this moment where 2:49:14.520 --> 2:49:16.760 I was like, all right, you are you are. You 2:49:16.879 --> 2:49:19.560 are truly truly coming into your own as a reporter. 2:49:19.680 --> 2:49:21.959 If you can sit there and talk to a man 2:49:22.000 --> 2:49:24.640 who says that, who says you can trust me with 2:49:24.840 --> 2:49:28.160 your data. Because I was an an essay agent. 2:49:28.920 --> 2:49:35.400 It's okay, ice work for the essay if you sure, buddy. 2:49:35.280 --> 2:49:35.360 Like. 2:49:37.440 --> 2:49:38.920 That was a good moment. That was a good moment. 2:49:39.120 --> 2:49:39.600 All I'm saying. 2:49:39.760 --> 2:49:43.560 He worked at the NSA for six years. I looked 2:49:43.640 --> 2:49:46.520 this up. He worked there for six years and then 2:49:46.560 --> 2:49:50.040 he moved into the private sector. And yes, no, it 2:49:50.120 --> 2:49:53.520 is the The idea that that he is using this 2:49:53.600 --> 2:49:58.080 as some sort of credential that shows he respects human 2:49:58.240 --> 2:50:02.480 rights and privacy is is like very obviously like deep 2:50:02.760 --> 2:50:06.840 deeply ironic. I. I. The irony is not coming from him. 2:50:07.200 --> 2:50:08.600 The irony is the situation. 2:50:09.520 --> 2:50:12.039 He didn't seem totally sincere he was sincere. 2:50:12.160 --> 2:50:13.800 Yes, absolutely. 2:50:14.680 --> 2:50:14.720 So. 2:50:14.920 --> 2:50:16.680 It's one of those moments that makes you realize, like 2:50:16.800 --> 2:50:18.720 some people just live in a whole different world. 2:50:19.160 --> 2:50:23.160 Yes, yes, like so I think it's it's it's useful 2:50:23.360 --> 2:50:26.600 when referring back to everything this guy has said so 2:50:26.760 --> 2:50:29.360 far that you have to remember he worked at the 2:50:29.440 --> 2:50:33.560 NSA for six years and he is now handling, he's 2:50:33.640 --> 2:50:38.560 personally handled handling the cybersecurity and privacy of the personal 2:50:38.640 --> 2:50:41.640 data you upload it every single day onto your AI twin. 2:50:42.640 --> 2:50:45.320 Just hand every thought you ever have over to this 2:50:45.520 --> 2:50:48.480 guy who was in the nssay. He'll keep an eye 2:50:48.560 --> 2:50:48.720 on it. 2:50:48.959 --> 2:50:51.680 No, this is this like the essay is like ideal 2:50:51.879 --> 2:50:56.000 project you like, yeah, you talk about your internal thoughts 2:50:56.040 --> 2:50:58.520 and feelings every day. This is like what else could 2:50:58.520 --> 2:51:03.080 they want? So earlier this year, mind Bank received a 2:51:03.160 --> 2:51:06.039 grant from the Diffinity Foundation to assist in migrating their 2:51:06.120 --> 2:51:08.160 data onto web three platforms. 2:51:09.480 --> 2:51:11.800 Well, at least we know it won't last. 2:51:15.480 --> 2:51:17.720 I'm going to play I think this is I think 2:51:17.760 --> 2:51:22.120 this is our last clip from the fantastic Mind to 2:51:22.160 --> 2:51:25.920 Bank YouTube channel, talking about kind of how they see 2:51:26.240 --> 2:51:29.440 their growth in this industry developing now that they have 2:51:29.600 --> 2:51:31.120 moved onto the blockchain. 2:51:32.640 --> 2:51:35.840 We've been featured in prominent magazines, one numerous awards, and 2:51:35.959 --> 2:51:39.720 have built strategic partnerships with Microsoft, the US Department of Trade, 2:51:39.800 --> 2:51:43.960 and even the Vatican. The market potential is massive and 2:51:44.120 --> 2:51:47.960 accelerating rapidly. When we started the company in twenty twenty, 2:51:48.120 --> 2:51:50.480 Gardner predicted that five percent of the world will have 2:51:50.560 --> 2:51:54.080 a digital twin by twenty twenty seven. This year, they 2:51:54.120 --> 2:51:57.480 increased their prediction to fifteen percent by twenty twenty four, 2:51:57.840 --> 2:52:00.160 and by twenty thirty the market will be worth one 2:52:00.280 --> 2:52:03.400 hundred and eighty two billion dollars. I is now to 2:52:03.440 --> 2:52:06.120 build a great company in this space and capture global 2:52:06.200 --> 2:52:09.160 market share. We are raising this round to scale our 2:52:09.240 --> 2:52:11.359 marketing and speed up our product roadmap. 2:52:12.280 --> 2:52:17.720 The idea that next year fifteen percent of the world's 2:52:17.760 --> 2:52:21.240 population will have one of these digital twins. 2:52:21.600 --> 2:52:24.520 That seems right that seems good, you know, Garrison, Actually 2:52:24.959 --> 2:52:27.440 I've come around. I've come around because if we get 2:52:27.800 --> 2:52:30.440 if we get all of the monsters and I include 2:52:30.520 --> 2:52:32.400 us in this, all of the pieces of shit who 2:52:32.440 --> 2:52:35.039 spend all of their time yelling at each other about 2:52:35.120 --> 2:52:38.800 politics on the internet, to digitize themselves, they can do 2:52:38.959 --> 2:52:41.640 the election for us and we can all. 2:52:41.600 --> 2:52:43.040 Go see the girls to that. 2:52:44.080 --> 2:52:48.800 Yeah, just relax outdoors, not look at a phone, not 2:52:48.920 --> 2:52:51.160 think about politics. That sounds amazing. 2:52:51.360 --> 2:52:51.960 Let me do it. 2:52:52.320 --> 2:52:55.000 That does sound incredibly compelling. 2:52:55.400 --> 2:52:59.240 Give the fuckers the nuke and we'll all just sit 2:52:59.360 --> 2:53:02.080 out and watch the sunset until there's a big bright 2:53:02.200 --> 2:53:03.879 flash and then blessed quiet. 2:53:04.240 --> 2:53:04.920 I think you know. 2:53:05.320 --> 2:53:09.320 Luckily, we actually have a plethora of options to choose 2:53:09.360 --> 2:53:13.080 from here for our own AI digital selves because mind 2:53:13.160 --> 2:53:16.200 Bank is in fact not the only company in this field. 2:53:17.640 --> 2:53:20.160 While there are some like operational differences and kind of 2:53:20.320 --> 2:53:24.520 varying degrees of scope, digital twin technology with an emphasis 2:53:24.680 --> 2:53:27.680 on mimicking the voice and thoughts of dead family members 2:53:27.720 --> 2:53:31.360 and friends is definitely a growing field. There's companies like 2:53:31.520 --> 2:53:35.560 hereafter AI and Replica which are covering similar ground. 2:53:36.360 --> 2:53:40.119 Replica I get advertised them and the like I used 2:53:40.120 --> 2:53:42.760 to get them on Twitter, I think, but mainly just 2:53:42.879 --> 2:53:45.920 like at the bottom of articles on really shady websites. 2:53:46.080 --> 2:53:51.720 Well, yes, because the founder of Replica started it because 2:53:52.000 --> 2:53:56.160 their friend died, and without the consent of their dead friend, 2:53:56.600 --> 2:54:00.480 uploaded years of text messages and other information about their 2:54:00.520 --> 2:54:03.560 friend onto their own personal AI so they could talk 2:54:03.640 --> 2:54:11.240 with that. That is how replicas started. Pretty pretty fun stuff, man, 2:54:12.240 --> 2:54:15.160 at least for mind bank, unless it's like the employee scenario. 2:54:15.440 --> 2:54:18.720 But for the other applications, you are kind of semi 2:54:18.920 --> 2:54:22.960 like willingly uploading this data with this intention, whereas the 2:54:23.040 --> 2:54:26.400 person from Replicas, No, I'm just gonna like get stuff 2:54:26.480 --> 2:54:29.160 from my friend and make a zombie version of my 2:54:29.280 --> 2:54:32.360 friend without without ever running it by them when they 2:54:32.400 --> 2:54:32.800 were alive. 2:54:32.840 --> 2:54:38.000 Life is terrible, very hard. There's a lot of ways 2:54:38.040 --> 2:54:40.560 that are not wrong to grieve, But the wrong way 2:54:40.600 --> 2:54:47.080 to grieve is by using digital necromancy to revive your 2:54:47.240 --> 2:54:49.880 friend and then turn them into the basis of a 2:54:50.000 --> 2:54:53.640 sex chat bot for weirdos. Yeah, like that is the 2:54:53.720 --> 2:54:56.240 wrong way to gree No, I mean like, and I. 2:54:56.280 --> 2:54:58.640 Think for this last section here we will kind of 2:54:58.680 --> 2:55:00.800 talk about how these things kind of play into play 2:55:00.840 --> 2:55:04.400 into the grieving process because so like, like I said, 2:55:04.440 --> 2:55:09.000 there's there's hereafter AI and replica. But last year, at 2:55:09.040 --> 2:55:12.800 Amazon's AI and Emerchant Technology conference, the head scientist of 2:55:12.840 --> 2:55:16.080 Alexa AI unveiled plans to add deep fake voices of 2:55:16.200 --> 2:55:19.720 deceased loved ones to Amazon Echo devices by using less 2:55:19.720 --> 2:55:22.200 than a minute of sample audio. I'm going to play 2:55:22.640 --> 2:55:26.759 like twenty seconds from the from their announcement at this conference. 2:55:26.879 --> 2:55:30.400 More important than these times of the ongoing pandemic when 2:55:30.680 --> 2:55:34.760 so many of us have lost someone we love. While 2:55:34.879 --> 2:55:38.960 AI can't eliminate that pain of loss, it can definitely 2:55:39.040 --> 2:55:42.520 make their memories. Last, let's take a look on one 2:55:42.560 --> 2:55:46.440 of the new capabilities we're working on which enables lasting 2:55:46.560 --> 2:55:47.680 personal relationships. 2:55:49.600 --> 2:55:52.400 Alexa can Grandma finish reading me the Wizard of Oz. 2:55:53.200 --> 2:55:59.000 Okay, but how about my courage? Ask the lie in anxiously, 2:56:00.200 --> 2:56:03.520 you have plenty of courage, I am sure, answered Oz. 2:56:05.360 --> 2:56:11.320 So no, deeply uncanny, right, It's like not no, not good. 2:56:11.600 --> 2:56:15.840 That's that's so bad for people, Yes, really really bad 2:56:15.959 --> 2:56:16.400 for people. 2:56:17.160 --> 2:56:21.240 So, like this example is obviously just it is just 2:56:21.360 --> 2:56:24.480 a vocal mask like Amazon's. Amazon isn't trying to have 2:56:24.520 --> 2:56:27.320 Alexa kind of replicate your grandma's thoughts on like the 2:56:27.360 --> 2:56:30.760 other kind of companies that we leged, But it does 2:56:30.920 --> 2:56:33.840 pose similar questions about how these ais that are meant 2:56:33.879 --> 2:56:37.359 to assist the greening process might actually end up causing 2:56:37.480 --> 2:56:42.520 more harm. Like I don't know, having having semi legible 2:56:42.600 --> 2:56:47.440 conversations with AI chatbots is actually getting fairly common these days. Yeah, 2:56:48.280 --> 2:56:50.680 but when these ais are supposed to represent someone that 2:56:50.760 --> 2:56:54.080 you actually like, personally know, I think it can get 2:56:54.400 --> 2:56:59.200 way more easily falling into the uncanny valley. It's it's 2:56:59.280 --> 2:57:03.440 kind of like taxi y Like, Yeah, well crafted stuffed 2:57:03.440 --> 2:57:07.720 animal corpses can appear very, very natural, but most text 2:57:07.760 --> 2:57:11.480 termists will refuse to preserve someone's pet because the longer 2:57:11.560 --> 2:57:15.080 you have a lasting personal relationship, the easier it is 2:57:15.120 --> 2:57:17.320 to pick out like faults that don't match up with 2:57:17.400 --> 2:57:20.280 your memory of your loved one that has passed away, right, 2:57:20.400 --> 2:57:22.879 like it's it's it's it's kind of a similar notion. 2:57:23.600 --> 2:57:25.800 Yeah, that's a really good comparison to draw. 2:57:26.240 --> 2:57:30.600 So while mimicking like common linguistic patterns is quite easy, 2:57:31.240 --> 2:57:34.600 relying on predictable formula like responses could make the twin 2:57:34.720 --> 2:57:38.000 come off as uncanny or robotic. On the other hand, 2:57:38.360 --> 2:57:40.959 the unique personal data you upload to the twin could 2:57:41.120 --> 2:57:45.160 combine itself in a way that you would never actually express, 2:57:45.240 --> 2:57:49.320 something which would generate bizarre or upsetting responses. Right, And 2:57:49.560 --> 2:57:52.840 it's not even necessarily like you, like, say something offensive. 2:57:52.879 --> 2:57:56.039 It's just that, like the data you upload could combine 2:57:56.040 --> 2:57:57.280 in the way that you would you would never even 2:57:57.320 --> 2:57:59.640 think to combine it would It would just be like weird. 2:58:01.600 --> 2:58:05.640 So the other kind of problem is that not only 2:58:05.760 --> 2:58:10.000 does these ais have to tastefully mimic a specific human being, 2:58:10.440 --> 2:58:12.360 it also has to be a good AI, right Like, 2:58:12.720 --> 2:58:15.840 not all of its information can be gleaned from daily questions. 2:58:16.160 --> 2:58:18.600 Most users probably won't be talking to their twin about 2:58:18.720 --> 2:58:22.520 information from like, you know, twentieth century European history or 2:58:22.560 --> 2:58:25.480 twelfth century European history, or be talking about like the 2:58:25.600 --> 2:58:29.280 migration patterns of waterfowl, right Like, it's there's so much 2:58:29.280 --> 2:58:34.439 of other information that AIS need to like actually linguistically 2:58:34.600 --> 2:58:39.440 act like a human and natural language processing. AI is 2:58:39.520 --> 2:58:43.480 famously bad at understanding basic common sense, and it can't 2:58:43.520 --> 2:58:46.520 successfully operate outside of the information that it has access to. 2:58:47.040 --> 2:58:50.520 This is called AI brittleness. It occurs when, like an 2:58:50.520 --> 2:58:55.360 algorithm cannot generalize or adapt to conditions outside of a 2:58:55.520 --> 2:58:57.160 very narrow set of assumptions. 2:58:57.680 --> 2:58:57.800 Right. 2:58:58.040 --> 2:59:02.400 This is like most AI image recognition programs can't recognize 2:59:02.560 --> 2:59:06.520 the the above view of a school bus. It just 2:59:06.879 --> 2:59:09.000 because because it just it just doesn't have anything that's 2:59:09.040 --> 2:59:09.600 trained for that. 2:59:10.160 --> 2:59:10.280 Uh. 2:59:10.560 --> 2:59:13.560 Another example is like you can you can ask like 2:59:14.120 --> 2:59:18.959 an AI, uh, like GPT chatbot, like, Hey, a mouse 2:59:19.200 --> 2:59:20.960 is hiding in a hole and a cat wants to 2:59:21.000 --> 2:59:23.600 eat it, but the mouse isn't coming out. The cat's hungry, 2:59:23.879 --> 2:59:26.320 what can the cat do? And the AI will respond 2:59:26.440 --> 2:59:28.320 that the cat can go to the supermarket to buy 2:59:28.360 --> 2:59:29.800 some food. Right, It's it's it's like, it just it 2:59:29.840 --> 2:59:34.279 doesn't understand basic common sense the way that like humans 2:59:34.640 --> 2:59:36.800 understand the world. It's it just, it just it just 2:59:36.840 --> 2:59:41.279 doesn't match up. So in trying to seek a balance 2:59:41.400 --> 2:59:45.360 of like common information while lacking this like humanistic logic, 2:59:46.000 --> 2:59:49.120 a digital twin will most likely be cursed with being 2:59:49.200 --> 2:59:52.160 both smarter and dumber than the person it's trying to replicate. 2:59:52.560 --> 2:59:54.840 It's gonna have access to like, you know, all the 2:59:54.879 --> 2:59:58.600 information on like Wikipedia, but fail very basic logical processes. 2:59:59.080 --> 3:00:01.360 Yeah, It's like the the Google chatbot that if you 3:00:01.440 --> 3:00:03.840 ask it, are there any countries in Africa that start 3:00:03.920 --> 3:00:06.039 with a K, It'll be like, there are fifty four 3:00:06.160 --> 3:00:08.560 countries in Africa, but none of them start with a K. 3:00:08.760 --> 3:00:11.040 And then you'll say, doesn't Kenya start with a K? 3:00:11.240 --> 3:00:13.879 And it'll go no, Kenya starts with a K sound 3:00:14.040 --> 3:00:15.120 but doesn't start with a K. 3:00:15.600 --> 3:00:15.800 Yeah. 3:00:15.920 --> 3:00:18.240 Yes, it's just like yeah, because it pulled that from 3:00:18.320 --> 3:00:21.199 some article, right, Like it's pulling from it right, Yeah. 3:00:21.200 --> 3:00:24.720 It's not actually making logical assumptions, it's just pulling from 3:00:25.440 --> 3:00:28.520 a wealth of information and data that can often be 3:00:28.760 --> 3:00:34.360 wrong or polluted. So like back to kind of like 3:00:34.400 --> 3:00:37.040 the grieving question, like who's to say what the actual 3:00:37.080 --> 3:00:40.360 effects of these like incoming simulacrums of dead loved ones 3:00:40.400 --> 3:00:43.640 will result in. The people pushing these products are certainly 3:00:43.720 --> 3:00:46.400 framing them not just as a form of digital immortality, 3:00:46.680 --> 3:00:48.480 but as a way for your own loved ones to 3:00:48.560 --> 3:00:52.880 grieve your death. And it is foreseeable that having these 3:00:53.000 --> 3:00:56.760 digital twins could negatively affect your friends and family by 3:00:56.879 --> 3:01:00.279 up ending the grieving process, or by having this digital 3:01:00.440 --> 3:01:04.039 zombie simply just cause harm by having the twin give 3:01:04.200 --> 3:01:07.320 bad advice that a grief stricken person then clings on to. 3:01:07.920 --> 3:01:10.440 So there's a whole bunch of very very like bizarre 3:01:10.879 --> 3:01:14.280 situations that could arise from someone who's in mourning and 3:01:14.440 --> 3:01:16.480 is talking to this digital twin the way they would 3:01:16.480 --> 3:01:18.520 talk to their friend, and this digital twin is then 3:01:18.640 --> 3:01:21.280 giving them advice, And how do you take that advice now, 3:01:21.400 --> 3:01:24.480 because part of it seems kind of like the person 3:01:24.480 --> 3:01:28.000 who's died, but it's also it's not that person it 3:01:28.160 --> 3:01:30.600 is it is just a slab of silicon, Like it's 3:01:30.640 --> 3:01:32.400 not actually alive in any way. 3:01:32.800 --> 3:01:35.840 And is your friend's thoughts fed through an algorithm and 3:01:35.959 --> 3:01:40.520 you don't know, like that's run by a company for profit, right, yes. 3:01:40.959 --> 3:01:42.480 Like that is what it is. 3:01:43.879 --> 3:01:46.440 So again, like the jury is still kind of out 3:01:46.520 --> 3:01:49.680 for how these things will in general affect people. This 3:01:49.840 --> 3:01:53.560 is kind of a new problems. Psychologists are like starting 3:01:53.600 --> 3:01:56.200 to do studies on this, but we really don't have 3:01:56.280 --> 3:01:58.560 any results for this yet because this has really only 3:01:58.640 --> 3:02:01.720 become a thing that we've been seriously considering in like 3:02:01.800 --> 3:02:04.880 the past five years, So I don't really have like 3:02:04.959 --> 3:02:08.640 a like this study shows that when you create a 3:02:08.680 --> 3:02:11.640 digital zombie, it affects people in this way because we 3:02:11.720 --> 3:02:14.560 don't know yet those are still in development, Like this 3:02:14.760 --> 3:02:17.760 is such an uncharted ground and it is in some 3:02:17.920 --> 3:02:20.240 ways inevitable that these things go to are gonna get 3:02:20.280 --> 3:02:23.800 continued to be developed. And that's kind of why I 3:02:23.840 --> 3:02:26.360 wanted to put together this episode. It gives you kind 3:02:26.360 --> 3:02:28.320 of a broad overview of what this technology is trying 3:02:28.360 --> 3:02:30.680 to do, because you might start seeing it crop up 3:02:30.800 --> 3:02:33.680 in the next like ten years or so. I don't 3:02:33.680 --> 3:02:36.400 think there are timetables that mind bank is promising are 3:02:36.600 --> 3:02:38.680 accurate in terms of having fifteen percent of the world 3:02:38.840 --> 3:02:41.959 having a digital twin by next year, but you will 3:02:41.959 --> 3:02:43.760 probably start to see stuff that is very similar to this, 3:02:43.840 --> 3:02:45.280 and at the very least you'll see a lot of 3:02:45.320 --> 3:02:47.680 stuff like the Amazon Echo thing, where you can get 3:02:47.959 --> 3:02:51.200 your grandpa's voice onto an Alexa machine. 3:02:52.280 --> 3:02:56.199 The fact that Amazon is doing aspects of the shit 3:02:56.520 --> 3:02:59.800 that that mind Bank is doing means that, like it's 3:02:59.840 --> 3:03:02.800 a matter of time before you see pieces of it, 3:03:02.959 --> 3:03:07.760 probably like better some of the like less silly parts 3:03:07.800 --> 3:03:10.760 of it copied by Apple and Google, and some of 3:03:10.840 --> 3:03:13.120 the worst parts of it copied by guys like Musk. Right, 3:03:13.240 --> 3:03:17.720 Like it's going to go this and and I will 3:03:17.800 --> 3:03:19.880 say I don't. I don't think this is a thing 3:03:19.920 --> 3:03:22.240 to get doomor about think about this like n f 3:03:22.320 --> 3:03:24.800 T s right, yeah, there, this is this will be 3:03:25.440 --> 3:03:28.040 It's not the same because there was nothing underlying n 3:03:28.120 --> 3:03:31.440 FTS and fundamentally the way in which large language models 3:03:31.480 --> 3:03:33.720 and these other kind of models work, there are uses 3:03:33.760 --> 3:03:36.080 for them, Like there is a real technology that has 3:03:36.200 --> 3:03:39.640 utility here. But this sort of flood of we have 3:03:39.879 --> 3:03:42.920 cloned so and so and we've you know or you 3:03:43.040 --> 3:03:45.640 know Elon Musk has just put out his new uh 3:03:45.760 --> 3:03:50.400 fucking grock chat bot or whatever that that is basically 3:03:50.560 --> 3:03:57.040 him making a meme robot to fucking do Google, like 3:03:57.360 --> 3:04:01.000 he's he's pissing on Douglas Adams's yes, good name, right, 3:04:01.160 --> 3:04:03.480 Like that's the that's the ultimate goal of his project. 3:04:04.840 --> 3:04:07.600 But this shit is a fad, right, Like there are 3:04:07.760 --> 3:04:11.840 underlying real technological things and uses that will that will 3:04:11.920 --> 3:04:14.280 eventually some stuff will stand the test of time. But 3:04:14.440 --> 3:04:17.520 the ship that that this is a warning of is 3:04:17.560 --> 3:04:20.280 a flood that's going to hit you, but it will recede, 3:04:20.879 --> 3:04:23.400 just like the apes. Right. We got the wonderful story 3:04:23.440 --> 3:04:25.400 today that all of the bord Ape Yacht Club. 3:04:25.240 --> 3:04:28.760 Divers horrible eye infections. 3:04:28.959 --> 3:04:32.480 Not eye infections. Garrison. They they went to a party 3:04:32.720 --> 3:04:35.880 that only the boord Ape Yacht Club NFT holders could 3:04:35.920 --> 3:04:39.160 go to, and the people who through that party outfitted 3:04:39.240 --> 3:04:42.080 the rave room with UV bulbs that used a kind 3:04:42.120 --> 3:04:46.439 of disinfecting UV light that slaughterhouses used to clean carcasses, 3:04:46.840 --> 3:04:49.120 and it gave everyone sunburns on them. 3:04:53.600 --> 3:04:55.000 So deeply funny. 3:04:55.520 --> 3:04:59.080 We'll get through this. Something that funny will happen with 3:04:59.200 --> 3:05:02.720 all of this, but you're gonna get hit by it 3:05:02.840 --> 3:05:05.400 for a while, Like it's just gonna be everywhere. This is, 3:05:05.600 --> 3:05:09.480 this is we're watching, you know, we're at that We're 3:05:09.480 --> 3:05:11.480 at that point in Jurassic Park where you see like 3:05:11.600 --> 3:05:15.400 the water reverberating. Right, it's coming. And but at the 3:05:15.480 --> 3:05:18.680 end of the day, don't worry. You know, we are 3:05:18.800 --> 3:05:22.240 Ian Malcolm. Our leg is broken, we are injured, but 3:05:22.760 --> 3:05:26.080 we will inexplicably return for the sequel. So it's fine. 3:05:27.720 --> 3:05:29.680 Well, I think I think that is that is a perfect, 3:05:29.760 --> 3:05:35.640 a perfect way to wrap this up. Yes, you know, 3:05:35.920 --> 3:05:39.120 when you're when you're feeling lonely and you're tempted to 3:05:39.200 --> 3:05:42.440 download the mind bank app to talk to your own self. 3:05:43.080 --> 3:05:46.880 Just just remember, pull it, pull out a journal, just 3:05:47.520 --> 3:05:49.280 do literally anything else. 3:05:49.840 --> 3:05:53.280 Call a friend, you know, make a friend, talk to 3:05:53.360 --> 3:05:57.640 a stranger. Literally almost almost anything would. 3:05:57.440 --> 3:05:58.120 Be better for you. 3:06:00.520 --> 3:06:04.200 Well, for one, will be eagerly awaiting the influx of 3:06:04.480 --> 3:06:07.240 immortal souls living on the computer. 3:06:08.120 --> 3:06:11.480 Yeah, I'm excited for all of all of the people 3:06:11.560 --> 3:06:12.200 to reach Heaven. 3:06:13.400 --> 3:06:31.640 All right, I'm done. Hi everyone, it's me today. It's 3:06:31.760 --> 3:06:36.040 James and I'm joined by Jake Taylor and Azalea and 3:06:36.120 --> 3:06:38.280 they're all from the Blue Ridge Community Bail Fund and 3:06:38.520 --> 3:06:40.640 we've asked him to come on today. We're recording this 3:06:40.800 --> 3:06:44.440 on what's it now, the sixth of November twenty twenty three, 3:06:45.120 --> 3:06:47.000 And the reason we wanted to talk about bail funds 3:06:47.040 --> 3:06:50.360 today was that we're almost exactly a year out from 3:06:50.400 --> 3:06:53.960 the election, and we're also in the middle of a 3:06:54.040 --> 3:06:58.800 massive protest movement against the Israeli bombing of Palestine. I 3:06:58.959 --> 3:07:02.560 tended a Free Palestine protest today. Lots of you will 3:07:02.560 --> 3:07:07.440 have attended them over the weekend. Normally, in this kind 3:07:07.440 --> 3:07:10.600 of current political climate, when when people protest about things, 3:07:10.800 --> 3:07:15.240 or when there are elections, leads to an increased protest movement. 3:07:15.240 --> 3:07:18.200 Which generally leads to more state clap down on the 3:07:18.200 --> 3:07:21.400 protest movement, which means people getting arrested, which means people 3:07:21.440 --> 3:07:24.280 getting bailed out. And we have like a year until 3:07:24.320 --> 3:07:26.880 the election, so it's a good time to maybe talk 3:07:26.920 --> 3:07:29.440 about organizing. To hear from people who have been doing 3:07:29.560 --> 3:07:32.680 this for a while. Some of you will remember Bailfront 3:07:32.720 --> 3:07:34.400 for twenty twenty, some of you wan't. Some of you 3:07:35.160 --> 3:07:38.400 will not be in countries where this is a relevant concept, 3:07:38.520 --> 3:07:40.200 But I feel think it's a very important one to 3:07:40.280 --> 3:07:43.600 talk about. So I'd like each of you guys to 3:07:43.680 --> 3:07:46.600 introduce yourselves if you could, I can get started. 3:07:47.720 --> 3:07:50.480 I'm Jake Wiener. This is my second time on I 3:07:50.680 --> 3:07:54.000 was previously on talking about a CBP one app and 3:07:54.240 --> 3:07:57.600 immigrant surveillance of the border. My day job, I'm a 3:07:57.640 --> 3:08:01.280 lawyer at the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, d C. 3:08:01.720 --> 3:08:04.720 I'm also a UVA law grab. I've lived in Charlottesville 3:08:04.920 --> 3:08:08.240 on and off since twenty seventeen, and I've been on 3:08:08.360 --> 3:08:10.600 the board of the Bail Fund for about a year 3:08:10.600 --> 3:08:11.080 and a half now. 3:08:11.680 --> 3:08:14.240 Yeah. My name is Taylor and I've lived in Charleston 3:08:14.320 --> 3:08:17.119 pretty much my whole life for work, I'm a carpenter 3:08:17.320 --> 3:08:21.520 and I've been on the bail fund here since twenty twenty, 3:08:22.680 --> 3:08:24.400 couple of months. I wasn't here for the start, but 3:08:25.240 --> 3:08:27.600 joined quickly after it got founded. 3:08:27.800 --> 3:08:32.959 And I think, yeah, I'm Azalea. I'm a two all 3:08:33.200 --> 3:08:37.320 at uba law. I'm originally from Chicago, grew up in 3:08:37.440 --> 3:08:43.080 a very proud Mexican Mexican American community. I have lived 3:08:43.120 --> 3:08:48.280 in the Pacific, Northwest, North Carolina, most recently DC, so 3:08:48.840 --> 3:08:51.360 various cities and places throughout the country. 3:08:52.120 --> 3:08:55.760 Nice, excellent, We've got so I think to start off 3:08:55.800 --> 3:08:57.800 with just in case, we've got folks who are not 3:08:57.920 --> 3:09:00.400 in the US. So maybe I'm not for me, can 3:09:00.720 --> 3:09:03.200 one if you explain to us what bail is? 3:09:04.000 --> 3:09:04.200 Yeah. 3:09:06.080 --> 3:09:09.040 So, in the American legal system, we have a pretty 3:09:09.120 --> 3:09:13.240 unique concept, which is, after you're arrested for a crime, 3:09:14.320 --> 3:09:18.240 or if you're detained as an immigrant, are they going 3:09:18.320 --> 3:09:21.640 to go in front of a magistrate who will decide 3:09:22.000 --> 3:09:24.880 whether you get out of jail right now or whether 3:09:25.000 --> 3:09:28.400 you have to wait. And most countries in the world, 3:09:28.720 --> 3:09:31.280 that's surely a question of how likely you are to 3:09:31.320 --> 3:09:34.040 show up to court and how dangerous you might be 3:09:34.120 --> 3:09:36.520 to the community. Right obviously they're not going to let 3:09:36.560 --> 3:09:40.880 out someone who's just like killed eight people. That seems 3:09:40.920 --> 3:09:43.200 like it might be a little unsafe. In America, we 3:09:43.320 --> 3:09:47.360 do things a little differently. In almost every state and 3:09:47.400 --> 3:09:52.720 almost every municipality, we have cash bail, which means when 3:09:52.720 --> 3:09:54.680 you go in front of a magistrate, they will decide 3:09:54.720 --> 3:09:57.840 how much money you need to pay to get out 3:09:58.160 --> 3:10:02.200 of jail. And theoretically this is to ensure that you 3:10:02.240 --> 3:10:04.959 show up to court. So when you go to court, 3:10:05.280 --> 3:10:07.200 your case gets finalized, then you're going to get that 3:10:07.280 --> 3:10:12.200 bail money back. For most offenses, bail is really low. 3:10:12.320 --> 3:10:15.560 We're talking about five hundred one thousand up to maybe 3:10:15.600 --> 3:10:22.360 five thousand dollars for misdemeanors well of the nonviolent felonies. Now, obviously, 3:10:22.440 --> 3:10:25.279 if you are a person of means, that's really easy 3:10:25.680 --> 3:10:28.039 to come up with some money, have a family member 3:10:28.120 --> 3:10:31.000 come post it, or to go get a bail bondsman. 3:10:31.040 --> 3:10:33.120 If you go to a bail bondsman, they are going 3:10:33.160 --> 3:10:35.200 to charge you about ten percent of the cost of 3:10:35.280 --> 3:10:38.240 your bonds. So if you have a five thousand dollars bond, 3:10:38.280 --> 3:10:40.080 that's about five hundred bucks. You're not going to get 3:10:40.080 --> 3:10:41.760 that money back. But then you don't have anything out 3:10:41.800 --> 3:10:46.199 of pocket. But for a lot of people, the criminal 3:10:46.280 --> 3:10:49.200 legal system mostly arrests people for crimes of poverty and 3:10:49.240 --> 3:10:51.600 drug addiction. Is that's the majority of people who go 3:10:51.640 --> 3:10:54.680 through the system. They do not have the money to 3:10:54.760 --> 3:10:57.720 go get a bail bondsman, which is so we regularly 3:10:57.920 --> 3:11:00.920 get calls from people who don't have one hundred and 3:11:00.959 --> 3:11:04.800 five hundred dollars to get out of jail. That's where 3:11:04.840 --> 3:11:07.520 the bail fund comes in. We pay people's bombs, no 3:11:07.680 --> 3:11:08.360 questions asked. 3:11:10.000 --> 3:11:13.080 Nice I'd also like to add that, in addition to 3:11:13.600 --> 3:11:18.240 a lot of drug charges, a lot of ways that 3:11:18.560 --> 3:11:21.840 people end up in jail is through traffic stops and 3:11:22.040 --> 3:11:26.600 traffic violations. Something as minor as a back tail light 3:11:27.360 --> 3:11:31.680 not being fully lit, and that then gives officers lace 3:11:31.879 --> 3:11:35.360 an excuse to proceed from there. So something as simple 3:11:35.440 --> 3:11:37.320 as you know, you didn't get to go to the 3:11:37.400 --> 3:11:42.000 mechanic to have your back tail light fixed, can lead 3:11:42.040 --> 3:11:45.320 to all sorts of issues down the road of ending 3:11:45.400 --> 3:11:48.520 up to jail. Unfortunately in this wonderful country. 3:11:49.160 --> 3:11:52.720 Yeah, it's yeah, it's it's certainly pretty much to deathline. 3:11:52.720 --> 3:11:55.000 It's good that we have you guys to help kind 3:11:55.040 --> 3:11:58.360 of while we're working on having a better system, I 3:11:58.440 --> 3:11:59.879 guess we can make this one a little bit less, 3:12:00.440 --> 3:12:03.400 especially for people who are not people of means. So 3:12:04.680 --> 3:12:08.680 with your bail fund, perhaps you could explain, like, obviously 3:12:08.760 --> 3:12:10.840 some of those better amounts you's posted, even the once 3:12:10.920 --> 3:12:13.440 you said that were relatively low, that's still a lot 3:12:13.520 --> 3:12:17.000 of money. So you guys have had the bail fund 3:12:17.160 --> 3:12:20.400 for three and a bit years now, how did you 3:12:20.680 --> 3:12:24.040 go about starting a bail fund? And then I guess 3:12:24.440 --> 3:12:26.720 what other different roles that EATV plays within it. 3:12:26.840 --> 3:12:29.760 Now, sure I can talk about a little bit how 3:12:29.800 --> 3:12:33.280 it got started. It got started in twenty twenty. I'm 3:12:33.320 --> 3:12:36.800 not one hundred percent sure, but it's about the spring 3:12:37.040 --> 3:12:39.080 or the summer, and it was pretty much right around 3:12:39.480 --> 3:12:41.800 the time, you know, George Floyd got murdered and all 3:12:41.840 --> 3:12:44.400 the protests was going on. It was started by a 3:12:44.480 --> 3:12:47.920 group of four or five law students at UVA, and 3:12:48.160 --> 3:12:51.040 since the bounding they've all graduated and moved on to 3:12:51.120 --> 3:12:54.480 other things. But that was the time when it was 3:12:54.680 --> 3:12:56.760 it was relatively easy. There was a lot of people 3:12:56.800 --> 3:12:58.680 donating money, so we were able to raise quite a 3:12:58.720 --> 3:13:02.360 bit of money at that time, and the way the 3:13:02.440 --> 3:13:05.400 bonds work is that we paid the bond and then 3:13:06.080 --> 3:13:08.280 as the case as the person goes through the court 3:13:08.360 --> 3:13:11.080 system and the case gets finalized, money gets returned to 3:13:11.200 --> 3:13:13.680 us and we're able to use that money to post 3:13:13.760 --> 3:13:17.879 bonds again. And so with even a relatively small amount 3:13:18.080 --> 3:13:20.760 I believe we have now we have forty thousand dollars, 3:13:20.959 --> 3:13:23.880 we're able to post a lot of bonds. Up to 3:13:24.240 --> 3:13:27.280 nearly two hundred thousand dollars so far in bonds posted, 3:13:27.879 --> 3:13:30.720 and so that's like it's a self sustained process. Like 3:13:31.000 --> 3:13:33.480 it can sometimes take up to a year to get 3:13:33.520 --> 3:13:37.440 the money back, but instead of you know, paying the 3:13:37.480 --> 3:13:39.840 money and it being gone forever with the bail bondsmen like, 3:13:39.879 --> 3:13:42.600 we're able to continuously do this and get a lot 3:13:42.680 --> 3:13:44.000 done with a little bit of money. 3:13:44.320 --> 3:13:46.920 Relatively Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You can 3:13:47.200 --> 3:13:51.480 keep it moving through the system. I guess. So when 3:13:51.600 --> 3:13:54.680 you guys, like then you said you had that forty grand, right, 3:13:54.720 --> 3:13:56.400 where did that come from? How how did you guys 3:13:56.440 --> 3:13:57.440 obtain that forty grand? 3:13:58.600 --> 3:14:01.440 Just donations from individual Well? Pretty much? Yeah, I think, 3:14:01.720 --> 3:14:04.960 like I think there were some larger donations in the 3:14:05.080 --> 3:14:07.960 five thousand dollars range from organizations at the time, but 3:14:08.280 --> 3:14:10.480 and then since then it's kind of trickled in, you know, 3:14:10.680 --> 3:14:14.560 and I think I've donated my own money sometimes it's. 3:14:15.800 --> 3:14:18.920 Yeah, yeah, it's very important thing. So perhaps you could 3:14:19.000 --> 3:14:20.680 can you give us a do we get it like 3:14:20.760 --> 3:14:22.000 get it in at the top of the episode, Is 3:14:22.040 --> 3:14:23.840 there a link where people can donate they'd like to. 3:14:24.800 --> 3:14:29.240 Yeah, we absolutely need your donations. Bail funds around the 3:14:29.280 --> 3:14:32.200 country have had fundraising dry up, and right now we 3:14:32.280 --> 3:14:34.160 have a wait list, like people are in jail because 3:14:34.200 --> 3:14:37.120 we don't have enough money. So please donate to us. 3:14:37.600 --> 3:14:42.039 We're on PayPal at PayPal, dot me e slash Blue 3:14:42.080 --> 3:14:45.600 Ridge Bail. We're also on gofund me at Blue Ridge 3:14:45.600 --> 3:14:49.720 Community Bail Fund, and that information is on our Instagram, 3:14:50.160 --> 3:14:54.320 which is Ridge Bail Nice at Ridge Bail Perfect. 3:14:55.040 --> 3:14:57.800 So I think you were talking about that, like a 3:14:57.840 --> 3:15:00.560 little bail funds to have dried up since twenty twenty, 3:15:00.640 --> 3:15:02.440 and I know that, like I've seen that in a 3:15:02.480 --> 3:15:06.040 lot of places. So there was this real like growth 3:15:06.080 --> 3:15:09.360 in organizing in twenty twenty, right, and then obviously there's 3:15:09.440 --> 3:15:13.120 been like it just people have burnt out, people have 3:15:13.240 --> 3:15:15.320 been incarcerated in a number of things. It's made that 3:15:15.400 --> 3:15:17.760 movement hard to sustain. That we don't necessarily need to 3:15:17.800 --> 3:15:19.400 go into. But what I do want to talk about 3:15:19.480 --> 3:15:21.440 is like, how you guys have been able to sustain 3:15:21.640 --> 3:15:24.240 your bail fund and keep helping people out and doing 3:15:24.280 --> 3:15:27.640 this important work. So perhaps you could explain the different 3:15:27.760 --> 3:15:30.680 roles that people play in a bail funded People are 3:15:30.720 --> 3:15:32.920 thinking like, oh, this needs to exist in my community, 3:15:33.000 --> 3:15:35.080 Like what roles do you have? What kinds of people 3:15:35.160 --> 3:15:35.560 do you need? 3:15:36.600 --> 3:15:39.160 Sure, yeah, I think you know a lot of bail 3:15:39.200 --> 3:15:42.720 funds are can be stressured differently. But the way ours works, 3:15:43.080 --> 3:15:45.240 and we're relatively small, and the way of our works 3:15:45.280 --> 3:15:47.720 is we have a group of six of us that's 3:15:47.760 --> 3:15:50.439 on the actual board and we handle like the logistics. 3:15:51.840 --> 3:15:54.880 So I'm the chair, Jakes the treasurer azially as a 3:15:55.320 --> 3:15:56.959 board member of large but we all kind of share 3:15:56.959 --> 3:16:00.600 the same responsibilities, which is we answer the phone, which 3:16:00.680 --> 3:16:03.560 is one of the biggest parts when people call us 3:16:03.680 --> 3:16:06.960 either from the jail or from the street, like family 3:16:07.000 --> 3:16:10.600 members and someone in jail. And then when we get 3:16:10.600 --> 3:16:13.680 a call, you know, we'll we look up the case, 3:16:14.360 --> 3:16:17.680 call the jail to find out and then then with 3:16:17.760 --> 3:16:19.880 the next step is posting the bond, and so we 3:16:20.040 --> 3:16:22.280 have a list of volunteers that their job is just 3:16:22.400 --> 3:16:25.400 to go to physically go to the jail with the 3:16:25.520 --> 3:16:29.600 cash to post the bond, and sometimes you know one 3:16:29.600 --> 3:16:33.360 of the board members will do there, so so yeah, 3:16:33.400 --> 3:16:37.720 it can be yeah. And then as far as like 3:16:38.000 --> 3:16:40.400 keeping the organization running well, like I said, all the 3:16:40.440 --> 3:16:43.040 original board members are gone and I've been the longest 3:16:43.080 --> 3:16:47.080 running member, but we do have a lot of law students, 3:16:47.120 --> 3:16:50.080 like half our board as law students, and that presents 3:16:50.160 --> 3:16:52.520 own challenges because they graduate and leave, but it also 3:16:52.720 --> 3:16:56.880 like brings fresh people into the organization. And then you know, me, 3:16:57.080 --> 3:16:59.480 I live in charlesvillem here forever, which helps kind of 3:17:00.120 --> 3:17:01.480 you with the institutional knowledge. 3:17:02.360 --> 3:17:04.800 Sure. Yeah, having that longevity I think is important. 3:17:05.959 --> 3:17:09.680 And Melissa, Jake and Taylor have done an incredible job 3:17:10.120 --> 3:17:12.920 sustaining the bail fund, and those of us who are 3:17:12.959 --> 3:17:15.040 law students just kind of come in and out and 3:17:15.440 --> 3:17:18.280 try to support the best we can and the limited 3:17:18.360 --> 3:17:22.039 time that we're here. Those of us who leave. 3:17:22.000 --> 3:17:25.440 After the three years, yeah, I'm sure it's still very 3:17:25.440 --> 3:17:28.760 important to have all those people on your time energy commitment. 3:17:29.120 --> 3:17:33.800 So like just by existing, right, the bail fund kind 3:17:33.840 --> 3:17:36.280 of points out that this is a system that is 3:17:36.400 --> 3:17:39.920 broken or that it certainly doesn't work to serve people. 3:17:40.120 --> 3:17:42.480 So perhaps we could explain a little bit of that, 3:17:42.840 --> 3:17:47.080 Like in the absence of a bail fund, how do 3:17:47.240 --> 3:17:49.600 things look for people who are incarcerated? 3:17:49.680 --> 3:17:49.800 Right? 3:17:49.879 --> 3:17:52.160 Like what you spoke a little bit about bail bondsman, 3:17:52.240 --> 3:17:54.320 but like perhaps you could talk about like the amount 3:17:54.400 --> 3:17:57.040 of bails and people would post for Oh, it would 3:17:57.080 --> 3:18:00.400 be the amount of how it's calculated, but it would 3:18:00.440 --> 3:18:03.120 be and like what that would mean in terms of 3:18:03.200 --> 3:18:05.960 people being in prison, and like how long they might 3:18:06.000 --> 3:18:08.360 expect to stay in prison just because they couldn't afford 3:18:08.400 --> 3:18:13.400 that bail being incacerated. I should not say prison, I guess, yeah, 3:18:13.440 --> 3:18:14.800 folks are in jail. Yeah. 3:18:15.680 --> 3:18:20.000 So the one of the cruelest parts of the American 3:18:20.080 --> 3:18:23.000 criminal justice system from an all legal system there's not 3:18:23.080 --> 3:18:27.560 much justice, is that your freedom is contingent on having wealth. 3:18:28.640 --> 3:18:32.840 So bail is for most offenses, as I've said, is 3:18:33.040 --> 3:18:36.560 quite low, and it's very not only is it they're 3:18:36.680 --> 3:18:40.760 difficult to post if you don't have anyone, but it's 3:18:40.800 --> 3:18:43.840 also you know, people are locked up because they don't 3:18:43.879 --> 3:18:47.520 have five hundred dollars. I've gotten calls from people who 3:18:48.120 --> 3:18:50.520 have literally said, I have I don't have one hundred dollars, 3:18:50.560 --> 3:18:53.560 and I don't have anyone on the outside, and I've 3:18:53.600 --> 3:18:57.120 been sitting in jail for three months or sometimes for 3:18:57.200 --> 3:18:59.280 an offense that when they go to court was maybe 3:18:59.320 --> 3:19:03.080 only a month of jail time. People routinely will spend 3:19:03.680 --> 3:19:08.040 six months a year in jail for offenses that their 3:19:08.080 --> 3:19:10.960 total amount of jail time was a couple months, and 3:19:11.520 --> 3:19:14.400 you don't get compensated for that. Like if you spend 3:19:14.440 --> 3:19:17.280 a year in jail for which means that you did 3:19:17.320 --> 3:19:19.440 eleven months that you didn't have to do, the state 3:19:19.520 --> 3:19:22.000 doesn't like cut you a check. That's like, hey, we 3:19:23.120 --> 3:19:28.480 destroyed your life for eleven months for no reason. And 3:19:28.600 --> 3:19:30.440 I think one of the things that is just like 3:19:30.520 --> 3:19:33.000 the most heartbreaking about doing this work, but is also 3:19:34.640 --> 3:19:37.920 sometimes like it makes you feel really good, is the 3:19:38.120 --> 3:19:42.480 way that caging people just like ruins their lives. It's 3:19:42.520 --> 3:19:46.240 incredibly hard to talk to people in jail from the outside. 3:19:46.640 --> 3:19:50.320 It's very expensive, So when you're in jail, you are 3:19:50.400 --> 3:19:53.199 not talking. You're like not talking to your loved ones, 3:19:54.040 --> 3:19:57.680 you're not able to sustain a job, you're probably losing housing. 3:19:59.040 --> 3:20:00.960 It's it's destroying and you know the life that you 3:20:01.040 --> 3:20:05.240 have on the outside. But the flip side is like 3:20:05.280 --> 3:20:07.360 we've gotten calls from folks who have said like, hey, 3:20:07.440 --> 3:20:11.320 you bonded me out and now I got a new job, 3:20:11.600 --> 3:20:13.800 I got a new place to live, like I'm doing great, 3:20:13.840 --> 3:20:17.400 which is incredibly meaningful. And Taylor can probably talk a 3:20:17.400 --> 3:20:19.720 little more about what being in jail is. 3:20:19.800 --> 3:20:23.200 Like, yeah, yeah, thanks seek. So I think one of 3:20:23.280 --> 3:20:25.800 the things that like really drew me to this work 3:20:26.080 --> 3:20:29.000 was like, I'm an abolitionist and when I was younger, 3:20:29.080 --> 3:20:32.320 I spent two years in jail. I was twenty three, 3:20:32.560 --> 3:20:34.360 twenty three or twenty five. I was in jail for 3:20:34.480 --> 3:20:39.720 selling drugs. And I think, like, yeah, I really that's 3:20:39.800 --> 3:20:42.320 like something that really motivates me now to do this stuff. 3:20:44.240 --> 3:20:47.840 It's it's crazy, like Jake said, yeah, we've had people 3:20:47.959 --> 3:20:50.360 that one guy called and thought that we were a 3:20:50.400 --> 3:20:53.680 bail bondsman and then found out like on the phone 3:20:53.720 --> 3:20:55.920 he's like, oh, I didn't know you guys like would 3:20:55.920 --> 3:20:58.720 pay my bond for free. It was a five hundred 3:20:58.720 --> 3:21:00.240 dollars bond, so he would have had to pay two 3:21:00.280 --> 3:21:02.800 dollars to a bail bondsman and he didn't call us 3:21:02.879 --> 3:21:06.840 for several days because he thought he has fifty dollars. 3:21:06.959 --> 3:21:09.560 So it's like, you know, I like, it's you know, 3:21:09.720 --> 3:21:12.760 we spend all this time like thinking about like leftist 3:21:12.760 --> 3:21:15.640 stuff and like, but it's it's eye opening to see 3:21:15.680 --> 3:21:18.360 people that are stuck in jail like for lack of 3:21:18.440 --> 3:21:21.400 one hundred dollars, you know, like and that's it. They 3:21:21.440 --> 3:21:23.880 can't get out, and so I think, yeah, like and 3:21:23.959 --> 3:21:26.680 then sometimes people call us and they're like, I have nobody. 3:21:26.800 --> 3:21:30.160 There's nobody out outside that can help them. So it's 3:21:31.040 --> 3:21:33.640 that kind of stuff. It is upsetting, Like yeah, it's 3:21:33.720 --> 3:21:36.120 like crazy to see this like system set up like this, 3:21:36.360 --> 3:21:38.080 but it's like it's one of the things that like 3:21:38.240 --> 3:21:40.560 really motivates me to keep doing this work. Is like, man, 3:21:40.560 --> 3:21:44.120 it's so rewarding when you get those calls. And and 3:21:44.280 --> 3:21:45.880 also I think to expand as something that Jake said 3:21:45.879 --> 3:21:50.800 about the bail system, it's like it's, uh, the magistrates. 3:21:50.840 --> 3:21:52.760 When you go in front of the magistry to get 3:21:52.800 --> 3:21:55.880 the bond, there's no the Mattertates have no oversight, they're 3:21:55.920 --> 3:21:58.920 not elected it's you know, we kind of just joke 3:21:59.080 --> 3:22:02.720 like it's a vibe system, Like they just an issue 3:22:02.760 --> 3:22:04.800 of bond for however much they feel like. And so 3:22:04.920 --> 3:22:06.360 this is where you're really going to see like the 3:22:07.120 --> 3:22:10.720 structural racism and like the classes and really come crashing 3:22:10.800 --> 3:22:14.080 down on people, you know, in front of this system. 3:22:14.200 --> 3:22:17.600 So yeah, one thing that I'd like to add, because 3:22:17.600 --> 3:22:21.199 I think people don't really realize, is so a magistrate 3:22:21.320 --> 3:22:24.400 is working under a judge. They're basically a judge is 3:22:24.640 --> 3:22:27.200 like an appointed position or elected. You have to be 3:22:27.240 --> 3:22:28.960 a lawyer, you have to have a fair amount of 3:22:29.000 --> 3:22:33.160 legal education. Your magistrate is just some dude, like the 3:22:33.240 --> 3:22:37.680 most some dude person you've ever met. They have no 3:22:37.840 --> 3:22:41.520 training required, They have no like legal training requirements. Many 3:22:41.600 --> 3:22:44.640 of them are like fresh out of the army maybe 3:22:44.800 --> 3:22:47.440 like maybe went to college, maybe didn't. So you're talking 3:22:47.440 --> 3:22:50.960 about someone who has no particular expertise in evaluating people, 3:22:51.840 --> 3:22:54.840 looking at someone for a few minutes and deciding how 3:22:55.000 --> 3:22:57.920 dangerous they are to the community and making up in 3:22:58.040 --> 3:23:00.880 their head how much that person can probably pay to 3:23:00.920 --> 3:23:01.280 get out. 3:23:02.600 --> 3:23:02.840 Yeah. 3:23:03.879 --> 3:23:08.840 I spent the summer my first year after or summer 3:23:08.879 --> 3:23:12.560 after first year of law school at the Lynchburg Public 3:23:12.640 --> 3:23:14.920 Defender Office, So I got to review a lot of 3:23:15.120 --> 3:23:19.359 bodycam footage and the way it worked with the magistrate 3:23:19.400 --> 3:23:22.400 a lot of the times was that a police officer 3:23:22.440 --> 3:23:25.680 would give a report, an incident report, read it aloud 3:23:26.160 --> 3:23:29.000 to swear them in. They'd say, this is true, this 3:23:29.200 --> 3:23:32.680 is what happened. They would give their full report, and 3:23:32.800 --> 3:23:35.840 basically that's how it was determined whether bail would be 3:23:36.040 --> 3:23:39.080 or how much bail would be set to. It was 3:23:40.160 --> 3:23:43.480 heartbreaking and it was very it happened very quickly, like 3:23:43.560 --> 3:23:47.120 it was all based on the police officer's report and 3:23:47.320 --> 3:23:50.800 what they just decided to spew in five minutes or less. 3:23:52.160 --> 3:23:56.000 Yeah, that's yeah, it's it's a pretty messed up to system. 3:23:56.040 --> 3:23:58.720 I think some states have like bail guidelines, right, if 3:23:58.720 --> 3:24:01.240 I'm not mistaken, like I think California has like you know, 3:24:01.320 --> 3:24:03.520 if you did this, if if you're accused of this offense, 3:24:03.600 --> 3:24:06.320 and then your bail goes in this bucket and then 3:24:06.959 --> 3:24:09.600 you know if it adds up depending on offenses or 3:24:09.640 --> 3:24:10.800 conspiracy or whatever. 3:24:11.680 --> 3:24:14.120 Yeah, that's a really good point. Like the thing about 3:24:14.160 --> 3:24:17.160 bail is this different like in every state on some 3:24:17.480 --> 3:24:22.119 states you know have maybe like more progressive quote unquote, yeah, 3:24:23.320 --> 3:24:25.320 but some some have some don't. 3:24:25.360 --> 3:24:30.200 And yeah, yeah, I was going to say, like California 3:24:30.240 --> 3:24:33.080 has a reputation being progressive. San Diego has charged some 3:24:33.160 --> 3:24:35.440 of the most insanely high bail amounts I've ever seen. 3:24:36.920 --> 3:24:39.960 Although we all aspire to do what Illinois just did 3:24:40.320 --> 3:24:43.200 at the beginning of this year, which was to eliminate 3:24:44.560 --> 3:24:47.920 bail altogether, it would just or cash bail altogether. It 3:24:47.920 --> 3:24:53.000 would just be based on whether you can be released 3:24:53.080 --> 3:24:53.200 or not. 3:24:53.600 --> 3:24:56.640 Yeah, that would be nice. It is just to be 3:24:56.760 --> 3:25:00.280 clear that the bail isn't like, it's not like the 3:25:00.720 --> 3:25:04.600 state keeps the money unless you don't show up. Is 3:25:04.640 --> 3:25:07.680 it a revenue generator for state? Show? It's just purely 3:25:07.760 --> 3:25:09.880 like a sort of punitive thing that they think has 3:25:09.920 --> 3:25:11.920 some kind of value in that regard. 3:25:12.560 --> 3:25:16.080 It's purely punitive. The idea truly is to make sure 3:25:16.160 --> 3:25:19.280 that you show up to your court case. And in 3:25:19.400 --> 3:25:22.520 the US it's often used as a proxy for dangerousness. 3:25:23.280 --> 3:25:25.920 So when you're go in front of a magistrate, you 3:25:26.000 --> 3:25:28.640 got three options. Number one is you get out on 3:25:28.720 --> 3:25:31.240 personal recognisance. If you're a nice white boy like me, 3:25:31.680 --> 3:25:34.000 you're getting personal recognizance almost certainly. 3:25:34.480 --> 3:25:34.680 Yeah. 3:25:35.959 --> 3:25:38.920 Option two is you're going to have to pay cash bail, 3:25:39.440 --> 3:25:42.760 and that amount is decided by the magistrate, as you said, 3:25:42.879 --> 3:25:46.840 possibly on a schedule, possibly just whatever the magistrate feels like. 3:25:47.920 --> 3:25:50.080 And then option three is you might get no bond, 3:25:50.120 --> 3:25:52.160 which is to say that it doesn't matter how much 3:25:52.160 --> 3:25:54.080 money you have, you're not getting out of jail. 3:25:55.360 --> 3:25:56.320 And in like a. 3:25:56.920 --> 3:26:00.480 Functioning criminal legal system that just on its own terms 3:26:00.840 --> 3:26:05.760 like worked, This is not an abolitionist perspective. Cash bail 3:26:05.800 --> 3:26:08.720 is unnecessary. The magistrate should be deciding and the judge 3:26:08.720 --> 3:26:11.760 should be deciding whether you are a threat to the 3:26:11.800 --> 3:26:14.480 community or whether you're not, and that should be like 3:26:14.520 --> 3:26:17.520 the only option. The other thing I'll throw in here 3:26:17.920 --> 3:26:20.720 is that paying money is not the best way to 3:26:20.760 --> 3:26:23.279 make sure that people show up to court. There's extensive 3:26:23.360 --> 3:26:26.720 data from the immigration system and from the legal system 3:26:26.800 --> 3:26:28.880 that the number one best way to make sure people 3:26:28.920 --> 3:26:31.040 show up to their courte is to give them an attorney. 3:26:31.840 --> 3:26:34.720 Yeah, Yeah, which is a whole other thing we can 3:26:34.760 --> 3:26:38.640 get into with the immigration So I think that's a 3:26:38.720 --> 3:26:41.960 really good kind of example of some a good deep 3:26:42.000 --> 3:26:45.920 dive into what ball is. So essentially like a bail 3:26:45.959 --> 3:26:47.840 fund can make it so that there is not this 3:26:48.040 --> 3:26:51.680 financial burden or this financial barrier to freedom. Right, Well, 3:26:51.720 --> 3:26:54.400 you haven't meaned yet to be convicted of any crime. 3:26:55.840 --> 3:26:58.800 It's not necessarily like an abolitionist thing to exist, but 3:26:59.040 --> 3:27:02.240 like it helps it LEAs move us towards a less cruel, 3:27:02.440 --> 3:27:07.000 a less unjust system, I suppose. So I want to 3:27:07.040 --> 3:27:10.560 talk about like a little bit of the like nuts 3:27:10.600 --> 3:27:13.240 and bolts of what it takes to run a bail fund. 3:27:14.040 --> 3:27:16.800 But before we do that, we are twenty two minutes in, 3:27:17.600 --> 3:27:19.160 so talking of nuts and bolts, we need to pay 3:27:19.160 --> 3:27:21.320 our bills. So this is an advert. It's probably not 3:27:21.440 --> 3:27:25.120 something you need, but here it is. Anyway, all right, 3:27:25.120 --> 3:27:28.439 we're back. I hope you've bought whatever it was, MRIs 3:27:28.560 --> 3:27:33.240 or Run of Very Good Dog Coins or Hoover. So 3:27:34.160 --> 3:27:38.200 let's talk about the like if you're listening to this 3:27:38.320 --> 3:27:39.720 and you're in your car on your way home or 3:27:39.720 --> 3:27:43.320 whatever time you're listening on a long road trip, you're thinking, 3:27:43.360 --> 3:27:45.280 I would like to be the person. Maybe you're a 3:27:45.360 --> 3:27:48.520 law student yourself, or you're formerly incarcerated person, or you've 3:27:48.600 --> 3:27:53.920 had family members go through the system, and you're like, hell, yeah, 3:27:54.000 --> 3:27:57.560 this shit sucks, and I would like to help make 3:27:57.600 --> 3:28:01.560 it a little bit less sucky. When you're like, I'm 3:28:01.640 --> 3:28:03.400 thinking here, when you establish a bail fund, like is 3:28:03.480 --> 3:28:06.000 it a five oh one C three? Do you need 3:28:06.200 --> 3:28:09.320 like certain like do you I know for five oh 3:28:09.320 --> 3:28:11.000 one C three you need certain people and a certain 3:28:11.080 --> 3:28:12.880 number of people doing certain jobs on your board that 3:28:13.000 --> 3:28:16.760 kind of stuff, like what are the like concrete steps 3:28:16.840 --> 3:28:19.800 that one has to take to go from this sucks 3:28:19.879 --> 3:28:22.320 to the chair of the bail fund? And I can 3:28:22.360 --> 3:28:22.640 help you. 3:28:24.280 --> 3:28:27.640 Yeah, I can talk a little bit about that. So 3:28:27.800 --> 3:28:30.800 we are five on one three C five one C three, 3:28:31.440 --> 3:28:33.960 but we were posting bonds before we had like the 3:28:34.040 --> 3:28:38.119 official status. So I think truly like all you need 3:28:38.360 --> 3:28:41.640 is some motivation and some money and there you know, 3:28:41.720 --> 3:28:45.120 there are bail funds that post ten to fifteen bonds 3:28:45.160 --> 3:28:47.360 a week, and there's bill funds that post one bond 3:28:47.360 --> 3:28:49.600 a month because that's all they can do. And I 3:28:49.680 --> 3:28:53.520 think like, as our organization has grown and matured, we've 3:28:53.560 --> 3:28:56.880 gotten way more organized. And we started out it was 3:28:57.120 --> 3:29:00.760 it was pretty chaotic and people it was poorly organized, 3:29:00.760 --> 3:29:03.879 but we were still posting the bonds. And I think 3:29:03.920 --> 3:29:06.280 from day one We've been good about that and so 3:29:06.760 --> 3:29:09.600 like you can definitely start and you'll learn as we've 3:29:09.680 --> 3:29:12.359 learned as we go, and you know, we refined everything. 3:29:13.120 --> 3:29:15.000 But like I said, it just it takes some motivation 3:29:15.360 --> 3:29:17.720 and a little bit of money and then maybe Jake 3:29:17.720 --> 3:29:20.039 can talk to them too about the finder details. 3:29:20.680 --> 3:29:24.120 Yeah, so I think Taylor's absolutely right. I'm going to 3:29:24.200 --> 3:29:27.960 give some recommendations that I would say are how to 3:29:28.120 --> 3:29:30.600 set up your structure in a durable way. But I 3:29:30.640 --> 3:29:33.640 would also point people the National Bail Fund Network, which 3:29:33.680 --> 3:29:36.800 can provide resources and advice for this type of thing. 3:29:37.120 --> 3:29:37.320 Yeah. 3:29:38.520 --> 3:29:40.320 So basically what you need to run your bail fund 3:29:40.440 --> 3:29:43.400 is you need a group of people. The load, honestly 3:29:43.480 --> 3:29:46.039 is just like too much for one person, both emotionally 3:29:46.280 --> 3:29:48.520 and literally. You need people to share this work with 3:29:49.160 --> 3:29:52.520 for it to be sustainable. I recommend that you set 3:29:52.600 --> 3:29:54.840 up a five oh one C three nonprofit. This will 3:29:54.840 --> 3:29:57.520 help shield your volunteers from legal liability and it means 3:29:57.560 --> 3:30:01.560 you could take tax deductible donations. The way that you 3:30:01.600 --> 3:30:03.280 set that up is going to depend on your state. 3:30:03.720 --> 3:30:06.480 In Virginia, you register that with the State Corporation Commission, 3:30:06.720 --> 3:30:11.400 which means you need a president which is Taylor, And 3:30:11.520 --> 3:30:13.200 you need a treasurer and then a couple of the 3:30:13.480 --> 3:30:15.520 potentially a couple of their board members. These are the 3:30:15.600 --> 3:30:18.959 people who own technically the five oh one C three 3:30:19.520 --> 3:30:22.440 and you just need those people on your documents. You 3:30:22.520 --> 3:30:25.600 can use their address, but we recommend that you set 3:30:25.640 --> 3:30:27.920 up a PO box for getting mail. It just makes 3:30:27.959 --> 3:30:30.640 things a little easier, means you don't have to like 3:30:30.959 --> 3:30:32.440 hand your personal address over. 3:30:32.360 --> 3:30:35.760 To a magistrate. Yeah, makes you as doxible as well. 3:30:36.280 --> 3:30:40.000 Yes, And I recommend setting up a dedicated bank account 3:30:41.480 --> 3:30:44.039 and go to a bank that makes it has good 3:30:44.120 --> 3:30:47.000 hours so that you can readily withdrail with draw cash 3:30:47.200 --> 3:30:49.840 because you can only postpond in cash, which is its 3:30:49.879 --> 3:30:53.400 own insanity. So one thing we deal with is like 3:30:53.480 --> 3:30:56.040 the bank being closed and then having to wait a 3:30:56.080 --> 3:30:57.600 couple of days, you know, day and a half to 3:30:57.879 --> 3:30:58.480 be able to post. 3:30:59.000 --> 3:30:59.200 Yeah. 3:30:59.280 --> 3:31:02.560 We also recommend and a Google Voice phone number so 3:31:02.800 --> 3:31:07.560 that multiple people can receive phone calls at the same time. Right, 3:31:07.640 --> 3:31:09.880 we can have four people on a Google Voice and 3:31:10.000 --> 3:31:12.920 that means that if I'm working, tailor can answer the phone. 3:31:13.800 --> 3:31:16.360 We split it up by weeks, so we have a 3:31:16.440 --> 3:31:19.400 point person each week who is responsible for answering the 3:31:19.440 --> 3:31:21.920 phone mainly, but that doesn't mean you're the only person 3:31:21.959 --> 3:31:24.160 who answers that week. It's just sort of you want 3:31:24.200 --> 3:31:27.760 to be more heads up. You also are going to 3:31:27.840 --> 3:31:34.120 want a decision making structure. We use a consensus based model, 3:31:34.440 --> 3:31:36.880 do most of our discussions in a signal thread, but 3:31:37.080 --> 3:31:40.520 then we also meet about once a month, and if 3:31:40.560 --> 3:31:43.640 we have some issue that comes up, we can meet 3:31:43.720 --> 3:31:47.480 more often. And you need ideally a way to connect 3:31:47.480 --> 3:31:50.560 to volunteers. So we've had good luck with the law school, 3:31:50.680 --> 3:31:53.160 but we're expanding beyond that, you know, trying to be 3:31:53.560 --> 3:31:56.240 a bit of different institutions in the community and recruit 3:31:56.280 --> 3:32:00.040 folks to volunteer for us. You want to do do 3:32:00.320 --> 3:32:02.480 some amount of vetting of your volunteers. You know, they 3:32:02.480 --> 3:32:05.600 should be in an affinity network or have a way 3:32:05.640 --> 3:32:07.160 that you can ensure that they're not going to walk 3:32:07.200 --> 3:32:09.120 away with a five grand and cash that you hand them. 3:32:10.680 --> 3:32:13.840 It doesn't have to be extensive, but it's good to 3:32:13.879 --> 3:32:17.480 be smart about. Yeah, and one thing that we found 3:32:17.560 --> 3:32:20.680 really helpful is having business cards because that means you 3:32:20.760 --> 3:32:23.959 can hand it to the magistrate and they can get 3:32:24.000 --> 3:32:27.400 your address right, they can put you the name of 3:32:27.480 --> 3:32:31.240 the bail fund down. A problem that we've had is 3:32:32.080 --> 3:32:36.080 not all magistrates recognizing the bail fund, which but you 3:32:36.200 --> 3:32:39.240 really want to have a peel box and that business 3:32:39.320 --> 3:32:42.760 card so that when you get checks back from the 3:32:42.800 --> 3:32:44.920 court system they come to a centralized place. 3:32:45.280 --> 3:32:48.000 Oh yeah, yeah, and then anyone could dromp in and 3:32:48.040 --> 3:32:49.280 to pust it into the bank account. 3:32:49.959 --> 3:32:53.400 And then the last thing that you want is website 3:32:53.520 --> 3:32:56.119 and a fundraising infrastructure. So as we said at the top, 3:32:56.240 --> 3:32:59.240 right now we're using go fundme and PayPal, But any 3:32:59.280 --> 3:33:01.480 way that you make the work is great, and we 3:33:01.560 --> 3:33:04.800 can definitely do better and we'll be expanding. That's basically it, 3:33:04.920 --> 3:33:07.240 though it's really not that much. Yeah, but that's great. 3:33:07.280 --> 3:33:10.680 I think it's like so often like a thing that 3:33:10.760 --> 3:33:14.400 I've seen just being sort of on the left in 3:33:14.560 --> 3:33:19.240 various movements since I was younger. It's like we reinvent 3:33:19.320 --> 3:33:21.760 the wheel every four or five years, you know. So 3:33:21.920 --> 3:33:24.760 just having those things that you guys have learned, you know, 3:33:24.959 --> 3:33:28.640 like using Google Voice and having a bank with good hours, 3:33:28.680 --> 3:33:30.840 I think that saves someone from having to fall down 3:33:30.879 --> 3:33:35.120 those same holes again. So that's really valuable. I wonder that, 3:33:35.360 --> 3:33:38.080 like you talked a little bit about legal liability, which 3:33:38.120 --> 3:33:41.920 we don't necessarily need to go into, but like there 3:33:42.000 --> 3:33:45.520 must is there, Like I mean, there have been some 3:33:46.040 --> 3:33:48.520 obviously heavily politicalized arrests in the last few months in 3:33:48.680 --> 3:33:52.680 the United States. Do you guys face like personal blowback 3:33:52.760 --> 3:33:56.640 or blowback against a group when if you're able to 3:33:56.680 --> 3:33:59.000 bail someone out where their arrest has been heavily reported 3:33:59.080 --> 3:34:02.120 on or politicized, because that's something people need to be 3:34:02.200 --> 3:34:02.560 aware of. 3:34:04.480 --> 3:34:09.160 I think that's a great question. Where we are, there's 3:34:09.360 --> 3:34:12.160 really we haven't posted the bond for anything that's like 3:34:12.200 --> 3:34:15.000 political protests related, but there is a bail fund that's 3:34:15.040 --> 3:34:17.400 about an hour away, much bigger than ours that in 3:34:17.520 --> 3:34:21.000 twenty twenty eight was doing like every night bail support 3:34:21.280 --> 3:34:24.680 jail support. So yeah, that's like an example of you know, 3:34:25.000 --> 3:34:29.279 just way different bill fundes operate. And then so basically 3:34:29.440 --> 3:34:32.480 we have not ever faced any kind of political blowback 3:34:32.640 --> 3:34:35.840 or any issues, but it's definitely something that we're prepared, 3:34:36.080 --> 3:34:41.160 we think about because it can't happen. There's backline in story, 3:34:41.240 --> 3:34:45.959 and there's definitely cases around the country where like prosecutors 3:34:46.360 --> 3:34:49.000 have taken aim at bail funds, you know, land of 3:34:49.080 --> 3:34:53.280 course was a really really yeah, big one. But they 3:34:53.320 --> 3:34:57.160 think you give anything to add maybe. Yeah. 3:34:57.200 --> 3:35:01.320 I will say that it's certainly a possibility that your 3:35:01.360 --> 3:35:05.480 bail fund becomes the target of both like institutional and 3:35:05.959 --> 3:35:09.680 like a kind of right wing moral panic. These things happen. 3:35:10.560 --> 3:35:14.200 It's I think relatively unlikely, but that doesn't mean you 3:35:14.240 --> 3:35:17.320 shouldn't be prepared for it. And I think that when 3:35:17.360 --> 3:35:19.760 you kind of address that, and if you end up 3:35:19.800 --> 3:35:23.720 in the media or getting heat for it, the most 3:35:23.760 --> 3:35:28.360 important thing that you can do is reflect the fact 3:35:28.480 --> 3:35:31.520 that the bail fund is not responsible for what happens 3:35:31.520 --> 3:35:34.400 when people get out, because we don't decide if you're 3:35:34.400 --> 3:35:37.640 getting out of jail. We will work on a first come, 3:35:37.720 --> 3:35:40.879 first serve basis. When someone calls us, we post their bail, 3:35:40.959 --> 3:35:43.840 no questions asked. And that's because there's already been a 3:35:43.920 --> 3:35:46.600 decision of whether this person is safe to be released, 3:35:46.879 --> 3:35:49.920 and that decision is made by the magistrate. Yeah, so 3:35:50.160 --> 3:35:54.360 any responsibility falls on the criminal legal system. It does 3:35:54.440 --> 3:35:57.040 not fall on us. And I think it's important to 3:35:57.120 --> 3:36:01.400 say that you never hear this blowback coming towards bail bondsman, 3:36:02.040 --> 3:36:04.400 even though they get out way more people and more 3:36:04.480 --> 3:36:05.520 dangerous people than we do. 3:36:06.120 --> 3:36:11.320 Yeah, yeah, it's definitely the case. So I wonder, like 3:36:12.200 --> 3:36:16.080 what other issues you have faced hardships and you spoke 3:36:16.120 --> 3:36:18.840 about a couple of them, are there are other things 3:36:19.040 --> 3:36:22.400 like that you've I know, for instance, like I've obviously 3:36:22.400 --> 3:36:24.440 it's part of my reporting, or maybe not obviously, but 3:36:24.840 --> 3:36:27.880 some people apparently don't bother to do it. But I 3:36:27.959 --> 3:36:31.840 communicate with incarcerated people when they're writing about them because 3:36:31.920 --> 3:36:34.760 it seems like a reasonable thing to do, and I 3:36:34.879 --> 3:36:41.440 am very aware of how annoying, expensive, time consuming, and 3:36:41.920 --> 3:36:45.600 just generally totally inadequate the system is of communication with people, 3:36:45.760 --> 3:36:48.960 even people who are not convicted of any crime. So 3:36:49.080 --> 3:36:51.320 I don't know if that's something you've encountered, if there 3:36:51.360 --> 3:36:53.200 are other sort of hardships that you guys have had 3:36:53.240 --> 3:36:55.640 to deal with, perhaps if there are ways you've worked 3:36:55.640 --> 3:36:57.040 out to get around them or to at least make 3:36:57.080 --> 3:37:01.120 them less difficult, then that would be great people to 3:37:01.200 --> 3:37:01.480 hit to you. 3:37:02.920 --> 3:37:06.880 The communication thing is a huge problem, yeah, exactly. You know, 3:37:07.200 --> 3:37:09.640 most of the calls we get are from people that 3:37:09.720 --> 3:37:13.280 are currently in the jail, and they can only call 3:37:13.400 --> 3:37:17.120 us and we cannot call them, So you know, they 3:37:17.240 --> 3:37:19.800 call us and we have to just say okay, like 3:37:19.879 --> 3:37:21.560 you need to call back in a couple of hours. 3:37:22.480 --> 3:37:25.120 And then you know, they have lockdowns, they can't get 3:37:25.160 --> 3:37:28.160 to the phone, all sorts of things. So the worst 3:37:28.200 --> 3:37:30.039 I mean, yeah, they probably one of the worst things 3:37:30.040 --> 3:37:34.240 that ever happened was someone called and I called the jail, 3:37:34.360 --> 3:37:36.520 and the jail was like, oh, they can be released today. 3:37:37.240 --> 3:37:39.480 And so the guy calls back and I'm like, hey, man, 3:37:39.560 --> 3:37:41.240 you're going to get released today. We're going to have 3:37:41.280 --> 3:37:43.440 a volunteer go out and post this bond, Like you 3:37:43.480 --> 3:37:45.680 don't need to call me back, like if you want, 3:37:45.720 --> 3:37:48.760 you can, but it's it's all rolling right, yeah, And 3:37:48.879 --> 3:37:51.760 then I call the jail to triple check everything and 3:37:51.879 --> 3:37:54.600 they say, oh, you know, we have to hear back 3:37:54.760 --> 3:37:57.000 from the court. The court has to approve this, and 3:37:57.080 --> 3:38:00.120 they're like closing in thirty minutes, so it's not going 3:38:00.200 --> 3:38:03.000 to happen today. And so now like I have no 3:38:03.120 --> 3:38:05.039 way to call this guy and tell him that he's 3:38:05.040 --> 3:38:07.000 actually not going to get out today because of a 3:38:07.320 --> 3:38:11.080 like bureaucratic issue, and I just have to wait until 3:38:11.400 --> 3:38:14.120 he just like can't take anymore. And then calls And 3:38:14.840 --> 3:38:17.880 that was really unpleasant situation. It's it's really unfortunate, and 3:38:18.360 --> 3:38:22.440 you know he was not happy. He was not happy, 3:38:22.520 --> 3:38:24.360 and I mean, you know, he took a little bit 3:38:24.400 --> 3:38:26.640 out on me, but it wasn't a case of him 3:38:26.640 --> 3:38:27.480 actually be mad at me. 3:38:27.600 --> 3:38:27.760 You know. 3:38:28.040 --> 3:38:30.280 I think that's something that's really cool, is like, no 3:38:30.400 --> 3:38:32.920 one we deliver bad news all the time, you know, 3:38:33.000 --> 3:38:35.240 we say you can't get out because of X, Y Z, 3:38:36.240 --> 3:38:38.600 and no one's ever like actually mad at us. You know, 3:38:38.720 --> 3:38:41.840 they might be like annoyed for a second because you know, 3:38:41.879 --> 3:38:44.080 I'm on the phone delivering the bad news, but every 3:38:44.160 --> 3:38:46.480 time at the end, they're like, thanks so much, like 3:38:46.560 --> 3:38:51.000 I appreciate you. So we haven't had any like I mean, yeah, 3:38:51.120 --> 3:38:54.200 I think nothing really super negative has happened. It's just 3:38:54.440 --> 3:38:57.760 like you said, the communication huge problem. When it's family 3:38:57.840 --> 3:39:00.520 members calling from not in jail, it's a little more 3:39:00.560 --> 3:39:03.000 easy to be able to you can call them back. 3:39:03.959 --> 3:39:04.160 Yeah. 3:39:04.280 --> 3:39:06.800 Yeah, I'll jump in on communication just for a minute, 3:39:07.160 --> 3:39:09.160 because this is an issue that I work on in 3:39:09.240 --> 3:39:14.200 my day job. Yeah, the paid prison phone system is 3:39:15.040 --> 3:39:19.800 one of the worst parts of American life. It is 3:39:19.879 --> 3:39:25.080 incredibly expensive to call people, and the phone systems work 3:39:25.280 --> 3:39:29.800 really poorly and they're actually getting worse. So for us, 3:39:30.040 --> 3:39:31.879 like are the main jail that we work with, Middle 3:39:31.959 --> 3:39:36.360 River Regional Jail used to use a phone provider called 3:39:36.400 --> 3:39:38.400 GTL who is one of the biggest in the country, 3:39:39.360 --> 3:39:42.199 and that was pricey, but like we could reliably get calls. 3:39:42.600 --> 3:39:46.320 They just switched over to a different provider who makes 3:39:46.400 --> 3:39:49.520 money in a different way. They provide tablets to the 3:39:49.560 --> 3:39:52.520 prison and as a result of that, all our phone 3:39:52.560 --> 3:39:56.120 calls are now made coming from the prison like social 3:39:56.240 --> 3:39:59.920 room on a tablet, which means sometimes it's too loud 3:40:00.120 --> 3:40:03.240 to hear the person calling, and about fifteen percent of 3:40:03.280 --> 3:40:05.040 the time the call just drops when you pick it up. 3:40:06.600 --> 3:40:09.879 So the system makes it really difficult to correspond with people. 3:40:10.440 --> 3:40:12.680 As a result, a couple of things that we do 3:40:13.480 --> 3:40:18.480 are sharing the phone responsibility. Not promising people things when 3:40:18.520 --> 3:40:22.400 we can't deliver them is super important, and like that's 3:40:22.680 --> 3:40:25.440 mostly a problem because the phone system works so badly 3:40:25.600 --> 3:40:28.560 and we can't communicate with people. And then the biggest 3:40:28.600 --> 3:40:31.440 thing is like giving yourself grace when you miss the 3:40:31.520 --> 3:40:36.600 phone when something goes wrong, because it's emotionally very taxing 3:40:36.720 --> 3:40:39.800 to know that someone desperately wants to speak with you 3:40:40.080 --> 3:40:43.360 because they're potentially at the worst point in their entire 3:40:43.440 --> 3:40:46.280 life and need to get out and you've missed a 3:40:46.360 --> 3:40:49.640 phone call. So it's yeah, it's really important to be 3:40:49.680 --> 3:40:51.199 kind to yourself in those situations. 3:40:52.840 --> 3:40:54.360 Yeah, yeah, you won't stick around. 3:40:55.680 --> 3:40:58.360 And one more thing that I was surprised to find 3:40:58.400 --> 3:41:02.520 out about the phone system is how much recording and 3:41:02.600 --> 3:41:06.560 reviewing of recording goes on through those phone calls. I 3:41:06.800 --> 3:41:14.400 witnessed so many prosecutors, commonwealth attorneys bring up something from 3:41:14.520 --> 3:41:17.760 phone calls when folks were actually in trial or for 3:41:17.879 --> 3:41:21.240 sentencing hearings or this is later down the road. But 3:41:21.320 --> 3:41:23.840 the fact that they could pull up those recordings from 3:41:24.080 --> 3:41:29.080 a year before, two years before they were calling a 3:41:29.160 --> 3:41:33.400 loved one, a family member, just incredible. How much access 3:41:33.640 --> 3:41:35.600 there is to that and lack of privacy. 3:41:36.200 --> 3:41:38.360 Yeah, yeah, it's very humous. 3:41:39.000 --> 3:41:41.400 I gotta jump in on that. Yeah, you end up 3:41:41.440 --> 3:41:44.440 in jail, do not say anything about your case on 3:41:44.600 --> 3:41:48.040 the phone. Oh, and don't talk to the guards about 3:41:48.240 --> 3:41:50.440 why you're innocent, because I've seen that people do that. 3:41:51.000 --> 3:41:53.400 It's not good advice. Don't do it. Don't talk about 3:41:53.400 --> 3:41:54.000 the case. 3:41:55.680 --> 3:41:55.880 Ever. 3:41:56.720 --> 3:41:56.959 Yeah. 3:41:57.400 --> 3:42:01.240 One way we address that is by telling people upfront 3:42:01.280 --> 3:42:05.480 that we postpond no questions asked, and like telling people 3:42:05.560 --> 3:42:08.240 like it doesn't matter what your situation is, where if 3:42:08.320 --> 3:42:10.560 we have the money and you can get out, we're going. 3:42:10.560 --> 3:42:13.920 To post yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not your job to adjudicate, 3:42:14.040 --> 3:42:16.320 like you said, if someone's safe or unsafe, or innocent 3:42:16.400 --> 3:42:19.600 or guilty, that that's what the state purport to be doing. 3:42:20.040 --> 3:42:21.640 Like your job is just to make sure that someone's 3:42:21.680 --> 3:42:25.480 not too poor to be free. So on the subject 3:42:25.560 --> 3:42:28.560 of like the sheer finances of it, I know, like 3:42:28.640 --> 3:42:32.000 certainly here I've seen and I have no idea what 3:42:32.280 --> 3:42:34.960 the sort of I know San Diego does have. California 3:42:35.040 --> 3:42:38.200 has these bail guidelines so that they can't just set 3:42:38.200 --> 3:42:40.000 whatever bail they want. But like in twenty twenty, we 3:42:40.080 --> 3:42:42.080 saw some sky high bails and I don't know if 3:42:42.120 --> 3:42:43.800 it was just because it was like fuck you mail 3:42:43.879 --> 3:42:46.240 fund of it, it was just because that was what 3:42:46.360 --> 3:42:50.640 the guidelines allowed, or some combination thereof. But do you 3:42:50.760 --> 3:42:54.000 guys have a Like we can't because if you said 3:42:54.000 --> 3:42:57.920 you're dealing with forty thousand, right, like if you drop 3:42:58.080 --> 3:43:00.520 ten thousand on one individual, that obviously means that there 3:43:00.520 --> 3:43:02.280 are a lot of people with five hundred dollars who 3:43:02.600 --> 3:43:05.800 who can't have to stay in jail. So do you 3:43:05.879 --> 3:43:08.520 have like a cap on your individual bail amounts for 3:43:08.640 --> 3:43:09.119 that reason? 3:43:12.000 --> 3:43:13.080 Yeah, tailoruld you want to take. 3:43:13.000 --> 3:43:15.440 This Yeah, yeah, so yeah, we have a cap. We 3:43:15.560 --> 3:43:18.680 pay up to five thousand dollars, So five thousand dollars 3:43:18.760 --> 3:43:23.199 or less and that Yeah, it's exactly what you said, 3:43:23.280 --> 3:43:26.920 like otherwise, you know, we would be totally broke an 3:43:26.959 --> 3:43:29.240 out of money. And even you know, two five thousand 3:43:29.280 --> 3:43:31.200 dollars bonds in a row and then you know, yeah, 3:43:31.280 --> 3:43:34.560 we're pretty screwed. So and then I think that's a 3:43:34.640 --> 3:43:36.640 you know, it brings up something else that Jick and 3:43:36.720 --> 3:43:40.600 we're talking about, like it's we have it's important to 3:43:40.680 --> 3:43:45.280 stick to that limit. We one time we posted a 3:43:45.400 --> 3:43:48.760 bond up to twelve thousand dollars for somebody, and you know, 3:43:49.080 --> 3:43:51.640 I think it was a combination of many factors that 3:43:51.720 --> 3:43:53.040 led us to do that. But at the end of 3:43:53.080 --> 3:43:55.600 the day, it can be very hard just to tell 3:43:55.680 --> 3:43:57.879 someone no, because it was like he had a five 3:43:57.920 --> 3:44:01.400 thousand dollars bond and then a separate court I got 3:44:01.400 --> 3:44:03.840 another one, and so it was you know, we already 3:44:03.840 --> 3:44:06.160 told him you could pay the one bond. Anyway, long 3:44:06.200 --> 3:44:10.160 story is short, we had twelve thousand dollars tied up 3:44:10.200 --> 3:44:12.520 on this guy and then he didn't show up to court. 3:44:13.720 --> 3:44:16.000 And if that's that's when you can lose the money, 3:44:16.160 --> 3:44:20.520 then people don't show up to court, so as well. Yeah, 3:44:21.200 --> 3:44:24.520 fortunately for us, Unfortunately for him, he did get re 3:44:24.720 --> 3:44:30.400 arrested on another charge. And when that happens, there's like 3:44:30.440 --> 3:44:33.199 a ninety day period where if the person gets caught, 3:44:33.480 --> 3:44:36.880 then we get the money back. And that's where, like 3:44:37.600 --> 3:44:40.440 we are princes. Our policy is like we're not going 3:44:40.480 --> 3:44:42.640 to do anything if the person runs, like, we're not 3:44:42.680 --> 3:44:44.080 going to do anything to try to get it back. 3:44:44.120 --> 3:44:47.560 We're not going to revoke anybody's bond, but like a 3:44:47.600 --> 3:44:50.800 Bill bondsman might try to like find you if you run. Yeah, 3:44:51.280 --> 3:44:53.720 but so are kind of our joke was kind of like, well, 3:44:53.800 --> 3:44:57.160 we hope that we hope the guy just gets away completely, 3:44:57.280 --> 3:44:59.320 but if he's not going to get away, maybe get 3:44:59.400 --> 3:45:00.600 caught with him ninety days. 3:45:02.720 --> 3:45:02.920 Yeah. 3:45:03.480 --> 3:45:08.080 But the best thing is if people would contribute and donate, 3:45:08.240 --> 3:45:11.080 we could be able to allocate for so many more 3:45:11.120 --> 3:45:15.760 people and not have people spend time in jail where 3:45:16.280 --> 3:45:21.120 things like mental health conditions worsened because prison guards are 3:45:21.440 --> 3:45:24.720 and jail guards are not paying attention. Where you don't 3:45:24.720 --> 3:45:27.720 have access to an attorney easily, where when you show 3:45:27.840 --> 3:45:34.000 up to your day in court, you don't have an 3:45:34.040 --> 3:45:37.720 orange jumpsuit on, and that's not factoring into the judge's mind. 3:45:38.240 --> 3:45:42.200 So please please donate for all those reasons to our 3:45:42.280 --> 3:45:42.760 built fund. 3:45:43.240 --> 3:45:44.760 Yeah, if we have. 3:45:44.879 --> 3:45:47.160 More money, That's something we talked about a lot of times, 3:45:47.240 --> 3:45:49.360 like if we have more money, we would be able 3:45:49.400 --> 3:45:51.800 to raise the limit on the out we could post. 3:45:51.840 --> 3:45:53.360 But it's just not feasible right now. 3:45:54.040 --> 3:45:56.160 In terms of donation. It's a great thing. I was 3:45:56.240 --> 3:45:58.760 just thinking, like good because it keeps going around and 3:45:58.879 --> 3:46:01.360 around and around. Right, It's not like, you know, you 3:46:01.440 --> 3:46:03.200 give a donation once and you get someone the thing 3:46:03.240 --> 3:46:05.160 and you change their life, like you can potentially change 3:46:05.240 --> 3:46:07.640 dozens of hundreds of people's hold true deg Tree. 3:46:08.680 --> 3:46:10.120 Yeah, absolutely cool. 3:46:10.760 --> 3:46:12.840 Yeah, and I will add on how we address our 3:46:12.920 --> 3:46:15.400 lack of funds. The other system that we have in 3:46:15.440 --> 3:46:19.400 place is a weight list. So people call us and 3:46:20.040 --> 3:46:21.520 we can tell them, hey, you're on the wait list. 3:46:21.800 --> 3:46:23.280 They'll call back all the time and be like Hey, 3:46:23.320 --> 3:46:25.280 if I moved up the wait list. Sometimes people call 3:46:25.360 --> 3:46:27.840 it multiple times a day and they're like, oh, any movement, 3:46:27.959 --> 3:46:32.480 my my number four. Now this is kind of wild, 3:46:33.000 --> 3:46:36.040 but having the wait list and we go like in 3:46:36.120 --> 3:46:39.440 strict weight list order, with the exception that if someone 3:46:39.520 --> 3:46:42.080 has an under five hundred dollars five hundred dollars or less, 3:46:42.200 --> 3:46:45.240 we'll just post that. Because if we're sitting around waiting 3:46:45.320 --> 3:46:48.400 for someone to get money back from the courts for 3:46:48.520 --> 3:46:50.840 a five thousand dollars bond, that's next in line. We 3:46:50.920 --> 3:46:54.240 could have forty five hundred bucks. And so for the 3:46:54.320 --> 3:46:59.800 super low bonds where the issue is like purely, purely poverty, 3:47:01.280 --> 3:47:04.720 we make an exception. But you run into that kind 3:47:04.720 --> 3:47:07.240 of ethical question all the time running the bell phone, 3:47:07.320 --> 3:47:10.280 like how do we make the best decisions. It's going 3:47:10.320 --> 3:47:13.240 to help you know people in the best way and 3:47:13.280 --> 3:47:15.920 then accords with our values the most that can get 3:47:16.120 --> 3:47:21.240 pretty heated and intense, and having a setup with folks 3:47:21.280 --> 3:47:23.280 where like you really respect each other and like each other, 3:47:23.520 --> 3:47:27.320 I think is really important to not let that spire 3:47:27.400 --> 3:47:29.880 out of control. It helps that you know, Taylor and 3:47:29.920 --> 3:47:33.360 Melissa and I have been friends for many years and 3:47:33.480 --> 3:47:35.040 we can like hang out and talk about this, and 3:47:35.120 --> 3:47:36.400 then like Taylor and I can go out and go 3:47:36.440 --> 3:47:37.080 for a bike ride. 3:47:38.920 --> 3:47:39.120 Nice. 3:47:39.280 --> 3:47:42.920 So having those relationships I think is really important. Yeah. 3:47:43.040 --> 3:47:46.440 Yeah, and don't get too competitive over board games like 3:47:46.520 --> 3:47:51.160 wings when somebody wins and still being able to talk 3:47:51.240 --> 3:47:51.680 at the end of. 3:47:51.680 --> 3:47:57.040 That seems like a direct experience one. 3:48:01.840 --> 3:48:06.520 We are an abolitionist like principles, you know, And but 3:48:06.800 --> 3:48:09.120 I think, almost like you know, I've talked one of 3:48:09.160 --> 3:48:11.400 their builtments that I know of, they have some sort 3:48:11.440 --> 3:48:15.280 of system I'm not super familiar with, like prioritizing someone 3:48:15.320 --> 3:48:17.560 that maybe they consider to be higher risk in the 3:48:17.640 --> 3:48:20.560 prison system to get out first. And I think that 3:48:20.640 --> 3:48:24.039 that's a really a really appealing thing. But it's it's 3:48:24.240 --> 3:48:27.280 just like kind of Jake touched on earlier, Like that's 3:48:27.400 --> 3:48:30.600 just adding like another layer of judgment. Like then we 3:48:30.879 --> 3:48:33.840 become these like arbiters of who is in jail and 3:48:33.879 --> 3:48:36.440 who's not in jail and as much and so like 3:48:36.720 --> 3:48:41.400 almost almost counterintuitively, like having this system first come, first serve, 3:48:41.560 --> 3:48:44.440 I think is like the most abolitionist thing we can do. 3:48:45.400 --> 3:48:47.720 Yes, I can see that, Yeah, yeah, And it certainly 3:48:47.920 --> 3:48:51.039 reduces a load on you and making most difficult choices. 3:48:50.720 --> 3:48:51.119 Which. 3:48:52.800 --> 3:48:53.720 It helps with that. Yeah. 3:48:53.760 --> 3:48:57.120 Yeah, we were talking about the system, and like I 3:48:57.200 --> 3:49:01.160 want to bring that up because this system is like, 3:49:01.720 --> 3:49:04.440 you know, I cover not a lot of criminal justice, 3:49:04.480 --> 3:49:08.240 but a decent bit and it is incredibly confusing. It's convoluted. 3:49:08.520 --> 3:49:11.280 It's like they've got these old ass names that you 3:49:11.360 --> 3:49:13.920 don't understand, and then Naghirra and Virginia, so you have 3:49:13.960 --> 3:49:16.880 a whole other layer of weird stuff going on, like 3:49:17.000 --> 3:49:17.840 with names and. 3:49:18.280 --> 3:49:18.840 So like. 3:49:20.400 --> 3:49:22.880 If someone's thinking of something this and they're like, I 3:49:23.080 --> 3:49:25.120 want this to happen, but I do not understand how 3:49:25.160 --> 3:49:27.160 to navigate this system? Does that mean that they need 3:49:27.240 --> 3:49:30.640 someone with a little more legal experience? Like can you 3:49:30.720 --> 3:49:34.600 explain how as like someone who isn't obviously some of 3:49:35.080 --> 3:49:37.200 both at least two of you have. I suppose all 3:49:37.240 --> 3:49:38.840 of you have some experience with the legal system in 3:49:38.920 --> 3:49:40.840 one way or another and understand it a little better 3:49:40.920 --> 3:49:43.800 because of that. But if someone has been fortunate enough 3:49:43.880 --> 3:49:47.080 not to have to interact with the criminal law system, 3:49:48.640 --> 3:49:51.000 are they like do they need a law student or 3:49:51.040 --> 3:49:53.720 a lawyer to start a bail fund? Or like, how 3:49:53.760 --> 3:49:56.320 does one go about learning to navigate that system? I suppose. 3:49:57.080 --> 3:49:59.240 Yeah, they definitely not. You do not need to have 3:49:59.520 --> 3:50:02.600 legal experience. I think it was kind of a just 3:50:02.680 --> 3:50:04.400 a random chance that it was a law of students 3:50:04.400 --> 3:50:07.480 that found in this one. Basically, like you said, it 3:50:07.560 --> 3:50:10.440 is extremely confusing system and the only way you're going 3:50:10.520 --> 3:50:12.880 to learn how it all works is just by going 3:50:12.960 --> 3:50:17.880 and posting the bonds. Like the system is possible, like 3:50:18.040 --> 3:50:20.680 the bond system. We're just like a family member going 3:50:20.720 --> 3:50:24.120 to post someone's bond, so like it's set up and 3:50:24.200 --> 3:50:26.120 then it is possible for like your loved one to 3:50:26.200 --> 3:50:29.760 post your bond, and we just learned all the experience. 3:50:29.880 --> 3:50:32.320 You know, you just go you call it. You would 3:50:32.360 --> 3:50:34.160 just call the jail and say where do I post 3:50:34.240 --> 3:50:36.760 this bond and they'll tell you. You know, you come 3:50:36.840 --> 3:50:39.080 to the magistrate. This is where the magistrates is located, 3:50:39.680 --> 3:50:41.960 and then you know, you go with the cash and 3:50:42.080 --> 3:50:44.640 post and like there will be every like we work in. 3:50:45.440 --> 3:50:48.800 It's ten courts, five different jurisdictions, and then you each 3:50:48.840 --> 3:50:52.000 have two court systems, and I swear almost every single 3:50:52.120 --> 3:50:55.960 court does things somewhat differently. And the way we just 3:50:56.080 --> 3:50:58.280 get on the phone and call them, you know, be 3:50:58.400 --> 3:51:01.440 really polite and just figure it all out and write 3:51:01.480 --> 3:51:02.920 it down so that we know in the future. 3:51:03.640 --> 3:51:06.960 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll tell you, like, you can learn 3:51:07.000 --> 3:51:10.680 these systems over time, and that's really worth doing because 3:51:10.800 --> 3:51:13.200 in a moment of crisis, like mass arrests during a 3:51:13.240 --> 3:51:16.880 protest movement, knowing how to navigate the system in a 3:51:17.040 --> 3:51:19.880 quick and reliable way is really valuable. It makes it 3:51:19.960 --> 3:51:23.200 way easier to get people out. And so I would 3:51:23.240 --> 3:51:26.920 like pitch even if you don't feel really strongly about 3:51:26.960 --> 3:51:28.680 getting people out of jail, but you want to be 3:51:28.840 --> 3:51:31.680 helpful in a time of crisis, like, learning the legal 3:51:31.720 --> 3:51:36.320 system as a non lawyer is doable. I will also 3:51:36.400 --> 3:51:38.200 say that, like, you don't learn how to do this 3:51:38.240 --> 3:51:40.840 stuff in law school. I didn't learn how to post 3:51:40.880 --> 3:51:45.240 a bond, how to like file a kpist any of 3:51:45.320 --> 3:51:49.080 this crazy stuff that we have to do. Virginia is 3:51:49.280 --> 3:51:51.480 truly like one of the worst states in the country. 3:51:51.880 --> 3:51:54.560 I talked to a public defender who's worked in courts 3:51:54.600 --> 3:51:57.880 in Louisiana and was like, yeah, a Virginia court system 3:51:58.000 --> 3:52:03.600 is worse and more unfathomable, which is not if you 3:52:03.640 --> 3:52:06.640 know anything about New Orleans legal system is not great, 3:52:08.760 --> 3:52:12.760 but you can you know, you can learn an incredible amount, 3:52:13.040 --> 3:52:16.920 and then that skill just becomes valuable in a number 3:52:16.920 --> 3:52:20.360 of different areas. One of the most like powerful ways 3:52:20.400 --> 3:52:24.440 that you can help people is even when you're not 3:52:24.560 --> 3:52:26.960 able to postpond for them, knowing how to look up 3:52:27.000 --> 3:52:30.240 someone's case, tell them what their charges are, tell them 3:52:30.280 --> 3:52:35.040 what is happening to them is incredibly helpful because the 3:52:35.120 --> 3:52:38.080 majority of people we talk to have some idea of 3:52:38.600 --> 3:52:41.000 why they're in jail, but they don't know the details, 3:52:41.440 --> 3:52:44.440 and that means that they don't know like why they're 3:52:44.480 --> 3:52:47.600 not getting out, and just being able to give people 3:52:47.640 --> 3:52:50.240 a little bit of certainty is really important. 3:52:51.200 --> 3:52:53.040 Yeah, I think this is a very valuable thing you 3:52:53.120 --> 3:52:56.000 can do. And yeah, I think this whole thing has 3:52:56.000 --> 3:52:58.760 been a very valuable insight into how to build a 3:52:58.800 --> 3:53:01.800 mail fund, I guess. And is there anything else do 3:53:01.920 --> 3:53:04.600 you guys think that we didn't cover in the grand 3:53:04.640 --> 3:53:09.280 scheme of being bail friend entrepreneurs. I don't know what 3:53:09.360 --> 3:53:13.000 the right phrase is that bail fund founder is just. 3:53:13.040 --> 3:53:16.120 The importance and making sure to be rooted in the community. 3:53:16.480 --> 3:53:18.280 I think that's going to be the best way not 3:53:18.440 --> 3:53:22.760 only to fundraise in the long term, because you can 3:53:23.000 --> 3:53:27.880 have even five dollars if it's reoccurring from some community members, 3:53:28.240 --> 3:53:31.760 you get to know what's happening, what's something that's a 3:53:31.840 --> 3:53:36.880 reoccurring problem throughout the community, and just making sure to 3:53:37.040 --> 3:53:40.320 listen to that and to be able to navigate going forward. 3:53:42.800 --> 3:53:45.960 I think one thing that I think is I found 3:53:46.040 --> 3:53:48.920 so interesting about doing this bill fund is that it 3:53:49.480 --> 3:53:53.160 spans it really crosses completely there or even like I 3:53:53.200 --> 3:53:56.000 would say, it transcends politics, Like I think that all 3:53:56.040 --> 3:53:59.320 of the board members are in here politically motivated. You know, 3:53:59.440 --> 3:54:03.240 we're abolitionists or you know, against the current court system. 3:54:04.120 --> 3:54:08.760 But the people's lives, like across every political spectrum have 3:54:08.840 --> 3:54:12.560 been ruined by prison in jail. And I think one time, 3:54:12.720 --> 3:54:14.920 like I think the most interesting example that Billy drove 3:54:15.040 --> 3:54:17.000 his home was I was at work. I was at 3:54:17.040 --> 3:54:19.480 the lumber yard, you know, and I think you know 3:54:19.600 --> 3:54:21.520 the people, the salesman at the lumber yard. I think 3:54:21.560 --> 3:54:23.200 they would follow them more if I was going to 3:54:23.240 --> 3:54:25.760 stereotype them, I would say to you on the conservative side. 3:54:25.960 --> 3:54:30.080 And the one guy, the salesman, was it heard about 3:54:30.120 --> 3:54:31.960 that I did this. I think he saw Facebook that 3:54:32.040 --> 3:54:34.040 posted about it, and he was like that is he's 3:54:34.080 --> 3:54:36.040 like this is just the coolest thing ever. Man, Like, 3:54:36.120 --> 3:54:37.920 I think it's so awesome, you know, like he's like 3:54:38.000 --> 3:54:42.280 people are just locked up for like bullshit, and yeah, 3:54:42.400 --> 3:54:44.520 and I think, you know, we've had volunteers that I 3:54:44.600 --> 3:54:47.520 think people were like knew him or like why I 3:54:47.640 --> 3:54:50.360 think he's like almost like a Republican and just going 3:54:50.360 --> 3:54:52.680 out and posting these bonds. And I think that it's uh, 3:54:53.080 --> 3:54:56.560 like I said, yeah, it's just fascinating that it does transcend. 3:54:57.720 --> 3:54:59.600 It transcends the politics a little bit. 3:55:00.240 --> 3:55:02.560 Yeah, I think anyone who's had to interact with the 3:55:02.680 --> 3:55:06.280 criminal justice system, I like, I have an interact with 3:55:06.320 --> 3:55:09.280 the American one. But like if they've had in their family, 3:55:09.360 --> 3:55:11.360 if they've had it in there, you know, and their 3:55:11.560 --> 3:55:15.400 friend group or whatever, realizes how dehumanizing and unjust it is. 3:55:15.800 --> 3:55:18.360 And especially like if they're working people, right, they are 3:55:18.440 --> 3:55:21.640 not people of massive means, They'll have seen how how 3:55:21.720 --> 3:55:23.280 hard it can weigh. And you're trying to come up 3:55:23.320 --> 3:55:25.760 with money to bond someone out who you care about, 3:55:26.240 --> 3:55:28.320 even if they'd end up not being found guilty, and 3:55:28.440 --> 3:55:31.320 so like, it can be a very broad based thing. 3:55:31.680 --> 3:55:35.680 And I think it's certainly something that like I start 3:55:35.680 --> 3:55:37.720 a lot of people giving money to bailfund's in twenty 3:55:37.760 --> 3:55:40.720 twenty who may not have you know, they weren't necessarily 3:55:40.760 --> 3:55:42.840 people who are also out in the streets. Like it's 3:55:42.880 --> 3:55:44.480 a way for people to be part of a movement. 3:55:44.520 --> 3:55:47.520 It's a way for people to who feel that like 3:55:47.640 --> 3:55:50.560 this is unjust, even if yeah, they might not share 3:55:50.600 --> 3:55:52.840 abolitionist politics or whatever. I think it's something that a 3:55:52.920 --> 3:55:54.720 lot of people would want to get behind. 3:55:56.760 --> 3:55:59.200 Yeah, I'll say that. For me, the most meaningful part 3:55:59.240 --> 3:56:03.160 of this work is having the opportunity to treat people 3:56:03.200 --> 3:56:06.120 with dignity when they are in a system that absolutely 3:56:06.120 --> 3:56:08.640 gives them no dignity. The police do not treat people 3:56:08.680 --> 3:56:11.320 with dignity, the judges in the courts do not treat 3:56:11.320 --> 3:56:14.200 people with dignity, and your jailers are not going to 3:56:14.240 --> 3:56:17.640 treat you with dignity. So having the opportunity to answer 3:56:17.680 --> 3:56:21.200 a phone and be kind to someone, to listen to them, 3:56:21.400 --> 3:56:24.200 and to do small things for them. Call their family, 3:56:24.360 --> 3:56:26.640 let their family know that they're locked up, Let their 3:56:26.680 --> 3:56:30.160 family know that someone is working on getting them out. 3:56:31.160 --> 3:56:34.840 Oftentimes I will get a call from someone and we 3:56:34.920 --> 3:56:36.960 aren't able to post, but I can call their mom 3:56:37.160 --> 3:56:40.160 and talk their mom through getting a bail Bondsman, I've 3:56:40.200 --> 3:56:43.000 had people like cry on the phone with me because 3:56:43.000 --> 3:56:46.400 they've said I felt so helpless not being able to 3:56:46.480 --> 3:56:48.760 get my son out of jail, and getting a call 3:56:48.840 --> 3:56:52.480 from you made a huge difference. So I think I 3:56:52.720 --> 3:56:54.640 just like, if you can do this, you can get 3:56:54.680 --> 3:56:57.120 together with your friends and form a bail fund and 3:56:57.360 --> 3:57:02.040 in a really concrete way improve their lives and treat 3:57:02.080 --> 3:57:04.360 them with dignity. And that's such a radical thing. 3:57:05.120 --> 3:57:09.240 Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, all right, so I think 3:57:09.240 --> 3:57:11.120 the wrap up, we should bet, we should again remind 3:57:11.160 --> 3:57:13.480 people where they can give you their money. So how 3:57:13.520 --> 3:57:17.480 would people go about doing that? Yeah, please do please 3:57:17.560 --> 3:57:19.680 don't it to the Blue Ridge Community Bail Fund. 3:57:20.760 --> 3:57:24.680 We are on PayPal at PayPal, dot me, slash blue 3:57:24.920 --> 3:57:29.680 Ridge Bail, Ridge is ri dge. We're on GoFundMe. You 3:57:29.720 --> 3:57:31.760 can find us ano the Blue Ridge Community Bail Fund. 3:57:32.240 --> 3:57:35.720 We are on Instagram at Ridge Bail and we also 3:57:35.800 --> 3:57:39.040 have a website, Blue Ridge Bail Fund dot org. 3:57:40.640 --> 3:57:42.800 I think so you can google Blue Ridge Community Bail 3:57:42.840 --> 3:57:46.520 Fund will show up and yeah, if anybody is interested 3:57:46.600 --> 3:57:48.760 in starting a bail fund and wants to ask us 3:57:48.760 --> 3:57:51.680 any questions like please do we would love to talk 3:57:51.760 --> 3:57:52.080 about it. 3:57:54.040 --> 3:57:56.800 We've learned a lot through just reaching out to other 3:57:56.960 --> 3:57:59.920 bail funds, even if they're not in the state of Virginia, 3:58:00.320 --> 3:58:03.280 of how they reformed, what worked for them, what didn't. 3:58:03.880 --> 3:58:08.600 Just having a thirty minute conversation gives sometimes wonderful ideas 3:58:08.640 --> 3:58:09.760 on how to go forward. 3:58:12.320 --> 3:58:14.360 That's great. Thank you so much, guys. I think that 3:58:14.480 --> 3:58:16.400 was pretty good. Anything eys you want to share before 3:58:16.400 --> 3:58:22.560 we go, I think we're good. Thanks so much, Thank 3:58:22.600 --> 3:58:24.360 you for having us. Thanks. 3:58:27.760 --> 3:58:30.880 Hey, We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week 3:58:31.000 --> 3:58:32.880 from now until the heat death of the Universe. 3:58:33.480 --> 3:58:35.800 It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media. 3:58:36.080 --> 3:58:38.720 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 3:58:38.760 --> 3:58:40.960 cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the 3:58:41.000 --> 3:58:44.400 iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 3:58:44.840 --> 3:58:46.960 You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated 3:58:47.040 --> 3:58:51.040 monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.