WEBVTT - Blockchain Chickens and Empathetic Tech Workers (with Xiaowei Wang) 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:04.520 Yeah. Welcome to How to Citizen with Baritune Day, a 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:08.400 podcast that reimagine citizen as a verb, not a legal status. 0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:11.639 This season is all about tech and how it can 0:00:11.680 --> 0:00:15.960 bring us together instead of tearing us apart. We're bringing 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:18.720 you the people using technology for so much more than 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:23.000 revenue and user growth. They're using it to help us citizen. 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:35.239 So first, I'm going to open the circle. Sky above me, 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:44.520 earth below me, love around me, divine within me, Mother, father, kind, ancestors. 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:48.519 Thank you for your wisdom which flows into us through us. 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:53.600 The reading that we undertake today is for the joy 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:56.200 and liberation of the sitter and the greater joy and 0:00:56.240 --> 0:01:00.440 liberation of all. Thank you you had me at open 0:01:00.480 --> 0:01:07.040 in the circle. That other voice you're hearing is Shaowei Wang. 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:10.920 Right now, they're reading my tarot cards, an old tech 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:15.240 of sorts. The cards can provide insights into our past, present, 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:18.640 and future. And this reading hits pretty close to home. 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:24.120 My mother was a very spiritually curious person. I was 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:27.360 baptized Catholic, but attended an Episcopal church from most of 0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:31.440 my childhood. As my mom explored her own spirituality, she 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:35.120 just dragged me along with her to Buddhist temples to chant, 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:38.720 to our living room where she consulted the Taoist teaching 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:42.960 Book of Changes, to arenas for Native American pow wows, 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:45.800 and to her computer where she would generate and read 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:49.600 my astrological chart with her own software. Because of all 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:53.040 this history, I've always been open minded about the different 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:56.600 paths we can take to find meaning and insights. So Tarot, 0:01:56.720 --> 0:02:01.120 that was an easy yes. Now shall weighs pulling three 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:03.680 cards to help frame my current state of mind. So 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:07.320 the middle card is the two of Pentacles, and so 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:10.920 as you see it, it's this iconography of someone who 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:15.079 is juggling, and in the back there's actually a lot 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:23.240 of water, so water meaning emotions. It's someone who you know, 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:27.040 you kind of see them, and they're like a court 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:32.760 jester almost. Um. So it's a sense of I'm juggling 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:38.680 a lot, particularly in the material round, so just like money, job, 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:41.840 things like that. And in the background is also this 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:46.520 tidal wave of emotion, like things look fun and playful 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:49.600 on the outside because I'm juggling for an audience, but 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:52.560 in the back there's a lot of emotion that's being 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:56.800 kind of damned up. I take that court jester or 0:02:56.800 --> 0:03:00.840 comment as a compliment. Now, if you saw my Google calendar, 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:04.200 you know how real the juggler image is to my life. 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:09.200 Right now, I'm managing many commitments, including this podcast. I 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:12.280 often consider the fact that I deal with difficult topics 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:16.000 like race and democracy. I refer to what as handling 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:23.040 hazardous material. It takes an emotional toll, and as practiced 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:27.000 as I am at performing have it all togetherness, I'm 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:30.600 often holding back a lot of emotions associated with my 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:34.560 chosen work. That emotional water in the background of the card. 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:39.160 And on the other side, we have the Night of Swords, 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:42.800 and we have the Three of Cups, But the Night 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:47.440 of Sorts is someone who is just like has this 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:50.880 energy that's just like, Oh, there's a problem, let's do 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:56.400 something about it. How can we fix this immediately? There's 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:59.520 this one side of me that's just in the material realm. 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:02.160 As we're going through things, we have to fix it. 0:04:02.200 --> 0:04:03.880 We have to get things done, we have to move 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:06.800 on to the next thing, moving at like a million 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:14.120 miles an hour. This is so me. I love to 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:18.200 fix things. I literally fixed computers to help pay for college, 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:21.800 and I'm always jumping to solutions in the face of 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:25.800 almost any problem, even when the people around me don't 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:29.240 want me to come up with a solution. And then 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:31.600 on the other side is the very real side of 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:35.520 when we're doing community work, when we're dealing with the 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:41.359 emotions of other people. That's a kind of slowness that 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:44.720 is very much, you know, counter to the Night of Swords. 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:48.120 Who's like about to Russian So at least from this 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:51.960 terror reading. And I'm curious if any of this resonates 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:54.960 with you, this notion of juggling between the two and 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:57.440 the sense of like I just want to like fix 0:04:57.480 --> 0:04:59.440 it and do something about it. And then the other 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:02.920 part that's, you know, slow down, you know, talk it through, 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:11.400 talk about feelings. This is dead on, this is you, you 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:16.200 you got me. It's exactly where I am really and 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:18.400 then a lot of who I am and how I 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:20.480 present and what's going on to the surface. But the 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:24.520 support I'm finding shall wait, that's this podcast, you know, 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:28.120 like you also just read for how to Citizen, So 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:31.520 thank you. That is one of the most potent ways 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:35.240 of meeting a person that I've ever experienced. You have 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:37.120 a bit of a gift, so thanks for sharing it. 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:43.960 I know, I know, a tarot reading seems random but 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:48.040 tarot isn't just woo woo fortune telling. I love reading 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:52.159 Tarot for others and I always view it as helping 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:55.640 others hold space, or like holding up a mirror, if 0:05:55.680 --> 0:06:01.200 you will, And that's exactly what we're doing today, my guests. 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:04.520 Shall Wei Wang is going to help us hold a mirror, 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:08.599 not just to me, but to the entire tech industry. 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:12.600 Shawi is not only a tower reader, but the lead 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:16.360 steward of Logic School, an online school that empowers tech 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:20.559 workers to transform the industry from within. They also wrote 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:25.320 the book called Blockchain Chicken Farm about tech in rural China. Cha. 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:28.600 We spent a lot of time traveling in China and 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:32.560 working in the tech industry themselves. Through these experiences, they 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:35.640 learned a lot about how to transform the tech industry. 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:39.000 And it may surprise you, but the solution is actually 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:44.440 pretty low tech. Take time, take patients, move at the 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:48.680 speed of trust and care. The act of talking to 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:52.560 people and just being with them. That's the work, right, 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:56.159 that's the transformation. When we come back from the break, 0:06:56.640 --> 0:06:59.520 how a rural chicken farmer in China became a real 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:08.840 life landing a sketch, Hello, challweg, How are you good. 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:11.800 It's nice to meet you. By twin Day. Lovely to 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:14.320 meet you. First off, I want to talk to you 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:18.800 about your current work Logic School. Logic School is an 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:22.720 organizing school for tech workers. Above all, it's really a 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:28.320 community of twenty folks who get together every week and 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:34.120 laugh and cry and learn from activists, artists, people who 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:39.160 are trying to think about changing tech and the tech industry. UM. 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:41.400 As part of it, there were a series of final 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:45.240 projects that came out from the cohort and it's been 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:49.280 just such a joy and honor to serve as the 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:53.600 lead steward of that school and see the work that 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:56.520 people are doing. You say the Logic School is for 0:07:56.720 --> 0:08:01.240 tech workers, will qualify someone as a tech worker? We 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:05.200 made the definition really broad on purpose, just to you know, 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:09.520 foster these incredible new connections. We had the gig worker 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:13.880 to someone who used to work actually in government policy 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:16.920 on tech um. It was a bit disillusioned, I don't 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:21.080 know what that says about regulation UM. And that we 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:24.440 also had you know, engineers, designers from some of the 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:27.440 big companies. So it was really cool to see that 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:31.920 conversation unfold. When when I think of a school for 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:34.640 tech workers The first thing that pops to mind is 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:36.840 a place like General Assembly or at a place that 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:40.000 kind of creates the classic image of a tech worker, 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:43.199 like they pump out coders and engineers and developers and 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:47.000 some version of those words, and the images typing long 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:49.560 into the night. Maybe that scene from the Social network 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:54.000 where everybody's like pounding beers and slamming keys. What is 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:57.600 your definition of tech worker and of tech work? I 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:00.760 love that that is like a very good and marketing 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:05.640 scheme on behalf of the tech industry where they're like, yeah, 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:08.679 there's you know, fridge full of kombucha and you're just 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:13.840 like hacking, like it's mostly snacks, right exactly. I think 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:18.080 for us at Logic School, you know, a tech worker 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:22.480 can be someone who's doing community technology, so instead of 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:25.640 working for a big company, they're thinking about like what's 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:30.360 the infrastructure, what's the projects that respond to the needs 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:34.120 of their local neighborhood. It can be someone who's beyond 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:39.199 the like I'm so rational, I'm so logical image that 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:42.199 we have um and really someone who has a lot 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:45.520 of care and thoughtfulness. You know, I think all of 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:48.880 these ideas of what a tech worker looks like that's 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:54.200 highly gendered, highly racialized, and you know has has a 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:59.800 lot to do with capitalism. How does the school itself work? 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:05.120 We met every week over zoom, had folks from Pittsburgh 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:08.319 all the way to Texas in the Bay Area, and 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:13.360 amazing guest lecturers come in like the Free Radicals, stop 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:18.880 lap d spying coalition to Kadija abdu Rakhman, who's working 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:22.800 on child welfare in the New York City area. And yeah, 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:25.839 just lots of dialogue and activities and feedback on each 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:30.319 other's projects. I think one of the most important questions 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:33.559 for us was, you know, who are your people, who's 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:37.240 your community? Who do you see yourself building tech for? 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:43.800 Right this sounds like the opposite of everything we've been 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:47.760 taught about the tech sector as a workplace. I think 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:50.959 a lot of us are like, it's very logical, it's inhumane, 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:56.319 it's non empathetic, it's profit seeking, it's overworked, and questions 0:10:56.400 --> 0:11:02.079 about empathy and community and power they're just not associated 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:06.160 with tech generally. What was the impetus to create the 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:09.440 Logic School in this way? It was exactly what you 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:13.880 just said. I mean, there's very few spaces to talk 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:18.000 about power, to talk about you know, how do we 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:25.240 be empathetic? I mean there's places like after work extracurriculars 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:28.240 where you can learn how to be a better engineer, right, like, 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:31.640 how do I do better JavaScript on the job? Like 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:35.319 all these things, um, but logic school really response to that. 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:38.480 There's no space where it's like, I'm a tech worker 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:41.760 and I'm having kind of a crisis about what my 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:45.360 company is doing. How do I bring in empathy into 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:49.280 the workplace. It was actually interesting because some people definitely 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:52.480 try to bring in empathy from what they learned at 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:55.840 logic School into the workplace and it got shut down. 0:11:56.640 --> 0:11:59.120 So I think it also says a lot about just 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:02.360 the way the tech industry is structured and what they 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:07.480 want to maintain. When you create this program, you invite 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:10.560 these people in meeting every week, what do you want 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:14.760 them to leave with? Honestly, I think that as part 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:18.280 of rethinking what school is, I think everyone came in 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:21.760 with a different goal because that's also like very different 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:24.319 than a job, right. A job is like we create 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:26.440 this space for you to do one thing. We have 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:29.120 these expectations of how you do on your job, and 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:33.560 you will be evaluated by every quarter. We had one 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:39.400 person who worked at Twitter during the length of the 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:43.800 President who I will not say his name, and you know, 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:48.840 had a lot of just personal all these like traumas, right, 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:53.160 and spent logic school processing through that and actually, you know, 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:58.120 talking about trust and safety more broadly, we had another 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:04.079 person who is actually building this incredible augmented reality app 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:09.720 now in Pittsburgh and his whole app for his community 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:13.559 to like celebrate black life in Pittsburgh and to really 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:19.599 counter these narratives of disappearance and gentrification. So it's a 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:22.560 whole range of what people wanted out of it, but 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:25.600 just trying to be like, hey, this this could be 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:29.040 a different tech That's why we're here. You know, I've 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:33.200 been frustrated myself at the lack of imagination and in 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:35.160 some ways I've said, we've taken some of the most 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:38.480 powerful machines that we've ever built and some of the 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:41.640 smartest people that we've ever had, and applied it to 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:46.160 like shipping ads. It's a very underwhelming use of a superpower. 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:49.000 I want to know more about you. You've been a 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:53.800 tech worker. Yeah, so there was this moment where I 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:58.240 was working in tech and it was and Trump got 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:03.679 elected and like all tech companies in the Bay Area. 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:06.280 At the time, you know, the CEO gives kind of 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:10.480 a little speech about like, this terrible thing has happened, 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:14.320 and now we have to realize that what we do 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:17.600 every day at our company is changing the world and 0:14:17.640 --> 0:14:19.800 improving the world, and we still have to do it. 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:22.640 And it's actually fighting against like Trump and all of 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:28.960 what this like right wing is um is doing. I'm 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:34.200 all fired up in tingling and stuff. Okay, braveheart speech, right. Yeah. 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:38.280 At the same time, I was sitting there and I 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:41.600 was like, but our company is funded by like Dared 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:49.200 Kushner's brother, all these threads of funding. You know, it's 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:53.240 every quarter the venture capitalists who fund the company, they 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:56.800 come in and there's always this kind of standoff, right 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:00.480 like they're like, we need to see returns. This is 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:02.760 how you should change your business plan, this is how 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:05.080 you should run your company. And then it trickles down 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:08.600 to us, like the engineers working day to day, it's like, oh, 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:11.360 that thing you were working on, actually it doesn't matter anymore. 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:14.800 We're like pivoting to this new thing. And so just 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:19.960 realizing one this kind of culture of not care but 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:25.160 really bottom line returns, and then too the idea that 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:29.280 we're doing something to better the world, to change the world, 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:33.360 and yet you know, our work was really making making 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:37.880 other people rich essentially UM and not helping communities directly. 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:43.840 That I think gave me a sense of disillusionment. I'd 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:46.880 love to UM know a bit more about your path. 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:50.720 And I know you've written a book whose title just 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:54.200 makes me crack up every time I hear it, Blockchain 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:58.000 Chicken Farm. What experiences did you have in tech that 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:00.920 led you to rural China to write a book called 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:04.720 block Change Chicken for? My friend Jason came up with 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:08.280 that title, and I was just like so snappy. You know. 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:11.360 There was also a lot of anti China of rhetoric 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:14.920 at the time. They're still continues to be, but just 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:19.800 this idea that there's this foreign power battle of the 0:16:19.840 --> 0:16:24.920 civilization stuff going on UM, and I really wanted to, 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.760 you know, question that idea that it's like, you know, 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:33.320 US versus China, and China is this foreign place that's 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:36.480 so different and scary. And I think the approach I 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:40.160 really wanted to take was to humanize UM and to 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:43.760 tell these stories on the ground of folks in rural China. 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:47.800 It made sense to me also because we really ignore 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:51.440 the rural um. I mean not just in the US, 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:54.720 but also in China, where it's just like we paint 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:58.560 these pictures in broad strokes of like what country side 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:02.720 people are like, and then it's actually way more complicated 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:06.800 and it connects to like a global story too, about 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:12.640 you know, agriculture, economics, all these like big picture systems 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:18.040 complicate China for me with the sites, the smells, the sounds, 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:21.320 the tastes that you experience that we miss out on 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:24.960 when we over generalize. I mean, I miss it so 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:28.040 much because I haven't been able to travel. So I'm 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:33.360 sorry if I get like nostalgic or emotional, I will 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:40.440 open a circle for you to have these feelings. Oh, 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:43.600 you know, my time in real China, there were villages 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:46.960 that I would go to um several times, like twice 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:50.520 a year, and it felt like a sense of returning home. 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:56.600 Whenever you get to a village, it's this really beautiful 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:58.639 thing where the first thing they ask is have you 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:03.439 eaten yet? And there's just such a priority and value 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:07.080 placed on food, especially you know for rural places where 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:09.960 a lot of the times, you know there might be famine, 0:18:10.480 --> 0:18:13.320 there might not be enough to eat, and so people 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:16.840 present you with this like bowl of rice and sometimes 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:19.840 there's little dots on it in the rice because of 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:25.439 insects that have eaten the rice. And it just is 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:28.800 this feeling of like, oh, like you're literally giving me 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:33.240 food from your own grain store and feeling really touched 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:47.840 by that. What misunderstandings do you think people like us 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:50.199 have us in the US and the West in general. 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:54.560 What misunderstandings do we have about tech in China? I 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:58.320 would say the biggest misunderstanding that I've seen, I mean, 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:01.640 especially in relation to this anti China stuff, is that 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:09.800 like China is they're stealing everything right um, and that 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:15.280 there is absolutely zero freedom that you know, somehow the 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:19.600 people of China are complicit in what its government does, 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:22.520 you know? And when you're in rural China, which is 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:27.480 still like the population, folks are just living day to day, 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:31.840 trying to get by, making money, harvesting their crops, thinking 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:35.040 about their kids in their next generation and how they're 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:39.960 going to pay the school bills. Sounds very relatable. You 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:42.159 know what they sound like? Shall we? They sound like 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:48.920 people exactly. We've gotten to a point where it's hard 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:53.840 to see beyond certain narratives. We we got to get 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:57.080 to the title and and how your book landed on 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:00.240 blockchain Chicken farm. The book is full of store words 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:03.439 of people from the rural parts of China. What's the 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:08.520 story that led to this title Chinese economic development? It 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:13.000 happened really fast, in the span of like twenty thirty years. 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:16.520 So when you have gross that fast, things are going 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:20.159 to happen. The block chain chickens really came out of 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:23.800 this one small farmer in Guido Province where he was 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:27.760 raising free range chickens, and no one believed him that 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:31.359 they were free range. There's such distrust. So he said, 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:34.040 I've got these free range chickens. They're like, you're lying, 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:37.520 prove it. So he was like some county official came 0:20:37.520 --> 0:20:39.439 in was like, well, you should put these chickens on 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:43.199 the block chain. Paul is right there. That's just not 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:47.240 a normal government response, you know, Like I just I 0:20:47.280 --> 0:20:51.280 can't imagine like my DMV manager or some FDA official 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:54.000 here in the US like you should put this livestock 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:59.720 on the blockchain. What does that even mean. So there's 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:02.960 all these small tech companies in China who I think 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:06.960 just wat government contracts, and the one company offered this 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:10.840 product that was like, you know, the blockchain is this 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:16.120 ledger um so record keeping system that can't change or falsify, right, 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:19.760 so you could say, like the chicken is a pent 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:22.800 free range, and then it got sent to this slaughterhouse 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:28.080 and it was slaughtered on X y Z date and 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:32.439 now it's at your doorstep um. And these chickens were 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:36.600 heavily tracked. It was really wild, like it's like a 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:41.919 giant chicken surveillance network. Yes, there was actually a dashboard 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:47.520 where you could watch the chickens through cameras. This is 0:21:47.640 --> 0:21:53.159 weirdly dystopic and hilarious and progressive all at the same time. 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:57.000 I know, right, it's like, oh, you could definitely see 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:00.320 that Portlandia sketch where they're like this chicken has been 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:03.280 massage and here's a picture of it. Here is the 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:07.960 chicken you'll get joined tonight. This is fantastic. Absolutely. His 0:22:08.040 --> 0:22:13.239 name was Colin. So farmer needs people to believe that 0:22:13.320 --> 0:22:16.919 his chickens are free range. County officials like, I know, 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:19.760 we prove it with the blockchain. Put these chickens on 0:22:19.800 --> 0:22:22.560 the block chain. Did it work? Did it help the 0:22:22.600 --> 0:22:26.879 farmer when he had this distributed certification through the blockchain ledger. 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:32.879 So I will say that it really did work. He 0:22:33.200 --> 0:22:36.640 sold all of his chickens. Um the chickens each had 0:22:36.720 --> 0:22:41.840 this gnarly chicken fitbit is like this bracelet. Stop you're 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:47.000 killing me. So they had a chicken okay, yeah, and 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:50.040 the tracker had a QR code. But when they slaughtered 0:22:50.040 --> 0:22:54.000 the chicken, they actually keep the tracker on. So you 0:22:54.160 --> 0:22:57.720 can buy the chicken online. And so when you get 0:22:57.800 --> 0:23:01.840 the chicken, it's like this dead chicken, but it still 0:23:01.920 --> 0:23:07.360 has this wrist thing attached to it. It's really a site. 0:23:07.680 --> 0:23:10.600 So the chickens got a little chicken apple watch, you know, 0:23:10.760 --> 0:23:13.399 which is like tracking its health. Does the person who 0:23:13.440 --> 0:23:16.480 buys the chicken do they read that little tracker themselves 0:23:16.520 --> 0:23:19.240 to kind of inspect it. Yeah, they can scan the 0:23:19.320 --> 0:23:21.600 QR code and then read about it. So there's like 0:23:21.640 --> 0:23:24.160 a picture of the chicken, how much the chicken waight 0:23:24.440 --> 0:23:28.879 at birth, how many steps it took, because there's like 0:23:28.920 --> 0:23:33.560 a phenomena like all the chicken got it sent thousand 0:23:33.560 --> 0:23:39.040 steps in let's eat. So this is what you've just done, 0:23:39.680 --> 0:23:43.480 as you've brought a Portlandia sketch to life. The truth 0:23:43.560 --> 0:23:51.119 is stranger than fiction. Oh so this sounds like a 0:23:51.240 --> 0:23:55.000 victory farmer gets people to believe his chickens are free 0:23:55.080 --> 0:23:57.879 range because he's got the blockchain proof, sells out of 0:23:57.880 --> 0:24:01.679 his chickens and now is like the biggest farmer in 0:24:01.760 --> 0:24:06.280 rural China. What's how does this story proceed? Um? Sadly, 0:24:06.680 --> 0:24:10.640 I think that this is another one of those situations 0:24:10.720 --> 0:24:14.320 when we say, like we're building tech to quote unquote 0:24:14.359 --> 0:24:18.520 improve people's lives. It's like, well, who for who you know? 0:24:18.680 --> 0:24:21.639 Who do you count as your people and your community? 0:24:22.080 --> 0:24:25.680 And this farmer was kind of abandoned by that tech 0:24:25.720 --> 0:24:29.399 company and for the next season he's he's good at 0:24:29.480 --> 0:24:32.879 raising chickens and thinking about chicken life. Um, he's not 0:24:33.080 --> 0:24:36.560 a programmer. And when I asked him, you know, how 0:24:36.560 --> 0:24:41.520 do you feel about blockchain? He was like, what's blockchain? Um, which, 0:24:41.720 --> 0:24:45.040 to be honest, is a question that I think most 0:24:45.080 --> 0:24:47.760 of us would ask, right, like what's black chain? But 0:24:48.440 --> 0:24:51.399 there was really a sense that he became like dependent 0:24:51.560 --> 0:24:56.000 on this very opaque product that he had no control over, 0:24:56.400 --> 0:24:59.840 and when they pivot and when it becomes about profit 0:25:00.040 --> 0:25:03.159 the bottom line, they had to move on to other projects. 0:25:05.280 --> 0:25:07.840 How else have you seen tech companies exploiting folks in 0:25:07.880 --> 0:25:13.120 world China, I would say with the e commerce villages, Um, 0:25:13.240 --> 0:25:18.880 that was really fascinating because you know, the tech companies 0:25:18.960 --> 0:25:24.959 they say, hey, we're providing livelihoods to the countryside. You know, 0:25:25.080 --> 0:25:30.040 now you can work from anywhere and manufacture Halloween costumes 0:25:30.160 --> 0:25:33.800 or you know, wooden block toys for taboo. And it 0:25:33.840 --> 0:25:36.920 sounds great. I mean it really does. You can stay, 0:25:36.960 --> 0:25:39.119 you can work from home. Where have I heard this before? 0:25:39.560 --> 0:25:43.320 Continue and work from home is going to be like 0:25:43.400 --> 0:25:50.160 the mantra of our century. And yeah, so these folks 0:25:50.200 --> 0:25:54.920 they would be, you know, basically making Halloween costumes out 0:25:54.960 --> 0:25:58.880 of their home workshops. Um. I saw old people like 0:25:59.000 --> 0:26:03.040 their grandparents and uh, you know great aunts like helping 0:26:03.240 --> 0:26:06.399 with the manufacturing and the packaging and the shipping. So 0:26:06.400 --> 0:26:09.359 it was really a family business or you know, some 0:26:09.440 --> 0:26:14.600 people might call it like family self exploitation. Um. There 0:26:14.680 --> 0:26:20.120 was definitely this like rosy scene that the official government 0:26:20.240 --> 0:26:23.520 line was trying to paint like this is poverty alleviation, 0:26:23.760 --> 0:26:28.760 it's giving people like digital literacy skills. But then when 0:26:28.760 --> 0:26:31.240 I actually started talking to some folks that are like, 0:26:31.400 --> 0:26:33.600 this is like a scam, and we know it and 0:26:33.640 --> 0:26:36.240 we're just trying to like get it while it's good 0:26:36.359 --> 0:26:41.080 and make money while we can. So they were saying 0:26:41.240 --> 0:26:44.080 that the sellers, if you're selling on the platform, you 0:26:44.080 --> 0:26:46.920 have to pay fees, you have to buy ads. It's 0:26:46.960 --> 0:26:49.760 like a race to the bottom to try and cut costs, 0:26:50.000 --> 0:26:54.320 and you're just making cheaper and cheaper items, um that 0:26:54.359 --> 0:26:56.840 are really flimsy, that are like you use it once 0:26:56.880 --> 0:26:59.800 and it falls apart. But they're like, this is just 0:27:00.000 --> 0:27:02.560 all part of the game and in a few years 0:27:02.600 --> 0:27:04.600 this might not work, but we're going to get rich 0:27:04.680 --> 0:27:07.399