WEBVTT - Infrastructure as Control feat. Andrew 0:00:01.800 --> 0:00:07.480 All the media, Hello and welcomed. It could happen here, 0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:11.680 and it could. My name is antress Age. I'm also 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:16.040 ANTWRESSM on YouTube, and I'm here once again. 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:19.279 With James James Stout. People said I'd never say my 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:19.880 last name. 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:22.040 And they can't work out who I am, so I 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:23.040 guess I'll do that more. 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:28.240 Welcome James Stout. Thank you so ically. And I mean, 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:31.560 this is an unfortunately common pattern of thought for me, 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:35.720 but I've been thinking about just how totalizing this system feels. 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:38.840 And it's like everywhere you turn, you know, walking down 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:43.120 the street, look at the city, a pollution that every 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:47.320 inch of land there's been claimed by the system, every 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:50.240 bit of you know, the way you live and operate 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:55.440 just feels like it's been manipulated and controlled in some way. 0:00:56.080 --> 0:00:58.720 And so that's really what I want to highlight in 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:04.560 today's episode, the infrastructure of this system and how it's 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:06.840 used to control, you know, both in terms of the 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:12.000 physical infrastructure and the digital infrastructure of our lives. So 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:15.840 I suppose to start off, I'd ask, when was the 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:19.319 last time that you noticed infrastructure shape in your choices? 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:25.560 That's interesting, I mean a lot in certain ways, right, 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:27.880 like like the infrastructure of labor shapes a lot of 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:32.760 my choices, Like I have to work a lot to 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:36.120 make ends meet, right like, which means I can't do 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:39.560 sometimes things I want to do, Like there are mutual 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:42.360 aid efforts I'd like to participate in more that I'm 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:45.280 not able to because I have this obligation to capital. 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:47.920 Mm hmm, I guess that's one of them. 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:51.640 Or just like the physical infrastructure limiting the people I 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:54.440 get to see, right, Like, there are places I love 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:56.480 to go out there with some really nice vegan places 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:59.200 in Tijuana that I don't go to as much as 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:02.080 i'd like because someone has built a giant wall and 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:04.120 then another giant war next to it, and then stationed 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:06.240 a bunch of people with guns to check if I 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:08.880 have the right piece of paper to go back and 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:12.280 forth to somewhere that otherwise I could ride my bike to. 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:17.799 Yeah, borders are very unfortunate and big one. Yeah, it's 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:21.000 really frustrating, And I think that's one of the most 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:27.160 obviously detrimental aspects of physical infrastructure that to de manipulate 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:31.080 our lives today. I think on the digital level, there's 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:33.840 things like just the way that social media is laid out. 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:36.360 I think it really controls like how much time you 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:39.840 spend on it, how much energy you invest in it. 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:45.280 And of course even just our neighborhoods, our environments, our cities. 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:48.160 They laid out, it tends to affect, you know, just 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:51.600 how often we go out, where we go, what needs 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:55.800 a transportation we use, and I mean with physical infrastructures concerned, 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:59.080 and how it's been used to control people. That goes 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:03.280 way back into history. You know, coloneal powers often built 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:07.200 transport infrastructure, you know, like roads and railways and ports 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:11.679 with the very explicit purpose of extracting raw materials from 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:15.480 the colonized territories to get to the imperial core. You know, 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:17.720 the systems were not designed to say over the mobility 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:21.400 needs of the local populations. They usually create a direct 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:24.760 line from the mines and the plantations and the resource 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:27.920 rich areas to the coastal ports where they could be exported. 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:28.280 Yeah. 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:32.440 Yeah, And so for the British and perialists and lovers 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:36.280 of empire, they often brag that, you know, we built ports, 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:38.640 and we built bridges, and we built roads, and we 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:41.920 built railway as well. It's the same pattern everywhere. You know, 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:44.600 in India it was used to move cotton, tea and 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:47.440 other resources from the interior to the ship. In ports 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:49.920 in Ghana, it was used to move gold and coco. 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:53.600 In any case, it wasn't to interconnect within the city, 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:58.280 you know, the actual economic subtermination of the people in 0:03:58.360 --> 0:03:59.440 that area. It didn't matter. 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:03.080 I think about this, like, I cycled around Rwanda in 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:06.520 twenty twenty, which is an interesting time to be traveling, 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:09.840 but I remember riding around them. The kny Rwanda word 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:12.400 for dirt road is iqitaka, right, and so that's what 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:14.440 mostly So we cycled on these dirt roads. 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:15.920 It was lovely, you know. 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:17.920 We'd go through the village and everyone would come out 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:20.320 and wave at you, and like the little kids would 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:23.000 come out and be like, what the fuck is this bicycle? 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:24.280 And it was kind of fun, you know. And then 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:27.360 we'd find someone. It's not really set up for like restaurants, 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:29.680 so you just find someone and pay them an amount 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:31.440 upon which you agreed and they would give you some 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:34.880 food and that was a beautiful experience. And then there 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:37.800 are these roads that they call Chinese roads that just 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:41.400 go directly from the mind to the place where the 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:44.400 raw material can be extracted. Because between the China was 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:47.360 doing a lot of what you could generously call foreign 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:51.080 direct investment or like neo colonialism in lots of places 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:55.200 in Africa, right, And it was the contrast between those 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:58.640 two traveling experiences was so profound, Like we obviously you 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:01.799 travel faster on the smooth roads, but like you don't 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:06.800 immerse yourself in the human experience of meeting and sharing 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:10.320 that travel with people, which is why I do these 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:12.800 things in the first place. With just like such a 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:15.640 profound contrast. I remember it really striking me at the time. 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:21.120 Yeah, I mean, and this is what empires and rulers 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:25.000 in general have been doing, right. They they wield their 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:29.320 control over labor to set things up in a way 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:33.000 that fulfills their interests. Yeah. And then you know, even 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:36.800 when people key in some sort of nominal independence and 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:42.960 they inherit these clonial infrastructure grids or you know, they 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:45.640 have investments coming in and they have set up they 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:49.119 have these companies, it's a multinational companies setting up infrastructure. 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:54.720 It still continues, you know, this sort of extractivist and 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:58.080 top down nature of the way the infrastructure is set up. 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:01.520 You know, it doesn't remain all of them. Don't reimagine 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:05.040 the logic of what came before. You're in part for 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:07.400 lack of funding and in part for lack of imagination, 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:11.039 and so in a lot of places, the peripheral regions 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:14.440 in these countries are still lacking in connectivity, They're still 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:18.560 lacking behind the rest of the country. They still don't 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:20.800 have access to some of the basic social services and 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:24.760 resources that the urban core has. Because you know, the 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:28.919 urban rural divide in many ways mimics the corporate free 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:33.560 divide on the international stage. And then you have these 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:37.400 neo colonial development aid programs coming in with the IMF 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:41.440 for the World Bank, and you have even more infrastructure projects. 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:45.680 So just repeat this extractive pattern under the ban of development. 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:50.160 Of course, real development would be connecting people, encouraging people 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:54.520 to participate in society and distribute opportunity. But the infrastructure 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:57.440 tends to be set up as more so for consolidating 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:01.400 state power and channeling the movement of people in predictable, 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:08.720 survailable ways, and prioritizing access for certain populations while excluding 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:22.800 or marginalizing others. So, of course, infrastructure development has the 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:26.240 capacity to help people. You know, it can increase accessibility, 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:28.480 can make people's lives easier, and it can also just 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:33.040 manage and contain them and varied sources, and we see 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:36.560 a lot more examples of this sort of infrastructure control. 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:42.840 When you look at the class and racial dynamic within societies, 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:46.440 those sorts of divisions and separations and stratifications, they of 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:49.560 course manifest physically. You know, in the US you had 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:53.440 literal segregation areas that were designated for black people listening 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:58.160 for white people, water fountains and neighborhoods and all these 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:00.560 different things. You also had redline in policy years, and 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:06.840 nowadays you have spaces that were redlined and thus lacked investment, 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:12.280 and thus when neglected infrastructurally due to that racial and 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:16.360 economic inequality, those spaces are now right for development in 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:19.480 the form of gentrification because the property is so cheap, 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:22.480 so undervalued, and so the people who made something out 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:26.400 of that lack are are being pushed out. And in 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:30.080 South Africa, I mean up until recently, these are partid 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:35.760 era policies created townships that were deliberately located far from 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:39.640 white urban centers. There were lacking and services and transit 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:44.360 options that physically reinforced the racial division of that society. 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:49.120 And even today around the world you have urban zoning 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:55.360 laws and transit access limitations and public housing policies that 0:08:56.200 --> 0:09:02.120 recreate historical class divisions and racial divisions, ethnic divisions. And 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:04.000 I'm sure you and your oh, with all of the 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:05.720 I mean, every time I talked to you have like 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:08.160 a new travel story to tell. I'm sure you've witnessed 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:08.800 something like this. 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:12.000 Yeah, I was just thinking of how like I was 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:14.360 thinking of, like if we think about the Syrian state 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:18.600 as a contiguous colony, right, Like it's called the Syrian 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:21.560 Arab Republic, but not all the people who are contained 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:24.560 within the territory in which it once claimed the monopoly 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:27.800 on violence are Arab people. So we think of the 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:33.560 parts of North and East Syria, majority Kurdish areas, as colonized. 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:36.480 We can see that reflected in the infrastructure. 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:36.760 Right. 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:40.880 Part of that is, as you say, this sort of 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:44.120 lack of investment, But then also part of it is 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:49.480 every government funded building, right, schools, hospitals, the buildings you 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:51.080 go in to do the paperwork you have to do 0:09:51.120 --> 0:09:54.960 to exist under the state. They're set up like strong points, 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:57.800 like they're designed with a big kind of war and 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:02.199 then a big courtyard and then thickias like they're designed 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:07.560 to be militarily defensible against the people they're supposed to serve, right, 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:10.320 Like the school is designed to be used as a 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:14.439 fucking machine gun position, and once you see it, you 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:18.280 see it everywhere, and you think about the nature of 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:22.120 the state that designs infrastructure with that explicitly in mind, Right, 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:24.280 it's fascinating. The other example I think of is like 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:29.120 Chris Elam's done some fantastic writing on the development of Barcelona, 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:32.920 and you have like the unregulated working class of Raval, 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:35.960 like this area just next to the Rambler, where the 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:40.079 streets are just fucking small and winding and crazy and 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:42.760 there's never not laundry kind of over you know, over 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:45.079 your head, and it's a very I like to go there. 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:46.600 It's a place that I enjoy. 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:49.960 And then you have the ijumpler, which means extension, where 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:52.960 the infrastructure is extremely like it's probably one of the 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:56.720 earlier grid cities that you would see, right. And the 0:10:56.760 --> 0:11:00.520 idea was that like these these over crowd they'd kind 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:03.800 of what were in the nineteen twenties and thirty slums 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:06.280 would be like where the working class would be kept 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:10.000 and the working class, to be clear, were seen as 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:13.240 there was a colonial relationship between the boys who are 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:15.240 and the working class in Barcelona, because most of the 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:18.600 working class were not Catalan, they would actually put signs 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:20.800 at the top of these working class areas saying like 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:24.200 Mutia begins here, right, these are the mutianos and people 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:28.600 from Mussia, the people from outside of Catalonia. Catalonia stops 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:32.120 here where the working class exist. That later reflected in 0:11:32.120 --> 0:11:35.120 the working class self identity, like it came to refer 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:39.000 to the raval as Chinatown, not specifically because of a 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:43.560 high concentration of people from the Chinese diaspora, but because 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:47.280 they'd seen Chicago gangster movies where Chinatown was like the 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:49.480 area where the gangsters were, and they were like, yeah, 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:51.640 we're fucking gangster, Like we're going to call it Chinatown. 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:53.240 That you want to come in here, will fucking shoot you. 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:59.040 Like I thought that was really fascinating, like response to 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:01.960 the way that have been alienated by infrastructure. 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:04.679 Yeah, I mean, and that's why when you when you 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:08.840 look at the sort of claims that oh, you know, 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:12.000 it's just it's just roads, it's just the zoning, it's 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:17.160 just a city grid, it's just an embassy, it's just 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:21.360 a government office, it's like, no, these sorts of spaces, 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:25.720 these buildings, this infrastructure could never be neutral. Yeah, and 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:28.040 when you see that, you can't unsee it because you 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:29.960 look at the amount of decisions it would have had 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:32.240 to have gone into, you know, some of the examples 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:35.280 you mentioned or the examples I mentioned, you know, the 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:37.880 design decisions. It's like, Okay, we're going to put this 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:41.320 road here instead of here. Yeah, we're going to use 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:44.800 this material instead of this material. Who you employ to 0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:48.640 build those structures, that infrastructure or also has an impact in 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:51.800 this surrounding area? Are you employing people within the community, 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:56.000 employing people outside? What's happening there? Who's funding this infrastructure, 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:57.479 who's maintaining the infrastructure? 0:12:57.640 --> 0:12:58.439 Yeah? 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:03.160 What level of Seville LUNs has been implemented? Where are 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:05.960 the public transportation routes and why they're here and not there? 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:09.800 You know, yeah, exactly, Like there's people whose opinions and 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:12.640 views matter in that process, and there are people who 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:13.720 are excluded from it. 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:15.000 Exactly. 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:16.040 Yeah. 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:18.880 One of the authors I tend to go back too 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:23.199 often is he vandalist because he critics a lot of 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:27.760 this stuff, so particularly infrastructure's control and tools. Look in viviality. 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:31.679 He spoke about how modern transport and urban design have 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:34.840 been used to alienate people from their own bodies and communities. 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:38.559 So you call all the usual suspects suburbanization and car 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:43.240 centric infrastructure, how it isolates people and increases dependence on vehicles. 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:49.079 And he called this dependence a radical monopoly because all 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:53.240 the other choices have effectively been eliminated. Technically, you could 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:56.240 walk along the highway, but you're not going to You're 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:59.040 going to get a cut, right, you can't choose to 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:01.760 walk a cycle, and that sort of scenario of. 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:03.319 Film's going to call the cops that you try that 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:04.360 in America, right. 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:06.960 Yeah, So as a lich sor it, it's really a 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:11.959 cultural imposition that shapes how we end up living, interacting, moving, 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:16.240 and it's frustrating. On the global stage, you also see 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:21.920 how infrastructure has the capacity to control the whole geopolitical board. 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:27.080 You know, the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal, the Red Sea, 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:32.440 the Straight orfor moves, all these places have a lot 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:39.400 of power militarily, trade wise, dlematically because they control the 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:43.200 flow of oil or of goods or of data. Yeah, 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:46.240 particularly in the areas where the undersea internet cables run 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:50.840 and so speaking of data. Actually, the realm of digital 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:55.160 infrastructure is also very insiguous when it comes to control. 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:57.520 We tend to think of the Internet as that sort 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:03.320 of ephemeral cloud, right, But the cloud is hosted physically. 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:06.880 You know, there are sofas, there are fiber optic cables, 0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:09.760 the air data centers, all these things. They're not as 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:14.720 obvious as roads and railways and you know, neighborhoods, but 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:17.840 they are just as if not in some ways even 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:22.800 more powerful in terms of controlling what people access, how 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:25.160 fast they access it, under what terms they access it, 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:28.360 or because it's so intangible it's so hard to pin down, 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:33.760 it can often escape scrutiny. But there are companies that 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:35.960 own these things. There's a small group of very powerful 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:39.920 corporations that pretty much dictate how things are in it. 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:42.960 You know, most people they know about China's Grade Firal 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:47.320 and how it's used to coordin off China from the 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:49.680 rest of the Internet in some ways. You know, its sensors, 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:54.560 websites and sweet results. It monitors people's activity, and it 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:57.560 usually has these state monitored alternatives to some of the 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:01.960 popular global platforms like Google and Base. Right, But Google 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:05.680 and Amazon and Meta and Microsoft it's not like they're 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:08.120 any better. You know, the dot run and things Republic 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:11.520 could so if you will call out what China's doing 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:13.320 with the with the Great Firewall, and I agree, I 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:15.920 don't think that any government should have any control over 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:20.120 what people access. But you know, it's not like censorship, 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:24.520 data harvested and surveillance are unique to China. You know, 0:16:24.600 --> 0:16:27.920 a lot of other governments, in collaboration with these companies, 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:32.240 deploy soft censorship. You know, they de rank things in 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:39.360 the algorithm, they filter certain keywords, they selectively block certain things. Yeah, 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:43.840 things are maybe automatically flagged or moderated, and that often 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:48.520 affects people from the LGBTQ community in countries where you 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:51.560 know that's that's a big no no. Or you have 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:55.720 even the manipulation of language they will people use as 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:59.080 people try to get around censors. Hence the proliferation of 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:04.400 terms like great and essay and self delete and unlive 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:09.800 and all these other euphemisms, which I mean, honest, I 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:11.840 don't use any of them, and I despise them. 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:13.320 Yeah, me too. 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:15.879 The thing is a lot of people assume that these 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:20.919 words are censored and all platforms, but they're not. You know, 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:23.360 they may be censored on one platform, usually it's TikTok 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:26.000 or limited in one platform. And then if people take 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:29.399 that sort of TikTok sort of way of speaking and 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:32.200 spread it across the rest of the Internet, or worse yet, 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:35.480 bring it into real life and end up saying things 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:38.640 like un alive in real life. Yeah. 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:44.120 Yeah, everything you have allowed fucking TikTok's algorithm to determine 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:46.040 the way you can express yourself. 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:49.320 Exactly, exactly, And I mean TikTok has a lot of 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:52.600 heat these days because you know, rightfully, so it's very popular, 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:55.119 it has a lot of influence, and it's you know, 0:17:55.640 --> 0:18:01.159 very bleatantly interventionist with its content in some damage and Wiz. 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:04.680 But again, the other big cooperations are not immune either. 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:10.000 I mean, Facebook was famously found culpable for genocide, right, Yeah, 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:14.159 They've played a major role in the sort of attitudes 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:17.800 that were developing and the marginalization that was sort of 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:22.560 Targetinghinger community and the subsequent genocide. 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:23.199 Yeah. 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:25.679 So I was on a panel with some Hinder people 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:29.280 the other day and they are still by physical and 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:34.440 technical infrastructure, being marginalized. So something myself and my union 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:37.040 friends are trying to do is help the Hinder Podcast 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:40.639 Initiative start podcasting right such that they can share their 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:44.600 own voices with the world and their positions and their opinions. 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:48.360 It's very important at a time when they're facing marginalization, 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:52.520 even from revolutionary forces within me and Mark, and we 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:58.560 cannot sustain an Internet connection to allow them to do that. 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:00.879 Like we tried to do a liveanel and it was 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:02.679 very hard for you know, these guys who are running 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:05.960 around cox is bizarre where tens of thousands of bringing 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:09.320 of people live in refugee camps trying to find connectivity, 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:13.280 and like just another example of how they continue to 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:17.040 be marginalized by the systems that first allowed them to 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:18.560 be genocided exactly. 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:22.439 Yeah, because the private cooperations are low and not response. 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:25.160 But for this is the governments too. You know, when 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:28.320 the corporations still tell the government to do something, the 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:32.359 governments comply. And then when the governments tell the corporations 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:34.120 to do stuff a lot of the time, it's also 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:38.119 like they comply. It's collaboration, you know, especially since the 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:40.320 government has the power in a lot of cases to 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:43.679 shut down the Internet when things are not going their way. Yeah, 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:47.400 you know, they used it and all of it. Recently, 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:50.879 you have the suppression of the centering protests, you know, 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:55.879 to influence elections or to restrict information, substructionalism and communication 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:59.600 during crises. When you look at all over the world, Iran, India, 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:05.199 than Myanmar, Uganda, even in Gaza. In all these cases, 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:09.800 these governments step in and they limit or they shut 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:13.000 down the Internet entirely to prevent the news from getting out. 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:15.920 You know, they could target either the entire Internet or 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:19.080 they target it in platforms. They target WhatsApp, they target Twitter. 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:23.040 They justify by saying, oh they're going after take news 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:26.879 or there's a security threat. Yeah it's bullshit, but you 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:30.480 know we could see through that. Yeah, and it's tough 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:32.600 because I mean, this is where these are. These are 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:36.359 the places where people have gathered. These are the online 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:41.119 town squares, you know, and these these this infrastructure is 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:46.959 very much centralized. Google controls most of the search on 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:52.520 the internet. Amazon dominates e commerce and cloud, computer and logistics, 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:56.439 and Matter controls a lot of people's social interactions. You know, 0:20:56.440 --> 0:20:58.480 I could brag and say, oh, well I'm not on Facebook, 0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:01.640 but you know, as the use what'sapp, because everybody else 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:06.000 uses WhatsApp. Yeah, and it's so easy for them because 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:08.399 we're so concentrated on these platforms. It's so easy for 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:12.520 them to popet us, to flex their their muscles and 0:21:12.840 --> 0:21:16.880 control the direction of public discourse. And I mean it's 0:21:17.600 --> 0:21:24.040 amplifying things, suppressing other things, maximizing our engagements, exploiting our 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:31.040 cognitive and vulnerabilities, polarizing discourse, distorted reality. It's like, what 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:34.800 the hell do we do? Yeah, And so for the 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:41.399 Opium segment of the podcast, I just want to point 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:46.160 out that, you know, infrastructure can be used to consolidate 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:50.200 power and control people, but it can also be used 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:54.919 to resist and to re clim a collective agency. You know, 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:59.840 even infrastructure there was originally designed to control can be 0:22:00.640 --> 0:22:05.480 taken under our control. You know, around the world, communities 0:22:05.520 --> 0:22:10.960 have been able to challenge these extractive logics to build 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:14.399 their own infrastructures on their own terms. You know, in 0:22:14.680 --> 0:22:18.399 digital spaces, this might take the form of community build 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:24.480 mesh networks or alternative Internet local servers. You know, you 0:22:24.520 --> 0:22:29.800 have projects like Guifi dot net in Catalonia, or you 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:34.040 have the NYC Mesh in New York, and these are 0:22:34.960 --> 0:22:37.119 efforts to engage in you know, pay to pay and 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:42.960 decentralized communications without the reliance and the telecom giants. And 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:46.240 then you also of course physically have examples of infrastructure 0:22:46.280 --> 0:22:52.520 resistant central control, participatory urban planet movements. You have gorilla urbanism, 0:22:53.080 --> 0:22:56.920 you have you know, of course, the long and storied 0:22:57.040 --> 0:23:01.840 history of squatting otherwise known as informal settlement, and these 0:23:01.840 --> 0:23:04.760 informal set of months hubs of innovation, and a lot 0:23:04.760 --> 0:23:08.960 of cases in tastes like Nai Ruby or in Rio Gario. 0:23:09.480 --> 0:23:12.800 You know, these these slums and favelas, they're hooking up 0:23:12.840 --> 0:23:16.119 their own electricity, hooking up their own internet, hooking up 0:23:16.119 --> 0:23:19.399 their own what is supply because they recognize that this 0:23:19.480 --> 0:23:22.879 is within their hands, this is within their capacity. You know, 0:23:22.920 --> 0:23:26.199 we don't have to have everything, you know, passed on 0:23:26.320 --> 0:23:28.840 to us from one high you know, we can you know, 0:23:28.880 --> 0:23:32.679 sort of reclaim our own voices and design our own spaces. 0:23:43.520 --> 0:23:47.080 If you're really interested in how infrastructure has the capacity 0:23:47.200 --> 0:23:50.639 to control and really just how states sort of see things, 0:23:51.000 --> 0:23:54.280 I have to of course recommend the classic James Scott 0:23:54.359 --> 0:23:57.040 seeing like a state. Yeah, I mean, it's such a 0:23:57.119 --> 0:24:01.240 foundational framework to understand and how infrastructure is used for 0:24:01.280 --> 0:24:05.240 social engineering it's really readable as well, so definitely give 0:24:05.240 --> 0:24:08.040 that a read. And you know, think about we is 0:24:08.119 --> 0:24:13.840 that you can contribute to shape in the infrastructure around you. 0:24:14.200 --> 0:24:16.440 And I don't know, James, if you have any stories 0:24:16.480 --> 0:24:18.399 along this vay and you could leave us off with. 0:24:19.359 --> 0:24:21.760 Yeah, I mean I think of a ton right, like 0:24:21.840 --> 0:24:25.120 even I think about Like when I was a lot younger, 0:24:25.280 --> 0:24:28.440