WEBVTT - Monologue: The Future Is Ours 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:08.159 Hello and welcome to this week's better offline monologue i'm 0:00:08.200 --> 0:00:19.189 your host ed zitron and i'm back folks sorry about 0:00:19.230 --> 0:00:22.050 missing you last week it's been a rough one but 0:00:22.090 --> 0:00:25.410 you know what things are changing for the better And 0:00:25.430 --> 0:00:28.990 I've generally avoided politics. And the few times I have 0:00:29.330 --> 0:00:31.930 actually talked about it, I've received quite a few pissy emails. 0:00:31.950 --> 0:00:35.800 But Tuesday night was a wonderful, abundant font of hope 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:38.590 in what has been a pretty grim two years. Those 0:00:38.630 --> 0:00:40.650 of you who've listened to the show for that period 0:00:40.690 --> 0:00:42.930 might remember my Rock Society episode at the time and 0:00:42.950 --> 0:00:45.610 how fucking angry I sounded because I watched as the 0:00:45.650 --> 0:00:48.810 most evil people took over our society as a direct 0:00:48.830 --> 0:00:52.449 result of hapless Democrat leadership and a media ecosystem that 0:00:52.530 --> 0:00:56.870 gaslit people about high prices and disregarded their very material 0:00:56.950 --> 0:01:00.260 problems as an anomaly in data that said that actually 0:01:00.350 --> 0:01:03.540 everything was fine. And on top of it, the tech 0:01:03.580 --> 0:01:06.899 industry had reached its ugliest, most abusive heights, And within 0:01:06.940 --> 0:01:09.319 hours of Trump's election, we saw every one of these 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:13.570 worthless scumbags, Sundar Pichai, Sam Altman, Tim Cook, Sachin Adela, 0:01:13.850 --> 0:01:16.850 Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and more, kneel down and pucker 0:01:16.910 --> 0:01:21.090 up for two years of lip service for fascists. Within 0:01:21.140 --> 0:01:24.100 a few months, Mark Zuckerberg was decrying that he wanted 0:01:24.160 --> 0:01:27.140 more masculine energy at large companies, as he did the 0:01:27.220 --> 0:01:30.480 least masculine thing of all time, desperately kissing up to 0:01:30.500 --> 0:01:33.810 the biggest bully he could find, a triangular dementia patient 0:01:33.830 --> 0:01:35.730 that looks like Pete's the Hut, that had won an 0:01:35.790 --> 0:01:39.870 election based on a disenfranchised electorate. In reality, Mark Zuckerberg 0:01:39.910 --> 0:01:42.230 is a huge pussy that's mad that anybody would ever 0:01:42.270 --> 0:01:46.840 hold him accountable. All of us... have felt landlocked in 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:50.700 a suffocating era defined by an oafish, half-hearted fascism that 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:54.400 lashes out in random directions, creating a sensation that nothing 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:57.770 good can ever happen again because cynical malcontents have turned 0:01:57.810 --> 0:02:01.350 everything into a casino or a strip mining operation. And 0:02:01.430 --> 0:02:04.590 we've watched as the political and social infrastructure has caved 0:02:04.630 --> 0:02:06.990 to their every demand, how the media has enabled them, 0:02:07.050 --> 0:02:10.350 how the existing systems have empowered them. It's felt for 0:02:10.389 --> 0:02:12.710 most of my life that we'd never escape the weight 0:02:12.770 --> 0:02:16.160 of the eras of Reagan, Clinton, and Obama And of course, 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:20.710 George Bush, both Bushes, fucking hell, every time people have 0:02:20.730 --> 0:02:25.540 been sold further entrenchment in systemic thinking. And Tuesday night 0:02:25.580 --> 0:02:27.280 felt like the beginning of the end of that era. 0:02:27.300 --> 0:02:30.210 A repudiation of the right wing, the hate, the anger, 0:02:30.230 --> 0:02:32.750 and of those who would dismiss others based on their 0:02:32.830 --> 0:02:35.590 race or gender or class, and of the pedophile protectors 0:02:35.850 --> 0:02:38.330 that refused to reveal the entirety of the depravity of 0:02:38.370 --> 0:02:41.440 Jeffrey Epstein for fear that it might implicate their faves. 0:02:41.500 --> 0:02:43.320 And let's just be clear here, if you're on the 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:46.660 Epstein list, you're nobody's fave other than, well, somebody else 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:49.260 on there too. And I just don't give a shit anymore. 0:02:49.500 --> 0:02:52.120 I want to see these people humiliated. I want to 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:56.840 see those who did the touchdown dance on November 5th, 0:02:56.840 --> 0:03:00.150 2024 embarrassed and scared that their scams and evil actions 0:03:00.190 --> 0:03:03.910 will no longer be tolerated. We now have a trans woman, 0:03:04.210 --> 0:03:08.730 Alison Montgomery, as a representative of Alabama's 25th district. Gina 0:03:08.770 --> 0:03:12.450 Hinojosa is both the first Democrat governor since 1990 and 0:03:12.470 --> 0:03:15.010 the first Hispanic governor of Texas and has made it 0:03:15.050 --> 0:03:17.399 clear she intends to bring data center developers to heel. 0:03:18.030 --> 0:03:21.600 With Abdul El-Sayed, we have an avowed leftist and a 0:03:21.660 --> 0:03:25.600 Muslim as the senator for Michigan. This fucking rocks. Now, 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:28.140 to be clear, the war isn't over with the right 0:03:28.300 --> 0:03:30.940 or the establishment that continues to try and build bridges 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:33.810 with them. We're going to see attempts to reconcile with 0:03:33.830 --> 0:03:36.770 the racists and the Epstein defenders and the ring kissers. 0:03:36.810 --> 0:03:40.150 And it's important that we remind everybody of the names 0:03:40.210 --> 0:03:43.000 of those who kissed up to fascism and especially those 0:03:43.030 --> 0:03:45.620 who were excited to do so the second it happened. 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:50.010 Everyone who excitedly talked about American dynamism or working with 0:03:50.070 --> 0:03:53.100 Trump to make America great again is on fucking notice. 0:03:53.930 --> 0:03:56.390 No more Mr. Nice Guy unless you're gonna be nice 0:03:56.410 --> 0:03:58.960 to people, which is why I'd like to remind any 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:03.060 anti-trans listeners to open up Bud Dwyer's Manila envelope and 0:04:03.140 --> 0:04:06.700 use what's inside immediately. I'm not fucking around, by the way. 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:09.560 Trans people have been crucified for years for the crime 0:04:09.580 --> 0:04:12.620 of being alive, of choosing to be who they are, 0:04:12.930 --> 0:04:15.030 all in a way that's totally harmless outside of the 0:04:15.090 --> 0:04:18.110 imaginations of the worst scum of society, taking on great 0:04:18.190 --> 0:04:22.830 financial expense literally making themselves a target because they want 0:04:22.850 --> 0:04:24.850 to be who they are in the most, and I 0:04:24.910 --> 0:04:29.590 must repeat, harmless way possible. And if you take issue 0:04:29.810 --> 0:04:32.730 with me being so aggressive to quote David Lynch, fix 0:04:32.770 --> 0:04:36.760 your hearts or die, we must protect trans people. The 0:04:36.820 --> 0:04:39.620 show and its listeners protect trans people. And if you 0:04:39.660 --> 0:04:41.179 do not, I do not want you as a listener. 0:04:41.220 --> 0:04:43.420 And quite honestly, I want you to walk into fucking traffic. 0:04:44.770 --> 0:04:47.450 And the anger I feel is nothing compared to what 0:04:47.490 --> 0:04:50.570 trans people have dealt with over their entire lives, over 0:04:50.610 --> 0:04:53.719 the last few years especially. I just don't have any 0:04:53.820 --> 0:04:57.040 patience or calm anymore. I'm in a great fucking mood. 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:01.020 But my mood, my good mood, does not change the 0:05:01.060 --> 0:05:04.020 fact that trans people are still mistreated. That there were 0:05:04.060 --> 0:05:08.450 still anti-trans bills on the docket that went through. And 0:05:08.490 --> 0:05:11.110 that is a goddamn shame. And we must push the 0:05:11.150 --> 0:05:14.580 people that are obsessed with checking children's genitals, that are 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:17.420 obsessed with chasing trans people out of society. We must 0:05:17.460 --> 0:05:20.300 chase them out. Those people are the ones we don't want. 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:23.700 Not the harmless trans people. Not the people. The very 0:05:23.779 --> 0:05:27.380 small shred of society that just wants to be themselves. 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:30.030 Why do they not get to be themselves? What's the 0:05:30.070 --> 0:05:33.700 problem with that? The problem is you're fucking strange. Our 0:05:33.740 --> 0:05:35.600 world does not have to be white. It does not 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:37.620 have to be straight. It does not have to be 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:42.789 run by growth-obsessed, pedophile-protecting scumbags. We can have better. We 0:05:42.990 --> 0:05:45.929 will have better. And we will have so much better 0:05:46.150 --> 0:05:48.890 when we're represented by people that are representative of the 0:05:48.950 --> 0:05:52.210 larger world rather than the various echo chambers farted out 0:05:52.250 --> 0:05:56.180 by the consultancy class and the establishment. While I cannot 0:05:56.220 --> 0:05:59.060 guarantee that everything will be better overnight, we are on 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:01.539 our way to something grander than rolling in our filth 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:04.980 in a world born of Kissinger, Friedman, and Reagan. And Thatcher, 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:07.620 and Bush, and Clinton, and Obama, and so on and 0:06:07.660 --> 0:06:11.200 so forth. And I'm sure I'll hear from someone telling 0:06:11.260 --> 0:06:13.970 me off, so let me get ahead of it. Fuck off. 0:06:14.230 --> 0:06:17.029 I don't care. If you aren't excited by what happened Tuesday, 0:06:17.050 --> 0:06:19.920 you're protecting a system that runs on despair and exploitation. I, 0:06:20.870 --> 0:06:23.650 and the listeners I want to retain, Advocate for a 0:06:23.750 --> 0:06:27.880 world built on inclusivity, community, and hope. I may swear, 0:06:27.890 --> 0:06:30.560 I may get angry, I may tell anti-trans people to 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:32.620 start their cars in the garage, but that's from a 0:06:32.660 --> 0:06:36.030 place of love and belief that things can improve. And 0:06:36.089 --> 0:06:39.290 Tuesday night proved that things can change for the better, 0:06:39.550 --> 0:06:42.610 and that seemingly impossible movements can be kneecapped and near 0:06:42.670 --> 0:06:45.880 entirely collapse in the space of months, and has begun 0:06:45.940 --> 0:06:49.799 an industry-wide panic around the viability of the data center build-out, 0:06:50.060 --> 0:06:52.820 sending Nvidia's stock into a bear market and numerous chip 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:57.520 makers and neo-clouds crashing. Per Bloomberg, Robert Pavlik of Dakota 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:00.310 Wealth Management believes that the market is acting like the 0:07:00.330 --> 0:07:03.350 blue wave represents the end of the AI build-out, and 0:07:03.370 --> 0:07:07.070 both OpenAI and Meta, per various articles, are actively worrying 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:10.460 that the blue wave may materially alter their construction plans. 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:15.120 While nothing has truly shifted yet, we are no longer 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:18.110 in a political or social climate that rewards backing everything 0:07:18.140 --> 0:07:21.390 that the tech industry does. Texas is now a thoroughly 0:07:21.450 --> 0:07:24.840 blue state outside of the state Senate. where Republicans still 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:27.480 hold a thin majority and are already desperately trying to 0:07:27.540 --> 0:07:30.940 undermine the powers of the Lieutenant Governor before Vicky Goodwin 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:34.610 takes over in January, which spells ill for the 57.7 0:07:34.610 --> 0:07:37.250 gigawatts of planned IT capacity in the state, more than 0:07:37.410 --> 0:07:42.330 half of which is being built by first-time developers, per Bloomberg. 0:07:42.330 --> 0:07:46.740 33 different ballot measures to restrict data centers were passed 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:49.480 by voters, or were leading as of writing this sentence 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:53.100 per Stateline, with 21 municipalities in Ohio alone, one of 0:07:53.140 --> 0:07:55.960 the biggest and fastest growing data center build out geographies 0:07:55.980 --> 0:07:59.020 in the world, voting to restrict them. Per Bloomberg, the 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:03.220 gubernatorial races from Georgia to Ohio and Pennsylvania could leave 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:06.500 half of proposed AI data center additions across the US 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:12.990 vulnerable to stricter local scrutiny and pushback. We love that. Yeah, 0:08:13.390 --> 0:08:16.090 turns out that people hate data centers and are enraged 0:08:16.150 --> 0:08:18.470 with the tech industry and they're tired of Elon Musk 0:08:18.510 --> 0:08:21.090 and don't want to feel under the thumb of billionaires. 0:08:22.390 --> 0:08:27.150 The AI industry accidentally created the single best bipartisan talking 0:08:27.210 --> 0:08:32.740 point ever by force-feeding rural communities giant expensive monoliths explicitly 0:08:32.820 --> 0:08:36.400 built to take their jobs, and now face outright opposition 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:40.040 in effectively every state other than the Dakotas, with little 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:44.040 or no response other than, uh, having data centers makes 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:49.400 America stronger? And, well, the AI bubble is only really 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:54.160 made possible in a climate of unrestrained capitalism. NVIDIA's growth 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:58.719 is entirely dependent on unimpeded data center build-outs, and without those, 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:01.500 there's little reason to keep buying tens of billions of 0:09:01.540 --> 0:09:05.570 dollars of GPUs every quarter. Without more capacity, Anthropic and 0:09:05.610 --> 0:09:08.589 OpenAI and other AI labs are unable to sell their 0:09:08.610 --> 0:09:11.670 stories based on infinite growth because they literally cannot grow 0:09:11.730 --> 0:09:16.210 without more capacity. And once that narrative sets in, everything 0:09:16.230 --> 0:09:19.810 begins to implode. Our world can be better if we 0:09:19.850 --> 0:09:22.690 stand together against the things we hate and rally to 0:09:22.750 --> 0:09:25.750 advocate for the things we love. And the pressure against 0:09:25.809 --> 0:09:28.890 the noxious form of the tech industry is working. And 0:09:28.910 --> 0:09:31.410 I know some of you, and I forget how many, 0:09:31.450 --> 0:09:33.080 maybe it's just a handful of you, but you are, 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:35.380 you deserve your own shout out. There are some of 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:38.260 you who have been going to city council meetings, meetings 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:40.440 with the mayor, what have you, mentioning my name, mentioning 0:09:40.480 --> 0:09:43.300 my work, and getting this shit cancelled. You people are 0:09:43.420 --> 0:09:46.459 fucking heroes. If you're listening, email, I love you, I 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:48.220 want to give you a free sub to the newsletter. Like, 0:09:48.260 --> 0:09:51.680 let me know how I can help. You're awesome. And 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:53.370 I'm proud. I'm proud of all of you because I 0:09:53.410 --> 0:09:55.850 know tons of you have been writing your state representatives. 0:09:55.870 --> 0:09:58.089 You've been writing your mayors. You've been writing these people 0:09:58.130 --> 0:10:00.800 and telling them to stop building the fucking datasets. And 0:10:00.860 --> 0:10:05.000 it is working. But the work isn't done. The pushback 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:09.109 isn't over. And we will continue to keep winning. And 0:10:09.170 --> 0:10:11.190 I will be back next week with Paul Kudrowski and 0:10:11.250 --> 0:10:14.370 Ed Elson to talk about the post-election economy and what 0:10:14.410 --> 0:10:18.290 the AI trade looks like going forward. I love you all.