It Could Happen Here Weekly 215

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Al Zone Media. Hey everybody, Robert Evans here, and I
wanted to let you know this is a compilation episode.
So every episode of the week that just happened is
here in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package
for you to listen to in a long stretch if
you want. If you've been listening to the episodes every
day this week, there's going to be nothing new here

(00:22):
for you, but you can make your own decisions. What's Pippin'
my bops? It could happen here? A podcast that is
sometimes competently introduced, but not on the days that I'm recording.
We're at CEES, the Consumer Electronics Show, seeing what the
tech industry has in mind for all of us. Right,

(00:43):
This is a show where the industry talks to itself
and its investors and clients about what the future is
going to be. And so Garrison Davis and I are
going to sit down with you and tell, based on
our explorations and investigations this week, what the future of
artificial intelligence means for all of us and for the world. Garrison, Hi,

(01:06):
how you doing.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
I'm tired?

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Yeah, you look tired.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
It's been a long week. It's been a long week
convention walking.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yeah, we've worked very hard.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
I've talked to too many robots.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah, I've talked to a lot of chat bots.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
I mean it's a bit of a stretch, is that
we've talked with them.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
I've talked to add a lot of chat bots.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Yeah, and sometimes they respond and sometimes they don't.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
I guess one of the things that's kind of shocked
me is it because, like, despite being very critical about
AI in the industry, I have actually a pretty good
idea of what these things are capable of. And I
know that chat GBT and Jim and I and the
other like, they're capable of doing some things that look
very impressive. They are capable of conversations. You know that

(01:45):
it can be fairly in depth, and that can cover
a wide variety of topics. And so one of the
things that has surprised me is that as I have
gone up and tried to communicate with every various chatbot
enabled AI enabled product, about seventy percent of the time
it's not actually capable of responding to me in a
way that makes any sense. Like the majority of those
products just don't function. Sorry, was that literally your AI

(02:07):
and your phone yelling at us.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yes, case in point, I was trying to pull up
one of the one of the AI robots that we
saw today, and I guess this is something that we
talked about on Better Offline a bit. And the main
thing this this year is the complete, the complete like
victory of of like chat GPT across not just not
just like.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
It's like the cultural victory within the tech industry.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Yes, right, and it's moved into like the physical world
through like their API license saying yeah, so many of
the quote unquote products this year is building a physical
thing around chat GPT.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
We have a necklace that has chat GPT and you
can talk to it. We have a pin that chat
GPT is in and you can talk to it and
have it do things like transcribe an interview.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Earbuds there's there's earbuds, little tiny robot Dogslassy. Everything has
has chat GBT inside it. And that's the main thing
that makes it like unique or special compared to you know,
the types of products we've seen we've seen before.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
And I would say again when I say that, like
seventy percent of the chatbot enabled products that I tried
to interact with could not converse with me or could
not do so in a functional way. It's not because
the chatbots aren't able to talk to you, because they
are anyone who's not like you can. It's that all
of the chatbots require an active Internet connection because the
vast majority of these products do not have anything on device,

(03:31):
and when you're in a crowded convention floor, the Internet
is bad and so they just don't work. And it
kind of it's one of those I'm sure most of
these products would work better in the real world, but
also the fact that they're all completely hobbled by their
access to data is kind of one of the things.
It's one of the seams that you can see here.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yeah, the LLLM rappers, so LM rappers and robotics are
the big things this year. Often these things are between you.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Mean by an LLLLM rapper garrison.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Well, this is this is the thing that we're talking about.
It it's say, it's that this physical product that's built
around something like chat GPT or Gemini or Claude or
a number of like the Chinese made ones, right, So
a lot of Chinese companies here. So these physical products,
whether those are you know, headphones, earbuds, or in many
cases little tiny robots whose main main features that you

(04:19):
can talk to can talk to it, and what you're
actually talking to is like a filtered version of chat GPT.
And there's a lot of these products for kids that
we've seen, like robots for kids, because there's a lot
a lot of robotics this year as well. That these
these are the two things that after years and years
of them trying to find a new thing for each cees,
they've like settled on not not actually having anything robotics,

(04:41):
not having anything new because like we've we've seen robotics
before at other years, and this is the year that
they're combining their physical robotics which aren't new, but combining
them with chat GPT and presenting it as a new product.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Look at now you can intelligence the robot and no,
can't do more tasks than it used to, Like we're
still doing really good if it can slowly and not
very competently fold laundry. Oh right, like LG's Kloyd Cloyd,
which is a robot designed to be in your home
and do chores for you and visibly does not do
them well. We watched it now where they're presumably it's

(05:17):
presumably working better than it normally does because it's a demo.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
No.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
I went to the first Cloyd Cloyd demo and they
had like three three different setups for the different stories
for like different use cases for Cloyd, once with ones
with a family, ones with like a single guy, and
ones with like a like a middle aged woman. And
with the family, the robots able to find keys that
are lost. Notably, what that means is that Cloyd is

(05:43):
moving keys around the house, which might actually contribute to
the problem of somewhere else. The robot could put a
tray of croissants in an oven and the robot knows it,
and the robot knows exactly how you want your croissants done.
You don't even have to tell the robot. It already knows,

(06:03):
of course. And that's something that was stressed the power
of AIL for and over again is that it will
it will start to like know what you want?

Speaker 4 (06:09):
Is it?

Speaker 2 (06:09):
So you want need to tell you have a memory?

Speaker 1 (06:11):
So many of these products with the big selling points
like it's got a memory and it has they can't
they can't stop themselves. And I think some of this
was like the actual companies and the way that they're
structuring their ad campaigns. But a lot of this was
just most of the companies here hire pr people who
don't regularly work for the company and don't know much
about the products, and they're just there to demo stuff,

(06:31):
and some of it is those people just defaulting too.

Speaker 3 (06:34):
Well.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
They're talking about how this thing like like remembers and
knows you, So I'll talk about how it like it
has a personality, It has memories, it has experienced, it
has core memories, you know, it has preferences, and like
a personality, it wants things. I talked to a couple
of different people at booths who like that was the
thing they were emphasizing, is that like, this is an
AI that like feels and gets to know you and

(06:55):
has a relationship with you. And it's very number one
not what they would want publicly because that's crazy and
none of the products actually work that way, but the
attempt to convince people that, like, what we have done
is create a robot that lives in your home and
does chores and it can think and feel. And anytime

(07:15):
you say, like, well, is there you just saying you
built a slave? Like are you saying, well, there's thinking
sentient robots that you have lived in your house and
do your laundry. Isn't that a slave like And it's
not actually because the robot doesn't say not actually, but
what they were saying was true, it would be a problem, right.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Oh, if you get it, introduce yourself however you want introduced.

Speaker 5 (07:38):
Oh, I'm Ben Ben Rosporter. I am an academic, I'm
a sociologist at Kearney.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
And you have accompanied us through the wonderful world of
Las Vegas and the cees this year. I always like
bringing people to witness the beautiful world.

Speaker 5 (07:51):
Yeah, I've been brought to this place very far from god,
Las ve Guess and the Tech Convention Center. There is
this moment where we were walking through and it was
the the the amy Bot for kids.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
Which me and Robert saw last year, that the little
like oval owl looking robot.

Speaker 5 (08:11):
Yeah, yeah, and they had this She's got to be
an actress and she was doing like a little skit
with the amy Bot where it was like it was
like the Amy About's birthday or something, and she was
like very clearly having this this very produced. It reminded
me exactly of how like cheap Tella Novella's like actors
talk where she was just like, wow, Amy, you've really

(08:33):
gotten to know me over the years. And it was
bizarre in that one the selling point of the robot
was I think they said, turning data into empathy. Yes,
it's able to turn data into empathy, which God knows
what that means. But also that like, so clearly the
robot turns data into empathy, but also we cannot show
you the robot doing anything concretely, so we will have

(08:57):
a person like it was just this very one side
like skit where this person was doing this really overly
emotional like back and forth as a robot, where the
robot would just respond with like the bare minimum like phrases,
and so like what they're selling is is questionable if
anyone wants it, and all speculative, it's all none of

(09:18):
it can actually be presented. It's all like the potential
to do this, and then and then even the way
that they're actually showing that is mostly just cheap tricks.
There's another booth where they had the sex robots, and
I was just I it was shocking because the stand
like you're at this convention, you've presumably you know, gone
through a lot to get here and you're the image

(09:41):
you're putting forward of your robot that you know you're
selling as the sex or whatt It's like this cheap
AI image, not even one of the good ones, like
that they're like clear artifacts and very weird lines and things,
and that you could google an anime jpeg and get
a better image for this. So just even the smoke
and mirrors of it was cheap.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
Yeah, that was that Love Ants is the sex Robot booth,
And yeah, they had two products. One was like just
like you know, silicon like realistic human skin sex robot,
which is similar to like you know, those horrifying sex dolls,
except now we have an LM inside. It's another one
of those LM rappers, except it's wrapped around of redheaded women.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
Garrison. I find that very offensive. It's actually some people
are just they're not capable of talking to women or
other human beings of any kind.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yeah, people with ADHD.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
It's actually a disability where people can't know other people
and can only have sexual gratification through a creepy robot.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
I apologize for my spect for my on air ableism. Yeah,
but no again, this is the year of LM rappers,
and now they're putting it, putting it in a sexpod,
which is more unnerving between than a regular sex doll
because a regular sex doll, you kind of know it's
an object. Like it's it's not trying to be much
more than an object. It can't, you can't. You could
you put in positions, but it's it's static. Yeah, this

(10:57):
because this thing tries to kind of engage with you.
It activates my Uncanny Valley response way more because it's
like it's kind of trying to pretend to be a person,
and like I could not look at the thing for
very long, so I just like started like I just
felt bad. Yeah, and some of that's probably my latent Protestantism,

(11:18):
but I just feel I just felt bad. But the
other product they had like around the corner was this
was this like you know anime style like like Avatar,
which was which is on like a screen that you
can talk to and it's synced up to like a
jack off robot, right, so you can you can engage
with this. You can engage with this like this like
blonde blonde hair, blue eyed anime woman as it's as

(11:40):
it connects to like a little a little like jackof Machine,
and that was there. That was the other product which
did not work because there was no Wi Fi in
the Venetian Yeah, so we could we could not see it,
but the jackoff machine was still going strong.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
Yeah, so you could say, I guess that, like, well,
obviously there's there's fundamental issues with like having Wi Fi
be decent. When you've got seventy thousand people like all
cramming themselves into a room. Of course, that's going to
cause problems. That the chatbots and the devices using them
are actually capable of more they should. They're more impressive
than you giving them credit for just because the WiFi
didn't work. But also if all your build is a

(12:13):
shell that without the Internet and access to someone else's chatbot,
it's useless, It doesn't do anything.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
This is the big people, I haven't really made a product.
All these products are are going to brick as soon
as soon as as soon as chat GPT raises its
API costs, they're going to do one of two things.
They're either going to stop working or they're going to
move their chatbot provider to a different one that's going
to behave differently. And then it's fundamentally a different.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
And that's why periodically I would run into someone where
it's like everything that we do is on device and everything,
even the ones that were still because almost you almost
have to say that whatever you're doing is AI and
stuff like. There was a company that I came across
because of their name because I just saw the name
trans Ai and I was like, well, I gotta go
see what that is. I did see that, and it's
simply I believe they're a Korean company, but it's it's

(12:58):
just a company that makes like a translator, right, and
they make it specifically. It's like the size of a
smaller smartphone. It looks kind of like a smartphone and
you set it down and it will on device. It
does not touch the cloud at all for any reason.
It can translate, so if you want to have a
conversation with someone in a foreign language, it can like
like live translate for you both. And also it will
transcribe whatever conversations you're happening. And they were like, yeah,

(13:20):
this is for people who want to transcribe notes when
they're at college. It's for people who are doing interviews,
journalists and stuff. So and it was a really good
it seemed to be a good product. I've not gotten
to test it outside of the show floor I saw.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
I saw a few of these.

Speaker 5 (13:31):
One of the big differences I saw between like the
few there were like two or three or four booths
that we saw where the product I was like, I
had a positive.

Speaker 6 (13:40):
I was like I walked away with some mildly positive.

Speaker 5 (13:43):
Was that almost everything else talk about like the sort
of insatiability of capital is that it has to sell.
The sex doll was a perfect example of this in
that you know, if you make a sex doll and
you put the chat GPT inside of it and then
you sell it as this this is a sex doll.
It's an object you fought, but now you can like

(14:04):
you could have sexy conversation with Its still an object,
but like you know, that's fun for some people.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
That's a thing that people didn't have and it is new.

Speaker 5 (14:12):
Yeah, and it's a phenomena you could clearly show off.
It's like, oh you can, you know now the sex
doll can like say your name and stuff. But almost
all of the booths that we're selling some kind of
a product. It was like, we have to sell the
opportunity to like transcend, Like the your mortal shell and
become a part of the cosmos itself. Like the sex

(14:33):
Doll was literally sitting in this corner talking to no
one and saying stuff like I'm about emotional intelligence and
building a connection, getting to know you and reaching into
your soul. And it's like, it clearly cannot do this.
And the few products that were good were the ones
where the people showing it were just able to like
just put that aside and just say, here's what the

(14:55):
product does, right, here's what it can do concrete.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
And that that has become my baseline and first question,
which is like, have you done anything with your product?
And if all that you've done is we invented a
new device that didn't previously have a chatbot that it
connects to through data that someone else built, you didn't
do anything that's not a product, that's not real, So
kind of my first my filter was like, is there
anything here beyond another way to interact with a completely

(15:21):
different product that you didn't make.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
To go back to like the AI note taking devices,
which I saw a few where where's a linch and
it will take notes through you. I saw like a
lot of these like marketed to like a college student.

Speaker 1 (15:42):
And it's the thing that it is a thing that
machine learning, because I hate that it gets lomped in
with AI. But machine learning has gotten a lot better.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
They know, they're really good. It's it's good at note taking.
And here's the thing, and that's alliable. And there's different
devices that you can get it on. Like I saw
like like a note taking pin that's a pin that
just automatically takes notes for you. That was you know,
kind of like kind of kind of fly. But the
thing is you can do this exact same thing on
your phone with the chet GPTPP. It's the exact same thing. Yes,
you don't need it in a pen, just turn your

(16:10):
phone on and it'll auto do the notes for you.
The actual product part is useless. The whole idea of
the smartphone is that you have everything you need already
on it.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
And that's why I did respect again companies like trans Ai,
where it's like, no, this is actually on device and
this is a thing.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
This is that's better.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
YEA utility that my phone doesn't have, which is that
no matter where I am, even if I'm not connected
to the internet, I can translate and I can transcribe
using this device that's real utility, and TRANSA is not
the only company. A couple of companies had products like that.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
Yeah, we saw this emotion tracking pendant which is oh
my god, on device, which which listens to everyone.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
So you said motion, not emotion, no emotion, oh god.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
But it listens. It listens to everything you're saying. It
doesn't up put anything to cloud, but it in the
AA is on device, so it listens everything. It is
like emotional scent analysis. It also monitors your breath and
your heartbeat because the necklace like rests like on your chest.
And then it like taught and then it can like
analyze like around like six or seven. That's a mystic

(17:12):
seven different emotions. And like it was like fine, I
don't I would never need this thing to tell me
how I'm feeling. I know how to feel, but like
it might be fun for some people to like track
how they're feeling or be like, oh I was more stressed.
I was more stressed this week than like last week.
And like still and there's.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
There's even there's at least a degree of baseline optimism
that you have for the product when it's like, Okay,
this is a device where you're trying to track people's emotions,
and your immediate first thing you decided as a company
was this, can't go on a cloud. That would be
a responcible.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
This is why that was the first thing I asked, right, right,
And that is.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
I guess the most important fundamental difference between companies and
people here, and between the companies that are embracing to
some extent AI is the ones who whose default was like, well,
but we're doing something that involves emotions or that involved
like interviews or conversations that people might not want on
like we shouldn't have that on the cloud, versus the
people who are like, why wouldn't you put literally everything

(18:08):
on the cloud. Why don't you want your health and
medical data on the cloud. Why don't we want your
financial data on the cloud? Right, Like that is kind
of like the most fundamental difference that you see between
people here.

Speaker 5 (18:18):
Part and parcel of the insatiable like just drive for
endless value. And probably the comparisons between this convention and
its location, Las Vegas are really overlaiden at this point,
but I mean there is something about, like, you know,
the appeal of gambling is the promise of the speculative
promise of endless value and how all of these technologies
are selling themselves off of endless value. And for the

(18:40):
producer side, that means like this, this device has endless
function potentially, you know we say endless functions.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
Especially with these like AI devices.

Speaker 7 (18:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (18:50):
Yeah, But from the consumer side, it's from a well,
if you just give yourself over to you know, to
the god of capital, if you if you just bleed
into the machine and connect yourself to the cloud and
give over like everything, and it really is everything. I mean,
there's like AI towels that are like analyzing your sweat.
If you give over everything, there is this vague promise

(19:11):
of transcendence and that like you will escape the like
the misery of the world that this place is just
both completely blind to and then also without ever saying it,
like also responding to it entirely.

Speaker 1 (19:25):
First off, obviously you're coming at this from more of
a left wing perspective, so you probably don't understand that
gambling always works and you're definitely going to win. So
first off, you.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
Know, no Vegas really is the anarcho capitalist paradise.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
It sure is, But no, like what you're saying is
they want you to give everything over. There is absolutely
there's not outside of again the odd booth where you
find sane people, which is almost how I think about
it them in my head, where it's like yeah, where
you're putting front and forward. This stays on the device.
You don't have to be online. We are not exposing
your data.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
It's like seeing a lighthouse right like in like a
horrible like rainstorm and you're like sailing got his ship
and you can't see anything, and everyone's you'll see a
booth with like a real person. God, it's like talking
about it was solving a real plumbing, like oh finally, Yeah.

Speaker 5 (20:09):
It's a spectrum between talking to the ais, talking to
the real few people and then the other people who
are kind of in between the two.

Speaker 1 (20:17):
And it was I went from seeing this app where
the whole purpose of this this company that makes like
agentic ai solutions, who I'm scrolling to find there the
company name right now, all of it is they're making
agents that you can put in like point of sale things,
or you can put in like cars as a chat.
But like one thing they said is yeah, we can
put this in a car and we can have the

(20:38):
you know, you can navigate using voice the way you
would normally like with a bunch of other apps. But
if you navigate with voice using our app, it will
only send you to restaurants or businesses that we have
a deal with that are giving us a cut and
so and you too the car company gets a cut two.
And that was the innovation is that we can not

(20:59):
give people like tell people where things are. We can
tell people where things are that hey, us and you
get a cut up.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
The company can like make a partnership with like Coca Cola. Right,
so then when you we were.

Speaker 1 (21:08):
Literally talking to Coca Cola reps when I was there,
it's showing them that like, yeah, we have a like look,
we've replaced the human beings that take your orders at
Burger King, and the chatbot can alter on the fly
of the menu. If you have to get a smooth
a lot of vanilla coat and you want to sell
as many large as possible, it can tell people that's
the only option. WHOA And like like the fact that

(21:29):
they were just like bald faced about it, because when
I showed up, they were they were demoing how this uh,
this like Burger King menu with AI worked, and they
were like there was a full menu that you could
see that was like a like an updated screen menu,
but there was a secondary menu where they're like pretending
to be a guy who drew up to Burger King.
And the way that they started was like, yeah, what

(21:50):
burgers are good? What do you think I'd like? And
I was like, who No one.

Speaker 2 (21:53):
Drives up, No one could drive through window and asks
what's good?

Speaker 1 (21:58):
Yeah, No, that's not how they And again there's a
menu in front of you. You look at the menu
and like, that's how everyone buys food. So at first
I was like, is this just a company that doesn't
know how life works? Who are like trying to pretend
this is like what people want where they go through? Yeah,
you know, well what's good today in McDonald's. You know,

(22:18):
do you have any specials? Which was crazy, But then
I realized because they were talking to this small group
of people, and I realized after a second, oh, because
I looked at their badges. Everyone has badges that all
of the people worked for Coca Cola, and so they
were talking about how, yes, if Burger King wants to
move you know, a specific kind of whopper, then we
can put that front and center when people ask what's
good and we can push it and said for coke,

(22:39):
if you guys want to move vanilla coke, we can have.
Whenever people order anything, we can have it. Say do
you want to add a vanilla coke? A large vanilla cokes?

Speaker 2 (22:46):
Just like yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:47):
And so what I realized is that this company whose
name is this is SoundHound.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
AI sound Hound Yeah, yeah, great, pretty pretty good name.

Speaker 1 (22:57):
Their motto was faster and more accurate, higher revenue. I
came to realize, and this is this is not entirely
a separation from other years because they are always selling
to companies like this, but there was absolutely they were
the only thing that they were talking about actual end users,
as was a thing that you can pull extra money
out of by tricking them, by pushing extra ads to them.

(23:18):
And that's who they were actually selling to, is these
companies that they were like. The other thing they demoed
was you can make an agent on the fly and
you can include the capabilities, and they showed us how
to select it and then built an AI an agent
to live in your car. And the demo they did
was like, hey, my car is making this sound. What
do you think it is? They didn't play the sound
for the AI by the way they described it, and

(23:38):
the AA said that sounds like it could be da
da da da. It'll cost about seven hundred dollars to fix.
Great book me an appointment with the dealership. So, first off,
that's not how people work. I've had car everyone has
car issues. A regular person there's a problem with your car.
You either have a mechanic that's not the dealership that
you go to because they didn't rip you off in
the past, and you're like, well, I trust them not

(23:59):
to bock me too bad, or you go to a
couple because most people don't just drop seven hundred dollars
in a repair and not think about it. But the
person that this engineer is pretending to be for the
purpose of this AI demo said, great book me a
repair at the dealership, and the AI was like, okay,
I've called them and I've booked you an appointment, and
by the way, would you like to schedule the test

(24:21):
drive for this specific kind of car. Oh, my wife
loves that car. Book us And that was the whole
thing is he was like, don't be impressed that we
can theoretically book you an appointment. Be impressed that we
can have the machine upsell you on trying to buy
a new car when you come in to fix your
old car that broke because you bought a bad car.
And there was no shame. They were so proud of themselves,

(24:42):
for this machine can repeatedly upsell you things. And that
was the only utility. It was not this allows you
to more easily navigate town. This allows you to more
easily cut out problems in your life. It was. This
machine can upsell you every minute of your day, everything
you add to do, everything you try to have it do,

(25:02):
and we get a cut of that. If we send
it to a restaurant and you buy food there, we
get a cut of that. And so does whatever company
you know put the thing in your car. If you
buy a new car, we get a cut of that.
That was the product and that we have gone from
here machines that do things. And even back in the
glorias of smartphones, at least everyone was showing like, look,

(25:23):
we have a new phone that's thinner than a phone
has ever been.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
Yeah, or like the camera is like you know, four
K now or something whatever.

Speaker 1 (25:30):
The focus is always and now people who buy them
can do this with it. Right.

Speaker 5 (25:34):
I mean, I would guess that so much of the
impetus for creating this stuff and developing it is all
for producer goods, and then the more revenue is honest,
and that like, that's what the and all the consumer
goods are mostly just getting you know, cast off is
like now we have all I mean literally, that's what
the LM wrappers are. It's just like, oh, we have
this thing, let's throw a plastic robot on it and

(25:55):
try and sell it. But what drives its development is
squeezing just little bits, squeezing labor out of the pores
of the production process, which it just gets you a
little bit more capital to keep this engine going a
little bit further.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
And it's so because the way it'll work is I
saw that thing where it's literally all you've invented is
a way to try to con people out of more
of their money. I hope you're proud of yourselves, because
I think redacted is what you should do to yourself.
And I went from that to the booth of a
company called Gintex, who had never heard of before, but
they make different automotive products, and an engineer there showed

(26:33):
me a thing that he had been the lead on
inventing which was a sun visor. So like you know,
when you're driving and there's a glare, you put down
the advisor, and the visor is just like basically a
piece of fabric and it blocks a chunk of your view,
but it at least blocks the sun. And this was
an intelligent visor that was clear and so you could
see through it, but it also blocked UV rays and

(26:54):
you could adjust the level of opacity if you needed
it to be more or less, but you could still
see through the mirror and it still blocked the glare.
And I was like, oh, that's really neat. And then
he pressed a button and it turned into a mirror.
Suddenly that functioned. It looked great. I saw it. I
know it works, and I got like an an, honest wow,
I didn't know that was a thing that could happen.

(27:14):
And that's a that's a real product, and I can
imagine using it. That's like a problem where yeah, if
you want to block glare, you're losing a degree of
visibility and now you're not You've actually done something right.

Speaker 2 (27:28):
Yeah, but you could put Gemini into a toaster and
call it a day.

Speaker 1 (27:32):
What if your toaster could talk to you about Proust.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
I guess see, I mean this is actually now that's
an idea. If we're going to close this this more
AI focused episode, I kind of want to circle back
to Cloyd and like, why and why Chloyd Bloyd again exists.

Speaker 1 (27:59):
Just take a second, if you're listening to this at
home on the drive, if you've got family around, look
at each other, look another person in the eye, and
say the word LG has a new home assistance robot
named Cloyd. Cloyd roll it around in your tongue, you know,
just think about it for a second.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
Okay, why Cloyd exists? Like why why is LG who's
previously had some really impressive booths over the years.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
And they had cool TVs.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
They had TVs where the wallpaper TV was impressive.

Speaker 1 (28:30):
Every time I go to an LG's booth every year,
I'm like, yeah, that's a better look on TV.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
Really TV. Yeah, it's great, But why why? And then
the wallpeer TV is Okay, we there was wellpaper TV
last year. It was it was slightly worse. This one's
a little bit better. But why does Cloyd the big
thing at the LG booth this year? Loyd right, because
none of the technology that Cloyd is doing is new.
Remember last year at Showstoppers, me and you we saw

(28:54):
that really janky robot.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
You don't have to be more specific, but you said.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
Taking a robot that moves up in down.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, the pusher and shover robots.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
Yes, right, And Cloyd is like kind of that. It's
like the actual physical robotic parts of Cloyd aren't new.
And the sort of the sort of AI that's running.

Speaker 1 (29:11):
Clod and Cloyd as if someone needed to make Wally
that was legally distinct enough to stop Disney from suing them,
and tall and taller. That's how Chloyd looks.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
So why is Cloyd there?

Speaker 1 (29:22):
Why is Cloyd there? I'm always asking myself this.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
Is This goes into like what this what like Cees
is like doing this year, and how it reflects this
current state of the tech industry. Is that these lms
like TRAGVT are not actually better than they were last year. No,
they are. They are the same. So how do we
make things look look cool?

Speaker 1 (29:39):
Just whatever improvements they are is not enough to notice
for an average person.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
Very minimal. Yeah, So instead of actually having anything new
or any kind of sizeable improvement to display. They're combining
too old and some of their products are kind of archaic,
combining two older products and trying to pass it off
as a new thing. And that's these these these like
older older like robotic systems right that you're usually kind
of humanoid. Maybe they have hands, Maybe the hands can

(30:03):
grab things. Can the hands unscrew up a milk carton?

Speaker 8 (30:07):
To no?

Speaker 2 (30:07):
Can can the robot grab milk out of the fridge?

Speaker 5 (30:10):
Yes, so long as you want milk from a very
specific carton and croissants and only croissants, you, guys.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
As long as the milk has a QR code that
the robot can recognize to know that it's milk. And
also when it's emptier than a certain level, it actually
will crush the milk thing like it has to be
a certain level a full otherwise doesn't.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
But neither of these things are new. And the fact
that ALG doesn't have anything else to display at their booth,
the fact that they had to stoop so low is
to regurgitate this old kind of cheap robotics and slap
an LM in there and then call it a day,
so that they have very little to actually show for us,
and you see this walking through like the central hall set,

(30:48):
the Samsung booth is into there, the Nikon booth is
into there, the Sony booth is mostly a car. Like
there's a lot of these big companies are really absent
from actual products. The Panasonic has a really big booth,
but it's mostly about like servers, it's mostly about how
they're how they're improving, how they're improving data farming. There's
no stuff, and a lot of the stuff that does exist.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
You even have to separate further from stuff that exists
and actually might be useful to stuff that exists and
might be useful because it solves a problem that the
thing that it is already created. Like, for example, a
bunch of I came to several different companies that had
a car AI assistance whose job was to yell at
you if you fell asleep or got distracted, and they

(31:34):
were all built into these giant dashboard things that were
the whole dashboard is a screen, and it's like, yeah,
I can see why you need a robot to yell
people get distracted because we have data.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
Because they're putting subway surfers on your fucking car dash.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
We have ample data that shows that when you have
a giant screen in a car and people use that screen,
they are actually worse drivers than when they're just drawn
on a normal car. And soh yes, you have made
the car. You can show me how this whole dashboard
you can change it in a second. Look at all
these different modes you have. You can smartly change your
dashboard be whatever you want, and it'll yell at you

(32:10):
if you get distracted. And it's like, well, but the
only reason you're getting distracted is because your entire car
is a computer screen, which it shouldn't be, and we
know it shouldn't be.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
They're either trying to solve problems that they created or
inventing solutions to things that aren't really problems. And like
with and this is this specifically with Cloyd, and they
kept the guy who is like doing the demo kept
reiterating that Cloyd cluld Or already knows what you want
before you have to say anything, right, whether that's a
croissant that's slightly under baked, or he knows had a

(32:40):
fold laundry just the way you use the way you
like it badly, which is what she said in a
kind of self aware ironic tone because this robot spent
two minutes trying to fold a single towel and it
couldn't do it. These things don't work, and they're not
meant to. It's meant to drive traffic and attention towards
the LG brand, because there's many tons of ours been

(33:00):
like look at LG's new butler robot, right and that,
and that's that's all that they're doing at this demo,
because this is not a real product for sale.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
Yeah it is.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
It is meant to drive attention to the brand and
get articles, and then those articles are going to get
you know, cited by by other by other lllfs, and
it's this it's this cycle that just keeps building.

Speaker 1 (33:17):
There's some really impressive stuff there too, Like I went
to Persona AI's booth which had a bunch of computers
that had without that were not connected to the internet.
All the signs told you that, And it has on
pc AI image generators where it's all on the machine itself,
and you know, one of the representatives said, come on,
give it a prompt, it will generate an image. And
I've never used an AI image generator, and so I

(33:39):
kind of panic I'll be honest, like I got freaked out.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
It's gonna be some bullshit.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
Tom size more with dead kid. Yeah, now that's not
Tom size more, but that is a man cuddling a
dead child. The kid doesn't the face is gone, and
that's not Tom size more. Like but you know, the future,
the future.

Speaker 2 (33:59):
No this, I can't. I don't want to harp on
Cloyd too much, but it's so it's such.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
A good Every additional time you say Cloyd, it sounds
less like, such.

Speaker 2 (34:09):
A good example of what this show is specifically this year,
how there's there's there's nothing new, so they're reaching into
like into like the cees of of yesteryear. Yeah, I'm
trying to push two things together and pretend that it's
a new thing. And when it doesn't work, they're like, oh,
this is actually a good things. He's folding the towel
just the way I like, and that's bad. Poorly. Look,

(34:30):
he spends ninety seconds putting a single shirt into the
washing machine, and this is him being very thorough. That
that was the words.

Speaker 1 (34:37):
He's being very thorough, really putting the time, and.

Speaker 2 (34:39):
You're like, this thing doesn't work.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
It is bad. It's a bad product. Part of the
mistake they made, I think is that because this is
the year of robots, there are robots there that are
like industrial application robots that are showcasing we have made
a robot with humanoid hands that is capable of more
intricate movements than any other human hand robot before, and
they should showed it like intricately folding like a wheel.
And I was like, yeah, that I have not seen

(35:03):
a robot with humanoid hands that has had that much
dexterity before. I'm sure that has some useful industrial applications.
And then you go from that and there's a bunch
of other robots that are industrial where it's like, we
have built a new tip for this robot that allows
it to do this kind of automotive work, or allows
it to do this kind of like manufacturing work, right
where I'm like, I assume not being an expert on robotics,

(35:24):
but you're saying it's the world's first robot that can
handle this task. But that's at least an innovation. You
talk about the ethics of replacing hit, but like that's
a thing that is a new capability, and you have
those robots next to the robots that human beings arectionally
meant to buy and put in their homes, none of
which work well, all of which are exactly as capable
as robots twenty years ago, except there's a chatbot on them,

(35:45):
and it makes it all look worse. Where you're showing
me what theoretically the best in robotics can do, and
then I'm looking at the thing I'm supposed to have
in my house and it just fell down and it
can't fold laundry, and you want me to spend six
thousand dollars or twelve thousand dollars. One of the robot
the uh uh I think it was like Booster X
or something like that, the one that was dressed like

(36:06):
Michael Jackson. You're supposed to have as a companion for
your child. It'll help it with its homework using chatch ept.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
It's small dancing robots.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
Small dancing robot. Yes, yes, the small dancing robot that
you've been hit in the head with a liquor bottle
and it won't break. That was part of the ad video.

Speaker 2 (36:22):
You know how you always would to hit your get
into the head with a liquor bottle, Get out this
anger with this tiny child's high.

Speaker 6 (36:28):
Robot robot senator for your child.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
And again, if someone was marketing a robot senator, like
are you angry at your spouse? You can beat the
shit out of this robot and be fine. At least
that's an idea.

Speaker 5 (36:41):
You know, with AI technology, the robot will actually learn
your spouse's personality and respond accordingly. Take the beatings.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
Look, look, I've been hitting this robot after I come
back from work every day for the last two weeks.
And look as soon as I walk on the door
it starts to shake the.

Speaker 6 (36:55):
Previous models in this way. It wasn't satisfied.

Speaker 1 (36:57):
Yeah, it took a long time for a team to
figure out how to give a robot PTSD. By god,
we've crossed the rubicon.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
As you can see, Vegas is taking its toll on
our psyches as we've done a extended intimate partner abuse. Bid.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
He's not a partner. It's robot Garrison.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
Oh, you're right, it's not.

Speaker 1 (37:13):
Also, the robot can think and feel and has core
memories and can love.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
You don't put those two things together. These only exist
as separate thoughts.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
So this robot basically has a soul watches hit it
with a liquor bottle.

Speaker 5 (37:26):
It would just be so great to like with all
of the how much they're focused on the AI can
develop real human connection.

Speaker 6 (37:35):
But it's also Sacharin.

Speaker 5 (37:36):
I would love to just do a booth where it's
like we're teaching our robots hate they can't know how
to hate.

Speaker 1 (37:41):
Yeah, And I do want to end by noting one
thing that we talked about a little briefly, but it
is kind of low key. The most upsetting thing about this,
which is I saw a bunch of different booths that
use the term empathy, and what they meant by empathy
was the robot can understand and anticipate what you want
right that it's learning you and your patterns in order
to offer you in more effect we assist you. And

(38:01):
I guess technically, yeah, but reducing the concept of empathy
to the robot knows when you might want snacks is
kind of evil, like it's in its right empathy means
the robot knows when to serve you. Is like a
bad way to talk about empathy. I don't think most

(38:23):
people when you know what is empathy, well, it means
someone knows when I want to be up sold on
a Hyundai. That's not what empathy is.

Speaker 5 (38:30):
Yeah, our robot learns empathy by being instrumental to you
and useful seeaously what you know the core of empathy.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
We made our robot watch four hours of videos from
Gaza and it immediately said, I bet those kids went
on Hyundai a Lantra like that. I anyway, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
It's if your version of empathy is trying to sell
coke vanilla because we have all of this, all this stock.
Oh wait too much.

Speaker 3 (38:56):
We fucked up.

Speaker 2 (38:58):
We are in trouble, We're under That's what empathy is.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
Yeah. Anyway, Welcome to the future.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
Everyone's a CES miracle.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
It's a CES miracle. Goodbye. This is it could happen
here a podcast about things falling apart and today the
things falling apart our consumer electronics as an industry. We

(39:28):
are at CES twenty twenty six, the trade show where
the tech industry shows us everything that's going to sell
us in the next year. And we've seen some cool
stuff and a lot of bloatwear, a lot of crap,
a lot of AI enabled stuff that doesn't need to
be AI enabled. Here to talk about it is our
panel of experts.

Speaker 2 (39:47):
Needs experts is a strong word.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
But okay, yeah, panel is a strong word. Is even
a strong word. I'm Robert Evans, Garrison Davis is also
with me.

Speaker 6 (39:58):
And I'm Ben Rose Porter.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
And you know been you're an academic, right you do
you do college?

Speaker 8 (40:03):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (40:04):
College, I'm a teach sociology.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
That's right, that's right, as a sociopath. Uh, how academy, folks.

Speaker 5 (40:15):
It's fascinating, love, I mean, you know, it's a fascinating world. Sociologically.
You can learn a lot of the maladies of society
at this place.

Speaker 1 (40:23):
It's most of them are on display here.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
We are now going to walk you through a bunch
of the largely non ai products that we were able
to find after sorting through the gunk.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
Yeah, it's kind of like like you know how people
like pan for gold. Yes, if instead of like panning
for gold and like a beautiful mountain stream like you
were panning for gold and like a pile of used condoms, gold.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
Is also generous. This is the panning for pennies in
a pile of used condoms.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
Right right now? What was the best used condom you
saw it? Twenty twenty six?

Speaker 2 (40:56):
Garrison, I think you mean, what's the best Penny good products.
Did we see any good products?

Speaker 1 (41:02):
Yeah, there's some good ones.

Speaker 2 (41:04):
Did I I don't know if I saw any good
products this year.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
The translation stuff is still around, and some of it's
really cool now.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
I mean, yeah, we've in other episodes we've talked about
the glasses and the earbuds. Most of the product sheets
I have out now are at the very least mixed
if if if not, it's not bad. At Eureka Park
there was this product called Nodi, which is a smartphone
replacement for kids, like kids like six to twelve if
you don't want them having a smartphone, and it allows

(41:33):
them to send voice messages to a parent and who
like you know has like this approoved contact list, so
you can you can also listen to music, listen to
like some like radio, like like you know radio, dramas,
price and books. It connects to Spotify. You can learn
languages allegedly or you can you can learn words, right,

(41:54):
you can learn words from other languages, and you can
communicate with your parents. And this was like fine, right,
it's the stuff that we've kind of seen before, but
it was this little like you know, silken kind of
looks like like a elf bar. If you're familiar with
an elf bar, it kind of looks like that, and
it's if, yeah, if you don't want to give your like,
you know, six year old an iPhone, but you you know,
want them to have a way to contact you, right,

(42:16):
and that's like fine. Right. So there's there's a lot
of like basic stuff like that. I guess that is
like kind of okay. I don't want to be cynical
for the sake of being cynical. That kind of stuff
bores me. But there really wasn't that many good products
this year because so many of them just were LLLM rappers,
as we discussed in our previous episode.

Speaker 1 (42:31):
And there's another there were products that were good and
I could tell we're good products on their own that
they had still thrown AI functionality that I don't want
that I know will blow out the price and also
makes it me less want to buy it. LG was
advertising their new OLED television that has like the most
vibrant colors, the best OLED screen that's ever been on
a TV. I'm sure it looked fucking great. Yeah, video

(42:53):
of it. The colors, the darks are amazing. Screens are
really good, but it's also with AI with Evo AI
and show off it's vibrant colors and what's capable of.
They had a loop of videos that were inspired by
the hubbled Space telescope and you can see it if
if you ever watched Deep Space nine. It's about the
quality of the Deep Space nine intro.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
It does look very Star Trek intro.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
Yeah, which is frustrating because again we have images show
the actual image show they look cool because you know
what they are is real, Like they're real products of
one of the most impressive things human beings ever made.
And you're bragging that, like we have an AI generating
images inspired by this thing that look worse.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
Yeah, it's just a lot of those things. They're kind
of mixed.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
I wanted the TV I want. I was like, Wow,
I might like a TV like that until you displayed
that part of it, and now I just kind of
feel dirty about even the prospect of wanting one of
your products.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
This is an interesting product I saw the like the
Innovation Awards showcases is the acoustic eye, which is kind of.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
First off, that's an ear.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
That's an ear, like, right, that's an ear. We don't
need to do that, But this is a secifically a
security system that tries to detect very small drones. And
this is like for you know, high profile people's houses.
Mostly you can put that on your roof or your
window and it'll detect very small drones that cameras would
not be able to detect. So it's trying to like

(44:17):
listen for drones. It provides three hundred and sixty degree
omnidirectional aerial surveillance detecting invisible aerial threats. So I would
assume that they're trying to excel these to like, you know,
like executives like CEOs, politicians, people who are at risk
of either you know, drones filming around their house or

(44:37):
more like kinetic drone based attacks. Right, And this is
an interesting product that's like very current. It's a very
current product like this is this is a reflection of
some of the times that we're in.

Speaker 1 (44:49):
And yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (44:50):
Found I found that to be one of an interesting thing.
I guess these we should discuss the exoskeleton, which is
maybe the best part of the show for me.

Speaker 1 (44:59):
Yes, there's all a lot more exoskeletons this year. The
technology is clearly matured and mature to the point that
not only is it, do they have viable versions for
like industrial use for people working in factories and whatnot? Right,
which two years ago is what they were always advertising,
is that these are things that you buy at an
enterprise level. And I know they're not primarily concerned with

(45:20):
the health and well being of their workers, but actually
these do improve health and well being of workers. Right.
It reduces the felt load and the felt strain, It
reduces the damaged knees and back, right.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
And that does affect their productivity, right, And it.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
Also affects the profit because you're not you're less likely
to have workmen's comp claims. Right. It's one of those
It's one of those things where it's a really good
idea and the products work. There's a number of very
good exoskeletons we received from a company called hyper Shell,
an exoskeleton before the convention this year that you and
I both wore on the floor. I have some data
on it, which is that I timed my normal walking

(45:51):
pace when I'm not particularly trying to get anywhere about
nineteen minutes a mile, right, if I'm just kind of
like walking casually. When I put the Hypershell on and
had it at seventy five percent power mode. My walking
pace was fifteen to sixteen minutes a mile, about fifteen
and a half, I think is what I generally advertised.
And my heart rate didn't change meaningfully. It was like

(46:11):
one or two higher than it normally is, but not
really a significant change and heart rate, right, And I
felt like at the end of the day, my feet
heard about a normal amount for a day at cees,
but my lower back in my knees felt less strained. Right.
That was my experience with the iber shell.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
It's like an external hip almost attatches around your waist.

Speaker 1 (46:28):
Yeah, there's a belt around your hip and it goes
up to right above your knees. Is kind of the
and so it's not a huge footprint.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
No, it's a very small device. And yeah, goes goes
on your hip. Then another strap like goes above your
knee and it kind of assists or guides your leg
and your hip up and down.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
Yeah. And for the record, folks, the basic version of
this product is about a thousand dollars. The version we
had was about twenty one hundred dollars, right, And the
battery will last about thirty kilometers. They say I didn't
have any trouble getting about an eight hour day out
of it.

Speaker 2 (46:55):
Ben, you wore it much more than I did. I
wore it a little bit. Do you want to just
talk about your experience with hyper Shell.

Speaker 8 (47:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (47:03):
I was impressed with it. It was, first of all, Hypershell,
very funny. Am I like that name. It was pretty
comfortable to wear, which is I always see the exoskeletons
and I'm like, it looks kind of awkward. But it
was like it was very easy to take on and
pull off. I was, and it was comfortable, and it
was pretty simple. And it basically just has two motors

(47:24):
that sort of assist. When you move your leg, it
pushes your leg and when it comes back in the step,
it pushes it back down, and so it's just assisting
and it tracks your leg pretty well, so there's just
very little time when you're pushing against the machine. It's
coordinated very well. I mean, it just functioned. It worked,
and you could walk a long time.

Speaker 1 (47:44):
Yeah. The fact that it's like, yes, it's a product
that works and it does a thing that has utility,
it feels increasingly rare at CEES.

Speaker 5 (47:52):
I was a little disappointed that the product did not
pay attention to my emotions and build a relationship of
empathy with me.

Speaker 9 (48:00):
But the walking was cut.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
Yeah. I asked the hyper Michelle about its opinions on Proust,
and it had very little to say.

Speaker 2 (48:06):
It is it isn't like two main modes. It has
like this eco mode and it's this hyper mode, which
can get really aggressive.

Speaker 1 (48:12):
If you turn up hyper mode of lifting your legs,
you can.

Speaker 2 (48:15):
You can you can be bounding, yeah, and you you
can even you can addres like the torque. You can
address like how how much delay it has. You have
a lot of different settings. The one thing that I
had a lot of fun with is that there's this
other experimental mode I don't know if you turned it
on yet, called called fitness mode. Fitness mode is cool.
It does the opposite. It adds resistance to the like,

(48:36):
so it's it's for like working out. If you want
like a harder hype right, then you can you can.
You can turn on fitness mode and then it'll be
it's more work like how Goku trained to walk. Sure,
But something I I I that's an anime thing.

Speaker 1 (48:49):
By the way.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
Now, one thing that I've found out through through my
own my my, my own cunning is that if you
have hyper mode turned on all the way, which it
was when when Ben was wearing the exoskeleton on my phone,
I can switch from hypermode to fitness mode immediately, which
completely halts any movement. So you can be walking at

(49:14):
like seven.

Speaker 1 (49:14):
Fuck up your friends if they don't have the app.

Speaker 2 (49:16):
At seven, you're walking with like seven miles an hour,
really fast speed walking, and then I press a button
and your legs are go to an immediate halt. And
it was really fun to do that for about seven hours.

Speaker 5 (49:29):
Yeah, I almost crashed into several people just scare to
get his kicks.

Speaker 1 (49:35):
Oh, I'm glad you found the terrorize your friend option
on that.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
It was really fun. It was fun.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
Most of the time I used it. I had installed
the app when I got it, but I didn't think
about it after that. Because there you can do everything
on device, or at least you can do a lot
a lot of analyze device. You get a lot more
options when you're using the app, but you don't need
the app to handle the basic functionality, right.

Speaker 2 (49:54):
I loved adjusting the like the intensity of how much
how much doing? And it shows a who bunch of
like applications, right you can wear yeah, hiking, like running,
doing you know, lifting your work.

Speaker 1 (50:04):
And I like the thoughtfulness in there. You don't need
the app to use this, but the app vastly the
app allows you, gives you a lot of control that
you're not going to get off of a simple like button.

Speaker 10 (50:13):
Right.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:13):
It just struck me as good design.

Speaker 2 (50:15):
It has a lot of like fidelity. Yeah yepp.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
So that's the Hypershell folks good exos kels, And I've
used a few at various cess and this one certainly
strikes me as like a very good like consumer option,
like if you, as an individual want one. And I'm
sure still most of the sales are going to be
like enterprise different companies that have like you know, want
these for people who are doing like loading and unloading
and like a loading dock or whatever. But I think

(50:39):
the price prices will continue to go down and they
are now hitting the point where this is like a
thing that individuals can afford if they want one. And
there is a lot of and Hypershell focused on this
in some of their advertising, but there's a lot of
utility for people with disabilities for stuff like this, right,
Like that's part of the point of all of these
different products and in general, when it came to the
stuff where like the because there's AI in this too,

(51:02):
Hypershol talks about it, and it's mostly just like how
it learns and reacts to your motions, right that that's
like machine learning. When we talk about AI, usually the
useful applications you could also just call machine learning. That's
what we used to say. But in general, the products
that impressed me most and scared me most at CEES
were healthcare related products. Right where we have a towel

(51:24):
that reads your sweat and can tell if you have
like vitamin deficiencies or if you're if you're not hydrated enough,
or all of these different like the number of products
where it's both like, yes, this thing can tell if
you've like fatty liver disease like based on without needing
to go to a doctor. And I'm sure that is
useful and will help a lot of people. And also

(51:45):
all of these products are selling your data to the
highest better your health data. You're biometrics. If you ask
them about that, Sorry, I am not aware of that
being the specific thing for the fatty liver people. That
was my problem with all the health wearables, I should
just to be sure, I should clarify the wearable are
all on the cloud, and every one of the ones
I saw has deals with the LLLM companies that they're

(52:09):
working with and are handing your data over.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
Yeah, because that's how they get quote unquote smarter is
through a massive data data collection.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
And so there's this thing where there is this kind
of baseline expectation here that everyone is fine with handing
over all of their data, all of their physical data,
all their biometrics, which I they're like, the utility is
undeniable of things that can diagnose that you need to
go to the to a doctor, or can at least
suggest like the existence of problems combined with and we

(52:38):
are not at all interested in keeping that information secure.
I find the kind of casual and no one will
because I don't think people will. I think people will
buy these products and not think about who's getting access
to their biometric data. And I wish that people cared
about that.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
And we've seen that specifically be a problem like around
like pregnancy, yeah, and with states restricting abortion and the
ways in which these companies are aware of people's bodies
even before the actual people are.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
Here's an AD break. All right, we're back from ADS.
So I went to Lenovo's booth. It was a bunch
of laptops. I use Lenovo laptops. They make good products.

(53:29):
It was every product there was. Either here is a
new update to the line of laptops we've been making
for thirty years. This is the latest one, this is
the latest think pad carbon, this is the latest you know,
idea pad or whatever. And then they had a couple
of like the big thing that were showing was the
Lenovo Twist, which is a laptop that has a screen
that can twist around and so it can lay flat
like a tablet, but it can also the thing that

(53:49):
we're really showing is that it's motorized and it has
AI enabled, so it can follow your face and you
can set it to track an individual's face and as
you move, it will move with you. Now it has
two different modes. Is also you can like gesture to it,
or you can command it by voice and you can
say go into laptop mode, go into tablet mode, turn left,
turn right. That did not work well. About half the

(54:10):
time in the demo that I saw, it did not respond,
maybe because the room was loud, maybe because the data
was bad. But then he put it into face tracking
mode and when you have multiple faces, you can pick
which face it tracks and it swiveled to meet your
face and it was cool and it did work very well.
I was like, this is impressive, Like what is the use?

(54:32):
Why would you want it? And he was like, well,
say you're doing a presentation, like you're a CEO or
something doing a presentation. This way the screen with your
text on it or the PowerPoint on it will follow
you as you move around. And I was like, that
could be useful. I don't feel like many people are
in that situation often. I've never been in that situation
in my life, and I speak in public for a

(54:54):
living sometimes, so I guess, yeah, there probably is a
CEO who would benefit. There's like of those guys like
what is the This is a whole laptop product line,
you have multiple versions, and I didn't get a single
reason why you would want this other than that, other
than for presentations. And it's genuinely impressive that it can
track your face and move as you move, but why

(55:19):
And another product they had that was in the bolt
Y category was the Lenovo Legion and this is not
a product that's ever going to come out, but it
was like a proof of concept. So it's their gaming
laptop line and it has a normal screen that can
widen to be three times as long and it unfolds.
They have screens that unfold, and it's cool that they

(55:39):
could do that, and it looked neat, and it's neat
that a screen has that capability. I don't want it
because it also it doesn't look I could see like
obviously I can see utility and like you can have
a screen that gets bigger without it being a bigger
footprint for the laptop. But when the screen is unfolded,
there's huge like speed bump size, looking like wads of

(56:00):
screen that are bigger and like bulge out, and it
doesn't look good, like it's a bad screen.

Speaker 2 (56:06):
It's like a little like bubby.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
Yeah, when it's fully extended, it's not like a good screen.

Speaker 2 (56:11):
You said, it's a prove of concept piece, Like there's
this thing. I mean like they're.

Speaker 1 (56:15):
Showing that they've they're working on folding screen technology.

Speaker 2 (56:18):
The Twist was was like a previous version of that.
The proof of concept called the Swivel was at CES
last year. Yes, and they improved it and now it's
a real product called the twist, right, and maybe this
could be the case for this, like like unrolling unfolding.

Speaker 1 (56:33):
Eventually it will be in products, right, Yeah, But I
also don't think I don't see how you cannot have
the bulge just kind of and a girl to the
screen work.

Speaker 2 (56:43):
The folding screens have come along way the past five years.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
I use one. Yeah, they also do have some pixel
dying in the fold area.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
I mean yeah, if you're trying to buy products for longevity,
probably not the thing for you. If you like it
for the novelty, and for some reason have enough cash
to burn, then maybe it's something I think someone will
be interested in.

Speaker 1 (57:01):
As I was watching an unfold, there were two guys
behind me and talking about it, and one of them
was like, yeah, it's not a real it's not going
to actually come out like that's even like the old
version of the chassis. And I said, I just don't
really see a use. I don't think people want a
product like this, Like I'm looking at it, the screen's
not great, and I just don't see who's going to

(57:21):
buy this. And the guy behind me said, well, I
think like the the use case is like billionaire CEOs
and other people have a lot of money. And I
looked at it. It was a Lenovo rep and I was like, hah,
that's not that's the use Why who are like that's not?
Like did you just say that to me?

Speaker 2 (57:39):
A Lenovo rep said that.

Speaker 1 (57:40):
Yeah, yeah, he's one of the guys doing the demos.
He had a wild Lenovo badge on and I, yeah,
that was weird to me.

Speaker 2 (57:47):
That's wild.

Speaker 1 (57:48):
But again, at least it was a thing.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
No, it was it was a physical product.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
Cause the other thing they had they had the workstation,
which the thing they were showing was there's an app
on it that looks at your face and said shows
you how fatigued you are by person, and how fatigued
your eyes are, and like other data. And I was like, oh,
that's creepy and kind of impressive. But then I walked
away and I came back and it gave me a
totally different set of numbers for my fatigue.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
Where you differently fatigued.

Speaker 1 (58:12):
No, I was a second later, and I did it
four times, and every time the set of numbers was
like different enough that the only assumption I can make
is that it was those aren't real numbers. It's just
generating a number and telling you that. And it's full
of shit because it wouldn't have been so different if
it was actually measuring anything. It's just random numbers that
it's putting on to make you think it's measuring something.

Speaker 2 (58:34):
It's probably trying to it. There might be just subtle
things that dramatically changed the numbers.

Speaker 1 (58:40):
I tried. I specifically once I noticed that, tried to
keep my face flat, and I did notice when you
move closer and further it changes. But I think it's
just programmed to as you move, alter the numbers so
that you see the number moving. But every time I
came on new it was a different number. It went
from like when I started was like point oh two,
and the second time I came back it was point
five to zero. And again I did nothing. I was

(59:01):
specifically keeping my face neutral, like it's just this, it's
not a big I think.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
I think that type of stuff will will get better,
like we've seen versions of that before that have actually
done like okay.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
Yeah, well, but there could.

Speaker 2 (59:13):
Be a lot of factors into like into why why
the demo goes a certain way.

Speaker 1 (59:18):
The face tracking and facial recognition were But I went
to this booth that like the big thing they were
doing was like uh, driving assistant robots that would like
yell at you if you fell asleep or if you
like looked away and were like texting or something. It
would say, like look away from your phone, look at
the screen please, And there's definitely like utility there, right,
Like that is probably a good idea.

Speaker 2 (59:38):
I mean we saw that last year at Samsung's section
of Eureka Park for like like test taking, to like
make sure students aren't cheating at tests, right, So it
like sends an alert every time the students' eyes goes
away from like the computer screen, like if they like
keep like looking down like like under if they could
be checking like their phone or notes.

Speaker 1 (59:57):
Smart Eye is the company. One thing I did appreciate
it was that the little device that they put in
was just like a circle with two eyes on it
as opposed to like a whole dashboard. So that seemed nice.
But the thing that they had the first thing I
used was this optical recognition system where it learned my
eyes and then when I came on, it would give
my name every time I walked up to it and
so like, yeah, it definitely like recognizes at least your eyes.

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
That's a message.

Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
It could switch between different people. But it was also
it can tell when you're drunk, they claim, And I
couldn't tell that. I couldn't. I was high on kratom
and I had smoked Delta aid, so I was definitely
not sober. It didn't recognize me as not sober, so
it couldn't measure those things. Maybe it can tell if
you're drunk. The demo, it's it, they said it could,

(01:00:42):
and they showed a woman when she was sober and
when she was drunk, and they explained to me it
was actually really difficult because we did this on a
close track and she is really drunk and we had
to jump through a lot of hoops for them to
let us have a person drunk driving that's track. And
I did find that kind of funny. Your response, that
is how you test?

Speaker 2 (01:00:57):
That would be kind of a hard thing to test. Yeah,
you could testing like simulations, right, but.

Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
They wanted like this was supposed to be a perf
concept in vehicle and it'll shut down the car. I
did have some people posting when I posted a video
of that that like I have this condition with my
eyes or that condition with my eyes, and normal optical
recognition stuff doesn't work with me. Is this going to
show that I'm drunk or is it going to be
able to And I actually don't know. Again, I'm not
I was not able to test the product that that

(01:01:21):
does seem like a concern I would hope they've dealt with,
But also I kind of doubt they did because usually
there's gaps.

Speaker 2 (01:01:29):
I mean, I could see a company like this partnering
with like an insurance company or partnering with like certain
cars that would like, yeah, stop the car from being
able to be moved if it detects the driver as drunk, yes,
and how like false positives would play into that. And
then you just like are like locked out of your
car right because this robot thinks you're intoxicated and actually
you're fine. You just like look like that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:49):
And I could also see them like rolling this product
out and it hits like Thailand or something, and then
there being a big store where it's like they didn't
test this on any people of like Thaie Ancestry, and
I actually sees all of them as drunk because of
like an error in the coding sure, and being like
oh great, like like I'm not again smart ie. From
what I can tell, their technology worked, but in order

(01:02:09):
to adequately like review and test it, you do need
you need more access to it than they're giving it
the show. I can't actually tell you if it works
a determined when people are drunk. I can just show
you they had a video claiming it does so.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
One product that I feel at best mixed about I
first saw in the CS Innovation Awards section. This is
called Self Insight Therapy Resolve XR from South Korea.

Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
Oh, one of my two favorite Koreas by the way,
just since we're talking Korea.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
This is a VR therapy program that is supposed to
give give you a final goodbye with a deceased loved
one in VR. Yes, this was my initial reaction as well.
And like I've seen Jon, I've seen versions of this
before where it's like an LM or like an AI yeah,

(01:03:00):
pretending to be your like dead wife that you're like
hug in VR. Sure, and that type of stuff. I've
I've generally felt bad about some of the people who've
used it, like in like you know, like the promotional
videos are you know, crying, and I feel and like
the product in a way.

Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
As a friend, I will promise you if that moment
ever comes for you all pretend to be your dead wife.

Speaker 2 (01:03:20):
I don't even know what to say that I've but
what I found interesting about Resolve XR is that the
the avatar of your deceased loved one is not that
is not actually an AI, nor is it a fully
pre recorded like prescripted like simulation. It is being puppeted

(01:03:44):
by a therapist that you are working with as a
part of the Gestalt empty chair therapy technique. And this
this is what the product is. So you're working with
a therapist who is using text to speech, that is
talking as your deceased, as your deceased loved one as
a part of this therapy exercise. If you have if
you have recordings of their voice, the AI will try

(01:04:05):
to replicate their voice. That's something I feel a little
bit odd about. But like that is like the one
like aspect of like que unquote AI that's being used
here is for is for the voice cloning. And then
there is like a pre a prerecorded set of like
gestures that someone does in like motion capture, but the
actual like like live puppeting of this thing is done
by a therapist that you were sitting across from. But
you have you know the VR goggle song mm hm.

(01:04:28):
And this is this is not supposed to be something
that you do like routinely. It's not like, oh, I
like like I'm talking to my wife like my wife
is in VR. It's this is a therapeutic exercise meant
for people dealing with extreme grief, specifically when loved ones
have been taken away during like like like accidents like
they specifically mentioned like a plane crash that happened a
year ago. And so just for people like an extreme

(01:04:50):
extreme grief to give them like closure through this therapeutic exercise.
And this is this is this is the this is
the pamphlet.

Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
I went through a lot of whiplash because obviously my
first assumption was this is an evil product where you
like feed your loved one social media data and it
pretends to be them, and it's not that, and it's
good that it's not that, But then it's like it's
being basically a therapist puppeting your dead loved one. There's
a couple of conclusions I have. First off, these people

(01:05:18):
are trying to be ethical. It does seem it seems
like they care and they are attempting to provide something
that is useful to people who are suffering. I also
think this might fundamentally this idea might be fundamentally unethical
and impossible to do well. So I think this might
be a case of someone trying to do the most
ethical version of something that cannot be done ethically, which

(01:05:39):
is a category of AI device that I've seen this year.

Speaker 5 (01:05:42):
It's tricky because on one hand, you know, as I
was talking to the woman at the booth and reading
through the materials they had, it seemed like they were
selling this as this is just sort of augmentation to
a therapeutic practice that has already done. We're just putting
a you know, a digitally generated face and voice to it.

(01:06:05):
But it's so I mean, it's so easy to imagine
just this company seems somewhat ethically focused. But yeah, all
kinds of directions you could go in this. It's a
Pandora's box, a little bit of like, yeah, where where
we're starting to venture into creating replicas of the dead?

Speaker 1 (01:06:25):
Yeah, and that is And I went to a panel
kind of in the same tone on mental health and
AI that I thought was going to be an opportunity
for me to harass an executive during a Q and
A because which is which is one of your favorite activity?
Everything to do with CES and there literally is like AI.
There's ample data that it is a disaster for mental health,

(01:06:47):
not just AI psychosis, but there are a lot of
things that it makes worse, and a lot of problems
that it causes people, and a lot of problems that
it exacerbates, including like suicidal ideation. This is documented, there's
data on it. So that's what I was showing up
prepared to do that, and what I actually got was
an actual clinical therapist who was trying to talk about

(01:07:08):
who first started by kind by very much admitting the
dangers with AI and the things that it harms in
terms of mental health, and then was trying to say
what would a responsible and ethical like therapeutic AI do.
And her argument was, we know how many people need
therapy and don't have access to it within the United
States and worldwide, and some sort of automated BOT system

(01:07:31):
that handles aspects of therapy might be the only way
to provide affordable therapy to the number of people who
needed who can't currently afford it, and I disagree, or
at least I don't think that. I don't disagree. It's
accurate that there's way more people who need mental health
than can afford it. Right, that's undeniable, undebatable. I disagree

(01:07:52):
that AI can help this problem in any meaningful way,
and in fact think it will only make it worse.
But I understand that she was coming at this from
a I am attempting to define what a responsible, a
therapeutic AI might do, and through the course of that
I believe she is partially because I talked to her
about this afterwards too. She thinks it might be possible,

(01:08:14):
but is not convinced that it is in fact possible
for there to be an AI therapy system that is
actually useful. And one of the things she brought up
was that in traditional AI chatbots, the big ones are
all programmed to gas you up in order to keep
you using them, right, the program to make you want
to continue to interact with them, and so it does

(01:08:36):
things that are really bad for your mental health and
that can exacerbate and cause new problems, right because of
the way these are programmed. So any responsible AI therapy
chatbot would have to not do that, which I'm like,
that is true, that you can't be a useful therapeutic
tool that only praises people. Right, that's just not a thing.
But when I came to afterwards, I was like, my

(01:08:57):
issue is I think you're right about that, but I
also think if you're saying the AI therapy bot is
going to be a separate product that does not do
these things. Number one, it's a high bard to get
people to pay money for a tool when they already
have the chat bot. And number two, if the chatbot
that is good for them doesn't do the thing that
makes it addictive, people will continue to use the addictive

(01:09:19):
one for therapy. And she said, yeah, that's my worry too.
And so I came away from being like, she's trying
to explore if this can be done, and my conclusion
based on her exploration as it can't.

Speaker 5 (01:09:30):
But it's so interesting that she said that because she
and this is I mean me hearing you talk about her,
she sounds like the only person who is thinking about
this at all.

Speaker 6 (01:09:39):
Yes, that's convention.

Speaker 1 (01:09:40):
She was the only person on the panel. Yeah, of
just it was a speech, not a panel, really, yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:09:44):
Of thinking about that, what are the social relations behind
these technologies, because of course that's the main question here.
Is a technology that can generate that can have a
conversation with you? Is one thing It's not that really
doesn't seem like the war of the problem so much. Well,
all the machines that are having conversations are driven by
very specific incentives, you know, to interact with their users

(01:10:07):
in a particular way that has everything to do with
the social relationships of their production and use. And the
notion that technology would have any connection to social relations
at all is completely absent from any discussion of any
product I've seen here.

Speaker 1 (01:10:25):
Speaking of social relations between products and human beings, here's
some ads. We're back and God, I really love those

(01:10:45):
Chumba casino ads. They remind me that whenever I'm out
in the world, sitting down with my loved ones, you know,
watching the big Game, I could be gambling, and kind
of every other moment of my life that I'm not
gambling is wasted.

Speaker 2 (01:10:59):
Robert, have you heard of Calshi?

Speaker 1 (01:11:01):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:11:02):
So you know about politics, right, I love politics, And
you know about insider trading, right, I love insider What
if you could do insider trading about all of politics
on the exclusive inferation that you learn as a journalist.

Speaker 1 (01:11:13):
Wow, that sounds legal.

Speaker 2 (01:11:15):
It shockingly is there's actually zero federal or state regulation
affecting this whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (01:11:21):
That's the Calcie guarantee.

Speaker 2 (01:11:23):
There is no regulatory mechanism that exists on a state
level to regulate this behavior.

Speaker 1 (01:11:27):
Now years and you say that, but that's literally just
what's printed above their booth.

Speaker 2 (01:11:32):
Let's talk about maybe the worst product that I saw
at CEES child Free Trust.

Speaker 1 (01:11:38):
Boy, So what is it like a software that lets
you make a trust?

Speaker 5 (01:11:43):
This software was marketed towards child free people. They lead
with twenty five percent of Americans don't have children and
don't intend to have them. Hell yeah yeah, And so
their idea is that they right here. Child Free Trust
is the first comprehensive nationwide solution providing medical and financial
poa executor and trustee representation for child free and permanently

(01:12:07):
childless people. So if you are childless and you don't
want to burden your loved ones, that's their wording with
you know, your estate plan when you die, This is
a company that will do that for you. What's interesting, though,
is that I asked them. I said, well, look, you
know this presumably already happens, what is in place, and.

Speaker 1 (01:12:30):
I have a trust in no children.

Speaker 5 (01:12:32):
Yes, yeah, Well does state appoints someone to handle this,
they'll they will first see if that you have, if
you have any loved ones who would want to take
on these duties.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
And obviously people have kids aren't capable of love.

Speaker 5 (01:12:44):
So yeah, yeah, they a little bit, I mean strangely
like so it's it's an it's a product that is
for we already have a public service that searches for
people loved ones that could take on these responsibilities, and
if it cannot find those, it takes it on as
a as a public good. So it was a product
completely without purpose. It was like you, in order to

(01:13:05):
use this, you just have to be intent on separating
yourself from society in this way. You have no loved
ones presumably or you don't want them involved in your
estate planning. You also don't want the state involved, so
it requires this third party company.

Speaker 6 (01:13:21):
It was just a very strange product the way they
presented it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:24):
Well, I mean it's again, I have a trust and
a will. If you don't have a kid, and you
don't have like a you're not like married, or you
don't have a surviving spouse, like, yes, the state will
appoint somebody, but that process is slower and more expensive.
If you want to avoid the cost, or if you
want to avoid like having a trust and a will
is not an unreasonable thing, especially if you want to

(01:13:45):
make sure if you have assets and you want to
make sure they go a specific place, you want to
donate them somewhere whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:13:50):
Well, and like a lawyer can handle that, a lawyer.

Speaker 1 (01:13:52):
Should handle That is what I'm saying is you shouldn't
use an app.

Speaker 2 (01:13:56):
Specifically, what they do that the lawyer can't is they
provide a service for the corporation to execute power of attorney.
And that is the main thing. So this is the
most anti social This is the most anti social service
I've seen it all of ces because it's built on
this idea that if you have no kids and you
are so separated from the rest of your family, like

(01:14:16):
you don't trust any siblings, you don't trust a spouse,
a partner maybe you don't have one, you don't trust parents,
you don't even trust a friend to to like do
this for you. Instead that you turn to a company
a private company. You don't even trust the state, right
because the state can handle this. It is a private
corporation that it's going to handle your will, your estate

(01:14:37):
and power of attorney. And that that's what really, that's
what really got me because I asked them it's like, yeah,
like a lawyer can handle all this, and like, well, no,
regular lawyer can't be power of attorney. And I was like, oh,
this is the core of your product actually is that
it's it's for people who are so anti social, who
have so separated themselves that they don't trust, They don't
trust anyone with this. You don't have any loved ones. Really,

(01:15:01):
it's not just about being child free. No, it's like
it's about you you do not exist like in a
social network whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (01:15:08):
Because I can see the kind of people who might
need this are people or might want this are not
the people kind of people who'd use apps, because the
actual the group of people who definitely don't have kids
and also may not have any living friends are people
who are incredibly elderly. It's not even a factor of
like their life is bleak that it's just you lived
way too long. You literally don't have anyone left that
you knew, But they're not going to use an app,

(01:15:29):
Like that's just not how they think about. If they
don't have a lawyer, they'll let have the state handle it.
But like they're not they're not going to download the
child free app. That's one hundred and four year old
Okinawan woman to like handle this for them. There's like
a graph on the bottom that here's like features and
like which different versions have which features, and the three
features are child free, trust, trust and will and then

(01:15:52):
free will as one word, but the ws capitalized. I
just like seeing free well and then checks and exis
at the bottom. You don't get free well on all
of the options. Sorry, what is free will as a
surface scarrison? Are they saying the machine has it? Or
is it literally a free will making service?

Speaker 2 (01:16:07):
It's I think I think it's creating a will and
they're saying at free will. I think that's what I think.

Speaker 1 (01:16:11):
That's what they're doing. Okay, I mean but yeah, no,
and this wasn't This was in Eureka part yeah, which
is where the cool little products are. That's bad.

Speaker 2 (01:16:21):
Yeah, it was really bizarre.

Speaker 1 (01:16:24):
Yeah, there's a fun bit that you could do if
you had the money to show up and just do
bits at CEES where it's like this company can handle
all of your end of life care and decisions and
just a booth with a handgun on the table.

Speaker 2 (01:16:35):
So let's talk about to close, let's just discuss like
what this CEES kind of means in general. We already
kind of discussed like the AI angle of this, and
that's something that we've seen throughout this show is these
these massive banners hanging everywhere about how CES is where
innovators show k yeah, absolutely, and and how everything's based
around innovation and creativity and this is where everything descends

(01:16:57):
from and this sort of like like tech idealism that
the world is based around these concepts of innovation and creativity,
and they do not mention any any physical way that
actually comes into the world or the sort of mechanisms
of the world that allow innovation to take place. And Ben,
we we've been talking a lot about this the past

(01:17:18):
like two days.

Speaker 5 (01:17:20):
I mean, it's all we're solving all the problems of
the world and we're fixing everything, and it's all eternal sunshine,
and where that comes from is innovation and creativity. But
those are just yeah, totally abstract quantities. There's not even
a subject given of like innovators, Well, who who is that?

Speaker 1 (01:17:39):
Are the product you're innovating?

Speaker 5 (01:17:40):
Yeah, if you is that?

Speaker 6 (01:17:42):
The owner?

Speaker 5 (01:17:43):
Is that the workers who make it? I mean, no
mention of labor at any point in any of this,
which I mean that's a given, but.

Speaker 1 (01:17:49):
Well that's not true. They talked about all the labories
you could replace.

Speaker 5 (01:17:52):
Yeah, all right, you can, we don't need them. It's
the innovation is drawn the full circle, it produces itself. Now, Yeah,
just that this abstract quantum of I mean, it really
is kind of interesting. It does become a blur of
like who is the magical font producing all of this stuff?
It almost sometimes it almost seems like it's the consumer.
It's sort of suggesting is like it's actually you who

(01:18:15):
creates all of this. It was very vague, very strange.

Speaker 6 (01:18:19):
M h.

Speaker 2 (01:18:20):
We went to that one panel about like trying to
address underserved people who are who are like cut out
of tech and like cut out of cut out of
all of these industries.

Speaker 5 (01:18:30):
Yeah, I mean it was very nondescript about who exactly
that was.

Speaker 1 (01:18:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:18:35):
They had people talking for the that are paralyzed veterans.
Someone from the NAACP, and I mean it was just
one again. There was no actual discussion of the social
relationships behind technology. It was just entirely about this technology
is here, It is the first priority, so everything else
has to follow after. And yeah, very very unclear about

(01:18:59):
they They would all talk about what technology could be
used for, but entirely nondescript about where that process comes from,
Who's making those decisions, where those centers of power are.

Speaker 1 (01:19:08):
The reach to have an for existing brands and companies
that make real things to have an AI angle was
the most obvious and tortured thing that I saw, And
like one of my favorite booths every year is the
Jackery booth. Jacqueery makes batteries and solar panels, and they
make pretty good batteries and solar panels for like expeditions
for camping, like the rugged that they can and I
use them. They're good products. And this year they had

(01:19:31):
the new addition of all their batteries and the new
edition of all their solar panels, and as generally happens
with technology, everything's a little better than it was last year.
But there's not much room for AI aside from like
the batteries have AI by which they mean there's like
a learning algorithm that can determine like how to optimize
aspects of like power draw or whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:19:50):
Like.

Speaker 1 (01:19:50):
Sure, that's not really AI in the way that the
AI industry means it, but I'm sure sounds real. But
because that wasn't enough, they had this thing that they
called their Mars rover, which was not a Mars rover.
I don't think we'll ever go on Mars. Does not
look like it could survive on Mars. But it is
a rover that is a big battery on wheels that
is intelligent and can drive itself and has solar panels

(01:20:11):
that slide out. And the use case for this was
it will travel around and can go to where the
sun is in order to charge itself up and then
head to you to offer you outlets when you're doing work.
And it's like, is a robot that moves? Really? I
can see like two points in my life where I
might have gotten used to who's gonna buy this for?

Speaker 8 (01:20:29):
What?

Speaker 1 (01:20:30):
Where will it be deployed? It just roams around outside
this expensive machine that does not look like it should
get rained on too much, and finds the sun to
charge itself up and then heads over to you to
charge device. It can't charge a home. It doesn't power
a house. It's like a little robot.

Speaker 2 (01:20:47):
Is it really camping? I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:20:49):
That was unclear. They showed it being used, and they
showed it as like I'm outside and using power tools.
The robot came up to me so I could plug in,
and like.

Speaker 2 (01:20:57):
I guess you could take like the park, you could
take it to park.

Speaker 1 (01:21:00):
But it's big.

Speaker 2 (01:21:01):
It is pretty big.

Speaker 1 (01:21:01):
It's like a sizeable machine. It probably weighed eighty pounds.
And again, like, it's impressive that it can go seek
out the sun to charge itself up. It's impressive that
you could like call it or like call it with
an app and it will come over to you. And
there's an outlet. Who what is the Who will buy this? Why?

Speaker 2 (01:21:20):
When that is not one?

Speaker 1 (01:21:21):
Again? I can think working in my yard, working out
you know, when I'm shearing the goats or whatever, I
have had to carry a battery with me because there's
not an outlet out there and the shears need a battery.
And yeah, I guess it would be easier if the
robot moved there. But this has to be like twenty
thousand dollars I'm not gonna buy a robot to do that.
I can just pick up a battery and walk with

(01:21:43):
it one hundred feet. Who will use this? Why it's
not going to Mars? I assure you it's not going
to Mars. Again, I wouldn't want it to be left
out in the rain. And I love the Jaggery products.
They make good stuff and the fact that like, yeah,
you clear scrambled to make this, that you had a
thing that can compete with all the other AI things.

(01:22:05):
And I wish you were just devoting your LIFs to
making better solar panels, which is what I want from you. Anyway.

Speaker 5 (01:22:12):
I'm just curious are the how many is here? Are
they profitable?

Speaker 6 (01:22:17):
Like do they?

Speaker 1 (01:22:18):
Yeah? I mean some of them, some.

Speaker 6 (01:22:19):
Of them, but a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:22:20):
I mean some of them are funded with VC money
and have not made a profit. Some of them are
funded from VC money and have been losing money for years.
And then there's also like like Lenovo makes it's a company,
it makes a profit. They make products people buy, you know,
Jaggery makes products people buy.

Speaker 2 (01:22:33):
There's also a lot of startups like the Eureka Park
section that we've been referring to, like the stuff in
the bottom floor of the Venetian that those there are
you know a lot of startup companies who are looking
for investors as well, So yeah, it is definitely a mix.
Some of them are trying to do like business business sales,
some of them are more consumer facing, some of them
are looking for investors, some of them are profitable, and
other ones are trying to boost their stock price by

(01:22:55):
being here, kind of like Kloyd at LG. But I
think what's really important is that everyone here is an innovator.
And you know why we know that they're an innovators
because they've shown up and only innovators show up here
and they're the real the driving force of the economy.

Speaker 1 (01:23:11):
And I was feeling bad about myself until I saw
that band and realize that I am an innovator.

Speaker 2 (01:23:15):
You know you are an innovator.

Speaker 1 (01:23:17):
Thank you. I showed up and I figured out how
to be the guy on the most kratim at the
at the CEO show floor.

Speaker 2 (01:23:24):
No, I mean, CS is so is so interesting toe
be innovated like it? It runs both on this like
technology idealism where everything is based on people geniuses, you know,
your Steve Jobs having like ni Stag's job and he
is the innovator, and everything descends from the idea that
it's like the thing is like this like like tech platonism,
So like this is one side of it. You also

(01:23:45):
have like the tech accelerationists at CES where it's like
they occupy this position of being so pro technology no
matter whatever downsides is the current iteration might have because
they need someone to hold that position in order for
this thing to move forward. They know that there's concerns
around data protection, but their opinion is that it doesn't matter.

(01:24:06):
There is problems there, but we we the people here
I see, Yes, the innovators need to ignore them because
we have to push forward. And this is like this
is what like the the Austrian Secretary of State said
that at that one panel I went to. It's like
data protection is a problem but in a but like
it gets in the way of innovation. Yeah, and that's
that's literally literally what he said. Yeah, and so you
have you have this like this this like tech optimistic

(01:24:29):
like acceleration like viewpoint of like technology will be better,
but in order for it's to be better and safe, essentially,
it's it's it's gonna gets kind of shitty and has
some problems now, but we need to push forward through
that all the way, Like we can't, we can't, we
can't go slowly. It has it has to go forward.
So they adopt this this viewpoint because like they need
someone to hold this like tech optimism viewpoint in order

(01:24:50):
for the process to like unfold.

Speaker 5 (01:24:52):
Yeah, there's something strangely clear eyed about that in the
way that it's like, yeah, if I mean, if you're
limiting your view to the system of capitalism, yeah, the
whole thing goes into crisis if you are not squeezing
a little more juice out of the orange, and if
this is what it takes to do that, then then
full steam ahead. They're lucid about that.

Speaker 4 (01:25:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:25:12):
Yeah, you know what else is lucid us saying it's
time to end this fucking podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:25:17):
Goodbye, another CES miracle we have kind of survived.

Speaker 9 (01:25:35):
Hey, everyone, and welcome to the podcast. It's me James
today and I'm very lucky to be joined again by Goudain,
who's a journalist from East Kadistan working with HENGO, the
human rights organization and lots of other organizations, and we're
going to talk today about what has been happening in
Iran for the past few weeks. So thanks for joining Uscordaine.

Speaker 11 (01:25:56):
Hello, thank you very much for inviting me again to
the to this and yeah, I'm really glad to be
here and I am ready to talk about all the
things that have happening in the past few weeks in
Kurdistan and Iran.

Speaker 9 (01:26:11):
Yeah. I think for a lot of people, what is
happening in Iran in the last few weeks has not
made punched into the mainstream US media for the most part, Right,
So I think we should probably begin with a very
basic overview of what has been happening and a little
bit of why it has been happening and also where,

(01:26:31):
because I think that's worth mentioning, right.

Speaker 11 (01:26:34):
Yeah, sure, So, just a few days before the Near's
Eve on December twenty eighth, there was a spontaneous demonstration
and strike in Tehran's Grand Bazaar, which is basically the
center of Iran's trade and one of the most important
backbones of the Islamic.

Speaker 8 (01:26:54):
Regime or revolution.

Speaker 11 (01:26:56):
There were strikes inside the Bazzar and so many shop
person business owners just closed down their businesses and they
took to the streets and inside the shopping centers and
they started chanting against the regime and they were basically
protesting the horrible economic situations and the decrease of the

(01:27:16):
Iranian reol or the Iranian currency against the US dollar,
which was one dollar was equal to one million point
four hundred thousand Iranian reols. And then these protests quickly
spread it all over the city in Tehran, and as
usual this is what happens all the time, the Iranian

(01:27:38):
regime forces they started attacking people and trying to control
the situation, but it somehow got out of their.

Speaker 12 (01:27:46):
Control and the next days these protests, these strikes spread
it to other cities, to other major cities from Shira's Mashad, Isfahan,
Tabriz and many other cities.

Speaker 8 (01:27:59):
Got in involved. But in the.

Speaker 11 (01:28:01):
Early January, around January five to six and seven, there
were major protests in cities like Malikshahi in Ilan Province
and other cities in Kermanshah Province, which are basically the
Kurdish provinces in western Iran. What is really unique about
this is that usually when when protests happened across Iran,

(01:28:25):
or when there is something happening, the Kurdish regions are
the first to react, But this time the Kurdish regions,
like if I want to say, the West Azerbaijan Province
and the San and Dutch Province, they were not really
involved because a lot of people were saying that in
the previous movements, especially in twenty twenty two, we gave

(01:28:46):
too much. There were too many victims here. But the
center was silent. I mean Tehran and Shiras and these
major Iranian cities, So a lot of people didn't really
come out and there was nothing happening. And at the
same time, this is my personal opinion, I think because
there was also a heavy snowfall in Kurdish regions and
it was really cold, and I think a lot of people.

Speaker 8 (01:29:08):
Just didn't want to go out.

Speaker 11 (01:29:10):
Yeah, So this was happening in Malikshahi and other cities
in Elam and Kermanshah Province until I think it was
January fifth that there was a really really big demonstration
in Malikshahi. And it's a small city, but I can
say majority of the people were out on the streets
and then the Iranian region forces started shooting at people

(01:29:33):
and they injured and killed a lot of people. And
the hospital in that city that in that small city
was full and they had no space anymore. So the
people took the injured protesters to the center or the
capital of the province in Ilam City, to the Imam
Romani Hospital. What happened in this hospital was that there

(01:29:54):
were so many people in front of the hospital, like
families and relatives of the victims, and then after a
few hours, the Iranian regime forces started attacking the hospital.
There were so many videos and footage that came out,
and we also posted it on hangout and all over
the internet that the regime forces were basically surrounding the

(01:30:14):
whole building and then they started shooting tear gases inside
the hospital. And then there was a video that came
out that these regime forces were trying to get inside
the hospital and arrest or kidnap all the injured people
or if there was a dead body or something, and
then there was some sort of resistance from the medical staff,

(01:30:35):
and then they started beating the medical staff. And then
a few days later we also posted about it that
some of these medical stuff in that hospital were also arrested.
The same thing was also happening in a few other cities,
but this was very specific and it got very viral

(01:30:56):
on social media and a lot of people talked about it.
But at the same time, there were massive protests taking
place in Tehran and other major cities, which like I
am twenty eight years old and I think I've never
seen such thing happening in Iran.

Speaker 8 (01:31:13):
It was really extraordinary. So while these things were happening.

Speaker 11 (01:31:19):
There were also a lot of calls from people in
Kurdistan that they were calling on Kurdish parties to do something,
to say something. So on January sixth seven, Kurdish parties
from Iran they had a meeting and they announced a
call for a general strike in Kurdistan for all over Iran.

(01:31:40):
So on Thursday, January eighth, over forty cities across Kurdistan
they went on a strike which was really big, and
it wasn't really discussed or talked about on major media,
and it was somehow ignored while it was a really
big action that took place there and usual after the

(01:32:01):
strikes in Curtison, this is something that's happening for years.
People take to the streets and protests during the night.
It happened in a few cities and there were some
people injured and also killed and then it's been over
one hundred and twenty four hours right now as we're
talking now that there is no internet connection in Iran

(01:32:25):
and even the normal lines don't work. You cannot call
anyone from outside of Iran. However, there are some people
who have access to the Starlink Internet and some a
few people that have access to I don't know, some
sort of strong VPNs that work for a few minutes

(01:32:45):
and then they disconnect. And at the same time, I
have contact to two people who have been using the
SIM cards or the Internet from Iraq or Turkey. They
are living on the border regions, but they also have
a limited access. So this is what's happening right now.
And as we were talking about this, this blackout in

(01:33:08):
Iran has caused a lot of confusion, a lot of
horror that the world doesn't know what's happening exactly right now.
After the blackout, there were a few videos and footage
that came out that were published by major activists or
journalists like ali Joan Mardy and so many others that

(01:33:31):
they received these videos I don't know, from the Internet
from Starlink, and you can see in these videos that
in a place called Carrizac. It's near Tehran. It's where
the Tehran's Forcenic Medical Center is located. You can see
in these videos that countless of bodies, maybe hundreds or

(01:33:51):
maybe thousands of bodies are just on the ground. They're
in bodybags and desperate family members, relatives, all troum ties,
they are looking for their loved ones, and it's just
like it's so unbelievable.

Speaker 8 (01:34:06):
It's like movies.

Speaker 11 (01:34:07):
And apparently the regime forces have machine gunned all these people. Jesus,
and right now, because of the blackout, we really don't
know how many people are exactly killed, how many people
are injured, how many people are arrested, or these things.
You know, we don't know the exact numbers, and it

(01:34:28):
makes things so hard. But today, a few hours ago,
there was a report from Iran International that stated that
over twelve thousand people have been killed, but this also
is not fully confirmed because they just got these things
through some sources. And then at the same time, CBS

(01:34:49):
News also published a report and said that between twelve
thousand to twenty thousand people have been killed, but again
this is not really fully confirmed or terrified because there
is no information coming out that much. At the same time,
we also got reports from Kurdistan that in the city

(01:35:10):
of Kermanshah, these regime forces were taking the dead bodies
with bosses. We don't know how many, but we know
that they were taking these bodies with bosses like we
don't know how many hundreds. And from this footage that
you can also see that the regime is taking all

(01:35:31):
these bodies with containers like with talks all over the
city in Tehran and they're bringing it to the center
that I mentioned before, and all families are looking for
their children and their people. At the same time, I
also got this direct information from someone who is from

(01:35:51):
rash In north of Iran. She was traveling from Tehran
to Rush and she said that the people have burnt
down most of them and also the banks and other
government buildings. Are also footage all over the internet that
in most of the cities that people have burnt down
the whole mosques and buildings.

Speaker 8 (01:36:13):
Belonging to the government.

Speaker 11 (01:36:15):
And at the same time she also said that in
that city there are so many people that are killed.
She doesn't know how many or who, but families were
desperately looking for their loved ones on the streets or anywhere.
This is basically the same in almost every major city
or even small city. We don't know exactly, but this

(01:36:36):
is the footage that we got from Tehronily that it
shows what's going on.

Speaker 9 (01:36:41):
Yeah, that's horrific.

Speaker 8 (01:36:42):
Yeah, there are.

Speaker 11 (01:36:43):
Many many also in our organization, we got a few
confirmations from these limited access that some of these people
killed in Tehran are also Kourdish, and obviously from other
minoritory groups as well. At the same time, there is
a special case that I want to talk about. There
is a person like a protester. His name is Erfon Sultani.

(01:37:08):
He was arrested a few days ago and he is
planned to be executed tomorrow. We don't know if they're
really going to do that or whatever, but this is
a really big sign that a lot of people are
warning about it, like human rights organizations, and that the
regime might carry out mass executions everywhere and just to

(01:37:31):
take control over the situation. This is also something that
might happen.

Speaker 9 (01:37:37):
Yeah, so it did execute people after the mini protest,
but they didn't do a three day trial right that
they did here, They had like a show trial first
that in those interesting series.

Speaker 11 (01:37:48):
Yeah, they executed dozens of people after gin Imani was killed,
and also previously in the previous years.

Speaker 8 (01:37:55):
So this is like what what's in general is happening.

Speaker 11 (01:37:58):
And at the same time, like in diaspora in Western countries,
there are groups that are on the streets, like people
that are calling for solidarity or whatever that can be
done to help people out inside Iran. Yeah, this is
like a general overview of what's happening. And as I

(01:38:19):
said before, because there is no internet connection and if
there is, it's very limited, nobody knows what's happening exactly.
Nobody knows the exact scale of the crimes that are
taking place right now there.

Speaker 9 (01:38:34):
Yeah, let's take a little break for advertisements here and
then we'll come back and talk a little more. Okay,
and we're back. So if people have seen anything about this,
I don't know, if they're on like a X they

(01:38:56):
would have seen videos of mosk burning and maybe videos
of the pak like shooting at buildings. You know, these
are the videos that were kind of widely circulated before
people lost access to the Internet. And I think there's
some idea that like this isn't armed uprising, and I

(01:39:17):
think it would be good to explain to people that
like that there are people clearly the press. There is
presence of like armed groups who apposed a regime in Iran, right,
but they are not necessarily the ones like leading the
charge here. So maybe we could explain a little bit
about both the armed groups who are Kurdish. There are

(01:39:38):
some armed groups in Balochistan as well, and like where
they sit in relevance to these protests.

Speaker 11 (01:39:44):
Yeah, so far I can speak for Kurtisan, Yeah, there
have I've seen also the footage that pak or the
Freedom Party of Kurtisan published social media. I cannot personally
confirm that, but but there has always been a call
for military action against the regime in the previous years,

(01:40:07):
and even before Regina Amini in twenty twenty two, there
was always some sort of call from the people. But
right now, as we are seeing, the Kurdish Party is
the seven major Kurdish parties from Iran, they are not
taking really a real military action because there is a

(01:40:27):
big fear that if they do this, the regime might
bomb the cities and kill thousands of civilians with heavy
weapons and even missiles. So this is also one of
the main reasons that even the parties have talked about
it many times before when people called for a military sport.

(01:40:49):
But of course I can also confirm this that all
of these parties, all of these organizations have some sort
of networks inside Iran that they are they are monitoring
the situation, they are collecting information and they are like
connecting people together. And in some cases that I am
aware of that happened in my hometown in Urmia in

(01:41:11):
twenty twenty two, some of these parties also have been
able to lead the protests, like to organized protests. So
this is for now the presence of these parties. But
for Baluchistan, I can also say that I think it
was in October or November twenty twenty five that all

(01:41:33):
these groups in Baluchistan they had a conference and they
announced that they are all united and they're all working
together under one banner. So they also carried out a
lot of attacks on the IRGC bases and vehicles in
their regions in the past few months. But so far
we haven't heard much from them in the past few weeks.

(01:41:54):
We don't know they're not doing anything, or if they
are doing anything, it's not on the inter.

Speaker 8 (01:42:00):
Yeah, or it's published yet. Yeah.

Speaker 11 (01:42:04):
This is the situation right now with the with these groups.
But at the same time groups or parties actually like Pijac,
they also have warned that this was like, if I
want to say, quote on quote, don't play with fire.
They were this Ermian regime that they shouldn't play with fire. Yeah,

(01:42:25):
this is a situation right now that's going on with
the parties as well.

Speaker 9 (01:42:29):
Yeah, and it's very complicated for people who are not
right familiar. I think like maybe we should take a
step back even further and just explain I guess the
concept of it ran as like a contiguous empire might
be a good way to see it, right, with different
ethnic groups currently under the control of one state, Can

(01:42:49):
you just explain that for people if they if they're
not familiar it, because I think in the US, like
Persian identity and Iranian identity by people who are not
familiar with it are conflated, right, But if you could
explain the different nations that exist within the state, that
might help people.

Speaker 11 (01:43:04):
Yeah, Like Iran as a geography is a very diverse country.
So basically the Persians or as they call themselves Iranians,
are the dominant group. They are the majority, but we
also have the Osari Turkish people who are the second majority,
and then we have the Kurds, we have the Baluchis.

(01:43:27):
Then there are Ahwazi Arabs in the south, and then
there are Turkmen people, and then there are Thailishis, but
their numbers are really small. And at the same time
there is also the mas and Dharrani or the Gilak
people that live in the Caspian Sea coast. There are

(01:43:48):
also a different ethnic group. They have a different linguistic background,
but because of the Iranian state policies of one hundred years,
majority of them are assimilated and no longer carry that
cultural heritage or identity. But in Kurdistan, in Baluchistan, in Ahwas,
in Azerbaijan, it's it's really different, and also in the

(01:44:10):
Turkument regions. Basically this is this is what Iran looks like.
Of course, there are other small minorities like Armenians, even
Georgians that migrated to like hundreds of years ago. There
are also several religious groups like the Shia Muslims are
the majority, which Persians and Azari Turks are basically the

(01:44:33):
followers of this religion, and then there are Sunni Sunni
Muslims who are like majority of them are Baluchis and
Kurds and Awazi Arabs or other groups. And then we
have several other groups from Jews, Christians and also the Yarsanis,
which is a Kurdish religious minority, and they are about

(01:44:55):
one million to two million people. Yeah, this is what
Iran looks like.

Speaker 9 (01:45:00):
Yes, yeah, and I think people can can be easy
for them to just see it as like Shia Muslim
Persian modelith right, Yeah.

Speaker 11 (01:45:06):
But I also want to add a little bit more
of how this works. So because the Iranians or the
Persians are the majority, they own the state. The entire
identity is evolving around them. And because of this, during
the past one hundred and fifty one hundred years, there
has been a policy of assimilation in every region in

(01:45:31):
what's called Iran right now, for example, if I want
to talk about the language right now, the only official
language is Persian, and in the past one hundred years,
this language has not just been a language of communication,
it has been a language of oppression and assimilation. And
there are many regions in Iran that were For example,

(01:45:53):
if I want to talk about Kurtison, there are many
regions in Kermanshah and Elam provinces and other regions that
used to be fully Kurdish and they used to speak
Kurdish just a few decades ago, but now they are
completely assimilated. The same policy was also followed strictly but
heavily in in Turkey and also in Iraq and also

(01:46:14):
in Syria.

Speaker 4 (01:46:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (01:46:16):
So this is how this has been working in the
past century, and how all these ethnic groups with different
languages and cultural backgrounds and identities have been forced to
accept an Iranian identity that evolves that turns around the
Persian identity and Persian language and history.

Speaker 8 (01:46:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (01:46:39):
So this is also like a general overview of the
oppression if I want to.

Speaker 9 (01:46:46):
Yeah, I think it's pretty the right way. I think
people who have listened to our coverage of ME and
MA will be familiar or like, I mean, this is
happening in countersplaces, right, This is this is why British
people will speak English now, yeah, right, this is this
is how sort of channel empire works. I wonder like
we should talk about the possibilities and to an extent,
the demands here, right, Because in the US it seems

(01:47:10):
to be that there is a binary choice or that
it's presented as a binary choice between the current state
in Iran and a monarchy, and it doesn't seem to
be an option for self governance, right for Iranian people
to have democracy, to have liberty, and that's evidently not
the case, right, Like when you have this many people
in the streets, that's how democracy works. But let's talk

(01:47:33):
about the sort of the demands and then the possibilities
of just being co opted and turned into another type
of state.

Speaker 11 (01:47:41):
So here in these days or basically in the past decades,
the main demand of people, all different ethnic groups and
in the geography of Iran has always been a regime change.
They want just regime gone. Yeah, this is the first
thing that everybody wants. At the same time, there are

(01:48:05):
other possibilities that could be there. One of the things
that when you look at these ethnic groups and their
organizations and the people, you can see that also most
of them want some sort of federalism or autonomy or
self governance. At the same time, this idea of federalism

(01:48:28):
and self governance or self determination is nothing that let's
say that the dominant group would accept because they don't
understand it. Because for them, I wouldn't say all of them,
because I can we cannot generalize everyone. But when you
look at it, the dominant group sees Iran as an entity.

(01:48:51):
That's that's not the verse. It's just Iran and everybody's Iranian,
just like the way Turkey, you know, or the Turmh
government sees everything everybody's Turkish. But in Iran they also
say everybody's Iranian. We will have an election, we will
choose a president, we will have a parliament, and that's it.

(01:49:12):
That's what is also being let's say offered. But at
the same time, there is also a call for monarchy.
But this is also something that not majority of people,
even Persians, majority of them don't want monarchy back because
there is a huge discussion between people that here we

(01:49:32):
are fighting against a dictatorship, why would we bring back
another dictatorship. Overall, I can say that the minority groups,
majority of them, for now, I would say, like if
the regime is going to be changed, they want self governance.
But maybe in the future also independence. We don't know

(01:49:55):
that this is something complicated to talk about, but for
now this is what minority groups. But in the Persian community,
some of them want to have like a republican system
or whatever. But some of them also want to have
monarchy back. And there are also other groups who reject
both Republicans and also like monarchists, and they want to

(01:50:18):
have more diverse and more open system for the future.
But again this is something that we cannot say how
it's going to be proceeded because we don't know how
the situation is going to be and how these opposition
groups are going to work together in the future. Are
they gonna start a civil war or are they going

(01:50:39):
to sit down together and find a solution. This is
all depends on how the regime falls and when, and
the destruction of this regime is the biggest priority right now.

Speaker 9 (01:50:52):
Yeah, yeah, I mean we could see a situation very
much like the one that's happening and folding right now
in Western Kurdishtwan, and folding later in Iran if theyre
falls right, which unfortunate is something else we have to
talk about at the time, but very terrible things happening
there too. Because you know, most of our listeners are

(01:51:19):
in America. The way that people may have engaged with
this is through Donald Trump's posting on truth Social where
he has said that help is coming recently, Like, let's
talk about what US intervention means, like, especially in the
context of a like the US having intervened all over

(01:51:39):
the Middle East, and what that has meant and be
Like the US's recent national security strategy, which suggests that
basically they don't care about the region and they don't
want to be involved in the region. Let's talk about
what that means and why it might not be the
panas here people think it is.

Speaker 11 (01:51:57):
Yeah, So in the past few weeks, Trump has.

Speaker 8 (01:52:00):
Said a lot of things.

Speaker 11 (01:52:02):
In the first few days, he came out and said
that if the regime is going to kill civilians, we're
going to do this, and that we're going to punish
the regime.

Speaker 8 (01:52:10):
And then I.

Speaker 11 (01:52:11):
Think it was an interview or he was on TV,
I don't exactly remember, but he said something that all
the people that were killed, we don't know if the
regime killed them. Maybe they just were killed in the crowd,
like there were like thousands of people in.

Speaker 13 (01:52:25):
The really yeah, like a crush. They were crushed. And
this is so unbelievable. He's making these comments and then
he's just threatening the regime all over again. And just
a few hours ago, as you mentioned, he said that
the help is coming, and he's asking people to keep
fighting and keep protesting and.

Speaker 8 (01:52:45):
Things like that.

Speaker 11 (01:52:46):
However, we should also, like regarding this, we should talk
about what people also want from Trump. Yeah, this has
been like something that a lot of people, again this
is not the majority, A lot of people have been
calling on him or basically on America or something to
do an action against the regime, to do something against

(01:53:08):
the regime or damage the regime so that people can
get rid of it. And right now, I saw some
screenshots from people who were able to get access to
the internet for a few moments. I saw one there
was shared on the internet that a woman from Tehran
was saying that they are killing everyone. I don't know

(01:53:30):
where my children are. One of them is nineteen and
the other one is twenty three. She was just saying, please,
please be our voice and just tell them to attack,
tell Trump to help. So this is also something that
there is a call for attacking Iran and destroying the regime.
But again we don't know if Trump is really gonna

(01:53:52):
do this or not. There is also like threats coming
from Europe as well in UK. But again, as you mentioned,
if these attacks happen. We don't is it going to
be something like Iraq or Afghanistan or other places, or
is it gonna really help the people of Iran, the
people inside around to get rid of the regime, which

(01:54:14):
is also really hard to understand because Trump hasn't been
really clear about all these things. On one side, he
was also asked if he has any talks or connections
with the so called Prince Razapa Levi, and he said, no,
he's a good guy, but I don't want to talk
to him. But then now you can see that on

(01:54:36):
Fox News, like all the Trump affiliated or pro Trump media,
they are promoting this guy all the time. And at
the same time, Rizzo was also on TV and he
was on CBS and he said that he's directly in
touch with Trump and administration. So we don't know like
what exactly, I mean, it's so hard to some what

(01:55:00):
exactly the US is going to do. Yeah, they also
announced that we're going to put more like twenty five
percent tariff on countries who work with Iran or trade
with Iran, And then the European Parliament also announced that
we're going to ban all Iranian diplomats from entering the
European Parliament.

Speaker 9 (01:55:20):
Right, not made to begin with, all.

Speaker 11 (01:55:22):
These comments that are coming out, they are so vague,
and at the same time there are calls from Germany,
France and I think Australia too that they were calling
on the citizens that are in Iran, like tourists or whatever,
to immediately leave Iran. Yeah, this is also something that
we don't know, like Trump is not somebody that you

(01:55:42):
could trust.

Speaker 9 (01:55:43):
Yeah, ask people.

Speaker 11 (01:55:44):
And at the same time, sorry, this is also important.
There was also some news that the Iranian authorities in
the Foreign ministry were trying or they contacted some people
from Trump administration for negotiations, but then Trump said that
we will not negotiate anything.

Speaker 8 (01:56:07):
So this is all like all.

Speaker 11 (01:56:09):
These contradictions that Trump is just talking about, and he's
denying that the regime is killing people and people are
just being killed because it's too crowded.

Speaker 9 (01:56:18):
And then you see Harminly like tweeting that everyone out
in the street is a Trump supporter, right, which is
like that's useful to him, that narrative is useful to him,
that these are American imperialists or American whatever puppets.

Speaker 11 (01:56:32):
Yeah, of course that has been the regime's behavior forever. Yeah,
whenever something happens, they immediately blame it on America, Israel.
I don't know UK, but it's good that you mentioned
what company was saying. In the first few days, he
said that, yeah, we hear you the people in bazaar,

(01:56:54):
and yeah we hear you, sorry that this is going on,
and things like that. But then he immediately said that
the people who are protesting, they are destroying everything and
we will deal with them in the harshest way. And
then the president of Iran and he also came out

(01:57:15):
and he said almost the same thing, and then he
started threatening people. And a few days after that, the
head of the judiciary, the Iranian judiciary came out and
said that like in a very very aggressive language. He
said that we will deal with you in the worst
ways possible, we will destroy you, and things like that.

(01:57:35):
It's he posted a lot of texts on his Twitter account.

Speaker 8 (01:57:39):
His name is Mosci.

Speaker 11 (01:57:41):
So yeah, there is also like a huge online fightings
between these politicians and so called leaders that makes the
situation even more complicated and hard to understand.

Speaker 9 (01:57:55):
Yeah, I think from a US perspective, like when America
invaded Rock Right, they had a partner force in Kurdistan.
When when America worked in Syria, they had a partner
force again in Western Kurdistan, Like they don't really have
that here like this, it's not really a I mean,
the payarch is still on the American Foreign Terrorist Organization List.

(01:58:16):
It's not like that, like American sort of partner force
boots on the ground like that that they had these
other places to likely what they would do is just
bomb stuff. That's kind of the approach it most likely
here in it bombing alone is unlikely to remove the regime.

Speaker 11 (01:58:35):
Yeah, I think bombing was is definitely not enough of
because they bombed. They tried regime hardly last year, but
it is there. Of course there was the regime got weaker,
like weekend really bad. But at the same time, like
I think, if there's gonna be something, and if there's

(01:58:57):
gonna be something like Syria or Iraq, I think the
Americans or the American government would possibly work with the
Kurdish groups even though they are on the so called
terror list. Like you know, it happened in Rosova in Syria.
That's how they they've been working with the Kurdish groups
even though they are related to PKK and pkk is on.

Speaker 9 (01:59:18):
The terror or they removed them that they did with HTS, right,
and then suddenly these guys they've transformed.

Speaker 11 (01:59:25):
Now, yeah, so this could also happen, but we don't
know because it's been years. It's been decades that the
US is always threatening Iran and then something happens, then
they do nothing and it's just there.

Speaker 9 (01:59:42):
Yeah, it reinforces the legitimacy of both states to threaten
each other, right, and see each other as adversaries, and
to a degree use that for domestic violence against their
own citizens, right or if you know terrorism stuff. I
guess finally we should just talk about one other thing
that Hamani said, which is like that American and it's
really shipping would become legitimate target if you thought the

(02:00:05):
Americans were involved, right, just to explain, this is the
possibility to have people if they're not familiar.

Speaker 11 (02:00:11):
Well, this is not a new thing, to be honest.
They've won this before and in the previous years many times.
And there were times that they attacked some US bases,
like the one in Iraq it's called Al Assad or
something like that. They attacked it a few times I
guess in the past few years.

Speaker 8 (02:00:33):
Yeah, like This.

Speaker 11 (02:00:34):
Is also really complicated because how can I explain the
regime always does the threats and it might not do
it at all. But at the same time, this is
also something that I think that if the regime falls
and if it's the last moments, they would probably try

(02:00:58):
to do something to damage the region or to damage
the people as much as they can, and then they
would just give up on everything and just disappear.

Speaker 8 (02:01:09):
So they could do that.

Speaker 11 (02:01:11):
But if I want to go back to last year,
we also need to understand that after the Twelve Day War,
Israel also destroyed a massive amount of Iranian military bases
and all these buildings and structures, but still nobody truly

(02:01:32):
understand how much has been destroyed. But the Iranian Air
force is really really weak right now and apparently completely destroyed,
so Iran is not as strong as before. So there
could be a possibility that Iran actually doesn't have the
capability to attack US Bass across the region anymore. So

(02:01:54):
this could be also a possibility that they're just threatening.
They really don't have anything left anymore more. Their trick
capabilities are completely down.

Speaker 9 (02:02:04):
Yeah, or they'll do that sort of symbolic send a
half dozen Shaheed drones and then let the Americans shoot
them down and they say, oh, well we tried, or
you know, we h we attack them, even though you
know most of the time they have hurt a couple
of American people with them, but relatively unsuccessful. I wonder
like this is obviously a situation that people will want

(02:02:26):
to follow. Things are developing very quickly and new good news,
good reporting on around. It is very hard to find
in America. So where would you suggest people look? Either
you know your own stuff or other sources you suggest
people should look to.

Speaker 11 (02:02:40):
If I want to mention for obviously, I work with
a hangout organization. It's a trusted organization. People can follow them.
And there is also a journalist called Ali Jawan Mardi.
He is a supervisor at Voice of America, Kurdish, Persian
and Afghanistan. And these are like for the sources that

(02:03:01):
I personally trust. There are other organizations such as Curtis
and Human Rights Network. There is also Iran Rights or
Abdur Rahan Buruman Center for Human Rights in Iran. There
are several organizations human rights organizations that are constantly reporting
and they are trying to reflect what's happening and there

(02:03:24):
I could say majority of them are honest and they're
not trying to push for a specific narrative, especially the Palabists,
because right now, if you check the media, the international media,
the Iranian media such as Iran International or BBC, Persian
and all of these major medias, even in the US,

(02:03:47):
they are pushing for the monarchists and they are completely
ignoring the other groups.

Speaker 8 (02:03:54):
Like, for example, the Kurdish people.

Speaker 11 (02:03:55):
I said, I mentioned that there was this great and
big strike that happened in forty cities. It's it's a
very big social act, but barely anyone talked about it.
Barely anyone mentioned it. So I think it's for people
it's better to follow human rights organizations and do not

(02:04:16):
really fall for the things that some media that are
just promoting a specific person, because they're just taking away
the truth.

Speaker 1 (02:04:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (02:04:26):
Yeah, I think that's a fantastic place to finish up.
Thank you so much for joining. Guys, if people want
to follow you, do you have any social media or
people can find your work.

Speaker 11 (02:04:35):
I have my personal page, but it's not really big.
I just post some slides recently, and my other page
curtis signing people. It got disabled unfortunately I started. I'm
just posting like some updates and like slides about the
important things that I find. I can also put the
links there.

Speaker 9 (02:04:56):
Yeah, will include them, believe the podcast, so people can
click on them.

Speaker 4 (02:05:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (02:05:00):
Yeah, fantastic. Well, thank you so much for joining us
this evening. We really appreciate it.

Speaker 11 (02:05:05):
Yeah, thank you very much for having me again. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:05:21):
Why do you listen to this podcast? It may be
because it's a strange comfort in naming the thing that's
breathing down our X today. I want to archive this
past year of systemic collapse, a pile up of small
and large failures we can start to make sense of
in retrospect. If we don't look back at our past

(02:05:42):
and the patterns within it, if we don't keep these
moments and events in our memory, it's very very easy
to get stuck into a perpetually overwhelming present. Welcome to
take it up in here. I'm Andrew Sage, the guy
behind Andrewism on YouTube, and I'm here with.

Speaker 9 (02:06:01):
James Stout, the guy you here all the time this podcast.

Speaker 3 (02:06:05):
Welcome to your podcast. Yeah, it's nice.

Speaker 9 (02:06:11):
It's nice to do one with you.

Speaker 3 (02:06:12):
Are you ready to take a look at some of
the stories that shaped twenty five.

Speaker 9 (02:06:17):
Yes, it's been a hell of a year. So did
she be fun?

Speaker 3 (02:06:20):
Yeah? I mean I don't expect to be exhaustive, but
we can, you know, talk about some of the incidents
in climate, in politics and technology and geopolitics, and through
all that, I want to ask what these stories are
teaching us as anarchists, activists and just people trying to
live in a society. Yeah, so I suppose first we

(02:06:45):
could talk about the climate and infrastructural situations, some of
them that took places. Yet it really covered all of
the elements. We had heat, flooding, drought, fire storm. According
to the World Meteorological Organization, global temperatures in twenty twenty
five ranked among the hottest on record.

Speaker 2 (02:07:07):
Great.

Speaker 3 (02:07:08):
The WMO put twenty twenty five as likely this second
or third warmest year in the observational record. So a
little round of applause for hitting some miles stuarts right.

Speaker 9 (02:07:19):
Yeah, it's good to be winning.

Speaker 1 (02:07:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:07:23):
Power systems also have been overloaded under air conditioning demand,
leading to rolling blackouts in cities and rural areas, schools
closing during heat waves, and mortality rising among the elderly
and Preherious international agencies have worned that extreme heat is
producing double digit crop losses and mass livestock die offs
in some cases. Brazil in particular felt that heat in

(02:07:46):
agriculture and supply chains. Staple production and food imports both
suffer due to the heat, and those ripples are going
to be felt for the rest of us too, because
Brazil is a bread basket of sorts. It's a top
exporter of tons of really important agricultural products. And the
monsoons also arrived with quite a mood this year. South

(02:08:08):
Asia's Turn twenty five rains came very heavy and very persistent.
In many places, urban drainage, field neighborhoods became isolated by
the waters. Trains and roads were unusable for days. Bangladeshi
and parts of India saw a catastrophic flooding that took
hundreds of lives and displaced millions. Over in the Horn

(02:08:30):
of Africa, wells ran low, pastures, field and small farmers
suffered under the pressures of the drought. Their water distribution
systems weren't built to withstand multi year dry spells, and
so hunger crisis has ended up escalating, particularly in Somalia.
Yeah North America and Europe also had severe wildfires this year.

(02:08:52):
At this point, it's very easy to kind of see
them as a new normal, you know. Canada's Turn twenty
five season pushed agencies into one of their largest domestic
wildfire responses in years. Firefighters were stretched, entire towns had
to evacuate, and Southern Europe, in particular Greece and Spain
also saw fast moving fires that consumed homes and utilities

(02:09:14):
and left landscapes scorched and infrastructure severely weakened. And then,
of course they were the hurricanes. This year, The Caribbean
was slammed by Hurricane Melissa, a very slow and powerful
storm that devastated Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti and others, tearing up infrastructure,
and they even large swaths without power for weeks. The
storm's exceptional energy is of course thanks to climacy. And

(02:09:38):
so all these events and I'm definitely leaving outs. I
believe they review a few things. For one, I think
it's clear that our systems can't handle the new extremes
being brought about by climacy. They may have been built
for previous normals, but not this. And this is something
that climate scientists have been worn and about for some time.

(02:10:00):
You know, electrical grids were sized for incremental loads, so
they couldn't handle these simultaneous peak demands. Urbans to a
water management was built for a particular volume of water
over a particular period of time, they can handle these
volumes of water that are pouring down from above. And
also water management systems in more arid regions weren't prepared

(02:10:21):
for years of drought, and so the systemic shocks of
this year have been very devastating for infrastructure. And unlike
their propaganda, which tasted they are necessary for our survival,
for our well being. To manage society. State responses to
these catastrophes were often reactive and chronically delayed. Government intervention

(02:10:44):
and international aid helped in some places, I'm not denying that,
but communities have also often found themselves on their own,
having to improvise survival strategies. And of course with every
disaster there's an extremely long tale of recovery after the
initial crisis has passed. So it may leave the news cycle,

(02:11:06):
but that people still dealing with the consequences and we'll
be dealing with it in the year to come. But
these disasters continue to show the ingenuity and capability of
ordinary people to organize, support, distribute aid, facilitate evacuation, share resources,
and so on. So we're not powerless. We don't have
to be dependent on slow bureaucracies. Develop resilience. It starts

(02:11:28):
with us as people being proactive, especially you know, I
would say, don't wait for the disaster to happen in
your area to develop a response plan. Invest your time
and energy in this coming year in horizontal capacities, skill training,
community drills, share two libraries, seed and food sovereignty projects,
local medical knowledge, decentralized energy and water projects. I don't

(02:11:51):
place much on the demands of the state, but they
are also sometimes granted to may be able to apply
for that. Can you know, secure some resources in community hands,
and of course keep documenting these incidents as they're happening.
You know, don't wait for a disaster to hit your
area to learn the lessons that other places had to learn,

(02:12:11):
you know, go and see where your vulnerabilities lie un
others have done to respond, Train people wh necessary, and
just try and keep up to good fight. Would you
say there was a particular environmental crisis for natural disaster
the year that really stood out to you.

Speaker 1 (02:12:28):
I mean to me.

Speaker 9 (02:12:29):
I think the ones that I just because they're personally
related to places I've been were the earthquake in Memma,
right where we saw not only people die as a
result of natural disaster, but people die as a result
of the state considering it's desire to keep people in
mem r away from the world more important than their lives, right,

(02:12:50):
like the state choosing not to allow search and rescue
teams from France, for example, to enter and instead like
you know folks I know who are fighting and the
revolution in the Ammar, like laying down their arms and
trying to work out how to pull collapse buildings apart
before the people in them died exactly. I think that

(02:13:11):
it really was like the poly crisis and then the
flooding of indigenous communities in Alaska, right, the coastal communities
that we saw like a month or so ago, And
that one hit me particularly hard because like these people
have been screaming for a decade that climate change has come.
It's not coming, it's come right like the like the

(02:13:32):
end is not nigh for them, the end is here.
The ways of life are being destroyed by climate change,
and the whole communities got wiped out right just before winter,
and in a place which has one of the hardest
winters on Earth. All their food caches, right, because these
are people who tend to to fish for a lot
of food, so they cash food they don't go to

(02:13:54):
the store, were also wiped out. Like it's just one
of those examples of like one can't be prepared enough
to deal with things and one can't control, right, And
one of the things that we can't control is climate change,
and it's coming.

Speaker 3 (02:14:08):
For all of us, but yeah, it's coming for some
people foost.

Speaker 9 (02:14:11):
Yeah, and it's always going to be indigenous and more
marginalized people, right whose plate is ignored. Like people can
say climate change isn't real because they have the relative
privilege of not having their homes destroyed. And like, rebuilding
those communities will be very, very hard because the only
way to get there is on a tiny little plane
or a boat, and everything they've got there is taking

(02:14:32):
generations to build and it's all gone. Yeah, So those
two really struck me.

Speaker 3 (02:14:39):
Yeah, I think I take ways from what you've shared there,
as the state will often get in the way, Yes,
of our survival will well be in Yeah, and that
you know, the crisis is here and it's already hitting people,
and just the people are being hit right now, are
the ones designated as sacrificial arms? Yeah, in a sense

(02:15:00):
for the continued pursuit of economic growth and progress.

Speaker 4 (02:15:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:15:17):
Two twenty five also saw an accelerated political coming of age.
You know, gen Z has not been all teenagers for
a very long time now, it's been mostly adults or
soon to be mostly adults at this point, depending on
where you draw the line. And that generation our my
generation has shown up in the numbers for the past

(02:15:42):
few years, but particularly this year, inspiring millions. You know,
gen Z became a very visible political force in the
headlines across very different geographies. Madagascar, Morocco, Kenya, Nepal, Peru,
and Mexico all had uprisings driven by a mix of

(02:16:02):
grievances rather be corruption, the cost of live in, lack
of services, violent policing, and a feeling that all institutions
had nothing to offer. Now, these movements were not a monolith,
you know, but they did have some common templates. You know.
They organized digitally on platforms like discord or telegram, and
they mobilized very quickly, a lot faster than states were

(02:16:25):
originally able to keep up with. In Madagascar, the youth
had mobilized during water, power cuts and broader corruption, which
eventually toppled the rule in government and triggered military moves
in the form of a kulita. But it doesn't seem
so far that anything fruitful, stable or lasting has come
out of their cause quite yet. Right now Madagascar is
a military kernel for president, so it remains we see

(02:16:47):
in what that leadership brings. In Morocco, the movement gen
Z two on two organized demand better education and healthcare,
decent housing, and jobs, and we're eventually met with state
pushback in the form of arrests and infiltrations. Now they
eventually won some concessions from the government in the form
of greater funding in this sectors demanded and draft bills

(02:17:10):
that incentivize youth participation in the official channels of power.
But it remains we've seen how long that will quell
the tide, because it seems to me at least that
this is the classic tactic of, you know, incorporating a
radical movement into the machinations of the state to temper
its energy. Yeah, in Kenya, we saw mass mobilization against

(02:17:32):
police brutality that was met with yet more police brutality
and extra judicial killings, now numbering in the sixties. With
a very clear aim for the suppression of descent. So far,
none of their goals have really been recognized or achieved
as a movement, and it seems as though they've similed
down due to the share violence that they are faced

(02:17:55):
in response. In Nepal, perhaps the most famous of these
worries for this year, the students led uprisings topple the
corrupt government and forced concessions with an election coming up
next year twenty twenty six. But again, what comes next
is yet to be seen. Whether it be lasting, empowering,

(02:18:16):
or sustainable is an open question. It's another uprising where
in my view, the fundamental institutions have not been overcome
and thus their goals will not be achieved mediately. But
I think every movement, every generation has their place for
political development and figuring out some of these shortcomings of

(02:18:39):
these approaches. But I think because of how tight the
timeline is for the need for like radically drastic action
for the sake of the planet and for the people
on it, I really wish that these lessons were learned
a bit quicker. You know that we didn't have to
go through these seam cycles of you know, missteps again

(02:19:03):
and again with movements. Yeah, you're right, what it means
to be seen whether that sort of political development can
be accelerated as the crisis accelerates.

Speaker 9 (02:19:14):
Yeah, Like I feel for the youth, like like now
these revolutions, a sense of urgency is so high, right
because the system, Like, if you're a millennial, I guess
you grew up. If you're me, maybe I'm saying here,
like really you grew up. You know, you were told
like things will always get better and you will work

(02:19:35):
hard and like just like your folks, you will buy
a house in the house will get more valuable and
that will be nice and blah blah blah. Right if
you live in in this sort of the colonial core
and that didn't work out for most of us, but
for for gen Z folks, it's like the town that
you live and will continue to exist is up for debate, right,
Like the climate that you were born in will be

(02:19:59):
completely stink from the one that you have children raise
children in. Probably the urgency of the need for change
is so much with young people today, right, Like, you know, yeah,
the economy that my generation was promised doesn't exist for us,
but the planet that gen Z was promised isn't going
to exist for them. And the information system is so

(02:20:22):
fucked for young people today, right, and so captured by
corporate and state interests. And yet despite that, or maybe
because of that, we've seen some of the most beautiful
revolutions that I can recall, Right, Like, when I speak
to gen Z folks in Myanmar, they approach the revolution
in a distinct way from the way that like the
revolutions I'm familiar with from the nineties and two thousands did,

(02:20:45):
but also just from like a very human desire for
a better world, for equality, for a beautiful life. And
so like, I'm very hopeful at the same time as
I feel for people of the younger generation.

Speaker 3 (02:21:02):
Yeah, yeah, I think there's there's a lot of cause
for hope that such numbers can be mobilized. But I
would love to see those numbers get mobilized in the
countries that we've been talking about a more radical be
than simply bringing demands to the state or or changing
up one government for another.

Speaker 9 (02:21:21):
You know, yeah, yeah, I mean in the case of
me and Marlika. That's certainly like that is the case, right,
Like they're not thinking about changing one running party for another,
They're thinking about changing the way governance works, right, They're
like bringing democracy to people. To be clear, there isn't
really a coherent set of exact demands for the revolution,

(02:21:42):
but many of the young people they speak to are
looking at how can we create a model that doesn't
allow for a genocide to happen against one group, that
doesn't allow for the military to walk into one building
and take away everyone's future. And I think that's very.

Speaker 3 (02:21:55):
Beautiful exactly, that's that's inspiring. Yeah, yeah, I think asking
those questions and asking even more questions, I think as
how this generation is going to get to, you know,
certain conclusions about whether this current project should continue. Yeah,

(02:22:17):
this current state project, this current capitalist project, this current
patriarchal project. The more questions get asked, the more answers
get illuminated, and the closes, I think we can get
to a viable and liberatory alternative.

Speaker 9 (02:22:34):
Yeah, yeah, definitely the case. And I think some of
this is just like some of it we have to
work out on the way and that's okay. Like I
think the twentieth century, the idea of a revolution was
like this violent seizure of state power, often by a
vanguard group with a very specific project that they were
looking to implement. Right, And in the twenty first century,

(02:22:57):
we haven't seen that, or the time, we have seen
a lot more of like this is bad and it
has to change, and we're going to make it change,
and we'll work out which direction we're moving as we go.

Speaker 3 (02:23:09):
Yeah. Yeah, then that's latently ideological, I'd.

Speaker 9 (02:23:13):
Say, yeah, And like I think that's a good thing
because what we've seen I mean, I mean, we have
seen like this, this idea that revolutions have to stick
to a strict pathway have horrific consequences for humanity. Right,
Like I'm thinking of the Gulag, you know, like the
thinking of the strict ideology which allowed the Soviet Union

(02:23:34):
to become this place where where you created, like you know,
the things that all were were about in nineteen eighty four. Right,
it is better that a revolutionarized on what the people
want as they continue to move through it, rather than
saying we will tell the people what they need and
we'll be the one steering the ship here.

Speaker 3 (02:23:50):
Yeah, that will model is not going to get us
all to this NOP so. Honestly, my observation of the
sur political shifts of this year has re exposed the
flaws of traditional politics and parties, how they've largely sued
as gatekeepers to suppress, to absorb and blunt the energy

(02:24:11):
is the massive and show the potential of spontaneous uprisings.
But I think this year also show that we cannot
keep rising up again and again and again and again,
you know, feeding bodies to the brutal police forces and
prison systems. You know, for movements to matters beyond these
episodes of disruption, I believe they need to develop infrastructure.

(02:24:36):
You know, let's let's let's do something that lasts longer
than a headline, and of course the actions that you know,
I'm not denying that some of these movements are in
eh and building infrastructure. It's just that those sorts of
efforts are less likely to make the international use headlines.
You know. But I love to see these centralized mobilizations.

(02:24:57):
I just want to see them paid with something more
refigurative politics that can sustain them, that can expand the
zones of freedom they can tune. They will mentum into
lasting change. I will say that I appreciate that these
movements have and breazed tactical variety. You know that they
have largely understood the need for anonymity. But I don't
want them to keep fall into this trap of this

(02:25:21):
sort of dissipation of energy. They get a government concession
and they dissipate that there's not a long term ambition,
or they're not enough steps being taken to resist infiltration
and surveillance through operational security. I think that if that

(02:25:41):
you know, OPSEEC is not present, it's very easy for
these movements get disrupted from within. You know, platforms like
Discord have already proven themselves to be ops you know,
to these kinds of causes. They will willingly sell people out.
But I have a lot of hope and say that tentatively,
but we can stand up for something that some line

(02:26:06):
can be drawn somewhere. Because even though an uprising like
the one in Nepal or Morocco hasn't taken place in
Trinidad yet, I mean, we've been under a state of
emergency for the entire time that this new government has
been in power. I will say that I often in
you know, casual conversation here rumbling. So we need to

(02:26:26):
do what Nepal did, you know? We need to do it,
proved it. And I think that's the power, the potential
of these kind of moments. Even if they don't lead
to something lasting in the immediate aftermath, they still save
as an inspiration. They still open up the landscape of possibilities.

Speaker 9 (02:26:47):
Yeah, what's so Commandente Marcus used to say it was
like to open up a pinprick of light in the
curtain of darkness exactly. Yeahs to show people what it's possible.

Speaker 3 (02:26:57):
That's a perfect expression. I actually never did that quote before.
That's good one.

Speaker 9 (02:27:00):
Yeah, I used to read a lot of Apia Steps.
I think you had some wonderful ways of expressing things.

Speaker 3 (02:27:05):
Yeah, gen Z is not going to save anyone. You know,
as a generation, we're just as susceptible to flaws and
resurrections as any other. There are those who are invested
in welfare and anti corruption, and they are those who
are invested in reactionary popularism. But the waves of uprisings
I think are mostly positive. And I just hope that

(02:27:27):
that that spark can light a fire and the way
that we get that spark to light that fire. So
we put fuel in place, fuel like networks, fuel like collectives,
unions and so on. Oh when speaking of unions, I
forgot to mention this. Ye, India actually had a coalition
of major trade unions stagion nationwide protests and strikes this

(02:27:50):
year against the new labor codes. That's cool, So shout
out to them as well.

Speaker 9 (02:27:56):
Yeah. Yeah, especially in a state which is uh, it's
not necessarily know like you will, they will cut down
pretty hard on you in the ear if you stand
up against the state indeed.

Speaker 3 (02:28:07):
And so to wrap the section, I think I'll say
that twenty twenty five protests show a fraction of our frustration,
but they also show that we can't just keep screaming
into the void, you know. Yeah, the ruptures that come
in twenty twenty six and beyond need to start from
somewhere other than scratch, if you want to say tech crises. Now,

(02:28:29):
I think as EI continued to boom in twenty twenty five,
we saw a massive build out of physical infrastructure, data centers,
server farms, water hungry cooling systems, and energy hungry hardware. Yeah,
it's very easy to think of the Internet as a cloud,
but it's a very physical thing. It demands land, water,
and electricity. It strains local communities, It drains local communities

(02:28:54):
of resources. The water use of data centers in particular,
can eat up millions of liters of water daily, taken
away from households and agricultural needs. In fact, data centers
in the US now consume more than four percent of
total electricity, with over half still being powered by fossil fuel.

Speaker 9 (02:29:15):
Jesus. Yeah, Like how much electricity we use in the US.
Like we go hard on electric right, Like.

Speaker 3 (02:29:22):
Yeah, so four percent is quite a jump from something
that basically didn't exist ten years ago, five years ago, exactly. Yeah,
And so all this scaling up of AI is pushing
us much faster towards the limits of growth. You know.
It feels like we are being ruled by accelerationists at times,

(02:29:42):
you know. And all the while we have these tech
browers pushing their text savior gospel on us, even though
it's very clear that AI is just another vector of extraction, consumption,
and inequality. Yeah, there's just another way for the owners
of profit to gain greater control of our data and
greater surveillance over our lives. What I am proud of

(02:30:03):
is that people continue to speak out against it, to
challenge it, to question it, to call it out wherever
they see it. There are people who refuse to support
you know, YouTube channels that are pushing out AI music
or EI visuals or EI scripts, people who refusing to
support you know, pages and profiles that have those kinds

(02:30:23):
of things or companies that use those sort of that software.
We have to keep that energy up, we have to
keep it going, and we're asying to buildings that will
increase our ability to operate outside of the AI fueled
the corporate overlord Internet that many of us currently exist
as pseudo safs within. Yeah, you know, there's a lot

(02:30:47):
of roof open source software integital commands that are out
of the hands of corporations that we can venture into.
You know, tech is contested ter rain that the tech
ordgarchs are currently winning. But that araine is something that
we can continue to challenge into the new year.

Speaker 9 (02:31:05):
Definitely.

Speaker 3 (02:31:17):
But geopolitics in twenty thirty five was a catalogue of
catastrophes from continuing was fueled by a cast of properties
to straight up genocides. So in Palestini we saw this
year repeated rounds of siege, bombardment and cruelty, repeated cease
fire violations and the part of Israel, all enabled by

(02:31:40):
America's military support and political cover. To this day, food,
water and medical provisions continue to be strained as a
result of Israel's genocidal ambitions. In Sudan, the fractures they
have only worsened as the bloodshed famously can be seen
from space. Millions have been internally displaced, the casualties are

(02:32:04):
currently incalculable, and the fighting between the Sudanese armed forces
and the rapid support forces rages on, all supported by
regional powers including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In
the Democratic Republic of the Congo, conflicting armed groups supported
by the government of the DRC and the neighboring Rwanda, respectively,

(02:32:26):
have continued attacking communities and the infrastructure, inflicting mass rapes,
and engaging in other war crimes, all while funded by
mining operations in one of the most resource rich regions
in the world. In Yemen, the violence continues for tens
of millions as the saudil That coalition, the UAE and

(02:32:47):
Western powers continues to supply arms, logistics and diplomatic cover
for the displacement, collapse, and brutality inflicted upon the civilians
of the country. In Ukraine, the war with Russia continues
to consume resources and lives. In the Caribbean Sea, the
US ramped up its violence as it targets and bombs
boats and international waters that it alleges are carrying drugs,

(02:33:10):
and appears some gear enough for some kind of operation
against Venezuela and Myanmar. Resistant groups continue to fight against
the military junta, which continues to receive economic and political
cover from neighboring China. Now this isn't exhaustive, so because
I know if I missed any of the major stories
from this year, there's so many.

Speaker 9 (02:33:33):
Yeah, it's so sad to think about this new drone
war that we're starting in Venezuela, right, and we will
probably start another one in this at hell soon. You know,
it's very easy for those things to seem tangential to
our lives. I have experienced what it's like to be
in a place where drones are killing people every day.

(02:33:54):
What that does to you, Just like not knowing who's
going to get killed tonight, right, woul't be you very
unlikely might be might be someone you saw today, might
be someone you've ever met. Dozens of people get killed,
but thousands of people have to live in with this
sense of fear and maybe after a while you get
used to it. I don't know, but I don't think

(02:34:15):
we realize like potential of the human joy even though
it's not like in this case, not like a ground war, right,
like for many people don't see it as a war.
The terrible trauma that that causes, not just to the
people who are killed in their families, but to so
many other people who have to live with the knowledge
that like they could be killed in the world wouldn't care.

Speaker 3 (02:34:35):
Yeah, I mean that the mental torment and trauma even
if you survive, Yeah, something like Palestine or something like Sudan, Yeah,
that's going to stay with you for the rest of
your life. I don't reverberate in future generations, even generations
that they not experience the genocide directly, do not experience
the war directly, they're still going to feel that in

(02:34:58):
the every ones in the way that you know, the
generations of that experience that interact with them in the
stories that they tell.

Speaker 9 (02:35:05):
Yeah, it's yeah, that trauma lives for a long time, right,
and trauma creates sometimes a cycle of violence, right, Like
it's it's not a good thing. Yeah, But the idea
of drone warfare is the idea of that these like
clean surgical strikes. That's not how war works, that's not
how killing works, that's not how explosive warheads work.

Speaker 3 (02:35:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (02:35:28):
I remember in Rajare sat down with a family who
had lost their son who had just turned fourteen, and
like thinking of the waves of repercussion from that one bomb,
and hundreds of bombs fell that year, you know, And
that was just in Syria. Thousands of these drone bombs
fell all around the world, and for the most part,

(02:35:50):
people didn't remark on it and didn't care. But that's
happening more now.

Speaker 1 (02:35:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:35:55):
I mean it's very very easy to zoom out and
just think of the pures statistics, the pure numbers, because
when you actually zoom in and even an individual incident
that is an entire lifetime affected, multiple lifetimes affected by
even one building being leveled or one bullet being fired.

Speaker 9 (02:36:18):
Yeah, And I think there's a reason we don't put
on war like that, right, Like I try to when
I write my stuff, because like, everyone's life is the
most valuable thing they have, and every death of the
tragedy it's hard on the reporter, like, it's not sustainable.
Fox you up and be people wouldn't like wars if

(02:36:40):
we get like you see it to an extent in
the way that the European nations talked about World War One,
right like, to get a significant number of upper class
British people to be opposed to the concept of warfare.
It's quite a remarkable in dev right like that those

(02:37:01):
are people who have gone to schools whose sole purpose
was to raise them as military officers for empire from
the age of five. Yeah, but we saw it after
World War One, because the war wasn't abstract, right, it
was close by. The people dying weren't a different class
or race. They were everyone, and especially young upper class
men who became officers, right like. But somehow along the

(02:37:23):
way since then, we've lost that and we've we've convinced
ourselves that this is something that like, it'sn't a human tragedy,
even if it doesn't involve us.

Speaker 3 (02:37:33):
Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned in World War One in particular,
because I actually sat down to finally watch or quiet
in the Western Front. Oh yeah, last night I watched
like the first five minutes and I was like, I
don't know if I could watch this right now, And
we're going to watch something else. Yeah, that's it. And
that's a movie, you know, it's not even the real thing.

(02:37:55):
It's a fictional depiction of the occurrence. And I felt
like I was there.

Speaker 9 (02:37:59):
Yeah, and I don't like watching those films. I don't
watch those films. Gives me bad memories, dreams. But yeah,
like I can't understand how we have this ability to
we have fucking VR now, right, like surgeons can practice
operations in VR. But like in a world where we
can have so many experiences, experienced things that we would

(02:38:22):
never experience otherwise, we have inflicted a genocide through starvation
on the people of Palestine. Like in a world where
we can see and know more about other people's lives
than ever, we've done this thing. Like I don't want
to harp on the fact that, like It'srael, it's built
on the idea of never again, and here they are
doing it again, right, But like it's just so sad

(02:38:44):
that like we're in this world where we can know
and share more things and yet it's resulted in somehow
are still not seeing our common humanity. I mean more
people have I guess. Also, Like one thing that has
happened this year, in the last two year, is that
like when I came here, I would never have believed
that you would get thousands of American people out to

(02:39:08):
call for the basic human rights of Palestinian people like
it did. It wasn't a thing that American people were
aware of. So like that is something there of the
last two years, think we have seen solidarity, some of.

Speaker 3 (02:39:20):
That's yeah, there has been a shift.

Speaker 9 (02:39:22):
Yeah, some of that solidarity I think has been misguided.

Speaker 3 (02:39:25):
But I think some of the I guess anti Israel
shift has come less from a concern for Palestinians and
more so for the sort of you know, we don't
want our tax cart dollars they spent, they want it's
spent on us. Or it's more of an internally minded
sort of America first ideology.

Speaker 9 (02:39:45):
Yep, and they're straight up anti Semitic bigotry as well.

Speaker 3 (02:39:49):
But there has been that solidarity shift as well.

Speaker 9 (02:39:52):
Yeah, Like there has been that, like a global solidarity
and like even as a millennial, right, like from the
age of thirteen right when I was a kid, when
nine to eleven happened, and even I guess the First
War in the Persian Gulf. The media project of most
of the nations in which I've lived has been to

(02:40:12):
demonize Muslim people, people specifically living in the Middle East, right, yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:40:18):
Yeah, And it's more of an a racialized tree than
a particularly religious milia tree. I mean, it does take
that religious courting, and there are religion specific elements to
the bigatory, but it does tend to be more racialized
that yeah, because I already know that some people will
be like, oh, well, I just don't like Islam as
because of its authoritarian and inclinations where the case. Maybe,

(02:40:41):
but it's a bit more than just religious beast bigotry.

Speaker 9 (02:40:47):
Yeah, it's not just a philosophical disagreement, right, Like it
took on, like you say, this racial character and so
like to see people noting their common humanity, Like I
was just talked to someone about this the other day.
Be familiar with miss Rachel. Yeah, yeah, Like it is inconceivable.
It would have been inconceivable when I was in high
school that an American children's entertainer would be like, well,

(02:41:11):
I guess you had the Dixie Chicks, But it's not
the same, right, it would be like continually not to
take away from what they did. I think they were
very brave actually, but you know, to be able to
stand up for the lives of young children in Palestine
so consistently, Yeah, so vaciferously for so long like that,
that's very hot. That gives me, you know, a great

(02:41:33):
sense of hope.

Speaker 3 (02:41:34):
Yeah, not really. I think it's an indication of just
how much there has been a shift, and of course
she has been bullied and targeted relentlessly since, but yeah,
you know, it does indicate that people are willing to
face that kind of bullying and these that kind of
attack that I suppose segment of empire for the sake

(02:41:55):
of stand off. What's right.

Speaker 9 (02:41:57):
Yeah, yes, I guess I think it's so it's impressive,
right that, like, yeah, people have bullied and attacked her,
but like, also she has been so brave and so
consistent and not just miss Rachel. To be clear, there
are many many other people who've done this and has
been able to continue to do that because so many
people have been like, no, these are just children, Why
the fuck you? Why are you arguing that it's wrong

(02:42:18):
to say we shouldn't kill children. What the fuck is
wrong with you? Yet a lot of people showed up
against the war in Iraq too, But like, it's good
to see that that media project has not succeeded, because
it's been two decades in my life that it has
been trying to succeed.

Speaker 3 (02:42:33):
Yeah, I think that we've been seeing so very familiar
dynamics across the jubiscal crises that I've a sort of
mentioned there. We have this external patronage of global powers
and regional powers that seemed to be sustaining these fights
that were in lives over years, because if they wouldn't

(02:42:54):
get in that constant flow of money for weapons and
weapons support and military support, these wars will not be
able to last as long as they have, you know.
But it's these outside actors in Sudan and in Palestine
that are supporting the fight and supporting the barrage, supporting

(02:43:14):
the suffering, and not supporting the aid necessary to support people.
You know, there's been a very slow and insufficient piece
of humanity response due to funding gaps, access constraints, and
the politicization of aid. And there are people who have
managed to act directly not waiting for any official channels.

(02:43:35):
In the case of the flotilla. Something else that happened
this year that I found particularly admirable, but it hasn't
been enough so far. It hasn't broken through quite yet,
and people are still without much of the necessary aid
that will sustain even their survival. We also see that
even as these was a ragion in these regions, in

(02:43:57):
many cases the extraction is continuing, particularly in Congo and Sudan. Yeah,
I think it's very critical that we can just speak
out against these wars as we get into twenty twenty six,
where we see them, we document what's happening, We keep
a record offline of what's going on independently, because another
thing I've noticed this year is how blatantly the news

(02:44:18):
media is showing its colors, you know. And that's where
independent media is meant to fill the gaps, even though
it may not have as many resources as main industream media,
you know, so things like this podcast is Herefore, it's
something that I think when the listeners can take responsibility
in being part of in gathering information and archiving information,

(02:44:39):
in sharing sources and direct connects so that the information
gets out there and so as we wrap up this
retrospective for twenty twenty five, two things in particular standout
to me. One is that our system is brittle as hell,
and two that people are resilient as well, and taken together,

(02:45:02):
I believe it's an indication that we are indeed in
a world of transition, and it's still uncertain, and it's
as to how it will turn out. The future hasn't
been written yet. We don't know. We do have the
ability to choose what we do next. So if you
look towards a new year, think about something you want
to build or strengthen, whether it be a skill, a relationship,

(02:45:25):
a practice, a project of some kind that conserve you
and those around you going forward. That's all I have
for today. All power to all the people, Happy New Year, Peace.

Speaker 2 (02:45:51):
This is it could happen here Executive Disorder, our weekly
newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world,
and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. Today
I'm joined by James Stout, Mia Wong and maybe Sophie Lichterman.

Speaker 5 (02:46:05):
Maybe yeah, let's send you first name.

Speaker 2 (02:46:10):
I'm always here.

Speaker 14 (02:46:11):
I just don't necessarily have anything to add, because you're
all so good at your jobs.

Speaker 2 (02:46:16):
No, no, we love when Sophie has something to contribute
to this show. So what should we talk about?

Speaker 8 (02:46:23):
First?

Speaker 14 (02:46:24):
Let's do some quick updates from last week. As we
mentioned in the episode description, last week we recorded prior
to an incident that happened in Portland where two people
were shot by Border patrol or ice. Very unclear that
there was not a lot of information given out and
the way that the situation unfolded, the way that DHS

(02:46:47):
said it that there was a targeted stop of two
people and they resisted dress So of course what do
they do? Just shoot into a car and those people
drove away and then quickly called for help and then
went to the hospital. We really don't know anything further
than that. I watched many press conferences from Oregon and

(02:47:13):
Portland officials, including the governor and the mayor, talking about
the situation. Everybody's pretty horrified by it locally, but that's
not the story we were getting from DHS. I can
read the statement if you guys want, Okay, Yeah, since
Robert's not here, Robert was at CS but was also

(02:47:35):
following the story very closely and did some reporting on
his blue sky if you want to.

Speaker 2 (02:47:40):
Go back and look at that.

Speaker 14 (02:47:41):
But the statement from DHS said at two nineteen pst.
US Border Patrol agents were conducting a targeted vehicle stop
in Portland. Organ the passengers of the vehicle and target
is a Venezuelan illegal alien affiliated with the transnational gang
trend de Agua prostitution ring and involved in a recent
shooting in Portland. The vehicle drivers believed to be a

(02:48:03):
member of the vicious Venezuelan gang trendy Agua. They love
to just throw that out of there.

Speaker 2 (02:48:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 14 (02:48:07):
When agents identified themselves to the vehicle occupants, the driver
weaponized his vehicle and attempted to run over the law
enforcement agents. Fearing for his life and safety. An agent
fire defensive shot. The driver drove off, with the passenger
fleeing the scene. The situation is evolving and more information
is forthcoming. That was on January eighth, at about five
pm Pacific. And that's their take, that's their like go

(02:48:31):
to move. The excuse for randomly shooting at a car
is that they were weaponizing the vehicle towards the agent.
We really don't know much further than that. Miya, do
you have anything you want to add.

Speaker 15 (02:48:44):
Yeah, so I think we should make two things through one.
Most of the people who were shot have survived, which
is good.

Speaker 9 (02:48:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 15 (02:48:51):
Yes, it's also worth noting that So the day we
are recording this, on the fourteenth, there was a report
released by Del Cameron and Ryan Shapiro at Wired talking
specifically about how they got a bunch of intelligence documents
from the Trump administration about trend Agua and to briefly

(02:49:13):
summarized sory coms, I'm just gonna quote the subtitle of
it because it gives a good representation of what is
in the actual intelligence documents.

Speaker 2 (02:49:19):
See, that's all we need.

Speaker 15 (02:49:21):
Yeah, hundreds of records are pained by Wired shows thin
intelligence on the Venezuelan Gang of the United States, describing fragmented,
low level crime rather than a coordinated terrorist threat. So
they can barely even find existence of this group in
the United States. These two people, I am ninety nine,

(02:49:42):
I would would I would stake my life on the
on none of the stuff in that report about them
being in this Venezuelan criminal organization being true. Almost everything
that has come out of Homeland Security, as we've talked
about with every other previous shooting almost everything that out
of Homeland Security is a lie. So yeah, we will

(02:50:04):
probably in the coming weeks figure out what actually happens,
but unfortunately, right now we're relying on a combination of
Portland government officials who are somewhat more reliable and Department
of full Land Security, which is utterly unreliable.

Speaker 7 (02:50:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:50:19):
I do have one thing to note here as for
what the local officials in Portland are saying. Portland Police
Bureau Chief Bob Day started a January tenth press conference
by saying, quote, recently I read the Declaration of Independence
for the first time unquote, and then stated that the

(02:50:39):
two victims of the shooting have quote some nexus to
involvement with Trenda Agua, and then on January eleventh, Maltnama
County District Attorney Nathan Vasquez was interviewed on CADU News
and said that he believes Trenda Agua is active in Portland,
but he could not confirm in his office has any
criminal cases against the gang.

Speaker 16 (02:51:00):
The Department of Homeland Security has identified the people who
were shot, saying they are affiliated with Trinda Ragua, the
Venezuelan gang, and are connected to other crimes in Portland.
Does your office have any cases against these individuals?

Speaker 17 (02:51:14):
You know, this is all These are all things that
we're going to be looking at and going through very
carefully as we evaluate the case. One to make sure
that if there are other pending matters out there, that
they're taken care of, but also just to make sure
we get a full picture of what's going on in
this situation.

Speaker 16 (02:51:28):
Do you have any knowledge of whether Trendera or Ragua
is active in Portland and Moltmama County.

Speaker 17 (02:51:34):
It's certainly something that we have seen and we are
we are working on with our local law enforcement.

Speaker 3 (02:51:40):
We have seen them in our area.

Speaker 17 (02:51:43):
They are one of kind of a host of different
groups or individuals out there that are engaged in criminal activity,
and it's something that we're working on.

Speaker 14 (02:51:52):
Just a lot of biased disinformation and misinformation. We don't
actually really know what happened, but I am grateful that
that those folks did not lose their lives unlike Renee Good.

Speaker 3 (02:52:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 15 (02:52:08):
Yeah, And I also briefly want to mention here about
Renee Good. There's been an attempt by the Department of Justice.
A bunch of people at the Department Justice have resigned
rather than attempt to prosecute Renee Good's wife.

Speaker 2 (02:52:20):
Six high level prosecutors have resigned in the past week.

Speaker 15 (02:52:24):
And this has been a very very standard reaction from
law enforcement when they don't kill someone or when there's
someone else on the scene. A few months ago, I
shot a woman in Chicago. She thankfully survived, but they
also charged her afterwards. So this is a very very
standard practice. And they are right now trying this on
Renee Goods wife after she watched her fucking wife get

(02:52:47):
killed in front of her.

Speaker 9 (02:52:49):
Yeah, so I know people have also been waiting for
updates on It run. We have an episode that came out.
It would have come out on Wednesday, two days before
this comes out. You'd like to know more about what's
happening in Iran. We had a really excellent talk with Gordayen,
and I would suggest you go back and find that episode.
And I wanted to update people on what is happening
in Syria, I guess specifically northern Syria right now. So

(02:53:14):
the two neighborhoods Shikmunk sud Nesa Fria, those are both
neighborhoods in Aleppo right that there's sometimes characterized as Kurdish neighborhoods.
But like you ZD people live there. There are various
Christian people living there as well. Right, it's not one
hundred percent Kurdish. I think sometimes there's a tendency among
people who write about Syria to see things as ethnic modelists,

(02:53:36):
and I think that is not the way to approach
these things. But anyway, both of those neighborhoods have now
been fully seized by the Syrian Transitional Government. Some SDF
fighters were bust back to Kamishlo, which is the capital
of the aa ne s somethime's going as Rosjava fighting
is now moving closer to the Euphrates, right closer to

(02:53:59):
the core of what people will call Roshjava. I think
at a minimum the goal is probably to remove the
SDF from any areas that are not majority Kurdish. So
right now that they're fighting in Derhafa and they will
begin fighting, or that they have already been drawn attacks
in other areas as well. In a leopard Is Syrian observed.

(02:54:20):
Joined Human Rights, which is a Britain based human rights organization,
documented several war crimes and going to quote here, SOHR
documented twenty three cases of extra judicial executions and desecration
of bodies in shik Maksud and Alasafria neighborhoods in Aleppo
City in the past few days. Here are further details.
The bodies of fifteen members of the Internal Security Forces ASAISH,

(02:54:42):
including bodies of four female members, were deliberately incinerated. A
female member of the SASH forces was killed during the
clashes and her body was thrown from the top of
the building. The reason they've been able to document these
is that they're widely broadcast on telegram. Right people are
very proud of what our war crimes, the desecration of
the remain. At the same time, the Islamic State carried

(02:55:04):
out three simultaneous attacks on the twelfth of January, enduring
several SDF personnel, and it seems that this whole debacle
has put the peace process between the PKK. The PKK
is a distinct entity from the SDF right, but nonetheless
the PKK guess is seeing Kurdish people killed in Syria

(02:55:26):
and Turkish support right. There have been some reports of
Turkish drones being used or flying around there, so the
KSEK if people aren't familiar, the KSEK is the organization
that brings together the different political groups in kurdis Dan
that broadly adhere to the political ideology or thought of
abdulah Ojulan, but take different approaches to that. The KSEK

(02:55:49):
released a statement saying, quote, the attacks on chikmuk Sud
and a Sophia and the preparations for attacks on the
east of the Euphrates also call into question the ceasefire
between our movement and Turkey and the ongoing piece democratic society.
That is not great, right. Yeah, you know, this is
a place where people have been at war, killing and
dying for more than a decade, and it's very sad

(02:56:10):
to think of more killing and dying happening there. Garana,
you wanted to talk a little bit about some domestic terrorism,
I guess some actual domestic terrorism and us AN attack rate.
Do you want to talk about that?

Speaker 8 (02:56:21):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (02:56:22):
On Saturday, January tenth, the Beth Israel Congregation synagogue in Mississippi,
and historic synagogue, the oldest in the state that was
once targeted by the KKK, was set on fire in
the middle of the night, damaging the interior of the building.
A nineteen year old college student named Stephen Spencer Pittman

(02:56:43):
has been charged with federal and state arson charges, as
well as a hate crime enhancement. On Instagram, Pittman described
himself as a quote unquote follower of Christ and shared
a meme of the anti Semitic happy Merchant hours before
the attack.

Speaker 9 (02:57:00):
Jesus Christ Jesu.

Speaker 2 (02:57:03):
The happy merchant is an anti Smenic Jewish stereotype that
is often used in memes originating from the four Chen
era of whoa Jack memes. You've probably seen it before.
It's a crude, anti Semitic rendering of a Jewish person
with his hands clasped together. Pittman has confessed to starting

(02:57:23):
a fire in the building, which he described as the
quote unquote Synagogue of Satan. According to an FBI affidavit
and reporting from the AP states that during his first hearing,
when the judge read him his rights, Pittman said, quote
Jesus Christ is Lord.

Speaker 1 (02:57:41):
Quote.

Speaker 2 (02:57:42):
According to the FBI affi, David Pittman texted his own
father during the arson, sending a photo of the synagogue
with the messages there's a furnace in the back, hoodie
is on, and they have the best cameras unquote. Pittman's
father attempted to can Vince's son to come home and
later turned him into the authorities. Pittman suffered burns to

(02:58:06):
himself during this attack. He's the only person injured as
a result of this incident. Big flee. I'm glad he
got hurt. Pittman's phone was found in the synagogue damage
from the fire, though his location was able to be
tracked via the Life three sixty GPS tracking app which

(02:58:27):
shows a stop at a gas station where Pittman allegedly
picked up gasoline before heading onto the synagogue.

Speaker 9 (02:58:35):
Great of what a fucking idiot. But yeah, I think
this is the only synagogue in the state, right, like.

Speaker 2 (02:58:41):
To the oldest synagogue in the state. I doubt this
is the only synagogue in Mississippi.

Speaker 9 (02:58:46):
The largest one.

Speaker 2 (02:58:47):
That's it. Yeah, yes, yeah, it's it's like the most
famous one from.

Speaker 9 (02:58:50):
The Yeah yeah, And like you said, it was attacked
by the Klan before it was didn't he attack exactly
the same part of the synagogue that the Klan previously burned.

Speaker 2 (02:58:58):
I don't have that in my notes.

Speaker 9 (02:59:00):
That is, it seems like that's what he was same vibes.

Speaker 2 (02:59:04):
Now, he did say that he did a lot of
research on the target and that he needed a home
run in communications to his father and Pittman was a
baseball player in the state. There's not much more to
say about this, Like this is a weirdo Instagram Christian Zoomer,

(02:59:26):
who also offered like a fitness service. It's unclear how
real this is or if he had like, you know, customers,
but he was offering faith based fitness transformations.

Speaker 9 (02:59:39):
Es.

Speaker 2 (02:59:39):
Yeah, that's the thing, Like you have a little bit
of like the Christian looks max or vibe going on
with him, as well as sharing a series of anti
Smitic posts made on Instagram.

Speaker 9 (02:59:51):
Yeah did you see this Deborah lipstat tweet geah No,
so Deborah lipsdat right, who was previously the she like
the Envoil anti Semitism, posted a twenty three on January eleventh.
This is a major tragedy, but it's more than that.
It's an arson attack and another step in the globalization
of the Intifada.

Speaker 2 (03:00:10):
That does not seem to be the case. Yeah, it
doesn't know.

Speaker 9 (03:00:13):
No, but this is like pretty uh way off base
in fact, right, But yeah, I think it's still rather
telling that.

Speaker 2 (03:00:21):
This is this is not like a Hamas anti imperialist Zoomer,
Red Triangle and biotype guy. This is a right wing
Christian nationalist college athlete, Christian Zoomer who shares antisemitic memes
on Instagram. This is a pretty standard, you know, pre
twenty twenty two type of like synagogue attack. Yeah, in fact,

(03:00:44):
the fire was started right in front of a Tree
of Life memorial plaque in the synagogue.

Speaker 7 (03:00:50):
Jesus Christ God, of course it was yeah, and we
are back.

Speaker 15 (03:01:09):
So the thing I thought I was going to be
talking about this week was a Supreme Court ruling on
Trump's tariffs. However, the Supreme Court, contrary to the expectations
of basically everyone, didn't actually release a ruling on the
tariff stuff today.

Speaker 2 (03:01:21):
We have no idea when they're going to release that. However,
instead of that, we got one of.

Speaker 15 (03:01:27):
The most bizarre and extraordinary statements and videos I have
ever seen from someone who was even remotely affiliated with
the US government. So on Sunday, Thuderal Reserve chair Jerome
Powell released I don't even have a good reference for
what this is. The closest thing I can think of
is it's a kidnapping video, but it's more like a
help I'm about to be kidnapped video in which he says, quote,

(03:01:51):
the Department of Justice serve the Thorough Reserve with grand
jury subpoenas threatening a criminal indictment related to my testimony
before the Senate Banking Committee.

Speaker 1 (03:01:59):
Last.

Speaker 15 (03:02:00):
So, this is nominally about cost overruns effectively in renovations
of the Federal Reserve. If anyone has ever paid attention
to any single US government project ever, you will know
that there are cost overruns on by most projects. This
is just how the government works, because you come in
with your little bid that's below what the actual cause
is going to be, and then it costs more than that.

(03:02:22):
Now this investigation is being run directly into your own power.
And by the way, this statement was published on the
Federal Reserves. This is like an official statement from the
Federal Reserve Board.

Speaker 4 (03:02:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 15 (03:02:35):
So, he also says later in the statement, quote, the
threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal
Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessments of
what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences
of the presidents. This is about whether the Fed will
be able to continue to set interest rates based on
evidence and economic conditions or whether instead monetary policy will

(03:02:57):
be directed by political pressures or intimidation. This is extraordinary.
They got sixteen other central bank leaders from around the world,
and we're talking about Norway to Indonesia to submit a
letter expressing where they use the words solidarity to express
the support of Powell. I can't emphasize enough. Do you

(03:03:20):
know how bad it is to get central bank leaders
to say the word solidarity?

Speaker 3 (03:03:27):
Yeah?

Speaker 15 (03:03:28):
Now, this is following a Trump two pattern of using
the DOJ to attack their political enemies. Today the fourteenth,
as we're recording, this also saw the beginning of investigation
into Senator Elisa Slotkin over her participation in a video
a few months ago encouraging US troops to disobey illegal orders.
Mark Kelly, who was also in that video, was also

(03:03:49):
targeted with a Pentagon investigation over the video.

Speaker 2 (03:03:52):
So this has become very common.

Speaker 15 (03:03:54):
However, Jerome Powell is a Trump one appointee, so this
is someone who is also and this is this is
this is something that worth mentioning.

Speaker 2 (03:04:03):
Powell is very popular in conservative.

Speaker 15 (03:04:06):
Circles, largely outside of a very very immediate circle of
people around Trump, who want their president to be able
to control the interest rate.

Speaker 1 (03:04:15):
Now.

Speaker 15 (03:04:16):
I'm going to do a full episode about this, probably
next week, but the independence of the central bank is
one of the core pillars of the global reputation and
stability of the US dollar. Now I'm not saying here
that the central bank is good. I'm saying that this
is how the entire world economic system operates, right. It

(03:04:39):
is based on the central Bank operating as a series
of quasi public but still technically non government entities that
make independent decisions on interest rates. Now FED interest rates effectively.
And I'm saying effectively here because I'm simplifying a very
complicated set of economic interactions into one sentence, but they
effectively set in for bank loans and the broader economy,

(03:05:02):
which in turn has a massive impact on how fast
or slow the economy grows. And the FED uses this
as a tool to control inflation and unemployment through a
basically a single macroeconomic policy lever. The FED does much
much more stuff than this. I will get into this
in the other episode. It has a series of unbelievably
crucial functions. But what is happening here is the Trump

(03:05:27):
administration attempting to directly seize control of the FED, and
this is a nightmare. The actual mechanisms that work here
in terms of the relationship between interest rates and the
Fed's economic policy toolkit and inflation are not well understoody
even by the Fed, which is something you can get

(03:05:48):
if you go read the Federal Reserve documents. It's very complicated,
it's all contested, but it is the Fed's job to
be able to do this, and they will admit they're
not incredible at its Trump administration is running this directly.
The trumpdministration has absolutely no idea how any of this
stuff works. Yeah, this is giving them the keys to
the global economy and they are going to just start

(03:06:09):
pushing buttons. This is a significant enough threat that several
Republican senators and this is not just Morowski, these are
just regular Republican senators have spoken out against this move
and have expressed, you know, expressed that they think that
drump Powell is innocent and that they will vote against
any attempt to approve a Trump nominee for the head

(03:06:32):
of Federal Reserve, which is also extraordinary. This is one
of the largest breaks we've seen with Trump from the
Republican Party so far, and the reason that there have
been actual breaks from the Republican Party is that this
is the rubicon for a lot of sectors of capital.
Almost anything can be endured as long as the president

(03:06:55):
does not have direct control over the money supply, which
is what Trump controlling the Federal Reserve directs would be. Now,
part of what's going on here, right is that this
is an attempt to choose a new chair of the
Federal Reserve Board by getting.

Speaker 1 (03:07:09):
Powell out of his job.

Speaker 15 (03:07:10):
However, so Powell's term expires in May, but that's Powell's
term as the Chair of the Federal Reserve. He's still
on the Board of Governors, and the Board of Governors
also has to approve a new head of the Federal Reserve.
So Trump needs to oust him from his position as
the governor of the Federal Reserve Board, because if he
doesn't do this, he doesn't have enough votes to get

(03:07:31):
his appointments. The really dangerous thing here, on top of
the abstract principle of you know, the president having direct
control over the central banking system, the direct media threat
is that his preferred candidates, who is currently one of
the Federal Reserve Board governors or one of the Federal
Reserve governors she's on the board is Stephan Merin, who

(03:07:53):
is the guy who wants to charge other countries for
holding US bonds.

Speaker 2 (03:07:58):
So yeah, I forget.

Speaker 15 (03:08:00):
This guy is a mediac, right Like, that's sorry, that
is that is deeply unfair to mediacs, who are very
reasonable people. This guy is I cannot emphasize enough if
you put someone in charge of the Federal Reserve who
literally did not understand what economics was, they would do
less damage than putting Stiffevan Mirron in charge of this.

(03:08:23):
This is a nightmare. This guy has no idea what
he's doing at all. He is effectively a cipher for
Trump administration. And this is one of the positions in
the entire capitalist system where the chair of the Federal
Reserve has to be someone who at least sort of
knows what's going on. They can be evil, and they

(03:08:43):
very often have been, but they have to sort of
know what's happening. If this guy gets put in charge
of the Federal Reserve, he is going to turn the
US economy into a smoking crater. And that's what's at
stake here with this attempt to prosecute Jerome Powell.

Speaker 2 (03:08:59):
Powell blink three times. If you need help. He is
cabin s o s with his fingers. It is a
very unnerving video that he posted.

Speaker 9 (03:09:15):
Yeah, it's just like one of those if I disappear.

Speaker 2 (03:09:18):
He looks really scared.

Speaker 15 (03:09:20):
Yeah, and I think this is going to be one
of the major flashpoints here because even the tariffs don't
have the potential impact for economic disruption that handing the
make countries pay money the whole US bonds guy, the
Federal Reserve Board chairman does so.

Speaker 9 (03:09:43):
Yeah, you will see a position from Republicans because it
directly impacts their bag.

Speaker 15 (03:09:48):
Yeah, this is the most you can possibly fuck with
the money by tending to take control of the entire
money supply. There's a lot of fears here too, and
it's sort of worth mentioning this. I've been seeing this
passed around a lot. Is that there is another sort
of recent example of a technically elected president assuming effectively
dicatorial powers, and it's Air Towan, and Air Towan eventually

(03:10:09):
took control of the central bank. And to get a
sense of how that's going, the inflation rate in Turkey
right now is currently thirty percent and everyone is celebrating
because it's below thirty one percent, and this is the
lowest the inflation rate has been in ages. It was
like seventy percent when they first started this, and it
was fifty percent last year, and they've gotten it down
to a mere thirty percent inflation rate.

Speaker 9 (03:10:29):
Yeah, thinks Karen.

Speaker 15 (03:10:30):
Well, so this is the kind of thing that's on
these people's minds because they all understand this. And this
is not the Turkish Central Bank k central bank is
obviously important in the world economy. This is the United
States Central Bank. This is a question of the fundamental
legitimacy of the dollar as the world reserve currency and
of the premier currency in the world economy. So we

(03:10:52):
will see what happens as this continues to unfold. But
this is probably the premier economic fight of the entire
Tip administration, and we will we will continue to update
it as we learn more about how this is going
to go.

Speaker 9 (03:11:05):
So I want to talk about something that came to
my attention of the break here.

Speaker 2 (03:11:10):
I feel like we should utilize a banking segue in
my opinion.

Speaker 9 (03:11:15):
Okay, fine, yeah, fine, fine, fine, talking of banks and
of centralizing bank power under the state.

Speaker 1 (03:11:24):
There you go.

Speaker 9 (03:11:25):
Let's talk about an organization that once began as a
member of the KPD. We're going to talk about Germany,
and specifically I want to talk about an organization called
Roster Hilfer red Aid. Don't really speak German, so if
I've pronounced that wrong, I hope you'll understand. Why we're
talking about Rotter Hilfer is that we a few months

(03:11:46):
ago reported on the State Department adding various European organizations
to its FTO list Foreign Terrorist Organization, right, and we
wondered what this was about and what it would mean.
We are now starting to see a little bit of
what it would mean because Rotter Hilfer red Aid has
had its bank account closed in Germany. It had accounts

(03:12:07):
with two different banks, both of which had sort of
broadly social or ecological missions, right. They were sort of
progressive banks. I guess if such a thing can exist,
because these banks are concerned with being sanctioned and effectively
locked out of the United States swift system for doing
business with a terrorist organization. Just to give some background

(03:12:30):
on the org, I guess there's not a direct lineage
from the KPD to this, but there was an organization
of the same name from which it sees itself as descended,
set up by the German Communist Party, which of course
was dissolved by the Nazis. Today what they do is
they do legal aid stuff. They appear to like send
observers out to protests to kind of document state violence

(03:12:52):
that they have done, some made for asylum seekers. It
has grown massively, like it's doubled and they're doubled again
in the last day in terms of membership right, and
there have been attempts to ban it from the domestic
right in Germany. I've linked to one of their after
ones in the show notes of people want to read it.
But it being undbanked is effectively going to be fatal

(03:13:15):
for the organization, right like it can't provide legal aid,
It can't provide legal support if it doesn't have a
place to store its money. I mean, I guess it
could just have a big box of cash, but it's
going to make it very hard for the organization to
take donations or to allocate that the money that it has.
So this is something we might see more right certainly
in Germany because Anti for aust is the organization that

(03:13:37):
was sanctioned, but potentially also in other places. Talking of
having no money, here are advertisements that can liberate you
of some of yours.

Speaker 2 (03:13:58):
So for one of our last stories, I would like
to discuss one of the bigger news stories from the
end of the year, but something we did not have
time to discuss in our last ed of twenty twenty five,
and this is the Turtle Island Liberation Front. An episode
next week will be going into even more detail, but

(03:14:19):
I will go over some of the broad strokes of
the Turtle Island Liberation Front alleged bombing plot. On December twelfth,
the FBI arrested four people in southern California, who the
government claims are members of a left wing activist group
called the Turtle Island Liberation Front. The criminal complaint, signed
on December thirteenth by an FBI agent working at the

(03:14:40):
Joint Terrorism Task Force in La alleges that these four
individuals conspired an a bombing plot planned for New Year's
Eve twenty twenty five. According to the complaint, on November
twenty sixth, one of the alleged TILF members I'm gonna
say TILF instead of the full name from now on,
named Audrey Irene Carrol, gave an eight payge handwritten document

(03:15:01):
titled Operation Midnight Sun outlining the plan for the bombing
to a confidential human source who works for the FBI
as an informant. The criminal complaint says this of the
confidential human source quote. The confidential human source is cooperating
with law enforcement and is a validated and vetted source.

(03:15:22):
The confidential human source has been a reliable source information
since in or around August twenty twenty one. The confidential
human sources cooperating for financial compensation. The confidential human source
does not have any criminal history. The confidential human source
provided past reliable reporting on other cases and has provided
reliable reporting in this case.

Speaker 8 (03:15:45):
En quote.

Speaker 2 (03:15:46):
The plan was for teams of four on the ground
participants to plant backpacks containing complex pipe bombs quote unquote
or IEDs outside of buildings at five locations, targeting two
US companies, and then simultaneously detonate the bombs at midnight
on New Year's Eve twenty twenty five. There would be

(03:16:07):
an off the ground member assisting the team remotely by
listening to police scanners or be stationed in a vehicle
in case a quote emergency getaway is needed on quote
that's quoting from the plan, and one member of each
on the ground team would create graffiti of a red
triangle and one message of the team's choosing on the

(03:16:28):
sidewalk closest to the building while the other three are
placing the devices. This indictment is a really interesting look
at the modern direct action left because it includes a
whole bunch of little tidbits like block and d block.
It includes the alleged co conspirators ground names like asanoch Ak, Nomad,

(03:16:50):
and kickware, which are their ground names for this action.
The criminal complaint states that after making the initial plan,
Carol and another individual, Zachary Aaron Page, recruited additional co
conspirators who participated in further planning meetups and helped procure
bob making materials. On December twelfth, the four defendants traveled

(03:17:12):
to a remote location in the Mohabi Desert with the
alleged intent to build and test explosive devices. FBI observed
from a surveillance plane and then arrested Carrol Paige, Dante Garfield,
and Tina Lai before they completed assembling a functional explosive device.
They have since been charged with conspiracy and possession of
an unregistered destructive device.

Speaker 10 (03:17:35):
As I mentioned in my talking points on December twelfth,
a group of individuals, again members of this anti government group,
traveled out to the desert to test their explosive devices.

Speaker 2 (03:17:47):
They had precursor.

Speaker 10 (03:17:49):
Chemicals there and they were going to they were going
to create these bombs in the desert. What they are
starting to do is put their chemicals and whares and
they'll compos out on the table on the table there.
This footage that you're watching is from our surveillance plane.
And then what happened after this is the Los Angeles

(03:18:11):
FBI swat team, along with the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team
moved in and arrested all four subjects without incident.

Speaker 2 (03:18:19):
Now, the Turtle Island Liberation Front appears to be a
relatively new group, with a social media footprint that only
was back to July twenty twenty five. The Instagram page
for their LA chapter reads quote liberation through decolonialization and
tribal sovereignty unquote. Their most recent post from December twelfth,
the day of the arrests, is promoting a quote Palestine

(03:18:41):
pop up market in Culver City. A post from November
twenty eighth reads quote if they hurt you, they hurt
me too. Our destinies are intertwined. Liberation for one must
mean liberation for all. The empire must fall, and from
within the belly of the beast, we must be the
ones to dismantle it. Revolution is the only way stop

(03:19:04):
quote peaceful protesting unquote, rise up, fight back. We are
not outnumbered. They are organized and be ready unquote.

Speaker 15 (03:19:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:19:14):
The FBI source met with two TILF members in late November,
Carol and Page, and during this meeting, Carol gave the
FBI source the handwritten bombing plot and retained three to
four additional copies of this plan. And the plan identified
five locations to target as marks with more blank slots

(03:19:34):
on the plan which are captioned add more if enough comrades.
According to the criminal complaint, these targets were quote property
and facilities operated by two separate companies that are used
or engaged in activities affecting interstate and foreign commerce unquote.
These are Amazon distribution type facilities. They've not specifically confirmed

(03:19:56):
they are Amazon facilities, but they are these sorts of
like global shipping facility. One of the things I find
really interesting about this criminal complaint is the way that
this FBI agent describes direct action tactics and the Turtle
Island Liberation Front members like security practices throughout the planning
of this action. This is quoting from the criminal complaint. Quote.

(03:20:19):
The plan described multiple operation security measures the co conspirator
should take to conceal their identities, such as the use
of a burner phone that would be disposed of after
the bombings by quote submerging it in a concrete brick
after destroying the sim and then disposing of the brick
in a body of water.

Speaker 8 (03:20:33):
Quote.

Speaker 2 (03:20:34):
The target date of the operation, New Year's Eve was
identified as an opportune time because quote fireworks will be
going off at the time, so the explosions will be
less likely to be noticed as immediately as any normal day.

Speaker 1 (03:20:43):
Quote.

Speaker 2 (03:20:45):
The plan emphasized that quote absolutely no mistakes can be made.

Speaker 7 (03:20:50):
Quote.

Speaker 2 (03:20:50):
The plans outline the use of quote unquote black block
over top a layer of quote unquote casual gray block
on top of normal street clothes, and noted to keep
hair very tightly concealed, and to wear gloves for the
purpose of avoidance of leaving behind DNA. The plan further
instructed that precipins should leave their personal devices at home
and make sure that devices were set up to stream

(03:21:12):
a long movie during the time of the attacks as
to craft an alibi or quote unquote plausible deniability by
having it appear as though the actor was actively using
their devices. The plan discussed pre operational surveillance of targets,
identification of D block or D clothing locations, and not
leaving quote anything other than IED's behind, as they could

(03:21:35):
not quote risk any evidence tracing back to us unquote.
The plan also noted the benefit of placing a small
tebble in a shoe to alter natural gait to obfiscate
their identification. Instructions on how to purchase materials to construct
a pipe bomb suggested using cash only, purchasing only in
small quantities toward suspicion, and splitting purchases amongst a team

(03:21:55):
rather than individually unquote. This is the type of stuff
I find really interesting, is this emphasis and all of
these you know, op sec like operational security measures, all
while working with an FBI informant from the very start
of the operation and then recruiting another one during the
planning stages. During a meeting on December seventh, three Turtle

(03:22:16):
Island Liberation Front members at least met both with the
confidential human source as well as an undercover FBI employee
while trying to recruit more members to join this operation,
both of whom accompanied the Turtle Island Liberation Front members
as they traveled to the Mohave Desert on December twelfth
to allegedly build and test out explosive devices for the

(03:22:38):
direct action. There's a lot more information in the indictment,
as well as some news that has happened since then,
like an arrest in Louisiana also tied to Turtle Island
Liberation Front, but we will discuss those in a future episode.
As of now, three defendants in this case have pled
not guilty and the fourth is set to be arraigned

(03:22:58):
on January twenty.

Speaker 14 (03:23:00):
Are you planning on doing that next week?

Speaker 8 (03:23:02):
Here?

Speaker 2 (03:23:03):
Yes, there will be an episode next week going into
more details about this group, their politics, as well as
the FBI undercover and informant and their level of involvement
in this action, which has spurred a lot of discourse
online about this being a quoe unquote like sting operation,
about this being a quote unquote syop.

Speaker 9 (03:23:24):
Yeah, I guess I'll just say very briefly, other the FBI,
it's not their first time, and it's not their last
time probably doing something like this, right, Like, you can
look at many other cases and see FBI sort of
CI is doing this kind of thing. So I think
that context is important here. I just want to finish
up with a migration update. First of all, DHS fractured
the skull of a protester and blinded him by firing

(03:23:48):
a less and lethal munition into his face at close range.
It's Santa Anna this week. I've linked to an article
for people who like to read more of that. Secondly,
Judge Boseberg, who is the judge over seeing the case
about the Alien Enemy Act, ordered the government to provide
relief to Venezuelan and sent to SECOT Marco Rubio provided
a statement responding that doing so would quote materially damage

(03:24:09):
US foreign policy interests. Essentially, he's saying the state can't
comply with the order to provide redress for wrongdoing by
returning them, and it can't even give them due process
right because it has since kidnapped the president of Venezuela.
In related news, senators including Schmidt and Cruz have called
for Boseberg's impeachment. Cruz makes these allegations. They're pretty minor,

(03:24:32):
and crucially and very unusually. Both of them have been
repudiated by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts,
which doesn't normally do this kind of thing, right, But
in both cases they've written letters kind of clarifying why
Boseberg's conduct is totally normal. Both the Cruz claims related
to decisions Boseburg made with which he disagrees. One pertains

(03:24:52):
to a non disclosure order that he gave so that
Republican senators would not be notified of subpoenas of their
phone records in the fake elector investigation that was called
the Arctic Frost investigation at the time that looked at
attempts to overturn the twenty twenty United States election. They're
also trying to impeach Judge Boardman for a separate decision
in which they feel her sentence for a person who

(03:25:13):
played guilty to attending to murder Justice Covenar was too light.
And then just today, which is Wednesday of this week
as we're recording, the State Department announced on x dot com,
the Everything website, that it is pausing visa processing for
seventy five countries. Quote whose migrants take welfare from the
American people at unacceptable rates. The freeze will remain active

(03:25:34):
until the US can ensure that new immigrants will not
extract wealth from the American people. It's not clear what
they are talking about. They talking about immigrant non immigrant
visas both of the above. Are they talking about people
who have violated the public charge rule or they just
feel that any access of any benefit of state support
is quote unquote extracting wealth from the American people. If

(03:25:57):
you do not know what the public charge rule is,
luckily to you, I made a podcast about it in
November of twenty twenty four, so you can scroll all
the way back more than a year and find that.
I'll try and find it for you and include a
link in the show notes.

Speaker 8 (03:26:12):
I think what's.

Speaker 9 (03:26:12):
Crucial here is that this will reduce dramatically the rate
of which migrants access government services right, which are often
very beneficial, especially when it comes to things like child nutrition,
child welfare services right. Finally, the State Department also posted
on x dot com, the Everything website, that it has
revoked one hundred thousand visas, including eight thousand student visas,

(03:26:34):
in the last year. We have no way of verifying
that if you would like to email us, you could
do so. Just email cool Zone Tips at proton dot me.
If you want it to be encrypted, you should use
a proton mail address as well.

Speaker 2 (03:26:48):
We reported the news.

Speaker 3 (03:26:50):
We reported the news.

Speaker 1 (03:26:56):
Hey, We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week
from now until the heat death of the Universe.

Speaker 14 (03:27:02):
It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
now find sources for It Could Happen here, listed directly
in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.

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