It Could Happen Here Weekly 213  ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Resegregation Of Newsrooms** - Corporate purges removed race- and culture-focused editorial teams, shifting coverage away from non-white communities. - Evans calls this a resegregation of media that erases specialized reporting and lived perspectives. Transcript: Mia Wong Teams for NBC Asian America, NBC Black, NBC Latino, and NBC Out. NBC Out was the queer one. They fired Gayle King. They did some stuff that frankly sounds like a joke. I'm just going to read this quote from The Root. And the CBS News Bureau in Johannesburg, South Africa, has been shut down, with coverage of Africa shifting to London. That is, again, they closed the South Africa Bureau, the Citizen CVS Bureau in South Africa and moved their coverage of Africa from Africa to London. If a hardline Marxist ideologue had written this in 1967, no one would have believed them. And in the process, what they've done here is they've destroyed the NBC outlets that were responsible for doing a whole bunch of coverage for different groups of non-white people, Right? NBCBLK, which is NBC Black, did a whole bunch of very good coverage of the uprising in 2020, right? NBC Asian America did a bunch of good work. NBC Out was a place where you could occasionally find a trans person who was allowed to write. And all of that is gone because one man, Larry Ellison, and his son, David Ellison, bought the fucking media company and installed this unhinged right-wing hack as their ideological Secret police. ([Time 0:10:56](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9b30cc78-ac83-47c3-8d55-6b419c7319f5)) - **AI, Surveillance And Media Power** - Larry Ellison and other tech billionaires push AI-driven surveillance and media consolidation as political tools. - Robert Evans links their investments to projects that increase state and corporate surveillance power. Transcript: Mia Wong Now, Larry Ellison, back in the halcyon days of 2020, was merely the 11th richest man in the world when he, quote, participated in a call shortly after the 2020 election that focused On strategies for contesting the legitimacy of the vote, according to court documents and a participant. The November 14th call included Lindsey Graham, Fox News host Sean Hannity, Jay Sekulow, an attorney for President Donald Trump, and James Bopp Jr., an attorney for True the Vote, A Texas-based nonprofit. True the Vote was a completely unhinged organization dedicated to overturning the 2020 election by doing all these weird voter fraud things. And they had a strategy call, like their're turning a strategy call with a bunch of Trump supporters, including one Larry Ellison. Now, again, that was back in 2020. Here in 2025, and now fighting with Elon Musk for the title of the richest person in the fucking world, Ellison said, and I quote, we're going to have supervision. Every police officer is going to be supervised at all times. And if there's a problem, AI will report that problem and report it to the appropriate person. Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that's going on. Now, in that intervening time, Larry Ellison is one of the people behind Oracle. And Oracle has benefited enormously as a company that got really in on the cloud storage boom. They've benefited enormously from selling a bunch of shit to AI companies. Larry Ellison is also a huge AI supporter, a huge backer of AI, a huge someone who wants to spread AI and someone who wants to spread AI, you know, very specifically, and this is very important, Into surveillance technology. He is also one of the people who, as 2020 went on and as the last half decade has come on and as the giant sort of backlash against the uprising and as his attempt to reassert racism as the Dominant ideology of the United States, and to make sure that capitals hold over this country and that white supremacies hold over this country would be maintained, he has become one Of the large drivers of this entire project. ([Time 0:14:44](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c09d6eda-1fcb-491c-998e-301155f9b1b6)) - **Billionaires Unite Social And Legacy Media** - Billionaires are consolidating both traditional media and social platforms to control narrative and surveillance capabilities. - Evans highlights Elon Musk and Larry Ellison as key actors linking social media and legacy media takeovers. Transcript: Mia Wong And obviously, the largest example of this is Elon Musk, who's purchased Twitter and has, you know, effectively turned Twitter into another arm of Stormfront. It is a just unhinged stew of racism and conspiracy that is now effectively unusable if you don't want, like, the most racist shit you've ever seen in your entire life, just in every single One of your replies. And it's also become a major vector of targeting for the Trump administration, where what Twitter is used for now, instead of being a platform that at one time actually was able to play A role as a thing that does resistance, as a tool of protesters and as a tool of people who opposed the untrammeled rule of billionaires. It's now been converted into just racist slop and a way to track down anyone who sort of vaguely center left and just put them in the eyes of the administration so they can be targeted by The state. And it's also worth noting that one of the people who helped bankroll the purchase of Twitter, because Elon Musk couldn't just purchase it directly, was one Larry Ellison. Larry Ellison is also part of a massive attempt to buy TikTok. Listeners of the show are probably familiar with the whole extremely weird story about how TikTok was ([Time 0:23:57](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c75dd5c5-1ab4-4dd8-b674-eda8e640cd8e)) - **Baristas Walk Out Over Unjust Firings** - Blue Bottle baristas in Boston and the East Bay unionized and staged walkouts after unfair firings and bargaining stalls. - They replaced lost wages during actions and sustained solidarity despite Nestlé ownership pressure. Transcript: Speaker 7 So um since we unionized last may we've had multiple staged walkouts in september of last year one of our union reps at the harvard square was unjustly fired. So we did a walkout over her termination. We did a walkout in January of this past year after Blue Bottle completely refused to negotiate with us over the renovation of the Prudential Center. And a lot of employees were going to be losing out on almost $8 in tips an hour. Jesus Christ. Which is just hundreds of dollars a month. And the company was like, oh, well, we bargained to an impasse, so we're just going to do whatever we want. Jesus Christ. We were like, okay, well, that's not how this works. Mia Wong No. Speaker 7 Yeah, and then in May of this year, we did another walkout when they made the same argument that we bargained towards impasse when they tried to install security cameras. Speaker 5 For anybody that's wondering, no, the cafes in Boston did not have cameras in them for the entire time that we were organizing or unionized until we began negotiating the installation Of cameras as part of our contract when they felt like they were done talking about cameras with us they declared impasse which they can't do because we were negotiating it as part of The contract so they would have had to get to an impasse on the entire contract before doing it yeah and their lawyer basically said well we weren't getting anywhere with that so we're Mia Wong Going to do it anyways oh god labor law is so fun because it's like like every boss breaks like 100 million labor laws a second and then kind of nothing happens unless you force it to this Speaker 5 Is speaking of breaking weird labor laws since we unionized one nice thing that has happened was until may of this year they were negotiating over serious discipline so final written Warnings or terminations with us in effect what this means is that they would sit down with us and just talk about why they felt like terminating someone was justified until they said We're not going to do anything else aside from fire them. But because of an NLRB ruling with Starbucks at the end of April, their lawyer said that they were done with that and they felt that they had no legal obligation to continue doing it. Oh, fun! Yeah. Which is a break from past practice. And we have in writing them committing to negotiating over serious discipline with us. So less than a week after they say, we're not going to bargain over discipline with you anymore. They fire one coworker of ours and our store immediately walked out over it. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Yeah. I continue to be proud of of that walkout specifically because it wasn't planned and because it was over something that is pretty technical labor law wise just the fact that they didn't Mia Wong Negotiate over the termination that's what that rocks yes that's like girl who's read a bunch of weird labor history this thing feels like a thing for a fucking weird labor history i Think it reminds me of is there was this thing in i think it was ziragora in spain she like the 20s and 30s where it was like this hyper militant labor like union like labor town but they had A whole thing where they refused to strike over like improving economic conditions because they were like this is bourgeois reformism and they would only strike over political stuff Hell yeah but if you arrested like one person like the whole fucking city would go out it's like this yeah no we could just call we can we could just fucking instantly get us get a fucking Walk out to happen over just like over like them fucking with like kind of technical labor stuff like this rocks we love to see it yeah i was on the floor that day that our co-worker was fired Speaker 7 And i remember i went on my 10 minute break after she was fired there's like a pond behind our store and i was literally throwing rocks into the pond and i was like this sucks so bad and i'm So angry and then i was like wait we're unionized i was like wait a minute we have a union and i go back into the store and i was like hey guys if we don't walk out right now, then what is the point? Yeah. And everyone was like, yeah, actually, if we don't walk out right now, what is the point? Hell yeah. Hell yeah. And then we all walked out and it was really beautiful, actually. Mia Wong That's so sick. That's so beautiful. I don't know. There's some kind of metaphor for like you walking in being like the first the rock hitting the pond and the first ripples going out and the whole thing oh absolutely the strike but like Speaker 7 That's i don't know that's gorgeous i love it that fucking rules congratulations hell yeah one of my favorite things to say is that union is friendship and friendship is unions and when Your friend gets fired you should be able to walk out. ([Time 0:36:05](https://share.snipd.com/snip/400c752d-1011-4a20-9d84-276bffd10367)) - **Fired For Wearing Green Pants** - Abby Sato recounts being fired allegedly for wearing green pants, a petty pretext to remove an organizer. - The firing galvanized coworkers to strike despite its absurdity and emotional impact. Transcript: Speaker 7 So on the record, I was fired because I wore green pants. What? I wore green pants like three weeks prior to me being fired. And let me tell you, there's nothing worse than waking up at 430 to go to your opening shift at your stupid cafe job to then clock in and be immediately hit with separation forms because You wore green pants three weeks ago? What? Speaker 5 You must understand what a serious infraction it is to wear green pants, of course. Speaker 7 I mean, clearly, the green pants that I've been wearing for the better part of two years, yeah. Firing Abby was generous, actually. Speaker 5 She should have been put to death for the crime of wearing green pants, of course. Most likely. Mia Wong This is some, like, fucking medieval, like, yeah, you pissed off the monarch by like you wore a color of pants that was like unfavorable to the eye of the king and now he's like having you Speaker 7 Drawn in corner like what is this bullshit like yep i wore green pants in front of my manager therefore i should not be able to make my rent yeah it's absolute gibberish. Mia Wong That might be the all-time dumbest firing reason I've ever heard. Like, what is the thing? Speaker 7 Oh, yeah. I mean, it's just so egregious because the managers know that I have a great rapport with all my coworkers. I'm friends with all of my coworkers. And they were like, hmm, how can we, you know, make one of our longstanding employees who is good at their job, you know, get fired. So green pants was the reasoning. ([Time 0:41:51](https://share.snipd.com/snip/aa612f9c-c7ed-4425-a221-d13dab6e4328)) - **Delay Tactics Drain Union Momentum** - Employers use bad-faith bargaining and delay tactics to exhaust unions after election wins. - Blue Bottle's minimal counteroffers and stall tactics aim to demobilize organizing without resolution. Transcript: Speaker 5 Hell yeah. Do you want to guess what their counter? So for reference, our union's requesting $30 an hour for baristas because that's a living wage according to the MIT living wage calculator. Do you want to guess what Blue Bottle said they would give us? 18? No. Well, actually, strangely, yes. They said right now we make 18 an hour, but they said they'll keep it the same and they want to retain the rate to change it whenever they want. They're making a floor. They're committing to a floor. I then tried to ask if they've ever, in their history, decreased wages. And they're like, no, I don't see why we would ever do that. And I'm like, oh, so then this floor is bullshit, actually. Their baseline for negotiations is our starting position is nothing yeah and this is a year after negotiating with them so far yeah like a year it's like okay like i mean at that point Mia Wong It's like yeah i don't know like fucking our our our starting position is we should have your house like this is like this is like equally like come on like you having their house is a more Reasonable demand than our basic negotiating position is nothing. Like, what are we doing here? Oh, no idea. James Stout Just God. Mia Wong Yeah. I mean, it's an obligatory line here about how after you win an election, the most common way for you to fail is bargaining. The first contracting companies know this. ([Time 0:50:36](https://share.snipd.com/snip/01d8eefa-9e33-4709-a3ce-466cc10403d2)) - **Small-Nation Revolt Without Social Media** - Grenada's revolutionary moment was driven by local networks and popular mobilization, not high-tech comms. - Andrew Sage emphasizes how grassroots organization overthrew an entrenched regime in 1979 with surprising speed. Transcript: Speaker 1 For those outside of the region, it's probably quite far from mind. You know, when most people think of Caribbean revolutionaries, they think of Cuba. But at the time, the rise and fall of the Grenada Revolution was everything. Hello and welcome to It Could Happen Here. I'm Andrew Sage, your Trinidadian host of It Could Happen Here, and I'm joined by James, your American-British co-host. Andrew Sage American-British? Yeah, I don't really know how to say that. Speaker 1 Which order should that hyphen be in? Andrew Sage Yeah, I don't know which way I'm supposed to hyphenate because we don't hyphenate white people, which is a very American thing. But yeah, glad to be here. I always enjoy learning more about this part of the world from you. Speaker 1 I'm glad, I'm glad. And as we speak, I'm hearing helicopters overhead. And it's really a reminder of the times that we are living in. Last night, there were quite a few stealth helicopters flying overhead, quite close to the ground. About three of them. Wow. All the lights were off. So it seems to be a ramping up, an escalation in some ways, or just a continuation of the existing military presence. Yeah, geez. And as we're talking about military presence in the U.S., which is something that I spoke about on this podcast before, if you go and check it out, we're here to discuss the very recent History, positive and negative, of my northern neighbor, Grenada. So I don't want to bog anyone down with too many facts, but it's important to get an idea of the context. So Grenada is the southernmost in the grouping of Caribbean islands known as the Wynwood Islands. It's a country composed of Grenada the Island and a few smaller islands, including Karyaku and Petit Martinique. It's long been considered the Spice Isle as the hilly mainland was and still is home to a lot of nutmeg plantations. They currently have a predominantly African population of just over 117,000, sharing a country merely 344 kilometers squared, or 133 square miles. For reference, the five boroughs of New York City collectively make up 778.18 kilometers squared, or 300.46 square miles. So, Grenada is small. You know, New York is big, but Grenada is also quite small. You know, for reference, it's slightly larger than Queens, but far less populated and far less dense. So we're talking small island state par excellence. And yet it has sat at the center of one of the most critical events in Caribbean history. And it might be one of the sites of yet another such incident. In light of the United States' request to Grenada on October 9th to establish a temporary military radar base at the infamous Maurice Bishop International Airport, a request which Has not yet received a conclusive response more than a month later at the time of me recording this. ([Time 1:12:52](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b2185e5e-2494-4653-ba6c-79a6f92640ae)) - **Revolution's Social Gains And Militarization** - The New Jewel Movement delivered tangible social gains like education and maternity leave but grew increasingly militarized. - Andrew Sage notes militarization and secrecy eroded trust and mirrored the authoritarianism they’d opposed. Transcript: Speaker 1 And that they did. You know, they organized a center for popular education. They organized teacher training that sought to make secondary schools and colleges more accessible to people. They introduced maternity leave for women. Although notably, party members who were women were pressured to come back to work after having children. So again, we'll get to those flaws. There was still inequality in pay between men and women, but the New York movement did make efforts to mandate equal pay and to engage in some changes toward addressing the inequality Between men and women in the country. However, a revolution was still needed within the revolution, as it has tended to be across these revolutions, you know, across these years. Usual stuff, women were still doing the most in the housework, and both sexes were expected to take part in political engagement. So you had women in the party, in the New Jew movement, it was a sort of an expectation of equality in some respects. Like, yeah, come out to work, even though you just had children, because everybody else is coming out to work. And yet it was like, oh yeah, y'all can keep on doing the housework. We're not going to take on our load there. Andrew Sage Yep. It's funny. Um finished my book recently but i have a chapter on gender and there's this a communist militant in spain who was fighting at the front line but also they were saddled with that double Burden right because women were expected to be the ones amongst especially amongst the communists who cooked and cleaned um in addition to fighting. But she has this famous line where she says, I didn't join the military to die with a dishcloth in my hand. Which I think is great. Yeah, it's a good one. I like it a lot. Yeah, yeah. Speaker 1 But flaws with engaging with gender aside, there were, of course, other things the New Jewel movement was doing that was positive. You know, they encouraged agricultural diversification and local food production. Moving away from that sort of exclusive or near-exclusive dependence on nutmeg production that had defined the colonial period. You know, they got rid of the old Westminster-style parliamentary system in favor of a one-party system with some elements of mass democracy. Now, the degree to which that democracy actually empowered people is debatable, but there were, you know, efforts on the record. You know, they organized public meetings to discuss the national budget. They set up workers youth and women's and farmers organizations. And unfortunately, even though Bishop was influenced by C. L. R. James, he continued to pursue the sort of hierarchical leadership common in Caribbean politics. And so even with these alternative organizations, had that kind of hierarchy. But I think that is to be expected from any movement besides anarchism. Andrew Sage Yeah. Speaker 1 So I can't say I'm surprised. They closed the independent newspaper torchlight after an article highlighting a Rastafarian protest against lack of representation in government. So there were efforts to ensure that Grenada moved towards secularism, but freedom of the press was not something that was particularly high in terms of priorities. And there were still prejudices against religious groups and movements like the Rastafarians that had yet to be addressed. You know, these things aren't dealt with overnight, but I think when all you have is a hammer, everything can sort of look like a nail. They didn't do anything too drastic in the economics sphere. For the most part, they left people's private businesses alone. They implemented some state enterprises and they implemented some cooperative enterprises. So a fairly standard mixed economy, a mixed economy that can to very extent be found throughout the Caribbean, whether they had a revolution or not. But they did establish cooperative and friendly relations with Cuba, which was a real thorn on the side of the United States. Yeah, he didn't like them. And now this is, I would say, from 1979 to 1980. So their first two years in power, people were nervous-sighted. They were hopeful of the genuine decolonization and positive change taking place. But the excitement part of the nervousightment started to die down by 1981. The People's Revolutionary Government, PRG, became increasingly militaristic as time went on. They organized militias and armed people. They were essentially preparing for a Gary counter coup, but also potential CIA involvement. The police were replaced with military personnel. ([Time 1:49:14](https://share.snipd.com/snip/daba70d6-226f-44bb-8024-2fcd755ca829)) - **Infighting Led To Collapse And Invasion** - Internal party splits, rumors, and personality politics precipitated the revolution's collapse in 1983. - The resulting executions and U.S. invasion shattered regional left movements and left enduring trauma. Transcript: Speaker 1 Originally Bishop agreed, but this started to create tensions. Things managed decently, but after a while Bishop was starting to push back against the co-leadership arrangement and the party started seeing it as him favouring his own ascendancy Over the collective unity. And then he went to Germany. He left the country on a trip. Don't worry, there was none of the coup this time, at least not yet. But he went to Germany on a trip, came back. There was not a welcome party for him. Womp womp. Things were coming to her head. The party did not have his back anymore. He could feel it. But he did know that the people still had his back. Remember, he knows he's charismatic. He knows people love him. And so all of a sudden, this is in 1983, by the way, a rumor was swirling that Cord wanted to kill Bishop. Andrew Sage Yes. Speaker 1 It's a dangerous rumor. You know, it shatters facade of a united front that had carried the revolution, that had carried the government for so long. But since most people loved Bishop, as he rightfully assumed, in fact, they were on a first-name basis with him. That's cool. They weren't saying, Prime Minister Bishop, your Honourable Prime Minister Bishop. It was, hey, Maurice, like that boy Maurice. Andrew Sage Yeah, that's always a good sign. Like, it's one of the positive marks of the revolution in Rojava, right? Is that everyone is a friend and everyone's referred to generally by their first name. And it's always kind of, I've seen enough, read enough about, you know, revolutions opposing a revolutionary hierarchy. So that's always a good sign, I feel like. Speaker 1 Yeah. So, meanwhile, you had Cord, who people didn't have the same kind of relationship with. Yeah. You know, as far as they're concerned, he's an enemy now, because of that rumor. Yeah. And the party actually suspected that it was Bishop that started the rumor. In fact, his own personal bodyguards suspected it. But Bishop himself denied it. Whether he did or did not start the rumor, we don't know. But the party was insulted by his movements and put him under house arrest. What? What? Gasp. You all can't see James right now, but he just did this shocked facial expression. Yeah, like a shocked Pikachu. And that's how the people were feeling. They're like, what? Andrew Sage A prime minister arrested? Speaker 1 You could do that? That's a thing? Robert Evans Yeah. Speaker 1 So you see the vanguard with all that secrecy at this point in time was operating on information that was not made available to the people. And the people were pissed at the party now. The cracks in this political arrangement, with essentially a secret society on top, were starting to show. The people, generally speaking, regardless of what the party wanted, wanted Maurice Bishop. They wanted the boy Maurice. But the party was not interested in what people wanted. The day is 19th of October, 1983. The pro-Maurice Bishop, New Jersey movement leaders, government ministers, and a mass demonstration of people roll up to Bishop's house to set him free. There were guards, of course, assigned to keep him in house arrest, but those guards stood down. They refused to shoot at the people. So the crowd of people walked to Fort Rupert. Now, Fort Rupert wasn't always Fort Rupert. It used to be Fort George. In fact, after the revolution ended, it again became known as Fort George. But Fort Rupert was named Fort Rupert after Maurice Bishop's father, who was killed by Eric Gehry, as you may recall. So they get there. But the majority of the neutral movement, who were, like I said, backers of Bernard Kord, were at another fort nearby. Then boom, three armored trucks pull up from the fort of Kord to Rupert's fort, Fort Rupert. They start firing into the crowd. People running all over the place. Hoban people died, Hoban people scattered. This event is a trauma for Grenadians, even to this day, by the way. So the court loyalists pull up and line up Bishop, Unison Whiteman, who was the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Norris Bain, who was the Minister of Health and was actually not part of the Neutral movement, and Jacqueline Kreft, who was the Minister of Education. They lined them up against the wall and shot them. Summary execution. Others, including trade unionists, businessmen, and high schoolers, were also killed at Fort Rupert. Jeez. Right after this, the military curfew was announced on radio. Cunidians were told to lock their doors. Violators of curfew were to be shot on sight. A couple of days later, as people mourned that they're dead, the news came that the United States will invade Grenada. ([Time 2:06:43](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3bae7970-7414-4435-a286-c92ce12ffc5f)) - **Organize Without Centralized Hierarchy** - Build decentralized, non-hierarchical organizing structures to resist cooptation and authoritarian collapse. - Andrew Sage urges radicals to prioritize distributed networks and grassroots empowerment over vanguardism. Transcript: Speaker 1 But you take an approach to organization that does not lend itself to the vulnerabilities of hierarchy. That you consider moving like my Corsa. That you take on networks and free associations rather than the sort of ex-Marxist spot, bullseye, centralized parties and the power struggles that ensue from them, from that thirst For power that led to so many downfalls for the revolutionary imagination. ([Time 2:29:45](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ee9655cc-ce75-4f10-99fe-bb738dd8eddc)) - **Policy Rhetoric Masks Imperial Pressure** - Recent U.S. moves toward Venezuela (blockade, FTO talk) blend imperial resource aims with legal gambits. - Executive actions risk illegal force, humanitarian harm, and increased migration, per Robert Evans and James Stout. Transcript: Andrew Sage Gothamist has obtained information about ICE being able to enter private parts of New York City shelters without a judicial warrant, or being able to obtain private information about Residents, despite both of these in theory being prohibited by sanctuary city laws in New York. This happened at least five times. The way Gotham has found this is by making a public records request for incident reports, which is a clever use of public record law. Nice one. The city is already aware of both jail and police officers violating these laws. And I think this is a good example of how people think of sanctuary city laws as like inassailable. But in fact, sanctuary laws, be they city, state, whatever jurisdiction, are very often violated. And it's good to see that being reported on more. Last week, we talked about Faustino Pablo Pablo, right? The guy who had been sent to Guatemala, despite the fact that he had protections under the Convention Against Torture for being returned there. The government has returned him to the US, which is good. That is a rare good immigration story. Yay! Yay! Yeah, you love to see it. It did really bum me out to see that, like, there were dozens of articles on him being sent there, right? And I couldn't find anything, any reporting on him being returned, which is kind of like, we should be happy for these people. We should. Yeah. We don't get many wins and we should take them. Yeah, we should be happy that this guy is not being likely to be tortured. At least it is still possible for them to remove him to a third country right that is not outside the realm of possibility but right now he's not in a place where a judge adjudicated he was Likely to be tortured and that is good good and trump has designated fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction which is great What are we doing here? I am trained as a historian, and I probably should remind you that we have been down this road before with the weapons of mass destruction, and I hope this is not leading where it did last Time, but I am very worried that it might. Robert Evans Yeah, it's one of those things. I'm both, we'll see, we'll know before this episode ends whether or not I'm wrong. Tucker Carlson stated recently that a source has told him the presidential announcement coming up is Trump declaring war, right? That like we're doing a war with Venezuela full on, not just some like airstrikes and stuff, just not to minimize illegal airstrikes in the sea or on Venezuela's soil. I don't know if I think that that's the likeliest thing. It just seems like such a huge jump. But also, at this point, there's a whole armada blocking off Venezuela from the rest of the world. And Trump put out a statement saying that their oil is our oil and belongs rightly to American companies. Oh, wow. Very, very possible. Very possible. We're about to go to war with them. I'm certainly not. I don't know what's going to happen, y'all. I'm white knuckling it like everybody else. Yeah, that fucking sucks. I didn't know the thing about that oil being RO. It's amazing. I'll read the exact quote to you, James. This is from a Trump, a truth social post, which has 12.4 thousand re-truths and 47,000 likes. Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America. It will only get bigger and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before. Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the oil, land, and other assets that they previously stole from us. The illegitimate Maduro regime is using oil from these stolen oil fields to finance themselves, drug terrorism, human trafficking, murder, and kidnapping. For the theft of our assets and many other reasons, including terrorism, drug smuggling, and human trafficking, the Venezuelan regime has been designated a foreign terrorist organization. Therefore, today I'm ordering a total and complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers going into and out of Venezuela. The illegal aliens and criminals that the Madero regime has sent to the United States during the weakened Biden administration are being returned to Venezuela at a rapid pace. Yada, yada, yada. Yeah, all of our oil land and other assets have to be returned to the United States. He's talking about oil that American companies have had at points like contracts to exploit, but he's phrasing it as like, their land and oil is our land and oil. Yeah, that's a very colonial way of phrasing a contract. Mia Wong 100%. Robert Evans Again, a lot of times, I would be like, okay, well, I don't know if war is the most reasonable thing to expect when the president's posting shit like that. It's very reasonable to be like, I think we might go to war. I think he might be about to invade Venezuela. I don't know what's going to happen, but you're no longer being like a kooky conspiracy theorist to be like, well, maybe he's about to try to take over Venezuela. Andrew Sage And maybe that is what's coming. I don't understand how in that instance they would continue to get Venezuela to accept people the U.S. Is removing. That's one of the sticking points that I see. Maybe he's found a third country, right? They've been very fond of finding third countries. I guess I should explain a little bit about oil leaving Venezuela, just so people are aware of that. So Robert read The Truth. That sounds like something someone says in church, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Here we are. So they're talking about blockading sanctioned oil tankers. Not necessarily every tanker that enters Venezuela is sanctioned. I believe Chevron has some contracts. Chevron tankers should be cruising yeah there's a lot of chevron yeah that shouldn't be an issue right they should be able to go back and forth they're not sanctioned it's the venezuelan State oil company which in english i guess you would say pdvsa putvasa putvasa is that how they say in english okay yeah yeah yep what venezuela has done previously and this is not by any Means unique to venezuela but this is generally how many of these regimes that are kind of in the ambit of venezuela i'm talking about iran and russia here have avoided sanctions and Sanctioned entities so far is by using what are called ghost ships I will link to an explainer on this. What they will do is use the names and identifiers of vessels that have been scrapped. They will change the flags of vessels, often to these small island nations for whom allowing ships to use their flag is kind of a source of income, right? And they will often use these to go out into international waters and then offload cargo, in this case, oil, right? So this happens pretty frequently with Venezuelan vessels. It was one such vessel called the Skipper that the US Coast Guard boarded, I think, last week as we're recording this. Yeah, sure. That is how Venezuela has previously been evading these sanctions. And Iran does this too. Russia does this too. They also do things like spoof their location or turn off their... They have like a locator beacon that ships are supposed to use. A transponder, ([Time 2:37:26](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f9f4d2d9-ddff-4804-ad39-9b6d9ebd0ab4)) - **Federal Pushback Against State AI Rules** - The White House AI EO aims to preempt state AI regulation by threatening federal funding cuts and litigation. - James Stout and Robert Evans say this protects landlord and tech interests, especially in housing price-fixing use cases. Transcript: Robert Evans And basically in this, and Trump stated that like the reason he's doing this is because it's absolutely critical to the U.S.'s future that we be at the top of the game when it comes to AI, That we be global leaders in this burgeoning new field. He states in the EO, these efforts have already delivered tremendous benefits to the American people and led to trillions of dollars of investments across the country. Certainly haven't. But we remain in the earliest days of the technological revolution and in a race with adversaries for supremacy within it. Trump stated in an interview that he expects AI to be 50 to 60 percent of the U.S. Economy in the near future, which is nuts. Andrew Sage Maybe that's just because everything else will just go to complete shit, you know? Robert Evans What the economy produces. But nearly all of our growth is related and is tied right now to data center investment. So Trump absolutely needs AI because without it, the country is very obviously in a recession. This is the only thing propping up the image of the economy as not being in the shitter. Now, what does this EO actually do? Well, the goal of this, the statement is that it is the policy of the United States to sustain and enhance the United States' global AI dominance through a minimally burdensome national Policy framework for AI. This EO will establish an AI litigation task force within 30 days of this order going out. The attorney general is supposed to establish this task force whose responsibility is to challenge state AI laws that are inconsistent with the policy set forward above, right? That we need to be globally dominant in AI, right? So this task force is supposed to go out and find state laws that it believes are like an onerous burden on the development of this technology. Going along with this, within 90 days of the order, the Secretary of Commerce is supposed to do an evaluation of all state AI laws in order to like point out which ones this task force should Go after. And then the stick that this EO establishes is that if this task force decides that like a state AI law is in violation of our need to be dominant in AI, we can restrict state funding to things Like the broadband equity access and deployment program, right? Basically, they'll cut off federal funding for like broadband access in order to punish states that try to restrict or in any way, shape or form govern what people can use and what companies Can use AI for. And the primary thing this is all about, I know we all think about the stuff that like most people have more direct experience with, which is like all the slop flooding the internet, the Disinformation that's continuing to cook the brains of a lot of our peers and elders. And just the fact that like it's making certain industries full of hardworking people a lot harder to exist because companies are just trying to replace quality work with absolute Like slop, trash. Yeah. But really what this is about and the primary focus of most of these state level laws regulating AI is the housing market, right? There's a good article in Politico about this written by Cassandra Dume. But she notes that per a national conference of state legislatures analysis in July, there were more than 40 pending bills across the United States related to just AI in the housing Sector. And most of these bills are attempting to stop landlords from using different AI programs to coordinate pricing. Basically, there are a couple of different programs, the most prominent, which is called RealPage. And what they do is landlords join these programs and they share information on like what their different properties cost. And then the AI knows what everybody is charging and can suggest that they charge higher prices, right? Now, the way that this is supposed to work is that you as a landlord look out at what's publicly available about the prices of your competitors and look at like what your customers are Currently willing to bear and then try to set your prices and, you know, future price increases based on that. What RealPage is doing is a legal collusion, right? This is price fixing. It's just the AI is doing the actual active price fixing. The landlords are just sharing their data and paying a fee to the service. And so a bunch of states have tried to stop this because this objectively makes the housing crisis worse. I know there's some annoying assholes who come out and be like, you shouldn't talk about anything but increasing the supply of housing. And like, that's idiot shit. Yes, we need to increase the supply of housing. This objectively hurts people. These programs objectively increase the price of rent. They do damage. We should be mitigating or making it impossible for businesses like this to exist. Anyone who disagrees is just being a dummy. New York passed a law in October that banned the use of AI algorithms to allow landlords to do price fixing. There's a similar bill in the Massachusetts legislature that's making its way forward right now. And this is fundamentally what a lot of the opposition to, like, state-level AI regulation is about, is that the landlords basically think that this is a great way to make a shitload Of money, and tech companies are like, and we can continue, we can make a shitload of money selling them the tools to do this. And states are trying to push back on this. And like, that's fundamentally what a lot of the impetus behind this executive order is, is an attempt to stop people from making this even more harmful. In that Politico article, they quote from Kevin Donnelly, who's the executive director of the Real Estate Technology and Transformation Center. And he talks about, like, well, actually, we're currently using AI to identify buildable lots and promote sustainable construction so that we can actually, like, reduce some of the Costs of housing. And all of these bills could, you know, undermine our ability to improve people's, like, yeah, just fucking go like literally jump off a bridge, man. Yeah. No, we know that's not how it works. We have data on this. Yeah. This isn't theoretical. Mia Wong Yeah. Yeah. Anytime a landlord, anytime a landlord says anything or a real estate developer that says anything that suggests the thing they want to do is lower rent, they are lying. You can tell because they don't fucking lower rents unless like a global pandemic happens. Yeah. Like, that's not how any of this works. Robert Evans And this has been controversial. Trump, before putting out the EO, tried to encourage the passage of a bill through Congress that would have done the same thing as the EO, right? And would have actually had like more force of law behind it, basically making it illegal for states to have their own laws regulating AI. That didn't pass because even Republicans don't really like that idea. For one thing, states' rights is still supposed to be a pretty big part of the party. But for another thing, there's like a lot of things that conservatives are really unhappy with in terms of AI. For example, it keeps exposing children to pornography and other things that kids shouldn't be exposed to. For another thing, there's a lot of American jobs ([Time 3:14:21](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3f8e4180-f818-4543-8f5c-83a59661513f)) - **AI Isn't A Magic Growth Fix** - Claims that AI is the only path to economic growth conflate idea production with profitability and ignore structural barriers. - Robert Evans and James Stout argue we need public investment and reduced bureaucracy to revive productive research. Transcript: Robert Evans Literally, the title is like, America, you've made it very clear that you hate AI. But what if it's the only way to restart the idea machine? Right. And this this dipshit columnist argument is that like well we're we're not we're running out of ideas and ai like human beings can't come up with ideas enough to create growth at the level That the economy needs to be growing and in order to like take humanity into the future really ai is the only way to generate more new ideas and i wanted to look at like what is this based Off of? And I think I figured out what like the fundamental source of all of this shit is, which is back in 2017, there was a research paper put out by the National Bureau of Economic Research by Nicholas Bloom, Charles Jones, John Van Rienen and Michael Webb. The kind of summary of that article reads as follows. In many growth models, economic growth arises from people creating ideas, and in the long run, growth rate is the product of two terms, the effective number of researchers and their Research productivity. We present a wide range of evidence for various industries, products, and firms showing that research effort is rising substantially while research productivity is declining sharply, Right? So basically, we have more people doing research and we're spending more money on research, but that research is translating into economic gains at a lower level than ever before, Right? To the point where we're not going to be able to continue to make economic gains like we used to be unless something changes. And if you're kind of paying attention to this, you might notice that that study, which is the underpinning of that Vox article and all of these claims that we need AI for ideas, really Is not actually making an argument that people aren't having more ideas. It's making an argument that it is harder to profit from ideas than it used to be, right? Now, that is fundamentally different from people not having ideas. For one thing, it's reducing an idea to something that delivers a return for venture capitalists, right? That's all an idea is in this. It's something that makes money. And a lot of great ideas, like the post office, don't generate a direct profit. Now, obviously, it's a net benefit to the economy that we have a post office, but the post office runs at a loss, right? Which is why you have state funding for certain things, because they're just not going to be the kind of ideas that like a bunch of Silicon Valley investors want to throw money into, right? Now, the other part of the issue here is just a very practical one, which is that a lot of the ideas, the great ideas last century that were like most correlated with massive gains in productivity, Stuff like the introduction of vaccines on a wide scale, indoor plumbing and electricity on a wide scale, phones. There's not ideas like that that are like that big and that much of a game changer left. Right. The low hanging fruit has been picked. The low hanging fruit has been picked. There's not another the telephone waiting out there. We already did that. It was the smartphone. There's not another indoor plumbing, right? There's not something that's going to be as much of a sea change for the economy and for the quality of human life as those ideas, because those were really big things. Yeah, maybe you could put it as something like actually cleaning the air that we breathe. Yes, but again, that's not profitable in a direct way. No. Right? That's an idea that would have a change that big, but there's not a profit incentive for it. Until we privatize the air, Robert. Right. Subscription model for breathing. Yeah. And there's a lot. Again, I find this whole discussion pattern like it's an example of the fact that like people like this fucking Vox article, who I don't feel like deserves to be named to this, have been Using chat GPT so much that they're no longer thinking. They're not really sentient in a meaningful way. Right. Like when you when you write something like that, it's because your brain has been completely fucking cooked. I did find a good article, ironically, from 2017, from Vox EU that is titled, Ideas Aren't Running Out, But They Are Getting More Expensive to Find, which is making a lot of the claims That I've made, or that I've been bringing up so far in this, which is that it's not that there's a lack of ideas, it's that it costs more money to do stuff like that now. Because everything so much more complex, the big ideas we're looking at aren't as simple as indoor plumbing. They require a lot more computing power. They require a lot more people working on them, right? Like we've plucked the low-hanging fruit. And it ends with a paragraph I find kind of valuable here. Returning to the oil metaphor, we are digging deeper into a trickier part of the rock. Of course, we could be wrong, and humanity may have just been chipping away at a particularly hard point that will soon give way, creating decades of cheap ideas. This is the hope of those who emphasize the revolutionary power of artificial intelligence and the singularity and accumulation of technology that triggers runaway growth at some Point in the future. Although we all enjoy science fiction, history books are usually a safer guide to the future. In this case, history suggests that large increases in research effort are need to offset its declining productivity. And again, if you want to have the big ideas and the Star Trek future that all of these billionaires like Elon Musk pretend they want, what you actually have to do is be willing to put a lot Of money into research and development without any promise of a profit. Your motivation can't be, well, now we have to get a 200% rate of return on our investments, right? It has to be, well, this would improve people's lives and make life more sustainable, right? Like finding solutions to a lot of problems with climate change, cleaning the air, like dealing with like lack of access to clean water, lack of access to basic medical care. These are not things where doing them means that your company gets an immediate profit and evaluation in the tens of billions of dollars, right? That's just not the way providing life-saving aid to people works. But the net value to the global economy would be massive if, for example, kids weren't going without food and access to clean water and had better access to education and thus were able To go into fields where they become researchers and generate ideas that eventually turn into profit, right? Like, these AI fucks aren't talking about ideas. They're talking about fracking the human mind, right? ([Time 3:23:39](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4e0638d5-e2c1-4974-819a-e46bc76e2589))