TikTok Bill PASSED, Tent City At Columbia, NPR CEO Is A CIA Asset?! and Mission Driven Tech
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Make noticing this is a IT. Rest assured, we aren't going in just the conflation of funding for israel and funding for ukraine. I at this point is kind of wild.

These are different conflicts. Why are they not being watered on separately? Gotta shut the pencil down.

Okay.

it's twenty twenty four tire.

I wouldn't discount how much of this is, just like it's fun to be outside in the spring .

with your friends. The c LPR, who is IT, turns out A C, I, A asset.

D, A, C, A, A important. Okay, sure. But I also always look at the new york times wedding announced in a noxious ultra elite to stuff I mean, she's from china .

like red flag, always a red flag.

What's up, guys? Welcome back to the pod. We have a special gas today. Um again, returning liz wolf, say hello.

Hey, what's up?

Liz wolf ones is IT first to say you run the musical 点 at reason I get to there is essentially .

like my personal diary that I just sort of like spit out every morning， like five or six A M. So like make of that. What you will reason, unfortunately, puts IT under their own branding. I say, unfortunate for them, not for me.

Well, keep up what you're doing. It's one of the few letters that actually read I did some followed a bunch today. I want to say which ones, but with me press, okay.

Um so I want to start with the tiktok bill. Uh, absolutely huge news. This week we've been writing about this and talking about this uh I think instigating this me personally for a very long time. Um we have followed every twist turn of the suian agne controlling uh powerful U S. Speech platform in amErica story um last you heard from us we talked about the uh house vote.

Um so this has since moved onto the senate, got somehow insanely mixed in with like funding for israel and ukraine and past the senate into law by biden um that's basically the story is, uh tiktok is now going to be forced by the government to the vast and uh this is monumental. This has happened before. We've talked about this you know in the sense of, or we've talked about this in the case rather of, uh, grinder is last big one.

That one I think in some sense you know way easier to defend our national security grounds is very obvious why you wouldn't want she's pining to have someone's like gay moods. Um the tiktok wine is uh a little bit newly on the national security side. We is definitely buy up. But you know what information are they getting and what are you using with IT? It's a complicated question um ferocious battle in washington but at the end of the day, the senate vote was overwhelming and by partisan, which is um well decisive and uh here we are sort of moving forward.

I think that there's a question now of who is going to buy this um that has recently been complicated by the fact that the CEO of tiktok who again, this is a company that owned by up the parent bite dance, which is the chinese company um so the CEO of tiktok is signaling that uh are the C E O by dance rather is signal that they are not going to sell the APP with the graham which of courses like the main part of the APP um that is to me that they are never going to tell the APP and will just be shut down completely because um china does not want us to know sort of what theyve been doing and it's valuable asset you know the asset the alcoves very good and I love to steal shit but does not want to share IT which understandable but also once can improve that china control the APP and um we're going to enter now about twelve months of legal hell. The big winner here is really just tiktok law firm, whatever is representing them because it's gonna boatloads of cash for months and month and months up until the final moment that uh, they cannot sell the company at which point, I don't believe they will sell the company. I do believe this thing or not in its current curation.

I I do you think it'll be shut down or effectively shut down if it's sold? It'll be some way worse version of IT that will absolutely you know not absolutely but probably fail and um and so follow many, many questions about uh you know is this a free speech issue as like ion musk said, I don't think IT is but interesting. Perhaps our libertarian on the chat can lay down that argument for us today.

Um is IT a you know .

I just want to give IT to you now like i'm going to list all the possible reasons, good or good list. What does your take on what has been on traveling? I mean, you also you've got this sort. You don't live in dc, but I feel like you are closer to this ort of dc pulse.

Living in D, C would be my worst nightmare. I would immediately myself. No, I think that you so I mean, i'm in an add consumer of all of the praise content on this issue. And I think I frequently find myself a little bit closer to the mixed ona camp then perhaps the start recent kept.

But I do think that you are still missing some things um namely one thing that I haven't thinking about a lot is the degree to which tiktok user growth has really been in pattering, that degree to which is sort of becoming an aging platform. It's no longer the sort of um playground of the gensec. It's getting a little bit older.

And I kind of wonder whether we will see IT become this milk to very shady APP a kinda instagram. We've even seen tiktok shift to attempting to be a little bit more than e commerce platform. It's a little bit of liberty in p cop out to say, oh, you know, the natural destructive forces in the market.

I will make IT. So this is a non issue that doesn't really need to be ruled on. But I also do think that every single time, no, there's spent an entire trust concern with regard to um meddle and some these other big platforms.

Anytime there's this concern about bigness to be for the tiktok concern is not bigness its national security. But any time there's a concern about a platforms market share, the platform kind of seems to take care of the issue itself by simply fAiling or buy a new scrappy upstart coming onto the scene and and stealing um it's lunch. And I wonder whether we're actually beginning to see some of those things in the worst with tiktok or maybe IT won't be as effective of a platform as the people who are concerned about IT say. That said, I do think that the way that the algorithms rental suppresses information that is critical of the ccp is something that is concerned to me.

I don't know if we have enough evidence to prove that in as air type of a manner as I would want there to be in order to take such a drastic measure that I find speech suppressing like a tiktok ban but also at the same time the area that I find most convincing is you know in the event like how effective would tiktok be as a mass propaganda dissemination platform in the event of a chinese ambition of taiwan example um i'm less concerned about algorithmic suppression of certain content and more concerned about algorithmic pumping out of propagandists content that uh, favors A, C, C, P. And that could really sort of work. I almost wonder what the whether they are kind of slow rolling IT in a way that would be very consistent with what the C C.

P. Does in other areas where they let a little bit of stuff seat through the great firework sometimes, right? They're very sneaky with making sure that it's not on an all or nothing thing.

And they know when dealing with an international audience, you don't want to raise american hackles too much. So of course, there's a little bit of you know tannen square content available on tiktok. Of course, there's a little bit hong kong content, a bill on tiktok.

But what happens when they really, really do wanted deployed IT as the sort of national security tool to change public perception in the us. Uh, at scale, that's the area that i'm concerned about. So those are just two thy like two areas, the e commercial ation and natural possible failure of the platform as well as my the jip concern that IT could be used as this mass propaganda designation platform.

What do you think of that, mike? I guess I just don't. So let's say that tiktok was suppressing I mean, that seems to be surprising. Information on like square.

whatever. I don't supply a lot of .

IT but not the entirety of IT.

right?

Like I don't you know and I I don't want to sound I don't want to be selling like a broker record here. I think commented on this quite a bit. I don't care really about that one as much. I think the thing that is really um what is really capped for, I think it's a problem to have them controlling a speak platform is potentially for you one hundred and whatever like hundred .

thousand million users in the u. It's massive .

a huge impact on how we see the world as a nation. That is a problem. It's a very nebulous ous question and um hard to prove and not necessary to prove my opinion because the question of trade reciprocity ity for me is a more than enough there is the national security question for the spying piece.

sure. Um and that's enough for the bay partition coalition in um in congress that forced the vesture of the APP. But one thing i've seen a lot of over the last few days has been this question of, well, how is china going to retaliate? And I thought like they have already done that.

Like what do you mean? This is like every one of our social media platforms is banned. Every one of our media companies is banned. I saw someone else say, um I made a comment on um the fact that it's pretty clear that the CEO uh of by dance wants to not sell the APP, which doesn't make any business sense at all but IT doesn't a lot of sense if you're run by the government and they said, h why on earth but he sell you know a potentially trillion dollar company for a billion dollars IT would be as if china gave a gonna ban facebook but said, you know or you could take a billion dollars, they wouldn't even do IT.

And like that's not a question because china did ban facebook and IT happened over there was never I think he was never an option actually in china, facebook is ban preemptively, but the companies that they do ban, like the new york times are shut down overnight if there's no like less what's forced to vesture of like of the chinese market or something is shut down. And I think that americans need to at least engage with this idea that every other country in the world seems to be thinking about trade in a very different way than we do. And um I don't know I I don't I don't think national security is important reason.

I don't think it's the only reason i'm glad to happened um but I think there are many other areas of trade that we should be policing in this way um in sort of demanding uh preciosity. So we just saw something from the vics, the the by administration that singles the opposite, which I wrote about a little bit this week, one of the takes on the daily but you guys should check out um you have now uh a uh our sort of trade watchdog group. Is changing the way that IT approaches this stuff.

So historically, all throughout the obama administration as well um when regulation targeting our companies uh, came from abroad, we would think of ways to push back as a nation. Uh, we we least think we never we didn't really do much, but we we didn't think about IT and we would that would be factored into policy what not? They've just sort of out ouh. They've explicitly said that that's no longer the benchmark. The countries are allowed to regulate our our companies however they want and you know any regulation even if it's sort bands, a company for whatever reason, is not necessarily an active trade aggression um that's the opposite way that we should be going and that's just kind of you know where I tether in so know what do you think .

about all this I mean, I also find the the the trade argument compelling. I think it's crazy that china has basically all of our social media and we allow tiktok to sort of Operate freely here. The thing that I found more interesting about the way the bill was passed the was how I was sort of tied to foreign to israel in ukraine, which I found a bit depressing. I mean, I understand this is how dc Operates, but IT is kind of crazy that um you know we can't have apparently we can't have sort of um no congress just vote on whether or not we should force the debater of tiktok. We have to sort of sweeten the pot with these massive transfers of aid once again to ukraine um this you seemingly interminable war and then of course israel um and yeah I mean, I just sort of like you're saying, I passed by a bipartisan vote and I sort of wonder you know how much of this bypass san vote actually reflects the kind of genuine conviction on the part of all these congress people that the vesture is in the vest interests of the american people, whatever that means, and how much of IT is just this kind of like, okay, we need to get more money to to ukraine and israel.

I think is such a good point and also works like IT works. It's more than tiktok of this. But that bill, just the conflation of funding for israel and funding for ukraine at this point is kind of wild.

These are different conflicts. Like why are they not being voted red on separately? All of these things should be voted on separately, I think.

And this is another take of, I think IT maybe was Willy that write about this one um what are we how are we expected to vote on these things in any kind of reasonable way if they're all come together? They're totally different causes and totally different totally different with with totally different drawbacks. And in cases in favor, IT is agree depressing um well and specifically .

the manner in which the ukraine aid was decided. I mean um I hate reading the washing post because I particularly like the world of politics but watching imposed really interesting um reported long reported peace that they publish to leave yesterday.

That was talking about how the new house speaker, mike Johnson, was essentially kind of bullied by biden and a lot of congressional leadership into really prioritizing the passage of ukraine aid um and you know for a long time Johnson has been really I mean he he's newly in his position, newly mounted. He's dealing with a very fractured G O. P, A huge a component of his party.

The far right flank you know has been really interested in also adding border spending and getting the border crisis under control to this package of aid bills, which again, like more to your point, why is that, that we're talking about building a social media platform. Eight, ukraine, eight is zero eight to taiwan, by the way. And then also apparently getting the entire immigration situation solved in the united states.

I mean, IT really shows a certain unserious sis on the part of legislators. But you actually read this washington post report, which I reported a little bit in this morning's reason, round up as well. It's kind of stunning the fact that not only is Johnson not able to really, in any way appears this side of his party that is concerned about, you know, government spending run a muck, which is something that a very legitimate concern not only that, but he's also tried IT into the oval office to essentially be kind of bullied and pressured into, you know, passing the ukraine aid packages. And it's a little bit like a at what point does the bill come do and at what point will genuine dissent to actually be entertained and genuine debate sort of emerge? Instead, it's just kind of a government spending all the way down and the game of politics, no matter what, no matter the issue, and blending all the issues together .

quite consistently. Yes, agree a great. And what do you think about about that? I I think we should really what is an interesting subject of just the a conflation of subjects or I mean lumping of subjects together.

Yeah, it's kind like buying a cable package for H, B, O, and you get a bunch of rather stuff too, and you just have to pay for H, B, O, and that's the only thing you want. I don't I don't have a taken on that seems depressing, right? So like that suck that the way our politics work.

And I totally agree we should be voting on these issues separately. They're completely different issues. Israel is not same as um you know chinese forever influence um and yeah I don't know how how you get out of that.

I think it's just like the the fact that matter is that you have these like broad coalitions in U S. politics. And um the only way to to past things nowadays I guess is to is to lump P A bunch of issues together and um and just RAM them through .

now IT is so IT is past IT is signed a lot. We have this interesting. So trump has come out strongly. He was was going back and fourth unit and he came out of last moment strongly against this very strange considering he handed himself in his ministration .

that was on done by biden.

So just like his expose, people of he is.

doesn't are he doesn't not give a shit.

just turned that. But so is by right, like biden started his term by undoing the ban and is now concluding IT by pushing IT through signing the bill. So I mean, they're both. We're just living in a world where we're supposed to forget what happened four years ago. Always in the case of both parties, they are always changing IT up and um and it's like nobody is grounded in any kind of ethics or morals or values um it's just always a logging of power and that is well, depressing, interesting.

You know what is the the element of what is the trump case for for this bill other than I guess you you have A I mean, you have people who are funding him who care about tiktok um you have did with sex now a friend of the pod is doing um I just read uh dave is going to be having a funeral for trump um with news I think yesterday and um David been super all in guys in general sort of change their perspective on this um he's been super against the diversity uh he believes is going to be used and I think there A I wrote about this I I think there is a there is an interesting case of the bill itself was um maybe too ambitiously crafted and because of that, uh we run the risk of some future president banning, for example, twitter because elon they're going to make some nebulous case that elon is a foreign asset or controlled by a foreign adversary. Um I broke IT down on a piece but I don't think that's necessarily convincing at all actually but I I think it's it's worth thinking about um to properly care about that is does he care about the youth vote? Does he care what is what is actually what is the trumPeter motivation here? I I don't know fully other than to pose.

what if he just cares .

about the David sax vote .

like he's going to?

I think he could actually be. This is, I think that we are all more powerful than we think. And the all, the all in guys have theyve really hope they've helped to change culture so good on them.

Behave the ear of the the next president. I think, I mean, I think throops going to win, right? He has to. Well, unless it's done again.

I mean, I have to say I prefer the um so both trump and biden are quite transparently just making please to you know gensec to vote for them and I much prefer trumps approach which is like here you can have recorded dancing APP as opposed to buy things which is just we will bankrupt everybody for many generations to come to pay for your basket leaving sociology degree crap from overland right like one of those is far less objectionable to me than the other. It's clear what both are.

Yeah speaking of the troubled youth, we've gotten talk about the um sort of humans camping on the grounds of colombia university and the counter protesters including that the there was a professor who I don't if he said IT himself but certainly online the framing is like he got picked out of campus because he was jewish and like then I saw this one so that you have the homos changes and like dancers and um you know I should actually bring in a real journalist to tell me about what happened I believe Brandon you were the one who researched this one you wanted to break down um the um the gaza conflict .

um on the grounds of clumpy university is presently taking place to last week protests erupted around actually N Y U also and columbia and specially at columbia they set up a tensity on the the south lawn of the campus I feel like both sides are a little bit weird here but like that jewish， that jewish professor.

A lot of jew's people sort of like went into history onic s about the about about the city saying that demonstrators were yelling anti symmetry things that jewish people threatening language at jewish students and faculty um I think that the new york times did report this which so there is a little bit of that going on um and a flash point in the in the density of like sort of sago was a little bit early on when a prominent rabbi center what's that message to a group of like a hundreds of jewish colombia students saying that they needed to stay home from camp, stay home for campus because I was not safe. This also coincides with password. So monday was the beginning of passover. So the kids, the jewish kids weren't not gonna go to campus anyways, I think. Um but after that, IT seems to have a sort of motivated the president of columbia to order all classes to go remote what he did on monday.

Then they're all remote or this remote option all remote .

on monday and on the next day he said that. Hythe classes would be hybrid, which basically means like you don't have to come the class to attend IT um but you can go to class until the end of the school year, which is only on next week. So April twenty nine.

So it's not like you know got months and months of hybrid or a remote is just like one more week of class. Um he was he did this because SHE a the the president was like it's too and we need to like dissolve tensions here. Hopefully with less people in campus, it'll just get Better. That apparently didn't work. President called the police um who ended up making a hundred arrests a few days ago um but that actually sort of engender a new wave of enthusiasm uh on the profile ini inside a more tents of popped up since than um and just kind of seems to just beginning more intense um .

I guess my first cut on this is just i'm never in favor of a ten city. I don't care what flag is waving. I just we ve got to shut the tensions down okay, it's twenty twenty four, terrible.

We don't like this. I don't like to make official statements fire. But I I feel like we can say no tensions.

These kids got nice new tense though. I think they want the R I. Last week.

And like the original .

tensile sert temporary.

if you have the national .

or guard notice. good. I guess you're right. yeah.

true. I like some tensions, but I like tensity. I'm OK with densities.

I'll give you this, ten cities are allowed in the desert. You you can do a tensity, a far away from the city. They can host the palestinian tensions. The there, I mean, go off, do the whole palace, ian coming am fine with that in the desert, far from human civilization. I think there a couple of funny things about this. Um the first one is the idea that that these protests are uniquely crazy, even either to the disclosure they are, they're crazy, they're terrible, the disgusting I have seen systematic things.

I think probably most people are not that of these protests but there are unlimited examples of just disgusting like science in people who do say, should he thinks about jews and um according varies like terrorists and things like this all of its growth um and can see these people okay, now that settled uh these protests being framed as uniquely terrible in sort of like recent american history, is that crazy to me? We all lived through B L M. Okay, we had six months plus of like legalized writing, all the way up from june twenty twenty, all the way up to january of twenty twenty one.

You had riot. IT was january six. Specifically, IT was like, once the crazy trump people did IT shut down. Writing was no longer legal ized and that was the end of IT that was the end of the sort of summer of right um those were crazy months and nobody was speaking up um nobody was questioning and nobody was saying, hey, maybe there's like a racist element to any of this or what not um and that's because culture, which is very different at that moment and we have seen sort of memory hold that entire period of history.

But it's it's been sort of surreal to watch on what really appears to be A A fraught debate over this topic kind of in amErica um that is now able to even be voiced in a way that before debates were not able to be voiced um and then I think just like even in the sort of pamphylia leftist ten cities, this is an inferior tensity. I was in new york in two thousand and nine eight eight uh so two thousand and eight through like two thousand eleven um brand I think you were there too. We lived through occupy wall street that was that with those were some flight intensities all over the country IT was the occupy of man um and my sense is those were like way crazier no I mean you Better .

do remember that totally um and they had they were facing the winter. So they think they started in the fall and they actually did go through some of the winter. They end up in the tensity out the winter did because city is obviously pretty harsh.

Um but yeah it's also you know the end of the school year is like is is right here and I think half the students probably have playing tickets home mean like literally already bought them, you know. So I mean, it'll see where we are in a week. I think basically going to go home. They are going to go home and there no other students to see them doing what they are doing, which will be a problem for them too, right?

The'd be protesting in a marth is ventured. So you know you want to school with these people. You have helped me understand the psychology here.

I mean, I think part of this is just there's like a party element, to be honest, like you're tenting your camping with your friends in nice weather and I I think it's nice in years right now. You guys listen, mike can confirm. But I mean, yeah, I think there's a lot of hysterics on both sides right now.

I find theoretical of the tensity kind of disgusting. I was just thinking like they sleeping in there where I guess, they are going back to their dorm rooms to shower or something. These are like the questions that immediately came to my mind.

But in terms of like what this psychology is, I do think there's well, there's a portion of this is just like they're probably really underworked. I would imagine the afternoon I like the academy standards that fell really significantly and I limped through that we're like classes were remove, everyone was cheating on exams. Classes were past fail like this, this whole sort of dummling down of a kind of our dumb s down.

A set of academic standards I think is continued. And I wouldn't be surprised if, like you know, final exams are also hybrid or something like that which students love because that means that you don't actually have to study very hard for them. I mean, I think there's you know they're probably undergoing some of them probably do care a lot about the conflict um but I wouldn't discount how much of this is. Just like it's fun to be outside in the spring with your friends and like feel like you're part of a political cause will also not really, I don't know, making that many sacrifices in everyday life.

That's a take that I that I had a written down for this too, which is like protesters in general would be wise till I always try to distinguish their protests from a party. And this one feels like there's not much of a of a distinction if if not only because one of their demands that there's there's five demands that they have. I looked on their website and one of them is that they don't face any consequences from the school for protesting。

They're investing, they're camping on the law and they're told not to if they are breaking the actually .

also I don't and actually don't understand the difference between the the this protest in a party. If there are no consequences, right? Like I think protester should be like they should they should ask for consequences.

That's the whole reason that the whole um power of a protests, you're gonna sacrifice something because you believe so much in the cause that you're protesting and they're actually just um that there there they're dismissing that that possibility, which makes IT a lot less serious. It's it's it's a propane stine theme party. That's what IT this is .

the common thread to all of IT, right? It's the same as the twelve our hunger strike which like I do all the time, it's called seething and then skipping breakfast because you're busy with work, right? Like that's a Normal thing to do.

Um it's the same with the vender build students thwing a fit over how SHE need assurances that is SHE goes to the bathroom to remove her camp on which, by the way, what a discussing thing to be talking about on camera and dismal among hundreds of thousands of people like my god have some self respect but talking about how he needs to be able to go to the bathroom um and you know be assured that SHE won't be arrested and you can return um because otherwise shall face toxic shocks syndrome me and like all these things, it's the same thing over and over again where you see and I was actually thinking about this with regard to why are these protesters so helped on masking all the time, especially if it's essentially a party, right, like you don't. This isn't actually a thing. It's an esthetic commitment.

It's something to show you that you're at the vanguard of something left this right. But they were also talking about how you know it's a means like the the excuse that they so regularly use is it's a means of covering your face, hiding from surveilLance, ensuring that you won't be caught, ensuring that you won't be docks, all these things and it's just over and over again. It's like they want to be perceived as embattled and yet they're not actually willing to sacrifice anything in order to show that they are committed to these causes.

So IT leaves all the rest of us who've seen other movements or or just got dim adults feeling a sense of like, you are incredibly wide children, right? You have no sense of what IT actually looks like to give up something you want to draw um you know comparisons between hunger strikes and apart hotel south africa yeah I guess what twelve hours ait gun a flight that just doesn't cut IT. And I don't think that they have ve enough context to understand .

that or you know I mean, they're just dumb kids doing dumb kids stuff like this sort of. We've just we have all seen versions of this. And maybe the mistake we're making is framing in is in some way novel when really the novel thing was twenty twenty that was crazy. IT was an historical anomaly IT IT was billie was happening in the inside of the side of cover and ever was locked down. If that was crazy, that was a moment of real um potential calamity even for the country that you know irreparable calamity. Um this is just back to sort of business um among dumb kids in college one dumb kid I forgot I can't believe we almost IT was not about my list and I just decorated me about something you were talking um we've gotten talk about elano mars daughter like talking about so SHE is going to uh .

columbia and so is the lesbia it's little brain columbia cobia for girls or for .

the goals the columbia for girls only um girls and girls only. Columbia got IT uh so he is going there. She's arrested for trust passing because she's SHE was in the tensity, right and SHE wouldn't leave I think is that i'm pretty sure he was in the tensity.

Certainly he broke the long, got arrested. Um elana ma obviously proud of that. Uh I specifically want we're talking about aesthetics and the esthetics of protest, but you're saying it's it's a palestine theme party. Agree like clearly the way many people look is very important. Um elan omar's daughter and forgive me I don't know a name .

um I believe o mar looks .

like a left this college, a protester. Her glasses specifically haunt me in my sleep okay those glasses that she's wearing like I have never seen those glasses on a girl in my life um that did not lead to me being yelled at for something OK like these glasses those are it's like, of course he has those glasses like that was the most expected thing I saw um I feel like I said on you, you basically I think that in fiasco man um when you see those glasses you have just too real options there.

It's like you either run away or you disappointed ze like you don't even need or don't you don't have to even wait for her to say you just i'm sorry was my fault I take all the blame for everyone in my linkage. Even I dead, I apologize. It's either it's racism, it's the environment, but it's those glasses. I'm telling you.

You could also satisfy them by becoming a unique in a performative manner in front of them or self imala ation. I think they also tend to really like, so you a lot of options, mike.

like, bug, can I glasses? This is like, this is like, I am wearing glasses. This is like, i'm a communist.

That's got to be the problem right there for the youtube.

youtube deo I think the best thing about this was that the daily beast wrote that whole article the interviewed um uh here see I guess whatever her name is um and IT was so focused on know delbes are promoting IT basically to optimize for hate clicks talking about how you know you was you know going hungry and he was on house and IT was this whole thing and IT really to meet at least there's a little bit of meta narrative there, which is that the daily beast is so obviously a fAiling media like media outlet, right? Because this is the only thing really left for that, right, like in the post vice world where all of these sort of new media organza have fAllen, the daily beast is just basically doing the thing that they obviously know is going to get roasted on twitter. And that's really the only way they can get clicks because nobody gives you about anymore.

I just I just saw this is really rich daily beast aggregated that quote from a teen vote to really which that's where he gave elan's daughter gave the quote to teen vogue, which is very APP. I forgot.

I didn't know that t vog was still around.

I no idea. Just i'm finding this out today.

I know that I say the .

death star of this stuff.

but that was always husband.

But that was years ago. That was not. I mean, I didn't think that they were still up to their antics. Um I I think it's probably time to move on. So you know the tensity of at all had a close analogue in recently, just was two weeks less ten days ago.

If you had a bunch shift also on behalf of palestine protesters um who employed by google went into a manager, a google office, uh locked themselves inside and uh demanded that the university are that the the university that the company uh stop working with israel and um this while you know not a surprising request from the propane stan protesters, investment is um something they like a lot in the context of visual, less so in the context of china. Um IT is shocking in a company. It's like the idea that you're going to lock yourself inside of your bosses office and have like a hunger strike until they do what you want is very that is very of the moment.

Only over the last five years, let's say that's an abortion in the world business. Uh, google, to everyone surprise, the sort of house that built crazy decides to have these people arrested and then fired along with a bunch of other protesters who were protesting at the office um in both new york city, I believe was new york city and uh down in a right outside of emphases going I think that was mountain view is their office. So what you have here is a very interesting shift, which we've talked about uh attack where suddenly um google is they said in a blog post following all of this mission oriented, uh I went a piece this week on the mission first sort of policy that was created by a brian armstrong of coin base.

This happened four years ago when workplace activism, so people protesting things like uh were walking out even of the office on behalf of things like, for example, systemic racism or sexism first became popular. And then IT was very shocking because we had seen you know strikes and walkouts before all throughout the history of business, but typically on behalf of labor, not on behalf of unrelated political issues. And that IT really consumes tech for a lot of years.

Uh then came the mission first, pho sophy. Then came uh, pretty slow and then rapid cultural shift in tech. I think that probably coincided mostly with the economic downturn, at least with tech.

The bull market, the fourteen year old market crashed. The relationship between managers and employees changed and the bullshit ended. IT was back to business. But google was last bastion of that IT seemed of the crazy and now it's over. Um IT is IT feels quite significant.

So yes, like you have crazy people on college campuses is uh no, they seem to not be permitted to be more at uh at our companies, at least our tech companies. Um have you guys saw this at all? And what do you make IT?

I think the the one premise that is worth like diving into a da clicking on of your peace, mike, is that google's move does mark the end of this this era or the beginning of a new era i'd have to hear you like I do not expand on that because I think that's the only sort of like vulnerable point in this article is like I could be and it's going to happen the next few years.

I think certainly you know um Jessica living stone, cofounder of like combination rotational es in twenty seventeen called the sound of silence and that point you know me too is happening but so you're working on a piece now it's kind of even predicted me too. A tech had been experiencing a silencing for a while.

Cultural silencing people were not supposed to speak out in any way against what was becoming a fairly loud political point of view that that was not only be being shared on on online but was expected to be shared by the company itself, not just company statements policy in keeping with fairly leftist political dogma. Um SHE didn't say all that in her peace. What he said was we're not allowed to talk were a lot of the dissent.

We're a lot to share controversial ideas um that seems to be getting worse. And um what's going to happen is people are going to stop talking. And once people stop talking, you're going to stop knowing what people really think and that's going to be a problem for tech. Um the worst was yet to come SHE was corrected about everything.

What followed was about a seven year period of silence ah that lasted, I would say, up until the moment that elon mosque walked that sink into the halls of twitter and took IT over and and because of that, because you were not allowed any kind of political descent without getting absolutely murdered by people online um largely amplified by the press that follow tech and hated IT and agrees generally speaking with the politics of you the far left inside of the companies um you just you were locked in this sort of strange states where uh political activists had way more power than ever before because they were the only people allowed to speak once things changed on the speech side you know silence was thought people were able to sort of speak against whatever part of that illusory they didn't like um the whole thing kind of collapsed in one by one. Companies banned the activism altogether from the workplace and h chose this different approach of only allowing people to um we were allowing the company to sort take political positions on that impacted the actual business of that business. So in coin business case, IT would have been like crypt al legislation or things like this.

Uh and so yeah that sort of that was text silent winter. I think within that you had the dawn of workplace activism. I think workplace activism and really authoritarians m in this effort to have take control of these companies and actually use them for political purposes in the country and and everything from um you know devastating misery, in this case, to a speed policing across our social media platforms in favour of one or two very narrow political viewpoints was possible。 And I think it's less possible now that we're able to speak is basically what I did.

We also I I had some quotes from brian armstrong g in there um on his advice from google and we talked to dh h of base camp who follow brian and he revealed sort of his whole process of changing his mind on this stuff and um taking the very difficult decision in early days of A A becoming mission first, which you know came with a lot of press hatred. Pretty interesting stuff. I would check IT out, I think especially interested in in the base camp that what I really triggered him.

And I think a lot of people in tech had a similar version of this. But he was at his office or on his office, he was he had discovered, while working with one of his employees, that they had been screening potential clients based on their politics online. They were going onto their social media accounts and trying to see who they vote IT for determination of whether or not they would work with with um with them and uh David is like pretty left leaning scandal aby and anti big tech person that's what what he was known for .

and suddenly realize I work, I really very sad, is who he is. I think .

bees from denmark, that's how they do Better.

worse.

That was the moment that he realised this was not like some peace loving entire authoritarian group of people that had taken over all of these companies. This was an actual authoritarian force of darkness. And he had a choice. IT was either neutrality or become a thing that he hated. And he chose .

neutral ality. I covered this a fair that when IT happened, both the coin base, the by an armstrong decision and D H D H H S uh statement at base camp and I actually went on the york times for cast uh the argument to literally debate this with somebody and the thing that was so interesting to me and I think you made this point two in your piece, my. Is there was always this expectation in india has actually made this point a bunch of times.

There was always this expectation that what these big founders needed to do in the face of employee workplace activities was listen, you know, take a step back um you know reexamine their prior and they just need to listen but the thing that never went sad in my debating opponent um for the near times made this case over and over to me who was IT um because i'm totally forgetting him and he was such a nobody and and new ork times really I I think inappropriately edited parts of the debate. I think I still came out looking good but I was really frustrated by how it's like they called my strongest points and you know boosted his uh points that they agreed to like I don't know, I felt like I was very lopsided. But regardless, the thing that is always goes on sad is it's not just that these CEO need to listen, it's that they also need to come to the prescribed conclusion, right?

You don't have the option available to listen and say, yep, i'm going to weigh the available evidence. I'm going to sit through IT yep, fair enough. I'm going to be humble and reflective. But no, actually I still am on board with the political players that I had previously held, right? Like that's not available.

There's always this implicit thing, which is you must come around to their point of view and legitimately IT is such an authoritarian speech environment where any sort of dissent is not tolerated uh and the choice to act out is also you infrequently tolerated by the employee activists but that was always the component to me that felt like the biggest tell where it's not just about listening. It's not just about trying to encourage to Foster an environment of humility and discourse, which I would be totally on board with. If so, IT is about compelling people to engage in certain times of types of speech and have certain viewpoints uh and to call all of the descent suppress IT square IT and ensure that IT never sees the light of deck.

It's a really fucked up approach to speech and it's incredibly inappropriate to have this in the workplace at all. Um I mean nothing but respect. I wish google had come to this conclusion about a decade earlier. But you know, Better late than never. I feel the same way with bill ackman sort of like waking up to an D I as a problem. I'm a little bit like I don't know how much Grace to extend to these people on one hand and like Better late than never but also like I don't know, a lot of people have been saying this for the Better part of ten years, right? Like if only we could have stopped more of this in its tracks. I guess my my plea to action to google to all of these people is like pay attention to these things as they emerge earlier on and that's a way we can really try to almost d escalate this psychotic culture wars, right? And everybody wins out when you do that, but don't kind of wait and put IT on simmers and waiting wait for IT to become this thing that we just a spoiling point do.

The action stuff is more annoying than that because he's not just only now learning about IT. He's like, i'm gonna tell you guys about this crazy thing that's happening that you don't know about. He's he's over here trying to explain to what he's like, did you guys know about workers? Did you know that this is like have you heard .

about this and and the coral ary to this is mark cuban also being like, actually, I don't know. Diversity is awfully nice in very obama thing make up. Where have you been for?

Talked D H H talked about cuban specifically needs.

Like, i've got ta give this guy some Grace because he is sort of clearly just learning about he's like equity that so it's like we love the quality, right? They're the same thing, are they? And like, oh, do you're just so rich that you've not like bin in the swap with us? Like you have no idea how the crazy this ship has gotten and then maybe a little bit with cuban is also like once he realized you had to say, face, there's no saving face because his position was just so stupid. But I don't know sound in a brand when you guys think about this.

I just the thing I can get over with the google employees in general is just their level of entitlement because i'm like I understand college students agitating for their ministration to take certain steps because they're paying, yes, you know, to go to the school or their own scholarship, whatever.

But you know somehow they they are the administration is in some ways indebted to them, but to like have a strugling session at your employers office as if you can just leave, you can leave the company, right? Like you can just go to another company. And a lot of these people like they are software engineers, their product managers, it's not like this is a really small field where they can find a company, the lines with their values. They just don't want to take a pay cut, I presume, or or a benefits cut. And I just there is no world in which I can understand like the logic of trying to force your employer to change their their political opinions IT just seems yeah really entitled and IT kind of one thing that was interested at some point someone on here like confuse the students and the the google employees and it's like they are kind of the same though the exact same person is like this weird they're in this protracted adolescence where I think in their mind they think of their employer as their university administrators and they're bringing that same mindset to work um and i'm glad that google is finally disappears them of IT definitively by firing them so don't have to find a new job.

Think also about how much like american culture has really like Foster that notion, right? Like we've entirely created this environment whether it's vox uh, instituting their two drinker limit for their Christmas party to ensure there's no funky workplace sexual harassment or like anyone making a pass IT know another adult that they have things in common with, right? Like whether it's I think there's like such a parallel between the like title nine um you know attempting to a judici all manner of sexual missing unica on college campuses and then the fact that whole crop of people graduated and came into these workplaces, maybe not a google but at the whole bunch of other places and kind of want you to do the same whole regional all over again where IT was like, oh, so I met an unkind comment about my appearance or whatever and wanted to report IT as if there's like a title nine and overpaid title nine bureaucrat available for them each at every moment I guess this and agree like blooded H R departments can gave them that message, right? Like can you fault them for understanding that this is just kind of it's like weaponized grievances web ized rivet ces as a means of distractor from actual work all the way down regardless of where you are.

IT was a talent war. So you had this massive bullrush in tech starting around two thousand and eight, up until straight until what like years ago, when the crashed, sort of everything came tumbling down on year go, about a that meant that in google sort of famously embodied this. You had to give these people whatever they wanted in more than they could.

Even possibly these places actually were a lot like college campuses. You know you have dining halls um that was like breakfast lunched dinner paid for. You had uh your transportation cover with wifi. You had all sorts of restraints.

Google famously fighting with like facebook for talent offering the crazy is perks image able everything from like massages and get your coffee shop in your beautiful gym, your laundry service in some cases, uh, two literal napos in the case, most famously of google, they were also sleeping there. IT was like their dorm. Um that I think bread, a different relationship with their companies over the years.

Uh, people identify with them more, which worked for the companies. You know, they want of these people to identify with them. Google wanted to just hire every single talent person that existed as a sort of preemptive of tactic to suppress innovation everywhere else.

Um in cities us but topic for different part of think um they did a great job of IT up until very recently uh when the sort of world changed and IT changed most. I think for these employees, you don't hear about these perks anymore because they don't really exist. Ah it's it's a lot way less of that today.

Um you know there were so many pieces making fun of the way that we treated tech workers ten years ago. Um all of the perks and lists think pieces about the perks and uh just it's kind of over and um I think of the activism in a way less so than sort of workplace workers or whatever it's like that stuff. The activism is almost a perk IT was like, this is not just a workplace.

This is this other thing. This is like that was one of the perks that companies were offering, right? These people were just doing that like the companies were offering that. And the offer has been resented. So sorry, it's back to the computer.

I think IT also speaks how just how flush cash of these companies are. I mean, imagine if we had a work stoppage that was like two weeks long like that you is burning like so much money every single day that people aren't working.

It's like you're never gona see that again and this this went on during um floride like lyda twenty twenty um i'm aware of one company that whose story has never been told um where work stopped for like a good two and a half months for strugling sessions every single day as like how do you if you if you don't have a bunch of investment capital, how how do you survive something like that? You know it's it's interesting it's interesting that google and other companies can actually tolerate this from a financial perspective. And I think IT just goes to show how how actually powerful of a position .

they have in tech yeah and maybe that the the rich house that google is the richest man there are money printing machine and maybe that is just that simple. You're right. It's like they just have the most money.

And so this ship persisted. They are the longest. Um I do want to make some space for the CEO of M P.

R. Who is IT turns out A C, I, A asset to take you away. SHE may be A C.

I, A agent. SHE certainly seems to be an asset. Um I mean, this is this is based on this, based on Chris roof. O H. Chris roof is reporting um.

He basically published article in city journal, I think IT was yesterday, a couple days ago, pointing out that Katherine r, the new C E O M P R has in her previous life, working at, uh, ngos in the middle east, sort of weirdly huge, closely to a lot of revolutions happening around the time of the ab spring. And he was like in the right place at the right time in a lot of cases. Um so I mean, first of all, he got a degree in islamic studies and middle is studies, and yu and I was .

told in college if I wanted to be A C I agent that was the direction to go yeah I was .

going to say, like there is kind of this law. Everyone I know who who studied like arabica in college was either like a second muslim kid who wanted to learn the language or something or wanted to join intelligence uh services so he studied that um but then between like twenty eleven and two and thirteen he was in um let's see he was in libya, tunisia. SHE was at the turkish and syrian border at a bunch of times I was as one does like she's .

like the forest camp of like color .

revolutions he is in every single one SHE wrote blog posts um about sort .

of SHE was writing ballpoint sts about getting internet connection to be goi basically seems to have been working for ngos that had very close connections to the CIA including one called the national democratic institute um which I guess former C I A employees have said yes has very close connections to the intelligence community um in Chris wo fos point is basically you know SHE seems to have in some ways been involved in focusing these like per liberal democracy revolutions abroad and then at home come back and and for mental our own color revolution is he says ah in the George floy protests through her work at the week of media foundation sort of pushing this left wing uh you know racial est ideology and and he talks about gender ideology as well I mean. I personally think the thing I find interesting about this is like whether not she's actually part of the CIA it's kind of she's like in distinguishable from a CIA agent in her work at these these ngos. Um and also a lot of the reporting he did was based on her tweets, like he just went through her twitter and found there's like a tweet of hers from twenty eleven where she's like i'm heading to the turkish syrian border tomorrow and so it's not it's not even like you know SHE was hiding her uh her movement this is all publications ailment information .

um so yeah I like of does rif alleged a formal affiliation with the C A. A? Or does one .

have to have a strategy of strategy is he's just asking questions. Yeah, he made he's just asking questions.

He actually says it's like it's irrelevant whether or not he is formally affiliated with the C I. A, which I do agree with. I mean, he's just pointing .

out you think it's all of IT.

Well, I mean, I think it's relevant to the fact that he clearly I guess his broader point seems to be like she's part of this you know N G O apparatus that seems to be ID logically aligned with the CIA. Um so in that sense it's like, okay they are working toward the same and go I guess it's relevant in that yeah it's crazy if we ever see a and at the head .

of ending our media ah yeah .

so right you that is that true my my take on .

this is just I don't think we should let anybody with a new york times wedding announcement, uh, take on a position of power in the american media because I think it's the most cringe fucking thing on the entire planet so that's one of the things that I always go go like a fine doing my own little roof of thing of digging dirt. Yeah C A A important okay, sure.

But I always always look at the new york times weddings announcing IT because you can always find little nugget as to like not only who they are, but also how rich they are and how they present themselves, right? And so there's one little nugget about her, a first state with her now husband, and how yeah no, he wasn't sure whether he was interviewing him to to be her council, her general council or not. And it's just like the type of just like money um obnoxious ultra a lite stuff. I mean, she's from connect t like you know who can who can .

really believe her, right?

But it's just like this type of thing where it's like I know that SHE styles herself this you know woke racial justice. But can you actually be that if you're fundamental a rich girl from connect cate, right? I'm always interested in the class frame of all of this because how representative is in P, R actually going to be if they have, uh, you know, cannet cat fancy new york times winning announcement, cii shall working for them and taking all of the tax here money right like this, is not we need.

If he was actually A C, I agent, and he was out there reporting from all these revolutions like on the ground, I think I would be much more interested in to M. P R. Definitely like, tune in at least once to see her topple a government.

That's that. I mean, I don't know that I agree with you, but you can't say it's not interesting and and but and also isn't that like I mean, that is her biggest problem. That's all of their problem, is that they're not they're not these charismatic, scary people.

Actually, if this is the face of the C I. A and share you know up at ted talk talking about, I mean, you can listen to one of her speeches IT is just nonsense buzzword after buz word after buz word to conclude with some kind of boring attitude IT means nothing. It's a knocker was bullish IT it's like a with a venir of nicest to .

IT like neighbour who likes foreign policy, right? Like it's totally boring.

you know and that's just if that's the face of american power, then I don't know a little bit worried about that just as someone who doesn't want us to be you know destroyed. Like that's troubling that that if he actually is the kind of person in charge is like, I mean, that's in some sense worse than if SHE isn't what I guess. No, yeah, I confused myself there. SHE sucks brand and finishing thoughts.

I hate to fall back on caches, but I am not surprised that she's the prototypical blob person.

Where is the blow the blob? Yeah.

I don't know. I probable years ago, a few years ago.

we just slang, it's take the swan, but just slang for the foreign icy establishment.

And like me, I think the the mainstream, I include the in people in mainstream media who have all the right opinions .

currently members. But that a loan goes back to my my thought a second ago. So the blob versus the deep state is just a totally different thing.

A few years ago we were talking about the state that was scary. That was like, oh my god, spooky. Like they're controlling the world.

They know about aliens, for sure, but also their secretly running the country. There is no stopping them. They can be removed. They are taking down a president. And now is just the blob.

And no distinct. The blob is the elite managerial class. And the deep set is the deep state, the two different things I think, yeah but my my point was to say that I I was researching I was looking into a wired magazine for an article that seems like i'll never end up writing.

I hope I know. And every single person is the blog. It's it's impressive how they how they hire. They seem to hire every every single thing is like usually sorry.

Previously worked at the new york times, washington post and then I was like, you know, at some go right and I I think my point is to say that what's your name? Kathy marr is not a unique type of person in in media today. I think there's I think you could look into a lot of people and find the same sort of fillies or connections or or past.

Yeah, everybody's like a nameless, shapeless, full, bright middle st whatever arabic language expert head talk batch right? Like from can not right? Like you just that this everybody.

Um liz, I wants to give you the the last word actually as our as our guest today. I want to give you an interesting, I guess it's just if you are in the C I A asset shoes right now, how would you fix M P R?

Well, I mean, the way to really sabo sa from the inside as a livery not to answer you know IT well no I mean it's just starting to be the M P R. So use taxpayer dollars right people want to continually diminish this.

Um they receive a half ty chunk of funding um from not only directly from the federal government, you know a few percent but then also like ten percent of their funding is from their member sessions, which are directly funded by the government, right? And so you know you can tell you up all kinds of different ways, but a chunk of IT is actually legitimately coming from I don't think that this is needed. I don't think that was ever needed.

Uh, and it's kind of studying to me that this continues to exist. I mean, one thing that in pr really could benefit from is instead of just being these like anodder milk toast um sort of like liberal generic shells for the state, if they actually wanted to invest in any scrapper type of reporting, that would be good. I think sometimes they're foreign burrow are pretty solid.

Um you actually you know IT pains me to say that, but like new york times also has some really good foreign reporting. Um M P R could be f up their department there uh and attempt to make itself useful in some way. I also think you know there are radio in podcast products can remain quite good.

And so investing in that ROM I think would probably be excEllent. But the main thing I would do if I wear Katherine marr and with the, you know, beautiful curls in charge of M P R is I think I would probably commit arsen and try to burn IT all down because it's really such a waste of all of our money. And all of us should feel we should wake up a little bit angry about this every day.

It's okay if you don't want to choose violence the way that I do, but I do actually think that like IT is a terrible problem. And we continue to see as immediately landscape sort of becomes more and more of this desk ated host and more and more news room fall not to arsenal, but to natural causes. There continues to be this drum that gets beaten by all kinds of, like cats, journalist, sls, that are like, oh, we need taxpaying funding for local news.

We need investments in local news. And it's like, I don't know if you understand this, but when the government in any way funds journalism, that journalism will not be adversarial to the government. We want.

Journal m, that is adversarial to the state. We want journalism that h you know, does legitimate muckraking on power wherever IT may be. And when the government funds IT IT in IT, right, like that's not how that happens. And any journalist worth or sault should be aware of that.

I think we're going to I was in I think we going to see but for the reason that we talked about earlier or the topic that we talked about earlier, where you can never in congress vote for just one thing, that's how mp r responded. It's it's like snuck into all bey's other bills that people can say no to. So we probably never get a vote just on M P.

R. And until we do that, then IT lives on in another day. But we will be here to make fun of IT. It's Better real. See you guys next week, probably, uh, day later next week, because I want to be abroad and it's going to be hard. So there .

with us a or for someone else.

I'll barco .

a instigating .

movement for independence quietly, but I am going to do IT bye.