Grace, give us the White pill on new year america.
I want to be celebrating. We're about to build like a hundred kawata of these things.
I think solar, a world of solar energy, is a worst world. MIT shows you where the closest person is, who can give you .
A A company that the lighting queer joyed don't know.
It's going to be written into the law. All of these people need to be in jail. SHE founded was twenty million dollars too, I would say.
I mean, how many use the word terrorist? They'd love him. I think it's like a weird, sick, almost fetishistic relationship that they have with each other.
rods. Walk back to the pod guys today. We've got grant dever with us. Grant is in energy research fellow at the I just learned this foundation for research on equal opportunity. The reason I just learned that is because I know grand as just and all around poster on twitter. I think that's what we met years ago.
I feel these introductions are getting kind of repetitive and that literally every person I bring on is like this is just a friend of mine from twitter um but that's just true and also all my friends on twitter or awesome P S I how I met river and songa actually no twitter came later but she's also great on twitter. Follow all of these people uh but not until you listen today's episode we've got a bunch of cool topics are one very exciting topic which is why grant is actually here we are going to talk about church bell music, perhaps from natural a White pill IT is the nuclear nuclear energy y pill. I've got some good news that we want to come to unpack and break down and expand to lay the land when IT comes to nuclear we've got the grinder union um which has a ended in calamity. We have kind of unions more broadly in tech and we have a oh really, I would say, unexpectedly beautiful moment of sound while watching the last california state legislative session waiting for news on A B. What was IT?
What's the number three? sixteen?
This is the car driving car bill that was just passed that effectively banned them but has to be signed into law by Gavin knew some who expected to via to IT it's a whole crazy thing, will get into IT are to the grounder union there.
The grinder union is something that I i've wanted to write about for a while because it's this interesting it's this is an interesting canary in the mindshift, so to speak, of a broader trend in tech of these kind of ridiculous attempts at unionization for a variety of things that do not track IT all to what you might expect from a union, let's say. So historically, you're used to unionization attempts um for things like pay or you know workplace fairness or something like this. Increasingly, what you're seeing in tech where you're seeing unionization at all.
And again, this is like or not a again, I guess I should say this is not A A huge trend. It's it's a sort of trend that's been amplified by the media um which lot of this trend and really kind of wants to see unionization attempts everywhere uh what you what you see increasingly from these new to serve new generation of union is and attempts to actively control the product in such a way as to like shape the broader public um you might say it's form of activist control, I guess. Um again, there are small groups of people but they tend to have an outsized voice uh, amplified by the press.
And one of the best ones is the grinder union. Um I think probably the best the i'm not I want river. You have done extensive research on the greater union um want to just take us take us from .
the top okay. So the grinder crider union they organize with the the C W A, the communication workers of amErica there the ones who are heading up a lot of these techniques efforts as you are kind of looting to, they're not really going after like Better pay or like benefits or anything like that. But to ting set and Normally a union will pursue. I can actually just read through the things they want, essentially they want every they wanted everything um when they found in in july, they wanted everything that they already had essentially which is is an extensive like beneath IT package excEllent health and welcome benefits of their words for remote word flexable hours and limited po gender affirm affirmation funds so the like finders exchange of for when came matching parental leave and a company that delights inquired joy both hours in the users I don't know, I am.
but ought to be the law. It's going to be written into the law.
right? exactly.
Let's just pop. I mean, I guess there is a world in which maybe some people don't realize what grinder is a gay hok up. It's it's like a it's straight up sex up IT is a you log on to grinder and IT shows you where the closest person is who can give you that the company that we're talking .
about stall but White from your phone IT hits discussed, all right.
So so they come in hot and they're like, here are our demands for the union. Union time wasn't there. I thought you told me there were some political thing with the CEO. Was he maybe against a trans thing or what? I mean, what was the historia uh .
Jacobin did interview with them and so they were like, well IT else like that even if the jack a man was like, so why are you doing this? Um they uh apparently a Spark um for people joining the union and signing the union card was the reflect that their k republican boss had donated money to going outcome. And so this is just all the web ant way to like erith their gay republican boss.
Would I like this easier ways to do that? Like I just like defend the russian military, you know like this easier ways is to cope out of IT. But um they they caused as like support for andy L G B T Q politicians on twitter. They are not about the tweet show and via political donations by the way there um C O George arson is like a gay guy from georgia, the country not to stay where they're like. I I don't know the birth place of style and they're like hanging gay people in the woods or whenever it's um sorry, like actually .
ordered all these people actually half of this. So I mean this is like the context is like we're mad at you. You gave some money to Young in we demand a place that you know celebrates queer joy um and gives us exactly what we already have in terms of benefits in pay.
But I mean, the response it's it's sort of unclear if I was there was not a response, right? The company decides um great separate conversation. Now you guys have to come to work now this is and it's interested.
This actually is this enormous um I would say hilarious line that has been drawn throughout tech where employees really somehow, I mean, it's like you give a mouse a cookie uh they were rarely decided many a sort of strong, very vocal minority with in tech. I decided they are now, after covet, entitled to permanent work from home. Um this was very much the a the ideology sort of that work ideology of its ideology.
It's like very much a kind of thing that these people wanted, I would say um that's now taken away corners like you have to come into the office two days a week. There's a revolt. Absolutely not.
This is a violation of our human rights status. Is this or is this not like I don't i'm not as familiar with the union labor law type stuff. Was this retaliatory? Is IT being seen? As for atomic, is the grinder union suing what is going on? Because fast forward, the the the union didn't prevent this.
They all ha the company left because of this because they did not want them to go to the office IT seems like A A pretty significant Victory for grinder, a loss for both the union and probably like western civilization. Um what what is the labor? What is the labor situation?
Well, I mean, if you quit, you can claim that they that you're retaliated against, you have to be like fired or they have to like discipline you in some way. They can like just changing company policy is not retaliation. So I mean I I mean they might try to claim that retour, but don't even think they would try legally.
Um and with the number of people that are leaving, it's likely they're gonna lose their majority on card check um which is like the process that you go into before I do I watch and with the N O R B, it's a more complicated thing but um yeah it's of the greater union is probably over or nearby. Um the the the thing is is like it's so important to stress that these people did not actually word anything like they literally just did this to be knowing this a tech okay, here's one thing they said, speaking as allies of communities that are systematically impressed. They want to shelter the choir experience um and they want a company dolor query people not to extract wealth from clear care people.
It's like wait, wait. So you don't want .
you to be a company that .
it's not a company you not a lot to charge. Wear people on the gay dating APP is that kind of roughly where we I love IT yeah they render to be like an N G O or something. I don't know what he does not making any sense.
Take that your millions are going to about two spirit people. Like, I don't know what they does .
IT make money. Like, is grinder actually like.
oh, like twenty dollars. And I would know human and actually, so there are some heavy endings, but but yeah, they make a lot of about that. I mean, they have to I mean, it's a very simple APP and I feel like every gay guy know has used to as they aren't using IT right now. I guess I mean.
are a couple ways to take this. We can talk about the union stuff I I think still brewing to a certain extent. I'm a little more interested now in because i've got I mean, I am pressure. Are the three of you? Are you guys all summer?
I'm kind of a fake zimmer like an elder zoom or I I pave the way for them like, uh you know I get to joke that rumors only no APP like they don't actually not work computers but i'm justice online is nineteen ninety four, november ninety ninety .
four I was born in ninety six and that's either the old the west that's either like the cut for millennia or it's either ninety five or ninety six. I see like different numbers. So I really don't know if .
i'm considered like the oldest .
Younger millennia or I like the oldest.
And I would just say culturally, I am often more summer than some of the summer, like not in all respects, but in like .
certain ones, like whenever .
is convenient, you know like sometimes more and else are just download, right? And you're like I don't want to be associated with this, but other times they're like summer can't talk to strangers .
and i'm coming being told in group chats that zmp are to blame for this issue. And I feel I don't know .
to join question .
mark is this is the are desus specifically believe in the entitlement to work from home to not go into an office. This is like a humor thing. I I would just cover up by saying quickly like first, obviously.
When he says humor, we're talking about a class of summer that are even capable of working from home. We're talking about a very specific like like upper class sort of White color zmp um where this is even an option if you see if if you're working in construction or something or blawn enforce cement nursing. Not like you're not teaching all I guess they fought for for a long time.
But generally speaking, there's a whole part of the population that this will never be a question. They obviously have to work in person um but for that rare and privileged ed view, uh is this a immer thing or or is this something bigger in society is that I mean people once spoke really on in the in the cover of days of a massive psychological shift um we were all going to be living in the cloud and working there. Has IT happened or or is IT is IT just, uh, some Young zuber or rely? I don't want to go to the office, man.
I think I can speak as the resident unequipped summer here. I'm a ninety nine, ninety ninety nine baby. Um I mean I think that honestly a lot of us just got used to remote stuff during the pandemic um and people kind of configure their lives like a lot of the grinder workers.
They were saying they didn't want to move to more expensive cities basically um because I think what was proposed was either you move to one of their hubs, which is like you know chicago l severance, go new york ever um or take a severs cottage which doesn't sound that bad actually um I guess if you get used to working in like a really cheap small town, making like an a salary or something, maybe IT makes sense that you want to work remotely. I mean, personally, I think that I don't get why a lot of simers want to work remotely like I think they have this fantasy of being in a VISA like on a beach. Well, they are like, you are doing their jape Morgan finance job. But in actuality, that would .
suck. I was surprised at the the tender of sort of zoom blame, because IT seems to me like this is much more beneficial to stable couples with kids or Young like Young families is kind of what that that feels like, the group of people who really want remote to happen to me and very Young people. I mean, you have every IT is you want to be in a big city if you're single, especially it's like that's where you you go to big city to meet partner and then and then you want to be in person at a works at your workplace so you can understand direct. So IT IT just seems like IT seems like if you were a summer, all of the opportunity would be in not as a zuma if if you are a Young person, all the opportunity IT seems .
to be in in in person work .
where you know sending the ranks at work and and also just in person, like in those big cities. Uh you know highest opportunity of networking and in in meeting uh in meeting your partner potentially. So never really understood IT, but um you know increasingly IT does seem to be I mean perhaps a somewhat generativity as well or you know like some gena said, maybe it's just people got used to IT.
I tend to think that um people just got used to IT. You know I feel really bad for um summer who you know often had like kind of their college years taken from them for those who are in college IT was just very fake. It's not at all the experience that I got to have a regardless of how you feel about college education like mine was really fun. I got to the network .
and me they got to experience. But saja, you were there at stanford when they famously so um what was IT IT was the piece I forget where the piece came out, but it's ort of laid down the social scene at stanford which was like seriously open and fun and people mixing and houses and parties shut IT down. And so you saw that and then you saw the shut down, and then you returned. I mean, what was your? What was your?
You're take? What is my take? Well, it's funny. I was when the when the pandemic broke.
I was living in this really sort of like dirty cop, where we are all, you know, have hardee's cleaning bathrooms and putting our hands and fear as we mixed salad and stuff in. The pandemic happened. And the university, I don't think this is stand for specific.
I think a lot of universities did this kind of took cover as an opportunity to restructure a lot of their housing and you know traditions and things like that. And stanford really did that. I mean, the article you're referring to, I think it's called stanfords war on fun or something like that. Um but basically they classified all the dorms in this bizarre neighborhood system that didn't make sense because the neighborhoods we're not contiguous. You had a bunch of dorm like in these neighbors od that had named like neighbor D S. Neighbor od t um and they sort of relied on the fact that a lot of the ways that crazy traditions got passed down, like there used to be the tradition called forming on the quad wherever would make out on the quad on the first full moon of a february or something uh and of course that's not covey for whatever um but they provide on on copa restrictions being in place and then the incoming class of freshmen of course didn't know about the tradition and now I don't think that exist anymore.
How he was proved I started brief aside the idea that there was a moment in time where I was like, stay in the house, do not touch anybody kissing a stranger. insane. I'm really crazy and traumatic. Some would say I would adopt the language of the .
enemy against queer joy.
Certain is in violation of the principles of queer joy. Glad it's over. sorry.
Enemy to catch you off. Oh yeah, no. IT was just, I mean.
IT was a shit show. Honestly, I don't think standford is the exception again. But like the perform after of my experience there, recover and after after cover, IT was just this weird administrative state where we had these completely insane rules, like at one point you could you had to wear a mask to class, but you could take IT off when you were talking and then need to put IT back on I mean, it's just all this shit that we've all kind of forgotten about, like all the couvent contradictions we've forgotten public because we're traumatized. There's something um or .
romantic is a widespread memory only bit. I think it's the only way to not hate your neighbor. IT was such an extreme event and you kind of I mean, how do you sit with the fact that there was a massive group of people who are demanding something like vaccine and it's like forceful course vaccination, for example?
Like that's a hard thing to grapple with as a country. You know you have half of the people who really, just completely to humanize the other half. Actually, I gets both haves to humanized the other hand. And that was really that was a an intensely batti oic moment.
And I think I think the memory hole is just a natural human reaction to trying to kind of get past something a little concerning because it's like you don't want to be you don't want to be repeating the past. And I am convinced that we're going to I think that there's almost no way there's not another pandemic and and I just don't think we've learned any really important lessons. But I guess even while I don't love the impulse to memorial, I kind of yeah I just on a human level light I get IT.
I think there's also a lot of there will be a bigger backlash. I think this time though, because so many people were radicalized, not just by like the vaccine Mandates, but like I do, people whose like parents and grandparents died like inverse hones, and they were a lot to go see them. And that's like something that you're never going to they're going to think about for the .
rest of your life you have. But why don't is there going to be a backslash like this? Surprising to me that there hasn't pen. I'm ready for the backlash. I would love a little backlash to to this kind of stuff but I don't see IT and it's not really come up in the election other than in the case of uh, Kennedy, whose totally fAllen off now as vid rises. Um nobody nobody really you you'd think that someone if this the backlash was coming and there were something a real nice vein that you could tap into a populous vein. You you think that someone to be channelling IT by now, you know to see that.
Why not? Well, even in twenty twenty two, right, like that was kind of the referendum. And they're these no narratives from the right that they have this red wave and that IT doesn't occur. I would say the only thing that seemed kind of close to retribution was new york flipping bunch this congress seats and like nominally I don't know how close that actually was. Like having republican governor although that guy I don't member's name but he's not very popular um like maybe someone else could have .
done IT by the government .
as governor new ork no no sorry. Um the uh so qualm o gets ousted, right? And I there's a question like why was choma ousted? Like we Normally know why, but why was he ousted? And maybe it's because some of the numbers on this, we're really bad and they're like, okay, you're no longer useful. You're actually not going to be the president one day, you know, we're replacing, you know, I don't know i'm not inside of these things. I can only .
speculate as a former new york com .
of others were rich burned but by the left for sure, if I was elder quo on the political side. And then the Younger quama was taken down on behalf of the entire media establishment like he was. IT was one of the big scalps.
I don't even know who else, who else really suffered for the coveted stuff? I think nobody. He was the qubo brothers double, ami .
said yes. So so I don't think that there was even really like there was kind of narratives that there be retribution twenty twenty two and maybe an af election. So maybe these energies will be channel to the extent of there.
I would say maybe the other cavy out is like school choice stuff. I think a lot of parents were like with this can never happen again. Like I don't know what the solution is, but you tell me how, you know my child monkey forced to like zoom school ever again. I am open to the .
need to feel that I think shy rivers one, I think it's too far away from when that happened. You know, we're talking by the time the election is coming, we're talking for three years, maybe from when four, four years even I think from when. Most of the schools in the country experiences this.
Um there are some holdouts in california what not. But like it's I think it's I think people are not going to be thinking about IT. I think that I think that you'll have a Better chance of getting people to care about like the trans issue in schools then um then this and I think by the way, I think both are kind of losers in terms of like powerful political issues to propeller to the White house. I don't think either are uniquely capable driving that in the way that, for example, immigration through trumps last campaign. So I rever you you about say.
yeah, I I discuss I when I was sorry about people being radical, zed. And like if this they try to do like another coffee like they they like we're using everything down. And but but I mean, I do think that like some people radicalized in the sense that like covet will forever like change the way that they perceive things and think about things.
You know, like I reminded like my great grandmother whenever he died. Um SHE just had like bags of change and like cash he had no over the place because SHE won't open a bag account because you like survived the depression or all the banks filled like your family lost all the money. So like it's going to be you're going to people like that who are either like um code forever, people who are like masking forever or people who were like, i'm never getting another vaccine to get up, never getting my kid any vaccine. Um you know that's what thing I did just .
want to say that I think some people did learn the wrong lessons, right? Like there is this like over correction almost or it's like, of course, be extremely skeptical of all these things. But it's not like like you know with the ability with the ability to engineer these virus is and something that like we could experience another pandemic that is truly bad, whatever. Like the idea that like oh, it's all crap and like go out and like whatever and just be the first person to get IT. It's like they're still potentially justification to like personally lay low when there's an emergent like potentially lab engineered virus.
And it's like you should almost always you don't want to be the early adopter when IT comes to something like pandemic. Yes, you sit IT out and you let you you let the data present itself to you from the safety of your internet connection. Um I also worried a little bit about this, especially in terms of I mean just I and I always kind of caught the middle I find myself defending anti bacteria time but the reason is because I understand coming from like how could you not after what we saw happen the idea that there were people who lost their jobs because they didn't want to get an experimental medical procedure is to me like I imaginable however, by vaccine there are like the the conceptual vaccine is not the problem.
Um and I worry about a future world where yeah the left specifically has so completely overplay its overplayed its hand and the right has you know in its attempt to politically capitalize on that appliqued this fact that we now have a broad distrust of um of science and this is not like a believe science moment. I'm talking about real science, which even that alone like to leave the pandemic. Having science a politicized dirty word is really a tragedy, in my opinion.
Yeah, I need to. Uh, the gic also had a lot to do with the head, though I am no, no.
it's desert is a problem is like I get IT it's deserved. It's just there are consequences like there's no way that this is going to be a net positive for humanity, that there's now broad complete suspicion of science, the conceptual level, including and including in the medical world talking about things like vaccines generally, you know like we have.
Do you think that like lively, like the idea that covered leak from a chinese lab funded um body N I H in that like this was covered up or whatever do you think that becomes? I don't I don't know. There's a moral world, world like this is admitted. But do you think IT becomes um something just like kind of univerSally kind of belief if or at least look that White kind of kind like the j of kings or like if you ask average amErica and they're like they may not have like an exact theory about what happened, but they're kind of like, yeah, that was fishy. There is something going on there type to do you think it's like that D C R remains partisan and like politicize where like liberal?
I don't think it's that partisan. I don't know a lot of democrats like, oh, I definitely didn't come from a lab more I mean, you guys I don't know many .
I I think not said IT was okay.
He was the first he was you could almost credit him with the the the changing of of sentiment there because he he got out there and he said almost for beta things that not to make this about me um but but he said almost bebeto things that I have said uh that then then much more people who are actually in the trenches on this is you uh said and um and he was shocking and people got really mad first, second but the average person was like, very glad someone said IT of the average democrat, I should say and now that I think that's really where they mostly are nobody. Nobody really wants to .
own the zoo.
What is that? The zozo atic origins of of cover? ever. Nobody wants that. No, nobody wants to have to defend that because you just never made much sense that that happened like blocks away from the fuck and covert .
factory yeah and they keep going through the fig gn through a whole family zoo of animals of flag who what I came from there like bad panel n um tiger like they're like get just any animal really like they're like not described animal that came over to come for your dog. We don't know.
Um speaking of the science, uh we got get to the White pill man um I don't want to kind of insult the audience by making the case for nuclear. This is something that we've read about a pie wise forever. IT is actually my boss is Peter. His flight fy loves to chAllenge environmentalists on this issue.
It's like if you are really if you really believe in the mayor mat global warming sort of argument um and I do personally uh he loves to chAllenging like how do you feel about nuclear and if you are opposed to IT, that is a signal that you are really not serious at all about glob warming that you yourself do not believe in in the sort of man made global warming thing. IT is our best, most abundant source of carbon free energy. A world of nuclear is a world of abundance and IT is really the way when you talk about powering IT progressive, growing, healthy society.
It's awesome. However, you know it's like massive backlash specifically from what I like to call the fergal I left uh in america, I think we've been a little bit Better than abroad. Um you saw two pretty high profile uh, closures of nuclear plants, one in new york indian point and then the application yon sort more famously massive power redgy es following blackouts following the closure indian point.
Meanwhile california already a see of blackouts in power logic as the sort of state capacity for running the basic essentials of of of of infrastructure crumbles um has been worsened by uh our lack of power. But double kenyon um saved you know we knew some made on about face um decided to save IT concurrently. And and I think honestly, I don't think that nuclear feels like a controversial issue anymore.
I think IT really was a few years ago. I think there's broad buying on both the left and the right. You got get your crazies in both directions. But I think generally speaking, like your average intelligent person looks at looks at the math and is like, you know, we need carbon free energy. Nuclear ways is not as big as a problem, but not as big of a problem as we once thought.
Um it's also not as big of a problem is you know potential global categorising, uh, in induced by maybe the global warming we gotto do IT in bizarre world america, which you know you might refer to as europe. You have germany like taking the opposite path and celebrating their closure of these plants, and they are burning of coal grab. Give us the White pill on nuclear in amErica because california was the beginning for me. That was when I sort of first thought, wait, maybe maybe we're going we're going to be good here, but there beans recent developments in georgia and sort of more broadly .
kind of property down for us? yes. So so I guess you to you your first point, I would say that kind of imperia tly at least coring to pew research. Um you know it's the shifted like a approval nuclear a support for nuclear shifted fourteen points since twenty twenty that kind of among like it's just catteries ze by republicans, independence democrats, republicans were already kind of fifty, fifty, whatever. I just don't think they really care. It's probably like, does IT power things near you and do you like power and the the great working you are like in favor of IT, you know I don't think people had that many strong opinions, but it's really um you know jumped up as far as public support. And then I think we see that translating into movement in in these different things.
There was actually almost a potential nuclear anastas during come the bush era um and like you know leading into the beginning of obama, which is actually where some of the initial loan funding came for the plants that just there, the reactors that just want online um and that kind of got shut down by pukhov a and kind of the big scare after that and now our kind of like, okay, actually we still need to do this um you know even more so I would say uh you know the desire for carbon free energy as like a political goal has you know it's a huge thing you not only from um people from just like general climate but also whether you like IT or not kind of esg global finance um being like, oh we're doing this this is one hundred percent um the future and not we we know that we can't just do um intervention power. We need firm based low power because the grids, as you said, invoke california, texas, the middle st, new england and you your all have very slim Operating reserves during you know specific time. So in texas we had uh I think five billion dollars worth of electricity costs last week or something like that because of the surge pricing in this kind of like deregulated market grid. Um what was the search for?
Was there he waiver something?
Yeah, yeah.
It's been insane. This summer has been absolutely not an Austin we had like. I don't know thirty something days of above one hundred peak temperatures.
So once condition goes on this the greatest fuck it's yeah .
it's like essentially in all the places the like kind of deregulated independent system Operator or regional transmission organizations. Essentially anything that's not integrated utility um for the most part, the know kind of caveats that are a little different. But um there's nothing inherent about the way the market is structured that means that their role inherently be power at nine P M.
You know it's like kind of every five minutes um more or less optimized on energy being extremely electricity being extremely cheap. So in texas, our powers extremely cheap, but we just kind of keep inching closer and closer towards catastrophic failure and that will not be cheap. That's actually extremely expensive. Um how you actually reform and get there. I think again, a lot of IT also comes from regulatory issues at the federal level, of course, new nuclear designs not being approved and kind of that being a very slow process but also just a lot of crazy stuff from the E P A fork um all these different bureaucracies that Normal people shouldn't have to know exist.
What what about, uh, walk me through the georgia stuff. So you have was the two reactors that were approved and this was widely celebrated as I mean a huge Victory. Ah you had some kind of when we last talked about this, you seem to have some quibble about how big of a deal .
that actually yeah yeah it's like you know it's like everyone has to take a win when they get IT. So when you're when you're seeing you know like I just think how exuberant people were, it's easy. Like alright like you know I was like way over budget, way delayed.
You know it's I want to be celebrating. We're about to build like a hundred gigawatts of these things. You know amazon decides it's time to go nuclear and as like ash powering all these data centers, like that's that's the news I want to be celebrating.
It's not like, hey, you know for the first time in fifty years, we built two reactors. We have twenty five hundred mego lots of power. And the you know it's great, but it's not it's not like it's inching forward and I think kindly to the White pill.
So digger shot was we we are talking about kind of the influence of the department of energies um loan program office, which essentially they their role is not to fund R N D but to help for commercialization of energy related technologies before basically banks and kind of like big finance years are willing to step up to the plate. So they had provided loans two like you know sense like two thousand eight, I think the twelve billion total in loans to three different entities to build the um vogue three and vocal four reactors in georgia. Um while they were building those reactors, there were a bunch of issues.
One apparently they hadn't like completed the full designs before they started building and that caused all kinds of overruns and problems along the lines there. Um that's also when the sash ma backlash happens. So uh the economics of west house, the company that was um doing the actual building uh just completely collapsed.
You know i'm sure it's like people say they're onna buy things and then you can get financing and all that just stops when no one wants to buy your reactors. So they went to bankrupcy in the middle of building the reactor and then had to pass off management of the project to two other entities. But I wait, the kind of idea of you know the L P O and their their mission is to um you know kind of d risk.
These things for private markets is like large asset managers. And you know the thing that trigger would point to as the massive ge success is no one wanted to finance um solar or wind you know like before they were doing this, like a decade ago, there were also been failures on the doa. Like we will talk about solinus a and all these things. I mean, do mors don't know about IT, but like everyone, everyone has, yes.
crazy. This is like there there was the first extinction event in in energy where all of these funded companies that just completely socked died correctly. And yeah, we have this speaking of memory, al, I mean, we just completely memory hold that entire chapter of of of government investigation police.
Yeah, yeah.
And I think two.
what was the IT what was a policy connection .
um her brother in law, something was like on the board of cylinders and like they got the uh the obama White house like pushed through approval, like some loan or something um and IT was alleged that there is also correct.
do this is you know what all these people need to be in jail and this is like, this is my this is my problem with not to make this about trump, but we're going to make this about trump for a second. This is my problem with the trump sort of go to person thing. I I don't even with my just rough sort of like gLance at the stories.
I'm like i'm sure that he's done something fucked up in illegal like this is he's a politician. They are all doing fucked up illegal things all the time. My problem is not that trump is maybe going to go to gel.
My problem is that only trump is going to go to jail. And you cannot live in a country where only one of the criminal politicians goes to jail is like either all of them or none of them. And that is my that is my break room. So box comment for the day.
It's just concerning to me because like I uh remember being like sixteen, like a eighteen twenty year old, like left us in majoring international relations and and my professor is being like, no, it's good that like the corrupt tollit cian basically don't get arrested and charged and like the reason is is because then that's how you create like dictator shirts like this callis the world because people people think they're going to jail.
Where are they gone to be executed when they leave office? They're not going to leave. Um like there's countless examples of this amErica .
and that's the tough pilled to swallow. Is that probably a little bit of corruption at that level is you have to allow IT, but you have to like you actually have to allow all of IT. And if you don't, then we are in a dictatorship or some kind of less authoritarian state where only one kind of person goes to jail for what everybody is doing. That is clearly a problem. Um anyway.
probably you get back to good yeah and I I think that's raving people the wrong way you know I would I would say like the almost again, I just like to play with the ideas and throw things out there. Is that like you know he just keeps becoming more popular yes, as he gets entity. And I think there's there is this element to your point, mike, and kind of the like visual reaction to this and being like, you know, can we let them get away with this?
Like I would say that like kind of the opinion people have is like, you know, we can't let them throw a president and you know then what country are we you know, like we can't have a president going to jail for this, I think so then the conspirators oral angle is like, they view him very weak. He's a weak canada. They would like to amplify trauma relative to other parties. I don't know that's true, but I do think that the democratic party did that.
I is true. I think one says this. Um I think there are I think there are two things happening.
I think surface level, they actually can help themselves. He activates something in the brain of a certain kind of person who has never been me. I like, I was shocked in the beginning, and then I don't know.
He didn't do to me what he did to other people where he really seem to like, break them in a way and they cannot help but but react to what he he is giving and um and I think the second thing is happening sort below the surface is they want him to. They like him. The the people who hate him the most get something out of him being in a position of power.
He by virtue of his existence in a seat of power, he seems to confirm their entire world view which is built upon the notion that amErica is this evil, you know, monstrous country uh, run by a dictator and the kind of that famous acy that these people I think seem to live on doesn't really work. When your party controls every single found of power in the country like that, they need, at least they need, they need a puppet of of. They need the enemy puppet to be waffling around to make them not feel bad about themself. They love him. I think it's like a weird, sick, almost fetishistic relationship that they have with each other.
I was going to, I was going to say to this, like I joke with this dynamic that it's like because people, I mean, people say all kinds of things such I think kind of this the mark on this but there is an element that's like people are acting out because they want someone to tell them, no yeah it's something yeah like and I and I think that that is like IT is this weird thing where it's like that shouldn't be in public like that is where we need to stigmatize.
You're like sexual fantasy. Like it's not about you're like politics of this. Like go fine daddy elsewhere. Like you don't need to like try to provoke the thing, you know, whatever and this is kind of a bit like i'm joking, but there is element of IT .
that is very like, punch me, punch me daddy trump, it's it's giving that one hundred percent. It's giving full some street fair to me. That is what I am getting. Member, what do you think?
So what I will say is that growing up with the way I did like my parents were like hard court eventually. So they actually um I think my dad like trump, but my mom did my trump SHE doesn't like trump there, but he voted for about times but yeah but both times, although he voted for a like tech crews in the prime mary, so like like that even decal wing but like other people in my family were not as religious for them.
Trump like these people never give a fuck about and went from, came along they did because. For a lot of them, I mean, like the tonic group and like as I was growing up, which just like rapidly the industrial thing, like people people θΏζ like the union jobs in manufacturing and and saw mills and like and all other stuffγ And then it's just like all in away and now it's like, okay, you want to like cook matter working a dairy point like that IT and people felt them moralized and they felt like um basically like the the country have been sold out underneath um and trip basically came along inside.
You're right, these people groups, they hate you, they don't respect you, they think you're stupid IT and they were like, yeah you're right. Like they don't want to these people don't want to hear that like the bigness and institutional as difficult party has become like the institutional alist party and partially because trump is a and like people see that as like not only like a president but like also like these these people don't care about you and they think that they're Better than you and like when you see the way that um democrats and not necessarily elected politicians but like in the media in the popular discourse talk about like you know working class why people IT is patronizing and IT does seem like they don't respect them. They don't like them. They they're just racist who have never contributed .
anything but that's all I agree with your your analysis of the trump supporter that I think is all true but what about what do you make of the trump detractor? I mean do acknowledge that there seems to be but you .
republican trump t attraction or the um no i'm talking about the republican .
trump to tractor is less interesting to me because it's less I guess you give the link and people but they are democrats now so what i'm talking about your average like obsessed by trump, boring never from democrat, not my president yes yeah so .
I actually think that mostly a class thing. I think it's mostly like professional class people who did all the right things and went to college and like they were like, we believe in the system because the system worked for us. He he represents like a bucking of the system that is benefit these people. I've never met like a poor person who was .
like rabbit antidrug in person. Yeah, I think it's that's true. Like do they want to have sex with them or not is what i'm really asking you.
Do they want to have a good maybe solved though? I don't know.
They want to be. They want to be punished, such as you say something.
No, I mean, I was I was just going to say, I really think, I mean, I grew up in suburban field alpha, which is very blue and has a lot of people were history hysterically anti trump um and I do that. I mean the the opposition I saw was completely, I IT almost seemed like a mental illness like i'm not saying that there aren't legitimate reasons to hate this guy um but I know people who you are you start talking to them about trump and five minutes in you're talking about their x husband. There is something and it's like clear that they're sublimating uh you know other issues in their lives um into this like hatred of this man who represents everything evil in the universe .
and I think that serves an important psychological purpose that I think what's happening he is it's good to have not about only is good only is capital g good I think they're feeling is IT feels good to have someone who you can blame for all the things that are not working in your life and um and he said I dude for them and its feared they like they have to have like .
a secular double and like front is that so and then like I don't black women or like whatever like there are there .
are so many eventually Christs you're saying so you're saying that an now no no.
no I like saying like the I just remember libs and like twenty eighteen or being like the black women are going to save us from .
and like all .
the right basically turned politics and like cloudy religious Cosmology. Yeah it's .
so crazy. What a fucking and weird world the internet has turned us into. Um I think it's the internet. Maybe it's just maternity. It's really hard to tell.
I do want to talk about um sound to your incredible experience in california because so much but we just heard about nuclear, uh, which is exciting, is going to require support from legislators. And it's worth kind of looking into what that environment looks like. I think right before we actually get into that great, we covered the the nuclear sort of exciting nuclear trends on the table. What about the actual reactor? Are there are some sort of smaller module reactors now that are kind of and that's where I really think regulatory stuff he's going to start becoming important.
Yeah, yes. So that's so that's where that matter. So I guess just to like kind of finished the georgia point. So the kind of optimistic piece there was that the so reactor three and reactor four, reactor four was much cheaper than reactor three. So if you're asking like l po, you know who gave these loans, like a lot of what they were doing is kind of like rebuilding the supply chain that is just completely collapse like like skilled labor plus these different things. And you know essentially you want the uh you for any of these things to work, you need economies of scale.
Um so and then just printed to make the point from like the first principal standpoint, there's no reason that nuclear should be um more expensive than these these other things that should be able to compete um and this is a model for scaling IT. But the koreans through their like nationalized like monopoly with a standardized reactor, are able to produce a reactor for four thousand dollars per kilo a which you know is like, I think I think I got a wrong in in our private, our prior conversation, but you know, still like one fourth, if not more cheaper than this this bogle plant. But the hope would be to that scale.
Currently there's not demand for these large light water reactors from um utilities or letters on private corporations, but the small modular reactors much um you you maybe like between IT depends on which one IT is but one ten to one twenty of one tempt to one twenty eighth of the amount of power that generated by a large light water reactor. Um much much smaller. The idea there is that um you know sense its its smaller uh you'll be able to scale up these factories that essentially like print them out.
Not only could you sell them to a utility, but in fact perhaps some these large tech companies would be um you willing to buy them out right to just meet their own needs like my joke about this as if um if these were legal and you could buy them. And when we are scaling IT, like how many would amazon have purchased or or built like functionally built um and there there's there's a little bit this is kind of like the good bad news. So essentially, I think we're setting the stage for that production to scale and for that to all come about.
But it's probably not gonna until you know the end of the twenty twenty is going into the beginning of the twenty thirties, partially because are mostly because of the regulatory um aspects of the nuclear regulatory commission. You the two reactors in georgia are the only ones that have like sense IT was created in one thousand and seventy four. I think IT started Operation one thousand and seventy five.
There are the only ones that have been approved, built and begun Operations under their you know their authority. Um and then essentially that process you know prolong time is just very hostile to nuclear. I in culturally um leadership stuff is really in favour of nuclear.
The last four presidencies or so have been nominally pro nuclear is really this kind of like bureaucratic um issue um but there the process for approving new reactors is still uh far too prescriptive. There's a couple other issues too. But essentially there's not a clear um there's not a good process for approving new design.
So one design of an sr has been approved but all the others are like being supported by all these other government entities. And you know people are excited about them. They putting all the money into.
None of them are approved. You can start ordering them yet. But you know it's kind of like we're getting there. Um I still think there's a lot on the reform side that could be done, but that kind of like the the generic overview of the White pill.
You said that um the last few presents i've been like for nuclear, which I I did not know because I I feel like it's never really talked about and um I don't know maybe something so something going on that because I I do remember and I could be wrong about this. But i'm pretty sure I remember whenever everybody we was talking about the Green new deal like oc hope, plan and body and if I remember correctly, nuclear was left out. That is that right?
So yeah yes. I mean.
you that changed on like the left, like the the party left or I .
actually I think A O C in particular has said some like pro nuclear things. I think some people I kind of got to her um you know it's very much like the large ngos that are focused on these things like the natural resources defense council or this year club, or what I religious, these giant entities theyve tones of money. Jeff bazo like climate fun, gave nrdc like a hundred million dollars or something like that like know he's not even I mean, maybe is one of biggest donors. But you know there you know ages of boomers who have given them a tony money and they're all extremely hostile to nuclear and they're not changing their minds.
I don't realize had given to anti nuclear stuff .
he gave to he has a fund, so I don't know exactly his involvement, but still it's like a misallocation. This is the .
problem with these people who have too much money to keep track of IT. They put people in charge of their money to give IT out, and then they will pay a ted method basis to just of this. In safer, this go SHE funded was twenty million dollars, like to the worst collonges st.
Left wing activists in the city. Like destructive, I would. Hey, I mean, how many use the word terrorist? They feel like.
They feel like a terrorist on the soul, on, on, on the human spirit. Perhaps they're bad people. And he is giving them an unlimited amount of money to be bad for imperatives ity like forever.
Um shut IT down, man. I've never been and eat the billionaire person. And so, like this week, I might wait a minute. Maybe I was wrong. They are the problem.
And yeah, that was why I looked IT up. I bigly remembered this. And this was before I really had the context about these organizations, and then they were talking about the mackenzie za staying.
And I was like, well, I mean, like they were like, you know, this is the disasters. st. divorce. You know, allocation money. Sure, I take all that I I read into that one seems terrible misallocation of money but the but that I was like, I mean, i'm prettier jeff gave hundred million dollars the R. D, C, and I looked up and IT is fun.
But either way, yeah don't create the fund and if you do like, you know put people in charge of IT to whatever share believe the same things you do. I don't think jeff bezos believes out that we should only use solar and wind dom matter. So we need to shut down natural gas solar.
not the judge business is like the last, but from the year a club then like a lot is like, like bernie, who is I biggest anding? No, because he was like, I don't know, like I laughter in the seventies and just like part of the deal. But like the obsession with solar is strange to me.
If you're like taking for a lifeless perspective, this is like the most like damaging imperialists to like thing that you can do. It's like kids finding like rural minerals and uganda and when and then when the solar panel age, they just like dumping and kenya and then like kids like have to hit them apart. It's like this, this horrific, like human rights disasters. Ds are happening in africa that nobody gives a fuck about, really like you hardly ever hear about that.
When you talk about the shift to solar, you need to be talking about the human rights impact on something like that. I but I think it's easy to explain. Actually, I think solar fits in with the spiritual belief of the far left.
This is the fergal I speer's component of, if they want to photosynthesize like plants, that is the in in their imagination, that is the least impact you could possibly make this to photosynthetic. They want to be, they want to be fucking ferries like that is what they want. And uh, that unfortunately is impossible in reality. In reality, like you said, you need to have slaves mining cobalt so you can live in your drive, running in your electric, uh, your solar power vehicle like that that kind of that the that is the tension between their their faith and you know, the material world. Yeah, nuclear is interesting.
You can look at videos of this. It's like ten year old, like pouring wider fluid, just like on the solar panel so that they can burn IT and then like getting the um like different like medals and stuff out of IT until selling until like a scrap market. And like these kids are like breathing in all of these like toxic fumes, like full of heavy meals and like.
yeah I right crazy. We're supposed to play nice with the other renewable really like I don't A A renewable energy sources um or not or are certainly carbon the other carbon lets at the other carbon neutral energy sources. I think solar, a world of solar energy, is a worst world in his land.
Intensive IT requires cheap labor. Labor IT requires rare metals that you need to process in mind, both of which are extremely damaging to the environment. Um there are no shortage. I I think that natural gas is much Better than solar. And ah I think a world of like complete solar that sort of fantasy is really scary to me that is not a good world that is a that is a, that is a an environmental catastrophe and the humanity rights disaster presently as we are sort presently structure nuclear .
the way yeah and the op the kids dying like trying to get scrap metal of the solar panel like that called recycling like that so they can say that they recycled the solar panels. And there's ways you can do that without killing like kids in africa. But like it's more yeah.
you can do that. They build the next option when you post these questions as well, you can just use less vergy. You can just right.
It's like we can just have you can have less babies and you can use less air commissioning and consume less. A food that need to be transported and refrigerator in things like this, you could just do less. You can be less.
You can vanish. You can no longer exist. And I think for me, it's, I would like to exist. I would like people to exist.
I would like us to have abundance, and I would like there might be literal slaves mining our shit. So maybe nuclear is the option for us. I think we're all pretty much on board, so I don't want to belabor the point.
I do worry about, I do worry about navigating these is crazy how much power we give this certain class of people who just loves power. And that's not even at the top. I'm talking about local politicians. Sagan, tell us about your experience um with the california state legislate of session yeah i've been describing .
IT as a form of torture um which I think is more did IT well IT has more to do with the fact that i'm i'm actually in what you called bizarre world amErica right now. I'm in i'm in london ah so I was on eight hour time different. So when I was watching the session at night, but basically last wednesday, I tuned in to the california state senate floor session because we've been covering A B three sixteen, which is a bill that bands self driving trucks uh, in california.
Basically amit doesn't out write ban them but IT requires that there is a human safety Operator in them at all times, which essentially beds them um and IT also like requires that the dmv and a bunch of other random state organization submit a bunch of research reports on the trucks in five years even that like the california highway patrol also included in. And so we've been covering IT and our idea was to send out a tweet about the result of the vote on as soon as I came out. And so that requires watching the hearing live because california only updates its legislative uh, results at six A M the morning after um and so this hearing was at ten A M which was six P M where I am and I tuned and I was like a i'm just going to get through two hours of watching these people sort of talk about their legislation.
Men eventually will vote on on A P three sixteen h IT turned out to be a six hour long hearing um but that was actually really interesting because california a is a good example of what we were talking about earlier. It's a one party dictatorship, which means that they did not, to my knowledge, like knocked down any vote, any bill. They basically proved every single bill that came up for consideration.
And the bills that were up for consideration ranged from, I would say, completely. But like, what should the state mushroom be? This was an actual bill that was passed last week.
What did to say mushroom again.
it's how god, it's some really obscure a weight, let me tell. Or yeah chantel. It's the california, a goal in centerville shots around .
graph california. Love we love a sexy mushroom.
Yeah and like there is a bill about whether not IT was about protecting artificial flavors and children medication I don't know who wants to get rid of that but like the person introducing IT saying mary poppins and should like that um but in the midst of all this banal legislation there was also a bunch of like really, really disturbing stuff that they just waived through um so among other things a IT looks like and all of this is pending Gavin newson signing IT I should say um so gave newsies can veto and if you veto is then the bills don't pass really they can technically override them the vetos but in practice they never do because state politics Operates like a mafia and they don't want to piece off their their mafia boss.
But um fair vacation, the fair evasion decriminalizing fair vasant bill passed um so basically in california going forward, if new consigns IT, if you don't want to pay for public transportation, essentially nothing will happen. I mean, in practice, if you do IT like three times they might find you. Um but essentially it's decriminalized again if if new and signs in into the law um they also passed a bill that ads affirming a child's gender identity into the criteria for determining custody. So basically if you've got a custody battle, betwen parents and one kid um identifies trans and wants to, you know for example, pursue hormonal placed therapy and get surgeries and one parents is like against this um I know that parents for IT the parent is for IT uh has priority, all things equal for custody.
It's really shocking how much actually takes place that none of this stuff was on our radar. We weren't covering any of this. We're still not covering any this. Most people are not covering any of this.
The stuff just uh IT just comes up and passes and that's because it's like you have these long sessions like you said, he was like six hours before you departed. You woke up the next day, still isn't up and um that is yeah I think it's A I think it's a problem not not in the legislators. It's the problem is us, man, like we have to start paying attention to .
this stuff yeah I think I mean, they sort of do everything in they are power to make you not want to pay attention to the I should say, like all of the its bizarre. The the website, even for the california like state legislature, looks like IT was designed two thousand and four something and they have it's kind of there's this arcane way of figuring out where they're not like where the legislation is and there's all this code language they use.
But yeah, the stuff is really consequential. I mean, they just pass last week this like basically prop c for L A, where they are raising taxes and earmarking IT all for housing first homelessness policy. Um and again, what's shocking when you watch the sessions is that there's like no debate on any of IT or if there is debate, it's bunch people getting up and like grandstanding incoherently for five minutes before everyone then but it's in lockstep um yeah it's really it's kind of a black tail um on democracy, at least one party democracy .
there's something like insidious about what the penalty and alterius of american legislative uh to corum I guess like you see and like the U S. Congress to um with you. I compare that to the british parliament, which sometimes is like genuinely fun to what like they're like at each other. They're gering people do. It's like IT feels like an actual like debate. Um it's so like IT almost feels like they make impossible to watch, like even when i'd try to watch a literally appearance on substance uninterested in, you can barely get through them because it's like everybody gets like five minutes to speak and like half of them are actually wanting to talk about somebody else and like it's just like this awful boring thing that I feel like it's IT isn't meant to like make people disengage .
totally yeah I mean, IT totally is IT the california session begins with this like insane prayer that's LED by a none but sort of it's this like nonino inao prayer rushing invites us to like enter into ourselves and recent our connection to the future um and then it's just a brage of like you know they will they say ee your name on the bills um and you know was knowing there was not a land acknowledged .
there was not a land acknowledged .
and for there will be soon next time for sure we get to get one .
um or will suggest IT write him a letter i'm sure that they'll take IT up maybe theyll possibility about IT that would be great I think great I need you to give give me the White pill in some of this stuff because I want to go out, I promise, a White pillow. And this week I want to go out with something positive and take us out of. You have this nuclear thing you want to push IT through.
You're facing these these the legislators. This is what you need. These are the people that you can be on your side.
Yeah so I think I mean I think looking at uh so D O canyon, I think was a big shift on different parties. Take kind of credit for that changing or influencing um you know governor newsome to to basically .
straight up didn't want blackouts. I think he knew that with more blackouts he would be done there is no and he would have no chance to the presidency which what he wants yeah and .
I think I think that ultimately true. I think there a lot of party is kind of being like we don't like the D O E. I think cinema letter there are these ground is bible make these their activists were really lobbying as well.
And um you know so lots of people take credit for IT was the right decision. I'm sure IT was some staffer to your point in the government or the news ministration being like we're going ever all in black out you're gonna size over them. You won't be president.
I think with some of these other things would be interesting to see whether he proves them or viols them because I kind of looked that up and I saw some of these you know points of, you know, news you are talking about being like so as he just over like some of the things you just talked about, if he signed us and like how could you ever be president I mean no one really knows I guess anymore but anyway so um the good news is a lot of these state legislatures are um pretty pro nuclear um some of IT because of the current state of things. I mean the inflation reduction act uh is law IT was past there in immense amount of subsidies going to electric vehicles, solar win. There are subsidies for advance nuclear, for existing nuclear.
It's a crazy amount of money. The more I learn about IT and like digg into IT, the more I am like, uh, I don't think maybe a fifty one fifty like trillion dollar energy package was really a good policy, you know. So no republicans voted for IT. IT was all democrats and then call Harris broke the tie.
And at the time, the democrats held the house unannounced policy so I got ta prove um but the White pill, at least from the nuclear angle and like us actually building things, is um there is a lot of funding uh allocated to this long program office um so and um money for call to nuclear plants um in particular that so there's additional subsidies for that and that really matters you know to some of the points that river brought up earlier. You know making sure that um you know we need this energy infrastructure um IT shouldn't you know we need uh productive economic things that couldn't all be located in a couple insane cities for mad people. You know like we see we should we should spread some of this investment around, especially if it's like everyone's tax dollars or like.
You know about some unified idea of the united america. Um so anyway, a lot of states are moving to kind of pave the way for advances nuclear because essentially with the call nuclear, there's all this existing transmission. There's an existing site people already live next to a thing.
I would much rather live next to a small modular reactor nuclear facility than a coal plant. It's like a huge Victory um in that response. So anyway, they want the money, you know there's a bunch of money there.
They want IT for the people um when you have if you if you go look at these jurisdictions that have these a nuclear plants, they text the shit out of them. Um but the school district really great, you know like people live there have really good things. I'm i'm doing some research on the cost of shutdown down indian point in new york.
The reliability stuff is is crazy. But you know they also have this huge shortfall in their budgets for the school district and for the town. And really, the White pill is kind of like a lot of people have been making really bad decisions.
It's very obvious that they were bad decisions. Um lots of different parties have seen what happened and they're shifting course. Um sweden is money to build nuclear reactors, you know um in the united states, I would say the consensus is moving that way. We're going to figure that out. We're going to hit economies of scale.
Canada, I think, is is, is doing surprisingly well on the nuclear stuff is well. And also france.
yeah, yeah. And so france shifted course at one point. They kind of like bow in with the whole.
They were very good on nuclear, and then recently they were greater thumbed. But IT looks like they regained conscious ness center back on the back on the good.
the right path. So so I do think there is like a real, a real path there. I think there you know any given company i'm not i'm not totally sure about my position is really just the regulations don't make sense.
We can make them Better. We need to build the reactors. Let's let people compete. You if there's a company that wants to eat everyone's lunch and like gig scale reactors and and bring us to abundance, uh, I love them and they should keep working hard because that if you I want to live.
let's go. Thanks for joining grant. A river saga is always a pleasure. Um will get you guys here next week. Thank you later.