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- [00:00]
Dana El Kurd
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Garrison Davis
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Dana El Kurd
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Dana El Kurd
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Garrison Davis
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Dana El Kurd
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Garrison Davis
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Garrison Davis
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Garrison Davis
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Jacob Goldstein
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Dana El Kurd
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- [02:17]
Robert Evans
Hey everybody robert evans here and i wanted to let you know this is a compilation episode so every episode of the week that just happened is here in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package and you to listen to in a long stretch if you want if you've been listening to the episodes every day this week there's going to be nothing new here for you but you can make your own decisions.
- [02:41]
Dana El Kurd
Hello everyone this is dana elkerd for it could happen here today's episode will be focused on arab israeli normalization arab israeli peace deals and arab israeli relations more generally the reason that this is an important topic to discuss is is because a few weeks ago the washington post published this powerpoint presentation originating in the trump administration titled the great trust from a demolished iranian proxy to a prosperous abrahamic ally and this presentation is about gaza the us and israeli vision for what gaza's reconstruction will look like and the word great itself is an acronym that stands for gaza reconstitution economic acceleration and transformation now this presentation has so much in it that horrifies any normal human being but essentially it outlines this vision for how gaza is going to be reconstructed and throughout the entire document it's very clear that whatever remains of gaza's population will not have any political rights there is some gesturing at some point about handing over some governance to quote vetted palestinians but there's also a repeated discussion within this presentation within this document of how they want to incentivize a significant segment of gaza's population to leave gaza altogether and not return and they want to financially incentivize them to do that i think the entire presentation is worth looking at i'll put it in the show notes because it really outlines what they think gaza is going to look like and what they plan for the palestinians more generally the reason why arab israeli normalization is important to discuss given this presentation given what's happening in gaza after ceasefire is present very much in this document it's very clear from the presentation that the us and israel envision a particular role for arab governments in this reconstruction and in this new middle east that they hope to achieve a middle east where gaza is this economic zone connecting it to saudi arabia connecting it to other parts of the middle east opening up investment opportunities for different middle eastern governments and companies in the global north as well and it really is just an astounding vision to behold referring to gaza as a demolished iranian proxy that they want to turn into an abrahamic ally is also interesting here because we've seen this kind of language in the last couple of years especially during the first trump administration with the abraham accords now the abraham accords as this episode will outline in detail were agreements signed between israel and the united arab emirates and bahrain and eventually morocco and a part of sudan and these agreements were billed as this new era of peace between arabs and israel under this kind of religious language and religious framing of abraham as the father of both jews and arabs jews and muslims so to discuss this entire framework what it means what it obfuscates today i'm joined by ben schuman stoller and matan khamener who have created a new podcast series called bad cousins this is published by colo media in partnership with the diasporist and they recently had an event in berlin debuting their first episode which full disclosure i'm on but essentially they tackle this question of why are the abraham accords named after abraham what was that intended to denote and why is arab israeli normalization such a big piece of the puzzle in understanding both the israeli palestinian conflict right now as well as the vision for the israeli palestinian conflict from the american and israeli perspective so please enjoy this interview with ben and matan i wanted to give you guys a chance to introduce yourselves to the audience so matan would.
- [06:39]
Matan Khamener
You like to start sure i'm an anthropologist i work at queen mary university in london my main research is on migration from thailand to israel for agricultural work but this project is something of a side project that's blossomed together with ben who i've been good friends with for i think over a decade now.
- [06:58]
Dana El Kurd
All right yeah i remember that first book on the thai migrants but you have also published extensively on the arab israeli normalization question so yeah yeah we'll.
- [07:06]
Ben Schuman Stoller
Get into it ben yeah i'm ben schuman solar i'm the founder and owner of colo media here in berlin germany we're an audio publisher we have audiobooks and shows and documentaries in english and german and yeah i'm excited to be here thanks for having us awesome all.
- [07:22]
Dana El Kurd
Right so the listeners i'm sure are going to be a little bit aware but let's kind of just define terms at the at the top of this when we say arab israeli normalization well what do we mean by that so.
- [07:35]
Matan Khamener
It'S a long long process it's not new one of the interesting things that i found out when researching this the article that this podcast came out of is that more than a hundred years ago haim weizmann who was head of the zionist organization and king faisal were in very very close communication about an agreement that it seems a lot like a progenitor of the arab accords today we had a very sort of strong pro western orientation on both sides pro imperialist if you like use that language we had a disdain for the palestinians as people who were not supposedly an important factor in the politics of the area and we had a framing of arabs and jews as relatives as kin which is one that we trace back in the show to the sort of abrahamic concept that has really come to the fore with the naming of the abraham courts of course there's a long long history since then with the big landmarks being egyptian israeli normalization in the late nineteen seventies seventy nine i think and of course jordanian israeli normalization in nineteen ninety four which came very very tightly knit with the oslo accords and the initiation of so called peace talks between the palestinians and the israelis so the palestinians were of course do play a central role here whether as present or as present absentees as the israelis like to call them sometimes today of course we fast forward to the two thousand and twenties the abraham accords were signed between israel bahrain the uae morocco and one of the warring factions in sudan back in twenty twenty and of course there's a kind of live project led by the us under trump as well as biden to extend normalization between israel and not only arab countries but other so called islamic countries like kazakhstan.
- [09:24]
Dana El Kurd
Kazakhstan yes which has had diplomatic relations since nineteen ninety two but we'll get.
- [09:28]
Matan Khamener
Into that yeah yeah but there's other ones of course that are on the table i think indonesia has been spoken about pakistan is always some hovering in the background the big fish is saudi arabia and we can talk about that.
- [09:39]
Dana El Kurd
As well right yeah and when we say normalization usually people are referring to the formal normalization of diplomatic ties because a lot of these countries a lot of the arab countries had a position reiterated in the arab peace initiative of two thousand two that they would not have normal ties with the state of israel until a resolution of the israeli palestinian conflict and the abraham accords was a step away from that a kind of breaking of that precedent but if we think about kind of under the table normalization of course there are so many ways in which these arab countries have had under the table normalization to varying degrees with the state of israel ben maybe you could tell us about what the abraham accords were how were they billed and what did they include.
- [10:26]
Ben Schuman Stoller
You have to make sure my the precision of my language is on point but there's two agreements right there's two things that were actually signed so one is the framework right which which which discusses like the abraham accords as this.
- [10:38]
Matan Khamener
Unit the declaration of principles the declaration.
- [10:40]
Ben Schuman Stoller
Of principles and the other one's a peace treaty right a peace treaty between israel and the uae and other countries right so essentially that's what it is it's these two signings but i think when you when you talk about how it was presented it's supposed to mean it's supposed to be like a vehicle a conduit for travel for security for economics for for deals for cultural interchange for a new way to be seen it's like a massive pr exercise matan jump in with the specifics yeah absolutely.
- [11:17]
Matan Khamener
I mean what we're kind of honing in on here is the sort of sort of cultural or ideological aspects if you want to be more stern about it and i think you know that's the real interest of the show is in how this sort of mythical framework that i referred to already and specifically the figure of abraham is really really central to this kind of ideological framing of the course like elham fakhor has written extensively about how toleration and tolerance have become sort of ideological tools and abraham is kind of a figurehead for that he does this in two different ways that i think are interesting for listeners to sort of follow on the first is as the progenitor or the kind of figurehead of monotheism so jews christians and muslims all have a stake in abraham and of course this concept of the abrahamic religions that's very central here but another one and we already mentioned this as well is the sort of language of kinship of jews and arabs as being related to one another as being specifically cousins our show is called bad cousins because we're kind of exploring the various modalities or the various kind of shades of meaning and mood that this idea of cousins can have it can be very positive of course you know a lot of people say oh abraham that's he's a wonderful figure of peace of hospitality et cetera but there are also really dark sides to it dark sides that we really get into are the sort of misogyny that's very very central in the abraham myth the underpinnings of slavery versus freedom that are really really present there and maybe most prominent and most important to me maybe as somebody who also studies migration to the area is xenophobia so something that you don't have written about the similarities between the uae for example and israel that aren't really considered that aren't thought about much one that's always stood out to me is the way that migrant workers are treated in both these countries the gulf states including uae are huge obviously users of non citizen migrant labor israel is not as big it's not as big a phenomenon in israel there but it's growing a lot especially since october seventh when palestinian workers have been shut out of the israeli market and so i think israel is like the gulf states in a lot of these ways and it's also getting to be more like them and abraham is kind of a prism or a figure through which we start to explore all.
- [13:20]
Dana El Kurd
These issues so in my mind when the abraham accords were you know whispered about and then we saw them happen and you know i've been writing about arab israeli normalization since since before the abraham accords in smaller ways but in my mind when i kind of heard that terminology being used and that framing being used to me it felt deceptive that they were using this term of like the abraham accords denoting and hearkening back to like the idea of the abrahamic tradition and that we're kin and all of these things for listeners who are bad at religion as i am abraham had two sons presume you know apparently and one of those sons is the ancestor of jews and the other one is the ancestor of arabs if you believe that so anyway i'm not going to blaspheme on this podcast but.
- [14:12]
Matan Khamener
No i think the story is important i mean it is a deception i totally agree with you on that but it's important to unpack how the deception works right right right it's so effective because the story is so well known.
- [14:21]
Dana El Kurd
To people in the region no absolutely absolutely but to me like the deception lay in the the framing of arab and israeli animosity through a religious perspective as if the conflict was a religious one yeah so to me it felt kind of very shallow but then as you start to unpack not only the impacts of the abraham accords immediately so immediately repression increases in these countries that sign the agreement but then you start to unpack like what are these accords actually serving for the arab countries that are signing why are they signing with israel well they're attempting to re engineer society a lot of that tolerance language has to do with that it's they don't want societies that are politically active they want them to be interested in consumerism they want them to be maybe slightly socially liberal tolerate the israelis tolerate war crimes and you know kumbaya and never ever have the ability to question the political leadership or the political status quo in any of these countries or in the region as a whole yeah.
- [15:27]
Matan Khamener
I think it's all that but i think it's also a global power move right the gulf countries including qatar which has a different politics are all really trying to make a name for themselves to become really really huge global players they're basically all trying to to transform this gigantic oil wealth that they have into soft power into diplomatic power into cultural power you know this this this brings us into the the the comedy festival in saudi arabia as well right and i think i think part of the framework here is we are part of this larger global story which is about freedom peace and friendship through religion now what's the deception here the deception is this sort of and i think ben this is one of one of his favorite points so he can he can expand on this there's a sort of like a switcheroo game in which something else is brought into view and the palestinians are hidden right the crux of the conflict the crux of what has basically brought israel to go wild on the entire region attacking seven different countries simultaneously is the palestinians and it has been the palestinians it's always going to be the palestinians there is and you've written about this as well there is a segment of arab society especially arab elites especially in the gulf who want nothing to do with the palestinians and would be happy to get rid of them but this isn't the case with the vast majority of arabs it's also not the case with the vast majority of the global south i think and even the vast majority of the global north right we've seen very very clear majorities against israel's genocide in gaza even in the united states in israel's biggest ally abroad so in order to not have to talk about this it's always good to be able to talk about something else one of the many ways and i'm not saying this is the only one one of the many ways in which the subject has changed is is by talking about abraham so we're doing i mean our show has a little bit of a it's it's kind of a difficult to move to make because we're trying to talk about an excuse but also unpack why that excuse is so powerful.
- [17:20]
Ben Schuman Stoller
You know there's like a lot of violence in this piece framing and if you look at i think it's point eighteen of the peace framework that trump talks about that trump presented on gaza i think it's eighteen i have the quote here but not a number it's an interfaith dialogue process will be established based on the values of tolerance and peaceful coexistence to try and change mindsets i mean this is to try and change mindsets and narratives of palestinians and israelis by emphasizing the benefits that can be derived from peace i mean it's like mafia talk.
- [17:48]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Right it's like you better do it.
- [17:49]
Ben Schuman Stoller
Exactly you're going to love this piece so much or else kind of thing i cut up some audio from the episodes and from the interview with you donna at the live event that we had here in berlin a couple weeks ago this topic is so feels so urgent and relevant to so many people that like more than fifty people came out in the rain in november in berlin and one of the things i played was exactly when you called it an obfuscation like there's this paradox where all these things that were under the table are coming up and are now explicit these secret deals with gulf states this normalization that you know you two had known about you know in your research but people like me wouldn't know about if they're not following if they're not academics if they're not following this closely and yet the abraham accords brought this all up okay now we're on now everyone knows right now we know that like this is about iran this is about security this is about you know these material issues right but at the same time that that that that it's playing on this kind of clarity and this openness right and this moderation it's also creating a whole new obfuscation a whole new myth and you know people love love this quote like there was a lot of like nodding heads in the audience when i played what you said donna which was like as if right like as if this is about religion it's about land and it's about sovereignty and and that's clear but these aren't called the land and sovereignty.
- [19:04]
Dana El Kurd
Accords i mean like you said like you said it's very violent i mean i've been describing normalization under these terms as well as the abraham accords in particular as authoritarian conflict management because it maintains structural violence it's not attempting to solve the underlying motivations for that violence which as you said is the israeli palestinian conflict which is the land which is the war crimes and i think also i want to just emphasize for listeners that the tolerance framing in particular there's the flip side to it which is you better like this piece or else and we're calling it peace and it's abrahamic so if you don't like it what does that say about you yeah exactly are you intolerant are you an anti semite are you you know like it's just how could you be against peace the peace is in the name but it's a very particular type of peace it's illiberal i think i.
- [19:55]
Matan Khamener
Think authoritarian conflict management is a very good way of putting it but also it's also very helpful to help to explain why the abraham myth is so so useful in that regard can we just go over the story real quick for listeners who aren't that familiar yes please so abraham who was known as in all the so called abrahamic religions as the first one to explicitly reject idolatry right so there are other righteous men in the bible before him but he's the first one who becomes what is in islam is known as the friend of god right so and he also in addition to having this very very intimate relationship with god he also has a family right and in this family he has a wife and a maidservant the wife is named sarah and the maidservant is named hagar now i'm going to do this quick don't worry sarah is barren she can't have children and she says to abraham i have an idea why don't you have a child with a maid servant with hagar and it'll be my child so already already i think we can see authoritarianism we can see authoritarian conflict management already as kind of the seed that's planted in the story hagar has a child that child is named ishmael and ishmael is beloved by his father the old testament says so it's very very clear right but then sarah gets jealous she says well you know this this this son is going to and his mother are going to be basically be pushing me out of my of my status within the family yada yada yada there's a lot of other stuff that goes on very very interesting and very fascinating and lots of it very well known like so called sacrifice of isaac she miraculously has the child right that child's named isaac everyone agrees within these scriptural traditions that isaac is the father of the jews and ishmael is the father of the arabs this is central to both jewish theology and islamic theology and the christians insofar as they're involved in the story they're also in on now then the question becomes which one of them is the blessed son which one of the one is the one who is supposed to inherit the land that is the holy land wherever that's defined and that's a little bit vague as well the jews say it's isaac and the muslims say it's ishmael so we have a story what my dissertation advisor andrew shraya called a community of disagreement there are people who disagree on something but they don't disagree on the frame right the frame in which all the entire story is inserted is one in which there's no disagreement everybody agrees that abraham had two kids everybody agrees that the women are basically you know the women this part in the story is predicated on their sons and whether their sons succeed is what makes the women succeed or not and then the question becomes which one is the favorite son which one is the one that the father loves and the big father up above also loves right now this is in itself i think at least in the way that it's framed in their abrahamic accords a form of what do you call it authoritarian crisis management right that's what it is now that doesn't mean and i think that this is also important this is also one of the reasons that we made the podcast that there's no other ways of reading the story how else could we read the story for example we could point out we could note that the person who has the most intimate contact with god in this entire story is hagar she's the first and only person in the bible to give god a name she calls him el rohit the god who has seen me she has at least two miracles done to her in islam of course her story and ishmael's story becomes the story of mecca all the traditions of the hajj are based around the story of hagar and ishmael so she's a central central figure and she's a slave woman she's an egyptian she's the one who was cast out into the desert she's a migrant her her name hagar or hajar in arabic means migrant or migration right there's all these powerful undercurrents in the story as there are in every powerful myth that mean that it can be read differently and some people are reading it differently so i don't think the story itself is the problem the problem is that the story is used in a very particular way in a way which facilitates again what you called conflictual sorry authoritarian conflict management authoritarian conflict management yeah i.
- [23:30]
Dana El Kurd
Mean it's it's a it's a mouthful maybe that helps us to get to what the podcast does like who who do you speak to i know i'm on one of the episodes but who who else do you speak to and like what trends were surprising to you how did your kind of thinking shift.
- [23:47]
Ben Schuman Stoller
Over time i mean let me start at least because one thing we talked a lot about at the live event there was a panel and there was a discussion with the audience and one thing that's become excessively clear like we heard matan explain the story i'm not from the middle east right and also in this berlin audience like the relevance of the story as a bible story i know i've heard of the story but it doesn't have that much impact for me like on the on my life or on how i understand the world it's a story it's a bible story and we we felt this from the european audience right we we heard people say something like like okay this is a myth but are these the myths that are worth exploring right now you know maybe with like looking at the at other myths of more like material issues and i think what we're trying to do with the show is also explain well but these do affect people's lives in the middle east like this is something in fact episode two which comes out in a couple weeks we have all these vox pop interviews from the old city of jerusalem where we we talk to people on the street and just ask like how do you why do you think jews and arabs are cousins and what does that mean and what does that mean with the abraham accords and immediately everybody had different israelis and the arabs that you talked to mitan had different understandings of the abraham accords good and bad but if you said why is it called the abraham accords every single one of them were like oh yeah because we're cousins yeah so start there right so so episode one was about the kind of geo geopolitics that's why you were on donna episode two explaining this kind of what does that mean then that if everybody can agree that the jews and the arabs are cousins but the abraham accords are seen with all these like we already started talking about you know all these obfuscating kind of nasty hidden violent undertones but also kind of like sick you know we can fly there or whatever like all this tourism and and high fiving and entrepreneurship and you know the biggest seder of whatever uae history or whatever that was you know so like yeah so we start there and then and the idea is to really like then turn this whole thing around and look at the myths and look at the stories and try and understand from all these different sides we go into you know medieval islamic stories and texts and the idea of hospitality and the idea of of cousinage and what does cousins mean and i mean matan you can you can go further here but the idea of the show really starts from there right and that's how we're going to like start at the geopolitics and end up hopefully in turning the whole abraham idea thing in such a such a somersault that it lands right on its head or right on its butt or something and and not only can we kind of dismantle it or understand it and take it apart but then maybe like reclaim it in a different way and maybe even use it for some kind of positive progressive purposes even radical ones that i mean matan in his activism and in his research you've you know you matan you say you've already seen and kind of he has to make the case to me you know that's kind of the framing of the podcast like.
- [26:34]
Matan Khamener
I'M eternally making the case that's okay i think i think it's kind of a it's kind of a difficult case to make and and the fact that people keep challenging me on it i think is very is very productive one other thing that came up in berlin and i think it was really interesting is that ben sort of touched on this at the beginning of what he was saying just now the way that framing this as the abraham accords framing it as the abraham story tends to make it easier for people from europe or from the united states to north america to see themselves as outside of the story right so this donna you also alluded to this there's this idea that this is like an age old conflict you know between these relatives who are always quarreling between themselves and oh it's so difficult to understand primitive people over there yeah yeah cue like oriental music right in the background and hence that we rational outsiders we westerners we christians et cetera all these sort of vaguely linked identities that so called outsiders have we are sort of neutral and rational outsiders who can play a mediating role and bring this whole ancient mess to an end right but the funny thing about this is that it's also a religious kind of there's also a religious undertone here there is this idea you know a lot of scholars have written about how so called secularism so called enlightenment in the west actually is a secularized form of christianity in a lot of ways and this is really actually very very clear in this abrahamic framing because there is this idea that christianity is superior to these other two religions right this is the actual universal religion this is the one that is able to encompass and sort of transcend the other ones and hence i think maybe this was controversial a few years ago but nowadays i think it's quite clear that the us sees itself as a as a as a christian state right it even sees itself as a.
- [28:12]
Dana El Kurd
Crusader state i mean they state it.
- [28:14]
Matan Khamener
Pretty clearly with the secretary of defense having deus volt tattoos on his chest right so this is this is no longer they're saying the quiet part out loud in this in this in this context as well and they think that they can come in you know and as these sort of outsiders solve things but they're actually deeply implicated in the story themselves for much much earlier than the nineteenth century we could go back to the crusades if we want europe has always been involved in the middle east right and the middle east has been involved in europe of course these are near foreigners right so there's no innocence here right there's nobody who's outside the story and abrahamic framework one of the i think sort of pernicious ways in which it's acting in this current conjuncture in this current day and age is as this sort of framing that neutralizes the western influence it makes it.
- [28:55]
Ben Schuman Stoller
Seem objective and rational and also i think allows the gulf states to to claim that right there was like some interesting stuff in the fakwell book that i didn't quite put together about the you know sort of elite emirati perspectives as liberal and anti democratic but if you're pro business in a certain way then you can claim this kind of you know like donna mattan you two have written about moderation a lot but this idea for me of like if you can claim you know the the business forward thinking then you're also modern then you're also considered you know more above like you have a different elevation and a different sort of legitimacy according to this worldview than somebody that would care about such things as the jews and the arabs what an ancient old fashioned kind of passe you know the palestinian issue you know ugh kind of thing but you know what's cool like artificial intelligence and like shipping deals in the indian ocean that's new you know golf yeah that's sick like yeah golf and like virtual reality watching people play golf like that would be awesome yeah and and it sort of data centers invited dubai chocolate i could go on it's i still think the seder like the biggest seder in emirati history or whatever is my favorite anecdote but the way that it invited this space so like it's almost like a genius like maybe it was like jared kushner's great genius was to see this like you know ability to let other people claim the same christian elevation right the same like i'm on a bit shaky ground here now so i'll stop yeah i.
- [30:30]
Matan Khamener
Don'T know if i'm i don't know if genius i don't i might dispute you you know what i mean in a way it's in a way it's kind of obvious right like they were they were always going to call these the abraham accords when they did them in a way right jared kushner i don't know he's the right guy he's the right guy in the right place at the right time more than anything.
- [30:46]
Ben Schuman Stoller
Else but do you understand what i mean that like this invitation into this perspective that you were saying we're talking this kind of like christian you know in the in our event in berlin someone said something like even without the jewish muslim context we have this problem we have this problem in this region and the abraham accords allows the conversation to happen on this level of let's talk about chips let's talk about fighter jets you know let's talk about drones.
- [31:11]
Matan Khamener
Yeah drones yeah surveillance yep one other thing that i think is really important is it sort of normalizes this idea that there is a place for everybody and that people shouldn't be mixed on the israeli extreme right the religious extreme right in israel there is this notion of the distancing of ishmael for his correction right what's the idea here is that the ishmaelites that is the arabs that is the muslims that is the palestinians they have their place in the world it's just that that place isn't here it's somewhere else in a place called arabia right and therefore that's why we can be friends with emiratis because the emiratis are arabs in the right place in arabia the palestinians however they're a problem because they're arabs who don't realize what the right place is they can stay here if they accept total subjugation basically you know the smotrich's plan is sort of a secular racism decisive plan yeah his decisiveness plan or whatever that's called is is is a is a is a sort of secularization of things that kahane was saying the so called rabbi meir kahane was saying in the nineteen eighties the sort of spiritual father of the israeli extreme right they can stay here if they're willing to be our slaves basically if not they can go to arabia and once they're in arabia they can be our best friends and this is really i think very very closely connected to the animosity towards migrants right that brings me back to the figure of hagar or hajar she is a migrant and because she is a migrant because she's not in the right place that's why she's denigrated that's why she's exploited that's why she's cast out into the desert so it's not just about the palestinians in that regard we can see how this sort of myth also plays into the hyper exploitation of migrants in the gulf we can see how it plays into the racist treatment that refugees from sub saharan africa are receiving in north africa right we literally saw people a couple of years ago in tunisia being cast out into the desert the way the hagar and ismael was and of course this is all closely related again to europe to global imperial kind of processes to capitalism ben was talking about racial hierarchy racial hierarchy right so one of the reasons that i think we need to keep our eye on this ideology is that in some ways it's different from what we're used to right it's not for example white supremacy right we're used to thinking about white supremacy as this sort of globally dominant racial ideology but this is something different this is not about people being better because they're white it's about people being better because they're in the right place and that's actually i think something that's really coming up very very strong on the global far right on the far right globally this idea that you know oh you'll see like in europe for example it's not that we have anything against black people or arabs or asians or anything else it just needs to stay in their own countries so long as everybody stays in their own countries that's fine and you know with climate change with all these catastrophic ecological changes that are happening in the world people are going to be moving and we already see people in masses moving from place to place but that's going to be larger and larger movements in the coming decades and you know the basic test of humanity is going to be this test of hospitality whether people are allowed into new places that they have to go to in order to survive and this sort of ideology i think is already sort of primed it's primed to deny that and to say no you got to just stay in your own space right so against that abraham i would like to play sagar i think she's the she's she's the answer.
- [34:13]
Dana El Kurd
So i mean that's fascinating i've never really kind of thought about i've never really thought too hard about this story because as a muslim and arabic child it upset me but i i do want to say like there is as you as you mentioned like there is a general trending towards ethno nationalism all over the world but the gulf states cannot manage ethnonationalism saudi arabia is kind of a little bit of a different story but the ones that signed yep they are minorities in their countries that's right on top of that to their own citizens to emirati citizens to bahraini citizens they are illegitimate they are only legitimate by virtue of providing economic opportunities you know those cracks have already been showing up so the way in which these countries can build legitimacy for themselves offset possible public pressure offset any kind of accountability for their regional role people forget that the united arab emirates is deeply implicated in the genocide in sudan the way that they connect with what is i think inherently white supremacist and things like this is but of course they're not white is what yassin al hash salad a hassan theorist calls the ideology of modernism he was writing about the the promise and the discourse of the assad regime when bashar al assad came to power but when i read it i was like this sounds a lot like the ideology of these gulf states and so he says it has three traits it entirely neglects issues of values such as freedom equality human dignity mutual respect among people and in favor of morally amorphous categories such as secularism enlightenment and modernism itself it neglects fundamental social issues related to poverty unemployment marginalization life conditions gender relations et cetera and the advocates of this modernism are politically conservative i mean just to a t yeah that's the.
- [36:03]
Matan Khamener
Abraham accords in a nutshell right there.
- [36:04]
Dana El Kurd
Exactly yeah and i you know i wrote about this in the context of the abraham accords in a paper i published in twenty twenty three but yassin hassala like kind of nailed it back in twenty eleven that this was the.
- [36:16]
Matan Khamener
Trend yeah i think syrians saw a lot of things earlier than the rest.
- [36:19]
Dana El Kurd
Of us yeah definitely and so this is their vision for the world and i think this is the vision of a lot of essentially the right in the world even in america like they don't really they don't care about democracy they want this yeah they want you to be prosperous and in your place and yeah everybody stay separate yeah there's.
- [36:41]
Matan Khamener
This sort of like callousness around all of it which i think is it's actually a draw for some people because you know cynicism is a big thing in the world and people are i think one of the reasons that people are attracted to trump for example is because it's clear that he's a completely cynical actor you know who's only out for his own sake and people are sort of you know for better or worse sick of the of liberal hypocrisy so they gravitate towards that and it's funny i mean you would think that that wouldn't go hand in hand with religion or these mythical stories but it actually does you know speaking of prosperity for example there's in evangelicalism there's a very strong strand of what's called like the prosperity gospel this idea and this has you know very very old roots in calvinism as well if you make it in the world if you're rich if you make if you make a lot of money that means that god loves you that's like a proof right and so again we shouldn't think about religion too narrowly religion is really infused in all these sorts of social ideologies among which are this and i think this is very very prominent in the abraham's story and the abrahamic story is that well you know if they have oil if they have riches if they're if they've managed to sort of manipulate the global economy to their own advantage then more power to them right and that's attractive that's that's something that you want to that's a train that you want to get on maybe they'll give you a plane too right that was the qataris that wasn't uae so we shouldn't get them mixed up but i think it's kind of the same story.
- [37:56]
Dana El Kurd
Yeah no i completely agree so i mean i started this discussion by talking about the plans for reconstruction in gaza and you've already mentioned that like the the big whale for the trump administration is saudi arabia they want saudi arabia to normalize with israel what are some things we should watch for in the near future what do you where do you think this arab israeli normalization is.
- [38:20]
Matan Khamener
Going to go i'm always hesitant to to make predictions i think it's a it's it's an extremely volatile moment this ceasefire in gaza we god knows if it's going to hold or if the israelis are just going to go back in and and start genociding again i think we're also seeing these really rapid movements throughout the region with i mean we've kept alluding to qatar but qatar and turkey are really playing a really much bigger role now than they were until recently and that's with american blessing so that's also going to change i think the sort of calculus that saudi makes but broadly speaking i think one thing that we really need to keep an eye on is this imec corridor this idea that basically the biden administration was starting up but trump is really sort of put into hybrid drive which is this idea of connecting india the gulf israel and europe through a sort of alternative to china's belt and road initiative it revolves around oil and gas but it also revolves around data centers and ai so sort of geopolitically and geoeconomically i think that's the big plan that the americans have hatched for the region and that basically means turning gaza into some sort of concentration camp sezzle special economic zone right there are really really really frightening plans to ethnically cleanse about half of the gazan population and to sort of turn the rest of them into well basically slaves you know basically unfree workers in this so called special economic zone that they're trying to set up now whether any of this is going to actually happen i think it's anybody's guess at this point but it's very clear and i just saw rafif ziada speaking about this at the historical materialism conference in london it's very clear that it's their plan right that's the plan it's out there i don't know if it's even been leaked or it was just publicly released that this is what the americans israelis saudis and emiratis are planning for the region it's a really kind of nightmarish vision that they're broadcasting out loud they're not even pretending to disown it or anything so we should take them at their word and we should be very very clear that this is something totally unacceptable and i mean as you started out saying and i think we've always agreed on this the question for the region is the palestinian question if the palestinians don't have sovereignty if they don't have freedom if they don't have equality if they don't have the right of return then things are not going to are not going to calm down in the region it's just going to be more and more more and more violence more and more of this help for everybody and you know these have been hellish years for all of us i'm not of course making any sort of comparison i think it's clear that the things that have been happening in gaza are beyond any sort of description in terms of how hard the genocide has been but as an israeli who's currently not living in israel and would like to return at some point i really hope that everybody in the region can come to this very very clear conclusion whether you phrase it in religious terms or not and i don't think there's a problem with framing it in religious terms there are ways of framing it in religious terms and we can talk a little bit about that more if you want just the fact that the indigenous people of palestine the palestinians need to have the rights respected and fulfill and that's the only the only way that we can bring peace that we can bring you know these these really beautiful biblical prophecies about the the wolf and the sheep lying down and the cutting down of of swords into the plowshares to make those reality so some people might call that messianic but i think there's also good good forms of messianism ben.
- [41:39]
Dana El Kurd
Do you have anything to add top.
- [41:41]
Ben Schuman Stoller
That my hope the past year or two years has been that if the abraham accords elevated you know countries like the uae to a certain like volume like gave them a certain audience that maybe they didn't have before internationally that then what israel has done could be criticized more obviously and that they would actually have some leverage so my hope still is that as like normal partners they can normal threaten and normal criticize and normal check the power of their you know quote whatever partners israel and so i'm keeping an eye on hopefully that that that will start happening more but what we do see is that like trade continues to go up and it doesn't seem to have an impact and i find that very disappointing and also at the same time i see the polling and donna you know more about this than i do but the polling shows increasing criticism of normalization with israel so the idealist to me thinks that civil society will win out eventually that this is just untenable and that what october seventh showed was that and the wars since then that without dealing with the central cause in the region which is the palestinian cause there will be no possible safe you know entrepreneurial dreamland of a of a rich future that that they're claiming is going to happen so that's my hope but and i keep an eye out for that i hope that they use china and russia as good countermeasures and counter threats to the american agenda and i keep my eye out for that yeah i.
- [43:27]
Dana El Kurd
Think i think really that's the that's the open question moving forward is like will the political elites win out will they be able to sidestep the palestinian question sidestep their own publics who as you mentioned are extremely critical of normalization extremely supportive of the palestinian cause i think the americans think that they can i keep mentioning this on this podcast but i was on a panel with stanley mcchrystal general and commander of the joint what is it the joint armed forces or whatever in iraq and afghanistan and he was like oh you know the arabs really want to move past the palestinians like it's a thing of the past if october seventh hadn't happened like you know we would have just moved past the palestinians and i was like what the hell are you talking about that's you only say that because you think that you can continue to crush arab publics yeah like you are predicating your entire strategy on authoritarianism and it's it's not a middle east problem it's a civil society all over the world has to fight back against authoritarianism or this is our reality yeah this.
- [44:32]
Matan Khamener
Is i think this is the moment now this is one of the ways in which the rest of the world is becoming more like the arab world in some ways as we mentioned we have large majorities almost everywhere in the world i think maybe every country in the world except for israel we have a majority of people who are now supporting palestine more than support israel who are against the genocide who say you know who answer the polls in a way that makes it clear that they're against what's going on right and they're against their government supporting it but most governments in the world most governments in the world including ones that aren't considered very pro us are basically letting this happen right that means that there's no effective democracy anywhere in the world really except maybe in a few places where you can say okay i don't know spain some countries ireland ireland where even those countries i don't think they're doing as much as their populations would like them to do right so again this idea that the west is somehow essentially different from these other countries it's also kind of a lie and it's also something it's also bogus and we need to call bullshit on that as well yeah many people have already made various arguments and there's various ways of making this argument that the palestinian question the question of gaza the question of the genocide is kind of the global question of our time i don't think just because there's a ceasefire that that's going to go away in any way everything that caused the explosion in the first place is still there right and i think we're going to keep seeing mobilizations around this issue i'm sure we are the crucial question for me is how we connect this to other issues how we connect this to the question of democracy can we connect this to the question of rights for migrants how we connect this to the questions of climate change and various people are already doing that so i'm not saying this is something that people aren't working on but this is kind of the challenge for our time and this podcast this project is just one small part of that mosaic which is looking into the ideology that framed the cords after abraham and again thinking about how we can not just debunk that ideology and say oh it's not about this it's about that but also about how we can read those stories in a different way and sort of to usurp it yeah exactly to subvert it and to read those stories in a way that makes progressive.
- [46:34]
Dana El Kurd
Sense i'm really looking forward to listening to the other episodes not just my.
- [46:38]
Garrison Davis
Own yeah you sound a little more.
- [46:40]
Matan Khamener
Convinced now than you did after we.
- [46:42]
Dana El Kurd
Interviewed you i'm being really nice no.
- [46:46]
Matan Khamener
I'M just joking you're being hospitable like.
- [46:48]
Dana El Kurd
Abraham exactly it's in my blood when.
- [46:51]
Ben Schuman Stoller
We played it live someone came up to me afterwards and was like you know i agree with donna right and i was like no i think we all agree like that's kind of the.
- [46:58]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Point i think we all agree on.
- [47:00]
Ben Schuman Stoller
The basics here the other part is just sitting in the cringe as madan.
- [47:03]
Matan Khamener
Says oh nice yeah yeah basting basting.
- [47:06]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
In the cringe yeah basting in the.
- [47:08]
Ben Schuman Stoller
Cringe here and trying to find our way out of like a a bad mushroom trip hallucination where you can do things like pretend that the palestinians don't exist yeah you know that's that's we're trying to be the orange juice that's supposed to get you out of the you know of a bad mushroom or.
- [47:21]
Dana El Kurd
Something out of the hangover or whatever yeah the trip yeah sorry i don't i don't do drugs i don't understand.
- [47:28]
Garrison Davis
Anyway thank you all so much this.
- [47:29]
Dana El Kurd
Has been a very interesting episode and yeah i'll link in the show notes for listeners all of the things we mentioned but yeah more soon yeah episode.
- [47:38]
Matan Khamener
Episode one is already out by the time your listeners hear this i think episode two might already be out as well okay in episode two we kind of go into the into the into the backstory episode one was with you and we talked about about the accords themselves episode two we we start digging into those into those wormholes of the abraham's story interesting and we when we talk to people in jerusalem again ben mentioned this both palestinians and israelis we went and we went out and asked them what they thought about the abraham accords and why they thought it was named after abraham yeah i'm really excited.
- [48:07]
Dana El Kurd
To listen to that thank you all right thanks guys thanks for having us thank you take care ten athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points you are the fittest to the fifth only one of you will leave here with an ifit contract for two hundred fifty thousand dollars this is.
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Garrison Davis
Last week two major news networks cnn and cnbc partnered with the so called prediction market kalshi an online political betting platform to use kalshee's real time betting data in tv news segments online news content and as kalshee announced on x the everything app quote to integrate prediction markets into cnn's global newsroom with kalshee threatening quote a new era of media is here this is it could happen here i'm garrison davis regular cnn viewers may have noticed this integration has already been happening for some time this past election cycle news anchors used betting odds in place of an addition to polling data to weigh the likelihood of candidates winning elections cnn's chief data analyst harry entin a nate silver protege who used to work for five hundred and thirty eight trailblazed the use of political gambling data in news stories earlier this year kalshee praised enten by name in their announcement of the cnn partnership quote enten is an expert at translating what data and polling are saying on any given issue and through this integration he can tap into real time prediction markets data to better inform and fact check his reporting unquote here's an example of this reporting in a cnn segment from october twenty twenty five.
- [52:53]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
If you go back six months ago.
- [52:54]
Matan Khamener
You go back to april kate ball.
- [52:56]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
When what were we looking at well we were looking at the democrats with a very clear shot of taking control of the us house of representatives according to the cauchy prediction market odds we saw him in an eighty three percent chance but those odds have gone plummeting down now we're talking about just a sixty three percent chance while the gop chances up like a rocket up like gold up from seventeen percent to now a thirty seven percent chance so we'll look like a pretty clear democrat likely democratic win in the house come next year has become much closer to a toss up at this point although still.
- [53:28]
Garrison Davis
Slightly leaning democratic harry enton never clarifies how these quote unquote odds are formed or what they really are to a viewer who just tuned in or maybe isn't paying that much attention it would be very unclear that these numbers are actually from a gambling website they're just big percentages displayed on screen the way you would see polling data or legitimate information used in a newsroom this short section using the kalshi prediction market odds was then followed by three minutes of analysis using selective midterm voting data from twenty seventeen to twenty eighteen to support the movement in these gambling odds the gambling odds themselves were the load bearing piece of information in this piece kalshi's main competitor another so called prediction market called polymarket partnered with x the everything app and yahoo finance earlier this year to integrate their prediction data into online news content time magazine and sports illustrated have also both launched deals with the prediction market platform galactic so what exactly are these prediction markets and how do they function on polymarket and kalshi users can bet yes or no on the outcome of a question relating to world events which is called a market as more money is wagered on either side the odds of the outcome change currently top questions include various predictions for time person of the year will the us strike venezuela before the end of the year the release of the epstein files and who will be the next president kalshee has trump's chances at six percent here's polymarket ceo shane copeland explaining on sixty minutes you make money if you're right you lose money if you're wrong and as a result it creates this information that's really useful for people these companies would like you to believe that the ratio of people betting yes or no on a certain outcome of world events is somehow useful or reliable information for the general public to forecast the future whether that's through betting on the likelihood of an upcoming recession the winner of a sports game which days of the week israel will bomb gaza or what movie will win best picture almost fifty million dollars is currently being wagered over a potential russia ukraine cease fire in twenty twenty five production markets currently have three billion dollars in weekly trading volume i do need to note these companies argue that hedging outcomes of world events legally is not gambling because that would be illegal payments through unauthorized gambling sites are illegal under the unlawful internet gambling enforcement act of two thousand six which suppressed the early prediction markets of the two thousands but kalshi is regulated as a platform for trading financial derivatives rather than securities trading or straight up legalized gambling and this determines what entity they have to register with and what regulations they're subject to kalshi launched in twenty twenty one with a federal license from the commodity futures trading commission and after a years long battle in october twenty twenty four a federal appeals court ruled in favor of kalshee allowing online prediction market betting on us elections rejecting claims by the commodity futures trading commission that the practice was illegal gambling and their concerns that prediction market betting could undermine election integrity former cftc chairman rostam benham made a statement in may of twenty twenty four reading quote contracts involving political events ultimately commoditize and degrade the integrity of the uniquely american experience of participating in the democratic electoral process allowing these contracts would push the cftc a financial market regulator into a position far beyond its congressional mandate and expertise unquote a week before his dad took office in january twenty twenty five donald trump junior became a strategic advisor at cali polymarket launched in twenty twenty without registering with the commodity futures trading commission and was fined one point four million dollars by the cftc in twenty twenty two for operating as an unregulated exchange and was henceforth prohibited from allowing bets from us based users though the poly market ceo sees it a little different it.
- [58:17]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Was a one point four million dollars fine and also it was a settlement and you could not have customers in the united states yeah we had to.
- [58:23]
Garrison Davis
Go and geoblock trading the us and move certain operations offshore and it wasn't hey you're banned from trading in the us it's like until you're licensed i.
- [58:31]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Mean it was breaking the law i.
- [58:32]
Garrison Davis
Mean people say breaking the law it's like which law you know so if.
- [58:35]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Anything it's incompatible it's incompatible with the.
- [58:38]
Garrison Davis
Law with the regulatory matrix that existed the past two years polymarket has found to be facilitating illegal gambling and subsequently banned in the countries of switzerland france the uk poland singapore belgium romania and australia most of these bans just require geo blocking users which can be easily circumvented through the use of a vpn and since the financial transactions on polymarket are all done through cryptocurrency it's not clear that polymarket is taking any steps to enforce these bans beyond geo blocking in the midst of facing regulatory hurdles and bans from across the globe polymarket still exploded in popularity last year attracting investment from peter thiel's venture capital firm and hundreds of thousands of new users primarily driven by betting on the us presidential election speculation on whether biden would drop out of the race and who trump would pick as vice president all despite the platform technically being banned in the united states after the first presidential debate in july twenty twenty four around the attempted assassination of trump and the rnc polymarket gained sixty thousand new accounts the year prior polymarket averaged two thousand three hundred new accounts per month august twenty twenty four saw seventy thousand new accounts september ninety thousand october three hundred thousand the month after trump's second inauguration four hundred thousand currently polymarket has over sixty thousand daily active traders and hundreds of thousands of monthly traders since october twenty twenty four to give another example of their recent growth in april twenty twenty three polymarket's monthly volume was about three million dollars a year later it was thirty nine million in november twenty twenty four it was two point five billion last month it was three point seven billion in summer twenty twenty five cash patel's fbi and the cftc under trump dropped investigations into whether polymarket was illegally allowing us users to place bets using vpn's shortly thereafter donald trump jr's venture capital firm invested in the platform and trump junior himself joined poly market's advisory board curiously a few days after trump junior joined polymarket the commodity futures trading commission announced it was going to allow polymarket to operate in the united states after acquiring another company that held a us license this past october trump's own truth social announced it was partnering with crypto dot com to launch truth predict quote a revolutionary prediction market backed by president trump for enhanced decision making unquote when barry weiss's sixty minutes did a puff piece on polymarket with its ceo last week anderson cooper inquired about the risk of insider trading poly markets ceo shane kaplan seemed to think that a little bit of insider trading might be good actually but predictive markets do.
- [62:17]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Rely on someone having some inside information.
- [62:22]
Garrison Davis
Yeah i think that people going and having an edge to the market is a good thing obviously you need to curate them and you need to be really clear and stringent on where the line is drawn and like sort of ethics and we spend a lot of time on that but it's sort of an inevitability that this will happen and there's a lot of benefits from it and people will adapt the ceo did not elaborate on what poly markets practice of curating insider trading looks like and where their quote unquote stringent line is drawn because in reality it doesn't seem this line exists they essentially encourage insider trading through these vague statements and lack of clear enforcement from the point of view of these platforms insider trading makes their prediction markets more accurate so it's a net positive and if it fucks over some users on the other side of a bet that's just the cost of business last week an alleged insider trader won over a million dollars for bets on google's twenty twenty five year in search rankings listing twenty two out of twenty three in the correct order this user has made a series of early bets related to google the past year like the exact release date of google's gemini three point zero which they won one hundred fifty thousand dollars on but because this polymarket user isn't trading stock there's no clear regulatory mechanism to stop this behavior and polymarket can't reverse these trades because they run through the blockchain not that they would even necessarily want to professional gambler political data analyst and poly market adviser nate silver was also asked about insider trading on the china talk podcast two months ago are.
- [64:11]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
You worried about insider trading with this.
- [64:15]
Mia Wong
With all this political betting i mean there's an aspect of like look these.
- [64:18]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Are all crypto you know you get on these markets with crypto and like like there were markets like which way.
- [64:26]
Mia Wong
Is suzanne collins going to vote and.
- [64:29]
Jacob Goldstein
You know the sort of the like.
- [64:31]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
You know like the tail outcomes for like a legislative assistant in her office are you know you can make ten times your salary in like a minute right yeah what's your what's your think on thinking on this for for sure.
- [64:46]
Jacob Goldstein
I mean look i think there are a couple of qualifications though like first of all i think people on the inside often aren't as well as informed as they think and or there are.
- [64:57]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Some downsides to having an inside view and not an outside view you might.
- [65:00]
Jacob Goldstein
Drink the kool aid so to speak right you might be in a bubble yeah look i mean i mean there.
- [65:06]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Are ones where it's like you can.
- [65:08]
Jacob Goldstein
Literally i mean there's been a lots.
- [65:11]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Of group chats people talking about like.
- [65:12]
Mia Wong
Very very sketchy trades and one way.
- [65:15]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Bets that are being made in the stock market of like what's going to happen with a trade deal i mean you can literally be the person who decides right and be betting on the.
- [65:23]
Jacob Goldstein
Side on it if they're kind of weird if there are incentives to make money in a world of eight billion people many of whom are very competitive.
- [65:31]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
And all of whom not all of.
- [65:32]
Jacob Goldstein
Them most of them have access to the internet right people are going to find a way a way to do.
- [65:36]
Garrison Davis
It right let's pause here for a sec what do you think nick goes on to list as a comparison to political insider trading as like an unfortunate but somewhat inevitable consequence of our evolving system of finance like in the crypto.
- [65:54]
Jacob Goldstein
Space we've seen like increasing number of like crypto kidnappings right well i mean that's one of the consequences if people are worth vast amounts of wealth that isn't very secure it just it's just going to going to happen until you up security or have better solutions or whatever else and so like you know i don't think there's necessarily any more or less insider trading on like poly market than there might be for in sports betting sites we've seen a lot of sports betting scandals or for regular equities you know i i believe the literature says that like members of congress achieve abnormal returns from their stock portfolios.
- [66:30]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
I'D have to double i'm sure there's some debate about that i have to.
- [66:32]
Jacob Goldstein
Like to double check that right it's.
- [66:35]
Garrison Davis
Fine bros it's just like cryptocurrency kidnapping it's fine actually so nate goes on to say that prediction market insider trading isn't that different from congressmen doing insider trading on the stock market or like rigged sports betting but he really neglects to emphasize that those things are also bad and should be aggressively clamped down on that shouldn't be allowed and prediction markets intentionally skirt regulation they currently have far less legal protections for users against unfair practices and with crypto they can be pretty anonymized enabling bad actors and now news companies are legitimizing turning everyone's phone into a corrupt casino for world events whether that's israel starving palestine or how many tweets elon musk is going to publish this week the day before kalshi announced their partnership agreement with cnn and ncnbc cbs aired a sixty minutes puff piece on polymarket anchored by anderson.
- [67:42]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Cooper when we met with copeland last month more than three point six million dollars had been wagered on whether or not venezuela's president nicolas maduro would be out of power by the end of the year polymarket users didn't think so they gave it only a twenty three percent chance and if you buy no on that and you're buying it at seventy eight cents and at the end of the year he's still in power yeah you get a dollar per share so you've made a profit of twenty.
- [68:10]
Garrison Davis
Two cents per share i can see.
- [68:12]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Why this would be i mean i don't want to use the term addictive but it would be compelling i mean maybe it is addictive i don't know.
- [68:19]
Garrison Davis
Certainly compelling this is how i see.
- [68:21]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
It if you are into geopolitics this creates an incentive for you to dig in to what's going on in venezuela and try and get an edge anderson.
- [68:30]
Garrison Davis
Cooper who both works for the newly cauchy partnered cnn as well as cbs's sixty minutes is so hesitant to call this clearly addictive practice addictive quote unquote compelling here's how polymarket ceo shane copeland explained the platform earlier in this piece it's a site where you can basically bet on current events some sort of question about the future like an election and as a result when a ton of people are betting you get the betting odds which basically tell you how likely each outcome is and how accurate is it it's the most accurate thing we have as mankind right now until someone else creates some sort of super crystal ball anderson cooper responds with narration that the ceo quote may be prone to hyperbole but he's definitely on to something unquote in explaining how poly market users attempt to seek truth and gain an edge copeland told the story of how in twenty twenty four an anonymous french user made over eighty million dollars on polymarket by betting on trump winning the presidential election and to bolster his bets he contracted yougov to conduct private polls in swing states people thought he just liked trump and he had actually commissioned a ton of private polls he did something called neighbor polling which is you ask people who they think their neighbors are likely to vote for for scenarios for an election where there's a stigma to saying you're going to vote for somebody and people feel some sort of social awkwardness and what he noticed was there was a huge discrepancy in the neighbor polling versus the normal polling and the neighbor polling favored trump enormously he thought trump was undervalued if this guy was not able to make eighty million but rather able to make eighty thousand dollars he would have never gone through the hassle but when you get markets that are big enough you create this incentive for people to go above and beyond to try and find find truth what the ceo is arguing here is that the sheer scale of money being wagered creates incentive to quote unquote find truth in media discussions of prediction markets there's this specter of objectivity around the gambled odds which obviously the ceo of polymarket has a personal incentive to encourage but anderson cooper here doesn't challenge this notion of capital t truth even though donald trump was way ahead in prediction market odds back during the twenty twenty election which had his chances of winning that election far higher than what pure polling models showed kalshee claims that prediction markets can help journalists quote unquote fact check but doesn't explain how fact can be determined from speculative gambling markets where is the fact in gambling well we will find out after these ads to quote from poly market advisor nate silver's blog the silver bulletin it's basically good when people are more exposed to probabilities and they become more normalized but of course i also analyze polls and build a probabilistic models myself in that capacity i strongly disagree with the notion that prediction markets can serve as a good substitute for polls these sorts of claims are sometimes advanced by the prediction market companies themselves including polymarket to be fair one minor pet peeve is that both reporters and readers often confuse probabilities for poll results unquote as nate goes on to explain if trump is up fifty five to forty five over kamala harris on a prediction market that's not saying that trump is expected to win by ten points it means that ten percent more users on the website favor trump winning which is pretty close to a toss up this confusion is a huge problem which is bolstered in both how prediction market companies market their platform and how but also how journalists use gambling data in news stories if you see a social media post an advertisement or a random news segment showing percentages tied to pictures of two politicians in a race without context those betting numbers could be interpreted in a number of ways and influence someone's perception of an election and maybe even their choice on who to vote for or even whether to vote at all in an october speech zoran mamdani referenced kalshee billboards predicting a cuomo victory in the democratic primary.
- [73:24]
Jacob Goldstein
When i walked the length of manhattan just a few days before the election hundreds of new yorkers marched alongside me and when we strolled into times square under a billboard with betting odds that.
- [73:39]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Showed cuomo's chances of winning at nearly eighty percent we knew that the so.
- [73:44]
Garrison Davis
Called experts were set to get it.
- [73:46]
Jacob Goldstein
Wrong yet again andrew cuomo was supposed to be inevitable when you see the.
- [73:56]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Calshi odds that have our chances of victory in the nineties know this you.
- [74:02]
Jacob Goldstein
Are reading the same things that andrew cuomo read when he went to see sleep each night in june believing that his victory was promised we cannot allow complacency to infiltrate this movement.
- [74:19]
Garrison Davis
Kalshi excitedly shared the latter half of that clip proclaiming breaking zoron mumdani references his calades on stage kalshi is mainstream unquote despite this clip demonstrating how prediction markets often suffer from inaccurate bias last week discount steve kornacki former five hundred thirty eight analyst and now cnn's data expert harry entin shared this segment about the tennessee district seven special election on the everything app with the caption odds are dems will come within ten points of a win if not outright win i would.
- [75:00]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Say if you had to look at the congressional map any district that donald trump won by twenty two points you would say you know you've got like nearly a one hundred percent chance of winning if you're running for congress there.
- [75:11]
Garrison Davis
But what are the prediction markets saying.
- [75:12]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Right now yeah what are we talking about in terms of prediction market odds look the democrat has a fifteen percent chance of winning in that race okay a fifteen percent chance which ain't nothing in a district that donald trump won by twenty two points but here i think is the key nugget on this side of the ledger and that is a gop win by under ten points there's a sixty eight percent chance of that so there is a more than two thirds chance that the republican candidate yes they win but they win by a significantly lower margin than donald trump we're talking about double digits smaller we're talking about a huge huge shift to the left we're talking about when you add these two together we're talking about a more than eighty percent chance that there is a clear double digit shift to the left and a fifteen percent chance the democrat actually wins in a district that donald trump won by twenty two points that just shows you how bad the environment is for republicans right now that the democrat has any sort of a chance in this talk to.
- [76:08]
Garrison Davis
Me about the special he's just authoritatively rattling off complete speculation on a democrat victory as big screens display percentages in huge text with source kalshee in tiny text at the bottom of the screen ordinary polling showed that this was a close race that leaned red by two to eight points and the republican did end up winning by nine points to quote the broken clock nate silver quote without having polls to look at the prediction markets would probably kind of suck at making election forecasts translating polls into probabilities is considerably more complicated when there are many correlated races at once such as in the battle for the electoral college or control of congress prediction markets had a strong twenty twenty four in this regard they leaned toward trump when our model had it at fifty fifty i don't think this was because of any special modeling insight per se but because they incorporated some sort of prior intuition that trump would overperform his polls again so give the markets credit for that these sorts of soft quote unquote intangible intuitions can be valuable though you'd need a lot of data to determine whether they add or subtract value in the long run unquote as nate himself acknowledges someone like andrew cuomo had much higher betting odds throughout the entire new york mayoral race than a purely statistical model would show a contention i have with nate one of many is though i call prediction market numbers gambling odds they are not actual probabilities these odds aren't based on objective mathematical principles like flipping a coin the three door problem or even something like blackjack these odds are created whole cloth through guessing sometimes educated or data informed guessing but still primarily through people's intuition which is susceptible to group impulses many random world events lack a reliable basis of continuous controlled data that's needed to form a probability like that which is applied to legalized sports betting this is quite evident in the betting odds around the last papal conclave which had very little relevant data to use for informed predictions there was no existing probability to support the election of an american pope a first time occurrence with prediction markets people can still do research to make an informed bet but it's not really the case that x candidate is mathematically expected to win an election eighty out of a hundred instances a hive mind of users have formed that statistical division through the power of money eighty percent of users are betting that a certain result is likely to occur so the problem isn't just that like nate says people are confusing probabilities for polls it's that they're confusing prediction market betting odds for mathematical probabilities it's this difference that allows betting on sports outcomes via calcium polymarket even in states that ban typical sports betting because you're not actually betting on fixed odds you're betting against other investors and now news companies are not just manufacturing consent and normalizing political gambling but are actively encouraging the use of these platforms and and endorsing the predictive capacity of these gambling markets anderson cooper calls it the quote unquote wisdom of crowds but we already have methods for learning group consensus like polling which may have problems but frankly far fewer problems than gambling on world events beyond the moral qualms of betting money on human suffering prediction markets are susceptible to not just personal bias but group bias based on the current ratio of odds this in group consensus can be influenced by short lived trending topics and these platforms cater to a hyper online point of view prediction market users provide a very non representational sample variety pulling from a very specific type of guy who regularly uses these platforms to quote from kalsh cnn partnership announcement quote kalshee has become the definitive source for staying informed about the future and is used by reporters politicians pundits wall street and main street it recently called the new york city mayoral election eight minutes after polls closed hours before the media it's because of this accuracy that couches data will serve as a powerful complement to cnn's reporting journalists can more easily surface credible information to their audiences about the real time probabilities of future cultural and political events unquote in practice this reporting mixes gambling data and actually reputable or credible polls in a confusing way like this recent cnn segment which cites cowshields on whether trump will send tariff stimulus checks as well as cbs yougov polling data on if tariffs lower prices back to back in the same.
- [81:48]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Segment do they think that the tariffs that these rebate checks are actually coming and at this point no no i mean chance trump tariffs the tariff stimulus checks are sent to americans by august of twenty twenty six it's a twenty five percent chance that's a one in four so that's not nothing but the american people right now are craving craving some relief and at this point it doesn't look like it is coming although i i will note john berman this twenty five percent it is greater than this six percent who say that tariffs decrease prices or that five percent back in march which are just you never see one two three four five percent so look twenty five percent ain't nothing but at this point it's low yeah it's interesting the preacher markets think that only one in one in four chance.
- [82:34]
Garrison Davis
That it will actually happen there is this really what the future of political forecasting is going to be maybe maybe not but there are four horsemen of this political gambling apocalypse nate silver via his gamification of election predictions based on his time as a professional gambler sports betting especially since the supreme court struck down a federal law banning sports betting outside of nevada in twenty eighteen resulting in almost forty states subsequently legalizing some form of source betting which has facilitated the accessibility of gambling to grow dramatically across the country the past ten years through the spread of online sports betting apps the third horseman is trump or the trump administration through their removal of regulatory hurdles facing prediction markets and finally that cnn guy harry enton a nate silver protege who trailblazed the use of political gambling data in news stories the past year these four horsemen nate silver sports betting trump and harry enten have created the cultural and political conditions for political gambling to spread like wildfire which hey is also something you can bet on during the la fires prediction market users could bet on how many acres would burn so what is the end game of this this gambling apocalypse that seems to be inching its way closer and closer to answer that here's a clip from kalshi co founder and ceo tarek mansur the long term vision is.
- [84:10]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
To financialize everything and create a tradable.
- [84:12]
Andrew Sage
Asset out of any difference in opinion.
- [84:14]
Garrison Davis
We are living in a world where like we we have an abundance of.
- [84:17]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Information but there's a lot of noise.
- [84:18]
Dana El Kurd
And like we don't really understand what's real from what's not and prediction markets.
- [84:21]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Are an antidote to that they do a very very good job at distilling information and surfacing truth to people and.
- [84:27]
Garrison Davis
You'Re seeing this sort of massive shift.
- [84:28]
Andrew Sage
Where like people are using them whenever.
- [84:31]
Dana El Kurd
They think about questions about the future.
- [84:33]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
You know whenever they're debating about anything and i think that trajectory is going.
- [84:36]
Dana El Kurd
To keep going that's a new consumer.
- [84:37]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Habit that i don't think is going.
- [84:38]
Garrison Davis
To be undone this is the demon child of crypto and sports betting this financialization of everything to form a tradable asset out of any difference in opinion creating new addictive consumer habits these companies want to apply the logic of smartphone sports betting to everything where everyone gets to be their own little nate silver while carrying around their own digital casino in their pocket getting addicted to gambling on speculation of world suffering and cnn is complicit in this cnn and others have decided to partner with platforms that enable the people who decide when to drop bombs around the world to win millions of dollars by betting money on the choices they themselves are making at the expense of the rest of the world and these companies think this is a good thing because the betting odds can serve as a potential heads up that something is likely to happen simple consumer protections for users which currently are non existent are just not enough congress needs to be far more involved in regulating online betting and in the case of political events it should just be completely banned it is detrimental to a healthy society it incentivizes corruption cruelty and erodes public trust gambling doesn't need to go away entirely but it should return to being time and location locked go to las vegas like a fucking adult currently there is no existing mechanism for individual states to regulate prediction markets only the federal government can and trump's federal government certainly seems like it's not going to considering the president's son works for both of the main platforms kalshi and polymarket and while news companies are legitimizing this these platforms are now working as their own news aggregators specifically polymarket social media account which is acting as a news aggregation account because that drives traffic back to their website where people can bet on the news stories that polymarket is sharing even if those news stories are speculative or completely made up on december fifth polymarket posted quote justin suspected j six pipe bombers legal counsel projected to argue he was included in trump's pardon of those involved in january sixth unquote this claim subsequently spread all around the internet parroted by people of a variety of political orientations but if you read closely the original post says suspected j six pipe bombers legal counsel projected to argue he was included in trump's pardon polymarket is just spreading gambling information as if it is news content quote unquote projected just means that poly market users are betting on this but these projected posts are mixed in with other posts just aggregating the day's news so unless you are paying super close attention which rarely people on the internet are this becomes a trojan horse of disinformation when news companies use the term projected on election night usually that indicates with pretty clear mathematical certainty that an event is going to happen when polymarket uses projected in news tweets it only indicates that internet gamblers are swinging around money in an effort to create truth with once legitimate news companies not just complicit but active participants in this process that does it for us today at it could happen here see you on the other.
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Dana El Kurd
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Dana El Kurd
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Garrison Davis
This is where mindset comes in someone.
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Dana El Kurd
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Jacob Goldstein
Jacob goldstein from what's yous problem when you buy business software from lots of.
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Jacob Goldstein
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Jacob Goldstein
The features you need check out odoo.
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Jacob Goldstein
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Jacob Goldstein
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- [90:49]
Andrew Sage
Hello and welcome to akita paneer i'm andrew sage also known as andrewism and i'm joined once again by that's.
- [91:01]
Jacob Goldstein
Your cue mia wong girl who was really really the first time was like i am not gonna miss my cue this time and then this time i was like oh i'm waiting for the cue and then it was like shit that's the cue and then it took my brain like several seconds to be.
- [91:18]
Dana El Kurd
Like oh no.
- [91:21]
Jacob Goldstein
It would be very funny if the editors just edited out the pause so everyone has no idea.
- [91:25]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
What i'm talking about that's that would.
- [91:29]
Andrew Sage
Be hilarious actually for those unaware that was like a ten second pause before.
- [91:34]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Mia came in no really truly this.
- [91:38]
Jacob Goldstein
Is this is mia on like three hours of sleep brain i was like oh yeah right the cue is going to come and then it things going great for bea wong the other person who's on this show you know who i am statistically if you're listening to.
- [91:54]
Andrew Sage
This show woo of course i mean speaking of seconds by the way in those ten seconds that you were waiting for your cue that had already passed hundreds of people were born you know every second somewhere someone is being born like other animals humans have this tendency to multiply but should they that is the question of the day you see last episode i was on we spoke about the worries surrounding population you know whether we had too many people or too few people but the question of making people or not making them has been the subject of a few ideological clashes there's a whole movement of thinkers who argue that bringing new life into the world is a big mistake these are the antinatalists and on the other side you have those who say that having children is good and essential that's the pronatalist camp so in this episode we'll be getting into that tug of war philosophically and weighing the issues with both because i'm not going to make it a secret i'm not a fan of either of them i don't know.
- [93:08]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
How do you feel about yeah this.
- [93:10]
Jacob Goldstein
Is the one the one good stalin quote they're both worse.
- [93:16]
Andrew Sage
So we have to pick among those two let's start with the anti natalists what's the kind of gut reaction or impression you get from those folks i don't know i.
- [93:27]
Jacob Goldstein
Think there's a combination of stuff that's largely harmless and sometimes it's funny like you get protests of people holding up signs that are like i didn't ask to be born or i didn't consent to be born it's like sure but then there's also people just doing mass shootings about it so it's great it's a good time it's a very normal time for politics yeah yeah yeah yeah.
- [93:53]
Andrew Sage
I mean when i think of them i tend to think cringe and reddit but they actually have a philosophy outside of reddit forums so according to the internet encyclopedia philosophy antinatalism is the view that it is either always or usually morally impermissible to procreate now most of us grew up with the idea that life is inherently valuable right but antinatalists disagree they see life as a burden rather than a gift very edgy very reddit but you know it's something that has been around since before the internet while not himself an antinatalist the german philosopher arthur schopenhauer who lived in the nineteenth century is taught by some antinatalists as a contributor to their philosophical foundations in his descriptions of life as constant striving frustration and pain in the twentieth century the romanian writer emile chorand argued that non existence is the ultimate form of peace his philosophical pessimism regarded individual life and human history as a whole as a record of error illusion and futility and most famously south african philosopher david bennetter laid out one of the main antinatalist arguments in his book better never to have been the harm of coming into existence a banger title though now you can find theoretical contributions to antinatalist thought in buddhism's idea that life is suffering or in certain interpretations of it rather or in certain gnostic traditions that saw the material world itself as a kind of cosmic mistake now there are a lot of reasons that antinatalists put forward for their stance there are philanthropic and misanthropic arguments for antinatalism you know the philanthropic ones focus on harm to the individual who is brought into existence while the misanthropic arguments tend to focus on the harm that new people cause to the world so there's the consent argument that mia would have mentioned you know basically a child cannot consent to be inborn so by creating them you're forcing them into a life they didn't ask for a life that will inevitably include suffering another argument is in that sort of negative utilitarianism camp it's the idea that our moral priority should be reducing suffering not increase in happiness in fact they don't see the potential or actuality of pleasure as an offset to suffering at all under their view even a single unit of suffering is unacceptable and since every new life will include suffering not creating life is the surest way to reduce it david bennetter had the famous asymmetry argument which is that the presence of pain is bad the presence of pleasure is good but the absence of pain is always good even if no one appreciates that good and the absence of pleasure isn't bad unless there's someone missing out so put simply according to the argument by not having a child you avoid guaranteed suffering without depriving any person of joy because that person doesn't exist so that equation is probably one of the main pillars i'd say of the antinatalists as a movement you know you might be thinking to yourself oh but i'm glad to be alive no you're not according according to according to bennett and the antinatalists you're deluded to think so the internet encyclopedia of philosophy calls it the deluded gladness argument basically your positive view of your own life is unreliable benatar argues that we have cognitive biases like optimism and selective memory and so on which distort how viciously we assess our own suffering so many good life reports even if you think you have a good life or a decent life you're deceiving yourself according to him do you think people are deceiving themselves when they say that they enjoy their lives you know.
- [98:11]
Jacob Goldstein
This this entire line of argument is just making me be like you need to do less philosophy and like go outside and live like yeah i mean.
- [98:22]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
I get the whole thing about you.
- [98:23]
Andrew Sage
Know our mental bias towards optimism and that kind of thing but that doesn't invalidate the joy of people appreciating their.
- [98:32]
Jacob Goldstein
Life yeah it's like this this sounds like the exact script you get in your head when you're really depressed it's like okay like have you considered getting your depression managed and getting help for it instead of like doing philosophy about.
- [98:50]
Andrew Sage
It i feel like eeyore would be an antinatalist oh eeyore yeah.
- [98:56]
Garrison Davis
Like nothing.
- [98:57]
Jacob Goldstein
Matters well it's also frustrating because it's like the most compelling version of this argument is about like this world right now is absolutely dogshit and i can't justify bringing someone into it but that's like too grounded and so all these people are like no no no no actually here's like this philosophy that proves that that life bad and it's like.
- [99:24]
Andrew Sage
I mean there are antinatalist arguments that do get into that more grounded oh yeah definitely you know that they have one argument about multiplying suffering right because every child you bring into the world isn't just one person you know they have the potential to have children themselves and grandchildren and so on multiplying the chances of pain disease loss suffering down the generations it's like this is like.
- [99:47]
Jacob Goldstein
Long termism shit it's just like instead of like actually analyzing the world we're going to build unbelievably complicated in completely meaningless like abstract models of it and try to base our things off of.
- [100:02]
Andrew Sage
That yeah yeah i mean it's utterly ridiculous now i understand you know our track record isn't the best you know there are plagues and slavery and genocide environmental destruction and some of them say well that's the best thing the best thing we could do is to voluntarily go extinct you know to step off the stage of the earth and that connects with the general misanthropy and i think the misanthropic argument that humans are some kind of blight on the world yeah and there are antinatalists who take it a step further as well and they're not just antinatalists for humans they're universal antinatalists oh jesus christ they believe that not just human births are problematic but existence itself sentient beings across the board human or animal are better off never being brought into life at all.
- [100:49]
Jacob Goldstein
Really truly at this point brother this is a you problem like you just don't like existing like we can we can work on that but like this is not a philosophical thing like you're just depressed like come on what are.
- [101:02]
Andrew Sage
We doing here yeah i mean antonatalism is making some very heavy claims and they're obviously going to be counterarguments because people are not going to roll over with the kind of assertions that it makes the most intuitive answer i would give is that yes life involves suffering but it also includes pleasure and joy and creativity and achievement and for most people those positives outweigh the negatives and if you're a radical you recognize that some of the negatives of life are not inevitable the famines the wars the suffering the poverty is not inevitable it's a product of economic and political systems that we have the power to change and yes there will always be suffering there may always be some diseases there will always be death right but that doesn't mean that existence is worse than non existence i'm glad to exist mia i feel like you're probably glad to exist i'm glad you exist yeah most.
- [102:03]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Of the time like this is a.
- [102:06]
Jacob Goldstein
Distinct improvement for positions i have been in but like yeah it's nice yeah it's you know like even even in the middle of like hell world it's.
- [102:16]
Andrew Sage
Nice yeah and and yeah the biases may skew our perspective but the fact that we overwhelmingly choose life itself is a reason to not throw it out you know once people are given the choice do you want to live right now or die most people want to say they're gonna live you know yeah and yes we don't consent to being born but there are other things that we don't consent to that we still benefit from you know infants don't consent to being vaccinated but it's something that benefits them you know we educate infants we restrain them from danger we don't ask their permission necessarily to do these things but it's just for their well being for their benefit and i don't think while consent is an important factor in the way that we engage with others i don't think consent is the only factor for a framework of determining what is moral and immoral you know you can't use consent to determine whether it's moral or not to exist i don't feel like those two pieces mesh.
- [103:20]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Together very well yeah well and also.
- [103:23]
Jacob Goldstein
I think like there are so many other things that we didn't consent to like for example you know like this is another thing they're talking is like we never consented to die on a less metaphysical level i don't know like i didn't consent to like to live under this state yeah where you know they're like doing helicopter raids on apartment buildings and like dragging naked children screaming away from their parents in the middle of the night like you know that and that's the thing that you can actually actively do something about that you didn't consent to that is actively harming you and everyone else around you versus like being born and making that the thing that you're doing it's like okay.
- [104:02]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Like we didn't get that to live.
- [104:03]
Jacob Goldstein
Under capitalism we didn't we didn't get set to colonialism like we didn't get to any of this and that's something you could you know make not happen versus you being born which there is nothing you can do to change the fact that you were born and it's like oh well i'll focus on the next generation children yeah you want you want it you want to focus on like reducing the amount of suffering the next generation will create in the world have you considered like climate change yeah.
- [104:27]
Andrew Sage
Yeah i also think that on a broader level right i think it's good to be question some of the intuitions that we may have you know even if they're our deepest moral intuitions i think it's good to maybe consider them or to be thoughtful about them but also as the instant encyclopedia of philosophy argues if a theory implies that the creation of all human life is a moral mistake that conclusion itself might be reason to doubt the theory this is something called the repugnant conclusion objection you know what i mean because it's repugnant it's intuitively repugnant to most people to hear that existence is a mistake nobody should be alive yeah i was like.
- [105:15]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Well no like absolutely not like get.
- [105:20]
Jacob Goldstein
Your shit worked out exactly the train of logic here not great like you.
- [105:25]
Andrew Sage
Were saying yeah there'll be a lot of things in this in the world that suck right now that cause suffering and there's a lot of present joy as alongside that present suffering but there's also the value to be had in that potential joy you know the potential possibilities have value if potential suffering has value potential joys should also have value the potential of creating a better world each new child bringing the potential for greater love for incredible arts and crafts for scientific breakthroughs for reshaping the world in a positive direction you know the potential for the unique goods that each individual life can bring i believe justifies the risk of suffering because a world without those future goods would be worse than a world with them yeah and yes humanity can cause harm but we are also capable of extraordinary good we can change we can reduce suffering over time new generations are going to be part of that solution i will say though to antinatalists credit one of the points of the internet encyclopedia of philosophy points out is that the debate about antinatalism is theoretical you know this is stuffy philosophers sitting around exchanging notes and writing books right most of its advocates are not actually putting forward policies that are restricting people's ability to create life but the same cannot be said for the other side of the coin the pro natalists yep so in broad terms pronatalism or just natalism is the belief that reproduction is a societal good or even that society needs more children this movement is getting louder and louder these days it's shaping policy debates in the us in europe in asia and beyond because as i mentioned in the previous episode fertility rates are falling almost everywhere countries like south korea italy japan and the us are seeing fewer births than needed to sustain their current population so you're going to be seeing pronatalism in various forms showing up in politics and even in tech circles especially in those weird tech circles now pronatalism is a broad umbrella you know you can have the mild position of supporting families with policies and most people are not opposed to that but you also have this strong pronatalist stance which is actually urging or incentivizing or mandating both for cultural economic or ideological reasons pronatalism was motivated by a few different reasons there's the economic anxiety of a shrinking population meaning fewer workers more retirees and strained pension systems there's the nationalistic argument of worries about cultural continuity which tend to teeter into the reactionary directions and the pronatalism today is very much political as a result in the us republicans have been leaning into it framing the low birth rates as a national crisis and in europe you have countries like hungary under viktor orban which have made pronatalism a signature policy to vary in effectiveness the religious motivations of pronatalism are also pretty interesting you know you have the being fruitful and multiply directive in the bible which some take as far as the quiverful movement which is a whole thing about having children by like the dozen or more yeah then you have the tech and elite circles pushing pronatalism because it connects with the ideas of human progress one of the pronatalists who most famously practices what he preaches mostly for worse is elon musk yep right he's he's a big nazi about it for one because of his whole worry about white fertility rates but he also thinks that low birth rates as a whole are a bigger threat than climate change so i mean it seems like he's single handedly trying to fix that with his seed spreading yeah his his assembly line of children with you know the accompanying product barcodes for names and i just feel bad for them honestly to have that as a father no it.
- [109:57]
Jacob Goldstein
It sucks yeah it's it's not great it's not good and so he and.
- [110:01]
Andrew Sage
His billionaire buddies are of the belief that civilisation will collapse if we don't make more babies silicon valley circles are funding pronatalist think tanks and embryo optimisation projects a lot of policies are also coming out of the pronatalist camp unlike the antinatalists historically countries like the soviet union handed out medals like mother heroin for women with large families and the russia of today has revived similar awards recently alongside like i mentioned in the previous episode banning antinatalist propaganda now some countries are offering tax incentives for births and even proposing baby bonuses of thousands of dollars paid for each birth thousands of dollars per birth is kind of a spit in the face because that's not even going to last the first couple months of a child being born let's be real children are extremely expensive yeah yeah pronatalists also tend to push things like expanded family benefits child allowances or housing subsidies for parents these i would say are the more liberal minded or progressive minded pronatalists as much as you can be a progressive and a pronatalist because they're actually considering the ways that they can make actually bearing children and raising children a bit easier for the people who have to do it that sort of support also includes things like expanding ivf access subsidizing fertility treatments improving embryo screening that sort of thing places like scandinavia also have generous leave policies which are often cited as a model of soft pronatalism because it makes it easier for people to balance work and childrearing but you don't tend to hear these policies coming out of the much louder pronatalist conservative camp what you get from them and from their pronatalism tends to be restrictions on women restrictions on abortion and bodily autonomy policies that conflict with the goals of reproductive justice and gender equality sometimes putting women's health at risk and also conservatives push lots of narrative with their pronatalism large families tend to valorize they frame childbearing as a civic duty you know the appeal to legacy and culture and identity when you get into that white supremacist camp and you also get the whole eugenics of it you know the tech elite pronatalist wing yep they are pushing for things like gene editing embryo selection the sort of stuff that musk is talking about with his racial replacement anxieties in any case the effectiveness of even the few positive policies has been pretty mixed countries have tried pumping billions into subsidies and often fertility rates have barely budged deep structural issues like the cost of living cultural norms around gender career paths health concerns all these often outweigh the incentives of a couple thousand dollars or extended paternity leave you know if people don't want to have babies they're not gonna have babies if they're not confident in their ability to have children raise an environment that they feel is best for them they're not going to have children you know people more than ever have that choice and unfortunately a lot of the pronatalist policies don't care about making childbearing easier you know easing the path to make that choice they just want to pressure people to have children yep you know it loops right back to misogyny a reaction against women's freedom pushing them back into the kitchen pushing them back into that subservient position in society so after looking at both sides right you have the antinatalists and the pronatalists don't create life to avoid suffering or you must create life to preserve society i guess you could call me a centrist the antinatalists repulse me and the pronatalists equally repulse me you know i'm wary of anyone claiming that you must have children or you must not have children i'm wary of a world where these kinds of choices are coerced by others you know as an anarchist i'm a firm believer in autonomy in personal freedom and the ability to decide one's own life that's what matters to me you know i don't intend to have true to myself i do like children a lot i was once a child myself and i look forward to being an uncle a godfather and all that but that's my choice you know let your choice be your choice and my choice be my choice make choices freely resist the pressure from either camp and keep the agency intact that's all i have to say on it honestly.
- [114:45]
Jacob Goldstein
Yeah i mean honestly that covers the stuff i was gonna say so yeah.
- [114:49]
Andrew Sage
I mean with that we've beacon rapidly yeah all power to all the people this has been it could happen here peace.
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Dana El Kurd
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Jacob Goldstein
Want to sell your car your way who wouldn't that's why carmax offers a car selling experience designed just for you with online and in store options want to know what your car is.
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Dana El Kurd
Hello and welcome back to it could happen here i am your occasional host molly conger and today i have exactly the kind of story you probably expect when you hear my voice on this feed a white nationalist has gone and done something we all wish that he was not doing if you listen to my show weird little guys you already know a little bit about this particular guy on that show i talk about white nationalists neo nazis right wing extremists aspiring terrorists things of that nature my domain is mostly guys you've never heard of because they failed to live up to their goal of becoming the next hitler or whatever it's funnier than it sounds i swear but unfortunately for all of us sometimes one of those guys breaches containment the guy we're talking about today wants to be more than just one of the weird little guys trying to make a name for himself on the fringes of the white nationalist movement he wants to be a congressman he's trying to make himself everybody's problem and that makes him part of what is happening here back in august representative nancy mace announced that she wouldn't seek re election in south carolina's first congressional district and she would instead focus on making a run for governor and that announcement opened the floodgates all but one of the ten republicans vying for the nomination to replace her filed their paperwork after the announcement i don't pay a ton of attention to this sort of thing it's not really my wheelhouse but last month a man named tyler dykes joined the race filing paperwork as a congressional candidate in mesa's district now like i said it's a crowded field there are ten people in this primary and it's nancy mace's district so being a little bit of a conspiracy theorist with an extremely right wing policy platform doesn't really set you apart they all kind of blend together most years i probably couldn't tell you a whole lot about every primary candidate in my own district let alone one two states away so on the surface he's just another carbon copy america first zealot trying to fit this particular mold he's created an image for his campaign that's not unlike nancy mace's and i guess that makes sense right these people voted for her so maybe that's what works here tyler dyke's campaign website is pretty similar to nancy mace's they both emphasize their personal connection to military service nancy mace graduated from the citadel military college and tyler dykes features photos of himself in his marine corps dress blues they both describe themselves as entrepreneurs and business owners and they both hate immigrants so much that their lust for mass deportation isn't even confined only to the pages devoted to their position on the issue it's in their candidate biographies and they frame themselves as fighters there's a lot of fight based language fighting for america fighting for christ and they both really position their devotion to god as something they have to fight for and fight against the christ hating hordes on the left to keep like this is something someone's trying to take from them their platforms are pretty similar too america first south carolina first law and order tough on crime deport millions of people nancy mace is running for governor on eliminating the state income tax and if he gets to congress tyler dyke says he wants to slash taxes too but of the five main policy ideas on his congressional campaign website the one that's about taxes the tax that he will cut as a congressman he wrote that he will end property taxes now regardless of how you feel about property taxes those are imposed by your state and local government the federal government doesn't tax your property so i guess he's got that republican tax cut spirit but he's a little confused but overall just another far right america first candidate trying to elbow his way into this attention economy it's distasteful it's bigoted it's chryso fascist xenophobic poorly articulated economically unsound but it's not unique or interesting these guys are a dime a dozen and they'll mostly be gone by the time the primaries end but there is one really weird thing about tyler dykes's campaign messaging he keeps bringing up that he's not a nazi he wants you to know that no one's asking him this he's bringing it up preemptively the i am not a nazi letters that he mailed to the homes of hundreds of voters in his district are starting to raise questions he thinks are already answered in those letters and here's the.
- [122:52]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Thing they still call me a nazi to this day they still are randomly is all these evil horrific things but let me tell you this what makes.
- [123:00]
Jacob Goldstein
Me a nazi i love christ i.
- [123:04]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Love god i love my country i love my state my family and my community and the entirety of the lowcountry area and that's why i live here because i love it so much so does that make me a nazi does loving your family does loving your god does loving your country does that make you a nazi that makes you a.
- [123:25]
Dana El Kurd
Nazi so be it oh wow he's just another tragic victim of cancel culture he's being attacked by the woke mobs who hate good christian men and that's why they're calling him a nazi right is there another reason that this keeps coming up or is it just because he loves his family so much so.
- [123:48]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
It'S quite interesting you know my experience in january sixth for example i was branded as a neo nazi domestic terrorist.
- [123:55]
Jacob Goldstein
Because of a wave oh it's not.
- [123:58]
Dana El Kurd
Just because he loves his family it's because he's a peaceful patriotic supporter of donald trump who visited the capitol building and the communists who run the mainstream media are unfairly showing a photograph of him where he was simply waving hello to a friend and that's why they're calling him a nazi because he loves america too much and he waved hello to a friend while on a sightseeing trip to the capitol building it probably won't surprise you to know that that is not the whole story he's getting closer it's definitely a little bit more about what specifically he was doing with his right arm at the top of the east stairs of the capitol building a little after two pm on january sixth twenty twenty one it's more about that than it is about his love of his family he's getting warmer see the reason he keeps bringing up that he doesn't want to be called a nazi is because there are nazi allegations but these allegations aren't just lies from the evil left wing media it's something he's been asked about by the fbi and by the doj and the marine corps and police in multiple jurisdictions across several states a lot of people are asking him about the nazi thing so it makes sense that he'd want to get out ahead of it and assure the voters that there's a good explanation when he brings up that innocent wave that's being taken out of context to smear him as a nazi he's talking about a photograph a particular photograph and one of many that federal prosecutors included in their sentencing memorandum after tyler dykes accepted a plea agreement in federal court he pleaded guilty to two counts of assaulting an officer during the breach of the capitol on january sixth twenty twenty one in exchange for his cooperation the government dropped the other eight counts on the indictment so in that sentencing memorandum there's a picture it's a still frame that was taken from a video but obviously you can't put a video on paper so it's just a still frame and it shows a mass of people making their way up the east steps of the capitol building on the afternoon of january sixth whoever's taking the video was standing at the bottom of the stairs so you're just seeing the backs of the people in this crowd who are walking up the stairs except for the figure in the center in the center of the picture at the top of the stairs a very tall man in a black jacket and a gray mask has turned around so he's facing the plaza below and he's sort of squared up facing down the stairs and his right arm is completely extended at about a forty five degree angle elbow straight wrist straight fingers together the government's caption reads still from video showing dykes performing what appears to be the sea kyle salute after he arrives on the landing in front of the east rotunda doors he maintains that he was waving to a friend for what it's worth i've seen a lot of these waves and i know what it looks like to me and regardless of what it looks like to you in this photograph i have a video of him doing the exact same wave at a nazi rally so it's not just a picture he only served three of the fifty seven months he was sentenced to spend in prison before he was released in january of twenty twenty five as a result of trump's blanket pardons for the nearly sixteen hundred january sixth defendants but that's not the issue here he's not ashamed of being a january sixth defendant that's a badge of honor that's not a problem if he can spin this nazi thing into a story that reinforces this narrative of brave january sixth patriots who are being persecuted by communists and liberals and the woke mob it stops being a problem for the people whose attention and votes and donations he wants so his story is pretty simple all the people calling him a nazi are lying they're taking a single photograph out of context it's not a nazi salute it's a wave and all of this all of this nazi talk it's all just about this one single incident this one picture this one wave and the government the government is preventing him from proving that to you and then the.
- [128:52]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Honorable judge that i had denied me.
- [128:54]
Andrew Sage
Being able to give that evidence and.
- [128:56]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Being able to show it to people and so a lot of these people unfortunately because of a lot of the news media and because of the efforts of the biden administration they see me as an enemy and as a terrorist.
- [129:06]
Dana El Kurd
That'S tyler dykes in mid october of this year telling a local tv news crew in hilton head that the media is complicit in spreading these lies the government told about him in court when he was interviewed last month by a conspiracy theorist and right wing podcaster named ann vandersteel she was on his side she was earnest and she wanted to get to the bottom of this he told her that the government's entire case was lie after lie and there's proof that he never did any of those things on january sixth and she's excited to hear this and she wants to see these videos because she would love to see proof that the government is persecuting our brave january sixth patriots but there's one little problem well you know.
- [129:50]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
That'S a very funny thing the honorable judge in my case actually put out.
- [129:54]
Jacob Goldstein
A gag order banning me from being able to have any of the discovery.
- [129:58]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Evidence for me to be able to.
- [130:00]
Ben Schuman Stoller
Defend myself from the public that is.
- [130:03]
Jacob Goldstein
In the dockets oh it's in the.
- [130:05]
Dana El Kurd
Dockets it's in the dockets phenomenal i can look at the dockets we can look at that together that's easy and i do see here that there is a protective order filed in this case shortly after he was first arrested the judge entered an order prohibiting the public dissemination of certain discovery materials if you look at enough j six cases this kind of protective order was almost universal the government didn't want to publicly release stuff like the names of confidential informants security footage from inside certain secure government areas personal information about witnesses just a laundry list of kinds of evidence that was likely to be produced in these cases that would be sensitive so they're not saying they can't turn it over to the defense in discovery they're just saying this stays between us right this doesn't get released to the public this was normal and it was routine and it was agreed to by everyone involved the defense counsel agreed to this so okay off to a good start i do see a protective order on the docket but if you skip down a year down to the bottom of the docket to the end of the case after the guilty plea the government filed their exhibit list for the sentencing hearing and in that document the federal prosecutor wrote the government does not object to any photo or video evidence being released to the public so of the exhibits they plan to show in court at sentencing they said it's okay if everyone sees these the media can have these and so the judge in turn asked defense counsel how they felt about that and the defense replied defendant tyler bradley dykes by and through his attorneys does not object to the video and photo evidence identified in the government's notice ecf number forty four being made publicly available defendant does object to any public disclosure of his military records identified in exhibit nineteen and so the judge signed an order the exhibits that the government identified for the sentencing hearing which the file names are in that document it includes the video of the wave the video of him grabbing the policeman's shield the things he's saying he can't get based on the file names those videos can absolutely be requested from the court these aren't under seal there's not a gag order he can request these and i think he should do that there are a lot of videos on that exhibit list and i'm sure people would like to decide for themselves if he's describing them faithfully the only exhibit on that list that the defense objected to making publicly available the only one that remains sealed and isn't available for public access are his military records those military records are specifically the ones related to the other than honorable discharge he received from the marines see those campaign flyers the ones he was mailing to people's houses they're all signed at the bottom tyler dykes us marine corps veteran business owner pardoned j six patriot on november tenth the marine corps birthday he posted a photo of himself in his dress blues on the campaign's instagram account being a marine corps veteran is as big a part of his campaign identity as talking about how he's not a nazi these are kind of the top two things he's a marine and he really wants you to know that nazi stuff isn't true and he was a marine that's true he definitely was in the marine corps but those military records that he doesn't want released would really undermine his narrative about being a proud honorable veteran who definitely isn't a nazi because they would show that he received an other than honorable discharge for participating in prohibited extremist activity on november eighth twenty twenty and that's in the file i know that specifically is in that sealed file because in other documents that refer to it that's all it says i don't know what else is in that record all i know for sure is that the stated reason for his other than honorable discharge is something that happened on november eighth twenty twenty now luckily for us i know that on november eighth twenty twenty a security camera in sumter county south carolina recorded footage of two men one of the men looked exactly like tyler dykes even his father had to agree it kind of did and the men were putting up flyers with swastikas on them outside local businesses i don't know if his military discharge records include anything else was it really just the flyers just the one time with the swastika flyers and that was it i don't know if the military was aware that he'd been attending things like a paramilitary training weekend at a compound in michigan hosted by members of the neo nazi group the base i don't know if there's a memo in there about the time in january of twenty nineteen that an fbi agent from the joint terrorism task force questioned him about his possible connections to domestic extremist groups i don't know if the marine corps knew that he was one of just a handful of white nationalists who attended the unite the right two the flop of a nazi rally held in washington dc in twenty eighteen to commemorate the deadly rally that had happened a year earlier and along that same line of thought i don't know if the marine corps knew back then the tyler dykes had attended the unite the right rally in charlottesville in twenty seventeen i don't know if they saw the videos of him marching with a tiki torch or the videos of him punching wildly at counter protesters that he'd helped trap in that sea of flames and with the exception of the unite the right rally in twenty seventeen which was before he enlisted all of the rest of that conduct occurred while tyler dykes was a marine he went to nazi rallies he joined nazi groups he put up nazi flyers he went to nazi training camps to prepare for the race war and he fought his way into the capitol building on january sixth so okay yeah he was a united states marine he can post that picture in his uniform on his campaign website i don't care i'm not personally offended about him being a stain on the honor of the us military or whatever but i think a lot of voters would feel like this isn't quite honest by the time tyler dykes was arrested in twenty twenty three and extradited back to virginia to face charges for menacing those counter protesters with a lit torch he'd already been kicked out of the marines he had apparently hidden that fact from his parents and there was a lot they didn't know about their son the day he was arrested in twenty twenty three he'd been out with other members of a group called the southern suns active club a sort of white supremacist fight club for friendless young men they were trying to hang nazi banners from a highway overpass but tyler dykes was bitten by a dog and had to go to the hospital instead he eventually pleaded guilty to that felony charge in albemarle county virginia related to the torch march and he spent a few months in the local jail on the day he was supposed to go home he was picked up by a federal marshal the doj had waited until the last day of his sentence here to unseal the charges against him for january sixth and after that he spent a year out on pre trial bond in that case and then he eventually pleaded guilty to those charges in the summer of twenty twenty four and he finally reported to federal prison in october of twenty twenty four expecting to be there for almost five years but he was released a few months later in january of this year after receiving a federal pardon and now he wants to go back to the capitol building not as a rioter this time but as a congressman the campaign is barely a month old he's using a right wing crowdfunding site for campaign donations so you can see that he hasn't cracked two hundred dollars yet the only photo of his launch party is so tightly cropped that you can only see the candidate himself standing in an empty field in a public park i don't think there's a lot of grassroots excitement for tyler dykes in south carolina's first district but if he does keep making the rounds and if he ever ends up in front of a real reporter i hope they'll ask him why doesn't he just produce those exhibits the videos he's claiming are being kept from him under seal aren't and if he's so against any exhibits being held back from the court of public opinion he could go ahead and release the one he actually has in his own possession the only one that is sealed he has his own discharge records show them to us i'm dying to know how many of those nazi rallies the marine corps knew about before they finally kicked him out if you're interested in hearing more about this particular weird little guy there are two episodes available right now over on the weird little guys feed it's a cool zone media show you can listen to wherever you get your podcasts if you're in the charleston area or more importantly if your conservative boomer parents are it can't hurt to let folks know that one of your local candidates isn't being entirely forthcoming about why people are calling him a nazi and wherever your conservative parents live maybe this is a useful example of the kind of thing you might find when you start gently scratching the surface of these america first candidates ten athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points you are the fittest of the fit only one of you will leave here with an ifit contract for two hundred fifty thousand dollars this is where mindset comes in someone will be eliminated fresh is coming down this is trainer.
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Mia Wong
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What'S yous problem when you buy business.
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- [141:38]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
O o dot com that's o d o o dot com the world's best ski and snowboard athletes are chasing medals now you can follow their every move join insider the official us ski and snowboard fan loyalty program and get premium viewing at world cup ski events exclusive athlete meetups discounts from brands you love and a custom welcome gift mailed direct to your doorstep this winter show your support as they race for the podium head to insider dot usski and snowboard dot org and join today.
- [142:14]
Jacob Goldstein
Want to sell your car your way who wouldn't that's why carmax offers a car selling experience designed just for you with online and in store options want to know what your car is worth quickly get an online offer in under two minutes want to think it over use offerwatch to keep tabs on your car's value over time plus carmax offers flexible selling.
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Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
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Jacob Goldstein
Or pick up at home selling your.
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Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
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Jacob Goldstein
Want to drive carmax pickup not available.
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Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Everywhere restrictions and fee may apply see.
- [142:42]
Jacob Goldstein
Carmax dot com for details.
- [142:49]
Mia Wong
All right.
- [142:49]
Robert Evans
Everybody this is an emergency episode of it could happen here here we're dropping everything else for the most important breaking news in the country andy dick has overdosed in public in the city of los angeles thankfully in preparation for this we've had our entire team deployed to the areas around andy dick's home james do you have any updates on the situation no i'm not sure who andy.
- [143:13]
Mia Wong
Dick is just like a public figure.
- [143:15]
Robert Evans
In america i could have planned this.
- [143:16]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Out better yes.
- [143:20]
Robert Evans
Andy dick is america's sweetheart and he's going through some troubled times but it's okay they narcanned him in public no it's andy dick's fault this is entirely on andy dick yeah.
- [143:30]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Well good on the person who had.
- [143:31]
Robert Evans
Narcan carrie narcan yeah no one should ever feel sorry for andy dick i feel bad for the narcan this is.
- [143:38]
Garrison Davis
It could happen here executive disorder our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the white house the crumbling world and andy dick i'm garrison davis this episode i'm joined by mia wong we've referred to.
- [143:50]
Mia Wong
Someone the first time we only use the last name garrison yeah i'm joined.
- [143:54]
Garrison Davis
By mia wang james stout robert evans and sophie lichterman we are covering the week of december fourth to december tenth.
- [144:02]
Robert Evans
So one of the big stories of the last week or so is something that would seem would be unequivocally a bad thing in any other political climate which is netflix buying warner brothers and contributing to the shrinking ever further of like america's like the number of people who actually own all of the media.
- [144:20]
Garrison Davis
That americans consume yeah monopolization's obviously bad.
- [144:23]
Robert Evans
But in this case i mean it's it's it's bad that for on that end it's probably better that netflix buy it than paramount buy it yes so i guess i'm like well okay this.
- [144:33]
Jacob Goldstein
Could be worse predator versus alien situation.
- [144:35]
Garrison Davis
This is a really weird situation right because a lot of people are really dooming about you know netflix acquiring warner brothers and what that'll mean for like you know art and the you know theatrical model of film distribution and then not realizing that paramount's counter bid based on saudi money yeah would place warner brothers in the control of one of the most trump aligned like media enterprises in the united states right now yeah.
- [145:04]
Jacob Goldstein
Yeah so let's let's let's roll back a second and look at what is actually going on here and it's actually very important to note this is being recorded on wednesday december tenth this whole situation is changing extremely quickly there could be some another unhinged thing could have happened by the time you you're listening to this but the the basics here is that paramount which was recently acquired.
- [145:26]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
By skydance which is which direction did.
- [145:29]
Garrison Davis
That acquisition go i mean technically speaking.
- [145:31]
Jacob Goldstein
It was a merger but it was really but it was skydance taking control of paramount skydance had been run by larry ellison's son david ellison david yeah so and and this is this is this is this is the the regime that sort of imposed barry weiss on cbs which has become increasingly right wing under her quote unquote leadership we're going to do a full episode about this i think on monday are you tuning.
- [145:56]
Garrison Davis
Into the charlie kirk erica kirk town hall on cbs this saturday oh god.
- [146:01]
Jacob Goldstein
They can't make me i will have recorded this episode before they did this.
- [146:06]
Garrison Davis
I'M going to be tuning in because it looks phenomenal so it's worth pointing.
- [146:12]
Jacob Goldstein
Out so larry ellison who is the father of david ellison is one of the most terrifying of all of the right wing billionaires yeah he's kind of more quiet than someone like andreessen or elon musk about being a unhinged right wing fanatic but he's one of trump's biggest supporters he has a whole thing about how everyone's inevitably going to be under total constant surveillance that will make everyone behave well we'll cover this more later but the ellison's the father son ellison duo and paramount backed by the saudis abu dhabi and cotter they want.
- [146:42]
Robert Evans
Bugs bunny desperately because he keeps my sources are saying he keeps bunny pranking mohammed bin salman by cross dressing yeah and it's really yeah the entire saudi military is incapable of stopping bugs bunny.
- [146:54]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
I mean this is their best bet for taking him down well i think.
- [146:57]
Garrison Davis
What'S what's an interesting fact in these various bids for control of warner brothers the netflix deal does not include cnn the paramount deal does yeah yeah before.
- [147:10]
Jacob Goldstein
We get into that we should say what paramount is doing now which is paramount on monday began to try to just do a hostile takeover by just straight up buying out the shares at what they're claiming is the higher share price there's a whole lot of complicated stuff about share pricing here that you.
- [147:25]
Robert Evans
Don'T really care about and there have been so many dishonest headlines like one being like paramount lost the bid by just seventy five cents no seventy five cents a share that's like hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars that's not.
- [147:35]
Jacob Goldstein
Even it's it's all it's all ridiculous yeah the wall street journal has been getting a lot of the information about this we've gotten to a point on wednesday where investors are going to the wall street journal and being like there's going to be a bidding war there's going to be a bidding war but the wall street journal points out and i think this is an interesting thing here that's important to set these hostile takeover attempts almost never work it's like thirty percent of the time yeah and it's sub thirty percent that these that these things kind of work but the other card that the the father son ellison duo have is claiming that trump is more likely to back paramount's buyout than the netflix one because trump can sort of stop this through antitrust yeah or quote unquote antitrust stuff per axios jared kushner's consultancy firm is part of paramount's buyout plan and per wall street journal david ellison met with trump administration officials in quote recent days and has offered to you know this this goes back to what garrison was saying about cnn being part of part of this package they have been offering to effectively due to cnn what they did to cbs which is put it under the control of some right wing fanatic and turn it into a propaganda pure propaganda outlet this is you know obviously corruption of a sort of mind blowing yeah yeah and a product of the fact that like our quote unquote free press is literally just for sale amazingly this is not this doesn't seem to be.
- [149:00]
Garrison Davis
Working no i mean and trump has spoken positively about netflix and the netflix ceo the past few days but he's.
- [149:06]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Also spoken negatively spoken negatively about both.
- [149:09]
Garrison Davis
Of them yeah both the netflix yeah.
- [149:11]
Robert Evans
He'S spoken negatively about ellison recently and there's a there's a quote from an article i found in the wall street journal yeah trump has so far avoided publicly backing a bitter none of them are particularly great friends of mine he said at a white house roundtable on monday a person close to trump said the president will want paramount and netflix to compete for his approval of a deal which does sound very trump yeah.
- [149:33]
Jacob Goldstein
And apparently the specific thing he's mad at paramount about is for having marjorie taylor greene on cbs yeah that's funny.
- [149:40]
Robert Evans
Oh he's so cool really funny there.
- [149:42]
Jacob Goldstein
Is no amount of sort of ass kissing that you can do to actually make trump consistently be on your side it's really hideous this is all disgusting.
- [149:51]
Garrison Davis
Unless unless you give him the fifa world peace prize trophy oh yeah he'll.
- [149:56]
Robert Evans
Die for fifa now yeah can i just say fuck me he's actually renaming american football to soccer god i love.
- [150:05]
Garrison Davis
The fifa trophy because it looks disgusting have you seen the fifa trophy yes.
- [150:10]
Robert Evans
I have fifteen minutes on that fucking.
- [150:12]
Garrison Davis
Thing just all those all those hands grasping that ball oh my god yeah.
- [150:18]
Mia Wong
Really genuinely one of the one of the most impressive actors sports sycophancy since.
- [150:22]
Garrison Davis
Nineteen thirty three but but yeah it doesn't seem like trump is as keen to back paramount's bid as what some of the paramount people thought he might be and the netflix deal might just end up actually going through yeah yeah.
- [150:39]
Jacob Goldstein
And we'll see about this this is all going to change probably by the time you're reading this or listening to this that's that's the one that you do but it's so cool that we live in an economy where your two options are netflix destroys film forever and the nazis gain control of cnn it's great great system yeah no no no.
- [150:58]
Garrison Davis
No notes and what would really be damaging if paramount's able to buy warner brothers is that then they would be in charge of nathan fielder's rehearsal which which does which does target the fascistic paramount regime yeah james what's what's of what's some small news stories we can we can go with here before our.
- [151:19]
Mia Wong
First break yeah okay i'm operating on a couple of computers here so this is gonna have to work around some constraints fam good thing you're wearing your.
- [151:28]
Garrison Davis
Five hundred eleven uniform to help maintain the discipline necessary garrison this is not.
- [151:33]
Mia Wong
Five hundred eleven my friend this is five one point one yeah you cannot get this shit outside of syria and iraq and i fucking love it yep.
- [151:40]
Robert Evans
Yep yeah i still have my knockoff timberland shirt which just says thicks and gand and looks honestly the label looks like an ai slop tried to put the timberland logo it's amazing my favorite.
- [151:51]
Mia Wong
Is the one that just says sixteen five plus eleven i love fake five hundred eleven if you have fake five hundred eleven shit i have a collection of it send it to me i will retire and make a museum one day i cannot get enough of it i love that it started as a rock climbing brand in yosemite and now it is a lifestyle brand in syria.
- [152:09]
Robert Evans
It'S perfect i tell you i miss my adonis tracksuit that i got in.
- [152:13]
Mia Wong
Turkey i've got some merle boots as well yeah yeah i love that shit i got a fake gerber knife graber that one that one that one was from david yeah i know yeah yeah bullshit knives yeah it's one of my.
- [152:33]
Jacob Goldstein
Favorites gonna start putting out women's hats.
- [152:35]
Mia Wong
Very soon yeah okay let's talk about the news so this is a fun one schrodinger's permit we're gonna call it in pensacola somebody participating in food not bombs was arrested following that at a press conference the city announced that a person was arrested for being in a park too late right i guess in florida of course yeah this is this.
- [152:56]
Robert Evans
Is the most serious crime imaginable and.
- [152:58]
Mia Wong
Also giving food to poor people which is probably like a felony in florida so the city then announced the issue had been resolved because there had been a there was a permit issued to food not bombs for them to be in the park late and give people food food not bombs did not apply for the permit nor do they want the permit right that's not kind of that's not how food not bombs works food not bombs is an it's an action not an entity right like it is a protest action the city is now reviewing if the permit is releasable under public records laws so someone can find out who attempted to white knight food not bombs yeah some of the suggestions as there's a guy who runs some kind of we will cooperate with the cops to get people off fentanyl charity which uses some incredible ai imagery on its instagram page yeah that sounds good yeah so i will keep you updated on this florida story yeah thanks for that james in the oregon versus trump case regarding national guard deployment judge jay bybee not normally a guy associated with woke a george w bush appointee has penned an extensive opinion i think it was sixty four pages on the domestic violence clause of the constitution and how it ought to restrain the use of the guard it's like a different argument than we've seen previously right in discussions about the national guard because yeah.
- [154:19]
Garrison Davis
I'Ve read the other judge opinion pieces.
- [154:22]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
But not this one yeah so bybey's.
- [154:25]
Mia Wong
Been in it for a while and he's been someone who has i don't know previously not really been an opponent of what i might see as of overreach in terms of state power and violence but yeah using this this is a different clause to the constitution right so it's now moving along in that discussion yesterday as we were recording this so that would be on tuesday the ninth the democrats held a bicameral shadow quote unquote shadow hearing on the detention of us citizens by dhs that doesn't really have the power to do much and i have not had time to listen to the entire recording because it was only streamed on facebook i love that we have an opposition in this.
- [155:01]
Garrison Davis
Country god i love the democrats yeah.
- [155:04]
Robert Evans
They'Re really i like how together they've got it like after a rough patch.
- [155:08]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
They'Re really firing on all like a.
- [155:11]
Mia Wong
Phoenix from the ashes of an absolute ass whooping in the election yeah yeah.
- [155:16]
Robert Evans
Like an ass phoenix exactly yeah ass.
- [155:18]
Mia Wong
Phoenix that's my band actually i can't believe that you plugged us on air thank you okay trump's ongoing barrage of hate about somali people has been met with some incredible posting people who are not on x dot com will have missed this but like genuinely some of the funniest response to some of the most hateful shit like trump and miller have both been on a and i guess fox news fox news went to minneapolis and heard a call to prayer and had a meltdown about it but this is this campaign i guess by trump and miller is very much ongoing we spoke about that last week with the tps if people aren't familiar they can check that out last week yeah eileen higgins won the miami mayoral election do i want to make a pit.
- [156:02]
Garrison Davis
Bull joke the dog you talking about.
- [156:05]
Mia Wong
Mister worldwide well we could do margaret is a major issue i'm just trying to work on that acronym oh god.
- [156:11]
Robert Evans
Because i'm always thinking about mister worldwide james he's he's never far from my.
- [156:15]
Mia Wong
Thoughts no i often think about pitbull and how he and hillary clinton often wear exactly the same thing that's right.
- [156:21]
Robert Evans
They have a lot in common actually they do the primary thing is this.
- [156:25]
Garrison Davis
Like a miami yes it is mister.
- [156:27]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Worldwide is in fact a miami thing.
- [156:29]
Mia Wong
Yeah yeah i don't know yes but.
- [156:32]
Garrison Davis
This is the first time a democrat has won the mayoral office in miami in almost thirty years which is yeah.
- [156:38]
Mia Wong
This is wild significant yeah this is.
- [156:40]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Astonishing yeah yeah this was like a.
- [156:42]
Garrison Davis
Pretty decent win this was a runoff election but still a pretty pretty substantial.
- [156:46]
Jacob Goldstein
Win yeah and i think there's there's there's a few important notes here one is that even the miami cuba demographics swung massively towards the democrats which is sort of apocalyptic news for the republicans that's really really bad if you're losing the miami cuban population if you have.
- [157:01]
Robert Evans
Got miami cubans to think critically about politics things are dire yeah and the.
- [157:11]
Jacob Goldstein
Other thing here too is that the florida democratic party like i would compare.
- [157:16]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Them to clowns but like these these.
- [157:18]
Jacob Goldstein
Motherfuckers make bobo the clown look like fucking napoleon these are the most some of the most incompetent people in the entire history of politics and the republicans are losing to them that's astonishing there were a couple of other results like.
- [157:33]
Garrison Davis
This yeah this week democrats flipped a georgia state house seat the seat moved blue by twenty two points jeez yep.
- [157:42]
Jacob Goldstein
They they they flipped albuquerque city council there's all of these little results and this has been happening basically since we got the first special elections of the trump administration where the republicans are losing like r plus twenty two districts they're getting destroyed in places that it shouldn't be possible for them to lose and this is a this is another major confirmation of the mia everyone hates them theory every day it gets more and more validated everyone hates them yeah last.
- [158:10]
Garrison Davis
Small news story that i think is worth mentioning because it's i think pretty important actually conservative podcaster benny johnson is threatening to sue milo yiannopoulos for alleging that he is gay so we're going to be keeping up with this story pretty close i know this has a lot of ramifications for listeners yeah great.
- [158:31]
Robert Evans
Cool we should do ads we're back and we're talking about the january sixth pipe bomb guy suspect yeah well i mean we know there's a person we don't know that it was a guy we know someone planted those pipe bombs.
- [158:57]
Garrison Davis
I'M going to talk about the suspect.
- [158:58]
Robert Evans
Yes i want i want to start just for a little bit by again talking about the degree to which i really hope this is apocalyptic for the blaze yeah what they did is a case study in what you should never do as a publication it was unethical it was idiotic and it was deeply dangerous and if the capitol police officer does not sue them i don't know what kind of advice she's getting other than maybe just sheer terror at the number of death threats she's already received but like ma' am getting all of glenn beck's money is the only thing that will keep you safe right now.
- [159:34]
Garrison Davis
Please do it no yeah so you you were out last week when we when we got the like some the very first reporting on the pipe bomb.
- [159:41]
Robert Evans
Arrest yeah i know is only thing i regret about my vacation yeah but.
- [159:46]
Garrison Davis
Very little information was out last week and we have more information now regarding the alleged january sixth pipe bomber or technically january fifth pipe bomber who is now charged with transporting an explosive device with intent to kill injure or damage property and attempted malicious destruction by means of fire and explosive materials according to court records the fbi identified the suspect through cell tower records license plate readers and purchases of potential bomb making materials including the pipes the cap ends the wires steel and nine volt batteries it doesn't appear that they gained possession of new information but by changing the agents looking at the information they were able to piece piece this together to actually make an action on it leading to.
- [160:35]
Robert Evans
The arrest it's a classic fbi story of they had all the information they needed to have caught this guy very long ago and did not yeah right.
- [160:43]
Garrison Davis
Or lacked the ability to like put the pieces together in a way that makes them able to do the arrest.
- [160:47]
Robert Evans
But as is always the case this was not an issue if they didn't have enough access to information there was too much encrypted there was you know they need more power no they had everything they needed they just didn't think right yeah that's what it was they weren't thinking right you know still very.
- [161:01]
Garrison Davis
Little has come out officially about the alleged bomber's potential motivation who may be.
- [161:07]
Robert Evans
Innocent let's be clear yeah yeah yeah.
- [161:09]
Garrison Davis
There'S nothing alluding to his motivation in the charging documents besides just an interest a years long interest in bomb making starting in twenty nineteen and continuing into like twenty twenty one now nbc has reported based on sources inside the law enforcement investigation team but embassy has reported that before the suspect acquired an attorney he confessed to investigators and told the fbi that he believed in twenty twenty election conspiracy theories but some new information from the new york post which i have verified may have actually cracked this story wide open they have learned that the suspect is a brony my little pony fan draws a lot of actually relatively good quality my little pony fan art and writes finally my little pony fan fiction i could read some here.
- [162:04]
Robert Evans
Garrison what is the quality of their fan fiction yeah let's let's just just.
- [162:07]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Give us like fifteen minutes i'll read.
- [162:09]
Garrison Davis
A paragraph quote applebloom's eyes snapped open as she sat up in her bed panting heavily and sweat dripping from her red mane it was another bad dream about that village she had discovered back in the everfree forest sunny town at first it seemed like a normal peaceful little village kind of like ponyville what was strange was that none of the inhabitants had cutie marks in fact they hadn't the slightest clue as to what a cutie mark was so could you.
- [162:37]
Robert Evans
Send me that link could you send.
- [162:38]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Me that oh sure yeah thank you.
- [162:40]
Garrison Davis
I'Ll actually i'll send this to the entire team chat i'm demanding hazard pay.
- [162:45]
Jacob Goldstein
At the next union negotiations we need.
- [162:47]
Garrison Davis
Hazard pay actually like this is very standard but relatively good quality my little pony brony activity non sexual entirely like i've looked at a lot of this guy's art it's fairly clear prose fairly high quality my little pony fan art in a variety of styles from different eras of the show not like a sexually fetishistic depiction can't wait to see.
- [163:09]
Robert Evans
The headlines from this cool zone host defends capital bite bombers bros but no.
- [163:16]
Garrison Davis
Like a high school classmate told washington post that he was bullied for having a my little pony backpack in school yeah that makes sense he's had this interest for quite a while kind of kind of tapered off a few years before before the bombing but for a while this was like kind of one of his main hobbies on on a tumblr profile he lists his interest as quote parkour music video games mainly horror drawing improving myself philosophically and anime unquote okay well his grandmother has described him as quote almost autistic like because he doesn't understand a lot of stuff unquote he's only ever worked for the family bail bond business yeah well i mean.
- [163:59]
Robert Evans
Look i'll say this he wasn't bad like he could have had a future in private security or something like that like not bad opsec as it turned out yeah but i don't know a.
- [164:10]
Garrison Davis
Funny slash dark thing is that in the right wings just desperate effort to make everything about trans people they have turned this brony thing into like a you know trans people also like my little pony and like brony and like like quotes from like psychologists in in some in some of these articles about how how bronies like play with like gender boundaries by by being fans of like a girl's like a property that's usually enjoyed by girls so there's been like a slight attempt to try to kind of paint this in like a in like a pseudo translate but that's not getting much traction because like people know what bronies are and like come on i i think this this whole strategy is is on the out in.
- [164:52]
Robert Evans
Some ways yeah am i am i incorrect here because i had just caught this but i didn't actually this is like while i was on vacation i had heard that he expressed a belief that the twenty twenty election was stolen.
- [165:01]
Garrison Davis
From trump yeah that's what he seems.
- [165:03]
Robert Evans
Do we know if that's accurate okay okay so he does seem to that's.
- [165:06]
Garrison Davis
Being reported by the nbc that that he told investigators that he believed in like twenty twenty election conspiracy theories okay the ones that were spread by trump.
- [165:16]
Robert Evans
So i mean it seems like from what we have one of the more predictable ones and like it's not if this is like a weird right wing you know brony this is not the first time a right wing brony has done something violent he doesn't seem super.
- [165:30]
Garrison Davis
Political in my opinion like none of his online activity points towards a deep interest in politics yeah no but if.
- [165:38]
Robert Evans
He said he thought the election was stolen then that makes sense as being.
- [165:42]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
A contributing factor yeah a factor perhaps.
- [165:46]
Garrison Davis
But not not a huge like online presence that revolves around politics like a lot of people who aren't super into politics maybe thought the election was like.
- [165:54]
Robert Evans
Stolen or like rigged i mean as we try to point out periodically the vast majority of people who will carry out a shooting or other act of mass public violence in the us are going to have more in common with other people who do that than anyone specifically just in political terms for the most part because most of them are you know they're shooter stands they're they're they're that sort of thing like this is their special interest bombings or whatever.
- [166:20]
Garrison Davis
He does seem to have like a lot of special interests right it used to be my little ponies then it became bomb making that just seemed to be a special interest of his for like three or four years was just like the practice of bomb making this is just just something he got like into and i think that's more of a motivating force and like a specific partisan political motivation and i think it's really funny like reflecting on a statement that law enforcement leaked last week saying that he had like anarchist like leanings which is very very amusing now in light of all of this for a.
- [166:51]
Mia Wong
Long time they have used anarchism to mean like a predilection for violence or chaos it doesn't like the government blah blah blah right yeah part of this.
- [167:01]
Robert Evans
Is just the way people tend to use the term anarchism when i was doing my research for like the nuclear doomsday device episodes there's a bunch of otherwise great pieces that are like and then in the in the wake of a global nuclear war society will collapse and all that will be left is anarchy and it's like guys like it's not anarchy that's that's going to be the problem that like like you realize that the cause of a nuclear war is is like all of this like yeah it's it is not at all anarchy as opposed to nuclear war i'm worried about for example yeah yeah the nuclear wealth part yeah i'm worried about like democracy fucking authoritarianism i'm worried about all of those things anarchists would never have built a nuclear doomsday device yeah.
- [167:47]
Mia Wong
Yeah it's why i used left libertarian sometimes in my academic writing because it was just the term is just not comprehensible especially like someone coming having been raised on us media and in the.
- [167:58]
Robert Evans
Wake of a global nuclear war you'll be lucky to get some anarchy because it probably means someone's found some food and is cooking it for you yeah.
- [168:05]
Mia Wong
Yeah yeah yeah food not bombs are like food after they've rebranded but they're.
- [168:09]
Robert Evans
Still going food comma yeah yeah.
- [168:13]
Matan Khamener
The.
- [168:14]
Robert Evans
World is actually done with bombs.
- [168:19]
Jacob Goldstein
We did it we replaced the bombs with.
- [168:21]
Garrison Davis
Food one other update i'll squeeze in here quick it's short yeah last week the supreme court ruled that texas can use its newly drawn congressional map in the upcoming twenty twenty six midterms likely adding five republican seats the lower court order which found the new map was racially gerrymandered intentionally has been stayed indefinitely as the supreme court prepares to consider whether to overturn the lower court's ruling entirely a process which could take months go well into the midterm cycle so the supreme court has authorized the use of that new map for this next.
- [168:58]
Mia Wong
Election talking of fan fiction and covers of things here is a song that was originally the worst song by the clash and now it's about tariffs.
- [169:26]
Garrison Davis
I think the COVID is of a similar quality as the alleged bombers fan art.
- [169:31]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
In my opinion dear god there's a.
- [169:33]
Garrison Davis
Lot of good twilight sparkle stuff that he he was drawing i'm sorry.
- [169:38]
Robert Evans
So.
- [169:39]
Jacob Goldstein
All right china is technically once again buying american soybeans as part of the sort of giant trade deal that xi jinping and trump negotiated but come on it is not buying soybeans at the rate that the white house said it would in the fact sheet that was released by the white house about the negotiations this is a huge problem because farmers are still not being able to sell enough soybeans to not get completely fucked and the white house is now putting out a bunch of statements saying oh no we actually screwed up the fact sheet they said that they would buy the soybeans not before the end of the year before the at the end of like the growing season that's good that's good yeah so and and his other solution to this has been a twelve billion dollar farmer bailout which is funny because he did a twelve billion dollars farm bailout in his first term when exactly the same thing happened and it didn't really do anything well.
- [170:38]
Garrison Davis
At least we're not bailing out let's.
- [170:39]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Say argentina funny example garestan what makes you choose that one oh god yeah.
- [170:44]
Jacob Goldstein
So the issue with this farmer's bailout is and this is something that farmers have been saying through all of the trade press any regular press they can get access to every local media outlet every single farmer who anyone has interviewed has gone we don't want to bailout we want to be able to sell our blasted soybeans and they still can't and this is you know becoming a real problem for this administration that even after their giant negotiations to get china to buy soybeans they still can't do it and farmers are continuing to be very very pissed off about this where.
- [171:19]
Garrison Davis
Are my beans yeah they're sitting in.
- [171:22]
Jacob Goldstein
The silos they're still there they can't.
- [171:25]
Robert Evans
Sell them how am i going to.
- [171:26]
Mia Wong
Keep up my soy consumption i'm going to be forced to become i don't know what other vegan options there are some other kind of boy i guess.
- [171:33]
Jacob Goldstein
Yeah well we'll just have to get.
- [171:34]
Garrison Davis
It from brazil instead brazil mentioned everyone.
- [171:36]
Robert Evans
Cheers hey they're doing good these days.
- [171:39]
Garrison Davis
Oh yeah hasn't there been some bolsonaro news recently i feel like there has.
- [171:44]
Robert Evans
Been let's roll the ads and then.
- [171:45]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
We'Ll talk about it okay this has.
- [171:47]
Jacob Goldstein
Been turf talk.
- [172:01]
Robert Evans
We'Re back and you know who's not free to listen to podcasts jair bolsonaro we can hope after trying to cut off his ankle monitor he has been taken into custody for attempting or at least probably trying to escape trump had made comments about expecting to see him soon yeah i don't think i think he's going to die in prison he's not doing well i will say one thing we got to do you know back when he got stabbed i think everyone's opinion on it was like oh fuck you just you know you've made him a martyr you got to look cool and seem like a badass this has done nothing but empower him no one cares no actually that stab did a lot of damage like that ruined his life low key yeah so thoughts and prayers to that guy wherever he is you know we just didn't realize the level of game that you had my man no i.
- [172:54]
Garrison Davis
Mean it's tough i mean we used to have the two like of the world's sickest men bolsonaro and steven crowder just fighting it out to see who would stay sicker for long about jordan.
- [173:03]
Mia Wong
Peterson that seems like erasure yeah he's.
- [173:05]
Garrison Davis
Taking the spot because he's still vanished from the daily wire because of his.
- [173:10]
Robert Evans
Like bizarre his daughter says he's basically.
- [173:13]
Mia Wong
Dead yeah he's like patient zero for cwd in humans or something right like.
- [173:17]
Garrison Davis
The daily wire still is acting like peterson's like still a person yeah it.
- [173:22]
Robert Evans
Turns out cold turkey quitting benzos via a coma in russia is a bad.
- [173:28]
Garrison Davis
Call speaking of crowder i did watch the two hours steven crowder nick fuentes interview this week oh god and it was really uncomfortable yeah i'll bet i could imagine they were just like jerking each other off for two hours nick was trying to be nice and like not act like steven's this like like totally irrelevant like boomer and steven was trying to make nick think he was cool and it was so painful to watch the entire time to watch that yeah it was it was bad there was nothing else notable from that i guess let's let's actually move to some notable notable stories to close this episode.
- [174:06]
Mia Wong
Yeah so i want to talk about the case of faustino pablo pablo a us district court in el paso texas has granted mister pablo pablo a tentative restraining order directing the government to return him to the united states by the twelfth of this month which will be the day that you are hearing this episode mister pablo pablo entered the usa in twenty twelve and was found removal by a judge however that judge granted his application for withholding of removal under the convention against torture because he would likely be tortured if he was returned to guatemala which is where he's from in theory he was removable therefore to a place where he would not likely be tortured right this is what we've seen the us government doing more and more in the last year really yeah he spent more than a decade he moved to california attended his ice check ins until he was detained at an ice check in on the fifth of november mister pablo pablo's lawyer filed a habeas petition and asked the court to enjoin ice from removing him from the western district of texas which is where they took him on the seventeenth of november right so he was detained on the fifth people who listened to my immigration series a couple of weeks ago will be familiar with this right people were detained in la ferried all around california and then sent to texas this is what happened in his case he wouldn't have been sent to the same place people in my series were because that's for family detention by the time the court ordered the government not to remove him they had already sent him back to guatemala just to cover there is one country in the world that he has withholding of removal to because he will be tortured there most likely and that is where they sent him the government conceded that they had made a mistake and said they quote tentatively scheduled a flight for the fourth of december he did not take that flight as far as we know he is still in guatemala he's in hiding and the court has ordered that the government facilitate his return by the twelfth of this month so we'll probably update you on that in next week's ed i'm.
- [176:05]
Garrison Davis
Going to talk about an expansion of social media monitoring which we've already seen for visa applicants but now expanding out to tourists as well customs and border protection and dhs have posted a sixty day notice for proposal to revise the electronic system for travel authorization application which is a waiver that some foreign tourists can use to avoid getting a tourist visa and the proposal is to add mandatory social media collection for all foreign tourists using the esta visa waiver this proposal would require that applicants provide their social media information from the past five years citing a january executive order quote protecting the united states from foreign terrorists and other national security and public safety threats unquote this would match the sort of social media monitoring we've seen applied to some visa applicants and immigrants just now extending out to tourists using the esta application and to comply with this january executive order cbp is also planning to add quote several high value data fields to the est application when feasible unquote this would include quote telephone numbers used in the last five years email addresses used in the last ten years ip addresses and metadata from electronically submitted photos family member names parents spouse siblings children family telephone numbers used in the last five years family member dates of birth family member places of birth family member residences biometric face fingerprint dna and iris business telephone numbers used in the last five years and business email addresses used in the last ten years unquote.
- [178:00]
Mia Wong
Yeah this is a wild amount of data i mean they can flash some of this like really quickly again against like quote unquote watch lists right yeah but some of this a like to gather this data to gather biometric data that's not possible with like you say you're applying on your cell phone or your home computer right so this might require an appointment yeah for some of.
- [178:23]
Garrison Davis
The fingerprint stuff part of the proposal is also requiring a selfie be submitted with this application separate from whatever's on the that is being used and so they could extract some like facial biometrics from that yeah but they can also they can also collect that stuff like at the airport or ports of entry they have fingerprint scanners now at a lot of these like entry kiosks yeah.
- [178:45]
Mia Wong
Yeah the selfie isn't just a selfie it's what's called a facial liveness scan which is what we've spoken about before with cbp one right that that like notoriously was very poor at capturing black faces generally you sort of have to like move the phone around your face to check that it's not like it's not me holding up a life size copy of garrison it's actually garrison a.
- [179:06]
Garrison Davis
Three d garrison yeah yeah yeah exactly.
- [179:09]
Mia Wong
The garrison mannequin that we all got for christmas last year can you can.
- [179:13]
Garrison Davis
You can you send one to me.
- [179:14]
Mia Wong
Sorry it's not legal in new york yeah this will make it a lot harder for people to apply for ester visas it's going to create a massive like dragnet of data for people applying for esta visas i'm guessing that kind of is the goal already right so like if you live in these countries you you don't always qualify for an esta there are certain things you could have done certain countries you could have been to certain like if you have a criminal record etcetera where there you wouldn't be able to get an esta so this is kind of already a something of a like a pre vetted group and and countries who from which citizens can apply for esters is that in itself it's like a tier right not everyone in the world can apply.
- [180:01]
Garrison Davis
For an esta yeah it's already a semi exclusive waiver with like a cost.
- [180:07]
Mia Wong
Burden as well yes yeah yeah it creates a massive data data mine which i'm guessing might be what they what they're going for yeah i mean just.
- [180:18]
Garrison Davis
The normalization of this sort of like social media scanning to identify you know undesirable political beliefs that mark rubio in the department of state or dhs deems as like a national security threat yeah.
- [180:33]
Robert Evans
Yeah i also have kind of my fringe fears that this will be used to train llmc that's probably fair but yeah we'll see yeah how is this not going to be catastrophic for any business that relies on tourism any state that relies on tourism right like like.
- [180:52]
Mia Wong
Yeah florida yeah i know that's not.
- [180:55]
Robert Evans
The top risk but like it just seems again they're they're going out of their way to over every single demographic in the country which i don't think is going to work out for them.
- [181:07]
Mia Wong
In the long term yeah it's a this is yeah this is a weird one for me because it's the yeah the economic cost is so obvious it's.
- [181:17]
Robert Evans
A catastrophe and there's a part of me that's like maybe this is a good thing just because it's part of like right we've always known and have been trying to say for years every single aspect like these people are bad for everybody there's like one hundred fifty people in the country who benefit from the policies that like the most extreme parts of the right wants to push and everyone else is going to be completely fucked over by it and we might as well just take the mask off like and maybe that's some of what we're seeing in the collapse of trump's approval is people realizing like oh my god these guys really just want to destroy everything good about life like that is conservatism in a nutshell we.
- [181:56]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Hate life and ourselves yeah well yeah.
- [182:00]
Robert Evans
That was the democratic party in that simpsons episode garrison but yes we want.
- [182:03]
Garrison Davis
What'S worse for everybody there that's the.
- [182:05]
Mia Wong
Yes there you go yeah yeah that's.
- [182:06]
Jacob Goldstein
The other one fifty fifty you got.
- [182:08]
Mia Wong
It yeah yeah talking of worse for everybody do we want to talk about the national security strategy document that the trump administration released let's go for yeah.
- [182:17]
Robert Evans
We should do a dedicated episode about that but we could talk briefly about.
- [182:20]
Garrison Davis
It we have fifteen minutes let's not.
- [182:22]
Mia Wong
Use all fifteen yeah i've pulled a lot of quotations from it and we're not gonna be able to discuss all of them here i think we will have to discuss this probably next year when we do a whole episode on it it is one of the more like especially in terms of foreign relations one of the more like sort of this is our ideology this is our outlook and these are our goals documents that i've seen from this administration right they talk about how i'll just quote from it here american strategies since the end of the cold war have fallen short they have been laundry lists of wishes or desired end states and have not clearly defined what we want but instead stated vague platitudes and have often misjudged what we should want they talk about how they are going to retain soft power soft power people aren't familiar with is a theory that joseph nye has an international relations it's a power to compel or persuade rather than to force right the united states has been hemorrhaging soft power like someone with their artery cut like in the last twelve months like soft power is a fraction of what it was a year ago i find it very odd to see them even mentioning that to be honest when like i mean they have soft power if you're viktor orban talking of orban there's this incredible stuff about europe here quote we want to support our allies in preserving the freedom and security of europe while restoring europe's civilizational self confidence and western identity jesus christ another quote that's good this is wild the larger issues facing europe include the activities of the european union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition cratering birth rates and the loss of national identities and self confidence should present trends continue the continent will be unrecognizable in twenty years or less and then i'm missing skipping a bit here we want europe.
- [184:21]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
To remain european this just sounds like.
- [184:24]
Garrison Davis
Your average like white nationalist like twitter.
- [184:26]
Mia Wong
Post yeah no like yes it comes from twitter right this is just a.
- [184:29]
Garrison Davis
Twitter report this is like very twitter brained like types of politics yeah yeah.
- [184:35]
Jacob Goldstein
This guy has like a greek statue.
- [184:37]
Garrison Davis
Avatar exactly i think it's really fun to think of europe being like i'm europe i have a lot of self confidence issues i can't really speak up for myself in big groups like the european union like come on what do you mean self confidence grow up yeah.
- [184:57]
Mia Wong
It'S wild they're like you know they're saying that white european people don't have enough white european pride people don't respect.
- [185:05]
Garrison Davis
My western identity like okay yeah notably.
- [185:09]
Mia Wong
Like for instance the country of france a country which lacks self confidence and pride in its identity this is this has been an issue for a long.
- [185:15]
Garrison Davis
Time it's very funny to have this in like a this is what like a us foreign policy or national security.
- [185:22]
Mia Wong
Document yeah this is like these are the guiding principles of our foreign policy.
- [185:26]
Garrison Davis
Going forward and they're like jorking off about like europe remaining european yeah yeah.
- [185:32]
Mia Wong
That'S just like shit talking an entire.
- [185:34]
Garrison Davis
Continent no america should think europe is gay and we should stay away from it that's what our national security should be is europe is gay we don't want to deal with whatever europe is.
- [185:43]
Mia Wong
Doing we're america yeah leave us alone.
- [185:46]
Robert Evans
Yeah that ended really well for us.
- [185:48]
Mia Wong
In the thirties yeah well there's almost like a like a yeah like an early twentieth century vibe to this document they talk about the monroe doctrine yeah.
- [185:57]
Robert Evans
They do and they talk about the.
- [185:58]
Mia Wong
Trump corollary to the monroe doctrine which they define as quote we will deny non hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities or to own or control strategically vital assets in our hemisphere which if people aren't familiar with the monroe doctrine it's the us sort of has a right and obligation to exercise some control over the outcomes of the entire western hemisphere like say venezuela yes that would be one example.
- [186:26]
Garrison Davis
Garrison yes see it's totally different from iraq because this is on our hemisphere so it's good intervention actually yeah manifest.
- [186:34]
Mia Wong
Destiny has given us the right to all of the americas and so we can we can intervene in outcomes there there's a lot about the nation state in here and like the idea that the the quote unquote nation state should prioritize its own interests i wonder what they're talking about there because we have many nations that are excluded from states all around the world right like the kurds being one example right are they saying that nations and states should always align whilst their special envoy to syria is saying that he said this week that decentralization has never succeeded in the middle east which is a wild statement to be saying in a place where like you can drive in a single day to the sites of three different genocides from northeastern syria right you can see the places where the armenian genocide happened the yazidi genocide and the anfar like you can do that drive in a day if you don't get hung up at the border yeah i mean.
- [187:30]
Robert Evans
Honestly for now if we're counting some of what was done against the alawites.
- [187:34]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
In the way i think that's a.
- [187:37]
Robert Evans
Little unclear at the moment but yeah.
- [187:39]
Mia Wong
Possibly yeah like to say that centralization is the only way for the middle east is a wild statement so i don't know how some of this pans out there's also a lot here on border security as national security right sure i'm just going to read one they use the word nation a lot nationalism was a subfield of my phd so obviously i'm interested in the exact understanding of nation they have here because there are several but throughout history sovereign nations prohibited uncontrolled migration and granted citizenship only rarely to foreigners who also had to meet demanding criteria the west's experience over the past decades vindicates this enduring wisdom in countries throughout the world mass migration has strained domestic resources increased violence and other crime weakened social cohesion distorted labor markets and undermined national security the era of mass migration must end border security is the primary element of national security.
- [188:37]
Garrison Davis
Great this is the only terrain they have left because they've abandoned class interests and like exploitation so the only thing they can actually focus this on and they focus like the focus the economy on is through nationalist immigration policies it's this is like the last refuge for the right once they're still trying to appeal to some sort of populism but don't actually want to address real class.
- [188:59]
Mia Wong
Conditions yeah and for a lot of the right when they talk about nationalism they are talking about ethno nationalism there's.
- [189:05]
Garrison Davis
A people you know the people are the nation yes yeah yeah yeah the.
- [189:09]
Mia Wong
Volk like which is not always blood and soil nationalism is one type of nationalism it's not all types of nationalism.
- [189:15]
Garrison Davis
Right like that's the cool thing about the united states this is the one country one of the only countries where this that principle has been like opposed in varying degrees since the country's founding.
- [189:25]
Mia Wong
Yeah like it's supposed to be the example maybe along with france right of like subscriptive nationalism where nationalism was not an ethnic quality it was subscribing to a set of values and beliefs philosophical idea yeah that does not seem to be the vibe i'm picking up there's a lot more in this document they spend a decent part of it shit talking other document other previous national security.
- [189:49]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Strategies being like these are always longer.
- [189:52]
Mia Wong
Than verbose but we're gonna keep it brief and then off they go but yeah i think it's worth us maybe doing a whole episode on because i think it's one of the more like like coherent statements of belief right not not a lot of this stuff is new we knew that's how they thought about immigration right you hear them talk.
- [190:10]
Garrison Davis
About it on fox on newsmax like any stephen miller like public statement is going to talk about talk about how you know immigration is changing you know the the economic makeup of the country and like the core identity of the country is changing which defend western identity.
- [190:27]
Mia Wong
That sort of stuff yes seeing it all written in a document together i think is where this has value totally and i think yeah seeing that all laid out seeing the you know the way these things play into their view of the world and then as i following what's actually happening in the world and like you know clearly that when they're talking they're talking about the united states when they're talking about nations right they're not talking about the kurds they're not talking about yazidis the catalans other nations that have states right it's just.
- [190:56]
Garrison Davis
So funny because they they lay out all these economic things right straining domestic resources violence and crime weakened social cohesion and and destroyed labor markets right they lay out all of these things which have direct like like economic causal drivers yeah and they're like no no no no it's actually not about these economic factors it's just about immigration like there's so it's so blatant yeah no other.
- [191:22]
Mia Wong
Ideology in history has scapegoated a certain group for the economic disaster in a country that's never happened before for yeah.
- [191:28]
Jacob Goldstein
It'S just one for one if you go back to moishe piston's theory of like structural anti semitism as the driver of the holocaust it's literally just this right except this is an even more blatant version of it see but like.
- [191:41]
Garrison Davis
The nazis even though did try to do some like populist economic policies as.
- [191:47]
Mia Wong
Well yes yeah yeah yeah sure yeah.
- [191:49]
Robert Evans
Sure yeah yeah the strength through joy.
- [191:50]
Garrison Davis
Program yeah the modern american right doesn't even try to do that it's just the immigration they're not even doing like a weird like like right wing like socialized there's i'll just i'll push back.
- [192:01]
Robert Evans
There'S a little bit of like the talk with oh we're going to have a give every american one thousand dollars that will be invested in that like there's they are like talk they talk.
- [192:11]
Garrison Davis
About it they don't do it they don't do it but they talk about it yes sometimes yeah he talked about.
- [192:16]
Mia Wong
A tariff check right trump was going to give every every american stimulus check yeah yeah the first term they did during COVID right they they threw some.
- [192:23]
Garrison Davis
Money around but there was that like yeah one or two stimulus checks we got at the end of COVID yeah the end of the first you know batch of the pandemic cycle to be.
- [192:32]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
More accurate yeah yeah robert was there.
- [192:34]
Garrison Davis
One other thing you wanted to talk about we have time yeah this is.
- [192:38]
Robert Evans
Basically related to the warner brothers acquisition for whatever reason reddit's algorithm will periodically give me little hints and bits of the war between zack snyder fans and the rest of the world oh yeah.
- [192:53]
Garrison Davis
I know a lot about this i know a lot about this yeah i'm.
- [192:56]
Robert Evans
Not a big zack snyder fan you know but i don't care like i didn't feel strongly anti or pro his dc movies there are some crazy people out there who believe and they are like reading the tea leaves they think the saudis are going to like kill.
- [193:11]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
His enemies they're going to restore the.
- [193:13]
Garrison Davis
Snyderverse robert yeah this is i've been following this just as like a personal interest for years nuts it's crazy they're fascinating people like they're fascinating unique people.
- [193:26]
Robert Evans
To study like the number of people who literally believe that it like there should be people executed publicly for for not letting zack snyder finish his movies.
- [193:36]
Garrison Davis
That didn't make money is outstanding because well because netflix has partnered with snyder for years when when if netflix takes over they're obviously going to restore the snyder verse james gunn is going to.
- [193:46]
Robert Evans
Be going to restore the snyderverse saudis paramount takeover the saudis they can do.
- [193:51]
Garrison Davis
It too so it's really for snyder bros things are looking up so put your money in snyder coin right now.
- [193:58]
Robert Evans
Well my favorite thing about that is that like as soon as they announced the deal they were like and james gunn is staying yeah of course talked a lot about him on the call because like his movies are a big part of what makes warner valuable right now right like he's he's good at making money for the people that he works for and the level of conspiracy theories like no they have it's like qanon's great they have to hide that zack snyder's back because they can't let people know yet robert but he's already been told he's back they've been doing.
- [194:26]
Garrison Davis
This for like eight years it's so.
- [194:28]
Robert Evans
Funny i had not realized how crazy they were yeah i love it it's really fun anyway that that's i always enjoy encountering a new culture i think zach is kind of taking advantage of them to get his instagram follower count up it's very funny he's like posting stuff that's like their reading is like he's messaging that it's coming back even when guys like ben affleck's like it was the worst i hated being batman i would never do that again i don't want to be it's i love it i just love seeing deranged people be deranged about something that's actually harmless for once yeah we could get a snyderverse related shooting that's not impossible snyder.
- [195:10]
Garrison Davis
Does encourage it a little bit but snyder is not i think the villain of this story no he's clearly friends with gun like they're not and specifically he has dropped his plans which he had for years to do some ayn randed adaptions which i'm bummed about because i think snyder's ayn rand would be great and instead instead he's writing this like this like lesbian movie with someone with tignatar yeah so unfortunately we're trading ayn rand for like this like lesbian cinema slop which i am i am.
- [195:47]
Robert Evans
Lesbian i am really bummed about because.
- [195:50]
Garrison Davis
I think i think zack snyder's ayn rand would be a much more fascinating.
- [195:53]
Robert Evans
Piece of art no no i want to see ben shapiro get one hundred fifty million what i'm saying to make atlas that's what i'm that's what i.
- [196:00]
Garrison Davis
Want to say like they bought exclusive tv rights to one of the one of the books i forget if i forget if it was fountainhead or atlas shrugged but since the daily wires like finances have collapsed i do not think they're going forward with that right now.
- [196:13]
Robert Evans
Oh but but gary the pendragon cycle.
- [196:15]
Garrison Davis
It'S coming out though i'm excited right.
- [196:18]
Robert Evans
We gotta watch that together but we gotta find it we gotta we gotta have the company pay for us to meet in the airbnb in a sure state and and just just watch that son of a bitch if we want.
- [196:28]
Garrison Davis
To this year to plan some kind of a cool zone convergence to to to watch to watch the pendragon cycle together i would i would happily travel.
- [196:36]
Robert Evans
For that i think we're ethically obligated.
- [196:38]
Jacob Goldstein
To do that okay final final closing note trans housing insecurity continuing to increase if you have an extra room put a trans person in it if you have a couch put a trans girl on your couch this is going to be mia's message going forward jesus christ people just put a trans girl on your couch you can figure out how to live together it will be fine people are going homeless and dying please.
- [197:03]
Robert Evans
Do this wait is there like data on like what's what's that is this just as a result of like the continuing like people being forced out of.
- [197:12]
Jacob Goldstein
Their jobs yeah this is all this is this is me finally talking about something i've been tracking for a very very long time which is i mean i say very long time but you know even over about the past four or five years has been massive transmigration into places like portland into places like chicago into places like new york they're.
- [197:30]
Garrison Davis
Getting housing in new york there's a lot of a lot of trans housing in new york i think this yeah there's some like regional aspects of this.
- [197:37]
Mia Wong
Don'T come to san diego we yeah.
- [197:40]
Robert Evans
It makes sense that the cities that are safer are having like a big.
- [197:43]
Jacob Goldstein
Influence yeah and there's a lot of.
- [197:44]
Robert Evans
People those are also cities that do not have great housing supply yeah yeah.
- [197:47]
Mia Wong
Yeah yeah it's nearly berlin and there's.
- [197:50]
Jacob Goldstein
Been a lot of issues with it and that's something that can be mitigated by just putting people on your couch.
- [197:55]
Garrison Davis
I mean yeah that's a as a short term maybe i don't honestly the couch thing freaks me out as a long term solution well but i mean.
- [198:03]
Jacob Goldstein
That'S the thing though it doesn't have to be a long term if people.
- [198:07]
Garrison Davis
Have connections to help other people get jobs yeah sure but like part of this like pay a pay a low amount of rent for like a room that's way more solid than like this like forever couch surfing thing that sometimes people like refer to yeah as like quote unquote trans housing yeah okay but.
- [198:25]
Jacob Goldstein
Again but the idea here is that and this is something that i have run into extensively is there are a bunch of people who basically just need to get out and need like a couple of months or a month to get back on their feet and don't have the ability to do it and are going homeless because of that and it's killing people and it fudgeing sucks yeah and that is something that can be mitigated with sort of cultural shifts towards sharing space more and we're all going to have to do it more because the economy is about to collapse even more so great fun yay put a trans girl on your couch if.
- [198:56]
Mia Wong
You would like to email us you can do so by emailing coolzonetipson me many of you already have i'm sure there are more of you to come if you want it to be encrypted you should send it from a proton mail address as well okay everybody well.
- [199:11]
Garrison Davis
Happy holidays i think we have one more ed episode before the end of the year we reported the news we.
- [199:18]
Matan Khamener
Reported the news.
- [199:23]
Robert Evans
Hey we'll be back monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the.
- [199:28]
Dana El Kurd
Universe it could happen here is a production of cool zone media for more podcasts from cool zone media visit our website coolzone media dot com or check us out on the iheartradio app apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts you can now find sources for it could happen here listed directly in episode descriptions thanks for listening ten athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points you are the fittest of the fit only one of you will leave here with an ifit contract for two hundred fifty thousand dollars this is.
- [200:10]
Garrison Davis
Where mindset comes in someone will be.
- [200:12]
Dana El Kurd
Eliminated pressure is coming down this is trainer games watch it on prime video.
- [200:19]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Starting january eighth if a lenovo computer for your business is on your holiday.
- [200:23]
Garrison Davis
List don't shop around just go directly to the source lenovo dot com it's your last chance to get exclusive deals.
- [200:29]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
On the pcs you want for your.
- [200:31]
Garrison Davis
Business like the thinkpad x nine hundred fourteen aura edition and yoga seven i two in one so avoid all that shopping chaos and price comparing and just go directly to the source lenovo dot com where pcs are up to thirty five percent off that's lenovo dot com.
- [200:46]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Lenovo lenovo.
- [200:50]
Dana El Kurd
Saks off fifth is revealing the season's most wanted holiday steals whether you're gifting someone on your list or treating yourself to a designer score find deals on mcqueen valentino versace stuart weitzman and more at up to seventy percent off every day outshine at every event and outsmart your budget from shimmer ready party looks to luxe layers and cozy giftable accessories saks off fifth is your secret source for celebrating in style your holiday shopping mission starts now at saksoff five th dot com or a saks off fifth store near you this is.
- [201:24]
Garrison Davis
Bowen yang from los culturistas with matt rogers and bowen yang and i'm matt rogers from the very same podcast and.
- [201:29]
Mia Wong
Guess it's the holiday season and you.
- [201:33]
Garrison Davis
Know what that means holiday parties vo holiday parties they're the best but there's always the stress of what to wear what to bring easy solution okay bring a bottle of casamigos casamigos wow that is the move you can make casamigos mules or casamigos espresso martinis or casamigos.
- [201:50]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Cram and don't forget about casamigos margaritas.
- [201:54]
Garrison Davis
A casamigos margarita is the perfect cocktail all year round casamigos is just the perfect gift that keeps on giving and as the saying goes anything goes with.
- [202:04]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
My casamigos on second thought a holiday.
- [202:07]
Garrison Davis
Party might be in order that's a great idea please drink responsibly imported by casamigos spirits company white plains new york casamigos tequila forty percent alcohol by volume.
- [202:17]
Dana El Kurd
This is an iheart podcast guaranteed human.