What Happened in 2025 with Andrew

Summary

It Could Happen Here: “What Happened in 2025 with Andrew” (Jan 15, 2026)

Host: Andrew Sage (Andrewism)
Guest: James Stout
Main Theme:
A comprehensive retrospective on 2025’s cascading crises—climate disasters, political upheaval, technological challenges, and intensifying global conflicts—and what these events reveal about systemic brittleness and community resilience. Through an anarchist and activist lens, Andrew and James dissect the year’s pivotal moments, considering lessons for collective action and the ongoing project of liberation.

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Overview of the Episode

Andrew Sage welcomes James Stout for a wide-ranging discussion cataloguing the key stories and systemic shocks of 2025. They examine not only the raw facts—unprecedented climate events, state and grassroots responses, youthful uprisings, tech-induced resource strains, and wars—but dig into the deeper patterns of resilience, the failures of state and capital, and the questions that activists must wrestle with heading into 2026.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

[02:36] The Value of Archiving Collapse

• Andrew: “Why do you listen to this podcast? ...I want to archive this past year of systemic collapse, a pileup of small and large failures…”
• Theme: The importance of naming and recording the interlocking crises, both as a source of comfort and as a tool for collective learning.
• Insight: Without historical memory and synthesis, we risk being overwhelmed and paralyzed by an endless present.

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[03:59] Climate and Infrastructure Breakdown

Record Heat, Disastrous Weather, Failing Systems

Major Events:

• 2025 among the hottest years ever.
• Power systems overwhelmed -> rolling blackouts, school closures, increased mortality.
• Brazil: Agricultural collapse, supply chain shocks.
• South Asia: Monsoons caused catastrophic flooding (Bangladesh, India); millions displaced.
• Horn of Africa: Prolonged drought, water scarcity; escalating hunger crisis in Somalia.
• North America/Europe: Record wildfires; mass evacuations in Canada, infrastructure destroyed in Greece/Spain.
• Caribbean: Hurricane Melissa devastates Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti—weeks without power.

Key Quote:

• Andrew [06:12]:
  “Our systems cannot handle the new extremes being brought about by climate change. They may have been built for previous normals, but not this.”
• Systems built for incremental load are buckling, with states mostly reactive and slow; recovery is long and uneven.
• Community solidarity, improvisation, and mutual aid are key—but require proactivity, not just reaction in disaster.

Actionable Wisdom:

• Invest in horizontal capacities: skills training, community drills, food sovereignty projects, decentralized energy/water, and robust documentation.

Memorable Advice:

• Andrew [08:32]:
  “Don’t wait for a disaster to hit your area to learn the lessons that other places had to learn.”

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[09:43] State Failure & Sacrifice Zones

Myanmar Earthquake & Alaskan Indigenous Flooding

• Myanmar: Earthquake compounded by state refusal to accept international rescue; local revolutionaries forced to become rescuers.
• Alaska: Entire indigenous coastal communities destroyed, erasing generations of self-sustaining life.

Key Quotes:

• James [10:47]:
  “The end is not nigh for them. The end is here. Their ways of life are being destroyed by climate change.”
• Andrew [12:03]:
  “The state will often get in the way of our survival, our well being. The crisis is here...the people being hit right now are the ones designated as sacrificial lambs for economic growth.”

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[15:57] The Coming of Age of Political Uprisings

Gen Z at the Center of Global Movements

Events:

• Uprisings in Madagascar, Morocco, Kenya, Nepal, Peru, Mexico—driven by cost of living, corruption, police violence, and generational frustration.
• Digital organizing (Discord/Telegram) led to rapid mobilization, but outcomes vary: some led to limited concessions, others to violent crackdowns, or state co-optation.

Andrew’s Analysis [18:09]:

• On the classic tactic: “incorporating a radical movement into the machinations of the state to temper its energy.”

James on Urgency [19:55]:

• For Gen Z, “the town that you live in will continue to exist is up for debate... the planet that Gen Z was promised isn’t going to exist for them.”

Notable Insights:

• The revolutionary paradigm is shifting: less about seizing state power, more about questioning and reimagining governance entirely (ex: Myanmar students envisioning a system that can’t facilitate genocide or tyranny).
• Quote [22:15] (James):
  “They’re not thinking about changing one ruling party for another. They’re thinking about changing the way governance works.”

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[24:31] Reflection on Movement Sustainability

• Andrew: “We cannot keep rising up again and again...For movements to matter beyond these episodes of disruption, I believe they need to develop infrastructure...do something that lasts longer than a headline."
• OpSec (operational security), anonymity, and resisting surveillance are critical, as movements are targeted via platforms.

Key Takeaway:

• Building out networks, unions, and infrastructure is how spark becomes fire. Recurrent uprisings inspire, but need concrete structures for sustained impact.

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[27:28] Inspirational Wisdom

• James (citing Subcomandante Marcos) [27:28]:
  “To open up a pinprick of light in the curtain of darkness... to show people what is possible.”

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[28:37] The Tech Crisis: AI, Resource Extraction, and Inequality

• The rapid build-out of AI (data centers, server farms) is straining land, water, power—4% of US electricity now goes to data centers, over half from fossil fuels.
• Andrew [29:55]:
  “All this scaling up of AI is pushing us much faster towards the limits of growth. It feels like we are being ruled by accelerationists at times.”
• AI seen as “just another vector of extraction, consumption, and inequality.”

People’s Response:

• Grassroots resistance to AI overlays in culture and economic life; increasing support for open source, digital commons, and autonomy from tech oligarchs.

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[34:37] Geopolitics: Wars and Wars by Proxy

Summary of 2025’s Deadliest Conflicts

• Palestine: Repeated Israeli assaults, genocide by siege/starvation, US complicity.
• Sudan: Civil war, millions displaced, regionally-fueled.
• DRC: Ongoing atrocities supported by neighboring Rwanda, resource extraction.
• Yemen: Saudi/UAE/Western-backed violence, ongoing suffering.
• Ukraine: War with Russia endures.
• Caribbean: US military escalation (Venezuela).
• Myanmar: Long resistance, Chinese support for the junta.

James [36:52]:

• On drone wars and psychological terror: “It probably won’t be you. Very unlikely. Might be someone you saw today, might be someone you’d ever met... Dozens of people get killed, but thousands of people have to live with this sense of fear. And maybe after a while you get used to it. I don’t know.”

Trauma and the Cycle of Violence:

• The aftershocks of war extend across generations, embedding suffering that catalyzes further cycles of violence.
• The abstraction of war in Western consciousness versus the tangible devastation for those on the receiving end.

Media, Memory, and Global Solidarity:

• The necessity of independent media and documentation (“keep a record offline”), as mainstream outlets show their biases.
• Despite decades of propaganda, global anti-imperial solidarity is rising, especially for Palestine (referencing Ms. Rachel and grassroots backlash as a hopeful sign).
• The importance of recognizing anti-Muslim, racialized bigotry as a barrier—and the breakthroughs as awareness grows.

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[45:53] Political Economy of Endless War

• Ongoing wars are sustained by external patronage (money, weapons, “diplomatic cover”).
• Extraction continues even amidst conflict (mining in DRC/Sudan).
• Humanitarian aid is politicized and delayed, leaving grassroots action as the only meaningful form of relief in many regions.

Andrew [48:37]:
“Our system is brittle as hell and people are resilient as hell... The future has not been written yet... Think about something you want to build or strengthen...that can serve you and those around you going forward.”

---

Memorable Quotes by Timestamp

• [02:36] Andrew:
  “If we don’t keep these moments and events in our memory, it’s very, very easy to get stuck into a perpetually overwhelming present.”
• [06:12] Andrew:
  “Our systems cannot handle the new extremes being brought about by climate change. They may have been built for previous normals, but not this.”
• [10:47] James:
  “The end is not nigh for them. The end is here. Their ways of life are being destroyed by climate change.”
• [18:09] Andrew:
  “…incorporating a radical movement into the machinations of the state to temper its energy.”
• [19:55] James:
  “The town that you live in will continue to exist is up for debate. The planet that Gen Z was promised isn’t going to exist for them.”
• [22:15] James:
  “They’re not thinking about changing one ruling party for another. They’re thinking about changing the way governance works.”
• [27:28] James:
  “To open up a pinprick of light in the curtain of darkness.”
• [29:55] Andrew:
  “All this scaling up of AI is pushing us much faster towards the limits of growth. It feels like we are being ruled by accelerationists at times.”
• [36:52] James:
  “It probably won’t be you... might be someone you saw today, might be someone you’d ever met... Dozens of people get killed but thousands... have to live with this sense of fear.”
• [41:48] James:
  "In a world where we can see and know more about other people's lives than ever, we've done this thing [genocide by starvation]... it's just so sad... somehow us still not seeing our common humanity."
• [48:37] Andrew:
  “Our system is brittle as hell and people are resilient as hell... The future has not been written yet, we don’t know, but we do have the ability to choose what we do next.”

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Key Takeaways for Listeners

• Systems are failing—but people are not powerless.
  The collapse of old norms is coupled with the rise of mutual aid, grassroots skill-building, and direct action.

• Uprisings are crucial, but cannot stand alone.
  Without infrastructure and ongoing organizing, the energy of rebellion is too easily dissipated or co-opted.

• Technology is not neutral.
  The expansion of AI and digital infrastructure is entrenching inequality, draining resources, and accelerating extraction—demanding new autonomous, collective responses.

• Wars and genocides persist—fueled by outside powers and systemic factors.
  Documentation, independent media, and global solidarity are vital, as mainstream narratives falter.

• The future is undetermined.
  Building skills, relationships, and projects now is both self- and community-defense in an age of systemic brittleness and uncertainty.

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Important Timestamps

• [02:36] - Framing the episode: why archiving collapse matters
• [03:59] - Deep dive on 2025’s climate disasters and infrastructure failure
• [09:43] - State obstacles to survival during disasters (Myanmar, Alaska)
• [15:57] - Gen Z political mobilizations and global uprisings
• [24:31] - The sustainability of movements: needs for infrastructure
• [28:37] - Tech: resource consumption and AI-driven extraction
• [34:37] - Geopolitics: review of major ongoing and emerging wars
• [45:53] - External powers fueling endless conflict, grassroots humanitarianism
• [48:37] - Final thoughts: system brittleness, community power, and future-building

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Final Thoughts/Closing

The hosts stress that while 2025 was relentlessly hard—and the systems around us more brittle than ever—there are seeds of hope in community resilience, self-organizing, and the ongoing capacity for collective solidarity. The work is to build on that foundation for whatever may come in 2026 and beyond.

Parting Words:
“All power to all the people. Happy New Year. Peace.” ([48:58] Andrew Sage)

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This summary is designed as a rich primer for those who didn’t listen, capturing the substance, urgency, and reflective tone of the episode, with clear speaker attributions and timestamps throughout.

Transcript

[Andrew Sage]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[James Stout]

Call Zone Media.

[Andrew Sage]

Why do you listen to this podcast? It may be because there's a strange comfort to naming the thing that's breathing down our necks today. I want to archive this past year of systemic collapse, a pileup of small and large failures that we can start to make sense of in retrospect if we don't look back at our past and the patterns within it. If we don't keep these moments and events in our memory, it's very, very easy to get stuck into a perpetually overwhelming present. Welcome to It Could Happen Here. I'm Andrew Sage, the guy Behind Andrewism on YouTube, and I'm here with James.

[James Stout]

Stout, the guy you hear all the time on this podcast.

[Andrew Sage]

Welcome to your podcast.

[James Stout]

Yeah, it's nice to do one with you.

[Andrew Sage]

Are you ready to take a look at some of the stories that shaped 2025?

[James Stout]

Yes. It's been a hell of a year, so this should be fun.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah. I mean, I don't expect to be exhaustive, but we can talk about some of the incidents in climate, in politics, in technology and geopolitics. And through all that, I want to ask what these stories are teaching us as anarchists, activists, and just people trying to live in a society.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Andrew Sage]

So I suppose first we could talk about the climate and infrastructural situations. Some of them that took place this year really covered all of the elements we had. Heat, flooding, drought, fire, storm. According to the World Meteorological Organization, Global temperatures in 2025 ranked among the hottest on record.

[James Stout]

Great.

[Andrew Sage]

The WMO put 2025 as likely the second or third warmest year in the observational record. So a little round of applause for hitting some milestones. Right?

[James Stout]

Yeah. It's good to be winning.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah. Power systems also have been overloaded under air conditioning demand, leading to rolling blackouts hitting cities and rural areas, schools closing during heat waves and mortality rising among the elderly and precarious. International agencies have warned that extreme heat is producing double digit crop losses and mass livestock die offs in some cases. Brazil in particular felt that heat in agriculture and supply chains, staple production and food imports both suffered due to the heat. And those ripples are going to be felt for the rest of us too, because Brazil is a breadbasket of sorts. It's a top exporter of tons of really important agricultural products. Yeah. And the monsoons also arrived with quite a mood this year. South Asia's 2025 rains came very heavy and very persistent in many places. Urban drainage failed. Neighborhoods became isolated by the waters. Trains and roads were unusable for days. Bangladesh and parts of India saw catastrophic flooding that took hundreds of lives and Displaced millions. Over in the Horn of Africa, wells ran low, pastures failed, and small farmers suffered under the pressures of the drought. Their water distribution systems were not built to withstand multi year dry spells. And so a hunger crisis has ended up escalating, particularly in Somalia.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Andrew Sage]

North America and Europe also had severe wildfires this year. At this point, it's very easy to kind of see them as a new normal, you know.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Andrew Sage]

Canada's 2025 season pushed agencies into one of their largest domestic wildfire responses in years. Firefighters were stretched. Entire towns had to evacuate. And Southern Europe, in particular Greece and Spain, also saw fast moving fires that consumed homes and utilities and left landscapes scorched and infrastructure severely weakened. And then of course, there were the hurricanes. This year, the Caribbean was slammed by Hurricane Melissa, a very slow and powerful storm that devastated Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti and others, tearing up infrastructure and leaving large swaths without power for weeks. The storm's exceptional energy is of course, thanks to climate change. And so all of these events, and I'm definitely leaving out some, I believe they reveal a few things. For one, I think it's clear that our systems cannot handle the new extremes being brought about by climate change. They may have been built for previous normals, but not this. And this is something that climate scientists have been warning about for some time. You know, our electrical grids were sized for incremental loads, so they couldn't handle these simultaneous peak demands. Our urban stormwater management was built for a particular volume of water over a particular period of time. It can handle these volumes of water that are pouring down from above. And also water management systems in more arid regions weren't prepared for years of drought. And so the systemic shocks of this year have been very devastating for infrastructure. And unlike their propaganda which stated they are necessary for our survival, for our well being, to manage society, state responses to these catastrophes were often reactive and chronically delayed. Government intervention and international aid helped in some places. I'm not denying that. But communities have also often found themselves on their own, having to improvise survival strategies. And of course, with every disaster, there is an extremely long tail of recovery after the initial crisis has passed. So we may leave the news cycle, but there are people still dealing with the consequences and will be dealing with it in the year to come. But these disasters continue to show the ingenuity and capability of ordinary people to organize, support, distribute aid, facilitate evacuation, share resources and so on. So we're not powerless. We don't have to be dependent on slow bureaucracies to develop resilience. It starts with us as people being proactive. Especially, you know, I would say don't wait for the disaster to happen in your area to develop a response plan. Invest your time and energy in this coming year in horizontal capacities, skill training, community drills, shared two libraries, seed and food sovereignty projects, local medical knowledge, decentralized energy and water projects. I don't place much on the demands of the state, but there are also sometimes grants you may be able to apply for that can secure some resources in community hands. And of course, keep documenting these incidents as they're happening. Don't wait for a disaster to hit your area to learn the lessons that other places had to learn. Go and see where your vulnerabilities lie, Learn what others have done to respond, train people where necessary, and just try and keep up the good fight. Would you say there was a particular environmental crisis or natural disaster this year that really stood out to you?

[James Stout]

I mean, to me, I think the ones that I just. Because they're personally related to places I've been, were the earthquake in Myanmar, right. Where we saw not only people die as a result of the natural disaster, but people die as a result of the state considering its desire to keep people in Myanmar away from the world more important than their lives. Right? Like the state choosing not to allow search and rescue teams from France, for example, to enter. And instead, like, you know, folks I know who are fighting in the revolution in Myanmar, like laying down their arms and trying to work out how to pull collapsed buildings apart before the people in them died like that. I think that, right. It really was like the poly crisis and then the flooding of indigenous communities in Alaska, right. The coastal communities that we saw like a month or so ago. And that one hit me particularly hard because these people have been screaming for a decade that climate change has come. It's not coming. It's come.

[Andrew Sage]

Right?

[James Stout]

The end is not nigh for them. The end is here. Their ways of life are being destroyed by climate change. And their whole communities got wiped out just before winter in a place which has one of the hardest winters on Earth. All their food caches, because these are people who tend to. To fish for a lot of food. So they cash food, they don't go to the store, were also wiped out. It's just one of those examples of one can't be prepared enough to deal with things that one can't control. And one of the things that we can't control is climate change. And it's coming for all of us.

[Andrew Sage]

It's coming for some people first.

[James Stout]

Yeah. And it's always going to be indigenous and more marginalized people whose plight is ignored. People can say climate change isn't real because they have the relative privilege of not having their homes destroyed. And like rebuilding those communities will be very, very hard because the only way to get there is on a tiny little plane or a boat. And everything they've got there has taken generations to build and it's all gone.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

So those, those two really struck me.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah. I think my takeaway is, from what you shared there, is that the state will often get in the way of our survival, our well being.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Andrew Sage]

And that, you know, the crisis is here and it's already hitting people and just the people are being hit right now are the ones designated as sacrificial lambs.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Andrew Sage]

In a sense for the continued pursuit of economic growth and progress.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

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[Andrew Sage]

So 2025 also saw an accelerated political coming of age. You know, Gen Z has not been all teenagers for a very long time now. It's been mostly adults or soon to be mostly adults at this point, depending on where you draw the line. And that generation, my generation, has shown up in their numbers for the past few years, but particularly this year, inspiring millions. You know, Gen Z became a very visible political force in the headlines across very different geographies. Madagascar, Morocco, Kenya, Nepal, Peru and Mexico all had uprisings driven by a mix of grievances. Yeah, whether it be corruption, the cost of living, lack of services, violent policing, and a feeling that older institutions had nothing to offer. These movements were not a monolith, you know, but they did have some common templates. You know, they organized digitally on platforms like Discord or Telegram. And they mobilized very quickly, a lot faster than states were originally able to keep up with. In Madagascar, the youth had mobilized around water, power cuts and broader corruption, which eventually toppled the ruling government and triggered military moves in the form of a coup d'. Etat. But it doesn't seem so far that anything fruitful, stable or lasting has come out of their cause quite yet. Right now, Madagascar is a military colonel for president, so it remains to be seen what that leadership brings. In Morocco, the movement Gen Z212 organized to demand better education and healthcare, decent housing and jobs, and were eventually met with state pushback in the form of arrests and infiltrations. They eventually won some concessions from the government in the form of greater funding in the sectors demanded and draft bills that incentivize youth participation in the official channels of power. But it remains to be seen how long that will quell the tide, because it seems to me at least that this is the classic tactic of, you know, incorporating a radical movement into the machinations of the state to temper its energy.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Andrew Sage]

In Kenya, we saw mass mobilization against police brutality that was met with yet more police brutality and extrajudicial killings now numbering in the 60s with a very clear aim for the suppression of dissent. So far, none of their goals have really been recognized or achieved as a movement. And it seems as though they've simmered down due to the sheer violence that they have faced in response. In Nepal, perhaps the most famous of these stories for this year, the student led uprisings, toppled the corrupt government and forced concessions, with an election coming up next year 2026. But again, what comes next is yet to be seen. Whether it'll be lasting, empowering or sustainable is an open question. It's another uprising where, in my view, the fundamental institutions have not been overcome and thus their goals will not be achieved immediately. But I think every movement, every generation has their place for political development and figuring out some of these shortcomings of these approaches. Yeah, but I think because of how tight the timeline is for the need for like, radically drastic action for the sake of the planet and for the people on it. Yeah, I really wish that these lessons were learned a bit quicker, you know, that we didn't have to go through these same cycles of, you know, missteps again and again with movement.

[James Stout]

Yeah, you're right.

[Andrew Sage]

But it remains to be seen whether that sort of political development can be accelerated as the crisis accelerates.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Like I feel for the youth, like now these revolutions, the sense of urgency is so high. Right. Because the system, like if You're a millennial. I guess you grew up. If you're me, maybe I'm saying here, like, really, you grew up, you know, and you were told, like, things would always get better and you will work hard and like, just like your folks, you will buy a house and the house will get more valuable and that will be nice and blah, blah, blah. Right. If you live in the. In the sort of the colonial core, and that didn't work out for most of us, but for Gen Z folks, it's like the town that you live in will continue to exist is up for debate. Right. Like, the climate that you were born in will be completely distinct from the one that you have children, raise children in. Probably the urgency of the need for change is so much with young people today. Right. Like, you know, yeah, the economy that my generation was promised doesn't exist for us, but the planet that Gen Z was promised isn't going to exist for them. And the information system is so fucked for young people today. Right. And so captured by corporate and state interests. And yet despite that, or maybe because of that, we've seen some of the most beautiful revolutions that I can recall. Right. Like when I speak to Gen Z folks in Myanmar, they approach the revolution in a distinct way from the way that, like, the revolutions I'm familiar with from the 90s and 2000s did, but also just from, like, a very human desire for a better world, for equality, for a beautiful life. And so, like, I'm very hopeful at the same time as I feel for people of the younger generation.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah, yeah. I think there's a lot of cause for hope that such numbers can be mobilized, but I would love to see those numbers get mobilized in the countries that we've been talking about a more radical way than simply bringing demands to the state or. Or changing out one government for another, you know?

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, in the case of Myanmar, like, that's certainly like, that is the case. Right. Like, they're not thinking about changing one ruling party for another. They're thinking about changing the way governance works.

[Andrew Sage]

Right.

[James Stout]

They're like bringing democracy to people. To be clear, there isn't really a coherent set of exact demands for the revolution, but many of the young people I speak to are looking at how can we create a model that doesn't allow for a genocide to happen against one group, that doesn't allow for the military to walk into one building and take away everyone's future? And I think that's very beautiful.

[Andrew Sage]

Exactly. That's. That's inspiring.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew Sage]

I think asking those questions and asking even more questions, I think, is how this generation is going to get to, you know, certain conclusions about whether this current project should continue.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Andrew Sage]

This current state project, this current capitalist project, this current patriarchal project, the more questions get asked, the more answers get illuminated, and the closer I think we can get to a viable and liberatory alternative.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah, definitely the case. And I think some of this is just like. Some of it we have to work out on the way, and that's okay. Like, I think the 20th century, the idea of a revolution was like this violent seizure of state power, often by a vanguard group with a very specific project that they were looking to implement. Right. And in the 21st century, we haven't seen that all the time. We have seen a lot more of, like, this is bad and it has to change and we're going to make it change and we'll work out which direction we're moving as we go.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah, yeah. That's blatantly ideological, I'd say.

[James Stout]

Yeah. And, like, I think that's a good thing because, like, what we've seen, I mean, I mean, we have seen like, this. This idea that revolutions have to stick to a strict pathway, have horrific consequences for humanity. Right. Like, I'm thinking of the Gulag, you know, like, I'm thinking of the strict ideology which allowed the Soviet Union to become this place where you. Where you created, like, you know, the things that Orwell wrote about in 1984. Right. It is better that a revolution relies on what the people want as they continue to move through it, rather than saying, we will tell the people what they need and we'll be the one steering the ship here.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah. That whole model is not going to get us out of this. Yep. So I want to say my observation of the sort of political shifts of this year has re exposed the flaws of traditional politics and parties, how they've largely served as gatekeepers to suppress, to absorb and blunt the energies of the masses. And it showed the potential of spontaneous uprisings. But I think this year also showed that we cannot keep rising up again and again and again and again, you know, feeding bodies to the brutal police forces and prison systems. You know, for movements to matter beyond these episodes of disruption, I believe they need to develop infrastructure. You know, yeah, let's do something that lasts longer than a headline. And of course, the actions that, you know, I'm not denying that some of these movements are engaging in building infrastructure. It's just that those sorts of efforts are less likely to make the international news headlines. Yeah, you know, but I love to see these decentralized mobilizations. I just want to see them paired with something more figurative politics that can sustain them, that can expand the zones of freedom, that can tune their momentum into lasting change. I will say that I appreciate these movements have embraced tactical variety. You know, that they have largely understood the need for anonymity. But I don't want them to keep falling into this trap of this sort of dissipation of energy. They get a government concession and they dissipate. There's not a long term ambition or there are not enough steps being taken to resist infiltration and surveillance through operational security. I think that if that OPSEC is not present, it's very easy for these movements to get disrupted from within. Platforms like Discord have already proven themselves to be ops to these kinds of causes. They will willingly sell people out. But I have a lot of hope, and I say that tentatively, that we can stand up for something, that some line can be drawn somewhere. Because even though an uprising like the one in Nepal or Morocco hasn't taken place in Trinidad yet, I mean, we've been under a state of emergency for the entire time that this new government has been in power. I will say that I often in casual conversation hear rumbling. So we need to do what Nepal did, you know, we need to do what Peru did. And I think that's the power, the potential of these kind of moments, even if they don't lead to something lasting in the immediate aftermath, they still serve as an inspiration. They still open up the landscape of possibilities.

[James Stout]

Yeah. What Sukhoma Dante Marcos used to say it was like to open up a pinprick of light in the curtain of darkness.

[Andrew Sage]

Exactly, yeah.

[James Stout]

It's to show people what is possible.

[Andrew Sage]

That's a perfect expression. I actually never heard that quote before. That's a good one.

[James Stout]

Yeah, I used to read a lot of Zapatista stuff. I think he has some wonderful ways of expressing things.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah, Gen Z's not going to save anyone. You know, as a generation we are just as susceptible to flaws and misdirections as any other. There are those who are invested in welfare and anti corruption and there are those who are invested in reactionary populism. But the waves of uprisings I think are mostly positive. And I just hope that that spark can light a fire. And the way that we get that spark to light that fire is when we put fuel in place. Fuel like networks, fuel like collectives, unions and so on. Oh, and speaking of unions, I forgot to Mention this. India actually had a coalition of major trade unions staging nationwide protests and strikes this year against the new labor codes.

[James Stout]

That's cool.

[Andrew Sage]

So shout out to them as well.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah. Especially in a state which is. It's not necessarily, you know, like you will. They will come down pretty hard on you in India if you stand up against the state.

[Andrew Sage]

Indeed. And so to wrap this section, I think I'll say that 2025's protests show a fraction of our frustration, but they also show that we can't just keep screaming into the void. You know, the ruptures that come in 2026 and beyond need to start from somewhere other than scratch. Moving on to the tech crises now, I think as AI continued to boom in 2025, we saw a massive build out of physical infrastructure, data centers, server farms, water hungry cooling systems, and energy hungry hardware. Yeah, it's very easy to think of the Internet as a cloud, but it's a very physical thing. It demands land, water and electricity. It strains local communities, it drains local communities of resources. The water use of data centers in particular can eat up millions of liters of water daily taken away from households and agricultural needs. In fact, data centers in the US now consume more than 4% of total electricity, with over half still being powered by fossil fuels.

[James Stout]

Jesus.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

How much electricity we use in the US we go hard on electric, right?

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah. So 4% is quite a jump from something that basically didn't exist ten years ago. Five years ago.

[James Stout]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Andrew Sage]

And so all this scaling up of AI is pushing us much faster towards the limits of growth. It feels like we are being ruled by accelerationists at times. And all the while we have these tech bros pushing their tech savior gospel on us, even though it's very clear that AI is just another vector of extraction, consumption and inequality. There's just another way for the onus of profit to gain greater control of our data and greater surveillance of our lives. What I am proud of is that people continue to speak out against it, to challenge it, to question it, to call it out wherever they see it. There are people who refuse to support, you know, YouTube channels that are pushing out AI music or AI visuals or AI scripts. People who are refusing to support, you know, pages and profiles that have those kinds of things, or companies that use those, that software. We have to keep that energy up, we have to keep it going. And we also need to build things that will increase our ability to operate outside of the AI fueled corporate overlord Internet that many of us currently exist as pseudo serfs within There's a lot of room for open source software and digital commons that are out of the hands of corporations that we could venture into. Tech is a contested terrain that the tech oligarchs are currently winning, but that terrain is something we can continue to challenge into the new year.

[James Stout]

Definitely.

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[Andrew Sage]

Geopolitics in 2025 was a catalog of catastrophes, from continuing wars fueled by caste profiteers to straight up genocides. So in Palestine we saw this year repeated rounds of siege, bombardment and cruelty, repeated ceasefire violations on the part of Israel, all enabled by America's military support and political cover. To this day, food, water and medical provisions continue to be strained as a result of Israel's genocidal ambitions. In Sudan, the fractures there have only worsened as the bloodshed famously can be seen from space. Millions have been internally displaced, the casualties are currently incalculable and the fighting between the Sudanese armed forces and the rapid support forces rages on, all supported by regional powers including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the uae. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, conflicting armed groups supported by the government of the DRC and the neighbouring Rwanda respectively, have continued attacking communities and their infrastructure, inflicting mass rapes and engaging in other war crimes, all while funded by mining operations in one of the most resource rich regions in the world. In Yemen, the violence continues for tens of millions as the Saudi led coalition, the UAE and Western powers continue to supply arms, logistics and diplomatic cover for the displacement, collapse and brutality inflicted upon the civilians of the country. In Ukraine, the war with Russia continues to consume resources and lives. In the Caribbean Sea, the US has ramped up its violence as it targets and bombs boats in international waters that it alleges are carrying drugs and appears to be gearing up for some kind of operation against Venezuela. And in Myanmar, resistance groups continue to fight against the military junta which continues to receive economic and political cover from neighboring China. Now this isn't exhaustive, so you can let me know if I missed any of the major stories from this year.

[James Stout]

There's so many I don't know. Yeah, it's so sad to think about like this new drone war that we're starting in Venezuela, right? And we will probably start another one in the Sahel soon. No, it's very easy for those things to seem tangential to our lives. I have experienced what it is like to be in a place where drones are killing people every day. What that does to you. Just like not knowing who's going to get killed tonight, right? It probably won't Be you. Very unlikely. Might be. Might be someone you saw today, might be someone you'd ever met. Dozens of people get killed, but thousands of people have to live in with this sense of fear. And maybe after a while you get used to it. I don't know. But I don't think we realize, like, potential of the human joy, even though it's not like a. In this case, not like a ground war. Right. Like, for many people, don't see it as a war. The terrible trauma that. That causes not just to the people who are killed in their families, but to so many other people who have to live with the knowledge that, like, they could be killed and the world wouldn't care.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah. I mean, the mental torment and trauma, even if you survive something like Palestine or something like Sudan.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Andrew Sage]

That's going to stay with you for the rest of your life and reverberate in future generations. Even generations that did not experience the genocide directly, did not experience the war directly. They're still going to feel that in their bones, in the way that, you know, the generations that did experience it interact with them in the stories that they tell.

[James Stout]

Yeah, It's. Yeah. That. That trauma lives for a long time. Right. And trauma creates sometimes a cycle of violence. Right. Like, it's. It's not a good thing.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

The idea of drone warfare is the idea that these, like, clean surgical strikes. That's not how war works. That's not how killing works, that's not how explosive warheads work.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

I remember in Brejavere, sat down with a family who had lost their son, who had just turned 14, and, like, thinking of the waves of repercussion from that one bomb, and hundreds of bombs fell that year, you know, and that was just in Syria. Thousands of these drone bombs fell all around the world. And for the most part, people didn't remark on it and didn't care. But that's happening more now.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah. I mean, it's very, very easy to zoom out and just think of the pure statistics, the pure numbers. Because when you actually zoom in at even an individual incident that is an entire lifetime affected, multiple lifetimes affected by even one building being leveled or one bullet being fired.

[James Stout]

Yeah. And I think there's a reason we don't replace. Put on war like that. Right. Like, I try to when I write my stuff because, like, everyone's life is the most valuable thing they have. And every death is a tragedy. It's hard on the reporter. Like, it's not sustainable. Fucks you up. And B, people, people Wouldn't like wars if we kept, like, you see it to an extent in the way that the European nations talked about World War I. Right. Like, to get a significant number of upper class British people to be opposed to the concept of warfare is quite a remarkable endeavor. Right. Like that. Those are people who have gone to schools whose sole purpose was to raise them as military officers for empire from the age of five.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

But we saw it after World War I because the war wasn't abstract. Right. It was close by. The people dying weren't of different class or race. They were everyone. And especially young upper class men who became officers. Right. Like, but somehow along the way, since then, we've lost that and we've, we've, we've convinced ourselves that, that, that this is something that, like, isn't a human tragedy, even if it doesn't involve us.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah. It's interesting you mentioned World War I in particular, because I actually sat down to finally watch All Quiet in the Western Front.

[James Stout]

Oh, yeah.

[Andrew Sage]

Last night I watched like the first five minutes and I was like, I don't know if I could watch this right now. Let me go and watch something else.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Let's say.

[Andrew Sage]

And that's a movie, you know, it's not even the real thing. It's a fictional depiction of the occurrence. And I felt like I was there.

[James Stout]

Yeah. I don't like watching those films. I don't watch those films. Gives me bad memories. Dreams.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

But, yeah, like, I can't understand how we have this ability to. We have fucking VR now. Right. Like, surgeons can practice operations in VR, but, like, in a world where we can have so many experiences, experience things that we would never experience otherwise, we have inflicted a genocide through starvation on the people of Palestine.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Like, in a world where we can see and know more about other people's lives than ever, we've done this thing. Like, I didn't want to harp on the fact that, like, Israel is built on the idea of never again and here, here they are doing it again. Right. But like, it's just so sad that, like, we're in this world where we can know and, and share more things, and yet it's resulted in somehow us still not seeing our common humanity. I mean, more people have, I guess, also, like, yeah, one thing that has happened this year in the last two years, that, like, when I came here, I would never have believed that you would get thousands of American people out to call for the basic human rights of Palestinian people. Like, it didn't, it wasn't a thing that American people were aware of. So like, that is something that over the last two years we have seen solidarity. Some of that's.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah, there has been a shift.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Some of that solidarity I think has been misguided.

[Andrew Sage]

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

[James Stout]

Yep. And they're straight up anti Semitic bigotry as well.

[Andrew Sage]

But there has been that solidarity shift as well.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Like there has been that like a global solidarity and like even as a millennial. Right. Like from the age of 13, right. When I was a kid, when, when 9, 11 happened and even I guess first war in the Persian Gulf, the media project of most of the nations in which I have lived has been to demonize Muslim people and people specifically living in the Middle East. Right.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah, yeah. And it's more of a racialized bigotry than a particularly religious bigotry. I mean, it does take that religious quoting and there are religion specific elements to the bigotry, but it does tend to be more racialized than. Because I already know that some people will be like, oh, well, I just don't like Islam as. Because of its authoritarian inclinations, whatever the case may be. But it's a bit more than just religious based bigotry.

[James Stout]

Yeah. It's not just a philosophical disagreement. Right. Like it took on, like you say, this racial character and so like to see people noting their common humanity. Like, I was just talking to someone about this the other day. You familiar with Ms. Rachel? Yeah, yeah. Like it is inconceivable. It would have been inconceivable when I was in high school that an American children's entertainer would be like, well, I guess you had the Dixie Chicks, but it's not the same.

[Andrew Sage]

Right.

[James Stout]

Would. Would be like continually not to take away from what they did. I think they were very brave, actually. But, you know, to be able to stand up for the lives of young children in Palestine so consistently and so vociferously for so long, that's very. That gives me, you know, a great sense of hope.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah, that really, I think is an indication of just how much there has been a shift. And of course she has been bullied and targeted relentlessly since. But yeah, you know, it does indicate that people are willing to face that kind of bullying and face that kind of attack that I suppose Segment of Empire for the sake of sound of what's right.

[James Stout]

Yeah, I guess. I think it's so. It's impressive, right, that, like, yeah, people have bullied and attacked her, but, like, also, she has been so brave and so consistent. And not just Ms. Rachel, to be clear, there are many, many other people who've done this and has been able to continue to do that because so many people have been like, no, these are just children. Why the fuck are you. Why are you arguing that it's wrong to say we shouldn't kill children? What the fuck is wrong with you? Yeah, a lot of people showed up against the war in Iraq, too. But it's good to see that that media project has not succeeded, because it's been two decades of my life that it's been trying to succeed.

[Andrew Sage]

Yeah, I think that we've been seeing some very familiar dynamics across the geopolitical crises that I've sort of mentioned there. We have this external patronage of global powers and regional powers that seem to be sustaining these fights that ruined lives over years, because if they weren't getting that constant flow of money for weapons and weapons support and military support, these wars would not be able to last as long as they have. But it's these outside actors in Sudan and in Palestine that are supporting the fighting, supporting the barrage, supporting the suffering, and not supporting the aid necessary to support people. Yeah, you know, there's been a very slow and insufficient pace of humanitarian response due to funding gaps, access constraints, and the politicization of aid. And there are people who have managed to act directly, not waiting for any official channels. In the case of the flotilla, something else that happened this year that I found particularly admirable, but it hasn't been enough so far. It hasn't broken through quite yet. And people are still without much of the necessary aid that will sustain even their survival. We also see that even as these wars are raging in these regions, in many cases the extraction is continuing, particularly in Congo and Sudan. Yeah, I think it's very critical that we continue to speak out against these wars as we get into 2026. Wherever we see them, we document what's happening. We keep a record offline of what's going on independently. Because another thing I've noticed this year is how blatantly the news media is showing its colors. And that's where independent media is meant to fill the gaps, even though it may not have as many resources as mainstream media. That's what things like this podcast is here for. It's something that I think even listeners can take responsibility in being part of in gathering information and archiving information, in sharing sources and direct connects so that the information gets out there. And so, as we wrap up this retrospective for 2025, two things in particular stand out to me. One is that our system is brittle as hell, and two, that people are resilient as hell. And taken together, I believe it's an indication that we are indeed in a world of transition and it's still uncertain as to how it will turn out. The future has not been written yet, we don't know, but we do have the ability to choose what we do next. So as we look towards the New Year, think about something you want to build or strengthen, whether it be a skill, a relationship, a practice, a project of some kind that can serve you and those around you going forward. That's all I have for today. All power to all the people. Happy New Year. Peace. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in Episode Descriptions. Thanks for listening.

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[Andrew Sage]

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[James Stout]

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[Andrew Sage]

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[Andrew Sage]

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