Behind the Bastards - It Could Happen Here Weekly 120

Episode Date: March 2, 2024

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What if I told you fairy tales had a darker side? He locked her in this dungeon, he ordered her to do this impossible thing, he threatened to kill her multiple times. That's one where Red and grandma are just dead. She takes the frog and with all her might, throws him against the wall. Join me, Miranda Hawkins,

as we step into the twisted world of the brothers' grim. Listen to the deep dark woods on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A small town with secrets hidden for centuries. You turn up in Danville just as the town sees its first real crime in decades? And a curious stranger who may be their only chance for survival. I'm talking about the murder and disappearance

in small town New Hampshire. What do you think? This is Consumed, an all-new supernatural audio thriller inspired by the novel by Aaron Mankey. I did not wake up this morning prepared to deal with forces beyond my understanding. Please, I call that breakfast. Listen to Consumed on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. John Stuart is back in the host chair at the Daily Show, which means he's also back in our ears on the Daily Show,

Ears Edition podcast. Join late night legend John Stuart and the best news team for today's biggest headlines, exclusive extended interviews and more. Now this is the second term we can all get behind. Listen to the Daily Show, Ears Edition on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Call zone media.

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 for 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 gonna be nothing new here for you, but you can make your own decisions.

Welcome to the Good Afternoon show. Oh, wow. Okay, we're just both doing the intro. Alright. I wasn't even the intro. I was saying that Wokeness has won the Super Bowl. Ah! Yeah! Because... Okay, okay, hold on. This is my moment. I've got the soapbox. This is Nick and Apen here.

Everyone has the Taylor Swift conspiracy wrong. Taylor Swift is completely uninvolved in the NFL's conspiracy to make sure Patrick Mahomes wins every fucking game. All of these fucking, all these fucking Boggots chuds or fucking Johnny come late, doesn't care about football fans. Real fans know that if you look at every fourth quarter of every fucking chiefs game before Taylor Swift got involved, it looks exactly the same. All right, this has been a good happen here.

We may or may not cut that. I can't believe that the liberal Taylor Swift, Joe Biden's puppet Taylor Swift and Travis Pfizer Kelsey stole the Super Bowl from the good Christian people of San Francisco. The only bastion of conservatism left in this country. It is so incredibly funny. Like, okay, so it's so incredibly funny to me, A, that they're not mad at Patrick Mahomes, and B, that somehow, okay, the chiefs, like imagine you're a chiefs fan, right? You have been for like 30 years doing the most racist. What are the most racist? You have been doing an action called, and I quote, the Tomahawk Chop.

Like, you are the most racist person in your entire small town. And then all of these fucking dipshits online, all these fucking right-wing dipshits immediately like all of you guys are like fucking pussy woke libs. And it's just like, like imagine being that racist for that long, only to be immediately tossed aside. Like imagine being that racist for that long, only to be immediately tossed aside. It is kind of baffling that in like, the country's national divorce over wokeness, somehow the liberals get to keep football.

Like that is so bizarre that now football scene is like a liberal cuck thing to enjoy among large swaths of Republicans, at least online Republicans. It's really funny. It's fascinating. This is how we're going to beat them in the fucking Civil War, because we're going to take the college campuses, which means that we're going to have the only watchable footballs. These bastards are going to be reduced to watching fucking high school games. Speaking of watching football.

Yeah. So the thing this episode is actually about is if you watch the Super Bowl or like God help you You've tried to use YouTube without an ad blocker a thing. I do not recommend at all You have seen ads for Temu With its T mu or Temu Temu Temu, okay. Yeah, it has the absolute the absolute name. Oh, good God. Yeah, this this app this one this one's bad folks. This one's I went insane and have been spiraling for like two weeks now writing this. So, yeah, so it has the absolutely dog shit tagline shop like a billionaire.

Wait, that's its tagline? Yeah. Yeah. Whoa, that's weird. It's funny, the other thing is they only have one ad, right? They, it's the same ad. I did not watch Super Bowl. It's not just Super Bowl, like it's been on YouTube for like ages.

But yeah, so this begs the obvious question. What on earth is this thing? And the answer is that Temu is the American version of a Chinese shopping app called Pinduoduo. You will hear people pronouncing it Pinduoduo. That's because they're hacks and frauds. So, but I'm just going to call it. So the parent company for both Temu and Pinduoduo changed their name to PDD. So I'm just gonna call it that.

PDD. So yeah PDD is China's worst tech giant. They have worked multiple of their employees to death. They probably also use slave labor. Those are unrelated stories. So today, welcome to the abyss. This is the story of Tamu. I have stared into it and now you motherfuckers are coming with me and staring into it some more. Well, it's more like we're listening into it because it doesn't really have a visual. No, no, you're staring into it. Okay. The you you will get visuals to this bullshit. I will start hallucinating in my office.

Yeah. So, time it was the American version of PDD. PDD roughly translates to together more savings. Together? So it's like a co-op? Actually, it probably sells stuff from co-ops. Okay. So, PDD is the second largest shopping app in China behind Alibaba.

Alibaba is China's like version of Amazon basically. They're the second largest app. Alibaba reportedly has 860 million users per year. That's a lot of users. Yeah, that's multiple USes. PDD has been claiming that they have 740 million monthly users. It's unclear if that's exactly true, but it's probably around there, which again, that is twice the entire population of the US.

So this is a fucking unbelievably massive company. And to understand what this company is and how it became probably the worst of the Chinese tech giants, we have to go back to the very beginning. And the very beginning is this guy named Colin Huang. Huang is a weird guy. I don't know. He's the Chinese version of the American tech bro. So he's, you know, he's a recognizable like asshole who started a giant company,

but he's not exactly the same. So he graduates from college in China. In the early 2000s, he goes to the University of Wisconsin to get a master's degree in computer science, which it should be illegal for anyone to get degrees in computer science, terrible stuff, zero out of 10, no one should know how to use computers. I can't believe you believe in the status legal system to prevent people from learning.

Find social sanctions. We're going to make it morally illegal. We're gonna get chased down by people with rocks on the street if you try to type something into a computer So okay, so he's at the University of Wisconsin and while he's there he basically like posts his way into becoming the basically the protege of Chinese tech billionaire Duan Yongping. This is an interesting relationship. Duan is like Is a very very very influential Chinese tech billionaire. He gets every single article, calls him the war and buffet of China.

I don't fucking know. But like, you know, for like, for example, it's like how big this guy is, like, Vivo and like the one plus company that makes phones. Those are both like spin-offs of like things that he built. But yeah, so you know, so this is an interesting relationship for Huang because, and it's also interesting because like the narrative around Huang and PDD is that they're like these like hungry upstarts like clawing their way up from nothing and they can like go after Alibaba and the Chinese like tech market wars because they're like, they're ferocious. They have like nothing to lose. I'm like, they're rich and fat Alibaba. And like, nah, like this guy has had the backing of like a bunch of really powerful Chinese tech guys, like from the absolute beginning.

Another part of like the Huang lore is that Duan like took him to this really famous dinner where Warren Buffett was offering, if you donated like $620,000 a charity, he would like, eat dinner with you and like, talk with you about like finance stuff. And so, Duan like buys this thing to go eat dinner with Warren Buffett and brings Huang with him and he, but Huang who's who's, Huang's the founder of PED again. So he gives him credit for like this financial wisdom that he got. Just from an interview with Sai Jin, this is a Chinese outlet. What Buffett said is actually very simple and can be understood by my mother.

Perhaps what this meal meant most to me was that I realized the power of simplicity and common sense. Human thoughts are easily polluted. When you make a judgment on something, you need to understand the backgrounds and facts. After understanding it, what you need is not wisdom, but whether you have the courage to use reason when facing facts. Use common sense to judge. Common sense is obvious and easy to understand, but our various biases and personal interests form due to growth and learning blind us."

So this is like entrepreneurial bullshit, but you know, this is like a big formative like thing. He's like, oh, he got the wisdom of word buffet, and he listened to it. It's just like, what? The thing I think is more interesting is that he talks about what in the same interview what Dwan taught him. Dwan also taught me a common sense thing in business. Price fluctuates around value. The price will definitely fluctuate, but as long as your value increases,

the final price will be close to the value. This common sense allows you to focus on increasing the intrinsic value of the company and not be overly concerned about price fluctuations in the capital market. And this to me is fascinating because the first half of that is like Orthodox Marxist price theory. Like in like in Marxist price theory, right? The whole thing about it is that price is determined by value.

The value of a commodity is determined by like the amount of labor hours socially necessary to produce it and eventually like price sort of like fluctuate, the price can change. It's not, price isn't like identical to like socially necessarily like labor time, but it like fluctuates around it. And so that's like the first part of it, which is the Marxist thing, except this is like China, like modern like 2020 is China. So Marxist value theory has been degraded to like make your company valuable and don't worry about stock prices and market fluctuations.

It'll work out in the end. So true. So true. Based based. I mean, the funny thing is this is actually better, like. Yeah, yes. Advice than like most of the shit that like American CEOs use. But it's also, oh God, what has happened to my poor value theory, my beloved theory of how capitalism works has been turned into this weird tech bullshit.

Ah, tragedy. So meanwhile, back in 2004, Duane convinces Huang to turn down a bunch of these jobs. So he's like a computer science graduate, right? And he's being headhunted by a bunch of the sort of like mainstream tech companies at the time, like Oracle, Microsoft, and they want to give him like an enormous amount of money. But his mentor is like, no, no, no, don't take this tech job. Take the Silicon Valley tech job. Join Google.

And so he joins Google. And this is another, like, very famous thing. He's like, ah, he wanted to join the, like, up and coming hungry tech startup. But here's the thing. So Google, he joins Google in 2004, which is kind of early, but Google also goes public that year. So, you know, this is up working really well for him because he gets a bunch of stock options. Those stock options are worth millions of dollars. That's

a lot of also some of the startup capital for like later companies he founds comes from that. And Huang really quickly like works his way up the ranks. But he gets put in charge of like launching Google in China. And this is a fiasco, does not work at all. Huang blames like too much oversight from people at the senior leadership of Google, which I can get, but I mean, it just doesn't work at all. Like he starts this in 2006 by 2010,

Google has pulled out of China entirely. Like they're not trying to push the fucking search engine because nobody uses it. So, okay, having having having like unbelievably bombed out of his first tech job, he he he does the like entrepreneur thing. He starts like a couple of these like shopping like online shopping companies, they do like fine and he sells them, but they don't like do incredible and so okay so this is the part that a lot of the accounts of him leave out like the sort of like fawning accounts leave out is the next thing that he does which is he sets up this like really shitty game studio and they make like a bunch of like absolutely unbelievably weird and

horny mobile games so they make like mafia city joy City, Joy Spade, Texas Hold'em, Poker. They have this game called Girl X Battle that is like you assemble a harem of girlfriends and then have them fight other people. Stuff like absolutely. Have you played any of these? Oh, no, absolutely not.

I refuse. I think I've actually seen Mafia City ads before, but it's like, like it's the absolute most dog shit like bargain basement. I Guess they're kind of pre-gotcha games. I was just wondering how far your dedication to research went here, but not far enough. Look, here's the thing. My dedication to research went exactly far enough that I refused to install any of these apps for reasons that we'll get into next episode I was like absolutely not in fact this doing this research actually caused me to

Uninstall chow bus which is like a Chinese food delivery app because I realized that it was constantly running in the background to like to Drive up. It's like user engagement metrics. That's that is completely fair Although if you were even more dedicated, you could have bought a burner phone to download all these apps onto and test it on that. So there you go. That's true. But I know. I refuse to let that shit connect to my internet like under no circumstances. If you go to a Starbucks, you can go to his, see, I'm just throwing out options here. I probably could have done this but no absolutely not actually well It's actually really hard to download the Chinese version of this for reasons that we'll get into next episode. All right. All right

But okay, so like he's running the shitty game company and he has a genuinely brilliant and terrible insight Which is that she sees how addictive like mobile gaming and how addictive like micro transactions are, and she goes, oh shit, what if I put this in a shopping app, except that, okay, that's the reasonable way to explain it. But like, the thing he actually did was like, why are, okay, so his actual thought process was why are we not selling games, Games are all advertised to men, right? Like the apps that he's making are like weird horny stuff for guys.

Why are we not making games for women? Which is reasonable. But then his follow up was effectively women be shopping? And he was like, we'll make a shopping thing. It's just like, we'll make an app that makes shopping into a game. And so, and one of the things, he's also been doing one of the like, the kind of like search engine optimization scams where like, he just keeps making different shopping, like shopping websites and hoping that one of them will like climb in the search rankings.

But eventually he hits on a, like using the dog shit, like addictive mobile gamification stuff from his mobile games in an online shopping app. And he hits on that as the idea for a new shopping app. And this is what turns into PDD. Now, do you know what didn't turn into PDD and is in fact better? Hopefully these ads that are not for Temu. We better not get a fucking Temu ad. Hopefully. I. It's actually possible. It's oh God.

Well, careful what you wish for. And we're back. So PDD doesn't start in the way that normal tech app things do, which is to say that PDD starts as an online fruit vendor. No. Okay, if you know anything. Like a farmer's market online, like what? Yeah. Okay. So if you know anything about how like Amazon worked, right? So Amazon goes from books to a bunch of stuff to food. PDD does this backwards. They start in food.

Now this is very weird. And the reason this works and the reason that PDD starts as a marketplace for rural farmers to self-reduce and vegetables directly to consumers is because unfortunately of the structure of the Chinese agricultural market, which we have to talk about a little bit. So something I talked about, I don't know how many years ago this was now, but a while back, I did an episode about this company that poisons like 300,000 babies by making poison milk in China. And one of the things that was a bastard's episode, one of the things I talked about in that episode was how the Chinese agricultural market is incredibly fragmented. We don't have time to do a full history of rural decollectivization here, but the upshot of it is that it

results in a lot of farmers working really small plots of land who are forced to sell their goods to a series of middlemen who make the actual profits. And because these farmers have like a tiny amount of land to grow stuff on or they have like two cows, right? They don't have the financial leverage to negotiate with the middle men. The middle man can just set prices on them. And the product of this is you have a really, really fragmented market where there's just all of these unbelievably large numbers

of these really small sellers. And this locks all these people into middle men. The middle men can set the prices. The middle men set the prices incredibly low and they're locked in because they don't have another distribution method, because the only thing they can do is sell to these agricultural middlemen companies. The companies above them, like your grocery companies or actual milk company who packages the milk, they love this stuff because it means that they don't have to pay the farmers. They can just buy the goods directly, they don't have to deal with employment stuff, they don't have to deal with quality control too because they can pass that on to the middlemen now something else

We talked about in our anti work lying flat episodes like three years ago is that China has These like far like rural influencers that was it was like a huge wave of these people that sort of like emerge You might actually have seen you've seen the videos of just like huge wave of these people that sort of like emerge. You might actually have seen, you've seen the videos of just like someone in rural China, like cutting wood or something. Oh yeah, totally, totally.

Yeah, so those things were like, okay. The US catches up the stuff from the Chinese internet, like usually several years after it like happened there. And- That makes sense. Yeah. And the next thing in line after the original sort of rural influencer waves was this wave of like farmer influencers. And these people, they're using like a different Chinese.

Like it's like another, it's like another tech dot clone, basically. And the thing that they're doing is, OK, so you have your regular influencer who's trying to sell you like the image of rural life, right? And then you have your regular influencer who's trying to sell you the image of rural life, right? And then you have the farmer influencers who are trying to sell you the image of rural life and also their potatoes. And this is like the marketing strategy.

This is how you can skip the middlemen and actually sell your fruit is by becoming an influencer, which it's so cursed. It's so cursed. I hate it so much. That is kind of dystopian. It's just the constant performance. Yeah, but the problem is that the alternative to it is even worse because PDD realizes this and they're looking at these markets and they're like, hold on. These farmers are already selling

their goods for like next to nothing. If we come in, pay them a bit better, use our tech money to our tech startup money. They have an enormous amount of tech startup money. If we use that tech startup money to give them rebates, we can do things that like, we can not charge them commission, right? And if we can do this, we can turn around and sell these fruits for like zero dollars. I mean, zero dollars is a slight exaggeration, but when I like they're selling these fruits for an are unbelievably cheap. Like we are talking 10 mangoes for a dollar and 39 cents, which is like a steal. Outrageous, right? And you know, this is this is incredibly successful.

What they're doing basically is a giant version of the Amazon gambit, right? They're eating shit and taking losses to sell all of this stuff. Although they're losing less money than you'd think. Like, the actual price of these goods is already so low, and we're going to come back to that too, because that's an aspect of what's so messed up about this whole thing. But, you know, so they eat shit that takes some losses, but they really, really quickly build market share.

So this is a very, very smart strategy because it's not just in the sort of rural market. China has a shit ton of like small and medium sized producers that make a whole bunch of things for like guy with one factory, person doing like craft production stuff. And PDD's plan is to pull together all of these sellers like this whole all of these people from different markets introduce one giant like one giant like market that they control now importantly unlike Amazon and this is unlike Alibaba too because Alibaba works on a fairly similar model to well okay in a lot of ways the similar model to Amazon is not identical, but unlike those two companies,

PDD doesn't run their own logistics network. It's all third-party, like the shipping and all that shit is done by, is done through third-party logistics stuff. So like their shipping companies, they don't own warehouses, like that stuff, you know, what they do instead is they use the shipping companies and warehouses that were developed in like the earlier parts of the Chinese tech boom. And they're able to just use that infrastructure to, you know, to ship all their stuff right.

And this means that the company is extremely lean in the sense that like they don't have a lot of physical assets. Like they know, and this means they don't have to deal with labor costs or like the logistics problems of actually having to like, you know, of actually having employees packing boxes or making things. They're just an app. It's it's it's well, they're like the original model of Uber in some sense, right? Where like, you don't like Uber doesn't fucking own or wasn't supposed to be owning cars. I mean, I guess Uber's a bad example because they were trying to do the automated car thing, but that was a fiasco. But you know, the thing that PDD makes is just an app. But it's an incredibly addictive app.

Like it's a shopping gotcha game, which is like maybe the worst sentence in the history of the human language. And this was like, this was around the time like Want to say like tenish years ago get give or take a few years or like micro transactions were becoming massive like all like it Took over gaming. I took over so many parts of just being online It took over apps like it just it just infected everything and we luckily kind of pushed back on some some some elements of that Not all of it, but like there was definitely some some degree of like oh well We are simply not gonna be buying all of these games

If it's just full of micro micro transaction bullshit and then fortnight took over and we're back in hell again But whatever actually it's pretty funny I'm China kind of recently the Chinese government like did a crackdown on like loop boxes and stuff because they were Some of the some of the some of the regulations they put in place are nuts, but some of it was like you can't sell loop You can't sell gambling the children. Yeah. Yeah, and this caused like it's funny because they're kind of walking it back now Because it hurt their gaming market so much. They're like, well shit. Okay, we have to we need those kids get like yeah Yeah, that's the only way to make money. Um, yeah.

But, you know, but but PDD is like brilliance or sort of like the absolutely evil shit that they realized is like, we can just we can just do this for shopping. And so like the moment you log in, right, there's like these flash deals and there's these group deals. And this is the thing that the group deals are the thing that that PDD is based around. So the way it works is you get these group deals. And so you get a link and you send it to people. And the more people click on the link to buy the thing, the cheaper it becomes. So and then you send the links over WeChat, which is the sort of like catch all Chinese Messenger, like social media app that everyone uses to like talk to their boomer parents.

And so the thing that their boomer parents. And so the thing that your boomer parents are doing is they're sending these shopping links to each other. And the more people click on these links, the cheaper the good becomes. So the more people are buying it, the more people you rope into buying stuff from this app, the cheaper it is. And the more deals you get, you get things like they'll just like give you like quote-unquote free money if you spend enough money In like in basically like in the same way that like micro transaction works, right?

Where it's like, you know in a game It's like if you play the X number of games will give you like in game currency whereas this is just like we'll literally give you money We like send things to you god that sounds like hell. It's awful. It's so bad and Oh, God, that sounds like hell. It's awful. It's so bad. And very importantly, right? It's this giant loop that it not only gets people to spend money, but it gets people to bring their friends in because you have to bring your friends in to get the group

deals or everything gets cheaper and cheaper. And the tactics they use are absolutely wild. They get in trouble in 2021 for this promotion called bargain for free goods where you'd get a link and the claim was that if enough people clicked it you would get the good for free. And so this guy tried to do it but he could only get it to 0.9% of the cost so he sued them for false advertising and the claim got thrown out but the company had to pay him like money. So like this is the kind of shit that they're doing. him like money. So like this is the kind of shit that they're doing. WeChat actually like blocked their links for a while because you know, because like some enormous portion of

messages suddenly were just like these people sending these spam links to like every single person they know trying to get them to buy like a fucking toothbrush so that your toothbrushes can be cheaper. Right. But eventually we chat kind of like You know we chat gives up and they start like allying more with PDD. I mean there's a whole There's a whole complicated story. I'm not gonna get into here about like the like China's really really ferocious like tech company wars Because like in the US, you know, like our tech monopolies are relatively stable, right? Like they sort of portioned up the internet into or and like distribution and stuff into just like basically like local monopolies, right? Like like Google is like the only search engine company.

There's there's basically no competition there, right? Like there's some competition in terms of social media, but even then it's like and it's not like the Chinese version where it's like unbelievably ferocious competition. Sometimes they cooperate, but yeah, it's really fierce. And PDD, the thing that they do is they pair this app stuff with direct-to-consumer sales. And PDD is really the pioneers of this. She in and OK, so I she in is that fucking fast fashion clothing company. I learned today that he is actually pronounced she in because the name of the thing is she in. Like essay, she she and then she's like she's in. Yeah.

Yeah, I get it. So much. I'm so sad. I I mean, I feel slightly better because like I kept trying to hate it so much. I'm sad. I I mean I feel slightly better because like I kept trying to read it in Chinese It's like this doesn't fucking make any sense like it's just baffling doesn't it's like oh, no, it's cuz it's in English Yeah, but PDD is the precursor of she ends like strategy right like they're they're the originators of this Except they're you know there what they're doing basically, it's kind of like dropshipping. But the sales are being pushed by these sort of gamified app stuff.

And this means that they have this like real time supply management system that tells producers, like they can like, they go down and like tell their sellers like what to produce more of based on like app sales So, you know the way it works is you start off with a small It's like a small number of things and then you get ads to push that those like fucking toothbrushes or whatever and then as

Like sales ramp up you ramp up productions. You can ship people more toothbrushes Now do you know who else will ship you toothbrushes That will probably be better quality than the PDD toothbrushes. Oh, no, we can. We can guarantee all of our sponsors have only the top quality toothbrushes. That is that is what we call the cool zone guarantee. Go to toothbrush.com and put in the keyword Mia for 10 percent off on your top of the line. Please don't do this. So, all right. FDD just, it takes rural China by storm. Sure, it sounds convenient.

Like, yeah, yeah. For some people. And it's really, really cheap is the thing, right? And the thing about rural China is you're dealing with a level of poverty that like is like almost unimaginable. It's not unimaginable in the U.S. But it's like unbelievable. It's something that we don't really have it in the same way because...

Okay, so like an example of the kind of stuff we're dealing with. So China's GDP per capita in the 60s was lower than Haiti's. This is an unbelievably poor country. And there are places in real China that are still like basically not quite that poor, but are like unbelievably poor in ways that like, you know, what we're talking about people who are like people who are doing kind of well in these regions are making $700 a month. Like that's like on a good month, right?

They're making $700 a month, which is like $8,400 a year. And that's if you have 12 good months, right? If you have normal months, it's more like $6,000 a year. And so, you know, when you're in a place where people are using stuff like this. And again, that's someone who like has a job full time is making like $6,000 a year. And so people use PDD to shop because it's incredibly cheap and it's also addictive. And when I say cheap, like we're talking like $2

for a pair of jeans cheap, right? And like that's also like cheap and you want to, it's like unbelievably low prices. I mean, this kind of reminds me a little bit of that recent Tucker Carlson, Russia is great actually media stunt. Oh yeah. Look, all of these groceries only cost $100

in American currency. And it's like, yeah, because they're getting paid like $200 a week. They're not taking home very much money. So all of the costs slide very differently. You can't just compare this one to one. Yeah. Although the thing I will say about PDD is that their prices are unbelievably low by

Chinese standards. This is also why they look so low by American standards too, is that these are low by Chinese standards. This is also why they look so low by American standards too, is that these are low by Chinese standards. Because they're so low by Chinese standards, people buy stuff from it. The cost of this is that the stuff they're selling is really cheap. The other cost is the unbelievable exploitation of the Chinese working class. But we'll get to that next episode. The main cost of the stuff being cheap is that the stuff they buy like sucks ass. Like literally, literally, this is something the CEO talks about is that their gambit is that, OK, we'll ship you 10 mangoes for like a dollar thirty nine. Two of them will be rotten, but that means you still get eight mangoes.

That is still an unbelievable deal. Like that's the thing. And like, you know, the stuff that they get like sucks. Here's from the Chinese media outlets, Sixth Tone, which has done a lot of good coverage of PDD. They used to be better. They're like the kind of like lefty, like, state media outlet. They used to be better, and then their staff got run out because they walked you close to the line.

So, but here's here's what here's they've done a lot of they well because the most of the PDD coverage came from before their people got run out so quote following the IPO a number of purchasers a purchase is allegedly bought from PDD we're shared online including a hairdryer that broke out in flames after it was switched on at a power bake hey that also happens in America don't worry you're like I know got in flames after it was switched on. And a power bank. Hey, that also happens in America. Don't worry. You're like, I know you're like, oh, I'm I'm missing out on all these great

deals, all these great products. Not true. This can also happen in the States. Yep. There's another one where they did, uh, they had a power bank and someone ordered it and they came and it was just for triple a batteries in a container. That's funny. So good. That's a good bit. That's that's pretty good. You know, there's stuff like one of one like Sixth Home was interviewing people in real

areas. You bought stuff and they were like, yeah, I bought a fishing rod for like two bucks. It was broken. I bought a pair of shoes and it literally fell apart after three days. So like, I have complicated feelings on this because I think there is a place for gambling in purchases. If, if for example, on Amazon, if every fourth product you bought there was a completely like defective, like purposefully, like lower quality version, I think that would be a net good for the world We would have probably would have less people using Amazon and you would kind of get slightly punished

So I think this actually could be a good thing if used correctly where we would be purposely sabotage every like fourth person Who buys anything online? But the problem is that people fucking love gambling like that that that's that's just gonna make people do more because now There's more of a downside for trying to get your fucking deal So I mean this is the thing right like you're rolling the dice every time every time you take it You order like an electric generator online and they send you a double a oh my god. It'd be so funny Well, I mean now hey you too can now shop on Temu. You too can experience getting shipped just fucking bullshit.

You order some nice Hawaiian coffee and they send you some like chamomile. Oh, God, devastating. So this this whole thing of you buy stuff that sucks or doesn't work. And the fact that PDD starts in rural China means that like initially there's this like real class element about who uses PDD. It's seen as like the site for poor and gullible people who don't care about quality. Yeah, it's like it's the place for lower class people shop. Yeah, sure. Yeah. And why that stops being true kind of because everyone starts using it. But, comma, the other problem they have is that it is absolutely rife with Counterfeit

products. Right after they go public in 2018, there's like a Chinese state investigation into the sale of their Counterfeit products. And PDD's response is like, well, we're just a marketplace. Anyone can sell on it. How are we supposed to control who makes Counterfeit stuff? Sure, sure. But this is actually like, it gets to a kind of like cultural thing where, you know, this

is one of the things that happens in rural China. This happens in a lot of places where like, almost everyone is wearing like clothes that are like knockoff brand stuff because it's just the cheapest clothes. And like that's the kind of clothes that's being made that you can afford if you're, you know, like you're trying to sort of make it like in rural China. And so you get like, you know, you have like entire villages where you walk in and everyone's wearing like, like neaky and like a dinos or something. Like it's like, this stuff gets really wild, really fast.

So here's from that, that Saicheng interview with Colin Huang again. So here's, here's Kai-Jing, it's a Chinese media outlet. So they're interviewer. One of the best-selling products on PDD is a bottle of Aphrodisiac priced at 27.8 yuan. That is like three almost four dollars with a total of 4.7 million orders sold. Do you think this medicine might be real? Here's the CEO. First of all, medicines or healthcare products sold on PDD's platform must have national certification marks. Secondly, the gross profit margin of healthcare products is already extremely high, just like facial masks.

Do you think the 200 yarn facial max is useful? So again again, what is happening here is that like they have sold like one point four point seven million orders of Like a fake aphrodisiac and when the CEO is asked about his response is like well But who can really say if any health products work like, that is a pretty funny bit. I mean, it sucks that people, the poor people are losing money, but well, I do be fair, to be fair, pretty fun. I, I, if I, if you are trying to like buy an aphrodisiac,

I don't really care. Sure. Sure. Yeah. But like, you know, so part of it, like, there's something like fake hack medicines. This is like the Chinese version of the American like grift, like right wing grift, like supplement market. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's the brain pills to help your libido or whatever. Yeah. But this also gets a lot darker. One of the stories that kind of like made the of Chinese social media that Six Tone reports on is that people found PDD advertising sleep medicine as date rape drugs. Yeah, fucking bleak. That's the thing, there's no fucking content moderation on this, right? So people just do that shit and it really sucks.

But on their hand, none of the constant bad press like stop PDD's rise, right? And now it is time to leave Colin Huang behind. So until about 2020, PDD's rise was synonymous with its CEO Colin Huang. But in mid 2020, Huang resigned as the CEO and kind of like exited public life effectively. Like not entirely, but kind of like he like took he like he resigned as CEO and then in 2021 he resigns as like chairman of the board and he's like, you know,

he's doing this like philanthropic stuff instead and he's, you know, he's doing his like post CEO life thing, right? And we've never gotten a good answer as to why he stepped down. But I have a theory, and I think my theory is pretty good, and also it goes into, have I, Garrison, have I explained to you the thing about, I don't know if I've done it on this show,

talked about the Chinese payday loan app thing? I don't think so. Okay, so, all right, we are now going to do, we're gonna close this episode out on one of the most absolutely insane moments in Chinese internet history. So, okay, one of the things that happens in the Chinese tech market in the late 2010s

and early 2020s is this mass proliferation of app-based payday loans. This is one of the worst things I have ever seen. What effectively happens is that around like 2014, 2015, a bunch of Chinese tech companies, especially like delivery companies like sort of like China's version of Grubhub and DoorDash and Alibaba, they're like Amazon equivalent gets in it too. And these people realize that they can start their own payment platforms. So basically like all these companies can start their own payment platforms. So basically, like all these companies are making their own version of PayPal.

But then they realize that they can use these platforms to give out payday loans so that you can, in one app, take out a payday loan to order delivery, or you can in one app take out a payday loan to buy shit from Amazon with the payday loan. Ten cents gets in on it so you can in one app take out a payday loan to buy shit from Amazon with the payday loan. Ten cents gets in on it so you can buy micro transactions with your payday loans. This, as you might expect, spirals out of control immediately. The interest rates on these loans are enormous, and this means that they make

an unbelievable amount of money. And so apps just start shoveling these loans in people's faces the moment they log on to apps. But the thing is like this doesn't stop with just like the big shopping apps, right? By 2019, it's not just, you know, like when I say this is going to apps, right? Like you're fucking like imagine if Twitter was trying to offer you payday loans. Like that's the midpoint of this. That might happen. That might actually have, based on the plans for the Twitter to become the banking app.

Yeah, well, that's actually the funny thing. So Elon Musk really, really likes China. And part of the reason for this is that, you know, a bunch of Tesla factories are in Xinjiang. Part of the reason for this, like he's trying to recreate the like WeChat environments, but everyone doesn't like it. Yeah. Right?

Like people don't actually like it. But the thing is, the other thing that he really loves is the number of hours that you can get people to work in China that you can't really in the US. So we'll get to that fucking next episode. But you know, okay, so like, like your fucking Twitter is trying to sell you payday apps. But then it gets to the point where your fucking flashlight app is trying to sell you, trying to get you to take out payday loans. Like your like photo app, like every fucking app on your phone is trying to sell you payday loans. That sounds incredibly annoying.

This is one of these things, right? But like, OK, like as bad as like American apps are, right? Like as bad as like the version of capitalism that we have in the American app ecosystem. Like the wildest shit is always going on in the Chinese tech market, which is like even more insane than the American tech market. So, and this is like, we don't actually have this here.

And I've been trying to figure out why it never happened here. I think it has to do with partially with banking regulation and partially with like the fact that like the actual American payday loan companies don't want other companies to like cut in on their business. So I think that's what's happening. But like in China, it's literally like, and this is happening in like, like, like 2019, 2020,

2021 that this stuff is happening. So, you know, and it's in all and this this gets I mean, it turns into just a fucking nightmare because, you know, obviously, like this turns into this giant wave of people who got it in over their heads and can't pay their loans back because they took out a payday loan with 30% interest. And also, and this is one of the fun things, companies just straight up lie about their interest rates. Like there's a lot of examples of companies saying we have a 9% interest rate and then,

in the contract it says 9% interest rate. And then when they try to get you to pay it back, it's like 30%, right? Like this is like, you know, and sometimes they're even, you're getting up to like 100, 200% interest. Like these are like organized crime levels of interest. And, you know, like the tech giants are all into it.

Alibaba isn't quite as big into it as, like, some of the other companies, but, like, they're doing it. Like, they absolutely are doing the payday loan shit. And I mentioned Alibaba here because, in late 2020, Jack Ma, who's the founder of Alibaba, just, like, disappears. He's just gone for, like, several months. Nobody knows where he is. And then he reappears in like 2021, but he's not doing tech CEO stuff anymore. He's doing like weird public education tours in like rural China. And this causes like a huge, a huge like kind of thing in the American press because what they're reading it as, and they're kind of right, is that there's just, in 2021, there's this enormous raft

of financial regulations on tech companies. And this gets interpreted as like a crackdown on tech companies that like the CCP is trying to bring the tech giants in line, like they've disappeared, Jack Ma, and you know, one of, and this is something, something that, a story that gets lost in this in the American press is that like one of the big things they're trying to do is stop is stop all these fucking companies from turning their apps into payday loan factories and

you know like I'm I'm not like a CCP fan like it is well known like fan, like it is well known. Like it's like my dislike of the CCP is so large that like a not insignificant number of people in the U.S. think I work for the CIA, right? But like this is like those fucking tech companies were they were like they were like like on the edge of completely annihilating the Chinese economy. They were very they got very, very close

to just like reducing like enormous swaths of the entire Chinese population into like peer app-based debt pay-in-edge. It was a fucking disaster. And this is a big part of why this like tech crackdown came in because the CCP was like, holy shit. If you guys do this, like you're actually going to like, like you're gonna fucking nuke the Chinese economy.

Like we cannot allow every single fucking app to be a payday loan service. And things, I mean, it's still not great now, but things have gotten a lot less bad in the payday loan like thing since then. But you know, again, like it had to get bad enough that your flashlight would try to get you to take out a payday loan for the CCP to actually like go after their like tech giant darlings.

And I think what happened is that I think what happened is that Colin Huang like saw which way the wind was blowing. And he was like, OK, there's going be a giant crackdown. Now, now, two-wits credit. This is the only time I will give PDD credit for anything. PDD actually didn't do the payday loan shit. I think because Colin Huang was just slight, was like smart enough to be like, this is a fucking terrible idea. Like, if we, if we try to get our like rural customer base hooked on payday loans, all these people are going to just be completely broke in like nine months. So PDD doesn't do it, but he takes this moment like he picks 20, like July 2020, which is like a couple months before Jack Mott disappears. And he just fucking

notes and he's like, I'm out. And yeah, like things, you know, and he picked a good time. And this meant that like, you know, he never really faced any consequences for, you know, he wasn't really caught up in the crackdown. He got out fine. And, you know, he picked the right time to do it. And PDD's future in America was still ahead of it. But when the Chinese media began to uncover

the dark side of PDD in 2021, Colin Huang was nowhere to be found. And that is what we're covering tomorrow. We haven't even gotten to the bad stuff yet. Haven't even gotten to Temu proper yet. Yeah. Well, the thing about Temu, and we will get to Temu next episode, but Temu is like a 2022

thing, right? So it's really recent. It's only been around for like two years, which means that if we're going to talk about this 90% of it is going to be PDD because PDD is like nine years old. But yeah, tune in tomorrow for a bunch of absolutely harrowing shit. Yeah. This is this is this is a good happen here. We love to do so excited. I love learning that new hair harrowing shit. Yeah. This is this is this is a good happen here. We love to do so excited. I love learning that new harrowing shit.

Hi everyone. I'm Jackie Goldschneider from the Real Housewives of New Jersey. I joined the show in season 9. And I'm Jennifer Fessler also from the Real Housewives of New Jersey. I joined the show in season 13. And we host the new podcast, Two Jersey Jays. You know us from the Real Housewives of New Jersey and now you'll really get to know us. We're going to tell you probably more than you want to know.

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start Hearing see seeing the strobe through our voices in which case good for you Wish that was me Yeah, so that that's garrison. I'm Mia. We're back again. We're back again for a descent into hell. Yeah, so last episode we talked about Colin Huang and the rise of PDD, which is China's second largest shopping app, and the Chinese version of the App Temu. So we're now in the post-Colin Huang era. An era I think actually might be worse than the original era, which is kind of stunning. But, you know, here we are.

Here we are. Um, and this era actually starts really well for PDD. This is like 2020, 2021. China's lockdowns are actually incredible for PDD because as we talked about last episode, PDD strategy is group shopping, right? It's about getting a bunch of people to buy things together to make it cheaper, thus pulling in more and more customers. Now, China had real lockdowns. And in a real lockdown, this is increasingly how people got food. You know, the strictness of the lockdowns vary across, like, depending on what province you're in, right? But

like, so like, my family was in Inner Mongolia. in Inner Mongolia in like the first lockdowns You could send you could only send one member of your family outside per week To like you know to go get groceries Otherwise every one else fed all times has to stay indoors and this meant that people started pooling together to like all buy groceries And then sending one person out to like go pick up the delivery. And this ingrained PDD's fundamental strategy of buying into the consciousness of the Chinese public because they just been doing it for a year. Right. And as 2020 sort of rode on, PDD skyrockets. This is the period from like 2020 to like 2024 has been the period where PDD has grown them most.

I mean, it was already pretty big before then, but now, you know, it's now like the main competitor of all the Baba was like the previously unassailable, like online shopping giant. The company grew so much that it forced the other like shopping companies to get into the fruit market because it was like clobbering them there so badly. So yeah, it was wild. But then a bunch of absolutely terrible stories broke about PDD in both the Chinese and American press. So we're going to start with the stuff that's I guess less bad and then it's going to get

worse. So question number one, is the PDD at malware This is this is the mild shit. This is are we allowed to say this legally a real it Yeah, I it's well here's the thing so Google play remove the app from its play store. Oh, okay, so All right, so so okay, we need to be very specific about what we're talking about here. If it's too bad for Google, then it's probably too bad for us.

Yeah, so very specifically, the thing we're talking about right now is not Temu. We're talking specifically about the Chinese version of the app PDD. And this was released on the Google Play Store in like the mid-20, the mid-early, like I think it was like 2021 or something. And okay, so this again, and to be clear, again, this is not Temu. This is specifically

the Android version of PDD. And this is interesting too, because so most people in China, like, don't use Android. Oh, thank you. Or sorry, they don't, they don't, they don't use Google Play, right? Like they don't, that's not like the app store where they get their apps from. So when PDD released like their app on the app store, this is them specifically going to the Western market. And did they have infrastructure set up in the States to support this type of like dropshipping or like,

how did this work? Yeah, we'll get into it. It was like kind of structured a little bit like gig economy stuff in China, but how, how are they going to move that? The FedEx. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

All right. Well, we'll get into that more later. We'll talk about Temu. This first one didn't, like it didn't have that many users because it was just like the Chinese app, but like here. Okay. So, okay. There's something we also, we need to get out of the way first, which is that

there's like a massive panic in the US about Chinese apps being like Chinese government trojan horses and like, especially TikTok. So unfortunately, before we start this, we have to sort out kind of, well, like you have to make a judgment about what level of app surveillance is like the level of app surveillance is like the level of app surveillance you get in the US because all of your apps are spying on you. And then what is like above and beyond the like quote unquote normal level of spying. And like TikTok is, TikTok is unbelievably invasive, right?

Like it is true. It's a privacy nightmare. But like so are most apps like TikTok's worse than normal, but it's not. But TikTok is run by the Chinese communists. So this is something we're going to get into. And this is this is true with PDE too. The US actually gets like the stripped down, cucked, not as bad version of Chinese apps.

Like TikTok does not have a bunch of the like integration stuff that that doyen the Chinese like version of it has. We're like, doyen has this thing where like, I guess Google is kind of doing it now But like you can directly like like an influencer can hold up a product and you could tap the product and go buy it Google is trying to do that now. Yeah, but China had that like like Do you inside that for like ages right? It's like so like the the versions of the apps that we get here actually less bad than the Chinese ones

Which makes the whole panic so funny to me. It's like, no, no, no, like they're sending you like a better version of the app. Like it's... Well, that's because when Uncle Sam calls in our version, we have to take out all of the Maoist influences. I don't know, whatever. Whatever. So, alright, alright. Who cares?

Who cares? You know, look, like, so we have to sort out the difference between stuff that's just like the weird moral panic and what what's actually malware. So CNN did an investigation of this app. So originally, there was a Chinese company that a Chinese security company was looked at this app and was like, they're using a bunch of Android exploits. Like they're like they're using like they're they're They're effectively hacking your phone, right? They're deploying a bunch of exploits of things that are broken in Android and allowing you this

lesson, do stuff they're not supposed to be able to do. So CNN brought in a bunch of different security analysts and they brought in security companies, like look at it, and here's what they found. Well, I don't know if you would trust this to get it. They're literally called the Communist News Network. Goddamn it. Okay. The app was able to continue running in the background and prevent itself from being uninstalled,

which allowed it to boost its monthly active rate. I don't know how to pronounce this guy's name. I'm so sorry. This guy's name has an oom lot over the oh I'm an expert at pronouncing foreign names Give it to me. Let's get it's HYPP oom lot o any end. Good luck You know what I'm just gonna take a I'm gonna take a Pond and I I'm so sorry to this guy who I think is fine

This this guy's security analyst said it also had the ability to spy on competitors by tracking activity on other shopping apps and getting information from them. He added Toshin, which is like another guy, found PDD to have exploited about 50 Android system vulnerabilities. Most of these exploits were tailor made for customized parts known as original equipment manufacturer code, which tends to be audited less than ASOP, which is like another kind of code. And therefore prone to more vulnerabilities, he said. PDD had also exploited a number of AOSP vulnerabilities, including one that was flagged by Toshin to Google in February 2022. Google fixed this bug in March, she said. I've never seen anything like it.

It's like super expansive. Sergey Toshin, Android security expert, is the guy, the guy said that, sorry. I've never seen, and Android Tracen said, I've never seen anything like this. It's like super expansive. According to Toshin, the exploits allowed PDD to access user's location, contacts, calendars, notification, and photo albums

without their consent. They were also able to change system settings and access user social media accounts and chats, he said. Now, that is pretty bad. I will mention that a lot of your normal apps can also do shit like that. Yeah, that's stuff that you can get out of Google. But some of it is not good.

The other thing that they were doing is they're doing these things called privilege escalation attacks, where they're trying to get like a higher level of privilege on the system so they can run code and not supposed to be able to. So you know how like, sometimes when you're running something on a computer, you have to run it as admin. So the thing actually works. Yeah, like discord. Yeah, I actually Discord. I've been trying to stream Alan Wake 2 to my friends and oh my god it has been such a nightmare. I'm gonna personally write the CEO of Discord a letter. Yeah, but like so like there's like the way the system security works is there's certain

levels of users that are allowed to do certain things, certain people who aren't, and this is supposed to stop people from running malicious code. And so they're doing these privileged escalation attacks where they're trying to be able to like do stuff that only admins can do.

And so I showed this to, so I was trying to get a gauge on how much of this is real and how much of this is insane. And so I showed it to my friend who's a software engineer and he was like, what the fuck? So this is very specifically the privilege escalation attacks on the in the attack on the like the original equipment manufacturer code, like OEM stuff.

That's just not normal. Like that is that is actual malware. That is like not that is not normal at bullshit. Like this thing is trying to hack your phone. So in 2023, the Google pulled the app from the store because everyone was like, what the fuck? Wait, this is just literally malware. I'm going to.

I'm going to. So what were they trying to do? Here's CNN again. It was in 2020, according to a current PDD employee that the company set up a team of about 100 engineers and product managers to dig for vulnerabilities in Android phones, develop ways to exploit them, and turn that into profit.

According to the source, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, the company only targeted users in rural areas and smaller towns initially while avoiding users in megacities such as Beijing and Shanghai. The goal was to reduce the risk of being exposed, they said. By collecting expansive data on user activities, the company was able to create a comprehensive portrait of the user's habits, interests, and preferences, according to the source. This also allowed it to improve its machine learning model to offer more personalized push notifications

and ads, attracting users to open the app and place orders, they said. So this all makes perfect sense with like how we know that PDD operates, right? Like, you know, they're trying to build detailed profiles of real customers, like serve them more efficient ads, and they're doing it by apparently just straight up running an in-house hacking team. Like a pretty large one.

So they supposedly, that team got like axed and they don't do it anymore, but who knows? So, OK, this is not even close to the most batshit thing that PDD gets up to. OK, we're going to escalate up the how weird the stuff is. So one of the things that that PDD has a six toned ocean point is that they have these really strict non compete clauses that prevent people from from like, so if you take a job here and you get fired or like you leave, you can't take another job at a tech company for like two years. This is like fucking like any tech company, like fucking like, I don't know, they're really expansive. It's like fucking like setting up your grandma's website, like might get you

in trouble. It's like, it's a real disaster. We have these in the US too and they absolutely suck. So I think there was a ruling about them, an FTC ruling to ban them recently. Maybe, oh no, they're proposing, it hasn't gone through yet. The FTC is trying to get rid of them, but yeah, they're in the US too, but these ones are really strict.

And apparently, PDD is really aggressive about it. To the point where people will take other jobs under fake identities and like PDD's HR will like track them down. Oh, yeah Like they're like head-hunting these people why like like inverse headhunting like it They're like they're literally just hunting down people trying to try to get like jobs, right? And this apparently led people to adopt secret identities to like hide, right? And so this gets to something I did not believe the first time I read it, which is that apparently, and I originally read this in Nikkei, which is usually reliable, but I read this and I was like, no way. The thing that they said was that employees at work who work for PDD apparently use pseudonyms

and like never tell each other, almost never tell each other their actual names. That's I mean, that makes sense. And apparently also they're banned from like like information level information control is so strict that like you can't you're not allowed to know what like the structure of another work group is. And like I read this I was like, I don't believe this right. And then I started running into like other outlets like financial times was like yeah no no apparently they they talked to the type they talked to people who work for the company or like yeah everyone

uses pseudonyms I didn't fucking know anyone's real name or like there's like one person is real name that I know. Wild. I don't know why they're I've never seen I've literally never seen this before with any company it's it's nuts. I got nothing. Yeah, I do know who. No one at this company knows my real name, so. That's true. I do actually operate by a pseudonym.

Yeah, that is pretty funny. That is not like a sizable portion of the Cool Zone media team, but. No one's, all of us are fake names. Robert Evans, that's not Robert Evans. The real Robert Evans. It was the producer of that movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, do you know who also has trustworthy names that you can trust? These products. So true Jeff. Wow. That was a really funny joke, Bill. Oh, we're back. Sorry, I was just talking to the two fake fake name people who are listening in on our call right now. Me, I continue. So this is where we get to the truly bleak stuff. So all right, in twenty twenty one, one of PDD's employees in Xinjiang just. Worked, worked a shift, came home and just straight up fucking died in her bed from overwork.

This this was a, you know, this very quickly turns into a giant media thing because this woman, like, she's in really good health and she just fucking is worked so hard that she lays down and Ben dies. Then a worker who posted a video of an ambulance outside of PDD's headquarters with the caption, another brave warrior of PDD has fallen, which great caption, terrible situation, great caption, he gets fired for it. And then very quickly, like after that, so they have like a, the company has like a Q&A thing, like it's effectively what happens is someone responds to like one of their social media accounts with and asks them

What do you think of the PDT worker who died after working overtime should PDT bear responsibility? their corporate account responded and I quote Look at those in the underclass who isn't exchanging life for money I never thought I saw a problem of capital, but as a problem of this society for money. I never thought this is a problem of capital, but as a problem of this society, we live in an era where we spend our whole lives working hard. You can choose a comfortable life if you accept the consequences of comfortable living. People control how much effort they make. Everyone does.

I can't believe there's people who genuinely like advocate that China is a like communist country. So deranged. That's insane. That that's insane they're really talking like this god this is this is like this and this is like this is like so this is one of the things that like I just like I don't know like I just can't fucking get over this shit because like I have a bunch of fucking family in China and you know do they fucking quote Karl Marx no they quote Steve Jobs because they're all these like fucking insane

entrepreneur bullshit, like fucking literally like grind set like work until you die. No, that's like pick yourself up by your bootstraps. Yeah, it's insane. It's like, no, it's your fault that you work too hard. This is actually labor's fault and not capital. Like this fucking blew up in the Chinese media. I've people got like really, people got really fucking pissed.

And PDD at first was like, no, this is a fake post. We never did it. And then people were like, no, no, it's not. This is the way we found the post, right? They take, they take it down. People like had saved screenshots. And eventually the company was forced to admit that it was actually their account. But then they said that it was a social media contractor who put it on the corporate account quote by mistake.

Oh, sure, sure. Yeah. That's like me when I search my twin peaks, not safe for work fan art on the Coolshead media account. It was a mistake guys. Didn't mean to post it there. I don't know how that happened. It got post it there. I don't know how that happened. It got past the mods. I don't know how. Yeah. And, you know, people understandably are not happy.

And then 11 days later, a PDD employee jumps off a fucking building. Again, also because they've been worked so hard. And this is where we need to talk about PDD's labor conditions because they are fucking appalling. Here's sixth tone. A former PDD employee who left the company a year ago told Sixth Tone under conditions of anonymity that excessive work hours are common practice.

Around eight months after he joined PDD in early 2019, he said employees were told they need to work at least 300 hours per month, amounting to nearly 12 hours per day, six days a week. We're going to get more into that. That's a schedule called 996, where you work from 9am to 9pm, six days a week. This is incredibly common in China. This is actually a good schedule in a lot of Chinese work environments. It can get way worse than that. Here's another quote from that six-tone article. The company cares a lot about our work hours. It has become company culture even if staff has finished working. They'll just stay in the office. I was one of the lucky

ones. I only had to work from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. And my manager was nice to me. Jesus. This person added that employees arriving after 11 a.m. would have their daily wages docked by three hours. It's fucking insane. It's nightmarish. That same worker talked about how she would like,

and this is this is a thing That's like you see you see this a lot of different accounts is that people would just literally break down crying at their desk because they had So they were so overworked so are are these like office jobs? These are fucking tech Right these are the fucking bougie tech jobs They're not like dying because they're getting overworked in like a factory or like an Amazon warehouse They're fucking tech workers and this is the thing about this right is that like We only we don't like there hasn't been okay

So the Chinese media this actually like becomes a huge thing in the Chinese media is that these people are dying There was another there's also around the same time a delivery driver lit himself on fire Like as a protest for like the amount of shit that he had to deal with. And this was a big, like a huge thing in the Chinese media, but almost all of the reporting and the coverage and stuff like that was about the tech workers. But like, fucking so many people work schedules that are worse than 996, right?

Like that is a tech worker schedule, right? There are a lot of places where people were fucking way worse shit. The sort of countervailing force to it is people who, like, you know, we talked about this kind of in the lying flat episode, just people working for like one day and then eating just like plain rice with some like whatever fucking the cheapest thing they can find. They can fucking get out of it and not working for two more days and working

another day. But like it's it's so bad, like the labor conditions are just appalling. And, you know, like a bunch of stories sort of started coming out about how bad PDD's like conditions are. There was one on WeChat that broke that I saw via 6-tone about the toilet situation in PDD's largest office building. So this building has 1,000 people per floor. It has eight total bathrooms per floor. 1,000 people. They don't even have one bathroom for every 100 people. How does this even function? I mean, like, I suppose it just doesn't. People are like, p-

No, no, people fucking, like, you don't eat in the morning. Or you try to hold out to lunch when you can run to a different building and try to use the bathrooms there. But like, you know, you try to hold it all day or you just, yeah, where you fucking do that, you go, you go, you're trying to hold it all day or you just, yeah, or you fucking do that. You go, you go, you use your lunch time instead of eating to fucking go somewhere else.

You starve yourself. There are like, there's a bunch of reports of guys just like shitting in urinals because there just literally wasn't time for them to fucking actually like use a stall. So they're just like, they're just like, they're pooping in urinals.

Maybe the worst picture I've ever seen in my entire life is this is going to be the episode are PDD started installing timers over the toilets to show how long how long people had been there. So there's just like a like a fucking clock over you that starts when you when you fucking close the door to try to get people to go to the bathroom faster. It is just appalling the conditions.

And again, these are the conditions of the office workers. It's apocalyptically bad. So I realized when I was researching this story that I actually ran into PDD earlier. So before I did this story, I hadn't looked into Temu at all. And I realized that I had ran into PDD earlier when I was tracking the story about

tech workers banding together to like, basically like on GitHub, these office workers, like tech workers, like made a giant spreadsheet where everyone would document their hours and like their pay scales and stuff. And it was like, you know, it was this sort of like, you know, it was, it was this thing like demand better labor conditions. I'm pretty sure they were actually demanding like, like workplace democracy

too, it was pretty wild. But the thing that you get out of that is that PDD has the worst, the worst hours of any tech company. They are PDD is so bad that other Chinese tech companies got worse in order to compete with them. Yeah, I mean, that is the hard thing about setting the bar so low is that it allows other people to lower their own bars.

Yeah, yeah. And it makes just everybody worse. Yeah, and again, like I can't emphasize enough the extent to which these are the office workers, right? These are the people who are making the best money out of this who are treated better than the fucking factory workers and the fucking people in the rural areas, like fucking doing farming, right? But again, we don't know a huge amount about what those workers lives are like because they're not urban tech workers and urban tech

Workers can get their stories into the press but like you know migrant migrant factory workers rural workers there's you know there's just not the kind of attention that you can get out of a big story about like an urban office building and You know I mean these labor conditions are so bad that people are just straight up fucking dying. And the Chinese government eventually gets involved. Like their version of the Supreme Court eventually rules that like working people 12 hours a day, six days a week is illegal, but it doesn't really matter. Like a lot of those people still have those same schedules. Yeah. And you know, and like this is not a problem that can be solved just by like court rulings,

right? So, yeah, it's really fucking bad. We're gonna take an ad break. I don't have a good transition out of that shit. And we're back. So all of this brings us to Temu and its slogan shop like a billionaire. So. Oh, god. This the slogan. It's so. It like it evokes like a like a nauseous reaction in me.

Yeah. It's so, it epitomizes everything that is wrong about our current way of living. And the way we idealize the rich and put them on this like pedestal for how you should live your life. But also knowing that you will never actually be there. Yeah.

This is as close as you're going to get. And it's also a thing where like it's it's a completely unreal. Like it's if this isn't now fucking billionaire shop, like billionaires. No, it's not like you think those people fucking shop like no, really don't. They have fucking over over like saving three dollars on a no on like a mango. You're like, no.'re like no yeah like what are you talking about yeah so yeah like I hate it I hate it so fucking much um you know so as we said like this is the time is the American version of PDD if

you're in the US you've probably seen 10 was apparently they're not that many of them in like other countries like I have British friends who just like what the fuck are you talking about me and I've never heard of Temu before the Super Bowl for whatever it's worth The big place where they were advertising was YouTube, but if you're watching YouTube without an app blocker don't I can I don't know if I can legally recommend new pie. Probably not on your phone. I can get it. It's an app I don't do it. I don't know if It may be legal. It may not be I can't say I will never advocate breaking the law No, definitely by youtube. Yeah. Yeah. That's definitely the way to go. Absolutely. But you know, so like they okay

Like most famously. Yeah, you know, as you're saying like so they they spent 27 million dollars buying three Super Bowl ads It's all the same ad and it sucked but million dollars buying three Super Bowl ads. It's all the same ad and it sucked. But, you know, okay, this is only a fraction of their fucking budget, right? Here's from the Wall Street Journal, quote, Tenmoos marketing budget reached $1.7 billion in 2023 and that figure will grow to nearly $3 billion in 2024, JP Morgan's analysts estimate. year 10 moves marketing spending contributed to an average loss of $7 per quarter According to Goldman Sachs estimates They are buying so many ads they are literally driving other companies out of the ad market Like ecco has been talking about how they can't afford to run ads because ads are getting too expensive because they're buying so many fucking ads

Here's Reuters quote US companies dependent on commercial spending or spending on commercials, not commercial spending. They are buying commercials. Yes. Yeah. Like Facebook, they say Metta. I refuse to fucking call that company Metta like fuck that shit. Their Facebook are being saved by Chinese retailers like Temu and Xi'an. They represent 10 per... Those two companies, just Temu and Xi'en, represent 10% of Meta's revenue last year, the Facebook owner said. So Temu is hemorrhaging money right now in order to do this, right? JPMorgan thinks they're losing $3 billion a year, but they also project...

Well, and to be fair, these projections, these projections are wrong so much of the time, but they're projecting that Tenon will be making $3.5 billion a year in 2027. And all of this raises the question, why? And to answer that, we need to get into Chinese development economics. So the Chinese economy has a problem. And this is a problem that the CCP has known about for a long time. It's the problem of turning a sort of like a low on the value chain like manufacturing economy into a consumption driven economy. Now, the problem with transitioning into a consumption driven economy is that people don't have enough money to boost consumer demand. The Marxist way of saying this is that undercapitalism,

both output and consumption are double determined by your wage, right? Your wage determines both firm output and also how much you can consume, right? In non-Marxist terms, oh no, no one has enough money to buy things and you consume our economy, my brother in Christ, you set the wages! things and you could see were economy by brother in Christ you set the wages okay where the fuck yes where the fuck are these people supposed to be getting money from to buy your shit if you won't give them more money like wait wait wait so you know you can't do this by just making them like work more hours you know you can work people for like 12 15 like 20 hours a day, but there's only 24 hours a day like there's an actual definite There's an actual definite limit to the amount of exploitation you can do via increasing labor hours

This is this has always been capitalism's problem, right? Like the the sort of capacity of capitalism has hit the secular limit of time itself So the solution to this is to expand into new markets where consumers have more money, which is to say the US. So PDD initially targeted like poor rural Chinese workers, right? And this is kind of the same group that Temu is targeting in the now in the US. Their initial base is people who like buy from dollar stores, but they've been spreading rapidly.

Temu has outpaced Xi'an to become the second largest shopping app in the US. And but the important thing really? Yeah. Yeah. The second behind Amazon. Yeah, they're like, they're destroying Xi'en. Like, yeah. I did not know they were that popular.

Yeah. I mean, like estimates are like, well, I've seen estimates to say they have 100 million years. I don't buy that. I've seen that the estimates that I think I'm reliable are like 54 million years is in the US. Although, well, the thing is we don't have post I've seen that the estimates that I think I'm reliable or like 54 million years is in the US although Well, the thing is we don't we don't have post super bowl numbers between 15 one minute. Well, I think I think I like 50 I wouldn't I wouldn't accept the hundred million ones. I think that's bullshit

We don't have good post super bowl data yet. Sure the issue, but yeah, they're they're they're clobbering people and but the the the the important thing about specifically the American market for Temu is that like the kind, the equivalent person who shops at a dollar store in the US still has unfathomably more money than that same person in China. Because partially this is because of strength of the American dollar,

partially this is because American wages are just like unfathomably higher than Chinese wages. And that's true even when you account for the relative strength of the dollar to the Yon. So, you know, the other kind of important thing about time of your strategy is that they've been using this kind of like loophole that was set up in US customs law to allow people to like bring presents home from countries. So like if you go to another country and you bring a present home and it's worth less than $200 you go through like an expedited customs

thing and you don't have to pay tariffs on it. Yeah. So I, so Temu and like a whole bunch of these companies just ship every single one of their packages in quantities where it's like $799 and not $800. Is that legal? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's really funny. It set off this like massive intra-capitalist war because like a bunch of like, like American right wingers, like American manufacturers, like the Republican party, like we need to close this gap.

But then all of the fucking shipping companies are like, no, this is a vital part of the American consumer economy. And there's this like giant war going on, like both in Congress and like in the press over whether they should close this loophole. Now, you know, on the other hand, like there are real challenges to Temu being the first like company to break into the

they're like Chinese companies like really truly break into the American market like Sheen has done Well, but they haven't like they have they have they're not like a rival to Amazon, right? Like they're not big enough to like knock off one of the sort of like American tech giants and Temu's problem Is that okay, so if you compare Temu to PDD, right, the Chinese version, PDD is supposed to be about spreading through word of mouth, right? It spreads by like someone in your, you know, you as someone buying something from PDD, taps your entire friend group and your family to get them to buy something for cheaper, right? But the problem is that like-

The fucking night, I forgot how I've made this whole structure is so bad. But the thing is, like Americans don't really do that. Like there have been attempts to do like group on things. They never worked. And Americans also don't group shop, right? Because we're I don't know, more weird. We're just I don't fucking know. We are not a thing. We're full of a lot more like individualistic impulse buyers.

Yeah. That is kind of a large part of what the American shopping class is built off of. And this is an issue for Temu because they don't have the word of mouth thing that drove them in China. So they're relying on just top down like massive ad buys and stuff. And there's kind of a limit. And it's something that Taimu understands, right? Like this is, you know, the whole,

there's a whole thing in the Chinese tech industry about the power of being able to leverage people's like private networks, right? Taimu understands, but they don't have a way to break into the American market because it just doesn't work like the Chinese market. So instead they're like buying three Super Bullads, right? Now there's another issue which is that the goods that they sell suck ass and they break

instantly. I, you know, that's an issue, but I don't know, it's the US, lots of things suck and break instantly. But like it is something that's been driving sort of negative sentiment from people who've used it as they like they buy something and it's just like sucks and they're you know they're unhappy about it. What the thing I think is maybe the biggest problem is that their delivery times are really long by American standards. Because they're shipping overseas Temu had to build an actual logistics infrastructure where PDD like didn't right because PDD is just using. Like Chinese versions of FedEx or whatever right.

Right because PDD is just using like Chinese versions of FedEx or whatever, right? And Temu is kind of doing that, but in you know, in order to make it convenient for Chinese sellers, the way that they the way that they sort of like set this up is they have a warehouse in Guangdong and every seller like ships it to this warehouse and then Temu deals with getting it shipped overseas. The problem is that this is really slow, right? It takes like two weeks for things to show up. And that's not that slow by like normal standards, but this is the US. Everyone's used to Amazon.

But by current American standards, that is like a tortoise. Nightmarishly slow, because America, we have gotten used to a level, I say, I gratification. Yeah, like this is a level of power that was previously reserved for like Chinese emperors. And we'd fucking use it every day to order fucking nail clippers from Amazon, right? Or in my case, a whole bunch of materials to build a black lodge, which I will then return as soon as my party is over.

Incredible. You know, and this is this is a this is also something that's kind of new for Temu because PDD was built on being able to on doing sales or a fast enough they could sell fruit to people. Right. Do you know how hard it is to sell fucking fresh fruit to people? That's like legitimately really difficult. Well, yeah, you can't you can't ship. You can't have a two week ship for mangoes. Well, you can, but it is, wow.

I mean, it depends. You have to do a bunch of bull, you have to have an actual logistics infrastructure set up for it, right? You can't just ship it in like an Amazon box. They have to be like specifically ripening along the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Temu's also up to do that, right?

And this is an issue with all of their stuff because they're trying to do direct to consumer sales. But the thing is in China, it's really fast. And here it's slow. And the upside for Taimu is that their stuff is really cheap, right? It's unbelievably cheap. And, you know, obviously they're losing money on the sales and most of the money they're losing on the sales is from their ad spending, not from the actual sales. And this is where you get into, again, the really bleak part about this, where, okay, so why are these prices so low?

And part of it's tech money subsidy, but a lot of it is just labor, just pure, pure unrivaled labor exploitation. You know, with the Chinese workers movement, like as like a sort of like collective mass movement just completely broken by Tiananmen and then again, dream that like the crack down through the 2010s that wiped out whatever sort of like

classical workers movement style thing was may have popped up from the strikes in 2011, like there's no mass countervailing force in Chinese politics to try to raise wages. Independent union organizing is illegal, you will get arrested. The actual unions that exist, like the All-China Union Federation, doesn't do shit. We don't really have that kind of fake union thing here. It's like a different, but like they're, I don't know. This is maybe not the time for me to try to explain China's union system.

Like the unions are fucking bullshit. They don't do anything. Like if you go to them and be like, my wages are too low, they'll try to get you to like negotiate with the company directly, right? Like as an individual and like, they're nonsense. They're completely useless. And you know, the result of this and the result of just like the incredible poverty of the Chinese working class

And the fact that you know a lot of Chinese migrant workers who are the people who are actually making these goods So a lot of it some of it's real workers some of it's migrant workers but a lot of these people's wages are lower than they otherwise would be because they're drawing revenue off of like They're off of off of like the plots of land that their family has, like back in the countryside when they like migrate to another city to find a job. So like all of these factors are just institutionally like smashing the price of like smashing like wages.

And there's no fucking, there's nothing really there to resist them. And act like, you know, it's not like the Chinese working class like completely takes it lying down, right? But it's like their resistance strategies are trying to work as little as possible. But that doesn't, that's, you know, and that's something that can be very effective in the sense of like you're working a lot less, but it's not something that drives up like wages. And so when you're looking at Temu and you're seeing a pair of jeans for $2,

like what you are seeing is the raw exploitation of the Chinese working class. And this is also true of like the rest of the fucking shit you buy from China, right? Like almost all of the price of like a shirt that you're buying. I mean, the Chinese textile manufacturing is kind of like, not what it used to be, right? But like, you know, but like you're buying like

fucking some bullshit from China. Like if you're buying from like another drop shipping company, right? Like the thing you're actually paying for, you're paying the drop shipping company. You're not fucking paying the workers. They're not, they're fucking not making shit. All, like all of the stuff that's like, I mean, it's not like 100%, but like a huge portion of the fact that the prices

higher on non Temu sites is just like, it's just markups. Because this is, this is just what the Chinese economy is. It's just sort of like,'s unbelievable exploitation. And this brings us to the thing we're going to end today on, which is does Temu use slave labor? Oh, okay. And the answer is probably, but it's hard to tell. So this has been a big thing because Tenor is one of the companies that the State Department brought up when they were doing their investigations into like, like Xi'en was the other one into like, are these companies using Xinjiang slave labor? And, you know, this is labor from people put in,

in the fucking camps. I think the answer is probably because, I mean, so the thing is the State Department doesn't have any actual evidence, right? Like they're all, and they're doing this incredibly. What we'll get into this in a second, but like, you know, obviously they're doing this because this is like, this is an intra like capitalist feud thing, right?

The State Department's talking about this because they're pissed at China. Yeah, this is like a nationalistic project for the United States. Yeah, but comma, it's also probably true because these, like, and this is like a nationalistic project for the United States. Yeah, but comma, it's also probably true because these like, and this is like the thing specifically with with PDD that we've been talking about is that they don't, in Temu's like, they don't vet the sellers of stuff, right? Like we talked about last episode that like people were selling sleeping pills as date

rate drugs, right? They don't fucking vet it at all. So yeah, probably like quite possibly, yeah, the stuff that they're selling from Xingzhan and they have a pretty large presence there, like was using sort of like prison slave labor from the camps there. However, comma, we can't talk about prison slave labor

without talking about the fact that fucking every goddamn US firm also uses prison slave labor. Everyone from fucking McDonald's to Starbucks to Walgreens, JCPenney, like fucking every every company, every American company you can fucking think of uses slave labor or their slave labor in their in their supply chain. And they're using slave labor because in the US under the 13th Amendment, slavery is legal as long as the person,

as long as the person being enslaved is incarcerated. So, you know, like it doesn't fucking matter like this is this is this is the problem it doesn't matter whether you buy from the US or China, right? Like you're you're getting fucking slave labor. So if you if you want to not do that you're your your only option if you do not want to if you do not want everything you consume, like the food that you eat, if you don't want everything that you use in your daily life to be the product of unfathomable human exploitation, your only option is to destroy the monstrous economic system that reduces humans to commodities and tear up the fucking roots of every single one of these companies

from San Francisco to Shanghai and burn it to the ground. That's that that those are your options. Like it's not your individual consumer choice. Not going to make it any better. That that's what I got. I. OK. All right. Well. God, like. Wasn't the Super Bowl great this year? Yeah. What a game. what a game.

Almost double overtime, that was crazy. I don't know, that was the worst chief's team of all time and nobody could fucking beat them. We're so doomed. Patrick Rehobes is going to win like a fucking 12-peat. It's so over for every other sports team. Better things aren't possible unless you make them possible. It's so over for every other sports team. Better things aren't possible unless you make them possible. Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, Ramos host of the Life as a Gringo podcast. Now this is a show for the no sabo kids, the 200%ers. Here we celebrate your otherness and embrace living in the gray area.

If you ever felt like you were always too much this while also never being enough that, this is the podcast for you. Every Tuesday I'll be bringing you conversations around personal growth, issues affecting the Latin community, and much more via my own personal stories along with interviews with inspiring thought leaders from our community.

Then every Thursday I'll be tackling trending stories and current events from our community that you need to know. So much of what makes our community so beautiful is our diversity yet. Too often those of us who don't fit into this dumb stereotypical box of whatever it means to be Latino are left without a voice or just forgotten about. On this show I celebrate the uniqueness of our culture and invite you to walk in your authenticity. Listen to Life as a Gringo as a part of the Microtura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or whatever you get your podcasts.

This second season of A Flow is here available radio app, app or podcast or whatever you get your podcasts. This second season of El Fló is here, available con Watite Uste in both English and Spanish. This season we dive deeper into the vibrant world of Reggaeton, featuring interviews with both Reggaeton legends and exciting new talents. He's the undisputed king of Pregatón, no doubt. And he's been cited as an inspiration by multiple Latin stars, including J Balvin, Bad Bunny, Osuna, Ati Matasha.

Explore the evolution of this dynamic genre and what makes it resonate globally. How you consume Pregatón, how you share and distribute Pregatón, those are all an important part of the story. It's the way that the people are experiencing Pregatón along with the musicians. Listen to El Flow as part of the Mike Wiltura podcast network, available on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm John Ho Bryant, host of Money and Wealth on the Black Effect Podcast Network. I'm an entrepreneur and a businessman, somewhat called a thought leader. Now, every Thursday, my newest venture is educating you on how to win financially. Even better, I'm going to teach it in a way that,

well, you can understand. No unexplained theories, no mundane lessons, no using 20 words when two will do. I'm going to meet you where you are and take you where you need to be. I'm giving you straight talk, relatable stories, and life lessons through my own experiences and the lens of others. We're not just talking about why financial freedom is important. We're focusing on how you can achieve it too. We all might have different starting points and end goals,

but as long as we have the desire to acquire financial freedom, it can be done from the streets to the suites. Listen to Money and Wealth with John Hope Bryant every Thursday on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hello and welcome to It Could Happen Here.

Today's episode is one that I've wanted to tackle for a while, and there are many different avenues to go about it. I think today is a little bit more focused, and I want to talk about food, Palestinian food, to be exact, and the way that it can be used as resistance as part of a culture that is being eradicated, essentially. The appropriation of Palestinian surface culture by Israel has been happening ever since Israel's inception. Surface culture encompasses tangible and observable elements that contribute to the distinctive identity of a cultural group or region. Music, food, dress, and other aspects often define a nation's surface culture. Authentic culture evolves organically over generations, at least it's supposed to. But Israel has a sort of top-down approach to culture that lacks genuine identifying characteristics.

Throughout its history, Israel has either fabricated, annexed, or reconstructed both surface and deep cultural elements through what writer Jamal Khanj describes as, quote, falsehoods, myths, and fables. Unlike the conventional, slow, and organic development of culture, Israeli surface culture came prepackaged by appropriating those very elements from the age-old, traditional Palestinian culture. A prominent aspect of any society's culture is its local cuisine. In 1948, Israel ethnically cleansed Palestine of all non-Jewish Palestinians, took over their land, and brazenly claimed Palestinian culinary treasures like hummus falafel baberenoush,

tabouleh salad, koskos frike, gibbe, mjadda rapidebred, and many more. They claimed them all as Israeli. All it took was to identify a Palestinian dish and then add the noun Israeli before its name. Going through the complete list of plagiarized Palestinian cuisine would take me way, way too long, especially because I feel like Western familiarity with Palestinian cuisine remains somewhat limited. but I do want to explain one example that clearly shows just how foreign appropriate

Palestinian food is to Israel. Hamos. The Arabic word Hamos does not exist in the spoken Israeli language, Hebrew. Pronouncing the word correctly is actually a bit challenging for most Hebrew speakers because there is no hard ha in the Hebrew alphabet. And in general, when Hebrew speakers attempt to enunciate hummus or any Arabic word with the hard ha, they mispronounce it as khah. In this case, hummus, not hummus.

And you might have heard this a lot recently when it comes to khamas. The full name of the dish hummus becomes even more challenging when adding its second part, tahini. The H in tahini is also a hard Ha, so an Israeli would distort the Palestinian dish Hamos Bittahini to Hamos Bittakini. This is an insult to the Arabic language, culinary etiquette, and to Arab chefs in the Levant kitchen around the world. To paraphrase Palestinian-American comedian Mo Amr, hummus does not exist in your lexicon. You can't pronounce it.

How can it be your national food? Even more amusing is when an Israeli writer posited that hummus and eggplant, Babur-Nush, were quote, Israeli foods, because that's how the Spanish Inquisition identified secret Jews from the food they ate. A similar hypothesis to this is the argument that foods like hummus, falafel, frike, etc. were brought by Jews who came from the Arab world. Of course, the diverse citizenry of the Arab world,

or the muslims-Arab Spain, it must have had hummus and eggplant in their cultural diet. Jewish citizens cooked and ate the food because they lived in the culture that produced the food, not because they created the food for that culture. Arab Jews also exist, but that would still make all of this food Arabic food. Reiter Jermal Khange writes, Since Israelis contend that Jews have the right to claim foods brought with them as Israeli food, why don't they claim Russian dishes as Israeli food? Better yet, why don't Israelis from New York claim American steak as an Israeli food too?

I know it's kind of said in jest, but he does raise a serious question. Why does Israel appropriate Palestinian and Arab food, but not food brought in from Russia, Europe, Poland, or America? It is simply because Palestinian food provides the Israeli top-down culture with a distinctive surface cultural identity. It also features atypical exotic culinary dishes to Western kitchens, and this makes it a lot easier to hoodwink the West regarding the origin

of their made-up surface culture. The gall of claiming Palestinian culinary treasures is not only historically inaccurate, but also offensive and disrespectful. It is quite common for countries to adopt elements of other cultures, including their cuisine. For example, American cuisine celebrates a rich tapestry of international dishes, like Asian, Italian, and Mexican food. However, the foods remained appreciated for their origin,

with no real urgency to appropriate them as America's national food. Kanj suggests that unlike Israel, it could be that the United States does not have the same obsessive need to fake a culture to justify its existence. In contrast, the Zionist movement envisioned Israel's survival as being predicated on erasing the history of the rich heritage of Palestine's culture and its people. And all of this is extremely relevant to what is happening right now, as Israel continues its genocide of Palestinians. Because genocide and ethnic cleansing isn't just about lives lost. It's not just about physical death, but the death of the very idea of a people, erasing even the memory of a people, and their culture, cuisine, and heritage along with it.

It's pretending Palestinians and their culture were never there to begin with. And this has been a narrative that Zionists have said since Israel's inception, a land without people for a people without land. But this appropriation of food in both the physical and cultural ethnic cleansing of Palestine, this didn't start on October 7th. The slow ethnic cleansing of Palestine has been going on for over 76 years, and the stealing and claiming of Palestinian food as Israeli is intrinsically a part of that. It brings me to the topic of today's episode. Today my guests are Reem Asil and Jabril Yunus. Reem is a multiple award-winning Palestinian Syrian speaker and chef based in Oakland, California, working at the intersection of food,

community, and social justice. Jabril is a Palestinian filmmaker and artist who has worked with Reem on multiple projects, including a show that we touch on in this episode. With food as a tool, we talk about utilizing Arab hospitality to build a strong, resilient community as well as celebrate Palestinian joy. Here it is. Hello everybody, this is Cherine. Welcome to It Could Happen Here. Today we're talking to two people I love and respect very much about a topic that I think

is really under reported on and that's food erasure and how it's part of ethnic cleansing. And I think it's a really important topic to talk about right now, especially with the genocide happening in Palestine. So let's just jump right in. Without further ado, welcome my guests, Reeve and Jabriel. Hello. Hello, hello. Hey.

Just so our audience can get to know you guys a little bit better. How about you all introduce yourselves and like what you do and yeah. Yeah, Reem, you want to go first? Sure. My name is Reem. I am a Bay Area based Palestinian Syrian chef. I own a restaurant called Reems, California, and our mission really is to a restaurant called Reims, California. And our mission really is to build community across cultures and experiences through the warmth of Arab bread and hospitality. Beautiful.

Wow, that was so succinct. My name is, thank you for saying that. I'm so well, right? I've done it a few times, you know. Yeah. My name is Jabral Yunus. I'm a filmmaker based in Pasadena and I am also a Palestinian artist in general. Yeah, no relation. Both of our last names are Eunis, but that is how we met. A white person said, you guys have the same last name, you should meet and we met and now we're friends. But I really like the partnership that you guys have and the collaboration that you guys,

from my perspective, have established. Can you guys talk about what you've been working on recently together? Yeah, yeah. So we've been working on for the past, since like 2021 or late 2020, we've been working on a documentary series that is named after Reem's cookbook, which is, you should

pick it up. It's one of my favorite cookbooks that I own. It's called Arabiya. And it is a documenting series exploring the food ways and diaspora of Arab people across Southwest Asia, North Africa. And I think the general log line and Reem can dive into a bit more of the general log line is you can tell this, like through telling the story of the food, you can tell the story of our people in Diaspora and it underscores a lot of I think what we'll talk about today, which is sort of

food identity, identity through food and resilience and through food. But also I think one thing that's always been really important to both of us is how much we see the show as like a celebration of our culture. I feel like there are so many trauma stories from not only Palestinians, but Arabs in general. And I think something that was really important to us is, I guess, let's talk about all of it. We're extremely, I think, we're extremely politicized as a people, but also very passionate. But also let's celebrate all the things we love about ourselves and love about our culture and the tastes and smells and sounds and sights. So, Rheem, I feel like that's sort of the setup,

but how would you describe it? Yeah, I think that's exactly it. And our hope is that the being able to break down the barriers or have a lens into our world for the public is kind of a gateway to understand the context and the politics behind why things are the way they are and to really fight the dehumanization that Arabs have experienced, particularly in the West. And so, you know, while this is a show about food, it's also, it's very much a show about people

and how interconnected we are. So yeah, we're really excited to be able to break down some of those barriers of understanding in a way that could actually lead to people, you know, fighting anti-Arab sentiment in this country, fighting Islamophobia, all of these things when they have that kind of lens or that view into our world.

Yeah, and I mean, it's been pretty interesting. Can I keep vamping a little bit? It's been pretty interesting. I mean, I think the sort of like thought that started the show really was why it's so easy. And I think we'll talk about this later too in depth, but like why is it so easy to find so many different cultures food?

You know, like you have, I going to use Asian food as an example because I live in the San Gabriel Valley, so it's all around me. But you have Korean food, and Japanese food, and so many different types of Chinese food that are all specifically called what they are and where they're from. They're all identified correctly, and that can extend to the Latinx world and their food. It can extend to European food. It's all very, you know, like people call it what it is. And then you sort of get to, you get to, you know, Southwest Asia and North Africa, and suddenly the food stops being called, you know, what it is and starts being called Mediterranean or starts being called Middle Eastern.

And I think that the idea was like, I had gone to Anaheim where there's a neighborhood called Little Arabia here and there was a Palestinian restaurant. I was like so excited about it. It was called the Olive Tree, it's closed now. But I was like so, about it. It was called the Olive Tree. It's closed now. But I was like so, so excited. And I got, I always get so, so excited when I find a Palestinian restaurant or Yemeni restaurant. And, you know, I mean, many of them. But I think

the reason I get so excited is because it's so hard to find those places. And I think there's a reason why. And so, you know, three and a half years later, the show has sort of grown from that initial thought and interest and become very, very different. And it's, you know, effort to humanize Arabs, which is something I think is, you know, it's unfortunate that we still have to do that, but I think we kind of do, especially right now.

But yeah, we've been pitching for like, you know, we worked on that we still have to do that, but I think we kind of do, especially right now. But yeah, we've been pitching for like, you know, we worked on it together for a while and then have just been pitching and going through pitches and talking to different companies and getting a lot of great feedback and getting some really weird feedback for the past like few years. And we can talk about that more if you want, but.

Well, I'd like to talk about some of the more interesting feedback, I guess, but I would also want to ask you, Reem, how did you get involved in food? Like, where did that passion start? Yeah, I would say food has always been in the backdrop for better or for worse of my life experiences, particularly when everything falls apart for me. I grew up kind of as a whatever the term I've heard is like the third culture kid, right? Where the Arab identity was really strong in our household and that was particularly through food but then also

in a stranger in a strange land outside of the home where it was predominantly your typical americana suburban culture and so I was kind of like even though food was there I the intertwining with identity made me like run away from it a lot because it reminds you of your otherness. And also just the nuances of seeing my mom, being a working mom and struggling in the kitchen. So I was like, I'm never going to, I'm going to be a feminist and I'm never going to touch her.

That was like, and then every time, like, you know, and then I did like the, what the immigrant child does, like overachiever, like go to college, try to be the president and then realize, that's not what I want to do. But I spent many years in the nonprofit world that was doing organizing work. And while that work was really rewarding to some extent,

it was really draining and not fulfilling in a deeper spiritual level. And so every time I would burn out the food and particularly the food of my culture would come back in some shape or form. So I just had this kind of moment in 2010 where I was in another bout of burnout and depression and really questioning everything. And it was a trip that I took

to the Arab world with my father and seeing particularly bread in these street corner bakeries be the anchor for this community that I had, you know, I as a kid of diaspora like really longing to feel connected to. And it was through the food that I like felt connected once again. So my mom did something right.

I'll give her the credit for that. But I was like, I need to explore this more. I need to understand what is this. And so then I food became a source of healing for me to like come back to my identity and come back to my culture. But then also just the power of food as a community builder that transcends all cultures. Like I really loved that as a community organizer who had been working with other communities

who struggled just like my own, right? So that's kind of how I got into food by way of my love for wanting to belong and my love for connection of community and then slowly became obsessed with food itself. I mean, who doesn't love food? But it is a place of both trauma and healing for me. So it became kind of a way to transcend that. No, I think it's a great thing to bring up

how it's a trauma and very healing as well. To kind of talk about like the feedback, I know you've had a restaurant in the Bay Area for a while. Was it similar when you tried to make the show come together? Like, did you have similar barriers and feedback? Like, were you like familiar with some of the things that people were saying or was it completely like a new game? Yeah.

So the context that I started my restaurant in, I want to say is probably much different than even what it is now today, although certainly there is backlash. But I would say I was one of the first few chefs who were saying, nope, I want my food to be called Arab. And I really wanted to counter these kind of watered down labels of Middle Eastern or Mediterranean or, you know, Levantine. To me, those were all colonial terms.

And it was like a bad word to say Arab. And I wanted to reclaim that identity. I was like, if I'm going to come out, I want to come out as my whole self and not this person, the scared person that was stifled all my life. And I understand why the immigrants before me came, you know, did it that way because they needed to make a living. And, you know, there was a lot of anti-Arab sentiment, especially in the wake of 9-11, that kind of climate here. And so I had this like lovely idea that I'm like this generation where I can like break it down and make it cool.

I'm like, I'm going to mainstream it, you know, and I got pushback actually from my own family because they had those fears. They were like, just, you know, start like don't even start with like a zahdat about it was shared. Nobody's going to now it's like the hot thing. But so that was the context in which I was opening my business. It's like the hot thing. But so that was the context in which I was opening my business. And nobody had done it really before, so I could kind of create my own rules. And people were like, what is this?

And I still got like a lot of like, oh, is this, you know, Mediterranean? People, it took a while to train people to say Arab. And then put the layer of Palestinian identity, my Palestinian identity at the time that I was opening my restaurant was really important. I had started my pop-ups in the wake of Israel's second to worst, now we're seeing the worst of it, incursion

on Reset in 2014 in which they killed over 3,000 Palestinians in one winter. And we were devastated by that. We were devastated about the state of organizing with Palestinians. And I really wanted to, as I opened my restaurant, not be scared to talk about my whole self. So everything about Rims, even though we're not like pushing our politics in your face, the very act of being Palestinian was seen as political,

just existing. And we had a mural of a Palestinian activist who was based in Chicago named Esmeralda, who was deported by the government as it made an example of to say, if you're Palestinian and you're outspoken about Palestine, this is what will happen to you. And I put her on the wall to remind my community

and to remind myself that we don't need to be scared. And I got a lot of backlash for that. But I think even in that time, despite the backlash, the amount of community support, amount of opportunity for people to learn was that much greater. And so I ended up getting a lot more positive attention for my bakery overall as a result of that. How many James Beard moms do you have? Just a few. It makes me happy. Every time I wake up with a nomination, I'm like, I wonder what the Zionists be thinking.

Just a few James Beard novels. Just like gives me a little bit of like hope. Yeah. That like our success is kind of like what is threatening, you know, because we are truth. We are in the business of truth telling and we do it in a way that's very human, you know, based

in our humanity and our dignity. And our restaurant was really, I think, powerful in that way, that a simple art piece or the simple act of making food and calling it Palestinian was that threatening to the powers that be. You know, like that's such an interesting backdrop also to talk about the feedback we got from the show because like, I think Ream's experience was so, was so visceral in that way. I mean, what she described as well. And I think you can look it up and there have been articles on VICE and stuff about it where people can read about her experience and everything that happened.

And you know, I think maybe we undersold your intro a little bit, Reem, like you're a badass and, you know, the James Beard gnomes and a lot of great and awesome press and, but I think what's interesting about the show is with Reems, with Reems at the restaurant, you know, it's very specifically Palestinian and Arab food. And the show, while it's being made by us who are Palestinian people, it's not only about Palestine.

And that's been something we've sort of had to overcome. Like, the show is about Arabs and it's about our foods and foodways. And as much as the food, you know, the show, as much as the show focuses on, on Palestine, it also focuses on Egypt and Yemen and where, you know, I mean the Yemeni coffee tradition is like where Arab coffee kind of came from and started from. And it also focused on Lebanon and Morocco and Algeria.

It's been an interesting, yeah, go ahead, Reem. Yeah, just to that point, like it's not about, I mean, first of all, these states are border. Right. They're colonized states in some shape or form. And the idea is to fight the tropes of the Arab as one thing, right? Like it's showing the breadth and depth of our culture

that like we're not, it's not a monolith, we're not homogenous. And even the ethos of Rims kind of is very similar to that idea that, yes, we are Palestinian, but we're also Syrian, we're also Oakland, we're also California. Like those things don't need to compete with one another. I hate, you know, like, you know, my identity kind of coming on the

scene. Yes, I'm Arab. And yes, I'm Palestinian. But those are political identities. The reason we call our food Palestinian is to draw attention to the ethnic cleansing and erasure of our people. That's why we call it Palestinian, but it's not, there's certain foods that are not in here. I mean, they're enjoyed all over the Arab world and they look different, but you can't, like the claiming of ownership of food is, yeah, so we try to, I think this show is really trying to fight against that trope of the, it's called adabiyah, which is kind of like a tongue in cheek.

Like, what do you think of with the Arab woman? And it's like, let me take all of those stereotypes and like turn them on their head. It's the same thing with like all of our food ways and our culture. There is no singular way of what an Arab is. We all have kind of our unique stories and histories. So when we choose to call things what they are,

there's a context and a history for that, and that's what we're trying to share. Yeah, exactly. I think, I mean, I really relate to the idea of really wanting to be represented with food. Like when I find a Syrian restaurant, I freak out. Like there is one in El Cajon in Southern California where it's like my family and I go there every weekend

when I'm down and when I'm visiting my parents. It's just like a place where we feel like the closest we can get to home again. And I think it's a really important reminder that, I don't know, food can be really powerful. And before I keep rambling, I'm going to take our break and we'll be right back. And we are back. Reem, you mentioned something earlier that I think is worth touching back on. The idea of existing, being already a political act.

I think that is a burden for a lot of people of color and a lot of marginalized communities. And I think hand in hand with that is the fact that like our food is also like a political act, like making sure it's couscous and not Israeli couscous or whatever it is that we're trying to fight against. How do you see food? And especially now, I think people underestimate how many levels there are of ethnic cleansing because erasing food and appropriating food is a huge part of that, right? So, can I get your take on that, both of your takes? You mean like beyond appropriating, yeah.

I mean, I think food is a tool 75 years of occupation of Palestine, one of the many ways besides the dispossession, killing, expulsion, is to sever us from our foodways. And when you sever someone from their land that creates the foodways, you sever them from their culture, from their existence. Then there's just the more immediate way, as we're seeing this genocide unfolds, where you can starve a population. And so food then becomes this powerful tool

to break a people. And why we see people, like food food become a form of resistance for people. But even here in our communities, I mean, this is not unfortunately unique to the Palestinians. You've seen the pillaging of indigenous folks here in this country, the same things, kind of cutting them off from their food ways, their means of subsistence, of supporting one another, of being connected to their culture. And now you're seeing in communities

through economic policy, like food deserts and people not being able to access their food or have sovereignty over their food production. So it is absolutely a tool and something that we talk about at Rims a lot that the fight for Palestine is the fight for food sovereignty everywhere and vice versa, right? Well, I'm glad you brought up the idea of, or just the fact that Israel and the Zionist regime has taken Palestinians from their land. and I've talked about this before on this

podcast, but like the olive tree is a very significant part of Palestinian culture and like olive harvesting is a huge part of Palestinian life. And so when you burn down thousands of olive trees or when you kick people out of like the agriculturally rich parts of the land, you're denying them so much more than just olives. It's like very deep. And I think when people that are not as informed about Palestine question like, why is there a watermelon? Like, what's this? And what's the olive about? And I think that goes to show how powerful food can be. And just for those who don't know,

the watermelon became an active, or a symbol of resistance because the Palestinian flag was not allowed to be raised for a while. And it has the same colors as Palestinian flag. And so that's just like a really beautiful way that food has become this like powerful symbol. And so I just, I just trying to,

I don't know, emphasize that a little bit, I guess. Jerebeel, what's your take? Yeah, I mean, I think that, I think just I'll speak like a little bit more domestically. I feel like Rame is so eloquent in talking about the historic parts of it. But I mean, even here like domestically in Los Angeles or California, I think one of the things,

and it kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier, one of the things, and it kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier, one of the things that's difficult is there are so few identifying parts of, or just restaurants in general, like correctly identifying restaurants, Syrian, Lebanese, or Palestinian, or what have you, and they hide under these names, which when, I'm not gonna name like specific restaurants here, but like, which when other restaurants open and maybe they're owned by an Italian person or just other people that aren't Arab and suddenly they're taking the food

and misappropriating it and calling it, yeah. I mean, Israeli couscous or like an Israeli salad or Israeli falafel or hey, here's all this food and it's shawarma and it's kebabs and it's Meneesh and we're an Israeli restaurant. Like these are things that are really difficult because I think those things tend to be unfortunately just like more approachable. Saying Mediterranean tends to be more approachable. And what you get ultimately is a population of, I would say a larger population of non-Arab people that don't really understand what they're eating, and they're not educated on where

it comes from. And just the amount of people, you know, anecdotally that I personally have met who like don't know that this food is Arab food or don't know like what where the food comes from, which is so interesting to me because it's not an experience that I think many other cultures or ethnicities have. And so yeah, I mean, I kind of always joke that I feel like a really close example is if, you know, somebody started, like an American person started making sushi and they're like, this is American food. And it's just not at the same time. And so I think that the need to assimilate for generations before Reims and I, I have

an empathy for the want of safety that they were doing and the want to make a living. And the reasons they did it, I think Reims kind of alluded to that earlier. But where it's left us now is a population of Arabs and diaspora that I think are harmed for it. You know, like we don't show up on the census and it's all sort of one part. It's all, they're all different parts of the one problem. And I think that when you take the food and you don't give it its correct name and you don't, or you give it the incorrect name,

it hurts all of us in ways that like we can't even imagine whether it's at work or in diversity and belonging initiatives, not including swanamina people, or whether it's just in food ways and not being included or not being included in the census, which leads to us not having as much community support around our people or not knowing medical statistics. Like I think they're all, they're symptoms of a bigger issue. And I think one of the ways you combat that issue is through knowledge and shared learning

and shared experience. And I think food and food ways are one of the main ways that people experience and learn about other cultures. And I think if people look at that in their own lives, you can apply it to any culture of food that you really love, and maybe it's not your own. And you've learned something about those people through that. I think the main dishes of any culture, it says a lot about where that culture has been, where they come from, what their history is. And I think people being able to experience those things and go to

a Mexican restaurant and learn about a certain dish and where it comes from or why it's there or why it's named something is an experience that allows them to learn about a culture and we just don't necessarily have that here. And then when you add on, you know, misnomer or incorrect labels, it becomes even more damaging. And also just hurtful and very annoying. Like it's so annoying. And I like, I don't want to go, I'm sorry, like there are restaurants in LA that I like just don't want to go to, and maybe the chefs are really nice, and they might be allies in some ways, or maybe they're not, but I would rather give, please, I would rather give my money

to an Arab person making our own food, rather than going to experience it in a different way. You know what I mean? I don't know. So I think that's kind of how I I generally feel and the less professional answer is I just find it like really annoying. And I'm like, come on, y'all, there's so many. Listen, like we're not, LA is not New York.

We have like not as many Arab places to go. There are sort of few, you have to seek them out a little bit more here. But I'm like, come on, y'all, we're out here. Yeah. Go find us. Like, go find, give your money to like this Syrian immigrant who moved here and started this place that everybody loves. And, you know, I, yeah, I don't know.

There are a lot of big restaurants, very popular restaurants here. And I'm just like, nah, dog. I don't want to pay. I don't want to pay $35 for to bully. Yeah, I think, I mean, I, I think it's twofold kind of like who has access to resources versus who doesn't, right? Who gets highlighted, you know, there's, there's that piece and what's palatable to the American public and what's not, right? Like I always say, like for instance, I think like reams, we kind of, we do things a little bit different.

Obviously we honor tradition, we honor the soul of Arab cuisine, but we play around with it. And one could argue, is this like Americanizing the food? And we're like, no, it's just through the lens of a diasporic Palestinian Syrian by way of California. But we I think when we first came on the scene, I mean, there is something to be said about the privilege that I have as English speaking as

this generation that can like, what do you call it, translate the foods to a mainstream public in a way that's like really compelling. Like a mediator almost. Yeah, like a mediator. I'm like, but that comes from a little bit of racism like that people don't want. They want the food, you know. And so like, I am this palatable character in some ways. And that's a contradiction that I'm constantly like, I don't want to be.

But it's like, what do you call that the Trojan horse, right? But then once you come into reams, it's still it's very warm. I mean, there's nothing we're not tricking anyone, right? But we're also truly ourselves. and that's not for everybody. So we don't want to be a gentrifying space. We're like, if you're going to come in here, you have to deal with the community that we're in just as much as the food that you are obsessed with now, right?

Because Eater wrote about it or whatever. So we really, and that's all for everybody, right? And that just speaks to a bigger problem of if you like the people as much as you like their food. Like our food is not just for sale. You can't just take some of it and leave the rest of it. And I think that's why the American public is so comfortable with our foods being represented by people

other than us. We're never the tellers of our own stories, because, again, this dehumanization of Palestinians. And it's particularly interesting now. And I would say like Reims has always been transparent, but I've heard from counterparts who are now, you know, like there are other restaurants now coming out. I think there was even just an article

that was released today on Eater about the Palestinian category on Google. And, you know, people are now calling their restaurants or maybe leading up to this last four months, calling their restaurants Palestinian. And that was palatable enough. It's like cool, like it's this culture that's really beautiful.

But then when it came down to it, when we're experiencing a genocide, it made people feel uncomfortable. So it's like, they want to, like it doesn't stop at food, you know? And I think our food, at least for me, and I would say for a lot of people who get into like expressing their food ways here in the US,

like you can't just take some of us, our food, and then dismiss the rest of us, or dehumanize the rest of us. And so I think that is the contradiction that we're always dealing with is like, how can we offer this beautiful culture, but not tokenize it so it becomes depoliticized because it is political. And if you're engaging with Palestinian cuisine and

consuming it, you can't just, you can't do it without either, you know, being an active participant one way or the other, right? And what is happening to Palestinians. And so we kind of pushed the envelope on that. And for us at RIMS that has yielded a real ever expanding community of folks who have really, maybe a few years ago knew nothing about Palestine. We got to do it in a way that was right.

And so we were, you know, we met people where they're at, we bring them along. It's not like we're like, you know, beating anything over people's heads, but we're like, this is what it means to be truly authentically ourselves. This is our story. This is the history.

This is the painful atrocities. And like, if you're gonna eat our food, you have to engage with that in some way. Like it can't just be comfortable. I'm like, it's cool to eat Palestinian food. I don't want to see our food as a trend, right? Yeah. So while it's while it's cool to see a lot of Palestinian restaurants now gaining popularity and hopefully, you know, Reims has paid some path for that. We got to make sure that we're doing it in a way that's intentional and responsible so

we don't get tokenized. I think one, just like piggyback on one thought, one thought that I think you brought up, Reim, that I thought was really interesting was like being able to tell our own stories. And often we're not, we're not. And I think that relates to like a lot of what we've talked about today. But I mean, even like sharing our own experiences, like, you know, I don't think it's necessarily a choice to be where you, you know, to be who you are, it is what you are. And I think ultimately, there's this real pressure for for Arabs and Palestinians as well, to sort of let other people tell our story for us, let other people make the food, let other people photograph the traumas and the joys, like if you go to any like art bookstore

and try to find an Arab photographer photographing their own people, whether it's the wars or the joy or art, like you'll find maybe one, you know, and I've been to them and said, hey, do you have any, I'm looking for like this and I want it from an Arab person. And like the only one really is Shireen Nishat,

who's Persian, but I don't know, I think it from an Arab person. And like the only one really is Shireen Nishat, I mean, Persian, but I don't know, I think it's just really interesting how, I think there's like a real fear about talking about for a lot of us, about talking about our own experiences publicly and I think a lot of that, a lot of that comes from just like being sort of conditioned in this country to minimize ourselves and minimize our identity.

I think essentially- Well, there are real retributions for that. We get jailed, we get deported, we get fired from our jobs, we don't get book deals, we don't get show deals. We don't get show deals. Yeah. As we're experiencing. So it's like, that's real. Like, yeah. And I mean, a lot of the, a lot of the stuff we've, a lot of the

feedback we've gotten on the show, I mean, early on, a couple years ago, we started getting feedback that I mean, there were like two or three, when we first started pitching and I won't call out names, but they were like major companies. And one of them was we already have like our minority food show. Like that was one of the literal pieces of feedback. And another one was and again, like I just, I know we've talked about Palestine a lot, but again, like the show is not necessarily centered around Palestinians.

It's just us telling our own stories. And one of the pieces of feedback we got was they were worried that Reem and I, that our identities were too inherently political. And it's like, okay, but there's like nothing we can do about how you perceive us. What we can control is saying, hey, we wanna make an Arab joy show and we wanna like show off the things we love about our culture and we wanna talk about

how great the food tastes and talk about stories, like immigrant success stories of people coming to this country. And yeah, we'll talk about the trauma and sure we'll talk about the politics because that's what we're passionate about. But like to get that feedback even a couple years ago when, you know, it seemed like everybody was sort of every culture or people were getting their turn to sort of shine was I was like, really? Are we still here right now? Yeah. And yeah, I mean, it's gotten weirder as time goes on.

And I don't know, no show exists like this in the way that probably no restaurant existed like Reims did when she opened it. And I think it's going to take someone who just really believes and is a champion for Arab people, for us to make something that just shows how much we love our own people and how excited we are to be Arab and how excited we are to be Palestinians and how fucking awesome our food is and how great

our culture is and how fun and exciting it is and all these things that people love and eat. We just want to show them like where it comes from and who we are and in addition to that show that we're all regionally very different. Like we call in this, every type of Arab food is called Mediterranean, whether it's Moroccan or Lebanese or Egyptian, and they're all so different. They're all wildly different. And I think that, yeah, like the fact that we haven't been able to tell this story is wild, you know, like the fact that no one has, and we've come really close, we've gotten into deals before, we've gotten into shopping agreements more recently, and sort of, you know, the outcome felt punitive after October 7th. And yeah, I think that ultimately the

fact that like we, we, and it doesn't, you know, truly, I hope it's me and Rie. But like the fact that no one has been able to tell this story For a group of people that is so huge in the Arab community and the Muslim community Like that no one has been able to serve this demographic of people with a food show is Wild and There's so many of us who would be so excited. I would be so excited. Like, I would be bummed that it wasn't me, but I would be thrilled that it happened for the community. And

I don't know, if not now when, you know, like, the time for the time for equity and justice is always. And I think that's generally how I sort of feel about the show and just being able to, like I just want to tell the story for my community so badly. And yeah, I mean, I don't know. I feel like I went on a bit of a tangent.

That's kind of where I am right now. Well, in a time of genocide where literally our people, and this is not just Palestine, it's all, you know, there's a regional, the dehumanization of Arabs is costing us lives. Yeah. So it feels that much more important to do this work now. Yeah. I think people are so used to seeing us, seeing Arabs, like traumatized.

They're used to seeing us in pain. They're used to seeing our countries destroyed and seeing our buildings turn into rubble. I think so much of our culture is so beautiful and so much of it is about food and art and joy. I think it's really, yeah, I would be so excited for that show too, because I, if I was a little kid watching that, I would have felt so much better about myself. And to your point, a couple minutes ago, Reem, you were talking

about how you're not exactly a mediator, but growing up, there's almost this like shame about having like, you're not Arab enough, you're not American enough, you have a foot in both worlds, but it's really a strength, you know, in your experience and in our experience. Like we can use that foot in both worlds to our advantage and try to show the American community how beautiful our community is.

And I don't know, I think it's, yeah, I love you guys. That's what it comes down to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, but I really do appreciate you both doing this work and yeah, reminding us that it's Arab culture isn't something to be feared. I don't know. The dehumanization has gotten to a point that it's just really terrifying. And so I think the fact that even existing is like political or scary, and yeah, to your point, everything is so much more digestible for people than Arab or than Muslim or whatever. Like in LA, we have a huge Armenian community, and they're really embraced. And

I would love that to happen for us too. The backlash of being Arab feels very real and visceral right now. It feels like we are in a time of the years after 9-11 again, and especially with this upcoming election in 2024. It's a really, I think, a scary time of censorship for Arabs in general and Muslim communities regardless of who the candidate who of the political campaign. It's quite clear that the policies towards us, you know, the foreign policy, but also domestically how that has translated into hate crimes against Arabs, simply for being Arab, is a really scary thing. And so, yeah, it's just a new thing. And so, yeah, it Arab is a really scary thing.

And so, yeah, it's just a new thing that we're going to have to navigate in this new era. Yeah, I think on that note, like community is so important. And I'm really grateful to continue to foster the community around me as well. And I think with food, with Palestinian culture in general, it relies so much on us remembering and continuing to talk about it and not letting anyone forget about it. And so I think food is the same way. It's just reminding everyone this is where it comes from. This is how important it is.

This is what it means to the culture. You can't enjoy some of our culture and not all of it, I guess. And I feel like it happens all the time. I really appreciate you guys both being on the show and talking a little bit about your stories. And yeah, I can't wait to see the show happen one day because it will happen. Awesome. Thank you.

Yeah. Thanks. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for for the work that I'm doing, especially as it relates to food and hospitality. I was one of the founders of an effort called hospitality for humanity. And you can find us on at hospitality. The number four, pal, You know, we continue to do things at Reims, and you can see us on the socials at Reims, California. And then you can obviously follow my whereabouts at Reim.aseal, A-S-S-I-L. I could put all your links in the description as well. But, Jibril, do you want to be found on the internet? And if so, where? I don't know how much I want to be found on the internet. I will plug that I

think everyone should call their senators and demand a ceasefire immediately and also consider donating to one of many nonprofits. But the one that I have is a Gaza emergency appeal. And just ask for a ceasefire as much as possible. But also if somebody comes to my name, they'll find me. Demand a ceasefire, don't ask. Don't ask. Sir, please, can I have a ceasefire? Can I have a ceasefire?

But no, please, everyone that's listening, keep talking about Palestine. Keep sharing info from Palestinians themselves. And yeah, free Palestine. Free Palestine. Yes, free Palestine. Hi, I'm John Ho Bryant, host of Money and Wealth on the Black Effect Podcast Network. I'm an entrepreneur and a businessman. Some would call a thought leader. Now every Thursday, my newest venture is educating you on how to win financially. Even better, I'm going to teach it in a way that, well, you can

understand. No unexplained theories, no mundane lessons, no using 20 words when two will do. I'm gonna meet you where you are and take you where you need to be. I'm giving you straight talk, relatable stories, and life lessons through my own experiences and the lens of others. We're not just talking about why financial freedom is important. We're focusing on how you can achieve it too. We all might have different starting points and end goals, but as long as we have the desire to acquire financial freedom, it can be done from the streets to the suites. Listen to Money and Wealth with John Hope Bryant every Thursday on the Black Effect Podcast Network, I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast,

or wherever you get your podcasts. What up, I am Dramos, host of the Life as a Gringo podcast. Now, this is a show for the no sabo kids, the 200%ers. Here we celebrate your otherness and embrace living in the gray area. If you ever felt like you were always too much this while also never being enough that, this is the podcast for you. Every Tuesday I'll be bringing you conversations around personal growth, issues affecting the Latin community, and much more

via my own personal stories along with interviews with inspiring thought leaders from our community. Then every Thursday I'll be tackling trending stories and current events from our community. Then every Thursday I'll be tackling trending stories and current events from our community that you need to know. So much of what makes our community so beautiful is our diversity yet too often those of us who don't fit into this dumb stereotypical box of whatever it means to be Latino are left without a voice or just forgotten about. On this show I celebrate the uniqueness of our culture and invite you to walk in your authenticity. Listen to Life as a Gringo as a part of the Microtoura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or whatever you get your podcasts. Hi everyone, I'm Jackie Goldschneider from the Real Housewives of New Jersey.

I joined the show in season nine. And I'm Jennifer Fessler also from the Real Housewives of New Jersey. I joined the show in season nine. And I'm Jennifer Fessler also from the Real Housewives of New Jersey. I joined the show in season 13. And we host the new podcast, Two Jersey Jays. You know us from the Real Housewives of New Jersey and now you'll really get to know us. We're going to tell you probably more than you want to know. We are going to have lots of fun on this podcast while we discuss what it's really like to be a real housewife and all the drama that comes with it.

Follow us as we navigate family, friendships, and even her enemies. And we're going to be brutally honest about motherhood, men, menopause, and making every day count. Listen to Jersey Jays on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or every listen to podcasts. Hello and welcome back to It Could Happen Here. I am once again your guest host, Molly Conger, and today I'm going to tell you about something that is happening here, here being my hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia.

You might have seen the news recently that Patriot front leader leader Thomas Ryan Russo was arrested in Texas on an out-of-state felony warrant. On February 23rd, authorities in McClennan County, Texas, arrested Russo and booked him into the county jail. The jail roster lists the offense as Burn Object to Intimidate O-Slash-S. That O-S means out-of-state, and it lists Virginia as the state issuing the warrant. And Rousseau's arrest certainly made us blush. When the news hit, Nazi Telegram channels lit up with posts about his arrest. Gab feeds were flooded with hastily

made graphics decrying this political persecution. This sudden spike in interest in a little used Virginia Code section might make you think Rousseau was the first person to be taken into custody on this charge, that perhaps he was targeted for arrest in some kind of grand political plan to take him out of the game. But he is in fact the 11th person to be arrested in just the last year for participating in the Tiki Torch March

at the University of Virginia on August 11th, 2017. These cases have been working their way through the system here for long enough that some of Rousseau's co-defendants March at the University of Virginia on August 11th, 2017. These cases have been working their way through the system here for long enough that some of Russo's co-defendants have not only already been found guilty, they've served their time and gotten back out. But with this sudden surge in interest in this case, I want to give you all a little background on the other 10. If you'll indulge me for a moment, though, I'd like to read you something I wrote nearly

a year ago, just as the first cases were being unsealed. There is no statute of limitations on felonies in Virginia. With that in mind, here's section 18.2-423.01-b of the Code of Virginia. Burning object on property of another or a highway or other public place with intent to intimidate. Any person who, with the intent of intimidating any person or group of persons, burns an object on a highway or other public place in a manner having a direct tendency to place another person in reasonable fear or apprehension of death or bodily injury is guilty of a Class 6 felony.

On August 11, 2017, hundreds of torch-bearing marchers traversed the grounds of the University of Virginia. They'd come to Charlottesville from across the country, taking Friday morning flights or taking turns at the wheel for cross-country drives and rented vans with guys they met on message boards. Arriving early before the big event the following morning, they gathered at Nameless Field, a grassy acre near the UVA tennis courts

with a deceptive name, and distributed tiki torches. Men with walkie-talkies clipped to their belts, some with wired earpieces, barked orders. Elliot Klein, an ambitious young white nationalist organizer calling himself Eli Mosley after the 20th century British fascist, Oswald Mosley, shouted at the crowd as they formed into a line. We're picking big guys, no females.

Klein and his security team would be selecting the biggest marchers to lay down their torches and keep the perimeter as the march moved through the university grounds. They might need their hands free. The march wound its way through grounds, up the lawn, then up the steps of the University of Virginia's iconic rotunda. On the other side of the rotunda, gathered near the statue of Thomas Jefferson, a small group of anti-racist protesters waited.

In her testimony during a later civil trial, one of the women who was terrorized that night said of the sound of the approaching crowd, when we heard the roaring, we just linked arms and held hands and started to sing. She said at first it sounded like thunder, like the earth was growling. As they grew closer, but before she could see the light of the torches, she began to make out the chants. Hundreds of voices raised in unison shouting

blood and soil. Testifying about that night four years later, she said she could still hear it sometimes in her nightmares. And by the time the small group of mostly students realized the magnitude and ferocity of the approaching mob, it was too late. They were surrounded, fully encircled at the base of the statue by hundreds of torch-wielding white supremacists. For a few minutes, minutes that those trapped at the base of the statue said they believed might be their last as they were doused in lighter fluid, maced, and punched, there was

a melee. The police made no move to intervene as streams of pepper spray were let loose and cries of medic were audible above the roar of you will not replace us. When the trapped counter protesters were finally able to flee, stumbling blindly with burning eyes and covering their heads in a hail storm of fists and torches, the marchers declared victory. Richard Spencer, an organizer of that weekend's rally, climbed the base of the statue and delivered a victory speech to the still roaring crowd,

now shouting, Hail Victory, Hail Spencer. As Spencer told them, we occupy this ground. We won. We are the streets. We are the streets. We are the streets. We are the streets. We are the streets. We are the streets.

We are the streets. We are the streets. We won! We won 15th of August! What in the hell are we doing out here? What in the hell are we doing risking our lives? We're risking our lives for our people, for our ancestors, for our future. That's what we're doing! What? Do you think an anti-fuck and defeat are strong? Do you think an anti-fuck and defeat are group? They have no conviction. No, because they have no conviction.

All right. The marchers dispersed to their various hotels, campgrounds, and Airbnbs. Spencer later said cheekily that he booked his under the pseudonym literally Hitler. They had to rest up for the real battle in the morning. And while they slept, a young man from Ohio was driving through the night, perhaps already knowing that his gray Dodge Challenger would be impounded as a murder weapon before he slept again. He checked Twitter and retweeted a post. David Duke had tweeted images of the torch march, celebrating the alt-right success that

evening with the caption, Our people on the march, will you be at Unite the Right tomorrow? As he left Ohio that evening, the young man of the Dodge Challenger got a text from his mother. A text we've all probably gotten from our mothers, she said, be careful. And James Alex Fields Jr., in one of the last texts he sent before a lifetime behind bars, replied to his mother with a photograph of Hitler and the words, we are not the ones who need to be careful. Years later, the word Charlesville has become synonymous with those two fused images, Fields' mangled challenger, and an iconic photo of the crowd, torches in hands, the rotunda at their backs. Fields was convicted both in state and federal court of Heather Hire's murder and multiple counts of aggravated malicious wounding. Daniel Borden, Alex Ramos, Jacob Goodwin, and Tyler Watkins

went away for a brutal gang beating of a young black man. Richard Preston, an imperial wizard in the Ku Klux Klan, did some time for discharging his firearm in the general direction of another young black man, while shouting, die, N-word. But all in all, for all the violence of both days, there was a curious reluctance to bring charges for anything that didn't rise to the level of attempted murder. And some things that did.

There are thousands of photographs, videos from every conceivable angle taken by victims, bystanders, professional photojournalists, and even the marchers themselves. Their faces are uncovered, their motives are clear, And the law is fairly straightforward. But the University of Virginia lies within the jurisdiction of Albemarle County. In 2017, Albemarle County Commonwealth's Attorney Robert Tracy chose not to bring any burning objects cases under Section 18.2-423. He didn't think he could make a case against the Tiki Torch mob. Or maybe he didn't want to. The Commonwealth's attorney for the city of Charlottesville at the time, Dave Chapman,

wrote in a memo in October of that year that he did believe the cases could be made, but they weren't his to prosecute. But in Virginia, prosecutors come and go and a felony lives forever. In an October 2019 debate between then sitting prosecutor Robert Tracy and his challenger, Jim Hingeley,

Tracy again scoffed at the idea of indicting these cases, even saying that Hingeley's belief that it was possible was a sign he was inexperienced and wrong for the job. A month later, Hingeley won the election. And now it seems he's trying to make good on his campaign promise of proving Robert Tracy wrong. In February 2023, the Admiral County Commonwealth's Attorney's Office quietly sought and got indictments under the burning object statute. A grand jury agreed with Hingeley there was probable cause to believe that objects had been burned with the intent to intimidate.

Fugitive warrants were issued, arrests were made by local police and far-ranging jurisdictions, and now, nearly six years after that hot night in August, the extraditions are starting. I want to share with you the stories of the men who carried torches that night. Some of them are now facing felony charges in Almeral County. Others may come to share that fate. After the crowd dispersed that night and after the deadly rally the next morning, those men went home. Some started businesses. Some died. Some trafficked drugs, beat their wives, choked their girlfriends, went to grad school, went to prison, started families, ran for office, left the movement,

tried to lead the movement, or just tried to disappear. movement, tried to lead the movement, or just tried to disappear. There are as many stories as there were flames in the night when their voices joined as one, shouting, Jews will not replace us. Then going their separate ways, back to the communities they came from. And now, some of them are on their way back, this time against their will. So I wrote that about 10 months ago last April, just as the first cases were unsealed. Obviously a lot's happened since then. But before I get into a recap of those first 10 cases, let's hear a brief word about some

products and services. So if Thomas Rousseau is number 11 on this list of Tiki Torch Defendants, who were the first 10? The grand jury that convened in February of last year handed down the first five indictments. Will Zachary Smith, William Billy Williams, Tyler Dykes, Dallas Medina, and William Fears. Will Smith of Nacona, Texas was the first in custody. He was actually already in custody here in Charlottesville when the first charges were filed. He had been indicted on a separate felony charge back in 2018 for pepper spraying the counter-protestors that night, but remained a fugitive until his arrest in January 2023. So when the prosecutor brought the torch charges to the grand jury in February, it was probably an easy first choice.

Will Smith pled guilty to the torch charge in May in a sealed plea deal that dropped the much more serious pepper spray felony and was allowed to return home without being sentenced. Billy Williams traveled here with Will Smith back in 2017. The pair were acting as bodyguards for Robert Hasmador Ray, the Daily Stormer blogger who is actually also still a wanted fugitive on a felony charge of pepper spraying those counter-protestors that night. When Billy Williams was extradited from Texas in April of last year, he was denied bond after some

apparent dishonesty regarding his relationship with Robert Ray. Through his attorney, he denied having had any contact with Ray while he was a fugitive. He in fact claimed they barely knew each other, having met only a couple of times. I can tell you that's not true. But after claiming that they'd had no contact in the intervening years, the prosecutor revealed in the bond hearing that law enforcement partners had shared information with his office that they believe that not only had they been in contact, but that Ray had been living with Williams, living on his property while he was in hiding as a fugitive. Williams too pled guilty to the burning object charge in July, receiving an active sentence of six months. But with time served and good behavior, he was home barely two weeks after entering

his plea, but not before he missed the birth of his seventh child with his common-law wife. Tyler Dykes was arrested on St. Patrick's Day. He'd been out with other members of the white supremacist group, the Southern Sons Active Club, trying to hang a racist banner from a highway overpass in Savannah, Georgia, when he was, unfortunately, bitten by a dog. I do not have information on what came of the dog. I hope he's okay. Concerned about infection, though, Tyler Dykes went to the emergency room to have the wound looked at. In Georgia, as in most states, emergency rooms contact the police to report dog bite injuries. An officer was dispatched to the hospital to take a report from Dykes

about the dog bite incident, which is a fairly routine situation. But somewhere during their interaction in the hospital, the officer ran Dyke's name to the system, and it came back with a warrant. A panicked Dyke sent his hate group group chat a quick text, I'm being arrested by Virginia, nuke my account. In video of the melee at the base of the statue, on August 11, 2017, Dykes can be seen throwing punches, even after everyone else had stopped. And then celebrating the victory by marching around in a weird, tight little circle with his right arm extended in a Nazi salute. Dykes pled guilty to the torch charge in May and received the same six-month act of sentence Williams had gotten. With time served and good behavior, he was released in July. I wonder if he expected to see his elderly parents waiting for him in

the parking lot outside the Albemarle-Charlesville Regional Jail that day. But he never made it that far. US Marshals took him into federal custody before he ever walked outside. He's currently out on bond, awaiting trial on 10 counts for his participation in the January 6th insurrection. on bond awaiting trial on 10 counts for his participation in the January 6th insurrection. Dallas Medina of Ohio turned himself in in April and was allowed to return home on bond. He had been an active member of an extremely online group of mass shooting enthusiasts calling themselves the Bull Patrol, so named after the bullcut hairstyle sported by their idol Dylan Roof. After a feud with Chris the crying Nazi catwell ended with catwell in federal prison, the group more or less fell apart in 2020. Medina hasn't appeared

in court since his bond hearing in April, and he doesn't yet have a trial date. William Fears was booked into the Albemarle-Charlesville Regional Jail in June after being transferred from the Texas prison where he was serving a sentence for domestic violence. Just two months after Unite the Right, William Fears beat and choked his girlfriend. A few days later, he traveled to Florida with his brother Colton Fears and their friend Tyler Tenbrink

to see Richard Spencer's speech at the University of Florida. He knew when he left town for Gainesville that week that his girlfriend had reported the assault. Having already been to prison, or abducting and stabbing a different ex-girlfriend years earlier, he knew another conviction would put him away for a while, and he wanted one last shot at starting the race war before they got him. In video from the Torch March, William Fears can be seen swinging his torch

at a counter-protester, screaming, Die, commie! Fears remains in custody, but does not yet have a trial date. Williams' brother Colton Fears joined him at the Albemarle-Charlesville Regional Jail in September. I suspect the jail probably kept them separated, but it still would have been the closest the brothers had been in years.

When the brothers were in Gainesville in October of 2017, their friend Tyler Tenbrink shot at a group of anti-fascist counter protesters after Richard Spencer's speech. Thankfully, no one was injured, but Tenbrink was convicted of attempted first-degree homicide. Colton Fears was driving the car when the men left the scene of the shooting and spent five years in a Florida prison for accessory after the fact to attempted first-degree homicide. Colton was released in 2022 and returned home to Texas,

where he was then arrested in August 2023 on the burning object charge. After pleading guilty in October, he was allowed to return home prior to sentencing. Ryan Roy of Vermont turned himself in in May. If you've been reading the voluminous leaks that seem to be constantly springing forth from Patriot Front's online comms, you may know him better as Rex. It looks like he's

stayed quite busy in the years since Unite the Right as a member of Patriot Front. He is currently home on bond and does not yet have a trial date. Jamie Troutman of West Virginia turned himself in in October. Under the pseudonym Alt-Right VA, Troutman was an active organizer and planner of the Unite the Right rally. He was present at many of the precursor events that took place here in Charlottesville during the summer of hate, including the two other torch marches, smaller torchlet rallies that were held in downtown Charlottesville in May and October of that year. Like Dykes, Photo Show Troutman was present

at the Capitol on January 6, though in Troutman's case no charges have been filed. He too is home on bond with no trial date set. And before we get to the last two of those first 10 cases, let's hear from someone who has also not been charged in connection with the militant reactionary attempt to overthrow the US government. These products and services. The final two of these first 10 torch cases are the messy ones. So we've got these four guilty pleas and we've got four cases that are sort of moving along slowly down the usual path. And then we've got two cases where the defendants have had some success bogging

the cases down with motions. Jacob Dix of Ohio was arrested in July. Dix is seen in photos and video on the 11th and 12th with two other Ohio men, his roommate, Ryan Martin, who recently passed away, and Daniel Borden, one of the men convicted of beating a man nearly to death during the rally on August 12. I'm sure we'll learn more about Dix as his case progresses, but I have found him in photos with the traditionalist worker party at the Nazi rally in Pikeville earlier that same summer. In his torch case, he has been granted both a substitute judge and a special prosecutor, based on a sort of nebulous, though very loudly argued, conspiracy theory involving the wife of a judge who is not even

presiding over his case and a prosecutor who has a history of expressing anti-racist political views in his personal life. Dix is out on bond. With the recent ruling granting him a special prosecutor, on bond. With the recent ruling granting him a special prosecutor, we may be seeing a trial date get set in the near future. And finally, Augustus Sol Invictus. Until Rousseau was arrested last week, the biggest name in this batch was Augustus Invictus. Even before his name was on the flyers as a headline speaker at Unite the Right, Invictus was no stranger to the headlines. In 2016, he ran for U.S. Senate in Florida as a libertarian. His campaign was marred by such controversies as his own past statements on eugenics, a 2013 ritual sacrifice of a goat, his legal representation of white supremacist militia leader Marcus Valle, and numerous police reports

from both his wife and his teenage girlfriend alleging domestic violence. In the years since, Invictus never did become a US senator, despite a second attempt, and never did get convicted of domestic violence, despite many, many more police reports. He's also no longer a pagan. Asked recently about the goat blood drinking ritual he performed in 2013, he quipped that he drinks human blood now. Just a little transubstantiation joke about his recent conversion to traditional Catholicism. Invictus was arrested on the burning object charge in Florida in June 2023 and held for a month before being extradited to Virginia and released on bond.

Like Dix, he has been granted a substitute judge. He too was seeking a special prosecutor, but no ruling was made in his last hearing. Currently, his case is docketed for trial next month, but I'm willing to bet that gets postponed. So that's more or less where we are now. Rousseau is the eleventh man to be charged in these cases. We've got four guilty pleas on the record, leaving him as one of seven open cases. We can expect to see Rousseau extradited from Texas to Virginia in the near future. I would say maybe a week or two, although some of them have been held for up to a month

before a deputy can get down there and bring them back. Something I was really surprised to learn in all of this is in most extraditions for state cases like this, like these are not federal cases, these are local cases. When someone gets extradited long distance, a deputy just flies down there and then they fly back together on a commercial airline. It's not like a con air situation. They're just on an airplane together. So it really depends on when a deputy can sort of get down there and get him. So he'll be extradited sometime in the next few weeks. And then once he's booked into the Albemarle- Charlottesville Regional Jail, he'll get an appearance in court. It's anybody's guess right

now who he'll hire to represent him. Former Proud Boy and current Patriot front lawyer Jason Lee Van Dyke was thoughtful enough to reply to one of my tweets about Rousseau's arrest to say that he will not be taking this case. As much as he would have loved to try this case, which he said that he would do a very good job doing and he could definitely do it, and unfortunately he just can't, he cited the difficulty in finding local counsel to assist. He's not admitted to the bar in Virginia, so he would need someone who is to sort of sponsor him in and be responsible for him in the case.

So he said, you know, he can't find local counsel and also it would just be too time consuming and too expensive to try a case in Virginia as he's located in Texas. So it won't be Jason Lee Van Dyke. I've been writing about these cases in my newsletter, The Devil's Advocates. It's on Ghost, which is like Substack, but it's not Substack. It's Ghost. And I'm looking forward

to writing some updates very soon. The finding out for this particular fucking around has been a long time coming. And I can't help but wonder if these cases had been brought sooner. Patriot Front might not even exist, you know? I suspect once or so has gotten a lawyer, he will ask for a bond hearing. That's probably what's next. It's impossible to know how much information other law enforcement agencies are interested

in sharing with the local prosecutor, but that kind of information sharing did play a critical role in some of the other cases. In bond hearings for Billy Williams and Tyler Dykes, information about the defendants' associations and activities collected by other local police agencies and federal authorities was what kept them in custody. In Dykes's case, several police and sheriffs departments in South Carolina and Georgia shared information that he was a suspect in some swastika vandalism cases, some fliering cases.

It's not clear if the feds shared information ahead of time about the January 6th case, but it is clear that the prosecutor's office was talking to other law enforcement agencies who'd been keeping tabs on these guys. And I think you would be a fool to think the feds don't have some information about Rousseau that might raise a judge's eyebrow. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Hi everyone, I'm Jackie Goldschneider from the Real Housewives of New Jersey. I joined the show in season nine. And I'm Jennifer Fessler also from the Real Housewives of New Jersey.

I joined the show in season 13. And we host the new podcast, Two Jersey Jays. You know us from the Real Housewives of New Jersey and now you'll really get to know us. We're going to tell you probably more than you want to know. We are going to have lots of fun on this podcast while we discuss what it's really like to be a real housewife and all the drama that comes with it. Follow us as we navigate family, friendships, and even enemies. And we're going to be brutally honest about motherhood, men, menopause, and making every day count.

Listen to Jersey Jays on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or every listen to podcasts. This second season of El Fló is here, available with Guati de Uste in both English and Spanish. This season we dive deeper into the vibrant world of Reggaeton, featuring interviews with both Reggaeton legends and exciting new talents. He's the undisputed king of Reggaeton, no doubt, and he's been cited as an inspiration by multiple Latin stars, including J Balvin, Bad Bunny, Osuna, Adi Natasha. Explore the evolution of this dynamic genre and what makes it resonate globally.

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Hello, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good night. I'm Andrew Sage and I run the YouTube channel Andrewism, but this is not Andrewism. This is a good happen here. Today, I'm with Garrison yet again and we are tackling really the genesis of this podcast. Everyone's favorite subject, collapse. Oh, wow. Yeah And I'm just a light topic for your morning. Yes, commute. I Mean if it's 2024 and you don't know what collapse is

Allow me to eliminate what that also why are you listening to this podcast? It is a stensibly about collapse indeed Also, why are you listening to this podcast that is ostensibly about collapse? Indeed. In essence, collapse is the significant loss of an established level of complexity towards a much simpler state. It can occur differently within many areas, orderly or chaoticly, and be willing or unwilling. It's not necessarily imply human extinction or a singular global event, although the longer the duration, the more it resembles a decline instead of a collapse. So collapse is really a lot of things happen all at once. People typically say, you know, you're talking about the climate, talking about resources and the decline of resources,

talking about mass extinction, talking about societal unrest and breakdown and inequality and truly pick your poison. Rather we're talking about the F increase in global energy demands, the gradually slow transition to renewables, the destabilization of our food and water systems. There's no one cause but several compounding pressures. As Pablo Serevin and Rafael Stevens aptly summarise, To maintain itself and avoid financial disorder and social unrest, our industrial capitalist civilization is forced to accelerate, to become more complex and to consume ever more energy.

Its dazzling expansion has been nurtured by the exceptional availability, though this will not last long, of fossil fuels that are very energy efficient, coupled with a growth economy at highly unstable levels of debt. But the growth of our industrial civilization, today constrained by due physical and economic limits, has reached a phase of decreasing returns. Technology which has long served to push these limits back, is less and less able to ensure this acceleration and locks in this unsustainable trajectory by preventing the development of new alternatives. Sounds familiar? A little bit.

At the same time, the sciences of complexity are discovering that beyond certain thresholds, complex systems including economies and ecosystems, suddenly switch to new and unpredictable states of equilibrium and may even collapse. We are more and more aware that we have crossed certain boundaries that guarantee the stability of all living conditions as a society and as a species. The global climate system and many of the planet's ecosystems and major biochemical cycles have left the zone of stability that we were familiar with herald in a time of sudden large scale disruptions, which in turn will destabilize industrial societies, the rest of humankind and even other species.

Yes, I agree. In terms of the house of collapse, you know, it might be slow, it might be quick, it might be happening now already, or maybe just really kicking off seriously in the near future. Today, we'll really be talking about the different ways of conceptualizing collapse, different frame devices we can use, and addressing the variety of responses that people have to collapse. In a future episode, I wanna take a look at, I suppose a more, this could be like the personalistic episode, in a sense, and the next one will be a bit more,

you know, how not to spiral into despair. So, yeah. How to have a good understanding of the reality of our crumbling systems, but not just be a doomer who stays inside and scrolls all the time and is just depressed. Well, but thankfully you have more options than just being a doomer.

And we're gonna get into all of those responses very soon. There are quite a few interesting ones. Alrighty. First of all, we need to talk about some different ways of conceptualizing collapse. For example, we have Dmitri Orlov's Five Stages, which is like a rollercoaster of chaos, which each stage more intense than the last. First, we have Stage 1, Financial Collapse. Everyone losing faith in business as usual. Financial institutions go and belly up savings vanish. Financial free fall. Say good-bye to your savings account, loans, pensions.

Basically, what went down in Argentina back in 2001. Sounds familiar? Yeah, yes. Yes. Next, we have commercial collapse. Now it's not just about money, it's about losing faith in the market shall provide. Commodities end up being hoarded, shopping centers are closing for business, and we might even bring back barter. And then boom, we have the next stage. Political collapse. Trust in the government will take care of you crumbles.

Governments try to maintain order with curfews and martial law, but local corruption takes over services. The roads are maintained. The rubbish piling up. Olof actually makes a really bold claim here, and that is that the U.S. might be on the track of these like stages. Like I know that sounds like a really like a radical claim to me.

I feel like everyone listening to this has a decent understanding that like these things aren't just switches that are either on or off. This is like a sliding scale and the US is a decent ways on this scale already. I mean, that's what that's what the first five episodes of the second season of this show was really all about. And specifically in terms of climate and how it's not like everything all falls apart at once. It's that these systems that we've grown to rely on will slowly crumble away until they've become basically nothing or they just become like corporate crumble away until they've become basically nothing, or they just become like corporate puppets,

or they've just become like, they're not actually real anymore in any kind of impactful way. And I mean, we saw a little bit of this during COVID, how many systems that we relied on just weren't really around anymore, or weren't, we're not actually reliable. And you see this whenever, like whenever there's a massive amount of wildfires

that takes over a whole region and it displaces hundreds of thousands of people. Usually the response to that is not the government's gonna come in and save everybody. It's a whole bunch of really poor anarchists set up a series of tents to give people food and to get people organized to find places to sleep. And like that's the actual response to these crumbling institutions.

It's not just like, you know, Fallout, New Vegas, we're living in the apocalypse immediately. It's a lot more fuzzy. Yeah, yeah. And in a sense, I kind of get the people who wish it was a bit more straightforward and simple. Sure. You know, because if it's like, if it was like a major event, right, like if it was an alien invasion that just happened, I think it's a lot easier for people to conceptualize something like that and respond to it. And I just mobilize all your efforts and all your focus is on solving this issue because

it's rising front of your face. When you're talking about like geological time scales and multiple decades of, you know, slowly break down and, you know, have all these election cycles and you have all these tipping points the scientists are telling you about and then, you know, someday eventually it's raining during the dry season and dry during the rainy season and there's no snow in January and All that jazz Onward to social collapse

This is where according to all of faith in your people will take care of you disintegrates. Civil wars brew the population, becomes a thing, clans take over, like a post-apocalyptic drama unfolding. And then the grand finale is cultural collapse, which is a loss of faith in the goodness of humanity and as a result of that loss of faith, kindness, generosity, empathy all falls out the window. I completely disagree I think with Olaf's decision here. I think that these times of crisis can often bring out the best in people. Of course we also do see the worst in people but I don't think it'll ever reach a point where the

bad of people's behavior so vastly outweighs the good, to the point where people just completely lose faith in our capacity for mutual aid and that kind of thing. There is of course a bonus stage that all of the resin, which is ecological collapse, where Rebutin Society, in an exhausted environment, is like good luck with that. It's very difficult to do. It becomes a sort of a well that we end up trapped in. So that's one way of understanding collapse. And there's also C.S.

Hollings' four phase model of ecological change. And according to him, all systems go through cycles of four phases. A phase of growth where the system accumulates matter and energy. A phase of conservation where the system becomes more and more interconnected, rigid and therefore vulnerable. A phase of collapse or loosening. And then a phase of rapid reorganization, leading then a phase of rapid reorganization leading to another phase of growth in often very different conditions.

This is more of a, I suppose, optimistic. I mean, I read it as kind of optimistic because it recognizes that, you know, some like things break down and that's it. Like even in death, there's like a life and there's like a rebirth. And then of course the conditions that rebirth will be different, but it's not like things completely come to an end.

It's just that the conditions that growth and healing might be kickstarted with would be very different from the ones that with the conditions that were there originally. Another author's views on the subject, a guy named John Michael Greer, once said that, quote, the difference between my view and that of many others in the collapse field is a lot of them assume that the first wave of crisis will be followed by total collapse and I argue that it'll be followed by muddying through and partial

recovery then by renewed crisis and so on. Thus I don't think it's actually that useful to have a single metric for what counts as collapse because collapse is a process, not an event. The collapse of industrial civilization has been underway for quite some time now and will still be a going concern for longer than any of us would be alive. And then there's David Corwix's sort of choose your own adventure style collapse where we have sort of three options that we could go down. There's one of linear decline, there's one of oscillating decline and there's one of

systemic collapse. First up, we have linear decline, which is optimistic in a sense. It's assuming everything will respond proportionally to its causes. So for instance, if oil consumption goes down, GDP follows suit. It's a very gradual and controlled decline, which gives us time to transition to renewable energy and to change our ways. It's kind of a dream scenario for some deep-growth enthusiasts or some of those who champion a transition to a greener future.

We kind of want it to be a slow collapse, not a rapid collapse, because it gives us time to respond and adjust accordingly. Of course, the other side of that, the catch is that when it is that slow, it also sort of gives an excuse for inaction and excuse for delaying and putting off and procrastinating on the changes that are necessary. More realistic scenario according to Corwiss is oscillate and decline, where you have economic activity bouncing between peaks of recovery and recession, but with an overall downward trend. It's almost like an oil price roller coaster, where the higher prices lead to recession,

then a dip in prices sparks bit of growth, but both each cycle the system loses a bit more of its mojo for lack of a better word. The debts pile up, the investment possibilities dwindle, and it's kind of like the catabolic collapse idea that John Michael Greer came up with. It's not too fast and so in a sense it still gives society some room to adapt. And the last model that Corvus has is the systemic collapse model, which sees our civilization as a super complex system with all these intertwined feedback loops. And so by crossing these invisible change over points and dealing with small disruptions could end up leading to unpredictable changes. It's like a roller coaster without a clear track, non-linear, cumulative and potentially brutal. It's like no kind of

safety approval was passed on this roller coaster whatsoever. A death trap and there's no telling where the cart will veer off course. Really the how of collapse depends on who you ask, but with all these models they do seem to be a couple clear points. Best articulated again by Savine and Stevens. One, the physical growth of our societies will come to a halt in the near future. Two, we have irreversibly damaged the entire Earth system, at least on the geological scale of human beings. Three, we are moving towards a very unstable non-linear future where major disruptions will be the norm.

And four, we are now potentially subject to global systemic collapses. Prospects look bleak. To me, they look extra bleak when you consider that some people are still stuck on the is climate change real? Ha ha ha. Yes. Global warming and yet it's cold. Ha ha ha.

Level of discourse. But for those who are made aware of the issues, I I see to collapse is slumber, right? They catch like a whiff of what's going on and decide to just turn over and go back to sleep To purposefully embrace ignorance disregard new information and shun any understanding of what's going on Perhaps, you know, they garden their fragile sanity, which is understandable but people sleeping or we need to face these issues is people sleeping or we need to face these issues is a disaster waiting to happen. These issues are not going anywhere and we really need people to have the courage

and the boldness to face them instead of turning over and going back to sleep. Similarly to that response we have the denial response where people face with this reality, reject it consciously, and construct their own, or they search for information that comforts them rather than exposes them to the truth. They construct a media bubble that shields them or a social circle that could protect them and reaffirm their core beliefs. Everyone is capable of denying reality but it's become quite prevalent in the age of technology where we can easily shut out any truths that make us uncomfortable. And then there's apathy, you know, like slumber and denial, people respond with apathy to

protect themselves in some way. After all, if nothing really matters, there's no need to try, no need to think, no need to bother. It's easiest just to disconnect. As humans, I think we have a really tough time responding to non-immediate threats. It's been said, as I said earlier, that no climate change isn't happening too quick, it's happening too slowly. It's not obvious enough. Because it's not obvious enough, it's very easy for this next response to be made manifest, that is preoccupation.

Of course, this is more of a fault of the system, but people these days are all busy, not everyone can afford to invest in exploring and understanding the world's problems, even if the threat is so existential that their office busy work or retail servitude would ultimately amount to nothing. But I'm not talking about those people when I talk about preoccupation, I'm talking about the people who respond to the issues of the world by purposefully distracting themselves with busy work. Constructing a convenient excuse to not challenge the structures that they are under or maintain.

Like running away from the predicament of collapse. But the predicament of collapse catches up to all of us sooner or later. And on the flip side of the people who busy themselves with busy work, are the people who dive into mindless consumerism, which is coupled with apathy to some extent. If nothing matters and everything's fallen apart, you might as well just indulge, consume, distract yourself with games, music, party, and drugs and drinkin'. It's like slumber, except you're aware of the reality and just plug in your ears to just dance.

But at least for those that plug their ears, they don't face what I've called overwhelming. Some people respond by trying to wrap their minds around the depth and complexity of collapse to the point of obsession and just kind of end up losing their minds altogether. I don't think there is any human mind that can completely consume and comprehend every minute problem we face. I think that's why we are a social species because we can distribute that understanding of all the various problems so that no one person has to handle all of it. We really are going to need to come together to understand collapse because as individuals to deal with something so complex, abstract, far-flung and frightening. It's

frankly subjecting yourself to that as almost a form of self-torture or self-flagellation and what we need is the opposite. We need people building each other up and healing our communities and coming together so we could solve this crisis. Of course, there is such a thing as being too caught up in that sort of hope. A trap that a lot of people fall naturally into because in a sense we are biologically predisposed towards optimism. We tend to hold on to hope in some future outcome they'll just work out. And it's sort of a blind hope because it can't adjust to the ever-shifting reality. It strips us of our ability to see clearly and to take realistic and necessary action.

We give up our agency and leave things in the hands of the leaders and the experts. We stay passive, we waste time, precious time that can be spent on real harm reduction, just going with the flow. We prevent the necessary conversations with the blind hope when we fix it so much and whether we can fix it or how we can fix it without considering what we need to do if we can't fix it. What happens then? Blind hope manifests in a few different forms but I think whatever form comes into it ultimately and inevitably leads to disappointment, waiting forever for a future that won't come, that exists solely in one's mind irrespective of reality. It's quite frankly a form of denial.

It takes a bit of a journey to move towards a greater level of emotional maturity to handle the tough conversations and let go of the false hopes, like the idea that will somehow reverse all the damage our planet has been dealt with, scot-free. But once we have done that, and once we have strengthened our resolve and strengthened our ability to process and to engage with the reality of what's happening,

we can take action with knowledge that no, our leader is not going to do anything substantial enough and no, this moves far beyond reform. It really is a hard pill to swallow, but if you can take it, you'll be better off to resist. We really don't need blind hope in resistance. I think hope is important. I'm distinguishing it from hope. Blind hope, however, is a distraction. And sort of connected to the blind hope conversation are the people who respond to this crisis with the obsession with individual change. People who believe there's a few tweaks here and there that we can continue our perpetual growth. We just have to switch to veganism or recycle or carpool every once in a while.

And that that individual level action on a large enough scale would resolve the crisis. They place a lot of stock and blame on individuals entirely, and they don't engage with the wider structures of society. A lot of liberals, of course, fall into this camp. And speaking of liberals, we see a very penicious trend of progress, worship as another response to collapse. The author Dennis Meadows actually points out a curious trend over the past four decades. It's a constant shift in justifying why we shouldn't change our behavior.

Back in the 70s, critics were saying, no limits. Anyone who thinks they're limits, they just don't get it. In the 80s, they're saying, oh, actually, they are limits, but they are very far away. We have nothing to worry about, nothing to lose sleep over. And then into the 90s, the limits are no longer at, are no longer as distant. And then the supporters of growth growth they chime in with oh well you know The limits are close, but no worries, you know the markets and technology was swooping and fix everything And then you reach in the 2000s and it becomes clear that the tech and the markets might not cut it And the narrative spins again

Regardless of whether or not the market or tech can cut it We still need to push for growth because that's the golden ticket to the resources we need to tackle our problems. It's basically a game of justification hopscotch. It's almost a cult of progress that any and all growth is good that no matter the consequences of our finite earth, we can just expand and expand eternally. A lot of the responses I get to my discussions of degrowth or post growth or whatever, it's like, yeah, but you can't do that because then the GP wouldn't grow and wouldn't elevate people's standard of living and, you know, it's not fair that global social people. Wait, wait, wait, Andrew, are you a Malthusian?

Nothing of the sort, nothing of the sort. But I think that we should not be falling into this trap of being like, oh, well, you know, it's not fair that these rich countries, they got to reach that level of development. And then we have to like, I mean, what we're going to step in and stop other countries from doing so. And it's not that I mean, I'm speaking from a not rich country. What I'm saying is that the, what I say to the people is that the path of development these rich countries took is not sustainable.

It is literally do minus all. Yes. The entire population cannot strive for the level of consumption that Americans strive for. Do I think the development in the state police? Absolutely. But not on the trajectory, not following the footsteps of these rich countries, this global North and its legacy of decimating the world. You know, places like India, places like Caribbean, places like places in Africa, you know, we do need to, you know, improve housing and improve access to water

and improve access to education, all these different things. But chasing after this sort of careless economic growth narrative and path is just going to accelerate all of our destruction. I agree with the need for reparations from global north to global south that will allow us to reach the level of That could reach the quality of life That I think every human chef access to But I don't think that that is the same thing as saying

that oh well, you know, every country should have their own equivalent of Britain and the US's industrial revolution. And who cares that that ship has sailed that window of opportunity has passed. Yeah. And I think going back to like the your series of episodes on cults, when you're talking about the cult of progress, I think that is, that gets thrown out as like a very trendy term, but I think it has a lot of truth in it for this specific reason. In order to maintain the type of progress that is necessary to sustain this at this current point, what seems to be a very unsustainable method of interacting with the planet. You have to rely on growth as

this thing that you can't actually like predict it's act. It's you can't actually predict a real endpoint for it. You have to only assume and only hope that it will get there. That's why there's this real sense of acceleration throughout these whole industries, because people know that if we continue just doing this way, the planet will not be functional, at least for us, in like 100 years, probably in much less time as well. years, probably in much less time as well. But the reason why they're all continuing is that people have this idea in their heads that if we just keep accelerating, if we keep going, we have to go faster and faster and faster because we'll find something along the way that will magically fix the problem.

The only way to fix the problem is to continue accelerating and we'll find this thing that doesn't currently exist, but we'll find this supernatural device or discovery that allows us to fix the little problem we've made for ourselves. And it is a very religious belief that if we just keep going, we'll get some deep special in the site. We've reached the point where people are literally looking to the heavens, almost in a supernatural sense, to find a solution. They're like, oh, well, we'll just be able to keep on going because asteroid mining and we'll just go and settle in other planets and I'll continue our expansion endlessly and we can just keep on going.

You also see this with people like developing AI. They're like, if we get into AI smart enough, it'll be able to tell us how to fix our problem. And it is a deeply spiritual drive. It is a very cultist drive. Like we have to keep going even though we are currently dooming ourselves by continuing, we have to continue

because that's the only way that we'll get this out of this problem. It's like, we can only dig deeper. Like, we've gone so far into the center of the earth. That it's faster to dig. Keep picking the can down the road. It's faster to dig out the other way than actually trying to turn around and fill the hole again.

It is a very cultish spiritual drive to continue this, to continue and explicitly accelerate development because we've realized we've done something that's from our current point of view almost irreparable. But there's this belief that if we, that the only way to fix it is if we keep going, then we'll somehow stumble across the magical thing that will fix our problem. I want to talk specifically about the sort of... I mean, I know that other people in the world who also have this response, even the global

south who also have this response, even the global south who will also have this response. But I see a lot of Americans responding to my like, deep growth advocacy, whatever, saying, well, what about the global south? You know, I mean, never mind I live in the global south. What about the global south? And what really gets me about it is just how it's almost like a way of comforting themselves. Sure. It's using the struggles of marginalized people to not interrogate your own role in the continuing destruction and systemic oppression that produces this great economic and, uh, and like, uh, uh,

difference in quality of life. Yeah. Because it's like, yeah, then you'll have to confront the fact that maybe your lifestyle and the privilege, some of the lifestyle and privileges you enjoyed really should not be enjoyed by anyone ever. Like maybe that level of the thing was never sustainable in the first place. And we could have done with less and, and I know it's, I really hate having this kind of conversation on the internet because I think it's very difficult to get into the level of nuances necessary

because then I know people will say, oh, well, I'm from a week in class background. I'm from this and that. I've also faced a lot of deprivation. I get all that. But then there are other things where I'm like, you know, can we live in a world where everyone has access to Amazon one day shipping, two days shipping? You know, can we live in a world where everyone owns a car, even if it's an electric car. I think there are certain standards of, I guess, lifestyle or milestones of lifestyle that we've come to accept that I think in retrospect, we will look back

and say, wow, that was an aberration of human history that we were even maintaining that sort of infrastructure, even maintaining that level of consumption. You know, I'm sure a couple generations online people look back at me like, wow, do you tell me nearly every household had a car and that everybody was just on the roads, driving all the time and we built our cities, our infrastructure around vehicles. When we knew very early on, when the oil companies knew very early on that eventually we would run out, we just didn't care. I'm kind of all over the place with this, but you were going to say

something. Well, I was also going to mention, like, in these in these sorts of discussions, it also can be often overlooked that just because you live in the United States or any other kind of big place, that doesn't mean like, it's that's not the United States isn't one place. There is a difference between living in like a $5,000 apartment in a downtown like city center versus living on the outskirts of town in like a house that's falling apart, right? Or living on the street

or living in the middle of Utah versus living on the coast. Like there's living in like a montant. Like there is such a large difference even for people in the States for like, many, many, like not everyone is able to live in this, like very, arguably very unsustainable, very like hyper, hyper modernity way. There is millions of people that-

Of course, of course. No, I'm not saying that against your point. I'm saying like, this is also part of the problem. Like we have tricked ourselves into thinking that if you live in the United States, that must mean you are like, you are one of the elite few, but there is millions of people who are living in like,

some of the most, some of the harshest conditions in the world, even in the richest country in the world. Like it is, it is. Yeah. And degrowth is not coming to take from one's meager lifestyle. If one lives in those circumstances, you know, degrowth is really coming after those on the other end of that spectrum of lifestyle. Yeah. who was on the other end of that spectrum of lifestyle. Yeah. No, if any, it would be a greater equalizer between people living in countries.

It would be an elevation of your standard of living. Yes, as well as looking at, quote unquote, like the global south or quote unquote, like third world countries. Like there's this idea of like, I think we've had someone on this show to talk about this before, Joey, like the fourth world. You're living in third world conditions, but in a first world country. And how all of these types of systemic inequality and differences in

cost of living conditions, they all combine together in really gauzy and fuzzy ways, even if you live in the United States, Canada, England, like Germany, wherever. And it produces this extremely, extremely bizarre mishmash of circumstances. Of circumstances. Yeah. You can you can walk by someone who's driving like a five hundred thousand dollar car.

Meanwhile, you are literally being forced to live on the street. Like that is that is such a bizarre dichotomy. Yeah. The few times I've been to the U.S. seeing that dichotomy, like in real, is something else. I mean, of course, there's an income inequality and there's vast disparities in wealth and turned out as well. You know, there are people who, you know, live on the streets and there are people who, you know, go to yacht parties every weekend. What I want people to recognize is the way that these

elites get you to advocate against your own interests is through that sort of and connect you to their cult of progress and get you invested in their cult of progress hook you in is through that sort of temporarily embarrassed a millionaire mantra. They hook you in by saying, yeah, they're coming for our stuff. Eventually you'll get to my level too. And then you wouldn't want people to take your stuff away either. You know, like my tech development is going to rise, going to bring all of us up, you know. I shouldn't let these people stop you rather than, no, well, obviously these rich guys are going to get brought down a peg. But by bringing them down a peg everybody will have a

better quality of life But instead of recognizing that they deceive people with this techno opium They bring people into this trap of capitalist realism that They bring people into this trap of capitalist realism that either you live in the deprivation of the worst of the worst of people's livelihoods and under capitalism or you live in the excess of the best of the best of people's lives under capitalism. And there's nothing beyond those two options.

And so obviously the degrowth people want you to be living in the former option and you should oppose them because of that. Another response I see is that there are a lot of people who are just completely like have complete faith in our leaders who believe that, you know, once we get just the right people in office, things will work out. The truth is, of course, the system corrupts even the best of intentions. Politicians are classed into themselves and their actions reflect, ultimately,

their own interests and the interests of their backers. Nation states, governments, rulers, it's their job, it's in their job description to maintain structures that ultimately harm humanity. And there's only so much they can do to affect the status quo. Placing on salvation in their hands is an exercise in futility. In fascinating the future and the confines of electoralism is a waste of time but it also demonstrates how effectively mass media and schooling has broken down and limited our imagination. I like to call that

status realism, the idea that there's no alternative to this hierarchy of rulers and ruled. The people just need to submit to the wills and whims of others rather than organizing for themselves and their communities. There's of course the response of apocalypse worship, rather classic response among those who end up obsessing over a collapse. And honestly, the worshipers of the apocalypse also hold to a form of blind hope. You know, the accelerationists, students, they preppers, cultists, extreme survivalists, zombie video game enthusiasts, believers in the end times, they all seem to have a whole, so they seem to have a real excitement for collapse.

Or they fix it really heavily on the ideal version of the end of the world. Like, they can't wait for the world to end. They embrace this sort of, we're all on our own mantra, paracet themselves, bunker down, stockpile weapons and essentials. They're getting up for a violent future because they anticipate that others will react to the situation similarly to how they intend to react. So they're taking like a page from Mad Max and like, yeah, I'm going to be immortal Joe, so I don't end up a thrall of immortal Joe.

I mean if it's not obvious the people who respond in this way freak me out. You know those who look at what's going on and instead of resisting or trying to change the circumstances they just accept it as things going according to schedule or prophecy or they try to accept it as things going according to schedule or prophecy or they try to make it worse. I don't know if you've seen Leave the World Behind. Oh my god, yes, horrible. Yeah, I'm sure you remember that one character and his that prepper and his whole response to the crisis before him. Complete another selfishness, which is a betrayal to his character inspiration in the movie Tremors, which showed the

correct way to be a prepper, which is to actually help the people in your community. I actually haven't seen that movie yet. It's my list. It's what it is a it is an old movie about a worm that takes over a small town. It's pretty silly, but it does even King movie. I don't think so.

No. It sounds like something Stephen King would write. It's it's not really a horror. It's more of like a comedy thriller. Like it's a comedy. OK. It's not a comedy, but it is an innately funny situation also because it's like filmed in the 80s or 90s. Like it just the way it's aged just makes it more funny.

But it is also a good movie. And and yeah, after after this, I mean, it's it's kind of like what if like an earthquake or a tornado hits this small town, except this is more like adversarial. So like this like worm is like causing like the town's buildings to like cave in because it's like digging underground and we see this fantastic, fantastic prepper character is able to help everybody out

because he is prepared for such a scenario How kind of him yes, unlike unlike that douchebag and um and leave the world behind yes We'll talk about movie after Yeah, I mean the last response I really wanted to cover was despair, pessimism. Seeing the worst, expecting the worst, living in utter defeat, weighing down actual efforts with pessimism. Jumping into my comment section to be more Norfate. I mean according to those in despair there's nothing that we can do to affect our future. And in my eyes, those on this doomer pill are just as misguided as those who are hyped

up with blind hope. I think it's okay to admit that we don't know what's going to happen. You know, I don't claim to your profit. I don't think anybody should. The IPCC reports, for example, are a consensus of scientists and understanding of the situation. Some scientists are going to be more conservative in their reporting. Others are a bit more catastrophes. But either way, I really don't think we need to get into the weeds of just how bad it is or exactly how it's going to happen. What matters is that things need to change some way, somehow. I

think it's important to try and understand as much of the situation as you could, not to the point of obsession. To take note of how we respond to the issue, to look at the various responses I covered and see if you fit into any of those camps. And to recognize that the worst case scenario is far from inevitable. My advice is really to prepare for the worst in whatever way you can and put hope and build for the best. Build community, build connections, build your skills, build your strengths. and put hope and build for the best. Build community, build connections, build your skills, build your strengths,

and push in any way that you can in whatever sphere you find yourself for meaningful change. Because, say it with me now, it could happen here. It certainly could. That's it for me. I'm on YouTube, Androism. I'm on Patreon.com slash St. Trim. That's it.

Well, power to all the people. Peace. Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death people. Peace. or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for it could happen here, updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. What if I told you fairy tales had a darker side? He locked her in this dungeon. He ordered her to do this impossible thing. He threatened to kill her multiple times.

That's one where Red and Grandma are just dead. She takes the frog and with all her might, throws him against the wall. Join me, Miranda Hawkins, as we step into the twisted world of the brother's grim. Listen to the deep dark woods on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A small town with secrets hidden for centuries.

You turn up in Danville just as the town sees its first real crime in decades? And a curious stranger who may be their only chance for survival. I'm talking about the murder and disappearance in small town New Hampshire. What do you think? This is Consumed, an all-new supernatural audio thriller inspired by the novel by Aaron Mankey. I did not wake up this morning preparing to deal with forces beyond my understanding. Please, I call that breakfast. Listen to consumed on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, it's Alec Baldwin. This past season on my podcast, Here's the Thing. I spoke with more actors, musicians, policy makers, and so many other fascinating people, like jazz-basist Christian McBride. Jazz is based on improvisation, but there's very much a form to it. You have a conversation based on that melody

and those chord changes. So it's kind of like giving someone a topic and say, okay, talk about this. Listen to the new season of Here's the Thing on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.