It Could Happen Here - CZM Book Club: "Party Discipline" by Cory Doctorow, Part Three

Episode Date: June 23, 2024

Margaret continues to read Robert Evans a novella about the near future of tech, surveillance, and teenage rebellion.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was,

should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jacqueline Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. Black Lit is for the page turners,

for those who listen to audiobooks while running errands or at the end of a busy day. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Listen to Black Lit on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything.

Hey, I'm Gianna Pertenti. And I'm Jamee Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. If you're early in your career, you probably have a lot of money questions. So we're talking to finance expert Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it down. Looking at the numbers is one of the most honest reflections of what your financial picture actually is. The numbers won't lie to you. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating.

I don't feel emotions correctly. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take phone calls from anonymous strangers as a fake gecko therapist and try to learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's very interesting. Check it out for yourself by searching for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the Cool Zone Media Book Club, which is a podcast that is a book club that... It's very confusing when I try and explain Cool Zone Media Book Club

because I'm like, well, it's a podcast. And I'm like, well, what do we listen? And you're like, well, you listen on other podcast feeds. It's kind of a parasitic podcast. Maybe symbiotic. Yeah, it's like a lamprey. Yeah. Let's say a lamprey.

Lampreys are basically good. Yeah, everyone is happy they're there. I love having a lamprey attached to lamprey. Yeah. Let's say a lamprey. Lampreys are basically good. Yeah, everyone is happy they're there. I love having a lamprey attached to my body. Yeah. And that's Cool Zone Media Book Club. We're the squatters of podcasts because we sneak into other Cool Zone Media podcasts. It's like if the landlord was squatting the apartment. Right, right.

Yes, it's exactly like that. And like landlords, I have been algorithmically increasing your rent in a way that finally attracted federal government scrutiny. Wasn't there some game that came out where they couldn't figure out how to make it? It was like City Skylines, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How to make it fun to play with landlords who worked like real landlords. Yeah. So they had to get rid of landlords in order to stop real estate prospecting or whatever. Landlords are a big rid of landlords in order to stop real estate prospecting or whatever. Landlords are a big part of the problem. I think the biggest part of the problem is just that like we built an entire society where like a huge number of people will absolutely lose

their mind if their house doesn't increase in value forever. And that's just kind of dooms the whole civilization. I know. It makes me think a lot about the ancient Romans where you read about like, okay, the entire backbone of our military and society is these small free farms. And of course, all of the rich people buy up all of the small free farms as soon as they get money and destroy the class of people who used to provide them with the military in order to make themselves moderately richer. self-destructive thing. You read about like the Mayans or whatnot who like poisoned their water. It was like, oh, okay. Like what kind of society would do such a stupid thing to destroy their own ability to sustain themselves? Like everybody. That's what all societies do. Yeah. As we drive cars. As I have a truck. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, let's read this story about, largely about that. Yeah.

Hell yeah. Well, this is part three if you didn't listen to parts one or two you're an adventurous sort and your brain works fundamentally different than mine just raw dogging cory doctorow's story that's right not even the lube of the first part of the story well i'm going to give you the littlest bit which is okay where we last left our heroes they were about to throw a communist party with plans to break into an industrial 3d printing factory to print shopping carts for folks living on the streets that's where we left our heroes because this is part three of party discipline by cory doctorum she went from scared to furious so fast it scared me twice and it wasn't the normal Shirelle eyeball poison.

This was real, uncontrolled anger that made me take a step back. We're doing it because it was important to you, she hissed, so intense that other people turned to watch us. She forced herself to calm down and bent her head toward me. You tell me, Linnaeus. Why are we doing this? Maybe it was the jolt of new, immediate fear that I got when her fury welled up that got

me past my future theoretical fear of jail and let me get back to my thoughts because now I could access them. Because we're all so sure there's no way to escape that we're all going to be done too, not doing. Sherelle, I'm graduating high school this year and as far as anyone can tell, there's no reason for me to even exist once I finish. My mom would miss me, and so would Tisha, but Sherelle, no one needs them to exist either. We're spare humans. Do you remember economics class? The lower the pay is, the worse the work, the more unemployed people they need to make the people with those terrible jobs feel like they can't afford to quit them. The most use the Zadas have, for either of us, is to be miserable and downpressed so bad that everyone else works double hard so they don't have to join us. Shirelle cocked her head.

You sound like a wobbly. Do I? I replayed what I just said. I hadn't spent a lot of time with wobblies, but I'd read some of the pamphlets they left in the toilets, the darknet rants you had to click through to use their proxies. I guess I do. Well, who cares? They're right. We knew they were right all along, Sherelle. But while we were in school, we could pretend that it didn't matter, that we had a purpose to go to classes and grind for grades. But now class is over and the bell's going to ring and then what? So you want to have a communist party? It wasn't

a question and it was supposed to be sarcastic. I puffed up. You're damn right I do. At least we're doing something. The whole system only works because we let it work. Don't do anything to stop it from working. She spit again. It works because doing something usually means going to jail. Girl, you're supposed to be smart. Be smart. It's not too late for all of us to go to the party tonight. Some of Ale's friends are cute. I'll introduce you. I remembered that it had been me who'd had doubts, had went to Shirell for reassurance. Instead, I'd got this, rage and fear. Neither of us was sure about this. And it was too late. The stragglers were coming through the woods. It was time to tell them all that we were going somewhere else tonight. Somewhere that all

of us had bullshitted about wanting to go since freshman year. A chance to make the world do something for us for a change instead of to us. We're going, Sherelle. You and me. And them. It's going to be amazing. We're going to get away with it clean. We're going to have the most amazing senior year in the history of Burbank High. You believe in me? Linnea, I don't believe in you, but I like you, and I trust you. She grinned suddenly. I got your back. Let's do this.

We told them they could go home if they didn't want to risk coming to the Communist Party. But we told them after we told them that they were the only kids in the whole school we trusted enough to invite to it, and made sure they all knew that if they backed out, there'd be no hard feelings, and no chance to change their mind later tonight when they were at a corny party with a bunch of kids instead of making glorious revolution. Every one of them said they'd come. I'd found an all-ages show in Encino that night, two miles from Steelbridge, Antoine's old job. We got piled into Ubers heading for the club, chatting about inconsequentialities for the in-car cameras and mics. And every one of us paid cover for the club, making sure to use traceable payment systems that would alibi us as having gone in for the night.

Then we all met in the back alley, letting ourselves out the fire doors in ones and twos. I did a head count to make sure we were all there, squashed together in a spot out of view of the one remaining camera back there. I'd taken out the other one the night before, wearing a hoodie and gloves, sliding along the wall so that I was out of range until I was reaching up to smear it with some old crankcase oil. We hugged the wall until we were back out into the side streets. All our phones were off and bagged, and everyone had maps that used back streets without cameras to get to Steel Bridge.

We strung out in groups of two to five, at least half a block between us, so no one would see a big group of kids walking while brown and call the cops. We regrouped at the head of the industrial road that led down to Steel Bridge, lined with shuttered factories, empty and silent except for the distant railway thunder and you know what else would be empty and silent is our lives yes without these sponsors oh my god they're not even lives margaret came and called them that it's not living without products and services? No, no, absolutely not. Yeah. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast. And we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires.

From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible.

Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com.

Hola mi gente, it's Honey German and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again. The podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters,

this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators sharingifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything,

from music and pop culture, to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, El Te Caliente and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian.

Elian Gonzalez. everywhere. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story as part of the My Cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. check. You're probably thinking, yay, I can finally buy a new phone. But you also have a lot of questions like, how should I be investing this money? I mean, how much do I save? And what about

my 401k? Well, we're talking with finance expert Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it all down. I always get roasted on the internet when I say this out loud, but I'm like, every single year, you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere between 10 to 15%. I'm not saying you're going to get 15% every single year, but if you ask for 10 to 15 and you end up getting eight, that is actually a true raise. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now and I cannot decide if I like him or not.

Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing

parents. Even at the age of 29 they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

It's the one with the green guy on it. We're back. And you know, Margaret, one of the things I respect most in an author, it's actually most of what makes The Old Simpsons great, is the ability to have things happen in the world years or even decades after you write something that makes it seem a lot smarter and funnier. And in the case of Cory Doctorow, you've noticed that like the cheap poor person, like amalgamated food extract that they have in this is scop. Yeah.

And there's a piece of AI gibberish going viral on Facebook now that's like an AI generated incomprehensible meme with like a heaven and a hell. And there's like a floor generated incomprehensible meme with like a heaven and a hell. And there's like a floor mat in front of hell. The one in front of heaven says heaven and the one in front of hell says scop because like it's just an AI hallucinating. I have thought like I kind of want to push Corey's word. Well, I guess it's Corey and that AI's word now. But I kind of like the idea of using that as a generic term for like AI generated shit. Like, yeah, there's a bunch of scop in my newsfeed today.

Like it's really clogged up with a bunch of fucking scop. Yeah. Like it feels good to say. I am entirely here for it. I think without having asked him that he would approve of this. Yes, I suspect he would. I haven't asked him either. I actually have owed him an email for like seven weeks.

Maybe I'll send after this. Yeah. People can hear it next week, but I just finished recording an episode about George Orwell, who wrote incredibly well. Complicated man, but incredibly useful, incredibly good in so many ways. Complicated man. Yeah. Only his women, and by his women, I mean his hand grenades, understood him.

Yeah. He didn't understand women, I will say. He did understand hand grenades. They were the real love of his life. Yeah, totally. He invented the phrase Cold War. Really? Yeah.

I actually didn't know that. No, I didn't either. Speaking of guys who... The more you... Yeah. Yeah, the deeper you go, there's more and more there. Well, I'll say this every criticism of george orwell and he's got more than his fair share yeah none of them are criticisms of him as a writer that's true that man could fucking turn a phrase some people try because they basically say he like writes too plain he's not a real intellectual or whatever

no but he instead intelligently wrote about why he chooses to write that way. Yeah, he was one of the best to ever do it. He's right up there for me with Vonnegut. Yeah, that makes sense. So, all right, I said, last call. Turn around now or it'll be too late. Of course, no one is going to walk away with everyone else watching. After an awkward moment, I smiled at them all and said, all right, you're in. There was a chuckling and murmuring and back slapping

and I led them to the back door of Steel Bridge where Antoine said we could expect to find a way in. I tried not to show how nervous I was. My hand shook as I reached for the door. Then I remembered and reached into my pocket and got my gloves. Glove up. I turned around and watched them all do it,

because if any of them left prints behind, they could lead to me. We were all in this together. I put my earbuds on the factory network and got the music tuned in, kicking it in the pass-through so that I'd still hear conversation around me. It was fast, crazy salsa from Russia,

thunderbeats and hard rapping over big horns and drums. We all nodded in time as we passed through the door. The lights swirled in amazing patterns, projection mapped onto huge masses on the factory floor, turning them into stone or wood or water or smoke as the beamers hanging down from the ceiling played over them. There were at least a hundred people there already, the giant buildings, far edges, lost in shadow. I spotted a keg and headed for it, threading through some weirdly dressed dancers who were dancing even weirder, though not badly at all. Like their dance moves were from another timeline. I would have stopped to admire them if I hadn't seen Antoine by the keg and if he hadn't

seen me and beckoned. Up close, he looked like he was about to throw his head back and start speaking in tongues, that churchy look of someone right on the edge of something too big to contain in a single human body. He grabbed my hand and squeezed it like a drowning man. Linnaeus, it's happening. It really is, Antoine. What about the machines?

He used his free hand to gesture at them, the men and women working on them. Just getting started. We hit some snags with the power meters, didn't want them to snitch us out, but he gestured at the dancers. We got some skilled assistance. I looked at the dancers again. They were weird in some way that I couldn't quite put my finger on. I couldn't remember ever seeing anyone dressed quite like them before. Printer clothes that crinkled and rustled like thermal blankets the homeless people used, cut in boxy lines like a child's drawing, right down to the thick piping that ran around the edges like crayon lines.

It looked a little like the stuff you saw refugees wearing in the videos where they washed up on a beach, or bobbed in the sea, or crowded against a fence in a camp somewhere. But they were also party clothes, definitely. Sparkly and bright, and I'd never heard of party-cut refugee wear. Or had I? I stood up on my toes and whispered in his ear, one word, walkaways? He nodded, and I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. I'd seen documentaries about them, and sometimes you heard about them in the news. Terrorists, thieves, pirates, people who'd walked

away from it all, living in the forgotten and empty places, recycling toxic waste and their own tailings into weird funhouse versions of civilization, like horror movie sets. If wobblies were exciting radicals, walkaways were orcs and ghouls. The dancers seemed a lot scarier all of a sudden. I knew that walkaways got mentioned in the same breaths as communist parties, but I always figured that was a scare story.

I thought communist parties were about wearing fake beards that hung off of fake glasses, not rotting civilization from within. What's more, I'd brought all my friends along for this. If the cops got word that walkaways were here, there'd be no mercy. Just being in the same building as them could land us all in prison for a long, long time. No wonder Detective No-Name had such a hard-on to figure out what was going on. He wasn't trying to stop a party.

He was trying to catch terrorists. Antoine. I could tell he'd seen the expression on my face and had an idea of what was going through my head. He put a hand on my shoulder and steered me into a private room to one side of the factory floor. Some kind of supply closet with high shelves under the ancient fluorescent tube lights. The shelves bare and showing the dusty outlines of the stuff that had been piled on them when Steelbridge had been running as a real factory. I know what you're going to say. He had beer on his breath.

Was he drunk? How drunk? Walkaways? Antoine, when the cops find out... Cops aren't going to find out, Lene. That's the point. Who do you think knows how to fool the power meters? They got their own internet,

running off drones and blimps. They hacked the meters to think they were still talking to LADWP. Not only that, they also got the mills and the rollers, hell, all the machines, got them unlocked from the manufacturers so they'll even turn on.

That's all walkaway shit. No one here could do it. So what you're saying is that you knew all along that they'd be here. He made a pained face and I knew I'd caught him. Yeah, I knew it. You should have known it too. Who do you think started the communist parties? Who do you think makes them possible? Hell in a. What do you think the point of them is? That shut me up. An hour before, I'd been dedicated to making something happen in the world instead of letting the world happen to me.

I'd been willing to risk everything to prove that I had a place here. What was the point of communist parties? To push back, to write 50-foot-tall graffiti in the form of stolen machines and furniture and cars and vehicles. Shopping carts for homeless people. The walkaways? We get caught in the same place as those dudes. It's going to be a terrorism bust. You know that. Those dudes are the reason we're not going to get caught. They're the real deal, the resistance, you know? They're out there all the time, keeping low and

getting away with it every day. They're good people to know. A thing I've noticed about Sherelle and her family is that they can always find the bright side, even when they really have to dig for it. My family was a lot better at worrying about the downside, which was why, even though I was the one who wanted to have a communist party, she was the one who ended up making it happen. I tried to look at it like Sherelle would, like Antoine would. I had brought 30 kids to a communist party where there was free beer, dangerous and amazing machines, and walkaways. I was going to be a living legend, assuming none of them ratted me out. Shut up, Lene.

Okay, Antoine, okay. But if we all end up getting rendered to Tajikistan, I'm going to blame you. I'll slip you a hacksaw. He was still a handsome fool. Get me a beer, fool. Yes, ma'am. Shirel's side-eye, when Antoine and I got out of the closet, could have cut steel.

I crossed my eyes at her and stuck out my tongue and got Antoine to fill me up a second red cup for her. I handed it to her and clicked cups. As we drank, the software that was DJing kicked into a song we both loved, but a mix neither of us had ever heard, and Sherelle started to bop her head a little. And then I did it too. And then we drank up and hit the floor, and a space opened for us, and we started to dance for real. I'm a good dancer, and Sherelle is a great dancer. I got good by paying attention to her. And the other party goers

paid us the highest compliment. They danced, too. For a while, it was just like any party. Dancing, grinning faces, the crazy lights. Now the software was picking out people and projection mapping them, turning them into shimmering fish creatures or stone statues or red-skinned devils.

The walk-away's crazy party clothes made an especially great canvas for the painted light, and when one of them got lit up, the rest of us formed a circle around them while they busted out their best moves, trying to see if they could outpace lightning-fast reflexes of the projection mapping program. The software was good, and it spun track after track, seamlessly matching beats, but speeding up, daring us to keep up with it on the floor, humans and machines locked together in a musical battle. Shirelle and I busted out our best moves, and when she spun away to dance with an older guy, a steelworker, not a walkaway, you could easily tell I'm a part. She danced like he was a 19-year-old

at a club in New York City, not a middle-aged guy in a stolen factory in the San Fernando Valley. Then I was whirled off by a pair of walkaways, and one of them was white, and she and her friend, a Mexican-looking guy, did these freaked-out moves that would have looked corny if anyone else had tried them, something like a war dance from an old Cowboy and Indians movie, or something like a Lindy Hop, but with them, it worked worked i tried out some of their steps and they smiled and encouraged me and soon we were all grinning like fools much like you'll be grinning like a fool if you purchase new product from product store it's the only thing that can make you happy that's true i'm pretty sure we're allowed to say that i I haven't been stopped physically. Right. And I will tell the truth until I'm physically stopped. Yep, yep, yep.

That's our right as Americans. That's right. To talk about the truth of product. And here's an ad for it. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast. And we're kicking off our second season digging into how has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search,

better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough, so join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. Hola, mi gente. It's Honey German, and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, películas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations

with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators

sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with cheese man laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week,

we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el te caliente, and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean.

He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian.

Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network available on the iHeart

radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Parenti. And I'm Jemay Jackson Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, the early career podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. One of the most exciting things about having your first real job is that first real paycheck. You're probably thinking, yay, I can finally buy a new phone. But you also have a lot of questions like, how should I be investing this money? I mean, how much do I save? And what about my 401k? Well, we're talking with finance expert Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it all down.

I always get roasted on the internet when I say this out loud, but I'm like, every single year you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere between 10 to 15%. I'm not saying you're going to get 15% every single year, but if you ask for 10 to 15 and you end up getting eight, that is actually a true raise. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not.

Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head

and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Welcome back, and I'm a little disappointed that there was also service in there. I had just been talking a big game about product, but really, maybe it's like Dungeons & Dragons. You need both. just been talking a big game about product but really maybe it's like dungeons and dragons you need both yeah products are the services of products when we make a tabletop role-playing game for cool zone media it's going to be called products and services oh my god yeah that's a good one margaret still going to be 3.0 based oh oh i'll just remember how that rule set works until

the day i die yeah no that's fair let's get weird with it. Let's do second edition Shadowrun. So many D6s, Margaret. Like 30 D6s for every person. And I don't know how the damage system works, even though I'm currently playing it. Nobody ever did. It's like Spelljammer. Or not Spelljammer, fucking Rifts.

Yeah. The most knowledgeable Rifts players. Like a third of the rules to that game. I hear legends that up deep, deep in the mountains in Harlan County, up in furthest Appalachia, there's a man who knows all of the rules to Rifts. But some people say that's just a legend. Said lies. No, I've seen him. I tried to study at his feet, but he wouldn't let me.

Anyway. Meanwhile, in the background, piped in and mixed down with the music by our earbuds, I was aware of the sounds of machines, first faint and tentative, but then more intense and regular. And the software doing the music matched it with paradiddles that put it into a jazz time, so the lindy hop parts of the walkaway dance really worked, and more people were doing it. But more and more of the dancers were drifting over to the machines. First the steel workers, then the walkaways, then the rest of us, grabbing more beers, forming semicircles around the lines where the machines were doing their things. The sheet metal workers moved smoothly, passing parts from one machine to the next, transferring wire gridworks to huge beds where they were stamped and folded, then to a bed

where a writhing nest of robot arms made a series of precise, high-speed welds. The shopping carts took shape before our eyes, moving to finishing steps where water jets cleared off snags of metal and then polished the steel, then into a coating bath tended by workers in masks. One of the walkaways was unstacking plastic tubs from a pile that was leaning on a column and hauling them over to the area where the upside-down carts were being muscled into place in long, precise rows. The walkaway, a woman the same color as me and not much older, I realized with a surprise, pulled something out of her crate and snapped it onto a cart. It was a wheel. She went back for more. The walkaways had brought wheels. I hadn't even thought about how a steel factory

would produce rubber wheels. Someone else had, though. Someone who'd thrown more than one communist party. It wasn't a game for amateurs. I joined her. She gave me a pretty smile, one crooked tooth and a lopsided dimple. Her hair was in short braids streaked with silver. It looked amazing. Nice hair, I said as we met at the wheel tub. It was nearly empty. We had help now, three more people clicking the wheels into place. Thank you. I like your shoes. I'd worn my coolest kicks, covered in tiny relief sculptures of hundreds of famous athletes twined around each other, every pair unique and printed by Goldman Nike. Designed so that the rubber deformed to make them dance and move when I walked, ribbed with high contrast piping that glowed bright enough to show every feature, even in the factory light. They were the most expensive thing I owned,

and I nearly died when Mama gave them to me for my birthday. So I was proud that she noticed. Thank you. Mind if I scan them so I can print some later? She was already moving around them, holding out a bead that she passed over them for several passes. For a second, I felt like she was taking something from me, picturing her and her friends wearing identical shoes by lunchtime the next day.

Then I told myself I was like the assholes who insisted that this factory and all its feedstock just rot until the roof caved in. Be my guest. Because what else could I say, seeing as she was already nearly done, except, whoops, she needed me to lift up each sole, so I did that, holding onto her shoulder, muscly, while she finished up. I think I can redo them with the faces of all my friends.

She pocketed the bead. Be fun to try. My name's Mersenne. Call me Mare. You want? Lene. Her handshake was rough, strong, calloused. She was hella strong.

No wonder she could throw around those tubs like they were full of cotton balls instead of heavy- heavy duty wheels. Looks like there's more needs doing. She shoved a tub my way and I staggered under it, got it balanced and crouched walked it to an empty spot. The assembly line was really tearing now. So much rolling stock on the factory floor that we were in danger of running out of space. Someone realized that the shopping carts were shopping carts. So you could push one into the back of another and it would nest inside it, making long segmented rolling snakes out of them. Even with that measure, we were soon filled to the doors, but it was okay. The feedstock was done and the dancers

were starting to look a little glazed with the heat of their bodies and the machines. It was 2 a.m. Antoine came over and high-fived me. Where's Shirelle? I looked around. She'd helped out in spells, but had been more of a dancer than a maker. I had stayed with cart construction and logistics straight through, pausing only for beer and water. There'd been three of us who took the lead on the carts. Mare, the walkaway, and a guy I figured out was a wobbly. Being part of their trio made me feel fucking badass, I have to admit. There she is. She was with a group of the kids that we'd brought along with us. I'd known those kids most of my life, and it struck me that in a

month I'd stop seeing them every day, and I'd probably never see a lot of them again. That was a weird feeling, but not entirely a bad one. More enormous. Sherelle spotted us and toasted us with her red cup. She was grinning like a fool, looking for all the world like Antoine. Antoine put his hands on his hips and looked at the tight-packed shopping carts. Now what? I was exhausted, exhilarated, and exactly, exceedingly exalted. I had an all-over tingle of danger. The cops could still show up. An accomplishment. We did all this. Everyone with a truck brought it. We load them up, tarp them over, dump them downtown near the market where the homeless are. They do the rest. That made sense. I mean, we weren't going to push them through the streets all night, were we? But it was such an anti-climax.

I got a better idea. Some of the steelworkers used sheets of metal to make ramps that helped us roll the carts into the collection of pickup trucks in the factory's sheltered loading area. Once they were loaded, the walkaways spread out and visited each truck's cab, doing something to them to keep them from knowing where they'd been that night, giving them plausible new geography in case someone ever pulled their log files. Most of the steel workers were going to walk home,

and the walkaways were going to head into the night and ghost, of course. With Lapp sitting and squashing, all the kids we'd brought would fit into the cabs of the trucks. They were just sorting that out, led by Sherelle, when Mare found me and stuck her hand out. Just wanted to say goodbye before we all went back to our corners. I shook her hand and then, on impulse, gave her a hug, which was all muscles and bone. Damn, walk away at life must be for real. Take care of yourself, which was a funny thing for her to say to me, since I lived in civilization and she was a

criminal who lived in the Badlands. Uh, you too. She held me out at arm's length. I mean it. It's scary here. Lots scarier than what we have out there. She jerked her head towards the hills. We stay out of their way and they stay out of ours. You staying here in default, you're a problem they have to solve. We're self-deporting to nowhere. Poof. Out of sight, out of mind. we're self-deporting to nowhere. Poof. Out of sight. Out of mind.

The word default leapt out at me. I knew it was what they called us here in the real world. The people who just did what they were supposed to do. School was default. Family was default. Even parties like Ale's were default. The shit we'd just done. Not default.

The sort of thing that the cops would pull a fake lockdown to get inside of. Not being default felt good. Thank you. I hope I see you again. You want to make that happen, just message me. She passed me a slip of paper. That trickles into walkaway net. You send it a message, it'll bounce, and that bounce message will get logged,

and I'll see the log. Eventually. Cool. I meant it. Walkaways were super spy ninjas, of course, and that bounce message will get logged and I'll see the log eventually. Cool. I meant it. Walkaways were super spy ninjas, of course, but getting a glimpse into how they were able to operate without getting hammered was cool and impressive. And that is the end of part three. Because if you want to know what happens to the shopping carts,

you're going to have to wait. Unless you read the book on your own. But you wouldn't do that. You wouldn't do that to me. No, you might do that to me. You probably would. I can see it in your eyes.

I know both of us. I know you won't be faithful to me. I know, but if you are, you'll wait till next Sunday and join us for part four of party. Keep yourself honest and true. You won't listen to another podcast. I've decided to apply like the morality that like English Regency culture applied to aristocratic

women who had sex before marriage to like people who listen to other podcasts before this one comes out next week. That's how I feel. You'll be socially dead. You'll be exiled. Yeah. You know, cut out from your entire family and social circle yeah cool zone media podcasts are okay yes of course obviously and once you've heard part four then

you can listen to some non-cool zone media podcasts as long as yeah the hosts have been guests on cool zone media and to be clear you are allowed to have like premarital sex outside of the english royal family like that's fine just Just no podcasts. Yeah, yeah. No, totally. Yeah. Well, except for our new podcast, Sex Outside the Aristocracy. Yeah, that's right. We only tell sex stories from people who are not members of the House of Windsor.

Turns out, that has done nothing at all. Because none of those people fuck. That's the truth. Yeah. And if you want to hear more about the story, we'll see you next Sunday. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com.

Thanks for listening. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. Google search. Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami?

Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jacqueline Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while running errands

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Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. If you're early in your career, you probably have a lot of money questions. So we're talking to finance expert vivian too aka your rich bff to break it down looking at the numbers is one of the most honest reflections of what your financial picture actually is the numbers won't lie to you listen to this week's episode of let's talk offline on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts i found out i was related to the guy that i was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko.

It's a show where I take phone calls from anonymous strangers as a fake gecko therapist and try to learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's very interesting. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's very interesting. Check it out for yourself by searching for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.