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

Episode Date: June 16, 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.

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You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Welcome to Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get real and dive straight into todo lo actual y viral. We're talking música, los premios, el chisme, and all things trending in my cultura. I'm bringing you all the latest happening in our entertainment world and some fun and impactful interviews with your favorite Latin artists, comedians, actors, and influencers. Each week, we get deep and raw life stories, combos on the issues that matter to us, and

it's all packed with gems, fun, straight up comedia, and that's a song that only nuestra gente can sprinkle. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 Thank you. cool zone media book club book club book club book club it's the cool zone media book club your book club where you don't have to do the reading because i

do it for you and if you listen to this show you don't have to pay taxes also true that's what the government says and this month if you're gay in a very very broad umbrella of gay you also don't have to pay taxes also true that's what the government says and this month if you're gay in a very very broad umbrella of gay you also don't have to pay rent yeah yeah this is all in the constitution you know our founding fathers they were wise men they thought of all this they thought primarily of this book club you know yeah you did a whole behind the bastards episode about how much they love cool zone media book club isn't that right about how much they love Cool Zone Media Book Club. Isn't that right? About how Thomas Jefferson knew you, Margaret Killjoy, before you were born and planned this whole country to facilitate our book club. What a terrible cost, you know?

But the cost has already been paid. So many people have died to make this book club possible, Margaret. And if I had had any say at the time, I wouldn't have let it happen, but it did happen. And now we have nothing to do but use the time that has been given to us by the immeasurable suffering of those who have come before us. So this is Cool Zone Media Book Club. We're in part two of Party Discipline by Cory Doctorow. And I was thinking, no one's coming in just on part two. So we'll just get right into it. And we'll say that where we last left our heroes, they were planning a communist party at a factory,

which is when you take over a factory and start using its machinery to print stuff to give away, which is a type of communist party I like more than the other kind if i have to be honest but they just got pulled into the vice principal's office by a cop what's gonna happen who's to know you can only find out by listening right now the cop pulled the vice principal's chair out from behind the desk and sat down on it in front of us pulled the vice principal's chair out from behind the desk and sat down on it in front of us. He didn't say anything. He was young, I saw, not much older than us, and still had some acne on one cheek. White dude. Not my type, but good looking, except that he was a cop and he was playing mind games with us. Are we being detained? Somewhere in my bag was a Black Lives Matter bust

card, and while I had forgotten almost everything written on it, I remembered that this was the first question I should ask. You are here at the request of your school administration. Oh. Even when there wasn't a fresh lockdown, the administration had plenty of powers to search us, ask us all kinds of nosy questions. After a lockdown?

Forget it. Are we entitled to lawyers? Sherelle's voice was a squeak, but I was proud of her. She remembered the second line from the bust card. You are not. The cop looked smackably smug. I didn't say anything. That was definitely the third line on the bust card. Keep your damn mouth shut. He didn't say anything either. Well, I wasn't going to be the first one to speak. The silence went on so long, I started to worry that I was going to bust out laughing because it was damned silly, the three of us sitting there in total silence playing foolish head games. I could tell Sherelle was on the verge of giggling too. That psychic thing you get with

your best girlfriends. Don't giggle, don't do it, I thought at her her i was sure she was doing the same thing for me and you know what it's like when someone tells you not to laugh when you're about to laugh that makes it a thousand times worse i swear we'd have burst something if the cop didn't finally speak what do you know about steel bridge girls at first it was just the girls i noticed because seriously who the hell was this kid to be calling me a girl? Then I tried to figure out what Steelbridge was, because the name did ring a bell. My cousin Antoine is a sheet metal worker there.

Oh, that's Steelbridge. I was surprised at first, but Sherelle wasn't telling them anything they couldn't learn with one pass through her social media. He did the silence thing again. Someone needed to teach that boy a second interrogation technique. Now that we knew what this was about and what he was trying for, the hardest thing about these silences was fighting the giggles. What else do you know about Steel Bridge? He was terrible at his job.

Maybe too terrible. Could he be trying to lull us into a false sense of security about his cluelessness? If so, he was being pretty obvious about it. Maybe it was a double bluff then. But nah, he didn't seem smart enough for that. So maybe triple bluff? Okay, maybe I was getting nervous too. I don't see what this has to do with school. Didn't you say this came from the school administration?

What do they have to do with some company in Encino? Oops. Well, it was in Encino, but the fact that I knew it was, was more than I wanted to say. Lene, you are not as smart as you think you are. We requested that they put us in touch with you two. He was pretending he hadn't noticed me say Encino. Badly. He jumped like I'd stung him.

We're worried about you. He sucked at being fatherly. More staring games. We're worried about you. You said that. We're worried that there may be some illegal activities coming up at this factory. Labor trouble. Felonies. Jail time. I hear you two are good students. I don't think you want that kind of trouble. Not so close to graduating. Was that whole lockdown just so you could get a look inside our backpacks? When Sherelle said it, I stared at her in disbelief, but the cop blushed like a stoplight. Shit. That's crazy. How can that even be legal? The cop actually rocked back in his chair. You two are too smart to be in this kind of trouble. I wouldn't want to see you throwing away your lives. I had a look at your grades. You could go to a good university.

He gave us what must have been his most significant look. It's better than going to prison for 20 years. The way he was talking and looking at us made me think that he wasn't as confident as he should be. I wondered why. How long after a lockdown does the school have to allow students to talk to their lawyers? He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed at them with his forefinger and thumb. Everything you do from now on will be logged. You're in this investigation. Remember that. He stood up and left the office.

I guess I knew the answer about the lawyer thing. Toodaloo. Sherelle only mouthed the words, but it still nearly set off my giggles, and I glared at her. It had been old and corny for almost as long as, Bye, Felicia. But it was also something both our mothers would smack us for saying, and that made it damned funny just then. Once the door clicked shut behind Detective No-Name, Sherelle jumped up and started throwing things in her bag, quick as she could, and I did

the same after a second. I took the hint of her not saying anything, and worked silently. But you know else what doesn't do good ad transition because tired is Margaret and this now. Ad time. diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me in a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters.

From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 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, 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, sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love.

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And you know, Margaret, I am kind of thinking, I think Corey does a really good job depicting the ways in which the legal system can fuck you over. Having a cop like this who will admit, yes, everything is on the record right now that you're talking about is a little optimistic, even for like how cops actually treat kids in these situations i know like at least he did say yes everything is

like you are you know i think he's trying to scare them straight more than like entrap them yeah you know that is a kind of guy in this situation too yeah outside the school i let my feet autopilot me to the Uber van stop, but she dragged me away toward downtown. There was a row of automats, Korean tacos, pizza, poke bowls, all serving scop, all places I never went. She pulled me into a rice pudding place with 200 flavors and no customers. She bought a large one, and when the window opened with the rice pudding steaming on its little tray she plopped her phone in it and snapped her fingers at me i passed her my phone not quite believing i was doing it and watched as she dropped it into the rice pudding as well then closed the door all right they're safe now they were the first words either of us had spoken since the cop had left. Sherelle, why is my phone in a bowl of rice pudding?

She eye-rolled me. The vending machines are shielded to keep identity thieves from putting in skimmers. Once our phones were inside it, they couldn't get any network service, no matter what. I shook my head. How do you know that? I just do, okay? I know people. I snorted. She knew the same people I knew, plus or minus 5%. My guess was that she'd read this online somewhere, one of those hashtag

resistance sites. Okay, then why is my phone in the pudding? Because, dummy, if the pudding is left on the release bed, the machine thinks you forgot it and it chimes you a few times, see? It was chiming us and flashing a light. But if there's anything on the release bed, the machine thinks you forgot it and it chimes you a few times. See? It was chiming us and flashing a light. But if there's anything on the food bed, it starts taking pictures and analyzing them and sending them to the bomb squad just in case. So we put the phones in the pudding and then we get them back and wipe them down and we're done. But Sherelle, it's pudding. She shrugged. Waterproof is pudding proof. Pudding. She shrugged. Waterproof is pudding proof. What if someone comes in for rice pudding? She gave me a look. Girl, no one eats rice pudding. That shit is gross.

I didn't tell her that was my favorite dessert. My stomach was all in knots anyway. How do you know all this? She shrugged. Looked it up. Back when you first started talking about communist parties. I started talking about communist parties? Maybe I did. Maybe it was me that started it. I'd always been fascinated by them. That was for sure. Why? Because, Linnaeus, for a smart girl, you are sometimes hella dumb.

If you were going to go and get into trouble, I wanted to know what kind and what I could do to take the edge off of it. That stole the words right out of my mouth. Shirelle had done that before, taken my crazy plans and turned them into careful schemes. But I hadn't been thinking of the Communist Party as my plan. Hadn't she told me about Antoine and the factory? You want to do this as much as I do. She made a face and I knew I was right. That cop, though. You think he has anything? I think he wants something.

He pulled a phony lockdown just so he could search our bags. To me, that says they're worried but don't have enough to do something about it. Sherelle, since when are you a tactician? Since I figured out that you were going to get us both busted if I didn't start paying attention. Linnaeus, communist parties are dumb. They only work when you tell a lot of people about them, and the more people you tell, the more likely it is that you'll get busted. It was true. I shrugged. Everything is like that, sure. Everything. If it's good, it's scary. That's why we do it. If there wasn't any risk from having a communist party, it wouldn't be exciting. But you could still sneak in at night

and make the trolleys, give them to homeless people. Why do you want to have a party? I didn't know, but I felt like the answer was on the tip of my tongue. I shrugged again. Oh no, Sherelle. I didn't invent them. Nah, you didn't. That fool went to jail. Once Tisha was snoring, I got out my burner, a phone I'd made in shop class following a recipe I'd found on a darknet Google. It had been freshman year, and all the kids were doing it, and I hadn't used mine in years.

It powered up and complained that it couldn't find its update server and warned that it had been years since it had been patched, that I shouldn't let it near the net. That was good advice, but I couldn't take it. Instead, I gave it a connection through my regular phone,

using the app that Shirelle had sideloaded for me using her fingernails, after we cleaned off the rice pudding. That app was designed to let you tunnel your leaky, abandoned smart appliances through it to keep them from being exposed to the public internet, and Sherelle said that no one could listen in on its connections. I hoped she was right. I pointed the burner at a site that Sherelle said she'd researched, and we waited while the burner downloaded new versions of all its software. Once it had rebooted, I was able to connect it straight to the net.

My stomach fluttered when I did it, though, and send Shirelle a message on her old anonymous account, a long garbage string like you saw on the cards that drug dealers left in public bathrooms. Shirelle had explained it to me. It was an address in the blockchain that had a public key in it. Download the key, encrypt with it, and post your message back to the blockchain that had a public key in it. Download the key, encrypt with it, and post your message back to the blockchain. Everyone could see it, but only the private key holder could decrypt it. Of course, those messages lived in the blockchain forever, so your secret squirrel ever got hacked for a private key, every message sent this way would be visible to everyone in the world, for all time. Like they said in the crime shows, crypto giveth and crypto

taketh away. I figured it out. It took her less than a minute to reply. She was waiting to hear from me. That you? It's me. What did you give me for my 15th birthday? I rolled my eyes. She was such a secret squirrel. Nothing. We had a fight and you didn't invite me. Yeah, okay. You asked me something. Shut up. Come on, it's good hygiene. I thought about all these messages being encrypted and stashed in the blockchain, which I didn't really understand, but always pictured as this huge anthill with trillions of little bugs crawling around on it.

In 10,000 years, would someone figure out how to break the code and read this? Who did you crush on in freshman year? Fuck you. Come on, it was your idea. Ale Martinez, but he was fine in freshman year. Alejandro had become a candy billy in junior year, wearing these crazy outfits that looked like a kindergartner dressed up like a cowboy, and he'd started missing a lot of classes, showing up late and hungover or still high and stupid. I hadn't seen him in a year or more. I knew Sherelle still crushed on him, though. She was 100% smart woman, foolish choices. I figured it out. What? Why it has to be a party? This should be good. I checked to make sure Tisha was still asleep. Because it feels like there's no alternative like no matter what we do the same thing's gonna happen

we're gonna end up like your cuz if we're lucky get a job that lasts a while before the company runs off and takes our last paychecks too it's all so big and we're so little but put us all together and you can see it there's other people out there feel the same as you

a connection get it you woke me to tell me that shut up There's other people out there feel the same as you. A connection, get it? You woke me to tell me that? Shut up. Okay, okay, yeah, I hear you. That's a reason maybe, even a good one. But it does make everything a zillion times more dangerous. You want to live forever?

Shut up. Tisha opened one eye. Put down your phone already, I'm trying to sleep here. Robert, when I decided that I had to have you as the guest, I have to admit that Candy Billy was part of the reason for it. I don't know. You describe post-apocalyptic radical hacker party people pretty well in your book, After the Revolution, which isn't me plugging that. It's just true. That was one of the things I really appreciated about Walk Away. I think Corey and I have communicated a bit with him over the years,

but I don't know him personally very well. But I feel like we came out of, or at least have experience with similar parts of the Burner subculture. I think so too. And it's influenced how we both write about the post-apocalypse in ways that are kind of adjacent to each other. Yeah, I think that that's true. And here's ads, for some reason. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories.

Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Black Lit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. 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 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 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 té 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. And we're back. Antoine just happened to be at Sherelle's house the next afternoon when we took our homework there. And we just happened to leave our phones inside and went to the backyard to sit under the sunshade

with our notebooks and scratch paper. The Wobblies say they can fool the cops into thinking the whole thing's scheduled for the next night. Shirell looked as skeptical as I felt. How are they going to do that? He looked around. You don't want to know. Shirell thumped her hand on the table.

Guess we do. It's our asses on the line, too, in case you haven't noticed. He sighed and looked around dramatically. He wasn't much of a spy. Shirell had a better poker face. I can't talk about it, seriously, but not everyone who becomes a cop believes in the system, alright? Some of them just need a job, and also a way to look themselves in the mirror. The cops were infiltrated by wobblies? That would be pretty weird if it was true. Maybe it was true. The world was pretty weird. What happens when we tell everyone at school to show up on the right date? It's not like they've got the tightest game in the world. They're kids. Cops will figure it out

for sure. Sherelle said it, but I was thinking it too. Antoine made a face. Yeah, thing is, we gotta be tight about this. We got the same problem, but not with school kids, but all the other people we want to show up. These wobblies, they said, maybe we don't just tell everyone about it in advance. Instead, we invite them over for dinner or whatnot, out for drinks, and then we just drag them along, make sure they bag their phones. Surprise! He made a face.

Hell of a surprise. Sherelle side-eyed him. I was surprised myself. What if we pretended something else, like a party at someone's parents' house? Everyone will come out with their stuff offline because they don't want to get busted for underage drinking and that. And then we'll bring them to the party. We just invite the ones who we can trust

to keep their mouths shut. Sherelle was about to jump in and say something, but I held my hand up. No, wait, it could work. Thing is, what if there was a party at someone's house and we just diverted some people from it, caught them before they arrived, got them ready, drove them away? We could say it was someone else's party, not us. No one would know who was organizing it, so no one

could snitch on us afterwards. Sherelle had the biggest smile right then, and she made twinkle fingers at me, which meant I agree and hell yeah. And when I was done, she said, who do we get to have a party? That was both harder and easier than it sounded. Easier because there were only three kids whose parents were out of town that night. Harder because those kids sucked. Two were junior chamber of commerce and couldn't be trusted. One was Ale Martinez, who, it turned out, Shirell had been keeping tabs on the whole time he'd been AWOL from school, messaging with him late at night when I was in bed and shut off to keep from waking up my nosy sister. mom. Ale's dad was a U.S. citizen, and so was Ale, but his mom had been undocumented and got deported when he was little. Sherelle had on that defiant face of hers, daring me to make a big deal out of the fact that she and Ale had been sneaking around. Will he have a party? She rolled her eyes. He always has a party, every single time his dad goes south. Him and all his candy Billy Freds.

Headphone parties so the neighbors don't phone it in. They even make birrium. I made a face, then pictured Alejandro and his buddies and their lame-ass girlfriends in a huge cuddle puddle, sloppy drunk on birrium and giggling like babies. Ugh. So ask him. Sherelle's expression was pure animal in a trap. Can't you do it? Cherelle's expression was pure animal in a trap. Can't you do it? I gave her a look. Shit, she said with feeling. The way she said, hi, Ale, when she got him on the phone was the most surprising thing of all. She practically sang the words. Listening to her end of the conversation made me wonder if I knew her at all. She even giggled at one point. Love is blind and stupid. Really, really stupid. When she was done, she put the phone in her pocket. All set. You gonna say anything? About

what? About that. Ali Martinez. Shirelle. She snorted. Okay, so I like him. Who cares? It's not like I don't know he's a fool. She tapped her temple. But you know, she tapped her heart. Doesn't mean I'm not in control. I only take him in small sips. Keeps him tolerable. If you say so. Like I said, it's a good thing I'm immune to Shirell's looks. It was a good thing we weren't trying to keep Ale's party secret. There were a lot of kids at Burbank High who remembered him as the fun dude who used to throw those amazing parties before he disappeared, and the news that he was still alive and still throwing them went around like wildfire. So it was only up to Shirell and me to put the word out to the ones who weren't idiots that we were going to meet in Stowe Canyon to pregame,

then arranged to meet them there after as they puffed up the hill on their bikes or on foot. There was supposed to be 23 of them, and they arrived in ones and twos and a foursome driven by someone's cool older sister, and then five more in an Uber, which was D-U-M dumb because everyone knows that Uber logged everything and that we're hella snitches,

rollover cops without a warrant, not that warrants were hard to come by. They came with flasks and six-packs and vapes, and they found us by following the blaze marks we chalked high up in the trees with glow-in-the-dark chalk sticks, giggling and stumbling through the night with the lights from their airplane-mode phones bobbing towards us. We made them turn them off and bag their phones

using the pouches we got off of Antoine, who got them from the Wobblies. At 15 people, we were way too noisy, and no amount of shushing would keep it down. We'd get spotted soon, but there was supposed to be 23. 23 people we knew and liked and trusted, though maybe not to show up on time. They didn't want to go without them. Should we split into two? I asked Sherelle, counting up again for the 30th time. Maybe they'd phoned us to say they'd be late, but of course, our phones were off and bagged. Sherelle spit on the ground. She looked pale in the moonlight.

Don't want to get caught on my own, and don't want to turn on my phone to figure out where you got to. We got one problem with those fools late and missing. Don't need two problems with not knowing where we are. I looked at her, eyes so wide you could see white all around the pupils, neck tense. I realized how scared she was, and that made me scared, because there was a damned good reason to be scared. We were risking serious consequences, jail time even, to throw a party. The knowledge of that went from something in my head to something in my guts in a second and left me feeling like I'd been punched.

I wobbled. Why the actual fuck was I doing this? Why are we doing this, Sherelle? Dun, dun, dun. That's the end of part two. Huzzah. Well, I'm excited to see why they're doing this. I mean, I kind of know in my own heart, because I think a lot actually about what this story

seems to be about in part, which is like how much harder it's going to be in the very near to immediate future for kids to break the law in petty fun ways the way we broke the law in petty fun ways. Which is why I did it so much. I knew for a long time, even when I was like 19, the kind of shit I was getting away with, kids would not always be able to get away with. And I do feel like I had a moral responsibility to break as many laws as I did. Yeah. As long as I was home by curfew, that's all the information that my parents had.

It was an age undreamed of. Yeah. When we tell stories about being like teens and early 20s to kids like 30 years from now, it's going to sound like fucking Conan stories. Like we're talking about hyperborea. Yeah, totally. God. And it's also a story about how like they'll still do it it'll be harder right you know

much like love will find its way teenage crime will find its way and yeah yes i believe in us i believe in the youth i although there's also this thing where like the older you get the more you just start looking at the youth being like, they'll fix it. And you like point to the mess that you didn't fix and that your generation didn't fix. You know, the societal version of like what happens with my recycling bin with me and my roommates were like, well, it's pretty high up there. But like, I don't really want to take it out right now. I can fit one more can. And then my roommate has a can.

He's like, yeah, it's it's it's pretty high. But like, I feel like I could get one more can and then my roommate has a can he's like yeah it's it's it's pretty high but like i feel like i could get one more on there we've all just kind of done that with the cops and government surveillance and you know the corporate security state and the way in which it interfaces yeah our carceral system yeah just keep putting one more can on there yeah like we don't need a revolution that we can handle a little bit more we can take a little bit more surveillance maybe it'll get better maybe they'll take away the cameras yeah yeah who knows yeah no uh we need to collectively take the recycling out and restructure society but well this story will get at some of it but actually i just want to plug if people are enjoying this story or want to like kind of take it to its next level the book walk away by doctor

that both of us are fans of is just okay so he'd mostly written young adult before walk away at least that i was aware of i'd only read young adult books by him before walk away and then walk away took the same ideas that he always talks about which is like people finding the cracks in the system by being like cool teenage hackers and then puts it at a grander scale just like this like i don't know it's one of the best stories of like grand revolution that i've read yeah i agree but that's me saying nice words about cory doctorow but cory doctorow had nice words to say about my book that's being kickstarted right now called the sapling cage and it's funny because i'm recording this before it's being kickstarted because we record some of these things ahead of time so who knows how that's going but i wrote a young adult book or actually technically a crossover book have you ever heard of the genre

crossover no i just knew about ya and then a fiction crossover is young adult that knows that adults read young adult it's like basically the young adult genre became more and more codified in very specific ways that started kind of reducing, I would honestly say creative freedom where like, for example, good luck selling a young adult book that doesn't center around a romance, right? And no matter what dystopian, whatever the thing is, you know, there is romance in my book, but it's not a teen romance book. You know, it's a, it's not even really at the end of the day, a book about like being trans, even though it's a big part of it. It's like a book about people finding their way and saving the world from people who are trying to consolidate power and all the kind of shit I like writing about. So crossover is basically a young adult, but you can kind of do whatever you want and i like that more so that's why my book is crossover

it's just an annoying genre because anyone who's not specifically in like publishing you have to explain what the fuck it is the protagonist is 16 that's what it means Yeah, it's a good book. I also have nice things to say about it, which you will see on the cover, I think. Yeah, I think so. So, buy the sapling cage, and that's all I gotta say. Yep, and listen to the rest of Party

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