It Could Happen Here Weekly 41

can make your own decisions. Uh, welcome to it could happen here a podcast about things falling apart and how to deal with that and hopefully take care of yourself and your people. UM. Today we have a returning guest, Carl Casarda from Enranged TV. UM. Now, Carl, every time you and I have chatted on a show together, it has been about firearms, which is obviously your passion and specialty, well one of your specialties. But today we're not talking

at all about guns. UM. I mean maybe here and there, but today we're talking about the thing that is has been your your career, uh for what most of your working life. Fair to UM, you want to kind of walk through your background, he because we're gonna be talking about information security and like sort of the future of threats that are going to be like coming uh throughout like the next few years of our lives. Obviously this year in particular, there's been a bunch of stories about

like Russian attacks on digital infrastructure and vice versa. And that's always, like pretty much has been something that's in everybody's backburn since we got the Internet, usually through like questionable films with Sandra Bullock. Um, I think net that was net right? Um? The Net? The Net? Yes, exactly, Yes, where they somehow hacked a car and nineteen or something. You gotta do that when you're flying through cyberspace with

your right yea. Um. But yeah, you want to walk everyone through kind of what your actual background is in this industry first. Yeah, totally. So if anyone watches in Rangers watched it for a long time, you'll see this reflected in some of my content because I do deal with some of this intermittently on the channel. It's definitely influenced how I approach my work there with the social

media and all that. But so way back when I was like one of those kids that was in the hacker space, and I grew up like trying to make computers and technology do what it wasn't designed to do, and learn to make it do things it shouldn't have done for my own interests or others around me, Not not in any really negative way, but like just a deep curiosity and how does this stuff work? And being

part of the early online community. We're talking pre internet, where you have like an acoustic coupling jack modem and you would dial in like war games, yea, literally plug your headset into the fat. I was on boards like that way back when whatever should have gone past those days.

Doing things wirelessly was such a mistake, Like I'm so piste off that when I like sit down to research, I'm not like jacking into a gigantic box um like it that makes me live it Like shadow Run promised me that I was going to be like using one hand to shoot at the approaching corporate security guards and have another hand on my like keyboard that I wear around my neck that I like plug into the wall

to hack buildings. Well, hey, maybe someday we'll have neurological implants or wet wire implants brought to us by Monsanto that'llually the RM and will just get shut off in our own rooms right from the mouth to God's ears, Carl absolutely, who doesn't want that? Who doesn't want my neural tissue tied directly to a corporation? But that fuck yes? But anyway, so I grew up in that space, and it actually, back then it naturally turned into a career.

It wasn't like now nowadays you pretty much have to go get a bunch of certificates and a college degree to even start looking at an infract career. But back then, if you kind of had like skills with a Z at the end of you could get a job. And I landed up doing like help desk at this one company.

Landed up they noticed that that's where my interests were, and I ended up becoming their information security architect over a couple of years, and that turned into a multiple decade career pretty much culminating and working at a Tier one Internet backbone provider doing sub seed fiber optic like routing, networking and de DOS mitigation and bought neck control search

and destroy. So it really turned into a really wide career, not only like when I started off backbone Internet, but like encryption, firewalls, application layer controls across the board for multiple corporations. So it was a weird and interesting space. But I don't really do that much anymore except on the side, but I've had a pretty exciting career with it. So I think probably a good place to start is just in general, because folks are always interested about this.

What what do you What is your recommendation for people ask like, what should I be doing to kind of protect myself as I forced my head under the constant stream of sewer water that is social media these days? Well, yeah, you know, the simplest thing and everything, an infosec is always controversial, just like anything life or any any recommendation makes someone's gonna be like but otherwise or anyways, or there's a better solution, and there always is a better solution.

But the realistic thing is when you talk to the average person, the average person isn't gonna sit there and hack a Linux box to have a better social media experience. That's just not realistic. So the best thing anyone can do, the simplest, best thing, is to get one of the trusted password managers. There's a number of them out there. I'm not going to recommend an individual one right now, because anyone I recommend someone's gonna go. But there's another one,

but there's a few of them out there. Having a password manager and having a unique, difficult, complex password for every account you log in onto on the internet is the first number one thing you can do as an individual to protect your interest. Because if you're logging in with the same password monkey to Facebook, Twitter, and your bank account, that is a disaster waiting to happen. So the first thing you can do password manager passwords you

yourself can't remember. As a result, I allow the password manager to generate like twenty four character long alpha numeric crypto nonsense. You put a gun on my mouth to say, what's your password to your bank and I don't know. I can't give it you. I have no idea. And so that right there is the first thing any basic individual can do to protect themselves on the Internet that,

uh is totally sensible. Um, I don't I'm not great at password managers, but I never know what my passwords are and they're all different, and so my life is this constant stream of like needing to figure out what my password was, failing and resetting it. But it does mean that I change passwords regularly, right, But what's so

great about password managers. You can have passwords that you could never human remember, and you can have neak ones per website, every website you log in, you could be unique.

And by having it in this database that's properly encrypted with a key phrase or even dual factor, then at that point means you literally just can cut and paste your passwords into things you don't yourself know what they are and if depending on your privacy levels, you can do that locally with local solutions with files like on

your own machine. But frankly a couple of the cloud based solutions, as much as the cloud freaks people out, is the better one because it'll work on your phone, it'll work on your black top, it'll work on everything everywhere. That makes total sense. Um. I think Another good thing

to get into while we're on this subject. We just started talking about passwords, and obviously it is important to keep and secure though is um I think one thing folks don't often think about, especially people who are activists um who who may foresee or have engaged in things that are legally questionable, don't think about enough is social media networking um as, and by which I mean having social media that like it is possible to find your

other social media by like knowing you know, like having the same name and Twitter and on Instagram and stuff. Um, having social media that like can be tracked across accounts. Um. Most people would be surprised at how easy it is to do that. A hug and melanct a huge amount of tracking. Nazis tracking even like a ton of the what the work I did not do, but my colleagues did to like doc docs Russian like secret service agents

and stuff. Was like, oh, we found them in you know somebody, uh, their their bosses wedding, Like they're tagged in this thing in VK And from that we were able to like find their their account on this other site and like from that, like now we have this like map of everywhere they've been for the last like three weeks, and we can build this social map of their entire life. Yeah. No, by list by just literally existing in modern space, you're constantly leaking some form of metadata,

right you are. You are always leaking metadata, And the more of you allow to exist in the world, the more that's the case. So, like there's also you've got to think about what the threat is and what the risk is. Right, there's the risk of the individual having a pair of social relationship with the Internet like I do as a content creator is one thing. People, there's always someone that wants to delve into your private life. But that's a very different risk than a nation state actor. Right,

those are two different things. And when it comes to a nation state actor, quite honestly, unless you're real good and I've been doing it for a long time, the individual bluntly is kind of fucked word. As a general rule, your best security as an individual in that situation is

the anonymity of the crowd. But when we're also not talking about most people who are threatened to kind of by the state and that situation are not being threatened by the federal government, but they may have they may like be attending protests and not want the Louisville Police to like put together that they're in an affinity group with people and like something you can do for that is make sure you're not like, if you have a personal account that's under your name with your friends, that

account shouldn't be liking and sharing things from like a political account that you have, or from the account of like a group that you're a part of, or something like that like, just try to think about and look at your your digital footprint from the outside and think, is it possible to connect me to people I don't want to be publicly connected to through this And the minute you've breached that connection once it's gone forever. Right,

this is the forever. Yes, this is the same thing as like with phones, like someone will have like their regular phone, which, by the way, all these smartphones are just surveillance devices in our pocket. Right, Let's let's say you go get a burner so that you don't want to be connected to the device that you normally use on on a level that's one step above the regular

individual level. If you ever have those two devices emanating at the same time, they're now connected in a way that like, let's say, the authorities can associate them together because of triangulation and seeing a burner phone and your phone coming from the same house, you've breached all the

privacy you would have had from your burner phone for example. Now, Karl, do you have much to say on the subject of because I know one thing I have seen people do people who are you know, having conversations that they're concerned about is put bags in Faraday cages. And I've heard mixed things about how reliable Faraday bags and stuff are for actually stopping signals. Do you have much to say

on that matter. My experience with that is not all, not all bags that you can just buy off the internet are made equally um So what you want to do is tested, and you can only test it to a certain degree. But the really simple tests are you put it in the bag and you try to darn dial the darn thing or use any WiFi connections to it. And that's a simple test. Now is it as good as like? Is it as good as not having the

thing on you? Of course not leaving or else is always the best answer, but it properly In my opinion, a properly built Faraday box or cage or bag that you've put some testing into is a pretty reliable solution. And it's you know, there are so a problem that

you might encounter is um or that I have. So one thing I have heard people talk about it is like, well, in order to have kind of a private conversation, we like drove to a specific location and we left our phones off in the car and then went on a walk.

And the problem with that is that Now you have both just driven to a location with those phones, and those phones are associated with each other, right right, Well, so first of all, you got to think of a world where all of this metadata is being collected at all times. So these phones and their associations in physical proximity to one another is stored somewhere at all times, whether or not it's going to be resourced or accessible to the powers that be when they wanted to be.

It's all there. My phone next to your phone, next to that guy's phone. Those associations all exist. They're all talking to the same cell phone towers in the same area, giving them not only GPS coordinates but triangulation data, which, by the way, if you go way back to the hacker Kevin Mitnick, that stuff was going on back then before they had triangulation data to get him, right, So that stuff is all still happening, and those association does occur.

In regards to saying I turned my phone off, how do you know that's off? Most of the moderate phones, what does off mean? And yeah, okay, pull the battery maybe, But even then, I would not trust any of these devices in the regards to them quote being off, especially things like phones that have unremovable or not removable batteries.

Off is more like sleep it is, right, Yeah, I mean, I think one of the worst things that's happened for personal security is the end of the phone where you can remove the battery, Like being unable to actually cut power to it without you know, disassembling it is a real issue. One could argue that there was like that that's a much much more insidious reason they did that, or one could argue that it was just one of design and comfort, And it's like hard to say. It

doesn't really matter if it was insidious or not. Reality kind of a poor Knolos dose situation, right totally is so when now that we're talking about phones, here's another thing that's been near and dear, and I think you've seen some posts from me out this um. Everybody really likes the convenience of things like biometrics, thumb authentication, fingerprint i D, facial identification. And here's the reality of that. We know this already and there's legal this exists in

legal space already. But the reality is that you can be coerced to provide biometric data against your will. So if your phone is authenticated to you with a fingerprint I D or your facial i D. They can pretty much say you must give us your thumb to unlock this phone, or for that matter, frankly, they could hold the phone in front of your face in certain circumstract circumstances, even against your will, and it will unlock the device,

and that is considered not a violation of your rights. So, for example, if you had a long, strong password on the phone, they cannot coerce you to give that up because that would be a violation of your own rights and Fifth Amendment, which is interesting um so. But at the same time, one could also argue that at certain circumstances where there's a lot of cameras that are not

necessarily watching everything you do. But you could also consider that pass phrases could be dangerous, like saying an airport because all those members could see you plugging in your pass code. So it's a matter of if, when and where right, So what's the right solution at the best time. But I would say that if you were going to be in a place that was contentious, um it is almost always better to make sure you do not allow

for any biometric authentication on device. Yes, I never like never turn on don't even like ever have had it in the like ideally you have never turned on facial recognition on your phone, like even if you like deactivated, I don't know, I don't, I really that was That was one of the first I used to be in tech journalism. Right, obviously I'm not an expert on any of this, but like the worst thing in terms of like my personal comfort with devices was when they were like,

everything's gonna read faces and fingerprints. Now I don't. I don't love that, um, but you know it's it's inevitable, right because it is and I had in the past. I did a fingerprint unlock earlier in my life, and I do not have any devices that unlocked that way anymore. But you do like that it is more convenient, right, You miss it when you need to get to your phone quickly and you can't do it. But like, I don't even I don't even let my phone have just

like a four phrase like password anymore. Like it's eight characters for me. It's a little bit of a pain in the ass, but it comes with fewer risks and one of the things that's challenging to every individuals, they have to look at what their threat profile is. Right, So like, for example, UM, soccer mom driving her kids to school and stuff, she might be really good, well off with a bottometric authentication on her phone, frankly, because if she didn't use that, maybe she wouldn't even use

a proper four character pass phrase. And if she's not concerned about being at a protest, for example, and having some authoritarian take her phone away from her and authenticate to it, maybe she doesn't need to worry about that. But for a lot of us in the world's we live in, that's a different risk profile, right. We got to think about what our risks are as individuals and

what makes sense. So if your passphrase is going to be one, two, three, four or use a thumb print I D. For most people they'd be better with the thumb print I D. But for someone like myself, no, it's not a good idea. Yeah, and that's m Yeah. I think that kind of brings us to uh, probably the last part of this, which is UM, do you have specific advice on like VPNs UM? Obviously I recommend everybody you signal I I just firm messages in general,

But like a specially stuff that is secure. Don't if you if you like number one first rule of any kind of this sort of security, don't ever put anything on your phone ever that's legally questionable if you can avoid it, like conversationally, like right, do not don't send it over a phone if it's something you would not be able to survive having read d you in a courtroom. Yeah, for the audience, a lot of the audience may not know what signal even is. Right, So signal ism is

a is a text messaging alternative. So like for example, on your phone, you've got regular text or if you've got an iPhone, you've got I message. Signal is an end end encrypted solution that you install as an app. And because it's end end encryption, it means that it passes the wire in theory not decryptible by the parties that are passing the data packets in the middle. So

that's a man in the middle the decryption. Right. So for example, I message is encrypted theoretically end to end, but Apple ultimately has the cryptographic keys, so there is while they might say one thing, there is nothing really preventing them from being man in the middle and being able to read the message in transit from a to be But if the keys are stored on your device, which are then protected with your passphrase or whatever your

authentication mechanism is, and those keys are not archived or kept by some hierarchical man in the middle authority, if it's done right, which Signal is done pretty well, it means that your data in transit is probably not decryptable. And that's why signals a good solution, and it's a

good one for the average person. Install the app. It works just like testa text messaging, but you can have a pretty good level of a knowledge that the data you're passing is not being decrypted or caught in transmission or in the path. So I would say get get Signal. Um, it's it's your best bet, right Like and again we said, I said, you know, you don't want to ever say anything over a phone that is something that can get you in trouble. But also like life is life, and

that's not always realistic for people in certain situations. So again, signal is your best bet. Nothing is perfect. And again, if you're putting it on your phone, there's a number of things that could go wrong every single time you do that. But um, that that's one of your better things that you could do. And then of course we talk about VPNs. Yeah, so so VPN to those like, I'm just gonna go with the basic levels because I don't necessarily know the level of knowledge that people are listening.

VPN is a virtual private network. So what that is. You connect to this virtual private network and it passes your data through an encrypted tunnel to an exit point somewhere else on the Internet in theory masking the source and origin of your requests. So like, for example, let's say you were looking up something on the Internet that you didn't necessarily want people to know you're looking up. Yeah, like, let's say you're researching the truth about the assassination of

President John F. Kennedy by Bernard Montgomery Sanders. Um, and you know that the n s A is looking for truth seekers who are who are finding out the reality of that situation. You know, you don't necessarily want them to know that you have have become pilled. Right, So if you were to do this from your computer at home, But what happen is to people that don't know how this all works, you would be coming from an I P address that's associated with your account that you're connecting to,

whether it's Verizon or Comcast or whatever. And you go and search up that truth and the n s A finds you with a keyword search for JFK and the truth. And therefore, because of that keyword search, they go to Comcast or to Verison and say, hey, we are requesting you tell us who did this search. They will get them essentially a request that's a legal request for information, and then Comcast or Verizon will provide the n s A this is the IP address account of the person

that did that. What VPN does is you connect to the vp and service first, the connection from your machine to the VPN services then encrypted. Now does the VPN service know your IP address? Yes, but when you actually type in that information or go to the Internet to request that data, it actually goes through the VPNs Private Tunneling network and egresses from somewhere else on the Internet, thus masking your actual I P address and in theory

your origin of source. Now that's not true, but what that does is mean that if someone if say the n s A I wanted to know who's doing this truth search, they would then find an eat IP address that actually came out of let's say Joe's VPN service, and they would have to go to Joe's VPN service and go we noticed this emanated from your network? Who did this? At that point, you have to trust Joe's VPN service to not disclose their account information about you.

So what you've done is you've changed it. We know the telecoms will communicate with the government or whoever if they need to, they always will have You don't necessarily know if Joe's VPN service will. You've changed your trust model from your telecom to your VPN service. So if you're gonna pick a VPN, you have to do a little bit of research to know that it's a trustworthy resource that won't just give you up at the lightest

form of interrogation. Yeah, and none of them again, there's nothing perfect and often like we did find out what was it last year that one of popular vpn was like run by the FEDS, Like it's yeah, that's not an impossible thing. Um. I know a lot of folks, particularly journalists, use proton Um, which is I think based in Switzerland, and you will get given up if you if the Swiss government is angry at you right, you

brought up a very good point. Uh, services that exists outside of the KNUS, the continental US mean that they are under different legal jurisdiction the ones that exist wholly within the KONUS. So as a result, if something from the United States government comes as a request to the Swiss company, there's a much like like higher chance that a Swiss company would be like, we don't really care about your reports. That's worth considering. Also, think about this,

This actually works in reverse. And I don't want to get too deep into this, but when you're working at a tier one internet back one provider, you should know that sometimes traffic strangely gets pushed offshore and then back to the United States for analysis that would normally be let's say, not necessarily constitutionally legal in the United States. So there's a lot of shenanigans going on. Yeah, and again, like,

I think protons are generally a pretty good service. I've had no problems with it um, But we should should be clear here none of these are perfect solutions. There is no perfect solution. The only perfect method of digital security is not putting things on the Internet or like through you know, the mobile networks and stuff like that is, if it stays between you someone else, Um, that is your best bet of it not being you know, intercepted

or something. A conversation that you have in the woods without phones anywhere near you is the most secure kind of conversation. Let me second on proton I agree, it's a good service. There are others out there. We're not trying to pick on one in particular or pick against anyone in particularly. There's a bunch of at work. Yeah. Another thing that you need to consider in this sort

of thing is also what you're dealing with. Like so for example, on I put up a post a while back because there was a bunch of stuff going on in Ukraine with with people posting photos that got their locations add things happen that I mean, that's and that has been happening for a decade in that war, like a well almost a decade as long as it's been going on, And I posted something about it. And one of the recommendations I made on there was a contentious one,

but I'm gonna back it up in a minute. As I used I mentioned pour the onion relay. So the tour is essentially it was originally created as a as a way to deal with the dark web quote unquote, and to also relay traffic in a way to mask the origins, very much like a VPN service. Now there are a bunch of these. So what it was is there's these Onion relay nodes all over the Internet, and when you connect to the to the Onion network, your traffic bounces through three, four, or five, six, seven of

these nodes. You can sort of dictate what you want depending on the client you have. And so let's say you connect to an Onion router network node in Arizona and then you egress somewhere in France and you've jumped through six nodes in the process. Well, one of the things that's a well known fact is that a number of these Onion relay routing nodes are owned by nation

state actors, whether it's the United States or others. So so one of the things I got taken to task for and I want to explain this is people like, well, that's not the compromise network. It doesn't mean that it's useful. Actually it does, because depending on what you're trying to do, may matter. If you're trying to mask the origin of your data source or your upload or your search for a short duration of time, this will still help you

jump through six nodes. They've got to relay back six nodes to figure out the origin of the person connecting to the relay network. And that's assuming that there was a compromise node in the process. So that means if you're passing data through a compromise node, does that mean the data in transit is safe? No? But is the Is the anonymity of the origin of the poster safer

for a longer duration of time? Yes, So these things get really complex, real fast, and this is again one of the best things you can do, because there's no single perfect solution, but stacking, so not just going through tour but also tour into VPN at the same time, and you're I think one of the better ways to think about security is kind of the way Sebastian Younger describes how insurgent war works, which is it's all about creating friction for anybody trying to spy on your ship.

There's no perfect answer, but the more things you can make be a pain in the ass, the better your odds that you will not have an issue. Right Like, that's all you can do is make it potential really more annoying and more difficult for for whoever might be looking right like it. The more friction you can create, broadly speaking, the more secure you're going to be. Absolutely now another thing to think about, and we're getting kind

of deep in the weeds too. This is above and beyond the average person, right, the average person, get a password manager, don't use your same passive everywhere, and don't use biometrics unless you're forced, like pretty much have to and move on with your life. But once you're beyond the average person, this is what we're talking about now.

So like if you're if you have a computer and you use it as your normal day to day operating system, talking to your friends, doing dot dot dot dot dot, but then also need to do something else a little more privacy inclined, you should not trust that device. So at that point, your web browser may have all sorts of cookies and metadata and storage in it that, even if you're going through a VPN, still may be able to reveal your identity a spell as mac addresses and

other stuff. So if you really want to get pretty into the weeds with this, you have to do something like use an ephemeral operating system install that it has no legacy data on it. One example of that that's a Linux based when it's called TAILS. You essentially use

it like a live USB drive. You boot off of that only, or you use a machine dedicated for this, and you burn the OS down every time you're done, because there's no legacy information or data that can be pulled out of your web browser or your cookies or your Mac dress information that can associate it with you, regardless of if you've done everything right to mask your IP address of origin. God, that's the hot girl shit. Um, when you're when you're when you're doing when you when

you're doing that kind of stuff. Um. And again I think at this point, I think, up through most of this, it's been kind of like people being like that's too much, and people being like, Okay, yep, this is exactly what I already am or need to be doing. Um, this is probably very few people need to be concerned about that sort of thing, but um, you know it it is. I I've know I note Like again, I worked at

Belling cat Um. I had a number of colleagues who were like personal enemies of the Rush in state who had to do stuff like this, um, and it's you know, paranoia. I mean, and here's the thing going above. So again, like if you're a normal person, you probably don't need to be you know, doing stacking a VPN, you know, getting signal and all this stuff. But also why not, right, Like, there's no harm in in the additional security. It is a little bit frustrating. But here's one of the things

I think people don't often think about enough. You're not engaging in that kind of security stuff purely because there's a threat now, but in part because you don't know

what the future is going to bring. And one of the things that I would point out for that is a lot of people right now have been having for years conversations about a thing that may soon legally be murder on a federal level, you know, um, abortion, right, And so it is possible that overnight an awful lot of conversations a bunch of people have had legally will suddenly be very illegal conversations. And then you may be glad that you took greater care with your your personal

security prior to that point. Yeah, I mean, like, so think of the I mean, I'm not a person that menstrates, but on menstruation tracking app is very useful to a lot of people who do and those tracking apps, now that metadata in there at some point could be extremely dangerous or incriminalized or incrim criminalizing, incriminating excuse me, to someone who otherwise was doing nothing more than trying to maintain their natural health. And so that is a really

dangerous concept. So at this point, I mean, within the United States, I hate to say this, those apps are probably dangerous to the individual because that data could be easily used by a government resource to uh, to do something bad to someone who's done nothing wrong. So I think we should move. I mean, at this point, I think we've covered the basis that you could kind of responsibly the advice you can responsibly give someone in a podcast. And and folks, should it be able to add let

me throw one thing out real quickly. So you mentioned like, for example, we don't you don't necessarily have the risk actor that requires using VPN or signal. Let me see this way back when gosh, when I was doing crypto work decades ago, I was what you mean cryptography and not we should specify these days? Oh yeah, excuse me,

cryptogracryption work. Yeah, yeah, I I had the opportunity. We're Phill Zimmerman of p GP, and actually p g P pretty Good Privacy, which was one of the fundamental UH security project or projects way back when, was actually written for human rights violations. He wrote it because people were doing research of like warlords were getting their laptops taken away and then finding out who spoke to them and getting people killed. So p GP was like this human

rights thing right from the beginning. And cryptography back when I was young and naive, I always thought to myself, this is what we need. This is the future when everyone gets proper crypto will blind the government will blind the corporations. We're gonna have this crypto anarchist future where the government and corporations can't get us. And the reality is most of that God who served. And the truth is cryptography is too hard for most people to use,

and as a result we don't. But here's what I will say. The more people that do something simple like you signal or use a VPN just to browse the Internet, not because they're doing anything various, just because their privacy like conscious, because it makes it normalize and that means that the person that's using it because they need to for like, let's say, to protect human rights doesn't stick out like a needle in the haystack, because everybody's already

doing something sane in the first place. Normalizing proper privacy and cryptography is better for everyone. Yes, yes, absolutely agreed. This is a nice segue because you were just talking about the past and how beautiful and bright it seemed. Um, let's talk about what you see as kind of the future of info security threats. Well, I mean, so there's so many levels to that. First of all, if we're talking nation state level, I personally strongly believe that all

of the big players have already compromised everyone's network. Everybody got everybody has got us. China's about us, We got China. Anybody right now could go in and pretty much funk up the grid on someone else like that, And there's yeah, and that's not actually the least that's that's safer than other possibilities, like because there is a level of of mutually a shared destruction there where it's like, yeah, man, Russia could take down the grid, but like that wouldn't

be good for them, and vice versa. You know, yeah, no, true. So the reality is though everybody's and everybody's network, those days are over. Um. When it comes to the individual and I'm gonna have a the audience, there might be people in the audience to feel differently, and it still

doesn't mean that we don't try. So one of the things I want to say is you're gonna hear some skepticism here because I've been doing this career for a long time and I've seen things go wrong more than right, and so in that regard, this is gonna sound kind

of cynical. But when it comes to the idea of individual privacy, in my opinion, with the exception of when you're taking a very active effort in something very specific that you want to keep private because that's something you're working on personally, the reality is individual to all privacy is dead and gone, and we're just starting to smell

that corpse um. Whether it is credit card data transactions, your cell phone history, your phone numbers, what you've done on the internet, what you've done on social media or not done on social media, whether you have an account on Facebook or not, doesn't even matter. The metadata and the trailer you're leaving behind you is all aggregated, all of it behind big data corporations, all of it compromised,

all of it searchable. Even stuff the government has on you has been sold to large corporations because I can tell you that some of the data that they kept for like let's say D m V or m v D, they decided to sell it off to a corporation and they themselves access it through a third party when doing research on you. So all of that big data, there's a law of physics. The more you aggregate, the more

it will get compromised. Um, geez, I'm sorry, that's the truth. No, no, no, I mean yeah, you're you're you're like, it's this Uh, there's this frustration because I can remember the days when the privacy hounds. And I don't say that in a negative term. We're like warning everybody about, Hey, you don't want to be aggregating all of these different social media things together. Hey you don't want to be using all of these services. Hey there's actually some like real downsides

like all of what's happening. Like part of why things are so cheap on Amazon is you know that that your data there is is one of the assets that they have, And um, those people were absolutely right, and

they lost harder than anyone has ever lost at anything like. So, Like when I was back there at that company doing all that cryptography work, we were trying to give crypto like to the average general population of the Internet, I had this, like I said, this naive view of like the future that was gonna be this place where we're gonna have the Internet where everyone was connected, and it was gonna be not only would we have personal privacy

through cryptography, but we would be able to transfer information to one another in a way that would make the

Shenanigans impossible. Well, to some degree that's been true what we've seen some of that, But to another degree we also have Snowden dropping the bomb on revelations about what the government has done to the individual and how they've broken the law with all of our privacy and data and what came of that a man in exile in Russia and pretty much fucking nothing, Yeah right, nothing, And um, I was sitting at a Defcon presentation where General Alexander

was on the screen talking about what they weren't doing, while Snowden was dropping revelations proving him to be lying, and nothing comes of it, right, nothing really comes of it. And one of the things that's so real. And so whether it's the tribal level, your neighbors across the street or the internet tribe, we as a people in the aggregate are always willing to give up our rights to something bigger for convenience. And we've done that and it's

called Facebook and Twitter and social media. And in the process, what was going to be an amazing resource has become the trap. Uh. It's such a it's because you know, you know Garrison, I I my my friend who is much younger than me, Um has grown up with the Internet being being what it is now right like this this kind of like nightmare trap. You know that that's sucking us all in this like giant squid that has

us in its tentacles. Um. And it's I get I sometimes like dissociate talking with them about certain Internet things because in my heart it's still the Promised Land. Yeah, I wish, I I guess my I wish I felt that way. It doesn't feel like that way to me anymore, to be honest, I mean, it's it's not right like and what I mean that in like sort of I have this I don't know. I've never entirely been able to like let go of the vision of like, oh it could have been There's so many things that could

have been. Well, it's like, you know, it's like all technology, anything can be remponized, right right, Like an a R fifteen can be used for good or for evil, a knife to be used to make a beautiful meal or to commit a murder. And the Internet is technology, and it has been weaponized. It's been weaponized against us. But at the same time, if we just turn a blind eye to it and then not learn how to use this technology to our advantage, we're allowing them to do

that unabated. And that's where like the kind of hacker mindset comes from, which is like, how do I make this thing do what I wanted to do for me while not letting someone else do it for them. And unless we take control of the technology for ourselves, like I said earlier, normalizing using signal and even basic VPN and cryptography, then we're just giving it up. We're not even making it a challenge. We're just like here, you go have it. And Uh, that's something that I think

that's more important as a community. Maybe as people grow up on the Internet versus seeing it becoming something that I saw become something maybe either a they'll just accept which I hope isn't the case that the reality is privacy is dead, or maybe they'll approach the Internet differently than say someone at my age did. We're frankly, we kind of messed up and we didn't realize the Primrose path was actually trapped, and that's a like that was a mistake and maybe we can kind of like evolve

beyond that. But like you're asking, where is info set going now, I I don't have good notes for that. Like when I first started working in the career, it really felt like a great thing. We were doing important stuff. We were doing the DOS mitigation. We were going into hospitals and making sure that insulin pumps weren't compromised as a DIDOS host believe it or not, hospitals are infosect nightmares.

And we were doing stuff that felt good. And then later in the career I realized, wait a minute, I'm not doing anything to secure anybody's personal information or make the Internet safer. I was just protecting some corporate coffer and the reality was that the private information that we were supposedly protecting. The debate would turn into calls which was what's more expensive losing the data or the lawsuit

for losing the data. Literally, those were the conversations and corporations, and those are the conversations that corporations have now about each and every one of ours personal information. Now when you when you think about because so I obviously I'm in a different was in a different field. But when I was doing a lot of the research on terrorism that I was doing, I had these things that were like sort of the this kind of attack is going to happen at something I feel that very much about,

Like drones. There's going to be like a mass killing of civilians not in a war zone by a civilian weaponized drone at some point in the not too distant futures going to happen. It's going to be done. It's absolutely inevitability. Um that kind of stuff. Do you what are you when you think about kind of the the digital equivalence of that, like, what are you looking towards? Well, I agree with you about the drone, Like you can

see stuff. God, yes, you plot the you plot the dots and you know what's going to occur, right, It's it's not it's not possible to avoid. We unleashed that out of the cage, and it's going to happen. Quite honestly, I think we're seeing it already. We're seeing we're seeing the level of privates see invasion that I don't think

people already know has happened. Like I know some of us realize that, we talked about that, we rant about it, but like, I don't think people realize the level of the incursion that has occurred to the point where all of this data aggregated to the point they know what

toilet paper you prefer to buy. Like I'm talking like people like Facebook knowing that um or the size of the corporate oligarchy that controls the Internet, whether it's the small like Alphabet, Core, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft's becoming a smaller player weirdly. But when you think about those big names, they kind of like control everything and every piece of data about you and everything you move, and say that,

I think, I think, what's the end of that. I don't think we got to the end game of that, But I don't know how we roll it back. And that's the thing. So what's the prediction My prediction is it's gonna get worse, and we're gonna get to the point where there isn't room to move without that surveillance tracking you. And like so, for example, you think of things like Sci Fi Minority Report, you walk to the mall and there's facial idea happening everywhere you go with

targeted advertising at the mall. Oh, that's coming. I guarantee that's coming. And all of that's happening already, and that facial recognition stuff that's going on is happening currently now we're just not that aware of it happening. The cop cars driving down the road and every license plate is being measured with the cameras being o CR optical character recognition, and that's coming back, and they're tracking every car they're driving by on the highway even though there's not a

GPS unit on your car. The ability to not be tracked will soon be impossible. How's that? Yeah, I mean allegedly, when I was younger, they were like certain stupid petty crimes I would commit just because like people will not be able to do this in the future, and I have a moral responsibility to steal the light bulbs from in front of this bar and throw them in the thread. It's like, what, one day that will be a thing

that people can't do without getting caught. And so like I just I had to, you know, there are like some bright spots because I I think you're absolutely right, there's no on like a broader scale, there's no turning back the clock for stuff like facial recognition and how funked up it's going to get. There are states like where I live in Oregon, where like they have passed laws that are just like you, public facial recognition is

not a thing that is legal in this state. Um. And I definitely support more attempts like that because again, anything you can do to sty me them, to reduce the spread of the grid, to reduce the profitability of these things, even though it's again overall a doomed cause. Right. Um, yeah, I don't know. I mean I obviously I think that that's a good law, But I don't know that laws stop corporations when the corporations have more power than law, yes,

of course. Um. And it's like, I mean, obviously you can you can ban it for police to you and stuff which does something to the extent that you know they follow the law, but none of this is I don't know, like I That's one of the things that makes me most depressed about the future is the thought that, like, the space for this is not like a major issue, I guess, but like the space for kids just like funk around and do dumb ship when they're nineteen is

going to get so much smaller. I mean, I would say, I mean, I think the thing is like, as a natural human being, whether you're doing anything wrong, even if you're not doing anything wrong, the nature to feel like you have a private space that's to you, your private community space. I'm not even talking about wrong or right here, We're just talking about just that feeling that at this moment,

this is my space where I'm not being watched. Is a natural, healthy need of the human orgasm or organism. Um and interesting, uh, but no, it's it's a it's a human need. And I think we're gonna find those spaces because the smaller and smaller, And I think when you said, what's your prediction, I hate to say it, but I think the prediction is it will become impossible to not be tracked. Now, the bright side of that, the bright side of that maybe maybe there's a bright side.

Maybe at some point when that's the reality, it could somehow also affect the people that are powerful and the people that are small. And we all realize that humans are humans, and therefore the failings that sometimes we have as all human beings, we just kind of acknowledge it and be like, oh, yeah, of course that's just what people do. Like maybe we just realize people are people. But the idea that there's never going to be a space to not get tracked, I don't know. To me,

I find darkly disturbing. It is disturbing. I do think it kind of to pivot off of what you were saying. The other aspect of that that is more positive is that all of this stuff, all of this surveillance shiit um or at least not all, but quite a bit of it is you know, in a way, it's can knife fight. There's no way that both parties don't get cut, and you know, the ones wielding the knife might get

cut less, but they're still going to get cut. And part of what that means in this situation is that the prevalence of all of these different ways to surveil and track also allows us to track in the same way that like police law enforcement watches people through their phones, but also a hell of a lot of cops are getting filmed doing fucked up ship now right now. Again, the balance of the cuts I don't think is going to be work out in our favor, but it's not

going to be nothing on them either. And and and you're right, I think there are there are some things that we will learn in the future about the people in power in the world that would it wouldn't have been possible for us to learn in the past or may not be possibly even right now. And that and if we learned that about people in power, then they can't weaponize it as much against the people that aren't

in power. Right yeah, Yeah, you know one thing that I'm because I'm thinking a lot about the fact that a bunch of folks the reproductive healthcare industry have pointed out that right wingers have started using drones to follow people home from like planted parrot hoods and follow them to their cards to like build databases of the people who are going to places to potentially like do that

kind of reproductive healthcare that these folks don't think should exist. Um, the other side of it though, is that Um, it is also possible to surveil them. Um. And it will be possible to track the people doing that sort of thing, and it will be possible to do that in terms of like legal accountability. And it will be possible to do that for the people who embrace h questionably legal tactics for for frustrating those efforts, um or illegal tactics

for frustrating those efforts. They have access to the same technology. Um. And again it's it's it is a knife that will cut everybody, um. And I guess that's better than just one person getting cut in this situation. That's that's the concern I have, right, I agree with that. Like I said, technology goes it's a weapon and as weaponized in all directions, depending on how to use it for good or for bad. And so this is the same place I come to

when it comes to the gun control argument. I mean, we can do no, no, no, the same the same problem, right, because if we allow only one side to have all of the control and power and understanding of the technology, then we at ourselves are at a huge deficit. We cannot defend ourselves or fight back. So when it comes

to this kind of data and technology. Knowing the basic fundamentals of what you can do to protect yourself, understand the reality of what the surveillance state or corporation is, and then doing your best to not make it easy for them is at least one step forward. But if we don't own this technology, if we don't own the tech, someone else will, and they will use it against us.

It's as simple as that. And like they're super simple stuff Like I was gonna bring us up with like you can't see video because it's a podcast, but like there's these cool glasses from doctor are called reflectacles, but I'm showing you Robert, and it looked like regular sunglasses. But when you put them on, they do they reflect i R light and actually mess with cameras in a way that your turns are diet face into a ball of light. So you can wear these, you can wear

the cold reflectacles. You can wear them and just walk around the mall and all the cameras get blown out by your by your glasses. Like doing that just because you can. It's kind of fun. That's the hot ship. That's the ship I was promised that that at least does exist. It's not everything I had hoped it would be in terms of its ability, But it is like that kind of stuff rules and I will be picking up a pair of those. UM. Well, we should probably

close out. I did want to note because I mentioned this, UM, I got something a little wrong when I was talking about the facial recognition ban. Um. It is in an ordinance in the City of Portland itself. Um. It's the first city that has done this, and it prohibits the use of public facial recognition technology by all private businesses in the city. UM. So that is the scope of the band that a band that exists in Portland. I recommend looking it up. It is the kind of thing

that I would support everyone pushing forward in their city. UM. Because again, the more holes you can make in this thing, the better. Yeah. I don't want to put that down. That's a good thing. But the challenge of this is, just like I mentioned earlier, moving the data out of the konas and back the minute photos from Like I take my iPhone and scan the crowd and then put

that picture up on the internet. It's not under their jurisdiction and all that happens on every face in that yep, and that is again, well, we'll do another episode at some point about things that you can do to just get like there. That's a whole different bag of tricks. Um, But this has been really useful and really valuable. Carl. Do you want to plug anything before we roll out here?

Not much, just my normal thing. If you're interested in this kind of content, but with a more firearms oriented thing, you can find me an en range dot tv. But you'll also find some information security stuff there as well. I cover that intermittently when it applies to both topics. So if you, if you even if you disagree, but appreciate my approach to this, come check me out. I appreciate it. Awesome, Check out Carl, check out in Range tv, and continue to listen to podcasts because the only thing

that will save us is podcasts. When I didn't the same Ryan, but good for business. Oh it could happen here, Um is the podcast. We're talking about things falling apart. And you know a place where things have fallen apart a bit is large chunks of Ukraine due to a Russian invasion. Um. And you know we've chatted about this a bit on the show. We've had some interviews with

some folks who are living and fighting over there. And today we're going to talk with Jake Hanrahan Uh friend of the pod Um who has been over a couple of times this year, including since the more expanded conflict began. It has just released a new documentary on the popular front YouTube called Ukraine's Anti Fascist Football Hooligans Fighting the Russian Invasion. Jake, how you doing, Thanks for having me back,

Thanks for being on now, Jake. First off, I guess we can get into YouTube censorship stuff, but um, I want to chat about like how this story came about and when you kind of got in contact with these people, because kind of in brief, what you have, you know, the clips notes that you hear from like folks who have kind of an ax to grind is that like you know, Ukraine is all neo Nazis and the government's all run by neo Nazis. And the reality is that

Ukraine obviously has a substantial Nazi problem. And as with any country where you have a substantial Nazi problem and some degree of freedom in terms of you know, your ability to organize for their political purposes, you also have a shipload of people who are anti fascists and who have been fighting those fascists in the street, um, often

with intense levels of violence. UM. And this is a story about a group of those people, um, who have now kind of retooled their organization and capacity towards fighting the Russian invasion. Yeah, man, exactly that I mean, so what I wanted to do with Popular Front. You know, I've been reporting from Ukraine since sixty and I've been there more than ten times on the ground in the bombas like way before you know, people were focused on the area and before the invasions, so I was very

aware of. Yeah, there is a significant fascist element to the militias out there, but it's the same. Any country in Europe that would have a war would have the exact same thing. Trust me, if we had it in Britain, we would have a similar issue. You know, Eastern Europe. Obviously it's a little bit more hardcore, um, but that's the way it is. That's Eastern Europe for you. And I will mention just at the top as well, I would argue that Russia has a much worse neon Nazi problem.

They Um, more than fifteen people were killed between by an actual Neo Nazi serial killer gang in Moscow that filmed these attacks. They have a massive neo Nazi party. Um you know they they're they're exporting Nazis all across Europe, and we know there is several, um, you know, well trained neo Nazi battalions fighting for the pro Russian So

it's neither here nor there. Yes, there's Nazi problems in the region, but I didn't want to constantly be on this back foot like no, actually, yes there's a Nazi problem, but not this, not that. I was like, how can we do a documentary that's kind of a positive way to be like, well, instead of saying no, not everyone is this, or having to film with a unit and then being like, actually, these guys are fascists. How can I show, you know, like they're uncomfortable. Yeah right, like

oh a total cough again. Like it was like, how how can I kind of put a doc out there where it's like, oh, no, actually, like here's a different side to it, and you know, this group obviously as

soon as the war started again. Ukraine is a country of forty four million people and it's a very diverse, a very smart, very open country in terms of people will tell you what they think, and they will argue with you and you won't be you know, you can have like really serious discussions with people about politics there and not fall out. You know. Um, so they're very I think, like a very clever people, are really nice people.

I love Ukraine. I love Ukrainians, So so it's to me, it was I knew about the players, Like, yeah, of course, there's a massive anti fascist element in Ukraine. Okay, it's definitely smaller than the fascist element, but already since the war started with there's Eco Platform, there's Harky hardcore, there's

the Resistance Committee Let's hold towards Klan. There's Operations Solidarity, like, there's a nest the Macno machine gun repair unit, Like, there's so many different anti fascist left wing elements to the to the conflict. They just get a lot less attention because the fascists have got really good at propaganda over the years, and and let's be honest, a lot of the fascist groups are fighting in the East and

right now it's kind of can't back. Yeah, well, it all hands on deck, right, It's like everyone's like, yeah, okay, we don't really care, like we just want to not die. Which is understandable. So my point is, Um, I looked at this this group, the Resistance Committee, which is this kind of anti authoritarian um, you know, coalition of various different units. They have Red Deer under their wing, which is an anarchist group in Ukraine that I made a

documentary with a few years ago. So I was looking at maybe we'll do a doc n of Deer again now that they're fighting on the front. But then I see this other group with them put towards Klan and it's like what who? Like? Firstly, the name is kind of weird in the US. That brings up some unpleasant connotation in the US. Yeah, I mean it didn't really click to me, But what does what does like hoods?

Hoods mean? So basically, when they would go and do you know, when they would go and beat up fascists, they'll be like, right, hood's up because you're you're like putting your hoodie up so you don't get like spotted, right because act the goods up. Um. There's totage of them beating up Nazis as well, chanting they had a chance Dodds, like you know, to put the fucking fear into them like a yeah, yeah, and then clan, I

mean the Ukrainian translation of Plan. It's with the K. It's not about the you know, it's just also anglicization can lead to some unfortunate things, right right, But also you know, they're smart guys, and at first I thought this wasn't true, but then I spoke to me it was true. They were kind of aware. They're like, yeah, h h K who towards clan. They're kind of trolling KKK, Like it's like a second meaning because in Ukraine that

you know, they've got that culture. They're very cheeky. They think it's very funny to be like ha ha, you know, fuck you. Um, So for them, they were like, yeah, we're basically trolling the fascists, like they hear who towards clan and they're like surprised, Sorry, we're anti fascists, you know what I mean, your head's broken. So it was kind of that vibe, and you know, they didn't really think about it. And when I asked Anton, you know,

he's like the kind of the fact old leader. He was like he told me this and then he was I just kind of wanted to piss people off as well. Um, and you you gotta remember these guys started over ten years ago, before you know, politics was as online as it is, um, and they started off in the hardcore punk scene. Now you know, I'm sure you know, Like you know, hardcore punk, especially in Europe is like a very very exciting, very fun, very happy and like Gnari

fucking scene. So for them, it was like yeah, with a hood towards clan like you know what I mean. But but unfortunately some people in America like why they go to hood to clan. I don't believe that they're empty fast. It's just like mate, there's over seventy videos of them beating up Nazis successfully. But it's a whole continent that doesn't have the same history as the United States,

right you can't. I mean yeah, I mean even if you said in England like KKK, like now, people would be like who oh yeah, like yeah, I've heard of that. It's not like we didn't have it here like that.

You know. Yeah, it's one of those So, I mean one of the things that um, that's interesting here that you you hit on a new documentaries like these folks, the that that these are not just like um, anti authoritarian folks, they're they're very much committed to anti racism, which is, um, you know, a place like Ukraine where the history of their being, you know, folks who are not white is not quite as extensive as it is

in a lot of places. It's really interesting to me to have people who are kind of organizing specifically for that purpose. Um, and I think, really cool. Yeah, yeah, it is really cool. And it's for them. What I found very fascinating is it's just natural. So, you know,

I said, you know, their political I geology. Some of them are like, well, some of us are anarchists, some of us are kind of anti fascists, but otherwise kind of a political and you know, when it's very simple for them, it's like why are you I asked, how come you guys are anti fascists and they're like, well, we just see life differently, like you know, it's like obviously like there was no big political theory. It was just like, no, it's just basically they were like, it's

just wrong, you know, like fascism is just wrong. And we're tough guys, you know, and we joined we were we wanted to be the ones that said no, we're not the fascist of the anti fascists, and luckily for them, they had a really good friendship group and a very solid group who were all very good at combat sports, and like in the dock, you know, Anton says, our enemies is almost every other Ukrainian football firm in the

whole of the country. But you will ask even their enemies, they will tell you like, yeah, unfortunately, those guys are tough. You know, they can fight. You know, they have to be. Yeah, exactly, they had to be. They were like we had to be you know. So I mean, I I do my research.

I found um kind of a fascist football ultras for Hum in Eastern Europe that banned any mention of Houdswood's Klan, and it kind of boiled down to the fact they were just so embarrassed that so many of the fascist groups were getting beaten up like by by anti fascists and often outnumbered. You know. It even got to a point where Hudsward's Clan weren't allowed to they wouldn't even talk to them to do like arranged fights anymore in

the field. So instead of quitting, Hudson's Clan said, Okay, then when we see you, we'll just beat you up in the subway, we'll beat you up in the street, you know, And a lot of people might say, oh, well this is violent. So for me, the football Luganism side of it, I don't see an issue with it personally. I mean, they're not attacking anyone innocent, they're not attacking by standards. It was all very contained. It was all very you know, it was that was their thing, you know,

so that that to me is whatever. And when you're talking about neo Nazi groups that were i mean in Ukraine, that they've stabbed up the Roma community, they're destroying LGBT events, and you know, the clan were just like, no, we're not about that, we don't we don't think you should do that. And so they formed and for ten years they were fighting. But now they have called a truce because they're like, you know, Anton explains in the dock.

He says, look, there's a bigger problem now because Ukraine is actually not a Nazi jump as the Kremlin says. It's actually quite easy to kind of you know, it's a very small subset in the in the relative size of the actual military, so you know, it's actually for them. They said, well, yeah, it makes sense. We put all our other political differences aside, because this is way bigger. You're talking about one of the most powerful militaries on

earth invading our country and killing our people. I mean, we've seen the massacres in Boucher and up in Um. You know, people killed civilians, hands behind their back, executed in the street. M thirty of the people killed in Butcher with children, like you know, this is just insane. So for them they were like, yeah, we we can, we can call the truth. You know, we don't like them, but right now we're not going to beat each other

up on the front line. Um. But I think it really kind of shows the testament of how serious too towards Clara about the anti fascism that even whilst in the truth, most of them actually still joined the resistance Committee, the anti authoritarian groups, so they're not just directly next to fascist battalions. But again, you know, a lot is changing out there on the front now. I think, yeah, I don't know. Anton said to me, he was like, I'll be honest with you, Like we didn't put this

in a DoPT, he said, I'll be honest. I think after this war, a lot of these far right guys might change their minds because now we see what totalitarianism brings death, you know what I mean, whether that whether however that's which we're thinking or not, I'm sure, but you know what I'm saying because obviously, like the I mean, I I would obviously I would hope that that's that's

what happens, but I tend to do it. But yeah, the thing that scares me, of course, is there's just as at least as much a chance that you know, they get more powerful. Um, which is again part of why it's important for folks like Hudson's plan to be organizing and getting weapons and being prepared because like, yes, that if that conflict comes after the war, you know, you don't want the fascist militias to be the best armed and most organized. Yeah, and this is the issue,

you know. But I think for them it's like, okay, we'll deal with that when it comes, you know. Like I think they're very aware that this war is going nowhere, you know, and you know they say, and our dog, oh, we just want to go and kill Russian pigs. I mean, you know what they mean is I mean some people are like, ooh, that's really bad. I was like mate, you're talking about that. They were It's a war, right,

they were. They were guarding the areas where the massacres happened. Know, Hood towards Klan got shelled trying to get civilians out of Boradanka when Russians were shelling. You're talking women and children. Yeah, I'm surprised they said that mildly, you know, like yeah, like you know, it's a woman, it is what it is. And also their football hooligans they're wild people, you know, Yeah,

it's it's um. I mean that is kind of interesting though, I'm curious, Um, do you have kind of, ah an assessment of what kind of numbers they're looking at, like how many folks they've actually got in the field on a regular basis. Yeah, so the resistance Committee is I don't know, like fifty hundred right now. Good towards Klan they have like maybe twenty to thirty year there guys in that group. But then they also have other people,

um that join different units in the East. So they were like already military, so they didn't have to go you know, former militia, they just joined the military. So there's like quite a strong hood towards Clan Um mortar group. UM, and I know that. So. So one of the footage we included in our documentary where um, a Russian tank gets blown up like very close core as he gets hit with the javelin, he's like a hundred feet away. That was a hood Toude clan attack. That was one

of their guys doing it, you know. So yeah, so that there's they're all over the place. Um. Unfortunately, due to various bureaucracy within the Territorial Defense, I do think that the Resistance Committee might have to split up to actually get to the front, you know what I mean, Like they're they're probably gonna have to join other units because there's some issues that the you know, various people they're just not sending them out there. It's not because

they're anti fascist or anything. It's nothing to do that. It's it's because you know, it's corruption, man. There, there's there's some corruption emerging. Some some commanders just want to sit sit around and not actually have to go to the front. Um. Whereas you know, the fighters themselves are desperate because they're like, you know, our people are dying. We want to avenge them and we want to stop it. So you know, right, nowhoods Planner essentially on their way.

They're doing a lot more training right now. They've been given the go ahead. Yeah, they're going to the east. Um and as far as I know, they're they're kind of on route obviously stopping off doing training. I think they have an upeat. They're going to be an APG unit, so they'll be a very close cause, you know what I'm saying. So it's going to be Narlie for them. These guys, as you stayed at all, kind of started

out as a friend group, right, Like they weren't. This isn't a political party, These aren't like these guys didn't start as ideological comrads. They were like buddies who are into the same team and into the same kind of combat sports. And now they're you know, they're going to be some of them are gonna be dying in front

of the others, which is like a difficulty I think. Um, I'm interested in kind of how how are they actually organizing sort of in the field or is it just as I've heard of a number of like militia units kind of along the lines of the Ukrainian military, or have they have they kind of adopted different organizational styles in their their hoods, hoods units as befits sort of

their unique kind of origins. Yeah, that's a good question. Well, I mean it's kind of trickly because essentially there, you know, I guess, I guess they phoned as a militia. You know, as soon as they stir they got guns. But then you know, Anton was like, we have everything from the anti ashes networks, everything we need apart from the weapons. So they had to sign up as a part of

the territorial defense the weapons. So they're under the territorial defense as are you know, a hundreds of different people that did the same thing. Um. So luckily forward towards clan, I think because they're so close friends. I mean you can see it in the Dock, you know. I even the subtitle of our Dock is like, you know, this is a film about friendship, m violence and resistance, because that's essentially what it is, you know. So they're very

close friends. So commanders have recognized that that, Yeah, this is a group that is disciplined as well. A lot of them are straight edge, which is actually a discipline in itself, you know what I mean. So they're very well disciplined. They're very good. You know, the training is very good. They know what they're doing. But they have like a commander that is from the Territorial Defense if you like. It's not he's not hood towards clan. He's

never been assigned a commander sort of thing. Um, So they're being taught just the same kind of tactics as anybody else. As they're an RPG unit. I think, you know, there will be a lot of close quarters stuff, but they're just doing a lot of a lot of arms training. There's you know, Constantine and the dark. One of them is like, I just want to get better faster. They're just they're very they're very focused on being like not an elite unit, but they want to get it perfect.

They're not just like, yeah, let's go and kill. They're like, now we have to be good, you know what I mean. We have to go in there and have the same discipline and organization as we had in the streets when we were fighting. There was a reason that they were renowned as being a good street fight in football, looking firm despite being completely outnumbered. It's because they had good discipline. Um, they're tough, they trained and also because they're good friends.

They will have each other's back. It's it's not hobby for them as a lifestyle, you know. Um, yeah, it's just so much went into it, you know who plan started off the back of um anti fascist punk punk hardcore in Ukraine, and then that itself was a scene, and then the football organism and then yeah, and now it's it's crazy, really, it's it's honestly one of the most fascinating stories I've covered. Now they're fucking frontline unit, you know. It's it's sad and I hope to guard

nothing happens to any of them. Probably the nicest guys are filmed with you know. Um and yeah, it's it's, it's, it's it's a good question on it. It's very tricky to know how it's going to happen for them once they're on the front. I mean, Anton, the main guy, he has served before, joined the militia to fight in

the dom Bus. So they do have some experience, you know, and it does seem like um kind of their natural the skills that they've been developing, because there's there's broadly speaking from my understanding, kind of two main types of combat going on in Ukraine. There's the what you're seeing a lot in you know, the Don Boss, which is this kind of like meat grinder like frontline ship, and then there's sort of the seek and destroy kind of stuff where you've got people sort of hunting convoys and

and doing ambushes. And it does strike me like these guys talents would lend themselves more to the ambushes then. I mean, there's not really any talent that helps you in the in the sitting in a trench meat grinder kind of ship. But obviously you don't have that choice when you're when you're serving under you know, the national military. Yeah, yeah, it's I think you're right, like they would be much better um placed as like you know, I guess like

a kind of shooting scoot kind of unit exactly. Yeah, And I think they will be because you know, the train with RPG UM some of their fighters already have javelins on the front um and and laws. So yeah, I think that's where it would be if they just put them in some kind of meat grind of position, which very much could happen, you know. I mean, it's bad for anybody, let's be realistic. It's getting very bad

in the don Bass right tonight. Yeah, yeah, yeah, um, I mean, and that's one of the there's been posts and stuff from people talking about like, um, you know, the a lot of the funk ups that are happening because you know, Ukraine started this war with everyone being kind of overwhelmed by the competence of their military effort, and now that things in in the Don Boss have turned into this kind of ugly slug Um, there's been some you know, oh the you know units getting hit

by their own our hillary fire, the kind of messy stuff that happens when you have a fight like this, right like it is it is unavoidable, um, when you have like a situation like has developed in the Dan Boss. But that doesn't make it any less unpleasant to endure as an actual soldier. Like it's just it's one of those I mean, there's only so much that like competence and training can do if you wind up getting squeezed

into that kind of position. Yeah, And and there's this is why a lot of people are even Ukrainian has actually had a conversation with Ukrainian friend yesterday that was saying, like, you know, the situation is so bad in the East. We really need to be honest about this because you know, if people think it's going better than it is, Okay, it's good for morale, but it's not good for the guys on the ground, like they're not going to get

what they need. And the reality is that it's getting really bad and it's not anything to do with incompetence from the fighters. It's just the war. The level is being so hot, and you know, Russia has learned from its mistakes unfortunately from the start where they can be funked up. But now you know, things are getting a little bit Harry, Um, Ukrainians are doing like an incredible effort.

But again it's like, yeah, you're talking about decades and decades of armor and you know, um weapons that Russia has and it's all very well, us being like, oh it's their armor is blah blah. I doubt it, you know, I very much doubt that. Um, it doesn't look like that, certainly from when people I'm talking to in the East. You know, so I think again, when when you know Ukrainians are like, well we do need more weapons, it's because they need more weapons, you know what I mean,

they really do. Well, this is like one of the This is uh one of the things that's that's difficult to I think get across to people, um, because there is such a you know that we are dealing with the legacy of decades of shipping weapons places, um, and not having that helped the conflict in a lot of in a lot of ways, um, in decades of stories like you know, all the weapons that got sent to the Iraqi government and then wound up in isis is Marie and ship um, which creates kind of an easy

narrative for folks who are like, well, you know, you're just trying to prolong the conflict in making it worse by shipping and weapons. But the reality is one side of this war has a substantial percentage of all of the artillery that exists on the planet. Yeah, and the other side does not. Yeah. And I do understand the argument though, Like I totally get it, but it's it's I lived through the early two thousand's as well, I

understand it. It's like war isn't a template. It's not like does this happened there, this will happened there or whatever, And it's like you have to weigh up no matter what bad is going to come from this, Do you want the bad to be Okay, there's a problem with arms in Eastern Ukraine, which the Eastern Europe, which there already is, and it gets worse. Or do you want the bad problem to be Russia has taken over the whole country, massacred everybody and is unlike undoubtly going to

try and move into other countries. Do you want aids or do you want cancer? I don't know, you know what I mean? Indeed, do you want the Do you want the lesson from this to be that if you're just willing to burn a couple of hundred thousand human lives as a state like Russia or any other state, you can easily gain access to, you know, a pile of wealth right in the shape of a country. Um, which isn't a positive. It's not like a good lesson

for anyone to take out of this. But like if if that's the lesson, right, yeah, yeah, no, that's the reality. Like it's all very nice having a fifty tweet Twitter threat about why this that and referred should or shouldn't happen, But that's just completely removed from real life. I mean, a real life is it's going to be very bad, very nasty, no matter what happens, and you just have to weigh. Oh I don't like natso oh I don't

like this. Yeah, I mean either, but I care about people that die for no reason, you know, Like I think that's the real issue. Um. I think people need to stand with the people, you know, and if that means okay, use the tools that you have, Okay, Like, oh I don't like nats. We yeah, but they're going to give them. What do you think that Ukrainians like having Russian firearms? Probably not. But they also don't give a ship because they shoot. It's it's that simple, you know,

kind of coming back to the subject of your documentary. Um, if weapons are going to be going over there, and by god they are, um I I would hope that as many of them as possible are going into the hands of people like the Hoods Hood's client, right, yeah, um yeah, I mean that is that is a yeah, a lot. There's definitely this isn't from them telling me, but it's just from research I've done. There's definitely a

discrepancy in terms of which groups get what weapons. And it's not based on ideology, but it's definitely based on some serious paroxy that needs to be sorted out. You know. I have some some Western volunteers that I know that are on the front right now, and they're saying, like, for some reason, you know, one unit that is not an RPG unit, for example, will have more rockets than the RPG unit, you know, And it's like, what like, And that's not because they've used the more. It's it's

it's supply lines are again. It's it's not even corruption. Often it's just supply lines are wrecked or whatever. But it has to be addressed as to be looked at. I mean, I'm no tactician. I don't know anything about that side of things. I'm just basing on what you know, people are telling me, because you know, I like to

talk to them and hear what's happening. Yeah. Um, I think we should move into you know, when I when I pull up your documentary on YouTube, which is again for folks at home, titled Ukraine's anti fascist football Hooligans Fighting the Russian Invasion, the first thing that I see

is this video maybe inappropriate for some users. Um yeah's yeah, well, and it's We've talked a lot on our various shows on this network about all of the fascist propaganda that you can find and not even find on YouTube that will be like spoon fed. Do you if you wind up like watching a video game review or something. Um, yeah, this is something that you've been dealing with, unpopular front. Somebody seems to have like an ax to grind with

you guys. I don't know. Maybe it's just the algorithm, but I'll be honest, I I felt like it was to the algorithm until this recent one. Right. So so yeah, like you said, if people want to fight, I mean the dogs called front Line who looking? But yeah, the for s c O. Um, yeah, it's it's Ukraine's anti fascists fighting Russian invasion. Um. But yeah, the second it was uploaded it got age restricted. Now that to me is very odd. I don't get why there's no gore

in it. Um. Okay, yeah, there's violence, but there's a guideline where you can show violence in if it's relative to report in, which obviously it is because it's an anti fascist football looking firm fighting Russia. So of course we're going to show what that looks like. But there's there's no there's no gore. Um, there's no there's there's just it's just lads hanging out talking about their lives now they've been tipped upside down and how they really

dislike the far right. Now. To give you an idea of how messed up this is, UM, there's a real, a real parasite YouTuber. It's called Danny Mullen and he has a video on YouTube where him and his his friend both for them scoundrels go to the con border and the whole video is trying to get with quote like hot Ukrainian refugees. Now, it's the most disgusting thing you've ever seen. They're praying on young girls, some of them are very clearly underage. UM. And that is monetized.

That is monetized, and it is even on the algorithm. I found it because I was watching Ukraine war stuff and it was put onto my recommended. Now, these are the biggest parasites you've ever seen in your life. UM. And they have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of subscribers and they're making money from content like that that is not age restricted. There is no censorship thing, There is

no message saying this might be offensive. But a documentary which is one journalistic covering anti fascists fighting one of the worst invasions we've seen in Europe is suddenly deemed inappropriate and his age restricted on YouTube. Tell me what's going on there that doesn't seem right to me. So basically you tube by doing that as saying we're actually happy to make money off of people that exploit under rage Ukrainian refugees, but we're not happy for people showing

the world a different side to the war. That to me is madness, Like it doesn't make any sense to me, you know, And it's nothing but soft censorship. Some people are tell him it's not it's not censorship. Of course, it is censorship. This is the way the world works now, Yeah, because I mean a huge chunk of the success or the visibility of anything that you're putting on YouTube is whether or not the algorithm is going to like suggest it to people, even people who have watched you or

other like that. Not even talking about like suggesting it to somebody who's never heard of popular front, but like people who have watched multiple things that you've done and are just on YouTube. The thing that would make sense is for when you put out a new thing them to get like YouTube to be like, hey, we know you've watched the ship check out this, but that's not going to happen for a lot of folks because of this kind of thing, which is yeah fucked up, Yeah

yeah right. And it's like it's not just me that like I mean, it's other people it's happening as well. And basically what it is is if we wanted somebody the doc somehow be allowed to be monetized or not even monitored. I don't even want the monetizes the whole channel is demonetized. I just want it to not be restricted,

because that is an algorithm torpedo. And you know, it's like I would have to rec the whole documentary essentially sense of myself, my own journalism, make you excuse me, make the integrity of the doc weaker, just to be able people to see it like this is war, this

is real life. I just it's just really depressing, you know, And this is something I mean, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook have all been guilty of degrees of this, but there's this of all other things that don't that that are allowed to spread unchecked on those platforms, they have this consistent maybe because it's it's easier to algorithmically go after But this, this consistent pattern of going after war journalism, um, and like your you know, what's happening to your documentary is

a piece of this, But like the much scarier pieces, a tremendous amount of documentation of war crimes in places like Syria have been deleted um kind of automatically over the years, which means that like again, evidence of crimes against humanity has been lost forever because of these kind of like purges of of war content that um, I don't think are actually protecting anybody from anything, but are

are perhaps even making things worse. Yeah, of course, and it and it allows um, look Russian propaganda or whatever like, people are going to seek that out and they're going to digest it whatever way they can. So then surely you should say, okay, take the brakes off. Let's you know if you care, which I mean YouTube is a media platform. You would think that they would say, okay, well, this is kind of our duty to balance it out, to allow all the free information. I'm not even saying,

oh yeah, through all Russian propaganda. I think people have a choice to see whatever they want to see, even if it is completely ridiculous but the fact that they're they're censoring the stuff that you you would think is okay to see because for for for I know, you know our content that you won't find a lie in that documentary. You know, we're very honest, very frank with the situation. We're not white washing fascism in Ukraine. Um.

And we're certainly not putting out Russian propaganda. We're just telling an interesting journalistic story. So you would think as a media platform that would be like yeah, right up there street, but it's not really a media platform is a money making platform, and you know, they just they

just survived for adverts yep. Um. And I think that is kind of where we're gonna We're gonna leave off for the day unless you have Do you have anything else you wanted to get into on your documentary, Jake, no, man, I just I guess the last thing I would say is I want people to kind of know that there are many different factions out there. This isn't you know. I saw some comment being like, oh, you found the only fascists and anti fascists in Ukraine. It's like, no,

there's there's literally I've been documenting them. There's thousands there's so many, you know, and not just like oh, anti fascists, yeah, we this is what we believe, like people forming units. There's a whole pipeline of um anti authoritarian activists there. There's loads and generally like Ukrainians um happy. You know, they'll they'll take that out they can get. It's not like Ukrainians are like god damn those anti fascists. Not they love them. They love them the same way they

love anybody that's defending the country. You know. It's it's just normal and I think people should really, you know, if they want to watch our doctor as well, like if they can share it, that would be great because it's just very it's a struggle to get people to watch it now because of because if it's been torpedo on the algorithm. So if they go to YouTube dot com slash popular Front, they'll find it's the first dot there. But yeah, people can share it. I'll be great, all right,

We'll check it out again. The title is Ukraine's anti fascist football hooligans fighting the Russian Invasion on the Popular Front YouTube channel. We're also going to have a link in the bio. If you are someone who doesn't like the type things. Yeah, thank you, Jake. All right, everybody, that's the episode. Welcome to Tack. It happen here, a show that is currently taking lace in the death abortion

rights in the US. And yeah, it's not good. Um with me to talk about this is sharene Is Sophie, is Garrison, and is Robert Evans And okay, So what one of one of the things that's been happening in the immediate wake of the Supreme Court decision that has destroyed Review Wade is there's been a lot of discussion about the abortion rights movement in Mexico. And by discussion,

I mean in sort of classical American fashion. People saw exactly one meme and reposted it and that's now the sum of like all American knowledge about the abortion struggle in Mexico. So to try to get a deeper understanding of what's been going on in Mexico and how the struggle for abortion was one there, we're talking to Erica Yamada, who's a feminist and human rights activist born and raised in Mexico. Erica, thank you so much for joining us. Yeah,

thank you, and you so much. Chris sharing so figures and and Robert I'm so honored and excited to be here and very grateful to be considered to share about the struggle for abortion rights in Mexico. So before starting this discussion, I would like to share a little bit about myself and the organization I work in to have some background about the experiences and data I will be

communicating in this space. UM I have been involved in many agendas for girls and women's rights for approximately eight years now. I am currently part of the Woman Delivered twenty twenty class and I also work in the non governmental organization Gender Quality, Citizenship, Work and Family that has over twenty five years of experience working for sexual and productive rights in Mexico, particularly for the access to leave

goal and safe abortion. Our organization promotes and advocate for the sexual and reproductive health and right of use through that They Said. That They Said is the network for sexual and reproductive rights in Mexico that has presence in

tolve states and we focus mainly on marginalized communities. We support children, use women and advocate for change at local, regional, and national level and their access is contributing to the criminalize abortion, guarenting access to to health services and generate

a favorable public opinion about women's right to decide. We are also part of the National Court Choice Alliance in Mexico and effort of bi organizations General Equality, the Population Council EPAS Central America, Catholics for the Right to Decide

and heat It, each with different expertise regarding abortion. Together we have worked on comprehensive strategies that include the legal, the social, religious, ethical and investigation aspects of abortion and well, I would like to start up like sharing some of the context and the legal situation of abortion in Mexico if it's okay or or in our country, Voluntary abortion UH during the twelve weeks of pregnancy is legalized only

in certain states. Mexico City, the capital, was the only state in the whole country that they criminalized abortion into two thousand seven. Twelve years later, in two thousand nineteen, the state of of Wahaca became the second state twenty sure access to this health service. Afterwards, two thousand twenty one was historic. It was a very very historic year. It was for states Evaluo Vera, Cruz Bacca, California and

Polyma also the criminalized abortion. Then this year two thousand twenty two, three other states have been added to this list Sinaloa, Guerrero and California. This means nine out of thirty two states have the criminalized abortion. In the other states of the Mexican Republic, abortion is only allowed under

certain grounds established by the law of each entity. For example, if it was a companeous abortion, if the pregnancy was due to non consensual insemination, if the woman's life is in danger of death, if the product pas serious genetic alterations, if the pregnancy causes health effects, among other reasons. It depends on each Plano code of each state. And I also must add that pregnancy due to right is the

only indication that permits legal abortion in all states. And now coming back to what Chris said that there was like a meme. I think, uh, you refer to the name of the public protests. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the black clad female protesters attacking is it? I couldn't tell. I don't recall it's a city hall or a police station

or something. I I have also seen some of these media reports that that they say that we achieve legal abortion thanks to these radical public demonstrations, and well, it is undeniable that among the most significant achievements is the pro mobilization of feminists and women to eradicate violence and learn justice Mexico. Mexico has demonstrated the world the revolutionary progress with the mass feminist protests and this image is

from two thousand nineteen. It was a huge feminist protest that are condemned violence against women, especially sexual and feminist side violence, police brutality, and the intunity that permeates the governmental system. We received a lot of internet national media attention and it has been one of the like the recent highlights of the feminist movement in our country. But like the struggle for abortion entails so much more, and

yes it did have some influence. For example, in two thousand twenty, feminists in two states, Quintana and Puebla took their local congresses and demanded the discussion of abortion initiatives, and they have put this agenda on the table. It is worth mentioning that the struggle for abortion that it goes back so many years. Feminists have been fighting for reproductive rights, including the access to legal abortion for that it's now the progress regarding this struggle has unfolded historically

during the recent years. For many other reasons, One thing I want to go back to a little bit to talk about is you were talking about the protests being pro abortion protests but also talking about antifemicide and anti violent stuff, and I was wondering if you could talk about the anti femicide it campaigns too, because that's been a really big part of this that gets basically no coverage in the US. Well, in Mexico, eleven women are

murdered every day. We have a huge femicide problem that has been silenced by the government, even by the president who minimizes this horrible situation. So in two thousand nineteen there was a UH emblematic case where police officers rape and tortured a row and that's how this protest UH started and since all the two thousand nineteen, like most feminist protests, have been regarding the violence against women. But UH, I would also like to add about the struggle for abortion.

I think that in the global cells the mare, the green type it played like the most fundamental roles. UH. This movement, which came from Argentina, is one of the main successes that strengthened the struggle for abortion rights and even the feminist movement in Mexico. It expanded in many countries including Mexico. Here we have a national Green Type and many local Green type in all of our space, and these collectives have played a large role demanding social

and legal thecuminalization of abortion across the country. And there is also an increase of networks that provides self managed abortion information and accompaniment services, which have contributed to fighting the stigma that still surrounds abortion. And the Green Tide and the feminist movement, it's it has become like how do you say it's been merged merg and like feminist movements and the Green Tide fight for legal and safe abortion,

but also to radicate the violence against girls and women. Yeah, that makes that makes sense. And about the Green Tide, I have two questions about the Green Tide. One is what kinds of tactics have Green Tide groups been doing? And also how how linked have the international movement has been? Like how how close how closely have these organization has been communicating across and working together across the different countries? Okay, uh?

Since the Green Tide came from Argentina like the most, how do you say the the communication comes from regional countries in Latin America and Mexico has been learning from these Latin American countries the experiences we have seen the feminist movements, the protests also more in the South and the the green handkerchief has this very very powerful symbol of legal and safe abortion, and these have also contributed

to the social be communalization of abortion. And wearing the green handkerchiefs and in the protest also means demanding this health service. And one of our tactics is of course pressuring the government. In Mexico. Political will, primarily from the left leaning ruling party, has been fundamental for for the becommunalization. With the new government that I wade in two thousand eighteen headed by Andreo, we have more allies and progressive legislators.

So due to the majority uh that this political party has in many local converses, the feminists of each state have been able to pressure and work with these legislators and keep pushing this agenda. That's awesome. I think something that I'm still stuck on is that at the very least all the states agree that abortion is okay if it happened from from rape. Is that what you said earlier? Like that's the one we we have a federal lot.

It's the zero forty six met official Mexican norm that states that abortion is legal if the pregnancy is due to rape, and all the states, all the public officials have this obligation to to ensure that this that this happens. But sometimes, um, like we we have so many prejudices that sometimes even doctors don't respect the law. But by not it should be legal. And it's not that they all agree, it's the it's the one. Yeah, it's just so, I mean, it's definitely has its flaws and people with

their own biases. But like here, usually the rapists will have more rights and protection than the person that got raped. Like there are the family is allowed to sue the person that got an abortion, for example. It's it's insane, but so for then here, a lot of it, a lot of the biggotry comes from like Christianity and religion. Is it the same, like is that the baseline for

the opposition there too? Yes, because Mexico is a predominantly Catholic country and abortion and feels many controversies due to the different positions that are come from this. Religious stances is stances that ignore and deny the access to this service and deny it's a human rights issue. And religious anti rights groups or how how do you say anti choice groups have a powerful presence and are actively hindering

law proposals regarding this topic. The prejudices and stigma are present even amongst healthcare providers and sometimes uh the religious people. They pressure these healthcare providers, the legislators. For example, every time there is a line on local congress. There are so many religious groups outside the Congress. They are how do you say, like bothering the legislators. They even get their personal numbers and they are harassing them. Yes, harassing

is the work. They're harassing them. So yes, they have a lot of power, a lot of money, and these effects even the states where abortion is legal, because as I said before, sometimes doctors denied it even if it's requested under the legal indications. So yes, it's a problem.

I'm curious what you see as kind of the value of the street actions that were carried out as opposed to um kind of the the actual organization on the legislative side of things, Like what what degree do you think both contributed to, you know, the successes that you all have seen. I think both were very very important to the recent successes. The public demonstrations help the feminist movements strengthened. Like it is like yes, this recent protests

have been the what do you say? It has been where the most women have gone out to the streets, taken the streets, and it has helped because the government has responded to some of our request. But also it

is extremely important too to talk about the organization. And also, Uh, something I didn't mention and that I would like to emphasize is that in two thousand twenty one, the Supreme Court of Justice in Mexico ruled favorably in four abortion related cases, and this provided us with with progressive jurisprudence and legal interpretations in favor of recognizing an increasing abortion right.

So this has how do you say, this has served our movement and all the argumentation to push the decriminalizations. And well, about the four cases. In the first case, the Supreme Court declared that limitations to access legal abortion after it must be removed. In the second case, it declared that the absolute criminalization of abortion with consent is unconstitutional. Uh. And in the third case is it declared that the protection of life from the moment of conception is unconstitutional.

And in the fourth case, the court ruled that legislative reforms broadening the boundaries of conscientiens objection in that federal health law are unconstitutional. And the Supreme Court is the highest court of justice in Mexico and all judges should respect what they established. And well, unfortunately it doesn't happen in all states. And what it is like the most important president we we have right now, and it is

fundamental for our argumentation in local congresses. I have has the national government done anything at all to try to force the states who are like not following the rulings too, like except the rulings. No, because our president uh he he is very neutral in this topic, and he has spoken against feminist movements and he thinks that any protest means like uh, conservators against his liberal government. So now we we don't have this this support from the national government,

although assignmenttioned before. We have a lot of allies and in many instances that have helped to pressure state state public officials too to respect a law and to keep pushing this agenda. Is the president. I'm just curious and I'm ignorant that is the president? Like, well, how is he received by the general public, Like what people's like, is he neutral because he needs a coward because there wasn't one of the rockety votes? But what all right,

what's the response for the public. He he still has a lot of support from from the majority. He he is one of the the first how do you stay progressive presidents, Although we have been very disappointed by many of his actions, for instance the increase of militarization and the communalization of feminists, of human rights activists, of journalists. However, it is the first time in so many years that a president talks about poor indigenous people that uh sends

support to rural communities. So he still has a lot of support. M UM. One thing that I don't know

how much. I don't know how much you want to get into it, but UM we talked to some people, Oh god, I don't remember how many months ago now, but we talked to some people a while back who were UM doing trans rights organizing in Mexico, and they were talking a lot about how UM that they were talking about how I guess like anti choice conservative groups have been using UM have been using sort of organized transphobic groups as a way to sort of different attention

away from the abortion struggle, in the femicide struggle into stuff that doesn't like challenges that is quo And yeah, and I was wondering, I just wanted to talk about that a little bit. Yes, thank you so much for talking about this transphobia and in the feminist movements is horrible. Like the Transforbaic feminists have been getting to conservative public officials, they have been approaching religious groups, and they have even affected the abortion agenda because some of our laws include

people with the capacity to get pregnant. So these health services include ah, trans meant and non binary people. But this Transforbaic feminists have been how do you say, obstaculizing. There's this struggle because of these prejudices, and it is very very sad. And some of are some of the main and most famous reference references and feminism have been signing this transphobic side. And yes, they are approaching to the ultra right, and they they have been hindering not

only trans people's rights, but now women's rights. In Gentlemary, Yeah, I think was it. I'm trying to remember off top of my head. I think that there was there was a picture that was going around. That was some of the organizers from one of the Lake trans phobic feminist collectives. I like taking pictures with sleeping held around. Yeah, I think I think it was sleeping held around. Yeah, but I don't know. I haven't seen that. But there was

a forum some weeks ago. It was a forum in the National Altonomous University of Mexico, and it was a feminist on discussion and most of the familists who are so so famous in all Latin America started to say some transpulbic points. So, yes, this anti rights movement is very present and in feminism. Yeah, I guess. The other thing on that point that I was wondering is how have like pro trans feminists been sort of fighting back

against these people. Has that been happening a lot? Uh, well, we're trying, but it has been very, very difficult because literally there are transpolic people everywhere everywhere, I mean government and non governmental organizations and institutions, and the majority of the people are not well these says um socially conscious about about trans right, so transport with people who have so much more power, but uh, sometimes we we denounce

it in social media. We reported to two international organizations and like, we have all the human rights narrative and argumentation in our favor, but it is difficult because there are so many trans transports everywhere. Um. We have also contacted international organizations to to publicly say that, for example, if you want to access a certain grant, you have

to have an inclusive position. What other ways, uh, we like the trans movement has strengthened so much since two thousand nineteen because in Mexico City, um uh, the a lot to recognize trans children and adolescents was pushed for the for the first time, like via the ministative way. So there has been how do you say, a commission of of trans organizations collectives. So I think that is

the the most noteworthy thing progress. Yeah, I guess there's been a lot of people like looking to the green tide and looking to sort of the broader Latin American feminist movement for sort of inspiration and also for sort of tactical advice. And I was wondering, what, like, what advice would you give people in the US who are coming into this fight now, and where would you send

people to learn more stuff about it? Mm hmm. There some some key points I consider relevant is firstly the visibility of the pro choice agenda and the social ecommunalization of abortion. When we talk about Lettle abortion, we we have to emphasize a lot also on the social the communalization. It is very important to work on strategies to to reduce statema and demonstrate that abortion is a common reproductive event that must be approached using gender perspective and the

human rights framework. We we encourage public dissemination of the legal, medical and social information with with hard sustained data from international organizations that position abortion as a as a human right and an essential health service. And related to this first point, the narrative and the argumentation, we have to focus um the access to save from legal abortion as a human rights issue, which means it's a governmental obligation

to ensure access to this service. On our case Mexico as nationally and international commitments regarding girls and women's rights, and I'm pretty share the United States also has this commitments, so it's their obligation, it's the government's obligation to to ensure and also regarding their narrative, we have to work on naturalizing abortion and encourage people to stop using this word as a crime. Abortion is a human right and it is a reproductive event in the life of women

and people with a capacity to get pregnant. And it's a reproductive event that has always existed and will always exist, either naturally or induced. And some of the organizations that I know of here that that can provide information are the Poor Choice Alliance, organizations, Catholics for the Right to Decide. They can give the religious and ethical arguments. UM my organization Gender Quality, we have the social argumentations. We re a company and work with with the girls and women.

We we are in twelve states and we are in the mobilizations. We are in the state on the local congresses. Also Heated Heated in Spanish is utiful informers. They have all the legal expertise UH and they worked this reforms and lost with the criminalized abortion. We have EPAS. EPAS is an international organization and they are medical experts and they provide all types of data and information regarding this

part and the Population Council. They are the experts on monitoring and investigation and they have many research papers and well. There are also like other pages that that can give information for example about these they self induced abortion the health organization has a protocol. It's a public protocol for for self induced abortion, and it is completely safe to do it at home. Well, I really appreciate all the information. Uh yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, thank you so much.

I think it's really helpful to hear um what other countries have done in the same struggle. It's like so similar but different, the say at the same time, because we've dealt with the same similar things like turfs and religious like opposition and everything. So it's really helpful, I think, to see to realize that first of all, it is a basic human right, like it's not even it's like

internationally an issue. And then just to see how other people have organized it's really important, I think, yes, And now I believe that we have like kind of a similar situation whether well, it's a situation of legal discrimination in which only women who live or have the resources to travel to the states that have the criminalized abortion can exercise the right who a voluntary legal interruption of

their pregnancy? Am I right? Because I like, I don't know much about the situation and the United States, but I know that it is legal in some states, right, yeah, yeah, some states. And then like in contrast to that, it's like legal even in case of rape, and like the people that have been raped can be suited. It's like a very like up and down kind of balance. Um. But yeah, there's definitely both that exists, and I think that's where it becomes really hard to extinguish the bad side.

It's part part of our struggle to be criminalized abortion in the other states is because woman who who live in poverty and marginalized conditions, who want to have an abortion but reside in other states where it's illegal, kind of do so under legal circumstances. So it's also a class problem. Its yeah, definitely. And also in Mexico there

are some states that even criminalize us contaneous abortion. It it wasn't even induced and instead of calling an ambuments, some people called the cubs when when a woman is dying because of christ containous abortion. So yes, and this has caused also a public health problem affecting girls and women in more vulnerable situations who live in the in the most restrictive context rural and indigenous communities, also migrants, girls and women victims of of sexual abuse, women with disabilities,

among others, and always, always, always the most vulnerable. Vulnerable women are more susceptible to get an unsafe contesting abortions, which can get to infections, camorrhaging, uh, injury to to internal organs. And even there there are some places like in communities work there is not even access to to internet or or to basic health services. And m h, you're awesome. Women are still buying betool once safe abortions. Yeah,

and they are like a hundred percent preventable this. Yeah, no, totally, yeah, thank you, you're even amazing. Um, but it's interesting because that's true. I think regardless of the country, the most vulnerable are the most affected. Whether it's I mean it's a class issue, it's a race issue, it's a disability issue, it's like all these things that I mean, rich people will get abortions either way, like privileged people will always

have a route to take care of themselves. Um. So it's just I don't know, it's unfortunate for seeing how like humans have functioned regardless of the country that they build. Yes, sad and criminalizing abortion does not reduce its practice. I think that prohibiting it will like and its practice, and it only increases the probabilities of decent, safe procedures, and it increases the stigma and prejudices, and it even strengthens

this empty rights and choice groups. But when abortion is performed in a in a safe and important matter, it is even less risky that childbirth among other interventions. And us for example, it is much safer for for our goal to have an abortion than to what you said, than to continue with with when when the pregnancy is like threatening her life. Ye yes, um, well, that's why we have to keep fighting for people. I was really

getting down there. Yes, and here in Mexico, like bills continue to be promoted in different states, we keep forming and strengthening alliances, and we have to strengthen these alliances with all types of sectors. And that's why the the alliance work, for example, because we are the religious sectors that we work also with legislators, with doctors, health care providers, even in schools, and with the public general. So uh, it is a collective effort and the collective commitments mm hmm, yeah,

very true. I have nothing to add. That's a good better than that. Um. So, thank you so much for joining us, and I'm going to step away now. Thank you asually, of course, yeah, and I guess uh. The last thing, well, do you do you have anything else you want to say? And then b I where can people find you on the internet like if they want to? And do you have other organizations and stuff do you

want to promote? H? I'm like Erica Yamava. You know my social media and the organization I work in, it's I Giva the Middle Silvavania, Bravai from herere but the the National Network for Reproductive Rights where we are intolves states. It's called they said, but it's B B E, S E R. And you can find those uh in most of these states. And we can provide information regarding abortion

if you write to us. And also something I would like to say is that even after it's even nice, one must continue to to ensure that these abortion services are are when they say, our implement that, and that they can reach to all girls and women. That it must be guaranteed in paper and in practice. And yes, the emphasis in reaching the most underserved and vulnerable populations. M hmm all right, well, uh, I think that's probably

going to do it for us today. Erica, thank you so much for talking about It's a wealth of information. It's really valuable. Thank you, Yeah, and thank you all for listening. That's your episode for the day. Welcome to it could happen here. I'm Garrison with me today is Chris, and today we'll be talking about something that I was wanting to do for Pride Month but time kind of

got away from me. But we'll be talking with Noah Adams, who does research into the kind of crossover between autism and being trans I know we've we've briefly mentioned some like rhetoric around this on our War on trans People series episodes, and Noah was kind enough to reach out to me to be willing to discuss this more in depth. Of greetings, Hello, thank you. It's it's always Pride Months

somewhere in the summer. So that's true. That's true. Um So, I guess let's I first want to kind of hear how you how you personally kind of got into this field of research, and then maybe kind of clarify what what exactly your your field of research is? Sure, Um, well, I guess where do you start? I mean, I'm I'm a trans person and I'm also autistic, so it's sort of a natural yeah crossover for me. Um, I got started in trans research uh or transactivism doing suicidality work.

Um in such a long time ago now, but in um, I think two thousand and six, myself and my best friend cycled across Canada to bring awareness for trans suicidality um and in memorandum of a person, a friend who who committed suicide. UM. So you know, we went to a lot of different communities in Canon, including Saskatoon, did talks about you know, did talks with local trans communities about suicide, audy prevention and stuff. Uh and met a

lot of great people. Um. And then I came back and I did my Master of Social work also on trans suicidality research, kind of looking at how there's a lot of different research out there and who knows, you know, there's a lot of different rates that are given all high and and where are we supposed to you know, fall on that? Um. And then I finished that and I was kind of tired of doing suicidality work. Yeah,

speaking it's a little bit a little bit exhausting. UM. And kind I have a I have a much darker sense of humor than I used to. Yeah, um so a friend I was kind of drifting into autism work, and a friend who, uh Jake Pine, who who's a professor now at your university, UM, suggested I kind of

move into that area. And and here I am so with the kind of crossover between being trans and have and and uh, I guess I'm not the best I don't I don't know, I consciously don't kind of know all the what the most appropriate languages would you say that you would you prefer to say that you like have autism or you are artistic? Um? I mean I think it's pretty universal in the autism community to uh talk about identity first language. So yeah, exactly, logism kind

of leads and and that's yeah. I mean I guess i'd say I'm autistic. Most people don't say person with autism. Yeah. Yeah. So with that, how have you kind of what what initially got you to? You know, because we see a lot of propaganda and stuff trying to almost like take away people's agency around both being trans and and and um with and how and being autistic? Right, there's a lot of a lot of propaganda, especially from the Turfs in the UK really started this out and really accelerated

on this point. Um. And I mean we're not. There's a whole bunch of basically autism exterminationist groups out there, um and a whole a whole bunch of other kind of problems around this. How when when these kind of crossovers start happening, where did you kind of what what kind of prompted you to see this and be like, Hey, here's this thing that needs to be researched, and here's

how I'm going to go about it. Because you see a lot of people talk about this thing, but it's always generally to like attack trans people, um or attack autistic people. I mean, you know there's a lot there. I mean I would say, you know, my sort of seedling of interest is is I just really don't like injustice. I really, I mean that's such a broad thing to say that I really, you know, injustice against people for the sake of who they are really just kind of

pisses me off. Um. And you know, I mean, when you pick a research topic, you've kind of pick something that you're willing to spend hours and hours and hours in a library or you know, um a virtual library. What have you just kind of plowing away at it? And and it seemed like I was piste off enough at the injustice of the way autistic people, in the way trans people are treated, and especially the way I think I think we're ignored by both the theaters, by

both you know, for for turfs and trans exclusionary folks. Um. I really feel like we're an easy target where you know, autistic people or or for that matter, people with the volment of disabilities or people with with any kind of um and I'm using having finger pots on as any kind of impairment based disability feel like a soft target for people that just want to attack trans folks, right like, because they're they're a group that are so it's incomprehensible

to them that we would be able to speak for ourselves. So so they're you know, I mean, I don't even think that they I don't think they care about autistic people. But I don't think they even even occurs to them that autodic people might have and trans autistic folks might have something to say for themselves. So, what's kind of the scope of your research been the for however however long you've been working on this for it's it's for a PhD program, correct, Yeah, Well, I started doing I

wrote a book on trans authentic folks. That's sort of a series that interviews with folks um and you know, I mean I just asked them like about their lives and what it was like to be trans and what it was like to be autistic, and what it's like to you know, try to transition as an autistic person, and a lot of stuff came out of that around you know, how difficult it can be for folks that are their boat to access trans healthcare and to sort of navigate their way in the world. Um. And this

is for my PhD work. It's sort of an outgrowth of that. So I'm looking specifically at how trans autistic community groups sort of grassroots group formations are are forming

and and what their goals are. How do you, like, how do you go about like ethical research into this topic, because definitely the like, you know, there's a certain way to like, there's a certain way to be like, I'm researching autism and trans people to be like, huh, that's a little bit of a side I right, because because of how some of because of how like the turf groups talk about it. Obviously you're treads and autistic and

that's two completely different. But like, definitely Yeah, I was definitely wondering, like, is there, like how what what types of like ways does ethical research go about so that you actually understand people when you're when you're talking to them. It's not it's not about like here, we need to we need to like solve these problems, because they're not problems to be solved, But it's it's research into living people who are like having lives. Yeah, mean, that's that's

a great question. Um. I'm sort of starting through that myself right now because I'm just you know, working through my ethical research proposal. Um, but I think you just have to be really honest and open and and really write all this stuff out, like how are you going to contact people and what are you going to talk to them about? And showing other people what you're doing

and being very open to that process, if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, In what types of ways do you see the crossover kind of between ableism and transphobia and like what how how have you seen that crossover be used to kind of hurt both trans people and people who are artistic and people who are both you know, I mean I think the most explicit way has been I you know, I see a lot of articles by the Guardian or the Daily Mail, you know, bring up the specter of

autistic people and being overrepresented, overrepresented again in finger quotes, Uh, I'm the trans population going to gender clinics and and there isn't ever any explanation after you say that that the scaremongering is just saying there's artistic people supposedly overrepresented among trans folks. Oh no, but as if it doesn't need saying. It's it's assumed that that's that's appalling, you know,

but I like a little bit more explanation. There's there's there's a lot said by how they how there's how they frame it and how they and like what they don't say, um really fright, Like the it's all framed as if this is, you know, something that everyone recognizes as like a problem. Um, and countering that is really challenging because it is. Yeah, because like again you're you're doing research into this in this into this specific crossover, and what kinds of stuff have you kind of learned

throughout your research about about this. I mean it's interesting, like it's that attitude is also represented in the academic literature, like over the last I bet I'd say over the last five years, the literature on the crossover of of autism and trans folks has like skyrocketed, Like in I always say, in to twenty alone, something like a hundred and fifty articles were published, whereas two years before that maybe twenty UM and and the vast majority of them

are mentioning the um the co occurrence uh in passing. So they're saying, oh, well, we read these other things where autism and trans identity co occurs, So thus you should be very careful prior to providing trans healthcare because they might be autistic. Yeah, That's the only thing I wanted to talk about was like people medical gatekeeping aspect,

and like you especially you see this like turfs. You know, there's a lot of like infantilization with the turf Frederick around this, and then that kind of leads to this type of medical gatekeeping. Yeah, I just think, you know, I see I see this. I saw this in a book with the interview as I did, and I see it in so many other places, and especially conversation with folks.

Is that, you know, the problem seems to be if you tell an unexpected narrative to the person in charge of gate keeping you for transgender healthcare, you're going to make them nervous. And if you make them nervous, they're they're not necessarily gonna say no, but they're gonna say

to themselves at least, oh, let's wait and see. And for for autistic folks, waiting and seeing might mean forever, right, Like I talked to folks in the book, uh that, you know, without without mentioning actual cities, because of the

you know, the particular situation of this person. But let's let's you know, let's say he lived in New Orleans, uh, and he wasn't able to access trans healthcare and New Orleans because it just wasn't available to folks who were autistic, And so he ended up moving to Chicago, which which shows, you know, he moved to Chicago specifically to get trans healthcare, which shows a level of capacity that there implying in the context of trans health care in New Orleans that

he's not capable of. But you know, he can upbroot his whole life, move across the country, find a doctor. And then he talked to the doctor in an informed health clinic in Chicago and and they were like, oh, yeah, we knew that you were from this city, and we do that you were autistic before you told us, because there's this whole pipeline of autistic trans folks making the migration to Chicago from this particular city because they can't

get healthcare. I mean, like, you know, I'm also thinking about you know, like kids trying to come out as trans, um who have autism or have any other kind of you know, quote unquote developmental disability UM, and like just all of the ways that that can be used to gaslight kids about their gender identity. UM. I know in your book you mentioned stuff around like self discovery and

coming out and issues with family. UM, what kind of what kind of things have you heard heard about that in terms of how how kids that that the kids are figuring figuring out gender stuff while also having this whole other thing that people use to kind of, you know, add on to their experience. I mean, I think, you know, one of the things I noticed, especially in you know, sort of trans autistic autobiographies, is that you know, gender doesn't really make an inherent sort of sense do a

lot of autistic folks. I mean, it doesn't make sense to do. But I mean I have I have something going on in my brain. I don't know what it is. I don't think it's autism, but yeah, genders never made sense to me either, And I think like where you for autistic people, especially where you come across things that don't make an inherent sort of sense, it's difficult to accept them. Like so much in the world doesn't make inherent sense. But that can be a real sticking point

for autistic folks. So, you know, what I see, what I seem to see a lot of is that by the time folks come out, well, first of all, it's see was like, although you know, I don't want to quote any particular kind of research on it because I think the jury is still out, but it seems like autistic people are more likely to identify as non binary

um or to just not identify with gender at all. Um. And it does seem like by the time folks come out as trans, whatever you know, permutation of that there is for them, um, They've they've tried just about every other identity they can, you know, they can try out like especially you know, I mean, we're aware that there are social stigmas and and and social expectations around gender.

So I think for for a lot of autistic folks, they're going to try to fit that, even though it doesn't make sense to them, They're going to try to fit within that because they know it exists, and that by the time they come out as as trans, like or main or female or what have you, like, we pretty well know. Is there any any kind of sense? Yeah? No, I mean I think that there's a lot of misconceptions people have about about i mean, both being trans and

big autistic. Let let a load being both of Is there any like, yeah, like, what's the common misconceptions about this? Only kind of on like a broader level. Would you like to dispel? Um? Sure, Yeah, I mean I think a lot of people get told, you know, you can't you can't be autistic because you're too you're too articulate, or you know, you have too much of an opinion. Autistic people can't have an opinion of themselves, of their own life. And yeah, that's gross. I'm paraphrasing, but I

think that's what it is. Yeah, absolutely, Um, And then you know, trans folks get told It's not uncommon to get told, oh, well, you can't be autistic because you're trans, so you're sort of in this this no, no person's land. That's such a it's such like an ontological attack on

someone's being. It's so really like that's you know, like you know already like again just being solely trans or autistic, you get some of that, and then together it's like it's just attacking every kind of part of you that you're trying to figure out. Um well, I mean, I mean in terms of attacking people rhetorically, it's sort of the perfect weapon because you can make autistic trans people

into whatever you want to be convenient to you. What kinds of stuff do you think people should know about this to help kind of either you know, to help either like counter some of like the rhetoric around this, or just to gain better like personal understanding, right if they have if they have you know, people in their lives who are like this, or maybe they suspect that they're that they're trans and they're autistic. Like how what what kinds of what kinds of stuff would you like

people to be more aware of about this intersection? Well? I guess I remember a story someone from the book told me about how you know he was He had his best friend is is trans and autistic as well and has a number of physical disabilities, and he was kind of he's sort of the caretaker for him. Um, and he was kind of talking to him about how, oh, well, I don't know if I'm trans, and I don't know if I should you know, if I should use that label or like, you know, maybe it's not the right

thing to do or it's bad or something. And his friend was like, well, you know you're not You're not a hormone of vampire. Like you're not gonna like suck the hormones out of somebody else and and hurt them by taking away their testosterone. Like, oh I wish is I wish it worked like that? Um, you know I would. I would be a trans empire. Um, this is about you and what makes you comfortable. It's not about like

you're not hurting anybody else being yourself. And I think you know, autistic folks like anybody else you know, worry about I mean, we're we're just as susceptible to the attacks on trans folks. Yeah, is anybody else right? Like and you worry that, like, well, maybe this isn't the right thing to do, but like what are you hurting by by exploring it? That doesn't mean you have to be trans or you have to transition, or or you

can't change your mind like, but it doesn't. It doesn't hurt anybody, even though you to just be open to it, even just like temporarily trying out different names or pronouns. Right, it can can be like such a big deal, um, and it can be very incidental. Like it doesn't. It doesn't need to be so cataclysmic. Right, that's something that you can experiment with and it's fine. Right, you never yeah,

you don't lock yourself into anything. Um, but of course you know what it's about, your personal sense of identity. Of course it feels much bigger. Well, I think I think people worry about what other folks I mean, obviously people worry about what other folks will think and mean for them. Um, I don't know what I mean. It seems like a strange comparison to make. But I don't know. If you've seen Crimes of the Future, I've not yet. Oh, it's it's really good. It's it's the most recent David

Cronenberg movie. And there's this great I'm going to give away the end of the movie, so spoiler boilers. I know we're giving this into a movie podcast what I've always wanted. There's this great scene at the end though, where Vigo Mortison is like in this he has this special like very David Cronaberti bone chair that he has to like be in to move him around what he's eating, and he finally is convinced by his partner to like try the plastic chocolate bar that's you know, supposed to

be like it's a whole digestive thing. I will get into it. But you know, there's this moment of realization and like he's been avoiding this for the whole the whole movie, and he like tries it and he's eating it and and suddenly there's this this realization moment in his face where he's like, oh, this didn't have to be so difficult, Like, I society doesn't want me to do this, and it's it's seen as a crime, and it's see is as terrible. But actually, when you cross

that rubicon, it wasn't as bad as you thought. Yeah, I mean, especially if you if you're even even if you're not like coming out to everybody you know at the same time, right, you can start you start off with a smell group of people that you know are gonna be with you, and you try it out with them and if you like it, then great, that's that's a really good sign if you if you start it and you're like, and this doesn't feel right, then you don't need to commit. Like it's not a thing. Right.

That rubicon can feel so big sometimes, yeah, and it feels like you're you're jumping across a giant like the Grand Canyon. But really all it is is you're stepping across, you know, a small stream and you can step right back across there if you didn't like it. Yeah, So what kind of things we like to see happen around like the medical gatekeeping so that it's less fucked up? I mean, I know a lot of I'm actually act a conference in Belgium right now for trans health sort

of medical trans health stuff. Um, and you know, I mean, I think one of the things I keep coming back to is you don't need to treat autistic people in the realm of trans healthcare any differently than you do anywhere else, like anyone else, Like, especially in the gate keeper model, we have like either you have the capacity to consent or you don't like that that test is, and I have lots of thoughts about that if that's

for another day. But you know, whether you meet those tests or not, it should not be any different just because you're autistic. UM would like to, I guess talk briefly about your book. Um, you know, what's it like? What? What what the scope of it is? Where people can find it? Um, trans and Autistic Stories from Our Stories from Life at the Intersection by Jessica Kingsley Publishers. UM. It was out in I think people can find it on Amazon or wherever you buy books. I'm sure Paul's

book store over there in Portland has it. Um. Yeah, it's it's a series of interviews with folks who are trans and artistic. I sat down with folks and and asked them about their life and and what's going on and what that looks like. And then I sort of, uh, you know, try to transcribe that into into a text, into a narrative form and put that in a book. And here we are. That sounds wonderful. Um. I see the I see that, I see the listing on Amazon dot c A for our for our Canadian Canadian folks

as well. UM. Yeah, thank you so much for talking about this. Um, is there any other kind of random thoughts that you would like to you would like to

mention that we haven't that we haven't brought up yet. Sure. Um. You know, I always like to plug groups Walsh's work, which looks at you know, they do a lot of work in trans autistic stuff too, and they kind of look at why more people may be trans and autistic, uh, And one of the things they've they found is that it may be that uh, autistic people are both less capable of hiding the fact that they're trans and less less capable of caring um or caring about hiding it,

so it may be more obvious that there is a concurrence. They're not an actual overage of a concurrence, let's say, yeah, of course. Yeah, that means that was definitely in the back of my mind. Yeah, huh. Well again, no, thank you so much for coming to talk with us. Yeah, can I can I plug a couple of things? Is

that plug? Plug away? This is still still your time, okay. Um. So I'm leading a refugee sponsorship group for a group of five for a trans guy from the Middle East, and we're raising funds through the Metropolitan Community Church in Toronto. We got to raise a certain amount before we can put the application in and I can give you that link, but it's at Canada helps dot org. And the Navy is trans Proud, trans Proud, trans and proud you are ill,

but it's kind of long. I will I will put if you send me that link, I will put it in the description for people to click on. Awesome and you can find me at no atoms on Twitter because I got in early enough to get my name. Yeah. Wow, March two thousand nine, just right right on the cusp right well again, thank you so much for reaching out

to talk about this intersection. Hopefully if anyone was interested what we were talking about, UM, please check out Noah's book, UM to just read a whole bunch of stories from from from people about this. Yeah. Awesome, thank you, Yeah, all right, everyone that does it for us today it's the on the other side. Oh yeah, Sophie, that's how we opened the episode. I didn't think anything could be more appalling than that other thing that you said that

I want. What I was talking about, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas wrapped together so tightly that they can't tell who's where one person's skin begins in the other. I walked you right into it, just like Neil Gorsch walked right into that and then decided, you know what, in

for appendy, in for a pound of um? This is it could happen here the podcast about serious problems, where we talk about them seriously, and sometimes about the Supreme Court having a threesome like that, like that, like that cruise ship where there was a threesome and then a giant six fight. How's everybody doing today? I think the opening will work better if we just believe out and yeah, yes,

always bleep outcome um except for right there. So I I feel like today we should chat about one of the many things that's that's a problem, which is a specific piece of disinformation that is spreading and not quite like wildfire. It's more spreading like in the background, like monkey pops on the internet. This is not like the number one piece of of of of like conspiratorial nonsense that's getting around, but it's getting around deeply, and I'm

seeing it on the left and the right. You have if you spend any time at all on social media, which statistically you do, you've probably seen a bunch of stories and like freaked out posts about fires and arson at agricultural facilities and factories of food factories is often how it's phrased. I think the post I saw about it that was sort of most emblematic with someone being like, hey, you know, uh, you're probably not aware that some huge number of chickens died in this fire recently and a

bunch of cows died in this field. But if you were, it's the only thing you'd be talking about. And the idea kind of that people are pushing when they when they uh, catastrophize this is that there's this massive rash of attacks on American food infrastructure, UM at a year when we're already due for a food crisis because of the Ukraine, and um, it's going to be this this big, like looming disaster and some like shady group is trying

to starve everybody. UM. And we brought in a friend to talk about this because it's it is not at all what what people who are kind of catastrophizing or saying UM. And I wanted to introduce Carl to the show. Carl, how are you doing, buddy? You know, living living life in a one party state. Yeah yeah, Um, I don't know, man, there's a lot of parties these days, like the one on that cruise ship. Uh so, or is the Forward

Party our our favorite? This is a big Yang Gang podcast. Um. Now, Carl, you and I had buddies on the old Twitter for a while. You were the origin of one of the terms that that that we use a lot on this show. Um, and uh yeah, I wanted to I wanted to talk to you because this is this is a pretty potent piece of weaponized on reality. Um. You have been tracking

this for a while on kind of your Own. Yeah, well, this is one of those ones that's it sits in between a lot of the other conspiracies, right so, like you said, it's it's kind of the background operating thing right now. Um. And you know, so when we think of the big conspiracies right now, they kind of revolve around what they always did, depopulation, weird n W. We

like secret Society stuff, the Q, the Q brand of that. However, we want to look at this is a little bit different because this is more overtly political, right So, this is this is looking to not just dig the hole of well, everyone's out to get us Bill Gates is buying all the farmland, you know, the crazy stuff we normally I mean, you know that's right in this, but

it's not the center part um. And yeah, I've been looking at this for a few months now since I first saw it, and I first saw kind of traces of this right after the invasion of Ukraine started, so early March. Things started to kind of shift and nothing, you know, post here and there that are now missing, stuff like that, the kind of classic Well, let's test

the waters. Let's see how people accept the idea that maybe something out you know, in the in the conspiratorial way is going on just asking questions type yeah, exactly exactly. It's the just asking questions It said, just well maybe think about it kind of thing. And those those pique my interest because those tend to be test balloons, and for this kind of thing, I had a weird you know, they're weird feelings you kind of get when you watch

some of this as much as we do. Yes, yeah, and you think kind of sense when the thing has enough ingredients to catch on exactly, and especially when they're super kind of inflammatory ingredients, right, you know, the Bill Gates um buying all the farmland is a good example, not quite as inflammatory, but catches on because people, you know, it's it's the social paradelia thing. There's always like, there's always this, I mean, and this is something again that's

a broader thing with conspiracies. There's always a germ of truth. The germ of truth with that is that Bill Gates is on a lot of farmland. Now, if you compare it to the total quantity of farmland he has bought, very it's like, yeah, it's a fraction point oh three or something. I mean, it's an absolutely tiny amount of the total, right, Yeah, Because this this country is I don't know, if you've looked at him, appresently pretty sizeable country, the United States of America kind of a big place

when you actually look. Yeah, and so the kernel of truth is there there. There are fires right there, industrial accidents, there are weird stuff happens in big industrial situations. We have a large industrial farming situation in this country. So you see it. And I think part of what makes the kind of the idea that oh, this is suddenly happening and it's suddenly like a massive problem easier to sell to people is that most Americans know next to

nothing about the food supply and how it works. Like if you have because I grew up in and around farms, I've been a lot of my life in agricultural areas. Farms and things related to farms catch on fire fucking constantly. You may not be Yeah, they're they're like I think they said there are five thousand annually annually, about fifteen a day. I mean, it's it's giant fields of dried grain.

It's deeds of dried grain, and it's shipped like silos full of like flour and stuff, which is like there's nothing like, yeah, silos explode like like the like a a silo full of grain is slightly less explosive than like a military like missile or some ship. Like they're like they detonate if you catch them at the right way exactly. And like I know here in Minnesota a few years ago and there's video of a floating around.

You know, there was a you know, a corn, a corn silo split and the dust goes out and something you know, a car or engine because it's hot, sparks it off and it's a fireball. You know, So these things happen, and I can remember there was one of the last things I saw and I went and covered in Texas before I moved, was there's this little town called West which is not in West Texas, it's in North Texas. It's in between, um, Dallas and Waco, which is in between Dallas and Austin, because no, Waco is

not a destination. And they had this big god it was some sort of what was the I'm gonna google what the facility was, uh, but it was it was this like, um yeah, it was a fertilizer factory and it caught on fire. There's a terrifying video of this guy with his daughter watching it and it goes off like like a fucking fuel air bomb, the massive exploit. It killed the entire town's fire department, like all of

them dead in a second. It was basically fucking anfo And because it happens this is like two, I think, um, it never it's just this big tragedy. If it had happened a couple of years later, there would have been like a conspiracy attached to it. It was just yeah, it was just slightly to r a but like this

ship happened. I mean, the point of making is that and that we're making here is that like this ship happens all the time, and to the numbers we were quoting earlier, there's no evidence whatsoever that there are a higher number of of these events this year than there

ever are. Um. Basically, one of the things that we've seen is as of like the spring of this year, a list has been compiled, um, mainly in places like Gateway, Pundit and zero Hedge, where they've got like a hundred different events too, and and it it looks very compelling when you just see this list of and there's this fire, and this many chickens died here, and this many cows died,

and there was this explosion. But again, if you actually look at the number of events that are expected in a year, there's nothing abnormal about this, and in fact, it's pretty middle of the road for any year. And like the bird, the bird calls right, like that's a great example of this being just absolutely out of the park conspiracy land. I mean, there's a massive eight and flu epidemic going on right now that's killed more birds,

you know, than the last ten years. And so when you start talking about you know, three hundred you know, three hundred million birds worldwide being called whatever the massive numbers that funny how avian flu does that, and that's a response. But when you get into the zero hedge, who is really pushing this right now world that's one

of the top ones on the list. And it also makes you know they have their little maps up right now with all the drop tabs that show right they love doing and there's a you see this in other conspiracies.

I think one of the big ones that that kind of was a little I don't know, on the edge of of of getting mainstream recently was like the conspiracy about people disappearing at national parks where it's like mapped, yeah, exactly like it, yeah, and it's like, yeah, man, um people, there's three million p in the United States, Like and also people go missing while hiking and one of the like a bunch of stuff isn't on that list, like the number of those people who were found again and

what exactly a lot of people just like slip and fall and never a seat again because they falled out a cliff. Yes, national parks are kind of dangerous, funny enough once you're off, Yeah, that's why they're fun Yeah exactly. There was there was a whole four wh one documentary made a few years ago about this person who went missing, you like were they were They dropped into a secret underground government bunker where they abducted and they like a year later they found his body at the bottom of

a cliff. Yeah, and like it it doesn't you know, that doesn't talk about the horrible stuff done with like especially in Canada with all of the missing indigenous women. Is actually it is actually a big problem. But I mean to back to back to the fact, back to the farming thing. I think what all of these you know stories show is just the innate holder of industrial farming. It's actually the scar Yeah, yeah, it is absolutely scary, um,

but it's also like normal scary. Like the thing that's scary is that the system of industrial farming is incredibly dangerous. And like, if you actually want to be properly horrified about something relating to food production, look at how many people die because they get sucked into bogs of pigshit or drowning grain stile or drowning grain sile. I mean people, legit, whole families. One person will fall in the grain silo and they'll try to get him out the whole families.

I know, I know people who have who have died that way because I grew up in the very agricultural area. Yeah, a lot of this is just like people don't know the country, but sharine, yes, um so industrial. I mean like yeah for me, for me someone that hasn't growed up in any agricultural area at all, and this is yeah. Grain is like so it's like quicksand it sucks you in. It takes you to that bottom. If you don't spread out immediately, you're going down and there's really no way

to save somebody. It's stay pretty, stay the funk away from grain silos. Yeah, do not play around grain silos, around with the grain silo. It is it is. It is killed entire families because people will try to save each other then they get sucked down and it's it's pretty. Yeah, it's bad when you have livestock livestock poop, and sometimes that poop is super useful. Chicken ship's one of the best fertilizers ever. You can make. Chicken ship very very useful.

Pigshit is like nasty, it's toxic. It is very hard to do anything. It's it's in the ground long enough it's a bio Well theoretically, if you were to like really care about it, you could you could make a use of it given enough time. But there's so many pigs because our hunger for bacon is insatiable that you wind up with this this massive tox of massive toxic sludge. So there's the chunk of the country in which most

of the pigs come from. There are these huge pigshit bogs that are like there are countries smaller than bogs of pig ship that we have in the United States, and people die in them all the time. They get sucked down into the big ship or you suffocate because you get one of them bursts. I mean, there's so many weird things because it's a meth their methane and hydrogen sulfide scences. So it's just like bad things around farms all the time, and that's just that's just farming

and what we're ultimately what we are seeing here. If you want to like actually analyze the thing that is happening um with all of these conspiracies, it's it's what's called the frequency illusion, which is the idea that like if you've ever I don't know, if somebody when somebody like teaches, like you learn a new word, right, or you like you hear about a historic event, and then

you keep seeing everywhere. This is something that's an author that Garrison and I quite like Robert Anton Wilson played with a lot um. It's why, like twenty three is one thing you'll notice in like Hollywood movies and TV shows if you look out for twenty they're fucking everywhere because a whole bunch of people who got into Hollywood are fans of the same guy. And there's this conspiracy with the number of twenty three people sticking. It's all

over the fucking wire. It's in a bunch of ship um, and it's it's yeah, at the base of things like right, humans are paradelium, right, So we're looking for patterns and static that's what we do. It's part like in my mind, it's part of our like ancestral uh, you know, deep in the past protection, right, how we cont me? Yeah, exactly what's that? And it's how you look for monsters in the woods, you know. It's like when we're looking

for eyes in the dark. That's part of it. And so you know, we tend to find meaning in points and then try and connect them because that's how we work. And so this is a great example of this because it hasn't gone full Q level yet where it's just absurd to be absurd. The shield itself, like you can see where people are trying to pick together points that

normally are just industrial accidents. And you know, some of the stuff I saw early on, for like the cow death posts and the stuff related to climate change, what you really were seeing was people trying to make order out of what is just chaotic accidents and now and now yeah, yeah, no, it's it's it's something you rarely actually see in the cascade of you know, conspiracy theory like this so overtly and it's been really interesting for me watching that because you know, as someone who's far

too into watching people melt their brains. UM. This this kind of lays out some of the ways that this works for all of us, UM, and I think it also offers a roadmap in certain ways to like see past it and be able to correct it for yourself so you don't get into the same Oh there are a thousand points a light here, let's fall all of them. Yeah,

it's UM. One of the things that's interesting. So, like we just called it the the recency bias or the frequency illusions, is also the recency illusion, which is like the belief that things that you have like noticed only recently are a recent phenomena rather than things that go back a long time. There these are kind of inter related. But this, this sort of phenomena that we're seeing is

often called the bottom mine off phenomena. And that's so so the bottom I'm pretty yeah bottom the bottom mine Off group was a it's also called the German Red Army. UM. It was a yeah, it was a West German terrorist organization from like seventy years ago. Like this is not a recent thing, but there was an article about them in like a Minnesota St. Paul newspaper in nineteen four that happened to be one of the first newspapers with

an online comment page. Oh no, well yeah, so this is like you'll always here referred to as the bottom mine off phenomena. It has nothing to do with this terrorist group other than the fact that one commenter on saw an article about them, um within a couple of hours of someone else in their life telling them about the group, and so they named it in the common section the bottom mine off phenomena because yeah, like it's it's which is an example of the phenomena. Um, but

like that's it is. It is. It's a thing that people do for again good reason. Like like you said, like if you're a fucking hunter gatherer and you notice that, like, oh, after a rainstorm is when the big cats come out and hunt. And like if somebody, if one of your friends gets eaten by like a tiger, it's probably after a rainstorm. You associate after the rainstorm with danger, which is like good, right, Like I live inside urban environments,

the usually usually less. This becomes useful as relating to more of our like instinctual practices. Learning to recognize this like first step of delusion is really important. Um, I don't think decisions in the future, right, But I think it's much more similar than we realized to like how people think of religion, because even religions people are Yeah, like what you're saying is like there's so much chaos.

People can't make sense of the world. And just like religion, you're trying to make order out of disorder and look for signs, to look for patterns. It's like an element of magical thinking where yes, you look for reasons that this has meaning, so I understand where they're coming from. And so the problem, again, the problem is not with your brain, because this is not like a bad thing your brain is doing. It's just a thing your brain

is doing. The problem is that this is one of the easiest ways that bad faith actors can take advantage of you and other people, and so in terms of

protecting yourself and others from it. And again, one of the problems with this and one of the things that makes it so so much more difficult twenty years ago the batter mind how obviously the bottom line how phenomenon was as much of a thing as that dude in the fucking Commons page that Minnesota paper proves, But there was less ship coming at you, so you kind of had even if you might get caught for a little bit and they're like, oh, is there something weird going

on with this this German terrorist group. Um, you kind of had the space in your head and the space in your media diet to like actually parse that out and calm down. But today it all comes with you with a flood. There's like three new fucked up Supreme Court decisions. Oh, and now all of the food factories are on fire and all of the chickens are dead, and this war in Ukraine is actually elevating the food prices,

and it all compounds on itself. If you when you start seeing something new like this come into your media diet that seems scary, one of the first things you should do is just try to get a handle on the raw numbers this Well, this is a complexity Yeah, you know, you know, this is a complexity issue. That's how I like to look at it. And that's exactly one of the great ways to to kind of get disrupt the complex nature of this and the amount of it you're taking in is just to start breaking it down.

Numbers are great, right, Like if you can look and see their eighteen thou instances of industrial accidents leading to X, y or z and five thousand fires, you start to really get yourself into a better position to understand what's being thrown at you. Yeah, but I don't think most

people can actually understand what those numbers mean. Like there's like they're large numbers, but I don't think people understand like that means a lot of that stuff is happening versus just like one or two things you hear about and you don't realize that probability wise, that it's like insignificant because I don't think those numbers makes sense. I

mean even to me sometimes I can't. I can't picture so many things, So I think it's I don't know, maybe it's just like a deficit and how our brains would you be able to understand why the numbers exist.

But you can try to compare them two previous years, right, you can't exactly, you can't expand what you're relating to, right if you're if you're looking from is everything from March to June two, you're like, whoa, this is a lot of stuff just in these few months that if you compare that to every preceding year for the past few years, like, oh, this actually isn't a regular this is this is this is still fucked up, but it's actually kind of normalized. Um, and it's not. It's not

an abnormal phenomenon right now. And so even if you can't like understand what the numbers are, you can still compare them to previous things. But but yeah, I mean that does require more work than just like looking at a meme, right, And the reason why this stuff works is because people know how to exploit this part of our brains really well. Not not not not not in this part of this brain is useless, right, It has uses, um, you can play with it, but it's also is exploitable.

And and that's the thing that you want to be aware of, is trying to be cognizant of if the information you're taking in is exploiting this pathway and then choosing how how you want to be be circumvent some of those mental effects act like well, and we have such I mean, as humans, we have a real issue with this kind of brain hacking, and it's something we're just all kind of getting up to right now and understanding.

And we still don't fully understand some of this. But you know, I UM a lot of the stuff I I kind of initially worked off of for the concept of weaponized unreality kind of talks about social engineering in the way that like freaking was done and hacking back in the day was done, and this is so similar to that in certain ways that it's kind of shocking, right, Like it's a conspiracy, but it's also a management tool and it's a it's a memory management and and you know,

ultimately a reality management tool and giving it numbers looking at context like that does take time, but some of these are like gonna gonna be hard and fast rules probably going forward to like interact with the digital world, because this is gonna be how it is for a long while. There's a book that was kind of considered to be like the foundational text of or at least strategic document of the Islamic State, called The Management of

Savagery Um. And the title gives away what what you're doing, right, you're carrying out You're you're engaging in acts of savagery, terrorist attacks that that that kill innocent people, that are that exists to disrupt um the state that you're in in order to and you're attempting to like you're attempting to build kind of a melieu of savagery, which then

provides you the opportunity to take an exert power. And what we're seeing here is like the management of cognitive biases, right exactly, the management of like these weird little evolutionary holdovers in your brain, um that that don't quite work in the modern world. But if you understand what what's happening, you can take advantage of them, and you can you can trick people into thinking things are happening that aren't.

It's the same. You know, you can see this. The right does this very effectively in a lot of the anti trans stuff they've been doing, obviously with gay you know, if you look at the population trans and of gay people, some number of people in that community are going to do things that are bad, right, because it's a population of human beings, um, and because the country is large enough. If you get people hyper focused on here's a story,

here's another story, here's two, here's three stories. Now, is that does that mean that there's any kind of actual systemic problem. No. Um, that community is no more likely to do things that are bad than any other community. But if you get people focused on each of those stories in their head, they feel like there's they feel like there's an epidemic, and like, well, we have to

get a handle. It's the same thing that that gets done with like Islamic terrorism, right where it's like, yes, since nine eleven, actually not that many acts of Islamic terrorism in the United States extremely fucking uncommon, much less common than right wing terrorism like homegrown terrorism, but the media doesn't really cover one of those kinds of terrorism and loves to cover the other. So you get people periodically tricked into thinking that they're under direct threat from

the Islamic State or whatever. The right well, and I think it's you know, I think going to that point right, like it's almost u I mean, it's a reality filter, right, so, like it's a way to selectively filter out things that would counter the narrative that you're trying to overall push. And I think that that's something that's what's interesting me about this in a lot of ways is that we're seeing a filter being set up that only allows people

into one lane of this thought. And we've seen what the end result of that is with radicalization and things that come along with these kind of conspiracies. But it's really it's been very wild to watch since the you know, the nineteen April till now where we're seeing it. You know, Serovich is doing it, every any one of the guys you can think of doing it, Yeah, exactly. Tucker ran a couple of things on this and kind of interspersed

it with his you know, white male virility ship. It's the we're we're we're in a weird place where these are starting to be able to be played with and on each other, and that kind of filtering, you know, starts to get people onboarded from a conspiracy into you know, what we're seeing now is kind of the white nationalist

Christian nationalist movement. That's that's become that that thing. And you know, for me, that's where my interest stems from because of this idea of weaponizing on reality, seeing what happened in Russia when that happened, and seeing this kind of thing which is so similar to that filtering and that narrative shift and building that goes on in that world. It's it's been you know, staring into a void feels bad. Sometimes this is just one where it's like, oh this

is terrible, and it's just the beginning of it. Every once in a while, the void stares back and you're like, oh boy, oh yeah no, and that's exactly I mean, that's uh, that's the problem is sometimes it just stares you right in the eyes and tells you, yeah, I'm here, and that's a bad feeling. Yeah. Well, I think that's

more or less we needed to talk. That would be like, you know, like one of the one of the ways to combat this, if you can, is honestly, creating your own memetic graphs is really useful because these things spread so fast when they're in images. Images of of dates and instances spread like wildfire. Um So, if you can make your own which compares it to previous years, say hey, this actually isn't a new pattern, that's something that's been this is this is just what happens in industrial farming.

I think spreading it via memetic images is one of the if there is a way to combat it, that's probably one of the core ways to go about it, just to get how fast those things spread. And again you can see I've seen some useful people have been trying to push back against you know, this idea that there's been this like massive crime surge in San Francisco and stuff, and they it's uses the same tactics, right, yeah. Absolutely.

You have like a couple of videos of people shoplifting or something, and then you make and and is there is that kind of crime actually up? Well no, it really isn't. But like it doesn't matter because um or is it any higher there than it is in someplace like Duluth where no videos are coming out like no, it's not, but um, it's uh. If you have to be aware, the first thing you have to be aware of is the phenomena is like the way in which

they're taking advantage of you. And then you have to you have to kind of deter and you have to use the tactics they're using against them. And one of the things that is effective is these these graphs with kind of like numbers and dates and ship on them.

People love to feel like they're looking at research. But yeah, at the same time though not to not to be like, I don't know negative about this at all, but in my mind, this is like a modern day version of someone starting your religion and make people like making the sheep of this like following and then having them turn into like whatever it is, whether it's Christian nationalism or whatever.

But just like in religion, if people are presented with science, they don't care, you know what I mean, You'll present them with like, I don't know's there's some people that it's it's it's not science. It's about everyone wants to have access to special, secretive, secret knowledge. Everyone wants to have esoteric knowledge that no one else has so these graphs are still compelling in the first place because you're like, oh, no one else knows all of these things. No one

else has laid it out in this manner. So if you could present your information in that same style, say hey, no one knows that this is actually part of this overall thing that's been going on for years and it's about industrial farming, then you hope that that will spread. That Then that spreads because because it infects the same point in someone's brain. Right, want to we want to feel smart, we want to feel unique, we want to

have like esoteric knowledge. So if you can, if you can frame it to to fit that same mold, then it's not science. It's just playing with the same tactics that got them convinced of this in the first place. Exactly. People that's different. Yeah, I think I think it's true that, like, if somebody is a committed believer in in whatever, like like Mike Sernovitch or something, you're not convincing them. The danger The thing that they're doing that's dangerous is there.

They're quote unquote pilling a lot of like random people into the problem that scares those people. And when those people get scared, they're willing to accept ship they wouldn't otherwise scare. And I think those people you can push get to step down from the ledge because one thing

we do want this is also a problem. But like you think about like climate change, right, and how much of the denial of climate change is not based around getting people to reject the idea entirely, but getting like when people bring up a specific problem being like, well, but look at this weird new piece of technology that some kid developed, and like, this is going to fix it,

and then you get to not worry about it. Right, So if somebody suddenly starts freaking out about agricultural fires for the first time and you're like, actually, they're lower than they are in normal years, this isn't a problem, then maybe their brain, maybe you can get their brain to go like, Okay, that I won't worry about that because I don't want more things to worry about. I just have been given them. Um, that's targeting the ledge people.

We're talking. Yeah, you're not getting to true believers. You're not getting to true believers at this point of any of this stuff. For the most part, you know that takes a wholly different level of work. I mean, that's that's in the ballpark in my mind of the radicalization, right,

like you're you're in a wholly different ballpark. And if you can target the people who are thinking about jumping into the pool too, they tend to if you do change their mind, they become some of the biggest proponents of trying to get other people off the ledge that

they might know. And that's something well, it's something, yeah, it's it's it's it's very similar, and it's something I've seen even in my friends circles, you know, talking to people who five years ago, we're fully you know, in the all let's do Donald Trump for the lulls thing. You know. Now those are the same people who are telling their friends, oh shit, we have a Christian nationalist movement that's trying to overthrow democracy. And that's a huge

you know, like that's a huge help, um to everyone. Right. You want more people saying the truth to people who might not hear it from someone like us um and can internalize it and infiltrate. There's you know, the truth takes a lot more work than fiction, unfortunately, but once it starts to work, it's a compounding thing. And the truth tends to really set people free. As corny as

that is. If people find out they've been lied to, they get they want to know why it worked, and that works in our favor and the truth's favor, and reality is the thing we you know, we gotta protect this at all costs because we're getting tidle weight by unreality and that's a problem for all of us for different reasons. That's the more uplifting note I think than a couple of minutes ago. Yeah, all right, well there there we go. Um go, I don't know, fix it. Yeah,

go fix things. Yeah, go fix things. Don't go swimming in grain silos, and uh, avoid grain silos. Always avoid grain silos. Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the Universe. It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening,