It Could Happen Here Weekly 65

It's finally, finally two thousand twenty three. That means only funny things can happen this year. That's your intro to the That's right. Welcome, Welcome to Christ, buddy. I want to hear any criticism welcome to happen here? Well, I don't know if I'm gonna say they're welcome, but it is good, good work. Enjoy your year of discord um as if any year of the last, like ten, has not been a year every every year previously was totally normal and not chaotic. Downhill from here. First off, welcome,

welcome back. We we love some of you. Probably presumably I haven't met you any of the ones that I love, but I assume that you're out there, how's everybody doing? How's everyone's New year? Absolute slap in the face to anyone you've met on any of your live events. That's a fair so nice to meet you. Thank you for coming in person. Also, fuck you that this whole episode is a series of slaps to the face, because it's not for us. We're lying. We're all lying to them.

Who knows if we make it that far today we're recording this on December two? And what is it? What has happened today? Friends? Also? Who are you? Who was on this episode? Garrison's here? As I've already spoken into the microphone. Who else has spoken into the microphone? Sreen? Question Mark? Now you have Sophie? Sophie? Yeah, James? Oh? Any one left? Oh? No, Mia, I don't. I don't think I've actually spoken into this episode yet. So now I have. You've started the day? Didn't So that's how

you introduced a post. Incredibly awkward. It was perfect, magnificent, as if we had never done a podcast. But before we get to this, to some of the que days of what has happened today when we're recording it? Oh, well, today is the day? Is the one day anniversary? Of me showing Garrison. The movie Strange Days written by James Cameron. Um a New Year's classic. Such a good movie. Not seen it? Oh you gotta you gotta watch it? It

is Robert got alert on his phone. That was just like Memory is one year, a lot of day one day, a lot of violence against the l A p D in that film. Today, that's what's happened has happened? Yeah, definitely not a pro l a p D movie. Also, you you get to repeatedly see a couple of now prominent actors, oh faces um, which is which is great in a slightly problematic context, deeply problematic context, but a good movie anyway. What actors are in this movie? What's his?

What's his? Ralph Find? Yeah, Ralph find is the main character, and he looks exactly like ten years ago Bradley Cooper. Bradley Cooper in this movie. So don't insult Ralph. Don't do that. They both that's what? Okay, Well that's Crol he's great. And Angela Bassett is fucking incredible in it. Queen. Yeah. Tom Sizemore is present in the movie. Alright, Well, my favorite is Vincent din Afrio. Looks exactly like Tim Heidecker's character, and that I think you should leave sketch where they're

at the UFO themed restaurant. It's it's uncanny, um, know that you're still doing uh. I think you should leave references in the Lord's act. I showed my family before before they left to go see other family for Christmas. I sat, I set my family down to watch the second half of season two and magnificent. Yeah, it's designed. And that that leads into my only prediction for the next year, which is, oh, God, come on, all right,

who's what's the first question? Then? Well, so the bitches want to know, Um, in an alternate universe where it could happen here, has a corporate office, does the staff get a Robert Evans book for holiday presence or a

gift card? And we can we can actually answer this because despite not having a corporate office, there's still there still was a holiday gift which I have not actually received mine yet, so I can't say what mine is, but I know other people have received There's I don't know, Sophie, I ordered yours for well, well, Sophie, you know, sometimes it would be like that. Tracking Its probably gonna be yes, so if you're about to ruin some ups drives day?

But what did what did everyone else receive for their will be delivered by pm? Today? Out for today? There there you go. It's okay, Garrison. I didn't get shipped either. Oh oh, did buy you something that hasn't come yet? Devastatingly? What did? What did? What did everyone else get for for their holiday? Was it a Robert Evans book? No,

it wasn't. God, oh my god, imagine you're that fucked up, that unhanged that you're like I should by The second job I ever had, which was our third job, I guess, which was working for this accountant guy that's like like that. He was like right, He was a retirement like an advisor guy. He would help old people get their money in order to retire. It was mostly like helping him host events at like a Texas roadhouse where we would try to get old people to buy annuities. But um,

so I worked for this guy. In the day I started the job, he gave me a copy of his self published novel Operation night Watch, which was about a group of Navy seals going rogue to stop drug dealers and is one of the worst things I've ever read read it. I mean I attempted to someone when I mentioned did it once on the show. Somebody found and bought a copy and give that money to someone else. Oh, he can't be alive anymore. There's no way he said

it was. It was probably all eBay or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah that that man has been dead for years. I'm sure we still we still have ant, we still have answer here. We've got tiny cans mace to to a little personal maces on for the left hand one for the right hand wield. I really like it. It's very compact. New pepper spray has been on my tabiles for like months because mine was expired like a year ago. But I've never actually bought in one, and so it was

perfect and that was just so tiny. I can put it in like my Fannie pack and just continue on my days. How do you know it won't work if it's expired. I just poked it up. I looked it up and I was just like, I don't want to like, I don't know, I just it was on my tables. I obviously didn't buy it, and it wasn't like you don't want to hurt somebody with expired pepper spray. It's a propellant that expires. Yeah, can itself gets like make yourself? Yeah,

got it? Yeah, yeah, well there you go, there you go. Um, let's see, so we're going to be going through some of the questions that we got for the previous Sorry, my cats are making as I do like a that. But that person really thought that. Robert was that person that was like, hey, happy holidays, here's my book. I do get the royalties. You're welcome. We should we should use the corporate cards to buy more copies of my book. That's a good idea. Before we could just ship them

to the sea. Though it doesn't matter where they go. For the next question, and we're using the questions from the previous it could happen in your livestream for this, by the way, So if we didn't get to your question, we're getting to some more of them right now. Unless your questions sucked, Yeah, yeah, very personal. Yes, that's that's that's what I meant by sucked. So do you know of a way to get involved in mutual aid without using social media? I don't really use it for mental

health reasons. Good decision there to not use social media. Social media yea. Um, a lot of mutual aid organizing or you know, like requests happen on social media. UM. But I mean there's I guess it depends on how you use social media. I suppose like it might be useful to have a friend that follows some of the some of the social media stuff in your local area,

whether that be on Twitter or mastered on or Instagram. Um, and then you can like relay relate to you if there's local events um, or you can just like section off like once a week you check on just a few of those things, and then you then you delete the app from from your phone again. UM. Because once you are like plugged into a local community, then people can just like directly send you flyers and stuff. UM. But you have to have those connections there in the

first is. And those connections are really best made by going to things on the ground, whether it be you know, a food not bombs type thing, whether it be you know, like a clothing swap. Um. Lots of local events do happen in in in people's cities, and once you actually go there in person, that's where real community actually gets built. So it's it's just it's just it's kind of just breaking the ice to actually get to actually go to a few in person things and then and then people

can send you, you know, direct fires and stuff. If you don't want to be doom scrolling well looking for things, you don't have to even have an account if you don't decide not to. You can like view profiles on Twitter and Instagram without an account. That you can't like see the comments or whatever. But if you just want to see their profile every once in a while and check in on what they're doing, you can do that online with no account. Yeah, often as well, like and well,

we're doing mutulate things here. It tends to focus on the border a lot or on the house people, and like in both cases you can just show up and you'll meet someone who's helping get in most instances, and then they can direct you and they can text you

or signal you whatever. Like, there were tons of people when the migrant caravan arrived who were like much older, not on social media, often with church groups, and they didn't hugely like have um I would say, a lot of experience in that kind of area, but they deeply wanted to help and they showed up and people were like, hey, can you go to costco and get this and they want to Yeah, absolutely, and yeah and we use what's happened?

It was fine, and like check around. Another option to be obviously if if you if you have like like a radical meeting space in your city, you can check their. Um. If you don't have those, you can even check see if there's any like radical coffee shops or cafes that maybe have like a bulletin board. People will often put up flyers for stuff there. Um, just you really have to do start start trying to be like plugged into your actual like I r L local community and that's

generally how that goes. Um, you have to be more proactive than if you had social media is the main thing. You still have to show up either way, right, Like yeah, and do you know who else wants you to show up online? Robert Evans, I don't these products and services that want you to. We're now exclusively only sponsored by Robert's books. Yes, and here's an excerpt. All right, and

we're back speaking of the Internet. Robert or anyone I suppose, do you think there's a way to get back to fulfilling the promise of the early Internet Uh No, Um, I don't. I think the early Internet was a thing that happened that in part was the way that it was because our brains did not have any kind of tolerance or or or like we're not like prepared for it, um, and it it kind of grew up as we became capable of like I don't know, like the the the Internet grew more social as we got used to it.

And I don't think that can ever happen again, like those those weird little moments where I don't know. Yeah, my my answer is no, I don't think it will ever happen again, in the same way that like you're never going to get those weird little moments that you you had, like the birth of you know, the printing press or whatever. Like you know, it's a unique moment in history and it's never going to come again. Which

doesn't mean that something else won't happen. Um, But the Internet is not Like the fact that we've all lived through the social media area means even once all these companies go bust, our brains have still been changed by them too much to ever go back to posting the way we once did. No, we're too far gone. I think on a kind of similar note, in a few days we have an episode from Andrew on digital commons and this that kind of involves around this same kind

of question. So in a few days will have will have an episode kind of about this topic ran by Andrew Um. But James, you had you had something? Yeah, Sometimes like obviously, like the Internet is terrible in many ways, but like when we talk about like what happened in Myanma, that series Robert and I did, like that seems to me like it's delivering on some of the promises of

the early Internet. Like it's it's mad that you know, a young person like who is facing a coup and wants democracy in this part of Asia can go online speak to some dude in these aren't real place like people are spoken to about like some some guy in his garage in Ohio who's three ly printing guns, and that person can help the other person on themselves and defend their right to choose who governs them or if they're governed at all, Like that is really fucking cool,

and that doesn't happen without the Internet, And so yeah, there's also yeah, it's it's not that there's not going to be good things done with the Internet, or that it can't be made better but it's never going to be what it was. Yeah, we we simply know too much. Um, let's see what are some inspiring recent examples of cooperation increasing survival odds to show the type that thinks they

just need AMMO to survive. Another good touchstone with for this would be the movie trimmers Um, which which shows unfortunately, actually he's survival player. Nobody lives with that community unfortunately unfortunately.

I think Rabbit actually is correct here. More broadly, this person is like and couch sleep paraphrasing kokin right, but like we have all just lived through a pandemic and me are stilling through a pandemic I guess which has changed the world killed hundreds of thousands, millions of people. And like the reason a lot of people got through that, A lot of people who didn't weren't able to work or were immuno compromised, you can got as much is

because other people helped them. Like no one shot COVID and no one fed themselves in the lockdown because they had tons of five five six talked away like a ton of mutual aide. Happened a lot of a terrible ship happened as well, but that's a bigger example. I think, mm hmm, what genres of music have each of you been listening to lately? M I'm a big classical head. I don't care if it's like I. I also listened

to a lot of classical the best. When you're driving, everything becomes like cinematic and it's calming, and sometimes words distract me. So my go too is classical to what I would consider classical music, which is second and third wave SCAH basic basically the only classical music in my opinion. I listened to the Clash Suade and the Manics, Ree Preacher is more or less exclusively. Yeah, they're the only

bands that matter. Yeah, I think if it's not classical, I'm trying to like the I don't know, I'm like dancing around. So it's either like it's like two extremes for me, either classical and I'm like chill, going to sleep, or I'm getting ready and I want to feel something. What about you, man? I have the most absolutely dogship music case Brave, but the music that I listened to

it I think it's legitimately good. That's not like power metal or like weird ship is I've I've been going back to like my Youth and my Youth is a combination of like surf rock. I was like, this is a safe space, like what okay, like Pat Pat Benatar sort of like that that there's a sort of era of like I don't know what you care like lesbian glam rock, I don't know yourself. This is a safe space. You keep saying that. I don't think we ever agreed to this. I usually listened to a lot of music, well,

writing and researching. I just finished up to two pretty big writing projects. I've been listening to a lot of music. Um, most of it's like ambient electronica. Uh, some classicals thrown in there if I need to get a little bit more like energy, but listening to some Trent Resiner kind of ambient stuff, um and like a lot of I also listened to a lot of remixes of the Mario Galaxy soundtrack. Okay, okay, s O, I like that. Wait, okay, okay, okay, all right, I need to I need I need to

plug a truly awful song. Don't no, no, no no, we got it. Okay, look, Donkey Kong has to slam this way, it has to be this way, X space Jam x d k Rap. I need I need to know that this exists, is there's there's is incredible. It is another worldly experience that's also a version of it. That's also what mean angel? Okay, I think this Garrison.

Do you listen to Max Richter? I think he was like Max Richter, He's like he has a lot of soundtracks for shows, so his stuff is kind of like melancholic and piano ee, but I think you might like it. I will look him up. Good name, Yeah it spelt Richer. Yeah, okay, great, Yeah, you should also listen to the Mighty Mighty Boss Towns, who did a wonderful album. No, No, don't don't speak out The album That George Floyd song is incredibly appropriate,

deeply appropriate. Yet speak of listening to things, speaking speaking of things that are problems? What is what is the most troubling thing that isn't being reported on or isn't taken seriously by the wider public. The fact that none of you said you listened to any rap music or any type of music that wasn't just I thought Tupac wasn't given Okay, Okay, trachical question I listened to. I listened to a little bit of Biggie every now and again, and I got my most deaf always loaded up, especially

around the new Year. I love listening to Life and Marvelous Times Sides as a hell of an album. I've always been more Biggie. There's a guy code and Christian Parish takes a gun. He rapped by Superman. He's like from the Coronation. I think it. Stuff is cool. The most troubling thing that isn't that isn't being reported on are taken seriously enough by the wider public besides our

musical tastes. Well, I'm going to be and always say like at least your news and Palestine and like cair and balance reporting and even like Syria and uh, Yemen and all of that stuff, I think none of that gets enough attention. Absolutely, I'm gonna say, fucking scams um Like, just on a daily basis, I feel like my phone gets uh six to eight scam calls scam calls at least, and like it's uh And And someone was making a note of this earlier because like a bunch of scams

stories have been people have been sharing them. This year. But like there's all sorts of fucked up things like if a relative gets arrested as soon as the police post um the like the they're the fact that like like publicly posted they've been arrested, like the family if they have numbers that scammers can find, will start getting auto dialed by like accounts claiming to be the police saying that, like you need to put money in their account.

Now where they're going into general population and it's all these are all like low hanging fruit things like they're they're they're not They're targeting people who are not very savvy UM often people who have some sort of like mental disability, right, so folks who are kind of living a marginal existence in a lot of ways as it

is UM and they are like it. It's making it incredibly difficult for and and folks who have like are cognitively impaired for whatever reason, including the fact that they're they're elderly. There's just like this. It's never been like this before, the sheer density of scams that people have to wade through. And again, most of you, we've all kind of noticed it getting more common, but you may

not have noticed how kind of brutal. It's gotten because you're not the target demographic for this stuff, right, That's why they all have like filters in them to try and weed out the people who are savvy enough to know that they're being scammed. But it's there's a number of things. This is the result of decisions that the the FTC made, um like like in order to like make it a lot easier for people to use ship like auto dialers and to carry out like phone based scams.

But it's it's just been punt on by every presidential administration in our lifetime. As the Internet has made it easier to automate this stuff, and the the explosion of machine learning tools that are widely available, these kind of AI s that people are joking about right now, like it's all going to create the capacity to more effectively

automate scams. I had one that could have gotten me the other day where I got a call from my bank that was listed as from my bank is and like on it like it was my bank's phone number, like it was. It came up as them on the and they were like, hey, you know, someone has there's some some charges. Can we run them by you? We want to make sure, and they were like charge things I had not bought. They were like wire transfers and ship and they're like, oh, it looks like, you know,

somebody's gotten access to your account. And the call dropped before I could finish it, so I called them back, and when I called my bank back, they were like, oh, yeah, that was someone spoofing our number. They were trying to get personal information out of you. Um, this ship is so fucking endemic and no one is doing a goddamn thing about it. There's like one anemic attempt in Congress to slightly address it, primarily through like education, but it

is a massive problem. It's part of what's breaking society, the fact that like everyone is constantly flooded by this low level cloud of people trying to destroy their financial lives. Um, it's it's real bad. Do you know what else is trying to destroy your financial lives? The products and services that support this podcast, Garrison and Robert's books, and we

are back for one final time for this episode. This is this is actually a question that I feel is pretty important that I wish people thought about a bit more, at least within like, you know, our our general sphere where do you draw the line between fascist politics and non fascist conservative politics. Well, at the moment in the United States, I don't think there's a line to be drawn because the mainstream of the Republican Party has completely

thrown themselves in behind one of or both of two fascists. Um. In terms of like personally, I guess it depends on whether or not people support their being like things like penalties on on on it do people like does somebody support banning books to somebody support arresting folks for expressing political opinions that differ from there's does somebody support, um, you know, expanding the penalties for petty crimes to include like violence, Like those are all things that can suggest

that somebody is a fascist. But at the end of the day, anybody who supports the Republican Party right now is supporting a fascist movement. So I don't feel there's any sort of I don't draw a line in my head anymore, to be entirely honest, because they they alighted the line. I try to be very specific when I

say fascist versus just like a regular conservative. In my reporting, like when we were inside Colorado, we talked to people who were conservatives who were who were against fascists, and I against local fascists in their community and actually doing things to help stop fascists from gaining power within their local community. UM. I think if you look at a lot of the rhetoric around queer people right now, whether it be like drag shows or trans people, that's a

specific style of rhetoric that is like innately fascist. UM like talking about like there was there was there was a tweet from um is his name? Like lindsay, James,

what's that? What's what's that guy? Yeahs he put out He put out this little like meme being like, don't call them drag queens, call them um like like it was some some bullshit groomer thing, Like I forget the exact thing, but like that that specific style of rhetorical framing is is is like a pretext to extermination and genocide like that that is what that is what they're doing, and I think that is right now is what it crosses the line is when when they're creating these scapegoat

groups that that are going to be targeted and posing these groups as like a threat to civilization. UM, That's where I kind of use that word it's like fashions like that that is generally in in my research where I start employing that versus you know, some random guy who I'm talking to, who you know wants there to be lower taxes and less regulation. Because yeah, that that position, as we've seen now, can eventually lead to the type

of fascist policies. But I think that there is when it comes to like people in your personal life, and when it comes to like regular people who are not politicians. I think having a little bit more discretion is useful because I think there's still a chance that some people who are currently conservative can not become fascists. Yeah, I would agree. I think in the US context one sort of useful litmus test for people on the right. It's like, are the rules of the game more important than the

outcome of the game? Like, so when you look at like the sort of fascism we saw around Donald Trump, right, like there was a point where the outcome of the game, the maintenance of power, right became more important than the rules of the game. I like basic human rights, and I think that that's a useful definitely a useful sort of it's this person dangerous, it might like I like Paxton's definition of fascism generally, it's not great, but it's

which has elements useful. Yeah, it's useful. And I think your scapegoat group group one is really key. When people a scapegroading people and they don't really give a funk about how they eliminate those people or stop quote unquote right. When when people are seeking to use the machinery of state to eliminate people and ideas that they find uncomfortable by using the force of law against them, um, they're fascists.

And when people are supportive of ending democratic like ending the democratic transfer of power in order to support an individual that they think embodies their conception of like what

their country is, those people are fascists. Um. And I think that it's one thing, and I don't think it's usually useful if you're having a conversation with an individual to call them a fascist, even if they're behaving in ways that are kind of fashy, if you think that a productive conversation can be had, Um, that might move

them in one direction or the other. But at the end of the day, if somebody is supportive, for example, of a third term for Donald Trump, um, that person is supporting a fascist movement, and I don't think that there's a I don't think I don't think it matters that. Like their individual reasons for doing it maybe less fascy than someone else's, Like at the end of the day, they are supporting that, and that's that's kind of what

matters to me. I think. I think it's also worth taking a little bit of a look at what happened to your conservatism in order to sort of understand what's going on here, because I think there was an important sort of fracture a in terms of the fact that George Bush like basically orchestrated like yeah like bait bait, Like he didn't technically create a coupe, but he like he he he rigged an elections such as to put it it's like, so as to put him in power, right,

Like that's what the Brookes Brothers riot was. That's what that's that's sort of the process that gets us the Bush wouldn't shot in two thousand's and there you know that this is this is an interesting moment because if you look at what happens to conservatism over the sort of like the I don't know, the last twenty five years of the twentieth century, there's this interesting pivot where they make where in order to you know, if you look at like what what is the conservative response to

communism in nineteen like thirty nine, right, it's just like we're going to be fascists. Right, It's like literally we

are going to be the Nazis. But you know, by by by the time you get to like post wor wartching, and by time it gets really to like the seventies and eighties, they start realizing that, like people don't generally like fascism that much, and so the form of anti communism that they take starts to be this sort of like rights based like weird supports like freedom and human rights and like free markets and democracy and there there there's this point where that stuff meets with like another

kind of fascist politics, which is sort of like the two one era state of exception stuff that happened after where you know, like people are talking about the gloves coming off and this is this is this is getting into your sort of like like looking at like multa benjam means like conception of what fascism is or my blanking on the guy's name like Carl Schmidt's stuff right where it's like, here is a part of the state that can just like destroy like they have, that has

sovereign power and can just sort of trample over the

entire legal order in order to perpetuate it. Right, So this is like, okay, suddenly after two thousand one, like after nine eleven, they were just like people disappearing into torture dungeons, right, and you get this moment where on the one hand, yeah, like because Georgia w. Bush is one of these people who's like the sort of like freedom democracy people, but then beneath him is you know, it collapses very quickly into this we are the torture

dungeon stuff, and this willing is literally to rig elections.

And I think that's the sort of important because like because like there are sort of normal conservatives right who still have that kind of like freedom and liberal democracy whatever thing, and they're not really that fascist kind of but in some sense it doesn't it doesn't matter that much institutionally because the part of the Republican Party that survived was a combination of the torture dungeon, which is like Gina Hospital like and then Trump, who is this

the sort of emblem of this like like the sort of sort of like we're gonna we're gonna take the election, We're gonna take power, We're gonna use the power of the state to just like murder everyone we don't like.

And I don't know like I think I I think like you can find individual people who are conservatives who I guess like art Nazis, but the the way that neo conservatives and fragmented and the way that that kind of state of exception politics and that politics have sort of just like mass torture, and then also the willingness

to just steal elections like that. I don't know that stuff I think forms is this another sort of core fascism that's they're alongside the sort of queer extermination of stuff and there I don't know, these things fused together in ways. And Yeah, I've rambled for long enough. We're gonna do one more question. And I think we cover a lot of upsetting things on the show, some things that maybe are not you know, super fun to think about, um, but we also cover some like hopeful stuff as well.

But what's what's one thing at the crew who works in the show. Due to decompress and clear our minds after, you know, wading through the trenches of the digital hellscape. Uh pass, I feel like we might have answered something similar to this on the line. I saw Robert playing cyberplunk last night, so I know there's at least one thing. It does allow me to pretend that Keanu Reeves is my friend, which is nice to meet him. First. I

like to go camping. I like to go outside, like I like to swim in the ocean and raban bike and hike and camping. Yeah, yeah, I second that I need to go outside and just even like a simple walk with trees and hiking. I think it really helps me just decompressed and be present again, hanging out with queer people's not and intentionally not talking about Twitter bullshit. It just like going and doing something, just like varying around in the grass and just like talking about gay ship.

It rules. It's the self that heals the heart. Absolutely well. Uh, thank thank you everybody. Me. Oh see, I was gonna try to just like no, just just just like Google that wrap up the episode in a nice little bow. I don't know. I've I've been trying to get back into doing more kind of art stuff with my camera, and whether that be photography or filmmaking. Um, in like short form stuff. Uh, what else I've been doing? Yeah, I don't know. Taking drugs? Sure, there it is. Shrooms

are healing, shocking, shocking. Yeah, incredible start on the podcast now, now you can wrap it up if you want to. Well, thank you everyone for listening to ours. That's what I do to relaxe. Thank you. See, that's the thing to do. Actually, actually, actually there's one person who has tried to skirt past this this question. Sophie. Yes, Sophie, what the hell she looks?

What do you want? Sophie, You not only have to deal with, you know, all of the bad stuff that we talked about, but you also have to also have to deal with us. Um So what what do you do to compress? And clear? Clear, clear, compress? Well, first of each and every one of you are the best,

So let's let's start there. Uh. I really like uh making food for my friends, and uh like meeting a friend for coffee and just like walking outside or like finding like a little place that's like a local place and just when and when you go in there's like barely anyone in there. But then you get to talk to the people that work there and then order a nice little dessert or something. It's that kind of thing. Um. I'm like, I'm like, I have friends. That's literally what

I read it. I said it and sounded horrible. Um. And then like all guys obviously like having pets and being around animals is really solid. But um, it's also just like having a healthy balance of you know, focusing on a lot of the negative stuff but really also putting your energy into a lot of the positive stories.

I know that a lot of people feel like it could happen here is tends to lean towards the negative, but I really feel like we're a hopeful show, and I feel like as as a network cools, the media tries to to to lean lean towards the hope and find you know, the good and the bad. And you know, that's what we have shows like cool People did cool stuff, which is with Margaret Killjoy that that really helps balance

out a lot of the other things. So yeah, I think finding the good in the bad, uh, eating yummy food with your friends and petting all the you can. You know. I also think a huge thing for all of us is taking plenty of alpha brain supplements. Um, I like, all right, people listening to it could happen here if you have have have a have a good year of discord. Oh, Cricky no, I literally because Garrison

is so mean about about the UK. I literally almost got Garrison all UK thing gifts for so many things. When I got to see if there was a tea pot with the flag, it was so horrible. I didn't do it because I knew, but it was. It could happen here a podcast. Do you guys want to hear my Boston accent? No, that's it, that's that's that's my Boston Interson literally started growling as you did that. That's

how much he needs everybody. Everybody gets angry at my best in Austen Jesus Australian, what do you do it? Boston is the Australia of the northeast. So this episode we're going to be going through our predictions. Prediction number one, Robert might not make it. Oh Sofa, you predict that every year and it's barely ever true. Little piece of you guys, every year, Robert's gonna get true. Trunk could buy a plane ticket to Boston, then get lost and never returned. It's Okay, I can. I can blend in,

blend in with my seamless Boston accent. No, you'll no one will be able to understand you in a foreign country, just like trying to like, why are you just doing Australia. It's it's it's Boston, you know at the Home of the Koala be so not my fault that all accents of interesting possibly trying to get back on track. So, yeah, what are we doing today? What are we doing? Who are we trying? We're trying. We'll work it up in here.

There's the same people on this one this last episode as Sharene Me Garrison, James Sophie, our producer Mia and Bad Boston impersonator Robert Evans. And we're talking about what we think might happen in I feel I don't I don't remember all of our predictions for last year, but I feel like we got most of them correct. I think we were right about everything. Yeah, so to to continue that to trend um, what do we think is going to happen this year? Um? I think Elon Musk

might wind up sad to pieces by the saudiast. It's like there's like a solid there is a non zero chance, you know. Okay, The thing, the thing that's actually the most sort of surprising me about that is that the SoftBank guy is still alive, like as as as much Saudi money as Elon has blown through the SoftBank guy like like fucking SoftBank guy lit the GDP of a regular country on fire, like the most batship companies in

the world. It's money by being landlords. Do you know how hard it is to lose money with a landlording business. It's a German guy who wrote a book about it. Oh anyways, I think we'll get a really good leak from the British royal family doing something absolutely despicable and then but like it really high but high quality audio or video hopefully video, and then uh and video of what Prince Andrew's doing, and then it will make and then it will make UK politics even worse than it

already is. Not. Yeah, yeah, that that part I disagree with. But yes to horrifying leak from the British Royal horrifying league. Horrifying leak yeah from like I honestly I don't know how British politics could be worse. Starm is going to win an election and somehow make it even worse despite

being notionally the left party in the United Kingdom. I gotta say, somebody has to get you people on lockdown for the names Keir Starmer, that's not a that's not a name you know familiar with, Kiar Starma, the leader of the opposition. Unbelievable. I'm livid. M Yeah, well wait but no I'm not. We had Boris Johnson and it really can't get anywhere. Yeah. I I never forgave you guys for letting a Boris into power. Can I get

my bad please? I think I think Pete Davidson will date a high a high profile politician in the next year. I think Sophie better that's a that's a free space. Sorry, I have, I have, I have, I have A better one is Pete Davidson is going to date Grimes. That's on everybody's list. That's seven times he's going to impregnate

some that's take that's boring. Um. I think that we're going to find out something juicier all right, well, um, you know it's it'd be easy to stick with like pretty grim predictions like oh there's going to be a mass shooting at a drugs like it happen, because that seems that that's let's let less to prediction and more just like looking at where the temperature is going. Can I do my hack version of that that's situless hack,

which I think. I think we're going to get an actual shootout between armed fascist and armanti fascist in a city that the press actually cares about, so not portland' that is entirely possible. We haven't. We haven't had a shootout in Portland yet. I mean, that's that's kind of there's been an exchange of gunfire. Why don't you all talk at the same fucking time and make Daniel's life hard one of you speak, Daniel, Welcome to d Yeah, the year we break Danial. Um, we have had an

exchange of gunfire though, no, we have not. I think she means like, oh my god, it has not gone better. It has gotten better. We have had a person shooting into a crowd and another person shooting that person. We have had people fire at each other, Um, But we have not had two different people exchange gunfire with each other a group like and neither if we had groups of people exchange gunfire with each other, that has not occurred yet. Um, I agree. I think there's a real

good chance it does. Um. I'm I'm more worried about the police opening fire on a group of anti fascists and the fascists joining them. But like, all of those things are on the fucking table, and it gets more likely every time we roll the dice on that ship. Yeah. One thing that gives me some hope is how the recent events in Texas have been going. Um, the size of the community that has been showing up at the

last couple of drag events. Um. And how outnumbered the right has been as a general rule, if anything is going to make it less likely that either the police or the fascists fire, Um, it's being tremendously outnumbered. Um. So I don't know. I'm I'm in between a hopeful and despairing about like where the future of that's going to be. Here's my hopeful prediction, Crypto dot com Arena will not be named Crypto dot Com Arena by the end of the year. Yeah, that is my hope and dream.

I do think that crypto dot com is well. I mean, it looks like binances on its way to collapsing slightly less badly than ft X did, but it looks like it's not going to be around much longer. UM in Crypto dot Com is kind of in a similar space. I think there's actually a real chance that we see the functional death of cryptocurrency UM that we've already seen it be named a normal thing and not something viciously embarrassing. Robert It's it's it's still going to be embarrassing because

they paid for that. I think it's just like f t X paid like a hundred and fifty million dollars up front to get their name on that stadium and Florida UM. They are trying to change it, but I think they're stuck with it for a little while. Stadium I'd rather be called scam Stadium literally, Yeah, yeah, the Charles Ponzi Memorial Stadium. How you go from here's office supplies to that. It's so embarrassing and like it doesn't

even flow. Okay, I could we're not doing this right now. Yeah, I think that we should change the Crypto dot Com stadium. We should name it after Bad Dragon, that company that makes buildos themed after mythological creatures based Yeah. I this isn't like hopeful, but I feel like there's going to be another virus because there are some people that are

going too hard in the other direction. I feel like every year there might be a new virus introduced that we're going to yeah, and with theories about where it came from. Yeah. But then like, but we're like past the point of being able to lock down, you know what I mean? Like I think, like that's what's gonna

make it start. Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah. Part of one of the scary things about the COVID response is that the how politicize the concept of a lockdown or mask wearing has gotten means that there's effectively no way for US culture to stem the spread of an airborne virus. Like it's impossible, there's not even a chance. Um, we've done used to parachute and use it again. We we we lit the parachute on fire. Yeah, Yeah, to own

the lips. Yeah. I I've been wanting to do this for a long time, but I haven't done because I don't think it's fees able for work. But I would love. I think people are going to start using flip phones more. They think, like people are going to step away to traditions. Yeah, because there's even like a psychological study going on right now where a bunch of teens did that, and like they've reported much better lives or whatever the ship. So I would love to myself, but I think more people

are going to go. I saw a graph the other day saying the happiest that American teens have reported themselves being was the early two thousands, right around when I graduated high school, and all we could do with our phones was text each other to buy drugs and play Snake. And that's all kids need is the ability to play Snake and buy ketamine um happy at the same time. Yep, that's what it's going to do. The arena next, it's going to be the ktamine arena. Well do you know

do you know who could buy the arena? Rob Evans, any of these products and services that that support this podcast, And we're back in this is this is this is a section that we're calling death. This is who is going to die? Can I start this one? Yeah, it's gonna it's gonna be No Chomsky. That's That's that's who I'm doing. I think No Chomsky is gonna die. I think we're going to have the worst two or three weeks. A lot of times the media that we've seen in years.

It's gonna make it's gonna make it's it's gonna it's gonna make pog patrol discourse look like tame, like we're like people, people are good, people are on ironically gonna be doing Stalin as a POC discourse again. And as you have to explain it, you have to. You have to pause and explain all of this because nobody reason to understanding. We have to. We have to blaze through that and pretend it never happens. I don't know what pog patrol is. I imagine how you don't. Okay, I

I legitimately refused to explain that. Um if if if you want me to great, you need to pay me more that I'm being paid. Okay, alright, I'm sure someone will DM me now to explain it. Thank you very They're the they're they're the people who are behind all of this insufferable left wing discourse that occasionally breaks through. They did round two of Ann Frank, white privileged discourse that happens. Jump off a bridge anyway, death death, who you think is gonna die. It's like I'm making a

hail Mary Elon Musk. It's gonna be musk drug addiction. Maybe maybe he maybe he shoots himself yoga in his duffle bag when he shoots himself in the back of the head by accident. That's very specific, James. It's almost like you planned that out. It's almost like someone already did it. What I think, I think Joe Biden's gonna die. Um, I think it's just makes sense, busy law like. I have that in my head too. I didn't specificly Joe,

I said, whoever is? I said, one of the two people running for president in that are the clear front runners, one of the two will die, causing it, causing the election to be even more stupid than it already. Is My runner round Nancy Pelosi, but that she'll be at Vinyards, She's gonna be thriving, and all that will happen. If Pelosi said, people will sell out of those weird political like action figures, We're just we'll just to sell out of all the Nancy Pelosi ones. That that's all that

will happen. If if if I'm not saying I want her to die or not want her to die, I just think those are the two people that every time I see them. I'm like, how are how you know? I thought that with Boris Johnson, I think he like that man has lift a rough one. I wouldn't be shown to if he you know, what would be the funniest terminal gout? You know, would be the funniest thing based on what if? What if? What if the king does a year after the queen. There's a decent chance

you've seen his fingers, that man is not healthy. Yeah, that would be so funny. It would be pretty funny if it ended up with Megan Marckwell being queen after you will, just because he has so much mighty funny what I what I will throw out there. I think there's a decent chance it's Fuintes. I think he's gotten Nick Fuintes his his his profile has increased so much so quickly, that he gets killed by one of his Yeah, I think there's a good chance it's one of the

fans he's already had. That wasn't Louis Rockwell. Yeah, yeah, I mean hack of a fraud. Part of why I think that there's a chance of that is the weird sex related drama he's had with a number of his followers, Like he's already messing in those like wading into those waters. Um, he's he's done ship like going over their rooms with a black light and stuff like. He's had weird, uncomfortable relations like relationships with his followers that are like distressingly personal.

Um in a way that makes me think that one of them might lose it on him. Um, I don't know. I think there's a non zero chance it's flintes get Yeah, he gets swatted. I'm less worried about that. Yeah, I think like murdered by another weirdo, right winger. There's a decent chance, said a good thing come out. I think Rudy's dying. Oh here's something which Rudy Giuliani. I disagree. You think he's gonna forever. Yeah, I think he died four years ago. To be fair, that man, he's made

of wax and melting. He is thriving. Another example of that. I just read a great interview with him in Cigara Ficionado magazine. Um, my favorite fact about Rudy. So you're not supposed to inhale cigars unless you're one of a tiny chunk of people who think that that's the right way to smoke them and Rudy's in Hailer. Rudy sucks. Do you know? Do you know who else is it in Hailer is Stephen Crowder and we know that he's

had a series of pretty significant medical issues. I think Stephen Crowder goes back in the hospital and I think I think he'll survive, but he will have to like live like like he'll have to be like hooked up to like machinery to be able to keep going. So he's gonna he's gonna be doing his show while hooked up to medical equipment. I think that is That is another one of my is not healthy right? He still

he's ever that's gonna happen. There's a Twitter dedicated to He's gonna die or not There there is a Twitter dedicade into if Twarn Peterson is going to die or not good good? Speaking of with Twitter accounts, I do think I do think this is the year Kissinger. Yeah, yeah, I think I am never kissing always bet against kissing Er. Yeah, he's going to stay alive at least to see another

election rig somewhere in the world or a coup. But he's ninety nine, Okay, I think I think he gets to a hundred one, he gets he gets to like a hundred eight. He carries a longer, way longer than what he should a hundred hundred nine. Maybe, how are people, because I know several of us have said this in the past, how are people feeling about Kanye? I think I think there's a decent chance, like, absolutely, seriously, absolutely seriously, there there's a decent chance that he dies from a

number of reasons. Yeah, Garrison and I have talked about this a lot, and we both are on that side, So we think that's yeah, that's yah. I agree with that. I think, yeah, huh, Well, I think the real money is on, does con you take anyone with him? Oh my gosh, my god, what if he takes what if? What if? Together? Garrison, there's not terrible numbers on that that's so likely that that is not a zero percent. Oh, I just gotta just got a single spark of hope in my dead soul. I think I think this is

a year we lose Ojay. Oh wow. I saw him given interview the other day, and I mean it was he looked unwell. Oh Jay is just a kissinger. He somehow keeps winning even though he shouldn't. Ye, the smart the smart money is never on betting against the juice. Oh god, alright, well, uh do you do you know who else loves betting the products and services that weird, things that are autoact Michael Jordan's dad for a while, Robert,

that man was murdered. Yeah, Cambodian guy. He left betting problem. Alright, break or is this all before the break? Okay? Who's to say so? Who's to say we have no idea? All right, we're bad mentions like any last throws. I'll just say I really hope it is in Britney spears. Thank you so much. Oh my god. Alright, um, let's see. Uh so final predictions. Um, you know there is not the mid terms, right, there's no there's no significant kind

of election this year, at least inside the US. UM. I think this is this is a prediction that's that's gonna hurt Sophie. I think something really bad comes out about Harry Styles, and I'm praying for it. I'm first of all that something really damaging is going to come out about Harry Styles. I saw that I saw the only fictions I saw about hair styles that he was going to come out with a vow of celibacy. I let's go with that instead that honestly, that that is

so likely. I think Garrison is on the right track, though. I think, whether it be something there or somebody else, I think there's going to be a huge, huge pop celebrity scandal. Hopefully it's not here. Yeah, well there was one. I mean every year there's a celebrity scandal. I mean, I don't know. Take card that's right, Sothy, that's right. Yeah, I don't know if I think it's I think we're going to learn going through some ship with I don't know.

Sexual assault. Yeah, it was in the early two thousand. He assaulted a bunch of people and the main person that's yesn't their backstreep brothers who are backstreep? I'm like backs, but I'm likely actually who are streams? Isn't That isn't that correct? But I think some one more relevant than Carter will will be expec another another prediction. It's like

less of a less of a prediction. Were just like looking at current trends and recent reporting, um that there will be a big shift away from like a shift away from solar towards nuclear fusion. I think that we're gonna, we're gonna. I think I think stuff is too far out. I but no, no, no, I think on the governmental level, whether or not it works or not, there's going to be a big shift towards talking about fusion as the

solution to climate stuff. I think that will particularly be influential around people who don't want to support meaningful climate change mitigation activities. Now like, yeah, I agree with you. There like a shield, I have a chin to take, which is yeah, okay, so all right, it's really hard to get good information about exactly what so okay. One of the things, the thing that's been happening as a certain result of the protest is that CCP is done

like yeah, I don't know. They're doing a traditionally really stupid CCP response, which is that they've they've they've they basically flip their policy like on its head, on its head in a lot of places, there's been a lot of like they've they've they've gone very quickly from mobilizing state resources to like keep people in lockdowns, to mobilizing

state resources to forcing people to go to work. And it's it's really unclear exactly what like how bad like the COVID waves they're going to get is I Actually, I don't think it's going to be as bad as like the Really there's there's a lot of predictions that are like like a like a million people are gonna die in like six months, is like, No, I don't

think that's true. But I think if COVID actually does get into this sort of like China has this very large population of like very like very very not vaxed like old people basically like particularly in rural areas, and if COVID gets into those people and those people start dying, I think we're gonna see ship in China that makes

like the current protests look like a fucking joke. Like I think we're gonna see like like people like like party officials are gonna be getting like dragged to the fucking streets like it's I don't know, Like I this has been one of my long running beliefs about Chinese society, which is I don't think you can actually kill a million people in China and not like like even even

like a like forty or fifty people. I don't. I don't think you can have the government just straight up to policies that killed that many people without stuff going really really fucking wild really quickly. And I think people are underestimating the extent to which expect, especially in in in these rural areas. If if those people start dying on mass I think it's gonna get fucking wild. Um. Yeah, that's my. That's my that's that's that's that's that's that's

my that's my China hot take. Alrighty, already, I bet does something horrific of a three D printed gun of some kind somewhere and there's a whole bunch of panic. And yeah, that was the next thing I was going

to say. My prediction was gonna be there was going to be significant pressure on a federal level to ban the production of three D printed guns and on international level, Yeah, because I think there's a really good chance that happens somewhere in Europe in the same way that like you had, you had the bottom Clout massacre kind of done using remilitarized demail like prop guns, and I think there's a good chance that we get something maybe out of Germany, um,

with a high body count that that pushes internationally for restrictions and crackdowns anyone to have a prediction on who Trump will pick as is running me Oh, Sarah Payton, I think it could be back. I think I could get honestly, honestly, honestly though, like if you're if you're on the ground in Alaska, like almost every single person that because Jamie was just was working on a story for us, and that's Bassa. They like her. They're they're

like she's bad. We don't get it. Literally, she's so popular. Yeah. So I don't know who who Trump's gonna pick. There's so many people he could that feel like too obvious or too much like they're too popular that they could threaten Trump's like like singular brand, because I don't think he wants another big voice. I don't want someone to be slightly passive. I don't think he's not going to pick yeah exactly, I don't know which one, but I

think he'll pick a black Republican. I think that's that's who Loud. I don't think he can't shall Walker Garrison crazy don't speak that into being. I don't, but also I can imagine that I think that is That is my prediction. I think Walker lost and he does not. He does not like losers. I think which is why he hated John McCain, who lost Vietnam. I think I'll probably I think I think I see him picking a woman. Oh, I see him picking a woman, which is what it

will be good for his optics. I just I just don't know what. I just don't know a woman that's either like high profile enough but still quiet enough that love and Sarah Palin, It doesn't matter what they love. What matters is that Trump doesn't want somebody who could who has the potential of distracting attention from him, And she's been a big enough media figure in her own right that I think he'd be worried about it. I

think Kanye, no, they hate each other. Now, I'm just saying that's the vibe I'm getting from what I think he what I think he thinks will help him. Like a black man that can speak kind of the same way Kanye speaks to his audience, like maybe before the antisemitic ship, but a black man Republican, I think is

what will happen. I think he has two flanks that he can be hit from the Republican Party, and one flank is just like the anti vax flank, and then his second flank is like someone who tries to like tap into the evangelical voters who were kind of piss off at him, And I think I feel like I

think Santist will probably go after that. Yeah, but but but but but I think I think I think he's going to pick someone either to show him up in the anti vax front, or he's going to pick some like like someone who every evangelical knows and who no one else has ever heard of. I think the latter is more likely with those options, or somebody from his family. I think he's I think he's that that would be

really funny. Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. Yes, it's going to be now it would be Yeah, I think she's too woke. She's like, I think it would absolutely be a Banca because she's on He doesn't even out of respect for the rest of them, but I doesn't want to. That's why that's that's actually not unlikely. Like if he is going to pick a woman, I think that is actually that's who I would predict. I my money is still on herschel Walker. But I think that

is that that is not a non zero chance. Or or he goes somebody that's not even remotely in the game at all. Yeah, that's that's likely. That's likable in you know, either a religious community or you know, somebody that's on TV. But it isn't somebody that's on TV and in your face. Um. But yeah, so like he's not picking like a Kimberly Gilfoil or anything like that, which would be so fucking awful. Oh my god, I thought about it. It's really bad for all of our ears.

But yeah, so I don't know it's gonna be bad. Okay, Can I ask a slightly like related election take on that? Do do you do? You do you guys think that Mike Pants is going to run against Trump? No? No, he's making a stake about No, of course not. I don't think he'll actually run. I think he'll just, um, if there's somebody that he deems that's like, you know, a true Republican and a true conservative, um, then he will. Pence will back to ship out of that hell back.

I feel like it's gonna be I feel like there's gonna be another person who's not the Santist who's gonna learn. I agree, there's gonna be another Prantis like that man on a state he has no career. Robert and I don't think he's going to run. We don't think he's going to run. We think he'll waited out for the

next one. I think I don't think he's going to run if Trump is running, in particular, like especially if Kanye is still in the news, like it's too messy, and he's young enough that he doesn't need to win this time, and he's so unfortunately well liked in the state of Florida that like he yeah, he's safe there, but he's smart enough to know that like going up against Trump, even if he wins, could get enough stink on him that it sucks him over in the future

as opposed to just holding on. He'll be forty six in which is one of the youngest, would make him still one of our youngest presidents. Yeah, and he can spend four more years just like, you know, sniping at whoever. Yeah, just being a real big old piece of ship murder giant died. Yeah. Well, I hope none of us diet next year. I hope us and anxiety breed works. I had to say it, so it's not true, you know what I mean, that's how my anxiety. I'm sorry I

just had to thank you, Thank you, Sharine. I appreciate that. I too, I too wish that. Yeah, we've got some work trips planned. Don't catastrophizes no good, And I think I think that's will die. Twitter dot com will not be a website. That's a very likely in most of my I think there'll be a big shake up with Uh. There'll be a big story about healthcare and how how certain people are not diagnosed over other people, and it's going to become a huge thing, and there's gonna be

a huge story about that at some point. There's Yeah, I mean that that would. There's been you know, a little, little little baby stories about about certain things, but I think it's gonna become a a global issue. Yeah, and more we will see more bullshit about migration than we have done a good climate change is getting worse. Everything that drives migration is getting worse, and it will continue

to be this fucking strong man that Republicans use. So we're already seeing like Y two k and early two thousand's nostalgia. And the bizarre thing is that there's not much of a culture after that because around that time was when we is when we started to reset into like eighties nostalgia. So I'm wondering what the next nostalgia cycle is going to be. I think like like things like like like in Britain, like there the whole landfill indie culture that came around in like they're like late

the first decade of this center. Yeah, yeah, you're right, you're right. Maybe like hippie seventies. I saw a video of of a youth, the youth trying on one of those cursed stretch comb Ahead bands. Stop it. Those things fucking hurt. You're gonna hurt yourself. You're gonna poke something. It's gonna be bad. They're not cute. No brack, we don't read that repense already back. I already keep seeing them and the little the little plastic Bengals back. Yes, yes, yeah, God,

please don't bring you back. Hurt Battle New Metals coming back. We're gonna We're gonna do it. We're gonna we're gonna get New Battle, We're gonna get the we're gonna get early two thousand's, like goth bullshit coming back. That's already started. My My prediction, my prediction he's bringing it back is that SKA will continue to be the most relevant genre of music in American culture. Um, a fact unchanged for thirty years. Al Right, well, thanks to our predictions episode everybody, Well,

we'll talk about We'll talk to you. We'll be back. You know it's shrines. Stop talking about a death. Yeah, sorry, things fall apart, The center will not hold in. Journalists will make a pretty good living writing about at all. It's a good time to work the dystopia beat. The pillars of our society have been crumbling for most of my adult life and probably yours too. One exception to this,

up until recently, has been the tech industry. When the rest of the economy shipped the bed back in two thousand eight, big tech roared into the gap to prop up the groaning timbers of capitalism. Sure, the housing market was in free fall, huge numbers of people were out of work, and American infrastructure was crumbling like a twice baked pot brownie. But then Steve Jobs magicked up the iPhone and the iPad and the app store. Google brought us Android and a dizzying array of smart and connected

devices followed. Companies like Uber disrupted massive industries and briefly made hailing a cab the cheapest it's ever been, although they did this by lighting massive piles of VC cash on fire. It was in this period of what would prove to be a rational exuberance that I started my career as a tech journalist. That was the job title my boss gave me, and it's what everybody else in the industry called themselves. In reality, most of us were

just extensions of big text pr agencies. All the big tech news websites of that era, Slash gear In, Gadget Boy, Genius Review, and the place I worked for I FORU News, made most of their money off the back of a

peculiarity in Google search algorithm. The gist of it was this, if a bunch of websites all published articles that were basically rewritten press releases about say a new gadget, or rewrites of someone else's report on rumors about an Apple product, Google would assume that this was a hot topic and they would bump everybody up on the algorithm. You could make a tidy profit just paying a handful of writers to rewrite press releases or copy reports from some of

the few sites doing actual tech journalism. And this is where I got my start. In reporting. I wrote ten articles a day, five days a week for several years until Google fixed their algorithm and wiped my silly little industry out in the blink of an eye. It's fine. In this case, we kind of had it coming. It was nice to get paid to sit home and write, and the experience putting out a shipload of words every single day that were polished enough to print was pretty

good for me. But it wasn't journalism, and so while I was doing it, I started seeking opportunities to actually get out into the world and do original reporting. And that's what first brought me to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in two thousand ten c s as. It's known as a tech industry insider event for analysts, manufacturers, and media. They come and they show off new products and gadgets and apps, and journalists walk around and look

at everything and then write articles about it. Companies spend millions of dollars every year on massive, multi acre show rooms for their products and dream up ludicrous demonstrations of their new tech. One that sticks out to me from again about thirteen years ago, is watching some company or another charge an electric car inductively that means there was nothing actually plugged into the vehicle. They just parked it like you would put your phone on an inductive charger,

and they charged it that way. The whole process was so energy intensive that it dimmed the lights in the loss of Vegas Convention Center, which if you've never been inside of it, is about the size of a small city. The spectacle was always the best part of CS and with all the money pouring into big tech, it was a great place to be a reporter. Every big booth had free wet bars and piles of free swag. I left every year with a sack full of USB drives

and thousands of dollars in products to test. There was so much goddamn money everywhere that even a dumb kid like me with no real connections could do okay. Collapse was always and has always been present at c s, however, looming in the background overdoomed product categories and vast tottering businesses that didn't realize they were already dead. I'm thinking primarily of r i Am the people he used to make blackberries here. Another good example would be Motorola in

two thousand eleven. Their booth was one of the largest at c e S Now. Apple was and still is the biggest name on the block when it comes to making consumer gadgets, but they don't go to c e S, preferring to hold their own annual event to announce new products. This has always irritated the people who run the show, and so in the early two thousand tens, when androids started to blow up as a rival to Apple's iOS, a huge deal was made about Motorola's Droid line of phones.

They actually had to license the name from Lucasfilm for obvious reasons. In two thousand ten, Motorola won the Best and Show award for their droid phone, despite the fact that they hadn't actually brought a working example of it to the show, something that kind of pissed me off at the time. Now today, Motorola is basically dead. It's a shadow of its former self. It's been bought and sold several times. His companies like Samsung and HTC beat

the piss out of it on the open market. Other famous collapses from c E s has past include the entire three D television market. If you can remember those heady days after the release of the first Avatar movie, the tech industry, blue billions in R and D and ad money, trying to convince everyone that people would actually sit down and their actual ass living rooms and where fucking three D glasses to watch movies or TV. It

was preposterous and obviously doomed. I have fond memories of harassing pr hacks on the show floor asking them, isn't this just a big con from the entertainment industry to make it harder for people to pirate media? Are there any actual signs that regular people will pay thousands of dollars for one of these things? At one point, a rep from Samsung I think, tried to show me a glasses free three D TV. It only worked if a trained professional told you precisely where to stand in order

to view it. I laughed so hard I snorted whiskey and lukewarm Starbucks onto a stack of glossy product brochures. Despite how obviously doomed it all was, the Internet filled with fawning articles about all of the exciting new three D televisions that we're surely going to be in homes in the very near future. Now, because the Internet moves quickly, most of the websites that did tech news back then are dead, and the ones that remain are filled with

busted links. But you can still find monuments to the failure of three D television if you know where to look. Take the excerpt from a PC World article on the best of c E s two thousand ten uh. It's titled the three D Revolution is here, and underneath a broken link to an image that is no longer available, is the line, I don't think it's a false start this time. The three D product plans for the coming year represent the initial salvos of the coming three D revolution.

Panasonics three D demos were among the most convincing, but the best implementation I saw, unfortunately, is one that won't be coming to market anytime soon. Sony showed us it's twenty four point five in three D O L E D H D t V is a technology demo only now in retrospect, I think the hilarious failure of three D TV technology is actually what prepared me more than

anything for crypto. If you actually just go over that paragraph I read a little earlier, you could replace the words referring specifically to three D t V s with various shit coins or blockchain related tech, and it would more or less work. The thing that set me off with crypto was how similar the claim was that, like, this thing is obvious, Lee legit because look at how many people are talking about it. It's got to be

real now, because suddenly it's all over the news. This is why folks like Sam Bankman Freed bought the naming rights to stadiums and stuck f t X and crypto dot com up as publicly as they possibly could. It was all a con to convince casual observers that the crypto market was a serious thing they should invest in. It's one of those things that really made me think a lot about the role journalists play and hyping up nonsense like this, and you can see it in three D t v s and crypto in a bunch of

other spaces. A big part of what convinces people that this stuff is real is suddenly they start seeing articles everywhere talking about it. Suddenly the press all over the place is talking about the price of bitcoin or talking about this this new thing is if it's it's going to actually change people's lives, and so folks who maybe are not super high information media consumers just assume that Okay, I guess this is here to stay. Um it's it's

a danger that still exists. All of this brings me to c E S ME three collapse looms larger over the proceedings this year than in any other prior event I've attended. Prior to the pandemic. Attendance that c E S had topped out at around two hundred thousand people last year, though only forty thousands showed, which is probably still vastly too many folks to cram into hotel conference rooms and can see an no restaurants during a pandemic. And yes, c E twenty two was a super spreader event.

Korea particularly had a problem as a result of it. The show itself for decades, a central event in the global tech industry, seems to be teetering. It is not alone there. The top ten big tech stocks lost a combined four point six trillion dollars in market cap in two that's significantly more than the GDP of the United Kingdom around three point two trillion, or the state of California three point six trillion at CES. The rot is most evident in the utter lack of any kind of

hype beast product this year. So far, I've seen a flying hydrogen car, or at least I've seen three d renders of one. Also, it's meant for Formula one style race, is not actual civilian use. The guy at the booths somewhat angrily told me the anticipated retail price was around three million dollars. The MACA flying car was one of many products that I looked into at c S Unveiled, which is one of the headline events of the show.

It's basically a bunch of manufacturers and booths showing off their gadgets to an audience of journalists to drink heavily from an open bar, walk around and prod things. In years past, smartphones and tablets and their consumer gadgets tended to be the main focus. But all that kind of stuff is boring as hell now the smartphone market has stabilized. It's just not as exciting as it used to be, and C e S knows it. The big hype it unveiled was around a mix of electronic and autonomous vehicle

technology and virtual reality. Now at present, I'm not in a good position to thoroughly analyze the specific promises made by individual autonomous driving companies at CES. I'll just note that tech Crunch, normally all in for hype about this kind of stuff, published an article laugh st October titled it's time to admit self driving cars aren't going to happen.

Here's a relevant quote. Ford announced that it would be winding down our Goo AI, the company backed by itself and fellow automaker votes Wagon, focusing on developing full Level

four autonomous driving technologies. Ford explained their justification in doing so when they release their Q three earnings a few hours later, noting that not only were they shutting down our Go, but they were also essentially deep prioritizing L four technologies altogether to instead focus on advanced driver assistance

systems with internal resources. Ford CEO Jim Farley justified this by saying on the company's earnings call Wednesday evening that profitable fully autonomous vehicles at scale are a long way off, and we won't necessarily have to create that technology for

ourselves now. Obviously, autonomous technology will of course have niche applications automating transport of heavy loads at job sites and minds where routes are predictable and controlled, but mass adoption of full level four autonomous driving technologies at present a fantasy. The same is true for one of the other major

product categories at CS unveiled, virtual reality metaverse nonsense. The fact that Facebook let fifteen billion dollars on fire last year chasing Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse dreams has convinced some people that the idea is inevitable. This excerpt from a market Watch article published during c e S is representative. You can see the same thought process that led people astray

with three D TVs and crypto. In the long run, the metaverse will be a major substitute for in person conventions like c e S, said June Nichigucchi, CEO of Tararu, a Japanese company developing its own metaverse. So one of the barriers to any kind of popular metaverse is the fact that VR is actually not as immersive as it

needs to be. The technology does a pretty impressive job of convincing your eyes that you are in fact somewhere else, and this is pretty neat, but the rest of your body is inevitably standing or sitting awkwardly in a room somewhere. This has led to a whole host of products that are in development right now that attempt to engage the most of your body and basically trick it into believing that you're somewhere else. I tried two products at c e S that were meant to do this. The first

was the tax Suit X from b Haptics. It uses haptic feedback technology, which is the stuff that makes your phone buzz when you press a button on your touch screen. Companies like b Haptics hope to use advanced versions of the tech to mimic physical sensation. This would make the metaverse feel much less awkward and associated, and also provide

a whole new market for online sex workers. There are several of these suits at c S, and all of them seem to have won Innovation Awards, or at least their honorees and the CS Innovation Awards, which is a thing that basically anyone seems to get if they make something expensive enough and bring it to the show. To be frank, I think these suits are bullshit. The one slightly cool thing about the tax suit is that the

gloves it had like gloves and a feat component. Um I was able to test the gloves and the actual chest suit thing. The gloves do a pretty okay, job of emulating a physical keyboard, or at least small keyboard on like a smartphone style device. Now that is not a cool enough thing for someone to pay hundreds of dollars and deal with the hassle of wearing heavy battery

powered gloves every day. The b haptics folks eagerly showed me how their suit could simulate hugging and touching another human being in VR, and this seemed to be the major selling point they saw for what they were bringing to the table. I actually tried all this and it was among the saddest experiences of my life. Hugging someone in a haptic suit through VR feels like having a dozen or so in sixty four rumble packs activate up your chest in arms. If you touch a virtual person's shoulder,

your hand will buzz and vibrate. Now, buzzing and vibrating are not sensations I attribute to physical intimacy with a physical person. I actually found this attempt at mimicking the sensation of human contact much more disturbing than the lack of contact in most VR experiences. The tech industry has also penned a lot of hopes on augmented reality I think this is closer to being realistic, but there are still a metric fun ton of vape are wearing snake

oil products often marketed as increasing accessibility. One example would be the Luvic. This is a device you wear around your neck. It's roughly the size of a pair of headphones. It's supposed to buzz on one side or the other of your body to let you know when to turn, all the while delivering audio map directions for you. Luvic's press materials highlight what a win this is for accessibility, saying Luvic is a device designed to solve the challenges

of those who have difficulty with spatial cognition. It is an IoT Internet of Things device that is one around your neck and uses tactile notifications and bone conduction voice to guide the user along the way naturally. Now this tech does identify a real need, but I'm sorry to say it does not work at all. I tried this thing. Luvic's people put it on me and ran through a walking root of New York City. I couldn't tell which side of my body was being buzzed, so that was useless.

It just felt like a smartphone was ringing on the back of my neck and the speakers weren't loud enough to hear directions. Now, when I mentioned this, the Luvic people told me, well, there's too much noise in the conference room for you to hear it, of course, New York City being famously quiet. And then there's the stuff that I suspect was just outright snake oil rather than

being broken like the Luvic. This is probably best embodied by the electric circlet I saw there that's supposed to stimulate your brain to reduce your stress while you sleep. Uh they advertised. I think the number was eight percent reduction and stress while you sleep. This is not a product. I feel the need to review some claims they're not worth taking seriously, and this is one of them. So far, I've seen little at c S that struck me as likely to be a massive financial success. But there were

some potentially groundbreaking products on display. Unfortunately, nearly all of these were in the realm of health and medical technology. Let me explain why this is troubling with an example from the show. The most potentially influential device I saw there was called Viral worn by Optive. It is a multiple use breath analyzer self test that will tell you if you are positive for COVID nineteen r s V or influenza. UM. It just lights up if you're positive

for one of them. They promised that in the few true it will tell you what you have. But then that's still useful, right, still a hell of a lot better than anything we've got right now. Rather than sticking a thing up your nose, you just blow into this thing like a breathalyzer. It's about the size of a key fob, and you can charge it with a normal USB cable. It can be used dozens of times before being reloaded. Optive's rough price point is around a hundred dollars.

If this thing works the way they say it does, I cannot exaggerate what a big deal it would be. Imagine being able to blow into a little device and know in a couple of seconds if you're safe before you go into a store or a bar or a party, go see you know, an elderly relative for a birthday. Lives could be saved by this thing if it works. And to their credit, the good folks Adoptive immediately told me that this was not on sale yet, as it

was still waiting for FDA approval. I take this as a good side and I sincerely hope it works as well as advertised. But products like this do present a problem for the tech press. When I'm at a show like ce S, it's generally easy to determine if something has promise. If I step into a booth for a company advertising rugged speaker, well, I can drop those speakers from a height. I can drop stuff onto them, I

can throw them. I can test if they're rugged because I can try to break them, and if I can't, then they're rugged. Likewise, I can strap on a VR suit and I can tell you if it makes the experience more immersive. Neither I nor any other members of the press can tell you how well a medical diagnostic device works in the same manner. This isn't anyone's fault, but as connected tech and AI are included in more healthcare devices, the potential for snake oil and for dangerous

failures to generate mass hype increases exponentially. I want to be clear that the medical devices I have seen so far at c e S do not strike me as suspicious in any way. Company representatives were extremely good at explaining what stage in the FDA approval process they were at and I saw some really cool shit. My favorite was probably a new streamlined a E D from Life a Z at a thousand dollars or thirty five dollars a month with a four to five years shelf life.

This thing makes having a defibrillator on hand affordable for regular people. It's extremely light and small and can be easily carried in a backpack. I do have a little bit of medical training, and I tried this thing out on a dummy and test mode. I can confirm it appears to work like any other more expensive a D. The device is still awaiting FDA approval, but it has been approved and as being sold in France and Germany, so I feel pretty good saying this thing probably works

the way Life a Z says it does. And then there's my favorite product from c E s unveiled, the nan she domestic violence app from ath Bash, which is a French company. This was first suggested to me via one of the most awkward pr emails I've ever received. Forward Media Alert Groundbreaking domestic Violence reporting app launching at CREE, and when I got it in my email, it just said forward Media Alert Groundbreaking Domestic Violence which fun thing

to get in your inbox. In fairness to their very nice pr lady, there's probably not a non awkward way to title an email about this kind of thing. The app itself is really innovative, though. It provides you with options to record voice or video, to take photos of documents, or to photographically document your own injuries. All the data that you save is stored off site, so you take a picture your record audio and it's immediately off the phone and off the app. You actually can't access it

without contacting the company directly to get it. All of it is stored on the cloud, and it's also on the blockchain, which is used to verify data integrity, making this probably the first blockchain related product I've ever heard of with a realistic use case. Nancy seems to be pretty well thought out from the top to bottom. Once you start recording, you can swipe away from the app and it will keep recording without being visible anywhere on

your phone. So if you're in a fight with a domestic abuser and they take your phone away, they will not see that you're recording, but it will keep recording. You can also change the logo and name that the app displays itself under on your phone so that it won't say that you have Nancy anywhere. You can make it look like basically anything you want. It really does seem like they've thought this through and it's about the

best version of this kind of thing that's possible. There's more oficular note at the show was an unpowered mechanical exoskeleton I got to try on. It doesn't increase your physical strength, but it does allow you to sit while standing. The manufacturer, are Kellis, sees this as a way to let workers stand on factory production lines and in retail stores all day long without straining themselves. I feel profoundly mixed about this product, more so than anything else at CES.

On one hand, it it works really well. I got to try it on, and it's kind of a marvel. On the mechanical level, you can still walk perfectly well with it on, but you can just kind of sit at any point going limp and it's actually really comfortable. On the other hand, it costs three thousand dollars, which means very few retail workers are ever going to see one.

So far, it's primary use in the real world has been helping to keep auto workers comfortable while they shot gun more cars out into a world with far too many of them. It's all very emblematic of the way CS makes me feel these days. Inside the roiling sea of snake oil and broken ship. Are some really cool ideas, but they're all wedded to an industry that has mostly forgotten how to do any thing new. Over the coming days, I'm going to look at a new smartphone from Samsung.

It rolls up, I guess, check out more VR happtick devices, none of which I expect to work very well, and I will hopefully get to lift some heavy weights wearing a powered Exo skeleton. That one I'm actually looking forward to. I am open to the possibility of finding stuff that's cool here, but at the end of the day, nothing I've seen, anything I'm likely to see, has changed my overall impression of where the tech industry is today. It's

a big, bloated monster slowly bleeding out before our eyes. 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.