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All right, let's get to TikTok.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments about TikTok and its potential ban in the coming days. In the United States, TikTok has appealed this all the way up to the Supreme Court, the United States government arguing on the side of a TikTok ban and or a for sale TikTok, obviously making a case against that on First Amendment grounds. We heard a little bit from the lawyers and the
Supreme Court justices themselves. Let's take a listen here, to the Solicitor General of the United States on the case for band.
Mister Chief Justice, and may it please the Court, the Chinese government's control of TikTok poses a grave threat to national security. No one disputes that the PRC seeks to undermine US interests by amassing vast quantities of sensitive data about Americans and by engaging in covert influence operations, And no one disputes that the PRC pursues those goals by compelling companies like Bank Dance to secretly turnover data and
carry out PRC directives. Those realities mean that the Chinese government could weaponize TikTok at any time to harm the United States. TikTok collects unprecedented amounts of personal data, and as just as Sotomayor noted, it's not just about the one hundred and seventy million American users, but also about their non user contacts who might not even be engaging with the platform. That data would be incredibly valuable to the PRC. For years, the Chinese government has sought to
build detailed profiles about Americans. Where we live, in work, who are friends co workers are, what our interests are, and what our vices are TikTok's immense data set would give the PRC a powerful tool for harassment, recruitment, and espionage. On top of that, the Chinese government's control over TikTok gives it a potent weapon for covert influence operations. And my friends are wrong to suggest that Congress was seeking
to suppress specific types of content or specific types of viewpoints. Instead, the national security harm arises from the very fact of a foreign adversary's capacity to secretly manipulate the platform to advance its geopolitical goals, in whatever form that kind of covert operation might take.
So that was the voice of the US Delictener General. We did have some questioning going back and forth on this, some of which was quite skeptical of the US government, some of which seem to be amenable.
Let's take a listen to that.
I guess what I would say.
You began by saying, the cure for concerning speech is counter speech. Here I dispute the premise that Congress was specifically concerned about any particular subject or any particular viewpoint. I wanted to close off the capability of a foreign government, But in the event it's very hard to engage in counter speech when you don't know because someone is secretly
manipulating the platform behind the scenes. And in particular, what the PRC has the capability to do is simply silence America Voice payer.
Owned by a foreign company and a foreign government. You wouldn't know when it's exercising editorial discretion about this article or that article, or how it's doing it. So maybe we just need to shut down the Oxford University Press in America, or you pick it. Any other foreign owned politico I was told today is owned by Germany, So that would all be okay on your theory, so long as Congress designates that country a foreign adversary.
We are not asking the court to articulate bright line rules to govern all kinds of sputs.
That I am wasting and I am testing your argument.
Yes, And what I want to acknowledge is that sometimes the court has recognized that a speaker based preference might reflect a content based preference. And in the context of ownership of a newspaper, for example, in part because newspaper is a one way channel of communication and is generally understood to represent to some extend its publisher's views, maybe the Court would more readily infer that a regulation targeting that is actually aiming to target content.
But I don't think you're.
Compelling interest or anything talking about the tailoring, and you're saying we have no alternative but to stop this speech altogether.
So that was the counter questioning by Justice Gorsich. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen from Scotus Blog C two. Please they write quote the Supreme Court is skeptical of ban on t TikTok.
Was it Tiktak like Dave Ramsey? Does they say?
The Supreme Court on Friday was divided over the constitutionality of a federal law that would require social media giant shutdown TikTok to shut down unless this Chinese parent company can sell by January nineteenth, that's in six days. During the two hours of oral arguments, of justices raised question about the law at the center of the case, whether it restricts TikTok's freedom of speech, as well as a what will happen if there is no sale by the deadline.
So this gets back to that law that was previously passed, the Foreign Controlled Applications Act. We talked about it quite a bit at the time it was actually attached to the Ukraine Israel package. Of course, the law identifies China and three other countries North Korea, Russia, and Iran as quote unquote foreign adversaries of the United States and bars
the use of these apps controlled by those countries. Now, TikTok itself has resolved a question about potential for sale, saying that they would rather shut down the app in the United States unless the ban is lifted. Let's just put that up there on the screen. Cee three, please to bring this discussion.
So we have got six days. We're staring down the barrel.
And it seems very possible that TikTok is in fact banned the very day before Donald Trump becomes the President of the United States.
And it is an interesting Supreme Court case.
I have no idea which way they're going to rule because of people like Justice Gorsicic and Amy Cony Barrett to be a little bit more libertarian. It also is very possible that some of the other justices, liberal justices side with the government here because they're talking about the Protecting Americans Act. Foreign whatever controlled companies is an Act of Congress. It wasn't an executive order like Donald Trump
tried in the past. Their question of constitutionality would come on First Amendment grounds, But the law itself has nothing to do with speech. It's purely about the controlling interest of any of these platforms over an x amount of money that hits influence for the amount of revenue and market cap that it has. In addition to the foreign tailoring and a number of other criteria.
The name TikTok does not apply in the bill, by the way.
It's obviously written about TikTok, but it's about any potential app that would rise to that. So constitutionality wise, I think they have a tough time, and TikTok itself does seem to be prepared to just shut down. The app entirely does raise some question as about that because the Chinese government itself would have to allow the sale of TikTok, and they have said that they would literally never do so, just so you know, it's not about TikTok's own thing.
But yeah, it seems very possible.
Will be a big change, I think to American like, what is it, one hundred million Americans use TikTok every single day.
I think it's one hundred.
Yeah.
My daughter Ella is that she's a sixteen year old. She was like, if Trump brings back TikTok, He's going to be so popular with my general.
Well, TikTok. Trump is pro TikTok. Yeah, much to my own shape.
I mean Trump was the original. I mean he was the original mover on trying to ban TikTok. Took actions at the end of his administration that didn't really pan out. Then you had growing bipartisan consensus under the Biden administration. And I do think and you know it's Mitt Romney admitt is as much. And I can read his quote here that a lot of that growing by partisan support for TikTok actually was about speech because they did not like the pro Palestinian advocacy that was going on there.
So you have that, then you have Trump. Not only one of.
His big donors is also a big TikTok investor.
But in addition, Trump himself gets very popular in TikTok.
He had fifteen I think.
So suddenly he has a different feeling about TikTok, both because of the money and also because of his own ego. So that's kind of where we are. But just to get back to Mint Romney. And this is actually important I think for the case, because you heard there the Solicitor General multiple times being like, well, I reject that
TikTok was banned because of what's being said on the platform. However, Senator of Mitt Romney at a forum said, some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature. If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians relative to other social media sites,
it's overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts. So I'd note that's of real interest, and the President will get the chance to make action in that regard, so making explicit that in his view, the reason why not just but other of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle decided, you know what, we are on ban with it, on board with this TikTok ban was because of pro Palestinian sentiment on the platform, in the sense that like, ah, we can't control this, and these kids are getting out
of control. And remember the whole flap over like sharing the Osama bin laden letter that like fueled the whole conversation as well that was going on around TikTok. So that's part of why the Solicitor General is so insistent that like, no, no, no, it didn't have anything to do with that, because if it is about cracking down on certain speech that the government just doesn't like, then you could see the court ruling another direction. I mean, I genuinely don't know which way this is going to go.
It seems fairly evenly divided. The ideological splits are kind of unpredictable and interesting as you were laying out. And then there's also just look, this was a bill that was passed with significant bipartisan support that was you know, was a project that was engaged in across the Trump and the Biden administrations and went through the legislative processes.
Supreme Court is usually like relatively deferential to when you have, you know, a significant bipartisan legislation that gets passed.
So there's that waging on it too.
We'll see And I don't think like it's possible that TikTok and the Chinese government are in effectably saying no, we'll shut it down before we sell it. That that's kind of like a negotiating tactic and posturing. But I don't actually think it is because think of what precedent that sets, right, then any Chinese tech company could be shut down under the same Oh.
The horror they force our companies to abide by.
Actually it's not actually true.
So I mean they have a series, Yeah, they have a series of restrictive laws in China that if you know, Twitter or whatever want to operating, yes, they have to deal with Chinese government censorship and whatever, but they didn't explicitly ban like you can't have you know, an American app in the country, and this this is a broader would actually be a broader and more directed ban. So it's not just about child like I obviously I think
I think this is silly. I think the idea of the data, I think that's just a kind of it's not made up concern. They can the data that exists on TikTok about all of us exists out there in the world for acquisition anyway. The idea of like recruiting spies on there or whatever seems extremely far fetched to me. So in any case, it also isn't just about China.
It's really any country that the Congress takes you know, unbridge at they could decide effectively like no one but US gets to have a tech company that performs and.
What's wrong with the country.
That's not bad, that's actually that's what the Chinese do. And by the way, Facebook is actually explicitly banned in China, and so is Twitter and Google.
So why is that, Well, they have.
Decided that they want total control over their Internet, which they use for propagandistic and censorship purposes. It is basic market fairness. United States has no obligation, nor should it, to allow companies who are wholly controlled by foreign companies to operate, especially here on vast scale and assume hundreds of millions of dollars social position or at market position, in addition to over one hundred million Americans using this
product every day. Everyone should know what I've been against and for banning TikTok Now for what over since twenty eighteen, long before any sort of Palestinian what concern over it? I won't deny it certainly had an impact, but the point being that at a basic level, we do not allow foreign companies to operate here when our companies cannot do business over there. It's a market fairness. It's the
same principle of tariff and reciprocal trade. Now, the argument from TikTok is absurd, which is that they have a First Amendment right to operate in America.
No, you don't.
No foreign company has a First Amendment right to operate here. Americans have First Amendment rights to express their own speech. Unfortunately, actually, in my opinion, it doesn't even apply to First Amendment grounds on our tech companies, which I think is I think the First Amendment should apply to any technology company operating in the.
US, but it doesn't.
So it's a fast out ridiculous thing.
I mean, if we think all the way back to early days during the Cold War, would you allow a Russian KGB operated company to achieve vast market position in the US?
No? Never, And in Russia they would laugh at you.
Same in China, they can't even believe that they have been blessed to allow a trillion dollar market cap company to basically grow and become one of the dominant social media platforms in the nation that they consider their greatest adversary. So look, it should have been banned since twenty eighteen. It should never even been allowed to operate. It and actually I think if you go when you look at my original monologue is one of the things I warned about is this thing is going to get so popular
that banning it will become politically untenable. So we should do it now, well before it takes off and becomes its own thing. But listen, you know, sorry teens and other phone addicts out there, I hope it gets banned. I've been wanting it for quite some time, long before Trump's sold out. Because jeff Yass, his billionaire mega donor decided who owns a large position in Byte Dance, in Chinese company. I think he's worth like twenty five billion
something like that. Huge portion of his net worth is in Bye Dance, convinced Trump to do a total one eighty on it. By the way, this is the other thing I don't get. Instagram reels is fine. What's so wrong with that? And spin it off fine, making its own company. I'm totally fine with that. Why TikTok, Like the algorithm itself has been totally replicated across a variety of other social platform Why does it have to be on TikTok. It's not like all that unique of a technology.
No one can ever answer that question either what's wrong with reels? What's wrong with any of these that you can mindlessly scrolled YouTube shorts?
It's what developed, right, So.
It's where every versus over advantage.
Yeah, it's where everybody is. But the technical plotform they're used to, etc.
So in any case, I mean, I listen, I reject the new Cold warframing, and I think the national security they don't.
They're silly and overblown. I don't think that's why they passed.
I think they pass it because of like you know, not wanting to show is really atrocities, which is a crackdown on speech in the sense of like, oh, we don't get to be the ones that control it. The data concerns I think are overblown. But in any case, in terms of what's going to happen here, I really genuinely don't know how the Supreme Court is going to rule.
And then I expect that probably even if the shutdown does go into effect, that Trump is going to find a way to try to make a deal to bring back is what I expect, because obviously he did a one to eighty on this is important to one of his major donors, et cetera, et cetera. And he likes TikTok because he you know, the genocide is basically complete, so that worry is now over.
Don't worry.
No one's coming to save the Palestinians, so that worry is dispatched.
And Trump is super.
Popular on TikTok, so I don't think he would want to let that platform go away in terms of its political benefit to him personally. So I think he's probably going to figure out a way to keep it alive.
The only way it would work, though, is that he would have to convince China to allow them for a forced sale.
I mean, I just don't see no.
I mean no, they could. I mean, they could pass new legislation.
Right, but you have to pass a brand new app in Congress. I mean, maybe it seems difficult to get through on this one. It passed with seventy nine YA votes, including Democrats and Republicans, was overwhelmingly popular in the House of Representative, So I'm not saying it's I mean, actually, I think that is a veto proof majority of Yeah, who did Would a number of people really switch just based on what Trump told me?
Maybe?
Do?
I think I think a lot of would, and like I said, they're like Mitt Romney is admitting that for many of them, the Israeli genocide was like the impetus and that's gone, so that concern is lessened. And you got the the dear leader saying I want you to do X, Y and Z can give them some fig leaf of like, oh, we implemented some sort of whatever restriction blah blah blah that alleviates your concerns. So I think he will make a push in that direction. I guess there's no guarantee.
Very possible. We all, all right, Let's get to MSNBC.
Remarkable moment over on MSNBC's program Morning Joe, where Mika Perzinski still is holding onto the idea that Joe Biden would have beaten Trump this time around. Take a listen to how she makes the case.
You give your theory that you think you could look everyone knows how I feel. I made it very clear after the debate that I thought he should continue, but that was not what most people wanted. So but Joe Biden is the kind of person who pulls himself up from rock bottom, and I think he could have stumbled into it. I really do people responded very badly when he beat Trump during that campaign, to Trump bullying him or going after his remaining son. People stood up for Joe Biden because.
They knew who he was. They know who he is.
I think an aging Joe Biden is very self aware about that, and so is his team around him. And he's still ten times more qualified than what we've got, and he's qualified to manage the world stage. I think after that disastrous debate, he did a news conference. Remind me Leamir was at the NATO summit couples at eight at night, and Yep, he got names wrong, Yep he
had to correct himself a few times. But his knowledge of world affairs was in depth and clear and generated exactly what was the reality that this guy could manage the many different hotspots around the world.
Probably the most incredible part about Timyzager is that she's still holding onto the idea that that NATO press conference was a masterful gambit.
Visibly, I do not remember that press conference being that way.
Just right, just to remind people, this is the press conference where he not only introduced Zelensky as Putin, but also introduced his own vice president as Trump. Yes, this is the press conference. It was at eight o'clock at night. Oh, bra Vos or wow, incredible performance. That's a press conference she's pointing to. And they did at the time. It was the most gaslighting thing ever the media at the time.
And I think, wasn't it Joe specifically, who was like, no, he doesn't have a PhD in foreign policy, he's just.
That he's just that good. And that's also that good press.
Oh my god.
Andrew Bates used to often say that he'd be like, he's just that fucking good. Biden apparently is so delusional. He also believes it. He said it at a press conference.
Say a listen, I think I would have beaten Trump, could have beaten Trump. And I think that Comin could have beaten Trump, would have beaten Trump. It wasn't about I thought it was important to unify the party, and when the party was worried about whether or not I was going to be able to move, I thought, even though I thought I could win again, I thought it was better to unify the party. And it was the greatest honor in my life to be President the United States.
But I didn't want to be one who caused a party that wasn't unified to lose an election, and that's why I stepped aside. But I was confident she could win.
There you go, he still thinks you could have won?
What by Kamala could have won?
Pamala could have won, she lost? So what how does that work?
I know that was a weird one. Who the hell is the world?
Are these people living there? I just don't understand.
I mean, at a certain point for Mika and Joe, you know, one comforting thing to.
Me is always wonder. I'm like, did they really believe this shit? And now I'm like, well, clearly they must believe it.
Because I think how else could you still take to the airwaves today and that he could have won the election, and that the nate O press conference and all that was so mad, Like what are we talking about?
You know, the people of people have seen through this and laugh. I don't know. I don't know.
I was reading and like she still is, like wants to be friends with whoever his you know, him and his family and his owners.
I gonna be around that long, okay, So I wouldn't be worried about being friends with him.
I don't know. That's how I was reading.
What do you want to be friends with?
Hunter?
I mean maybe maybe she really I think she's incredible. I mean, it's just like the man did not give a single newspaper interview his entire term in office outside of this one that we just covered, right, that was it today US press conferences. Ever, we're all supposed to be amazed that he could even stand up and speak at a you know event that's at eight pm at night. He's been I mean, it's like we don't even have
a president. It's like we haven't had a president for even Joe Biden himself said I'm not sure I could have made it another four years, But you still think that American people were like, yeah, let's roll that dice.
Sure, why not? I don't know. Totally insane, totally delusional.
You if you were holding on to any idea that you should listen to anything that these people say, like, just please please get rid of that notion, because if you are so politically stupid that you genuinely still think that Joe Biden might have been able to win this election, I just I can't help you.
Yep, I totally agree, and maybe you should take it to heart Boomers and other liberals out there who look to these people for affirmation and for advice, and just keep that in mind next time they kill They are, I mean, I.
Think they are, to be honest with you, if there has been some you know, there's been a reckoning.
There has been some.
I still see Morning Joe on my dog Walks six thirty am or whatever. I still see two or three televisions that are playing who was watching the Morning Joe with that? Or I want to knock on their door and tell me about yourself?
Who are you?
But that's also such a dc for us on Zoo.
You know, absolutely all right, we've got to oh, Crystal, what do you take a look at?
Well, Joe and Mika may have gone a little more than they bargained for recently with a guest appearance by Professor Scott Galloway, who unloaded on the ultra rich and warned that the current oligarchic path risked revolution.
Once you get above a certain level of wealth, you get no incremental happiness. So why on earth would you not go back to a tax policy of the sixties, seventies and eighties where, say, above pick a big number ten million, you actually pay more than ten percent, maybe more than twenty percent, maybe more than fifty percent, because the difference between thirty thousand a year for a household and fifty thousand is enormous to the well being of
that household. Low income kids and low income households have higher resting blood pressure, but the difference between making ten million a year and fifteen million a year offers you no happiness. But these individuals have weaponized government, and we risk revolution. Whether it's CEOs being murdered in the street, whether it's a me too movement that had righteous components of it, or black lives matter, what are these movements?
They are targeting the wealthy. We are in the midst of a series of small revolutions to correct income inequality. And the reason we put an insurrectionist in a rapist in office is because, for the first time in our nation's history, a thirty year old man or woman isn't doing as well as his or her parents were at thirty. Why Because the majority of households are having the oxygen stucked out of the room. Starts at a small number of individuals and a small number of companies can be
worth more than nation states. Income inequality is out of control. Our tax policy has gone full oligarch.
Full oligarch Yalloway here lays on some pretty undeniable truths that are seldom heard on mainstream airwaves. The results of unchecked capitalism colliding with unlimited money in politics are playing out in front of our eyes every single day. In the outcome, it's nothing less than annihilating catastrophe. We've rushed headlong into an era of full on zero sum dog eat dog politics, both between individuals and between nation states.
The apocalyptic LA fires and the response to those fires are a perfect case endpoint.
So firse, let's start with the basics here.
Whatever legitimate criticisms there are of the political response from Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass, the primary driver of this La catastrophe was extreme weather fueled by climate change, something that no state, even one as large as California, can possibly fight.
On their own.
In fact, the data from last year just dropped at the same time as the wildfires, confirming twenty twenty four was once again the hottest year on record that it was the first year to breach a one point five degrees celsius or two point seven degree fahrenheit increase from pre industrial times. What's more, the last ten years were all the hottest ten.
Years on record.
Lest you think that this jump was an anomaly, wildfires are but one of the catastrophes which have increased in frequency and severity thanks to human fueled climate change. Research have taken a look at these specific wildfires in LA and found that man made impacts are the predominant cause of this catastrophe. In other words, the Santa Ana winds, they aren't the anomaly. The hotter air and drought conditions driven by climate change are what really made this whore.
Climate Change and its attendant catastrophes are best understood as a consequence of oligarchy, both in terms of the emissions which have led us to this era of routine catastrophe and in terms of the lack of sufficient response. Remember oil and gas executives at Exxon they knew that carbon based fuels with the primary driver of climate change nearly
fifty years ago, back in nineteen seventy seven. Instead, though, of acknowledging and unprofitable truth, they engage in a web of lies and deceit, a massive cover up to keep the public from understanding the consequences of carbon emissions. They even enlisted in this cover up some of the very same consultants that the tobacco industry used to lie about
the link between their product and cancer. While it is no longer tenable to out and out deny climate change, this cover up and obfuscation continues to this day, but with more sophisticated strategies. A couple of years back, lobbyists who thought he was being interviewed for a job was caught in a secret recording by Greenpeace UK explaining Exo mobiles tactics for blocking action, like for example, backing solutions they understand to be politically infeasible, like in across the
board carbon tax. He also explained the way that they buy politicians and use those politicians as their pawns.
A man boasting of a job interview or are never seen before. Look at how big oil tries to manipulate big power for both. First, the targets congressmen are fish. Exon is the fisherman.
When you have an opportunity to talk to the mepros cribris, you know the the you know it's I like.
It it to fishing, right, yeah, yeah, you know you have bait you throw.
That bait out.
You know, it's all these opportunities that you use, and to.
Use the fishing analogy again just to kind of reel them in because there are a captive audience.
They know they need you and I need them up.
Senators pressed to do xons bidding behind closed doors.
Do you want to be able one of the chief and so the chief knows you that you can go to the chief.
And say, well, we've got this issue. We need crivatesment so and so to be able to introduce the.
Still we need him to make a floor statement, We need him to send the letter, you name it.
We have for everything.
But it's not just the fossil fuel executives. You have an interest in the status quo. The new tech oligarchs are equally interested in downplaying the climate crisis. This even applies to Elon Musk, of course, found in an electric
vehicle company. First of all, implementing an adequate climate response would require upfront federal government spending and a strong federal government, two things the ultra wealthy absolutely hate because they want to keep their taxes low and the government too weak to interfere in their business crimes and monopolies. That the
tech oligarchs have another massive business interest. Essentially, every large tech company that you've heard of and plenty that you have and are engaged in an arms race to rapidly develop AI and put towards AGI, or artificial general intelligence. The amount of carbon emissions this race is fueling is quite vast. Few companies offer transparency about the energy required to train and run their tools, but research suggests it's
extraordinarily energy intensive. In fact, Google blamed a forty eight percent increase in emissions on its AI development. Microsoft had a similar explanation for its twenty nine percent increase in emissions. As NPR rights quote, Goldman Sachs has researched the expected growth of data centers in the US and estimates they'll be using eight percent of total power in the country by twenty thirty. That's up from three percent in twenty
twenty two. Company analysts say quote the proliferation of AI technology in the data centers necessary to feed it will drive a surge and power demand the likes of which has not been seen in a generation. But the oligarchscript on our government doesn't only block efforts to deal with climate change, as the ultra Wealthyes, taxes drop near zero, and a weak government allows their monopolies to flourish, fueling
massive inequality. The need to forcibly keep the peasants from finding their pitchforks also increases that imperative, more than anything else, is what is driven an ever expanding surveillance and police state. That's why, even as our politicians insist we can't afford to deal with climate, or to provide healthcare or affordable childcare, or free college or world class infrastructure, there is a never ending spigot of money for any agency filled with
people with guns used to discipline the population. That includes, of course, the military, Fbiicia, border patrol, and of.
Course local police forces.
So, returning to our Hollywood horror, LA spent one point seventy three billion dollars on the police department in the last fiscal year, and Mayor Karen Bass up that funding to one point ninety nine billion in the current fiscal year, for a roughly one hundred and thirty million dollar increase. Once state and federal moneys are included in that overall department budget is well over three billion dollars. Meanwhile, fire department budget was cut, something that turns out to be
rather crucial in this moment, but never you mind. Since state prison inmates are being pressed into service as firefighters, risking their lives for ten dollars per day to save homes for billionaires who largely view them as animals, and while the police that predominantly criminalize the poor are kitted up with military gear and fat budgets in Democrat and Republican cities alike, the kind of police which could curb
oligarch financial crimes, they are under constant attack. It is no accident that both Mark Zuckerberg and Andresen went on Rogan's podcast to trash the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which
has been inconvenient for both of their bottom lines. Musk and others have also taken aim at the Securities Exchange Commission, which has dared to regulate crypto and to investigate Musk for market manipulation, and Musk, the oligarch king himself, has been given a direct commission to shape and slash the government in areas where it might theoretically check his power.
You can bet any agencies involved in suppression of what Galloway described as many revolutions will continue to be well funded, even as other agencies like the EPA and the National Labor Relations Board, which Musk believes is unconstitutional, are starved. Elon is one of the Pentagon's top contractors, So you're a fool if you think that budget is going to face any real cuts underham Instead, his wealth and those of the other favored oligarchs will continue to escalate, reaching
new heights never before seen in human history. AI will revolutionize wealth extraction and consolidate even more wealth and power at the very top. And that's to say nothing of the giant tax cut Trump has already promised these billionaires. And as these billionaires become increasingly untouchable even by nation stage, each one individually too big to fail, they will go to greater and greater lengths to insulate themselves from the
consequences of the globe being run exclusively for their benefit. This, too, we see playing out in La Hamilton Nolan wrote an excellent piece on this dynamic titled quote lifeboat capitalism. Some burn, some drown, and some make money either way. In the piece, he writes that we have a choice to either confront
the impacts from climate change together or separately. Together as a nation helping each other in as egalitary in a way as possible, or in a Darwinian dog eat dog scramble for resources where the rich and the well connected always come out on top of the pile of the LFE option. He says, quote we know what that will look like, don't we. It will look like rich people paying any price for private firefighters to save their mansions
as all around them burn. It will look like rich people wrangling government balance for their washed away beach houses as poor people inland languish in the monk. It looks like large swaths of America becoming unensurable and then being left to only the very rich who are willing to take the risk, and the very poor who can't afford to do anything else. It looks like climate refugees crowding our streets, refugees from poorer countries, and then also refugees
from our own country. Looks like wealthier people building walls around their safe land and then writing checks to politicians who will tell the Panics middle class people that the poor people are coming to take their place. We can either work to build more lifeboats and to make humane rules about who gets on them, or we can just let the strong people toss the weaker people into the
water and sail away. Either by action or by inaction, our government is going to effectively choose one or the other. I don't have to tell you which choice is being
made in the current political dynamic. Look around, billionaires building bunkers, learning to fight, buying properties in New Zealand, building literal spaceships in case they need to flee this doomed civilization, altogether buying entire social media platforms to spread a warped version of reality which always happens to align with their
own interests. They've decided to roll the dice that they'll be able to personally escape the consequences of the world that they themselves set up, using their wealth and power as a shield to return. Briefly to Scott galloway is video we started this monologue with. While he can apparently see these dynamics pretty clearly when it comes to the US context, he is completely blind when it comes to the same dog eat dog dynamics which are presently ascended
on the global stage. He celebrated Israel's genocidal actions in Gaza. Their unrestrained barbarity, backed by the global superpower, has helped to cement a global order that mirrors the zero sum Darwinian scramble that increasingly characterizes our domestic life.
Miight makes right.
The strong will brazenly and brutally gobble up whatever resources they possibly can, with military budget ever expanding to try to make sure that no other nations might.
Get to have a say.
These wars for resources are frequently also driven by the insatiable appetites and needs of the oligarch class, whose children are never the ones sent to fight and die. In other words, oligarchy is the issue that connects all other issues war, climate, poverty, censorship, democracy.
It's no accident that is.
The ultra wealthy have pulled away into a superclass of global masters. We become unable to solve a single problem that really requires collective action. Instead we left to watch the fires burn and pray our loved ones are not in the disaster zone this time. And Sagar, this is a more complain.
And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints dot com. Joining us now is Derek Thompson. He is a writer at the Atlantic, host of the Plain English podcast and friend of the show.
It's good to see you, sir, Thank you for joining us to be here. Thank you so much so.
Derek, you put together a cover story for The Atlantic which has really hit home for a lot of people. Let's put this up there on the screen, and it is called the Anti Social Century, and in it you really weigh you really weigh the costs of a lot of decisions during COVID. But I think more importantly, you just lay out really a lot of important data which highlights how much time Americans are spending by themselves and specifically just alone, and what the social ramifications are of that.
So why don't you just highlight some of this for the audience and give them a top line overview of what you discussed.
The jutline overview is that we have records going back at least the nineteen sixties that ask Americans how much time do you spend face to face socializing?
How much time do you spend alone?
And Americans have never on record spent more time alone and less time in.
Face to face socializing.
You know a lot of people are going to hear this and say, oh, this is mostly about COVID, no socializing declined in the back half the twentieth century. Between the nineteen sixties and nineteen nineties, Robert Putnam wrote a famous book called Bowling Alone, where he said, look, Americans are joining clubs, lest they're joining associations. Less they're bowling together. Less they are bowling alone. A lot of people in two thousand when that book came out said Robert Putnam is full of crap.
He does.
Nobody's talking about Americans are hanging out. They're going to hang out more than ever. But in fact, alone time just increased between two thousand and COVID.
Of course it's shot.
Up during the lockdowns, but according to one study by the Federal Reserve, we spent more time alone in twenty twenty three than we did in twenty twenty one, the year that all those people got vaccinated left their house resumed life as well. So this is a sixty year problem. This is not a pandemic issue. This is a century long issue that was briefly accelerated by the pandemic.
You know, it's funny.
Sagar and I of course talked at length about the vivik Ramaswami, you know, inductment of American culture and how he was like, fewer sleepovers, more math tutoring, fewer mall hangouts, and I was like, mall hangouts, like that doesn't happen anymore. And it was better when it did because it may have been a sort of like shallow consumers culture, but at least there was some form of community there and
some people being together in real life. But as you track, this isn't just about young people, This isn't just about men or just about when. This is truly across all ages and demographics. So is the you know, the source of the problem, so to speak, the smartphone is that what we're dealing with here is just like the fallout from these things.
Right here, you say something so important, which is that this isn't a phenomenon about rich or poor.
It's not men versus women, it's not black versus white.
For literally every single demographic that the Peer of Labor Statistics or the American Time You Survey, which is run by the Peer of Labor Statistic Studies, for every single demographic, face to face socializing declined and alone time increased. And if you want to know my answer for why this is happening, look, you can point to any number of phenomena that have happened over the last sixty years. You know, Robert Putnam talks a lot about moral revolutions have happened
in America. It's a worthy topic of conversation. I would look at three technologies. I think the car allowed us to privatize our lives. I think the television allowed us to privatize our leisure. And I think the smartphone allows us to privatize our attention, so that now even when we're in a crowd, we can be alone and also someone. Ironically, when we're alone, we feel like we're part of a crowd.
So we actually think that people are having a hard time recharging alone, which is one reason why they're selecting to not hang out with friends so often. But I would look at this fundamentally as a universal story that relates to universal technologies. And it's hard to think of three technologies more universal than cars, televisions, and smartphones. And I want to emphasize I'm not so much saying everyone give up your car, everyone give up your television.
No one watched Netflix anymore.
I'm saying that we need to account for the negative externalities, the accidental side effects of our day to day choices. If we choose over and over again to order food in rather than go out with friends, and we choose over and over again to watch a movie on Netflix rather than go out to dinner with friends, those choices scale over our lives, and those choices scale across the country. And that's why everybody seems to be spending more and more time by themselves.
So then provocative question here, why is this bad? You just mentioned negative externalities. What are the negative externalities of being alone?
I would put it in two buckets.
First off, we have a lot of really interesting research that shows that people are simply less happy when they're by themselves. Their life satisfaction is much lower. Not when they spend one night alone, you know, one night at a hotel bar. When I'm a father of a young child, sometimes I think, like my God, a night alone, it's a blessing from God. Okay, sometimes spending some time alone is really lovely. But people who spend more time alone are by and large less happy with their lives.
That's the first thing. The second thing is that I think our.
Alone time interacts with society in some strange ways. You know, I talk, for example, to Arley Hawk's child who's a sociologist at Burn and she mentioned that there's lots of communities, say in rural Kentucky, where Republicans were incredibly vexed about the fact that there were all of these illegal immigrants in America. And look, legal immigrants caused a lot of problems in a lot of different cities. But she pointed out that in rural Kentucky, which has a lot of
economic problems, you have almost no immigrants whatsoever. And so one thing that happens, I think with politics when people spend more time alone is that the issues of their villages way less and the issues of the country way more. And there used to be the saying of all politics as local. This didn't make it in the peace, but now I feel like all politics is focal. All politics is about what national news tells you to focus on, even if that story has nothing to do with your community.
And I think that's a strange and alienating place for our politics to go. So I'd look at both the personal for the costs and.
The national author you also talk about.
I'll read a quote from piece you say, the village is our best arena for practicing productive disagreement. And compromise, in other words, democracy. So it's no surprise that the erosion of the village has coincided with the emergient of a grotesque style of politics in which every election feels like an existential quest to vanquish an intramural enemy. And you imagine two people who live in a community together
who may have, you know, polar opposite views. They're tasked with working together to collaborate on some like diversity statement for the school, and because they're forced to deal with each other face to face, they're actually able to realize, like, Okay, this isn't some cartoon character villain, this isn't my enemy. This is just Susie. She lives down the street. She thinks about this stuff a little different than I. But we can actually come up with something that we can
all agree on. This is also why I've always thought the Union Hall was very important, because this is one of the only places where this type of politics still really.
Occurs in America.
And when you lose that, all you're left with is, you know, this very tribal, very one dimensional sort of existential battle that's playing out in these almost imagined spaces online.
Truly well said you know, sometimes people ask, you know, what's the difference between talking to someone in the real world, so called physical world, and talking to them on your phone.
Well, there's this researcher at.
NYU named Jay van Babel who looks at how exactly online conversation is different than offline conversation, and he's found that it's more extreme, it's more negative, and there's a ton more out group hatred. So if you're at a dinner party with people who you might disagree with a little bit, you tend not to be incredibly extreme in your views or incredibly hateful of their views, or you know, throwing the butter at them or something and telling them
that their entire world vie sucks. You're drinking the same bottle of wine, you're eating the same chicken, you're passing the same salt, and so in a way, this simple need to co exist with them in a space leads to a kind of sharing of values. But we don't have anything like that on the Internet, and so our conversations go berserve, you know, to blow a little bit
of smoke up of you guys. For you guys like I think this show does a wonderful job of talking to people that you disagree with and that you agree with, and modeling how to have conversations with people that you disagree with in a way that doesn't simply hate on them for the fact of their disagreement. You disagree, Okay, we're people, We disagree about stuff. That's what living in a democracy is. Now, let's have a conversation. And as
you both know, you're active on social media. It's very difficult to have those conversations on Twitter because it's so easy to just quote tweet something that Crystal says and say, oh, let me take this out of context and show you how absolutely absurd this point of view. Is Harder to do that at a dinner table, harder to do that in any kind of conversation because the other person can respond and say.
I share your values, but I disagree.
So I do think the migration of our political conversations from the physical world, where all politics is local, to the digital world, where all politics is focal, absolutely changes the nature of our politics.
I totally agree with you, Derek whenever. So in it you note a few actually good trends. Independent bookstores are booming, board game cafes are becoming a thing, but you know, it's a band aid, I think to a much bigger problem.
What are some solutions.
Is it just to be aware of the problem, Is it to actively seek things out?
What are researchers of.
Looking at for activities that seem to at least address these negative externalities.
What I would say in the big picture is that science and technology tend to move linearly and culture moves in a cycle. So like medicine tends to just get better and better and better, and computers just tend to get faster and faster and faster.
That's the story that exists. Along the line.
Culture tends to go back and forth and back and forth, like what's the style of genes these days? Skinny Mummy's rumy? Who knows culture can change? It does change, That's what makes it culture. In the first half the twentieth century, we had an enormously social century. Union marriage went up, fertility went up, the number of people who joined all
kinds of associations went up. There was a kind of moral revolution in togetherness, and it changed the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies for a variety of reasons, including perhaps just the rise of a certain kind of American individualism, or the resurgence of a certain kind of American individualism.
But culture can change.
And one thing that I want to do with this piece is just to hold up a mirror to America and say, this is what we've done to ourselves. A handful of decisions that, bit by bit, you know, one night at home, one night at home, have collectively created a world where everybody is spending a record amount of time alone.
Do you want that? Do you like the reflection in the mirror?
And I'm hoping that people say, no, I don't, And so they become a little more likely to hang out on Thursday, and that makes their friends a little more likely to invite them out the next Thursday for dinner. And that makes the friend of the friend a little bit more likely to start a book club because they see more people leaving their house. Right, little actions create norms, and cascading great behaviors, and behaviors cascading create movements.
And my hope is that the piece at the beginning of just that.
Yeah, and you also suggest though an overt sort of policy direction, which.
Is if you invest in areas.
Where there would be a communal expert, where it's like amazing. I've been to some of these, like amazing sports centers, or you've got all kinds of leagues and kids playing and adults playing, or you know, beautiful libraries. Whatever it is that might capture people's interests, that would help to get people out of their homes, off their phones and into these communal spaces, and unfortunately, what we've really seen is a lot of budget cuts for that type of
community investment. Derek, I had one more question for you on the political piece, because I thought this was an interesting insight and different than what the post Trump re elect conversation has been. You describe Trump's style as a triumph of this all tribe, no village form of confrontation politics.
A lot of the democratic life essens have been more like and maybe this is like, you know, a positive direction to go in, but not really response to the moment we live in has been more like, we need to do more outreach, we need to be nicer to people that disagree, when actually, I mean Trump isn't nice to people who disagree with him. He calls them the enemy.
He says he's gonna, you know, sick the national security state on send off the military against them, he uses every name of the book to describe his enemies, and we're not just talking about at least, we're talking about anyone who disagrees with him and his movement.
And you say, you know.
Actually, that form of politics was very successful, successful enough to put him back in the White House, successful enough to really sort of like, you know, touch on the moment culturally that we're living in. So you know, what does that mean for Democrats in terms of how they should respond to this moment?
Okay, it's a really good question, and I don't have the answer.
Not every story is the same story, right, I mean, I wrote this eight thousand and nine thousand Red piece about the phenomenon that Americans spend an historic amount of time alone, and then I think it's making them sadder individually and our society sicker because because of it. I don't want to represent this article as being a kind of Rosetta stone for the future of democratic party politics
or democratic party messaging. It might be the case that a meaner style of politics in the twenty twenties and maybe even going forward in the age of the Internet, might be more successful because people spend more time alone. And if my job were to be a political consultant. I would say, meet people where they are. They're alone, they're angry, they're spending all of their time on the internet, where they feel extreme and an enormous amount of outgroup animosity.
Meet them where they are and feed that outgrome animosity. That might be a totally reasonable strategy for winning that election. But there's a lovely concept of the difference between infinite and finite games, and finite games are made to be won, and infinite games are made to keep playing. Election is a finite game. One side wins and one side loses. But life is a kind of infinite game. You want
to keep living, you want to keep winning. And it's conceivable that the best strategies for being happy in the world might not be the best strategies for how to win political contests, like in the next midterm. Not every story is the same story, and so you want to be sure you know what question you're asking. Is the question how to win in rural Pennsylvania or is the question how to live the.
Happiest life in the next few years?
Right, this piece is focused squarely on the second question, But the first question is it's damn important and we need answers there too.
That's a really I love that response, I really do.
So we encourage everybody to go read it or listen to your podcasts as well.
Derek, thank you so much for joining us, man, We appreciate you.
Great to see Derek, thank you, thanks to both of you.
Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate you. The show is going to be late today. Sorry we talked too much, we had technical difficulties, et cetera.
It is what it is and we will see you all tomorrow.
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