Executive Disorder: Hungary Election, DoorDash Stunt, Sam Altman’s Home Attacked

not great. Just yeah. I do find it somewhat frustrating when people say this stuff only happened in the United States.

the totals I added up from their announcements. It's probably worth noting that this either suggests that they are not striking drug boats, or that their strikes on drug boats are so spectacically unsuccessful that they are still coming across in such volumes as SOUTHCOM as having to kill people at this continuing rate.

whether Trump officials sent migrants to Ol Salvador. Despite his order, DC Judge Raw wrote, the government has a clear and indisputable right determination of this judicial investigation because it is premise on an order that is insufficiently clear and specific to sustain a charge of criminal contempt. A long time court interpreter, the only one for several South Asian languages

in Texas, has been detained by ICE in airport. She has withholding of removal to India, but with third country removals now increasingly on the table, that is presumably what they intend for her. Finally, in court news, another DOJ attorney has been fined for missing deadlines in a habeas case, and once again that attorney cited a crushing caseload is the reason why they'd missed those deadlines.

settling a lawsuit over its removal. This weekend, President Trump got into a fight with the pope over the statements, again the US and Israel's war in the Middle East. The president truth that the Pope was quote weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy quote, before sharing an AI image of himself depicted as Jesus Christ. The next day, Trump claimed quote, I thought it was me as a doctor unquote.

four days if Congress does not reauthorize it. Section oh two is what lets intelligence agencies in the US collect email, phone and text communications from foreign nationals outside of the United States, which often leads to communications of American citizens being caught for obvious reasons right as well, they get kind of swept up in that big net. The FBI once has asked for and has gotten some permission to like look into that database to get information on American citizens.

Congress puts some limitation on that in twenty twenty four, but it remains very controversial and basically like one of the big debates over this is and there was a vote in twenty twenty four as to whether or not to require intelligence agencies to get a warrant before accessing American communications, and that failed to pass by a single vote in the House two twelve to two twelve split

in twenty twenty four. So right now, you know, there's both the question of is this going to get reauthorized by Congress, in which case is like the FBI is certainly going to use it to go after like the communications of quote unquote antifa, right of like people who have been caught because they've been naming foreign groups, anti fascist groups, like foreign terrorist organizations. That's very obviously like one of the things this is going to be used for.

It's kind of unclear like what is going to happen here where Congress is going to land. I did find there's an interesting article in Just Security where they're very worried that because of how very obvious it is that that federal law enforce horsement will abuse this section seven h two will just kind of go away entirely, and the useful aspects of it as they see it will

no longer be possible. That's not my primary concern, but it's interesting to read someone being like, oh my god, if these guys go so crazy, like if they keep refusing to allow warrants to be entered into the process and keep insisting on going after like anti fat like left wing domestic terrorists, they're going to lose our ability to like surveil foreign nationals entirely. It's kind of the concern from a lot of security people anyway. Just probably

good that you're aware of that. So, probably the biggest international piece of news this week that we're covering is the defeat of Victor Orbon, who was often considered to be like a quasi dictatorial figure. I mean, he arose to power in Hungary legally, but his party like as soon as he took power more than a decade ago, he's basically been cracking down on the ability of counter parties to like organize. There's been like massive crackdowns on the like ability of uh, like it's a lot of

prototype Trump stuff. Like they went after professors, they went after colleges, they went after like public funds to educational institutions, to libraries.

he was also really anti EU. You know, Hungary is a part of the EU, but Orbond's party was very E like the Fidez party was super EU critical And in the last decade and change that they've been in power, the fides Party has been massively corrupt and in fact has kind of turned the Hungarian government to the extent like you know, there was corruption before obviously, but he's woven his party into the very workings of the government, primarily as a way to collect money from people and

to distribute government funds to like these right wing pet projects that they had, which we'll I'll talk about a little more in a second. But this started to piss people off and hungry, particularly because the government wasn't doing a good job of governing, Like the Hungarian economy remained one of the worst in Europe. Unemployment remained high. Like none of the promises that like, well, if we're if we kind of push the EU away, and if we keep all if we keep these migrants out, the economy

will get better. What really happened was Fidez robbed everyone blind and Orbond robbed everyone blind and put his cronies in positions of power in the hope that he would never be forced out. Now, Orbon's an interesting figure in part because he got his start as a pro democracy

figure during the latter years of communism in Hungary. He was a liberal like democratic activist and in fact, the guy who just beat him, Peter Magyar, we'll talk about his name also in a second, grew up with like a poster of Orbon on his bedroom wall because Orbon, you know again, communism was coming to an end. Everyone was very excited. All the young people were very excited about democracy, and Orbon was like a figure and I

think he was still. He was never like a leftist figure when I say liberal, but he was a figure of like democratizing values. Now Magyar himself is an odd guy. He's forty five years old and the party that he ran with, the Tisa Party Tisza, was a party before him, but like not a living one really, like it had been a political party and it had basically died out to irrelevance. I think they had a couple of dudes

kind of kicking around. It's almost like if there were still a tiny wig party that like four five guys met in like twice a year to like have their little wig meeting the bull coming back. That some guy who's like a Barack Obama level political mind in terms of his skill in organizing and charisma came in and turned that party into a fucking electoral powerhouse that completely annihilated the previous leading party in an election. Like that's

basically what happened in Hungary. It's a very weird story. And Magyar is definitely brilliant in terms of he is someone who is objectively very intelligent when it comes to how to build power in a political organization and how to win elections and how to message to people. He's very good at all of that stuff. Now, this is not like a leftist or a progressive like hero type figure, and he has not pretended to be, to be very clear, that's not how he built himself at all. In fact,

in some ways he's more conservative than his party. That tis a party is like even like Orbon at least had like a guest worker program and stuff, and Maggar's against even a lot of that stuff, Like he is actually more hostile to having like like immigration but he's not anti EU and he's not. What's interesting is like he's really kind of hedging in between, like hedging his

I don't know entirely how to describe this. He's like writing a very weird line because he is not anti Ukraine, but he's also against Hungary sending weapons ay directly to Ukraine. But his old attitude is like I'm not super pro what you guys are doing, but I'm not gonna fight

anything in the EU Parliament. Hungary's going to stop. Hungary has been like a spoiler in EU politics for a while, where they would just kind of vote to fuck with whatever their EU wants to do, especially used to regards aiding Ukraine and Magyar's whole thing is like I'm just gonna stop, like I'm not gonna ful throatedly support the stuff you guys want. I'm just gonna stop being an anchor playing you down, which is enough like for the

EU to be excited about this. Yeah, like, finally this guy Hungary is not going to be and it's Hungary is a weird history of acting like an anchor on other polities. Sometimes that's kind of what was going on in the Austro Hungarian Empire and like the pre World War One era where Hungary saw itself as very separate from the Austria Hungary aspect of things and would vote to like fuck with the military because they wanted their

own military to get more powerful. It's not entirely the same, it's just interesting the level of like contrarianists that's kind of baked into a lot of Hungarian politics. I mentioned something about Peter's name, So the mag Yards are like the original like nomadic horse warrior people of the area we know is Hungary today, the name Magyar just means Hungarian now, but it came from the most powerful of

these tribes of nomadic warriors. And someone had made a point of this on I waside of Twitter or Blue Sky around the election that like Peter Maggar is basically if a guy was named Johnny American, right like that that's like literally like his name could not be more patriotic.

under Orbon right. And he'd worked as like a diplomat in Brussels, so he's like a guy who's part of

this government apparatus that Orbon puts into place. But in twenty twenty fours there's this huge scandal where the Ministry of Justice and like his wife by which I mean his well now his ex wife because they split, and then his ex wife pardons a man who had gotten convicted for covering up a sex abuse scandal at children's home, and Magyar becomes like one of the most visible figures on the backlash, being like this entire party is corrupt, this is super fucked up, and he's coming from a

position of and I was a part of it, so I know, like I'm an insider who's broken from the group because how corrupt and bad this is, and there's some messed up stuff in there. Magyar does attack orbon and fidez because his ex wife gets fired along with another woman when this scandal becomes a problem, and he accuses the government of like hiding behind women's skirts. But

he's also got he's an odd per. There's some uncomfortable not damning or anything, just some like uncomfortable realities about him. And I want to read a quote from an NPR article that came out recently that talks about some of this.

Magyar has blamed the end of his marriage to Varga, at least in part on political disagreements, notably, just months before the divorce was finalized in twenty twenty three, he's secretly recorded one of their conversations, and it was talking about an attempt by government aids to interfere in a corruption case. Magart released a recording in the wake of the pardon scandal the following year, which only added fuel to the fire and credence to his corruption claims, and

his wife resigns from public life altogether after this. She has accused him of verbal and physical abuse, including like locking her in a room, And obviously, like the whole recording account, there's a lot of there's some uncomfortable stuff about this guy. But that said, she's also super corrupt and like doing a lot of really, so I don't know, and no one really does. If you read a lot

about this guy. One of the things people point is that we don't evenly know a lot about him other than he's really good at whipping a party into shape and winning an election. Right Like, he proved that much, But we don't know much about him. Even Orbond has made anti LGBTQ writes a big part of his platform, especially as his his position has gotten weaker. He's tried to like supercharge that as a way to hold on to power. Magyar's not pro queer rights, but he's not

anti queer rights. He has criticized the urban government from going after LGBTQ people and says that they're doing it to distract citizens from the issues, which is true. He said that he supports the right to assembly, he has not said that he supports LGBTQ rights. That said, if going from a guy who's like, I actively want to prosecute people for being queer to a guy who's like, I just don't want to talk about it is probably an improvement.

SEAPAC gatherings in Hungary. So like SEAPAC has been getting money from the Hungarian government, and Magear said, like, that's not fine, We're not okay with that. I think that's actually illegal. And he has also noted that that government money was going to support the Matthias Corvinus College or MCC, which was receiving funds from the Orbanne government and that that is going to stop now. The MCC is both

like it. It's an organization in Hungary, but they also have a bunch of like foreign They've got one in like Romania, there's one in Brussels. They have like a bunch of foreign branches, and they use the MCC and fund it in order to fund the far right in other European countries. Right, like the MCC supports like the one in Brussels supports in Brussels local fire right groups and it's been very a fairly effective way of funding some of these like and oftentimes like Nazi adjacent organizations,

and that money is looking to go away. And there's an interesting Politico article about some of this that talk to the MCC Brussels people like the offshoot of this in Brussels. For its part, MCC Brussels said that Sunday's election result will have no bearing on its work in the city. As an independent organization. We will continue to research, analyze and advocate around our core concerns and continue to

hold the European Union institutions to account. That's the communications manager, and the article goes onto note mcc Brussels gets almost alledge cash ninety nine percent, coming to just over six million euros according to its listing in the last financial year as part of a grant from Matthias Corvinus Collegiate, which received a ten percent stake in Hungary's lucrative oil and gas company MOL from Orbn's government in twenty twenty.

That's certainly going away too. This is a major blow to far right organizing in Europe and in the United States. And it's more than just losing money, losing a space to gather, it's losing a proof of concept.

But that doesn't mean that it's a bad thing. That all that is out now that Aubank conceded, right, Like, he had multiple US politicians, including the Vice president, campaigning for him, and he lost, and he admitted he lost, and that is a very good sign.

lobby for this policy a bunch. She shows up all over the place, like testifying in front of congressional committees and stuff about no tax for tips and like or like legislatures all over the country. There's a whole bunch of kind of funny stuff where she gets asked if she would vote for Trump and whether she supports trans athletes, and she's just like eh. There's also a whole story about sort of door Dash's pr person just having a crash out and getting extremely mad online.

be true. It's just mathematically a lie. The actual policy and the Guardian's doing some good work on this lays out quote. But the no tax on tips policy is only a temporary deduction of up to twenty five thousand dollars in tips for eligible workers annually. Tipped workers still have to report their tips as income. So there's a lot of things going on here. One this is all all of the tax on tips off is temporary. We

talked about this when it came out. It was designed to sort of phase out the moment Trump leaves office or supposed to leave office, and b DoorDash also later had to say, oh no, no, no, no, she did not save eleven thousand dollars in tax money on tips. They were like, no, no, no, she made eleven thousand dollars in tips and didn't have to pay taxes on it. But first off, she did not make eleven thousand dollars on tips. Like, you can't make eleven thousand dollars in

tips doing DoorDash delivery. It's basically impossible. And I'm very sure that she didn't do this because also if you look at and the Guardian with you or not the Guardian, I'm ink with you some of the earlier you know, interviews, because she's been on a PR circuit about this for

a while. She was on Fox News, and on Fox News she claims that she'd saved three to four thousand dollars and then eventually that like number amount of money that she'd saved eventually gets bumped up to eleven thousand. I think though, what happened is that she maybe got she's claiming originally that she got like three thousand dollars in tips. There's also another issue here, which is at

like eleven thousand dollars. It's like not clear if that's even enough money to qualify as having to pay income taxes in Alaska. Like this is all, this is all

basically just a nightmare. And but the reason this is all actually happening is that the note tax on tips thing is this giant pr campaign that door Dash, particularly DoorDash, but also some of the other uh, some of the other companies have been doing as basically a propaganda thing in order to avoid there being attention on the fact that they just don't pay their workers a living wage

and what so. One of the really important things that's almost never talked about with DoorDash and with with all of these sort of like these these delivery apps, right, is that if you are a restaurant worker and you're making something for a DoorDash order, and this is particularly like you know, for example, if you work at a coffee shop, right, you don't get tips on door dash orders. So when

when when when when these things? When these orders started coming through in like sort of the past like five six, eight years, right, what happened was that this was basically a giant everyone who's working like in a restaurant or in a in like a cafe or whatever you're getting it from. Those people all had massive speed ups where they just don't get and they don't and they don't get paid the regular tips that they would you know, be relying on to even sort of have a living

wage wage. Right, So these people all got speed ups. And then on top of that, right, so you are, if you're ordering from one of these sites, right, you're probably are paying a tip. But that tip money has basically been you know, it's been extracted from the restaurant workers. But then now it's being used as a way to subsidize, right, as a way to subsidize door dash not paying actual

fucking wages. And so what this entire project is is is it's this It's this giant attempt to basically continue this process and solidify this process and stop all of the organizing campaigns that have been happening against door dash

to get them to like actually fucking pay people. And what's happening instead is that they're trying they're trying to shift everyone's focus to like, oh, hey, we can give you like no tax on tips, even though what these tips are and what the system that they've built is is a is it system to basically exploit both restaurant workers and also specifically to make sure they don't ever have to fucking pay their workers any amount of money.

And that's the actual that's the actual political ramifications of what's happening here beyond guy has funny crash out in social media, and I think it's very bleak that there's been basically no coverage of the sort of totality of what this is doing to people.

for president back in twenty twenty. You might remember him from the Yeah, Good, Okay clip of where he tried to talk to Bernie Sanders as Bernie and Elizabeth Warren were beefing on stage after a presidential debate.

stand against Ice or Trump. California must build a system that fights fire with fire to stop this authoritarian takeover. We must counter Ice head on and go after both their agents on the streets and their leadership within the DHS. How do we do this the same way we took on the mob, put ICE agents and their leadership in jail for their crimes, because that's how you take on a violent extremist group and win. Stire promises to do five things as governor to build this strategy to take

on Ice. First, passing aggressive legislation building on current California statutes, to outlaw any law enforcement agency from profiling based on race, ethnicity, language, occupation, or location. This directly takes on the Kevanagh stops which were approved last fall.

but the leadership directing them to do so. Unquote. Stier promise is to appoint and fund a special investigative unit that's specifically tasked with enforcing these California laws quote, including laws related to the conditions at detention facilities. This unit will collect the evidence the Attorney General can use to prosecute offenders and their leadership. Quote. That's how he plans to take on ICE and leadership at the DHS and

to prosecute crimes committed by ICE agents. Now, Stier also says that he will quote bring those detained and kidnapped by Ice back home by expanding the immigration legal defense infrastructure in the state of California, including funding for quote, more attorneys, investigators, and accredited representatives, as well as legal aid and law school programs to assist and help those who have been imprisoned without due process unquote.

motions for their attorneys to attend their hearings remotely. And what that does is effectively like bleeds to program, right, because then this attorney has to fly to Texas for a fifteen minute hearing about rescheduling or something similar. I would need to There's a lot of other stuff here, like law school programs that's interesting. I don't know what those would be. There needs to be something that stops them doing that, because that is what they did under

Biden too. This is a This is not a Trump era thing. This is very much something that happened to under Biden, and it will happen again if the state of California does this on a statewide level. I will imagine, I would imagine, especially like let's entertain the idea that we have an election in twenty twenty eight, we have a Democrat president, I still has a massively expanded detention capacity.

It could very easily move people out of California very quickly. Yeah, and so we need, like there need to be awareness of that. I would also say that, like, one of the tools that I don't see mentioned here that I think should be mentioned is SB fifty four in California, SB fifty four. They're obviously there were different SB fifty four when I'm talking about a California Values Act here, the one that prohibits law enforcement cooperation except for certain

exemptions with immigration authorities. That already exists. It's already there. And like this is his statements, pretty brief for his PDFs, only three pages. It might not go into all this detail. I would like to see that flagged, at least in in further detail or when he's speaking about this, right, because SB fifty four prosecutions of cops are important, right because there are California agencies which appear to be flouting California law in order to comply with Trump's immigration goals.

And if we don't do that first, then I have a lot less faith that any of this other shit is going to matter.

Maybe it will be. I am going to email his office and ask some of these questions.

court unquote. So he sees all these things like working in conjunction together to prosecute ICE agents and give immigrants legal representations so that this so that the investigative unit can be aware of certain crimes by ICE agents. It's the most that I've seen any politician like put down as like an actual plan to go after ICE. Like some other people have employed this sort of this sort of rhetoric, but in terms of actually producing a plan to go about this, this is the most detailed that

I've seen. And as James said, it'll be good to learn more about how he envisions this actually going into effect and those certain details that it would be nice to have more detail on. But as as as rhetoric and as an actual policy proposal, this is like the most advanced thing I've seen on actually trying to prosecute ICE and DHS.

some of this or prevented it. Rather, in their finding, their alleged attorneys were prevented from meeting with their clients, forced to make appointments, and we've seen some reporting on the physical abuse. I have not seen as much discussion

of this, which I think is extremely concerning. Attorneys have been asked to submit copies of legal documents that they are bringing or to go over with their clients right like this would be a very clear violation of their attorney client privilege right that those communications should be private between the attorney and the client, and the facility denied detainees access to phones. This was part of the previous court order they were to have access to phones and

communications with their attorneys, as well as smile stuff. They had to be advised their rights posters explaining some of this stuff. This resulted in demands and the parts of the detainees to restore their access to phones. I want to quote at length from the filing here just so

I don't make any false representations. Quote. After not having access to phone calls all day, people in their cages were getting frustrated with the situation, as these phone calls are the only way people can contact loved ones, speak with and secure an attorney. Detained individuals in mister Morphia and mister Hernandez Galband's cage began complaining loudly about the

phones not working. Mister Morphia and mister Hernandez Galband both reported that several guards who worked for CRS at the entity managing the facility came to the cage and were taunting the detained individuals inside. Detained individuals began raising their voices in protests. The guards got more aggressive and were yelling and threatening to enter the cage. Mister Hernandez Galband went to the guards to try and de espiate the situation and advise the guards not to enter the cage

at that time, fearing it would lead to violence. Mister Morphy and mister Hernande's galband both reported that another detained individual then went to the guards and an officer punched that person. Then the officers targeted mister Morphy. Neither mister Morphy nor mister Hernande's garband know why they targeted mister Morphy. The guards threw mister Morphy to the ground and severely beat him up. An officer came in and punched mister Morphy in his right eye and began to beat him.

He was taken out the cage and thrown to the ground and beaten by multiple guards. He suffered injuries to his shoulder and arm, and was kicked in the head. A guard placed their knee on his neck when the guard was trying to restrain him. Mister Morphy does not know which guards are involved, as they do not wear id badges, but he believes he would recognize them. The officers beat several other people during this incident and broke

another detained individual's wrist. The officers then pepper sprayed everyone in the cage. A detained older gentleman passed out as he could not breathe. That's pretty horrific.

to look them up. You can see some very clearly injured people, or you can see at least one very clearly injured person.

and host ceasefire talks between the United States and Iran. Ultimately, this did not result in an enduring agreement between the US and Iran, and as a result, the United States has begun blockading Iranian ports. So far, several vessels have been turned around by the US blockade, and at least one that tried to run it was eventually turned back, even though it attempted to hug the Iranian coastline in

order to avoid consequences. The US Navy has also issued instructions which seemed to suggest that it could target shadow fleet vessels globally as part of the blockade if they're carrying a number of contraband items, which includes basically Iranian oil all its derivatives, weapons, some metals, and industrial supplies. It's a very broad list of contraband. In the thirteen claimed instances of ships being turned around so far, I have not seen any in which it was a physical interdiction.

It seems that the United States ships contacted them by radio advising them of the blockade. The blockade has not currently stopped some types of cargoes entering Iran. The notice a mariner suggests that humanitarian supplies can enter, but those vessels are subject to inspection. If this causes a cooling effect or just a reduction in the ability of Iran to bring in more food, this could cause serious food shortages. There's always been There's already been massive food price inflation

the war. Brigan and Iran had previously tried to work around this, but a complete blockade would make that hard. It does seem that negotiating between the US and Iran or ongoing. We're recording this on Thursday, and the latest thing that I had seen has suggested that Iran is saying it might allow traffic through the Strait if its assets are unfrozen. This hinges on the idea that Iran gets to decide who goes through the strait. Right, the strait is wider than twelve twelve miles is generally the

territorial waters, right just so it is international waters. So the idea that Iran controls it. If the US signs some kind of deal which implies or outright says, that would be a massive victory for Iran, right at least in that area. Meanwhile, the United States is amassing a massive naval force in the region, with three carrier strike groups either there or heading there. That is approx. Many of the usas Navy. Interestingly, the George H. W. Bush is going around Africa to go there.

This week a peschemerger of the Commala of the Toilers of Kurdistan, Ghazal Molan, a young Kurdish woman, died after sustaining injuries in a strike on Tuesday. It seems that it was very hard for the Kammala to find medical care for her. I'm going to quote from a peace by the Hannah human rights organization here quote. She then required urgent, higher level treatment, including advanced imaging, specialist trauma care,

and intensive care support. Hannah has received serious allegations that the necessary treatment was not provided, and that the subsequent efforts to secure admission or transfer to other hospitals were delayed or refused. The central allegation under review is that once the case was understood to be connected to a drone strike and to carry political sensitivity, non medical considerations

may have affected decisions concerning her admission and treatment. That's pretty bleak if it's true, relative that this person could have survived, but hospitals either feared political consequences or being struck themselves, they decided. And there's a you can look at the show notes right that they link, and they talk about a number of hospitals that they basically drove her around trying to find care. It's really heartbreaking. Again.

Other strikes have hit civilian facilities, including refugee camps sort of associated with the rogulati groups in Kurdistan, and that seems to be that there is no cease fire for the Kurds. Right. It's the long and the short of it. A run around is taking this time of peace negotiations to kind of reorganize its military and to reassess its supplies. Even they have dug out some missiles and anti air systems that were buried but not destroyed by rites, and

so they will be preparing for whatever comes next. If people want to know more about this, I made a whole episode which would have come out the day before this in the same feed, so you can listen to it there.

driveway leading to Altman's residence. Then, at around five am, Moranogama arrived at the open AI headquarters and tried to use a chair to break into the building through the glass doors, but was stopped by security. According to security personnel on site, Moranogama stated that he came to the headquarters to burn it down and kill anyone inside. A federal affidavit alleges that after detaining Miranogama, officers recovered quote incendiary devices, a jug of kerosene, a blue lighter, and

an ANTIAI document unquote. This document was a three part manifesto apparently authored by Moranogama. The first part was tied quote your Last Warning, and allegedly states that Maranogama quote killed slash attempted to kill Sam Altman, also writing quote, if I'm going to advocate for others to kill and commit crimes, that I must lead by example and show that I am fully sincere in my message. The document then listed the names and addresses of investors, board members,

and executives of AI companies. The second part of the document was titled some More Words on the Matter of Our Impending Extinction. This section discussed the purported risk AI poses to humanity. The third part of the document was a letter addressed quote to Sam Altman, if you make it and read some part quote, if by some miracle you live, then I would take this as a sign

from the divine to redeem yourself quote. Maranogama's Instagram user name was but larryan G. Hottist, in reference to the crusade against AI in the Dune novels.

a superior race and wipe out or enslave humanity. In a post from January sixth, twenty twenty six, he writes that AI will quote lead to human extinction because of the quote rapid progress in artificial intelligence unquote, as well as that AI models are not aligned with humanity's interests. To quote this essay, ignore for a second these models current limitations or questions on how truly intelligent or conscious these models may actually be. The truth is all of

these nuances are completely irrelevant to my argument. There are only two questions we should be concerned about at this moment. Is it willing to kill to preserve itself? And is it capable of doing so? Signs indicate that AI is willing and becoming potentially capable of doing both these things, and that is all that matters. We are dead if

we do not act now unquote. He recommended that people read Eliezer Yudkowski's book If Anyone builds It, Everyone Dies, and other posts on his substack also mentioned Yudkowski's work. Who's one of the four fathers of quote unquote rationalism rationalist thought, and writes a lot about Ai like doom. AI will bring apart the end of humanity.

all Yudkowski stuff. So he's been kind of marinating in that, and you know, this is what somebody who's not like this is, unfortunately kind of the logical extent of Yodkowski's ideas, Like he would say he doesn't want anyone doing stuff like this, but his literal contention is that this is going to kill everyone and everything like and it will inevitably do it unless stopped and if you really do believe that, you're kind of like left to act like

these guys do. I think the responsible thing is for there to be an anti AI movement that's not rooted in nonsense, which is again why we do the stuff that we do, because I'm very much against a lot

of this shit. Not because it's going to create a god that kills everybody, but because it makes the the Internet a lot worse and makes human thinking a lot worse, and it puts a lot of money into shitty people's hands, and is just often unnecessary in many of its applications and outwardly like making some things worse, and that's not great.

you know, like that's not a benefit to society. And I'm really angry at it, and it's frustrating to see people getting radicalized to it literally attack AI people for bullshit reasons like and honestly, Altman's partly to blame for this. He's one of the people who has fanned the flames of we might be making an evil god.

initiating mass deportations. He proposes a system of IQ or merit based nationalism, basically a country where citizenship is determined by IQ, and a program to advance quote ethical eugenics in the third world to promote IQ growth genetically unquote.

a citizen. It's all very kind of confused. And on Tuesdayagama's public defender set in court that he has quote a history of autism and mental health illness, and that his actions quote appear to have been driven by an AQ to mental health crisis.

No arrests have been made connected to that incident. I think I should also just briefly mention the warehouse fire thing, which I did a full episode on earlier this week that you can listen to, but kind of in short, just as for midnight on April seventh, a twenty nine year old warehouse worker named Schammel abdul Kareem allegedly set a toilet paper warehouse on fire in Ontario, California, leased

by the company Kimberly Clark. Abdul Kareem allegedly filmed himself igniting three pallets of paper products on fire while saying aloud, if you're not going to pay us enough to fucking live or afford to live, at least least pay us enough not to do this shit. All you had to do was pay us enough to live. There goes your inventory unquote. According to the DOJ, this fire caused over half a billion dollars in damages. That's five hundred million

in profit and one hundred million in infrastructure. In the days after the fire, people started sharing viral clips of other warehouse fires across the country, asserting that a wave of copycat incidents were occurring where underpaid employees were setting their workplaces on fire. Now none of these subsequent warehouse fires have yet been deemed arson. Most are still under investigation, but some do have suspected accidental causes, such as electrical failure,

exploding lithium ion batteries, and improperly mixed waste. At least one fire was at an abandoned warehouse, so there was no disgruntled worker setting his workplace on fire in that instance. Most certainly, and warehouse fires themselves, are actually pretty common. A report from the National Fire Protection Association found that from twenty twenty to twenty twenty four, an average of

four warehouse fire occurred per day. The idea that the number of warehouse fires has suddenly increased is an instance of selective reporting, where a big national news story causes people to share local reports that appear connected even if there is no direct connection. This happens a lot with aviation incidents, where after news of an accident involving a big commercial airliner, people will share local news reports of plane crashes, even if these just involve small private planes

which crash much more frequently. Now. I wrote about the warehouse fire story and the viral misinformation associated with it because I've been pretty consistent about the need to have an accurate understanding of the world in order to change it. But also, even if viral claims of copycat fires are unfounded, the memes and the reactions to the story, like Luigi Mangioni, do demonstrate a form of class consciousness and do show

an act of willingness to rally behind such action. The toilet paper arson story specifically, is really compelling because this is just an everyday worker. This isn't like a maoist bombing plot, this isn't an anarchist affinity group. It's not hard to grasp the motivation and politics of a worker saying all you had to do was pay us a

living wage. That said, passive engagement with content promoting individuals to venturism can serve as a cathartic substitute for taking political action, including the relatively tedious and difficult work of union organizing. Memes like this warehouse fire trend can have

a positive outcome. If the sort of energy that's channeled through this direct action and associated content could then be utilized towards actually building a labor movement instead of just being a way for influencers to attract engagement, which is why a lot of this story has kind of perforated through Reddit, TikTok, Instagram and blue sky and Twitter. So that's kind of why I talked about the story the

way I did in that episode. And if you want more details about this viral meme, you can check our that episode from a few days ago. Let's see. I think that's everything.