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You are listening to a free version

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of the majority report by Sam's Theater.

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To support this show and get another fifteen

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minutes of daily

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program, Good majority. F

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m, please. The

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majority report with

0:17

Sam Cedar. It

0:19

is Thursday, January

0:22

nineteenth twenty twenty three.

0:25

My name is Emma Vigeland, in for Cedar,

0:27

and this is five time award winning

0:29

majority report. We

0:31

are broadcasting live steps.

0:35

From the industrially ravaged Guam's canal

0:37

in the heartland of America, downtown

0:40

Brooklyn USA. On

0:43

the program today, Adrian

0:45

Hahn, Game Designer, an

0:48

author of You've been played, a

0:50

corporation's governments and schools

0:52

use games to control us all. And

0:55

later in the show, Alex Sammon, politics

0:58

writer at SLAIT will be joining us

1:00

once again to talk about Kathy

1:02

Hochul's nomination fight

1:06

for the chief judge in

1:09

the Court of Appeals in the state of New York.

1:12

A conservative nut job, and

1:15

she's acting pretty crazy

1:16

herself. No. I can say

1:18

that. A lot of

1:20

-- So moody. --

1:23

sorry. Hard and scruggable.

1:26

Inscrutable. Yeah. The

1:29

US has officially hit its arbitrary,

1:32

unnecessary self enclosed debt

1:34

limit. The timer

1:36

is set for a summer showdown

1:38

on the debt, where Republicans

1:41

will try to force cuts to Social Security

1:44

Medicare. The

1:47

oversight committee, which is the main investigative

1:49

body in the house, will now be populated by

1:52

election deniers like Paul Gossard,

1:55

Warren Beaubert, and Marjorie Taylor

1:57

Green. SEEMS

1:59

PROBLEMATIC. IT'S INTEREST. Reporter: CUSTOMS

2:03

DOCUMENTS HAVE SHOWN THAT GEORGE SANTOS' MOTHER

2:06

RE CLAIMED or she he claims she

2:08

died in nine eleven. He was not in

2:10

the country at the time. And

2:13

how many Panocios does he have at this point

2:15

in Washington Post? Because This time you can

2:17

make the little pinocchio and drag. Right?

2:21

Two people tell Reuters and show photographic

2:24

evidence that Santos participated in

2:26

drag pageants in Brazil. Blake

2:31

Masters and Cary Lake are apparently both considering

2:33

a run. Again, oddly

2:36

seems like Massachusetts case for the senate.

2:38

This time for cinema seat in twenty twenty

2:40

four and I'm gonna be honest, that's

2:43

more vulnerable than Kelly's. Cathy

2:47

Hochul's anti labor, an anti abortion

2:49

pick for New York top judgeship has been

2:51

rejected in the state senate judiciary

2:54

committee. As I mentioned, more

2:56

on that later in the program, The

2:59

scientists is ordering Florida's public

3:01

universities to submit info

3:04

to the state on

3:06

care that they provide for trans people. California

3:12

just joined other states to become the largest

3:15

to sue pharma companies over

3:17

insulin prices. Israel's

3:21

supreme court ruled that one of Netanyahu's closest

3:24

ministers is unfit to serve because

3:26

of crimes he's committed. Also

3:29

because Netanyahu's far right coalition is

3:31

trying to seize control of the judiciary.

3:36

New Zealand's prime minister, Ardern,

3:38

is stepping down in a surprise

3:40

move. And

3:42

lastly, Microsoft is laying off ten

3:44

thousand workers, its largest cuts

3:46

since twenty fourteen in part of a larger

3:49

trend with tech companies. As

3:52

another bubble looms.

3:55

All this and more

3:58

on today's majority

4:01

report Welcome

4:03

to the show everybody. Good

4:05

to see you on an m majority report

4:07

Thursday, a one here in

4:09

New York. But

4:11

we have a big, you know, a pack show today.

4:14

I wanted to make sure that we got somebody on

4:16

this. It really insane. Fight

4:18

in New York. And it's not niche

4:20

because it's become a national story for a

4:22

reason. What Kathy trying to do

4:24

here and Yeah. I mean,

4:26

Democrats elite leadership Democrats

4:28

acting like basically Republicans and

4:31

they I think the left wing, like,

4:34

DSA sort of wing is playing the

4:36

important role in Oh, yes. So, I

4:38

mean, I think it's important. There's

4:40

two things that have essentially changed. Since

4:42

Cuomo was stacking the judiciary with

4:44

conservatives. One, it's

4:46

Kathy Hockel. She doesn't have the name Cuomo.

4:49

She doesn't have the political clout. She doesn't have the

4:51

decades of of goodwill built

4:53

up or I should say, you know, kind of corruption

4:55

self healing. The dynasty. Yeah. That allowed Cuomo

4:58

to to behave in the manner that he did.

5:00

And secondly, as Matt said, the

5:03

the left was successful in electing

5:05

strong leftist. And I to the state

5:08

senate, and that's been incredibly important. I

5:10

think people like Alex Avenue have been the ones to point this

5:12

out, but, like, Cuomo wouldn't have picked

5:14

such a a public losing

5:16

fight like this. Like like this sort of

5:18

thing where it's you're putting

5:20

a labor on the side of the, like, DSA

5:23

wing of of the left. Like, you

5:25

shouldn't be doing that so publicly

5:28

-- Right. -- like this. She does

5:30

not know she does not have his political in a

5:32

Thursday. And it

5:35

is it's it's also incredibly jarring

5:37

after winning an election. It just makes it so clear.

5:39

Like, you were

5:40

Well, and how they won? Yes. Kind of disappointing

5:42

way

5:42

-- Mhmm. --

5:43

it then performed because of people like

5:45

Coco.

5:45

Right. There's a reason she was a one term congressperson

5:48

and was picked by Cuomo essentially to be

5:50

a doorstop for him as lieutenant governor.

5:52

Right. And he and if if he had never had

5:54

the scandal, he would have kept there for for

5:56

as long as he could be governor because he

5:58

knew how bad of a politician she

6:00

was, and she would have never gotten anywhere without

6:02

his scandals.

6:02

Yeah. I was on premise. She's had to pick successor

6:05

to a disgraced politician. Mhmm.

6:07

I can't wait to talk about that

6:10

with Alex. But for now, let's check-in

6:12

on Joe Mansion. Joe

6:14

Mansion still at Davos, I would

6:16

imagine. And this is where he's

6:19

speaking with Maria Berturomo

6:21

in oh, in Switzerland. Oh.

6:25

Yeah. I I just I

6:28

I thought Davos was, like, floating in the

6:30

Hey. I am a senior employee. Thought the same thing

6:32

too. I was like, I never thought of Davos having

6:34

a country. As always. As, like, possessing

6:36

any sort of nationality.

6:38

Right. Right. I mean It's a Jetson

6:40

style platform above Europe

6:42

somewhere. I yeah. Or some sort of like

6:44

FIFO like system in which there's

6:46

bribery involved. How can we get dabbles

6:49

to our country? But

6:51

I was in Brazil in two thousand nineteen.

6:53

Sammon displace millions of people

6:56

for that purpose. Regardless, Bartaroma,

7:00

there as well as the of business news,

7:02

speaking to to Hochul's like senator Joe

7:04

Manchin. And here's

7:07

this interview in which he is

7:09

asked about the upcoming debt fight officially,

7:12

the United States has hit its

7:14

completely arbitrary debt limit

7:16

point as of today, and

7:19

yelling the treasury is

7:21

gonna shift money around until

7:23

really the last minute because June

7:25

is when I think the

7:27

crap is gonna hit the fan. Democrats

7:29

would be smart to preempt that, but not

7:31

in the way that Joe Manchin is

7:33

suggesting here.

7:36

WELCOME BACK, LEADERS FROM ACROSS

7:38

THE WORLD IN A NUMBER OF SECTORS

7:40

GATHERING HERE IN DABOS TO DISCUSS ISSUES

7:43

RANGING FROM THE GLOBAL ECONOMY TO climate

7:45

change and energy. And that extends to the

7:47

whole sector. Tax office. Earlier this

7:49

morning, I sat down with West Virginia senator

7:51

Joe Matchin for a first on Fox business interview

7:53

about the debt ceiling by partisanship and

7:55

bringing back America's energy

7:58

independence. Sam

8:01

talked to

8:01

Well, we have to work together. It's gonna

8:04

take us a bipartisan. It's always been bipartisan

8:06

as far as a debt ceiling. I think what

8:08

we have to do is realize that we have a

8:10

problem. We haven't we have a debt problem.

8:12

We're thirty one, I think thirty-one point

8:14

four trillion, a public debt right now.

8:16

And all we're saying is should we not

8:18

make sure that we all recognize how

8:20

we got there, how we prevent from going

8:22

further? So Yeah. We're

8:23

positive. I'm sorry. The trust fund. That number

8:26

Medicare Sorry. That is we we

8:28

will go back, but we just gotta do a little bit of

8:30

a rolling fact check here. That that number is

8:32

accurate. But when he calls it a public debt,

8:34

when there's that kind of debt and by the way,

8:36

the deficits have been reduced over

8:38

the past

8:39

year. But when there's that kind of debt, that means there's

8:41

a surplus in the public sector. Yeah.

8:43

So A surplus that leads to things like

8:45

Joe mentioned driving a hundred

8:47

thousand dollar Maserati that's one of the most

8:49

gas gasoline vehicles on

8:51

earth. Yeah.

8:52

if he wanted to claw that back

8:54

-- Taxes. -- he would suggest

8:56

tax Sammon, taxes on people

8:58

like him. So it might be harder to buy a

9:01

bit of

9:01

Maserati, although he'd figure it out in

9:03

the end. Yeah. I

9:06

need my Maserati. We need kids to be

9:08

hungry, or we need to balance his budget by making

9:10

kids hungrier. But like let's be fair to him. Maybe

9:12

he will suggest taxation. Okay. Yeah.

9:14

Sure.

9:16

Here's my mouse. Okay. Sorry. What we're

9:18

saying is, should we not make sure that we

9:20

all recognize how we got there,

9:22

how we prevent from going further?

9:24

So let's take our trust, the trust

9:26

funds. Whether Medicare, Social Security,

9:28

or Highway Trust, you can't let those

9:30

go be fucked as far as and and

9:32

what we're saying is we have a trust act. And

9:34

we would put different committees bipartisan, by

9:36

camel committees together to look at each one

9:38

of the trust and come up with solutions

9:41

of how you fix it. We're not

9:43

getting rid of anything and you can't scare the bejesus out

9:45

of people we're gonna get rid of Social Security.

9:47

We're gonna privatize. That's not gonna

9:49

but we should be able to solidify the

9:51

people that so different about how they're gonna get it.

9:53

And that's what we're talking about, and then I've talked to

9:55

Kevin McCarthy briefly about that. I'm gonna

9:57

spend more time to find out how we can bring

9:59

things together, then we should do that,

10:01

and that guarantees it comes to the floor for

10:03

a vote. So the American people

10:05

see. That we have some solutions. It

10:07

might pass and it might not. And then

10:09

we should look at something the Bose Simpson was a brave

10:12

attempt at trying to get our finances under

10:14

control. We didn't do it. That

10:16

needs to come to a vote also. So we could do

10:18

a hybrid of that. If we can do that

10:20

and we'll say, okay, we agree to raise the debt saying

10:22

as long as we agree to identify, the

10:24

debt we have and how we start reducing

10:26

it. So you feel that you can hijack

10:29

some areas to cut in terms of

10:31

wasteful spending. Most certainly, you can look at

10:33

that. But basically, Yeah.

10:33

That that this this park's key. But Oh,

10:36

sorry. Yeah. I was just gonna the the entire premise

10:38

is, like, yeah, we're spending too much. No. We're not

10:40

taking in enough revenue and

10:42

people, like, it's so

10:44

ludicrous that we have this, like,

10:46

insane culture that glorifies

10:48

wealth. Mhmm. Right? Like, all these shows about,

10:50

look at me flip this house. I'm basically,

10:52

like, a moron, but

10:54

I'm in real estate now, and I sold to

10:56

Beverly Hills House for AA2

10:58

hundred thousand dollar commission. Right? Like, there's money in

11:00

this country. Yeah. Also, we

11:02

the the constant preaching about

11:04

balancing your budget and being fiscally

11:06

responsible from people who have locked

11:08

into millions and millions of dollars where they'll

11:10

never have to actually make that kind of --

11:12

Yeah. -- choice is that's

11:16

something else. But so there he

11:18

is suggesting a,

11:21

essentially, a a bipartisan committee

11:23

that he's been speaking with Kevin McCarthy on. And

11:25

this is key because If

11:27

the Democrats the Democrats need mansion

11:29

and cinema to hold the line on this and

11:31

not cave to Republican

11:33

demands, ransom for cuts to

11:36

Medicare and Social Security. And

11:38

yet instead of doing

11:40

what Ryan Grem suggested and begin a

11:42

process of a dis charge position

11:44

that would force the bill

11:46

out of committee so Republicans would be

11:48

unable to

11:50

tank the economy and or at least

11:52

threaten to do so in order to get what

11:54

they want cuts to Medicare and Social

11:56

Security, management is proposing

11:58

this And then this is what he

12:00

says and what he identifies as

12:02

the flaws in the

12:04

system for Medicare and social

12:06

security. The

12:07

debt we have and how we start

12:10

reducing it. So you

12:10

feel that you can identify areas

12:13

to cut in terms of wasteful spending.

12:15

Oh, most certainly. You can look at that, but basically, you can

12:17

put assistant in if it's done a

12:19

bipartisan, by Campbell.

12:21

Democrats may probably come to the House and Senate. Working

12:24

together so we know it's going to move forward

12:26

or at least get a recognizing a

12:29

vote on the

12:29

floor. And people need to see that.

12:31

Entitlements, then cuts are off the

12:33

table. And

12:34

entitlements from the standpoint, and when you say

12:37

entitlements, people look at that differently. They have

12:39

a different terminating than on where you

12:41

come from. And entitlement. I don't look at

12:43

Social Security or Medicare's entitlement. You've

12:45

paid for those. Okay? But on that,

12:47

there is there ways that we can make sure that we have the

12:49

finances in order to take care of it. Is there

12:51

abuse in the system? The people that have earned

12:53

it and paid for, but is there other people that

12:55

haven't, things of this sort? Or is the system

12:57

basically flawed, hasn't been corrected?

12:59

Wanting to look at anything and everything but protecting

13:02

the people in my state of West

13:04

Virginia. Medicare and Social Security is

13:06

a lifeline. That's the lifeline for sixty

13:08

percent of the people. And they were hired to be

13:10

very careful about how I tackle big pensions. They don't

13:12

have big retirement

13:12

systems. They have this. we're gonna

13:15

make sure we protect it. But the White House says

13:17

that there we go. So, yeah,

13:19

the reasons that they don't have robust

13:22

pensions or retirement retirement

13:25

funds is because we could

13:27

mandate those things and make them untethered to the

13:29

marketplace, for example, in the United

13:31

States, but we've chosen not to do

13:33

that. Those kinds of funds have become

13:35

more private over time. But when he

13:37

says, is there abuse in the system?

13:39

What he's trying to do there

13:41

is claim that there

13:43

is enough waste within Medicare

13:46

and Social Security or Medicare

13:48

fraud, things of that nature, which

13:50

happens along the margins, along

13:53

occasion, in on

13:54

occasion, but fraud happens in

13:57

every sector. Private

13:59

business as well. Fossel fuels. We're not

14:01

having a large discussion about,

14:03

say, you know, putting the fossil

14:05

fuel industry on the diet because of

14:07

fraud that happens within

14:08

it. I mean, that that is And

14:10

spending. Yeah. Of course, there has

14:12

been an audit. Many audits done by the

14:14

Pentagon where just

14:16

billions of dollars completely unaccounted

14:18

for, gone, like vapor, just

14:20

gone. And and yet

14:22

we increase their funding on a yearly

14:24

basis. The the

14:27

there is nothing there's no

14:29

substantial amount of fraud

14:31

that would warrant the kind of scrutiny that

14:33

he's describing. What we actually can

14:35

do is as we've laid out in

14:37

this show already, tax,

14:40

that would reduce the deficit, although I don't

14:42

necessarily care about that for the reasons I described.

14:44

But, like, if mansion is so

14:46

concerned about it, Raise taxes on the

14:48

wealthy. But what we can do for

14:50

something like social security is

14:53

raise the cap or

14:56

essentially eliminate it altogether is what

14:58

we should do on earned

15:00

income because while we

15:02

do have that the cap

15:04

of taxable income. While that cap is

15:07

tied to inflation, the rate

15:09

of inflationary increases has

15:11

not kept up for decades. With

15:14

the rate of incoming inequality,

15:16

which has rapidly expanded.

15:19

And so income inequality is

15:21

outpacing the marginal

15:24

small inflationary increases that are

15:26

accounted for in the

15:28

tax system as related to Social

15:30

Security. And the payroll tax,

15:33

by which these programs

15:35

depend on, is already

15:37

regressive. So the fact that earners under a

15:39

hundred sixty k are keeping

15:41

Social Security afloat and keeping it on

15:43

their backs. It only compounds the fact.

15:45

So compounds that fact, I should say.

15:47

Yeah. So there are so many easy

15:49

solutions that we know that we can

15:51

do. We we have we

15:54

did this with with Medicare in the

15:56

nineties. When it comes to

15:58

the cap. So for Social Security in particular,

16:01

there's so many easy solutions that have

16:03

been tried before that we can do.

16:05

The fact of the matter is is that

16:07

none of those enter Joe Manchin's

16:10

brain or at least he doesn't articulate them on

16:12

Fox Business because it's

16:15

all working backwards to

16:19

austerity. And you just but how

16:21

how effectively can management conceal that? That's

16:23

the game that he's

16:24

playing. Howard Bauchner: Yeah, I mean, and as far as Biden

16:27

goes, there are three pass basically that

16:29

I see. And two of them are

16:31

acceptable. One is, like, our preferred

16:33

policy, which is the tax or rich, and get

16:35

this the revenue back in.

16:37

The MMT folks are a little

16:39

bit more avoidant of that sort of conflict,

16:41

but they offer the second

16:44

path which is mint coin. If this actually

16:46

gets pushed to the crisis by and you just gotta mint the coin

16:48

and we have to do this with accounting tricks. Like,

16:50

you you can't f around with this.

16:52

And the one that he

16:54

cannot take is the one where

16:56

we accept, like, a

16:58

banquet of vampires to come

17:00

in and decide how much they're gonna bleed

17:02

people, which is what mansion wants. And just

17:04

politically, like speaking to

17:06

your self interest, There's

17:08

a reason that the Republicans tried

17:10

this also in two thousand eleven

17:12

when there was a Democratic president.

17:14

They don't do this. They don't engaged with

17:16

this fight when there was a Republican president

17:18

because they make a calculation that that

17:20

is gonna fall politically on him. So

17:22

if Biden capitulates to this and gives into

17:25

these ransom demands. It's

17:27

his ass too, not that that stopped

17:29

the the democrats before, from,

17:31

you know, punching themselves in the face. But just

17:34

from a self preservation standpoint, you do

17:36

not want to be the president that presides over

17:38

cuts to Medicare and so security.

17:40

No one's gonna remember how this happened.

17:42

They'll just remember that you were the leader when

17:44

it did. But Menticon, Joe.

17:46

Alright. We're gonna take a quick break. And when we come back,

17:49

we will be joined by Adrian

17:51

Hahn. back

18:32

and we are joined now by Adrian

18:34

Hahn, Game Designer, author of

18:36

You've been played how corporations, governments,

18:38

and schools use games to control

18:41

us all. Eadrian, welcome to the show.

18:43

Thanks for coming

18:43

on. Hi. Good to be

18:46

here. Well, yeah, great to

18:48

have you. So the

18:50

term gamification, how

18:52

do you broadly define it

18:54

as something that's taken

18:57

over so many sectors, over the past few

18:59

decades. I mean, rating Uber drivers is

19:01

is an example that you give right off the bat.

19:04

But to to start

19:06

more broadly? How do you define that

19:09

term? Yeah. I mean,

19:11

gamification is pretty broad. It

19:13

basically means using ideas

19:15

from game design from video

19:18

games in non game

19:20

purposes. So maybe using ideas like

19:22

badges, points, missions,

19:24

levels, quests, for

19:26

education, you know, for the workplace,

19:28

for fitness, all

19:31

sorts of things. So it's

19:33

pretty broad, but I think a lot of people when

19:35

they see it they recognize it. Howard

19:37

Bauchner: And, yes, so there's

19:39

some hallmarks of it, achievement points,

19:42

right, stars or,

19:45

I guess, different

19:48

things you can accumulate,

19:50

all that kind of stuff. And I

19:53

I mean, how is this in in any way

19:55

really like different at least

19:57

from the workplace side, from

19:59

traditional performance review? Yeah.

20:01

I mean, you know, workplaces,

20:03

factories, you know, a lot of institutions

20:05

have always wanted to monitor

20:08

workers' performance. You know, over the years, that's not a

20:10

new thing. It's been around the centuries, if not

20:12

millennia. And they've always

20:14

had some way of

20:16

rewarding or punishing workers

20:18

for their performance. So in that

20:20

respect, it's not new. I think

20:22

there's kind of two things that have really changed

20:24

in the last ten to

20:26

twenty years. The first part

20:28

is that the level of

20:30

monitoring is just much more

20:32

detailed and and just completely

20:34

nonstop compared to the past.

20:36

Right? It might be that you're rated on your

20:39

output over a day. You know, they just

20:41

count up how much work you you know, how many

20:43

pieces you've completed in

20:45

a day. Now if you work at Amazon, if you work at Uber,

20:47

a lot of companies, call centers,

20:49

they can monitor your performance down to the

20:52

second. And they can see, you know,

20:54

literally where you're moving, what things you're

20:56

clicking. So that's kind of

20:58

the importance to you. And

21:00

I think what's interesting about gamification

21:02

is how they feedback on

21:04

your performance. So it used to be in the past, you

21:06

know, you'll get a little letter in the

21:09

mail saying, you need to work harder,

21:11

otherwise you're fired. What a manager might

21:13

come up to you, you know, and and have

21:15

a chat with you. And

21:17

now increasingly, we're

21:19

seeing that kind of feedback from bosses and

21:21

for management come in the form of a game

21:23

where it will say, look, you've sit

21:26

down this leader board or you haven't gotten

21:28

these achievements or you haven't these achievements,

21:30

you're you're outperforming people on the

21:32

factory floor. You've

21:34

completed these quests. And so

21:36

now now you can double up. You

21:38

know, that is the difference. And

21:40

so it is it does have similar

21:42

routes to, you know, television to other forms of

21:45

of management. But

21:47

it's in a very different lens

21:49

in terms of just how constant

21:52

it is and how it's dressed up in these

21:54

kind of clothes of of video games.

21:56

Right. And and can you expand

21:58

on that fact how it's it

22:00

is a version

22:02

of electronic surveillance, which we've talked about

22:04

on this program, but it but there's a different layer

22:06

to it. I mean, I know that you have a

22:09

background as a developer, and you've made an argument

22:11

for ethical gaming. So you you kind of

22:13

understand what these checkpoints might

22:16

look like. To make it a game

22:18

as opposed to just

22:20

standard electronic monitoring. What what are

22:22

some of those indicators? Well,

22:25

you know, I think it's a bit of a family resemblance. So

22:28

but one example would

22:30

be, you know, how you talk about

22:32

the work. Right? So instead

22:34

of saying, okay, here's your assignment for

22:36

today, here's your quest for today, and

22:38

it is shown using kind of

22:40

graphics, you know, pixel art or or achievement badges that

22:43

we've seen from games. I think there are

22:45

elements like competition, so where you

22:47

are competing and get to other people,

22:49

your colleagues, more

22:52

space on a leaderboard. I think

22:54

that there are things

22:56

like joining rewards

22:58

or punishments automatically to

23:00

your performance. So that's kind of a big,

23:02

you know, a a different thing. Usually, there is some

23:04

in the past. That there's usually some sort of

23:07

human manager deciding, okay, I think

23:09

this person has done better or worse.

23:11

Whereas in a game, of course, we're used to

23:13

video games being automatic. If you

23:15

fail this level, that's it. You know, you you

23:17

are instantly punished or

23:19

rewarded if you if you pass. So I

23:21

think there's two two kind of big parts

23:23

of it. And and you see that

23:25

in places like Uber

23:28

where they will literally offer

23:30

drivers' quests periodically. And

23:32

if you accept the quest, then you have

23:34

to go and yeah. I mean, you know, that's what

23:36

they call it, and and you have

23:38

to complete a certain number of

23:41

trips and care set the number of passengers

23:43

within Sammon time window. And if you

23:45

if you do that, then you get a

23:48

bonus. And that sounds great. Obviously, you think well,

23:50

who wouldn't want extra money. But if you

23:52

talk to the drivers, if you see what they say,

23:54

they're like, actually, you know,

23:57

The problem is that it's not really fair.

23:59

A lot of the quests you go

24:02

on, it they they feel like

24:04

they're set up to fail. And

24:06

that's where it becomes different from

24:08

a traditional board game or video game,

24:10

which is designed to be fair.

24:13

With gamification in the workplace. There's no reason why it has

24:15

to be fair. I mean, they can set up a quest

24:17

where you're always one or

24:19

two trips away. From winning. And

24:22

that's something we've seen people

24:24

in other countries complain about

24:26

delivery drivers and

24:28

and gig economy workers around the world, you

24:30

know, talk about this sort of thing. Yeah.

24:32

The the the gig economy element

24:35

is I really think such an

24:37

important piece because it dresses up

24:39

the the work in a way

24:41

that obscures the

24:43

lack of protections or or wage

24:46

increases that are that should be in place.

24:48

But I to to to

24:50

set back a little, I'm I'm hoping that we

24:53

could trace the origins of

24:55

this, you know, starting earlier in your

24:57

book to the early two

24:59

thousand when, you know, I think you

25:01

you in talk about four

25:03

square, other apps like

25:05

that that began this

25:07

kind of trend. Take

25:09

us to that point. Yeah.

25:11

I mean, you know, gamification is kind of so

25:13

pervasive. Now it's it's hard to remember that

25:15

it it's actually quite new.

25:18

You know, the the term

25:20

really started becoming used about

25:22

fifteen years ago. And that is

25:24

when apps like four square

25:26

where you, you know, people would

25:28

basically check-in to real world locations like bars

25:30

and cafes and museums, to let

25:32

our friends know where they've been. And by

25:35

checking in, you could get

25:38

points and rise up a leader

25:40

board and get sometimes real

25:42

world rewards by becoming the

25:44

mayor of a location by being, you

25:46

know, a regular. And foursquare did

25:48

really well. It had lots of downloads for the

25:50

time and a lot of people

25:52

thought that the reason why it's

25:54

successful was because of the

25:56

gamification. And so you saw a lot of other companies

25:58

say, okay. Well, we've got to gamification

26:00

to our product. And it's quite easy

26:02

to do that because based you're already tracking

26:04

all this information. Right? If you

26:07

are a fitness tracker, you're already tracking

26:09

people's steps. So it's not that

26:11

hard to develop a system

26:13

where you give people a or a data board if

26:15

they walk ten thousand steps. That's what

26:17

I think. And so just started it's

26:20

it's solid spreading everywhere, really.

26:23

Right. And when

26:26

did that spread kind of

26:28

begin to trickle into

26:30

things like like

26:32

workplaces. Right? And

26:34

and I guess it started off

26:37

with a a bit of a

26:40

a shine to a degree, right, where where people felt like

26:42

there was this whole world at their fingertips. And

26:44

now it's it's quite

26:46

rapidly become,

26:49

I think, an example of

26:51

of a sort of dystopia.

26:53

Yeah.

26:53

I mean, it kinda started in two

26:55

different places. The first place is

26:57

really consumer tech. you know, your

27:00

Fitbit or iPhone apps, things that

27:02

people choose to install, you know,

27:04

things like duolingo. And

27:07

I think, you know, the worst you can

27:09

say about them is that they don't work, but

27:11

at least, you know, you're choosing to go in

27:13

and solve them. I

27:16

think you know, after that, you

27:18

started seeing a lot of people

27:21

say gamification

27:23

is potentially the

27:26

way to you know, just get positive outcomes or anything. So

27:28

for example, Obama's

27:30

two thousand and eight campaign, you

27:33

know, employer a kind of gamification

27:35

to encourage volunteers to,

27:37

you know, call people to to

27:39

to get to the polls. And

27:41

people say, oh, maybe gamification helped that. And

27:43

so there was this just this idea

27:45

that gamification could be used to

27:47

do good things. And of course, you have a lot

27:49

of gamification consultants going around

27:52

oh, well, wouldn't it be

27:54

great if we could make the workplace more

27:57

fun? And more engaging, you

27:59

know, and and make work as happier and

28:01

make them work harder if we

28:03

took these same tools that make

28:06

volunteering for political campaigns

28:08

or making branding more interesting,

28:11

and use them in the workplace. And I

28:13

think people wanted to believe that

28:15

was true, partly because

28:17

of, like, a completely different thing, which

28:19

is people want to believe

28:21

that video games in general, like,

28:23

are a good thing. I

28:25

think, you know, there's no destaking

28:27

the fact that over the last ten to twenty years, video

28:29

games, which already a big business, have become

28:31

the biggest business in entertainment. They're bigger

28:33

than Hollywood, bigger than TV,

28:36

people in the music industry. And I think that sort

28:38

of positive shine around video

28:41

games has transferred to

28:43

Gamifying. And so I think a lot of companies thought, oh,

28:45

well, this is just a good thing while that

28:47

we deploy it. It probably doesn't

28:49

cost that

28:50

much. And it could save

28:52

us a lot of money. And it's one thing as

28:54

you say, if consumers are the ones

28:56

being, quote, game fied,

28:58

right, where they're making these decisions. And it

29:01

might not be, say, good for your brain with

29:03

some of these, but and and

29:05

that's I'll I'm

29:07

not saying that about video games largely.

29:09

I just mean something that, like,

29:11

is addictive to a degree. I don't know. But

29:15

it it's a whole different ballgame when

29:17

it's being used essentially to discipline

29:20

workers and use

29:22

to obscure

29:25

unethical practices by corporations.

29:27

And there are fears. Yeah. You

29:29

know, I I don't think it's great

29:31

when when people sort of download the brain framing

29:33

app, and they think it's gonna make them smarter and

29:35

it doesn't, you know. But that's a whole different

29:38

dimension to you

29:40

working at a call center and

29:43

having to install some software on your

29:45

laptop, which means that even, you

29:47

know, it takes a photo view every five

29:49

minutes to make sure that, you know,

29:51

you're not you haven't gone away from your computer. And

29:53

if you if you aren't there, you get doctor

29:55

points, and that means that you step down

29:57

the leaderboards. And so I

29:59

think there's kind of you

30:01

know, to me, that's that's not

30:03

great. I think the other thing that

30:05

really bothers me as a kind of game

30:07

designer and just as a human

30:10

is that I think a lot of

30:12

people when they get the feedback

30:14

about their performance from a game, they

30:16

think if I failed, it's

30:18

because it's my fault. Like, I haven't

30:20

been working hard enough or I'm not good enough

30:22

because when you play a video game or you play

30:24

a board game and you die, Usually,

30:27

it's because, well, you you just aren't good

30:29

enough at the game yet, and you will

30:31

get better. But, you know,

30:33

as I said before, one of the problems of

30:35

gamification is that no reason why employers have to

30:38

design their systems in a fair

30:40

way. They can just make it get

30:42

harder and harder for everyone

30:45

every week. That doesn't mean they're doing that, but

30:47

there's no transparency, and there's no

30:49

reason for them not to do

30:51

that. And that's the

30:53

concerning thing. Absolutely.

30:56

And it it further

30:58

atomizes or or sections off the

31:00

worker from some

31:02

sort of human manager to a degree. And

31:04

it makes, you know,

31:06

it makes employment decisions.

31:09

I know we'll get to them in

31:11

a bit, but the way that

31:13

they judge their

31:15

workers' performance based on these internal

31:18

algorithms might look outward

31:20

facingly to the employee like a gaming

31:22

system, but they're actually making quite

31:24

cold hard decisions internally based on the data

31:26

that they collect on that individual.

31:28

And there's still that

31:30

complete separation. It widens

31:33

the gap between worker and

31:35

management, is that

31:38

an accurate take

31:40

largely with some of these

31:42

gamification systems directed at

31:44

workers? Yeah. I mean, you know, I

31:46

think companies have always been interested in

31:48

automation, incoming costs. And I

31:50

think a lot of managers just hate talking

31:52

to workers because often, you know,

31:54

it's it's nice to say give them good news. It's

31:56

awful to give them bad news and and

31:58

sort of, you know, and to

32:00

sort of have to discipline

32:02

workers. And so I think one of the

32:04

things that a game does is

32:06

that it gives you a kind of interface

32:08

as a manager, as an owner of a company,

32:11

to reward and punish

32:13

workers without you having to do it yourself

32:15

and without you having to feel

32:17

bad about it because you're like, well, oh, that's

32:19

just what the game does. Right?

32:21

And so I think it kind of

32:23

meshes with fact

32:25

that a lot of people spend all our time

32:27

playing games as as we used to spend

32:29

time watching TV. And so it

32:31

kind of makes sense. You know, easy

32:33

to see your workers as these little

32:35

kind of, like, non

32:37

player characters as these these just icons on

32:39

the screen. I think, well, you know, like, they're

32:41

just getting on with it. I don't need to worry about

32:44

it. And, yeah,

32:46

definitely, atomizes, you

32:48

know, the community there. We we

32:50

recently had a guest on who spoke about

32:52

the trucking industry, written a book on

32:54

the trucking industry. Can you talk about

32:57

how some of these

32:59

techniques are being utilized with

33:02

truckers in particular.

33:04

Yeah, I mean, this has been fascinating for me. You know,

33:06

I think a lot of people look at gamification and

33:09

think of the usual suspects like Amazon

33:11

and Uber and and

33:13

High-tech industries. But one of the

33:15

things that has happened over the

33:17

last five, ten years is that

33:19

basically all US truck drivers

33:21

have had been or these

33:23

electronic logging devices in their

33:25

trucks. And the idea sounds

33:27

good. It's it's to promote safety.

33:30

Because they wanna make sure that truck drivers aren't,

33:32

you know, driving for twenty four hours

33:34

straight. You've got to go and

33:37

log how much you're driving and how much

33:39

you're sleeping and resting using

33:41

this device and it's linked to your

33:43

engine. Whereas before, it was you just

33:45

looked it down in a book. And

33:47

Of course, after they

33:50

added this requirement for truck

33:52

drivers to have this, they thought, you know, a lot of

33:54

companies decided, well, if we're gonna put

33:56

this this network connected

33:58

computer into people's trucks.

34:00

Why don't we link

34:03

it to other forms of

34:05

performance monitoring. And

34:07

so it was kind of like a backdoor

34:09

for truck driving companies

34:12

to gamify the expense

34:14

of driving a truck. And so now

34:16

for a lot of drivers,

34:20

they automatically given points or

34:22

deduct the points or given achievements

34:24

depending on how well they complete, you

34:26

know, their trips, you know, how safely

34:28

they drive, of that sort of

34:30

thing. And, you know,

34:32

you can look at the reviews and you can look at

34:34

some of the feedback that that drivers have

34:36

left on on

34:38

these apps. You know, some of them complained about the fact that they're

34:40

inaccurate and they're saying, well, you know, this

34:42

thing doesn't know whether I'm

34:44

actually, you know, driving properly or not. And so I've

34:46

been unfairly

34:48

punished or

34:49

rewarded. And, you know, other

34:51

researchers kind of

34:54

shown

34:54

that you know, possibly

34:56

it actually makes driving more

34:58

unsafe because people are,

35:00

you know, really trying to meet their

35:02

deadlines and which

35:05

are delivered by these devices and

35:07

which are kind of enforced by by

35:09

hours of service

35:10

rules. So actually, people

35:12

end up being being more unsafe.

35:14

I mean, the funniest thing about

35:16

all of this is that when you look

35:18

at the truck driving companies, and

35:20

the people who sell these devices, they will well, gamification. It's like

35:23

it's a great way to make driving, more

35:25

entertaining, more fun for millennials. And I'm

35:27

like, this is this

35:30

is bonkers. You know, I you know, like, just because it's called a game

35:32

doesn't mean it's actually fun. But, you know,

35:34

that is definitely something that that they

35:36

talk about a

35:38

lot. So when talking

35:40

about truckers here, I

35:42

am reminded of just how rapid

35:48

how rapidly workplace protections

35:52

have eroded in that industry,

35:54

in particular,

35:56

where levels of unionization

35:58

are way down from

36:00

where they were decades previously, which I

36:02

think is no coincidence, and you also

36:05

see them in those more high profile examples

36:07

as well where there are

36:09

labor fights with mega

36:12

corporations like Amazon, just

36:14

an Uber driver strike a few weeks

36:16

ago here in New York.

36:18

And can you just

36:20

talk more

36:22

broadly about how this fits into the gig

36:24

economy corporate

36:26

model, one that's reliant on cheap

36:30

labor and almost the usage of this being a

36:32

way to, I don't

36:34

know, to keep that that

36:36

labor force

36:38

in check while at the same time not really doing anything

36:40

materially for them. Yeah. I mean,

36:41

it's it's, you know, I it's a really

36:44

interesting and sort of quite complex

36:46

area because when

36:48

if I talk about this, people are like, well, but is it,

36:51

like, good for for gig economy workers

36:53

to have these, like, bonuses,

36:56

you know, it's surely, it's just

36:58

a way of them earning more money. In

37:00

India, for example, they have the

37:02

single delivery Premier League, where

37:04

every time you

37:06

something you get like a run like in cricket. And

37:08

if you get lots of runs and you can go and trade

37:10

them in for like three motorcycles and that Hochul's

37:12

it's everywhere. It's not just in the

37:15

US. And I think, you

37:18

know, these sorts of incentives are

37:20

really individual.

37:22

They're they're really opaque. They

37:26

rely on competition, you know. So

37:28

now you're competing against your colleagues.

37:32

And they they all mean that they,

37:34

you know, that, you know, that

37:36

they lead to people

37:40

overworking I think, working with longer than they really wanted to. That's a

37:42

common theme theme you'll see. And

37:44

also having no idea how much they're gonna

37:46

get paid at the end of the week.

37:49

Right. But so so so It

37:52

increases insecurity and also, as you say,

37:54

undermine solidarity because when you're competing in

37:56

a game, it feels like there's that you're

37:58

competing against other workers in your

38:00

same situation. Yeah. Right. And

38:02

I think that it you

38:05

know, like, when you you know, I noticed

38:07

this when workers come to these sectors at first,

38:09

they think, wow, this is great. You know, the company

38:11

is looking after me. They're giving me all

38:13

these opportunities to earn more. And

38:15

often you'll see, you know, experienced drivers,

38:18

experienced workers who say, actually,

38:20

you know, I've been here for, like, six months, for, like,

38:22

two years. And it

38:24

never pans out. And and it's just a way

38:26

to get you to work harder. And, you know,

38:28

people like Uber have said,

38:30

ideally, we want you to drive as much

38:32

as possible. Right? And and we will just keep giving you more

38:33

stuff. So, you know,

38:37

the the It's not

38:40

that it's impossible to figure out

38:42

a way of making a gamification

38:44

actually work. It's just that

38:46

in

38:47

practice, you know, the company's

38:49

priorities completely different to the

38:51

workers' priorities. And just moving

38:53

on a bit from the

38:55

the corporate model of it. You also touch on

38:58

gamification within governments. I

39:00

mean, you you alluded to it with the

39:02

campaign. Mhmm.

39:04

I'm I'm I'm

39:06

reminded, of course, of Hillary Clinton's

39:08

infamous Pokemon go to the

39:10

polls Sammon. Although that that

39:12

that was not I don't think either way, she just

39:15

did not understand what she was doing to to

39:17

make a little she needs to make

39:19

a little more subtle, frankly. But

39:22

you you cite some of of China's practices

39:25

in the in in your book

39:27

as well if you don't mind

39:29

expanding on that? Yeah. I mean, China is kind of one

39:31

of those places where a lot of people have heard about this

39:33

Chinese social credit score. And the

39:36

reality is kind

39:38

of simultaneously less

39:40

scary and a little bit more scary

39:42

than it seems.

39:44

The reality is that there is no single

39:46

credit score for one point four billion

39:49

Chinese people more just a bunch of experiments in a

39:51

bunch of cities where they're

39:54

they're trying to see, whether

39:56

they can Established trust, it's a

39:58

weird thing. They want to establish trust

40:00

between citizens and between governments

40:02

by scouring

40:05

citizens based on how well they behave.

40:07

So, you know, if you j walk or

40:09

if you return a live e book

40:11

late or if you, you know, do other bad things

40:13

that you could get knocked points. And if

40:15

you do nice things like, you know, voluntary

40:18

or donate blood, then

40:20

you get points. And based

40:22

on your point total, you can get things

40:24

of low interest loans or

40:26

access to better public services.

40:29

And so, you

40:32

know, when you look at what a lot of Chinese people say about

40:34

this, some people are like, you know what? This sounds

40:36

fine because I I don't actually like it

40:38

when people j walk or when people can

40:41

paper law. So so if it stops people from

40:43

from doing that, that works.

40:45

But, of course, you know, people in

40:47

China are also saying, well,

40:49

who decided this you know, it seems completely arbitrary,

40:51

you know, why we're accepting this at surveillance. You know, they're not they're

40:54

not different from other people in other

40:56

countries. So at

40:58

the moment, it is

41:00

not very widespread. And

41:02

in a lot of places where it's been

41:04

deployed, a lot of citizens have actually

41:06

rebelled against it and said, actually, we don't

41:08

want this. But I think the

41:10

ambition is there that they do

41:12

keep on trying and actually

41:14

during lockdowns,

41:18

everyone had to install, you know, copper nineteen apps to to

41:21

access different areas. And the kind

41:23

of gamification piggy backed on

41:25

top of that So

41:28

it it's a bit worrying. But at the

41:30

same time, you know, we kind of have similar

41:32

sorts of things in, you know, in other

41:34

countries, in the US, in the UK. Credit

41:36

scores. Credit scores. Yeah. I mean,

41:38

and and those are really important.

41:41

You know, in

41:44

I have private health insurance, unfortunately, in the UK

41:46

because the NHS is is not doing

41:48

well. And, you know,

41:50

if I buy healthy vegetables

41:54

from the

41:55

supermarket, I will get points. Mhmm. If I

41:57

go to the gym, I'll get points. And the

41:59

more points I have

42:00

I can save money on my premium. I can save

42:02

money on going to the gym. I mean, it's real

42:04

money. It's not small amounts of money.

42:08

And so it's not, you

42:10

know, I I think we sort of pat ourselves on the

42:12

back and say, well, at least we didn't have social credit

42:14

score. It's like, yeah, but but we kind of are

42:16

being gamified in other

42:18

ways. And there were real rewards and punishments depending

42:20

on how you do. I I'm really I'm

42:22

real happy you you you brought that back

42:24

to the context because I'm I mean, a lot

42:26

of it at at

42:28

least frame from Western context

42:30

is imbued with xenophobia and

42:32

and things of that nature, but

42:34

you do a great job of of

42:36

of explaining kind of how

42:38

ubiquitous it is cross

42:42

nationally. Mhmm. I I wanted before we I let

42:44

you go to to ask a

42:46

bit about virtual reality because this

42:48

is the big pitch to

42:51

investors. This is Mark Zuckerberg's new

42:54

frontier. He's gonna build a virtual

42:56

and I know and look, I'm not I don't know

42:58

a ton about gaming, so I apologize

43:02

for for sounding kind of new to this.

43:04

But that that's what he's trying to really

43:06

incorporate with meta. Right? Even though it's been

43:08

done before, they're trying to make

43:10

that's the new pitch to investors.

43:14

What's what's your sense of that? Well, I

43:16

mean, you know, the tech industry wants to

43:18

keep growing. And I think

43:20

they want more

43:22

of our lives to be mediated

43:25

through the Internet through digital devices. And

43:28

so whether it's the meta versus

43:30

virtual reality or augmented reality,

43:32

the idea

43:34

is that however much time you spend on your phone or on your computer,

43:36

we want people to spend more

43:38

time with, you know, virtual reality

43:40

and heads

43:42

up displays. And you can

43:44

imagine some ways in which that's actually

43:46

useful, like, you know, if you go to a party

43:48

and and then you forget people's names as

43:50

I always do, then kind of useful having

43:52

having that or having maps and

43:54

directions shown on your glasses. But

43:56

of course, you know, it would be

43:58

naive to think that these wouldn't

44:00

also be used for work they wouldn't be used to

44:02

monitor people in other

44:04

ways. And

44:06

frankly, you know, if if the last

44:09

fifteen years is an indication anything that

44:11

can be gamified, anything that could be

44:13

measured and tracked and sent to

44:15

service will be gamified.

44:18

And I think that will be a

44:20

really central way for

44:22

companies, big companies and small

44:24

companies to try and

44:26

manipulate people

44:27

to what that's work harder or just,

44:30

you know, behave in a certain

44:32

way. Adrian Hahn, a game

44:34

designer author of You've been played how

44:36

corporations, governments Sammon use

44:38

game. Oh, actually, really quick question.

44:40

Before I let you go, I'm so sorry because the

44:42

school element I wanted to touch on --

44:44

Sure. -- we in the in the United

44:46

States, we went through

44:48

a period where billionaire Bill

44:50

Gates decided it was his mission

44:56

to essentially make schools in his image. It

44:58

was a privatization push, but

45:00

also a way to make himself some

45:02

more money by incorporating

45:04

technology into schooling?

45:06

What is some of what you've seen in your research on

45:08

that front? And then I actually will let

45:10

you go. I mean,

45:11

you know, that this is

45:14

the most eye opening part of the book of

45:16

the my research, you know,

45:18

was this app called

45:20

class dojo. Which is used in supposedly ninety five percent

45:22

of US schools. And it is a

45:24

way basically for

45:26

teachers to

45:28

the ward and deduct points from students, you know, during classes. And

45:30

so you might think, oh, it's fine. We've done

45:32

that. But actually, it's kind of you

45:38

know, you can use it to deduct the points based on

45:40

whether, you know, a student goes to the bathroom too

45:42

much or talks too much or is

45:45

antisocial and the points are

45:48

persistent and they can be

45:50

exchange for prizes and

45:52

and, you know,

45:54

rewards. And you know, I mean, it's kind of incredible,

45:56

honestly. You know, because

45:58

some parents love it and

46:01

some parents say this is just absolutely dystopian.

46:03

Some teachers love it because they see it as a way

46:06

of controlling the classroom. But you can

46:08

just say, alright,

46:10

I'm just minusing fifty points from all of you, and that means you

46:12

don't get this privilege.

46:14

And it's just so

46:16

much more

46:18

rapid and so much more kind of

46:20

visceral and scary. I think for a lot of kids than than other methodism

46:24

before. And got

46:26

to ask ourselves, is this a way in which

46:28

we want to motivate children

46:30

to learn? Right? You know, maybe

46:32

maybe it is a good way.

46:35

Controlling the classroom. But at the

46:37

same time, studies have shown that

46:39

actually, you know,

46:42

even if you motivate people to be quiet, it actually makes people

46:44

less interested, kids less interested in lessons.

46:46

So maybe they all they're doing is

46:48

just trying to maximize their points rather than

46:51

you know, learning French or something.

46:54

Exactly. Alright. Well, thank

46:56

you for that last question there, Adrian Hahn,

46:58

game designer, author of you've been played

47:00

how core operations, governments, and schools use games to control us all. We'll

47:02

put the link to the book in the description on

47:04

the podcast, YouTube, app,

47:05

etcetera. Thank you so much, Adrian. Really

47:08

appreciate it.

47:10

Thanks. Alright. Folks, we're gonna take a quick break and get to

47:12

our second guest, Alex Salmon, who will give

47:14

us the low down on

47:17

what is happening in New York with

47:20

this judge fight.

47:22

Get back. We

47:56

are back. We

47:59

are joined by Alex

48:01

Salmon back on the show.

48:03

Politics writer at SLAIT Alex, thanks so much

48:05

for coming on. Hey.

48:05

Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. Of course.

48:08

So you're here to

48:11

to explain this insanity in New

48:13

York. Yesterday, Hokul's nominee for chief

48:16

judge of the Court of Appeals in New York

48:18

was actually

48:20

rejected. By the

48:22

State Senate Judiciary Committee, ten

48:24

to

48:25

nine, so very close

48:27

margins there. And This is the

48:30

latest development in this saga that ranges

48:32

from head scratching on one end

48:34

to infuriating on the other. I'm not

48:38

sure which we can just go with both. Why

48:40

not both? But but let's

48:42

let's start from the beginning.

48:45

How did get to this

48:47

point nominating this judge

48:50

who's anti who has an anti labor

48:52

record, anti

48:54

abortion record Hector LaSalle to be the top judge in New

48:56

York state, a solidly blue

48:58

state. Howard Bauchner: Yeah. Well, it it

49:00

kind

49:01

of starts with the the

49:04

the chief judge of the of the court of

49:06

appeals, that's the top court in New York,

49:08

Janet DiFiori, who is a, like,

49:10

a true dyed in the wool, Cuomo loyalist,

49:12

she's announced that she was stepping down, I think,

49:15

in August of twenty twenty

49:18

two. So that

49:20

was kind of a surprise. Her turn was not over. It was, you

49:22

know, she was the survey from ethics

49:24

investigation and promptly decided

49:26

to step aside. So She

49:29

was the head of this conservative block on the court. There was A43

49:32

conservative block. She steps

49:34

aside. It's a huge opportunity for Hokul. I

49:36

mean, it was one of those things. It was like an

49:38

incredible windfall. Totally unexpected.

49:40

And a chance for her to, like, you

49:42

know, turn the page on the Cuomo

49:44

era to recalibrate New York politics

49:46

and kind of reset this conservative majority on

49:48

the on the state's top court. And and can I just

49:50

stop you right there, Alex? Like, the the reason

49:53

that that court is was

49:55

conservative was was because of Cuomo's

49:57

self dealing and a a of, you know, other favors that he

50:00

had done. And it's

50:02

set up the

50:04

electoral disaster for New York Democrats in

50:07

this election cycle. Yeah, absolutely.

50:09

Yeah. So that court you

50:11

know, stack of cool appointees, no

50:14

surprise, very conservative,

50:16

loyal to him. It's it's this sort of

50:18

the nexus of of both conservative and sort of beholden

50:21

to his personal dealings.

50:24

And right,

50:26

they they were the ones who

50:28

voted down the redistricting that that that

50:30

Democrats and Senate had put together

50:32

Sammon then handed over that responsibility

50:36

to an out of state independent commissioner, which, of

50:38

course, gave Republicans a huge advantage. That

50:40

was yeah. That was the state court

50:42

all the way or the appeals court all the

50:45

way. that's that really brought a lot of attention to this court. I

50:47

I think, you know, part of the reason it's

50:50

surprising that we're even talking about this. Part of the

50:52

reason we're talking about this

50:54

is because that was such a disastrous outcome. It was such a crushing

50:56

blow to Democrats in New York and

50:58

nationally that the court became, you

51:00

know, an object of a lot of attention and a lot of

51:02

scrutiny. And

51:04

that's that's the recent change. When Cuomo was stacking the court in the first

51:06

place, there wasn't a lot of pressure

51:09

or pushback. So Right. Exactly.

51:12

And and now it's had ramifications and

51:14

that's what makes it even more shocking that

51:16

the new leader of the Democrats in the

51:18

House Seder this directly leading

51:20

Two, democrats losing seats in the house, you could potentially pin them

51:22

losing the majority on it, given how

51:25

terrible the results were in

51:27

New York state. Despite that,

51:30

Hakim Jeffries has gone to

51:32

bat for this nominee

51:34

Hector LaSalle alongside

51:36

Kathy Hochul's. So who is this guy?

51:38

What is his record?

51:41

Why are progressives upset

51:43

about it? And and if you

51:45

don't mind just expanding on

51:47

that? Yeah. Totally. It's it's, like, one of

51:49

those decisions, it's so confounding, especially

51:52

after this election cycle. It's, like, New York

51:54

Democrats have just learned nothing.

51:56

They've learned less than

51:58

nothing. It's yeah. So

52:00

LaSalle I mean, so so

52:03

is recommended slate of seven possible nominees. There's

52:05

a commission that has

52:07

to recommend a handful of

52:09

judges for this position to her and she picks 3008

52:11

one of them. She got seven

52:13

of them. the nominees were a handful of of, I think,

52:16

really extremely qualified

52:19

judges, people who you

52:21

know, the record in New York come from

52:24

backgrounds that you consider diverse,

52:26

professionally diverse, which is something that the Biden

52:28

administration is

52:30

really champion. And she picked LaSalle. And I think if you

52:32

wanna be the most charitable to

52:34

her, you would say, well, she picked

52:36

LaSalle because there's

52:39

a lack of Latino representation at the

52:41

highest echelons of power in New

52:43

York. If you wanted to do

52:45

something about that, But that's pretty

52:48

much where I think that Sherry

52:50

ends because, of course, if you did any

52:52

vetting at all, you would have quickly found

52:54

out that he was involved in a handful of decisions that

52:56

were going to irritate the most

52:58

important constituencies in Democratic

53:00

politics in New York. And

53:02

I should say Hochul's

53:04

has a has a history of being very, very bad at It's

53:06

her lieutenant governor when she

53:08

took over for Quoao, her second in command.

53:12

Brian Benjamin was someone who a lot of people said, you gotta

53:14

be careful about, like, you know, there there are rumors

53:16

about him. And then nine months

53:19

later, there was there were charges brought against him

53:21

by the federal government and he had step down. And, you know,

53:24

it's just one of these things where it's

53:26

like they're the

53:28

ideology is something and and, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if

53:30

she wanted her, you know, a right wing or

53:32

a fairly right wing cord just like polo had.

53:34

But at the same time, it's like,

53:37

Her vetting process has has been called

53:40

into question more than once, and I think that there

53:42

are these handful of decisions. I think we'll probably

53:44

talk about in greater

53:46

detail that were obviously one of the

53:48

huge problems for in for New

53:50

Yorker, for Democratic New Yorkers. And

53:52

if not even just for progressives, for

53:54

pretty moderate groups, that, you know, are

53:56

behind things like organized labor

53:58

and women's health and

54:01

criminal justice reform. If you don't mind, just talking a bit

54:03

about those those cases in particular.

54:06

I mean,

54:09

I mean, there's also his he had this inexplicable

54:12

record when he signed

54:14

off on this on on dismissing

54:16

jurors based on their skin color as

54:19

well. That That's just one element. But his

54:21

record is basically pretty

54:23

sparse except for some of these

54:25

extreme examples that I'm sure you

54:27

can dive

54:28

into. Right. Right. So what was interesting in in the hearing that we saw

54:31

yesterday was despite, you know, you

54:33

you it's all a high

54:36

ranking judge. He hasn't been hasn't written a ton of opinions. actually

54:38

isn't a lot out there to to judge him

54:40

on, but what we do have to judge

54:44

him on and what, you know, the secretary committee had to

54:46

judge judge him on. It's like a handful of

54:48

really alarming decisions. And so one

54:50

of them

54:52

is you mentioned and was, you know, repeatedly it

54:54

this decision where a

54:56

prosecutor pushed to throw out potential

55:00

jurors

55:02

on the basis that they were dark skinned. And found

55:04

basically blessed that decision and found that

55:06

dark skin was not a protected

55:10

group in the constitution that it didn't it didn't rise

55:12

to the level of constitutional

55:14

protections against discrimination based

55:16

on race or anything else.

55:19

Which is, you know, obviously wild. And,

55:21

of course, the the the court of appeals

55:23

which he's trying to get on to overturned

55:25

that immediately because it was so glaring

55:27

and and ridiculous. So that was one thing that

55:29

criminal justice advocates were, you know,

55:32

totally called

55:34

by. The next case that came

55:36

up a lot was that this

55:38

this case, you know, shorthand

55:40

is is called cable vision. And

55:43

it was it was decision that was that

55:46

he gave. It was a

55:48

devastating blow for organized labor

55:50

because it basically

55:52

allowed companies to sue

55:54

labor organizers for being critical

55:56

of the company. And so, you know, it

55:58

just blows a massive hole in in the protections

56:01

that exist for organizers to to, you

56:03

know, to to court

56:06

union chapters and to set up

56:08

union drives. And this was another

56:10

one that, like, organized labor right away was

56:12

like, this was a horrible decision for

56:14

us. It was catastrophic, and there's just no way that

56:16

we can get behind that. And that was, you know, a

56:18

huge blow for this nominee as well because once

56:20

organized you know, it's one thing for the

56:22

to the DSA adjacent state senators in

56:24

New York to say, well, we don't support someone

56:27

who has his record on racial justice, who

56:29

has his record on various other things.

56:31

It's nothing for the state's unions to say,

56:33

look, absolutely no way of doing this. And

56:35

they came out pretty quickly, which gives you a

56:38

sense that Hocal very likely never

56:40

even called them and said, hey, what do you think

56:42

about this? Because the day that the announcement dropped, they were out

56:44

saying that, you know, we're not we're not behind this

56:46

and we won't be, which

56:48

gives you a sense

56:50

of just how how poorly managed this whole thing was?

56:52

Yeah. She's just not a good politician. I

56:54

mean, that's that's a

56:56

huge huge

56:58

miscalculation. And say

57:00

what you want about Andrew Cuomo and we could say a Right? At at

57:02

the very least, he knew which

57:07

I was gonna say Palms to Greece, but that's a mixing

57:09

of metaphors, I I guess. Right? Or is

57:12

that correct? Well, III think

57:14

that's right. And that

57:16

way, he's correct. It's like -- Yeah. --

57:18

all sorts of, you know, his

57:20

dealings are obviously infamous and

57:22

well known point, but he didn't lose a lot of these. If he didn't go on

57:24

these bullying, sprees, and

57:26

these vengeance campaigns, and do this horse

57:28

training and stuff, and come away with nothing,

57:30

he he he won those

57:32

fights if he if he decided to get into them. And

57:34

so that's actually, I think, a really interesting

57:36

point of comparison is, you know, we don't really

57:38

know who Hocal is because

57:40

she hasn't been in the spotlight very long.

57:42

This will be she just got elected for the first time a couple months ago.

57:44

And and barely at that,

57:48

We even seen her in action. And this is the first time where really tried to

57:51

use political capital to get some things she

57:53

wanted. Why it's something she wanted? We

57:55

have no idea. It's I

57:57

think. Well, that's what I wanna ask you next. It's

57:59

like, what the hell is this? What's the point?

58:01

I mean, she's it's almost like she's

58:03

trying to do certain

58:06

the the the Cuomo

58:08

politics. Right? But there was always

58:10

kind of an end to Omo's

58:13

politics, which is solidifying his own powers. That's

58:16

simple. And she's just

58:18

bad at

58:20

I mean, what's your you this is conjecture, and I know. But

58:22

what's your sense of of why the hell she's

58:24

doing this? Yeah. I I guess I can

58:26

sort of give you a best

58:29

guess based on all the conversations I've had with people involved in the process. And I

58:31

think it's a combination of things.

58:33

I think that Yeah.

58:35

Right. Cuomo had this thing which was shoring up his own

58:37

power by any necessary. That's something

58:40

of an ideology in

58:42

itself. And And I don't think

58:44

Hocal really has a strong ideology. I think that

58:46

she made this pick. I think

58:48

that the fact that it was someone who was a little bit

58:50

more conservative was probably

58:52

preferable for her. And then

58:54

I think she didn't do a lot of

58:56

vetting. And when she

58:58

got crossed by a bunch of

59:00

senators in effect and and labor groups and

59:02

and everyone else who said, this is a terrible pick who won't support. I think

59:05

that she tried to pick up the

59:07

old Como playbook and say, I'm

59:09

gonna force this through, you better not cross

59:12

me. And this sort of, like, willingness to

59:14

battle with the the left in New York

59:16

state is, you know, that's the

59:18

go to como approach. I I think she learned a lot of those things from her old

59:20

boss. I don't know why she wouldn't

59:22

have. But you see it exactly.

59:24

It's like, 3008 that the

59:26

Republicans were praising LaSolver's character

59:28

and his hard work and his, like,

59:30

willingness to accept this incredibly important

59:34

position and every almost every Democratic hit for two or three

59:36

were very hostile to him.

59:38

And this is a nominee by

59:40

Sammon Democratic governor. I mean, it was

59:42

like one of those things you would never know unless you've been

59:45

reading about it. What what was going on?

59:47

And and I think that Yeah.

59:49

I think that Hocal kind of went back to the to to the quote unquote playbook and

59:51

was like, alright. We're gonna we'd rather fight the

59:53

left and fight the right. We

59:56

are going to use these tactics that

59:58

Koma became so famous for to ram

1:00:00

this thing through. And the problem is

1:00:03

that I don't think she has the muscle. I mean, we can see

1:00:06

it now, obviously, based

1:00:08

on the result, but she doesn't have the

1:00:10

muscle to to do it because she doesn't

1:00:12

have a lot of political cap build out. She doesn't BIDC.

1:00:14

I mean, that that was for

1:00:16

people that that might not know what that

1:00:18

is, that was a caucus of

1:00:21

Democrats who basically Cuomo relied upon to stamp

1:00:23

out any progressive legislation because

1:00:25

they voted with Republicans basically

1:00:27

all the time in exchange

1:00:29

for personal favors. And power. And

1:00:32

the since, really, I think, Alexandria

1:00:34

Casio Cortez and, like, Trump

1:00:36

also elevating the

1:00:38

level of political

1:00:40

consciousness in the country, New York

1:00:42

State galvanized with

1:00:44

the help of DSA with which

1:00:46

has been, you know, very successful

1:00:49

in New York State,

1:00:52

getting progressives in those seats and

1:00:54

ousting the IDC, and you see the

1:00:56

tangible results right now,

1:00:58

right here with the pushback internally

1:01:00

in the Senate and also the vote

1:01:02

which shot him down in the

1:01:05

judiciary committee However, though, that's

1:01:07

not that might not be the

1:01:09

end of the fight. Right,

1:01:11

Alex? Right. Right.

1:01:14

Absolutely. So Pokul has already said that this hearing was unfair and that

1:01:16

she was willing to sue the

1:01:18

Democratic caucus in the senate to

1:01:20

override this

1:01:22

decision and to get LaSalle to actually

1:01:24

retained counsel to do it.

1:01:26

So, you know, it

1:01:29

just it's it's a it's a

1:01:31

shocking move because You'd say, okay. Hocal barely won her election campaign. She'll

1:01:34

five points in New York where, you know,

1:01:37

Democrats registered democrats out and Seder registered democrats two

1:01:40

to one in the state. That's a horrible

1:01:42

performance. And, you know, a lot of people in New

1:01:44

York politics would say that

1:01:46

she dragged them down down the

1:01:48

ballot. Like, if you were a state senator or

1:01:50

or a legislator or anybody else you

1:01:52

would say, well, it was almost impossible to

1:01:54

run with with HOCA at the top of the

1:01:56

ticket because She was such a bad candidate.

1:01:58

She heard everyone. So already, the party is feeling like, we don't owe Hocal anything. If anything,

1:02:00

she owes us. And then

1:02:02

she picks someone that they don't want. And

1:02:05

And they didn't want this fight to be fair. Like, this, you know, this the

1:02:08

state senate the democrat, the

1:02:10

state senate didn't want this. They they they weren't

1:02:12

saying, like, bring it on. We're gonna show Hocal who runs

1:02:14

this They were like,

1:02:16

please pick somebody else. Like, just withdraw the

1:02:18

pick and pick somebody else. And she wouldn't do it.

1:02:20

And so now she's gonna she's threatening to

1:02:22

sue them. And and

1:02:24

it seems like that's a pretty legitimate threat. I

1:02:26

mean, there's been plenty of indications that

1:02:28

she feels like this is the

1:02:30

legitimate course of action. That she

1:02:32

may well pursue. And again, it's like,

1:02:34

do we think that she has enough votes in

1:02:36

the broader senate to to get this out

1:02:38

into? I don't think so. I mean,

1:02:40

I can you know, just a quick count. I don't I don't see the math there

1:02:42

either. And so it's one of these

1:02:44

I mean, it's one of these six words

1:02:46

like, you know, the simplest,

1:02:48

like, almost you would say, like, the most

1:02:50

sort of I I'd say, corrupt, but

1:02:52

the sort of, like, horse trading measure

1:02:54

of politics here would be, like, okay.

1:02:56

I got elected because these, you know, women's groups in organized labor put a lot

1:02:59

of effort into getting me across the finish line and

1:03:01

I barely survived. I should do them a solid

1:03:03

by giving them their nominee. This

1:03:06

is kind of how you think, like, politics

1:03:08

works, generally speaking. And Oakland said does the

1:03:10

exact opposite where these groups do,

1:03:13

you know, save her political skin and then

1:03:15

she turns around and takes the one person

1:03:17

that they want less than

1:03:20

anyone. And then it's really just to fight

1:03:22

them to to the absolute death over it. And, you

1:03:24

know, again, it's

1:03:25

like, I

1:03:26

don't know. I I don't have an explanation

1:03:30

for that. Well then, what's your explanation for Hakim Jeffries

1:03:32

coming to the rescue on this front? Because we know

1:03:34

he hates the left. Right? That's why he's in

1:03:36

the position. Needs. That's why he's

1:03:38

probably gonna be the speaker or the

1:03:40

democratically there in the house for the

1:03:42

next few decades. And

1:03:44

he has the capacity to fundraise a lot.

1:03:46

That's a prerequisite for

1:03:48

that kind of position. So he

1:03:52

recently started a

1:03:54

a pact WITH Josh

1:03:56

Gottheimer AND OTHERS IN ORDER

1:03:58

TO ENSURE THAT LEFTUS IN

1:04:00

PRIMARY WOULD NOT WIN. SO

1:04:02

THAT'S HIS

1:04:04

IDiology. AND She, as I mentioned earlier, despite the

1:04:06

fact that the New York State Supreme Court,

1:04:08

you can draw a direct line to

1:04:10

electoral losses

1:04:12

for Democrats in the

1:04:14

house on the federal level. He

1:04:16

has come to the rescue and has

1:04:18

designed to throw his weight

1:04:20

behind LaSalle and Hockel's effort here. What's your read on the

1:04:22

calculus behind that? Is it just an

1:04:24

anti left thing? Or is there something

1:04:26

more broad that's

1:04:28

happening here? It's a

1:04:30

really good question. It's one of these things again

1:04:32

where it's like, if these people would just do what was

1:04:34

best for themselves, it would make so much more

1:04:36

sense and it would actually work better.

1:04:38

Right. Again, what what does what

1:04:40

does Jefferies have to have to win from

1:04:42

this? I I can't see anything. I mean,

1:04:44

you know, already the math that we, you know, you and I and

1:04:46

everybody else could count with fourteen

1:04:48

state senators in the Democratic Party saying that

1:04:50

they weren't gonna support LaSalle.

1:04:52

That meant that he had to hear Republican votes to

1:04:54

get confirmed. So already, you

1:04:56

know, the the calculus is simple for

1:04:58

Jefferies to jump in on this on

1:05:00

this, you know, this, like, charm

1:05:02

offensive that Hocal went on last weekend,

1:05:04

which was she was up in the and

1:05:06

and Jeffrey spoke as part of that.

1:05:08

And then she went to sunset Park in Brooklyn, and

1:05:12

was, you know, invoking Martin Luther King justify

1:05:14

the nomination of of

1:05:18

LaSalle and it just, like, the

1:05:20

whole thing was so incredibly

1:05:22

misguided. And and why would he team Jeffries to

1:05:24

jump in on that? Like, why why was that something he felt

1:05:26

like he

1:05:28

couldn't miss? I I wonder I I mean, I think that, you know, this is

1:05:30

something like old habits die hard

1:05:32

where, you know, in the old New York Democratic

1:05:34

Party, this would make sense. This is something that he

1:05:36

would love or participated in,

1:05:38

you know, in the past. And certainly, when he

1:05:40

was, you know, more sort of intimately

1:05:42

involved in New York Machine Politics --

1:05:44

Right. -- as the highest ranking Democrat in

1:05:46

the House, especially, you know, the Biden administration has

1:05:48

really championed these

1:05:50

these sort of more left wing non

1:05:53

prosecutorial That's the

1:05:56

thing. But it's breaking records

1:05:58

in nominating judges, and we're

1:06:00

talking about how Republicans wanna steal

1:06:02

elections and their threats to democracy and

1:06:04

the leader of the Democrats in the

1:06:06

House is rallying for a conservative

1:06:08

nominee for this New York Court of Appeals

1:06:10

top position to switch

1:06:12

a majority Right now, it's three three. This would make it four three

1:06:14

conservative. It is mind blowing.

1:06:16

It's mind blowing. It's totally

1:06:18

grainy.

1:06:19

And again, just on a various sort of, like, constituent services

1:06:22

level, like, the the whole

1:06:24

thing that the Democrats have been talking about

1:06:26

since Akeem

1:06:28

took over, was, you know, this is unity. Like, we're all

1:06:30

on the same page. Like, a woman's right to

1:06:32

choose is not up for question.

1:06:34

Like, you know, we support labor, like, more than

1:06:36

we ever

1:06:38

have these sorts of things were supposed to be like, you know, these are We've

1:06:40

decided on these principles. They're they're non fungible.

1:06:42

This is the democratic party. And compared to

1:06:44

the republican party, which is risen with

1:06:47

you know, discontent and and all these

1:06:50

ideological factions. Like, here we

1:06:52

are, and we over performed in

1:06:54

November because of our commitment to

1:06:56

these things. And then, you know, two months later, like,

1:06:58

that it's a huge it's actually a huge problem

1:07:00

for him too because, right, if he with these

1:07:02

major women's groups, like,

1:07:04

these are small groups that were saying that we can't support LaSalle. These major

1:07:06

national groups. And so what are they thinking when

1:07:08

they see him rally for LaSalle after they

1:07:10

specifically said not this candidate,

1:07:14

please pick another candidate. It it actually is

1:07:16

really threatening for the whole Democratic

1:07:18

caucus at a higher level than just New York, and

1:07:20

and that's another things that are,

1:07:22

you know, this sort of

1:07:24

statewide ineptitude that we're seeing from the

1:07:26

party is not just a statewide issue.

1:07:28

It's absolutely a national

1:07:30

issue. And beyond even just

1:07:32

the fact that know, Jeffries

1:07:34

might be speaker Jeffries if if they

1:07:36

do a third party got attacked together, not just

1:07:38

leader Jeffries,

1:07:40

but again, don't know. You know, these certain there

1:07:42

are certain ways of being that that are hard to

1:07:45

or certain patterns that are hard to break. I think that that

1:07:47

was an example of that where you know, I think

1:07:49

Hockel called the favor. He he probably thought this was

1:07:51

sort of thing that he's done a million times and shouldn't be that

1:07:53

big of a deal. And

1:07:56

don't know if he was counting the votes or

1:07:58

what, but not a great look. Definitely

1:07:59

not. Well, Alex, I really

1:08:02

appreciate your time

1:08:04

coming on explaining this to us

1:08:06

even though there are a lot of questions, still more questions than

1:08:08

answers. Although, you know, oftentimes,

1:08:12

it's like, could just draw this back to

1:08:14

incompetence. But in this case, I feel like there's a lot of unanswered stuff about corruption. Stuff we

1:08:16

don't know about deals

1:08:18

made behind the scenes that

1:08:21

hopefully, we'll we'll come to light soon. Alex Salmon, politics writer, it's

1:08:23

late. Thanks so much for your time. And you can

1:08:25

read I tweeted it

1:08:28

out, but he

1:08:30

has a great piece kind of detailing

1:08:32

the whole saga that just came out yesterday. Right? Yeah. At

1:08:34

slate. So check that out. Thanks

1:08:35

so much, Alex. Thanks

1:08:39

so much.

1:08:40

Alright, folks. With that, we are going

1:08:42

to wrap up the first hour

1:08:44

of this program and

1:08:47

head into the fun

1:08:49

half. Matt, what's happening on left reckoning?

1:08:51

Well, Sunday night, January

1:08:54

twenty second, at this I

1:08:58

keep on inside the slipper room, which is not

1:09:00

the same thing, the cutting

1:09:02

room. We're doing a

1:09:05

live show, give give them a

1:09:07

revolution this them an argument, this

1:09:10

is Revolution Left Reconine

1:09:12

featuring special guest

1:09:14

Sam Seder in Emma Vigland.

1:09:16

And Bhaskar Sammon still think it's

1:09:18

available, get to that. And, yeah,

1:09:21

we did the III

1:09:23

left the recording. I to Robert Scumarla about the church committee and

1:09:26

why Jim Jordan is not gonna

1:09:29

run another one, so you can check that

1:09:31

out. I mean Yeah. We don't they

1:09:33

do not need to benefit from that

1:09:36

framing whatsoever. No. I mean, I

1:09:38

think it it's actually like kind

1:09:40

of the problem is they

1:09:42

don't have the literacy to really, like, latch onto it. Like, no one on the Republican side, like, gives a fuck. Right.

1:09:44

Right. Exactly. So, like, no

1:09:46

one's talking about it anymore. Hey,

1:09:52

Brandon. I can hear you.

1:09:54

We're setting up your shots.

1:09:56

No. I

1:09:57

don't know what I got

1:09:59

a refresh blind second. I will

1:10:01

say though, in the meantime, today

1:10:03

on ESPN, we

1:10:06

will be talking about The upcoming divisional games giving our picks

1:10:08

against the spread at a terrible

1:10:10

weekend. Terrible weekend. Every game, I

1:10:12

think, went over against against

1:10:15

with the over Seder. And

1:10:17

Bradley's gained the lead, but I'm

1:10:19

I'm coming back, roaring back, and I do

1:10:22

wanna talk about the homophobic incident in the

1:10:24

NHL. Provirov,

1:10:26

what a what a pair of

1:10:28

defense men of defense men on

1:10:30

the Philadelphia flyers to huge bigots

1:10:33

and their decision not to wear the pride jerseys

1:10:35

for warm ups, what that means even though it's in

1:10:37

in their contract. More broadly, we'll be

1:10:39

talking about that on youtube dot com

1:10:41

slash ESVN show today

1:10:43

at four

1:10:44

PM. Now we got Brandon and

1:10:46

we got Binder. Boom. What's up, guys? Nothing much. Feeling very sintered

1:10:49

now. Oh, well,

1:10:52

you are. That that kudos

1:10:54

to to Matt on that What's your end process? Yeah. He's centering you. He's like a The team keeps me grounded.

1:10:56

Yoga teacher. What what's

1:10:58

happening on the discourse, Brandon? Actually,

1:11:03

we have a new episode coming out of Friday, and I mean that

1:11:05

I definitely have to clarify. When I mean that, I

1:11:07

sat down with my cohost Richard to Ghost

1:11:09

Doggett. That's when you podcast and only

1:11:12

two people. And we discussed the

1:11:14

new VELMA show. We discussed the proliferation of AI projects that have sort

1:11:16

of taken over the

1:11:19

imagination of the Internet. Whether

1:11:22

it be like chat bots or AI

1:11:24

art and the implications for the

1:11:26

creation of art and commodification of

1:11:29

just everything basically. And then we talked a little bit

1:11:31

more about, you know, from a perspective of a

1:11:33

power user of Twitter like myself and

1:11:35

my cohost Richard who's like more

1:11:37

of a lurker. Like, what Elon Musk has

1:11:39

meant to our own Twitter development. So it's

1:11:41

been up so especially for interest in bad

1:11:44

cartoons or good cartoons. I don't

1:11:46

really hate Belmaso in sports.

1:11:47

Oh, you don't. I am. I was curious about your

1:11:49

thoughts on it because the discourse I heard it, like,

1:11:50

the way people talk about it, it's like, is if the alt right secretly

1:11:55

got the IP to a beloved children's show and then

1:11:57

made a secretly, like, anti

1:11:59

woke but ostensibly woke show. But

1:12:01

is that not is not does

1:12:04

that not people are reacting a

1:12:06

little bit. Is that what you're saying, Brandon? I think that that's a pretty I can see where people get that

1:12:11

interpretation from. But it's only because the show

1:12:14

was very confused in its audience. Like, the it's one of the most inexplicable shows

1:12:17

I've perhaps ever

1:12:20

seen based

1:12:20

but they're a lesbian couples, what I've heard. Is it pro

1:12:22

cop because the cops are really bad in this? And so, like, that's what makes

1:12:25

it confusing. Like,

1:12:27

everything is, like, everything is bad. But like not

1:12:29

like, I mean, the show has some funny lines, but the most

1:12:32

inexplicable part

1:12:36

is how unfocused it is in this target audience. Like, if

1:12:38

it were just, like, you know, every joke was about, like, me too. I'd be like, okay. I I get

1:12:40

who's target audience. Or if every

1:12:42

joke was about, you know, how

1:12:45

Fred is an entitled, like, White Boy in this played by

1:12:47

Dennis from Boy Sunny, that'd be fine. But it's all of that. It's like all of

1:12:49

that. And also, it's it

1:12:52

really can't be

1:12:54

in, like, emphasize enough how little

1:12:57

this has to do with Scooby Doo.

1:12:59

Not just the dog, but the

1:13:01

actual, like, cartoon, and it seems

1:13:03

more than anything to really be

1:13:05

a waste. Like, they greenlit this

1:13:07

really violent, really, like, sexual thing

1:13:09

and put Scooby Doo's, like, brand

1:13:12

on it. It's in no way related to Scooby Doo or Good.

1:13:14

It's just like a waste of the of the copyright. I feel like personally, but, you know It seems like

1:13:18

it seems designed to piss everybody off. It's almost like a conspiracy because

1:13:20

then you get people to talk about it, given

1:13:22

all the layers of,

1:13:23

like, it infuriating that

1:13:25

it create. There's this criticism of Mindy

1:13:28

Kaling stuff that was that's been going around that

1:13:30

apparently a lot of the time children's write kind of

1:13:32

like brown or Indian

1:13:34

characters or, you know, South and Southeast Asian

1:13:36

characters is, like, broadly just, like,

1:13:38

oh, like, I hate myself and wanna

1:13:40

be white and, like, And that's I've

1:13:42

seen that a lot all over Twitter. I haven't watched the show, but that's the other big criticism I've been seeing about, like,

1:13:44

oh, maybe Kelly's writing another

1:13:47

character where she's, like,

1:13:51

I'm I hate I hate that I'm brown and kind

1:13:53

of, like, have these characteristics and want to kind

1:13:55

of, like, be a

1:13:57

-- Oh.

1:13:58

-- homogenous Right.

1:13:59

I didn't really get that from the show because, like,

1:14:01

again, so much is going on at any

1:14:03

point by the second episode. The

1:14:05

film was already, like, the

1:14:07

movie slinging rock to to pay

1:14:09

off Daphne for, like, you know, this is not really a spoiler because so much

1:14:11

going she literally, like, selling drugs for Daphne to pay her

1:14:13

off to give her some,

1:14:15

like, material to find

1:14:18

her missing mom. None of this has to do with, like,

1:14:20

real estate developers and costumes. And this

1:14:22

desk stuff is never mentioned. They don't even,

1:14:25

like, make jokes about it. It's all, like,

1:14:27

it's all very inexplicable. What written by AI

1:14:29

that, like What's that HBBBBBBBBBBBBBB.

1:14:34

Like, if you like the Fed What's the

1:14:35

goal? No. They're more new one. Vuforia. Vuforia.

1:14:37

Yeah. It sounds like they they fed

1:14:39

AI euphoria and so make Scooby

1:14:41

Doo, I mean, 3008 made it. It's it's also as far as it's like

1:14:43

Scooby Doo, it's actually way more like the

1:14:46

breakfast club and how it

1:14:48

like organizes all

1:14:50

of the Scooby Gang into, like, little discrete, like, social, like, positions that they have, like, they're for stuff.

1:14:52

But -- Mhmm. -- you know,

1:14:54

it has nothing with Scooby Doo

1:14:58

I think I don't know about the brown

1:15:00

stuff, which sounds different. But

1:15:02

really, it just comes across as

1:15:04

something written by, like, AI chatbot that

1:15:06

you fed Tina Fey stuff too. Like, it's very like how thirty rock kinda throws punches

1:15:09

at everybody, but a

1:15:11

lot of them land. Like,

1:15:14

oh, it punch is that liberal women who think that

1:15:16

they're, like, super woke, but also they're slightly racist.

1:15:18

It punch is that, like, you know --

1:15:21

Right. -- NBC executives. This is does that, but it's,

1:15:23

like, really sloppy. So half the punches just don't connect, and

1:15:25

you may end up punching themselves in the face. So

1:15:27

it it's just the people being

1:15:29

mad, it doesn't really make sense to me because

1:15:31

there's so much Scooby Doo content, but it's certainly

1:15:33

like Okay. Oh, weird. Yeah. No. I mean, I I think we

1:15:35

filled our

1:15:38

Scooby Doo in

1:15:38

almost feel good. I wasn't gonna

1:15:41

watch. But I was curious, honestly. I

1:15:42

mean, you yeah. You you're, like, you're

1:15:45

that that Seder me some time. I don't watch the whole thing though,

1:15:47

just so you know, the whole season you gotta watch. Good. I mean, I

1:15:50

I'm I'm honestly, I wouldn't expect anything less.

1:15:54

Brandon, I'm not Brandon. Matt was happening on doomed and

1:15:56

scam

1:15:56

economy. Yes. Sure. So this week

1:15:58

on doomed, we took a look at

1:16:01

VELMA. And what do you thought it's Matt on

1:16:03

VELMA? Yeah. I I don't I've never

1:16:05

been I

1:16:08

know it apparently has nothing

1:16:10

to do with Scooby Doo, I've been Scooby Doo I -- -- Hannah

1:16:12

Barbera cartoons are

1:16:15

the second rate cartoon

1:16:20

company, Wonder Brothers Disney, all

1:16:22

those companies, American cartoon companies did

1:16:24

it better than Hannah

1:16:27

Barbera. Some throwing down the gauntlet, I guess, on Scooby Doo

1:16:29

-- Understood. -- and with Flintstone.

1:16:31

Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Hey,

1:16:34

Jeffson's meet the Flintstones is an enormous piece

1:16:36

of Yay. Well,

1:16:37

it's been a failure. Too far. And

1:16:40

and also the both the

1:16:42

especially the Flintstones Christmas. I mean, pretty

1:16:44

much unsurpassed as far as I'm

1:16:46

concerned, but anyway, continued but No.

1:16:47

I mean, literally any bugs bunny. Elmer 3008

1:16:52

made Will definitely melt This is this

1:16:54

is ridiculous. This this is getting this is getting ridiculous. I I thought that mine's

1:16:58

all hotcakes were work. And if you're talking about

1:17:00

crossovers, I mean, just put on Roger

1:17:02

Rabbit and you get Bugs Bunny and

1:17:04

Mickey Mouse together, Daffy,

1:17:05

Duck, and Donald. I mean, it doesn't get

1:17:08

any better. Alright. They're

1:17:10

probably four

1:17:10

years old or I mean, just trying to to gauge this shit here.

1:17:13

What They put

1:17:15

Scooby Doo in supernatural.

1:17:18

That was the best that was

1:17:20

the best crossover I've ever

1:17:22

seen. Okay. We are anyway,

1:17:24

actually, I could be quick

1:17:26

because there was no doomed episode this week because III was

1:17:28

sick last week and then all that stuff going on

1:17:30

or so I needed to catch up on scam

1:17:33

economy. So I did scam economy when I usually

1:17:35

do do them this week. YouTube dot

1:17:37

com slash mattinder, scam economy dot com, spoke with

1:17:39

Molly White, take a look

1:17:42

back at the past year in crypto to make sure we hit some of the

1:17:44

stories that got looked over

1:17:46

that were still weird and

1:17:48

crazy and off the wall

1:17:50

that we wanted to touch and hit

1:17:53

upon. So definitely check that episode out and then scam

1:17:55

economy and doomed to be back on the normal scheduling this

1:18:00

upcoming week. Alright. Wonderful. 646257

1:18:02

thirty nine twenty. We'll probably do two or three calls,

1:18:04

not that

1:18:05

many. Sorry, guys. We went

1:18:07

a little over. Seder you

1:18:10

in the fun half. You are in

1:18:12

for it. Alright, folks. Six four sixty five seven thirty

1:18:14

nine twenty. See you in the fun. Are

1:18:24

you ready? Alfa

1:18:29

males

1:18:29

are back, back, back,

1:18:32

back, back, boy, and

1:18:34

the alpha males are back.

1:18:38

Back. Just as delicious as you

1:18:40

could imagine, the alpha males are

1:18:42

back, back, back, back, back,

1:18:45

boy, back. And the

1:18:47

alpha males are back, Bye bye. I just

1:18:49

wanna degrade the white man. How the males are

1:18:51

back? Bye. I take

1:18:53

all of me to my throne.

1:18:55

Alfa mills are back, back, back, back, snorkelich

1:18:58

says what? The alpha mills

1:19:00

are back, back, back,

1:19:02

back. You're out of mad

1:19:04

man.

1:19:05

And the alpha males are

1:19:07

back. Back. Oh, no. Sam Cedar. What a what a fucking nightmare. Night 3008.

1:19:10

Yeah. Or a couple

1:19:12

of

1:19:15

put them in rotation. DG damage. Well, the problem with those is they're, like, forty

1:19:17

five seconds long, so I don't know if they're the

1:19:19

middle of the break. That's

1:19:23

See, white people throw a drugs

1:19:25

that look worse than normal white people and all

1:19:27

white people look disgusting on

1:19:29

the alpen males or psycho Snorkels

1:19:37

says what? What?

1:19:40

What?

1:19:41

What? What? What? What?

1:19:43

What? Okay. So

1:19:46

it's what? A hell

1:19:48

of a lot of back.

1:19:51

A hell of a

1:19:53

lot of

1:19:54

back. A I'm making stupid money. I love

1:19:57

a lot

1:19:59

of back. I love

1:20:01

a

1:20:02

lot of back. All

1:20:05

lives matter.

1:20:08

Have you tried

1:20:11

doing an impression on a

1:20:13

college

1:20:13

campus. I I think that there's no reason why reasonable people

1:20:15

across the divide can't all

1:20:18

agree with this. Psych and

1:20:21

the alpha males are back, back, back, back, back, back, back, and

1:20:23

the Africans are black, black,

1:20:27

black, black, black Black

1:20:30

African and the alpha males are black, black, black, black, black, black, black, and the African

1:20:33

are black, black,

1:20:36

black, black,

1:20:38

See, Donald Trump out there doesn't a

1:20:40

little party you think that America deserves

1:20:42

to be taken over by jihadists. Keep

1:20:44

it at one hundred. Can't

1:20:46

knock the hospital. Come on. Buckle. Buckle. Buckle. Buckle.

1:20:49

Buckle. Buckle. Buckle, Buckle, Buckle, Buckle, Buckle, Buckle, Buckle,

1:20:51

Buckle, Buckle, Buckle, Buckle, Buckle, Buckle, Buckle, Buckle, Buckle, Buckle, Buckle, Buckle, Buckle,

1:20:54

Buckle, Buckle, Buckle, Buckle, Buckle, Buckle, Buckle, Buckle, Buckle. Buckle, B

1:20:56

Happy birthday to meet

1:20:58

you, boy. I have a thought experiment for you. And the alpha males are Sammon,

1:21:01

back, African.

1:21:04

Black, black, alpha

1:21:06

males are black black

1:21:08

after this. All black,

1:21:10

black, black, black, come on.

1:21:14

Someone needs to pay the pressure. Why should be around

1:21:20

here?