Tech Bros and the Tyranny of Disruption

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to Critical Defiance, the podcast that dares to ask, wait, what exactly are we defying this week? Bobby socks here. Your resident digital freedom fighter, along with my co host and partner in Defiance, nils. It's Monday, April 14, 2025, and folks, I've been spending way too much time staring at glowing rectangles lately. You know the drill. The endless scroll, the next big thing. Promising to solve all our problems, usually while creating three new ones and two privacy issues at the same time. [00:00:36] Speaker B: We're constantly bombarded with the holy gospel of the tech bro, that visionary savior, and their minimalist sneakers and ecologically sound T shirt telling us how their algorithm or platform is going to revolutionize. Well, everything from hailing a ride to finding inner peace through an app. The promise is always the same. Faster, better, more disruptive. But what happens when all this disruption starts to feel a little like techno tyranny? [00:01:04] Speaker A: Think about it. We're told the gig economy is innovative, but are we really celebrating the erosion of worker protections? We marvel at the connectivity of social media, but are we turning a blind eye to a mental health crisis and the spread of misinformation it fuels? And all those shiny smart devices in our homes? Are they making our lives easier or just turning us into data points in someone else's profit model? [00:01:32] Speaker B: This week, we're pulling back the curtain on the cult of disruption. We'll be dissecting the rhetoric, examining the real world consequences, and asking whether all this relentless innovation is truly progress for all of us or just a select few who are cashing in on the chaos. Join us as we challenge the narrative that faster is always better and that breaking things is always the path forward. It's time to defy the dogma of disruption. [00:01:59] Speaker A: As always, you can follow us. Sign up and find out more about the show over@critical defiance.com don't forget to subscribe to us over on Spotify or in your favorite podcast app, hit the like button like it owes you money. And tell your friends if you'd like to donate and help boost our efforts, you can head over to buymeacoffee.com critical defiance. We pledge your support on our website. Every little bit helps on our journey to bring you great content. [00:02:31] Speaker B: All right, so the big three for this week, we've got a couple critical stories. Number one, the curious case of Kilmore Abrego Garcia. This poor man. [00:02:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:41] Speaker B: Kilmar Brigo Garcia is a Salvadorian citizen who resided in Maryland and was deported to the maximum security prison ceot in El Salvador in March 2025. Now, this was despite having both a U. S. Immigration judge's order protecting him from being removed to el Salvador since 2019 and a wife and a five year old child who are both American citizens. According to the Trump administration, this man was deported due to an administrative error. And they've since argued that this error can't be rectified by American courts since they have no jurisdiction over Abrego Garcia in El Salvador. So we're starting off a little crazy. They're admitting that they screwed up and deported the wrong guy, but from word go, they have effectively basically said, well, he's not in our hands anymore. You don't have jurisdiction to every judge that's interacted with this. [00:03:36] Speaker A: Bobby, that's insane. They admit that they mistakenly deport a man and then since he's not in the country anymore, it's out of their. [00:03:47] Speaker B: Hands, not their problem anymore. And it's the craziest argument I've ever heard, but it's the argument they're making. So the deportation garnered significant attention, highlighting issues within the US Immigration system and the immigration policy of the second Trump administration. Despite being deported to a maximum security prison, this man has never been convicted or charged with any crime in any country. [00:04:13] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely insane. [00:04:16] Speaker B: So on April 4, a judge ordered that Abrego Garcia be returned to the US no later than April 7th. On April 7th, the Trump administration lost their appeal at the appellate level, but they got a temporary administrative stay from the Supreme Court of the US that blocked the release of Abrego Garcia in the foreign prison until the court could review its final ruling on the matter. And then the court did. The court reviewed, and on April 10, the US Supreme Court directed President Donald Trump to facilitate the return to the United States of this man who they acknowledged they deported in error. Okay, so follow along with this narrative less than a day after that. [00:05:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm trying. [00:05:01] Speaker B: There was this really tense hearing Friday afternoon, and the Justice Department attorney repeatedly stonewalled. The judge basically said that they could not detail the steps that they were taking to secure his return and admitted that there was no information they could provide on exactly what his whereabouts were. [00:05:21] Speaker A: He deported him and then you lost him entirely, apparently. Is that what's happening? [00:05:27] Speaker B: So that's where it was Friday. And then over the weekend, it progressed. The Trump administration effectively said that the judge didn't have the right or ability to compel them to do anything in another country or to negotiate on anyone's behalf. So at this point, the attorneys for Abrego Garcia are asking for A contempt hearing. The administration is not complying with a lawful court order. In fact, they're trying to find every way they can to minimize the power of the courts in the background. And in the meantime, this man is suffering in what is effectively a work prison. That's supermax. [00:06:08] Speaker A: It sounds like the Trump administration doesn't want this man to be brought back because then he's going to talk about where he was. [00:06:15] Speaker B: Yeah, that's exactly what it is. [00:06:16] Speaker A: What was done to him. [00:06:18] Speaker B: That is exactly what it is. He's going to talk about what they did to him, taking him out. He's going to talk about what this prison is like. He's going to talk about the process. He's going to talk about how people are treated. He's going to talk about the fact that it's a fricking work camp. Yeah. The last thing they want is Abreu Garcia back in this country telling the truth. So we're keeping a tight eye on this one because it's one of the scarier cases out there. Right now. The administration is effectively saying, hey, if we deport you by accident, there's nothing anyone can do about it. Even if there was no evidence you ever committed a crime in your entire life. Yeah, it's egregious. So we can roll from there to another deportation case, and that's going to be number two on our big three. And that's Mahmoud Khalil's case. From cnn. A Louisiana immigration judge said Friday that Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, a legal, permanent residential, is deportable. Now, what's interesting about this is the judge's decision came after the government submitted a memo Wednesday from Secretary of State Mark Rubio alleging that Khalil could be deported because of his, quote, beliefs, statements or associations, end quote, that would compromise U.S. foreign policy interests. [00:07:40] Speaker A: That's horrifying if you think about what. [00:07:41] Speaker B: The government's done here. They've gone from saying this man is a terrorist sympathizer, which is what they initially tried to say when they picked him up, up, and then there was no evidence of that. So instead, Rubio is stating that his beliefs compromise foreign policy interests. [00:07:58] Speaker A: What is going on, the way this works, and you can something as US Foreign policy interest, and it's so broad, it's a broad term. So now beliefs, statements or associations that could compromise or super broad, you can be deported like that. If we think you're too good at fighting against this administration, you're allowed to be deported. [00:08:26] Speaker B: Now, it's important to note here That a removability finding in immigration court means the judge has determined that the individual subject to removal from the US Due to a violation of the law or a lack of status. Neither of what seems to be going on there doesn't seem to be a lack of status and no law was violated. They want him deported for his, quote, beliefs, statements or associations. So the judge's decision doesn't mean that Khalil will face deportation soon, as he has an ongoing case in New Jersey as well. A federal district judge in New Jersey ordered attorneys on Friday to hold a telephone conference immediately after his hearing in Louisiana. So things are moving forward. We expect to see appeal, we expect to see a fight. It's going to take a while, but I don't know which is scarier, the Abrego Garcia case or the Mahmoud Khalil case. [00:09:17] Speaker A: I think they both have their own terrors with. They have huge implications. And at least in my eyes, neither of these men deserve to be deported. [00:09:30] Speaker B: You know, like it's hard. Well, especially in Abrego Garcia's like this. They were admitting that it was an error, but they pulled a slick one there. The administrative error means that it was a paperwork error, right? That's actually the legal meaning for them for an administrative error. It was a clerical error, which means that no particular party is responsible, which means that no one is required to remediate the situation. If they had admitted, say an identification error or an error in his arrest, it would be incumbent on them to resolve the situation. So they've been playing this game from go. They went with administrative error knowing that they were going to play the long game. And now they are testing the courts, now they are testing the courts to see how far they can go and if they can get away with it. And this may be the one, this may be the one that we have to call the opening salvo and the constitutional crisis with the Trump regime. And then speaking of Trump and the Trump regime, did you see what happened in the markets last week? We did the tariff two step tango again. [00:10:37] Speaker A: What do we Tariffs are on, wax off. [00:10:41] Speaker B: So Trump is facing accusations of market manipulation for this because he posted on Truth Social that it was a great time to buy a couple hours before he made a U turn on this trade war that he said he was never going to back down on. The other thing that was interesting was when he said it was a good time to buy, he signed off djt. He never uses his initials to sign off his tweets. DJT is the stock ticker for Truth social. [00:11:07] Speaker A: Oh. [00:11:08] Speaker B: So how much more obvious does it have to become that our elected officials are manipulating the economy for the gain of themselves, the wealthy and that wannabe oligarchs. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Yeah, bought on the dip and sold on the peak as if she knew what was going on behind the scenes. So I think we need to know, I think we all need to know who the hell else knew and just how many retirements, how many nest eggs, how many college funds were destroyed to make a select few people who are now in power wealthier? We need to know. [00:11:48] Speaker A: This is, and it's just another level of it is like I don't even know anymore. It also feels like they are using the biggest, most flashy, controversial things that they could do with were tariff in it. So then we're all paying attention to that. So then we're not really seeing what other things are going on behind the scenes. [00:12:10] Speaker B: You know, this man comes out of a blender, I think because now we're standing in a situation where the Chinese tariffs are around 145%. Right. Other global tariffs for the most part have been paused, but now Trump is putting in an exemption for laptops and cell phones because he knows if the prices of basic computing and communications go up, people are going to go nuts real fast. So that creates this back ass word situation where now if an American manufacturer brings parts in from China to build a computer, they have to pay 145% tariff on it. So tell me again, this is about bringing jobs back to America and how great our factories are. [00:12:58] Speaker A: It's about lining pockets that are already bursting at the seams. [00:13:03] Speaker B: Yeah, it's exactly what it is. Well, fun times with the news of this week. But those are the three biggies and those are the three that we recommend you guys really keep your eyes on because they have huge meaning and huge implications for the future of this country. Especially the Abrego Garcia case. If the government can just rip you off the street, deport you without due process, you know, that means proof and a hearing and then say, oh, we screwed up, but we can't get him back because now he's in the hands of a crazy dictator in a work camp. Whoopsie. We have more than a problem. We are not America anymore. Yeah, land of the what in the home of the who. [00:13:45] Speaker A: Speaking of who we are, I know we had that set as our big three for this week, but I did also want to mention the SAVE act, which we talked about in earlier episodes about needing multiple forms of identification to be able to register to vote and how that would affect, you know, married women. So that's gone through the House. We're still waiting to hear what's going to happen with the Senate. [00:14:11] Speaker B: Now is the time. Call your reps. Because if you don't, your mom, your sister, your daughter, even your wife may not be able to vote if they have to re register at any point. The point of this law is supposedly stopping non citizens from voting. But let's be honest, non citizens don't vote. It's not a real problem. There are more fraudulent votes from American citizens than non citizens attempting to vote. End of discussion. So the premise of the law is bullshit. What it's about is disenfranchising millions and millions of people so that they can't vote, so that the current regime can more easily remain in power. What they're trying to do is cripple your ability to vote and cripple the opposition party, the Democratic Party, in such a way that from the outside it looks like our country has two parties and has elections. But realistically, we really have one party that has a shot and one party that doesn't. If we weigh the system the right way, and this is one of the ways they are trying to rebalance the system in their favor. Can't let it happen. If you do let it happen, 69 million women in America may not be able to register to vote without coming up with new documentation. Proof of citizenship specifically. So yeah, there's your passport. What is it? 145 bucks to get a passport. So there's your poll tax kids if you're too poor. [00:15:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:42] Speaker B: Yep. So the same act. [00:15:44] Speaker A: Watch out for that one. [00:15:46] Speaker B: And yeah, contact your reps. We will put links in the show notes. So, yeah, crazy news week. So big three with a little extra fourth that snuck in. But it was a worthy fourth. It feels like every week there's some new app, some groundbreaking tech promising to change our lives. And often it does, in fascinating ways. [00:16:22] Speaker A: Yeah, usually by making me download yet another thing that wants all of my data and sends me endless notifications. But you know, beneath the shiny surface of innovation, I think there's a really important conversation to be had. [00:16:37] Speaker B: Absolutely. You know, we often hear this unquestioning praise for disruption, but what are the real world impacts of that disruption? Who are the winners and the losers in this constant cycle of change? [00:16:49] Speaker A: Exactly. Are we so dazzled by the next big thing that we're not stopping to ask if it's actually making things better for most people or are we just streamlining the path to more inequality. And let's be honest, a whole lot of dystopian headaches. That's what we're digging into today. [00:17:08] Speaker B: It takes a little digging. You know, I'm sitting here settling in with my coffee and I'm thinking about, and I'm sure you are too, the disruptor. You know, and there are a few images that come to mind. Elon in his suit jacket and his cheesy ass T shirts is one of them. You know, that kind of shtick. But think of it, you know, like the uniform, you know, they have the hoodie and they all wear Chucks or like, like sneakers that were recycled from soda bottles and Guam. And yeah, they're always using words like synergy and paradigm shift with their little crazy messianic zeal. [00:17:44] Speaker A: It's like some weird hipster. [00:17:47] Speaker B: It is. And it's kind of. You know, in my 20s, I was kind of the prototype to one of these guys, which I don't like admitting, but wow. They have taken it to a level that is just. It's different. It's become a leading subculture. I think this tech bro archetype, whether we're talking about oligarchs or as some folks have called them, brologarchs, down to the guys that imitate them, they all share one thing. They share this underlying philosophy that basically boils down to move fast and break things. I gotta ask the obvious question, Bobby. Do we think this is a good thing or do we think it's a. [00:18:23] Speaker A: Good general approach, broad approach to everything? Definitely not. In some situations, in some subcultures or even jobs, sometimes you need a disruptor and a disruptor can be important. It feels like these tech bros just want to destroy without a purpose. [00:18:43] Speaker B: Some of them do. Some of them have this thought that the best thing to do is throw a grenade in the room, pick up the pieces and see what's useful and ignore pre existing structures. Well, right now I'm watching them do that with our government and it's not panning out well at all. And the way this is going to play out in the next six months, nine months, 12 months, is even worse as people start to realize just what they've lost, just what services and programs and money is gone now because of disruptors. Lately with everything going on in the news, yeah, I've got a lot of pause when it comes to disruptors. They scare me a little. I'm a little traumatized by Elon. And I gotta ask, are these people really geniuses or Are they just geniuses at marketing stuff that we already have or already know with like a little twist of tech flavor? [00:19:36] Speaker A: That's actually a really good question. Makes me think about the people who invented things like Uber and Lyft and creating a whole gig economy. Gig economy, for those who aren't really sure what that means is think of all those apps that are like, oh, you can get a job delivering, you can doordash, you can Uber eats, you can grocery shop for people. Or just, you know, the general Uber, Lyft, stuff like that. Where the main marketing out of it is, you know, be your own boss. And then there's a huge rush for those jobs. And it very quickly goes from, you should do this, it'll make money to they have no positions left in your area and you're making dollars and cents. And like, did we destroy the taxi industry and make something better? [00:20:33] Speaker B: Yeah. Or yeah, you know, did we? Or did we just make something different? Like, is it better or is it just different? I think to your point, when it comes to gig workers having tried it, there are some things about being a gig worker that you don't get that you would get from a normal job, like benefits, job security, and regular hours that you can rely on. So there are some serious downsides. Do you have the option of working for yourself that way? Absolutely. Are there people who do a great job with it and make a mint? Yes, absolutely. But it is a job. It is working for yourself. And what I see in the gig economy is people don't realize that they are running their own business and that business is them. Yeah, they treat it like a job. And if you treat it like a job, it's a job that comes with nothing. It's really, it's really rough. My question is, I guess, are we exploiting people to do cool things? [00:21:30] Speaker A: Yeah. It felt like in the beginning, the start of the gig economy seemed like such a good, like something that was going to boost economy, make it easier for people to get jobs, like help the workforce. And the more you dig into those types of things now some kind of just seem like absent dead ends. [00:21:52] Speaker B: In the beginning, it looked like they were going to fill in gaps in jobs and labor in the work market. But in the end, no, it became this weird other thing that really is neither a job nor not. [00:22:08] Speaker A: And people fight over positions, almost like fighting over resources to try to be a doordasher or an Uber driver. I feel like it has exacerbated situations when it comes to employment. [00:22:23] Speaker B: I think you're absolutely right. All of this comes out of, you know, this is all tech driven, but all of this comes out of connective tech, you know, tech where people learn about these products through word of mouth or through sharing, posting, liking. So effectively. Social media, right? So I think that's my question for you today, Bobby. Is social media, like, straight up, is this about connection or is this about controlling our views in the bubble we're in? [00:22:51] Speaker A: Social media is one of those things that, especially because it's something that I tend to look at with a psychology lens, it's terrifying and fascinating and where we are with it now, it seems like it was marketed to us, you know, at least when I was a kid and things like Facebook were first coming out, it was marketed to us as connection, but, yeah, way to keep. [00:23:21] Speaker B: Up with your friends, your family. [00:23:24] Speaker A: But as time went on and more things got updates, or there's new ads for this, or now you have to make sure everything you download, like, do you want it to send you notifications or not? Do you want it to take what you do in that app? And I have all your ads with this. [00:23:41] Speaker B: Is it listening? [00:23:42] Speaker A: Like. [00:23:43] Speaker B: And I think if we look at the progression of it, right. I think what they did was introduce social media a couple decades back. We had the beginnings of it, and at the time when it was new, it was all about making it addictive. It was all about getting traffic. Oh, it was all about getting you there and getting you to stay on there and getting you there as many times a day as possible. It's where we invented modern clickbait. And I think they took that. I think they profiled us and took all that information and said, okay, now we've got them hooked. Now we can control the narrative. [00:24:22] Speaker A: And a fun thing I want to talk about. Well, maybe not fun, but fun fact when it comes to the addiction factor of social media. So there are some psychological studies behind colors and what colors can do to your brain. And blue is a color that keeps your mind active, awake, engaged. If we look at some social media like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr. [00:24:51] Speaker B: Oh, blue sky. [00:24:53] Speaker A: What color are those apps? [00:24:55] Speaker B: They're all blue. Dominant. [00:24:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I never noticed. I mean, on the flip side, red and yellow can make you hungry. So, I mean, you look at McDonald's and you have that, okay, think about the fact that blue keeps you awake and alert. And then you look at all the colors of the main social media apps, you're like, oh, oh, they really do want me on here all night. [00:25:16] Speaker B: It's a little more intentional, I guess, than Even we thought it was. [00:25:20] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. [00:25:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Clickbait is another place where we feed the algorithm our bias. Right. You follow the clickbait and you do it two or three times, and suddenly those are the only types of stories you're ever getting again for the rest of your life. Like Facebook has decided, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:25:39] Speaker A: Until you, like, try to wipe your history or something and you're just like, please, I didn't. I like this one video, this one time. And now the algorithm says, all I want is videos on hot dogs. Another thing when it comes to social media and its addictiveness, one is the mental health hold at any addiction takes on people. And two, it's been linked to increased anxiety, depression and body image issues. People being addicted to seeing other people's lives through screen all day, looking at photos that they don't know if they're photoshopped or not, but most people assume are real. First issues that came out of social media that we didn't see coming, but now we're living. Yeah. So a question I actually had for you was about smart technology and just. Is it really just there to take all of our information? [00:26:41] Speaker B: The audience is still getting to know me, but my life is very smart. In quotes, like smart, everything. I have smartphone, smart watch, smart earbuds. I have smart speakers and my computers have neural processing units. It's a very smart place around here. [00:26:58] Speaker A: It's. It's very weird. Well, not weird, but we have kind of different dynamics in that sense. Because if I could, I would keep everything. Maybe not analog, but I remember being in school and them introducing the smart board and me having a panic attack, being like, no, put the chalkboard back. What do you mean there's a screen? What do you mean you're not pulling this out? And like, I remember also growing up with that Disney movie, Smart Home. [00:27:27] Speaker B: Never saw it. [00:27:29] Speaker A: Oh, oh, oh. Whole AI home. Hologram woman, who is the home. And you know, eventually the home locks everyone in it. So I just think I've always had a fear. Oh, okay. [00:27:46] Speaker B: And I didn't. For me, it started with Star Trek. I saw at a very young age, five, six years old, people verbally interacting with a computer that was a partner and an assistant and sometimes a coworker. And then you fast forward and you take that same influence and I know it's cheesy, and you roll to Star Trek, the Next Generation, and now you've got a walking, talking computer who is a functional part of the crew. [00:28:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:13] Speaker B: And my brain said, how does that map to reality And I've always chased that. I've always chased that idea that we can have this digital assistance, this digital partner. I don't want a digital replacement. I've never been a fan of the James Cameron view, you know, Terminator and Skynet. I've always been a fan of how do we use these things as assistive technologies to make ourselves better, more efficient, more comfortable, more relaxed. How do we use them to help disabled people? How do we use them to help people who are disadvantaged in some way? And that's all great, but that's not what the industry focused on, let's be honest. Yeah, the industry focused on creating smart devices to collect data points. [00:28:57] Speaker A: And I think my generation, or at least the way I grew up from that, you know, Disney movie Smart Home to Reading, 1984. In high school, I always was a little wary of technology that could hear me. Like, I remember when cell phones first started having a voice thing on it, and I was like, how do I make sure this is off always? [00:29:19] Speaker B: And the truth is, you really can't. Yeah, that's one of the creepier parts, is you really can't. [00:29:24] Speaker A: And that. [00:29:24] Speaker B: We talk more about that in our privacy episode. But, yeah, we keep adding smart tech that very often has open doors. Bobby. And that's the thing. Your average smart speaker or smart display is very easy to compromise. And beyond that, if you've got somebody who knows how to jiggle the legal system the right way to get even gray area access to it, you've already put the microphone and camera in your home, so you've done the work for them, you know? Yeah, but even in normal use, when everything is normal and nothing is weird and creepy, it's still weird and creepy because everything you do with these devices is tracked and telemetry is tracked. I run my own system to filter out spam and ads and crap. That system also catches what my smart devices do. I'll give you a couple examples of where it gets weird. My monitor, my computer monitor, contact its software vendor about once every 60 seconds with an update. My smart display, which is from a different manufacturer, phones home about once every three minutes with information on the room. And the last time I've used it, its data point log contains every time I've turned on or off any electrical appliance in my house, from light bulbs to anything that we've connected to the system. And all of that's being collected and used for God knows what. So, yeah, it's a little weird. If you really want to dive into it, we Talked about it a lot more in our privacy special. I would definitely recommend that one for not a deep dive, but sort of a good, well rounded primer on the basics. We're going to do a deep dive further down the road, though. That's going to be cool. [00:31:01] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I think we definitely should. [00:31:04] Speaker B: We have all this tech, right? We have all these smart devices and so many of these smart devices. There's a new one once a year or every two years. Most things it's once a year. You know, think of your smartwatch or your phone. There's a new one once a year. What people don't think about is where does all this stuff go? Seriously, that is a lot of electronic waste. That is a lot of rare metals and toxic materials. [00:31:30] Speaker A: And yeah, I couldn't see how many iPhones I went through in my iPhone phase. Where did those. I mean, they have those, you know, cell phone recycle things in the mall. [00:31:43] Speaker B: Well, that's the thing. The recycling is where it gets interesting. They disrupted recycling with this and. Yeah, they did. They made it, not recycling. Most electronics that are recycled are effectively stripped and then the boards are thrown in a vat of acid and that dissolves and creates two things, sludge, which you then have to figure out what to do with that toxic waste. And basically small amounts of precious metals like gold, silver, copper that are left over after the acid burns off everything they were stuck to and they strain that out, weigh it and sell it. So recycling in air quotes. [00:32:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't even want to think about what that's doing to the air. [00:32:27] Speaker B: Or wherever they dump that goose sludge. [00:32:31] Speaker A: So when we're talking about that type of recycling for phones, like that's what they were doing with old iPods and MP3 players and like that stuff too. [00:32:40] Speaker B: It's pretty terrifying, you know, the things that we do to the environment. But that's, you know, there's a big output of the electronics industry on the world and people don't think about it. Data centers. Think about the amount of energy consumed by data centers. Did you know that Three Mile island, the very infamous Three Mile island, has been brought back online at 50% capacity to support data centers. [00:33:03] Speaker A: Jesus. [00:33:04] Speaker B: That's how much power data centers use. And that necessity, by the way, was created by AI because AI uses a lot of horsepower. So these data centers got bigger and hotter and harder to cool in power. So here we are moving forward, but at the expense of what, you know. And now we've got a president who wants to burn coal to power this stuff, which. Let's not even go there. I hear somebody say clean coal, and I just twitch because there's no such fucking thing. [00:33:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:37] Speaker B: But here we are speaking of coal. [00:33:41] Speaker A: We are seeing historical parallels with the Industrial Revolution and how the Industrial Revolution had this race for the industry. [00:33:52] Speaker B: And it was a race to get to manufacturing, mass production. It was a race to get to that level of labor and labor management. [00:34:02] Speaker A: And it was probably the birth of the worst of what we've started to do to the world in terms of the environment and coal and tar and shit in the air. [00:34:15] Speaker B: Well, think about the Industrial Revolution. We started basically with coal, feeling most of the power for the Industrial Revolution. And what did we get for our efforts? We got smog. Your generation is not really used to smog like my generation was. I grew up in a world where in some cities, you got up and you looked out the window and you saw how gray black the sky was and determined whether or not you'd be able to breathe okay that day. Yeah, well, because of good environmental regulation, we haven't had that problem. But, yeah. So, you know, that was. That was the age of smog, and we want to bring that back now. What the. [00:34:56] Speaker A: My asthma is already not happy. When the pollen comes back, I don't think I'm gonna make it through smog. [00:35:02] Speaker B: Right. And thanks to what we've done to the environment, you know that the pollen season is now longer, right? [00:35:09] Speaker A: Yeah, I did hear about that. [00:35:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Your North American pollen season, as of, I think it was 2009, is now 20 days longer than it used to be. So. Yeah. You know, how do we. How do we take our power back? How do we. How do we get control of all this tech disruptor smartness and stuff that they've introduced into our lives? Yeah. I think that's the big question is how do we. How do we dodge the snake oil and avoid the salesman? Right. [00:35:35] Speaker A: I would say a big good first step is being mindful with how you're using your technology. And also, I think a big thing is do you really need that new phone every year. [00:35:49] Speaker B: Out of fomo? [00:35:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Because I feel like we've also got to a point in our society where we feel like we need to have the latest, shiniest, brightest, sparkliest technology on the market ever, as soon as it drops and that with what you explained about how technology is, quote, unquote, recycled, I don't think we all need the newest phone every year. I think we can keep our phones until they start not working. Let's like Try to lessen that footprint. [00:36:24] Speaker B: Voting with your wallet's a big one. Look into which of the companies that you're dealing with or interested in dealing with or buying something from or subscribing to a service from. Look into their ethics before you commit. Be a little bit more responsible with your wallet and you can do a lot to change the world. You can have a bigger impact than you might think. Demand transparency. Don't deal with companies that are shady in aspect or in how they publish things like numbers, performance reviews. You want clarity. You want your digital landscape to have clarity to it. You need to dodge those snake oil salesmen and the synergistic perplexity that's going to fix the forbids with the deliverable scale scalable system. Wanker. [00:37:10] Speaker A: I thought I lost the ability to understand English for a hot second there. [00:37:15] Speaker B: I think for me, another big, big thing when it comes to moving forward is what we try and foster on this podcast. Be critical, don't be an. But look for flaws in form and function when you're being sold the next big thing. So, yeah, I think we went into tech pros this week because tech pros are popping up everywhere now. It's becoming a social archetype. We don't need more of these. We really don't. With the hats and the T shirts and this. No, no, no, no, no. [00:37:45] Speaker A: Liked them better when they still had fedoras and were pulling the whole M crap. Right now we're here. [00:37:53] Speaker B: So I think that's our big thoughts for the week. [00:38:02] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:38:12] Speaker B: Folks. Now it's time for this week's freedom fumbles. And this week we're gonna start in Lafayette, Indiana. [00:38:20] Speaker A: Who saw this man? [00:38:24] Speaker B: Mega Man. [00:38:26] Speaker A: Holy. [00:38:27] Speaker B: All right, so during the hands off protest, not this previous Saturday, but the Saturday prior to the big one, we saw the birth of a movement and it was beautiful. But at the protest in Lafayette, Indiana, a man pulled up and he jumped out of his truck and his wife started filming him berating the protesters. So obviously we already know he's doing this for attention. [00:38:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:51] Speaker B: Okay. And things get aggressive. The protesters line up in front of him, basically say, no, not having. This guy goes back to his truck and grabs a gun. He grabs a rifle. Doesn't grab a rifle like a grown man. He grabs the rifle by the barrel, but he's waving it around. One of the protesters headbutts him in the face, cracks his nose, blood all over him. And then he runs back to the car and takes off. He gets picked up by the cops. Protester gets Picked up by the cops. They bring him to separate locations. Protester, misdemeanor battery. And yeah, he did, you know, he hit the guy. We can't. We can't allow violence at protests. [00:39:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:32] Speaker B: But at the same time, are you kind of defending yourself and other people when a crazy. [00:39:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:38] Speaker B: Dude jumps out of a truck with a gun and starts waving it around because he doesn't like your opinion? [00:39:46] Speaker A: Yeah, that was. [00:39:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:48] Speaker A: It was funny to watch, though, because that man was upset. And for you, all the other MAGA men out there that are just having the worst showers of their lives, don't worry. [00:40:03] Speaker B: Here it comes the day again with. [00:40:07] Speaker A: His executive order on water pressure in shower heads. We can make sure that the MAGA shower cries are at the right water pressure. [00:40:19] Speaker B: I can't. [00:40:19] Speaker A: To hide their tears. [00:40:21] Speaker B: I. It's so much winning so bigly. I can't. I can't. I can't make this up. [00:40:27] Speaker A: Yeah. I. [00:40:28] Speaker B: And here we are once again. You can't make this up. An executive order because he doesn't like flow restrictions on shower heads that save the environment when he washes his, quote, beautiful hair. [00:40:44] Speaker A: I didn't know that man. [00:40:45] Speaker B: President went so far as to say that. Current showerheads in America, you stand there and it drip, drip, drip, and you wait 15, 20 minutes to get wet. I want to know what planet this man lives on. I want to know. I want to go there. I want to visit. I want to maybe be a dignitary and find out what the problem is. Maybe. Maybe comes out of his mouth. [00:41:11] Speaker A: Maybe there's somebody out there with a job that all of us wish we had. Which Going around and making Trump's life miserable in the weirdest way possible. [00:41:23] Speaker B: Right. Turning down the water pressure before he gets to the hotel. [00:41:27] Speaker A: Yeah. So that he can. Right. I would do that so that he comes out. [00:41:32] Speaker B: If you're out there and you want to pay me. But, you know, we mentioned the protests. We mentioned our friend in Lafayette at the. The initial big hands off protest. [00:41:40] Speaker A: And, yeah. [00:41:41] Speaker B: You know, that's one of our first big wins of the week is the hands off prot. Because these guys, I think we're witnessing the birth of a movement. [00:41:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:50] Speaker B: It was 1200 locations across all 50 states, and it was organized by more than 150 groups. Civil rights organizations, labor organizations, LBGTQ, veterans, election activists, you name it. [00:42:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:42:05] Speaker B: So there was no single target for the administration to go after in terms of saying, oh, these are paid protests by. [00:42:13] Speaker A: By who? [00:42:14] Speaker B: And it's kind of the future of the game. Distributed planning. Yeah. So kudos. Bravo. And to top that all off, they had 500,000 RSVPs as of the Friday night before. And it looks like more than twice as many people showed up. [00:42:27] Speaker A: That's great. Keep doing. Do not stop. That is just amazing. We have good gay news. [00:42:37] Speaker B: Nice. [00:42:39] Speaker A: Last week in Orange County, California, Councilman Mike Munzing tried to ban all flags except the American flag, specifically targeting the gay pride and trans pride flags. And this backfired spectacularly after hours of public outcry. And he tore up his own proposal as the council unanimously voted it down. [00:43:03] Speaker B: So take that maga, Mike. Talk about freedom of speech in a country like this one and then try and say you can only fly one flag. [00:43:10] Speaker A: Absolutely not. [00:43:11] Speaker B: Kind of go over well, buddy. [00:43:13] Speaker A: Absolutely not. [00:43:14] Speaker B: Yeah, we had some cool big wins. [00:43:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Sometimes I do get overwhelmed with the amount of flags as queers keep making mean that I'm one of them. [00:43:24] Speaker B: No, even as one of them. Just my people. Stop with the flags. How many do we have now? [00:43:31] Speaker A: We have a lot. All right. They are important, and now we get to keep them. [00:43:35] Speaker B: Become the flag brigade. Every week we like to talk about stuff you can do, stuff that we can do, stuff that we can all do. And I think this week I'm going to start by saying, I know you're going to hate me for this. Start reading privacy policies if you're brave. Read the end user license agreement for things, too, because these things actually matter. You want to know what's going on with your data when it's being used by things like your cell phone or your watch or even your television. You want to know what they're doing with your data. And the rule of thumb is if it has a privacy policy, they're probably collecting information about you. So get a sense of how your data is collected and used and get a sense of if it's being sold or shared. That's a biggie. [00:44:26] Speaker A: And what I always go off on, and I'm never going to stop, is voting with your wallet. Think about a company's ethics, their transparency, their accountability, and their reputation, and if their morals align with yours, boycotts and the voting with the wallet that people have been doing against Target and other companies has been working. I know sometimes it feels like something really simple that can't make that much of a difference, but it has been showing these big companies that are dropping dei. So keep making a point to vote with your wallet. It helps. It works. It's what the man will listen to. [00:45:08] Speaker B: I think, to close out, start thinking about joining a protest. I think it's time. Between the cases traveling through the courts, between the insane number of executive orders, the treatment of various classes of people, I think we actually need to hit the streets now. It is going to be too late if we don't. And that, dear listeners, brings us to the end of another thought provoking dive into the swirling vortex of American politics and culture. But hold on to your hats, because next week we're tackling something that it's a little closer to home. Literally. [00:45:45] Speaker A: Ever feel like your local news isn't quite local anymore? Like maybe the folks telling you about the bake sale and the school board meeting? Or reading from a script written in some corporate skyscraper miles away? Well, you might be on to something. [00:46:03] Speaker B: Next time on Critical Defiance, we're going to dive deep into an unsettling trend that we call local news undersea speech. We'll be unpacking how national media corporations are gobbling up local news stations and letting local papers to wither on the vine. What happens when the folks who are supposed to be our eyes and ears in our own communities become mouthpieces for prepackaged narratives? Spoiler alert. It's probably not great for us, the everyday people just trying to figure out what's going on down the street. [00:46:31] Speaker A: We'll be digging into the consequences of this media consolidation, from the potential for biased reporting to the very real risk of our communities going D dark when it comes to the truly local information. Your trusted local news might be less trustworthy than you think these days. [00:46:52] Speaker B: So tune in next week for local news under siege. What happens when our communities go dark? We promise to shed some light on this increasingly shadowy corner of our media landscape. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to tell your friends. The more of us who are awake to this stuff, the better. [00:47:10] Speaker A: If you'd like to check out the show notes, sign up for our newsletter or find out more about us, head over to critical defiance.com don't forget to add us on Spotify or your favorite podcast app. Hit the like button wherever you can and follow us on social media. You can find out where on our website or search for us like it's the Dark Ages. We're thanking you in advance because it's really important to get our subscriber numbers up, and though we have a lot of listeners, we haven't gotten you all to hit the button yet. So go hit those buttons. [00:47:43] Speaker B: Yeah, and remember folks, just because it's new and fancy doesn't automatically make it good for you or society? Keep asking the tough questions. Don't just blindly accept the hype of every new innovation. Your critical thinking is your best defense against the tyranny of trendy tech. [00:48:02] Speaker A: We want to hear what you think too. What are some examples of disruption that have left you scratching your head? Head over to the comment section for this episode on our site critical defiance.com and join the conversation. [00:48:16] Speaker B: And if some tech bro tries to sell you an NFT that will revolutionize your cat photos, or a smart pillow that monitors your dreams, maybe just politely decline or run, you know, for freedom. [00:48:28] Speaker A: Until next time, stay curious, stay critical, and stay defiant.