Tisgy Sour. Gary counts down really slowly, which means I don't actually know when the camera's gonna start So that was a slightly slow reaction at the beginning of the show, but welcome. This is Tisgy Sour It's normally boiling in here, but it's especially boiling in here Because it's very hot outside. I mean, what can I say? I'm... oh, fuck, that's me speaking to myself Ash Sarkar is back in the building. You've been away for a few weeks, haven't you? I thought I was better than you and then I came crawling back. I knew you would babe I could not find happiness on the outside I went on holiday and then realized that what I missed the most was Sweating spinal fluid in the Navarro media shipping container. Yeah Just putting my phone on silent. Also joined by the fabulous Wendy Lou at Dell Systems on Twitter and Writing in basically every single left publication. It's about two a week about Organizing in the tech industry Tell us a bit about yourself, Wendy.  You don't have to be good at coding to see my nudes Okay, so yeah, I worked I worked at Google as an intern software engineering intern in 2013 and my background is definitely not traditional for the left So I I was a software developer basically my whole my whole life, right? I started coding when I was 12 Spent a lot of time alone my bedroom on the computer. Yeah, how does that happen? I mean, I didn't mean for this show to be talking about how you became a coder at 12 But how does a 12 year old become a coder? What goes on? I don't know. I just I just started building websites and started writing codes started charging people to build code for them I'd write code for them and it was it was kind of cool Yeah, it was a lot of fun and it was a path that led naturally to just being a software developer studying this in uni getting a job at Google Working on a lot of open source projects So I did a lot of that and then when I graduated uni I was supposed to go to Google full-time as a software engineer They gave me an offer and it's one of those things where like when Google gives you an offer as a new grad out of school You you feel like you have to take it right because for one their offers are so good, right? How much money are we talking? So they offered me a base salary of a hundred K And then about I think it was like 30 K in stock every year, but that was just the first year They would increase the number every year and then it's like a 15 K bonus Yeah, so it's it's a lot of money for someone who's straight out of school And it's it's absolutely ridiculous and a lot of companies now They offer more than that for new grads because salaries have been going up But at the time I was like I should take this I you know I might as well like what else am I gonna do with my life?  So it's fun, but the work itself was just really really boring really stultifying And it was like at a certain point I was asking myself like is this really everything I worked so hard for like I spent all this time writing code Because everyone was like for one I liked it But everyone was saying if you spend a lot of time writing code and you get really good at writing code You'll get a great job and this is where the money is these days, right? Like you just you have to get into the tech industry I was like, okay. Yeah, that's there's a lot of money But this is just really unsatisfying and I don't want to spend my life in front of a computer Writing this code for something a system. I don't care about all the time So I had a bit of this like wake-up moment, but it wasn't really it didn't it wasn't very radical or anything It was just like I just don't want to do this and at the time There was this huge startup trend going on right like the startup bubble was basically at its peak and Some of my friends and I decided to do a startup because we figured we could raise money pretty easily and we you know I could I could write the product and then we could figure out how to sell it We didn't know what we were doing, but we basically ended up starting a company that sold people's data So you guys have heard of Cambridge Analytica. It's not as bad as that But there are a lot of companies that do very similar things my company was kind of one of them So we did that for about three years and then I'm eventually I just got sick of it I was like I can't do this anymore around the same time. I started reading books I started reading like radical books, right that I never ever read before because I was so convinced like what Go and give us some of that. Well, so I think my first The first like books that I read that like slowly pushed me over the edge were my read post capitalism by Paul Mason Which at the time it was like the only thing I'd ever read that combined some form of like left politics With what I've been thinking about in the tech world because there's this huge strain of thought lately about universal basic income and automation And the problem with the way the tech world approaches it is that a lot of all of these people these tech pros, right? Like like I used to be Texas It was it was like You know, we're the first people who ever thought of this like we're the first people to have ever considered the problems of Automation and basic income will reinvent economics from scratch not realizing that obviously there's a huge body of work There's there's so many people who spend their lives thinking about this. So when I read post capitalism, I think I just remember thinking Oh, actually, I should probably learn some economics and I should probably learn some marks I'd never read any marks ever in my life. So I started reading books. I started I bought books books from Verso I think I when they had they had the sale and I was like, yeah, I'll try some of these books I don't know what they're like. I read the Jacobin Verso series So for futures is one of those books and just the more I read the more I realized that there was this like theoretical Framework that I had never heard of right ever Just no one had ever told me in any my computer science or math classes that I should understand what Marxism was or just philosophy or anything And so I realized I was missing her a lot. So I spent time. It's not a requisite of getting a job at Google No, no, no, it's almost a communist manifesto It's almost like an exclusion like if you know too much about the left You can't actually work at a lot of these companies because you'll just not want to Like why would you want to work at something like this shitty corporate job? If you understand how politics works and you understand what you should be doing with your life So, yeah, I mean last year for me. I just read a ton of books Read a ton of like left publications, you know, start subscribing to the bar media, right? Jack of Ann that sort of thing the radicalization strategy is We need to radicalize more tech workers Yes, but if we radicalize you and you're a tech worker for at least a year Please keep your 100k job and go to support dot Navarra media dot com Because a new media does not come for free To be honest some of it does but that's the problem. That's why it's quite unsustainable Dolly Parton says it costs a lot of money to look this cheap. So That's a good phrase. I like that great phrase This is the perspective We're gonna be drawing upon when we talk later in the show about Tech organizing in Silicon Valley and even abolishing Silicon Valley. We're gonna talk about what that means First to start off the show ash So something really wound me up last week Go on and the thing that really wound me up was hearing on Friday that on Thursday night George the poet a spoken word artist and rapper and educator All-round incredible artist and thinker. So if you're not familiar with his work, go check it out immediately Was stopped and searched quite aggressively outside his parents house after Performing a sold-out show. So he filmed some of this footage. Do we have that available to ask Gary? Yeah, we can get the insta up My successful headline show and it's got a nice little welcome This is not Has anyone got photographic ID for the gentlemen so we can be on our way You're asking for that now They're asking for ID now He posted that footage up on his Instagram and this was what the caption said I'm gonna try and condense it's fairly long Last night after a beautiful sold-out show I was chilling out on my parents house when police rolled up in that big van asking questions about my car I answered and verified they then told me to move my hand from my waistband out of nowhere They cuffed me and searched my car for weapons After the car itself was the first issue So firstly said the problem is your car next it's for searching it for weapons They put me in the van and did a strip search They then took 20 minutes to write my search slip being rude to my parents and neighbours the whole time This week I've done talks on diversity at Cambridge and Cardiff Police didn't get a mention once because as a grown man, I'm sick of talking about them. They will never change they don't deserve my energy and Talks about uh to be cuffed and dragged around in front of my parents while they make up lies about me being aggressive and having weapons It's a reminder. We don't fight on our own terms. We fight on theirs So all my young boys who are locked in conflict with each other. Please wake up and realize who your real enemies are I don't like sharing images of me being handled like a second-class citizen by public servants whose salaries We pay taxes for this is not how I see myself It's not what I invite into my life But these images should be an education for anyone who doesn't understand the toxic energies that are quietly spread throughout our community by state Actors imagine if my nephews woke up and saw their big famous uncle getting handled like this What seeds without sowing them writing this post was boring. I've got better things to do. Sorry to anyone who was woken up by the noise So it's a very powerful statement. It was a really powerful Like I said like in an incredible mind an incredible thinker so Why don't you tell me Michael about how the police's behavior in terms of stop and search How coherent it has it been with wider government policy and what's labor's response to this looking like? Wow, I really didn't know you were going to ask me that question.  I think you'd probably answer it better than I would Yeah, no, just every so often I have to you know throw you a little Crumb. Yeah. All right. Thanks, babe um What was the question? So how does this how does this relate to stop and search So this is currently in the news more. I know this in relation to Siddiq Khan. So Siddiq Khan ran in 2015 saying he'd do whatever was in his power to reduce stop and search There's been a lot of pressure on him since the rise in knife crime recently quite significant rise in knife crime Which has caused him to do a u-turn and he said he's now committed to significantly increasing stop and search In the face of that pressure. I'm not sure if this particular stop and search would be a result of That change in policy. I don't know how quickly these policies feed through Or if this is something that's been consistently going on for the last few years Am I supposed to throw back the question at you ash? Yeah, that's what we're doing now Uh, I mean this this incident got famous because he's famous How often is this kind of thing how often are people getting strip searched in the street for having done Absolutely nothing wrong for just being in a car I mean, so I guess the first thing to say is that since 2010 2011 where stop and searches were really at their peak There was a concerted government effort to reduce The number of stop and searches because there was a great deal of concern over How unevenly they were being Sort of distributed in terms of stop and searches of different communities However, while there was a Quite speedy decline in the numbers of stop and searches that decline wasn't as speedy for each ethnic group So the sharpest and quickest four In terms of people being stopped in search was for white people and surprisingly the slowest four was for people of color to be honest You say that that that sounds surprising to me because either for sort of if the reason the police are ramping this down is because they're getting uh Accused of racism Then they should be more hesitant to stop and search black people if what they're worried about is the perception of it being unequally applied I mean, obviously the stats don't lie.  It would be kind of um You know edging around the periphery on that I'm kind of going to throw back the question that you asked me because I know that you'll give a better answer so Is it in any way reasonable that sadee khan responded to pressure to say we will start increasing stop and search So, I mean, I think his line is yeah, I wanted to decrease it but Basically the spike in knife crime has meant we will have to start Bringing it back even if in a targeted way. It's sort of difficult to know precisely what that means I think labor's official position is therefore stop and search so long as it's evidence-based If that's satisfactory to you So what's interesting when you look at the data is is that yes while we've seen a Fall in number of stop and searches fall in policing numbers. We've seen this Increase in some types of violent crime. It's interesting what gets Looped into the moral panic and what gets excluded. So I had a little look during the kind of knife crime Media frenzy peak a couple of months ago and notice that of you know, there were three reported stabbings in I think, you know a single evening But only one of them got picked up where they a victim was a young black man The others weren't mentioned one of them was stabbing in a betting shop. So it's interesting how one type of Knife crime gets pulled into a discussion about the policing of Public space and other forms of knife crime don't so it depends on who the assailant is who the victim is similarly Bladed weapons are used in half of all Intimate partner murders and yet that doesn't feed into our sense of like what knife crime is So that's the first thing to say is that this spike in violent crime overall isn't just about Essentially like working class people of color Except that's how we choose to understand it the second thing is that actually there is a wealth of data on how effective Stop and search is and it shows that it is not effective at all It has little to no effect on reducing violent crime So this is from the metropolitan police's own data from a 10 year study That showed that while increased stop and search was effective in reducing non-violent drug offenses the impact on violent crime was absolutely negligible A 10 percent increase in stop and search could only expect to yield a 0.1 percent decrease in violent crime And that's you know, really a blip and it's so volatile as to whether or not you're going to get that 0.1 percent decrease is that Um, the study's author said that basically has no effect whatsoever And so another way in which we can see that stop and search is completely ineffective when it comes to being a useful way of crime prevention Is that even though stop and search use overall has fallen since 2010 2011? We actually haven't seen a fall in the arrest rate. So that's remained fairly consistent Uh, I think we should have a little table for that coming up. Do we have a little table for that? Yeah, it doesn't matter. Um And so then you'll have to google it. Yeah to google it. All right, take my word for it I've got a really trustworthy if sweaty face. Um, and then we have to start asking ourselves questions about just how and even the The racialized application of stop and search is because five people out of every thousand are likely to be stop and search for black people It's 29 people out of every thousand black people. So that's an astonishing um You know racialized outcome there and then we have to ask ourselves like, okay Well, is it just because you know as lots of uh, our friends in the right wing media would suggest that, you know, black people Are just you know, overrepresented when it comes to the kinds of crimes that are looking to be tackled Well, let's have a little look at a nonviolent drug offences 43 percent of uh, searches that were then subsequently studied were um drug related Searches and black people are less likely to have illegal substances found on them than white people by a significant margin So I think release have the statistics for that. So, uh, 5.8 percent uh, black people Use drugs compared to 10.5 percent of white people, which is why I tend to hang out with white people um But they are six times more likely to be stopped and searched for drugs The smell of cannabis was given as a reason for random stocking searches for 23 percent of all searches um, and so and it's you know incredibly Incredibly ineffective as a model of policing. So yeah, this idea that it's going to be great for uh, reducing violent offences not true This idea that it's you know tackling hardened drug users on our streets Not true and this idea that it can be applied in Any way, uh, racially Evenly not true.  Is he got tiny shoes? I suppose a small man.  He's feeling under pressure because knife crime is going up under his watch. He's being Called complacent from many angles. Uh, there were a few own goals I think it took him quite a while to meet some of the parents of the victims of knife crime Um, what should he do to put himself on the front foot? Without sort of adopting these kind of what you're describing as reactionary measures Here's the thing is that you can please the right wing press or you can be effective and pick what your priority is what's effective and what we know is effective is a public health driven model of Violence reduction which you increase the role for social services for early intervention When you think about containment strategies rather than punishment strategies And then you also have a really good look at other factors which are driving increases in violent crime So the closure of youth centers, um, the fact that um schools in london in particular are overcrowded It's easy to get lost in the system. Um an overburdened care service as well All these things contribute to an uptick in violence If you want to be effective address those things if you want to play to please, you know Disgusted in tumbridge worlds and no one else. He's never been anywhere near tower hamlet. It's increased open searches Yep It's hard to disagree with that. Do you disagree? It'd be great if you came in here with sort of like really controversial disagreement with what ash just said actually I'm really in favor of stop and search. No, I don't disagree and I think just one way to tie it into the tech the tech aspect is that um What we're seeing is that in the u.s Especially there's been this rise of predictive policing where basically you have these tech companies like minority report Yeah, kind of right there. They're like selling these algorithms to police departments and out the paddling pool I love that phone It's it's like this this way of using the data Right to say like you should only you know stop and search in this neighborhood because this is where they're more likely to Commit crimes this is where they're more likely to need to be stopped and searched And of course because you're working with data that data is going to be inherently racist, right? It's going to be inherently biased because of all this institutional structural bias But because it's just you know an algorithm. It's neutral Um, it's like a really effective shield that um, these police departments can use to say to kind of Abdicate responsibility by saying it's it's not us, right? It's the algorithm The algorithm told me to stop and search this guy in a black working class neighborhood. Exactly. Exactly And so there's nothing wrong with the way we're doing things It's it's just technology and technology is neutral. Yeah, there was something that I read about taser Um, developing a database which could predict criminal movements Um, which just sounds like the most dystopian thing. I'd ever heard in my life. It's really terrifying. Yeah What why was saman for more in the paddling pool? It was her brain that processed this machine In what for taser ruin minority report minority report. I think the predictions came from her brain Yeah, yeah, so she was in the paddling pool with the two others All right, and so she's floating around like this and then she'll be like like she'd have a little vision and then But it's clearly just gonna come from a computer and then the ball would come out Oh, yeah, but you said it's like minority report and I was like, oh my god, that sounds awful No, it is. I'm just surprised that that that movie was made in what was it the early noughties late 90s And they couldn't understand that those kind of predictions will be made by a computer not by Woman floating in a paddling pool Because then tom cruise all he would have to do is lend the computer and you don't have a Does he fall in love with saman for moreton? No, he doesn't fall in love with saman for more turn He takes throughout the paddling pool though And how many people dies a result? What would you do an ethical colundrum? I can't remember the film. Did it turn out to be bad? Or was it kind of cool? I've never actually watched it, but you know, I'm stopping crimes for the good Committee story about minority porn and I I hope the person who's involved in the story doesn't watch this It's a little embarrassing but my my co-founder for my startup He wants to pitch to an investor that our startup would basically be like the scene in the minority report when This guy's like walking past some sort of billboard and it changes to reflect who he is and what he likes And that's how he pitched the startup Yeah, and the investor was like, oh, that's great. It's cool Right and there's there's something kind of funny about the way well We now think is dystopian is like this wonderful utopia for a lot of people in the tech industry That's why we have to have also kind of value I mean, I think we should we should loop back on this conversation because I think it actually has a like Like as you were saying it's got a real Um, what we think of is kind of quite distant conversations about tech actually affects how we live in our communities every single day So thinking about algorithmic racism the idea that we might have institutional racism without racist individuals Anymore is something which I find um quite terrifying but I think something that we should consider is inherent to the production of space of urban space in particular these things which we think of as dystopian are actually someone else's utopia So coming back to stop and search Uh, when I was tweeting about george the poet stop and search last week Dan Hancock's a friend of the show amazing grime writer a tweet back by saying that well, you know At the height of grime. So maybe it was like 2004 or something, you know jammer who Is part of boy better know It was just the nicer person on the planet was doing a show in bethany green rich mix and was really aggressively stopped in search on the street in front of everyone And so when we think about that policing of the street as a distinctly new labor phenomenon And also we think of like rich mix as a kind of like new labor cultural institution And then this is how like artists of color are treated is that well that method of securitization cctv everywhere stops and search everywhere Um asbo policing. So the idea that you are criminalizing once non-criminal forms of behavior. That's New labors utopia. That's a working class black man's dystopia. So you're always on that really fine edge Um Ash, I've got a segue. Yeah Samantha Morton in the paddling pool could predict future crimes The american political establishment could not predict the victory of alexandria acasio cortez In last tuesday's primaries in a particular district of new york. I can't remember what it's called ny14 or something Smooth as ice If you want more of those segways, please go to www.navaramedia.com Slash Support dot navara media dot com. Thank you. Go to that one support dot navara media dot com Uh, because new media can not for much longer come for free.  I'm getting more and more desperate every week It's very hot in this office.  I think well, I think the um, we've become increasingly sweaty and weird So let's just commit to this egg way. I think the air calm will be quite I think about three years until that's in the master plan you get air calm in three years time I think that's gonna be in about six months time. I'm gonna get that That stuff that makes your forehead less shiny Oh, yeah, yeah Do you want blotting paper because that like reanna is bringing back blocking paper for all of us with fenty beauty? Whereas actually, I think you're thinking about i'm thinking of powder. Yeah, I'm just thinking of blusher No, no, no blusher is not what you want on your forehead. Do you want translucent powder? Yeah, but it's not a name.  You just have to I'd prefer to be shiny Can we move on to new work? Ocasio Cortez, um Thank you. Tell us I've I've got distracted by your own perspiration by my own perspiration So wendy, please tell us about can you? Ocasio Cortez and show us your t-shirt. Yeah I was going to wear this t-shirt, but um, it's a little hot in this office So I can't but um, yes, I am technically a democratic socialist of american member I'm a paper member because obviously I don't live in the u.s. I live here, but I'm registered to the san francisco chapter where speaking of paper Sorry So I'm not I'm not actually american So, but I guess i'm the closest thing to an american you guys have right now. So are you canadian? I'm canadian I was thinking today. I was like, yeah, no, but I follow american politics I've lived in the u.s. For a bit and um, I'm really excited by Ocasio Cortez's victory and I think what it really speaks to is the fact that there is An appetite for socialist politics in the u.s. And what we're seeing there is kind of similar to what we saw here with Jeremy Corbyn Right where you have you have a base Like the democratic base is actually much for the left in the establishment And so they were hungry for a candidate who actually spoke to their interests Versed the same thing here where you you know you so many people supported Jeremy Corbyn The establishment did not think he could become leader right that they were like, oh, you know He's he's appealing to a very small minority people But that wasn't true They were just they just couldn't see it and it seems like there are a lot of parallels There as well The problem is that the the democratic party is much more entrenched much more ossified in the labor party And the way that these things work and the amount of um the amount of money in in the democratic political machine You know just the amount of money in american politics in general is way way worse than it is here And so there's a long road ahead But at the same time the fact that she actually managed to beat this incumbent who it seems like Was quite powerful in in the party machine not powerful in the sense that he got people to vote for him people evidently care Right, but it was he was powerful in the sense that you know He was pulling the strings for a lot of things he could get the right people nominated And he was kind of resting on his laurels. He and he raised so much money He raised I forget how much just like a 10 times more than 10 times more than she did just incredible And for her like she won because partly because of her ground game Right, they were knocking on doors all the time But partly because she had policies that actually appealed to people So let's talk about some of those policies. What were they? Yeah, so I mean she ran on just a classic democratic socialist america platform, right medicare for all Um abolishing ice. I believe was something she came out with soon after um and Just I guess very very similar to I guess what bernie sanders was proposing There are some some differences But the the point was everything she was proposing was so far left of what the democratic establishment was proposing So very very similar to jeremy corbin running on an anti austerity platform Whereas all the other leadership candidates in 2015 were like, oh austerity is okay You know like austerity this time But you know it's still good overall and they just didn't really differentiate themselves from each other So for her it was just someone So new so fresh and she's so young. She's 28 and she was actually a member of democratic socialist america Which is just incredible. I mean bernie wasn't even a member of dsa So is he has he joined yet? I don't think so Come on bernie. Hurry up I mean, here's some policies that aren't so great. He hasn't really been good on the whole abolishing ice thing It's unfortunate. Is he not? I suppose he's going for a presidential run and he doesn't think it's a popular policy Let's talk about this Abolishized idea because it seems to have developed a great deal of public interest relatively quickly It's got I mean, and I think that's because the sheer brutality of the u.s. Border regime It makes it less and less possible to articulate a kind of Triangulation of like little bit border control like, you know, you have to go The whole hog in terms of arguing um against a draconian border regime because you can't you can't talk about moderating that kind of Insurgent fascist force really but what I found interesting about the way in which, you know, because there has been a blowback against a casio-cortez both from The right-wing establishment and then also the right of the democratic party itself and what was interesting to me is that They were you know They were saying that she risks alienating this kind of imaginary white voter who you know seems to live everywhere and nowhere um by pursuing such a radical anti-racist cause Before you answer that question the heat has made me lose all sense Of organizing the show and I feel like there's some terms I might need to introduce to the audience So ice is immigration and customs enforcement. They are currently Uh in the public consciousness in america obviously because of trump's policy of separating migrant children from their parents and when they come over the border undocumented the reason that's happening Is because trump has adopted a zero tolerance policy to undocumented migration whereby People who are found to have crossed the border without documentation are treated as criminals within the criminal justice system Straight away, which means they go to federal prison um to await trial I suppose and when they go to federal prison As is american law their kids get taken away from them and they end up getting the kids get warehoused in cages Um on the border and as videos came out of these kids sort of crying This has become a huge political rightly a huge political scandal in the united states and a casio-cortez Who as we've just been saying ran and beat his name was joe crowley So he was the number four democrat in the house of congress So he looked like he was going to be leader of the house in the future. It's a lot like when in 2010 no 2014 it was eric canter Who was the republican leader of the house got beat by a tea party candidate? So we can talk about that relationship In a moment. Sorry after those intros go on to so we were talking about a casio-cortez Has said she would abolish ice. This was one of her policies to mobilize her base Um, we just showed a tweet up there which showed an american political scientist with about 300k twitter followers I hadn't heard of the guy, but that's his credentials political scientist 300k twitter followers. He'd written a book he's saying that this slogan abolish ice is going to alienate the democrats from most people in the united states and it's going to help reelect trump in 2020 so basically it's a losing message for the democrats. I mean, what do you make of that?  It just speaks to the failure of imagination of You know just mainstream politics in the in the us everywhere really but especially in the us and I think part of the reason I got drawn to radical politics in the first place is because um, especially throughout 2016 and early 2017 right after trump got elected I felt like everything I was reading that came from, you know, just like liberal centrist viewpoints It just felt like it didn't make any sense, right? And that there just was no theoretical grounding in which any of this could be explained And they were just grasping at straws and I mean, I think that that example speaks to it, right? This this guy seems to think that abolishing ice is this incredibly radical alienating position that no one would ever support Ice was only founded. I think a couple less than like two decades ago, right? I think 2003 it was after 2001 after 9 11 But for some reason like this guy can't imagine a world where voters would want to not have ice as something that exists And I think what what he's maybe missing is the fact that not everyone things like him not everyone Has been in the political establishment for so long that you know, their minds are just like stuck firmly in one way of thinking I think a lot of people Haven't just haven't had a lot of time to think about politics and understand how it shapes their lives how it shapes the world that they live in And it feels like recently, you know, we're seeing this This wave of Politicization as people start to realize that things like ice, you know when they see a video of children being kept in cages They look at that and some of them are you know, maybe they thought the world was fine They thought that the u.s. Was mostly fine like they're a rich country things are a little bit bad But it's not too bad Then they look at that and then that just kind of hits them in the face And they realize actually the country that we're living in is founded on this just incredibly immoral Sort of thing happening all the time Maybe there's something I can do about it. And just as an example in the democratic socialists of america of san francisco chapter They have this um intro to socialism thing Every once in a while and yesterday they had one where they were expecting maybe five to ten members There are 70 people there and it feels like that's something that as a result of maybe the whole abolish ice campaign because um dsa sf was quite active in that and Did some marches and maybe also because of a cause of a Cortez people are starting to realize that there are alternatives to this really just like theoretically flawed and um Morally bankrupt like liberal political trajectory. And you know who really needs to hear this The old left in the uk because this is a political conflict. I find myself bashing my head up against on pretty much a weekly basis which is there is an idea in Amongst lots of people on the left that anti-racism In of itself will always be alienating to a white working class electorate who you have to You know encourage to vote for you and that if you present a Socialist policy platform, it will somehow magically be anti-racist and move people in that direction Whereas anti-racism on its own could a you know anti-racism if it's too prominent Um can alienate people from a socialist cause whereas I think what you're suggesting here is that that's actually a way in for people Into the dsa and I think that's something that's worth pointing out. I think another thing that's worth pointing out and again this is something which um I think some Aspects of the labor movement and in particular this kind of um, you know revived labor left could learn from as well Is that I think that there is some really strong socialist messaging around dismantling border regimes so The expansion of immigration detention and deportation that's been outlined by trump will require $1.2 billion and that will be divvied out private contractors like core civic like Geo group all of these sound like, you know, if we're kind of coming come back to sci-fi dystopias It sounds like the kind of evil corporation that has to be um, you know taken down um And geo group in particular were very generous donors to trump aligned super PACs like during his election So, you know, this goes hand in hand with the corruption of american politics by big money This is no way. Um, you know draining the swamp cleaning up politics. Like this is just another avenue for corrupt money. Um while The um structures of party funding are Significantly different in the uk. I think we can also look At g4s. We can look at circle as vested interests which are deeply deeply corrupt as well um What's interesting to me is that uh, if you look at the coming back to the stop and search issue if you look at organizations like only connect, I think, um, which is a kind of a gang exiting strategy, which seems to have do nothing apart from have a website of, you know People doing you know culturally diverse things and they just swallow up a load of money from the government Um, is that the person that the head of that is danny kruger who used to work for david camman big society guy So, um, you know, he made he made the case for, you know gutting Um public services now swallowing up a ton of public money for this completely toothless gang exiting strategy thing and then if you look at, um, You know who's involved with say safer london. I think it's someone it's someone from an organization like circo It might not be circo itself, but someone um like circo so you do have this kind of constellation of corrupt financial interests and an interest in maintaining and expanding Racist state apparatus here in the uk as well And I think that the left generally i'm not just talking about the labor left I'm also talking about an anti-racist left, which I think sometimes has set its horizons too narrow Or too broadly abstract to have any traction This is the kind of thing that we really need to start gunning for I think to be fair to the old left I mean, it's too it's too early to say whether abolish ice will be a successful electoral message It's only been tried out in one district in new york, and we really don't know I mean what what is clear is that the republicans are trying very hard to paint this as the left fighting for no borders Which I think would be a Very unpopular policy to run on in the presidential elections in 2020 stand on a noble platform, but you start chipping away Yeah, yeah, you start you start moving, you know, should be overton window, right until you get there Well, I think people want a humane people want a people want a humane Immigration system, but they don't want to get rid of the immigration system. It's what I would yeah. Yeah. Hopefully maybe one day Um, but I all I'm saying is I don't think this disproves the idea that saying No borders can't win elections because it won well, she wasn't saying no borders anyway No, and that's the thing is that I think I think I think that it's misrepresentative and I think that it is I think that the right would make a miscalculation Of hitting back at the abolish ice messaging and see they want to open up the borders When it whereas actually those images of crying children at the border have a great deal of resonance for most people Like you have to be and there are a ton of hardened racists in the united states like I'm not naive about that Um, but I think that it would be a misstep for them to fight on that terrain in that way I think what's quite possible is the people that will decide the next election don't care about ice Um, so there's been some interesting Well, I mean you don't even need a study to show that trump won the election because of certain voters in the american rusbell, which is michigan Pennsylvania wisconsin wisconsin. Is there one more? No, I think it's those three, isn't it? Um, and the districts that voted heavily for trump were in some cases multicultural They'd often voted for obama twice and then moved to trump. So they weren't voting out of white supremacy They've often tolerated white supremacy, but they were voting because someone was Saying they would challenge the current trade system basically which gutted their county of jobs So, I mean, I don't think any message about ice is really going to swing the election in that region I think what a casio cortez has done quite well is to say the democrats need to move beyond This idea where there's either class or identity issues I mean obviously hillary clinton tried to win election just on identity issues She was saying america is better than this her slogan was i'm with her Um, and she didn't mention economic inequality at all Um, I just want to read one really good like amazing quote from a casio cortez. So she says This is quite an intercept article at the end of the day I'm a candidate that doesn't take corporate money that champions medicare for all of federal jobs guarantee the abolishment of ice and a Green New Deal, but I approach those issues with the lenses of the community that I live in and that's not as easy to say as identity politics It's nice. And also that's the thing is that like when it comes down to these discussions of identity politics and I think All of us in some way get pulled into this by nature of who we are um, is that you get pulled into Defending a set of politics that you have very very deep critiques of because you know that the critiques that it's being met With aren't the ones that you hold it's basically saying we preferred it when people of color when women when queer people When disabled people remained silent about that which affected their ability to participate wholeheartedly in movements of solidarity All right, and then it's hard to come through with that critique and to complicate the conversation and to add nuance And that's why I like you know a casio cortez so much is because she is doing that She's she's amazing and I mean going back to the abolishing ice thing I I don't think I think it's a mistake to think about it solely in terms of whether it'll win an election right and because they're there's a much broader challenge here and the point Of saying things like that is to politicize people is to get people to realize that You know the the things that they expect that their country is doing are the results of political actions And that they could have an effect and I think it's already starting to happen Right your even fox news has the potential to radicalize some people who watch it because what I saw an image Where fox news really just stated a casio cortez platform. They didn't she retweet it and said yeah Yeah, and it was like it's almost an advertising for her and maybe the some fox of fox news's viewers We'll see them and be like, huh, maybe I should look into this more. Why is medicare for all such a bad thing? Right, I also I mean I also think like in terms of political media because this is something that I'm quite interested in is like, you know When is that moment of tipping over where they've told you take someone so much that you can't help but love them Is that I think that there's often a grave miscalculation in a presumed passivity of your audience I think people are only as dumb as you treat them and I think it's very dangerous to assume that people will be done forever um Is the first thing and I think the second thing is You know coming back on normalizing the politics of abolish ice Well before windrush if you told me in two weeks time the hostile environment will be, you know, critically Edited to the point where I think, you know, you could have it's very similar to the hostile environment this because it's it's sort of a particular inhumane aspect of Migration which leads to a much wider conversation about what an immigration system looks like is that I think labor can stand and win on a dismantle the hostile environment platform, which they will be doing um So I think that there's great value in having candidates like acasio-cortez or figures like david lammy and dine abbot popularizing these ideas and then also in activists who do come from that no borders tradition who are doing that really Disruptive work, which is you know, by its very nature has to be small scale Um, I think that all these things have a place in a healthy leftist ecology I think all coming from slightly different places. We are in favor of abolishing ice We're gonna speak in a moment as to whether we are in favor of abolishing silicon valley First surprise surprise I think acasio-cortez's victory Can teach us a lesson about how the labor party should organize its rules So acasio-cortez's campaign was possible because the american system allows people to challenge incumbents from the outside Based on a positive campaign acasio-cortez Could I think collect a certain amount of signatures and that means she can challenge Joe Crowley was his name. Was it Joe Crowley? He's so forgettable this guy. He's forgettable She could challenge him in a in a head to head contest They didn't have to first deselect Joe Crowley's they didn't have to have a divisive campaign Which was is Joe Crowley good is Joe Crowley bad? Which is what we'd currently have to have in the labor party before someone inspirational like acasio-cortez could Sort of step up and if we want to revitalize the labor party, this is exactly what we have to do We have to allow inspiring Outside of candidates people engage in their communities with Sort of the ideas that are up and coming in britain right now because obviously acasio-cortez wouldn't have won 10 years ago But that's because socialism is now on the up and if your party cannot incorporate Ideologies which are on the up then you're not going to be adaptable enough to win elections We saw and this this isn't just good for socialists actually acasio-cortez. It's going to be good for the democrat party So the republican party was able to flip both houses Under obama's presidency even though journalists academic quite rightly were saying there should be an inbuilt democratic majority in america right now And that's because it's soon to become a majority minority nation The republicans are only really capable of a of appealing to mainly white men I mean trump also won white women but by a smaller margin If you look at the demographics of america republicans should not win The reason they could win is they had an incredibly mobilized and passionate base Um who were inspired by the tea party.  I will be campaigning for mike gape's you can campaign for mike gape's But ultimately the people are going to decide that's the beauty of it. The people are going to decide.  I loved it. Oh All right Mandatory reselection No, but it's it's actually better than that because I I agree when when you say this is a good argument for mandatory reselection Quite rightly sort of centrist say but it wasn't just Party members that could vote for acasio-cortez. She had to do an outward facing campaign Um, which I think is right. Yeah, I think if you can only inspire party members Then maybe you're not that good. Yeah So I feel like if the if the baseline to win is you have to inspire more people in that constituency than the incumbent That's a good challenge to set yourself and I think that's the policy we should have but also like I think that acasio-cortez shows something which is Much harder to sort of reduce to certain institutional arrangements within a party political structure and it's a mood It's emotional affect.  I think whatever it is. I'm doing.  I joined that campaign against neil coil I would deselect myself. We'd get you those signatures in a second. Oh god, no But like, you know, I was a bartender for seven years And then it meant that when I was walking into these political spaces that I felt like I didn't deserve to be there Because if I was good enough, then I wouldn't have to be working on bar anymore. Like, you know that that level of self-doubt is You know so so deep and to see her React with such joy with such a land and then when you know, the haters have really been coming for her in the last few days She has just been batting them away. She's just like serena on the court. Just like bam and it is it She's fire. Yeah, look at her twitter and look at the replies section.  Um, it's really beautiful to see It's really energizing to see and I think that it encourages A participative model of politics in which you're not waiting for a messianic figure anymore You're starting to think like well, actually all those reasons why I excluded myself from participating these structures or thinking I could take a leadership role That's what qualifies me to do it and the real frauds are the people who don't think they're frauds like Joe Crowley Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I mean, obviously, you're right It's not just structures that allow this to happen but structures enable it to happen when the mood is there Which is why we need internal party reform I wonder if when I whisper that it comes out on the podcast. Anyway, I said this is why we need internal party reform Let's talk about abolishing silicon valley. When are we doing it? How are we doing it? Why are we doing it? Well, this is something I came up kind of as a joke a week ago Just because I was seeing all this stuff around abolishing ice and I was like I mean, can we just extend the concept of abolition to other things like silicon valley? And I think what it does is like the whole point is to just imagine a world where silicon valley as it is now Doesn't exist and I think there's something really powerful and really new about that, right because We kind of take for granted that you know, five of the top top 10 companies by market capitalization in the world are going to be these like tech companies, right Headquartered in the u.s. Mostly in the bay area And it's just one of those things where it just feels so natural and it's really hard to imagine a world without them But at the same time a lot of this stuff happened only in the last few decades, right? And the the idea behind um abolition as as like the framework in which to consider this this concept Is to realize that a lot of what's wrong with silicon valley is structural It's not that there are few individuals like ilan musk mark sakeberg peter teal Who are just bad people need to be replaced by women or people of color? Which is we know with the like liberal feminist way will show sandbags exactly exactly like we don't need to lean into silicon valley We need to get rid of it all together And part of the reason is because the whole structures of the industry Produce this ecosystem of people who are going to make terrible decisions, right and who are geared more towards Creating shareholder value and I think what's special about tech is that because technology occupies a really interesting position within capitalism And it's where we're at a time of low interest rates especially in the u.s. And Money is just being funneled towards technology and towards venture capital and and towards these big tech companies in the hopes That somehow you'll get a return on capital technology is just this you know this like Dream that everybody kind of believes in like i'll i'll just invest in technology and then i'll invest in these startups I'll invest in kickstarter whatever something i'll invest in bitcoin right and then one day i'll make my money back And it's it's one of those things that i mean we always could hit that Not bitcoin i invested in a different coin actually, but um i don't want to talk about Everyone's like desperately trying to find that wallet where they tried to buy some Uh, what was it rittling on the internet in sort of like 2012 and i like that 10 pound i converted in 2012 Would be worth like 10 k now Yeah, which is true, but Friendly neighborhood shop like a mug support local businesses And stay poor But i mean just the fact that this is possible the fact that bitcoin can reach about 15 000 overnight Right, it's just it speaks to this like collective mania about technology in in our world today And i mean the the big problem with silicon valley. It's right. It's yes, there are there are problems in the sense that it's not diverse enough there are problems in the sense that you know it's Bringing up house prices in the bay area for one, right? But i think that the problems are not you don't fix the problem the the core fundamental problem of silicon valley By say you know addressing the housing crisis or getting a few more women and minorities The problem is that technology is being used to increase returns to capital and deepen inequality In a way that's not sustainable in a way that no one on the left would want shortly In a way that is making the world a much worse place contrary to what a lot of people in tech seem to think And we're seeing i mean we're starting to see some pushback against that from within these tech companies.  Let's get that up. Can we get up the really good from navara Now is the time for worker power in the tech industry? Yeah, so i think what's really exciting about this time right now is that we're seeing People in tech realize that even though they're getting paid six figure salaries They they get a nice air conditioned bus to to go to work every morning They get free food beanbags massages, whatever they get all these perks. They're realizing that maybe that's not enough Maybe the perks are actually some Something something's more sinister right something designed to keep them from thinking about the ethical concerns of their job I mean a lot of people in tech they're not trained to think in terms of ethics. I never was I never took a single social sciences course. I took computer science math and biology That was it and for some reason that qualified me to be you know a software engineer at a company like google And I mean a lot of people in tech are very similar or even worse, right? It's and it's a huge problem It's a structural problem as well like that these companies take advantage of these people who Really like programming for whatever reason right and they just give them a lot of money and make them not think about the Ethical the social consequences of what they like to do And it's a shame because people who like programming like like writing software They should be able to do that in a way that is beneficial for humanity because most of the time People want to do that on some level. It's just that it's kind of the desire to do So has been a bit beaten out of them because it doesn't really feel like there are any natural outlets in the community They live in right for them. Their only options are big tech company Slightly smaller tech company shitty startup. That's just about like selling your data to big tech companies, right? It's like the options are so limited and I feel like there is like all this frustration That is you know, it's just looking for an outlet And we're seeing an outlet in the form of the tech workers coalition, which is something I mentioned in the The article and that is just a group of people who are trying to change the way things are in the tech industry Some of them are, you know, out and out socialists, communists, anarchists, whatever Some of them aren't as politically engaged, but they're starting to think about what politics could mean to them And I think that's really exciting Like I'm seeing people who I used to follow on twitter who only ever talked about tech Suddenly start talking about the ethical concerns of the tech industry I mean, so to play devil's advocate here because I read your article and really really enjoyed it is that Why should I as a communist care or view as As a source of revolutionary or radical political change White bourgeois guys wearing short sleeves shirts And if we do focus our energies on trying to you know, get people to wake up to The compromised ethical conditions in which they exist in their working lives who do You know make a lot of money. Is this not Potentially Replicating a kind of Victorian model of philanthropy Philanthropy whereas like oh, you've made your money in a bad way and now you're kind of trying to ameliorate The worst effects of it, but it doesn't fundamentally change the exploitative relationship between labor and capital and you know, it's kind of just Lubricating the hinges a bit rather than You know blowing the bloody door off. Yeah, I mean, it's a really unfortunate situation We're in right where we have to almost have to rely on these people And I think part of the reason why it's important to consider silicon valley and the whole tech industry In any sort of left vision is just to realize how crucial the role silicon valley plays in the global ecosystem Right just first of all in economic role the fact that so much money is being funneled towards this industry In a very weird american imperialist way If you think about the the role that companies like google amazon facebook play in controlling so much digital infrastructure Right the uk government relies on amazon to provide services beat through amazon's web service divisions We all use google we all use facebook Even if you don't use a computer right if you if you use any sort of public service That's digitally enabled in any way It's going to rely on some sort of infrastructure likely provided by one of these big tech companies And so even if you yourself are you know, you try to distance yourself from tech The rest of the world is slowly being kind of infiltrated by these tech companies They're getting more and more power And they're getting to the point where it's going to be hard to stop them via, you know regular Politics as usual means and that's why I think worker power in the tech industry could be an interesting An interesting avenue and I mean to tie back to the whole ice thing. So there there was this really interesting Thing with ice where ice was getting digital services from a lot of these big tech companies right like microsoft I think sales force probably provided some something to either ice or some other arm of the The border control and you have people at these big tech companies who are really unhappy with what's going on Like they see they see these videos of children being detained. They think wow, this is not my politics This is not what I support. They realize that their companies are complicit in making this happen And they're they're fighting back right and so far it's still it's still unclear what's going to happen But we had something similar with google recently where some software engineers at google found out about this contract That google had with pentagon where they were going to provide Artificial intelligence to improve drones drone strikes for the u.s military And I mean not everyone at google is american not everyone cares about maintaining u.s military Dominance and so it that was actually like a great avenue for politicizing people and that ended up Somewhat successful in the fact that google cancelled the contract. So there is the potential for power I mean that of course is just the tip of the iceberg You know the military industrial complex is huge and there are so many other ethical issues Around tech companies that haven't really been brought up yet But for me what's exciting is like if you take something that's so obviously horrible like you know the video of children being detained in cages And you make that some sort of bridge to something bigger to something broader about realizing that the entire tech industry Is founded on something just fundamentally unfair. It's founded on the fact that you know technology is being used to Increase returns to capital while disempowering labor. I think the most obvious case of disempowering labor So if you look at the gig economy you look at uber you look into the veroo What what is that but just taking advantage of um people in precarious living conditions who need jobs And just making them accept the lowest wages they can And I think a lot of people at these companies don't think about it that way because they're they're not paid to right And it's like no one has really told them to and they probably just Don't see themselves as like the same as they're as these uber drivers as these delivery providers The military industry complex is quite an interesting comparison actually because I suppose what you're saying is there's people In sort of like it's not middle management isn't the right word But sort of like middling status in these companies. So you've got the big venture capitalists at the top You've got the uber drivers or the livery drivers at the bottom or the people that work in the amazon warehouse And then you've got this bunch of Tech engineers in the middle who are treated quite well Don't have much reason to complain in terms of sort of like their personal living standards But could present sort of a spanner in the works and exert some leverage to change the policies of those Tech companies for sort of like moral or ideological or ethical grounds. Yeah, and the reason I say the The comparison with the military industrial complex can be helpful is because if you want to rely on Workers who go into the arms industry or especially the middle management of the arms industry or the middle management of the army the Corporate the was it corporal not corporal Colonel like the colonel class or whatever they went into that knowing what they were doing So you you go into the arms industry knowing what you're doing and you're not shocked when your labor is used to Invade and bomb people from other countries Whereas now the tech industry is so integral to these Well to these practices to war to drone strikes and to Detaining immigrants But the people who went into those jobs did had no idea that that's what they would be providing their labor to do and so that gives us a sort of Unique it's probably not quite unique, but I mean it's a it's an interesting and specific sort of ability and capacity to Organize here to affect and disrupt The militaristic practices of the state. Yeah, exactly I think a lot of people go into the tech industry because they like writing code and it's nice when companies give you great job offers, right? Beanbags table tennis. Yeah. Yeah, like it's it's nice. It's like people feel value They feel special and it for them. It's like it's a treat to be able to work on something They love doing where it's like it's a craft. It's a passion. That's definitely for me Like that's why I loved being in tech. I just loved what I was building And going back to your point about this like victorian like potentially problematic victorian model I think that is definitely concerned by the same time the way you counter that is by emphasizing commonalities, right? By saying that it's not that you're you know Being paternalistic and just like taking care of the people below you who are just fundamentally inferior. It's showing that we're on the same side Workers tech workers are still workers, right? They might be treated better for now than the people who are serving their meals or cleaning Cleaning their offices, but fundamentally they have more in common with them in terms of class interest than they do with You know mark Zuckerberg's of the world because what we know is that money doesn't trickle down precarity trickles up Yeah, so I mean so my question is and I say this as someone who does all their learning about tech from speculative fiction and then Trying to teach my mom how to use whatsapp Is what do you think that a left tech strategy should be? Either at the level of workplace organizing or or thinking about left startups and left projects and they're kind of Coherent strategy because I think at the moment like that energy does exist Um amongst different pockets of the left, but it's certainly very atomized and dispersed and there doesn't seem to be a sense of common purpose Yeah, that's a good point I mean this is something I've and I still don't really know how to articulate because it feels like we're at such an early stage in This conversation It does feel to me like the left has kind of abandoned tech for a while Like I mean I've read some good like Marxist critiques of what's going on in the tech world But it doesn't seem like there's anywhere near enough given the enormity of the problem that we're now right like the reason You know the reason the idea of abolishing silicon valley is so important It's because it's gone to the point where that it needs to be in some level abolished right like it It's gone to such a scale that um, it has fundamentally reshaped how the world works And we can't just we can't just you know slowly reverse it Right because that would take forever We we need to just reimagine the world without it and I think the the left when you say without silicon valley Yeah, yeah, are we still gonna have facebook? What are we doing with seattle? What's wrong with seattle? Not as like the geographic area, right, but just as you know These big tech companies that are taking over the world taking up so much money You have to we have to imagine a world where Say entrepreneurship tech entrepreneurship is conceived in an entirely different lens because for me when I started my company The whole goal was to sell to to another company in a few years time Like the point was just to get acquired by like twitter or facebook or whatever That's three, you know We'll put three years of our lives into it and then we'll just come away with a lot of money And we'll be slightly more famous and we'll be able to do our next company And I think that's just like a fundamentally stupid way of starting a company It just doesn't make any sense from like a societal perspective What we need is a model of entrepreneurship with the whole goal is like a A more collectivist social this one where you want to create A company that's so successful that it becomes some sort of public service Maybe not like a national service, right? Because the goal maybe maybe maybe but like national service darling exactly Yeah, like the whole point of technology is that it can transcend borders in a much in a really interesting way So the goal should be to create socially useful products that are then available Ideally at the free of use free the point of use Yeah, because we can't nationalize facebook can we because then like, you know, it's an international service It's that's a very complicated discussion Unfortunately, but yeah, we think that's a different that's a different show isn't it? We'll do a different show on that's what my dissertation is going to be on. Oh, is it? Yeah, I'll start writing it Oh, great. Well, we will do a show on that. Yeah I mean, I mean, I feel like I've learnt loads from this Um, and I feel that it really has deepened and enriched my own engagement um with this stuff because I think that When you have a left where so many of us have been drawn from Arts humanity social sciences that kind of thing is that You know I look at someone who can write code as a kind of a cultist really like I just feel like, you know You guys are these sorcerers summoning these spirits, which I don't understand and have no control over But I also know that I'm entirely reliant on in a way which Um feels worrying and disempowering and disempowering so this idea that you know that one might apply your political lens and say hang on. I don't understand um technology, but I do understand that Um, this particular political crisis has opened up a space here Or it's like creating these conflicts amongst people and we should speak to that rather than speaking past it or ignoring it. Um I feel I've learnt a lot from that. So thank you I'm going to take a couple of questions from the comments that haven't arrived yet, but I mean now is your time So if you have a question Ask them now I have a question for everyone. Um, you've had you've already had loads of questions Yeah, no, but are your thighs as clammy as mine because I'm just I'm just like sticking to the chair abuse your efficient Abuse your position of being on the show. I'm just saying let's all admit to like sticky clammy legs All the sweat just comes out of my forehead There's like there's something about it. It all gets channeled up there I'm just like, yeah, it's just like thighs and upper lip like I've got sweat moustache and then like Sweat was this the question? Yeah, no, it was just I just wanted to be like How sweaty are you? In any time should we should we do a shout out to the world transformed? Oh, yeah, wendy you do the shout out to the world transform. Okay, so the world transformed is happening in Liverpool this year Uh, uh, September 22nd to 25th most of you probably know about in some way or the other But the website just went live today. You can buy tickets. Wendy built it Uh, I I built the website that it was designed by other people, but I helped build the website built it And you should definitely buy tickets. Um, I think all of us are gonna be there. Yeah, we're all gonna be there We're we're Navarro discussing putting on a party. We haven't We haven't quite decided. I missed the party last year. I heard about it because I was I was back in Legendary It was really good. Uh, I got drunk with emily thornberry in the toilets, which was a life dream unlocked While these questions come in I've got a question Which is that usually in an industry what happens when there are sections of the workforce that try and unionize that politicize that realize They're all socialists who already were socialists is that they get Uh, victimized by management and management is not particularly keen to keep them on the payroll Um, do you see a movement in silicon valley where people at the top of facebook and google and amazon are noticing That sort of like a socialist spirit is spreading amongst their workforce and they want to nip it in the bud That's a really great question So there was a case in a few months ago of this company called, um, lunatics Based in the u.s. Where they actually did fire all of their self-engineers who tried to unionize and they they did it by Basically outsourcing the jobs to eastern europe and I mean that was a huge setback for the for the movement Um, and it was it was just terrible And it was interesting because I mean it's going to be interesting to see what the The national labor review board says about that because trump has been saying we're going to stop companies from outsourcing jobs Overseas and this is what this company did But at the same time it was it was a case of you know trying to trying to break up this union But I think that was an isolated case. It was a very small company And it seems like the software engineers who tried to unionize They were not considered indispensable enough by management Where you know it management decided to let them go whether or not they were indispensable or not is is more like It's that's not really the point is the point is the management didn't see them as indispensable Whereas what you see in a lot of big tech companies is that because it's so expensive to try to get Engineers it costs a lot of money to to recruit I mean they're in real high demand, right? That's that's why the working conditions to pay The buildings is also sort of like attractive. Yeah, they're they're valued. They're like they're talent that you recruit It's kind of like, you know like a sports team trying to recruit talent It's that same sort of dynamics and as a result if you had people who For some reason or the other were in really key positions at these companies who had a lot of Internal goodwill and maybe like followings outside the company It would be a lot harder to try to fire them and knowing that they're going to cause a public outcry Especially if you had enough people right collectively making the same decision It's not it's not that easy like they they can be fired But it depends on the circumstances and if you build enough collective power It's a lot harder and it's going to look a lot worse for the company So what you're saying is public facing political antagonism And good campaigning and also gets so good at coding that you can't be replaced Which is difficult I'll probably never achieve it But I'll keep doing what I'm doing and hopefully that'll make a little bit of difference I'm really good at typing and looking productive All right some questions. Some of them are hard One of them quotes Deleuze, but I know that's your kind of thing now, isn't it? So There is no need to fear or hope but only to look for new weapons Said Deleuze in the post script on the societies of control in 1992 Can the left make labor market algorithms go to war? I don't understand that question Sometimes you write questions that I think like maybe the guest will understand it even though I don't So I ask anyway, do you understand that I'm not sure what labor market algorithms means in this case And do you know what it would mean for them to go to war? We don't know. Sorry Jay. You're gonna have to Be clearer there This is Uh easier to understand is a cooperative version of uber delivery just as exploitative as it doesn't change the labor relationship I don't mean it depends who's part of the cooperative. Sorry you asked the question It's controversial. I'm a little wary of saying anything too harsh on cooperatives I'm personally not very excited by the idea of like platform cooperatives just because I think That it's it's like um, it may be a transitional step But I think in the long term you have to completely just change how these things work, right? Like with uber itself Like what is the actual solution to uber? It's not having a cooperative version. It's having better public transit, right? And it's it's you know, ensuring that you don't have this like polarization Of the people who are driving the cars and the people who are taking them because most of the time it's there is a stark inequality It's not like everyone drives the same number of hours as they like take an uber, right? and what we're seeing with uber is that it's You're creating one class of workers who are rich enough to afford taking ubers everywhere And then you have people who have to drive these people around because they have no other way of surviving, right? So I don't know if you can separate the the fundamental stratification in terms of like wealth and service this whole like weird like servant class that's being created by these companies I don't know if you can separate that by creating a co-op model I mean, maybe a little bit But then you have to you have to like go deeper than that I feel like it's not really exciting for me to think about a platform version platform co-op I mean, I think I think you've raised a really really good point and um, I've coalesced something that I've been kind of struggling to articulate Which is a silicon valley Model of utopia is one in which we are all increasingly atomized because we no longer have to Be in public space to access public services And I and I think that that's something which is like that someone's utopia There's lots of people's dystopia as well. And I think that that was kind of yeah, and I'd be disappointed that I was making so you know You've got questions from our Yeah, I mean, I was just gonna so I suppose the point of why a platform cooperative would be Attractive, I mean, obviously you're talking about abolishing the wage relation in society So you're saying if you've got some people driving ubers and some people taking them There's obviously a problem But I mean if you've got people doing different jobs And buying services from one another because you also have to remember that not everyone that uses uber is rich You know that like lots of people that use uber make a similar wage Make similar wage to the uber driver. Yeah, and it's a useful service and Actually lots of uber drivers. I mean, I think it's better working for uber than working for a mini cab company I mean, obviously i'm not here to sort of advertise uber I mean, obviously it would be better if that was a platform cooperative and there was no like Wankers in silicon valley sort of extracting the 20 percent surplus value Of course, but what i'm saying is in in the here and now where we have a market economy I think if someone were to create a cooperative uber platform. Yeah, it's not revolution It's not abolishing the wage relation, but it's it's a start Yeah, I mean I can see a world where you have for one much better public transit And you have a platform or you have a co-op version of uber where people are paid much better wages But also thinking about tech as a facilitator of public space and collective belonging rather than something which is trying to Mitigate the need to have that at all. I think is like a different a different kind of vision. Like there was that Tech start up in new york called like bodega, right? Which was which was just like they invented the vending machine essentially Um, like yeah, I mean the problem with the whole silicon valley mindset is that you see things as inefficiencies without realizing that for some people It's great. Um, and oh god, I don't know if we should talk about huel right now. Oh my god I think that is a good example. Can we please talk about huel? So it's like I I see the problems with huel But at the same time I'm like can we explain for some of our viewers who still find joy in the act of eating what huel is? Yes, well, it's huel is like I guess it's like the uk version of soylent. So like in the u.s. The What predated huel is this thing called soylent which sounds creepy soylent green is made of people It sounds really creepy for the whole point is it's like a meal replacement thing and someone once described it to me as like Like slim fast but for tech bros since repeat it's just like a meal replacement thing you drink and then it doesn't taste that great But the whole point is that you I love it delicious vanilla Yeah, it's like I mean the if you shake it enough. I've always been lumped but it's not it's not meant to taste good Right, like it's meant to like taste just palatable enough that you can drink it's good enough There you go. You know don't don't let uh What's that thing that we're street and kept saying when he came on the show? Don't let the perfect be the only of the good That's what I say about wow. No, no, no nutrition This is where I come clattering in is that I feel that what this is is Calvinism So it is the avoidance of pleasure It being itself a virtue and the avoidance of like sensual pleasures in particular We were talking about this before we went live and it made me so deeply sad To hear two people whose work I hold in such high regards and there's people I hold you in higher regard that regard has since plummeted um When I hear michael walker talking about I feel like i'm gonna cry but all the tears are coming out of my forehead like talking about you know The kind of every time you get like this kind of ghost of a flavor sensation You you know you grow positively too messy and you're like, oh, maybe this is a vanilla. Maybe this is a lump That's sad Like that's not flavor And I think what I said to you is that you lack melanin at the level of the spirits I've got a pasty soul You've got a pasty soul, but you are an excellent minority and you have no excuse for this I think so for me, it's like I I see what you're saying and I do agree on some level by the same time I mean part of the reason I would I you know did this startup I did programming for so long the first place is because I'd kind of internalized this idea that I had to work really really hard Just to be better than everybody else especially in the software world as a woman You know you you just get shit on so much, right? Like, um, I I didn't have any female like role models when I started And the ones that I could see who are visible were always getting shit on because they weren't good enough I think I internalized this idea that I just had to work harder Just to be really really good so that people wouldn't discredit me and I've I I guess like kind of filtered into other parts of my life where I'm just like I just need to be productive all the time and things that will help me be productive like drinking fuel I will do so I used to eat oatmeal every day Um, unflavored oatmeal when I was at the peak of my startup Just like a big bowl of like quaker oats and water microwave it for a few minutes and just yeah And it was it was good for me because I got more work done Very only as revolutionary practice. That's different. There's different needs, right? So some people you you may be drink fuel to be more productive than your average person I feel like I drink it to make up for the fact that you know, I get tired quite a lot I sleep quite a lot. Do you know what I mean? I feel like if I were to eat To be honest, actually I do eat all the meals. I have it as a snack So Lee Penn has said I tried fuel it ruined my guts and made me miss food so much In a way, I enjoy I enjoy food so much more because of that experience never ever again It's made from pea protein. Uh What I'd say Lee Penn is it ruins your stomach the first couple of times But then after that your stomach surprisingly gets used to it. Also, I wouldn't drink fuel on an empty stomach I have it as an afternoon snack Which I find saves you some money, especially if you're in the library Takes away that sort of lightheadedness you can get when you have had a coffee and no food in the afternoon I haven't been in a few weeks, but I mean I haven't drunk fuel in a few weeks Correlation is not causation My friend Michael have a kiwi. I do love a kiwi. Thanks jay. I just I just you know, I I I've been thinking a lot about um the active collective eating and taking the time to do that and Not seeing that as an extra in your life or like even an extra to political projects, but something that's really central to it um growing up Uh My mom and all her friends were all single parents And so what they'd do is they'd have these parties because they couldn't go out clubbing, right?  She always cries. They'll be different this time Then someone would take it too far and I'd start wailing they'll like see this is why we don't play with you um And I will never forget hearing oxide neutrino is bound for the reload for the first time on um Like the son of a family friend's dex and it was like hearing garage for the first time. I was like, whoa um And downstairs was all these women who were all political activists as well So all of them involved in feminist anti-racist campaigning and a table end to end laden with food and so my mom would always bring pakoras biryani so like south asian cuisine and uh, Her friends would all bring like Caribbean food lots of west african food So there'd be jollof here. There'd be plantain here. There'd be um, like goat curry. There'd be dumplings and like at the center kind of almost like a baptism font a bowl of rum punch Which like you'd like sneak a little bit sort of like as a kid and thinking about like the centrality of food there and thinking about like what they needed in order to survive because all of them were Working moms all of them in a different way because they were kind of working in that kind of like, you know council like, you know public sector kind of job thing um, but certainly Were made to feel that they weren't good enough They had to work twice as long in particular like then their white counterparts, you know that kind of thing They had a real sense of precarity also all in the single parents. They had a sense of like What that precarity would then mean for their families was like no in order for us to survive and to like Live and to grind the way that we do we have to have this time like once a month and you come down They'd all be playing like Marvin Gaye be playing Shalama odyssey lots of fun clothes as well Which is a really long tangent to say like he'll makes me sad Wasn't that that was once a month That's like once a month. Yeah, because the point like we should still have collective meals, but you don't need free a day Do you like loads of the meals you have on your own? I'm saying communism will be like those house parties. Oh every day Yeah, maybe but maybe we'll want to do other stuff. I mean You're not invited to my communist house party I think if I had a communal meal every day, maybe I'd get bored of it You know, I want one maybe every other the other day. I'll have fuel You know be more flexible, you know communism's when it choice is important I know I know this has been tainted by by Tony Blair and new labor The idea that everyone thinks choice is neoliberal now choice sometimes Sometimes it's just nice to be able to choose. You know, we're all different. We're all special Protestants are ruining communism. Welcome to my TED talk, right? This is this is just Calvinism This is what I think it is is that this is just like, you know, the legacy of the Protestant avoidance of pleasure Gary's commented to say we are not sponsored by fuel But just to clarify we would be if you offered So I want that Palmer's cocoa butter sponsorship in touch. We want not just free fuel. We want like We want like money I would take the sponsorship from Palmer's just for free Palmer's cocoa butter because I've been telling people On this platform moisturize twice a day with Palmer's cocoa butter And you will look like this forever. I'm actually 65 years old. I'm not I wonder how many people in the comments do that I was you know, we got quite a lot of new viewers About 20 minutes ago and I was like the game must have gone into extra time And it had it was about in one on penalties.  Now. Let's finish the bloody show Crying out to do one on Navarra media. I want to do a football podcast Me and Aaron tried to do one once and it was kind of embarrassing Did you know nothing about football? I know nothing about football like Aaron talks a little bit about Bournemouth But I mean neither of us really really understood much about football Why did you two try to do it then?  It was beautiful Gary McQuiggan is anti-heal Whatever will get you into it. It's vegan actually Jane Pickering loves food. Good for you. Thank you, Jane. Um, all right. We are Oh, it was three two in the night.  Isn't it now we've sort of how much do you like food? How much do you like food? Yeah, it's funny how we went from Silicon Valley to just food It's all related, you know, I guess radical critiques. I'm not saying I just like food. I think food is great. I think I Why do you hate food so much? Why do you want to ban food, Wendy? I have one drink of Hewlett a day and it's it's good for my macros. I put a protein powder in as well Yeah, just in the in the afternoon sort of mid-afternoon. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's sensible Ash, you don't get a nice like this in Hewlett, right? This is fried chicken and crisp. Yeah, but you can have that like in the evening I'm committed. All right Hewlett wins two to one Um, if you want to sponsor us, Hewlett, please go in touch My DMs are open same, but for Morley's chicken shop I don't take corporate money We're South London Bay, so we could get like a Morley sponsorship. That'd be great And yeah, Wendy doesn't take corporate money, at least not publicly Which is Sensible in the new era where that's how you win elections. Shall we wrap up my friends?  Yeah, this was We need to rack up We are Going to end the show. Please please To support a new media for a new politics go to support dot navara media dot com Donate what you can afford subscribe to the youtube channel Encourage your friends your family Your cousins your lovers your lovers if you've got one your exes If you want to have an awkward conversation I mean this this could actually sort of break up an awkward conversation. It's a good icebreaker Anytime you next feel awkward ask the person you're talking to do you support not do you support dot navara media dot com I think my ex actually subscribes to the world. Oh, really? Oh, what a hero. We're not a hero.