What's up everybody Jason here for Jaspies case breaks calm shows a 19 penny prison basketball blaster 10 box half case break Pick a team number one just sold out and we're randomizing the pelicans to everybody in the break So as long as you bought one team you got one entry you bought two teams you get two entries So the more teams you buy or the more spots you buy the more entries you get and I got no veteran common ship I'm sure we'll still ship the LeBron's and everything else Yanis Luca second years and stuff. So I don't need to worry about that. All right down the sheet And again dice roll here customer names. Here's everybody in the break Let's roll a customer number one after 10 times six into four gets it Good luck. So I copy and paste this names right here 10 times one two three four five six seven eight nine And 10th and final time 10 times jimmy jimmy black at the top So you're gonna get the pelicans in this break after 10 times. Congratulations. So it wants to make a little same here There you go now let's uh do this And again, this is a 10 box half case break. So The other half will be used for pick a team number two So here you go. Here's the blaster case And again, we'll also give away the pelicans in the second half as well. All right, so there's 10 boxes on each side two rows of five boxes So one two three left side four five six the right side Small roll, but it worked and rolled five one two three four five six So these will be here be here for the next one pick is your number two. All right here go five blaster boxes right here First jackson haze cow kuzma And a chumo kiki Silver Gorondrogic and a jerry culver green. There's garland pj washington jr Go bears silver. Oh, and we got a green pulsar 25 terry on prints nets We're gonna mark palgasol We got carcin edwards retail green robbins silver Lebron james hyped silver daregrows pistons treyoung larry bird silver capela brulee hachimura cow kuzma The last one here and then we'll go with the next five five Drexler Drummond kevin porter jr All right next five guys and again the next uh 10 boxes pickage number two is on the website So i'm sure depending on what happens here if no xion Work to pop out although again in a 20 box blaster case there i've seen multiple xion rookies A silver so even if we hit a big xion here It doesn't mean that i'm gonna be in the second half because remember it's a 20 box case I've seen cases with maybe one or none and i've seen cases like four base and a silver so Who knows You maybe try to get the second half going tonight as well. You know once we get done with this We'll do the nt football ground on our block plus the break and then By 940 we'll do the fat pack plus the 14 box mixer That should take us about an hour to do both An nt baseball after that, but it'll be 11 o'clock. We'll be in our last hour of the stream Still time to fill up maybe a second one of these Thinking unless the baseball mixer isn't sold out by 11 and two hours I'll probably have to push that for tomorrow But we're also getting close to that too as well. Oh jordan bone And there's a job very nice. What about the grizzlies in here? Jeffrey did There you go Zion emergence That's a start rj steven adams A bruno fernando hawks hollow or sorry to hollow silver I'm going to jimmy kevin love tatum dominance Wow, we got a cow guy purple wave rookie and a cody marten autograph rookie penmanship for the charlotte hornets it's going to jimmy akim olaja on tally hero grand hill silver james harden tally hero relic lebron base emergent rj domiolanker nice zion green instant impact harrison barns then your gafford asia thoms wow no zion base cards at least rookies or silver Although that green emergent was pretty nice or instant impact, but Could be some really really nice hits hiding in the second half guys and again a couple zion right there Got some ruby rookies got autographs on emergent and a job face so big hits So potentially hiding in the second half guys. We get that went after the uh mt baseball break jacksby's case breaks dot com Appreciate it guys


Hey everybody, what's going on? I'm Greg Sussman joined today by Jim Sonis of Fandle We seem to tell us about the players whose stocks are rising after week eight. What's going on Jim? I'm pretty good Greg because not only do we get Christian McCaffrey back in week number nine But also Dalvin Cook became a bell cow once again I kind of like having the situations where we can look at running back and feel good about spending up We're not spending up for guys. He's be back up so spending up for legit studs So I think things are rounding into shape as we head into week number nine I feel pretty good about that The Vikings were not impressed with what they saw from Alexander Madison So it became just the Dalvin Cook show once again in week eight He was phenomenal as were quite a few other players. We'll get to a couple right now We began in Baltimore with J. K. Dobbins Did your thing that you focus on J. K. Dobbins because it was Gus Edwards yesterday that had 16 carries Which is almost as many as Mark Ingram has seemingly had his entire Ravens career and both Edwards And Dobbins were effective yesterday. Dobbins finished with 12.6 Fando points And you like him and see his stock rising how come two things It's hard to score points when you're on the sidelines, which Gus Edwards was for 66% of the snaps But also because we know that J. K. Dobbins is going to be the past catching back in this offense And that doesn't mean as much to this Arabians. They don't pass that much But I just feel better about a guy who I know is two sources of upside rather than just one Which is when we go with Gus Edwards. Gus Edwards is fine for season long But for daily fantasy I want a guy like J. K. Dobbins who I think has better odds of catching a pass Now with J. K. Dobbins although the stock is up It's kind of similar to the Deandre Swift discussion a couple weeks ago where it's up But there are still some concerns here. The good thing is that again a 66% snap rate for Dobbins That is great easily out snapped Gus Edwards and he's been insanely effective so far this year And that could lead to more volume even when Mark Ingram is healthy Quickly to more volume relative to Gus Edwards too. So those are really good things for Dobbins as mentioned He catches passes too. So that's the good the bad is that He is still splitting work with Gus Edwards The team just lost their left tackle Ronnie Stanley for the entire season back downgrades the expected efficiency of this entire offense And he can lose goal line works not just Edwards, but also Lamar Jackson. So the stock is up Gus Edwards or sorry, J. K. Dobbins is trending up and he is now a guy we can consider in DFS Whereas the mark Ingram was around that was obviously not not the case and at $5,300 J. K. Dobbins is in play for week number nine But it's not a situation where he is a big no-brainer right now despite the offense despite the talent he has shown There are still some legit question marks here. So I think that we can start to use J. K. Dobbins daily fantasy He's not a core play of any means. He's not a cash gameplay despite the low salary But he is at least on the radar now whereas he was not previously and as a result that his stock is up And I wouldn't be shocked if his stock continues to rise with how good he has been Let's not forget that draft capital obviously the Baltimore invested in J. K. Dobbins back during the nfl draft this past spring Mark Ingram at some point will no longer be there Gus Edwards is going to have his role with 66 percent Of the snaps for J. K. Dobbins all in sunday Hopefully at least a big things in week nine and further on the ravens after that loss are gonna have to do something a little bit different We'll see what that is. Hopefully it means more J. K. Dobbins going forward Up next chicago bears pushed the states to overtime yesterday in a weird game where nick foals did not look good for most of me For somehow like I said getting his team to overtime and anthony miller was certainly a part of that finishing with 11.3 Fandall points you had alan robinson Play yesterday catch an awesome touchdown and and anthony miller still has his role But you believe it's rising How come yeah, he doesn't have his role He has a better version of his role because in the past anthony miller has gotten targets He's gotten touchdowns. He's played decently well outside of some really bad drops But he's had targets that was never the concern The concern was that he wasn't on the field all that much and like we said with Gus Edwards It's hard to score points from the sidelines, but thankfully anthony miller got a pretty big role change in week number eight He played 75 of the snaps in week number eight That was his first time topping a 70 snap rate the entire year and he ran a route on 85 Of the team's pass plays according to pro football focus That's really good in a pretty major deviation from where he was previously and he like you said 11 targets for anthony miller That's a really good number as well So it's kind of like jk dobbins previously anthony miller at least for me was not a dfs consideration because he was not on the field Now he is as a result of that role change. He got in week number eight They're facing the titans in week number nine They're going to be underdogs there. The secondary for tennessee has had some major issues and miller is only $5,100 We've got dalvin cook. We've got christian mccaffrey on the week nine slates We're going to want to spend up at running back using guy like anthony miller could make that a bit easier So again, he was not in consideration before he now is inherently his stock is up But I think that miller because we've seen him do well when he's gotten volume in the past It's something i'm willing to trust here darno mooney is not taking advantage of the volume he has gotten anthony miller at least more so than mooney has So I think that anthony miller is someone we should keep our eye on it potentially could be a value play as early as week number nine Being on the field certainly helps your chances of being in the lineup here over on fendall anthony miller was finally on the field at a rate that we expected much earlier in the year darno mooney not Taking advantage of the opportunity he that he has gotten so we go back to anthony miller And hopefully he could be a bit of a dart throw a cheat dart throw this week on fendall You mentioned christian mccaffrey's impending return And it's finally here week nine We are expected to get christian mccaffrey back on the field and that's good news for a multitude of reasons But specifically for carolina where mike davis over the past few weeks has underperformed what he was doing when christian mccaffrey got hurt So now it's not like they're going to ease mccaffrey back in we'd expect he's going to go back and be full throttle We hope That's exactly the reasoning we want to christian mccaffrey in here is because like he said when mike davis first filled in There was a lot of discussion about hey like maybe when mccaffrey comes back We scale him back here to keep him healthier But I think that's not as much of a factor now as it would have been then because mike davis just hasn't been as effective I love mike davis. This is no no shot at him christian mccaffrey is just good And there is a gap between christian mccaffrey and mike davis We look at the numbers overall this year mccaffrey has a 46 rushing success rate according to number fires metrics Whereas mike davis is at 41% so a 5 percentage point gap there davis about league average mccaffrey A good a chunk good chunk above that But it's also the big plays from mccaffrey that are that are the difference makers here because he averaged point 17 Expected points per carry whereas mike davis was at negative point. Oh wait He was losing some bumbles that definitely influenced things for sure and just couldn't quite get things going and get the big plays That mccaffrey is capable of generating So Initially when mccaffrey got hurt there was some talk about davis taking away carries Maybe he will but we know that christian mccaffrey was back at practice this past week Which means he's not just flying back in he was able to get into practice then Which means we should be able to expect him to have a relatively full workload in week number nine It's a fun game against canton city that defense has played really well so far this year But I would expect mccaffrey to come back and have a workload similar To what he had before that injury scored 22 fan dual points at least in both the first two games And I kind of think we just see him jump back into at least somewhat like 90 percent of his previous role And 90 percent of christian mccaffrey is really good for fantasy. So christian mccaffrey I would say because of the struggles this offense had in his absence I think the stock is up for him. We should expect to hit the ground running right away in week nine You mentioned it there jim. I think the important piece for christian mccaffrey Is the fact that he practiced last week and the panthers didn't rush him back And a lot of times we do see teams rush their star players back And there's not effective when they get back on the field So those take on barkley last year with giants in a similar injury here mccaffrey has taken his time The panthers have done the smart thing and when he comes back at least the hope is starting here in week nine He's gonna get his normal amount of carries his normal amount of touches And will he'll be as normal amount of effective this week as soon as he's back from injury That's an end for us here on the fan bill hurry up jim. We appreciate the time. Good luck this week. Same to you greg I wish you as little stress as possible with the next couple of days and we'll talk to you once again on friday to Preview week number nine Breathe deep jim This week it's it's just getting started by friday. We'll all be in the good place So we hope for jim's honest. I am greg sussman tomorrow Tom becky will join me as we take a look at dfs the top value plays on the board for week nine An early look here tomorrow for jim's honest. I am greg sussman. Thanks so much for watching We'll do it all again tomorrow right here. I'm a fan. Do hurry up


Hey everybody, it's Robin with Creativity RV and today I'm going to talk to you about something that got me a little fired up a few weeks ago and that is the interview that Bob Wells did on CBS Sunday morning about nomadic life. Now, Bob was great, love Bob, and you guys know that he's the one that encouraged me to go out on YouTube. I actually interviewed him for my blog prior to me being on YouTube and I got to know him really well and his story really well and I watched that video and I'm going to show you some clips of it here in a minute and tell you why I think it was just wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong for people that are looking at full-time RV travelers or nomads or whatever you want to call yourselves. If you're looking at those people or you want to be one of those people or you are one of those people, some of the messaging that gets out there, I find a little bit troubling. So I watched that interview and some of it had some good points, but it just didn't wrap it up and explain this life in the way that I think it should be explained, at least for the vast majority of us that are on the road. Now you guys know that I wrote a book called Be a Nomad, Change Your Life, The Ultimate Guide to Living Full-Time and a Van or RV. I live on the road myself full-time and I've also been working on a book for the last two years that is just interviews with nomads. So I have been interviewing all kinds of nomads, young, old, single couple, every kind of race and orientation and rig and style of camping you can imagine. And so I feel like I have a really wide perspective on who's out there on the road. So let me tell you first of all some stats about people on the road and then tell you why I think that that show and some of the other things I've been seeing in the media are really missing the boat. And I feel like I kind of have to be a voice for the, I don't know, average nomad that's out here because people are not seeing us. And if they don't see us, then all they can rely on is the other things they see in the media or maybe on a street corner. So let me tell you what I'm talking about. Here let's look at some clips from the actual video. In the beginning of the video they interview a great family who lives in a schoolie and they said something right in the beginning that I was like, yes, this is going to be a great interview because they said living in a schoolie was a choice, not a consequence. I thought, great, they're going to explain that not everybody on the road has to be on the road, that for a lot of us it's a positive choice. And then they went to Bob who looked great and said great stuff and did a great job. But this is the way that they framed Bob. They said that he was the archetypal loser who lives in a van down by the river. And then the guy that was actually the host of the episode tried to stay overnight in a van and he said the first thing he wanted was a shower and that what people wanted to know was where you poop and that van life was not for him. And it's not for everybody. But do you see the way that they were framing it? In juxtaposition to Bob they showed a bunch of gorgeous Instagram people that had like music studios and their fans, the gorgeous ones with the floppy hats and like the solar lanterns outside and everything is perfect. And it was like there was the beautiful Instagram people and there was the guy in the van down by the river. And you guys, they completely totally 100% missed the boat and this is where they were wrong. According to the RVIA, which is the RV Industry Association. There are a million people living full-time in their RVs that is self-reported. So I think there's a whole bunch more. I mean, nobody's ever asked me if I live full-time in an RV. And the fastest growing segment of people choosing to live full-time on the road are middle-aged women. So you can look up those stats.  I go out into beautiful national forest areas like this and the vast majority of people I see are women. Like I said, people only know what they're exposed to.   And because this is what people see, they think that that's all of us. And I'm here to tell you that's not all of us. According to the CEO of Outdoorsy, who is just on Bloomberg, RV travelers contribute $130 billion into local communities every year. And let me tell you how that happens. I'm out here in this little pocket of national forest in Oregon. I'm near some cities. I'm near some towns. So what happens is I travel through these little towns. I get gas, I get groceries, I dump my tanks. Maybe I go spend $5 at a little historical museum where their locals are not coming in to support that local museum or gift shop or restaurant as much as these travelers are. A lot of these small communities competing with big box communities are relying on the RV traveler. So I come through, I spend my money, I come and I camp in these beautiful places. I pay taxes, I have an employee, I pick up after myself. And I am not the only one. There's a million of us out here. And sometimes I find that we're fighting against this stigma that we all have some problem out here. For example, in that CBS This Morning interview, they wrapped it up. Literally, they finished the entire tone of the video by saying, it's a story of desperation and that Bob is chipping away at the model of America that exists today. Here's what really bugs me about the mischaracterization of people that live on the road. It's not that our lives were crushed somehow. We have to choose to live a smaller life in an RV. For me, my life is bigger and broader and way more fulfilling than it ever was when I was in a house. And that is thanks to technology in large part.  And I can do that all from the road thanks to the internet. This is something that we didn't have 10 years ago. Public lands, like the ones that were behind me, were always available for camping. We weren't able to go through these communities and help contribute to them financially and stay in touch with each other and stay safe until just the last few years. And so to me, this is a very exciting time to be on the road. And I look at my RV as another housing option. It doesn't have to be forever. And it might be because I love it that much. And I literally look at all the places I can go and I get sad because I'm 50. And I might have another 40 years, I hope, that I can go out and see things. Or if I love a place, then I want to go back every year, but then I don't get to see other things. And those are the stresses that I have. I mean, think about this, think about your neighbor. You see her in the hallway of your apartment building.  And she's trying to make a phone call or do something with the kids or whatever it is. And you guys wave at each other and that's it.  But when you look in the door, she's packing up to go and you ask her what she's doing. And she says, oh, I'm leaving to live in an RV.  She lost her job. And when you talk to her, you find out she's still got the same job. She just works remotely now and she's not giving up her house because she can't afford it. She's choosing an RV as an alternate type of housing because she can and that's where they got it wrong.  You guys can think that if you want to.  And look, the full-time community is full of all kinds of people with all kinds of lives and problems, just like any other community. So yes, are there people in crisis? There are. Are there introverts? Yes. Are there extroverts? Yes. Are there people who struggle to get by? Yes. Are there entrepreneurs? Definitely. For me and for a lot of us living on the road expands our options. And it allows us to live a more fulfilling, rich life than we would have had we just stayed in an apartment and watch TV at night and watch the world go by. That's what I wanted to let you guys know. Respect for all the people that were in that interview, including Bob Wells, Bob I Love You. And I just wanted to give my two cents on the topic because I feel like my demographic of nomad out there is not being represented. And that's what I wanted to say.


Inmediacy of reinforcement is drastically important, all you have to do is look at the research by Jack Michael and a whole bunch of other people to understand why, but the point is really simple, when the behavior happens, reinforce it as soon as you can.


we focused on making neural networks be more biologically accurate. So one of the specific projects that I worked on was implementing latency between neurons and implementing neuronal spiking, where brain neurons really don't have a gradient of a value between, say, 0 and 1. It's either on or off. The research to make these kinds of neural networks where neurons are either on or off is very new. And I was very happy to get the cutting edge of this kind of research. My project right now is making these kinds of cells for oxytocin. We have very good cells for vasopressin and now we want to make these kinds of sensors for oxytocin. This will be very useful to see where these neurotransmitters actually move in the brain and this will allow us to study the brain more in depth. You know someone's opinion may contradict yours. Where's my friend Alan? It's all about your perspective. Who are we and what is the nature of this reality? One, two, three, four, three, two, one. Ni Hao, everybody. Welcome to Simulation. I'm your host, Alan Sokian. We're on site in the beautiful Beijing, China, at the Peking University School of Life Sciences. We are now going to be talking with Anthony Simonoff. Hello. Nice to meet you again, I guess. Thank you very much for having me on your show. Very excited to be here. You are so welcome, brother. I'm so pumped for this. Absolutely. It's going to be great. It's great to meet you. It's so cool knowing that you were coming here from Chicago over the summer to do and research here at PKU. And it was great to meet you. And so I'm pumped for this convo. For those that don't know, it's his background. He's a researcher in the Li Lab at Peking University School of Life Sciences, focused on engineering fluorescence sensors for neurotransmitters. And you can find the links in the bio below to ulonglilab.org as well as LinkedIn profile. All right. Let's start things off by asking you one of our favorite questions. What are your thoughts on the direction of our world? This is a very, as I'm sure you know, very broad topic. So I'll touch on a few things that I think about it. Like the world I guess is, like for me, what I think about it is the direction that people are giving to it. Excuse me. So what that means is like all of us collectively, like where are we going? Well, I don't know if anyone really knows. We have kind of scientific stuff that we're doing. We're doing other, well, especially for me, because I'm a researcher, there's also cultural and musical and all of the other kinds of experiences that people are doing and living and constructing on a daily basis, which I hope are put down for a good cause. They will allow people to live happier, healthier, and better lives in the future. So long story short, I think the direction of a world is for a more prosperous, more peaceful kind of society where people just live happier lives, more fulfilling. What do you think is the core skill that we should embody to make sure it's peaceful and harmonious and move forward? I don't think there is one specific skill that we say, okay, everyone, you need to learn how to be a farmer. And then everyone will be able to have a good person. But there's not one specific skill, right? At least be nice, be kind. Maybe, be loving. Yeah, absolutely. Of course, disagreements always have existed in human history, but it's how we overcome those disagreements and what we do in order to peacefully establish some kind of resolution that will really make a difference, I feel, in the future. Let's hit your journey. So you're born in Chicago. Yes, sir. And you picked up piano when you were like five, is that right? Yeah, actually, right around, well, when I was four, technically. So right around that time, I've been playing ever since. It's been an amazing journey for the past, what, 14 years now?  And then, yeah, how does this all end up happening that you pick up music when you're young, then you pick up your interest in science and computer science. So tell us about who you were when you were young and how you picked those things up.  So I don't have to ascribe to my parents. And thank you for introducing me to this world of music. For neuroscience and machine learning, the kinds of other stuff that I've done, I've always been interested in the brain. I read a great book called Gedel Escher Bach by Douglas Hofstadter. It's really opened my eyes to the possibilities of exploring the brain and exploring the kind of computer science aspects of it. So especially over the course of my childhood, I would read more kind of science fiction novels to see where artificial intelligence and similar technologies could go. And then once I got to college, I was able to actually work in a lab modeling, making models for the human brain, which was very exciting.  Yeah, so the University of Chicago does not unfortunately have an artificial intelligence major. So I chose the next best thing, which is to be a neuroscience major, as well as focusing on computer science in my free time. It's more involved with me working in a lab. I worked in David Friedman's Computational Neuroscience Lab. We focused on making neural networks be more biologically accurate. So one of the specific projects that I worked on was implementing latency between neurons and implementing neuronal spiking, which is really what happens in the brain, where brain neurons really don't have a gradient of a value between say 0 and 1. It's either on or off. And the research to make these kinds of neural networks where neurons are either on or off is very new. And I was very happy to be at the cutting edge of this kind of research. All right, let's unpack this more. This is an interesting aspect to our conversation. So let's start by explaining what do you mean neural networks and biology? How do you see those things? What is their relationship? I think in the past and even up to now, neural networks, well, they're called neural networks. They're based on human brains. Their purpose is to learn. They have singular units called neurons. And they're very similar to the brain in a lot of ways and very different and even more. So well, they're similar because they're neurons and they're connected and we can model some areas of the brain relatively well. Unfortunately, we don't understand the brain well enough to model all of it yet. And that's about where the similarities to the biological side end, I feel. So you have, for neural networks, they can process way more data than a brain can because they're built in computers. And as computing power grows, they will only grow in size and strengthen complexity. So this is where you get the fears of AI taking over the world from the matrix to Elon Musk's recent tweets. Once you have this kind of superintelligence that can process and do way more data computationally than a human can, it can take over the world. We are nowhere near there yet, but it's a possibility. All right, so let's revisit the structure of this. So we artificially create a neural network in a computer? Yes. Okay. So these are models, their backbone is a lot of linear algebra where it's just pure math. So the most stereotypical example is you feed it a handwritten number and then the network will output whether it thinks the number is zero through nine, which is actually way harder to do programmatically than you'd expect, which is why this has only been a recent development. Okay, so let's walk us through that example. So then when I write the number two on a little sheet of paper, and then I take an image of it and then I feed it through the neural network, the first thing that it's doing is it's scanning it pixel by pixel. Like, what is it doing? And then how is it creating an idea of what the answer is? Yeah, so neural networks, yeah, so in essence, that's what's happening. You're taking this little picture. I think it's 16 by 16 pixels. I could be off. But it takes this picture and then the neural networks have what are called hidden layers. So they're layers where you don't really know what they're doing. You might hypothetically think that, oh, if we have three of these hidden layers, the first one we'll look at kind of where the pixels are arranged on the screen. The second one will look for maybe a curve at the top or like the straight line at the bottom. And then the third layer will combine a whole of this information together and then output the information that it sees. But we don't actually know if this is what's happening. We, obviously, you can analyze it, but just by looking at the neural network itself, we have no idea how it makes these calculations. So, yes, to answer your question, it scans it pixel by pixel or, sorry, it stores all of these pixels in some kind of memory format. And then it does a bunch of calculations on these pixels with certain weights and biases within these hidden layers and then outputs a probability of what this answer is. So it will say, okay, I think that it's a one with maybe 1% probability and a zero with 2% probability, but I think it's a two with 97% probability. Or there's a 97% chance that this is a two. And that's how you train this neural network to give you a good answer. Hmm. So the hidden layers are doing some sort of analysis on the image. Yes. Yeah. And then you have to train those hidden layers to do these specific aspects of the analysis. Yeah. So it's like an if curve, then this stuff like that. What is it? What is it like then? Not really. It's not if curve than this. The hidden layers, they're called hidden because they do whatever they want. And the way you train these hidden layers is you, okay, at the end maybe. Because those if then statements are like hard. Hard coded. Yeah. Hard coded. And you these, you have to be really flexible with these hidden layers. You, because there's going to be tons of examples of what that curve can look like. So it's not going to be just an if then. Yeah. Yeah. So the way it works is an algorithm called back propagation where you feed them, say you write a two and you feed it to the network. And then the network says it's a five. And you're like, well, no, this is a two. And I want you to lower this error. And the way this error lowering works is there's a gradient. Kind of it does what's called a gradient descent. And it goes down this kind of gradient of probabilities. And eventually you feed it enough numbers and it will go down kind of low enough in this like inverse parabola to the low point where the probabilities have little error. And so that's where you get the accurate answers. Okay. So back propagation is telling the neural network that you were wrong and then we need to tweak a certain hidden layer. Yes. In order to increase efficiency. Yeah. Pretty much. Okay. Okay. And then when you do the tweaking, is it a, what does the tweaking of a hidden layer look like? Is it changing the linear algebra, the math? Is that what you're saying? The math is essentially the same. It's changing the values. Changing the values in the math. In the math, yeah. So each neuron has what's called a weight and a bias. So weight is a number that you multiply the input by. So for example, if my input is five and my weight is two, then I multiply by two. And I get a 10. And a bias is what you add on to this final value. So if my, so five times two is 10, and then say my bias is three, right? So then 10 plus three, so then my value of this neuron after whatever input's going to it is a 10. Which was two. So two times five. Yeah. So your input was two and your output was 13. Yes. And so what was the significance of weights and biases? Well, I used large numbers to, as an easy example, all of these numbers would actually be between zero and one. Yeah. So the purpose of these. Meaning zero percent or 100 percent is? That's only for the last layer, like the answer. For the, it's not really percentage. It's just a value between zero and one. For all the hidden layers up until the last layer. Yeah. So each, yeah. So with each kind of input and weight, the, what it means is that the, this specific neuron out of however many hundreds you have can change kind of the data flowing through it. It changes it either up or down. And then by the time it flows through all of these hundreds of neurons, by the end of just return neurons to your tonight, then that's where you have the kind of probability scale of this is not this number, not this number, but it's this one kind of thing. Okay. So my values in the math are where I change weights and biases. Yes. On all the neurons. Yeah. And then, so back propagation, there's also this thing called a cost function or a loss function, which is kind of how far you are away from the actual answer. And back propagation is a kind of tool that lowers this, the value of the loss function. So your error is less and it does this by going back up the hidden layers and tweaking the weights and biases in such a way as to lower the loss function value pretty much. So I can make an algorithm that will go and tweak the math to make it so that my answers are more efficient. Yes. Yeah. And then you feed it hundreds over thousands of examples. And then by the end, it becomes very good at analyzing. Oh, this is a two or a five or a cat or a dog. Or whatever Google is doing nowadays. So the first example we gave was like ImageNet, where it's numbers and pictures. Yes. Yeah. And now that's already classifying at unprecedented rates, obviously, with greater efficiency than humans do due to sheer, we'd sleep eight hours, we get hungry, we get emotional, we can only do one at a time. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So there's also different kinds of technologies like, for example, speech translation or speech recognition for Alexa and Siri are also built on similar kinds of networks. So not exactly the same, they're obviously more complex. So natural language processing also takes something like the word mom. Yeah. And then it feeds that into a neural network that has hidden layers that is trying to take the audio that I emitted, that sound wave. Yeah. So if you say, for example, hey Siri, call mom. And I'm sorry to any viewers who actually called mom right now. That's funny. Yeah, the device at home actually calls mom that time. Calling mom. Yeah. Or even better, maybe you should call your mom right now. Tell her you love her right now. That would be a great idea. But yeah, so when I say, hey Alexa, hey Siri, call mom, what it does is it takes the sound wave and it does a bunch of, all the peaks and valleys that analyzes all of this data. And then by the end, after all of this math that was put on it and I don't know the details, I don't think Amazon or Apple will ever let us know the exact details of what happens by the end, it sends the commands to your phone to call your mom. Right. So this obviously shows a long way to go as a lot of people still don't, well, Alexa and Siri still obviously aren't perfect. But it's come a really long way, especially in the past few years. Yeah. So the first thing is then it would take this call or call or call. Yeah. And so there's all these different ways to say it, but then that first command is there. It's like, okay, with 90% accuracy, we know he's at call. And then the second word was mom. Yeah. Okay. And then so then it's fine. So this is, this is, this is tough. So then it's feeding the data from the peaks and the valleys of the sound wave through the neural network and the neural network is then analyzing with weight and bias on different neurons going through the hidden layers that this is this. It might be a different kind of style of neural network instead of just having layers and numbers and biases. What are the different styles of neural networks? So I'll just list a few. The most, the one that most people think about and which is the one you hear about in like introduction to neural networks 101 class is what's called a convolutional neural network. You have an input layer of however many neurons and you have hidden layers. Each have however many neurons and then you have an output layer. So they're kind of stacked one on top of another. Now the other kind, the one that goes through linearly. Yes. Yeah. And it just goes forward and then the back propagation goes backwards. There's no communication between neurons in the same layer. Convolutional neural networks and neurons don't talk to each other in the same layer. Yes. Okay. They just move the data from the first layer to the second through those hidden layers out the, yeah. So there's no communication. Vertically. Vertically. Yeah. One style of neural network that does allow for this communication is what's called the recurrent neural network. So you have your input layer and then you defeat your data into like a good way to describe it is kind of like imagine a box where all of the neurons are connected to each other and they all talk to each other. And then you iterate on this box a few times and then you output it. So this is, it's called recurrent because all of the neurons are talking to each other in this kind of box. So it would be like if the convolutional neural network would hit like one of the hidden layers and then say, hey, hold on, slow down. Let's go back to the second hidden layer and that would be more like what a recurrent neural network would be doing would be having those neurons talking to each other to produce the best answer instead of go through it linearly. Actually, very close. Yeah. So this is basically having a convolutional neural network. Not, so see I have two hidden layers not go backwards, but just talk within one layer to itself. Only within one layer and then, okay. Interesting. So the box is one layer. One layer and you can have multiple of these boxes. But that's usually not necessary. Depending on what kind of task you want. Each layer could be its own recurrent neural network. Yes. Box, which is unnecessary or which. It just requires a lot more computing power. Yeah. It increases with each box you have. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so GPUs are the best or TPUs now are the best. So either graphics processing units or specifically, I forget what TPU stands for. Tenser. Tenser processing units, which are specifically designed for this kind of large scale matrix multiplication of for machine learning. In David Friedman's lab, we used I think eight 2060 TIs in one computer to run our networks. So pretty much top of the line graphics cards. There weren't TPUs, but they were very good. Okay. So now what did you do with these recurrent and convolutional neural networks? Which one did you use and what were you doing in the lab at U of Chicago? And then we'll talk about what you're doing here. Yeah, of course. So most of my project during the school year focused on implementing latency between each neuron and in the models that we were building. So in a stereotypical neural network, each neuron just instantly as possible on a computer, instantly communicates to each neuron down the line. However, in the brain, this isn't actually the case. And for your brain neurons to communicate, it takes about 10 to 40 milliseconds for the signal to travel from one neuron to another. So one of the projects I worked on with the other members of the lab was implementing this kind of random-ish latency between each neuron. And in the end, we implemented it. It didn't exactly lead to, well, no, it led to better results in the specific tasks we were going for. Another project I worked on was implementing complex numbers into one of our neural networks. Unfortunately, this didn't exactly work out in our implementation for whatever reason. So these are the kinds of experiments we try in order to make these neurons be more biologically accurate. So there's a 10 to 40 millisecond latency between neurons communicating in our brain? Yes. Okay. And then in a neural network, it's even less than that? And if you don't implement this kind of latency, it's basically each neuron just communicates as fast as possible for whatever your time constant is. Oh, and then you can add a latency paradigm to that layer and say that, hey, you have to do this in less than 10 milliseconds. Yes, you can do that. We specifically said, we specifically made neurons basically hit pause and be like, okay, you have to do this in 35 milliseconds or 20 milliseconds, whatever the specific, whatever for this specific neuron, whatever the value was. So it just makes it slower. And which is good for recurrent neural networks is that it maybe takes us time to figure out if it's the right? Not necessarily, this isn't necessarily good for if you want fast neural network kind of outputs. We were focusing on making these networks be more biologically accurate and having this tell us stuff about the brain. For example, one of the recent papers out of the Friedman lab, which was before my time, but it was published in June in Nature Neuroscience was that the researchers found by implementing a different kind of biological process, they actually found that memory stored in two different places in the brain, which is very, and one of those places is very hard to measure in an actual human brain because one of these places is synaptic strengths between neurons. And this kind of strength is difficult of not impossible to measure because you can't really take a brain apart and look at each of the connection strength. So by making these kinds of biological kind of testing grounds, we would lab similar to David Friedman's and of course David Friedman's allow us to actually learn more about the human brain as well. So what would be then aspects of neural network engineering that would give you these insights into how we store memory in our biology? How did those discoveries work? So the researchers specifically, Nick Mass was the first author of the paper, and his team had a hypothesis that working memory, so basically like short-term memory, is stored in both neuronal strengths, which is how strong does a neuron fire and how often and synaptic efficacies, which is the strength of the connections between neurons and through a lot of math, which I don't really know off the top of my head, they were managed to implement both of these processes in neural networks and train them on specific tasks. And what they found was in order to just memorize information in short-term memory, synaptic strengths are used. So the strengths between each neuron, not the neuron itself, but the strengths between different neurons. But in order to kind of manipulate this information so like see something and then think about it or even or even remember it. So that involves the neurons themselves, which is kind of understandable. Cool, cool. Okay. And now the idea is that we can then do other forms of neural network engineering to take it insights about how our biological brains work. Yeah, yeah, this is absolutely just one example of many others that are currently out there. And what are you interested in doing with neural network engineering? And you gave another example of you guys were doing, you were trying to implement, you said real numbers into complex numbers into yeah. So there's a real part and an imaginary part. So the real part is just a number that we're usually we're used to thinking about. So like zero through one. Zero through one in all the decimals. Yes. Is the reals. That's the reals. Yes. And then the imaginary part is another value from zero to one times i. And i is the square root of negative one. So that's what makes it imaginary. And in some implementations of in the literature that we found in some implementations as I was for better kind of a better and faster neural network processing. However, in our implementations that I worked on, this didn't really work. And there's a whole slew of reasons why this might have failed. And we're not really sure why exactly just in our specific implementation, these complex numbers did not work. Okay. And remember, there was something crazy that I was learning about. Yeah, what is it square root of negative i when negative one. Yeah, that's just i square root of negative one is i. Yeah. Yeah. And then I think there was like something else after that, like the quaternions and octonians or something. I was learning about that. It was so crazy. Yeah.  Yeah. And hopefully give us insight into the world. So, okay, so now, yeah, so let's talk about neural network engineering for biological purposes. So yeah, what do you what do you want to see happen in that in that field? Where do you see it going right now? What do you want to do in it? I think the be all and all would be to be actually able to simulate an actual human brain within a computer. However, the human brain has many, many neurons in the order of hundreds in the order of millions, I think hundreds of thousands, two millions with the order of trillions of connections between them. And we simply do not have the computing power to first of all even be able to scan a human brain to this kind of granularity. And second of all to be able to simulate this human brain with all of its different connections once we've scanned it. So neurotransmitters. Yeah. And especially of all of the other cells that are in the brain that help the neurons do what they do, some of which helps to create neurotransmitters, others kind of deliver blood. And if you have a stroke than those kinds of than those neurons near there are impaired. So I hope that in the near future, this will be a possibility and this will allow us to really understand the human brain to a much better extent once we can simulate it and play around with it play around with the simulated brain. But we're still very far from that. There's been recent papers that unfortunately I forgot the first author of that have simulated a lot of neurons. However, I think it was still only on the scale of 10% of an actual human brain. So we're coming closer. We're coming closer, but we're still very far away. And I hope that I will be able to take part in all of this.  So the University of Chicago has a great program called the Metcalf program. And the Metcalf program, among all of its other benefits, the University of Chicago students allows will pay students to go out to unpaid internships. And I was interested in going to China to traveling and studying abroad. And I applied through Handshake, which is the kind of job search platform that University of Chicago uses as some of the universities. I applied to Dr. Lee's lab. And after an interview process with a walk on, who was one of the students here, I was able to come out here. And the University of Chicago, the Metcalf program sponsors my trip out here, which really is what makes it all possible. Interesting. So Metcalf program, so you have potentially you can have wealthy donors or patrons from around the world that sponsor young people to go out over the summers to different parts of the world and meet people and do research there and make cultural ties happen. Yeah, absolutely. So it's for any kind of internship. So whatever you're interested in, the Metcalf program within certain criteria obviously will sponsor your trip overseas or if you want to stay in Chicago and work in one of the labs there, any kind of work experience. And then how about engineering fluorescence sensors for neurotransmitters? This is what you're doing right now in the lab. What does that mean? So we like when the cell receives the neurotransmitter fluoresces. Exactly. Yeah. So we have certain proteins called GPCRs, green fluorescent proteins, which are GFPs, green fluorescent proteins, which light up when there are certain neurotransmitters being in the vicinity or inside the cell. So my project right now is making these kinds of cells for oxytocin. We have very good cells for vasopressin and now we want to make these kinds of sensors for oxytocin. After this kind of R&D stage, this will be very useful to see where these neurotransmitters actually move in the brain. And this will allow us to study kind of the brain more in depth. Currently I work with E. coli after a certain kind of testing stage and once we have good enough sensors, we inject them into mice and then we study these mice in vivo and we see how they respond or how their brains respond to these kinds of chemicals. So you end up taking a decent amount of your background. Okay, I see. So it's the neuroscience background for you because it's not too much neural networks on the computational side for you right now. So you're actually working on engineering the sensors for oxytocin. So when a neuron receives oxytocin, you're going to light it up with GFP is going to light it up. Yeah. And so then you're engineering that right now in E. coli. Yes, yeah. So we make the proteins and we introduce them in polymers and have the E. coli express them and then do a bunch of imaging tests and then see what are the best candidates and repeat and go from there. Okay, and then that gets injected into mice. Eventually, yeah. We package them into viruses and these viruses deliver into mice. Yeah, into mice neurons specifically. Yeah. And then how does then you have to then you image the mouse's brain to see the fluorescence? Yes. For specifically oxytocin. So then it has to have some sort of like a female mouse has to come up or something like that. Something like that. Well, we haven't done this for oxytocin in the E. coli stage, but for other kinds of sensors you'd either stimulate the mouse with something or you just simply inject the drug into the brain and see if it works. And then so you gave us this example earlier with the strength of simulation software being able to make a human brain and some teams already doing 10% of the human brain. Does it feel like we're already in a simulation? So this question caught me a little bit off. I don't know. I don't know if we are in a simulation. I don't know if it's possible to know this. And even if we are in a simulation, who's to say that our so-called creators aren't in a simulation themselves? Sure. Yes. Hypothetically, we could be and we could never know it. But I don't think this really affects my specific worldview because we just don't know. And it's better to just not assume we are in a simulation and that this is the real thing and kind of experience life from the perspective of this is the only chance we get. And this is the again real kind of experience as opposed to it's not just fake and created for somebody's research project. Seems like the computational capacity is increasing and unleashing super intelligence as in quantum computing is going to be enabling us to run our own simulations of brains and of civilizations and of all different types of things and that's going to give us deeper insight into our own source code of this reality. And that'll be a very fun awakening moment for many of us. And I don't think those things have to be exclusive like living life with a deep amount of meaning and passion and then whether or not this is a simulation. Yeah. So you can always live life with deep meaning and passion and purpose regardless if it is or is not a simulation. What would the skill that young people should know going into the exponential technology age be? Singular skill. I think privacy is not specifically a skill but it's a really important mindset to have especially with nothing that you put on the internet really ever being deleted and especially for my generation and the generation right after me where everything is recorded and everything is always on your phones. I think privacy is a really important concern. We have scandals of Cambridge Analytica recently as well as kind of the antitrust in focus on Google as well as other big corporations now that have a lot of our own data and what we do. So it's important to I think be knowledgeable about kind of what you post on the internet may come back and haunt you and but you later. But on the other hand it's also important now to have a healthy kind of social life on these social networks because if anyone is for example an interviewer, if an interviewer is looking for you and tries to do some kind of background research then having these experiences on these social networks and kind of posting the good moments from your life is also really important to show that to show what you've done and kind of what kind of person you are. Yeah it was good seeing your piano videos on the internet and your you know your profile on LinkedIn at least gave me a little bit more of a background on you. At the same time I like seeing people post themselves completely transparently like not just the good but also the struggles and the challenges and things like that and I myself do that. Yeah absolutely. That helps a lot too. It shows real humanity it shows vulnerability it shows it's good to talk about triumphs over those challenges because they can inspire other people to to do the same and it's interesting thinking about going into a completely transparent world and it's also thinking interesting about quantum encryption and all of the privacy safe world at the same time so it's kind of like hmm can we build that love trust and affinity for each other across the world can we not need such military budgets and regimes can we ascend our consciousness to more harmonize together around the planet. On that question how do you think we can inspire people around the world to work together. I think there's different you can kind of do this differently for different goals so if you I think science is a really good example of this where you have scientists from all over the world writing papers and reading the papers of their periods that may not even be in the same continent or hemisphere so you have this huge kind of collection of people that are indirectly working together and I think if we have this for similar have similar kinds of things for other kinds of fields of study or walks of life I guess this could be no this could lead to very good kind of outcomes so you have maybe for let's say the hard case let's say politicians right so you have a lot of countries with competing interests and I think if there was more kind of transparency between the issues of one country with another or even the wants and desires of one country over the other you could have reach more peaceful resolutions going back to what we talked about at the start of this interview of kind of more communication between parties yeah so I think it all blows down to a healthy amount of communication and transparency in certain areas what do you think is the overall meaning of this human experiment well but what do you mean by experiment no it's an experiment human experience both of them what is the meaning of it I think um on an individual level I think the meaning is what you give it really of for example of and I'm very happy studying and doing conducting research so the meaning it would the meaning for me might be something along the lines of I I want to create or I want to do more research or I want to kind of find the answers to these questions this list of questions someone else who finds satisfaction and purpose in doing other things that that may be their meaning of life I don't I don't know if there is a meaning of life for it necessarily all of us that is the same thing but I think on an individual level you can definitely find something that makes you happy and content do you think consciousness is a biological phenomena I think we well yes the short answer is yes the long answer is we don't know of what exactly consciousness is it's very hard to define um we know we have it we know rocks don't have it probably that's what that's what we've got um does it come it comes from the brain wearing the brain on the brain great open-ended questions in neuroscience right now do you think you have free will I'd like to live my life believing I do because at least in my personal experience I don't I choose to live as if that my choices really do matter and I have that I am the one making these choices and set some deterministic path that I've been set down by yeah that I've just been set down what do you think is the role of love in life um well there's many different kinds of right there is parental love there is kind of fraternal or brotherly sibling love there is obviously amorous love um so I think different kinds of love have different kinds of roles um the parental love of or kind of in family dynamics are very important to kind of culture and well-being uh obviously more personal um amorous relationships are also very important the role of love I don't know I don't think I can classify it into one oh this is the role of love to be happy I guess maybe I don't have the answer to this question I'm sorry this is why we ask yeah what do you think is the most beautiful thing in the world most beautiful thing um very similar answer there are many different kinds of beauty I feel um I'm a pianist I love listening to other performers and musicians especially those that are at the peaks of the peaks of their careers and who are the best at what they do they create beauty at their instrument um there's beauty in arts there's beauty in culture there's you know there's beauty in just people um I don't know if I can say of something like lines of this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen yeah yeah yeah you're you're you're you're you being a pianist is also very interesting because in many ways that has a lot of computational properties itself as well there's specific notes that are played there's specific space between the notes there's a length of the note there's where is the note being played on the scale there's so many aspects of the competent torques of music and that's very similar with uh with computer science or with neuroscience so it seems like those things really mesh together well for building out a worldview music and science yeah we we've known this for a while actually that the same area of the brain that is activated when you play or listen to music is the same area of the brain which is activated when you do math so doing one makes you good at good and more precise and better at the other as well so they're very intimately tied and a lot of or at least in my experience a lot of doctors that I've known do playing kind of a play an instrument of some sort and they're good at it too yeah yeah thanks for coming on to our show yeah absolutely thank you so much for having me it's super fun I really appreciate it thank you thank you thanks everyone for tuning in we greatly appreciate it we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below on that episode let us know what you're thinking also check out the links in the bio below you longleylab.org also Anthony's LinkedIn profile also have more conversations with your friends families co-workers people online about neural networks and about neuroscience and about the future of all these fields have more conversations about it and also support the artists the entrepreneurs the leaders around the world that you believe in support simulation our links are below you can contribute to us patreon paypal cryptocurrency all those links are below and also go in and build the future everyone manifest your dreams into the world we love you very much thank you for tuning in and we'll see you soon peace it's a wrap my man good job all right thank you dude that was great yeah it was a lot of fun yeah


Welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean. CodePink's weekly YouTube program of hot news out of the region. In partnership with Friends of Latin America, Massachusetts Peace Action, and Task Force on the Americas, we broadcast weekly on CodePink YouTube Live. We generally broadcast Wednesday afternoons for 30 p.m. Pacific, 7.30 p.m. Eastern. We have a very special guest joining us this afternoon who has a major trip. She's taking tomorrow. So she graciously gave us 30 minutes of her time today right now. So I want all of you to meet Fiorella Mallorca. With some of you, most of you probably know her from the convo couch. She's going to be joining us in conversation today. Our episode is Voices for an Inclusive Hemisphere. And we're going to be talking about the Biden Summit of the America, the ninth summit of the Americas and the two alternative summits. Two of the alternative summits that Fiorella and I both were able to attend. I do want to remind all of you that we do broadcast on CodePink YouTube Live, but you can also find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Telegram. And now very happy to say you can find us at RadIndyMedia.com. A big shout out to Lee Kamp and Eleanor Goldfield for adding us to their news. So let me just give all of you a quick background as to what we're going to talk about. So some of you may remember a little bit of this was discussed on May 10, and I'll explain to you why. So the White House announced in January 2020, 2022, oh my gosh, that the city of Los Angeles would serve as host of the ninth summit of the Americas on June 6 through 10. As host, the United States selects the site of the summit and its attendees, which became very controversial this year. The United States did not invite Cuba, Venezuela, or Nicaragua to the summit, as these countries are deemed by the United States to have undemocratically elected leaders. It was known the US would not invite these leaders, and the official guest list was not announced until May 30. On May 10, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, the president of Mexico, was the first to announce he would not attend the summit if all nations were not in attendance. And so that's the May 10 episode that I'll share with you the link to that prior episode where we had the honor of talking with Jesus Ramirez from the president's office as to why the president of Mexico decided not to go. So Amla was the first to announce he would not attend the summit, and then he did announce that he would be sending his foreign minister, but he did not go as an equal diplomatic level to the president of the United States. Following Amla's decision not to go, was Guillemar Castro, the president of Honduras, the president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, the president of El Salvador, Bukele, the prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and the president of Guatemala. So eight total did not go. In protest of the non-inclusive summit, counter summits were organized. Viarella and I attended two, the People's Summit for Democracy, which was held in Los Angeles, California, June 8, 9, and 10, and the Worker Summit of the Americas, which was held June 10, 11, 12 in Tijuana, Baja, California, Northe, Mexico. So welcome, Viarella. We've got a lot to talk about. Yes, we do. Thank you for having me. You know, there's so much happening right now. I think this is what happened in this People's Summit and after signals the shift that we have been talking about towards a more multilateral, multi-polar world and the pushback from the, from Latin America that we're seeing that I think it has been happening, as you know, and I know, but I think it was made clear to a lot of people that may not have been aware as to what, what the situation is as to what NATO is as to what the OAS is and how they've influenced politics in Latin America. I think, you know, I think you're right in it. It's really, and I have shared this with our audience before and you and I have talked about this really since, I mean, it was, became very overt to those of us who do a, who work in Latin America, solidarity work, political work, journalism, all of that. The July 24 discourse, July 24, 2021, that the president of Mexico gave here in Mexico City. It was on the 238th anniversary of Simone Bolivar's birth and he laid out what we thought was a wonderful vision for Latin America and the Caribbean and as it turned out in ensuing months that discourse in July of 2021 was very clearly his foreign policy vision for the Americas and we've watched that unfold through several things. The Venezuela Dialogue beginning in August which is installed with the kidnapping of Alec Saab, the reconvening of Salak after a four year pause, which was in September of 2021. And, and then refusing to go to the summit of the Americas once that was announced in June so, or in January. It's been a real articulation of what Latin American leadership and not just the president of Mexico but Latin America leadership and I would argue through the forum of Salak that particular body. The leadership wants a multipolar hemisphere. It's very, very clear. And when, when the president of the United States announced in January of 2022 that the summit of the Americas and this is a summit that is organized through the organization of American states but it's a new idea, relatively new in the history of the OAS was introduced by President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. So this one that just took place was only the ninth and the OAS was founded right after World War two. So, when he announced this, and it became very clear who was not going to be invited. It was a huge, huge statement of the United States to say, we're not inclusive as a nation. It's the summit of the Americas but we get to decide or we, Washington gets to decide who is America. And then for the overt pushback by the president of Mexico, it's been very, very exciting actually to watch this all unfold. The undercurrents are very exciting. Yeah, and I think, you know, the solidarity that we're seeing too in Latin America because even some of the leaders that did go still mentioned, I believe that was Gabriela Boric, even though he did say some things that were extremely negative. He also talked about the exclusion and I think that the fact that people feel leaders of these countries feel compelled that they have to say something now is definitely a shift because before that's not how it was United States would exclude whoever they wanted and there was very little shift but now, and I think the war in between Russia and Ukraine, which is the war between us and Russia essentially in NATO is has allowed for that to happen, as well as China's increasing presence. It like in the East and in terms of that relationships building through the, the, the, the, the economic relationships that are happening in Nicaragua that have happened already in Bolivia. I think that is allowing for for this to happen and everybody's sort of taking this this moment in and speaking out against the the same type of of just dictatorial, frankly, and overtly arrogant policies of the United States and and it feels like a moment to grasp on you know you talk you mentioned Seymour Bolivar over 200 years ago. This was going on and and I think it's one of those moments that we're seeing in Latin America where there is a potential to have a united front and more and more pushback is happening right now we're seeing what's happening in Ecuador against the the current regime that have of course was supported by the West and I think that is also signaling a shift in a country that has also been plagued by you know, unfair elections and just very very bad recent regimes. For our audience fear well is referring to the national a national strike national protests in Ecuador that have really erupted really pretty pretty much today. So if you haven't for the audience if you haven't Googled that news or seen it in your social media streams. It's, it's worth checking out because it's not unlike what erupted in Columbia. May of April of last year, you mentioned some of the presidents attending and wasn't all presidents it was foreign ministers and various dignitaries. The other person that spoke from inside the summit who was the president of Argentina. And this was a, this was really interesting to me and really very important because Mexico and Argentina work very closely together consider themselves the two progressive governments in the Americas with others leaning to the right of them, and to the left of those two countries. And you see on low pushing for change from the outside of the summit and Fernandez when he spoke, opened with talking about the 60 year US blockade on column on Cuba, and the, and the five, seven years now of economic warfare against Venezuela he opened with that from inside the summit. So you've had pressure on the outside and pressure on the inside like you mentioned and that is a unity that I have not seen in my years of activism in Latin America and the Caribbean and I think a lot of that as you said comes from increasing trade with China, it's been there for 20 years growing stronger stronger stronger Russia Iran as well, trade in the hemisphere, but also a unified human humanitarian response with Latin America in the Caribbean. There was no COVID-19 aid from the United States for for most of these countries not to any degree that would have been helpful on a on a societal level. And I think that played an impetus in getting these countries to say Latin American countries to say politics and economics are secondary to our humanitarian needs, and we can gain all of this by uniting together. So there's a humanitarian link involved now in this unity that hasn't been this unified and strong in the past. And I think that it's that humanity that humanity that led to the to the organization of these two alternative summits that you and I attended. The lack of inclusiveness the lack of humanity, basically the White House saying we get to define who and what America is we get to send out the invitations and you know colonialism colonialism there's no other way to say it I don't I don't think. Yeah, it's a new form, it's new colonialism you know I was saying the other day it really the the audacity of the United States to invite Spain and Juan Guaidó who they still consider the interim president even after going to ask Maduro for oil and trying to negotiate with Maduro, thereby recognizing his power and not Juan Guaidó's they're still putting out this this idea that Juan Guaidó is anybody and we know that he's not very well liked Venezuela because we all just saw him get kicked out of a restaurant very comically. By his own followers by his own followers and, and, and there's a shift happening in Venezuela to where a lot of people who are part of the Guaidó government have been sort of trying to work within the current system, the economic wise Venezuela has improved. And so what you're seeing is the Guaidó has become even more relevant so it's absolutely ridiculous to to invite him as if he's anybody but also just the symbolism of, you know, after after that in America decades and decades fighting for freedom from the Spanish monarchy, they sort of had very little of it eventually of course the United States came in and began intervening and pushing regime change and now the United States excludes three very important countries that have been the resistance of, of this this imperialist, you know, a Yankee imperialist boot. And so then, then they invite of course the Spanish crown as if the conquistadors They invite the conquistadors from 500 years ago. Exactly.  That I mean that it's almost unbelievable that a US administration would do that. And just such a strong example of what's, in my opinion, one of the many things wrong in Washington right now. I mean really to think that you've invited the, the conquistadors, the nation of the conquistadors from 500 years ago as part of the Americas. That's just astounding and insulting on a very great, you know, very high level. On a very like level of regardless of what people in South America feel when they are on politics there's that element where I think in those moments, they're, they're, you know, like it was back then during the time this moon believer it's like you're uniting against this power that shouldn't have any, any power over you this. It's just, you know, it's just inherently this need to be a free people this need to be sovereign. And, and that I think is actually backfired and I think you would agree with me this summit backfired for the Biden administration in so many ways. And obviously I think the American people the US citizens are starting to see who their government is ever so slowly, you know, as we say, from within, but I think that more and more these these masks are unveiling each every day. And in terms of, you know, what they're told is the enemy as these immigrants and these Latin Americans coming in. Well, well, why are they coming in what happened with what was the policies that led to this and I, the democracy, the people as a counter to the democracy summit. I think did a really good job of introducing that to people who are previously focused on domestic issues, progressive issues, electoral issues from within the country, whereas in you know when you do the the work that you spoke of the solidarity work the journalism when you travel, you understand how our foreign policy is our domestic policy. Yeah, yeah, it's come home. It's formulated on the same. You know you mentioned sovereignty, and one of the while we're talking about this, the People's Summit for democracy, which was in Los Angeles eight nine 10 of June and the principle that the organizers were international people's assembly code pink. People's forum and party for socialism and liberation but many, many more and I'll share with all of you the website for that summit so you can see all the workshops, all the panels and all the co sponsors about 2000 people attended that summit that alternate summit and it was, it was a weaving of domestic social issues, social movements and us farm policy towards Latin America and the Caribbean and one of the workshops that was, I think it was at the closing workshop, the struggle for sovereignty was the closing workshop. The struggle for sovereignty was really kind of wrapped everything up that that's ultimately what this comes down to this respect for national sovereignty, natural and natural resource sovereignty, as well. And those are themes that played out you and I were at a number of presidential elections throughout the Americas last year. And the, those are themes that played out in every country's electoral cycle, people voted to preserve national sovereignty, natural resource sovereignty and they voted for governments that were offering a an economy for all of the people and that played out, you know, one step to the left of center to revolutionary left it's a spectrum, you know, of solutions, you know, some are just a milder form of capitalism but engaging everyone and some are some solutions are much, much more revolutionary in vision and implementation, but it is about sovereignty. And I really liked at the LA summit the people summit for democracy, how things. It wasn't just Latin America there was this weaving of themes of some of the workshops of focused on rent. How how how to how to form tenant unions and lobby and protest, you know, for rent control and so people can stay in their homes that are reasonable rate, things like that themes and and social movements and what else do I want to say, like, a lot of human rights issues as well that overlap domestically as well as internationally. What was your favorite part of the go ahead I'm sorry. Oh, I mean, I, I really enjoyed that overlap as well because I think that's one of the faults of the progressives in the United States. I will say progressives in the United States is that there is not enough attention paid to foreign policy, especially when it comes to Latin America. One of it I think is the language aspect that there there is just, there's not enough of people with English English speakers with that knowledge out there that get enough of a pool, but that's by design and and that is that is just by by lack of our understanding of the United States where you're not really paid you're not told to pay attention to the rest of the world while the rest of the world has to pay attention to you, either because of the of education or because they're living the consequences of that It was really great seeing the, the weaving and of so many issues including when we had Julian Assange's family come in earlier and talk about the fact that he is a journalist that is being, you know, persecuted by the State Department for exposing war crimes see now these war crimes, of course, are committed in large number by the West and by the United States and these are pushed in on other countries right and the in West Asia, in the global south. And so when you look at things that way, you start seeing the connections between the foreign policy and being able to inform people about said foreign policy and said work crimes and then the money aspect right the money that goes into these wars people did to determine how the billions of dollars the United States is giving to Ukraine. When have they done anything for Latin America besides of course extract resources right that that's one of the themes in Latin America right now it's we have a very Latin American very resource rich nations which they do, but the riches that the wealth does not stay within these nations, it goes out. And so that is a very common theme that has been a part of Latin America for forever. And I think that that is also a way where people can see it they talked about climate change and the Amazon and how all of that is contributing to how all of not just war but the the exploitation by these nations in the West is contributing to that so that that interweaving I think was is very, very good to have because it never really happens in a place where you have this. These two things coming together and I told you as much when we were at the summit I've had you know I've lived in LA for years. I spent time with the activist community in LA with the Bernie people in LA and all of that the progressive movements in LA, but I've also spent time abroad with all of you who do the solidarity work and it was like my two worlds coming together and it was weird to be saying and, but it was good it was needed. Yeah. I agree. I love that intersection. You, you mentioned all the money the US is sending to Ukraine, the President of Mexico said, in response to that during the week of the summit that one drop of that money could help many of the immigration issues in Mexico and Central America, and particularly on the Mexico United States border. And so again, the money's there for, I think he was implying the money is there for Western Europe, and not there for our Spanish speaking brothers and sisters to the south. And I think it was, it wasn't it was a very clever way to win to point all of that out. And it's true, it wouldn't take that much money to solve some of the problems on the border. I should also say, all that money going to Ukraine all that money that our tax, our tax dollars going to the Pentagon, if those of you in the audience are not familiar with it. A lot of what be a Rella and I are talking about can is housed under code pinks cut the campaign, all of those social issues and public infrastructure and education and all of that that could could be possible in the United States if the military budget wasn't so large. So, let's talk about the, about the summit in Tijuana because that took a little different approach. Yeah, this was the worker summit of the Americas and it was principally organized by the platform. Well, let me say it in English for all of you, the platform for the class of workers working class anti imperialist working class. So Paco is the Spanish piece PCO a was principally organized by them with help of Partido Morena. And, and most of the sponsoring organizations were our workers consortiums unions, teachers electricians. It was a really It was a whole nother segment of society but specifically it was organized for those people who were denied entry to the United States and or were not able to obtain visas to go to the summit in Los Angeles so that purpose is really, really important to understand how many people were not able to come not just, you know, heads of state that were not invited by the president of the United States, but average working people as well. And so this was held in Tijuana, a walk, well a bus ride a short bus ride from the border. From the wall which was the concluding event we had a big action at the wall in San Ysidro, Tijuana. It was a, this was a class of people who are workers who are as you and I would identify with as leftist versus progressives and I think at some point we should probably do a whole episode on on how this is because for those of us who spend a lot of time working outside of the United States progressive and leftists are not the same. They are two different points on the revolutionary spectrum. And so they should not and but they're in the states we seem to use them interchangeably, and they're not interchangeable, you know, particularly working in the global south and so I would say what we saw in Tijuana was the left very organized leftist movement and and a reassertion of labor. And it, it was very authentic, and it was very moving and some really great energy with those people and some great ideas. Yeah, I mean it was extremely, you know, from the perspective of the US, it would be considered radical because because of the nature of their politics but also the the very blatant call that you know I just I did for the first time I just hear that at the People's Summit here heard the word sanctions, which I hadn't heard before, you know, in any sort of March, you know and the sanctions end of that but you heard more of that. You know, border wall action that they had on that Sunday where it was just you know and the blockade stopped the sanctions and it was just a sort of very much radical call to talk about US imperialism and what they've done and what needs to happen and here are the solutions to what we want. Here's what needs to happen. And it was it was working people who have worked in agriculture, who have worked in different fields it was workers it wasn't. It was less of the celebrity. And we've talked about this to the celebrity type of activism and you know, some people know what I what I mean especially in LA. But there's I mean, you know, it helps to have name recognition and all of that but we're talking about people who are who we met in Nicaragua like a file still from atc. We're talking about or good friend Fausto Torres. Yes, and who do this sort of work where they they're talking about food sovereignty they're talking about these things that deal with with the hands and just just working in the like in a very different avenue than what we saw in LA and I think it's necessary to have both, because then you get to see the entire spectrum of what is required and they're not always going to coincide and like each other. It's very, I think it's important for us to have seen both and to have talked about both and to have been there and, you know, given out videos and talked about what was said, and had media there to basically cover it and cover, you know, Alex stop and how people have been talking about him and they even mentioned, you know, political prisoners like Maria and Julian Assange as well so it's kind of a came full circle at that point where you saw everybody. Yeah, it was. The energy was really exciting and and some really great ideas and I will share with the audience the website for the worker summit of the Americas as well, so that you can see the final declaration and the workshops. The summit in Tijuana was very, very overtly in support in solidarity with Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Mexico and Mexico for its voice right now in the hemisphere and its leadership. And that was, I think that was so important because those are the three countries that are suffering the strongest economic warfare Cuba for the longest amount of time but very, very strong economic warfare and exclusion on many levels not just being excluded from the invitation list to Biden summit. That was very, I thought it was really, really important to really focus on those three that were from the very start, not going to be included in the ninth summit of the Americas and Los Angeles and I, and I also appreciated how many of the workers came from unions in Mexico and the emphasis on their president's leadership in the hemisphere right now. It was a very, was really powerful. So I have to say that the Venezuelans that I got to meet there were amazing people that have gone through so much in recent years and they just seeing their, their fight in spite of that adversity really was really moving and it was amazing to get to know them and I am so excited to meet so many more of them in the months to come and I, you know, I know you talked about the Venezuelans how much you love them but I, it was so awesome that was the best part of that, that trip is getting to meet some of them, just really wonderful people that know their country that have been facing so much, just so much injustice coming from the West and are still dealing with it. And it was amazing seeing those particular three nations named Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, the nations that I consider revolutionary ones that are the resistance to Western hegemony and I have nothing but respect and and admiration for. There's still all such beautiful people. They still have their humanity in such a beautiful manner and I, you mentioned the Venezuelans I would be remiss not to give a shout out to my code paint co workers, Michelle Elmer and Leonardo Flores who are also Venezuelans and it's been an honor to work with them and get to know them better and celebrate, you know their country. And yeah, it's but all three countries the Cubans, the Nicaraguans and the Venezuelans very.  Yes, they have that revolutionary spirit to fight and push back against the United States and that that push back began with Simone Bolivar, having it so clearly articulated as a policy. But I really, it's really quite something to be around people who are still really so friendly. I mean, when there's so much not to be friendly about especially to those of us from the United States so. So what else should we talk about I promise you I would keep this episode to a to a tight 30 minutes because you've got big news that you're going to be announcing soon and. Do you want to announce that now or no. Yeah I mean I think most people know at this point you know I'm going to Russia, I'm literally getting on a plane like early tomorrow to go make my track over there it's a couple flights. I will be in Moscow for for a little bit I mean I'll be traveling I'll be able to come out of the country and travel and do the things I need to do but I am going to be doing work for RT there, as well as continue the work that I do independently with Craig pasta. As you guys know him. But yeah and there with the condo couch. Yes, the convo couch. And yeah and then as well as just continue doing the election work right now we have very important elections coming up in the second round in Colombia. Very important election then in Brazil. So, there's a lot happening in Latin America Terry I'm extremely excited for Latin America and the connections between Latin America and the East as well. There's a lot happening so I honestly like this is the time to be in both the the global south and and the East so. You are very very fortunate and you're going to be doing a fantastic job. We have no doubt. You have a lot of fans and we're all rooting for you and we're waiting for your first broadcast from Moscow. So I'll let I'll let you go so you can finish packing and get all your, your things together and we'll look for I hope we can talk to you from Moscow. Of course, yes, really, really great and I, and I so agree with you the connections between the global south which includes Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Eurasia, including, you know, northern China and and Russia and this whole emergence of a new paradigm. It's scary the violence associated with it but it's also really, really encouraging the possibilities are enormous and very, you know, it's it's it's a fascinating project that's emerging so it's a wonderful time in spite of everything happening and especially in Africa to that rarely you know the pan African is is a panel, I thought that was great. It does not get talked about enough anywhere, and the pushback that is happening the unity within these nations in the continent of Africa is really another thing that is just adding to this whole thing and then the you know the unity between Africa and Latin America through the the culture of Latin Afro culture to is a whole other thing, and I and that is just amazing to watch amazing to see the solidarity that it's a nations that have been of course, crushed by the Western imperialism and finally getting their chance to have voices and to be heard by more of the Western world. So, very happy to see that happening. So I should just say that you've mentioned the pan Africanism there was a full four person panel discussion with that theme at the People's Summit in Los Angeles with the closing segment by James early who brilliantly weaved the African continent to the Americas and vice versa. And you can find that, I think all of those, all of those panels and workshops were recorded by breakthrough news out of New York and association with the People's Forum and you can find all of the recordings at the Breakthrough News YouTube channel but that was a really, that was a really fascinating talk as well. So, okay, Fiorella, we've seen two fabulous summits counter summits and we're able to also protest. Biden summit so we've had a really busy week, and a very fruitful week of activism and I'm very happy to have spent it with you. And same Terry, it was wonderful to spend some time with you and some of our comrades and really yeah take it all in and now it's time to digest everything I need like a week to digest all this information and put it out there have this like desire to like write about everything that's been happening in the last few months because I haven't stopped since our delegate it feels like I haven't stopped since like last year. And so now I'm just like wow, all of this is happening so fast. So, very glad to have you a part of it and yeah let's let's continue to continue to do the things we need to do. Okay, great. I want to remind our audience you've been watching what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean code pinks weekly YouTube program we broadcast. Generally every Wednesday for 30pm Pacific 730pm Eastern today's been a special broadcast due to Fiorella's time constraints and we're so thankful that she fit us in today. So you can also find us on Spotify, Apple podcast telegram and now at radindymedia.com. You can also find code pink radio on Apple podcast and Spotify and you can listen to code pink radio live every Thursday morning 11am Eastern on WBAI New York City WPFW Washington DC. Thank you everyone we will we'll see you next week and we look forward to talking with Fiorella from Moscow and and deepening those links those eurasians Global South Latin America link so thank you everyone. We'll see you next week.