it has a role as a raw material producer. We will not allow Sub-Saharan Africa to escape that. Okay, we do everything to keep Sub-Saharan Africa where it is also impoverished. It's absolutely vital for the prosperity of everyone. So let's get clear about that. Okay, and this means all the economic structures, all the global institutions, and the economics we teach everyone is all designed to keep Africa exactly where it is. We need Africa to be impoverished because we need those raw materials and we need them dirty. We cannot afford to allow Africa to industrialize and start producing manufacturers. Okay, so we will do everything to stop that. So in the earlier period we had Japan and Korea and Taiwan. Okay, rapid growth, sucking in raw materials from Africa, driving up the prices. After those countries finished industrialization, then Sub-Saharan African growth rate again fell. Well, it's a four-minute long video that went viral. In fact, it was my father that sent it to me. I said, okay. So referencing the global journal of politics and law research, Nigeria among the third world country went through almost a century of colonial experience from 1861 to 1960 when she got her political independence. Since independence, Nigeria has been struggling in the course of political instability, economic and social cultural imbalances. And like other third world countries, the nation has been hugely confronted with underdevelopment, which emanated from dominant exploitative character of the Western economies on which those of the third world depend. Now the question now is, can Nigerians rise above this Western influence? Given that most times, especially with this politics, we saw every single leader running for presidency, going to Chatham House to give a speech like almost like seeking for a stamp of approval. Now that's the question. Can we truly rise above Western influence? Now please, let's hear what you have to say. Remember, you can join the conversation and send us an SMS or WhatsApp to<PHONE_NUMBER>3. We'll open up online shortly, but I just wanted to hear your thoughts on this. So I saw a report that was rather shocking or is not really shocking because this report has always, these things have always been said in different quotas.  So prior to, this was a report that I found online. I think Afiz Toparaji is the author of the report. He says, prior to European interaction with Africa, both units had existed fairly well in their geographical enclave and developed civilization best suited for them for avoidable reason. However, Europe had to demand reaping from Africa what she sow not. So how briefly, so then he now talks about the piece that the African continent has always been a land of mystery to the Europeans, that though Europeans knew little about the continent, its people custom its tradition and interiors as a whole. A lot of them were highly curious about the continent. And in the 19th century, Kingdoms started to pay great attention to Africa and a lot of scientists, missionaries, explorers, flooded Africa, which they saw extremely astounded or astonished by by them. Now the African continent was full of impressive sight, exotic animals, unique landscape, ingenious people, which their own culture and their life were completely different from, right? So as a result, the widely known scrabble for Africa had begun leading to a colossal colonization of the continent that left lasting impressions and far-reaching effects on the ingenious people in Africa. One of such effects are arguably the most detrimental was the effect on the indigenous industries, right? So you see right now, let me stop there, I'll come back again to it. You see right now that instead of us as Africans to process what we eat, right, we rather take raw materials from our continent, take it to the western world and bring in finished goods. I mean, that is why I saw a video of the Ghanaian president saying that whether we like them or not, we're going to chop Ghanaian chocolates, do you understand? Because they just realized that this is our power, right? Why can't we process the things within them? Whatever you want, you take the process to one. No longer will we be selling our cocoa for cheap and then you bring us very expensive chocolates, right? So let's start to embrace some of these things, you know? So but now, is it possible? Because we have grown to so much love, our mouth, the flavor.  So every time he has to travel, he has to bring in the imported cereal or all of those things. So our taste board is so used to, what's it called? Everything foreign. So is it possible for us to rise above the Western influence? NG, it seems like you're each into it. I just feel like it's good from just listening to you already. Kind of answers the question that we are far from then. It's just like the question, you know, the last time I was on set and Jennifer was making a statement and she said, are we really ready for the change we are requesting for? Can we go back to Wayne, like how we used to be, the answer is no. The answer is no. The only thing I feel like we can do or we, the only thing we can do is just be cautious of how we move going forward and do things for the best interests of the country and not for selfish interests. So a lot of things that have gone wrong have been because of selfish interests, colonization, chain religion, and what I have viewed that was brought into the country was for selfish interests, not because they wanted to make Nigeria better or Africa or the continent or Africa or the continent. Looking at, if you finish that video, you will see that he called Africa a raw, raw material supplier and producer. So this is how we are viewed. We are viewed from the angle of we produce raw materials. So it's almost like the whole idea behind colonization is to suck out the natural resources from Africa as a whole and then subject us to the point where we feel like the western culture would always be above us. Meanwhile, we as Africa, we are indeed greater in every ramification, like everything. But due to also lack of education, of even know because you can only be sold. I feel like you can only be sold the lie when you do not know. You're not informed when you are not informed, when you do not know the truth. If you do not know the truth, then someone can sell you a lie. It's because we did, we never really, you know, stood to appreciate who we are as Africans. And that's the reason why if you go, let me give an example. I feel like Nigeria's or Africa's case is a case of like a record label. You see someone that has great talent. You know, most, this is this normal story.  And then after a while, you now realize that you have been cheated because you were doing the major work. I know that this person is your producer, but because they had that, because you always saw them from that point of view of you were below and they were above, without knowing your, that's the thing, without knowing your value is the reason why, you know, eventually most of them give it a couple of years, their eyes open and then you hear of scandals and you hear of issues and everybody's always crying.   Let's even take it from the angle of your specialty. No, no, no, let's be factual, right? There was a time in this country where we took pride in the things that we manufactured, right? I mean, there was a time heads of state, for instance, as you might seem that these things are basic, but these things had a major imprint on us, right? Cars, it was pushed all over. Now we have an indigenous brand in our backyard here, but we would rather still take hundreds of millions to buy the brands, the German brands, the Korean brands, even Chinese brands. Will you buy nationality? Oh, done. I will buy it. For your next? Of course, I will buy it. You'll buy it. I will buy it. And I'm not even about to lie on nationality. Even if I have the money, I will buy it. But tell me why? Why have we gotten so engrossed in believing that our dependency and everything that we stand as Africans is tied to, you know, we must go and consult with the Western world? First of all, I think is a case of we're blessed and we don't know that we're blessed. And if you don't know, you can't give what you don't know. Second of all, the Western side of the world, they set a standard which we will try to catch up on. What I think we need to do is infuse more of our culture in the things that like not forget is like a child leaving the house and your father says, don't forget the son of who you are when you're going. So it's like we've gotten so used to everything foreign and that we're leaving back our own things. Second of all, we don't have a platform to help us maximize these things. We produce one of the best letters in I think it's Kano or Kaduna in the northern part of Nigeria. But how are you able to finesse your product? That's even if a white man seizes who is of the top class is still going to say, oh, you know, Africa, this is made from Africa, this is nice. Well, sometimes we're very tacky in some of the things we do. Our finishing. Yes, our finishing is not there. Which is why they have the edge over us. And whereas now that we have people running away to outside the country for education, they're not willing to come back to develop their own countries because there's no platform here that is giving you that ability. So what do you want to do?  So what should we pretend that we like it over the one abroad just because we want to seem like we're cultural? Come on. There's a big difference between like modernization and everything like westernization. It has also helped us. But I think we just should learn how to infuse culture into it and not let them have the edge like coming here to take raw materials from us. It's because we don't have a platform to use raw materials. They produce Nigerian rice. We don't want to because we think it's not up to standard. But if many of us decide, okay, you know what? We're going to embrace it. Fine. And we start buying this thing and it's actually quality and it's actually up to standard. Come on. Everybody will follow suit. Even laws in place by the government to say, okay, you know what? We import everything now. We import so much. And even the people that are sitting in government, are they not taking from the imposition too? Okay. So let me read another part of this report that says the first objective of colonialism is political domination. Its second objective is to make possible the exploitation of the colonized country, albeit practically. The letter remains the core that the former is just a fairer meaning to this extractive end as shall be shortly, of course, shown shortly. So what he was saying, it says colonizing began as a result of changes in the mode of production in Europe, right? The emergence of industries, revolution, the revolution of industries. And some of these people, they don't realize that the big problem is that a lot of the raw materials for them to be able to do what it was, they didn't have it. So if Africa decides today as a continent to say we are not dealing with any country giving out our raw materials, all these countries are dead. If you had finished the video from the professor that was talking, all these countries are completely comatose because they rely solely on the African market. So it is in their interest that we do not have good governance. It is their interest that would not have stability in our economy. It is in their interest that we do not have the right leaders in power. They need to keep on having leadership that they can control. Leadership that still sees them as superior. So if we understand this system, why are we not putting heads together as Africans to say, you know what, we need to fight this? Because now the target has never been about the reason that they are very much... I mean, when you listen to that guy, they then give you handouts. They then give you what's called scholarships. They give you grants. They give you all of those things. So they keep making you come back to depend on them, thinking that, oh, these guys without them, I would not have done this. Without them, I've not done that. And that's why the Jack Ma syndrome, right, is very, very strong. Because now they are even telling you there are some countries that will tell you you don't need anything. Just come with your passport. You will come and we'll give you... And then because we're chasing things as simple as basic amenities, that's why you have people running there. It looks like people are out of the country and they're suffering. They're actually worse off than how they were even here in Nigeria. But nobody's going to talk about that part.  But they're suffering there. But at the back of their mind, they're telling you, at least when I come back home, there's light. At least when I come back home, I'll see water. So I mean, the platform for that change is going to take a while. It's not like it's unachievable. But it's going to take a while. There are just a whole lot of things we need to get right with ourselves before we start throwing blames out there. Yes, the blames are there. Yes, they are holding us captive. But we need to work on ourselves first. Before you now, if you're in prison, you're not just going to keep saying, oh yeah, they just put me, they just put me in prison. They just put me in prison. You're going to start thinking, okay, you know what? Reflecting on yourself, reflecting how can I be better? And somehow, somehow things now begin to come and then you're free from it. And that's why we have growing industries. I mean, I think we're doing fairly well. We're not even close. But nowadays, you see in the fashion industry, Nigerian designers are going wild. It might not have spread to industries in terms of like... Well, that is where we wanted to spread to. But it has started from somewhere. It has started from somewhere. That is where the big money is. Let's take a break because I would like us to open our phone lines. Some people have been trying to call the WhatsApp line. Please, we don't take calls on the WhatsApp line. It's our ladies' night out and we're discussing the topic, can Africans or can Nigerians rise above the Western influence? That's the question for today and the number to call. Oh, please, let's hear what you have to say. Remember, you can join the conversation. Send us an SMS or WhatsApp to the rate 1-803-4663. The phone line is now open and the number to call is 07025-007749. Remember, turn off the volume of your television set so we can hear ourselves. The number again, 07025-007749. So, please, those trying to reach the WhatsApp line call this number. That's the number to call. I mean, so the conversation, and this is where I like what you're saying. And we are tired of handouts. And that's why the kind of leaders that we have matter. Now, we are farmers, for instance, right? Chinese people will come into your country. You will give them hectares of land to farm. You will give them tax holidays. You give them all of those things. These same incentives, you don't give it to your citizens in Nigeria. Now, go and check all the restaurants in Lagos, for instance. I don't know about even in Abuja. Most of the top restaurants in Nigeria are owned by Lebanese people for goodness' sake.  Would you, as Nigerians, go into their country and have that much leverage? And guess what? They're in the primest locations. Let me take our first caller for the evening. I don't know. You just raised my voice this time. I'm delighted your life. I'm fine. Thank you for calling. Go ahead. Can you hear me? We can hear you clearly. All right. I think Africa and Nigeria have overcome this problem. Well, the first thing we need to do is to have an inner belief in ourselves that we now know that there's common and that we are capable of making the right things that are required of us. Each and every one of us, especially the dedicated ones, now know that we do not need this Western culture. We do not need this weapon. It's our leaders from the 80s, 60s and above. We're not the reason why these people are there. It's not that we don't know. We know. The changes will come and I'll show you that you, young ladies, just talking about this program today on TV, on live TV, is even a step forward in making that change. I guarantee you. Thank you. This will absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. So Mary, so let me come back to you because you raise the very valid point, which is excellence, which is what you don't see with Nigerian products. But let me tell you something. When I started ways, I don't think I was this good. When you joined the team, I don't think you were that good. What happens is when you keep giving people the opportunity to grow. Nigerians, we need to, I mean, he said, believe in ourselves. Believe enough that, okay, no matter what, let's keep trying. Let's provide amenities. But we're not saying that. We're not seeing the process. It's not working. Dump it. Let's go and get, you know. I'll give you an example. We had Hiki's changing earlier today. Yes. And we said something about her, that everything she does, she puts excellence in it, is changing. I will be proud to export that change. From the packaging alone, from the look alone, that is a Nigerian who has decided I will be different. Who has decided I have gone outside, I've probably schooled abroad or whatever, and I will come back to my country and make a difference. When you showed me the factory, I was impressed. Oh, it's even made here in Nigeria. I saw it around the certain aesthetics which are setting female Nigerians who have, you know, put themselves on a setting pedestal, you know, to set to international standards. And I'm like, okay, you know what, if something is coming from here, then a measure is of good quality. And I went for it straight. I'm not looking at it to say, oh, it's not following or, you know, it's appealing to me. It tastes good. I will gladly buy local if it meets standards. So it starts from us.  And I look at it and it's nice. I will go back to my house and think, oh, you know what, where did you get those things from? And at this table was made in Nigeria. Oh, okay. You know, we can get it here as well. I would go as well. I want to get it. So for me, that's it. Are we putting our best? Yes, we have these natural resources. Are we using it? With the knowledge that we have, are we using it? We, let me call, NJ has been doing. It's different, you know, seeing things from I'm actually why I was, you know, making side comments because I was like, okay, I'm actually seeing things from her own point of view because yes, we cry about these things a lot. But we also know what we gain from it. There are a lot of people with their parts of this colonization that cannot be changed. You know, the effect cannot be resolved in a day. The effect would have to start or rather would the repair would have to start by what like what Abdullah said from us, from the mental, when it happens in the subconscious, then it comes down to the conscious and you can actually, you know, leave it. So we need to get to the point where we start reorientating ourselves and re-engaging our minds into what it actually means to be indigenous, what it means to be local. And it's not just about wearing Ankara, but let me take Emineke because that's what they think it is about. Emineke from Umuahia. Umuahia, thank you for joining us. Hi, good evening. You see, the problem with leadership and we also are comfortable. When we begin to believe in ourselves, just like one of the top speakers, if I said it, when we begin to believe in ourselves, then we begin to talk about what we think is right. And I think we would have been able to take and begin to develop and make our country better. But because the Western world see challenge, they will face immaculate projects.  And that has taken us where we are. Look at what is coming out of other and many other places in Nigeria. No study is showing sense. We talk of Taiwan like this. We talk of the Asian title and other. We criticize their product that today they are doing well internationally. So until we begin to believe in ourselves and not allow from kind of a family to overshadow, let's not begin to believe in ourselves. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you so much. So let's try to keep our conversations within a minute so we can have more callers in. I mean, it's interesting how, yes, people are saying believe in ourselves. I was going to come to Medina Bah. Medina Bah, there was a time it was, ah, God forbid. See the problem Mary, first of all, it has never been about the quality. It is the mindset that you just think that everything Nigeria is a theory. So even when you see people that are trying to genuinely make efforts, right, the same changing that you have praised. Some people have already said, no, it doesn't taste right, right. So I'm saying to you that until you first of all, you must take pride in that the fact that it was done here. Eh, forget it. I don't need any other conviction. Then we cannot talk about other things later. Now I've tasted some of this Ghanaian chocolate. Honestly, it's not something that you would like to live in your mouth for a very long time. But guess what? No, but I'm being honest. But guess what? You will see that there is conscious effort for continuous improvement. And that's why MNK's comment is very important. Everything rises and falls on leadership. So whether it is the car is good or not, whether it has the aesthetics, we are, we have this rent seeking mindset. We are more, we prefer to ride all the designer. I mean, myself and my sisters were talking the other day. I said, it is, it is very, very foolish of me to wear a designer brand that the logo is all over my body. Did they pay me to be their stamp poster chart with my own money? I spent thousands of dollars to buy that. No, even if I was going to wear a designer brand, it is the one that you would have to check the label to see the designer name. Not that it's the one that it has all the stamps. You know the brands I'm referring to. We'll go and check the Nigerian industry, right? You come into a place, the first of all, size you and look at it if you're worthy to talk to you or not. So the problem we have is deeper than just the fact that somebody has paid attention to excellence is that we do not see, we look at ourselves and we look at ourselves as inferior. And that is the ideology that was sold to us. Because you're talking about westernization, you're talking about what's it called, advancement. The West, they were scared as to how we were living, in the manner we're living so coordinated and everything. The introduction of the chaos and all of these things that we're talking about was denibrate. So they now made it look like it was their religion that was better. It was the West, what's it called, their education that was better. It was all of those things that they were doing that were better. So we also bought in that idea. So my point is that we have stayed there for too long. When do we leave that mindset and begin to get rid of this western influence? Because guess what? Your president will talk to you on a plus TV Africa always show. You will not listen. But let him say he wants to go and feature on an international TV channel. Everybody will be tuned in. It's the same thing. It cuts across every single thing. Until we as Nigerians begin to first of all have it consciously that we have been programmed to think in a certain way and act in a certain way and begin to consciously, you know, the what's it called, the program that kind of mindset. We will not go anywhere. Just to add to what she said, it's just like what needed to happen in China, what they did in China. Thank you. They literally, and it was a it was a decision, a conscious decision, just like yes, they knew they were going to suffer. But they because of what they were going to gain at the end of the day and how beneficial that move was going to be for the entire country was the reason why the entire country, whether or not they wanted to have to buy into it. How was the quality of Chinese clothes then? It was very bad, very shabby. But even the fashion industry in Nigeria has taken a turn in terms of we're being globally recognized. We have and people away. We don't have to be globally recognized. Yes, but at the same time, even now, people are doing like people are pulling up looks even with Nigerian designers. But merely has been happening over time. Designers have been using Nigerian raw materials and African raw materials. And I'm saying now, and I'm saying that yes, it's not going to happen overnight. But what I'm saying is gradually, gradually, industries where we're beginning to accept it. My point is, you don't have to, I don't have to wait for the western to stamp a seal of approval that my product is good before I would know that my product is good, which is what we're always doing.  So a designer comes up and the designer is doing amazingly well. Nobody recognizes a designer. A beyond designer picks that designer and says, style me a cloth. And all of a sudden everybody's running to that designer. No, it doesn't have to be that way. We have local influencers too. So the point is over time, right, we always wait to seek approval from the western world. We always do that. And I'm saying that I am tired of that. We are done. We need to start waking up to the reality. What you said about China closing their borders, they had to close their borders. When I was growing up, it was either guaranty rice or abalaké rice, abalaké rice that we used to eat. They were stones inside. But imagine if they had stayed, right? Now they will not be at the same quality or at the same whatever now. But guess what? Because nobody said it, nobody bought them. Everybody abandoned those things and they were going to Okubens, going to all those other brands. What happened, you know? Then finally, even in my house now, I don't eat any other rice. My friend is a farmer, she farms of other rice. Even if I'm cooking it, I'm still eating it like that. Because first of all, our rice is even healthier. They sold us the idea that palm oil was not healthy. And all of a sudden there was an efflux of vegetable oil. Now they are coming back to say, oh, palm oil is healthy. Come on. Most of the international products, the same thing. See, a lot of things haven't been used at the same time. Let me take another caller. I think Abdullah, is he back again? You're live please. All right, hello. Yes, go ahead. It's interesting to listen to what you say. And like I said, I've really tried to, you guys have a discussion. But I would like to bring this thing down to the Nigeria context. We already have a discussion in this country. All we have to do is think about it. The ebos, we've mobilized them, have shown that we are capable of doing anything that we choose to do. Absolutely. Just like the last one I said, go to Abahak. You'll be amazed at what you've seen Abahak. Thank you. The ebos are the engineers of what we need to change Nigeria. If only our politicians and our leaders would understand, the all we need to do is replicate Abahak's legal zones and give them the money. Give them whatever they want. The ebos are capable of changing this country once and for all. Thank you, Abdullah.  And I would say to us as Nigerians, we need to put aside this idea that, because it makes no sense. I used to say this to my friends like Joke. I said, I wish I came as an ebogue. I will not be, me and you will not be on the same level. Because guess what? By now they've blown. Because you must tap into what you have. Abah, yes. They were some standard things. You would see kuchi instead of gucci or whatever. Whatever it is, they are making an effort. So if a government was thinking right, what were you supposed to do? You were supposed to provide, imagine having an industrialized state that you can come and produce, mass produce the genes, mass produce whatever it is. Whatever it is that you're looking for, there's no product you're looking for on earth that does not have a copy in Abah. It's still of use to take advantage of that. And that's the same spirit that the Chinese people have. We're not taking advantage of that. Instead, we are mocking and saying that it's fake or it's cheap or it's whatever. Let me take Loma from Abia then we'll now take our final comments. Ah, you're angry. I'm just upset. Loma, you're alive. Please, you have a minute. So yeah, good evening, my dear people. Good evening. Good evening. Yeah, very much the question that is on the screen. It wouldn't be possible for Nigerians to rather go to work in the trade because we depend much on a foreign program. But yes, we can go back to production than consumption. Once we decide to embark on production than consumption, then that is when we will write about it. And we will now try to use what we have and get what we need. That is the only time we can write about what it is because now we hear our business. Once they are sick, they go outside. They won't even try to think about the products they want to buy. They want to work with the products. But if we decide to now say, let's all start using what we have, I'm telling you, that is when we will write about it. Depending on our also, making sure we make our products of quality that is good for the market. Thank you so much. It will not be easy for us to write about Western influence. Thank you so much. Thank you, Loma. Ladies, your topic, Nigerians rise above Western influence, to me, is a call for sub-reflection for us as Africans to begin to look inward and to access our actions and relationships with the Western world. Unfortunately, we Africans refuse to stand up for ourselves to take our destinies into our hands. We refuse to grow up and we keep remaining as babies in terms of leadership, leadership, economic in relation to Westerners. Now, we want them to continue to babysit us, to tell us how we can think and move. African continent was not the only continent, African continent was not the only continent the Western colonized in the world. Others have moved on with their lives but Africans are still sitting there calling our colonizers masters until we begin to believe in ourselves and to let ourselves know we have equal rights with the Western world. They will continue to treat us the way they are treating us. We must learn to rise to ourselves and define our world like the Chinese people did to themselves. Nobody colonized China but today they are also like world power economically, politically, and otherwise. This is from Santos. Let's take more comments and we wrap up. China did it. China did it. It closed its borders for 40 years and adapted. It is known the second largest economy in the world. Buhari closed out border to help us grow what we eat and everybody started shouting hunger. We are not ready to pay the price for development. Subsidy was given to Nigerian farmers but they decided to sell and consume the seedlings and farm tools. Terrible. Yes it is possible but the leadership which is supposed to show the way is not ready. How long would we be taking for granted? We have refineries that are not working whereas one man within a short time built one. What of our leaders who patronize hospitals abroad even for May to take? Where are the Kaduna and Asaba textile mills because our leaders have knack for imported clothes, furniture and even toothpicks whereas we have abundant raw materials waiting to be harnessed. The Chatham House is exactly what we have known as the National Institute for International Affairs, NIA but they prefer abroad. What a country, what a country where a president prefers to speak to foreign media preferably when the leadership gets it right the citizens will fall in line. Absolutely. God bless Nigeria. This is from Austin from Delta. Thank you so much on that note. We can't take more comments. We apologize if we can't take your comments but thank you ladies. I think we had a fantastic conversation. I was a bit heated up today but God will help me. Nimata is very dear to my heart. Now before we go and show you follow us across all our social media handles our way to Africa you can interact with us further and follow all our engagements online. Remember to like share and invite your families and friends to watch and follow the conversation. Now if you missed our quote for today here it is again. My people have been successfully managing their political system before the advent of the white in Africa and even the presence of white brought distortion to the African political and economic system. We'll see you guys tomorrow at 8 p.m. also bring another great conversation to your screen. Enjoy.


When I joined the Navy League and one of the first questions as an instructor, we would ask the new recruits why they joined the Renettes and they'd say, because we want the discipline or we like the discipline because we don't get it at home. And I've never forgotten that and I think it applies a great deal to generations that have come from that. That was a very good lesson to know.


Hi Esther. Esther, you're muted if you're trying to say anything. And you may not be. The meeting hasn't started yet. No, I'm not. Morning. Good morning. How are you? It's good to see you here. I'm great. Thank you. There we go. Nyunye, did I say that right? Welcome. Yeah. Good morning. Hi. Good morning. Good morning. Wait, I think we have three more coming. I don't think Angelique's going to be with us today. I'm not sure. How's everything going with you two? Are you? Yeah, it's going well so far. So good. Well, that doesn't work very well. Okay. And we have Sharon. It's Sharon, right? Not Sharon. Well, it looks like four of the five are here. So I think it's after Shall We Get Started? All of you are muted, so I can't hear what you're saying. I don't think she's coming. Okay. I'm Meg McRoberts. I am a technical writer. So in general, for this session, I know a little bit of the technical stuff, but if you get into technical problems, I'm probably not going to be your best source. I am definitely here if you need any help with writing or anything like that. And, you know, we all jump in and do what we can. So just forward. So I thought we would start by seeing how everybody's doing, and I've got you listed in alphabetical order. So Cynthia, how is it going? I'm doing well. Yeah, I think that's it. Or let's add something else related to what we're currently working on. Whatever you're good with. No obstacles. Everything's going smoothly. And are you having a little bit of fun? Oh, so I was having some problems trying to install the Genkin because I'm adding the credentials and they're saying that it's not valid. So I was trying to use the troubleshooting guide they shared on the website. Yeah, to see if it can work. But if anyone in the participant, I mean, was able to do that, maybe they can help also. Okay. Yeah. And I think that's it for me and I'm enjoying. Yeah, I was able to install Jenkins correctly. I was having that issue too. So the credentials that they are basically looking for is your laptop user and then your laptop password, like the accounts that you're working on. That's what the credentials are. So that was what I used and it worked. And when I tried it the first time, it worked. But then it said that I didn't have, I can't remember, something about permission or something. So I had to do set some things. I followed the documentation and I had to set some things in a local security group or as a local security editor. I had to add my laptop user to be able to log on as a service. So after I did that, I was able to install it successfully. So you tried that? Okay. Before we're done here, we're going to, I want to make sure that all of you are on the chat group. So we can post there also for help. Okay. So we'll get you, we'll try to make sure you get set up by the end of the day. I arranged you alphabetically. I guess we can rotate each week. So Esther, how is it going with you? It's going fine. I've been reading lots of documentation to get up to speed and what I'm supposed to be doing and how everything is working. And so far, where I think the last place I stopped was I was trying to install Blue Ocean. So it never did finish installing. I'm not sure because it kept saying your browser will reload after Jen, I don't know, after it says Jenkins will restart or something. So it just stayed that way. So I had to kill the service and then my laptop battery died. So I wasn't able to complete it.  Yes. I was waiting for one. After you installed it, did you restart Jenkins afterwards? Yes, I did. I restarted Jenkins, but it was still giving me that full thing. So I'll try again today. Okay. And if it doesn't work out again, post to the channel and let somebody, Blue Ocean has a whole bunch of dependent plugins that it gets in. So there's a lot of them, but I've installed that a few times that I haven't had problems, but that may just be luck. So, but hopefully it's something small that somebody can help you out with. So let's see. Lucy's not with us still, right? Oh, anything else? I'm sorry. Anything else from Esther? No, nothing else. Nothing else. I'm good. Okay. Lucy's not with us yet. So on Yenye, how is it going? Yeah, on my own end, it's been going well. So far, I've been able to finish two tasks. That's preparation and pipeline experience. And also I've been able to view the Jenkins plugin and Mark has been able to review what I've done. So currently I'm on modifying existing pipeline help. That's the third task. Yeah. So I've done a modification. So I was about pushing and then raising the PR. So after this call, I'll go ahead to do that. Yeah, that's it. Wow. That's wonderful. Okay. Anything else? Sharon? Pardon, that's it. I'm sorry. I got my screen up and I'm not seeing anybody. This bothers me. We can see it. You can see that. Yeah, I can't see you guys, which means I feel like I'm being very rude here. Oh good. And now I've got that up and I can't get rid of it. Okay, whatever. Sharon, how's it going? Okay, everything is good at the moment. I just got started with the task. So at the moment, I'm trying to have installed Jenkins, but I wanted to install the Blue Ocean then also work on my bio. Great. But so far everything's going okay for you, right? Yeah, everything is okay. Okay, we kind of did. I came up. Oh, I should have asked if any, oh shoot, I'm not recording this. I'm supposed to be recording this. Now where does it tell me to record? I'm obviously not used to running these meetings. Let me see if I stop sharing. If I get to record. Yes. Hello. This is the first Monday meeting of the Shikot Africa project for April of 2021. And I forgot to start recording at the very beginning, but notes are recorded in the agenda. So we will go forward from here. Okay. My apologies, Mark will yell at me, but that's okay. He's a nice person. So he yells nicely. So you're going with that, but then, but things are going well. I think it'll pick up for you from here then, right? Great. Mark, have any of you been on the Gitter channel yet? Yes, I have. Mark was going to encourage that maybe you'd all like to go over there now and just plug, if you're comfortable and say hi, we're here. Those of you who are having issues, you could plug something there. Does that sound like a plan? I didn't, I also didn't ask if anybody had anything else to add to the agenda. My bad. I apologize. Does anybody have anything else for the agenda other than this? No, I'm good. Okay. If you come up with something, do say so. Do you have the URL? Do you want me to paste it into chat? No, I have the URL. Yeah. I don't know. Where is the chat? Ah, there's the chat. So do you want to do that now or do you want to do it after the meeting? Are you more comfortable doing it later? Sorry, I think after the meeting, for me. After the meeting, is that what you want to do? Okay. Whoopsie. Sorry. Excuse me, I'm choking. I'm coughing. Rude of me. Everyone will post after the meeting and tell you people are really looking forward to your stuff. You're attacking a problem that's been an annoyance to people for a long time and nobody wants to go in and mess with it. So I think you all saw Mark's request. They want to do a blog and tell everybody about you guys and the work you're doing. And so a little biography and a photo if you're comfortable, if you're not comfortable putting your photo out there, that's fine. Any issues with that? Nope, I have none. Okay. Has anybody mentioned to you the Jenkins Code of Conduct? No. Okay. It's not a big deal. Don't mean to frighten anybody. I will say, I've been involved with other open source communities. Some of them get kind of nasty. In general, this is like the nicest group of people I've ever worked with.  But we wanted to make sure all of our things are governed by that and we want it mostly we want to make sure that none of you have any problems. And if anybody treats you in a way that does not please you, there we go. Please let us know immediately and it will be, I don't anticipate problems, but it all boils down to be polite, be a nice person, be respectful. Sort of everything that you would expect, I think. As I hear, but over the years, I think there's only been one issue and it was many years ago with one person who was misbehaving. We do not anticipate problems, but we wanted to be sure that you guys were aware that you are protected by the Code of Conduct and if anybody says anything that upsets you or whatever, please let us know immediately. That's not what the Jenkins community is about and we want you to have a good experience. Did you see where it is, if you want to see it? If you go to Jenkins, it's Jenkins I.O. Project Con here. I'll copy it into the chat if you want it. Okay. But we mostly, Mark said make sure they don't think that we're telling them to worry about their behavior. We think you're all fine people and you won't be a problem. We mostly want to make sure that you are treated well and that you know that you can expect to be treated well here. And so goodness, we have extra time. Does anybody have anything else they would like to discuss? I wanted to suggest if we meant is if we can actually get a book on Slack or WhatsApp so we could actually communicate and assist. Right. There was talk of a Slack channel, wasn't there? There was and then I don't, yes. And then Mark was talking about just using the Gitter channel. Let me check with him because I remember that being mentioned but I haven't heard anything more about it. So do you guys don't know each other before this, right? Okay. I didn't know if you've been working together. The She-Codes Africa just sounds like a fabulous project but it's all new to me. So participants would like, that would be nice if we had something where we didn't have to include, would like a place just for our group to discuss, right? Yeah. Okay. I will check with him in the morning. Good one. Anything else? Did you stay? Okay. Cloudbies is supposed to be open more than that. Hmm. Because you guys should have access to it. Okay. I will check on that tomorrow too. Are you guys having fun so far? Yeah. Actually, yeah. Yeah. Okay. I don't, yeah, because I don't know that, I want to read your bios and see what all, where are you come from, what you've done before and what your interests are. So, but I hope it's fun so far. If it's not heavy, it's not fun, let us know because we'll make it fun for you or we'll try to. I have a question for the bio. Are we adding it on the document Mark shared or our own copy of document? Oh, either way, Mark's going to, Mark will pull them into the blog. So just put them someplace where he can get us, get a hold of them. Because we don't, I think we don't have access to edit the documents. Oh, okay. Do you want to just put it in a separate, actually you could put it in email for that matter, right? Yeah. We're supposed to make a copy of that document. That's your own copy, each of us. So that's where you actually put your own bio and picture. Okay. And you can't, well, you can, so you can clone, you can't edit it, you can clone, you've cloned. So you've each got a clone of that document, right? Do you want to put your bio info into your clone? That's what actually. So you'll, so everybody will put that into their own clone. So right? Is that where? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I'll check with Mark too. I have a feeling he did not in, he has intended for you guys to have access to edit access. I'm not sure, but I'll check with him. And also because I think I've got the same maybe access on this document. So I will talk with him tomorrow. Okay. So that's bios. I can't wait to read those. Anything else you'd like to talk about? I think you marked Lucy as absent, which is here. Pardon? Is Lucy here? Yep. Hi Lucy. Hello. Oh, so good.  We can go back and we will hear how Lucy's doing. How is it going with you? You see, I've already started off also. I was passing through the documentation and getting to understand the way I'm supposed to do it and also checking on my task. So yeah. And I was also installing those things that are supposed to be there halfway almost done. So maybe by the next meeting I will be, I will have finished. Okay. Good. Yeah. We just wanted to, we want to see where you are, if everything's going well and you haven't run into problems yet, right? Yeah. So far, so good. In case of anything then, I think I can contract the person who's in charge. Okay. And for everybody with the people, there was talk of having a Slack channel for this group and I haven't heard anything more about it. But everybody else says we would like a Slack channel. There is a, there is a Gitter channel which is for the whole community. And Mark would like for everybody to post just a hi there sometime today just to get, you know, and see what's there and conversation. You can post questions there. And because our next meeting, I believe it's not until the end of day Friday for you guys. Obviously, feel free to email us if you run into any issues. We don't want you to sit there for five days frustrated. That's no fun. So feel free to email us if you run into any issues. And I guess the only one I guess for a couple of you, the little tidbit that in the when you install Jenkins that asks for credentials that's actually username and password for your laptop that apparently was a problem for a couple of people that seems to be the only one so far right. By then I'm having an issue with time because there is a time I was trying to get into a meeting but I found that it was not on. So that's how I ended up being absent like we are colliding in a way that has been challenged when I'm trying to get into the meeting. Okay, into this meeting or which meeting? Okay, not today. It was, I think on Friday. Yeah. I think we're seeing something 10, 10 p.m. Oh, okay. I don't think you had a meeting last Friday. I think I'm not positive, but I think they did not do it, but there will be. Yeah, there was a kickoff meeting, I think, which was the early Thursday morning. So Thursday night, your time, I believe. There's the evening. And then I don't think Mark did a mentoring meeting on Friday. I think this was to be the first mentoring meeting, but not positive. I was trying to get in and I was not allowed in. There was no one. So it was the wrong time, but I didn't say a communicative event to the members so that I cannot be left behind, especially. Yes. So that was that was unable or was blocked. So that was the kickoff meeting, right? Yeah. Oh, dear. The good news is that we did record that. So I will have Mark. Okay. So did you, Lucy, have you seen the, you've got the general document for the plan and everything, right? Yeah, I have access to it. I saw it. That's what I've been hoping for. And you saw the mail, then that everybody's yeah. Okay. So you've got that. Yeah, that's how you're starting, right? Okay. As I say, let us know if you've got any issues or problems and we'll find out why you were unable to get into that meeting and hopefully that won't be a problem in the future. And if we have a Slack channel, of course, if you can't get in, you can always ping on that. We'll, we will figure that out. This is kind of new to all of us. And anything else of interest, let's see bios and photos, we're going to put the, then make a clone of that and that's where you post your screenshots of your status. And everybody agreed that's where they're going to put their bios and photos that Mark will pick up. And if you're not comfortable doing a photo, you don't need to, but he likes photos. So the pictures are nice. I briefly mentioned the Jenkins code of contact. It's basically be nice to people and be respectful. It's all common sense. But most of all, we want to make sure that if any of you feel that anybody is not treating you well, please let us know immediately. The community does not like that. And we want to make sure that this is a good experience for all of you. So if people are not being nice to you, let us know quickly. And we'd like a Slack channel. Does that do it? Does anybody have anything else? Oh, we want to tell you again how happy we are that you're joining us on this and we're looking forward to a fun month. And please let us know if you have any problems whatsoever.  So don't feel bad about it so far. It looks like you're off to a great start. So I forgot to remove the absence. Oh, yes. Thank you. Definitely. I can see you. I need you guys. You will keep me clean here. There we go. Okay. Anything else? Thank you very much. I will talk to you next week at the same time and we'll look forward to email and other things from you as the week goes on. And I am going to stop sharing and going to stop the recording.


Independence Day is coming up so Tom Lee and I got some information to hope help everybody address reporting. So we're gonna start with the the same thing we want to impress on people every year. Fireworks are illegal in the city of Fort Worth. The possession, the use, the sale of fireworks is illegal except for the permitted shows which we're going to encourage you to seek out. The other thing is they're dangerous and I know that that message can kind of start sounding like background noise but Matt and I were just talking about the injuries, the catastrophic injuries that we see every year and we we really want that message to be renewed when we speak to it and and have folks pay attention. The other thing is is we can predict that fireworks are going to be a problem over the holiday period. So we specifically work, it's a citywide effort. We bring everybody together and we try to set up a task force and a system to handle this.


Nigeria's inflation rose to 16.82% in April 2022, following a similar upstick recorded in the previous month as a result of the increase in energy and food prices. And this represents the highest rate recorded since August 2021. This is according to the recently released consumer price index report released by the National Bureau of Statistics and is the consumer price index, which measures the rate of inflation rose by 16.82% year on year in April 2022, which is 0.9% point higher than the 15.92% recorded in the previous month of March 2022 on a month-on-month basis. The headline index increased by 1.76% in April 2022 compared to 1.74%. A increase recorded in the previous month. Similarly, the urban inflation rate increased to 17.35% year on year in April 2022 from 18.68% recorded in April 2021, while the rural inflation rates increased to 16.32% in April 2022 from 17.57% in April 2021. Click the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.


Extreme adjectives in English from EspressoEnglish.net Adjectives are words that describe the qualities of something. Some adjectives in English are gradeable. That means you can have different degrees or levels of that quality. For example, the weather can be a little cold, rather cold, very cold, or extremely cold. Extreme adjectives or non-gradable adjectives are words that mean extremely plus the adjective. For example, freezing means extremely cold.  Here are some examples of regular adjective and their extreme forms. Angry and furious Bad and awful, terrible, or horrible Clean and spotless Crowded and packed Dirty and filthy Good and wonderful, fantastic, or excellent Hot and boiling Hungry and starving Interesting and fascinating Old and ancient Pretty and gorgeous Scary and terrifying Small and tiny Surprising and astounding Tired and exhausted Ugly and hideous We have some special grammar rules for extreme adjectives. With extreme adjectives, we don't use comparatives or superlatives. With regular adjectives, we can use comparatives and superlatives to compare two or more things. For example, my house is big. My neighbor's house is bigger than mine. My parent's house is the biggest house on the street. But with extreme adjectives, we can't do that. We can say, my parent's house is enormous. But we can't say more enormous or the most enormous. It's not possible to use comparatives or superlatives with extreme adjectives. We also use different adverbs with extreme adjectives. With regular adjectives, we can use these adverbs. A little, a bit, slightly, fairly, rather, very, extremely, immensely, intensely, and hugely. For example, I'm rather hungry. I'm very hungry. This room is a bit dirty. This room is extremely dirty. We're a little tired. We're immensely tired. But with extreme adjectives, we cannot use these same adverbs. We can't say, I'm rather starving or I'm extremely starving. It's not possible. However, there are other adverbs we can use to give additional emphasis to the extreme adjective, such as absolutely, completely, and utterly. For example, I'm absolutely furious. We're completely exhausted. The movie was utterly terrifying. The words pretty and really can be used with both regular and extreme adjectives. For example, this room is pretty dirty. This room is pretty filthy. The party is really crowded. The party is really packed. Another type of extreme adjective is called an absolute adjective. These are words that are either yes or no. For example, dead.   Here are some absolute adjectives and their opposites. Complete and incomplete. Equal and unequal. Essential and nonessential or extraneous. Fatal and not fatal. First and last or final. Full and empty. Ideal and not ideal. Impossible and possible. Infinite and finite. Married and single, divorced, separated, or widowed. You could also say unmarried. Perfect and imperfect. Pregnant and not pregnant. Unique and not unique. Universal and not universal. Unknown and known. True and false. Note that in casual spoken English, you still might hear phrases like, That's very true. It's the very first time. And this shirt is more unique than that one. Even though these adverbs are not technically supposed to be used with absolute adjectives. It's just an example of how spoken English doesn't always follow the rules. If you want to learn more vocabulary, check out my Vocabulary Builder course, where you can learn more than 500 useful and interesting words in each level. Click on the link in the video or in the video description for more information.


Attitude is everything to a man who battles with cancer but has a legacy to build. What is most important is not the disease but what he wants to accomplish. The recently diseased Chadwick Boseman exemplified his struggle. He lived and died a hero, an example to also of what it means to fight. You need to ask yourself, in your daily life, what are you doing differently? What are you trying to build? What do you aspire for? Is everything just one big meaningless struggle? No one deserves to leave that way. According to Lifehack on Attitude, our attitude plays a big part in our everyday life and can affect how our life may turn out in the future.  Luckily, there are ways in which we can improve our attitude. In today's video, I'll share with you 15 ways to improve your attitude. 1. Always act with purpose. Do you randomly do things or do you act with purpose? This has a way of affecting your life as a person. When you make friends, you do it because you are supposed to have friends. What kind of friends are they? If you think carefully about all the random decisions you have made this year, you will realize that very few of them actually added value to your life. An example is randomly buying a house because you can afford it. What was your purpose?  You probably also have the idea that selling real estate is more tricky than stock. In the end, the random act might keep the asset in your possession for a long time. Note that there are taxes and of course, maintenance experiences that comes with these possessions. Don't act randomly. Think carefully about your actions. Be intentional about your life and your actions instead of doing random kindness. Do intentional kindness and be consistent at it. Your future self will thank you for it. Imagine yourself in 20 years. Where would you be? Whatever you are going to be, you are already becoming it. What will you be? 2. Stretch yourself all the time. This cannot be emphasized enough. Success is a journey. The journey comes with many challenges that only by stretching oneself can you overcome them. Imagine having 10 articles that deliver within 11 hours and you have been writing to a day before the time. How will you cope? It is only by stretching yourself that you will be able to do what you ordinarily don't do. Think about the successful people you know. How many of them were like everyone? Probably not. Some stayed up late reading while others were up at night practicing. Either way, there is no shortcuts. No secret in the world will make you a billionaire without you working for it. It just doesn't exist.  The journey transforms you. You are able to appreciate things and life better. You are more grateful for everything you have and you will learn truths that only the long haul can teach you. Make up your mind to begin. Tomorrow will never come if you don't start today. Don't give in to fear. Fear ensures that you will forever be uncertain of what could have been if only you gave it your all. 3. Develop a positive attitude towards life. What happens when you lose at something? It's a big question that boggles the minds of a lot of young people. The answer is simple. What happens is what you choose.  That's right.  There is no one in control except you. The fact that you flunked a big interview doesn't matter. The fact that you didn't graduate from college with your mate doesn't matter. Don't go looking for pity from people. Bring your best to everything you do. Be strong and choose your faith. Would you rather be the one pitted or the smart one who conquered his challenges? You get to choose. 4. Be grateful. In everything, be grateful. This is a key principle for the law of attraction. No matter what you are facing, be thankful. If you're watching this video right now, it means you can still see someone somewhere in the world work up today and couldn't see again. As I speak, someone is probably in a medical center somewhere dying of COVID-19 pandemic. Be grateful. Be grateful your parents are still alive. Be grateful you have food to eat. Be grateful you still have money for data and transport. Some people don't. 5. Forgive people who have hurt you. Has anyone hurt you before? I guess everyone has been hurt in one way or the other. It is time to let go. It doesn't matter how serious what the DTU is. What matters is whether or not you are willing to let go. When we stay mad at people, we poison our minds with negative energy and it festers our thoughts. You need to breathe. What good does remembering who raped you do you? Will remembering make him suffer? The answer is no. 6. Take actions and let it go. If you really want something and you are so uncertain about it, don't avoid doing it because of the uncertainty. Instead, do it and let it go. Whatever comes of it will come. The most important thing is that you did your best. There is actually a satisfaction that comes from knowing that you did all you could. 7. Learn from your mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. Don't be shy to ask questions when you don't understand. Don't be too ashamed to apologize. There are all the different phases of learning in life. No one knows it all. Work hard to amend your wrongs. Pay interest if you have stayed longer than their agreed period. But in all things, forge ahead. 8. Learn to laugh at yourself. Try not to take life too seriously. Make time to hang out with yourself.  You need to be at peace with your past in order to do this. We think some things are so important when they are really not. What is important are the things that help us thrive. Looking back and laughing at how worried you were is something you should try doing. If not for anything, it helps you see how much you have grown. From struggling to save a thousand dollars, you have probably become a millionaire. Growth isn't stages. 9. Smile more often. Don't allow the troubles of life to weigh you down too strongly. Smile. Due, you actually start to feel a little better. Try and understand, smiling actually makes us feel happier when we are not. Smiling often might be the key to staying happy through tough times. If you need to cry, cry. But remember to smile about all the things you are grateful for. In the end, we are all we have and the least we can do to keep ourselves company. Smile. 10. Observe your surroundings.  Form a healthy routine outside work. Do you ever work around a garden? Find time to actually leave. Observe the beautiful things of nature. Staying behind a computer screen 24-7 will not do you much good. 11. Try waking up early. Do you know waking up early can improve your attitude towards life? I bet you didn't. When the morning is still young, you have time to boil your coffee. You have time to just sit still and think without distraction. You also go through what you have in the day beforehand. This helps you to be more organized and ready as you step into the day. 12. Meditate from time to time. The best time to do this is early in the morning. But hey, if you find time in the afternoon, great for you. It helps you relax. When you are relaxed, you think better.  Don't forget to smile too often. Life just isn't that hard. 13. Exercise frequently. Naturally, exercise is one of the things that improves their attitude. Aside from being a healthy routine, exercise requires both mental and physical exhaustion. The more you exercise, the better you approach the work. You will start to believe you can stretch yourself to do more because you do it daily while exercising. 14. Hangout with your friends. Don't spend all your time huddled in your corner of the office. Leave a beat. If there's a better celebration, raise your glass too if you drink. Don't miss out on weekend hangouts with your friends because they are working. There will always be more work. The problems of the world are inexhaustible. What you will not always have though is you in your 20s. 15. Have things that spark joy around you. Have you won a championship before? If you won a prize for academic excellence, place the things that spark joy around you as you work. It encourages you. You come to work every day feeling like a champion. It is particularly useful when you are feeling down. You are and will always be a champion. Don't allow yourself to become docile and tired. You are young, rich beyond the sky. You are your own destiny. If you don't fight, no one will.


Ladies and gentlemen I'm joined by my old friend Daniel McAdams. Daniel heads up the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity in Texas. He's someone I've known for many many years. We worked together in Congressman Ron Paul's office and he is one of the speakers at our event this weekend. If you haven't made plans to join us, you're in Texas, please do so. We'll be in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. You can go to Mises.org slash Events. Daniel will be one of our speakers. We're also going to have some great conversations about the Fed with Nomi Prins and Daniel DiMartino Booth. But Daniel is going to be talking about foreign policy and the money we spend on it and the cronyist system in engenders. Daniel, I wonder if people who never lived in the D.C. area really understand how many rich contractors there are in places like Potomac, Maryland and Great Falls, Virginia. I wonder if they understand the scope of it. It's pretty staggering. Well, it's incredible because you can find someone that can supply one small little thing that the Pentagon needs and wants. Maybe it's a widget. Maybe it's a little bit of information. Maybe it's a tiny process. That person gets an ongoing contract. They build an entire company out of just having that one client, that one customer that does something that they need. And that person's salary is staggering. Absolutely staggering. And I've known many people like this, otherwise good people. But the quality of life they have versus the quality of life for those struggling with no pension and paycheck to paycheck, the chasm is just unbelievably wide. Yeah, and imagine if you supply a little part to Honda, Honda could change its design or a competitor could come along. But if you supply a little part to the Pentagon, it's a political matter for your lobbyists to make sure that that gravy train continues. Yeah, you have to keep those contracts fresh. You have to keep finding new ways to supply some little thing, some little process. And sometimes people do drop out and they don't have something and the contracts expire. But it really is incredible to see how this machine has to self-perpetuate. And there's so much joint interest in perpetuating this machine. And to do this, you have got to have a steady supply of enemies. You have to create a steady supply of enemies. You have to create fear to force people to part with their money, fear and propaganda. Absolutely. And let's just call out the left for their Russia hysteria that's going on right now. This is completely dovetailed with their hatred for Trump. The left were the same people who were excusing the Soviets throughout the Cold War. And now they found a new boogeyman. Well, it's very frustrating as well because as you well remember, Jeff, when Bush was in power and we were working for Dr. Paul, we had a lot of good allies on the left, the progressives and the left and even the liberals. And we thought we had some sort of an alliance with them. And if anyone who watches the Ron Paul Liberty Report, which we do every day, will understand that we're absolutely no apologist for Trump. In fact, we're probably, and I know we are a lot harder on him than the left because we don't sit around calling names. We don't accuse him of being a Russian spy. We simply pick apart the policies that he's pursuing that go against the principles of peace and prosperity and criticize them. But these people have just, I don't know if it's intellectual laziness. I don't know what it is and what has happened, but there is no intellectual critique of Trump. And in fact, ironically, they make him stronger by being so irrelevant intellectually themselves. Yeah, well, you don't drain this swamp by appointing Michael Bolton to your administration. You know, I want to trigger your memory. I remember sitting in Ron's office and we were watching the House floor, and former Congressman Barney Frank from Massachusetts was speaking, and he used the term military Keynesianism. And I had never heard the term used, and I thought that's so brilliant, the idea that we use war and foreign policy to stimulate the economy.  Yeah, and it turned the tables on the conservatives, I think, who endlessly, when they talk about fiscal responsibility, they talk about cutting welfare, they talk about cutting Medicare, they talk about cutting Social Security. Okay, we can agree that these things are bloated. But if you look at the elephant in the room, it is the military industrial complex. It is this machine that creates wars, that creates fear, that creates propaganda. And look, if you fire 100 missiles into the desert, that's 100 more missiles that about a million bucks each or so that you're going to have to buy. You've got to call up Raytheon, hey, we need some new missiles. That's going to be some new jobs. You've got to hire some new lobbyists. So the gravy train rolls, it's all artificial. In some ways, it's more of an evil Keynesianism than the fiscal, and the fiscal Keynesianism because it carries with it the possibility of nuclear war. Yes, we're going to post something on the Mises.org site. I asked David Gordon to look in the term. And the great anti-war conservative, John Flynn, used it in the 1940s. David thinks the term may have actually been coined by the Polish Marxist, Michael Kolecki, who at least used the concept as early 1940s. And of course, John Kenneth Gailbreath used it. So it's really, I think it's such a succinct term, and it frames what we're talking about so well. Daniel, I just want to ask you one more quick thing. I'm very interested whether anyone out there is looking into all of the projected VA costs. We are going to incur as a country for all of these young men and women coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan. Afghanistan now the longest war in U.S. history. People coming back not only with physical injuries, but mental and psychological injuries. Suicide among former veterans over 50 is skyrocketing. Do we have any sense of how many trillions of dollars VA is going to need down the road? Well, that's where you have this disconnect because people, we just had Memorial Day and people love to put flags up everywhere and they love to thank the soldiers for preserving our freedoms, which is unfortunately not true. But when it comes time to taking care of people, to fulfilling promises made, the stories are so rife, Jeff, of soldiers who come back and are denied care that they need. What they're given is a cocktail of psychoactive drugs, which essentially puts them into kind of a stupor, because we don't want to see the products of war. We don't want to see how war destroys people's lives, how it's destroyed thousands and thousands of young men and women's lives. We don't want to see it. So we dope them up and put them in a corner somewhere and don't want to deal with it. There are no parades anymore. There are no heroic soldiers being blown up in Iraq. So our attention now is gone from these soldiers. Oh, Afghanistan, 17 years, who cares? So they've even lost that sort of sense. So I think the costs and the willingness to pay those costs in the future are both going to be critical aspects coming into the next 10 years or so. Well, ladies and gentlemen, if you haven't met Daniel, be sure to come to our event in Dallas this weekend and meet him. He'll be talking about this unholy nexus between government and the Pentagon and the Defense Department and military contractors and hawks, frankly, within the Republican Party who keep these wars going and going and going. And from my perspective, there's no constituency outside of Washington, D.C. for us to be anywhere in the Middle East, whether that's Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan. We blow things up and we don't put them back together very well. Daniel, I look forward to seeing you. Follow Daniel on Twitter. Watch the Ron Paul Liberty Report every day on YouTube. And come see him this weekend. Daniel, thanks for joining us. Thanks, Joe.


Thank you, Caspar. Hey, good morning everyone. Hi Yes, Caspar mentioned it's a very special moment for me to this morning here because I've been on the other side of this for the last five years and I'm actually enjoying work. I'm Europe really as An attendee and a speaker for the first time now. I understand why everybody was enjoying that I didn't get that before I was like all they're crazy So, yeah, I'm I'm very honored to be here with you this morning. My name is Paolo Belcastro. I Come from Vienna, Austria where I've been living for six years and Yeah, as Caspar mentioned distributed Teams and remote work have been in my life for as far as I can remember But today I would like specifically to share three experiences that I had in the last 12 years and these three experiences are quite different from each other But they have something linking them and I find that in what connects them there is a key to giving back to this Awesome WordPress community Some of the amazing value it gives us and at the same time grow professionally and personally this presentation is going to be a little bit different from what Usually you have a presentation then you have questions in the end, you know, so that you can ask the speaker some things now I like people who know me know I like to talk to people but They also know I like to talk with people and So I'd like this to be a little more of a dialogue instead of me talking to you And then at the end only you asking questions to me And so as in a dialogue, I'm gonna tell you some things about me And I'm gonna ask you a few questions so that you can tell me things about you and then all over the Time we have together you can ask me questions and we'll take a couple of breaks to actually answer them So how does this work? well You take your phone your iPad your laptop whatever you have with you and you go to that address WMNT.com and you use that code and for a little more precision here of the instruction and Then you will see a slightly different version of the slides We have on screen that allows you to ask me questions react to what I say or to Answer to questions that I ask you I'm gonna leave the Those details up up top for a little bit and by the way this works also from home So I know that we have a live streaming today. If you're home, you're free to please answer ask react the same way After all this is about distributed teams. So it's a distributed talk so the first experience let's Before going to the first experience, let's do a little bit of training I'm gonna ask you a few questions and you answer and so we see if this works. Well, so first of all How are you feeling this morning? It's the first day of work camp Europe second for those of you were at the contributor day Are you feeling energized and ready or? You're looking for coffee. Are you? Oh, nobody's wondering why they're here. That's great. That's good so Good, I see that most people are energized and ready and for those who need coffee It's totally normal at this time of the day. So no worries there Will I think there is coffee out there and tea by the way? So Let's move on with another type of question. I come from Vienna today But I lived in Switzerland before and before that I lived in France and originally I came from Italy What do you come from tell me? Oh Nice We have a lot of local members of the local community. That's amazing So see people from all over Europe. I like that It's what makes work camp Europe so special that every year we have dozens. Oh Sorry, the code went away. Let's put it back here. I'm gonna try to leave it there for a little bit So one once more people are coming from all over Europe and the world because I see many many countries there That are not actually in Europe And so let's see. Okay, of course work camp Europe is in English. I do speak English obviously I was born in Italy. I speak Italian and I lived for a long time in French speaking countries So I do speak French. I live in Austria now and I do not speak German, but that's the object of a different presentation I'd love to know which languages you speak beside English, of course that I assume Indy Croatian Bulgarian Russian see this is again the magic of work camp Europe to have so many different people of different origins With us and to introduce the first experience. I want to relate today. I'm gonna ask you one last question for now So for many of you that may Remind old memories Yeah, I like the third option for those who don't know what I'm talking about so This question hoarder alliance is about The fact that the first real remote experience. I had leading teams was actually playing World of Warcraft So this is my character back in 2010 Pretty proud of the mount by the way I started playing that game very randomly my wife and I just had moved to Switzerland from Paris and Well You move to a foreign country and you have two little kids at home The result of that is don't go out very much If you have kids, you know what I mean And if you don't have kids, you also know what I mean because your friends disappeared suddenly in a black hole And so we're far away from everything and we Randomly started playing this game to to have something different on watching TV to do But step by step we discovered that some of our friends were playing and they had a community and we start playing together And suddenly we're in a guild and Suddenly I am an officer in that guild and I'm leading raids of 10 25 people Trying to beat bosses in dungeons and things and back then I had no idea that could be a useful to me later but I Played from roughly 20 2006 to 2010 and Suddenly you realize that how you have to organize those people and you need a diverse set of skills to Defeat a special boss So you need to recruit the right people and you need to train them and they need to have a certain level and equipment So you need to give them assignments to do during the day and then teach them strategy record videos prepared text presentations and Later Working at the dramatic it hit me that that was actually the one experience in my life. That was the most Similar to leading a distributed team in a company.  There's no Responsibility, there's no commitment. There's no contract. There's just I come to play the game and I need to enjoy it every single night And so that was when I realized that a distributed team Can be a really powerful But one condition is that everybody needs to take pleasure in what they do Even more so I think than a team that is all together in an office because we're all separate all in our own home offices or co-working spaces or living rooms or whatever and so Having a bad day can have a much bigger influence when you're isolated and you can just go and Grab a beer with a few colleagues afterwards. So that was the first thing for me was Playing with all those people Remotely, I had a responsibility to make them enjoy the game I see there's a couple of questions. So the way it works as you can see is that questions On the right, there's a little number We can see what is there. Oh, what was your first business? So a very long time ago That was 1994 I started Working in a photo studio that were was working a lot with the fashion photographers and the very first thing we were doing was Photoshopping photos preparing them for ads and things and we realized very soon that there were already tons of people doing that And so, you know, whenever there's tons of people doing something. It's boring and competitive So we moved into interactive CD-ROMs because that was the big thing back then But then we also realized that that was already an old thing like interactive CD-ROMs were already stale and And we discovered this internet thing and we said, oh, look at that websites. Nobody's doing that So it's gonna be much easier and that's how in 1994 I started doing making websites as a freelancer and Then later I joined a team that was building Hotel guide in Paris. So that was my first Business, let's see. I think we have a second question here What was the most memorable red boss you killed well because I stopped shortly after it was definitely the leech king and Yeah, then I we stopped playing for a number of reasons that Go way beyond the time we have here, but you can come and ask me. I will be at the happiness bar just later Let's see what we have what was my gear score. Oh my god memory This is a hard one. I don't want to give a random number what I can say is that we were an amateur guild So we have no first skills at our Leaderboard we may have the first kill on a Saturday night at 1055 something like that But no, no, we weren't very good We were just a bunch of adults with like day jobs and kids and and stuff. So we were playing two three hours every night We weren't by any stretch Overstaffed What's the next city country you'll call home so that's interesting because I I moved us to Austria thinking I will be there three to five years and The idea was well the next place will be an English-speaking country Right now I have to say I really like Vienna. So we don't have a project of a New place for now Yeah, Vienna, you should visit Vienna. Whoever has not been to Vienna you should go and whoever has been to Vienna for work I'm Europe 2016 well done So to talk a little bit about my second distributed experience, I'd like to ask you where you work from As a general thing, do you work for a fully distributed company? Do you work for a normal office where you go every day or are you somewhere in between where you do have an office? But you also work remotely when you wish and you're You have flexibility so that's interesting. That's very very evenly spread. I Think it's a great great thing because a few years ago The same question would have had very few people working for a fully distributed company. This shows that Something that was sort of new and exotic ten years ago is becoming mainstream and so The second experience is my work at automatic. So this is my office atop the day. I joined automatic back in 2011 Automatic was company of a little more than 70 people back then and So I joined automatic knowing it was a distributed company, of course That was one of the reasons why I applied but what's really interesting is that about a Year and a half into my time at automatic somewhere in 2012. I Still didn't have a real grasp of what it meant to be fully distributed I know everybody was working from home, of course, and we had meetups where I would meet people every once in a while But one day I was invited to a hangout Where that well the hangout up and every two weeks, but I didn't know that at the time I was inviting for the first time and I was supposed to give a summary about the state of our sales in our in our shop where we Sold upgrades to users and I was ready prepared all good When suddenly 30 minutes before the hangout starts I Start freaking out. I have like a panic Almost a panic attack and the reason I have that it wasn't about my summary I was ready, but I suddenly realized that everyone else in this hangout is actually leaving a few miles around San Francisco and So immediately I picture myself in a TV screen with everybody else around the meeting room like a classic situation that I Really hate because it's one of those moments where there's a lot going in the room that you don't get because people talk Very softly and there's body language and you're just prisoner of these two-dimensional screen and And so I start freaking out, but then you know, I just I breathe I count myself I log into the hangout and there the amazing thing happens that no one is in the same place Someone is at home. Someone is in a co-working space Someone is in a coffee shop one person was in an airport and that's when it hit me What it is to be a hundred percent distributed, which is that you really really Do it even when you're nearby even where when you're in the same building sometimes You really privilege the connection through the same tools that allow people from very far away to participate Because that now evens the field so you don't have those sort of apartheid or those side conversation and Along the way, I learned how it was important that everything is documented in a written form so that anybody whether they're able or not to attend a meeting for example because of time zones can actually participate to the conversation and Automatic has grown since from a little more than 70 people to a little more than 700 people so 10 times in those seven years and The one thing I think I learned from working there is That there is no real limit to what a distributed company can do and for a lot of time You could hear always people saying that the next Symbolic threshold the next round number would be when it would fail You know like oh, it's gonna work up to 10 people or up to 25 or up to 50 or to 100 But it keeps working and actually there's no reason it doesn't because when you think about it the bigger a company becomes the smaller the difference between Distributed and collocated company in the sense that if you look at large companies with thousands of employees Well, they happen to have people everywhere in the world. They happen to have people in many cities So it's special to be in 62 countries when you're 700 not that special when you're 60,000 Now the the biggest difference that remains is that often people located in the same cities in regular companies do work together When well we for example share an office in Vienna where three or four of us go depending on the time of the year But we don't work together like we just work at automatic. We don't work in the same team So there's definitely still some differences, but I think there is really no limit in what a distributed team can do when you Learn those ways to communicate and when you bring in that little piece from the first experience which is to keep the pleasure going because again one of the strength of distributed workforce is also that the whole world is Your oyster both as a company you can hire everywhere, but as an employee you can also work for anyone And so when the choice is Broad the pleasure becomes a pretty big factor. You're not constrained By where you leave Let's see. It looks like we have a few questions So maybe oh, how was my first year at automatic the first year at automatic So that was 2011 I joined in February 2011 It was it was amazing. It was very intense. I started Full-time on the day before my team went to a meetup So my first day working there full-time it was flying to Vienna where I actually didn't leave back then to meet a bunch of people who so far I had only met in chat It was Yeah, it was a very rich year I think it's probably the year of my law of my adult life where I met the more people at once in one year not counting school years, but those are Or different and it was and I was impressed all the time because everybody was so nice and so It was that time where you don't know anything and you're learning and you're asking stupid questions and you're trying to find information and And you feel like you're useless because Well, let's face it for a few months. You kind of are But everybody was so so patient and open and nice and Was answering questions. So it was a pretty amazing year. I have to say yeah What platform do you use to connect everyone that is distributed around time zones? So today we use slack for real-time conversations and Sort of a synchronous conversation even though it has limits for that and then we use P2 a team You may be familiar with for the real asynchronous conversation We still have IRC as a backup and also because our systems guys love it But yeah, it's still there as a backup and many of us just log in once every six months to check it still works In case slack went down But slack has pretty much taken over the real-time conversation now We used to use a mix of IRC and Skype back in the day those have been mostly replaced and And then P2 contains all the information like everything we We do is documented there What's the most challenging thing from working inside a distributed team? I Would say that the most challenging thing for me is how hard it is to celebrate wins like there's There's no equivalent online. This is something we also experience in gaming by the way There is no online equivalent to popping a bottle of champagne or sparking for juice or whatever and you know be together in a room and And be happy and I don't know dance and celebrate like this is this is the moment. I don't miss the sort of Presence so much in day-to-day work. I think celebration is the place where I miss it more and On the other side of the spectrum and luckily that doesn't happen very often but when something doesn't go well at all when you When the situation is very emotional where when when someone is very sad or a bit depressed There are also you miss like this opportunity to I don't know give a hug to someone or even just share a moment of silence and Yeah, I think this is one of these little things where a moment of silence face-to-face is very very valuable a moment of Silence online is just a moment like it's not a moment of silence. It's just So that is why I love traveling to meetups and meet teams, please don't hesitate to ask questions But we'll make another break later So yeah, the thing I learned automatic is essentially this fact that if you're really entirely distributed There are no limits to what you you can achieve and I insist on the fully distributed because It's hard to do it partially and I'm sure that everybody who has tried knows what I mean when part of the company is distributed It's hard to be on the same level of involvement of people who are in the sort of main office So to move to the third experience. I wanted to ask you very simply and you can check several these answers how you Contribute to war press and I group that just in three categories organizing meetups organizing work camps or Being part of any of the different teams in make war press. It doesn't have to be just writing code but translation documentation accessibility design all of them and The reason I'm asking this question is essentially to show off this nice chart because I I'm not gonna say use something special based on these answers, of course, but The third experience I want to relate is the one of Helping work camp Europe so It's important to me because it was a very very big series of surprises It started in 2013 when a bunch of people decided to Europe deserved a big work camp like America had with San Francisco And so they convinced the foundation work on central that that was a good idea and they started and a few months in They Pings me saying hey, we would need some help. Can you jump on board because? We are a team were the team was fairly small back then Anyway, some someone needed a little bit of help and I say, yeah, okay. I had started The WordPress meetup in Vienna a few months before and we were just getting started with Luca who is actually sitting there And so I was my idea at the time was I Want to give something back to the WordPress community and giving some of my time to organize community events Seems like a good thing to do so that was the the beginning of it and I so I helped wrangling volunteers that year in Leiden and I did the same thing the next year in Sofia and then I went on to wrangling sponsors in Sevilla in the next year and Then we applied with me in the meantime Vienna at their first work camp. We organized it in 2015 and so 20 we applied for 2016 work in Europe. We got work in Europe in Vienna in 2016 and then 2017 it was Paris and I was leading the team and and I For a while along that journey. I was thinking about what can I give to the community? So okay first you give your time just by doing stuff. You're all your sleeve you help people and then I thought well I'm leading distributed teams in automatic and maybe I can help work in Europe by bringing some of it to the to the camp and I realized one thing Which was people burning out people working way too much like this is a big thing to organize You may not realize it as an attendee because it's very smooth and because that this team is doing an amazing job But it's hard. It's a lot of work It's hundreds and hundreds of hours of work and they go Basically for 11 month a year. There's maybe one month off between one work camp and the worker for the next So as we were thinking about Paris I said well, what if we increase the size of the team a lot and We create sub teams and so instead of saying are you two people are in charge of this and you two are in charge of that Well, we say we have groups of five six people in charge of every hour And so if someone you know life happens work happens Sometimes you don't feel like you can invest as much time as you would like in your volunteer role but That is normal that is that happen You should be able to step back for a little while without Feeling guilty of living one single other person in charge of all your tasks And so we try to organize those things a little bit and we The team ramped up. I think that we we ramped it up to more than 50 people as we were starting organizing Paris now knowing that We were overdoing it a little bit because we wanted to leave people comfortable to actually Step back and abandon along the way if they wanted So I was this was my my sort of train of thought at the time. It was okay. I in addition to giving time I can try to give some of what I learned before and What hits me what hit me along the way is that I was actually learning a lot too It wasn't just about me bringing something. I knew by by leading those people I would I was learning a ton of things because I was faking it facing situations that were not really the same as that I had at work We had different constraints The pleasure dimension was also very strongly back in once again because sometimes working together for a company You have that little buffer, you know when someone has a very bad day They will hang on because it's their job They have a commitment and they also have a rent to pay at the end of the month and they have a family and they may Not be willing to find something else. So that you have that little extra Buffer that allows you to go through you can't take advantage too much of it, but it's there in a volunteer Organized event you go back to the fact that people need to take pleasure if people feel stressed out if people feel like they're burning out Well, why would they do it? It's it's not fair and so So what came out of that for me in work in Europe was oh That's very interesting because I feel that this participation to these community events is actually feeding my Professional career. I'm learning things. I'm learning to be better at my job And I think this is the key of the connection. I wanted to make today which is that on the one side you focus on the idea that working distributed You can achieve anything you can achieve events like these that are made by a bunch of people all across continent or even more than one and You add to that that you're giving Something to the community that probably gave you a lot because if you're in this room It's very likely that WordPress has brought a lot to your life And so giving back is a great thing to do but in addition of that It helps you actually build a career in this world that is more and more distributed And we're the first step to work in a distributed company may be scary and so doing it through the participation in a community project or a work camp is Actually a very good sort of first step a very good ramp to get to learn a New way to work So this is basically my point tonight before concluding though. I would like to go see the last questions because there's a couple Can you recommend a book that every remote team manager should read? So that is an interesting question because I found something in the last few years, which is That the best books that I mean the ones I found the more important to me were not specifically Focused on remote management. I just realized that management is not very different remote or collocated Personally and you're totally okay totally okay to disagree But one of the books I enjoyed the more and that brought me the most value is managing humans by Michael Lopp I will only give one suggestion because The question was singular, but Yeah, that one is really good, but it's not specifically about remote Workers, have you been in a burnout or how do you prevent it? I think I Managed to dodge one very very closely last year And how I did prevent it is that last year at the end of work camp Europe 2017 in Paris the day after work and Europe was the first day of my three-month sabbatical and Yeah, this is something I think that that was the moment where Had I had to go back to work the next day Would have I was at the beginning of a sleeper slope So how I avoided it with a three-month sabbatical so If you work for a company that gives you something like that, that's amazing If you work for a company that doesn't go tell them they should Because I came back three months later completely recharged and full of energy and So, yeah That has worked. It was a little bit of luck, too, but Am I happy? Yeah, I think so. I Hope you're happy, too so before we before we part ways we have a few more minutes and I Would like to ask you something because You know often you you get out of a presentation and you Either you learn something or you heard something inspiring or maybe you were just amused or maybe you were bored I hope not but But then you move into the next presentation and then the next presentation and then the next one So what I'd like to ask you is to take a couple of minutes We have two minutes and think About what is the one thing the one step the one action you could take next week or next month or by the end of the summer to contribute to the WordPress community that is of course something anything if you don't do it already or something new if you do it already in other ways and Something that would put you in this situation of contributing to a distributed team that you could use to Help the community while at the same time learn new skill set and Yeah, just two minutes. I give you two minutes write it down in your phone Tell it to your neighbor write it down on a piece of paper at the back of your hand or your arm, whatever And in two minutes, I'll ask you something else. I'm gonna stand there for two minutes not talking We are put back the code in case there are some last-minute questions And if you feel if you feel like telling it to everybody feel free to put it as a question and we'll see it on screen, too so if you have done that the last thing I would like to ask you is Tonight at the parties or tomorrow during the day or at the after party tomorrow Whenever you have a chance and maybe you meet someone you have never met before you want to break the ice Don't hesitate to tell them what you just decided to do or ask them what they decided It's a nice breaker first of all and it's a tiny commitment that will help you To get to do it. That's all I got this morning. Enjoy the war camp