Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another coordinating call, DM25, The Movement for Europe, featuring progressive ideas you won't hear anywhere else. I'm Maren Kilili. You would have had to have been living a very isolated life recently to have not heard about Squid Game. It's a Korean drama series that's become a global phenomenon. It came out five weeks ago or so, and it's already Netflix's biggest show of all time. 142 million viewers across 90 countries. It's dominated conversation in social media, so clearly it struck a nerve. And what's it about? The dark side of capitalism. The series is an allegory for the modern capitalist society. It tells a story of desperately indebted men and women and competing in deadly games for millions of euros in cash while society's elites who are behind the games face little repercussion or no repercussion for their actions. So are we living in a real life Squid Game? And if so, how can we vote to end it? These are the questions that our panel will be discussing today. You out there, this is live, so if you've got any thoughts, ideas, comments, concerns, rants, anything you want to throw at us, please put it in the YouTube chat and we'll put it to our panel. Let's kick it off with Lukas. Thanks madam. So yeah, it's another piece of content about Squid Game. And why is it that it's such a phenomenon? Why is it that everybody's talking about Squid Game? Why is it that we, DM25, are talking about Squid Game as well? Well, there are several reasons. I think, first of all, it's a show that's about a dystopia, but it's not set in some faraway planet, some faraway future or alternate present like most dystopias are. It's about our society as it is. And of course, as far as we know, the 1% are not literally organizing that game just yet. But for example, just last summer, Jeff Bezos went to space and then when he came back, he gave a press conference and then he had the call to say something to the effect of, I want to thank Amazon workers for this because you guys paid for all of it.  So it's a capitalism that's so brazen that's so unafraid of real challenges that they're comfortable saying what used to go on set. And to exemplify how some people are living in a completely different planet, I actually saw this online and I want to share with you three quotes from business leaders on LinkedIn regarding Squid Game. The first one, the one culture value we love the most out of Squid Game is eco-opportunity. And that's what my company has always stood for. The second one, this article neatly explores some of the shows PR and marketing lessons that any brand can jump on. And then the third one is investing in Squid Game to investing lessons learned. So this is just to show how wide the gap in worldview between the wealthy and most of us has become. It's not just a wealth gap, but it's a gap in just the way you perceive everything. But to me, the most interesting aspect having watched the show is that the players, the participants in the game at one point, of course, they get to vote to end it very early on as soon as they realize what horrible thing that they have actually signed up for. They bring up that clause in the contract that they sign and then they vote in the game.  But then, of course, very quickly they come back once they realize how once they remember how hopeless their lives were outside in the real world as well. And then they decide that regardless of the cruelty of the game that they signed up for, there's actually not much of a difference. And in fact, it's even, it's a little bit more hopeful in the sense that there's more of a chance of you winning the lottery and then earning the financial security that all of them that's really neat. And I think that also resonates with me and with a lot of people because it's again, it's not so different from the world that we live in, you know, where democracy is, the meaning of democracy in so many places is just basically mainstream parties that cater to the same interests with different colors and different brandings and different people and slightly different messages. But essentially, you know, they answer to the same people. And more and more people seem to be attracted to radical alternatives or anything that might offer an exit from the current state of things, no matter where in the spectrum it might be. And I think it's crucial for us to be able to channel that energy into something that's truly progressive and that can move us beyond capitalism in solidarity and not in hatred. So how do we vote to end the game for real? Well, I think DM happens to believe that such a thing is possible. That's why we have electoral wings. And in fact, we have some very exciting news on that front. And I'm going to let our German members perhaps talk about that a bit later on. But yeah, that's it for me. Thank you. Thank you, Lucas. You said it all there, really. I should have introduced you, by the way, it's Lucas Fabraro, a new face around here, our new communications coordinator. Next up, Maya Pellevic, go. Yeah, well, I because I don't have social media, I actually didn't know about this squid game hype. So then when I realized that there is a new show that I must see, and it's the squid game, I have been binging it for a couple of days now. I've watched I think all maybe two, I have only two episodes left. And I was really, because this is a topic that I'm interested in also in my work, the topic of surveillance and of playing games and the way that democracy in our everyday life makes us play games that we're not aware of. And I don't want to talk about the like the dramaturgical aspects of it. I was really very surprised that so many people are watching a show that we have seen before, I think for dozens of times in lots of other shows, starting from The Hunger Games, that was a recent movie that had the, I could say, completely the same topics involved. And also, of course, all the movies which we've seen from the Truman's show to today. But the thing I realized, because of course, I was watching all the YouTube clips of all the people criticizing the show, I was mostly wanted to see what the hype was about, because it was like a big, big critic of capitalism, like, you know, all of us now realize what our worst enemy is. And I think that it's too plain, basic and simple in this show. And I remembered one movie. It's a movie from 1969 by Sydney Pollock called They Kill Horses Don't They. I don't know if some of the people watch the movie, but it's a movie based on a famous book by Horace McCoy from 1945. That is actually very similar to the, to the Squid Game. But it actually happened in America during the Great Depression. There were marathon dances. It was called like the Dance Marathon that happened during the Great Depression. And actually, people were really dancing in these big like spaces where people were watching them. They were dancing to death. There were people that were really ill. There were people that killed, killed themselves after these dance games. They had to dance for hours, days and weeks. They also slept there. And if somebody would Google Dance Marathons, they could even see clips about it. And this movie is like, it's like an actual documentary of the whole thing that happened during the Great Depression in America. And when they asked people why they participated in this game, they said that this was the only way that they could get shelter, food and a place to sleep at the moment. So most of the people did not enter the game just because of the prize, but because they could not survive somewhere else outside. So probably the, I was thinking why this show is popular now is that we are in a way entering a new kind of Great Depression with of course the pandemic, with all the things happening to us, with the surveillance that has been more obvious in the last two years. And maybe that's the main reason of the popularity of this show. And also one thing that people are not talking about, and I think it's an important aspect of the Squid Game, is that this is a show from South Korea. Actually, we're mostly used to seeing these kinds of shows, movies and series in the West, not so much in places like South Korea. And South Korea, of course, if we see it like a place that was divided from the North after the Korean War, we can also see the whole issue of the North and South actually on the Korean Peninsula. And also having one of the people in the show actually maybe even the wisest one being from North Korea. One of the girls that actually is involved in the Squid Game is from North Korea. And when they asked her why she came into the game, she said, well, I thought it would be better inside. And I think that it's also, we should also think that maybe if we look at the world, you know, after the Cold War, divided into the two, and forgetting that, of course, not talking about the North Korea in a positive sense, but all the positive things that we have still in North Korea like basic income, like the public healthcare system, and people that are the fetters from the North to the South, which we have in the Squid Game, they are entering a kind of place that is not so democratic as we think. And we have the whole equality thing that Lucas mentioned. And of course, the whole thing with the game is that all the people there are equal, which is really completely paradoxical because they're not equal, of course. And of course, looking at the whole democratic South as a place that in the way resembles also some kind of a concentration camp where we have, you know, the players going inside, you know, the ovens at the end, but into some kind of packages. So I think this is a very good example, how a show that is maybe something that we've seen before can enter some topics that we can talk about in the future. Thank you, Maya. I should warn our audience that if they haven't seen Squid Game, there'll be plenty of spoilers in it for them watching this. Dushan, Dushan Payavich. Okay, thanks, Mekhan. And I'm not going to lie, I'm not amazed by Squid Game. I think, as Maya said, that it is a mix of already seen TV shows and movies, like I don't know Circle, Would You Rather, Hunger Games, Platform, and so on and so on. But I liked two stuff from there. The first one Lukas briefly mentioned, it teaches us that two options, choosing between the two options is not a democracy. And this is what working in capitalism is. Would you rather work for Amazon and be in the bottle, like Lukas said, or would you rather starve and die? This is the question that they are presenting to us, that it is a democracy, that it is fair and square, but it is not. We need universal basic dividends, and we need to participate in the question, not just choose between the three options. One other thing that I like is, well, as you know, I'm animal liberationist, so I have to mention this. I think it portrays in a perfect way animal agriculture, because, for example, two reasons for that is that the people there are provided with number tags instead of names. This is just a way for us, for them to be completely depersonalized and without a real character. They use the same for animals in industrial agriculture. They have number tags instead of names. And also they use the world eliminate instead of murder, just like we slaughter animals in animal agriculture, or even the farmers sometimes use the word harvest. So euphemisms will not save us. It's still the same thing at the end of the day. Thank you, Dushan. A comment from Andrea Szymkus on the chat. One could argue that Squid Game promotes a position against elections as a mechanism for change. The participants vote for change, but living conditions remain the same and force people to return to the game. Interesting take. Who wants to comment on that or anything else they've heard so far? Who wants to go next? Everyone thinking, digesting. Srećko, can I put you on the spot? I think this is your wheelhouse. Go for it. Yes, you can. I'm sorry if my connection is a bit bad. I'm on a boat on a ferry, so I hope it will survive. So I watched, of course, the Squid Game. I mean, I'm a passionate serious watcher, so I watched it parallel to the other two series, which I think are also worth mentioning. The other one is White Lotus because it shows this decadence of the one percent and it's also very funny. And the other one is the chair which shows the decadence of the current academia. And it's interesting that these shows are now being shown either on Netflix or on other platforms and that precisely these shows are becoming very popular because what is in common to all these shows is that they show a certain critique of capitalism. But unlike many other critics or people who have watched these shows, I think actually it's very interesting to discuss their subversive potential, whether these kind of products of popular culture are subversive or aren't subversive. And watching Squid Game, I mean, it's impossible not to remember Mark Fisher, who, similar to David Graber, died too early. I mean, people usually died too early, except a few, and who coined the phrase of capitalist realism. This idea that, which is also, of course, influenced by this famous saying, which has been repeated so many times by Frederick Jameson, that it's impossible to imagine the end of the world, but it's impossible to imagine the end of capitalism. This kind of feeling which you have in Squid Game, that it's impossible to get out of capitalism. And as someone, I think it was Lukas at the beginning already said, you know, even when the players of Squid Game get out of the game, they're actually still inside of the game of capitalism, which in a way might be even more cruel than the Squid Game itself, because the Squid Game at least is very explicit in what will happen to them. So I think in that sense, I think it's popular partially precisely because it's part of this capitalist realism. And this is my biggest problem with the series. My biggest problem with dystopia these days. I'm a big fan of dystopia 10 years ago or 15 years ago in Croatian language. I published a book on dystopian movies. But I think the problem with current dystopia and generally with dystopia today, all the dystopia, of course, offers a critique of our current society and doesn't show us society in the future, but actually criticizes the current political economy, social conditions and so on. But the problem is that I think what we miss is actually utopian thinking. So instead of imagining the end of the world, I think we have to start imagining the end of capitalism. And in that sense, I think Squid Game still gives us two important directions. I would say one is the topic of debt, definitely, where in the in the in the series, I think it all resolves around the topic of debt. And I think it shows that the majority of people in the world today are highly indebted, whether it is the students with student loans in the United States, or it is people who don't have social housing anymore and have to take a loan and so on. And it also shows a new sort of morality, which again is nothing new. Friedrich Nietzsche already in the genealogy of morality showed that the etymology of debt is connected to guilt, because Schulte and Schulden in German language means guilt and debt. So those who are indebted, they are guilty as such. And then Maurizio Lazerato, a great philosopher, goes into the production of the indebted man, showing that everyone today becomes a kind of self-entrepreneur. You know, we are all ourselves responsible, even for our healthcare system, for our careers, for our education and so on. And in order to get healthcare education or housing today, of course, you have to get indebted. So I think definitely the topic of debt, which again would bring us back to David Graeber, in a way, is an important one. I think it's important that we have it in popular culture. And the other one, I think it's not by coincidence that both in White Lotus and in Squid Game, you have references to critical theory, which I find very interesting. So for instance, in White Lotus, of course, you have Franz Fanon, you have Judith Butler, not Judith, that's our Judith, but Judith Butler, the pronunciation, and you have Jacques Lacan. And then if you watch Squid Game, you again, I think in the first or second episode, besides René Magritte, the famous painter, you also have Jacques Lacan. And what does this say? I think it's not a pure coincidence. I think what both White Lotus and Squid Game show is the importance of what in French theory would be called libidinal economy, an economy which is based on desire, an economy which is based on the production of desire, an economy which is based on the production of the unconscious. And what it shows is actually, I think that in both series is that this libidinal economy was captured by capitalist realism. So instead of desiring a system which is out of capitalism, most of the protagonists both invite Lotus, the proliferiat who works there in the hotel, shitty jobs, bullshit jobs, as Graeber would say for the 1%, they also actually want to become the 1% in a way to start their own business, turn money and so on. And in Squid Game, all of them actually want to become rich. So in that sense, I think we have a serious problem with our current libidinal economy. And to conclude, I think it's a big task for a movement such as DM25 to also, and that's why I'm really happy to have this conversation today to start speaking about the libidinal economy, not just political economy, but an economy which is based on desire on the unconscious, and in which way we, the progressives, the Democrats, the subversives could capture or even produce a sort of libidinal economy which would get out of the capitalist realism. And I think that's our big task today in popular culture. We don't have many products which are actually showing in that direction. So in that sense, I think to conclude Squid Game kind of remains in the trap of capitalist realism, not showing really any kind of concrete progressive utopian desire. And I think that's the biggest problem. And it's our responsibility to create, recreate a sort of utopian desire today, even in popular culture. I think people here, Yanis or whoever, Maya for instance, should do Netflix series, because that's definitely a way to reach people and also to produce utopian desires. Or maybe a Netflix series of another now. Couldn't be a bad idea. Anyway, thank you for that contribution, Srećko. Lots of very important points, especially about the subversive potential of this. I mean, will Squid Game prompt people to take action? Is it possible today that a series like this could drive people to actually do something about it? Or will it just be another kind of social media drive by explosion? And this time next week, we're all binging on something else. Judith, you did. Forgive me. Thank you. I think there's another problem. I mean, apart from this series not showing us anything other than capitalism, there is also the problem that the whole series, as we're watching now, comes embedded in one of these platforms, which have taken over from our current version of capitalism, what Yanis sometimes calls techno feudalism. And that is a real problem with the consumption of a series like this one, because in Korea, when you watch it on Korean TV, it is a lot more subversive than the version presented on Netflix. So Netflix uses its power of influencing what we are seeing in the English speaking world by editing out references to, for example, the treatment of Pakistani immigrants, editing out references to the commons, to communal ownership. All of this is suddenly missing in the subtitles. And some are saying that the English subtitles provided by Netflix are actually worse than what the volunteer could do. So it really seems intentional that they cannot find any professional translators who are better than volunteers. And this is a problem with Squid Game. It's also a problem with pretty much all of their foreign content if you're watching it with subtitles. And the problem is that with this kind of platform, capitalism, we cannot actually go elsewhere. And like with a lot of previous series, I tend to binge on Chinese series, not Korean ones. I used to watch them with volunteer translations, and they were really good. But with Squid Game, you cannot actually watch them elsewhere to have a better translation. So you're forced to consume this series in the way that Netflix wants you to. And that means consuming Netflix, a worldview and not what is actually presented in this series. Great point. Thanks, Judith. Juliana, Sita. Thank you. A great comment from Judith because it fits to what I wanted to say. And I think that's really crucial to point out that the bigger picture here, which is for me Netflix, and to see that, I mean, Netflix is not like usual Hollywood production. I mean, Hollywood is like a network of people and creative people searching money and producers who will take their scripts and make a movie or series out of it. But Netflix doesn't function like this. Netflix has much more data on us, for example, than any usual Hollywood production would have. They know just how many people went into the cinema and how many people watched it on TV. But Netflix knows what we watched, when we watched it, when we stopped to watch it, when we've lost interest in something. And of course, they use all this data. If you look at the content of Netflix, almost everything is much more tending into a negative world, into problems. It's the same thing that Facebook figured out on us. If content is negative, we click on it. We just can't help ourselves. It's just it's like watching a car accident, where people cannot stop looking at it. And it's it's the same mechanism. So this is why I want to emphasize that it's not just about creative people making a series about the world and analogy to capitalism. This is also true. And of course, we can also benefit kind of of that. But I think it's more important to point out that they they just know what what we are watching and we what we want to watch, and they will always produce what they know that people will click on. So I think it's important to to criticize Netflix also, because it's a closed system, you cannot just submit a script to Netflix, they just work with people they know, it's complete. It's a completely closed circle of people who have 210 million subscribers, which, like Judith said, they can completely kind of, you know, tell the people what to watch and what to think. And I mean, subconsciously, on the long term, it works. Thanks, Juliana. And good point there in terms of surveillance capitalism and Netflix's business model, a squid game to date has made $900 million for Netflix, which is over 42 times its original cost. Meanwhile, the director who's based and writer who based the story on his own personal experiences, according to a piece in the Guardian was only very modestly paid. Okay, Ivana. Thanks. I really like this discussion, although I haven't seen any of the episodes of Squid Game, because I'm trying to boycott Netflix because of the reasons Juliana outlined. So I would like to go from the other perspective, and why is this question, which is not new, everybody said that this team is not new. I remember, because I can, running man with Schwarzenegger from 1987, which had the same topic. And I think that this kind of question, polarity of choices, as Duchamp said, democracy is not only choosing between two options is something that the industry is imposing to the audience to watchers to us that can relate to this and ask ourselves, which one would I choose? Would I stay a beggar? Or would I sell my soul to become rich? Why are these scenes so brutal and so obnoxious for people to watch? I think it's because we need to be kicked in the stomach to have a reaction because we are numb, because we don't feel anymore. We cannot relate to more industrial things, something that is not so much coming from the capitalism. And again, we are talking about the series that is just sensationalism. It's something that it's either creative industry, not art anymore.  Thanks, Ivana. Maija. I just wanted to add one short comment. Esretiko was saying that maybe this is a time to think about utopias and not dystopias. I'm actually a big fan of dystopias, but I think he's completely right. And I think that with the Squid Game, we have a big problem with the ending. Meron already said the spoiler alert not to watch this until the end of the series. And that is, of course, which we know from the beginning that there will be one player at the end who will win and get this enormous amount of money. And of course, they all want it. And at the end, we have the final player that gets the money. And he actually wants to change the system. But the problem is that in this utopia, in a way, we see dystopia because he is changing the system himself, number one, with money number two. So that's the actual problem with the message at the end of this Squid Game, that we have somebody that is supposed to be as the main character, a good character, that at the end is trying to destroy this game of capitalism. But he is trying to destroy the game in a sense of using the methods of capitalism, not killing the game itself. Because of course, killing or destroying this game cannot be done by one person. And I think that that's very important. Thank you, Maya. A comment from the chat from Christian Vieira. When big entertainment shows injustice, it isn't to bring awareness, but just to exploit what's already happening by grassroots movements in rekindling popular uprisings. It's just a way to release catharsis. Yanis, for the facts. Thanks, Mariam. Well, well, well, I am going to be in a minority of one. I don't think he has anything to do with capitalism. There's no capitalism in the Squid Game. The Squid Game could be, it's closer if you want to the wrong arena. It's absolutely consistent with a slave owning democracy, democracy regime, or feudalism. Indeed, it is very feudal. And this is where I resonate with what you did was saying before. It's closer to what I consider to be a new phase in the development of capitalism. But it's not capitalism. Because remember, I mean, firstly, this idea that you got the capitalists or the rich who are bored and who make people do stuff in order to be entertained. So the assumption there is that the money, the wealth, the power is independent of the game. It's already been decided. It's already been produced. There are the heves. For some reason, which is unexplained, it's not endogenous to the game. It's not part of the game. The game has not decided who the rich are. The rich are preexisting. No explanation of where the world comes from. So there's no theory in the Squid Game of wealth creation. It's only a question of what do the rich do with their power when they're bored? And how do they make the poor do things for their entertainment? That's the Roman Empire. It's not capitalism. There's not a smidgen of capitalism in the Squid Game. That's my first assumption. The second assumption is that, or comment, it's quite right to say that when you give people a stark choice between one thing and the other, that is, of course, not democracy. It was never meant to be democracy. I will make an offer you can't refuse is the strategy of the market. Now, of course, that is also found in capitalism in the sense that the reason why work is accept conditions of expectation because they have no access to the means of production. But in the Squid Game, there is no production. There is only distribution of existing wealth, which is not explained within the system. Now, many of you have mentioned many kinds, many varieties of this kind of feudal or Roman arena entertainment, whether it was a reality show, whether it was the running man, or whether it was things like who remembers that great movie of the 1970s, Rollerball. Do you remember Rollerball? Again, there is an element of truth in the sense that an exploitative oppressive regime requires bread and circuses. You need in order to keep people pacified to throw them some bread, so they're not starving and some circuses to entertain. And in a sense, the Squid Game is part of the circuses of a capitalism, which nevertheless is not reflected in the Squid Game. Having said that, and this is where I will pick up the thread from Judith. As many of you know, I have this weird theory that I'm working on that capitalism was already morphed into a variety of feudalism. So in that sense, maybe the Squid Game becomes more pertinent because capitalism is killing itself, is evolving out of capitalism. But I will insist, and this is how I'm going to close, in saying that it is a huge analytical error to try to find capitalism in the Squid Game, not consistent with the structure of the Squid Game, capitalism or vice versa. Finally, realistic utopias is what I trade in these days. This is exactly why I wrote another now, because I really enjoy these utopias, but we have a moral duty to answer the question, especially by younger generations, of how could things be different? Because that was David Graeber's greatest line ever, that everything would be different, a very revolutionary line. But then you have to answer the question is how could things be different? This is why I wrote another now. One last point, if you really want, and you know that I'm sure you've heard me say this, but I feel the need to repeat it, if you want a genuine analogy of capitalism in a dystopic depiction that comes from the arts, from the movies, from Hollywood in particular, it is the matrix. It is not anything related to the Squid Game, or any of these silly games. And why the matrix? Because in the matrix, the whole of humanity, the whole of humanity, become objects of exploitation by the machines that humanity has discovered, has invented. We all become, in the end, servants of capital in the matrix. That is a genuine analogy for capitalism. Because remember, Marx was not talking about the bad rich who are sitting in a room, who are bored, and they make the poor do things for them. No, no, no, no, no. That's capital. And that's why I am a Marxist. And that's why I think Marx was such a liberal, a radical liberal thinker, is because he's capturing the alienation, not only of the worker, but also the alienation of the capitalist. And the fear of the capitalist is that he's going to be going to become bankrupt. The rich in the Squid Game don't have any such worries. They will never go on the other side. But in the matrix, all humans, in the end, are reduced to becoming electricity generators for the machines that they've created. In the end, the machinery that we have created, whether these robots, or steam engines, or diesel engines, or conveyor belts, in the end, instead of them serving our interests as humanity, we end up serving the interests of capital accumulation. That's why I vote for the matrix, if you want, and an allegory for capitalism. Thanks, Yannis. Peral, Peral Madra. Thank you. I would like to look to this film from the point of view of society, of spectacle. I just read many paragraphs of Gideborg's Society of Spectacle, and most of the paragraphs are really describing what this film really means for the global society. I think we should, for example, if somebody writes a critical text about it, they will use probably a quote, probably, Gideborg during this text. But what made me, I mean, what I didn't find ethical is that they use a child's game, which is global. I mean, every country I have this child's game, and they really polluted this child's game. I think this was really disturbing for me.  I mean, for example, if a child accidentally sees this film, can you imagine what happens in her or his imagination? So this was disturbing for me. And I really appreciate all the critical approaches of you. I think it was very good that we discussed this film. Thank you, Baral. A question from the chat. If we say that lives which are made of the time in which we're alive are priceless, how can we have wages hourly or otherwise? This is getting very philosophical. Srećko. Yeah, that's a bit too philosophical for me, but I'm joking. That's a question for Yanis, I guess. But I'd love to pick up on something what Maya said. And, this is this basic thesis that you cannot dismantle the master's house by the master's tools. That you cannot change the system you're trying to change by the very means of that system. That's one thesis. You've seen probably what happened today in the so-called semiosphere in the internet sphere when Novara Media from UK was completely shut down from YouTube without, as far as I know, in the last hours, without any kind of explanation from the site of YouTube why that exactly happened. So one of the leading alternative media in the UK just gets shut down and it doesn't exist on YouTube anymore. Now it's back in the meantime, but what does it say? It basically goes back to this thesis that you cannot dismantle the master's house by the master's tools. And I must spoil it immediately. I don't really believe that this thesis is necessarily correct. Of course, if we analyze this situation, our situation here, so all of us here for this meeting, we are using Zoom, then it's live streamed on YouTube. So basically we are all using platform capitalism in order to criticize platform capitalism. But I'm the one, as Yanis would know, that's the place where we met at the Subversive Festival in Zagreb, who still believes in subversion, that you can actually, and we must, we have the responsibility to use the existing tools in order to dismantle the master's house. How successful we can be in that, that's another question. How much will they co-opt us? That's also a very important question, but I think there is no escape from it. If you go back to the squid game, what would have happened if the main player who spoiler, but it's obviously obvious from the very beginning of the very series, that one player would end up there in the end, only one? What would have happened if he decided not to take the money? I think he can make a bigger mess by taking the money and ruining their game or ruining their show. And I think that's a lesson. I don't have a given answer, but how can we actually be subversive today by using the tools, as we are using now Zoom, YouTube, Twitter, where we announce our Zooms, and YouTube, and so on. We are basically using all the tools by Silicon Valley, whom we try to bring down and nationalize, not necessarily nationalize, but to actually turn technology into a commons. And that's a big question, how can we actually, if we still rely on these tools? Or in the end, you have this kind of VIPs, like similar to the squid game, who then just make fun out of us, or they make fun of Captain Kirk, for instance, or William Shatner to be more precise. You probably saw this scene when William Shatner comes back from space. He's saying, you know, what kind of revelation and just opening a bottle of champagne, not even listening to him, because for him, this is just a co-optation, both of Star Trek and all the energy and utopian energy of Star Trek, and just publicity for his company. So in a way, it shows our reality is much more dire, much more dystopian, I would say, than the squid game itself. Thank you, Srichko. And there's a very lively discussion in the Zoom chat about recommended viewing on some of the topics that we're discussing today. So David is putting them in the YouTube chat to share with everyone. Any other comments? Johannes, Johannes Ferre, go on. Thank you. I haven't watched Squid Game, and I'm probably not going to, because as some of you have already mentioned, we are working on some utopias at DM25. There's European utopia called the Green New Deal for Europe. And as Lukas mentioned in the very beginning, we are working towards an event on 13th of November to present our utopia for Germany. It's a program that DMers are currently voting on. So if you're a DMer or if you want to join the movement, then do this. And you can vote on our utopia, our vision. It's called For Vision and Responsibility, our program for DM25 in Germany. We are also voting on the name of our lecture wing, our lecture wings everywhere actually, as well as for Germany. And I wanted to mention that if you are free to travel to Berlin on 13th of November, or if you're living there, please come, get a ticket. And in general, join us and let's try to build this utopia together and then definitely make sure that we are not living in the Squid Game. Thanks. Very masterful, Johannes. Nice. Any other comments, thoughts? We've discussed a lot. We've approached this from many different angles. I think there's been a lot mentioned. Johannes thinks Squid Game has nothing to do with capitalism. We've had due this very, very important intervention about Netflix's dubious translation, which is communicating Netflix's worldview, infiltrating our brains. Any other comments or should we wrap it up? We're at the top of the hour. That was a fascinating discussion, everybody. Okay. Well, there we go. We'll leave it with Johannes's note on the forthcoming German party. Thank you very much for you guys watching and for your comments. And let me just remind you very quickly that our campaign accelerator program is now open for applications. That's our grassroots activism incubator program, where we'll work with you to build a campaign to address issues in your community. The deadline will be end of Saturday, October 30th. So please apply to that at dn25.org-ca. And we will see you at the same time.


Hey guys, it's MJ the student-actree and we're going to be talking about which University is the best for studying actuarial science So without further ado Yeah, let's see which one is the best So whenever you think about universities, I mean the top four always come to mind Yale Harvard Oxford and Cambridge and I would really recommend that you guys use the resources that these universities make available publicly When I was at university, I was able to go. I think it was called iTunes U or Podcast or something online where you can actually access the lectures from these universities so from Yale I did a whole third year economics course and that aligned with first-year actuarial science and I mean that was brilliant. It was given by a guy who just last year won the Nobel Prize in economics and He would have guest lectures from guys like coral icon who are big active investors in Apple and Motorola To other guys who have started these massive private equity funds that the Chinese government's bought up I mean it was amazing just the guest speakers that they had so Really worth getting it getting that it was I think it was called behavioral finance It was a third year economical course and your ties in very nicely with actuarial science. I Also got a few from Harvard Now that really stood out for me Oxford I got a whole course on building a business and that was quite nice to see it from all the different angles and Then from Cambridge. I really enjoyed they did a series called Silicon Valley Meets Cambridge or Cambridge goes to Silicon Valley or something like that and it was just a series of interviews where the interview people in the app industry and the university and Well, you know, I love making my apps. So it was a real treat for me and So, yeah, basically what I'm saying is these resources are available online and they are for free So if you're studying go and get them. They are well worth it I would not however recommend that you go to any of these universities and for two main reasons The first reason is that they are very expensive. So unless you have some golden scholarship I don't think you're gonna have enough finance to get into it and the second reason is they're not South African and Why that's important or why why it's important to go to South African University is when it comes to actual science South Africans are They're kind of like the best in the world when it comes to act trees I mean, we've made a lot of progress We've made a lot of discoveries and the reason being is South Africa is a country that has got quite a high Inequality rate, you know, we have a lot of rich people and we also have a lot of poor people and as Actress we develop products for both markets, you know, you need micro insurance and Funeral cover for the poor people and then you need these, you know, life insurance and House and yacht insurance and all that stuff for the rich people. So as an act tree in South Africa You're exposed to both of these markets. So you're getting a much better overview of the entire industry and also, I mean South Africa is the best country in the world So let's take a further look at the actuarial Universities in this beautiful nation So you have six universities that offer actuarial courses from Northwest Free State Tucks, which is Pretoria, which is which is Johannesburg UCT, which is Cape Town and Steleys, which is still in Bosch and The the point of university In actuarial science is to get as many exemptions as possible That's why you're going there You're going in there to get as many of the exemptions done so that after university you don't have to write as many exams You could do a pure mathematical degree and then write all 15 actuarial exams afterwards or you could be a little bit smarter and do an actuarial course and Knock a few of them out of the way by getting the exemptions now various universities offer various Exemptions so you can see Northwest they offer well They all basically offer the basic core technical exams in the core applications Some of them offer two and there's one one Remember there's a third one that you'll have to do outside and then with the STs This is very important for the small post-grad you can see the various ones that they offer So just by looking at this table. We can eliminate tucks free state and Northwest. I Remember in my honors year. We actually had some people from these universities come join us in honors and So you can do your Undergraduate and then come to your post-grad summer here, but better to do it just all in one place I mean it's it's less admin Okay, so let's look at bits UCT and Steleys They both say they both got eight core technicals two core applications and five specialist technicals But not really because while they both say that they have all those Exemptions it's actually not true. Well, it's not true for UCT and Salon Bosch So it fits you can do all five of the specialist technicals Or what I mean by that is you have a choice because you only really need to do two Some people I know have done three, but you just need to do two of these in order to qualify as an act tree And it fits you can see they had five so every day There was a different lecture on a different topic and so Monday to be life insurance Tuesday would be health Wednesday general and so forth and it was at vits the lectures were all there With UCT and Salon Bosch It's not like that what they do is UCT will offer either two or three and Stelembosch will offer the other two or three Which means if you want to do Let's say general insurance and you're at UCT you have to travel all the way to Salon Bosch once a week to go to the lecture and do the course and I went on to Google Maps and as you can see It's like 38 minute drive there and then another 38 minute drive back and this is without traffic And bear in mind that this is the infamous end to where I mean I was dropping a friend off at the airport the other day protestors had Taken tires set them up on fire and have blockaded the highway Which caused delays so you don't really want to be doing that road there are alternative routes, but it it takes longer You know, I'd rather recommend the N1, but anyway, that's not the point of the thing The idea is that you actually have to do a lot of traveling Depending on which STs you do whereas vits, they're all centralized at one university. So that's that's very good But the big thing is is that UCT is an extra year of University then vits so at vits you have your three-year undergrad where you do your eight core technicals and then Or you do eight core technicals and one CA and then you have your honors year where you do CA one and two STs of your choice Whereas with UCT the they have a structured slightly difference They also call it a three-year plus honors year, but you have to do it all in one year or all in one go And then they have this other thing called a masters where you do the ST subjects So it's not a whole year more Because they do do some extra stuff. So it's actually they've only delayed it by half a year And I guess it is kind of cool because you can say oh, I'm a masters of actuarial science but if Your goal is to qualify as an actuary as quick as possible then vits is much better So it's one less year which also makes it to a little bit cheaper But also very very important when it comes to choosing your university is this okay This is what Cape Town looks like as you can see it is stunning I live in the city because it is amazing. There is mountains to hike You can go, okay, you can't swim in the sea because it's cold But you can do yachts and you can do skiing and you can do all those various water activities.  It's a popular tourist destination But that's the problem is when you're going to university your goal is to study That that's it. That's your goal. It's not to go there and have fun and do all these various activities These are a distraction and I know a lot of people who who haven't started university yet They think this is university, you know people come. Yeah, big parties. Whoo, you know, because I see the movies and all that type of stuff That that's not true as an actuarial science student if that your actuarial science student That's you in the red. That's the actual science student Everybody else that's everybody else That's the actual science student.     We're at Johannesburg. It was a little bit easier to do that There are parties in Joberg, but it's easier to say no to them But job taking all that into consideration. You also want to just consider where you're living I mean, you don't want to be too far from home. I don't know. Maybe some of you guys want to do that but definitely definitely definitely Consider vits as one of your main options If you want to study actual science, I mean the lecturing stuff there are superb I mean, they've got some really great minds behind it They've got some awesome corporate experience and they're very very smart and job Look, maybe I'm being a little bit biased because I went to vits And while I'm doing this talk now, I'm busy wearing a vits hoodie So I'm feeling very very proud of the university, but I would highly recommend it for Yeah, for the reasons mentioned above and just because it's an awesome place But job think about your university that you go to it is a big Decision it is a big choice. So make sure you make the right one. But job I'm MJ the student actually and thanks for watching. Cheers guys You


The effects of a vegetarian diet on systemic diseases like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease have been studied and revealed predominantly less systemic diseases in vegetarians. But there have only been a few studies on oral health, which I covered in previous videos. But what's the latest? In a study of 100 vegetarians compared to 100 non-vegetarians, the vegetarians had better periodontal conditions, less signs of inflammation like gum bleeding, less periodontal damage, and better dental home care, brushing and flossing 2.17 times a day compared to 2.02 times a day. Not much of a difference, so maybe it was something about their diet. Though vegetarians may have a healthier lifestyle overall beyond just avoiding meat. They control for smoking, but other things like obesity can adversely affect oral health, so there may be confounding factors. What we need is an interventional study, where they take people leading the standard Western diet, improve their diets, and see what happens. But no such study existed until now. With professional support of nutritionists, the participants of the study with existing periodontal disease changed their dietary patterns to so-called wholesome nutrition. A diet emphasizing veggies, fruits, whole grains, potatoes, beans, peas, lentils, spices, with water as the preferred beverage, what a concept. To make sure any changes they witnessed were due to the diet, they made sure everyone maintained their same moral hygiene before and after the dietary change. What did they find? They found that eating healthier appeared to lead to a significant reduction of probing pocket depth, gingival inflammation, gum inflammation, and levels of inflammatory cytokines, which mediate the tissue destruction in periodontal disease. So maybe concluded that wholesome nutrition may improve periodontal health. Why, though? Yes, plant-based diets have a number of nutritional benefits in terms of nutrient density, but it also may be about improving the balance between free radicals and our antioxidant defense system. Traditionally, dietary advice for oral health was just about avoiding sugar, which feed the bad bacteria on our teeth. But now we realize some foods and beverages, like green tea, possess antimicrobial properties to combat the plaque-producing bacteria directly. Streptococcus mutants has been identified as oral enemy number one. If plaque is caused by bacteria, though, why not just use antibiotics? Many such attempts have been made. However, undesirable side effects such as antibiotic resistance, vomiting, diarrhea, and teeth stains have precluded their use. In a Petri dish, green tea phytonutrients effectively inhibited the growth of these bacteria. But what about in our mouth? They found that rinsing with green tea strongly inhibited the growth of plaque bacteria on our teeth within minutes. Seven minutes after swishing with green tea, the number of these bacteria in the plaque scraped from people's teeth was cut nearly in half. So if you have people swish with sugar water in their mouths, within three minutes the pH on their teeth can drop into the cavity formation danger zone. But if 20 minutes before swishing with that sugar water, you swish with some green tea, you wipe out so many plaque bacteria that the same sugar water hardly has any effect at all. So they conclude using green tea as a mouthwash or adding it to toothpaste could be a cost-effective cavity prevention measure, especially in developing countries, because here in the civilized world we have antiseptic mouthwashes with fancy chemicals like chlorhexidine, considered the gold-standard anti-plac agent. If only it didn't cause genetic damage.  And not just the cells in the mouth, 13 volunteers rinsed their mouth with the stuff for a few weeks. And there was not only an increase in DNA damage in the cells lining their cheeks, but also in their peripheral blood cells, suggesting it was absorbed into their bodies. Yes, it reduced plaque better than other antiseptic chemicals. However, it might be doubtful whether chlorhexidine can still be considered the gold-standard when considering how toxic it is to human cells. So are we left with having to decide between effectiveness or safety? How about a head-to-head test between chlorhexidine and green tea? Green tea worked better than chlorhexidine at reducing plaque. So using green tea as a mouthwash may work cheaper, safer, and better. And if as a bonus you want to sprinkle some amla powder into it, dried Indian gooseberry powder, it evidently shows an outstanding cavity-stopping potential, not by killing off the bacteria like green tea, but just by suppressing the bacteria's plaque-forming abilities. Here's how much plaque is formed without amla. Here's how much is formed with.


thing are we're sending stuff over to the Senate. Most of the product that we've done is set now we may have had it in the last air so we had it sent to the bill like hearing for a dozen like hearing. Excuse me, Bernie loves hearing mention this doesn't want hearing the bill less. So some ascent or and then we have to have a medical you figure if they're putting things in what the hell mention doesn't like so. So we are getting some and privilege. I think I think most of we're getting privilege scrub because privilege struggles dead looks to a bill. It's important is you have to take it out but privilege violation can take you out so so we're again getting that as we go along as well.


Hey, everybody Boris here ripping at 2022 fanatics memorabilia diamond a box break number one random hit style There are five pieces of memorabilia in this box diamond level you guys Five spots in this break will type in the hits as we go and do the random at the very end. See who's getting what? I don't really know what to expect I am just bracing myself for some craziness here. So yeah, good luck to the five that joins Let's see some bangers. Let's see bangers all around Here we go. I'll leave the box here bring the items over one at a time Yeah Silver box they weren't so let's see what we got here. This is crazy. All right, what's this? I guess we'll start with that Yeah, we'll start with the smallest piece here The order might kind of be wonky guys some of the things are stacked weird. So I'm just gonna don't take this first This guy right here Yeah, we're about to have some fun about to have a lot of fun a little mini guy here all right, this is Really freaking cool actually it is a slabbed card there's a hologram verification even though this is also a Allen and Ginzer Hulk Hogan Eight of ten on the auto the mini auto Hulk Hogan eight of ten That is freaking awesome 2015 tops Allen and Ginzer you got tops guarantee there You got fanatic slabs and authenticated as well as the hologram verification Really good start man. Hulk stuff does well. You see that whole card that just recently sold That's freaking sick man 10th anniversary of Allen and Ginzer eight of ten on the Hulk Hogan auto I'm just as strong as Hulk Hogan Okay, I can barely open cards Let's go with this let's see what this is All right, let's see what this is Yeah, let's see what this is Other names on this. This is a multi Baseball helmet autograph basically Man, I don't think there's a list of the names So let's do our best Let's do our best It's a Dodgers helmet Let's see is there a list maybe in here. I don't think so It's a Dodgers helmet the tag just says Dodgers six plus SIG Yeah Dodgers multi autograph helmet you can type in I'm never gonna be all identify all these That looks like Will Smith right there. Let's see Dude, I have no idea where's Kershaw at. It's really tough to see with the plastic as well guys There's Kershaw I see 22 right at the right at the brim there You have Will Smith kind of to the left of the LA so this is a world series Dodgers helmet. I'm guessing Let's count the autos. It's really tough to tell which is which one two three Four Robert's on the right above the LA. Yeah, that is Dave Roberts. Yeah, that's Dave Roberts for sure That that's Bellinger down there. I think so that's Kershaw. That's 22 we have will Smith right there It's really hard to see my thumb there, but that's will Smith is mookie on this Who's this guys?  I'll just tell you right now one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven autographs Eleven autograph Dodgers replica helmet. Yeah, I'm sure Walker's on there 11 it's Justin Turner. I mean, I don't I don't know guys. Yeah Yeah, oh 11 of 20 is the serial number two 11 of 20 that's sick man, yeah Will Smith not the will Smith that you got to keep The name of the mouth. Yeah Yeah, that's one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven eleven maybe twelve autos I think it's twelve it's eleven or twelve It's tough to see I'm not taking off that plastic wrap so that we had a better look at it that will not happen Wow, man Diamond boxes Diamond box. They're sick. Let's go to Jersey. Let's let's be surprised. Is this a Jersey? It's a hockey jersey, maybe feel that That's heavy. That's not a like a basketball jersey. It could be authentic. It could be something. That's like heavy like that. So I think that is who we think it is Yeah, buddy look at this look at this yeah Wayne Gretzky The great one Rangers Gretzky. Yeah, dude got the hologram sticker there. It's a real Jersey unit. Yeah, let me see Autograph rangers autograph on your center for everdeck It doesn't say anything about game use We'll be guaranteed Doesn't say anything about I don't I wouldn't assume I wouldn't think it's game used We didn't do a ton of that back in the day Gretzky, baby Gretzky heck. Yeah, I love to see that That's why we're so heavy. It's authentic hockey It's about to get real It's real already. It's real boys. Oh god, dude This one depending on what the next one looks like this might be the coolest piece Maybe not the biggest foot.  Yeah, look at this bad boy. Look at that bad boy What size of shoe is this?  There's no where on the bottom of it, but I honestly don't know guys There's nothing that says that it is Right Well, one thing you could do is uh Check out that bad boy right there. It comes with every single one of them. It doesn't specify anywhere I think it's game used I'm not gonna say for certain though. I think it is Yeah, it's it's kind of a generic thing for every single one of them you'd really have to look into it last one we go The card did not say specifically it literally says authentic signature or game used piece of memory really it says either or it does not say that it is for certain That's what I just read Okay, this is a football helmet. This is a football helmet so we got the letter of authenticity here I'm not gonna show it because it'll spoil it That's a letter of authenticity Dude, no way.  Oh I Sorry for the shaky camera. I'm like wow Really amped up right now. Oh my god. Brady and Gronk dual bucks throwback signed helmet you guys Sick that's actually Tom Brady right there.  It was in this bag first, right? Yeah, good God feels like forever ago. We opened up the first piece Well, good luck on the random good luck on the random can you click off that last one? The names that we just saw I am a Little awestruck right now. Let's do the random Five names five hits randomize them each same amount of times put them side by side to see who's getting what? Good luck everybody. Thank you for joining six and one seven times. I haven't even read chat. I Too focused over there, man Yeah, I think it's it might be around there. I'll start seven times names first. Good luck one two, three, four five six and Seven got you to see down at Hilton T seven times on our hits one two three four five six seven Yana sneaker down to the Gretzky Jersey. We were not ready. We were not ready, man We were not ready, man. Yuta with the Yanis sneaker Steven C with the Dodgers multi auto helmet John A with the Hulk Hogan Ginter auto to 10 West L the Brady and Gronk helmets and Hilton T the Gretzky Jersey Get these results posted. We've got one more diamond box up next


The wrong choice will consume Nigeria, says former president Olu Shagun, and Dariyeh reportedly may run for Senate after prison release. This is Plus Politics. I'm Mary Anacom. Ahead of the 2023 general elections, former president Olu Shagun, has urged Nigerians to make the right choice by electing credible leaders at all levels, warning that making the wrong choice in the election may consume the nation. The ex-president said the country cannot afford to make the same mistake of choosing bad people at the helm of affairs, considering the myrides of challenges. He bemoaned the current state of the nation, calling for more prayers, as Africa's most populous nation goes to the poll in February of next year. Joining us to discuss this is Deneke Alobashi, the program's director and managing editor at Data Fight, and of course joining us is Shagun Shobiton, a public affairs analyst. Thank you so much, lady and gentlemen for joining us. Thanks for having me. Okay. Shagun, I'll start to see you. Of course, you work with civil society, and this is a conversation about the civic space in Nigeria and how we can continue to have these conversations to get more people interested in what's happening ahead of the elections. But then I want to start by asking a simple question. With all of the movements that we're seeing, whether it be on social media, whether it be in small spaces, we even see people gathering in different parts of the country, can we say that that can amount to how alert we are and how prepared we are for the elections next year? Oh, absolutely. I think if either of us ever be mentioned that the consciousness and the, you know, the conscience of the country has been put and has been raised, this is the moment. I think and I think that's primarily because of, you know, the path that has brought us here. Anybody that is in Nigeria will testify to how difficult things are, regardless of whatever segment of society you want to talk about, a sector of the economy that you want to talk about. So if it's security, I don't know if it would be correct to say it's never in this bad, but it's terrible right now, you know. The terrorists are practically back in the federal capital. The last time this happened was 2013, almost 10 years ago, you know. If you're talking about the economy, you know, it's never in this bad. The Naira exchange was as low as 730 Naira to the dollar just a week ago. If you want to talk about the fuel and, you know, energy sector, the grid collapses with ease very regularly these days. You know, diesel has almost got to 1,000 per litre very recently, you know. So everything is bad and Nigerians are suffering, Nigerians are running. And I think that thanks to INEC, you know, and we must say this, Nigerians now know, given the experience with the last three elections, that their votes will count and that rigging has become more difficult. And, you know, so when you combine that with all of the things that have been happening, the consciousness has just increased and Nigerians have never been this eager for an election and for speaking their voice and, you know, learning their voice to in the public space. So I think this is going to be very, very interesting times because Nigerians are on high alert. Let me talk about the INEC. The INEC, you obviously work with the data gathering company or group. It's a research group. Now, many people had complained during the continuous voter registration that there was not enough time for them to get their PVCs, hence they pushed for an extension. And then, of course, I did speak with the INEC, one of the commissioners on voter education still say that INEC noticed that once they had that extension, there was a lax. People did not necessarily feel the need to rush anymore. And then just at the close of, you know, that exercise, we also saw another rush. So again, it makes me really question how serious we are about 2023. Thank you very much for that question. And the reality is that, although there appears to be increased interest in getting voter registration, the three of cycle elections that have happened, Anambra, Osho and Ikith, have told us that there is no correlation between increased PVC collection and voter participation. In Osho's elections, this year's voter turnout is the lowest in all elections that they have held since Nigeria returned to democracy. Same thing for Anambra, same thing for Ikith. So it's important to begin to ask the questions, will these interests that we're seeing in PVC collection translate voter turnout? Because if it doesn't translate to voter turnout, we are right back to square one. Nothing has happened except that people now have identity cards. So it's something to interrogate why there is an increase in PVC collection and that has not yet turned out a higher voter turnout. It's incredible because I remember also that there was a group that was advocating that INEC deceased from throwing away certain PVCs, which, I mean, that's also something we need to probe. But I always like to use the Lagos state local government elections as a litmus test or as a point of reference, rather. We saw Lagosians complaining, we hear people complain every day. People call and say, oh, the roads are bad. Government is not doing anything. The drainages are blocked. People are building over this and that. But when it came down to voting for people who actually are the closest government to us, nobody showed up.  So again, it goes back to the point that we're making. So what do we have to do? This is a conversation that is probing and asking for solutions. What must we do to get the civic space to participate actively and not just grumble or complain? All right. That's addressed to me just so I don't interrupt. Yes, yes. Okay, so here's the thing. I think that the civic space, specifically here talking about media, talking about civil society organization, there's a lot of energy and a lot of paining around getting cases. I think that now we see that it's not sufficient. It's not enough just to encourage and we need to bridge that gap. Now I broke civic actors into two because there are those of us who are actively involved, who are in the face of it. We know all the data, we know all the number. Then there are the citizens who are supposed to be consuming this data that we produce, participating in these campaigns that we're starting. And I think that if we can rethink our strategies in terms of engagement with people, in terms of engagement with citizens, in terms of how we present those conversations, in terms of how we help them to understand what is critical, perhaps we can still turn the tide because clearly there is some disconnect between all of the campaigning and all of the advocacy that is happening right now and actual actions. We need to find what that missing ingredient is. There have been conversations that this is important voter education, literally telling people this is why you must vote. This is how to vote. This is where to do the vote. These are the security issues that may happen and this is how to protect yourself. These are all theories that I think is worth pursuing for civic space actors if we're actually going to see this favor, especially on social media. We're going to see this energy translating to something tangible in 2023. Incredible. Back to you, Shegong. Again, talking about choices. The former president of the Shegong Basin, who's one that's very, very outspoken. No matter what we say, no matter what we do, he will keep speaking if it's not writing an open letter. He's putting out one thing or the other. But this is an interesting point he's making. He's saying that if we make the wrong choice, the country might be consumed. I don't know how much of the news you've followed today, but Sierra Leoneans have been protesting the high cost of leaving, how bad the economy is, and as we speak, one person has been shot dead. It became volatile. I'm sure it reminds you of something that you must have experienced in 2020. But he's saying that if we make the wrong choice, so again, the case of a right choice here is subjective to whoever is listening or whoever is watching. Now, how have political parties, what role have political parties played in making sure that the people they want to vote for them are properly educated? That it's not just enough to hold a PVC, just like Adeneke has said, but what you can do with that PVC and how it can impact your life after the elections? Well, first of all, to speak to what the former president said, I am firmly in that corner, in that box with him. I believe that we are facing an existential threat as a country and that these elections hold very well the marker and a deciding point in our future and our destiny. And the reasons are not perfect, it's all around you. For example, whether we like it or not, whether we want to admit it or not, Nigeria is pretty much bankrupt. We make less money than our loan obligations are right now, revenue to debt as a fraction of debt service obligations. So that's bad, almost as bad as it can get. And if you continue down that trajectory, then it will get to a point when the currency is going to be completely useless. It will get to a point when you won't have food conditions. People might think these things are far-fetched, but they happen pretty quickly when they happen. Is it really about that? I mean, how much do we buy bread today? Exactly, the price of bread has doubled in the last six months, doubled in six months. That's 100% in six months. So if you want to calculate that off the cuff, that's 200% inflation year on year. It's terrible. So I sit in that corner and agree with the former president, but to address your question about the role of the political parties and what they're doing with regards to trying to educate their obliques, if you like, about the importance of your vote and all that, it's unfortunate that to be honest, we do not have political parties in Nigeria. That's just the unfortunate truth. We have contraptions that people have put together to help them gain access to the Commonwealth, and that's it. Whether you talk about the PDP or the APC or any of the others, including the likes of the Labour Party, the histories right there in front of us to tell us the antecedents of all of these guys. So political parties, ordinarily, are almost in themselves like civil society organizations if they're operating properly. So they would have a voter education, meaning they would have a public engagement department, media campaign department, and all of those things. These political parties have nothing like that. They wait for the coming elections, and then they start their propaganda war, and that's all it is about. When it's time to influence the voters, instead of influencing their minds, they buy their votes, and that's the extent. So you're going to see some campaigns, you're going to see some things on TV or radio that will look as if it's voter education, encouraging people to come out and vote, it's all about this election. It's not about improving the civic space. It's not about expanding participation. It's just about how they will gain access to the commonwealth from 2023. So it's unfortunate which then leaves that job, that onerous job in the hands of civil society and the media, because government, aside from the political parties, government is the one other stakeholder that should be doing a whole lot in this regard. Where is the national orientation agency? Where are the messages from the national orientation agency today speaking about the importance of the whole time? We'll have to do a whole show for the NOA. How your votes count? We'll probably have to do a whole show on that question about where the NOA is. I mean, a whole show. I mean, it's really terrible.  I mean, for goodness sake, we have almost 100 million PBCs collected. So if you had a 50% turnout, then you'll be talking of 50 million Nigerians deciding who the next president will be and just by the date of statistics alone, you will get a better decision. But the last election, the turnout was about 28%. Was it 28 or 33? She's the data person, so she will tell us. You know, it was terrible. So there's a lot to be done and sadly the political parties are not doing much if anything at all about it. Let me toss back to you, Adene Kess. We have political parties, again, talking about choice here. Half the time, the political parties throw up people that, you know, might not necessarily fit the bill for the rest of us. But again, that can also be somewhat said that we don't join political parties because we think politics is a dirty game. So whoever they present to us is who we have to pick with. So we have a choice between a rock and a hard place and half the time we choose the lesser evil. So again, back to making choices. How can we, as journalists, as civil society, encourage more political participation, not just at the polls before, after and even during the elections? Thank you very much for that question. And in fact, I was hoping that I would get the opportunity and attend the conversation towards this direction. While it is obvious to anyone with eyes, with ears, who lives in Nigeria that 2023 is literally make it or break it, I feel like we need to couch the language of our campaign and begin to look beyond 2023. I feel like we may need, without lessening the reality of what's going on in Nigeria, we may need to begin to design campaigns that helps people look at the long game because the reality is, given 100% across all political parties, great candidates, our choice in 2023 is not likely to turn things around to 300. I mean, 90 degrees is a high estimation. So that is why our campaign needs to carry a more long-term focused message. To say that, guys, get your PVC, but get involved. Get your PVC, but join a political party. Get a PVC or start a political party if you can afford it. And we need to design campaigns that is not just looking at the activities of 2023 elections, but beginning to query election laws and how it is upheld. There's one reality that makes it challenging for people to join political parties, to start political parties, to be actively political. And that's the money factor, the finance. Who is looking at the financing of political parties and how can we begin to mount campaigns to ensure that beyond 2023 we can actually have a system that checkmates these practices, that creates guardrails that allows for increased access and increased participation. Because I feel, and this is a personal opinion now, I feel that if we don't turn down the favor of, 2023 might be Dukems Day, we may be, that action, that language may be counterproductive, driving fear much more than it will drive participation. And so we need to start playing the long game from now. It's 2023, yes, but it's also 2027. And between 2023 and 2027, there's four years to actively plan how to ensure that there's more participation, how to look at participation at the local government level. I mean, look at the example of Lagos State. You would have thought that people would rush out and say, we will show you that we're going to actually take a decision. There's clearly a gap, and I think that, and this is off the cuff for me, because that's a question that has been raised and we have consistently asked in circles, what do we do? How do we turn this energy, this favor into something that translates into actual civic participation, not just voting, because civic participation is a value chain, and voting is almost at the very end of the value chain. There are several other steps that are critical, big participation to political participation. And I think that we may need to start turning the language of our campaign to 2023, yes, but there's a long game. There's a long game that we almost play. Chopiton, do you think the middle class has failed when it comes to active participation in whether it's the voting process, whether it's the conversation and the politicking? Let's leave social media. We see a lot more young people going at each other's throats on social media, but let's come down to the real thing. The guys who work in these nice companies, the guys who understand how politics works, but would rather take the back seat, has the middle class failed, and that's why we're having to grapple with what's we're grappling.  We see more of the guys who are at the lowest echelon. You also see more guys at the grassroots coming up for the elections. In fact, those are the guys who know the awards, the appalling units, who is this person or who's running for that. But we, who are supposedly the middle class, have the time don't know this. Why do you think that is? It's really, I think for me it's simple. There are two things. One is that the middle class is a reemerging demographic. It's a demographic sector segment that sort of died off for a while and has only reemerged in the last 10, maybe 15 years. And is still grappling with the basic issues of life, surprisingly. So you might think that maybe it's only the people at the very bottom of the rung of the lager who are fighting existential issues on a day-to-day basis. But I tell you that our middle class guys, generally speaking, just think about it. Think about the conversations that people around you have. Let's assume that the three of us in this conversation, in this call right now, in this conversation right now, are part of middle class. If you really think about it, you find that discussions about rent, discussions about school fees, discussions about how do I finance, maybe a vacation or whatever. There is a continued conversation around the insufficiency of the state at the moment. And I think that's a fundamental issue. So people simply do not have time, at least to them, in their mind, to devote to things that are not, that will not yield immediate results. So, for example, participation in civil society, you know, and I would like to, you know, it would be interesting to compare notes with identity care on our experience because I am also a part of civil society. I sit as chairman of the Board of Civil Society Organization and I know what the kind of battle it is to get my members to become actively engaged in our processes. It's just tough. So what you have is maybe a 10% of your total membership being the ones driving everything.  The second thing is that I think that because of that first factor, the quest for next level of self-actualization and what have you, a lot of our middle-class people are compromised. You know, it might sound funny, like they have interests in the game. So from very early on, they make up their mind whether next will be best, whether next will be best feathered and then they just sit there regardless of the impact on larger society, regardless of the impact on the long-term picture, as to where our country will be as a result of the decisions and the choices they're making. So we're feeling woefully in being the voice of logic, the voice of reason. I keep saying amongst my friends, and amongst my, you know, circle of my friends, what happened to evidence-based analysis of issues? What happened to arriving at decisions and positions based on logical reasoning? You know, it's very difficult to find people doing this, even though they're supposed to have the capacity. Majority of people that we're talking about are either MBAs or they have several doctorate degrees. Some are professors, or you find that somehow the interests that we have in keeping our jobs or in ensuring that the contract that we're running with one government or the other continues to stay prevents us from playing the role of leading the conversation in the country. And so for me, to answer your question, has the middle class built? Absolutely. Can they do better? Absolutely. At the end of the day, unfortunately, the large chunk of the work of leading conversation, of leading the national discourse and all of that will rest with the 10%, or maybe 20% who have just decided that no matter what happens, we're going to do what we can. Finally, let me just push this question because of some things that Shagwon has said. Why do people prefer to leave? We see a lot of people leaving Nigeria right now. They prefer to leave rather than, you know, seek ways to... In fact, they tell you that there's nothing they can do. They'd rather leave. But I'm wondering, why do you think... What's at the core of that? Well, we all know we're all suffering. It's not like the suffering, you know, parks at some junction and doesn't go to the others. Why do you think, just as you said, less and less people are interested in civil society or civic duties or whatever. But then we'd rather put money together and to use the street lingo, jakba, as opposed to trying to see what we can do to better the loss of Nigeria. So, I mean, there are several things, but he said something that is critical, self-actualization. That's a force that is driving a lot of people. And increasingly, it looks like that may not happen in... And people are beginning to think, you know what, perhaps we look for this outside. This is not the first time we've had this kind of mass exodus. In fact, periodically in Nigeria, we have this mass exodus where people can just leave. And I feel like in Nigeria's democracy in the 20-plus years since the Fourth Republic, there's been a lot of high-tempo, low-tempo. Oh, it's going to get better. It's not likely to get better. And I think that people are exhausted right now. So I will not be, for lack of a better description, sanctimonious and say, oh yeah, they just don't want to build their country. I think people are exhausted. I think people are working hard. Tomorrow is International Youth Day. And the youth are weary. Trying and knocking at these doors, often back-to-back, and nothing is happening. However, I think that it is still critical while we can force anyone to stay, while we can say, oh, I mean, none of us can even promise survival. It's as bad as, I mean, the nation's capital is literally besieged. And people are afraid to move at night, and people are calculating their movements. So it's not like we can assure people, oh, don't worry, things are going to get better tomorrow. But I do think we can appeal to people's sense of nation, to people's sense of belonging, to say that we can't build this nation. It's not going to happen quickly. It's not going to happen in, you know, months or eight months or seven months. But we can build this nation. I also think that we might be in the place where we now need to have the conversation of, can Nigerians in diaspora vote? Even if you are jackpot into wherever, you can still be involved, and you can still be engaged. Can we begin to interrogate processes that can ensure that even when people do leave to seek daily bread, you know, to describe it that way, they can still participate. But the truth is, people are weary. People are tired. It's bad news upon bad news. And, you know, the fundamental things that people need to survive have literally been taken away from our hands. Food, shelter, and family. People can guarantee that their family members will be safe, and that's just a big challenge. So I think that's really at the core of what's driving people out. But we can find ways to encourage people to still participate, which will force us to answer the question of how do we make sure that Nigerians in diaspora are still engaged in the political sector, are still engaged in the civic space so they can, you know, do what is right? Well, no better way to end that conversation. I want to say thank you, Shegun. Thank you very much. Adeney Care is the director and managing editor for Data Fights, and Shegun Chopra is a public affairs analyst. Thank you so much, lady and gentlemen. These conversations have to be had. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Well, thank you all for staying with us. Let's take a quick break. Now, when we get back, we will be discussing Jadariye's release and Hibi's supposed plans to run for senatorial position. Stay with us.


There's one final statistical concept I want to share with you, not because you need to know the background by heart, but this will help you if you ever use this in practice. Assuming that I give you two alignments, one on the left and one on the right here, you might say already now that this one looks slightly better. And if you just score this with the substitution matrix I showed you before, you will get 19 here and 40 here, and this one should be better in some way. But how much better is better? 20 is still better than 19, but 20 versus 19, could that happen by chance? That's hard to say. So to do things better what one would have to do, at least if we hand wave a bit, is that we would have to look at the entire distributions of these scores. So for instance, you could look at pure identities like dot plots and compare these with the alignment scores from this blow-sum matrix. What we see already here is that with this blow-sum matrix, we're going to get slightly more of these higher scores. So these are proteins that actually are quite similar. It's just that they might not share exactly the same residues and the pure dot plot when we're just calculating identities will notice that. Second, do you see the small red dot out here that there is something that is scored significantly higher than the others? This is also something that it's going to be a bit complicated in practice. What you would have to do there to decide whether this is significant or not, we would have to compare our scores to the entire size of the databases, the expected distribution of scores and everything, and I could spend three hours talking about that. But the take-home message for you there is that we somehow, we need to know at how far up here do we need to be to say that something is significant. Rather than taking you through all that math, I'm going to give you the answer because you will see this in Outputs. The way we typically talk about this is in so-called E-value or P-value occasionally. So of course, if you make lots of predictions, occasionally we would have a high score that happens purely by chance, right? So if I give you that red hit and say that Eric Lindahl thinks that that's a good hit, what my colleague might be interested in, well, okay, I'm well aware that Eric might be a decent bioinformatician and making predictions, but what is the probability that he's wrong? And the E-value really measures is that if I give you a score here of say 360, what is the likelihood that I would have gotten that score purely by chance if these two sequences were not evolutionary related? So the E-value for a particular score is really the probability of getting this match by chance. So this should be a very low number. If you're talking about sequences or something, you might get an E-value of say 10 to the minus 10. If an E-value is 10 to the minus 10, you're safe. That means that it's going to be 1 in 10 billion that you happen to get that result by chance. I think I'm willing to take that bet. The problem though is that if we're talking about protein structures, we will virtually never get E-values that good. Then you might get an E-value that is 0.01. That's pretty good. That's 1 in 100. You might be willing to take that chance. If the E-value is 0.1, that means that it's a 90% probability that you're right, but it is a 10% probability you're wrong. So that if you make roughly 10 such predictions, one of them is going to be wrong. I can't tell you exactly what E-value you should use. That will depend a little bit on the method, and in particular if you have a ton of data such as for sequences or very little data for structures. But this is the value you can use and that you will typically see in reports from alignment, scores, prediction and everything. A low E-value means that it's very unlikely that you got this top scoring hit purely by chance.