 So we've got this captured. This is Rex's alumni reunion meeting for January of 2022, as we begin the new year in middle of the pandemic, the never ending pandemic. We see the head of the CDC saying this morning that everyone is likely to get Omicron at some point. I missed the CDC saying that but it makes like great. One of the various Mr. Parker so nice to see you with the warm fire behind you. Oh, yeah, I'm going to apologize immediately because I can actually only stay for half an hour, but I did want to drop in and just say happy new year and say hi and let you know I still exist. Every minute of your presence is precious so thank you for joining us. So I'm a kind of just going to like touch everybody. Yeah, that's that's what they're saying. You know, although someone pointed out was an important distinction between saying everyone will be exposed to Omicron, and everyone will get Omicron, say everyone will be exposed. That means you can still wear a mask, you can socially distance, you can do your rapid tests, which are probably the single most important thing we could be doing. If someone's going to get it then that's kind of saying, Oh, fuck. Here's the headline from the post Omicron will affect quote just about everybody. Fauci says. Oh, was that Fauci. Fauci as it turns I thought it was somebody else with us. Yeah, I thought so too. Did you all see. Did you all see Fauci coming back at Rand Paul. That was priceless actually. Not the what a moron comment. That was somebody else. This is this is Fauci who's in a congressional hall somewhere I don't know what but Rand Paul is sitting up at the desk with his name in front of him and Fauci holds up a printout of Rand Paul's fundraiser site for his campaign. He's like fire Fauci and he's got donated here next to it and Fauci sitting there's like, basically saying what the fuck without the fuck but but like, really, like what do you think you're doing raising funds office. It's. He's saying, I can say if you're going to run, you know, funding off my name, where's my cut. Or that he actually should have said, you know, I'll take 50% of that or I'm going to see for a license infringement. That's right. Well, he's receiving debt literal death threats. Yeah, has been for a long time. Well, they made him the punch dummy of anti vaccine so you know, he had the bad luck of being the spirit, the spearhead of the campaign to try to convince people. It's a big licensing opportunity you'd have Fauci plush dolls, you know, for the people who love him and you know voodoo dolls for the people. It's great licensing, you know, such a big brand. So when my mom was in decline one of her friends bought her a doll that's made for like whacking on things what it's a frustration doll of some sort I'm forgetting what it is, but it's a really hardy doll that looks a little bit like a straw man what kind of long. And you could, you could do whatever you want with that doll it's great. So, so Mika, I have a really short term short term interest in politics which is filibuster and voting rights. Like, apparently the 17th is an important deadline for taking action on on both and I have this sinking feeling that it won't happen and have this sinking feeling that midterms. Yeah, but but but have a sinking feeling that that deadline is a really important kind of milestone. Well, my reading is. This is, you know, like the groups have been demanding this for a while. It's been really really hard to get Biden and Harris to put the issue front and center. And, you know, I think. But they're afraid they're going to lose. And so they've behaved as if they're going to lose. And then, you know, what is it that 11th hour. Now they're, you know, kind of marshaling the their ability to focus attention to try and make it one of those votes that mansion in cinema, you know, ultimately decide they can't be on the wrong side of. But I look from the very beginning of the year I thought this was last year. I thought the whole strategy around voting rights was upside down that you know they had this giant omnibus bill. The for the people act, which was like every politics reformers wet dream it was written mostly by Fred Wertheimer who's been with common cause since the 1970s. And who's been behind the scenes, one of the few key people, you know, tracking and writing the major legislation around campaign finance laws. And some, some group of people decided it was a good idea to, you know, just put everything in one bill and then, you know, and then that way will all the groups will, you know, marshal their forces together and we'll get it over the top. Well, when you do that you also get everybody confused about what's most important. And, and, you know, the messaging got blurry. It never and I never thought there was any chance and then in September I think it was mansion said you know why don't we just do these things and they came out with what's now a stripped down but still pretty good bill. But we could have done that back in February. Right. Yeah, the all legs one big basket thing was hard was weird. It was. Well, no, it was because the process issues generally have been the province of us, you know, relatively elite group of insiders at a handful of organizations. And, you know, it's just sort of been delegated. And so I don't think there was any evaluation at any point that said well is this really what we need, even the election administrators, people may not remember this but when the first big bill came out. I forget who it was Jessica Hoosman who writes for Pro Publica I think did a piece where she interviewed local election administrators who were like, there are things in this bill that are going to make it harder for us to get ready for 2022. You know this isn't what we need. Many of the things in here aren't feasible we don't have enough time we don't have enough money. It was just. Time lost. And we get to September and you know everything else is jammed. You know we have a system that seems to work on one thing at a time at best. Right, right. It's which is weird and the only, the only gate that I saw was kind of interesting and important than realistic was the reconciliation format that only allows one reconciliation to happen per, I guess congressional term. No, they do a year a year and that's just this parliamentary bullshit stuff that they follow. But it's but it's how you squeak things through without a super majority without a without closure right without firing the senate parliamentarian and hiring one that works for you. Yeah, I mean that's what the Republicans would do. Exactly. No, and it's funny because the Republicans like our, this is like a knife fight in an elevator and the Republicans have like five knives and the Democrats do and they're like with their gloves on going with a spoon. With a spoon. Yeah, like, no, I put it this way it's a night they came to a knife fight with a law journal. And, you know, if it's taken up you can avoid being stabbed maybe. Yeah, exactly over the head if it's a right. Yeah, so right next week is, I actually thought I had a conflict today, because there is a call at three o'clock that Schumer is going to be on that a bunch of the voting rights groups are all, you know, using as a messaging you know like let's get all our ducks together and and I was planning to get on that I just realized it was 12pm Pacific time. Here I am. Awesome. I'll report back in my newsletter or somewhere, if anything interesting was said but I do feel like, you know when the major voting groups in Atlanta in Georgia, decide to boycott Biden's speech because they're tired of speeches. Right. They're sending a sort of last ditch signal. This is weird. By the way, if everybody is not subscribed to me because newsletter here's the link, please go subscribe. Thank you, Jerry. I mean seriously it's really it's really awesome. I refuse to let despair guide me. I mean we live in a we live in a federal system. Right. So, I mean, yes Congress has tremendous amount of power and money to to wield, but you know when things go bad, we still live in 50 states, where a lot of variety, you know both good and bad can happen and I think people forget that. Kevin you were going to jump in a moment ago. And I think that the comment I was going to make glibly was the Keanu Reeves has a good move with a book. Right. You know, where he jams the book in your Adams Apple. Right. So, that law book could come in handy. Right. In the John Wick movies. Yeah, actually it was in a Jimmy Kimmel interview. Nice. Nice. See, we can source all this stuff. One of the things that I learned by practicing a martial art is that face to face with somebody who knew their, knew their stuff I would be dead within seconds, regardless, regardless, whatever training I've got whatever else somebody's somebody's a couple levels above you, you are just a dead person, because it's possible to do things so quickly and so aggressively that you're probably not gonna, not gonna. I said, I said, no, I watch Quicks draw McGraw. Yeah, quick, quick cross my God, I don't know. I'll do the thin and around here. There you go to two more just small political things one is, I was reading something that was a little bit too glowy about Nancy Pelosi but how she's like this deep strategist and like a lot of Democrats really respect her because she's worked the background hard and long and understands where the skeletons are buried and what to do. The thing is that Biden spent 31 years in the Senate, like like he knows these people and the room, where's his lbj moment like where like I think he's he's I think he's trying to do that and the first anniversary of January 6 speech was a little bit of that. But I don't I don't see Biden actually using any Biden mojo here yet. Well, his, all of his expertise, Parkinson's back to an earlier Senate that he was part of. All right, and he's been out of the Senate for a while. All right, so he has colleagues. He doesn't have contemporary knowledge of the dynamics of what's going on in there. He's been standing nearby like at the yard line for the whole time so it's not like he's it's not like he was away in China for that long. He's seen what happened, but he's not on the ground in fairness. Seven Republicans voted to impeach Trump the second time. Yeah, and I forget what the number was 13 or some in the middle teens number voted for the first infrastructure. You know, the one that they passed, you know, in November. So, you know, on his side he's like, well, a lot of these people still want to make deals. You know, and those deals are, it's far far better to pass a law than to do something through executive order, because those can be immediately reversed by the next administration. Second thing I want to put in was last night I read, I thought I read but it felt brand new and fresh. This piece. So, braver angels has a format they call braver angels debates, which was which were created by April I'm forgetting her last name I've got it in here. But it's a lovely format for bringing blue and red people together in a sort of safe respectful space and having conversations that make a difference. And it felt like there was a lot of wisdom in the piece for example, she you know she says all comments are addressed to the chair not to the person who just spoke blah blah blah there's a couple things to make the process better, but also that as the chair. Not to correct things so when somebody says redneck she doesn't say rural American and correct them she's like that automatically like makes it a non safe space for red people and I'm sort of over commenting on her write up, but partly partly reading that piece made me think that what I'm doing an OGM and stuff like that feels a little amateur hour because we're very much a like in the group were mostly mostly left leaning. So I wanted to figure out how actually just sort of sit down and figure out how to collaborate with people who think differently and and this seems like a fruitful process. And I don't know if you have any opinions number of angels or if there's anything about if there's any awareness on the left that this might be a really fruitful way to bridge that divide because I really think that the divide needs to be bridged not deepened. I do some people I do see some people struggling to figure out how they can move past a type of political organizing that seeks to win by bludgeoning the other side into defeat. Because those victories don't seem to be very stable. In other words they recognizing that you just fuel a backlash and the backlash in many ways is stronger because you know it's easier to organize the white nationalist Christian minority. Because it's homogeneous. Then it is to sort of bring together a much more diverse rainbow, blah, blah, blah. And, but how that then turns into something else, the only thing at the moment that you know and it's a total long shot, and I wrote a piece about this. A few years ago when I heard about this. There is an effort underway to convince senators like Murkowski and mansion that what America needs is a centrist third party. And that the way to break this polarization cycle is by Congress passing a law that says that smaller parties, if nominating candidates for Congress can cross indoors, it's called fusion. And it's a system that we still have in New York, but it used to be how we did elections, all through the 1800s. And it partly worked because parties printed their own ballots. We didn't have the uniform state ballot that we have now which is called the Australian ballot, because the secret ballot comes from Australia. And so what you had was something good and something bad combined the parties would print their own ballots. And so a smaller party could support the candidate of a larger party but their votes would be counted on the smaller parties line. The influence of the Liberty Union party or the, the mugs or whatever, you know, the, the, the know nothings. And this actually was quite a fruitful system. And the Democrats and the Republicans in the 1890s separately realized that this by banning it they would kill the populists, which is what they did. They got the artificial monopoly duopoly that we have now. You give people back the ability to fuse. And then you can have a Lincoln Party, which is to give the sort of non Trump Republicans and independence, a way to vote for Democrats without having to vote Democratic, or register Democratic. And it would strengthen, it would absolutely strengthen the center left against the right, which is the thing we have to do. If we're going to survive the next few years. Also, if there were a small breakaway conservative party, they would hold the swing vote, it would be really powerful won't be there won't be it's not sustainable. Small party in American politics are unsustainable they don't win anything. And the post just really screws us up we had proportional proportional ranked voting. We'd be in a lot better shape. That's the other potential solution the problem with ranked choice voting is we experienced it here in New York recently is that you get too many candidates and the public is incredibly confused. It's the journey of choice then. There's a, there's a different problem which is you just everything gets factionalized, even more. It's a solution but we, you know, maybe we need a higher threshold for who even gets to be a candidate in those systems, but the, the fusion solution has the merit of giving all the people who are now never crumpers. You know, Bill crystal and his whole crowd, a place to go politically the money is already there. But they don't have a feasible elect electoral vehicle, if you created a center third party now all you do is split the opposition to more Trumpies. You know, Mike before you have to to boogie any thoughts on this or would you like to put a different thought in the conversation. I was just actually going to put in the comments after saying we're watching from concern with concern. We're watching with concern because I think as far as well as far as I'm concerned and most of the people I talked to that I respect the opinions and views of here. We see the upcoming midterms the next election as being absolutely crucial globally because the gangsters and there is no other description for them. The gangsters we currently have in power here will draw huge, huge energy from anything which goes further right in the States. And, and don't be in any doubt to do not be in any doubt whatsoever that what we're seeing is absolutely a global movement. These guys are network globally. So interestingly, Latin America is having a second pink tide, like really interestingly it's there's all sorts of backlash, and the woman who took over from all yanta woman and Bolivia got put in prison for violating human rights and there was like a different election there so things are happening in Latin America which I would not have expected because I was I was like oh my god Latin America sunk. And Lula Lula is actually running again and way ahead of Bolsonaro in Brazil for the next election cycle. Yeah, that's great. I mean, there are some grassroots things happening here as well so even in little what little old Wales actually is a separate country it does have its own assembly. And now a much stronger than than there has ever been. There is a stronger move for independence for Wales in which case it is and the government has already aligned itself with Iceland, New Zealand, with the commitment to well being economy and stuff like that. So looking at radical reassessment of what it means to have an economy and what and who it should benefit. So from my amateur perch way outside the UK. I think that a lot of stocks might have voted for Brexit because it was a really nice opening to leave the UK and rejoin the EU, etc, etc. might might the UK actually sort of dissolve in the next decade. And there's a real really strong chance it will. Hey, I tell you what my my dream scenario is. Yes, please, Wales, Wales to go independent Scotland to go independent Northern Ireland to be reunified with Southern Ireland. And then we can create a democratic alliance, all members of the EU, the Celtic, the Celtic Union, the Celtic Union. Yes, but Scots aren't Celts or wait, are they? It seems a fundamental route. Same route. Okay. Hey, Brett joins too. Who? Hey, Bretton, full of Celts. And England can, England can do it's kind of like ultimate sort of exceptionalists thing dream of post empire for as long as it wants. I mean, that's an interesting, interesting idea that might dissolve that way. Only it felt as painless to imagine the dissolution of the United States in some similar way. Yeah. Yeah, wouldn't pay me. I mean, the UK wouldn't pay me to see it. And I think that in, you know, there's such a gnashing of teeth when you suggest that maybe the United States should break into, but you know, if we could think of some for you want to break it into four Jerry or five sir. So who is the Gorbachev votes in the UN that way. I'm sorry. Guys, I gotta run. It's been great. Yeah, thanks. I'd love to see you for a longer time next time I hope. Okay. Thanks a lot. Bye. Thanks. Which for your. So there's several different books and works on on the five tribes of America or whatever and I don't have a strong feeling about this but but it feels to me like there's more than two divisions going on here. And you could have some really interesting multi, you know, sort of. So one of the things that would happen, I think, is that the US would stop being a superpower. And it's like, these different nations couldn't agree on a defense strategy they would each have an army, and then they'd kind of be in conflict with each other now and then, and they sort of neutralize themselves, and it would be a good thing for the world to not have America be like the big swing and superpower. So China would be the only superpower. And China's on the ascent but China's kind of, I just don't understand whether China is the juggernaut that's going to eat everything or like seriously in trouble and about to spin apart itself. I can't figure that one out. Just because just just because there's evidence on both sides like lots of evidence on both sides right. Yeah, for China to go global would be you, it's been always been a regional power, right. And they've never, and they've really never tried to go invade and take over everybody. Ask Vietnam that. Well, the neighbors neighbors neighbors neighbors sort of yeah so so the Vietnamese have successfully held off China for 1000 years, or maybe more. Maybe China wants back Taiwan, Hong Kong all that kind of stuff they're like there's no doubt about that, and they're certainly absorbing Tibet, and all of that, granted, but I don't see China wanting to take over Russia, for example, which would be like, Wow, you could, you could be the largest country by four X or something right to go back to the point made earlier about the International Association of gangsters. You know, if that's what we really should worry about countries that have rule of law versus countries that have rule of men, then breaking up the United States feels like it might be worse for that. But I kind of agree, unless the US is on the long side of that battle, let's pretend Trump wins reelection or a further to the right then Trump person. You know, let's let's pretend Madison Cawthorne is the 48th president of the United States and let him be in charge of the confederacy. Yeah, yeah, and then there's then there's a global confederacy. Right. And Steve, Steve Bannon is the Secretary of Defense or the or the Secretary of State of that. And then then like large hosage proceeds through across the world. I just, I just want you to know that if you take the, you know, laws versus men to its logical conclusion, you don't need a population, because you can just embody the laws as their own system. And you don't need a population to have a country. So, so I could say more. You're not saying we should re reconstitute the US as a doll. I don't think that's what you said. I'm just saying that the, you know, we invoke so blithely the laws instead of men, right. It's the, it has to be laws and or laws for right people. Right. Because, you know, like a corporation being instantiated as a person that at some point you just say look, right. It's all about the laws it has nothing to do with. Right. The people that they serve. You could you could be going down the road of the laws becoming the system and ignoring, you know, the original, you know, group that it was that they were meant to serve. Right. I'm just, I'm just pointing out. I just wanted to say look, this is this is the United States now. Right. And, you know, live there about them. I thought you were finished. I'm sorry. Okay, I'll just do this real quick and then go to you. So there's a thought that's been in my brain for a long time we are involuntarily re negotiating the social contract around the world. And we, you know, lots of protest movements there's the Tiananmen protest the umbrella movement Trump ism occupy Wall Street, the gilet jaune extinction rebellion black lives matter never again error spring the casserole assos in Spain. All of these are basically people really pissed off that the social contract is broken. And so it feels like we're in a small window, maybe three decades of extreme plasticity around the world where things could get rearranged very quickly, kind of like we're jokingly talking about. Yes, a lot of a lot of big things could be different in 30 years. I'm like the current arrangement of transnational governance, the money, how money works who owns the money, you know, the dollar as there as sort of the concurrency all that kind of stuff feels to me like it's in transit right now. And we don't quite know. And of course we don't know how it ends up but but for me, like Chile, a small point on the second pink tide in Latin America. The election of the young guy in Chile is partly to ratify a new constitution that the Chileans wrote because the old woman was written under Pinochet and is a shit constitution and includes climate change as part of it. And a bunch of other really interesting progressive ideas in the new constitution, which, which, you know, 40% of Chileans are going to absolutely despise. So you know the fact is, you know, like the, you were just talking about, you know, the money's in transition, or currency is in transition. Well the fact is, you know, in a lot of places, money is more important than the preceding reason that we have money, which is exchanging value. How do we do that. Right. And, you know, the, if you look at what money's important. Money's only important to the degree that it allows you to do value exchange. And it stops doing that and becomes an end to itself, right. It starts to suck a lot of capacity out of the system. And by the way, tomorrow at 8am Pacific, we're having a call about money, like what is money and what is value and what role does it play for OGM. So if you're interested to join us. Same zoom is this tomorrow at 8am Pacific. We're going to run by hosted by Grace Rachmani who's a really good and interesting thinker who's, you know, not in the same political spot as I am for sure. I mean that's one of the things that's pretty good about this group is that it has a tendency from time to time to go upstream from, you know, something that, you know, is, is the current described problem. It's something that's more thoughtful. Alright, that is a better question. I get really annoyed at people who are enthralled with blockchain, not realizing that it's a subset of, you know, digital ledger technologies, right, and you know that, you know, your blockchain has become a cult. And this subject, I mean both Paul Krugman's column from two days ago, noticing all the blockchain mania Bitcoin mania among right wingers. And the idea that there's a project here to undermine trust in the old currencies. And that movements that undermine trust that this, there's a tie here to fascism that you know when you explode people's trust in what seemed to be the order of things. You open them up to more radical movements. Obviously the hyperinflation in Germany wasn't engineered in the same way, though obviously the folks who imposed the Treaty of Versailles on Germany didn't know what that was going to do. And Dave Troy, who some folks may remember has been writing interestingly about this I don't completely buy everything he says, but he's predicting that when the whole Bitcoin bubble collapses, it will fuel a wave of disenchanted believers who will this this will be a recruiting opportunity for the banners. So the melting of crypto currencies, which some predict would then lead to a surge on the far right and populism because these people would be pissed and broke. Right. Yeah. Crypto currency will persist because we made bear bonds illegal and this is the, you know, the dark currency that's necessary for criminal activity. Right. So it's not going to necessarily go away. But is it for you. Right. Will it go away as an investment. Yeah, well that that it probably should is, it's kind of like describing hydrogen as a fuel. It's not a fuel. It's not a carrier of energy. It doesn't have any, you know, properties that actually function as fuel but it carries energy from point A to point B. So it needs to stop behaving like an investment. And if it actually did function as a currency, right, you know, just transfer a value. Okay, you know, everything is killing it. Right. I mean, it's a Ponzi scheme. Wait, the curse. Shall we talk about NFTs. What the heck. Right next door. We're standing in the hall eating canapes might as well enter the NFT room. I own an NFT. I bought one for the Brooklyn Bridge. I've got some land in Florida that I should NFT. Because NFTs actually, when you boil it down are great as a form of digital signature. I can guarantee that this baseball card has Yogi Vera signature so it's worth a lot of money. I can guarantee that this piece of digital art has a digital artist signature. You can have multiple copies of it just like you have multiple copies of the Yogi Vera baseball card. It has the signature attached to it. Yeah, then it's actually you can prove that it has value. So all those electronic contracts, you know, should be the ones who are jumping into this space to legitimize it as opposed to it looking like the Wild West. Right. Yeah, I mean, it's just it's really silly what they're doing with it. But the technology has a very narrow, but, you know, important value. It's just turned into apes eating apes. So quick round Robin on a one to five. One being NFTs are completely ridiculous and in fact dangerous five being there's a pony here somewhere. Hold up your hand depending on what the number is. Hi. One, two, one, three. Cool. And, and I did four because I think that like most of the stuff that's happening around them are sort of ridiculous, but it like there's a certain take on NFTs, a piece of which she may just talked about that I really really like that solve a bunch of problems in interesting ways. The air gap problem. I mean that that's that's the fundamental law in NFTs if it's entirely digital, if it's on that blockchain, and if the sociology and the institution behind the software continues, then you're in like Flint. Other than that though. You mean if the infrastructure melts then the existence of the NFT goes away. Yeah, but but even even even before that connection between the NFT and whatever it is you try, like, you said, attaching the NFT to something. You can't do that, unless the unless the something is purely digital and it's inside. Well, I was thinking that it would it would be a way of signing digital art. We have lawyers for that. We have lawyers for that. Yeah, but that doesn't really like one of the things that I love about NFTs is, you know, people's thing goes for 66 million. And, and I have one of my alternate zoom backgrounds is exactly that piece of art. You know, that's really kind of cool that somebody that somebody somebody thought the claim on I'm backing this thing, and I'm putting words in their mouth obviously, but somebody thought that that claim was was worth 66 million bucks and probably they can flip it for more, but I can own exactly the same work and that is fine because abundance because bits right now. I have this little fiction in my head that in open global mind as we're trying to build like a global collective memory or brain or something like that. That somebody might want to buy an NFT that was a snapshot of this nascent fledgling little collaborative brain, and that those might actually be a value because randomly created art as an NFT makes no sense to me I don't like them they're they're they're they're they're interesting as artifacts right and then somebody buying an NFT of Jack's first tweet. I can totally see how somebody would do that that makes that that is an historic virtual historic artifact that you know could could pass on and as long as it's not replicated 1000 times and resold 1000 times. You know, if Jack doesn't go in and say, oh, I'm just going to do that again, and suddenly like all bets for off because then we've decoupled the uniqueness of it. Anyway, I mean I guess as an early, you know participant and something that's similar. It wasn't called an NFT at the time, but I owned virtual real estate and IBM and an alumni island and pavilion that was built by some of my team members. So what's the punchline, it was built in second life. Right. And you know of course the, you know, the second life, you know, parallel universe collapses. Right. And so, you know, was it worth something, was it worthless. Right. You know it certainly wasn't a lasting investment. Right. But we actually did spend money on architecture. Right. To make the thing look good. Right. With real architects. The AP had a reporter for a while who was supposed to cover what was going on inside second life they had a bureau. Yeah. So anyway, you know, this entire phenomenon has, you know, echoes of, you know, are you building, you know, in a space that is going to have permanent value. Don't know. You know, never, you can't even do that. You don't know the world. You can't even do that in the physical world. You build on a lot of value in 25 years that's gone and you have no one to sell it to sorry copper. You see here about Tucker Carlson saying, well, people who you don't need to have insurance for people who are on the coast and they can just sell their houses if the ocean rises. What's kind of like those thin, you know, condos on 57th Street and around it's kind of like, I wonder what the long term value is of those really narrow, you know, toothpicks in the sky. I don't know the point is that even physical stuff has has an end date just we are right. You know, so is our sell by date running out. No, not a chance. Just to show everybody how force sided I am I own global warming real estate calm, which will of course take advantage of the rising sea levels. Nice. Your guy can talk to Jerry and, you know, we're in, we could turn that into an NFT and sell reef spots like future you could sell, you could put that on advertise that on Fox News and you would get so many investors. I already had like front property on the Atlantic Ocean here in Chapel Hill. Right. I'm ready. I'm exactly 80 feet above sea level. But, but by the way, if you build a seaworthy home, you're good. You want to convert into a boat. One, one, like, like houseboats, you go to Sausalito there's a whole bunch of houseboats sitting in the water they're really nice they're well sided, and you know sea level is going to rise and they're just going to move inland. We're almost back to sea steady here guys. Right. In the open waters, you know. Right. So, who would like to put a completely different topic in the conversation. We know nothing else. Mika, go ahead. Yeah, so I mean this came across my radar in an interesting curious way and I'm wondering if anybody has a sense on this, which is friend of mine, struggling with her home coven test said something like, I couldn't get the app to work. And I didn't dig into the details with her. I think it's on go, which is one of the home antideun tests encourages you to, you know, get their app and somehow sync the information from the test to the app. And, and this is on another list. The one that I put you on Jerry which you never participate in. I had a folder and I know it was overwhelming me entirely. Yes. And, and various people were like, Oh, you, you know, you can do the test without the app. But that that sent me, you know, sort of looking briefly at what's currently going on with health tech. And, you know, I was just really impressed with how much home testing home health monitoring seems to be blossoming. And, you know, home your analysis for everything from prenatal monitoring to, you know, seeing if you have signs of kidney disease, you know, to all these wearable kinds of sensors to being able to basically do a video of your face and they'll be able to read your oxygen level from that, you know, so whether it's telehealth or, you know, just our kids are growing up. Totally comfortable with the idea that mom's going to stick something up your nose every now and then. So I just wonder if, you know, there's some good news on the horizon on the health front as more of this stuff matures. I know there's a double edged sword to it. In that, you know, if you let them collect your data and aggregate it, they can both use that for good and for bad. Relatives who are being imprisoned because DNA people who did 23 and me are forming the missing link that turns DNA evidence into like, Oh, it's this person. Well, that is that a bad thing or a good thing, Jerry. I think socially is probably pretty good. The same thing with the rapid tests. I mean the big problem now is you take a rapid test and whether your test positive or negative you don't have to tell anyone, and no one knows. Okay, so you think, okay, how about this little device like, you know, I picked these up at the library five pack. Yeah, sitting in a bucket there. But I take the test, and you know I just look at it. So it should be like the apple tile should be a little device, a little bit of built electronics squirts the information out to the public health system if there is a public health system, which is a big thing. But there are of course the privacy issues and so what they are doing for example is analyzing the sewage. Sure, yeah, which, you know, is sort of inherently aggregated. And guess what, here they found in the sewage that Omicron was here in November. Yeah, that's interesting. Imagine the sewage archive so that they can go back in time and test what was there before like who maintains the sewage archive. Oh, it's like ice cores. Yeah, much smellier, much smellier put me in charge of the ice cores any day just not the sewage archive. That's great Jerry. I had a personal interaction along these very lines recently you may or may not notice I have this bandage under my eye I had a one sided knife fight with the dermatologist. Because I had a, you know, a sebaceous hyperplasia that got bigger and miscolored if it comes through at all, but I took a picture of it. That looks like it's got to be removed. But it was taking a picture of it and sending that to the dermatologist that actually made the difference, right that describing it is describing it, having the dirt dermatologist look at that and say yeah that's a problem. And telling me in for the. Yeah, the biopsy came back clean. Just last night, fortunately. Okay, but the point is that we have the initial interaction electronically because I had high enough resolution camera on my phone. Yeah, to be able to send him useful information that allowed him to make an initial determination. Yeah, so the thing I thought would happen a lot more under pandemic was preventative health measures or detection through our smart devices, including your tone of voice like there's technology now that will detect detect early onset Alzheimer's by a year or more like by a good stretch you can start you can start to notice essential tremor and a bunch of other stuff, just just from your tone of voice never mind all the other info we have on skin tone and, and, and, and also behavioral stuff like when you start losing stuff or missing stuff or changing your habits you can detect all sorts of stuff. I thought so much more about what would be at hand right now and it doesn't seem to be I'm kind of surprised by. Yeah, even on a complete opt in basis I realized that it might sound like an invasion of privacy, but I would opt into if I knew that Google because I've got a damn pixel phone and I'm all in on Google. And if Google health said hey Jerry, here's the here's the terms, can we tell you if we notice anything that you should be worried about I'd be like completely in. Well, maybe that's just a little bit further along Jerry. I what I'm struck by is that you know even the voluntary monitoring systems around. You know, COVID exposures. Didn't get anywhere, at least here. Yeah. I mean the vaccine passport thing hasn't died. And that may yet come back. I remember when there was like a big rush of concern over it and then it went away and now maybe it's coming back who knows. But I'm trying to see the, the plus side of this. Yeah, I've got the excelsior on my phone to. Yeah. Yeah, but the, the degree to which the, you know, the technology and the interactive tools are now in everybody's hands. And the, the, you know, the idea that, you know, you might have your own little health lab on the kitchen table. Yeah, you will. Right. So much more of that than is actually present so far so. Yeah. Hey, Bo. Sorry it was a little late. I just want to sleep like a bear. I was going to say earlier, does anyone remember the, I think it was around SARS that airports were listening listening for people with productive costs. Hmm. Basically had my microphone set up to detect if somebody had a cost that was more than just a dry pack. In order to zero in and isolate them. And I'm wondering why we stopped doing that. It could also be that it didn't work. Yeah. I mean, there's systems to zero in on where a gunshot happened in dangerous neighborhoods where they put in no microphones up on on towers, and they triangulate where the sound came from to try to figure out where a shooting happened, isn't that good news. So there's lots of ways that tech can be helpful, even some of which are macabre sounding. I had was the other question I had was for Jerry in particular you mentioned that if Google said hey, we think we have some information about you that you'd like to know. Would you feel just as as welcoming to Facebook. Of course they could. What's the difference. I trust, I trust, I trust Google a like several orders of magnitude more than I trust Facebook. For sure. Without a doubt. And I may be being naive about Google but I still trust them, you know that much. And, you know, your mileage may vary and other people might have the opposite opinion and, and, and some people are busy running their own servers because they don't trust any of these entities so there we are. So health tech, anybody else with feelings about health tech and where it is or promises or whatnot. Nobody has strong feelings. I have strong feelings about being depressed about how we invest in the wrong things. I have strong feelings about being like, well, how are we going to monetize that Jerry, because that's the only thing that makes people interested in the perfect delivery to I think we could be doing all kinds of cool things but a quantified self movement could create an opt-in app separate from Apple or Google or whoever that says hey we've discovered a bunch of really cool stuff that you can, that we can figure out together and then I'm surprised that patients like me and cure together sort of died off and we are we're not doing more of that I don't know what I think one of them got bought and one of them went under. So like, like, why are we not actually harnessing all of these capacities between sensors and statistics and everything else to make ourselves better and without necessarily the venture capital incentives that you just so beautifully put in front of us like like we don't that doesn't have to happen. Well, you know, the hacker the hacker spaces could meet quantified self could meet social medicine could meet a couple other things and we'd have all sorts of cool stuff to work with. Except it doesn't happen. What would happen is Facebook. Well, I don't think Facebook is the cause that it's not happening. No, no, it's a symptom. I think it's, you know, it's a mushroom that sucks up all the energy from the mycelium. You know, people need jobs. And, and, you know, in terms of monetization driving things. You know, it's like even scientific publishing now, they're offering you the option. If you want to get peer reviewed more quickly and published more quickly, pay up. Yeah, exactly. No bell prize, right. They're all being driven by their noses. Yeah, this is a science. This is what Fauci is always talking about. So, to pick a controversial subject in the pandemic. We could have crowdsourced a whole bunch of trials or evidence gathering or other sorts of things and some people would be more or less reliable in terms of what happened or what they did. I don't know how you figured that out but but you know we have a pandemic on which has got global repercussions. Why haven't we been trying to like test stuff together. I know. I also I sang it just because I was typing a message in the, in the chat because I have to jump again because I would forget 10 o'clock call but it was fear right here could have done all of these things right like we we've all been functioning at this sort of like fairly limited capacity as we have had to turn into sort of the sorters of information and the just the arbiters of who it is that is trustworthy and trying to like. I keep having to talk myself off the ledge of like what what did I like what was I doing for those two years, like how, right and and looking at actually that I did a lot. There are a lot of things going on and we were functioning at sort of like the greatest possible capacity that we had so it's more interesting to me to think about what we could do differently moving forward right and like I don't know if this had to happen the way it happened right like. But if I go down that road then I never stopped screaming so. I hear you, I feel you. Yeah. That is troubling. Kelly thanks for being here. Sorry. Just for the for the period. If I go down that road it just starts screaming. Oh dear. So what did I miss Jordan did you specify this question about health tech and stuff like that. Health tech was a shift in topic we were we were on a bunch of other things we did a bunch of politics up front about the January 17th deadline and voting rights and filibusters and blue and red and politics behind the scenes and then we didn't we like shifted at like quarter of over toward health tech and what's up and if you'd like to put something else into crypto don't forget. Oh that's right. Don't forget we did nfts we totally fixed nfts. You can buy this recording by the way as an nft. That's good Mark. Amica is there any chance to build back better bills going to get passed at all. I don't expect it to honestly, I think at this point, we might get a few pieces past which would, which would not be terrible. And you know who and again this is another case where it's a bottleneck everybody has heard that a big bill is going to pass so they jam their thing in. And it's now a question of who gets, you know, who wins and who loses in that fight. So we may get a few pieces but we're not going to get the whole thing. And I'm really sad about the child tax care credit because I mean we reduced child poverty by 25%, is there a chance to get saved I mean that's seems to me like, let's start. Man should seem to be standing on that particular issue. He hates poor people he hates poor people he thinks they're, they're, you know, we're just coddling them and. So there's a whole, there's a whole belief system that people should pull themselves up by their bootstraps people who are poor are there through their own doing. People should be personally responsible it has a lot to do with responsibility is one of the big trigger words here. And it's an interesting train of thought and I'm like, I've been thinking for a long time. How do you interrupt that train of thought with some other ideas and so there's some really good TEDx talks about there about poverty is not where there's a lot of health and a bunch of other stuff that's super cool, but it's not working. Remember the universal basic income. For sure. So, one question you might ask is, what happened to that because that's what the child tax credit is. Well, you know, you'd be ice when happening for 30 years at least so and it's slowly gaining more and more uptake. I think it was a winner I think it's going to win. I think it was gaining more but the, the, the political failure right now the reason why the child tax credit is going to go away is because the polling doesn't support it. And our politicians are all driven by polls. So if they saw that it was really, really popular. They fight harder to keep it. But universal health care polls really high with both Republicans and where is it. Well, that's one where you have a very, very powerful oppositions, and they're really, really good at converting support hypothetical support for universal health care into fear of losing access to your own doctor. So there's great they've gotten really good at blurring the picture. So this is just an example of what the Princeton oligarchy study found that the interest groups and the power decides 100% or 99% what legislation gets passed and what gets enforced. Right. Yes, we have democracy money can buy. We have one party that's really clear about that and the other one which is conflicted. Both parties are two heads of that same oligarchy. Ultimately, yeah. And can we get more politicians who get elected with only small donations. And the problem is that the people who are really good at getting small donations right now are the most extreme. So you get the AOC's and the Rand polls. So what the health care credit is first of all, it's, it's really it's implementing Milton Friedman's idea of negative income tax. Yeah, the other thing was what the thing was most really was that made it different than just doing that was it was guaranteeing equality of opportunity for poor kids. Come on. That's what it was about. What I can say is I agree, but it's not an organized constituency. Why did we get further on on stopping evictions is because you've got a lot of people who have been organizing tenants for a really long time. It wasn't just this, it's the common, it's the right thing to do. It doesn't just happen because it's the right thing to do. It's also because you have people who are have organized to elevate and defend that position. So we may get yet another moratorium on evictions. I mean the last one it was really hard you know it took Corey Bush, basically going outside Congress, you know out to the steps and basically saying I'm going to sit here, and she got other members of Congress to join her to shame the Democrats. Nancy Pelosi, who has a beautiful mansion somewhere in Napa Valley. You know, this whole eviction thing would we would, they would have already let it lapse, but it's about who's organized. So when you say, you know, poor, absolutely poor families benefit but who organizes them. That's, that's the problem. And when, and when O'Keeffe killed acorn. I mean acorn was one of the few groups that had built its entire organizing strategy around poor families, basically. So, you know, it's, it's an interest group issue. It seems to me. Why don't we have universal health care. This may surprise you Mark but in New York we have a very strong movement for universal at the state level, and one of the biggest interest groups other than the hospitals and so on, that are against it are the big unions. You know why, because they administer health insurance for their members and it's a key source of, you know, justification for being in the union. And so like, and so like the AARP is just a big insurance company, roughly, like, like these things are really stupid, but but you know major source of income for them. It's like a lot of a lot of funny associations used to sell long distance plans and they made their money from being like your long distance provider. And that was that was like a gravy train for them until long distance got killed by by technology. Hey Jerry, your new place by the way I want to see video of your new place. Oh yeah, it's it's cool so I don't think everybody knows. Two months ago we had no plans on moving but April was sort of like we were we've been in a small place since 2015 740 foot studio flat, which is very nice. It was very small, which we purchased originally when we were living in San Francisco with no intent of moving to Portland as an investment property. And then we switched our plan in 2015 like over the course of two or three months we just said, oops, no, let's move to Portland, and we love it here so we're settled here. Then, April's book published August 24. And then April contacted somebody got a referral to a real estate agent, who said, do you know that there's a unit available in your building you might like. I don't know. And it had been on the market since August so which which maybe explains why April wasn't looking I haven't been looking around. And so. And so we went to look at it and I'm like, this is really nice. And it's more than top of building by the way, it's more than twice the square footage not more than twice the cost, etc, etc, and we made a low offer which was accepted right away. And yeah, and got the, you know, got the loan got the everything it's all it's all kind of done so we're now a week or two into a new place with boxes everywhere but but the stuff that needs to work like where you do the zoom calls and where I cook. And, and all that are nice and settled at this point so so it's kind of cool. And, and yeah and this this place actually has maybe room to entertain Bo. Yeah, that's great. I know, because it looks amazing I just it looks light filled and it just looks beautiful. It's a beautiful place and I think the people who had it before us own a flooring place in Vancouver, Washington just across the river. And so the floors on the lower level are this beautiful hardwood color that's just warm and like you just want to kind of cozy up to the floor strangely. Anyway, so lots of nice things about it. I want to ask me got another political question. Yeah, but I'm going to ask you a market question. Okay, excellent. Good, good, good, good, good. So, pretty much the only kind of following the politics I do you know just casually listen NPR or PBS news hour, and they indicated their analysts I really like indicated that, you know, mannequin was always mannequin, which is name and a tune whatever his name is is always going to be a problem. It just seemed like this, they loaded build back better with everything but the kitchen sink, and it seemed to demonstrate this tension within within the party between the super, you know, AOC is the super. It just seems like the big tent thing kind of crashed this bill with all their dreams being stuffed into this bill. What's going on Mika. You're not completely wrong. You have a generation's worth of deferred priorities packed into that thing. And you know the working theory I guess was you know, Democrats get to make big leaps forward socially. You know once a generation let's seize it. You know we have gaping holes everywhere in terms of our infrastructure our social infrastructure. It's hard to deny all those things. And the argument that the, the liberal left would make back is we started at 6 trillion and mansion initially agreed to 3.5. So now we've whittled it down to less than two. You know, is this a good faith negotiation or what. The other thing, which I think you've got to remember, Bo, is it's 1.9 trillion over 10 years. Oh the markets all talking about that this isn't really this is not that much money. And I mean, they, in December, they voted to give the Pentagon more money than it requested and at a pace that would give them something like eight or 10 trillion over 10 years and nobody's really. Yeah, the Pentagon budget is like, almost a million. That's crazy. Well actually, the defense budget is is the DOE is DOD budget is the nuclear part of the DOE budget. It's the veterans administration and it's some other health is 1.2 trillion per year. You know, and when, when it comes to funding wars, you know, they, they, we go off on them without even knowing how we're going to fund them. Right. So, you know, the best thing that Biden did on this front was get us out of Afghanistan, because now we're at least we're not burning $300 million a day on that. Right. And a lot of the, but also a lot of the war funding was, I don't know how they did this but a lot of the war funding was taken off the books was was buried in other places. Yeah, or, or yes they would, they would basically, they have something called the Pago rule where you know if you're going to spend you have to show you, you didn't have to do that for for the military. The question for you Bo is federal reserve signals seem to be that they're going to hit the brakes. Is this already been factored into people's thinking, or, or what, what do what do we think about inflation. I'm curious what your perspective is. I'm the perfect person to ask these questions to. That was a betting on inflation over a year ago, because of everything was very different about this period of time versus away is an await all the money that the bed printed went straight to bank balance sheets and banks didn't loan anybody any money. So essentially fill the black hole, a financial black hole but it never hit the real economy. This time around when they put money directly in people's bank accounts. This was a whole different ball of wax. And by the way, I applaud this ball of wax because it's how we stopped having the depression. It was, it was, this was, this is what they should have done in the depression, and it didn't. And this time it so it worked so is inflation coming yes inflation's coming. It's not like stagflation is not crazy 70s kind of inflation happening because there are bottlenecks are all kinds of things going on. So the Fed, a lot of what the Fed doing is psychology. They are scaring the hell out of the markets, because inflation psychology is a scary thing. Once everybody starts, this is how it can get kind of 70s life. So the Fed is scaring the hell out of the markets, the markets are is rotating out of growth stocks, rotating out of anything that the earnings aren't solid are going to be there and and growth stocks are earnings are way out in the future, and interest rates go up those earnings worth less so anyways, so the Fed is scaring a shit out of the markets. But real smart people also know what the Fed is trying to do is to break the psychology of inflation. The thing is limiting the Fed is that the Fed can't just do a Volcker and Jack intercepts it to five 6% because the Fed had the government has so much debt that it would literally sink the federal government. The smart people who are looking at history and the history this looks like is the 1940s, and it was called financial oppression so the Fed wants to scare inflation but they can't raise interest rates too high and inflation will probably run higher than interest rates for probably through this entire decade make up. So we had price controls in the 40s didn't we. Yeah, we had all kinds of stuff and essentially in the 40s, they managed to get rich people to pay for the war not only through higher taxes, but through inflation, eating away at their money, because you only were getting like you know 3% on your bonds, but inflation was up to 10%. So this is how governments get out of big debt, because there's there's two ways to get out of big debt policies and say, Hey, everybody, let's raise taxes and pay that debt off. Guess who goes for that. Nobody, no policy and everyone's do that. Or the other way is, inflate the dead away and hold interest. Isn't isn't a bad thing at all. I get that the fact that there's inflation mica indicates that the economy is growing. If we didn't have any inflation. Frankly, I'm kind of weird. It's kind of freaky how people are freaking out making an issue out of this inflation is indicating the economy is running hot. Thank God. Did I answer your question. Yeah, that does answer my question. Thank you. I've got a question for the gentleman in the sweatshirt. So isn't inflation to be expected because minimum wages have finally after incredibly long time been bouncing up a lot of stores are raising the minimum wage for lots of different positions. People in pandemic or there's the great resignation of foot and or the great quit or whatever you want to call it the big quit. People are reconsidering. Do I want to go back to that shitty job that that that like retail stores long go stop hiring people for more than 30 hours a week because then they're your employees you got to pay benefits so everybody's part time adjunct faculty at schools. Nobody's getting the benefits of actual employment or a reasonable wage. And isn't there a huge reshuffling of that. God willing to better paid jobs although I'm not sure those are those are necessarily showing up or opening up. I wouldn't that naturally lead to some inflation that we should manage by saying, yes, this process is going to bump things around, and we're going to settle just fine don't worry about it as opposed to, don't look over in the corner this inflation things going to go away we're going to scare you off it which seems stupid to me. Yeah, in fact, the very smart people I read are just saying, hey, look, finally the workers are getting something. Thank God, because we don't want society to fall apart. Yes, it's going to hurt capital. Yes, it's going to hurt a corporate profit margins, which are all time like 70 year high by the way, they're crazy. And the 1% has done just fine in the last period here. Oh yeah. So, yes, to yes everything you're saying and the kind of the problems happen right now is poor people are getting more money, the unskilled non college educated workers are finally after 50 years getting something. Yeah. And they're the two thirds of America that are voting. In 1974 was the big discharge basically. That's the last time that anybody's wages were matching like the cost of living and suddenly productivity kept going up, but wages stayed the same or went down relative, and just down down down. And right now we're having a little problem because inflation is actually leaking past what those people getting increases and pay. Right now, the first day we're getting a hell of a bit and then I was saying yay. And then now they're actually inflation is kind of hurting them a little bit. Now they're only to despair. So, yeah, that's that story is evolving. And I think that that's going to also be the whole next decade I think that that's going to But I'd love for the Democrats to pick up and say hey, there's like a, we're adjusting to be more human because people were making way too little and and like that means there's going to be bumps and groans and, you know, here's here's our strategy to address that story, but the storyline of don't look over here nothing going on is stupid. Yeah, I agree. I understand that it seems like a really bad strategy and and like Biden has to do a whole bunch of things for some reason, public opinion, including Democrats of his job has fallen his pulse away down. The economy is like booming and lots of measures but everybody thinks the economy's in the shitter. There's a whole bunch of weird things going on that he needs to spend some effort turning around. Yeah, they're really battering him with this inflation thing which they're doing a good job of that. The economy is on is growing, which two years ago, it could have been a long depression. Yeah, but I think the polling is mostly related to exhaustion with COVID and and the, the, the squeeze that so many people are experiencing about that they thought it was going to be over. And, you know, I do think the, the Biden team really did kind of declare victory too soon. And they dropped the ball in a number of places and now you know people are like, when is this ever going to be over. That's, that's his problem now it's really unfortunate you can't say well I inherited a mess you know they didn't have a plan for distributing vaccines when I came in. You know we had to solve the most immediate problems. We got you all vaccine some of you decided not to take them. I mean, personally I've wanted Biden to attack the Republicans for being in favor of the virus you know why are they on the side of the virus. You know, you know they're why they don't do that. I guess it. Somebody's convinced them that that would just depress the number of people getting vaccinated more. But yeah, it's it's bleak. It does feel somewhat bleak doesn't it. The one piece of good news is that is this one on the gerrymandering front, it does look like initial predictions that you know the Republicans were just going to absolutely, you know, take advantage of this process to, you know, get themselves more seats that they've mainly been using gerrymandering to protect their own incumbents. The net effect seems to be a wash. Still, if I were to bet on the house next year I still think the Democrats will lose it, but it is not as far out of reach to hold it as as people thought six months ago. If you look at all those lines, if either mansion or cinema decide to switch parties, then all bets are off. Big shit happens, and I have to imagine that both of them are in the same pressure and that there's like a little pot of gold being held out in front of them by the Republicans like, really, you want to lure them away from the Democratic Party now. Because if you do that right now, the leadership changes. What gets what gets put in front of the whole, you know, the chambers changes like why some of us that Stephen Breyer would resign today bingo bingo. I was trying for good news Jerry. I'm sorry. You know what you made a noble effort but this is not the era of good news. The mansion and cinema know that if they switched over to the Republican Party, they'd be just another face in the crowd. Right now they have everybody catering to them. Yeah mansion is the chair of the energy committee too right so McConnell would have to promise him something like that, which is totally doable I mean that's what that's what these deals look like it's like hey I'll give you these committee assignments you can I say it's because it's so obvious that you know whoever wrote this timeline was very lazy that they named the, you know, the multimillionaire opponent of all things good mansion. I mean, you could have named him. Yeah, yeah. But Jimmy, that would just be too obvious. Yeah, true. Too on the nose. It's a lot of a lot of debate and controversy, but mostly online around the refusal the house to push forward on a bill to to remove the ability of legislators to engage in stock market rates. Yeah, I just saw a thing this morning. Yeah, and do either of you, Mika or Christie. Oh, that's what your, that's what you're doing. I love you have a sense of whether that is even a realistic idea or or is it just a name, you know, name policy Pelosi is against it so that Democrats will not move that issue. Her husband is yes. Yeah, no she's gotten very rich over the last decade or so. I don't know if it's before but now really rich. Yeah. This one. Yeah, I agree. I think this is this is one of those issues where, you know, in in less crazy times, you could see the Bernie Sanders, you know, the right left, attacking the middle on something like this, it has happened. There's a lot more transparency for the Federal Reserve, for example. No, you're totally right. It isn't there a stock fund that is actually based on watching Pelosi's disclosures. That will be very smart. I should go far. Yeah, exactly. Mr. Pelosi, I'll buy that ATF. And don't forget the Federal Reserve I mean they're they up the standards but not very far. They can still trade. It really shocking what we let our politicians and central bakers do. They're all very rich people. Yeah, but wow, it's just pretty shocking what we are letting them get away with. Yeah, I agree. That almost makes you want to get a pitchfork or put on some camo and, and, you know, head down to the Capitol, right? Let's let's call Nick Kano or and see if you can. Come on, man. Testing testing one, two. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, it's maddening. So anybody have like a puppy or. I'm curious, Jimmy's view of don't look up. Oh, man. Painful. All my friends who work in the, in the climate world expressed a tremendous pain about, you know, some of them couldn't watch it they'd start watching and then they stop, but it is one of the most watched movies ever on Netflix. And it's globally, you know, it's been, don't look up. And it, you know, it's been in the top 10 in something like 90 countries over the last few weeks. You know, they have to caprio and Lauren fought in it. So definitely grab people just for the casting. But reaching beyond the the usual suspects is my point. And what I picked up anecdotally is because the politics of the movie are confused. Which is to say it's not clear that the president is just a Trumpy. You know, she has a picture of herself hugging Bill Clinton on her desk in the Oval Office, that it is it is reaching people who voted for Trump, who then want to talk about, well, what are we going to do about climate change. Well, yeah. Good job all the way for a chance. Yeah. Maybe, maybe. Jimé, you didn't watch it or you just hated it. Oh, no, I didn't hate it. I just sounded painful. Painful it is. Yeah. Because it's, you know, I wrote, I wrote a piece for a bulletin the atomic scientists last year that was all about how science fiction people just, you know, writers had not of all the things that they would write about in terms of apocalypse. The one thing they didn't write about with people just simply not believing it was happening, even though it was happening, you know, obvious all around them. And so it felt like, I mean, I know the movie started production well before my article came out in the bulletin, but it felt like it had a similar, on a similar wavelength. Oh yeah. Why. So it just pain. Tom tomorrow actually did a cartoon. With this very premise years ago. Actually, I'll find it if I can, but I enjoyed it, but you know, George Monville wrote a good column about it basically saying I saw my whole life flashed before my eyes that that he's the one who was crying on BBC because everybody wasn't taking the topic seriously. And he was like, I have lived this this is this is my my experience of trying to, you know, wake us all up on on this important topic. It's nice to see a nice to get representation in the in the media about people, those of us who pound our heads against the wall. Hmm. Yeah, I feel seen. Okay. Okay, well on that note. We just we'll just invite our families in for our last dinner as the earth is destroyed. I will point out that the musk Zuckerberg character is the only survivor. I think he really lasts very long though, judging by the. How do you know he looks the same and he's there like, and he's like, Oh, I think that's a flesa seropod, because his prediction comes true. I mean, I think his algorithms are busy creating enough enough plan BCD ease for him that he survives kind of anything. The land are totally naked, which is fine state of nature, whatever the animals, just don't go talk to the animals. He does something like, well, don't talk to the Bronte cards or whatever. They're only coaching and none of those people look like they have any defenses so I think it ends well. Great. Yeah, exactly. Eat the rich as it were. The one another bright spot or maybe the only so far. James Webb telescope. Yeah, that's right. Right. Completely perfect. Not just perfect, but better than perfect unfolding because they actually saved fuel right so they're actually going to run longer. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. This next decade, you may though, or is the likelihood of we're going to find that there's other life it's likely going to be now right. Well for me if we were going to it's going to be pretty soon. I'm, I'm increasingly convinced that we're, we're living in a test simulation of how would Earth develop without any contact from outside civilizations would want to have contact with us man. On that subject I want to recommend the book the anomaly, which was a bestseller in France last year and it has just been translated into English. And I read it over vacation and it's a lot of good fun and the core question that it wrestles with is are we all living in a simulation. I will not give anything further away. I will import. Wow, good. 2014 science fiction. It came out in 2020. Oh, I've got the wrong one. The anomaly. Well let's just hope some parts of the bill back better than they get a couple of them done. Thank you. I am not, I am not corrected the anomaly novel 2020 every look to the thank you. Already folks. Yeah, thank you. Stay alive. Don't get eaten by their service.