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Transcript

Must Come Down · Stuff Keeps Happening

• 0:00
  Hello. I removed the label from the side of my
• 0:03
  mattress. But stuff still happened. So what's
• 0:07
  up? This is what happens when line only go up.
• 0:11
  Last episode I talked a good bit about Nvidia
• 0:13
  being five trillion dollars and all the cross
• 0:16
  investments happening in the space of AI and
• 0:18
  all the big tech companies that are spending
• 0:20
  billions upon billions of dollars and how bubbly
• 0:24
  it is. Guess what? Over the past week, Metta
• 0:27
  had their earnings report, and afterwards their
• 0:29
  stock plummeted 11%. This is because at the earnings
• 0:32
  call, essentially Zuckerberg was like, yeah,
• 0:35
  yeah, yeah, we're spending a bunch of money on
• 0:37
  building out data centers and AI and stuff, but
• 0:39
  here's the thing. We gotta do more of that. It's
• 0:43
  okay, because he went on to explain why they
• 0:45
  have to do more of that. The explanation was,
• 0:48
  because. They're like, look, we're building a
• 0:50
  lot of cool things that are gonna make us a lot
• 0:51
  of money, but we need to keep building out infrastructure
• 0:54
  in the meantime, so that we can do that in the
• 0:57
  future to get the money that we think we're going
• 1:00
  to get. It's that classic, like, third degree
• 1:02
  of made -up money. Anyway, investors didn't love
• 1:05
  that, and MetaStock showed it. It lost 11 % in
• 1:08
  a day, almost 13 % over the week. They're very
• 1:11
  happy that the weekend hit. Now, it may continue
• 1:14
  to crash, or it may have just been a correction,
• 1:15
  but let's talk about another player here, OpenAI
• 1:18
  and Sam Altman. The alternate man is the CEO
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  of OpenAI, which is the company that makes ChatGPT.
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  He's essentially the poster boy for AI in America.
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  And he's perfect for the role of poster boy of
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  AI because all he does is make shit up and lie
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  about how good AI is. OpenAI is looking at over
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  a trillion dollars of spending commitment in
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  all the deals that they've made to spend on infrastructure.
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  They're not making a trillion dollars. They're
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  not making a trillion dollars. They lose money.
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  on every dollar they get right now. They're like
• 1:52
  three dollars out for every dollar in. To hit
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  the revenue targets to be able to do the spending
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  that they're talking about doing, they need to
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  increase revenue by nearly three thousand percent
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  by 2029. Otherwise, oops, all the while, AI is
• 2:08
  not actually doing all that much. A bunch of
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  companies have been trying to roll out AI and
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  haven't really figured out how to stick the landing.
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  If you're not specifically a tech company who
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  is specifically building around AI, it doesn't
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  really make sense for adoption. Yes, there are
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  companies that have like bet big on AI and they
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  have gone gangbusters. And they are very few
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  and far between when compared to all of the companies
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  that have been told to use AI everywhere. Welcome
• 2:34
  to my steel factory. We're an AI first steel
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  factory. That's Raul over there. He's an artificial
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  intelligence now. Say hi, Rahul. And so here
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  we are with hundreds of billions of dollars being
• 2:45
  spent back and forth, building out infrastructures,
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  building a ton of data centers to support something
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  so that AI will do something so that will make
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  revenue from the product, which is something.
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  Sam Altman keeps promising artificial general
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  intelligence as the end goal here, and all these
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  companies are scrambling to try to reach that,
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  presumably? But that's not a thing. It is somewhere
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  between eating up their own hype about what AI
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  actually is, and knowing that they're lying about
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  what AI actually is. But what we effectively
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  have are a bunch of tech CEOs trying to sell
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  the world's biggest case of snake oil. They have
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  a whole bunch of investors on the line saying,
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  just put your faith in us. We're gonna make this
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  happen. This is real, we promise. While year
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  after year, these companies are increasing their
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  operational expenditures, and it doesn't look
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  sustainable. And here's the problem with trying
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  to con an entire planet. You can't quite skip
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  town. Anyway, what else is up? Dear listener,
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  it's the next morning. I record usually the night
• 3:50
  before so that I can edit and post the next day,
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  and that's my fault. It's on me that things happen
• 3:57
  because I record saying one thing and that ensures
• 4:00
  that that's not gonna happen. So as I was recording
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  yesterday I said that the government shutdown
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  does not appear to be ending anytime soon and
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  then eight Senate Democrats decided to side with
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  Republicans to move forward with ending the shutdown
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  with no concession. This right after a massive
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  victory for the Democrats and basically a mandate.
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  for being progressive. The Democrat senators
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  who are voting to cave are all in safe seats.
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  Nothing that's up for reelection soon. Which
• 4:28
  means that's almost definitely what the plan
• 4:30
  was. This is what happens in politics. They pick
• 4:32
  who's going to fall on the sword based on the
• 4:34
  current political landscape. So I just want to
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  be clear that the government's not going to reopen
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  immediately. There's still procedure that has
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  to happen. So like, hang on. I also want to say
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  this about voting because I tried to endorse
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  the idea of voting before all this happened and
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  I'm now seeing a whole lot of people saying like
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  I'm done with voting forever. So I want to talk
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  about that real quick. My stance on voting remains
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  that it is the minimum viable participation.
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  Voting is not a big deal, and it is not the end
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  of your ability to impact the world we live in.
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  It's a thing that happens every once in a while,
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  and you check a box, and then you go back to
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  doing meaningful work. Because we don't vote
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  our way out of the situation we find ourselves
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  in. We have to work to create the conditions
• 5:14
  that undermine the systems in place that are
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  keeping us down. A lot of people are saying that
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  they'll never vote for the Democrats ever again,
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  and like, I'm not a Democrat, I don't give a
• 5:21
  shit who you vote for, but consider the following.
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  It might be a lot easier to take over the Dem
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  Party from within than to go third party. Now
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  there's a lot of ways to go about doing things,
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  but if you look at what happened with the GOP,
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  MAGA essentially took over the existing party.
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  And we've seen from Mamdani that a progressive
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  can trounce an election as a Democrat. So like,
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  might as well just pick up the infrastructure
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  and name recognition that they've got. and run
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  with it. So look, I'm not a registered Democrat
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  and I would actually recommend that if you are
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  in a relatively safe blue state and especially
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  a state that has open primaries, if you're a
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  registered Democrat and you're fucking pissed,
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  just switch to independent. Those numbers will
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  terrify them. Seeing people change their party
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  registration will terrify them and show them
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  that they need to fucking change. Because establishment
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  Democrats want to do everything they can to change
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  exactly nothing because they don't want to disrupt
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  what they've set up for themselves, which is
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  a non -stop flow of donor funds. But if you make
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  it overtly clear that they'll lose even the ability
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  to get donor funds at all, they might actually
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  do something. Or better yet, primary the fuck
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  out of them. And better yet than that, primary
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  the fuck out of them and then vote to completely
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  change the entirety of how our government is
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  structured because this is fucked and not working
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  for anyone. Now let's move on. This past Tuesday
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  in the United States of America, we had our elections
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  and it was a Democrat blowout. Democrats outperformed
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  across the board. In basically every state, there's
• 6:52
  a narrative on the right saying that it's just
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  a night where Dems won in Dem states. That's
• 6:58
  not true. When you dig down into the data, when
• 7:00
  you dig down into the margins of victory, it
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  is a bleak picture for the Republican Party.
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  And then, of course, in addition to Dems just
• 7:08
  overperforming everywhere, Zoran Mamdani is now
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  the mayor of New York City, or will be on January
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  1st. He's the mayor -elect. Mamdani, you might
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  know him as a horrifying... terrorist who's going
• 7:21
  to destroy the entire country now that he got
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  the popular support from people in his city to
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  make him the mayor. That guy. And he's also a
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  goober. Mamdani got over a million votes for
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  mayor of New York City. The city has a little
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  over 8 million people living there. Not all of
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  them can vote or will vote. The million vote
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  threshold in the New York City mayoral election
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  is like, it's a goalpost. If you can hit that,
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  that's a mandate. It's rare to see and it's honestly
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  incredible given that Zoran Mamdani was running
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  against his own fucking party. He beat Andrew
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  Cuomo in the primary. Cuomo then turned around
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  and ran as an independent and enjoyed endorsements
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  from Democrats and Republicans alike. Billionaires
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  and establishment politicians worked overtime
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  to try to undermine Mamdani's campaign and it
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  didn't work. Billionaires dumped millions of
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  dollars into trying to go against this guy who
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  just kind of smiles and is relatable. Oh, and
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  his policy is about addressing the cost of living
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  crisis, that thing that affects us all. And so
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  we've got Andrew Cuomo, who basically was trying
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  to run on a platform of I'm Andrew Cuomo, and
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  then later turned his platform into Zorad Mamdani
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  is going to do 9 -11 again. I guess it didn't
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  resonate with voters as much as like, hey, you
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  shouldn't have to pay like half of your income
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  for rent. But regardless, conservatives are having
• 8:42
  a very normal one about it as they are advocating
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  for denaturalizing and deporting him, just stripping
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  him of his citizenship. They've come up with
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  some story about how he like lied on his paperwork
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  or something and therefore they should be able
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  to remove the citizenship of a duly elected official
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  and deport him from the country, despite these
• 9:00
  people also hating cities. Mondani's platform
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  is essentially just like bring New York City
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  to on par with most other major cities in the
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  world that have like accessible public transport
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  and services. Maybe like invest in the working
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  class a little bit. Maybe. Let's talk about UPS
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  and Fireball. In the early evening of this past
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  Wednesday in Louisville, Kentucky, a UPS -run
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  aircraft crashed and exploded. All three crew
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  members on board and at least 11 people on the
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  ground were killed in a dramatic explosion. What
• 9:30
  we know about the crash is that right after they
• 9:33
  started doing their takeoff procedure, one of
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  the engines straight up fell off and started
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  dragging along and sparked a fire and then a
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  few seconds later, boom. The plane crashed right
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  through two nearby businesses absolutely annihilating
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  them. It's really tragic. It's really fucked
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  up. We don't know all the specifics, like we
• 9:51
  know what exactly happened in terms of causing
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  the crash, but we don't know what conditions
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  led to this happening. There's an investigation
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  ongoing and it's gonna take a while, likely months
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  if not longer. In the meantime, UPS and FedEx
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  have grounded all of the aircraft of that same
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  variety. It was an MD -11. But speaking of grounding
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  aircrafts, the FAA, the Federal Aviation Administration,
• 10:12
  has announced that they're going to start restricting
• 10:14
  commercial airline usage in America as long as
• 10:18
  the government shut down. If you had travel plans,
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  I'm very sorry. The FAA straight up came out
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  and said, hey. Airlines. You need to cut 4 %
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  of your flights. And we're going to ramp that
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  up over time until you need to cut 10 % of your
• 10:32
  flights starting on November 14th. So we're already
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  seeing hundreds of flights cancelled. It's going
• 10:36
  to get up into the thousands of flights cancelled.
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  The only thing that comes close to this level
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  of impact to air travel in the States was the
• 10:43
  beginning of COVID. Now this is happening because
• 10:45
  of the government shutdown, air traffic controllers
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  aren't getting paid because they're government
• 10:49
  employees, and not having air traffic controllers
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  being paid makes for dangerous airspace, and
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  the FAA is using that as a bargaining chip to
• 10:57
  try to tip the scales and make the government
• 10:58
  shutdown more risky to continue politically.
• 11:02
  Because doing that with our food stamps wasn't
• 11:05
  enough. The government is actively arguing to
• 11:08
  claw back Food stamp money? And say, hey, states,
• 11:12
  states who tried to help people get food, undo
• 11:14
  that. While the FAA is like, nope, can't travel.
• 11:17
  Fuck your Thanksgiving. So we're having a real
• 11:19
  normal one over here stateside. Unrelated, does
• 11:22
  anyone have a flat and need a roommate anywhere
• 11:25
  else? I've got a dog. Let's talk about the state
• 11:28
  of things in Gaza. It's been a handful of episodes
• 11:30
  since I've talked about Gaza. I just want to
• 11:32
  give an update. There was the ceasefire that
• 11:33
  we saw. I'm going to put that in huge air quotes.
• 11:37
  That was me doing air quotes. Since the ceasefire
• 11:39
  between Israel and Gaza was announced, surprise
• 11:42
  Israel has been bombing Gaza. They've been shooting
• 11:45
  and shelling all over Gaza. On the 28th of October,
• 11:49
  they killed hundreds of people with airstrikes.
• 11:52
  Israel's justification for this is that they
• 11:54
  were responding to activity from Hamas. They
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  provided no evidence. I feel like I don't even
• 11:59
  need to say that at this point. The ceasefire
• 12:01
  agreement was supposed to allow 600 trucks of
• 12:03
  aid a day into Gaza, and that's not happening.
• 12:06
  It's more like a hundred a day. That's because
• 12:08
  the Israeli military is preventing the aid from
• 12:10
  actually making its way in, and they haven't
• 12:12
  opened all the ports of crossing that they said
• 12:14
  they would open. And so food, medicine, and fuel
• 12:17
  is just languishing in warehouses, not making
• 12:20
  its way into the people who need it. Meanwhile,
• 12:22
  in Israel there is political turmoil. It's not
• 12:24
  because of what I just said, it is instead because
• 12:27
  of leaked footage of a brutal sexual assault
• 12:30
  of a Palestinian prisoner at the hands of the
• 12:33
  IDF. A top Israeli official leaked this video
• 12:36
  showing soldiers brutalizing a man. I'm not going
• 12:39
  to even describe it. The response to the leaked
• 12:41
  footage was not to say this is unacceptable and
• 12:44
  we're going to clean ranks in our army, it was
• 12:47
  to criticize the leaker. Netanyahu's assessment
• 12:49
  of the situation is that this is a huge public
• 12:51
  relations attack on Israel by way of showing
• 12:54
  the world what Israel does to its prisoners.
• 12:57
  I don't have the capacity to reconcile this level
• 13:01
  of repugnance. So let's talk about video games.
• 13:03
  I need a change of subject. True fans of my work
• 13:07
  would know that back at the end of 2024, I put
• 13:09
  up a video giving a handful of predictions of
• 13:12
  what would happen this year. One of those has
• 13:14
  come true. Roll the clip. We've been told that
• 13:17
  GTA 6 is for sure coming out in 2025. This is
• 13:21
  an easy one. I don't think that's happening.
• 13:22
  Now, that was the easiest prediction, like, of
• 13:25
  all time, but I'm right. GTA 6 has been delayed
• 13:29
  effectively a year. It'll now come out on November
• 13:31
  19th, 2026. Sorry, let me rephrase that. It'll
• 13:36
  now be delayed again, some time before November
• 13:39
  19th, 2026. All the while, Squeenix is squeening
• 13:44
  up. What? Square Enix is doing a bunch of layoffs.
• 13:46
  They are laying off a bunch of people in the
• 13:48
  US and the UK as they're consolidating their
• 13:50
  development efforts in Japan. Notably, in the
• 13:53
  same presentation where they announced these
• 13:55
  layoffs, They also said that they're trying to
• 13:57
  move towards having AI cover 70 % of their quality
• 14:01
  assurance work in the next handful of years.
• 14:04
  That's a bad idea. That's a bad idea. That's
• 14:06
  a bad idea. It's not a good one. But lastly,
• 14:09
  they truly did the switch again. I want to preface
• 14:14
  this by just saying this is not me glazing, this
• 14:16
  is just... Reading statistics. The Nintendo Switch
• 14:18
  2 is like the strongest console launch in history.
• 14:22
  Nintendo put out sales numbers recently showing
• 14:23
  that the Switch 2 has sold over 10 million units
• 14:27
  in its first four months. By comparison, the
• 14:29
  PS5 took twice as long to sell less than that.
• 14:33
  Granted, the PS5 had a lot of supply chain issues
• 14:35
  at the start of its launch. But Nintendo has
• 14:37
  had to continuously increase their sales projections
• 14:40
  as they've been outperforming sales this whole
• 14:42
  time. Now... I know there's a lot of people who
• 14:44
  are really upset about the Switch 2. They are
• 14:46
  upset about its pricing, they're upset about
• 14:48
  the game pricing, they're upset about the technical
• 14:50
  capabilities, they're upset about many different
• 14:53
  things. And I'm not telling you that you're wrong
• 14:55
  for wanting more from Nintendo, or wanting Nintendo
• 14:57
  to not be such a shitty company. Because they
• 14:59
  are very litigious, and very greedy. And there
• 15:02
  was a lot of argument before the Switch 2's launch
• 15:04
  that people should push back against buying a
• 15:06
  Switch 2 or something like that, but like...
• 15:08
  This was always going to happen. A lot of people
• 15:11
  have a Switch, and therefore have a games library.
• 15:14
  The Switch is also aging out. Its hardware wasn't
• 15:16
  particularly good when it came out, and it's
• 15:18
  now like a decade old. So there's a lot of people
• 15:21
  with a games library, and here comes Nintendo
• 15:23
  saying, hey, it's a Switch, but again, and now
• 15:26
  can do 4K output, and it plays all your games.
• 15:29
  Here you go. Yeah, that was gonna, that was gonna
• 15:31
  fly off the fucking shelves. Lightning round.
• 15:35
  Reminder, lithium ion batteries sometimes just
• 15:37
  like... explode, and a dude in an airport in
• 15:40
  Australia had that happen to him, and he caught
• 15:42
  fire. Sorry, my guy. If you live in Paris, you
• 15:45
  can apparently now make a donation to try to
• 15:48
  restore an old gravestone in city limits, and
• 15:51
  you'd get a chance at getting your own grave
• 15:53
  plot in city limits. There's like a very limited
• 15:56
  number of plots available, and they want to restore
• 15:58
  gravestones, so they're like, hey, we'll auction
• 16:00
  off some grave plots if you want to give some
• 16:03
  money. I want to be buried in Paris. Denmark
• 16:05
  has become the latest country to pass a law banning
• 16:08
  social media for users under the age of 15. And
• 16:11
  finally for today, scientists are doing research
• 16:13
  into how to create textual descriptions of what
• 16:16
  someone is looking at based on brain scans. Neat!
• 16:20
  Neat! Neat! Thank you so much for listening to
• 16:22
  today's episode of Stuff Keeps Happening. Head
• 16:24
  to skh .news for sources, bonus content, and
• 16:28
  a textual description of what I'm looking at
• 16:30
  based on my brain scan. My name is Endeavorance,
• 16:33
  we'll talk again soon, take care, and be well.