Latest / Coconut Justice / CJP #76: Sparky Mitra ( CA-50 )
Transcript
- Carlos: Hey you guys she's back Sparky Mitra Hello Sparky Mitra: Yes, hi. Thank you, thank you. I'm excited to be back, super excited to talk about what happened in the race I ran and just to talk about the ecosystem and anything else that we stumble upon throughout. Hell yeah. Y'all. Carlos: It's nice to have you back. We're gonna geek out, you guys, 'cause she's an engineer. She's one of those smart ones. She's I got visa and you know how I get when I get surrounded by smart people. Hey, what's good? Sparky Mitra is a biology engineer that has just started pursuing her PhD. That means that her brain has been optimized to solve problems. That's why she decided to run for Congress to represent California's 50th district, which is down in San Diego. This is my conversation with Sparky Mitra. Before we get into it, I like being dumb. Sparky Mitra: No, dude, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Carlos: No, no, no. But I mean, I mean, that's a funny way of saying like I love when someone is well versed or well read in a certain ⁓ topic. Cause then I'm I'm I'm always available to learn. Whatever it is, I'm always available to learn. I wanna learn. I wanna learn how, you know, I there's this guy out here, ⁓ up ⁓ Remember to go to coconutjustice.com to get you some clothes that I think would look good on you. Let's go. Northern California. You guys, Sparky is down by San Diego. Yeah. But up here, everyone has their own olive tree, and some people have enough olive trees to make their own olive oil. You know? So I wanted to learn how to make olive oil and I kept asking these questions. And this guy who makes his own olive oil, he thought I was kidding. And I was like, I hey, where I come from, we don't have our own olive trees. We gotta go to the store for this stuff. Yeah. Sparky Mitra: That's correct. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Wait, that's so sick. I love that. ⁓ my goodness. Carlos: Ha ha ha. Yeah, yeah, yeah. San Diego's a little different. San Diego's more desert. San Diego's wonderful if you love constantly wonderful weather. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, for sure. Yes, that is that is one of the perks of San Diego for sure Carlos: Yeah, I lived out there for about three, four months. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ Rancho Pi Penesquitos, does that make sense? Yeah. Sparky Mitra: Yes. Yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes, in my district actually. To San Diego, I came for undergrad and then I've kind of been here since. ⁓ Carlos: Yeah. That's cool. So what brought you down there? Yeah. Sparky Mitra: I've like ventured out for grad school and various different things, but I've always kind of been based here either for undergrad, but then working for a nonprofit and med tech companies in the area while I was venturing off and doing grad school. So I feel like I can't sit still for too long. So, and I can't be doing one thing at a time. So even during grad school, I was still working in San Diego and all the things. Yeah, right? Carlos: Ha ha ha. ⁓ We're gonna have fun in this conversation because I was like that too. Boy. I've lived everywhere. Yeah. You just have to you just have to figure it out. You know? Well. So you're originally from Sparky Mitra: Wait, that's so cool. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, 100%. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Texas. So I'm from Spring, Texas outside of Houston. ⁓ A little more than like an hour, between an hour and two hours outside of Houston. No, so when I was like, so we kind of settled down when I was six years old, but before that, yeah, yeah, because it was the whole H1B visa process where we had to like basically follow wherever. Carlos: Born and raised? Yeah. So you had a travelling traveling one of your parents was a Okay. Sparky Mitra: my dad's job went at the time because his visa traveled with whatever work he got. So, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Carlos: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I've on on my channel, if you dig deep enough, you'll hear me bitching and complaining about H one B visas and stuff. But but and I'm glad that you're here because I get to explain it to someone who's who knows exactly what I'm talking about. Right? So if you don't know, H one B visas are basically when a corporate America Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Exactly. Carlos: goes and finds a specific person for a specific job and they're wonderful at that job. My my argument is not with that person that they found. My argument is with our government that does not create the people that qualify for that job. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes, exactly. Yes, yes. And there's actually been, I feel like there's actually been a lot of discourse on that. ⁓ Even like among progressives that why aren't we investing in our education? Why aren't we investing in people who are here ⁓ to be successful at these jobs? ⁓ it's not, and I mean, I think it's definitely like, there's two reasons. First, of course, there's just not the investment. Carlos: Make sense? Sparky Mitra: The corporate interests don't want that. But not just to keep Americans uneducated, they can also, like my dad definitely came at a fraction of the cost that ⁓ an American would be able to be hireable for the same job for at that time. ⁓ So they maintain, they're winning by keeping us under their thumb by not educating us, but also by ⁓ bringing in migrants who are Carlos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Sparky Mitra: also like just struggling to Carlos: Who's right, whose country invested in education enough to make them qualify for this job? And that let that little bit of money, that fra the fraction of money that they make compared to, say what I would make. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Carlos: If you're running a company, it makes sense. But that's why we can't have companies running the government. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Exactly, yes. Mm-hmm, 100%. Carlos: Like how you gonna stack the deck and then point your f and then point your cheating finger at people and say, See, you g you can't do it. You're dumb and you're lazy. Sparky Mitra: Exactly, exactly. Yeah. They want to have it all- It's only- That's like the only group of people it's benefiting, Carlos: Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's mind boggling to see like and this is this is the part that normal people don't see. Like when you don't hang out with the true decision makers. And I understand, I understand the your your dock manager at that shipping company. I know, I understand. It might seem like he makes the rules. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Carlos: But when you are in a room full of decision makers, it's a different conversation. So they have figured out how to bend the rules so they continue to win. They want to make the decisions, but they don't want to have to deal with the consequences of their decisions. Right. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Exactly. And they'll always point the finger to that middle kind of person that you were talking about. They'll be like, ⁓ they're the ones making the decision when the strings are being pulled by this backroom that you don't see. Carlos: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like if you if you relate it to the stock market, if you're playing the stock market and you see new if you see a new bit of information that might benefit your portfolio on the news, it's already too late. 'Cause there's decisions being made and you don't see the shuffled the deck being shuffled. Sparky Mitra: Exactly. Oh yeah, 100%. And I mean, in terms of like the stock market, I think that, and we'll see how things play out, but I think that even people who are like investing in certain NASDAQ stocks right now, because they think that they're going to make it big, I'm like, no, the people who are making it big invested before. Yeah, yeah, no, they invested before it was open to the public, y'all. Carlos: Have already made it. Yeah. It's a a what did there's a old ⁓ he's not around anymore for but George Carlin, the comedian. He said it's a cool kids club and you don't belong to it. They're not gonna just let it look at what happened with the Robin Hood app. When normal people started winning, they shut that shit down. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Exactly, yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Yes. Mm-hmm. Carlos: They don't want normal people to win. Isn't it crazy? Sparky Mitra: ⁓ exactly. ⁓ my gosh. Uh-huh. It's insane. And I feel like people are waking up, especially when they really see a possibility to actually be represented right in front of them. But it's really hard to even get to that point where you have the information to help yourself. mean... ⁓ Carlos: Right. Sparky Mitra: The example that I constantly bring up is that in California during the two presidential elections where Bernie was in the primaries, he won California. ⁓ But that's because he had name recognition. That's because he had so many other things as a progressive. That is not necessarily the case for smaller progressive movements or candidates or whatever have you throughout the state. ⁓ I think it's crazy that in a state that Bernie won a prime one, I believe, I both primaries in, but definitely the second one in. ⁓ I think it's crazy that our governor can say that he doesn't support the billionaire's tax. That doesn't make any fucking sense to me. How can you be a governor of a state, which has repeatedly shown that it is for progressive legislation that will benefit working families, and you're gonna say this dumb shit. I don't know, that's crazy. Carlos: And this is my and this is my thing. This is my this is ugh. It's there's only proof. There's only proof that having a few people on top making decisions and trying to benefit the group, there's nothing but proof that it just doesn't work. Instead, and I've been saying this to people and I'm glad that there's an engineer 'cause now we get to like problem solve and you know we ⁓ Sparky Mitra: Exactly. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Carlos: We can we'll figure it out. Right. We c we changed the way the government ⁓ creates their programs and all that silly stuff. The shit doesn't work. You have to beg for money by grants and all this stuff. Instead, and instead of doing like food stamps and and ABT and all this stuff, everyone has if you're an American citizen, you have your card and whatever programs you're ⁓ you're s you sign up for. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Carlos: If it's school, if it's whatever, if it's public aid, if it's unemployment, whatever, that money goes to your account. We know that that works because it it's already working. So that way the consumer base or all the all the citizens, they'll go and we'll know where to spend more of the resources because that's where the crowd is going. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Exactly. Carlos: Right? Supposedly there's a bunch of programs and stuff out there that are just there for something and nobody knows that they're there. Nobody knows what they qualify for. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. No, exactly. And I think that, I it also just goes back to... So I think that I totally agree with you. There is a huge group of folks. I feel like most Americans in one way or another. will qualify for like some of this aid in some way shape or form, but it is truly only a very interesting kind of group of folks that know about it. They're educated, yes they have come on hard times, at the same time they know where to find information, they know how to ask for help, ⁓ and they haven't also been told by society that asking for help is a bad thing because that's also something that most working folks have been told their whole lives. Carlos: Ha ha. Sparky Mitra: So, so, because, because I think if you're, if you are educated, you, it's very easy to say that, ⁓ this will be something that I can use to get back on my feet. Whereas I feel like for the common working class person. they've been told, ⁓ you're like what you were saying earlier, lazy, constantly reliant on us, constantly depriving us of X, Y, and Z, when in reality that is literally the government's job to make sure that its people are succeeding and healthy. Carlos: Yeah. And it's only proof. And it's only proof that we start out with a bunch of money. We d r you live in California. We have a bunch of money for homeless people, and what do we have an abundance of? Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Exactly, homeless people, yes, yes, yes, yes. Carlos: The program must have they must have wrote it like upside down or something 'cause the shit is like instead of like and and what's funny is these Republicans they love all these voucher programs and everything. Okay, well, here's a voucher program. Here's a card. We're we're giving you directly your money. If you wanna go to a school, you charge it to the card or your account or whatever the hell it is, whatever the hell it is. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Yes, yes, it's insane. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Carlos: But the point is, you know, I talked to Bree Woodson. She ran in in Georgia. Sparky Mitra: Yes, I'm familiar with Brie. Super cool. Super cool. Carlos: Yeah, she's amazing. I love her. But she was saying like flipping that triangle. And that's the good way is like directly investing in your people and letting them do the the or giving them the c and if your population is too dumb to to figure it out, then you know for a fact again that you need more school. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Exactly, yes. Carlos: So you put a little money in that cart, poop, go to school, dum dum. Sparky Mitra: No, exactly. I mean, I also feel as though, I mean, there's this like weird rhetoric, especially right now, especially on the conservative side, especially among Republicans, where they will constantly say that, ⁓ unless you're an engineer or a doctor, you don't need to go to school. Carlos: Mm-hmm. Sparky Mitra: To me, there is some, like, yes, if you're investing in trades, if you're really, if you care about unionized labor, yes, absolutely, I'm with you 100%. If you're investing in various city college programs, associates degrees, technical schools, trade schools, I'm with you 100%, that's what happens in a lot of Scandinavian countries where you can essentially pick. ⁓ If you're gonna go to trade school, if you're gonna pursue a four-year degree, what have you. Carlos: Mm-hmm. Sparky Mitra: I don't feel like we're at that point because like I feel like in this country in high school you have military recruiters coming because because there's because that's what the country wants the country wants us to not get an education it can be a technical education too it can be it can be a trade ⁓ but they just don't want that they would rather us like be beholden to defense contractors and Right, and just out these like very kind of disruptive and destructive corporate interests and even Carlos: Because that's how they learn to get their way. Sparky Mitra: Exactly. 100 % yes, yes. Just through like military brute force kind of. Carlos: That's it. Because you can sit in Yeah. You can sit in Congress and argue and all that hey no, look, it's because of da da da and it's because the water's dirty and it's because of whatever and it's we but if you walk up and punch someone in the face and knock ⁓ out, now it's your way. You know? I was in French Polynesia and this guy was telling me the history of one of the islands, Morea. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Carlos: And he says, you know, we're we're out here, we didn't even have the coconuts over the over the women's breasts. Like we were out here naked as a jaybird. And then these folks showed up with these guns. And when you have a gun, you make the decisions. So everybody had to cover up and everything, you know? Sparky Mitra: No, exactly. I mean, even I don't know the exact history, but even in India, right? So we see these saris and nowadays, I mean, it's very common to have a blouse underneath the sari. But before that was very much for only certain types of work in India. If you were a woman in. ⁓ certain industries, yes, you had to wear a blouse, but before the British came, almost no women wore blouses in India. And it's just like this Western way of thinking of, ⁓ it's like my way or the highway, and I know better than you, even though I have so many thoughts on that because Europe did not know what like sewage systems were. Carlos: Yeah. Ha ha. That's what I'm saying. People that were throwing their pee out the window are trying to tell people that they're savages. You brought the disease. Sparky Mitra: Exactly! Right! Right! Exactly! I'm just like... The disconnect is crazy, y'all. Carlos: And again, that's part of that's part of why they don't want to teach that part of history. And and it's not even that you know, for me I don't I don't look back and judge I look back and say, Okay, that's where we were. We've come a long way. Sparky Mitra: Exactly. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, 100%. And... We absolutely have come a long way and I do think, especially with kind of getting global perspectives on technology, on even something as basic as human rights. That was not universally, and even now there's struggles across both here and abroad. ⁓ But learning from other countries and their struggles and their people's ⁓ fights, we've definitely been able to improve. It just is really frustrating when we're like, we would rather ignore that and go back to... Carlos: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Go back to a way that the reason why we're here is because that way didn't work. Sparky Mitra: Right. Exactly. Yes, yes, yes. Right. Carlos: Yeah. I d yeah. I ⁓ for me, again, going back to the engineering brain, right? Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Carlos: For me. If you have a group of people that is looking at a different group of people and saying, What's your problem? Why aren't you doing better for yourselves and your communities? Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Carlos: For that group not to say, Let's fix this. You know what mean? I've been on this trip lately where all these people are on the news talking all this shit, talking about how wonderful they are. They're trying to figure out how different ways to kick people like you and me out of the country and all this stuff. Right? All that Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Carlos: And under your rules, we haven't seen anything but famine, struggle. Being poor. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Carlos: Being destitute, being homeless. So your way of doing it doesn't do doesn't do anything but leave a wake of like misery. Sparky Mitra: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yes, yes, absolutely. And kind of going to that engineering brain kind of part, I mean, it's not even, I feel like a lot of times in these spaces with kind of corporate Dems or of course, like Republicans. Carlos: Winner take all sucks, dude. Sparky Mitra: there will either be this kind of demonization of folks that are struggling, or there will be this constant want in these spaces to keep reevaluating what the quote unquote true problem is. Whereas we know what the problems are. The problems are right in front of us. We don't need another study telling us that homelessness is an issue. We can see it in front of us. Rather than that, Carlos: Yeah. Sparky Mitra: why not invest in creating something that we can start with one person, we can start with two people, but that is going to help lift people up and then expand that and actually bring people up rather than constantly being like, ⁓ I know that's an issue, but we don't really know if that's an issue. We don't really know. Carlos: Yeah. They're get they go into the black and brown communities and when it comes to setting up cops and tanks and cameras, there's ⁓ unlimited amounts of money. But when it comes to books and movies and art and proper sidewalks, then all of a sudden we just don't have money. Sparky Mitra: Exactly. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Exactly, exactly. ⁓ kind of just to kind of give an example of how this may be related to how I was even running my campaign. especially, I believe Republicans do this too, but if you're running as a Democrat, it is very much a good practice to get everything union printed for your campaigns. And... ⁓ And that does make it hard for certain ⁓ grassroots campaigns, because it is more expensive, which makes sense, it's unionized labor. Love that, great, we should be doing that as much as possible. At the same time, you have certain folks... even Democrats in the San Diego region who will get everything union printed, but that won't actually listen to what the unions even want. So flock and ALPRs, that stuff is really a big problem even in San Diego. It's something we're constantly fighting back against, kind of this over surveillance and cameras that you were talking about. And ⁓ our labor council is a part of the coalition that is kind of against that. It's called the Trust Coalition in San Diego. And... The Trust Coalition pushes back against that, pushes back against over surveillance at any time it's brought up to city council or local government. And then you have folks who are very anal about this getting things labor printed and everything. And for me, I got everything printed by labor, except for my t-shirts. I got my t-shirts printed by a local business owner who, ⁓ his name is Mozilla. He's really great. He's been great for, especially for the black community in San Diego. But what he does is a big part of what he does outside of his t-shirt business is he literally chases cops out of his community. That's his and he has taken it upon himself to to kind of get that out of the fucking community and make sure the kids are protected. And there's other gangsters in the area who've literally put down arms against opposing gangs. And this is actually outside of my district, but still very much in the San Diego region ⁓ who have been like, y'all, our black kids are dying. Let's work together to solve this and put Carlos: Yeah. Sparky Mitra: put all of our resources and tools into doing this and protecting our kids and... But I know if someone saw my shirts, yes, if I gave them that story maybe they'd back off. The first thing they'd be like is why isn't it union printed? I'm like, are you supporting what your union actually fucking supports? like... ⁓ Because they don't want you supporting over surveillance in the communities, dude. Carlos: Ha ha ha. Yeah. Yeah. Again, as the engineering brain, I see some data. If you if you look at our citizens as data, the data's not it's not clean data. It's not efficient data. So you have to fix the data. You have to concentrate. What are we, you know, well like what are we looking for? What are we trying to track? What are we trying to improve? Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Carlos: That's just it. I just a problem solver brain. It's like we keep this here. This is the bottleneck right here. We need to fix this right here. Get people a little more knowledgeable to teach them how to learn and how to crave learning so they don't get tricked into dumb shit all the time. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yes, yes, exactly. Carlos: Be able to discern like and AI is getting good, don't get me wrong. But but being able to research an issue and coming out and like actually like processing that information just of like why is this guy only rich when he's selling me tennis shoes and meme coins? Like nobody sitting back and saying, like, I'm broke as shit and this guy has tripled his nest net worth. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And somehow when you go into meetings with this person, they're like, we're struggling, the economy's bad. Carlos: Like And that's another thing. Poor people need to stop thinking that the economy has anything to do with them. Economy, when people say economy is good, that's how much rich people are spending. Not you. That's not you. You're still struggling. Gas is expensive as shit and you have to pay for it. Company owners are putting that gas on the company. That shit like the game is different, you guys. Sparky Mitra: Exactly. Yes. Yes. Yes. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. No, it totally is. And it's so strange to me because I feel that there's certain communities. I do feel like migrant communities, ⁓ even if we're working class, we're better at working together and like really coming in clutch for each other when we're struggling. At the same time, I think there is this very individualistic culture in the US where It's very strange. Like when we're struggling, we're, ⁓ we don't, we kind of stay to ourselves and things, but when we're like, ⁓ when we look at the economy, ⁓ we're like, we're doing so good. I'm like, are we? Like exactly what you're saying. Carlos: Ha ha. I'm just as hungry today as I was last week. Sparky Mitra: Exactly, exactly. And I'm just like, y'all, let's come together because we're struggling. mean, yeah, the big boss is doing just fine, but we're struggling and we can really push for change that's going to help us. mean, another thing that's happening in San Diego right now is that they're trying to... ⁓ Carlos: Yeah. Sparky Mitra: get rid of junk fees for tenants and ⁓ renters in the area. And these junk fees include anything that's kind of outside of your rent. And ⁓ there's certain like boutique landlords that will even charge you for something that was broken when you had moved in, like already and things like that. So protecting renters against that. And then, ⁓ Carlos: ⁓ damn. Sparky Mitra: feel like we could really mobilize folks on that and really get people together on that. Education is so fucking important though, you're so right. And just getting people in the know that that's, I think that's coming up. Cause there was an informational item at the council about this and people were talking about, there was like an entire group of people that said that they're ethical. Carlos: Yeah. Sparky Mitra: ethical landlords and they had these bright green stickers saying that and I'm just like, if you are, get your tenants to show up and really speak on your behalf. They won't because that doesn't make any sense. ⁓ But yeah, but if tenants really came together and that's something that we've been seeing more with like tenants unions and things like that across the state and the country, we can really get seismic shifts, ⁓ of course, with candidates, but also just on local policies that are really like Carlos: Yeah. Yeah. Sparky Mitra: helpful to us in living our day-to-day lives the way we want to. Carlos: What was it that made you care? I mean, you're you're young, you're a student, you're you're busy. Like why do you care? Sparky Mitra: So the first thing that really kind of got me engaged ⁓ was, well the first two things, I got engaged actually in Texas and the first two things that kind of got me engaged were ⁓ gun violence prevention and abortion rights, ⁓ especially because even before Roe was overturned, the heartbeat bill was passed in Texas and after that, I mean, there was a total ban. That's something that I started mobilizing for and then with March for Our Lives when they had their state chapter system still I was helping translate documents into South Asian languages for ⁓ gun violence prevention work. So that's and I honestly just felt strongly because I have been very privileged to experience, yes, the education system in the US, but also in Southeast Asia, because I was there for a couple of years ⁓ in grade school. I was, so when I came back, these lockdown drills and things like that were way more jarring. And I was just like, shit, this is some, Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Carlos: Yeah. You wanna hear what's crazy? When I was a kid in grade school, they were teaching us how to hide under desks just in case of nuclear war. Sparky Mitra: Yes, I've seen the videos that y'all used to see where it's like you're under the desk and that that desk is protected Carlos: Yeah. And I'm like you know, ⁓ I w I I when I went into the army some of the missiles that I had to deal with were nuclear. There was nuclear capabilities and I got to watch some videos and stuff like that. And then I thought to myself, that desk wasn't gonna do shit Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Carlos: Ha ha ha. Sparky Mitra: Yeah, yeah, we're pretty fucked if it ever comes to that point, for sure. Carlos: ⁓ yeah. W yeah, like literally cooked. Literally cooked. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Carlos: Yeah. Sparky Mitra: But yeah, no, exactly. And so that's kind of what got me engaged. And very tragically, I was actually on Brown's campus when the shooting happened there. And so I was a building over in my lab, actually, when the shooting happened. Right, right. Carlos: ⁓ At least you're doing your homework. Your parents are so excited you just said that. Sparky Mitra: So, so, and my building was right next to the building. ⁓ It was like a block away from the building that ⁓ ended up getting shut up. And so we were, that was a really crazy experience. Cause I was like, okay, I got involved in politics to prevent this and this shit is happening at my school. That's ridiculous. Nothing has changed. And I feel like it's almost been a decade since that. And, and I Carlos: Yeah. Sparky Mitra: like to think I'm relatively young, but even then, like this decade, feels like even if there has been some movements forward, it's just not enough. And so ⁓ that's kind of really what got me back into being. Yes, still involved in community organizing. since my involvement in gun violence prevention and abortion rights, I've gotten really involved in housing justice work. It is super pertinent all across California, including San Diego. And so that's kind of where I kind of put all my efforts, ⁓ just trying to solve the problems that I see on the day to day. ⁓ But that shooting is kind of what... gave me a pause and then I had to deal with some other things. But when I was able to kind of sit in everything, I was really disgruntled and disheartened that that happened. And that's kind of what really led me to even pursuing a political run, ⁓ ten toes down, and being really serious about it because... ⁓ Because I want people to realize that it doesn't have to be like this. I think we constantly expect, we constantly expect life, this to be the normal. This is our new normal. And it's not, these things are not normal. I mean, it's crazy to me, like, that's why I had to take a step back, really kind of think about things and... ⁓ Even though I love my PhD, I love that bioengineering work. I had to be like, y'all, I need to be in my community right now. And then when I come here just a few weeks ago, I think it's been maybe a month now, or maybe even a little bit more than that. I mean, ICSD experienced a shooting here in San Diego, our mosque, ⁓ and that was... I think it, at least then it was being investigated as a hate crime, I think it still is. ⁓ it's just the same, same, same talk, it's the same problem. It's like, wow, nothing has fucking changed. I feel like we could be better. Carlos: Yeah. No. And and yeah, and this is why I'm always, you know, sounding the drum of education is we need as many teachers, doctors, lawyers, engineers, plumbers, electricians, all that stuff, all that stuff so we can figure out how to work with the planet. We're fighting it right now. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Carlos: And that's why everything is breaking and everything. That's not whereas when you go to and and I can't wait to talk about your travels, but like when you go to a place like Tahiti and and Morea and stuff like that and you get to see how people live within nature and I'm not I'm not asking you not to have internet, I'm not asking you to none of that stuff. Like we're heating up the planet. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Carlos: And also chopping down trees and doing all the things and killing vegetation. When you see nature working the way that it's supposed to work, you're like, ⁓ okay. Okay, cool. Sparky Mitra: Exactly, yes, and I even think about how... I know you brought up human creations, right? Like the internet and even certain agricultural advancements and things like that. We have, we always like talk about how like 10 billion people is kind of going to be the breaking point of the planet or it's going to be where kind of human population plateaus. And we're getting, we're getting pretty close to that. My thing is I don't know the exact science behind that particular number, but Carlos: Mm-hmm. Sparky Mitra: When I look at the number we have right now, eight billion some odd people, we have enough food to, I believe, ⁓ last time I checked, to give us each nine meals a day. But do we really experience that? And this is like globally. So we have like innovated enough for that to be a reality, but distribution systems, focus of politicians and leaders is just not there. It's not there on the people. that includes yes, innovation, but also what you were saying, the natural way of things and working with a planet that is there to protect that is there that is that is there for us, you know, and yeah. Carlos: liter literally gave and sustains our life. And these idiots continue to pee in the pool. Sparky Mitra: Exactly, yes. Mmhmm, mmhmm, mmhmm, mmhmm, exactly. Yes! It's ridiculous. And then they look at... Exactly! And then they look at another planet as the answer. And I'm just like, can we fix what's going Because do we really... What? Yes! Carlos: It's so frustrating. ⁓ Wa i Again, they're slumlords. They're so they're so used to being slumlords that they don't know what it is to Sparky Mitra: Exactly. Carlos: Of course you're gonna thrive when you fix the game. Of course. You're supposed to. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Mm-hmm. Carlos: The game is the game is being played in such a such a shitty way that that we're we're we're tearing the fabric of society. We're cr our infrastructure are is crumbling. We're poisoning our water, we're ruining nature, like everything that gives us life we're ruining. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Carlos: And it and and people refuse to learn. I'm hell bent on teaching kids in the inner city. I'm hell bent on teaching them where their food comes from. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Carlos: How do you grow? And growing things is not that hard. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Carlos: You know, you might there's some things that it gets tricky sometimes. You need to know when to add what and blah blah blah blah blah. But for the most part, growing things and teaching people how to grow their own carrots and how to have, I don't know, their own chickens and stuff like that. There's enough space. There's enough space. If we were to leverage technology and nature the way that we have the potential for Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Exactly. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Carlos: We'd be able to but the thing is we have to get people locked in. And everybody's too dumb. Everybody's watching fucking what is that wheel of fortune and stupid shit. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I love that you brought that up because that's something that even in organizer circles in San Diego at least we've constantly been bringing up how to like bolster local economies and Carlos: Mm-hmm. Sparky Mitra: That starts, yes, with community gardens, but it can become this really big kind of way of actually being effective and building kind of that muscle memory to shift away from these big corporations and essentially slumlords and actually build things, first of all, to last, but also to sustain our communities rather than just seeing it as something that turns a profit for our business. Carlos: Right. Sparky Mitra: and keeping our community and even if we do look at economically our resources within our communities to sustain them rather than letting our communities be like pools to extract from for this person that we'll never see in our entire lives. And we've constantly actually been talking about that and trying to build that out. ⁓ Cause you're right, there's little, especially when you look at kind of things one by one. growing a certain plant, taking care of chickens, or even building something, or finding a way to ⁓ help your community in some way. These are all things that we don't have to be great at fucking everything. And we're not asking for that either, but just a couple of things to really make it so that the community can really sustain itself. Because that also low key that gives us the autonomy to... really break away from these systems of power to then... Yes, exactly! Yes, exactly! And also, when there is someone who's like coming in to extract from the community, ⁓ we can first... like, building these local economies gives us that power to say, hold on, hold on, hold on! Instead of telling us what you're gonna take from our community, what are you bringing to this community first? And then we'll fucking talk, you know? Carlos: Obviously don't work. Right. Right. Sparky Mitra: cause I was even, I was looking at this, ⁓ there's like this book that came out recently or is about to come out, called how to rule the world. don't know if you've seen clips on this, but it's this kid from Stanford who was talking about, ⁓ who was talking about this secretive super secret class at Stanford where this rich CEO essentially tells them how to dupe the system and how to lie and cheat. It's like what leads to companies like Theranos and others. And ⁓ I'm just like, ⁓ so it's not even a thing that they know is wrong. They're like, this is how you win the system. I'm like, why are we? And they're teaching. I'm like, we should teach our communities to counteract that shit, you know? Carlos: They're actively they're actively And you know what? That's been a joke for so long. ⁓ they must have white people classes where they teach white people white people shit. And it's a literal class. There's l ⁓ my god. White people, one ⁓ one. Juke the system. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Yes! It's insane dude, it's crazy. I'm- Right? It's ins- I'm just- It's just so fucking crazy to me and- Carlos: And then they point their finger at the at the you know, at the the the poor person in whatever community that maybe got a hundred and fifty dollars extra in their food stamps or something. Sparky Mitra: Yes, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. To live, bruh. Carlos: T for real. One hundred and fifty I could eat a hundred and fifty dollars of food right now. What got you into bioengineering? Sparky Mitra: No, right? insane. Ooh, okay, so a couple of things. So I think I was more set on just doing something kind of tinkering-y in general, because ⁓ even from when I was really little, ⁓ because I grew up a really shy kid, and I would still consider myself quite introverted, but ⁓ I loved seeing how shit works, and so at home everything would be disassembled and reassembled and my mom even talks about it now where she's like everything was just constantly being opened and I think there was like a point where my mom was like yeah she's like doing fine in school so I guess it's alright Carlos: Ha ha ha. That was me too, but I used to get whipped. Yeah. See that's the difference. When you handle kids differently, me, I was punished and and I was told that I was breaking things. You were exploring and you should be invested in. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Yes. Mm-hmm. No, exactly, exactly. So that's something that I kind of knew from the outset that I loved doing. And then there was... Right, right, right, right. ⁓ And so, and then slowly, I want to say during... ⁓ So first it kind of came as like the regular, ⁓ robotics and doing, ⁓ it, finding ways to strengthen the community. And then I had like a really good time ⁓ because I grew up on the Gulf coast. ⁓ We, a lot of the communities near us ⁓ were heavily affected by different hurricanes and things like that. So I had like a really good time kind of actually being wanted. ⁓ Carlos: Mm-hmm. Sparky Mitra: as a young person to help break down houses ⁓ before they would like rebuild ⁓ when we had when the sheetrock in the house got like waterlogged from flooding we would like help rip that out for our neighbors and such and so ⁓ right right and so so seeing that and that and little things like that and really understanding that I really like how shit works made me really excited about engineering in general Carlos: Mm-hmm. That's pretty cool. Sparky Mitra: But then there was definitely a part of me that also was very intrigued with how we can actually, it kind of relates to a point that we were talking about earlier, how we can work with nature and the systems that nature has given us to ⁓ work with them, but also potentially optimize them for solutions that nature hasn't necessarily been given the time and life cycle to evolve to. and evolved for. so I first got involved with ⁓ kind of over-expressing certain genes in different plants to make them more drought resistant and things like that. But nowadays, ⁓ my work has been more about engineering proteins to either bind different things. So I used to help engineer proteins to bind rare earth elements, for example, to give a more sustainable option to extract rare earth elements than how we do it right now. And that was what I was working on ⁓ just a couple years ago. And more recently, what I've worked on is more in the realm of ⁓ engineering proteins to bind different dyes so that when these proteins are expressed in a brain, ⁓ these proteins can sense a change in voltage and help map out what's going on in the brain. Carlos: Ooh. Sparky Mitra: yeah, yeah, yeah, with this dye that they've found. And so ⁓ that's kind of what I'm working on now. But ⁓ yeah. Carlos: That's cool. So it basically so basically you guys you're working on a die that when you go in for a CAT scan or something like that, ⁓ it it makes whatever you're looking for stand out more. Sparky Mitra: So not exactly the dye itself, because there is a very cool realm of research that focuses actually on engineering those dyes. ⁓ What I particularly engineer is the proteins themselves. So that if you alter a gene and then you over-express that gene in the brain, ⁓ that protein can bind an existing dye. can help illuminate what's going on in the brain more clearly than our current technologies can. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Carlos: Okay. Okay. How close to CRISPR is that? Sparky Mitra: So it is very close and I think ⁓ in the future, because this is very much a very early on stage of kind of looking at just like the science of things. It's like way before anything clinical or anything like that. ⁓ But ultimately I do think, yes, CRISPR would be involved in like cutting genes and kind of putting them in and ⁓ helping express it. Carlos: Okay, and that's where the binding part comes in. Okay, cool. All right. That's sick. Sparky Mitra: Yes, yes, yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thank you. No, no, I think like, so that one will definitely take a lot more time to kind of see its use. But the rare earth element binding one, that's actually already being used by, ⁓ so basically what has now been done is that this protein that was engineered. has now been put into this column where they can pass through any kind of mixture that happens to have rare earth elements so that then it will bind these rare earths and then you can process them and use them. different companies have already been looking at using that. ⁓ Carlos: Okay. Yeah. So it's like di making different alloys and Sparky Mitra: So it's definitely before making the different alloys. It's definitely just like, cause right now rare earth elements are very much an imported commodity in the U S it's not something that we. Carlos: Because the because Americans are lazy and stupid? Sparky Mitra: What? Carlos: Ha ha. Sparky Mitra: It's because American sources of rare earths, it is super destructive to the environments to actually get them out. And ⁓ so, the idea would be that this would be a much cleaner way to actually, yes, boost production in the US without absolutely demolishing our ecosystems. Because right now, there is definitely forces that want that to happen because they don't give a shit. Carlos: ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Sparky Mitra: And they're super anti-China and whatever, because rare earth elements mainly come in from China, even now. And so even the Trump administration, I think that they really do see this as something that's critical and that we need to do. But I don't think they would care as much about sustainable development. I think they'd be like, ⁓ no, I see it there. I don't fucking care what it destroys. I just want it. So yeah. Carlos: Right. I was just watching ⁓ what was the channel? breaking points. And they were talking about ⁓ there's a guy from I forget what school, but he was talking about some brain discovery where apparently the fluid that your brain floats in apparently there's an aperture there that actually leaks it into your was it the lymphatic system? Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that sounds right. Carlos: So basically they're learning they're learning that the brain has this functionality. And the history of it is they saw it happening ⁓ within mice and they saw that these mice had this little this little basically this hole that drips out fluid and then why in the lymph nat why it matters the lymph nat I can't say that word right now, lymphatic system is because that's how your body heals itself. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Carlos: And so they're they're trying to figure out what that little aperture is for. But the cool thing is is they've they're finding out new functionality in the brain all the time. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly. exactly. No, I honestly, after you mentioned it, I'm just like looking at this. That is super, super cool where they basically, yeah, so I think we often associate the lymphatic system with like waste removal and processing. And that is what it's helping the brain do, I think, by getting the cerebrospinal fluid or something like that out. but because yeah I feel like a lot of times Even I thought that this was very much kind of an isolated system with the cerebrospinal fluid, because I think we're often told that, ⁓ if something happens to the spinal cord, it's over, which is very much true even now. But it's super cool to know that that's maybe not necessarily the case. And we can potentially feed stuff into the system to help with near degenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and things like that. Carlos: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they've mentioned Alzheimer's. Yeah, yeah, yeah. ⁓ Cuba apparently. There's there's some doctors in Cuba that are working on a cure for Alzheimer's as well. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, I think that's what I've heard of too. Super cool. Carlos: Proof that if you ⁓ if you invest in education, you're just gonna have a team of bad motherfuckers. Come on. Sparky Mitra: Right? Yes, yes, man, like Cuba has like 100 % literacy and then America's too embarrassed to even publicize what our literacy rate is, which is just, it's, yeah, it's really bad, I think. Carlos: Fifth or sixth grade, right? These these kids are still reading with their fingers, son. Sparky Mitra: Yeah, dude, it's so bad. And I know for a fact I was... And I consider myself pretty educated and very privileged to have been given access to a lot of these things. At the same time, I was even looking at myself and before the encampment at Columbia where I was doing my masters, before that... I really had stopped reading for fun. I mean, I still read for my research, but in terms of reading nonfiction or even fiction for fun, that's just something I had stopped doing until the encampment and then I was like hanging out at the camp and I was like, books are cool, y'all. Carlos: You and me both. I'm telling you. When I was in the middle of my career, people would be like, So do you read? I said, Yeah, all the time. They said, What books do you read? I said, computer manuals. They said, No, for fun. I said, other computer manuals. Like, there's no time for that. Like, code changes all the time. Technology changes all the time. You don't have time. And when you take your foot off the gas, boy. Sparky Mitra: Ooh. Yeah, absolutely. Carlos: so you're you're like a mad scientist and and you wanna fix the world. Sparky Mitra: I mean, if I could play a small part, that would be ideal, yeah. Carlos: Yeah. Do you think do you think all the travel that you've done, do you think that that plays into you being a wonderful human? Sparky Mitra: I hope so, I definitely think it does. that's something that I often talk about and I used to be more kind of hand wavy about, ⁓ every kid in America should go to a different country. And I'm just like, okay, yes, I still want that to happen. Let's start with our communities, bro. Like go to a community that doesn't look anything like yours. Carlos: Yeah. You can't ⁓ that's ⁓ yeah. I wanna I wanna develop something where kids you know, I always I grew up in Chicago, so I always see it's always it's it's a sickness. It's a sickness. ⁓ I grew up in Chicago and the disconnect that we had as kids from nature. And yeah, you go on hikes and dumb shit like that, but you're you know, you're not paying attention. You're just happy you're not doing homework. Sparky Mitra: Right. Carlos: And and ⁓ yeah, it I wanna develop something where city kids and country kids can hang out and teach each other things. You know? Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Exactly. I want that too, That is literally a dream of mine to see something like that really come to fruition and become a ⁓ very cornerstone part of education here. I think it's so fucking important. Because I feel like we do see these opportunities a little bit more in certain colleges. For example, at Brown. Carlos: Yeah. Sparky Mitra: Brown, believe, no, I actually know this. Brown is partners, sister schools with a university in the deep south, and it's an HBCU, and they do have a program where certain students, but. But then again, it's students that already care, that are already knowledgeable, that already know the importance of potentially going to an HBCU ⁓ in the deep south and working in those schools and ⁓ working at the university and also in the communities that surround that university. ⁓ So these kids already know, but I feel like most kids here, they do not even realize that... Carlos: Mm-hmm. Sparky Mitra: a certain kind of struggle can even exist. I think there's so many struggles that a rural kid goes through that a city kid will never understand, and the same is definitely true the other way around. Yes, exactly. Carlos: And at the same time, freedoms too. City kids don't understand how amazing it is to sit in an inner tube on a river drinking beer where you don't even have to get out of the inner tube to pee. Come on, son. You guys, it's it's so cool. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, exactly! Yes! No, and then... Cheers! Carlos: And country kids don't know what it's like to be in the city surrounded by so many different cultures. So many, so many different amazing restaurants, so many different people. Sparky Mitra: Exactly, exactly. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Exactly, exactly. Like even just the act of in the city, there's something different that you could do every day. In the country, there's something that you could, there's time for you to really sit with something and get good at it. And even little things about life that are vastly different between the two. ⁓ Because I do feel like community looks really different, but it still exists in both of those ecosystems. It just looks super different. ⁓ Carlos: Mm-hmm. Sparky Mitra: I know in the deep south we always talk about like, or like people when they talk about the south they talk about like southern hospitality and things like that and the importance of community and like, well yes, yes, no you're right, you're right. And even like the act of like, ⁓ I ran out of eggs, I can go next door and ask for some and things like that, that is a very, very kind of concrete part of life. Carlos: Until the colors come. Ha ha ha. Yeah. Sparky Mitra: At the same time, the city, a lot of times you're coming together with diverse communities like you mentioned. And I don't think in the South you could ever imagine. like a spread that's being set out, but on Eid, for example, in New York City for like the entire community to come to the table and talk to each other and just eat food, good food, to break their fast, you know? So with their Muslim neighbors. Carlos: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And coming from the deep south, listen, if you're from the deep south and you eat that good ass barbecue, you need to hang out with an Indian folk Indian folks that are gonna teach you how to make ⁓ vegetarian recipes, son. Cause you're gonna it's only gonna improve your life. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. No, exactly! That's my thing, dude! Yes! No, I mean, even for me, there's definitely certain kinds of food or like certain kind of staples that I only had the way that my mom cooked and growing up and then... Of course I liked a lot of it, but there's definitely things that I was like, ⁓ I would rather not have that. And when I had it a different way of a friend or another community member, ⁓ whether it was in San Diego or New York or Providence, I was like, I actually like that shit. Just not in, maybe not in that way. And I'll actually eat it. I'll get my veggies in, you know? ⁓ Carlos: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Food food. The food alone in the city. I'd I just recorded with someone from Chicago yesterday. They're talking about how easy it is and I I live in Sonoma. So we have like a Thai place Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Carlos: Couple pizza places, we finally got a hamburger place, and then just a lot of like California style farm to table type of stuff. It's the like the reach isn't there. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, exactly. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Carlos: When I go back home, I order like I I don't have I don't have normal food. I have like Indian food. I have Chinese food. I have all the different foods. Not that it's bad. It's I just probably a lot like your your brain and my brain are probably very similar. you know, that tinkery brain and then you go play here and you play there and you play here and you play there, right? Sparky Mitra: Yes! Hmm hmm hmm hmm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yes, exactly. Yes, exactly. I love it. Yes, exactly. You get it. Yes. Carlos: Food the same way. Arocopollo over here, get some naan over there. Let's go. ⁓ Yeah, that diversity, man, it just makes life so much easier. It's not it's not like boiled down to what you're telling me to eat, what you're telling me to wear, what you're telling me to Sparky Mitra: Exactly. Exactly. Absolutely. And I... This is when I get really upset because there's definitely a disconnect. I totally agree with you that more education would definitely help with this. At the same time, I know plenty of really conservative anti-immigration folks that love Mexican food. I'm like, do you know where that comes from? Carlos: You know what's funny? Up here it's pretty up here it's pretty stark. It's pretty it's majority white and Mexican. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Carlos: You know, ⁓ so it's very simple. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Carlos: ⁓ you I I was going somewhere with that. What were you saying just before that? Sparky Mitra: I was talking about how conservatives don't necessarily...yeah. Carlos: Yeah, how many? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So here we eat a lot of Mexican food, because we have about 30 Mexican restaurants ⁓ at any given time. And then in the weekends we get the food truck, so you know, tacos out the ass. And I look around and I see all these white folks just tearing into these tacos and I was like Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Carlos: Now that you guys got the recipe, now you want to kick out all the Mexicans? Like that's Sparky Mitra: Right? Yeah, it's crazy. It's insane, man. No, I was looking at, um, and I know we touched upon it a little bit before, but... Part of ⁓ where I was running to represent includes pretty rural areas too that are pretty far off from the city and Valley Center. Carlos: Farmland or more like desert east? Sparky Mitra: It is mainly farmland. Carlos: Okay. Sparky Mitra: mainly farmland. ⁓ there are so basically before I retaught myself how to drive, I was taking the bus over there every two hours. ⁓ my fucking God. And so so so but when I was taking the bus there, I would go I would go pretty much on the work schedule when I was going there on the bus. And so I would go early in the morning, first bus out. And that's when ⁓ a lot of migrant workers had just like gotten off their Greyhound from the Carlos: That's right. Sparky Mitra: border and they're taking the same bus to Valley Center to help work the fields and that's that is the most conservative area of my district and I'm just like I I I get that this is this is these are this is how you vote at the same time it is it is only gonna help you first of all if we invest in fucking public transit because that is how your workers get to their job Carlos: Yeah. Sparky Mitra: And also, it is only going to help if you actually make life livable for these folks, because they will... Carlos: Yeah. Sparky Mitra: It is easier to show up to work when you're not having to worry about food and housing and just like basic living. But. Carlos: Right. Right. And that's the secret that that rich folks don't like to share with folks is, you know, like if you think of it as moving through life and it's friction, the friction of do I have enough money for food? Do I have enough ⁓ enough money for gas? Do I have a car? Do and all these things just create friction. But when you get to a point where your life is sustainable. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Carlos: the the friction is kinda gone. So you're more likely to be comfort more comfortable with who you are. You're more comfortable with ⁓ moving in life and and and instead of instead of operating from a mentality of punishment and and having something taken away, like actually walking out of your house feeling like you're about to flourish. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Exactly. Carlos: And you're gonna be successful because the because the infrastructure or the scaffolding that is society has you, no matter what you're doing. And listen, successful people, I was successful AF and technology changed and I found myself out by myself out in the cold, like no job, no none of that stuff. I didn't deserve to be left alone. I didn't deserve to it would be good Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Carlos: To have scaffolding that says, okay, you did all of that. Is there anything else that we can teach you to make you be productive again? Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Exactly, exactly. mean, there's and this is something that I really am really excited about with more progressives getting elected. mean, Mila winning her primary yesterday was amazing. I love it. I love it. It was close though, but she won. She won. Carlos: That's crazy. ⁓ yeah. So if you guys don't know, that's the representative in in ⁓ Colorado. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, that's right, that's right. And ⁓ with all of these progressives coming into Congress, I know a lot of them also support a jobs guarantee by the federal government. So right now, there is no pressure. on the government, which is crazy to me because we're electing them so that should be the pressure, but because it is these corporate interests that get to actually choose at the end of the day, they're the ones who are putting the pressure, not the actual voters. When we're supposed to be able to be like, hey, you're not working for me, get out. That's just not how it is for the majority of races even now. But hopefully with more progressives coming in, more like grassroots candidates coming in, we'll get things like a jobs guarantee or some sort of basic income pass. because you're so right. People don't deserve to be left behind. And there should be incentive for the government to also fund these training programs to help people switch from fields that are getting obsolete. It's not your fault that something is getting obsolete. Carlos: And like one of our friends, Lauren, ⁓ Lauren Collin was ⁓ on ⁓ with us before, but he said, I believe I'm almost positive a hundred percent it was him that said we just have schooling available. So let's say there's a mad dash at ⁓ plumbers. Now all of a sudden we have too many plumbers. Well, we get some of those plumbers and put ⁓ back in school. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Carlos: And if some of ⁓ wanna be bakers, then they learn. Or after your career, you're eighty five years old and you feel like you wanna go to school to do whatever the fuck you want because you're eighty five. Sparky Mitra: Yeah. Carlos: At least we have a place for you you can go. We have a seat for you to learn. Whether it's like ⁓ an amalgamation of the public libraries and the and the education system, I don't know. But I mean it's there. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah. Exactly. I feel like we... Yeah. Carlos: That way if you're gonna tell someone pull yourself up by the bootstraps, at least you can say, Well, at least we gave ⁓ fucking boots. Right? Sparky Mitra: Right, exactly, yes, yes, exactly. I mean, I think it's such a disservice to every person here that we don't see these services and education as wraparound services that lift, that are there to lift people up and to make sure, kind of what you were saying, how, that are there to act as a scaffolding. ⁓ either if you fall in hard times or to help you move to the next big thing. ⁓ Right now we see it as a one-off opportunity that is reserved for one person who can, in some way, shape or form, get access to that, knows about it, is there through internal connections. Carlos: And then yeah, let's be honest, it's through the connections, yeah. Sparky Mitra: ⁓ 100 % instead of, ⁓ shit, this should be accessible to the general public because this is how we're gonna actually get ahead by equipping everyone. But. Carlos: How are you and the other biologists leveraging technology like AI and stuff like that? Are you? Sparky Mitra: Yeah, so yes, I would say yes, we definitely are. In my lab, there's definitely folks. So when we're engineering these proteins, we're testing. ⁓ like hundreds of different combinations usually, and usually you have to do experiments on all of these combinations of like genetic alterations, whatever have you, but AI can help kind of speed up that process and really help us instead of having to test a thousand things in lab, we'll have to test 20 for example. So there's definitely ways that AI can give us like a probabilistic kind of idea of what will actually make a protein better for a certain thing and things like that. But when it comes to like kind of big kind of problems, I do think there is this ⁓ general understanding that AI is a tool, it is not the end-all be-all. ⁓ I mean, it's not just people outside of the field of AI saying this, mean, Jeffrey Hinton himself, who's considered the father of artificial intelligence, either artificial intelligence or machine learning, has literally said that it will be such a disservice to AI and it is very scary. Carlos: Yeah. Sparky Mitra: that AI has the potential to again kind of be taken out of the general public's hands and be used by the powers that be rather than equipping and democratizing artificial intelligence access while still. building out systems where we're not draining communities of water and things like that to actually make it so that it's AI for the people rather than the other way around. I mean, I know Bernie has mentioned potentially making ⁓ AI publicly owned and ⁓ yeah. Carlos: I love that idea because it it opens the gateway to UBI. Sparky Mitra: Exactly. Yes, yes, yes, absolutely. I never really connected that, but yes, I totally agree with you. Yes. ⁓ And so for biologists, I think how we basically do it is... whether it's like engineering or biology or any of these fields. I think there's also an argument for, now we need to really focus on making sure our basics are strong, right? Because it's not just a calculator helping us with an equation that we know how to solve, it'll just do it faster. It is something that can essentially, in a lot of ways, think for us. And if we don't know how to identify when it's thinking incorrectly, it can really do a disservice ⁓ to innovation and to even diagnostic things for clinicians. or even in law cases in coming to a conclusion in ⁓ a law case, ⁓ totally different profession. yeah, in the legal profession, people are also starting to use AI, which I honestly didn't realize until a couple of days ago. I think there was a warning issued to a lawyer who had essentially used AI. ⁓ The case was thrown out before already, but they were like looking back on it and they said that this Carlos: Yeah. Sparky Mitra: this they could understand that they had used AI because it had hallucinated ⁓ certain things yeah yeah they're like why didn't you check this yeah Carlos: Some cases and stuff. Yeah. There was a whole judge. There was a whole judge that was feeding information to AI and telling AI to make the the the decisions. Sparky Mitra: Yeah, no, and it's crazy, which is insane to me, because I also don't think these people realize that a lot of times, and I think this is something that has kind of been now, especially professors, know they have to explicitly tell students a lot of times that when you're giving proprietary information or private information to AI, it's not private anymore, dude. So if you're sharing, right? Carlos: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So be careful, you weird boys, you weird boys, be careful what questions you're asking AI. ⁓ Sparky Mitra: Yeah. No, literally. I mean, yes. like, I'm dead. I'm dead. But even if you look at a patient database of thousands of patients, and you're just like, AI, take this and tell me what you see. Maybe let's not do that, actually. That could be problematic. But we definitely do. I mean, it is a very useful tool. ⁓ I think now it's more about teaching. Carlos: Yeah. Sparky Mitra: people of all professions how to actually use AI as a tool rather than as the thing that's actually doing your task and job and often doing it incorrectly. So, yeah. Carlos: Right. Yeah. I I've talked to quite a bit of technologists, I guess. And everyone everyone has come to the same conclusion. We're not gonna be able to stop it, it's here. Which fine. For me it's again, look at how they're leveraging it. Sparky Mitra: you Exactly. Carlos: People like you and I, we're talking about leveraging it as a tool for education and research. And these idiots are using it for surveillance and they wanna control you. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Exactly. Yes. Yes. Carlos: So you can't say, ⁓ it's the less of two evils or whatever. You have to look at when you're when you're going to vote, you have to look at like people's incentives. And if they're not building you up, don't vote for them. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yes, exactly. Absolutely. I mean, like I'm someone who very much does believe that there is definitely steps that we need to take ⁓ to kind of make it so that AI ⁓ isn't doing more harm than good. mean, like I do think that like the moratorium on data centers that has been proposed is something that is valuable and things like that. At the same time, when you look at how AI is here as, I totally agree that we have to go back, sit back, and see how it's being used and see how it is. how it should be being used because ⁓ even if I look at bioengineers and synthetic biologists and all these folks in kind of my profession, had a conference a couple years ago, I think at this point called the Spirit of a Silomar, really cool conference. But in that conference, there was an entire working group dedicated to AI and how to tackle it and how to, but also how to protect folks. that they kind of came up with was there should be very strict guardrails on ⁓ what kind of data you can feed into AI. There should also be like explicit permissions that are granted by folks data who were using that they can like either subscribe to or not if they do or don't want their data to be used in. AI programs. Scientists want that shit, dude. It is like these billionaires who who who don't aren't involved in any of the science, any of the R &D that are like, I just care about my profit margins and that don't want it. And then we've seen over time and time again that ⁓ Carlos: Yeah. Sparky Mitra: Even in rural America, no matter where in America you go to, whenever there's a data center, it gets shut down, regardless of if people are conservative or liberal in an area. mean, ⁓ like, common sense regulation and also common sense kind of prioritization of the kinds of uses for AI that we're talking about is a very legitimate ask for majority of people. Carlos: Yeah. Yeah, and and and trying to figure out how we all win. If you guys are so smart ⁓ you super smart rich people that your decisions are just the best, ⁓ boy. Well then figure out how we all win. Sparky Mitra: Exactly. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Exactly. Yes, exactly. I think it's really funny that we've been seeing certain billionaires and now our literal trillionaire, but... ⁓ Which I still think is insane, but we've been seeing certain billionaires. Someone has definitely been telling them something, because there's been certain billionaires that have been coming out and saying that, ⁓ we do need to give more back to the public. And I'm just like, OK, stop saying that shit. Yeah, dude, they're scared, man. Carlos: we're starting to shut that shit down. We're shutting that shit down. Like how is it that every time especially Republicans, every time Republicans are in office, you guys win and you guys win big. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Carlos: But every day, every day I call my family and everybody's struggling the same way. Sparky Mitra: Exactly, yes, absolutely. And... I mean... I mean that, that, think there's so many ways to fix that shit, but like as long as both Republicans and corporate Dems are there, I think it's so hard to kind of get that finance ⁓ legislation hard and fast to really serve the people and to really get this money out. And... ⁓ Carlos: And actually to convince people that that's not how the job is supposed to be done. Sparky Mitra: Exactly. Yes. Yes, yes, Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. Right. No, exactly. And I mean, I even look at it. ⁓ So if I look at my race, right. ⁓ Carlos: Like you're not supposed to be kissing their ass. You gave them the job. Mm-hmm. Sparky Mitra: So the winner incumbent, he ended up getting about 100,000 votes. I ended up getting about just under 17,000 votes. But he spent $20 per vote. I spent about $1 for every vote I got. Carlos: So when you say things like that, just to just to kind of explain it to normal folks that don't know the political game, twenty dollars a vote versus one dollar a vote, what are you spending your money on? Sparky Mitra: Yeah, yes, yes, Perfect question. So for me, for me, what I'm spending my money on, so, so, okay, so, so we see, had about like $15,000 and, ⁓ That is not enough to even send out one round of mailers. So for me, that was printing out materials to Doornock with me and my volunteers. And so it was mainly that printing materials. ⁓ A little bit was ⁓ to help... ⁓ Carlos: Okay. Sparky Mitra: ⁓ to re-numerate ⁓ my campaign manager because she did a great job and little things like that. ⁓ Because we're all struggling, but she was full-time student, also working, and she also happened to be helping me. And so, yeah. So we're just trying to help each other out as much as possible. so my money mainly went to compensating my campaign manager to different materials. And that's it. But for each round of mailers, it costs about $50,000 at least. Carlos: Yeah. Sparky Mitra: Yeah, yeah, yeah. so my opponent, he raised about $2 million. And so his probably went into mailers. His probably went into other kinds of, ⁓ yes, he did also have print materials. ⁓ yeah, we had yard signs that people could get if they were involved and things like that. ⁓ But. ⁓ But yeah, and text banking. Text banking is a very expensive endeavor. So text banking and phone banking, when we're trying to call y'all. I have so many issues with that system too, actually, because I learned about it through my campaign. I I had text banked for other campaigns before. But I didn't realize that these dialers are set up as basically loopholes to laws that currently exist. Carlos: Yeah. ⁓ damn. Sparky Mitra: Because I don't know if you know this, but you're actually not allowed to call people in an automatic fashion for a political campaign. So you're not allowed to send out automated messages unless they explicitly said that they're OK with it, which most people haven't. I these districts have like 400,000 registered voters. Carlos: Okay. Yeah. Sparky Mitra: So how they get around that is by having volunteers on these dialers. But then these dialers make turn a profit because they have these big lists of like registered voters and their names. But you also don't have to like explicitly click every phone number like you actually would have to do if you're following the law as it is. You just click a button and that's it. And then it just keeps going. And I didn't realize that it's that they literally turn a profit on exploiting a loophole for a dialer. Carlos: Yeah. Sparky Mitra: And I don't think a lot of people actually realize that. I mean, I only really learned that through campaigning myself. Yes, exactly. Yes, exactly. And so that's kind of where the money essentially goes. I mean, for me, honestly, in an ideal situation, the money would be spent really differently. ⁓ Carlos: Yeah. If you have enough money they'll f they'll figure out a loophole. Yeah. Sparky Mitra: Initially when I started out, goal had been to raise $100,000. ⁓ And ⁓ I wanted a good portion of that, between 25 and 50 % of that, to go to mutual aid. Because I feel like mutual aid can very much be a big part of community building as well and getting people to turn out and getting people engaged who usually aren't. And so in an ideal world, that's kind of how I would have split my money. And Cat was all in on it. I know she didn't end up winning. But she did do this with her campaign finances. She did use a... I know, yeah. Carlos: One hundred percent. They spent so much money on that race. Wasn't it like Sparky Mitra: That was... I forget exactly the amount, but yeah, it was like an insane amount. Yeah. Carlos: Keep going 'cause we're gonna we're gonna figure that one out. But Sparky Mitra: Yeah yeah yeah. It's so ⁓ like I think that yeah they yeah I just I just pulled it up and I I know you've done this too like 3.8 million dollars. Holy shit yeah that's insane. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. Carlos: And that's to beat her. 'Cause it says here, she didn't do too but too bad either. She got two point seven million dollars. Sparky Mitra: Nice. No, it's not, it's not. Carlos: That's not bad either. That is and now did you see that she's actually, you know, you were talking about mutual aid type of stuff. She's changed her campaign office to like a place where, you know, they're they're feeding people and they're clothing people and they're doing all kinds of cool stuff. Like if you're politician, I know Sparky Mitra: That's what she's doing! Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Exactly, exactly! Carlos: If your politician isn't doing that, dude, if your politician is on TV talking about how dumb and stupid you are, but you have other people that are literally feeding the poor. Sparky Mitra: Why are they not representing us? Yeah. Carlos: And they spent they spent over a million dollars to defeat her. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. No, it's crazy and Carlos: Of a million more dollars than she had. That's wild. Sparky Mitra: Yes, exactly. I mean, even when we look at, and I would not call him like the same kind of candidate as, ⁓ for example, like Cat or any of these other progressive folks, Claire, whoever. ⁓ But in District 48, which is a neighboring district, District 50, where I ran, ⁓ that's going to be a very contentious election. It's one of the ones that was redistricted after Prop 50. And in that primary race, the top two Democratic contenders were the person who ended up getting ⁓ in top two, which was Marnie von Wilpert and then Amar Kampenajar, who was third in that race. among those two, I had other favorites in that race who were definitely lower on the viability totem. ⁓ But among those two, mean, Amar was at least pro-Palestinian. Carlos: Yeah. Sparky Mitra: Von Wilpert, she's a city, sitting city council member in San Diego right now. And she has voted time and time again to be super, super pro PD. She has voted to be, pass, pass like a resolution that was. ⁓ pretty anti-Palestinian in nature, in my opinion. ⁓ It was like a vote on this IRA definition of anti-Semitism. ⁓ But there's other definitions that are actually ⁓ much more deliberate and much more accurate definitions of what anti-Semitism is. ⁓ And also, she barely showed up to talk about ⁓ what happened to ICSD, which was during that primary race. Whereas ⁓ I have a lot of critiques of Ammar, at ⁓ least he's pro-Palestinian. I mean, he's half Palestinian himself. But in the last two weeks of that race, or something like that, in just the last couple of weeks, $5 million was spent against him to call him everything under the sun. Like the biggest ad that was going around was like, this guy supports Trump. I was just like, that's like literally patently false, but whatever. ⁓ and so, so yeah, so I mean like until like, until people realize that that's that, cause I think people realize that, but they're like, that's how it has to be. And I'm just like, no, it's not. You can look at like, I mean, yes. Carlos: Mm-hmm. Sparky Mitra: It's definitely an uphill battle, but wins are taking place and... kind of what you were pointing to earlier, it's not just those winds happening in a vacuum, it's the people who have been part of the fight who maybe lost certain battles, who are getting back into the communities and continuing to build them up. And I just don't think a lot of people who are outside of this space has realized that that is what's happening. ⁓ And so really spreading that knowledge is super key. Carlos: Mm-hmm. I don't think people realize or they might even be afraid of the game of politics. And so it's easier to just kind of like close your eyes and go to Cracker Barrel. You know, like you're i humans are like water. They they don't like resistance. They like to go, you know. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Carlos: Obviously the the you and I's brains are a little bit different. So we ⁓ challenge. Let's go. Come on. You know? But for the most part people are just like, ⁓ just tell me where to stand, that's fine. Sparky Mitra: No, exactly. I mean that- and I honestly think there is ⁓ genuinely a group of people that are not- it's very small group, but there is like maybe a very small group of people that is genuinely not suffering or struggling. But a majority of folks- can't even imagine that life can be better and life should be better than what it is right now. I think it's still insane that healthcare, basic necessities like food, water, housing are tied to us having an income, having a job. I mean, those are basic human rights. I feel like in kindergarten we're taught that the three needs are food, clothing, and shelter. But do we act like it? No, we don't. Carlos: We do not we act we act like we need those shoes. We need that purse. Sparky Mitra: Ya right! RIGHT! And I'm just... And the fact that something as simple as, have cancer, I need treatment is tied to, ⁓ am I a productive member of society? It's crazy, it's insane. ⁓ Carlos: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Instead of when I say change the culture on this channel, I mean that. I mean I mean Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Carlos: I I I've never been the kind of guy that you need to tell what to do. Just tell me what needs to be done. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Carlos: And I I just like working. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yeah. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Carlos: Just tell what needs to be done. Leave me the fuck alone. but the culture shift it needs to be that the like this greed is good thing is horseshit, we already know. But moving forward and understanding that your neighbor you know there's things that I'm good at, there's things that you're good at. There's things that I need help with, there's things that you need help with. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Exactly. Carlos: And just through community in that way, you can you can it I keep saying this, improve the neighborhood. You have to improve the neighborhood. What good is being the cool kid in a shitty neighborhood? Sparky Mitra: Exactly. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And I love that you bring that up, and that is something that, like, I've heard you say before, and it's so true. We have to stop acting like if we do a certain set of shitty things, we will be the top dog, because these certain set of shitty things will lead to a shitty neighborhood and a shitty ecosystem and a shitty place for literally everyone, including ourselves. Carlos: Ha ha. Sparky Mitra: But at least we could say that we're number one here. That mentality is so ass. And rather than that, I think we should be looking at how we can actually elevate everyone together. ⁓ Because I don't think we do that by doing like, by investing in over surveillance or by taking really needed resources away from the community to, again, like enrich. Carlos: Yeah. Sparky Mitra: and whatever. Carlos: Yeah. And that's and so and so for folks, the flock is it isn't that the the police surveillance system? Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say something before I needed that clarification and it was in my brain and then it flew out, so we're gonna keep pushing. ⁓ I think it was with you we were having the conversation of expanding the house. Sparky Mitra: Yeah, that's like the company behind it. Yeah, Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, it was. Yes, yes, yes. Carlos: Was that with you? and now recently with everything that's happening Supreme Court wise and everything, you know, everyone is talking about changing like the physical structure of government, meaning expanding the the Supreme Court and expanding the House of Representatives. ⁓ Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Carlos: The way I see it is these sons of bitches hardly work anyway. Like how you gonna work 147 days in a year? And then like every time we turn around, Mike Giants and sends everyone home. It like it's crazy to me. But it seems like they act like it's a bunch of people who have too much work to do, so they don't do any work. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Carlos: And so I was kind of looking at it and kind of investigating kind of like thought processing, whatever you want to call it, on what it would look like to expand the house and and basically what that would do mathematically speaking is you would have a representative with a lot less people to represent. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Carlos: And if you look at it, you know, we we know that we know that there's a limit to people's relationships and how many people that they can care for and all the things. So if you have all these people and your work is way too busy, we might as well get you some help. Go get some more right. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Exactly. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Carlos: have you been able to like reflect on that at all? Have you like Sparky Mitra: Yeah, no, definitely. I mean, it's definitely something that I would support. I I do think that... when you give, it just comes back to a power dynamic when you give someone too much power. It makes it so much easier for things like gerrymandering to help them rather than actually being kind of disconnected from how it would help or hurt someone's personal interests. mean, whether it's Texas or Tennessee, I mean, there's been so... Carlos: Mm-hmm. Sparky Mitra: And I mean, even California had to do its own version after gerrymandering has just totally ramped up. And I do think ⁓ breaking it down more and potentially expanding could give. First of all, it could level the playing field, because I still think it's insane that our popular vote numbers are so disparate from our electoral numbers. Yes, like this last time was the first time that Democrats actually, I mean, did lose the presidency by electoral and popular vote. But before that, for the The past two decades, want to say, Democrats have won every single popular vote count. the presidencies don't really reflect that. so I think that as close as we can get to that popular opinion, Carlos: Yeah. Sparky Mitra: the better. And by breaking it down, we could definitely do that. yes, and give people more ability to actually focus on a smaller group of folks rather than spreading themselves too thin. mean, we can look at even my district before Prop 50. And I do think the office locations will change a little bit afterwards. But the incumbent, He had two offices, the one in the main locus of our city is open every day of the week, but the one that's a little bit far out and it was way less far out than the district now goes. ⁓ That one's open like two days a week. so. Carlos: Mm-hmm. Sparky Mitra: So if you're someone who's struggling with going through immigration work and things like that, and you need that office, it's only there for you two days of the week rather than being there for you how it should be. And yeah, think making these districts. Carlos: Mm-hmm. Sparky Mitra: more focused would really actually help with kind of making sure that representatives are actually serving them. Because I do think that there's a lot of critiques of current representatives that are very corporate donor kind of leaning and who really kind of focus on corporate interests that they do a shitty job of serving their constituents even like kind of more individually. Because I think we often forget that being a legislator or being a congressperson is not just Carlos: Mm-hmm. Sparky Mitra: it's also, constituent services are a big part of being a legislator ⁓ and that's literally if someone calls you and they're like, hey my immigration paperwork is going crazy, can you help me? Your office is supposed to be able to help them. ⁓ Carlos: Yeah. You see, it's those things that I don't know if people realize that your congressperson is supposed to do more than just go on Fox News. Sparky Mitra: Exactly! Yes! Yes, yes, yes! Right? Yes, yes. No, we act like these like these congressional recesses and things are times where like, yes, they're not working at Capitol Hill, but they should be doing other fucking work. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But a lot of them don't, a lot of them are in like these uppity kind of, I'm forgetting the phrase for it, but. Carlos: Yeah. Right. They should be home doing work. Sparky Mitra: like uppity settings, either like mingling with corporate interests or yeah. Yes, exactly. Yes, yes, yes. All the shit that like, feel like Clarence Thomas and Justice Alito constantly get shit on. ⁓ But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's so bad. But like our representatives do this same shit, so yeah. Carlos: ⁓ yeah. Like sponsor dinners and goofy shit like that. That's straight up bribery, son. God Yeah. Yeah, I yeah, I don't doubt that. How much of this were you aware of when you decided to run? Sparky Mitra: It's crazy. In terms of what the job is or just the craziness behind the scenes or... So in terms of what the job is, that is something that I was really aware of. And the reason is, I mean, there's definitely been other folks that have wanted me to run for other things. And I've always tried to my due diligence of what the job actually is, because... ⁓ Carlos: All of it. Sparky Mitra: Because yes, all of them are like legislative in nature, but there's always another big part of the job that is like not on the dais, not talking to some reporter. It's actually like going out into the community that you're serving. ⁓ So I was very aware actually of like constituent services and that being a big part of the job. But in terms of ⁓ like the back room stuff, I was aware of some of it. think in the grand scheme of things, I was aware that lobbying and Lobbying is not just like convincing reps for a lot of folks. It is very much acting in interests because you were given something in return. ⁓ I was very aware of that particular aspect. What I wasn't as aware of is that it is very much if you're working in the political space, not as like a community organizer, but as like a staffer or as a young person who's Carlos: Yeah. Sparky Mitra: a policy expert of some sort and is helping some existing elected, you better not be actually talking about what your beliefs are even off the clock. That's the stuff that really kind of fucked with me a little bit, where... ⁓ where I would go into these same spaces where I had been as a community organizer and they were like, yeah, I really support XYZ, really progressive thing. In a very meta sense, I support everything that's happening in New York, like Go Zoran. At the same time, when you go in as a progressive candidate into these same electoral spaces. Carlos: Ha ha ha. Sparky Mitra: It is really only the community-centered folks that are still there for you, the people who are working for the party and things like that. They're like, ⁓ shit, now I have to make a decision that my boss may not be happy with because their friend is the person that Sparky's running against. So let me actually disappear or let me... Carlos: Yeah. Yeah. Sparky Mitra: Even disappearing, honestly, like that's fine. Like being, like I even became okay with that at a certain point. It's being actually combative and being filled with vitriol that comes with that, that I was so not okay with. I was like, where did this 180 come where I used to be so chill with you? Luckily you're not like my, like. first group of friends that I go to with all my problems, but there's definitely people that are, that have been blacklisted from everything, that have worked in this space before. Yeah, so I know a guy who... who was actually volunteering for the person who ran as a progressive ⁓ before me a couple of election cycles ago. But he had previously been involved in trying to recall ⁓ one of our city council members because he's a hard left progressive, she's like this very corporate. She is a Democrat, but she's a very corporate kind of dem. Carlos: Yeah. Sparky Mitra: He used to work in politics, he worked in politics ever since like he came out of high school essentially and then he was blacklisted from every job and he ended up going back to school to become like an electrician. And to me, I'm just like, ⁓ that shit's fucking scary. What the fuck is that? That's insane to me. Yeah. And he wasn't even running for shit. He was just like, I want her to be held accountable. Carlos: They kicked him all the way out. Sparky Mitra: And then they're like, nah, we can't have this. I'm like, dude, what the fuck is that, Yes, dude, it absolutely is. It absolutely is. And that's the shit that, like, I had heard of, like, certain things, but I really thought it was, like, one-off cases. I genuinely believe that. And I'm just like, no, the sinister kind of way of thinking about it, it very much feels like a part of... Carlos: Is it a little high schooly? A little yeah. Sparky Mitra: a part of what their job is, even off the clock. I don't know why you're shilling for your boss off the clock, but they are. so. So that's something that was very new to me and that I was not very aware of. ⁓ And I'm very grateful that that was never kind of, that I had already kind of decided early on in undergrad that I didn't really want to be a staffer because of that reason. I do think it strips away your autonomy a little bit. I didn't realize. that some people think it strips away their autonomy off the clock too. But anyways, whatever. ⁓ Right here. So, so, and most of my friends have very much been in that same boat. They're like very community centered, community organizers, or they're like scientists, which they're, I do think they, I think we would really benefit from more scientists being a little more involved because science funding and stuff is also getting stripped and. Carlos: Hey, when you believe you believe. Yeah. Or again, just having more scientists around. Sparky Mitra: Yes, dude! so I would love that, ⁓ but luckily, I'm lucky enough not to rely on ⁓ corporate dem spaces too much for a community because I would be in a rough position if I did. Carlos: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wha like how does one choose to be a community organizer? Is there like a a Google Hangout? Like how does one choose and then how does one move within that I don't know, lifestyle or whatever? Sparky Mitra: Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think everyone does it a little bit differently, and I do think certain folks have it harder than others. For me, ⁓ I've always been most comfortable in kind of like these nonprofit spaces where, where... Even though I don't work for a non-profit anymore, that is kind how I got most involved early on, ⁓ where there was very specific tasks. There's like, ⁓ there's... ⁓ a piece of legislation that's being considered by city council that we really support or that we really oppose. Let's mobilize. Let's organize folks. Let's look at communities that haven't been involved that were involved or that certain people have been involved with but like haven't been involved in this conversation. Let's bring them in. Let's turn them out. And let's educate. Let's get their input as well on what they would like to potentially be. what they would like to be changed in this piece of legislation and let's ⁓ bring people together like that. So that's kind of how I've been most comfortable. There's so many ways to kind of do it. mean, ⁓ other ways are kind of more... ⁓ more nebulous in nature. think right now in San Diego specifically, mean, there's vigils at Otay Mesa Detention Center ⁓ every week on Sundays, but there's also constant detention resistance ⁓ where you can get trained actually at the location ⁓ by local community organizers to help either just like give people, like give ⁓ migrants that are being processed that have been detained ⁓ kind of like peace of mind or to actually be offering some sort of kind of like resistive kind of force ⁓ and kind of getting involved that way. I think the biggest thing is honestly just showing up because when you show up you get connected to these opportunities at like the detention center at I mean the other thing that happens every week in San Diego in this kind of realm is ⁓ mobilizations against ICE and that happens at the federal building in downtown San Diego. And I don't necessarily think that particular action itself is like... hoping to change something, but there's so many folks in that space who are labor organizers, who are involved with other community organizations, ⁓ who help with different aspects of, ⁓ help different sections of our community in different ways, ⁓ who you can always talk to because they're always tabling, they're always at the federal building on Thursdays. ⁓ so just showing up, I think, is definitely the best way. I know for example people who got involved in politics through my campaign for the first time as volunteers. ⁓ There's folks even in that space who for the first time went to their first city hall meeting. ⁓ ⁓ So, and like they didn't know that, like even if they knew that happened, like it's always easier when you have like a buddy going with you and you know that someone else is in the know about things. ⁓ And so they've gotten more connected to that space and actually like giving public comment. And I think starting out as someone who was mobilized, hopefully being built up with the skills to then organize your own communities and bring them together to turn out for pieces of legislation that affects them and will benefit them. Carlos: Yeah. Sparky Mitra: ⁓ And so those are like the initial kind of ways I would maybe go about it I mean if you have like local groups at your universities whether it's like a Y DSA chapter whether it's ⁓ other like smaller organizations SJP is huge right on many campuses now students for justice in Palestine ⁓ and A lot of a lot of those clubs and groups themselves have a lot of experience now in Organizing folks like these encampments. don't I don't think a lot of people realize how much coordination and organization went into this. Not just the first one, not just in Columbia. I think Columbia had its own unique organization that was like, they did a really good job in a lot of ways and we could definitely talk about that later, but in the future. But even other encampments, most of them were able to get prominent progressives from their communities. Carlos: Yeah. Sparky Mitra: to come and show out and to support them. Most of them were able to work with local businesses who supported justice in Palestine to help feed the kids when they're literally in these tents and when grad students are getting stipends and payments withheld from them and anything in that realm. Like food was. At Columbia, food was there every day to a point where we actually had an overflow of food and then we'd send ⁓ the food that we had left to different places in Harlem since we're right in the area. ⁓ So that's how a community really comes together. It's like an amalgamation of things, but I think honestly showing up, and it's I think sometimes even hard to know where to show up. If anyone is in San Diego, I'd be happy to share more resources with them, but I think like the ones that I mentioned are definitely like the kind of the first ways I would get in touch with folks. Carlos: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's important information for the layman, for the normal folks to understand that there's a lot of moving parts and it like you have to leave your apartment to activate. You have to you have to be a part of the community. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Carlos: to to like push and make things happen for your community. Sparky Mitra: Exactly. Yes. And even as something as simple as like, I think canvassing can be a little daunting for a lot of people, like door knocking, people that you've never met in your life. But there's more fun ways to get involved too, where it's usually informational things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. 100%. Yeah. There's definitely other ways you could get involved. Carlos: Yeah. Yeah, that part's not for everybody. Not everybody's a salesperson. And that's cool. Sparky Mitra: Like I know in San Diego DSA like a lot of times, and I think it's not even just DSA, it's other community organizations when they host like. ⁓ A lot of them host a lot of workshops too. It's not just like activating folks, but it's also just like being in community with folks and teaching. ⁓ At those workshops, it's usually like a community affair. ⁓ There's usually food. There's usually like a lot of really great community organizers and organizations. There's who are kind of coming together to yes, educate, but also to build community with you. ⁓ I mean, there's definitely so many organizations that want to build. Carlos: If you l if you live in a in a community and something is really pissing you off, there might be a group of people that's also pissed off about that same thing. Sparky Mitra: Exactly, 100%. Carlos: So either find them or send up the beacon and let them find you. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Absolutely. Absolutely, yes. Carlos: 'Cause like Mark Davis said this. Mark Davis, he's running in Florida. He said the United States is this big ball of money. And if you don't speak up, you're not getting any of it. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. No, exactly. Like, I even think about how, ⁓ Even when, like, insurgent candidates who've never really done, I mean, run for office or anything, yes, it takes a lot of courage to even make that first step. I would argue that it takes even more courage to kind of stay in it when a lot of people are like, why the fuck are you running? Like, cause there is going to be those folks because there's so many folks also, like those are the one, those are the vocal few, right? There's so many other folks that are like, ⁓ finally someone who resonates with me and actually gives a shit about what I need. ⁓ because at least they like, Carlos: Yeah. Yeah. Sparky Mitra: Even something as simple as, ⁓ at least they know who to fucking contact. One person, one person because they got a ballot, who to fucking contact in the future, because they will probably know about other organizations, other organizers, other people, other scientists, engineers, whatever have you, in the region who are actually trying to make their community better rather than some elected who's been there for like however many years, decades, is like living in their ivory tower, who will never fucking talk to you or give you the resources that you you need. Carlos: I'm glad you said that too, because The way I look at it is this. If you have had if if your community gave you a job, whatever job it is, if it's picking up dog poo, if it's if it's ⁓ being a representative, if it's if it's the grocery store guy bagging groceries, if you are terrible at your job for fifteen years, it's time to go. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Yes. Carlos: If society is crumbling and you have been at the front of the bus, it's time to go. It's time to go. That's why you're seeing a lot of these democratic socialists winning. Like people are tired. People are tired of complaining about the same thing. And then, like you said, the everyone all these idiots are in their ivory tower. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Carlos: And now we got a fat bitch up here saying, Let them eat cake. Sparky Mitra: No, exactly. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. No, it's crazy. It's crazy. Carlos: This orange clown. We don't have we don't have money for books to educate your kids, but here's a arch Sparky Mitra: Isn't that diabolical? Carlos: I'm like bro, how many kids did you touch? Like he is tearing everything up and it's and it's in protection of this upper class that doesn't that doesn't give two shits about you. Sparky Mitra: It's just so bizarre. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Mm hmm. 100 % Carlos: It's bigger it's bigger than just the pervertedness. It's it's the greed and the this this hierarchy that's bullshit. Sparky Mitra: Absolutely. Yes, exactly. Carlos: We're supposed to be a nation that gives you a chance to be the best you you can possibly be. And we're wagging our fingers at people that don't have shit. Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Exactly. Carlos: That's the culture change that needs to happen. We gotta shut that shit down. Change it. ⁓ we literally just passed two hours. Is there anything you wanna make sure that we talk about before we go? Sparky Mitra: I think I'm chilling for now. We'll see, we'll see. I am thinking about it. I am thinking about it. I think there's a lot of excitement and ⁓ there is like a hunger ⁓ for it. I really think that East Coast got it on lock this time around, but California's next, y'all. We've got to lock in. Carlos: Are you running again? Are you running again? Ha ha ha. ⁓ Yeah. Yeah. Sparky Mitra: And so I would love to be a part of that change in any big or small way. Carlos: Yeah. What do you have left on your PhD? Sparky Mitra: ⁓ I just started actually, so I do have a few years left. ⁓ And that is something that I've also been thinking about incorporating more kind of computational work into it. ⁓ I think, first of all, it is necessary ⁓ to really push the field forward, but also ⁓ Carlos: Yeah. Sparky Mitra: it makes it more manageable to do community organizing work with it. ⁓ Because I want to do my due diligence and I love bioengineering and I don't ever want to reach a position where I'm just like doing it just because like it's something I started. But I'm also stubborn so I am going to finish this. ⁓ Carlos: Yeah. Yeah, no no no having that little PhD behind your name, that's that's that's plus. ⁓ yeah. I just got a text message from your parents. Yes, you need to finish your PhD. They said just now just now Sparky Mitra: I'm I'm dead. No, I think they would be thrilled. Although I will say after this election, they are much more excited about me thinking about doing it again. Yeah. Carlos: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that first go round, you did good. You did good. ⁓ but people don't realize that if you if you let's say you're standing on stage and you had those seventeen thousand people in front of you, like tell me you wouldn't be nervous. ⁓ That's a lot of people. ⁓ Sparky Mitra: ⁓ Thank you. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. No, right? Yes! And no, just, I honestly like, I want to reach a point where people are... Like yes, maybe it would be a little nerve wracking, but at the same time, it would be so fucking cool to see all these people who are like, haha, fuck that guy, we want something different, you know? Carlos: No, just yeah, like imagine making everyone and and it especially if everyone is there to see you, to see what you w like I've done I've done I've been up on stage and I think the biggest crowd I ever did was like a hundred a hundred and fifty, two hundred people maybe? Sparky Mitra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Carlos: And it's i i was a little nervous at first, but boy, once that first joke hit and everybody was laughing, I was like, that's it, let's go, let's go. I made people laugh at at that I was talking about multimedia and 3D and stuff like that, like creative stuff. So 200 people came to see me and they when they first laughed at my joke, I was like, ⁓ that's it, that's it. Sparky Mitra: Yessss Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Carlos: Here we go. Sparky Mitra: Wait, that's beautiful though, I love it, I love it. Carlos: Ha ha Yeah. Sparky. ⁓ take a take however long, take a a couple moments to let people know who you are and if they want to find out more about your community activism and your campaign and everything. Tell them all they need to know to get them to fall in love with you. Sparky Mitra: For sure. Well, thank you so much for having me, Carlos. Again, I am Sparky and I'm in the San Diego region. If you're curious about what I'm kind of up to next, you could find me at sparkymetra.com. All my socials are linked there as well. ⁓ But I'm excited to both be pursuing my engineering work, but also to be involved in community, especially in the San Diego region, building up youth vote, the youth vote, building up youth power to not only potentially help congressional races, but races up and down the ballot in November this time around, but also in 2028 ⁓ all throughout, because we really want to make San Diego ⁓ a place and ⁓ an example for progressive change and progressive legislation ⁓ going forward. So I'm really excited to see what's next. And ⁓ I want to be a part of that change as a worker bee, as someone at the forefront. ⁓ or just helping support whoever. But ⁓ excited to see where we go next and thank you again so much, Carlos, for having me. Carlos: You're welcome. It's ⁓ you're a lot of fun to talk to. I'm telling ya, I just I love being surrounded by smart people, boy. They get I love it. Sparky Mitra: Gosh, no, it's so lovely being here. Carlos: Yeah. Thanks again for coming and hanging out and and showing the people like and and actually showing them some of the behind the scenes type of the stuff. So, you know, hopefully the hopefully the the the momentum of showing people the moving parts of what you guys are doing, hopefully it'll help educate folks to see like, okay, this is happening, that's why that is happening, that's why it's important to pay attention to these Sparky Mitra: Exactly. Carlos: positions and blah blah blah blah blah. So Sparky Mitra: Exactly. Yeah, it's so important. feel like not enough of us like know about, ⁓ cause even me, right? I feel in a weird way besides fundraising cause girl is still learning that part. But in terms of other parts of campaigning, ⁓ I really do feel like you have to do one to become a subject matter expert. But I feel like a lot of that knowledge is really not shared, and it kind of gets stuck either in either campaigns that were maybe not run as well because they're either insurgent or very small campaigns or they get stuck with people who end up getting a lot of power who don't want to share. Right. But I think there is this like cadre of folks that are very much in community that want to see not of course, of course I am the biggest advocate for my success, but I want to be a really big advocate for the success of others as well. And there is that a huge cadre of folks like that who really want to share every resource at their fingertips that either they've gotten through going through the ringer themselves or that they've gotten through resource sharing with other candidates and campaigns in the past ⁓ that really want to share that with others to lift them up and to potentially see electeds from working families rather than from the billionaire class, the Epstein class. ⁓ yeah, I'm super excited and I love being even a small part of that. Carlos: Yeah. I'm excited. I'm excited for you. I'm excited that again I keep going to the fact that you're like hella smart. And it is just so it's so good to see smart people trying to take over. Cause we got a bunch of we got a bunch of dummies out there right now, boy. ⁓ Sparky Mitra: Thank you, no, yeah. No, truly. Carlos: All right, and with that, everybody, we're out.