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Transcript

Real Big Fungi · Stuff Keeps Happening

• 0:00
  Hello. I did not sleep very well last night.
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  But stuff still happened. So what's a didn't
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  sleep great, gonna do my best, might have morning
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  voice? I'll accept it. I hope you will too. Fungus.
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  I hope you like fungus. This first story is about
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  fungus. A lot of it. The whole world, actually.
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  Scientists created a worldwide map of bio density
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  of underground fungal networks. You with me?
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  With myriad pop culture interpretations of this
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  concept, you're probably already aware, but quick
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  overview. Underground, in the underground, there's
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  a bunch of fungus that creates basically like
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  an internet for plants. Hyphal fungi, I think
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  that's the correct term, it kind of just like
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  grows through the ground and it finds a plant.
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  It's like, hey yo, you wanna be friends? You
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  wanna join my club? And then it creates a symbiotic
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  relationship. This big network of fungus then
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  becomes essentially like a sushi conveyor belt
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  type thing for plants, but instead of sushi,
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  it's like carbon and water. So it's critical
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  to the well -being of a lot of ecosystems, but
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  we don't know a whole lot about it. Now we've
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  got a global map of the distribution of all of
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  this fungi. Isn't that fun? Guy? How? Did that
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  happen? Over the years, scientists like to get
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  dirt... samples. A bunch of dirt scientists were
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  like, I want dirt from a bunch of places, and
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  over the years collected some 16 ,000 samples
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  of dirt from all the places that you might find
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  dirt, like the ground. They're basically like,
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  we want to collect a bunch of samples to get
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  information on what's going on in the soil in
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  varying locations. 16 ,000 samples, actually
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  more than that, were then thrown at a computer.
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  Not the sam - not the dirt, they didn't - They
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  didn't pour dirt over the computers, they analyzed
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  the samples and used a machine learning algorithm
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  to extrapolate a map of the global distribution
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  of this fungus. By taking a bunch of samples
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  and saying this sample was at this location,
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  this sample was at this location, and doing that
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  enough times, the computer can extrapolate, with
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  varying degrees of confidence, what that map
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  would be. So while they didn't go underground
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  and, like, take a measuring tape and measure
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  out each individual piece of fungus, it is estimated
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  that the total length of all of these fungal
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  tubes underground is longer than a billion times
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  the distance between the Earth and the Sun. Said
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  another way, a little more than two football
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  fields. So as we move forward and try not to
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  die on this planet, a really good way to do that...
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  is to learn more about these fungal networks
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  and work with them to ensure that our ecosystems
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  are not going to fall apart. Yay science, yay
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  conservation. Boo this next story. Another civilian
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  has been gunned down by ICE agents, resulting
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  in his death after a traffic stop, this time
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  in Houston. Lorenzo Salgado Arajo is dead because
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  of the Trump administration and the people who
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  voted them into power, thinking this was all
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  just a meme. He had been living in this country
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  for more than 30 years, raising a family, being
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  a job creator. He was actively a contributing
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  member of society. At 6 .50am, he was on his
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  way to work, carpooling with co -workers, when
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  ICE agents accosted him in unmarked SUVs. They
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  called it a targeted enforcement operation. That
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  was 6 .50. At 6 .51, emergency services were
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  dispatched because Lorenzo was bleeding out.
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  He was shot in the gut, bled out, and died, and
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  the ICE agents claim that the reason they did
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  that was because they were fearing for their
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  life because he was gonna ram them with his car.
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  Where have I heard that before? This is an established
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  pattern. ICE kills someone, withholds as much
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  footage as they possibly can, asserts that what
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  happened was they were in mortal danger, and
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  then we find out that's nowhere near the case.
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  They have long since lost any benefit of the
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  doubt. And honestly, instead of dwelling on the
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  death of this man more than I need to, I want
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  to highlight what his son said about this situation.
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  And I will warn that this is heartbreaking. I
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  understand if you want to skip forward. Speaking
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  of his father, he said, will no longer spend
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  an evening on that porch. He did not deserve
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  to die. He did not deserve to be reduced to a
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  headline of Mexican man shot and killed by ICE.
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  The only acceptable next step for ICE is the
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  complete dissolution of the agency, probably
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  all of DHS itself, prosecution, convictions,
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  and policy to ensure this never happens again.
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  Not gonna hold my breath, but anything less than
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  that is absurd. Alright, let's switch it up a
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  bit. Let's talk about Xbox, or the lack thereof.
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  The gaming industry is going through it right
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  now. There have been a ton of layoffs, most recently
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  from Microsoft and Xbox. In a memo this week,
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  recently -anointed CEO Asha Sharma basically
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  said, hey, y 'all, we're not doing great, and
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  we're going to lay off 3 ,200 people. This is
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  part of a larger 4 ,800 -person layoff from Microsoft
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  as a whole. Let's not forget they've laid off
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  over 10 ,000 developers in the past few years.
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  and the industry at large has just been laying
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  off just for funsies. It's just a fun little
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  hobby, I guess. These cuts are massive and affect
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  a lot of studios. If you're not particularly
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  familiar with the corporate structure of Xbox,
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  what they tend to do is buy studios to bring
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  them in -house and basically just gather up IPs.
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  And so they've gathered a pretty big list of
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  big -name studios, and a lot of those studios
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  are taking giant hits. Several of those studios
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  are spinning out entirely, and one of those studios'
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  fate is entirely unknown right now. Here's a
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  quick rundown of studios that will be affected
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  by this. Double Fine Productions. They're known
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  for Psychonauts and Brutal Legend. They are going
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  to return to independent management. They're
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  gonna get a bit of money from Microsoft to make
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  sure they've got a soft landing. Pretty much
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  the same goes for Compulsion Games. They're known
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  for We Happy Few and South of Midnight. They're
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  also spinning out, also going back to independent.
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  Ninja Theory. They make Kung Fu Chaos and Heavenly
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  Sword. They've been sold to a new owner that's
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  currently undisclosed. Undead Labs, they make
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  the State of Decay franchise, they have also
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  been sold to a new owner, and the one that we
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  don't fully know about is Arcane. They've got
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  a studio in Lyon, France, and currently, their
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  fate is unknown because France actually has labor
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  laws. That studio is known for Dishonored and
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  Deathloop, and essentially, Microsoft's been
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  trying to shut them down, and they've already
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  shut down another office of the same studio from
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  Texas, but now they're trying to say, hey, close
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  that one, too. To which a French workers' rights
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  review board has to actually go over that. and
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  tell them if that's legal. So we don't know what's
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  going to happen there, but wow. Workers having
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  actual protections against just being laid off
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  immediately. Weird and interesting. I also just
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  real quick want to say, this is post -recording,
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  I forgot to mention that Bethesda Studios, Zenimax,
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  id Software, Obsidian, and Activision have also
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  all taken quite a few hits. We don't know the
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  full scope or what's exactly gonna happen to
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  all of them, but most of the ones I just listed
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  are gonna stay with Microsoft, but they're taking
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  big hits. Microsoft has made a bunch of money
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  recently. They are not struggling, and these
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  layoffs are pretty fucking cynical, because it's
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  just to make more short -term numbers look good.
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  Granted, Xbox is not the reason that they are
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  currently very profitable, but it's not like
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  they can't absorb these headwinds. They don't
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  want to absorb these headwinds, they want to
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  instead be like, look! We've cut a bunch of employees.
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  And don't worry about it. Just keep investing.
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  Look how efficient we are. AI. And in fact, Microsoft
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  Game Pass seems to be a pretty big flashpoint
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  for all of this. It doesn't make money. In fact,
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  it undermines the sales of most of the games
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  that are on it. The most recent Call of Duty
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  that was on Game Pass saw an 80 % drop in actual
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  premium sales of the game. They don't like that.
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  Much. So they're gonna start messing with that
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  as well, making certain titles be delayed before
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  they actually go on to Game Pass, so that people
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  actually spend the money on them. Here's a quote
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  from Sharma about that. Quote, But she is a former
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  meta executive, and then also Microsoft's head
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  of product of core AI stuff. She's not... It's
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  not like this is gamer time, you know? It's still
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  an executive. And executives have one job. Make
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  money for shareholders. Their job is not to produce
• 8:30
  jobs for other people. Their job is to produce
• 8:33
  value. Hey, you! Yeah, you, the one listening
• 8:36
  to this podcast. Thank you for being here. I
• 8:38
  appreciate your ears. They're very, uh, audible.
• 8:43
  If you want to help me keep doing this, it would
• 8:46
  go a long way. If you want to check out my Patreon,
• 8:48
  patreon .com slash Endeavorance. You can chip
• 8:50
  in, help keep this show independent, help keep
• 8:52
  me not doing obnoxious spots for like underwear
• 8:55
  or something. That's all. Thanks again. Moving
• 8:58
  on. Meanwhile, in Gaza, Hamas is doing something
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  interesting. Hamas has announced that they're
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  going to dissolve the governing arm of their
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  group to allow for the NCAG to come in and take
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  over. The NCAG is the National Committee for
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  Administrating Gaza. It's a U .S. and U .N.-backed
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  group. It consists of 15 civilian governance
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  experts that are all Palestinian. They are, again,
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  backed by the U .N. and the U .S. as a part of
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  the proposed ceasefire deal brokered by the U
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  .S. that Israel's been completely ignoring. As
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  a reminder, Israel still occupies 60 % of Gaza,
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  and they've killed over a thousand Palestinians
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  since the ceasefire, wounding thousands more
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  in, like, artillery strikes. It's not at all
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  a ceasefire. The NCAG has been ready to come
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  in and take over for a while, but Israel has
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  actually prevented them from going in, citing
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  that the situation is too dangerous, and that
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  Hamas has to completely disappear and disarm
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  and just go away before anything can actually
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  happen. Hamas is saying they're going to dissolve
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  their governing body, but they're not going to
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  disarm. They're going to remain a security force.
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  So essentially, it's an attempt at a bluff call,
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  right? Like Israel is saying, we can't go to
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  the next step of the ceasefire because Hamas
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  isn't going to let go of governance. And so Hamas
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  is saying, we'll let go of governance and let
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  them in. Now the ball is in your court. I don't
• 10:17
  think this really changes all that much. The
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  NCIG has acknowledged it, but they're not going
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  to actually go in yet. But any movement towards.
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  Not the current situation is genuinely a good
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  movement. The outlook of the NCAG is shaky for
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  sure, but it's just as shaky as any other prospect
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  right now. And it's less shaky than being constantly
• 10:40
  bombed. As a reminder, as for like why Hamas
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  is a governing body, Hamas did win an election
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  to govern Gaza. In 2006, they have retained that
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  position since then. And I would remind you that
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  the average age of Palestinians in Gaza is under
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  18. So 20 years ago Hamas won an election and
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  now most of the people alive there were not even
• 11:02
  born then. So there's that. We're back on our
• 11:05
  shit. Again. We're bombing Iran again. Because
• 11:09
  Trump got bored again and is saying that we're
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  gonna stop the ceasefire now and bomb them again.
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  Again. I don't know what to say about this because
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  like I don't want to crack jokes because we are
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  just bombing the fuck out of people because of
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  an idiot. But like what he said was that I think
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  it's over for me like that that is what the man
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  said with regards to Trying to broker peace.
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  He was at a NATO summit and he was like, yeah,
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  it's it's over We're gonna start bombing them
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  again, and then we started bombing them again
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  And now here we are that the argument that they
• 11:41
  used for starting the bombing campaign again
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  Is that there were some skirmishes in the Strait
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  of Hormuz with boats being shot at? We really
• 11:49
  don't have a lot of information about all this
• 11:50
  in the fog of war that could be anything I am
• 11:53
  very hesitant to take anything that this administration
• 11:56
  says at face value especially regarding this
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  absolute catastrophe of a war. So Iran has already
• 12:02
  retaliated since then and we're just we're just
• 12:04
  back at it. We're just back at it. I will say
• 12:08
  usually our weekly reminder that we're gonna
• 12:09
  go back to war now happens after markets close
• 12:12
  on Fridays. Instead it happened in the middle
• 12:15
  of the week and we saw the reaction pretty much
• 12:17
  immediately. Stocks go down, oil go up. That's
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  what happened. I basically see NBC. Anyway, one
• 12:27
  day Donald Trump's gonna shit his pants and die.
• 12:31
  Lightning round. A man from Alabama died from
• 12:34
  a heart attack while trying to hide the body
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  of his girlfriend who he had recently murdered.
• 12:39
  So far the FBI has seized at least 600 drones
• 12:42
  as people are trying to fly drones over World
• 12:45
  Cup games. To be clear, these are like consumer
• 12:47
  drones, like cameras, not military drones. David
• 12:51
  Hearn, a three -time U .S. Olympian, has been
• 12:54
  indicted in Washington, D .C. for allegedly vandalizing
• 12:58
  the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. That is
• 13:01
  where we are as a country. I apologize for my
• 13:04
  endless supply of jade today. Sony has announced
• 13:07
  that PlayStation games will no longer have a
• 13:09
  physical version starting in 2028. The reaction
• 13:12
  has not been positive. At time of writing, we
• 13:14
  genuinely do not know whether or not U .S. Senator
• 13:17
  Mitch McConnell is dead. And finally, for today,
• 13:20
  someone who's not dead, a toddler in Arizona
• 13:23
  was thought to have drowned and then was found
• 13:25
  hours later alive in the morgue. Zombaby. Thank
• 13:29
  you so much for listening to today's episode
• 13:30
  of Stuff Keeps Happening. Head to SKH .News for
• 13:33
  sources, bonus content, and your very own flotation
• 13:37
  device. My name is Endeavorance. We'll talk again
• 13:40
  soon. Take care and be well.