Latest / Stuff Keeps Happening / Five Trillion Dollars

Transcript

Five Trillion Dollars · Stuff Keeps Happening

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Hello. I accurately identified the tomb of Tal
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Rasha, but stuff still happened. So what's up?
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Here in the United States of America, we are
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watching as our government is essentially choosing
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to not use existing funding to help feed its
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own citizens. Hungry populations are famously
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well -behaved. The government is shut down because
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the U .S. is not a normal country. We don't do
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things that make sense, so instead of like, working,
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to have a new budget while paying for services
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using the previous budget that was already agreed
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upon, we just don't pay for services now. A thing
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that's not normal. Like the US is really great
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at walking around saying, we're the best, our
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constitution rules, and then we have shit like
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this. Where it's like, why is this even possible
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in our government? The answer is, it's a bad
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system. But let's just move on. So here we are
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with tens of millions of Americans wondering
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how they're going to eat tomorrow. And meanwhile,
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the government is pumping hundreds of billions
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of dollars into masked federal goons tackling
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people on the street for Fox News clips. So we're
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all watching this happen and there's not a whole
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lot that we can do to stop it. But instead of
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just feeling helpless, let's talk about a few
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things that you can do to actually make a direct
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difference in people's lives. No doubt you've
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already heard about how food banks in the United
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States are just slammed right now between federal
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employees being furloughed, military employees
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not getting their paychecks, and SNAP not actually
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going into effect from November. Everyone's trying
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to get food. Here's the thing about food pantries.
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They're not a replacement for nutrition assistance
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programs. They're a backstop. They're not equipped
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to handle this kind of a situation. Even in a
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scenario where every food bank in the country
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was well stocked and well staffed, they still
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wouldn't be able to handle the load that is on
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them right now. You know, the load that's supposed
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to be handled by the federal government of the
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country that we live in. with regards to ensuring
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that people can eat. Anyway, I know I can see
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it in your eyes. You're concerned that I'm about
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to tell you to volunteer. Guess what, bucko?
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I am. But I'm gonna do it in an interesting way
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and then I'm gonna talk about mutual aid for
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people who don't think they're volunteering.
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Let's go. Volunteering rates in the United States
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took a huge dive at the start of COVID and we're
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starting to see them tick back up a little bit.
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We recently saw a 5 % increase in the number
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of people who said that they were formerly volunteering
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in the past few years. So that's a good trend.
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More people doing more things, that's great.
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Unfortunately, we're also watching as the current
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generation of primary volunteers who are largely
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older are aging out. And, of course, a lot of
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people right now are wondering how they can eat
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tomorrow and don't have a lot of time to volunteer.
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So, like, I understand that not everybody can
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volunteer, not everybody has the time for it.
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Also, if you can make the time for it, it's very
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important. Of course, right now, a really important
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thing, and something we're seeing a lot of, are
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protests against ICE, and the federal government,
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and all the bullshit that they're doing. So if
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you're watching these protests, and you're like,
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wow, I wish I could be out there, but, you know,
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I have reason XYZ why I can't go out and protest,
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or it doesn't make sense for me to go out and
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protest, would you be able to organize stuff
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by expiration date, maybe? Because volunteering
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at your local food bank is extremely doable,
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and they almost definitely need you. Typically,
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it's a matter of just showing up at a certain
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time. You don't need to bring anything. They
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teach you how to do anything that needs to be
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done, and they'll give you a task that you're
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able to do. If you're not able to lift big, heavy
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things, they're not gonna have you lift big,
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heavy things. They might have you pack up grocery
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bags, organize stuff, go out shopping, meet people,
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actually, like, you know, cross off giving out
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the bags and stuff. There's a bunch of different
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work to do, and it ranges from physical to mental
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work, so just anything. that you can do to help.
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Now I want to be clear that, like, volunteering
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won't fix it. Volunteering is not gonna fix this.
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Like, it just won't. I already said at the outset
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that even if all of these places were perfectly
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staffed and perfectly stocked, it doesn't solve
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the problem. But not doing something because
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it's not the fix to everything is a bad reason
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to not do something. And doing something in this
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case could result in literally putting food...
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in the hands of a person who's hungry. You may
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also be interested to know that the recent uptick
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in people volunteering is largely driven by millennials
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and people who are generally marginalized and
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underrepresented. So if you're a person looking
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for a social network of new folks who are like
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-minded and have good hearts, it's not a bad
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way to meet people. Let's talk about mutual aid,
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the sort of like alt -punk goth sister. of volunteering.
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It's pretty nebulous when you just say mutual
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aid. What the fuck is it actually? In practice,
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mutual aid is essentially just being a good person,
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but with a cool name. It's essentially networking
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in your local community and providing support
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where it's needed. It might be monetary support,
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it might be getting food to hungry people, it
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might be making sure that those who do not have
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houses are safe in the winter. In my case, a
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mutual aid network that I was part of was...
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Doing a lot of work just passing out clean undergarments.
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That's important. It's not gonna fix the world,
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it's not gonna solve climate change, it's not
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gonna undo the rising tide of fascism, but it
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is gonna help someone be a little less hungry
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and have clean underwear. And that's what's like
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actually important. Helping people actually get
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things that they need. You gotta find a group
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in your area, they may be official or less official,
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and ultimately you just gotta get involved and
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ask them how can you help. You will almost definitely
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find people there who are seasoned activists,
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who know the community, know what's actually
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needed, and can direct that effort very well.
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But unfortunately, there's not a lot of effort
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for them to direct, so here is a resource. I'm
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including this in a link in the description.
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It is a website that lets you look up mutual
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aid groups in your area. It's not comprehensive,
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but it's a great starting point. I will also
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link to this other map where you can look up
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food banks in your area to try to find a place
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that you may want to volunteer or donate to.
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You should know that right now most food banks
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are saying donate money rather than food items
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because they know what food items they actually
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need. At the end of the day, all I'm saying is
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it takes a village. There are people out protesting
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and actively impeding ICE officers from kidnapping
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people on the street, and that is critically
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important. Also important is making sure that
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food moves to the places that need it. And if
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the government is not willing to help feed our
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neighbors, then that really just... Comes down
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to us. Anyway, what else? It's not a bubble.
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It's a bubble. It's not a bubble. Nvidia is now
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the world's first five trillion dollar company.
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This comes just three months after Nvidia became
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the world's first four trillion dollar company.
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This is largely because it's not a bubble. It's
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a bubble. Nvidia is now so valuable that their
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company's valuation rivals most of the world's
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GDP, only being beaten out by China and the US.
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Although I want to be clear that that's a meaningless
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stat. That is, that is apples to oranges. It's
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really, it's actually like apples to, like, pterodactyls.
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But it's more like the fact that we're talking
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about the valuation of a company in comparison
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to the size of economies. Like, that's kind of
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the point being made here. Like, hey, that's
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a, that's a big company. Essentially, at this
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point, Nvidia has reached national security interest
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levels. And it's in the US's best interest to
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just keep pumping money into everything that
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has AI labeled on it. And so I've compiled a
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list of recent investments. across the AI space
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just so we can take a look at how the tech industry
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is just an ouroboros of too much money. Stick
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with me here. The Trump admin partnered with
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OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle to make a company
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to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into
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AI. Oracle announced a purchase of $40 billion
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of NVIDIA chips. SEC filings show that OpenAI
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was one of several large contracts with Oracle
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valued at $30 billion. Google announced a $25
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billion AI data center project. Nvidia and AMD
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agreed to pay the US government a cut of all
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their sales to be able to resume sales in China.
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The Trump administration takes a 10 % stake in
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Intel on behalf of the US government. OpenAI
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and Oracle sign a $300 billion contract for computing
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power over five years. Nvidia buys cloud services
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from CoreWeave for $6 .3 billion, which ultimately
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gets inflated up into the double digit billions.
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Nvidia then announces a $100 billion investment
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into OpenAI and AMD, reach an agreement for OpenAI
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to take a 10 % stake. of AMD causing AMD stock
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to spike. OpenAI partnered with Broadcom to start
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making chips. Oracle also cut a $20 billion deal
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with Meta to provide more computing capacity.
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Google is gonna start supplying Anthropic with
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chips to the tune of hundreds of billions of
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dollars. And the US Department of Energy partnered
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with AMD at a valuation of a billion dollars.
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Some of that is normal business. A lot of that...
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is companies investing back and forth forever.
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Multiple banks are like, hey, y 'all, it's a
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bubble. Like, it's a bubble bubble. The current
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investment is in the hundreds of billions of
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dollars per year across these companies, and
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it's expected to continue to grow, and analysts
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are likening it to the dot com bubble, which,
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if you recall, sucked. Win it first! I don't
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want it. I don't want a bubble. I don't want
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bubble. Anyway, once upon a time, Nvidia's whole
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deal was like convincing gamers to buy a new
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chip to render some polygons a little faster.
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And now it's whatever the fuck this is. Speaking
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of not a bubble. Lots of tech layoffs. The tech
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industry has been going through a whole bunch
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of layoffs. This is not anything new. This has
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been going on for years now. It went from like,
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oh, we hired too many people during COVID to,
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oh, now AI is a thing that's replacing jobs and
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also we're gonna lay off anybody who doesn't
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come back to the office. But also we're gonna
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lay off people who are doing AI work because
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the AI is not actually producing a whole lot
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of value. It's a lot. But here's a few layoffs
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from recent days. Amazon laid off 14 ,000 people.
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There was an original announcement about 30 ,000,
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but it ended up being 14 ,000. It was about 4
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% of their corporate workforce, and they're citing
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that it was not financially driven. Not AI driven,
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but culture driven. Those 14 ,000 people just
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fucking sucked, I guess. Applied Materials is
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laying off 1 ,400 people, which is 4 % of their
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staff, citing low sales. Automaker Rivian is
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laying off 600 people, that's 4 .5 % of their
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staff, because of the expiring EV credits, among
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other things. Meta is laying off 600 people from
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their AI subgroup, citing bloat. I would argue
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that AI is bloke. Essentially, these companies
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just chronically over -hire and then figure out
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what to do with people. And then we keep landing
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in this position. Combine that with the culture
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of just buying as many companies as you can and
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creating work done in departments and then laying
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off those people as well, and you've essentially
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just got a monopoly disguised as a failing economy.
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Anyway, I'm just gonna keep hammering this home
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as loud as I possibly can. Hey, um, there's too
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much money in tech and these people shouldn't
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be in charge of the future of humanity. Let's
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move on. Recently, a cargo ship pulled into the
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port of Baltimore on the east coast of the United
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States of America. This is not interesting because
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this happens all the time. Psych, idiot. It was
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actually somewhat interesting this time. Loser.
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The boat that pulled into Baltimore is a sailing
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ship, a sailing cargo ship. Quick aside before
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I start talking about all this, far be it from
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me to heap praise onto global shipping companies.
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So that's not what I'm going to do here. A decent
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bit of this is greenwashing, and I'm trying to
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cut through that as best I can. Please understand
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that I just I just like ships. I like sailing
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ships. They look cool. And so this makes me happy.
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Let's talk about it. So freighters, they carry
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things to and fro over the ocean. Impressive
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stuff, except not great because they burn oil.
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Which is made of dinosaurs. Those pterodactyls
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that we were comparing the oranges to earlier.
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Apples, too. Whichever we were comparing them
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to. We burned the juice from the pterodactyls
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to do shipping. And that's not great. And so
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we're trying to find a better way to go about
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doing that. Lo and behold. Win. Essentially companies
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are making big sailing ship versions of cargo
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ships. And they're trying to say that this is
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a new green revolution or whatever. To be clear...
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There's still a lot of work to be done there.
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But as we make strides in materials manufacturing
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and aerodynamics research and shit like that,
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we're starting to get to a point where it's becoming
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more feasible to use big sails on cargo ships
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to at least help the engines. In the case of
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the ship that recently docked at Baltimore, the
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Neoline Origin, the goal is for it to be primarily
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a sailing ship. In reality, it still has to use
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a motor plane. The Neoline Origin is one of a
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small cohort of ships that is trying to do something
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like this. It's like 70 in total across the world.
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And while they did pull into Baltimore with their
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inaugural trip recently, they were also delayed
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because the sails were damaged due to weather
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along their route. So like it's it's understood
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to still be a problem. But hear me out. It looks
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fucking rad and sailing ships are so cool. I
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think we can agree that those are scientifically
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proven points. So this ship is not going to fix
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global warming. In fact, even if we did replace
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all of our freighters with purely green energy
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powered ships, freight is still not good for
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the ocean. Just in general, trash, oil, waste,
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destroying ecosystems, et cetera, et cetera.
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So putting some sails on some boats is not going
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to make the world fixed. But it's a cool step
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in the right direction. And I don't understand
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this. Maybe somebody who, like, knows psychology
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can explain this to me. But when I look at a
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ship with sails, I just feel better about that
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ship than I do when I see one that doesn't have
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sails. It's just like, ah, yes, that's what boats
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supposed to be. That feels right. That's human.
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I see a freighter with no sails. I'm like, get
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this the fuck out of my face. What are you doing?
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I have no idea what's going on with me today.
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Last thing about the neoline origin and this
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like specific ship. They actually sell the option
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to ride along on a voyage if you want. It's like
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several thousand dollars, but you get a room
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and you can just go on like a month long trip
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on this boat. That's neat. Anyone up for some
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slight mutiny? Did you enjoy Halloween? I hope
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you did. Personally, I got spooked because I,
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my president, decided to post on his social network.
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And that's spooky. Specifically, Trump decided
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to celebrate Halloween by posting on his social
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network that the US is considering going in,
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and I quote, guns a -blazing into Nigeria. This
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is one of those things that I didn't realize
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was even simmering in right -wing circles, but
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it turns out that right -wing elected officials
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and podcasters, etc. have been pushing this conspiracy
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that there is a coordinated genocide against
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Christians in Nigeria. and it has culminated
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already into the President of the United States
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saying, hey, Nigeria, we're gonna cut off aid
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and you need to address this problem or we might
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invade you. To which Nigeria's response was,
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what? See, there's not a genocide of Christians
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in Nigeria. And to say that is to basically say,
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I don't understand how the world works. Before
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jumping into specifics, let's just cover a few
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baseline facts. One, the United States is not
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a Christian nation. and certainly not some sort
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of global Christian defense network. Two, international
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experts agree that there's not a genocide going
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on in Nigeria, and not even a thing that could
14:53
be construed as one. And yet, three, there are
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multiple major humanitarian issues going on in
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Nigeria right now, which result in the deaths
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of Muslims and Christians. Overall, more Muslims
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have been killed by these conflicts. Currently,
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Christians have a higher probability of being
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targeted in certain regions. But it's important
15:14
to understand that Nigeria is almost 50 -50 Muslim
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and Christian. And so if there's people getting
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killed in Nigeria, mathematically, it's probably
15:24
going to be one of those two religions. Now there
15:26
is religious -based violence happening in Nigeria
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at the hands of fringe militias that are mostly
15:32
off to the north. And while there is fighting
15:34
between Christians and Muslims happening in Nigeria,
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it's not because of religion. It's because of
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resource ownership disputes. In reality, have
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there been Christians targeted for being Christian?
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Yes. And also, that's not a genocide. And also,
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also, is still bad. Those can all be true. But
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ultimately, the GOP is currently drum -beating
15:54
about going after Nigeria over a thing that they
15:57
can't really do anything about because it doesn't
15:59
exist. Nigeria is dealing with problems from
16:02
the militias in the north, and they're like,
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hey, you want to give us, like... Support and
16:06
doing that? Cool. But those militias are largely
16:08
killing Muslims, because they're in the north,
16:11
and in the north of Nigeria, it's primarily Muslim.
16:13
So essentially, by willfully misinterpreting
16:15
geopolitical events, the Trump administration
16:17
is roundaboutly arguing that we should support
16:21
Nigeria in defending Muslims. What a woke -ass
16:23
administration. Lightning wrap! Elon Musk launched
16:26
Grokpedia, his Wikipedia, quote, competitor.
16:30
It's largely just an AI slop remix of Wikipedia
16:33
articles with right -wing talking points woven
16:35
in. It's really really it's just unreadable.
16:38
Microsoft Teams will soon start tracking whether
16:40
you are or are not connected to your corporate
16:42
network and your manager will be able to see
16:44
that. A man in the UK was jailed after looking
16:47
up information about a court case of which he
16:50
was a juror. during the court case. That sucks.
16:53
And finally for today, a US Navy helicopter and
16:56
fighter jet both went down in the South China
16:58
Sea while they were doing, quote, routine operations.
17:01
Don't worry about it. Thank you so much for listening
17:03
to today's episode of Stuff Keeps Happening.
17:05
Head to skh .news for sources, bonus content,
17:09
and location on a free helicopter and fighter
17:13
jet. My name is Endeavorance. We'll talk again
17:16
soon. Take care and be well.