So,
And you're listening to radio station WBA I New York, it's seven o'clock. It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
It's time once again for off the hook
No, it's okay, your enthusiasm is welcome.
And joining us over Skype, if I can bring up the volume properly, we should have Rob
T. Firefly.
Do we?
Good evening.
Oh, there he is.
Okay.
I'm picking him up.
Gila, are you there?
Hello, I am here.
Okay, great.
Two for two so far.
Except we're having that issue with the volume again.
I got to be careful not to put that there.
All right.
Fine.
No problem.
I understand we also have Alex.
Your understanding is correct, sir.
Now, Alex, am I informed properly you're in a car driving right now?
You are informed improperly.
I was driving and connected through Skype, however, I have arrived at my destination.
Oh, good.
Okay.
And so I'm stationary now.
And may I just thank you for scheduling a trip in the middle of preparation for the
show.
It made things so much more exciting.
Anytime.
Anytime.
Absolutely.
Well, we haven't been on in the last couple of weeks.
And it's funny, two weeks ago we said that's the last week of the fundraiser, week number
six.
But we were wrong.
The fundraiser continued.
In fact, it's continuing this week as well.
But this really is supposed to be the last week of it.
The reason it's going on so long, eight weeks is unprecedented, is because of all the craziness
and insanity involved in the pandemic.
You know, if we go on much longer, it's going to collide with another fundraiser, and we'll
have two fundraisers going at the same time.
And we've never done that before, so I'm not sure how that would even work.
So what we want to ask people to do is support the radio station, support the show.
And the easiest way to do that is just give a call to 516-620, you know what, I thought
I almost memorized the number.
516-620.
I didn't write it down.
Did anybody write down the phone number?
Wow, this makes us look so bad.
Yes, it's 516-620-3602.
Okay, that's what I thought.
I didn't want to say a number of somebody who would be deluged with calls.
That's always a bad thing to do.
You know what, you can blame me.
I think I moved the sticky note.
I had a piece of paper that had that on it, and I prepared that a week ago so that this
wouldn't happen.
516-620-3602.
Just so people know from the start what we are offering tonight.
It's basically similar.
In fact, it's identical to what we offered two weeks ago, and it's in lower quantities
because we're running out of this stuff.
We have the Hacker Digest full-set lifetime subscription.
That's every issue of 2600 since 1984 and on into the future in digital form and an
annual compendium.
So 1984 is Volume 1.
1985 is Volume 2, and we're up to Volume 36, I believe, from last year.
All that is yours for a pledge of $150, which I might note is less than what it actually
costs.
So we only have a few of those left in stock.
$150 Hacker Digest full-set and lifetime subscription.
Your support, 516-620-3602.
It supports the radio station, and we feel happy because we know that we're donating
something to the radio station that is helping it out as well.
You can also go to give2wbai.org and pledge online for that.
The other premium we are offering is a three-year paper subscription to 2600 Magazine.
We only have a handful of those left.
That's for a pledge of $50.
You'll get 2600 Magazine delivered to your mailbox for the next three years, assuming
that there's still a post office for the next three years.
And finally, we have the Hacker Tote Bag for a pledge of $25.
Kyle, you're very passionate about those tote bags.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, these are basically a really durable black cotton bag that you can put all kinds
of items in.
And it has our signature government seal, the Hacker Quarterly government seal.
And it's really notorious in many circles.
There's a lot of different groups that fear this symbol.
They know what it means.
They see the keyboards.
They see the cuffs.
They know.
They know.
They know.
So you can get yours, and this is a great way to show off.
It's got that print on both sides.
So no matter what direction you're walking or if you turn and run away.
Yeah, there's a lot of that.
Well, you might need to.
But I don't know how many various dust masks it holds.
I don't know the capacity.
I know it holds a lot of magazines.
So get your Hacker Tote Bag.
This is a great item.
A lot of places are trying to phase out plastics.
And if you're interested in not contributing to plastic waste, this is a great option.
And it goes to a great cause.
It's really just our gift.
And you get the station.
You get our show.
You get a full vote in Pacifica, especially at these pledge levels because it is beyond our $25 limit that makes you a voting member of the radio station community.
So you get to do that.
You get to participate.
You get to support in our name a vote for Off the Hook, a vote for this kind of programming and discussion.
And, of course, your ability to write in and share your thoughts on the kind of programming you're hearing.
So that's the Hacker Tote Bag for a pledge of $25.
Also, we have the 2,603-year subscription for a pledge of $50 and the Hacker Digest full set and lifetime subscription for a pledge of $150.
All of them are running out.
Tonight is the last night of the fun drive for us.
516-620-3602 or give to WBAI.org.
Thank you, everybody, who has called in and emailed with support.
It makes a huge amount of difference.
So, folks, what have I missed?
What have you guys been up to the last couple of weeks?
Alex, let's start with you.
I'm still in Pennsylvania.
Yeah, just working my butt off.
And last couple of weeks, I guess, you know, I think the last time that we were on the air was when I had to make sort of an emergency run into the city.
That's right.
And I haven't been back since.
I've just still been sort of holed up in Pennsylvania.
Our county here in Pennsylvania has officially reopened a couple of weeks ago.
So there's lots of traffic out there.
Things are pretty much, you know, well opened.
I went into Lowe's the other day and completely freaked out and walked out, given how many people were not wearing masks and how many people were there.
So, you know, I'm still trying to, as best as I possibly can, stay in the house, quarantine, work from home, follow all of those guidelines.
And, you know, I think that people often forget, especially when the sun is coming out, that this thing, this virus is still very much alive and still spreading, as we see from a lot of the other places that have reopened.
And I wouldn't be surprised if, ironically, as somebody from Pennsylvania now, I'm forced to quarantine when I go back to my home in New York.
That would be some real irony.
Well, it's more than irony. It's tragic. It's stupid.
We see the same thing out here on Long Island, where people are walking around without masks.
The tragedy is New York has done such a good job with depleting the numbers, basically stopping the spread.
But all that is going to be for naught if we go back too early and throw all our precautions aside.
We need to be wearing those masks. Those masks keep us from potentially spreading the virus to other people.
It's not so much to ask at all.
I mean, you know, I can walk around on a street with a mask on and, you know, I forget I have a mask on after a while. It's fine. It's not a big deal.
I don't understand these people who say it's somehow an infringement of their rights to be told you have to wear a mask.
That's basically to keep you alive, to keep other people alive as well.
Look at the numbers. These numbers are not a joke. They're not something that are made up.
This is happening throughout the planet.
And New York right now, if you look at the maps that are color coded, you see New York is green, which means that we're in good shape right now.
And all those states that people have been warning about, the ones that opened too soon, the ones that said, oh, we don't have to wear a mask.
It's not going to affect us. Yeah. How do they feel now?
They're all the red zone. They're all setting record numbers. A lot of people are going to die as a result.
And I don't know why we're not angrier than we are about this, because this is not some kind of made up number.
This is really happening. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of people that did not have to die that will.
And all for what? So that somebody could say, I don't have to wear a mask in in BJ's or Lowe's or whatever.
What do you what are you gaining from that? It's just it is it is.
I'm struggling to use the words I'm allowed to use on the radio. I just have never seen such stupidity on such a grand scale.
Now, all that aside, there are so many people that I feel proud of that we were in a Black Lives Matter march last week.
Everybody, everybody except the cops were wearing masks. Some cops were, but most of them weren't.
I don't understand that. And to see people being socially awake, standing up for their rights, demanding justice,
at the same time taking care of other people, including the people that are against them for whatever reason,
that to me is as inspirational as it can possibly get.
I don't see how you can be inspired by standing around without a mask, demanding the right to get sick and infect others.
How does anybody get inspired by that? But that's that's the other level of demonstration that we are seeing.
So, folks, please, today it was it was announced in New York that we are going to be, as of midnight tonight,
requiring people coming from these states that have a skyrocketing infection rate as a result of not taking precautions.
We are going to require people to quarantine for two weeks.
And I hope I hope listeners out there pay strict attention to this.
If you know somebody who's coming in from another state that is highly at risk, make damn sure those people quarantine for two weeks.
And tell somebody if they don't, because that could be your relative.
It could be you that gets sick, that dies as a result of their stupidity.
And we have to stop being so damn patient with this.
Yeah. And call it for what it is, recklessness and inconsideration under the circumstances.
And I really feel like there's a lot of people enduring and proving, as you said, in events like that, that it can be done.
It's not a hindrance at all. And it is, in fact, a sign of awareness and something that that can exist with our freedoms to assemble and so forth.
It's not it's not that confusing. It doesn't have to be something a subject of conjecture or some sort of debate.
Look, I don't I don't know what people think the the other side of this is that somehow people like us are sitting back celebrating the fact that economies are shut down and that we're all forced to stay in our homes and wear masks when we go outside.
That's that's not something any of us want. You think we're having fun with this?
That's insane. This is what science demands. This is what the medical community demands. Listen to those people.
If you don't want to listen to us, that's fine, because we're very opinionated and and sometimes we can rub people the wrong way.
I get it. But but you can't argue with facts of science and medicine.
Listen to those people. All right. And follow that advice. And if you do that, if you do that, this will be over sooner than later.
It was said that if everybody wore a mask in three weeks, the virus would have nowhere to go and it would peter out.
But all it takes all it takes is one imbecile who doesn't follow these guidelines coming over on a plane or on a bus or something and and not being careful and infecting a whole lot of other people.
That's how it happened the first time I was going back to March. This is what is this, June?
Yes, April, May, June is the end of June. It's not that much as far as months. And there were no infections.
And then there were two and then there were five. And then you saw what happened.
So nothing has changed. That can happen again. That probably will happen again.
Look back in history. Look at 1918. Look at the pandemic. Then look how the second wave is what really got people because they weren't careful.
So we need to do a better job. Don't feel bad about lecturing people, scolding people.
And don't feel bad about taking these precautions yourself.
Yeah, definitely challenge stuff that is reckless and not what the guidelines suggest.
It's just it's it's impossible to to be able to predict and do things well as a society in these phases and so forth.
But we'll keep everybody updated on developments there. Good luck trying to find PPE right now.
Well, it's it's it's crazy because the the sort of PPE we're talking about is, you know, cloth masks.
A lot of stores say you need them now. People are starting to complain about this.
But you can make a cloth a cloth mask out of like literally any piece of fabric you have around the house or you could buy one or get one.
But the thing is, we were all doing so well in this city.
Gila and I are still in New York City. We're in Queens. And everyone was pulling together.
Everyone was doing such a good job. But over the past couple of weeks, people have been loosening up.
People have been letting go. I know a couple of you saw the video that was going around last week of a bunch of people hanging out on St.
Mark's Place, you know, drinks in hand, mostly unmasked.
And it's it's ridiculous. I mean, the reason we are green right now on those maps is because we've been doing a good job.
We need to keep doing that good job. Green doesn't mean we're done.
Green means we're doing a good job and we need to keep doing it.
And the real the real problem behind all this is that wearing the mask has become politicized.
Believing in science and numbers has become politicized.
The president himself told a reporter, I think earlier today or yesterday, that he believes that people are wearing masks because they disapprove of him.
And they're doing that as a symbol, which led to all his followers ditching the mask.
So this is this has become such a thing where we we we are not as a society acting in our own best interests.
We're turning this into yet another just little brownie point that you can gain or lose in the petty debates and disagreements we have.
And and it's going to it's going to screw us. I mean, Gila, I know you left the house, you know, earlier this week.
And and you were telling me about what things look like out there.
There are just people are not masking as much as they were and they just seem not to care anymore.
We had we had we went to the laundry room in our building today.
We were going to put our stuff in the dryers and we encountered three neighbors.
One had a mask on and there are signs all over our building that say, when you leave your apartment, please make sure you have a mask on.
And people just don't. And, you know, I've been reading things where people are saying that this is not too different to the anti-vax movement.
It's become the same sort of thing. It's just this is the anti-vax movement on somebody's face instead of a shot that you can't see.
Absolutely. In fact, in some of the hearings this week, the CDC leader, Dr.
Redfield, was taking a task because he's done a lot behind the scenes.
And some of the representatives basically pointed out that he had not done a lot of public engagement and leadership on the national level around science,
around guidelines like this, and especially in anticipation of needing a lot of people and a high uptake,
in other words, of this vaccine or whatever comes of of our efforts to to get out ahead of this in the next season or next year.
Yeah. You know, this this isn't this isn't something that has anything to do with the person that you're hearing the message from.
You know, if Trump was saying the right thing, I would say, yes, I agree with him.
You know, despite my feelings about him, it doesn't matter if you hear Cuomo say something and you don't like Cuomo.
If it makes sense. So you agree, you know, there's too many people that simply can't grow up and can't get past there.
Oh, I don't like that person. So everything they say has to be bad.
In this particular case, the way New York handled this, I think, has really worked out.
That's why we have we have basically brought it down so that we are in I believe New York just entered stage two out here on Long Island.
We're in stage three, which means you can go inside restaurants now.
I think they can only be half full or something. It's it's it's still ridiculous, but it's it's what is necessary at the time.
And we have to follow those guidelines. Regardless of what you think of the person that tells you, you have to follow those guidelines.
Listen to somebody that you do like who who tells you you should follow those guidelines, because that's what it's about.
It's not about the personalities. It's not about the politics. It's about the science. It's about the disease.
It's about us doing the intelligent thing. We know better. And it's it's other countries, particularly in Asia.
I've heard that they have an easier time because people are more socially conscious.
And here in the US, we pride ourselves on being rugged individualist, which is fine.
But in situations where you need to come together and act collectively to preserve your very way of life, that's when it doesn't quite work out.
So we need to get beyond that, work together for a little while, solve this thing.
Then we can be at each other's throats again. I promise. Well, we'll have a great time as as individual as fighting each other.
It's also fascinating to me. There's a story that came out of San Diego in the last day or so.
This woman went into a Starbucks. She wanted to get coffee. She wasn't wearing a mask.
The barista told her she needed to mask up or leave. And she had a tantrum.
And someone and she posted a picture of the barista with his name on social media and said, he told me I needed to put on a mask.
I should have waited for the cops. I should have had my medical exemption. It's kind of blown up.
Someone started to go fund me for like to tip this barista as of a couple hours ago.
It's past twelve thousand dollars. That's right.
And it's fascinating to me because people are saying, you know, we support you.
And then there are a lot of other people who are like, well, he didn't want to tell her to put on the mask.
It was just his job. I mean, he might not agree with this, but I'm going to give him money because he was doing what he was told to do.
And it is it's becoming a fascinating thing, at least to me, about people aren't.
It's not a caring thing. You know, they're doing this because we have to.
And even if I guess if you're doing it begrudgingly, you're still doing it. And that's good.
But this idea of not pulling together, you know, you think about like in the Depression, in World War Two.
And when, you know, people were doing meatless Mondays and they were, you know, going without for the greater good.
We couldn't do that now, even if we wanted to, because people wouldn't participate.
Yeah, I think it's it's an incredible possibility that if you do the right thing, you might find yourself handsomely rewarded.
And maybe that's that's what we need. That's that's the motivation we need to do the right thing consistently,
because you never know who might be watching or who might be filming and and labeling you as a hero.
And I like to think that what we're saying here tonight, that's the right thing.
So why not reward us by calling 516-620-3602, pledging your support to WBAI,
getting the Hacker Digest lifetime subscription or the or the three year subscription or the tote bags,
showing your support for this radio station, for what we do at this radio station.
And you'll feel a whole lot better. 516-620-3602 or give to WBAI.org.
Like how I work that in?
It's good. I also like to just on this, if you're already a subscriber to 2600 Magazine, but you still want to support WBAI,
don't forget that if you support WBAI at the $35 level, you can get a very spiffy WBAI station logo face mask.
Looking stylish, supporting your favorite community radio station and keeping others around you safe and healthy at the $35 level.
Also, remember that you can donate by texting WBAI to the short code 41444.
And you will get a response text with donation instructions.
That's good news that those face masks are back in stock because they went out of stock very quickly.
Turned out that's definitely what people want. So that's good to know.
And you can get yours 516-620-3602, give to WBAI.org.
Best thing of all, though, you're supporting the radio station.
So, Alex, you know, you got us off on this whole tangent about people not wearing masks.
What else have you noticed?
Well, you know, I did have to actually go to the doctor's office here in Pennsylvania fairly recently, too.
I wound up coming down with an eye infection.
I think, you know, one of the unfortunate byproducts of the coronavirus pandemic is that we often use things or consume things for, you know, far after their expiration date.
You know, mostly food. I feel like we're all eating a lot of older food.
Well, I've been reusing my contacts, the same contacts for the last three months and came down with an eye infection.
So today is the first day of wearing contact lenses again.
But I had to go to the doctor's office in order to get a diagnosis and a prescription for antibiotics.
And that was, you know, it was a weird experience for me to have to go in there, you know, wearing a mask.
There are very few people there. Everyone was socially distant, though.
Everyone was pretty conscious of it and everyone was wearing a mask.
You know, you don't fool around with that in the doctor's office.
But, you know, the whole diagnosis while wearing a mask and everything, it was weird, but it worked.
You know, we got through it. I got the medication, went to the pharmacy afterwards, just like any other day.
And, you know, and I'm fine now.
Alex, can I just ask one thing? You were at the doctor's office.
Did you get tested to find out if you ever had COVID-19?
No.
How come? Is that not offered?
It just seems like after all this, you should know whether or not you ever had it.
You know, they never offered it to me.
I described the symptoms that I had had in March and they said, yeah, sounds like it, you know.
But then, you know, here's the other thing about it.
Even if I took an antibody test now, you know, it could quite possibly come back as negative
because some reports are that your antibodies only last a certain period of time.
So, you know, I feel like there are a lot of people out there who have had this thing
or have had symptoms very similar to the coronavirus and approximate in time to when the pandemic was at its peak
and whatever their geographic area was.
But, you know, looking back at it now, we make it essentially false negatives for having had the virus.
But really, you know, does it matter?
For me, it doesn't make one iota of difference in terms of how I go about my daily life
because having had the virus does not necessarily guarantee you immunity.
So we all need to operate as if, you know, we may be carriers and still wear masks.
Even if you've had the virus and you've been confirmed to have the virus,
your antibodies may not be completely effective forever.
The virus may mutate and you may be able to get it.
You may become an asymptomatic carrier and able to transmit that.
I mean, and this was, you know, a problem that came up, I guess, within the last week or two,
was some information from the World Health Organization that asymptomatic transmission was rare,
which they then had to walk back, I think, within, you know, the next 24 hours.
So, you know, the fact that that happened and that there was information that turned out from a very reputable source
that turned out to be wrong or misleading and had to be walked back, you know,
this is just contributing, I think, to people's skepticism about the severity of the virus itself.
And that's, as the president would say, sad.
Right, yeah, and there are really a large number of different tests,
antigen, antibody, as well as the active virus tests.
One thing I think I heard in the testimony was that the person who is asymptomatic,
as well as the person who has symptoms, they have the same amount when they're swabbed or tested.
So they're carrying as much and, therefore, can expose people without even feeling as though they are ill.
And that's that chain of contagiousness and so on that will help spread it so quickly.
And as we're experiencing and seeing a lot of reports of,
but hopefully that stuff is more helpful than harmful as far as numbers and politicizing
and just the technical side of dealing with such a Herculean task of combating a public health situation,
a global public health situation like this.
So we'll definitely be reporting more about this as well.
If I could just steer the bus into a different lane for a moment.
We are still deeply involved organizing the HOPE Conference, HOPE 2020.
We aren't able to meet in person, unfortunately, this year, as virtually nobody is able to meet in person.
But that doesn't mean we're not going to have an awesome conference.
We're just going to do it in a different way, a way we've never done it before,
a way that's going to be an adventure for all of us.
But I have to say, I have never seen such organization.
I've never seen so many people pulling together to make this thing work somehow,
because our very future depends on it.
With all that has happened to us this year, basically losing two issues to the pandemic,
literally losing issues, issues that never made it to Barnes & Noble.
Somehow, if you're in Canada, you probably did not get the spring issue of 2600 Magazine
because all of them disappeared.
That's what we're being told.
We have no idea why.
Nobody is taking any responsibility for it, but that's just gone.
We have to replace all those.
So, all these setbacks, so many setbacks.
So, losing the conference on top of that, we would be finished.
Fortunately, we're going ahead and we have the support of so many people out there,
people who have held on to their tickets, people who are buying more tickets.
That is the only thing that is going to make us survive 2020,
and we will forever be in the debt of those people who have stood up for us
in this moment of real tribulation.
So, what we decided to do, instead of having a three-day in-person conference
in late July, early August, we decided to triple the amount of time
and make it a nine-day virtual conference.
It'll start a week earlier or start on July 25th, run all the way to August 2nd,
and we are going to fill every single one of those days with all kinds of amazing talks,
workshops, concerts, you name it.
Anything that you think might be possible, we can probably do,
and if you want to join us, if you want to be a part of this, visit our website,
www.hope.net.
There's all kinds of instructions there on how to get involved,
or you can email volunteers at hope.net.
That'll get you in touch with a volunteer coordinator.
We're looking for people that are interested in technology,
that want to give interesting talks about hacking,
about how COVID-19 may have affected the technical world, the world of technology.
All sorts of things are changing as a result of this.
There are so many topics that can be covered.
We don't have time to go through them all here.
They're listed in great detail on that website.
But I do want to tell you, I mentioned that it's going to be a nine-day conference now.
We decided, why not have a keynote speaker for every single one of those nine days?
Nine keynote speakers.
We announced the first few.
We have more to come.
We've been working on this for quite some time, actually,
and we hope to have more announcements in the week or so ahead.
But let me just tell you what we have so far, and I'm pretty excited by what I'm seeing.
We have Jérôme Lanier.
Kyle, am I pronouncing that right?
Yeah.
The last part is, I think, French or French-derived, so it's Lanier, but I don't know.
You can say it however you want.
You read a book by him.
Jérôme Lanier, yeah.
You read a book by him when we took the Queen Mary 2 over to England last year,
and basically that inspired you to pursue this.
We asked, hey, do you want to be a keynote speaker?
And he was into the idea.
He's an American computer philosophy writer, computer scientist, visual artist,
composer of classical music, and he's considered a founding father of the field of virtual reality.
So that's one of our nine keynote speakers.
Another, Cindy Cohn.
She is an American civil liberties attorney specializing in Internet law.
She used to be the legal director and general counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation
and became its executive director in 2015.
Incredible person.
Cory Doctorow, former keynote speaker of HOPE.
In fact, we're having him back.
He is going to be speaking about, well, whatever interesting projects or books that he's involved in.
He's an activist in favor of liberalizing copyright laws,
a proponent of the Creative Commons organization.
I could just go on and on about all his accomplishments.
Richard Thieme, he's a former priest, if you can believe that,
who became a commentator on technology and culture, founding the consulting firm Thieme Works,
author of syndicated columns, all kinds of interesting things in his life.
And that's just four.
That's just four of the nine keynotes that we're going to have.
And that doesn't even count the speakers, the panelists,
all the people that will be coming forward in one way or another.
Some talks will be recorded.
Some talks will be live.
All talks will have a Q&A session that our attendees will be able to participate in,
as well as workshops that they can attend and have interaction that way.
There will be what's known as a hallway track where you can interact with other attendees as well.
It's going to be interesting.
It's going to be different.
It's going to be an experiment, and I can hardly wait to see just how it all plays out.
Now, if you're interested in submitting a talk,
if you think you have something to talk about as far as the world of hacking, technology,
just something that you're involved in, that you're passionate about,
that you believe a few thousand people might be interested in hearing, well, submit a talk.
Submit a talk proposal to us.
But the deadline for doing this is next Monday, June 29th.
So if you want to submit a talk, do it by then.
There are all kinds of guidelines.
Just click on the speaker button at www.hope.net.
Spread the word.
Let people know that you're doing this or that they should do this.
Include a title, abstract, a short bio for yourself,
and give us enough information so that we can judge why HOPE attendees would find your topic interesting
and why you're a good person to give this talk.
We're open to so many different ideas, and age is not a consideration.
Where you are is not a consideration anymore.
It was a consideration because you pretty much had to be where we were in previous conferences,
but now you don't have to be.
You can be anywhere in the world.
And we're getting submissions from all over.
We're getting submissions from China, from all over the place, and that's great.
That's what I want to see.
I want to see people from everywhere basically contribute to this.
Yeah, and a big key facet will be the interconnectedness
and the ability to ask questions and get clarifications and interact as a community.
In this sort of huge, huge experiment, this conference in a virtual realm will take on a form of its own,
and we want everyone to be a part of this experiment in keeping our tradition of coming together and discussion going.
And the keynote I was talking about, it was Jaron Lanier.
You were right about how to pronounce it.
I don't know what I'm talking about.
And the book, I wanted to say the name of the book because I think it's really interesting.
It's Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now.
So how did we reach him?
I assume he deleted his.
I think there are people that still use sort of analog networks to communicate, which is, in and of itself, fascinating.
And we were able to…
Oh, the telephone.
Semaphore, yeah.
Flag wave.
Some kind of smoke signal was sent.
And, yeah, we're really, really excited about all of the participants and all the ability.
You can ask questions.
You can ask someone how to pronounce their name in a Q&A session as an attendee of this event.
I hope that's not one of the questions, but if you feel you have to ask that question, go right ahead.
We want much better questions than that.
So please, please participate.
We're really eager to get as many people speaking and volunteering, sharing what they know.
Maybe it's something you don't normally do, something unexpected.
Get that submission in.
We're really, really keen to give people an opportunity to share, especially right now when there are so many people looking for interesting discussion,
looking to engage and listen and really hear what people have to say.
And hopefully that's what this event is going to be.
And this is a great opportunity to segue into our next section of social media and technology.
But first I want to open it up to Rob, Gila, and Alex if they have anything to say about HOPE.
Oh, absolutely.
I mean, one thing I go through every time we do HOPE is when I'm encouraging people to submit.
And I always hear once or twice, you know, but I have this idea, but I'm not sure if it's good enough.
I'm not sure if it's, you know, of enough interest.
Go ahead, Rob.
No, I'm sure it's a good idea, Rob.
Go ahead.
Yes, exactly.
Don't be bashful.
I mean, yeah, we mock and ridicule your ideas many times, but this might be the one that we don't.
Absolutely.
You get what I'm saying, which is, yes, you won't know unless you submit.
And there is no harm in submitting.
We will not get angry with you if we decide not to go with it, if we go with something else.
And we don't mock and ridicule either, just to point that out.
I just want to make that clear.
No, absolutely.
You know, sometimes a lot of people submit similar things, and we have to choose one over another, and, you know, that gets into it.
But really, you'll never know unless you try, and we highly encourage you trying, especially now.
If you've never been up on a stage, if you don't think you could get on a physical stage, you don't have to right now.
It's your webcam.
We've all been doing this video conferencing stuff.
Most of us have been doing this for our work or just to keep in touch with people.
And we're doing it this way.
We're all getting better at it day by day.
And now we're doing Hope.
I think we can hit the ground running with this because people know the deal.
You can clean up your room or leave it a mess.
You can present yourself however you wish, just as long as you have something to share with the Hope crowd that you think is of interest.
So get in touch.
Click the speakers link on hope.net and get all the info that you need there.
We also have ideas on how to do workshops, so there's a workshops link on hope.net as well.
And, you know, that's going to be a little tricky to do, you know, differently than we have before.
Again, we don't have physical tables full of stuff that you could get in and play with, but we're figuring out other ways to do this.
So check out hope.net.
Go to the speakers link.
Go to the workshops link.
And if you've got something to share with us, by all means, share it with us, and we would be excited to have it.
Okay.
Hey, I want to welcome Voltaire, who's joining us now via Skype.
It's been a while since we talked to you.
Hey, how's it going?
Well, it's hectic and crazy, but otherwise fine.
Where are you located right now?
I am literally like five blocks from the radio station, but in isolation.
That must be weird because, yeah, we haven't been to the radio station since April, and no idea when we'll be back there.
But we're going to get through no matter what it takes.
Let's talk about what happened over the weekend with this crazy event that took place in Tulsa.
I'm not talking about Juneteenth.
Wow, Juneteenth was amazing.
We were watching Fox 23.
Don't ask how.
Kyle and I were watching the aftermath of the Trump rally and people in the streets marching and demonstrating,
and they just kept going back and forth from all these angry-looking people that were leaving the arena,
and then they kept cutting over to the Black 5th Avenue section of town, and they were having a party.
It was such a happy event.
They kept going back from one to the other.
One kept looking angrier and angrier, and every time they cut over to the party, it just got better and better.
They had all kinds of cool cars and a DJ.
Yeah, it was just a block party and a really joyful celebration, people on scooters and motorbikes and playing music impromptu.
Like you said, I think there were multiple DJ stages basically out of people's trunks of their cars and so forth,
and they kept cutting in the contrast.
It was just really magical to see the leftovers of this disappointing rally, I'm sure.
Oh, not to me, it wasn't.
To be sure.
Yes, for some, quite disappointing, but then to go back to the correspondent there and see the love and rejuvenation of what is Black Wall Street.
Anyway, so that's part of what happened in Tulsa, but the big story, of course, is that Trump somehow got victimized by either low interest,
which I find somewhat doubtful, or some technological hijinks.
I've heard reports that TikTok has something to do with this.
I've heard reports that the K-pop movement has something to do with this.
I'd like to open it up.
Voltaire, I know you have some thoughts on the matter as well.
What do you think happened in Tulsa?
I think it was sold out or not sold out, empty promo.
Most of it was the lack of interest, but there were a lot of K-pop and TikTok fanatics that were basically reserving tickets that weren't going to be used,
and I think that it did contribute a small amount, but I don't think most of the investigative reporters found that it didn't play that significant a role.
But I think it is encouraging that these powerful youth movements are using their political muscle to combat the Trump campaign and using classic hacktivist tactics.
Well, the thing that makes me think that there were technological hijinks involved here,
just looking at the messages that were coming out of the Trump campaign,
we just passed 800,000 tickets.
The mass media was reporting over a million people had signed up,
and that to me seemed very weird and suspicious right there.
I mean, Oklahoma, a million people wanting to go to Tulsa, it didn't seem to make sense,
and it's clear that the Trump campaign bought into this and really thought that a million people were interested,
and I dare say most of those million people probably were not actual Trump supporters.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, I think that's what's so great about it, that they kind of set themselves up for failure.
I agree, and I think it's also very interesting to see how the message spread and where it went,
and if the Trump campaign had looked at who was signing up for these tickets before they made these announcements,
they might have noticed that something was amiss.
I read an article a couple days ago in The Forward, actually, from a couple of teenagers who said,
we were involved in this.
You raise a generation on Katniss Everdeen, you raise a generation online, these digital natives,
and now school is done, so they're just kind of sitting there and talking to each other.
They said, one of us is known to the Trump campaign as Holden McGroyne.
Kids were signing up as Holden McGroyne and Harry Balls and all these old names,
which, again, had they looked, they would have known.
It's just amazing to see all of this happening, and I feel like an old fogey to say that K-pop is very much what the kids are listening to, in a way.
It's not my thing.
I feel very old for saying that, but watching what the K-pop community has been able to do on Twitter, specifically, recently,
is they're overrunning these hashtags.
They're getting into these live feeds and these cameras and really taking over the narrative in a significant way,
which I think is really impressive.
What I find to be really amazing about this is that you discover you have allies in places you didn't expect to have allies.
To see the people following K-pop joining forces with Black Lives Matter and basically drowning out all the racist idiots in social media,
that, to me, is a beautiful thing.
You don't have to be into the music, but you certainly are into the spirit.
That is something that I think we forget sometimes.
We realize while these apps might be invasive, I know TikTok certainly is,
there's also great potential there for using them to accomplish incredible things,
maybe things that were never intended when the app was developed.
I think one week we'll be talking about how you shouldn't be using TikTok,
but I think this week we should be talking about, wow, this is an amazing thing that you can do with TikTok.
Does that make sense?
I'm fully with that because it just seems like there are different conversations about the technology platforms,
but it's having seen a lot of it grow and emerge.
Like Gia said, these ALS challenges, getting millions of people to dump ice on their head or whatever else is adorable but powerful.
It is getting a group and an affinity group to gather around something, and that something can be anything.
Use your imagination, and I think that's truly the hacker spirit.
It's something we embrace a lot, using things the way they weren't intended
and coming up with stuff that genuinely, whatever the platform, genuinely makes an impact or a statement.
Things like this, I think we should look for more about it and use these platforms to our ends and the way we want
instead of them so often controlling your behavior through ads and so forth.
Just to chime in there for a quick second, which is that I think we still maintain a very healthy dose of skepticism
with respect to TikTok itself and its connections with the Chinese government.
It's massive hoovering up of personal data from your phone, so let's not forget about that.
But there certainly is a lot to be said that these platforms can be harnessed for good, as Emmanuel had noted.
One of the things that made me feel particularly old about this too, and I had to look up,
was in the first articles I read about this phenomenon happening with respect to the Trump rally in Tulsa,
they kept referring to K-pop stans, and I thought stans was a typo or something.
I said, oh my God, they made the typo again, and I had to look it up.
It's interesting to me to note, and hopefully to our viewers who may be as old as me and not know,
but K-pop stans is this really small subset of K-pop fans that are adept at manipulating social media platforms
and manipulating algorithms and doing things like encouraging massive amounts of donations for particular protests
or socially conscious funds, things like that.
So it was this small subset of K-pop fans that was supposedly responsible for this prank that happened with the Trump rally.
But the other thing that was really neat to learn about these K-pop fans is that this isn't the first time
that they have meddled in politics or governance.
If we think back to December 2019, which I know feels like several years ago by now, really only six months ago,
there were a lot of protests and things happening in Chile with respect to wage disparity, health care,
and general living conditions of Chilean citizens.
And the Chilean government actually blamed a lot of that civil unrest on K-pop fans as well.
In fact, pointed the finger specifically at the K-pop stans in a sort of scathing 112-page report
that singled out Russia, a couple of other massive celebrities, football, soccer stars, as well as K-pop fans.
So they are certainly a force to be reckoned with.
Absolutely. Voltaire, quickly, because we are out of time.
Just so we don't get yelled at by listeners, stan is just another synonym for fan. It's basically the same thing.
Okay. Good to know that. One bit of good news tonight to report.
Boston has voted to ban government use of facial recognition.
That just happened today. And it's indicative of the many, many changes that are happening,
whether it's tearing down racist statues or firing corrupt cops.
All kinds of good things are happening out there.
And I think we just need to join forces, stick together, be imaginative, use technology in cool ways.
And, of course, support WBAI. 516-620-3602. Give to WBAI.org.
And write to us, othat2600.com. We will see you next week.
It's strictly information I'm giving, teaching on a regular basis.
Today's lecture is about the racist.
We're not out to exaggerate or diss him, but show the symptoms and facts of racism.
Understand the racist ain't equal. There's about five different types of racist people.
First of the five different types of cases is the individual brought up racist.
Here you have young men and women brought up in the great white way opinion.
This opinion introduced by the parents of the civilized becomes transparent.
A civilized man could look through the faces, make the analysis, and see the racist.
Number two case, which you all must hear, is the individual racist out of fear.
Here you have people that fear the African and conjure up new ways of trapping them.
Number three is the unconscious racist. Not knowing they're racist, they invade the spaces.
They say, I'm not a racist. I'm not a bigot. Yet they allow it to go on and on and on.
Number four is the money racist. The one that use the topics of sheer economics.
They say owning a business isn't for the black man. He don't want that. Yet they went and took his land.
Damn, that's like a rock in a hard place. You don't have your land, yet this ain't your space.
America was built by every other race except the European. It runs this place.
What a waste. America is doomed to be overthrown by the racist real soon.
But last but not least, racial prejudice is the black man speaking out of ignorance.
Whitey this and ching chow that. It's not how the intelligent man acts.
You can't blame the whole white race for slavery, cause this ain't the case.
A large sum of white people died with blacks, trying hard to fight racial attack.
The media wants you to think that no whites really fought and died for civil rights.
But once we have a true sense of history, you'll see this too is a mystery.
If black and white didn't argue the most, they could clearly see the government screwing them both.
Vote! Vote! Vote! Vote! Vote! Vote! Vote! Vote! Vote! Vote!
Smile, when your heart is breaking.
Smile, even though it's aching.
When there are clouds in the sky.
You'll get by, if you smile.