Bluesky’s big moment + President Musk?
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What's happened? And welcome back to the best guess i'm seen your .

editor to be your hard work. The land also .

part cast producer ben man, hey ben, everybody. hello. This week blue sky is on fire. I guess in a good way.

I ve been using the site for a while, and IT is while to see a huge flux of new people, over million people. I have joined blue sky over the last week, leaving xx twitter. I wonder why? I don't know.

You take your guest spokesman, we'll be talking about that. Like why blue sky has become such a new home for for twitter experts? What is, I think, the advances of this guy over other things? Like I know your big threads user sulina.

So I really want to know like how you are feeling about IT versus threads because I I never felt threats even though like they were like, oh yeah, we got we got hundreds of million people already like almost immediately because we're just facebook bringing over all our instagram users ah that felt like cheating. We'll talk about IT about that. I also want to talk about, you know, we occasionally double in elon musk news, and he has been certainly in the news this election cycle.

We will talk about how he is sort of ingratiating himself into the trump administration and kind of what that means. And to help us dissect that too, we're going to have an interview with Justin HDR, x CEO and editor of tech policy press. He's going to help us break IT down too.

So stay tuned for all of that stuff. As always, folks, if you're enjoying the show, please be sure to subscribe to us on itunes or your pod cat of choice leva s review on IT to drop his name and podcast adding addict t com. Join us saturday day mornings around ten forty five eastern for our live stream on our youtube channel.

We're doing IT this morning. Uh, we missed IT last week for reasons for reasons you can probably guess um but we're happy to be back. It's great to see the crowd here. And I don't know I am going na post and create content through the health cape well and I don't know what your plan is, but I I guess that's IT just do the job and try to help our local communities.

right, right? Lots of volunteering and they trying trying to figure, trying to not be deported for no reason. That too.

that too. I mean, listen, it's not just you. I am also a natural ized.

IT is intrined, so I was not born in this country. They can come up with all sorts of reasons to deal with this. H anyway, folks, let's talk about the sky. Let talk about, I think, Better, more fun news. Sully, have you seen, like in your time off, have you seen seen blue sky blowing up because it's something i've been seeing like just happening .

over the past week. No because I tried to take a break from the social media during this time off but also um I read our article about this low up glow up and um I think what was that the user number group from something like nine million, maybe a month or go about which you just mentioned threats this general user account is in the hundreds of millions. But for something as niche as boost guy, I think maybe you is exponential growth and the growth that coincided with a large number of people leaving twitter or x um I didn't personally see IT during which time off and i'm not sure how convinced I am of blue guides general like long term sustainability, uh but I do want to point out that like there are people in the general public and are hat h on the live stream that like a what is blue guide never heard about IT or like sim b or b like Young key colleges like I heard about blue y about six months back I had IT on my phone I never tried to do to privacy that I think there is water audience outside the text space that doesn't even know what the heck is a blue sky other than the thing outside our windows.

This is a good time for a refresh. Um I think when these other social media, you know ideas when these other services pop up, he was blue sky was masted on in threads. A lot of people wants to make the anti twitter basically a similar thing to twitter.

The little different, more decentralized and blue sky, just like massed on, is a decentralized social networks. It's not relying on like a single server somewhere. IT is kind of spread out across servers all over the place.

The actual protocol, I believe, is open source. A blue sky is not like a single major corporation either. Like IT is a IT is a small organization and they're trying really hard to like make the service itself like not not beat, just like twitter. Um it's really interesting because when we when we talk about the stuff, master on was like the super nearly master on was like the linux of the whole situation where the nerdish of folks win, unlike the highly technical stuff, also supreme ty centralized. Um you can access blue sky feeds from within maston i'll federated um blue sky was the one that was initially backed by jack dorsey and a lot of people had their like concerns about that too. The blue sky committee basically um chased him away like basically chase them away with like really being committed to the idea of an open decentralized social network and one that would not stand for like the stuff that dorsey was a was seemingly okay with like remember Doris post about the other? There is one person he sees that can sherd x flash twitter, shepherd twitter at the time to the future and that was elon musk.

Wonder what he thinks about that now? But cool.

you know, doesn't man. He still got a lot of money. He has gotten millions from that deal to.

yeah.

yeah, it's true, it's true. But yeah, blue sky is like the other one. Threads essentially was a copycat. Threats was born out of instagram code. And there is a lot of news about zur burg in the team of meta just being like, hey, uh, twitter is weak.

Let's let's, let's make a twitter super fast and they made a really quickly IT feels like you just take a part of instagram and you turn me into a twitter clone. That's what threads is. And I know you've like thread trillin.

When that thing launched, when I started using IT, all IT felt like he was like when you got a party in york, right? And everybody is is a cloud chaser. Everyone's like a man.

Oh my god, you're doing the thing. I'm doing the thing. Look at my thing.

You going to come to my show? You are you going to buy my album? You going to do my thing.

I was always IT was always very transactional, like, oh my god, retweet my thing and i'll do this thing for you and never felt real. Nobody really felt real on threats. To me also, threats was very much not a proper timeline.

There was a purely algorithmic, a timeline. So you couldn't really track real time news. Sometimes your time I would show post from days ago, uh, you can do a real time feed now, but it's A A feet of just your followers.

But it's not default. You can't make up the default. Also, zc berg and crew were very much like we're not going to emphasize news or like you know media on blues, on threads very much. It's going be about good vibes, good feelings IT really for .

the point where they were just they mentioned in that to their advertisers, this is going to be a good vibes only platform as a way of saying that IT was brand safe.

Yes, sort of like the disney land of social networks, i'd say. But yeah.

go i'm curious how much either of you use threads now days i've used I mean.

I get pings from IT because I get people tagged me in IT, so I don't know about you. Then i'm in IT. I occasionally visit the feed and it's sort of like when I visit instagram of like this, this thing is kind of unusable in a way we're like I can't find any friends.

The stuff i'm actually seeing is mostly garbage. Uh, they also just announce that a there can be working on bringing ads to threats next year. Yes, and that is another advance of something like guy where there the only plan they have now is not for advertising.

IT is for like a premium model for the pro users. We really want to invest in the platform. Two kind of paid for a little bit.

Yeah and and then what was your use again? zero. okay. So i'm a pretty frequent user of threats when i'm not trying to this ince myself from social media general. And but some of the big current problems with threats continued to be the engagement, but that dominates your are not your the algorithm make timely, not your following on the timely. Um and a lot of duplicate content, I get the same feeling you do sometimes the vendor that a lot of this is you know when when people twitter used to just whole sale copy and paste from reit and put IT in reit in twitter just to get that like and subscribes of a collector and cash.

I think there's a lot of IT that is very similar to the early days of twitter um and yeah the news that came out recently about ads coming to threats sooner than we had initially heard from zuker broken co specifically I think mosy and museum ssi and that guy and co yes, at a mossy ah so so there is a bit of like warnings on the horizon and there are a some vibes, only good vibes I will say I think a over the very short time has been around and threads was like one of the neurones compared to the methods and the blue skies and whatever else actually I think to their coins came out there more we just don't remember them anymore. Um the threads has actually made significant changes and improvements to some of its like tools a and like feature set. So like the fact that there is a follower only time line, there's like oh, we heard you and then there's I actually enjoy the um audio thread a feature on threats more than twitter， which was instantly like when the first launch didn't even have lake subtitles or captioning. Where as like the way threats does IT as you record a voice thing into the APP and then it'll attach your voice as a file but then transfer what you said as the post content. I mean, there's stuff there that's good and then there's a lot of stuff that feels like obvious rip off of twitter, which IT is trying to be in facebook matter whatever hasn't been embarrassed about the fact that .

that doesn't that he was a blant like not try about saying we're just copying twitter. Yeah oh god or club out. But the thing is like I don't think I can't really trust any meta own social network at this point.

Like I go to instagram and my actual feed is garbage. And the only useful stuff in instagram is occasionally real because occasionally applying fn stuff there. Um I guess what's APP kind accounts because I do allow a private chats and WhatsApp. So there is that. But using facebook, using instagram, is such like a terrible user experience to me, like I can't find where things are.

They keep shifting the U I um you mentioned early twitter and I think that's the thing i'm thinking like one of the original, like one of the first kiss from port andie, right? The dream of the dream of the nines is alive in important the dream of really twitter is a alive and blue sky. The weirdly the people just sharing like whatever should they want and like being less concerned about, like okay, I get a tweet, the thing to go viral earth like to build engagement, whatever.

They have a really good moderation um like good content filtering tools. So you can just like basically nuke whatever words you want to, whatever type of content you don't want to see. The block feature is like a nuclear block. So IT removes that person from your view, also like remove yourself from their view, I think too. And you just like, never have to think about that person again, too.

So do you know if that was inspired by twitter making its block?

Now that was, that was long before that was like one of the country. So they the, at the very least, like blue guy, feels to me like what I remember the internet used to be.

And when we to make services that we're like driven by the users and the actual creators and the quoters behind the the builders, we're not as concerned about revenue and not is concerned about just like insane growth, like that's the thing you look at thread and a zab and crew, we could not wait to say, oh yeah, we hit fifty million users. We hit one hundred million users. IT was all about the growth.

IT was all about the engagement. And loose guy for a long time just was about that. Now they're getting the influx of people from x lesh twitter. And I think like i'm seeing people i've not talk to in a long time because they are just coming in and using the service IT feels like meeting old trends again that at least for me being a long time two thousand eight twitter user um so I feel like this writer there is really like constructive.

which is yeah I personally feel that what we're going to see if considering that all these platforms stay you know around for as long as each other, I think what we're going to see is that threads um by nature of the fact that I was born from like instagram and like that sort of thing, we'll see a very specific type of content because its users are a very specific type of people. They're very like visual first right life, for example, threads. One of I think one of their more popular slash, while liked features, is that when you post like several pictures in a post and you pinch to sum them, they connect and become one long parana picture. And so it's been very fun to play around with that, like people post two hours or like a picture, but they're like this connected that has really and then you pinch them and they connected into this loni little victus cute and photographer s like IT, because you can post panoramas and people can actually see them be displayed.

So you've got the people who are very picture for us, very like video fers and influencers and creators that are very curated looking, whether I think a blue sky sort of space, which I have been on right, I have not been on a lot recently and maybe is because I don't see a lot of the type content I want to connect with their it's probably going to appeal to the people who are like, yeah like you know, very interested in a more nerdy space. Maybe I don't know if it's nurse is the right word, but like IT feels a bit different from the threads user and then at the same time threads posts are that you can opt into the festive s so your your post can be seen everywhere. And I think blue sky either already does or is going to do that.

right IT.

Ya just so ultimately, the apu use is gonna the one you vibe with more and then all our opposed going to be able to seen .

across platforms. Hopefully that would we do have to think like I feel like really like initially they were like all in with the idea of making threads part of the pet verse.

And now I think it's kind of up in they are sort of the emphasizing IT because I think they also realize that IT, once this post are kind of out there, you are free to move your entire account to blue sky or you are free to move your entire thing, the master on or somewhere else and the thing about facebook, they just want to keep you. They want to keep you in their world garden like as much as possible. So that's .

possible. Um I I opted into the feathers like I want to say two or three month, two months ago or one months or something like that, right? And um nothing really has changed other than the little dot that shows up.

And then when I opted in, IT definitely gave me a warning uh which may be indicated of their concern here which is that like hey if you the second you allow these into the feet dovers, you know you are not um using the same moderation tools. Those are out there. Other people can see them.

People that you have blocked here might still be able see them elsewhere, that sort of thing which is unfair warning, right? Um so maybe that was part of the concern, but they would ve met the language very clear for people are opting in IT still shows at the top of my profile every day on the threads page that like, hey, you are contents being shared with the fetch vers. Just like to let you know that your stuff is not.

It's good that happening ah does IT give you an easy way to see what's happening on lue sky with the reds because I don't think that's the thing. So it's sort of like you're spitting into the feed diverse, but you're not like engaging.

right exactly that's what I do. Yeah exactly. So like turn content for the feathers, but I don't actually engage any of IT out there. I don't even know how to see replace. I think you can see replace from the feathers from with .

actually yeah I think you can but yeah I don't know like I added you to my my skate uh, about this episode and I forget IT was that was that you're you're Normal blue sky.

Blu sky, I have a blue sky. yeah.

Okay, okay. Anyway, things are messy, I will say, as somebody who's been using twitter since two thousand eight and who remembers the old social networks, like I am, I love the internet guys. Like the thing that brought me to the internet in the first place, in like one thousand and ninety five and ninety six, was like video game message boards, anime message boards as an animal chat rooms.

You know, those things in college IT was like plan world, and the sort of like internal social networks you could do. Facebook was never a big part. Like facebook basically hit as soon as I was leaving college.

So I wasn't a part of my college life. Just like the things like h. This is interesting. This is really sanitize amErica online version version of the social network we ve seen before, like live journal and everything.

Friends are in my face, man. Those were times.

So facebook was like a real scientists ation of the space. I just never had A Y left for IT. But then twitter hit and twitter was like, oh, you're just like blogging. You're just like blogging, but shorter instant access. And I was a micro blogging, microblogging even, and I was just a huge end of IT because, like you could have conversations with actual people, like artists, like a big time directors and what not. So IT was helpful for being in the media industry for starting a podcast for all work to stuff. I just think moving forward, for me, blue guy feels like the network that will survive because it's decentralized and because you know um the people working on IT seem like they want to a build a thing and not just make a ton of money.

I think that's anything to vender. What would you say to the idea that like after you went down this walk down memory lane of like old internet platforms and like how nice they felt, what if blue sky feels like that? Only because IT has like that magic number of users to make IT fun to interact with but not so overwhelming and that's what you're actually nostalgic for. Like just a internet that was overall smaller.

Maybe maybe that could be a two. Um I mean, it's like i'm following I don't follow ten of people um even on twitter like I didn't have a huge fallowing as they are over over twenty thousand I guess.

I mean I think to to benz point, it's also that like more and more people on the internet are now people who have grown up with the internet have never known a day without the internet there. They come at IT with a very different approach right there. And and I think that some of what I personally might be reacting to that like I find a lot of the I am being an old person, older person, feeling as if these Young is coming in our, you know running everything maybe. And so I think that is part of IT. I also think that we're seeing more and more people who didn't have the internet before join the internet and use IT as a space to just channel their hate into where's people who are a bit more positive than like chill might just be channeling their positivity into the real world outside, going for walk and hikes, working with charities, I don't know. Wild guess.

Well, yeah. And we're coming back to the idea of, like more people on the internet in general means less good, adequate overall internal september. All of that stuff .

like less being outside and enjoying and soaking and good vives the internet of a trigger ing place. Sometimes IT is a good place if you're only subscribed to like are made me smile or like just really positive things. But that's not the stuff we've learned over the years.

That's not the stuff that gets the engagement. People react more to things that they are angry about. So it's slowly becoming or has rapidly become a place where only negativity this stored.

This is true, but I think it's also a broad paint presland because that, that paint sure was basically meter. That is what facebook. Did for a very long time in times of what they did was to the program and twitter now, but what what if you could rebuild a service from scratch, knowing the mistakes of what's everybody before you has made? Put in good, put in good moderation, put in good block king tools.

I feel like blue guys kind of a response to that. So yes, we should all go outside more, especially now, and take some time off line and recent to yourself in everything. But if we were, we are social creators like we're not going to get get rid of social networking.

That's not the thing that's going to disappear um in the internet itself IT feels like I was made to be a social network. You know that the connection you've have with somebody over a computer screen like that was the initial magic for me. So I think like for me at least, blue guy seems like IT has learned a live the lessons that has failed. All these other services like twitter and facebook and everything have given up unlike misinformation claims, like trying to moderate misinformation and deal with that on please guy, like you can deal with that on a community level. You could see if other people are blocking in particular account and know that this is a in account you should be aware of.

That could be a problem, okay, but community level also relies on the number of people being like manageable for you to understand .

that is that is true. Anyway, i'm just saying, from what i've seen, blue guy is good. I see, I see why it's good. This party world all is spending more of my time. If you can find me there, i'd recommend you guys check IT out to if you want, just like A, I think the interact can be Better. We have seen, we have seen Better internet, and it's not just to share volume with people 哼 is blue sky still .

invite only because I want to point out someone on chat that remind us that I was .

invite only for a while .

and that that does add to the idea， right? That Fosters a bit of a different vibe. Uh, if you're only invited to be in this placed when you're let in, you're very happy. Now it's open to all, which is nice and I think but there is still that vibe, like you said, of early twitter where like not everyone knows about us, we're still the special crowd and and there still may be a bit of you know joy associated with that.

I think that time space that has long been done because it's been open to join for a long right all the .

point out in wow, okay, blue sky went no invite only as a february of this year. I thought I was .

like just a few month .

bar is a few, but it's more than it's not more than ten months ago.

It's the of a couple .

of two and a few is the more you a few of three that's interesting .

to the other .

thing is like, yeah, I guess like sure any invite only system like could be like an insult little club. There are really smart reasons for not opening up the thing until it's too ready. You know, because you want to actually build the moderation tools, you want actually listen to users and see like things that you you should actually be building also say like indian invite only mode.

Blue sky was also a home for huge numbers of, like a marginalized population. So sex workers were applied, trans people had a huge community. And blue sky, the service like was was a safe haven for people for a long time.

And I also if feel like that's a good thing, especially they started to feel less welcome on x for sure. So anyway, I think these guys, it's interesting. I'll be tracking of IT.

I hope to see you all there. I'm at the venda on blue sky. Let us know what you think.

Podcast and GTA coming. Just tired of all the social networks. I don't know. Have you given up? Let us know, folks.

And the thing we have really not been saying, but is kind of titled this .

is the elephant .

in the room the elephant in the room is that the the huge migration away from x is a lot largely due to, uh, Donald trump winning the presidency, elon mask supporting IT heavily to the tune of estimated at two hundred million dollars. A lot of stories about how wild elon was getting around all this stuff, including business people who didn't know what they were supporting to, uh you know to ring rebels and what not.

And not paying them and moving them around your house is really terrible stuff. But essentially added them felt a little bit like he was buying our democracy. That all happened. And then we've seen reports, especially from the new york times, in love of the resources that my mask is essentially now like an honorary member of the trump family.

He is everywhere um there is a big piece at the new york times at a ratio check out it's called at marylou uncle elon mask puts his in print on the trump transition uh currently mask with his four year old and x yeah and his nanny I have been hanging out a maroo go um he has been in a lot of meetings with uh, trump hy he has been waiting in on cabinet positions ah just general things all to get like things that think the administrations doing, uh, where IT is, he has more he's had as much influences, the people who are, you know, hired to actually help run the administration. Uh, we also saw the news. Did you guys see the news about the department of government efficiency?

I saw the eliza's war and tweet a in reaction to .

a lot of red flags so yeah ah trump onions at elan mux and vivid rama swami, our our favorite tech rows will lead something called, quote, the department of government efficiency and quote, yes, the acronis is dosh. I hate IT here a couple a couple of things we want to point out to.

Actually, I just looked up the Price graph for doge coin. And IT is a hockey stick right now.

No, it's it's all money folks, all money anyway.

Well, it's all money. But it's also like all kind of speculative like in the fact that he called IT doge is probably just trying to pump.

But that's always been yeah no.

it's always let me make one thing clear before we start going deeper into this is that when you say you are creating a new federal department that, that has to be approved by congress, and that is a big thing to actually accomplish, yes, republicans will have full control of the house and senate. They they have all control of the branch of government. And we are in for a really dark and interesting four years and after math of all that stuff.

So I could potentially happen, I don't think like looking at these guys, the only of mus, who is still on paper CEO several of his companies, still a busy guy otherwise. Um I do I don't think you will actually do this. I don't think from a swami will actually want to sit down and run a hole department.

This seems more like IT really fancy name for an advisory panel, right? Like just a couple of guys we get together in a meeting room like cut this, this and this from the budget. They're saying they want to cut twelve a two trillion dollars from the federal budget.

Actual economists, I believe, like Larry summer was like, that is ridiculous. You cannot do that. That is insane. Even if you fired every federal worker working for the government, that is impossible.

So just like a full sell driving, you know, maybe a promise that will never be fully realized by you on mosque. I also want to point out department of government efficiency needs two people to run IT. That's not very efficient.

That's Elizabeth warn tweet, right? Like, you're right.

Some efficient at all. I don't know. I don't know if he said IT, but is something I have been thinking about and I love as warrant. So sure I am not.

I mean, that was exactly why I saw the tweet that I saw. Um yeah, and I thought that was freking hilarious. I almost .

it's just it's just ridiculous. I mean, I would laugh if I wasn't so terrified of like a lot of this will lead to but essentially eon mask has his like finger in the administration. He has put a lot of money in the administration um probably to save you know on paying the taxes.

He he oes the actual country. They're going to save money by a lowering taxes on the rich. I'm sure somehow that will lead to more money for the government showing the have thoughts on must go orban.

yeah can I get a really nerdy here for a second? The department of government efficiency could be a cover for something that was in project twenty twenty five and something that was also um really like well known among kind of like the musk and Peter till technical libertarian circles, this idea of firing a bunch of government employees to not like make the government more efficient, but actually make the government more compliant because you have these like long term government employees who might have their own the thoughts about whether or not what one administration or another administration is a good idea. So this was floated in twenty twenty around the time trump was up for real election last time that was under the term schedule f um the f might have stood stood for firing, i'm not sure um and then IT was also floated in project twenty twenty five. When IT comes to Peter tels influence on this and his connection to j events, there is this guy, curtis yvan, who is a big like thinker, really does not believe in a democracy and has been entirely bankrolled by Peter till for right long the people who .

are essentially believe like a new monarchy should be the thing, right?

The tech people should be monarch. Yes, yes. And so curtesy arvin, under his blog, pen name monocle mod bug, or whatever, has been talking about an acronym m called rage for a while, retire all government employees. This is something that jd vans has talked about and this is something that let me look IT up for a second the arizona senate candidate um who was also bank ruled by Peter till.

yes, it's all connected like this is not a surprise, like you can drive state line from those initial a schedule left uh plans to project twenty twenty five which is the far right wing plan for what they want to accomplish with the next tramp t administration which is all very tiring um and um you know frightening um you can definite draw ry line told this stuff it's all in interconnected.

There were reports of Peter teel and um trump world like initially they were friends of each other. But I think those support the support is like jd vans. Jd vans was like an acquit of Peter teel. It's all it's all connected. So we want to raise the .

guy I was thinking about was Blake masters. Yes, Blake masters also .

talked to outrage the line between tech and big tech. And certainly like the big billions of tech and influence in the government is like IT is IT is very much a thing. Now that is why crypt is such a big thing that they're talking about, the new tramped administration. It's all there.

This is can be an ongoing story for us, but we wanted to just kind of point IT all out um because we're going to be hear more about we're going to hear more about ella must having an actual influence in our politics, which it's just kind of a weird thing because Normally he's been the guy to be like don't just don't regularly, me bro, like just just leave us alone. Let me build my things or let me apologize for when my not so sell. Driving cars have accidents so which the whole other level of things that will be talking about.

So that's why I want to chat with mr. Justin hendricks, the CEO uh, founder and editor of tech policy press is a non profit new site focus on the intersection of technology and public policy. Um they do news.

They do news letter. Um they do a lot of work to explore how the tech world is really influencing the way our government is working. I think they are doing a lot of good work there too.

So I want to get justice thoughts on mask on elan musk in everything he's trying to do in the trumpet administration. Now here's our chat. Justin harrick, thank you so much for joining a something gatto podcast.

Thank you for having .

me before we begin, I really want to give you a chance to talk about tech policy, press and what you guys are doing there because I remember you're were just and you you were at the, was at the N. Y. C.

Media lab, right? absolutely. I spent eight years in new york city media lab, consorting of universities and a media and news organizations here in new york city, focus on emerging media technology, looking at a range of questions about how to use what we call machine learning then.

But now people are artificial intelligence media. Before that, I spent a dozen years of the economist. So i've always had this of strange career of the intersection of media and tech. Started teaching a class called tech, media and democracy by teaching that for now, seven, eight years in Y, U. And now lately, also at cornell tech, a long, long way decided that the intersection I want to work at full time and tech policy press long of my cofounder brand, jon of instinct.

and and you guys are basically a on profit media organza, right?

absolutely. We five or one c three nonprofit charity, you know, and our goal is to advance debate, discussion, analysis, perspective on tech policy issues, really at the intersection of of tech democracy, tech society. So cover a range of topics. But big part of IT is trying to diversify the number of voices and the kind of diversity and I improve the uh you know a geographical and other forms of diversity about people who are in the tech policy debate.

When this new started happening just basically after the election um we were all in deep despair and I am still in like I think the the grief for anger stage and I think at this point um but I was thinking about you and the work you guys do in terms of kind of reflecting on the intersection of technology and and policy and everything and then I saw the news about elon musk and his like e deeper insertion in the trumpet administration.

I really just felt like we had to chat about this. First of all, you guys is a really cool thing you um you published a kind of a timing of violon masks like political I don't know contributions were like political work up to this point. Um can you get talk about like how has elan musk been as a person who's been influencing policy this point? Because this seems like he is. He's just like deeper in IT than he ever husband before.

Yeah, we come a long way from the days that some journalists and major outlets for questioning whether it's possible to pin down elon mosques politics. That now seems very possible, not only to pin IT down, but to look at a long evidentiary record of a multiple years of effort in the united states, but also abroad.

I mean, in various countries around the world, elon mosques got involved in politics, got involved in various political scuffles, often where IT suits his business interests. Know where he's after either natural resources, rather some other form of resources is useful to his business. Where is after more business, of course um or you know where IT seems to suit his political interest and and maybe his personal interest in feeling that he is an important and respected and helping to to shape world events. I mean, clearly this is a person who you know thanks and kind of historical terms thinks in a kind of looking down from some higher place on on the glow is a thing that needs to be terrified in his interest.

I'm really we discussed a the amount of money he reported to the trump campaign to kind of help influence the election.

I feel like at this point we can safely say he sort of just bought his influencer, right? Like the new york times article basically says, he has been everywhere with trump a, taking some key meetings, helping with decisions and what not and that that came from his two hundred million dollar estimated contribution to the campaign. Is um I mean, yeah is that what you guys seeing on your two?

Yeah you know if you think about the amount IT may seem like that much from elon musk perspective, a couple of hundred and million dollars or more isn't that much. But one of the things I would just encourage your listeners to realize that we hear that number. Um it's it's not the only amount of money this individual has spent certainly to influence american politics of the last couple of years.

And there's been a lot of reporting lately that goes back to twenty twenty two in some cases earlier where mask has been financing various activities, financing campaigns, getting involved in politics, helping to shape, you know, various outcomes across the country. He's really been spending a lot of money, really been putting a lot of his own personal energy into these efforts, perhaps for longer than most people realize. And IT makes me wonder, you know, whether certain events that have occurred in the past, certain things that have been emphasized at, for instance, by republicans at a high level, you know, to what extent was elon was consulted? To what extent was he possibly driving some of that activity and behavior, at least in some ways? Now this is out in the open very much.

He is hanging out at mora logo with the president elect. Apparently, some folks there are jokingly referring him to him as uncle elan. He's appearing in family photos. And apparently, you know, even trump is sort of missioned at the extent to which he wants to sick around.

We kindly brought this up around um you know rushes war against ukraine. An early on a starling had major to play there too because they were you know a musk's company was helping to bring internet to uh, the ukrainian war friend and then he also basically kind of inserted himself into that war too. Like there was a story about basically turning off starlink connections at the at the battle field at the front of the lions or something um I guess that that is that was kind of the first supporters like, oh, he is he sort of like an unelected government official at this point because these companies are so deeply and twined in governments around the world to not just america.

absolutely, you check my figures, but I think he's done at this stage. It's easy to say billions of dollars in business with the united states government and probably very similar impressive figures with many other governments around the world. You know, he is a unique figure in in world history of who is both the technologies and in such obviously politically interesting character.

And I think we probably haven't seen anything yet. I mean, despite what happens with done on trump and despite what happens over the next few months, you know, elan mask is projected to become the world's first trillionaire and just a handful of years. I don't think that I understand, and I doubt many of listeners do what I would even be like to look at the world through the eyes of a trillions air, someone with such extraordinary resources in the ability to bend history to your will.

IT is, I think that is that probably a big part of two h we talk about like, you know a zuker burg, a major like, I don't know, glow up but also the way he is view the world to and and talking about like, oh, he doesn't want to apologize anymore about things that almost seems like he has gained the perspective maybe from therapy or life culture is something to help him center himself with his influence in his wealth where's I feel like on is just too online you know he is somebody I feel like he bought twitter, right just to be king twitter um to kind of control the the um the conversation there um and that was the end up but I don't know I can see that as a successor not but it's also another thing where it's like man that really helped to influence a conversation to like his way over twitter, his purchasing twitter yet another thing we trying not to like speculate too much about, like how these people are thinking. But IT must be weird to be on us but also to be a guy who can have this idea about like he wants to reproduce the time right but he can also make that reality and build his compound in texas and how his H I know, ever growing family, he has the the money in the power to make his dreams come true. And I guess that's more true than ever now, at least for the next four years, right?

absolutely. And you know, that comes to mark up work. I don't know what to say.

I an I know the headline on him today as he's just dropped to cover with tea pain here, you know. So things are weird there too. Let's not go there necessarily. But you know, another thing that think about when IT comes to elon mask and and his potential influence is the extent to which at some point he may wear out his welcome with the president elect who notoriously does not like to be seen to be pumped or to have A A boss um if you remember back in ten and twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen time frame there was a lot of conversation around whether Steve bannon was the one pull in springs in the White house. You know he was of course, the kind of chief strategist there. And I believe sl kind of had a skit when they made fun of the idea that deep ban and was in fact the kind of real brains of the the trumpet ministration. And I suspect that if there's something similar like that with mask, where folks are beginning to question, well, you know, who's really making these appointment suggestions or who's really setting policy or who really wrote that executive order, I can imagine that potentially you making Donald trump respond in a similar vein that he did to see ban non, who, if you recall, was only in the office for, I think, about six months yeah yeah .

I there are several stories is not just banned. But other people who have helped trump, who were fundraising and work on his campaign and he let them go for someone reasons because IT seems like he doesn't want of other people to seem like they are stealing his spotlight or his attention. So I don't know. We've got a bunch of a very rich, thin skin men with a lot of power. Nothing can go wrong here, right?

But on the other hand, you know, it's possible that mosque is now so important to the G O. P. generally. I mean, remember you and just give the trumps campaign to go around. He was funding the efforts that up and down the ticket in various geography, you know even in some cases, is getting very uh, granular in terms of the types of representatives and or types of elected candidates that he was supporting. So you know um is this guy the new you know, Charles coke or something along those lines and I think it's it's possible that he could be he is yeah .

he's the meme lord version of Charles s. coke. I guess we we briefly mention the stories about him essentially trucking over people to do canvassing and to do campaigning for you um traveling you moving them around in new holes and not paying some people to like just the grocery stories um which is at this point I think i'll ever be punish for right like that just seems like a thing that happened and we're just moving on with this new reality.

I want to ask you, Justin um did you all have any thoughts about the ideas around the department of government efficiency, which we um were very clear about like would not be an actual department unless IT was approved and you know by congress and even that seems not I guess that would be unlikely typically but also uh, now they they control all the branches. So it's going to be really tough. What have you guys seen or heard about the department government efficiency for the tech policy? You press side of things.

I mean, this is a, you know, a promise essentially that the trump made to mask some time ago that he'd involved him somehow in his a government. And I think IT was elon moscow came up with the idea that IT would be called this department of government efficiency, of course, h experts, including, i'm sure, some that you've quoted folks like down on a hand that we quoted from academic studies, the administrative state points that the president can set up a real department that requires an act of congress.

But I think there there have been some questions raised in the subsequent reporting about whether there might be an attempt at some kind of in drug around that, that there may be an effort at potentially uh trying to go in a different direction um and chAllenge some of the kind of legal basis for the limitations on the president's power in this regard. Um so we'll see what happens. I mean, I think you know I know when I posted news of the idea of that, even though they've chosen this name, and of course, it's a bit of a play on dogs and dog coin, you know that perhaps that would require there to be more involvement from congress.

You know, other people kind of commented back to me, and I think probably rightly so. You know, hey, man, you're imagine there is a rule of law. Imagine folks are potentially going to follow the rules rather. Just run rush shot over them. So we'll see I mean, we'll just see what happens over the next few months.

We will that kind of thing I think we're all repeating to ourselves over the next four years. We will see. We will see. Um well, you know what doesn't thank you so much. I definitely want to chat more, uh, as we delve deeper into the trumped men two point o uh is there anything kay, can you tell us like where can we find your work online? Um and tells more about technology .

press as well yeah absolutely over IT tech policy dot press P R E S S uh you can find me uh on on blue sky these days linked in master on would appreciate engaging with those there. We just had a long conversation .

about blue sky and what why is a very worthy twitter, you know, alternative at this point.

So IT does seem it's it's a little bit of A A bubble right now. And i'm hoping that you will diversify and maybe some of your listeners are out there, will join in and help us to to make the conversation a little bigger there. So I missed the profile vision. I feel like twitter did give us, yes, with regarding other people's points of view, you know.

But you know one thing I just I leave your listeners with this, which is that we invite perspectives and analysis, detect policy press um and i'm particularly keen on thinking about the your head and thinking beyond IT, thinking about like what type of future are we trying to build here? What are we really up to um to me looking at the kind of spector of this union between trump and musin sort of taking apart the administrative state and you know some of the ideas that they've got about what they want to do. I don't know if that's the future that I imagine when I think about you know potentially more just more equable, more sustainable world. So i'd be interested in perspectives you know that that may square that somehow um or might otherwise kind of land a critical eye towards these issues. That is a lot of work to do.

I feel like that is a good take way. Just there's finally a lot of work to do head poor for all of us. But yeah, thank you so much and hope to check again.

Thank you.

In a sign of how weird the world is right now, the onion, the onion, which has been resurrected, the the new site has bought alex Jones as info war is this is real. This is real news, and did IT in the funniest way possible.

First of all, I would recommend you guys go read the union announcement of this because they're just some great quotes here because it's written in the style and onion peace, even though the news is actually real in the new york times british. But you could see that we don't know how much to actually paid. They basically bought IT at a auction out of auction uh the uh infoworld ers had declared bankruptcy. They also did IT in on CoOperation with approval of the families of Sandy hook um or the parents from Sandy hook.

So was all like a coordinated thing because I I think like morally, I was hearing this news being kind of talk about yesterday little bit was like, is that weird to give alone's money even they would be really funny if the onion and IT seems like IT is a whole thing, like the onion is going to turn in for wars into a thetel new site sort of against, uh, gun violence, sort of a similar to what they're doing with a lot of the other the very, very similar sites. But the families who are affected by Sandy hook are directly gonna be part of this whole thing. So I think that's good. It's whenever there is a massive school shooting, everybody retreat that one or shares at one onion story, you know um what's the headline like no way to .

avoid no way to avoid this as only nation where this regularly one SONY gets reposted with the details of the most recent mass shooting. And it's basically like the most grim form of mad libs and IT has its own wikipedia article. Now you can go back and see other iterations of there is no way that we could have prevented this as only nation where this regularly happens.

This this is a good thing, as you want to point. Like the union started they just a started doing print papers once again. And from what I hear there's seeing the subscriptions to that have been very, very successful. So that helped the bank role. This whole thing, this is just a weird reality.

So let's get into why that is though. Because a code b in the chat says, union resited, what is this? The apocalypse? Well, no, this is actually a rich guy using his rich guy money for good rather than evil because recently the onion was bought by a new owner, this guy, jeff lawson, cofounder and former CEO of twila, the customer service software company and he was like, I want to make the onion like amazing again.

Um i've started seeing people in youtube comments say like this is the first time i've seen an onion video that isn't like twelve years old because they're started doing a lot more videos again. Now this is really interesting also because this moved by the new owners of the onion kind reminds me of something that cards against humanity would do, because cards against humanity is like so well known ford, like doing stunts, like buying a piece of land at the mexican A. U.

S. Border to, like block a border wall and weird connection click hole that was once part of the onion bun off and was bought by cards against humanity. So i'm really well coming this new age of like the onion's greater independence and being more audacious with a benevent rich guy founder.

It's a good thing, but it's a sad thing that several new site are the ones like really that are free to say true things. I think that is common is always been like the gateway to do that in a society where sometimes people who don't want to say things clearly or out loud, but IT is. So we're being also want to point out like the CEO of the new onion is ben Collins who used to do uh, this information reporting, dark web reporting at abc, I believe. So also like though the we are the rare trajectory for a technology reporter to end up building something you kind of a it's really, really related to what he was doing before .

and he thought i'm a stran. I thought when I saw IT that the fact that the onion board force is actually a good thing even though I think I share similar concerns about giving that person who shall not be named to money. Um I will say the the post uh written by Price pet I don't know to browse their last name prety yes that's .

A K I I know anyway .

it's touch your header is really kind of why there they're doing IT but anyway um the sea, whatever the post was on the onion which is also fake um does say stuff like oh no Price would be too high for such a corner.

Cobia of malarious assets and minds yet in the struck of good fortune formable special interest group is out with at the hapless owner of info wars a forgettable name with an already forgotten name and forced him to sell IT at a steep bargain less than one trillion dollar. I mean, it's obviously a bit of far. I think it's but it's so it's such a funny but also like cogently make point if you are good enough to be between lines, like if you're I do I have my own doubts good I think is good .

that are well written.

I think it's A A lot a lot of this also makes me go oh right we've always been like we've seen the the ilo sophy theoretical right or whatever IT is the opposing side you want to call is um twist things to fit their narrative, right? How about we twist things that they like are trying to put as their narrative to and I don't know I don't feel like taking sides by also like we can do, I think can .

take and also not the same like in forest existed to basically a sell misinformation, fake news well and also to sell shitty vitamins to people because that's what alex Jones was doing. So there's video of him having a meltdown in the live stream right now this morning. So that's really funny to see.

Uh, it's not doing what they did right is the answer to this isn't about like making your own garbage fake stories about like the other side. It's about just like making demonstrable reality a thing sort of like what they did certificate with with the, you know the actual purchase letter. So anyway, good news, rare rare bit of light. But also really does emphasize fact that we live in the success world in three of gadgety news. And you guys see l just new stretchy display which can now stretch from twelve to eighteen inches.

I saw the um post, I mean I was what earlier this week and IT will stress from twelve ches as like its Normal state or order to eighteen inches and IT can like twist in different angles and you like on upon itself, not just treat right. So it's just of basically very flexible display stretch .

twist then .

kind of weird .

because I mean we follow L G display because they do weird things all the time, like when they they did the role OLED T V, which I think they pretty sure not making that anymore. But we've done all sorts of a weird projects, just to say that you could do them. These are not all its.

That's the interesting thing here. This is a micro L D backlighting to make this thing happen. Who knows if this will actually lead anything?

Because we are just getting around to understanding what you could do with affordable odds. And still there are so many problems with that. But good to see. Just like, hey, a little bit of the sipi I future could actually end up happening.

She's going to cost you, i'm tempted to say, like wrong answers only. What would you use this for? But I don't want any wrong answers because that could get really nasty, really quick. What would you use this for?

I mean, A A toilet paper in the elon musk home, you know, he would use IT to to wipe himself to actual factual news. I'm sure i'm sure he he wanted do that. 那 必须 要 看。 And then he would post about that IT as he does IT. Yes, yeah, yeah no marter clothes.

And yeah, that's actually pretty interesting. There is a video that was going pretty viral in like new york city. Finally, of someone who is wearing a like L, D screen as a two.

And IT had the world that you would see on a lot of food trucks like like all the whole foods they have. So yes, this is actually a could be a really good application for clothes. I just don't think that like where would you put .

the battery would not be for close. This would be for like your magazine technology or something like a future kindle that you could actually bold, bend and fold and whatever would be a thing, it's it's just want to say it's happening then. I think you are interested in the next story. The one about the beetles are nominated for two grammar. Thanks to A I ah yeah that's that's yes right?

So well, okay, if you just read the headline, you're like, oh no, somebody trained like an AI language model to like make a new beetle song and somehow they got nominated for a grammy because of that. It's different. And I think this is actually like indicative of the way that we could use A I in creative pursuits in the future.

So this was for a song where they recorded IT a long, long time ago, but they weren't able to separate john lennon vocals from the piano that he was playing without the voice or the piano getting all messed up. So now they are able to do that. And yes, it's technically an AI application, but really this is just a plug in.

It's also not a crush. Don't record things badly. Don't like just have one mic for the p and your voice but this is not like AI do morison. This is not somebody like making a completely new beetle song. This is just a inventive application of AI for something was already recorded on real to real tapes.

For goodness sake, it's cool. It's a cool thing that um it's sort of like when we talked about how we saved the recording of our podcast, when a jack camera was happening outside the window, like the audio in a really tidiest way is possible by humans. But tough, really, really tough.

And this is cool. This is a cooking and this is like a good example, like a good way to use AI constructively. And maybe that is the lesson people can take away from that.

goodbye. Ah I want to talk about the next day. R A P to l bid Edwards, the guy behind the you've got mill voice. He said that you've got male voice for a while. He was definitely one of the first things I heard when I started using .

the internet, like ninety ty. And the entire point. He is the welcome and goodbye guy too.

the goodbye guy. Um I think that was when you were like also signing off, but maybe when you were leaving aim as well. Just just kind of a weird thing, like just hearing that sound of fact um there the whole generation of kids now who have no idea like what IT is other than like maybe ironically memo at this point um for like vapor wave music.

Who knows who knows but he does like bring me directly back to like the old crappy packet d bill PC I was running, which was powered by like a four eighty six processor, had eight megabits of RAM hard core stuff, man. Um R I P to the student who really helped shape our our introduction to the internet, I guess. yeah.

And having worked with voice over people now for several years, a lot of the time they just take a job because it's like, oh, you only need me to say three words and you're going to pay me like a pretty good amount of money yeah sure i'll do that and they have no idea how important they end up being borr shure.

It's just hard to hard to predict for any of the stuff will go anyway. There is a video. If you check out our news post of IT, there's a video that a well actually did back when we were also a well, but on a youtube where he talks about recording that role and we we get to hear him say IT to as of thirteen years ago, I believe twelve years ago.

So checked out. Let's move toward. We're working on anything. You went to shut out shillin.

I actually want to shut out and stuff that we didn't get around to talking about last week because um there was no don't actually know if we did an episode.

I think we did grow down in that document. You out there.

shen and see I saw the spotify thing, which i'm glad you were able to fix for us. No, I just wanted to shot out all of the work that our team has been doing specifically you with of the mac reviews. Uh our imac reviews should be up shortly. Um and you also had to do like the P R or help out and p preview the mac mini, the macbook uh m four pro and then also the you also did the five I did.

but that was like done for a while. So the vy focus review also went up last week. I basically had four reviews go up last week that was fun.

was a and that's a lot of work. So I think that I mean, I just not not shout that you know we if you haven't seen IT yet, go take a look. Uh and if not, we do by weekly uh reviewing caps on the site and you can use that as a way to quickly catch up on I think you might have missed um and then yeah are we talking about working on yes. So I am in the meeting of some crazy year and planning along with CS twenty twenty five planning Kevin says in the chat was like.

are you are talking about C S? Yes, pick. But we are internally.

Oh my god, uh yeah all C E S all day for me every week for a bit now um but um and while juggling a few other things so there's that and i'm actually very excited.

Go for IT go a couple of things I don't i'm working on I would like to write something about dragon age, the bill guard, which told talk about more in a bit ah there is certainly lot to see us prep on my end, but maybe some some shows i'm looking to get coverage for looking that the video game show the teddy to amazon prime. We just saw the trailer for that last week. So I want to do that because it's from the people who did a love, death and robots.

So oh, you're not talking .

about it's in the day. But yeah, we're we're going to be doing a lot of prep and certainly for the holidays for end of year stories. So just stay tuned to everything.

Check out our new home page. Do you have to everybody realizes that engage com looks a little different now. It's cleaner, easier to navigate.

definitely. Let us know if you have any thoughts on that stuff too. Um but it's nice to see things get a little more modern. Anything you want to shut up for pop .

culture picks this week? shoe. So I had a few that I wanted to bang, but i'm just going build them all the ones um I saw a couple of movies recently uh because as they want to finally get some time off and one that I is kind of old by all, I mean like not released in the last few once um but in the last year or two. This is called the portable door is an australian film more production of stars and you are are gona hate me because i'm going .

to refer to this guy as the jasa part guy but .

I am yes okay yeah he is great ah he is wild in this film is basically a film about Young um especially gift to people um who join this agency or company that is basically influencing the world one small way at a time. And I think I didn't think about IT this because and I watched IT was before the election results but yeah, you think about IT. There are so many little things that could impact late.

The quantum universe is whatever theory parallel university theory. Anyway, it's fantasy. I enjoyed divide the world that is built, all of that stuff on the other end of the spectrum.

Uh, this was something that was just recently released. I was able to watch heroic and I locked IT. I mean, that was huge ant as this menacing murdered person um and h IT doves into everybody talks about two women who are I uh yeah for the .

church of the later day says and they're .

just going to visit you grant in his home gonna talk about their religion and stuff um and IT things take a senter turn I I really like the um my thoughts was really well acted I got scared a few times and then promptly got laughed at for being scared so there go those two uh I ve also been reading a lot of books while save those for IT like another time when maybe .

i'm short on thank you so much. I want to show a couple of things yeah, I am playing dragon age. The billboard IT is a very, very nice way to you.

Just take my mind off things for a little bit. I'll be writing something about that soon. But hey, this is a good dragon age and I also forgot that i've played like a couple of them before. Um this is feels like more than action fantasy game than I expected because the combat is just more a lot more visual, a lot more real time.

You can still like pause the world to like and engage your powers or direct your your friends to do things but IT IT feels more like an action game which is kind of call IT looks incredible just amazing design of the world here to um this will probably be a big like focus of my piece but the ray tracing in this game looks incredible just like the reflections of on the water. The reflections of the way shadows look based on objects like real world interesting looking shadows also a tremendous score as well, which kind of tags and something i'll be talking about in a bit, but scores written by hand, zimmers and more involved. So those are guys that I love.

Lorn involved, in particular, has been doing the mission possible center x lately. Just amazing thrillings stuff i'm really love. And dragon age with the veil guard.

And I am already like twenty five hours. And so I definitely needed IT the distraction over the last week. Also separately, a little bit related.

I'm obsessed with the trailer of permission impossible to final reckoning, which was just released a couple of days ago. I love the series. I love this franchise.

The last movie was not my favorite in the series, but I, I, I have a lot of faith in Christopher quality. That was the one about A I called the entity, and they're trying to stop A I from destroyed the world. And this is the second half of that story.

IT is a really fun mission possible movie, just not as good as stuff like rope nation or or fall out, but australia fantastic again. Custom trailler song by mister moon involve um IT looks incredible. I cannot wait to see IT and ef fox.

Go go watch a mission possible moves. I read about that at some point when they upscale the four k versions of the earlier films. So I read about that for a gathered. But I don't know. Maybe we will find more reason to cover now that there's more A I welfare too.

Well, that's IT for this week's episode. Everyone think you is always for listening. Our the music is by game composer dale north.

Ultra music is by our former managing. The podcast is produced by the element. You can find a vendor, i'm supposing, on blue sky.

blue skies at the madam I I mean i'm cillit at pressers on twitter, but i'm not really posting, but find me, find me a blue sky joining blue sky. See what happened in there um also find me on the film cast of the film cast 点 com if you need me.

I am continuing norms of social media, email M C G R and engaged com you can also send us your thoughts on the show at podcast, at engage 到 com uh leave us a review on wherever you are getting your pocket and also subscribe on your favorite pocket platform。