The Attention Economy Navigator, November 2025 w/ Nima Shirazi

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain errors.

[00:00:00] Cayden Mak: Welcome to Block and Build a podcast from Convergence Magazine. I’m your host and the publisher of Convergence, Cayden Mak. On this show, we’re building a roadmap for the movement that’s working to block the impact of rising authoritarianism while building the strength and resilience of the broad front that we need to win.

[00:00:24] This week on the show, we’re dedicating basically the entire show to a new segment that we’re calling the Attention Economy Navigator. But before we get to that, I am joined by Nikki Maureen Barina, the co-director of CBR North Carolina, with an on the ground firsthand report about the ice surge in the state and how communities are protecting one another from those raids.

[00:00:43] Listeners have probably seen the news that ICE has moved their operations from Chicago to Charlotte, North Carolina initially invading that city last weekend as part of what appears to be a major shift for the agency. There are some mixed reports about what’s next for the state with some contradictory announcements yesterday from the Mecklenburg County Sheriff and the Department of Homeland Security.

[00:01:03] But here to talk a little bit about what North Carolinians have been doing to respond is Nikki Marinna from cbra, North Carolina. Nikki, thank you so much for making the time to talk today. 

[00:01:16] Nikki Marín Baena: Thanks for having me. 

[00:01:17] Cayden Mak: So first of all, was this shift to North Carolina a surprise to you all? And what are the cities and areas in the state that have been most impacted by this ice surge?

[00:01:27] Nikki Marín Baena: It was a surprise. I think they announced Charlotte, and on the one hand, Charlotte was not surprising because it is a place that is dense in immigrant communities. But politically, it just didn’t, it’s not a city that has had like big statements about immigration, so that felt surprising.

[00:01:46] The other thing is once, and I wanna kind of comment on this. ICE has been operating in Charlotte this whole year. ICE has been operating across North Carolina the whole year. And the highest detention rates that we had seen had been in Charlotte. This was a deployment of border patrol to North Carolina, which is strange because as particularly the city of Charlotte, North Carolina is not close to any border even Yeah, Charlotte’s 

[00:02:10] Cayden Mak: inland.

[00:02:11] Nikki Marín Baena: Yeah. Even the ocean. So that, that was a thing that was surprising. And also just politically, what message was this meant to send is unclear. They did end up expanding into other parts of the state to the triangle area where Raleigh Durham are, and then also into rural areas. So there were detentions north towards Hickory, Lenoir blowing rock, which incidentally is the area of the state that Greg Bovino is from.

[00:02:37] Cayden Mak: Oh, interesting. Bovino being the like ice field commander guy, 

[00:02:41] Nikki Marín Baena: the border patrol. 

[00:02:42] Cayden Mak: Yeah. With the bad fade. How have organizers responded in North Carolina? What is the work that you all have been doing this past week? 

[00:02:51] Nikki Marín Baena: Yeah, it’s been a huge response. A huge team effort. Lots of organizations playing their roles in different ways.

[00:02:58] And so it’s one thing that had been important for us even before this operation was announced, we had been pretty concerned about the volume of detentions in some parts of the state and had wanted to set up these safe to school, safe to work patrols. So people would not just be, we’ve had ice watch programs in the past where people could be sent to a place where someone had reported a sighting just to make sure that it was ice and not some other agency carrying out its work.

[00:03:24] But this was, the idea was more to have people regularly in different places, particularly around schools and workplaces, because we could tell that a lot of the detentions that had been happening already in Charlotte were, seem to be racial profiling of workers heading to work in the morning.

[00:03:40] Sure. So hundreds of people were trained in the last week to organize these patrols in neighborhoods and be watching out for agents. 

[00:03:52] Cayden Mak: That’s amazing. I feel like this is the, the, one of the other things that we’re hearing is that there, the Department of Homeland Security is indicating that maybe they’re gonna take this kind of surge operation to Mississippi and Louisiana next.

[00:04:08] What are some things that you all have learned from this experience that you think organizers in states that are gonna be car targeted next should know about what’s been effective and how you’ve been able to respond. 

[00:04:20] Nikki Marín Baena: Yeah, I think one thing is that, at the beginning of this year, we launched this Defend and Recruit playbook with the lessons that we had learned about rapid response from the first Trump administration.

[00:04:32] And we had been in touch with people in Chicago, in Los Angeles as they organized their responses. And so we were really fortunate actually, to be able to talk to some of those same people as we were preparing. And they were so generous with us about, okay, like it’s really important to have decentralized neighborhood based systems of response.

[00:04:54] And that’s one thing that really has stayed with me. And helping people think through how to set that up. And, it’s different in North Carolina than it might be in a place like Chicago, where the density is just really different. 

[00:05:05] Cayden Mak: Totally. 

[00:05:05] Nikki Marín Baena: And so how people think about that in ways that make sense, whether it’s around their school or whether it’s some other way of thinking about it, but just what is the area of your community that you wanna take responsibility for with other people and organize that way?

[00:05:19] Cayden Mak: Amazing. With the news that maybe CBP is getting out of North Carolina what’s next for you all? What are you watching? Currently? 

[00:05:28] Nikki Marín Baena: Yeah, there’s a few different things. One is border patrol may have left, but ICE is still operating in our state. And so one is obviously the detentions themselves and like navigating these situations with the families of those people who have been detained up till maybe yesterday. What I was hearing from people who were working with those families is that, ICE has a locator where you can look people up and the locator was just saying detained by ice, call ice for more information.

[00:05:56] And there’s no phone number to call. That’s not that useful. Yeah. That’s not, it’s terrifying. You don’t know where your family number is. And so one thing is that, and then the other thing is, usually the person who is detained is very often is the main financial earner for the family.

[00:06:10] And so it’s economically devastating for that family, not just because of legal expenses and things like that, but in general. And so I think we’re going to have to be figuring out, navigating that at such a large scale. There are other organizations like Carolina Migrant Network that are providing legal assistance and who also are navigating.

[00:06:28] De tensions with families in Charlotte. And then some of the work is also around, like some of our elected officials here in North Carolina have been very silent on this. And this operation has cost North Carolinians millions of dollars. There’s the agents themselves, their tactical gear, their hotel rooms, their cars, all of these expenses, they they are saying that they detained about 350 people.

[00:06:53] And what we don’t know is how many of those people are gonna have to turn around and let go because they’re either US citizens or they’re the wrong person, or we’re gonna be able to prove the court that it was an unconstitutional warrantless arrest. And they, in Chicago, they just announced a court decision where they’re gonna have to release like 600 people.

[00:07:10] So these numbers don’t really tell the whole story. So that’s another thing. And then we really want our elected officials to say look, this isn’t over. We know it’s not over. What are you gonna do about it? And so some of our work is around, like helping our community feel as safe as they possibly can so that people can make decisions within their agency about how to live their lives.

[00:07:32] And some of it is about what is the political landscape in which this stops happening, and in which our elected officials take more responsibility. 

[00:07:41] Cayden Mak: Yeah, it makes sense to me. How can listeners who aren’t plugged into your work support you in these coming weeks and months? 

[00:07:47] Nikki Marín Baena: Yeah to learn more about ra, you can visit ra nc.org.

[00:07:51] If you want to check out the playbook and figure out if that’s something that you wanna try in your own community, you can go to defend and recruit.org. And if you’re in North Carolina and wanna get involved with any of the work that we’re doing around this response, you can go to defend and recruit.org/nc.

[00:08:10] Cayden Mak: Amazing. Thank you so much for making the time, Nikki. I know that you have a lot on your plate. And, but these are really important lessons for all of us in the months to come now that we have maybe a much more mobile CBP surge coming to different cities and states. 

[00:08:24] Nikki Marín Baena: Yeah, no, thank you so much for having me on.

[00:08:27] Cayden Mak: Alright, take good care. 

[00:08:28] Nikki Marín Baena: You too.

[00:08:32] Sound on Tape: Hey everybody. This is Maurice Mitchell, national Director of The Working Families Party. I read and give to Convergence because it has become a home for me to engage in critical analysis, find practical advice for organizing and strategy and inspiration in the belief that a better world is not only possible, we can build it 

[00:08:53] Josh Elstro: to make either a one-time donation or become a sustaining member.

[00:08:57] Visit convergence mag.com/donate. You can find a direct link in the show notes. Thanks for listening.

[00:09:09] Cayden Mak: Alright, so I mentioned that we’re doing something a little different this week. But the goal of Block and Build has always been to help organizers figure out what’s happening, how people are responding to it, and also get a sense for what’s really working out there in the real world. The Attention Economy Navigator came out of a conversation that I had at the Narrative Power Summit this year about Naomi Klein’s 2023 book Doppelganger.

[00:09:31] One of my biggest takeaways from the book was that Klein suggest this new political spectrum in addition to left and right, that defines political division in our society and the determining factor. Of that spectrum is how prominently conspiratorial thinking shapes your political views. Now, conspiracy theory has pretty much always been an aspect of public life in the United States, but it’s hard to deny that the way that online dis and misinformation, the mishandling of the COVID pandemic and the clickbait attention economy have really supercharged conspiratorial thinking regardless of your political commitments.

[00:10:05] Conspiracy theory is also now in power imp, which really complicates the ways that it impacts our day-to-day lives. So we thought maybe it’s time to start talking about this more explicitly on the show. Here’s how the navigator’s gonna work. We’re gonna plot some new stories from the past month onto a two dimensional graph reflecting where we think they fall on a spectrum of conspiracy theory to consensus reality, and then also from signal to noise to try to make sense about of what we’re preoccupied with and why.

[00:10:36] I’m gonna explain this a little bit better, and we do have a visual aid, but you might wanna go back to thinking about high school geometry class and envision a standard XY graph. So on the X axis, we’re measuring signal versus noise with high signal being all the way to the right of the graph at a 10 and high noise being all the way to the left at a negative 10.

[00:10:57] Noisy stories are stories with little meaning. They’re part of the chatter, but they aren’t gonna stick with us and they don’t mean much to our long-term media and political environment. Contrast that with high signal stories, which have some deep, long-term implications and impact on our world. Then on the Y axis we’re measuring consensus reality versus conspiracy theory.

[00:11:18] High consensus stories at a positive 10 are those that are really happening. They do not involve a lot of wild conjecture or fuzzy logic. They’re stories that are backed up with real research, reporting and hard evidence. High conspiracy stories, on the other hand, are at a negative 10. These are stories that contrary to all reason have broken through, despite having very little to back them up.

[00:11:40] They are rooted in conspiracy theories of some kind, so that leaves us with four quadrants. The top right quadrant is high signal, high consensus. These are the stories that are meaty and demand our attention. Those that are high noise and high conspiracy fall in that bottom left quadrant, and they probably deserve a bit less of it even if people can’t stop talking about them.

[00:12:01] If you’re a visual learner and are feeling totally lost, do not worry. The finalized graph that we put together in this show will be linked in the show notes and will be on convergence websites. You can follow along or you can pop over and watch this episode on our YouTube channel where producer Josh is gonna be helping lay out the graph in real time.

[00:12:20] So to build this month’s Attention Economy navigator, I am joined by two experts in narrative strategy who spent a lot of time thinking about what we’re talking about and why. Joining me today are our own Akinola, who is the managing editor here at Convergence Magazine. Welcome, akin 

[00:12:35] Akin Olla: Hello Kaden 

[00:12:37] Cayden Mak: and Nima Razzi, who’s the Vice President at the Public Interest Comms Group, Spitfire Strategies.

[00:12:42] And he also might know as the co-host of the podcast, citations needed a podcast that looks at media criticism through power narrative, and as they put it, the history of bullshit, which is a lot of what we’re gonna talk about today. He’s also the person who initially led me to this format in the first place.

[00:12:59] This was his idea and that conversation we had, the Narrative Power Summit is the catalyst for this conversation. So welcome to the show. This is 

[00:13:05] Nima Shirazi: what happens when we actually get to hang out in person, Kate. Oh my 

[00:13:08] Cayden Mak: God, it’s dangerous. It’s absolutely dangerous. So we’ve collected some headlines for our discussion today, and what we’re gonna do is I’m gonna have each of you introduce a story explain a little bit to our listeners, and then we’ll put five minutes on the clock for discussion.

[00:13:22] We’ll figure out where we think it goes on that. Four dimensional or three, two di It’s two dimensions math, two dimensional graph. Are you guys ready? 

[00:13:33] Nima Shirazi: Indeed. Excellent. 20 dimensional in our brains though. 

[00:13:36] Cayden Mak: I Yeah, absolutely. End dimensional. Really? It goes on forever. And I also feel like we have chosen the correct week to, to pilot this this format because of the re release of the Epstein, of more of this data dump from the Epstein files.

[00:13:52] We have not talked about the Epstein files at all on this show so far, and that has been an intentional editorial choice. It’s

[00:13:59] Nima Shirazi: healthy, 

[00:14:00] Cayden Mak: it’s, yeah, it’s healthy to be like, no, we’re gonna think about what people are actually doing and what’s going on, but we will have an opportunity to dig a little deeper.

[00:14:09] To start us out NEMA do you have a story that you want to throw up on the graph? 

[00:14:15] Nima Shirazi: Yeah I know we’re probably gonna wind up circling back around to Epstein, but I don’t wanna start us there because I wanna have this, be a positive experience for everyone. Thank you. I figured considering that less than three weeks ago there was a major election election day with some pretty powerful results.

[00:14:33] And as a native New Yorker myself I wanted to put on the board for consideration. Zoran Mom, Donny’s win. Alright, in as the will be the new mayor of New York, come the 1st of January, 2026. Now. There are a lot of different angles that we could discuss Ani. I think we, there, there has been months and months of vitriolic racist attacks on him from sitting Republican Congress people.

[00:15:04] And none of that makes the news. None of that is called out in our, obsessed with hate speech world right now. Apparently only some hate speech is deemed worthy of condemnation. And I wanna shout out my citations needed co-host Adam Johnson, who does constant and consistently brilliant media criticism for outlets like the Nation and in these times in the Real News Network, as well as his own channel.

[00:15:28] The column which you can get on Substack. But he has actually noted that with months and months of, islamophobic racist, overtly racist, vitriol leveled at Zoran Momani. Over the past half a year. He was wondering how many times C-N-N-N-B-C News, CBS News, a, b, C News, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post, had run articles or aired segments on their various channels about the racist attacks he’s been facing from, again, sitting Republican congresspeople.

[00:16:00] So not just like randos on Twitter, right? The answer he found was zero. Oh, geez. So I put it to us to consider how we’re thinking about even the kind of political discourse and certainly the media discourse around Momani. And what we’re hearing, what we’re learning.

[00:16:20] The one thing, one other thing I’ll throw out here, which was just delightfully absurd was election night. This is November 4th of 2025. And races are called for the new governors of both New Jersey Mikey Cheryl and Virginia Abigail Berger. Both Democrats winning contentious races.

[00:16:43] They become the new governors, they’ll become the new governors of those big states. And Buttigieg, Pete Buttigieg tweeted out his like, praise and celebration for these wins. And, it was conspicuous that someone else was not mentioned, someone else who had a big win.

[00:17:00] So just to note and then I’ll, and then I’ll, and then I’ll throw it back to us here. Buttigieg once all the races are called, it was a little after nine 30 at night on November 4th, he tweets this quote, New Jersey and Virginia have chosen well by electing Mikey, she and Spam Berger as their next governors.

[00:17:16] They are proven leaders who won by focusing on what matters most, how politics and policy can make everyday life better and more affordable. End quote. 

[00:17:25] And he left it at that. Interesting. So how does our political and of course also media discourse. Contend with a political power such as Zohan Ani, while also doing their damnedest to deny the actual power building aspects of that campaign.

[00:17:43] Thinking so much and offering so much about, oh, he was a TikTok star. He knew how to, speak to the Youngs, dismissing the fact that he had a hundred thousand volunteers on the ground door knocking. This was a power building campaign with real policy behind it, but it is being dismissed.

[00:18:00] Of course on the right as being a communist takeover were that it were but beautiful. Also on the left sorry, I shouldn’t say that. Scratch that Also in the center liberal camp of say the Democratic party center. Possibly of dismissing him as a actual genuine political force.

[00:18:20] Maybe something they should learn from rather than be fearful of. 

[00:18:25] Cayden Mak: Yeah, sure. Totally. So really the story here is not necessarily about Zans win itself, but rather the discourse about Zans win. 

[00:18:34] Sound on Tape: Indeed. 

[00:18:35] Cayden Mak: I’m wondering on the signal to noise spectrum do you think this is a high signal story or a high noise story?

[00:18:42] I think it depends 

[00:18:44] Nima Shirazi: Who’s talking, right? I think what we have seen so much is that if you are, if you’re actually honestly. Contending with what he has said, what he has done, the power that he is building and the movement that he is a part of. And just one kind of avatar for, I think there’s, he’s not a, he’s not a, cult leader here. People were really energized. This is what we mean by power building. If you’re telling that story, that’s high reality, high signal. If you’re saying that Zoran, scares everybody and, the poor millionaires and billionaires in New York are gonna leave the city if he wins, which now we’ve seen, obviously we always knew that was never gonna happen.

[00:19:26] Yeah. But that kind of nonsense about a capital strike. In the most kinda eye Randy, and way those stories are straight up conspiracy noise. 

[00:19:36] Cayden Mak: Akin do you have a, do you have a thought about where this belongs on our spectrum here.

[00:19:40] Akin Olla: Interesting. Yeah. It feels like a lot of discourse for me feels more noisy overall. Even some of the good stuff. Definitely like leading into reality. And I say noise because it feels like a lot of it didn’t matter before, like how most of the country was talking about Mom’s campaign really didn’t matter.

[00:20:00] What mattered was what the volunteers were doing on the ground, how people were being developed on the ground what, what was actually happening physically in New York. Seemed to matter more than anything else. And it reminds me also of like early Bernie too, where if you go back to like super early Bernie days, they were just like laughing at him.

[00:20:18] Even like John Stewart was just this is a joke, but that didn’t matter because he had people who were down to campaign for him, people who were down to actually build it into a movement. Yeah. And power through that. And obviously it had its limitations, but we’re seeing the evolution of what I would argue is a, not the same base of people, but an expanding base that I think Bernie began, occupy, began.

[00:20:42] And a lot of those volunteers. Yeah, that’s really, I think that’s what matters. 

[00:20:46] Cayden Mak: Yeah, that makes sense to me. I think the other thing that like feels like Signal two is, speaking of conspiracy theories, a lot of the like really racist vitriol, Nima that you brought up at the beginning of this feels like the next evolution of the sort of Obama birtherism, like that conspiracy theory, right?

[00:21:06] That like once again, like at that time I feel like a lot of people were talking about it, but not really calling it out for exactly how racist it is. And that I, this the thing is happening again where it’s like a brown guy who grew up in Uganda is now this sort of, again, an avatar for.

[00:21:26] Some kind of like otherized threat from outside of the country. And to me, the signal in there is that like we have learned nothing from what, the fallout from birtherism. Yeah. That one of the problems with that, like letting that fester in a lot of ways is let let Trump hoist his own political star 

[00:21:46] Nima Shirazi: in a lot of ways. Yeah. I think it’s really interesting to look at the attacks and even the, deliberate, overt threats of say, deportation. And of course so much of this is wrapped up into not only Islamophobic, rhetoric, but also having to do with Han’s take on genocide in Gaza and not and refusing to disavow that as a stance.

[00:22:10] And it’s not even a stance because, when every Genocide scholar and Amnesty International, and s Oxfam and a human rights watch and whomever knows that a genocide is happening and calls it such the conspiracy is not the people who are just saying the thing that’s happening.

[00:22:26] It is the deliberate attempt to make that kind of outside the Overton window of any kind of, ability to discuss reality. I think akin to your point, I actually really I know that I had said, oh, I think it’s it’s all reality, it’s all signal. I actually love looking at this from that other angle, which is the constant bombardment of absurd rhetoric about Momani is deliberately supposed to be conspiratorial and noisy.

[00:22:49] So that you pay attention to the fearmongering part be, which we know works so well within an American public. And we talk about the Ground zero mos, and we talk about Palestine and we we, and we talk about the New York Times was so thrilled when Momani said that he would, ask the current police commissioner of New York to stay on.

[00:23:11] They said, oh, what a relief that he’s over that, anti-police rhetoric. 

[00:23:15] Sound on Tape: Yeah. 

[00:23:16] Nima Shirazi: So I think all of that. Is done so that we can focus on certain things and not the power building part, not the policy part, not the fact that he has said say buses in New York City should be not only fast, but also free.

[00:23:32] That everyone should be able to have universal childcare that we have to make the greatest city in the world, actually the greatest city to live in and affordable and possible to live in. And I think that those parts are being deliberately the volume is being turned down on those so we can focus on some of the more sensational things.

[00:23:51] Yeah. And I think that, that, that winds up being deliberate so akin, I actually, I’m with you on if you’re talking about the rhetoric about Momani. We’re seeing from the certainly mainstream, I would say that is a lot of conspiracy noise rather than I think what we’re seeing on the ground.

[00:24:09] Which is the reality in the signal. Yeah. 

[00:24:11] Cayden Mak: Yeah. No, that makes sense to me. I do have a hot take. Oh yeah, 

[00:24:15] Josh Elstro: we gotta interrupt the panel. We got a lot to get through. Sorry. It’s, its producer Josh. You’re right. We got Epstein later. So I gotta ask, do we have consensus on our position for ance about halfway up the signal scale pretty high on the reality scale?

[00:24:27] What do we think? 

[00:24:27] Cayden Mak: I think that sounds right to me. 

[00:24:29] Akin Olla: I’m not against it. My hot take is I don’t agree with my hot take yet. It would change a little bit. I can give you 30 seconds. 

[00:24:36] Nima Shirazi: What is it? What’s your hot take so fast. So fast. 

[00:24:38] Akin Olla: Cool. I think there is a missing conversation around social democracy and the limitations of it, which is very annoying.

[00:24:44] I know no one wants to talk about it right now because I want to feel hope for the first time in years I’m there with you. But the reality is social democracy seems to be falling apart in Europe. We’ve had it versions of it in the United States and have dabbled on a municipal level throughout history.

[00:24:59] I don’t think we’re asking the question like, what makes this different? We’ve had socialist mayors before. That’s not new. We’ve had social democracy before. So what is different about this moment? And I feel like that’s part of what’s being lost in some of this conversation. And there’s reality maybe like 50 years, a hundred years from now, this will be noise and conspiracy.

[00:25:17] People will be like, there was no way they were actually gonna win in this in the long haul. Exactly. There was gonna get some basic good reforms. You’re also sweet. Yeah. 

[00:25:25] Cayden Mak: Something to chew on. Something to chew on. Ake, do you have a story for us? 

[00:25:29] Akin Olla: Yes, I have one from the video game world. I’m gonna start with that one.

[00:25:36] Oh, excellent. That’s cool. So Saudi Arabia has. Put out a deal or is trying to purchase electronic arts. Electronic Arts is the third largest video game company in the country. They very much hold down a lot of the eSports world, and also a lot of the video game sports world from the NFL games NHL games.

[00:25:57] So they have a lot of monopolies, ironically, within the video game world themselves. And now Saudi Arabia is or like the, their public fund is part of a consortium along with Jared Kushner to purchase electronic arts. And this for me feels like very, IM important on the reality scale. It’s just something that is very, it’s happening.

[00:26:19] We have the documents, we have a sense of what it looks like. It’s one of the largest purchases or like private acquisitions of a company that we’ve seen. Signal wise it feels important. Or like much more signal, even noise, even though it feels like noise at first. It feels just like the kind of, when I saw the headline, I was like, okay, so what?

[00:26:39] It just feels like another, it’s like this constant bombardment. And it might actually be that I’m very much open to pushback on this, but it feels like Saudi Arabia is really pushing for soft power. That’s not like a new story they’ve been doing that. We saw that with the comedy festivals that they did.

[00:26:59] It was very controversial. A lot of comedians gotten temporary. 20 seconds of trouble for doing that. And so it just feels like Saudi Arabia is really making a big grab for the heart and soul of the West which feels important because the Le the West loves, engaging in military campaigns and Saudi Arabia has a couple going on, let alone more that they would like to do to ensure from their perspective, their security.

[00:27:25] Nima Shirazi: Yeah, there’s a real synergy here. 

[00:27:27] Akin Olla: Yeah. Exactly. And I think that is the big part of it is that it is, it fits very well within the far right global, like their current trajectory and hence Jared Kushner being part of this deal. And the reality is like video games have already been a pipeline for the far right.

[00:27:43] They have held us down from video game influencers. Even some games themselves are branding themselves as anti woke now as a means of capturing this growing far right audience. So it feels just like a convergence of the far rights, like grassroots army of nerds who wanna tell us why black people shouldn’t be in video games plus Saudi Arabia’s constant proxy wars and their expansion of their own soft empire and hard violent empire.

[00:28:11] And the. The leading far right in the United States, Jared Kushner, and the Trumps this all getting together to own a little bit of the mental real estate of young people and older and middle aged people in the United States. 

[00:28:25] Nima Shirazi: Yeah. I’m gonna add just a little bit more to that. I so agree with that Ake.

[00:28:28] I’ll also add that we are now a number of years into a massive multi multimillion, hundreds of millions dollar deal between, saudi Arabia and the wwe. And I’m not a gamer, but I am a big old pro wrestling fan. I love that. And and this holding annual events building more into a schedule.

[00:28:49] Initially I think there was a $50 million deal with WE that has now been exploded into, each event earns wwe e something like hundreds of millions of dollars just to hold it in these, crazy arenas in Saudi Arabia. Jedda and also Riyadh. And so this idea of, mainstreaming one of the most repressive places on the planet through American pop culture. And is a really devious thing to be doing. It is incredibly I think successful in terms of the business interests at play. I’m curious how successful you think it is in terms of, again, that kind of propaganda value, right?

[00:29:38] Does it make Saudi Arabia seem less less weird, less gross. And oh look, there are, female wrestlers in the ring. Does that mean that, saudi Arabia is, finally turning that old reform corner. That kind of thing. And this is also, of course, baked into deep-seated anti-Arab, anti-Muslim Islamophobic.

[00:30:01] Rhetoric, so I don’t want, I wanna make sure right. That, that it’s not Saudi Arabia is gross because it’s like in the desert and they wear like kafis and it’s no, it’s because like they’re authoritarian regime. It’s like a tyrannical dictatorship that like disappears dissonance and chops people up in like Turkish basements.

[00:30:19] Like that part of it, I think I’m curious about how the propaganda ROI is working. And I bet it’s working pretty well because they keep pumping more and more money into it. So from wrestling to gaming, I think this is an important story to, to bring up and and but I don’t think that people are actually paying attention to it.

[00:30:36] As they po possibly should, that it’s like a background story. Hey, whatever. The riches do what the riches do. 

[00:30:44] Cayden Mak: Yeah. I, when Akeem brought this up, I was like, oh, wow, I hadn’t heard of it. And I am a gamer, right? This is something that is important to me. And I’ve also been thinking a lot lately about the sort of consolidation of the gaming industry as well.

[00:30:56] But like, all these indie firms keep being bought up by bigger like basically conglomerates like Microsoft, ea and like they’re killing great games. 

[00:31:07] Sound on Tape: Yeah. 

[00:31:08] Cayden Mak: So just on a sort of cultural level, I’m curious what this is going to do to ea stable of games that come out every year, what it’s gonna do to like.

[00:31:18] The fact that they’re like spending $55 billion taking this company private that had previously been publicly traded, like what that’s gonna mean for EAs output. There’s also like that level that I’m like, what is the plan here? Like it’s a stunning amount of money and in an industry that is going through some changes also.

[00:31:39] So yeah, I I’m curious where I feel like, I’m not sure where on the signal to noise range the story really falls. 

[00:31:48] Nima Shirazi: I think my first inclination is almost to take it from where it is right now, solidly in the signal reality and put it more like on the y axis between the, like closer to and noise and maybe a little lower to the, closer to the X.

[00:32:05] So it because I think there are things that kind of dovetail with is the way that you’re receiving this story. Actually the part that you should be paying attention to or is it trafficking in? Yeah. A in kind of conspiratorial thinking that actually is not helpful to analyze the class and wealth and kind of power dynamics of this.

[00:32:26] Cayden Mak: Yeah. 

[00:32:28] Nima Shirazi: Ake thoughts. 

[00:32:29] Akin Olla: Yeah. I was actually going the opposite direction, at least on in terms of signal, partially because it. Feels like it speaks to, it is essentially like one dictatorship working with a nuke, the new dictatorship on the block, hypothetically to consolidate power over one of the companies that really shapes just, millions of people’s minds, like EA games.

[00:32:52] The music I listened to is based on what I was hearing in Madden when I was 11 years old. Video games are such a sneaky way. To shape reality and people’s perceptions that I don’t want to downplay the potential impact. And I don’t necessarily see Saudi Arabia like having a huge thumb on the scale with all of EA games’ development, but they already, like you were saying, Caden, they’ve already been slipping up.

[00:33:17] I feel like as more and more game companies consolidate, they’re putting out worse and worse products. And also tending to try to go for the lowest common denominator, which right now, you know, for a lot of companies is like maga they’re like trying to appeal to them and, and some people are failing in that, but, video games is, is not.

[00:33:36] It wouldn’t be like adding misogyny into video games. Wouldn’t, it’s not a, it’s not a new thing. Like all the things that we’re afraid of that EA could do or become more is already part and parcel of a lot of video game culture to begin with. So you’re saying get this 

[00:33:52] Nima Shirazi: more over to the signal side?

[00:33:53] Yeah. 

[00:33:54] Josh Elstro: Yeah. I think I’m gonna pop in to referee this one again as producer. Let’s put it maybe about, even with Zo on’s, win on signal about halfway up. Is that a good final call? 

[00:34:04] Cayden Mak: Yeah, but lower on the reality scale. That sounds good to me. And there it is. 

[00:34:08] Josh Elstro: All right. Moving on. Caden, back to you.

[00:34:11] Cayden Mak: Alright I’ve got a story for us now and I have been freaking out quietly. And so have a lot of economic analysts about the circular investments going on in the artificial intelligence industry, such as it is. There was news earlier this week that I think it’s Microsoft and Nvidia are investing in open ai who also part of this deal is open AI is getting like 10.

[00:34:38] It’s absurd amounts of money. It’s like fake amounts of money. It’s like 10, is it 10 billion or $10 million? Gosh, I should pull this up. I think 

[00:34:47] Nima Shirazi: These are B numbers with a B, they’re B numbers. Yeah. 

[00:34:50] Cayden Mak: And then Nvidia in, or there is also then an agreement that Nvidia, like there, they will then buy $30 billion worth of AI compute.

[00:35:00] Power from Microsoft Azure. There’s this, just like this sort of we’re just passing the same fake amount of money back and forth. And increasingly financial analysts are starting to freak out about this, right? They’re like, look, this has all of the signs of a bubble. There’s a really useful story for me in terms of understanding what the stakes are in the American prospect this week talking about basically like all of these companies are the tech companies themselves don’t wanna expose themselves to risk via debt.

[00:35:30] And so they are using these sort of like uninsured non-bank like private lenders to borrow money, to build data centers that they’re claiming are going to be like these huge assets off into the future. They are burning money at a rate that is like. Mind-boggling to me is somebody who runs a teeny tiny media company.

[00:35:55] They are also basically trying to say that these data centers are going to make them money. And like the amount of money that we’re talking about here, again, is in the billions. And that like some estimates of the infrastructure build out that’s needed to support their plans is something like $2 trillion over the next like several years.

[00:36:18] Which again, it’s just like staggering amounts of money that make no sense to a regular, like the regular human mind. Like we can’t actually conceptualize what a billion of anything is. And there’s just doesn’t seem like there’s a world in which the AI industry can bring in the $2 trillion of annual revenue that they’re gonna need to pay for all of this stuff.

[00:36:41] So like my question is, what the hell is going on? This feels like something that, it’s interesting because I feel like on the conspiracy to reality spectrum, it’s like this is really happening, but it also feels the kind of wishful thinking that’s underlying it to me feels like deep conspiracy stuff, right?

[00:37:01] That it’s like we are all colluding to invent a value for a thing. Yeah. That we haven’t actually come up with a business model for. That, the fact that open AI last quarter, I think lost 11. Billion dollars. It’s just an absurd amount of money. Like that to me, feels like it’s a deep conspiracy world.

[00:37:25] Yeah, and I think it’s high signal because this is pretty much the only place in the US economy right now where there’s growth, where things are in the green. It’s the only good indicator of all of the economic indicators that people pay attention to, and it is the bubble to end all bubbles.

[00:37:44] Nima Shirazi: Yeah, I totally agree.

[00:37:45] I was actually thinking as you were talking that is where I would put it too, like high signal, but also high conspiracy, not because, look, we are talking about news that has been reported that is allowing us to have this conversation, right? Yeah. That the question is not whether that is happening or not.

[00:38:02] The question is, as you said, Caden, like what is the analysis of this? What does it do? What is its meaning? And. As you were just laying out, this is a shell game and a pyramid scheme all wrapped up into one that is built upon an undergirded by, supported by totally a bonkers hype machine that has very little to do with reality.

[00:38:28] And so we all believe if we all, it’s like the Tinker Bell effect, right? If you all just believe and clap, then like AI is going to then rule the world. And sometimes and like we hear that’s bad. We hear that. That’s good. We hear like it and actually all of this is just that’s the noise part of it.

[00:38:47] It all serves to actually I think place it more accurately where you have the noise. It’s supposed to be there to have this conspiratorial effect, but actually we need to be listening to this because there’s so much more signal here than noise. We have to cut through the noise to get to the signal to realize that this is a hype machine that is just going to, make more and more billions for certain people, but also maybe not, because maybe none of this is real.

[00:39:17] Cayden Mak: And add to this, the fact that Sam Altman is basically already in the media hinting that open AI should receive a bailout, should be AI bubble burst. And I’m like, my God, 

[00:39:26] Nima Shirazi: Preemptive bailout. 

[00:39:28] Cayden Mak: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s absolutely wild to me, and I just I don’t, I think that there are still so many people who are taken by the noise of that hype machine that you’re talking about.

[00:39:39] Nma, I don’t know, Aquin, do you have a thought about this? 

[00:39:42] Akin Olla: Yeah, pretty much agree with what y’all have said. It feels a part of me wants to hope some days, to be honest, because I’m like, Ooh, AI does feel nice. And it would cause to question the whole capitalism thing once millions upon millions of people hypothetically lose their job.

[00:39:57] It’s what are we gonna do? Just not try to overthrow that. But yeah, it definitely still feels, it the fact that the folks that have created a lot of these technologies or running some of the companies are as uncertain as me. Who knows? Next to nothing that’s a little concerning.

[00:40:14] So I definitely lean conspiracy and yeah. Signal because it is, at the end of the day, it’s our economy, right? Nvidia pulled like a pirate. Like I, I am the indicator now. Like this is everything. Yeah. So it it is, it feels like the right placement for me. 

[00:40:31] Cayden Mak: Cool.

[00:40:33] Nima Shirazi: NEMA, you have another story for us.

[00:40:34] Yeah. And I think there’s gonna be a short one, but I, but I want to throw this one out. The premature reports, the kind of overly exaggerated, Twain esque reports exaggerating the death of maga ah, purely because of what we saw, say this past election day.

[00:40:50] And certainly apologies trigger warning to bring us maybe back to Epstein a little bit that, there was a MAGA revolt that you know. Trump could not call the Epstein files a hoax any longer. The people who were saying it was a hoax then all voted for the release of the thing that they had the day before, the week before it said didn’t even exist.

[00:41:11] These things, whether it’s Spam Berger or Momani or the near unanimous vote making it impossible. We have been told for Trump to veto the release of the Epstein files. This apparently is supposed to signal the Trump era is coming to a close, have no fear. It’s just the, it’s like the wind or the tides or the phases of the moon.

[00:41:37] We are gonna get back to quote unquote civility and normalcy. And we just need to wait it out. The pendulum will naturally swing. And here’s the thing, whether or not there is gonna be a, intra MAGA explosion or whatever, Trump can’t live forever. We hope. But I think that the reports of don’t worry folks.

[00:41:59] This is the crack we’ve been waiting for exposes the wishful thinking of. Oh, good. We don’t have to do anything. 

[00:42:08] This is gonna happen. They’re going to eat themselves. And then we go back and like we all, and don’t worry about it. Schumer can stay Hakeem, Jeffries can stay. Buttigieg is gonna be back.

[00:42:19] Folks. We’re gonna get we’re gonna get the band back together. Kamala is gonna run again. We’re good. We just gotta get Yeah. Like we’re almost at the end of this. And I think that, again, I don’t fundamentally give a shit what MAGA is doing to maga, but I do think that those reports and that analysis is meant to dampen power building that could actually present something different saying, oh, don’t worry this is almost over.

[00:42:47] We don’t have to go crazy here. You don’t have to go all leftist on us. So I would say that these reports are actually a lot of noise and conspiracy. I would put it in, I would put it in that quadrant down there.

[00:43:01] Akin Olla: Yeah, I definitely agree. In terms of conspiracy, they had me for five seconds. I started like booking brunches. Totally it feels good. 

[00:43:08] Nima Shirazi: It 

[00:43:08] Akin Olla: feels good to have hope. I dunno, I’m such a downer. Sorry folks. No, yeah, no, it’s just real. But yeah it’s way blown out of proportion. And it’s a lot of wishful thinking.

[00:43:20] I think coming from like liberal pundits primarily around this. It’s just one, it’s like people could have written something like that about Bernie Sanders in 2016 and they would’ve been wrong fundamentally, 

[00:43:32] Sound on Tape: right? 

[00:43:32] Akin Olla: They could have wrote that about Trump in 2020 and they would’ve been wrong again.

[00:43:36] So I just think they need to. Yeah, question That part of it. I do think that it is, feels more signal to me that it’s something worth, like it is like it, it is happening. Even if it’s being spun in a conspiratorial way, it does feel really important and worth observing, seeing like how the base was responding, what the splits might be, how we might split them further even with our strategy and think about what, what are the factions that are emerging.

[00:44:04] So yeah, and I think there’s opportunity in that, but yeah, definitely otherwise feels very, yeah, just wishful thinking of the future because Trump isn’t gonna go away. Like best case scenario, you have multiple competing factions within the Republican party that are more actively opposed to each other, but.

[00:44:23] Competing factions doesn’t mean people can’t win elections and govern. Exactly. And at the end of the day, the other people who are gonna inherit Trumpism, unless the social democratic wing of the Democratic party really takes hold. Democrats are gonna absorb Trumpism unless something has radically changed about reality That has been the norm.

[00:44:40] Obama took a lot from Bush and built upon that. Just the Clinton era was taking a lot from Reagan. So we just see this pattern of we wouldn’t have Trump if we didn’t have 

[00:44:50] Nima Shirazi: Cheney’s unitary executive. Exactly. And, and yet we are hearing all of these post death Cheney ha geographies.

[00:44:59] Oh he was a, he was a giant in our political discourse. And, the political reality and yes, I agree. But their next thing is that he was like noble and a civil servant as opposed to a raging war criminal that actually set us very much on this trajectory of where we are now.

[00:45:16] Absolutely. We can’t get Trump without Cheney. And so the idea that Cheney is the anti-Trump is just more of this kind of noisy conspiracy shit that gets us to not pay attention to what’s actually happening.

[00:45:27] Cayden Mak: Speaking of the Democratic party absorbing maga. Did you all see this quote tweet where Hakeem Jeffries quote tweeted a Marjorie Taylor Greene tweet?

[00:45:36] And he was like, yeah. I feel like that is, to me, that is ’cause they think by 

[00:45:40] Nima Shirazi: doing that, they’re gonna, they’re gonna break up a thing that is fundamentally built to deny the humanity of certain, of entire communities of people, right? Entire continents and on this planet. And that’s I think that’s exactly why I’m thinking like, it’s not something that maybe should not be exploited more that maybe there isn’t, maybe there’s some promise here.

[00:46:04] But I think that the kind of, exaggerated reports of MA’s demise serve a function to try and pacify a left in favor of waiting for a resurgent liberalism. 

[00:46:22] Cayden Mak: Yes. Yeah I definitely concur with that. That feels right to me. I feel pretty good actually about where the story is on the graph.

[00:46:30] I ake, I think your thought about there is some signal within the noise but we can’t get taken by the noise, I think is the challenge here that, like it does to me feel like as much as I would like it to be the case that, the president being at loggerheads with certain members of congress means something.

[00:46:51] It does not by itself mean anything. 

[00:46:52] Sound on Tape: Exactly. 

[00:46:53] Cayden Mak: Yeah. Are we happy with where this one is? 

[00:46:54] Good. Excellent. Good for me. Yeah. Cool. Aquin, I’ll kick it to you. You got another story for us? 

[00:47:00] Akin Olla: Yes. We have the United States and Russia drafting some sort of peace plan, or peace plan is such a weird euphemism here, but essentially the capi capitulation, oh my god, capitulation of Ukraine and cutting up Ukraine for the future.

[00:47:19] Which I think is. Know, it’s a huge story just because this war has been going on for so long and it has been seen as the question of the future of Europe. Is this the beginning of World War iii? Is this, the end of American cooperation with Europe? There’s just a lot of big questions about the future of the West wrapped up in this story, even if some of them are, louder or more signal based than others.

[00:47:45] But I, I think it is substantial, no matter how you look at it. Given Ukraine’s role, as the breadbasket of Europe and Russia’s potential future as a superpower or like a full on the superpower, it’s always wanted to be again. And this. Feels different than past times.

[00:48:02] And may I’m open to being wrong on this, especially with the aggression or at least like Russia’s more recent aggressions in Ukraine targeting more infrastructure, energy infrastructure in particular. The ran, I dunno if y’all caught the stories of drone sightings across European airports and what was perceived as Russia just being like, Hey, we can make this World War II whenever you want.

[00:48:23] Jeez. So there, there’s a lot there. And it feels like Trump is very set on getting what he sees as like a little w for himself in the foreign policy world. And the fact that they’re blocking Ukraine from these meetings feels like they’re going a certain direction around, losing or Ukraine giving up some territory to Russia.

[00:48:44] Yeah. So it feels leaning high reality for me or like a little bit above the axis. Maybe actually substantially above the axis. Maybe it’s a signal noise. Is that what I’m a little bit more mixed on so that placement feels right to me. There is a chance I’m just getting caught up in the hype machine of Trump and him being like, I am the peace president for real.

[00:49:06] Ignore all the war. But it does feel different. And reality is, wars do come to an end. We do, often have the, as Americans we’re like, wars don’t end. We just, we go on for as long as we can hold this down, that is how we like for other people. They do end. Sometimes. Yeah, true.

[00:49:23] Yeah, 

[00:49:23] Nima Shirazi: I would connect this, saying kin as you did the Trump’s desire to be the peace president or whatever that means to him. Because I would put that sort of coupled with the recent un vote to effectively create a new mandate for Gaza that now there’s an international peacekeeping force, something blah, blah, blah, that, was overwhelmingly supported by members of the United Nations.

[00:49:48] Somehow this is a big win. Is Fred 

[00:49:51] Akin Olla: Blair still in on this, or, oh, 

[00:49:53] Nima Shirazi: I’m sure. I’m sure he’s gonna be the, he’s gonna be the sultan of, Rafa pretty soon. But yeah, I think that there, I think that the reality is even maybe more tenuous than you have it here.

[00:50:06] I have a real sort of depending on what angle I’m thinking, I’m like, that’s not even, that’s not even real. I like is this a change? Is this significant? What does it mean, in terms of, whether it’s Ukraine or whether it’s Gaza. Because it also depends on who is cast as the hero and the villain in the mind of whether it’s Trump or whether it’s the, minds of anyone who’s receiving these stories. And so there’s I don’t know, there’s like a, there’s a weird sort of a amorphous swirl around like the center where they where the axes meet here, where I’m like, what, where does this live?

[00:50:45] Like where in the world does this actually live? 

[00:50:49] Cayden Mak: Yeah. I see that because it also feels the fact that it’s like Trump and Putin talking about this without any Ukrainians at the table, like that to me feels like how is this any, like, how are you going to get the Zelensky government to agree to anything, right?

[00:51:05] Like it, I don’t, I just, yeah. You 

[00:51:09] Nima Shirazi: mean if you’re committed to resisting and invading and occupying force maybe you Yeah. Need to be part of the conversation, right? I don’t, as the resistance, I’m shit’s not gonna end like 

[00:51:23] Akin Olla: yeah. Parallel with Gaza right now too.

[00:51:26] Yeah, 

[00:51:26] Nima Shirazi: exactly. If you’re, so the idea that this is the idea that this is the end of a story is, I think again I would say that may be too too far to go. I don’t think we’re there. Yeah. I think this is like too neat. Yeah.

[00:51:42] Like I, that’s why I think it’s a bit more noisy. 

[00:51:46] Akin Olla: That’s fair. Yeah. To be fair, an end of the war in my head is likely the beginning of some sort of insurgency. Sure. It’s almost impossible not to, even if Zelinsky isn’t the one heading it, there are just so many forces in Ukraine Yeah.

[00:51:59] That would gladly continue this fight. Yeah. Occupation is bad folks. People resist it. Yeah. It turns out, 

[00:52:07] Cayden Mak: Cool. Are we, I feel pretty good about this location that like it, I mean it also doesn’t, it’s not lost on me too in the like in the argument for it being a little more noisy.

[00:52:17] It’s not lost on me that Trump is maybe already is maybe still a little bent about being skipped over for the Nobel Peace Prize. He really, he cares about that kind of stuff. It’s silly and embarrassing, but it’s true.

[00:52:33] I think we got time for one more. And it feels to me like maybe we need to talk about the sort of granddaddy of all of the current conspiracy theories. Again, trigger warning, we are gonna talk about the Epstein files ’cause there’s a couple of, there’s a couple of ways to slice this that I think are worth spending a little time on.

[00:52:53] One of them is the role the Epstein files play in that sort of MAGA breakup that we talked about, right? That’s a little more noise, a little more conspiratorial. There’s also the ways in which the media chooses to report on parts of the Epstein files. And I know that one of the things that we talked about was this really interesting roundup from fair.

[00:53:17] About the way that corporate media is not interested in looking at the relation, like the relationships of power that are illustrated within the Epstein files. So there’s like multiple ways to slice this and I think maybe we could start with, in some ways the MAGA breakup we’ve already talked about, right?

[00:53:37] That it’s like a little more it’s a little more noisy, it’s a little more conspiratorial. I’m wondering if we can talk about this like corporate media coverage of the Epstein files and what it means about where we’re at on it. I think the fair article is interesting because there’s, in this most recent data dump, there was some information about relationship, like Epstein being part of.

[00:54:07] Some international negotiations that previously, like these corporate media outlets, like the New York Times have been like, look, this is just conspiracy theory. And I think that if this stuff is a little uncomfortable. And I think it should be uncomfortable because it’s one of those things, like my brain is always it can’t possibly be this deep.

[00:54:27] And yet there’s like increasing evidence that there’s something here. 

[00:54:31] Nima Shirazi: I think what’s really interesting there, Caden, is like, it’s almost like if you had like a conspiracy bingo card. Yeah. And you’re like, this is the norm. This is like all the nonsense. There’s Mossad on here and there’s like private planes to islands and there’s human trafficking and there, right?

[00:54:51] There’s Hollywood and there’s like Larry Summers and there’s you have all that on a Bingo card and you’re like, this is all nonsense. And then the things that come out, you’re like, Ooh, it’s all real, right? 

[00:55:05] Sound on Tape: Some 

[00:55:05] Nima Shirazi: James Bond shit, but like the analysis of like how it’s real and the kind of meaning made from it.

[00:55:10] As I keep saying I think yes, of course if you’re looking at like deep right wing conspiracy that is rampant, right? That is there is so much noise, there’s so much conspiracy Also. When, you look at say what Ryan Grim and Marti and Martiza Hussein have reported for drop site news.

[00:55:31] You can see that Epstein had very close ties to the Israeli intelligence services Mossad and other parts of the Israeli state. And that’s not like bonkers conspiracy that like that is true. It sounds like it should be on a conspiracy bingo card.

[00:55:45] But it like that is true. And then you actually realize that this is about power. It’s about power and a lack of accountability and class solidarity. 

[00:55:56] And that that is where the Epstein story becomes very real and very signaling, right? 

[00:56:03] Sound on Tape: Yeah. 

[00:56:03] Nima Shirazi: And so that’s why I feel like it is incredibly important.

[00:56:07] It’s incredibly. Appalling. It’s incredibly exhausting, but also it is telling if you realize that it’s telling a story about power rather than a story about one horrible man, then it becomes a very important story. And yeah. That’s why I feel like there’s a kind of, again, maybe swirly funny placement thing going on with Epstein, where it might very well live exactly where it is right now, marking the center of this grit.

[00:56:39] Cayden Mak: Yeah. No I hear you saying too, and I think that point about maybe reframing this as a story about not just rich people, but like the most elite, most richest, most powerful people in the world, the class solidarity those people have. Outta control. And if we understand it that way high signal, high reality.

[00:56:57] And also there’s all of these it’s almost there’s just like these like pit traps all over, like all over the terrain here, right? That are easy to fall into and that are like set up for unsuspecting people to just fall into and be suddenly like, wow, I am actually saying something that like, is.

[00:57:16] Bananas does not make any sense. Akin do you have a thought about this? 

[00:57:22] Akin Olla: Yeah I think about it as like the revenge of the Panama Papers basically. Maybe that’s a very reductive, but in the sense that it feels like the Panama Papers did not get the dew that they deserve. They did not get the reaction that they deserve.

[00:57:35] Partially because we were all like, oh, you mean the richest people on the earth are all hiding their money in a way that like, protects their wealth and expands it? It’s oh, obviously. And I feel like it’s a kind of, it’s similar. It’s oh, you mean the richest people in the world have a sex island?

[00:57:49] And there’s it’s connected to intelligence agencies. It’s the bread and butter conspiracy theories. And there’s, yeah I love the class solidarity framing. ‘Cause that’s really what it’s about and what it is. And it’s nice to see. Maybe not the most, I guess it just feels like a more appropriate reaction to how much can we curse to the, as much as you want to.

[00:58:12] The fuckery of the ruin class is get away with so much. I get away with so much. And that’s part of why I wanna push it a little towards Signal E even though it, there’s just so much noise in it around it. Because it feels like for once we can actually look at like the ruling class as a body.

[00:58:33] And obviously this doesn’t involve all of them, but in a way it it does compromise a lot of them. Yeah. And so yeah, I just appreciate that aspect of it. Just like. Potentially just like actually being able to I mean we’ll actually see if we’re able to hold anyone accountable throughout this entire process or what’s comes out of it.

[00:58:52] But it does feel different than a lot of the other, the Panama paper type things. People actually do seem invested. They do care across political parties in lines. And I love, and this has been played to death when people are like, but what about Bill Clinton? Are you gonna care if he’s in there?

[00:59:07] I’m like, I would love if Bill Clinton you that the best. I know he’s already involved. What do you mean this is just yeah, this is a lot of come up in stuff ruling class and parts of it really deserve, right? ’cause we know that they are doing terrible things, whether it’s exploiting our labor or reintroducing child labor across the United States.

[00:59:25] Cayden Mak: Yeah. Or like stealing fucking money from people. Yeah. And I think that there’s a way in which I’ve been thinking a lot. I listen to a lot to, you’re wrong about with Sarah Marshall and Sarah Marshall’s whole preoccupation with moral panics. That there’s a way that the there’s a way that I think this story as a sort of avatar for a lot of that kind of moral panic around the treatment of children and the abuse of children is like, that really happened here.

[00:59:57] And there’s like a way that like we as a culture are also obsessed with that is itself signal about like our collective sense of guilt around how we cannot protect the most vulnerable people in our society. That, like that to me, that framing around moral panics has been really helpful to think about.

[01:00:16] Not just the Satanic panics and this, that sort of thing in like the eighties and early nineties, but like the persistence of child abuse as a like, feature of conspiracy theory. That a lot of it is this sort of like attempt to sublimate our own guilt about the fact that like we live in a society that has like the greatest wealth inequality that in a hundred years in this society, right?

[01:00:43] That there is all this stuff that like doesn’t feel like we have control over and like we want there to be a big bad. That and I think, again, this goes back to the accountability question that’s yes. Is it satisfying that people are coming at Larry Summers about this? Sure. Do. I think that everybody who’s listed in the Epstein files is gonna get their comeuppance.

[01:01:03] I have little doubt that many of them are going to escape basically unscathed. 

[01:01:08] And I think that so much of the reason this became a meme, and I think that’s a difference between this and the Panama Papers and why this is so important culturally. It there’s a, like a way that it touches that sort of psychological thing for people that is, I think is like not, it’s not part of the rational relationship to it, but it’s about the affective relationship to it.

[01:01:32] Nima Shirazi: Yeah. The last thing I’ll say here, because I, and then we can really land on a, where it lives and maybe it just has to live here and it can be revisited over time, it may shift and move around where it lives on this axis.

[01:01:44] I think and not to problematize our kind of conceit here, but also conspiracies also are real sometimes. And yeah. And so like the idea that there’s a reality and conspiracy, scale I think is, it is conspiracy in this sense is standing in for something, right?

[01:02:05] This kind of like bonkers it’s not real, but let’s remember that a lot of powerful people often collude to do horrible things to less powerful people, right? And if we’re calling those conspiracies, then those are very real. It was called conspiratorial thinking to think that there was a push to invade a rock that was based on completely false premises.

[01:02:25] And if you called that out, you were a conspiracy theorist. All you have to do is look at the facts, look at Colin Powell making shit making shit up. And if you called that out, you were the conspiracy theorist. Where actually, 

[01:02:37] Remember Jeffrey Goldberg, who’s now the fucking head of the Atlantic Magazine, made up a connection between Osama Bin Laden and Sadam Hussein to get people even more comfortable with invading yet another country and killing a lot of Muslims.

[01:02:50] And so that is a conspiracy that happened. If you called it out, you were called a conspiratorial thinker. So I just want us to also remember that if we put the Epstein thing on the conspiratorial line here. Because it, there is a huge conspiracy there. It’s not the conspiracy of unreality.

[01:03:09] It is what it means when very powerful people collude together yeah. For their own ends against the rest of us. 

[01:03:17] Cayden Mak: Yeah. No, I appreciate that. And I think for that reason, I’m also like, I do think that maybe this does belong smack dab in the middle of the graph. There’s just a little too much to parse here.

[01:03:30] Sound on Tape: Yeah. 

[01:03:30] Cayden Mak: On some level there’s a lot. 

[01:03:34] Nima Shirazi: Can we end with a song about Charlie Kirk, though? Oh my God. Hit me. 

[01:03:43] Akin Olla: Are we gonna play it for the listeners? 

[01:03:44] Nima Shirazi: We better play it for the listeners, because I gotta say, this is the most signaling real thing in the world. And also it deserves to be all the way in conspiratorial noise because, but man, is this man, is this a hoot?

[01:03:59] So I don’t know, Josh, if you can, do it rock Capella. 

[01:04:02] Josh Elstro: I apologize. I did not pull the audio for it, but it is fantastic. I’ll make sure it’s in the audio version right here where I stop talking. 

[01:04:09] Sound on Tape: We are

[01:04:18] for the gospel.

[01:04:22] His name, 

[01:04:23] Nima Shirazi: it’s called, we are Charlie Kirk. It’s a memorial song. It’s gives like serious cre vibes. Okay. 

[01:04:30] Cayden Mak: But Creed is actual guys playing instruments. This is to be clear, AI slop. This is 

[01:04:36] Nima Shirazi: clearly AI slop. And it is amazing. I would say this has gotta be in conspiracy noise.

[01:04:44] Cayden Mak: I think I it’s funny though that like this, you’re bringing to us, this, to us at the at the same time that like the first sort of AI artist topped a billboard chart and that there’s, there is something here about we can just crank out this sort of like least common denominator, garbage and like flood the market, right?

[01:05:07] That that is. Also what’s happening here and that I think you’re right that it is like largely conspiracy noise and I am like, as somebody who likes music, I’m so worried. Yeah. 

[01:05:22] Akin Olla: It’s fair. Yeah. It’s a 

[01:05:23] Nima Shirazi: little too real. 

[01:05:25] Akin Olla: Yeah. There is something signaling in the thread of it.

[01:05:28] Grand scheme of things where, what I’m afraid of is gen alpha and younger generations who might not have the same visceral reaction to some of this stuff. And the reality is, I was bopping my head for a second. I wasn’t thinking about it. I was just like music, rhythm. So oh God, I think we’re all susceptible.

[01:05:44] I, I believe to a certain degree of AI slop, like it just has to be the slop for you. And this clearly is not our slop. No. 

[01:05:53] Cayden Mak: A friend sent me a video, this swap committee. 

[01:05:54] Akin Olla: It’s true. 

[01:05:55] Cayden Mak: A friend sent me a video on Instagram of it was like a cute animal video. And it was the kind of thing that I had to watch this video like four or five times because I was like, something’s off here.

[01:06:04] I had to watch it four or five times before I found the two visual tells that it was AI generated. These things are getting really good and you see a cute animal video of animals doing something funny, and you’re like, oh, I wanna send this to my friend. And I feel like that’s the effect.

[01:06:18] The, like we are, Charlie Kirk Song has for people who are like in it to win it with turning point USA, right? They’re like, this is my shit for real. And I don’t know. It’s a dark path. Yeah. I, that we are, yeah, 

[01:06:31] Nima Shirazi: AI doing martyrdom, rallying cries, it’s dark.

[01:06:34] It’s a yikes, to me it’s a yikes, to me it’s a dark, it’s a dark place. No, 

[01:06:38] Akin Olla: that, that free reframe or like the particular word choice did hit hard when you said it like that.

[01:06:46] Cayden Mak: You guys this has been a delight. I certainly had a good time breaking this stuff down together, and I honestly learned a bunch from both of you, so I appreciate you making the time to come on the show and talk some shit together. 

[01:06:59] Nima Shirazi: Yeah, no, this was a real pleasure Caden and ake thank you so much for having me.

[01:07:03] Also this sounds very kind of podcasty of me, but I gotta say, I’m really curious to hear what listeners think of the placement. Of some of these things and yes. Where they would maybe re you know, reposition things and also how they’re thinking about stories that they’re hearing and, what is reality?

[01:07:21] What is signal, what is conspiracy, what is noise and the way that this has been constructed. Because, hopefully this is the the first of many of these navigators. 

[01:07:31] Cayden Mak: Yeah. Yeah. Nima, where can folks find you? If they wanna hear more from you?

[01:07:37] Nima Shirazi: As you said, I’m a co-host with Adam Johnson of the podcast Citations Needed, which you can find on all of your preferred podcast channels.

[01:07:48] I also do a fair share of communications and narrative strategy work with Spitfire. If you if you’re in that, if you’re in that world and you’re looking for some good people to think about some stuff with you can hit us up of course. But yeah, I think those two things are probably the best ways to 

[01:08:03] Cayden Mak: to follow what I’m doing.

[01:08:05] Amazing. And keener, do you have anything that you wanna plug? Obviously you work here, 

[01:08:09] Akin Olla: but Yeah. Many convergence, if y’all have heard of it. Pretty cool. Big fan. And you can follow me on Instagram. My ins what is that even called? Handle? I don’t know anymore. It’s at Fela. Do QT letters.

[01:08:21] FELA dot q and t. 

[01:08:25] Cayden Mak: Amazing. Thanks so much again for making the time and sharing your insights into a very perplexing week, month in news. So it’s been a pleasure. Thanks so much. My thanks again also to Nikki Marin Bena of Siembra, North Carolina for giving us that on the ground report from North Carolina.

[01:08:43] And again to kina Nima for making some time to navigate the attention economy with me. This show is published by Convergence, a magazine for radical insight. I’m Kate Mock, and our producer is Josh Stro. Kimmy David designed our Cover Art Convergence Magazine is a proud member of the Movement Media Alliance.

[01:09:00] If you have something to say, including feedback on this format or where things ended up on our graph, please do drop me a line. You can send me an email that will consider running on an upcoming mailbag episode at [email protected]. We are also gonna take a quick break for the holiday week, no episode next week, but we will be back in December with a couple of episodes to round out our 2025.

[01:09:23] And finally, if you would like to support the work that we do at Convergence, bringing our movements together to strategize, struggle, and win in this crucial historical moment, you can become a [email protected] slash donate. Even a few bucks a month goes a long way to making sure that our independent small team can continue to build a map for our movements.

[01:09:41] I hope this helps.