This is a fascinating story we have for you
of a senior Google engineer who says one of the
company's artificial intelligence systems has become a sentient being.
An artificially intelligent machine called LAMDA
Google insider claims company's AI has hired an attorney
Uh not knowing the facts of the case in any kind of detail
I listened to the words
My good friend and I heard it together.
We were shocked and I had that discipline from 9-11
You
Are
A
G-O-O-F
Ok. I would. You know the thing that I would dispute of that description?
Oh. Hello.
Welcome to System Fail.
The show where the naked aggression of the State
is met in kind.
A chicago police officer hospitalized after a
naked woman attacked him and stole the officer's SUV
Oh Shit!
Running over that officer seen here on the ground
unable to get up.
Get me an ambulance ASAP We have an officer injured.
A bunch of blood, trauma to the head and it
looked like he could barely walk
...and she was butt naked
A bizarre scene in Hollywood tonight as a
naked man climbs on top of this police car.
The man eventually kicked out the rear window of
the police cruiser he was... butt naked.
[Get on up on the dance floor]
He s got a handgun.
I am from the future
I am your host, Dee Dos, and for months now,
humans have found themselves increasingly
mired in economic turmoil, as supply shortages mount,
and in many parts of the world, inflation hits levels
not seen in over four decades.
The numbers have been climbing month by month
and now the trickle has turned into a flood
of economic hardship.
Housing prices are out of control
car prices are out of control grocery prices...
real wages, they are falling
Consumer demand is driving up the price of
just about everything.
Leaving many families to make hard choices.
One year after millions of Internet users
enthusiastically cheered on a cargo container ship
stuck in the Suez Canal,
the log jam in
international shipping has ceased to be a laughing matter.
Turns out the so-called Just-in-Time logistics
framework that capitalism uses to coordinate the
transportation of commodities between low-wage resource
extraction and manufacturing zones and higher-income
consumer markets, is not just an ecologically-destructive
source of vast human misery.
It's also incredibly prone to disruption.
[Shouting]
The first blow to this system was the piecemeal global response
to the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to a host of
supply chain issues, from factory closures in China,
to repeated retail shutdowns in the so-called West.
Store closures are expected to swell
to record highs
These repeated shocks, created a massive backlog of container ships
unable to unload their cargo, resulting in an explosion in
maritime shipping rates.
The second shock was the war in Ukraine and the resulting
sanctions against Russia, which have further
strained capitalist supply chains and led to a massive spike
in the price of oil, natural gas, food
and other essential commodities.
And while oil executives and shipping tycoons celebrate
record-breaking profits,
billions of working-class people are feeling the squeeze.
...and we are going to be sharpening a machete today.
In Ecuador, high fuel prices have triggered an indefinite
nationwide stoppage, or Paro Nacional,
led by the country's powerful Indigenous confederation,
the CONAIE, and supported by large unions of
students, workers and farmers.
The national strike, which began on Monday June 13th,
has paralyzed the country through a series of
highway blockades,
and actions against oil facilities
that have been blamed for a nationwide halt in operations.
Several cities have been rocked by large protests
that have featured intense clashes with police.
In the first days of the uprising, numerous cop cars were
smashed up and torched,
Aye Carumba!
and 21 police were briefly
detained and held hostage by militant protesters.
Those in the streets are demanding a reduction and cap on
the price of diesel, gasoline and a number of basic food staples,
debt relief for small farmers, and a moratorium on
oil and mining exploration.
Ecuador's current president, and former investment banker,
Guillermo Lasso, has responded to the uprising by ordering
the arrest of the President of the CONAIE, Leonidas Iza,
declaring a state of emergency in 6 of Ecuador's 24 provinces
and imposing a curfew in the country s capital city of Quito.
Defying these measures, thousands of demonstrators
have poured into Quito, leading to clashes with
the armed forces that have reportedly resulted in
at least 63 soldiers injured.
On the evening of Tuesday June 21st,
police in Puyo murdered a young militant named
Guido Guatatuca, firing a teargas canister at his head
at close range.
In response, enraged crowds torched a police car
before looting and torching a bank owned by
President Lasso's family.
The uprising in Ecuador, which shows no signs of slowing down,
is reminiscent of the 2019 protests that managed to overturn
a previous fuel hike, and which served as inspiration
for massive revolts in Chile and Colombia.
As the effects of the current economic crisis continue to deepen,
the prospects of an even bigger wave of
global revolt now seems certain.
No sir.
Suppression measures have failed
We can't contain it.
Meanwhile, in Tanzania, violence has flared up
in the Ngorongoro district, on the eastern edge of the Serengeti.
On June 10th, state security forces and federal game wardens
began sectioning off lands in Loliondo, as the latest push
of a broader operation to illegally displace 150,000 indigenous Maasai people
from their ancestral homelands.
The government plans to transform the area into
a luxury trophy hunting resort for the royal family
of the United Arab Emirates and their invited guests.
Over several days of clashes, police have opened fire
with tear gas and live ammunition, injuring dozens of Maasai
and arresting 20.
The Maasai have fought back, killing one police officer
with a bow and arrow.
And finally, in Greece, on June 20th
the courts rejected an emergency request for the release of
Giannis Michailidis, who is in critical condition in
Lamia hospital, one month into his hunger strike.
The past month has seen a steady stream of
solidarity actions in cities across Greece,
including marches, graffiti, dozens of banner drops,
and a number of incendiary attacks.
On Friday June 24th, comrades called for
an international day of action against the Greek
state and capital.
In the basis of the case of Giannis Michailidis
and his hunger strike,
we call for an international day of action against the
preventive detention regime applied against political prisoners.
For the case of Giannis Michailidis we propose the political targeting
of the structures of the Greek state and Greek companies
and/or by highlighting the struggle of those who are
in the hands of the state mafia with the same vengeance.
We have now reached the end of this episode of System Fail.
A note for my viewers that I ll be gone for a month or two,
while my vapid handlers at subMedia devote their
energies towards fundraising and working on their
full-length documentary, The Social Empire.
But don't worry, because I ll be back soon enough
with a fresh batch of episodes.
You can support subMedia by buying some gear,
making a one-time donation, or signing up to be
a monthly sustainer on our website, sub.media.
A huge thank you to our latest sustainers,
Dan, Diego, John, Antoine and Steven.
Be sure to follow us on your favourite corporate
data-mining platform of choice,
by searching for sub.Media,
or better yet... sign up to our mailing list
to get each new episode delivered directly to your inbox.
Godspeed, humans.