The Elephant in the Room, Journalism, and Disinformation

Doc Searls 00:55

You find out what Brain of Shawn means. Yeah. Which is one of his handles.

Shawn Powers 01:01

It's a podcast of self-discovery for Shawn.

Doc Searls 01:06

It's where we'll discover other selves and not just our own.

Katherine Druckman 01:10

But at the same time, I have a feeling at some point in this episode, we're going to get around to talking about what's going on in Ukraine, because there's very much an information ties into all of our interests, journalism, and all of the things that we're interested in. And

Doc Searls 01:24

then, so

Shawn Powers 01:25

yeah, let's, let's actually start there. Um,

Doc Searls 01:28

start. All right, well, let me, let me jump on this. Uh, because I I'm a journalist, I've been a journal. For about 50 years, maybe more than 50 years, which is crazy, but not steadily across that whole time. But, uh, always, uh, it's been always been pretty close for me. I've done it on radio. I haven't done very much, very little, very, very little, mostly as a talking head and briefly on TV, but, um, for a very long time, of course, the lyrics journal and freelancing for lots and lots of places, including some known ones like the wall street journal and.

But it all comes down to something that I learned on like day two which was that all that matters is a story. Every managing editor of every newspaper. I remember newspapers. We used to have those, but I mean, if, if you worked for a newspaper and you're a reporter and you came in with something, the managing editor or the assignment editor would say, what's the. And a story I learned early on was three things. You have to have three parts to have a story. If you three elements, if you don't have these three things, you don't have a story and it's not going to run. One is a character protagonist, a person, a ball club, a cause a political party doesn't matter whether they're good or bad, they have to be interesting enough to be a character.

There are protected. Every the world is full of protagonists. That's what we're interested in. Each of us is our own protagonists. And we're not the only ones who play multiple roles in our lives, but they're there. They have stories too. Okay. So you have a protagonist and you have a problem. You have a struggle. You, you have a situation that requires interest and keeps changing and has to move toward a resolution. That's the third part. So character. Problem or conflict movement toward a resolution. Now, some things never do resolve, like for examples a, a soap operas serialized premium TV that goes on for season after season after season.

And when they do conclude, like with loss, people get unhappy with it because they don't like the conclusion. Right. Because it's mostly cause it's over. But stories are, have to have those three parts and. What we have with, with the attack on the Russian attack on to on, on Ukraine are some really, really, really profound and interesting characters. I mean, Putin is an interesting dude, whether you like them or not. And most of us don't there's a lot of stuff you could say. Does, you know, did he not on, on air generally? Yeah, not on air, but I mean, I mean, here's a guy that sits at the far end of the table. He's afraid of COVID and you, you know, allegedly murders, his opponents.

He's been a repressive dictator essentially for the last N number of years. There's a lot of ways you could characterize them. I just heard upstairs. Joyce's listening to a podcast with a guy named Posner who was a spokesman for the Kremlin during the Soviet union for a long time. He was always an interesting dude. And he's saying that all kinds of things that are said about Putin are really out of character. He knows the guy really interesting stuff. There is another side to this it's doesn't mean that he's a good guy. It just means that the characterizations that we have for him may not be accurate. And in fact, if you've ever been in a story, you always know it's much more complicated than it seems.

And this is true in sports, especially, you know, what goes on in the locker room. Isn't it? What goes on, on the floor? Do these guys get along or not? You know, it's always much more complicated than that. And I mean, I saw something a, a bunch of stuff the last couple of days about Howard stern, Howard stern said this and Howard stern said that, well, I heard what he said. He was just, he was just mouthing off. Cause that's what he does. He's got to fill four hours of radio time and he says some stuff, right. Like we do. And you know, I mean, I, I could say something. you know that in this podcast, all of us can, it can be taken totally out of context. We doc Searls said, Catherine Druckman said Shawn powers said, and it could be wrong.

Right. So you've got character, you've got a problem. For Putin, the problem is that Ukraine is part of Russia. That's the way he sees it. He's said it a thousand times. It's not really a country. It should belong to Russia before. Why is it a country now we're going to take it back. That's basically what he's been saying, and that is indisputable. And that's part of his rationale. He's saying some things that are wrong. I mean, yeah. Accusing th the Jewish grandson of Holocaust victims of being a Nazi has kind of a stretch, you know, but, that's one of the things that Putin has done, but on the other side, this guy Zelenskyy has really emerged as a really interesting character as well.

I mean, he, he played himself on TV before he became the president and it was a comedy, it was in a sitcom, you know, where, you know, it's as if. West wing was a was a comedy and not a drama. And and then uh, Martin sheen became the actual president. It was, it was like that. Right? So that, guy's the president now. So like,

Shawn Powers 06:25

uh, electing a former actor as president.

Doc Searls 06:31

Exactly. And he's playing a role. Right. And, and, and it's. But he's been really good at playing a role in, in the worst possible circumstances. And when he said, you know, to the, your sub one of the European groups that he spoke to in, uh, in the, in the EU. This may be the last time you speak to me as a live or something like that. It's plausible. It makes sense. And, and the, and the conflict is dramatic. And I mean, we're all doomed, scrolling all day on this thing. And in the evening we sit down and Joyce and I, and we watch Deutsche Vela and, and France 24, because they're not interrupted by three, four minutes of ads at a time by like CNN and Fox news and MSNBC.

And of course the PBS news hour, because they're relatively objective. And we listen to NPR in the morning is because they're, you know, our, our BBC, but it was the BBC two and we can't get enough of this stuff. But I get the strong sense that. It's much more complicated than that. And it's much more, it's not, we're not that the facts that don't fit the story, that's always, the problem is writing a story.

You have to leave out the stuff that doesn't fit the character. Isn't exactly part of the problem isn't going to fit in the time you've got to cover it, all that stuff. And, and the tendency is for people to take sides, always to take sides and for sides to. And you're watching Europe turning it into one great big side, which wasn't there before. That's really interesting. You

Shawn Powers 08:07

know, so it's interesting, but I mean, it, it makes sense, right? I mean, at some point, you know, you have to, you have to take a side against evil and I mean, bombing apartment buildings, full of citizens, you know, there's no good spin on that. Whether he thinks still belongs to Russia or

Doc Searls 08:21

not. I am not, and I'm not, and I'm not, I mean, I know you're not going to

Shawn Powers 08:27

say, you know, sympathize. I know you're not like

Doc Searls 08:30

I'm not, I, I am an enormous sympathy with the Ukrainians. I think Putin is nuts and to Dane danger to the world. And, um, my biggest worry right now is that he's going to set up a nuke because he might be crazy enough to do that. And we have connections there. I mean, we know people there You know, Petros is sometimes on the show. He works with people there. And, uh, Joyce's ancestors partner. Her father's side is from, from Kiev. But there's, you know, there, lots of us have lots of connections back there and, and we're in great sympathy with them and they're being horribly abused right now. And it's going to get worse before it gets better. If it does for a long time, we don't know. It's really that it's not hard to take sides here.

And, um, I'm really just bringing up a point about journalism itself. I, I. A piece called journalism's fatal flaw. I think it was, I forget. But about this and journalists in journalism, we don't, they don't want to talk about this. We don't, we, we don't want to talk about what's wrong with this story because it's, what's wrong with human nature. And this was right with human nature. We have to be able to, to tell stories. I mean, we, you know, the stories are the, the base format of human interest and. You know, they they're they're we keep us interested in the ball club and our, and our families and our teams and our, our, you know, the people we work with and all that stuff.

It's all tied into the story and we take it out of it, but there are missing parts. So

Katherine Druckman 09:59

that's what. I mean, I like to think that people want the story, but I, you know, at the same time, I mean, there is, there is, you know, obviously what Sean said about, you know, just recognizing at some basic level of good versus evil. But I think at the end of the day, a lot of people don't actually want the story. They want to be told who is right and who is wrong. And they, they want the soundbite answer, you know, the, the, to the information war that is happening and they, they want, to see a hero and a villain. And I think it's, it's also in human nature to see only, or to just want to see only the part of the story that is easily digestible, I guess, is what I'm saying.

Most people. I mean, we're, we're unusual people, right? We're, we're pretty nerdy over here, but most people don't want to spend the time to educate themselves on the history of the region or the, you know, the, or how, how we got to this conflict. That region is very, very complicated. I was actually reading just, well, since the war began. So my father-in-law was actually grew up in Czernowitz, which is part of Ukraine. It is a city in. There's a little kind of more, I think north Western little kind of like little carved out part that has changed hands so many times, even in the

Doc Searls 11:20

20th Germany and Poland and Russia,

Katherine Druckman 11:22

it was Austria hungry. And then it was the king when he was born there, it was the kingdom of Romania, but they, they spoke German and turn of it's the language, the language of, of the, the locals was German and it was, you know, heavily Jewish and. And, and, you can have lived in one town over the course of maybe only 30 years and have been ruled by, I don't know, four different,

Doc Searls 11:49

different, I know a guy he grew up in Trieste and he was in Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Hungary, and empire and Italy all in one place. So that movie anywhere.

Katherine Druckman 12:04

Yeah, exactly. So it's, it's something that, that a lot of people, especially Americans. I don't really understand. I mean, I guess if I'm from Texas, we do have that six flags of Texas thing going on, but, uh, it's, it's still a little different and, and the conflict for the most part, uh, in the pretty distant past, um,

Doc Searls 12:26

yeah, it is, but it's, it, it it's very present. And you were saying you got to take the trouble to learn about it. So I was thinking, okay, so part of Putin's case is that this is a. Part of Russia is that the primary languages, Russian. And so I looked up okay. What's Ukrainian, what's Russian. What's the difference? Uh, what's Belorussian there for Belarus. Dialects. There are many Russian dialects. Ukrainian is not a dialect of Russian. They are both forms of east Slavic languages. They have different voices in cases. They're, I mean, they're mutually intelligible, um, but they are different languages and, um, You know, one other thing, I forget what this Russian or Ukrainian has a V evocative case and which I had to study the votive case and looked at that since college.

Right. And, but it's, it's a case and it, and it matters is where you throw somebody's name into there. When you're speaking to them, you know, this is what I'm saying, Sean, that's, that's the vocative case. Right. And, and they'll do that in one language. They won't do it in the other, but they can understand each other and to some degree and. And flip from one to the other. Apparently his Alinsky, you know, he did this TV show in entirely in Ukrainian, but his first language is Russian and he speaks Russian when he's talking to Putin and he speaks Ukrainian when he's talking on the, on the TV. Um, I, you know, so the whole case about language is kind of like really?

I don't know. So what

Shawn Powers 14:00

is it that made this invasion? So much more, headline world engaging compared to when, uh, Russia took Crimea. Right. They took the Crimean peninsula. It was Ukrainian. They took it back and yeah, it was, it was largely Russian speaking. But again, it was unprovoked. It just came in because, uh, largely because of oil, rights and gas rights in the area and came in and took it and now, you know, has tons more of.

Yeah, shipping ports, access, et cetera, et cetera. Uh, so I, I'm just a little surprised that this invasion and maybe because it was like an all-out Putin's planning on just taking all of Ukraine, maybe that was the difference as opposed to taking, you know, a little bite with a little bite of Crimea. Um, I I'm curious what happened I'll after the fact, the brutality that is going on right now. And I mean the, the way in which the. Fighting, at least from what we see, you know, remotely, uh, seem, I mean, I understand why that would

Doc Searls 15:08

get a limbo right now. Yeah.

Shawn Powers 15:10

I mean, I understand why that would get the attention of the world, but when the invasion was first starting, it was, it was a top of the news. And I just wonder if it's because it was a complete, like the plan I guess, was completely to take over all of Ukraine. Or what the difference there is.

Katherine Druckman 15:25

I think part of it is the scale it's gotta be, you know, instead of a tiny little creamy is basically kind of, you know, island at

Doc Searls 15:31

the, at the bottom 2014, right when that happened. Yeah.

Shawn Powers 15:36

20 14, 20, 15, somewhere, somewhere back there.

Doc Searls 15:38

Yeah. 2014. So it's six, seven years ago. Six to seven. It was eight years ago. No, it's 20, 22 now. Yeah. Close to eight years ago. Seven, eight years ago. Um, That was a surprise. And, and, and, and it wasn't well defended and there wasn't a fight and there was a language thing. It's I think 90% of the people there are primarily Russian speaking and along the edge of it, which is to the remaining part of Ukraine is, is more Ukrainian. But, um, the fact that he assembled massive forces all around the country, Planning to invade, which the U S diligence services kept saying, and, and Biden kept repeating, he's going to invade.

This is going to happen. And, and then he did so, so I think that the run-up to it was rather different. Um, but I think the bigger part of it is, is two things. One is. It's a, it's a S you know, it's a successful and sympathetic country. I mean, this is a, this is a working it's, you know, they've gone through a lot of reform. There are democratic reforms. The country is getting more prosperous and free. They were liking their freedom. They were liking their culture. They were, you know, the universities were, were very active at, are building hospitals and schools. And, you know, it, it, it was. It was radically different than Russia itself.

Um, Russia itself has the economy of Russia is half the size of France. Okay. And it's mostly oil. It's mostly, it's mostly. Fossil fuel. And that's what I mean. And right next to it, here's Ukraine growing like a weed and being a great demonstration of how democracy works and how an and an open and relatively successful country works. It had a problem with, and I guess still does in some ways have with corruption and some other things from what I've read, but here was a democratically elected. Uh, they threw out the Russian guy, got the guy, the guy who was sympathetic with Russia, random out of town, 70% or more voted for his Alinsky in that, uh, by all accounts, the government was working well.

Um, they had a good functioning country going on there and so that made them sympathetic. And that's the first thing. The second thing is the. I think we're, I mean, everybody's got a cell phone now everybody's got one. Everybody can take pictures with it. It's the cellular system worldwide is far more developed than it was before. Social media is far more embedded that route arounds from one social medium to another are more than ever the ability to. You know, shoot a tank and shoot movies of it and take a prisoner and have him call his mom and stuff like that are, are much more advanced than they were. There were there, you know, seven, eight years ago, but we're moving fast to a future in which we have ambient connectivity everywhere.

And. And really good instruments in our pockets for recording stuff and sharing it with the world. That's, that's a bit, I mean, there's a difference of degree, but I think it's a significant difference that makes it easy for anybody to contribute to stories and tell them this. I go ahead. Sorry. I think

Shawn Powers 19:06

so. It's interesting because you know, the Crimean peninsula, when it was taken over it, it devastated the Ukrainian. Um, the economy because there's tons of gas and oil there. What did I say? They say it wrong. Close enough. That's something else. Oh, sorry. Oh, Catherine was making a face. Like I said something wrong with making

Doc Searls 19:27

to say that. Yeah. Well, I

Shawn Powers 19:30

almost said ass and Goyle instead of gas and oil, but then I, I didn't think I said that out loud. Like my father. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, there's all this gas and oil in there. Crimean peninsula and an offshore waters, you know, that is. Uh, allowed to be accessed by, uh, Crimean waters there. So there were American companies shell, and another one, I don't remember what other company, but they were actually investing in the infrastructure to take advantage of that, which would have been a benefit to Ukraine.

But then when the Crimean peninsula was, uh, invaded and taken over, they pulled out all those American companies who were investing billions into. Uh, putting the infrastructure there, they pulled out. So, I mean, there was huge, it was, it was devastating. Um, but I don't think, uh, gas and oil rights are as, uh, sexy on news outlets as bombing cities, full of people. Right. I mean, yeah. And there's, you know, there's no comparison when it comes to, um, how horrible it is. Right. So maybe, maybe that's the answer to my question earlier. Like why, why is the world looking so closely now as opposed to when they didn't before? Because before, you know, it just devastated the academy of Ukraine, but here they're devastating people and that's yeah.

Again, we identify with people, I think

Katherine Druckman 20:50

also that yeah, identifying where people. Part of the reason I made a face just now, actually it might be part of the answer to what you said. Um, and that is. You know, so I think Ukraine is winning the information war, right? As, as doc just said, social media has evolved. You know, people are more empowered to share information than ever before, even, even since, as somewhat recently as 2014, um, things have changed and. I was making a face because somebody sent me a message just now that maybe Sean has seen. And it was one of many memes about the president of Ukraine as Alinsky and, and I, they are very much, I mean, I, in my perception is that they are very much winning this information war, right.

There's Alinsky has become a pop culture here. And it's a very strange experience because we're watching, you know, every day and there are memes. And, and, and he's basically like Ukrainian Tony stark and he's this great hero. And yet this is very much a real war and he could be killed any, any day. Now, any minute now, frankly, there are hundreds of assassins out there trying to get him. And as an observer, it's a very surreal and conflicting. Experience because we're, you know, on one hand we're like, yeah, he's a, bad-ass go him and sharing funny memes, but we're going to feel real bad, if, if he gets killed and it's just, I dunno, I find it hard to articulate because it's, it's such a surreal experience that the disconnect between the information being circulated good and bad.

And the actual reality is, is at times, uh, Jara. Yeah,

Shawn Powers 22:39

we're watching it on TV, right? Well, not TV, but the internet we're watching it, but it's real. And that's

Katherine Druckman 22:46

terribly unsettling as many dead bodies on Twitter as I have this week and it's disturbing. Um, and at the same time, I've never seen so many funny memes and, you know, videos of Dolinsky and his comedian days playing the piano with his penis. And so it's like

Shawn Powers 23:07

cognitive

Katherine Druckman 23:09

dissonance. That's it. I don't even know what the word for it is, but it's, it's just surreal. I, it, it doesn't feel like real life and yet it is very realwith very real consequences.

Shawn Powers 23:21

Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it is tough to, to know what to do. In fact, you know, in my comic this whole week, I've not known what to say every day because, you know, I want to support Ukraine, but I don't know how to, how do we actually do that? I mean, donate money or whatever, all those things, but what do we actually do? It's so it's, it's, uh, it's challenging. And you almost have like, not being there guilt, right? I mean, or watching from the safety of our. You know, pushy homes here and that there's no threat to us at all. Um, I mean, existential, long-term obviously there's a threat to the whole world, but you know what I mean?

We're not, we're not there.

Doc Searls 24:00

Right. That makes it pretty close. I mean, that's what I meant. It is a real three bucks a gallon and, um, and inflation is 10, 14%. Then it's going to be, you know

Shawn Powers 24:12

what, even that I say that, and it's a real thing, but also. But nobody's shooting at me. Right? I mean, I, yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's, it's this weird sort of, uh, guilt shame, sorrow thing that we have

Doc Searls 24:27

going on. Right. It's very sad. Yeah. It was very sad stuff going on. When you see, uh, a school with a giant hole in the side, on the side, you know, the windows blown out. I mean, it's, and you

Shawn Powers 24:37

know, you said that, uh, Zelinsky is winning the information war. I, it doesn't even seem to be a contest. I don't, I do not see the, what the other side could even, I mean, like there's no other, there's no why. Right? I mean, other than we want what you have. There's nothing to get behind there. I mean, I, there are some politicians that was going to say there are some politicians here in the U S that are just stringing together some amazing, uh, narratives to try to not have Putin, be the bad guy for some reason.

But, uh, there's just, I mean, it's a.

Doc Searls 25:20

Right and wrong here. I've defended him. And, um, you know, there are lots of, no, no, but if Trump had Miller, Reston would have fallen in line, you know, it's as simple as that, he's the leader and, uh, and he still is. There's a, I think he's got a smaller following now than he did a little while ago, but not that much smaller, you know, he's it. And part of it is that, I mean, this goes back to the character point, which is if you start with I really, I Trump's my guy. I can't stand Biden. Um, everything Biden says is wrong. Um, it's, that's not going to change you're against, by he's the wrong guy. He isn't he's on the other side. And I mean, it was looking at some, a poll, you know, that, you know, by, uh, Biden's poll numbers are way down.

They haven't changed at all. In the Republican side. They're like 90 X percent of Republicans are. Don't approve of Biden. That was the case. When you took the office as a case, now it's a, it's on the democratic and the independent side that is going up and down because they're into their, you know, their variously undecided, different ways at different points. But you know, if on the anti Biden side does nothing, they got nothing that guy can do because the stories are all going to be in their heads and in the media that they read and watch that bypasses.

I mean,

Katherine Druckman 26:41

so part of that I think is disinformation is so powerful that this actually is probably a good time to bring up a previous episode that we did with, um, Chris Bronk, who is a professor of cyber security, at university of Houston. And we talked to him, you know, well, actually it's been quite a while now we should have him back, but, uh, we had a whole episode about misinformation and disinformation, and, and now we're seeing the consequences of that. And it, in some really significant ways, since again, since that episode, we've seen more and more vaccine disinformation, more and more, well, you know, there's this information war. I start to wonder if a lot of the anti encryption messaging that goes around and in various parts of the world include.

Might also be, you know, some disinformation campaign by a state actor who knows, I mean, what, you know, what better way to go after your enemies than to get them to disable their own defenses. Right. Um, but I, uh, but yeah, so, you know, I think that's what it was powerful and. I'm still blaming people for, for making really, really bad takes on this. But at the same time, it just demonstrates how good certain, uh, factions are at spreading disinformation. Yeah. And of course Russia's answers just shut it all down. The Ukraine is yeah. By all means, get it all out there. And Russia is like, no, don't talk about this war. You're going to prison for 50 years or something.

Yeah. Maybe that's

Shawn Powers 28:12

their side of the board right there. Side of the, of the information was to not have enough. Yeah. That's, that's their angle to try to quote unquote, win

Doc Searls 28:21

Putin. Whether, whether he fully influenced it or not, he got what he wanted. Trump and 16, he got what he wanted with Brexit. Um, you know, he broke up significant part of the, uh, of the EU, um, or wanted to break it up. He was quite happy with that. I'm sure. Um, but it's interesting now. I mean, I, I wonder whether or not even the ability to continue is there. I think that there's, I wonder if the, I mean, so case let's, let's say you. A hacker for hire whose job is disinformation, and you would work in St. Petersburg or someplace like that.

Are you as motivated right now to do that as you were before?

Shawn Powers 29:06

Yeah. I don't know what his end game is. I mean, is the hope like after this is over and let's say he just keeps pouring troops and money and stuff, and he gets the cities, you know, under his quote unquote control, which is going to be rough for like actual control. But what is the end game? I mean, is he hoping that the world just kind of like, well, looks like he one guess we'll go back to normal. I just don't, I don't see the end game.

Doc Searls 29:33

I think, I think the end game for, I mean, I think he's been fairly clear about this. He was not, not happy about the end of the Soviet union. He was a Soviet KGB, um, employee, at least, I don't know if he was an agent. He was certainly an employee. Um, and he, um, You know, his nostalgic for the Soviet union, there is, there has always been since Peter, the great maybe, I mean going well, way, way, way back. The Russian empire, there was the, the reus empire due to how it was pronounced, but our U S sometimes expresses our U S apostrophe.

That's spread from Lithuania down through Ukraine and included large parts of Russia as well. And I only say that because I read about this recently and I don't know shit other than what I just read, but, but the, you know, Russia's had empires for a long time. It's it has always been one to some degree. I mean it covers what nine times zones, some crazy number like that. I made it's it's a big place and it likes to be big You know, whether, regardless, regardless of what he says about being afraid or wanting to protect his country against NATO, which is not necessarily a hostile for us, but I could see why you think it would be.

He would like to have. You know, he's got Belarus back effectively. I'm sure he would like to have, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia back. I think he'd like to have a fully neutral buffer in Finland and in Poland and another, you know, formerly iron curtain states. It's interesting that I think I read Moldova and another foreign. Eastern block country. We also wants, uh, EU membership. Now, uh, the EU is going to get bigger economically. Um, Georgia, Georgia is the other one. It's not even adjacent. So that's, that's an interesting thing. Um, uh, you know, George has wanted independence for a long time. I'm sure. I mean, if he fails at this, it's going to be colossal for, I mean, it's going to be a colossal failure for, for him, my optimistic view.

And I always have an optimistic view is that. He will fail and the Russian people directly or indirectly will take him out and welcome reforms that they've needed for a long time. They'd made it, it was 1989. They were starting to get the Mudder Yeltsin, um, and the they'll become a democratic country. Open up and become economically more prosperous.

Shawn Powers 32:09

Okay. I can't see it. I can't say at working for Putin, I, my thought is maybe, maybe Crimea was a test and he's, you know, that happened at work. He invaded, it took over, there was no real blowback from the world. And so he's like, all right, now I know I tested and now I know. And so I'm going to take the whole thing and I'm guessing that he did not expect. Yeah, certainly.

Doc Searls 32:30

I can imagine that if you I'm sure he priced in the sanctions. I think he priced in even severe sanctions. I don't think he priced in as many sanctions as he's going to face. I

Shawn Powers 32:43

mean, Germany shut off the pipeline. That's like holy

Doc Searls 32:47

cow. I mean, he, his market right now is in trouble. Um, you know, you know, the, you know, he's being isolated in the world and, and Russia is being isolated and that's not, it's not going to be a happy place. The rest of the world is going to be unhappy too, but it kind of restores the second world. Remember this set the first and second and third worlds will we talked about? The third world is the less developed world. The first world was the west basically. And the second world was the Soviet empire. He's once restored the second world and. We have that right now, the second world is making war against a corner of the fruit or a wannabe quarter of the first world.

Right now. That's happening. That's interesting. If you buy that, if you buy that. Which may be too simplistic. I don't know, but we're in quarters the way through this. Again,

Shawn Powers 33:39

we don't have to talk about it. Yeah, we can. We can talk about it another time. That's uh,

Doc Searls 33:44

yeah, I think it's, I think it's, I think it's so interesting. I don't want to put it the back end of the show. I think there's

Katherine Druckman 33:51

The information war in Shawn's brain.

Doc Searls 33:56

Yeah. Well, we could, we could assign people to read your post. Uh, sure. Yeah, that's true. We'll put that in the notes for next time or a future time. Yeah. So your homework

Shawn Powers 34:07

for next time, your homework is to read about my car accident or I for, I lost memories of everything before March 2nd, 1999.

Doc Searls 34:22

And then you like met your wife for the first time and your kids for the first time, my very pregnant.

Shawn Powers 34:29

Uh,

Doc Searls 34:29

yeah. And you didn't think if she was, did not, did not. Anyway, I did. Cause she's awesome. That is a strong woman. Hey, you can your guy live, but he doesn't remember. You doesn't know you at all. Oh my God. Oh, your kids are you? Oh my God. Yeah. Wow.

Shawn Powers 34:51

It's a good story. I mean, I say that it's, it's like in my life, but it's, uh, it's interesting how.

Doc Searls 34:58

It is interesting. I have a friend who we might have on the show someday, cause he's an interesting guy, but his house was burned down twice when he was a kid both times by. An arsonist, uh, a person who hated his mother and a woman who hated his mother and wanted to burn the house down and got out of jail. And did it again if I remember it right. And if I'm remembering it wrong, it's okay. Cause I went back in to give his name, but, and then on top of that, they were driving to their summer house one day and they get to their summer house and it's on fire for completely other reasons.

And he is like, no, He feels no need to keep memorabilia. You can imagine because a,

Shawn Powers 35:41

this, I get it because also apparently my life is just interesting because our house burned down. Really end. Yeah. Our house burned down. Um, yeah. Linux journal readers like raised like $11,000 to help my family get back on track. Yeah. It was amazing. But I think, and this sounds funny and I say this tongue in cheek, but I think everybody should have their house burned down. Not really, but losing all of your material. Possessions is shockingly freeing. It was, uh, it really gave me a good perspective on how little things matter. So.

Doc Searls 36:15

There's a, uh, a one-liner from Rob Brezhnev. Have you ever seen Rob ? He does this thing called freewill astrology. It's this really surreal astrology. That's just, and it's in it's in like arts magazines, you know, weekly or monthly arts magazines. Just look it up. Rob Brezhnev. Bres Z S N Y R S N Z Y. I knew him in North Carolina. And, and in California, moved to California, wrote a great essay called California keto, et cetera, crucified, because they lived in sunset occurs. Um, really interesting dude. Anyway, he had a, an album called world entertainment war, um, which is kind of about where we've been. And we've what we're talking about right now, which is information and misinformation.

And one of the things he says is a multiple choice question, you know, um, You know, pick one, imagine that I'm not kidding. It's like imagine sex with a grotesque old person B imagine Christ at the moment of orgasm see was something else. And D was, um, burned down the dream house for your childhood keeps repeating itself. And the correct answer is D and he goes into why D is the correct answer. And that's stuck with me the dream house for your childhood. It keeps repeating itself because in some ways it's. It's the things you would establish established for. And I'm in the midst of like saving a zillion photographs of, and digitizing them, which makes them less memorable in some ways than if we kept the paper that they're on.

Right. But paper's flammable, but you can erase a drive. You can put it in the cloud and stop paying and it's gone. I mean, it's, it's more volatile than paper or whatever other medium you've stored it on. It's a, it's a very interesting thing to me. And, and a half billion years, it's all gone anyway. So, you know, we gotta be off the planet or gone by then anyway, just telling him I'll probably be dead by then, but.

Yeah, it probably, isn't just global warming cause global incineration by as welling sun, it's going to happen, you know, and it it'll be uninhabitable and a half billion years. Let's say

Shawn Powers 38:24

if we make it to next year, based on our current events.

Katherine Druckman 38:28

Yeah, it's funny. I use it. So it was, I think it was Ray Kurtzweil as a futurist, you know, had some theory about how people of a certain age or younger. And I'm pretty sure I, I qualify, at least in that group have some shot at immortality through technology within our lifetime. And now I'm thinking I'm like, oh man, I think that goes so far

Doc Searls 38:51

off. You used to be optimistic. Mortality is a feature that. Yeah, I think we're supposed to wear out and move on. That's what we're supposed to do. So, yeah, but fun. We have fun in the meantime, we're all here to have fun. So, you know, and Putin interrupted. That looks like a fun place before that. I don't, I don't know his

Shawn Powers 39:14

out. I don't know how he can save face and

Doc Searls 39:18

his face is burned off, but I just don't know how he sees the rest of his head, how the end game happened.

Katherine Druckman 39:24

I don't think he cares about saving face. He just, I

Doc Searls 39:26

don't think he does,

Shawn Powers 39:27

but what I mean by that is how could he, that's what I mean? I don't know how, I don't know how his end game could, could happen. Right? I mean, if taking over Ukraine, it means that the rest of the world is against him forever. And he has like no international anything and, you know, everything goes horribly wrong. That's not a victory. Right? No changing his mind and leaving Ukraine. That's a defeat,

Doc Searls 39:56

the military victory, there is at worst, you know, he's gone. And so is his regime. Yeah.

Shawn Powers 40:06

And I mean, that's the, I could see that happening. Right. How does, how does Russia come back onto the world stage? Uh, you know, with Putin gone and them saying, okay, yeah, boy, that was rough. What can we do now to rebuild trust with the world? And, you know, I mean, that, that's the only, I don't see how Putin being in charge can, can go forward in a good way. He's also

Doc Searls 40:27

for him, he's going to be 70 this year, and anyway, I, I, I, there was not a, there's not a good look and end game for that guy. There just isn't there just isn't. And, and, uh, and I don't, and I'm almost certain, nobody in Russia thinks is a good end game for him either. I can't imagine that once they get the information that they would and the body bag is going to be coming back. Yeah.

Shawn Powers 40:49

Uh, the only thing that makes sense in my head is that he thought this would be a repeat of Crimea. Where people were like, oh my

Doc Searls 40:56

gosh, what's happening? And then I'm sure that was case. Yeah. That makes total sense. So this is, um, I think we may have put together one of the least qualified opinions that you're going to find on a podcast, but we're being real. What can we do? And I did think if people leave the podcast thinking. Stories. Can't tell the whole thing, even if they're stories we love, you know, so I saw licorice pizza last night. That was a weird story. That's

Shawn Powers 41:31

a weird story.

Katherine Druckman 41:32

I think the thing about, you know, okay. Yeah. I am the first to admit I am in no way qualified to have this conversation. However, I don't know how people are not. Having this conversation, you know what I mean? Like it has to have this conversation. It feels very odd. I mean, it's very much the elephant in the room, but also, you know, I. Able to like focus and concentrate on their, on their real life right now in a a hundred percent. I can't imagine that's possible. I believe that some people are like 90% focus and 10% thinking about Ukraine the back of their mind, but I might be a little more on that, like 80, 20, or maybe even worse, but, you

Shawn Powers 42:11

know, I met pressingly unproductive. Uh, just

Doc Searls 42:16

because you have really it's bad

Shawn Powers 42:18

existential dread concern about, you know, others. And I think so this podcast, obviously none of us are claiming to be experts on, on anything that we've been talking about. But I think that talking about it is important because. I think people are afraid that they're going to talk about it wrong. If that makes sense. You know, like, I, I, I'd rather not say anything because I don't want to screw it up, or I don't want to say the wrong thing and, and, and sound dumb, or I don't want to say something and offend people. And I think that, uh, being quiet is, uh, is not the right thing to do. I think that we need to be able to talk about it.

Uh, even if. We don't have, I mean, obviously we don't have solutions, even if we were experts, we don't have solutions. I, nobody has a solution right now. So talking about it, I think is a good thing. So did we solve the world problems? No, but talking about it as, okay.

Katherine Druckman 43:09

Yup. And we just fully embraced here, the idea that, um, it's okay to be wrong, you know, it's okay to talk and be wrong and that's

Doc Searls 43:17

how do you ever get it wrong? Yeah. Yeah.

Katherine Druckman 43:20

But how get you, you're not going to find the right answer unless you're wrong a few times. Most likely you could get lucky. Yes. Guests like, you know, Wordle, sorry. Like, I don't know how to slip that in there, but, um, but yeah, but for the most part, you gotta, you gotta work through it a little bit more, so go ahead and be wrong. And then maybe on the next few tries, we'll get it right.

Shawn Powers 43:42

And if I look silly so that other people can think through things and, and make it, uh, their understanding better, I'm okay with that. I'm okay with being the silly person who talks about stuff when I just to get the conversation going. So anyway, we get stuff wrong all the time.

Doc Searls 43:58

No big deal. Yeah. Cool.

Katherine Druckman 44:00

Well with that, thank you for everyone who has listened to this far to help us think through these things out loud and, um, yeah, I hope. Take a more critical eye to the journalism around this current situation and well, you know, all of it, to be honest. So thank you for listening and until next time.