Elon v. Zuck, African Unrest, New Docs
Elon v. Zuck, African Unrest, New Docs
The People's News for the People's Coin 8/2-8/8
Hey everyone,
This week’s digest covers the latest in Elon v. Zuck, unrest in Africa, two fascinating new documentaries, and an update on the LK-99 (not) superconductor.
I hope you’re enjoying reading the people’s news for the people’s coin. Subscribe, share, and steal liberally from the memes!
Elon v. Zuck
Last week saw new details emerge about the Elon-Zuck MMA cage match, along with a healthy bout of trash talk.
First, on Thursday night, Elon live-streamed a video of himself curling a 45 pound dumbbell. Over the weekend, he said he has been lifting weights during his workdays to prepare for the fight.
He also wrote that 𝕏 will live-stream the fight, with the proceeds going to a charity for veterans. He predicted, “If the fight is short, I probably win. If long, he may win on endurance. I am much bigger and there is a reason MMA has weight divisions.”
Zuck responded with some trash talk, questioning whether 𝕏 could handle a live-stream.
Elon hit back by pointing out service outages at Meta’s various platforms.
Next, Zuck posted that he has been waiting for Elon to respond to a late August fight date.
Elon wrote that he is awaiting medical clearance.
With the drama escalating, Elon posted a WWE clip.
The video prompted WWE legend Triple H to offer his support.
Like pro-wrestling, the line between reality and theatricality is becoming difficult to discern with Elon v. Zuck.
The fact that the fight could happen at all is proof that we live in interesting times.
Elon submitting Zuck with “The Walrus” is probably the most entertaining outcome and would break the simulation. Do you really wanna bet it won’t happen??
African Upheaval
Something big is brewing in Africa.
It started when a coup d'état in Niger removed President Mohamed Bazoum for corruption.
Now, a coalition of African nations—including Burkina Faso, Mali, and Guinea—are supporting Niger and demanding an end to the neo-colonialist policies of the West.
This group is facing strong pushback from the US, France, and an alliance of Western-backed African nations called ECOWAS led by by Nigeria.
At the root of the conflict is Africa’s abundant natural resources, which Western nations have siphoned from the continent for centuries.
The West has a long history of installing governments at gunpoint in countries across the world.
The puppet governments then turn around and invite exploitation by Western business interests. Africa is no exception.
This practice has been euphemistically called “Spreading Democracy”, but the reality is closer to Imperialism.
The 35-year-old President of Burkina Faso, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, has caught fire on social media as the face of the African resistance.
Not unlike Gaddafi before him, he has called for pan-African unity: “We are going to fight, but Africa needs to be able to unite. The more united we are, the more effective we will be.”
On 𝕏 last week, the timeline flooded with photos of Traoré and videos of Africans protesting Western rule.
A major vector of exploitation of Africa by the West is the financial system.
The French officially de-colonized Africa in the 60s, but kept in place a regime of monetary colonialism, enforced by binding legal agreements and threat of military intervention.
Today, 15 African countries are required to use a currency controlled by Paris called the CFA, for Franc of the Financial Community of Africa.
Over the last 75 years, the CFA has been devalued by 99.5% against the French Franc. This allows French business interests to buy African natural resources on the cheap.
The details of financial arrangements between France and African countries are too corrupt to be believed. For example, France charges African countries $45 million Euros per year just for the privilege of using the French currency while requiring CFA countries to hold 90% of their gold reserves in Paris.
Interestingly, the conflict in Africa dovetails with larger geopolitical happenings.
The rebel countries are facing sanctions and increased belligerence from the West-backed ECOWAS.
In response, Russia has swooped in to support the rebels, pledging up to fifty thousand tons of free grain and forgiving billions of dollars of debt.
In July, Traoré met with Vladimir Putin and agreed to re-open the Russian embassy in his country.
After meeting with Putin, Traoré said, “Russia is family for Africa.”
While Putin has a reputation in the West as a dictator, the rebel African countries expect Russia to offer more favorable economic terms than they’d get from America and France.
Last week, ECOWAS gave Niger’s new government a Sunday night deadline to end restore its original President.
The military Junta refused and instead instituted a no-fly zone over Niger while mobilizing troops.
Monday night, American diplomat Victoria Nuland traveled to Niger to meet with rebels. She was denied permission to meet with the country’s ousted President Bazoum or its new leader, General Abdourahamane Tiani.
The situation in Africa is complicated.
Coverage in Western media has generally been supportive of the West’s colonialism, framing it as democracy-promotion.
Coverage on 𝕏 tends to be more sympathetic to the rebel countries and skeptical of American/French imperial ambitions.
Both Russia and China are giving signs that they’ll support the African rebels, which could heighten tensions and turn the standoff into another proxy war.
Some analysis suggests that the West would be badly outmatched if the conflict turns hot.
What do you think: is this the end of the Western empire? Is the world turning upside down?
Midnight at the Border/Into the Light
Last week, two new documentaries dropped that help illuminate underreported topics.
On Saturday, RFK Jr released an 18-minute video called Midnight at the Border on 𝕏.
The film gives a first-hand look at the US-Mexico border, exploring immigration, border politics, and human trafficking.
The film ends with short political message from RFK that cuts against the grain of his party’s border policy: “After visiting the border, I’ve come to understand that the open border policy is just a way of funding a multi-billion dollar drug and human trafficking operation for the Mexican drug cartels. When I’m President I will secure the border which will end the cartels’ drug and trafficking economy, and I will build wide doors for those who wish to enter legally.”
Another documentary, Into the Light, is an hour-long expose of media propaganda by former Hollywood stuntman Mike Smith.
The film is the sequel to Smith’s 2020 film Out of Shadows, which looked at Hollywood propaganda.
Into the Light’s central argument is that most American citizens today are caught in an information war they aren’t aware of.
The best material in the film occurs in its latter half, which focuses on how social media cultivates a hive mind through Artificial Intelligence.
This tech-engineered mass consciousness allows a small number of people to influence the whole of society through the power of story.
The film encourages viewers to ask: Who controls the story? Do we dare to look beyond it?
Into the Light's strongest admonition is about the growth of Artificial Intelligence, warning it will “lower the time it takes to shape a large group of people.”
In the film, US intelligence analyst Keith Rose claims that AI can steer the behaviors of online influencers to create an underlying narrative.
This narrative “look[s] like its all individual thought coming from hundreds of different people all thinking along the same lines”, but in reality is centrally directed.
If this sounds unbelievable, watch the video below to see how easy it is to implant thoughts into the minds of supposedly independent influencers. This level of mind control is already present in our lives every day.
Into the Light ends with a hopeful note, arguing that dystopian AI is not inevitable if humanity acts soon.
As a remedy to propaganda, the film calls for local politics, self-reliance, skepticism of official narratives, and fearless truth-telling.
Update: LK-99
Last week’s news digest covered the discovery of LK-99, an apparent room-temperature superconductor.
Recent attempts to verify the LK-99 Superconductor material are suggesting that the material is not, in fact, a superconductor.
Betting markets are currency setting the odds that LK-99 turns out to superconduct at around 20%. Read more here and watch the latest breakdown here.
Dogey Treats: News Bites
US Politics
The New York Times appeared to downplay calls for genocide against white farmers in South Africa. Elon called out the Times in one post for “support[ing] calls for genocide” and in another wrote, “there is something deeply broken in western journalism.”
RFK Jr announced he is suing google and YouTube over their censorship of his interviews. Elon said the lawsuit is “good.” Kennedy announced his forthcoming economic plan “that focuses on ending the corrupt merger of state and corporate power to make sure Americans can once again afford their most essential expenses — housing, food, childcare, commuting to work + healthcare we need to survive. In another interview, he denounced Russiagate as political propaganda against Trump. He posted a video by popular podcaster Andrew Huberman about getting triggered by political discussions.
A former DoD official told British news that the latest Trump indictment opens the door for the President to relitigate the 2020 election. The viral video also contained claims that US repatriated thousands of tons of gold from the Vatican. Trump highlighted the video, writing, “Dr. Jan Halper-Hayes is fantastic. Everyone has got to watch her interview on election fraud with the poor sap who got taken apart by her.”
Joe Rogan told Patrick Bet-David he would consider having Trump on his podcast and spoke favorably about Trump’s economic policies. Trump said he would deliver the biggest tax cut in US history if elected in 2024.
In another segment, Rogan and Bet-David discussed George Soros’s statement that he is like a god. Elon wrote, “Soros arbitraged politics. He figured out that spending small amounts of money in many obscure, but influential, races is far more effective than money spent on major contests. The mistake people make is thinking that he did it for the good of humanity. He hates humanity.” In another post, he compared Soros to the “Son of Satan.”
Left-leaning commentators the Krassenstein brothers are hosting a Spaces Event with Jacob Chansley aka “the QAnon Shaman.” Former Capitol Hill police chief Steven Sund said J6 was “crawling with feds.” Elon took note.
Tucker interviewed Hunter Biden business associate Devon Archer about Joe Biden’s knowledge of his son’s business dealings.
Vivek Ramaswamy won a lawsuit against the World Economic Forum, forcing them to remove his name from their materials.
𝕏
Elon posted that 𝕏 would fund the lawsuits of anyone fired for their actions on the website and be “extremely loud.” The same night, he learned about a woman fired for liking a post from Libs of TikTok and agreed to fund her lawsuit.
The Truth About Cancer celebrated 𝕏’s lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate. TTAV and several other medical freedom organizations were targeted by the CCDH for removal from social media as part of the “Disinformation Dozen” hit list.
A new round of 𝕏 ad rev share payouts went out, and creators on the platform celebrated by posting their paydays.
Elon announced a permanent 𝕏 policy that the platform would not keep any revenue from creator subscriptions up until $100k. He also said he would speak with Apple CEO Tim Cook to reduce the amount that Apple takes fro subscriptions.
𝕏 released a list of improvements to the platform over the past nine months. 𝕏 Blue changed to 𝕏 Premium. The platform updated its algorithm again. Video content continues to get boosted, while links off the platform will not get boosted as much.
Elon wrote that 𝕏 will add a feature to allow users to find anyone’s most viral/viewed posts.
CEO Linda Yaccarino posted that she has one friend: @greg16676935420
Global Financial System
BRICS will make an enlargement announcement at its South African summit later this month. Saudi Arabia is expected to be the tenth country to join the BRICS bank. Here’s a list of nations applying to join the coalition. China and Russia sent a large naval flotilla near Alaska in an evident attempt to test US boundaries.
Fitch cited “erosion of governance” as the reason for downgrading th US credit rating. Moody’s downgraded the credit ratings for several regional US banks. The Federal Reserve announced new regulations requiring approval before state banks can issue, hold or transact with crypto stablecoins.
The US delayed refilling its Strategic Petroleum Reserve because market conditions made it too expensive. Research found that companies with high ESG ratings polluted just as much as other companies.
Kenya suspended participation in OpenAI’s Worldcoin, citing security concerns.
Bloomberg commentators increased their odds that a Bitcoin ETF will be approved this year. Four US crypto bills passed house committee.
Health
Robert Malone claimed that a quid-pro-quo with China and the US led to the covid-19 outbreak: “There was a quid pro quo set up, and we transferred technology into Wuhan Institute of Virology to allow a limited number of human assets to have visibility of what was going on there... There was technology transfer associated with Ralph Baric, and that whole program involving modern advanced recombinant virology and DNA technology and known research specifically on coronaviruses. If you go back in the literature, coronaviruses have been identified as one of the leading candidate agents for biowarfare for a very long time.”
Joseph Mercola, whose company and employees were de-banked by JP Morgan Chase, said the practice was the beginning of a social credit score system. He criticized the bank’s motives: “What is certain is that Chase Bank is not acting on some high ethical or moral ground. In addition to ignoring evidence of money laundering by the Biden family, Chase Bank and Dimon himself also had a decade-long close working relationship with the notorious pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein”.
Australia’s Sky News reported British scientists are developing vaccines for a new pandemic called “Disease X.”
Misc
BEEPLE created another Doge artwork.
A hilarious piece of art was made about the TMFINR lady.
Ye began performing again at a Travis Scott concert.
Jamie Foxx posted a screenshot to Instagram saying, “they killed this dude named Jesus…what do you think they’ll do to you???! #fakefriends #fake love.” Foxx was criticized for anti-Semitism and issued an apology: “I was betrayed by a fake friend and that’s what I meant with “they” not anything more.”
Rapper Ne-Yo questioned the transgender movement in an interview, asking, “When did it become ok for a 12-year-old boy say he want to be a girl?” His 𝕏 account issued an apology, which later turned out to be the work of his publicist. Monday night, Ne-yo retracted the apology and blamed his publicist: “First and foremost, I do not apologize for having an opinion on this matter…I will never be okay with allowing a child to make a decision that detrimental to their life.”
Memes of the Week
Elon’s Memes
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