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Dec. 20, 2023 - Stay Free - Russel Brand

29:12

Here’s the News: America, Say Hello To Your New Landlord

You will own nothing and be happy? With US housing costs soaring due to increased demand and limited stock, the dream of home ownership is becoming unreachable for many. But don’t worry - meet your new landlord: Google. --💙Support Me Directly HERE: https://rb.rumble.comWATCH me LIVE weekdays on Rumble: https://bit.ly/russellbrand-rumblehttps://www.twc.health/BRAND – code BRAND saves you 10% at checkout

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	Hello there you Awakening Wonders on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you download your podcasts.
	We really appreciate you, our listeners, and want to bring you more content.
	We will be delivering a podcast every day, seven days a week, every single day.
	You'll get a detailed breakdown of current topics that the mainstream media should be covering, but if they are covering, they're amplifying establishment messages and not telling you the truth.
	Once a week, we bring you in-depth conversations with guests like Jordan Peterson, RFK Jr., Sam Harris, Vandana Shiva, Gabor Maté, and many more.
	Now enjoy this episode of Stay Free with Russell Brand.
	Remember, there's an episode every single day to educate and elevate our consciousness together.
	Stay free and enjoy the episode.
	No, here's the fucking news!
	Hello there you Awakening Wanderers, thanks for joining us on our voyage to truth and freedom.
	And what an extraordinary truth it is.
	The power of big tech is straying into territories unimaginable just a few years ago.
	Physical territory.
	The same way that cyberspace has been monopolised by vast big tech powers, actual space will be and is being monopolised by comparable, or in some cases literally, the same powers.
	You're probably interested in why Bill Gates is buying up agricultural space across the United States. Some of you
	will assume that if you can control food sources you could create scarcity, you can control whole
	populations, and these are certainly theories I'm interested in even while they currently remain unproven.
	Although farmers across the world seem pretty angry about something don't they? Now Google and Meta
	and big tech spaces having conquered all of cyberspace like digital Alexander the Great have
	turned to the real world to find new kingdoms to conquer.
	Is it possible that you, unable to afford literal real estate, will have to have Mark Zuckerberg Or the Alphabet Corporation as your landlord.
	Let's get into it.
	Let's first of all see how the legacy media report on this and how this is being presented by the propaganda of these organizations that are acquiring vast tracts of San Francisco and stuff.
	Tonight Google is revealing its plans for a big development in Mountain View that includes affordable housing.
	What that should say is it's planned for world domination, isn't it?
	Because that's what's happening.
	Some of you will have read David Foster Wallace's book, Infinite Jest.
	Not all of it, because it's too bloody big.
	But in it, he posits that vast corporations will take over the world.
	In a way, why have France?
	Why have the United States of America, the UK, when you could have Facebook land, metacountry?
	Alan Martin is here with the details, Alan.
	Liz, Ken, the tech giant says its goal is to help solve the Bay Area housing crisis.
	That'll be its goal.
	Because one thing I've noticed about big tech giants is they care mostly about poor people and the concerns of ordinary people.
	There's never been an undercurrent of tyrannical centralisation, authoritarianism and making deals with the state that make ordinary democracy and individual freedom a near impossibility.
	So hopefully we'll all be in lovely little Google homes by, I don't know, end of the month.
	And tonight, we're learning more about its new plan to redevelop parts of Mountain View.
	Here is the bird's eye view of North Bay Shore in Mountain View.
	One of the clues is they're using Google's logo while still doing the report.
	Is there going to be any discernment, analysis, scrutiny, investigation, attack from the legacy media?
	Remember, we're continually telling you now about the Trusted News Initiative.
	A group that includes state media organisations as well as big tech companies.
	You will notice how often their interests absolutely align.
	You will notice now that the legacy media is part of the establishment.
	It's one of the things that Donald Trump noticed and exploited brilliantly.
	Fake news.
	He literally coined that and the reason it was effective is because it's true.
	Now the legacy media, instead of going, is this right that you're doing I mean, how much power do you guys need?
	What's this going to do?
	Aren't you going to be able to massively bias and control real estate prices?
	Does this mean that people are never going to own their houses?
	Hang on a minute.
	Aren't corporations like Google, by their nature, globalist?
	And haven't we heard rhetoric from the WEF saying that you will own nothing and be happy?
	Is it possible that administrative bodies like the WEF are kind of the ideological front For corporations like Google.
	And what will happen is that governments will just start passing legislation that facilitates this kind of stuff and no one's asking any questions.
	And when you do ask questions, for example if you're part of an independent media movement, then you will be shut down.
	And you will be happy.
	Just north of Highway 101, off of Shoreline Boulevard, full of office buildings.
	But now Google wants to transform the space.
	It plans to add shops, restaurants, offices, and housing, spanning two new neighborhoods.
	Here's a look at the renderings.
	Lots of open space and homes.
	If you go to modern, developed places now, it's like they've fallen from the sky.
	Even a city like London, which, when you walk through it, used to have layer after layer of rich, historic buildings.
	A bit of an old Roman wall, and Elizabethan blocks, and Tudor housing, Georgian, Victorian, then a skyscraper, all meshed together like something that had grown, like fungus, like an architectural fungi that was an expression of a collective.
	Now, what you get is things that, like, drop from above.
	Bam!
	That's what globalism feels like.
	Anodyne.
	Banal.
	Mundane.
	Lacking in humanity.
	There'll be sort of speakers on the trees there.
	Time for bed now.
	There is a pandemic.
	Time to return to your homes.
	And then like, you know, cameras that are doing all face scans on you.
	You can sort of feel it.
	You've seen it in Isaac Asimov.
	You've seen it in Black Mirror.
	This is now the bureaucratising and delivery of those sci-fi dystopias.
	Whether you approach this with centre-left narratives like climate change or centre-right narratives like the deterioration of society, this ain't helping anyone.
	And look how they're repeating the word affordable, affordable.
	Would you like a house that's affordable?
	I would like to be able to afford a house, yeah.
	Well, this is affordable.
	That's the word they're pushing, not dystopic.
	Google's proposal includes up to 7,000 residential units.
	About 20% of them would be affordable housing.
	It's cool, man.
	I guess just... It's cool, man.
	I've come on here to sort of make it like a piece of San Francisco news.
	I could be Dave Grohl.
	The legacy media just sort of casts people, trots us out to advocate for their perspective.
	Just get someone, like, that you feel represents that community and get them to say something that's positive about it.
	So the reality we interact with is not actual reality.
	You're not interacting with whatever manoeuvres have been made with the state or with local authorities to get some special deal to build this.
	All of the things that will have happened behind the scenes to make this profitable and un-ownable and to ensure that power migrates further upwards.
	As happened in the pandemic period, as has been happening in the last 20, 50 years, you tell me in the chat, the legacy media presents this story as entirely positive, doesn't offer any questions, any interrogation, any doubt, any discernment.
	It's possible that you would have a legacy media that would go, listen, we're very concerned about this.
	This Google housing project looks a bit worrying.
	Does this seem right to you?
	Haven't they got a bunch of deals with the government, like around surveillance and data capture?
	Do you want them to have More power.
	How much money do they spend on lobbying?
	How many donations do they give to the Democrat Party and the Republican Party?
	Actually, this isn't right.
	If we're ever going to have the America proposed in the Constitution, these are the very kind of projects that we're going to have to oppose.
	Put aside your cultural war values for a second and see that you are facing a titan.
	And if you don't bind together and face that titan, you will be, some might argue quite rightly, crushed by it because we weren't able to awaken.
	Quick!
	Wake up!
	Giving more housing opportunities to people, that's important.
	There's no doubt that the need is immediate for affordable housing.
	The city says it's working with Google on the new plan.
	Better believe the local authorities are working with Google.
	They're not going to oppose them, are they?
	How that is implemented is really going to be something that we as a council are going to be discussing next month in March and really digging into what those details are.
	Really just finding ways to present this so there can be no opposition.
	Back in 2019, Google announced a $1 billion investment in housing across the Bay Area by repurposing its own land.
	That's not investing in housing, is it?
	Repurposing your own land?
	That's an investment in your own portfolio, in your own projects of profiteering, isn't it?
	That's not like, how the hell can we help the people of the world?
	Think how far away we've moved from what indigenous cultures might have once existed there.
	And one day, perhaps Google will repurpose this land.
	It already has other development projects in the works, including 80 acres west of downtown San Jose.
	Do you know the way to San Jose?
	Google map it, then Google live in it, then Google fuck off to your Google grave.
	In a statement, Google's development director says in part, we're committed to helping our hometown communities recover from the pandemic.
	Oh yeah, no, that is, you are so committed to that pandemic that you exploited, profited from, censored true information about, thanks for all of your help.
	We're looking forward to continuing to work with the city and community on the next steps.
	I live in an illusion.
	That piece of language is deceptive.
	The way that it's reported is deceptive.
	The entire claim being made about the project is deceptive.
	The economic system that undergirds it is deceptive, telling you things like it'll all trickle down, it'll all be distributed.
	The rhetoric exchanged about it in news media and in Congress, Senate or whatever political spheres you hear it discussed in.
	We've got to move to the left.
	We'd better move to the right.
	All of it is a total and absolute illusion.
	It's almost impossible to remember.
	You are in infinite space right now.
	You have an aspect of consciousness within you that's sort of still some sort of weird miracle or mystery and it's possible to imagine new realities if you're willing to overcome your own obstacles to progress.
	It's extraordinary that we're willing and satisfied to live in some pixelated version of reality that doesn't allow us to be free.
	That was all very complicated and existential.
	Why don't we trust Google to give us a version of reality that's got a lot less questions in it?
	Music, optimism, hopeful, right?
	Silicon Valley has been the cradle of this sort of series of innovations that over the last decades have propelled technology and world economy.
	I've already got some questions.
	Sometimes I do marvel at the miracle of tech.
	Of course I do.
	There are sort of meditations and connections and sort of miracles of culture all over your phone.
	But those things are inadvertent.
	Side effects of its actual function, which is to control you, sell you stuff, prevent you gaining access to information that might activate you, further centralise already centralised authority structures, advance globalist projects, create dissent, disruption and opposition amongst ordinary populations.
	Big tech is not working towards solutions at all.
	It's working towards power You know when they say, we decided to repurpose this land to help poor people.
	If you want to help poor people, society wouldn't look like this.
	If you wanted fairness and equality and freedom of expression, society wouldn't look like this.
	Look, my first suspicions in the pandemic period were not based on data.
	They were based on intuition.
	They were based on, hold on a minute, do we care about the sanctity of human life though?
	Do we always put the most vulnerable people to the forefront of our minds?
	That doesn't seem like the world that we've been living in.
	That was just a quiet question.
	But all of the resources, all of the intelligence has been invested into the immaterial.
	and in the end became just a statement of fact as things progressed.
	And using that attitude, that perspective, you can sort of analyse all news.
	In fact, that is what we do on this channel.
	But all of the resources, all of the intelligence has been invested into the immaterial,
	the digital realm, the internet.
	We can't continue to make this glorious content without your support and the support of our sponsors.
	You will be aware that there are clusters of respiratory illness in Northern China and what has been referred to as White Lung Syndrome in the United States.
	Drawing attention, I would say, to the importance of being prepared for a medical emergency at any time.
	Do you know that 90% of pharmaceuticals in the US are produced outside of your country?
	What happens when the next global crisis strikes?
	Well, I'll tell you, I'm an expert on international trade.
	Countries will clamp down on exports like that, Sonny Jim.
	They will stockpile like it's 1999.
	The price of drugs will shoot through the bloody ceiling and the American shelves will be empty.
	As empty as Joe Biden's mind at that moment when someone goes, action, deliver a speech.
	That's happening already.
	The wellness company's medical emergency kit does have you covered for times like this.
	The wellness company, which you may not have heard of, is home To Dr. Peter McCulloch.
	He's been on the show.
	He's one of the great voices of the pandemic.
	He was one of the people that was ahead of the curve.
	Also, Dr. Drew Pinsky, some have called him America's family doctor.
	He's coming on soon.
	And other truth-telling doctors will empower you to take control of your own health.
	40% of Americans say they would avoid a doctor or hospital unless it was a catastrophic situation.
	The Wellness Company's Medical Emergency Kit provides a solution.
	This kit includes eight potentially life-saving medications, along with, of course, a guidebook for safe use.
	You don't want to be guessing, do you?
	You get emergency antibiotics, antivirals and antiparasitics to keep you and your loved ones safe in the face of natural disasters, supply chain shortages, medical emergencies like white lung or Covid.
	Go to twc.health forward slash brand and get your own medical emergency kit right now.
	That's right it's twc.health forward slash brand and if you use the code brand it will save you 10% right at the checkout.
	Isn't that amazing?
	Don't wait till it's too late.
	Take control of your health right now with The Wellness Company's Medical Emergency Kit.
	Now let's get back into this, shall we?
	We have an opportunity to build new buildings, which is nothing unique, which people do every day all over the world.
	But what we've tried to do is take a step back and say, how do buildings work with nature?
	Come on, how are we going to get it to work with nature?
	I don't know.
	Don't build it.
	Don't use materials that are exploitive.
	Don't have a profit motive.
	I mean, the whole thing actually just becomes unfeasible and implausible within this system.
	I find even the questions I'm proposing, that's just not how things work.
	Yeah, that's not how things work.
	So why are we pretending that the goal at the end of this is like sort of a happy, diverse family, abundant and robust oak tree?
	We're really making sure that we MakeSpace is very open and accessible, so it's just not for Googlers, but it's for anyone who lives in the area to come by.
	Googlers now.
	That's the type of a person is a Googler.
	How could that become your identity?
	I'm offended when on the news they go, Consumers are getting a great deal!
	Now it's Googlers.
	You're a Googler.
	Like you're not American, you're not French, you're not English, you're not South African, you're not Belgian.
	What you are is a Googler. You're a person who uses and is utilized by Google.
	You were just sort of a blob at the end of tendrils that lead back to Google.
	And when there's a time where Google don't need you, Google will let you know about that.
	In order to assist nature, we're gonna use you as fertilizer.
	And then the last piece, which is really Google at its heart.
	In anything we do, trying to lead the project, giving something back to the world.
	We've invented this thing, this bit of paper thing.
	Oh, thanks.
	Oh, the world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.
	Pay your taxes!
	That they didn't have before we started.
	I'm familiar with Buckminster Fuller.
	I know that there are no right angles in nature.
	I'm aware of intuitive, natural, biological design.
	I'm aware that we could be living in a different world.
	In fact, as with politics, what's most offensive is that there is so much that's spoken that's actually true.
	It's not that we need new ideas, it's just that we need to use the ones we already have.
	The Magna Carta in this country enshrining the rights of the individual.
	Constitution in your country full of amazing ideas like Can we get round that in some way?
	Yeah, you could get round it this way.
	And what they're doing now is like, can we use the kind of general aesthetic of, let's call it wokeness for want of a better term, to present Google moving into the acquisition of land and the development of real estate and make it look like we're doing everyone a massive favour.
	Yeah, we could, just like, you know, look, I got this thing.
	I know, I have things at school.
	Who will marry a sippy?
	Google owns your house now.
	Oh, shit.
	Can I try a different one?
	But all of these have got Google owns your house now under it.
	No, no, that one's Mark Zuckerberg.
	That one's even worse.
	Yeah, stick with the Google one.
	Let's check this rather more discerning piece of journalism.
	The typical US home value at the beginning of 2020 was about $230,000 according to Zillow data.
	Today, it's shot up to more than $330,000.
	All told, as of 2022, median home prices and rents in America hit all-time highs.
	This is great for those who already own as their property values continue to soar.
	But for many Americans, little is left over for the rising cost of everything else like food and health care.
	Let alone to save for a house.
	Who's to say you even need food or healthcare?
	Ultimately, the dream of home ownership or an affordable rental is becoming unreachable for more and more Americans.
	The digital renderings of North Bay Shore, a massive proposed development in Mountain View, California, are crowded with glistening buildings and cheerful animated pedestrians.
	There's a lot to show off, including 7,000 new homes, three distinct neighborhoods, and nearly 300,000 square feet of retail and community space.
	Notably though, the gleaming images don't bear any hints of the company behind the whole endeavour.
	Google.
	Wow, it's like, at this point they've realised, yeah, just cut back on the Google branding.
	Some people have got questions.
	Companies like Google and Facebook's parent, Meta, conquered the digital realm a long time ago, setting the ground rules for how we search, interact and shop online.
	Not content to stop there, however, these firms are now making huge bids to expand their reach.
	They want to be landlords too.
	Now we own the online world, what about the offline world?
	And what about space?
	And what about your children's dreams?
	And what about your pets' frustrations?
	I don't think we can monetize that.
	Oh well, don't do the last one then.
	Across the country, corporations are using their considerable sway and resources to build modern company towns, mini-cities that will feature all the trappings of traditional civic life, including housing, shops and public spaces.
	These new projects won't have corporate logos on every building, and many of the units will be available for the general public Not just employees.
	But in the grand scheme of real estate, they're distinct.
	After years of running up against housing shortages in their backyards, companies like Google, Meta and Disney, not exactly known for building new homes, are taking matters into their own hands.
	Their creations have boring names like Middlefield Park and Willow Village, but they might as well be called Zooktown or Google City USA.
	And while the developments promise thousands of new homes, the plans are also a tacit acknowledgement of the bleak I like the way it's masked in banality, words that don't cause you to stop and ponder, man in view, willow this.
	Everything now is meant to pass by your eyes unquestioned, that you're only disrupted when the media disrupts you.
	Are you afraid?
	This new thing's happening we want you to care about.
	Meanwhile, it's just been sort of sucked into a banalising, centralised life where you have increasingly less power.
	It seems to me the more that power aggregates and accumulates in these establishment sets of authoritarian systems, increasingly unlikely it becomes that we will ever be able to oppose them.
	If you have an alliance between the media, the state and vast corporations such as Google, great example Google, The companies behind these projects argue that they can help solve the country's lack of affordable housing that they caused.
	Can we have a different vision of America?
	Can we have a different vision of a community?
	I maybe don't want to work 12 hours a day or 10 hours a day.
	You should have as much freedom as possible.
	This will not result in more freedom.
	This will result in less freedom.
	And it's been sold to you as if it's like some sort of ecological wonderland.
	The companies behind these projects argue that they can help solve
	the country's lack of affordable housing that they caused.
	But it's fair to approach the plans with a healthy degree of scepticism.
	America's single employer company towns have a long, bloody history
	of exploitation and labour strife.
	While the current plans hardly represent a return to those dark days of the 19th and early 20th centuries, they probably won't usher in a new era of futuristic techno-utopias either.
	Judging by the plans that have been publicly unveiled so far, The Googles and Metas of the world aren't aiming nearly that high.
	Instead, their visions of city living spaces look a lot like what we're already used to seeing from the modern real estate developers.
	Glassy office buildings, verdant parks and walkable main streets with coffee shops, salad bars and alluring apartment buildings.
	It's nice, but not exactly groundbreaking stuff.
	In a sense, the new conservatism now is this kind of neoliberalist corporatism.
	Let's just maintain that.
	But less and less people can afford all these little treats, nice little salads, nice expensive coffees.
	Doesn't matter.
	Soon we will have automated labour instead of them.
	Keep your mind on the big vision.
	Rather than from the floating cities or domed villages once dreamed up by science fiction writers, these watered-down plans show that what these companies have been after all along is a way to one-up their competitors.
	They want to attract and retain top employees.
	And ideally get them back into the office too.
	It doesn't hurt that right now residential real estate looks like a pretty good bet.
	It's interesting that a couple of years ago it was considered ingenious that Facebook and these kind of companies would have nice bars where you could get breakfast and stuff, and little pods to sleep in.
	When I used to visit them when I was working more in legacy media, I'd think, God, this is so ingenious.
	Look, there's a bowl of Skittles.
	They're free!
	The idea behind them is, you never leave here, you eat those Skittles and then you sleep in that pod.
	Then you can play foosball for a couple of hours and it's back to coding!
	Now what they're doing is, they just want to own all of reality.
	And in a sense, they kind of already do.
	It's just, we're just waiting for the timeline to edge along with us to the point where they own your mind, they own your attention, they own your screen, they own your opinions, they own your office space, they own your home.
	No one is going to prevent this happening, except for you.
	It's literally only you that can do it.
	The noble aim of building more housing, including affordably priced units, is the cherry on top.
	But make no mistake, these companies will only pursue these plans as long as they fit their business goals.
	In June, Mountain View City Council approved the master plan for Google's North Bayshore project,
	a partnership between the tech giant and the Australian real estate firm Lendlease.
	The new community will replace a suburban office park with a sprawling new neighbourhood in the heart of Silicon
	Valley.
	The plans call for as many as 7,000 new homes across a mix of income levels.
	Mix.
	As well as parks, restaurants, shops and more than 3 million square feet of office space on 153 acres.
	Roughly 15% of those units will be priced below market rate, although the city hasn't settled upon the exact income thresholds that will determine who can apply for the units.
	So, 15% of these properties will be below market rate.
	This is the fact of the matter.
	That's not very many, is it?
	15%.
	And look, they've not established any income threshold that will determine who can apply for the units.
	That means that, essentially, they could sell below-market-rate properties to people that it's expedient to sell those properties to, perhaps because they work at Google or whatever.
	So, while it's using the kind of face of, we're helping people, in reality, it's not making any commitment.
	Do you notice how, in our techno-dictatorship, how common the lack of definition around language crops up?
	Hate.
	What is hate?
	Whatever we say it is.
	15%?
	What is 15%?
	Whatever we say it is.
	What is affordable?
	Whatever we say it is.
	Do you see?
	That's how tyranny works now.
	They're not going to come with like a gun and a bayonet and force you.
	This is your new lovely apartment.
	There's a salad bar over there.
	You don't even know you're not free anymore.
	That's what's terrifying about it.
	Mountain View also greenlighted the master plan for Middlefield Park, another Google development that proposes to tear down existing office and industrial buildings and construct nearly 2,000 new housing units as well as more office and retail spaces.
	How can any local authority body oppose a Goliath, a gargantuan company of this nature?
	Think of the type of relationships that exist.
	Remember that content we did where Fauci did an interview with the BBC?
	Bouncy, how are you?
	Look at how entrenched and interwoven these interests are.
	They're just there to facilitate now.
	That's what the state at the level of a whole nation or a local authority does.
	It facilitates the interests of the powerful.
	Then the legacy media tells you that that's not what they're doing.
	They're helping you.
	You're going to get an affordable house.
	15% of you.
	What do you mean affordable?
	I'll tell you later.
	Is that a real commitment?
	What do you mean?
	That's not even a word.
	It is if we say it is.
	Google wasn't a word, but you better believe it is now.
	You little Googler you.
	Other household names are getting in on the action.
	Last year, Menlo Park City Council voted unanimously in favour of the plans for Willow Village, Facebook's 59-acre project that's affectionately, or cynically, referred to as Zooktown.
	It promises more than 1,700 homes, as well as office, hotel and retail, right next to Meta's headquarters at one hack away.
	Walt Disney World also plans to break ground next year on 1,400 affordable housing units across 80 acres, a few miles from its flagship theme park in Florida, the company said in the spring.
	Remember once more that philosophical point that we make sometimes?
	I think it was Baudrillard that said the fact that Disneyland is in America distracts you from the fact that America is Disneyland, that the whole thing is in fact a corporate project, that it's not visible.
	Remember how in the pandemic things became visible to you, or us I suppose, that we hadn't seen before?
	Hang on a minute, the media is just supporting this ban.
	Wait, Wait a minute, they're censoring true information.
	Hey, the deep state are involved in this.
	Whoa, the media.
	Hey, this is happening everywhere.
	It just becomes more pronounced when you look at it in microcosm.
	This can't be Disneyland.
	That's Disneyland.
	The whole world can't belong to Google.
	That bit belongs to Google.
	The whole thing belongs to Google.
	This just provides you with some context.
	Nearby, the competing resort company Universal is also building a thousand affordable apartments.
	It's interesting actually because what we're seeing is a type of decentralisation like Universal Land, Disney Land, Google World and Metapark or whatever.
	And I sort of think this is the corporatised version of what might work nicely actually.
	Imagine if it wasn't sort of owned by oligarchs, but your community was owned by you and you democratically vote like
	on "Oh, we want migrants or we don't want migrants. We want
	our schools to teach this or we don't want our schools to teach this.
	We want to send this much money to the Pentagon or we don't want to send this money to the Pentagon."
	Democracy, democracy, democracy. You determine what happens with your resources.
	Where do your taxes go? All of this is possible now.
	Do you want to participate?
	No, I'm going to nominate someone to participate at a local level.
	You could have democracy as close to you as possible.
	These kind of things show you that when facilitating corporatism, they're able to create little local citadels, aren't they?
	It's not too complicated then, is it?
	It's not too difficult then?
	Oh, suddenly we can do that.
	That's interesting, you lucky little Googler.
	It's no surprise that the largest of the new developments are the brainchildren of Silicon Valley giants.
	The modern tech industry was built on a California-tinted brand of utopianism and the belief that connecting people is the answer to many of the world's problems.
	After all the digital ad dollars have been hoovered up and all the attention squeezed out of our screen-addled eyeballs, the next logical step is building a new city where the founding principles of the tech world can be put into practice.
	But companies are also ruthlessly pragmatic profit-making machines beholden to shareholders who closely watch their every move.
	High-minded ideals aside, the modern company towns also make for sound business propositions.
	I think that's how you end up with that peculiar mix of idealistic language and visionary rhetoric about actually just sort of traditional hardline profiteering.
	Because underneath it and behind it, they are all owned in quite a conventional way where you can't go, we're just going to build a bunch of affordable housing.
	Well, that doesn't sound very profitable.
	OK, what if we just say we're going to do that?
	Yeah, that could be profitable.
	These firms are interested in two things, retaining skilled labour and drumming up positive publicity that makes them look civic-minded.
	Yeah.
	Building houses near their HQs checks off both those boxes.
	Commuting is the top reason employees don't want to go back to the office full-time, according to Gallup.
	In a recent piece for Harvard Business Review, the economist Edward Glazer and the consultant Atataki argued that companies should think of housing assistance as just one part of a broader benefits package next to on-site chefs or an office gym that encourages employees to stick around and be more productive.
	People always talk about cults as if cults are a terrifying and bad thing, but this is a type of cult.
	It's just a cult that's so mundane and banal and called such boring things and is Based on materialism and rationalism, so you don't notice that you're in a cult already.
	If a cult goes, hey, why don't we detach from all this?
	Because we're going to die anyway and love's the most important thing in all our lives.
	You maniacs!
	We got you a chef!
	You can stay at work all day!
	Okay, but what about love?
	What about love, you crazy little Googler?
	The company towns of the 19th and 20th centuries also bore some of that utopian flavour, at least in theory.
	In many cases, company towns were a practical response to the need for housing near factories or lumber mills, which were typically located in barren locations without the kind of amenities that would keep workers happy, like churches or libraries.
	But the idea of a place dominated by a single corporation where your boss not only owns your home but also runs your church and your kids' schools and sells you everything you need at the company's store was always a fraught proposition.
	In many company towns, the corporations used the setup to maintain their social control, threatening disgruntled workers with eviction from company housing if they went on strike.
	When your company is your entire world, the stakes are infinitely higher.
	That's why globalism is a bad thing.
	That's why social credit scores are a bad thing.
	That's why digital ID is a bad thing.
	That's why being able to debank people is a bad thing.
	learning how on a global scale to do something that's been proven to be bad at a local feudal level.
	Given the history of company built housing, it's fair to wonder which way the new iterations will lean.
	Towards the idealized version of cheaper housing and prized amenities,
	or a more dystopian outcome in which we will become more reliant on companies that have already infiltrated every
	aspect of our lives.
	Let me see which way the wind's blowing.
	Yeah, it's globalism, isn't it?
	It's evil tyranny, isn't it?
	That's the way the wind's blowing.
	If Hitler had gone, I'm gonna do Hitler housing, he would have gone, well, hopefully this time he's learned his lesson.
	You know, you'd know what the move was gonna be.
	Well, can we just see what they've done in cyberspace?
	Well, they've monopolized it, they've done deals with the state, They're controlling people, they're censoring true information, they're stockpiling our data, their business model isn't even what they tell us it is, they tell us what they're doing is like, say, in the case of Google, providing searches, but what they're actually doing is capturing all of our data and selling it to advertisers.
	So if we start letting them control reality, and I'm not saying that reality is more important than the cyber world, and certainly not any metaphysical prima materia of consciousness itself, which, by the way, they're probably trying to own right now, I would say is a fair bet that the dystopian trajectory is the one that they will be pursuing.
	Well, that's just what I think.

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