Useful Idiots
Politics • Comedy
Gazans Return to Rubble + DeepSeek Beats ChatGPT
Mosab Abu Toha explains why the ceasefire isn't real; Ramesh Srinivasan exposes the technocracy
January 31, 2025
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This week we are joined by two guests, Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha and tech Professor Ramesh Srinivasan. First is Gazan poet Mosab Abu Toha, who recently won an Overseas Press Club Award for his “Letter from Gaza” columns for The New Yorker, and authored the new poetry book is Forest of Noise. He is also the founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza, which was destroyed by Israel.

Over the course of Israel’s mass assault on Gaza, Mosab has lost 31 members of his family. He has expressed his catastrophic loss through poetry:

 

“All of Gaza has become a funeral home,” Mosab explains to us, “because the mourners themselves are killed. Who is going to mourn the death of someone when their father, their mother, their siblings were killed? And sometimes we do the funeral on the phone. We call someone and say, ‘I'm so sorry to hear about your loss.’ And then a few minutes later, that person, the caller or the recipient of this condolence, would be killed.”

Mosab also explains why he doesn’t consider this pause in Israel’s attacks on Gaza to be a ceasefire.

“The whole area is a pile of rubble, so where do you place your tent? People are deciding to go back. Going back for what and for how long? No one knows. This is why it's not a ceasefire.”

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We also talk to Ramesh Srinivasan, professor of information studies at UCLA and author of Beyond the Valley: How Innovators around the World are Overcoming Inequality and Creating the Technologies of Tomorrow.

The big news out of the tech world this week is that Chinese AI company DeepSeek has surpassed the abilities of ChatGPT. In response, the Trump administration imposed new tariffs against China, a move that exposes a fear of falling behind.

We ask Ramesh: why does the US government see DeepSeek as a threat, and should regular Americans see this new AI as a potential for human progress or as a dangerous new advancement? His answer gives a clear explanation for why the US is losing the AI War so far.

Ramesh also explains the surprising effect AI usage has on depleting natural resources.

Subscribe for the full interview with Ramesh Srinivasan on how the government uses tech companies to spy on Americans through the Patriot Act, the lack of disclosure by Big Tech of anything that they’re doing behind the scenes, and what the oligarchs who sat front row at Trump’s inauguration are planning next to tighten their control.

Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Trump Exposes Hamas Condom Bombs

Thanks for supporting independent media. Subscribe for the full episode here:

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This week marked a historic moment as Trump finally struck a peace deal with Iran in which the US gives up a whole lot more than it gets in an apparent admission of losing the war they started. But somehow even more striking has been the turn against Israel.

After weeks of rumors that Trump’s relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu has become tumultuous, JD Vance came out and said what the admin’s clearly been thinking.

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Trump Accidentally Tells Iran He's Secretly Stealing Their Oil
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“Are you concerned, Mr. President, about the latest inflation number which came out this morning?”

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The Most Antisemitic Event of the Year? Watch the American Jewish Committee's Global Forum With Us!
Plus, former Biden and Obama official Brett McGurk wants you to "put aside the horrors of Gaza" for a while...

Subscribe to support Useful Idiots and watch our Friday Free-for-All:

Did you know that Congress is working on a new plan to “distance” the US-Israeli relationship by slowing US aid to Israel and replace it with a “financial partnership”? A partnership which has the power to not only increase the amount of money and weapons the US sends to Israel but also future-proof it from being dismantled by future presidents and lawmakers?

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This, and a whole slew of other remarks that will make your skin crawl were topics of what many people are calling the antisemitic events of the year! The American Jewish Committee’s Global Forum, where Zionists gave speeches on and cheered for things that, if we had said them, would get us immediately kicked off YouTube for being antisemitic.

From bragging that the “Jewish coalition” spent five million dollars to oust Thomas Massie and control US elections, to explaining that Jews can now use AI to “manage and control” social media content, to laughter at John Fetterman’s celebration of Israel’s pager attacks in Lebanon that killed and blinded children and civilians, it was one antisemitic trope after another.

And no condemnations from the Fraudfather over at the ADL yet…

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