Preview: What the F**k?

This is the official preview episode of “What the F**k?”. This project is an extension of my newest book We Are F**king Machines: Why We Are Like This and What We Can Do About It. I will be hosting TikTok lives with random guests, and asking them critical media ecological (artistic, activist, academic) probing questions about our Limited Intelligence, Environmental Intelligence, Relational Intelligence, and the Algorithmic Envirusment (environment + virus), to take an ecological audit of what is going well for us and what we need to fundamentally change in pursuit of liberation for all.

--------------------------------------------

To support this project and I, become a paid subscriber to my Substack, buy one my four books (1,2), merch, and/or donate to me directly.

Background music credit:
 Lofi Girl lofi hip hop radio 📚 beats to relax/study to

Transcript

Hello and welcome to What the fuck a Dr. bird podcast. I am your host. Dr Bernadette "bird" Bowen, and this is the official preview episode of my new podcast idea that I'm calling "What the F**k?" Anyone familiar with my work can guess that it is a continuation of both my dissertation project as well as my updated and expanded newest book called We are F**king Machines: Why We Are Like This and What We Can Do About It And this is an additional, additional installment of what I'm doing to continue the conversation, and that my idea is that the podcast will involve me inviting random people up on the Tiktok platform, and invite them to reflect on some probing questions that I offer at the end of my book. So without further ado, what I'll do is just read the overall questions that I have at the end of the book, and then you'll get a gist of whether or not this is the kind of podcast you're into or not. So without further ado, the first section of the probing questions at the end of my newest book, like I said, We are F**king Machines: Why We Are Like This and What We Can Do About It is about the limited intelligence because the overarching argument within my book is that the United States as an ecology has been built with what I've called limited intelligence, because, as I talked about in my first podcast, that I've incredibly neglected because I didn't enjoy just talking to myself, I detailed the way that our idea of authority has been, although helpful in certain respects, in overwhelming and utter failure. And this era, which I've called the environment era since C 19 started, has in many ways revealed to us, the ways that we have both been cared for in certain respects, usually for profit, and then in most every respect, otherwise ignored or erased or dismissed. And these questions will sort of get at the heart of people's idea of themselves. The description that I have at the beginning is: 

We need research informed ecological changes that restructure our unsustainable systems. We need to expand our ideas of what sources and mediums are valid sources of information. And the following are some example probing questions into how to deconstruct limited intelligence.

Who are you? How would you describe yourself?
What have you lived that defines who you are?
Have you ever been wronged by anyone?
How? How did being wronged by them make you feel?
What do you know, who and or where did you learn it from?
Whose interest did your knowing that serve or bastardize?
Do activist sources reinforce or contradict that?
Do artistic sources reinforce or contradict that? Do pop culture sources reinforce or contradict that?
And do academic sources reinforce or contradict that?
Do you check sources of information? How do you check?
How are the sources you look to trained to see what you also believe?
In what ways were those sources supported to succeed?
In what ways were those sources delegitimized? What ways have you been supported to succeed? What ways have you been kept from succeeding?
What insights does your lived experience offer the world?
Are there any topics you don't like to talk about? Why?
How does talking about those things make you feel?

And then I have the second section of probing questions about environmental intelligence, and it starts with this little write up, we need to make massive structural changes that allow us to return to ecological symbiosis. For example, oil based plastic needs to be eliminated entirely, especially from health care. The following are some example prepping questions into how to unlearn the limited Intel. Intelligence baked into environmental intelligence. 

How often do you go outside? Have you gone outside this week? What do your surroundings look like outside? Do you like them?
Do you know the local history of the area?
What do activist sources teach you about that land?
What do artistic sources teach you about that land?
When was the last time you went to your local library?
Have you ever visited your town hall to ask if land nearby is safe to grow food out of?
Have you looked into the quality of reports of your tap water?
What materials is your home itself made of?
Do you spray the inside or outside of your home with Herb or pesticides? Does what you eat and drink make your body feel good, not just taste good? Do you smoke cigarettes or weed? How does it make you feel?
Do you drink alcohol? How does it make you feel?
Do the possessions, clothing, furniture, etc, you own release toxins into your air?
What items made of plastic do you have in your home?
Does what you own reinforce a hierarchy andor industry that's harming us? Does what you eat make you feel emotionally good, not just taste good?
Does what you eat reinforce a hierarchy that is environmentally devastating?
When was the last time you got rid of excess items you don't use? Do you want to
if your water was unsafe to drink tomorrow? What would you do?

The third section is probing questions on relational intelligence.
With this little write up: We need to build local and online communities for care work, food trade and mutual aid. For example, we need to comprehensively educate the public about issues like race and sex. The following are some example probing questions into how to unlearn limited intelligence of our relational intelligence.

Who do you spend time with?
Are you part of any communities?
What do you do with them in your free time?
How do they treat you?
How does it make you feel?
Do the people around you stand up for others when they're attacked? Why or why not?
Do you keep people in your life that make you feel bad?
Have you ever experienced an injustice that you try not to think about?
What would happen if you thought about it?
Have you ever heard of somatic therapy? (Google it.)
Do you set and practice boundaries with the people who disrespect you?
Do the people around you challenge you and your ideas?
What does love mean to you?
How would you like to be loved?
Do you feel loved by the people who say they love you?
What does sex mean to you? How would you like to have sex? Do you have the kind of sex you want to be having?
Do you allow yourself to move and speak freely around others?
Do you say what you really mean in moments, even when you're afraid?
What do you think the world really needs to know from you?
Say it.

The last section of probing questions is about the algorithmic envirusment, which, again, it's the era since algorithms have been implemented. And then, as I said, the environment is my term for the world since C 19 started, because it's dramatically altered everything. And this is the little write up at the beginning of that section. Critical researchers are fundamentally gas lit by capitalists as media who are uninterested in funding our liberation and ecological symbiosis because doing so for them is not as profitable as exploiting, poisoning, sickening, disabling and killing us all after selling us neoliberal plastic band aid solutions at best, even if Trump reinstates TikTok and doesn't absolutely ruin it with additional censorship and surveillance, he's still a fucking rapist who has openly fantasized about slobbing on the Project 2025 knob. But at least we saw for the billionth time the Democrats will promise billionaires nothing will fundamentally change and keep their promise. Hopefully this and what we're all learning from Chinese folks on red note about our comparatively embarrassing quality of life wakes people up. The following are some example probing questions into how to unmask limited intelligence of the algorithmic environment. 

What social media are your favorite? Where will you go if they ever disappear? Who do you know that's still COVID 19, cautious? Have you talked to them recently?
Have you had a conversation with them about why they still mask and isolate?
How does the thought of doing that make you feel?
How do you make connections elsewhere?
Do you feel safe to do so?
Do you wear a mask to prevent the spread of COVID 19. Why or why not?
Do you own an air purifier?
How often do you air out your home?
Do you test for COVID 19 after you've likely been exposed to it?
How many times have you had COVID 19?
How does thinking about that make you feel
do people around you talk about COVID 19 as something still happening, or do they refer to it as just in the past tense?
How will you help share the research?

So like I said, that is all the probing questions at the end of my newest book called We are F**king Machines: Why We Are Like This and What We Can Do About It, and this is my little preview of a new podcast that I'm going to be starting. So thank you for anyone that's like popped in and out of this Tiktok live, but my guess is I'll be adding it on to Buzzsprout, which is my podcast site that I use to host it, and what the plan is (aside to a guest: and thank you for that, Dystoria) is that I will be
hosting lives just like this in the future, and I will be inviting just random guests up one at a time, and asking them at least one or two, if not one of from each category at the end of the book, and just sharing lived experience and knowledge and finding ways that The current way of doing things is helpful to us, and in what ways it needs to be fundamentally changed, because we have a lot to learn from each other, and there is, there is plenty that can be done and that needs to be done, or so the research shows, and our lived experiences Show, and it's of the utmost importance that we ecologically connect that knowledge so that we know what can be done. Because unfortunately, as many of us have expressed over the years, there's this burden or barrier that often stands between us and our ability to take the next step to make the changes that we know would better our lives, and having the conversations and continuing inspiration that apps like Tiktok have inspired in us to understand the world differently, it would be foolish not to continue utilizing it and to be able To counteract the otherwise incredibly toxic and usually unuseful debate cultures that this platform is largely used for.

So this is my additional project in continuing that work. Because, like I said, the first podcast I hosted, I couldn't stand just talking to myself, and this is ideally the only episode where I will be doing that, because I simply can't I can't stand doing that. So anyway, thanks for listening. Keep an eye out. I don't know when I'll be continuing this, but I'm excited. I really am. I'm glad that a friend of mine recommended that I do this, and I'm looking forward to seeing what we can learn from each other.