PJ Vogt

Before we begin this week, an update.

The very strange experiment we started last episode, where, along with our friends at the Hard Fork Podcast, we decided to try to help build the Fediverse.

Basically, we made a small social media website that is not particularly algorithmic, not run by tech moguls, unless you count us, that we called the Forkiverse.

The Forkiverse has taken off with, frankly, much more energy than I expected.

And if you want to hear about what's been going on, the micro scandals, the Russian disinformation campaign, the users we've had to ban, we covered it all on today, Friday's episode of the Hard Fork podcast, which I will include a link to in our show notes.

Okay, some quick ads, then this week's story.

One of the well-documented problems with life on Earth right now, mentioned ad nauseum on this very podcast, is that it's very hard to answer the question of what any of us should be paying attention to.

The internet, the news, offers so many competing stories, most of them highly emotionally charged, deeply complicated.

It's sometimes hard not just to know where to look, but almost like, what exam am I cramming for this week?

What is the topic that I know very little about that I now have to rapidly fashion myself into a pseudo-expert on just to be a citizen?

Last year, for me, one of the stories I chose not to dig into was Venezuela.

It was there in my peripheral vision, Trump complaining about Venezuelan migrants, actively targeting them for deportation.

I noticed, of course, when we launched missile strikes against Venezuelan boats.

I could tell something weird was going on, but this is America under Trump.

Lots of weird things are always going on.

And I was just more worried about other parts of the front page last year.

But then, a couple weeks ago, our country sent troops to arrest their president and his wife, and Trump announced we were now in charge of Venezuela and that we were taking their oil.

And that was the point where I really felt like, okay, I need to understand this.

Not Trump, but Venezuela, this country we just got into a much more entangled relationship with.

So, I read some books, I talked to some experts, and I have to say, I kind of wish I'd started this earlier, because the history of Venezuela is just, as a story, so compelling, so fascinating.