Hello, trash future listeners. This is Nate. We've got a quick segment that we're going to publish on our feed outside of the normal publication order for episodes. I had a chance to speak with Brian Hugh, who is the editor for New Bloom magazine and is reporting on the ground in Hong Kong at this moment. And we had a quick discussion about what's taking place in Hong Kong and the attempts to organize general strike and some of the larger contextual issues around what's happening there and specifically

how hellworld technology of the future plays a role in making protest more difficult.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy. joy. All right. All right. So we're speaking with Brian Hugh, the editor of New Bloom

Magazine. Brian, how are you doing? Pretty good.

Thanks for having me.

Very, very glad to have you.

So could you maybe give our listeners a little bit of background as to what's going on in Hong Kong right now?

So currently, Hong Kong is in the middle of a set of protests, which are quite large.

The one on Sunday, for example, is thought possibly to be the largest protests in the history of Hong Kong, mobilizing over one million people, which is one in seven residents of Hong Kong.

And so the protests are against an extradition bill that is being put forward by the Hong Kong government at Beijing's behest.

And the bill would allow for Hong Kong citizens to be deported to China to face charges.

Currently, previously, there was no extradition treaty along those lines.

However, a concern is that this could be used as a way to persecute political dissidents.

For example, if you are a democracy activist or you advocate Hong Kong independence,

you could be deported then to China to face charges, this being illegal.

And so it could be a way of carrying out, for example, these kidnappings that were previously

taking place in Hong Kong.

For example, there were five booksellers that were previously kidnapped, and they appeared

in China to face charges because they were publishing books that were critical of Xi Jinping,

the Chinese president.

But this was done again, clandestinely,

and with the new laws that be done openly, it also thought it could interfere with Hong Kong's

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