This is Sirens, a not so new but still awesome series brought to you by the ladies at bombshell, where we dissect the institutions of American power.

Join us as we

sound the alarm on technology, governance, and national security issues, and almost certainly,

Lursa Menta their deaths. I'm Lauren D. Young-Schelman. I'm Rada Iengar Plump. And we are here today.

We will have a special guest later in our episode with Rebecca Listern at

the Council on Foreign Relations to talk about AI politics in the US. But we've got plenty

of issues to cover upfront, starting with a very important and dramatic one, which is, what

is the worst icebreaker you have ever had to do at work?

So mine is on, it comes from the pandemic era and it was, you know, I had two small children, including a six-month-old baby, and we went around and did this icebreaker that was like, what new hobby have you taken up during the pandemic?

And I was like, my hobby is not causing harm to myself or my family while I work full time and have no child care,

which is not really the right answer to a light, funny experience, but was definitely my lived experience in the moment and I just

thought hey man maybe don't bring this up as the way to intro this conversation

I loved like in the pandemic I felt like virtual meetings opened this strange

window into people suddenly becoming very dark and emotional at work and I remember

being in a couple of

conversations where like things that would never happen in person suddenly like virtually

people are like, oh well, yeah. And then there's like these 17 terrible things happen and like,

wow, okay, all right. And then another meeting that was meant to be like a fundraising pitch where I

was pitching another organization the other organization just went down this deep dark path of

like the toxic work environment they worked in and I'm like guys I have never met you

but mine similarly was during the pandemic but it was more in the absurdist phase,

where we were asked,

...