The Know Show – have we had enough of ‘gutter politics’ yet?

Some days you turn on or read the news and all you see is ‘gutter politics’ everywhere. It’s so ugly, childish, and unproductive, not to mention, while politicians are playing these games, what are they actually doing for the people they are supposed to serve? Not a whole lot for a long time in many countries, but with politics often pitted as a game of “stoop to conquer” will it ever change? 

It’s just politics we hear, but is it? It’s always been this way? Really? This bad? This pathetic? This destructive? We have seen many examples of politics that are much more graceful and beneficial to their societies, even when these societies don’t necessarily know how good they have it. And in the UK, the Labour party seems to be saying nope, we’ve had enough of the destructive and divisive ‘gutter politics’ all too familiar in recent years… but they are saying this in response to Labour’s own smear campaign against the Liberals – interesting, no? 

The truth of the matter is, as we must move into a new era for humanity (one way or the other) we need a new political system, economic system and social system, so perhaps the time for ‘gutter politics’ really must become a thing of the past? Something to ponder, no?

Tim, Joe and Andrea are really looking forward to this chat and unfortunately, we have no special guest this week due to a medical emergency at the last minute, but we always enjoy it when the three of us get to talk about the big issues in the news that are impacting our world and hope you come and join us. 

The Know Show is a Livestream held every fortnight on Friday, where Andrea T Edwards, Tim Wade (yes he’s back) and Joe Augustin, and at least one special guest, review the news that’s getting everyone’s attention, as well as perhaps what requires our attention. We’ll talk about what it means to us, the world and we hope to inspire great conversations on the news that matters in the world today. 

The Know Show is based on Andrea T Edwards Weekend Reads, which are published every Saturday on andreatedwards.com, and covers the climate crisis, topical moments in the world, global politics, business, social issues, and passion/humor/history. Join us. 

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Transcript

Unknown: 0:03

All right, we are live. Welcome to the no show. My name is Andrew Edwards. And my name is Joe Augustine. We haven't done a show together for so long now and this guy to my right, my left, whatever is Tim. Yeah, I think I said that, but that's okay. Welcome. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the no show the show where we put you in the know, because we are going through the news, some of the news that you may have missed. And news that matters, news that's really important. And so that you can get a quick brief in under an hour, hopefully. And and then we have a theme that we talked about, which we'll get to a little bit later. But first, let's go through some headlines. Andrea? Yeah, so do a couple of quick ones. Yesterday in Fort Lauderdale in Florida, did you guys see the news or some pretty incredible footage. So it got 25 inches of rain, it's seven hours. The most recent April record was 19 inches for the entire month. Just to give you a context. It's been described as a one in 1000 year event. But it's also been described as a one in a 3000 year event. Now that's the first time I've heard a 3000 year event called so welcome to climate change in in Florida where you know, obviously it's not happening. So Anonymous is back. And if you don't know anonymous, you guys follow anonymous. ID. So these are the guys that were the were the white masks. And I've never had I don't know, I've never really sort of seen them do anything spectacular. But anyway, they are on the rampage. And they are threatening to reveal Republican secrets. So let's see. I look forward to that. I don't know. But let's see. So what's the what do they want? If they're threatening to do it? What do they want to know? They're basically after the fascists and the authoritarians and the people who are bringing the world down. So they're basically you know, Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court judge is one of the targets and obviously we we've heard a whole bunch of stuff coming out on him recently. So I think Margit Marjorie Taylor Greene is in the limelight in not Limelight spotlight for them. So anonymous basically branded himself this way via the masked unmask because they they, they you don't know who they are, but they're removing the masks that everybody else wears. Presumably, they're always in opposition. Well, they just they just they just, they're just going to do good idea. The idea generally, is just to reveal the truth. Good and bad. I think that's something for someone else to decide for them. And why why do they have to be anonymous then? And I guess that's gonna get to the theme of the show a little bit? No, I think there's more. There's more power in being anonymous, right? You can do more. There's a mystique, I suppose. Because I can imagine a lot of the information is coming from sources that, you know, if you're employed by those institutions, they wouldn't be happy with you sharing those sources. So anyway, that they're on the rampage. Twitter no longer exists. Apparently, it is now export. People are moving away from Twitter in droves. I'm still there. But what is it NPR, have now announced that they're leaving the platform. So that's a big one. The Dalai Lama is under intense scrutiny. And it's, I think, for a lot of us, it's a it's a very difficult story. If he did abuse this child, or if he is found that he's abused any child, of course, we need to make sure that the truth is known. Because it's, you know, religious institutions, and I'm not criticising faith. religious institutions are famous for interviewing children, paedophilia. But there are some really interesting views. And there's a publication called Elephant journal that I've been following for a long, long time. It's much more sort of philosophical, intellectual sort of commentary. And they've put out an article which I'll put in my weekend reads, and I encourage you to read it. And it's based on cultural differences and him using English, which was incorrect, and actually meant something else. So I don't know. Tim, you want to say something? Yeah. My, my comment was, I guess, in a sense, the defend your religious institutions comment defending you on that comment? Because the, I guess the thing is, a religious institution holds itself to a high moral ground of virtue and everything. And if that is your brand, and you're not on brand by doing stuff that is illegal and cruel, then yeah, then whoever the leaders are, need to be taken into some account. But I, having said that, the cultural side is interesting on this one. Yeah. So the story is he asked a small boy to suck his tongue, which of course from a Western perspective is just like, created these outrageous ricocheted around the world. but there's a few different perspectives. And obviously people are speaking out very strongly against him. The idea that someone like the Dalai Lama would be cancelled is a pretty? Yeah, it's a pretty in the in the times that we live in someone like him being cancelled is Yeah, it's a big story. So one, is it true? is one way you would say this is way off? Off character? Yes. Yeah. It's like, it's not true. They may, Rolf Harris, you know, well, then he's a paedophile. So it's kind of like, well, this is one of those things where like, for instance, it's, I think intention is always going to be something that has to be taken into account, but it seldom is people always say, like, you know, something is, if it's off, it's just off. I don't have enough to know, for instance, what it meant to the Dalai Lama, in terms of what he was saying, or what he was doing. I mean, you know, language, and this, and that aside, you know, my, my dad, this is an idea that Ron Powell runs parallel to that my dad, actually for quite a long time in his life actually got very concerned about hugging my sister. And it was because of all the news that was coming around, and the stories and this and that. And you remember that, I mean, I've told you on the show before my dad was a priest. So that was an added complication to things and all it was just like the simple idea of a show of affection, that would be pretty normal or something that is innocent, that isn't innocent, because everyone just says no, that's just not on, right. And it's a layer of complexity. I mean, if you if you it's one of those things where it will take a huge, huge, huge, huge cover up for none of this ever come up before and then this, this is the only thing that comes out suddenly going in you go okay, that is how he is. I think there has to be there has to be a little bit more of an exploration as to what was this about? Is just a terrible for PA. And then what is the fallout? What what's the appropriate fallout from this? Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, a classic example of people jumping at jumping in and sharing opinions, but not taking the time to understand the full story. So I think based on how he's behaved in his life, I think he deserves that little bit of extra space. But if he is guilty, then absolutely awful. Whatever comes next right? Fergal Sharkey definitely has a good heart. He's leading the campaigns to clean up the UK is water. And it's fabulous. It's a fabulous story that's in the guardian. But all of the UK's water is now poisoned did it because in any of the coverage, it's actually shocking to me what's going on over there. It's full of sewerage. It's full of animals sort of run off and you know, it's full of antibiotics. It's revolting what's going on over there and in a country like the UK say that. Yeah, but anyway, he's the face of trying to clean it up. Sharky. Wow, why why Fergal Sharkey just so defined, you know, exactly. Love you. I mean, the majority for the majority of people in the UK they live within. I mean, someone's just asked us a question. Have you watched the Dalai Lama footage regarding the incident? How to it? Yeah, so I have watched it and it's included in this article that I'm going to share? It's yeah, like you say, it's hard to work out what is going on in the clip. It's sort of inconclusive. It's a bit weird. So yeah, but, but a lot of people in the UK, they're living within smelling distance of these fitted rivers. So it's becoming a much bigger issue. And of course, the entire water system in the UK is privatised, the CEOs of these water companies are getting lots of bonuses. They haven't updated the infrastructure for 30 years. So now we're seeing, you know what that looks like. So yeah. But anyway, let's get on to some of the big news. So out of the US this week, southern US coastal cities under threat, as we as twin studies have revealed acceleration of sea level rise is underway. And the cities under threat include Miami, which is of course we know Houston, and New Orleans, which has been hammered in recent decades. A lead author stated these rapid rates are unprecedented. There's that word again, over at least the 20th century and they have been three times higher than the global global average over the same period, which is kind of really interesting, right? How an ocean and they're all connected can be three times experts are calling it a day americh surging ocean levels along with us along the US southern southeastern Gulf of Mexico coastline since 2010. With one study suggesting an increase of almost five inches, which is 4.7 centimetres, that burst is more than double the global average or point one seven inches or point 44 centimetres, so it's significant, right. And one of the things that this sea level rise contributes to is that it's fueling more powerful cyclones I Caribbean in which caused $113 billion in damage. And it's the state's costliest natural disaster to date. And the third most expensive storm in US history. So all those people that are going well, everyone's been talking about sea level for a really long time. It has begun and you know, you see the chart, it's got it was kind of like going up gradually, gradually, and now it's starting to do that. So I want to draw your attention, it was really kind of quirky piece, it's in this publication called Hutchinson news. And it's a it's like a farmer's publication. And it's titled wheat conditions a season, likely a loss. So this is all part of that story around the global famine that's on the way, it's all around the world, we see different pockets of farming being impacted by significant weather events. California, you know, they got absolutely hammered by the floods in recent weeks. But this is in an area in areas like South Dakota and Kansas. And these two areas are suffering huge droughts. And so one of the comments from one of the people commenting in his article for this area in here on our farm, this will be one of the worst wheat crops in the past 50 years, we have farmed 48 years. And aside from 1981, that has potential for being the worst. Another I looked at 30 to 35 years of Kansas wheat crops. And abandonment runs about 20. Sorry, about 10%. I can see a good 25% abandoned that here this year, with very low yields on the wrist. So basically the advice it finishes with, if you've got excess cash, I'd invest it in paying debt. That's the best deal in town. So when farmers invest in paying debt and non implanting the crop for this next year, we've got shortages coming up. So I really encourage you to read this article. It's fascinating. Because it's it's in the it's in the language of farming, and it uses words I've never actually even heard before. So I found it really, really fascinating adequate to read. And just another final one, before I pass it over to Joe. The title is bubble trouble. Climate change is creating a huge and growing us real estate bubble, rising seas, bigger floods, and increasing climate hazards have created a dangerous instability in the US financial system. And obviously, the housing bubble was what started the 2008 crisis. And more broadly, it's not just a US issue. So that's a story to definitely pay attention to. Joe. Yeah, well, the environment reminding me about last week's talk about how the insurance last couple of weeks last fortnight's discussion about insurance as well being thrown out of whack by all these natural disasters. So let's get into crypto and specifically mobile Bitcoin. The New York Times wrote it released an article about the real world cost of the digital race for Bitcoin. And it basically is lots of bad news. I mean, Bitcoin is bad for the environment. That's the very short answer, but it also is bad for everybody else, as the article contains. And the reason is basically in terms of the the need for more and more computational power, more and more electricity to mine Bitcoin specifically. That is becoming a more and more expensive asset to mine. To give you an idea, and as some of the recent numbers are really outdated already, but Bitcoin apparently did the mining of one the mining of Bitcoin actually uses more electricity than the entire country of Argentina, the entire country of Belgium and as it's been growing it that number may have even gone higher than then my data which is from 2018. The other thing that he talked about as well is in this New York Times article is about how it is it can be threatening to life and as well and the example was about during the cold snap that they had in the US and when electricity was not available for some people who needed it more for for a more urgent need and how it was being used as well or you know, as the article puts it usurped by the by the the Bitcoin miners it paints a very bleak picture of what Bitcoin is and what it represents to the rest of the world but there's also the the the the flip side to things. By the way, there is no denying that Bitcoin is The bad guy in this particular thing it as it continues, it is expensive. But they've used comparisons and some of the articles that I've been researching as well comparisons to how much worse it is. So one bitcoin is worth the 1000s and 1000s and 1000s worth of visa transactions. That looks really bad. But there's also on the flip side, what is happening in terms of just for the mining of Bitcoin, which is the the move towards more environmentally sustainable sources of electricity. And so in the US, for instance, there are actually a number of large scale miners who actually work on the basis of, of sustainable, renewable energy. But even that, of course, it has the flip side, because in general, sustainable energy shouldn't be available for everyone. And if a large part of it, or a substantial part of it has been consumed by Bitcoin miners, that makes the price of electricity go up. And that's how, you know, they say, Bitcoin is bad for all of us in terms of the cost of electricity. What it does do, though, is it pushes towards innovation and in the broader field of cryptocurrency, what's happened is many cryptocurrencies have gone away from the idea of proof of work, which is what Bitcoin is based off, you do the work, you will get involved in this lottery based on the amount of effort you're putting into it. And so you get paid for it so that it actually encourages that kind of arms race in terms of power, it's and computing cycles. And it's moving towards something called Proof of stake, which is reducing the the cost, the environmental cost of crypto by as much as 99, and a bit more percent. So things like Aetherium recently have gone through that as well. So Lana, you hear some of these names, Alana, Cardona, all these things, they're all based on the idea of proof of stake, which is a which is where, since since cryptocurrency is essentially a large lottery anyway, and you just have to have bigger guns have a better chance in the lottery? What they do is they then say, Okay, why don't you Why not just putting money up instead, and was where you put your cryptocurrency up as a stake, and therefore, a smaller lucky draw is, is conducted and from the smaller lucky draw, a few of you are invited to solve the crypto puzzle, and therefore it costs a lot less electricity, and computing cycles as well. So there's innovation happening Bitcoin, as as the gold of the crypto world is going to be expensive, and will probably continue to be bad for the environment. And in many ways, similar to actual gold, when you think about how gold is mined, and all that stuff that goes along with gold. But at the same time, I think the future of crypto is, is pretty vibrant, I think it's still going to be it's definitely going to be around. And there are lots of people in the crypto space trying to make it much more sustainable, or at least trying to do their business in a more sustainable way. So I follow a couple of crypto people who have who are also very aware of, of climate, and they completely disagree with the New York Times article. And then I don't know how to I don't know what it is. But there's like a measurement that's been applied for the emissions from crypto, which they believe is not being measured in in a in an accurate way. It's like an individual or a household or a business measure versus, you know, and then the other thing is, who benefits from crypto, and who doesn't benefit from crypto. And to me, that's always at the centre of the conversation. Like, you know, initially when I heard the, the environment message, I'm like that that's obviously true. But as time has gone on, and I've sort of read and watch different sort of perspectives, I don't know, it seems to be a war on crypto, but crypto is is, is something that's very, very important to a lot of people, especially in the developing world. And there's some powers that be the same. Very happy to do everything they can to destroy it. So I don't know. Well, just just it's always about reading between the lines and looking at different perspectives. Well, crypto cryptocurrency itself is bad for government. I mean, it removes the power that governments wield and if you imagine what it is to do the average parent it's everyone it's all your kids be given a copy of the car keys you know, it's and and they have access to fuel and everything else that they can do they don't they don't need to ask your permission to kind of do it so that that's part of why it's you know, it's upsetting but there's some there's some pretty good concerns that come along with it as well because there's just no insurance you can lose your money you know, I mean, things like if you're if you're scammed you get robbed or whatever it is or something in a pro When happens, traditional banking does have some failsafe I mean, like the the Silicon Valley Bank, for instance, I mean, that situation happening in the crypto world would be a completely different thing. Everyone would have just lost their money. And like, you know, there's no, there's no coming back from that. Whereas, you know, with with government intervention in the traditional banking system there is there is the insurance that sometimes helps out that way as well. So, yeah, it's a bit of it's a bit of, it's a bit of, I would say, over, over doing the argument on both sides of it. I think New York Times probably overdid the argument against it, much as people who are Ford, also overdo the idea that said, it's really good. And there are lots of things you don't worry about. Crypto is very much like the oil business. I mean, it has some benefits, but it's certainly not going to be free. Yeah, I just find, I find when you were when you were reading, that when you read the article, and you get things like, you know, when they were short of electricity, crypto was usurping it or taking it away from from people who are suffering and really needing it was it's like, really, somebody logging in and snatching the power away from the hospital? No, it's the you know, it's it's using power on the grid. Yes. But, you know, they would have been losing power on their grids as well. It's just everybody wanting power on the grid. And they're going, Yeah, but crypto took it. I mean, for me that, that. It's just, you know, who, especially that moment in time, right? Yeah, I mean, so who stands to gain from saying, you know, I mean, I'm surprised that the oil and gas guys aren't, they're saying, no, no, no, crypto is fine. Because they're pumping the electricity side, in the same in the same breath, really, that that whole that same story, actually, from another perspective was always about it was about the failures of oil and gas and infrastructure, as well. So, you know, it's always about who's whose perspective it is. And you're trying to make a case, right? It's like, it's like, when you like I said that this article isn't? It isn't. I don't think it was designed to be fair, but it was designed to make a point is it's there. And I think it kind of pushes and then people get pushed back against it. I don't think we can expect anything about cryptocurrency especially to be completely balanced, and including all sides of things. And actually, to be fair, it is an article about Bitcoin, and bitcoin does not have the most defensible situation. Yeah, look at the same time. If you just put some wind farms there in Houston, I think you see farms you solve the problem from the climate change, Cyclone, and electricity perspective solved. Getting back with all the people, all right. Yeah, I just, I'm when Andrea when you were saying, you know, follow the money. And Joe, you were mentioning about what about decentralisation of power? I think what what are most? What are these things all about? It's about power, isn't it? I mean, this is like, look at look around the stories, right? Always look around. And, you know, even though it's the New York Times, I follow this guy on Twitter, he shreds the New York Times on a regular basis. You know, every media has got its bias. I like the New York Times, but you know, it doesn't mean everything that they publish is good. I mean, you know, we've heard the BBC, you know, totally broke being dominated BBC, you know, and that's supposed to be neutral. So it's like, every, every media has its bias. So just always make sure you read more than one opinion before you form your own. That's just and read the opposite opinion. Because even when you don't agree with it, the New York Times article itself, the visuals of the article online are stunning. Yeah, they're doing a great job. And it just, it's, yeah, it's fantastic. So, you know, maybe anyway, that they've got 4k drone footage of something is gonna get a scathing article about it. Yeah. Anyway, okay. All right, Tim macrons in trouble again. Yes. Oops, that was a quick, quick move. Give me a second. Macron Oh, yeah. All right. Hang on a second. I'm down at the leak. Okay, here we go. So yeah, Macron. Well, Macron went to China. So we and the News is reporting that he's received criticism for his performance. There will probably just by going to China, some of which has been scathing him and his allies who saw him as cozying up to Beijing. So Macron has managed to alienate or at least worry allies from Warsaw to Washington with his embrace of what the sign of French declaration called a global strategic partnership with China. He adopted the Chinese lexicon of a multipolar a multipolar world freed of blokes liberated from the cold war mentality and less reliant on the extra territory. extra territorial all that Oh, my goodness, extra territory of the US dollar price name got it a French accent extra Katya ality of yours. He was then it was enforced the backtrack a little bit especially in regards to Taiwan when he said the worst thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the US agenda and the Chinese overreaction. Well, by Tuesday, the Elysee Palace home to the President felt it necessary to clarify France's allegiances. So muddied had the optics become France, it said, is not equidistant between the United States and China, the United States is allied with shared values. So of course, if France is on fire, everything's going a little bit bananas for Macron at the moment, and he's he's trying to, I guess, figure out who's going to win this battle between China and America. And position France in the best possible light. But unfortunately, it irritates everybody, when he when you pick a side, all right. Over in the US, apart from shooting over towards Macron, they're also shooting each other and this is terrible. It's just like, I can't when will they learn is the it's just, it's the guns? It's when? When will the dollars paid by lobbyists? Be not enough? When will the blood be so much that the dollars are? Have to be denied? Okay, so the US shooting this time was in Louisville, Kentucky, where five people were killed in a bank shooting. Does it feel different this time? I mean, the momentum around sensible gun legislation might be might be something we'll see in our lifetime, especially as the Republican stance on gun control is actually becoming an issue that are driving voters away from the party. So, I mean, we've got to hope so this is just crazy. Yeah. It's I almost can't even look at the stories. You know, it's just like, it's just like dying. Because somebody has been paid a few dollars to keep a piece of legislation in I mean, a lot of dollars, presumably, keep legislation. And it's just I think, the mums against gun violence. I think that's the lobby group, apparently are becoming more powerful than the NRA. So fantastic. I feel like there's a shift and you're seeing the kids out protesting they want to go to school without the threat of violence. So I feel like there's a shift, but it's for the rest of the world. Just crazy. moving, moving up to Scotland. I just want to ask one question, which is, what is the point of every American having a gun when a balloon flies over the top and nobody can shoot it down? But a$400,000 Miss up? Andrea? Nice. Sorry, let me so we've got Hayes here again. And it's, it's awful. Yeah, it's easy here too, but doesn't sound like it's as bad as Oh, no, it's really bad. It's coming down from Chiang Mai Chiang Rai where they're doing a lot of burning. And today like waking up and seeing this haze, and then underneath the heat. So it's sort of 40s It's in the 4042 range at the moment really, really hot. Right, especially for the tropics, you can imagine. And it's Songkran, which is awesome. So yesterday, we went out for a drive because Steve can't get wet, because he's still healing, but just it's the greatest water fight in the world. And it's absolutely brilliant and joyful. But, I mean, but you know, people are dying from heatstroke. And somebody in our community died a few weeks ago, and just had another person in the Philippines who's connected to us died. So it's it's pretty serious what's going on here, but but the haze actually makes it worse. It sort of holds the heat down, which, you know, and today I'm really feeling it and yeah, just you just wake up, you know, you know, in the haze in Singapore, you wake up and your throats just destroyed. Right? Yeah. Some good news on the environment. So Scotland is doing some really, really, really amazing work from a rewilding front. But there was recently announced a $10.5 million pound sorry, sale of a 3400 acre of a Scottish estate, which has been going to be a rewilding project. So it's founded by this group called Highlands rewilding, which the former Greenpeace director Jeremy Leggett is leading. And so they bought this huge property in Argyle and it can It's a it's an estate that actually has lots of houses and cottages, you know, like you saw in Downtown Abbey, the villages that are connected when our goal is that, Andrea, are you going to do that to me? Right? I think it's devilish estate. But I don't know how Scottish people do double L. Do you know? What's that? Like? Yeah, probably something like that. Yeah, I don't do X sensitive. I don't lock built till bad. My husband says I have one. One accented. It's always Pakistani no matter what. I'm just not one of those. That's not one of my talents. I have to go to Sean Connery for this one. But never mind. All right. Yeah. Anyway. So it's got all these houses and it's not attracting people, young people to it. So they're hoping that it's going to read sort of generate the community with opportunities, but it's also some really, really important conservation area, including 811, equal acre tidal island of Danna. So this is, this is a cool story. And, you know, if there's, if there's one country in the world that's taking rewilding seriously, it's definitely Scotland, on the other side is in India. So in recent weeks, there's been a lot more coverage around India, because it is growing at an incredible scale. It's going to be the biggest population in the world this year. So it's going to surpass China. But it's climbing, it's climbing, it's growing with coal. And that's, that's a huge concern. So it doesn't have the historical energy investments that wealthy countries do have. So it's this massive reliance on coal. And we see a lot going on in Australia, they're digging up coal to send back to India. But if it basically if it keeps growing with coal at the centre of it, we've got no chance, no chance at all, of getting global climate under control. And of course, many people think we've already gone too far. But of course, India is also on the frontline of the biggest impacts from climate, you know. So I think I was talking to some friends in India. At the moment, it's not too extreme. But in a couple of weeks, massive heat waves are expected to come back, you know, you get up to the high 40s 50s in India. And I just saw the other day, they think El Nino is actually going to strike from May, and it wasn't expected until October. So this intense heat waves, it's expected on the back of El Nino could be on our doorstep any any minute now. So back to India, there's 1.4 billion people in India. And if they continue to grow with fossil fuels at the core, it could basically completely undermine the entire world. But the targets which have been set by industrialised nations that actually benefited from unfettered energy access, could basically it could stop India from growing. And you know, it's still a lower middle income country and its focus, they want to grow. But they also want to make sure that people have got housing, water, energy, mobility and nutrition so that as a country growing, that's what they want. But they can't do it with the emissions of fossil fuels at the centre of it. So I think what we need to do from from our perspective of India, because Okay, so the biggest polluter at the moment? Is the US the biggest long term? No, China, the biggest long term polluter is the US. But right now, it's China at the front, then it's the US, and then it's India. So it's the third biggest polluter in the world. So it's serious, right? So what can we do I just think the wealthiest people in the wealthiest countries on the planet need to turn India into a sustainable energy superpower, and they need to do it quickly. Because if we don't put the money into a country like India, which we're all basically going to be screwed. And, and obviously, there's a big reticence from the wealthy countries to fund the developing countries. But the developing countries need funding because if they don't, one, they're going to release emissions. And it's going to be out of control. To a billion people could be on the march and landing landing on their doorstep. You know, it's just like this, the only solution that we have is to try and keep people in the countries that they're in. And we have to invest in the infrastructure that they need to be able to stay there. And we have to get the emissions down as quickly as possible. So here's my devil's advocate objection. And that is, so I did a bit of research just then. And Americans like what 200 And something well, out how old is America? was a 200 year old democracy. Australia, Australia, Australia had its 202 100 year anniversary in I think was 87. And America's older than that, so closer to 300 years probably. Turning? You do, you've got, what? 500 years. So somewhere between 205 100 years, right? And so American went boom, unfettered, you know, coal and burning everything and causing a bloody problem, and then become super wealthy and and then going well hang on a minute, maybe we should do something about this still being a problem. And still having now difficulties in wrestling that away. So my challenge on the Indian side, because I've seen them going to the climate summit and everything else saying, saying, Well, you guys got to use coal to develop your country. Why Can't We? So I wondered, well, how old is India? Well, they've in the 9000 years now. So the problem is possibly corruption in their politics. So if you go and pump a bunch of money in there to do it, you just got to make a bunch of corrupt politicians richer. Now. Having said wild generalisation? No, no, no, I think that's the me. I think you're missing a point of India was progressing gradually over, over those 9000 years, until the colonialists turned up and raped and pillaged the country and took took unbelievable wealth out of the country and sent the country backwards. So that a lot of the wealth in England that enabled and empowered the Industrial Revolution came from countries like I'm not trying to be some sort of privileged ass or anything. But I, I, I I'm, my concern is that if the country's infrastructure and their political elite I get in, if the management of the place is not correct, you know, if they're doing all they can, and they need help. That's, that's one thing, but I'm not sure they're doing all they can. And I know that that scale of their problem is so gigantic, with 1.4 billion people. So it's, it's like, so anyway, but I get your your perspective is, the world needs to operate in a different way. It needs to, it needs to operate in a way where we look at this as a global problem, not an s&m problem. So everything I just said was kind of, uh, well, they're not managing themselves properly. But but if we flip it back to looking at it from a global perspective, it's like, well, that means we're not managing it properly. We, as a planet is not managing properly, if they're stuck, you know, like Lencioni is 606 elements of a highly a team, or whatever it was, there's a you got to look at, go look at who the team is. The team isn't our country, the team is the planet. And all the leaders of the planet are actually on the same team, when it comes to climate and planetary problems. And so I guess what you're saying is, if we're looking at that, from a team perspective, from on a global scale, we need to be helping our department which happens to be India or China, or, or whatever the people that are over producing, as well as save the other ones from going underwater. Yeah. So. So the, the comment about corruption is it's a huge issue in many, many, many countries around the world, there's no question about it. And it's going to really harm our ability to move forward, but it's not going to go away. However, India, there is so much progress being made on sustainability within the country, within private enterprise, as well as government. It's just not. And it's like there's so much further ahead than they were expected. So when they went left the last cop, I think they said they couldn't get to net zero until 2080. And then within within, I think by the end of the cop, they said 2070, which is still like ridiculously too far away. But actually, I took the message of from them saying, we need to help them do this. And we need to do it quickly. Right. But the other side is, you know, like these heat waves that are hitting India last year, they got up to think it was 49.9. And, you know, if your electricity goes out, and you've got no air conditioning, like you haven't imagined it, right. So for every point one of the degree increase in temperature, it's a two to three degrees Celsius increase. So when El Nino comes in, we're going to be hitting 1.5 For the first time, not embedded but experiencing it, right. So from a temperature perspective, what that means is India could potentially be seen 62 to 65 degrees. is how can you survive that. And if you're going to electricity, electricity shortages going on, you know, here, if the electricity goes out, we can't run water. So we wouldn't be able to run a bath if we just you know, because basically that sort of temper, you just want to sit in a cold bath, right? There's nothing else you could do. But so we're on the, we're on the cusp of that sort of stuff. And, you know, India, India has to be like at the forefront of designing cheap and affordable ways of managing that. Because, you know, billions and billions. Yeah, but right across this region, billions are going to die in that sort of heat. And with the heat this year for us in Thailand, I don't know what it's like for you guys in Singapore. Oh, it's awful. I don't even want to go out. I certainly don't want to be outdoors. You know, going to a bar. I was at a bar recently for someone's birthday. And I could just feel sweat dripping down the back of my legs. It was awful. You know, this is in the evening. It's horrible, horrible time. Yeah. Joe, you wanted to jump in? I think we've spoken enough about India resume metaphors to talk about. But if we get another show another time. If you received a letter from your bank recently, it was probably with the good news that your interest rates and your mortgage has gone up all that as part of the global efforts to improve your satisfaction with your bank, I'm sure. And our interest rates around the world have gone up in a bid to control inflation. I mean, it's if you pay attention to your A levels, economics lectures, you know, this is basic stuff. It's what about it apparently someone like Liz trust did not understand as she went on to take take on the the UK Government. So the news spread quite quickly, when the blog and the IMF, an IMF blog said recently that the recent increases in real estate and real interest rates are likely to be temporary. Going on to say when inflation is brought back under control, advanced economies, central banks are likely to ease monetary policy and bring real interest rates back towards pre pandemic levels. So the headline that has gone around is interest rates likely to go back to pre COVID levels, IMF predicts, I must tell you that this horizon is way way out there. In terms of expectations, you know, I mean, the my bank is just happily doubled my interest rate, and I don't expect it to go down for quite a while. A number of reasons for that, besides just the fact that they can make more money from me. But the the, the real problem is, as a control or as a as a brake on the economy. Interest rates have been the big thing, especially when there is inflation. And right now the world is in is still in a situation, it has improved that maybe to be fair, inflation has improved that it has not healed yet. We're nowhere close to pre pandemic levels in terms of what inflation is like. So the cost of business is going up, the cost of living is going up, the value of money is dropping, it is not a time to drop your interest rates, what you need to do is you need to you need to increase the cost of credit so that it slows down the momentum of money flowing through and then that begins to slow everything down. And that begins to to to to dampen down inflation. So yeah, if even though the IMF has said so in a blog, it also is noted that it has not said when it thinks it's going to happen, it's given the conditions under which it will happen. But those conditions are I would say, like I said, the far off into the horizon. The other big story is that, that it's going going around, it's about how the some major countries are dropping the US dollar, or that they call it the D dollarization. In China, Russia, Brazil and ASEAN. Now, when we when we say D dollarization. I think what what it is, is, again, it's an overstating of what it what the whole picture is, right? What it's what is what is doing it a lot of these economies are doing is they are taking the US Dollar as the primary and only way in which you deal with certain commodities. Now, they're opening it up to other currencies in which they are happy to trade, oil and gold and other other stuff for besides just the US dollar. It's not to say that if you offer them a US dollars, they say no, thank you. We don't do that. Maybe in the case of Russia, perhaps that might be the case. But as I say money is money. But the fact that it's now diluted it's not is no longer a monopoly in terms of how perhaps oil is valued around the world. That's changing the picture. Now, while this is happening, and there's some big players who are trying to make this happen, you also have to realise that it It's not as easy to disentangle or make irrelevant, because a lot of the world's economy is pegged to the US dollar, a lot of the contracts, if you think about the kind of shift that has to happen, just because Russia and China have entered agreement, to not use US dollars for the exchange of goods between them, it is not necessarily going to change the way the rest of the world values, the price of oil or the price of gold. Because it is still a benchmark that everyone refers to, you could try and launch equivalent. I'm looking at some new cryptocurrencies coming out where you haven't heard before, you know, like you think about if I give you one that's designed based around the ruble, you might go like, I don't know if I can trust that. And that's the same kind of thing that's happening in terms of US dollar. And the other the other kind of, like, terrible thing is, is that despite everything, the US dollar seems to be some kind of it has magical power, it has the power of levitation, right? So it's been, it's supposed to have collapsed, it's supposed to be suffering from all kinds of inflationary forces. And yet it continues to thrive. You know, it hasn't bad days, but it's still alive and kicking. So US dollar far from retirement, I would say again, but certainly there are more players circulating non US dollars for important stuff. Yeah, there was a number of years back about the IMF having a basket of funds, which included US dollar, which was supposed to be more stable, and more inclusive, from a financial perspective. But of course, that then is and then that would become sort of a global common currency, rather than the US dollar. And of course, that had support from people like China and Russia and other places. But it didn't have a cool sounding name. And it certainly hasn't taken off because, of course, US US wouldn't support it. And then they would put pressure buying pressure on others not to support it as well, to retain their power. And if I was running the US economy, I'd be doing the same thing. If I'm thinking us in them, so yep. Thanks, Joe. All right. Well, the big story broke this week that dozens of classified US defence department documents, Max chunks, photographs were leaked, and now circulating on the internet. It's now known that 21 year old guy called Jack Come on. Yeah, it's tougher. It's spelt TIXE Ira, which sounds like take Sarah. Anyway. Yeah, Dara. to Sarah. It looks like a sort of an Aztec surname, doesn't it? Yeah. It's not as techie this unit. But maybe, anyway, whatever his name is Jack, the National Guard airman. So he's been arrested over the leak Pentagon documents was big, which begs the question, how did this all happen? And the documents include timelines, painting a detailed picture of the war in Ukraine, they tell of the casualties suffered on both sides, the military vulnerabilities of each And crucially, what their relative strengths are likely to be when Ukraine decides to launch. It's much anticipated spring offensive. And this is the biggest leak of secret American information on the war in Ukraine since Russia's full time invasion, full scale invasion 14 months ago. So some of the documents are as much as six weeks old, but the implications are huge. Pentagon officials are quoted as saying the documents are real. So to sort of keep an eye on any thoughts on that one. Because we're only knew that once in Australia, so going on to Australia, doesn't they'll soon be another referendum. This time, it's called The Voice, which is about giving the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, a voice in their own affairs. Of course, there is a lot of misinformation circulating typically in the Murdoch press. It seems I haven't learned anything in Australia. And so the Monash press, which is a top university in Australia, have published an article seeking to debunk 10 myths and misconceptions. And just to give you an example, here's one of the myths that it will, you know, by giving them giving Aboriginal Torres Strait Islanders a voice in Parliament, it will amount to a third chamber of Parliament and therefore impact parliamentary sovereignty a fundamental element of our constitutional system of government. So that's the myth And the explanations, you know, so what is proposed is a voice to Parliament, not a voice in Parliament, there's a voice to Parliament, not a voice in Parliament, you will have no role in passing legislation that will continue to be left to our elected representatives in the House of Representatives and in the Senate that's in Australia, as currently prescribed by the constitution. So I think it's important for Australians to read this because otherwise they're gonna if they buy into the campaign against it. Yeah, it's it just it just means that they're buying into a false narrative without actually seeking the facts. So what this Monash press article will, is endeavouring to do is to tell you the truth about it. Okay, so Australians, yeah, it might be good idea for you to read this particular article. So it's in the new in the weekend read, this would be a great step forward for the unity of the nation. And if there is a community that deserves the right to have a say in their lives to see Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia. So yeah, don't talk about the Murdoch media on this one doctor had done yeah. He said he's not going to support it. Is the opposition leader, by the way. Okay. I mean, what, I don't understand why you wouldn't support it. It's a group of your fellow country people. And, and surely, they need a voice to be heard just as much as everybody else. So it's a voice of the people. It's not, it's not. It's just a voice. You know? I just, yeah. For for more than 200 years, we've been trying to solve the problems that the Aboriginal and to our surprise Island is face, right. And every every solution that we come up with doesn't work. So let's try something new and allow them to deal with their own problems. Right. And I'm when I'm talking about problems, I'm talking about healthcare problems, housing problems, domestic violence, all the different issues, right. We've done great, great, great harm to this community, as has every country on this planet with indigenous populations, we've done great harm. And, you know, we're in this such a crazy situation at the moment, the community that can help us the most deal with the climate issues, the indigenous communities, so it's time to give them their voice and given them their power. So I agree. Yep. All right. Okay, so we've got good Jerry here saying this has the potential to become a good morning Singapore show and Thailand to anyway, he's, he's checking in from, from Holland. I'm sure you guys met Jerry when he's popped into APSs a few times. He's, he's good guy. So thanks for joining us, buddy. All right. Oh, mobile. We're global. I mean, we're here in Thailand, Singapore, but we're now global jury and Don baru though, I thought he lives in here in Singapore, and all right, you're a finalist. He's corrected me again. my Australian accent, I can't do it. Your, your look looks like Jerry. Jerry. All right. All right, quick, one great piece of Rolling Stone. The title is companies that get work aren't going broke. They're more profitable than ever get woke, go broke has been a bit of a rallying cry of the political right, whenever they see a brand, make the slightest effort to align itself with liberal or conservative values to meme that, that allows mega country to believe that there is this ongoing, massive backlash to products that acknowledge and celebrate marginalised communities. But the suppose boycotts never seem to be reflected in the bottom line. Which is fantastic. Isn't that great? I just Yeah. I just think buying the latest product. What's the latest? Right? Yeah. He's a trans person. So therefore, yeah, it's ridiculous stuff. All right. All right. So we were with me, there's a lot of really, really big things going on in the world right now. And it's been good to just talk through some of the big stories that we've been sharing. So we, we haven't got much time left for the theme. But let's just, I'll just sort of tell everyone the news that I'm basing this on and then you guys just give us a couple of opinions and we'll wrap it up. So we don't go too far over time. But, you know, so the theme is, have we had enough of gutter politics yet? No, I certainly have and I'm sure you guys have but so basically, this came from an article that said even Labour's own MPs are deserting the party's new gutter politics approach. And so basically, historically, Labour has not been very good at Gotta politics whereas the Tories are very good at it, and they get voted in again and again and again and look at the side of the country now and, you know, hopefully, the country has learned its lesson. But anyway, so Labour's decided to do the gutter gutter politics. So one thing one of the pictures a picture of Rishi Sunak Do you think thieves should be punished? Rishi Sunak doesn't under the Tories, only 180 of the 4000 500,000 deaths a day were some will see someone charged this year. And other ones about basically saying he doesn't care about paedophiles, which obviously, is not very fair. But in response, five MPs have said that we're not we're not we're not having it. But the bigger sort of message is what hasn't been said. And it's his front benches who are not coming out and supporting it. So is it the right approach for the for any party, but especially in labour? Apparently not a YouGov survey said that basically, people are expecting more compassion in politics. And obviously, you know, we saw I think it was last week, which is Jacinda return, stood up in New Zealand Parliament spoke spoke about being a leader with compassion. And, you know, well, in her own country, there's obviously division, there always is. But globally, people really resonate with the message. And, you know, as we move forward, I mean, 57% of people in the UK believe that there should be more compassionate leaders in, in part in politics, right. And you see the cynical comments, you see that it's always been this way, it's not going to change. We've seen it in America, we saw it in Australia. We see it everywhere. But as we move into the future, where we have challenges of humanity is never faced global challenges that we either can't overcome. Well, we don't. I think, maybe, but kind of politics isn't really going to help us. So make it through this time when you guys think. Yeah. Okay, so the game is rugby. Obviously, politics is kind of a game where there is aggression involved, you have to go, you have to try to push an idea across the line. And it's complicated thing when people are trying to pull you and Molly down. The reason why gutter politics works, and this goes back. I mean, like, you look at this article as as a as obviously, a new article. But I've been studying negative advertising for more than 25 years, I was thinking about in terms of radio, and stuff like that. And the real problem is that it works. And that the problem is the fact that we are trying to motivate human beings. And if you think about what motivates human beings, pain, shock, fear, those are the things that basically are going to motivate you to do the big thing. So if you ask me in a survey, which is a nice, calm environment, but what do you do? Do you think we should be doing this do you think we should be doing that those opinions are going to be very different than if there's a fire outside your window. So that's, that's the, that's the problem with gutter politics is that it works because it triggers that reaction in you. And the way it's run as well. It's not like we have this chance to sit down and weigh two or three ideas side by side, like early on, you're talking about how in Australia, the idea was being spoken about about Aboriginals being being represented in Parliament. The voice you hear are those are those, you know, when you when you get down to the milk bar, and there's a there's a there's a there's a plaque out or there's others sandwich boards, advertising a newspaper for the day, and that headline is there. That's what you see. That's a sign you walk past and you're on the train, you see something like that. You don't even read the articles you only see. Yeah, so those those things work. And that's, that's the fundamental thing. It works. And what has to happen in response to that is outside of that you we have to have more dialogue, we have to talk about things. I was trying to talk to my daughter about, you know, like, like, asked my daughter, but what do you think about international geopolitical power? And I mean, it just, it just was it was a screensaver reaction. You know, she didn't she didn't know what it was about. She didn't think much about I said, Well, who do you think is the most powerful country in the world? It took some time. And she came up with China. And I asked her why she didn't really know the answers. It's, we're filled with so many things moving at a great speed, that we're not going to notice things unless they begin to affect us in that in that threatening way. And so that's why gutter politics continues to work and will continue to work. Because as much as people are better people when they're not under stress, the whole point of the process seems to be the stress you out. So you change your behaviour. People under stress, people who are not under stress, don't vote, people who are stressed do something, vote otherwise I don't know, but they do some things. So that's the challenge if it actually works. It did. It's an interesting one, then, if if, if the climate crisis starts to cause significant problems, will people tire of gutter politics and actually go to the most mature person in the room to solve the problem, which could be interesting. And if it does, unless the crisis exemplifies what Joe just said. But if it does mean that people go to the most mature person in the room that seems to have their head screwed on, then they then then there's the what it says is, we are so wealthy as as developed nations, that we see politics as entertainment. And, and we see it as a thing about gutter politics. Like Andrea, you said at the top of this piece that it's been around for ages. And so just you know, I found a, a quick little article and some of the anecdotes are fantastic. But they are witticisms of attack, not mean, but sometimes they will just outright lies. And so the thing about, you know, it's a one of them was, for example, this fellow called Thomas Dewey, who is sorry, Harold Ickes, who was Roosevelt's interior secretary, he labelled a Senator Senator lon, he said, the trouble with senators along is that he's suffering from halitosis of the intellect. And that's presuming Senator Tom has any intellect. And then he, there was a another, he made a statement about Roosevelt's a political opponent, and saying, he has been called a mediocre man, but this is unwanted flattery. And because he was a politician of monumental littleness. And finally, Abraham Lincoln, had malice towards some as well. Even Abraham, you know, honest ape, once remarked, he can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met. Which, which Churchill was good to write. The Churchill was great. Now the thing then, and the thing is, though, because he was basically when the when the mud was slung, he intelligently hit it back. But what we're seeing is cats fighting, you know, and, and it's like, at some point, the the more mature person woman, I think, America had a really interesting moment when they when Obama got in, because Obama's Yes, we can speech and in fact, all his speeches leading up to that election victory in his first election victory showed that he was sensible, calm under pressure, articulate how to plan promise change. I mean, everybody promises change, but they don't. But he had a poise that was different to the slinging that was happening from the other side. And everyone was getting tired off. And so of course, you know, it's it's back. And it's been back for a while, and they, they liked it in the biggest slinger of all, but, but, and that's all that's still going on. So I'm, I guess my point was, do we need you got to acknowledge this one? Do we need to be do we need to be shook into shaken I suppose into a, into a position where we stop seeing politics as entertainment. And we start seeing it as our responsibility to put somebody in ureas come up with I would challenge you to a battle of wits, but I see you are unarmed. That is a good one. So I, you know, there's a whole bunch of them. And those are great. And I think those witticisms show show a almost a playful mudslinging, and an intelligent level. But what we're seeing is like that sooner, Rishi, you know, these sorts of ads that are going out, that we're seeing libel and slander, which has gone back, you know, hundreds and hundreds of years where people are going, No, it's just an opinion, or it's satire, or it's, you know, but once it's out there, one of Trumps main main tactics was to label a person, you know, lying, whatever his name was lying dead, or what was it like Ted Cruz or something rather, whatever it was, so he would give them this name. That became the name that he would say all the time, which became their nickname, which is what people thought this guy is like, and it's a very clever strategy. So it's, you know, the idea is, if you throw enough mud, some of it will stick and then hopefully at the election booth, so Somebody will, will just go well, I can't really vote for that guy out of conscience. Now again, I and the problem then comes back to media. And yeah, huge, huge, you know, who they want then? Yeah, it's, it's, I mean, my God, sophisticated intelligent debate right or argument is something? Absolutely, we'd the three of us could do it all day, right? The but we maybe need to batshit crazy, like really like, you know if you listened to some of the stuff like Marjorie Taylor Greene is a classic for it, you know, just I don't know if you saw any of that 60 minutes or whatever it was that she was on recently. You know, this, this whole belief in the paedophile ring within the Democrats. So but every time every time a paedophile seems to be sort of discovered it, it's always in the Republican ranks. So what is it's like, every time someone says something these days, it's like, whoever saying it, the problem exists within the party that it's coming from, because that's where the problem is, because that's what always happens. But like this, yeah, we're just moving into batshit crazy territory. And I think it's just time for the adults to show up. You know, I think that we need a, we need a council of elders not necessarily aged, to be why we need wise people who can be young to just putting the children back in their back in their playpen, because there's too many children in powerful positions around the world. And we're seeing it in the way they talk to each other. And it's, it's disgusting. And people are sick of it, like on all sides, people are sick of it. But then that goes back to why are the children in charge? Because the adults are running the big industry. And the adults need the children or Hmm, no, I wouldn't agree with that. I think children running big industry to know the problem, right? They want to puppet the puppeteer is running big industry, the puppets in government. I think what's happening with with with with the world now is the balance of vocal power has changed dramatically. And unfortunately, it hasn't come with a rise in education and education in terms of going out to find out what's real. And I speak this not as just not not speaking about somebody out in the back country, or what have you know that I have friends right now who I speak to, and I'm surprised at their lack of desire to find out the truth as they as they express their opinions about things. So it is not something that is, you know, which it's often labelled as something which is to do with hillbilly culture and all that kind of stuff and all that. I mean, speaking of America, it is not that it is where right now I have an opinion, I can put it up back here for somebody and it actually keys into our human nature, human nature is social proof. If I hear from two people, and me, we've all been in this situation before you've gone, you've heard about something and then you go like, Oh, yeah, I heard good things about it. And then you recommend it. And the next thing you realise you've actually recommended the film to the person who told you about it. And if you go back and think about all the times you've heard about the movie, you've only heard it from this, this person in the first place. That's that's the nature of us. We assumed that if we hear it from someone else, we go like, Oh, it's true. And social media, unfortunately, for all the good that it does, is horrible in this aspect, because it takes very little to put out an opinion. And the problem with human beings is that once you put out something as well, we're we're very unlikely to go back on it. We don't want to go and say oh, you know, the thing I said before it was it's technically incorrect. You'll have people leave their comments out there for years. Yeah, that's gonna be wrong. You're saying something here, which is, to me it's really like it's my message right? If you if you know better stand up and speak up. And there's this thing called a climate Brawl that's going on and there's also hydrogen brawl. And basically what's happening is people who are experts in their field, are starting to get on social media and they're there. There's they're calling nonsense, we're nonsense needs to be called. And it's a big part of my message. Like if you if you know better, it's your duty to humanity to stand up. We need the adults to stand up. And in the last 12 months, 18 months, a lot of people disappeared off social media. And I'm only just feeling people starting to come back now. It was like everyone was sick of it. It was too much, too much too much. Right. And we need to stand up. We need to speak up if you and you don't need to let you resign. You don't need to be patronising condescending, nasty. You don't need to you can be and I see a lot of people doing that too. But nobody will ever listen to you if you patronise them, because why would you? If someone patronise me, I'd want to punch him in the face right? I'm so we all need to stop being part of the conversation and we all we need to invest our own critical thinking skills. And the best way to start doing that is to never ever just take one opinion in the news, go into on the opposite opinion and read that even if you hate it and disagree with it. And if you can find some other angles, because there's always there's always different perspectives. You know, Daniel Radcliffe is starting to do some conversations with trans people. So the whole world is talking about the trans community that actually don't have a voice, that then they're not speaking about the what's going on. And I thought that was a great example of everyone's got an opinion about the trans community, but none of them have ever spoken to somebody in the trans community. So how could you possibly have an opinion? Yeah. Yeah, I think. Yeah. I don't know what I think the moment because I thought something and I've forgotten, but Joe has something you'd like to say? Well, if you really, if you really the idea that we can try to promote critical thinking, Is it very improbable, it's highly improbable, isn't it? It's not popular because it's, it's not supportive? You know, when you think about that, when your friend says something, you want to say something's as supportive as well, I know that my nature because of the because of my propensity to want to see all sides of things makes me deeply unpopular, even with some members of my family. You know, even the people who don't have a choice about the matter, you know, they don't feel great about that. So it's very hard. Because we're social beings we desire so much to belong, we have to try it's a matter of survival to to get along, because and so we will find ourselves in such situations as well, it used to be harder, because you didn't know where to find your friends. You, you kind of like, hang on to those who were like, if you had a friend who was 60 or 70%, good. You could like okay, this is an okay person, we don't have to meet that often. Whatever it is. But what happens is online, right now you get to interact with people that you can choose, you can curate the glass house that you I mean, that that that echo chamber, you're in, right? Yeah. So you can say something that is completely weird. And people around you, you're like, Yeah, you completely. That's exactly what I mean. And then you feel, you know, good about that. You know, there's a great story, I heard the BBC that a show once, where they basically set out on a project to show the evidence of COVID, just to reveal all the evidence of COVID. And they brought the people on the opposite side of the fence into it. And they said, Okay, we're gonna give you as much access to all the information as you want. And most, except for one person, stayed exactly where they were still deniers still sceptics, and one person who was an observer and who had up to that point, observe that it was a conspiracy, that it wasn't real, decided to change his mind. And he got held for it. You know, his his community rejected Him, everything that he had built up before that completely fell to bits. And that was the price he paid for changing his mind, on what he believed. So that's kind of a world that we live in. And and people are really scared, people are really afraid to say something which is going to upset the rest of the room. And that's really what it is we so because of that, instead of looking for ways to disagree, we're looking for ways to affirm. And that's how you end up with Q anon. Because I have some suspicions, but now I give a give it I gave it some form, and someone says, What if this and before you before you know it, someone says that's a great idea. I'm going to say that is what's happening, and then you go, like, I've just been affirmed. I love this. I think so what I was thinking of saying earlier was about curation, but I'll come back to that in a second. What you just said about human nature, Cialdini described in his sort of laws of influence, as our as the power of commitment and consistency. And, and and in a way we affirm you know, if you think about what makes a good leader and they're strong, they're they're visionary they they're committed to the cause, you know, they keep going everything else. unchanging unwavering goes towards, well, that's a bit of a problem if they got something wrong, and and we reward people to be consistent, and we don't tend to support people who change their mind and you just gave a great example of it. So we call them flippant, we call them indecisive. We Little but really creativity and imagination solutions and innovation comes from fairly comes from trying things. Again, not we didn't get that right comes from this but we are in a very production oriented mindset of get it right. Total Quality, don't change. mistakes aren't tolerated, you're out. And so it's, it's so weird. And Cialdini is research shows that influence that comes from, you can be consistent. Consistency and commitment is a very powerful influencer as well. Going back to the thing I owe. And so, let's see identity politics. idealogue is unwilling to learn and open up, either you're with us or you're against us. Yeah, I think I've mentioned this a few times, but my maybe I haven't. But my, my sort of, if I was to describe what the US is, like, for example, it's just taking example, it's us, everything has to be your use is about a team. He's like, choose your team, or pick your side. And, and once you've picked your side, you demo state your side, you fight for your side, even if your sides wrong, even if you lead as a wrong, even if the even if the host narrative has changed, even if the situation has changed. And you still get the policies, even if their policies aren't in your own interests. Right. Even. Yeah, I mean, it's like, it's there to pick you to pick your sports team, back your sports team, pick your political team, back your political team, pick your whatever team it is, pick your race team, pick your your side for whatever the thing is, and fight for that. Even if, even if it's even if the world has changed. And and I find that that pick your side sort of mentality. Because actually the power, if you think about it, the power is in the swinging voter. The power isn't one that has the willingness to change their mind, if these guys are just gonna hold their vote the whole time, the power is in that little bit in the middle to change where that where the vote goes. So if you want more power, well, it's still sort of, say 5050. Right. And so the big, the biggest thing that we need to see is some significant shifts where, you know, it's stopped spinning, because no country is sitting in the 5050, which, which would which this transition is now happening with the boomers getting older and dying off. Sorry, boomers, I'm not being nasty, and the Gen Zed and millennials sort of taking up taking in their power, their voting power, so that that's starting to change so that 2024 elections in the US could be I'm expecting him to be absolutely fascinating. What what's happening, they're trying to stop college educated kids, college kids from voting, they're making, you know, voter registration, you know, they've always sort of gone after the black communities and the Latino communities and made it hard for them or impossible for them to vote. The Republicans, because they're the ones that are sort of segmenting the, you know, the towns and how they vote. But the problem is that the kids, the kids are growing up and can vote now and doing that. God's gonna be going back to the other thing, and very briefly, I mentioned that that one was the word curation. And there is, so the gutter politics that I talked about with the witticisms of Lincoln and, and Churchill, and those sorts of things coming now to, to basically, you know, pig fighting and in excrement, pretty much it seems to be what's happening now, is, is about partly, I think it's about the, the opening up of media to the point where we can do this. I mean, we've basically got a TV show, which was effectively impossible for the common person to be able to do now that everybody's got a voice. It's all blurry. So the the opportunity here is in curation. I mean, this show is about trying to curate news from different angles so that you can make an opinion. And of course, there are three, three of us here. And there will be biases to a degree, but we'll do our best to try and say, well, here's, here's a balanced view. And here's some things to consider. Especially if the narrative out there is nonsense. So it's like there was a great opportunity for you for you to select. to curate Joe's talking about curating your own bubble is what seems to be happening out there from algorithms and everything else. But it's about being deliberate and going out there and finding sources that are that seem to be responsible curation curators of the information that's out there. And I think that's where the news organisations really slipped up over the last two decades, where they went down to gutter because gutter was profitable. And they were reeling from the fact that they had a monopoly in newspapers and television, and now they had nothing because the internet was was free. Right. And so so then they needed to get everybody back and said, You, Fox News's going nuts and stuff like that. Whereas, so now there's an opportunity. And now they're playing trust wars, and you're seeing a lot of their slogans about who can you trust. And Trump actually was good for that, because he really was just calling particularly he fake news came out from that, from from, he's saying, That's fake. That's fake news. And that gave us a sense of, Wow, this fake news. And then it may have actually increased the responsibility of some areas to go, we need to make sure that we're not branded as that. Because this is about trust. And we saw that coming. So that media effort when the especially when the Ukrainian wolf started, the amount of verification that the media was putting in and working also with independent people who are out there, verifying the data as well. That was interesting, but we should wrap up because, but but but you know, the central the central message. Here, he's gotta go. So we better wrap up, he's got stuff to do. And by the way, you're gonna have to come and join us on the no show when Mike said, let us know if you can, but the world that when we're moving into the future that we're facing. So it's like, to me, it's like when I see all the rubbish in nature, to the revolting politics, in the media, to the Rabbids people with the crazy opinions, all of it right? To me, it's all part of the sickness of the Earth that we have built together. And if we want to, if we want to cure the sickness, I think we need to start to expect different things. And we need the adults back in the room. But anyway, what's keeping you guys distracted? Not that. Well, I think it was recommended shouldn't the game from this show beef was one of you said that the show beef was good to watch. Anyway, it's Ali Ali Wong. And I think Stephen Chow. And it looks like a commercial Korean script by Korean person that's been developed by eight money for the same people who did everything everywhere all at once, I think, to the person who recommended it to you. I think so this is it. I think that's the way that this is why I find it. I find it funny, as I'm saying this, but I think I'm one. That's what I'm watching right now. And I'm pretty good. What else I've been doing. Up here, it's pretty good. Not too bad. I mean, it's one of those strange things to watch a show that's produced in the US where you will be struggling to find a white person on screen. But it's, it's interesting, if you listen to the show, you would you would hear an American show, you will see what here I think what you hear is probably a mostly white show. But when you watch it, you go like, Oh, it's everyone, everyone's Asian. So it's kind of a few token white people here and there. But again, in the I guess the brand that they created for themselves with everything everywhere, and all at once. It's a very interesting study of the human condition. Very, you usually in stories, you have protagonists and this one, you have multi protagonist and villains that and it's not always the same person every time who remains in the same role. So it's quite an interesting one. It's called, it's called beef. So this way, it is everything everywhere all at once is kind of pointless. Pointless. No, no, no, no, no spoilers. But there's, there's a little there's a little sense of that. It's not it's not it's not my theme show, but it is the same sort of like anything can happen. And you don't always know what everything else is about. So have a look, Tim? Oh, maybe it's a well, I mean, assignment, assignment overload at the moment. So next week, I've got a present and a paper on Ecclesiastes, which I just find meaningless. Is that the Thank you, the but but it's, it's it should be. It should be good. It should be fun. So I got a lot of reading that's keeping me occupied. I, I long for like, I sort of look over and watch people watching Netflix series and hear about these things. And, and I just would, you know, I'd love to, I'd love to love to be able to do that. But not right now. So I've got to get these things out. So I just submitted a paper on on Isaiah, Isaiah nine, which was really a fantastic learning experience, because I'd always read it as one thing. And during this paper, it's just okay. It's doesn't mean what I thought it meant. And that's, that's it, because it's kind of like what we've been talking about with regards to media and news and everything else is that we get this, this this narrative coming. That isn't actually what the text is saying in the context that it's presented. So yeah, yes. Every two weeks, every two weeks, it'd be funny to see someone talk about the book of Job saying fake news, fake news. Right? So good job today. My recommendation is probably one that you're not in the frame of mind to watch at the moment, Tim, because of what you're doing what you're studying. And it's called sexify. And it just, it just popped up on Netflix recently, and I was looking for a distraction, because I was having a particularly crappy week dealing with. I'm trying not to get stuck in the doom loop of the climate crisis that we're in, it's very difficult not to be stuck in it. Because when you read as much as I do, there's some pretty serious things going on anyway, so I'm always looking for something out there. And it's sexify. And it turns out, it's a Polish drama, and it's about three young women who have come together to design an app, that heightens a woman's orgasm pleasure. And the scientist has never had sex never had any experience. One of the girls is having sexual experience, but not experiencing much in the process. And the other one's a little bit more experienced. So for me, it's like, I've got the great privilege of having a lot of Eastern European and Central European friends, especially female friends in my life, and they're, they're always extraordinary women, and they're completely different to women around the world, they've got a strength about them, and they've got a sexual power about them that I've always really admired. So, to me, it's kind of like a, like, if I think of what's going on in America, how they're not even allowing girls below the age of 12 to learn about the menstrual cycle, when so many girls get their get get their period at the age of nine. It's just like stupid stuff. So this is like a it's almost like a, they need to show that in America, you know, because that's to me, it's like that liberal liberation of female sexuality. That's, it's, it's an important thing. So go and check out sexify it's been out there. It's a bit weird. Some of the sex scenes are pretty funny. You watch it in English dubbed form, or do you like to read the subtitle? No, no, I do watch it in English, which is kind of funny, because of course, they've speaking a different language, but the music's good. Vietnam, it's cool. It's just just another point of view. You know, not all women are the same. Not all men are the same. Not all cultures are the same. Anyway, all right. So URI, we got somebody else here or something, we might be a few more people who can't see your name on Facebook, but we're gonna get you on the show. And I'll say his name correctly when we do. But thanks for joining us. We did the no shows every second week, this time on a Friday and on the other week, so I try and do a climate coverage, which is another group of people. That's that's that's intense, by the way doing that. But yeah, so I'm just making a like, a party show. So that, like nonsens show, do the Nonsan show as well. That way you balance all the gloom. Every every time. This is the dogs show. Every time. Yeah, well, there is. There is five Sorry. All right. Have a good weekend, everybody. It's been great to go to see you. Thanks for joining us. See ya too raw.