Southeast Asia, the Indian sub-continent, and parts of Africa are sitting in the eye of an extreme heatwave, seeing temperatures five to 10 degrees Celsius above normal, and it’s predicted to last until June. That means no relief is on the horizon for the millions of people being impacted, and reports of deaths from heat stroke are growing by the day.
It is challenging for the wealthy countries in the North to comprehend how devastating this heatwave is, with most of the population living without air-conditioning and failing electricity grids. How did we get here? Why didn’t we prepare? Why are governments across the world ignoring the evidence before our eyes? And how can we make the Global South more resilient to these climate impacts? Because if we don’t address this, we will see mass migration and that will be disastrous for our fragile planet, on multiple levels.
To help us discuss this and the news going on around the world, we are delighted to welcome Neil Mann, founder of Future Horizon and he is a futurist, advisor, CTO, consultant, and trainer. Neil helps clients uncover what's next on the digital frontier for business, delivering strategic foresight on emerging technologies. As his business tagline suggests: Think bold. Think broad. Think beyond.
The Know Show is a Livestream held every fortnight on Friday, where Andrea T Edwards, Tim Wade 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 planetary crisis, topical moments in the world, global politics and war, business and technology, social issues, and passion/humour/history. Join us.
#TheKnowShow #UncommonCourage
To get in touch with me, all of my contact details are here https://linktr.ee/andreatedwards
My book Uncommon Courage, an invitation, is here https://mybook.to/UncommonCourage
My book 18 Steps to an All-Star LinkedIn Profile, is here https://mybook.to/18stepstoanallstar
Southeast Asia, the Indian sub-continent, and parts of Africa are sitting in the eye of an extreme heatwave, seeing temperatures five to 10 degrees Celsius above normal, and it’s predicted to last until June. That means no relief is on the horizon for the millions of people being impacted, and reports of deaths from heat stroke are growing by the day.
It is challenging for the wealthy countries in the North to comprehend how devastating this heatwave is, with most of the population living without air-conditioning and failing electricity grids. How did we get here? Why didn’t we prepare? Why are governments across the world ignoring the evidence before our eyes? And how can we make the Global South more resilient to these climate impacts? Because if we don’t address this, we will see mass migration and that will be disastrous for our fragile planet, on multiple levels.
To help us discuss this and the news going on around the world, we are delighted to welcome Neil Mann, founder of Future Horizon and he is a futurist, advisor, CTO, consultant, and trainer. Neil helps clients uncover what's next on the digital frontier for business, delivering strategic foresight on emerging technologies. As his business tagline suggests: Think bold. Think broad. Think beyond.
The Know Show is a Livestream held every fortnight on Friday, where Andrea T Edwards, Tim Wade 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 planetary crisis, topical moments in the world, global politics and war, business and technology, social issues, and passion/humour/history. Join us.
#TheKnowShow #UncommonCourage
To get in touch with me, all of my contact details are here https://linktr.ee/andreatedwards
My book Uncommon Courage, an invitation, is here https://mybook.to/UncommonCourage
My book 18 Steps to an All-Star LinkedIn Profile, is here https://mybook.to/18stepstoanallstar
It'll come. Welcome to the No Show. My name's Andrea Edwards. I'm Tim Wade. And my name is Joe Augustin. This is the show that tries to flip the news around over and over again to see what's really there and, hopefully give you a perspective on, on things that, maybe you didn't arrive with as well. We also like to bring in new perspectives of the show. So our guest today on the show is a seasoned digital strategist. He is with over 2 decades of leadership experience who bridges the gap between business and technology, applying a business first lens to strategically invest in future forward technologies. He's adept in deliver at delivering business change by thinking differently, connecting the dots, and creating, outcomes. And he's a strategic thinker, big picture strategies bringing clarity with a natural instinct for what is to come, which is great because he's a futurist. Also, he has been a global senior leader at, leading companies like Gartner, Morgan Stanley, and K and E. His passion also extends to startups where he's been an early stage angel investor in over 20 disruption companies. Everyone, this is Neil Mann. Thank you very much. That that's, thank you. That's, very much appreciated, and, I hope I can do that massive intro justice. Let's see how we go. I, I missed the garden a bit. I used to run analyst relations program, so we probably crossed paths at some point. But before we go on, I think you need to tell everyone about your swim around Singapore. So I I was, you know, looking to basically swim more this year, and I thought, you know, it's just one of those sort of nebulous things you just say, oh, you know, I I would like to. Wouldn't that be nice? But I need to have a bit of a target. And so I thought, you know, how do I sort of find a catalyst for myself that's gonna keep me going on a on a regular basis? And I've got friends who do that crazy thing about cycling around Singapore. I prefer to do that but with an engine, actually in in the cycle. And so I thought, well, look, you know, it's about a 120 k to to to, cycle around the biolchamps. And I thought, what it what it is to swim? So it's about 150 k is sort of, you know, roughly what I think it is, and I'm basically just cracking on at that on a on a weekly basis. So I'm swimming 2 or 3 times a week doing sort of a kilometer, kilometer and a half at a time and just sort of, you know, chipping away at my at my goals. So, you know, obviously, if I do 3 times a week at a k, that's 3 k a week, 52 weeks, I should make it. So at this stage, I am about 60 k in, so I'm I'm sort of a couple of weeks ahead of schedule. So, fingers crossed, I I stay afloat literally and and figuratively, and I managed to achieve the goal. Oh, good on you. Have you gone through the ship the shipping areas yet? Not not quite yet, thankfully. So, we'll we'll see that, hopefully, calm waters ahead. Yeah. Wow. So when you when you look at your professional career and what you're doing with your business now, do you wanna do you wanna just share a little bit more about that so people have got an idea of your current focus? Yeah. Look. Happy to. So, you know, as was sort of said in the intro, I I am a sort of technology futurist, but I particularly deliver what's called strategic foresight. So what does that mean? So, actually, my first great love was actually history. And so we sort of you know, I begin to sort of look backwards in terms of, well, well, what happened and why did that happen? So, for example, you know, why did Microsoft sort of miss the the iPhone moment? You know, why did Netflix do well but Blockbuster didn't? Those sorts of things. And then if we apply that to companies today who are thinking about how do they make the best decisions today in order for what's going to happen tomorrow and and and and in the future. So strategic foresight is really all about getting sort of independent objective and impartial views in terms of what are some of the vectors, what are some of the signals, what are some of the trends that we can already detect. And then we apply that to the future, and we say, well, look, you know, if everything's gonna be great, what would that look like in, let's say, 5 or 10 years plus? How might we get there? Wonderful. Obviously, the opposite end of the spectrum is then when things maybe aren't going so well and, you know, if there's gonna be a disruption in your industry or something like that, what might that look like? And how can we potentially make decisions today and tomorrow and in the future to actually then, you know, hopefully avoid those things. And really, you know, my sort of superpower, I'm a technologist by background, and I'm really passionate about technology, but not just for the sake of it. Right? So it's not just about the flashy lights and the zeros and the ones in the marketing and sales jazz ads. What can we do with it? That, for me, is the really interesting part of it, and I sort of bridge that gap between business and technology. So I typically work with CEOs, boards, senior business people because they love the technology, but they don't necessarily understand it because techies love to speak tech, And I sort of bridge that gap in between. So whether that is, you know, doing doing talks, whether that's doing workshops, training courses, mentoring, a whole lot of thing, all about what's gonna happen in the future. Because as I always say, the future isn't something that just happens to us. This future is something that we do. Yeah. Nice. So if it's alright, if we could just focus on this for a bit. So we've been talking about AI in shows before, and you're gonna give us a couple of really positive use cases for AI today. Are there the leaders of business looking at AI within the context of the climate emergency, are you sort of feeling that? Because, you know, the the energy consumption is so massive. And are you having those conversations yet? I I am. Yeah. And and, look, I think, obviously, ESG is is on the table for everybody, and that's a positive thing. And one of the dichotomies at the moment is exactly that, that everybody wants to do something with AI. Most people don't actually know what they want to do. You know, senior business leaders are just saying, you know, we must do something. So it's a bit of a hammer looking for a nail. But it's about how do you balance that between that sort of appetite and that optimism for AI in terms of then, you know, your your social responsibility, and the environmental impact as well. So, you know, there's there's huge demands for these things, but, also, we need to think about the long game in a multitude of ways. And I think at this point, we we haven't fully formed that yet. Everybody just wants to do something. You know, everything is AI at the moment. Right? It's almost if you if you're a business leader and your marketing release, or or your interview and you don't say AI, it's almost like you need to put something into a square jar. And some of the stuff I've seen with AI at the moment is is frankly ridiculous. My two favorites in terms of ridiculousness, one has been an electric toothbrush that apparently uses AI, and the other one is an automated cat toilet. Now I don't think that obviously they were not by the manufacturer because that would be crazy. But, you know, as an example, just everything at the moment is AI. And when I go and I speak to companies, and then I actually, you know, especially when an NDA has been signed, and then when you sort of, you know, begin to open the hood and have a rummage around to see what they've got, there's not always a great deal there. Interesting. Yeah. Well, I I was reading I can't remember. It was a Deloitte, report saying that basically all of the technology industry that's been suffering with layoffs in the last 12 months, that there looks like there could be a jobs boom in the next 12 months because of AI and all of the infrastructure and technology and know how that's needed. So, yeah, it's certainly an interesting space, but yeah. Indeed. We got a chance to talk to someone who's at the heart of it, Joe. I've gotta go I've gotta take it. Okay. Okay. Well, I'm I'm I'm actually in the midst of trying to convince my 2 daughters who are of the age to to look at their next steps at universities to take a year off just to learn how to be great, prompters so that they can they can use AI. Great prompters. Like, there's a career path. We're gonna we're gonna move from YouTube stars to great prompters. Well, the the great the great idea is, in a business, imagine if you could come to a job and carry 10 people with you. You know, that's that's how that's how a good AI prompt, prompt engineer, basically, you know, how how they can add value. Shall we shall we get to the format of the show? We we are gonna go through a a a quick set of takes on, what's been happening in the world so you're kind of up to date, and then we'll get to the theme today, which, I I I I'm I'm I must apologize for my rather gloomy post on LinkedIn, which sounded like end of the world. But, you know, it's it's it's not far from what's possible. So the the the theme today is about the heat, the heat and the damned heat. Yeah. And those, implement also in implications that we're not perhaps, thinking about. But, let's get to the the news. Andrew, you're up next. Alright. So, we've all been seeing the devastating coverage of the and the human impact from the floods in Zimbabwe and Tanzania. And now in Zimbabwe, basically anyone at risk of flooding, so anyone near waterways, which are typically the slums, are being evacuated and the army's the military's coming in to do that. But there's also a lot of other dramatic flooding going on. So Saudi Arabia got hammered this week. China has seen some of the biggest floods they've ever seen. And, of course, I think it was yesterday or the day before the south of Brazil, started to see a flooding event, which looks like it could be the worst climate impact event that region of Brazil has ever seen. And then I was just checking YouTube and, Dubai is being hammered again with floods. So, you know, and and the implications of Dubai being impacted on global business travel, like, the impacts are so huge. It's not just the place that's being impacted, but all the other ramifications. So a lot of big flooding events going on as well as heat. Yeah. Joe? From hot news to some cool news, I guess. In the 19 eighties, miners digging for diamonds in Botswana found what was at the time a disappointing discovery. A greenish octahedral shaped green oh, sorry. A a greenish octahedral shaped diamond that was unfortunately marred by a little black speck or 2 trapped inside. But now using x-ray analysis and mass spectrum spectroscopy, geologists and physicists have confirmed that those imperfections are actually bits of mineral from the Earth's lower mantle. This is a real big geek moment, folks. The substance, has never been identified in a natural sample before because it can't exist without the pressure of a diamond holding its molecules together. If you wanna find out more, it it's pretty cool to discover what happens when you break open a diamond with the stuff inside. It kinda disappears, but, I'll I'll leave it to you to find out exactly how. Wonder how much that diamond's worth now. It went down and broke it back up again. Well, if the thing disappeared, sure. But if it's still in there and they've discovered that it's the thing from the thing that Jules Verne was trying to find, then, that's pretty amazing. Alright. Anyway, we're gonna talk about heat later, but the US is now gearing up to what it expects to be the hottest summer of their lives. High temperatures across the US have the potential to increase risks for drought, wildfires, and hurricanes. I suppose heat stroke should be included in these risks as well. This was from an article titled, it could be a a another very hot summer. Here's what that means, and that's on Vox, if you wanna go check that one out. Okay. So interesting article in Newsweek. So designer and content creator, Jory Waskahat, who's an indigenous man from Alberta over in Canada, he decided to test his DNA. Now surprisingly, his genetic profile showed an astonishing amount of Neanderthal DNA, which actually showed 98% more Neanderthal DNA than the average person. Now this, thankfully, was still slightly less than 2% overall in terms of this Neanderthal DNA. So, you know, let's not get too excited, but this was a story that went viral and as I'm a big hairy bear, I might have to go and do mine myself just to make sure. I can tell you that, Neil. Careful about the data you give away. If you love your chocolate, it's gonna get more expensive, and it's also going to become rarer. So, Guittard Chocolate Company c CEO Gary Guittard explains why climate change and disease have made sourcing cocoa more challenging. And this is a 150 year old chocolate, company, and they're bracing for a dramatic rise in cocoa prices. So, yeah, stock up on your chocolate if that's something that you enjoy in your life. That's the one thing I love about this show, all the good news you bring to the world. There's an article from John Timmer, at Ars Technica that talks about the scientific consensus that has gotten a really bad reputation and how it doesn't deserve it. John's saying it's probably time to step back and examine the importance of consensus and why it's a central part of the scientific process. It plays a critical role in the day to day functioning of science and by directing research to the areas where there are outstanding questions, a consensus actually makes it more likely that we'll be generating data that's directly con interesting. So it's not quite the scientific echo chambers that some people like to say, a scientific consensus is. Alright. Is Joe go Joe stalling? Yeah. That's what I heard. I heard him going a bit funny. He, like, went into the matrix. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Oh, I don't know why that happened either. To my back? Yeah. Yeah. Your back. Bubbles all of a sudden. Yeah. I think you were saying, that the data was, might take a little bit longer to get recognized for what it is, but, the data will I'll I'll do it again because it's important. So basically, what they're talking about is how scientific consensus actually directs study so that the data that actually will contradict the the the consensus is more likely to be discovered. So it's, it's not quite like an echo chamber the the way, you know, regular echo chambers work. When scientists agree on something, there's a lot more study, there's a lot more data, and we find out more about, what's really happening. Alrighty. Well, let's have a look at wildlife in Singapore. And there's a rather nice, wildlife story here. A critically endangered monkey, called the Raffles langur, don't know why his mother called him that, has been spotted on a Singapore eco bridge suggesting species could be expanding their habitat, which is really great news as well. So, perhaps not yeah. Perhaps, I guess, the wildlife in Singapore is growing. Certainly, a lot more chickens running around our place, recently and roosters, which is rather nice, but now the monkeys are making a move. And the otters. Right? And the otters are everywhere. They seem to be coming up on social media at Rich and Edinburgh stuff too. Nice. So yeah. I remember when they first arrived, it was beautiful. Okay. So continuing on the animalistic theme, and now down south to Antarctica. Now in RNZ news, it appears that seal pups and penguin chicks are being exposed to more ultraviolet rays in Antarctica than expected. Now this is because while the ozone hole has shrunk, yay, it's actually staying open longer into December. And, obviously, so these, these nippers, these young ones are actually very vulnerable to UV rays. So, yeah, less positive, unfortunately, that particular one, but, you know, we wish them well. The penguins are gonna be black, white, and orange from now on. Yeah. The poor things. They've had massive, massive die offs in penguins, emperor penguins, then that's the sea of shelf break breaking up. So there was a viral moment this week as a group of young people were filmed emptying 2 rubbish bins into the ocean, and it was just off the coast of Boca Raton, which is just off Florida. And it was leaving a local event called the Boca Bash, which which sounds like a whole bunch of boats come together and party somewhere. Anyway, these young ones were drinking, and then they decided they're about a mile and a half off offshore. Yep. And they emptied 2 garbage pans bins that were full of their bottles, cans, and waste, and they just dumped it into the ocean. So, anyway, it went viral. Blistering attacks on social media about their irresponsibility. But to me, it sorta speaks to that larger sort of disrespect towards nature that we're seeing. Anyway, let's hope, the law is on the side of, doing something serious about it. Mhmm. Alright. It's also a question of what you do when you don't think someone's watching. Okay. So let's let's dig into some of the the the biggest stories you probably heard something about. So the US protest, the US student protest, and then all that talk about what it means, especially with regards to what the universities have to do about their relationship with Israel. Biden has, said that order must prevail after the UCLA Gaza protests were clear. The cap was cleared. And some universities have also, begun to, I guess, capitulate in terms of at least reviewing their policies in terms of how they engage with Israel. So Brown University has agreed to hold, a divestment vote, after pressure from the student protesters. It's quite likely it'll head, in the direction of divestments, but, it's it's, I mean, it's an indication of the of the protest making making some headway. But at the same time, also, what they've also found is that these protests, as as much as as much as people have said it, now the proof is in. People have been saying that these protests have been infiltrated by external parties, which is, you know, just firing up the the protest and not really being about students, expressing themselves. And in at least one of these, protests that was broken up where they did sort them out in terms of who had student IDs and who didn't, It was something like only 5% of them that were actually students. The rest of them were outsiders who were using the occasion to to to make a point. Now the divestment thing? Well, it's because a lot of university well, universities make a lot of their money through investments with all kinds of companies. So, you know, I mean, the the so divesting is is is is part of it will be just the investments, and the other part of it will be in terms of their relationships as well. So the the students are protesting, the relationship, commercial or otherwise, the universities have, with Israel. But it's it's a it's a it's a pretty interesting thing. I mean, the the the the what's been tested, is the right to protest. People are saying that, you know, this this goes against that. But there's a difference. I mean, I think I think, the right to protest is one thing. The right to set up camp on someone else's property is a separate thing. I mean, it's it's a different kind of thing. So the the idea would be if you really, really want to exercise your right to protest, then what you do is you gather together, you protest, and then you leave, and then you come back again. I mean, that's kind of, the the flip side of it. It's a flippant way of looking at that. What I I think about this is the if you surveyed the people who are involved with the protest in terms of their knowledge of the the big picture, my my bet would be a lot of them don't know the whole story. A lot of them are very convinced about their side of the story, and therefore they're moved to do the things they do. You can see a lot of emotions running very high. Students are doing it. And, you know, there's a second thing that happens as well when people gather. Right? People forget what they're actually there for. You just realize that now you're in this team. And then the police team comes in. And there's been a bit of more than just tension. I mean, it's it the tension erupts into little moments, especially when when someone is, hauled away. You can't really tell the details about exactly why they were taken away, but, it's not a good look. So, yeah, people looking on as people try to figure it out. People have drawn the parallels between this and Vietnam. You know, I think I think that there there's some parallels in terms of having a difference in opinion. And I'm not sure if if it would be fair to say at all as well that that that those who are protesting the Vietnam War also knew all the details. So, you know, I I I can't really judge that and say that, you know, having having full knowledge of everything is, is a pre a prerequisite just to to kind of express or or demonstrate what you feel. But at the same time, it'd be nicer if people who actually nicer for me intellectually anyway. That, if if you're here for something, you actually can kind of describe it in detail to me and you kinda know the other side as well and you go like, after all that, I'm coming down on this side. Yeah. The protesters, the protests are growing around the world, universities across the world, so this is not gonna stop. And in some ways, the way it's being handled is just gonna make the situation worse. You know, when you said to see a 50 something year old female professor being tackled to the ground and her face face smashed into the into the path, you know, you kind of like the the aggression there was, plastic bullets fired last night, I think, at UCLA. Yes. There is the story of those, non students being part of it, but some of that's been discredited as well, Joe. So that's, that's an interesting sort of perspective in the mix. But I, yeah, I, I just say it is classic. It's not being handled well and it's gonna make it worse rather than calming everyone down. I think Brown University coming out and saying, well, at least talk talk about it and make a vote. You know, when Russia invaded Ukraine, everyone immediately went, okay. We're gonna take the money out and the businesses out, and, they're basically saying we want the same thing. Israel is the aggressor here. So yeah. And, well, there's lots and lots and lots and lots of different perspectives. I was just reading a report in NPR that, they had a 2 day, 2 days of temperatures over a 100 degrees in Rafa, which is the area, obviously, Israel wants to go into next. And, you know, then the then it went back to the seventies in a in a in a month. Those sort of temperatures are gonna be permanent, And, Rafa's the hottest part of Israel of Palestine. So, you know, if people survive this far, the heat could potentially take them out in the next month or so. And the aid groups aren't ready for it because they weren't expecting it to last this long. So I don't know. We've got, this has to stop. It has to stop. You know? And we have to protect the people that are there from from things beyond the war. So, I'm I'm absolutely behind the protesters. Yeah. I I I think Or needs to talk. We're on we're we're we're we're on the same page in terms of where we want it to end. I I think the question is how it ends and that's the that's really the the the challenge that that's being faced. I mean, you know, you know, I I don't think they're they're I I've heard some research about even in Israel in terms of what they would like to have as well. And it depends which survey you listen to. There's one survey that's that it claims that 80% of Israelis want to have a 2 state solution because that's the that's the the way, towards, some sort of peace. And that might be well the case, but at the same time, you have an aggressor on the other side who who's kinda said that we don't care about that. That's not what we're looking for and that's not peace for us. Yeah. Yeah. Not simple. Neil, you got any thoughts? Yeah. Look. It's it's certainly not not a not a not a simple simple situation. There isn't a simple solution to said situation. I think what's sort of interesting, and, Joe, you sort of touched upon it, we are sort of seeing more and more of a bifurcation of points of view. Right? Everything's kind of polarized. And I think what I hear from a lot of people is they speak about them, and they don't necessarily who know who they are. They just know that they're not us. Right? So, again, it's it's just sort of completely, completely polarized. I think that the Vietnam elements are are sort of quite interesting because, actually, the dates were the same. So I was reading in The Economist. So, actually, 1968, this was, like, you know, the last time this sort of blew up around kind of Colombia and stuff like that. It was sort of, you know, on the on the 30th April or something like that. So I think that was that was quite quite poignant about it. But, yeah, look, it's, that there's there's an awful lot of of sort of the dysfunction out there. I think there's a there's a lack of debate. There's a lack of actual sort of conversation. And, you know, I think with with sort of social media and things like that, we tend to sort of feed ourselves more of what we like. Right? And so therefore, that becomes positive reinforcement, but then it also means you're gonna have an entrenched position. And I think just we we struggle, and especially with, you know, sort of fake news and, you know, where we get into sort of my world in terms of AI generated deep fakes and things like that. Look. If we can't even agree on what the base facts are, then we're definitely not gonna be able to to to either agree or understand what somebody's perspective is. Right? And the whole point of having great communication is, you know, you and I don't necessarily have to agree. But if I understand where you're coming from, if I sort of understand how you got to that position, then then that's sort of healthy and actually should deepen my sort of understanding. But, again, if we can't agree on the facts, then it's it's tough. I I don't have a, I don't have a bag of magic sprinkles with me, I'm afraid, but, working on it. There was one one one, interesting aspect of the story. The the MAGA protesters and the, anti war protesters were protesting together. Isn't that funny? Yay. Do you wanna do you wanna move on, or do you wanna say something, Tim? Nope. I got nothing. Alright. So we're gonna so, like, it gets harder and harder to sort of work out what's the best news to include because there's obviously so much going on. We've got a we've got a hard right tidal wave coming over Europe, which if it doesn't scare the life out of you, it should. And obviously, we got the wars in Palestine and in Ukraine, all the way down to Antarctica where scientists are actually saying they don't know if the ice will ever come back. So there's a lot of really big stuff. But, I think the last no show we were talking about, the coral reefs. It had just been announced that, you know, like, the basically, the entire global reef system had been, has been impacted by heat waves. So some headlines that really, yeah, really caught my attention in the last week, increasingly frequent ocean heat waves trigger mass die offs of sea life and grief in marine scientists. That's in Inside Climate News. Had the were have the world's coral reefs already crossed a tipping point that's in Greece, and I I I believe so, as I said, the on the last show. And Great Barrier Reefs, and as Australian, this sort of hits home. Worst bleaching leaves giant coral graveyard. It looks as if it has been carpet bombed, and that's in the Guardian. And the the the scientist that was interviewed in that is in his seventies. He's basically been on the reef his whole life. So ocean temperatures have been at record highs for more than a year now, and heat waves have extended across 30% of the world's oceans. And this is the equivalent of the land surface area of North America, Asia, Europe, and Africa. So it's a massive amount of the ocean. And we're seeing the the ocean temps spiking at all times highs, which is enough to trigger, numerous die offs of marine species. So it's killing millions of corals, fish, mammals, birds, and plants. And some of these die offs are so huge whether or not the the life can come back from that, is in doubt now. So obviously, for the people who've been studying this their entire lives, it's just setting off this trauma in the community because, you know, this is their life work and it's being destroyed before their eyes. So I can't even imagine the grief that they're feeling, you know, because they basically spent their entire lives protecting these beautiful assets like the Great Barrier Reef. It's so enormous. It's so beautiful, and it's so alive, and they're watching this die off. So, basically, what what's happening is scientists are now leaving the field. So there's a lady called Jennifer Lavers, and she basically has been, tracking the birds, the seabirds who are starving to death during the recent ocean heat waves in Western Australia. We saw the incredible heat that Western Australia has gone through. But it's not just heat that's killing them. They've also got stomachs full of plastic. So there's 2 things there, and she's saying inter incredibly skilled, talented, qualified, very fashion passionate people are leaving because no matter what they say, what they do, how many papers they publish, it doesn't matter. So the Great Barrier Reef has experienced the highest levels of thermal stress on record, and it's seen extensive and uniform bleaching across the southern reefs, which dodged the worst of the previous four mass bleaching events on Great Barrier Reef since 2016. So new areas are being, bleached. And aerial so, surveys show that the most widespread event and severe bleaching event to date, not just in the south, but across much of the entire system. And if you don't know, the great barrier reef is 2,300 kilometers up the Queensland coast. So if you know anyone that works in climate science, give them a hug. Ask permission first. Ask permission first. Yeah. Obviously. Yeah. Yeah. It's sad. Right? Man. I tell you what, as as you're reading that, I just thought, well, that there you go. That's the that's the origin story of the new villain, in the next James Bond film. Right? MB, marine biologist. Basically, just, you know, you you you killed everything that made made life important for me, and now I'm gonna kill you. Yeah. Is that the story? You're suggesting that's the story? No. No. No. I'm suggesting it. It's just, yeah. It's I I think I think in and amongst the many things that happened on the on the in the James Bond series, I I I think we've had the environmental, terrorist already. Yeah. Yeah. Well, how does it how does it make you guys feel emotionally? Like, it because when you understand what this means, like, it's You know? It's not just human impact. It's so much bigger than that. So I was reading today, as part of one of my papers about Reinhold Niebuhr and the Niebuhr brothers, and they were dealing with ethical ethical ways of confronting power in the decision making and running of countries. And they were doing it from a Christian perspective where the thinking of the time was just love everyone, and they'll come good. And then, you know, Japan attacked China, in 1931, and they were sort of going, okay. We should respond to this. How are we gonna respond to this? And they were really debating about how they respond. Do they publish more papers? Do they they sit and sort of understand that it'll all work out in the end and some disasters have to happen, or do they confront, through either coercion or violence, those in power to to take action, and what sort of action would they take, whether that was internal action or external action. And when I'm hearing this from the scientists about no matter how much I publish, no matter how much I care, no matter how much I I try and communicate this message, it doesn't seem to matter, and I'm not gonna give, you know, I'm not gonna give my life to for nothing or so I I I really do feel for them because it is there's a there's a moment. You know, some of the stories that we're we're gonna be talking about are people are going are coming to see the economic ramifications of the climate. And that's where the change will happen because those people in power, that's their only metric. And when it comes down to the economic side rather than the moral side or the feelings for the marine biologists or a bleaching of a coral reef, When it comes down to the economics, if they can if they can start speaking the language of the buyer, If the language if the buyer is the policymaker, we need to be speaking their language, not our language. And I think part of the challenge is from a scientific community and from from the from our community who are going out there trying to say, look. You know, we gotta do something. We're not really speaking the language of the the buyer, which is, how is this gonna financially impact you and get you voted out of office if this doesn't happen? Or how how is this gonna impact GDP in such a global level, that it's gonna it's gonna affect our our country and therefore, you know, your responsibilities and everything else. And it it just feels like we're not speaking the right language, and almost. And it's interesting that we're talking about protests as well. You know? So I'm reading, like I said, and Reinhold because his brother Richard had a different philosophy. And, and they yeah. I just find it I find that that we're in a we we've got the same problems. It's just with a different dress on and and the same issues that they had back in the thirties and the twenties when they were talking about it. And we're we seem to be stuck in this rhythm of, hopefully, they'll do the right thing. And no matter how much evidence comes in, it's a conflict of agenda and, and a a conflict of interest in a sense. They should be recusing themselves of making the decision because of this conflict, yet they're the ones in the decision making seat. So I I I'm frustrated, I guess, is what I'm it would be the short answer to your question, Andrea, because I, you know, one of the reasons why I shifted away from the industry that I was in to where I'm heading now is is it feels to me kinda similar in in so far as no matter what I was trying to do, it didn't feel like it was making the difference that I think where I'm moving to can have an impact of, you know in a sense, what I've done is I've gone from don't, you know, hurt people with these things to okay. Well, I'm gonna move over to treating people because they're gonna get hurt. And, you know, and I'm talking moral, emotional, spiritual stuff rather than actual hurting people, but still hurting people. So I feel for these scientists because it must be it must be like painting your masterpiece and then having somebody just burn it. Yeah. I I see, a kind of different perspective on this one in terms of what people tend to draw up as the meaning of their of their work or their life and what what what they're supposed to be doing. Right? I mean, and I and I and I come across this all the time because I'm I I deal with academics and for them, the goal was to get the information, to get the in the the the truth out. It's published. It's out. It's real. And then I I I think the the the the kind of there's a kind of false glamour that that that people paint for themselves in in in I I and I and I I'm speaking about this in a way which is about it's about myself in terms of how I do things. I try to do things that are incredible, that are that are interesting because at some level, I wanna be recognized for it. Right? And then what I realized is that the work of getting this out is actually not the research. It's not the finding out. It's not the it's not all that other stuff. It's the next step, which a lot of people don't want to do. So they they draw the lines of they draw the lines of achievement around the scientific work. The next step actually is communication. It's actually about getting it out. They're getting it to the right people. If you think about some of the stories that we have, some of the changes that have happened, like like, famously, like, you know, paper straws. Look. It it's it's the the whole plastic straws thing has been going on for years. And then the video comes out, of the straws. I I think it's in the nostrils of the of the of the turtle, and then it goes international. And before long, I you can actually you can actually draw the lines back to that's when that's when it happened. And even even now that it's been discredited in some way, the the work's been done. It's it's it's actually happened. I I was I was actually thinking about the work that, you know, we we we we associate with Mother Teresa. Right? And the work as you evolve in terms of what you're doing is no longer the work you started off with. Like, the work for her was not everyday doing all the attending. She also had to do all the other stuff, which would communicating and traveling, which which is why when you when you find out about the rest of how, she worked, It isn't the same story that you painted yourself of the of the lady, but it helped the cause. So I I I do believe that that this is why I always talk about science communication. It it's it's it's much more than just being very clear to the next person who's interested in science, what we've learned. It's about getting out beyond those people and go, like, why to someone who doesn't understand science? Why why it's important? Why why why this makes a difference at all? Interesting. I I I actually look. Climate science, I don't think is naturally a communications field, any science. It's very, there's a few of them that are doing a great job. Right. But, the, the politicians know what the client science is saying. They know. There isn't like, there's no excuse in the mix there. I just don't think they know how to move forward in the world with like, cause when you know, you know what needs to happen and they, they don't seem to be able to just, it's very rare to hear a politician start to communicate that. Like I saw, I saw, another one in NPR yesterday. I sent it to you guys last night. A Democrat saying, you know, the climate crisis will basically cause an economic collapse much greater than 2,008, which of course it's going to do. Of course it's going to do, you know, and, and so Nate Higgins has got this concept bend or break. So we have an option here. We can bend where we start to really ramp down the impact we're having on earth or we break and we hit that point where it's just calamity and chaos and we're heading towards breaking. We're not, we're not, we're not even thinking about bending. And I think, you you know, we can, we can blame the scientists, but I don't think they're responsible. I think they've been doing their job and they're doing it their way and they're conservative and it's measured, you know, it takes 2 years to learn about something after it's actually happened. You know, that it's slow, but you you start putting all the threads together, it's pretty obvious where we're going. And I think it's up to everybody else to take that message forward. So so the the combination that is required though is for it to be the the attention grabbing conversation in the room. Because I have this problem with family all the time. I talk about something which I think is interesting, but for the rest of them, they go like, okay. That's going on about that again. So Oh, I did that with you as well though, Joe. But I'm very polite. There's a there there there is a there is a there's a there's a thing about, communication where you have a responsibility to sort of do the selling for it as well. You've got to do you've got to be involved in the marketing of the thing so that when someone says something about the environment, it's the important thing. Right? And and you've seen this with with all kinds of policies that weren't as important. What what what we have actually is a scarcity of attention. The way we've got to try to figure out how to get the attention, sometimes of an audience, sometimes of the media, some whatever the different things we're trying to do, we're trying to get hold of that attention. And when you choose something which is gonna take a lot of work versus something that doesn't take as much work and your, you know, and and and the and the the currency that you are you're you're dealing with is actually attention, then it falls further down the list. Because when someone talks about the environment, there's no quick way of saying it so that, you know, it's it it it can be done. Right? It you you know how it is. Right? You sit down. You you mean, you think about how it used to be death. I'll speak from my own experience. It used to be death to be seated next to a vegan at dinner. Right? Not so much now. Right? Yeah. And there's more of a conversation. It's more you know, there's there's more you you can do with that. So I I I I I think science needs its heroes to to to to soften the ground a bit. I I know people think of people like Neil deGrasse Tyson, and I think that you need someone who's a bit more likable than Neil deGrasse Tyson. But you need you need someone like that. You need you need an Einstein, I guess, who had, you know, a little bit of, little little bit of a personality that that people kind of enjoyed as well. Yeah. I I I just wanna say something about heroes. I think, especially the bend and break idea. And if you had 2 people that you needed to elect into government, one of them was austerity woman and the other one was Superman, and you've got the or austerity woman and superwoman or austerity man and superman. It's not a the gender didn't matter. Just trying to be anyway, it doesn't matter. So the so Captain austerity and and Superman. Yeah. Didn't really work anyway. So the, most people, based on our cultural narrative, are going to vote in Superman. And Superman, if you look at the way Superman operates, is he wanders around as Clark Kent until something's broken and then he flies around and fixes it. And only at that point, he rips his thing off. He goes, I'm gonna fix this thing. He's solutions man. He's missed to fix it. And we are, in fact, rewarding people for fixing stuff, and the politicians are rewarded for coming in there and making a speech. You know, the opposition, for example, coming and making whatever country, coming in and making a speech saying, you know, the current government has done this, and that's terrible, and we're gonna do this and fix it. And so then they get voted in. Change can happen. It you know? Yeah. We can make it happen, and they get voted in. And and so we're voting in the fixes, which means fixes need something broken to fix it. So if you're asking us to vote in the captain austerity, we they invariably get voted out even though austerity is necessary. The bend is necessary. But we're heading towards the break because that's the only way that we know how to put on our our superhero outfit and charge out there and do it. Well, what Joe's talking about is we need a mouthpiece personality that can go viral in a way that includes a lot of people. In fact, we need a team of those. We need the Avengers of communication that go out there and somehow connect with whoever their tribe is and connect really nicely with them. But we but at the moment, we're we're we're locked we're locked in. We we just keep voting for which superhero is the the lesser of 2 looks probably not the baddest guy. But you need you need communicators who are able to go out there and show the world and help them imagine what break it looks like so that they can vent instead. Yeah. I you know, I I would agree with that. Neil has something to say. So so I think as well as as bend and break, I think there's a there's a nuance between responding and reacting. Right? So I think we're we're at a sort of nexus point where we can respond. We can choose to respond. We, as a species, are not very good at that. We we react. Right? We wait until something like COVID comes along, and then we kind of, like, all scramble around and then do stuff. And there's lots of use of the word should, and I'm allergic to the word should because it's completely nebulous. It doesn't actually mean anything. You know? We should eat more healthy, and we we should get more exercise. Give me another beer. Right? So it just it doesn't really work like that. So I'm absolutely all for dialogue. I'm absolutely all for debate when it comes to communication, But there needs to be due after that. And there's none of the should none of them, anything else. You know? I I hear you what you're saying to them in terms of, like, the the the superhero, but they're not superheroes. They're they're Walter Mitty's, because fundamentally, the electorate doesn't like the taste of the reality check. Right? You know, if if a politician actually has the gumption to come along and say, actually, this is what it's gonna take, girls and boys. Right? You know, we need to start doing this, this, and this, and stop doing that, that, and that. Then, you know, that reality check will go with the electorate, and they'll go, oh, no. No. No. No. No. I I don't like the taste of that at all. Let me have the populist guy who kinda comes in with jazz hands and, you know, that the high level stuff. But it doesn't actually turn into something practical and pragmatic and demonstrable. It's just vapor. Yep. And makes life and makes life worse. Yeah. And, I mean, the the other thing is even if I was the politician that goes, okay. We need to do x, y, and zed. That's definitely what we need to do. I'm gonna jazz hands this to get in, but we need to do x, y, and zed. Even if I then came in and go, alright, guys. I'm in. We're gonna do x, y, and zed. Like, I sort of alluded to if you remember that little tiny bit where I said this. That's actually what we're gonna do. I can't actually succeed because the rest of the world isn't doing it. Yeah. And if the rest of the world isn't doing it, then we may as well scramble together as much as we possibly can before it breaks because when it breaks, we're gonna need what we tried to hoard. Yep. And then I I know that sounds incredibly You're saying it with fossil fuels. That's missing. But you're saying it with fossil fuels, you know. Like, I know Synax, like, we've they've gotta secure the energy. Right? They probably should spend a little bit more time focusing on securing the food, you know? But, but, yeah, I mean, you're seeing that sort of action. But but but it's it is right. Like, no one country I mean, Lee Seung Gung has been talking about this for a long time. We and until everybody does it and I think, you know, the global leaders of the world need to say, this is where we are. And if we don't wanna head towards this collapse, this is what we need to do, and we need to get started and it's gonna hurt. But if it breaks, it's gonna hurt a lot more. And and we're kind of at that point because no matter what we do, we're not gonna stop what's happening. We can slow it down a little bit, make it a little bit more bearable, adapt. We can't stop it. So we're but it's gonna get to a time where it's just too late to do anything. You know? Right. Indian ocean is looking like it's moving towards a permanent new state, which is a heat wave state. And that's gonna where we live, it's gonna impact the entire region. Hurricanes, storms, heatwaves, like what like what we're seeing now, but even more extreme. You know, are we too late to stop that? Probably. So what do we do about that? Where do people move to? Are we setting up migrant cities in the north so that people have a place to go with dignity? We're not doing anything. So we've got a lot to do, and we just need to get started. And, that first point, that starting point, just we just don't seem to be able to get to that point. And the politicization, the right wing, you know, that's rising across the world, not just in Europe, you know. It's they're promising they can fix this stuff. No. They can't. They can't. And then they wanna block they wanna block everyone from being able to migrate. So, yeah, we're heading towards some pretty serious times. But should we move on you on that. Yes. So sorry. Just No. Go ahead. On on on the just starting, it is really important. Right? So, obviously, in in my world, when it comes to all things digital and emerging tech and, innovation and and and things like that, you just need to start. Right? It it's it's that. And and also, excuse me, progress is greater than perfection. Right? So we don't have to wait until, you know, all the ducks are in a row because ducklings wander around. Right? We just need to get started. And if we're fearful, the best antidote to fear is action. Just do. Just try. And that's on that's on all of us. It's not about them. It's not about the scientists or the politicians or the neighbors or the xenophobes. We all just need to do. Yeah. You know what? We actually we need a global election where all the countries have election at the same time on on the 1st January 2030. I mean, early would be better, but we can't get our ducks in order because they're wandering around the road. So the and and everybody votes at the same time and there was a global agenda on the table, not just a local one, and unfortunately, that's never gonna work. So let's move on. It would be a good idea, but, right. That's what we need. That would be an interesting one, though. Okay. Speaking of interesting, this is an interesting story. This is this is kind of a I guess it's a feel good story, really, which is nice now. It's been brewing for the last couple of months. Scientists are pushing a new paradigm of animal consciousness, saying that even insects may be sentient, and to bees playing by rolling wooden balls, apparently for fun. The cleaner wrasse fish appears to recognize its own reflection in the underwater mirror. Octopuses seem to be react to anesthetic drugs and will avoid settings where they, likely experience past pain. All 3 of those discoveries came in the last 5 years indications, that more scientists the more the scientists will test and observe animals, the more they find that many species have inner lives and may be sentient. A surprising range of creatures have shown evidence of conscious thought or experience, including insects, fish, and some crustaceans. So this is from scientists push new paradigm of animal consciousness in ampproject.org. Nearly 40 researchers signed the New York declaration on animal consciousness, marking a pivotal moment as a flood of research on animal cognition collides with debates over how various species ought to be treated. The declaration says there is strong scientific support that birds and mammals have conscious experience and a realistic possibility of consciousness for all vertebrates, including reptiles, amphibians, and fish. That possibly extends to many creatures without backbones it adds, such as insects, decapod crustaceans like crabs and lobsters, and cephalopod mollusks like squid, octopi, and cuttlefish. And the declaration says, when there is a realistic possibility of conscious experience in an animal, it is irresponsible to ignore that possibility in decisions affecting that animal. We should consider welfare risks and use the evidence to inform our responses to these risks. And as if to prove this, for the first time ever, a male orangutan has been seen treating a wound, described as a never before observed example of a wild animal treating its own wound with a substance that shows medical properties. So rakus, the orangutan, picked some leaves off a vine known as the acacuning, which is abundant in parts of East and Southeast Asia. And after chewing on them for about half an hour, he applied some of the plant's juice directly to the wound, repeating the application over the course of several minutes. And at the very end of the process, he applied a more solid plant material on the wound kind of like a plaster. And he did this for several days, and it healed completely with no signs of infection. I mean, you know, if we do declare all species other than humans also conscious, we could work to save them as well. The the other thing in that article, which was quite interesting, was, Madison Horowitz, who's, one of the observers in commenting on this article, noted that there's every reason to believe that evolved behavioral adaptations that promote health of other species could also be beneficial in our own species. So we can see what they're using and adapting to to cure things and test those items as well. If we take care of the climate and we take care of the world, it can take care of us. So it's fascinating to find these these behaviors so so human like as well. Yeah. Yeah. I've I've I've never had it. That article finishes really nicely with we're much more similar than we are different. Because I was about to say, it sort of encourages that now we got a new us and them, that we're trying to make us, but the the similarity is definitely there. It's an interesting one. What do you think? Well, I was just gonna say there's never been a doubt about birds being sentient. They always know that I've washed my car. Nice. There's a couple of other ape stories that I thought were interesting. So first is, because of human tourism, the apes and chimps across Africa are being exposed to the common cold and are dying in much, much greater numbers. So they're already at risk of extinction, but that's happening. And another story is, because of the you know, we were talking about cocoa and the disease and climate change impacts on cocoa, there's a lot of new nutrients in the leaves. And because of a shortage of these leaves, because they're using them for other things, they're eating bat dung. And they and you'll like this, Joe. I should send it to you actually. They found, a similar zoonotic, similar something similar to COVID 19, but it doesn't have the same whatever those things are that link it to the what's happened in humans. But eating bat dung and it's not just, the it's not just the monkeys. It's also some deer and some other ones. But it's basically their need to get nutrition, when when nature is not providing it. So, mhmm. Yeah. By the way, all all arrows point to the bats most times because they are the most resilient to all kinds of stuff And, everything everything survives in their system. It's amazing. Alright. Neil, do you wanna talk about AI? Yeah. Sure. So, doctor AI will see you now. So the WHO, the World Health Organization, they have a prototype, and it's a virtual 24 days sorry. 24 hours in a day, 7 days a week health worker to provide health information through a human like avatar. So SARA, which stands for Smart AI Resource Assistant For Health, SARA, uses generative AI to help you lead a healthier life. Now this is so it's interacting with you around sort of basic topics like healthy eating, smoking, mental health, stress, and also in in 8 different languages. Now Sarah needs access to your microphone and also your camera, so you can actually speak to its. I'm not I'm gonna call it its rather than her, or type. And the bot is actually capable of sympathetic responses to users' input, including facial expressions. So though each visit is actually anonymous, to be able to mimic this empathy, Sarah accesses the camera to store the facial expression of a user for about sort of 30 seconds, and then the recordings are subsequently deleted. Now there there's the usual caveats that you sort of see that, you know, this is a, this is a digital health promoter, and that it's new. It's constantly learning to provide the best available information and will be updated on a regular basis to, you know, constantly improve. Now there is, however, a bit of an issue. Now because of its scope is limited to this sort of digital health promoter, its repertoire is obviously limited as well. And, actually, some of Sarah's AI training data is actually years behind the latest stuff, which obviously, if you use one of my consulting terms, suboptimal. Now it was actually trained on what's called chat GPT 3.5. So this is obviously from OpenAI. And now this only has data up until September of 2021, which if you think about it, you know, it's quite a long time ago. You know, it's certainly in AI and data terms. And so this bot doesn't have up to date information on medical research, even stuff from the WHO itself. Now on top of this, the bot occasionally provides some bizarre answers, and these are known in AI circles as hallucinations. Now these could actually have obviously quite dire consequences despite this disclaimer of it being, you know, not a tool to give medical advice. So perhaps the the WHO needs to integrate what, is now being called Med Gemini from Google DeepMinds, which is a family of AI models which are fine tuned for medical tasks. Now it has set a new state of the art, of 91.1% on the med QA USMLE, lovely mouthful there, benchmark. And actually outperforms GPT 4 models by an average margin of 44.5% of on 7 multimodal benchmarks. Now these models are multimodal themselves. What does that mean? So that means that they can provide text and images and video outputs. And although these particular models are not yet available to the general public for use, the company has published a research paper highlighting capabilities and methodologies. Now I think that health care is a really exciting future area of AI development with, you know, more advanced data models already helping clinicians today to administer better care such as diagnostic accuracy. Right? One of the things about sort of, you know, large data models so that they can see patterns and trends which we basically we we just can't get to it. So, you know, they can sort of give insights into, you know, and diagnoses that perhaps just a human doctor just isn't physically able to do, no matter their skill or acumen or or experience. But there's other clear use cases, I think, around AI and health. So, for example, summarization of patient conditions. So, for example, when you get a referral, lesser. Right? And as well as sort of teaching future medical professionals. I think, you know, AI, you know, there's there's real opportunity there. Now if you think about it you know, let's think about the the sort of the broader, more strategic picture. Now increased accuracy and reduced admin, that should lead to less wasted money, ultimately benefiting patients, insurance companies, and also taxpayers. When you think about it, the x rays were discovered in 18/95, long time ago. People were initially wary of the procedure and, you know, the big hulking bits of machinery of the medical devices that were required for it. But today, they are the accepted norm. Right? You know, if you get referred to go for an x-ray, nobody kinda goes, oh, I'm not really sure about that. I appreciate there might be some people, but the vast majority of us, you know, you've you've hurt your, you've heard of, you know, your hand or something like that. You get sent for an X-ray, you just go for it. Right? So I believe that in the near future, the use of more digital health interfaces, right, and this is both assisting and, in some cases, actually replacing humans, will actually become both typical and, actually, routine for us as well. Now I know that AI models, they might make mistakes, but so could a human health worker as well. Right? So I'm interested to hear sort of, you know, your views in terms of what would it take for you to trust AI when it comes to your own personal health, and well-being? Andrea, I'll maybe throw this over to you first. Yeah. No. When I when I was listening to you, the the trust thing was the first thing that came up. Right? So I I I don't have an issue with that. I think I don't think I do anyway. My concern is actually different. It's where we've gotta trust these systems that they're gonna say they're gonna store our information for 30 seconds, and then they're gonna delete it. The AI, systems are owned by the companies that created social media, which are data companies, and it's all about harvesting that data so that they can target us. So for me, the trust issue is actually the companies who are doing it have not earned our trust at all in the last decade. And now they've got AI, which is even more powerful, and they're gonna say they're gonna delete it. How do we know they're not gonna sell it onto insurance companies? How do they, you know, how do we know? You know? But I bet at the on the other side, I think it could be incredible, like for tracking, like, you know, a pandemic or the beginning of a pandemic before it gets bad. Right? They can pick up data all over the world. So there's I'm not against it, but I think that the companies who who are behind it haven't earned our trust, and they're not changing to earn our trust. And the problems that they created with social media are still here, destroying democracy. So now we're gonna give all this stuff to them. So that's that's my only thing. But I think it's a natural evolution, and us humans seem very willing to give out data. I mean, I'm looking you know, just go into Facebook any day of the week. You got a mate sharing one of the apps where they give some information or, you know, what color does this what color are are you? You know, that's even that sort of stuff, it's still data. It's still personal data, and we're so we're we're pretty willing to give it away. So I yeah. So that's kinda where I am with it. I I remember an episode of House where he's trying to diagnose this girl who's sitting in the hospital bed, and she's refuting everything because she checked it on Google. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Talk to Google. Remember that one? So she's like, no. Because of this and this and this, and he's like, yeah. And they said, how does she know this? And then she she he figures out that she's just googling everything all the time and seeing what what's online. And, actually, we do that too. You know? We've we're going into symptoms symptomchecker.com or whatever it is and plugging the stuff in. It says, you know, you've got you're either dead or you've probably got a cold. And it's like, okay. Well, I think it's the first one. So, and then we we we get a little bit paranoid or whatever it is. And then, so there's a we we kinda do it. The fact that now the medical establishments are doing that doing for us is kind of probably okay for me in a sense. I I think if it gets a, you know, a a robot doing various prodding and pokings, I might have a a bit more of an issue than somebody that's got the compassion of how that might feel. But, having said that, there's a lot of robotics happening in surgery. Although I'm not feeling that at the time, and, and the precision is is is good. I I think I think it's natural. What where I doubted I I didn't quite doubt on your one that you said, Andrea, but I agree with you about the data and and how that's being shared and whether we trust the people to manage it. It was I think it was, when Neil said, it's gonna benefit the patients, the insurance companies company taxpayers. Somebody else. And I and my first thought was probably not gonna benefit the patients from a cost perspective. It'll the profitability will go to the the pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and the the the doctors themselves was my with the running of their clinics at a a cheaper rate. And and maybe the aggregators of those clinics, the ones that a doctor signs up for and they manage everything for me, and I just do my doctoring, and I can shrink my staff numbers down. I I felt like as a as skeptical individual, we're gonna be the last to benefit, Other than we may get a greater consensus of knowledge coming in for our situation than one doctor may have learned at their time at medical school that hasn't been updated since before chap GPT. You know, 2001 is still much more recent than the doctor's medical school learnings 20, 30 years ago. And a lot of their information maps is is coming from trying to keep abreast and going to conferences and updating their skills and stuff, but a lot of it also comes from the person who's trying to sell them something, telling them why this one is the new technology, etcetera. So so that there's a there's pros and cons, I guess, is what I'm saying. But yeah. I I I see AI being very good for cost, actually, because what's gonna happen is as more and more AIs are designed to be convincing and and actually more relational, you know, you you you're gonna have a digital partner in keeping you healthy as well. So it's it's it's it's it's easier to be sort of on a program if your if your AI is doing some of the heavy lifting for you, so to speak. Right? I mean, if you have a if you have those those glasses, they can kinda see what you're eating as well. They give you some feedback in the world, and they can give you something about, the impact of what's happening. So I I I think it's not necessary that costs are always gonna go up and that they don't it's gonna it's gonna favor the pharmaceuticals. I mean, like, I I think the impact of AI is gonna be a lot of less drugs are actually gonna be consumed long term. There are gonna be some star drugs because people are lazy by nature. But I I think health is going to improve. I think, that the day is gonna come when you when you go to a doctor and if you if they don't use AI, you don't wanna trust them. Right? Because what doctors actually are, in in a sense, they're real time statisticians as well. And then their confidence, I I won't say shysters, but I I I've been I've been saying the world runs on smoke and mirrors. Right? And you want your doctor to have a pretty good idea of what's up with you and what's could be a good thing to do for you. And then he's got to be or she's got to be the one who sort of convinces you that, yeah, this is a good idea. This is this is what's gonna work for you because that's a significant part of the process towards healing as well. And I think AI gives you lots of confidence. I mean, it's just the it's just the, the ability to have a better sense of what it might be. You know, I I oh, I and it's it's completely slipped my mind. AI wouldn't do this, but it it I had my I had an example about, how how how AI can really make, that much of a difference as far as far as, analysis is concerned. And I was talking about this extra work to do. I've got an example that's nowhere near as good as your example. But the example is that, the next time I'm gonna go, shopping for my cure, I'm gonna get a triple triple strength placebo. The triple strength placebo, I think does the job much better than the normal strength placebo. Alright. But, Vijay, you might no, Joe. Tim, you made an important point about doctor Google. Right? So, you know, you go on to Google and you search for symptoms. So for example, I've got red welts on my, on my bum, which I don't, by the way, just in case you're wondering. And then for the next, you know, next few weeks, she start getting advertising for all sorts of things, you know, walking apps. Because if you got red welts on your bum, it could be because you're sitting down too much or, you you know, and it's you know so data data security, data data privacy is obviously a big issue. But at the same time, human beings aren't particularly, you know, you you showed your watch. Right? How much do we give the technology companies already as far as that private information? So we're we seem to be willing to sort of hand it over without sort of really fully understanding the consequences. But then you got the whole cybersecurity risks in the world at the moment, which are are going off the charts as well. Right? So are you really willing to put all that information out there? I think we just gotta we've gotta we've gotta think more. Gotta think long term and impacts. You know? Okay. Well, just thinking about having enough time to do everything, should we move to the next topic as well? Yeah. Okay. So the question that's being asked here is what's going on with the bird flu? Is it time to panic? A short answer, no. But you're not gonna agree with me. So there there there lots of things are happening right now. So, the scientists are worried that in the US, they're missing out on bird flu cases on farm workers or in farm workers, especially. And that's largely to do with the way we address health. I mean and it's a it's a US phenomenon as well. You know, lots of people don't go to the doctors. They they they self, they self medicate. And as we talk about bird flu, what is bird flu? Well, it's flu. But of a certain variety, what are the symptoms? Well, very much like the kind of symptoms you get when you have a regular flu. So people aren't necessarily knowing that they have the they they might not know they have the blood flu when they have it. And, people who are, of course, trying to track the disease are saying, you know what? We have to to to to to actually, track the workers because, they're in contact with the animals that seem to be picking up the bird flu. And who are the animals right now? Who? I, I think I'm influenced by the earlier earlier topic. There there there been there been some well, 1 in 5 milk samples, have shown to have bird flu virus fragments, in them. Now this is quite, a large number if you think about this. It's important to note that these are not live, viruses because pasteurization probably deals with that. I think if it has ever been the case right now for for not having completely fresh milk because, you know, some people try to get past the process of pasteurization thinking you're you're getting rid of something. You are. You're getting rid of the the protection from from from live germs. But yeah. That so the the indication is that because of those fragments and because of the the the fact that showing up in 1 in 5 samples, that this is also, a bigger problem than we we perhaps understand. Now there is, again, further examples of of how the, the disease is crossing into different areas. So far, it's it's birds and then other mammalian species like a dolphin. That was a study that came up from, I think it was the, University of Florida whom who who was making, who published that study. It's important to know they don't know how the virus got into the dolphin. It may just have been food as it usually is, but the specifics are not known. It's the party party. Yeah. Yeah. Well, probably it was. It it it's Florida, so there might have been that. But, you know, there's there's there's this big overarching question asking question, which is basically why should we care about bird flu? Because it's like the flu. Right? And and the reason is it's it's a it's a strain of flu that we're not familiar with. We're we're we're bird flu naive, which is the term that was used for COVID before, for COVID naive. And even though in terms of the the disease, it's not particularly, you know, lethal in in and of itself. It has the same kind of potential that COVID has or had. And that's the that's the kind of thing that we're kind of, on the verge of. We're watching and we're trying to see whether there's a real danger of it breaking out. And and it's it's a fine balance, really, in terms of what happens, as well because there is, on one hand, a really bad scenario where it breaks out and everyone's down with the bird flu, and then the statistics will will cause that kind of, what what what will happen. There will be a there will be a a high death rate when you you put all the numbers together. But there's also, of course, the the the upside of that, and this is the contrarian view as well that, you know what? Maybe we should just be exposed to the bird flu as well, like those crazy measles parties my mom used to try to send me to. It's still a bad idea, by the way, to send your kids to a measles party. But, you know, as a as a concept, there's there might be something to it. So the the the best case scenario really, and I say best case in terms of trying to get ahead of it, is some sort of, live, live, or or or sorry. Not live, maybe a dead virus vaccine, for the bird flu is released only because we're so, mentally allergic to mRNA viruses mRNA, sort of vaccines. But, you know, that that could be a kind of middle ground that would be acceptable. I I don't think it's time to panic, but like I said, there are quite a number of people who tend to disagree with me, about such opinions. I I I think more tiles have to fall before you panic, and even then, panic is not the answer. I'm still gonna I mean, I appreciate your perspective. I'm I'm still gonna only buy 4 out of every 5 milk in the shop. Yeah. Choose the right ones. Choose the right ones. That would keep one. Yeah. One more whack. So one of one of the things that, I sort of noticed is it's now in pigs. Right? And so when you go back to the beginning of civilization when human beings started first started living with animals, the flu and the ancestor of the modern day flu comes from pigs. And that's how humans got that disease and we've built immunity to it over time. I like the preemptive attack of get getting the injection. So I think to me, the transition to pigs is, is something to pay attention to. And the other thing is it's incredibly high death rate when it impacts, animals, birds, seals, dolphins. So, if it does take hold, it could be a major major disaster, but, you know, maybe the world needs that at the moment. I don't know. Color us up color us out so we can heal the earth, you know. Are you concerned, Andre, that if, you know, it gets more and more prevalent in pigs with this bird flu, we're gonna see pigs flying? Or is do you think that's that's not something worth Not not not a current concern. Yeah. But I I think for for me, it comes back to what I was saying earlier in terms of, you know, we're we're we're we're not very good at responding to things. Right? I I mean, I I agree, Joe. No. We shouldn't we shouldn't be panicking about it, but also let's not just be sort of blase and stick our, you know, stick our heads in the collective sand. Right? So it's really about, well, you know, what are some of the actions we can actually take? What are some of the potential implications, you know, if I sort of put my my futurist hat on, if we sort of project this forward, you know, the utopian thing is, well, nothing happens and and we crack on. Okay. That that might happen. What's the probability of that? And then what's the what's the opposite end of the scale? What sort of in in between? You know, there's something there's a tool that I use called the futures cone, where basically you come up with a sort of all of these possible futures and, you know, some of them are preposterous, and some of them are possible, and some of them are preferred. I think, you know, if you could apply this type of model to basically anything, and and, you know, whether it's in your personal or business life or or whatever. I think when we look at something like this in terms of look, we we know, you know, this historical precedent, fairly recent one in terms of COVID, in terms of what some of these implications might be. So, you know, if this does come to pass, you know, what are our options? And, you know, if we can look at that now, then we can maybe make some decisions about what our actions are as opposed to, yeah, either taking a sensationalist view or just going, she'll be right. You know, both those things are probably opposite ends of the spectrum now that are which I would necessarily subscribe to. Let's see if we can have a little bit more balanced, again, dialogue and debate, and then let's do. Yeah. I feel like we've heard about bird flu and swine flu for ages, like Yeah. 20 years. I mean, at least. But this this is this one, this current thing that's going on 2, 3 years now. It's been around, obviously, a lot longer, but it's been last 2, 3 years where we've really started to see it escalate escalate more and more species. And and now, of course, in the states, because it's moved into into the farms, and we don't know if it's happening in other parts of the world. It's just the US that's talking about it. But there's definitely a panic, like I said, on Twitter. I think it's their problem. I I mean, I think they're doing it. Obviously. But yeah. I mean, I think just sort of still practicing some common sense, you know. We you know, when you're traveling, mask up or get one of those virus sprays up your nose so that, you know, you don't have a risk of absorbing it. Yeah. Just being sort of conscious and making good decisions. I think that's all we can do at the moment. The panic doesn't exist anywhere. And and the CDC does have specific, advice. Don't kiss birds. Oh, that's a good one. I'm not even making that up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But but people do kiss their birds. Yep. People kiss their birds. That way too much. Yep. Alright. So, moving on. So PricewaterhouseCoopers or PWC, they report released a report, and it's climate risks to 9 key commodities. So, basically, they sought and, you know, companies like PWC are taking it seriously, so that's a good sign. Right? The business is is paying attention. And, basically, what they were looking at is how much climate change driven heat stress and drought threaten production of commodities that we rely on like iron, lithium, and rice. So there's 9 essential ones. So it's critical mini minerals like lithium, cobalt, and copper, food crops, wheat, maize, and rice, and vital metals like, iron, copper, and bauxite, which of course is used in aluminium. And they're critical for, what was it? The key crops supply 42% of human calories, and the minerals and metals are critical to transportation, construction, manufacturing, electronics, and the green transition. So these are all really pretty important things. So sick, yeah, 62% of iron production at risk from heat stress by 2050. 62% of bauxite, production at risk by from heat stress by 2050. I don't know. These are all 2050. And I don't know where they got the 2050 measure from if they were looking at the IPCC report, which, you know, like, if you look at a lot of what's going on now in the environment, not expected for 20 years, not expected for 50 years. So I I don't know where the number is, but, 26% of zinc production at risk from heat stress, 74% of lithium, at risk from drought, 74% of cobalt production at risk from drought, and 54% of, copper production at risk from drought. Then food, which is obviously really important, 27% of maize at risk from heat stress. 36% of wheat at risk from heat stress, and the final one, 87% of rice production at risk from heat stress. And in case you don't know, rice is huge. 50% of the world's population relies on rice for 80% of its nutrition needs. So rice is a big one, and we're gonna talk about it a bit more in the in the, theme section. But this is, I think it's an important read, and it's worth understanding. And, of course, if you're an investor, knowing these 9, this would probably be a good area to invest in because it's only gonna increase in value because as as it drops off, its value will increase. Alright, Tim. Unless you wanna talk about that one. I do wanna talk about that one, but I don't think we have enough time. But I think the rice one is huge. I actually the the 87% of rice by heat stress, I think, would also have an impact. Drought would have an impact there as well because of the amount of water required. Presumably drought for lithium, cobalt, and copper was because of the water required in their extraction and production, presumably. Yeah. Anyway Yep. Alright. Well, it's not all doom and gloom today because, I think I've got the coolest story to share today. Apparently, a gigantic ocean has been discovered 700 kilometers beneath the Earth's surface by Northwestern University in Illinois, which is amazing. And I was talking about Jules Verne a little bit earlier. Well, he's back, isn't he? So it starts with this. Picture this. There's an ocean so vast that it triples the combined volume of all the surface oceans on earth, yet it's not visible from the beach, the cruise ship, or even the satellite. It exists, not splashing against shores or under the keel of boats, but ensconced deep within the earth's mantle at a depth of about 700 kilometers. And, now, again, this is not a Jules Verne novel. It's real scientific discovery that could rewrite the books on our planet's hydrological secrets and where water is going and coming from. The discovery was made possible by examining the mineral ringwoodite. This sounds sounds like an April fools joke. But, but ringwoodite, a type of blue rock that exists in the Earth's mantle, which has the unique ability to trap water within its structure. This is an incredible breakthrough for deep earth science. Steve Jacobson, a lead researcher at Northwestern University, explains that this massive subterranean ocean was detected using a network of 2,000 seismographs spread across the United States. These instruments captured seismic waves generated by over 500 earthquakes. As these waves travel through the Earth, they move differently through wet rock compared to dry rock. And this difference in speed is crucial when you're identifying the presence of such a vast amount of water so deep underground. This hidden ocean might just be the missing piece in the puzzle of Earth's complex water cycle, the presence of water deep in the Earth's mantles subtly migrating between rock grains points to a dynamic internal water cycle that operates over geological timescales. This cycle could significantly influence everything from volcanic activity to the movement of tectonic plates. The research team plans to expand their research with additional seismic data from around the world. This could confirm whether this phenomenon is isolated or widespread, potentially leading to a revolutionary understanding of how earth manages its water resources. So that was from wecb.fm, a gigantic ocean discovered 700 kilometers beneath the Earth's surface. Amazing. I find that just amazing. Yeah. Me too. And also how, you know, how how it all works together and, you know, like, what what is it made up of? You know? Yeah. I'm having longer showers starting from now. Yeah. But also, you know, if humans really stuff it up, you know, is is is that part of what what can heal her and bring it back to life? You know? So to me, yeah, it's, the potential is is amazing. And I I kinda made me wanna go and study deep earth science. I thought that sounded pretty cool. It does it does sound amazing. It actually, there's a couple of things I was thinking about when when we were going through that, and one of them was, what it means for if we can find this on Earth, what it means for the other planets and that the interplanetary people get very excited about that, I would expect. But what it means for Earth obviously is a lot more compelling. And what it also means is that mass migration based on glacial melt. If they can work out I mean, 700 kilometers is a long way. You know, Everest is 5 kilometers up. You know? So this is I don't think we're gonna drill it so easily, but but it's it's interesting. It it's exciting. It kinda makes the world cooler somehow underneath. I might find some of those green diamonds. Yeah. Yeah. What, those of a those of a flat earth disposition think about it. They surely can, you know, believe that 700 kilometers, you know, if if the earth's like this, they they can't be 700 kilometers below, surely. Well, flat flat and thick is okay. Very thick. Yeah. Touche. Touche. Basically, it's Asgard, isn't it? Yeah. Alright. So the the life the life forms there. Right? Did there be there be other life forms? You know, you got any miles. Yeah. Yeah. I mean yeah. It's cool. So rock bands. Your kids would love it. Yeah. Nice. Thank you. Neil. Okay. So eat the future. So obviously, being a futurist, and as you can probably see, I don't miss many meals. So this is a topic very close to my heart, both figuratively and literally. So the new Cali Express by Flippy in Pasadena, California is a burger joint that that serves as a collaborative test kitchen for several companies who are trialing future fast food technology. Now the Burger Chef robot is by Kucina, whilst the fries machine Flippy was created by Miso Robotics. Now the restaurant has also implemented pop ID stations for ordering and payments where the customer can set up their preferred payment method, loyalty details, and also your face for future recognition and authentication. So once your profile is set up with this biometric payment startup, a customer can go along and place orders. They can pay and also learn loyalty points without touching any object or app. Now there's a there's a press release which speaks about, you know, fully autonomous AI powered restaurant. It's actually a whole lot of dross. So ignore that bit. But, actually, there are some cool things that it's doing. So for now, a small number of biped mammals, like you and me, are still required to push the buttons on the machines, salt the fries, assemble the burgers, you know, adding toppings and so on. And also, actually, serve casual meals. Maybe a gap in the market or is a or is a mark in the gap? I'll leave you to to to ponder that one. And so yeah. So they have to also, you know, serve the meals. Now the outlet offers, you know, a fairly simple menu of burgers, cheeseburgers, and French fries, including that the meat is actually premium Wagyu blend beef, which is cooked to order. And they can offer this at competitive prices due to this automation. Right? Because they have, the the, the the the flippy and also the burger chef. So, you know, this is all very interesting, but what are some of the benefits of using food and beverage robots for both workers and for businesses? Now for for us warm fleshy bipeds, you know, we can maybe move away from dangerous areas like grills and fryers where, you know, we could slip for because of grease or, you know, burns from, obviously, cooking are certainly not uncommon. And although capital intensive to buy, these robots replacing humans may actually alleviate labor shortages and can reduce monthly operating expenses. And so with more automation requiring a smaller crew, that can directly translate to a less physical, less dangerous, and hopefully less stressful career for people that that work in sort of fast food and and food and beverage overall. And then in turn, that hopefully might reduce rates of staff churn. Obviously, higher rates of pay are obviously, you know, good for attention as well. But certainly, in fast food, you know, churn is is a big thing. Now at the start of April, California mandated a 20 US dollar, an hour minimum wage for fast food workers. So from the business perspective, the value proposition of this sort of innovation and automation with robotics might be compelling in future. And globally, you know, there are hundreds of thousands of fast food restaurants which share many of these challenges. So, you know, given that eating is a is a national sport and it's not uncommon to have mobile robots deliver your meal or take away crockery, I actually wouldn't be surprised to meet, one of these robots in Singapore before long. But the thing is, if I jab at one of these sort of hateful standing touch screens at some of these restaurants, and I pay with my face, and then my food is cooked and delivered autonomously by a robot, it leads me to sort of one big question. So and this perhaps this is me defaulting to being the the national stereotype of a sort parsimonious Scotsman. But with this all being in the United States, will you still have to add a chunky tip percentage? You know, if this is all that's happening by robots and all everything else. So I guess my my question to to you lovely people is, you know, how do you feel about your your meal being prepared, maybe at least in part, by a machine? So, you know, are you are you wary of a sort of dystopian mechanical chef? Or maybe you think this will be wonderful parts of our, culinary future? So, soon as you've had the strongest reaction, I'm gonna come to you first. What do you reckon? Well, I I it was it was last Tuesday, I noticed that KFC had a$9.95 box of 5 pieces of chicken on offer Tuesdays only. So, so I thought and we were eating it. We were lining up to eat at a Japanese restaurant. I thought, I'll buy that. So, I bought the the 5 pieces of chicken, and we went into our Japanese restaurant, and my daughter Zoe was running backwards and forwards to KFC to see if the thing was ready yet. It took an hour before I walked up to them and said, how long does it take to take 5 of those pieces of chicken and put them in a box? You know? Because I've been waiting an hour, and it turned out my slip was stuck to the side of the thing with a piece of sellotape, and they'd lost it. And, you know, thankfully, what the girl did was she took 5 of the biggest possible pieces of chicken she could find and put them in that box, which immediately placated me. And 5 of all chickens? And I disappeared. But, you know, a robot could have done that pretty pretty quickly. I I my my first reaction to it was, you know, that's a lot of people's first job, and some people's last, like, when they retired. And I, and I and it made me wonder how many of these robots are being created at the moment to get rid of middle and upper management. And because I think that would be better. If we can get rid of all middle and upper management, just put robots in because all they care about is the numbers anyway, then it should be fine. Then, then Yeah. We would save so much money and create so many jobs at and because what we're doing is we're getting rid of our absolute lowest cost job. I know there's a lot of them, but, you know, I I worked in, call center management for many years, and organizations always wanted to cut our costs, yet we were the ones facing the customer. And we were the cheapest possible people they had facing the customer, and they wanted to get rid of us to give the customers a worse experience. It was just like, what are you guys thinking? Why don't we get rid of you and we can hire another 10 people in the call center who will who will create a better customer experience and make our organization more money. Of course, that didn't go down too well with the person I was pointing at, but the but the the so that was my that my first reaction was, you know, at some point, we're gonna get rid of all the lower level jobs, and we're gonna have a problem. We're gonna have a new problem. Mind you, the answer to that is those people will then go to manufacturing to put together the robots that'll replace their other job. Sure. With frying food and stopping yourself getting oils oil burns and stuff like that, I can appreciate that. I don't think it needs to be a fully automated robot, but it can be just safety mechanisms within the frying, you know, process or whatever. But, I guess that was my reaction. So if it means I get my chicken faster, I'm all in. And if I don't have to tip in America, all in. If it means a lot of people losing their job at and some of those people are struggling to make a living at the low end of the socioeconomic scale in our communities, well, that's gonna be tough, and we're gonna need to have some way of looking after them. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm gonna jump in because to me, it's a it's a classic example of unnecessary use of technology with a a big cost environmentally, as far as the amount of energy that it uses. I think any company that moves as moves to automation, robotics, artificial intelligence, and and removes jobs, I think their tax level should be, increased significantly so that the people who do lose their jobs get a universal basic income and those companies fund it. That's the way to solve the the job losses. I think that's something that we we're not thinking about. But if your company can make more money, but have have less human capital, then they've got to start to invest in human capital in in their societies that they operate in. It's a bad example for me because I I I think of the fast food industry as one of the bullshit industries that we need to get rid of. You know, and there's there's many, many bullshit industries, but that's one in particular. It's so bad for the environment on so many levels. You know, the Wagyu beef burgers, it just makes me go, ugh, you know, whole deforestation in the Amazon because of beef. The chemicals in the food and and and, Tim, seriously, you've gotta stay away from KFC. The the amount of forever chemicals that have been reported in in in, in fast food is off the charts. It wasn't like that when we were kids. But today, the chemicals in our food like, my boys, they they they they have it every now and again. But I'm I'm constantly saying, hey. Look at this article about what forever chemicals can do to your body. You know? So, yeah. So it's lots of different things there, but not a good use of technology as far as I'm concerned. Is that what the Amazon is? Chemical, it's gonna be a forever one. It's just, you know, better economics. Right. So is that, like, Kentucky forever chemicals? Is that what the FC is for? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. All of them. All of them. McDonald's is one of the worst, obviously, but yeah. Joey, what are you reckon? Automated robot burger? Well, I I I was just thinking about how we, we're we're always preoccupied about the the the the steps involved. Right? I mean, I think the food, I'd say, easily more than half the food, if not, maybe 80% of the food that we have is actually created automatically. I mean, it's just that it's finished by humans as in, like, the the the last bit of it. Right? I mean, the, most of the food, most of the most of the plants, most of whatever, they go through processes which are largely automated, boxes of cereal. I know it's not a good topic, but, I mean, generally, in terms of in terms of most of the food that we consume actually comes out, as a result of a lot of machinery. So it's in a sense quite quite automated, and we just get preoccupied about that last little bit that we, that we hang on to. Food food, even for the people who create it for restaurants, is usually about consistency. You know, we we we want to have something that we like and we wanna have it again. And I think the potential as far as just just in terms of a an outcome is concerned. It's it's, you know, it's it's something that I feel if you can find if if you can if you can figure a way at a larger scale to make someone's life more meaningful than frying a burger, then do that. It's just that we usually don't try to figure it out. We we we leave it we leave it so that if your life can't be more meaningful, you end up crying a burger. And I and I think there's something wrong about that kind of thinking as well. We need to we need to think about greater possibilities about what someone can do. And I think we also need to have it as a kind of expectation, of ourselves that people are worth more than than that final you know, it's a it's a it's a it's a last it's a it's a job of last resort. You know what I mean? Yeah. But don't forget, like, Tim mentioned something earlier, like, young people that get a lot of managerial skills working in the fast food chain. So there's benefits for young people and social skills and stuff. But then the other side, of course, is, that we, you know, we've got a low loneliness epidemic epidemic. Right? So Yeah. Where where we use technology, are we always using technology in the right place? You know, if an elderly person who lives in a place by themselves and doesn't see anyone all week and they go out the door to buy a couple of stamps, go to the supermarket, go to the fast food shop, and go home, and don't interact with a human being in that in that journey, then that's not a good life either. Right? So I think, yeah, it's just that sort of holistic view of what should we really be doing? What's gonna what's gonna enhance humanity? If we go fully automation, like, with with what looks what we're looking at right now, I honestly I honestly believe that those companies that replace human capital have to keep that capital in in in the societies that they're part of. So it's through universal basic income, which, you know, Alaska's got a fantastic UBI, program where there's, obviously but when you're not desperate for money, when you're not surviving, you can thrive. And there's health benefits. There's less obesity. People are creating jobs. They're they're creating art. They're creating music. They're doing different things. Right? So we need to we if we wanna go down this path, then we also need to open up that path of consideration and bring them together and say, what's gonna be the best for everyone. And that's we don't do that. You know, it occurred to me just then that the way that we operate as a society, the the the microcosm of that is happening in corporate in a way, and that is the corporate manager is focused on their their KPIs. And when something goes wrong with the people, they send the people off to HR. So it's HR's you know, just give it to HR. HR will manage the people problem. I'll tell I told them what to do. They didn't do it. Send them to HR, which, of course, is not HR's role really. It's the manager's role to be the people manager as well. But when we look at the way the company operates in society, it's doing exactly the same thing. It's going, well, we're gonna automate the crap out of this so we can get rid of the people. Whose responsibility is it the people? It's not ours. Let's give it to, like, country HR. Who's that? The government. So government can look after that. That's HR. They can look after, and facilities. The company the government is HR and facilities, and finance. Okay. Anyway, head office. So the so just send it to them, and and we'll just make our profit and hit our KPIs. So Yeah. It it feels like there is there's a, you know, it it is provided it provides a lot, but we need to have some change. I I I just think that we're we're losing an element of, I'm all for the the robotics and the automation, everything else. The fact that we're actually talking like this in these devices in this particular way is because of a lot of all of this. So I'm not I'm not like throwing out, what we're using and where we're at, but I think there's a what we're really all talking about here is the humanity side of it, and the human cost and the human element and the human care and how we take care of our, marginalized and our our, I guess, the lowest skilled workers, whether they're retirees trying to stay in the workforce or in some sort of basic income or get community, or when we see a lot of them in fast food places here, or or the youth coming through, like you said, Andrea, getting valuable managerial and teamwork experience and process driven experiences, stuff like that as well. So, we're gonna look after humans. That's what we're saying. Of course, having just read the article on sentient beings, now we're gonna look after insects and everybody else as well. We can't eat them, which is what we're planning to do. So so now as soon as we find out that there's sentient plants, we're basically all on the air and water diet. What what do you think, Neil, listening to what we've got to say? I think it's it's it's a fascinating to to see the diff different perspectives. Look. I'm a I'm a sort of, you know, unbelievable optimist when it when it comes to all things, sort of technology and innovation, stuff like that. But but I I'm also not a sell it. Right? You know, so sometimes the simple solutions are just the best. I think given a lot of the challenges that there are in food and beverage in terms of, you know, getting people to to come and work in in the first place, you know, it's it's it's difficult job. Right? You know, it's, you know, and and a lot of us, we do sort of, you know, rely on on these people to a degree, whether it's, you know, sort of, you know, Tim going away on on his, non fast food in his particular case, but, you know, one one of those things. But, you know, I think it's it's there are opportunities for sure, whereby, you know, this can be a net positive. But when you spoke about the marginalized, Tim, I was thinking I was like, you're absolutely right. But the priority for businesses is margin rather than marginalized. So, you know, regardless of the tech, you know, that's unfortunately kinda where where things are at. Yeah. Well, talking about marginalised, so we're all sitting in Asia, 3 in Singapore, 1 in Thailand, and we are going through the world's most extreme climactic event ever. Did you know that? They think for at least 6000000 years. So a heat wave is baking the the the region. So it's not it's not just Asia, Southeast Asia. It's the Indian subcontinent and across parts of Africa that aren't being flooded. They're they're suffering these unbelievable heat extremes, and the marginalized are the people that suffer the most. I've been doing a lot, for the last sort of it was this time last year when Thailand hit wet bulb temperatures for the first time that I went, oh, okay. This this is this is here. This is already here. And, you know, it was 2022 when I kinda went, we're on the escalation path now, and 2023 was a real wake up call for me. And still, all the people sort of don't didn't think so. Put out some blogs talking about how you can prepare for wet bulb temperatures. People thought I was too early with the information. I knew I wasn't. And of course, I don't like being right, but I've been proven to be right. And, what we're seeing, Bangladesh, Philippines, Cambodia, Thailand, India. So parts of India are expected to hit 60 degrees Celsius wet bulb temperatures. 60 degrees Celsius, you can't survive that. And the the electric electrical grids are suffering. I've ridden in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. A few years ago, they had 1,000,000 air conditioners. Now they've got 5,000,000, but the population of Dhaka must be multiple millions more than that. So we're hearing about heat stroke deaths. They seem pretty low to me, like 30 in Thailand. I know people who've gone to funerals to for heat stroke victims, but, of course, it's beyond humans. It's also the animals. And ultimately, it's gonna be a food security issue. You know, we're talking about 2050 from that PWC report for rice insecurity. Well, we we're already dealing with those extremes now, you know? And depending on how much we have in storage, the impact is not too far away when inflation, food security, or famine starts to impact across the region. I think in Singapore, you're you're in a much more resilient place. Your electricity grids aren't falling over. Right? Ours is held so far, but I'm worried about that because if once that's down, we can't survive. So, anyway, it's pretty intense. So it feels like 44 degrees where I am today. What about where you guys are? 36 is what it feels like. Yeah. And your and your humidity would be much higher than where I am. Yeah. I'll check. I mean, just rain before, so humidity was rough roughly a 100%. Oh, yeah. Give me a second. Yeah. So, like, you know, overall, what do you what do you guys sort of feeling about this escalation? Well, look, as a as a Scotsman living living in Asia, sorry, Joe, then, you know, I'm I'm I'm, like, acutely aware of of how warm it is, but it it really has been, you know, so savage the the last few weeks. I'm lucky that I sort of live near the coast, and we've got a bit of a breeze. But when when that isn't the case, you know, when you're just in a even in a static room or something like that with no with no fan, with no air, it's absolutely stifling. I'm I'm one of those hateful morning people. So, actually, I try and get up and exercise as early as I can, you know, sometimes sort of before the sun comes up, and at least it's sort of, you know, slightly cooler. But, you know, if you're around during the course of the day, it's it's just absolutely yeah. You know, you really, really struggle. And, yeah, you know, we're as you sort of say, being in Singapore, very, very fortunate. Right? And, you know, I, we, don't do don't do manual labor. Right? I think when you when you have to do those sorts of jobs, yeah, I just I can't even begin to to think what it must be like. You know, the people that do that have, have both my sympathy and and greatest respect. So but, yeah, it's definitely, I'm feeling it. You know, being a big hairy bear, probably doesn't help, but, yeah, definitely feeling it. So sorry, Joe. I cut you off. No. No. I was I was just thinking about how we we don't you know, the the the heat problem is actually creeping up on us, you know, and, it's it's sort of like we we confuse it with kind of resilience in a in a in a literal sense. Can I take this? Is it is it it's uncomfortable. You know? I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm living a a more challenging life. You know, we can we can meet the challenge. If it's hot, we can deal with it. We're gonna sweat a bit. It's gonna be okay. And what I think we're missing is actually that and and and I'm and I'm guilty of it, as well. Right? Not seeing the next step. So when I when I wrote my my piece for for LinkedIn to to promote today's livestream, I you know, it it was just looking forward down the road and go like, okay. The point is coming. Like like, this year, we're talking about the highest temperatures ever, the hottest, the hottest, days in the US ever. And we talk about Asia, and we talk about Singapore right now. And and, I mean, I I I remember, having the experience that I had recently here where I opened the window to cool the temperature the the cool things the car. And as we drove, I realized that there was a hot breeze coming into the car. I was actually Mhmm. Heating the car rather than than cooling the car. And I remember the last time that I experienced that, and that was actually when we were we were in, in Alice Springs. And that was years ago, and that was the time that that was the time I went, wow. These these are crazy temperatures. And if you think about it, several degrees up the scale, we are we are going to be in that place where we're gonna be we gotta be careful. We we gotta be worried about our kids being stuck outside, not in an air con environment, not safely in an aircon environment, because it it it's it's kind of a place that's that that we're gonna get to. It's hard to imagine right now that we're concerned about that. We wanna be, you know, but I'm I'm I'm beginning to to to tell my kids about that. I I have a I have a I have a daughter, who has, a little bit of a strange thing happening with her. She doesn't sweat. Right? When she exercises, she doesn't sweat. And that actually puts her at even greater risk Yeah. Of this because because she's not able to lose heat in that way. And it's yeah. When when you hear about how temperatures will get to a point I mean, you you just imagine. Right? I mean, you you you think about it about in in terms of your own oven and you and you heat up in an oven. It it does doesn't matter if you are hiding in the shade in an oven. You're you're still in an oven. So that's the kind of thing that we're we're we're we're looking at. And if you talk about wet bulb temperatures that that that basically are getting us to close to cooking temperatures. I mean, we're not quite there, but it's it's close to. It's it's it's crazy. I mean It's there in Asia. Yeah. Yeah. It is. Exactly. And and when you come so so so we in Singapore and a lot of the world really doesn't feel any of that as danger because we think more technology is gonna be okay. Right? But my helper comes from Myanmar, and we just found out from her. They get they get one hour of electricity a day. Yeah. Yeah. And they're really suffering. They're they're up 47 degrees at the moment. It's really, really hot. And that's not the wet bulb temperature. That's the actual temperature. So a lot of the media is only reporting actual, but they actually really need to to heat to include the heat index because you don't understand it. But, you know, this morning as I walk out, I open the door, and I just breathe in heat. And then, you know, when you first arrived in Singapore 20 years ago, you know, you, you sort of walk out of that air conditioned environment. You're like, oh my God, you've got this wall of heat. But this is, this is another level higher, you know, and you know, 62% of the world's population lives in the global south where these heat extremes are gonna happen. Air conditioners are being bought by the poorest people because the only way they can survive is if they've got air conditioning, but only if the electricity grid works. But if we add, you know, 1,200,000,000 rural people across Asia are gonna buy their first air conditioner. So if we had add that into the mix where most of the energies run on coal, some on gas, stolen and small gas, then we're just gonna make the situation even worse. You You know? But the other thing that really surprises me about this is the lack of preparation. Look, I know countries, are poor, and they're coming off the back of COVID, especially in the pandemic and how much that had an impact on the economies of countries right across the global south. Right? How do they how do they afford to do the right thing to protect their people? And, you know, Bangladesh and India are much more progressed on dealing with heat extremes in other parts of the world, but it gets to a point where the the you can't do anything because it's too hot. So, you know, I was it's around about 50 degrees when the electricity grid start to fail because of the heat. So we're on the cusp of 50 degrees. 60 degrees is when, solar panels start to fail. Forty degrees is when generators start to fail, and especially in Africa, a lot of people use energy, generators to cool their home environments, but they become sluggish around 40 c. So we know all of this. We know it's coming. Why why haven't we done more to prepare? Like, the schools are being all closed. Right? Get solar panels on every school in Asia and right across the global south, put air conditioning units in. It then becomes a community cooling center where the whole community come to cool down. It's those sort of things. Why aren't we doing it? You know, that's my frustration. It's it's here. Let's go. That's a good idea. Yeah. No. And, Andrew, you're you're you're you're bang on. I think it's the it's a similar point from earlier in terms of it's those hard choices. Right? It's like choose your poison. So, you know, the the the the governmental officials and politicians need to say, okay. If we're gonna do this, that means you cannot then have that. Right? Or or whatever that is. Right? You know? So so we need to sort of make these hard choices. And just a lot of people are just not prepared to do it. I was at a conference earlier this year, and they're saying, like, Indonesia has got half of the solar power capacity that that Singapore has. Now that's that's crazy. Right? If you think about the relative, you know, populations and so on and and now the comparative affordability of solar panels and so on. But, you know, we we can do these things, but it's about making hard choices. You cannot have everything, so we we have a need to suck it up and make some hard choices and and and, you know, take those decisions and then have the implications for it, or we just sort of go, and then, you know, we we get what we're given. Yeah. Yeah. Look, I the the the lack of action from the global north to solve this problem because, you know, every refugee camp that gets set up, the first thing they do is deforest because they need to cook. Right? So we need cooking stoves that are sustainable right across the region, but we need to involve them in the decision of what makes sense versus forcing them to accept some sort of technology that ends ends up failing, which has happened. Solar power, but community solar power and and and air conditioning rather than everybody needing it because then we've just got the bigger problem. White roofs, green walls, you know, all all of that stuff. There's so many simple, cheap things that we need to be looking at doing, and we're not we're not. And, it's, it's frustrating because I've obviously been talking about this for a long time, looking at the solutions for a long time. And, the government's just, you know like, when I drove from, Phuket to Bangkok last summer, all I was looking for after the last heat wave that we'd experienced, I was just looking for white roofs or green walls, bamboo walls around homes. Just didn't see it. Didn't see one. And just from an individual level, why wouldn't you do that to protect yourself and your family? You don't have to get the government doesn't have to do that. You you can do that. Or communities should come together and put solar panels on the schools with air conditioning units so that the kids can safely be educated, the wealthier communities. So then then the other poorer communities, you know, maybe the global north can come in and invest. But it's the energy is coal and gas, so it's creating more emissions. So whether or not the system actually works, there's so many more emissions exploding out of the global south right now, which is gonna make it all worse in the long run. And come on. Let's get a little bit proactive. We can't just keep sitting here watching it happen. You know, everything's going that way that shouldn't be. And everything's going that way that shouldn't be. You know? So it's a bit frustrating for me as you could probably tell. Well, the the the challenge the challenge I think we face, well, you you face more than I do in in terms of that because I I your frustration is greater than mine, is the is the is the challenge of the inconceivable. Right? I mean, you know, you we we the the problems that the world faces, all these things coming down the stream, as you're saying, like, for you, it's obvious. It's it's it's why not this, why not that. Why not paint your roofs? It is the same kind of challenge that that faces or it it didn't face. There was no one actually thinking about this. They did they no one ever thought that terrorists would fly a plane into a building. You know, that that wasn't the way it was thought of as a way something could be done. And and and the there's this the the inconceivability of the of the of the the the broader problem. There's this whole this whole world that I that I that maybe we talk about that's gonna be affected by heat in this great way is inconceivable by the broader masses. People can't conceive of everything falling apart even though it can. They just can't conceive of it. It's like the people on the Titanic who just couldn't think about the Titanic going down because it's inconceivable. But the reality of it, it it it loomed as a as a reality. It loomed as a as a possibility. So that's the real challenge. It's it's it's it's enough people not being regarded as being overly cautious. You know, it's it's it's, you know, like, I used I used to do this thing with with, with my friends whenever we went out. I just always said, look after your drinks. Make sure no one has access to your drinks when you're when you're when you're at a club. And it was like, what kind of crazy talk is that? Until you realize that, oh, okay. There's there's there's more to it. That's that's how, you know, so criminals get hold of you and then and then they have their way and what have you. But it's that inconceivable aspect of things which makes for what you're what you're saying. So the the answer was sort of like in in in the question, all these things, why can't you, why can't you, why can't you, is because they can't. Lack of imagination. But is this enough? This experience, is it enough? You know? Like, so the Indian Ocean is looking like it's moving into a permanent new heat wave state. Did you think about that? The Indian Ocean. Right? And all the countries around that, will have much more extreme rainfall, much more extreme hurricanes, and much more extreme heat, permanent state. So what happens at the off the end of that? So the one of the things people aren't talking about enough is migration. So if it becomes too impossible to live, people are gonna have to migrate. Well, 62% of the world live in a part of the world that's looking at migration. Right? Where are they gonna go? Who's gonna take care of them? Like, even that so what what what why aren't we planning for that? Why aren't we, you know so it's it's it's obvious if you're paying attention. And I know that the majority of people aren't paying attention, but the leaders of the countries should be paying attention saying, okay. What do we need to do today to make sure that our people are safe and they're not? And I know they've all been caught, I know, but it was 2 years ago that the escalation really was obviously starting. And it's I don't think there's any more excuses because it doesn't have to cost a lot, and they just need to start having conversations with their citizens. They're telling people to get in the shade and drink lots of water. No. In a wet bulb temperature, it's the shade is is still gonna die. So they're even giving bad advice on what to do. You know? Get to a shopping center with air conditioning. Try not to be out in the heat for 6 hours at a stretch because that's the death zone. You know, like, tell them what it really what it really requires for you to survive in the heat. And then you got the poor people, the rickshaw drivers, the food delivery drivers dropping dead. You know? Why don't we set up those food apps? Like, I don't use food apps because I'm really against the whole concept of it. But where people who usually order their food on a food app first of all, don't order food on food apps because or or or do it at a respectable time of day when someone doesn't have to be out in the heat. Be a little bit conscious of the people delivering the food to your door. It's set up a donation. If you've got a regular driver that delivers food to you, set up a regular donation so you can help take care of them when they can't earn money because it's too hot. You know? So things like that. Now there's a lot of things we can be doing and thinking about, and, and these are the poorest people who've done the least to create the problem who are suffering the most. And then my neighbors, they were they're sitting in tin huts down the road from me. You know, I've done videos showing people what it looks like. Millions and millions of people live this way. They never I sit outside. I've got 3 fans on me, and it's 31, 32 degrees at 1 and 2 o'clock in the morning. And you've just got you just got sweat beads over your entire body. They don't have that. They're in a tin shed that's been baking in the sun all day and may or may not have electricity, so they may or may not have a fan. And then they've gotta get up and work on a construction site in the sun all day. You know, it's like, it's really intense. It's intense being here, living through this time, watching those people suffer. The the empath is suffering. Let me assure you. So so the government that needs to make the decision I I mean, you're talking about individuals making decisions to look after their neighbors effectively. But the government that needs to make the decision for the migration that you're talking about Mhmm. I find it challenging that they're gonna make that decision as a preemptive decision. I think they they they might go, look. I know I need to build a new city over here and leave it dormant until everybody needs to migrate to it or start, you know, overbuilding or whatever it is. But I just I find it like that with all the things that they need to do, it all comes down to opportunity cost. And it it's that it's that important not urgent, but it's gonna be urgent if we don't do it. And and so and they're focusing on firefighting at the moment, often to stay in power. But, but yes. I and and then I look at a country like Thailand where it's got a it's got, you know, a a city like Bangkok, which is got a lot of wealth in there, but a country that has got a lot of poverty Yeah. And a lot of lot of poor people. And how is that distribution of, not distribution of wealth, but how is that, how is the government able to take care of the rest of the country? And, typically, it'll come down to a government saying, need to tax you to have enough to be able to do this. And as soon as they say that, they're out of government. Yep. Or if the justice system is such that the person goes, how about I just slip you a cool few thousand to pay for your new car and your house extension and your kid's education. Yeah. And the person go, okay. I'm not gonna text you. Then Yeah. Then all of a sudden, we've we're also damaging what we can do. So if the the system of justice is not there, then the corruption level is gonna go higher. There's no way that there's zero corruption, but the corruption level is gonna go higher, which means we don't have the resources to be able to do it. And if and if the corruption level is higher, I'm gonna be paying attention for my my own needs and myself, and I'm not really gonna be I'm gonna take for myself. If if that so once the justice system is taken care of, then we're gonna be able to tax everybody without getting thrown out of government. Because all the other all the opposition is gonna say is we're gonna tax you less, and then people will put them in. Because Mhmm. The narrative is all about gross domestic product, or profitability or share price increase or it's all more more more on the on the financial side. But the governments need that those finances to be able to take care of the poor people. So recording this is, like, a loop. I really feel sorry in a lot of ways for those politicians who were who came in thinking I'm gonna make a difference. They remind me, weirdly enough, of the climate scientists watching their reef die. Yeah. Because in a way, they they they they are handcuffed, and they can't these are the idealistic ones. The ones, that are trying to haven't bought into the haven't resigned from the possibility of change and have just are playing the game now. So it's it's a really, Incredibly complex. It's very complex dynamic and the and the the thing is we need that complex dynamic to be operating in communication unison globally for us to solve problems. And if we kind of manage it on a tiny level, like with a small country, then, or or semi large country, it doesn't matter, any anything with a border. We're in we're in trouble, which is why the bend can't happen and the break has to. And it's it's it's it's it's sad. And so and it's frustrating, but people need hope. And they need, you know Don't say that. The best I can do is if the best I can tell them is sit in the shade and drink some water, at least they've got they feel, weirdly enough, that they've got some agency to take care of themselves. But if the advice could be better, like go to shopping center, then Just be honest. Yeah. Just be honest. This is what is required right now to survive, especially if you're elderly, especially if you're pregnant, especially if you're a kid. Yep. You know, don't don't be out in it. It's gonna kill you, and the shade's not gonna help. Yep. You know, but then you see some of the video footage coming out of Bangladesh. You know, those poor people. It's ex and they and then people don't even have access to fresh water, you know. And, you know, you're drinking 3, 4 times as much water at the moment as you normally would. But it is really complex. Corruption, as you said, is a really big thing. I think there's, you know, we talk about equality and, inequality. And in Asia, it's that that chasm is so vast between the poor and the wealthy. And I think we've gotta reach reach the wealthiest people in this part of the world. And because they need there needs to be a change of heart. Culturally, there needs to be a change of heart, you know, because I I I talk to so many people in this part of the world, and and I've seen it. You know? And I'm like, how do we get people to care for for for Okay. Andrea, I'm gonna ask you a question. Mhmm. What is the number one mechanism to help people change their heart that is globally been reasonably proven to work that we are getting rid of in our secular society? Andrea, tell me. I don't know. Come on. You're gonna give me a religious response? Well, yeah. Pretty much. It's any of them. It's, it's it's because they are talking about what we're talking about is a re a positioning of values from individualism and consumptionism and self centeredism to neighborly care, kindness, and and a moral virtue that looks at loving thy neighbor. Yeah. I agree. Except that feels to me like the monotheistic faiths versus, the eastern traditions, which when I started digging into it back in the nineties, I realised there was a there was a a section of the faith or the beliefs or the philosophies that I hadn't come across in our monotheistic sort of, heritage that a lot of us come from, which justifies suffering within societies. And if you was, if you were born like you said in Hindu faith, if you're born in, in, in, in a bad way, it's because you didn't do pretty good. You didn't do a good job in the last life and you're being punished in this life. So there's a justification within the phase for suffering. So and and to me, when once I really understood that and then saw it and talked to my friends from those backgrounds, different different ones, not just the Hindu faith, that that's a that's a real eye opener for me. So it's almost like, it's thousands of years of culture where that we've got to kind of And there are other there are other East Asian religions that are global religions actually now that are, that suffering is part of part of it. In fact, suffering will will appear in all religions at some point anyway. Yeah. But if The idea that the idea that just it's not true. Yeah. I I I get it. It's more you deserve this because of something. Yeah. So but I think if you play it from the perspective of of a a set of moral ethics and moral laws or virtues, You know? Anyway, I don't think that's that's really where this conversation is supposed to be going, but it is a bias No. But no. No. It's it's it's all part of it. Right? But it's it's your silence is out deep. It's a bias. I was gonna summarize it all with a with a Sorry. Go ahead. I was gonna summarize it all with a solution that I was gonna send off to Neil to to to ratify, and I and I proposed the following. We choose Sweden to go ahead boldly with the experiment. What Sweden will do is they will digitize all gods into various AIs to represent the different flavors you like. They will have universal income. They will give over all ethical choices to the benevolent AI that's been programmed by hopefully a benevolent individual, probably from China. And, and all of it will be powered by nuclear, and it will be powered by the UK because the UK wants to implement you, nuclear, but they don't wanna do it on their own soil. And so they accept it from, from the UK. They get to run that experiment in Sweden, and then we see what happens when Sweden has free power, unlimited AI technology, looking after positions, and, all the time in the world to do whatever they want. Have you met a Swedish person? That's a I mean, my house my house is basically furnished by Sweden. So I I I guess it's it's it's that's fair enough. So So Neil, it's possible? It it sounds possible. But before we wrap up, let's give Neil a final, final, you know, whatever you wanna say, and then we'll go into the final bit. Joe, I I I do wonder if that's if you've literally just come up with that, or you'd be kind of, like, you know, sitting on it like an a, during the course of this conversation. But I it was it was it was coming to me as I was hearing everything. It was it was arriving in bits. So I went, oh, okay. So we want that. We want and I'm I'm a big fan of AI as you can tell. So and jazz hands. So, Always jazz hands. Yeah. You you there's nothing nothing wrong with it, but the soosso of jazz hands do anything. And, look, is it a possible future? Absolutely is. If we were to do a futures cone, I guess we can look at in terms of, like, where it actually where it actually lives. But I think all of this is about, sort of in my world is about sort of strategic foresight, right, in terms of, like, well, what might actually happen and what options do we have? What levers do we want? What are our priorities? And then what does that mean in terms of our our decision making both for today and and for tomorrow? Sweden gets a lot of things right, you know, in in many ways from their societal aspects. Having worked in Sweden and with the Swedes, they are very consensus driven. And I think, actually, what we are all sort of lacking is consensus. Right? So whether that's within a single country, your community, sometimes even a family. So whether Sweden would be the number one on my on my choice, we can potentially debate that. But, look, AI can do many, many things. But one of the things I I often say to sort of, you know, the c level people and boards that that I that I work with is is that, look, it's not a panacea. Right? It's not a silver bullet. It's not a bag of magic sprinkles. What it is today is either an amplifier to to what you're already doing or it's an accelerant. Okay? So if you think about it in those terms and then you apply it to a use case, that's when you can really begin to deliver value and actual proper tangible outcomes, that that really are sort of interesting as opposed to need to do something with it sexy with AI, jazz hands jazz hands, it's a hammer looking for a nail. So, if that's not sort of, you know, too too much coming from my, sort of independent pulpit, that's certainly my view on things. They could change their dotcom to dotai. I mean, that's small. So, again, yeah, progress is is greater than perfection. You might have a little bit more work to do, but, yeah, crack on. I'm still sitting with the concept of AI gods. Alright. So what's keeping you guys distracted at the moment? Who wants to go first? Joe does. Okay. Well, I'll I'll I'll, I'll recommend I'm I'm always sending you ways to to to to lose your life in in terms of watching TV and stuff like that. What's the potential for that is the FX FX's, Shogun. It is a remake of the old series, but it's been done so, lusciously that it's been, called the new game of of thrones. So if you if you like, a story that's of a different time, a different set of values, and very, very, you know, I would say, disconcerting at the same time intriguing, Check out Shogun. They've done a lot of great work. I I I was watching for the longest time, in Japanese reading subtitles, until I realized that I didn't have to. But, despite that, it was a it was a great experience. So go check it out. Shogood. Cool. I like the original. Alright, Tim. Yeah. I did. I remember watching the original growing up in Malaysia. Particularly, that that image of the fellow getting dropped into a pot and boiled was, was stuck with me somewhat. I think it was Richard Chamberlain who was in it. That's right. May have made that up. Yeah. Yep. Alright. What's keeping me occupied? Well, I'm still in the tsunami of assignments. I've got 2 left. I've just finished one that's due in today, which is good. So the next one is on Reinhold Niebuhr, and his his, social ethic and and argument against power. But I started watching finally, I started watching his reward finishing my my assignment yesterday, the, Ted Lasso 3. So I'm so I'm so pleased to be back in it again. It's just like I've just gone back into a familiar world, and I just love that show. I just love that show. You know? We should all be like him. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know? I wanna watch it. I'm gonna watch the whole thing again. Alright. Neil, what do what do you do to apart from swimming around Singapore? Yes. So so I probably I've I've got 3 things that are all sort of, you know, within my my sort of future orbits. So in terms of TV, I'm watching Fallout, which is, on Amazon Prime, which is absolutely brilliant. Slightly dystopian, but, you know, and even if you're not familiar with the game and stuff like that, very accessible. A little bit gory, but definitely very, very good. I am listening to a podcast called On Future War, which is interesting to me. It's sort of all about maybe what's gonna be happening in the Pacific where, you know, obviously, there's tensions are rising, you know, the heat is rising, you know, maybe between the US and and and China. And then finally, I'm reading a book called The Coming Wave, which is absolutely fascinating. It's very, very accessible. It's actually by a gentleman who is now recently joined Microsoft as sort of all things AI. He's heading up AI. So strongly recommend that in terms of how he sees things in terms of AI, digitalization, bioengineering. It's it's absolutely fascinating, but it's very, very consumable. He he is an absolutely fantastic writer, so, strongly recommend all 3 of those. Nice. Nice. Coming wave sounds fantastic. Well, as as you guys all know, I spend a lot of time reading, very serious stuff about what's going on in the world, trying to make sense of the whole story. So I need an escape, and my recent escape was on Netflix, and it's The Gentleman. Have you guys watched that yet? Nope. Much of it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's really, really, really good. So there's a a lord, Earl, I don't know, whatever, Duke, I think, inherits the family farm and discovers this big sort of marijuana plantation under one of the sheds that his father set up and that's worth 1,000,000. And so it's his involvement in the underworld and, fantastic characters. And, I just really, really, really enjoyed it. I thought it was very slick, very charming, beautifully filmed. Yeah. Probably helpful to know it's Guy Ritchie. So it's Guy Ritchie's Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Been all over it. So if you like Guy Ritchie's stuff, you'll love this. Yeah. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Dags. That's nasty. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Got some gypsies in it, but, not right fit. Yeah. No. It's really it's really cool. It's, yeah. It's a good break. I'm looking for another recommendation of something to get stuck into if anyone's got one. I'd fall out and, but if if anyone out there can recommend something similar. Just I've been seeing fallout coming up on my screen. I've been meaning check it out. So I I can I can recommend fallout? I'd say fallout's great. It's it's it's, while it's dystopian, it also has echoes of what's happening today. So go, you know, I'll leave it there. Indeed. I know. But I don't but but so that's what I'm I I I spend so much time looking at what's happening today and what's coming. Yeah. Tim. Andrea doesn't need dystopia. She needs utopia. Yeah. Well, no. Just just nice romance, anything. Just something that's gonna make me smile or feel good. Ted Lasso. As you mentioned, sort of Ted Lasso, Wrexham is very good. Welcome to Wrexham, which is on Disney Plus, which is about the the Ryan Reynolds, Rob McElhenney buying Wrexham. The latest season 3 just dropped yesterday. Haven't begun to get into it yet, but that's actually it's it's really, really good. And that actually is some real life and sort of has some good elements to it. So, maybe you want to give that a whirl and probably watch seasons 1 and 2 first. You know, that one also, just a just as a quick comment, is a remarkable business strategy for you buy the club and then you make it a TV show, which gives you supporters for the club, which is the communication that Joe was talking about about marketing. They've just got promoted again to the next league. I think they're in league 2 now or league 1. I think after league 1, they go to the championship. After the championship, they're in the Premier League, And then it's it's like it's so clever. It's sort of like American Idol with a football club. And then and then But it's real life. Thanks thanks for the spoilers, by the way, dude. Thank you. Or Drive to Survive. No. No. No. The I I'm just saying what I haven't actually watched the show at all. All I've known is I'm watching the the actual league table as to where Rexam is. I know, but I don't. Oh, okay. Well well, I Anyway But I think, I think it's all more about the humans and the characters rather than the result. Yeah. That's what we've been talking about all show people. It's about humans and the characters, not just the result. I think we've done our longest show yet. So, Neil, thank you for joining us. I hope thanks for hanging around. Thank you. No. It's it's been an absolute pleasure, and I'm sorry if, if if my gobbiness has, elongated things, but I've certainly enjoyed myself. It's definitely Neil's fault. Yeah. Of course. It's always it's always our guest's fault. No. No. It's really great to have you here, and, like, we'd love to have you back and just, you know, we'd like to talk about everything as you can see. But yeah. No. I really appreciate it. Do you guys wanna say anything, Joe or Tim? I was just gonna point out the word cloud score. Go ahead, Joe. I was gonna point out the word cloud score of the day or high score of the day will be for jazz hands, and I just helped. Yeah. Yeah. I know. Alright. Alright. Neil Neil should come back. Definitely. Yeah. Definitely. I appreciate it. Thank you. See you all. Alright. Bye bye. Have a great weekend. Have a good weekend. Have a good weekend. Alright? Paint your roof white. Bye.