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
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
The Know Show pilot episode.
This transcript is done using an AI Tool. It is imperfect.
All right, we are live. Hello, my name is Andrea Edwards. And this is the no show, which is not my name. The lovely Tim white came up with that, but I thought it was kind of a nice one. Anyway, so for 67 weeks, can you guys believe it? I've been publishing a blog, which is called weekend reads. And we can read is everything I'm mainly reading but also watching on the news. And it's my way of trying to help people navigate, you know, the chaos of information these days. You know, Tim has been nagging me for a while to do a bit of a show. And we basically decided that today is the day where we're going to try and do this every week. Well, we're aiming to do it every week. And if it's successful, and you guys like it, obviously. We'll keep coming back. But I want to introduce you to the two lovely gentlemen that are with me. Mr. Tim Wise, and the voice Joe gustan. The body please the body? Yeah, yeah. So yeah, what am I I'm the question mark. Oh, no, you're the superhero. Right. All right. I'll be the superhero. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, no, no. Um, yeah. So I've just give you that where I publish, when you call it the weekend reads is on my website, Andrea t. Edwards. And I'll post this up later. But if you want to check out Tim, this is his website, Tim. Tim way.com. So make sure you connecting and following with Tim talk following Tim because he's awesome. And we also have Joe and Joe is an X DJ, right? The voice comes from,
amongst amongst many things. Yes. An x, mass or mainstream media communicator? I've been I've been relegated to this. This is a promotion. What are you talking about? Yes. a superhero. In waiting. Yeah, that would deserve to slip. That was good. That McAfee's a bit too hot to slub? I should be I should take care of that first. But yes,
actually, I just wanted to mention, I think this shows a really good idea for a couple of reasons. There was a, there was a time in my I think it was post, I think it was post University merely after university roundabout University time when I was studying psychology University. And I was like, I'm not reading the newspaper enough. And so what I ended up doing was was joining the charity Vision Australia, which, which is for blind people. And I joined their radio show where I would basically sit on the radio and read the newspaper to blind people. And so it made it, it made it It made me read the newspaper, but for a purpose bigger than myself. Now, the beauty of this show is that I'm also like, I'm not reading enough views, but Andrea is what? Yeah, so what's great is, is we've we're getting the benefit of, of, I think Andrea's wisdom at looking at, at the news in and current affairs and things that are happening around the world that matter, rather than just the thing that's being sponsored. And so it's, and it's what's really interesting is we can feel really overwhelmed by all of this, by what's going on. But if we have a conversation like we're going to intend to have today, maybe we can make some sense of that.
And that is the forward looking aspirational comment section of our program done. Let's see now how we pay off on that.
But yeah, I think the other thing that has really changed, I was talking to my hubby about it the other day is, you know, we all used to, you know, when you grew up in a family, there was a there was a news source that everybody relied on, right? And it was one and today we have access to every possible news channel in the world. But but the media also has its own motivation behind you know, whatever message that's sharing, right? So if you're only following one source of news, you're only getting one perspective which is going to be tainted by the publisher, you know, like a Rupert Murdoch's view of the world. Right. And I so I personally think what we've got, I know it's overwhelming for a lot of people but we've got access to so much more information now. And I just, I really want to encourage people to embrace the opportunity that we have to look around all the stories you know, I always say you got to read around a story rather Rather than just having one point of view, and you know, so today, you know, and I think a big part of why we wanted to start today is the welding shock. Right, you know, and the first question is, what was the news that really struck struck a chord this week? And I think for all of us, it's what's going on in Afghanistan? Right? Yeah, that's you. I mean, it's the man shaming one, right. And, you know, the fear in the world is very strong around this. And it's like, one, one thing after another after another, we've been rammed with this bad news. And it kind of feels like to me this week, that news is sort of taking the world over, just over a precipice. You know, we were talking the other day, Tim, and you sort of said, you feel like the world's in depression, right now, like the mood of the world. And, and I think it's kind of like the, that last bit of news. I mean, most people aren't even paying attention to what's going on in Haiti, right. And it's devastating what's going on in Haiti. And then just the week before the IPCC report, you know, was released, and that got two days of front page coverage. And then the next, the next thing you know, it's about Kyoto being a bully in a, in a being an abuser of women in the workplace. And that became frontline news. Right? But you know, the biggest story of our time is the climate crisis. This one for some reason, it's really got the world's attention, and it's fear, sadness. Shame, I think there's a little bit. Yeah.
So I want to play the role of the the person who doesn't know anything. And my question to you is, so tell me what's happened in Afghanistan? What are the three big things?
Oh, I don't think there's three big things that happened. I think the speed of the success of the Taliban is something that's just blown everybody away. But you know, if you were really paying attention to what's been going on in Afghanistan for a long time, it's not really that surprising, that that they were so successful so quickly, probably a little bit faster than even even I was expecting the biggest part of the story that's really sort of had an impact on me, as I was always paying attention to the Taliban, back in the last century. And I used to support this charity called the radical radical Afghanistan, a Women's Association. And these women would go into like the soccer field, in soccer, whatever it was called. And that's where women were being beheaded for wearing nail polish, or running a beauty salon, or, you know, getting an education. So the, the horror of what that group are capable of was, you know, something that I was very aware of. So for me, it was all I can do is, my emotions are just sitting with the women and the girls. And a lot of them, like, especially the girls that don't even remember that, you know, it's stories their parents might be telling them, but they don't remember that. And I think the most heartbreaking part of the story for me was the girls who were sharing the moment when they when the Taliban entered kable how they basically ran home for their lives from from work from University from wherever they were. And I think the thing that I really struck me the most was, the men on the street, not the Taliban, the men on the street, then the neighbors, people that they've seen every day of their lives. were mocking these women, as they ran, saying, Yeah, go home, go and get your burger on. And it was that real, deep hatred towards women that is so prevalent in the society that I struggle with, and I think hatred towards women has has increased around the world, you know, in the last few years, you know, we're quite you know, women's progress has slipped by back by generation during the pandemic, not a decade a generation which is to me like, it's mind boggling, right? That we can't move forward because everyone benefits from equality. Everyone Hang on, hang on. Why? Because JD Why?
Why is COVID set when the women's agenda back?
Oh, have multiple reasons, but the main reason is who's gonna who's gonna homeschool the kids you know that you had no choice and you think about that with single mothers. And you think about that for like the black
woman and also just sensible by the way i homeschooled Zoey, it's just turned out to be like me. Much rather not to be like Lydia.
Yeah, but we're lucky we can afford the technology for our children to have an online education. Right. There's a lot of children around the world who haven't had that privilege don't have that privilege. Yep. Yeah. So that's that's where my real pain sits with the for the women and, you know, the Taliban have been doing running news conferences, talking to the international media, talking to female journalists trying to reassure but then you know, today they're going door to door trying to find And anyone who's cooperated with NATO, you know, so you know, we've got a, we've got a while to go before we understand what these really does mean for Afghanistan. Right? Yeah. Oh, what's what struck you guys like when you when you've been paying attention to the news about this story? Well, for me, it
was actually how quickly people summarized that perspective or point of view on that. I mean, as in like, you know, like what you just talked about, as the stories you talked about, as much as you feel that this is the story. These are the kinds of stories that everybody is picking up on, and actually isn't as much of everybody as you think, you know, I think the the quick summary is about the US and its failure and how they they mismanaged the situation. And this is Vietnam, part two. And then they move on to the next thing. It really is. I mean, it's some of the conversations that I'm some of the groups that I'm with, you know, on on WhatsApp and what have you. It's it's not remained as a big story, there's so many things that come up, because something else is happening as well. And because if summarized and moved on with what they think the situation is that I mean, it's always it's always much worse when you when you get a closer look at it. But it's also much easier to deal with things when you don't take that much of a closer look. If you don't I mean,
yeah, yeah, I mean, I mean, I, I look at my social interactions in my community. I don't feel that my my communities moved on from the story. I think a lot of people are still very focused on the story. You know, with the other the other part of the news, of course, you just mentioned with America's reaction to it. And did you did you watch Biden come out and speak on Monday?
didn't watch it, but I heard about it on a podcast. You're right. And I thought it was any better than it. But yeah, what did you say?
No, I just thought it was a really, I thought he was really strong. I mean, there is no, there is no good exit from Afghanistan. There never was, you know, in a lot of the story about the negotiations that Trump did before. And then the agreements he set up, which definitely made the situation worse, and but I thought Biden came out very strong. And Lee Kuan us come up, you know, one of his interviews that he did in America back at the beginning of it. And that, and that's been a really interesting perspective as well, because he's so right. I mean, and I think that, I mean, and then the other story that sort of breaks your heart is the vets, right? Parents of vets who are sharing their stories going to their children's graveyards, and, and just saying, You died in vain, you know, there's a lot of grief in the in the vet community. And there's been a lot of suicides ever since the war. And so but then some people are expressing sort of contempt for the people on the ground. And I really struggle with that, because I think people forget what it was like after 911. You know, and in America, and in particular, you know, they don't want to, they wanted to, they wanted to resolve, they wanted to get in there. And, you know, they wanted to make somebody pay. And so that, and there was a lot of people who were joining the military back then it was very nationalistic sort of time for America. And I think people forget that as well. The the strong emotions of that time, because 911 I was in I was in Boston at the time, I was supposed to be in the World Trade Center that morning. And I don't think this is talked about very much, but it really did change America, from a very deep way. Like always, you know, we always used to laugh about Americans being really naive. That was always sort of a common thing. And 911 for me, it was the moment that America changed, and that naivety sort of went away a bit. And I kind of miss it, you know, the, that those were simpler times. Right? But But overall, like, you know, we've got we've got to wake up it's war doesn't solve problems. invading countries don't fix countries, they just don't, we've got, you know, so. And we need to stop war anyway, from a climate perspective, like the US military is the third largest emitter, if it was a country, right? Just Just the US military, right? We can't afford to go nuclear. You know, and that was, that was pretty risky there for a while. Because basically, it will, will hit up to eight degrees, global warming, you know, and that's the end of humanity as we know it. So I know, I just hope that we can all sort of stand back from this and just say, we've got to change fundamentally change our societies and war is never the answer. It never has been. We need to work on our diplomacy, you know, the whole terrorism argument, then they're never going to go away. Right. And the more war you have, the more terrorists you create. So yeah, it's been a
if the climate if the melting glaciers in Asia, contribute to a billion people plus migrating, I think we're gonna have channels ranges from a war side from a national defense side versus refugees versus international chaos and stuff like that. I mean, that's a challenging one. But I did want to if I could, Andrea, can I just give my two cents on Afghanistan? as to why it's turn? What the history of it that brought it to here? Yep. Sorry. Yeah. So I just thought Cindy's comment. What have you got yourself into? Exactly. But I mean, so if so, my understanding on good idea licky. My understanding on Afghanistan is this is that the Russians were trying to come in, so America funded the Mujahideen, part of which were the Taliban, given weapons, and a whole bunch of stuff to try and chase out the Russians. The Russians eventually left. Now there was a bit of a power vacuum so that everybody was in sort of jostling for position, American moved in and set up the demo democracy and the government there. And there was still jostling for power. And finally, the Americans have left. And now that jostling for power appears to have been solved with Well, it appears to be that the Taliban are the ones who have taken the power. Would that be a reasonable?
Yeah, but I think it goes back a lot, it goes back to the 1800s. So no one's ever been able to defeat Afghanistan. And for some reason, they still keep going in but China's in now there from a diplomatic perspective they're in the Russians are in. So everyone's trying to make friends. You know, let's say, look, we, but the IMF, you know, just this week have withdrawn all the funding and frozen bank accounts. So from a financial perspective, like the the, the suffering major drought, so, starvation is going to increase a climate crisis is definitely hitting their COVID, obviously, on the rise in Afghanistan, as well. So we're facing a possibility of just massive infrastructure failure, right across the board. So you know, the story that I think we're going to see coming up is going to be really massive human suffering, on a wide, wide level. So there's a lot of different aspects to to what's potentially coming. So yeah, I'm worried. I mean, Taliban have promised that the aid workers can stay and do their job and do all that sort of stuff. And I think the aid is going to Yeah, I mean, yeah.
If the Taliban are going to take the Taliban to taking over, they've got a they've got a moment now to create the country there where they want it, which is Islamic Republic, and Sharia law, Sharia law. But there are other countries with that, and they're not disaster places. And unless you, you know, losing your freedom, same thing happened in Iran. Same thing happening. Well, Saudi Arabia's obviously like that part and Brunei have sort of instituted it. The, the, the, I mean, if so, they've got this moment, this this, dare I call it a honeymoon period. But they've got this period where the world where we're still getting the propaganda? Yeah, or we're getting the truth, we don't know. And about what they doing and what they might be doing at this point. So back then they might have been terrorist organization, beheading everybody. Now, what are they going to do? And the fear from so I'm getting stuff in my feeds, coming from a couple of different people but from the Christian community, about their their, their fear of extermination, not not repatriation, not, not attempt to convert, but just exterminate? If that's the fear. So think of this moment. Now we're obviously there's this campaign where they're talking like you were saying to female journalists and, and others showing that, you know, they're here to govern. But there's this moment for them I I think, but it's a scary, scary time for those people who are in it. And so and the other thing that I remember reading in the feed was from Deion, who was saying, just make sure your filters are on for your kids. In case there's good because social media cameras and phones and stuff are going to be up. As if atrocities are going to happen, then they're going to be visible. And just make sure that those filters are there for your kids.
Yeah, well, it's funny my 14 year old likes he just he just had a comment. He said he he said to me the other day, I don't like Biden anymore. And I said, why is that does? And he said because He's abandoned Afghanistan, and they gave us an opportunity to have a really, really good conversation about it. So he's like me, he's really interested in the news. So he's paying attention to what's going on in the world. And I love it, you can imagine, right? But yeah, but you know, if we start seeing some of the imagery of the past, we definitely need to be very sensitive to the impact that that can have on our children. But like you were saying, you know, the Taliban 20 years ago, they're on the charm offensive now, are they the same people? I think this is one of those times, you've really got to pay attention to different perspectives. different media, don't rely on one source, because the media is going to have a they're going to have an angle. And you know, you can see it, you can already see the angle that the different media sort of covering at the moment, and the only thing we've got right now is the hope that they've changed and that hope that they've woken up if they don't, if they're going to run a country, and nobody ever succeeds in running Afghanistan. Right. It's very tribal. And we've seen the protest start as well, which, you know, those people to me feel incredibly brave standing up, because there's such a well armed community. But, you know, are we gonna see another, you know, another insurgent force in Afghanistan of Afghanistan is you don't want the telephone. Right? So yeah, right. So you know, there's, it's a story that's got a lot, a lot to come. And I think we've just got to pay attention to it and be aware of, you know, just the propaganda that the media can put in.
I think it's also important to think about it this way, because I think I think we tend to look at once you can put one label on a certain group or an organization, we tend to, collectively, you know, look at them. It's the Taliban's, it's a marketplace of ideas as well, you know, that they're, they're going to be different factions, they're going to be people within the Taliban right now who hate what's going on in the way they're doing it, for instance, there going to be some people who want to be more moderate. And I think it really is about who has who has the power within the Taliban as well. And what they see as a way to win the game, and what is the end game? You know, could it could it be that could it be that after all those times somebody enough people want peace, and they realize that peace must come with some, some, some some compromise in terms of the other stuff that that that that got you there in the first place? Right? Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, I my hope, is that we all come to a place where people kind of respectful of each other, the thought that actually was coming to mind this whole time was that you know, like, yeah, how much how much of this is a reflection of the whole idea, you know, Just mind your own business? It, it's, you know, like, the best way to create a terrorist or a militant is to invade is to is to enforce or to dominate, and then the, then the reactions will come, you know, how do you make an insurgent, you basically attack, right? One, one has to wonder, you know, how much of this is just because we just thought we are righter than you. And so we have to get things our way, you know, you think about going back to that earlier conflict with Russia, us, it's about one side, being brighter than the other, you have to come in so because, you know, because you're the enemy of my enemy is my friend, that sort of thing. I mean, that's, that's, it's, it's tough. I mean, I and I say so as someone who can't resist a fight, you know, I'm, I'm the person who's going to see something, you know, unfair happen, and I don't know anybody, and I will get involved with that. But I'm beginning to see that for myself as a little bit of a bad habit, because what I'm doing is I'm, I'm satisfying myself really, by by getting involved with that. And sometimes there is a natural, you know, kind of order to things. Do you? are you interfering with where things were going, you know, the the documentary shooter that goes out into the wild, and he sees the predator coming up on the fray. They don't interfere with that, because something is already sort of happening. And the interfering can can cause different things. So you know, I mean, the situation that is there today is, you know, it's arguably the result of all the stuff that was put in before, right. I mean, it's not, it may not have been, it may have been much more evolved if we had the 30 years for it to evolve on its own.
Yeah, but there's a couple of things that I'd like to just comment on before Andrew jumps in. And the first one would be if you want to create a terrorist I think that the fastest way to do that is to support them and then abandon them here. So I think I've, the my fear for Afghanistan is that this move may create a lot of animosity towards America and the West, from those people who were fighting with them, who have now been thrown to the wolves in their, in their eyes if that if that's what happens, if they feel that way anyway. The second, the second part is I, I do think, Joe, that that debt, mind your own business sort of perspective, is a an, is a position that a lot of people are taking, because partly because they don't know how to get involved. But I and I do think the struggle of global powerhouses is, is that they, there may be a moral obligation to get involved based on their morality. And so if if we've got the power, like you said, if we haven't got the power to do something, and I see an injustice, then I'm going to do something. The question is, whose rules of justice? are we measuring this by? That's the that's the big question. So it's like, Am I am I, a cultural appropriation is, am I going in there and taking over the place and saying, you have to live by my culture? Or am I respecting the cultural traditions of the place as I go in there and try and negotiate some sort of peace, and then leave that culture to evolve as it is, and there's some? So So I guess what I'm saying is, is, I think one of the purposes, I think it's easy for us to check out. But, but we can't, I mean, climate, for example, if we all check out, then basically, we're abdicating our vote to big corporate, and politicians. And the pot and given the big corporate lobbying, the politicians were really abdicating everything to big corporate, which is how we've kind of got into this mess in the first place. Although the fact that we're able to do this right now with all our technology and everything else, is because no one will all right. It's all because of big corporate. So big corporate is good until they know. Or there's got to be some sorts of responsibilities about it. And I guess, what part of what we're encouraging people to do, and I'm guilty of, of going okay, all my own business, or, or I'm guilty of feeling, like anything that I do, is honestly not going to help. You know, I've ever read somebody saying they were they were, they were vegetarian for four years until they realize that them doing that didn't save a single animal. And there's no starfish story on that one. For example. Yeah. It's about a movement. Right. So yeah,
yeah. Yeah, exactly. I want to get back to the morality issue, because, you know, for me, the morality issue was definitely something I supported when when, when the forces did go into Afghanistan, for the women sake. Right. So I was definitely behind that from from that perspective, but the problem with the morality argument is lack of consistency. And it's only you know, they only do it if there's wealth in the country. Yeah. Obviously, the defense industry, there's a tweet being shared with how much money all of the different defense industry players have had made from the war in Afghanistan. You know, I remember on sales, basically, yeah. Yeah. Cause banks make money, too, right. And I remember I was in the army in the early 90s, when the first Gulf War broke out, you know, the first Gulf War had broken out, and then it was still ongoing. But then there was a second Gulf War. Do you guys remember that? There was a, we're gonna go in again. And that's when I joined. Yeah, exactly. And that's when I joined the army. Right. And so I was in basic training when that was announced. And we were basically put on standby. If Australia was going to go, I was going to go and I'm like, Oh, my God. I joined the army to be a musician not to not to fight and wars. But you know,
Jordan at that time, by the way, right. Okay. Yeah. What's my point? Oh, got a plus my point that it was a good job. Thanks, Tim. Thank you very much.
Yeah, and obviously, you know, we've got oil in Iraq, we've got oil in Afghanistan. There's a lot of money to be made. But if you want to get up if you want to get the world moving, that's what this is my point if you want to move the world forward, when when the world's in a recession, the best way to do it is to go to war because it builds your lives countries out of risk. session, right. So it's a, from an economic point of view, it's a good thing for governments to support, you know, which, which is another part of the story that, you know, it's an ugly part of the story, but it's a truth, you know. But yeah, but like I said, like, back to the beginning, like, we can't keep going to war, just from an environmental perspective, we have to work out how to calm it all down. You know, diplomacy, football was for what?
So we got a war on the pitch, whoever wins, you know, takes the spoils. No. Okay, sorry. Good,
I think the word that's gonna come about are going to come to the fore. Not that it hasn't already. It's just this thing about sustainability, right. So I think even on the question of morality, that there was this thing about acting a morality but in a sustainable way. And and I don't want to talk about it in the usual way that people think about it when you talk about sustainable and we think about it in terms of the environment now. But you know, like, like, like invading a country or going in the country or intervening with, with, you know, a civil war, for instance, where we take aside I think that happens when the rest of the economics also kind of makes sense. So in a perverse sort of way, that makes the the moral actions sustainable, because there's a there's an economic thing, like you talked about, you know, the the arms sales, the banking, the whatever services that go along with that. I mean, it's it sounds perverse to think about that. But the moral actions usually aren't going to be taken unless there is the economic incentive as well to sort of sustain that whole thing. I mean, now the tide is turned in a good way, in a sense that I think the the, the making the moral choice to what looking after the environment has become something where now you have your investment firms realizing that it's becoming a significant factor, as far as the marketplace is concerned, it's beginning to move in that direction. You know, I don't know whether it's something you can, you can separate. It takes time for us, I think, to make mistakes so that we figure out that those will mistakes, and then we go the other way. But, you know, I do think there's always this thing about sustainability, you know, there's always doing the right thing, but how sustainable is this doing the right thing? And then that question of sustainability, I'm not looking again, from a perspective of, you know, how the earth is doing is like how, how sustainable as in, like, how can we keep this up? How can we keep the people we need to be involved to be involved and keep going with it? That was a thought I just crossed my mind, man, in terms of, you know, making moral choices.
Yeah. Yeah, the sustainability. Comment is really interesting, especially when you're talking about the financing industry. So there's been a lot of companies, a lot of companies like BlackRock have been going out and making some big, big claims. But there's also a lot of stories that it's just greenwashing as well. So, you know, and every time those sort of companies come out and make those big statements, and then these other stories come through that there's they're still investing in fossil fuel industry, they're still doing everything. In fact, their investments are increasing in a lot of those sort of institutions. Right. And, and that just makes it and that you vegetarian might just go on, what's the point? You know, because we keep getting these stories. It's like, we just need to, we really need the whole world just to say, right, okay, like, this decade, if we don't get it sorted, we're screwed. And there's no question about it right here. And we're seeing it already. You know, this is massive destruction that's going on around the world already. It's time for us to say, It's time. No more brainwashing. We've got to get to work. We've got to get to business. Every single one of us, especially the wealthier countries, we all have to make sacrifices. I've already come to terms with the sacrifices our family needs to make complete change in lifestyle. We won't be getting on planes like we used to get on. Or if we do, you know, and I see people just dying to get on planes and fly again and go to traveling and going holidays and I i understand the desire. But if we really want to face up to what we've got to do, then we have to change all of those sort of behaviors. You know, Airbus said that they will have a, an emissions free plane in the 30s. Well, why haven't they got it already? I used to work for an aerospace company, the smartest people you'll ever meet aerospace engineers. But these companies like Airbus Boeing, they've been making so much money with the developing world growing so quickly. They've just been selling more and more planes and they haven't been focusing on the problem that they need to address and they've always needed to address it. But not it's like no industry has said, we've got to get ready for this. You know why? Why don't we have an emissions free plan. Now, you know, they're not rocket scientists. But now you know exactly what I'm talking about rockets, right?
The idea is like, okay, we will be one of these big, big things to happen as well. But at the same time, we're very, very uncomfortable to take the bold steps that we might be able to take, right. I mean, the concept of a nuclear plane has been has been around for, I think, close to it's more than half a century. But advanta button, it's not going to fly.
Nuclear energy just freaks everybody out. Right? And it did you watch the Netflix documentary on Bill Gates, where he was talking about his nuclear power power plant that he had, he was, he was gonna get a built in China, and it was all ready to go and then went on. And on that particular one, you know, I
love the idea so much, and I wanted so much, but I have difficulty saying, I want to have it here. Right? Yeah. Anyways, building it in China.
Now he's building in China, just obviously, from a cost perspective. But then when Trump came in he, he didn't allow that, that deal to go through because it didn't want to give that intelligence to the Chinese government and all that sort of stuff. But I don't know. I mean, we've got to look at all the different possibilities. Right. And, but nuclear is one of those things, you know, obviously with Japan, you know, what's going on? You know, they're they're about to release all these nuclear water into the, into the ocean. Hide that one? What's that one? Yeah, that's coming up in a couple of years that because those, what do you what do you call them? The reactors that are calling them down there? They fall. And they basically, there's no nowhere for him to go. So they have to be released into the ocean? And I think it's 2025. But right now, there's no other solution for that waste. There's no, no way for it to go. And you kind of think, Well, why? Why do we continue to create things that can't be safely disposed of, you know, like airport with air should?
We should dispose of them all? in the Arctic areas? And then they can't let global warming happen? Because it because you will freeze and go everywhere. Yeah, they've created the conditions for the cells that they have to fix. They have to fix it. Yeah.
For those of you who just joined us, this is a brainstorming session for the next Bond villain.
But let's let's go on. So I wanted to sort of let's go into another were my Ben has another question. And I want to talk a little bit about COVID-19. So first of all, how are you guys doing from a mindset perspective? You know, with the pandemic, and how it sort of seems to be getting worse, not better. How are you guys coping with that?
My bugbear actually is this vaccination, hex hesitation. And it's how people are getting into all these, we're getting deep into the weeds in terms of conspiracy theories. And the feeling is that I used to live in a country where, you know, that kind of thing didn't happen. But now I'm here. It's not that there's a large contingent, but there are enough of them out there. Who are, you know, not only just resisting the vaccine for themselves, they're holding back their families, but they're also picking up the rest of the crazy ideas that come along with it. And it's like any what's the number one conspiracy theory? Let me conspiracy theory. Well, the woman here, there is no disease. And this is not a this is not a real disease, that the rest of the whole thing was a massive theatrical production to try to bring everyone into line.
Possibly. So it's like another y2k, maybe? I don't know. So you get a free jab. So what's the big deal? So So here's the thing, if there is a disease and you get the jab, you're protected far more than if you don't, if there isn't a disease and you get the jab, nothing happens. So, so get the jab. You can't prove that it's the thing. So next, next theory, give me the next one. I'm gonna debunk all of them.
Well, the big one that they have is basically this what's the motivation behind it and why are we just doing the why are we doing the vaccine thing given that we don't have all the answers all the rest of it? Yeah. Is it 5g?
Again, what's the sorry microchips
like this the dangers involved so there's there's there's a certain math you have to involve with the with the vaccination and the system of danger involved with it as well. Right. So I'll give you a very close personal example. Like Like, in my family just happens to be that my family or at least in my family back in Australia, there are at the confluence of several terrible Things all happening the same time to do with vaccines. There's a, an uncle who just got the vaccine and he died within a day, my mom's got a friend who's 90 Plus, and she took the vaccine and she died within nine hours. You know, and that statistically speaking, all those things that was we spread out and very far away. But for my particular family, having been exposed to those kinds of situations, the the the arguments that you have about, you know, statistics and all that are very hard to, to sort of take on board, because yeah, statistically speaking, and this could be a very, very rare event that just happened to happen to the two people we know, in our, in our close circles. So I have, you know, I have a sister who's a very smart person, she's, she's, she's astrophysicists, and she's a teacher just expose the students. So she's actually exposed to lots of possible infection, and she's not going to have the vaccination because she's concerned about some of these long term questions. You know, my brother's a teacher as well. And he's hesitant for pretty much same reason as well, because in his very home, someone has has come to work to work COVID related, a vaccination related incident. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay, so at the risk, so Okay. So for those ones, they've got their, they've got a close proximity to an incident. And in some cases, multiple incidents, which is, which, which is experiential, but, and obviously very influential, but not necessarily consistent with the numbers and the probability. So I get it, I get, I get why they would resist, I also get like, an 85 year old who's got a heart condition and is worried about how many more years they have to live His Word is worried about getting the job and having complications. And and so I I empathize with the fear there. The any any sort of conspiracy theory about, it's about control, or there's some sort of nano bottle, whatever it is, to me doesn't doesn't make any sense at all. Because, you know, obviously, if we're all going to be killed off for taking the the jab, then those people who have got this cunning plan are left with a bunch of people who don't follow orders. So why would you want to be Why do you want to kill everybody who follows orders to be left with a bunch of people who don't,
I saw a comment was quite quite some time ago. And I think on Twitter, this guy goes, I'm so amazed by like, this expectation that people have of these people in power on what they're capable of doing. Because I've run a operations department for a multinational company, we, we can't get our shit together in any way, shape, or form. So how the hell are they going to be able to, you know, control, you control the world. And to me that, that was the point of like, I've met a lot of these big tech icons in my career, right. And I know that they're not capable of doing that, but they're not motivated to do it. They're not capable of doing it. And you know, like, someone like Larry Ellison, right? He's just like, not that he's one of the targets. But he's a good example. He, I mean, he's just, he's a showman, you know, and it's all about Larry, and it's all about the show. And then you go to someone like Bill Gates, who is so deeply intellectual. And, you know, he's just, he's got his mind, you know, there's just thinking about stuff all the all the time. And then you see these accusations coming at him. And I'm like, a god, you know, there's no, that's just not who he is. You know, like, it's mind boggling to me. But you know, my brother was vaccine hesitant. And I rang him up last week, ready to give him a bulking about it, because if he gets COVID, he will die. You know, he's a very high risk. Anyway, he basically made the decision to get it. And before I called him, which is lucky for him. But he said, I'm just he goes, I'm just so confused. There's so many different opinions. And of course, you've got the media, different opinions and 70% of media in Australia is dominated by Murdoch media, which is full of confusion around around COVID. But then, you know, I'm sitting in a place like Thailand, and I'm seeing the economic devastation that it's causing, you know, there was a reporter bodies on the road dead in, in Bangkok, you know, you see the, you see the hospitals in Indonesia, there's just people lining up on the street outside. You know, we saw that horrible wave go through India, and you know, there might be another one. So, the Israeli minister Prime Minister's sort of talked about the Delta storm, this is not the same virus we began with and that's my my biggest frustration right from the word go is like, Come on, guys. Like Yeah, I know people are dying. We don't have to worry about it. No, This is a virus viruses change, they get, they can, they can get weaker, or they can get worse. And this has gotten worse. And you know, there's two, three months old in America on who being incubated you know, with COVID pregnant women who are dying and their babies are being born, but they're dying of COVID You know, it this younger people are being impacted long term COVID is a real thing. And sometimes I talk to friends about long term COVID. And they don't even know what it means. They haven't even seen anything about it, you know, some of the symptoms that people are dealing with with long term is just horrific, you know, so, right from my go, oh, like, neurosis like the brains like, go nuts? Yeah, can't get out of bed. You know, brain, you know, definitely fuzzy brains, you know, long term COVID. Things like, you know, young athletes are dying for things like pericarditis, which, which they get from having having had COVID. And that's a horrible thing to have Steve had a few years ago, it's a horrible thing to have. You know, it's basically when a virus enters your body, any virus, it can, it can travel to the wall of your heart, and it sort of forms a sort of a, like a layer of fluid around your heart. Unbelievably excruciating Lee painful, but that's one of the symptoms. Some, you know, people, people just aren't it 12 months later, they're just not back. They're not back to the, you know, I don't want to get it for that reason. Yeah. But but all we've ever needed to do is to do the same thing at the same time all over the world. And we've always needed to do it, we still need to do it, and we're still not doing it. And it's really frustrating. And, you know, the data is pretty clear. Vaccines work, it's our best chance. You know, Israel's one of the most highly vaccinated, it is the most vaccinated country in the world. They've got a Delta storm breaking out there in the fourth wave, you know,
so I need to I need to kind of pump the brakes on that one, because Israel was going at the fastest rate until it reached that 60% point and then they the take up rate kind of stopped up there. So right now Singapore's becoming the the the standard in terms of level of vaccination. So Israel, Israel had a tremendous upstart, but it really hit that wall about 60% said it never really got to that at something like 78% vaccinated me Israel from one of the articles, one of the articles I'll share on this weekend read Yeah. Israel is Singapore. It's Yeah. Oh, the competition's fierce, right. I was gonna say, I was gonna say one of the problems actually about about all of these these things, that COVID environment, you know, that the other massive issue is, right, is that we're not designed as human beings to handle large problems, these problems are large, and our brains, the general brain isn't able to focus on that kind of large concept. It's the old thing, why? why you can't solve, we can't focus on a problem when we say, oh, millions of people are dying because of this, that we can't seem to do anything, and be motivated to really do something about that. As much as we can be motivated by saying, bye, bye, bye, the neighbor next door, needing a cup of sugar, for instance, right? It's just it just the human condition is that we're not designed for these large, large problems. And I was thinking of what what you're doing and what I want to be doing more of as well as solving this problem with helping to do to make these problems graspable so that people can put their heads around that are helping the leaders who are trying to communicate these things in a way that's going to really kind of work. You know, what's been happening in Singapore, for instance, that that really has helped. I think the uptake and in vaccinations is that they personalize the stories of the cases. You know, and and and so the the, the, the older person who is not vaccinated sees a story and not just a general older person, but they see a specific older person, this person who was this age, unvaccinated and had these conditions, where unfortunately, you know, not designed to process stories of 1000s and hundreds of 1000s. But we need to process stories of ones. And so I think the mission for us is how do you figure out how do we figure out the the story about the environment? How do we make that work? Because I kept, you know, as I was thinking about, talking about this today is like, I see the problem with the environment pretty much the way I see the problem I have with my weight and my health. You know, it's not like I don't know what I need to do. It's not like I don't know the urgency with which I have to do it. But there's still something that's not letting me do it.
Food? The the Yeah, your point that the I read something about how the Japanese are looking at climate change discussions, the governments are getting some getting groups around where they're approaching it from the perspective of not what do we need to do now, but they're approaching it from the perspective of what a future generations want us to do now. Which is, which is really, I mean, it's really, it's what great has been talking about, it's what it's what Andrew has been talking about with regards to, you know, grandkids, the world we're leaving for our kids even, it's, it's that near term. And, but it's an interesting way to put the conversation in perspective, it's like HG Wells has time machine, you know, where or while it basically that one, you going forward to the future to go, this is what it's going to look like? Or what can we do, if you can come back in time and tell us now? What do we get behind? What's it going to be? And so what, what are the solutions? I mean, Andrea, you've got solutions for individuals. And then but I'd like to talk about some solutions to look at it at a more macro level. But what, version three from the individual side?
Well, no, I'd rather talk about the big picture stuff. Because what I was saying before was is really interesting, because I agree that the majority of people are not equipped to deal with the bigger sort of stories. But I do think some of us are equipped to do to do that. And, and I think, you know, we need to be trusted. You know, we're the people who are out there sort of really trying to understand the challenges of our time. And really going deep on the research, you know, even grettir, right? is a great example of it, she went deep, and she understood it. And so when it comes to the climate crisis, the first thing we need to do is we need to face it. And that's what I'm doing the weekend reads, I'm sharing all these climate information, because I'm trying to say to people, please face this until you face it, you can't understand what we need to do. And it's a very scary thing to face. And that's why I keep saying to people on the uncommon courage channel, if you decide to go into this and face it, I'm here for you, I'll help you through. Because the depression that you will follow, or despair will follow. It's very hard thing to face. But until we do that, we can't because we need enough people ready to do that to be able to move forward. Because once we've got a majority of people in agreement that we got a big problem and needs big solutions, we're not going to be able to move forward because we can't have a republican government in the US again, that's against climate change that doesn't believe in climate change, right? We can't afford that. We need so we need the citizens of the world to say and in Asia in particular, we need people to go we need to be looking at this, you know, look Kishore, me, Barney said, I think it was in 2013. At the time, there were 500 500 million middle class Asians. And he said by 2020, there's going to be 1.7 5 billion middle class Asians, right. And I've been talking, I've been sharing that line for such a long time. Because to me, it's it's the crux of the issue. What's the reason they face The reason this all happened so quickly, is because this huge community emerged that had money to spend, and they got on planes, they bought lobsters, they ate beef for the first time, you know, in a lot of countries where there wasn't enough wealth, meat wasn't necessarily on the table every week, but once wealth grows, you know, Louis Vuitton, you can't even get into a Louis Vuitton shot, you got to line up out the door, right? Because there's so many more people with money to spend. So the fundamental thing that we have to do is we have to stop growing, you know, the way business is run, we has to change, you know, shareholder value, you know, it people are making, the whole way that we run the global economy has to change. And that's a really big thing, like you think about from a stock market perspective, right? That needs to basically come down. You know, we've, we've got to stop growing, you look at the stats around travel and flights, and and, you know, it's exponential growth every decade, and we just got to keep growing, we can't just keep growing. So we've got to look at it from that perspective. And, you know, every single individual on this planet can do whatever, whatever they can do to contribute. But unless we get that big business sort of vision of what we need to change, we're not going to make it we're just not going to make it
we're only going to be able to get that to happen when people figure out the why the stop making them focus on that because you know, like, I remember what it is that you said which was which was very impactful for me was your perspective about how your family and I'm paraphrasing and perhaps maybe, maybe I got it wrong, but the feeling I got that you felt that you're never going to be able to go back to Australia, if you if you have a long term plan because that's going to become a fireball, right?
Yeah. No, it's Australia is going to be an unlivable continent. There's going to be a patch of grass about Perth. That's Yeah. Where where it's currently desert.
Yeah. So so for me that, that, that that kind of perspective and that kind of feeling that that kind of real mirror to my face sort of moment, is the kind of thing that helps. So, you know, I really think it's, it. It's all the other stuff about solving the problem is only going to come once we come face to face with that with that problem in a way that's meaningful to us. Yeah, you know, where we, it's, it's, I mean, it's the old it's the old Christmas Carol, right? Do you really have to get a face to face encounter with the desolate wall of the future? And the kind of thing that's going to happen, and you're like, Oh, shit, this is not what we want, we have to do something about this.
You don't want to, you know, one of the things that sort of, from a, from a local perspective, right, so we're living in the tropics. So the IPCC reports, talking about 1.523 3.2, or whatever, right? If we get to 1.5, which we're going to hit, not permanently, but sporadically in the next few years. the tropics will become too hot to live. So we're all we're all living, it will be too hot to leave, right? So you think about that, from your own perspective. But you sort of also think about it from food production. So this huge region, the rice growing region of the world, the people won't even maybe even be able to grow rice in that temperature. But the people who are going out to work to bring the rice in can't because if they do, they'll die. And then when you get to two degrees, global warming, the tropical rainforests of the world can't survive. Heat that heat, right? So when when I hear the conversation, Oh, we got to keep it under two. Now we've got we've got we can't have it any worse than it is now. Because it's going to kill like you were saying, Tim, now billions of climate refugees, slow, the Himalayas, glaciers. That's past the tipping point, it's melting, right? It's done. how quickly it happens is the next thing. But when you think about the billions of people at the bottom of that China, India, like all those countries that surround it, who rely on the water, for drinking, for farming, and so they're going to be facing floods, they're going to be facing droughts, but eventually, you're going to have these massive need for migration. So what are we getting, we're not even ready for it, you know, we should be building climate, refugees, cities all over the world in preparation, so that people can move and go somewhere with safety and dignity. You know, we've got to get ready for it. And it's obvious what we need to do. So, you know, the prediction is, it's going to be war, you know, wars over water, we're gonna, you know, it's going to be each for their own. But why don't we don't need to approach it from that perspective, we can work out how we can do this collaboratively. And that is another path that's open to us, but we just need the will to do it. And well, the rising nationalism that's been happening around the world, that's not helping. It's not working.
But it's a it's a, it's possibly a protectionist symptom of, you know, if we want to close our borders. I mean, what COVID has done is given everyone experience of closed borders, for a while the refugee crisis comes then, on such a billion level, massive scale, that's going to be that's just going to collapse. social systems in countries that just can't cope with the sudden influx. And not only that cultural change, here's, here's the challenge that I have with what you've both said. And the challenge is, this sounds too bad to be true. That or possible, and if it is, I don't even want to talk about it. Because it's, it's it's just terrible. I mean, it's, it's so bad. And I feel I can't do anything about it. So I'm going to put my head in the sand until I cook. I mean, it's me, but but this is what I think a lot of people would be reacting to this in a, in a sense, I mean, and when we talk about, you know, what needs to happen, and this should happen, and that should happen. Well, why isn't it happening?
Well, yeah, that's that's that's the big question. Right? You know, it's in the 80s when these conversation started. Governments have known about it, but it's the case. Now 1980s when they started, I mean, it's obviously been there was people before that, but you know, Margaret Thatcher, Bob Hawke, a number of them really sort of nailed it back in the 80s. But every you know, and I, to me, it's one of the great failures of democracy nailed What? The challenge that we were going to face with the climate crisis, okay, you know, like, but that to me, that's the problem with the, with the democratic democratic societies is like, they change so regularly. Yeah, that there's no long term planning. But you know, if you'd like, if you listen to at least, Yong Yong, to me, he's one of the great diplomats in the world right now. When he talks when he talks about the climate crisis. Have you have you guys ever? Do you ever watch his videos when he does want to be speeches? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's, he's, he's, he's, he absolutely nailed it on the head. He is getting Singapore, Singapore prepared. But this is, I don't know what I don't know. It's like this almost this disbelief in governments. And, you know, there's so much misinformation around the climate crisis, it's making it so much harder, and the lobbying of governments by the fossil fuel industry, and that, you know, their misinformation campaigns, and it's just like, we just don't need to stop and go, we got a big issue on our hands, and we need to come together, and we need to solve it. And it is a despairing possibility that future but it doesn't have to be that way. I won't stop fighting for the future for my children. until the day I die. I won't, you know, and I can't give a give up on the hope that we can do this, we can do this.
Okay. So. So fundamentally, okay, let me let me let me share a couple of things. So one, one, I was in India, in, in a village for the world leadership, the Women's Leadership Conference, some women's there was a women's event, this is like a decade plus ago. And, and I was there with a group called The Hunger Project, who had worked out that if I want to solve the hunger problem in villages that are impacted by drought, if I want to solve the hunger problem, I need to make sure that we have women leaders in the panchayat in the local village council, because the men would usually spend the funds on either bribing gambling, or, or alcohol, because it was it was too much and the way and it was very much a relational, I'm going to help you help me pay the bribe, get something, help my village, all that sort of stuff. Whereas when the women were in power and had leadership capability, and the two are different, the the decisions that would be made with the money would go into infrastructure, wills, schools, education, that sort of stuff, and it would be spent on on that. Possibly, because the women were the ones that were marching off for hours to get water from the other one and come back, but also, because that's how you take care of your family. And that's what you got to be able to do. The reason why I said it's different is because the women, there was a law that they had to have 30% of women in their village government, and all they would do is put them there, leave them over there, go Leave it to us, just be quiet. And and then nothing would change until the women had leadership capabilities. So the Hunger Project decided, we're going to teach leadership to the women so that they can make valuable contributions, it made a lot of sense. Then we're in this one village where they're well it dried up. And they were marching way over there. And we were there. And one guy said, Well, I know a guy who's got a backhoe that can basically drill this down here, I can call in and get him in. And the guys at the Hunger Project said don't do it. Because it's going to change the balance of power. And it's going in, it's a reliance on charity. And then we had this huge discussion of like, at that point of, well, I can take immediate action and make a difference and change it and solve the problem for these people. The Hunger Project, we're looking at it from a more macro perspective to say, charity going in and and give it is, obviously it's important for a moment, but it can't become the the income stream or the way of like, they've got to be able to work things out themselves. We've got to give them the support to be able to do that. And then empower them, give them the power empower them, rather than charity is the power. And so and that makes a lot of sense. Setting the discussion was, well I want to I want to just fix the well because I don't want to see these people suffer. And it was like Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. And then basically when I processed it all, it was
it was we got to do both. We got to fix the well and we got To empower them, we got to maybe we've got to, we got to empower them to have the connections with the people who can fix the well. So give them the result that they were able to do negotiate it to fix the well, but we need to do it now. And the reason is, it's the two party system, if your government is only focused on what we're building 20 years from now, only, and not delivering stuff, you know, fixing the potholes and building that school today, you're going to be voted out of government, if you don't give me my tax break, or you don't give me the thing that's going to make my quality of life go up, I'm gonna vote you out and get somebody else who will who will do it. So that there's a huge responsibility and opportunity, weirdly enough for those countries who have the higher likelihood of long term government still being in there so that they can do both. They've got to respond to the rigor, the responsibility of doing stuff now, plus, they can plan for a future that will be implemented, rather than what happens in places like America where every four to eight years, the government will change. And to the ones that hate the other guys, and will undo everything that they did. Yeah, and you've just got this very slow process of implementation. So then, who are the people that can make the change? So then, so that was Exhibit A, Exhibit B, is we needed old to happen globally. At the same time, like you mentioned, Andrea, and we, we needed to do that I remember putting in a Facebook posts in March of 2020, which was in black. And it just said, all we need to do is all around the world, we shut down for one month, if this thing can survive any two weeks, we shut everything down for one month, except for doctors, delivery drivers, and police. And, and we make sure that everyone's got and delivery drivers is not is not getting a nice meal delivered. It's essential supplies, you can cook your own thing, or noodles or whatever it is. So you can survive for a month. And then that should kill it. I mean, that should that should do it. But it has to happen all at once. Why doesn't it happen all at once. So now I take you back to exhibit C, well, Exhibit D, that was a prelude to Exhibit B, excellently was was what one thing I've been thinking about. It's an absolute nonsense thing to be thinking about. But I've been thinking about what the United Nations actually do. What should they be doing? So the United Nations get together and they vote on and they have discussions about stuff, you know, it really seems to me to be squeaky wheel, most noise politics, when the united nations have got this great opportunity to be the global Federation, you know, if you had a global president and global Federation, they've got a really great opportunity to be that. And, and so then I thought, what would be great that they could fix. And I thought, you know, what they could fix, they could fix driving on the same side of the road all around the world. And then I thought, Okay, well, that doesn't really, but it would be kind of cool if somebody fixed it. And then I thought, What else could they fix? They could fix metric versus imperial system once and for all. And it seems to me, why not just have it all metrics. So we don't have feet anymore. Everything is just metrics, you know, no pounds or stones or anything. It's just, it's just everything's metrics, because that makes the most sense. And then that led me to think you know, what they could do? They could decimal eyes time. Why do we have 12 and 24 and seven and all this sort of stuff. And then I've found out well on some of these things, that in the 1790s, France actually did that. Post French Revolution, they decentralize time. And, and it didn't work. And the only reason why it didn't work is because nobody else did it.
It was you know, and they called basically they got rid of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, bla bla bla bla bla they got rid of good Monday is named after the moon. You know, Sunday's named of the sun. You know, Thursday's named after Thor, tour, Frig, all the all the Norse gods and then you got the monks all named after, you know, June, July is Julius Caesar. All of these ones are named after October was number 10. was the number eight, it became the number 10 because they inserted to September number seven. So but but August was Augustus You know, there was various other ones Saturday is Saturn day. I mean, it's all of these things were all all over the place with mythologies and religion was was linked into 12 hours and seven days in the 12 tribes in the seven years old, 12 and seven and everything is all sitting there happily. So they went, you know what, let's decentralize time. And they came up, I had to look this up because we complicated, they divided a day into 10 hours. each hour was 100 minutes, and there was 100 seconds. And then they had a bit of a problem with the number the lunar cycle being 28 days, which works nicely with with seven days a week. So they ended up coming up with you know, 365 days a year. is how long it takes the earth to go around the sun. So they came up with a bunch of holidays to fill in the gap. And, and it was it was like, oh, that kind of makes sense. Except Germany didn't do it. All the countries around France didn't do it. They just thought they were nuts. Because they wanted anything to do with religion gone. Yeah. The French Revolution, it completely secular. And, and I thought I thought okay, well, Francis, it could have worked, it could have worked had the whole world gone. Yeah, this is our opportunity to make a big decision, we're all going to hate it for 100 years, but then we'll be dead. And it doesn't matter. You know, I mean, and countries have done it before when they've taken over and they said, okay, everyone's gonna learn Tagalog. That's my hometown language. So you're gonna learn that language, or Myanmar the same thing and stuff happening there. So it's, it's, it is, it is possible that United Nations can make big decisions, if they agreed with Francis thing, it was around in 79, they could have said, that's a great idea. Let's do it. For the sake of future generations, and the sake of not not all of us talking about different things having conversions. And all of that says that, let's do it. And then although there is value, in the tension of difference, our heart beats that way, bump, bump, bump, but there's tension, there's value intention. And what we're seeing is, is this, but ultimately, the United Nations has the power, I don't, I'm pretty sure I to exhibit C, but I forgot what it is that
I'm just I'm just, I'm just super impressed by how long, it's taking you to make a point. And you've, you've taken this integrate mythology, and also, it's
really gonna be very disappointed with the point that I actually make which possible when this thing show up in this argument will go and that'll be the end of the the the opportunity for Speaker of the House to grab the mic anyway. So the so the United Nations has an opportunity and opportunity here to take a leadership position alongside the IMF, which, which could also take the leadership position without being but without the threads of who the puppeteer is being so obvious, these are organizations that that have a degree of global authority that could transform themselves into global, more far more relevant. The, the challenge that which would then trickles down to what can we do, and what we can do the only real thing that we can do, I mean, we can recycle, and we can do this, and we can do that. But, but it's not gonna have as an individual, we can do it and go, everybody else sucks. Because they're not doing what I'm doing. And they should all go out and do this. But the real real thing that we can do is get a pen and paper, and not email, but pen and paper, pen and paper, and write a letter to your local constituent. And you need to put your name and address on it so that they know that you're one of their constituents. Otherwise, they will go this could be come from some lobbyists in wherever it needs. It needs to come from somebody that is in their electorate, who who has the chance of electing them out if they don't respond. So your name and address and you write a letter to say what an ask the questions. I'm concerned, deeply concerned about the environment. I'm deeply concerned about Afghanistan, I'm deeply concerned about what's happening in Myanmar. What is our foreign policy on this? What is our What are we doing with regards to climate change? Is there a forum that I can get involved in that is that the government is paying attention to because they're co sponsoring it like a, like a focus group. And we work with local government that work into the larger sections of government so that they see this as an election issue. And even though the election for some countries may be four years away, and for other countries may be never, they still see it as a groundswell of this is what the people want. And if it's a government, that is that is we are the People's Party, and there is no other then the people are having intelligent discussions about we need to be doing something like this, don't we think? But in the democracies, where they can lose with where it seems to me from a cynical perspective, that the politicians only care about keeping their job and the and the benefits and and, and, and Cayman Island accounts that benefit from that. That's the super cynical version. Then play that game. If you want to stay in power have a Have some sort of moral backbone, and also listen to what your constituents are asking. So yeah, I think Yeah, that was my long, long winded point to get to the point of how do we influence the United Nations, you influence it by writing a letter to your local MP.
Yeah. And, you know, being active citizens, how we vote, using the power that we have as a citizen to influence you know, locally, as well as the sort of federal sort of government level. If you work for a company, you can get involved in the company and make sure your company's doing the right thing be a voice, you know, the Amazon, sustainability, environmental group, within Amazon, they're there. I mean, a lot of them have been fired for being so outspoken, but they're not stopping. So every company on this planet, the employees, voices need to rise. You know, I talk a lot about being active on social media, it's why I share articles, I'm not doing it to freak people out. I'm just desperately trying to raise awareness, we've got to wake up, we've got a problem. But the global cooperation, you know, when you're talking about the United Nations, and the IMF, they are the bodies that we need to empower. You know, we've got like, a 10 year 20 year window, but the problem with global, a global approach is people are freaked out by it, because I think, you know, what's, there's a phrase right now that global control, people don't like it, right. But you know, we're at a point where we have to be, that's what we need to do. So let's work out how to do it, do we put a committee together of people that, Oh, that's a job, you know, leading the world through, and, you know, it's the, I'd suggest putting women in those roles rather than men. Because, you know, the men aren't really showing. And going back to your earlier point in India, you know, women have different motivations. You know, that's why I support Kiva, the micro financing business, you know, when when, when it goes to women, the community benefits when it goes to men, they get whiskey. Right? That's the that's the basically what Kiva is sort of foundation was to help women. But yeah, so look, you know, I think we should probably wrap up, we've got been going for more than an hour, I don't want to bore people. But I think, you know, we've got some big problems. And the biggest challenge is believing that we can do it, believing we can do it. And we, if we can get enough people to say, Well, yeah, let's do it, right, stop being scared of it. Let's, let's agree what we need to do. And then they get, let's get to work. And it's a huge, huge opportunity to completely transform the world. But it's not a small thing. But while we've got a head in the sand, we're not going to be able to do it. So my wish, that's what I'm out there trying to do is just say, Come on, let's go, we can do this, we can do it. And it's huge. But we our children deserve this. They deserve this, from all of us to make sure that their future is not horrific, which is what it looks like it's gonna be right now. So anyway, wrap up any final words?
I think that if we can figure a way to, to empower people, they the idea idea, like, like, like what Tim was saying about getting people to do something, this specific thing. I think there's a there's a need for I mean, you know, it seems the old thing about leadership, we need leadership, but we need leadership to be packaged in a way that's easy to communicate and to share. So it has to be memorable. And I think one of things that we have to get over is this thing that that the world seems to have a problem with, which is power, I think we are going to have to come to terms with power that people do have power, certain countries have your powers and companies have power. And what we need to work on is to increase the benevolence of those who are powerful.
Yeah, that's a that's a really good point. I think the other thing is we've really got to tackle corruption all over the world. You know, corruption is a huge part of the challenge that we face that we've got a, you know, from the cops taking bribes on, on the roads in Malaysia to, you know, the really deep, deep, deep corruption that exists in every country on this planet, you know, because that's another huge problem and just greed, you know, the greed that continues to exist in the world. You know, that's, it's kind of kill us all. It's gonna just it's destroying the foundation of our ability to live on this planet. And, yeah, we grow. I mean, you know, we're talking about, we've got to it, we've got to raise consciousness around the world, you know, we've got to advance more than we've ever advanced as a species, if we have any chance of overcoming the sin. You know, when, when that was my purpose for publishing my book, uncommon courage, it was it was really about trying to help people to just go within and just sort of address those things that we all carry in within us, but that don't actually serve us and then they don't serve society either, you know, so, you know, with, with, we're so focused on the wrong things all the time. And we need to focus on the right things and hope is in that path. And, you know, too many people feel hopeless right now. And I, I just there is there is a path out of these, it's good for all of us. And we just have to have the courage to step on that path.
I'd like to propose that we convert Tim's idea into a yearly affair. And I think that I think the world could do with a month long break every year. And that would literally put a lot of a lot of problems of the world on hold for a while. And should it be a whole bunch of other problems that come about? But if you just if the world had to stop for one month in, right, and every year, that would be fantastic. Yeah, we can get up in the sky again,
we can go and clean up all the plastic in the rivers in the oceans, right?
Oh, yeah, we didn't even get to talk about the oil industry. Okay. We will we will next time. The antidote to depression and hopelessness, I think is his action. Yeah. And that is taking some element of personal action, because it because that hopelessness comes from the fact that my locus of control is shrinking, and I feel helpless and hopeless, then then if I take action that that were recycling, personal recycling, even taking that action, but also writing that letter, and the idea that you just gave me then Andrea, was an employee opinion survey. Organizations run them all the time, there's an opportunity in that employee opinion survey where I've, I've had to do them before as an employee in my past lives, which was just sort of sit down, go, and then what else would you like us to go? I don't know, you know, pay us more money. I mean, I fixed the toilet, whatever it is, I put that in. But but we don't have any, I never would even have dreamt of saying how can this organization represent us as a community of employees in a way that is leading other other organizations in this country, or in this, or globally or in this village, or wherever this organization is? How can we be how can we be proud of who we work for because of the of the action that we're taking that is benefiting the world? And I said, that requires the individual to be paying attention to know it, hence, the no show. And and not be a no show, but to actually show up? And, and they and and I guess all of it comes down to what is your voice? And and how are you being heard by the people that can make decisions that are scalable, which is usually government and corporate? And how are they hearing your voice? And is your voice coherent? Or is it gobbled? Because everybody else is saying something else? And having a group of people saying this is actually this makes sense, to me, is the way to actually shift.
Yeah. Well, you also need to do a lot of education in boardrooms and executive level, because there's a significant lack of knowledge when it comes to the climate and sustainability. So there's a lot of education at that senior level that absolutely needs to happen. But yeah, but the employee voice empowering the employees to have a voice to come up with solutions. You know, that's you change from the inside and going back to Afghanistan, right? The countries that change and evolve and sort of come into their own, it's always an inside job. It's not an outside job. So, you know, we've all we've, we've all got a voice, we should all be using it. And you know, it, yes, it's not very comfortable. Sometimes putting yourself out there. There's some horrible people out there that control you and all that sort of stuff. But if enough of us raise our voices, the trolls can't get us all. You know, and as a female on social media, I've been told many, many, many times, but I don't care about them. They, they I know what I know why I'm doing what I'm doing. And it's when I look at my boys eyes. I want them to know, I want them to know that their mom's fighting for their future and I don't care about those other people because they're not investing as much as I am in one on in my knowledge acquisition, right so but but all of us have got to believe in it. We've got to believe in these future and we've got to go and build it. Because war despair, you know, that Mad Max scenario that we're hurtling towards that? No, I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not willing to accept it. I'm not so let's let's not let's do something different. Nice. No show you guys the introduction. The pilot, john, john Gordon's left a lovely comment there. Come enjoy We're gonna do it every week and see how it goes right? We will have a guest next week, not sure who it is yet. So if you want to be a guest, you're very, very welcome. We're just talking about whatever is relevant in the news of the week. And yeah, looking forward to doing this again, next week goes.
Yeah. Please give us your feedback as well. If you've been watching or watching, even if you watch it later, after the live stream, give us your feedback about topics you'd like to discuss ideas that you have an even show format, because we're revising that as well as we go. It's obviously they're not gonna be as long as this one. We think it depends on it depends on Tim's examples. Yeah. Exactly. All right. All right. Have a great weekend. See ya.