In this episode, Simone and I talk about a video game made by the UK government called Pathway to radicalization. It's a game designed to brainwash kids and augment their political beliefs. We talk about the game and how the government is using it to do just that.
00:23:51.420If you try to not download it and, like, go ask a parent, this is the only one where the middle option isn't treated as holistically bad.
00:24:00.420It's like, oh, you know, good thing you didn't fall for that trap because that video was very, you know, spicy.
00:24:05.800But the other thing is in the end whiz, both the middle option and the bad option, they go, and by the way, you could go to jail for downloading a video in the UK depending on the content.
00:24:18.520I know people have gone to jail for saying things in private chat threads, but...
00:24:24.960Literally, the quote from the video is, it is important to remember that downloading of stream or streaming certain content can lead to terrorist defense convictions.
00:24:37.660Actually, one of the commenters under the Azmichal video said that he personally had had jail time because he criticized Starmer's immigration policies.
00:24:44.280He posted online, though, and this is, we're talking about receiving content, so hold on.
00:25:09.660Okay, it says, yes, in the United Kingdom, you can be jailed for consuming, specifically viewing or accessing, certain types of content considered terroristic under specific circumstances.
00:25:21.380The key provision is Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000, as amended by Section 3 of the Counterterrorism and Border Security Act of 2019.
00:25:29.460This makes it an offense to collect or make a record of information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.
00:25:38.920So I guess you can't have, like, a guide to making a pipe bomb or something.
00:25:42.780Possess a document or record containing such information, or view or otherwise access such information by means of the internet.
00:25:50.980Yeah, so literally, literally clicking through to a link can get you arrested in the, oh, fuck.
00:26:30.560I mean, you've got to keep in mind how scary UK laws are.
00:26:33.160I mean, I find one of the scarier laws in the UK, and this was passed when I was still in the country, is any erotic content where it looks like one of the partners is in physical pain, right?
00:26:46.900Even if it's clearly consensual and clearly something that both parties consented to, even if it's a cartoon, is illegal and can lead to jail time.
00:27:21.720And if you think, and as I said, if you think that the modern Democratic Party is inoffensive or the lesser of two evils, you are unaware of how far they will take things as they get more power and how far they try to take things with organizations like USAID.
00:27:37.680I mean, we're already moving in this direction in the United States.
00:27:41.740And I am genuinely find it chilling with even the prospect that we could see the Democrats back in power ever again.
00:28:45.280And Charlie just like flashes out and starts yelling at everyone in the classroom and then has to sit by himself.
00:28:51.520But if you choose the other option, which is just be quiet and go home and don't like engage with the teacher about this, you end up becoming radicalized anyway.
00:29:01.160It's like you end up thinking about it and you realize, yeah, immigrants do probably contribute to you getting fewer jobs.
00:29:09.000And I want you to know that this is what they consider to be radical content.
00:29:13.280This is what they consider the fact that a student in your school who is an immigrant, as is applied, does better on you in a test and also gets job offers, does not change the fact that immigrants take positions.
00:29:28.960Like they take job positions that you could have gotten.
00:29:32.540And that there are not other ways that immigrants might be unfairly advantaged on the job market.
00:29:40.000For example, it's been shown in studies that South Asians or rather Indian immigrants disproportionately hire other Indians.
00:29:47.400So if they have been hired within a company and taken over a large chunk of it, you could be just disadvantaged because the company is already majority Indian and they prefer to hire Indians.
00:29:55.720You could be disadvantaged because they're coming over on an H-1B visa and the company is paying them less because it knows it can treat them kind of like pseudo slaves if they're on a visa because they can't stay in the country anymore, which is where they want to be to be around their extended family network or something.
00:30:11.160If they lose the visa, so they have to stay with the company.
00:30:56.240I mean, because also shouldn't the British, I should say, United Kingdom populace have the option to decide maybe when there should be stricter immigration policies, even for recent immigrants being like, all right, I think we're good now.
00:31:15.240And note here that Charlie ends up getting kicked out of class for hate speech.
00:31:20.940If you if you if you criticize, if you say it is a problem, like I'm struggling to get a job because so many immigrants are coming into our country.
00:31:28.180You are kicked out of class in this game.
00:31:30.280It reminds you of like what life is like in the UK.
00:33:43.780The teacher was concerned by Charlie's outburst and tried to get to the bottom of it.
00:33:48.500Charlie became more agitated and ended up having to sit alone for the duration of the week's lessons because of the hurtful things they said.
00:35:35.820They didn't want their friend to think they didn't care, but they didn't know if they wanted to join the group.
00:35:40.420They decided to like the post quickly and continued to eat their dinner.
00:35:43.860During the night, Charlie received a message from a stranger who saw that they had liked the post.
00:35:51.720Before they knew it, Charlie had been added to an encrypted private group without Charlie's permission.
00:35:57.200But the point here being is this one I thought was really interesting because if you just like it, like if you do so little as to humor your friend, all of a sudden you are without your permission in secret encrypted groups, right?
00:36:11.700Now, first I would know these groups aren't that good at keeping things secret if they randomly add everyone who likes a video.
00:36:18.840The point of having a secret encrypted group is to not have everyone who randomly likes a video.
00:36:23.560Yeah, that group is clearly not that secret.
00:36:26.620Because especially because people know you can get arrested for stuff that happens in these groups, they're not going to add just some random college student named Charlie.
00:36:37.260But Charlie, Charlie is our audience. Charlie, we're all Charlie today. Like this is, this is the world we live in in the UK. Like that to the Charlie and our fan base living in the UK. I am sorry for you, man. Like this, the horror of your life.
00:36:52.720And what's so sad is that in the UK, conservatives in the UK are so effing cooked that they play into the progressive hands every time.
00:37:01.980The UK is the only place I know of where like the majority of conservatives actually want online porn bans.
00:37:08.520Like when you go to like conservative intellectual influencer conferences, you have to be the dumbest, like stupidest, stupid, stupid pants conservative to think that that is a good idea.
00:37:20.400Because you know what comes with that? VPN bans, right? Like these two things go hand in hand, you buffoonish imbecile.
00:37:30.500And yet mainstream conservative influencers in the UK, like pretty much everyone I know promotes this idea.
00:37:38.440And I just say like in the US, when somebody promotes that, like Nick Poyntez promotes that idea.
00:37:43.320I'm like, yeah, but he's obviously like a Democrat operative, right?
00:37:46.040Like in the UK, like, like smart, sane people will promote this, right?
00:37:52.380And I just don't get it. I don't get it.
00:37:53.720But anyway, the point being is like, how do you, how do you even come back from that when even your conservative influencers are pushing VPN bans or things that lead to VPN bans?
00:38:01.860The other thing I wanted to point out here is the, this, actually, we'll just go to the next one here to keep going.
00:38:09.580Cause we can have this video be a bit shorter cause so much of it's going to be this other stuff.
00:38:13.120So another one here, cutting out a bit of the intro, it's the framing.
00:40:40.800Charlie grew increasingly uncomfortable as the crowd became angrier.
00:40:45.280Police arrived after a few violent outbreaks.
00:40:48.960Before they knew it, they were running away from the scene.
00:40:52.860Some protesters next to Charlie had drawn the attention of the police.
00:40:56.420Charlie had only been here to observe, but the line between observing and participating was too easy to cross.
00:41:03.860Charlie thought about all the difficult choices they had needed to make in the last few weeks.
00:41:08.180Some of their choices had led to changes in friendship, and Charlie was feeling low, as they weren't sure if they had made the right decisions.
00:41:16.040The teacher had noticed this and decided to reach out.
00:41:19.320The teacher sat with them and talked openly and frankly about the ideology that Charlie had discovered.
00:41:24.520The teacher reassured that Charlie had made the right decisions.
00:41:28.280Charlie realized that if they had chosen to engage with these harmful ideas, the consequences would have been very different.
00:41:35.440Charlie accepted they may need support.
00:41:40.700Charlie's teacher made a prevent referral, and they were able to provide tailored support for Charlie.
00:41:46.340They began a workshop that helped them learn how to engage positively in ideology.
00:42:03.940Her friend group is a black woman and one white guy and this goth girl, right?
00:42:09.600This is what happens when you try to like DEI your own video game, except your video game is about evil radicals.
00:42:17.180No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I think this is the point. They want to remind you that even a black person in the UK may say something like, immigrants are taking our jobs.
00:42:28.360So they want to remind you of how dangerous that can be.
00:42:31.020So I love that he gets to the protest and now it's like, uh-oh.
00:42:33.900So he immediately regrets coming if he goes there just to like view it, right?
00:42:38.060Because he's like, oh, this is, this is nothing like what I thought the protest was going to be about like British values.
00:42:43.520But everyone here is racist and violent.
00:42:47.540Now, of course, if you look at acts of violence committed for political reasons over the past two years, they've been overwhelmingly committed by leftists.
00:42:55.760This is just like a factual thing you can easily check.
00:42:58.680And then there's been some studies that try to quote unquote show that like rightists actually commit more violence.
00:43:03.840These studies, if you, if you look at them, um, because a lot of people have done an analysis of them, they basically don't count anything as left-wing violence.
00:43:11.640And they try to count anything as right-wing violence in the same way that like, remember the guy who tried to assassinate Trump and then it later comes out.
00:43:18.420And everyone was like, oh, we don't know what his politics are.
00:43:29.620And then a bunch of people said he was a furry and he wasn't a furry.
00:43:31.940And we go into an analysis of that because this is the only episode.
00:43:35.840This is a podcast where you hit hard-hitting analysis of people's porn preferences.
00:43:40.140And I point out that just because he has some furry porn that fits some other fetish that he has doesn't mean he's actually a member of the furry community.
00:43:49.260I try to, you know, there's right-wing furries, right?
00:44:03.720I mean, we do say that the furry community has some challenges and I would be worried if my kids went into it because you got the whole Therian thing and that gets you into like trans identitarian politics.
00:44:14.220But I'm just pointing out here, you don't have to be reflectively antagonistic against them.
00:44:17.880But I think that it's better if when people go online and they hear, you know, Hassan talking or something like that, like big left-wing streamers and they're like, oh, furries are weird, pathetic, whatever.
00:44:29.300And then they hear right-wing people and like we're being inclusive about this stuff and that can help break them from their bubble.
00:45:06.620It's actually really high quality and we got it on eBay and I was trying to find a science or galaxy-themed Christmas sweater and I just couldn't anywhere.
00:46:51.640It feels totally right about rifles, but not guns.
00:46:55.740To continue here, what I find interesting is they try to like reframe this protest as like this horrible thing, right?
00:47:03.640That like is going to completely F you up and that you're going to get arrested.
00:47:07.980And that if you even watch right-wing protesters, if you even just like sit there and observe a protest, you're going to get arrested or your life will be ruined, right?
00:47:15.520Like they do not want you to see and they want kids to grow up fearing even seeing alternative perspectives.
00:47:21.520It reminds me, and this was a while ago, I was talking with some of my younger cousins about like I had said something, oh, you know, well, the trans whatever thing.
00:47:29.260And I was much more small C conservative in the way I talked about trans stuff back then.
00:47:34.160I didn't say anything that was too offensive.
00:47:35.680And I remember one of my young cousins be like, be careful saying stuff like that.
00:47:40.380Like we're not allowed to, and it was very much like she had been taught as like a kid, like a young teenager, you've got to be really careful about saying anything that could be seen as critical of these communities.
00:47:50.720And this is clearly where this comes from.
00:47:53.620The final thing here is they then go into, and well, I'll play the part here about like how they're going to deprogram you and that you're going to go to workshops and you're going to go to, you know, and I thought that this was really messed up as well, right?
00:48:07.560Like this idea of like you, like the services that they provide.
00:48:13.520Basically, you have a minder that you need to meet with instead of having friends.
00:48:17.760They began a workshop that helped Charlie receive counseling to help them process the other events in their life.
00:48:26.500Because he liked the YouTube video, he had to go to counseling?
00:48:29.840It was decided that Charlie was at borderline risk of radicalization, given their proximity to it, which helped address some of the issues.
00:48:37.560at the heart of being influenced by harmful ideologies.
00:48:41.160They started taking up new skills and hobbies and made new friends.
00:48:45.080Prevent does not target any specific demographic, community, or ideology.
00:49:57.420Even the Harry Potter books that have similar styles of scenarios, Miss Umbridge being the embodiment of this kind of behavior.
00:50:07.580I guess maybe Harry Potters are now banned in the UK as turf material or whatever.
00:50:13.920But I just feel like common, very popular, fairly recent kids' stories also even make it clear to young people that this is insane dystopian behavior that you should be concerned about.
00:50:26.980And certainly the recent popularity of teen dystopias before it became all romanticy and fantasy should have inoculated young people against this.
00:51:17.000It's meant to be like a terrifying thing that you...
00:51:21.540I also think that there's a portion of the population that just, like, instinctively obeys authority.
00:51:26.000And when I was growing up, these were the people, from my perspective, because I was always very confused by this, who just, like, believe the Sunday school version of the Bible.
00:51:34.520They're just like, oh, yeah, Noah's Ark, right?
00:51:36.400Like, he got, went around, found two versions of every animal of every species and put him on a boat.
00:51:43.040And I remember I heard, I was like, that doesn't make sense.
00:51:46.960Like, why do you, why are you saying something that doesn't pass the most basic of sanity checks?
00:51:53.480Like, maybe there's some other interpretation of this, or maybe, you know, it means something other than boat.
00:52:00.020Or maybe, you know, by putting them on the boat, he's doing something different than what we think of.
00:52:04.780But I remember being so confused as a kid.
00:52:07.420And this is why I went into psychology when I went into neuroscience,
00:52:09.240because I wanted to understand why people think things that I couldn't understand why people thought.
00:52:13.620And I think there's a certain portion of the population that just believes whatever the authorities around them tell them with angry faces.
00:52:20.080And I think that that's, ironically, the people who were the silly version of Christianity when I was a kid,
00:52:29.580they're the people who are the wokes these days.
00:52:31.520And I think that that's why it took over the church so quickly and so early.
00:52:34.700Because we pointed out a lot of wokeness spread from the church.
00:52:37.400You watch this, and you, oh my god, I'm loving the Amelia pictures.