The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1067

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eaters for the 19th of December 2024. I am joined

00:00:06.480 by Beau and Stelios. Definitely got that round the right way. And today we're going to be talking

00:00:13.800 about Britain's Sharia courts, a possible end to the war in Ukraine, and some good things that

00:00:19.120 have happened over the past year. And we have no announcements, so Stelios, take us away.

00:00:25.100 Right. I suppose we're going to talk about the paradoxes and problems of multiculturalism 1.00

00:00:30.920 and the weird images we are shown by it, like the following one.

00:00:38.380 Oh, I showed it to people and they literally couldn't believe it. And they say, well, what's

00:00:46.600 going on up here? What's happening? And I told them it's basically multiculturalism.

00:00:51.160 Right. So that's the parliament and he was doing his Islamic noise. 1.00

00:00:56.680 Well, what's going on is that there are several reports that indicate that there are 85 Sharia 0.67

00:01:03.380 courts in the UK and that the UK has become a sort of cultural capital, Western capital

00:01:10.340 for Islamic courts. Now, from a little research I did, these reports are new. I found an article,

00:01:19.820 for instance, from the Daily Mail from 2009, at least, that said that there are 85 Islamic

00:01:25.560 courts. But what is going on is that the practice of them seems to be leading towards the establishment

00:01:34.000 of a paralegal system within the UK that is used by more and more people. And there are several

00:01:43.800 considerations about the way in which this could impact and could come into contrast with English

00:01:50.460 law. Yeah, because if you have these Islamic courts, one would have to assume that that means you're going

00:01:56.460 to have Islamic laws and therefore a parallel legal system to that of the British system. And the Muslims

00:02:06.000 would basically be able to live by Sharia law in the British Isles. And potentially that would mean

00:02:11.980 that they would be imposing their views on other people rather than simply just adhering to their

00:02:17.760 beliefs, which I don't think should be allowed in the first place, even if they're just keeping to

00:02:23.260 themselves. This is Britain. You either, you know, live as we do or leave. And you shouldn't have to have,

00:02:30.860 you know, put up with mosques blasting music out. 0.64

00:02:35.580 Yeah. And different codes of law. Because there have already been cases of these Muslim 1.00

00:02:41.360 patrols going out and, you know, admonishing people that they feel like aren't dressed properly

00:02:47.540 or taking alcohol off of people that are drinking it because it's against Islam. And they're going 0.93

00:02:54.240 around enforcing it. And I know it's not that common. But if we allow this sort of thing to happen,

00:03:00.360 then it's going to become more and more common. Because of course, there's going to need to be

00:03:04.580 no pushback against it because they're basically allowed to live as if they were in their home

00:03:09.660 country.

00:03:12.440 Yeah, the king's writ should run everywhere in this island and no other system. Simple as that.

00:03:18.920 No ifs, no buts.

00:03:19.840 So what seems to me to be really interesting here, and this shows precisely one of the major

00:03:28.220 failures of multiculturalism as a cultural policy, is that there is a question. We should

00:03:35.060 ask, why do we have law? We have laws because, for instance, in every society there are frictions

00:03:40.360 and we need a way to coordinate and adjudicate all these conflicts that arise from social life.

00:03:46.680 And it seems to me that this has happened throughout history. Every society has its own

00:03:52.900 legal code. And there needs to be an authority to which everyone is answerable to. If you establish

00:03:59.600 different legal systems, then you are literally parting with a degree of your sovereignty because

00:04:08.300 you recognize the different authorities who have the ability to impose their own rules and rules that

00:04:18.300 are sometimes incredibly different from the rules of the country in which we're talking about.

00:04:24.540 There are some things like if you don't have borders, you don't really have a country. If you don't have

00:04:29.180 the rule of law, you don't have a civil society. You don't really have a country as such.

00:04:33.420 Yeah. So it couldn't be more fundamental. We're talking about ghettos. And it seems to me that

00:04:39.640 right now, across Europe, this is seen to be leading to very bad situations.

00:04:45.640 Organization. Exactly. It doesn't seem to lead to harmony, as lots of people would expect. It actually

00:04:53.360 leads to failure of integration and assimilation. Multiculturalism is precisely saying that people 1.00

00:04:59.840 shouldn't assimilate. They shouldn't assimilate to the dominant culture. They shouldn't play by the 0.86

00:05:04.840 dominant culture's rules. That's why we have all pockets of different populations within Western

00:05:11.720 countries, within European countries, that are allowed progressively more to have their own rules

00:05:18.200 and their own way of life. And essentially, we also see that there is a kind of woke approach to it,

00:05:26.480 and they get preferential treatment. Because it isn't just, okay, that's your neighborhood,

00:05:31.040 do what you want there. We frequently see governments take the extra step and say, no,

00:05:36.640 you're going to play by your rules. These are your areas, but I'm also going to guard you more than

00:05:41.900 others. It's also worth mentioning as well, that within these so-called communities,

00:05:48.300 communities, I call them enclaves really, it gets to a point of sort of critical mass whereby

00:05:56.260 people increasingly have to give up less of their home culture the more people of their culture are 1.00

00:06:05.780 there. So, you know, the first handful of people might have to adapt significantly to the British

00:06:13.960 way. And then eventually, it'll get to the point where it's a majority of that ethnic minority

00:06:20.840 in a certain area. And then you get the phenomenon whereby you can have someone who's lived there for

00:06:28.180 20 years and still not speak a word of English because they don't need to in their day-to-day life.

00:06:32.940 And how this benefits the native British, I do not know. But what is increasingly happening is that

00:06:39.300 they're taking this approach of community policing as well. We saw this in the response from Muslims

00:06:46.700 in the Southport riots, where they came out with loads of weapons and they were asked politely,

00:06:53.340 can you take your weapons to your local mosque, please? And, you know, your imam will deal with 0.74

00:06:57.640 all of this because the police don't want to touch it because they don't feel as if they have a right

00:07:04.760 to police Muslims because they reject the notion that the British police have authority over them

00:07:10.880 because that's what's written in the Koran. And if I remember correctly, it seems to me that

00:07:15.420 when he was addressing the nation after the Southport tragedy, Keir Starmer had every opportunity to

00:07:24.120 play the diplomat card, the pragmatist card, try to appease both communities. And it seems like he

00:07:30.520 picked a side. He did pick a side, yeah. And I don't see how people don't see that this leads

00:07:37.060 to balkanisation and, in the end, sectarianism. Because if at some point, as you call it,

00:07:41.520 the dominant culture tries to stop the rot, then you get sectarian, you get full-blown sectarianism.

00:07:50.280 Like, obviously, multiculturalism left to run rampant will end in balkanisation and sectarianism 0.86

00:07:57.080 and all the horrors that come with that. Obviously.

00:08:01.320 Well, we've got all of human history as evidence.

00:08:03.360 Yeah, right, yeah.

00:08:04.200 Exactly.

00:08:04.980 And people are penalised for pointing this out. But we have here a really good post by Rupert Lowe.

00:08:10.960 He says there should be zero Sharia courts in the UK if you want to live in our country. 1.00

00:08:15.820 You live by our laws. If not, leave.

00:08:18.120 He's quite right, quite right.

00:08:19.560 Yeah.

00:08:20.140 He's the best out of all of the reform bunch, isn't he, Rupert Lowe, at the minute?

00:08:24.000 And Robert Jenrick said something equivalent.

00:08:27.440 None of these courts should exist. There is only one law in this country, and it is British law.

00:08:33.220 Right, here we have also Peter Whittle says there are currently an estimated 85 Sharia courts in the UK

00:08:38.120 that don't need regulating, they need banning.

00:08:40.320 Anything else is acceptance of a parallel system.

00:08:42.900 And he points out that there are polls that show that around 32% of Muslims would prefer Sharia in the UK,

00:08:50.440 which is a worrying number.

00:08:51.460 But also, why don't we just send them home?

00:08:54.300 It's like, you can have Sharia at home, but we're in Britain, so how about no? 1.00

00:08:58.080 I was going to say, I'm not really for assimilation.

00:09:00.560 No.

00:09:01.180 I don't want these people to assimilate to us. 1.00

00:09:03.900 I want them to go back to the land of their forefathers, ideally. 1.00

00:09:06.980 And that 32%, I don't buy that anyway.

00:09:10.140 It should be more.

00:09:11.160 It will be way higher than that.

00:09:13.020 I have some data about some other countries.

00:09:14.940 They fluctuate in France, for instance.

00:09:17.680 It's 29%.

00:09:18.500 I'll show you.

00:09:19.140 In Ireland, it's around 36%.

00:09:21.500 It fluctuates.

00:09:22.680 But it seems to me that it is a bit higher.

00:09:25.840 The thing is, as well, these people, they show a strong preference for their native culture.

00:09:32.740 And that sort of reveals that the only reason they're here is economics.

00:09:38.100 They're sort of here for more mercenary reasons.

00:09:41.380 And I feel like that's also a losing deal for them.

00:09:44.480 I think one way in which we could actually make people voluntarily go back home

00:09:49.660 and prevent these sorts of things from expanding is by pointing out,

00:09:53.300 if you want to live by the laws as laid out in Islam,

00:09:59.500 you're probably better off doing it in a country that doesn't undermine that philosophy, that theology. 0.97

00:10:07.680 That image, what a perverse and disgusting thing.

00:10:11.320 I mean, that looks like they're on Whitehall.

00:10:12.740 It looks like they're outside Downing Street.

00:10:14.960 Well, that's the Ministry of Defence in the background or something.

00:10:17.400 That image should never have come about.

00:10:21.880 The people in the last generation or two or three that have allowed such a thing to happen.

00:10:28.660 Despicable.

00:10:29.820 And you see here, it says, this was an article that was published, I think, yesterday.

00:10:35.340 And a lot of people are talking about it from the Times,

00:10:38.520 how the UK became Western capital for Sharia courts.

00:10:41.260 And it says, it's by Dominic Kennedy, the investigations editor.

00:10:44.980 They say Muslims are increasingly turning to Britain's Sharia courts,

00:10:49.100 which are not part of UK law and operate as informal bodies issuing religious rulings on marriage.

00:10:55.900 And I'll read a bit from here.

00:10:57.400 It says, Britain has become the Western capital for Sharia courts, 0.99

00:11:01.380 with men able to end their marriages by saying divorce three times.

00:11:05.140 An investigation by the Times also discovered that polygamy is normalized in their community.

00:11:10.320 And it says that they have a nap and it's approved by Sharia court and it gives daughters half as much as inheritance as sons. 0.51

00:11:19.460 So what is going on here with this is that they are trying to say that they say that we have a law for family and for religious reasons.

00:11:36.180 And we are going to adjudicate according to that law.

00:11:39.720 And it doesn't matter so much what the law of the country is.

00:11:43.920 And there are concerns about, there are concerns about, let me just say,

00:11:50.440 they say that there are concerns about how women are treated.

00:11:54.540 And that's the main thing here, at least as it's being said, that we have a particular legal system in the UK,

00:12:07.880 you could say also in the West, that treats women in a particular,

00:12:12.880 that says that women deserve a particular treatment. 1.00

00:12:16.520 And there are many worries that this treatment isn't allowed in these courts.

00:12:23.020 And actually, there are many core rulings and the philosophy behind these core rulings that seems to be,

00:12:29.360 you would say, very oppressive to women, as we would say.

00:12:32.580 Well, Sharia law, more generally, which the Sharia courts will be enforcing,

00:12:36.640 is a deeply immoral thing to the eyes of, you know, a European person.

00:12:42.560 And it's antithetical to our way of life.

00:12:45.000 And to allow this to happen is to admit that we're allowing something that we universally see as immoral.

00:12:52.320 I don't know very many people who are non-Muslim Brits, say,

00:12:57.320 that think dressing a woman head to toe in a black bag, basically, is a good thing. 1.00

00:13:04.580 But there are also other problematic issues with it.

00:13:10.700 So we have a BBC article that is talking about Sharia law in 2021, in the 19th of August,

00:13:17.400 when they're talking about what does it mean for women in Afghanistan.

00:13:21.040 They say a bit about what it is.

00:13:22.800 They say that it is Islam's legal system.

00:13:27.360 It is derived from the Koran, Islam's holy book, as well as the Sunnah and the Hadith,

00:13:32.440 the dids and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad.

00:13:34.700 And they have a sort of panel of Islamic clerics, and they try to interpret the book.

00:13:42.620 When they say that it is clear, they follow the guidance.

00:13:48.400 But in cases that aren't particularly covered from what the sources already have,

00:13:54.260 they come together as a panel and they try to see, to interpret the spirit of it.

00:13:58.620 And it says, what does it mean in practice?

00:14:01.680 It informs basically all aspects of the daily life for a Muslim.

00:14:06.460 And when it comes to women, they say that there are several harsh punishments. 0.99

00:14:13.460 For instance, women are flogged. 1.00

00:14:16.100 Some women are flogged for adultery. 1.00

00:14:18.400 There are several issues there that seem to be antithetical to the Western way of life.

00:14:23.880 Yeah, like they have enforcers who enforce the Islamic dress code as well.

00:14:30.940 And I've seen videos from Iran where there's a woman telling another woman off

00:14:37.140 for not having her hair covered and things like that.

00:14:40.660 And there's a further issue when it comes to legislation,

00:14:44.340 is that legislation also contains the element of habituation in it.

00:14:48.620 When we allow different legal systems, we allow people to be habituated into different ways of life.

00:14:56.740 And the problem is, when these are inconsistent, there has to be a choice.

00:15:01.820 It can't be avoided forever.

00:15:05.020 There has to be a choice.

00:15:06.140 There has to be one legal authority that people are answerable to.

00:15:09.960 And what frustrates people and makes them really, really worried

00:15:15.920 is that a lot of Islamic scholars are saying that this is consistent with their faith

00:15:25.000 and that they want the adoption of Sharia law, which shouldn't be surprising

00:15:29.220 because they're pretty honest about it.

00:15:31.560 They're pretty honest about it.

00:15:32.880 Here we have British Islamic scholar Anjem Chowdhury.

00:15:36.640 Anjem Chowdhury says democracy will most likely be replaced by Islamic Sharia law

00:15:41.460 in the UK, Belgium and France within 15, 20 years.

00:15:44.800 Well, not by him because he's in prison at the minute.

00:15:46.760 I was going to say, now convicted terrorist Anjem Chowdhury.

00:15:50.400 So we have people who are really honest about it and they're pushing this.

00:15:55.920 And it looks like there is tremendous weakness on behalf of Western states in dealing with that.

00:16:04.720 Multiculturalism is not the way forward. 1.00

00:16:06.100 As you said, it leads to balkanization, sectarianism and all the horrors that come with it. 0.97

00:16:11.700 And there is literally zero, there's zero excuse for not knowing it, especially in Europe.

00:16:19.180 For instance, in the early 90s, Yugoslavia broke down precisely for this reason.

00:16:24.520 It's not like it happened somewhere completely far away from England or from France or Germany.

00:16:31.020 It's literally three hours by plane.

00:16:34.120 Well, like it was centuries ago.

00:16:35.860 Yeah.

00:16:36.300 It was like the 90s.

00:16:37.620 It's also one of those wars that didn't happen for many people.

00:16:40.620 Because they say the last war was the World War II.

00:16:43.540 Some people have this illusion, operate under this illusion.

00:16:47.480 It's also worth mentioning as well that it was an ethnic thing that broke down Yugoslavia.

00:16:53.560 When there's a different ethnicity and religion as well, you know, if you had shared beliefs, it at least is somewhat possible.

00:17:01.120 But when it's both theologically and ethnically different, well, you've got no reason to associate with one another, really.

00:17:11.220 Exactly.

00:17:11.400 And here we have a state that allows this to happen.

00:17:15.660 Not only allows it, but enforces it and promotes it.

00:17:18.440 Exactly.

00:17:19.460 Right.

00:17:19.700 So we have here several reports.

00:17:21.300 That's from 2016.

00:17:22.540 It says around 29% of French Muslims reject secular laws.

00:17:27.980 Again, I think that this is too low, but it is a big number.

00:17:32.800 They say the same for Ireland.

00:17:34.140 There was, I saw this from 2006.

00:17:36.820 It's around 36%.

00:17:38.520 And they say that there are calls to implement Sharia law in Ireland in the event of a Muslim majority, as a senior Islamic cleric has said.

00:17:48.960 I don't think that this should be allowed.

00:17:51.740 It's a tremendous sign of weakness.

00:17:54.080 That's putting it lightly, yeah.

00:17:55.320 Yeah.

00:17:55.700 And one of the other things to mention, because if you try to talk about this issue, you're guaranteed to hear people saying, well, that doesn't mean that there is no police here.

00:18:09.520 That doesn't mean that the police does nothing.

00:18:11.100 There is a very worrying story that shows how these practices habituate large amount of the population into living in a world of life that seems to be anti-Western.

00:18:25.320 And here we have the case from last year, March the 5th, March 2023, where we had a mother, an English mother, going to plead to a panel of that sort for her son, who I think did some.

00:18:43.880 He wasn't autistic, and he did something at a school.

00:18:47.700 What happened was he was a 14-year-old kid, and he brought a Quran in school, which he damaged accidentally, I think.

00:18:54.740 It wasn't even on purpose, and it caused outrage in the Islamic community.

00:18:59.880 And we see here something that could be interpreted as a, you could say, humiliation, because she goes there and the police officer doesn't seem to act as a diplomat.

00:19:14.140 A mediator between them.

00:19:15.600 That's not the job of the police.

00:19:16.900 He's basically overseeing the communication between the two.

00:19:20.140 But the problem with this was, other than the obvious, is that a mother shouldn't have to go begging to a bunch of random Muslims, just like, please leave my son alone. 1.00

00:19:32.540 Because as David Averton points out in that post there, they received plenty of intimidation and arson threats, and, you know, I think the boy was potentially suspended from school, if I remember rightly.

00:19:45.120 It was quite a while ago now.

00:19:46.100 So lots of negative things happened to them that if, say, you dropped a book that wasn't a religious book of any kind, or even, say, a Bible, I don't think that there would be that same reaction from Christians.

00:20:02.480 They wouldn't.

00:20:03.060 They would at least understand that the kid didn't mean poorly, in that the intention was important.

00:20:08.660 There's not even that level of attempt to understand the motivation.

00:20:12.440 It's just, you've done something against us, therefore we want you to pay.

00:20:16.480 Right.

00:20:16.860 And I think that there is an attempt from mainstream media and sources to obfuscate the gravity of the issue.

00:20:28.060 For instance, if you see here, if you put Sharia judge on Google, you only have women judges. 0.98

00:20:35.220 That's very misleading, isn't it?

00:20:36.860 And there are several, there are also articles, I'll show you just one from The Guardian and the other from The Telegraph, that are trying to minimize it, and rather than speaking about courts, they're speaking about councils.

00:20:50.280 And here we have this article from more than seven years old, it says, inside Britain's Sharia councils, hardline and anti-women, or a dignified way to divorce.

00:21:00.280 Hang on a minute, would I be able to go back and have a look at who wrote that?

00:21:07.360 Homer Halili.

00:21:11.580 That's the best I can do.

00:21:13.000 I wonder why she wrote that article, Stelios.

00:21:15.160 Yes.

00:21:15.540 It beats me.

00:21:16.080 It seems to me that they are trying to say that there is a dilemma here, but the way they present the dilemma is obfuscating the third option, which is the most important one.

00:21:27.840 They're trying to divert the conversation to a place where people don't talk about the solution.

00:21:33.800 And they say, well, in some cases they could be perceived as anti-women, but in other cases they could be perceived as pro-women, because that council could exert pressure from a theological standpoint, from the community standpoint, to their husbands, to observe their religious obligations.

00:21:55.380 But what is most important is, again, the element of arbitration.

00:21:59.040 If we go down this and examine this merely in terms of whether it is good or bad for the particular woman that we're talking about on each court, it's going to be a very ad hoc approach that is going to actually blind us towards the most important.

00:22:18.580 The most important is that if you allow a paralegal system, you're breaking down sovereignty, and you're habituating people into not playing by your rules and to thinking that they can be allowed to play by their own rules.

00:22:36.880 Yeah, yeah.

00:22:38.980 Right.

00:22:39.720 You've got a chat.

00:22:40.880 Could you see if I interrupted you at some point before I saw you?

00:22:44.000 Sorry.

00:22:44.480 That's all right.

00:22:45.240 No, please go ahead.

00:22:47.220 Right.

00:22:47.700 So we have Dragon Lady Chris, Scoff, just like last week, a Muslim MP claimed to be protecting women's rights while advocating for cousin marriage. 1.00

00:23:00.140 Women are abused under Sharia law.

00:23:02.540 Surely you just. 0.98

00:23:04.320 Yeah, just deport them, it says.

00:23:06.180 Yeah.

00:23:09.160 We've got some good news, Beau.

00:23:11.040 Well, I think we need to talk about the Ukraine sitch as it's going on right now. 0.97

00:23:16.400 In a very casual way, apparently.

00:23:18.940 Yeah, it's time to check in with old Zelensky and what's going down.

00:23:25.200 So.

00:23:26.540 I was just going to ask, is our money being well spent?

00:23:28.640 Is it finally going to come to an end?

00:23:30.440 Well, it might come to an end quite soon if the Donalds got anything to say about it.

00:23:34.280 So it does seem to be that the consensus on all sides is that once Trump gets in, he's going to sort of crack the whip and sort of insist, at least from the Ukrainian side, draw this thing to an end, dude.

00:23:46.840 For God's sakes. 0.98

00:23:49.100 Ridiculous. 0.92

00:23:49.840 So, a few things have happened in the last few days, a couple of days, or in the last week or so. 0.68

00:23:54.920 A few different things, so I just thought we could run through them, keep everyone up to date with what's going on.

00:23:59.320 I've said before, somewhere or other, that sometimes wars sort of fizzle out, but often they reach a pitch or a crescendo near the end, in terms of body count, if nothing else, quite often.

00:24:11.280 This is going to be one of those, where they know they're going to be forced, more or less, in inverted commas, forced around a table, a negotiating table, at some point quite soon.

00:24:20.400 Well, in the early new year, and so, trying to do everything that's in their interests before that happens.

00:24:26.620 Both sides are doing that, so.

00:24:28.820 So, okay, we are entering what seems like the final act of this particular tragedy.

00:24:35.720 So the first thing to mention is the idea that the line was always for as long as it takes.

00:24:42.340 I remember everyone from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to the top bods at the State Department, to Biden himself, our leaders, the NATO leaders, anyone and everyone of every importance, saying,

00:24:56.540 we will stand by Zelensky in Ukraine for as long as it takes, or until the end of this current administration.

00:25:04.780 I've added that bit in, because it's not going to be as long as it takes.

00:25:08.400 So, anyway, so, three or four or five sort of developments we could sort of just mention and talk about.

00:25:14.500 So, Starmer talked to Trump on the blower the other day, on the telephone, didn't he, apparently?

00:25:22.240 And he said, what's the headline there, he's supposed to have said that he begged or asked Trump to stand with Ukraine.

00:25:31.640 Because, for some reason, Starmer is particularly bellicose on the Ukraine thing, isn't he?

00:25:36.860 He's particularly hawkish.

00:25:38.400 I wonder why he really cares one way or another.

00:25:43.100 What dog in the game has he got?

00:25:44.900 Well, it's not the British people's business which side wins, because, of course, we've put the most money out of any European country into supporting Ukraine.

00:25:55.340 I do wonder what we get out of it, being the most geographically separated from Russia out of any European country.

00:26:02.940 Right, yeah.

00:26:04.660 I just wonder what the calculation is, because, you know, I can understand, I completely don't agree with it, but I can understand why planners at the State Department or the Pentagon or wherever, the American Intelligence Services, I can understand their calculation that on the broadest geopolitical stage, Russia is a competitor or a threat.

00:26:25.040 Especially when you look at the chessboard when it comes to resources, when it comes to energy.

00:26:30.800 I get it from America's point of view that Russia is, to put it mildly, a competitor.

00:26:38.500 Right, I get it.

00:26:39.500 I think all...

00:26:40.500 But why do, why, what Britain, like, why would someone like Starmer be way more bellicose than others?

00:26:46.860 I think the current paradigm for most things in politics, both domestic and geopolitical, is that quite often things will be wrapped up in a sense of morality of right and wrong, but that will be a cover for the reality of a situation, which is normally just resource extraction.

00:27:06.040 It's all about material goods, a lot of the time, and once people stop taking it at face value and look at what people have to gain from it materially, it starts to make a bit more sense why so much money is being thrown at it.

00:27:24.520 Yeah, I mentioned in a podcast last week, there was an interesting podcast with Joe Rogan on that Mike Benz fella.

00:27:30.680 He was talking about, you know, it's a fairly good take, I think, that when you view the whole Russia-Ukraine conflict, if you view it sort of purely through the lens of power and energy and resources, then it does start making a lot more sense than who actually controls Crimea, right?

00:27:54.360 Although that is important.

00:27:55.440 Because, of course, Britain, historically, didn't really much care.

00:27:58.520 We did have the Crimean War, but then when we won the Crimea from the Russians, we gave it to the Ottomans of all people, which wasn't a good decision. 0.96

00:28:06.120 Well, yeah, it's a different world.

00:28:07.940 I was about to say that was the Ottoman period, the mid-19th century, but still, yeah.

00:28:15.500 So, Keir Starmer, it seems like it's sabre-rattling, though.

00:28:20.600 It's just rhetoric and words, because most people now, like the serious analysts, think that the Donald is going to bring it to a close, or at least dial it down to like a one or a two quite quickly.

00:28:33.740 So, when Starmer asking him to, you know, stay the course, it's just words.

00:28:41.060 I think all of the discussion in the media has been setting up for a Donald-brokered peace agreement, in that recently the news came out that a majority of the Ukrainians support a peace deal.

00:28:50.980 The admission that, you know...

00:28:55.900 Well, we're getting on to that.

00:28:57.000 All right, I'll save it.

00:28:57.960 Okay.

00:28:58.940 Can I just say that I don't treat these statements, in terms of whether they're true or false, I see them as expressions of resolution.

00:29:08.380 So, it seems to me that one of the reasons why Starmer could do this is to say that, you know, wherever, I can be a useful ally.

00:29:18.480 In any kind of alliance, if you have me on your side, I'm going to be a hawk.

00:29:23.540 Right.

00:29:24.320 Just a way to look at it.

00:29:26.360 You mean power projection?

00:29:28.280 Yeah, maybe I'm a bit too charitable.

00:29:31.020 I think Starmer wants to keep the, quote-unquote, special relationship alive, wherever possible. 0.98

00:29:35.720 He's happy to be the State Department's bitch. 0.97

00:29:39.160 No, I didn't say this. 1.00

00:29:41.580 Go in full Tony.

00:29:42.880 I didn't say this.

00:29:44.040 Never go full Tony.

00:29:46.360 No, it's just that when it comes to foreign relations, I sort of like that.

00:29:51.520 That's going to be cropped out of context.

00:29:53.240 Yeah.

00:29:54.440 So, another bit just from the UK side is that our government apparently is considering sending troops to train Ukrainians.

00:30:02.320 Well, for a start, we've been doing that for a while.

00:30:04.060 I think there's been, well, there has been sort of special forces, SAS, SBS, whatever it is, sort of training them.

00:30:11.060 For ages, I think it's a matter of record.

00:30:13.300 It's not a conspiracy theory.

00:30:15.500 And whether we'll send loads more over, well, it's all coming to an end.

00:30:19.560 So, it feels to me like this is, I mean, who knows?

00:30:23.180 What I'm saying right now, this take could be proven completely wrong.

00:30:26.120 And in two years' time, we've got, like, loads of regiments over there training hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians.

00:30:31.440 Could be wrong.

00:30:31.960 But I feel like this is just a little bit of last-minute saber-rattling, it feels like to me, right?

00:30:37.400 Well, when you're going to come to a peace agreement, you want as much collateral as possible, don't you?

00:30:43.800 That's what this is, I feel like.

00:30:45.020 I've mentioned before in the Vietnam War that it was prolonged for many a year and all sorts of big, like, military kinetic campaigns were held just so their position at the negotiating table would be slightly better.

00:31:00.380 So, that's definitely how war is conducted often, is that a lot of money, treasure, materiel, and blood, human misery, is spent just to get a slightly better deal when you do have to sort of come to time.

00:31:17.720 I think you're absolutely correct that now, just before it looks like it's coming to a close, there will be an escalation.

00:31:24.660 Because presumably the Ukrainians would want to gain a part of Russia to try and exchange it with parts of Ukraine they've lost.

00:31:34.800 As you say, because wars sort of intensify frequently before they come to an end.

00:31:41.100 Like the Kursk region.

00:31:42.520 Currently there's Ukrainian troops sort of in the Russian Kursk region.

00:31:47.680 And I feel like, yeah, the Ukrainian government's thinking is that, yeah, we'll exchange that back for some of the land that Russia is occupying.

00:31:58.700 I think what's likely to happen is that Russia's going to say, we'd like some of the land we've captured and the promise that Ukraine will at least try to stay neutral as much as possible.

00:32:12.500 So they have a buffer between themselves and Europe.

00:32:15.240 Because you can understand that if you have enemies right on your border, it is an uncomfortable situation.

00:32:20.980 And perhaps they'll say, don't join NATO or the EU or something like that.

00:32:24.960 But it might be the case that there won't be enough bargaining power on behalf of the Russians to have both the land and making these demands about Ukraine.

00:32:35.780 I think it's more of a matter of how good a deal are they going to get.

00:32:40.760 It will be interesting to see, I mean, interesting in a fairly dark, morbid way, but it will be interesting to see how it does shake out.

00:32:47.620 Assuming the Donald does get them round a table and insists they stop actually firing missiles and machine guns and drones at each other and things.

00:32:56.060 How it will shake out.

00:32:58.400 Whether Putin will in fact keep all the land that he's currently occupying and the Crimea and all that or not.

00:33:05.100 I mean.

00:33:05.940 Donald the pacifist.

00:33:07.600 Yeah.

00:33:08.200 Stop this senseless violence.

00:33:09.720 The peacemaker.

00:33:11.360 Yes.

00:33:13.840 Three times Nobel Prize winning we're talking about here.

00:33:16.440 In the way that a 44 Magnum is a peacemaker.

00:33:19.520 Yeah.

00:33:19.920 So, one of the big developments in the last few days, well this is actually from this morning, right, this particular Sky News article, but in the last day or two, Zelensky is now sort of changing his line.

00:33:33.120 The whole idea that we'll never ever sacrifice any of our land ever and we'll stay for as long as it takes.

00:33:39.260 Well, that lion has now changed and he's saying that it's just not possible for us to remove the Russian army.

00:33:50.320 I nearly said the Red Army then.

00:33:51.700 To remove the Russian army from their land. 0.94

00:33:55.360 So, I mean, there you go.

00:34:01.660 There seems to be a change of rhetoric.

00:34:03.500 That's the new reality.

00:34:04.840 I mean, we've known this for quite some time.

00:34:06.880 Well, that's.

00:34:07.460 It's different that he's admitted it.

00:34:08.840 That's what this article and many others that are exactly in exactly the same vein say.

00:34:13.640 They all say something we've known for a while now.

00:34:17.140 Yeah.

00:34:18.400 Since right near the beginning, to be perfectly honest.

00:34:21.220 I wonder where all those billions and billions of dollars worth of material really went, though.

00:34:27.340 That's what I was surprised.

00:34:28.100 I thought, was it this summer just gone on the summer before that was going to be a big push from the Ukrainian side, a big summer offensive, and just petered out and didn't really go anywhere at all.

00:34:37.120 And I was, at that point, for me anyway, that was sort of the final straw where I was like, well, it'll end with something like this at some point then.

00:34:44.720 Because if you weren't able to really make any significant gains then, then you're probably almost certainly not going to.

00:34:54.540 I think also a fair amount of the resources that have been provided, particularly the financial resources, have gone into people's pockets.

00:35:04.120 Because, of course, one thing that everyone's forgotten is that Ukraine is the most corrupt country, or at least was before the war, when people actually talked about it, in all of Europe.

00:35:16.000 And throwing money at a very corrupt country is not good.

00:35:20.140 Yeah, vast sums of those money has just been embezzled by people.

00:35:23.080 Absolutely, yeah.

00:35:23.800 It's one of the most corrupt things.

00:35:25.420 I mean, sometimes I get accused of being pro-Russian.

00:35:27.880 I'm not pro-Russian at all. 0.68

00:35:29.060 It goes on in Russia as well.

00:35:30.360 I'm just anti-Zelensky.

00:35:32.540 I'm anti that completely corrupt government.

00:35:34.940 And I think it's an absolute tragedy how many Ukrainians and Russians have died unnecessarily.

00:35:40.040 Because, you know, the Russians might be the aggressors in the situation, but they're fighting with conscripts who might not agree with the war at all.

00:35:49.480 And to be grateful or, you know, delight in Russian deaths when it's just young men, some of them, you know, might not even be out of their teens. 0.94

00:35:59.520 And they're dying for effectively nothing.

00:36:03.280 I am a bit, you know, I haven't been sold entirely on this rhetoric, not because I think that Ukraine isn't profoundly corrupt. 0.91

00:36:13.620 It is.

00:36:14.480 But I want to look at it from a historical perspective.

00:36:17.440 And it seems to me that if we look at the countries of Eastern Europe, especially after the fall of the USSR, we cannot just expect them to be as non-corrupt as we like to think we are in some places.

00:36:34.980 So it seems to me that rather than look at it as an either or corrupt or non-corrupt, it's much better to see it as an issue of trajectories.

00:36:44.500 Is it going towards a less corrupt state or towards a more corrupt one?

00:36:49.720 That's that's a question I put.

00:36:51.120 But I respect the rhetoric.

00:36:53.160 Before 2014, it was Ukraine was teetering between being sort of more European aligned or more Russian aligned, depending on who was in office at the time.

00:37:04.320 And so it was quite unpredictable which direction it was going.

00:37:08.400 I mean, that's one of the things you said Russia is the aggressor here.

00:37:11.600 And well, yeah, I mean, it's their army that's on Ukrainian territory.

00:37:15.680 But come on, the reality was they were endlessly goaded.

00:37:19.320 Of course.

00:37:19.980 Endlessly goaded.

00:37:21.100 I should have probably qualified that it's not as simple as that.

00:37:24.860 It's that classic thing.

00:37:25.720 You keep poking someone in the ribs or in the eye with a stick.

00:37:28.920 And then when they throw a punch, you say, oh, you're the aggressor.

00:37:31.720 You started to fight.

00:37:32.520 You threw the first punch.

00:37:34.320 Ignore that I kept poking you with a stick.

00:37:37.260 But anyway, yeah, but that is that that is the rhetoric from the legacy mainstream media is it's just merely Putin's aggression.

00:37:46.340 That's it.

00:37:47.220 There was nothing.

00:37:48.440 It was a completely peaceful situation.

00:37:50.600 And then Putin, just because he's an aggressive dictator, decided to snatch a bit of land from the completely innocent sort of NATO aligned block.

00:38:01.420 I know Ukraine aren't in NATO, but, you know, from from the anyway. 0.99

00:38:05.560 Well, there was an agreement in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which the West went against.

00:38:13.080 That was the main thing that goaded a response, wasn't it?

00:38:16.660 Yeah.

00:38:16.940 Yeah.

00:38:17.940 I thought we could just watch a little clip from Sky News here.

00:38:21.940 Are we seeing the start of a path towards the end of war?

00:38:27.260 After nearly three years of fighting death and destruction, Ukraine's president has admitted reluctantly that his country may have to relinquish territory to Russia.

00:38:38.020 In an interview with a French newspaper, he struck a thoughtful tone.

00:38:43.900 We cannot give up our territories.

00:38:45.860 The Ukrainian constitution forbids us to do so, but we do not have the strength to recover them.

00:38:50.980 We can only count on diplomatic pressure from the international community to force Putin to sit down at the negotiating table.

00:38:59.020 He's come to Brussels, the heart of European diplomacy, to meet NATO and EU leaders.

00:39:04.660 I think it's a very good opportunity to speak about security guarantees for Ukraine for today and for tomorrow.

00:39:12.740 As you said, you all, almost everything said.

00:39:16.240 So, but it's really very important that to use these two days in Brussels to meet with all our partners.

00:39:27.920 Alongside him, the head of NATO.

00:39:29.300 You get the idea.

00:39:31.280 I just thought I'd let Zelensky say some stuff, so it's not just me.

00:39:33.640 You're not accused of being, making stuff up or whatever.

00:39:39.580 All right, so the next thing, the next sort of development that's happened, people might have heard that North Korea, of all countries,

00:39:46.460 sent quite a lot of men and some material to the front in the order of 10,000 men.

00:39:52.860 And BBC saying that a hundred have died fighting.

00:39:58.680 Some of the other headlines say it was in the hundreds.

00:40:04.520 But certainly they have actually been thrown into the meat grinder.

00:40:09.280 I saw recently that Russia had donated a hundred elite goats to the North Koreans.

00:40:15.260 I don't know what qualifies as an elite goat, but...

00:40:18.680 I didn't hear this one.

00:40:19.420 A goat for every man. 0.98

00:40:20.720 Yeah.

00:40:22.680 Okay.

00:40:23.360 I mean, they are capital, if you think of it.

00:40:26.380 They could be used as capital.

00:40:28.260 Outside of Europe and North America, they're used as capital pretty explicitly.

00:40:33.960 Really?

00:40:34.940 Goats.

00:40:35.540 Goats as in, you know...

00:40:37.060 You need to be a shepherd.

00:40:38.520 I'll marry your daughter for free goats sort of thing, right?

00:40:41.080 No, I didn't mean this.

00:40:42.560 You could use it as a source of income.

00:40:46.460 You could produce...

00:40:47.880 Food.

00:40:48.600 Food and salad.

00:40:49.300 Which the North Koreans do not have much of, yeah.

00:40:51.480 Like milk and cheese and meat.

00:40:53.860 Yeah, yeah.

00:40:54.500 That's, you know, the last thing lactose intolerant North Koreans would want, but there we go.

00:40:59.880 Okay.

00:41:00.400 I could exploit it.

00:41:01.280 The Guardian saying it's several hundred.

00:41:04.720 That was a surprise to me when this happened.

00:41:07.760 And it does sort of beg the question, beyond just sort of the immediate sort of surprise of it.

00:41:13.060 Like, what's the deal?

00:41:13.900 What's going on there?

00:41:16.200 Serious losses, ABC is saying.

00:41:20.240 And even AP News saying that, yeah, the North Korean troops are getting thrown into it.

00:41:28.360 So, you know, like, the relationship between the Kremlin and the North Koreans.

00:41:35.680 What exactly is it?

00:41:36.200 Well, apparently it is that, I mean, they're going to get, the North Koreans are going to get a bit of money.

00:41:41.340 But more importantly, almost certainly, sort of a technology exchange.

00:41:46.520 Probably, we don't know, because it's all behind closed doors, more or less.

00:41:50.560 But, yeah.

00:41:52.340 Height of technology.

00:41:53.320 No, like missile technology.

00:41:55.180 Yeah, okay.

00:41:55.600 So, I can see how, as I say, near the beginning.

00:42:00.280 I can see how the Russians are viewed by, not just the Americans, but the West as a competitor.

00:42:05.560 I mean, you look at the Litvinenko and the Novichok stuff and all sorts of things.

00:42:10.380 The Russians flying fast jets near our airspace and all sorts of things.

00:42:14.660 I get it.

00:42:15.880 I'm not pro-Russian.

00:42:20.120 One of the guys on record is just explicitly saying that.

00:42:23.840 And so, yeah, it leads into this.

00:42:25.860 Like, they're giving the North Koreans missile technology.

00:42:29.380 Come on.

00:42:30.420 Really?

00:42:31.420 In exchange for 10,000 guys fighting in Kursk.

00:42:34.800 Western governments are not going to look kindly upon that, are they?

00:42:41.540 It's only going to make things worse in the long run, isn't it?

00:42:43.880 Yeah, absolutely.

00:42:44.820 Of course.

00:42:45.900 Yeah.

00:42:47.220 CNN going for a slightly different one.

00:42:48.860 So, don't underestimate the North Koreans.

00:42:51.440 Because in those articles, they were saying that the Koreans had made a load of losses. 0.99

00:42:55.500 Because they're really inexperienced and they're sort of crap combat troops. 0.99

00:42:59.020 Unnourished. 0.99

00:42:59.980 Yeah, they don't know what they're doing, really.

00:43:02.160 But CNN decided to say, sort of, no, don't underestimate them.

00:43:08.040 Don't really know why CNN is doing that, just being contrarian.

00:43:11.520 God knows what or why.

00:43:14.060 Well, I suppose if you make out, like, the Russian side, it's more formidable. 1.00

00:43:19.200 It justifies more money being sent to Ukraine, doesn't it?

00:43:22.680 Yeah.

00:43:23.380 Yeah.

00:43:23.840 And we know CNN is, well, a cutout for the intelligence services in all sorts of ways.

00:43:29.640 It seems to me.

00:43:32.160 Okay, another talking point, another thing to mention that's gone on recently is an assassination, a murder of a Russian general, if anyone saw this in the news cycle the last few days.

00:43:43.820 And the guy was quite important.

00:43:46.680 He was a Russian general that was in charge of sort of their nuclear, biological and chemical side of things.

00:43:54.700 So quite a really, quite important dude.

00:43:58.220 He was coming out of his flat, his house, his building.

00:44:01.860 And a bomb went off and blew him up.

00:44:06.960 One would have to wonder why he's being targeted when these, the things he's in charge of are not in play currently.

00:44:14.680 Is that a sort of sign that they're anticipating it?

00:44:17.660 No, well, they are.

00:44:19.300 So one of the things that came under his purview was, like, the use of CS gas.

00:44:25.260 Apparently, on that battlefront, because people think of CS gas as something that just makes your eyes water in a riot and makes people run away.

00:44:32.920 And it's just like, it's like a, and it can be that.

00:44:35.920 Watered down CS gas is that.

00:44:37.420 But very, very strong CS gas is, like, can be fatal.

00:44:40.880 Absolutely.

00:44:41.560 And apparently it's being used massively by the Russians all over the place in that war zone, in that particular theater.

00:44:48.260 And that does come under his sort of command, all that sort of stuff.

00:44:52.960 But so someone, and it was definitely Ukraine, because other headlines just say it was, it was just, it was definitely Ukraine.

00:44:58.600 Like, Ukraine admitted it.

00:44:59.580 Yeah, we did this.

00:45:00.220 Yeah, yeah.

00:45:02.860 So someone somewhere in the Ukrainian defense establishment, or God knows where or who, decided they're going to target this dude.

00:45:10.420 Um, yeah, Ukraine saying, sort of unapologetically saying, yeah, we, we, we did it.

00:45:17.160 You know, it's what we do now.

00:45:19.620 That sort of thing.

00:45:20.700 Um, yeah, we did have a clip, but I don't know if it's worth playing, because it's, it's not really very explicit, but, um, because you just see a massive cloud of smoke.

00:45:31.640 But, um, that clip is all over the internet, if anyone wanted to see it.

00:45:34.760 Um, the other thing is, they're just sort of saying now, because it's coming to a close, that, at least from the Ukrainian side, they're becoming slightly more desperate, just saying they're openly prepared to resort to, well, it's essentially terrorism.

00:45:52.080 Because that happened right close to, in the middle of Moscow, just a few miles from the Kremlin, uh, blowing up a general in the middle of Moscow.

00:46:01.020 Um, it's difficult not to, I mean, it's not the battlefield, is it?

00:46:04.280 So, it's difficult to argue it's anything other than terrorism.

00:46:08.080 In fact, if we could watch this clip, and, uh, well, yeah, let's just watch this clip.

00:46:14.140 The apparent assassination of General Kirillov is the most significant since the war began, and it happened just four miles from the Kremlin.

00:46:20.300 But it's not the first time.

00:46:21.920 In July, a Moscow car bomb targeted a military intelligence GRU officer and his wife, severely injuring them both.

00:46:29.240 Russia blamed Ukraine, probably rightly. 1.00

00:46:31.360 And last year, a pro-war military blogger, Vladlen Tatarsky, was killed in the cafe bombing in the centre of St. Petersburg.

00:46:37.440 The first such attack like this, since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, was also a car bomb killing Darya Dugina in August 2022, just west of Moscow.

00:46:47.380 She was the daughter of the ultra-nationalist Putin ally, Alexander Dugin.

00:46:51.800 Now, Ukraine denies that it carried it out, but Moscow blamed them, and the Western allies reportedly said that they believed that Ukraine had ordered the attack.

00:46:59.280 Now, what makes Kirillov's assassination so significant is what it tells us about the way the war is going and where it might go in the coming months.

00:47:08.500 Kirillov was in charge of CBN, Chemical Biological Nuclear, by which we mean radiological.

00:47:13.780 And he was in charge of the protection of Russian troops from those elements, chemical, biological, radiological.

00:47:19.080 But his role went far beyond that.

00:47:20.880 His actual behaviour was that he was involved in the planning of chemical warfare in Syria,

00:47:26.720 and he's had a great deal to do, and that's what the British government thinks, with chemical warfare all the way around the front in Ukraine.

00:47:34.660 The K-51 gas grenade, a grenade that carries CS gas, but in some cases in lethal concentrations, is ubiquitous all along the front.

00:47:42.460 It's used all the time.

00:47:43.820 And there have been traces of sarin and cyanide in a number of chemical attacks.

00:47:48.700 The Ukrainians have said that the inauguration of President Trump, because we all believe that the political dynamics behind the war will begin to alter after the inauguration of the new president.

00:47:59.660 And so both sides, both Russia and Ukraine, are pushing as hard as they possibly can for every ounce of military dominance before Trump takes over.

00:48:09.260 And what the Ukrainians are doing, they're sending a message, not just to the Russians, but to the rest of the world, that we are fighting for our lives, and we'll do whatever it takes. 0.74

00:48:17.720 And if assassinations, which technically are terrorists, if that's what it takes, that's what we will do.

00:48:22.580 That's the message to the incoming president.

00:48:26.120 Oh, right.

00:48:27.420 Oh, all right, Lev.

00:48:30.800 What?

00:48:31.820 Really?

00:48:32.160 I'm surprised, honestly, a bit surprised that Russia has shown such restraint in the, broadly speaking, because they could do tit for tat.

00:48:40.580 They could decide to do that.

00:48:42.620 They could drop some sort of precision munition on Zelensky if they wanted to.

00:48:46.800 I'm sure they could. 0.69

00:48:48.100 Or do some sort of, I mean, the Russians definitely assassinate people, don't they, all the time. 0.99

00:48:52.840 It's one of their things they do. 0.85

00:48:54.340 They'll get some sort of polonium 210 or whatever and murder their political opponents.

00:48:59.980 They're showing some restraint, to be fair, I think, but anyway.

00:49:04.460 It could be that they've got American intelligence helping the Ukrainians, which is also preventing the Russians from doing the same.

00:49:10.900 Or it could be that they want to keep Zelensky in charge because it's better him than someone more competent.

00:49:17.040 Yeah, someone they don't know, an unknown entity. 0.97

00:49:19.560 Some general who's even more crazy.

00:49:22.200 I just hope the thing can come to a close as soon as possible.

00:49:25.860 It's as simple as that.

00:49:26.720 Me too.

00:49:27.200 The more Ukrainian and Russian lives, and anyone else, North Koreans, any other country that's sending men there, just stop the killing. 1.00

00:49:35.260 You're not going to throw the Russian army out of that part of the world.

00:49:37.600 It's not happening.

00:49:39.000 So stop it.

00:49:41.280 So last thing to say.

00:49:42.460 Zelensky, you've heard it here.

00:49:44.280 Beau has asked.

00:49:46.520 Yeah, pack it in.

00:49:47.920 Peace, Nobel Prize for you.

00:49:49.420 So last thing to say is that it's just about, it's just about Trump.

00:49:55.140 And yeah, he didn't like the killing of that general, which is essentially terrorism.

00:50:00.060 And yeah, hopefully he'll bring an end to it in January.

00:50:03.200 So we'll see how much it escalates between now and then, how down and dirty it will get in the last few weeks.

00:50:08.400 All righty.

00:50:12.920 I'm going to pinch that mouse.

00:50:16.800 I'm spoilt for choice.

00:50:18.120 Are you all right, Stiles?

00:50:19.340 I have breathing issues, yeah.

00:50:22.480 Do you need a drink of water?

00:50:25.120 I'm sounding very husky.

00:50:27.040 I'm sure there are lots of swooning ladies in the chat. 1.00

00:50:30.800 If you need some water, you can steal some of mine.

00:50:33.160 I've got a couple of things there.

00:50:34.320 We do, actually.

00:50:34.800 Dragon Lady Chris says, it'd be nice if we took care of our own problems first, rather than worry about Ukraine.

00:50:41.000 Just a thought.

00:50:42.240 Yeah, right.

00:50:42.740 Yeah, it's not our one.

00:50:43.500 That's the one for Stelios there.

00:50:44.780 Sharia is Arabic for street or road.

00:50:47.260 Sharia is meant to be the road to paradise. 1.00

00:50:49.860 They will not accept other law systems as superordinate to Sharia. 0.85

00:50:54.320 Also, Islam means submission and jihad means purge. 1.00

00:50:58.380 Indeed.

00:51:00.200 Right.

00:51:01.200 I'm going to lift everyone's spirits now because I actually have some good news.

00:51:05.260 About good things that have happened this year.

00:51:07.620 And it's not necessarily political because we've covered most of that stuff already.

00:51:11.200 If you follow our channel, you've probably seen some of it.

00:51:14.160 You only need to go back through our videos and see that stuff.

00:51:16.640 And it's the stuff that slipped through the cracks that we don't talk about.

00:51:19.240 And doesn't get the same attention as political things.

00:51:22.000 But I think is just as important to human beings and human civilization and advancement as anything else.

00:51:31.160 And one of the first things is something that was not on my 2024 bingo card.

00:51:36.660 And that is India making a contribution to hygiene and medicine.

00:51:41.120 I know.

00:51:42.640 Pinch yourselves, everyone.

00:51:43.940 That's an oxymoron.

00:51:44.860 I know.

00:51:45.580 They're a petri dish for all kinds of bacteria. 0.83

00:51:48.100 However, I'm going to read a little bit from this because it's a little bit over my head.

00:51:53.620 So, Enmentazobactam, developed by the Chennai-based Orchid Pharma, is the first antimicrobial invented in India to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

00:52:06.360 That's quite an admonishment of them.

00:52:10.200 This injectable drug treats severe conditions like urinary tract infections, pneumonia, bloodstream infections by targeting bacteria's defense mechanisms rather than the bacteria itself.

00:52:21.040 And this is quite important because bacteria often produce enzymes like beta-lactamase to destroy antibiotics.

00:52:31.020 And that's how they become resistant to antibiotics.

00:52:34.800 And this also preserves the effectiveness of other antibiotics, which can still remain as a sort of last line of defense.

00:52:45.040 But by targeting bacteria in a different way, it basically immobilizes the bacteria's weapon without triggering the resistance to it particularly easily.

00:52:55.920 And this is very, very good.

00:52:58.020 It gives clinicians more options when treating bacterial infections.

00:53:02.500 And, you know, they're very unpleasant things.

00:53:05.620 Having to live with such a thing, it would be horrible.

00:53:08.580 And if it were untreatable, well, that would be awful.

00:53:12.440 And so this is an unequivocally good thing, I think.

00:53:18.200 Yeah, no, it sounds like it.

00:53:19.560 Yeah.

00:53:20.240 So there's also this as well, that there's been a new triple drug combination

00:53:25.540 to treat antibiotic-resistant bacteria because at one point people were worried that bacteria was winning in the arms race.

00:53:35.220 Well, we were coming out with antibiotics and the bacteria was adapting faster than we can come up with new ones.

00:53:41.940 And so that's great news.

00:53:43.960 I find it annoying.

00:53:44.980 If you've been to the doctor or perhaps the dentist or something, and you've got an infection and you're in pain and they won't give you antibiotics

00:53:53.600 because you've just got to go through the pain and you will get better.

00:53:58.240 But they don't want to give you antibiotics because you will get resistant to it in the end.

00:54:02.500 It's like, I've got a terrible earache or something.

00:54:05.000 I need like eight amoxicillin.

00:54:07.160 Come on, just give me, just write me a prescription.

00:54:09.800 Just give me.

00:54:10.220 Just give me like three or four days worth of amoxicillin.

00:54:13.080 Please.

00:54:13.680 I'm in extreme pain.

00:54:14.660 They're like, no, I can't do it.

00:54:16.240 Won't do it. 1.00

00:54:16.940 It's like, bastards. 1.00

00:54:19.840 I'm in pain over here. 1.00

00:54:22.580 So Bo's ears are going to benefit from this.

00:54:26.120 I've never had an ear infection.

00:54:27.460 That was just an example.

00:54:28.460 Okay.

00:54:29.320 Well, you never know.

00:54:30.480 It's almost time, Bo.

00:54:32.300 I'm due an ear infection.

00:54:33.860 I haven't had one for 44 years.

00:54:35.500 It's like volcanic eruptions.

00:54:36.900 I had this year.

00:54:38.840 An earring infection.

00:54:39.540 Yeah, when I came here back after the sun.

00:54:42.780 Listening to us can do that.

00:54:44.960 No, I think it had to do with the sea.

00:54:47.480 Yeah, if you get dirty water in your ear, I think that can sometimes be the thing.

00:54:51.340 Yeah, the only time I've ever had it was when I was swimming a lot.

00:54:54.880 So there you go.

00:54:56.380 Don't go swimming.

00:54:57.300 It's bad for you.

00:54:58.820 Yeah, there's also this.

00:55:00.120 This was in Oxford.

00:55:01.720 They found a new combination that's particularly good at treating it.

00:55:04.680 And another thing as well is Alzheimer's as well.

00:55:08.800 Apparently, it's now been found that there are five distinct subtypes of Alzheimer's.

00:55:15.180 Okay.

00:55:15.420 So type 1 is characterized by neuronal hyperplasticity, meaning that your brain is hyperplastic.

00:55:23.820 It changes quite a lot.

00:55:25.720 2 is innate immune activation.

00:55:29.940 3 is RNA dysregulation.

00:55:32.620 I wonder how that maps into modern medicine.

00:55:35.100 Type 4, choroid plexus dysfunction.

00:55:39.020 And type 5, blood-brain barrier dysfunction.

00:55:41.800 None of those sound particularly good to me.

00:55:43.820 I won't pretend to understand these because it's a little bit beyond my area of expertise.

00:55:48.840 This is more into medicine than it is psychology, even though a lot of this is to do with the physiology of the brain.

00:55:54.820 It's good news, though, because this is one of those diseases that are horrible.

00:56:02.040 It is, yeah.

00:56:02.700 My grandparents had it, and it was truly awful.

00:56:06.160 Yeah, my grandfather as well.

00:56:07.340 He died.

00:56:07.740 It's one of the things that I'm, you know, it's probably number one for something I wouldn't want to get.

00:56:17.780 Yeah, no, it's sort of nightmarish.

00:56:19.280 A heart attack or something.

00:56:21.040 You can, lung or heart disease, you can sort of, or just a cancer, you can sort of get your mind around.

00:56:26.740 But the idea, like, it's scary, isn't it, the idea of Alzheimer's?

00:56:29.920 It's very much, it's much scarier when it's for one of your close ones, because you don't understand it if you have it.

00:56:37.620 It's also very strange as well to see someone physically and then them not be there, if you know what I mean.

00:56:43.540 I know what you mean, Josh.

00:56:45.080 So, another good thing, and I think you'd have to be very cold-hearted not to think that this was a good thing,

00:56:50.760 that children with food allergies are now better able to live with their food allergies,

00:56:56.380 because the NHS in Britain has actually done a good thing, I know, pinch yourself.

00:57:02.420 They've been using immunotherapy, which is basically a daily dose of the food allergen,

00:57:08.280 which are taken under medical supervision, to train the person's immune system not to react to the food they're allergic to,

00:57:14.660 and apparently they're already seeing children on the study who can consume and tolerate food,

00:57:19.280 which would have otherwise triggered a severe allergic reaction, which is really good.

00:57:23.440 It also means that they no longer have these severe reactions, so that's positive in and of itself,

00:57:30.920 and also it means it's easier to avoid cross-contamination, and also they're less likely to die.

00:57:39.460 Less dead children, I think, is a good thing. This is a good development.

00:57:43.200 I'm sure the food industry is going to have a ball.

00:57:46.400 Speaking about the food industry, there's been some good news about that as well.

00:57:51.160 You know how we've been told continuously that meat is bad, that you'll die, you'll get cancer and heart disease.

00:57:56.920 Everything's cancerous.

00:57:58.260 If you eat meat.

00:57:59.880 However, there's been a really big study recently looking at 175 contemporary populations of human beings,

00:58:07.240 and they found that total meat intake is associated with life expectancy.

00:58:12.280 I'm going to read from the abstract of this and then explain what some of the terms mean,

00:58:16.200 because it's a little bit wordy.

00:58:20.220 So, results worldwide, bivariate correlation analysis revealed,

00:58:24.280 and that's basically looking at a linear relationship between two variables that are continuous,

00:58:30.680 revealed that meat intake is positively correlated with life expectancies.

00:58:35.120 This relationship remains significant when influences of caloric intake, urbanization, obesity, education,

00:58:42.800 and carbohydrate crop were statistically controlled.

00:58:46.940 So, those are loads of factors that are controlled,

00:58:49.040 and it still has this positive correlation with life expectancy.

00:58:53.100 And then they carried out what is known as a stepwise linear regression,

00:58:56.360 which basically adds or removes variables from a set of explanatory variables gradually,

00:59:04.300 and for each iteration, the statistical significance of each variable is tested.

00:59:08.720 What this means is that they're basically trying to create a model of how meat affects your health

00:59:17.300 by looking at the various factors and how they interact with both your life expectancy

00:59:22.340 and also the level of meat consumption and all these different factors determining it.

00:59:28.220 And even then, there is a positive correlation with life expectancy.

00:59:34.820 And actually, in contrast, they say carbohydrate crops showed weak and negative correlations with life expectancy.

00:59:44.180 So, you're saying too much pasta will kill you?

00:59:47.240 Yes.

00:59:48.640 I love pasta.

00:59:49.380 A lot of meat will not, which is really interesting, actually.

00:59:53.180 And this is their words.

00:59:55.660 Conclusion.

00:59:56.640 If meat intake is not incorporated into nutrition science for predicting human life expectancy,

01:00:02.220 results could prove inaccurate.

01:00:04.940 Josh, please, speak English.

01:00:06.440 Can I eat burgers?

01:00:07.640 Yes.

01:00:08.220 Okay, good.

01:00:08.960 Burgers are good now. 1.00

01:00:10.500 Also, what you said about pasta, it's the same with love.

01:00:13.560 Too much love will kill you.

01:00:16.080 Depends how old you are.

01:00:17.260 I think it's fair to say, and maybe I'll get stick from the types of people like Roar Egg Nationalist

01:00:22.340 or people who are actual dietitians and things, but just have a balanced diet.

01:00:27.620 Don't go crazy on any one thing, right?

01:00:29.720 Just have some green veg.

01:00:32.380 Have some carbohydrates.

01:00:34.500 Have some red meat.

01:00:35.960 Just balance it.

01:00:36.940 Everything in moderation.

01:00:38.460 Yes, because everyone just comes up with an idea.

01:00:40.780 Just don't pig out exclusively on Monster Munch and ice cream until you're obese.

01:00:45.760 And you'll probably be all right, right?

01:00:48.860 That's my diet there.

01:00:50.600 Monster Munch and ice cream.

01:00:51.640 That's all I eat.

01:00:52.680 It's not really.

01:00:54.220 So it's also worth mentioning as well, fake meat products linked to heart failure deaths.

01:00:59.060 A study has found as well.

01:01:00.260 So there's Bill Gates there, very appropriate.

01:01:04.280 So it has found that these fake meat products, such as the Bill Gates-owned lab-grown beef,

01:01:10.000 are linked to cardiovascular diseases and heart failure-related deaths.

01:01:14.000 And they claim this in this article.

01:01:17.520 The results of the study are a major blow to the narrative that vegetarian and vegan diets

01:01:21.400 help to lower the risk of cardiovascular diseases.

01:01:24.420 They don't.

01:01:25.000 So there's also been findings that plant-based foods are linked to heart disease as well,

01:01:35.800 and particularly the ultra-processed kind.

01:01:38.040 So basically, the picture that's emerging here out of all of this is,

01:01:42.700 if you have food that isn't very processed, it's good for you.

01:01:47.420 And the number of processes seems to dictate how bad for your heart something is,

01:01:53.720 and your risk of stroke.

01:01:55.620 So just avoid processed foods, and you don't need to worry so much about eating too much meat.

01:02:01.300 As long as you're eating good quality stuff, it seems like you'll be fine.

01:02:05.640 And there's...

01:02:06.100 Those several ways are off the table.

01:02:08.520 Yes.

01:02:09.700 Some sausages, I'm afraid, out the window.

01:02:14.180 So this has been picked up recently by outlets,

01:02:17.800 and there have been things like this, where Identical Twins went on separate vegan and meat and dairy-only diets.

01:02:25.540 And the changes that they saw, and, you know, even mainstream outlets like this,

01:02:29.640 are talking about how the guy on the meat-only diet gained 10 pounds of muscle over the course of 12 weeks,

01:02:39.100 but also put on fat.

01:02:42.780 It only went up 2% from 13% to 15%, but it was also more muscular.

01:02:47.360 And then, in the case of the vegan guy, he lost more body fat.

01:02:53.160 He dropped 4 pounds and lost 1% of his body fat, but didn't put on any muscle.

01:02:57.680 So, I would argue for men, I think meat is better there.

01:03:03.000 It doesn't matter if you have a bit of fat, you just want mass.

01:03:06.220 And...

01:03:06.420 I was going to say, it depends if you're starting from being too heavy to begin with.

01:03:10.260 That's true.

01:03:10.800 Or if you're a skinny boy, then you want to put on some bulk.

01:03:13.420 I'm talking as a, you know...

01:03:14.960 Also depends on your goals.

01:03:17.680 Yeah, right.

01:03:18.480 Maybe in a cutting period.

01:03:19.860 If you want to expand your field of gravity, maybe take a different approach.

01:03:24.480 Cultivating mass to hit the big two hundo.

01:03:26.220 And talking about...

01:03:27.340 Get on the red meat.

01:03:28.340 Talking about mass and gravity, let's move on to some space news.

01:03:33.760 So, something that's obviously unequivocally good was this.

01:03:38.520 This is a first.

01:03:40.420 I did a pre-record segment with Harry yesterday where I talked about this.

01:03:44.220 So, we're doubling up a little bit here.

01:03:45.640 It's all right.

01:03:46.060 I'm only talking about it briefly.

01:03:47.480 No, no, it's fine.

01:03:48.440 In your glory.

01:03:49.020 I didn't know.

01:03:49.400 I didn't want to stop you.

01:03:50.200 I just wanted to...

01:03:51.440 Sorry.

01:03:52.040 Carry on.

01:03:52.500 Sorry.

01:03:52.720 Carry on.

01:03:53.000 This is the last you're going to see of me because Agent 47 has now called out a hit

01:03:58.060 on me for treading on his turf.

01:04:02.100 But this was one of those things where, when I watched it live...

01:04:06.120 Oh, yeah, I'll turn the volume off.

01:04:09.780 It was one of those things where sunset, a rocket was caught in the arms of the thing.

01:04:16.060 I was just like, that is a historic moment.

01:04:18.120 This is amazing.

01:04:19.540 And the fact that we can now have these rockets that go up into space and back down again and

01:04:24.680 can be caught.

01:04:26.220 That's amazing.

01:04:27.120 It's a truly wonderful thing.

01:04:30.300 And if we're going to have, you know, things like the colonization of Mars, what people

01:04:35.120 don't realize is this is going to massively decrease the potential cost of that because

01:04:39.780 we can reuse the rockets.

01:04:41.780 You know, it's not a one-use rocket and then it comes back down like NASA.

01:04:45.000 SpaceX, because they're run as a private company rather than a government entity, has an incentive

01:04:49.620 to make it as efficient and therefore cost-effective as possible.

01:04:52.360 And here's just another angle of it and you can just see how amazing it is, not only just

01:05:01.260 the footage itself, but the fact, I'll skip ahead a little bit, but you can see just

01:05:07.260 the precision in this.

01:05:11.400 Yeah.

01:05:12.040 And the scale, it's giant.

01:05:13.180 I mean, that whole thing's like the size of a block of flats, basically.

01:05:16.400 It's absolutely massive.

01:05:17.900 Yeah, I count it as among human civilization's greatest engineering feats.

01:05:25.700 I would say so, yeah.

01:05:27.180 Quite remarkable.

01:05:28.020 Sort of can't believe your eyes, right?

01:05:29.600 Yeah.

01:05:30.500 And speaking of great things, the James Webb Space Telescope, one of Bo's favorites, has

01:05:37.180 found that early galaxies were shaped like surfboards, about 80% of them at least.

01:05:42.700 Well, 50 to 80%.

01:05:43.920 And apparently this was a bit of a surprise and here are the different shapes that you

01:05:48.720 can get.

01:05:49.920 But most of them are surfboards.

01:05:52.120 I didn't know that, but there you go.

01:05:55.140 And also, NASA launched a new mission.

01:05:58.980 They launched the Europa Clipper, which sounds like an alternative to a Turkish barber, but 0.98

01:06:06.940 it's not.

01:06:08.400 In fact, it is a mission to go to Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, isn't it, which is an

01:06:14.780 ice planet that's believed to have liquid water underneath its surface.

01:06:19.320 Lots of scientists have argued that there are all of the building blocks of life there,

01:06:23.840 and there could be life underneath the surface, and that's what it's being sent out to investigate.

01:06:28.220 And it's got to travel 1.8 billion miles to reach Jupiter, and it will reach it around

01:06:35.160 April of 2030.

01:06:36.860 But this is now in progress.

01:06:38.320 I think this is exciting.

01:06:39.420 This is very exciting.

01:06:40.460 And I mean, I'm kind of sad that I'm not a bit younger, because I think that the more

01:06:46.280 time goes by, the more space is going to be explored.

01:06:49.360 I think we haven't entered into the great space exploration.

01:06:54.440 Well, it's one of those things, isn't it, where, you know, we're too young to explore

01:07:01.240 the world, but too old to explore space.

01:07:05.460 So we're sort of in the between period.

01:07:08.140 Again, that was what you'll see this over Christmas when my segment goes out on it, but I said

01:07:11.840 mirrored exactly, echoed rather, exactly what you said there, that I'm sort of really,

01:07:17.720 really, in the most profound sense, gutted, that I don't get to see the exploration of

01:07:24.040 the solar system, let alone the galaxy.

01:07:26.480 I really, really want to do it.

01:07:27.540 If it was possible to cryogenically freeze myself, just so that I could come back in a

01:07:33.920 few hundred or even a few thousand years and see human outposts on, well, all the big

01:07:39.340 moons, or out to Pluto, or whatever, or onto other suns and other solar systems, I won't

01:07:45.900 get to see any of that.

01:07:47.140 It was so disappointing.

01:07:49.320 But we will probably live to see the colonization of Mars.

01:07:54.120 Sorry, Stelio.

01:07:54.660 Can I say something very quickly to this?

01:07:56.880 I think I'm willing to bet that in one or two thousand years from now, if humanity doesn't

01:08:02.620 destroy itself, I think people are going to be very soft with technology and they're going

01:08:08.360 to look back at us, they're going to say, okay, these guys were ultra chads.

01:08:12.160 With that beard bow, you're going to scare them all, then you're going to be, wow, that

01:08:18.020 guy's like a, you know, like a medieval knight or something.

01:08:22.020 A woman on the train the other day said, I didn't know, walked past me and said, oh, you 0.90

01:08:25.840 look like someone out of that Viking show.

01:08:28.440 I didn't know what Viking show she was talking about.

01:08:30.320 And I just said, well, thanks.

01:08:31.820 I'll take that.

01:08:32.940 Looking like a Viking?

01:08:33.940 It could be worse.

01:08:34.500 Yeah, we're living in the infancy of the exploration of our solar system still.

01:08:41.000 Absolutely.

01:08:42.500 I'm looking forward to the next thing after Clipper.

01:08:44.880 I talked about Europa Clipper in a segment earlier in the year.

01:08:48.460 And yeah, it's still, it's not going to, it's not a lander.

01:08:50.880 It's not going to land on Europa.

01:08:52.400 But hopefully the next generation, I did an open appeal to Elon to send up a lander to

01:08:57.900 Europa so it can sort of melt its way through that icy crust down into the, down into the

01:09:04.060 actual subsurface ocean of Europa.

01:09:06.100 And hopefully it'll be teeming with life.

01:09:08.400 And we'll see aliens for the first time in the oceans of Europa.

01:09:11.500 So I'm waiting for that.

01:09:12.160 Hopefully I'll live long enough to see that.

01:09:15.460 That sounds like a weird paraphrasing of Toto's Africa there.

01:09:20.100 See the aliens on the, under the ice of Europa.

01:09:23.600 Yeah, yeah.

01:09:23.940 But anyway, yeah, Elon Musk is saying that in about 20 years time, 1 million people will

01:09:32.000 be living on Mars and he's making it his mission.

01:09:34.840 He says that there's going to be uncrewed starships to Mars for the first time in just

01:09:38.520 two years time.

01:09:39.840 And if those go well, the first human crews would be following that in four years.

01:09:46.020 So that's all of our living lifetimes.

01:09:48.420 People are going to start colonizing Mars, assuming everything goes well.

01:09:51.160 I think that's a little bit optimistic.

01:09:53.080 It is a bit.

01:09:54.080 Lots of people have said that.

01:09:55.780 It's very ambitious.

01:09:56.920 But also considering what SpaceX has achieved so far, it's been very impressive.

01:10:04.700 I'm actually quite surprised at how well they've done so far.

01:10:08.040 Do you need to build some sort of base on the moon, some sort of space station orbiting

01:10:13.040 the moon, a bigger, better docking and refueling apparatus in low earth orbit.

01:10:17.780 But then once all of that is done and be able to launch starships sort of all the time.

01:10:25.000 But then we can finally launch an invasion of the bug planet.

01:10:29.240 Yeah.

01:10:30.220 So you can do a John Carter and actually go there.

01:10:32.780 And anyway, yeah, I think four years might be a little bit optimistic, but we're supposed

01:10:37.860 to put boots back at NASA and SpaceX in collaboration with.

01:10:41.280 And we're going to put boots back on the moon as early as next year.

01:10:46.020 That's the idea.

01:10:47.220 It's exciting stuff, isn't it?

01:10:48.360 Yeah.

01:10:49.080 Yeah.

01:10:49.200 It's nice to feel like humanity's got a good bit of positive momentum because, you know,

01:10:55.180 we've been fussing and fighting, not doing much innovating recently, have we?

01:10:59.400 And it'll be nice to see something where you're just like, OK, I'm glad I've lived to see something

01:11:05.180 of note happen in my life.

01:11:07.900 But don't you remember nothing ever happens, though?

01:11:09.740 That's a truism, isn't it?

01:11:10.840 That's just always the case.

01:11:12.960 In the new year, I'll be evaluating that, I think.

01:11:17.140 So another thing as well is we found a new form of a new phase, I suppose, of matter,

01:11:25.220 a light-matter hybrid, and supposedly, I'm just going to read this because this physics

01:11:32.860 is well above my understanding.

01:11:36.140 I'm sure there are people in the audience that understand this better.

01:11:38.920 It says,

01:11:39.280 In a scientific breakthrough that could reshape our understanding of how light interacts

01:11:43.120 with matter, researchers for the Atto Science and Ultrafast Optics Group at the Institute

01:11:47.820 of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona have discovered a new phase of matter aptly named light-matter

01:11:53.760 hybrid.

01:11:54.220 The findings published in Nature Communications not only reveals a previously unseen state

01:11:59.520 of material, but also opens the doors to potential applications in photovoltaics, high-powered

01:12:07.100 electronics, and beyond.

01:12:08.620 And of course, lots of innovations in electronics are good, considering most things we use have

01:12:15.340 some electrical elements to them.

01:12:17.560 And of course, photovoltaics, I think I'm pronouncing that right, I could be wrong, is the process

01:12:23.820 of converting sunlight into electricity using semiconductors.

01:12:27.420 And so this could mean that we could make much more efficient solar panels, which would be good, because of course, one good thing about solar

01:12:37.760 panels, at least, is that you can have them on top of your roof and make money selling energy back to the grid.

01:12:45.260 And you're also independent of the energy companies, which at the minute are ripping me off.

01:12:50.240 So not that I'm spiteful or anything, but they're ripping everyone off in Britain pretty much at the minute.

01:12:55.860 Most expensive electricity in the world.

01:12:59.680 It'd be good if you could have just a few kilometers, square kilometers in the Sahara Desert or the

01:13:04.720 Mojave Desert or something, and that's enough power for the whole world.

01:13:08.260 Yeah, well, it's not like the sand's doing much, is it?

01:13:11.140 Got a surplus of sand.

01:13:13.520 So another thing as well is semiconductors traditionally were made of silicon, and we are coming to the end of the

01:13:22.060 limits of silicon semiconductor use, because now we've started getting into computational speeds where it is a bit of a

01:13:30.700 bottleneck as far as I understand it. This is, again, a little bit outside of my area of expertise, but they've made one from

01:13:36.520 graphene, and supposedly it's a single sheet of carbon atoms held together by very strong bonds.

01:13:47.940 And so this is also potentially very good. Might be able to make very tiny quantum computers. Who knows?

01:13:55.600 But this seems very, very positive. This is one of those things that doesn't sound particularly sexy.

01:14:00.700 so to speak, but it's going to have absolutely massive implications for our electronics.

01:14:05.840 And then another thing which is very big as well.

01:14:07.620 Let's just say super quick.

01:14:08.300 Of course.

01:14:08.680 Graphene is a remarkable thing. I remember reading up all about it a few years ago.

01:14:13.400 Once we can mass produce it, then it will change the game in all sorts of fields.

01:14:21.920 It's sort of a wonder material, a futuristic wonder material. We can do it, but mass producing cheaply enough,

01:14:28.620 kilometres of the stuff for industry. If and when we master that, it will be a game changer, I think.

01:14:37.000 That take, I'm sure, will age well.

01:14:41.400 Well, yeah, I mean, it's already in use in a very useful way.

01:14:44.700 So I think you're safe.

01:14:47.240 And then the final thing I wanted to end on is lithium, obviously, has been a very sought-after material.

01:14:53.760 There have been lots of lithium mines in Central Africa, and the Chinese have been scrambling for Africa 1.00

01:14:58.760 against European influences to try and get their hands on lithium, because it's used in lithium-ion batteries.

01:15:04.720 And it turns out that there's now been a cheaper alternative in thermal batteries, which could replace these.

01:15:12.260 And I'm not entirely sure of the pros and cons of it.

01:15:14.900 Maybe it's still not quite time yet, but it's at least cheaper and more scalable as an alternative to the lithium-ion batteries.

01:15:23.620 And these heat batteries can also store excess electricity as heat in materials like bricks or graphite,

01:15:32.220 which can, of course, reach temperatures of over 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

01:15:37.240 And then that heat can be stored and then released when needed, which is great for things,

01:15:43.360 and they list this in the article, for manufacturing steel, cement, and chemicals.

01:15:47.680 So if the production of these things becomes cheaper, that means the cost of building stuff in particular becomes cheaper.

01:15:58.360 And so it might make houses more affordable if steel and cement become cheaper.

01:16:03.800 Here's hoping.

01:16:05.340 Talk about building.

01:16:06.220 At first glance, I thought that was an aerial view of some Chinese building project.

01:16:11.280 And you see a Chinese building project.

01:16:13.180 They do look like that, don't they?

01:16:14.480 And then I see the pallets underneath, and it's like, oh no, I'm looking at something else instead.

01:16:19.220 So yes, I wanted to focus on some more technological and scientific innovations,

01:16:24.120 because these sorts of things bubble on in the background.

01:16:27.780 They don't get the same circulation as bad political news.

01:16:30.920 But there are lots of ways in which things are actually getting better.

01:16:33.560 And I think that focusing on this sort of thing is important,

01:16:38.440 because it gives you a view of the world not necessarily going entirely to hell.

01:16:44.480 And I think there's always got to be something worth fighting for.

01:16:49.140 And I think that things can indeed trend in a positive direction.

01:16:54.360 We've got a long ways to go before that happens politically,

01:16:56.980 but at least technologically and scientifically,

01:17:00.100 in some areas things seem to be going all right.

01:17:03.560 No, it's good.

01:17:04.060 It's interesting.

01:17:04.660 I've long argued behind the scenes over at Lotus Eaters

01:17:07.280 that we should do more science-y things, interesting white pills.

01:17:12.140 I agree, yeah.

01:17:14.280 Well, obviously I did it.

01:17:16.100 But we've got a bunch of comments here.

01:17:18.300 Beau is my favourite.

01:17:19.280 He has epic beard energy.

01:17:21.540 That's from AllMyTom.

01:17:23.420 And Ryleion says,

01:17:25.440 Well wishes, Stelios.

01:17:27.720 You all right?

01:17:29.100 I'm not particularly well, but it's okay.

01:17:32.100 Well, you've kept on like a trooper.

01:17:34.700 I just can't stop thinking about the icy crust of Europa.

01:17:39.560 You're making it sound like a nice pie.

01:17:42.280 Nice juicy crust.

01:17:44.420 Europa Clipper is going to kick some ice. 1.00

01:17:50.700 To Beau, look how Jeffrey Sachs explained the failed coup in South Korea at Tucker.

01:17:56.480 If you want to understand propaganda, MSN lunacy,

01:17:59.360 about North Korean troops in the Ukrainian war, it is connected.

01:18:02.360 I only saw a little clip of that earlier today,

01:18:04.840 but I do mean to watch that whole thing.

01:18:06.860 So thank you.

01:18:07.520 Yeah, I will watch that whole thing.

01:18:09.420 And Dragon Lady Chris says, 0.93

01:18:10.820 Agreed.

01:18:11.180 I watched my grandmother deteriorate over 10 years of Alzheimer's.

01:18:15.000 Absolutely horrible breakthroughs in this research.

01:18:17.140 It's something to celebrate.

01:18:18.820 It is indeed.

01:18:19.700 And actually, Alzheimer's research is one of the few charities beyond paying taxes

01:18:23.660 that I've ever donated to.

01:18:25.800 Because it's one of those things where I'm just like,

01:18:27.520 actually, yeah, this is really good for humanity.

01:18:29.700 And helping this along is actually a good thing.

01:18:33.980 And I hope that it's one of those things that at least is receiving due attention.

01:18:39.640 And may well see a cure within our lifetimes, potentially.

01:18:43.620 Or at least significant strides towards preventing it and treating it better.

01:18:49.220 We could have a, you know, late night DJ voice show talking about space.

01:18:56.160 That would be fine.

01:18:58.220 I'll do that.

01:18:58.900 I can talk about space till the cows come home.

01:19:01.080 Yeah, yeah.

01:19:01.480 Happy to.

01:19:02.360 Going to be out in the field with a telescope.

01:19:05.700 Do a sky at night.

01:19:06.840 Yeah.

01:19:07.000 A Lotus Eater's sky at night.

01:19:08.360 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:19:09.700 I'd love to do that.

01:19:10.740 It'd be the new Moore.

01:19:11.880 If we ever make decent enough profits, we'd get a Lotus Eater's telescope.

01:19:15.480 Yeah.

01:19:16.240 A relatively small one, but.

01:19:17.780 We'd never see you again.

01:19:18.900 You'd only come out at night for the stars.

01:19:21.540 Never beating the vampire accusations now.

01:19:24.460 Anyway, here are the video comments.

01:19:28.540 And now a little bit more wholesome, Christmassy content.

01:19:31.760 These items here are things that my family has made at the Corning Museum of Glass as kind

01:19:39.720 of a follow-up to my previous videos on the Museum of Glass.

01:19:44.540 I mean, this is mostly helped by the artists that work there full-time.

01:19:48.460 So, yeah, you can see some of the projects we've done.

01:19:52.980 Hey, guys, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

01:19:56.700 You too.

01:19:57.600 They're very impressive as well, to be fair.

01:19:59.760 I thought they were professionally made and you got them as souvenirs, but to know that

01:20:04.360 your family worked on them, well, you've got a family of glass blowers there, clearly.

01:20:08.060 So I've tried my hand at it and it went horribly.

01:20:12.040 Like every time I got in any way involved in the process, it made it worse.

01:20:29.760 Clarkson went to full commie there, didn't he?

01:20:44.360 The Clarkson dynasty will reign for a thousand years.

01:20:48.360 Jeremy's great leap forward.

01:20:50.240 Yeah.

01:20:51.260 Going to have Sputnik fields.

01:20:52.860 There'll be a hammer in every home and a fuel-guzzling sports car. 0.91

01:21:01.060 I have come here today to settle the Santa argument.

01:21:05.640 I did some citizen journalism and I traveled to the North Pole to get some true photo evidence.

01:21:12.020 Here you are.

01:21:12.620 And while I was there, Santa, my good friend Nick, told me to tell you something.

01:21:21.020 Dear Lotus Eaters and those who watch us, the Lotus Eaters, may you have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

01:21:32.020 Well, thank you, Sophie, and thank you, Santa Claus, as well.

01:21:36.020 You too.

01:21:37.360 The cat's like, keep it down.

01:21:40.200 I'm trying to sleep over here.

01:21:42.120 No, yeah, you too.

01:21:42.940 Merry Christmas.

01:21:43.520 Happy New Year.

01:21:46.020 Oh, who's it going to be?

01:21:47.340 Do, bum, do, bum, do, bum, do, bum, do, bum, do, bum, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.

01:21:53.460 Based tier list.

01:21:55.180 Today, we have Rory, who... 0.94

01:21:57.560 Does anyone understand Rory?

01:21:59.720 His ways are inscrutable.

01:22:02.640 I don't think we can place him.

01:22:04.820 He must go into the void.

01:22:10.140 Unclassed.

01:22:11.280 He's truly outside of classification.

01:22:13.940 Other.

01:22:14.440 Classification other.

01:22:16.140 Miscellaneous folder.

01:22:16.720 Unknowable

01:22:19.520 Transcendental some might say

01:22:21.540 Just remembered I was making this into a gun channel

01:22:26.920 Above is a Colt Model 1847 Walker Revolve

01:22:30.540 Originally made in cap and ball

01:22:32.240 Each cylinder held 60 grains of black powder

01:22:34.920 Making it the most potent sidearm ever issued by the US military

01:22:38.540 They commanded respect

01:22:40.360 But were a bit heavy

01:22:44.460 They were also the preferred sidearm of Santa Claus

01:22:50.220 You think I got this job because I'm fat and jolly?

01:22:55.880 I've watched this film by the way

01:22:57.580 Yeah I really enjoyed

01:22:59.380 You can blow your hand off as well alright if you're not careful

01:23:01.420 I liked that drunken phone call that Saint Nicholas made

01:23:05.740 And then he wasn't allowed to work for a couple of years

01:23:09.380 Saint Nicholas was really bad for doing that wasn't he?

01:23:12.660 Saint Nicholas leaving abusive voicemails on his wife

01:23:16.680 On Mrs Claus' aunt's phone

01:23:18.500 A few years back

01:23:19.840 Mrs Claus didn't deserve that

01:23:21.000 He was down a rabbit hole and it was hard for him

01:23:26.220 Yeah

01:23:28.200 Ryan Hennigan says

01:23:31.420 Santa deniers be like

01:23:33.000 It was actually your parents that punched Arius at the Council of Nicaea

01:23:37.400 Sorry what was that?

01:23:39.420 I zoned out for a split second then

01:23:40.520 What was that about the Council?

01:23:41.100 It was actually your parents that punched Arius at the Council of Nicaea

01:23:46.480 In response to the Santa deniers

01:23:49.940 Because of course

01:23:50.600 We all know that Santa Claus exists

01:23:53.180 Yeah but wasn't Saint Basil after the Nicenean Council?

01:24:00.140 Who cares about him?

01:24:01.040 He's just an ingredient in Italian food

01:24:02.660 Maybe not

01:24:03.020 That's his legacy

01:24:06.200 He doesn't bring me presents

01:24:07.340 He brings me nice Italian cuisine

01:24:09.280 Which is almost good enough

01:24:11.020 Baron von Warhawk says

01:24:13.060 My cat died yesterday after 17 years of being a wonderful pet

01:24:16.640 Can I get an F in the chat for his memory?

01:24:20.040 Rip Misha the cat

01:24:21.340 Well I'm very sorry to hear that

01:24:23.240 And I had a cat from the age of about 6 years old

01:24:27.500 And only a couple of years ago she died

01:24:30.100 And it was incredibly sad because

01:24:32.340 That's a part of the family after the world

01:24:35.300 Sad

01:24:36.840 But thankfully I went back home and visited shortly before

01:24:41.780 But she'd got so old that she could barely move

01:24:46.100 So it's kind of a bit of a mercy really

01:24:48.420 So would you like to read some comments Stelios?

01:24:52.940 Yes

01:24:53.180 I can read them for you if your voice is a bit dodgy

01:24:56.440 I'll try

01:24:57.880 Justin B

01:25:00.000 There was a lawyer near where I lived about 15 years ago

01:25:03.480 That advertised that he was an expert in Sharia 0.97

01:25:06.380 And there was a town about a decade ago

01:25:08.700 That tried to convert to Sharia 0.99

01:25:10.200 As the dominant law within its bounds

01:25:12.040 This has been a long time coming

01:25:14.180 Yep it has

01:25:15.640 And that's why I said

01:25:17.100 I talked about the article in 2009

01:25:20.660 I think the first court was in 1982 in England

01:25:25.220 That's what I found

01:25:26.580 Oh really?

01:25:27.700 Yeah

01:25:27.900 Blimey

01:25:28.920 Santa giving Beau shampoo

01:25:30.820 My dad is a delivery driver in the north of England

01:25:36.120 And for over a decade now he has seen shops run by Muslims

01:25:39.680 With one entrance for men and another for women 0.99

01:25:42.540 Nothing has been done because the police don't see British laws as applying to Muslims

01:25:46.960 So if we live

01:25:48.480 What someone also pointed out to me is that technology has also changed things significantly

01:25:53.840 Back in the day you just immigrated 1.00

01:25:56.680 You would be cut off from your family and friends

01:26:00.140 You were forced to integrate with those around you

01:26:02.280 Or be socially isolated

01:26:03.540 Now they can just Skype with their mom and old friends

01:26:06.100 So there's no need to form friendships in a new area which is also a problem

01:26:10.120 David Ward

01:26:12.260 I know you go ahead

01:26:15.340 One more

01:26:16.420 Sadly relativism is the current western zeitgeist 0.98

01:26:19.440 This is why disgusting things like Mohammedanism gets a grip 1.00

01:26:24.280 We have to read the next one 0.96

01:26:28.320 Go on then

01:26:28.740 It's really funny

01:26:29.780 Okay

01:26:30.180 Alex Ogo

01:26:31.060 Is Lotus Eater being turned into a Sharia court?

01:26:34.120 Who's this beardy imam in the purple shirt? 1.00

01:26:36.920 Josh

01:26:37.280 Get control over your co-hosts and bring them up to your seritorial standards

01:26:41.880 Well thank you

01:26:42.980 Imam? 0.51

01:26:44.260 A mere imam? 0.92

01:26:45.340 I fancy myself a caliph if anything

01:26:47.380 What's that sorry?

01:26:49.100 I don't speak Arabic

01:26:50.140 Okay

01:26:52.080 Centre Giving Beau Shampoo says

01:26:55.280 Once this war is over

01:26:57.300 I'll be looking forward to seeing Boris Johnson on trial at the Hague

01:27:00.540 For crimes against peace

01:27:02.080 As established by the Atlantic Charter in 1941

01:27:06.360 That would be nice wouldn't it

01:27:07.720 If anyone

01:27:08.020 People did

01:27:08.960 Pay for their crimes

01:27:12.040 That would be nice wouldn't it

01:27:13.760 Some sort of justice

01:27:14.960 Yeah

01:27:15.800 I've forgotten what that's like

01:27:17.680 Paul Neubauer

01:27:19.800 Says 0.93

01:27:20.540 The only reasonable end to Russia's genocidal conquest of Ukraine 0.99

01:27:25.920 Is to give Ukraine the means to win 0.96

01:27:31.060 Any other option is insanely expensive and prolongs and expands the war

01:27:36.260 Sorry and expands the war

01:27:38.320 Not for as long as it takes for victory

01:27:40.600 Only victory

01:27:41.400 Because the alternative is deadly awful

01:27:44.660 Could have been written by a spokesman at the State Department

01:27:50.260 I don't really buy that

01:27:52.820 Dr David Ferugia says for your segment

01:27:56.060 Starmer is trying to punish the Russians for failing to properly implement communism in the 20th century

01:28:01.440 Putin's not commie enough for Starmer

01:28:06.180 I mean Russia's still relatively communistic

01:28:09.960 Loads of their industries are state owned

01:28:11.980 More so than any you know western country really

01:28:15.780 Kevin Fox says

01:28:17.040 Yes Stormlin's dedication to keeping the Ukraine war going

01:28:22.380 Has nothing to do with his buddy buddy attitude to Blackrock

01:28:26.520 Who are buying up vast swathes of Ukraine

01:28:28.600 And rolling in cash from brokering arms deals

01:28:31.240 That's a good point yeah

01:28:32.440 Okay

01:28:33.180 Cole's masterfully minimal use of null oil says

01:28:39.920 A system is what it does

01:28:42.400 The point is to spill innocent blood

01:28:44.660 Because they are demonic 0.72

01:28:45.960 Bradley Higgins says

01:28:49.980 I'm loving Josh's white pill segments this month

01:28:52.240 Can we make it regular

01:28:53.240 It just makes the future seem more promising and worth fighting for

01:28:56.520 Well even if the future is bleak it's still worth fighting for

01:29:00.660 But thank you very much

01:29:01.660 Eloise says

01:29:02.660 Fan of the white pill science and tech and animal monkey stuff

01:29:05.640 Agree more of this please

01:29:07.140 Particularly in the cold months

01:29:08.740 It's alright

01:29:09.500 I'm going to have nothing but white pilling

01:29:11.620 For

01:29:12.600 Well

01:29:13.520 Maybe not that

01:29:14.400 That's a bit of a strong promise

01:29:16.320 It came out wrong

01:29:17.320 New year's resolution

01:29:18.100 I'm going to do at least once a month

01:29:22.240 A positive segment

01:29:23.280 That's a standard I can keep by

01:29:25.940 Let's see if I can match you

01:29:27.960 Alright

01:29:28.720 Let's have a white pill off

01:29:30.380 Shall we

01:29:30.860 White pill maxing

01:29:32.320 Furious Dan says

01:29:35.860 Something good happened

01:29:36.920 Implying something ever happens

01:29:38.680 Something did happen in these instances

01:29:40.880 I'm afraid

01:29:41.480 This was a segment of happenings

01:29:44.040 Although

01:29:45.200 Generally speaking

01:29:46.640 My default

01:29:47.360 Like 95% of the time

01:29:48.960 Nothing ever happens

01:29:50.260 But 5% of the time

01:29:52.040 Something is happening

01:29:53.000 That is my

01:29:54.720 I've got it down to a

01:29:56.400 Mathematical formula

01:29:57.520 I mean

01:29:58.960 I think

01:29:59.840 I think the world of men

01:30:00.820 Is always in flux

01:30:01.960 There's always stuff happening

01:30:03.180 I think

01:30:04.060 That's truly the real

01:30:05.540 Real reality

01:30:05.940 Well I think when people say

01:30:07.240 Nothing ever happened

01:30:08.000 What their meaning is

01:30:09.060 There's no meaningful

01:30:10.060 Geopolitical change

01:30:12.000 I also talked about this

01:30:13.120 With Harry

01:30:13.640 In one of his

01:30:14.520 The other pre-recalls

01:30:15.720 That will come out

01:30:16.180 Over

01:30:16.460 Over Christmas

01:30:17.780 Harry's talking about

01:30:18.980 The nothing ever happens

01:30:20.000 Meme

01:30:20.380 Anyway

01:30:21.900 So

01:30:23.540 Justin B says

01:30:25.040 They're only now

01:30:26.100 Trialling exposure therapy

01:30:27.260 For food allergies

01:30:28.040 I did one a decade ago

01:30:29.580 To cure my peanut allergy

01:30:30.900 And then on a similar note

01:30:32.860 Someone online says

01:30:33.780 Good news

01:30:34.220 They can stop banning

01:30:35.100 Peanut butter from classrooms

01:30:36.380 And segregating 0.91

01:30:37.760 The peanut free kids

01:30:39.040 I feel like

01:30:41.980 Shaming people

01:30:42.740 For peanut allergies

01:30:43.580 Because you're

01:30:44.280 Actively depriving me

01:30:45.860 Of

01:30:46.880 You know

01:30:47.520 A food

01:30:48.360 And

01:30:49.200 Your means of sustenance

01:30:50.560 Your weakness

01:30:51.180 Is meaning

01:30:52.040 I can't do what I want

01:30:53.320 And that annoys me

01:30:54.400 He hasn't kind of got

01:30:55.120 A peanut butter

01:30:55.800 That's a peanut thing

01:30:57.060 I think

01:30:57.880 Yeah

01:30:58.400 I think yeah

01:30:59.000 But he can't be around

01:31:00.200 A peanut

01:31:00.860 In a radius

01:31:01.780 Of three metres

01:31:03.100 Really

01:31:03.520 It's that bad

01:31:04.140 I didn't know

01:31:04.480 It's that bad

01:31:04.700 He can't even be

01:31:05.280 In the proximity

01:31:05.960 Of a peanut

01:31:06.580 Next debate we have

01:31:08.240 We'll just throw him

01:31:08.940 A peanut

01:31:09.340 It's a shame

01:31:10.860 Because ready salted

01:31:11.720 KP's are lovely

01:31:13.020 I like peanuts

01:31:13.940 Yeah

01:31:14.120 I love it

01:31:14.540 Yeah

01:31:14.800 You need to be careful

01:31:16.240 How you say that

01:31:16.880 Sorry dry roasted

01:31:17.700 Dry roasted is delicious

01:31:18.940 Anyway

01:31:19.440 Anyway

01:31:20.880 We are out of time

01:31:22.920 I hope you enjoyed this

01:31:24.960 And we'll be back again tomorrow

01:31:27.300 I'll be back again tomorrow too

01:31:28.880 And thank you for watching

01:31:30.920 I think Common Sense Crusade

01:31:32.820 Is after this

01:31:33.680 Half an hour after

01:31:34.940 And goodbye

01:31:36.160 We'll be back again tomorrow too

01:31:36.580 Bye

01:31:37.540 Bye

01:31:38.160 Bye

01:31:38.320 Bye

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - December 19, 2024

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1067

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Transcript