The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1173

00:00:00.060 Hello everyone, welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Seaters. This is episode 1173.

00:00:06.920 This is Tuesday the 27th of May and I'm joined today by Firas and by the apparition of Josh.

00:00:13.980 I'm not actually here in body, just in spirit.

00:00:16.800 Are you real?

00:00:17.700 No.

00:00:18.160 Are you for real though?

00:00:19.300 No, I'm completely fake.

00:00:21.640 Okay, nice.

00:00:22.520 I'm a ghost, I'm not here.

00:00:23.760 And we are going to discuss Liverpool fans getting attacked by a driver, a man, and a car plowing into them.

00:00:32.540 How we're also screwed and how the quality act replaces the market.

00:00:37.000 But we have some announcements.

00:00:39.240 You may know it already, but Josh has a channel.

00:00:42.300 If you know it already, repetition is the matter of learning.

00:00:46.300 Subscribe to Josh's channel and check out his brilliant videos.

00:00:50.100 And I know he has ideas for more.

00:00:52.640 They're good ones.

00:00:53.940 Thank you.

00:00:54.620 Definitely.

00:00:55.160 Subscribe to Josh.

00:00:56.700 Subscribe to Josh.

00:00:58.300 Thank you.

00:00:59.300 I don't like this channel. 0.95

00:01:00.300 It's a bit rubbish. 0.99

00:01:03.260 Right. 0.97

00:01:03.960 And we are doing also courses.

00:01:06.520 We are going to do academic level of quality presentation with respect to several topics.

00:01:13.080 And here we have the first course that has been uploaded.

00:01:15.600 This is Academic Agents, the Trivium.

00:01:18.420 You can definitely check it out.

00:01:20.480 And we also have other courses such as Foundations of Writing, Foundations of Rhetoric.

00:01:26.060 And which is the other one?

00:01:29.700 It's Foundations of Grammar.

00:01:32.400 Logic.

00:01:32.740 Yeah.

00:01:33.200 Foundations of Logic.

00:01:34.880 And also, sign up to the webinar.

00:01:38.360 This is the 29th of May.

00:01:40.480 I think it's 7 p.m.

00:01:41.740 UK time.

00:01:42.720 If you really want to find out a bit more, it's going to be Carl and Academic Agent there

00:01:47.360 talking about what the Trivium is all about.

00:01:49.400 I think it's a really good thing to explore and definitely check it out.

00:01:54.820 Sign up for it.

00:01:56.500 Right.

00:01:57.220 So, we are going to talk about the very horrific incident that happened in Liverpool yesterday.

00:02:03.620 And first things first, we need to congratulate Liverpool Football Club.

00:02:08.740 They recently scored two major wins.

00:02:13.220 Major wins.

00:02:14.080 And let me just say this for football fans.

00:02:16.840 They won the 2024-2025 Premier League.

00:02:20.480 And there was another win there, which, you know, if you like looking at it, it was a major win.

00:02:25.900 They equaled Manchester United's score of 20 top-flight English titles.

00:02:32.000 I'm not sure what this is.

00:02:33.580 Premier League wasn't always called Premier League.

00:02:35.740 It's called Premier League since 1992.

00:02:38.220 From 1888 to 1992, we had the Football League First Division.

00:02:43.780 So, the top-flight English titles refer to winning the top job, the top spot on that division from the period of 1888 to today.

00:02:55.580 So, this is a major win.

00:02:56.800 The Premier League is the best football league in the world.

00:02:59.080 Obviously, I'm a little bit biased being a Brit, but it's common outside of Britain as well.

00:03:03.380 I mean, it's the most-watched league outside of the country, which sort of suggests that it's the best one.

00:03:08.840 I think objectively it is.

00:03:10.240 It is.

00:03:10.820 And I'm not saying that with any particular bias, because the team I support is not in the Premier League.

00:03:15.860 It is Plymouth-Argyle, which are terrible.

00:03:17.740 But I support them nonetheless, because it's my home team.

00:03:20.780 Right.

00:03:21.120 So, Liverpool fans went out and celebrated.

00:03:24.960 We see here really beautiful images.

00:03:27.760 Let's see here.

00:03:30.560 No control of the mouse.

00:03:31.900 The city came alive there, didn't it?

00:03:34.000 This is amazing.

00:03:35.460 Thousands of people in Liverpool cheering.

00:03:38.060 It's a beautiful thing to see.

00:03:40.260 Good to have a cause for celebration in this day and age, isn't it?

00:03:42.720 Yeah.

00:03:43.680 We also have here another video.

00:03:47.600 Still hearing them in the background there.

00:03:54.680 You see the Liverpool fans are cheering their major wins.

00:04:00.260 Sadly, there was another attack, a major incident, as the Merseyside police spoke about, which sort of gave a bitter flavor to yesterday's celebrations.

00:04:15.440 We have Merseyside police making the first announcement, saying we're currently dealing with reports of an RTC in Liverpool City Centre.

00:04:25.220 We were contacted at just after 6 p.m. today, Monday, the 26th of May, following reports a car had been in collision with a number of pedestrians on Water Street.

00:04:35.220 The car is stopped at the scene and a male has been detained.

00:04:38.380 So, we have several videos here showing what happened.

00:04:44.420 It's best if you have kids, don't show them to them.

00:04:49.660 Don't show these videos to them.

00:04:51.280 And let's see what happened here.

00:04:53.420 We have literally a car running over people, hitting them and then continuing.

00:05:01.680 It's not that it was a sort of accident and then he stopped, the driver stopped, the driver continued.

00:05:08.140 And then we have all sorts of fans going there, hitting the car.

00:05:12.900 We also have security personnel there rushing into the car to take the person out.

00:05:19.100 So, a lot of people saw this and saw, well, obviously this was deliberate then, because if you've got a medical emergency, you don't, you know, try and steer into people and carry on driving.

00:05:33.020 Just the body language of the car, you can sort of tell if you drive that that was intentional.

00:05:40.000 I mean, yes, I think absolutely.

00:05:43.400 If it was someone who had a heart attack, it seemed that the course of the trajectory of...

00:05:49.100 ...or that car would be different.

00:05:51.080 Yes, and it's also interesting to be driving a car through there when there's a big crowd.

00:05:55.480 I know that the last place I would want to drive a car would be for a great big crowd of drunk football fans, personally.

00:06:02.820 I wouldn't do that with a gun to my head.

00:06:06.000 Well, this actually gives me a good pause because there have been several accounts of this event.

00:06:11.660 And there has been considerable noise and I'm going to just tell you what happened.

00:06:15.960 I'm not going to tell you other stuff.

00:06:17.960 And occasionally I'm going to throw an interpretation here or there, but letting you know that it is an interpretation.

00:06:22.660 So, according to videos from another angle, it looks like this car, this driver was in the car and the fans started hitting the car.

00:06:33.420 And possibly he panicked and then started hitting the...

00:06:39.660 ...started accelerating.

00:06:41.000 Accelerating, yes, but...

00:06:42.780 I think that this is probably the most likely, in my opinion, because from some of the other videos I've seen where you see the car before it actually starts hitting people,

00:06:52.600 it sort of gets stuck in the crowd and then people come around it and you see them trying to open the doors and hitting the windows.

00:06:58.680 And I think that...

00:06:59.460 It's like a zombie apocalypse.

00:07:00.580 Yeah, and I think that that's enough to make someone panic.

00:07:04.160 And particularly if they start breaking things and, you know, from the perspective of the person in the car, you're surrounded, you've got no escape and there are people all around you.

00:07:15.060 There was an angle there where he seemed to be aiming for where the crowd is densest.

00:07:21.900 So, the density of these kinds of crowds is not the same everywhere.

00:07:26.940 He seemed to be aiming for more people to hit with the vehicle.

00:07:31.620 That is true and there are two different ways to interpret that, I think.

00:07:35.120 On the one hand, you could say maybe there was spite involved or maybe it was just they panicked and it was just, you know, misfortune that they went into the busiest thing.

00:07:47.000 And we can only find that out once there's been a proper investigation into it, really.

00:07:52.900 We have another angle here.

00:07:54.540 You see them hitting the car.

00:08:01.960 And that's when the car accelerates and then continues.

00:08:08.000 And that's the bit where for us, I think, you mean where the driver went for the...

00:08:13.540 Where the crowd was densely.

00:08:15.380 Yeah, yeah.

00:08:16.300 So, yeah, this is another angle of the event which wasn't seen from the first video.

00:08:24.760 I also think it's interesting that, you know, I'm not sure if it's just the noise in the actual videos themselves, but you don't hear them like sounding their horn as if to say, hey, back off, leave me alone.

00:08:34.300 At some point he did honk.

00:08:35.680 Okay, he did.

00:08:36.400 At some point he did honk.

00:08:37.580 Yeah.

00:08:38.020 It was when I saw that when I thought, okay, this...

00:08:41.180 Initially, I'd assumed it was a attack, similar to some of the attacks that we've seen here, similar to the ones that we've seen in Europe.

00:08:48.820 Eventually, I saw one of the videos where he seemed to be honking.

00:08:52.100 And I think this is when it became clear that it wasn't an attack.

00:08:55.100 Yes, because if it was an attack, you wouldn't warn people of your presence, would you?

00:08:59.600 Yes.

00:09:00.320 And, of course, people at the minute, and it's a very unfortunate thing, really, they see this and they've been primed from all of the cases in Germany to just presume.

00:09:09.020 And I've seen lots of people who I otherwise normally respect jumping to conclusions about things, which I think is, you know, I'm going to take this moment and returning to Lotus Eaters to scold people.

00:09:21.160 It's irresponsible, yeah.

00:09:22.140 Yeah, you're not only potentially blaming people for things that they might not have done, but also you're just making people look bad.

00:09:33.880 You're making the right to look bad by saying, I know who it was, I don't need, you know, police confirmation, because the world's more complicated than that.

00:09:41.740 Sometimes there are things that are outside of a neat categorization, ideologically.

00:09:47.420 And we have here an example of an account that rushed to say that this is an attack by an Islamist extremist, and turns out it most probably is not.

00:09:57.500 So there were all sorts of people who tried to capitalize upon this situation in order to gain clout for their social media.

00:10:05.180 It's so much capitalization, because I'm sort of guilty of it myself.

00:10:08.860 I assumed initially that it was an attack, and I tweeted that it was an attack.

00:10:12.520 It's not, the intent isn't to capitalize.

00:10:15.200 It's just that so much of this has happened so many times, and it has been attacks when it did happen.

00:10:22.380 That was going to be my next point.

00:10:23.720 The expectation generally is, you see this, you see that it's clearly deliberate, you see the video of him sort of plowing into more people rather than less, and then you assume, well, okay, this looks like a very deliberate attack.

00:10:40.500 If you had to bet between, it turned out that he was, what, some drunk guy?

00:10:46.600 According to the main narrative, seems to be that this...

00:10:51.400 So the narrative right now is that he was a drunk who panicked.

00:10:54.840 If you had to bet attack or panic drunkard, the odds would definitely be in favor of a conscious attack.

00:11:04.420 Oh, almost certainly, yeah.

00:11:05.600 Almost certainly, and many people rush to think this, and they have done so in other cases.

00:11:10.340 The point is that, in some cases, maybe as commentators, it's good to wait before we do this, because it doesn't have to be the case that you have to bet at the moment.

00:11:21.120 Maybe some patience is required, or at least framing things in ways that are a bit less, that are a bit more responsible.

00:11:33.280 But it's correct.

00:11:33.960 I've been guilty of this myself, to be fair.

00:11:36.560 I have been in the past, and I'm not going to...

00:11:39.340 And I did that yesterday.

00:11:42.620 It's just that there is a certainty that there is going to be a next attack.

00:11:49.440 Yeah.

00:11:49.940 And there is a certainty that the state will try to mislead.

00:11:54.820 Absolutely.

00:11:55.340 And there is, as a result of that, a sense of anger, and justified anger, because the state isn't doing what's required to make the public believe that the exclusive use of force is being used to protect them.

00:12:19.240 But rather, the use of force by the state is often directed at their reaction.

00:12:25.800 So I saw a lot of tweets calling for responsibility, and yes, respect to that, and my apologies for not having been responsible about it.

00:12:33.960 But I also saw a lot of tweets saying, guys, be careful what you post, because you know that the police will be knocking on your door if you say such and such.

00:12:42.580 So the atmosphere, this is new for a liberal democracy, that be careful what you say, because the police will be showing up at your door.

00:12:51.980 Okay. I'd much rather the police concern themselves with the incidents that came before this, and unfortunately, the near certain incidents that will come after this, rather than what I or some other idiot say on X or Twitter or whatever it is. 0.92

00:13:12.460 Sorry, Josh.

00:13:13.380 I was just going to add ever so quickly that the reason that so many people are speculating is because of government failures, basically.

00:13:20.340 If the government had done its job, there would be no need for any of this, even if you think it's not justified.

00:13:28.220 I'm just saying no need for the government to actually go out and be tyrannical.

00:13:32.140 And I think it's very interesting when something happens, regardless of what happens, there's a unanimous interpretation of something.

00:13:42.240 That speaks of something that is obviously of a very significant concern to a large population of people.

00:13:51.200 And in many ways, the presumption that it's an Islamic attacker is the unwritten headline, in a sense.

00:13:57.880 Yes.

00:13:58.100 The issue is that there is a pattern as far as the mainstream media is concerned when it comes to hits like these.

00:14:05.100 And the human mind forms conjectures, and whether people speak about it or not, they do think so.

00:14:11.660 So when you have 90% of cases of a particular kind being attributed to people of a particular background, this is what people instantly are going to think.

00:14:21.180 And in some cases, it may not be the case, but the media is crying wolf.

00:14:25.680 That's the issue, because they are constantly saying the same things, isolated incident, not related to terrorism, always mental illness, lives, cars, whatever.

00:14:37.320 They also dehumanize the perpetrator by speaking about the car as if it's sentient.

00:14:42.120 And I'll just show you an incident where I covered with Beau the Vancouver car ramming incident about a month ago, which wasn't an Islamist. 0.97

00:14:52.360 And, you know, the issue is that the media is crying wolf so many times, and people cannot help but think what they think.

00:14:59.900 So let's go to the injured.

00:15:03.240 Luckily, we've heard reports that no one has died yet.

00:15:08.780 Thank God.

00:15:09.140 There are no reports that anyone has died.

00:15:11.280 But there have been people who are injured.

00:15:13.940 There were 47 people who were injured.

00:15:16.960 20 were injured in a minor, you know, had suffered minor injuries.

00:15:21.180 27 were transported to hospital by ambulance.

00:15:25.340 And we just have a child and an adult who are suffering from severe injuries.

00:15:31.380 And if you replay the video I showed you before, there is a scene where someone is completely hit by the car and thrashed over.

00:15:41.040 I really hope this person doesn't have trouble walking in the rest of his life or her life.

00:15:46.940 It was a silly thing that need not happen.

00:15:50.740 And if I'm to apportion any responsibility, it's obviously with the person driving the car, they shouldn't have put themselves in that situation in the first place.

00:15:59.580 You don't drive a car into a crowd of people, even if you're going very slowly and respectfully, because it's not going to be received well.

00:16:05.680 And particularly drunk football fans, quite frankly, you should have known better than to be in that situation in the first place, let alone react in the way that they did.

00:16:15.160 I mean, I think, honestly, I think both sides, in a way, have a share of responsibility.

00:16:23.640 But it's OK.

00:16:24.640 Yeah, certainly.

00:16:25.380 What you're saying makes sense.

00:16:26.940 Certainly the people who went up to a car.

00:16:28.580 You don't go for trouble.

00:16:29.700 Yeah, the people who went up to the car who hadn't done anything yet and started hitting it, they also have some degree of moral culpability.

00:16:37.700 It's not in the same league as the person who was driving the car.

00:16:40.240 Crowds are, generally speaking, not particularly known for responsibility.

00:16:44.900 Exactly.

00:16:45.460 So this is something that drivers should know.

00:16:46.900 Here we have another announcement by Merseyside Police saying we would ask people not to speculate on the circumstances surrounding tonight's incident on Water Street in Liverpool City Centre.

00:16:58.420 We can confirm the man arrested is a 53-year-old white British man from the Liverpool area.

00:17:04.440 Now, let me just say one thing here.

00:17:06.760 There are several narratives about what is going on and why the police did what they did.

00:17:13.280 I'm going to give you the charitable one.

00:17:15.020 The charitable one says that the police doesn't want to instantly release data about the identity because they want to triple check the identity of the suspect.

00:17:26.280 Because what they want to prevent is releasing statements and then retracting them.

00:17:33.760 And in a way, you could say that this is also what people in the commenting industry should ideally want.

00:17:41.260 To not make mistakes of the sort.

00:17:43.580 Right. That's the charitable interpretation.

00:17:48.000 There are a couple of quick things to say about this.

00:17:49.640 The first of which is I'm quite surprised that a car could get to that point in the crowd in the first place.

00:17:55.040 I know that there were, you know, there's a double-decker bus being escorted by police going through the centre and things like that.

00:18:01.300 But why should pedestrians be able to get in that position in the first place? 1.00

00:18:04.720 It's a sort of sorry thing to say because it was never a problem before, but we also have to deal with the reality as it is rather than how we wish it to be.

00:18:15.100 And I would have liked to have seen perhaps a bit more protection for a crowd.

00:18:21.200 Even though, you know, it is frustrating to have to say that because it's a thing that shouldn't happen in the first place.

00:18:28.960 I understand this point and I respect this, but it seems to me that on the one hand, for designing the event, there had to be room for cars.

00:18:37.520 First of all, because they had the team celebrating, but also you have tens of thousands of people.

00:18:42.080 Maybe someone needs to be transported to the hospital.

00:18:45.380 You need room for ambulance.

00:18:47.080 I know, but you could have a police cordon or something where it's just a bit of, you know, ribbon.

00:18:53.800 I don't know what you call it, you know, the police tape.

00:18:56.840 Do not cross. 0.99

00:18:57.900 The second thing is it was actually quite good that they released the identity immediately.

00:19:03.080 Relatively fast, yeah.

00:19:04.300 Yeah, and I think part of the reason is that they were detained on the scene so they could be pretty sure, you know, they were pulled out of the car.

00:19:10.820 So they're going to know it's the person that did it.

00:19:13.840 But this should be the standard going forwards.

00:19:16.840 If they want people to stop speculating, well, release the information then.

00:19:20.920 Because it seems like when a thing is of national interest, you should have to release this sort of information as a sort of public service.

00:19:30.100 Because it is our right to know, I think.

00:19:32.140 I was going to say that they've put themselves in a damned if they do, damned if they don't situation after Southport.

00:19:43.200 Because after Southport, the story was he was Welsh and, you know, he was a choir boy, etc., etc.

00:19:50.200 Now, some of the details about his life would have required more investigation, including his interest in violence in general and in genocide and in Islam and in all of these kinds of issues.

00:20:02.960 So, fair enough, they didn't have to release that.

00:20:06.060 They could not have released that information that quickly.

00:20:09.740 Although, given that they would have raided his home within a few hours of the incident, they would have probably known within three days to a week.

00:20:18.040 But then they kept on gaslighting the public and saying that he's just Welsh and that there's no other identity involved.

00:20:23.840 And now they've put themselves in a position where they've set a precedent, where they release the racial identity and the nationality within an hour of the incident.

00:20:36.940 Now, it may not always be possible to ascertain nationality within an hour, fair enough.

00:20:43.380 But ethnic identity, you know, it's a visible marker for most people.

00:20:48.260 I'm of the opinion that following on from Southport, it should be a statutory obligation to report the ethnicity of a perpetrator because the elephant in the room at the minute is ethnic tension in British politics.

00:21:02.240 That's the issue.

00:21:02.820 And that's very important to address.

00:21:05.080 And I think that people being informed is the most important thing someone that distributes information can really do.

00:21:13.240 We have statements here from the Merseyside Police saying that this was an isolated incident, not a terrorist related.

00:21:21.040 But they also said they referred to a 53-year-old white British person who is believed to be the driver.

00:21:29.920 They always say that sort of language, though, just to leave a bit of reasonable doubt.

00:21:34.840 Right.

00:21:35.040 Okay, so we had several people saying they announced a 53-year-old British person and they said that it's going to be...

00:21:45.540 Let me just...

00:21:46.140 Sorry, I will just mute this.

00:21:48.120 You see, let's look at this video.

00:21:50.260 You have the police entering a van, probably because they took the driver in.

00:21:53.920 And then someone from the crowd is fighting the police.

00:21:59.320 And several people rushed to say that this person was the driver.

00:22:02.980 However, I think that this is completely improbable.

00:22:06.860 If he were the driver, the crowd would rush to hit him, most probably.

00:22:13.160 There's also the fact that in this video, the one that shows him, they just saw people fighting with the police.

00:22:19.360 So I'm surprised that people are jumping to that conclusion, to be honest.

00:22:21.980 And here we have another angle into the event saying that the driver is different from the person you see here.

00:22:30.880 The door opens.

00:22:32.980 And it looks like he was not the person who was on the ground believed initially.

00:22:39.140 So I don't know if he doesn't look particularly 53, but I could be wrong.

00:22:43.620 Yeah.

00:22:44.540 I mean, maybe they're a bit different in Liverpool, Stelios.

00:22:47.640 Maybe, you know.

00:22:48.680 Some people, you know, age, others mature.

00:22:51.380 You don't know.

00:22:53.600 Okay, whatever.

00:22:54.520 So I think that it's important that they release the identity really quickly.

00:23:00.080 And we have here a statement by Leo Kearse, friend of the show, says,

00:23:04.780 I don't think I've ever seen an ethnicity announced so quickly.

00:23:08.600 That's true.

00:23:09.300 It was notable.

00:23:10.260 Now this sets a precedent, as you mentioned before, and every time there is an incident

00:23:16.100 of this nature.

00:23:17.700 Hopefully there isn't going to be any other, but this is too optimistic.

00:23:21.360 Absolutely.

00:23:22.360 And the precedent is that they will have to release it fast.

00:23:28.400 Because if people, if they don't release it fast, people are going to basically say,

00:23:33.140 well, it's not a white British man.

00:23:35.440 And they're living with the consequences of the experiment that they're conducting.

00:23:39.540 They're trying to conduct this experiment in multi-ethnic, multi-racial, diverse, multicultural

00:23:46.560 societies.

00:23:49.560 Everywhere you have diversity, you have ethnic conflict. 0.96

00:23:53.500 And they're trying to set an exception, which is fundamentally, unfortunately, against human

00:24:00.800 nature.

00:24:01.460 It's not how we operate as human beings.

00:24:05.580 And they're trying, therefore, to paper over the differences.

00:24:10.560 They really messed up with Southport.

00:24:12.900 Now they're releasing the information quickly as a consequence of that.

00:24:17.660 There wouldn't have been this kind of speculation and this kind of anger if these incidents were

00:24:23.500 weren't being repeated.

00:24:25.800 And now they're in a corner.

00:24:28.840 If they release the identity quickly without releasing the motive, they're in trouble.

00:24:33.740 If they don't release the identity and ascertaining the motive obviously takes time, they're in trouble.

00:24:40.240 The only time they can release the identity quickly is if it's a white man who is British

00:24:46.620 and who doesn't have a religious or ideological motivation, because that also takes time to ascertain.

00:24:53.860 They've put themselves in a corner.

00:24:55.300 And they've put themselves in a corner because of their own actions.

00:25:00.540 Yes, I'm sorry for jumping to conclusions.

00:25:03.840 We shouldn't jump to conclusions.

00:25:06.900 But there's reason to do that.

00:25:08.480 It's not an unreasonable conclusion to jump to, unfortunately.

00:25:11.020 And you can't run experiments that go against human nature indefinitely and not expect consequences

00:25:20.780 for that.

00:25:21.800 And this is the bind that they're in.

00:25:23.780 They're trying to make something work which never works.

00:25:26.900 Every time there's a criticism of colonialism, it's because, well, you put different ethnic

00:25:30.680 groups in the Middle East or in Africa in the same country.

00:25:33.500 Okay.

00:25:34.280 Did you learn anything from that?

00:25:37.620 No?

00:25:38.540 Okay.

00:25:40.600 Right.

00:25:41.160 Let's go to the comments.

00:25:42.880 Rick T.W.G.P.

00:25:44.860 Fair enough about not jumping to conclusions. 0.80

00:25:48.300 But what's most bloody annoying is that it's quite all right for the bloody police to reveal 0.98

00:25:52.840 his identity because he's white. 0.98

00:25:55.080 Yes.

00:25:56.220 The hapsification says, Tottenham had their parade after winning the Europa League and 0.98

00:26:00.700 they had 200,000 to 300,000 people and had no incident.

00:26:06.100 They also closed the road down for that parade.

00:26:08.280 Fair point.

00:26:10.560 And Marx Lives, weird name, says, this year we explored the failure of democracy, how our

00:26:16.740 social scientists brought our world to the brink of chaos.

00:26:20.520 We talked about the veterans, how they took control. 0.96

00:26:23.260 There's allegedly a quote by Razza from Starship Troopers.

00:26:28.240 I still need to read the original book.

00:26:29.760 The film's very good, though.

00:26:31.860 I hope you're not saying that social scientists are to blame because I had no part in this.

00:26:37.360 It's all right.

00:26:39.780 But what I do have a part in is this horrible, misery-inducing segment.

00:26:45.320 So I haven't even got my notes up.

00:26:48.100 I've got rusty in the past month, all right.

00:26:51.940 Right, here we go. 0.93

00:26:54.160 So upon my return, I have decided to make you all miserable again.

00:26:58.980 In case you've missed me, I want you to remember just how much I informed you about all the

00:27:03.740 worst things going on in the world.

00:27:04.940 And I'm going to give you a nice overview of the inescapable ways in which certain people

00:27:12.960 are basically poisoning you, and they will almost certainly get away with it.

00:27:18.240 And it's pretty much inescapable.

00:27:20.560 And this isn't some sort of conspiratorial thing.

00:27:23.240 I'm going to go through published academic papers in reputable journals and government

00:27:29.000 data.

00:27:29.680 But nothing else.

00:27:30.420 And I'm not going to be speculating.

00:27:32.040 I'm going to be reading it in its own words.

00:27:33.960 And so I'm going to be very sensible because I know there's a cross-section of the commentariat

00:27:39.400 that quite often likes to sensationalize these sorts of things and make outlandish claims.

00:27:47.000 I'm not going to be doing that.

00:27:47.980 However, what I have for you is very interesting.

00:27:50.200 So I saw this on Twitter or X or whatever it's called these days, and it really sparked my

00:27:57.120 interest.

00:27:57.960 So it's an account I've never followed before.

00:28:00.800 It says,

00:28:01.100 For years I've been puzzled by the uniquely American obsession with disgustingly bitter

00:28:06.680 IPA beer.

00:28:07.600 And by the way, I really like IPA.

00:28:09.820 However, I don't like American IPAs usually.

00:28:13.420 There are a few nice ones, but they are right that they're really bitter.

00:28:16.800 The British kind are sort of a bit like lager, but there's a sort of almost fruitiness and

00:28:22.340 a tanginess to it that gives it a lot of flavor.

00:28:24.740 It's like lager, but with a bit more taste, which is nice.

00:28:29.720 And it's particularly nice on a hot day.

00:28:31.520 I'm probably encouraging people to drink now.

00:28:33.520 Don't do that.

00:28:35.940 However, there is this strange bitterness.

00:28:38.640 And they've said,

00:28:39.680 But I finally figured it out.

00:28:41.280 Bitter taste receptors are affected by serotonin in the brain.

00:28:44.200 The American IPA craze is literally caused by the proliferation of SSRI and antidepressants.

00:28:51.140 And what SSRI stands for is selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

00:28:57.000 So your serotonin, obviously, most people know this affects your mood.

00:29:00.480 It's a neurochemical.

00:29:01.620 It's a messenger in your brain that serves an important purpose that tries to align your

00:29:09.040 mind to have a correct response to a stimuli in a very roundabout way.

00:29:14.200 And these SSRIs basically selectively inhibit this.

00:29:19.780 So the serotonin stays in the system for longer before it's reuptaken back into the body.

00:29:24.560 But it binds and unbinds to the receptor.

00:29:26.980 So it's not like cocaine, which it binds and stays there.

00:29:30.280 And so you get this really big high.

00:29:32.360 It binds, unbinds, and allows a certain degree of regulation.

00:29:35.800 Otherwise, people who are depressed would be the happiest people in the world because

00:29:40.140 they would be on the equivalent of a cocaine high.

00:29:44.480 But they reference this study here, which I've had a look at before.

00:29:48.860 My mouse is not working.

00:29:50.180 Hello, mouse.

00:29:51.520 Oh, no, there it is.

00:29:51.900 Nothing changes.

00:29:53.380 Yes.

00:29:54.160 Making me nostalgic now, Stelios.

00:29:56.160 Human taste thresholds are modulated by serotonin and noradrenaline.

00:29:59.220 And noradrenaline is just produced in the stress response, which you could probably deduce.

00:30:03.300 And what was found was that on this, on Reddit of all places, the people who are most likely

00:30:13.060 to be in craft beer were almost 10 times more overrepresented than average to also be following

00:30:21.400 SSRIs, which is a massive overlap, really.

00:30:27.220 And I find this very interesting.

00:30:28.480 It suggests, although this is an emergent discovery, really, so we haven't got concrete research,

00:30:35.540 but we'll be getting on to that.

00:30:38.000 It suggests that people may have consequences for introducing foreign elements in the sense

00:30:45.720 of things that aren't your body.

00:30:48.660 You know, you're not eating foreigners, I hope. 1.00

00:30:52.000 And it influences you in ways that you wouldn't necessarily expect.

00:30:55.360 We'd like to think that our taste in food and drink is something that's very personal

00:30:58.380 to us.

00:30:58.800 Some of us take great pride in having good taste.

00:31:01.600 Some of us, it's completely absent.

00:31:03.860 And I wasn't calling people out.

00:31:08.260 It's fine.

00:31:09.480 And yeah, I find that this is very surprising.

00:31:13.720 You wouldn't think that your taste in beer would be changed by your taste for alcohol or

00:31:21.060 vice versa.

00:31:22.140 What?

00:31:22.580 I said that the wrong way around, didn't I?

00:31:23.740 Yeah, antidepressants give you a taste for bitter alcohol.

00:31:26.980 That's what I was going for.

00:31:28.820 And I'm happy because I like lager, which isn't particularly bitter.

00:31:32.440 That's true.

00:31:33.720 I mean, you can even get a pint of bitter.

00:31:35.880 And next time someone orders that, you can say, are you OK?

00:31:38.820 Feeling all right?

00:31:40.080 You're not depressed, are you?

00:31:41.280 But it's unavoidable.

00:31:42.300 Even if you're not taking antidepressants, there's been lots of testing in many different

00:31:47.860 countries, and I think particularly in the United States where antidepressants are more prevalent,

00:31:53.100 it's very much present in runoff in the water supply.

00:31:57.660 So even if you're not taking it, you're probably still on antidepressants, which is unfortunate.

00:32:02.820 And most water filters do not remove it either.

00:32:04.900 They're turning the frogs.

00:32:09.500 We're going to mention the frogs later, don't you worry.

00:32:13.880 But most water filters don't remove it.

00:32:15.500 And so there's very little you can actually do other than collecting your own rainwater,

00:32:19.300 perhaps, to avoid this potential preference for bitterness.

00:32:23.460 And that's just a product of modernity now that we're ingesting these things that change

00:32:29.340 our tastes, and we have no control over it.

00:32:32.360 And in fact, here's a research paper here.

00:32:36.340 This is looking at fluoxetine, which, if you're American, the marketing term for that,

00:32:42.280 which is weird that you have those in the first place, is Prozac, which most people will

00:32:45.800 be familiar with, which is an antidepressant.

00:32:48.060 And this is looking at mosquito fish, and basically their behavior is when they see a predator,

00:32:54.300 they freeze, and that makes them harder to spot.

00:32:57.000 Very simple so far, right?

00:32:58.380 It's like with Arnie and the predator.

00:33:00.520 Yes, exactly like that.

00:33:01.860 He covered himself with mud, so the predator wouldn't understand him.

00:33:05.400 They don't quite go that far.

00:33:06.800 Okay.

00:33:08.360 They also don't speak like him, I've heard.

00:33:12.300 So in lab conditions, the researchers simulated a bird attack with a metal rod with a bit of

00:33:17.560 rubber on the end, just to simulate a beak entering the water, right?

00:33:20.860 And most animals will react instinctually to this sort of thing, and so it's quite a good

00:33:26.780 test, really.

00:33:27.400 You don't need an actual bird to hand, but which will probably eat all of your test subjects.

00:33:31.600 And supposedly, the fish that were exposed to the antidepressants were less likely to freeze

00:33:38.560 in the presence of a predator, which suggests they felt less fear and anxiety in the face of

00:33:43.500 a real threat.

00:33:44.240 That's interesting, yeah.

00:33:46.820 So not only are the antidepressants changing your tastes, but also your perception of fear

00:33:51.380 and anxiety to legitimate threats, by the way.

00:33:55.400 These fish could die if they're captured by a bird.

00:33:59.540 It's reduced.

00:34:00.920 And society needs a very good threat perception to be able to defend itself.

00:34:05.240 It's one of the baseline things a civilization needs to do is to be able to enforce its borders.

00:34:10.300 And this calls into question our ability to do that, doesn't it?

00:34:14.660 And yeah, it's very, very worrying.

00:34:18.260 And then we move on to this.

00:34:20.180 So this is the frog study that was referenced by Alex Jones, and it didn't turn them gay.

00:34:29.540 That's not what actually happened.

00:34:31.140 But it's looking at a pesticide, commonly used pesticide, called atrazine.

00:34:37.560 And I'm going to read just directly from this, so I don't get accused of being, you know, a gay frog's advocate or something.

00:34:46.940 Astrazine is a potent endocrine disruptor.

00:34:50.220 Endocrine just means hormonal.

00:34:52.860 So hormone disruptor, so things like testosterone and the likes, that both chemically castrates and feminizes male amphibians. 0.51

00:35:01.680 It depletes androgens in adult frogs and reduces androgen-dependent growth on the larynx in developing male larvae.

00:35:08.000 It also disrupts normal gonadal development and feminizes the gonads of developing males.

00:35:13.700 Which, there's a lot of overlap.

00:35:16.900 I mean, in layman's language.

00:35:18.080 In layman's language, that means that it feminizes the male frogs.

00:35:23.020 So it doesn't make them homosexual.

00:35:25.860 It makes them very feminine. 0.99

00:35:27.320 It makes them effeminate.

00:35:28.160 Which is a bit different, Alex Jones.

00:35:29.920 But the point being here, that when it comes to things like these hormones, the difference between the animal world.

00:35:39.340 You may say, okay, that's all well and good.

00:35:41.100 It's frogs.

00:35:41.540 But actually, things that tend to affect other vertebrates tend to affect, you know, all vertebrates.

00:35:49.080 People as well.

00:35:49.720 Yeah.

00:35:50.300 That's why we do animal studies, right?

00:35:52.180 We test things on, you know, mice.

00:35:55.080 Because their systems are close enough that we can infer something from it.

00:35:59.960 There are biological continuities among the species.

00:36:02.680 Wasn't it the same thing that Jordan Peterson was talking about with lobsters?

00:36:07.020 That's exactly right.

00:36:07.720 They were given antidepressants and they were less likely to freeze and more likely to fight back.

00:36:12.620 So I don't think that this is a bad thing.

00:36:15.040 I think you mentioned it as a bad thing before.

00:36:18.440 You described it as a bad thing.

00:36:20.500 I think it's playing God with human behavior.

00:36:22.560 I don't know.

00:36:23.480 I mean, I don't know.

00:36:24.700 I would take antidepressants if I were depressed.

00:36:27.760 But wouldn't you say that it's not the issue?

00:36:33.440 That's not the problem.

00:36:34.820 The problem is potential overprescription.

00:36:38.740 Yeah.

00:36:38.960 So there's multiple layers here.

00:36:41.060 Not only do I think that antidepressants are overprescribed, but there's a very different perception between the psychological world, which obviously I come from, and the lay person on the street.

00:36:51.260 And, you know, a normal person on the street thinks that if I'm depressed, I take antidepressants and it helps me get better, like a regular medicine.

00:36:58.700 Like you have a rash, you put some cream on it and it gets better.

00:37:01.660 But it doesn't work like that, really.

00:37:03.520 The medical world views antidepressants as this is something to give you a leg up, if you will, and give you a, basically, in a more vulgar way of putting it, give you a kick up the backside to sort your life out yourself if you're on the cusp of perhaps doing something that is permanent to your life.

00:37:25.840 That's a YouTube-friendly way of saying it.

00:37:27.440 So they view it as a last resort, but actually, in the psychological world, we recognize that lifestyle choices are very important.

00:37:35.820 And, you know, sleep, eating well, exercise, all of these things are going to be underlined as, sort this out, you know, feeling like you've got a direction in your life, having agency.

00:37:48.040 These are the sorts of things that cure depression.

00:37:52.440 Grab the bull by its horns. 0.98

00:37:54.140 Yeah, I wouldn't take up bullfighting if I were depressed, personally.

00:37:57.640 Right.

00:37:58.340 Didn't they find that the whole serotonin theory on depression wasn't actually...

00:38:04.200 Yeah, so I've got a little bit to say about this.

00:38:06.620 So neurochemicals definitely dictate our behavior, but it's the chemical imbalance thing.

00:38:12.960 They're saying that you've got a natural imbalance to your neurochemistry that has to be corrected with drugs.

00:38:18.340 Yes.

00:38:18.540 And I do dispute this argument.

00:38:21.500 Obviously, neurochemistry has an effect because it's your brain's way of communicating with itself.

00:38:27.340 And, you know, anyone that's ever taken drugs in their life can account for the fact that if your serotonin is artificially increased, you feel better.

00:38:35.140 And so that part can't be disputed.

00:38:37.620 Otherwise, there wouldn't be any drug users.

00:38:39.480 Because the part that's disputed is that, is this actually the root cause of mental health problems?

00:38:44.620 But I would argue it's a symptom of it and not the cause necessarily.

00:38:49.280 Right.

00:38:49.880 In that maybe people are depressed because their life is genuinely depressing.

00:38:54.480 I'm more willing to take people at face value and say, maybe there are things actually wrong with your life that need to be changed.

00:39:00.800 And most people are, who are depressed, have legitimate concerns.

00:39:04.880 They're not just depressed with the best life in the world.

00:39:07.820 They have real concerns that are legitimate and worthy of consideration.

00:39:13.500 And I think that it minimizes that and medicalizes it so pharmaceutical companies can make money from it.

00:39:19.720 But it's not actually the best approach to dealing with real world problems that people suffer from.

00:39:25.900 Everyone suffers from to a certain degree.

00:39:29.080 But moving on to something else as well.

00:39:33.700 Not only do antidepressants and pesticides have an effect, but lead.

00:39:38.320 This is a bit old timey to most people.

00:39:41.300 Of course, there's a well-established link between lead exposure and aggression and crime.

00:39:46.760 Most people associate it with being mad and you say mad as a hatter.

00:39:50.400 You know, they had lead in their hats and it drove them mad.

00:39:52.740 I think that's a bit of a wives' tale, although there might be some truth to it.

00:39:56.980 But in Britain at least, 34% of homes have at least some lead pipes in their network.

00:40:03.920 And so that's not exactly an insignificant amount.

00:40:08.740 And they're also more likely to be situated in specific areas, right?

00:40:12.480 And so they're likely to compound a pre-existing problem.

00:40:15.480 For example, you're more likely to have really old piping in poorer areas, aren't you?

00:40:20.380 That people who don't have the money to redo it and modernize it.

00:40:24.080 And so it seems like people who might already be inclined to commit crime are all the more encouraged by...

00:40:33.200 Accelerate the disposition.

00:40:34.620 Exactly.

00:40:35.420 I'm not saying it's the root cause, but I'm saying it could be a very small contributing factor at the very least.

00:40:41.040 And, in fact, we've gone further than this.

00:40:45.120 And here we go.

00:40:47.400 This is an analysis of government data, I think, that 6.2% of the samples in our study, they did the analysis of government data,

00:40:55.680 had potentially toxic levels of lead that were above the current UK limit of 10 ppb.

00:41:01.100 And, of course, this is going to be the case in lots of parts of the world as well.

00:41:04.280 Not just Britain, I just used it as a test case that I'm familiar with.

00:41:07.940 And then we go back to pesticides again.

00:41:11.360 And this is looking at the association between exposure to pesticides and Parkinson's disease in French farmers.

00:41:19.200 And, basically, it found that there was a clear correlation between the two,

00:41:25.140 that the more exposure you have to pesticides, the more likely you were to have Parkinson's disease,

00:41:30.960 and to a significant degree as well.

00:41:32.960 And, of course, this was looking at the farmers themselves, and you might say,

00:41:36.580 well, you know, it makes more sense that the farmers are exposed to it.

00:41:41.580 They're the most direct people influenced.

00:41:43.500 However, then, you know, they're producing food for people.

00:41:47.420 And there are trace amounts present in things like agricultural runoff.

00:41:50.980 And, also, it can still be present on your food.

00:41:53.600 That's why, you know, you're asked to wash your food, if it's fruit or veg,

00:41:57.480 is that you wash the pesticides off.

00:41:59.460 But, of course, you know, unless you're very, very thorough,

00:42:03.020 you're probably not going to get all of it, so there's going to be a trace amount.

00:42:06.000 And whether that's significant enough to have this effect

00:42:09.140 is sort of to be investigated by science.

00:42:13.500 But my point here is that we're messing with things that we don't quite understand.

00:42:20.040 And we could be getting ourselves into a situation.

00:42:25.260 What's that film where only one woman in the world can have a child? 0.76

00:42:31.080 Really good film.

00:42:31.520 Children of men. 0.97

00:42:32.060 Children of men. 0.97

00:42:32.640 We could be in a sort of situation like that where we've messed with chemistry so much

00:42:37.740 that our hormones are so out of whack that it simply spreads infertility so widespread

00:42:43.520 that it's an existential threat to our species.

00:42:46.840 And I don't think we're quite to that point yet, so please don't panic.

00:42:49.400 I'm not trying to scare you.

00:42:51.340 But it's sort of the worst-case scenario.

00:42:54.120 Obviously, getting Parkinson's disease and being aggressive and going in prison

00:42:58.980 and having all of these other things isn't exactly ideal either.

00:43:04.340 And yes, here's another one here.

00:43:10.500 I'm going to read a little bit from this.

00:43:12.040 Our analysis of 12 years of residue data published by the Expert Committee on Pesticide Residues

00:43:18.280 in Food shows that there are unacceptable levels of pesticides present in the food provided

00:43:23.440 through the Department of Health's School Fruit and Veg Scheme.

00:43:27.280 So this found that this is even present in the fruit and vegetables provided by the government

00:43:31.840 to help children eat healthily.

00:43:34.340 And apparently they found residue of 123 different pesticides, some of which were linked to serious

00:43:39.220 health problems such as cancer and disruption of the hormone systems.

00:43:43.100 So yes, it's not just, you know, you and adult watching, but your children as well are having

00:43:49.320 their hormones messed with, which will undoubtedly affect their development.

00:43:52.480 Because of course, children are all the more vulnerable to this sort of thing, because their

00:43:56.520 hormones are yet to reach a steady level until they become about, I don't know, in their

00:44:03.060 20s before they adjust again later on in life.

00:44:06.380 And it's not just that as well.

00:44:08.080 We have microplastics.

00:44:09.580 This was one of my segments from, I think it was about a year ago now, how microplastics 0.80

00:44:15.980 were found in male testicles, because you've got to specify these days, of course.

00:44:22.340 And this was found to reduce testosterone amongst a whole host of other things.

00:44:27.300 And so not only do we have, you know, all of these chemicals introduced into our water

00:44:32.500 supply, we also have the microplastics as well.

00:44:35.580 And we're turning into Barbie world or something.

00:44:39.860 Everything goes plastic, but it's not fantastic.

00:44:42.960 So you've moved off the grid, you're collecting your own water, you've got a very elaborate

00:44:48.200 purification system.

00:44:50.080 You think, okay, I can sit down, relax, maybe pour myself a cup of coffee and chill because

00:44:56.160 I've proofed myself from the evils of modernity, well, actually caffeine has an effect on your

00:45:06.360 threat perception as well.

00:45:07.880 Actually, it's less likely to activate in higher consumers of caffeine.

00:45:11.040 So you're less likely to perceive threats if you drink more coffee, which is interesting.

00:45:16.200 I would presume it's because, and this is just my guess, I'm sure there's probably research

00:45:21.280 out there, but I'd imagine that it raises your rates of anxiety, which reduces your ability

00:45:27.520 to create quality analyses of your situation around you.

00:45:32.900 That would be my armchair psychologist guess.

00:45:36.480 But I'm sure there's probably a study out there.

00:45:38.700 I just wasn't able to find it.

00:45:40.820 And then, of course, I'd be remiss not to mention the oral contraceptive change, which

00:45:45.460 women on the pill prefer less masculine men. 0.98

00:45:48.220 And they also are more likely to go for genetically dissimilar partners.

00:45:52.500 A lot of modernity is starting to make sense now, isn't it?

00:45:55.040 And it alters their mate selection.

00:45:58.100 And if they come off the pill, it also suggests that their relationship satisfaction may change,

00:46:02.620 probably likely reduced, because their hormones have changed, because they're no longer taking

00:46:08.080 this artificial thing that's altering their hormones. 0.94

00:46:11.380 And when you look at it like that, it's very concerning, because you could, in theory, have

00:46:18.760 your hormones messed with.

00:46:20.260 You could find a partner who you think you love.

00:46:24.220 And then it will change, will be taken away from you.

00:46:26.640 And it's all chemical.

00:46:27.540 You have no control over it, because it's in the food you eat, which is unavoidable, mostly,

00:46:32.300 and the water you drink, which is very, very difficult to avoid.

00:46:35.860 So it's a very unfortunate situation, to say the least.

00:46:39.820 But it's not all bad, because you may have heard of Toxoplasma gondii.

00:46:46.380 Is this the one with the cats?

00:46:48.160 It is indeed, yes.

00:46:49.200 The one that was feared to be what cats give to newborn babies.

00:46:52.820 They give it to anyone, any human being, really.

00:46:56.120 So cats carry a protozoa, which is a parasitic, although not all a protozoa, a parasitic organism

00:47:02.780 that's single-celled.

00:47:04.700 And cats carry it, and they can pass it on in things like their saliva and the likes.

00:47:09.320 So I've had pet cats my entire life.

00:47:11.440 I've probably got this in me somewhere, these protozoa.

00:47:15.860 And I'm going to read a little bit from the study.

00:47:18.240 And they said,

00:47:18.600 We found that infection prevalence was consistent and a positive predictor of entrepreneurial

00:47:23.400 activity and intentions at a national scale, regardless of whether previously identified

00:47:28.880 economic covariates were included.

00:47:31.320 Nations with higher infection also had a lower fraction of respondents citing fear of failure

00:47:36.060 in inhibiting new business ventures.

00:47:39.040 So it basically affects people's risk tolerance.

00:47:42.040 And it does the same thing in mice, and that's why it's speculated cats carry this.

00:47:46.780 It's like a bioweapon that if a mouse becomes introduced to it, it makes them less afraid

00:47:51.040 of cats.

00:47:51.940 And the incentive for a cat to have that is obvious, right?

00:47:55.780 But, of course, it doesn't just...

00:47:57.500 Because mice, their systems aren't so dissimilar to our own, that it also affects us.

00:48:03.500 Although I don't think the intention is for cats to eat us.

00:48:06.760 Although I'm sure they would if they could.

00:48:08.240 And it's also interesting that it's a...

00:48:12.300 Toxoplasmosis positive individuals were 1.8 times more likely to have started their own

00:48:18.040 businesses compared to other attendees.

00:48:20.140 So this actually seems quite positive.

00:48:22.320 So there you go. 0.99

00:48:23.460 If you want to improve your life, if you're a bit depressed, get this parasite. 0.87

00:48:30.340 It's also interesting as well that women can reliably identify from facial photographs

00:48:35.520 men who are infected with toxoplasmosis, because it raises testosterone.

00:48:42.700 So, yeah.

00:48:43.900 This is... 0.98

00:48:44.420 So, if you want to go out and get a parasite, this is the one. 0.98

00:48:48.060 I wouldn't recommend many of the others, but as far as parasites go, if you're a man, 0.98

00:48:53.940 at least, this is what you want. 0.87

00:48:56.040 Makes you more man.

00:48:57.520 Cats make you more man.

00:48:59.100 It's true.

00:49:00.040 People say cats aren't manly.

00:49:01.460 Well, my cat's basically helping...

00:49:03.780 It's basically like the equivalent of spotting me at the gym, you know?

00:49:07.900 And, yes.

00:49:08.860 Men with higher testosterone have lower levels of fluctuating symmetry in their facial features,

00:49:13.320 which makes them appear more attractive and more masculine to women.

00:49:17.020 And this is how this toxoplasmosis sort of mediates this interaction.

00:49:22.300 And, yeah.

00:49:23.700 So I wanted to end on a bit of a positive note that it's not all bad.

00:49:26.460 But if you're worried about having your testosterone reduced by plastic, get a cat is my final lesson, I guess.

00:49:35.320 But, yes.

00:49:37.240 Obviously, it's a very concerning world we live in.

00:49:39.100 I think that this is far understudied.

00:49:41.700 And I think part of that is just that people don't have the research literacy to understand a lot of these studies.

00:49:47.160 But they should.

00:49:48.080 And I think that they're very accessible, actually, if you take the time to learn the jargon.

00:49:52.340 And, of course, you can go on the reading list on the website and read them all yourself.

00:49:55.400 I've got them all linked there.

00:49:56.920 And I very much encourage people to look at this.

00:49:58.760 Because it should be of concern to everyone.

00:50:00.600 This affects everyone on planet Earth.

00:50:03.720 And it affects everyone to an extent that should be of concern.

00:50:07.220 And so I want people to take it a bit more seriously.

00:50:10.140 And, of course, to end, I would also like to point out this is my first segment since coming back as a guest for Lotus Eaters.

00:50:16.660 So if you miss me, you can always go to the website and sign up for my premium series where I did 171 episodes of it.

00:50:26.920 You know, most of my knowledge is there.

00:50:29.120 So if you want to learn things about pretty much every topic I've ever been interested in, you're more than welcome to check it out.

00:50:37.540 This will scratch your itch for my depressing dulcet tones.

00:50:41.080 And if you're not into that, you can always check out my YouTube, which is, of course, free.

00:50:48.660 And it's going pretty well, actually.

00:50:50.540 I'm happily and pleasantly surprised.

00:50:52.640 So thank you for all the nice words for me leaving.

00:50:55.680 And also thank you to everyone who supported me.

00:50:58.100 And, as always, make sure to sign up to the website.

00:51:00.620 Right, let's go to the comments.

00:51:03.940 Ryan Hinnigan says, fish in the Great Lakes, I think Lake Michigan, have diminished survival instincts due to people peeing when they swim.

00:51:12.920 We're an over-medicated people.

00:51:14.820 Also, Vienna Lager is the best style of beer.

00:51:18.000 I do like Viennese Lager.

00:51:19.940 I'll give you that.

00:51:21.260 I mean, personally, this is going to be a bit controversial.

00:51:25.620 I like a good British ale, room temperature.

00:51:29.720 And every American in the audience is going to be recoiling in pain at that statement.

00:51:35.420 But there's something about a nice hearty ale.

00:51:38.640 It's like a meal in a glass, really.

00:51:41.920 Right.

00:51:42.600 Alex Trusk. 0.98

00:51:44.600 What has Josh got against gay frogs? 0.98

00:51:48.160 Lots of those frogs are against mass migration. 0.98

00:51:51.640 I'm frogophobic.

00:51:52.840 Okay, so, Josie Angels, would childhood trauma survivors seek caffeine to balance the threat assessment level with their physiology?

00:52:02.680 Coffee and self-help groups go hand in hand, eh?

00:52:06.160 That's very astute.

00:52:07.420 But, yeah, that is true.

00:52:09.200 If you actually have a sort of unhealthy perception of threat around you, if you're really anxious, this sounds paradoxical because coffee can increase anxiety.

00:52:21.100 But if you're anxious or fret in particular, it might actually be beneficial to drink coffee.

00:52:27.060 So it's not cut and dry.

00:52:29.300 Right.

00:52:29.700 And we have two more.

00:52:31.620 Josie Angel says again, thank you.

00:52:34.040 Welcome back.

00:52:34.820 As always, your segments are the best.

00:52:36.760 Thank you very much.

00:52:37.180 As a childhood trauma survivor now, I know why I love my coffee.

00:52:41.320 To be fair, I do have a coffee every morning.

00:52:43.760 But that's just because I'm not a morning person, more than anything.

00:52:47.060 And just a quick one by Ewan Baker.

00:52:49.220 Stelios, I hear that fish likes to freeze when stalking its prey.

00:52:54.400 I'm amazed you haven't got tired of those quotes by now.

00:52:56.840 I never get tired of it.

00:52:58.020 Sorry for going on a bit long as well.

00:52:59.600 Let's go to Ferasa's segment.

00:53:01.140 All right.

00:53:01.580 Thank you very much.

00:53:02.300 So in this segment, we're going to be talking about the Equalities Act in action or the Equality Act actually in action and some of its implications and how it's been working and affecting us in real life.

00:53:14.280 Now, the purpose of the Equality Act essentially, according to the government, is to prohibit direct and indirect indiscrimination.

00:53:25.780 And if you're wondering what indirect discrimination means, in practice, it means that where the outcomes differ by different protected groups, that is indirect indiscrimination.

00:53:40.540 And the case law has been changing on this in a way that's been quite dangerous, I think, pushing towards the imposition of absolute equality, regardless of merit, qualifications, or anything as mundane as passing exams or doing harder work.

00:54:02.560 So let's sort of go into this a little bit.

00:54:06.980 The Act applies to pretty much every aspect of life in Britain.

00:54:11.760 So it includes clubs and associations.

00:54:14.740 It includes work.

00:54:15.800 It includes the government.

00:54:17.340 The government is given, the whole civil service is given a statutory responsibility to make sure that inequality in all forms is completely eliminated.

00:54:31.380 And the standard against which this is measured is how are white British people performing.

00:54:39.280 So if there's a, you know, if you say, for example, that Britain is not structurally racist because different kinds of Asian groups outperform white British, that's not considered acceptable.

00:54:54.500 For example, the metric, and you can see that from some of the consultations that the government is undergoing, the metric is how are white British people performing.

00:55:04.400 So this effectively acts, if I could borrow a term from 2015 feminism, as a glass ceiling for white people in our, you know, native British people in our own country, effectively. 0.99

00:55:15.540 If you were to put hydraulics on the ceiling and get it to press everybody downwards, then yes, that would be correct.

00:55:22.340 Yeah, it's even worse than that.

00:55:23.420 It's not a ceiling.

00:55:25.220 It's more of a compression effect.

00:55:27.520 It's like a sort of jungle temple trap style thing.

00:55:31.640 Yeah.

00:55:31.700 So here you see explained in government documents that are on the parliament's website, trying to sort of show what this act is all about.

00:55:42.340 Eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimization, and any other conduct that is prohibited by the act.

00:55:49.080 Victimization.

00:55:49.560 Who knows what that means, and what it means for one individual will differ from what it means for another.

00:55:58.060 Very subjective.

00:55:59.080 Very subjective.

00:55:59.960 What it means for one group will differ completely to another.

00:56:03.920 Advanced equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who don't.

00:56:12.460 The persons who don't, in case you're wondering, is white men.

00:56:16.280 Everybody else is considered as having a protected characteristic.

00:56:21.820 So being a woman is a protected characteristic. 0.97

00:56:24.500 Being not straight is a protected characteristic.

00:56:27.840 Being of a different ethnicity, protected.

00:56:30.460 Having a disability, protected.

00:56:32.960 So the way that this works is really highly selective and is not informed really by an objective and comprehensive look at the evidence.

00:56:43.140 It's informed fundamentally by we've picked on a group, we want to raise everybody else's level to them or lower them to everybody else's level.

00:56:55.600 Well, it's similar to sort of, I hate to bring it up because it's beating a dead horse, but it's very similar to how communism operates, isn't it?

00:57:02.880 In that rather than raising everyone's standard of living to, you know, the standards of capitalism, it lowered them all so they were equally impoverished.

00:57:11.580 A leveling down.

00:57:12.800 Yes.

00:57:13.140 Hold on.

00:57:13.700 This one here is my favorite.

00:57:15.680 One of the objectives is foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristics and persons who don't. 0.95

00:57:23.160 As in, I will kick you and you will smile.

00:57:27.180 This violates freedom of assembly. 0.63

00:57:29.540 It tells you you need to engage in relations that are good and we are the arbiters of what's a good relation.

00:57:38.080 Exactly.

00:57:38.640 So you and I might have what I think is a good relation.

00:57:41.460 You think differently.

00:57:43.000 You could sue me.

00:57:44.080 But for us, isn't it the case that they want to be left alone?

00:57:47.440 I'm an ethnic minority.

00:57:48.140 I'm an ethnic minority.

00:57:49.740 Say again?

00:57:50.020 I thought that people wanted to be left alone.

00:57:53.140 No, no, no, absolutely not.

00:57:55.560 They want to get in your face and you have to smile and you have to like it.

00:57:58.660 This is obviously not the role.

00:57:59.860 It's not about leaving anybody alone.

00:58:01.660 It's absolutely not.

00:58:02.920 It's not the role of government to be telling people who they should and shouldn't be affiliating with.

00:58:09.360 You know, it's like good relations.

00:58:11.040 I'm sorry you're displaying bad relations and therefore you could be sued under the act.

00:58:17.280 So, hang on.

00:58:18.780 I've thought of a loophole.

00:58:20.280 Go on.

00:58:20.980 So, say you hypothetically get accused of racism and in this line of work it's not so difficult to imagine.

00:58:28.360 No.

00:58:29.660 Then you could say, well, actually I still have good relations with the person.

00:58:33.380 I'm just, you know, I'm just good-heartedly accusing them of being moral degenerate.

00:58:41.080 Yeah, but they won't accept this.

00:58:43.300 Because you could say, I have lesbian friends and they're fine with me, but the state doesn't want them to be fine with me.

00:58:51.680 The state is very concerned about lesbians hating Stelios.

00:58:54.660 Yeah, they say, well, probably it's more to do with the lesbians. 1.00

00:58:58.200 So, there's a duty for public authorities, all of them, to have due regard for eliminating discrimination, harassment, ensuring equality, etc.

00:59:44.180 The safety of children, healthcare, equality is equal to those statutory duties.

00:59:53.640 That's absolute nonsense.

00:59:55.000 If not, exceeds it, right?

00:59:56.680 In practice, it exceeds it.

00:59:58.420 In practice, because of the risk of litigation, nobody can sue you for failing to clean the gutters and causing a flood.

01:00:05.380 But you can be sued, as we are going to discuss in a moment, over this stuff.

01:00:12.340 And the lawsuits are simply absurd.

01:00:18.180 Would I be able to say something ever so quick before we get going?

01:00:20.140 Please, please.

01:00:21.040 This sort of legislation, I've come to realise over the years, has it completely on its head.

01:00:27.360 And I've come to the opinion, that this might be controversial, I don't know, that if a nation doesn't discriminate in favour of its dominant or native population,

01:00:36.720 then it will slowly become eroded over time and then cease to be a nation.

01:00:40.800 You've seen this throughout all of human history, as far as I'm concerned.

01:00:44.160 And although the sort of fair play, liberal in me, that still exists, sort of feels like that's a sort of dirty thing to do,

01:00:55.260 at the same time, if it's for the survival of my peoples, then it's a necessary evil.

01:01:01.760 Well, let me add on to that.

01:01:04.880 The court in question, the court of appeal continues, the judge continues,

01:01:09.300 advanced consideration has to be given to these issues.

01:01:13.260 They have to be an integral part of the mechanisms of government.

01:01:17.080 There is a need for a conscious approach, and the duty must be exercised in substance, with rigour and with an open mind.

01:01:26.260 So, there is...

01:01:28.940 They're students of irony, are they?

01:01:31.280 I know.

01:01:33.440 A decision maker is likely to be in difficulties of his or her subsequent decision is challenged.

01:01:39.700 So, they have to...

01:01:40.120 What answer is this?

01:01:41.680 I know, I know, but this is...

01:01:43.660 This is paternalism of the worst sort.

01:01:45.260 This is a court of appeal case.

01:01:47.620 This isn't some junior tribunal judge who's sort of opining.

01:01:53.840 This is coming from the highest legal authorities in the United Kingdom.

01:01:59.020 And it's being imposed in this way.

01:02:02.100 And it's an ideological test.

01:02:05.060 It's not a, you know, a test of merit, a test of what did you do right, what did you do wrong.

01:02:12.780 No, no, it's a complete ideological test.

01:02:15.500 And it's also turning what used to be our values on their head as well.

01:02:19.060 Because in the 19th century, we had the right idea of, if you feel like you've been hard done by, and things are unequal, and you see people getting ahead, well, you know, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and do something about it.

01:02:31.820 Yes.

01:02:32.020 You know, stop whinging, actually make your life better. 0.89

01:02:34.700 Yep.

01:02:35.560 Now, the minister in charge of race and ethnic relations and questions of race and ethnicity is this lady here, Seema Malhotra.

01:02:46.320 And during Brexit, her huge concern was to write to Theresa May and complain that Britain's delegation to negotiate Brexit had only 11% women, whereas the EU's delegation had 50% women.

01:03:04.640 This was her take on Brexit, that the British delegation was bad because it didn't have enough women in it. 1.00

01:03:14.460 I think basically all this woke stuff comes with the tyranny of the minority, because we have all sorts of politicians or politician-adjacent people who are trying to make a calculation about the electorate.

01:03:28.840 And they say, well, I will appeal to this, to group X, Y, or Z.

01:03:33.500 Yep.

01:03:33.700 That, yeah, and it's nonsense.

01:03:38.740 And in terms of favoring your own people over strangers, this particular minister, who's also the migration minister, had said that she would never report an illegal migrant, and that she wouldn't do anything about illegal migration.

01:03:54.480 She's given the portfolio of migration, by the way, so you can...

01:03:59.060 If it were up to me, I would take away her citizenship, kick her out of Parliament, and deport her for that. 1.00

01:04:05.140 That's, as far as I'm concerned, treasonous.

01:04:07.820 Yep.

01:04:08.620 Also, it suggests that somehow being deported is the greatest crime of all, which it isn't.

01:04:13.780 You've got to go back to where you grew up.

01:04:15.500 Yeah, there's a certain absurdity to the whole discourse about this stuff.

01:04:21.880 And nothing is more absurd than having somebody who is a foreigner in charge of another country's international relations and migration policy. 1.00

01:04:33.160 Now, I wanted to highlight a couple of cases that sort of emanate from this issue.

01:04:42.000 We have here on this website a case where a woman takes her employer to court because after maternity leave, she wanted to be able to work from home.

01:05:00.000 Her employer said, no, come on, you can't work from home. 0.77

01:05:03.800 You have to show up in the office.

01:05:04.900 This was found to be a discrimination case, and she successfully sued, and she ended up receiving an award from the tribunal on the back of this.

01:05:16.780 So, I've actually heard stuff from the sort of non-political professional world that when people are basically being made to leave a job,

01:05:26.920 it's very common now to say that you're being racist to me.

01:05:30.260 And normally, a company will just say, okay, we can't be bothered with the suit. 0.92

01:05:35.440 We'll pay you some money to shut up, basically.

01:05:37.980 Exactly.

01:05:38.700 And people have cottoned on to this, and it's actually really widespread, but no one's really talking about it.

01:05:46.300 It's racism.

01:05:48.040 It's harassment.

01:05:49.380 It's one thing or the other.

01:05:50.680 People will see how the law works, and employers will calculate, often, that it's cheaper to pay now a small amount than to take the risk of going to court and pay a stupendous amount.

01:06:08.160 It all boils down to this.

01:06:09.460 Oh, sorry.

01:06:09.920 Sorry, because the law and the judiciary are all wired to see discrimination everywhere.

01:06:17.340 And I just wanted to follow up on that.

01:06:19.060 But you had the previous case that I mentioned where a woman sued because she was told to come back and work from the office, and she said, no, no, no, no, no.

01:06:26.440 There was a different story.

01:06:27.640 There was a policewoman who was pregnant. 0.99

01:06:30.640 The police did what they're meant to do, which is to conduct some kind of risk assessment, and said, you can't be out pregnant on the street trying to tackle dangerous criminals.

01:06:41.340 What we want you to do is to go to a desk-based job where you were in the crime management hub, whatever that is.

01:06:50.840 I hope it's not them managing crime, but, you know, whatever that is.

01:06:54.140 But it's essentially a desk job where she does research and supports police for the duration of her pregnancy. 0.72

01:07:01.120 The courts then found that this is sex discrimination.

01:07:06.140 It's the most reasonable thing in the world.

01:07:08.500 So think about it this way.

01:07:10.100 If she had been told to continue with her duties and, God forbid, she had lost her baby, she would have had grounds to sue on sex discrimination. 0.99

01:07:19.740 If she was protected and told to get off the street for your own safety, you're pregnant, if some random criminal tries to tackle you or you have to fight somebody during an arrest, you'll be put at risk.

01:07:33.820 That's also sex discrimination.

01:07:36.520 But she's not lost her job.

01:07:37.760 You don't.

01:07:38.760 No, no.

01:07:39.720 She's just changed role. 0.98

01:07:43.180 She apparently found a doctor who told her that she was fit to carry out her regular role.

01:07:47.940 I don't know how she did that. 0.95

01:07:50.240 Because, honestly, like, there's a reason why society is geared towards the protection of pregnant women.

01:07:58.780 And that's exactly how it should be.

01:08:01.520 She found a doctor that said, ah, she didn't need that protection.

01:08:04.580 And then she was able to use that to file a suit saying, no, she needed it.

01:08:08.920 And you had a previous case where being told, come and work from the office.

01:08:12.160 That's also discrimination.

01:08:13.200 So, essentially, it's a position where anything you do can be construed as discrimination.

01:08:20.780 And just to add insult to injury or soul to the wounds, I don't know what it is.

01:08:28.340 There was another case where a lady sued Starbucks because her job was to enter information into a computer.

01:08:38.080 She was doing it incorrectly.

01:08:40.180 They thought it was fraud.

01:08:41.560 She said, no, I'm dyslexic.

01:08:42.980 What a weird explanation.

01:08:48.540 So, they force Starbucks to pay her. 1.00

01:08:51.740 It's okay, it's okay. 0.50

01:08:52.540 It's all nonsense.

01:08:54.000 All of this creates a framework that is entirely arbitrary in a sense.

01:08:58.660 I know we have sometimes...

01:08:59.480 Sometimes it's all resource extraction, basically.

01:09:02.420 This is my iron law of politics, that most of it is just resource extraction and everything else is just window dressing.

01:09:09.400 You're going to love this one.

01:09:10.900 Oh, wonderful.

01:09:11.520 A guy walks into a brewery.

01:09:14.900 A guy walks into a bar.

01:09:16.220 Setting up for a joke here.

01:09:17.240 A brewery.

01:09:18.480 They have a special offer.

01:09:20.080 You can buy this bottle of pink IPA, speaking to your IPA issue, for one pound less if you're a woman. 0.90

01:09:28.420 He says, I want to buy it for one pound less.

01:09:30.680 They say, no, you're a man.

01:09:33.180 Then he says, actually, I identify as a woman.

01:09:37.600 And they were like, you know what?

01:09:38.720 Fine.

01:09:39.680 Here you go.

01:09:40.520 You don't have to pay the full price.

01:09:42.280 Pay just four quid.

01:09:43.660 He then sues anyway and gets a thousand pounds for sex discrimination because the judge believed that he must have felt humiliated by saying that he identifies as a woman.

01:09:58.600 So the amount of...

01:10:00.680 I respect this one, actually.

01:10:02.980 There's a certain amount of just...

01:10:04.760 There's a kind of scamming and trolling, yes.

01:10:07.560 I mean, you should be punished if you're doing this sort of thing anyway.

01:10:10.200 Like, oh, we're going to sell stuff to women for a different price. 1.00

01:10:13.280 Like, really?

01:10:14.520 Look, if you want to do a promotion, do a promotion.

01:10:16.920 If a bar has a policy that women pay less of a cover charge or no cover charge, I don't care. 1.00

01:10:22.500 It doesn't bother me.

01:10:24.740 But just the sort of random gratuitousness of it.

01:10:29.160 And they tried to enforce their policy.

01:10:33.160 He said no.

01:10:34.360 Then he said, well, I identify as a woman.

01:10:36.440 Then that wasn't good enough and he still sued them anyway. 0.98

01:10:39.460 It's just damned if you do, damned if you don't. 0.93

01:10:41.500 And you see this repeating across the board.

01:10:45.320 And you see that it is having a very real impact on businesses.

01:10:51.640 So here we have next a retail chain, which...

01:10:55.460 Anyway, it's a retail chain.

01:10:57.340 They got sued because their retail staff, who stand in air-conditioned rooms and say,

01:11:06.680 would you like to try this on, were getting paid less than their warehouse staff.

01:11:13.720 Now, their retail staff are 70-something percent women.

01:11:18.080 Their warehouse staff are 47 percent women.

01:11:22.340 So almost half.

01:11:23.360 If the warehouse job is back-breaking, much more demanding, you're working with machinery,

01:11:30.340 you're at much higher risk of injury, you're probably not working in air-conditioning.

01:11:34.980 There's also probably the fact that if you're in a warehouse, you probably need things like

01:11:38.720 heavy machinery qualifications.

01:11:40.600 Like to operate a forklift, for example, you need a qualification to do that.

01:11:43.900 Whereas to work in next, you don't need any qualifications.

01:11:47.780 In fact, it's probably helpful.

01:11:48.940 So, next said we were just paying market rates.

01:11:56.020 The tribunal said that their pay policy was driven by an effort to cut costs and boost profits,

01:12:05.540 and that there was no intent to discriminate, and that there was no direct discrimination.

01:12:12.140 There was no conscious or subconscious gender influence in the way Next set pay rates. 0.97

01:12:19.040 This is read, you would read that, and you would assume that, oh, the tribunal ruled for them then.

01:12:26.020 But no.

01:12:27.560 I like the idea that the board of directors at Next are just like,

01:12:31.400 well, we could make more money, but we're going to pay men more

01:12:34.360 because we just hate women so much that we're going to discriminate against them 1.00

01:12:38.440 and take money out of our own pockets. 0.59

01:12:40.820 Yep.

01:12:42.700 So, the retailer failed to demonstrate that lower pay was not the result of discrimination.

01:12:53.560 So, proving intent in any court proceeding is extremely difficult.

01:12:57.860 What do you think?

01:12:58.800 How can I prove what you think?

01:13:01.000 They found no evidence of intent for discrimination.

01:13:05.400 However, they shifted the burden of proof from the claimant to the subject of the lawsuit.

01:13:18.140 So, you have to prove that you didn't intend to discriminate.

01:13:22.780 That's illogical, and that's why I absolutely resent irrationality in politics in this case.

01:13:28.860 And this is nothing but irrationality.

01:13:31.920 Listen to the rest of the judgment.

01:13:33.960 For market forces to be a trump card in this way, as in for you to operate purely based on your fiduciary responsibility to shareholders,

01:13:43.100 as a good capitalist, for market forces to be a trump card in this way would defeat the objective of the legislation, being the Equality Act 2010.

01:13:55.900 Lower pay in particular sectors due to indirectly discriminatory practices could then be lawfully sustained in perpetuity,

01:14:03.560 as in, we will never arrive to the utopia where everybody is equal in every way.

01:14:11.200 Nor is it desirable.

01:14:12.180 Yeah, okay.

01:14:12.680 Congratulations.

01:14:13.600 We've reached the maturity of a four-year-old.

01:14:17.100 Exactly.

01:14:18.200 Exactly.

01:14:19.200 They continue.

01:14:20.300 There must be usually a more compelling business reason for such a reach.

01:14:24.520 What's a more compelling business reason than profit maximization?

01:14:29.120 Social responsibility.

01:14:30.600 Social responsibility.

01:14:31.500 But it's not a business reason.

01:14:34.220 But it's not a business reason.

01:14:35.800 BlackRock will invest a lot of money in you if you...

01:14:38.700 It's absolute lunacy.

01:14:41.660 It's absolute unapologetic lunacy.

01:14:47.920 They're suing Tesco as well for the same exact reason.

01:14:54.540 They're suing Asda, Morrison's co-op.

01:14:59.600 You should actually...

01:15:02.260 Because if you want to sue someone, this is the company that's suing.

01:15:07.220 Lay Day.

01:15:08.320 Because my local Tesco is staffed entirely by Indians and I feel like I'm not represented. 0.93

01:15:14.140 I want someone who is English in Tesco, please.

01:15:18.060 And did they also call you a woman?

01:15:20.300 That's an extra £1,000?

01:15:21.220 Not yet, but I'm sure they've thought about it.

01:15:24.440 So this is the law firm that's responsible for the string of lawsuits against different companies.

01:15:34.400 Their motto is fighting injustice and what have you.

01:15:37.460 And then you see...

01:15:41.460 And they have a diversity problem.

01:15:45.160 It's a very select group of people.

01:15:47.320 This is the first page of their partners.

01:15:50.140 And to quote Hamza Yusuf, they're all white. 0.95

01:15:54.840 Second page...

01:15:57.120 I mean, you could have showed me these faces in a lineup and I could have told you their profession.

01:16:02.440 I've been at this so long now.

01:16:03.880 I can just tell.

01:16:05.740 Third page.

01:16:06.560 It goes on, it goes on, it goes on.

01:16:08.920 They're mostly...

01:16:10.500 They have their own diversity problem.

01:16:13.480 And I wonder if we can't find somebody to sue them.

01:16:16.140 I can tell you something out of experience.

01:16:19.280 Right.

01:16:19.540 From the university world.

01:16:21.680 Most people are white.

01:16:22.780 And the anti-whiteness narrative within the university and the woke narrative within the university is a game. 0.82

01:16:29.380 Many whites are playing against other whites, especially when they can't compete against them on fair grounds. 0.93

01:16:36.360 So if I'm doing kick-ass research, but the other person is just someone who understands is a complete mediocrity and can't excel on it,

01:16:46.180 they're going to become representatives of whatever and they're going to get ahead.

01:16:50.540 Yep, they will basically...

01:16:53.140 So really rubbish aspiring middle managers are probably the first people in a big company to put pronouns in their bio when this whole thing kicks off,

01:17:03.140 because they see that this is the way forward.

01:17:06.900 And you therefore signal your absolute loyalty to the regime.

01:17:10.720 And by doing that, you signal that you're not a threat, and that if HR asks you to do certain things with pay and to make sure that they're meeting their quotas,

01:17:20.820 you will comply, because you don't have a conscience.

01:17:24.220 So this essentially rewards really the worst people in the world.

01:17:28.440 And even with all of this, the Guardian is complaining that only a third of recommendations to tackle endemic racism in the UK are implemented.

01:17:38.760 Now again, I don't understand how racism is endemic when it is white British boys who are the least likely to go to university,

01:17:48.340 and when it is really the most equal society I've ever been to as a Middle Easterner.

01:17:56.080 I think it's also worth pointing out that if this society will run for white men, 0.90

01:18:01.200 why would we be the most likely to contribute to the state and the least likely to take out of it?

01:18:06.500 Yep.

01:18:06.700 The most likely to end our own lives, the most likely to be homeless.

01:18:11.180 Yep.

01:18:11.560 The list goes on.

01:18:12.860 If things are run for us, why would we run it this way?

01:18:16.260 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:18:16.940 We're exploiting ourselves then, aren't we?

01:18:19.280 Exactly.

01:18:19.700 Anyway, so the Guardian wanted to celebrate the five-year anniversary of the Black Lives Matter protest and caused by the fentanyl death of George Floyd.

01:18:30.280 They are saying that there have been 12 reports into racial inequalities since 1981.

01:18:39.780 There have been 600 recommendations, and only 200 recommendations have been acted upon, fully acted upon.

01:18:47.980 Meaning that the other 400 could be partially or not, or they could just be so fanciful that even Keir Starmer and Cameron and others couldn't act on them.

01:18:59.960 It could also be contradictory as well.

01:19:01.800 So they're demanding more.

01:19:03.880 They're looking at all of this, and they're saying, actually, this isn't enough.

01:19:08.920 We demand more, and we're beginning to see this more.

01:19:13.420 Now, Royal Parks, which is responsible for the care of the Royal Parks in London,

01:19:22.200 they're facing a lawsuit because toilet cleaners that are contracted through a private company are getting less money than cleaners who are fully employed by Royal Parks.

01:19:38.060 Welcome to the economy.

01:19:39.600 Exactly.

01:19:40.300 How it works.

01:19:41.020 Exactly.

01:19:41.720 Which means that, say, Deliveroo drivers could sue for being paid less than actual restaurant workers.

01:19:48.560 You know?

01:19:49.320 I mean, the reasoning behind these cases is that the court comes out and says,

01:19:54.280 we view this work as having equal value.

01:19:58.300 And, or similar value.

01:20:02.760 Similar value and equal value are ridiculously subjective, ridiculously open-ended.

01:20:07.980 And the fact that they've submitted to those lawsuits are causing everybody else to start suing.

01:20:14.740 And, incidentally, this is the reason why Birmingham has gone bankrupt.

01:20:23.820 It was over this kind of issue.

01:20:25.800 It's become so insane.

01:20:29.500 It has been so insane for so long.

01:20:31.440 I mean, this is an article from six years ago.

01:20:34.440 That 50 civil servants said that the Home Office was discriminating against them.

01:20:39.940 Why?

01:20:40.900 Because they made them undertake a core skills assessment.

01:20:45.480 And, black candidates that took this test passed at 40% the rate of whites.

01:20:55.960 It's a test.

01:20:57.140 The test doesn't know your race.

01:20:59.640 But the difference in outcome was enough for the Home Office to decide, you know what?

01:21:05.580 Or for the civil service to decide, you know what?

01:21:07.520 We don't care.

01:21:08.800 We're just going to give you a million pounds.

01:21:10.320 Go away.

01:21:10.660 It's so frustrating on multiple levels. 0.99

01:21:14.320 On the one hand, it's frustrating that it's another case of black people not realising that the problem is with them and not the world. 1.00

01:21:24.120 And the second thing is that more money is being extracted from the taxpayer for such ridiculous reasons. 0.97

01:21:30.220 I would be happy if it's just like every single person is white British. 0.99

01:21:33.380 Suck it up and get used to it. 0.95

01:21:35.120 But there is an extra thing to it because I'm of the opinion that a lot of problems we are facing nowadays are basically concealed communist problems. 0.95

01:21:45.220 A lot of right-wingers are saying the otherwise and are saying, no, no, it's not just communists.

01:21:51.020 You're just typical anti-communist propaganda.

01:21:53.340 Let's do that. 0.90

01:21:54.480 All that's nonsense.

01:21:55.300 What they're doing is they're pushing forward a radical egalitarianism and they are saying so long as this equality is being achieved, people aren't free.

01:22:06.920 They're living in just circumstances.

01:22:09.660 So all of it is just I'm pushing a radical egalitarianism, which incidentally is helpful for me politically.

01:22:16.340 That's in the mindset of the...

01:22:18.620 But of course, equality and egalitarianism is the enemy of exceptionalism.

01:22:23.480 And if we want to be an exceptional country again, we've got to be unequal.

01:22:27.220 And actually, inequality is desirable because it means that people are actually achieving something rather than living in complete squalor.

01:22:34.100 Then everyone will be equal.

01:22:35.680 Yep.

01:22:37.020 So here you see this headline from The Guardian.

01:22:40.760 Who else?

01:22:42.140 Absolutely shameful.

01:22:44.220 Ethnicity pay gap persists.

01:22:45.920 Okay.

01:22:46.520 How big is it, really?

01:22:48.620 Among UK-born workers, black employees had the biggest pay gap, earning 5.6% less than white employees.

01:22:56.460 All this over 5%.

01:22:57.520 It's maddening that someone from Central Africa, they can't see that them coming from there to Britain, they're not going to be immediately on the same pay scale as them. 1.00

01:23:08.020 Madness.

01:23:08.440 I will say, though, I really think that to a very large extent this results from ecophobia.

01:23:13.920 And it is people who are from within England who are frequently saying, these are the leftists, basically.

01:23:21.820 These are the arguments you need to give forward.

01:23:26.000 These are the arguments I'm going to make for you and I'm going to represent you.

01:23:29.760 So just keep a kick up of us.

01:23:31.720 As we saw with the late-day law firm who are, you know, they all look very European.

01:23:41.260 And they're the ones who are leading the charge on these lawsuits.

01:23:47.360 And then the report continues.

01:23:49.240 It's absolutely shameful that there is this pay gap.

01:23:51.680 And then it says, actually, the other ethnic group, which includes Arab and other ethnicities, earned 3.8% more than their white peers.

01:23:58.880 So they see this, it in no way contradicts their narrative.

01:24:05.240 They don't pause.

01:24:06.300 They don't care.

01:24:07.720 It's racism, racism, racism.

01:24:09.180 It's shameful.

01:24:11.200 Everybody must be made to receive equal pay to white men unless, however, they are paid more than white men. 0.74

01:24:20.700 In which case, it's okay and we're very near the bottom of the article and we won't even try to address it.

01:24:26.140 So, in effect, this legislation is just a way of crushing us?

01:24:30.340 More or less.

01:24:31.140 More or less.

01:24:31.640 It's targeted against you, clearly.

01:24:33.700 A government spokesperson said that they would continue to support employers in measuring pay gaps and identify examples of good practice.

01:24:40.560 This is part of delivering our Inclusive Britain Action Plan to tackle unjust disparities in employment, education, health and criminal justice.

01:24:49.720 I don't know.

01:24:50.200 If some racial groups are getting paid more than white men, that it's clearly not discrimination.

01:24:55.140 But the narrative is that this is all discrimination and you must bend the knee.

01:24:59.080 But also, some people are so statist in their mindset and they absolutely hate the idea of impersonal distribution.

01:25:07.860 Yep.

01:25:08.500 And non-centrally planned economic actions.

01:25:12.280 Absolutely.

01:25:12.980 Well, it's sort of racism of the gaps, isn't it?

01:25:14.960 In that when they don't understand how something works, they just presume the mechanism is racism.

01:25:23.180 Yes.

01:25:23.460 And actually interrogate the other factors such as...

01:25:26.100 Pretty much.

01:25:26.760 Maybe there's a difference in qualification.

01:25:28.820 Maybe it helps if you're fluent in English, having grown up here.

01:25:32.180 That sort of helps in most lines of work, doesn't it?

01:25:34.480 It's absolutely insane.

01:25:40.180 And then a Ms. Bigham, who was responsible for this report, same last name as a nice lady called Shamima Bigham, said the ethnicity gap could not be closed without entrenched structural inequalities being tackled.

01:25:54.420 And you see here that the government is proposing a bill.

01:26:01.760 It's consulting on this bill.

01:26:04.240 They want to add to the Equality Act with a race and disability element.

01:26:09.740 I went through the time to actually address, look at the questionnaire and see what it's all about.

01:26:14.380 It's all about whether or not they should make companies that have more than 250 people report a breakdown of their ethnicity and a breakdown of pay by ethnicity so that it becomes easier for them to sue.

01:26:31.860 The idea is to impose the reporting requirement.

01:26:35.140 It's all framed in comparison to white men. 0.87

01:26:38.180 You can go through, it's really not hard to find, Equality, Race and Disability Bill.

01:26:43.460 Go check it out.

01:26:44.140 Look at the consultation.

01:26:45.500 Please fill it in and add in a few insults if you want.

01:26:48.880 And you see that this is all targeted in a very particular way, intended to make it easier to sue more companies to make sure that the janitor is getting paid almost as much as the CEO.

01:27:04.400 If this isn't communism, I don't know what is.

01:27:11.360 Thank you.

01:27:12.300 Let's go to the comments.

01:27:13.860 Sure.

01:27:14.780 Can we scroll down a bit, please?

01:27:16.800 Right.

01:27:17.120 So, fig, figtages.

01:27:20.200 The janitors at all next stores must be licking their lips.

01:27:24.060 That was pre-saging what you just said there.

01:27:26.860 O-P-H-U-K. 1.00

01:27:29.300 No, the engaged few, sorry.

01:27:30.680 The best way to cause the downfall of this nonsense is to use this D-I... 0.95

01:27:35.680 Come on, you can speak a bit of German.

01:27:38.000 ...Folksgerichts against them.

01:27:41.140 Ruling after ruling until it bankrupts the lot of them.

01:27:45.060 O-P-H-U-K. 1.00

01:27:46.500 Didn't we import these people to do the jobs we didn't want to do for money we wouldn't do it for?

01:27:51.540 If they now get to sue for highest pay, why shouldn't we deport them and do those jobs ourselves?

01:27:56.700 To be fair, I'm serious about reducing inequality. I'm just going to do it with aeroplanes.

01:28:01.700 And ships.

01:28:02.980 That's a random name, says...

01:28:05.020 Missed the first two segments. Glad to see Josh again.

01:28:07.840 Hello.

01:28:08.320 Speaking of which, he called me the...

01:28:11.540 N-word this morning. It's why I'm late. Where's my money? Pay up, Whitey. 1.00

01:28:16.120 That's a joke.

01:28:17.320 Yeah.

01:28:17.720 I'll do it again.

01:28:19.200 Right, and before we go to the other comments, we have some videos.

01:28:23.200 Yeah.

01:28:23.340 Let's play them.

01:28:27.040 Because you would think that it would be very easy to have some kind of jamming technology that would just interfere with the signal.

01:28:33.420 Frustrated with people talking on their phones on a train, a former colleague constructed a jammer at home.

01:28:38.960 It was cheap, effective, and utterly illegal.

01:28:42.120 Jammers only work for wireless links, and EMPs are relatively easy to harden against.

01:28:47.000 Is there any jammer measure against fiber-optic drones?

01:28:49.720 The key words there are fiber-optic. So-called tethered or wire-guided drones cannot be jammed wirelessly and use technology available since the Fritz bombs of the Second World War.

01:29:00.000 That's very interesting as always, Alex.

01:29:03.560 It's very annoying when people just shout on phones. 0.99

01:29:06.540 You see, I've gone against my British programming, and I say stuff to people now, or very passive-aggressively complain about people being stupid in earshot. 0.95

01:29:14.880 Like, I was going to London, and there was a lady playing loud music out of her phone, and I turned to my girlfriend and said, 0.93

01:29:20.200 Do you know what I find really annoying when—I didn't say when women, that would be a bit targeted. 0.98

01:29:24.920 When people play music out loud on their phone on public transport, don't you?

01:29:29.840 And then she got up and moved away immediately. 0.78

01:29:32.420 Great, great.

01:29:33.080 You've got to do it now. You've got to tell these people. That was a white British lady as well. 0.99

01:29:37.800 Let's go to the next one.

01:29:40.100 Going to bed South Africa style.

01:29:42.060 When coming into your house, make sure the electric fence is on, spikes are set, front door is chained, security motion light is activated,

01:29:49.800 an interior padlock is set behind the metal doors, and then, coming into the house, you want to make sure that your baton and mace is by the front door.

01:30:00.620 The front door is locked and closed, and also, the alarm is set.

01:30:09.040 And all of Europe will be South Africa soon enough. 0.98

01:30:14.400 Thanks, Zester King.

01:30:15.840 Next one by Steve H.

01:30:16.980 I'm optimistic about the future of warfare. Wars were once decided by your food supply, but since the Great War, they've been decided primarily by who can sustain a war economy the longest.

01:30:24.720 But since drones, it seems like the future of warfare is just bloodlessly throwing a bunch of expensive toys at each other until someone's economy falls over.

01:30:31.180 It seems almost civilized.

01:30:32.380 What does concern me is the rapid development of androids, like the Boston Dynamics junk.

01:30:36.200 Hitherto, the limiting factor in the oppression of your own people was stationing a guard on every street corner and demoralizing him to the point where he'll fire upon his own people. 0.79

01:30:43.840 Robots will have no such compunctions.

01:30:45.580 We can only hope that they'll be honest enough to make the eyes glow red when they finally flip the switch.

01:30:52.760 I very much enjoyed that.

01:30:54.180 Let's go to the next one.

01:30:56.880 Is that all of them, I think?

01:30:58.140 I think we're on to the written comments.

01:30:59.140 Right, so let's go to the comments.

01:31:01.180 An honourable mention by Tiny, Release the Kraken.

01:31:05.440 Also, liking the full Mediterranean lineup today, lads.

01:31:09.260 Nice seeing you back, Josh.

01:31:10.960 I'll take it.

01:31:11.540 I've got a more Mediterranean complexion.

01:31:13.700 Okay, let's go to Daniel Butch's.

01:31:15.500 Less than 10 years ago, I would have bet on it just being a drunk driver.

01:31:20.420 It's sad that it is no longer the assumption I jumped to.

01:31:23.580 Saw the headline of someone covering it last night and I did jump to an attack till I listened to a few minutes of the stream and it sounded like it's not clear.

01:31:31.020 The thing is, I bet the people there started attacking the car because they assumed it was an attack.

01:31:36.080 So it was probably made worse because of how many attacks there are and how the authorities downplay it, etc.

01:31:42.840 Alex Ogil says,

01:31:44.080 The police and authorities have painted themselves into a corner where they must be racist.

01:31:49.280 If the person involved is not white, they must cover it up to prevent outrage and demonstrations. 0.93

01:31:55.520 If the person is white, then they must say it immediately to stop people assuming.

01:32:00.360 Makes no difference, since we know what's going on.

01:32:02.860 Henry Ashman says it's telling that even the BBC have commented on just how quickly the police released the ethnic background and nationality of the person.

01:32:12.720 They've arrested.

01:32:13.880 It's hard to know whether this is in response to the aftermath of Southport like the BBC say,

01:32:19.040 or whether they would have been as quick with a different ethnicity, though.

01:32:23.420 Russian Garbage Human Coulter's Law states that the longer it takes the news media to identify a mass shooter, terrorist or criminal, 0.98

01:32:30.400 the less likely it is to be a white male. 0.99

01:32:32.900 True.

01:32:33.780 And Arizona Desert Rat says,

01:32:35.860 Why was the car in the middle of a crowd in the first place?

01:32:38.820 It's obvious that the street primarily is full of people and no moving vehicles.

01:32:42.900 That's very true as well.

01:32:44.480 Alex Ptolemy says,

01:32:45.620 Looking at the way the car drives, it's clear he's not trying to mow down as many people as possible.

01:32:50.340 We're trying to escape the crowd.

01:32:53.120 Right, should we go to comments of yours?

01:32:55.040 Sure.

01:32:55.380 Do you want to read them?

01:32:56.040 Of course.

01:32:56.960 Kurt says,

01:32:57.780 Antidepressants are so heavily pushed here in Canada,

01:32:59.820 you are likely to be offered them at the end of any visit to a clinic.

01:33:03.720 You'd be lucky to get an appointment in Britain.

01:33:05.600 I went in for a knee pain once and was handed four boxes of them along with a box of Viagra,

01:33:10.880 and the doctor was visibly upset when I refused them.

01:33:13.420 Maybe he was propositioning you.

01:33:15.260 You know, four boxes of antidepressants and Viagra sounds like a good time.

01:33:19.980 Don't do that though, it's bad.

01:33:21.680 I'm joking.

01:33:23.220 Sophie Liv says,

01:33:23.980 The thing about SSRIs, once you're on them, getting off them is brutal.

01:33:27.660 That's true.

01:33:28.140 It's the same with any drug that alters your neurochemistry.

01:33:31.080 You'll have withdrawal symptoms,

01:33:32.860 and it will feel like someone is squeezing your brain.

01:33:37.980 I had to spend years slowly reducing my dose,

01:33:40.960 and without fail made me go through major depression three months after reduction of medication.

01:33:46.720 There are many psychologists that actually argue that they should be avoided in most cases,

01:33:52.220 except for the most extreme,

01:33:53.940 because some of the consequences can be more severe.

01:33:56.760 And the thing is, clinical psychology is well aware that actually,

01:34:00.060 for a lot of people, it's not appropriate.

01:34:02.240 But the problem is that the prescription hasn't caught up with this understanding.

01:34:08.200 But yeah, I tried and failed getting off it completely,

01:34:11.640 and is now on the lowest possible dose.

01:34:13.840 But the fact that I tried to get rid of it,

01:34:16.160 I will always go through a period of depression and clinical anxiety due to withdrawal sucks.

01:34:21.020 So yeah, Josh, don't do it.

01:34:23.020 Thankfully, I've never been on any antidepressants or anything like that.

01:34:27.460 But no, it does sound really horrible.

01:34:30.340 I hope you're doing all right, Sophie.

01:34:32.040 It's not something that anyone should have to put up with,

01:34:34.280 and I wish that clinicians were a bit more responsible about it

01:34:37.480 and actually read the literature.

01:34:39.420 I'll read two more, two short ones.

01:34:41.380 Yeah, of course.

01:34:41.920 I know we're a bit over time.

01:34:43.740 Theodore Pinnock says,

01:34:44.740 I saw someone remark that the bitterness of American beers

01:34:46.940 is actually more likely simply intentionally done

01:34:49.720 because bitterness is very good for covering up other unpleasant flavours.

01:34:53.300 I'm not going to say anything.

01:34:56.220 There are some American alcohols that I really quite like,

01:35:00.520 so I will give credit where credit is due.

01:35:02.640 However, their IPAs are not one of them.

01:35:04.960 Henry Ashman,

01:35:05.860 well, I don't know what a traditional British preference for a pint of bitter pale ale says,

01:35:10.660 given that it predates SSRIs by a couple of centuries.

01:35:13.880 It's because ours is different and it's not actually bitter,

01:35:16.100 and it's very rare for us to make a bitter one

01:35:19.360 because we have pints of bitter already,

01:35:22.880 so there's already a niche for it.

01:35:24.640 But nothing about beer.

01:35:27.080 All right.

01:35:27.800 On the Equality Act,

01:35:30.540 Tess Diggle says,

01:35:31.660 My father, when he had his business,

01:35:33.360 would not take on women below the age of 45 1.00

01:35:35.560 just to stop the chance of being hit by maternity 1.00

01:35:38.060 and having to pay for the replacement staff during maternity.

01:35:41.600 These laws actually promote discrimination

01:35:43.800 and as there was no way to prove

01:35:46.440 that was why my dad wouldn't interview that demographic.

01:35:49.840 Yeah, fair enough.

01:35:51.880 Now they're looking at laws that make you report

01:35:54.580 how many people you've interviewed from different racial categories.

01:35:57.160 But the wonderful unintended consequence

01:35:59.180 of all of the minorities and women suing

01:36:01.600 is that it incentivizes companies to hire white men again

01:36:04.300 because at least we won't sue.

01:36:06.780 They're trying to make them report how they're doing their interviews.

01:36:10.140 It's to avoid that.

01:36:12.040 So they're trying to control every aspect of it.

01:36:14.240 That's how tyrannical it is.

01:36:18.140 Roman Observer,

01:36:19.500 Operating heavy machinery requires qualifications.

01:36:22.040 That's discrimination.

01:36:23.340 Well, yes, and with reason.

01:36:25.000 Absolutely.

01:36:26.080 Absolutely.

01:36:27.220 Would you want to fly your planes?

01:36:29.680 Would you want to operate you on surgery?

01:36:32.560 I want unqualified people.

01:36:33.980 I want to give them a leg up.

01:36:35.000 I want my plane to fly into the ocean

01:36:37.520 to give a minority a chance. 1.00

01:36:40.140 Russian garbage human. 1.00

01:36:44.200 Firas, are you saying that the only safe bet to hire for work 1.00

01:36:47.040 are straight white men?

01:36:48.400 Yeah.

01:36:49.920 It's becoming very obvious, really.

01:36:51.820 And employers will start noticing.

01:36:53.400 And that's why they're putting in reporting

01:36:55.880 on who you're interviewing to make it harder.

01:36:58.700 Right.

01:36:59.420 And thank you very much, gentlemen, for being here.

01:37:03.040 And thanks, Josh, for coming.

01:37:04.880 That's all right.

01:37:05.260 Just like old times.

01:37:07.100 I really hope you come and visit us regularly.

01:37:10.080 I intend to.

01:37:11.080 Great.

01:37:11.360 If you'll have me.

01:37:12.260 So check out his YouTube channel

01:37:14.260 and subscribe if you haven't subscribed already.

01:37:16.540 Check out Lotus Eaters and subscribe to them as well.

01:37:19.320 Right.

01:37:19.920 Okay.

01:37:20.260 So see you everyone tomorrow at 1 p.m.

01:37:22.740 Thank you very much.

01:37:24.140 Goodbye.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - May 27, 2025

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1173

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