The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - July 28, 2026


The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1471


Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 33 minutes

Words per minute

191.59

Word count

17,820

Sentence count

21

Harmful content

Toxicity

11

sentences flagged

Hate speech

50

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hello, everyone. Welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Seaters. Today is Tuesday, the 28th of July,
00:00:05.580 2026, and this is episode 1471. I'm your host, Elias, and I'm pleased to be joined today by
00:00:12.840 brother Luca and brother Josh. Oh, thank you, brother. You're welcome. Cheers, brother.
00:00:18.180 Cheers. You see, Josh, Josh, you're warming up. It's warming up on you. Right. So we're going to
00:00:24.100 discuss something really jolly today, why we can't have nice things, whether there is still hope
00:00:29.840 for New Zealand and the Cambridge University DEI hire controversy. We're going to talk about the
00:00:38.440 allegations, so take that with a pinch of salt. But if you are into news about Claudine Gay
00:00:46.640 or Ibram X. Kendi and how academia isn't exactly what it should be.
00:00:54.040 A true scholar, some might say.
00:00:56.180 Yeah, you know, spicy news about scholars.
00:01:00.320 Your third segment is definitely a segment you would like to watch.
00:01:04.420 And we don't have any announcements other than this has been a great month, I think.
00:01:11.860 It's a beautiful month.
00:01:13.540 i suppose i could mention that i now work for the policy team at restore britain that's an
00:01:17.600 announcement but most people probably already know that by now thank you that's a very condescending
00:01:22.360 clap why i should do it like that like gambledore there we go i want to sing each other out
00:01:28.660 well done mate well done josh and uh i i have faith in you thank you i'm confident you're
00:01:36.660 gonna do a great job you've got more faith in me than myself thank you okay okay so by the way i'm
00:01:42.440 I'm pretty happy. Should we start by asking why we can't have nice things? Yes, today I'm going
00:01:49.800 to be talking about why we can't have nice things and it's going to depress you at first but I'm
00:01:55.180 going to give you a new appreciation for something that is also going to potentially close down but
00:01:59.940 you'll enjoy the story while I'm telling it hopefully. But as part of a broader 2.7% cut
00:02:06.860 to astronomy and nuclear particle physics research over the next four years, this place
00:02:11.920 right here, as shown in this BBC article, Jodrell Bank, it's a whole complex of various
00:02:19.720 dishes and telescopes and the like, could potentially stop its research because its
00:02:28.020 2.8 million annual budget is being cut. And one has to question, I think there's very
00:02:35.140 few things that are just as unequivocal a good as looking at space and understanding physics and
00:02:42.060 things like that this sort of research i think um unless you're one of those people that's like
00:02:46.560 the hadron collide is going to tear a hole into reality or something other than perhaps that sort
00:02:51.840 of stuff if you're really worried about it we can say that this stuff is obviously advancing our
00:02:56.960 civilization in a positive direction like understanding space having um you know some
00:03:03.580 sort of inkling about what's out there and our place within it is a really great aspiration it's
00:03:08.740 one of the greatest human aspirations i think we can have to try and better understand the world
00:03:14.220 we live in how it works and i think that um everyone should have that impulse it's also good
00:03:20.120 in itself i think a really civilized civilization civilized people can understand the value of
00:03:27.260 knowledge for its own sake you don't have to somehow market it or something it's it's great
00:03:32.740 on its own. We want to find out more about the universe. And I will say that, you know, for
00:03:38.220 instance, dark sky reserves are awesome. You don't have to make money out of them. They're just
00:03:43.720 awesome. I very much agree. And there's also other things that I'm going to mention in passing that
00:03:50.220 aren't really the focus of this segment, but I want to draw attention to it because it's just sad.
00:03:54.580 It made me very sad. And I want to share that sadness with all of you because I'm a nice guy.
00:03:59.480 the UK will no longer participate in research at the James Clark Maxwell telescope in Hawaii
00:04:05.240 which scientists are using to image supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies which
00:04:10.820 to my mind is a pretty cool thing yeah you wouldn't want to involve yourself with the
00:04:15.000 coolest thing currently going on would you and also the UKRI which is the organization which
00:04:24.600 allocates research funding has also cut funding for the uk's involvement in two instruments on
00:04:32.060 the extremely large telescope which is the actual official name by the way um just in case you're
00:04:38.880 wondering which is being built in chile uh to search for signs of life on other earth-like
00:04:44.220 worlds which again a very cool thing i want that to go ahead i want them to do that sort of thing
00:04:50.720 just don't send them the cringe packages that we did where it's just like here's a picture of naked
00:04:57.100 man and woman here's a picture of what human eating looks like which is kind of horrifying
00:05:02.660 really i don't understand that's why they've never visited tax rates are rising but budgets
00:05:09.360 budget for cool things is decreasing so are they gonna put the argument that all this money needs
00:05:15.600 to be taken from these beautiful projects and be turned into an international airport in Mirpur,
00:05:24.060 Pakistan. Yes, that's a good example, actually, of how we're wasting money. And in fact, you've
00:05:28.840 anticipated where I'm going with this, because the amount... I knew you would go to Pakistan for 0.99
00:05:34.700 some reason. I'm actually, I genuinely do have a link about Pakistan. You know me too well. So yes,
00:05:40.380 I'm going to make everyone very angry. The spending on this entire site, the full 2.8
00:05:48.020 million in funding it needs, is equivalent to just 6 minutes and 51 seconds of NHS spending,
00:05:54.160 by the way. Whenever you see a figure comparing NHS spending to literally anything else in Britain,
00:06:01.680 it is always dizzying. The gulf of difference in how long it takes to just fund two minutes
00:06:07.000 of the NHS is insane. We spend $7 million a day on just asylum seeker accommodation.
00:06:13.960 Just throwing that out there. So half the day of asylum seeker accommodation would pay for this.
00:06:20.660 Not even half. It's 40%. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I was being generous. You know,
00:06:25.420 slip them a bit of extra money. I like mathematical precision.
00:06:29.700 I'm sorry I failed you. And as you rightfully predicted, I'm mentioning Pakistan. 1.00
00:06:37.000 $153 million to Pakistan in aid, and as this GB News article rightfully points out, whilst
00:06:43.720 they're refusing to take back the rape gang ringleaders. So why we're giving Pakistan any 0.79
00:06:50.780 aid whatsoever is beyond me. We should be sending them letters of condemnation at the very least. 1.00
00:06:57.180 And this is not to even mention all of the money that's drained from Britain's economy 0.86
00:07:01.660 by the sheer dint of remittances, you know, being sent to not just Pakistan,
00:07:06.900 but obviously countries all over the world as well, just bleeding as dry.
00:07:10.720 And the boss man got in on this as well.
00:07:13.480 He was talking about how it costs under $3 million a year, $2.8 million,
00:07:19.240 and we spend a billion a month on benefits for foreigners, 0.76
00:07:22.400 which is just another thing that we're wasting money on,
00:07:25.620 that we could be putting to better things.
00:07:28.680 And here's a bunch of things here that have been listed by this user.
00:07:33.280 Ethiopia tax transformation, tax system transformation program,
00:07:38.660 between 18 and 20 million.
00:07:42.120 I don't know why that is of our concern.
00:07:44.320 They're not even a former colony.
00:07:45.740 We've got no ties to Ethiopia whatsoever.
00:07:49.240 All-female traditional Yu opera in Shanghai.
00:07:52.600 Of course, I don't know why we're giving money to Shanghai. 0.98
00:07:57.060 Yeah, as if China's skin can't stage their own operas. 1.00
00:08:03.200 Protecting wild camels. 1.00
00:08:04.640 I mean, I don't know why we're giving money to Mongolia.
00:08:08.020 I mean, also, you know, it's a pretty good place for them.
00:08:12.460 The Gobi Desert is sort of where they live.
00:08:14.980 It's sort of where they're adapted to live.
00:08:16.800 It's where they chill.
00:08:17.660 I mean, it's one of the least egregious here.
00:08:19.240 At least we're protecting a living thing.
00:08:22.920 but then solar systems for cities in the democratic republic of the congo 14 million
00:08:28.880 um what's i don't even know solar system
00:08:33.920 do they not have the solar system in over there no they didn't have the wheel there isn't just
00:08:41.580 one solar system josh there's no observatories all special telescopes all of them in congo
00:08:48.400 I bet you could see the stars because there's no electricity.
00:08:51.220 Anyway, do you know what's not a waste of money?
00:08:53.780 Islander 6.
00:08:55.000 And it's out now.
00:08:55.940 It's only $14.99.
00:08:57.660 You don't have to shut down an observatory to buy it.
00:09:00.500 You can just buy it now and buy it while stocks last before it sells out.
00:09:05.100 It's very, very good.
00:09:06.220 Yeah, it is.
00:09:08.140 But anyway, let's start with a little story about the significance of this site.
00:09:16.860 because it's one of the most important places in the entirety of the British Isles, and I'm going
00:09:21.800 to tell you why. I'm going to make you realize just how important it is and tell you lots of
00:09:28.400 stories. So our story starts with this gentleman right here, Bernard Lovell, and on December of
00:09:35.680 1945, just, you know, the same year the war ended, he is a physicist from the University of Manchester.
00:09:43.900 he drove a trailer out to remote field in cheshire he wanted to see whether his radar
00:09:50.060 which he'd learned about during the second world war could be used to study cosmic rays which are
00:09:55.980 high energy particles in the earth's atmosphere and his radar experiments outside of his laboratory
00:10:01.640 in manchester had been unsuccessful because the tram system in manchester interfered with his 0.58
00:10:08.800 equipment damn trams i know yeah so idiosyncratically northern as well i think of a trans
00:10:15.120 but um the university's botany department owned some land in the nearby cheshire countryside so 0.99
00:10:21.180 he went there and he set up his radar kit outside of the gardener's hut in this this botany land
00:10:27.320 that's wholesome and uh he received a good signal but rather than spotting cosmic rays he found
00:10:32.720 meteors instead which is still not nothing that's a pretty interesting thing to find
00:10:37.640 especially using just world war ii radio equipment and so his accidental discovery set in motion
00:10:45.160 the formation of this site because over the next five years scientists and technicians slowly joined
00:10:50.520 him on this site and helped develop the infant science known as radio astronomy and they built
00:10:56.700 their own equipment largely repurposing old army surplus equipment and by 1946 they'd already built
00:11:04.120 some equipment here this is called the searchlight aerial and this was used to study meteors
00:11:09.280 and this was built by just using old army equipment and as you can see it doesn't really
00:11:15.060 look like anything we would see in modernity does it it looks like a strange combine harvester gone
00:11:23.600 wrong. But they had good results. And then in 1947, they started building their transit telescope,
00:11:31.400 which is able to detect radio waves from the Andromeda galaxy 2.5 million light years away,
00:11:37.100 which is pretty amazing. Just to say as well, the fact that all of this has been done immediately in
00:11:41.580 the post-war period, I mean, you know, it's not like the British economy was doing particularly
00:11:47.980 well coming out of the other end of 1945 and so after just you know fighting six years of war
00:11:55.940 we were still able to find the money to put all of this together to invest in it to maintain it
00:12:01.220 for decades and decades well it was mainly just researchers and technicians and enthusiasts
00:12:05.660 yeah going out and sort of doing it with what resources they had yeah exactly so at this point
00:12:12.600 with these sorts of uh devices they were at the cutting cutting edge of astronomy but lovell
00:12:18.380 realized that they needed a much bigger telescope and uh you know bigger is always better or so i'm
00:12:23.700 told um engineers told lovell that a giant radio telescope would just be impossible to build um
00:12:30.100 but he wasn't perturbed by this and eventually he met a guy called charles husband um who was a
00:12:36.640 bridge engineer from Sheffield. And he said that he could build one, unlike all of those engineers
00:12:43.780 who are, you know, downers. And together they designed a fully steerable radio telescope with
00:12:49.340 a 250 foot diameter dish, which I think is about, was it about 75 meters or so? Is that about right,
00:12:57.000 Stelios? Maybe. You're a continental, you know meters. No, I was just completely immersed into
00:13:02.740 the picture and um one of my favorite things is that they repurposed one of the um turret
00:13:09.340 mechanisms one of the gun mechanisms from two first world war battleships um to turn
00:13:15.140 oh that's fantastic um it was the hms revenge and the hms royal sovereign they were reused
00:13:21.120 in the telescope's motor system um so they're using uh world war one and they also saw action
00:13:27.060 in World War II, destroyers, basically, and battleships, in this amazing telescope. And here
00:13:37.060 it is, which, you know, is quite something, isn't it? It's extraordinary. I liked having the sheep
00:13:45.500 there for perspective, because sometimes something of this size, it's difficult to sort of have a
00:13:51.180 sense of scale and so yes it is pretty damn big and both Lovell and husband the man husband not
00:13:59.160 his husband I'm sure he had a wife were knighted for their efforts and this was completed in 1957
00:14:05.420 and at the time it was the largest steerable dish radio telescope in the world and even today it's
00:14:11.960 still the third largest after one in America and Germany so it still has use if it's the third
00:14:18.280 largest, right? Yeah, it's extraordinary. And I'm a huge fan of how it looks like a Death Star super
00:14:23.440 laser. Well, not only is it just impressive by its own merit, it's also had an incredibly
00:14:30.220 impressive role in history. So you may have heard of the Sputnik 1. Yes. So in October of 1957,
00:14:37.460 the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, and it became apparent that
00:14:43.340 this telescope at Jodrell Bank was the only instrument in the world capable of locating
00:14:48.340 and tracking it. And so the Soviet Union reached out to us and asked us to track it. And so we
00:14:54.580 played a role in the very first satellite being launched. That's remarkable. And it doesn't stop
00:15:01.560 there because also, there it is, by the way, it looks pretty cool. Here's the American one. This
00:15:08.180 is the Pioneer 5 from June 1960 and we helped track the United States as well because we weren't
00:15:13.740 picking sides. NASA's launched Pioneer 5 probe and this telescope sent commands to the probe
00:15:22.300 including those to separate it from its carrier rocket and turn on its more powerful transmitter
00:15:26.820 when the probe was 8 million miles away and it received data from the probe and it was the only
00:15:32.840 telescope in the world capable of doing so and so this telescope has been integral to our journey
00:15:39.440 into space and obviously it's played such an important role yeah in history it's moved history
00:15:45.840 and then we come to february of 1966 uh jodrell bank was again asked by the soviet union to track
00:15:53.160 its unmanned moon lander lunar nine and record its photographs from the moon's surface and because of
00:15:59.220 our role in it the photographs were sent to the british press and published before even the soviets
00:16:04.100 made them public even though it was their mission because of course we had the equipment to receive
00:16:09.460 it you see where i'm going here that uh perhaps it gives us a little bit of an advantage to have
00:16:14.260 this cutting-edge technology on our shores perhaps you know it has uh good implications for our
00:16:21.380 society but also it had a secret role at the height of the cold war facility was the only 0.82
00:16:26.380 place in the UK that could detect long-range ballistic missile attack and so when the Cuban
00:16:33.100 missile crisis was going on the RAF took it over and monitored the situation as you know they do
00:16:38.880 and made sure that we weren't going to get blown to smithereens which is a pretty good thing right
00:16:45.200 yeah very considerate and then since then it's played an important role in the research of the
00:16:51.320 distance between the moon and also to Venus. It's researched meteors, obviously, and that's how it
00:16:58.120 all started. Quasars, which are extremely bright and distant active galactic nuclei powered by
00:17:03.720 supermassive black holes, which are pretty cool. Also, observations of pulsars, which are rapidly
00:17:10.540 spinning neutron stars that emit sharp and regular beams of electromagnetic radiation.
00:17:16.020 If you've watched Carl Sagan's Cosmos, he talks about those a lot, that we thought that they were
00:17:20.360 originally a signal from an alien race because they were so regular but actually it's just
00:17:26.400 you know what i just said and of course this facility in particular discovered the millisecond
00:17:32.860 pulsar and the first pulsar in a globular cluster it also observed astrophysical mazes around stars
00:17:41.240 forming star forming regions and giant stars and finally it observed gravitational lenses including
00:17:48.560 the detection of the first gravitational lens and the first Einstein ring. Okay, I'm not going to
00:17:55.040 give you any more astrophysics facts, but it's been pretty important, right? It's pretty obvious
00:17:59.720 that it's an important thing. It's the sort of thing that even 10 years ago would have been
00:18:06.620 considered quite instrumental to Britain's soft power around the world, given how connected it
00:18:12.740 has been to the achievements of other nations as well. And that was always something that
00:18:17.800 you know with the loss of the actual empire the British state put more and more emphasis on it's
00:18:24.460 like okay well we don't have the hard power anymore but we can still we still have things
00:18:28.100 like this to make us important yes for dealing with things around the world and now we see that
00:18:34.700 we're letting those go as well. So the Lovell telescope became a grade one listed building in
00:18:40.720 1988 out of recognition of its significance and then the whole site received UNESCO World Heritage
00:18:46.360 status in 2019 for its contributions to science, which are undeniable. Obviously, there are lots
00:18:54.720 of people that are upset about this. Here we have Professor Brian Cox, who has made a name for
00:18:59.100 himself for, you know, being a physicist. He's a professor of particle physics at the University
00:19:05.820 of Manchester. So obviously, it's not too far away from him. And of course, there are many people in
00:19:12.400 sort of astrophysics world and astronomy world they're very sad to see it go and he's saying
00:19:18.860 it's the result of many bad legacy decisions by taken by the UK Research Institute that's
00:19:23.760 taken hastily and without proper consultation overseen by a government department that no
00:19:28.640 longer exists he's trying to ask Andy Burnham whether he'll take time to review this because
00:19:34.780 of course Andy Burnham sort of known and affiliated with Manchester if you haven't heard
00:19:39.840 and it's pretty close to him so it would be a pretty bad look if things around his old stomping
00:19:45.900 ground started closing down especially things as iconic as this we also had this guy Calamee
00:19:52.960 Douglas who is a mechanical engineer and a fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society he was saying
00:19:59.260 it'll get mothballed for about 10 years and it'll be discovered by someone that is actually a very
00:20:03.440 good thing for Britain to have it'll be discovered that when it was shut everything has been
00:20:08.080 corroded and nobody can remember how the software works it will be scrapped and a new one will be
00:20:13.320 built in its place for a thousand a hundred times the cost of just maintaining the old one for
00:20:18.600 another 50 years which sounds pretty accurate to me and there's also this as well the fact that
00:20:27.340 if you add up public sector pensions our debt to GDP ratio is 153 percent so there's all of this
00:20:36.920 money going to lots of different areas and we can't find 2.8 million for one of the best things
00:20:41.800 we've ever built on these shores which is just ridiculous and uh one final thing is uh here's
00:20:48.460 Morgoth rightfully pointing out we surveil people instead of the stars now which is rather depressing
00:20:53.980 but undeniably always a good take from Morgoth yeah but it's not all uh woe and misery because
00:21:00.780 you can contribute to the maintenance of the site because you can visit it and I had a look uh last
00:21:06.120 night and tickets at the minute are 15 pounds per adult and they're a family ticket so if you want
00:21:11.460 to visit it with your family you can and that will go towards maintaining the site so other people
00:21:16.980 can view it and enjoy. I think there's a visitor center and all sorts of things that you can see
00:21:23.880 as well as the fact that you can just donate money to support it directly and this goes to
00:21:29.760 the actual research which is the thing that's being cut. I'm hoping that the maintenance of
00:21:34.960 the site with a visitor center and the like and the fact it's a unesco world heritage site
00:21:38.800 means that at the very least it will be maintained but there's no guarantee of it and so i'm sure
00:21:45.960 people can visit it and it'll be an interesting thing but it'd be a lot more interesting if it
00:21:50.000 was still operating as a scientific research station and there is a way of doing it but it
00:21:55.520 should really be the government putting money towards this you don't hear me saying that very
00:21:59.420 often and so the fact that I am should be taken note but yes this is something that is very
00:22:06.040 important and yeah we're frittering away money in all different directions why not spend it
00:22:11.620 on something that is an unequivocal good good okay one for one paladin I'm not against space
00:22:20.880 scientific research getting government money on the other hand if the government is overspending
00:22:25.360 i understand them cutting funding assuming good intentions but the problem is they're not cutting
00:22:29.820 funding in the right areas i think um that were there a reasonable and sensible government they
00:22:36.380 would have cut other things rather than this oh yeah in my opinion not in a million years would
00:22:41.980 i cut this no like it's so obviously an important thing sigil stone says josh is looking more greek
00:22:48.860 than stelios today while stelios looks like he's about to tell peter parkle he failed his exam by
00:22:54.460 failing to show up on time he was a minute late stelius is going to turn into the lizard
00:22:59.980 and that's a random name let's see if it's a fed post because that's a random name you're
00:23:06.780 you're really doing it with a postering chief okay these facilities are incredibly useful for
00:23:13.700 detecting potential intelligent life this is definitely a fed post yes i'm joking the first
00:23:19.580 tests were done on earth they were able to pick up signals all over the place except in
00:23:25.420 certain continent yeah what south of us it was a joke but it ended up being true
00:23:35.660 oh chick door says jokes do if elon wanted to buy it the government would deny it and still let it
00:23:42.720 die probably that is entirely likely yeah absolutely right so okay um all right then
00:23:50.500 ladies and gentlemen so uh last week i actually did a segment talking about the current demographic
00:23:57.160 replacement going on in new zealand and that was really the chief aim of it i wanted to
00:24:03.700 highlight uh the way that the conversation is traveling in new zealand point out some
00:24:08.920 commonalities that, you know, the direction of travel shares with our own plight here in Britain
00:24:13.500 and the wider West and really just raise awareness for how close to the edge New Zealand is now
00:24:20.260 finding itself. So I did all of this, but very rare to say, but I actually had a few emails
00:24:27.420 from people who were listening in from New Zealand. And although they were, you know,
00:24:32.340 more than happy with me covering those parts of the conversation, they did have some very
00:24:38.180 good faith criticisms of the way that I spoke about the party New Zealand First in that segment,
00:24:44.780 because I brushed over it all quite frivolously, really because it wasn't the main, the chief part
00:24:53.000 of the segment. It was just one bit in the whole. But nonetheless, people came back to me quite
00:24:57.920 consistently and said, you've misjudged this, Luca. Actually, New Zealand First are a party
00:25:03.060 that are worth endorsing and are worth getting behind. So in the light of the fact that if New
00:25:10.000 Zealand does not find a way out of this mess, it's going to look like this, as we covered in the last
00:25:16.380 segment, well, really, I am obviously going to support whatever party can at least slow the rate
00:25:23.420 of decline and give New Zealand that thing which it is grievously running out of, which is time.
00:25:30.140 And so we get to the point where we have the fact that obviously you now have the New Zealanders.
00:25:36.660 And if I go to this one, you can see.
00:25:40.200 So as of the 2023 census population counts, you can scroll down and you can find that if I see it here.
00:25:48.900 Yeah. So while the population identifying with European ethnicities remains the largest at nearly 3.4 million people,
00:25:55.860 People identifying with Maori, Asian, Pacific peoples, and Middle Eastern, Latin American, and African, or MILA, apparently.
00:26:03.600 That's their way of saying it. 0.76
00:26:05.180 A hodgepodge of various backgrounds, that is. 1.00
00:26:08.160 They are all the same, only in the sense that they are not European.
00:26:12.260 And so they get put in that category, increasing their share in the total population.
00:26:17.600 So you can see here, the Maoris are about 17%, but it's the Asian population as well.
00:26:25.220 Now, obviously, this includes all sorts of peoples. This is South Asian, Southeast Asian, it's Indian, it's Chinese, it's Filipino, Indonesian, Malaysian, people from all over the Asian continent, which I need to tell you, is a bloody big continent.
00:26:41.120 And when you're looking at a country like New Zealand, which has only a population of just beyond 5 million, then you're looking at a situation where, okay, well, this either continues on indefinitely, at which case that entire continuity from the arrival of the European explorers to now is just cut off forever.
00:27:02.200 Doesn't 90% of all humanity live in Asia or something like that? I believe I heard that. I don't know whether...
00:27:08.320 90%.
00:27:09.320 When you think about it, like India and China alone, a very large proportion of all of humanity, right?
00:27:16.000 Yeah, they are. I mean, I don't know. I mean, on the face of it, I get a bit...
00:27:20.340 But it's a lot. It's definitely 60, 70.
00:27:23.920 And so really, we come to the point where it's like, okay, well, really, what you're looking for then in New Zealand is simply the party that is most aware of the problem of immigration,
00:27:34.960 of the fact that framing it, as it rightly should be, 0.62
00:27:39.300 as something which has been put upon New Zealand
00:27:41.660 entirely without consent,
00:27:43.860 and is also something as well that you figure that, yeah?
00:27:48.200 60%.
00:27:48.720 Right.
00:27:49.060 So if you turn the nine the other way around,
00:27:52.780 you know, it sort of made sense.
00:27:54.900 My brain wasn't buying it.
00:27:55.800 Africa has many people as well.
00:27:57.280 Well, that's what I was thinking as well.
00:27:59.120 Anyway, so the point is,
00:28:01.580 New Zealand is going to have to look for a party 0.98
00:28:04.540 that is sensible to the problems that immigration are bringing to it. 0.97
00:28:08.600 And ultimately as well, we come into the fact that, well, actually just so happens 0.99
00:28:13.880 that New Zealand has an election coming up this year later on,
00:28:19.200 which I do believe is on November the 7th.
00:28:23.740 So we can see here all of the different parties at play.
00:28:28.740 Now, these are obviously not entirely one-for-ones to our own British view of politics,
00:28:35.820 but obviously you can see that New Zealand itself very much suffers from the old red-blue switcheroo
00:28:42.560 that has basically plagued our parliamentary system.
00:28:46.720 It sounds familiar.
00:28:47.720 Yeah, for decades and decades now.
00:28:50.080 You can see that the Green Party, they have one of those two because they're always there, aren't they?
00:28:56.380 just it does seem to at least in the colors this might be a superficial comparison so do excuse me
00:29:02.400 but you've got the national party which is similar to our conservative party i'd imagine
00:29:06.300 the labor party which is similar to our labor party the greens are the insurgent left-wing
00:29:10.760 party new zealand first are like uh reform or restore perhaps where they're the insurgent
00:29:16.740 right-wing party and then act i presume are like the lib dems they're the association of
00:29:22.220 consumers and taxpayers. That's what they stand for. From what I understand of it,
00:29:28.460 they are actually a part of the coalition government right now, but they are sort of
00:29:32.600 centre-right, classical liberal, somewhat fact-right in their economics.
00:29:38.180 I imagine the Maori is an ethnic grievance party by any chance. 0.65
00:29:42.420 Well, we'll come back to that actually a little bit later on. So what we obviously need to know
00:29:47.560 is that the head of government is, of course, the prime minister. And he obviously comes from
00:29:52.320 the party which gains the chiefest number of votes. But because New Zealand has an MMP as a
00:29:58.120 mixed member proportional system, basically, this allows the party, you know, it's the same problem
00:30:06.160 that you have on the continent. Invariably, what proportional representation consistently requires
00:30:11.360 you to do, is for the winners, who won with a clear majority, to compromise on their own
00:30:17.760 positive messaging with a bunch of other smaller parties that didn't win, just so that you can
00:30:25.160 implement something approaching what your manifesto policies originally were. And I have
00:30:30.680 many criticisms of PR, and as much of a nightmare as it is sometimes in this country, I am actually
00:30:37.900 very glad that we have a first pass or post system. No, well, we'll have that another time
00:30:44.060 then, because I want to stay focused on this for now. But the point is that, yes, New Zealand first
00:30:49.980 is the one that we're going to be focusing on here. And as you can see here, it's on about 11.2%,
00:30:55.620 which is certainly not nothing. And it's obviously, you know, staying pretty stable around 11%, 12%
00:31:02.760 as the months roll on. So I suppose we ought to talk about it. Now, New Zealand First is the
00:31:11.580 leader of the party is a man called Winston Peters. And New Zealand First as well, it's just
00:31:16.980 quite important to point out, are also a part of this coalition government right now. So Winston
00:31:23.960 Peters is actually the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Now, he's actually occupied this position several
00:31:29.140 times in the past. But of course, this is a very helpful thing. Now, when it came to addressing
00:31:36.720 this question the last time I did this segment, I was a little bit dismissive, purely out of my
00:31:43.380 ignorance, I freely admit, and I should have researched it more thoroughly. But this is what
00:31:47.960 I'm trying to make up for now. And you get to the point where, so Peters has basically,
00:31:53.020 uh in being in charge of the ministry of foreign affairs he is also obviously it gives him and his
00:32:00.000 party much more exposure because he is a leading face in government this is good for his own party
00:32:05.540 especially when he actually fights the majority of that coalition government on questions such as
00:32:14.160 the india free trade deal which is a good uh battle line to draw to be honest it absolutely
00:32:20.460 is. And they are a very, very consistent party. So you can see, as they say, so in fact, if I just
00:32:27.180 go back to here, sorry, if I go to About Us and Our Story. So the party, this is quite interesting
00:32:35.720 as well, because one of the things that I've obviously been looking for as I go through the
00:32:41.020 policies and the sort of speech of New Zealand First is what type of anti-establishment party
00:32:48.980 are they? Are they New Zealand's equivalent of Restore Britain? Are they New Zealand's equivalent
00:32:56.320 of Reform UK? What are they? To what extent are they the containment party? To what extent do they
00:33:03.820 seem to actually have their finger on the pulse of a lot of issues? Now, obviously, I freely admit
00:33:10.320 that someone who lives in New Zealand will be more of an authority on this than I am. But ultimately,
00:33:16.480 Part of the reason why we live in a world where the West are all encountering the same problems is because of the globalizing, sort of universalizing nature of the financial systems and a lot of the cultural power that academia all across the Western nations have allowed to obviously, you know, seep into the thinking of politicians across the West.
00:33:41.600 So, though they will have their own individual particulars, they will also share common concerns with us that are obviously plaguing them.
00:33:50.420 No, I just wanted to say that it's also good to sometimes keep an eye on in mind because there are more contingencies.
00:33:58.360 You could have two containment parties.
00:34:01.240 You could have two anti-establishment parties.
00:34:04.500 Just throwing some more possibilities.
00:34:08.000 Absolutely.
00:34:08.480 And so New Zealand First were actually formed back in 1993 to represent those New Zealanders concerned about the social and economic direction of our country and who were seeking pragmatic, common sense representation in Parliament.
00:34:22.940 In 1990, the National Party, so the Tories of their system, were elected with the largest government majority in New Zealand history, attaining two thirds of the seats in Parliament.
00:34:34.200 It was seen as a rejection of the neoliberal policies of the fourth Labour government.
00:34:39.920 However, the fourth national government would continue with policies along the same lines.
00:34:45.140 Sound familiar, Josh?
00:34:46.380 I was just about to say.
00:34:48.420 It's like when the Conservatives won in 2010 over here, isn't it?
00:34:51.640 Not to compare everything to ourselves, of course, but it's quite interesting to me
00:34:58.540 The playbook seems to be the same in every country, really, where the same betrayal from the sort of mainstream right wing party carrying on the policies of the left.
00:35:11.140 And of course, this isn't just a coincidence, because, of course, there is a global political system whereby all of these people would have met and communicated and shared ideas.
00:35:23.040 And so it is ultimately a failure of this way of thinking that has led us to this point.
00:35:29.040 And you can see as well, as it says, as a cabinet minister, the Right Honourable Winston Peters spoke out against the economic policies continued by the Minister of Finance, Ruth Richardson.
00:35:40.120 Mr. Peters was soon dropped from cabinet, but he continued to question the neoliberal policy agenda and resigned from the National Party leading up to the 1993 general election.
00:35:50.740 A by-election in Taranga was triggered, and Mr. Peter regained the seat as an independent with the highest margin of 91% of any election after having held the seat since 1981.
00:36:05.620 Now, obviously, what this suggests was is that, you know, certainly based on his own constituents, they believed in what he was trying to do.
00:36:13.660 They believed in the rebellion against the consensus of the national government and obviously against the previous Labour Party as well.
00:36:22.160 And one of the things that has, I suppose, pleasantly surprised me so much about New Zealand First, actually, is that it is not a continuation of basic Thatcherite neoliberalism.
00:36:35.100 In fact, if I were to consider their economics, they're actually much more akin to the SDP here, I would say.
00:36:42.180 And so they actually show a healthy scepticism of the extremes of both ends, which I think is welcome, actually, and something that people should be taking seriously.
00:36:52.640 And so obviously, well, what are their policies?
00:36:56.300 Now, as an example of it, just here, as we say, break up the supermarket duopoly.
00:37:01.620 For too long, New Zealanders have faced rising grocery bills, while Woolworths and foodstuffs control more than 80% of the grocery market.
00:37:08.620 The Commerce Commission has previously found these supermarkets gain earnings of around £1 million a day in excess profits.
00:37:15.920 Well, you should expose Woolworths to our economy, because we used to have a Woolworth.
00:37:19.880 We did, yeah.
00:37:20.860 And our economy was so inhospitable that it had to close.
00:37:27.380 Yeah, yeah.
00:37:28.640 God, it feels like a lifetime ago, actually.
00:37:30.840 I know.
00:37:31.240 I used to get pick and mix when I was a kid in Woolworths.
00:37:33.620 Yeah, but obviously they're up to no good over in New Zealand.
00:37:37.640 so I've got to put a stop to it. You can see all the policies here, and I'm going to go through
00:37:43.920 them. Now, one of the things that is most encouraging is this here, which is a referendum
00:37:49.460 on the Maori seats. Now, I don't say that out of any sense of spite against the Maoris, right?
00:37:57.360 This is not the point. The point is that it's encouraging to actually see a party that is
00:38:03.460 willing to at least question a lot of the sacred cows of the liberal paradigm and suggests that
00:38:09.980 actually whatever progressive gains have been accumulated by the left, that these aren't just
00:38:16.680 the next thing from which we start the conversation. There actually has to be a conversation about
00:38:21.760 whether or not some of these progressive developments were in fact a mistake and were
00:38:27.040 bad. And based on the way that this is framed here, you can see it's a public referendum on
00:38:32.480 the Maori seats. And the reason is, it says, well, it's been said many times, but it's a vitally
00:38:38.620 undeniable fact that the Royal Commission in the electoral system in 1986 stated that with the
00:38:44.120 implementation of MMP, it would create a more representative parliament and the original
00:38:50.500 justification for separate Maori seats would no longer exist. This point cannot be ignored.
00:38:56.740 The Maori Party's behaviour over the past two years has been the last straw.
00:39:02.120 They hold the majority of the Maori seats and do not turn up to Parliament,
00:39:06.700 disregard the rules and process, and show utter disdain for the system
00:39:11.100 that gives them the very seats that they hold.
00:39:13.740 They represent no one.
00:39:15.280 They have proven the seats they hold are no longer relevant,
00:39:18.380 nor serve their original purpose.
00:39:20.060 And so, as he says, we have just had the referendum on local Maori...
00:39:24.460 Sorry, you want to say something started?
00:39:25.960 I just wanted to ask you if we have watched the Maori doing the haka in New Zealand,
00:39:32.800 or was that in Australia? 0.99
00:39:34.440 No, the Maori disrupting parliament doing their silly little dance 0.92
00:39:37.580 was in the New Zealand parliament, I believe. 1.00
00:39:41.200 Yes.
00:39:41.460 And you can see them being very jaded. 0.99
00:39:44.340 Also, you can do your silly little dance all you like, 0.62
00:39:47.660 but it's not intimidating anyone, because when Britain turned up, 0.87
00:39:51.580 we just signed an agreement.
00:39:52.740 we didn't even have to fight um we were just like yeah well you can become part of the british
00:39:57.440 empire and it was all paperwork and signing signatures exactly and so you know it's a little
00:40:06.160 bit rich doing that sort of thing when actually we we came to a civil and and amicable agreement
00:40:12.260 and by by the nature of that mass immigration into new zealand changes the nature of that
00:40:18.920 agreement, because then all of a sudden you're not having a conversation between two peoples,
00:40:24.800 but many, many different peoples. And a lot of those new arrivals are probably not going to come
00:40:31.020 with the same sense of fairness to the Maoris or to the, you know, the white New Zealanders,
00:40:37.460 for that matter, you know, as you would have otherwise. But he points out here, additionally,
00:40:42.800 the um sorry but the fact is we currently have a record number of maori in parliament and in
00:40:49.400 cabinet with 27 of the house having a maori background far higher than the often claimed
00:40:55.560 17 of the country's maori population so basically he's just making a point about maori over influence
00:41:02.260 and over representation maori occupied government yeah maori occupied um there's also the matter of
00:41:10.660 just having a policy for completing the Christchurch Cathedral because it was damaged, I believe,
00:41:16.060 in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. And due to the way that government often addresses these
00:41:25.840 big development projects, I mean, God, just look at our state with HS2, right? It's just like,
00:41:32.940 we're not very good at these sorts of things. And so they basically have a plan for getting
00:41:37.300 the cathedral finished um there's also the fact of citizens only voting yep that'd be a really
00:41:43.380 good thing actually it's a pretty basic thing to maintain an actual nation is only having your
00:41:49.940 citizens able to vote it's kind of insane that there's never a standard that non-citizens can
00:41:56.200 vote yes especially when um you ramp up immigration so because look even if um i mean i obviously
00:42:03.940 don't endorse it. But if you are having, say, an uptick of about 10,000 people in immigration a
00:42:12.000 year, yeah, it might skew the odd council elections or something. But if you're bringing in 100,000
00:42:19.520 people a year, that has the potential to very, very rapidly change the nature of the political
00:42:26.540 settlement of your country. Especially when the population isn't 100 million, it's 5 million.
00:42:31.360 Yes. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so we can see here, New Zealand First has announced that they will be campaigning to change electoral law to ensure that only citizens have the right to vote.
00:42:41.880 Currently, any permanent resident who has gone through the normal process after just, sorry, currently any permanent resident who has gone through the normal process after just two years of living in New Zealand can vote, which is mental, genuinely mental. 0.58
00:42:57.040 In addition, anyone who is here on certain visas that have no expiry date are technically eligible to vote after just one year of living in New Zealand. 0.70
00:43:07.700 By the way, ladies and gentlemen, these are the only sorts of policies you would actually implement if you wanted to undermine your own democracy.
00:43:16.940 No one who actually cared about their country would ever allow these sorts of things to happen or to take root within their society.
00:43:24.120 In a functional society, every party across the political spectrum would say, okay, maybe citizens should be the ones that should vote and no one else.
00:43:33.540 But sorry, Stelius.
00:43:34.040 No, I just wanted to say that what amazes me is every time we hear the diversity is a strength narrative that is coupled with the let's protect our democracy narrative, it's just there's no consideration of the demos.
00:43:48.240 And, you know, that's essentially who is supposed to be the bearer of self-determination.
00:43:54.120 yes so without that it's just an economic zone with a number of people living in it but that's
00:44:01.140 not what constitutes a people no well and also as well you see this in the example of how
00:44:07.260 new zealand first were actually formed the national party came in obviously based on a set
00:44:13.940 of policies that were saying we are going to change course from the neoliberalism of the
00:44:19.560 Labour Party that we've just won an election against and then continue to do a similar style
00:44:26.460 of policies, just like when David Cameron said to us that, you know, oh, there'd be a bonfire of the
00:44:31.880 quangos and that we'd get immigration down to the tens of thousands. It's like, OK, but you didn't
00:44:37.840 do those things. The opposite. Yeah, you did the opposite of those things. And so it's like,
00:44:42.660 doesn't that, I mean, again, it just, it's the sort of thing that makes a voting citizen resentful
00:44:49.060 of an establishment. Let's just put it that way. But then we also come to other points like this,
00:44:56.300 which is the future-proofing our fuel security. So New Zealand first will be campaigning on an
00:45:01.520 initial investment of $1 billion over the term of government into a national subsurface development
00:45:09.520 survey to identify and create one national data set across energy, geothermal, and CO2 storage
00:45:17.040 sites and create the framework for New Zealand to develop those sites, extract these resources
00:45:22.740 and build our own country's resilience and prosperous economic future. So similar to
00:45:30.040 what the Norwegians do with their oil, they just sit on all of that money based on their 0.62
00:45:36.180 activities in the North Sea. Sovereign Wealth Fund is one of the biggest in the world.
00:45:40.540 Thank you. Yeah, that's the word I was looking for. The Sovereign Wealth Fund, something
00:45:43.620 similar to that. And what a great idea, especially for a smaller country like New Zealand, that
00:45:51.220 because of its limited population could easily be dominated by foreign nations such as India and
00:45:59.580 China, or Japan for that matter, just any sort of, and of course Australia at the side being
00:46:06.760 significantly bigger as well. And so these are the sorts of long-term thinking strategies
00:46:13.020 that I actually think would be a positive development for New Zealand to actually
00:46:18.980 adopt. And then we get to the overall rhetoric of New Zealand First when it comes to immigration.
00:46:27.780 Now, let's make something absolutely clear. Are New Zealand First the party of mass deportations?
00:46:35.980 Are they the party of reversing the mass immigration into the country? No, they're not.
00:46:41.540 But they are in favour of taking a much more guarded approach against incoming immigration.
00:46:49.600 And certainly, as I'll point out in a minute, they're also not in favour of being fleeced on trade deals by India, 0.64
00:46:59.080 who basically use every free trade agreement to basically shove in, you know, X number of migrants into whatever country they're making a deal with.
00:47:08.600 And this is a more sensible and a more encouraging direction of travel than what New Zealand currently finds itself with, which is, of course, a government that is more than happy to sign off on trade deals that do include such addendums, such amendments.
00:47:27.780 So let's just listen to what Peter has to say here.
00:47:31.400 We were built on the back of focused migration. People came here because they had a job, they had a home to go to, they had a town to go to.
00:47:38.600 That's the way it was when we were a great country,
00:47:41.160 but what we've got now is utterly unfocused.
00:47:44.160 That's right. 0.88
00:47:45.340 More Kiwis left New Zealand and came back
00:47:47.360 while 73,000 immigrants settled here. 1.00
00:47:51.140 We're not even providing for the incoming,
00:47:53.760 let alone those who are here or coming from the provinces.
00:47:57.140 No, we're not xenophobic.
00:47:58.180 We're just not zombies.
00:48:00.000 133,000, that's more than the total population of Dunedin
00:48:04.620 in just 12 months last year.
00:48:06.800 Where was the funding and plan for any sort of infrastructure to cope with such numbers?
00:48:12.240 We need a smarter immigration system that focuses on the needs of the employers, industry and Kiwi workers. 0.88
00:48:20.620 What the music's about.
00:48:22.060 I was going to say, no, I can't explain the Zoomer edits music in the background, ladies and gentlemen.
00:48:28.700 But in terms of the messaging, as I say, as a party that is currently at about 11% in the polls, I think it makes far more sense for the time being to basically work with New Zealand first and basically stop these loopholes and exploitations that are being used and that will have much stronger immigration restrictions and allow for them.
00:48:55.600 Well, as I say, it will bide time.
00:48:57.560 Now, if I go to 1725 in this speech, because New Zealand First just had their recent convention.
00:49:08.920 It was the 33rd national convention for their party.
00:49:16.760 And I just wanted to draw out this bit here.
00:49:19.360 It's committing as an election promise to get the Mill Road corridor built as a priority.
00:49:25.600 You will have seen in recent months that New Zealand First 0.81
00:49:34.180 is against the Indian Free Trade Agreement and for good reason.
00:49:38.760 It's not the great deal that's been portrayed by other political parties. 0.98
00:49:43.140 We aren't against free trade agreements.
00:49:45.940 Look, it's written into the New Zealand First Coalition with National
00:49:48.680 to specifically prioritise an FTA with India.
00:49:54.760 It's in our agreement.
00:49:56.520 But we are against bad free trade agreements
00:49:59.100 that are not in New Zealand's best interest.
00:50:02.460 If you talk about the good parts of the Indian FTA,
00:50:05.480 you have to talk about the bad parts,
00:50:08.100 which other political parties are conveniently ignoring,
00:50:11.200 brushing off, or passing the buck.
00:50:14.120 Now, New Zealand First has highlighted from day one
00:50:16.100 the reasons this deal is bad.
00:50:19.440 We stated from day one that this deal 0.99
00:50:21.240 had unprecedented immigration
00:50:23.480 settings including
00:50:25.320 uncapped student numbers
00:50:26.660 with working rights and 5,000 visa
00:50:29.280 holders and in New Zealand able
00:50:31.300 to bring in families with them
00:50:32.640 that's in the agreement
00:50:34.680 that is in addition to other uncapped immigration
00:50:37.440 work visa pathways within the
00:50:39.320 agreement. Did I say that?
00:50:41.120 No, the Prime Minister of India said that
00:50:42.700 the Trade Ministry of India
00:50:45.140 said that, the Communications Ministry of India
00:50:47.340 says that. The ultimate
00:50:49.240 question and problem we have is why 0.99
00:50:51.160 Why has immigration been made one of the centrepieces
00:50:53.820 of what is meant to be a free trade deal? 0.63
00:50:57.220 Why has this become a free... 0.69
00:50:59.200 That's because India, whenever they have a trade agreement, 1.00
00:51:02.360 like the gypsies in the film Snatch, throw in... 1.00
00:51:05.860 In the film, they throw in a dog. 1.00
00:51:08.300 In India, they throw in a couple million Indians. 0.98
00:51:10.800 They're always throwing migrants in with deals, you know? 0.99
00:51:14.260 But I'm pleased to see this. 0.99
00:51:16.040 This is good rhetoric at the end of the day
00:51:18.060 because it's actually acknowledging the fact
00:51:20.260 that it's taking into account, no, but what is the Indian agenda with this? And Modi is very vocal
00:51:27.320 about all of this. And yet the Europeans and the Canadians and so on and so forth are all gullible
00:51:32.900 enough or complicit enough to go along with it. And so it's an encouraging thing to see him speaking
00:51:38.980 about it in terms of a way that actually protects the New Zealand workers. And the other thing as
00:51:44.560 well, is that there are obviously a lot of the other things that you would expect a party of
00:51:50.460 this character to hold to. Some of the questions that we don't talk about so much these days,
00:51:55.380 but I don't know what stage New Zealand is at with its conversation. But when it comes to things like
00:52:00.200 stopping puberty blockers in children, obviously, taking men out of women's sports, you know,
00:52:05.840 all that low-hanging fruit that just was ridiculous on the face of it. But also as well,
00:52:10.660 I think importantly, and some things that certainly shore up the party's anti-establishment credentials, the fact that they want to fight against digital ID.
00:52:21.000 They also actually just, Peters himself just uses the word nationalism, very, very easy with the word.
00:52:29.480 And also the fact that they want to, would want to create a new select committee inquiry to look at those who have been injured during the COVID era.
00:52:38.940 That's quite something.
00:52:39.780 Yeah, due to, well, just how a drunken authority Jacinda Ardern obviously got when all of that was going on down in New Zealand.
00:52:49.780 And so I actually see all of these as really encouraging things outside of just purely the lens of the immigration question.
00:52:58.640 These are actually really encouraging. And they speak to a party that I think is shows obviously some confidence in having the conversations that perhaps the rest of New Zealand's establishment don't want to have.
00:53:11.000 And so it is encouraging. And so, look, I am obviously not a Kiwi, but I am certainly as someone who has now done two New Zealand segments in two weeks.
00:53:21.740 I am someone who cares a great deal for them, for your future and for the survival of your people, because it's certainly a country that I dream of going to one day myself and meeting many people there.
00:53:35.120 And also as well, it's obviously a nation that shares a very key and special role in the national story of Britain and our own story as well, and the Commonwealth and the Empire.
00:53:46.900 And, you know, New Zealand has been for many, many decades such an admirable country.
00:53:53.000 And it would be a great pity to see it all go to ruin because of the negligence of but one generation of politicians.
00:54:01.780 and so i would encourage you to um you know get the message out there about new zealand first
00:54:08.980 because actually upon a closer inspection i think they are a party that uh you know may
00:54:16.260 actually fight your corner on a few issues i didn't mention that it's home to middle earth
00:54:22.380 as well blimey no i showed incredible restraint okay let's go to the video comments i like the
00:54:29.000 that this comment i don't know if it's i think i think we can say it what do you think josh what
00:54:35.160 where are you that's a random name one with the alien yeah you can say that one right okay so um
00:54:40.300 for once not a fed post someone well done if ever we don't want aliens to visit us just blast
00:54:47.600 the maori hacker through deep space then again the noise pollution might actually get the aliens to
00:54:53.720 purge your planet which that's a random name finds tempting um it also says uh sigil stone
00:55:01.660 of two dollars says uh never mind that was oh right sorry yes below first that would make sense
00:55:06.800 he says how is new zealand's migrant uh government going to address the wallabies 0.64
00:55:11.340 high on heroin making crop circles um yeah never mind that was tasmania can't keep australia's 0.56
00:55:17.960 Satellite Island Strait.
00:55:19.800 Oof.
00:55:21.320 Yep.
00:55:22.060 Okay, let's go.
00:55:22.940 Why all the shades, Sigil Stone?
00:55:24.580 What have they ever done to you?
00:55:26.020 I mean, I'm definitely looking that up after this is over, though.
00:55:29.420 Yeah.
00:55:31.300 Stelios versus the mouse.
00:55:32.600 May I have control of the mouse, please?
00:55:35.220 Okay.
00:55:36.180 Right, okay.
00:55:37.760 We are going to talk about the University of Cambridge
00:55:40.480 and a recent controversy about the first black professor
00:55:43.960 of Cambridge University.
00:55:46.300 and take that everything i say with a pinch of salt we're going to talk about allegations
00:55:52.240 and it's going to be particularly interesting now we're already talking about pinching before we
00:55:58.180 say about more more about that we have islander number six only 14.99 definitely check it out
00:56:06.420 lots of scholars buy it also buy more copies of it because it's going to run out and also if you
00:56:12.280 want this to own it for yourself and you don't want other people to have it maybe buy all of
00:56:18.800 the remaining copies so you're so no one is gonna read it again it's gonna be just yours right i
00:56:26.240 want as many people as possible to read my middle earth stuff yeah i also want them to read your
00:56:32.000 stuff but also if someone wants to make an incredible purchase and wants to buy all of them
00:56:38.720 I mean, I'm not going to say no.
00:56:40.100 It is actually an investment.
00:56:41.060 I'm not going to say no.
00:56:41.600 No, sure.
00:56:42.340 Right, let's go forward and see what happened here at Cambridge University.
00:56:46.680 Right, so the University of Cambridge is engaging in a level of corruption and harassment of journalists,
00:56:53.740 according to Jess Sengel.
00:56:55.920 You simply don't see all that often.
00:56:58.200 And I say that as someone who has reported regularly on campus controversies.
00:57:02.980 I don't understand where their end game is here.
00:57:05.280 And they're talking about this man here who has a very interesting story, I'd say.
00:57:11.280 I bet he does.
00:57:12.020 But some people are questioning whether this story is true.
00:57:15.440 And also, there have been allegations of plagiarism.
00:57:18.940 And I will show you an article on Nathan Kofnus' Substack where he is showing the text of this man's PhD from 2015.
00:57:35.280 And also the other text that is remarkably similar, I'd say.
00:57:40.140 It's interesting how every single time these people in quite important professorial positions are found to plagiarize.
00:57:49.780 Even when I was just doing my master's degree, I did it in an area that had never been researched before.
00:57:54.120 I even came up with my own statistical analysis methodology.
00:57:57.860 And then they're over here just copying other people's work.
00:58:01.640 you'd think if you're doing a phd it's so novel and new that you couldn't plagiarize someone
00:58:07.320 like if you've got an interesting and genuinely worthwhile idea you can't plagiarize it because
00:58:12.500 no one's done it yet that's the whole point it's novel research and then you cite them in your
00:58:17.740 references josh i want us to be as fair as possible and i want to hear both sides so i want to play
00:58:27.580 part of this video i will not subject you to all of it but i want you to see uh please don't tempt
00:58:34.460 me don't tempt me right i i saw it now you have to right okay so i'll show you the first minute
00:58:41.420 and a half um this man talking about his story and then i'm going to show you the other side
00:58:48.240 because i haven't made up my mind yet i always felt it was a privilege to have a period of 11
00:58:55.100 years where maybe I couldn't speak and I couldn't converse in a way that everyone else could because
00:59:00.720 it allowed me to see things in a different way. Professor Jason Alday was diagnosed with autism
00:59:05.780 spectrum disorder at the age of three. He couldn't speak until he was 11 and read or write until he
00:59:12.360 was 18. Throughout his early years his parents continued to believe in him. At 18 my mum had
00:59:19.540 got to a point where there was only so much she could do and she was brilliant even though she
00:59:23.560 had this belief that you know he'll do something okay but she's just decided i need someone else
00:59:27.560 to believe in him as much as i believe in him therapist predicted he would need full-time
00:59:32.380 assistance throughout his life how wrong they were you okay no it was this man college tutor
00:59:39.860 sandro sandri who helped teach jason to read and write at 18 i'm just so happy for him
00:59:46.140 you know i'm speechless to be honest but i never that's the worst thing
00:59:52.500 very poor choice of words
00:59:56.480 so i want to say this though that i don't i can't hold that against him necessarily
01:00:04.080 because i have a family friend who spoke first for the first time when he was five
01:00:08.720 and he hasn't shot it ever since it's like one of those people who i love him to death but after a
01:00:14.300 while you just see a, you just shut down, your brain shuts down and just see a mouth opening.
01:00:19.660 Like Pac-Man.
01:00:21.220 Yes, exactly. Yes.
01:00:22.560 But one has to wonder that if you physically couldn't read and write by the age of 18,
01:00:28.080 there was some sort of impairment here. How far can you go with it? I hate to be that guy, but...
01:00:34.260 Yeah, I also don't like, Josh, you being that guy because it could be wrong diagnosis.
01:00:41.080 Wrong diagnosis do exist.
01:00:43.420 But if you can't read and write, regardless of what you were diagnosed with, that's a real thing, right?
01:00:48.540 You can think.
01:00:49.440 And two things that you need as an academic is being able to read and write and speak, actually.
01:00:55.080 And all three of those things are important to a much greater degree than most other professions.
01:01:01.080 Josh, what's the year?
01:01:03.680 2026.
01:01:05.000 So I basically answered you.
01:01:07.020 Right, okay.
01:01:08.380 The year of our Lord.
01:01:09.500 let's it's in 2026 you don't need to be able to read and write to be a scholar right so this is
01:01:16.540 the uh university of cambridge uh entry on jason jason are they appointed professor of sociology
01:01:24.700 at of education at university of cambridge now what did he study sociology no we'll see well
01:01:33.640 what okay so the renowned sociology j it's sorry i'm sorry i'm so exhausted i'm i'm lost for words
01:01:41.380 the renowned sociology the renowned sociologist jason are they if you're just looking at him as
01:01:49.780 is catching his condition still is to become a professor at the university of cambridge
01:01:55.360 the latest chapter in a remarkable academic career which began after he overcame illiteracy
01:02:02.480 in his late teens um are they literally glowing there you know i've heard of it in a metaphorical
01:02:10.520 sense but not not in an actual sense yeah but i mean ah i said i've i've spotted his qualification
01:02:17.980 in this next paragraph let's talk about it so are they is a highly respected scholar
01:02:23.180 of race equality and education with a particular interest in improving the representation of black
01:02:31.100 asian and minority ethnic people in higher education actually i i overlooked this guy i
01:02:36.900 too am an expert in race and inequality just uh perhaps in a different angle um i i haven't made
01:02:45.060 my mind yet you uh you two scholars should get together and uh talk about it he will take up
01:02:51.420 the post of professor sociology of education in the faculty of education university of cambridge
01:02:56.420 on on the 6th of march that is from 2023 at 37 he will be the youngest black person ever appointed
01:03:05.460 to a professorship at cambridge a platform he intends to use to inspire more people
01:03:11.600 from underrepresented backgrounds into higher education building on the university's many
01:03:17.060 initiatives in this area i mean they're running out of things to be notable just like he's the
01:03:22.480 youngest ever black person he's not the first black person he's just the youngest ever and 37
01:03:27.100 you mean i mean that's not that unusual to be a professor is younger than average perhaps i think
01:03:32.220 the way academia is developing right now it's it it is a bit unusual because there aren't any um
01:03:38.580 you get uh lots of uh you know one year contracts you don't get uh you know you don't get the
01:03:46.040 position where they tell you basically for us to fire you you may have you must get tenure yeah
01:03:51.580 you don't get tenure yeah but you they'd hire him just based on the uh from their own perspective
01:03:57.880 that is that the narrative power of of his story of his life right and like where he's come from
01:04:04.780 what he's doing and now to be the youngest it's like they would appoint him luca don't i don't
01:04:09.640 want i don't think you should rush to conclusions because uh you know you don't know you don't know
01:04:15.780 about the research maybe the research he did was was good well let's our reserve judgment let's
01:04:22.400 reserve judgment must be under to your bracket judgment like the phenomenologists right it is
01:04:27.760 a commitment rooted in experience rd has faced many personal challenges notably being diagnosed
01:04:33.940 at the age of three with a form of autism spectrum disorder which meant he was unable to speak until
01:04:40.340 he was 11, or to read or write until he was 18. Other parts of his story, however, epitomize the
01:04:46.780 significant barriers that neurodivergent individuals, those from lower socioeconomic
01:04:52.540 backgrounds and BAME people face when trying to build careers in the sector. So in Cambridge,
01:04:59.300 on the Cambridge page for him, they sort of can't stop talking about how it's about representation.
01:05:06.940 so they don't say this is a man this is his work they constantly say about how this is portraying
01:05:13.560 this is furthering the um the goal of of identity politics here is the wikipedia entry that says
01:05:22.740 some interesting things about early career and about appointments and about fundraising his
01:05:29.300 he allegedly has raised more than eight million pounds i mean it's worthwhile for cambridge alone
01:05:36.920 the fact he could raise eight million pounds and also uh by running marathons and he has said here
01:05:43.060 essentially where is it it has to do with him running marathons because he has made several
01:05:49.360 claims about who he is and who in his story that some people aren't aren't treating as true
01:05:57.420 they don't think that they are particularly credible statements one such statement is
01:06:04.060 about his running capabilities at some point he said that he ran 600 miles in six days
01:06:13.600 so he ran 100 miles a day yeah that and the claim later changed to 600 miles in 12 days again
01:06:23.080 according to wikipedia double the days he forgot to double the mileage yeah um so that's one thing
01:06:31.280 that initially was, according to several sources, they say that this was something that the
01:06:39.600 universities he was affiliated with marketed about him, but they retracted.
01:06:45.760 I mean, there's another mark off the bingo card for stereotypes.
01:06:49.920 Even that though, I don't know why, if just for argument's sake, it is true that he ran 600 miles
01:06:56.400 in 12 days like why not just say that why have to make it sound but like running 50 miles a day
01:07:02.400 for 12 days is still pretty yeah pretty good yeah i don't know how credible it is though
01:07:08.560 i couldn't do that well you can you will right you will okay so um this was a story this story
01:07:18.380 along with other considerations and concerns about the scholarship of this individual of
01:07:26.260 Jason Arday, has sort of nested academia and Cambridge and, generally speaking, UK universities.
01:07:36.420 And there was about... Times Higher Education was about to do an article on him, but last minute,
01:07:45.660 they didn't. So let's see what happened. Exclusive. News outlet killed story on plagiarism
01:07:51.380 allegations after Cambridge professor hired law firm. Right, let's see what happened. In September
01:07:57.440 2025, Times Higher Education had a bombshell story in the works. A star sociology professor
01:08:05.140 at the University of Cambridge had allegedly, allegedly, plagiarized parts of his PhD thesis
01:08:12.440 and several journal articles. In one of the articles, the borrowed text appeared in quotes
01:08:17.620 from subjects the professor jason or they claim to have interviewed himself right so but also 0.96
01:08:24.920 could i could i just add here that plagiarism in academia is such a stupid thing to do one um
01:08:31.920 it there the plagiarism detectors are so good these days and even like some of the ai detectors
01:08:38.260 are getting reasonably good that you can't get away with it and two um normally your work is
01:08:44.800 marked by someone who is actually an expert in the field and will have read the papers that you're
01:08:51.220 plagiarizing um at least one would hope so at cambridge and so what you're doing is just being
01:08:58.660 lazy for no reason someone will find out um and well but it's also yeah but ai is systemically
01:09:06.880 racist isn't it josh quite useful yeah but this is the error someone might find out the question
01:09:13.640 is will they care right that's true and the question becomes okay is that is the plagiarism
01:09:20.200 more important alleged plagiarism is that more important than all of the uh i mean let's face it
01:09:27.940 you know as you were going through the other uh slide about you know oh what wonderful uh stuff
01:09:33.440 this will do for diversity and everything they're not talking about his novel and incisive work and
01:09:38.080 contributions to academia aren't they it's obvious which reason is most important for him being in
01:09:44.160 the position well isn't he doing like um racism studies and things like that it's like isn't he
01:09:50.600 what was his specialization according to the cambridge uh page here about him it says that
01:09:57.860 he is very much interested in inequality so he's basically saying like trees and grass are racist
01:10:04.980 The outdoors is racist to me because of...
01:10:07.340 Isn't it?
01:10:08.580 Okay, he says that he takes a particular interest
01:10:11.620 in improving the representation of BAME people in higher education.
01:10:15.500 And later on in other areas, in other places,
01:10:20.600 he says that he wants to lead this globally as well as nationally.
01:10:25.900 Right, so let's go back to this article and see.
01:10:29.560 But after Arde enlisted Carter Rack,
01:10:32.360 one of the UK's leading defamation law firms, to send Times Higher Education a letter.
01:10:38.600 The publication spiked the story, according to three sources who spoke to a retraction watch.
01:10:44.900 One of the sources was David Sanders, a biochemist at Purdue University in Indiana,
01:10:50.060 and a sleuth who contributes to the Times Higher Education on topics related to academic misconduct.
01:10:56.340 And the allegations against R-Day finally emerged last week following a sub-stack post by Nathan Kofnes, a philosopher at the University of Ghent in Belgium.
01:11:08.240 Kofnas, who is known for his controversial writings on racial differences, independently
01:11:13.120 identified dozens of passages in R.D.'s 2015 dissertation that were taken nearly verbatim
01:11:22.120 from the 2009 dissertation of Paula Zwozdiak-Meyers, now a reader at Brunel University of London.
01:11:31.620 Now, without further ado, I want us to say one thing that he replied by saying that this is racism.
01:11:41.240 And I want to show you this.
01:11:42.380 No way.
01:11:43.820 I never would have guessed.
01:11:45.240 He replied by saying it is racism.
01:11:49.300 And he says here, you get the email and they say you conducted academic misconduct.
01:11:55.260 And you think to yourself, well, this is incredible.
01:11:58.920 as opposed to running 600 miles in six days without being a professional athlete yeah whatever
01:12:05.860 i'm on the back foot here how do i defend myself against this machine he said the instruments that
01:12:12.360 are designed to protect academic integrity designed to protect the well-being and our
01:12:17.440 intellectual property are weaponized that's yeah against what it's defending
01:12:21.720 Okay. And also there were other academics who did raise the issue. And he replied by saying,
01:12:31.740 again, it's racism. So this is another academic. Harris wanted to know if RDA could explain some
01:12:37.380 puzzling similarities. We will talk about that. I'm building anticipation between sentences in
01:12:44.100 that article and BMJ, that's a British medical journal open study from epidemiologist Andrew
01:12:52.620 Memon about mental health services in BAME communities.
01:12:56.700 The British medical journal is a journal that I've read quite a lot. It's quite a
01:13:01.380 prominent journal and it's not exactly like the things published in it are obscure. It's
01:13:09.220 one of the most read journals. But Josh, see what happened. Arday ignored his first email,
01:13:17.760 but when Harris followed up several days later, Arday was blunt. The response was, open quotes,
01:13:23.800 instead of spending your time trying to dismantle racism and ableism, you have spent what I assume
01:13:31.480 is hours coming through my work looking for mistakes, he wrote. At this rate, I'm going to
01:13:37.120 send hate mail to the guy that taught him to speak because now he can he's clearly not using 0.97
01:13:42.280 it to his full you know potential this is a load of rubbish are they told harris not to contact him
01:13:48.780 again anything further from you will be considered bullying and harassment so pursuing the truth of 0.62
01:13:55.880 the matter is bullying and harassment according to jason or day and all according to the people
01:14:01.600 who use Jason Arday in order to say
01:14:03.700 that they're promoting diversity in academia.
01:14:08.760 Right, let's look at some interesting passages
01:14:11.540 from the thesis of Jason Arday.
01:14:15.780 From Nathan Kofnes' DEI fraud and cover-up
01:14:19.080 at Cambridge, excellent Substack post.
01:14:22.140 Please do check it out.
01:14:24.220 You will have fun.
01:14:25.780 Right, so he says, 0.98
01:14:26.820 wouldn't it be the most ridiculous story ever told
01:14:29.280 If the boy who can read and write at 18 gets a PhD before he's 30.
01:14:34.980 Those are the words of Jason Arday, the 2002 professorial chair in the sociology of education
01:14:40.560 at Cambridge.
01:14:42.220 And he raises several questions about the academic, the story about Jason Arday's background.
01:14:51.120 He says, for instance, here, where is it?
01:14:54.860 This was particularly nice.
01:14:57.340 He says, in his spare time, R.D. ran 30 marathons in 35 days and 300 miles in three days.
01:15:04.040 As of 2023, he had worked with more than 70 charities and raised more than 5 million pounds.
01:15:10.480 Up until his appointment at Cambridge, R.D. continued to face unspecified hardships.
01:15:15.840 And let me show you this.
01:15:17.540 This was one I really liked.
01:15:20.460 When was it?
01:15:20.960 Okay, so it says here, R.D. has repeatedly made unequivocal assertions that he could
01:15:26.820 not read, write, or even spell his own name until he was 18, but he left secondary school
01:15:33.220 with general certificate of secondary education qualifications in physical education and textiles.
01:15:40.760 Despite being in vocational subjects, these tests require literacy and they're normally
01:15:46.440 taken at age 15 or 16.
01:15:49.060 Based on publicly available information, it is possible to recreate a timeline that places
01:15:53.960 Arde's tests before age 18.
01:15:57.480 It's conceivable that he received special arrangements to allow him to take the test
01:16:01.880 with help from a reader and scribe.
01:16:04.360 However, a write-up of his forthcoming memoir says that he left secondary school with two
01:16:10.960 GCSEs to his name, still barely able to read and write.
01:16:14.760 All right. So he may be backing away from his original stories. And let's focus on the
01:16:20.800 dissertation now, which is the spiciest part. So this is the text from the PhD of Jason Arday, 0.70
01:16:30.500 passed in 2015 or submitted. And this is the PhD from Zwozdeck Myers that was completed six years
01:16:40.440 ago, and past six years ago. So the yellow highlighted text, the text highlighted in yellow
01:16:49.520 is basically copy-paste. And the green is with minor alterations. Now let's just scroll down.
01:16:58.240 And they say that they found with CopyLeaks, an AI system designed to detect overlaps between
01:17:04.860 the works of scholars and he found the text found around the ai system found about a hundred
01:17:14.180 passages that were really similar as in very very similar and only 15 13 or 17 of them were
01:17:26.020 quote were attributed to zwozdiak meyers i've just read both of those and what is being said
01:17:33.200 there is not even that complicated i mean what why would you even need to plagiarize so it's not
01:17:39.360 hard to say these things so from a scholar's perspective perspective because i'm a gentleman
01:17:44.220 and a scholar uh when you are i mean when you are doing research and you have researched a lot you've
01:17:52.820 read a lot of bibliography it's a point of pride you tell them look i've read this you haven't
01:17:59.740 I love having long pages of sources I saw you know my my source is quite often you know I'd have
01:18:06.600 line whole line in my my paper of just citing sort of various sources that are applicable to
01:18:13.000 that one exactly because this is how scholars roll yeah that's right that's how you're supposed
01:18:18.660 to recognize it it also raises the stakes it's like yeah you are part of a discipline you are
01:18:24.540 part of a field. And here is where you make your specific contribution. But let's read here,
01:18:31.060 because it's really interesting. I want to show you some of them. So here, this is from the
01:18:35.120 original, the text on the right from the original PhD from Myers. An issue which has arisen from
01:18:42.920 Dewey's conceptualization of reflective action and its subsequent interpretation within initial
01:18:48.920 teacher education concerns whether reflection is limited to thought processes about action
01:18:54.360 or is more inextricably bound within an action.
01:18:58.080 The text from Jason Ardey's PhD, an issue which has arisen from Deer's conceptualization
01:19:04.700 of reflective action and its subsequent interpretation within initial teacher education concerns
01:19:12.360 whether reflection is limited to thought processes about action or is more inextricably
01:19:17.240 bound within an action.
01:19:18.260 So it's the same. You'll tell me, well, Stelios, he is quoting some people here, but they're the same people quoted in the other. And when you're supposed to quote the works of the work of other people, or you're supposed to comment on the comments of other people that other people have made about the works of others, you're the third person talking about the person who makes a comment about Socrates, for instance.
01:19:42.120 you have to sort of paraphrase and you have to change it substantially to show that you
01:19:48.260 something is actually working up there i mean also you the way you could have quoted that
01:19:53.780 verbatim is if you quote it and acknowledge who wrote it originally yeah although it's sort of
01:19:59.040 bad form to just quote large tracts of text anyway yeah so here uh the text on the right says
01:20:05.860 tinning 1995 page 27 draws a parallel between van mannen's interpretation of technical
01:20:13.280 reflection and the first level of reflective teaching identified by grimmert 1990 which
01:20:20.780 applies research finding to practice and essentially represents thoughtfulness about
01:20:25.880 action so all he changed was he took the inverted commas out yes i mean isn't that uh isn't that
01:20:34.560 showing a proper engagement with it well that's that it's making it grammatically incorrect really
01:20:42.180 yeah but also it shows that it you know it's it's the kind of the mistake that singers who often
01:20:48.520 use playback they will occasionally say a name and everyone will say hey the star is gonna clap
01:20:54.840 hey this isn't playback okay so moon argues that the acquisition of knowledge which accommodates
01:21:02.180 emancipatory interests aim to bring about a transformation in the self or in the personal
01:21:07.840 social or world situation or any combination of these oh this is such rubbish as well like
01:21:13.100 a lot of the things that have been plagiarized don't even mean anything in the first place like
01:21:17.740 it's just jargonistic nonsense so instead of bring about a he wrote produce streamlined it
01:21:25.980 it did improve it just so i'll scroll down and you see the yellow and the and the green it's just
01:21:33.760 endless you know you know it's just it's what you said green is not original work
01:21:40.480 no it's just slightly amended from yes the original so none of it is original yeah um so
01:21:49.320 look at it here price reports the student teachers encountered several challenges
01:21:53.440 finding time to reflect on the lessons, blah, blah, blah. It's the same thing. It's just added
01:21:58.020 a with regards to. So this is just, you know, when I was doing my PhD and I completed it in 2020,
01:22:06.880 you know, I was really annoyed to find, you know, mid PhD that someone published a book
01:22:14.200 saying something really similar. So I essentially changed the entire thing,
01:22:19.420 the way I went about it. It took me two years and actually did it. And it was a, it was a different
01:22:26.600 thing. So, you know, it's when you're actually, when you actually care about what you're doing,
01:22:34.460 you, you, you, you don't want to, you don't want to give in to the imposter syndrome. The imposter
01:22:40.100 syndrome is one of the syndromes that plagues people who do PhD researches the most. And they
01:22:46.520 Those who care about the research, they actually care about doing something different and actually adding something to a field, even if it's something small.
01:22:56.600 So to do a PhD and just copy-paste, allegedly, copy-paste entire passages from another text and not attributing it to the person you steal it from.
01:23:14.500 It's just, it's just insane. And also it's just really low term. Yeah. Short term thinking. It's just, yeah, there are AI models. If you are a teacher and you know that in academia.
01:23:27.900 low time preference behavior yes or high time preference behavior exactly i mean i've way around
01:23:32.660 i remember i uh some people when i was teaching a course in philosophy of mind some people were
01:23:38.940 um using this and they found an 86 percent overlap of an of a submitted essay uh with something else
01:23:48.640 so yeah that's a fail i mean instead of a fail cambridge now said well
01:23:54.640 probably if it happened let's make them man a professor i mean some degree of overlap is
01:24:00.860 inevitable because when i submitted my dissertation there were certain phrases that were just like
01:24:07.140 clinical psychological phrases or specialist phrases that will come up as as plagiarism but
01:24:12.860 you can't put it any other way like specialist terminology and turns of phrases that are just
01:24:19.180 the done way of doing it so some degree is warranted but not to that degree but that you
01:24:25.300 know to sort of give the devil his due here a little bit the thing that he was writing about
01:24:30.420 did look like utter nonsense and so it's very difficult to add to something that is so removed
01:24:34.900 from reality that um you know you can't necessarily do the same logical inference and figure out what
01:24:42.980 is this missing from the real world um how can i add to this when it's already something that is
01:24:48.480 sort of sociological and basically soft woolly and yeah and i hate and uh you know it isn't just
01:24:56.820 when he isn't um engaging in alleged uh plagiarism he writes things like this dismantling power and
01:25:06.660 privilege through reflexivity negotiating normative whiteness the eurocentric curriculum
01:25:11.960 and racial microaggressions within the academy well as a european i'm actually a fan of the
01:25:17.260 eurocentric curriculum yeah in fact um why wouldn't you study the culture that has divine
01:25:23.540 basically i nearly said divined but i meant uh defined um the modern era the reason that
01:25:30.860 whiteness is they say it doesn't exist is because it is basically the modern period you like you
01:25:37.920 know it's schrodingers these screens you like you'd like technology well um i hate to say it
01:25:44.220 But a European has made it, even if, you know, it's a European in North America or elsewhere. 0.53
01:25:51.140 Modernity is defined by us. 0.81
01:25:53.000 Josh, I'll say this now, because you do say this, and, you know, I don't disagree.
01:25:58.420 But one of the things I saw in academia is that wokeness and this whole thing is primarily, and this may sound controversial, but let me just be very clear.
01:26:12.500 They don't want another Thomas Sowell, right? They don't want Thomas Sowell. This is something that happens predominantly from white people against other white people.
01:26:26.540 So one of the things I saw, this has been one of the experiences I have had in academia is that when you have, there is a very low supply of positions and an incredible and a very large demand of positions. 0.58
01:26:43.780 So you have 30, 50, 100 people competing for one position.
01:26:52.940 If you have 100 people competing for one position, at some point, some of them will understand that they can't stand out with the research.
01:27:00.900 So they'll become diversity officers and start saying, hey, the department is incredibly racist.
01:27:07.120 You need to give the job to me because I want to modernize it and don't care about the other guys who are doing good research.
01:27:13.340 because they're racist hire me that strategy wouldn't really work for us straight white men
01:27:18.320 though so we're forced to be competent instead which is a terrible thing you know speaking of
01:27:24.260 competence but you do have many uh white people in academia who are promoting this it's mostly
01:27:31.400 them so uh i'll say i'm very happy that i'm not i don't have to deal with that anymore and i'm here
01:27:39.060 at the Lotus Seaters, and this is a course that I did, Ancient Greek Virtue Ethics. I'm doing
01:27:45.000 philosophical work outside academia, which is a blessing. I also don't have to mark.
01:27:52.840 So check it out if you want, if you're interested in a philosophical course
01:27:57.060 from someone who isn't going to tell you that Western civilization is the worst thing ever, 0.87
01:28:02.560 that it's the Schrodinger civilization that simultaneously doesn't exist, and also is so 0.53
01:28:08.200 guilty that he has to atone for its past uh in committed injustices and atrocities so do consider
01:28:16.900 that i will just say as well as someone who has actually um watched many of the lectures on this
01:28:22.180 course it is genuinely wonderfully detailed and you do a great job with it so yeah i endorse it
01:28:27.660 too thank you brother luca that's i i got the the brother luca that's all right i'll just just buy
01:28:33.820 Tell me a few BS after work.
01:28:35.500 Okay.
01:28:37.280 Fictages says,
01:28:38.640 I'm surprised they haven't moved to amend the original text
01:28:41.480 just to make it seem like this BS artist said something new.
01:28:47.200 That's a random name.
01:28:48.940 Let me be a bit careful.
01:28:52.400 Gonna leave you on the platform, Josh.
01:28:54.360 Okay, no, no.
01:28:55.960 Okay, come on.
01:28:58.800 It's still on the screen.
01:29:00.420 Yes.
01:29:00.700 um base tape says what a heartwarming story what an incredible achievement
01:29:07.920 come on guys he came from the background he came from and a white man still managed to teach him
01:29:18.400 how to read and then he is talking about um bame representation and stuff um all right 0.55
01:29:26.780 For the sake of Josh, we'll have to leave the video comments today, I'm afraid, friends. 0.63
01:29:32.700 No, wait, wait, wait, wait. We do have some more time.
01:29:36.100 We will have to make some of the comments.
01:29:38.740 Yeah, yeah, we can read some comments.
01:29:40.380 No, I'm just saying we don't have time for video comments.
01:29:42.380 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:29:43.220 We can read some of the written ones, I think.
01:29:45.480 I'm sorry. I booked a train in advance, and it was relatively soon.
01:29:50.080 I have to rush off. I've got other things.
01:29:52.500 I'm sorry. I'm normally so good to you.
01:29:54.520 Don't apologize. Just read your comments.
01:29:56.040 Sorry.
01:29:56.780 dirty belter says it's stellar what can be done with leftovers when you have the knowledge and
01:30:00.940 imagination to put them to good use it's equally astounding how little can be done with a mountain
01:30:05.300 of wealth when it's used unwisely and dropped into a figurative black hole that was very uh
01:30:10.040 on brand there and i very much like that sentiment as well thank you um derek power once again we go
01:30:17.260 from cosmos from karl sagan to idiocracy it does often feel that way and i'll read um one more
01:30:25.720 Geordie Swordsman says the 15-inch guns that were housed in those turret mechanisms
01:30:29.700 are currently on the front lawn of the Imperial War Museum.
01:30:33.460 That's really good to know.
01:30:34.600 I've been to that war museum, so I've probably seen them unwittingly.
01:30:38.920 Anyway.
01:30:39.940 Maria Manzi from my segment says,
01:30:41.900 It's also worth pointing out that the right honourable Winston Peters has a direct New Zealand heritage
01:30:47.400 and that his father is Maori, so he's invested in the soil.
01:30:50.480 Very interesting.
01:30:52.100 And Nick Taylor says,
01:30:53.080 Winston Peters is our fireage.
01:30:54.580 he's been in politics my whole life and i hope he does the right thing but it'll be a pleasant
01:30:59.040 surprise well as i say given that i had several emails telling me that actually it was a good egg
01:31:04.280 um clearly opinions divided but uh wanted to give him a fair shake let's hope he's not and michael
01:31:10.380 dribelby says so another english institution of higher education demonstrates that its reputation
01:31:16.500 is wholly undeserved um i mean it does have a prestigious history but lately it's just to to
01:31:24.840 see to watch them do this it's just ridiculous um candice familiaris says how exactly is this
01:31:32.220 level of plagiarism even possible anymore our papers in high school were even run through a
01:31:37.480 checker and honorable mentions hm butter knife permit registry just got a word from the courier
01:31:45.440 that my first copy of the islander has arrived very excited to see what the fuss is all about
01:31:50.540 you are in for a blissful time and michael dry bulbis says on islander number six really enjoyed
01:31:56.980 lucas piece on samwise makes me want to read the trilogy just for the gems you point out oh well
01:32:02.800 thank you glad you enjoyed it many more to come hopefully um thank you very much ladies and
01:32:07.780 gentlemen josh will definitely not miss his train because i bet that his train is going to be late
01:32:13.200 but we'll play the videos tomorrow um thank you very much brother josh thank you very much
01:32:20.520 brother luca thank you brother samson this was a stressful morning and you put the work in it
01:32:27.700 in there thank you all right okay i'm tired see you see you soon guys