The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1482

00:00:00.000 Good afternoon and welcome to the podcast Lotus Eater's episode 1482. I'm your host Harry,

00:00:05.900 joined today by Beau, famous for his show Breakfast with Beau, and we're joined again

00:00:11.820 by special guest Elizabeth Heverin. Thank you for joining us again. Are you the new Josh?

00:00:17.920 You're showing up more and more and more. We both have Scottish ancestry, so probably related.

00:00:23.020 Yeah, probably somewhere down the line there was some clan infighting going on, I'm sure.

00:00:26.760 And today we're going to be talking about the partial eclipse of the sun that's going on today.

00:00:32.500 And this is medical advice. Definitely look straight into it if you're in England.

00:00:36.780 We're going to be talking about AI companies and their involvement in destroying the knowledge of the world by literally burning books.

00:00:44.840 And I'm going to be talking about Based Burnham committing some anti-UK action by tearing up foreign businesses on the high street.

00:00:54.300 Maybe, probably not.

00:00:56.380 And with that, let's get straight into the news.

00:00:59.820 Okay, so today in various parts of the world, including Britain, particularly the west, the further west you go,

00:01:06.140 there will be a partial eclipse, which is quite a rare thing.

00:01:10.800 And so it's all in the news cycle today.

00:01:12.560 I think it's interesting.

00:01:13.700 A little bit of a slightly more wholesome, even a white pill segment for once.

00:01:17.880 We're not on about the Telegraph?

00:01:19.580 No, not today.

00:01:20.620 Not today, folks.

00:01:22.260 We're going to take one day off from that.

00:01:24.040 Oh, thank goodness.

00:01:24.800 Though they did mention Frank Wright today, didn't they?

00:01:27.600 They're going after...

00:01:28.120 Oh, no, no, no, no.

00:01:28.960 They're going after our Frank.

00:01:30.480 They're going after our Frank.

00:01:31.620 Enough of that.

00:01:32.560 I'm sure somebody's going to talk about it tomorrow.

00:01:34.700 We're talking about the eclipse

00:01:36.080 and the horrors that will emerge from it.

00:01:39.140 Yeah.

00:01:40.780 And what, sorry?

00:01:43.160 Such a nerdy reference.

00:01:45.200 It's a reference that you don't need to concern yourself with.

00:01:48.800 Okay, moving on, moving swiftly on then.

00:01:51.820 First thing I'll say is, in all seriousness, in all seriousness now,

00:01:58.820 don't look at it with your naked eyes because you might think,

00:02:01.920 oh, you know, it's a partial clip.

00:02:04.360 It's like 90, depending on where you are, roughly 94, 95% eclipse.

00:02:09.000 So you might be able to look at it with your naked eyeballs.

00:02:13.240 No, no, no.

00:02:13.900 I really don't.

00:02:15.760 Please do not actually look into it.

00:02:17.960 You need the special glasses they give you.

00:02:20.560 One other thing I'll say

00:02:22.280 I realised not too long ago

00:02:23.600 About an hour or so ago

00:02:24.520 On the breakfast show this morning

00:02:25.860 Breakfast with Bo

00:02:26.520 Colloquially known as the Bo Show

00:02:27.800 Hashtag BBC

00:02:29.260 The Real BBC

00:02:30.040 On a super chat

00:02:33.560 Where's the C come from?

00:02:34.800 Where's the C? 0.79

00:02:35.300 Bo's Breakfast Club

00:02:36.300 Oh okay

00:02:36.680 Don't you forget about me

00:02:37.440 Bo's Breakfast Club

00:02:38.220 Oh alright okay

00:02:39.020 It's got many names

00:02:39.840 It goes by me

00:02:40.300 But BBC is your preferred one

00:02:43.200 Yeah

00:02:43.480 Hashtag The Real BBC

00:02:45.020 Yeah

00:02:45.420 This morning

00:02:48.180 Mr Dickie Bingo

00:02:49.400 super fan of Lotus Eaters

00:02:50.740 and the breakfast show

00:02:51.440 he's a great guy

00:02:51.980 I met him at our live event

00:02:52.980 really good dude

00:02:53.860 he put a super chat

00:02:55.460 saying

00:02:56.200 that

00:02:56.960 he's going to get

00:02:58.020 his old dad's welder's mask

00:02:59.800 and watch the eclipse

00:03:01.820 through that

00:03:02.280 and I just went

00:03:03.100 yeah good idea

00:03:04.080 I would do that

00:03:04.960 I think I literally said

00:03:05.740 I would do that

00:03:06.580 is that a bad idea

00:03:07.440 that doesn't work

00:03:08.560 that's not a thing

00:03:09.220 don't do that

00:03:10.020 it's a bad idea

00:03:10.760 seriously don't do that

00:03:11.520 I was like yeah

00:03:12.120 that would probably work better

00:03:13.120 than the crappy plastic things

00:03:14.660 you get

00:03:14.860 no

00:03:15.160 that's bad advice

00:03:17.060 don't do that

00:03:18.400 In fact, let's go straight to a story of exactly a guy did that in 1999.

00:03:27.120 Look, this guy.

00:03:27.840 In 1999, because there was a brilliant solar eclipse,

00:03:29.620 which I saw in 1999, a full eclipse.

00:03:33.260 And this geezer did exactly that with a welder's mask

00:03:35.960 and is partially blind for the rest of his life.

00:03:41.060 It will burn out a bit of your retina right in the middle

00:03:43.400 and you end up with a black dot in the middle of your vision.

00:03:46.240 Forever.

00:03:46.680 Forever, if you look at it for too long.

00:03:48.840 All right.

00:03:49.660 Good.

00:03:50.460 So I added Mr. Dickie Bingo on Twitter and said, don't do that.

00:03:54.820 I've seen that he's seen it.

00:03:55.760 In fact, he retweeted it.

00:03:56.780 So that's one.

00:03:57.720 That's good.

00:03:58.220 But I've also told Cameron to put a disclaimer on the website

00:04:01.620 and pin a comment on YouTube to say,

00:04:05.980 Beau just got that catastrophically wrong.

00:04:09.220 Don't do that.

00:04:09.880 So all right, with all those things out of the way,

00:04:12.680 I want to cover myself if and when it comes to court.

00:04:15.640 When Mr. Dickie Bingo is like

00:04:18.780 Bo, you personally lied to me

00:04:22.560 Well the dozens, perhaps hundreds of people

00:04:24.540 Who go partially blind because they just took my bad advice

00:04:27.780 I want to be able to say to the magistrate

00:04:29.960 Look, I did four or five different things

00:04:31.540 To try and mitigate the danger that I caused

00:04:33.540 Anyway, moving on, moving on

00:04:35.000 Just don't look at it through a welder's mask

00:04:37.020 You need the proper glasses, alright

00:04:38.260 Okay, so it just so happens

00:04:41.000 That from the Earth's perspective

00:04:42.920 the sun and the moon appear about the same size about say more about that in a minute but they're

00:04:51.660 about the same size but the moon again appears about 400 times smaller sorry it is 400 times

00:04:59.500 smaller but it's 400 times closer so they appear almost the exact same size so whenever the moon

00:05:06.820 is directly between us and the sun when the when the moon the earth and the sun align you get a

00:05:12.320 a solar eclipse but that's not actually it's actually not all that common because you might

00:05:18.760 think well don't why why why doesn't somewhere on the earth get a solar eclipse every 28 days

00:05:25.000 well the the moon's orbit around the earth isn't perfectly in line with the plane of the ecliptic

00:05:32.480 the plane that we go around the sun the moon isn't perfectly in line with that it's off by like

00:05:36.600 five degrees and also the moon's orbit around the sun isn't a perfectly round orbit it's like

00:05:44.540 elliptical so sometimes the moon is a bit further and a bit closer away from us so you can have like

00:05:51.700 a super moon when it appears bigger than usual a perigee and an apogee which further and further

00:05:56.520 away so anyway the point is that to get it perfectly lined up is relatively rare and then

00:06:03.700 for the shadow of that moon to pass over somewhere

00:06:06.660 where loads of people are, of course, a lot of the time

00:06:09.160 it will be just over the ocean or whatever,

00:06:11.860 or it'll be over deserts or really, really sparsely populated.

00:06:15.300 So to get it to pass over like big cities and things

00:06:17.540 is actually really rare.

00:06:19.120 The last time we had a full eclipse in England was in 1999.

00:06:23.360 And as I say, this one...

00:06:23.880 It's a big news for Swindon then.

00:06:25.580 Yeah.

00:06:25.960 Yeah, we're important today, boys.

00:06:27.540 Yeah.

00:06:28.060 Well, it's good actually because we're in the West Country.

00:06:29.640 we'll get a better, more full eclipse than if you were in London, say.

00:06:35.160 In fact, let's have a quick look at...

00:06:37.200 It's cosmic favouritism at play.

00:06:38.980 Oh, no, that's a picture I wanted to save for later,

00:06:41.860 but I've ruined that now.

00:06:42.960 Oh, dear.

00:06:44.900 Spoilers.

00:06:45.460 Here we go.

00:06:45.940 Oh, what's going on there?

00:06:47.000 Oh, there we go.

00:06:47.400 Look, so here's a good thing.

00:06:48.780 Look, if you were there, if you was out on a boat in the Atlantic

00:06:51.400 along this line, you would get a full 100% perfect total eclipse,

00:06:57.520 Whereas here

00:06:59.780 Yeah, it's like 96%, 95%, 96%

00:07:02.920 And we're like here, aren't we, roughly

00:07:05.060 So the further west you go

00:07:07.020 If you're right off the west coast of Ireland there

00:07:09.720 You probably get the best

00:07:10.520 But yeah, so

00:07:13.300 That's happening today

00:07:16.140 Do be careful

00:07:17.540 There's another

00:07:18.120 This is also

00:07:21.260 You can see

00:07:22.820 90%

00:07:24.340 So it's one of those things

00:07:27.420 it's just by pure chance really pure happenstance that the moon and the sun appear about the same

00:07:34.780 size from us because also on like geological time frames over millions of years over eons

00:07:40.900 the moon used to be a lot closer than it was in dinosaur times or pre-dinosaur times the moon was

00:07:47.380 a lot closer than it is now it's moving away from us we know this it moves away to the tune of about

00:07:53.420 an inch and a half every year so for millions of years millions of years from now um we won't get

00:07:59.900 for example the type of eclipse there's a type of eclipse you can get where the moon doesn't

00:08:04.760 appear big enough and you get you still get a ring all the way around the of the sun all the

00:08:11.720 way around the moon um so you know in future times um we'll get we'll get more of that because it's

00:08:19.900 going farther away it'll appear slightly smaller to us so it's sort of sort of only we're like in

00:08:25.220 a unique historical period where we get these total eclipses right now that's interesting

00:08:29.340 it's beautiful isn't it that it's like it happens by unquote coincidence i mean like

00:08:34.740 sort of the symbolism of it of this like darkness and light coming together i mean um eclipses used

00:08:42.420 to be taken as omens um of um ages coming to pass and ages um coming to be kind of it kind of like

00:08:49.740 how it's fascinating that last eclipse really of this kind was 1999 before the 2000s begin

00:08:55.880 sort of the age of the 1900s has come to an end um but also it was taken as sort of a symbol of

00:09:03.740 changing political authority in times of old um because the king um having being a symbol of sort

00:09:11.020 of the cosmos and its forces and when the sun disappeared even briefly um people would bring

00:09:17.300 into question the sovereignty of the king whenever he was fit to rule and it was taken as omens of

00:09:22.380 political change revolutions um times coming to an end and sort of disaster um coming to be

00:09:31.140 sort of something coming out of those ashes so so this one's signifying the age of burnham then

00:09:36.060 yeah yeah you could you could say that or it sort of signifies that there is something happening in

00:09:43.560 the cosmos of this great shift and we see that in our sort of own time um of people growing fed up

00:09:51.300 of uh the system they've been born into wanting to want something new to be bathed out of widespread

00:09:58.020 apathy widespread discontentment with the uh current system that we all live in and an eclipse

00:10:03.180 to go with it as well perhaps there will be spooky things going on i guess i can't really

00:10:07.840 talk about the eclipse without talking about astrology right oh you can um you mispronounced

00:10:15.520 astronomy i believe now go on go on go on you forgot we decided on this segment when we have

00:10:20.740 a woman on the panel so it had to go there yeah go ahead go ahead unfortunately i forgot to bring

00:10:25.400 my crystals today i left them at home um but i read somewhere i'm not i'm not really too well

00:10:32.900 read on astrology um i don't i don't really think about it too much um i like crystals because

00:10:38.420 they're pretty um and i like esoteric knowledge but um i actually my knowledge of astrology is

00:10:45.060 quite limited so i decided to read a sub stack uh talking about what uh what this eclipse means

00:10:52.820 and i was informed by the sub stack whose sub stack is it let's credit them um whose sub stack

00:10:59.780 is it i just found it on google just liz just stealing it's a guy it's a guy called daniel

00:11:06.800 inchback i think he's american so it's a guy it's not a woman with her crystals

00:11:12.360 um but he talks about at this like same period uanus which takes about 84 years to complete its 0.96

00:11:19.240 orbit i beg your pardon kiss your mother with her mouth oh they're so they're so childish but you

00:11:26.680 has moved into gemini anyway uanus signifies disruption 0.97

00:11:35.260 sorry sorry carry on revolution sudden breaks and established orders as this guy writes and

00:11:44.940 while genomi rules communication and he argues that the only time sort of this has happened

00:11:51.640 and overlaps with Eclipse was the American Civil War

00:11:54.420 and World War II.

00:11:56.140 I think it's coming from an American point of view,

00:11:58.980 which is interesting.

00:11:59.860 So sort of these times of political disorder.

00:12:03.800 So Tim Hall vindicated by the Eclipse.

00:12:06.840 Civil War II incoming Eclipse.

00:12:10.020 Is it interesting or is it errant nonsense?

00:12:14.520 What's interesting about this is August is

00:12:21.060 the time of the Lionsgate portal

00:12:24.580 which is a time

00:12:26.280 Isn't that a film studio?

00:12:29.640 Which is a time

00:12:31.660 in astrology

00:12:33.040 for self-manifestation

00:12:35.240 and it's traditionally ruled by

00:12:37.780 the sun and it's associated

00:12:40.000 with kingship and sovereignty

00:12:42.000 and so I think this is a time

00:12:44.060 for us to expect

00:12:46.040 change but as a kin

00:12:47.820 to manifest our own

00:12:50.040 destiny as a country in how we are going to enter this change and what is going to come come to be

00:12:57.200 through our actions as a people that's a positive message to take all of this also there's between

00:13:03.540 two and four solar eclipses every year so you could make up sort of but not one that crosses 0.98

00:13:08.200 okay you don't always get an eclipse on your anus though now do you both come on that's true it is 0.95

00:13:18.240 important that's true it's during leo as well that's very important well well well through 0.92

00:13:24.080 history a more firm history um we do know uh that particularly china in chinese culture in chinese

00:13:30.960 history they've uh kept really good records for them going back a few thousand years and we have

00:13:39.020 actually been able to date lots of things in history through that for example thucydides in

00:13:43.960 history of the peloponnesian war mentions a very specific eclipse that happened obviously over

00:13:48.700 greece at that time and through newtonian physics we're able to know we're able to go back quite a

00:13:54.980 few thousand years like to the to the minute and know when an eclipse would have happened and where

00:14:00.020 it would have gone on earth and quite a few thousand years into the future as well like they

00:14:04.880 can predict an eclipse that will happen in the year 29 something to the minute and where it will

00:14:11.160 pass across the surface of the earth and stuff so because it's all the clockwork universe if you

00:14:17.060 like so that's i think that's actually interesting the way we've used it to help so what what the

00:14:22.060 human civilization what what are the historic eclipses are you aware of that have overlapped

00:14:27.560 with important or notable historical events oh oh god i don't know because you could find there'll

00:14:33.780 be so many that you can just sort of you can find for example there's accounts in mayan mesoamerican

00:14:39.220 Central American history and Chinese history

00:14:41.400 Where they say oh well that was close

00:14:43.420 To this or that so it must be

00:14:45.400 This particular eclipse

00:14:47.080 Which means it must be

00:14:49.060 This date

00:14:50.120 I remember reading some sources when I was

00:14:53.180 Studying like the Aztec Empire

00:14:54.940 And the arrival of Cortez

00:14:56.180 That brings about the end

00:14:59.120 Of the Aztec order 1.00

00:15:00.120 And brings in the new 0.99

00:15:01.900 By going to war of the Aztecs 0.96

00:15:04.960 And destroying their temples and so on 0.99

00:15:06.600 Because they were completely evil

00:15:07.600 like the things they were engaged in such as human sacrifice but um one of sort of these sources um

00:15:14.140 says that before cortez wives that they did they had they had an eclipse um and that was taken as

00:15:21.120 a severe bad omen um it would be rather ominous yeah and that comes the sun goes out and then a

00:15:28.280 bunch of spaniards show yeah and it's interesting so other other sort of sources in that time is um

00:15:33.500 a Native American describing in the dream she had

00:15:36.880 like floating islands from the sea coming towards her,

00:15:43.460 which is her way of describing ships

00:15:45.200 because they hadn't seen ships before.

00:15:47.060 Oh, yeah, I suppose that makes sense.

00:15:49.080 There's a number in prehistory, sorry, pre-modern times,

00:15:53.680 all different cultures and civilizations

00:15:55.460 thought different things about them.

00:15:56.880 Yeah, you're quite right.

00:15:57.560 Right at the beginning, you mentioned about that

00:15:59.340 sometimes in Chinese culture, 0.99

00:16:01.080 It was a portent of changing kingship and things

00:16:04.220 Sometimes it seems in some cultures

00:16:06.160 They were terrified by it

00:16:08.100 And not all pre-modern cultures were

00:16:11.080 But some certainly were

00:16:12.420 Yeah, there's a famous story of Cortez and Moctezuma

00:16:16.920 That there was a full eclipse there

00:16:19.560 And they thought it was a portent of something terrible and evil and impending

00:16:22.900 Yeah, same with comets

00:16:24.700 Comets, quite often

00:16:26.400 It's not, there'll be some people that were learned

00:16:28.180 that knew a bit more about what they might be looking at,

00:16:31.180 but for the average person, no real idea.

00:16:33.740 And on the face of it, it would have seemed scary

00:16:37.700 because, as I say, I experienced that one in 1999.

00:16:40.820 I went down to Perrenporth in Cornwall for it,

00:16:42.860 especially for it.

00:16:44.220 And even though you know exactly what it is,

00:16:47.340 it's still sort of something unnerving about it.

00:16:50.180 There was something otherworldly, something very odd

00:16:52.280 because people say, oh, all the birds stopped chirping and stuff.

00:16:56.460 That's true.

00:16:56.940 That definitely did happen.

00:16:57.820 It was like an eerie silence.

00:16:59.480 We're standing on a cliff looking out over, well, the Atlantic, basically.

00:17:03.700 And you can sort of see the shadow of the moon racing towards you

00:17:07.500 at like 1,000 miles an hour.

00:17:09.080 You can see on the horizon the surface of the sea get darker

00:17:12.520 and it like races towards you.

00:17:14.160 You see the power of the cosmos now.

00:17:16.020 Yeah, yeah.

00:17:17.300 And there's something, and you look up and it's like it goes really quite dark,

00:17:21.040 not pitch black night, but it goes really quite dark.

00:17:24.480 and, as I say, sort of almost eerily silent.

00:17:28.300 And if you imagine, just try and imagine,

00:17:29.940 if you had no concept of what was really happening,

00:17:33.980 all you knew was that the sun, the all-powerful orb in the sky,

00:17:37.720 perhaps your god, for a moment had been blotted out.

00:17:42.900 And the darkness is racing towards you.

00:17:45.500 Yeah.

00:17:46.020 You can easily imagine why it might have been terrifying

00:17:49.640 for some pre-modern cultures.

00:17:52.080 Well similarly with the primitives like you were mentioning with like comets like the sun goes out

00:17:57.820 obviously terrifying and then it looks like parts of the sky is setting on fire or falling

00:18:04.440 these would be pretty ominous things if you had like a pre-modern understanding of the world

00:18:09.900 and also those people even in ancient times some that knew again in China knew that it was something

00:18:16.660 that came and went and there was no danger to it and in fact you knew to roughly like 18 year

00:18:21.660 intervals it would happen something like that and that you could predict it you and your ancestors

00:18:27.560 had been um monitoring the situation since time immemorial and you knew and like but you had sort

00:18:34.200 of that esoteric almost secret knowledge most people perhaps even the emperor or the king

00:18:38.920 didn't know about it and you could say ah through our masterful knowledge we predict that tomorrow

00:18:44.340 or whatever or later today or in a month's time the very sun will be blotted out from the sky

00:18:49.520 and then it actually does happen it comes true and you can say look we know we know everything

00:18:56.940 you've got to treat us as like a higher caste as an elite because we've got knowledge you guys just

00:19:01.760 are not privy to in fact at the weekend i was listening to uh h rider haggard's uh king solomon's

00:19:08.220 minds it's only a novel it's only a fictional story but they do that in that it's just like

00:19:11.960 some native peoples pretend they're like from the stars and they're all knowing and all it is it's

00:19:16.860 the 19th century and they know when an eclipse is going to come along they say we will blot out the

00:19:20.420 very sun it kind of it is kind of a counterpoint i see um in a kind of like modern hubris from a

00:19:28.660 lot of people people saying that oh if i went back in time somehow if science found a way to invent

00:19:34.420 the time machine i went back in time and spoke to pre-modern and primitives peoples i would be a god

00:19:39.820 to them because i would show them my phone and they would just be so amazed by it they'd think

00:19:44.360 i have the magic mirror and i can control reality and people go like yeah but do you know how it

00:19:51.640 works could you do anything fancy with it or will it just run out of battery and then they'll

00:19:57.160 probably stone you for being some kind of witch yeah but then again like the aztecs right i mean

00:20:02.280 when cortez came to the aztecs they thought he was a god not just because he was pale but because

00:20:09.160 he looked like one of their first gods which is um um depicted as a white man with a long beard

00:20:16.920 and a lot of people have theories on that of what this is is some people theorize that it's the

00:20:22.960 aglanteans who if they come like they could come from europe coming to the shores of south america

00:20:29.540 and teaching them like knowledge higher knowledge um and what's interesting is like the az the aztec

00:20:36.440 calendar it was given to the aztecs that by that very god so that's why when they saw cortez they

00:20:42.160 thought oh it's the sun god coming to save us and that's that's why like a lot of the smaller tribes

00:20:48.480 sided with him um so you sort of like like what you were saying you get these these people in

00:20:54.980 history where they do consider others of technological advancement to be actual gods

00:21:01.820 and they embraced that in their mythos.

00:21:04.180 An interesting factoid was that when they saw men on a horse,

00:21:07.600 they thought it was one creature.

00:21:09.020 I think that's interesting.

00:21:10.400 Like a centaur.

00:21:11.580 Yeah, they thought it was like a big four-legged giant centaur human hybrid thing.

00:21:14.820 Maybe that's where the centaur comes from.

00:21:17.060 Yeah, there's also the idea of cargo cult. 1.00

00:21:19.060 You know that, like in very, very, very, very primitive Pacific Islander culture people. 0.99

00:21:24.880 During World War II, when sometimes men downed US airmen 1.00

00:21:28.060 went there for the first time ever, their first interaction with civilisation.

00:21:31.820 or they would see like a B-29 flying across wherever.

00:21:33.940 They thought it was the gods, very much so.

00:21:36.840 Actually thought they were the gods.

00:21:39.780 But okay, so a couple of things.

00:21:41.460 You can, if you haven't got those special glasses,

00:21:43.600 there are other ways to sort of project the image.

00:21:46.560 You look out for yourself, you can use some sort of pinhole thing

00:21:48.960 or you can use a colander.

00:21:51.200 Don't just put the colander up to your eyes, that doesn't work.

00:21:53.660 If I wear it as a helmet, will that protect me?

00:21:57.040 The shadow that it casts

00:22:01.560 Each one of them will show

00:22:02.740 You can see there

00:22:03.660 You can see

00:22:04.060 All right, like that

00:22:05.460 Each one of these is the eclipse going on

00:22:08.340 Don't just put it up as though they're glasses

00:22:10.400 That's not a thing

00:22:11.400 Okay

00:22:12.000 But yeah, the other thing I would say of note

00:22:17.120 Is that you need it not to be cloudy

00:22:22.880 Because it's all very well

00:22:24.280 You've got the glasses ready

00:22:25.220 And you're on the right place in the earth

00:22:26.480 and the right time oh it's between six and eight today by the way probably it's high depending

00:22:32.740 where you are exactly in britain about seven quarter past seven p.m today so if you're on

00:22:37.480 the right place on the earth the right time with the right eye protection all well and good uh but

00:22:42.920 also you need it not to be cloudy that's a classic thing some people in the past as well in centuries

00:22:48.100 past or you're trying to look at the transit of venus as that part venus crosses a path in front

00:22:52.840 of the sun or Mercury the transit of Mercury and you might go halfway around the world spend a

00:22:57.720 fortune doing it risk your very life on the open oceans you get there and it's cloudy

00:23:02.300 so fingers crossed it's not cloudy where you are because there's nothing you can do about that

00:23:08.480 there's nothing anyone can do about that so um one other factor I thought was interesting in 1919

00:23:13.680 the solar eclipse of 1919 was interesting because at that point Albert Einstein had done his special

00:23:21.500 relativity and general relativity and they're able to show that the light from the stars very

00:23:26.400 close to the edge of the sun as it appeared at the time were changed position slightly and bent

00:23:32.160 slightly because of the giant gravity of the sun and that proved einstein's idea of you know that

00:23:40.220 the time space time is sort of relative thing um that's an interesting thing to note um uh well i

00:23:47.600 I suppose that's it

00:23:48.860 that's about my time up

00:23:49.880 but do try and be

00:23:51.480 in all seriousness

00:23:52.080 do try and stay safe

00:23:54.120 don't wear a welder's mask

00:23:56.000 to watch it

00:23:56.580 that isn't a thing

00:23:57.340 that doesn't work

00:23:58.260 so don't do that

00:23:59.500 otherwise

00:24:00.600 enjoy it

00:24:02.780 something that only comes around

00:24:05.400 once in a while

00:24:06.000 got a few rumble rants

00:24:07.560 for that one

00:24:08.060 if you want to

00:24:08.640 go through them

00:24:10.040 okay

00:24:11.180 up to you

00:24:11.860 Fallen Firebird says

00:24:13.600 subscribe to the BBC

00:24:15.140 Bose Breakfast Club

00:24:16.040 where our gracious host

00:24:17.400 periodically attempts to blind, deafen, maim, disfigure

00:24:20.440 or otherwise inconvenience his people, 1.00

00:24:23.020 it's a great time.

00:24:23.980 Join us.

00:24:25.020 Kind of Old Testament, to be honest.

00:24:26.700 I respect it.

00:24:28.160 Yeah.

00:24:28.860 You've got to, like, keep...

00:24:29.960 It's a test.

00:24:30.580 Treat them mean, keep them keen.

00:24:32.860 That's a random name. 0.52

00:24:33.860 It says, Inbo's Britain eclipses would be outlawed.

00:24:36.620 Yeah, it's a flogging.

00:24:38.060 That's a flogging offence, that is.

00:24:39.600 Causing an eclipse.

00:24:42.380 Recklessly causing an eclipse.

00:24:43.460 You're going to have to find a sacrificial lamb

00:24:45.300 like the old days.

00:24:46.460 You're getting blamed for it.

00:24:47.400 Sorry, public flogging in the stocks.

00:24:51.240 After all, we're not about to darken our skies

00:24:53.800 after cleaning up our streets.

00:24:56.400 If you know what I'm saying.

00:24:57.760 If you know what I'm saying.

00:24:59.340 Though, if you are a new Briton, feel free to look up today.

00:25:02.660 That is not medical advice.

00:25:04.700 Yeah, do not condone, do not condone.

00:25:07.060 The hapsification says, no, Harry, not the eclipse.

00:25:11.100 Make no one has a...

00:25:12.760 Bail it, wait, where's Griffith?

00:25:14.840 I'm not understanding this.

00:25:16.100 These are all berserk references.

00:25:18.100 It would take too long to explain.

00:25:19.600 You can't read it.

00:25:20.220 And wouldn't be worth it because it's horrifying.

00:25:22.620 It's brilliant.

00:25:23.360 It's a manga.

00:25:24.480 A manga, okay.

00:25:25.340 It's a Japanese comic book.

00:25:27.100 It's a really good story, but...

00:25:28.480 There's a scene called The Eclipse in which...

00:25:31.700 I said it would take too long to explain.

00:25:33.940 One of them becomes a god,

00:25:36.980 which represents the way Sheen changed,

00:25:39.100 a new order coming about.

00:25:40.940 And then he sacrifices his friends

00:25:42.800 and does something else,

00:25:44.720 which I won't say on air.

00:25:46.100 and um good's the main character watches it all and then falls into despair and avengers all his

00:25:52.560 friends pretty brutal it's pretty brutal but it's a good story so i've only got time for akira and

00:25:58.620 fist of the north star anything else i just quite literally well it's it's haven't got time for and

00:26:03.380 i don't mean that in a pejorative way i mean i literally don't have time in my life to get into

00:26:08.540 a deep deep well that's the interesting thing is kentaro muro the author of it was uh friends with

00:26:14.500 the guy who wrote fisted a north star and was heavily inspired by it so that might be oh okay

00:26:19.940 yeah yeah all right i'm slightly more interested okay fallen firebird says the battle of the

00:26:24.940 eclipse on the 28th of may 585 bc between media and lydia that would be modern day mesopotamia

00:26:30.880 or persia around that area uh was interrupted when the eclipse suddenly turned day to night

00:26:35.120 both sides saw this as a bad omen for war and made peace interest that's very very interesting

00:26:39.680 That's cool.

00:26:40.420 It's very, very interesting.

00:26:42.680 Logan17pine says,

00:26:43.840 why are you waffling about this

00:26:45.060 when a massive news story happened in California

00:26:47.000 with Hollywood leaving?

00:26:48.900 Don't know what that is in reference to.

00:26:50.860 Hadn't heard about it.

00:26:51.880 If that's true,

00:26:53.060 is Hollywood moving to Texas as well?

00:26:56.000 Baystapes said,

00:26:56.880 isn't the eclipse passing right over Spain?

00:26:59.000 Yes, yes, that's where you'll get a 100%.

00:27:01.940 I didn't even get to talk about Bailey's Beads

00:27:04.040 and where the light shines through the lunar valleys.

00:27:08.620 What's going on there

00:27:09.980 Why is that not

00:27:10.380 Look

00:27:10.840 Bagley's bees

00:27:11.820 Why is it like dots

00:27:13.320 Why is it like dots like that

00:27:14.860 Well

00:27:15.660 That is like the

00:27:17.200 Yeah

00:27:18.660 The lunar mountains and valleys

00:27:20.700 And the light

00:27:21.320 It's just shining through

00:27:22.560 The lunar valleys

00:27:23.740 Like that

00:27:24.180 Anyway

00:27:24.360 Anyway

00:27:24.620 Alright

00:27:25.000 Yeah if you go to Spain 1.00

00:27:27.620 Maybe the Moroccans are going to self-manifest 1.00

00:27:30.120 Another reconquister in the house of Mars 1.00

00:27:32.400 Okay

00:27:33.360 That's a random name

00:27:34.440 Says

00:27:34.680 You don't need to go too far to see cargo cults

00:27:37.800 So many young people nowadays treat technology the same way cargo cults do.

00:27:42.300 So many stories of iPad kids being unable to use a mouse and keyboard.

00:27:47.520 That's a random...

00:27:48.440 And the last one, that's a random...

00:27:49.460 It says, Josh, what are you doing with this red egg?

00:27:53.480 Josh, no.

00:27:54.940 Is Josh going to be like Griffith and I'm going to be Guts?

00:28:00.400 You know, kind of makes sense, to be honest.

00:28:03.360 Anyway, let's carry on.

00:28:05.100 Talk to us about AI and how, unlike the daily video that I have done on this,

00:28:10.440 you disagree that this is not just an Indian slop story.

00:28:13.360 And I'll get into that.

00:28:14.920 You know, so I want to start off this segment talking about the burning of Alexandria.

00:28:20.520 So a lot of people seem to have this misconception about the burning of Alexandria

00:28:25.780 that it happened overnight, which isn't true.

00:28:28.000 It happened over a period of time.

00:28:30.520 The Library of Alexandria.

00:28:31.640 Yeah.

00:28:32.780 Which one?

00:28:33.400 It happened more than once.

00:28:34.080 Did I say, what did I say?

00:28:34.540 You just said Alexandria.

00:28:35.620 You mean the library?

00:28:37.420 There's more than one, wasn't there?

00:28:38.720 Yeah, all over the city.

00:28:42.180 But really it came from a people disregarding their inheritance,

00:28:47.640 disregarding the knowledge that had been passed down to them

00:28:50.980 from their ancestors and not caring for it anymore,

00:28:54.640 not wanting to care for it or move it to a new location

00:28:58.980 in times of civil war.

00:29:00.080 And so, so much knowledge of ancient history is now lost to us because of this disregard.

00:29:07.280 And we see the same thing happening now with books. So many people today, compared to

00:29:13.360 their grandparents, great-grandparents, don't read. They don't share stories around a fire.

00:29:23.780 Instead, consume forms of media and what's broadcasted to them on television.

00:29:30.080 But a book is so integral to the development of one's human soul.

00:29:35.880 A good book is a precious lifeblood of a master spirit

00:29:39.520 and treasured upon on purpose to a life beyond life.

00:29:45.600 It's the very development of our souls and how we interact and understand the world

00:29:50.360 without knowledge.

00:29:52.560 It's how do we even philosophize and conduct a good life

00:29:57.100 and interact with the world around us and understand it.

00:30:01.540 And that's why this new story that has been trending around Twitter,

00:30:06.480 I just scrolled down, of Throbic.

00:30:10.880 That's how.

00:30:11.340 Anthropic.

00:30:11.960 Anthropic.

00:30:13.260 Anthropic.

00:30:14.140 I tried to coach her on how to pronounce this before we came live on air

00:30:17.680 and she's already stumbled at the first.

00:30:21.860 Anthropic, an AI company, has been destroying books more than a year.

00:30:27.100 under a code named Project Panama, sharing off the spines of millions of books in order to train

00:30:33.620 their AI models to predict language outcomes and bypass copyright law. And so this video has been

00:30:42.860 trending all over Twitter, particularly Indian Twitter, unfortunately, which is strange because

00:30:49.820 the British empire had to revive Indian books and revive their language. So the fact they're

00:30:55.480 taking an interest in books is also one of the things that i noted in the daily video that i've

00:31:02.120 done i don't know if it's actually out yet so i'd be interested to see if this ends up overlapping

00:31:06.480 with the release of this video on youtube um but one of the things that i pointed out it wasn't just

00:31:11.180 like indian engagement farmers it was like people who were actively involved with ai as well so it

00:31:17.860 seemed to be some kind of like um not necessarily insider trading obviously but some kind of like

00:31:23.160 insider baseball where they were taking some information that was known within the industry

00:31:27.880 and making it public for the sake of engagement farming and when i looked into the story what i

00:31:33.680 noticed that there was a lot of ambiguity around things like they were saying rare books and there

00:31:40.280 was no specification of what kind of rare books we're talking about are we talking about rare

00:31:45.660 books where it's like actually genuinely rare knowledge because of course the value of a book

00:31:51.240 is not necessarily the paper and the other materials that it's made from it's the knowledge

00:31:55.980 that is held within so so so was was the point of it that the these rare books are actually

00:32:01.780 useful and have something that is worthwhile preserving or is it just like it's some 15th

00:32:07.420 century uh manual from some monk saying like here's how you stuff the straw in your bed

00:32:13.040 well the reason we don't know about that is because this ai company hasn't obviously like

00:32:19.820 released a list of every single book they've bought and because they're buying all over the

00:32:24.580 globe different vendors and vendors can't really say who they've sold to because of legal reasons

00:32:29.860 we have no idea what books they're actually destroying and we'll probably won't have any

00:32:34.680 idea but all we know is as i'll get into is they're trying to buy every book in the world to

00:32:41.580 feed this ai and train it in language and be able to write better than authors

00:32:48.840 Surely you mean a copy of every book in the world, not every book in the world?

00:32:52.760 Well, yeah, a copy of every book.

00:32:54.940 But what I'm about to go into, particularly the court report, is there's a quote of them saying, I'll just read it now.

00:33:04.340 Project Panama is our effort to destructively scan all the books in the world.

00:33:10.200 The judge asked, why use a code name?

00:33:12.840 And they replied to it, because we don't want it to be known that we are working on this.

00:33:16.520 so there's a quote that's directly come from them that they want to purchase every single book in

00:33:20.240 the world and feed it to this ai system it can be a copy of every book in the world and they know

00:33:26.720 that something like this is not going to look good optically i'm not i'm not a fan of ai companies

00:33:32.480 i'm not a fan of llms like you say trying to write better than authors because as much as

00:33:39.580 there are authors out there who write terrible novels that may as well be ai slop in the first

00:33:43.600 place now this is something that i agree broadly with the left on that like ai art quote unquote

00:33:51.100 is not art because the point of art is to express the human experience and some kind of universal

00:33:57.680 truth that we can all acknowledge in that if it's just a random number generator guessing one word

00:34:04.160 after the other it's not actually an expression of anything that comes from the human experience

00:34:09.020 it's just guesswork well it's contradictory to call ai art art in the first place because you

00:34:14.200 have to realize what art is and art's a reflection of one soul like in my opinion all art is all art

00:34:20.020 because it's a reflection of the painter of the author of the creator now whenever where the left

00:34:25.300 goes wrong is they believe that all art is equal which it isn't i mean compare like rosetti's art

00:34:31.020 to like modern art today where it's just paint splatters on the canvas or for instance compare

00:34:37.160 Tommy Wiseau's The Room

00:34:38.720 with Christopher Nolan

00:34:39.840 you can't really say

00:34:40.720 that Nolan is anywhere

00:34:41.540 near the kind of level

00:34:42.400 of filmmaker

00:34:42.940 that Tommy Wiseau was

00:34:44.260 the thing is

00:34:45.420 AI

00:34:46.060 he's going with that

00:34:46.940 AI can generate

00:34:47.900 as much images

00:34:49.260 as it likes

00:34:50.920 but it will never be art

00:34:52.080 because AI doesn't have a soul

00:34:53.340 it's a computer

00:34:54.040 the same way of like

00:34:55.300 I mean this is what's so wrong

00:34:57.560 about people

00:34:58.240 using AI to write stories

00:35:00.180 using AI to write poetry

00:35:01.800 to write their political

00:35:03.320 thoughts is

00:35:04.960 well none of that

00:35:07.160 That adds up to literature because there's no soul behind that.

00:35:10.780 You were just relying on a computer.

00:35:12.500 It's not a reflection of who you are.

00:35:14.040 Actually, it is a reflection of who you are in sort of illustrating

00:35:17.480 that there's no soul behind you.

00:35:19.220 There's no creative substance, that you are reliant on a computer.

00:35:23.680 Shots fired.

00:35:25.060 To come about and conclude on things. 0.97

00:35:27.700 Yeah, Shadiversity would disagree with you.

00:35:29.340 I agree with you, by the way, but some people don't.

00:35:31.520 I think Shad, sorry if I got this wrong, Shad.

00:35:33.980 Shad's been very defensive of AIR.

00:35:35.520 People who said, no, AI art is really good.

00:35:37.640 But anyway, there's an art to getting the AI

00:35:39.500 to generate the thing you want exactly.

00:35:41.800 Yeah, I agree with you and not him on that.

00:35:43.960 Another thing, yes, go ahead.

00:35:44.660 I'll just say, it was interesting.

00:35:46.000 I saw an article or a story in the BBC a couple of months ago

00:35:49.840 and it was Julian Barnes, the famous author, Julian Barnes,

00:35:53.240 world-famous best-selling author.

00:35:55.180 And they got an LLM to generate a Julian Barnes-style

00:35:59.260 first page of a novel, which he did,

00:36:01.500 and then they showed it to him, to the real Julian Barnes.

00:36:04.220 and he was reading it and um he was like it's not like i can tell it's not me like it's not perfect

00:36:10.800 but it's like worryingly close it is a bit soulless and a little bit not exactly what i would have

00:36:17.420 written but it is quite close to some what i would have written something like that and that's and

00:36:22.180 we're still completely in the infancy of the thing but ai is so much more than llm say that's the

00:36:26.740 thing i keep reminding people it's so much more that's only one tiny little corner of what ai

00:36:32.200 could be or what it really is is the language model stuff of it the thing i don't get about

00:36:37.400 this before we show this video before you can think i don't understand really can't fathom

00:36:41.620 is okay you want to build an ai model that a scan and you've scanned in every book ever written

00:36:48.080 okay well and good i haven't got a problem with that fundamentally why do you need to to destroy

00:36:54.080 any books though into that what how does that make any sense you'll understand why but i don't

00:36:59.460 the point just quickly about ai are some i see this everywhere now in towns people advertising

00:37:05.520 their businesses through ai slop um getting ai to write a graphic for them and there's something

00:37:10.780 so much better about just pulling up a word doc getting some generated simple picture that you

00:37:16.400 find on google and then just having word text because at least there's a soul behind that

00:37:20.580 rather than a computer doing it for you and another thing i've seen in my town is people's

00:37:25.220 business fronts are now ai generated i've seen that for the first time in my town

00:37:29.780 of ai art um um being being the business front of this shop it's it's it's disgusting and it makes

00:37:37.640 me not even want to interact with this business because i think of them so lowly as because they

00:37:43.400 are because they can't even produce something yeah there's there's a lot of other really shady

00:37:47.240 stuff that organizations like anthropic are involved in so my my initial problem with this

00:37:54.020 story was there was a lot of vagary around it when I was looking into why they were destroying them

00:38:00.740 I thought obviously the legal loophole aspect of it is a little bit shady but also I could see that

00:38:08.500 they were saying that they were making efforts to preserve them and again for me part of my issue

00:38:13.720 with stuff that goes on these days especially when you're talking about online is one of the

00:38:17.500 reasons that people knew that this would be a bad optic look is because the internet has fostered

00:38:23.800 ironically a kind of fetishization of physical books through things like book talk where people

00:38:30.620 will go on and they will pretend that they've read a book because they've listened to the audio book

00:38:36.080 at two times speed while they've been doing other things and they admit they don't actually pay

00:38:40.200 attention to it or they'll read a book and they'll only read the dialogue so they don't actually read

00:38:44.620 any of the prose and descriptions and they think that just having books on your shelf and making

00:38:49.620 them look pretty and saying that you've read a book even though you've only read the dialogue

00:38:53.460 and not absorb the rest of it is some kind of social signifier of status you really need to

00:38:58.900 get into the story now oh yeah yeah sorry um so this is a video of them destroying it um i mean

00:39:05.040 the reason they're destroying this is because it's more simple to just just cut it in half and put it

00:39:11.560 through a scanner than it is to to scan every individual page and and conserve it which is why

00:39:17.500 they've chosen this but we'll get into actually why they are destroying books and um so this whole

00:39:23.660 story i've got guardian article here talking about it but this whole story comes from a court case

00:39:28.700 that was uh that came to public attention just a couple of weeks ago um called um bots uh versus

00:39:37.320 anthropic anthropic i'll get the anthropic yep and and the judge ruled that using material to

00:39:45.080 train AI did not infringe on copyright. To the core, training a corporate product is not different

00:39:51.440 to training any human, teaching get how to read in order to learn to write, particularly since

00:39:57.980 a lot of the books they're buying are not actually on a platform that the public can use and actually

00:40:04.400 read. They're private to the company and only being fed into this AI system. The goal for the

00:40:12.320 company which is why they're destroying the books was to bypass copyright permission to use existing

00:40:18.380 ebooks rather than engage with owners they first chose in 2024 to pirate sources which led to

00:40:25.500 a 1.5 billion um out of court settlement with authors so they got in a lot of legal trouble

00:40:32.400 for pirating um but the thing i don't get which interests me if they had that money to pay

00:40:39.460 um authors i mean the people who run this are billionaires why didn't they just have that money

00:40:43.860 to buy online copies in the first place instead of pirating and how on earth do they have that

00:40:48.980 money to now buy physical copies which are expensive definitely for old rare books um

00:40:55.240 so they can destroy it would be far cheaper for them just to buy um online copies but they don't

00:41:03.640 um and that's that's that's what i find really interesting about this is why are they choosing

00:41:08.480 to destructively scan books and while the company has printed books and scanned them

00:41:19.100 transforming them into a format the judge noted that there is no evidence that the digital copy

00:41:24.720 was shown shared or sold outside the company and the reason the judge brought that up is saying

00:41:28.800 well technically it doesn't infringe on copyright because it's not public domain also one of the

00:41:34.780 loopholes that i read was that if you just copy it you've created a copy which is infringing on

00:41:40.520 copyright the loophole was something along the lines of if you destroy it and replace it with

00:41:45.880 the digital preserved copy then you've not duplicated it in a way that's like that's

00:41:52.800 infringing on copyright somehow so you create a copy that you destroy the original one therefore

00:41:58.640 you've just replaced it so that's how they can get around saying that they've actually infringed

00:42:03.680 copywriting anyway my problem with this is less that they're destroying some books because if

00:42:08.820 there's something that's you know like uh there's millions of copies of it in the world and they're

00:42:15.700 just destroying one or a few by chopping the spine off who cares but if it's truly rare books like

00:42:21.740 there's only one manuscript of that thing or even if there's like a half a dozen and they're

00:42:28.400 destroying that or if there's truly one manuscript of it and they're destroying it that's to me

00:42:34.480 it's awful unbelievable that's just despicable isn't it that's uh that's that's insane they

00:42:40.280 destroy in the middle east they destroy artifacts um and ruins of great empires and people are

00:42:46.100 rightfully outraged about that and they should be also rightfully outraged about the fact that 0.80

00:42:50.820 this ai company is very likely buying books um as a way to monopolize on knowledge and destroying

00:42:57.420 them taking them out of um the material world altogether and hoarding them for themselves it's

00:43:04.280 hard not to describe that as evil it is it really is i mean you know people talk about nazis burning

00:43:11.600 books and all of this even though they were burning books on pedophilia and gender ideology

00:43:16.640 and all of that um and people talk about how how they were destroying knowledge and how that's a

00:43:21.580 great evil but no one no one is talking about this the modern sort of book banning of our own age

00:43:27.740 which is far worse than what the nazis did um and well yeah they weren't just like these these guys

00:43:33.840 aren't just burning some degenerate professor's porn collection essentially um yeah i mean again

00:43:40.740 the thing with this is it comes back a little bit to me for is it being preserved it's interesting

00:43:46.860 that the judge said that there was no evidence that if they have preserved the digital copies

00:43:51.440 that it's available to the public in one format or another that's the important thing is preserving

00:43:56.460 the vital knowledge that is within these books if they're books of note and books of of worth

00:44:03.300 um and for some of them if it's rare yes it is a terrible terrible shame if very very rare

00:44:09.880 manuscripts are being destroyed but is the information are copies of it already available

00:44:15.880 digitally online that's the problem with a lot of that well yeah that's the problem with a lot of

00:44:20.640 the vagaries like is it just that they're destroying old copies of books that are incredibly

00:44:26.000 widely available because that's where it comes on to this article now and the only way we know

00:44:31.340 what they're sort of buying is through different book vendors throughout the world saying they're

00:44:36.320 having mysterious orders of thousands of books or hundreds of books at their stores being placed by

00:44:42.060 companies in america or canada um companies that work with ai um and a lot a lot of these vendors

00:44:49.660 rightfully so have caught on to this most recently and have refused to sell them the books because

00:44:55.440 book vendors actually care about a physical book they care about the history of it they care about

00:45:01.720 the knowledge of it and their worst nightmare is a customer buying that and destroying it

00:45:07.060 um so here in ireland the title is a banana bananas order for 5 000 obsecure titles from

00:45:14.860 bookshop in gallery fuels superstition and there's like loads of articles like this online there's

00:45:20.780 articles about bookstores in england germany america australia amsterdam and what's interesting

00:45:27.240 is a lot of these orders are being are being put particularly in um they're being these books

00:45:34.280 are particularly being bought from antique bookstores so bookstores that do sell old

00:45:39.080 were books um someone's high quality non-fiction like a history of connemara next thing might be

00:45:45.900 the eddie hobbs guide to your ssia so it seems like a quite eclectic sort of selection that

00:45:52.200 they've got going then then this other article which is from new zealand about this this book

00:45:57.500 vendor there's a quote in here in which she says towards the end we cancelled um the book orders

00:46:03.480 we got another lot a flurry of orders last week so we cancelled them all there are huge orders

00:46:09.620 there were 10 orders in one day for 180 bucks going to another company so a lot of people are

00:46:14.540 catching on to this um and like i think i think it says here some of the sort of obscure titles that

00:46:21.580 um these these vendors local non-fiction niche books new zealand local history

00:46:27.380 malo language books new zealand cookbooks biographies political cartoons very niche books

00:46:32.740 because they just want to put everything in this ai machine they they want it to be this you know

00:46:37.660 like this this mastermind of knowledge and if they want this this ai to consume everything

00:46:44.860 kind of like that deity in like skyrim where you go to as well and it's all i don't know the one

00:46:49.920 that you're on about sorry i'm sure the audience does but that's that's what they want this ai to

00:46:54.360 become essentially um and it is it is concerning um but like i said before we don't we don't know

00:47:01.500 the books they've bought because they haven't published the list and we couldn't possibly know

00:47:05.420 but we only know from these vendors that come out and said these orders are really strange

00:47:09.540 here's what they're buying they're literally just buying up my whole bookstore and i don't like this

00:47:13.560 and it's really odd and the two of the companies they've that seems to be a common theme in buying

00:47:21.000 these books is a place called isbnbb which is the world's largest book database that works with ai

00:47:28.500 developers um and sells books to them another one that is soon books based in canada has placed

00:47:34.440 orders for multiple books across the globe for ai companies and so these ai companies have

00:47:39.540 contracted these people to go out there and buy books um so they so they can feed that feed their

00:47:46.600 ai and so this this brings me to the most important part of this is who on earth are the founders of

00:47:52.840 this company um there's a picture here of them um physiognomy check their brother and sister

00:47:59.720 um dario amade and diana oh they are actually brother and sister amade italian surnames but

00:48:07.640 don't look at the wikipedia early life section um they are funded by amazon google and the u.s

00:48:13.600 department of defense well that's that's the always the secret underlying all of these ai

00:48:19.220 companies like the reason that people are suspicious of palantir and a lot of the other

00:48:23.460 ones is the developments in ai that they're actually trying to progress forwards are basically

00:48:29.400 for cutouts for the military industrial complex in america a lot of them are cutouts of some form

00:48:34.880 of defense arm of the us i was going to ask that question what's the ultimate goal of this to

00:48:42.740 create an llm that's really good don't don't think so mate it doesn't feel like that yeah

00:48:48.980 Well, so you can generate novels without it.

00:48:52.060 It's to hoard information.

00:48:53.220 It's to hoard knowledge.

00:48:54.480 It's to rewire a narrative that's already out there

00:48:58.420 and to stop people from gathering books which contradict that few.

00:49:05.100 But it's also to strip people from accessing information fundamentally.

00:49:10.940 What's interesting about these two people, which I only found out today,

00:49:14.700 If you look at their Wikipedia, their Clyde model provided the U.S. intelligence and defense agencies help in the attacks on Iran earlier this year.

00:49:25.880 They were actually responsible, this Clyde model, for playing a role in the U.S. strike on the Iranian girl's school that killed 170 people.

00:49:34.000 That was their AI model that came from them that killed those people in the Iran attack, which Donald Trump denied ever happened and was ever responsible for the Clyde model was malfunctioning in some way, in which case, great job, guys, or was doing exactly what it was being tasked to do,

00:49:58.880 which was find school children as targets for military strikes either way quite dystopian it is

00:50:08.020 and the way he justifies um using ai he says ai is good um democracies must maintain ai leadership

00:50:15.480 to prevent a global totalitarian dictatorship that seems like projection um and he also notes

00:50:22.880 So the AI could also help eliminate half of the workforce

00:50:26.300 and make work more efficient.

00:50:29.600 Sorry, I find that face is quite distraught.

00:50:31.860 No, no.

00:50:32.800 How does eliminating half the workforce make things more efficient?

00:50:35.660 Doesn't it just make people live in penury and suffering and go hungry?

00:50:40.580 Yeah.

00:50:41.120 Why?

00:50:41.640 Isn't that what it does?

00:50:44.840 Well, this is the kind of utopianism that you hear from even people

00:50:48.720 like Elon Musk talking about how Grok is going to change the workforce.

00:50:51.920 that he said in conferences before

00:50:55.020 that Grok is going to make it

00:50:57.240 so that people don't have to do

00:50:58.940 these pointless make work

00:51:01.460 spreadsheet jobs anymore.

00:51:02.940 Great.

00:51:03.520 I mean, that is work

00:51:04.700 that could be done by an AI

00:51:05.860 to make things more efficient.

00:51:07.520 And then he goes on to be,

00:51:08.580 but obviously the main benefit

00:51:10.220 for companies is that they can see,

00:51:11.940 oh, I can cut all of my overhead costs

00:51:13.820 by firing a load of people.

00:51:15.580 And I don't know,

00:51:16.160 I guess they can all go to learn to code.

00:51:18.080 Oh, wait, everybody's just vibe coding now.

00:51:19.800 So AI is doing that anyway.

00:51:20.900 and then elon says ultimately it will make it so that we no longer need currency so everything will

00:51:28.720 be free due to grok and other ai models which i struggle to see outside of ai just prevent

00:51:36.020 providing a world of super abundance i struggle to see how they're going to achieve such a thing

00:51:42.020 my point before about monopolizing on knowledge cutting people off from um physically consuming

00:51:48.500 knowledge being able to rewrite a narrative and we see so many narratives portrayed like this idea

00:51:54.320 that britain's always been diverse and and so many others um and but this this article is interesting

00:52:00.200 in particular because this ties into what i was arguing that i think this why this ai company

00:52:04.700 wants to sort of buy every book in the world is to monopolize on knowledge and to cut people off

00:52:10.800 from knowledge and to cut people off from having physical copyants and to be reliant on a very

00:52:16.620 powerful AI system. And so this was only published on the 30th of July. Swap books for Kindles to

00:52:24.600 hit net zero, government advisors suggest. This is because it argues printing abiding consumes

00:52:31.880 too much energy and readers should instead enjoy books on digital devices to cut emissions, 0.90

00:52:36.720 which is stupid because a tablet requires energy and electricity. Isn't that what the 0.61

00:52:45.860 government's trying to cut back on it's a book is printed and bound then it's there for yeah

00:52:50.680 there seems to be this all time but it seems to be this one you want to disconnect people

00:52:56.180 from physical knowledge um i mean secondhand books are so much better than sort of all the

00:53:04.080 modern books which are published today so this sort of encouragement uh this sorry this

00:53:10.240 discouragement from the government, from people even reading secondhand books is also quite

00:53:16.580 concerning. And it brings me on to this really stupid tweet I saw the other day. And when I saw 0.99

00:53:22.040 this, I thought, how is this even news? Why am I even reading this? But now after I've covered all

00:53:26.560 of this, I find this story actually quite interesting. A man was refused a refund after

00:53:32.160 his digital copy of the Lord of the Rings movies disappeared from its library. And the company

00:53:36.740 confirmed the movies were removed from its catalog, but said you would not be compensated.

00:53:42.080 But it's a reminder that everything online can go in one instinct. You can buy Lord of the Rings

00:53:47.160 and your file gets removed. The internet can just disappear. But a physical book can't. A physical

00:53:53.660 copy, a DVD of the Lord of the Rings can't just magically disappear unless it's stolen.

00:53:59.140 And that's why it's so important that people read, that they collect books, even if it's

00:54:05.380 performative as long as they have something on their bookshelf that they might one day read

00:54:09.660 it's still good enough but people need to realize that there is an encouragement

00:54:14.540 for people to be reliant on knowledge online and copies of forms of media and books online

00:54:21.680 and people need to disconnect from that and engage in the material speaking of physical copies

00:54:30.920 of reading material islander magazine that exists by that yeah we've been told to i saw

00:54:40.520 a friend of mine posted something quite silly uh a couple uh i think last week he said i don't get

00:54:47.920 the hype about people publishing like magazines um why is everyone doing this the last thing we

00:54:52.960 need is more magazines but actually magazines are great because they're physical you can put

00:54:56.920 them on your shelf you can take them from your shelf and you can read them they don't just

00:55:00.260 magically disappear in an instant. So can I just expand on a few thoughts to push back a little

00:55:08.180 bit? So broadly, I agree with you. I have hundreds of books in my house, too many that I'll probably

00:55:15.980 never be able to read in time, but still I have them. I too want to live in the physical world.

00:55:22.360 I don't want to live in the simulacrum. I don't want to live in a world where most of what I

00:55:27.240 interact with is ai generated and i don't want to live in a world where physical media is being

00:55:32.460 disposed of so that libraries of digital media can switch and change things from right under

00:55:39.100 your nose has happened with this poor gentleman um however again part of the reason i want to

00:55:45.080 push back against this is that one of the things that rubbed me the wrong way about the way i saw

00:55:50.500 this story being discussed and by the kinds of people i saw this story being discussed was

00:55:54.260 there are genuine benefits to digital preservation of books right i don't see any of these people

00:56:02.180 as the same kinds of people who would talk about the enjoy that they come across like the

00:56:07.720 read band books type right and those types are the ones who are like the handmaid's tale

00:56:13.980 read 1984 by george orwell they're those types i don't see any of these people upset about the lack

00:56:21.620 until very recently of physical copies of books like the camp of the saints of books like the

00:56:28.140 great betrayal by ian smith and one of the benefits that you get from digital preservation

00:56:34.380 is that the physical copies of those books were going for hundreds of dollars at a time

00:56:39.580 if you wanted to read a physical copy until recently with the new republishing of the camp

00:56:45.820 of the saints if you wanted a physical copy you had to pay through the nose for it it was through

00:56:50.540 digital preservation through things like ebooks and pdfs that people were able to retain that

00:56:55.700 knowledge and in fact it also made it easier for book publishers to republish those books under a

00:57:01.760 new format when they were able to get a hold of the rights so there are definite benefits to

00:57:07.460 digital preservation and again I don't want to just just I don't want to just go on about how

00:57:14.060 amazing physical books are uh the my main complaint is if they are destroying these physical copies

00:57:20.580 and they say that they are preserving them the most interesting thing for me is the discussion

00:57:25.000 that was had with that court case with the judge saying that there is no evidence that we can see

00:57:30.800 that they have preserved them or if they have that they are making it accessible in some way or

00:57:35.300 another to the public that's the most important thing uh because a lot of these books i don't see

00:57:41.280 as important as some things like the books that i've referenced i don't necessarily know how these

00:57:46.300 companies are going to be hoarding all knowledge by just making it so that i went to my local new

00:57:51.700 zealand bookshop and the local the local rare maori cookbook isn't available to me anymore i

00:57:58.380 don't see that as a a great death of human knowledge personally well we simply don't know

00:58:03.560 and the thing with the book vendors is well that one seemed to be like a general new zealand

00:58:10.060 history bookshop yeah and what we know about this company is they're trying to hoard all

00:58:13.760 like all books and just put them in this um ai machine um but the thing is is i agree with you

00:58:22.920 that so many sort of authors like evola um have been sort of repopularized through the internet

00:58:28.580 and the internet's been really good at introducing people to um extremely good works and sort of um

00:58:35.360 allowing people to read books that they couldn't otherwise afford the only thing is is that this

00:58:39.760 company isn't doing that instead they are well one they can't publish in public domain everything

00:58:47.200 they've scanned because that would be copyright um they're hoarding this information and there's

00:58:52.860 something so beautiful when you when you buy a secondhand book and you open it and there's history

00:58:58.080 to it there's a signature of like a previous owner and a date which like 1909 um or 1950 or

00:59:06.240 this was rewarded to sewing so for doing so well in school and there's a beauty to that there's

00:59:11.700 actually there's a history to know that this has been passed from one person to another who's shared

00:59:15.920 in this knowledge who've loved this book and now it's passed on to you so even the thought of like

00:59:21.000 a company wanting to buy all of these precious books that have been passed down and just destroying

00:59:26.880 them is is upsetting even if even if they're not extremely well um is they should be they should

00:59:36.240 be the property of someone that really wants to gain knowledge from it

00:59:42.160 rather than just being for an AI machine which doesn't have any salt.

00:59:46.660 And that's what we have to remember.

00:59:50.500 For me, the biggest problem is if it's truly then lost information

00:59:55.540 because both actual physical books can be lost or ultimately broken

01:00:00.420 and destroyed, burnt in a library of Alexandria style situation.

01:00:04.200 but the digital copies are even more uh unsafe in a way or so there's a super chat there where

01:00:10.440 someone says the digital copies of something can then be changed after the fact yeah they decide

01:00:14.840 that some etnid blightened book is too racist now and so they go in they just rewrite certain bits

01:00:20.220 of it to be to be politically correct now well there's an example of that i'm lucky enough to

01:00:25.260 have found in a secondhand bookshop a copy of um uh and then there were fewer with the original

01:00:31.660 title in the original text okay i don't know what that would be um just something very racist very

01:00:36.760 racist my problem is is not that if like they might destroy a copy of something that there's

01:00:42.200 millions of copies of like tom sawyer they destroy a copy of tom sawyer who cares if there's honestly

01:00:47.300 like one 14th century manuscript of something and it was of value what was in that was actually

01:00:53.000 human values of value to our civilization i think there's one copy of it and they they scan it and

01:00:59.560 they keep it for themselves and then they destroy destroy the copy that seems to me sort of truly

01:01:06.300 bizarrely evil like you get the picture of those people up again that are behind it oh what the

01:01:11.920 incredibly evil looking that sam altman who also looks mildly evil i've said before about ai said

01:01:18.460 before about ai that uh people that say oh there's nothing to worry about you're being such a uh an 0.98

01:01:23.580 old school boomer luddite you don't know what you're talking about it will be fine god damn it

01:01:27.740 be fine it's like well no human history tells us that nearly always uh you know so perhaps 0.98

01:01:33.440 something like nukes or nerve agents or something a bit different because of the the technology and

01:01:38.840 amount of investment and research and development that goes into that but usually throughout human

01:01:42.620 history when there's a new and powerful weapon of some type eventually it falls into the hands of

01:01:48.360 amoral unscrupulous psychos these aren't these aren't trustworthy faces will go ahead and use

01:01:56.700 it for nefarious if not outright evil purposes well with these ai companies i'm always reminded

01:02:02.060 me uh reminded of this um this meme that i've seen where it's just sort of like a sci-fi author

01:02:08.120 finally i've created my masterwork don't create the pain vortex and then tech bro finally i have

01:02:16.040 created the ultimate pain vortex as inspired by the book don't create the ultimate pain vortex

01:02:22.160 that's how these people

01:02:23.960 that's how they always operate

01:02:25.900 these are always like asocial 0.98

01:02:28.460 freakish nerds 0.90

01:02:30.600 who grew up on Star Trek

01:02:32.700 and decided that they wanted to create

01:02:34.760 Star Trek without realising

01:02:36.680 that there's a lot of elements to Star Trek

01:02:38.420 which are horribly, horribly

01:02:40.320 dystopian and also that a lot

01:02:42.640 of Star Trek was like pre-woke

01:02:44.540 proto-woke propaganda

01:02:45.860 and they're just like, it's beautiful

01:02:48.120 let's bring it into the real world

01:02:50.020 it's like, I don't trust you 1.00

01:02:51.760 you disgusting freak 1.00

01:02:54.080 to bring anything good 1.00

01:02:55.600 into the real world frankly

01:02:57.440 these want to be the arbiters of knowledge

01:02:59.500 the gatekeepers of knowledge

01:03:00.620 the masters of all knowledge 0.59

01:03:02.880 it's like disgusting 0.99

01:03:04.600 it's the fact that you're absolutely revolting 0.96

01:03:06.560 I returned all these copies instead of just paying people

01:03:09.220 they have the money to pay people

01:03:10.920 oh yeah they're always unscrupulous

01:03:13.060 I mean Hawke on a wire says

01:03:14.580 if you don't want us to suspect your AI company

01:03:16.340 of doing evil and dastardly deeds

01:03:18.020 stop getting caught doing evil and dastardly deeds it seems rather simple but they cannot help

01:03:24.200 themselves um with that uh there's there's two others that i'll probably uh read out and then

01:03:30.300 i'll move on to my segment because we're starting to get close to time octrick door read a book

01:03:34.120 get islander and amandine 512 factoid of interest pep shop boys wrote casting a shadow for the

01:03:39.680 televised 1999 solar eclipse you can find it on youtube oh also archie dawson another two dollar

01:03:45.620 on him too much could we not enough should we yes nobody seems to have internalized the message of

01:03:50.740 jurassic park i was just gonna say jeff goldblum straight out of jeff goldblum's mouth yeah uh but

01:03:55.860 anyway i'll take us on to some more welcome news some potentially good news we'll see how it all

01:04:01.580 pans out and if it turns out to just be marketing spin from the government but it seems like the

01:04:06.420 government is going the band andy burnham's government is going with one of the uh first

01:04:12.640 ever pieces of anti-UK, spelled Y-O-O-K-A-Y, anti-UK legislation. Maybe we're going to be

01:04:22.880 seeing the D-U-K-ification of the high streets, folks. But if you want to D-U-K-ify your own mind 0.71

01:04:30.120 and read something nourishing, then you might want to pick up, no, then you do want to pick up

01:04:35.400 a copy of Islander number six. So often on this podcast, we're talking about all of the things

01:04:41.320 that are going wrong and what's happening in the world. We spend nowhere near enough time talking

01:04:49.420 about what can be done, what you should do, and the nourishing things that you can do in your own

01:04:55.580 life. And that is actually what Islander 6 is all about. What can be done? What can you do? So if

01:05:02.460 you want something nourishing, something inspirational, something hopeful, then please

01:05:08.280 pick up this copy, this issue. There's lots of excellent interviews and articles in there.

01:05:15.580 Well worth it for the low, low price of £14.99. So get it while you still can. So when we talk

01:05:21.960 about the UK, we're talking about something that is both economic and also aesthetic. The economics

01:05:28.160 comes with the fact that the UK is a very deprived country, even compared to mainland Europe, we're a

01:05:34.280 very, very poor company, country. And aesthetically, we have become, as a result of the deprivation of

01:05:41.940 the high streets, a very ugly country. One of the most depressing experiences that you can have

01:05:46.840 in many formerly prosperous British towns is to go and look down the high street and see that it is

01:05:52.000 one after the other, empty shops, followed by barbershops, vape shops, and also you can get

01:05:59.900 the nail salons and phone shops,

01:06:02.000 many of which are fronts for criminal enterprises,

01:06:05.060 drug dealing, human trafficking, and otherwise.

01:06:07.720 We've done a number of segments on it before,

01:06:10.220 going back three years,

01:06:11.660 so I can only assume that the people involved

01:06:13.740 in these policies have been paying close attention

01:06:15.680 to the podcast of Lotus Eaters.

01:06:18.100 As you can see, this was a very popular segment

01:06:19.920 from the time. 0.99

01:06:21.300 Why your high street is full of Turkish barbers,

01:06:24.220 mostly empty Turkish barbers as well. 1.00

01:06:27.460 If you ever walk into one, they're like... 0.92

01:06:30.540 Cash only, please.

01:06:31.660 You actually want us to cut your hair?

01:06:33.680 Okay, bro.

01:06:34.640 Yeah, yeah.

01:06:35.300 Get a terrible haircut.

01:06:36.420 Yeah.

01:06:37.020 Yeah, and you can only pay with cash.

01:06:39.440 I mean, the secret is that Bo can actually grow a full head of hair.

01:06:43.780 He's just been going to Turkish barbers this whole time, 0.99

01:06:46.260 and this is all they can do. 0.98

01:06:48.060 Oh, this is a bald cap.

01:06:49.080 I've told everyone before, I've got a giant blonde fro under this.

01:06:53.040 It's quite impressive.

01:06:54.200 Like, Samson's very jealous.

01:06:55.680 Like, Calvin Robinson has nothing on it, trust me.

01:06:59.060 but you'll never see it

01:06:59.980 we'll never let you see it

01:07:01.220 you know

01:07:02.680 it's all

01:07:03.280 it's all criminal enterprises

01:07:04.680 money laundering

01:07:05.840 which is

01:07:05.880 money laundering

01:07:06.920 drugs money

01:07:07.600 people trafficking

01:07:08.540 but money laundering

01:07:10.040 is known

01:07:10.700 is to wash their money

01:07:12.000 through it

01:07:12.660 yes well

01:07:13.040 I don't understand

01:07:14.320 is it so

01:07:15.180 blatant

01:07:16.100 a lot of these places

01:07:16.900 money laundering funds

01:07:17.780 when I lived in London

01:07:18.580 local councils will know

01:07:19.800 this is one cafe

01:07:20.560 it's like a very Greek area

01:07:22.200 it was found by the Greek mafia

01:07:23.840 and

01:07:24.920 there would be no customers

01:07:26.300 and it was the same group of men 1.00

01:07:27.620 like

01:07:28.120 soprano style always um drinking coffee there every single day no other customers fancy car

01:07:34.440 sat outside yeah when you looked inside they would stare at you like thinking why are you looking at

01:07:39.020 a storefront why are you looking at us why are you observing us and it's so obvious that was

01:07:43.100 money laundering front everyone in the local community knew it was money money laundering

01:07:47.360 front um why on earth had hadn't the police and council just shut it down why are these places

01:07:53.160 allowed to operate. They're also frankly eyesores. A lot of them are hideous, they're incredibly

01:07:58.260 garish, they're painted in neon colours with flashing lights that just makes it a very

01:08:03.340 unpleasant and unwelcoming experience to walk down. Yes, the American candy stores are a bad one.

01:08:09.740 Happily, in my leafy market town that I live in, one of those had opened and within a month or two

01:08:16.040 has been shut down due to a police antisocial behaviour disorder because that wasn't orange

01:08:22.340 sherbert that they were dealing behind the counter at two in the morning shockingly um

01:08:26.960 another experience was josh going down manchester road which is a notoriously um well it's little

01:08:33.120 pakistan in swindon frankly and uh we recorded him going down there uh seeing what his observations

01:08:40.760 were there was there are plenty of roads like that in manchester as well and the authorities

01:08:48.960 have taken notice and all of a sudden are starting to suggest legislation like this the government

01:08:53.740 saying that it will now set clear expectations for shop designs to improve the appearance of

01:08:57.960 high streets quote garish neon signs and oversized logos have contributed to high streets feeling

01:09:02.680 less welcoming so this is anti-uk action that we are seeing here but it goes further than that if

01:09:11.220 you look at the articles discussing this andy burnham says that high streets and he would know

01:09:16.160 because he was mayor of greater manchester and there's plenty of shitholes in manchester like

01:09:20.720 the ones that we're talking about right now says that high streets have been hollowed out over

01:09:24.700 decades of decline as he vows to crack down onto the spread of vaping shops and bookies now as i

01:09:30.440 go through this it's important to notice that the deprivation of town centers does not just go back

01:09:36.020 to the demographic influxes that have come into this country and the rampant criminal activity

01:09:40.640 that now goes on down the high street there are other factors as well that really need addressing

01:09:46.240 huge business rates being put on local businesses making it very very difficult for legitimate

01:09:52.100 businesses to run huge amounts of taxes but there's other less clearly thought of

01:09:59.300 side like causes as well because these causes are so far down the line now that people don't

01:10:05.100 think about them anymore. Local councils charging a lot for car parking, making it very unattractive

01:10:12.400 for people to go into town centres and contribute their money to local businesses. Large supermarkets

01:10:18.980 making it cheaper and more convenient for people to skip out on their local greengrocers, local

01:10:24.040 butchers, and they can get everything from the same place at a lower price, means that those local

01:10:28.440 businesses don't get the business that they're used to, maybe they have to shut down. Out-of-town

01:10:32.940 shopping centers this goes with the local car parking town centers if there's an out-of-town

01:10:38.260 shopping center with free parking and a town center with paid parking that's slightly less

01:10:45.060 convenient people are going to go to the out-of-town shopping center as well and then you

01:10:48.900 also have to add in the demographic problems like liz was talking about where you've just got

01:10:53.140 gangs of foreigners maybe they're not even involved in the criminal enterprises but maybe you've just 0.86

01:10:57.280 got a load of layabouts milling about in the street again making it a more hostile and aggressive 1.00

01:11:02.120 place to be the town next to my leafy market shire town uh is very much like this and you go 0.98

01:11:08.420 into the town center and there's just asylum seekers laying around on the park on benches

01:11:14.340 in the town center which is completely hollowed out napping they're just milling about or they're 1.00

01:11:20.460 laying around on the park benches napping it makes it a very unwelcoming place so it's no wonder

01:11:25.440 that people don't go there so these are factors that are not being addressed and there are further

01:11:30.320 criticisms as well but let's hear what they have to say so burnham has said that for many people

01:11:35.100 the high streets they grew up on have been hollowed out and become unrecognizable over decades of

01:11:39.140 decline the rise of vape shops betting shops and rogue operators have replaced the shop services

01:11:43.660 and community spaces that people are crying out for it's not on i said we would improve britain's

01:11:48.680 high streets and that's exactly what we're starting to do excuse me we're putting communities back in

01:11:53.780 control and giving local people a real say over what happens on their high street local councils

01:11:58.580 will be given the powers they need to rein in unwanted shops and bring town centers back to

01:12:03.980 life. And Angela Rayner, who is now community secretary, echoed this as well. She said,

01:12:09.740 people know when their high street isn't working for them, whether it's the vape shop or the

01:12:13.000 betting shops that's open with no say from the locals, the shop front that's seen better days

01:12:17.240 or the sense that nobody's in control. So they're talking big talk, right? So what's the actual plan?

01:12:22.960 So under the government's new plan, it will become easier for councils to refuse permission

01:12:28.040 for new betting shops to open when there are concerns locally ministers will revoke the aim

01:12:32.920 to permit rule introduced by tony blair's government liberal when they liberalized

01:12:39.260 gambling so this actually made it so that councils basically had to accept betting shops

01:12:45.140 opening up in their towns now they have to put in planning permission for them these so-called

01:12:51.220 adult gaming centers which offer slot machines up to 24 hour days uh 24 hours a day will require

01:12:56.940 planning permission. And the thing is, you may think betting shops, who cares? Very antisocial

01:13:01.260 people are attracted to betting shops. They can go in, lose all of their money, have a few drinks

01:13:07.440 in the process and they come out angry. They come out aggressive. I've seen it plenty of times. If

01:13:12.200 you hang around outside the betting shops and oftentimes streets will be full of betting shops,

01:13:17.420 they're very unpleasant places to be and people can get aggressive at you. Or even worse, the

01:13:22.740 aggressive drunk guy who's just lost his money can come out trying to threaten you for money so he

01:13:28.160 can go back in and try and win it all back. Happens all the time. The thing I find so remarkable about

01:13:34.220 all of this and anyone who's in Britain knows exactly what I'm talking about is the scale of

01:13:38.380 it. It's not like our lovely town centre didn't have a betting shop and now it has. It didn't

01:13:43.180 have an empty vape shop that's run by some Indian looking dude that no one's ever in but there is a

01:13:48.000 tricked out mercedes outside it and that there wasn't one and now there is one no dozens of them 0.98

01:13:54.920 so our high street all in a row will be like you can look down a high street and you'll see

01:13:59.780 four five six betting shops four five six vape shops four five six chicken shops it's the only

01:14:06.140 thing that's in these centers now other than empty shop fronts and one shop's all boarded up and

01:14:11.680 been closed down oh they're making it into something oh another vape shop yeah that sits

01:14:16.540 empty but with a tricked out mercedes out the front of it or whatever like oh okay oh so there's

01:14:23.400 there's literally like one betting shop next door to another betting shop and on the other side of

01:14:27.880 the road is a betting shop and they're both flanked by vape shops and on and on and on we go

01:14:32.600 it just has the scale of it is what's the most remarkable and when you travel through because

01:14:37.760 of the obvious lawlessness involved in a lot of these places because the councils know but either

01:14:42.960 the councils don't have the power and or they don't have the money or they don't have the will

01:14:46.820 to actually do something about it there's a there's a sense of lawlessness and failed statehood

01:14:52.000 yeah about it one place i've really noticed um this happening only in the last couple of years

01:14:58.040 is chester in cheshire i go i go down uh the streets of chester and i just see american candy

01:15:04.620 shop turkish barbers um just obvious money laundering historic town center as well this

01:15:10.940 cafe it was my favorite cafe it was like a hipster cafe in chester i love that place i used to go

01:15:15.440 down work it was really popular it was full of hipsters everyone loved that place they were

01:15:19.740 they were making good money they had um quite a few employees um and a couple of months ago they

01:15:25.900 put up a message on their instagram saying can't afford it anymore business rates the business

01:15:30.840 rates even though they were doing very successful we're gonna have to close down and so it makes

01:15:35.700 you think if a business that's actually is successful that's that's getting loads of

01:15:41.340 customers come in i mean the coffees there were like four pounds so i think it was like expensive

01:15:45.780 um as coffee shops are um if they go out of business it sort of shows how ridiculous the

01:15:54.300 the town and city has become that's why it's it's only gangsters that can open up shop because

01:16:00.520 they're the only people that can afford it because they do illegal work yeah and that's why you just

01:16:05.120 see these places transform overnight it is because of the councils it's because of the business

01:16:09.940 well here's some of the other changes that they'll be making to try and help the councils to put a

01:16:14.920 stop on this vaping shops will have to apply for planning permission while the definition will be

01:16:19.220 tightened to prevent them from getting around the rules by claiming to be convenience stores which

01:16:24.620 have less tight regulations on them the maximum length of closure orders for rogue shops linked

01:16:30.040 to organised crimes such as barbers

01:16:31.960 will double from 6 to 12 months

01:16:33.720 which will give police and local authorities

01:16:35.760 more time to investigate them and potentially

01:16:37.780 shut them down for good. Downing Street

01:16:39.800 said the government will also work with councils to improve

01:16:41.800 the appearances of the high streets

01:16:43.760 but Shadow Community

01:16:45.620 Secretary Sir James Cleverley

01:16:48.000 of the Tories said

01:16:49.160 Labour's business rate hikes are what

01:16:51.960 have hollowed out our high streets, driving

01:16:53.820 out the shops people want and leaving empty units

01:16:55.960 for whoever is left standing to

01:16:58.000 fill. Now Labour's business rate hikes

01:17:00.020 are pretty devastating for a lot of businesses.

01:17:03.100 They've basically hiked it.

01:17:04.500 So the figure that I saw went from 76%

01:17:07.900 to some of these places are now having to pay

01:17:10.180 the equivalent of 126%, 0.52

01:17:11.700 which is absolutely ridiculous. 0.58

01:17:13.300 Obviously, you're going to have to shut down. 0.88

01:17:14.580 That only happened in April, though.

01:17:16.620 And Rachel Reeve's first budget, 0.97

01:17:18.760 which hiked business rates, happened in late 2024.

01:17:22.240 This has been happening for over a decade at this point.

01:17:25.620 and in fact was happening primarily under the Tories.

01:17:31.020 Like I said, a lot of this can be traced back before then

01:17:34.000 with supermarkets and out-of-town shopping centres,

01:17:37.220 all these other problems that pop up.

01:17:39.140 But in my living memory, when it really started to accelerate

01:17:43.260 and become a big problem was the Tories.

01:17:47.020 It was really around 2015, 2016 that I started to notice, 0.97

01:17:51.440 oh god my local high street has gone to complete shit so please conservatives for once take 0.94

01:17:59.820 responsibility for the fact that you also massively effed the country up so i don't i don't like them 0.98

01:18:06.300 trying to just be like oh this is labor vote for the tories we've got such a sterling record of

01:18:10.660 governance in this country piss off particularly james cleverly i'm not interested in hearing from

01:18:15.820 James Cleverley not interested in hearing from him about any of this stuff they've just been

01:18:21.660 going on for a long long long time a long time wasn't he home secretary wasn't talking about it

01:18:26.300 then no of course not right then the barbershop the vape shops this didn't start when Starmer

01:18:34.000 came into power it didn't just overnight happen with Starmer no absolutely not James Cleverley

01:18:39.700 will be put on trial for treason in regards to the beautification there is a problem obviously

01:18:44.820 there's all lots of potentially useful changes uh coming down the pipeline but in regards to pure

01:18:50.860 beautification if these businesses can get around all of these other changes well what's all that's 0.98

01:18:56.800 going to happen is that instead of it being a neon coated really ugly foreign criminal enterprise 0.77

01:19:02.820 you're just going to get this instead which does look a lot better that's uplifting for the spirit 0.99

01:19:08.760 even if it is obvious money it looks a lot nicer but it's all going to be they're all still going

01:19:13.320 to be criminal enterprises it doesn't address the root of the problem which is the aesthetic

01:19:17.960 aspect of it is a side order consequence whereas the real problem is the criminal enterprises and

01:19:24.980 the demographic replacement that's going alongside it um some people are going like jimmy the giant

01:19:30.740 obviously gigabrain jimmy the giant best takes all the time saying it's funny how it does in fact fix

01:19:36.760 it no it doesn't uh and apparently this is something that has already been going on in

01:19:42.200 huddersfield so you can see they or have the local council's already been trying to implement

01:19:47.320 these new beautification rules so you can see here's the before photo here's the after photo

01:19:53.660 so it's i mean look how beautiful those buildings are oh yeah it's a complete waste businesses to

01:19:59.000 operate in them here's the before a photo of super sam and here's the in progress beautification

01:20:04.440 now it looks nicer but just yeah just putting some kind of bespoke facade over the top of it

01:20:12.680 does not change the fundamental problem of the criminal enterprise element and also just frankly 1.00

01:20:18.880 the alien foreign body in our local towns which is the big problem with here you're still going to 1.00

01:20:27.040 get foreigners hanging around outside of these if you still have the same asylum seeking problems 1.00

01:20:31.820 you're still going to have people milling about in your town centre, making it a hostile place

01:20:37.340 to be. So perhaps these other changes will fix it. I'm wondering if Burnham is going to start

01:20:43.080 actually working with this, if Burnham is just going to be the friendly, inoffensive face of

01:20:50.240 government reform under Labour that Starmer could never be because he was so hated. I'm wondering

01:20:57.060 if Labour are going to start making changes like this,

01:21:00.160 go a little bit harder edged on things

01:21:02.100 and hope to coast through to 2029

01:21:04.760 as the party of refined and reliable governance.

01:21:09.320 I'll just say, this doesn't work for me at all.

01:21:13.460 No, it still looks wrong.

01:21:15.120 I'm not interested in that.

01:21:16.720 The aesthetic entirely.

01:21:17.840 I'm not interested in the aesthetic.

01:21:19.080 If you own a business,

01:21:20.440 feel like you should be at liberty

01:21:21.280 to make the front look however you want within reason.

01:21:23.500 I'm not interested in the aesthetic.

01:21:25.420 That's not the problem.

01:21:26.720 That's not the issue.

01:21:27.820 The issue is organised crime.

01:21:30.220 Is it criminal or not?

01:21:32.340 Are these fronts for money laundering,

01:21:34.320 for prostitution, drugs, people trafficking,

01:21:37.580 et cetera, et cetera, et cetera?

01:21:38.620 Are they or not?

01:21:40.540 Because if they are, then they need to be cut out 0.99

01:21:42.500 like a cancer and thrown in a medical bin. 0.86

01:21:45.440 Otherwise, let them have whatever, within reason,

01:21:48.320 whatever sign they want to have on.

01:21:49.740 That's not the issue here, dude.

01:21:51.240 I disagree on the sign.

01:21:52.540 And I need there to be strict, strict aesthetic standards.

01:21:57.240 It's like putting a plaster.

01:21:58.080 Personally.

01:21:58.820 It's 1% of the issue, isn't it?

01:22:01.900 It's like having your arm completely sliced open,

01:22:04.940 then putting a plaster on it, and then saying,

01:22:06.920 oh, it's all better.

01:22:08.220 It's at its core.

01:22:09.160 The community's already broken down.

01:22:11.720 There is no butcher.

01:22:12.920 There is no greengrocers.

01:22:14.120 There is no bakers.

01:22:15.040 There's no actual community there.

01:22:17.760 supermarkets have

01:22:20.280 replaced local food sources

01:22:22.540 the village has broken down

01:22:24.000 and all the village is is just this rotting corpse

01:22:26.480 I mean you can make the rotting corpse as pretty

01:22:28.660 as you want

01:22:29.460 but it doesn't take away from the decay

01:22:31.960 the reason they're happy for it to look this hideous 1.00

01:22:34.300 in the first place is because they're foreigners 1.00

01:22:36.180 with no sense of our aesthetic standards 1.00

01:22:38.180 so it all comes part and parcel as part of it

01:22:40.380 either way people have been

01:22:42.140 criticising it anyway, former M&S boss

01:22:44.360 says the whole thing's a load of bollocks about nothing

01:22:46.420 saying that really what they actually need to do is reduce business rates etc but Burnham has

01:22:53.400 apparently announced a 20% cut to business rates for pubs social clubs and live music venues

01:22:58.560 not however for restaurants cafes and hotels but he says that he is going to start working on it

01:23:04.860 we'll see if that actually comes down the pipeline one of the other controversial things when I say

01:23:10.020 that whether they're going to try and present themselves as a government the friendly

01:23:15.160 in a offensive face of reform. One of the other policies that's been announced alongside this

01:23:20.240 is not official policy yet, but Burnham kind of repeated what Rayner was saying during the

01:23:26.420 Operation Scatter days from a few years ago, where he was saying that it's not fair that poor areas

01:23:33.560 have to take in all of the asylum seekers. We need to start sending them to wealthier areas as well.

01:23:39.540 Tom Rousel saying that the translation is we're going to destroy the rural areas of Britain 0.52

01:23:43.580 forever because of course that is where a lot of the wealth is taken what's interesting about this 0.77

01:23:48.000 is he's acknowledging that actually migration that's bad that it shouldn't um at least it's

01:23:53.120 a burden it shouldn't be just forced onto the poor i mean he is sort of talking about it as

01:23:58.740 a negative thing the thing is is they should all just be deported and they shouldn't be forced on

01:24:04.100 any sort of i think this operation scatter is the final act in an abominable crime of 1.00

01:24:11.960 unbelievable scale one that they're allowed us to be invaded by between 10 and 20 million foreign 0.90

01:24:17.520 people over the course of a generation or so and then to deliberately proactively maliciously 0.99

01:24:23.380 spread it out into every corner including rural britain i sort of can't think of anything more

01:24:30.040 evil i thought it's sort of difficult to think of any way to more quickly destroy what england

01:24:36.220 is than to do that it seems to be it honestly is it's beyond depressing and blackpilling

01:24:42.760 it's beyond sort of annoying and frustrating or sickening it's it's unbelievable it's kind

01:24:48.420 of unbelievable that that's what they're doing they all they all are oligarchs well it seems to

01:24:53.680 be a consistent point of policy that they want to push through through the different faces of

01:24:58.960 pms that we're cycling through but i do wonder if it does happen if all of a sudden having a bunch

01:25:04.980 of migrants injected into their leafy Lib Dem shire if the Lib Dem's a fascist pipeline

01:25:11.520 is going to be something that we said that on this morning's breakfast show I said I'm not an

01:25:16.240 accelerationist I want my people in my country to be damaged as little as possible but if this

01:25:20.980 is what is required just a little touch of accelerationism five percent acceleration if

01:25:25.940 that's what's required for things to truly change at the ballot box then okay so be it got to go a

01:25:32.580 little bit further down

01:25:33.760 the route of destruction

01:25:36.400 before we can get ourselves out

01:25:38.400 it's like that scene in the Lord of the Rings with

01:25:40.380 Merry and Pippin where they say

01:25:41.980 can't Kai just go home and return to

01:25:44.540 the Shire and just leave this adventure behind

01:25:46.380 and he's like there will be no Shire

01:25:48.500 Pippin. Also you've got to scour it 0.96

01:25:50.420 first and with that let's go to

01:25:52.360 the video comments. Do we have any video

01:25:54.400 comments Samson?

01:25:58.420 Samson has been reliably

01:26:00.140 informed that we do have some

01:26:02.260 video comments i noticed no rumble rants came in during that segment so that's fine i'll just

01:26:06.640 wait a moment we've got a few three that looks at josh moore mechnomancer and paul vorbeck

01:26:12.240 excited to see what comes up come on samson don't keep us in anticipation what's going on

01:26:18.340 don't tap your watch we're on the clock to say you've had 87 minutes bro yeah come on bro get

01:26:24.200 this sort of i'm joking don't worry i'm joking here we go oh yeah you gotta play good otherwise

01:26:31.440 you can mess with your game.

01:26:32.740 That's all right, I look good any style. 0.81

01:26:35.600 It does annoy me when people outside America, 0.99

01:26:38.120 especially in Anglosphere nations like Australia and Britain,

01:26:40.720 mock their constitution and rights. 1.00

01:26:43.240 Easy to call Americans stupid, 1.00

01:26:45.080 but the founders sure as hell weren't. 1.00

01:26:47.020 If anything, we're the stupid ones. 1.00

01:26:48.740 We should look up to them, not down. 1.00

01:26:50.260 They fought for free speech, the right to bear arms,

01:26:52.220 the right to protest, and they kept them.

01:26:53.880 What do we have?

01:26:54.740 Governments that steamroll right over us, that's what.

01:26:57.360 At most, what we really need in our countries

01:26:59.240 is a US-style constitution.

01:27:01.060 but will limit the government's power to rule over us.

01:27:05.460 It was so great at limiting the American government's opposite.

01:27:08.620 Like, the Constitution was such a great shield for the southern states

01:27:11.840 during the Civil War, wasn't it?

01:27:13.720 But let's go to the next one.

01:27:16.240 You remember when Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex

01:27:20.520 after he was president in, like, 1960, he comes out of power, doesn't he?

01:27:26.100 the constitution save the united states from that that tyranny no well did the united states stop

01:27:33.720 sorry did the constitution stop the government from sending the army in to little rock arkansas

01:27:39.580 when they decided actually we want to keep our schools the way they already are thank you very

01:27:44.340 much and they were literally marched at gunpoint into newly desegregated schools did the constitution

01:27:51.020 save randy weaver's wife oh god that's a terrible story did the constitution save the people uh

01:27:58.260 waco and what was what what was their crimes it was um selling unlicensed guns to a federal

01:28:04.100 informant an undercover fed asked him to saw off a shotgun not to mention the cia more short more

01:28:12.160 short than you're allowed second amendment worked great for him sorry i i don't mean to be so cynical

01:28:18.220 about it but i'm a pro-american right i'm an anglo-american i'm half american i'm pro the

01:28:23.280 united states much more than anti much much don't tell me we need a constitution that britain needs

01:28:29.100 a constitution no it's not when i when i went to america i had a wonderful time that people were

01:28:34.120 also kind and generous the landscape was was spectacular but yeah i'm i'm with you i i find

01:28:40.540 talk of the the constitution to be um unproductive anyway let's carry on sorry sorry i didn't mean to

01:28:47.440 go hard on you there bro so i'm just thinking aloud here really and i know that carl said that

01:28:53.420 they'll never republish any of the islander issues but i was wondering if it might be a good idea to

01:28:58.820 have a limited amount that can be sold at live events to encourage more attendance but i'm not

01:29:05.420 sure if it's an economically viable model just curious what he thinks we do we we did that we

01:29:13.720 still have some come to the next live event when it happens and you might be able to pick up a

01:29:18.440 maybe even a few islander issues question though on the board you should do a round table about

01:29:25.000 what the best odyssey adaptation i remember watching do you remember the cartoon i think

01:29:29.660 i don't even know where don't people say that oh brother where art thou by the cohen brothers is

01:29:33.520 a odyssey adaptation of odyssey that i used to watch this with p it's a little girl um

01:29:38.900 You talk about Ulysses 31?

01:29:41.380 Pardon?

01:29:41.820 You talk about Ulysses 31?

01:29:43.620 I don't even know what it's called.

01:29:44.320 I just remember this distinct memory as a little girl.

01:29:46.440 I remember it was a cartoon, and the giant used to really creep me out.

01:29:52.360 Yeah, it was fantastic.

01:29:54.100 It's also an 80s one.

01:29:55.360 You're probably too young for that.

01:29:56.720 I think that was the one I watched, the 80s one.

01:29:58.720 I had it on PS tape.

01:30:01.560 I remember those.

01:30:02.300 I'm not that, you know, that young.

01:30:03.660 Ulysses 31, and the theme tune to that is absolutely brilliant.

01:30:07.300 You'd love it.

01:30:07.700 classic 80s like a proper good song all right all right i'll check i'll check it out but obviously

01:30:13.100 the answer is the simpsons odyssey let's watch the next one mecca monday uh on wednesday it is

01:30:20.560 important to remember the progressive is a self-avowed racist and their actions are based

01:30:25.420 upon the shame of being racist sexist or whatever and their actions are attempts to make themselves

01:30:30.860 feel better about it being focused on solving their own feelings instead of real problems

01:30:35.520 it is quite apparent their ideology is doomed to failure

01:30:38.780 but what collateral damage awaits

01:30:41.780 that's certainly part of it like the kind of weird paternalism

01:30:46.800 like when you see like the white liberal with his obviously token black best friend

01:30:51.780 and it's just like oh you see this guy is like a pet that you bring along with you

01:30:56.200 so that you can be like look i'm not racist i've got a black friend

01:30:59.440 is that a real mech warrior he's making or is it just a mock-up 0.93

01:31:03.580 Looks like it.

01:31:04.360 Is it real?

01:31:05.000 Will he actually be able to sit in that, like robot jocks

01:31:07.320 with two joysticks, like walk around indestructible,

01:31:10.760 like a two-legged, like... 0.98

01:31:12.740 I can only assume so.

01:31:14.180 Effectively, a walking killdozer.

01:31:18.080 Let's see what happens.

01:31:19.260 Keep your eyes on the local news wherever Mech-Nomancer is.

01:31:22.300 If local man rampages in Mech-Suit is the local headlines,

01:31:26.580 then we know who's behind it. 0.98

01:31:29.640 Anyway, we have gone over time,

01:31:31.620 so we're going to have to call it there.

01:31:32.740 thank you very much folks for watching today i hope you've found it informative and entertaining

01:31:38.280 thank you beau and thank you liz for joining us where can people find you um on twitter elizabeth 0.76

01:31:43.860 uh heaven there you go sub stack too oh great which is the same same same so uh find her there

01:31:50.380 support her there we'll see you again tomorrow until then take care 0.97

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - August 12, 2026

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1482

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