The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1483

00:00:00 hello and welcome to the podcast of the lotus eaters episode 1483 for thursday the 13th of

00:00:07 august 2026 i'm your host luke joined today by firas and harry oh hello and today we're going

00:00:12 to be talking all about uh attacks on christians we're then going to be talking about the collapse

00:00:18 of hollywood and then we're going to be also talking about the sorry state of the gaming

00:00:23 industry so a very media heavy back end to this particular podcast obviously front loading with

00:00:29 by far the most important thing. Obviously, do go ahead and get your copy of Islander Magazine,

00:00:35 ladies and gentlemen. There's some absolutely terrific articles in it, obviously, as you very

00:00:41 well know by now. We've got Rory's terrific interview with the American economist, Michael

00:00:46 Hudson, talking all about the history of credit and debt, and also, as well, very importantly,

00:00:53 how theology impacted this over time you know going from the uh you know all the way back to

00:00:59 the uh babylonians and uh the persians and how uh christianity uh changed it as well so really

00:01:05 really insightful articles in there do go and take a look uh with that all said it's very very hot

00:01:11 today as well ladies and gentlemen so as you can see harry is already tireless so if you see

00:01:16 also stripping down in this podcast you you've been warned i was on the bow show earlier wearing

00:01:22 a tie so you know you can't say i haven't i haven't worn one you've done your time for the

00:01:27 audience i have no plans of stripping down relax everyone it's not gonna happen uh i don't get paid

00:01:32 enough no all right then well with that said then firas do you want to yes so let's talk a little

00:01:41 bit about what's going on in the holy land uh because jewish christian relations in the holy

00:01:45 land are not really very very good uh contrary to what people like mike huckabee would like to say

00:01:52 to you. And I wanted to highlight a couple of reports on a couple of incidents. And then in

00:01:56 the spirit of fairness, I wanted to try to explain the religious logic behind some of these attacks. 0.93

00:02:03 Because when we speak about Hamas's drive to terrorism, we always should hear about and do 0.61

00:02:12 pay close attention to what Hamas textbooks teach. And Hamas textbooks are absolutely horrific 0.53

00:02:18 when it comes to what they say about Jews and Christians. 1.00

00:02:22 This is part of Islamic tradition,

00:02:25 and it is very well backed by the sources,

00:02:29 being the Quran, the Holy Book of the Muslims,

00:02:32 and the Hadith, the sayings of the Prophet of Islam.

00:02:35 And so it's just important to treat all religions in the same way,

00:02:40 with a spirit of empathy, with a spirit of understanding,

00:02:43 and to try to see what they actually teach and what it implies.

00:02:47 So this is going to be the segment.

00:02:48 So I want to start a little bit with some of the incidents that have been happening to try to explain those.

00:02:54 Here you see basically an Israeli settler in the West Bank in a small village called Taibi.

00:03:02 This is the last Christian village in the West Bank. 0.84

00:03:08 Obviously, that is pretty much where Christianity started. 0.99

00:03:11 What happened to the rest of them? 1.00

00:03:15 Well, it's a combination of the Palestinians and the Israelis. 0.69

00:03:18 Partly it's Muslim demographics, partly it's Christian immigration,

00:03:22 and the result is that, for example, Bethlehem is literally now majority Muslim.

00:03:29 The village where the angel announced to the shepherds the arrival of Christ is now majority Muslim.

00:03:36 And these villages are now pretty much gated entirely.

00:03:41 The Israeli military controls access to them all the time.

00:03:43 and there is only one christian village left there is a christian presence in other areas

00:03:50 but it's basically now a muslim majority so with the muslims i'm wondering is there any sort of

00:03:57 like tribal and ethnic variation between the christian palestinians and the muslim palestinians 0.84

00:04:03 ethnic not so much because the the muslims will have more arabian blood more blood from the

00:04:11 arabian peninsula whereas the uh majority of the genetic composition of both muslims and christians

00:04:20 is generally canaanite yeah and so they are quite similar genetically you can't look and say

00:04:26 this one is definitely christian this one is definitely muslim um so with some of the shifts

00:04:32 i'm just curious um obviously you say that there's some emigration of christians from the area because

00:04:36 i imagine it's a very volatile place for them to be uh despite the religious significance of the

00:04:41 lands uh but is do you find much like conversion going on one way or the other is that just like

00:04:47 oh okay that's that's no longer happened that happened in the past yeah that is no longer

00:04:53 happening uh in any direction you have some reports of muslims converting in secret but it's

00:05:00 rare to be fair uh so you see this gentleman here he basically brings his goats to the property of

00:05:08 someone else because he wants to be a sort of biblical shepherd and he brings them to try to

00:05:15 get into the house of somebody in that Christian village. In that same village there were a couple

00:05:21 of arson attacks and things like that and usually this happens with the implied support of the

00:05:27 Israeli army. So you see this guy filming himself there and some activists being around and I think

00:05:35 in the next video he i think that's him as well he's basically beating the crap of a uh one of 0.77

00:05:48 those foreign activists now i have mixed opinions on these activists a lot of them are quite far

00:05:53 left and i'm not a big fan of their views a lot of them are just anti-jewish for the sake of being

00:05:58 anti-jewish i'm not a big fan of their views but this is a female activist trying to say look we

00:06:04 are here as a sort of international presence to stop you from doing this kind of thing. 1.00

00:06:10 And he just punches her in the head a couple of times. And this is a recurring thing that happens

00:06:15 in Taibe. You see basically here a report from the Catholic Herald. I think there is another

00:06:25 link from, oh no, there it is. You see here a story from the Catholic Herald where they speak

00:06:33 the parish priest in that village and he says you know that basically this is a real problem.

00:06:42 On the 5th of August Israeli settlers broke into the house of a family belonging to Father Fawadli's

00:06:49 parish and the priest says they occupied the land, brought a flock of sheep up to the house

00:06:54 and they cut through the fencing. This is not an isolated incident, this is a deliberate strategy

00:06:59 of harassment designed to create a climate of fear and pressure Palestinian families

00:07:04 into leaving their land.

00:07:05 We give thanks to God that the family is safe.

00:07:10 Imagine preparing a home for your family only to find out that strangers have been trespassing

00:07:14 and are occupying it at will.

00:07:16 That is the reality that we live here in Taipei.

00:07:20 As I speak to you now, some settlers have returned to this land to basically pitch tents

00:07:24 and herd their sheep and goats in somebody else's land.

00:07:29 This is obviously immensely destructive for any agricultural land.

00:07:34 And this keeps on happening.

00:07:35 The priest says that this is deteriorating.

00:07:37 We feel forgotten.

00:07:39 We have legal options, but they are very limited and rarely effective

00:07:42 because the courts tend to discriminate.

00:07:45 This is why international presence and pressure are vital right now.

00:07:48 But obviously, if you're part of that international presence,

00:07:50 you can be repeatedly punched in the head as you're kneeling on the ground, 0.96

00:07:54 even if you're a woman. 0.56

00:07:56 We need to sustain our lives here and to continue bearing witness to Jesus Christ and his disciples.

00:08:01 Preserving the Christian presence here in Taibé is a shared responsibility.

00:08:05 Even everything that is happening, some residents are reaching a breaking point where they want to leave their land and abandon everything.

00:08:12 And that's the purpose of these tactics.

00:08:13 I mean, somebody's taking away your livelihood and taking away your home with the explicit intent of forcing you out.

00:08:20 I can't imagine the amount of resolve and conviction it would take to stay under such conditions.

00:08:26 It is genuinely impressive. 0.62

00:08:27 Where does this stand legally within Israel and the Israeli government, the action of these settlers?

00:08:34 Because obviously Netanyahu has made a number of statements saying that he and his government want to protect Christians in the area.

00:08:41 They've made a big show of protecting, I think, your own people, the Druze in Syria as well.

00:08:47 is this sanctioned by the Israeli government or is it implicitly implicit so pretty much forever

00:08:56 there has been this very uh I would argue two-faced policy from the Israeli government

00:09:03 where they say that they want this is a country of laws etc etc they want to apply the law but

00:09:10 implicitly they permit the settlers to do this kind of thing against Muslims and against Christians

00:09:16 and it doesn't really seem to stop. The Israeli military obviously has the power to prevent this

00:09:24 if they wanted to but that would trigger a political crisis within the ruling coalition

00:09:29 in Israel and even when the ruling coalition didn't include a large number of religious Zionists who

00:09:35 are a separate part of Israeli society and different from other elements from the secular

00:09:40 elements shall we say uh even under a largely secular government this kind of thing happened

00:09:47 but it seems that the intensity is increasing and the targeting of christians is increasing

00:09:52 uh a couple of years ago a palestinian christian journalist working and american journalist

00:09:58 working for al jazeera got shot in the head while she was reporting uh literally got shot in the

00:10:06 the head killed yes murdered i mean getting a headshot is not something that you do accidentally

00:10:15 and after that happened the israeli police went ahead and attacked her funeral

00:10:21 and beat up the procession carrying her casket to the extent that the casket fell

00:10:36 I mean, you don't do that at a funeral.

00:10:46 No, I mean, there's no justification.

00:10:47 And she is also, you know, by citizenship American, obviously Palestinian Christian, but obviously by citizenship American.

00:10:54 And you see the reporting here pretty well sourced on Wikipedia explaining that, yes, she was shot in the head and killed in 2022.

00:11:03 And there is no way this wasn't deliberate.

00:11:05 it didn't happen just because she's christian but the attack on the funeral i mean that is a bit

00:11:11 strange shall we say i mean was the was the procession the funeral procession were they

00:11:17 going through areas where they weren't permitted to go or was it just a public thing that was

00:11:22 allowed to be a public thing and they decided to attack it they basically you never know when you

00:11:27 have these kinds of groups who said what to whom but obviously one side was armed with batons and

00:11:33 beating the uh the procession and so it it gets lost as to what caused what i'm not suggesting

00:11:43 it's justifiable i'm just wondering what the reason was given to justify it the it tends to

00:11:50 be that you that there is a mindset among some of the israelis that they need to just crush and

00:11:56 humiliate their enemies which is incidentally the same exact mindset animating groups like hamas

00:12:02 so there is this similarity in world outlook um you see another incident here basically

00:12:08 it's a catholic nun walking in jerusalem on the 30th of april i think and see what happens

00:12:17 she just randomly charges at her and just pushes her full force to the ground she's

00:12:32 obviously half his size um on the left not doing anything not doing anything and then proceeds to 0.99

00:12:39 give her a couple of kicks until somebody intervenes and tries to stop him good for that

00:12:45 yeah yeah and you saw this report from the wall street journal on the 2nd of august uh it's worth

00:12:54 reading that a little some of that i would say in the old city of jerusalem a group of israeli

00:13:00 teenagers banged at the door of the headquarters of the Armenian church to ask if there were any

00:13:06 Christians inside it. They wanted to spit at them. The boys said that it was a religious duty or 0.94

00:13:13 mitzvah to humiliate Christians or as they call them idol worshippers. We are supposed to hate 0.85

00:13:20 them explained one teenager wrapped in an Israeli flag. They were among the thousands of young

00:13:26 mostly israelis and just to be clear there was a group of thousands a small group of those went

00:13:31 to the christian church to the to the armenian church uh demonstrating for the day that israel

00:13:38 captured jerusalem in the 1967 war uh on that afternoon there were at least a dozen spitting

00:13:45 incidents near the armenian church alone according to security camera footage so it's not really

00:13:50 debatable um and to to the wall street journalists on the scene incidents of anti-christian hate once

00:13:57 sporadic are becoming routine in jerusalem a city held sacred in christianity judaism and islam

00:14:03 most israelis condemn this behavior which is largely true i would say but negative attitudes

00:14:09 towards christianity have become more common particularly among young people and this is part

00:14:13 of the demographic change that you're seeing in israel where a larger and larger proportion of

00:14:18 the youth are coming from either religious zionism or from hasidic uh jewish communities

00:14:25 and and are these being taught within the schools as well is it a change of education certainly

00:14:32 within the religious zionist camp and when the within the hasidic camp yes within the secular

00:14:37 schools less so right now by contrast in the palestinian schools even schools that are run 0.87

00:14:42 by the nominally secular plo tend to have quite harsh things to say right about jews and especially

00:14:49 jews in the hamas schools it tends to be against jews and christians so just to clarify and again

00:14:56 the emphasis here is to treat them both equally because with any religion you want to try to

00:15:01 understand it and understand its premises to analyze to what extent there is a linkage

00:15:07 between beliefs and behavior and usually there is a linkage uh according to one israeli researcher

00:15:15 says that um this is the reality whomever is a christian visibly a christian is becoming a target

00:15:23 said yizka harani an israeli scholar who monitors anti-christian hatred

00:15:27 there are a growing number of religious jews who do this and it is not being taken seriously by

00:15:31 by Israeli authorities, his words. 1.00

00:15:34 They are turning a blind eye and that is encouragement.

00:15:38 The rise in anti-Christian behavior is relatively new.

00:15:41 2013, attackers attacked a Protestant cemetery

00:15:44 in Jerusalem.

00:15:46 Two years later, a monastery was set on fire in Tabgha

00:15:49 where Christians believe that Jesus performed

00:15:52 the loaves and fish miracle.

00:15:55 Itamar Ben Gvir, the security minister of Israel, 0.97

00:15:59 who is genuinely a lunatic,

00:16:01 but who was an integral part of the coalition that currently governs Israel, 0.86

00:16:06 was the defense lawyer of the arsonists.

00:16:09 Oh, right.

00:16:10 He has said that spitting on Christians is an ancient Jewish custom

00:16:14 and shouldn't be considered a crime.

00:16:17 Now, in Britain, spitting on anyone is considered assault.

00:16:21 Spitting on anyone for religious reasons is an aggravated hate crime. 0.99

00:16:26 So it is worth remembering these things.

00:16:29 from a british perspective the behavior of these types these these new more radical generation of 0.99

00:16:37 um zionist jews that are growing up in israel their behavior is reminding me of football 0.85

00:16:44 hooliganism uh by the youths which is interesting because of the hooliganism that was alleged at the 0.99

00:16:49 israeli football team which which was the israeli football along with yes the one that was supposed

00:16:54 to go to birmingham yeah yeah maccabi tel aviv oh yeah sorry maccabi tel aviv are genuinely horrible

00:16:59 yeah i've heard that there was a lot of uh mix-up in the reporting in the netherlands because in

00:17:05 the netherlands it seems that it was the muslims who attacked first all right well yeah i've heard

00:17:09 that the fact that there were attacks by the muslims ended up being warped and misrepresented

00:17:14 and used by the authorities to ban maccabi tel aviv rather than provide proper policing services 0.81

00:17:20 in Birmingham well again this seems to remind me of like the behavior of football hooliganism

00:17:26 in England that we see but football hooliganism so far as I'm aware does not have the same level 0.61

00:17:33 of at least as you suggest implicit state backing well quite when it's attacking um religious

00:17:40 minorities within the area in fact it's the exact opposite over here football hooligans were to go

00:17:45 over and burn a quran in front of a um in front of a muslim temple or something that the authorities

00:17:51 would be on it right oh absolutely yeah absolutely uh benedictine abbott says that uh

00:17:58 now there is no day that people are not spitting at me says the german monk the attackers often

00:18:07 come for his pectoral cross and sometimes shout at him to remove it he says that the rise of

00:18:12 religious extremists in the government is making it easier for people to get away with acts of

00:18:16 anti-christian hate they are making it very clear that there is no right to be here as a christian

00:18:20 which is you know insane because we're not for the support of christian countries there would

00:18:26 be no state of israel but moving on also it is also the christian holy land it's a holy it is

00:18:30 also obviously the christian holy land yes um in the first half of 2026 harani's organization

00:18:38 registered 107 anti-Christian incidents, more than double the figures it recorded in the same period

00:18:43 in 2024. The majority are occurring in Jerusalem, including shouts of death to Christians, trashes

00:18:50 often thrown at monasteries. The biggest culprits are young Israelis, according to this Israeli

00:18:56 researcher. So you see this pattern emerging, and just as when it comes to Islam, it is important 1.00

00:19:07 to understand that Islam is a religion of government that sees itself as entitled to 0.99

00:19:12 rule over Christians and Jews and humiliate them and make them pay special taxes and prevent them 0.99

00:19:19 from riding on horses and forcing them into the narrow side of the road whenever they pass by a 1.00

00:19:26 Muslim. It's important to understand these things about Islam. I think it's also important to

00:19:31 understand these things about Judaism because we have the situation emerging. It is worth explaining

00:19:39 and if you want to explain it what better source is there than looking at what Israeli writers have

00:19:45 said documenting the beliefs of certain elements in the Jewish community. And I want to be clear

00:19:52 in the same way that most Muslims are peaceful but you have very problematic passages in Islamic

00:19:59 scripture, the same applies to Jews. And it applies particularly to Jews in Israel.

00:20:05 Now, this is a good book by Israel Shahak, who was a chemistry professor who basically spent his

00:20:12 life studying how Israeli society was being radicalized and what was happening to Israeli

00:20:19 society and how it departed from the secular foundations of Zionism and became more and more

00:20:25 extreme over time. What decades was he? So he was writing in the 90s and early 2000s. Right, okay.

00:20:31 Yeah. And there's a passage here that says the following.

00:20:39 Shahak explains that the Talmud contains a huge number of passages that are deeply hostile to

00:20:45 Christians. And he explains that in various disputations that happened between Christians

00:20:50 and Jews in the Middle Ages, the Christians looked at the Talmud and said, hold on a second,

00:20:56 what you're saying about us is a bit extreme, and this isn't really acceptable for rather obvious

00:21:02 reasons. And as a result of that, Shahak's words here, Talmudic passages directed against Christians

00:21:09 or against non-Jews had to go or be modified. The pressure was too strong. This is what was done.

00:21:16 A few of the most offensive passages were bodily removed from all editions printed in Europe

00:21:20 after the mid-16th century. In all other passages, the expressions Gentile, non-Jew,

00:21:29 stranger, which appear in all early manuscripts and printings, as well as in all editions published

00:21:35 in Islamic countries, were replaced by terms such as idolater, heathen, or even Canaanite,

00:21:41 or Samaritan, terms which could be explained away but which a Jewish reader could recognize

00:21:46 at euphemisms for the old expressions. At the same time, lists of Talmudic omissions were

00:21:53 circulated in manuscript form, as in written rather than printed, or copied by hand rather

00:21:59 than printed, which explained all the new terms and pointed out all of the omissions.

00:22:04 At times, a general disclaimer was printed before the title page of each volume of Talmudic

00:22:09 literature, solemnly declaring, sometimes on oath, that all hostile expressions in that volume

00:22:15 are intended only against the idolaters of antiquity, or even against the long-vanished

00:22:20 Canaanites, rather than against the peoples in whose land we live. After the British conquest

00:22:26 of India, some rabbis hit on the subterfuge of claiming that any particularly outrageous

00:22:32 derogatory expression used by them is only intended against the Indians.

00:22:36 clever this was a calculated lie from beginning to end and following the establishment of the

00:22:43 state of israel once the rabbis felt secure all the offensive passages and expressions were

00:22:48 restored without hesitation in all new editions because the enormous cost of a new of a new

00:22:54 edition uh a considerable part of the talmudic literature including the talmud itself is still

00:22:59 being reprinted i think he was writing in the early 2000s for this reason the above

00:23:04 mentioned Talmudic commissions have now been published in Israel in a cheap printed edition

00:23:09 under the title Hersonot Shas. Now, what does the Talmud say about Christians? It's an important

00:23:17 question if you want to understand violence by a segment of religious Jews and a segment of

00:23:23 Hasidic Jews against Christians. Well, I went through a book called Jesus in the Talmud by

00:23:30 peter schaefer peter schaefer had been the uh director of the jewish museum of berlin

00:23:37 so not a biased source by any account and his findings were genuinely shocking frankly

00:23:46 um the talmud claims that the virgin mary was a prostitute which is a bit of an extreme statement

00:23:55 Well, as far as I'm aware, is it correct that the Talmud is, like, dozens of volumes long?

00:24:03 34 volumes.

00:24:04 34 volumes long. It's an enormous, enormous set of tomes.

00:24:08 And it all seems to be the arguments of rabbis on how to interpret scripture.

00:24:15 So, in part, it's the arguments of rabbis.

00:24:18 Yes.

00:24:19 Within it, there are points of consensus.

00:24:22 All right.

00:24:23 And then there is a whole debate over is the Jesus that is referred to in the Talmud Jesus of Nazareth or someone else called Jesus, which came up, I believe, in the French Middle Ages trial of the Talmud.

00:24:40 And the answer was, well, which Jesus are you talking about then?

00:24:45 And there was no acceptable reply.

00:24:49 Well, no one could possibly think of a Jesus over them.

00:24:53 the messiah could you it's the only one who enters your head precisely i bring anyone's head i bring

00:24:58 this up simply because in such a long see such a long work which does consist at points of people

00:25:06 arguing against one another it would seem like it would be very very easy to cherry pick quotes and

00:25:11 say this is this is what it's saying in totality with no contradiction which might be a lie but

00:25:15 this guy peter schaefer was head of this museum presumably had read the entire thing numerous

00:25:22 times and was an expert on this work so it would be very difficult to accuse this guy of cherry

00:25:27 picking. Well his entire argument is that bigger books like Christianity and the Talmud and Midrash

00:25:36 by Hertford are basically too broad in what they refer to as Christians and that a lot of the

00:25:45 passages that are picked up elsewhere don't in fact refer to Christians. Now this is a legitimate 1.00

00:25:50 point of debate. Does the word menim, which means heretic, generally apply to Christians? And

00:25:57 I think on balance the answer is yes, but Schaeffer claims not always, and so he comes up with a sort

00:26:06 of more defined and reduced, shall we say, version of what he says the Talmud says about Christians

00:26:14 and in particular about Jesus. You also see accusations that Jesus is a

00:26:21 sorcerer and that explains the miracles by our Lord. Jesus is described as being

00:26:31 punished forever unlike normal sinners who might be in hell for just 12 months.

00:26:37 Jesus is punished forever and his punishment is to sit in boiling

00:26:41 excrement and then you see one of the most fascinating parts that Jesus was

00:26:48 rightly executed for blasphemy so there is no there's no denying that as far as

00:26:55 the Talmud is concerned Jesus basically didn't respect the rabbis and claim

00:27:01 that the old rules of the Torah were no longer necessary claimed that he was God

00:27:05 and therefore he received the correct punishment but one of the most

00:27:08 interesting passages for me was the idea that it's better for somebody to die than to be healed by

00:27:15 the name of Jesus. It is better for a Jew to die than to be healed by the name of Jesus. Because 0.93

00:27:20 if you are healed by Christ, that means that you have no part in the world to come. Whereas if you 0.54

00:27:26 just die, at least you have a part in the world to come. And that seems a bit extreme to me. That

00:27:33 really does seem a bit extreme to me. In other parts, you see basically in Avodah Zarah, which

00:27:41 is again part of the Talmud, Rabbi Abahu taught the following, with regard to Gentiles and shepherds 0.87

00:27:49 of domesticated animals, one may not raise them from a pit. The implication here is that if you 0.98

00:27:55 find someone who is a Gentile, who has fallen and their life is at risk, you may not in fact save 1.00

00:28:02 them. One may not lower them into a pit, but heretics and the informers and the apostates 1.00

00:28:08 are lowered into a pit, but not raised out of it. Heretics does apply to Christians because 0.98

00:28:14 from a mainstream modern Jewish perspective, Christianity is a Jewish heresy. From a Christian 0.97

00:28:22 perspective, rabbinic Judaism is in fact the heresy. So the fact that these passages exist 0.94

00:28:27 and this kind of animosity exists is, I would argue, relevant and does have some explanatory

00:28:34 value and can help us see why one of the teenagers who wants to spit at a church in Jerusalem

00:28:41 would say we are supposed to hate them. These teachings are in fact relevant. And I'm just

00:28:48 scratching the surface here. There are many other things here. The sages taught one who sees the

00:28:54 houses of Israel inhabited and tranquil, recites, blessed is God who establishes the border of the

00:29:00 widow. One who sees them in ruins, recites, blessed be the true judge. One who sees the

00:29:06 houses of the nations of the world inhabited, recites, the Lord will destroy the house of the 0.94

00:29:13 proud, but he will establish the border of the widow. And if he sees them in ruins, he recites,

00:29:19 god of vengeance lord god of vengeance shine forth again this seems a bit extreme to me

00:29:30 i would argue um this i mean this is obviously hateful uh in another passage you in uh berahot

00:29:41 58b the sages taught in a barita one who sees the grace of israel recites blessed is god who

00:29:48 formed you in judgment, who nourished you in judgment, who sustained you, da-da-da-da-da.

00:29:53 One who sees the graves of the Gentiles recites, your mother shall be sore ashamed, she who bore 0.74

00:29:59 you shall be confounded. Behold, the hindermost of the nations shall be a wilderness, a dry land, 0.99

00:30:05 and a desert, which is a passage from Jeremiah speaking about basically the horrors that will

00:30:10 afflict Israel as they disobey God. This, to my mind, seems relevant, and I would argue that just

00:30:19 as we should study Islamic scriptures and teach what they say about Christians and the need to 0.84

00:30:25 subjugate and humiliate Christians and Jews both, passages like this that express a just a blinding 0.86

00:30:33 hatred, I would argue, towards all Gentiles with a particular focus on Christians are also relevant. 0.79

00:30:40 i would say it's important to understand the beliefs that are driving actions you can't address 0.80

00:30:46 islamic terrorism if you don't understand islam and you can't understand the uh attacks by a small

00:30:54 minority of jews against christians in israel without understanding these kinds of beliefs 0.77

00:31:00 And then there is this here, the Barakat Haminim, the blessings on the heretics.

00:31:12 This is part of daily Jewish prayers that are recited while standing up. 0.92

00:31:18 And it is called blessings, but it is anything but. 0.62

00:31:23 But for the apostates, the text of one of these, or this segment of the daily prayer,

00:31:33 for the apostates, let there be no hope, and uproot the kingdom of arrogance, speedily and in our days. 0.99

00:31:40 May the Nazarenes, the Christians, and the sectarians, Minim, perish as in a moment. 1.00

00:31:48 Let them be blotted out of the book of life, and not be written together with the righteous, 1.00

00:31:53 you are praised, O Lord, who subdues the arrogant. 1.00

00:31:57 Now we can constantly find Muslims in mosques in the West 0.98

00:32:01 reciting prayers, basically saying, 0.91

00:32:06 count the Christians and the Jews 1.00

00:32:09 and wipe them out one by one. 1.00

00:32:12 And it is a problem.

00:32:14 And it shows a real conflict between these belief systems.

00:32:19 But I would argue that this is the same.

00:32:22 I would argue that there is no difference between the prayer that you hear in a mosque and this Barakot Haminim.

00:32:31 It's pretty blunt.

00:32:32 It is rather direct.

00:32:34 It is rather direct.

00:32:36 Let there be no hope.

00:32:39 Cheers, mate.

00:32:40 A bit over the top.

00:32:41 A bit over the top.

00:32:43 So I wanted to explain what the media refuses to touch.

00:32:49 I'm very glad that the Wall Street Journal and the Catholic Herald are reporting on the plight of Christians in the Holy Land.

00:32:57 But I think that reporting it isn't enough. 0.96

00:33:01 I think understanding it is important in the same way that we seek to understand Muslim violence. 0.98

00:33:07 And given that I believe that the only legitimate claim on the Holy Land is the Christian claim, 0.99

00:33:12 as would a Muslim about his claim, as would a Jew about his claim, 0.98

00:33:16 I think that we should know this and be aware of it as we discuss this kind of violence. 0.63

00:33:23 And I don't think it's just enough to say, well, there are religious extremists.

00:33:27 Because the issue with religious extremists across the board is that they are literalists.

00:33:34 And so it's important to look at the source from which they are taking their literal teachings.

00:33:40 And in the modern Jewish case, in the case of modern rabbinic Judaism or post-second

00:33:48 temple Judaism, this is what's driving it. 1.00

00:33:51 If you pray every day, may the Nazarenes perish as in a moment, let them be blotted out of 0.99

00:33:58 the book of life, that will lead to conflict. 0.99

00:34:04 And as Israel Shahak explains, the foundation of the modern state of Israel has encouraged the reintroduction of this kind of teaching. 0.95

00:34:13 So it's not a surprise that we're seeing it happen from religious Zionists and their youth, because that is what they're being taught. 0.88

00:34:21 And you can't understand the violence against Christians in the Holy Land without understanding this issue. 0.99

00:34:26 That's what I wanted to say.

00:34:29 Very interesting. Thank you.

00:34:30 Thank you.

00:34:31 um all right so uh rumble rants from this one so we've got that's a random name saying so the

00:34:36 significance of the sheep that they bring herds uh all the people's property claim they can enter

00:34:42 said property because their livestock is on the land i don't i don't know what's the logic i think

00:34:46 it's just an attempt at dispossession i think it's that blunt really it might be but you find

00:34:51 people like that tend to have lots of lots of loopholes they think very legalistically it's

00:34:57 like those tiktok guys where it's like yeah sure we're not allowed to do all of this on the shabbat

00:35:02 but we've got all of this like i've got a kosher light that i'm going to use it's like you understand

00:35:07 that god can tell when you're trying to trick him right what's even the point of trying to keep to

00:35:12 the rules if you're not going to keep to the rules uh base tape for two dollars says none of these

00:35:17 boy uh people can be trusted with jerusalem come on boys taking back the holy land for christendom

00:35:23 altrima too uh no doubt yeah five dollars for uh hero hero sang sanichiban says oh no don't talk

00:35:33 yeah well he just did uh and for ten dollars thank you from uh somerset south african says

00:35:40 lord jesus christ son of god have mercy on me a sinner amen on all of us

00:35:45 All right, on to slightly less serious talk right now, although if you live in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles and were relying on the movie industry there to keep yourself afloat, I'm sure this will be quite a serious problem for you, which is that Hollywood appears to be collapsing.

00:36:06 And I know that that sounds like hyperbole, but it really does seem like Hollywood, as in the geographic center of the American movie industry, which has so much money running through it and so much influence on the world stage to export American values out into the world, is genuinely in dire straits.

00:36:27 and looks as though without some kind of miracle the changes that have been brought about through

00:36:31 streaming and the internet and easy access to constant 24-hour content that doesn't have to

00:36:37 be on a schedule has collapsed the industry's model into itself, which is something that's

00:36:45 only been accelerated by COVID. It's never really recovered from COVID. I'm going to give a shout

00:36:49 out. I believe it was Sigilstone yesterday who pointed out that this was something that was

00:36:54 happening and at first I was expecting it to be you know maybe just some news going on where oh

00:36:59 some studios reported that its profits aren't quite as high as it were but no this seems to be

00:37:04 an existential problem that I'll get into but if you want something nourishing if you want something

00:37:09 that will give you an idea of instead of just worrying about what is happening in the world

00:37:13 what you can do in the world then you should pick up an issue of Islander number six while it's

00:37:19 still available through our merchandise website maybe pick yourself something else up while you're

00:37:23 there as well, like a mug or a shirt. But for $14.99, with post-its and packaging in certain

00:37:29 areas, you're going to get so much value for your money, it is untrue. There are a number of excellent

00:37:35 articles in here. One of my favourites being Influence Is Not Power by Henry Martin, who I

00:37:42 interviewed for the website just last week, talking about the place of internet influencers

00:37:48 and influences elsewhere as well within political movements what kind of change can they bring what's

00:37:54 their place in it should they simply be figureheads should they have more organizational power

00:37:58 and uh what you can do as part of that hierarchy as well so please get a hold of this while you can

00:38:05 anyway so uh yeah i decided to look into this at the suggestion of i apologies if i got it wrong

00:38:11 let me know in the chat i think it was right i'm sure they will let you know anytime i get

00:38:17 anything wrong, that's absolutely fine. You can please let me know. Bully me if you have to.

00:38:23 So I decided to look into this, and there's quite a lot of discussion, and it's not all just recent

00:38:27 as well. This is an article going back to March earlier this year in the run-up to the Oscars,

00:38:32 saying the Oscars make it clear Hollywood is in a death spiral. And it's not just because the films

00:38:37 being produced by the American film industry are nowhere near the level of quality that they once

00:38:42 were. They're not even really talking about the lowered standards that you find in the production

00:38:46 themselves everybody's complained about the strange imagery that you see in Hollywood these

00:38:52 days the fact that nothing can be lit properly everything looks flat and dull the color grading

00:38:56 is horrible the special effects are getting worse and worse and worse and worse this is just in

00:39:01 terms of like actually nothing is being made in Hollywood anymore so you've been corrected by the

00:39:08 way it was Logan 17 Logan Logan 17 pine apologies it wasn't sigil stone that was falsely attributed

00:39:16 this was logan pine was the one who let me know so thank you for correcting me before i let that

00:39:21 misinformation go out but you can you can see here in terms of the yearly production shoot days

00:39:28 in los angeles this would be as part of the hollywood industry as represented by the actual

00:39:32 studios their studio sets their backlots the things that hollywood used to be built from

00:39:38 has absolutely tanked in terms of what's actually being filmed there going back to 2015 2016 seems

00:39:45 have been the high over the past 12 years uh was uh 39 000 hours of footage being recorded

00:39:52 in hollywood itself you get the pandemic shutdown and then it's thousand days oh sorry yes days

00:40:01 shoot days yes that's right uh it plummets in 2020 to about 19 000 shoots back up when it opens back

00:40:09 up again but then we've gone back down to 9 000 sorry 19 700 days in hollywood so we're down to

00:40:17 almost covid pandemic lockdown era um uh shoots so what's going on what's happening and they point

00:40:27 out in this article if you look at the field for best best picture oscar uh you find that not a

00:40:33 single one of the 10 nominated movies was produced on the sound stages or studio lots of hollywood

00:40:38 Some of the post-production was done in LA-based facilities.

00:40:42 Almost all of them, well, all of them were entirely or largely filmed elsewhere.

00:40:47 Marty Supreme was filmed in New York.

00:40:49 Sinners was filmed in Louisiana.

00:40:51 Hamnet was filmed in the UK.

00:40:54 Hollywood, being the name for the entertainment industry headquartered and operated in Los Angeles, is disintegrating.

00:41:00 It mentions the drop in shoot days that have been done there.

00:41:03 and they say that some 41 000 of the workers who make the industry function left from 2022 to 2024

00:41:11 which was the most recent data available some by choice some by necessity the industry's most

00:41:16 powerful person now is not a traditional studio boss but ted sarandos the co-ceo of netflix which

00:41:25 is headquartered in silicon valley so a lot of the power that was once vested in the entertainment

00:41:30 industry purely in la has shifted to silicon valley san francisco amazon netflix apple all

00:41:39 of these big tech companies which open their own streaming sector have almost completely wiped off

00:41:43 hollywood already wiped wiped them off wiped off their influence you can't stand up to netflix

00:41:50 anymore they are the most powerful entertainment industry company in the entire world and that

00:41:55 puts the traditional studios in a very very and that's even up against all of these other streaming

00:42:00 rivals that have tried to come obviously uh you know to get a wedge into that new market i mean

00:42:06 just look at disney disney i was just about to say disney plus the fact that disney plus

00:42:10 cannot out compete you know one of the oldest hollywood companies that there is cannot out

00:42:14 usually legacy like a huge legacy i think there's a graph further down here that shows you the

00:42:19 difference in um influence between them yeah the the share streaming giant towers over traditional

00:42:26 studios market capitalization netflix 358 billion dollars in first place second place disney 187

00:42:37 billion dollars almost almost half yeah that's just how much netflix has dominated the industry

00:42:45 since it introduced streaming back in 2010 and they say yes that remains true even after paramount

00:42:51 Skydance's David Ellison, yes, the son of Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle, the AI company,

00:42:58 outbid Netflix to purchase the legendary studio Warner Brothers Discovery. They're trying to do

00:43:03 a big merger. Indeed, the outcome of that intensely watched deal negotiation looks

00:43:07 likely to be another nail in the coffin for the film industry as a dominant economic force in

00:43:11 Los Angeles, with Ellison, Hollywood's newest mogul, promising to find $6 billion plus in synergies

00:43:17 following the acquisition he's promised that the majority of these cost cuts will affect quote

00:43:23 non-labor sources but the town uh is bracing for large-scale layoffs so the result of this merger

00:43:31 which ellison says is going to be the thing that saves hollywood is that alongside those 41 000

00:43:38 jobs which are now gone it's probably going to be even more because paramount and warner brothers

00:43:43 huge companies absolutely massive like you can see warner brothers discovery and paramount

00:43:48 are the ones in market capitalization which are bringing up the rear yes but still

00:43:53 between them worth about 84 billion dollars huge amount of money probably lots of jobs riding on

00:44:00 those bye-bye yep bye-bye and the worst part is for them if it goes through uh to make it go

00:44:09 through they may not even be headquartered in los angeles anymore so hollywood as it exists again

00:44:15 is just leaving it's just gone it will never be the same again and they say as a result of all of

00:44:20 this a quote from the assessment of michael linton former ceo of sony pictures was that la has become

00:44:26 the sunny version of detroit in more way in more ways than one i would expect harsh that's damning

00:44:33 he said uh it was crickets last time i went there there is nothing going on the loss of the

00:44:39 industry's talent pipeline may well result in a decline of the quality um of the products the

00:44:45 industry produces and unleash an abundance of ai slop according to the article we're already well

00:44:49 well there frankly what else is new a lot of the films that come out even if they're made by people

00:44:55 look like ai slop because they are such low quality in the first place streaming era doesn't

00:45:01 just offer the steady flow of work for many direct just doesn't offer the steady flow of work

00:45:06 for many directors cinematographers writers gaffers sound mixers and other workers who have

00:45:11 relied upon hollywood to give them a steady job because we think of this place as you know glitz

00:45:16 and glamour tinsel town where dreams are made but also for a lot of people it's literally like

00:45:21 i'm just the guy who goes around fixing the lights in the hollywood studios i'm just the guy who

00:45:28 tapes down all of the wires everywhere i'm the guy who makes sure the boom mic is working

00:45:33 these are like normal jobs you could even call them working class jobs just in hollywood right

00:45:40 so these people don't get that work anymore there's no need to fill eight o'clock on wednesday

00:45:46 night says mark goffman a producer and writer this is due to the new 24 hour you can just like

00:45:51 on demand watch whatever you want producers will order one script and then six months later they'll

00:45:56 approve a second script a very precious few are on the timeline where they get greenlit and move

00:46:01 at light speed everything else kind of lumbers along with no real urgency the upshot is that

00:46:05 landing a writer's room job today is no longer such a golden opportunity with fewer episodes

00:46:10 fewer writers in the room with no role in production someone says it's a meager version

00:46:15 of the screenwriter's previous job for those trying to eke out a living in hollywood he says

00:46:19 feel like it's never been harder and you can add that on top of the problems that people

00:46:23 already experiencing what was it that compact magazine article that hit um that everybody got

00:46:27 obsessed with a little while ago that was talking about how they just didn't want white writers

00:46:32 yep they didn't like this guy who was writing it was talking about his own experiences

00:46:36 and finding that no they just didn't want white men writing anything as if as if it wasn't white

00:46:44 men writing that created the success of hollywood in the first place and all those talented writers

00:46:51 but um but i i also think the loss of this industry centralization and the loss of these

00:46:56 tight tight uh time schedules that they had to do you know you think back to the to the early 90s

00:47:01 for instance where you know you have a show like x files come out 24 episodes per season

00:47:07 every single year and you look back at those episodes and you just wonder how they did it

00:47:13 because in comparison to what they're doing now where it takes like four years to do single 10

00:47:18 episode series that each of these old episodes they were shot on film they look so much higher

00:47:25 quality the lighting is high quality the writing is higher quality the actors are there every

00:47:31 single day on set for a half a year almost so that they can get all of this done they used to

00:47:36 be able to pump this stuff out and at much higher quality than things eke out these days and i think

00:47:42 part of it is due to the loss of this industry centralization because all of the people who

00:47:48 knew how to do that well they're either diffused across the country so they can't all work together

00:47:54 anymore or they just don't work in the industry anymore because the jobs aren't there and some

00:47:59 might see this as tragedy some might see this as a well-earned black eye for an industry that had

00:48:06 become degenerate very very long ago and didn't deserve to have the level of influence and power

00:48:11 that it ended up happening uh but either way it is interesting because again they even note in

00:48:16 this article here that la basically used to be the center of influence for america's exports to the

00:48:23 entire world oh yes so without that level of influence with these people actually going out

00:48:29 to the rest of the world to try and find careers in movie industries outside of america let alone

00:48:35 outside of la how will this affect the propaganda that people consume in the future are we going

00:48:43 as any indication the propaganda is going to be much much much worse well yeah it's still going

00:48:48 to be the same propaganda but it's good it's not even going to be entertaining it's not going to

00:48:51 be arnold schwarzenegger making you love the american military industrial complex right yes

00:48:57 it was very effective after he was the most effective propagandist for america's like

00:49:03 foreign policy in the 80s uh it's just not going to be anything like that yeah yeah yeah and um

00:49:10 rambo being dedicated to the mujahideen not gonna happen again oh that's a classic that's a that's

00:49:15 a tragedy uh but the other thing is as well uh is there's more graphs that you can see in this

00:49:20 hollywood reporter commenting on the same thing but there's more uh graphs so there's the same one

00:49:25 uh shoot days but if you scroll down you can find uh live action movie and tv shoots locations

00:49:32 because one of the other things is with streaming

00:49:35 and even with HBO going back to the 90s,

00:49:37 you started to see a shift from film production

00:49:39 to television production,

00:49:40 which changed the structure of the industry as well.

00:49:43 You can see that number one ahead of Los Angeles now in 2025

00:49:48 in terms of live action movie and TV shoot locations is Canada.

00:49:52 I didn't see that coming.

00:49:54 I know, right?

00:49:55 And the UK and Ireland has grown as well.

00:49:59 New York is...

00:50:01 it's still well actually new york's fallen uh because canada has had such an enormous rise

00:50:08 the same rate yeah what are some of the more ones top u.s states for film and tv production

00:50:13 california is still in the lead but nowhere near as much as it was and you can see film encounters

00:50:18 dropped 20 production spend 22 where background actors find work is now new york's pretty much

00:50:28 there right you even see this with some tv shows that i watch like the rebooted dexter stuff where

00:50:33 dexter was set in florida but it was entirely filmed in la right and now the newest series

00:50:40 because they've rebooted that show twice now because they keep right they keep just not

00:50:44 knowing ideas they just don't know how to end it they they they ended the original series everybody

00:50:50 hated it and they went oh right eight years later we'll reboot it we'll give you the ending that

00:50:54 everyone hated that one everyone hated that one too so like fine third time is the charm and where

00:51:00 do they move it to new york right and it's set in new york now and i think it by the looks of it

00:51:06 watching it it looks a lot like it's actually filmed in new york as well unless they've done

00:51:10 an eyes wide shut stanley kubrick and they've just got studios where they've literally built

00:51:14 streets of new york out of out of fabric like fabricated them um but yeah it looks like things

00:51:21 in america is shifting to atlanta tennessee new york and uh you just don't get producers there

00:51:27 anymore as well because there's no there's no way to make money this is from a guy who says he's

00:51:32 worked in the industry just talking about how all the producers he's known for years at this point

00:51:36 they're leaving can't make a career anymore but what is the effect of that well why is everything

00:51:43 reboots now why is everything gigantic franchises why is everything reboots well because before you

00:51:48 used to be able to be a producer with a new idea you'd come in you'd speak to a studio maybe they'd

00:51:53 take a chance on you like blumhouse style now um you can't make money doing that anymore the

00:52:00 producers that exist have been around for decades and they just want guaranteed money makers we are

00:52:05 going to do another spider-man movie because it keeps making money so you don't get people coming

00:52:11 in with the original can we please not restart the star wars debate thank you i'm not starting

00:52:15 i'm joking firas you're on with the two people who won that debate so there's no debate to tag my

00:52:21 friend so he's saying that you get the death of original material you get the homogenization of

00:52:25 voices and the production efficiency collapses which is probably why everything coming from

00:52:30 hollywood just looks so terrible but what is good coming from the american film industry well

00:52:36 they're taking a pivot which is that they're going to internet creators content creators

00:52:42 like we saw with Obsession

00:52:45 and Backrooms. We've got

00:52:47 a film coming out, the Jeff the

00:52:48 Killer film. Can you believe it?

00:52:50 We're getting a Jeff

00:52:53 the Killer film

00:52:54 before George RR Martin is releasing

00:52:56 Winds of Winter. Can you believe it, folks?

00:52:58 Developed... It's a creepypasta.

00:53:01 Say again? It's a creepypasta.

00:53:03 A very old creepypasta

00:53:05 at this point as well, actually.

00:53:07 Developed with TikTok creator

00:53:09 Savannah Moss and creator-led

00:53:11 studio tongal which is reflecting the new transformation because they what what they're

00:53:15 looking for and you can scroll through this article read this whole thing community-led

00:53:20 creator-led we live in the internet age now what works is algorithms how to get the algorithms

00:53:26 these youtubers these tiktokers they know how to reach an audience through algorithms right and

00:53:31 we're going to get millions of impressions on twitter trailers and yeah constant we're going

00:53:35 to go like obsession was a great um a great example of this why was it that obsession made

00:53:41 so much money why was it it got so many impressions and people went to go see it and even knew about

00:53:45 in the first place i would argue because it made a massive smash on social media yes it became meme

00:53:51 material straight away before i'd heard of the film i'd seen the i'd seen the memes and then

00:53:57 after i saw the memes i heard oh there's a really good film at the other end of these memes i guess

00:54:02 i'll go see the film then but also as well it's really nice to just go to go to a cinema and see

00:54:07 films that aren't being uh aren't using actors who are just the recycled actors that you just

00:54:14 see in everything all the time no way all these people uh i mean don't get wrong there are still

00:54:21 great actors who just show up and give a great performance every time but i do think that just

00:54:26 having some freshness of faces about cinema as well is something that people desperately want

00:54:32 oh yeah but

00:54:32 he's gonna sit in the corner

00:54:33 and be old

00:54:34 that's absolutely fine

00:54:35 well the interesting thing

00:54:36 about this is

00:54:37 I went through the entire article

00:54:38 thanks

00:54:39 and uh

00:54:40 fair enough

00:54:41 and you know

00:54:41 this is new strategies

00:54:43 for how you can make money

00:54:44 Obsession was great

00:54:45 because it was done

00:54:45 by a YouTuber

00:54:46 who'd done short films

00:54:47 and they took a chance on him

00:54:48 less than a million dollars spent

00:54:50 400 million dollars

00:54:51 made back through

00:54:52 through revenue

00:54:53 in the cinemas

00:54:54 which is insane

00:54:55 do you know what I do

00:54:56 may I just say one thing as well

00:54:57 one thing is the fact

00:54:59 that when you've got

00:54:59 a film like Obsession

00:55:00 which I haven't seen yet

00:55:01 but I really do want to watch it

00:55:04 is that, you know, when you're basing a film

00:55:06 on the budget like that

00:55:08 and really it's just about the actual character drama

00:55:10 it's about just putting two characters

00:55:13 very ordinary characters

00:55:14 in very ordinary settings

00:55:16 the local bar, your bedroom, whatever it is

00:55:18 doesn't require

00:55:20 endless millions on special effects

00:55:23 and all of this stuff

00:55:24 because the special effects

00:55:25 just become a distraction from the actual human drama

00:55:28 that is supposed to be powering your storytelling right well the other thing that i was about to

00:55:34 mention i did not see in this article one single mention of diversity or inclusion the new strategy

00:55:44 seems to be listen when we had way more of a stranglehold on this industry we really could

00:55:50 just shove anything down these people's throats and they had to accept it because that's us

00:55:55 after covid our grips loosened a little bit people caught on to that they don't want to

00:56:03 pay money to go see those films anymore supergirl came out earlier this year and as far as i can

00:56:08 tell flopped because it did the classic recent hollywood thing of going like yeah if you're a

00:56:13 man you're not gonna like this film okay i won't go watch it then yeah and why would i go and watch

00:56:19 and netflix isn't going to be tripped over by that because even if netflix do i mean it's you

00:56:25 know obviously a meme at this point just the amount of race swapping that netflix do but also

00:56:30 as well you're not just paying for a subscription to watch the new woke race swap stuff you're also

00:56:36 paying for the catalog of classic films that they've got on there as well and so it it's able

00:56:42 to straddle both of those things at the same time and still get your money because you're not

00:56:47 necessarily paying for that film that they're trying to insult you with yeah whereas with

00:56:51 hollywood it's just one film at a time and no one wants to watch financial financial investment and

00:56:57 you need to get an immediate financial payback on it as well uh but now they're just going like okay

00:57:03 2016 when we had stuff like the all-female ghostbusters we could do we could do that

00:57:10 when they did an all-female oceans 11 right oh yeah yeah we could do the we could do the 1.00

00:57:16 stupid bullshit all female cast and just shove it down people's throat we're we're past the point 0.99

00:57:21 where we can do that now so diversity inclusion all that stuff let's just sweep that over to one 1.00

00:57:28 side for the time being and we'll find some white guy on youtube who makes decent short films and go

00:57:34 i'll give you a million dollars and make me 400 million dollars and it works that's a great deal

00:57:39 yeah because yeah yeah it sort of shows their intellectual moral bankruptcy with all of this

00:57:44 stuff oh yeah it was never sincere it was about it was about insulting you because they could

00:57:49 yes and the last nail in the coffin seems to be david ellison potentially taking paramount

00:57:55 and then also maybe even water brothers out of the state entirely and taking it possibly

00:58:02 to tennessee or even texas right i know that there's been a great emigration of californians

00:58:08 to texas as well but now the movie studios might be following along uh even worse for red state

00:58:14 texans yes in less than a month david ellison has exhibited a dizzying range of emotions as the goal

00:58:20 line for the coveted 111 billion dollar deal has moved farther away it's 111 billion dollars wrapped

00:58:27 up in all of this the tech scion initially exuded confidence that hollywood's biggest merger was on

00:58:32 a fast track to be completed by september but now the californian attorney general rob bonter

00:58:38 and 11 other democratic state attorneys are filing an antitrust lawsuit against them why

00:58:46 not against netflix um good question well because netflix has grown to be in the position that it's

00:58:53 in right now whereas this is a merger of two already established and they're saying that it

00:58:57 would hurt competition he's saying this is how we actually have a standard chance famously with

00:59:04 standard oil you can break up an existing company if it has too much power oh yeah you can but they

00:59:09 probably make them too much money as a state but the thing is as well like i'm sure paramount and

00:59:14 and warner brothers makes the make the state a lot of money as well right so they might just be

00:59:19 chasing them out of the state uh ellison has made contingency plans to shift paramount's home base

00:59:25 from Melrose Avenue to Tennessee or Texas as early as this fall.

00:59:30 Paramount have approved these relocation plans,

00:59:33 and he's shared concepts with his executive leadership team in a meeting

00:59:37 and said his preference was to remain in California,

00:59:40 but they will move if they absolutely have to.

00:59:42 The proposal includes potentially selling the 65-acre Paramount lot in Hollywood

00:59:47 as well as the larger Warner Brothers campus in Burbank

00:59:50 should Paramount prevail in the merger battle.

00:59:52 Such sales would generate revenue to help pay merger costs,

00:59:55 one of the knowledgeable sources said, but it would also

00:59:57 mean this huge

00:59:59 titan of the industry that

01:00:01 Hollywood is known, is famous for,

01:00:04 just gone. Just gone from the

01:00:05 state, and that also means any and all revenue

01:00:07 that they bring into the state, and any

01:00:09 influence that they bring into the state. You always turn them

01:00:11 into Section 8 housing.

01:00:13 I'm sure, guaranteed moneymaker.

01:00:16 That's what I like about

01:00:18 you, Firas. There's always... Thinking outside the box.

01:00:20 Thinking outside the box.

01:00:22 Always a silver lining with

01:00:24 you. Bonta blasted

01:00:25 paramount strategy saying that this is just an attempt to blackmail the state into letting an

01:00:30 illegal deal through paramount's lost the plot if it continues to lose in court my office remains

01:00:35 committed to stopping illegal consolidation and protecting a vibrant californian economy for

01:00:41 businesses that play by the rules why is it illegal because i said so but also this might

01:00:47 be bad for gavin newsom because he wants to be seen as you know the governor of this amazing

01:00:52 state if he ever wants to go for a democratic presidential run and if under him not only do

01:00:57 you have all of the covid problems you have uh you know san francisco and la turning into gigantic

01:01:02 hell holes while on his watch then you also have hollywood literally packs up and leaves under his

01:01:08 watch not a great record of success for him as well so he's also potentially expected to step in

01:01:14 if it goes too far but but we'll see uh but we'll see and uh yeah then there's just some more

01:01:20 information about this where

01:01:22 they've changed the court date

01:01:24 for the

01:01:25 case that they're bringing against it

01:01:28 and saying that it could

01:01:30 result in lots of

01:01:32 billions more dollars of costs

01:01:34 for these two massive studios as well.

01:01:36 Particularly for Paramount where if they can't get

01:01:38 the deal through by a particular date in June

01:01:40 next year, they have to pay a $7 billion

01:01:43 breakup fee. So

01:01:44 if the state interferes much more in this

01:01:47 they might also just

01:01:48 sink paramount anyway by forcing them to pay a load of extra legal costs so it's not illegal

01:01:53 don't let them it's not let them go into a merger break their backs yeah it's going it's not looking

01:01:59 good for hollywood and i'm interested to see where uh this will leave the entertainment industry and

01:02:03 the quality of my beautiful slop moving forward let's uh take a look at some of the rumble rants

01:02:11 um oh god quite a few actually uh random name your show with beau this morning was super wholesome

01:02:18 wish we'd get more of this thank you very much logan major reason for the recent drama is cnn

01:02:23 is being sold to david and he is fair on trump so that tds kicked in oh yeah that's probably it

01:02:29 being a hollywood script writer sounds easy especially since all the movies would be muted

01:02:33 because my dialogue wouldn't get past the censors probably true sigil stone so is hollywood

01:02:38 collapsing causing um anti-semitism due to the propaganda failing or is it the other way around

01:02:43 i don't know if that has anything to do with anything regard regarding this random name a lot

01:02:48 of hollywood people not just writers but also actors and directors have moved to gaming which

01:02:52 is why most triple a games are movie games foid of war last of us etc i'm tired boss i thought that

01:02:58 was just mainly because people who aren't qualified to be in the positions that they're in have been

01:03:02 put in positions that they're in spielberg was involved in medal of honor and those were cool

01:03:06 games back in the day hawk on a wire the blue collar jobs are also heavily unionized just one

01:03:11 more problem on top of everything else i mean i don't think it's entirely unfair that they want

01:03:15 to be paid a decent wage for the work there's an industry where you're very exploitative industry

01:03:20 yeah and and blackmail these rich producers this is definitely one of them yeah i'll i'll know mr

01:03:25 mr evil producer is going to be like making 50 less dollars uh this year because he's paying

01:03:31 his people well oh oh well uh but i understand that it does make it more difficult because

01:03:36 these people are so tight-fisted engaged for you can we dare to imagine a resurgence of film

01:03:42 given the new para that would be nice if i had 100k i could produce my own original horror movie

01:03:50 donations welcome well there you go and finally sigil stone why does this segment feel like a

01:03:54 doctor delivering a mystatic cancer diagnosis uh yeah but we're talking about hollywood so it's

01:04:00 more like the cancer is being cut out so it was a good news segment actually yeah nice very nice

01:04:09 all right then ladies and gentlemen so we're now going to go from discussing film to discussing

01:04:14 games now my earliest memories of game i you know played a lot of video games as a kid i have

01:04:20 particularly fond memories of uh trying to um get my show my mom how to play a video game

01:04:26 red alert in an internet cafe i i haven't done that no but that is a great game um but get trying

01:04:32 to get my mom to play spyro i remember this one it was like five years old and just there was a

01:04:38 level with no villains like no bad guys like it was nothing to kill you and all she had to do was

01:04:44 collect the gems she couldn't do it so we get we gave up um but this has meant that i spent a lot

01:04:49 of time as a kid just some of my best and most favorite childhood memories were just going over

01:04:55 to my friend's house after school just putting on the console you know 11 years old having a few

01:05:01 beer no um you know just having some fun and just playing some video games together and this was

01:05:07 something that just persisted throughout my life all the way until I mean you know certainly through

01:05:12 uni and then certainly you know going into lockdown as well and then something just happened

01:05:18 and it kind of just fell off for me and other things took precedent and things became more

01:05:22 important in life and there were just other things that i wanted to dedicate my time to

01:05:27 having said all of that i do that doesn't mean even though because i personally don't find the

01:05:33 time to do these things anymore that i actually want to see the games industry fall dead on its

01:05:39 face right because i actually think that particularly uh certainly in the case of the

01:05:44 terrible films we've seen coming out in this past recent decades um you know and games have certainly

01:05:51 had their problems with it as well but at its peak gaming is as true in art form uh you know

01:05:57 with the graphic design and the um you know the game design the artistic direction of it the script

01:06:03 all of it coming together the playability of it the online fun that you can have with friends

01:06:08 it's um it's a real skill and it's something that i think makes for many a fond memories and as we

01:06:14 are moving into a more and more online world regrettably i must say then i would rather people

01:06:22 have some good fun online you know playing some good quality games uh with really compelling

01:06:27 stories to them and you know problem solving that actually stimulates the brain then just things

01:06:34 that are glitchy from the point of being bought don't really work are constantly being stripped

01:06:41 down uh i think you did a daily didn't you on the channel about uh halo recently as well oh what

01:06:47 the combat uh what was it campaign evolve yes and uh you weren't much impressed by that no they

01:06:54 added a girl boss character into the first halo game for some reason that must have improved

01:06:58 dramatically oh i hope when she dies um and so it's really it behoves the gaming industry to not

01:07:10 antagonize its core audience right and playstation went ahead at the beginning of july and did

01:07:17 exactly this because they basically put out an announcement that they were going to be

01:07:21 transitioning into digital copies of games that the physical medium of going to the shop buying

01:07:29 the game putting the disc in the console was going to slowly be about and disappear and this

01:07:36 is something really lamentable not only for the fact that whether it be a set of films that you've

01:07:41 got on your desk or books or games or whatever it's just really nice to have something that is

01:07:47 the physical copy and in fact this is something that we hear at the Lotus Ears when we just say

01:07:53 these things we actually put our mouths to it and do the action because we celebrate physical

01:07:58 physical print media here as well we have Islander magazine which has been fantastically created by

01:08:05 our editor and publisher rory with some absolutely magnificent aesthetics in it

01:08:10 talking about a whole range of issues uh particularly political you know at this time now

01:08:16 and dealing with what needs to be done but also just evergreen material stuff that is relevant

01:08:21 to many times in many places for example i've written a piece in here all about samwise gamji

01:08:27 and tolkien so if you're a lord of the rings fan that's definitely something that i'd recommend you

01:08:32 check out from the website so we also get to the fact as well that well so sony says that

01:08:41 playstation disc backlash was making no impact on the business whatsoever now i believe that to be

01:08:48 something of a lie uh given the fact that 99 of the feedback to this announcement made the entire

01:08:57 thing look like armageddon i wouldn't be shocked if this is true i because we're talking about

01:09:02 stated preference versus revealed preference yes stated preference will be no i love my physical

01:09:08 media no don't take my discs away from me revealed preference will be i suppose i could just download

01:09:14 it off the store well this is the thing but this is how all of these um you know forms of

01:09:20 technological progress develop isn't it they always gamble your sense of just ease and the

01:09:27 expediency against whatever principle you might actually have well i mean my my big question was

01:09:33 how there was even a backlash against this in the first place when surely playstation 5 already had

01:09:39 no discs because there are no games on it well i've not got the playstation 5 so it's not something

01:09:46 that's affected there are no games that you want to play on it are there no no there aren't um ps4

01:09:53 had stuff like bloodborne's and other similar games come out when it first uh when it was first

01:09:57 released playstation 5 ain't got nothing but the playstation as far as i'm concerned is a dead

01:10:03 brand and i was a ps2 kid growing up um and so you get this whole thing like you know this uh

01:10:10 moral argument coming now between simply a game being licensed to you and you actually owning

01:10:17 the thing yourself and this is something that someone thought this is not related to gaming

01:10:22 but it serves as an example of the type of problem you're going to run into whereas it says here

01:10:27 somewhat some absolute chad brought bought the lord of the rings extended trilogy and um off of

01:10:33 his internet library and eventually this was removed from the library itself and even though

01:10:40 he'd bought it is he says i bought this in 2022 and all of a sudden they aren't available on the

01:10:45 library and there's no possibility of getting a refund for it even though it's been taken away

01:10:49 from me in fact just as a small aside to this particular story obviously internet kicked up a

01:10:55 big fuss about this and they eventually replied and they just said oh well here's a link to get

01:10:59 it back and it was just a link to buy it again which again didn't go down great at all um so

01:11:05 But then of course we come to the question of Xbox, the other great console, I mean obviously

01:11:10 PC Master Race, all that stuff, yeah.

01:11:13 But we come to the question of Xbox.

01:11:15 Now for the past many years, PlayStation have been, to put it politely, absolutely mogging

01:11:21 Xbox.

01:11:23 The PlayStation 5 has sold over 90 million units.

01:11:28 Well I suppose even if it's got no games, at least people own them, whereas I don't

01:11:34 anybody who owns the most recent xbox no nor do i i've never heard of anybody to own most recent

01:11:40 xbox it's like when play when sony started doing all of their old exclusive games and putting them

01:11:45 on steam i'm pretty sure that like is there such a thing as an xbox exclusive anymore let me know

01:11:52 well and when they are with something like halo or gears of war well i mean there hasn't been

01:11:57 from what i understand the gears of war for quite some time and halo as we see just keeps

01:12:01 disappointing the fans over and over yeah i mean i mainly play on my steam deck now and play

01:12:06 steam games so i'm not i don't mind too much about the whole digital thing because

01:12:10 all those old classics that i used to have on disc uh or still own on disc um well it's just

01:12:17 easier to just if you've got a good in emulator you can have your old back catalog and even more

01:12:23 just available at the click of a button so i don't really mind it all that much modern problems

01:12:28 require modern solutions um but we're seeing somebody recently say that they just got past

01:12:34 their grandfather's xbox their grandfather's xbox wait what apparently the grandfather would have

01:12:43 been early 40s when he bought a first xbox with a kid in his 20s and now the kid's kid is in his

01:12:53 is a teen or something and got his grandfather's xbox just saying yeah just saying that that is

01:13:00 a very wholesome but that is sort of how i'm feeling right now how old do you feel how old

01:13:07 it's okay i've i've never owned an xbox or a playstation just just saying don't worry we're

01:13:14 all unks here fam um and so um asha asha sharma came in as a new ceo of xbox in i think it was

01:13:26 february of this year and within two months as you can see she came in with a very different

01:13:32 approach to her predecessor uh phil spencer and she's already so this was uh cut the xbox games

01:13:38 pass ultimate from uh 29 uh dollars a month to 22 because again they'd ramped it up as well and

01:13:45 this is basically a subscription service that you pay into the game pass so you have access to

01:13:49 the particular online library of games and this is also as well a bit of a revolving door of them

01:13:55 so sometimes you can have a game and you love it but then they'll swap it out for something else

01:14:00 um it's also rebranding back to classic xbox uh visuals as well going back to

01:14:07 the classic neon green which everyone likes a bit of nostalgia obviously this is the first

01:14:14 example i've ever seen of not only an indian but an indian woman coming in as ceo of a company and

01:14:21 actually making objective improvements yeah like this is this is a world first remarkable but well

01:14:28 done well she was announced and everyone just went oh no but actually you know people have been

01:14:35 pretty impressed well i say people uh people who buy games have been quite impressed with it all

01:14:41 my gamers out there you know uh yeah our people um and so we get to the point where uh sorry she

01:14:50 goes on to say sorry it goes on to say a whole slate of xbox games failed to meet internal

01:14:55 expectations uh over the past few years and these go all the way from things like that uh generally

01:15:00 succeeds you know every time they come out like forza which apparently was played with bugs and

01:15:04 with just tracks missing from the game

01:15:07 and all these sorts of things.

01:15:08 And so it's not only that you're expected to pay

01:15:11 higher prices for games,

01:15:13 it's the fact that you're paying for games

01:15:15 that aren't finished.

01:15:17 Like when I was playing the PlayStation 2...

01:15:20 30 quid.

01:15:21 30 quid for a brand new game with the box.

01:15:24 And it was finished.

01:15:25 You bought the game and you got the whole game.

01:15:28 You didn't pay an extra 30 quid

01:15:29 for some DLC put on the top of it.

01:15:32 But they're constantly looking for ways

01:15:34 to you know just squeeze more and more money out of you whether it's the case of my uh micro

01:15:40 transactions and of course you had uh real controversies as well where game gaming companies

01:15:45 were taken to court uh there was infamous one with battlefront 2 because uh it was basically um

01:15:50 kind of like a soft form of gambling as well star wars battlefront 2 oh i remember that yeah it was

01:15:56 loot boxes yeah it was yeah so um steal your mother's credit card and then gamble on online

01:16:03 like on battlefront skins for your guns or something this is not advice um and so we get

01:16:11 shaman coming in here shaman and trying to really mix things up a bit and she says well

01:16:16 uh i mean talk about ambitious she says uh she wants the company to entertain more than a billion

01:16:22 people now just um for the sake of no ambiguity here when it says gaming is sorry i've got my

01:16:30 source is all out of whack here says full quote i want xbox to be one of the few companies that

01:16:36 entertains more than a billion people each day and gives everyone the opportunity to create and

01:16:40 connect i know we can achieve this goal xbox has many of the most beloved franchises in entertainment

01:16:46 history now as it says here worth noting she's not just referring to people playing xbox games

01:16:51 but also people who are using xbox microsoft services as well but even with this i mean it

01:16:57 goes on to talk about the fact that they obviously own all sorts of mobile games that you know

01:17:02 companies that make mobile games as well and these get millions upon millions of downloads i mean

01:17:07 the most normie tier slop like candy crush and stuff like this obviously just makes absolute

01:17:13 gangbusters i don't even consider that when i think nor do i but it's owned it's all under

01:17:19 this umbrella you do also forget that when they tried to do that push like 10 years ago when they

01:17:24 are like half of all gamers are women women are gamers too that what they actually meant was like 0.70

01:17:29 them sat on the toilet playing candy crush that count that makes you a gamer now yeah yeah it's

01:17:35 um it's um we are not the same uh and so naturally with all of this as well the need to obviously

01:17:43 uh create some new profits because certain games that they've been banking on like

01:17:48 um uh outer worlds had not been selling as well as they'd wanted to and people they're going we

01:17:55 just want the version like the uh the xbox exclusives that we all grew up with and we

01:18:01 want them to be good and like fair point we'll take that criticism on board and we'll maybe start

01:18:07 doing that and the other thing as well is that um particularly after 2018 uh xbox and microsoft

01:18:12 started also it's a way that they just harvest independent gaming companies as well and they

01:18:20 start buying them out and send all of a sudden you're not an independent gaming company you've

01:18:24 got some other higher ups breathing down your neck and they're making certain demands and

01:18:28 expectations of you in terms of time scaling and in terms of all sorts of requirements that they

01:18:33 may have and so well she's trying to reverse this and that does of course mean layoffs uh and this

01:18:41 also means as well letting go of certain companies that have obviously been taken into the fold

01:18:47 putting them back out there to see if other gaming companies want to buy them up or seeing if you

01:18:53 know they've got somewhere to float but ultimately it's going to be pretty significant and it goes

01:18:59 on to say that the layoffs of thousands of people from its Xbox division and losing four game

01:19:06 studios from its roster those studios are double fine compulsion games ninja theory and undead labs

01:19:14 with arcane lion in talks for also being removed stop me if this is getting a little technical

01:19:19 i thought you were speaking greek maybe i was it says the layoffs will also remove what sounds

01:19:27 like a thick layer of middle management at xbox as well well she says that today in some parts

01:19:33 of the company work passes through as many as 14 layers of management uh and she says our platform

01:19:40 teams are at 40 larger than they were at the start of this generation and i assume by generation she

01:19:48 means this generation of console not obviously generation of gamers uh even as our player base

01:19:53 and play and play time have declined and so all of these extra people have been brought in it's

01:19:59 blown up by over 40 percent more and also as well people are not buying the games that they want to

01:20:04 get and so obviously something's going to come to a head and some people are going to lose out on

01:20:09 this uh and so there's this interesting just totally resetting uh xbox now for the sake of

01:20:15 time i simply can't go into it in the depth that i wanted to but i was also just wanted to explore

01:20:20 as well so just the other day uh this is a game i would you believe there was a this lord of the

01:20:25 rings game i used to play uh when i was younger called warren and off and you can see here

01:20:30 playstation basically making a legacy edition for it and bringing it back but this is also exactly

01:20:36 what we're seeing with hollywood it's the fact that in lieu of the fact that then they can't

01:20:41 guarantee death of creativity right it's just oh this is getting a remaster now oh this is getting

01:20:46 a legacy edition oh we're doing because we haven't brought out elder scrolls 6 yet you're getting

01:20:52 they're never gonna bring that out you're getting your fourth remake of skyrim right this is how it

01:20:56 always i want i i think we deserve lord of the rings conquest 2 yes ever play the first one back

01:21:04 in the day of course i did um i mean controversial i thought it was uh it could have been better it

01:21:09 was a bit lazy but nonetheless uh i did enjoy it uh so obviously you have a lot of people out here

01:21:16 unionizing protesting that they're not too happy with it one flag for each laid off dev

01:21:22 and the rat is called scabby from what I believe because people who are still working there are

01:21:30 not on strike as scabs as goes the old saying and so we get to the point where we just let

01:21:37 these people who have been working on these great games have their say morale is really low because

01:21:43 you know we've been told that we're making great games that players love and that we're doing well

01:21:48 and to have this suddenly hit us has been a huge shock to us um it sucks we make all kinds of games

01:21:53 all kinds of people love it'd be really nice if we could just get back to work and make them games

01:21:57 that will define the generation of video gaming i worked at xenomax for about five years we are

01:22:02 having a march and a rally to demand dignity and respect and an end to the cycle of layoffs

01:22:08 so yes um now i'm not obviously i'm certainly not going to be in this black and white about this to

01:22:16 say that everyone who has been fired deserves to be fired but it is undeniable that there is a

01:22:22 great amount of dead weight in the gaming industry and fundamentally as well people who have come

01:22:29 further down the pipeline from i mean i just take for example as a kid i always used to love the uh

01:22:35 the bioware uh you know mass effect and dragon age and stuff like that and then you see what

01:22:41 they recently did to dragon age and these are people who have just inherited a very successful

01:22:46 property just like many things in hollywood woke-ified it to death so that no one wants to

01:22:52 buy it well wasn't sweet baby involved in that i mean anybody like this who's involved who's like

01:22:58 collaborated with sweet baby get out of the industry yeah also with dragon age doesn't

01:23:02 everybody who loves Dragon Age

01:23:04 only love the first game and hate all

01:23:06 of the rest of the places? I love the first two.

01:23:08 Oh, you're a rare man. I am

01:23:10 controversial in that the second was good.

01:23:12 I mean, I don't know how you felt about Dragon Age

01:23:14 2, Firas, but...

01:23:16 I think I actually played that.

01:23:18 Oh my god. Can you believe it, folks?

01:23:20 You'll have to come around and we'll have a gaming

01:23:22 sesh sometime.

01:23:25 Will Harry be

01:23:26 doing the babysitting?

01:23:28 No, I'm alright.

01:23:29 Harry will be...

01:23:31 But maybe, maybe.

01:23:34 I mean, Asha Sharma, she's done all right so far,

01:23:37 but she does say that the scale and grandeur is incredible

01:23:39 and the story is even greater for Elder Scrolls 6.

01:23:42 Don't believe it.

01:23:43 I think Elder Scrolls 6 is a myth.

01:23:46 Historians will look back and say that Elder Scrolls 6 never existed.

01:23:49 Well, this is the point.

01:23:51 This is just my concluding point I wanted to end on. 0.87

01:23:53 It's like, look, she might be able to get the finances of Xbox under control.

01:23:57 She might be able to get the sales up.

01:23:59 she might be able to streamline uh the development companies but can she achieve the truly impossible

01:24:06 can she actually get elder scrolls 6 i mean to come out if we talk about in real terms the only

01:24:13 thing of elder scrolls 6 that we know exists is this screenshot and the trailer is true and the

01:24:20 2015 trailer that was like the most generic thing ever here's a big field with some mountains

01:24:28 and a castle, Elder Scrolls 6

01:24:31 and everyone went, oh my god, Elder Scrolls 6

01:24:33 and nothing

01:24:33 nothing since then, this is all that

01:24:36 exists of Elder Scrolls 6, this is all

01:24:38 that will ever exist of Elder Scrolls 6

01:24:41 as far as I'm concerned

01:24:42 good day sir

01:24:44 so, a transformative era

01:24:46 for gaming, ladies and gentlemen

01:24:48 alright, I'll quickly go

01:24:50 through these rumble rants, we've got

01:24:52 that's a random

01:24:55 name, it says, no Luca, they all

01:24:56 deserve to be fired total triple a death wow uh and he also says working on uh in triple a is

01:25:05 genuinely awful it's the wokest industry by far uh so much red tape that nothing gets done

01:25:11 and dei gets promoted to the top often by um sleeping to the top yeah no you need to close

01:25:19 the gamergate luca no oh man i just missed when when it was totally you know under the control of

01:25:27 the the nerds it was the safest hands john ramiro and friends yeah they were they were awesome um

01:25:34 all right and then uh fictagia says anita sarkeesian carl's nemesis genesis made her

01:25:40 money and mark on destroying gaming development from within she's very successful yeah she did

01:25:45 she was very good at what she did unfortunately um all right do we have video comments today

01:25:50 oh all right well there was one one of these was addressed to me sigil stone i bet harry will care

01:25:59 about physical games real fast when gabe newall dies and steam starts removing games due to 0.86

01:26:03 licensing and stupid s hate valve for its part in removing physical media if you're genuinely

01:26:09 concerned that that is going to happen then with the valve games of the steam games that you have 0.99

01:26:14 right now uh transfer them onto a hard drive an external hard drive you can do that you can go

01:26:20 into the folders of your steam library and you can transfer them into a hard drive and then you

01:26:24 literally have them on a physical container for your media you have your physical media and they

01:26:29 cannot they cannot sneak into your external hard drive and delete them off there so that is a

01:26:35 solution if you're genuinely worried that that is something that will happen and valve when gabe

01:26:39 Newell dies, just decides, oh, we want to

01:26:41 tank the company overnight.

01:26:44 Okay.

01:26:45 Gageview says, 0.99

01:26:47 welcome to the tar pit, Firas. We've been 0.91

01:26:49 expecting you. Well, thank you for that.

01:26:51 Thank you. Yeah, I'll go through a couple of comments.

01:26:55 Let's see. Which ones can we read?

01:27:01 Look.

01:27:03 Josh Perl says, 1.00

01:27:04 Birkat Hamanim

01:27:05 hasn't mentioned Nazarenes for well over

01:27:09 800 years at least i am aware of only one prayer book that even includes it as an option in the

01:27:14 text and it is used by probably less than 100 people i will check that uh josh if this is the

01:27:21 case this is the case it it does beg the question why did it stop being used because in the 1200s

01:27:29 when it would have stopped being used there was a lot of pressure uh on jewish communities over

01:27:35 what was contained in the talmud and the genuinely horrible things that it contains and even if i'm

01:27:41 wrong about uh i'm very open to that there is the rest of the stuff that is there which does

01:27:48 have explanatory value so i'm not an expert on the talmud i don't claim to be an expert on the talmud

01:27:54 if i'm wrong about this prayer i will uh say so but the rest of the stuff is still there

01:28:01 and it's really important uh jimbo g from your segment just says attacking people carrying a

01:28:07 coffin at a funeral is just beyond profane it reminds me of the graveyard grenade attacks

01:28:11 during the troubles and that's how you accelerate things yeah yeah california refugee says firas

01:28:17 being not from britain or europe is his greatest superpower thank you uh this segment would have

01:28:22 gotten harry or luca put in jail we discuss things in a very serious and inoffensive academic tone

01:28:30 when we discuss subjects like this.

01:28:31 So we should be fine.

01:28:33 We should be fine.

01:28:36 As long as nobody's throwing their arm up in the air,

01:28:39 which I understand must be quite a struggle for you, Luca,

01:28:42 we should...

01:28:43 Scratch him a head. 0.90

01:28:44 Yeah, okay.

01:28:48 You want to read something from yours?

01:28:49 Yeah, yeah, I'll go through. 0.87

01:28:51 Annie Moss, Swindon Grievance Factory worker.

01:28:53 One other reason that things are not filmed in LA

01:28:55 is the local government is awful and makes filming expensive.

01:28:59 Oh, I bet.

01:29:00 Just another example of how local governments ruin everything 1.00

01:29:02 and Karen Bass let the city burn figuratively 1.00

01:29:05 and literally voting in your local elections.

01:29:08 Very important.

01:29:09 Yes, very true.

01:29:11 Long time no see.

01:29:12 So we could have an SCP film.

01:29:15 That could be cool.

01:29:16 Do you know what SCP is?

01:29:17 No, I can't.

01:29:19 Basically a community collection of creepypastas

01:29:22 which has some really interesting ideas in it

01:29:24 and there's some video games made up.

01:29:25 Afterward then you're going to have to explain to me

01:29:27 what is creepypastas.

01:29:28 Oh, that's a long story.

01:29:30 Jimbo G, Hollywood has got to be one of the most shady, tax-dodging, money-washing businesses out there,

01:29:35 but the people involved can morally launder themselves by promoting social justice,

01:29:38 which creates a paradigm where the peasants aspire to be accepted by filthy rich,

01:29:44 where you professed, sorry, where the peasants aspire to be the acceptable source of filthy rich,

01:29:50 where you profess to hate capitalism.

01:29:52 Absolutely true. 1.00

01:29:53 Yeah, these people are scumbags. 1.00

01:29:55 Harvey Weinstein may have hired much more attractive actresses, 1.00

01:29:59 but he was also a scumbag who should not be redeemed. 0.99

01:30:01 And he's the exact kind of guy 1.00

01:30:04 who's run in Hollywood for decades.

01:30:06 And do you want to go through yours?

01:30:08 Sure.

01:30:08 So, Philip says,

01:30:09 as a PlayStation 5 owner,

01:30:11 they made my decision to just buy a Steam machine

01:30:14 next time I need to upgrade really easy.

01:30:17 First. 1.00

01:30:18 Dirty Belter,

01:30:20 sorry, comments just jumped,

01:30:22 says,

01:30:22 multiplayer used to be about the social experience,

01:30:25 not competitive experience.

01:30:26 I miss the days of Halo 3.

01:30:28 there's a reason that game had a million concurrent players i tell you what just getting on the on

01:30:33 halo and just messing about in the forge was just some of that yeah just like even when it wasn't

01:30:38 competitive you could just have so much fun it was such an event it was such an experience when

01:30:42 halo 3k i didn't even have a 360 but i was around my friend's house like every day and we were all

01:30:47 sat with a bunch of us on the sofa playing halo 3 it was so good well i've got a 360 right now

01:30:53 that is the console I still use

01:30:55 and I've had it for 15 years

01:30:57 and it's still not broken

01:30:59 true

01:30:59 yeah it'll be in a museum one day

01:31:03 I think Samson's trying to stop us now

01:31:04 alright then well that's all we've got

01:31:07 time for today ladies and gentlemen we really

01:31:09 hope that you've enjoyed this episode of the podcast

01:31:11 and we look forward to seeing you tomorrow

01:31:13 at 1pm take care

01:31:15 Halo Reach was better

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The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - August 13, 2026

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1483

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