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

00:00:00.000 hello and welcome to the podcast of the lotus eaters episode 1483 for thursday the 13th of

00:00:07.080 august 2026 i'm your host luke joined today by firas and harry oh hello and today we're going

00:00:12.980 to be talking all about uh attacks on christians we're then going to be talking about the collapse

00:00:18.140 of hollywood and then we're going to be also talking about the sorry state of the gaming

00:00:23.540 industry so a very media heavy back end to this particular podcast obviously front loading with

00:00:29.760 by far the most important thing. Obviously, do go ahead and get your copy of Islander Magazine,

00:00:35.840 ladies and gentlemen. There's some absolutely terrific articles in it, obviously, as you very

00:00:41.040 well know by now. We've got Rory's terrific interview with the American economist, Michael

00:00:46.820 Hudson, talking all about the history of credit and debt, and also, as well, very importantly,

00:00:53.120 how theology impacted this over time you know going from the uh you know all the way back to

00:00:59.340 the uh babylonians and uh the persians and how uh christianity uh changed it as well so really

00:01:05.760 really insightful articles in there do go and take a look uh with that all said it's very very hot

00:01:11.320 today as well ladies and gentlemen so as you can see harry is already tireless so if you see

00:01:16.840 also stripping down in this podcast you you've been warned i was on the bow show earlier wearing

00:01:22.520 a tie so you know you can't say i haven't i haven't worn one you've done your time for the

00:01:27.040 audience i have no plans of stripping down relax everyone it's not gonna happen uh i don't get paid

00:01:32.740 enough no all right then well with that said then firas do you want to yes so let's talk a little

00:01:41.080 bit about what's going on in the holy land uh because jewish christian relations in the holy

00:01:45.500 land are not really very very good uh contrary to what people like mike huckabee would like to say

00:01:52.100 to you. And I wanted to highlight a couple of reports on a couple of incidents. And then in

00:01:56.800 the spirit of fairness, I wanted to try to explain the religious logic behind some of these attacks. 0.93

00:02:03.900 Because when we speak about Hamas's drive to terrorism, we always should hear about and do 0.61

00:02:12.260 pay close attention to what Hamas textbooks teach. And Hamas textbooks are absolutely horrific 0.53

00:02:18.280 when it comes to what they say about Jews and Christians. 1.00

00:02:22.500 This is part of Islamic tradition,

00:02:25.700 and it is very well backed by the sources,

00:02:29.520 being the Quran, the Holy Book of the Muslims,

00:02:32.220 and the Hadith, the sayings of the Prophet of Islam.

00:02:35.580 And so it's just important to treat all religions in the same way,

00:02:40.040 with a spirit of empathy, with a spirit of understanding,

00:02:43.180 and to try to see what they actually teach and what it implies.

00:02:47.320 So this is going to be the segment.

00:02:48.940 So I want to start a little bit with some of the incidents that have been happening to try to explain those.

00:02:54.940 Here you see basically an Israeli settler in the West Bank in a small village called Taibi.

00:03:02.440 This is the last Christian village in the West Bank. 0.84

00:03:08.340 Obviously, that is pretty much where Christianity started. 0.99

00:03:11.300 What happened to the rest of them? 1.00

00:03:15.240 Well, it's a combination of the Palestinians and the Israelis. 0.69

00:03:18.800 Partly it's Muslim demographics, partly it's Christian immigration,

00:03:22.800 and the result is that, for example, Bethlehem is literally now majority Muslim.

00:03:29.240 The village where the angel announced to the shepherds the arrival of Christ is now majority Muslim.

00:03:36.740 And these villages are now pretty much gated entirely.

00:03:41.160 The Israeli military controls access to them all the time.

00:03:43.480 and there is only one christian village left there is a christian presence in other areas

00:03:50.540 but it's basically now a muslim majority so with the muslims i'm wondering is there any sort of

00:03:57.420 like tribal and ethnic variation between the christian palestinians and the muslim palestinians 0.84

00:04:03.340 ethnic not so much because the the muslims will have more arabian blood more blood from the

00:04:11.960 arabian peninsula whereas the uh majority of the genetic composition of both muslims and christians

00:04:20.580 is generally canaanite yeah and so they are quite similar genetically you can't look and say

00:04:26.940 this one is definitely christian this one is definitely muslim um so with some of the shifts

00:04:32.660 i'm just curious um obviously you say that there's some emigration of christians from the area because

00:04:36.620 i imagine it's a very volatile place for them to be uh despite the religious significance of the

00:04:41.700 lands uh but is do you find much like conversion going on one way or the other is that just like

00:04:47.560 oh okay that's that's no longer happened that happened in the past yeah that is no longer

00:04:53.020 happening uh in any direction you have some reports of muslims converting in secret but it's

00:05:00.420 rare to be fair uh so you see this gentleman here he basically brings his goats to the property of

00:05:08.280 someone else because he wants to be a sort of biblical shepherd and he brings them to try to

00:05:15.560 get into the house of somebody in that Christian village. In that same village there were a couple

00:05:21.360 of arson attacks and things like that and usually this happens with the implied support of the

00:05:27.420 Israeli army. So you see this guy filming himself there and some activists being around and I think

00:05:35.500 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

00:05:48.760 those foreign activists now i have mixed opinions on these activists a lot of them are quite far

00:05:53.940 left and i'm not a big fan of their views a lot of them are just anti-jewish for the sake of being

00:05:58.760 anti-jewish i'm not a big fan of their views but this is a female activist trying to say look we

00:06:04.860 are here as a sort of international presence to stop you from doing this kind of thing. 1.00

00:06:10.580 And he just punches her in the head a couple of times. And this is a recurring thing that happens

00:06:15.820 in Taibe. You see basically here a report from the Catholic Herald. I think there is another

00:06:25.200 link from, oh no, there it is. You see here a story from the Catholic Herald where they speak

00:06:33.620 the parish priest in that village and he says you know that basically this is a real problem.

00:06:42.740 On the 5th of August Israeli settlers broke into the house of a family belonging to Father Fawadli's

00:06:49.060 parish and the priest says they occupied the land, brought a flock of sheep up to the house

00:06:54.820 and they cut through the fencing. This is not an isolated incident, this is a deliberate strategy

00:06:59.620 of harassment designed to create a climate of fear and pressure Palestinian families

00:07:04.220 into leaving their land.

00:07:05.880 We give thanks to God that the family is safe.

00:07:10.380 Imagine preparing a home for your family only to find out that strangers have been trespassing

00:07:14.700 and are occupying it at will.

00:07:16.860 That is the reality that we live here in Taipei.

00:07:20.080 As I speak to you now, some settlers have returned to this land to basically pitch tents

00:07:24.940 and herd their sheep and goats in somebody else's land.

00:07:29.140 This is obviously immensely destructive for any agricultural land.

00:07:34.000 And this keeps on happening.

00:07:35.940 The priest says that this is deteriorating.

00:07:37.940 We feel forgotten.

00:07:39.100 We have legal options, but they are very limited and rarely effective

00:07:42.500 because the courts tend to discriminate.

00:07:45.120 This is why international presence and pressure are vital right now.

00:07:48.360 But obviously, if you're part of that international presence,

00:07:50.880 you can be repeatedly punched in the head as you're kneeling on the ground, 0.96

00:07:54.640 even if you're a woman. 0.56

00:07:56.340 We need to sustain our lives here and to continue bearing witness to Jesus Christ and his disciples.

00:08:01.860 Preserving the Christian presence here in Taibé is a shared responsibility.

00:08:05.940 Even everything that is happening, some residents are reaching a breaking point where they want to leave their land and abandon everything.

00:08:12.540 And that's the purpose of these tactics.

00:08:13.960 I mean, somebody's taking away your livelihood and taking away your home with the explicit intent of forcing you out.

00:08:20.000 I can't imagine the amount of resolve and conviction it would take to stay under such conditions.

00:08:26.000 It is genuinely impressive. 0.62

00:08:27.580 Where does this stand legally within Israel and the Israeli government, the action of these settlers?

00:08:34.300 Because obviously Netanyahu has made a number of statements saying that he and his government want to protect Christians in the area.

00:08:41.260 They've made a big show of protecting, I think, your own people, the Druze in Syria as well.

00:08:47.540 is this sanctioned by the Israeli government or is it implicitly implicit so pretty much forever

00:08:56.320 there has been this very uh I would argue two-faced policy from the Israeli government

00:09:03.340 where they say that they want this is a country of laws etc etc they want to apply the law but

00:09:10.120 implicitly they permit the settlers to do this kind of thing against Muslims and against Christians

00:09:16.300 and it doesn't really seem to stop. The Israeli military obviously has the power to prevent this

00:09:24.640 if they wanted to but that would trigger a political crisis within the ruling coalition

00:09:29.100 in Israel and even when the ruling coalition didn't include a large number of religious Zionists who

00:09:35.400 are a separate part of Israeli society and different from other elements from the secular

00:09:40.520 elements shall we say uh even under a largely secular government this kind of thing happened

00:09:47.080 but it seems that the intensity is increasing and the targeting of christians is increasing

00:09:52.360 uh a couple of years ago a palestinian christian journalist working and american journalist

00:09:58.840 working for al jazeera got shot in the head while she was reporting uh literally got shot in the

00:10:06.840 the head killed yes murdered i mean getting a headshot is not something that you do accidentally

00:10:15.060 and after that happened the israeli police went ahead and attacked her funeral

00:10:21.600 and beat up the procession carrying her casket to the extent that the casket fell

00:10:36.840 I mean, you don't do that at a funeral.

00:10:46.200 No, I mean, there's no justification.

00:10:47.740 And she is also, you know, by citizenship American, obviously Palestinian Christian, but obviously by citizenship American.

00:10:54.920 And you see the reporting here pretty well sourced on Wikipedia explaining that, yes, she was shot in the head and killed in 2022.

00:11:03.000 And there is no way this wasn't deliberate.

00:11:05.280 it didn't happen just because she's christian but the attack on the funeral i mean that is a bit

00:11:11.360 strange shall we say i mean was the was the procession the funeral procession were they

00:11:17.900 going through areas where they weren't permitted to go or was it just a public thing that was

00:11:22.140 allowed to be a public thing and they decided to attack it they basically you never know when you

00:11:27.200 have these kinds of groups who said what to whom but obviously one side was armed with batons and

00:11:33.280 beating the uh the procession and so it it gets lost as to what caused what i'm not suggesting

00:11:43.260 it's justifiable i'm just wondering what the reason was given to justify it the it tends to

00:11:50.640 be that you that there is a mindset among some of the israelis that they need to just crush and

00:11:56.880 humiliate their enemies which is incidentally the same exact mindset animating groups like hamas

00:12:02.420 so there is this similarity in world outlook um you see another incident here basically

00:12:08.700 it's a catholic nun walking in jerusalem on the 30th of april i think and see what happens

00:12:17.480 she just randomly charges at her and just pushes her full force to the ground she's

00:12:32.300 obviously half his size um on the left not doing anything not doing anything and then proceeds to 0.99

00:12:39.380 give her a couple of kicks until somebody intervenes and tries to stop him good for that

00:12:45.700 yeah yeah and you saw this report from the wall street journal on the 2nd of august uh it's worth

00:12:54.880 reading that a little some of that i would say in the old city of jerusalem a group of israeli

00:13:00.840 teenagers banged at the door of the headquarters of the Armenian church to ask if there were any

00:13:06.400 Christians inside it. They wanted to spit at them. The boys said that it was a religious duty or 0.94

00:13:13.740 mitzvah to humiliate Christians or as they call them idol worshippers. We are supposed to hate 0.85

00:13:20.400 them explained one teenager wrapped in an Israeli flag. They were among the thousands of young

00:13:26.480 mostly israelis and just to be clear there was a group of thousands a small group of those went

00:13:31.440 to the christian church to the to the armenian church uh demonstrating for the day that israel

00:13:38.000 captured jerusalem in the 1967 war uh on that afternoon there were at least a dozen spitting

00:13:45.360 incidents near the armenian church alone according to security camera footage so it's not really

00:13:50.000 debatable um and to to the wall street journalists on the scene incidents of anti-christian hate once

00:13:57.360 sporadic are becoming routine in jerusalem a city held sacred in christianity judaism and islam

00:14:03.360 most israelis condemn this behavior which is largely true i would say but negative attitudes

00:14:09.120 towards christianity have become more common particularly among young people and this is part

00:14:13.760 of the demographic change that you're seeing in israel where a larger and larger proportion of

00:14:18.320 the youth are coming from either religious zionism or from hasidic uh jewish communities

00:14:25.760 and and are these being taught within the schools as well is it a change of education certainly

00:14:32.480 within the religious zionist camp and when the within the hasidic camp yes within the secular

00:14:37.040 schools less so right now by contrast in the palestinian schools even schools that are run 0.87

00:14:42.560 by the nominally secular plo tend to have quite harsh things to say right about jews and especially

00:14:49.920 jews in the hamas schools it tends to be against jews and christians so just to clarify and again

00:14:56.560 the emphasis here is to treat them both equally because with any religion you want to try to

00:15:01.920 understand it and understand its premises to analyze to what extent there is a linkage

00:15:07.680 between beliefs and behavior and usually there is a linkage uh according to one israeli researcher

00:15:15.600 says that um this is the reality whomever is a christian visibly a christian is becoming a target

00:15:23.040 said yizka harani an israeli scholar who monitors anti-christian hatred

00:15:27.280 there are a growing number of religious jews who do this and it is not being taken seriously by

00:15:31.680 by Israeli authorities, his words. 1.00

00:15:34.120 They are turning a blind eye and that is encouragement.

00:15:38.040 The rise in anti-Christian behavior is relatively new.

00:15:41.180 2013, attackers attacked a Protestant cemetery

00:15:44.920 in Jerusalem.

00:15:46.000 Two years later, a monastery was set on fire in Tabgha

00:15:49.860 where Christians believe that Jesus performed

00:15:52.360 the loaves and fish miracle.

00:15:55.840 Itamar Ben Gvir, the security minister of Israel, 0.97

00:15:59.460 who is genuinely a lunatic,

00:16:01.460 but who was an integral part of the coalition that currently governs Israel, 0.86

00:16:06.680 was the defense lawyer of the arsonists.

00:16:09.940 Oh, right.

00:16:10.760 He has said that spitting on Christians is an ancient Jewish custom

00:16:14.780 and shouldn't be considered a crime.

00:16:17.940 Now, in Britain, spitting on anyone is considered assault.

00:16:21.020 Spitting on anyone for religious reasons is an aggravated hate crime. 0.99

00:16:26.480 So it is worth remembering these things.

00:16:29.560 from a british perspective the behavior of these types these these new more radical generation of 0.99

00:16:37.880 um zionist jews that are growing up in israel their behavior is reminding me of football 0.85

00:16:44.000 hooliganism uh by the youths which is interesting because of the hooliganism that was alleged at the 0.99

00:16:49.600 israeli football team which which was the israeli football along with yes the one that was supposed

00:16:54.480 to go to birmingham yeah yeah maccabi tel aviv oh yeah sorry maccabi tel aviv are genuinely horrible

00:16:59.540 yeah i've heard that there was a lot of uh mix-up in the reporting in the netherlands because in

00:17:05.600 the netherlands it seems that it was the muslims who attacked first all right well yeah i've heard

00:17:09.660 that the fact that there were attacks by the muslims ended up being warped and misrepresented

00:17:14.820 and used by the authorities to ban maccabi tel aviv rather than provide proper policing services 0.81

00:17:20.700 in Birmingham well again this seems to remind me of like the behavior of football hooliganism

00:17:26.200 in England that we see but football hooliganism so far as I'm aware does not have the same level 0.61

00:17:33.400 of at least as you suggest implicit state backing well quite when it's attacking um religious

00:17:40.400 minorities within the area in fact it's the exact opposite over here football hooligans were to go

00:17:45.320 over and burn a quran in front of a um in front of a muslim temple or something that the authorities

00:17:51.940 would be on it right oh absolutely yeah absolutely uh benedictine abbott says that uh

00:17:58.760 now there is no day that people are not spitting at me says the german monk the attackers often

00:18:07.000 come for his pectoral cross and sometimes shout at him to remove it he says that the rise of

00:18:12.160 religious extremists in the government is making it easier for people to get away with acts of

00:18:16.280 anti-christian hate they are making it very clear that there is no right to be here as a christian

00:18:20.820 which is you know insane because we're not for the support of christian countries there would

00:18:26.500 be no state of israel but moving on also it is also the christian holy land it's a holy it is

00:18:30.820 also obviously the christian holy land yes um in the first half of 2026 harani's organization

00:18:38.060 registered 107 anti-Christian incidents, more than double the figures it recorded in the same period

00:18:43.960 in 2024. The majority are occurring in Jerusalem, including shouts of death to Christians, trashes

00:18:50.720 often thrown at monasteries. The biggest culprits are young Israelis, according to this Israeli

00:18:56.840 researcher. So you see this pattern emerging, and just as when it comes to Islam, it is important 1.00

00:19:07.260 to understand that Islam is a religion of government that sees itself as entitled to 0.99

00:19:12.140 rule over Christians and Jews and humiliate them and make them pay special taxes and prevent them 0.99

00:19:19.780 from riding on horses and forcing them into the narrow side of the road whenever they pass by a 1.00

00:19:26.080 Muslim. It's important to understand these things about Islam. I think it's also important to

00:19:31.580 understand these things about Judaism because we have the situation emerging. It is worth explaining

00:19:39.400 and if you want to explain it what better source is there than looking at what Israeli writers have

00:19:45.220 said documenting the beliefs of certain elements in the Jewish community. And I want to be clear

00:19:52.620 in the same way that most Muslims are peaceful but you have very problematic passages in Islamic

00:19:59.600 scripture, the same applies to Jews. And it applies particularly to Jews in Israel.

00:20:05.220 Now, this is a good book by Israel Shahak, who was a chemistry professor who basically spent his

00:20:12.500 life studying how Israeli society was being radicalized and what was happening to Israeli

00:20:19.020 society and how it departed from the secular foundations of Zionism and became more and more

00:20:25.560 extreme over time. What decades was he? So he was writing in the 90s and early 2000s. Right, okay.

00:20:31.600 Yeah. And there's a passage here that says the following.

00:20:39.480 Shahak explains that the Talmud contains a huge number of passages that are deeply hostile to

00:20:45.920 Christians. And he explains that in various disputations that happened between Christians

00:20:50.760 and Jews in the Middle Ages, the Christians looked at the Talmud and said, hold on a second,

00:20:56.180 what you're saying about us is a bit extreme, and this isn't really acceptable for rather obvious

00:21:02.120 reasons. And as a result of that, Shahak's words here, Talmudic passages directed against Christians

00:21:09.680 or against non-Jews had to go or be modified. The pressure was too strong. This is what was done.

00:21:16.100 A few of the most offensive passages were bodily removed from all editions printed in Europe

00:21:20.900 after the mid-16th century. In all other passages, the expressions Gentile, non-Jew,

00:21:29.360 stranger, which appear in all early manuscripts and printings, as well as in all editions published

00:21:35.400 in Islamic countries, were replaced by terms such as idolater, heathen, or even Canaanite,

00:21:41.160 or Samaritan, terms which could be explained away but which a Jewish reader could recognize

00:21:46.720 at euphemisms for the old expressions. At the same time, lists of Talmudic omissions were

00:21:53.680 circulated in manuscript form, as in written rather than printed, or copied by hand rather

00:21:59.720 than printed, which explained all the new terms and pointed out all of the omissions.

00:22:04.700 At times, a general disclaimer was printed before the title page of each volume of Talmudic

00:22:09.380 literature, solemnly declaring, sometimes on oath, that all hostile expressions in that volume

00:22:15.000 are intended only against the idolaters of antiquity, or even against the long-vanished

00:22:20.440 Canaanites, rather than against the peoples in whose land we live. After the British conquest

00:22:26.160 of India, some rabbis hit on the subterfuge of claiming that any particularly outrageous

00:22:32.040 derogatory expression used by them is only intended against the Indians.

00:22:36.640 clever this was a calculated lie from beginning to end and following the establishment of the

00:22:43.820 state of israel once the rabbis felt secure all the offensive passages and expressions were

00:22:48.960 restored without hesitation in all new editions because the enormous cost of a new of a new

00:22:54.400 edition uh a considerable part of the talmudic literature including the talmud itself is still

00:22:59.360 being reprinted i think he was writing in the early 2000s for this reason the above

00:23:04.340 mentioned Talmudic commissions have now been published in Israel in a cheap printed edition

00:23:09.280 under the title Hersonot Shas. Now, what does the Talmud say about Christians? It's an important

00:23:17.520 question if you want to understand violence by a segment of religious Jews and a segment of

00:23:23.880 Hasidic Jews against Christians. Well, I went through a book called Jesus in the Talmud by

00:23:30.420 peter schaefer peter schaefer had been the uh director of the jewish museum of berlin

00:23:37.180 so not a biased source by any account and his findings were genuinely shocking frankly

00:23:46.860 um the talmud claims that the virgin mary was a prostitute which is a bit of an extreme statement

00:23:55.820 Well, as far as I'm aware, is it correct that the Talmud is, like, dozens of volumes long?

00:24:03.100 34 volumes.

00:24:04.100 34 volumes long. It's an enormous, enormous set of tomes.

00:24:08.040 And it all seems to be the arguments of rabbis on how to interpret scripture.

00:24:15.940 So, in part, it's the arguments of rabbis.

00:24:18.900 Yes.

00:24:19.680 Within it, there are points of consensus.

00:24:22.880 All right.

00:24:23.340 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.

00:24:40.480 And the answer was, well, which Jesus are you talking about then?

00:24:45.380 And there was no acceptable reply.

00:24:49.180 Well, no one could possibly think of a Jesus over them.

00:24:53.340 the messiah could you it's the only one who enters your head precisely i bring anyone's head i bring

00:24:58.300 this up simply because in such a long see such a long work which does consist at points of people

00:25:06.300 arguing against one another it would seem like it would be very very easy to cherry pick quotes and

00:25:11.100 say this is this is what it's saying in totality with no contradiction which might be a lie but

00:25:15.900 this guy peter schaefer was head of this museum presumably had read the entire thing numerous

00:25:22.140 times and was an expert on this work so it would be very difficult to accuse this guy of cherry

00:25:27.380 picking. Well his entire argument is that bigger books like Christianity and the Talmud and Midrash

00:25:36.080 by Hertford are basically too broad in what they refer to as Christians and that a lot of the

00:25:45.460 passages that are picked up elsewhere don't in fact refer to Christians. Now this is a legitimate 1.00

00:25:50.260 point of debate. Does the word menim, which means heretic, generally apply to Christians? And

00:25:57.060 I think on balance the answer is yes, but Schaeffer claims not always, and so he comes up with a sort

00:26:06.440 of more defined and reduced, shall we say, version of what he says the Talmud says about Christians

00:26:14.900 and in particular about Jesus. You also see accusations that Jesus is a

00:26:21.740 sorcerer and that explains the miracles by our Lord. Jesus is described as being

00:26:31.340 punished forever unlike normal sinners who might be in hell for just 12 months.

00:26:37.100 Jesus is punished forever and his punishment is to sit in boiling

00:26:41.900 excrement and then you see one of the most fascinating parts that Jesus was

00:26:48.980 rightly executed for blasphemy so there is no there's no denying that as far as

00:26:55.280 the Talmud is concerned Jesus basically didn't respect the rabbis and claim

00:27:01.460 that the old rules of the Torah were no longer necessary claimed that he was God

00:27:05.140 and therefore he received the correct punishment but one of the most

00:27:08.840 interesting passages for me was the idea that it's better for somebody to die than to be healed by

00:27:15.060 the name of Jesus. It is better for a Jew to die than to be healed by the name of Jesus. Because 0.93

00:27:20.780 if you are healed by Christ, that means that you have no part in the world to come. Whereas if you 0.54

00:27:26.420 just die, at least you have a part in the world to come. And that seems a bit extreme to me. That

00:27:33.880 really does seem a bit extreme to me. In other parts, you see basically in Avodah Zarah, which

00:27:41.200 is again part of the Talmud, Rabbi Abahu taught the following, with regard to Gentiles and shepherds 0.87

00:27:49.560 of domesticated animals, one may not raise them from a pit. The implication here is that if you 0.98

00:27:55.900 find someone who is a Gentile, who has fallen and their life is at risk, you may not in fact save 1.00

00:28:02.640 them. One may not lower them into a pit, but heretics and the informers and the apostates 1.00

00:28:08.540 are lowered into a pit, but not raised out of it. Heretics does apply to Christians because 0.98

00:28:14.880 from a mainstream modern Jewish perspective, Christianity is a Jewish heresy. From a Christian 0.97

00:28:22.420 perspective, rabbinic Judaism is in fact the heresy. So the fact that these passages exist 0.94

00:28:27.780 and this kind of animosity exists is, I would argue, relevant and does have some explanatory

00:28:34.280 value and can help us see why one of the teenagers who wants to spit at a church in Jerusalem

00:28:41.980 would say we are supposed to hate them. These teachings are in fact relevant. And I'm just

00:28:48.660 scratching the surface here. There are many other things here. The sages taught one who sees the

00:28:54.700 houses of Israel inhabited and tranquil, recites, blessed is God who establishes the border of the

00:29:00.220 widow. One who sees them in ruins, recites, blessed be the true judge. One who sees the

00:29:06.740 houses of the nations of the world inhabited, recites, the Lord will destroy the house of the 0.94

00:29:13.700 proud, but he will establish the border of the widow. And if he sees them in ruins, he recites,

00:29:19.620 god of vengeance lord god of vengeance shine forth again this seems a bit extreme to me

00:29:30.540 i would argue um this i mean this is obviously hateful uh in another passage you in uh berahot

00:29:41.580 58b the sages taught in a barita one who sees the grace of israel recites blessed is god who

00:29:48.520 formed you in judgment, who nourished you in judgment, who sustained you, da-da-da-da-da.

00:29:53.060 One who sees the graves of the Gentiles recites, your mother shall be sore ashamed, she who bore 0.74

00:29:59.680 you shall be confounded. Behold, the hindermost of the nations shall be a wilderness, a dry land, 0.99

00:30:05.420 and a desert, which is a passage from Jeremiah speaking about basically the horrors that will

00:30:10.820 afflict Israel as they disobey God. This, to my mind, seems relevant, and I would argue that just

00:30:19.760 as we should study Islamic scriptures and teach what they say about Christians and the need to 0.84

00:30:25.540 subjugate and humiliate Christians and Jews both, passages like this that express a just a blinding 0.86

00:30:33.320 hatred, I would argue, towards all Gentiles with a particular focus on Christians are also relevant. 0.79

00:30:40.820 i would say it's important to understand the beliefs that are driving actions you can't address 0.80

00:30:46.980 islamic terrorism if you don't understand islam and you can't understand the uh attacks by a small

00:30:54.980 minority of jews against christians in israel without understanding these kinds of beliefs 0.77

00:31:00.820 And then there is this here, the Barakat Haminim, the blessings on the heretics.

00:31:12.920 This is part of daily Jewish prayers that are recited while standing up. 0.92

00:31:18.800 And it is called blessings, but it is anything but. 0.62

00:31:23.940 But for the apostates, the text of one of these, or this segment of the daily prayer,

00:31:33.060 for the apostates, let there be no hope, and uproot the kingdom of arrogance, speedily and in our days. 0.99

00:31:40.820 May the Nazarenes, the Christians, and the sectarians, Minim, perish as in a moment. 1.00

00:31:48.100 Let them be blotted out of the book of life, and not be written together with the righteous, 1.00

00:31:53.240 you are praised, O Lord, who subdues the arrogant. 1.00

00:31:57.840 Now we can constantly find Muslims in mosques in the West 0.98

00:32:01.320 reciting prayers, basically saying, 0.91

00:32:06.720 count the Christians and the Jews 1.00

00:32:09.540 and wipe them out one by one. 1.00

00:32:12.420 And it is a problem.

00:32:14.040 And it shows a real conflict between these belief systems.

00:32:19.640 But I would argue that this is the same.

00:32:22.340 I would argue that there is no difference between the prayer that you hear in a mosque and this Barakot Haminim.

00:32:31.820 It's pretty blunt.

00:32:32.720 It is rather direct.

00:32:34.800 It is rather direct.

00:32:36.620 Let there be no hope.

00:32:39.540 Cheers, mate.

00:32:40.560 A bit over the top.

00:32:41.920 A bit over the top.

00:32:43.360 So I wanted to explain what the media refuses to touch.

00:32:49.100 I'm very glad that the Wall Street Journal and the Catholic Herald are reporting on the plight of Christians in the Holy Land.

00:32:57.640 But I think that reporting it isn't enough. 0.96

00:33:01.140 I think understanding it is important in the same way that we seek to understand Muslim violence. 0.98

00:33:07.320 And given that I believe that the only legitimate claim on the Holy Land is the Christian claim, 0.99

00:33:12.240 as would a Muslim about his claim, as would a Jew about his claim, 0.98

00:33:16.060 I think that we should know this and be aware of it as we discuss this kind of violence. 0.63

00:33:23.180 And I don't think it's just enough to say, well, there are religious extremists.

00:33:27.420 Because the issue with religious extremists across the board is that they are literalists.

00:33:34.960 And so it's important to look at the source from which they are taking their literal teachings.

00:33:40.020 And in the modern Jewish case, in the case of modern rabbinic Judaism or post-second

00:33:48.860 temple Judaism, this is what's driving it. 1.00

00:33:51.960 If you pray every day, may the Nazarenes perish as in a moment, let them be blotted out of 0.99

00:33:58.580 the book of life, that will lead to conflict. 0.99

00:34:04.300 And as Israel Shahak explains, the foundation of the modern state of Israel has encouraged the reintroduction of this kind of teaching. 0.95

00:34:13.700 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

00:34:21.120 And you can't understand the violence against Christians in the Holy Land without understanding this issue. 0.99

00:34:26.400 That's what I wanted to say.

00:34:29.380 Very interesting. Thank you.

00:34:30.800 Thank you.

00:34:31.080 um all right so uh rumble rants from this one so we've got that's a random name saying so the

00:34:36.440 significance of the sheep that they bring herds uh all the people's property claim they can enter

00:34:42.060 said property because their livestock is on the land i don't i don't know what's the logic i think

00:34:46.980 it's just an attempt at dispossession i think it's that blunt really it might be but you find

00:34:51.520 people like that tend to have lots of lots of loopholes they think very legalistically it's

00:34:57.360 like those tiktok guys where it's like yeah sure we're not allowed to do all of this on the shabbat

00:35:02.100 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

00:35:07.500 that god can tell when you're trying to trick him right what's even the point of trying to keep to

00:35:12.880 the rules if you're not going to keep to the rules uh base tape for two dollars says none of these

00:35:17.660 boy uh people can be trusted with jerusalem come on boys taking back the holy land for christendom

00:35:23.000 altrima too uh no doubt yeah five dollars for uh hero hero sang sanichiban says oh no don't talk

00:35:33.400 yeah well he just did uh and for ten dollars thank you from uh somerset south african says

00:35:40.360 lord jesus christ son of god have mercy on me a sinner amen on all of us

00:35:45.240 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.

00:36:06.780 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.

00:36:27.060 and looks as though without some kind of miracle the changes that have been brought about through

00:36:31.900 streaming and the internet and easy access to constant 24-hour content that doesn't have to

00:36:37.320 be on a schedule has collapsed the industry's model into itself, which is something that's

00:36:45.500 only been accelerated by COVID. It's never really recovered from COVID. I'm going to give a shout

00:36:49.620 out. I believe it was Sigilstone yesterday who pointed out that this was something that was

00:36:54.060 happening and at first I was expecting it to be you know maybe just some news going on where oh

00:36:59.900 some studios reported that its profits aren't quite as high as it were but no this seems to be

00:37:04.200 an existential problem that I'll get into but if you want something nourishing if you want something

00:37:09.400 that will give you an idea of instead of just worrying about what is happening in the world

00:37:13.680 what you can do in the world then you should pick up an issue of Islander number six while it's

00:37:19.200 still available through our merchandise website maybe pick yourself something else up while you're

00:37:23.720 there as well, like a mug or a shirt. But for $14.99, with post-its and packaging in certain

00:37:29.740 areas, you're going to get so much value for your money, it is untrue. There are a number of excellent

00:37:35.800 articles in here. One of my favourites being Influence Is Not Power by Henry Martin, who I

00:37:42.020 interviewed for the website just last week, talking about the place of internet influencers

00:37:48.460 and influences elsewhere as well within political movements what kind of change can they bring what's

00:37:54.480 their place in it should they simply be figureheads should they have more organizational power

00:37:58.920 and uh what you can do as part of that hierarchy as well so please get a hold of this while you can

00:38:05.300 anyway so uh yeah i decided to look into this at the suggestion of i apologies if i got it wrong

00:38:11.600 let me know in the chat i think it was right i'm sure they will let you know anytime i get

00:38:17.720 anything wrong, that's absolutely fine. You can please let me know. Bully me if you have to.

00:38:23.580 So I decided to look into this, and there's quite a lot of discussion, and it's not all just recent

00:38:27.560 as well. This is an article going back to March earlier this year in the run-up to the Oscars,

00:38:32.400 saying the Oscars make it clear Hollywood is in a death spiral. And it's not just because the films

00:38:37.200 being produced by the American film industry are nowhere near the level of quality that they once

00:38:42.100 were. They're not even really talking about the lowered standards that you find in the production

00:38:46.940 themselves everybody's complained about the strange imagery that you see in Hollywood these

00:38:52.420 days the fact that nothing can be lit properly everything looks flat and dull the color grading

00:38:56.900 is horrible the special effects are getting worse and worse and worse and worse this is just in

00:39:01.820 terms of like actually nothing is being made in Hollywood anymore so you've been corrected by the

00:39:08.060 way it was Logan 17 Logan Logan 17 pine apologies it wasn't sigil stone that was falsely attributed

00:39:16.680 this was logan pine was the one who let me know so thank you for correcting me before i let that

00:39:21.800 misinformation go out but you can you can see here in terms of the yearly production shoot days

00:39:28.040 in los angeles this would be as part of the hollywood industry as represented by the actual

00:39:32.420 studios their studio sets their backlots the things that hollywood used to be built from

00:39:38.240 has absolutely tanked in terms of what's actually being filmed there going back to 2015 2016 seems

00:39:45.580 have been the high over the past 12 years uh was uh 39 000 hours of footage being recorded

00:39:52.960 in hollywood itself you get the pandemic shutdown and then it's thousand days oh sorry yes days

00:40:01.160 shoot days yes that's right uh it plummets in 2020 to about 19 000 shoots back up when it opens back

00:40:09.460 up again but then we've gone back down to 9 000 sorry 19 700 days in hollywood so we're down to

00:40:17.540 almost covid pandemic lockdown era um uh shoots so what's going on what's happening and they point

00:40:27.440 out in this article if you look at the field for best best picture oscar uh you find that not a

00:40:33.680 single one of the 10 nominated movies was produced on the sound stages or studio lots of hollywood

00:40:38.700 Some of the post-production was done in LA-based facilities.

00:40:42.400 Almost all of them, well, all of them were entirely or largely filmed elsewhere.

00:40:47.140 Marty Supreme was filmed in New York.

00:40:49.540 Sinners was filmed in Louisiana.

00:40:51.560 Hamnet was filmed in the UK.

00:40:54.220 Hollywood, being the name for the entertainment industry headquartered and operated in Los Angeles, is disintegrating.

00:41:00.660 It mentions the drop in shoot days that have been done there.

00:41:03.780 and they say that some 41 000 of the workers who make the industry function left from 2022 to 2024

00:41:11.000 which was the most recent data available some by choice some by necessity the industry's most

00:41:16.780 powerful person now is not a traditional studio boss but ted sarandos the co-ceo of netflix which

00:41:25.120 is headquartered in silicon valley so a lot of the power that was once vested in the entertainment

00:41:30.640 industry purely in la has shifted to silicon valley san francisco amazon netflix apple all

00:41:39.380 of these big tech companies which open their own streaming sector have almost completely wiped off

00:41:43.940 hollywood already wiped wiped them off wiped off their influence you can't stand up to netflix

00:41:50.080 anymore they are the most powerful entertainment industry company in the entire world and that

00:41:55.420 puts the traditional studios in a very very and that's even up against all of these other streaming

00:42:00.300 rivals that have tried to come obviously uh you know to get a wedge into that new market i mean

00:42:06.440 just look at disney disney i was just about to say disney plus the fact that disney plus

00:42:10.320 cannot out compete you know one of the oldest hollywood companies that there is cannot out

00:42:14.760 usually legacy like a huge legacy i think there's a graph further down here that shows you the

00:42:19.420 difference in um influence between them yeah the the share streaming giant towers over traditional

00:42:26.220 studios market capitalization netflix 358 billion dollars in first place second place disney 187

00:42:37.680 billion dollars almost almost half yeah that's just how much netflix has dominated the industry

00:42:45.100 since it introduced streaming back in 2010 and they say yes that remains true even after paramount

00:42:51.240 Skydance's David Ellison, yes, the son of Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle, the AI company,

00:42:58.780 outbid Netflix to purchase the legendary studio Warner Brothers Discovery. They're trying to do

00:43:03.540 a big merger. Indeed, the outcome of that intensely watched deal negotiation looks

00:43:07.360 likely to be another nail in the coffin for the film industry as a dominant economic force in

00:43:11.720 Los Angeles, with Ellison, Hollywood's newest mogul, promising to find $6 billion plus in synergies

00:43:17.520 following the acquisition he's promised that the majority of these cost cuts will affect quote

00:43:23.560 non-labor sources but the town uh is bracing for large-scale layoffs so the result of this merger

00:43:31.440 which ellison says is going to be the thing that saves hollywood is that alongside those 41 000

00:43:38.100 jobs which are now gone it's probably going to be even more because paramount and warner brothers

00:43:43.340 huge companies absolutely massive like you can see warner brothers discovery and paramount

00:43:48.840 are the ones in market capitalization which are bringing up the rear yes but still

00:43:53.620 between them worth about 84 billion dollars huge amount of money probably lots of jobs riding on

00:44:00.860 those bye-bye yep bye-bye and the worst part is for them if it goes through uh to make it go

00:44:09.120 through they may not even be headquartered in los angeles anymore so hollywood as it exists again

00:44:15.300 is just leaving it's just gone it will never be the same again and they say as a result of all of

00:44:20.820 this a quote from the assessment of michael linton former ceo of sony pictures was that la has become

00:44:26.980 the sunny version of detroit in more way in more ways than one i would expect harsh that's damning

00:44:33.460 he said uh it was crickets last time i went there there is nothing going on the loss of the

00:44:39.780 industry's talent pipeline may well result in a decline of the quality um of the products the

00:44:45.180 industry produces and unleash an abundance of ai slop according to the article we're already well

00:44:49.860 well there frankly what else is new a lot of the films that come out even if they're made by people

00:44:55.400 look like ai slop because they are such low quality in the first place streaming era doesn't

00:45:01.500 just offer the steady flow of work for many direct just doesn't offer the steady flow of work

00:45:06.360 for many directors cinematographers writers gaffers sound mixers and other workers who have

00:45:11.280 relied upon hollywood to give them a steady job because we think of this place as you know glitz

00:45:16.240 and glamour tinsel town where dreams are made but also for a lot of people it's literally like

00:45:21.740 i'm just the guy who goes around fixing the lights in the hollywood studios i'm just the guy who

00:45:28.100 tapes down all of the wires everywhere i'm the guy who makes sure the boom mic is working

00:45:33.380 these are like normal jobs you could even call them working class jobs just in hollywood right

00:45:40.740 so these people don't get that work anymore there's no need to fill eight o'clock on wednesday

00:45:46.660 night says mark goffman a producer and writer this is due to the new 24 hour you can just like

00:45:51.780 on demand watch whatever you want producers will order one script and then six months later they'll

00:45:56.820 approve a second script a very precious few are on the timeline where they get greenlit and move

00:46:01.220 at light speed everything else kind of lumbers along with no real urgency the upshot is that

00:46:05.560 landing a writer's room job today is no longer such a golden opportunity with fewer episodes

00:46:10.240 fewer writers in the room with no role in production someone says it's a meager version

00:46:15.500 of the screenwriter's previous job for those trying to eke out a living in hollywood he says

00:46:19.260 feel like it's never been harder and you can add that on top of the problems that people

00:46:23.160 already experiencing what was it that compact magazine article that hit um that everybody got

00:46:27.800 obsessed with a little while ago that was talking about how they just didn't want white writers

00:46:32.820 yep they didn't like this guy who was writing it was talking about his own experiences

00:46:36.880 and finding that no they just didn't want white men writing anything as if as if it wasn't white

00:46:44.040 men writing that created the success of hollywood in the first place and all those talented writers

00:46:51.220 but um but i i also think the loss of this industry centralization and the loss of these

00:46:56.580 tight tight uh time schedules that they had to do you know you think back to the to the early 90s

00:47:01.820 for instance where you know you have a show like x files come out 24 episodes per season

00:47:07.720 every single year and you look back at those episodes and you just wonder how they did it

00:47:13.020 because in comparison to what they're doing now where it takes like four years to do single 10

00:47:18.320 episode series that each of these old episodes they were shot on film they look so much higher

00:47:25.500 quality the lighting is high quality the writing is higher quality the actors are there every

00:47:31.540 single day on set for a half a year almost so that they can get all of this done they used to

00:47:36.700 be able to pump this stuff out and at much higher quality than things eke out these days and i think

00:47:42.400 part of it is due to the loss of this industry centralization because all of the people who

00:47:48.160 knew how to do that well they're either diffused across the country so they can't all work together

00:47:54.300 anymore or they just don't work in the industry anymore because the jobs aren't there and some

00:47:59.800 might see this as tragedy some might see this as a well-earned black eye for an industry that had

00:48:06.120 become degenerate very very long ago and didn't deserve to have the level of influence and power

00:48:11.440 that it ended up happening uh but either way it is interesting because again they even note in

00:48:16.680 this article here that la basically used to be the center of influence for america's exports to the

00:48:23.560 entire world oh yes so without that level of influence with these people actually going out

00:48:29.820 to the rest of the world to try and find careers in movie industries outside of america let alone

00:48:35.420 outside of la how will this affect the propaganda that people consume in the future are we going

00:48:43.380 as any indication the propaganda is going to be much much much worse well yeah it's still going

00:48:48.120 to be the same propaganda but it's good it's not even going to be entertaining it's not going to

00:48:51.180 be arnold schwarzenegger making you love the american military industrial complex right yes

00:48:57.380 it was very effective after he was the most effective propagandist for america's like

00:49:03.380 foreign policy in the 80s uh it's just not going to be anything like that yeah yeah yeah and um

00:49:10.040 rambo being dedicated to the mujahideen not gonna happen again oh that's a classic that's a that's

00:49:15.260 a tragedy uh but the other thing is as well uh is there's more graphs that you can see in this

00:49:20.700 hollywood reporter commenting on the same thing but there's more uh graphs so there's the same one

00:49:25.900 uh shoot days but if you scroll down you can find uh live action movie and tv shoots locations

00:49:32.700 because one of the other things is with streaming

00:49:35.120 and even with HBO going back to the 90s,

00:49:37.880 you started to see a shift from film production

00:49:39.760 to television production,

00:49:40.800 which changed the structure of the industry as well.

00:49:43.520 You can see that number one ahead of Los Angeles now in 2025

00:49:48.020 in terms of live action movie and TV shoot locations is Canada.

00:49:52.980 I didn't see that coming.

00:49:54.580 I know, right?

00:49:55.480 And the UK and Ireland has grown as well.

00:49:59.120 New York is...

00:50:01.040 it's still well actually new york's fallen uh because canada has had such an enormous rise

00:50:08.120 the same rate yeah what are some of the more ones top u.s states for film and tv production

00:50:13.660 california is still in the lead but nowhere near as much as it was and you can see film encounters

00:50:18.480 dropped 20 production spend 22 where background actors find work is now new york's pretty much

00:50:28.420 there right you even see this with some tv shows that i watch like the rebooted dexter stuff where

00:50:33.760 dexter was set in florida but it was entirely filmed in la right and now the newest series

00:50:40.400 because they've rebooted that show twice now because they keep right they keep just not

00:50:44.680 knowing ideas they just don't know how to end it they they they ended the original series everybody

00:50:50.220 hated it and they went oh right eight years later we'll reboot it we'll give you the ending that

00:50:54.300 everyone hated that one everyone hated that one too so like fine third time is the charm and where

00:51:00.700 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

00:51:06.440 watching it it looks a lot like it's actually filmed in new york as well unless they've done

00:51:10.960 an eyes wide shut stanley kubrick and they've just got studios where they've literally built

00:51:14.780 streets of new york out of out of fabric like fabricated them um but yeah it looks like things

00:51:21.340 in america is shifting to atlanta tennessee new york and uh you just don't get producers there

00:51:27.520 anymore as well because there's no there's no way to make money this is from a guy who says he's

00:51:32.360 worked in the industry just talking about how all the producers he's known for years at this point

00:51:36.580 they're leaving can't make a career anymore but what is the effect of that well why is everything

00:51:43.060 reboots now why is everything gigantic franchises why is everything reboots well because before you

00:51:48.900 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

00:51:53.920 take a chance on you like blumhouse style now um you can't make money doing that anymore the

00:52:00.280 producers that exist have been around for decades and they just want guaranteed money makers we are

00:52:05.920 going to do another spider-man movie because it keeps making money so you don't get people coming

00:52:11.080 in with the original can we please not restart the star wars debate thank you i'm not starting

00:52:15.060 i'm joking firas you're on with the two people who won that debate so there's no debate to tag my

00:52:21.480 friend so he's saying that you get the death of original material you get the homogenization of

00:52:25.860 voices and the production efficiency collapses which is probably why everything coming from

00:52:30.000 hollywood just looks so terrible but what is good coming from the american film industry well

00:52:36.460 they're taking a pivot which is that they're going to internet creators content creators

00:52:42.900 like we saw with Obsession

00:52:45.160 and Backrooms. We've got

00:52:47.060 a film coming out, the Jeff the

00:52:48.940 Killer film. Can you believe it?

00:52:50.700 We're getting a Jeff

00:52:53.120 the Killer film

00:52:54.160 before George RR Martin is releasing

00:52:56.720 Winds of Winter. Can you believe it, folks?

00:52:58.980 Developed... It's a creepypasta.

00:53:01.680 Say again? It's a creepypasta.

00:53:03.760 A very old creepypasta

00:53:05.340 at this point as well, actually.

00:53:07.400 Developed with TikTok creator

00:53:09.020 Savannah Moss and creator-led

00:53:11.080 studio tongal which is reflecting the new transformation because they what what they're

00:53:15.480 looking for and you can scroll through this article read this whole thing community-led

00:53:20.340 creator-led we live in the internet age now what works is algorithms how to get the algorithms

00:53:26.140 these youtubers these tiktokers they know how to reach an audience through algorithms right and

00:53:31.780 we're going to get millions of impressions on twitter trailers and yeah constant we're going

00:53:35.720 to go like obsession was a great um a great example of this why was it that obsession made

00:53:41.020 so much money why was it it got so many impressions and people went to go see it and even knew about

00:53:45.160 in the first place i would argue because it made a massive smash on social media yes it became meme

00:53:51.760 material straight away before i'd heard of the film i'd seen the i'd seen the memes and then

00:53:57.800 after i saw the memes i heard oh there's a really good film at the other end of these memes i guess

00:54:02.500 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

00:54:07.600 films that aren't being uh aren't using actors who are just the recycled actors that you just

00:54:14.640 see in everything all the time no way all these people uh i mean don't get wrong there are still

00:54:21.240 great actors who just show up and give a great performance every time but i do think that just

00:54:26.660 having some freshness of faces about cinema as well is something that people desperately want

00:54:32.100 oh yeah but

00:54:32.840 he's gonna sit in the corner

00:54:33.700 and be old

00:54:34.460 that's absolutely fine

00:54:35.680 well the interesting thing

00:54:36.660 about this is

00:54:37.580 I went through the entire article

00:54:38.960 thanks

00:54:39.140 and uh

00:54:40.860 fair enough

00:54:41.380 and you know

00:54:41.700 this is new strategies

00:54:43.120 for how you can make money

00:54:44.300 Obsession was great

00:54:45.480 because it was done

00:54:45.920 by a YouTuber

00:54:46.640 who'd done short films

00:54:47.660 and they took a chance on him

00:54:48.700 less than a million dollars spent

00:54:50.040 400 million dollars

00:54:51.500 made back through

00:54:52.340 through revenue

00:54:53.900 in the cinemas

00:54:54.460 which is insane

00:54:55.480 do you know what I do

00:54:56.620 may I just say one thing as well

00:54:57.760 one thing is the fact

00:54:59.080 that when you've got

00:54:59.780 a film like Obsession

00:55:00.620 which I haven't seen yet

00:55:01.700 but I really do want to watch it

00:55:04.380 is that, you know, when you're basing a film

00:55:06.720 on the budget like that

00:55:08.020 and really it's just about the actual character drama

00:55:10.880 it's about just putting two characters

00:55:13.140 very ordinary characters

00:55:14.400 in very ordinary settings

00:55:16.040 the local bar, your bedroom, whatever it is

00:55:18.740 doesn't require

00:55:20.060 endless millions on special effects

00:55:23.020 and all of this stuff

00:55:24.000 because the special effects

00:55:25.400 just become a distraction from the actual human drama

00:55:28.920 that is supposed to be powering your storytelling right well the other thing that i was about to

00:55:34.880 mention i did not see in this article one single mention of diversity or inclusion the new strategy

00:55:44.180 seems to be listen when we had way more of a stranglehold on this industry we really could

00:55:50.960 just shove anything down these people's throats and they had to accept it because that's us

00:55:55.280 after covid our grips loosened a little bit people caught on to that they don't want to

00:56:03.400 pay money to go see those films anymore supergirl came out earlier this year and as far as i can

00:56:08.060 tell flopped because it did the classic recent hollywood thing of going like yeah if you're a

00:56:13.800 man you're not gonna like this film okay i won't go watch it then yeah and why would i go and watch

00:56:19.340 and netflix isn't going to be tripped over by that because even if netflix do i mean it's you

00:56:25.700 know obviously a meme at this point just the amount of race swapping that netflix do but also

00:56:30.740 as well you're not just paying for a subscription to watch the new woke race swap stuff you're also

00:56:36.880 paying for the catalog of classic films that they've got on there as well and so it it's able

00:56:42.200 to straddle both of those things at the same time and still get your money because you're not

00:56:47.260 necessarily paying for that film that they're trying to insult you with yeah whereas with

00:56:51.700 hollywood it's just one film at a time and no one wants to watch financial financial investment and

00:56:57.280 you need to get an immediate financial payback on it as well uh but now they're just going like okay

00:57:03.160 2016 when we had stuff like the all-female ghostbusters we could do we could do that

00:57:10.140 when they did an all-female oceans 11 right oh yeah yeah we could do the we could do the 1.00

00:57:16.040 stupid bullshit all female cast and just shove it down people's throat we're we're past the point 0.99

00:57:21.360 where we can do that now so diversity inclusion all that stuff let's just sweep that over to one 1.00

00:57:28.400 side for the time being and we'll find some white guy on youtube who makes decent short films and go

00:57:34.000 i'll give you a million dollars and make me 400 million dollars and it works that's a great deal

00:57:39.280 yeah because yeah yeah it sort of shows their intellectual moral bankruptcy with all of this

00:57:44.760 stuff oh yeah it was never sincere it was about it was about insulting you because they could

00:57:49.640 yes and the last nail in the coffin seems to be david ellison potentially taking paramount

00:57:55.680 and then also maybe even water brothers out of the state entirely and taking it possibly

00:58:02.000 to tennessee or even texas right i know that there's been a great emigration of californians

00:58:08.680 to texas as well but now the movie studios might be following along uh even worse for red state

00:58:14.980 texans yes in less than a month david ellison has exhibited a dizzying range of emotions as the goal

00:58:20.780 line for the coveted 111 billion dollar deal has moved farther away it's 111 billion dollars wrapped

00:58:27.300 up in all of this the tech scion initially exuded confidence that hollywood's biggest merger was on

00:58:32.660 a fast track to be completed by september but now the californian attorney general rob bonter

00:58:38.860 and 11 other democratic state attorneys are filing an antitrust lawsuit against them why

00:58:46.540 not against netflix um good question well because netflix has grown to be in the position that it's

00:58:53.720 in right now whereas this is a merger of two already established and they're saying that it

00:58:57.500 would hurt competition he's saying this is how we actually have a standard chance famously with

00:59:04.180 standard oil you can break up an existing company if it has too much power oh yeah you can but they

00:59:09.080 probably make them too much money as a state but the thing is as well like i'm sure paramount and

00:59:14.060 and warner brothers makes the make the state a lot of money as well right so they might just be

00:59:19.560 chasing them out of the state uh ellison has made contingency plans to shift paramount's home base

00:59:25.940 from Melrose Avenue to Tennessee or Texas as early as this fall.

00:59:30.340 Paramount have approved these relocation plans,

00:59:33.320 and he's shared concepts with his executive leadership team in a meeting

00:59:37.420 and said his preference was to remain in California,

00:59:40.100 but they will move if they absolutely have to.

00:59:42.500 The proposal includes potentially selling the 65-acre Paramount lot in Hollywood

00:59:47.240 as well as the larger Warner Brothers campus in Burbank

00:59:50.400 should Paramount prevail in the merger battle.

00:59:52.980 Such sales would generate revenue to help pay merger costs,

00:59:55.940 one of the knowledgeable sources said, but it would also

00:59:57.980 mean this huge

00:59:59.880 titan of the industry that

01:00:01.760 Hollywood is known, is famous for,

01:00:04.040 just gone. Just gone from the

01:00:05.860 state, and that also means any and all revenue

01:00:07.960 that they bring into the state, and any

01:00:09.540 influence that they bring into the state. You always turn them

01:00:11.800 into Section 8 housing.

01:00:13.740 I'm sure, guaranteed moneymaker.

01:00:16.820 That's what I like about

01:00:18.020 you, Firas. There's always... Thinking outside the box.

01:00:20.460 Thinking outside the box.

01:00:22.440 Always a silver lining with

01:00:24.000 you. Bonta blasted

01:00:25.940 paramount strategy saying that this is just an attempt to blackmail the state into letting an

01:00:30.500 illegal deal through paramount's lost the plot if it continues to lose in court my office remains

01:00:35.520 committed to stopping illegal consolidation and protecting a vibrant californian economy for

01:00:41.200 businesses that play by the rules why is it illegal because i said so but also this might

01:00:47.300 be bad for gavin newsom because he wants to be seen as you know the governor of this amazing

01:00:52.400 state if he ever wants to go for a democratic presidential run and if under him not only do

01:00:57.760 you have all of the covid problems you have uh you know san francisco and la turning into gigantic

01:01:02.840 hell holes while on his watch then you also have hollywood literally packs up and leaves under his

01:01:08.500 watch not a great record of success for him as well so he's also potentially expected to step in

01:01:14.420 if it goes too far but but we'll see uh but we'll see and uh yeah then there's just some more

01:01:20.840 information about this where

01:01:22.720 they've changed the court date

01:01:24.820 for the

01:01:25.780 case that they're bringing against it

01:01:28.700 and saying that it could

01:01:30.740 result in lots of

01:01:32.220 billions more dollars of costs

01:01:34.600 for these two massive studios as well.

01:01:36.540 Particularly for Paramount where if they can't get

01:01:38.740 the deal through by a particular date in June

01:01:40.800 next year, they have to pay a $7 billion

01:01:43.000 breakup fee. So

01:01:44.560 if the state interferes much more in this

01:01:47.060 they might also just

01:01:48.560 sink paramount anyway by forcing them to pay a load of extra legal costs so it's not illegal

01:01:53.300 don't let them it's not let them go into a merger break their backs yeah it's going it's not looking

01:01:59.020 good for hollywood and i'm interested to see where uh this will leave the entertainment industry and

01:02:03.980 the quality of my beautiful slop moving forward let's uh take a look at some of the rumble rants

01:02:11.720 um oh god quite a few actually uh random name your show with beau this morning was super wholesome

01:02:18.640 wish we'd get more of this thank you very much logan major reason for the recent drama is cnn

01:02:23.520 is being sold to david and he is fair on trump so that tds kicked in oh yeah that's probably it

01:02:29.220 being a hollywood script writer sounds easy especially since all the movies would be muted

01:02:33.320 because my dialogue wouldn't get past the censors probably true sigil stone so is hollywood

01:02:38.860 collapsing causing um anti-semitism due to the propaganda failing or is it the other way around

01:02:43.660 i don't know if that has anything to do with anything regard regarding this random name a lot

01:02:48.720 of hollywood people not just writers but also actors and directors have moved to gaming which

01:02:52.060 is why most triple a games are movie games foid of war last of us etc i'm tired boss i thought that

01:02:58.180 was just mainly because people who aren't qualified to be in the positions that they're in have been

01:03:02.400 put in positions that they're in spielberg was involved in medal of honor and those were cool

01:03:06.400 games back in the day hawk on a wire the blue collar jobs are also heavily unionized just one

01:03:11.240 more problem on top of everything else i mean i don't think it's entirely unfair that they want

01:03:15.160 to be paid a decent wage for the work there's an industry where you're very exploitative industry

01:03:20.180 yeah and and blackmail these rich producers this is definitely one of them yeah i'll i'll know mr

01:03:25.780 mr evil producer is going to be like making 50 less dollars uh this year because he's paying

01:03:31.600 his people well oh oh well uh but i understand that it does make it more difficult because

01:03:36.180 these people are so tight-fisted engaged for you can we dare to imagine a resurgence of film

01:03:42.240 given the new para that would be nice if i had 100k i could produce my own original horror movie

01:03:50.060 donations welcome well there you go and finally sigil stone why does this segment feel like a

01:03:54.980 doctor delivering a mystatic cancer diagnosis uh yeah but we're talking about hollywood so it's

01:04:00.760 more like the cancer is being cut out so it was a good news segment actually yeah nice very nice

01:04:09.020 all right then ladies and gentlemen so we're now going to go from discussing film to discussing

01:04:14.900 games now my earliest memories of game i you know played a lot of video games as a kid i have

01:04:20.480 particularly fond memories of uh trying to um get my show my mom how to play a video game

01:04:26.860 red alert in an internet cafe i i haven't done that no but that is a great game um but get trying

01:04:32.800 to get my mom to play spyro i remember this one it was like five years old and just there was a

01:04:38.680 level with no villains like no bad guys like it was nothing to kill you and all she had to do was

01:04:44.040 collect the gems she couldn't do it so we get we gave up um but this has meant that i spent a lot

01:04:49.420 of time as a kid just some of my best and most favorite childhood memories were just going over

01:04:55.020 to my friend's house after school just putting on the console you know 11 years old having a few

01:05:01.340 beer no um you know just having some fun and just playing some video games together and this was

01:05:07.320 something that just persisted throughout my life all the way until I mean you know certainly through

01:05:12.780 uni and then certainly you know going into lockdown as well and then something just happened

01:05:18.240 and it kind of just fell off for me and other things took precedent and things became more

01:05:22.220 important in life and there were just other things that i wanted to dedicate my time to

01:05:27.260 having said all of that i do that doesn't mean even though because i personally don't find the

01:05:33.200 time to do these things anymore that i actually want to see the games industry fall dead on its

01:05:39.280 face right because i actually think that particularly uh certainly in the case of the

01:05:44.240 terrible films we've seen coming out in this past recent decades um you know and games have certainly

01:05:51.540 had their problems with it as well but at its peak gaming is as true in art form uh you know

01:05:57.500 with the graphic design and the um you know the game design the artistic direction of it the script

01:06:03.100 all of it coming together the playability of it the online fun that you can have with friends

01:06:08.080 it's um it's a real skill and it's something that i think makes for many a fond memories and as we

01:06:14.720 are moving into a more and more online world regrettably i must say then i would rather people

01:06:22.460 have some good fun online you know playing some good quality games uh with really compelling

01:06:27.980 stories to them and you know problem solving that actually stimulates the brain then just things

01:06:34.480 that are glitchy from the point of being bought don't really work are constantly being stripped

01:06:41.280 down uh i think you did a daily didn't you on the channel about uh halo recently as well oh what

01:06:47.820 the combat uh what was it campaign evolve yes and uh you weren't much impressed by that no they

01:06:54.280 added a girl boss character into the first halo game for some reason that must have improved

01:06:58.480 dramatically oh i hope when she dies um and so it's really it behoves the gaming industry to not

01:07:10.000 antagonize its core audience right and playstation went ahead at the beginning of july and did

01:07:17.240 exactly this because they basically put out an announcement that they were going to be

01:07:21.560 transitioning into digital copies of games that the physical medium of going to the shop buying

01:07:29.180 the game putting the disc in the console was going to slowly be about and disappear and this

01:07:36.160 is something really lamentable not only for the fact that whether it be a set of films that you've

01:07:41.740 got on your desk or books or games or whatever it's just really nice to have something that is

01:07:47.760 the physical copy and in fact this is something that we hear at the Lotus Ears when we just say

01:07:53.060 these things we actually put our mouths to it and do the action because we celebrate physical

01:07:58.240 physical print media here as well we have Islander magazine which has been fantastically created by

01:08:05.200 our editor and publisher rory with some absolutely magnificent aesthetics in it

01:08:10.560 talking about a whole range of issues uh particularly political you know at this time now

01:08:16.240 and dealing with what needs to be done but also just evergreen material stuff that is relevant

01:08:21.920 to many times in many places for example i've written a piece in here all about samwise gamji

01:08:27.280 and tolkien so if you're a lord of the rings fan that's definitely something that i'd recommend you

01:08:32.480 check out from the website so we also get to the fact as well that well so sony says that

01:08:41.560 playstation disc backlash was making no impact on the business whatsoever now i believe that to be

01:08:48.020 something of a lie uh given the fact that 99 of the feedback to this announcement made the entire

01:08:57.260 thing look like armageddon i wouldn't be shocked if this is true i because we're talking about

01:09:02.860 stated preference versus revealed preference yes stated preference will be no i love my physical

01:09:08.700 media no don't take my discs away from me revealed preference will be i suppose i could just download

01:09:14.800 it off the store well this is the thing but this is how all of these um you know forms of

01:09:20.320 technological progress develop isn't it they always gamble your sense of just ease and the

01:09:27.680 expediency against whatever principle you might actually have well i mean my my big question was

01:09:33.660 how there was even a backlash against this in the first place when surely playstation 5 already had

01:09:39.380 no discs because there are no games on it well i've not got the playstation 5 so it's not something

01:09:46.580 that's affected there are no games that you want to play on it are there no no there aren't um ps4

01:09:53.240 had stuff like bloodborne's and other similar games come out when it first uh when it was first

01:09:57.940 released playstation 5 ain't got nothing but the playstation as far as i'm concerned is a dead

01:10:03.840 brand and i was a ps2 kid growing up um and so you get this whole thing like you know this uh

01:10:10.380 moral argument coming now between simply a game being licensed to you and you actually owning

01:10:17.220 the thing yourself and this is something that someone thought this is not related to gaming

01:10:22.020 but it serves as an example of the type of problem you're going to run into whereas it says here

01:10:27.120 somewhat some absolute chad brought bought the lord of the rings extended trilogy and um off of

01:10:33.540 his internet library and eventually this was removed from the library itself and even though

01:10:40.200 he'd bought it is he says i bought this in 2022 and all of a sudden they aren't available on the

01:10:45.180 library and there's no possibility of getting a refund for it even though it's been taken away

01:10:49.800 from me in fact just as a small aside to this particular story obviously internet kicked up a

01:10:55.520 big fuss about this and they eventually replied and they just said oh well here's a link to get

01:10:59.880 it back and it was just a link to buy it again which again didn't go down great at all um so

01:11:05.940 But then of course we come to the question of Xbox, the other great console, I mean obviously

01:11:10.540 PC Master Race, all that stuff, yeah.

01:11:13.520 But we come to the question of Xbox.

01:11:15.480 Now for the past many years, PlayStation have been, to put it politely, absolutely mogging

01:11:21.940 Xbox.

01:11:23.400 The PlayStation 5 has sold over 90 million units.

01:11:28.700 Well I suppose even if it's got no games, at least people own them, whereas I don't

01:11:34.620 anybody who owns the most recent xbox no nor do i i've never heard of anybody to own most recent

01:11:40.780 xbox it's like when play when sony started doing all of their old exclusive games and putting them

01:11:45.740 on steam i'm pretty sure that like is there such a thing as an xbox exclusive anymore let me know

01:11:52.220 well and when they are with something like halo or gears of war well i mean there hasn't been

01:11:57.500 from what i understand the gears of war for quite some time and halo as we see just keeps

01:12:01.100 disappointing the fans over and over yeah i mean i mainly play on my steam deck now and play

01:12:06.220 steam games so i'm not i don't mind too much about the whole digital thing because

01:12:10.280 all those old classics that i used to have on disc uh or still own on disc um well it's just

01:12:17.660 easier to just if you've got a good in emulator you can have your old back catalog and even more

01:12:23.900 just available at the click of a button so i don't really mind it all that much modern problems

01:12:28.300 require modern solutions um but we're seeing somebody recently say that they just got past

01:12:34.400 their grandfather's xbox their grandfather's xbox wait what apparently the grandfather would have

01:12:43.680 been early 40s when he bought a first xbox with a kid in his 20s and now the kid's kid is in his

01:12:53.140 is a teen or something and got his grandfather's xbox just saying yeah just saying that that is

01:13:00.660 a very wholesome but that is sort of how i'm feeling right now how old do you feel how old

01:13:07.160 it's okay i've i've never owned an xbox or a playstation just just saying don't worry we're

01:13:14.640 all unks here fam um and so um asha asha sharma came in as a new ceo of xbox in i think it was

01:13:26.860 february of this year and within two months as you can see she came in with a very different

01:13:32.360 approach to her predecessor uh phil spencer and she's already so this was uh cut the xbox games

01:13:38.840 pass ultimate from uh 29 uh dollars a month to 22 because again they'd ramped it up as well and

01:13:45.600 this is basically a subscription service that you pay into the game pass so you have access to

01:13:49.900 the particular online library of games and this is also as well a bit of a revolving door of them

01:13:55.100 so sometimes you can have a game and you love it but then they'll swap it out for something else

01:14:00.120 um it's also rebranding back to classic xbox uh visuals as well going back to

01:14:07.640 the classic neon green which everyone likes a bit of nostalgia obviously this is the first

01:14:14.180 example i've ever seen of not only an indian but an indian woman coming in as ceo of a company and

01:14:21.940 actually making objective improvements yeah like this is this is a world first remarkable but well

01:14:28.460 done well she was announced and everyone just went oh no but actually you know people have been

01:14:35.900 pretty impressed well i say people uh people who buy games have been quite impressed with it all

01:14:41.980 my gamers out there you know uh yeah our people um and so we get to the point where uh sorry she

01:14:50.220 goes on to say sorry it goes on to say a whole slate of xbox games failed to meet internal

01:14:55.040 expectations uh over the past few years and these go all the way from things like that uh generally

01:15:00.640 succeeds you know every time they come out like forza which apparently was played with bugs and

01:15:04.900 with just tracks missing from the game

01:15:07.620 and all these sorts of things.

01:15:08.860 And so it's not only that you're expected to pay

01:15:11.440 higher prices for games,

01:15:13.900 it's the fact that you're paying for games

01:15:15.840 that aren't finished.

01:15:17.500 Like when I was playing the PlayStation 2...

01:15:20.840 30 quid.

01:15:21.760 30 quid for a brand new game with the box.

01:15:24.140 And it was finished.

01:15:25.480 You bought the game and you got the whole game.

01:15:28.000 You didn't pay an extra 30 quid

01:15:29.960 for some DLC put on the top of it.

01:15:32.480 But they're constantly looking for ways

01:15:34.340 to you know just squeeze more and more money out of you whether it's the case of my uh micro

01:15:40.740 transactions and of course you had uh real controversies as well where game gaming companies

01:15:45.620 were taken to court uh there was infamous one with battlefront 2 because uh it was basically um

01:15:50.340 kind of like a soft form of gambling as well star wars battlefront 2 oh i remember that yeah it was

01:15:56.260 loot boxes yeah it was yeah so um steal your mother's credit card and then gamble on online

01:16:03.140 like on battlefront skins for your guns or something this is not advice um and so we get

01:16:11.700 shaman coming in here shaman and trying to really mix things up a bit and she says well

01:16:16.200 uh i mean talk about ambitious she says uh she wants the company to entertain more than a billion

01:16:22.540 people now just um for the sake of no ambiguity here when it says gaming is sorry i've got my

01:16:30.600 source is all out of whack here says full quote i want xbox to be one of the few companies that

01:16:36.460 entertains more than a billion people each day and gives everyone the opportunity to create and

01:16:40.980 connect i know we can achieve this goal xbox has many of the most beloved franchises in entertainment

01:16:46.140 history now as it says here worth noting she's not just referring to people playing xbox games

01:16:51.700 but also people who are using xbox microsoft services as well but even with this i mean it

01:16:57.880 goes on to talk about the fact that they obviously own all sorts of mobile games that you know

01:17:02.580 companies that make mobile games as well and these get millions upon millions of downloads i mean

01:17:07.020 the most normie tier slop like candy crush and stuff like this obviously just makes absolute

01:17:13.360 gangbusters i don't even consider that when i think nor do i but it's owned it's all under

01:17:19.700 this umbrella you do also forget that when they tried to do that push like 10 years ago when they

01:17:24.700 are like half of all gamers are women women are gamers too that what they actually meant was like 0.70

01:17:29.840 them sat on the toilet playing candy crush that count that makes you a gamer now yeah yeah it's

01:17:35.540 um it's um we are not the same uh and so naturally with all of this as well the need to obviously

01:17:43.320 uh create some new profits because certain games that they've been banking on like

01:17:48.320 um uh outer worlds had not been selling as well as they'd wanted to and people they're going we

01:17:55.700 just want the version like the uh the xbox exclusives that we all grew up with and we

01:18:01.740 want them to be good and like fair point we'll take that criticism on board and we'll maybe start

01:18:07.320 doing that and the other thing as well is that um particularly after 2018 uh xbox and microsoft

01:18:12.800 started also it's a way that they just harvest independent gaming companies as well and they

01:18:20.100 start buying them out and send all of a sudden you're not an independent gaming company you've

01:18:24.120 got some other higher ups breathing down your neck and they're making certain demands and

01:18:28.260 expectations of you in terms of time scaling and in terms of all sorts of requirements that they

01:18:33.840 may have and so well she's trying to reverse this and that does of course mean layoffs uh and this

01:18:41.100 also means as well letting go of certain companies that have obviously been taken into the fold

01:18:47.740 putting them back out there to see if other gaming companies want to buy them up or seeing if you

01:18:53.000 know they've got somewhere to float but ultimately it's going to be pretty significant and it goes

01:18:59.880 on to say that the layoffs of thousands of people from its Xbox division and losing four game

01:19:06.480 studios from its roster those studios are double fine compulsion games ninja theory and undead labs

01:19:14.160 with arcane lion in talks for also being removed stop me if this is getting a little technical

01:19:19.860 i thought you were speaking greek maybe i was it says the layoffs will also remove what sounds

01:19:27.220 like a thick layer of middle management at xbox as well well she says that today in some parts

01:19:33.520 of the company work passes through as many as 14 layers of management uh and she says our platform

01:19:40.780 teams are at 40 larger than they were at the start of this generation and i assume by generation she

01:19:48.100 means this generation of console not obviously generation of gamers uh even as our player base

01:19:53.720 and play and play time have declined and so all of these extra people have been brought in it's

01:19:59.380 blown up by over 40 percent more and also as well people are not buying the games that they want to

01:20:04.380 get and so obviously something's going to come to a head and some people are going to lose out on

01:20:09.040 this uh and so there's this interesting just totally resetting uh xbox now for the sake of

01:20:15.640 time i simply can't go into it in the depth that i wanted to but i was also just wanted to explore

01:20:20.980 as well so just the other day uh this is a game i would you believe there was a this lord of the

01:20:25.900 rings game i used to play uh when i was younger called warren and off and you can see here

01:20:30.780 playstation basically making a legacy edition for it and bringing it back but this is also exactly

01:20:36.380 what we're seeing with hollywood it's the fact that in lieu of the fact that then they can't

01:20:41.500 guarantee death of creativity right it's just oh this is getting a remaster now oh this is getting

01:20:46.920 a legacy edition oh we're doing because we haven't brought out elder scrolls 6 yet you're getting

01:20:52.360 they're never gonna bring that out you're getting your fourth remake of skyrim right this is how it

01:20:56.820 always i want i i think we deserve lord of the rings conquest 2 yes ever play the first one back

01:21:04.040 in the day of course i did um i mean controversial i thought it was uh it could have been better it

01:21:09.740 was a bit lazy but nonetheless uh i did enjoy it uh so obviously you have a lot of people out here

01:21:16.000 unionizing protesting that they're not too happy with it one flag for each laid off dev

01:21:22.420 and the rat is called scabby from what I believe because people who are still working there are

01:21:30.120 not on strike as scabs as goes the old saying and so we get to the point where we just let

01:21:37.740 these people who have been working on these great games have their say morale is really low because

01:21:43.220 you know we've been told that we're making great games that players love and that we're doing well

01:21:48.020 and to have this suddenly hit us has been a huge shock to us um it sucks we make all kinds of games

01:21:53.380 all kinds of people love it'd be really nice if we could just get back to work and make them games

01:21:57.780 that will define the generation of video gaming i worked at xenomax for about five years we are

01:22:02.580 having a march and a rally to demand dignity and respect and an end to the cycle of layoffs

01:22:08.820 so yes um now i'm not obviously i'm certainly not going to be in this black and white about this to

01:22:16.840 say that everyone who has been fired deserves to be fired but it is undeniable that there is a

01:22:22.820 great amount of dead weight in the gaming industry and fundamentally as well people who have come

01:22:29.940 further down the pipeline from i mean i just take for example as a kid i always used to love the uh

01:22:35.740 the bioware uh you know mass effect and dragon age and stuff like that and then you see what

01:22:41.040 they recently did to dragon age and these are people who have just inherited a very successful

01:22:46.500 property just like many things in hollywood woke-ified it to death so that no one wants to

01:22:52.680 buy it well wasn't sweet baby involved in that i mean anybody like this who's involved who's like

01:22:58.180 collaborated with sweet baby get out of the industry yeah also with dragon age doesn't

01:23:02.600 everybody who loves Dragon Age

01:23:04.400 only love the first game and hate all

01:23:06.680 of the rest of the places? I love the first two.

01:23:08.440 Oh, you're a rare man. I am

01:23:10.440 controversial in that the second was good.

01:23:12.620 I mean, I don't know how you felt about Dragon Age

01:23:14.620 2, Firas, but...

01:23:16.100 I think I actually played that.

01:23:18.020 Oh my god. Can you believe it, folks?

01:23:20.800 You'll have to come around and we'll have a gaming

01:23:22.500 sesh sometime.

01:23:25.500 Will Harry be

01:23:26.560 doing the babysitting?

01:23:28.680 No, I'm alright.

01:23:29.900 Harry will be...

01:23:31.940 But maybe, maybe.

01:23:34.440 I mean, Asha Sharma, she's done all right so far,

01:23:37.180 but she does say that the scale and grandeur is incredible

01:23:39.600 and the story is even greater for Elder Scrolls 6.

01:23:42.760 Don't believe it.

01:23:43.480 I think Elder Scrolls 6 is a myth.

01:23:46.640 Historians will look back and say that Elder Scrolls 6 never existed.

01:23:49.980 Well, this is the point.

01:23:51.220 This is just my concluding point I wanted to end on. 0.87

01:23:53.620 It's like, look, she might be able to get the finances of Xbox under control.

01:23:57.780 She might be able to get the sales up.

01:23:59.260 she might be able to streamline uh the development companies but can she achieve the truly impossible

01:24:06.180 can she actually get elder scrolls 6 i mean to come out if we talk about in real terms the only

01:24:13.980 thing of elder scrolls 6 that we know exists is this screenshot and the trailer is true and the

01:24:20.960 2015 trailer that was like the most generic thing ever here's a big field with some mountains

01:24:28.380 and a castle, Elder Scrolls 6

01:24:31.080 and everyone went, oh my god, Elder Scrolls 6

01:24:33.200 and nothing

01:24:33.800 nothing since then, this is all that

01:24:36.880 exists of Elder Scrolls 6, this is all

01:24:38.960 that will ever exist of Elder Scrolls 6

01:24:41.160 as far as I'm concerned

01:24:42.300 good day sir

01:24:44.320 so, a transformative era

01:24:46.920 for gaming, ladies and gentlemen

01:24:48.420 alright, I'll quickly go

01:24:50.920 through these rumble rants, we've got

01:24:52.380 that's a random

01:24:55.020 name, it says, no Luca, they all

01:24:56.740 deserve to be fired total triple a death wow uh and he also says working on uh in triple a is

01:25:05.920 genuinely awful it's the wokest industry by far uh so much red tape that nothing gets done

01:25:11.500 and dei gets promoted to the top often by um sleeping to the top yeah no you need to close

01:25:19.020 the gamergate luca no oh man i just missed when when it was totally you know under the control of

01:25:27.240 the the nerds it was the safest hands john ramiro and friends yeah they were they were awesome um

01:25:34.580 all right and then uh fictagia says anita sarkeesian carl's nemesis genesis made her

01:25:40.820 money and mark on destroying gaming development from within she's very successful yeah she did

01:25:45.300 she was very good at what she did unfortunately um all right do we have video comments today

01:25:50.900 oh all right well there was one one of these was addressed to me sigil stone i bet harry will care

01:25:59.040 about physical games real fast when gabe newall dies and steam starts removing games due to 0.86

01:26:03.880 licensing and stupid s hate valve for its part in removing physical media if you're genuinely

01:26:09.500 concerned that that is going to happen then with the valve games of the steam games that you have 0.99

01:26:14.600 right now uh transfer them onto a hard drive an external hard drive you can do that you can go

01:26:20.340 into the folders of your steam library and you can transfer them into a hard drive and then you

01:26:24.680 literally have them on a physical container for your media you have your physical media and they

01:26:29.900 cannot they cannot sneak into your external hard drive and delete them off there so that is a

01:26:35.080 solution if you're genuinely worried that that is something that will happen and valve when gabe

01:26:39.120 Newell dies, just decides, oh, we want to

01:26:41.120 tank the company overnight.

01:26:44.880 Okay.

01:26:45.940 Gageview says, 0.99

01:26:47.120 welcome to the tar pit, Firas. We've been 0.91

01:26:49.140 expecting you. Well, thank you for that.

01:26:51.200 Thank you. Yeah, I'll go through a couple of comments.

01:26:55.220 Let's see. Which ones can we read?

01:27:01.160 Look.

01:27:03.080 Josh Perl says, 1.00

01:27:04.800 Birkat Hamanim

01:27:05.540 hasn't mentioned Nazarenes for well over

01:27:09.080 800 years at least i am aware of only one prayer book that even includes it as an option in the

01:27:14.780 text and it is used by probably less than 100 people i will check that uh josh if this is the

01:27:21.740 case this is the case it it does beg the question why did it stop being used because in the 1200s

01:27:29.060 when it would have stopped being used there was a lot of pressure uh on jewish communities over

01:27:35.320 what was contained in the talmud and the genuinely horrible things that it contains and even if i'm

01:27:41.960 wrong about uh i'm very open to that there is the rest of the stuff that is there which does

01:27:48.680 have explanatory value so i'm not an expert on the talmud i don't claim to be an expert on the talmud

01:27:54.680 if i'm wrong about this prayer i will uh say so but the rest of the stuff is still there

01:28:01.320 and it's really important uh jimbo g from your segment just says attacking people carrying a

01:28:07.160 coffin at a funeral is just beyond profane it reminds me of the graveyard grenade attacks

01:28:11.480 during the troubles and that's how you accelerate things yeah yeah california refugee says firas

01:28:17.480 being not from britain or europe is his greatest superpower thank you uh this segment would have

01:28:22.040 gotten harry or luca put in jail we discuss things in a very serious and inoffensive academic tone

01:28:30.280 when we discuss subjects like this.

01:28:31.920 So we should be fine.

01:28:33.620 We should be fine.

01:28:36.780 As long as nobody's throwing their arm up in the air,

01:28:39.880 which I understand must be quite a struggle for you, Luca,

01:28:42.560 we should...

01:28:43.740 Scratch him a head. 0.90

01:28:44.460 Yeah, okay.

01:28:48.300 You want to read something from yours?

01:28:49.800 Yeah, yeah, I'll go through. 0.87

01:28:51.180 Annie Moss, Swindon Grievance Factory worker.

01:28:53.880 One other reason that things are not filmed in LA

01:28:55.960 is the local government is awful and makes filming expensive.

01:28:59.180 Oh, I bet.

01:29:00.280 Just another example of how local governments ruin everything 1.00

01:29:02.660 and Karen Bass let the city burn figuratively 1.00

01:29:05.940 and literally voting in your local elections.

01:29:08.680 Very important.

01:29:09.500 Yes, very true.

01:29:11.580 Long time no see.

01:29:12.880 So we could have an SCP film.

01:29:15.220 That could be cool.

01:29:16.380 Do you know what SCP is?

01:29:17.660 No, I can't.

01:29:19.140 Basically a community collection of creepypastas

01:29:22.180 which has some really interesting ideas in it

01:29:24.320 and there's some video games made up.

01:29:25.960 Afterward then you're going to have to explain to me

01:29:27.520 what is creepypastas.

01:29:28.860 Oh, that's a long story.

01:29:30.280 Jimbo G, Hollywood has got to be one of the most shady, tax-dodging, money-washing businesses out there,

01:29:35.020 but the people involved can morally launder themselves by promoting social justice,

01:29:38.640 which creates a paradigm where the peasants aspire to be accepted by filthy rich,

01:29:44.760 where you professed, sorry, where the peasants aspire to be the acceptable source of filthy rich,

01:29:50.120 where you profess to hate capitalism.

01:29:52.360 Absolutely true. 1.00

01:29:53.500 Yeah, these people are scumbags. 1.00

01:29:55.580 Harvey Weinstein may have hired much more attractive actresses, 1.00

01:29:59.000 but he was also a scumbag who should not be redeemed. 0.99

01:30:01.980 And he's the exact kind of guy 1.00

01:30:04.080 who's run in Hollywood for decades.

01:30:06.460 And do you want to go through yours?

01:30:08.080 Sure.

01:30:08.680 So, Philip says,

01:30:09.600 as a PlayStation 5 owner,

01:30:11.560 they made my decision to just buy a Steam machine

01:30:14.880 next time I need to upgrade really easy.

01:30:17.800 First. 1.00

01:30:18.380 Dirty Belter,

01:30:20.480 sorry, comments just jumped,

01:30:22.240 says,

01:30:22.860 multiplayer used to be about the social experience,

01:30:25.060 not competitive experience.

01:30:26.920 I miss the days of Halo 3.

01:30:28.380 there's a reason that game had a million concurrent players i tell you what just getting on the on

01:30:33.200 halo and just messing about in the forge was just some of that yeah just like even when it wasn't

01:30:38.240 competitive you could just have so much fun it was such an event it was such an experience when

01:30:42.760 halo 3k i didn't even have a 360 but i was around my friend's house like every day and we were all

01:30:47.440 sat with a bunch of us on the sofa playing halo 3 it was so good well i've got a 360 right now

01:30:53.560 that is the console I still use

01:30:55.340 and I've had it for 15 years

01:30:57.580 and it's still not broken

01:30:59.160 true

01:30:59.400 yeah it'll be in a museum one day

01:31:03.020 I think Samson's trying to stop us now

01:31:04.740 alright then well that's all we've got

01:31:07.620 time for today ladies and gentlemen we really

01:31:09.680 hope that you've enjoyed this episode of the podcast

01:31:11.680 and we look forward to seeing you tomorrow

01:31:13.540 at 1pm take care

01:31:15.180 Halo Reach was better

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - August 13, 2026

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1483

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