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June 15, 2015 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
01:05:00
A Conversation with Adam Baldwin
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Hello, everyone.
I am live with Adam Baldwin.
You may know him as the random person who created the GameGate hashtag.
Or you might know him from various famous Hollywood movies like Predator 2, Independence Day, The Patriot.
Or you might know him from Firefly.
And incidentally, YouTube actually notes you as a TV.
And I am live with doesn't really do you justice, does it?
TV is steady work.
It's good.
That's true.
How are you, man?
I'm good.
Like I said, I was just driving back from lunch with Daniel Vavra.
He's here for E3.
So I've had a nice chat with him, and he's developing a game that he's here promoting, and we had a great time.
Awesome.
Awesome.
And I'm a big fan of his work.
I'm really looking forward to Kingdom Come Deliverance, isn't it?
Yeah, I've seen a few trailers, and oh my god, it looks cool.
So I'm looking forward to that.
Right, so yeah.
Should we talk about Gamergate?
Sure, why not?
Let's get it out of the way.
Yeah, exactly.
I figure, you know, everyone's going to want to know about it.
Okay, so back in August, you coined the GameGate hashtag.
What were you thinking at the time?
What was going on?
And what did you think was going to happen?
I don't recall how Internet Aristocrat's video even came through my Twitter feed.
But there it was.
And I click randomly on things as they come through, depending on if I'm watching my feed or not.
And there it was.
So I watched his little video, and I found Internet Aristocrat's voice hilarious and engaging.
And the scandal that he had uncovered of corruption, I just thought, oh, well, this is funny.
This is provocative.
Let's just tag this Gamergate Watergate and see where it goes.
Yeah, a lot of people were like, well, it's nothing like the Watergate scandal.
So we know the gate suffix is just to represent a scandal.
That's all.
Yeah.
That's all.
Also, the irony of it being just a tweet.
And for one little tweet to blow up into, you know, this ongoing saga is, I find, hilarious.
It's incredible, isn't it?
Yeah, people get so caught up in these in their I look at Twitter as sort of a river of information and for that, for that one to have lasted as long as it has, is I don't know if.
Even if there's any other precedent for it, it's.
I just find it pretty funny.
I can't say I know of any other precedent for it.
Um, one of the um.
One of the interesting things that I noticed is that if you look at the um I, you know, not long after this had all blown up into, like you know, condensed into the movement that it is.
I noticed on because you you tweeted it on the 27th, didn't you?
I think so, and and the way I recall it happened was that was right before some convention I forget the name of the convention that they're PAX or something like that, and and PAX was starting that weekend.
So I tweeted the thing out the 27th and then the 28th, all those articles dropped, as if there was a coordinated journalist Campaign to coincide with the PAX convention.
It's almost the sort of thing you really can't.
I mean, I enjoy a good conspiracy theory as much as anyone else, but this genuinely looks like there was organization behind it, doesn't it?
I mean, it's hard to believe that there's not, you know.
No, we know that there was because they had that list served that the mainstream pros.
Yeah, Game Journal Pros.
So they were organized in their talking points.
And I think they thought, well, let's drop all these articles and then we'll blow it up at PAX or whatever it was.
And it just seemed to flow from there.
It was, again, I found it hilarious.
Do you know, I'm actually of the opinion that it wasn't actually a coordinated assault on gamers necessarily.
Because we don't have any emails saying, right, what we're all going to do is we're going to drop these articles.
And the thing is, it's scarier than that.
If that was the case, that'd be great.
You know, I'd be like, okay, well, that's very much, you can point to that and say, right, you know, they clearly did these things.
That's great.
But what worries me more is that they didn't need to do that.
In their sort of community, there's definitely a hierarchy.
And you get certain people who are at the top of this hierarchy, of course.
And when they say something and push the community in a direction, it kind of Anit Sarkeesian calls it an information cascade, where it sort of goes, it gets retweeted, and then other smaller, less important outlets write their own articles around that sort of theme.
And that really seems to have been what's happened with the Games of Dead Articles.
I mean, and that scares me even more.
They didn't even need collusion to make that happen.
It's a hive mind.
I find it kind of terrifying, to be honest.
They act as a faction without even needing to be told to act as a faction.
Yes, it's like governmental bureaucracies don't need to be told by their higher-ups to protect the hive.
They've been trained for so long with the narrative that that's what they do.
I agree.
Exactly.
It's the problem that we're having in journalism all over the place.
And you know, the heavy metal scene is having their own problem with social justice warriors.
But the thing is, again, they've got their own secret journal list called Met Poll.
I'm not kidding.
I'm going to be doing a hangout with someone in the future.
The guys who have discovered it and got all these emails out there.
Because it was public-facing, but obviously no one really knew about it apart from this little group.
And then when GamingGate exploded, they were like, oh my God, we better make this private.
Okay.
You know, that just.
Well, the metal community doesn't give a shit about those guys.
They'll laugh at them.
Yeah, luckily for them, the metal community has been long inoculated with the religious rights, you know, the far-right sort of religious types.
And so it's a very similar sort of tactic just coming from the far left, isn't it?
Yes, it's the religious left.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, did you see Anise Sarkeesian and Jonathan McIntosh's E3 tweets?
I don't.
I saw you tweet it.
I don't think that Anita writes any of those.
I really think that Jonathan writes all of it and tweets from both accounts.
I don't think anything comes out of her mouth that's original.
Well, you know, right now, I've actually, I've just finished doing a video that I'm waiting for that's going to be hosted on Mr. Repsion's channel.
Not that you know who he is, I'm sure.
But basically, I'm going to re-host it on my channel after he's done, put it on his because it was a guest video.
But I'm actually in disagreement with that because the thing is, I think that they just really, really agree on what they're saying.
They both completely agree on what each other's saying.
It's the same opinion that they both have.
And it's exactly like with the gaming press.
They just really agree on this issue.
And they think violence is terrible.
And it comes from various influences of Anita's, and I'm sure Jonathan's, and I really...
Yeah, but the vernacular is so nearly identical.
It is.
That they're writing them together, at least.
Yeah, but the thing is, that's the thing.
I mean, they probably are, don't get me wrong, they probably sat on their sofa going, okay, well, I'll tweet this, and then you tweet that, and then, you know, we'll present like a combined front.
But the thing is, all of the vernacular is very, very similar to what you read in the writings of a woman called Belle Hooks, who Anita repeatedly cites as a huge influence.
And I only know this because I've got a couple of her books right here that I've read.
And it's weird and cult-like, honestly.
It's really cult-like.
It's Marxist.
It's disturbing, frankly.
Sure, but he's the smarter one, clearly.
He's the more intellectual one.
She's more of the public face, the presenter, if you will.
She's definitely the presenter.
I'm not even sure.
I'm not even sure because she went to this Sydney Opera House convention of a bunch of very wealthy feminists who sat around on a stage with other feminists telling each other how oppressed they were.
And she was very influential.
And she was talking off the cuff.
She knew her pattern, you know.
So, I mean, maybe, I mean, I don't know that it doesn't all come from Macintosh ultimately, but I'm not sure.
That's the thing.
I'm just not sure.
Okay.
All right, fair enough.
There's a kernel of doubt then.
Yes, that's exactly.
It's a kernel of doubt.
But ultimately, who cares?
It's a hive mind.
Exactly.
It doesn't even matter.
Does it even matter?
The point is, she's got an amazing reach.
She's very influential.
She can somehow get on the Colbert Report and all this sort of stuff.
Not anymore.
Not anymore.
Oh, you think so?
That's a one-off.
Well, yeah, of course it was.
Yeah.
Yeah.
15 minutes of fame and all that.
That's true.
But, I mean, just to achieve it, though, is quite impressive.
No, not when you consider who the PR firm was.
Oh, who's well, I'm just thinking from the position of a lowly pleb.
Who was the PR firm?
Well, wasn't it, didn't it have to do with the, again, they're hive-minded, but wasn't it that silver string media thingy?
Oh, yeah, she did.
She is an advisor to Silverstring Media.
Her and Macintosh are both advisors to them.
It wouldn't surprise me if they did somehow organize that.
Yeah, I mean, PR firms can pull off a coup like that once in a while, but they're not going to be able to get, certainly not going to be able to get on the, well, Colbert's not on the show anymore.
They're not going to get on the night show.
They're not going to be invited back on MSNBC.
It was a one-off campaign and they're done.
Well, I really hope so.
I hope they've kind of blown their load a bit early.
Yeah.
It seems that way to me.
Hmm.
Well, that's good to know.
I mean, the only thing I'm worried about is that, well, no, I've worried, but the thing that I speculate about is it seems that they have a kind of cycle.
They do this and then, because if you look, you know, look at what Anita's been doing.
Every couple of years, she'll, you know, suddenly death threats will come in and stuff like this.
And everyone's like, okay, well, that's awful.
But then she'll get a huge glut of donations.
And then, you know, a year later, she'll get another death threat.
And, oh, you know.
So, I mean, I'm quite serious about it.
The law of diminishing returns there.
There is, there is.
But the community is quite dead.
The community she operates in does seem very dedicated to her.
So I'm.
Great, fine.
It's a free country.
Hey, yeah, I agree.
I completely agree.
But I also agree with Ben Shapiro.
Do you know who he is?
I sure do.
Yeah, he gave a talk a while ago saying, and he made a point of, you know, where are the libertarians right and where are they wrong?
And he, I think, I completely agreed with what he said.
They're right in their principles, which is absolutely true.
But they're wrong in the idea that they can have a détente with the opposition.
And I agree.
I don't think there is any, I don't think that they will ever rest, so.
Oh, no, no, of course not.
I think David Horowitz, he said that for them, there is only the struggle.
There is only the revolution.
And they will continue to fight it.
They're not going to go away.
They're like termites.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, that's their job.
That's what they do.
Okay, so what's it been like being the most famous person who supports Gamergate and the progenitor of the hashtag?
What's it been like in just dealing with it, dealing with any kind of backlash you've had or anything like that?
I've been able to step back and look at it objectively over time.
And it's been entertaining for me to see the level to which a very small group of people think that they can do media damage to me, I guess.
They tried, I mean, but there just aren't enough of them.
There aren't enough of them to be effective.
Right, okay.
So they have, they've tried it with other people, too.
They try it all the time.
They try it pretty much every week.
And I was just another one in sort of that line of, oh, we have to attack this person this week or that person that week.
It's a small group of people.
And I've been fortunate enough to hang out with developers from AAA companies.
And they're like, oh, Gamergate.
We don't even pay attention to that.
So the really big guys, they're busy making games.
They understand that there's this little turmoil going on underneath the surface.
And they hate politics in games too.
So my initial thing that drew me to it was the use of the term social justice, because I've been a student of that for a long time.
Social justice is the opposite of justice.
And that's what I brought in early on in my tweets.
Because I want, especially the gamer community and younger people to understand the difference.
Social justice does not mean justice.
It's the opposite.
Yeah, I find it highly ironic.
And it's rather Orwellian, isn't it?
Absolutely Orwellian, yes.
It really does bother me.
I mean, especially when you get the lynch mobs on Twitter.
We have now tens of thousands of people who are aware of it, and they will pass that along, and they know the vernacular now.
They know the terminology for this Marxism.
It's really cultural Marxism.
And they're aware of it now, and they're going to game it.
And they've been gaming it, and I think that's great.
Yeah, it's, I mean, there's no doubt that they are highly influenced by Marxist principles.
No doubt.
I mean, they expand on them, though.
They think that Marxist class principles go way beyond the distance and connection to the means of production.
They think it is all about the way you're bred as a person, your expectations, and all that sort of thing.
It's bizarre, frankly.
They're very convinced that they can make women a separate class.
And, you know, that's well, women aren't a class, aren't they?
It's just identity politics.
It's a way of dividing and conquering.
It is.
If you can get the serfs or the proletariat to be fighting amongst each other, you can float above it all and direct people left, right, center, wherever you want them to go.
and they'll listen they just because people are generally looking for leadership But if they're at each other's throats, because you're not white enough, you're not black enough, you're not gay enough, you're not straight enough, you're not brown, whatever.
If you're not that enough, then you're evil and you need to be destroyed.
Yeah.
And it's that mob mentality.
It's a hive mind.
It worries me that they're very convinced that whatever means that they take are completely justified by their ends as well.
I find that rather disturbing.
I mean, I've had lots of people, myself included, have had family members and relations contacted by these people to try and sow dissent within your own family.
And that is just low, you know?
But one of the things that I find really, I mean, do you get a lot of hate on Twitter?
Because I noticed that Joss Whedon got a lot of hate on Twitter.
And he was a very good feminist, wasn't he?
He did.
Oh, sure, but hate shmate, names don't hurt.
I've been dealing with that for a decade or more.
So it doesn't bother me.
If someone's calling me a name, it means they don't have an argument.
And I just laugh at them and move on, block them or whatever.
They're really irrelevant.
Well, I totally agree.
I guess I've been kind of fighting the good fight on Twitter for quite a long time.
And one of the things that they always stress is, oh, people are sending me nasty words on the Twitter.
And it's like, oh, yeah, that's awful.
But, you know, I guess I'm like hoisting them with their own petard because if you look at some of the things that they were saying to Joss Whedon, I mean, it looks like he was the victim of a hate mob on Twitter.
So, you know, and then coincidentally shutting down his Twitter at the same time, it kind of doesn't paint them in a good light.
And I agree, you know, it's just words.
There was a time early on when I did see, I mean, there were literally thousands of tweets coming my way, but the way they were phrased, the words that they were using, it just seemed like they were bot generated.
Right.
So they're able to do this algorithm where 10 people can make themselves look like 5,000 people.
It's really a small group of people.
It's not this gigantic hate mob that's throwing your way.
It's 10 people using their bots and their algorithms to create new accounts that send this flood at you for a day or two, and then it goes away.
If it were really tens of thousands of people, it would last more than 24-hour, 48-hour cycle.
You think so?
Oh, yeah.
So, you see, I'm actually, I think that they are a group of about 7,000 people.
And I think that they're quite active Twitter users.
And I think that they Are aware that if they present a very as large a front as possible in as short a time as possible, it gives them quite an impressive impact to someone who is not familiar with the way this all operates.
That's true, that's true.
You know, and they all say the same thing, like I said, they're a hive mind, so they all obviously go on, oh, these people hate women, and it's their default weapon, and they're all saying it, so it's very convincing to people who otherwise don't know anything about this.
I think that's true.
I don't think it's that big a number, even if it is, that's still a very, very small number.
I think that's the total, though.
I don't think that they're all active all the time.
I think the grand total is about 7,000 people.
Right, but if these people can come up with some sort of block bot group blocking mechanism, they can come up with some form of block attack dog that they can sick on an individual for a short period of time.
That's true.
I can imagine they can do that.
I've got no doubt they've got the skills to do that, in fact.
So the key is when you are a victim of the, as I like to call it, Twitter Inquisition, just laugh at them, ignore them, and poke them right back in the eye verbally, of course, or on Twitter.
And just never apologize to them because once you apologize, you see what happens.
Yeah, nothing is good enough, is it?
No.
There's simply nothing that's good enough.
And again, this is the sort of thing I think Joss Whedon learned.
And it really breaks my heart sick because I'm a huge fan of Joss Whedon's work.
I really am, you know.
And I'm a disgusting lefty myself, but there's, I'm just so sickened.
I'm sickened with the progressives.
That's what it is.
It's not the sort of left-leaning classical liberal types.
What does that mean?
You're a disgusting leftist.
What does that even mean?
I was being sarcastic, really.
Define your term.
Define your terms.
Well, if you speak to people who are more sort of right-leaning, they do what I do with feminism and mark all leftists in the same camp.
Ben Shapiro is quite guilty of doing this.
I like Ben Shapiro a lot, but he always does this.
No, no, no, no.
I'm asking you about you.
How are you a disgusting leftist?
Oh, you know, I think that a degree of socialism is a necessary evil.
I think.
What's your limiting principle?
Hmm.
That's a good question.
I like to.
I generally go by the words that were inscribed on the Oracle of Delphi.
Nothing in excess.
So, I mean, communism sounds great, but it's obviously ridiculous because it's so unbelievably extreme, and we know the results of it.
So, you know, going even halfway there is ridiculous.
But on the flip side, I don't like the idea of people starving without any kind of welfare state because in the opposite of that, you end up with sort of the Roman client patron sort of model.
And that ends up with powerful entities within a country or a government having lots and lots of influence that is undue.
You know, they shouldn't otherwise have because they support lots of poor people.
So.
So you don't.
So anything to excess seems vague.
The founders had a limiting principle of individual sovereignty and private charity and a limited federal government and that everything would be taken care of within the states, within and among the states.
So I think My difficulty in talking with my leftist friends, including you, is, you know, how much is too much?
Give us a number.
Say a rich guy, a middle-class guy, a poor guy.
How much is fair for that person to pay percentage-wise of their income?
50%, 10%, how much?
What's fair?
That's a good question.
I'm not even sure I have a direct answer for you, to be honest.
Then you're not a disgusting lefty.
You're just a confused left.
I'm not confused.
I'm not confused.
I like to think that I'm not dogmatic rather than confused.
I mean, I definitely think there should be a welfare state because I think that ultimately, ultimately, it's about the kind of society you want to live in.
If you want to live in a society where it's rather more sort of each man for himself, then you're going to end up with a society that's rather anti-Christian.
Wait, wait, but you're excluding the middle.
There's a middle ground.
Well, that's where I'd like to find myself, is the middle ground.
So the middle ground would ask, what's fair?
I say somewhere between 10 and 20% is something we could agree on.
I would say so.
I imagine that it should be a sliding scale depending on how much you earn.
Well, why?
If you make a million dollars, 20% is 200 grand.
If you make 10 grand, 20% is only 2 grand.
That's true.
But conversely, $2,000 for someone who's not earning very much money is a lot of money.
Whereas $20,000 for someone who's a millionaire isn't very much money.
Well, wouldn't it?
No, $200,000 is a lot of money for a guy who only makes a million.
That's a lot of money.
Not really.
You've still got $800,000 left, and you can do a hell of a lot with $800,000.
But if I've got $18,000 left, there's a lot less I can do.
And we're paying the same price.
But who owns the money?
Well, this is where we get into the libertarian argument of, is it right for governments to tax, isn't it?
Well, no.
I mean, you can tax, but where's the limit?
10, 20, 50%?
Where's your number?
I just gave you my number.
You give me yours.
What's fair?
In the UK, I think it goes up to about 50%.
I'm not necessarily opposed to that.
I mean, to be honest with you, I come from the lower classes, and I've never had a lot of money.
So I'm not very sympathetic to the extremely wealthy because I've lived as the extremely poor.
Sure, but that's politics of envy, and we don't like that.
It is.
But what about, and that's feelings, and you're anti-feelings.
No, no, no, no.
It's not feelings.
No, no.
What I mean is it's about understanding how people cope when they have very little money.
And the poverty trap is a real thing, and it really does put people in a position where they're just struggling to get by.
I mean, I really do think that people who are a certain degree of wealth and above really don't know what it's like to be on the bottom end of the scale.
I really don't think they do.
But let's use the example of, say, Oprah Winfrey.
She came from nothing, and she's a billionaire.
So she knows.
But if the money is just taken from her, then she doesn't have any say where it goes.
Private charity is much more effective.
But we're getting into the weeds now.
I put you on the spot on your own show, and I shouldn't have done that.
No, no, not at all.
That's fine.
But this is my point, though.
Sorry, I'm just trying to think how to eloquently express this.
There's when you have very little money, you don't really live.
All you do is worry from day to day how you're going to pay your rent.
And that's not fair.
That's not fair.
And the thing is, there's no reason.
But life isn't fair.
No, no, no, no.
Well, but then, okay, well, that's fine, because then there's no reason for these people not to overthrow the state and implement communism.
That's your excluded middle again.
Yeah, but you're not giving them a reason to be invested in your system that you're benefiting from.
All they will do is resent the system.
All they will do is hate it because they're at the bottom of it.
They're suffering.
And there's no way that they, as extremely poor people, are going to get out of that position.
And that means that they, and a lot of these people are born into poverty, you know, they, They're born into poverty.
Their parents are poor.
They are poor.
Social mobility is on the decrease.
It's going down.
So you can say, well, this is life that's not fair, blah, blah, blah.
But at the end of the day, that's the sort of attitude that ends up with revolutions.
But do you think it coincidental that poverty is on the increase as government gets larger?
Well, I think it's a case of the super-rich buying off government to basically conduct a war on the poor.
So a smaller government is probably better for the poor.
I think that everyone can agree that a smaller government is a good idea.
Don't get me wrong, there's, you know, there's...
There's a difference between what I would like and the United States at the moment has a massive problem with the size of its government.
And by God, do not give up your guns.
Honestly.
And this is coming from a left-wing bleeding-heart liberal who lives in Britain and doesn't like guns and would never ask for people in this country to have guns.
But America, you can't give up your guns because you will descend into the worst tyranny you can imagine.
I mean, you're almost in it anyway, so don't give up your guns.
No, no, no.
No, no, no, no.
That's not true.
You don't think so?
No, God, no.
This is just a pendulum swinging a little to the left, and it will swing back.
And we have so many material assets that I'm not worried about us.
Really?
I'm terrified about you guys.
No, no, no.
It's fine.
We have plenty of assets.
All we have to do is sell some of our land.
If we sold off, I don't know, 20% of the federal holdings of land, we'd be flush with cash.
So we have plenty of assets to go.
I'm not worried about the money, actually.
I'm really not worried about the money.
I'm more worried about the totalitarian tendencies of your government.
I really find it disturbing, and I honestly worry for the United States.
I mean, you know, your police are being trained in civilian control by the Israelis, don't you?
You know some American policemen?
I've seen a lot of media regarding American policemen.
Okay.
Have you spoken to any?
I have many who are friends of mine.
And they say a lot of that is just hooey.
Well, I mean, I think that it depends where you are.
I think from what I've been from what I've been researching, from what I've seen, it seems that the rural police are very much more honest and reliable than the urban ones.
The urban ones I find quite disturbing.
Yes, and who runs those big urban centers?
You tell me, who does?
Well, big government liberals.
Well, I agree.
I mean, well, it's not even about being liberal, really.
It's about being big government.
I mean, when George Bush was in the White House, it wasn't really that much different.
Well, he's a liberal.
Oh, right.
Okay.
I didn't realize he counted as a liberal.
I really think the term liberal has been a bit bastardized these days, anyway.
Yeah, it has.
For me, none of this strikes me as liberal at all.
It all strikes me as rather terrifying.
But listen, what you said, giving up your guns, brother, that's not going to happen.
The cost, the cost to confiscate the guns in this country is too high.
They couldn't do it if they wanted to.
Good.
That's good to know.
I mean, there is definitely a push to begin sort of rolling back the assault rifles and stuff like that, isn't there?
Police aren't going to go kicking down the doors of American citizens trying to confiscate guns because police don't like going in to places where they're going to get shot at.
That's true, but I mean, there have been examples in California of police confiscating legally owned guns.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, you can do it once or twice, but if the word came out that the government was cracking down and taking people's guns, it would stop overnight.
Well, I mean, I would like to think that, but I...
Well, how many people...
Well, how many citizens in America have guns?
Tens of millions.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
There aren't that many police.
That's true.
That's true.
But these sort of control methods are always done psychologically, aren't they?
Yeah.
Don't worry about America.
America will be fine.
Well, you know, the problem is that what happens in America impacts a lot of people around the world.
And I do worry.
I do find the American government a very disturbing entity, I have to say.
Yeah.
It is.
It's too big.
It is too big.
But it's also self-serving.
That's the problem.
It's now concerned with its own defense and its own power.
And, you know, that's what governments do.
They get too big.
Well, yeah, I mean, but not all of them do that.
You know, they don't all do that, but it's become...
I mean, you guys have got, like, a similar re-election rate as the Soviet Union had and stuff like this.
So it's become a class that you're dealing with in your government.
Well, yeah, but fortunately we have federalism and we have state legislators and we have governors and the states have more power actually than the federal government itself.
So again, don't worry about America.
We'll be fine.
That's true.
But hasn't the federal government been overriding that at some point?
No.
I'm sure I've heard times where they have done, but maybe I'm wrong there.
Well, in places they do, but it doesn't last.
Okay.
Well, that's right.
For me, it's the worrying precedent, and it's the kind of centralization of power that disturbs me.
But I mean, maybe that's just me.
Maybe I'm just seeing a certain amount of media that implies all of this to be true without anything balancing it in the other side saying, hey, this is also happening.
There you go.
There you go.
It's still.
Anyway, enough about that.
What's next?
Right, okay.
So tell us about Australia.
Well, whatever you can tell us about Australia.
I've been there a couple of times.
It's a wonderful, wonderful country.
I've been to Sydney, Perth.
Well, I haven't been to Perth.
I'm going to Perth.
I've been to Sydney, Melbourne, Gold Coast, Brisbane.
And I'm looking forward to going down for a wonderful convention called Supernova leaving this week.
And very much looking forward to seeing some folks and maybe tipping back a few VBs or whatever pints of beer they may have down there.
And you're not having any problem getting into the country then?
No.
No?
No.
It's all been good.
And we leave Wednesday, I believe.
Right, that's great.
So the petition to ban you from Australia failed then.
Yes.
Good.
For anyone who doesn't know.
Again, I think that was maybe 10 people that algorithmed their way to 3,000 or 4,000 or 5,000 or whatever it was.
So, you know, the powers that be saw that for the fakery that it is.
You know, I don't even know if it is fakery.
I think these people believe what they're doing.
And, you know, I would be disinclined to chalk it up to fakery when they're coming.
Okay, well, it's based on lies.
Of course, yeah, it's based on nonsense.
Well, okay, fakery lies, whatever.
Yeah, they believe their lies, so they are pathological.
However, it's not, they failed.
Yeah, I'm glad to hear it because I really don't like the idea that a hate mob can go on Twitter, organize an online petition, and then have someone banned from a country.
I mean, why should they have that ability?
But the thing is, when this sort of thing starts happening, it worries me that someone's going to capitulate to it.
Well, here's how it goes, I think.
There may be a few people that jump up and say, ban this person, and the government entity gets a bunch of emails, and they'll say, oh, okay, we'll just initially say no.
But upon further investigation, they'll go, oh, wait a minute, this is bullshit, and they'll move on.
Well, that's good to know.
Right, is there anything else you would like to talk to me about or like to tell everyone else about?
I'm on a show called The Last Ship.
It premieres next Sunday here in the States, and I believe Canada.
Hopefully, you've seen it, or some of it.
I actually have never heard of it.
What's it about?
The Last Ship is an apocalyptic action-adventure series set aboard a Navy-guided missile destroyer in a global pandemic has taken over the world, and our mission has become to find the cure to this virus, stay alive, and save the world.
Hmm, okay, that's actually really cool.
How have I never heard of this?
Why have I never heard of this?
I don't know.
You can find it on Hulu Plus overseas, and it's very much the United States Navy has been very kind in granting us access to their ships and to their personnel.
We've had wonderful technical advisors.
It's a Michael Bay production.
Oh, you've lost me now.
Oh, no, no, it's well.
Well, I'm just kidding.
I'm just kidding.
Strongly disagree.
The man's a genius.
You can't argue with his success.
Well, that's true.
But the thing is, I was a really big fan of Transformers when I was a kid.
And I'm not a big fan of Transformers now.
And it's Michael Bay's fault.
I'm just messing with you.
you know there's no there's no accounting for taste i just hope that you check out our show because i think it's yeah no i will i'm I've actually, I've got a couple of questions, if you don't mind taking them.
Sure.
So, capslot Chris wants to know what your opinion of Edward Snowden is.
Trader.
Really?
Wow, that's interesting.
Would you like to tell me why?
Legally, he's a traitor.
He gave away state secrets.
Listen, there were avenues for him to pursue which would have been legal.
He could have gone in private to Congress, to the respective intelligence committees.
He could have contacted them and marched it up through the chain legally.
The way he went about it was treasonous.
Yeah, but doesn't some, I mean...
No buts, no buts, that's the law.
Hang on, hang on, hang on.
That's the law.
Do you not think that there might have been entities and forces within government who might have liked to have taken this dissent and used it against him before it became public and before he could have had any kind of protection?
Well, that's a hypothetical.
It is a hypothetical, but I think it's also something that could quite likely have happened.
Yeah, ifs are for children.
He should have followed the law.
Okay.
Well, I...
He should have followed proper channels.
Okay, okay.
I can't remember if it was him or Bradley Manning who did do that and found themselves in trouble.
But the thing is, I think the problem that I have with what you've said there is that it assumes that the government is neutral and honest.
And I don't think that your government's neutral and honest.
So.
Regardless, he should have gone to the respective Senate intelligence committees and House intelligence committees and given the information that he had to them and their staff and let them deal with it.
Hmm.
Okay.
You don't think it's rather courageous to give up a well-paying job to make sure that everyone is aware of the unconstitutional spying programming?
It's not only the American people, but the rest of the world then.
I'll just go back to the law.
He should have followed the law.
Okay.
Okay, that's interesting.
I actually have got a great deal of respect for Edward Snowden.
Well, you're not an American.
You don't know American law.
And you seem unfamiliar with the respective intelligence committees and oversight committees that have classified clearance that could have dealt with it in the proper way.
I'm not intimately familiar with them, but I am familiar with quite a few of the nefarious activities that the more secretive parts of the American government have engaged in, and I wouldn't trust them, frankly.
I think that if Snowden ever returns to the United States, he'll be assassinated.
Again, ifs are for children.
That's true.
That's true.
Okay, let's see if anyone else in the chat's got any questions.
We've got, what, another 15 minutes or so, do you think?
Yeah, sure.
Okay.
Right, okay, chat.
Let's hear some questions.
Sorry, unfortunately, the chance.
I don't know, you've got a few seconds to catch up.
I'm quite enjoying my cigar at this time.
Good.
What kind is it?
This is an Oliva Series 5 double Robusto.
I stopped smoking about a year ago now, and I miss it.
So what do you think of the Trans-Pacific Partnership?
Do you know about it?
Vaguely, what I've heard is that they're not going to let it go through Congress.
Really?
Why do you why what have you heard?
Well, they voted part of a strong a big part of it down in Congress.
What day is it today?
On Friday, I believe they voted it down.
So they'll be scrambling to put it back together.
I don't see what the rush is anyway.
Why not let the lame duck president go out of office and then see if the next administration can put something together?
And I also don't like the idea of unelected bureaucrats having say over American sovereignty.
Well, that's rather the problem with both of them, isn't it?
And the Atlantic one as well.
It's like the European Union.
And why the hell has the legislation itself been kept secret from the American public?
I recall the last couple of elections, there were lots of promises thrown out, said we will post, and there's a law that says the legislation must be posted online 72 hours before it's voted on, and that's not happening on this.
It's too secretive.
Well, that's the point, isn't it?
Because, I mean, the leaks that have come out of it have said if people knew what was in it, they would be outraged.
And that's why it's secretive.
Because it seems to be a massive power grab from international corporations.
I've not looked into it fully, but I've been through a few things on it, and I'm absolutely certain it's a power grab by corporations.
I mean, one of the provisions in there is that they can sue governments for potential loss of earnings.
Which, I mean, that's really disturbing.
Yeah, corporations, smorporations.
I'm worried about big governments.
Governments are worse than corporations.
Well, they are, but the thing is, I'm kind of worried that governments are being bought out by corporations because, I mean, I think that basically what the TTP and TTIP are, are the new treaties of Westphalia, which are going to establish the actual highest power in the world as being beyond governments.
So I'm genuinely worried about that.
And I think other people should be as well, to be honest.
Yeah, I think it'll fall apart.
Well, I would hope so, but I think there's a lot of moneyed interest in backing it, which is why it's got as far as it has so far.
But don't let the lame duck Obama administration do it.
So hopefully Congress will block that.
Okay, well fingers crossed.
Let me just have a quick look and see what other questions we've got.
What do you think of piracy?
I presume they mean software piracy and not actual high seas piracy.
Yeah, it's a big deal.
Well, the digital genie's out of the bottle, though.
The music industry obviously is dealing with that and has been and will always be.
So I'm not sure what the solution is.
Obviously, you want to penalize those that you catch doing it, but it's, like I said, the digital genie's out of the bottle.
Yeah, I agree.
And, you know, it's interesting that there are studies that show that game piracy increases sales of that game.
The more the game is pirated, the more the game sells.
It's, you know, as if it's some sort of like demo version thing.
It's very interesting.
But I imagine it's more of a concern for the music industry and the film industry.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Yeah.
Okay.
Let me just see what else we've got.
I like this.
It's a lightning round.
Yeah, it is.
Yeah.
So what's your relationship with Joss Whedon like these days?
I love Joss.
Yeah, he's my pal.
Okay.
Do you speak to him often, or is it no?
He's busy.
We're busy.
You know, that's the thing.
When you work on the nature of the business, we're circus players.
We work for a little while together, and then we disband and we go play with our families and we go on to other jobs, and our paths cross here and there.
I know that he was sort of on the other side of the Gamergate thing, but he's a reasonable guy.
He understands the argument.
And I think he was genuinely shocked by the way the crocodile turned on him during that.
Well, I guess it was Macintosh, really, but Macintosh/slash Sarkeesian, whoever, and their minions sort of turned on him.
And, you know, he's a good guy, feminist, well-intentioned man.
And I think he was generally shocked by the way they turned on him.
Yeah, I would be surprised if it didn't come as a surprise.
Do you think it's the reason he shut down his Twitter?
I didn't speak to him directly, so I can only presume, again, it's coincidental that it happened when it did.
Okay.
But Twitter in itself is a time-suck procrastination tool, and he's busy.
He's got to get writing his next movie.
So it's a good reason to, like, oh, all these jerks are coming at me.
Let's just shut it down and get back to writing.
Why not?
No, that's fair enough.
One of the questions here is: what do you think of Al Sharpden?
He's a racist, race-hustling bigot who should not be on television, and it's a shock that he's allowed a platform.
What's his connection to Obama?
Wasn't he the leader of his church or something?
Well, birds of a feather, it's this black liberation theology church that Reverend Wright ran in Chicago.
It's about the whole racial justice, social justice argument that makes a large group of people into victims so that they can exploit that victimhood for their own financial gain.
And he's just a hustler.
There is a lot of power in victimhood these days.
Yeah, there is, sadly.
This is one of my primary concerns with feminism.
It's amazing how belligerent victims can be.
I always thought victims were the sort of people who wouldn't generally do that.
Yeah, I've been bullied, so now I'm going to be a bully.
Exactly.
You would think you would know better, but apparently they don't.
No, it's revenge.
Yeah, yeah, it is.
It is entirely revenge.
What do you think of Jeb Bush?
He's a liberal.
Okay, I don't actually know much about Jebus.
Is this George?
Yeah, George Bush's son, yeah?
His brother.
His brother, right?
Okay.
Okay, when you say liberal, like the thing is, what's your definition of a liberal when you say that he's a liberal?
Well, he's liberal when it comes to tax policy.
He's liberal when it comes to immigration, the border.
He's liberal when it comes to guns and gun control and basically that.
Okay.
Okay.
What's your opinion of Muslim immigration?
Where?
Outside of the Middle East.
Well, you're in Europe.
You have a lot much larger Muslim population in America is very, very small.
You could give me a better idea of how it's working for Europe.
It's colonization, effectively.
There are some places where there is a mild amount of integration, but by and large, it's the same.
I mean, it's the same as like there's there's a large number of British people who have moved to Spain and they've set up British colonies in Spain, effectively.
And it's the same anyway.
You flock to people who are like you.
So that's effectively what we have.
I mean, the issue really, there are some serious cultural problems with Islam, in my opinion.
But in their own countries, it's not my business.
So I don't really care about it all that much.
But when it comes over to my country, it becomes my business, I suppose.
And one of the issues in this country is, I don't want to say that it's all Muslims or anything like that, because there were definitely Muslim leaders in this country who were against it.
But the problem is the establishment in this country is incredibly leftist.
This is coming from a lefty, you know, saying this, but they're at the point where they are afraid to do anything targeting specific groups who are doing something wrong.
Like, in this country, we've had quite a few Muslim rape gangs, which has been a real issue.
And the government of the local council in Rotherham, which is where it happened, specifically said they were afraid of doing something for fear of being called racist.
And incidentally, there was another, you know, we've discovered several of these grooming gangs around the country.
And since Rotherham, since this investigation, where there was an outcry saying, how could you be afraid of being called a name?
You're letting kids get molested.
They've been very pointed saying, oh, it certainly wasn't that we were afraid of being called names.
And it's like, well, now I don't believe you.
Now it kind of sounds like you're just saying that because you know what we're going to say if you tell us the truth.
But that's basically the problem.
The Muslim community would be fine if the government were to treat it as just a regular British community.
It would be fine because the nefarious elements would be expunged.
They'd be taken to jail.
They'd be arrested.
It wouldn't be a problem.
I think the main problem is Sharia law.
I don't think that's ever really going to happen.
The thing is, the people who are pushing for Sharia law are a very, they are a very, very tiny minority.
And they tend to be the older generation.
I mean, I went to university in Coventry, and there's a very large Muslim population there.
And you should hear their kids.
Their kids are British.
They are not interested in religion.
They go out drinking.
They're very, very British until they're around their parents.
And then they have to be good Muslims.
So in, say, 20 or 30 years, when their parents have passed on or are too old to effect any kind of change, I really don't think anyone's going to be agitating for Sharia law.
I really don't.
Well, that's an interesting perspective.
I don't have that perspective here because we just don't have the numbers here in America.
I was in South Africa a few years ago doing some work, and I had a quote-unquote chaperone.
He was basically the guy who drove me around to make sure I didn't go anyplace stupid.
Because there's some dangerous places you can go in Cape Town.
He kept me away from those.
But he said, and he was a Christian man, Christian East Indian.
And he said he was not too fond of the, let's just say he was not fond of the Muslims in his life.
Right.
And he said, ironically, did you know that alcohol sales go down during Ramadan?
And I didn't get it.
I didn't.
Yeah, see, you find that funny.
And I find it funny now.
I didn't get it at first.
And I said, well, wa w so?
He said, well, they're not supposed to drink.
They're not supposed to drink ever.
I said, oh, ah, yes.
So I think you're right about the younger generation.
Yeah, in the environment that they're in, the only pressure to be good Muslims comes from their parents.
And when they move out and they're not with their parents, you know, they're not good Muslims.
And, you know, and otherwise, they seem like perfectly normal people to me.
So I've got no prejudice against them or anything like that.
I obviously dislike the ideology.
I dislike the religion.
I dislike the things that are done in the name of religion, but I dislike the things that are done in the name of practically any religion.
So, you know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I don't like moral equivalency.
You know, I haven't seen any Christian knocking down towers using planes, hijacked planes.
Yeah, I don't think all cultures are equal.
I don't think all religions are equal.
Islam is definitely a very different beast to Christianity.
If you just look at the situation that it was produced in, you can see why it would be different.
It's very imperious.
It's designed to be the ruling religion, whereas Christianity was designed to bear a ruling power.
So they're coming from very different angles, which is why they're so different.
So perhaps it's due for a reformation.
Without a doubt.
It's about the sort of time as well that it's due for a reformation.
That's not my, I can't do that because I'm not Muslim.
I don't know.
I have no idea how to do that.
I just don't want our buildings being, you know, I don't want our people being attacked and where they live, and I don't want people's buildings to be knocked down by hijacked planes.
I agree.
Have you ever read any books by Chalmers Johnson?
No.
I would strongly recommend them.
He was a military advisor for a number of years and spent pretty much his entire career in the U.S. Army in various conditions.
And he's got three books, I think it is.
One of them is called Blowback, and it's a very good way of explaining why Muslims are attacking America.
They don't care about your freedoms is basically the top and bottom of it.
They really don't care about your freedoms.
They care about what America does to Muslim countries.
And America is guilty of doing things to Muslim countries.
You mean like liberation.
If you want to liberate a totalitarian-ruled country, the totalitarians aren't going to be happy about it.
That's true.
That's absolutely true.
America is not an imperial country.
It's a liberating country.
Liberate country.
I don't necessarily agree with that.
Name me an American colony.
Japan.
Seriously, what's the island that America has a massive base on?
I mean, I'm happy to agree to disagree, but I don't hold that opinion myself.
So Japan is an American colony.
Yeah, right.
Okay.
It's a protectorate.
Legally, it's a protectorate.
That's different.
Well, not really.
know you've got tens of thousands of soldiers on their soil and you know there's the yeah by by by invitation Well, not really.
Yes, really.
Yes, really.
Yeah, but I think that there's, you know, if a bunch of mobsters turned up at your door with guns, and they said, invite us in, you'd say, okay, please come in.
And they'd say, well, you're invited us in.
It's the nature of power politics.
It's not that America is guilty in any way.
Everyone does this.
So it's not any aspersion cast on the American state from my end, anyway.
I don't think that.
Okinawa, that's it.
Thanks, someone in the chat.
Okinawa, there's no.
This is the thing.
I think I am concerned that people in America feel the need to try and make their country whiter than white.
Whereas, in fact, they're just like everyone else.
Everyone has done this.
So, you know, it's not.
I have a book recommendation for you.
It's by Thomas Sowell.
It's called Conquests and Cultures.
Yeah, okay.
I'll make sure I make a note of that.
Check that out.
Oh, no, no, I actually will.
I actually will.
I'm a big fan of Thomas Sowell.
I like hearing him talk.
He's a former Marxist.
Yeah, exactly.
He knows exactly how they work.
So, yeah.
Very.
And this thing, a lot of people in the chat are going, well, Britain had lots of protectorates.
And exactly, they did.
You know, it's not, I'm not.
You know, they have lots of colonies.
I'm not trying to cast a moral judgment.
I'm just saying that this is the case.
The United States has got a thousand military bases around the world.
By invitation.
Wow.
Again, I wonder how much duress is involved there.
And then you've got the IMF.
The US is very good at economic imperialism.
So, it's but again, it's not anything I find particularly negative.
It's just the nature of power.
Anyone with great power would exercise it.
The American model is so much more clever than the European model of imperialism.
You're kind of being an ingrate here, Sargon, you know.
Am I?
Without us, you'd be speaking German.
Without the Russians, we'd be speaking German as well.
So, you know, there's no doubt that America played their part in the war, you know, not the thing.
The thing is, none of this is anything that I'm trying to cast aspersions on.
I'm not trying to denigrate the United States by saying it.
Next question.
We're running out of time.
We're running out of time.
Right.
What?
Do you have one or do you want me to find one?
No.
One more question, and then I gotta go.
Okay, Duke.
Right, okay.
I'll nip to Twitter and see if anyone's got any questions.
Okay.
Does the right to self-defense include the right to defend yourself against individuals in the government?
If they're acting unlawfully, yeah.
But what if they've passed a law that enables them to act technically lawfully, but the law is immoral?
Well, then you solve it in court.
Are you talking about so if a cop comes up on you and you resist arrest, talking about resisting a wreck?
No, let's say that the a law's been passed that for whatever reason you fall into a category that you didn't fall into yesterday, which means the US government now has the right to repossess your house or something.
Well, that's kind of a radical thing that would take that would take quite a bit of time.
There would be plenty of warning before that actually happened.
I don't see that.
I haven't seen any examples of that.
I can't think of any off the top of my head either.
But the point is, you know, Would it be justified to resist if they were targeting you?
Well, it depends on what you mean by resist.
I mean, if are you talking about if a SWAT team comes to your house and is going to storm your house?
Well, it wasn't my question, but let's assume that that's what they meant.
Well, I would surrender to the SWAT team rather than being overwhelmed by their firepower, if that's what you're asking.
Then I would solve it in court.
Okay.
Okay, well, I think that's...
I mean, that wasn't my question, so I don't really have any further to press on that one.
Yeah, I don't know the specifics.
No, it was a Twitter question, so it's only 140 characters.
Right, okay.
Well, thanks very much for joining me.
I really appreciate it.
It's interesting.
I've been monitoring the chat, and it's been rather controversial.
There are quite a few people who love it.
Love him or hate him.
But I'm happy to agree to disagree.
I don't mind if people don't agree with me.
And I'm hoping that other people do as well, because, frankly, that's what bigotry is: the inability to tolerate other people's thoughts and opinions.
Yeah, I'm a big fan of intellectual diversity.
I don't believe that there is any other true kind of diversity in human affairs.
It's really only about intellectual diversity.
It's not about skin color.
It's not about height, weight, or anything else.
It's ideas.
Well, you know, I've disagreed with a lot of the things you've said, and not, you know, not in an aggressive way, but just, you know, I personally don't agree with those things.
But that I completely agree with.
I am more than happy to let people have their opinions as long as they're not factually incorrect.
Sargon, you're not evil.
You're just wrong.
I'm happy to be just wrong.
All right, brother.
All right, take care.
See you around.
Thanks a lot for coming on, man.
I really appreciate it.
You too.
Take care.
Bye.
Take care.
And thanks, everyone, for listening.
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