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March 4, 2021 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

01:34:02

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #81

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	Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen Welcome to the podcast of Lotus Eaters for Thursday, the 4th of March 2021.
	I'm joined by Callum, but before we begin, we have an announcement.
	We have a wonderful, wonderful article that Ian Miles Chung has written for us, a premium article, that is a very personal thing to both himself and me, because I'm involved in it, talking about his time as a social justice warrior.
	Because Ian Miles Chung, back...
	A long time ago now, like six years ago, something like that, he was deeply, deeply in the radical left-wing circles because he was a journalist.
	And of course, if you want to be a journalist, you kind of had to be.
	And so this is kind of a personal affirmation on his part.
	It's really sensitively written and goes into detail about what the culture was like from the inside.
	Now, I'm sure there are people listening to this who previously would have been part of the sort of social justice cult.
	And Ian's telling us how he came out of it.
	But one of the things he notes that I think is really interesting is the accepting nature of the right.
	And when we say the right, we mean the non-SJWs, really.
	And I'm mentioned as one of those people, which is nice.
	He says, it's this healthy attitude that you'll find on the right but rarely among the woke.
	Try naming a single Trump supporter who has been accepted by the left after having backed Trump for years.
	So that's a good question.
	I can't think of any.
	Like, what Trump supporters have gone over to the left?
	I just can't think of one.
	So it's like...
	I'm drawing a blank.
	Yeah, drawing a blank.
	But it's a really, really good article.
	Maybe it's just me thinking it's because it's personally something I've been involved with.
	But it's a really, really interesting read.
	And I would love to hear...
	I'd love to see comments on there from anyone who found themselves in the left and has come out and their experiences of the groups outside of the left and how they've treated them.
	And since we're on this subject, let's go straight into the heart of cancel culture, which is, of course, the left wing mob on Twitter.
	Now, they have claimed a new scalp, which was Dr. Seuss.
	Seuss.
	Can I be honest about Dr. Seuss?
	And can I horrifically offend our American friends?
	I hate Dr. Seuss.
	I hate the art style.
	I hate the stupid rhyme of it.
	I hate the way it's presented, and it all looks weird and creepy to me, and I never liked it.
	And this was never a particularly big thing in Britain either.
	So, yeah.
	I've never read it.
	Exactly.
	It's an American thing, and it's gross.
	But...
	I understand that many Americans have a deep love of these books and the weird cat who looks sinister and evil.
	And so, fair enough.
	But, I mean, you know, my personal feelings about it, of course, are not enough for me to demand it being cancelled.
	The fact that it's American is another...
	But no, obviously it shouldn't be cancelled.
	But it's being cancelled because six of these books have been accused of having racist and insensitive imagery.
	And so the estate of Dr.
	Seuss, Dr.
	Seuss Enterprises, told the Associated Press that the books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.
	Ceasing the sales of these books is only a part of our commitment and broader plan to ensure that Dr.
	Seuss Enterprises' catalogue Represents and supports all communities and families.
	Do we have any examples that they're giving of this offensive imagery?
	Yeah, I don't think we've got a picture, but basically, in one, they draw a picture of a Chinaman, so he looks like the pre-communist Chinese.
	Qing China.
	Yeah, and that's apparently offensive.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I did see on Twitter...
	He's eating with chopsticks?
	Some verified checkmark was like, oh my god, look at this Chinaman with chopsticks.
	And Johnny replied, you know, what else is he meant to eat with?
	A knife and fork?
	I'm a Chinaman, what's wrong with my...
	Yeah, I mean, John's literally holding something.
	John is literally eating his lunch with chopsticks today.
	John, you're going to have to stop being such a stereotype.
	The woke mob on Twitter are furious about it.
	Like, what?
	Yeah, yes!
	Like a civilised person!
	But this is the point, right?
	There's nothing wrong with representing people from China as looking like people from China and eating with chopsticks, because they actually do do that.
	It's not a racial slur.
	It's not a form of degradation.
	I mean, like, someone sent us this wonderful country ball of Britain with a top hat and a monocle, because people in Britain used to wear top hats and monocles.
	That's not an ethnic slur.
	That's okay to do.
	I mean, I personally don't do that.
	Not many of us do now.
	But we used to, and that's fine.
	There's nothing wrong with that.
	How is it bad?
	How does it talk down Chinese people by saying they eat with chopsticks?
	Yeah.
	But it's also something, like, if you look at a British man like Jacob Rees-Mogg when he wears a top hat, for example, it's actually something you kind of look up to, you're like, oh, cool.
	And I imagine it's somewhat the same, like, seeing Chinese people eat with chopsticks if your Chinese are sort of, like, good.
	You know, that's us, kind of thing.
	It's culturally normal, presumably.
	And it's, yeah, and you are right, there's something, you know, I'm going to have to get a top hat monocle by the end of this.
	So I don't want to have to have The next podcast's going to be good.
	Oh, God.
	But yeah, so Dr.
	Sue's six books have been cancelled.
	Apparently the New York Public Library is refusing to take these books out as well, which is hilarious.
	And yeah, John notes it was also from 1937.
	So...
	It's not something that recently happened.
	If anything, you could say these are historical.
	But okay, never mind.
	But anyway, moving on.
	There are lots of people who are being cancelled.
	And the thing is, it's not just the people being cancelled.
	It's also the people around the people that are being cancelled that this is extended to.
	Now, we've been predicting this for a long time.
	This is not going to end and there's no particular limit.
	And it will literally be any amount of contagion, contamination from someone who has been cancelled will infect the others.
	And this is Bill Burr defending Gina Carano.
	And he obviously has a straightforward take, which is correct.
	He says, it's a weird time.
	Unless she did some truly horrible S or said some overtly racist S, I don't know.
	There's just too many channels.
	And now you've got to do sensational S. I don't know what the F it is.
	I'm on the F-ing show.
	Now I've got to watch what the F I say.
	LAUGHTER He's got to watch what the F he says, Callum.
	I mean, I'm literally censoring it because I don't want to swear on the podcast.
	Not that we have a reason to not swear.
	It just seems like the proper thing to do.
	Just for the mums who are watching with the kids.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, we want you to be able to send this to your mum so she can watch it when she's babysitting.
	He added, she was an absolute sweetheart.
	Super effing nice person.
	And you know whatever and somehow someone will take this video and they'll make me say something else and try to get rid of my bald action figure.
	It's how it is out there.
	It's effing crazy times.
	People just waiting, laying in the weeds.
	And he's right.
	There are people waiting and laying in the weeds.
	And they get dopamine hits from doing it.
	They're sat on Twitter, desperate to cause a hassle, cause trouble, about something that they can perceive to be unprogressive.
	So, okay, well, that may be well true, but when did Twitter become, like, the official woke church of the West?
	Why do we give this any credence?
	Because we've got to remember that these people represent a very, very tiny fraction of the population, and most people will never have heard of the people who are being cancelled, let alone have, you know...
	Have them ruin their company's reputation or something like that?
	It's like, what are you talking about?
	No one cares.
	But he's like, it's becoming now like, hey, you made an ignorant comparison, flushing sound, there goes your dream, right?
	And I look at that and think, and it's like, who the F stands up to that?
	Well, the answer, Bill, is you.
	And the people you're talking to and the people around you and literally everyone else.
	Cancel culture only happens because of the permissiveness of the culture that allows it to happen.
	If we all say, well, sorry, it's a shame that you're offended by Dr.
	Seuss or Gina Carano or whatever it is, but that doesn't actually mean anything and we're not going to change anything because of it.
	What are they going to do?
	Nothing is what they're going to do.
	They never bought anything you sold or made.
	Exactly.
	They are not a significant portion of your customer base, and they are not likely to cancel their Netflix subscription because of one thing you did in one show.
	And if they did, they'll come back.
	You're not going to lose anything.
	There is no market pressure to cancel Gina Carano.
	It's all about Twitter moralizing.
	Political pressure from Twitter.
	Twitter is being given a massively outsized importance here.
	Henry Cavill is the next guy to be cancelled.
	Do you know why?
	It's not because he's obviously a conservative.
	It's not because he paints Warhammer miniatures.
	And it's not because he obviously listens to our podcast.
	It's because he dated Gina Carano in 2013.
	I mean, obviously he hasn't actually been cancelled yet, but people are going after him on Twitter and this is getting headlines.
	And it's like, okay, what the hell is he supposed to do?
	Well, sorry, back then she wasn't a Nazi, so I didn't know.
	She's always going to count a revolutionary, comrade.
	Exactly.
	What's his excuse going to be?
	Obviously, Henry Cavill shouldn't be cancelled.
	Why do I have to say that?
	It's ridiculous.
	But it is anyone who has the slightest whiff of unorthodoxy.
	And my favourite one was the attempt to cancel Chris Pratt.
	Now, Chris Pratt had, of course, done nothing wrong himself, apart from being publicly Christian.
	And that meant being publicly anti-progressive.
	So, of course, as you say, a counter-revolutionary, right?
	He was in a controversy because they noticed that Chris Pratt had not joined his fellow Avengers in a fundraiser for Joe Biden.
	Donate to Joe Biden or you're a Trump supporter.
	It's not even enough to not be of the right.
	You have to be actively of the left.
	Yes.
	And so what happened with Chris is that people began to speculate that, of course, he must support Donald Trump.
	Now, I believe he probably did vote for Donald Trump just because if these people were around me, I'd just be like, okay, whatever.
	But anyway, they started going off on Twitter, stuff like Chris Pratt, because he's MAGA, he's the worst Chris, stuff like this.
	And so they started combing through his Twitter feed, trying to look for evidence that he had supported Trump in some way.
	And the evidence that they found was that he must be a Republican, because on Twitter he follows Ben Shapiro and Dan Crenshaw.
	Well, there we go.
	Wrong thinker confirmed.
	I mean, what more do we need?
	I mean, not even retweeted him, followed him.
	Yeah, just followed them.
	I mean, I follow the Green Party.
	Do you?
	I didn't know that.
	Yeah, I like to see the retardation.
	A, you're not allowed to use that word.
	B, it's in your contract that you're not allowed to follow them.
	So yeah, but this is the level of sort of paranoia that the...
	The cultural revolutionaries on Twitter are displaying.
	And it's disgraceful.
	It has gone way too far.
	None of the people who have been cancelled should have been cancelled.
	And literally everyone should be restored to their former status.
	Of course, that's not going to happen because you have activists like Sleeping Giants who use Twitter exclusively as a platform proudly to cancel people.
	And this is just everything.
	Like this.
	Wait, Roku, are you carrying Steve Bannon's show?
	Why wouldn't they?
	He's a presidential advisor.
	He's a popular political commentator.
	He seems to be someone who is contributing things to the discourse, even if you don't like them.
	And you're like, the guy who said, let them call you racist, wear it like a badge of honor?
	Yeah.
	Because you calling people racist means nothing at this point.
	Well, I just mean one thing.
	It means you're not a revolutionary.
	Well, that's not true.
	A lot of revolutionaries get called racist right before they get defenstrated from the progressive movement.
	But it's basically just you're not one of us.
	Yeah.
	It has nothing to do whether or not you actually have racist views or you've ever done anything racist.
	It's just you're not one of us politically.
	Mm-hmm.
	Outsider.
	That's what it means.
	outsider.
	So I mean, wear that with a badge of honor because I mean, who wants to be one of you?
	Yeah.
	And so naturally they're trying to get him deplatformed but I mean, I don't think they've been successful.
	I mean, their pinned tweet is an attempt to get Breitbart deplatformed from their advertisers and things like that.
	And the thing is, these people are in a position of such one-sided power that they can just go on Twitter We go for the next one, right?
	Like this, next week we're cancelling underwear, folks.
	It's like, ha ha ha, ha ha ha.
	But then you didn't have problem paying your rent, did you?
	You know, you weren't concerned about where the food for your children's mouths was coming from.
	You know, you didn't have to worry about any of these things because you are the ones with the gun.
	For you, it is a game you get paid to play.
	Because you know these people are going to be funded by the Open Society or some other, you know, Act Blue, something like this.
	They're going to get left-wing money and it's going to be funneled to them so they can permanently just sit on Twitter trying to get companies to cancel the ideological opposition of the Democrats.
	I mean, there's a thing as well here.
	Like, if Twitter wants to take this active role, let's be polite in saying, in which they want to moderate their place to make it a better place, well, the first thing you do is try and detoxify it by getting rid of stuff like this.
	Because, I mean, this is the worst thing about the whole platform.
	Yeah, yeah.
	The evil will that can be easily demonstrated by left-wing activists.
	Because, I mean, Jack has acknowledged that this is a bad part about his platform.
	It's a very bad part about his platform, but we'll get into the bad parts of Twitter shortly.
	In fact, the next one, in fact, is probably my favourite one of this week, where Amazon had put out a new icon for something or other for one of its apps, and Twitter, the most sane platform in the world, was like, oh, that's Hitler!
	Should we see the icon if we can go down?
	There we go.
	That doesn't look like Hitler?
	That looks like an SJW? Yeah, it does look like it.
	Now you say it.
	But to me, it just looked like a box that had been sellotaped over, because I've actually worked in warehouses, and I've used one of those little sellotape machines, because they've got little jagged edges so you can snap off the tape easily, which creates that kind of jagged thing.
	And people on Twitter are like, oh my god, that's Hitler.
	Idiots.
	It's really not.
	It's just a blue-haired SJW. It's not even that.
	It's a box with tape on it.
	No, no, no.
	But if it is Hitler, well, okay.
	But, I mean, I just...
	That does not look like a person, let alone Adolf Hitler, in my opinion.
	But this is the ridiculousness.
	So Amazon would just say, oh, Christ, we better change this.
	Why?
	No sensible person who's not on Twitter thinks that looks like Hitler?
	No one's like, oh, yeah, Jeff Bezos signaling to the far right there, as he usually does.
	I mean, who the hell's thinking this?
	It's insane!
	It's a genuinely insane position to be in.
	But then again, I don't use Twitter, and none of the accounts on Twitter who claim to be me are me, so what do I know?
	Anyway, so Twitter has obviously become the heart of censorship at this point.
	They've been a massive purge after the purge of Donald Trump, but that's not the interesting thing.
	The interesting thing is, of course, Twitter is failing to grow.
	It's been stagnant at the sort of 43rd or 44th largest site on the internet.
	For a very long time.
	If you can scroll down, I think it's quite far down on the page.
	So there's the 90-day trend.
	Yeah, you can see the 90-day trend just totally flatline.
	The number of people who are addicted to Twitter is a pretty constant number, and it doesn't really go up or down, which is really weird.
	But anyway, so Jack Dorsey was asked about Twitter's future, as reported by Reuters, and it looks like it's underwhelming past.
	Dorsey is blunt about why the social media network has failed to soar.
	We're slow, we're not innovative, and we are not trusted.
	You're also not a good place to be on.
	Yeah.
	You also seem to be doing massive damage to the political environment.
	Well, not just that.
	It's just not fun to be on it.
	No, I enjoy it, to be honest.
	I enjoy arguing.
	You enjoy fighting.
	So it's just people with that temperament, and that's it?
	Yeah.
	But I tell you, I feel so much better after not being on it.
	I'm tranquil at this point.
	Over the past 10 years, an investor in Twitter would have made around 5% a year in share price gains, whereas in Facebook and Alphabet and the parent search engine Google have managed 20% shareholder return over the same time period.
	Facebook's market capitalization is around 12 times the size of Twitter's and Alphabet's is 23 times as big.
	And so they've got a new plan to double their revenue to over 7 billion in 2023, which involves buying or adapting to the best of the rest.
	So Twitter is going to be changing radically.
	Now this is good news, because the chances are they'll change it in a way that makes it awful, even worse than it was before, and it'll die.
	And that's the best thing for democracy and the world at this point is for Twitter to die.
	For literally politicians to stop using Twitter.
	For business owners to stop using Twitter.
	You don't need to know what they say on there.
	It doesn't affect anything in the real world.
	It only affects things if you make a decision and you don't have to.
	But anyway, so basically, they're going to start stealing or buying up other people's properties from Silicon Valley.
	Like, oh, you had a good idea?
	We can take that.
	You've got a new company come up?
	We'll buy that.
	You know, things like this.
	And so what are Twitter's innovations going to be?
	Well, they're going to start auto-blocking people.
	Lol.
	Auto-blocking.
	Hello, we're a social media platform.
	Would you like to talk to the rest of the world?
	Yeah, well, you're going to want to automatically block a load of people because our platform's cancerous, you know?
	What was the raison d'etre of a social...
	Our platform is so bad it's not worth talking to people on it.
	Exactly.
	What is the raison d'etre of a social media company?
	Well, surely, communication!
	What is blocking people?
	That's right, the ceasing of communication.
	That's where Twitter has arrived at.
	No other platform has this problem.
	No other platform.
	It requires an auto-block feature.
	I mean, none of them have it.
	Gab doesn't have it.
	Mines doesn't have it.
	Facebook doesn't have it.
	YouTube doesn't.
	YouTube doesn't have it.
	Why does Twitter need an auto-block feature, Jack?
	What is it about your site that is cancerous?
	But anyway, Twitter's going to be putting in a new safety mode, which will automatically block accounts which appear to break the Twitter rules, and mute accounts that might be using insults, name-calling, strong language, or hateful remarks.
	That's good, isn't it?
	So an algorithm...
	It's going to be bipartisan.
	Sorry, not bipartisan.
	It's going to be partisan.
	But an algorithm is going to go through every tweet whenever you post something to someone and look for certain kinds of words.
	And if you're using certain kinds of words and it doesn't matter how you're using them, you might get auto-blocked or auto-muted.
	So you might be the world's biggest supporter of some person and you might say, hey, this person called you an ex and Twitter's like, no, shut up, blocked.
	And that person will never even know that one of their biggest supporters has been blocked.
	Isn't that interesting?
	They used to deny that they had the ability to even do this.
	Of course they did.
	Do you remember?
	I think it was in front of the Congress where they were just like, no, we don't shadow ban people.
	That can't happen.
	Now they're just like, yeah, we're just openly going to do it as a feature.
	That's a feature now.
	It's literally a core part of our platform.
	With the new safety mode, Twitter will automatically detect accounts that might be acting abusive or spammy and limit how those accounts can engage with your content for seven days, according to the slide that they're reading from.
	So that's good.
	Constant restrictions of interactions.
	The thing is, it gets better, because Twitter has decided it's going to become the arbiter of truth.
	When I say it gets better, I mean it gets worse.
	But, well, it gets worse from Twitter's perspective, but from the perspective of someone who thinks that Twitter should be removed from the internet, it's a pretty good progression.
	I like the idea that Twitter thinks it can police truth.
	Truth itself?
	I mean, I bet they can't even give us a formulation for the word truth.
	Jesus, define woman.
	Come on.
	Yeah, exactly.
	We'll define truth.
	Yeah.
	What does truth mean?
	We assume it means that which corresponds to reality, but my goodness.
	You know, that throws a lot of radical left-wing ideology out of the question.
	I mean, especially the pronoun things.
	How do you describe the reality of a pronoun?
	Good question.
	Anyway, so yeah, Twitter is going to begin applying labels to tweets that include misinformation about COVID-19.
	And of course, they're going to start boosting people off the site for misinformation.
	So Twitter says, We will continue to amplify the most current, up-to-date and authoritative information.
	So expect a great deal of conflicting information in the future, since the World Health Organization and Fauci have literally held every single position it's possible to hold on COVID. You're not wrong.
	No, I know.
	Here are a bunch of mutually exclusive positions that we expect you to hold at different points at different times, depending on what Fauci or the World Health Organization have said.
	It's literally everything we didn't say is wrong at the time that we said it.
	If you said it previously, who knows?
	The party's position has changed, comrade.
	Exactly.
	What did the party say three weeks?
	Exactly what it's saying now.
	Exactly.
	I mean, again, I don't like using the term Orwellian because it's overused, but that's what this is.
	It's an Orwellian policy.
	Twitter said, in addition to labels, the new five-strike policy will help educate the public and further reduce the spread of potentially harmful and misleading information, especially for repeated violations of the rules.
	So this is going to be rules for thee, but not for me.
	You at home, you're going to get strikes.
	Fauci, the World Health Organization, any politicians who happen to be towing the Democrat line, they're not going to get strikes, even if they're posting stuff that is contradictory to what they've previously posted.
	A tweet that includes misinformation but doesn't warrant full removal will earn the users one strike.
	Twitter said it would require users to delete tweets with high severity violations of policy that invoke a deliberate conspiracy by malicious or powerful force.
	Okay, Twitter.
	Twitter says that it will reduce the visibility of tweets and turn off likes, comments and retweets for content that is labelled with a warning message and determined to be harmful.
	Tweets with misleading information about the coronavirus will accrue one strike.
	A user will issue two strikes if Twitter requires them to delete the tweet.
	I love this.
	Social media that is just like, no, you're communicating wrong.
	You've got to stop communicating wrong.
	And there's no action for one strike, but if a user gets two strikes, their accounts will be locked for 12 hours.
	Similarly, three strikes will lead to a 12-hour account lock, and four strikes will lead to a seven-day account lock, and the fifth strike is permanent suspension.
	Remember, folks, that social media is a privilege, not a right.
	No matter what Jack Dorsey himself says about everyone having a right to social media, if you say the wrong things, you're off.
	And the question is, who's going to be doing this?
	So it was speculated that an account that people found called the Trusted Report Team, which was verified, would be the official Twitter account.
	Now this raised a few eyebrows because of the red flag and the five gold stars, made it look kind of like a hat nod to Communist China.
	Literally their flag is a red background with five stars.
	I mean, the red flag there, Being in there, I was like, okay, well...
	And they were very interesting, so they'd posted virtually nothing, saying that they were the official account of the Trusted Report Team, fighting misinformation, anti-Semitism, and hate speech online.
	They had 176 followers when I saw it, and it was a verified account.
	And they apparently linked to a blog called trustedreportteam.blogspot, which...
	I mean, the account now is suspended, but the blog was...
	Really weird, because they had one post that was like an actual official-style post, and they had previous posts even go down, that complained about the YouTube channel Memology 101.
	What?
	Well, if we keep going down...
	There we go.
	An example of Memology 101's harassment towards another creator.
	Memology 101's use of homophobic slur.
	Like, they really seem to be bothered about...
	Isn't that the guy with, like, the Netflix-style intro?
	Yes.
	He's just an S-poster.
	Yes.
	And he just, like, talks about current events.
	Yeah.
	So, like, I mean, I... I just don't know why this particular account got up a craw, but for some reason it did.
	Dog whistling racism and far right views in Memology 101's comment section number three.
	Jesus Christ.
	Important stuff.
	But like I said, this account's been suspended, but it shows you the kind of people who are going to be getting into this.
	It's radical left-wing activists, obviously.
	So Twitter is going to become the new Tumblr.
	It's hopefully going to lose its political relevance.
	Did you see the...
	I did see one post they made, which was about, has Joe Biden brought back kids in cages?
	Yeah, and they said false.
	They said, no, he hasn't.
	And their defence, when you actually go into it, was, they've always been there, so don't worry.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	I mean, that's...
	Snopes-style level of, you know, mostly false.
	So even at their best, it's pathetic.
	But even at their worst, it's just like some teenage Tumblrite moaning about, this YouTube page posted a thing, I don't like it.
	Yeah, but the kids in cage thing's hilarious.
	It's like, no, that was done under Obama when Joe Biden was vice president.
	So yeah, I mean, this account's been suspended.
	We don't know why.
	We've got no particular information.
	The blog's been removed, probably because the internet found it and was like, oh, really?
	And they were like, oh, God, that looks really bad, doesn't it?
	But yeah, so Twitter is an absolute cancerous platform, and you're addicted to it, and you should quit it.
	My addiction was broken forcibly, and I'm actually very, very glad about it.
	I love how they did that as a real thing.
	Like, oh, there must have been a million board meetings about what they're going to do, the style, the different imagery.
	It's like, we'll use a red flag with a shield around it in white, and then five stars at the top.
	And everyone looked at this in the room, and no one thought to raise their hand.
	Everyone thought, that's fine.
	That's perfect.
	Does this make us look like we're agents of the Chinese communists?
	No one thought of that.
	Not a single person in the company looked at this.
	Weird.
	Anyway, let's move on to the story that I was really looking forward to getting into.
	Because yesterday, history was made.
	I'll let John get everything up first.
	But seriously, history was made in Bristol, as Bristol passed a motion to create slavery reparations.
	Now, it's worth quickly going over Bristol's history in the slave trade, which is why the statue of Thomas Colston was taken down, forcibly by a bunch of radical activists, because he had been a slave trader.
	That is true.
	He had been a merchant.
	I mean, he personally hadn't grabbed the slaves and moved them.
	But he had moved money, which had moved men, to go and do this, and part of the transatlantic slave trade triangle.
	Bristol is in the British corner of that triangle, where the ships would go down to Africa, the west coast of Africa, places like Dahomey, which is now called Benin, which we're going to talk about in a bit, because they're very amusing, and then they'd be shipped over to the Caribbean, and then those ships would take the profits back to Bristol, where they would be given to the people who they were owed to.
	Obviously, we're not in favour of the slave trade.
	Can we say that categorically?
	Yeah, I think we're about that.
	Yeah?
	Okay.
	Very liberal in our views.
	We're against slavery.
	I mean, big surprise, I know, I'm sure.
	Slavery bad.
	Brave.
	Don't cancel us.
	I, myself, am a product of the slave trade.
	My ancestor on my father's side, going back probably about five or six generations now, would have undoubtedly been a slave, which is how I got the surname Benjamin.
	I don't actually know what that ancestor's name was, but I do know the name of his slave master, which was Benjamin, something or other.
	And that's how I got my name.
	So that's interesting, isn't it?
	Yeah.
	But also I wonder if Carl X doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?
	No, not really.
	But anyway, the point is, I guess you could say I'm kind of personally invested in this story in a way.
	Because, I mean, if they're handing out reparations, maybe I'll move to Bristol.
	I can get a train in.
	I mean, they literally owe you reparations by this.
	It's for people of African descent, and that actually means me.
	So, okay.
	I'll take it.
	If you're handing out the money, I'm not going to pass it up.
	But anyway, so the Bristol City Council had a Zoom call where they hailed as a moment of international significance Bristol's attempt at righting historic wrongs.
	And I've got some bad news for you, Bristol Council.
	The past is actually fixed.
	We actually can't change it.
	You can only change the future, and I don't think this is the way to do it.
	But anyway.
	I noticed someone pointed out in the chat.
	Number two there, in the side points, women should be able to be as sexual as they like.
	Number four, strip clubs to be banned in Bristol.
	Well, yeah, I mean, Hooters got banned from Bristol as well.
	They were going to set up a Hooters there and a bunch of feminists objected to women expressing their sexuality and they got it cancelled.
	And to be honest with you, as a patriarch and a proponent of daddism, I agree.
	I agree with the feminists.
	Cover up, you whores.
	Anyway, obviously, joking aside, ignore that.
	So, yeah, so the whole point of this is it's about atonement, and they literally say the word atonement.
	It will galvanize support for reparations and an atonement plan led by grassroots organizations to address the city's role in the transatlantic trafficking system.
	Of enslaved Africans and its enduring impact.
	The thing is, Bristol's kind of the end destination of this.
	So you didn't actually get slaves going to Bristol, it was just money that went to Bristol.
	And people like Colston, who was himself an aristocrat and conservative MP at one point, He spent that money on beautifying Bristol.
	Bristol used to be quite a nice looking city, and he spent millions and millions of pounds back in the 18th century, so a lot more in today's money, on various philanthropic endeavours.
	He built poor houses, schools, hospitals, things like this, and it's like, right, okay.
	I mean...
	Kind of morally grey there.
	Yeah.
	It's like the drug lord spending money on Colombian villages to make them better.
	Yeah, exactly.
	It's like, okay, well, I mean, I don't approve of the way he got the money, but the way he spent it was pretty decent.
	But I guess that means that he needs to be consigned to history because the money is tainted.
	Yeah, but with the complexity obviously being that at the time of Edward Colston doing what he's doing, it's universally accepted, whereas the drug trade today isn't universally accepted.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, it was not something that was invented by Europeans, but it was something that was ended by Europeans.
	When I say Europeans, I mean Brits.
	Bristol is also calling for the government to set up an all-party parliamentary commission inquiry to look at how reparations might be delivered.
	So they resolve to do something.
	They just don't know what that is.
	They're going to write to Parliament, and they're going to be using the support of the African heritage community.
	But African is spelled with a K. I don't know whose spelling that is.
	Is that Afrikan?
	Yeah, Afrikan.
	But only with one A. So I guess that's the Greek spelling of African.
	But these organizations through Bristol, using the emerging Bristol African Heritage Community-led reparations plan, which will include institutions, city strategic leaders, corporate leaders, strategic programs, initiatives, and cross-party politicians.
	And when we say cross-party politicians, we mean Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and the Greens.
	Yeah.
	I mean, cross-party.
	I hate that term in British politics.
	All the leftists from different parties have agreed.
	Oh, good.
	Oh, well, wonderful.
	I mean, honestly, I'm honestly thanking...
	I wish I was religious sometimes, because then I could thank God that the Conservatives haven't actually just jumped on this.
	The Conservatives are at least like, um, no.
	So that's a start.
	Bare minimum.
	Yeah, bare minimum.
	But to be fair, the conservative group leader in the Zoom call will play a clip from him in a minute.
	He was actually pretty good.
	But this is my favourite bit.
	If the source of racial injustice in the 21st century is the economic injustice or domination of the global economy in the 17th century, then a more just economy is the only sustainable way to achieve racial justice.
	I do not agree that the economy of the 17th century is the source of racial injustice in the 21st century.
	Just don't believe it.
	Too much has happened in the intervening four centuries for that to be the case.
	How far do you even take that, then?
	The injustices of the 12th century from the Normans against the Anglo-Saxons are therefore being manifested in the inequalities of today.
	I mean, you could argue that.
	Overthrow the Normans.
	Yeah.
	That's what I say.
	Yeah, so it's like this is ridiculous.
	Too much has happened.
	And there are too many examples of, I would say, black people in prominent and powerful positions or have achieved positions of massive wealth to say that there are direct institutional barriers that prevent them from accruing this kind of wealth because they have it.
	They have the power.
	So...
	Yeah.
	How would you argue that?
	The kind of things that don't exist when those barriers exist?
	Yeah, exactly.
	When those barriers exist, these things just don't happen.
	And of course, they want to recognise that reparative justice should be driven by African heritage communities' experiences, voices and perspectives to ensure that advocacy messages not only reflect but also respond to the real needs of the community in order to recognise inequalities.
	Now, what I love about that is literally, we're black, give us money.
	You can boil that down to just, we want to be in charge of you giving us money.
	Or how much money do we owe you?
	I mean, me too.
	Yeah, exactly.
	I also like money.
	And I'm also of African heritage, so I will take it.
	Thank you.
	Yeah, you can actually do that.
	Yeah, I will.
	Are the Irish getting any money out of this?
	Can I blag?
	Not, I'm afraid not.
	You're not African, with a K. Oh, well.
	Get rekt.
	But there's a thing.
	We'll get into the complexities of this in a minute.
	So...
	The funny thing about this, it is of international significance that this cross-party motion has passed, said the former mayor of London.
	Yeah, I don't think it's internationally significant.
	I think that you really wish you were internationally significant, but when I start playing some of the clips of this, you realise how parochial and local this all is, and how very small and embarrassing and cringe it is.
	I love that.
	African Civilization.
	What does that even mean?
	No, exactly.
	That's exactly it.
	Oh, well, this is a contribution of Asian civilization.
	Which one?
	Like, Africa's a massive continent.
	It's enormous.
	And the thing is, like, maps, globes, like, when you look at a flattened map, Africa is compressed, right?
	The projection of the map compresses Africa.
	You don't realize that Africa is absolutely bloody enormous, you know, on its own.
	It's a continent.
	It's massive.
	And so to say African civilization, you're including at once, like, the...
	Head shrinkers of the Congo with the ancient Egyptians, with the South African boas.
	You know, it's like, what are you talking about?
	You say African civilization.
	The Zulus and the Moroccans are the same people.
	Yes, that's exactly what they're saying.
	They have compressed it down to African means black.
	And all blacks are therefore Africans, and therefore all Africans are therefore oppressed.
	It's pathetic.
	It's totally inaccurate.
	The motion itself was passed with 47 voting in support and with the 12 Conservative councillors voting against it, which just goes to show you how left-wing Bristol is, but well done for holding the line there.
	That is actually one of the interesting things.
	If you live in a Labour hellhole like I do, the local Conservatives in those areas are usually the most...
	Reasonable people.
	Because they're just radicalised by the nonsense on the left.
	You have to deal with these nutjobs all day.
	You stop caring about offence.
	And you're just like, no, this is just true.
	Leave me alone.
	Absolute lunatics.
	The thing is, I want to know what goes beyond monetary compensation.
	What are they going to ask for?
	Slaves?
	I mean, what else?
	I don't know!
	I want to enslave your children because your assets enslave mine.
	Well, what's the argument against that?
	I don't know.
	I mean, they're literally arguing for like, oh, well, we were enslaved, therefore we demand stuff.
	And it's like, well, what stuff, if not money?
	Yeah, I assume property, right?
	So I assume they're going to be like, we want access.
	Just buy us my property.
	Yeah, we want to be given the city hall or something.
	I don't know.
	No, you take the white boy as your property.
	I guess so, but I'm against slavery.
	So they're going to find themselves in trouble there.
	But anyway, so it goes on, blah, blah, blah.
	So let's start going through some of the clips, because some of these clips are great, right?
	The Greens, let's hear from the Greens to start with.
	Indeed, support for reparations is national Green Party policy.
	As we heard from Kabu's statement, reparations is not about simple financial recompense.
	How would you even begin to calculate what is owed for the millions of lives ruptured, the brutal mistreatment, the families torn apart, the murders, or even simply for 200 years of labour stolen and all the generations of missed opportunities that could have been built on that wealth had it stayed in the hands that created it?
	Okay, the answer is obviously mathematics.
	That's how we calculate numbers, Eleanor.
	You are talking to the Green Party.
	Yeah, I know, I know, I know.
	But that's the answer, is we work out the value of these things, we adjust for modern monetary inflation, and then we calculate just the people who are involved.
	And this has been done, but we'll get to that in a bit.
	But also, if it's not about the money, well, it can be a pound.
	Yeah, if it's not about the money, why are you not specifying the thing that it's about?
	I mean, that would be more pertinent, wouldn't it?
	It'd be like, well, don't worry about the calculations.
	Let's talk about...
	If you just want an apology, well, that's already been done.
	Yeah.
	And if you just want, like, people to pay for the ending of slavery, that was done too.
	We finished paying off the slave trading debts in 2015.
	So I got to pay for the ending of the slavery of my own ancestors.
	Good news.
	A weird thing.
	It is weird, isn't it?
	It's really weird how this entire conversation can't just be compressed down into black, good, white, bad.
	But we're going to get to that.
	The next one is, I think it might be the Greens again, actually.
	Let's go for the next one.
	Globally, the Black Lives Matter movement has put a spotlight on the horror of systemic inequality and racism.
	In the UK, the Green Party and Green Party Councillor Cleo Lake have led the calls for an all-party parliamentary commission for truth and reparatory justice, with Lambeth Council passing a reparations motion in July last year, followed by Islington Council and the Green Party National Conference last autumn.
	So I welcome today's motion.
	What thing to wear?
	Islington.
	Lambeth.
	Affluent Labour voting constituents.
	Like, yeah, we passed reparations motions.
	And what did that do?
	What did that mean?
	Like, Islington North and South.
	Jeremy Corbyn's constituency.
	What's Islington South?
	I can't remember.
	Is it Emily?
	I'm going to Google it.
	Oh, I know the one.
	I can't remember her name off the top of my head.
	She's insufferable.
	Insufferable Labour Virtue.
	That's it, Emily Thornberry.
	Insufferable, incompetent Labour Virtue signallers.
	And And they want to follow in their footsteps, because why not?
	Why not?
	And that chap was wearing a nice T-shirt that said, Reparations over a green map of Africa.
	All of Africa as well.
	All of Africa.
	I mean, not West Africa.
	African Civilization.
	Jesus.
	I mean, that's the thing.
	It's not just West Africa, you know, where the slavery, where the British were.
	Like, it's got to be the whole thing.
	Yep.
	So, I mean, were we including the Arab slave trade and whatnot as well?
	Yeah.
	The Arabs need to pay reparations.
	And, I mean, if that's the route we're going down, I damn well want that to be the case.
	Jesus, they're going to get taxed a lot more.
	Yeah.
	For anyone who doesn't know, when they took their slaves, the reason there's no black people in Arabia is because they cut off all of it.
	All of the male parts there, they cut them all off.
	Yeah.
	It's blood evil.
	But I mean, the slave trade generally is obviously an evil thing, but there are gradients of evil.
	Some things are more evil than others.
	Anyway, let's go to the next Green Party member.
	For a white and elderly male to speak on issues of race is a daunting experience and one I accept with the greatest care and respect.
	If what I say in any way sounds insensitive, it is because of my lack of command of the English language.
	Then we literally don't need to hear from you, do we?
	Moving on to the Lib Dems.
	Let's see what the Lib Dems have to say about this.
	We Liberal Democrats strongly support that Bristol City Council should join and take the lead on a national dialogue and campaign.
	Thank you, my lord.
	Thank you very much indeed.
	That's a Bangladeshi flag behind him though.
	Sultan Khan from the Liberal Democrats.
	Jesus Christ.
	He spent quite a lot of his...
	What is that literally translated?
	Ruler, ruler or something like that?
	Yeah, it actually does.
	His family never enslaved anyone.
	Yeah, I'm sure his family come from the lowest caste in India.
	But he does spend quite a lot of time complaining about how oppressed India was and how Britain apparently took £42 trillion worth of wealth from India.
	Oh, I know where he's getting that from.
	It's a nonsensical author.
	Of course it is.
	But, okay, yeah, I'm happy to agree that the Indians are also under the boot.
	Anyway, moving on, we go to, finally, Marvin Rees, the black mayor of Bristol, who is going to condemn the concept of a post-racial world.
	Let's hear from him.
	And the reason I think discussion is so important is because I think too many people have tried to grab a post-racial world.
	They did it around Obama's election and myself and Edson Burton were on radio saying this, you know, we can't be naive.
	A post-racial reality is not something you grab a hold of.
	It's a place you come into when you've been very race literate in the short and medium term.
	That means understanding the role that race plays, not just a historical act, But as an ever-present factor determining life chances, life expectancy, the chances of poverty, social immobility, health outcomes, all those things that make up life today.
	So, the black mayor of Bristol wants us to be in a pro-racial world full of race literacy.
	I just hate it.
	I hate everything about it.
	I don't want to talk about your race.
	I mean, look at this entire thing.
	The City Council of Bristol have got together to talk about race and how basically white people are bad and black people are good and therefore reparations.
	Don't worry.
	It's just on college campuses.
	It's just on college campuses.
	Yeah, I know.
	I know.
	Like, I don't want to have to talk about this every day, but it's goddamn everywhere, right?
	But of course, Mr.
	Marvin Rees, despite the fact that he's the mayor of a city, one of the major cities of England, he's still oppressed.
	And as, you know, as the first directly elected black mayor in Europe, which is a form of overturning those old racial hierarchies, I can also tell you that I'm not just a mayor.
	I still experience the world as a black man.
	And even within this organization, I experience the consequences of having a black skin.
	So race is an ever-present reality that does not disappear just because we would like to wish it away.
	We have to grapple with it, but do it alongside a conversation around class and social immobility.
	Right.
	So if even the mayor of Bristol is oppressed because he's black, then maybe there's just no hope.
	I mean, what if we make him Prime Minister?
	Will he still be oppressed?
	I suppose so.
	Even more oppressed?
	I mean, I don't know how much the Mayor of Bristol...
	He'll be receiving more comments, so therefore...
	Oh, I got oppressed on Twitter.
	Look at all these replies from white nationalists in America.
	As I take my £400,000 a year salary.
	Yeah, I dread to think what the Mayor of Bristol's salary is.
	So he's going to get reparations from this, presumably.
	Yeah, he's going to get reparations.
	He's voting to give himself money.
	Exactly.
	The Mayor of Bristol is going to be voting to give himself money on the basis of his skin colour.
	Welcome to the 21st century.
	And of course, we got led out of this debate by a lady who was pretending to imitate Rosa Parks.
	What?
	Let's listen.
	Go on.
	Go on.
	Well, in my opening speech, you heard me reference quite a lot to the US and America, so I'm actually going to close by invoking someone who is known as one of the mothers of the movement, and I'm going to represent as Miss Rosa Parks.
	Are the past, is this the present, and do we have a future?
	Sometimes you are bound by your circumstances ground to your particular environment and station in life.
	And other times in freedom you can travel in your mind to where your soul takes you.
	And so I find myself here today on this bus in this ancient city of Bristol.
	I know some people say I'm their shero, and that surprises me sometimes, because I heard of some of your heroes and sheroes you've got right here.
	I mean, I know you won your thing on the buses, the Bristol bus boycott about 10 years after what happened in Montgomery.
	Yeah, I had a friend in Virginia who sent me a newspaper cutting.
	Why must I suffer to listen to this?
	Right!
	I was listening to this on the bike ride on the way into work, and I was like, okay, this is kind of boring.
	And then it got to that, and I was like, okay, this is gold.
	Jesus Christ.
	I, a Bristolian raised and born woman, is, because of my black skin, going to start putting on an American southern accent and pretend to be a civil rights hero from the United States.
	I'm so oppressed, give me money.
	Well, she knows there's a camera there, right?
	And that this is being broadcast to the public?
	Presumably.
	I mean, they explicitly make it clear that this is being publicly broadcast.
	And, I mean, that is just the most cringe I've ever seen in my life.
	They have no shame.
	No shame whatsoever, right?
	So, the Conservative councillor, the one Conservative councillor who actually got to talk in this, I mean, that went on for three more minutes or so.
	Oh, Jesus Christ.
	Yeah, I know, I... I was tempted to make you sit through it.
	But Councillor Steve Smith actually gave a liberal perspective on this, not a communist perspective on this.
	And I just found myself in total agreement.
	Let's play Steve's clip.
	The Conservative group are unable to support this motion today.
	And I know that will disappoint many people and some will question our motives.
	So I want to spend my three minutes explaining calmly and respectfully why we take that position.
	We believe the motion risks exacerbating some divisions by promoting a binary view of the world when the reality is much more complicated.
	And I should stress, I don't think that's anybody's intention.
	I know this comes from a good place and it's done with the very noblest of intentions.
	But nonetheless, that risk is there.
	The motion appears to treat everyone of any African heritage as a victim set apart from the rest of society, when in fact, we know it isn't that simple.
	The title that's used of African heritage communities covers huge variation within it, and 10 minutes on the ONS website will show you that.
	For example, figures on education outcomes show that kids from Black African backgrounds achieve above average progress at Key Stage 4, while those from Black Caribbean backgrounds perform below.
	In fact, social class appears to be a much bigger drive from the progress than ethnicity.
	Poor boys tend to be the worst off, regardless of which ethnic group they belong to.
	On income, the gap between white and black British people is much smaller than that between either group and South Asian people.
	Again, there are marked differences in outcomes between black African and black Caribbean groups, particularly among women.
	Now, I don't have no influence from these statistics other than that that binary view of the world is a fallacy.
	Apart from using the word fallacy when he means falsehood, completely correct.
	Fallacy is a logical argument that the conclusion isn't supported by the premises.
	A falsehood is just mistaken information.
	But other than that, he did a great job.
	And he is right.
	This is an old page from the BBC, when the BBC used to tell the truth about things, where they had some excellent stuff.
	We'll go into your section in a minute, but I just want to be very brief about this.
	The 18th century kings of Dahomey, which is now known as Benin, became big players in the slave trade, waging a bitter war on their neighbours, resulting in the capture of tens of thousands, including another important slave trader, the King of Wudia.
	King Tegbesu made £250,000 a year in 1750, selling people into slavery.
	King Gezo said that in the 1840s he would do anything the British wanted him to do, apart from give up the slave trade.
	And this means now that Benin itself has been put on the rack in various other circles, We can get to the next one, John.
	This is something that they are now having to deal with because Benin, as a country, doesn't actually...
	It's much bigger than Dahomey was as a kingdom.
	And so it actually includes many of the people that the Dahomey were enslaving and selling off as slaves.
	So they're complaining that, of course, this means that the elites in the country are the descendants of slave traders.
	And the people who are not the elites are the descendants of people who were people who were victimized by the slave traders.
	And we get into various other interesting identity conundrums like the Dahomey warrior women.
	So these, if we can get the picture up, the king of Tahomey had a personal guard.
	He was a warrior king, obviously.
	He led the army into battle, a very well-trained professional army that would go off fighting their neighbours and taking slaves.
	They would sell, well, to other people, then to the Europeans when the Europeans arrived.
	And these were celibate female warriors who were well-trained in battle, up to 6,000 at one point, and they undoubtedly took many a slave in their time.
	Very feminist.
	Very empowering.
	Hashtag bring back our girls.
	That's a joke.
	Yeah, so as Steve Smith was saying, it is really not adequate to just say people of African heritage were slaves.
	That's not true.
	For most people in Africa, they are not the descendants of slaves.
	For people who have come to Britain after, say, the end of the empire, they are not the descendants of slaves.
	People who didn't come from the Jamaican colonies are probably not the descendants of slaves.
	Whether they were black or not.
	So this is just not accurate.
	But let's go on to your section now.
	Yeah.
	I don't know what's going on with the stream, the site's down.
	It did freeze for a long time as well, so...
	Site down?
	yeah much but like the whole thing froze up I did see people in chat saying it.
	We're still live on Facebook, so we will do this, but I just wanted to mention, in case anyone's wondering what's happening and has been able to find this, sorry about the issues we'll look into afterwards.
	So, there's a little question here.
	So they're talking about reparations.
	I assume they're just going to give out cash, because I don't know what else they're going to do.
	Well, what does further than cash mean?
	Yeah, so I wanted to actually wonder about what reparations actually look like because this is not just a story that's happening in Bristol.
	This is a story that's been bumping around the United States for decades now.
	And last year there was even a Senate hearing in which they're trying to push this through and they're going to try and push this through with Biden as well to pay reparations.
	But of course the problem being that to who?
	And how.
	So, the first one here is talking about the last survivor of the slave trade who was discovered last year.
	So we have the most recent person.
	I just found her life actually fairly interesting, so I wanted to talk about it.
	So she died in Selma, Alabama in January of 1940 at the age of 83.
	She was the last person who lived who was a slave in her lifetime.
	So she was captured by slave traders in West Africa at the age of two and arrived in Alabama in 1860 on board one of the last transatlantic slave ships.
	She had come with her mother and had lost her father and two brothers left behind in Africa.
	They hadn't been able to capture them.
	Presumably the Africans who took them as slaves and then sold them to the Europeans.
	Literally, we can pretty much be sure that this is the Kingdom of Benin that did this.
	Probably, yes.
	Judging from her geographic location...
	It would have been Native Africans who make their money from slavery had gone out, stolen her mother, her and her sister and brought them to Europeans and then sold them on for money.
	It may even have been the Dahomey warrior women.
	Yeah.
	So they lost them.
	The sisters were again sold off in slavery away from their mother to another owner after a plantation owner had brought them all.
	And then when she was seven, the Emancipation Proclamation came through and she was freed.
	But, of course, she didn't have any money, so she just continued working the land where she was.
	because i mean what else are you meant to do yeah and what was interesting about our life is she also decided to have a relationship with a white man so it was a german man who had come over who was white and they had a common law marriage is the wording they use here so not official but just they were married we have common law marriages yeah for people who don't know um they also had 14 children so that's a lot of children to have um In the 1930s, she was in her 70s and made a claim for reparations to the government.
	And of course, 1930s United States, not interested in hearing it, even though she was legitimately a slave in her lifetime.
	If we can actually locate someone who is deserving of some sort of reparations, it seems to be this woman.
	Yeah, but she unfortunately died in 1940, so she was never able to get to a period in which the United States government would take this seriously.
	What's interesting is also she spent the rest of her life speaking her native language.
	She wore her hair in the style of the native people.
	I don't know if I'm saying this right.
	Yoruba?
	Yoruba?
	Something like this.
	I'm sorry.
	And she also had face markings, it says, from a rite of passage that they had done, presumably, when she was in the plantation.
	What rite of passage does a two-year-old go through?
	It doesn't mention, well, she was seven by the time she was emancipated.
	And then this is from a group of people who are mostly, still today, living in Nigeria and Benin.
	So almost certainly it would have been the Benin people who did this.
	Yeah, it was almost certainly the Kingdom of Dahomey who trafficked her.
	Yeah.
	And so what do you compare this to?
	Because, of course, the easiest comparison for the United States is to Japanese internment.
	So if you get the next link, this is a document from 1987, I believe, in which the next year they then passed reparations for Japanese people who were interned during the Second World War.
	And they say in here that the United States government shall pay out to the fund each individual the sum of $20,000.
	So that's $46,000 roughly in today's money.
	It's a good baseline.
	I mean, these people were imprisoned in internment camps for a few years.
	I mean, not exactly equal to slavery, let's say, but if you want to start somewhere, that's a good benchmark.
	Yeah, I mean, that's at least a number to begin with.
	Yeah.
	And it's not an unreasonable number either.
	It's not extravagant.
	I mean, you have been mistreated by the government here for several years.
	Yeah.
	I mean, if you were falsely imprisoned by the state for several years, you'd probably get close to half a million or something these days.
	Yeah.
	So, okay.
	It's a thing.
	But the conversation about this made up in the Senate, like I said, and there was a weird clip.
	I watched the whole thing a while back when this first came out of them going through the arguments for and against doing these modern day reparations.
	Because of course they don't know who the hell they're giving it to.
	Because there are no slaves.
	They're all gone.
	And I just want to play a clip from this.
	This is a Democrat who is black and has come to the Senate to argue, "We don't need reparations.
	That's pointless to us." Because I'm not a slave.
	My parents weren't slaves.
	My grandparents weren't slaves.
	I mean, you could give them reparations for Jim Crow because, you know, the state mistreated them.
	Sure.
	But I'm, you know, what am I going to do with this?
	I was born to a wealthy family.
	I just wanted to play his argument here, or at least part of it.
	In 2008, the House of Representatives formally apologized for slavery and Jim Crow.
	In 2009, the Senate did the same.
	Black people don't need another apology.
	We need safer neighborhoods and better schools.
	Oof.
	We need a less punitive criminal justice system.
	We need affordable health care.
	And none of these things can be achieved through reparations for slavery.
	Nearly everyone close to me told me not to testify today.
	They told me that even though I've only ever voted for Democrats, I'd be perceived as a Republican and therefore hated by half the country.
	I bet that guy went on to vote for Donald Trump.
	Yeah, I imagine he did, to be honest.
	So he was arguing that this is pointless.
	What we really need is safer places to live.
	Fund the police.
	Fund the police, and also fund the schooling system, because these are the only ways out of poverty.
	And he got booze from the congregation, shall we call them that?
	We don't like what you say!
	Yeah, and he's a Democrat as well.
	He's like, I'm a lifelong Democrat.
	I'm a member of the Democratic Party.
	So what?
	This doesn't make any sense because, as he points out, you'd be giving it to people like me who live from a rich neighborhood who don't need this money and don't deserve it.
	So, I mean, even if you hand this all out, I mean...
	There are going to be people getting it who don't deserve it.
	And this congressman here, this Democratic congressman, made the argument in there that there was a promise from an American general during the Civil War of 40 acres and a mule, is what it became known as, that black people would get if they were emancipated.
	And this isn't a government promise, it was just some general.
	No, it was the general that made it to try and encourage black runaway slaves to fight for him.
	Yeah, so it's not an official thing, but if we want to take it as a standard bearer, we can.
	Oh, I'm totally in favour of it.
	I think the American government should have this as their standard policy.
	They should literally say to black kids from the inner city, we're going to give you 40 acres of mule in Ohio.
	Go for it.
	Yeah, go on.
	But no one's going to do that.
	Exactly.
	What are they going to do with 40 acres and a bloody mule?
	So what do you do?
	You have to give it a cash element instead would be the modern way of doing it.
	In the same way with the Japanese internment, let's say.
	I mean, don't go wrong.
	I wouldn't be able to do anything with 40 acres and a mule either, you know?
	So the point also that you can't just give it to a group of people, like black people in the United States, because one of the problems there...
	Kanye West gets his check in.
	Well, also just black people in the United States is an incredibly diverse term.
	Nigerians who came here 10 years ago?
	People from Benin who came here 10 years ago?
	Does Trevor Noah deserve this money?
	Does someone who's come from Benin who was a slave deserve this money?
	Clearly.
	It doesn't make any sense to say black people because that's not what we're looking at.
	We're looking at the descendants of the victims of slavery.
	So I went to the United States Agricultural Department's website and just looked up the average price per acre.
	Apparently it's $4,130 dollars.
	So you times that by 40, you get $165,000 for everyone who was a slave.
	And it's like, okay, well, Matilda's children were still alive when the article was made.
	They were in their 70s and 80s.
	It's like, right, okay, so that's grandchildren.
	They're still alive.
	They have direct link.
	And let's just say, I mean, Matilda had a lot of children, but let's just say there were six grandchildren for every slave, something like this.
	That would mean that every grandchild of a slave would be given about $27,000.
	So it's like, well, there you go.
	You've got 10 years to claim it.
	If you don't, then that time's up.
	And you also must show that you are a direct descendant of a literal slave.
	I was like, well, okay.
	Okay.
	There we go.
	I guess that's what it's going to look like.
	Maybe it won't be $27,000.
	Maybe they'll use some other made-up metric to turn out money.
	And it's not just that one thing, as I said, the Senate hearing.
	It's also the Biden administration supports looking into this in the next link, if you can.
	So this is the White House were asked about this bill and they said, yeah, Biden supports looking into a study of how do we do slavery reparations for people who were the descendants of slaves.
	Yeah.
	But the problem, as we've been alluding to the whole time, is, well, it's not as easy as just saying black people.
	And the big no-no that no one likes to mention is that while the Europeans brought their slaves, they did not capture them in nets.
	They brought them, and who did they buy them from?
	Did they buy them from other Europeans?
	They didn't even invent the idea of the slave trade.
	No.
	So we brought them from Africans.
	We would get it from the Africans who were already enslaving people.
	And the next link here is just, I think it's one of the Anglo-American Journal of 1854.
	And they're documenting a very interesting meeting in which British diplomats go over to Benin and they meet the king of Benin and they're pleading with him to stop the slave trade because the British were the SGWs of the day, bullying everyone into stopping...
	We were busy abolishing the slave trade, yeah?
	Yeah, that's what we were up to.
	Which is good.
	Yeah, I agree with it.
	But it's an interesting meeting because, of course, he's like, what's wrong with you?
	Why are you demanding such things?
	And I just wanted to read out some extracts from this piece.
	So they say, This chief professes great devoutedness to England.
	he gave notice to European foreigners that he would not much accustomed to cutting off white heads but if any interfered with an agent of the English government he would cut off their heads as readily as those of his black people he seized about 9,000 victims annually and sold about 3,000 of these directly to his own account he gave the rest away chiefly to his own troops who sold them a duty of $5, so about $155
	today, was paid on each slave that was exported, affording him altogether, per annum $300,000, an equivalent today of $9.3 million a year that this king made from selling his slaves it's not even that much really But if you think about it in those days, you know, an African king of all people as well, who's just running a, shall we say, like, third world kingdom, I think that's pretty okay to use, leftists.
	I mean, he's literally being a slaver.
	Yeah, are we allowed to say that about African slavers, leftists?
	You tell us.
	I love it.
	They're going to get offended by the third world part, but oh wait.
	It's the global south.
	One of the things I find interesting is his case is not good, but it's not terrible as well.
	So he goes on to make, and they say, he stated the case strongly.
	Quote...
	The form of my government cannot be suddenly changed without causing such a revolution as would deprive me of my throne and precipitate the kingdom into anarchy.
	I am very desirous to acquire the friendship of England.
	I and my army are ready at all times to fight the Queen's enemies, and we will do anything the English government asks me to do, except give up the slave trade.
	He will do literally anything for England except give up slavery, because that's literally how the economy works.
	He's like, you're asking me to give up all economic growth in my country.
	The kingdom will collapse, I'll get my head chopped off.
	Yeah, and a lot of people are going to die.
	And it's like, well...
	I'm not saying it's good, but you have to think for the guide.
	It's like, okay.
	So the British argue back and forth, and they're like, look, you can grow palm oil, you can grow coffee, cotton, these sort of things.
	And he's like, well, okay, sure, but that takes years to set up.
	Who's going to pay my men in the meantime?
	Who's going to deal with this?
	I love this quote.
	Who will buy the dresses for my wives?
	Well, I mean...
	I'd love to give up the slave trade, lads, but my wife...
	Not just that one, I've got a dozen of them and...
	Do you know what it's like?
	It's very dadism complaint.
	I mean, that echoes through history.
	So he does make the case, and then they sort of make the agreement that they will sort of transfer the economy away from slavery and into growing things instead.
	And that seems like a reasonable way of dealing with that situation.
	Because the alternative, as he points out, being anarchy would be undesirable as well.
	So then he goes on here.
	Can I, by signing such a treaty, change the sentiments of a whole people?
	He's like, this is the glory of my people.
	This is the thing that defines us.
	This is the thing that is our economy.
	Enslaving people.
	And not just that.
	Can I change the sentiments of a whole people?
	It's not just him.
	The entire country has to be turned on its head for him.
	A country of black people?
	Yes.
	This is not Europeans doing this.
	So as I mentioned, they sort of reached an agreement where they were like, okay, well, you need to transfer the economy away from this because we're not putting up with this.
	And also it's evil.
	But he doesn't think so.
	He thinks it's the glory.
	I think there is something, you know, you can see from his perspective, the glory in conquering a people so badly, and then you turn them all into slaves.
	I mean, you are the victor in that.
	There is definitely a kind of barbaric glory in it.
	Yes, there is.
	And so the agreement was reached that he would do this, but the caveat was that England had proposed to pay him an annual sum for a time as a partial compensation for the loss of his revenue.
	It's interesting because this is where the debt from ending the slave trade started really accruing, because we paid, like, literally, we bought the slavery, the freedom of all these slaves.
	Yeah, I mean, it's not just the West Africa Scotland, as this example is.
	We were literally paying African slavers to stop engaging in slavery.
	We were just handing over buckets of treasure.
	They always complain that, um, oh, I can't, oh, which one was it?
	Some Scottish liberal politician, Prime Minister, who was the biggest slave trader in Britain and obviously had to buy his slaves off him because you can't just have the government appropriating people's property because they've made a decision.
	And so we had to pay him money.
	Obviously, we had to pay the King of Dahomey money.
	And everyone's complaining, oh, you paid the slave traders for their property.
	It was the legal way to do it.
	I mean, we could just steal from them like socialists, but that would be wrong as well.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Obviously not as wrong as slavery, but still morally wrong.
	Yeah, exactly.
	And that's what we did.
	And not only that, you would have revolutions.
	You'd have people uprising.
	To do it peaceably means you have to pay them.
	Yeah.
	I mean, otherwise you have to have a civil war, Americans.
	So they mention here that the journal are sort of praising this king for, oh my god, he's reached an agreement.
	And they say, it is a strange, bold, and perilous undertaking that he should direct his disciplined army, his hero, and his heroine battalions to the arts of peace.
	See, that's the warrior women there.
	That's the Amazons.
	He's referencing the Amazons, the author of this piece.
	And in five years, he was back to slaving.
	The economy fell to S, and he was like, right, there's nothing else I can do, and went back to besieging places and trying to get slaves, and then sell them off.
	Unfortunately for him, he then died and his son carried on the practice of slaving.
	And then they ran into the problem that the Americans had given up at this point the slave trade.
	And also the British Navy had turned up and just started freeing every slave that they exported.
	So it was no longer profitable for Europeans to go down and buy them.
	We blockaded all of Brazil at one point.
	Because the Portuguese...
	We're allies with the Portuguese.
	And so it was just like, you know, stop it.
	And they were like, no.
	And they were like, we'll make you stop it.
	And so we did.
	I mean, the same with this guy.
	The king of Benin was literally like, this is fine.
	I can't run the economy another way, so this is how I'm going to do it.
	And we sent the navy in.
	He was like, stop.
	And then what did he do?
	What did his son do in this case?
	He was like, fine, I can't export them, but I'm not going to stop slaving.
	Well, didn't he say that he went over to being pro-French?
	Yeah, yeah.
	He went over to the French side, because apparently the French had abolished slavery, but they didn't really care if the uncivilized peoples of the world continued it.
	Unlike the English, who were bullying everyone into being civilized.
	Yeah.
	How dare you.
	So that was one thing he did.
	And then he got away with this and decided he would just continue internal slavery.
	So slavery within the Kingdom of Benin continued until the end of the Kingdom of Benin.
	Because they were just like, well, that's how we do things.
	And it's just, it exposes how much of this American narrative, in which you only see the United States, whites versus blacks, is just bunk.
	I mean, utter bunk.
	Yeah.
	And so, Bristol City Council, we hope you've been paying close attention to this history lesson, and not just this moral philosophy lesson, because, and I don't know why I have to say this, I don't want to give the descendants of slave traders money for being slaves.
	Call me crazy.
	I just think that's a bad idea.
	And so just going, well, they're black, therefore they're slaves, is wrong.
	It's not correct.
	It's not just morally wrong.
	It's factually wrong.
	And it would be wrong to give the descendants of slave traders money for being slaves.
	I mean, we have a huge population of Nigerians and West Africans, and we also have a large population of Caribbeans.
	And I bet they're thinking of the Caribbeans.
	But if you just give it out on the basis of being black, well, okay, you're literally going to give the slavers the money as well.
	Yeah.
	I mean, this is one of the hilarious things.
	I saw Kemi Badenock in the chamber arguing about the history of slavery, and Labour were like, oh, it's black people and white people.
	And Kemi was just like, no, my people had to try at taking over the world, and sadly they lost.
	I respect that kind of attitude as well.
	That's the narrative, because for us...
	We're all playing the same game.
	It's just economics.
	There's no real glory or mythos in it.
	It's just we brought some people, put them over here, made some money, and then that's it.
	But for the people of the country that did enslave everyone, there's so much glory in it for them because it's sort of like, yeah, we absolutely conquered them to the point that they were serfs.
	Like the Spartans.
	Yeah.
	It's a very weird world, but that's what happened.
	Yeah.
	Right, we've got some video comments today.
	What's happened with the website?
	Is that...
	It's still 404ing for me.
	It appears to have blown up.
	Right, okay.
	Maybe there's more traffic than Kentley was expecting.
	Right, so we have some video comments if you want to...
	How many?
	Eleven.
	Eleven?
	Well, we probably won't get through them all then.
	But we've got some video comments.
	If you want to send us a video comment, you can do it by becoming a gold tier subscriber on lowseas.com.
	Let's go for the first one.
	Hey, about to leave for a longer trip, but I'm wondering, you've been a Transformers fan, or probably are.
	I wonder what kind of ideology would you say that the Autobots and Decepticons follow?
	Just kind of curious, and do you have an idea?
	Thank you.
	I just want to disavow that.
	I'm not a Transformers fan.
	I used to be a fan of Transformers when I was a kid, before Michael Bay got his hands on it, and then it became terrible.
	I've only ever seen the movies, so...
	What, Young?
	Callum's not entitled to an opinion on this.
	But if we're going back to the cartoon, I think I'd have to go back and revisit it, because I actually can't remember.
	I assume the Autobots are basically liberals, where they don't want people oppressing others.
	And I assume the Decepticons are Dahomeyites?
	But I would have to go back and watch it.
	But I might do that, because my son's getting to the sort of age where I'm going to start making him watch 90s cartoons like He-Man and Thundercats and stuff like that.
	And you're going to be taking notes on who's on which side of the political compass.
	Yeah, exactly.
	I'll do a political analysis of Thundercats and Transformers.
	Let's go for the next one.
	There's one thing I'm wondering as I drive here.
	Why are the commies, the socialists, and the morally challenged people in general so into pedophilia?
	Why do they like pedo shit so much?
	You've explained this before, so I'll let you do it.
	Have I? Yes.
	I can't even remember what the explanation was.
	They basically can't disavow it.
	Like, their whole worldview has to encompass all opinions, and all opinions are valid.
	In which case, you end up at the point where it's like, well, I mean, we have to take him to his perspective, and it's like, no you don't.
	No you don't.
	You can put him in the wood chipper.
	Yes, that is true.
	They do think that all perspectives are valid, apart from the ones they've decided aren't valid, but those ones never actually seem to be about disavowing pedos.
	Twitter had this thing where it's like, you know, we're not going to take down this literal child revenge porn because it doesn't violate our terms and conditions.
	It's like, Twitter, maybe you should put that in.
	Nobody's going to get angry if you put that in.
	We're too busy writing conditions about transgenderism.
	Yeah, or COVID-19 misreporting and things like this.
	It's like...
	But actual harm...
	Well, they don't see it as harm.
	Well, that's true.
	It's not important to them at all.
	That's true.
	And Vorsch made the argument that it's about power dynamics in a socialist society that they would be able to reduce the age of consent.
	It's like, why would you want that, though?
	Like, why would you want...
	It's a great piece of, you know, a section of, let's say, argumentation to show how absurd their worldview is.
	Yes.
	It's just like, well, come on, disavow this, and they just have trouble doing it.
	And it's like, right, okay, then this should go in the bin.
	This is not up for debate.
	Yeah, I totally agree.
	Let's go for the next one.
	Hi, Carl.
	Thank you for taking my question.
	This is my favorite political podcast.
	You and Callum do a phenomenal job, so keep it up.
	Oh, thank you.
	Somewhat recently, probably a couple weeks ago, you had some ANCAP type ask you about the state, and I wanted to hear what your thoughts are about anarcho-capitalism.
	What do you think about it?
	What are your objections to it?
	And have you debated a libertarian or an ANCAP before?
	Because I'm sure you have some good thoughts and objections on it.
	Thank you.
	Yeah, okay.
	Briefly, I've debated many libertarians and ANCAPs on it, and honestly, I don't find them to be objectionable people or have an objectionable philosophy.
	I just think that practically speaking, it's not going to work.
	And it's not because I don't think roads will get built or anything like that.
	But essentially, it's the fundamental concept of private property has to go beyond mere occupation, because the argument I always heard from ANCAPs was, well, I'll be in my house, therefore I'll have a gun, and for anyone who tries to take my property, I won't need the cops because I'll shoot them.
	Yeah, but you still sleep.
	Yeah, exactly.
	But not only that, you can never have a holiday.
	You're basically quarantining yourself to your house.
	I mean, what if you go to work and Someone breaks in, you've got no cops, and they'll be like, oh, we'll have arbitration.
	With who?
	I don't recognise anyone's authority.
	You know, they've got guns too, right?
	Yeah, I don't recognise the authority of a judge.
	Who's going to come and make me appear before the judge?
	And so, essentially, I'm sure that Hugo is grinding his teeth, because he's an anarchist, but I don't believe in the viability of it as a sustainable political system.
	I think that anarchy, in and of itself, is a transition period between one stable system to another.
	I mean, every example of anarchy that we have, sorry Hugo, turns out to be absolute shit as well.
	Because, I mean, the best one in the Anglo world probably being the police strike in Canada, I can't remember what year.
	The police just went on strike because they were like, we want better pay.
	Oh, 1969 it was.
	Yeah, it took like two hours and the first bank was robbed.
	Four hours, but yeah.
	Yeah, but the best breakdown of what happened that day as well was from a former anarchist who was an anarchist until that day happened.
	And then he completely renounced his own views because he was like, right, this doesn't work.
	That's the thing.
	I think the problem with almost all of these kind of Enlightenment perspectives are if everyone just thought X then, and it's like...
	Yeah, but no one will.
	Exactly.
	That's not going to be the case.
	So don't worry about it.
	Sorry to be a downer on it, but I just don't think it's going to last.
	Anyway, let's go to the next one.
	I keep meaning to actually ask you a question, and this is my third time trying to do this because I keep stuffing up what I'm trying to ask you.
	Basically...
	Have you seen Jordan Peterson's podcast that he's been doing?
	And I've noticed that he has a very misinformed view of the culture war.
	And I think that that misinformed view that he has is actually quite a common one amongst the boomers.
	So he's not, you know...
	They're people who should be better informed than they actually are.
	And how do we then get that information to them in a way which is palatable?
	I've tried by giving my parents the Lotus Eaters, for example, because I know that my dad's quite based and he'd quite enjoy it.
	And my mum is very, very concerned about the fact that the progressives are trying to destroy women because she's an Irish Catholic and they've got pretty strong views about that sort of thing.
	I don't know how Jordan Peterson's misinformed.
	I haven't watched his stuff recently, so I don't know.
	I haven't had any time to watch any podcast.
	If your mum and dad are watching, though, good to have you.
	Yes.
	Son's a good boy.
	Thank you.
	Yes, he is.
	And we hope we're doing a good job.
	As for radicalizing boomers into reality, the best thing I've seen is just get them off TV and get them online.
	Yeah.
	Seems to be the best thing.
	Because TV, at least terrestrial TV in the UK, is just propaganda.
	It is unbearably bad.
	Oh, yeah.
	Representing reality.
	Yeah.
	It's the previous paradigm's truth regime.
	The boomer truth regime, as an academic agent would say.
	But what it refers to really is the sort of previous paradigm where there was a very narrow range of opinions allowed through a very narrow channel, which has been destroyed by the internet.
	And so now you can get whatever you believe to be true from wherever you want.
	You're not just told one thing.
	You can be told facts that are left out of the narrative.
	Alternative facts, we could call them.
	But that's probably haram.
	I don't know, man.
	To be honest, send things from the internet.
	That's the only answer I can come up with.
	There has to be an understanding that there's something wrong.
	So for the individual boomer that you are talking to, I would recommend customizing what you send them to their personal taste.
	You're saying your mother is an Irish Catholic and so is concerned about...
	The status and concept of women, that's probably a really good in with a lot of older ladies because being a woman means something.
	We're going to do this podcast tomorrow.
	We're going to record the thick concepts tomorrow because there's really something to it.
	And this is important.
	I think it'll get a lot of them at least aware that there's something negative going on.
	Let's go for the next one.
	Hey Carl and Callum, really looking forward to when you do a podcast on thick concepts or thick words.
	One that I think that progressives hate is marriage because within it it has holy, union, sacred, family, Children.
	These are all thick words in and of themselves.
	So, for example, a union is the coming together of two distinct individuals to create a new formation.
	That's a unity.
	You've got sacred.
	So sacred is something which is special and set apart, is what it means.
	So a sacred thing is, for example, the fact that the man and the woman...
	Guarantee their body only to each other is a form of being sacred.
	Holy is...
	What you view your relationship as, which means it is something that needs to be worked on and is part of a journey that you go on.
	And family is the concept of a new enterprise which is going to become fruitful and create new things within your society to the benefit of that society, for example.
	There's some ideas.
	Well, he's spot on, actually.
	That was a really, really good breakdown of those concepts.
	And the underlying principle of all of these things is particularity.
	It's exclusivity.
	And the word exclusivity is, of course, the antonym of inclusive.
	So if you want things to be inclusive, they can't be exclusive.
	And if you're interested in anything that's good and decent and proper, then it's got to be exclusive to some degree.
	That's why the only one there I'm having a bit of trouble with was his family, because it being something that works for society, helps society.
	I think it's the exact opposite.
	The family is the thing that sort of takes you out of being in the control of others, and instead it's your group, and you're able to support each other.
	This is a very interesting aspect of Brave New World.
	This is why we're going to have to do these podcasts leading up to the analysis of Brave New World.
	But one of the parts of Brave New World is where they talk about, from a post-family paradigm...
	How they view the family, and they view it as an oppressive, tyrannical institution that gave the people in there no security or freedoms.
	And it's like, wow, that's just not how people think of their families.
	And so he's on exactly the right track with that, and we will record it tomorrow afternoon.
	So hopefully it'll be up by the weekend or something, or next week.
	But it's been a lot of work put into this, but it's nice to see that Jeremy's on the right track there.
	Alright, let's go for that oil guy.
	Hey guys, I was having the perennial debate about income gaps again yesterday.
	I had a thought, I wonder if it would be possible to get any data on the income gap between male and female Deliveroo cyclists.
	That would be quite interesting.
	Well, I mean...
	That's an amazing point.
	Why?
	Because, I mean, how hard are they able to push on the bike?
	Oh, yeah.
	Okay.
	Because, you know, it's not mopeds or cars.
	They use bikes to get...
	No, I don't know anything about it.
	So the men are going to be more physically able to do more deliveries, therefore...
	So they're going to be quicker from delivery to delivery, and they're going to make more The only problem you're also going to have there is almost all of the deliverers are also going to be men.
	The same with almost all taxi drivers are men and things like this.
	But they're doing an IPO later as well.
	An IPO? Initial public offering.
	Oh, right.
	They're going public with their stock.
	Right, right, right.
	So you're really getting into the stock market stuff then?
	Yeah.
	Callum likes the stonks.
	Right, okay.
	Let's go for the next one.
	Hello everyone.
	Sorry about background.
	My kids' artwork from five years ago.
	My question to you guys is how do I convince people in Scotland to stop voting for the SNP when they still went in the referendum?
	Almost nobody in Scotland will vote for the Tories.
	Thank you and goodbye.
	Well, I don't blame them for not voting for the Tories, to be honest.
	Well, if you want independence, I think Dank's probably got the right track of this, where it's like, he still thinks independence is good, but SMP independence is not desirable at all.
	Surfdom to Germany.
	It's like, okay, just run through some hypotheticals, I say.
	Look at Ireland.
	Would you want independence under the Nazi party?
	Well, presumably not, right?
	In which case, it's not independence that's just the be-all and end-all.
	There has to be some caveats here.
	They're looking for sovereignty.
	Look at Ireland at the moment.
	Ireland went into the EU as a recipient and is now a net contributor.
	Ireland is now getting hard borders placed on it with or without their consent because of Brexit.
	The EU is just imposing these things on Ireland.
	Ireland is not in a particularly good position.
	And this is just the beginning.
	Like, what's Ireland's relationship with the EU going to be like in 10 years' time?
	Probably not substantially better than it is now.
	And I can totally understand why Dank...
	I mean, I don't blame the Scots for wanting independence at all.
	Like, who cares?
	You know, that's their sovereign right as a people.
	But at the end of the day, being within the EU is not independence, so why do you want it?
	We'd like to take our orders from the Germans rather than the Brits.
	Okay, well, have fun.
	I mean, not to mention, there's not just that part of it.
	Even at your national level, having the SNP in charge just seems like a disaster.
	Like, nothing they touch seems to work.
	Everything seems to turn to S. If the Sturgeon, this Sturgeon-Salmond corruption and, like, genuine Banana Republic stuff doesn't do it...
	Destruction of the healthcare, destruction of education, destruction of economic matters.
	Look at drug addiction rates and things like this, and alcoholism...
	And all these sort of things that haven't gone down under the SNP. And then look at them just going, white, white, white, white people all over the place.
	Yeah, in Scotland, no kidding.
	You know, it's, you know, just if all of this together, I guess you're just going to have to get a list of links of, like, just videos of them saying things and doing things and news reports from places that you can assume that they trust, where they're like, yeah, so the SNP have been corrupt here.
	I mean, just video footage of Hamza Yusuf screaming about white people existing.
	Yeah.
	I mean, that's gold, in my opinion.
	Put that into a, maybe we should do this, just a documentary on why you shouldn't vote for the SNP. SNP cringe compilation.
	Basically.
	Number 1059.
	But if all of this stuff together doesn't persuade them that the SNP are bad, and they're like, yeah, but the English, or whatever it is that they say, then I don't know.
	You know, they're not appealing to reason.
	They're not looking for something that's decent.
	They're looking for an enemy to fight.
	So, let's go for the next one.
	Hi, guys.
	I wanted to remind everybody about the first Andrew Cuomo COVID painting, the New York Tough painting, in which he clearly represents the negative trend line as a positive.
	And it's very obvious that at no point in time, in the hours that it took him to paint that image, did he ever consider his governance to be a problem?
	Well, thank you for that.
	I didn't see the New York Tough one.
	Is he talking about that?
	No, that's the one I showed.
	That's the New York leading way.
	Oh, here we go.
	I found it, yeah.
	Okay.
	Sorry, I can't show it on the cameras.
	Well, can you send it to John?
	Yeah, I'll send it to John.
	Projection models.
	Yeah, he's sort of demonstrating the...
	God, yeah, the graph going up is some kind of good thing.
	Okay, send it across.
	Yeah.
	Sorry, wake up America, forget politics, get smart.
	It's just like a trend line, but it's like a mountain, but it's just the...
	Is it like shootings in New York or something?
	No, but I... Apparently it's been removed.
	It's got to be removed, I sent an image.
	Sorry, we didn't have the image beforehand, so we'll take a second to get it up.
	We don't vet these comments or anything.
	Economic falls with money dollars going down a waterfall into the sea.
	Is that good?
	The power of Wii going down?
	What?
	I don't know, man.
	This is weird.
	The North Koreans make better propaganda than this.
	This is...
	Confusing, but projection models of the money going up.
	But what money?
	Economy falls.
	The money is literally seeping out of the land and into the sea.
	Yeah.
	Why is this good?
	Mask up.
	Oh my god, this isn't even old.
	Follow the facts.
	Oh, okay, good news.
	Let's follow the facts and put the COVID patients in the nursing homes.
	Yeah, I hadn't seen this.
	Thanks for saying this.
	No, this is awful.
	What weird cringe Cuomo does.
	Let's go for the next one.
	Best career, better than worst York.
	Good afternoon, Lotus Eaters.
	If you want an example of a disabled character with high fight ability, Ivar the Boneless in the series Vikings.
	He's a great example.
	Literally, high handicap, doesn't have legs, and can kill men.
	Ivar the Boneless was a Viking leader in the 9th century or something.
	It's actually unclear what it means from the historical sources.
	So it could be that he had no legs or had broken legs or something.
	Stories of him being carried around on shields and stuff like that.
	But there's also allegations that it means he couldn't get it up.
	So, you know...
	Who knows when you're talking...
	Ragnar the bonus.
	Sorry, I've got a bonus.
	Yeah, that's a pretty good way of insulting someone.
	Yeah, but I mean, who knows?
	We don't know.
	But I guess that's the exception that proves the rule.
	But let's go to the next one.
	Hey guys, finally decided to go gold, both so I can support Carl, who I've been watching since pre-Gamergate, because I'm absolutely sick of feeling like there's no one representing me.
	So, my question for today, given that in the post-COVID world we seem to have two extremes, one of which is so indoctrinated that they seem willing to dob their neighbours into the government if they sneeze too much, and another that's so...
	We're tired of the government and media lives, that it seems that they would do anything to resist lockdowns or quarantines.
	What happens when we have an actual pandemic?
	What does the government response in places like Australia, the United Kingdom and America look like in that scenario?
	Cheers guys!
	That's a great question.
	Like, what happens when there are actually people dropping in the streets?
	It's not going to be good, is it?
	Yeah, if they're happy to do this for what, was it like 2% death rate?
	No, not even.
	But something very low?
	I mean, what if it's 10%?
	Yeah, what if it's literally like Black Death, like 30-40%?
	What's the state going to be willing to do then?
	Well, yeah.
	Yeah, I hadn't thought of that.
	That's a great point.
	That's disturbing.
	Thanks for putting terrifying thoughts down.
	Oh, God!
	God, if they're going to do this under such a light yoke...
	I feel bad now.
	I'm worried that if I voice any opinions, then the government will be listening and be like, yeah, good point.
	We should have done that.
	So, I mean, what more can they do, though?
	I showed you the eclipse from City of Life and Death the other day, didn't I? Did you?
	Remember that?
	No.
	Where they're all like, you put them in a box and then you just liquidate the box.
	Jesus!
	Remember that?
	No.
	I'll show you the clips again.
	I'm surprised I don't remember that.
	But I mean, if you've got an area where you say, you know, this virus is that deadly, I mean, what's going to stop them from saying, well, actually, I mean, do people's lives matter that much?
	Well, not if these people's lives are going to kill people.
	So couldn't we just liquidate the pocket?
	What stops them from doing it?
	Human rights?
	Property rights?
	They're out of the window.
	You don't have those anymore, I'm afraid.
	So yeah, I dread to think what the government would do in such case.
	So let's pray it doesn't happen.
	Let's go for the next one.
	Hey Sargon, real quick.
	I recently joined the CDU and was called a conspiracy theorist over and over again, even though I always backed up my claims with news articles.
	I thought I might be able to argue against the media narrative, but they don't seem to want to hear it.
	Should I leave them and join the AFD, even though my fiancé would hate it, and I might get beaten up or investigated by the Verfassungsschutz for it?
	Thanks for everything.
	Take care.
	Well, it depends on what you're willing to risk, really, doesn't it?
	If you think that maybe there's an option in the CDU for them to change their minds at some point, which I'm skeptical of and it sounds like you are too, then I guess there's no future, no way of moving forward there, but the price for joining the AFD might be too high for you personally.
	I don't ever want to be like, yes, you have got to make personal sacrifices right now or anything like this, because I don't know anything about your situation.
	I don't know...
	Well, you know, Antifa are like in your city or whatever it is, wherever you live.
	So I'm really loathe to just give, like, straight up, you should do X. Because what you should do is make sensible decisions from your own perspective.
	It may be that you can achieve more by not doing something quite so overt and being more covert in future.
	Or it could be that you can achieve more and do more to help by joining the AFD.
	I honestly don't know.
	You're going to have to make that decision from your informed position, which is something I can't do for you.
	But this, again, is the essence of dadism.
	You have to make these decisions for yourself.
	And remember that you are the person who bears the consequences for them.
	So you're the person who has to take responsibility for it.
	So it's up to you to make that decision.
	And I realize it's probably quite a tough one.
	But unfortunately, I can't really give you more advice because of the lack of information I have.
	So I wish I could be more dogmatic on that point.
	But unfortunately, it's going to have to be up to you.
	And Sorry about that, man.
	But right, so we are over time and the website's still crashed, so we're going to have to go...
	Oh, it's up now, is it?
	Oh, that's good.
	did Kentley say what the problem was?
	It was the database.
	I think everybody refreshed at the same time because the stream was up to end.
	It just didn't scale up to that.
	Right, so, okay.
	So for anyone who's watching on Facebook, the problem was too much traffic, which we shouldn't complain about, really.
	Thank you everyone for watching, and if you missed any of the show, you've somehow got it back up, we'll be putting the clips up on Bitshoot, YouTube, Mines, Library, all of the Rumble, Facebook, so you'll be able to watch all of the clips, or you can come back once in about 10 minutes,
	because once the VOD, the file that we're streaming with, has processed, then it'll be ready in about 10-15 minutes time, so we'll just watch it again and track through to whatever place you were at when it crashed, and And we will have an alternative player as well.
	So, sorry about the disruption.
	We weren't expecting it, but we'll try and make sure this doesn't happen again tomorrow.
	But in the meantime, if you want more content from us, you can go to lowseas.com, that is up, apparently, and become a premium member.
	Check out all of our premium work.
	We've got loads of premium podcasts, loads of books.
	Clubs and loads of interviews, things like that, and loads of articles.
	And we also have lots of free news content, of course, loads of really good articles that are being written, and we are expanding our news team.
	Really looking forward to the things we're going to be able to do with it.
	In fact, with a few extra people and a few site modifications.
	All of these should be with us in about a week.

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