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Nov. 10, 2021 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

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The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #260

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	Hello, and welcome to the podcast of The Lotus Eaters, episode 260.
	I am Thomas, your host for today, and I am joined by Harry.
	Hello there.
	Hello.
	So, today we're going to be covering the Rittenhouse Prosecution, which continues to spiral, Zuckerberg's iron grip over the metaverse's political discourse, and the climate's cult at COP26. But first, we have some announcements to share with you.
	There is first this premium article by Hugo, The Incredible Power of Asking a Question...
	The context of this is pretty self-explanatory.
	Asking questions in politics does, of course, change politics.
	So please do give that a read, Chloe.
	It's got an audio track as well, so if you're, I think it's silver or above, you can give that a listen as well.
	Listen to John's silky smooth voice read that all out for you.
	Not giving it a read myself yet, but it looks to be a good one.
	Hugo always writes good articles for us, I find.
	Very good writer.
	And then there is, of course, the premium that Harry did with Josh, which is how can bad people become popular and liked?
	Yes, this was quite an interesting discussion that Josh and I had about the subject of how bad people become popular and liked.
	It's examining going from sort of small...
	Small-scale examples of, you know, just people that you may know or be aware of who display characteristics that may not be traditionally likable but can still have a sort of aura around them.
	You could describe it as where people seem to be drawn to them.
	All the way up to, as you can imagine from the image there, the cases of true criminal evil, such as Ted Bundy and other such kinds of serial killers, who, despite all of the heinous and terrible things that they do, still manage to...
	Get, like, women writing letters to them while they're in prison after having been convicted, which is quite an unusual thing that I've seen happen.
	But yeah, we just go into the psychology of that and what traits those people may have that causes them to be so well-liked.
	Awesome.
	Extremely creepy stuff, but nonetheless fascinating.
	And that brings me to the last article which we need to show, which is John's article, Dune and the Bronze Age Mindset, which, if I recall, is basically about how the recent film Dune expresses some of the things that we still kind of value about the Bronze Age.
	Yes, I would imagine that's probably true, given how many leftists I've seen complaining about Dune supporting colonialism and being a front for Nazi ideals and all that sort of stuff.
	So, probably an interesting read, and to be fair, I need to read the book and...
	I've watched the film, I've watched the Lynch adaptation, but I've not watched the most recent film.
	But it should be a very good read, I'd imagine.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	I still need to watch the film.
	I'm a complete new, but if it annoys leftists, that's all the more reason to go out and see it.
	So yeah, please give that a read.
	That, again, is narrated by John.
	But without further ado, let us begin with the Writtenhouse Prosecution.
	Yes.
	Let's continue with our examination of what's going on at the Rittenhouse trial.
	People who tuned in yesterday saw my coverage of it, so if you want a full catch-up, you might want to go and check over yesterday's podcast or the videos that are available on YouTube of that.
	But just as a reminder of the big main event that came from Monday's...
	Cross-examination of the witness, who was the star witness for the prosecution, Gage Grosskraut, who was the man, the only survivor of the three people that Kyle Rittenhouse shot.
	People who are familiar with the situation may be aware that he was the guy who shot in the bicep.
	And we just got this wonderful clip on Monday of him admitting that he was trying to shoot...
	Rittenhouse at the time, or at least certainly looked as though.
	So, John, if you want to play that.
	It wasn't until you pointed your gun at him, advanced on him, with your gun, now your hands down, pointed at him, that he fired, right?
	Correct.
	Oh, shit!
	That's it!
	That's it!
	Directed verdict.
	Directed verdict on all the murder charges.
	Kyle knows.
	Directed verdict on the murder charges.
	He just exhaled.
	Oh, he looks like he's going to cry.
	How do you not acquit after that?
	For those listening, this is from Rakita Law's coverage of the trials, and what it cut to there was a beautiful, beautiful image of one of the prosecutors who were trying to prosecute Rittenhouse for murder, is how they're putting it forward, and they're trying to aim for a life sentence for him.
	One of the people prosecuting him with their head in their hands after their star witness just admitted, yeah, he only shot me after I pointed a gun at him.
	Up close.
	Very, very close range.
	I mean, I think most of the testimony has shown that the people who he shot were probably less than four feet away from him, although that'll be something that we cover moving on with this trial.
	So just a reminder, though, for anybody who's been watching our coverage and the coverage of people like Rikita Law or Viva Frey, that we are trying to provide what could be considered a clear and accurate representation of what's going on in the court currently.
	But for those outside of, you know, our sphere of influence, you could describe it as, they may not be getting the same kind of fair coverage that we're trying to provide.
	So, I mean, one of the things that people may or may not be aware of is that this just came out this morning, that Judge Schroeder, who's the judge presiding over the case, has had somebody, has revealed that somebody had filmed the Rittenhouse jurors when they were picked up by the bus this morning, I think that was yesterday that this went on.
	Schroeder said that the deputies made the person delete the video and added more steps to be taken to prevent something like that from happening again.
	So that's from Giulio Rosas.
	And that's just a reminder that there are people with very malicious intents keeping an eye over this.
	Very similarly to the way that the Chauvin jurors could be said to have been intimidated by the circumstances around it.
	And then let's also take a quick look at what Vice's coverage of this has been.
	That clip that we just saw there where Gage Grosskraut admits that, yeah, he shot me because I was pointing a gun at him, was characterized this way by Vice.
	Paramedic, shot by Rittenhouse, believed he was going to die.
	When they write, the tagline for this, of course, is, I was never trying to kill the defendant in that moment.
	I was just trying to preserve my own life.
	Yeah, I do not believe a word this man says, other than, Who was the one running away again?
	Yes, exactly.
	That's a good point.
	All of the footage, of course, shows Rittenhouse running away from the people who were attacking him.
	The high-profile Rittenhouse trial has now ended its second week.
	Rittenhouse 18 is accused of intentionally killing Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and wounding gross crowds during a night of chaotic unrest in August 2020 in Kenosha.
	So you can see immediately there is a certain level of framing going on, or reframing, of the event.
	The shooting, of course, you may be aware, was that of Jacob Blake, who was initially characterised as having just been shot by the police for having done nothing.
	When it in fact turned out that he was, I think, going for a knife or had a knife and had already been tased by the police and it had had no effect on him.
	And then the resultant canosha riots were all about basically rising up against continued police brutality against...
	Well, what they considered to be continued police brutality.
	What they considered to be quite right.
	Yeah, and so shooting him seemed to be the last line of defence that they had, and he has ended up paralysed as a result.
	And here's how they characterised that moment, that glorious moment, that we just watched there.
	So, right-wing and pro-Rittenhouse media seized upon the moment and celebrated it as a crucial victory for the defence.
	Well, yeah.
	It's a pretty damning bit of evidence, a bit of testimony right there that the man himself admitted.
	And also, it's strange to me that they would characterise it that only right-wing and pro-Rittenhouse people would see that as a crucial victory for the defence.
	I would say that anybody who doesn't have an ideological lens that they're trying to view it from would have a...
	would share that view, anybody who's not trying to bias this implicitly.
	And then it goes on: "The trial this far has been polarizing.
	On the left, Rittenhouse is seen as somebody who was out looking for blood in Kenosha that evening, whereas on the right, he's viewed as a teenager who killed in self-defense.
	In some far right corners, Rittenhouse is actively treated as a hero.
	I mean, judging by all of the evidence that's been presented so far, all of the testimony and the videos that have been available for well over a year at this point, where basically every angle by this point of the incidents has been documented and posted online...
	It does look like he was killing in self-defence because these people were attacking him.
	And those treating him as a hero, this is just me putting forward their perspective.
	The two people that he did kill, one was a paedophile and the other was a convicted abuser.
	And Grosskreutz himself admitted on Monday to having been a revolutionary who also has some convictions in his past as well.
	So you can't exactly call these people that he shot angels.
	Is there any mention of that in the Vice article at all?
	I don't believe the Vice article mentions those characterisations.
	I mean, once again, instead of mentioning Grosskraut's previous convictions for, I think one of them, this may be speculation on my part, but I'm pretty sure I saw one of them was him at 18 assaulting his grandmother so that he could get money off of her.
	What a lovely bloke.
	But in Vice, he's just a medic.
	He's just a medic out to try and help people.
	So you can see how the mainstream is trying to spin this.
	So as much as a white pill as it may seem that the prosecution isn't doing the best job, There are people out in the mainstream and out in the public who are getting this side of the story, which is not characterising what's going on accurately in the slightest.
	But now, moving on to Day 6, once again, a lot of the information that we've got here is from this website, Legal Insurrection, who are doing a fantastic job of covering it, and also a lot of the information I was watching last night, the Day 6 proceedings.
	So, first of all, the state, being the prosecutors, brought out their last two witnesses for their case.
	Obviously, this is the point where they go, I arrest my case, Your Honour, to try and put forward the argument to disprove that Kyle was defending himself from assailants.
	They're trying to put forward the argument that he was purposefully going out to try and attack.
	They've also used other lines of arguments such as that he was part of some kind of organized militia who were going out there to try and purposefully cause damage and incite violence so that they could attack people presumably and just attack peaceful protesters.
	Where's the evidence for that?
	Well, exactly.
	I mean, certainly none of the testimony is going to provide that kind of evidence.
	But first off, Rittenhouse's curfew violation charge had been dismissed.
	It doesn't really matter that much, but it is nice that they dismissed that, because there was a curfew in Kenosha that night, and I don't think anybody stuck to it.
	I mean, if you're going to charge Rittenhouse with that, you might as well charge Gage with that as well, because guess what?
	He was out there past curfew as well, so...
	Same charge.
	Yeah, there you go.
	But the first witness they brought out was James Armstrong, who was an imaging expert brought on to testify regarding the footage that he improved, which I believe was the HD FBI drone footage of what happened, which supposedly had been lost, but must have been found behind a sofa cushion at the FBI somewhere, because initially they said that footage doesn't exist anymore, and then all of a sudden, bam!
	There it is, and this guy came out to testify on behalf of what was in that footage, as well as just review the footage with everybody.
	It wasn't that eventful, it was kind of just showing the same sorts of things that we'd seen before.
	Anybody who'd watched the Rittenhouse videos, it wasn't really any new information.
	Although it did provide a fantastic new view in HD of Rosenbaum very clearly chasing after Rittenhouse.
	And then Rittenhouse trying to get away from him and having to turn around, and then Rosenbaum very clearly lunges for him, at which point Rittenhouse opens fire on him.
	So it's just another clear-cut case of self-defence.
	As far as I'm aware, I'm not a lawyer, I'm not a legal professional, but as far as somebody who is a layperson, who is in the jury, could see that it looks like self-defence to me.
	Yeah, the sequence of events would suggest that that was a retaliation out of fear for his own life, which is definitively what's self-defense.
	Yeah, the second witness they brought out that day as well, who I must remind you is the last state witness, the last witness on the prosecution, surely you'd want to end with an absolute slam dunk.
	I mean, I'm sure they were hoping that Gage would be that, but it turned out to be a slam dunk for the defense instead, was a man called Dr.
	Doug Kelly, who was the medical examiner who did the autopsy on Rosenbaum and Huber, both being the people who died.
	So, this article states that, In
	short, sut marks are generally found only when the muzzle was within a few inches of the wound, and gunpowder stippling only when the muzzle is within four feet or less of the wound.
	In one example of Krauss, who is one of the prosecutors from the state, pressing Dr.
	Kerry to lengthen the distance at which Kyle fired, in the video of the shooting of Rosenbaum, a rather large cloud of smoke could be seen coming from the muzzle of Kyle's rifle.
	Wouldn't all that smoke mean the stippling found on Rosenbaum might have travelled a much farther distance than is typically the case, Krauss suggested, and that therefore Rosenbaum could have been farther from Kyle when shot than the other evidence might indicate?
	Kerry hesitated, then replied that Sutton Gunpowderflex have the kinetic energy needed to travel and mark a target.
	The smoke does not.
	Which indicates that that line of questioning, as with most line of questionings that the prosecution have taken over the course of this, is a complete dead end, because they're just wrong in whatever assumptions they made.
	They would have maybe known this if they had test-fired the rifle, because they have access to the rifle that Rittenhouse was using that day, but they did not.
	They did not test-fire it, presumably because they didn't want it to provide any evidence against their case.
	No.
	Another trend throughout this has been that they have made every opportunity to bring that rifle out for extended periods of time, which I can't really speculate on myself, but Rakita Law and others have speculated on, being that they're just trying to bring it out to scare the jury with, ooh, here's the gun that did it, ooh, look at this!
	And then also it is very obviously for publicity photos as well, because those photos of them examining the gun are going to be exactly what all of the press release in the articles such as the one by Vice.
	And regrettably it seems to be working, doesn't it?
	Well, if the coverage by Vice is anything to go by, absolutely.
	But yeah, on cross-examination by Defence Council Richards, Kerry testified that the gunshot wounds and injuries on both Rosenbaum and Huber were entirely consistent with the men being in a position of attack upon Rittenhouse when they were shot.
	Even the fatal shot to Rosenbaum's back, which was likely inflicted when the aggressor made a diving lunge at Kyle's rifle.
	So one of the things they were trying to press on was, oh, one of the bullet wounds entered through his back, but then this guy just came out and was like, well, yeah, if he was lunging in a lunging motion, the trajectory of the bullet could have entered his back in that way.
	In particular, the suck pattern on the right hand of Rosenbaum suggested that it had been on the muzzle of the rifle when the hand was shot.
	So, it's pretty open and shut.
	His hand was basically on the muzzle, so it says everything it needs to be about the proximity he was to Rittenhouse at the time.
	And that wraps up the prosecution's case after basically just confirming evidence that we're all already very, very aware of at this point to anyone who's been paying attention to the case.
	Gotta say, as far as I can tell, they didn't really put forward a strong case.
	But then, now we've moved on to the portion where the defence are able to bring in their witnesses.
	And so far, honestly, if the prosecution has not been doing a great job of putting forward their own case, the defence is doing a great job of smashing it even more.
	So the first person they brought out was Nicholas Smith, who was one of the people that was with Rittenhouse defending CarSource, which was the business that they were defending.
	The car lot that the initial altercation with Rosenbaum took place in as well was that CarSource.
	So he was there with Rittenhouse and the other member of the group that they were with.
	So a key value of the appearance of Nicholas Smith was his testimony indicating that the CarSource owners had explicitly requested, gratefully accepted, and offered to pay for the protection and assistance of himself, Kyle, Ryan Bouch, and others at the CarSource location that night.
	Further, he testified that the owners had provided the protectors with keys and other means of access.
	to the properties, and that would include pointing out where the ladders were so that they could take the ladders onto the roof so they could get more of a bird's eye view to protect it.
	Smith would work alongside Kyle, Ryan Balch, Jason Lukowski, and Joanne Feidler, the next defense witness, who we'll get onto in a moment, amongst others to accomplish precisely this.
	Smith's testimony was vastly more credible than the confused testimony of Sal and Sam Kindry, the owners of Carsource, who had been state's witnesses on behalf of the prosecution.
	And they had presented a testimony on behalf of the state in which they ridiculously purported to have no particular knowledge of all of these armed men on their properties.
	Very, very strange thing to try and argue there.
	Just a bit.
	Smith also testified about Kyle's shocked demeanor in the aftermath of the shootings and his urging of Kyle to turn himself into the authorities, which of course Kyle had already attempted.
	I believe that the police have said that they just thought he was another passerby trying to wave them down, which is why they waved him away rather than took him in, and which he would later do that evening in nearby Antioch, Illinois, which I assume I pronounced that So basically he just corroborates all of the evidence that has been very obvious up to this point anyway, and also refutes the testimony of the two owners of the car store, who for some reason decided to say, oh, all these armed people protecting our business had nothing to do with us.
	We didn't have anything to do with this.
	Why would we want to have people protecting our business during riots?
	The mind boggles, doesn't it?
	Exactly.
	After this, they had brought on the second defence witness, Joanne Fiedler, who was honestly fantastic.
	Many people have started referring to her as based grandma because she was not taking...
	When they cross-examined her, she was not taking any of the prosecution's nonsense, and it was fantastic to watch.
	Here it says, Fiedler,
	who might be described as a little old lady, which I'd say is an accurate characteristic, was presented as patriotic and civic-minded, which does a fantastic job of dismantling the prosecution's characterisation of this as some kind of armed militia force that they've been trying to use as evidence that they came there with malicious intent.
	Yeah, this is just a far-right coup.
	Yeah, exactly.
	But yeah, she testified about how some of the protesters outside the castles were aggressively seeking to provoke a physical confrontation, urging her to put away her gun, a.380 caliber pistol, and come out onto the street, getting increasingly angry and strident with her when she refused to repeat their own fist-in-the-air power salute and so on.
	From watching it myself, she was saying that they were basically pretty friendly until she refused to do the, you know, the fist thing, at which point they started to get very angry.
	They felt compelled to bully an old lady.
	Yeah, that's great characterisation of it there.
	She also testified extensively about the antics of Rosenbaum, including his apparently throwing an object moments before the protectors found themselves in the victim of a gas bomb attack.
	So from what she said was that she saw him with what appeared to be a bottle in his hand, lean back and throw it.
	And then immediately after him throwing it, something went off that caused her to have water streaming down her eyes.
	Something was irritating her face and eyes very, very strongly.
	And this actually corroborated directly with what Nicholas Smith had said in the previous testimony, which was that while he was on the roof, a bottle gas bomb had landed on the roof and exploded and sort of provoked similar reaction from them.
	So it's very, very interesting.
	She also confirms what others have said, which is that Rosenbaum was actively antagonising the protectors and rioters and shouting the N-word BLM protesters, which does not sound like somebody who is there to protest racial injustice.
	Not in the slightest, no.
	Yeah, and the cross-examination by the prosecution was pathetic, and they brought out a script that I believe had been written by the FBI of some testimony that she'd given to them, or by the police of some testimony that she'd apparently given them in the days after the incident went down, and they just presented it to her, and they were like, do you recognise this?
	And she just looked and she went, I've never seen this in my life.
	And then he was very obviously quite flustered by this because his entire line of questioning just went out the window.
	And he actually became increasingly aggressive towards her, in fact.
	And he kept trying to put words in her mouth and saying things and putting her in situations and places that she hadn't been.
	And when it gets to the point where the cross-examination by the prosecution leads to her saying, no, I did not, no, I didn't do that, no, I never said that, about ten times, you've got to think how that's going to affect how the jury is thinking about the credibility of the prosecution's case.
	I know exactly what they'd be thinking here or near enough.
	My God, they're scraping the barrel here.
	Yes, that is exactly what it appears to be.
	So, she looked fantastic in front of the jury, I can only imagine.
	And then this next witness is a very, very important one, which nobody was expecting to be very important, especially after Fiedler came out and kind of...
	Tanked some of the prosecution right there.
	But the third defence witness was a man called Nathan de Bruyn, who was a photographer on the scene of the riots who took the photo of Rittenhouse, where he was quite famous at this point, the one where he's scrubbing all the graffiti off of the wall that became widely shared after the events happened.
	As I say, he turned out to be much more important than you'd expect because of the photos that he provided.
	Many of the photos and personal observations de Bruin had taken of Rosenbaum engaged in conduct that was helpful to the defense and harmful to the prosecution.
	Need an eyewitness with photos to testify about Rosenbaum holding a chain, probably threateningly?
	He had it.
	An eyewitness to testify about Rosenbaum's threatening violent, provocative conduct towards others needing to be held back from attacking.
	That's Nathan DeBruin giving that testimony as well.
	Once again, that all just lines up with everything else we've heard about him, including him actively asking people in the street to shoot him.
	Which is very strange behaviour.
	He was also saying about how he had just got out of prison that day.
	This was part of the testimony.
	And he was not afraid to go back.
	Which speaks somewhat to malicious intent.
	Eyewitness testimony of Rosenbaum tipping over porta-potties, dragging a trailer that would later be aflame into the street.
	Hearing Rosenbaum scream, here you go, that he'd just got out of jail and wasn't afraid to go back.
	Seeing Rosenbaum get angry when the dumpster fire was put out, which I believe might have been Rittenhouse himself putting that out with a fire extinguisher.
	And then hearing Rosenbaum shout, F the police and shoot me N-word repeatedly.
	Yeah.
	This Nathan guy provided all of this testimony, which just corroborates everything else.
	He also said, needs someone to testify that he saw Huber strike Rittenhouse repeatedly with a skateboard, which many of you have seen if you've watched the footage, but this is just great to have another eyewitness testimony confirming it, that Huber had then fought for control of Kyle's gun, which I believe was what led to him being shot in the chest because he managed to yank it to his chest when Rittenhouse pulled the trigger.
	Yeah.
	That Grosskreutz had approached a fallen Rittenhouse with a gun in his hand, which is all very obvious if you've seen the footage.
	So this all looks terrible for the prosecution, but this was not anywhere...
	None of this was anywhere near as bad as what happened when the prosecution decided to cross-examine Mr.
	DeBruyne, which I think this can only be shown really...
	Here you've got Ian Armstrong reporting on it.
	It can only really be described by just watching the footage of it.
	If you just play that, John...
	Did you mention in the room when you met with me and Mr.
	Binger and Ms.
	Beezy?
	Yes.
	Is it fair to say that you were very nervous?
	Absolutely.
	You!
	And we did have you read over your statement, right?
	Correct.
	And we asked if you knew anything beyond that statement.
	Correct.
	We didn't ask you to change it.
	Yes you did.
	So there you go, right there we have, under oath, Nathan de Bruyn testifying on the cross-examination that the, for whatever reason, the prosecution had asked him to change his statement, presumably falsifying it.
	You can only imagine that seems to be the implication there.
	So if you're a jury, that just makes everything the prosecution has said, everything the prosecution has done, look very, very suspicious and highly motivated.
	There was a fourth witness who was a man called Lucas Stein, but he didn't really provide any info that we'd already got.
	He provided some phone footage that was incredibly blurry and hard to make out, so it was very difficult.
	So, that's our coverage of day six of the Rittenhouse trial.
	We probably won't return to this for a few days until we get a few more of the defence witnesses in, unless, of course, they drop anything else that is as juicy as that.
	Yes.
	So, there you go.
	It all looks like it's going pretty well for the defence.
	It looks like it's going absolutely perfectly.
	It looks, from my perspective, to a layperson, that we've only had the defence so far, and yet the defence has literally only just started.
	Yeah, we've had all the prosecution bring everyone forward, and it's looked like the defence have been putting their witnesses forward because of the way that they've just been tanking the case.
	I'm not sure if you know anything about this, but these events whereby the jurors were being actively intimidated...
	Has this been mentioned in the court process at all?
	I am not aware.
	It seems to have been addressed by the judge.
	I can assume that was him addressing it in the court process.
	Sorry, excuse me.
	I can assume that he's addressed it, but there has also been similarly to what happened with Chauvin earlier this year.
	There have been social media posts by people saying that we need to get the right result, and you know what they mean by the right verdict.
	And that there will probably be consequences if we don't get the right verdict.
	So, once again, seems to be a certain level of intimidation.
	And they've also been saying stuff like, oh, we can find the jurors.
	Like, there have been people taking photos.
	We'll be able to find the photos of the jurors.
	So, that does worry me a little.
	But hopefully...
	If justice is to be done, Rittenhouse will walk free.
	Yes, it certainly does look that way, doesn't it?
	Hopefully.
	Let's hope that this continues to be productive, fair, and just, and of course the right outcome results.
	But I'm afraid we must now move on to something a little bit more...
	Existential, I suppose.
	We have to return to...
	Must we?
	We have to return to Facebook's transformation, its metamorphosis into meta, and its announcement to ban sensitive topics.
	This just sounds mask-off to me more than anything.
	It just sounds like, well, this is what...
	I mean, not necessarily, actually, because Facebook seems to have been the one social media platform, as much as I don't really like it, that has done more to push back against the censorship than, say, Twitter has.
	Not that that's a particularly high bar to cross.
	It's not, and it's far from perfect, needless to say.
	But if we can actually just remind ourselves, have a look at Zuckerberg's metaverse, it is this.
	Which is basically just a virtual reality for its users to immerse itself in.
	It's a metaverse that will let its users socialise, learn and collaborate and play in ways that go beyond what we can imagine so far.
	It just sounds like a Nintendo Wii, but nevertheless.
	And of course, well, he's actually gone...
	He's actually gone further recently to say that he wants to use this as a means of monetizing high education, which is going to be a feature of the metaverse.
	Well, would that be being able to virtually attend lectures and stuff like that?
	Because I know that that's been something that people have been able to do.
	He wants to place this right at the heart.
	Of how the academic institutions are functioning.
	If we can get the next article up that goes into a little bit more detail.
	At a video presentation, Zuckerberg outlined the ways in which the metaverse could revolutionise life, of which education is a key part.
	Psych.org says, learning would become an immersive experience.
	By donning glasses or a headset, students could visually teleport to any place or time.
	They were, of course, referring to the metaverse itself.
	Wait, what, did they use that?
	Yes.
	Language?
	Yes.
	He's made it perfectly explicit that this is, well, he's obviously acting as the corporate orator for the company.
	He, needless to say, is the director of it.
	But this is ultimately its vision for setting itself above the competition.
	Yeah.
	I don't know.
	I mean, I'm aware of this.
	I have covered a little bit of this before.
	And my primary worry with the whole thing is that there is big conjoined interests between big media conglomerates like Facebook and at the moment with government as well.
	You've got people like Nick Clegg involved in some marketing branch of Facebook.
	He's the head of some marketing branch.
	And there's a lot of other members of governments in suspiciously high places.
	Yeah, within these kinds of large media conglomerates that Facebook and Twitter are turning into, and it just makes me worry, will this just be pushing exactly what the establishment elites want to be pushed?
	It also makes me worry...
	With the level of censorship that already goes on on social media, if you're part of this, surely one of the primary reasons for a higher education is to be able to engage in honest questions.
	I know anybody who's aware of the university atmosphere at the moment may not necessarily feel that that is the case, but that should be the case.
	And surely these kinds of virtual reality lectures that you could potentially attend, I would assume it might be something like that, Would just open themselves up to further censorship in the future.
	Yes, and well, it's a direct opportunity for what's being taught to be in strict alignment with the industry close to Facebook.
	They'll draw you in with free offers of critical race theory classes or something like that.
	As cynical as this may sound, I honestly think that this language that Zuckerberg has used may have been intentional.
	And if it was intentional, I'm afraid to say that it seems to have worked because the corporate world really is buying into this.
	So we can get the next article up.
	Of course the corporate world is...
	So NVIDIA is really, really getting...
	is really buying this and wants to jump on this bandwagon.
	So what they say is ultimately the major takeaway...
	Is NVIDIA's intent to increase accessibility, AI technologies and immersive experiences available for any enterprise that wants to pursue innovation in these manners?
	And of course, they have said on the side that they see the multiverse as a potentially effective platform for battling climate change and other forms of social injustice.
	But really, they just want a piece of this pie, don't they?
	Oh yeah, I mean, it's going to presumably open up a potential, if it's successful.
	My main hope with this is that it just crashes and burns, because it seems to be advertising itself as something similar to Second Life and other such programs, which in the past have had varying levels of success.
	I'm just going to hope it turns out to be an incredibly well-funded VR chat, personally, with loads of people running around as Ugandan.
	Knuckles.
	As do I. But do you know who else is interested?
	Samsung.
	Let's have a look at Samsung.
	So Samsung announces its next-gen RAM for phones and the metaverse.
	So it's quite literally announced that it wants to develop, I imagine, its RAM based around this new innovation from Mark Zuckerberg.
	Okay, so for all of my hopes that this will crash and burn, it seems that a lot of large-scale companies want to put a lot of money and investment into making sure it doesn't.
	Well, that would...
	I mean, that would be potentially the most optimistic way of looking at it.
	That is, that there are interests to try to almost resist...
	Just how draconian this could become.
	But really, this has probably got much more to do with profits, hasn't it?
	Oh yeah, that's what I mean, that Samsung and other such big companies are going to put, by the sounds of it, if they're doing next-gen RAM phones, and the metaverse are going to be putting a lot of effort into building up the infrastructure for this to ensure that it is successful, so that they can profit off of it.
	Yeah.
	Sadly, they're not the only one.
	The list goes on.
	The next one is Peter Jackson.
	Who had sold his special effects firm for $1.6 billion to invest in the metaverse.
	I mean, why is Peter Jackson getting involved?
	Has Peter Jackson been relevant since 2005?
	He did The Hobbit films, but they were kind of rubbish.
	Did he also do Planet of the Apes?
	Yeah, I think that's 2005 is what I was referring to.
	I mean, the special effects unit for The Hobbit was not particularly fantastic from what I remember.
	And since then, what's he been up to?
	I don't know.
	So this is maybe just his way of getting involved in something big.
	But I don't understand what kind of interests he might have in this.
	He wasn't enduring any troubles within the company itself, was he, to my knowledge?
	What, with Facebook or the company that he just sold?
	No, no, with the company he's just sold.
	I don't even know what it was called.
	I'm not aware.
	I'm assuming that, given it was worth so much, he was probably renting it out for use by other large studios the same way, that if you've got a big special effects firm and you're not doing anything with it right now, why not just let other people use it?
	So I find it funny that he would sell something that would presumably be incredibly profitable for him for the sake of investing in this metaverse.
	Yeah.
	But the South Korean government are game for it too, as it turns out.
	Hmm.
	So, a conglomerate of government and private interests.
	Yes.
	But I'm afraid it gets arguably not worse, because this next one is a little bit more trivial, but it's still kind of strange.
	Justin Bieber.
	Justin Bieber.
	Why?
	So he can find new ways to torture us with his terrible music?
	Please.
	Yes.
	But he's basically...
	We can get the link up.
	Oh, I was absolutely right.
	Yeah, it had been announced as follows.
	How rubbish does that sound?
	It sounds straight out of the 90s.
	Techworld's trendy new conception of cyberspace.
	But nonetheless, they continue to frame it as the groundbreaking collaboration which will give fans a futuristic look into the metaverse, which looks surprisingly like a Nintendo Wii console, merging gaming, real-time motion capture, and live musical performance into an immersive, interactive experience.
	Needless to say, I will not be tuning into that.
	Neither will I. I assume it will be Zoomers tuning in, as always.
	But yeah, that just sounds like a big cash grab to me, to be perfectly honest.
	Getting on the ground floor of this big new thing so that you can see if you can make a load of money out of it.
	And if it does fail, I suppose, to Bieber and other such people, it probably won't have cost that much.
	Unlike Jackson, Peter Jackson selling his massive business so that he could get in on this.
	The harrowing thing is, though, I imagine Justin Bieber's supporters are probably going to be, well, silly enough, to put it quite frank, to invest in this and actually get enjoyment from it.
	Maybe I'm being a bit of a snob here.
	Well, I'll be a snob.
	They're Justin Bieber fans.
	Let's not assume any grand intellect coming from them.
	No.
	No.
	But we must return to the subject of the segment, which is Mark Zuckerberg's decision to ban targeted political adverts.
	He's going to do this by preventing advertisers from targeting people based on sensitive topics, including politics, race and sexual orientation, to prevent the advertisers from abusing the targeting options we make available.
	Very ambiguous language, isn't it?
	Very ambiguous language.
	I will say that if they are going to do this, I certainly hope that it's on all sides of the political spectrum.
	Not that I'm particularly hopeful that that's how it's going to fall, but if they were to approach this in a fair manner, that's what you would expect.
	Not that Silicon Valley approaches political matters in a fair manner.
	If I'm honest, this is a very, very unsurprising press release, really, isn't it?
	Because Facebook has been under pressure, as with all the other big tech companies, to get in line.
	I mean, the European Union is very much doubling down on this.
	Yes.
	Wasn't it Sacha Baron Cohen, of all people, who came out and said that if Facebook was around in the 1930s, they would have been running adverts for Hitler and other such rubbish straw men, where people like Sacha Baron Cohen bore at trying to call somebody out for publishing offensive content.
	So what this is saying, really, is in the grand scheme of things, not very much.
	I mean, it has this go on to say that advertisers are still going to be able to target adverts largely based on topics such as age, gender and location, but especially on the subject of gender, you can see how contentious that could get, given that it's a purely arbitrary matter these days.
	And Facebook's Vice President, Graham Mudd, has also said that in the new year they're going to use the platform to help people curb their gambling habits as well, which is a little bit random.
	And given that social media addiction is a massive problem, what, are they just going to replace one addiction with another?
	Maybe.
	Yeah.
	It's almost...
	It kind of makes me laugh, really, to see gambling companies actually almost self-advertising just how bad their own trade is, but this is almost...
	The fact that Facebook are now trying to make something of this just kind of deepens my misanthropy a little bit.
	I don't have much trust in companies like Facebook to do the public any good.
	No.
	But shall we see what Verge thinks about this proposed clampdown?
	Oh, shall we?
	Yes.
	Well, it's actually surprisingly...
	Well, I shouldn't be surprised at all.
	I can't pretend that I am surprised.
	They're very pleased.
	And the reasons are as follows.
	Meta, if we scroll down a little bit, the new name for the parent company that oversees Facebook and Instagram suddenly wants to be less creepy.
	I don't see this as a deduction of creepiness.
	Yes.
	According to a post on the Meta for Business blog, the company is blocking advertisers from using detailed ad targeting options that show ads based on your engagement in sensitive areas including race or ethnicity, religious views, political beliefs, sexual orientation, health and a whole lot more.
	The meta emphasises that detailed targeting options aren't really based on your physical characteristics or personal choices, rather they're what advertisers think you might be interested in based on your activity.
	Even still, detailed targeting can still be harmful.
	Needless to say, they've made, I suppose, a subtle point about the fact that they haven't actually attached this commitment to any actual content of what could be deemed offensive.
	I suppose to a certain extent there is an idea being put there that, well, it's probably more accurate to target people based on what activity they seem to be displaying, their behaviour, rather than any immutable characteristics, because your immutable characteristics will not necessarily...
	Yeah.
	But just to sum this up, really, I mean, there are a lot of reasons to be concerned by Facebook, but this particular press release is not one of them.
	It's entirely a PR exercise, really.
	And it's almost certainly related to the concerns that have been raised by, of course, Facebook's recent whistleblower, Francis Horgan, I believe.
	Yes.
	So I think we should keep an eye on precisely what form this clampdown assumes, but for now, let's suspend judgement.
	But now we must move on to a rather creepy doll.
	Yes.
	Sadly, anybody who's been paying attention to COP26, the climate summit going on in Glasgow at the moment, may have been aware that it's starting to look a little bit cultish.
	So, as far as I can tell, I'll get into the details of why I have come to this conclusion.
	It seems to me that there is being a concerted effort to try to interconnect climate change.
	Many of you may have seen this as well.
	With basically every other potential hardship people might experience throughout the world and they are trying in essence to create a climate intersectionality.
	They're trying to wrap climate into the progressive stack.
	For instance, how you would quantify, you know, oppression due to climate.
	I don't know, but they're going to try and do it anyway.
	So we've had earlier on this month, last month, and basically through the second half of this year, organisations like Insulate Britain and Extinction Rebellion causing trouble, holding protests.
	I mean, the Extinction Rebellion protest that was held in London earlier this year just looked like a gigantic rave to me, but I'm sure they thought they were doing something useful.
	I'm sure they thought that.
	Yes.
	But it all seems to have been a push to agitate for...
	Specific goals that they wanted to push world leaders to strive for.
	COP26 ends this Friday, so at the moment there is a final push being made by world leaders to try to attain those goals.
	And just to make sure, we're not really going to talk about whether or not our opinions on climate change or anything like that.
	I'll leave that to the scientists.
	They know a lot more about that than I do.
	So please, YouTube, don't hurt me.
	So let's just first take a look at what is actually going on at COP26. So this is CNBC's coverage of it.
	So they say here, just as a quick update of what's been going on, the UN's climate agency has published the first draft of the political decision countries will issue at the end of the COP26 summit.
	Negotiators from nearly 200 countries will work from the draft known as the cover decision to strike a final deal before the summit ends on Friday.
	The seven-page draft agreement focuses on adaptation, helping countries deal with the effects of climate change and finance, a controversial issue because poorer countries accuse richer countries of not contributing enough to help them tackle climate change.
	Why that's our problem?
	I don't know.
	The draft decision calls on countries to revisit and strengthen the 2030 targets in their nationally determined contributions as necessary to align with the Paris Agreement temperature goal by the end of 2022.
	It also emphasized the importance of multilateralism and the crucial role of internal cooperation in tackling climate change, and includes sections addressing science, adaptation, mitigation, and finance and technology, among others.
	Yeah, there are many things to pull up here, aren't there?
	Yeah, well, there's a lot to go over, but I don't claim to be an expert in any of these subjects, so...
	The one thing I would interject, or would like to interject about, Is quite how much impoverished nations are apparently asking for help.
	Yeah.
	I mean, there are all these big questions.
	I mean, that is something that I will get into in a moment in terms of how certain groups from certain cultures are trying to put the onus on, you know, larger countries like, well, more wealthy countries like us in the US to do something, do anything.
	It says here, yep, the draft agreement also calls for countries to accelerate the phase-out of coal and subsidies of fossil fuels.
	It is thought to be the first time that fossil fuels have been targeted in this way, although it does include specific targets or end dates.
	The landmark Paris Agreement does not mention fossil fuels.
	Well, the thing is here, I don't know if they've been, you know, had these people involved in this have their finger on the cultural pulse, but for me, for the past decade and a half, ever since I was really in education or started to pay attention in education, they've been banging on about fossil fuels and trying to phase them out.
	So I don't know where this is coming from.
	I mean, this whole thing, as with many things, seems like a glorified backpack.
	This is something you'd expect to have been published, what, 20, maybe 30 years ago, not in 2021.
	Once again, not making any critical comments on climate change itself, I just more want to point out the absurd behaviour of a lot of the people involved in this summit and outside of the summit.
	We also had, speaking of absurd behaviour, we had Greta Thunberg showing up to lead thousands at Youth Climate March in Glasgow.
	So she branded the COP26 a failure, saying that the people in power need to wake up.
	Now, I've seen a few people covering her outside of the climate summit, and it's basically just her making the same kinds of speeches that you expect.
	Not enough's being done.
	They're ignoring our voices.
	We need to speak up.
	The youth of today must make our voices heard.
	All that sort of stuff.
	Oh, and screw the British now.
	Oh, almost certainly.
	I didn't necessarily hear that specifically, but I imagine there were a few of those sentiments being bandied about.
	It's about the Industrial Revolution specifically, but that's inseparable.
	But I mean, the whole point is that even when the whole plan from politicians, when you actually see about what they're talking about, seems to be a complete restructuring of society as we know it, in terms of how things are organised financially and technologically...
	Greta Thunberg and her folks don't think that's enough.
	We don't just need to restructure society.
	I'm sure she would probably argue against my characterisation of this, but she seems to be one of the doomsayers who says we need to tear society down, as far as I can tell.
	It says here the climate activist was speaking after she walked with thousands of people, including many children, got to get the children first, get them quick, on a protest march in Glasgow.
	Organised by the school strike movement Fridays for Future, the demonstration moved from Kelvin Grove Park through to George Square and was the biggest protest seen so far during the COP26 climate summit taking place in the city.
	So she found a very clever way of getting all of these kids their Fridays off school.
	Excellent job, Greta.
	Very well done.
	Making a big difference here.
	Which is going to be very popular among some for all the long reasons from this.
	And that's some of the stuff that's going on outside, but it doesn't really compare to some of the absurdities that are going on inside the summit.
	Oh, God.
	I think to really demonstrate this, it needs to be seen to be believed.
	So, John, if you could play the clip so we can get a nice big full-screen image of it.
	So, for those of you listening rather than watching, we can currently see there is a gigantic we can currently see there is a gigantic Wicker Man voodoo doll on the stage at the climate conference who is supposedly a representation of a 10-year-old Syrian refugee called Amal.
	And it is my absolute pleasure to stand by and stand with little Amal today.
	How is this not nightmare fuel?
	Before we share with you all today, we'd like to share something with each other.
	I brought Amal a say, which is a flower like the one I have in my ear to represent hope and light and it is my pleasure to gift it to her.
	Oh my word.
	You know what would have made this better, if I could say one thing, is if you had Radiohead Burn the Witch playing in the background.
	A little bit, I can see that.
	And what they've done is the woman, who is a Samoan woman speaking, gave a flower to this gigantic, creepy, chucky doll, basically.
	I mean...
	That just looks so cultish to me.
	That looks like they've even got a person inside.
	Are they about to...
	At the end of the...
	On Friday, when Cop finishes, will they burn this monstrosity with him inside of it while doing some kind of pagan dance?
	That's my question.
	I mean, it just seems so absurd.
	This does...
	You've seen The Wicker Man, right?
	The 70s classic?
	Yes.
	Yeah, and sorry to spoil this for anybody who hasn't seen that version.
	Don't watch the Nicolas Cage version.
	At the end, they burn the giant wicker man, as you'd expect, and they all do a creepy little dance with massive smiles on their face and Christopher Lee's singing a cheery song.
	And it just reminds me of that.
	It just seems so creepy and weird.
	How do you not see that that is making you look creepy?
	Is perhaps this an expression of the utopian future that they envisage, just a return to paganism?
	I mean, potentially.
	And you may wonder to yourself as well after seeing that.
	So that was Little Amal, is what they call it.
	What is Little Amal?
	So I found it here.
	So Little Amal is a 3.5 metre tall puppet of a 10-year-old Syrian refugee who was visiting COP26 in Glasgow from November...
	So it's a big thing about supporting refugees, which is where you start to see all of this start to wrap into the intersectional mindset, where it's a big refugee push.
	I mean...
	Why they think a gigantic, creepy voodoo doll will help with their optics, I don't know.
	Especially given that most people, I'm sure, wouldn't have as much of a problem with mass immigration and taking in refugees if it was abused 10-year-old girls and boys coming into the country.
	But from what me and Carl covered yesterday, you can see on the Belarus-Polish border, it's mainly adult men...
	Working age, strong adult men coming over, claiming to be refugees.
	So if little Amal actually made an appearance at the border, she'd probably be one of the only females there.
	Probably.
	I mean, not barring the man operating inside of her.
	Of course, yes.
	But yeah, every other photograph that we've always seen en masse of people immigrating en masse is primarily working age men.
	So the message doesn't really hit that hard for me.
	No.
	Shockingly enough.
	John has made a joke that I feel like YouTube may not enjoy, so I'll skip past that.
	So you can see, once again, there's the joining together of the mindset of refugees, and for some reason this gigantic refugee doll is making an appearance at a climate conference.
	I mean, if she's supposed to be Syrian, I'm pretty sure the Syrian refugees are fleeing a civil war, not just a particularly hot summer.
	So I find it very confusing.
	But then let's take a look at what else they're trying to connect with climate change.
	So if you skip along, John, we can see this here.
	I'm not going to play the clip because it's Nancy Pelosi.
	I don't need that right now.
	She's talking about how Build Back Better and Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework recognizes the interconnectedness of climate change and gender justice.
	Our legislation advances our mission to decarbonize and realign every sector of the economy.
	And what that leaves out is that immediately after she says that, she says that it's all in the name of achieving net zero globally, and she also says it is a model of collaboration that brings together public, private, and non-profit sectors.
	Now, think back to a time in the 1930s, even before that, where there were people saying that one of the primary facets of a particular ideology was the joining of the public, corporate and global government kind of establishments together.
	And it starts to sound a little bit sinister to me.
	It sounds like Fritz Lang's Metropolis.
	A little bit.
	I mean, to me, it just sounds like fascism, personally, in a more classical sense.
	Essentially, it is.
	Because, of course, all of this will be controlled under the guiding hand of Big Daddy government, their creepy Uncle Joe's government.
	Oh, God.
	Yeah, to make everything okay for you.
	And then that's how Pelosi and others are sort of approaching this from.
	They're wrapping it into gender justice for some reason.
	How the climate is affecting women's issues or transgender issues, I have no idea.
	They just throw these things out to wrap them all together so that most people will understand this is a bad thing.
	And then I have recently been scrolling through some Instagram stories from people within the media, and one of the people I follow on Instagram has been attending COP26, and on his story I saw this, John, if you could pull up the image.
	I took a screenshot of this just because of how ridiculous it was.
	Are you able to get that up, John?
	Here we go, yeah.
	So this is from Glasgow, and you can see here it's a group of people.
	For anybody not watching, it seems to be an image of a group of people standing around, presumably by a river, and the caption that has been written here is quite beautiful.
	I met an indigenous tribe from Canada on the train in, and talking to them was possibly the most eye-opening experience.
	They kindly invited me to their water ceremony they performed.
	These tribes protect 80% of the world's biodiversity.
	I'm going to need a fact check on that one, if we could.
	It seems very just assertive, rather than providing any evidence to back it up.
	Yeah.
	I'd like to know the nature of this water ceremony that they're talking about as well, because that would affect the claim about biodiversity.
	Yeah, I mean, what a water ceremony will do to help the environment, I don't know.
	It sounds like voodoo magic to me.
	But it continues.
	Yet they are rarely given a voice on climate issues, as companies funded by world banks and governments murder these people off, destroy their land.
	As they said, imagine, imagine how it would feel to have someone burn your house and steal your possessions.
	Change starts with education and action.
	It's time we all did more.
	Just absolutely ridiculous post-colonial nonsense right there.
	The governments are not murdering these people.
	They are not destroying their land.
	And if you want to talk about people being indigenous, these people have come all the way from Canada to come into Scotland, a land that has indigenous people within it, otherwise known as the Scottish...
	To tell them how they should restructure their society.
	And you're complaining about you not being given a voice on climate issues.
	As much as I complain that all this pop stuff just seems to be a load of the world leaders patting themselves on the back and telling them, well, job well done.
	Your guys' solution is to do a water ceremony.
	I mean, what do you expect?
	I mean, good God.
	But yeah, so this is obviously, once again, wrapping in the ideas of post-colonialism, intersectionality, gender troubles, and all that sort of stuff into the climate narrative, which is making it to me, and many others I'd imagine, seem more and more and more like a cult.
	Yes.
	Yeah, so that's about all I had to say on that.
	You know, no comments specifically on climate change, just that the people at these events, and especially surrounding these events, seem mental to me.
	Just a little bit, and they don't seem to be very well attuned to the virtues that they want to be espousing, just given how contradictory the things that they're advocating are.
	But I do have to run one question past you in general, and it is a big one, but I think it's at the back of a lot of people's minds at the moment.
	Pusin didn't attend COP26. China, well, I think President Xi sent someone to COP26. I'm not aware if President Xi sent someone.
	In fact, I was under the impression that he had not sent anyone and that China was not attending.
	Yeah, well, he hasn't been outside of China since coronavirus.
	That's unsurprising.
	But do you not think, given that, well, I suppose China are probably, if we're serious about dealing with the climate issue, They do produce 27% of global carbon emissions, meaning that they do almost double the next biggest emitter, which is the US, who produce 15%.
	The UK and other such countries produce 1%.
	So how much can we do to combat...
	We need them at the table, if we're serious.
	Given their abstinence, do you think this could be the beginning of the end of COP altogether?
	No.
	Or at the very least, it's conversion into what is just an unashamed act of intellectual posturing, really.
	Or mixed in with weird fetishes about wicker dolls.
	I mean, just on the basis of the fact, as you say, there's a sense of intellectual fetishism going on, of all these people showing up, I'm pretty sure Attenborough and other people are there, showing up to go, ooh, look how much we care, look how smart we are, we care about problems in the world.
	I don't think it's going to end.
	I mean...
	For anybody paying attention, it should look ridiculous.
	But for all of those actively involved in it, they're going to keep doing this sort of stuff.
	Whether or not they actively involve the sort of people who make the most contribution to the problem that they're trying to fight.
	Bohemian Grove reborn, maybe?
	Maybe.
	Let's go to the video comments.
	You do come down.
	Give us a little stand-up set.
	Oh boy, you are going to be held to that now.
	I've never done a live comedy bit in English, but for you guys, I'll do the effort.
	And I swear, I'll be funnier than Hannah Gadsby.
	If they are not laughing at my jokes, they will be laughing at my potato accent.
	That sounds fine by me.
	I mean, once again, the Hannah Gadsby thing, not a particularly high bar to cross.
	But I would like to see that.
	If you ever find yourself in the UK, hit us up.
	Yes, I'd love to see that as well.
	Let's go to the next one.
	I've always resented the claim that, well, you know, philosophy, that's all these abstract ideas, has nothing to do with the real world.
	Come on.
	If there's one thing that history has proven is that ideas have consequences.
	American scholar Richard Weaver wrote a superb book on this very subject, attacking nominalism and suggesting means by which Western civilization can be recovered.
	There are more pertinent quotes in this book than possibly put in a simple 30-second review.
	It is compulsory reading, I suggest, for everyone.
	Interesting suggestion, thank you.
	If that's anything to go by, that video clip is anything to go by, I'll have to read this book, because ideas almost certainly do have a causal power, and what we are seeing in the case of the left is a fetishisation of progressive action.
	Yes, I absolutely do agree that ideas do have consequences.
	I'm currently working on a video that I think many of you will appreciate out there, working on the script, and it is very much coming from the basis that the ideas of intellectuals, as abstract as they may at first appear, do trickle down into greater society, because we have their students learn them, and then they go out into the wider world, and then they propagate the ideas naturally.
	You know, culture is downstream from the academics, sadly.
	Well, the French Revolution is a case in point.
	It was effectively facilitated by the, you could say, the middle class-ish intelligentsia, who, having hold over...
	It's always the middle class.
	I should probably leave this to Bo to discuss an epoch at some point, so I'm not the historian here, but...
	Well, you do your philosophy stuff, so you've got a good grasp on the philosophical foundations of a lot of these ideas.
	Yeah, that's true.
	But in any case, let's go to the next one.
	I realize my comment yesterday is recommending why you guys should come do an event in the Lehigh Valley, but by the time that finally comes, I will not be in the Lehigh Valley.
	I will be living out near Chaz.
	The good news is, since I announced that I would be potentially moving to Chaz, I've had two different Lotus Eaters reach out to me and offer to meet up, so this is a very great and friendly community.
	One upside to being in the Chaz area is when all the riots start up in the next presidential election cycle over police killings, I'll be able to get a lot of good footage of it, because you know it's coming.
	Well, should the opportunity arise, I'd love to attend both.
	Yeah, I mean, if you do manage to get any footage when those inevitably arise, be sure to send it through to us first so that we can get the absolute cutting-edge breaking news put out there.
	And also, that's wonderful to hear that there are a few Lotus Eaters reaching out to one another out in the wider world.
	Fantastic, isn't it?
	Excellent to hear.
	I love the community that we've got here.
	Yeah, me too.
	Let's go to the next one.
	Hey guys, I just wanted to give a second Christmas movie recommendation and that's The Family Man.
	It's a 2000 film starring Nicolas Cage about a businessman who has it all and except for a family and then on Christmas Day he wakes up to find he's now got a wife and kids and he gets to experience another life for a few weeks and ultimately finds the value of being a husband and a father.
	That is wonderful.
	I am aware of that film.
	I've seen bits and pieces of it throughout the years, primarily because it's probably my dad's favourite film.
	Really?
	He watches it constantly, or at least he certainly used to, to the point where my mum got sick of him putting it on.
	But it's probably one of the only films out there that will make my dad actively cry.
	Or at least shed a tear, just because of the fact that, you know, I can understand how, to somebody like my father, that idea of not having a family and then discovering what it's like to have a family and the meaning that that can bring into your life would hit really hard for him.
	Yeah, but it sounds like a wholesome movie.
	It's a very wholesome film, and people like to make fun of Nicolas Cage, but when you get him in a role where he's actually, well, I mean, he tries in every role, to be fair...
	But when you get him trying in the right way, he can give a fantastic performance, and he does do a very good job in that film.
	Oh, certainly.
	Let's go to the next one.
	Rosenbaum was right there in front of my face, and he goes, you know what?
	If I catch any of you guys alone tonight, I'm going to f***ing kill you.
	Did he say that to the defendant as well?
	The defendant was there, so yes.
	Well, he said f*** you, and then he reached for the weapon.
	It wasn't until you pointed your gun at him and he fired.
	Right?
	Correct.
	Oh, shit!
	That's it!
	That's it!
	Yeah, that.
	His face.
	Sorry, did I do something wrong?
	There's one thing missing from that video, and that is the base glasses on Carl Rittenhouse.
	The based glasses?
	Is that what they're called?
	Oh, the deal with it glasses.
	Oh, yeah, I get what you mean.
	The thug life stuff.
	Yeah, I mean, once this is over, it's only been all of the prosecution's witnesses so far.
	Once we've had all the defence witnesses, I'm sure there's going to be some great moments as well.
	There's going to be some amazing compilation supercuts of best of Rittenhouse trial witnesses.
	And no doubt we're going to have so much fun covering it.
	Oh, yeah.
	Let's go to the next one.
	Oh, alright, I can break it for a one ball.
	There we go.
	Oh, fine.
	I'm really enjoying this one.
	We've broke him, gentlemen.
	No, no, no.
	One exception will be fine.
	It begins!
	One day later...
	All my audiobooks and e-books are available for download from my website, so go and check it out.
	We will.
	Good shout-out there.
	Excellent.
	They can't have both of those pints.
	No, I had the other one.
	Did you?
	Yeah, I had the other one.
	Did you not notice me get a little bit surlier than usual in the afternoon yesterday?
	No, you seem the same to me.
	Oh, fair play.
	I guess I must just be quite generally surly in the office then.
	No, I've not drank other than that pint since the beginning of lockdown, so that hit me a bit harder than I was intending.
	And Carl broke keto.
	Oh no.
	Yes, John did it.
	Yeah, I have a confession to make.
	I chose the beers.
	Any damage that was done is my fault.
	Oh, we get to blame Thomas now.
	Yeah.
	Shame on me.
	Carl's regretting you already.
	Yeah.
	Let's go to the next one.
	Pony D and Little Joan here with a rant on fan fiction.
	I hate fan fiction.
	I think it's bad for you.
	I think it rots the brain if you do it too much.
	You know, if you're a kid or you're just starting out and you want to do a little bit of it for practice, I get it.
	But if you want to actually put that out there on the internet, I think it's a bad idea.
	I talk to young writers who...
	Continue to write fan fiction and then lament nobody reads their original stuff.
	And I think that's because it's the literary equivalent of Coomerism.
	I can honestly agree with a lot of that right there.
	Let's not forget, though, there are some absolutely fantastic works of fan fiction out there, like, what was it, Fifty Shades of Grey?
	Was it Twilight fan fiction to begin with?
	No, it's not good.
	What would be a definition for fan fiction?
	Fan fiction would be somebody...
	Oh, I see.
	For instance, Sonichu.
	Are you aware of Sonichu?
	Yes.
	I'm sorry.
	Sonichu is fanfiction of the Sonic and Pokemon universes.
	And to be perfectly honest here, let's just be honest, guys, right?
	Unless people are writing original comic books, everything within the Western comic book canon, past the initial run of the person who created that run, could technically be classified as fanfiction.
	Okay.
	Sad to say.
	Yes, and stop mutilating Sonic, please.
	Let's go to the next one.
	Hey, Lotus Eaters.
	I was going to do this video outside, but it's raining.
	This celebrating one-year anniversary of Lotus Eaters.
	So I don't really have any questions.
	I'm just wanting to wish you guys a happy birthday, technically speaking, and wish you guys good luck and good fortune to the years to come.
	Well, we can accept that on the Lotus Eaters' behalf, given that we are part of it.
	Thank you very much.
	And we are very, very glad to have you as a loyal viewer and someone who supports what we do.
	We really appreciate it.
	And we say that to everyone who supports us individually.
	Great little hair flick as well there, by the way.
	Yeah, fantastic.
	I hope you enjoyed your cup of tea or coffee.
	Or whiskey, who knows.
	Or whiskey, yes indeed.
	Right, shall we move on to the comments?
	Yes.
	I'll cover Rittenhouse comments.
	So, Free Will 2112, I cannot see how the USA can recover from this huge political divide which has got so deep and ideological now that even evidence of objective facts is no longer enough in a trial where it seems that guilt or innocence is now based on one's political affiliation, not what actually happened.
	Yeah.
	That's got a lot to do with the media.
	I mean, the second all of this came out about Rittenhouse, it was the media politicising it.
	I don't know necessarily...
	I imagine the protesters on the ground probably would have done something similar, despite the fact that none of the alleged victims were black to begin with.
	But I do agree.
	I don't see the...
	I wouldn't necessarily say that the US can't recover, but I certainly don't see how it can recover, sadly.
	The crux of the matter is, really, the media has already decided which way it wants this to go, absent fact.
	And the second you're in that position, there's absolutely no way you can give it fair coverage.
	Yeah.
	And to be fair, if we were to try and start a way to clear out all of the Malaysian rot that's going on, I would say, first of all, clear out the academies of all the intersectional wokesters.
	That would be my first step, personally.
	Moving on, I have a theory as to why Grosskraut is a former paramedic.
	In order to work in EMS as a paramedic, you need to pass a criminal record check and a vulnerable sectors check as you deal with the most vulnerable populations that carry narcotics.
	Okay, I don't really know what you've heard there, sadly.
	I thought Derek Chauvin was overcharged for political purposes.
	Sadly, even though I think Kyle has a much more rock-solid defence, I think he could still be thrown to the lines for political purposes.
	We have seen how they still have the January 6th people in custody for months.
	Check out my premium video on that if you'd like to know exactly what they've been up to.
	If Kyle gets done for murder, I think the mask is off, and if you're not on the left, you won't get justice.
	I cannot see how he can be, given the state of the prosecution.
	Well, there was a potential motion to pass the rendering of a verdict onto the judge, which I think is sort of like routine for American courts to do.
	But it appears as though that may have been passed on because so much evidence has already been presented that it needs to really go down to the hands of the jury.
	And the only reason I could see Rittenhouse actively getting a guilty charge would be due to intimidation of the jury, sadly.
	But that is always a possibility.
	I mean, it seems to be what happened with Chauvin.
	As far as we know, we don't know that any BLM activists are on the jury for Rittenhouse so far.
	But, you know, they might just wait until after this is all passed by to reveal it.
	actually.
	Kevin Fox, as well as someone filming the jurors, there's been something online from one of either Blake or Floyd's relatives threatening the jurors that there are cameras in the courtroom and they are being watched and should think carefully about what verdict they reach.
	Yes, that's what I was referencing, actually.
	You are correct.
	I believe, if I'm not misremembering, it was George Floyd's nephew.
	So, another wonderful upstanding member of society coming from the Floyd family right there.
	I don't think that's a bad assessment at all.
	Yeah, and everybody's been pointing this out, that most people in Kyle Rittenhouse's situation, especially at 17 years old, would not have been so regimented with their use of the trigger.
	I know most people, if I'd been in that situation, not that I'm particularly knowledgeable about firearm usage, I would have been praying spray, you know?
	He's a young teenager.
	Being actively pursued by a mob.
	By a paedophile.
	Yes, yes.
	What on earth can you expect him to do?
	I know, I know.
	It's shocking that this has gone to trial as far as I can consider, but that's how this has all fallen.
	Callum Dayton, Rittenhouse, medic, concerned citizen and friendly neighbourhood friend.
	What normal good people see.
	The left, a Nazi group member, slave-owning, innocent, masquerading, murdering arsonist.
	Yeah, my own eyes tell me a very different story to the left, and the nuts trying to jail Rittenhouse should be checked, not him.
	I mean, yeah, one of the things that this court case has brought to life is that, if anything, the people who were pursuing and trying to hurt Rittenhouse were the ones in the wrong.
	How Gage Grosskraut is not the one being tried for attempted murder of a minor, I don't understand.
	His own testimony has clarified that, yeah, he shot me because I pointed a gun at him.
	And what would you...
	What would you say that somebody pointing a gun at a 17-year-old who then has to shoot you in self-defence is guilty of?
	I would say they'd probably be guilty of, at the very least, assault of some form.
	How old is Grosskraut?
	I believe he's now 28 years old.
	That's some difference.
	Yeah, that's some difference.
	He's at the sort of age where he should know better to go old man on him, despite being younger than him, but okay.
	"S.H. Silver, Rosenbaum didn't get out of prison.
	He got out of a mental hospital for suicidal behaviour.
	Running around saying 'shoot me n-word' makes more sense now." Yeah, you're right actually.
	It wasn't prison.
	I think you are correct that it was a mental hospital.
	No one was running around asking BLM protesters to shoot him while he was shouting the N-word.
	Wow, what an upstanding protester.
	It does raise eyebrows whenever you hear that people are admitted for suicidal behaviour, doesn't it?
	Mm-hmm.
	I mean, is that...
	Suicidal behaviour, there doesn't seem to be an implicit justification of being released from hospital for that reason.
	Well, I mean, certainly in this case it doesn't, seeing as he went out and immediately started to pursue suicidal behaviour.
	So if anything, it seems that he got what he wanted.
	He got what he wanted.
	He certainly got what he deserved.
	I'm just wondering how the hospital thought, right, this guy's suicidal, so he must be mentally sane, so he must release him.
	Yeah.
	That obviously wasn't the process, but the caricature of it.
	Moving on, Chris Wolfe.
	The prosecution seems to have some shady tricks, like intimidating an autistic man and trying to get him to change his statement.
	Oh yes, Nicholas...
	Oh my goodness, I've forgotten his surname.
	The first defence witness that they brought out.
	I didn't know that he was autistic, I knew that he had a speech impediment, but I did know he had something up with him.
	So if he was autistic and they were trying to get him to change his statement, I mean, he says himself that the atmosphere in the meeting he had with the prosecutors was horribly uncomfortable.
	That's really scummy behaviour right there.
	They were also trying to submit testimony that was simply taken from the notes of a detective.
	I believe that's what Joanne Fiedler makes mention of when they hand her the paper and she goes, I've never seen this before.
	And they're just like, oh god, what do we do now?
	Oh god.
	Yeah, they were trying to get someone for perjury by lying and saying that the person made a sworn statement.
	Yeah.
	Omar Awad, the most amazing thing about the whole incident in Kenosha isn't that Kyle is a good boy who did nothing.
	It's that he's an exemplary young man who did everything so right to such a degree that most people couldn't have done better.
	Once again, yeah, that's just reaffirming what I've already said.
	I couldn't have done better.
	I don't know many people who could have done better, especially at 17 years old in such a high-stress situation.
	Before he even got into those altercations, he was wandering about the streets saying, anybody need a medic?
	So if that doesn't say all it needs to about his intentions when he was on the street level, I don't know what else does.
	No.
	Well, his crime ultimately is just being on what the left perceives to be the wrong side.
	Yeah.
	He was shooting against people who could be perceived to be on the side of the protesters.
	Therefore, he's an enemy.
	The protest was BLM. Therefore, anybody who's an enemy to BLM is a white supremacist.
	You can see how the logic turns.
	Yeah, and despite the fact other people that he encountered...
	And who he was forced to act against all happens to be rather deplorable people, is somewhat pushed to the side, all in virtue of combating white supremacy.
	Yeah, definitely not just to write it, but okay.
	So we move on to Meta.
	Right, so all this metaverse crap makes me think they want to recreate the oasis of Ready Player One fame, just with the corporate six overlords already in charge.
	The most memorable line in the film that strikes me right now is a board meeting where the evil guy in charge is stating we can sell up 84% of a user's visual field without causing seizures.
	That sounds like Facebook will write.
	I'm not familiar with the film.
	I'm not either, but to be fair, the Ready Player One comparisons have already been thrown about in the office, and someone made mention to that I think they mention, apparently in the film, it's like, 90% we've found out definitely causes seizures, but 84%, that's the magic number.
	Yeah, but nonetheless a good description of what Facebook is turning into.
	It sounds like something that these Silicon Valley organisations will do.
	Yeah.
	Harry Gman says, I'll take authentic experiences in the real world over being in a pod plugged into a phony reality created and controlled by tech oligarchs.
	Yes, so would I. Absolutely, I will.
	If you're plugged into the pod, I'll be out having a lovely walk in a forest.
	Yes, but if you are an obnoxious leftist and you want to go and do that anyway, then please feel welcome to do so.
	Yes, that'll mean the streets will be clean and we'll be the only ones outside.
	It'll be wonderful.
	Yes.
	So Anon Immy says, Is this Facebook metaverse or just metaverse in general?
	It is genuinely a big thing in crypto and NFTs.
	NFTs.
	NFTs.
	Oh, are you not aware of the NFT thing?
	I'm not, you have to inform me.
	I don't know how they were.
	I think people were trying to sell them off as digital artwork on a blockchain so that you're only able to sell them off to one person and they were going for ridiculous amounts of money.
	But the whole thing just looks like a scam to me.
	It does look like a more broad metaverse in general.
	It's just Facebook are the ones taking the opportunity to make the claim to being the innovators of this next stage in the human race.
	They're the ones with their hands on the reins.
	So yes, I agree with the point.
	It is a metaverse in general, rather than just Facebook's metaverse, or at least I really hope there aren't...
	No, why not just open this up to competition?
	I was actually going to say that.
	Facebook monopolised...
	If the companies are going to do this, I mean, Facebook's going to have so much money and power behind it.
	Yeah, open it up.
	I don't want a monopoly.
	I was about to say, please no more, but actually, could more actually...
	And as long as they all tank, I'm fine with it, to be honest.
	Well, whichever makes them tank would be my choice.
	So, Robert Longshaw says, Oh, meta, who will decide what is sensitive?
	Good question.
	Oh, the same people who work for Silicon Cabal, who currently dictates what we can and can't say on the internet.
	Oh, and they expect us to spend all our time on meta, all our work and personal communications through the platform.
	Nice.
	Yes.
	Yes, because naturally they'll end up monetising everything.
	Mm-hm.
	You can live in a sphere in which every single one of your interactions and potentially every single one of your thoughts is being monitored at all times.
	We already live close enough to a situation like that, so I don't want to dive deeper in, thank you very much.
	What Mark Zuckerberg wants, ultimately, is you to have to pay to think about getting yourself out of bed.
	Maybe, yeah.
	Even though it's not a real bed.
	so Jimbo G says I keep banging the drum in my day my day to day life the internet has major Jeff Goldham in Jurassic Park energy we were so preoccupied with whether we could we never stopped to think of we should if we should I think that should be obviously I'm not anti-internet but I truly believe it plays with your mind in ways we aren't addressing yet the metaverse is just steering further into that will Gen Z ever have a sense of reality I have to be honest I fear for them well
	I mean Carl's got his video on Gen Z out at the moment and one of the things that he does address from what I'm aware is the fact that they are the first generation to not remember a time before the internet I mean, sadly, I'm close enough to Gen Z to also not really remember a time before the internet, but you can escape, and you can escape by going outside.
	I know it's a bit of a meme, but touch grass, it's a good thing to do, to just go outside, experience nature, experience...
	The real world and disconnect from all the BS. And please do you fall better for it.
	Yes, and please watch us.
	We will keep you inoculated from all that.
	We certainly will.
	Callum Dayton says, Metaverse to ban sensitive topics.
	Define sensitive topics, Silicon Valley.
	I do want it in writing and on video games.
	Information is ammunition.
	Absolutely.
	Based Ape says, so Zuck plans to both create a place of education and learning, but also mass ban on information.
	I can't wait for the next generation of self-assigned, educated elites.
	Neither can I, ironically.
	George Hap says, could a possible right-side Zuckabuzz matrix be that if all the normies and leftists join it, all the base people will have more opportunities to live their lives undisturbed?
	And I think that is the best possible way to end the questions for this segment, because that's exactly what the best outcome could be.
	Alright, let's go through some of the COP26 questions.
	So, Kevin Fox, COP26 is not only a waste of time, fuel really an 85 motorcade, Joe, that's true.
	He brought a big, massive 85-car-long motorcade into Scotland for this, which is really going to do wonders for carbon emissions, I'm totally sure.
	But totally pointless when the biggest polluter, China, is not there.
	These morons don't have the power or spine to force the world's biggest polluters to change their ways.
	Yeah, I can only really agree there.
	I don't even necessarily think that they don't have the power.
	America certainly could do massive damage to China by putting all sorts of sanctions on them, they just don't have the spine to do so.
	Free Will says, Chucky and her followers are not interested in practical solutions to climate change problems, as they reject all the practical solutions proposed, including nuclear power, as blah, blah, blah.
	They are instead conducting an ideological crusade against the West, whose ultimate goal seems to be some kind of medieval, Malthusian socialist sackcloth and ashes with reparations for all those we have harmed, despite years of Western societies providing billions in aid to the global South.
	Absolutely agree with every single statement made right there.
	This all does seem very Malthusian.
	If anyone's familiar with Malthusian economics, it's that idea of the tipping point when the population outstrips the ability to provide resources for it, and then all of a sudden society and the world will crash, which doesn't, when you actually put it into models, I'm pretty sure, doesn't actually work out that way.
	Unless you open the borders.
	Oh, yeah.
	Unless we open the borders for all of these, I'm sure, very well-intentioned, well, young men by the looks of it.
	Yes.
	Let's see.
	Jimbo G, I actually feel a bit bad for Greta.
	Her childhood has definitely been stolen, but not in the way that she thinks.
	I'm glad I wasn't thrust into the limelight by my parents.
	When she makes a mistake, as many young people do, the eye of Sauron will be upon her.
	Yes.
	Yes, it will.
	I'm watching at all times.
	Student of History, international welfare because we need to pay for the third world to play catch up, ignoring the fact that we already subsidized a ton of their stuff, like their food.
	Absolutely true, but it's not enough, they say.
	Why?
	Because they want more.
	Presumably because they're corrupt leaders.
	Want more and more.
	Henry Ashman, I'm not surprised about the COP26 cult in all honesty, the two-tier setup being created where the elites can spend 800 person years of carbon each year to fly into Glasgow on a private jet to agree that the plebs should have a credit card with a carbon limit and forces to be cold, untravelled and miserable while we eat the bugs in our communal pod homes.
	The only way to sell that is to make themselves out to be as the holy climate priests of sun worship.
	Or they're failing because they're just coming across as weird creeps.
	Well, the sad thing is that if Greta Thunberg has as much influence as she appears to, she's getting to the children, so she's raising another generation of sun worshippers.
	Yeah, and as I alluded to earlier, giving them the right to have the day off school is a pretty good sales tactic, isn't it?
	Exactly, yeah, man.
	Baron von Warhawk, I'm guessing that Greta Dahl comes to life after midnight and begins lecturing you at knife point before cutting your throat for Satan...
	Yeah, I mean, surely it makes no difference if she cuts your throat after the lecture.
	You may as well have not heard the lecture.
	It's just for her benefit.
	Marcus Melville, how is Greta getting about?
	She seems to do a lot of travel for somebody who's concerned about climate change.
	I'm sure she's travelling about on a penny farthing, surely.
	Perhaps she swam across the aisle, David Walliams style.
	Yeah, or maybe she's using, I don't know, a swan pedalo across the English Channel.
	Maybe, maybe.
	Chris Wolfe, I still don't understand how they differentiate refugees and colonists for people who hate colonising institutions.
	They love instituting colonisation.
	And that's the argument that I would make, personally, that a lot of these people with malicious intent have been colonising, so to speak, our institutions for what appears to be decades now, probably since...
	Probably since the 1950s, 1960s, as far as I can tell.
	But good point.
	Just because I've noticed there is a question directed at me, I just want to go through it in the bonus comments.
	Well, first of all, thank you very, very much for saying that I'm extraordinarily comfortable in the camera.
	Trust me, it's all show.
	I'm sweating like a pig right now.
	Basically, the University of Salford, the curriculum has bits that you can pick and choose from.
	I primarily focused on radio and a lot of stuff that was a little bit out of the limelight.
	I would say that it has a lot to do with my personality.
	I've tended to be quite outgoing, and also just my experience.
	I've performed in a number of bands, so I am very familiar with making a fool of myself in front of a large audience.
	And I also used to run a radio station for my local community radio station.
	So, these are all skills that you can develop and get used to.
	I also did used to work in a call center, so that really does help develop your communication skills, I've found, and makes you a lot more comfortable in these kinds of situations.
	So, it's all just about the skill set that you develop as you progress.
	But it just goes to show that if you work at something, you apply yourself, and you, I suppose, want to make a positive contribution to the things that you value, you end up coming very, very close to that thing.
	Yeah.
	Yes.
	I would agree.
	Yes.
	So, Beggar Hero says, The Metaverse is just a gamer movie rated PG. Change my mind.
	What do you reckon?
	Sounds about right.
	I'd be very surprised if Zuckerberg lets anything PG-13 or above enter the metaverse.
	Yeah.
	Not that it'll stop people.
	Spadroon says, Dune at its heart is a warning about the power of charismatic leaders' chosen one fallacies.
	And zealotry.
	No wonder the left hates it.
	Yeah, well, I read on Vice that it's about Nazism and colonialism, so it's evil.
	This is my favourite honourable mention, though.
	Robert Longshaw says Greta needs to convince the kids and teens to get off their smartphones to save electricity and resources.
	Wait, what's that?
	She won't, because that's how the younger generations are being brainwashed via social media and such.
	Wow.
	Basically true.
	Basically true.
	And I'm afraid to say that on that note, it is time to end.
	Thank you very much for tuning in.
	We do appreciate it.
	It has been a very eventful podcast.
	We've had very good discussion today.
	Please do tune in to us at one o'clock tomorrow.
	We will be back.
	I hope you enjoyed the rest of your day.

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