Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

Dec. 28, 2021 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

01:31:58

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #294

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Teatars for the 28th of December 2021.
	I don't know if you heard us being about Warhammer Fantasy, or at least I was.
	But anyway, I'm joined by John.
	Hello Lotus Eaters.
	And today we're going to be covering Lindsay Ellis quitting YouTube, the dodgy data and the booster race, and YouTube picking a side explained.
	So the YouTube pick a side sort of, I don't know, movement, scandal?
	I'm not really sure how to describe it.
	And, well, they're all asking questions, which is why does YouTube hate us and not care about getting rid of nonsense?
	And I think I have the answer, so we'll look into that.
	Excellent.
	I look forward to it.
	Some things to mention first on the website.
	The first thing here being The War on Cars by Hugo.
	So I believe this has an audio track as well for people to listen in silver and gold tier.
	I presume, because I haven't had a chance to read, this is about the fact that the, well, let's say our government and probably every other government around the world at this point is trying to kill the car, which I don't really get.
	I mean, I don't know if you've seen the new changes to Highway Code, which are just mad, but...
	I think when the car first came out, or sometime afterwards, someone famously said that the car could only have come from somewhere like America, where you have big distances, where you have freedom and lots of individual homesteads and all this sort of American dreamy-style capitalism.
	So it's no surprise, really, from that perspective that they're phasing them out.
	Sure, but I just...
	It's also very much, I think they want you to be less and less independent.
	Yes, absolutely.
	Anyway, so go to the next one, if we go to the next one, which is Is Nigeria Coming Part?
	This is a republish, so Hugo wrote this back when they were going through a hellhole of a situation, and we now have the audio track there for Silver and Gold Tears to go and check out again, or in case you didn't check out...
	The audio track's not in a Nigerian accent, is it?
	I don't think Jonathan did it in a Nigerian accent.
	I hope not.
	If he did, it'd be quite funny, to be honest.
	I wouldn't complain.
	But then, I mean, you'd have to export that to everything else in the future, which might turn into a hell of a problem.
	Well, you have audio reader mightn't do a full tour of the world in 80 articles.
	Hugo's going to start writing about obscure places and be like, got to get the regional accent right now.
	Anyway, so we go to the next one.
	We have Critical Bass Theory number four.
	So this is Thomas, in which he did a video about what he's calling Critical Bass Theory and his stuff on that.
	So you can check that out.
	But anyway, we're running out of time.
	So without further ado, let's get into Lindsay Ellis quitting YouTube.
	So...
	Just making sure we have those...
	Yeah, no.
	I'm looking at...
	Because I can see, like, clips and what order they're in, so I was just making sure I hang on down to their honor clips for this one.
	Anyway.
	So, Lindsay Ellis has quit YouTube, and as we can see by this first tweet here, she is completely quitting.
	Like, not making videos anymore.
	Just, nah, gone.
	Not interested in doing any of that anymore.
	You may remember Lindsay Ellis, in case you have joined and do not remember.
	There's someone, Carl...
	Viewed a lot because she was making critiques of media and doing it a lot from a progressive perspective.
	Yeah, she was kind of more old-school YouTube, wasn't she?
	Yeah.
	With the whole nostalgia critic scene.
	But definitely a left-wing progressive perspective, constantly.
	And, well, it's a bit silly.
	And it garnered an audience for her of progressive leftists.
	And, well, they hate her now.
	Why?
	Because she made one tweet in which she said a thing that they accused her of being racist, which doesn't make any sense, as we will get to in a minute.
	But as you can see here, Lindsay Ellis is literally calling it quits because of that radio tweet this person says here.
	She has over a million YouTube subscribers and about 9,000 Patreon supporters, and her career couldn't survive one problematic tweet.
	That's what operating in this toxic space is like.
	And if we go to the third image on here, John, you can see the offending tweet for anyone who hasn't kept up with this nonsense.
	Lindsay Ellis, verified checkmarked.
	Also watched Raya and the Last Dragon, and I think we need to come up with a name for this genre that is basically Avatar The Last Airbender Reduxes.
	It's like half of all YA fantasy published in the last few years.
	There's nothing there.
	No, that seems like legitimate critique.
	I don't even know why I bothered reading it, because it really is just a nothing burger to anyone who's normal.
	But to the progressive leftists, this was racism.
	Wait, what?
	I still don't really understand why.
	I think they're trying to argue that she's comparing all Asian anime or whatever is similar to Avatar, and therefore that's racist or something, but...
	It's so opaque that, quite frankly, I even have a tough time keeping up with what this group of weirdos thinks.
	Anyway, so, I mean, just absolutely nothing.
	But also, I checked out the tweet and the subsequent tweets, and what's interesting going forwards is that there was, quite frankly, in my opinion, of her audience, it seemed like a subsection that were like this.
	I mean, I'm not a fan of progressive leftists in any of them, but the subsection that I saw being awful to her about this...
	We're a subsection, and not a majority, which I think...
	So just a very small minority of her audience that was toxic about this.
	From what I can visually see, but, you know, with such a large audience of 1.2 million subscribers that she has, then, well, I imagine there's a lot of tweets.
	Anyway, so moving on.
	So let's go to our full statement.
	Why is she leaving?
	Why does she give the reasons?
	Saying here...
	This was going to be a YouTube video, but I just don't have it in me to invite that kind of scrutiny.
	To be the last in the sick, sad line of YouTubers who get all weepy on camera and cry about how they just can't do it anymore.
	Boo hoo hoo.
	I had planned to move video content to Nebula, but I realised now that doing that is just keeping wounds wide open.
	My life ended nine months ago...
	I mean, good God.
	That seems pretty gloomy.
	Yeah, very gloomy.
	And one thing I didn't really make sense there is she's like, yeah, well, you know, subscriber count doesn't really matter.
	It's not a measure for success, but also my subscriber count isn't going up, therefore I failed, which...
	Seems like a contradiction, but whatever.
	And I think she's probably not in the best mental state writing all this, as will be made apparent.
	Many will say this is being melodramatic, that my life isn't over, that there was absolutely nothing stopping me from brushing myself off, building back up goodwill, and shutting up and playing the game.
	And I tried that.
	In a way, I suppose it's good that I did, because I needed to learn the hard way that was never going to work.
	There is no un-effing this.
	You can't find the energy if there is nothing left to convert it into.
	You can't be a better person if you are nothing but the hollow shell of one.
	I mean, she really thinks that her entire career is over on the basis that she seemed to have made a tweet.
	Subsection of audience were autistic in the extreme about how this is racism.
	But then again, I mean, progressive circles.
	What were you expecting?
	That's all they do is problematize things.
	Yes.
	So they've problematized her.
	And that has now led to her making multiple videos, which I'm sure people will remember Carl covered at the time, of her doing interviews and making videos about how these are her crimes and how it's silly that people are mad at her.
	To the point that she is literally now talking in the phrase of, like, my life is over.
	Yeah, this sounds like the words of a, I don't know, a checker agent who ends up in a gulag.
	They're just lamenting how they've been cast out by the great society, the great tribe that they used to be part of, and they feel like everything is over.
	I can see that.
	I just remember from a section of Gulag Archipelago where Solzhenitsyn remarks on some of the Czech agents who even was over getting shot were still like, you know, God bless the Soviet Union.
	Yeah.
	I'm just here by a mistake.
	I'm actually one of the good ones.
	And the fact when she says there is no un-effing this, it's like...
	There's nothing zeft.
	Yeah.
	That's what I don't get.
	In terms of the YouTube channel and everything, everything seems fine.
	She still has a big audience.
	She's making money.
	She can make more videos.
	So from the commercial side, that's really good.
	What's going on here is clearly psychological and social.
	Yes, it is what's happening to her head, which is that she is extremely in a bad place, shall we say, because of a subsection of her audience being retarded, which doesn't really make sense, but whatever.
	That's the world she lives in, and the audience she has.
	Well, a subsection there, at least.
	2021 has been the worst year of my life.
	I am traumatized by it.
	To this day, I still have people scolding me by how I handled it.
	This is all about a f***ing tweet, remember?
	Yeah, one tweet.
	This all seems to go back to.
	A tweet where the offence is so obscure that between the two of us we don't understand it.
	Nada.
	I literally don't understand.
	Okay.
	And she continues, that I should have handled it differently, that I should have controlled my stans as if I had the capability to know what any of these people were even saying to strangers on Twitter while I was S-ing blood for weeks on end.
	TMI. I don't know if she had some health problems going on as well.
	She doesn't allude to that ever again, so I don't know what's going on there.
	Okay.
	And she continues, Yep, this is a common tactic of this very toxic community, if you've seen some of the things they've written, which I'm sure we'll get into.
	And this is where I'm sort of wondering, have you learnt anything?
	Yeah.
	No one else does this.
	No one else is like, oh man, this guy's complaining, what a loser, because of his essential characteristics.
	Yeah, that's a good point.
	This is only a thing you ever see in progressive circles.
	Don't sit outside.
	I mean...
	And again, the unique thing about progressive circles, really, in a social context, is two things.
	One of them is that they focus on problematizing everything.
	So eventually they'll problematize you.
	Once you are the problem, you get on to the second thing, which is there is no route to redemption in progressive circles.
	You're guilty for all.
	Once you're guilty, that's it.
	You're done.
	There's no way back.
	Like she says, there is no un-effing this.
	Yeah, and she seems to have been in a place where she agreed with all that, and that was her social norms.
	It was great, both before she was problematised, she was loving it by the sounds of it.
	And now all of her social norms are out the window, which of course can cause quite the problem.
	Anyway, she continues, and she makes it explicit that this is a problem with her progressive circles, saying that I'm weaponising my fragile white womanhood.
	Anyone else use this phrase?
	Ever?
	Anyone else talk in these terms?
	No.
	No one ever does.
	Just progressives.
	Or whatever to the point out that having thousands upon thousands of people who you have never met hate you and say whatever will get them the most updutes about us about is, in fact, traumatising.
	That people I used to know would fragrantly lie about me on twitter.com to the tune of thousands of retweets and tens of thousands of likes and just had to sit there and take it.
	My favourites are the people who dismiss any potential harm I might have incurred as justified because I am a wealthy white woman.
	Open brackets, I'm not wealthy.
	Yeah, but you are a white woman.
	Not a problem for us.
	Problem for progressivism, though.
	And you know that, which is why you wrote it, and you understand the criticism from the progressives.
	It's the same criticism, but it's theirs.
	Well, the same people's hearts positively bleed for Britney Spears.
	It's just like...
	Like, we covered a few videos before, and again, and again, it was the same message.
	It was like, yes, these people are terrible.
	Why are they terrible to you?
	Because of progressive ideas.
	That's a problem, isn't it?
	And the lesson has not been learned.
	But also, I just, again, leading out that her life has been awful because of all of this.
	I mean, you got nominated for a Steamy Award from YouTube.
	Streamy Awards.
	Steamy Awards is probably something a bit different.
	I think ContraPoints actually won it, so maybe.
	So then she goes on to quote some essays, and I'm going to cut out a whole bunch of this, because quite frankly, it's just weird and not my space.
	And I'm sure Carl will be going in more deeply on some of this to address it.
	But she quotes an essay and she says in here, in the quote, One of the most common tools of exclusion is through mobbing, which is rarely talked about because unlike rape, murder, etc., it's not easy to pin it on a single person or scapegoat.
	Mobbing is emotional abuse practiced by a group of people, usually peers, over a period of time through methods.
	methods such as gaslighting, rumour mongering and ostracism.
	It is most documented in workplace academic environments, i.e. key points of capitalistic...
	Of course, capitalism is the problem.
	Capitalism Capitalism is to blame for this.
	That's where all this stuff is.
	And then, you know, it says, but it is thoroughly institutionalized into feminist, queer, and radical spaces as well.
	It's funny, it seems to be more prominent in these so-called feminist, queer, and radical spaces than anywhere else, because we just don't encounter this.
	It always comes from progressives.
	This mobbing, this dogpiling, this ostracism.
	It's such a weird, pathetic criticism as well, where someone's like, yes, workplaces and academic environments, key points of capitalist tension.
	As if you're trying to throw, like, ah, no, capitalism's bad.
	It's like, no, it has nothing to do with that.
	It's just signalling as well.
	They're saying, I'm still a leftist, guys.
	Academic environments, yes.
	Hives of right-wing thought.
	And also, notice the language is coded here, so you have to attack capitalism immediately before making even a slight oblique criticism of feminist, queer, and radical spaces.
	Yes, because I'm still of the left guise.
	I'm still a leftist guise.
	Exactly.
	Pathetic.
	It's just sad, anyway, but also has learned nothing.
	And then continues, number one, it has an unusually strong power to damage the victim's relationship to society because it can't be written off as an outlier, as some singular monster.
	It reveals a fundamental truth that people that make it difficult to trust ever again, people become like aliens, like a pack animal that can turn on you as soon as some mysterious phenomenon...
	Pheromone.
	Pheromone shift marks you for death.
	Yeah, this is one of the big problems of social media, I think.
	Like, basically what she's describing there is a kind of mass psychosis.
	Yeah, but also the idea that, oh, you can't trust people again.
	This is the de facto for strangers.
	Okay, just normal circumstances.
	The fact that for strangers is you don't know them.
	You have no idea if they're trustworthy, you have no idea if they're going to be nice to you.
	Yeah, but I would say in a healthy society, there is a middle ground baseline of trust where it's like, okay, well, I don't trust you, but I'm not going to instantly assume you're out there to kill me.
	But this is a unique thing we have created in civilised countries.
	Yes.
	Not the baseline of humanity, let's say.
	And that is a culture you can foster, and we have, essentially, in many a country.
	It's being eroded, but whatever.
	It's part of life.
	And in the modern age.
	And then she's like, yes, and this is the status quo or the default situation of being in a progressive circle.
	Yeah, whose problem is that?
	Because again, I mean, we've been able to make places where it's not like that everywhere else in society, but okay.
	No, they're literally acting like rabid, like a pack of rabid dogs.
	Yeah.
	I'm running out of a bit of time, so I'm going to skip over those couple of points there in which she just says that it's terrible.
	And I was just like, yes, being ostracized is terrible.
	I don't really know what to say to that.
	It's sort of basic, but whatever.
	Anyway, and she continues and says, for these reasons, PTSD is an almost inevitable outcome of any protracted mobbing case.
	And I still don't really understand...
	I disagree with that.
	I mean, I do suspect that PTSD is perhaps diagnosed more often than...
	Is practical.
	PTSD is properly applied to someone coming out of a war zone or something like that.
	High stress, intense situations or whatever it meant to be.
	I don't know these things, so I'm not going to say.
	A post-traumatic stress disorder.
	So if you're experiencing PTSD because of social media, then you need to really rethink your engagement with social media.
	Because, yeah, that's just ridiculous.
	Yeah, like, I don't get why she lets this...
	No one's firing bullets at her, as far as I'm aware.
	These, like, weird progressives get to her so much.
	I mean, maybe because she's like, you know, my own tribe's attacking me or something, and therefore she's more hurt by it, but then who cares?
	Like, they're not your husband.
	We were discussing it before the podcast as well, how this is kind of what we were talking about in terms of anime, and it's like, okay, well, you're in the in-group, so you have one set of social norms and rules that you have to live by, and everything's fine.
	But then as soon as you're ostracized, you're suddenly in the out group, and you have to suddenly learn how to live your life in this space with a completely different set of rules, where you can't just say the same things you said before because they'll be torn down and criticized.
	You have to completely change your mode of behavior, and it's very stressful, presumably.
	PTSD, I would imagine, is a little bit farther.
	And then, uh, but we'll move on, because she goes on to quote this essay some more, and says,"...feminist queer spaces are more willing to criticize people than abusive systems, because they want to reserve the right to use those systems for their own purposes.
	At least attacking people can be politically viable, especially in a token system where you benefit directly from their absence, or where your status as a good feminist is dependent on you constantly rooting out evil." Yes, this is why it is.
	It's because it's a religion, right?
	You have to proselytize, you have to preach the religion, spread the message in order to be a good person in this worldview.
	And that is fundamentally toxic.
	It's why the rest of the world has largely left it behind.
	I love how this kind of comes across as a leftist meme as well.
	It's just in oh so many words pointing out why living in a circular fire squad of an organisation is terrible.
	Yeah.
	Because, well, the firing squad ends up shooting you.
	Right, exactly.
	It's just like, yes.
	The newsflash, everyone else got there a long time ago, and it's why we've been criticising these people for decades.
	This is why the cringe feminist meme compilations were so popular.
	It wasn't because, you know, LaMau crazy lady.
	It was LaMau movement crazy.
	And everyone else got this growing up watching those videos.
	You know, the compilation of a 5'9 toe or whatever else.
	I presume Lindsay missed those or didn't get a chance.
	Anyway, so moving on.
	And this is where it gets kind of dark, let's say.
	So she goes on to say...
	What I wanted was to quietly disappear, but since this is a platform where people are paying me to make content, I feel like I have to make a statement.
	If it were just me by myself, I would just sign off and say goodbye and that would be it.
	But I have a team who depends on my company for health insurance, and including dependents, I supply full benefits for eight people.
	And here in the US, employer-based insurance is often the only feasible option, They probably do now.
	Yeah, but also...
	It's the internet.
	Everything is public.
	And again, this is what I find strange, but I guess if she doesn't have the stomach for it, fine.
	Then, okay, as she lays it out, Twitter makes her feel sad, therefore not going to do this anymore.
	Which, whatever, whatever, just leave it there.
	So the only thing I can do now is to keep this page active with the loose premise that someday I'll figure out something in the future to make up for all this.
	While asking you please stop messaging me apologizing for not being able to subscribe anymore, you don't owe me anything, this is Patreon, like my own life and career just running on fumes.
	And this is where it gets sort of like someone writing a note, which is quite dark.
	It's just like...
	Lindsay, you've got a husband, I seem to remember, and a life that is not random losers on...
	Very successful business, even with this harassment.
	Yeah, but you've got some losers on Twitter.com.
	You could just get off Twitter.
	It's not really a solution because, as you say, that's a group that she's still half in.
	That's the space in which her business operates with all these weird progressive groups.
	Her business can operate Twitter without her having to deal with it.
	Sure, but she's spoken about this previously, she doesn't like that solution.
	But it's just more the fact that I think you need to change your mindset to one that doesn't recognise these people as important to your life, because they're not.
	Yeah, they're absolutely not.
	And instead just be like, I don't care, go to hell.
	But again, that would push her more out of the progressive circle, so then she's doomed, isn't she?
	Well, who made that bed?
	But all I know now is that being in the public eye at all is a losing game, and I regret all of it.
	I regret every time I've stood up for myself, it always backfires.
	I regret every time I pushed back against something unjust, it was always just used to hurt me.
	I regret every time I stood up for myself, I never did it correctly.
	I regret every time I showed any vulnerability, just more ammunition to be used against me later.
	I regret every time I ever tried to play the game with my peers and colleagues, they will drop you the second you aren't popular on Twitter anymore.
	So she's saying that it's basically...
	Progressive internet is basically a false clique.
	Yes.
	Basically.
	Of, like, insect-brained people who, as soon as you're not popular, they just drop.
	Yeah.
	They're only there to use you like some kind of sap in a tree or something.
	Yeah, I mean, literally the skaven, actually.
	It's not a big of a...
	At the end here she says, it's all hollow and brittle, and if there is one thing I have learned this year, it's how...
	It is how...
	I can't read that word.
	Eminently expendable.
	Eminently expendable she is.
	Which, yeah, comes off as her, again, talking very bad, which...
	Why do you let this bother you so much?
	I do not know.
	And I think you need to reassess how you're interacting with these things, as you said.
	But then she just kind of ruins it by ending up with this.
	The good progressive cis-straight wealthy white men keep on trucking and coming out on top because deep down they know that the systems they profess to stand up against ultimately exist to benefit them.
	Learned nothing, did you?
	No, no.
	I mean, that's why I'm sort of out of sympathy, which is just that if someone cannot go through all this, realise that all of this is just a downward spiral in which they will end up being shot themselves, everyone else figures this out, but okay, you're there, fine, you're learning, that's good.
	And then right at the end, just ruin it.
	Just completely ruin it.
	No, it's coded language in the end.
	Like, she thinks she can say the same old things she used to say when she was in the in-group, and everyone will smile and clap and laugh, and she'll be...
	No, it doesn't work like that.
	No.
	And she's inculcated this worldview, much like the checker agents and the gulags, which thinks, oh, it can't possibly be the system that's the problem.
	It's just a few bad people.
	It's not the party, it's the people in charge of the party.
	It's an administrative mistake.
	It's not...
	No, it's not.
	Like, it's built like this, and it's doing that to you because of the way it's built.
	Anyway, she ends this off saying, and to all the people telling me I need to grow a thicker skin or remove my fowl from the conversation altogether, you are right.
	I don't have it in me to do the former, so I should do the latter.
	And then disappears.
	Hope your New Year's is better than this.
	Whatever.
	Okay, so that's her leaving.
	What was the response to this?
	Did any of the, like, weird progressives learn anything?
	Did they have a bit of self-reflection?
	Maybe think, oh, have we been a bit too hard on a dear old Lindsay here?
	I mean, you literally have...
	I mean, it's weird, but you have harassed this woman to leaving her entire job.
	Tell you what, maybe this is where the famous empathy of the left reasserts itself.
	Hmm.
	Nah.
	Nice.
	Let's go to the next one.
	And there are loads of stuff like this, but we won't waste too much time on it, because I'm sure...
	There are a million examples and other people have more time for it.
	So this lady here, Howard Sickle in the bio, of course.
	Has Lindsay Ellis considered the possibility she's a kind of whack-ass bee?
	And if we go to the next one, Lindsay responds to this.
	The only valid take, she says.
	And people are like, how did you find this?
	People are wondering.
	So we go to the next one.
	Well...
	The only way you can find it is by looking for your name, people reckon.
	I think they're probably right on this one, but as you can see, a response here is some checkmark.
	Judging from your Patreon letter, these sort of comments face deeply hurt you.
	So maybe don't name search, as in look up your own name, and then find people who don't like you.
	Because, I mean, you're saying this is driving you to the point you have to leave your job.
	I know it's easier said than done, but you're basically cutting yourself every time you do it.
	There's a world where you don't see it, so it doesn't exist.
	Live in that world.
	Seems like reasonable advice.
	Than one of your husbands and meals and, you know, going to the park.
	Economic prosperity.
	Just normal life is what I'm getting at.
	Like an authentic world.
	Physical things, not screen stuff.
	Anyway.
	Moving on.
	So let's go to the next one, which is some reporting on this.
	So as you can see, there are some outlets starting to be like, you know, this is a story.
	And yet, it's all based on the last Airbender tweet, which again, nothing burger, but whatever.
	Not our circles.
	And if we go to the next one, we have some people, of course, giving...
	A response, again, just being like, to hell with her, and as you can see by all of those things there, I don't even know what you call it, regalia?
	Transflag, a disabled badge, a fungus, a panda, and a cup of coffee.
	Furry bio, yeah, as well.
	Let me make a few things crystal effing clear, this person says.
	Lindsay Ellis is not the left.
	She is one left-of-centre content creator out of thousands of others.
	Minorities criticising prominent, usually white cis, left-of-centre content creators is not the left eating itself.
	Oh, so what is it?
	Is it minorities eating white people?
	Is that what he's trying to say?
	What?
	What is this tweet, Lindsay?
	If no one else?
	You know, this is exactly this.
	What is this person?
	Is this person a right-winger?
	Come on.
	Don't be silly.
	No, it's a radical left-wing activist.
	Moving on.
	Let's go to the next one, which we just have someone supporting her, I believe, in which they're like, yeah, this is dumb, and social media is cancer.
	If you're in these circles, it can be, yeah.
	And then we go to the last one, just to make the point as well.
	She's been tact-feared from the left, no longer a leftist.
	Extreme leftist cancelling Lindsay Ellis, is the left eating itself?
	Correct response.
	This person says no, it's not.
	Left of centre is the same as leftist.
	It means you are on the left from the perspective of the centre.
	It's not centre-left.
	No.
	But also, the left is eating itself again.
	Yes, it is.
	And he's like, no, that's not the case.
	Dude, Lindsay Ellis is left of centre at best.
	She's not a leftist from what I've seen.
	Okay.
	None of us care.
	On the not-left.
	And there is...
	I love this as well.
	There is always infighting on the left since 1870.
	1770, actually.
	He's referring to the Paris Commune, but they've been fighting each other for a lot longer than that.
	Yeah.
	There are 400 variants of leftists anyway.
	Do you have a mirror?
	Yeah, they're all crazy.
	Do you have a mirror?
	Just look at your own tweet.
	There are 400 varieties of leftists and we've been infighting since time immemorial.
	Yes!
	We're absolutely toxic.
	We all say the same things.
	We're all so unbearable!
	There are 400 variants of us and yet we are so predictable that people refer to us with the NPC script meme.
	No, but also, you are so the Skaven.
	You know, so lacking in self-awareness or, you know, just diplomacy or manners, frankly, to the point that you're so cut off that you're like, there are 400-odd variants of us and we've been infighting since time immemorial, but the left isn't eating itself again.
	Snark, snark.
	Okay.
	Okay, Skaven.
	I don't know what to say.
	Anyway, let's end that there.
	Oh dear.
	Well, so, let's talk about COVID, because, of course, we're not sick of talking about COVID just yet.
	So, we have this news from The Telegraph.
	Fourth, COVID vaccinations are likely after warnings of waning immunity.
	Who could have seen this coming?
	New analysis shows that immunity provided by boosters against the Omicron variant starts to fall after 10 weeks.
	I am shook.
	So hang on, let's just recap for a minute.
	So when the vaccines came out, most of them you needed two doses, some of you needed one dose.
	And then all of a sudden Omicron comes out and everyone and the government is like, hang on a minute, two shots don't work, but three shots do get your booster shots right now.
	It's really important.
	Because your immunity has gone down over time, therefore we'll boost it back up.
	And then when it goes down again, we'll boost it back up and then forever becomes a sine wave.
	I've read the studies from Israel talking about the initial grounding for the third booster, or the first booster, the third shot.
	I can't say much about it on YouTube, but you might be interested to read those studies yourselves if you're so minded to see actually how much the immunity is dropping in order to put the next shot up.
	But now three is not enough.
	Four is what we need, apparently.
	Again, I have to be very careful here, so let's see why we might need four.
	The prospect of a fourth COVID vaccine has become more likely after officials revealed that boosters are less protective against Omicron than Delta.
	Analysis by the UK Health Security Agency showed that although the booster dose gives significant protection against symptomatic disease compared to two doses alone, immunity starts to wane after 10 weeks.
	The latest data from the current wave indicated that immunity against Omicron is 15-25% lower at 10 weeks after a third dose compared to immunity against Delta.
	Okay, so now government advisors are considering whether to recommend a fourth dose of the vaccine next year.
	Do you reckon they will?
	Yeah, I actually remember when the vaccine passports first launched in France, and there was a room for booster shots.
	There were seven slots, so at least seven is what I'm expecting.
	So you wouldn't be surprised if they recommend a fourth, and a fifth, and a sixth, and a seventh?
	The French system was all built for that in mind.
	Right.
	So, yeah, I wouldn't be shook.
	But I guess, at what point do people start being like, why am I getting my sixth and anyone who's got a fifth is not vaccinated?
	How does that work?
	You're only ever one booster shot away from being an anti-vaxxer.
	Do you remember how every other vaccine you've had in your life, you had to get boost shots every year?
	Yeah, a couple of shots dropped on.
	Every time?
	I was like, okay.
	I believe the argument is that flu-like illnesses and respiratory illnesses are different because the virus itself mutates quite quickly.
	I've always understood, and I may be wrong, that when you got extra flu boosters, it was because there's a new strain of flu this year, so you're getting basically an inoculation against a new disease.
	Yeah, they change the recipe.
	The booster shots, as far as I'm aware, they're simply microdoses of an inactivated virus, is my understanding, to give your immune system something to train against.
	Anyway, if we move on, the government, of course, has wanted everyone to get boosted immediately, and they sent a text out to everyone.
	Now, I didn't get one of these texts, but did you get one?
	No, I didn't, but John did.
	He reported a spam.
	A few people did.
	And so the text says, Get Boosted Now, in capital letters.
	Every adult needs a COVID-19 booster vaccine to protect against Omicron.
	Get your COVID-19 vaccine or booster.
	See NHS website for details.
	So even Cheshtikoff.
	No, I haven't got the glasses on.
	Okay, fair enough.
	So the government's quite keen on getting the booster.
	And this guy here, Jamie Jenkins, ex-ONS worker, has some...
	His Twitter's quite interesting.
	He's constantly putting up statistics about COVID. It's quite good to look at.
	And he has some good questions here.
	I know some people who had a booster who got this who thinks they now need a fourth.
	Yeah, that's not an accident.
	The wording is unclear too.
	Why does every adult need a booster to protect against Omicron?
	Statistically speaking, not everyone is going to catch Omicron.
	Of those who catch Omicron, many will not go to hospital.
	Of the minority that do go to hospital, many will still be fine.
	So it's not like every adult needs to have this, surely.
	But, of course, they're saying, ah, but what about transmission and so on.
	Anyway, as you pointed out, you can report this unsolicited text message to Ofcom.
	You can forward the message to 7726, which is a free number that all UK phone customers can access.
	Once again, to report spam texts, unsolicited government texts that you haven't signed up to, forward the text to 7726.
	I'll be interested to see what comes out to that.
	And this is also coming with the news from Israel that potentially vaccine boosters could cause harm.
	This is a New York Times article, so not exactly the world's most partisan right-wing anti-vax source.
	And it's as we say here, as Israel weighs whether to approve a fourth COVID vaccine dose, some scientists warn that too many shots might actually harm the body's ability to fight the coronavirus.
	Now, I have to wonder, yes, ability to fight coronavirus is the only dimension of harm that comes from vaccines in general.
	Okay.
	But that seems to be the mindset that we're in at the moment.
	So let's think about it from that sense.
	Especially when you're saying you must mandate this or you will not be able to live a normal life.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Like, you can't get on a train, you can't get on a plane in Canada without taking a test.
	Yeah.
	Israel is considering whether to approve a fourth COVID-19 vaccine dose for vulnerable people to contain the fast-spreading Omicron variant despite debate among scientists and the lack of evidence either for or against another booster.
	This was published on Christmas Eve.
	The panel of experts advising the Israeli government on the pandemic recognised that uncertainty, but on Tuesday it recommended giving a fourth dose, concluding that the potential benefits outweighed the risks.
	It pointed to signs of waning immunity a few months after the third shot and said that any delay in additional doses might prove too late to protect those most at risk.
	But some scientists warned that the plan could backfire because too many shots might cause a sort of immune system fatigue, compromising the body's ability to fight the coronavirus.
	Now again, not an immunologist, I can't comment on that, but if scientists are saying it...
	This is only the anti-vax New York Times saying.
	Yeah, exactly.
	And then they end the article with this note.
	Benny Machowski, AT, an architect, said it seemed like hysteria.
	Israel is the laboratory for the coronavirus vaccine, he said.
	You and me both, pal.
	You and me both.
	But we also have news from Telegraph that the majority of people are willing to get a COVID booster every six months.
	Without it.
	Was it 71% again?
	It looks like it, doesn't it?
	Three in four people happy to get a new dose twice a year as 23% were not at all worried about contracting coronavirus.
	The majority of people would be willing to get a booster vaccine every six months to help guard against COVID-19, according to a poll which also reveals nearly one in four adults are not at all concerned.
	A survey of 1,500 adults by Redfield and Wilton Strategies found that 75% of the 1,380 vaccinated respondents would be willing to have a new dose twice a year for the next few years if officials recommended it.
	Hmm.
	The finding comes after new data made the prospect of a fourth COVID vaccine more likely of shot, as officials revealed that boosters are less protective against Omicron than Delta.
	I think it's worth mentioning here that opinion polls are used to shape opinion, not to measure it.
	Basically, this poll was designed to make you feel that if you don't want to subscribe to a booster shot every six months, then you're in the minority.
	You're in the nasty 23% and you need to get with the programme.
	Well, we can also just evidence it being wrong by the numbers.
	I don't know if you do, but there's like, you know, you can go to COVID Data UK, go to the government website, how many people have got the boosters?
	Is it 75%?
	New.
	So, revealed preference, not the same as the stated one.
	Exactly.
	Or at least the official stated one.
	Yeah.
	And it's always about 71-72%, isn't it?
	All the time.
	72% of people want to do what the government wants you to do.
	It's 70-something, isn't it?
	Yeah.
	If they had a bit of stuff, they could at least knock in for 69%.
	But no.
	So who's profiting at the moment?
	Who's having a good time out of coronavirus?
	Let's go to the next one.
	That's right!
	It's Bill Gates and George Soros.
	So Marjid Nawaz has a good one on this.
	Essentially, Bill Gates and George Soros bought out Mologic, which is a COVID testing company.
	That's nice.
	It's a good investment.
	Yeah.
	Every time this man stokes further COVID hysteria, says Marjid, remember his major conflicts of interest.
	He literally profits from your fear.
	Well, I mean, yes, directly.
	I think we can actually say that, which is that, well, if you own a company that makes tests, more tests equals more money.
	That is true.
	Yeah, permanent COVID sounds like a great money spinner, doesn't it?
	Now, how is Omicron actually doing?
	Let's just check in with the numbers.
	Far fewer people in hospital with COVID this Christmas, despite cases being three times higher.
	So essentially, compared to Alpha, it seems like it's about a sixth us virulent based on this, these numbers.
	Doctors say they are cautiously optimistic that no new restrictions will be needed.
	But who cares about doctors?
	I mean, doctors don't write the rules.
	Politicians and public officials write the rules.
	The number of people in hospital with coronavirus in England is less than half what it was this time last year, despite there being three times as many reported cases.
	As the government met with scientists to decide whether to impose new restrictions, the latest hospital data showed there were 7,536 patients in hospital on December 26th, compared to 18,350 on the same day last year.
	The current figure has risen slightly after falling in recent weeks and is now at the same level as on November 1st, 7,535.
	So, okay, it's about 7,000 people in hospital with COVID. That's not a lot.
	That's going to break the NHS, bro.
	The NHS can't handle that many.
	I don't know.
	I think our NHS can deal with a bit more than that.
	I have faith in our doctors and nurses.
	No, no, no.
	It can't handle that number of people.
	And if it can't handle that number of people, why are we paying for it?
	That's the question I want to ask.
	If you ever run into someone on the street and you're arguing about this, they say, well, you know, there's too many.
	Give them the number and say, we can't handle that many.
	Why do we have the NHS? Yeah, and people have no idea what this sort of thing normally.
	If you say, okay, so how many people should the NHS be able to handle?
	They'd have no idea.
	So you could just get the graphs as well online.
	Which we will do.
	So if we move to the next one, dodgy data is being used in the push for tighter COVID restrictions.
	I mean, who could have seen this coming?
	Just straight out of the blue.
	Could not have predicted that.
	Health chief accused of disseminating misleading statistics on hospitalizations that overstated the risk from Omicron.
	I am shook.
	One of Britain's most senior health advisors has been accused of disseminating dodged data.
	Dr Jenny Harries, the chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, which we quoted in the last article, is understood to have been the source of a contested claim by Sajid Javid, the health secretary, that there is typically a 17-day lag between patients becoming infected and requiring hospitalisation.
	However, the ONS says that the average delay is 9 or 10 days, not 17.
	The claim by Mr.
	Javed was seen as an attempt to strengthen the case for ervid new COVID-19 restrictions on the basis that the country could be on the brink of a major spike in hospitalizations due to Omicron.
	So basically, they're gagging for Omicron cases to lead to lots of hospitalizations, and they're just saying, oh no, no, no, no, it's still the lag, just wait, just wait, any minute now, any minute now, it's coming, and it's not coming.
	It reminds me of The Joker.
	You remember when The Joker film came out, and there were loads of journalists who were like, there's going to be a shooting.
	There's going to be a mass shooting, I swear.
	Two weeks later, there's going to be a mass shooting, I swear.
	It's coming, it's coming.
	There's that J-Reg skate where he's like, someone's got it.
	Just the journalists lining up.
	But yeah, yet again, we see dodgy data being used to prop up a dodgy case.
	I would think people are wise to this by now.
	But The Guardian, by the way, ever on the side of truth and integrity, is here to defend dodgy data.
	Not even joking.
	Tensions are rising about pandemic modelling, but we gloomsters are saving lives, in opinion by James Naismith, who I believe is a scientist.
	Hang on, your party is currently in charge of Wales and Scotland and is doing lockdowns.
	England is not.
	You're not saving lives.
	You're the ones killing people.
	Needlessly.
	Yeah, because no one ever talks about excess deaths due to lockdowns or public health restrictions.
	I think it's something of a taboo subject.
	All those people died with COVID, mate.
	7,000 people in hospital for COVID. Millions and millions of people locked down at home.
	Anyway.
	So, scientists are often blamed for leading to excessive curbs on society, Sir James, but they are cautious for a very good reason.
	The past week has seen tensions rising about scientific modelling during the pandemic.
	Projections cited by UK and devolved governments as they tighten Covid restrictions have led to strained exchanges.
	But modelling is essential because it tells us and he has a list of things.
	But I think he's wrong here.
	Modelling doesn't tell us the things that he thinks it tells us.
	In the majority of cases, scientific modelling merely deludes us into thinking we know the answers to these questions that we're asking.
	Models are obviously a powerful scientific tool, but it is very dangerous to apply models to reality.
	There are too many variables, many of which are unknown or not considered by the model.
	Small changes in one such variable create a cascade effect which invalidates the entire model as a representation of reality.
	is often related to the butterfly effect.
	You've heard of that? - Yeah. - A butterfly flaps its wings and eventually causes a hurricane in the US.
	Because basically a very, very minute change, which you don't pick up, what cascades through the entire system and eventually causes a big result.
	The problem really is that reality is unconstrained, whereas scientific models are constrained to the hardware and the assumptions that we put into them.
	But let's see, according to this author, what scientific modelling is telling us about the pandemic.
	What are the range of possible outcomes based on what we know?
	Modeling doesn't tell us this.
	Modeling wraps our preconvictions in a shiner, data-ified facade.
	We don't require modeling to come up with a range of possible outcomes.
	We can think of that without numbers.
	And modeling rarely demonstrates that those outcomes we come up with are impossible, or creates new ones that we couldn't have come up with without the model.
	What assumptions make the most difference to these outcomes out of the ones we have considered?
	Again, there's a limit here, right?
	You have to ask the questions for the model to tell you the answer.
	And you have to then assume that the model is set up properly.
	How do different interventions affect different scenarios?
	Again, within the constraints of the assumptions and simplifications we've made.
	And finally, the what-if question.
	What if Omicron has a short generation time or co-exists with Delta?
	Well, then we can persuade ourselves of some conclusions based on the limited and faulty model, and we can use that as grounds to take drastic action, such as locking down the entire country.
	And this is all assuming that that input data is even correct.
	That, for example, people were accurately recorded of dying of COVID instead of dying with COVID. Or that the reporting dates were correct when people got the disease and died of it.
	Or that case numbers aren't inflated by a lack of diagnosis by a position or error rates and test batches and things like that.
	So basically...
	I just wanted to use this to point out that there are real problems with scientific modelling, which I think scientists very often get a little too confident.
	I think the models look so pretty, the numbers are so nice, the graphs are so sweet, and they convince themselves that they are actually standing on solid ground when in fact they are not.
	They have no grounds on the data to say anything useful about reality, especially when you're talking about very complicated systems such as the spreading of a pandemic in a real human society.
	And the article also makes the bold claim that, to date, the actual outcomes have been within the range of scenarios.
	As far as I can tell, this is an outright lie.
	If we go to the next one, if we scroll down, so this is the SAGE predictions.
	The red line you can see here is what actually happened, and all of the lines above the red line are the predictions, the dire predictions made by SAGE scientists.
	For all sorts of variables, case rates, if we did this, if we did that, if we locked down, if we didn't lock down.
	And you see, not only are the actual case numbers lower in all cases than the modelling, but also the modelling doesn't even resemble the shape of the actual data.
	It's just completely off.
	But we should still all get vaccinated, by the way.
	Informed by alarmist models that have no relation to reality, the government in November mandated that all NHS staff must get the COVID vaccine.
	Do you remember that?
	Yes.
	We covered it briefly the other day.
	We go to the next one.
	And this nurse just speaks out against mandatory vaccination.
	Can we play this clip for just the first minute?
	Hi, my name is Emily.
	I've been a nurse...
	I've been a nurse for over 10 years and caring for people for 17 years.
	I haven't yet received correspondence from my employer regarding that job but I know that that time is approaching.
	I'll be blunt, I'm worried for my future but I'm resolute in my decision to uphold the basic right to decide what I put into my body.
	Informed consent is the cornerstone of all patient treatment and that right should be extended to all including the members of staff caring for them.
	Where there is risk, there must be choice.
	The choice to continue doing a job I love will be taken from me and I am only one of many in this position.
	There are over 200,000 others in the health service who, for their own personal reasons, have decided to exercise bodily autonomy.
	All these hard-working, thoughtful, caring and experienced professionals will, at some point or other, have been lumped into the category of anti-vaxxers by the media and others in position of authority.
	I certainly feel that I have.
	This is the human cost of vaccine mandates of dodgy scientific models, right?
	This woman does not show up in scientific modeling.
	Scientists, members of SAGE and that can very easily just erase this kind of thing.
	It's just a statistic.
	What matters is the R number and the this and the that.
	But this is the real cost, and it could be, as she says, up to 200,000 NHS workers.
	I believe Steve Baker got the data, and it was 100,000 NHS workers, not just nurses, but various.
	Six figures.
	It's a lot of people who might end up leaving the health service due to a government policy, a vaccine mandate, in the middle of a national pandemic, which we are assured is a dire health emergency.
	So what's the government solution?
	If we go to the next one...
	Immigration.
	The magic solution that solves all problems and doesn't ever create any of its own.
	Yeah, so we're going to relax.
	Immigration restrictions in order to recruit more NHS staff as we're kicking out the old NHS staff because they don't want to get a vaccine.
	The native NHS stuff.
	"Immigration rules are to be temporarily relaxed for overseas care workers in a bid to recruit and keep staff," the government has announced.
	"Social care workers, care assistants and home care workers are to become eligible for a health and care visa for a 12-month period.
	The government said this would make it easier to fill gaps in workforces." Why have we got gaps in workforces?
	Don't worry, the BBC's got you covered.
	Yes, the problem is Brexit.
	The BBC are a stuck record.
	Anyway, I thought I'd end that segment there.
	Sorry, I don't have anything to say because I just hate it.
	Yeah, it's awful.
	But that's the country we live in.
	Anyway, let's move on to something more jolly.
	So, well, it's not really jolly.
	It's something a bit more fun, at least.
	Hashtag pick a side, YouTube.
	So this is a hashtag that blew up on various social medias and has been sort of a trending campaign, let's say, which is just pick a side.
	And you might be wondering what the hell this is all about, and we're going to go through it.
	But also, I think I may have some answers to some of the questions presented by some of the content creators affected by this.
	So the first thing here is just change.org, which some people started to petition.
	I mean, it's a change.org position.
	I'm not asking you to sign it.
	It's just a thing.
	And as you can see there, 230,000 people have signed, saying, fire Susan Wojcicki as YouTube CEO. And, well, they don't have a bad reason, do they?
	They say in here, for example, under her leadership, things started to go downhill.
	And this was caused by the reputation of YouTube and Google from the copyright controversy to 2016's controversial YouTube PR nightmare known as the ad-friendly monetization policy, which was submitted to the YouTube channel.
	severely criticized by various youtubers and that the new rules censor and silence youtubers freedom of speech on their platforms by demonetizing and deleting their youtube videos that deal with controversial subjects such as an investigation to uh well tragedies or criminals or crimes and crimes that are not ad-friendly so you know i get on that basis i don't want to defend youtube too much but i get the point where they argue
	well this isn't ad-friendly whatever deleting a video in which someone investigates a crime such as noncery for example gets a bit sus so So let's go to the next link on this, which is the main video about it from what I've seen, which is called Pick Aside YouTube.
	600,000 views there.
	And it's a compilation of God knows how many content creators who are making videos just short.
	They're all put together.
	And we're just like, yeah, so I investigate nonces and I expose nonces and I had my videos deleted by YouTube.
	Because they're hurtful.
	Or I'm harassing the nonce.
	Even though I put no personal information up there that anyone could find where he lives or anything.
	Just that this was taking place within this company and they haven't done anything about it.
	And...
	Why?
	Why are you so...
	It's not a robot doing it either.
	This is manual review.
	So a human, one of the companies YouTube probably contracts to do their moderation, is deleting that stuff.
	And it's not just non-serial, of course.
	There is many an unfriendly subject, such as war crimes, animal abuse.
	I did see some where it was like, this guy just abuses this monkey.
	You don't want to look at it.
	It makes you feel sick.
	And that's just up.
	That's fine.
	And the dude who reported on some of that stuff, his videos got taken down.
	Whereas the guy who was abusing animals was still up, making loads of views.
	And running on his videos.
	So this is the point of why they're saying pick a side.
	Pick a side between people who are just criminals, frankly, or war criminals, whatever, versus us guys who are exposing them.
	And we're the ones getting punished for pointing out what's horrible and what rightfully needs a light shone on it.
	That's very suspicious, isn't it?
	Yeah, I mean there was also one recently, I don't think it was included in this, in which I saw a guy who went after Roblox just checking out some of Roblox's business practices.
	I don't know if you know anything about Roblox.
	So apparently they started up a system where they wanted other people to make games for them on Roblox and they could get Robux in return and therefore you pay the people to make the games.
	But of course they also, it's a kids platform so there were loads of kids involved and they also shut down their own forums because they were a toxic hellhole.
	So it meant that there were just Discord servers of loads of kids where one of the kids is a boss Potentially.
	And people are getting paid to make games, and there's no safeguards for any of the problems that might arise from that, such as nonsense.
	Oh, God.
	It's absolute S show.
	So, I mean, there are plenty of things to be shone a light on, and YouTube punishing these people for doing it is insane.
	I mean, you would have thought this would be exactly the kind of thing you section off, like, okay, no, the human moderator is going to be like, no, this needs to be shown.
	Anyway, but there is one complaint in here that I find most coherent, in which he points out one of the big double standards within YouTube.
	And let's play the first clip.
	You know, YouTube likes to pride themselves on being this big platform where any creator can make it for any kind of genre they want to, but at the end of the day, it's like if you're going to do any kind of investigative journalism, you're going to have a rough time.
	Because when it comes down to it, the big corporations, they have way more leeway on what they can cover compared to you.
	I've had videos that have been a-restricted and demonetized because of the topics I'm talking about, but then you see the mainstream news where their clips are on the trending front page and they're talking about that same thing.
	And that shit's fucked up, honestly.
	That shit really pisses me off.
	Because it's like, why are they giving all of us leeway to the big corporations, but then when it comes down to the smaller creators that make up the entire platform, oh, they're not allowed to talk about it, you know?
	I mean, it's a very coherent point.
	Yeah.
	And everyone's seen it.
	Why is it a big creator like, I don't know, New York Times, MSN, CNN can report on something.
	The ones on the trending news page.
	They're fine, trending.
	Individual guy does it.
	Oh no, that's banned.
	Why is that?
	Yeah, that's inconsistent.
	That's unfair.
	Constantly.
	And it doesn't have to be a news story either.
	It can be something that quite frankly happened like a year ago.
	And their video will still be up.
	It handles the subject in exactly the same way, which is I am presenting this as evidence of the thing that took place.
	Maybe a little warning before I want to be like, you know, there's a lot of messed up stuff.
	If you want to go and hide behind the sofa, go ahead.
	And no, no, the people who make up the platform can go to hell.
	And the legacy media get an absolute free pass.
	Do what you want.
	Put up whatever you want.
	Expose anything you want.
	No one's going to bother them.
	So their channels literally have a selected status as privileged and have no concerns to any of the moderators.
	Oh, that's CNN. Well, there you go.
	Well, this happened, as they said, since 2016, didn't it?
	Wasn't this basically the...
	The compromise, the ceasefire that YouTube and Google reached with big media after it started basically smearing Google and YouTube for hosting ISIS propaganda videos and things like that.
	All sorts of accusations, which didn't make any kind of sense.
	Neo-Nazi PewDiePie content and that sort of thing.
	Yeah, and I thought we'd demonstrate some of them here, and this will become very relevant in a minute, but just to demonstrate as well, this is a chap who, as CNN say, former alt-right follower, calls radicalization a health crisis.
	And in here, he is talking about the fact that he used to follow alt-right channels after watching SW cringe compilations, and he became a radical, racist alt-righter, Jordan Peterson fan, I don't know, you know, any old thing.
	I find these a lot on MSNBC and CNN, but I've never met one in real life.
	I don't disbelieve this guy.
	This guy could have, you know, watched some stuff and then some more stuff.
	I mean, that's how media works.
	That's how it works, yeah.
	You know, you could read some books and then some more books.
	But it happens in both directions.
	But that's the point.
	He even says, so the thing that de-radicalised him is he started watching BreadTube.
	That's not de-radicalisation, man.
	No!
	That's going, hmm...
	Rods and axes, hammer and sickle!
	Yeah!
	Job done!
	Do you know the term beefsteak Nazi?
	I think I've mentioned it before.
	So, there were loads of communists and Nazis in Germany, and then when the Nazis came to power, the SA had a problem, because loads of the former communist members all joined the SA. And they used to joke about it and say, oh, yeah, I don't know, there's a few Nazis still left in the SA, but we'll get rid of them.
	Were you covering the other day how a bread tube has basically become a fed tube?
	Yes, that as well.
	But also the fact that you're like, you know, at least he's a commie now and not a fascist.
	It's like...
	Do you listen to yourself?
	I mean, it was ridiculous on the face of it.
	My understanding is now he's a bit more centrist and is dissociated with any of that crap.
	Yeah, good luck.
	Fair enough.
	So not going after him here.
	But it was an obvious story that didn't make any sense, except if you're legacy media and you wanted to attack YouTube on the basis of you're radicalizing people, don't you?
	And therefore you're bad.
	And we need to solve that by privileging certain kinds of media on your platform to Such as CNN. Such as CNN. Maybe a little tab about news in which CNN gets a free pass to do whatever the hell they want.
	And yeah, they've got that.
	This is one of those things in which they've got it.
	And if we move on, we have the Wall Street Channel, as you mentioned, going after YouTube.
	Did you know PewDiePie is a Nazi?
	And he wants to kill all the Jews.
	I am shook.
	It's not true.
	It was complete BS. Everyone knew it was BS at the time.
	And yet it still had an effect somehow with, as they say there, Disney cutting their ties.
	It made no sense.
	But whatever.
	This is a legacy media attack on YouTube because their platforms were losing relevancy and therefore needed to get...
	They were getting destroyed by modern media, by the internet, by alternative creators.
	All of the TV was done.
	By you guys choosing to watch alternative creators.
	Exactly.
	But then they all had channels.
	It wasn't like they weren't on YouTube back in the day.
	Yeah, they were just embarrassed by how much their channels sucked compared to some guy in his basement with a camera who's spitting truth.
	Yeah, he wasn't trying to just mess it up in a whole bunch of fake corporate nonsense where you try and spin everything to your advantage.
	He wasn't trying to control the narrative.
	He was just saying his point of view.
	Genuinely his opinion.
	Right.
	And that was it.
	And yeah, they all sucked and none of them got any views.
	So then they started attacking YouTube for a privileged place on the platform.
	So they can keep controlling the news flow, the information ecosystem, which is something they're used to doing and the thing which they rely on.
	And this is how we've all seen it, and how we see these events play out.
	And I'm sure that content creator, the guy who mentioned it, is not blind to some of this stuff.
	But the best thing, and I have to feature it, is we have an admission.
	We have an admission from Susan Wojcicki herself that this is what has taken place.
	Although she puts a different perspective on it, and so she did it for holy reasons, which is to just educate the public about terrorism, which I'm not sure I fully buy.
	But let's play this.
	it's a rather long clip but it's an interview between susan wajinsky and the new york times and it's called rabbit hole because it's all about that caleb chap who fell down the rabbit hole and uh then got de-radicalized by becoming you know interactive with communist propaganda which i love how they've set the framing of this whole discussion so strongly yes that we need to promote communist nonsense and uh susan may well have done that we don't know the code itself but how the hell has that got popular let's be frank anyway
	and uh this is the interview part i found most interesting which susan admits that she purposely made up that section and where legacy media gets its privileged place and also they promote certain types of content and de-rank other content not based on whether or not it's broken any of the rules but instead because they feel like it Let's play the clip.
	One of the biggest realizations for me was that we needed to start adapting and changing and that we needed a very different set of ways of managing information than you want to manage entertainment.
	Was there a moment that crystallized that for you?
	Well...
	It's the moment celebration became nightmare.
	In 2016...
	People were screaming, kids were crying.
	There was a terrorist attack that had happened in France.
	For tonight in the French resort town of Nice.
	Susan says that in 2016, on Bastille Day...
	In the coastal city of Nice, just as the fireworks ended, a truck plowed into the crowd.
	When an ISIS terrorist attacked a crowd.
	At least 84 people were killed, dozens of others were hurt.
	And the government there declared a state of emergency.
	And I remember reading that and being just extremely upset and thinking, our users need to know about it.
	YouTube decided that for people in France, it was actually going to push news about the attack onto their home pages.
	The attack turned the streets into a scene of chaos.
	And for people looking for information about the attack, The mayor of Nice warning people to stay indoors.
	Here's tonight of another terror attack.
	They were actually going to prioritize videos from what they considered authoritative sources.
	But that didn't perform very well on our platform.
	She says that basically the engineers at YouTube were telling her like...
	The users don't want to actually see it.
	No one is clicking on these videos.
	That's just not what they want to see.
	And so what do you do as a platform?
	Do you show it to them anyway?
	And so that's actually, remember that very clearly because that was the first time I said to them, you know, it doesn't matter.
	We have a responsibility.
	Something happened in the world and it's important for our users to know.
	There you have it.
	That's the omission, straight from the horse's mouth, no offence Susan, that she decided to change the way YouTube worked, and instead of delivering you entertainment, or more of what you wanted in regards to political stuff, they were going to change it around, so instead...
	What they wanted you to see.
	What they thought was important would be on your front page.
	And even when the software engineers came back to her and said, Susan, your dumb changes are crap, no one's clicking on it, she went, I don't care, do it anyway.
	That is why YouTube got ruined.
	And as you can see, I wrote this article back just quoting some of this.
	So as you can see, Susan Majewski explained why she ruined YouTube.
	And there's some more quotes in here that I didn't think we'd play the full thing because it just would take too much time.
	And we'll take the quotes instead, which are far better, in which she just lists out how this goes even further.
	And she says, one of the biggest changes that we made from our recommendation system, we realized that there was a set of content that even if people were repeatedly engaging with it, If you're enjoying it, you watch more of it.
	That's how YouTube works, right?
	That's how all media works.
	You read the book, you read more of the books.
	And she was seeing people watching the videos and enjoying the videos, watching more of them, and she was like, not on my watch!
	I'm gonna solve this problem that doesn't exist!
	She says that even if people were engaging with it, that it was important to make the recommendations more diversified and to show them more quality content alongside.
	Quality content defined by her.
	Not you.
	Not the audience.
	This is really what you've captured here is the crystallized moment where YouTube decided that it wasn't just going to host and let people do things.
	It wanted to, again, control the narrative because it was in the position where it could.
	This is all a conversation not around, you know, WAP videos.
	This is all a conversation revolving around the political content that's on YouTube.
	It's about the information ecosystem, which for many people YouTube is a big part of.
	And it went from basically a free-for-all based on what you watch, what you like, that sort of thing, to, oh, hang on a minute, you're going to watch what we want you to watch.
	And you can see her justification that she gives it.
	And we'll take her at her word, steelman position, which is that she wanted to do it because she wanted people to know about terrorist attacks or whatnot.
	That's lovely, Steven, that you think people should be more engaged with this stuff.
	I agree that people should read more about this.
	I'm not going to force them, though.
	Yeah.
	It's up to them.
	Anyway, so she didn't agree with that and instead forced you to engage with it.
	She then continues, This is all, again, based on her prejudices of what she thinks is high-quality content.
	And, well, a lot of people might have had their political channels slowly disappear and, well, now you have the reason.
	Yeah, because Susan just didn't think it was high-quality content.
	She didn't like it.
	And, yeah, she just identified those videos.
	And she doesn't even go on to explain what any of that means, by the way.
	Because if she did, then she'd be caught out.
	But she continues.
	And what that has done, it's actually had a 70% reduction in the view of borderline content in the US, and we were in the process of rolling it out globally.
	It's in most English-speaking countries already, with a large market in France and Germany as well.
	Yeah, and I can just mention here, by the way, Japanese YouTube is great.
	It's like old YouTube.
	You don't get all of this authoritative source nonsense.
	You get a load of wacky Japanese content.
	It's quite good.
	It's a completely different ecosystem.
	That's the other problem the system has now, which is that you used to have a load of burgeoning content creators coming up out of the woodwork constantly.
	And they just appear.
	And now they don't.
	No, 70% reduction of views.
	Yeah, they basically killed off all small-time content creators deliberately by executive fiat.
	From the horse's mouth.
	She is asked by the interviewer what counts as borderline content, and then she just doesn't explain.
	If you can scroll down, John, just for the last quote there, which is just being like, yeah, it's nuanced.
	It's nuanced, but we had a 70% reduction of it.
	Yeah, it doesn't work that way.
	Shut up, you...
	You're taking the piss.
	It's complicated.
	It's nuanced.
	It's whatever the hell we want.
	And in case you think I'm being hyperbolic, maybe you just joined the club and think Susan is actually a secret right winger and she's just playing the field here or something.
	No, we can just look at what she's up to.
	So we get the next one here.
	We have her here.
	Her account saying, such a pleasure talking with this guy about how YouTube can better support content creators from all communities.
	Kevin, congrats on being part of the hashtag YouTube Black Voices Fund Class of 2021.
	Which I can't think of a more insulting phrase.
	To be honest, it seems to me like every big tech franchise has some kind of space where it's just black people.
	Black creators.
	Black Kickstarter.
	Steam had one as well.
	Netflix.
	If you go on Amazon videos or whatever.
	So basically, big tech is segregating black creators from everyone else.
	Here's the black stuff.
	And it's like...
	Okay.
	That's anti-racism for you.
	Anyway, moving on.
	So let's go to the next one.
	So someone asked, what the hell does this crap even do?
	And Team YouTube even responded, saying the YouTube Black Voices Fund will help amplify black voices by acquiring and producing YouTube Originals programming that's focused on the race experiences around the world.
	Yeah, so they're basically literally paying, hiring black people to produce content.
	So they can all talk about race for five minutes and then go on with their lives.
	I mean, could you think of a bigger waste of money?
	I mean, it is their money.
	It's not government money, at least.
	So, minimal.
	Thanks, there.
	But instead you could just...
	So it's not enough to merely privilege certain channels over others based on their politics.
	They have to literally pay them huge amounts of money based purely on the colour of their skin.
	How much?
	You want to guess?
	How much for the YouTube Black Voices Fund?
	It's probably going to be tens of millions.
	Hundreds of millions.
	Really?
	Let's go to the next one.
	So, 100 million, apparently.
	So, in here, introducing the YouTube Black Voices Fund from YouTube's own website, in which they say the YouTube Black Voices Fund will help amplify black voices by acquiring producing stuff.
	Is this just the industry standard?
	Because the BBC's diversity budget last time we checked was 100 million pounds, wasn't it?
	Sir, that's the tax.
	Yeah.
	You've got to pay.
	The jizya.
	This is the black tax.
	The woke jizya.
	Yeah, 100 mil.
	And as you can see, back in June we announced 100 million to fund the centre and amplify black voices and perspectives on YouTube.
	Who they decide is black is a question that...
	Politically black perspectives, I dare say.
	They never solve.
	I don't think Tom's soul is getting many hits from this.
	No.
	And alongside a commitment to doing better as a platform to protect black creators, artists, and users...
	Protect from what?
	What do you mean?
	You have a comment section.
	They didn't do much to protect Lindsay Ellis, did they?
	No, but also just like, you don't shoot people for a living with you.
	You don't run a safari.
	Yeah.
	You've run a website!
	On our last trip, I'm afraid, three of our customers were eaten by trolls, but the rest had a great time.
	You don't operate a mineshaft or something, really.
	You operate a website where there's a comment section and a dislike bar, and you deleted the dislike bar!
	That's gone.
	So, I mean, comments next, I guess.
	Maybe response videos will also be banned.
	I think they already are as a harassment, actually.
	Oh, really?
	Maybe if you just get rid of the videos, it'll be much better.
	Yeah, if we have no videos on YouTube, or text, or comments, or messages, or community posts, black voices will be protected forever.
	Exactly.
	So, you know, destroy YouTube to protect black voices.
	I don't know what to say.
	Such a stupid statement.
	Anyway, so what are these YouTube originals there?
	They're all funded.
	So if we go to the next one, we have one of them, which I thought I'd check out.
	1.9 million views.
	And you might think, oh, that's very successful.
	No dislikes, because that's brilliant.
	And no, this is on YouTube's own channel with 39 million subs.
	2 million views.
	Not doing fantastic.
	And so this is called Black Joy, and I thought we'd just have...
	The likes are hidden, are they?
	Yeah, let's have a flavour of what this is as well.
	Let's play the clip.
	We're out here.
	Out here?
	We're everywhere.
	From Los Angeles to Nairobi and Sao Paulo to London.
	Showing out and doing us no matter where we are.
	Doesn't matter if we're clowning.
	Slaying these goddesses.
	Speaking fast.
	Breaking bread.
	Dropping hits.
	Or rocking fits.
	The joy comes through in everything we do.
	But I just think about that for a minute.
	Imagine if they did that with white people.
	It would be deleted from YouTube.com for being white nationalist propaganda.
	Why is he standing in a street surrounded by bins as well?
	I don't know.
	It's just Los Angeles for you.
	Every street is like that.
	But, you know, the black umma of the world unites.
	We're from Los Angeles to London, and it's like, yeah, okay, I'll do the same thing with white people, and you would call it white nationalist crap.
	Was anyone actually from Africa, though?
	I don't think there were.
	I think he mentioned Nairobi, so I mean, yeah, sure.
	But again, of course, as you mentioned as well, there's only certain black people, which is politically black people, not actual black people, because...
	Some of them might disagree with the messaging.
	Yeah, also, how do they define who black is?
	I mean, is there a wander-up rule?
	Is that how that goes?
	Skin swatch.
	Maybe, though, because there's this next video from this series.
	Again, half a million views and a 39 million-subscribing channel.
	Good job.
	Create black history.
	Creators surprise their fans.
	Cutesy, whatever.
	I mean, I don't know why you're wasting your money, but I thought we'd just check this out.
	I just have an image.
	They just go up to him, hey, it's me!
	And they're like, wait, who are you?
	Yeah.
	No, they have some people talking about the people they'd like to meet, but it just comes off as really weird, and I thought I'd have to showcase it to make the point even more stark of the obsession with such things.
	Let's play.
	How is this creating black history by being an awesome representative of his community?
	Especially now more than ever, the black community is always looking for a safe space, and sometimes we have to create that safe space.
	So I think Ashley and the Great Bind team have done a great job of creating that safe space on YouTube.
	I just love the banner she's got at the back.
	Also, let's have a look at this book.
	We've got bell hooks there, interesting, prominently displayed.
	Curious.
	Michelle Obama buyer.
	The white guy at the start there.
	This black guy is a great representative of his community.
	His community.
	It's weird, it's creepy.
	It sounds like a southern plantation owner.
	He's a great representative of the slaves.
	Here's a credit to his race.
	It's this kind of attitude.
	I just hate the whole thing.
	Yeah, but, you know, because they're black, YouTube will fund it because, I don't know, they don't care about racial nationalism when it comes from one side.
	Moving on, so let's go to them funding Vox as well, just to end on the point if you haven't got it already.
	So this next one, How Racist Am I? A YouTube original, so that was part of the 100 million there, going straight to a very poor company.
	A company on the verge of bankruptcy, I'm sure.
	Head the hat out.
	Vox.com.
	No way, they got money out of this grift?
	Yeah, scroll down.
	Show them the logo of Vox.com.
	I don't believe it.
	Which is just...
	Verified checkmark.
	10 million subs.
	They're desperate for money.
	They're a small content creator.
	They're really struggling to make content and they need YouTube money to run it.
	Again, likes hidden.
	Likes and dislikes disabled, as John points out there.
	How racist am I? Four million views there.
	Mostly people in the comments being like, what the hell's wrong with you?
	No comments!
	There were comments back when I saw it, but okay.
	We'll go to the next one, because there's more of these.
	If we go to the next one, John, because we're running out of time.
	There's another one here from that series.
	Are we automating racism?
	There are like six episodes of this crap, which are all funded by YouTube.
	Incredibly high quality as well.
	There's a really funny part.
	I think YouTube is definitely automating racism by the evidence of this series.
	I don't know if you can actually go back, John, for a second and just refresh the page because I didn't put the timestamp there.
	Never mind.
	There was a timestamp where it's just like, how racist am I? There's this white woman looking at the screen like, That's Vox for you.
	All the employees are very racist, according to themselves.
	And then we'll go for the last link here, which I can't even remember what it is.
	Oh yeah, it's the Steamy Awards.
	Steamy Awards.
	Not the Steamy Awards.
	And as you can see here, for commentary, they nominated Lindsay Ellis and ContraPoints and gave it a ContraPoints.
	Any right-wingers in the mix?
	Nah, go to hell.
	You're not welcome here.
	Borderline content, I'll have you know.
	So, for those content creators asking, why is YouTube picking a side on the side of going to hell with you people?
	They've already made their bet.
	They're happy to promote anything that's leftist, so if you want to revamp your channel, that would be the capitalistic thing to do, amazingly.
	And if you want to actually produce stuff talking about the horrible stuff in the world and exposing people for who they are, you better be in a privileged position like CNN. Yeah.
	Get on old media now.
	Let's go to the video comments.
	The problem with science on television is there isn't actually any science on television.
	Having just watched your Boxing Day podcast regarding the charming Professor Chris Whitty, I was struck by how what we know about the SARS-CoV-2 virus is now almost completely inverted from what we knew at the outset.
	Dr Ben Goldacre's book Bad Science is an accessible read about how science is manipulated to make claims that are, at best, unhelpful and, at worst, downright lethal.
	Although written at the height of the dietician fad in the early 2000s, the methods of analysis remain applicable.
	Yeah, it's a very good book.
	I haven't got around to reading it yet, but it's definitely on my list.
	I was just going to say I love Charlie Brooker's stuff as well, because I can tell that's what there was there.
	I don't know if I could request that.
	I think that's copyrighted, but you know Elamina Cunt?
	I think it's K-U-N-T? Philomena Cunt.
	Yeah, or whatever it is.
	Have you ever seen her segments?
	I love it, because it's obviously fake, but Carl Pilkington actually is like that as well.
	So I just read it in his voice.
	Let's go to the next one.
	I have my special tinfoil hat for the festive season.
	Just wanted to say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone and all the Lotus Eaters people and a special Merry Christmas wish to Shadow in the Stars.
	It's already there.
	Well, tinfoil hatters unite.
	I don't know.
	I don't really know what to say to that.
	I love those things.
	You remember when Alex Jones was on Tim's show and he did the tinfoil hat?
	I hope he kept that as like a memento.
	Just keep it in his office.
	Put it on every five minutes.
	Anyway, let's go for the next one.
	Tony Gay and Little Joan with another legend on the pines.
	The Ritz Theatre in Oakland, New Jersey.
	Built in 1927, originally as a vaudeville theater, the theater is still in operation today and shows all sorts of live events.
	What's not so alive are the ghosts that haunt the theaters, including the ghosts of former performers, including a tap-dancing ghost, strange glowing orbs, and burlesque ghost.
	I just realized I should never take a recommendation from you to see anything in Jersey.
	Because it's going to have a ghost in it.
	Well, Ted, I'll be like, oh, nice to meet you, you're going to have a good evening.
	Where should we go for dinner?
	Oh, there's this place down the road, there's this great steak, so let's go there.
	And it has a haunted ghost.
	The steaks are haunted.
	The Jersey devil's in the attic.
	Thanks for that.
	Cheers.
	Let's go to the next one.
	Dushed myself hard at the gym.
	Guys, I'm really, really sorry that I pestered you about my state's premiere, because it took eight days, eight days, and then he cucked and turned on the mask mandates again, and the tracking hasn't locked down yet, but, oh God, I hope he doesn't, but I won't bother you guys, don't worry.
	Oh, damn.
	Is that Australia?
	Yeah.
	CSCooper.com.au.
	But anyway, I don't want to talk about COVID anymore, frankly.
	Every time I even hear the word, or anyone talking about gyms or anything, I just...
	Because you know none of it's based on reason.
	Yeah, I'm already...
	Well, I was sick of it a long time ago, probably evidenced by the fact that I work here, and...
	Yeah, so much of it is just irrational.
	And you can tell it's irrational because you see people, right, doing mutually contradictory things and then giving explanations for it which don't make sense with each other.
	Like, people, they, like, are really keen at getting fully vaccinated, but they also say the vaccine doesn't work against the new variants, so you need to get a new vaccine, this sort of thing.
	It's like, hang on, there's a contradiction there.
	Does the vaccine work or does the vaccine not work?
	And even though they're vaccinated, they still wear masks, even though there's...
	Well, anyway, I'm not going to go on from the full run.
	You know, we've done it a million times.
	We all understand.
	If you've seen the video of the lady on the plane in the USA, in which there's like, oh, guy's just sat there.
	He takes his mask off to eat some nuts or something.
	And she's got her mask around her chin, of course.
	And she's screeching in his face about the fact that he's not wearing a mask.
	And that's disgusting.
	With it around her chin.
	Oh, yeah.
	And she ends up spitting in his face as well, trying to hit him.
	And the people on the plane have to hold her back and strain her.
	COVID's made people crazy.
	I love it, but it's just like, wear your mask for public health.
	What?
	God.
	Anyway, let's go to the next one.
	So I feel like I should clarify for Callum.
	I'm not some dildo aficionado by trade.
	I'm just an engineer.
	I worked in travel before this and fintech before that.
	I joined the sex industry mainly because I thought it was funny.
	I just thought it was funny.
	And if John's listening, I'm actually planning to move to Cambridge, so I will be in England.
	So I'll be dipping in and out of London for the next few months.
	If you guys want to meet up for a drink, I'd happily swing by.
	Swindon, have a drink with you guys.
	And that goes to all of the Sultans.
	Let's do something.
	I'll be around.
	Cheers.
	I mean, it is funny.
	You've got us there.
	I don't want to say that.
	So it's basically like a side hustle, right, for a bit of a meme, which kind of makes me wonder if you should do some other stuff as well.
	Like, if you're out of that business, because, I don't know, demand has dried up or something, I don't know.
	Anyway, but if you just do something else, why not?
	Like, just pick any old crap that's just for a laugh as a side hustle.
	I like that idea.
	Oh, we're out of video comments, so we will go to the written ones on the site.
	So, on Lindsay Ellis and her goblins, as she puts it, Free Will 2112 says, The witch trials often spread to the accusers.
	Heresy will be punished by the righteous.
	This is the danger of following an absolutist religion, even a secular one like wokeism.
	Yep, absolutely.
	I agree with the fact that it is just eventually going to come for you, because everyone's a heretic, everyone's got original sin, don't you know you're a white woman?
	Lindsay, for Christ's sake, I don't want to be too mean, but I saw, like, she did that interview with a friend of hers, because they all know each other in LA, apparently, and Cole did, like, some stream reacting to it.
	Do you not get the point?
	It's obviously that these people are part of your circle, and you've developed it, and you've not learned anything.
	And I think she responded to it.
	So she knows.
	She knows that argument.
	That, quite frankly, you know, you've obviously brought this on yourself.
	And she had some months of it in the other interview where she said that he said that.
	And then just didn't argue against it at all.
	Like, just moved on.
	Just sidestepped the whole thing because she didn't have a response.
	Still not learned the lesson, apparently.
	Maybe in a week.
	Who am I kidding?
	It'll be 50 years before she gets it.
	Anyway, Omar Awad says, I'm getting a student has surpassed the master vibe from Lindsay Ellis thing.
	Your audience are now better grievance mongers than you...
	That's a good take.
	That's very good, Omar.
	More sensitive to nothing than you ever could have dreamed.
	You trained them well.
	Insert you're getting what you deserve Joker memes below.
	Certainly.
	And she doesn't have a response to it.
	That's the best part.
	She even mentions it and it just has nothing.
	Not another thing.
	Alexander P says, Lindsay Ellis has described herself as a left of Chairman Mao in a recent interview.
	Yes, she did.
	She's not a real leftist.
	She did say, what was it, in the real world I'm left of Chairman Mao or something, considered.
	saying that you know on youtube she's sent a laugh but in the real world of course because it's crazy land then um you know she's a lunatic which she is i mean you wouldn't put in charge of anything in government if you could help it i wouldn't leave her and you wouldn't hire her as a babysitter would you no exactly anyway it's difficult to claim any irony comparing oneself to arguably the biggest sadistic murderer ever to existed now we are supposed to believe she is a center-left relative to what that is always the question
	uh lindsey and her ilk such as zoe quinn grew their graft from early internet edgelord humor sites such as sa hill dump a doxing and harassment community then as soon as it suited them whipped up the ladder behind them for their own personal enrichment i didn't know that it was the people salty from uh that who cancelled lindsey not basement dwelling toxic white trump supporters Dude, look at their bios.
	I mean, how many trans flags and furry profiles do you have to get?
	Hammers and sickles.
	To be a Trump supporter.
	Trump supporters, I'm sure.
	Anyway, as she might have everyone believe, I'm sure Carl would have Lindsay on the podcast in an unproductive way, but she has warped up into illusion land.
	Too wrapped up in delusion.
	I mean, the thing, though, I mean, again, I don't have any grievance with her because it's just, you know, some person on the internet.
	I mean, that's how I feel Lindsay should react to these weird Twitter accounts.
	It's just, okay, whatever.
	Like, you know, I'm going to go have dinner with my husband.
	Bye.
	I've got better things to do than talk to the furry account.
	Anyway, but...
	I say anyway too much.
	I need to stop doing that.
	I need to make donations like the Donkey Sanctuary or something like Clarkson did.
	Anyway, but...
	So the point being, if she ever did want to chat to someone who wasn't in her toxic fandom, I don't think anyone would have a problem with that.
	Except her toxic fandom.
	They have a problem with everything anyway, so who cares?
	You're not going to win them over.
	Anyway, FreeWill2112 says, You can see why they ended up denouncing and murdering each other in the Soviet Union.
	Certainly.
	He continues, If you live your life in the public view of a bunch of cruel, sadistic ideologues, you will not get any sympathy if you commit heresy, perhaps not swimming in this toxic stew of self-pity and ideological...
	Constipation.
	Constipation might be a positive step, and then here it's something else, but it's all crossed out, so I assume it was legal for me to say.
	Anyway, Dave Carter says,"...in rural Idaho in the 80s and 90s, there absolutely was this type of struggle, but it was the Mormons cancelling non-Mormons.
	Hegemonic power is the real issue, and I don't think that right-wing Puritans are any better when they have control.
	The problem is the Puritans, and they must not be allowed to run institutions." Sure, I mean, I'll put the religious to the right wing.
	I would argue that there are certain aspects of leftist ideology which do make it more vicious.
	Like, the whole problematising aspect, I think.
	The scaven aspect.
	The fact that they're all in fighting since Memorial, and there's 400 cults that you can join.
	Yeah, it's...
	I don't know.
	I think there is more of an infighting aspect in the left than in the right.
	But yeah, no, obviously, hegemonic power is...
	At the moment, fundamentally, we're talking about an unconstrained aspect of human nature here.
	And the idea is we've built civilizations where we have trust and we have manners and that sort of thing, and decency, so that we overcome the base human nature which would otherwise lead us into a hate mob.
	And the leftists think that we're all perfect if we just strip away social norms.
	Once they strip away the social norms, they reveal themselves as a pack of rabid lunatics.
	Yeah.
	It almost is like they want to strip away the norms.
	Because I was going to say, just look at anarchy-ridden Somalia when it's worse, right?
	Or, you know, Kabul when it's all falling apart.
	And you can see actual anarchy.
	And essentially that is what a lot of them are striving towards.
	I sort of think it's because they know they're best suited for that atmosphere because they know what they're going to do as soon as that happens.
	There are some people in that game.
	Other people will stutter.
	And, well, they're going to be the dead ones.
	But there are others, yeah.
	There are others who think that's just the way it is as well, I think.
	Let's move on to the boosters.
	Okay.
	James Abernathy says, Others are terrified by the media into doing it.
	Others are pushed into it by peer pressure.
	In the end, it needs to be an individual choice.
	I got vaccinated, my brother didn't.
	We had an adult discussion about our reasons and that was the end of it.
	When there are people acting like children on both sides of the debate, is it any wonder people look to others to make the decision for them?
	People complain about the nanny state, but I think it's been created just as much by us and not just for us by others.
	What do you think of that?
	Yeah, I like some of that.
	I love the tolerance aspect, especially.
	Because someone asked me the other day if I was anti-mask or anti-vax, and I was like, no, I don't care about any of this.
	But that's the point.
	It's up for the individual to say, if you want to wear a mask, go for it.
	If you want to get boosted to your heart's connect, go for it.
	I don't care.
	But it's the autistic types, quite frankly, and again, even in the anti-vaxxer side, of course.
	I'm not denying these people exist.
	Which are the types who are like, yeah, it's instantly going to kill you, so if you get it...
	I don't have any time for that.
	I don't have any time for people who are obsessed with, like, if you're wearing a mask, I'm going to disown you.
	Right, yeah, that's dumb as well.
	But it's obvious that a lot of the science doesn't add up, especially on the mask side.
	Yeah, but I think his point about the fact that we've created the nanny state, not just had it forced upon us, is really insightful because, you know, it's like all oppressive systems.
	You kind of end up with the governance you deserve.
	And it's true, there are a lot of people who are loving the nanny state right now.
	Yeah, it's absolutely true.
	I mean, just do a poll on free speech in the UK versus an American audience.
	You get about 60% or something, it's still there.
	About 60-70% of Americans will say free speech always comes first before offensiveness.
	Do it in the UK, you end up with like 20-30%.
	Yeah, but it's not just free speech as well.
	I mean, that's an example.
	But it's stuff like health and safety.
	It's stuff like banning guns and banning knives and this sort of thing.
	All of these restrictions on adult life that are brought in because ostensibly they think, oh, it'll make things better, it'll make things safer.
	And it just makes a miserable world wrapped up with red tape, bureaucracy and general incompetence.
	Anyway, I must move on.
	But it's a good comment.
	Yeah, great.
	Christian says, with all the reports and data coming out of multiple countries about the Omicron variant showing that it is very mild, why don't we encourage the spread of the Omicron variant as it would engender natural immunity that is more lasting than any of the vaccines?
	Now this is the Putin position, because he came out and said this a while back apparently.
	Yeah, that's one argument.
	Kevin says, Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, the modern flu jab.
	We can choose to get the flu jab if we feel at risk, so why not the COVID jabs?
	Oh yeah, because that wouldn't give governments cause to retain their emergency powers.
	Based.
	Lord Nerevar says, I got a text from the booster thing yesterday.
	I responded simply telling them to pee off.
	How have we got to the point where our own government is sending us spam messages to pressure us into getting an unnecessary vaccine shot dystopia country?
	My prediction is it'll get worse.
	Anyway, you can forward that to, what was it, 7726?
	Which is 7726, which spells spam on an alphanumeric keyboard to report to the government Ofcom for unsolicited messages and spam, which is technically not allowed to do.
	Number again.
	7726.
	Rowan says, on a slightly related matter, I heard on Australian ABC News earlier that Macron was voicing support for a three-month booster interval to tackle the spooky woo flu.
	Did not see anything in the show notes about it.
	Thought I would bring it to your attention and possibly get an opinion from the both of you as to how frequent you think these boosters might eventually become.
	That wasn't cscooper.com.au, was it?
	Yeah.
	Report your spam to him.
	No, don't.
	Dude's trying to make a living.
	You spam us, CS Cooper, I'll spam you.
	It's not a war.
	Yeah, like, I don't know.
	I suspect six...
	I might stay at six months, to be honest.
	Basically, how often does it need to happen in order for people to be ideologically authentic, as far as the establishment's concerned?
	Baron von Warhawk says, this may seem unrelated, but in my opinion, the NHS and the hospitals have become just like the Aztec temples.
	Good man.
	You must buy the shots and sacrifice your metaphorical heart, freedom and sense of independence to the holy health temples of health led by the high priests of the science or the evil COVID will end the world.
	Hypothetical.
	You can sacrifice your literal autistic children.
	It's true.
	When you look at the mass psychosis surrounding a lot of the pandemic messaging, you can very easily see how something like an Aztec suicide cult can come into being.
	Like, you must sacrifice your children or the sun won't rise.
	Yesterday, John covered it.
	There was an order that if a kid had autism or other such learning disabilities, do not resuscitate orders were given to them or offered to them as a means to protect the NHS. Right, so we're literally killing kids to protect the energy.
	Right, this is an Aztec temple.
	If you're treating it like that.
	Are we the bad guys yet?
	Have you got there yet?
	Are we the baddies?
	This is where I kill this child.
	Ditch, move on to the next one.
	Sure.
	So on the pick-a-side YouTube stuff, so Callum Dayton says, the side I pick in all this is a free meritocracy that isn't ruled by some corporate council, authoritarian state, or Dr.
	Cocteau from demolition.
	And if that's the definition...
	Hey, Dr.
	Cocteau had a bang in kimono, I'm just saying.
	He did.
	Go watch Cole's video if you haven't on that.
	And if that's the definition of fascism, as lefties call it, then yeah, I'm a fascist.
	I mean, what's wrong with all that in the sense of fighting the authoritarians?
	I have a...
	God, this is a bit romantic of me, but there's a bit of a grain of hope in me because I watched all the interviews in that New York Times series and even met the guy who used to be in charge before Susan and the guys who wrote the algorithms and whatnot.
	And the early guys, they seem so normal.
	They're such normal people.
	They're just making software that it's going to be profitable.
	It's going to work.
	People are going to love it.
	Great!
	They're not like Susan who just comes in like a wrecking ball being like, you know, politics now.
	Yeah, but eventually Stalin always takes over from the Lenin.
	You know, someone comes in with a vision, whether it's good or bad or ugly, and then eventually they get replaced by a hard-nosed operator.
	It's a truism of Russian culture, at least.
	Yeah, I mean, there is also some saving grace in Susan as a person.
	I don't know who's around at YouTube, maybe someone from YouTube can let us know, or if any of the company culture still exists of freedom, which is that Susan is, you know, Wojcicki, therefore Polish, and she often talks about her grandfather who suffered under the Nazis and couldn't send emails, sorry, messages without getting intercepted or censored.
	And no irony seems to have made it to her brain about all that, but she talks about it a lot and therefore she is less bad, not by much, but less bad than Twitter, for example.
	Yeah, I don't know.
	I don't know if I'm buying it.
	Yeah, I'm not sure if I'm buying it, but I'd love to know if there is any circles on YouTube of freedom left.
	Maybe if it's just one guy.
	Let us know if you're watching the podcast.
	Listening to the podcast going, I hate it here.
	FreebornJJHW says, hopefully Zuby will get a few million from YouTube's black budget.
	I wouldn't hold your breath.
	Zuby, apply!
	Yeah, do it.
	Why not?
	I mean, you're a black woman of colour, so...
	Yeah, in the unique, underserved right-wing demographic...
	Yeah.
	Shaker Silver says, Don't feel bad about PewDiePie being dropped by Disney.
	Disney's buyout of Maker Studios resulted in a complete failure to establish themselves on YouTube, while Felix is still going strong.
	Subscribe to PewDiePie.
	Corporate creators have had financial backing, but they can never match the genuine interest and interaction of creators by grassroots creators.
	Yeah, there's something always fake about corporate stuff.
	It's like this glossy sheen.
	It's overproduced.
	There's not enough imagination in it.
	There's not enough cock-ups.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	Not like this show.
	Yeah, we have Callum Sferi all the time.
	I've been re-watching all the old Ricky Gervais, Carl Pukins.
	That's why I keep talking about it.
	Just because they're so much fun.
	But you can also tell it's kind of crap.
	They talk about monkeys, Chinese people, or knob news.
	That's the same thing every day.
	That's all they do.
	But you can see Ricky occasionally just being like, the 300 people who are tuned in.
	Thanks for being here.
	Anyway, we're out of time.
	So, if you like more from us, there won't be any monkey news or knob news, but if you would like more from us, you can go over to learnseers.com, subscribe, get access to premium content, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

▲