The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1229

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Aug. 13, 2025 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

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The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1229

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	Who are the men that pick for scraps amongst the ruins at the end of history?
	You should know, because you encounter them every day.
	Between the towering buildings of a fallen empire, we find the Felahen, the historyless men, who know nothing of the turning of the cosmic wheel and find themselves outside of civilization itself.
	Cut loose from the great chain of being, they represent the load into which our dying culture will return.
	That is, unless we choose to take up the burden once again.
	This fellaheen condition is the subject we explore in issue four of Islander magazine, on sale while stocks last and available worldwide at shop.loadseaters.com.
	Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Load Seaters, episode 1229 for Wednesday, the 13th of August 2025.
	I'm your host, Luca, joined today by Josh and Liz Devlios.
	Hello.
	Yes, he's back.
	He wasn't the mystery guest on this occasion, though.
	No, he was.
	He was.
	Well, there's another mystery.
	Anyway, today we're going to be discussing the UK just getting taxed into oblivion for the foreseeable future.
	We're then going to talk about the EU destroying journalistic freedom, and not the good kind, unfortunately, and how to spot high social IQ.
	I've been working hard to come up with...
	with my own flawless test so you are an expert in this field oh i oh i all right then over to you st, Stelios.
	Right, so unfortunately, it looks like the UK will be taxed into oblivion and Rachel Reeves is after all our money.
	So before she completely destroys your wallet, you may want to have an option.
	You may think, where should I invest my money and put it somewhere where their value is going to increase as opposed to evaporate?
	I have an idea for you.
	Oil under four.
	And they're talking here about the Felahin, something.
	It's just a concept about some broken people, something.
	Yeah, some Spanglerian historyless people.
	People at the end of history.
	Yeah, so it's 14.99.
	Click on our uk.shop dot lotusiters dot com.
	Check it out.
	Definitely it's the fourth issue of the Islander.
	This is a magazine that has done very well.
	Definitely get a copy.
	And the good news as well is that when the economy eventually all collapses, it's edible as well.
	So you can eat it.
	Exactly.
	And if we all turn into fellahen, you might as well know what's going to happen.
	So let's let's let's understand what's coming.
	Lotusiters is not liable for any paper cuts you receive following Lucas's advice.
	No.
	Right.
	So I hate taxes and I think Brother Josh hates taxes.
	I think Brother Luca isn't particularly keen on them either.
	I just don't like them.
	Right.
	So it looks like Labour is going for an economic policy that is disastrous and this is the combination of open borders and massive increase in welfareism.
	And this is of course to fill that 50 billion black hole that we've found out now exists within the budget.
	And of course when they came in they were complaining about the Conservatives having a 22 billion black hole and I for one I'm h hoping for, you know, not a metaphorical black hole to appear in Whitehall, but a real one.
	We can get rid of all this.
	But, ah, alas, I'm afraid, to you, black hole is a very small club of people.
	You have anticipated my point about black holes, Josh.
	Right, so.
	How's that going?
	It seems that this is the policy that Labour is opting for.
	They have their people.
	They have who is this man with a Stevenson with a weird accent?
	And everyone is falling for him because Gary Stevenson.
	Yeah, Gary Stevenson.
	Gary Economics.
	Tax the rich.
	Yeah, where have you heard this before?
	This is such a new concept., who came up with it?
	Well, the rich are more able to move than ever, And also that's already what's happening.
	And in fact, haven't we lost something like over a thousand multimillionaires over the past few years?
	I remember seeing something like that.
	I'm just remembering it very vaguely in my mind.
	Brother Josh, you're anticipating my segment again.
	You don't treat everything as a black hole.
	I'll let you get on with it.
	Right.
	So I think the combination of welfareism and open borders is disastrous because you have a population that is rising and more and more people require benefits.
	That means that people, everyday people who are working, are taxed into oblivion.
	and the taxes are rising.
	And if you see the main leftist narrative when it comes to poverty and crime and all adverse effects that we are encountering on a daily basis, it's always somehow leading into you need to be more taxed.
	It's always leading into it's always the answer.
	Exactly.
	And that is because the left has gone for the globally rich versus globally poor distinction, according to which almost everyone in the West, definitely the working class of England, sort of counts like globally rich.
	So that's basically a way of punishing people who are economically productive in favor of people who are essentially financial net negatives.
	Right.
	So in these conditions, business confidence is decreasing.
	So we have an article here from The Telegraph by Tim Wallace, its deputy economics editor.
	says business confidence worse than during COVID.
	Reeves has hit firms with cost increases while failing to improve economy, say bosses.
	Right.
	I mean, it's not particularly surprising to us.
	Maybe it could be surprising if you're a leftist, but it's not surprising.
	But there's also the fact that at this time, the global economy is not doing particularly well.
	And so it's all the more important that you get things right at home to be able to weather the storm.
	And instead, what we've got is a perfect storm of incompetence.
	Because not only did the pandemic disrupt trade, and I know things are sort of getting back to normal, but economic growth hasn't necessarily returned to the same sorts of...
	of levels you know in many ways i think we're getting degrowth aren't we yeah and so it's the worst time she could be possibly doing it for the country Right, so we have here an article that talks about key events.
	This is by the same author.
	And we are essentially going to show you stuff and data from this article and talk about them a bit because it's very dense in information.
	I'm not going to show you many links.
	We're just going to talk about this.
	And I'm going to say, so he says...
	So last last July it was 164,000 more jobs.
	And this is going to be a consequence of making the cost of having an employee more per head for businesses by increasing the business rates of tax previously.
	Yeah, and we're only just seeing the knock-on effects of that and now it's going to be made even worse probably.
	Yes, and they're saying basically that this has turned businesses to hire contractors to prefer contractors as opposed to full-time employees Hey, that's what I'm doing now Right, so it says it comes as company grapple with rising staff costs caused by the Chancellor's decision to raise the national minimum wage and employer national insurance contributions in April.
	So it seems to me that we have the same age old issue here.
	We have leftists who don't know economics 101 or they know it but they completely choose to pay attention to it because in their minds it's not the morally correct thing to do.
	Yes.
	If you want a vision of the future, Winston, imagine a Chancellor who looks like she should have been a dinner lady hiking your taxes up forever.
	It says there, however, average wage growth slowed down from 5% to 46% and we will see that wage growth is higher in the public sector not in the private sector which means the UK is opting for statism and statism means that the state is a black hole sucking all economic creativity stifling all you know economic freedom and making things worse before this
	I think As a percentage of our country's GDP, about 46% of it went through the state.
	And this was prior to all of this.
	So we're probably 50% now, if not more.
	And that's more or less a measure of how far are you to full communism.
	Well, we're halfway there.
	We're not living on a prayer, though.
	And let's be very honest.
	It's not just Labour who was bad at economics.
	No, no.
	It says there the number of job vacancies fell for the 37th month in a row to 718,000 between May and July.
	down by 44,000 on the previous three months.
	so they're they're just declining in number for a long time now it's more than three years.
	That's economic mismanagement.
	It's been declining at a pretty steady rate, despite technical innovation that's helped somewhat since the time of Thatcher when she was closing all of the industry and mines and the likes.
	And also we have the rate of unemployment holding firm at 4.7% between April and June.
	That's not exactly a good job.
	Right, so we have here jobs in retail and hospitality hit hard.
	Office of National Statistics Direction of Economic Statistics, Liz McKeon, said taken together these latest figures point to a continued cooling of the labour market.
	The number of employees on payroll has now fallen in 10 of the last 12 months, with these falls concentrated in hospitality and retail.
	Which are disproportionately low-income jobs as well.
	You know, what I would refer to as entry-level positions.
	Exactly.
	And now you can't even enter them because they're all getting taken up by new arrivals.
	I'm not surprised about the hotels, to be honest.
	I think in a thousand years time, the only thing that's going to be left are some towering golden hotels that have just taken in every migrant and built up an empire.
	Some of the richest people in the country now are the hotel owners that have been running this migrant scam.
	It's unbelievable.
	Well, if the population is increasing, then you need more food for them to eat right so no wonder no wonder the the wholesaling retailing and hotels and restaurants sector is going to to boost also if you have if you have a government that has open borders and also opts for welfareism and says that lots of people who come here illegally need to be placed in hotels
	and they're paying hotels also with taxpayer money Obviously hotels are going to show regular annual growth.
	But of course that's going to be disproportionately weighted towards the ones that have contracts with the state because there are many hotels and hotel chains that aren't going to do that and because of the state of the economy I imagine internal tourism's down and so actually it's going to be very much weighted to the hotels that have sold our country down the river and betrayed us and that's kind of unfortunate.
	Right also we see here that the public sector seems to show a high growth of salary.
	It says public sector pay grew by 5.7% while private sector pay slipped from 4.9% to 4.8% which I think is worrying.
	it shows a steady economic centralization tendency, which I consider to be particularly detrimental.
	I think it's also bad that they're getting such a significant pay cut at the expense of the private sector that has to prop it up.
	And, you know, I would like everyone to earn good money, so it's not necessarily jealousy.
	I mean, that's public sector also includes things like firefighters and ambulance staff.
	So, you know, obviously I'm going to be grateful towards them, but also include civil servants, to which I go, ugh.
	And police men.
	But there is also the other issue, Josh.
	and I'm sure you will agree with this is that when it comes to the public sector, lots of prices aren't determined spontaneously as they would be in a relatively free market.
	They very likely they reflect the choice of bureaucrats to try and gather political support.
	Well, there's no profits or losses to determine values.
	Therefore, it's harder to allocate resources.
	That's the whole reason that the Soviet Union collapsed.
	It's just in a much smaller, well, not so much smaller, but smaller scale.
	Right.
	Only half a Soviet Union.
	Yes.
	But also here we're talking about the per capita issue of how pay is distributed according to the population.
	It says total pay which measures average wages including bonuses fell from five percent to four point six percent during the period.
	So less money per person.
	Right, let's move onwards.
	Ministers target people not seeking work.
	This here is just complete gaslighting.
	Honestly, this is very frustrating.
	The government needs to bring more people out of economic inactivity and into work.
	work, a Labour education minister has said.
	Now pause for a minute and let's for instance talk about welfareism.
	One of the negative aspects of welfareism is that you are creating a culture of dependency.
	The more you opt for this, the greater you go for a social benefit, the more you go for increased social benefits, the more some people are going to say, well, what's the purpose in working?
	I'm just going to sit and I'm going to receive benefits.
	Because if I start working, I'm going to lose the benefits.
	In psychology, it's referred to as learned helplessness in that what you actually do by making someone dependent on you is you remove their ability to act in a way in which they can be self-sufficient and this is why Some African countries have actually said, no, we don't want foreign aid because we need to build up our own industries.
	Some of the more savvy ones, in fact, are like, actually, no, our dependence on foreign aid is actually hobbling us and we need to be self-sufficient because in the long run, we'll be much better off.
	And I think that's true of people as well.
	I think that to a certain extent, you have to be somewhat cruel to be kind and allow people to suffer the consequences of their own actions, obviously not to a ridiculous degree, but just enough that it motivates them to better themselves.
	Exactly, but this rhetoric that the Labour Education Minister is using isn't the traditional rhetoric of proponents of a massive welfare state.
	In fact, it's quite the opposite, but they are opting for this.
	in combination with open borders.
	And there are, what is it, twenty percent of welfare recipients of foreign nationals?
	Indeed, not surprised.
	Jobs slow down may be abetting, payrolls dropped to the lowest level in nearly two years, but the pace of decline was the lowest since January.
	Let's move forward.
	That's about the right, firms switch to contractors after Reeves' tax raid.
	Business owners are increasingly hiring contractors and virtual staff as they grapple with Rachel Reeves' tax raid.
	And we have here a chief executive at Mo Living saying, Since April's employer's national insurance hike, I've resisted taking on full time staff.
	My property management business now runs entirely with 12 contractors and virtual assistants both UK based and overseas.
	The NI increase raised employment costs enough to tip the balance.
	Full-time hires mean fixed overheads while contractors offer flexibility, scalability and access to specialist skills without the commitment of salaries, holiday pay or sick leave.
	This is precisely what the criticism of leftist economics is about.
	Stop thinking that your plans can backfire.
	They constantly talk about the precariousness of the working class and in their economic illiteracy they're making people's lives and especially the lives of the members of the working class more precarious.
	Because of course, if you are a contractor, you don't have the guarantee of income you have if you're a full-time employee.
	And so it's riskier, you know, I'm a contractor.
	However, I don't have any dependents that I have to look after.
	And were I in that position, I would perhaps want something a bit more secure because you want to be able to feed your own children, right?
	And moving to a contractor economy isn't necessarily the worst thing in the world, but it doesn't suit everyone, and particularly if you're in that camp of having a family and wanting the security of regular income, you can't take the hit or the risks like I can, perhaps, then it's going to be awful for you.
	And also you're going to need some of those benefits, things like, you know, national insurance and pension payments, all of that sort of stuff that you don't get when you're a contractor.
	You're absolutely right, and I will say this the way I saw it in universities.
	Universities have stopped hiring more or less, they have stopped hiring regular staff, full time staff, and they are opting for contractors.
	And there comes a time where they're saying, right, we either have to make you a full time member or we are going to stop our collaboration with you and then you have to find another place and yes this doesn't particularly help people who want to settle down and have a family because you need that kind of mobility right the minister defends Reeves tax rate on companies well they're protecting and defending their own let's move a bit upwards Reeves
	tax rate will mean no more rate cuts this year warns economists.
	I will say one thing which is good.
	The interest rates fell from 499 to I think 425 isn't 4.
	I was one of the unlucky ones because I got a mortgage with 4.99 a few weeks before it fell into 4.25.
	But that's a good thing.
	But they're saying that they are now a bit skeptical.
	So they will be very skeptical with respect to considering lowering the interest rates yet again.
	Right.
	So you get an idea.
	There are all sorts of data we can talk about here.
	Labor.
	economics is an absolute disaster borrowing costs rise after jobs blow it says here the yield on ten years-year UK guilds, a benchmark for the cost of servicing the national debt, climbed four basic points to four point six one percent, well ahead of rises in Europe and the US.
	It came as traders reduced bets on the Bank of England, cutting interest rates again this year following official data that indicated wage growth remains too high for inflation.
	Yields on bond markets tend to rise when there are expectations that interest rates will remain high.
	So it seems like there is in particular confidence in the UK economy by investors.
	Why would anything get better is only going to get worse?
	Right, we have this article here from this is money which is talking about rumours about an inheritance tax.
	That's just what people need stealing the pennies off of dead people's eyes, that's what they want to hear.
	We have a labour minister today open the door to a controversial inheritance tax rate as Chancellor Rachel Reeves looks to plug a fifty billion spending hole at her next budget.
	Now I checked and they said something like there are some institute research policy institutes who are talking about a 50 billion pound hole for the next five years that Rachel Reeves needs to fill.
	So that means that she will have to most probably, because that's what that's what that's how leftists think.
	They're going to say we're going to increase taxation as opposed to cut spending.
	Yeah, there'll be no reforms for the NHS.
	There'll be no cutting back on the gibbs to migrants.
	It'll just be pinching from native Brits until there's nothing left to take.
	Right, and I think that they are definitely not going to go for cutting spending.
	They also say about the NHS that one of the reasons why they want to increase their revenue is because they want to increase funding to the NHS.
	Yep, there it is.
	Yeah, the NHS.
	It's one of those institutions where you have several people saying, no, no, it's completely underfunded, other people saying that it's completely overfunded.
	I'll say anecdotally, I have a very good friend who has worked for the NHS, and they say that they are incred spending incredibly and they're not particularly economic and they're buying kits of of medical equipment and they are buying them in packs of you know 15 or 20 and they may open up one and they're expensive and they may open one kit take a knife out of it or a scalpel or a scissor or something and
	then throw all the pack um just i can put it into perspective if you want yeah so we spend more than the japanese do per head on health care and the japanese obviously have almost double our population and yet you can walk into a doctor's surgery and get a same-day appointment and everything works over there and it doesn't work here.
	It sort of suggests that it's not a matter of money because, you know, unless the Japanese are miracle workers, there's a comparable situation there.
	It just suggests that everything's being mismanaged and there's lots of waste, which hearing from pretty much anyone who works in it is definitely the case.
	And what's more, there's no incentive by the NHS or by those who, you know, take management of it to reduce that waste because it's an institution that is just invulnerable to criticism, right?
	This threat is this holy thing that can't really be criticized.
	I would abolish it in a heartbeat.
	Right, so we have a lot of billionaires and millionaires leaving.
	We have here Norwegian marine tycoon flees to the United Arab Emirates blaming Reeves' tax raid, and he is not the only one.
	There are many who are leaving because they are considering the UK economy to be less investment worthy than they did before.
	And definitely before Rachel Reeves' tax raid.
	I'm amazed it's taking Sorry, Stanley, Scott.
	No, no, please.
	I was just going to say very quickly that.
	that I'm amazed people haven't seen the writing on the wall that this entire economic model just doesn't work.
	Like it's so obvious.
	The economic model of the entirety of the Western world doesn't work and it's just putting our governments into debt and we need to change it.
	It's that obvious.
	It might work somewhat for the United States but that's because they've got, you know, the dollar which is used as a reserve currency for a decent portion of the countries in the world and therefore they can run a debt deficit, they can keep printing money and get away with it because the costs are spread out to not just the United States but other countries as well.
	We can't do that.
	So it makes our economy contract like this.
	This reminds me of something Milton Friedman said, I think, about the Soviet Union.
	says when the Soviet Union collapsed, people said that it collapsed because of a very stagnant economy and economic centralization.
	And the lesson they took from it was the You couldn't get more centralized than that.
	There's no denying it.
	They had an office full of bureaucrats running stuff, basically.
	Right, so it looks like Rachel Reeves will opt for increasing taxes and try to tax us into oblivion.
	All right.
	May I have the venerable text?
	Oh, yeah, sure.
	Yeah, okay.
	The engaged few.
	In Bo's Britain, Josh will be...
	You could...
	The cobble commentator at the Fed posting.
	The treason hangs, his dulcet tones explaining how the knot has to be positioned on the neck just so in order to...
	Oh, please, nooses are easy to tie.
	one of the first knots you learn
	Stelly.
	Come on, base tape.
	Right.
	The habsification, why people still keep voting Labour is beyond me.
	No lessons are ever learned.
	I think I have an answer for you because it reminds me of Greece.
	They may be doing it because they think that they personally will profit from that situation.
	Well, hello Anon.
	You know and I know that the EU hates you and would rather that you don't have the opinions that you have about certain things, certain projects and the trajectory that Europe seems to be going on these days and they have solutions for that and we'll talk about them in a moment but before we do let's talk about a bit more about that wonderful knowledge that you hold and how you can enhance it with the fourth issue of Islander magazine.
	This one, the theme is Felaheen.
	It's about how really civilizations can crash out after their winter period and lose memory, right?
	It's about losing memory of what made you great, what led to you thriving in the first place and being a successful society.
	So there's loads of really erudite thinkers writing essays for this magazine.
	You've got Morgoth, you've got Will Tanner, you've got Ed Dutton.
	You've got Luca Johnson.
	Yeah, I wrote one about the Lord of the Rings and what yeah I can just map Svengler onto the Lord of the Rings and it was quite a challenge but I kind of got there anyway let's start talking about the EU so if sorry if you want to buy Ireland it's $14.99 on the website and while shipping yeah but limited time while stocks last so go and buy it now all right then so You have here this wonderful post from the EU that they put out.
	Actual schizo posting, are they?
	You see, the more you repeat it, I assume the more true it becomes.
	It reminds me of Jack Torrance.
	All work and no play makes Jack a dark boy.
	So as I say, the European Commission, independent free media stands at the core of our democracy.
	I am so sick of the words our democracy.
	American politics has sort of ruined that for us, hasn't it?
	Well, and EU politics as well.
	Oh, blimey.
	Just Western politics.
	Anyway, today the European Media Freedom Act starts applying designed to strengthen media freedom, independence and pluralism within the EU.
	And you can see here that they also had a, well, there's a link where it told me that I could go and find out more.
	So I did.
	And you can see here, they go on to say that free media is a key pillar of every democracy, and they are essential for a healthy market economy.
	On a global scale, the European Union remains a stronghold for free media, setting a standard as a democratic continent.
	Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
	pulling my leg.
	That's what they say.
	When did the EU have a comedy division, eh?
	Honestly, yeah.
	Building on past efforts, the Commission has taken a number of measures to protect media freedom and pluralism in the EU in addition to enhancing free movement of services.
	So, as always, the technocracy, the bureaucracy, has our best interests at heart, and we'll start to explore some of the ways that they're going to do that.
	And as always, they don't have a mirror.
	No, no, they never come to the conclusion of why don't we just get out the way?
	Or are we the baddies?
	Are we the baddies?
	Yeah, exactly that.
	So it goes on to say that the legislation is aimed at defending democratic values by fostering, this is great, the sustainability and visibility of trusted editorially responsible media and news content.
	It can't trust any media, full stop.
	You should never take anything for face value.
	You know, and I'm saying that about what I say as well.
	Please don't just take it for face value.
	You know, look it up, check it, fact check it if you wish.
	That's good practice, generally speaking.
	Yes, definitely fact check everything that Josh is about to say in his upcoming segment.
	Well, that is fact.
	But haven't they just, you know, from the very beginning that no, it's about protecting the trusted sources, right?
	It's about all the legacy media throughout the continent, you know, in France and Germany and all the rest of them, right?
	And it's obviously going to be used as a weapon to bludgeon and force into submission all of the new, independent, you know, privately owned media companies that are popping up across Europe now and the independent journalists as well who quite frankly do all the heavy lifting these days.
	Enough patterning yourself on the back.
	Well, no, I was more thinking I wasn't thinking about that at all.
	I was thinking about the We are the pillars of civilization.
	Yes.
	Yes, without us, everything would crumble.
	I was more thinking about just, you know, the people like going out and filming the migrant hotel protests and stuff like that.
	The stuff that the media doesn't want you to know, you know, those sorts of things.
	So look at the journalism they took from us.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	Or are trying to take away from us.
	Yeah.
	Indeed.
	So it doesn't, it didn't, of course, take long before we got to the nub of what all this was about, which is a perfectly legitimate word.
	You can say nub stellar.
	I think it's the accent that makes it sound like you're saying something else.
	Well, I'm sorry, I'll try to do better.
	Oh, well, thank you.
	Right.
	So, Article 3.
	Member States shall ensure that journalistic sources and confidential communications are effectively protected.
	Member States shall not take any of the following measures.
	Okay, that's a good start.
	Good start here.
	They and it's let's go to B. Detain, sanction, intercept or inspect media service providers or their editorial staff or subject them or their corporate or private premises to surveillance or search and seizure for the purposes of obtaining information relating to or capable of body health they could do with a few full stops in this couldn't they of identifying journalistic sources or confidential communications or
	detain sanction intercept or inspect any persons who you get the idea that is the longest sentence I've ever heard yeah I've heard it would have been a lot better if it was like detain sanction intercept migrants No, it's journalists.
	Okay.
	And you can do that.
	But as it says there, member states shall not take any of those following measures right up until we go to point four where all of a sudden we can see that well by way of derogation from paragraph three member states may take a measure referred to therein provided that it is provided by union or national law is in compliance with articles fifty two one of the charter and
	here's see is justified on a case by case basis by an overriding reason of public interest and is proportionate.
	And this is the line that has been circulating, isn't it?
	Because of course.
	justified on a case by case basis and public interest.
	That's like doubly subjective.
	It's just like, yes, we very much want to have our cake and eat it too here we want to appear like we're this nice and noble institution that protects journalistic integrity but actually what we've done is given governments basically the power to silence whoever they like because any anything can be justified by public interest i mean whether it's legitimately in the public's interest or not is a different thing but that is so subjective as to just invite tyranny absolutely and
	And if there's one thing that we've seen ever since that glorious revolution of 2016 and Brexit, was the fact that, of course, the EU didn't take that defeat and use it to be introspective about the way they were governing things.
	Such dissatisfaction had emerged in Britain about the European model.
	just who has sovereignty, right?
	Where does does power lie who has the power to decide their own destiny and all these sorts of things no every step they've taken ever since 2016 has been further down the rabbit hole of every grievance that your skeptics had about the EU and the first place.
	So the EU isn't functioning particularly as a democratic institution.
	These are just words.
	These are just words.
	And this is also just words.
	Because frequently we can look at documents and they do make sense in the abstract.
	The question is how are they applied?
	I think that the main problem with the leadership of the EU right now is that they think that there is one and only one problem.
	Which is basically Russia.
	And populism.
	And populism, yeah, but they are linking it with Russia.
	They're trying to argue that they're all Russian-funded aren't they?
	Which is just as spurious as the Donald Trump 2020 gate stuff.
	Or let's say Putin's Russia.
	Let me put it this way.
	Now, let's let me be very clear.
	I think that, yeah, to a very large extent, there is an attempt to influence Europe negatively from Putin's Russia.
	I think it's it's there's no doubt to this.
	But the problem is that the same issues that are problems in that on that front are also problems on other fronts.
	Of course.
	They don't understand this.
	So for instance, I'll give you two very quick examples.
	The only border in Europe, the only European border in Europe where the EU is within quotation marks far right about is the border between Poland and Belarus.
	If you focus on the language that they are using about that border, they are saying everything everyone else says from the right about borders in general.
	They're saying Putin is using migration.
	and also Lukashenko are you both of them are using migration as a method of hybrid warfare.
	That's actually true though, isn't it?
	Yes.
	But yes, it is true.
	The point is, why do they artificially, why do they selectively say, no, this is the only border for which this is going to apply, and all the other borders are going to be open.
	So that's one thing.
	And the other bit is, I'm asking people, for instance, who are in Greece, who are really close to me, and they're smart.
	I'm not saying, right, I'm asking, right, what is your issue with Putin's Russia?
	And they're going to give me a list, say X, Y, Z. Right, I'm asking, okay, can't you understand that the same thing comes from other areas as well?
	That's not the only problem that the EU is facing.
	And that's when most of them are beginning to think that functions as sort of the beginning of a rabbit hole.
	Indeed.
	The onion of deception.
	So, as I say, the problem that we have here, of course, is the fact that...
	It's voted to itself.
	And of course, because it's the EU, it has to have an entire other body of Quangos set up in order to operate it, who are all elected officials, of course, from across the member States.
	There's a very good phrase that you can't legislate freedom.
	You know, in many ways freedom is the absence of legislation.
	And so you look at this and you think, hang on a minute, how can you make the press free with a law?
	How does that exactly work?
	Well, you're protecting them from the government at best, perhaps.
	But then also it gives domestic governments power as long as it's not inconsistent with EU law, which as we've seen here is pretty subjective.
	Well, as we say, they're making their press free.
	Their trusted press is going to be free.
	everyone else will simply have to tread on eggshells.
	So then you get...
	So in Finland, Ursula von der Leyen gave a speech.
	She praised Finland for being a democratic country where people are free to express themselves and saying that in Moscow, a protester would be arrested within minutes.
	Just within hours.
	It's within hours.
	And first of all, to those who scream and yell here so loud, they can be happy that they are not a free country like Finland., where the prestige is a right, where they have not any restrictions.
	And they would be in Moscow, they would be in jail in two minutes.
	Thanks God we have a democracy.
	Thanks God we have a retreat.
	We're here!
	We're here!
	fart noise
	I'm so sorry about that, gosh.
	My poor ears.
	I don't think it wasn't as bad for you.
	That German aggression was coming through.
	I don't think it was as bad for you at home, but my poor ears, they're still ringing.
	But you get the point.
	So that chap in the audience, he was fined 110 euros.
	That sounds like freedom to me.
	Yeah.
	Just for shout, heckling.
	Yeah, it's just freedom to be fined.
	Saying that he disagreed.
	And yeah, it was harming a public official.
	Criticism.
	He carried on talking while it was all going on.
	Criticism is the worst form of harm that an EU official can take, frankly.
	I have a migraine now, sir.
	I'm so sorry.
	I'm very, very sorry.
	So then you have, I'll be cautious before I play this about the volume now that I've spooked you both terribly.
	But it's also, you have here, of course, within the EU, you know, as far back as, you know, back when we used to participate in, you remember that time when we used to have European elections in Britain?
	That do, yeah.
	That far off past now.
	I even voted in one.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I voted in one too.
	And invariably what would happen is we get a load of UKIP MPs just sort of shouting and jeering.
	from in that venerable chamber right there in the European Parliament.
	But what does any of it really matter?
	Right?
	Does any of it really matter?
	Yes, you can elect them but they're not because the decisions have already been made the the commission who are you know a tight cabal of um coaching have already decided what is going to happen and what the uh the democratic will of the people is and here i was thinking of making an existentialist point but um no you're very much right well you can make the existentialist point if you wish i don't want to depress people anymore that's all right how considerate
	um and it's exactly the same now of course you still get the odd based polish voice in the eu saying exactly what they're doing and the chap is absolutely right.
	Dear colleagues, the discussion here is not about the so-called Media Freedom Act, a label given by the European Commission to this regulation, but the Media Surveillance, Control and Censorship Act, which accurately describes the nature of this regulation.
	It is unacceptable that the European Commission claims to promote the media freedom, while in fact, this regulation opens the doors for journalists, their employers and even their families to be subjected to surveillance and spying by the security agencies.
	As the shadowed rapport to In Libe for the ECR group, Joseph Stalin said, and I quote, The press is our party's shadest and most powerful weapon.
	Clearly, under the leadership of Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission does not desire a free press, but rather a propaganda machine, which is tightly controlled and subjected to surveillance like it was in the Soviet Union.
	The dangerous precedent established by the so-called Media Freedom Act regulation will have unapceivable and devastating consequences for democracy and freedom of the speech throughout the European Union, which is why, as the Parliament too heavily rejected?
	I hope Ursula von der Leyen doesn't change her name to political potential.
	It's one of the theories about fall apart, about the name.
	Right.
	Yeah, because they were talking about Stalin.
	there's just a few points to make on this of course.
	One is that we But the other thing as well is that with the wave of populist growth in the political parties across Europe, now, of course, you know, we all have.
	our contentions with these populist parties and how much they're just simply seizing on the political capital of the moment and whether or not it's actually all charged by principle and invariably it just so happens that you just have to vote them in like you do in Italy, wait for them to screw you over and find out the hard way.
	But in other cases, it's more about the fact that, well, all of this apparatus is being set up by the European Commission and by all of these Europhiles in order to keep the populist threat at bay so they can clamp down on populist media so that they can as we say clamp down on the independent journalists so that they can control the narrative right it's all it's just about controlling the narrative and trying to obviously shape your perception of
	what's going on in europe which i needn't tell you isn't great but also in making this If these populist parties do get into power, or dare I suggest parties even more radical than that, then they are creating this entire apparatus that those parties will then be able to inherit and use against the people who created it in the first place.
	I feel like the beauty of this is we've left the EU but they're still speaking English even though we're gone.
	I did think about that.
	Cultural victory, my friend.
	The eternal anglo strikes again.
	All right, I'll head over to these comments.
	EngageFew says, yeah, it's our democracy in the same way that there's a Democratic People's Republic of Korea, indeed.
	Habsification says, it just tells you they've lost all control of a narrative.
	They yearn for the days of publicly funded state broadcasters and news media and state-approved private media.
	Yeah, they absolutely do.
	But that's the thing as well.
	If they actually had any sense of containment, they would just address some of the most contentious issues.
	And obviously, new to the populist energy around Europe.
	But they can't even do that.
	They can't pivot.
	This also applies to Labour.
	Maybe even more so at this rate.
	We've got Sigilstone says, the EU more like the PU.
	Funny.
	Ha, got them.
	Banger comment, Sigilstone.
	Habsification says, the EU despises the alternative platforms, independent media and citizen journalists, not only because it exists, but also because they're unable to sync their managerial hooks into it.
	also because the independent media actually has an organic fan base right you're not just watching it because your great grandfather you know, used to listen to the BBC on the wireless back in the 1920s and then the television.
	You know, it's like, no, like the times have changed, the circumstances have changed, and if they're not going to cater to the moment and address the problems that are going then The stakes are so high that people are going to look elsewhere.
	Whatever information, you know, the EU tried to control, if people feel like they're being lied to, they will look elsewhere.
	It's that simple.
	All right.
	All right then, Josh, here's what these facts.
	I need to be giving me stuff first.
	I'll go on the gibbs.
	There'll be lots of link pressing.
	Yes, I do.
	The veil was hilarious before.
	Right.
	Get my hair out my face while I'm at it.
	Right, I'm good to go now.
	I took my time.
	But it's worth taking.
	Stop pampering yourself.
	You've got to get into the all right.
	All right.
	So we all know how IQ tests are racist.
	I mean, here's a book, which is obviously definitive proof.
	The Racism of Intelligence, how mental testing practices have constituted an institutionalized form of group domination.
	And it's not just books.
	There's also research papers here.
	Here's one.
	Race and racism in intelligence testing.
	And why are they saying that?
	Well, here's a graph.
	On one side is your average IQ of certain levels of education and the average IQ of certain groups.
	There's this very awkward lining up here between 9 to 11 years and a certain group which makes it quite uncomfortable because of course you look at say white or Asian that's equivalent to you know college, you know, university, what have you, education almost.
	That doesn't look good.
	And of course, the answer for this is that it's caused by racism.
	Of course, this graph is taken from this, which is the most widely used intelligence test for adults in the world.
	And that graph itself came from this book, which is associated with that test.
	So it's only the most widely used one, which, of course, just goes to show how deep the problem is.
	Of course, I've spent a lot of time thinking about this because I've had a lot of time on my hands, let's be honest.
	And I think I've come up with a solution that will cater towards the people who weren't getting...
	getting quite the scores and it's a different kind of test more to their sort of level I suppose and is that of a sort of social or civic IQ but first I suppose it's's worth mentioning that if you've already got a high civic IQ, you know that buying Ireland magazine is probably a good idea.
	It's internationally shipped, you can get it in most countries, I think, and it's relatively cheap and you get some beautifully designed things and some well written stuff.
	And guess what?
	It's on paper.
	When the EU bureaucracy destroys the internet, you'll still have this, you can still have stuff to read in your electricityless house.
	So there you go, it's a plan for the future.
	With that out of the way, I put out this.
	This is my first attempt at trying to devise a test, but then I soon democratised it to you, the people at home, the audience.
	I asked you to help me come up with some questions as well, and I've selected my favourites, and we're going to go through, and there is a point at the end of all of this.
	So I'm not just being silly, although it's going to be a lot of fun.
	There is a proper political point here at the end.
	So I say, at the start of IQ tests, they should ask, Do you use your speaker phone in public?
	And if the answer is yes, the pen is taken away, and the rest of the tests must be completed in crayon.
	Each crayon eaten is a deduction of 10 points.
	which I feel like is an important point.
	I will say, as per my previous segment where I was berating the term democracy, I am a fan of democracy on Twitter.
	I feel like that's the best place for it.
	I tell you what, this process actually made me feel like, you know what, the internet's not such a bad place after all.
	I was sort of proud of you all.
	I was just like, you got the assignment.
	You've given me lots of good answers.
	It's like, ah, you look, you know, better than you think, really.
	Sounds almost like a backhanded compliment.
	I meant it in a nice way.
	So the first subsection of my test is called In the Store.
	And it relates to obviouslyly things that are in stores.
	So the most obvious one, of course, is do you return the shopping cart?
	The ultimate test of self governance, which I don't feel like needs much explanation.
	I think the question is self evident.
	I imagine you both return the shopping cart.
	I want that quid back out of it, don't I?
	That's true, Stelios.
	Yeah, of course.
	Why would I leave it in the middle of nowhere?
	Exactly.
	Or in a river.
	Yeah.
	It's not exactly like a post apocalyptic setting.
	So the next question I quite liked.
	When shopping for groceries, you realise you grabbed an item accidentally that you did not want.
	Do you A place the item on the closest available shelf or B Or B, return the item to its proper place on the shelves.
	Well, I think we know the correct answer to this one, right?
	Right.
	Obviously you throw it on the floor.
	Josh, I think there's the other element.
	There's people who understand what you want to hear, irrespective of what they're going to do.
	So let's say I'm a very sneaky person.
	I can understand what you want.
	You look left, you look right, there's no one else in the aisle with you.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Throw it away, you know.
	Destroy it, you know, destroy it in seconds.
	In a similar vein, while shopping you noticed a garment has fallen off the hanger and is laying crumpled on the floor.
	Do you A, put it back on the hanger, B, ignore it and hope nobody notices, or C, kick it further under the rack so other shoppers don't notice you ignore it.
	Or D, wear it.
	D is shoplift it, yeah.
	To be fair, when I was a kid, I did do C once or twice, but then more often than not, it wasn't me that knocked it over and I was just like, well, I'm going to move out of the way because it's better than someone standing on it, but I'm not going to take the time to pick this up because it's, you know, shop that's somewhat beneath me.
	And then you add, Edward, I had higher education and you learned that that was wrong.
	Now I pick it up and put it back on the hanger, yes.
	But the point being that it is children that make these sorts of mistakes, ideally.
	Well, as we've seen, sometimes it's not always the children, is it?
	And if you have a full trolley and the person behind you only has a couple of items, do you let them go in front of you?
	Now I've seen this happen quite a lot, and it happens normally in more high-trust areas.
	I know where I grew up, this was always the case.
	People would actually stand in the queue and look behind them to make sure they could facilitate a speedy...
	What?
	And you've got a full trolley or you're the person you have a full trolley and say okay let's get it done let's get it done i've done that before actually and i just asked the person next to me is it all right if you watch my trolley while i pop to the toilet and they're like yeah of course and then by the time i'd come back my trolley was there with a very annoyed cashier i was just like i had to go i'm so sorry i was desperate i drank so much it's fine i'm i'm josh firm from the low seas i wasn't at that point it was just josh firm And then finally,
	do you have your wallet, purse, cash or card ready at the checkout when it's time to pay or do you react with surprise and have to locate it when given the price of your purchase.
	I think this is a man-woman thing.
	Stylios is going to stir the pot.
	No, because I think generally speaking, you know, I just have the car ready and I pay.
	But I see my wife many times, you know, she just sits there, she opens her wallet.
	She's looking at the 10 pence.
	I've seen other women doing it because they frequently carry more stuff than we do.
	That's true.
	I'm always there with a card ready.
	Sometimes I might even get my wallet out whilst I'm putting the shopping away, even before I've paid, just so I can get it as quickly as possible.
	But also shopping isn't a religious experience for me.
	I hate it.
	Yeah, I absolutely hate it.
	I'll go into the store.
	I'm going to look at, I'm going to x-ray it.
	I'm going to instantly find out what I want to buy.
	I'll either buy it or not and then I'm gone.
	That's called being a man's stelios and that's the correct way of doing it.
	I know what I like.
	I'm in and out of the shop.
	Yeah.
	Precision hit.
	It's like a special military operation.
	You go in and out.
	No witnesses.
	Having said that.
	No surrender.
	For all of this, you know, it's like, no, I just want to get in and, you know, do my shop as fast as possible.
	There is still the no.
	It's still there, no, I will take a little bit more time if it means taking the right answer to these questions right.
	If it means putting things back on the right shelf or letting someone with far fewer things than you go ahead, right?
	Just these social things.
	Social considerations for all the people.
	Naturally, courtesy comes first.
	Right.
	Next, my subgroup is travel.
	So, you're leaving a bus.
	What do you say?
	And now they didn't include any options, but I thought this was a good question.
	I have option A, nothing.
	Option B, a bunch of gibberish to your cousin Abdelon's speaker phone.
	Or C. Thank you.
	I've been basically coded to always say thank you to the bus driver.
	Yes.
	Same.
	But then you don't have a cousin called Abdul.
	That's true.
	But if I did, I'd be on the phone.
	But what if the driver is the leftist?
	I'm still grateful that he transported me safely.
	More grateful, really.
	Yes, but he did it because he was aiming towards the revolution.
	Not to help you.
	The revolution of bus drivers.
	What's he going to do?
	Just go on strike.
	Oh, wait.
	They never turn up anyway.
	Yeah, he's not going to notice.
	So this one was almost a trick question because I actually found this one difficult.
	Who gets the last seat on the bus?
	So, you know, there's a final seat and for some reason there's this mix of people.
	First come, first serve, which is, you know, the London rules.
	A mother with children in bags who I'd normally give up a seat for.
	Whoever is the largest, I would make them stand out of principle.
	They need it.
	Four, the oldest passenger, another good candidate.
	I give up my seat to old people.
	Five, a pregnant woman, which is, you know, I feel like a given you give up your seat for a pregnant woman.
	Six, a disabled man.
	Seven, yourself.
	And to this, I'm just like, well, have I got to pick between a mother and her children with lots of bags?
	Obviously needs lots of room.
	A pregnant woman, the oldest passenger, so an old person or a disabled person.
	At this rate, I would just say, you know what, you guys figure it out between you.
	I'm not going to sit down.
	You know, I might get the next one, actually.
	This is too awkward.
	But I feel like the disabled person, normally they're...
	they come on wheels don't they as in onto like a bus they'll be in like a wheelchair so you can tuck them away um with it like close to the luggage rack obviously still in their wheelchair tuck them away um so i i unless they're like on crutches or something um but then i think it should be the pregnant person, then the old person.
	Because I think old people are happy to stand for a pregnant woman.
	They understand the importance of it and they're most likely to adhere to that.
	However, if anything, I would encourage other people to stand to help some of these people sit.
	But it's a very difficult one.
	Yeah, I get up for that woman.
	I've done that before.
	Yeah.
	You shame people into being good.
	It works.
	So here's one.
	When you're waiting for a lift, when the doors open, do you immediately enter or do you wait for current passengers to disembark?
	Now in Britain, people are normally pretty good for this except um i think in the underground in london where people sort of scramble but not always yeah and i i've noticed that more and more over the years as well but yeah getting worse yeah lived in london five years and to begin with i didn't notice that like everyone wherever they were from in the world like the people getting off had right of way and now that's becoming less and less common you need to exit like a juggernaut I've shoulder barged people
	before.
	I'm just there walking out the door just like this.
	Taking out as many as possible.
	No.
	You look at them like a hater.
	It's the broken window effect, isn't it?
	Stand back.
	Here's another one.
	Do you move to the side of the escalator so people can pass?
	Lots of people fall af out of this one.
	You have a fast lane and a slow lane.
	To be fair, it's more of a London thing in my mind because where I'm from, we didn't really have fast and slow lanes.
	If you're on the escalator, normally you're just standing there.
	And people take their time.
	I'm from the West Country.
	It's a slower pace of life.
	people are just generally less in a rush.
	one of those people that I just I always walk up them anyway so do I I normally take stairs if given the choice but the ratio of standers to walkers is quite, for want of a better way to put it.
	I think too many idle men in England.
	I've seen too many videos from Russia where the escalator collapses and people get swallowed up and I'm just like, you know what?
	I'm going to take the stairs.
	I don't know who's maintaining this.
	Here's another one.
	When travelling by train do you A sit inside, B sit on top or C hang on the outside?
	I tell you what, a part of me is waiting for this to happen in England.
	I've thought about this before.
	The thing is, if it happens in Britain, I think the first people to notice it are going to be all of the anoracts that are watching the trains.
	All the train spotters getting upset.
	just like narrow that you can't do that.
	No one will believe them.
	No.
	They'll be the canary in the coal mine for the decline.
	And then the final one in travel is starting your car's turn signals or your indicators if you're in Britain indicates, one, you'll be turning or changing lanes in three or more seconds, two, you're beginning to change lanes right now, three, what are those?
	Imagine people put a stoplight and now I'm just stopping.
	Four.
	Instantly.
	Four, indicate one way, go in the other direction.
	Diversion.
	I'm actually going to correct this one because the correct answer according to the British Highway Code is that it indicates that you wish to turn, not that you're going to turn in any amount of seconds.
	It's that you're going to turn or change lanes when it is safe.
	So it's indicating your intention, which is why we call them indicators rather than turn signals.
	So that is the correct way.
	I got a good score on my theory test, all right?
	Not so good on the practicals.
	Still not road legal.
	Hey, I've got a license.
	And next, I've called this food and entertainment.
	Here's a good one.
	Do you ever feel peckish when you see swans at the park.
	I feel like this is, do you see the ducks and the swans in the park?
	Do you see them as free to be taken?
	Or do you see them as, in a sense, collective public property that beautifies the area?
	Well, on a personal level, I don't like swans, but I wouldn't go so far as to eat one.
	No, but I wouldn't make a picnic of one.
	No.
	No.
	Buffet, perhaps, but not a picnic.
	Why would I want a swan in my house?
	They could break a man's arm, you know.
	Go around loitering.
	Just a one swan actually.
	So, here's a one that's particular one that's particularly topical.
	For each meal, which is the correct eating tool for the job?
	Knife and fork, spoon, hands, and for hands in mouth up to the knuckle.
	So we've got a roast dinner top left, some slop top right, a burger bottom left, and soup bottom right.
	I would say, obviously roast dinner, knife and fork.
	slop you use your hands to launch it away from you because it's probably going to give you food poisoning a burger um a And the same with the fries or chips.
	And soup, obviously.
	use a spoon.
	Obviously hands.
	Yes.
	Hands for soup.
	I've seen it happen before when I've been in London.
	I've seen someone eat soup with their hands.
	And the thing is, it wasn't that they didn't have a spoon.
	There was a spoon next to them.
	So they chose to do it.
	So obviously, how do they do it?
	They take it out.
	They like cup their hand.
	You talk to them and you like teach me.
	I don't want to learn.
	No, just study them.
	Eat my cereal in the morning with a cupped hand.
	Unbelievable.
	So this one gave me PTSD, as I said in the reply.
	When you visit a busy takeaway restaurant, do you read the menu, contemplate your choices and decide on your meal while in the line, or only do that after the cashier asks for your order?
	Which was one of the most popular suggestions actually.
	one is annoying yes please make your decisions before you talk to a I never have this problem because I'm a very, very basic man and I just always order the same thing from the takeaway whichever one I go to.
	I like to go for adventurous stuff.
	Growing up, you don't leave your rubbish in the cinema.
	You take it with you.
	And when everyone left, there'd be no sign that people had been there to watch a film.
	But this is, of course, the West Country.
	So everything works down there.
	And it was just that no one went to the cinema.
	To be fair, towards the end, yes.
	Do you talk to the person next to you the whole way through?
	Which apparently is the thing.
	I've never really seen this in the cinema myself.
	But in London, apparently, it's really bad.
	Multicultural areas.
	Do you answer phone calls and shout over the film to be heard?
	I've seen videos of this in the cinema.
	let's put it that way.
	And the tennises.
	Everyone was very conscientious, you know, and it felt like it was just a nice atmosphere to go and enjoy a film in.
	But then there was another friend who couldn't catch it.
	I enjoyed the film, so I went again.
	But that time we went to the cinema in Peckham.
	And if you're not from Britain, that is a very diverse, particularly black area.
	There was a lot of cries from the urban youth and it was honestly the single worst experience.
	Cinema experience I'd ever had.
	Speaking of a movie theater, you know, one thing that constantly makes me go ballistic.
	But in seconds is when people are kicking my seat.
	I hate seat kickers.
	That's another question.
	Do you kick people's seats?
	Also, whoever invented I've been an absolute tyrant there.
	Whoever invented eating popcorn in the cinema, I want to find you and hurt you.
	No, you know what?
	I would just find you.
	I would just find you.
	I would just eat food in the place where you most want silence.
	No, because I'd, okay, if we were in a movie and you were frustrated with people eating popcorn, I'd laugh hysterically with you getting frustrated.
	I know you.
	I know you well enough.
	That's not need to be said.
	That's another thing.
	Do you have a high enough social IQ so that if you do take snacks to the cinema, you open them all and get rid of the noise, the noise bits, before the film starts?
	When I went to see Top Gun Maverick, someone brought along what can only be described as a cooked meal in a Tupperware, which was still warm and stunk out the entire cinema.
	If that's you, consider Dignitas.
	That's the politest way I can put it.
	So, Imagine you're busy barbecuing indoors and you hear a beep from your hallway.
	What do you do?
	Or a chirp.
	A, I don't hear no beep.
	B. B, offer a sacrifice to satiate the sky bird, or C, change your smoke alarm battery.
	It's an important question.
	So here's one that is actually quite a good one because it's sort of counterintuitive to some people.
	In a busy pub, you find a place to stand at the bar and wait until, you know, it's your turn to be seen by the barman, or do you start forming a single-file queue like somebody who's never been in a pub before?
	So yes, we like a queue in Britain.
	Not always appropriate.
	Sometimes when you're at the pub, the man at the bar or the lady, you know, different times, keeps.
	rough track and also the people at the bar normally say oh no you were here before me there's a certain amount of deference and what it does is having this method makes people talk to each other, makes people show some good faith to one another you don't just slide in and barge ahead nothing breeds ire in my English heart more than someone who slides in and gets served before their time it's a complete violation of the social contract and
	speaking of which do you bathe daily and wear deodorant?
	You've been to before.
	You've been to the gym before.
	Yes.
	I've noticed that certain demographics, largely the subcontinent of India and the continent of sub-Saharan, well, part of sub-Saharan Africa, just refuse to wear them in the gym of all places.
	And sometimes when you're trying to do reps, you get a big lungful of someone else's body up That is enough to deter you and is actually probably dangerous.
	And I'm not saying this to be like hyperbolic.
	You just drop the f ⁇ ing on yourself.
	Like I'm just, I'll be there lifting, you know, 95 kg's bench press.
	And then I'm there catching the whiff of someone's axispits.
	And I'm just like, ha ha ha.
	It makes the rep harder.
	It does.
	It really does, because you're getting less oxygen intake.
	It stinks.
	Here's a nice basic one.
	Do you say sorry when someone bumps into you?
	Of course.
	I do as well.
	I remember someone in Slovenia stood on my foot and I said sorry to them and then they looked at me as if I was mentally ill.
	Okay, guys, I don't understand.
	Why are you apologizing if someone bumps into you?
	Because I know this happens.
	It's just to say, I'm sorry, it's like, I'm sorry this has happened.
	Yeah, I'm sorry for this entire situation.
	yeah It's not claiming responsibility.
	Well, you don't say sorry then, do you?
	In that case, you don't leave until they've said sorry to you.
	They're going to be.
	They're all going to be sorry.
	Here's one the Japanese understand.
	If there's no bin around, do you put your rubbish in your pocket or throw it on the ground?
	I'm proud to say I've never littered in my entire life and in fact I've probably picked up more of other people's litter than most people.
	That's going camping for you, eh?
	You pick it up, you find a nice spot and you tidy it up because there's inevitably a crisp packet or something.
	So yes, very good question.
	Here's one from Proper Horror Show, who coincidentally today I think our conversation about Stanley Kubrick's films are coming out on Low Seaters.
	Are pajamas a housewear item or good for trips to the supermarket or Mackey D's?
	I like that question.
	Very good.
	Dunking on the other side.
	Pajamas are also a shroud.
	And here's one.
	A customer service worker is female.
	She smiles as she assists you.
	Is she, A, hitting on you?
	B, doing the job she is paid to do and no more.
	I quite like this one.
	This was quite astute because lots of people, you know, regular English people even fall on this.
	And I've had it in my life where people have been like, oh, they were really nice.
	Was she hitting them?
	I'm just like, no, they're just being friendly.
	You're so starved of attention.
	Fell for it again, the wart.
	It depends how attractive you are.
	Stelios is, you sly or dog?
	Stelios is like, it's always a...
	It's always a...
	I'm a man, damn it.
	stop looking at me like that so the final one manners is a series of questions.
	Do you stop dead in shop doorways?
	This is one that I hate the most.
	This is very prevalent in Swindon with its large Indian population.
	Escalators and things like that as well.
	When walking down the street, do you look more than two steps in front of you?
	This is true of a lot of people.
	There's no one demographic.
	You know, plenty of teenagers on their phones do this.
	And when walking with a group of people, do you leave room for people to pass going the other way?
	This is something I wish more people would do.
	Fat people are guilty of this particularly.
	They do take up more space in the pavement, but still they're bumbling along at a slow pace, taking up all the pavement.
	I don't want to have to step in the road and nearly get hit by a car just to get around you and I'm too impatient to wait so yeah so I do I think to do the fourth one I know I've seen it happen though someone gets to the bus driver after queuing to get on the bus and it's like does this bus go to such and such place it'll be on the front of the bus in big letters it's like dear lord Are you sure you're okay to be traveling on your own?
	And then I've got some questions for the pros.
	So here are some difficult ones.
	Do you know what per capita means?
	No, sir.
	I didn't think so.
	But one number's bigger than the other I don't understand.
	Also forgot to mention.
	when it comes to do you return the shopping cart, what I was going to say, it would have been a lot better if I did, was no, actually use a basket.
	Play on the breakfast question, isn't it?
	Didn't work.
	But here's a big brain meta question.
	Do you respond to any of the wrong answers with any variant of lol, why do you care though?
	Because of course we've seen this, where people get called out on their poor behaviour publicly.
	And it's like, why do you care?
	What was it to you?
	Which is of course a very low IQ response.
	It affects you every single day at this point in some capacity or another.
	So...
	why have I designed this?
	What's the real purpose of this segment?
	Well, I read this and I thought it was very good and I'm going to read it to you.
	You didn't need to be a crime victim to feel it.
	It wasn't just in the air.
	This clicks when you watch somebody blaz videos on subway speakers, you know, or underground train, bus, any form of transport really.
	Nobody else in the subway car moves, nobody speaks, they're all running the same calculation.
	This person already broke the basic social contract.
	So what else would they break?
	Someone who forces thirty strangers to listen to their TikTok videos has already announced they don't follow rules or care about consequences.
	So when you think about tapping their shoulder, you're not wondering if they'll turn it down, you're wondering if they'll stab you.
	The antisocial behaviour works because everyone else does the math and decides their discomfort or their comfort, sorry, isn't worth finding out whether this person's boundaries actually where these persons' boundaries actually end.
	It's soft terrorism.
	And I think that this is a good characterization of it.
	Someone's basically holding a whole group of people to ransom through the potential threat of violence.
	Because in a perfect world where we knew that people wouldn't be violent, people would say something, wouldn't they?
	And they'd feel comfortable doing so.
	Yeah, this is why so many of the people that you see on the buses or on the trains who are blaring their music out, why people don't just go over to them and say, excuse me, can you turn it down, please, or turn it off, because they're scared of the repercussions.
	What will happen if they intervene?
	I still do it anyway, but then not everyone's as crazy as me.
	Formidable.
	Yes, the formidable firm.
	Tenacious.
	Tenacious.
	I'm a big guy.
	I can get away with it.
	The threat never gets spoken, never gets recorded in any Crime Day, database but it controls every interaction and that's the key point here this is a new way to view these sorts of things they're not just you know i had some innocent fun with it but actually there is a dark dark undertone to this, that it's someone announcing that they don't care about wider society and then they're willing to go against the norms and so it suggests that they're going to hurt you basically.
	You hear someone playing music out loud, it means that there's a higher chance that they're going to try and hurt you.
	It's that simple really.
	And this extract, by the way, to credit, comes from this guy, I think it's from his newsletter.
	I've never heard of him before.
	I just saw the extract by chance on Twitter and it got me thinking about this sort of thing.
	And actually, yes, these sorts of behaviors, they're not just restricricted to migrant communities or people from abroad.
	They are also present domestically even before mass migration to a certain extent, but it was limited enough that we didn't feel this same sense.
	felt like we could police ourselves but now it's to the sense of not only are there people who simply just don't know our norms but also it lowers the boundary for our own domestic people because you know it's Well, there are other people on the bus playing their music.
	Why can't I?
	And so not only is it the new arrivals, it's also the natives that are having their standards lowered just by being in the presence of these people.
	And what it does is it just makes people more afraid of being out and about in everyday life.
	And that's obviously not a good thing, but it hasn't received nearly as much attention as the serious problem that it is, because it's presented as a petty convenience.
	Actually, it's one of those things that is a looming threat that affects everyone's life in the modern mass migration world.
	I think there's a distinction between very combative and reconciliatory behaviors.
	I think these are the terms.
	And when people are polite, they show that they have the ability to be reconciliatory.
	when it comes to minor social friction That happens every day.
	So they show, yeah, listen, I'm prepared to look beyond that and move on, move forward.
	The people you're describing and the people who are routinely acting as if they don't care about the people around them, they show, basically, they're signaling, unintentionally perhaps, that they're very aggressive.
	They're also that they're not going to reconcile with others.
	They're basically, basically, they're not a place for trouble.
	They're basically anti-civilizational, aren't they?
	They're thumbing their nose at the notion of a civil society and civilization more generally.
	But if you do care about civilization, perhaps you should check out my YouTube channel because I've got lots of videos there I've got a new one on the way soon and yes hope you enjoyed this something a bit different from my usual segments but hopefully it was a bit of fun with a good moral lesson in the end thank you for watching and goodbye not from the whole podcast though no no I would just say particularly as well go watch Josh's camping video because that one in particular is something you can take in board in your daily life that's really helpful oh
	well thank you Do you want to go through your rumble?
	Oh yes, of course.
	Habsification says the alternative platforms, independent media and citizen journalists are like a hydra to the EU they take one down and two more will take its place that's very true yes and Sigil Stone intelligence is racist yeah because smart people start noticing things pattern recognition is a sign of intelligence yes Sigil Stone says, oh, I got a great grocery IQ question.
	Do you wash your chicken with dish soap with bleach?
	If yes, with bleach, instantly committed to a care home.
	Okay.
	Yes, please.
	Don't do that.
	It's unnecessary and it's weird.
	Tom Ratt says, we will maintain our freedom by ensuring our press supports our freedom in our democracy, even if it means we have to deploy our boot boys with our billy clubs and send you out to our gulags.
	Very clever.
	Habsifigation says, I think I found a way to gamify to increase the indigenous population birth rates.
	Not sure what the second one is.
	Okay, I'll read the top one there.
	Only open to 3.5 billion women.
	Must be married, lower taxes each child born with lower taxes if you have 12 kids.
	You'll never pay any type of taxes and all goods and services are half priced forever.
	Now the two work together to make sense.
	I want to be very selective about which 3.5 million please.
	Skiddenhan says, What if I got hit by the train?
	You get points for that.
	Trying to film yourself in front of.
	Unless, of course, you delay me.
	I had someone jump in front of my train when I was coming back from Christmas and it made me really grumpy.
	I was just like, If that person's alive again, I'll kill them all over.
	Such a selfish thing to do.
	jump in front of a train, you not only traumatise the driver and the people that have to clean your gelatinous goo off, but you delay a whole...
	Bobabad says, Comparing IQ between race and age is the show, Are you smarter than a fifth grader?
	Now a racist dog whistle.
	Can you tell when they answer questions or try to grope the women and scam the host?
	Yeah, we need to see.
	Can I see one comment from Sister Texas Gow?
	Oh, sure.
	She says, Good day, brother Luca, brother Josh, and brother Stelios.
	Good day to you as well.
	Good day.
	Sigil Stone says the proper answer is you scratch your ass and then eat with your hands knuckles deep both times.
	Ass grim, that is.
	Sandwing's raging.
	I recommend just never leaving the house.
	Thank you from our resident shutting.
	Thank you for calling us.
	I've done that one, haven't you, apart from one day a week now coming here.
	I've been a bit of a social butterfly recently, thank you very much.
	I've been out at least the past four days in a row.
	Habsification.
	If the Indigenous woman has 16 kids and still married, we'll never have to pay any taxes and 70%.
	That's...
	That's random names, so social IQ seems to be just a fancy way of saying conscientiousness, just like EQ is a fancy way of saying empathy, which ironically enough is something directly proportionate to one's IQ, which is true, yes, the two do correlate and there's still a debate in psychology about whether they should be the same thing.
	The Engage Few says in Josh's Britain, Bluetooth speaker violators can legally be garroted by other passengers.
	I mean something like that.
	Maybe not garroted.
	Flogged.
	That's a random name.
	Black female co worker got into an argument with some of the white ladies at work.
	They couldn't understand how she could keep her phone on speaker in public.
	She just kept repeating it and didn't bother her.
	Yeah, she doesn't think of other people.
	It's funny that.
	Perfectly believable.
	She eventually got fired because all she did was talk instead of working.
	She tried to sue for racism.
	Brilliant.
	Occupant says the correct response to someone using the speakerphone in public is to join in the conversation.
	When they say it's a private conversation, point out that private conversations are kept private.
	I like your passive aggressive style.
	My favorite thing is to have a loud conversation with someone next to me saying how much I hate people talking on speakerphone in a very passive aggressive way.
	Last time I did that on a train to London, the woman actually talking on speakerphone got up and moved.
	Oh really?
	Yeah.
	Well, and just went and had the speakerphone conversation.
	In the hallway.
	In the correct place.
	Base Date says I have a high social IQ.
	Stelios can't understand my high level genius.
	What do you say to that Stelios?
	He says based but he also says ape.
	We're all apes, Stelios, technically.
	We're all apes.
	video comment.
	music
	It's a lovely cat.
	Yeah, I love cats.
	Getting more confident as it went.
	I love how cats are always fascinated and terrified of water simultaneously.
	The Adeptus Arbetes are meant to be a sata of authoritarian and brutal police, but if I told you that the party of the Lotus Eaters won the 2030 UK election and sent in the Lotus Arbetes to stop the sorts of people we see in sections from this podcast, who would you support when watching this video?
	Attention scum!
	Prepare for sentencing!
	Gunshot
	That was very, very loud, but still easier to listen to than Ursula von der Leyen in that video.
	Yes, we do need people like that going through enforcing the rules I was discussing in my segment.
	As well as Lucidus, today I'm at Wachness.
	Beautiful day as well.
	Beautiful.
	I was just at the castle as well.
	Very nice.
	Brought the islander.
	I'll also share some pictures I took with it today actually.
	So see you then.
	I hope by the time you see it went well.
	It looks a lovely day for Ben Nevis, to be fair.
	Hey sheep.
	Bye Islander.
	This should be the video we do the marketing campaign for Islander.
	Sheep reading Islander.
	Right.
	We got another rumble rant there.
	Do we have another video?
	No.
	Right.
	No, we got one.
	No comments.
	Okay.
	Do you want to go from your segment, Stelios?
	Yeah.
	So, North FC Zuma says, the Stelios is back.
	Good video on AA.
	I'm too low IQ to understand who won, but Stelios is a martial arts man, and AA is a bit chubby, so Stelios wins.
	I think that's the best criterion for intellectual exchanges.
	You know, who knows martial arts?
	Right, okay.
	The UK will be taxed into oblivion.
	Right, Ash F. They heavily tax cigarettes and alcoholism alcohol to reduce their consumption but think the result would be different when they heavily tax productivity yep yeah just Just textbook leftists.
	Jimbo G reminds me of an old joke.
	We need to address the 20 billion black hole.
	What do you mean you don't want to fix the 40 billion black hole?
	How are we supposed to fix the 50 billion black hole with that attitude?
	That's a great comment.
	Right.
	Alex Ogle, my Islander 4 has arrived via Canada Post, risky venture at best, and I'm glad to see Luca has fixed his variant spelling.
	That should drive up the value of the first three issues as more are added to the catalog.
	I'm glad to see that I've done that too.
	I'll try to keep that.
	Happ says taxation is theft.
	Doubly so when they intend to get what your parents built their whole lives.
	Absolutely leads people to just massive spending and just ridiculous lifestyle spending lifestyle.
	Henry Ashman says the inheritance tax rate just makes me feel like the state hates parents investing in their children.
	Yeah.
	I wouldn't be surprised if they were on board with the leftists who wanted to randomly assign newborn babies to parents to stop people caring about the child they raise.
	If they try to take my assets when I die or tax everything I've ever given to any potential children, I'd rather spuff it on a billboard telling them where to shove it the day before the NHS euthanizes me for being too expensive under the assisted dying bill.
	It's all so poetry.
	Shall I read a few more?
	And one more, Janvi says afternoon Stelios, Josh, and Luca, the inheritance tax just sounds like a scam to steal money from people.
	Does the NHS have some organization where people can report things like fraud or waste?
	I think it probably does, but I think that.
	that there's so much of it that it's an insurmountable task really.
	I'll read from it.
	Anani Roulette says, my favourite is when most of the Lithuanian independent journalists turned out to be directly funded by USAID and Open Society.
	Yeah, many such cases.
	Roman Observer says, is the far right funded by Russia or is Russia funded by the far right?
	Henry Ashman says, the longer it goes on under Ursula von der Leyen, the more it feels like the EU is just another German takeover of continental Europe by the back door.
	Sometimes they're charmed though, eh?
	Yeah.
	It's the front door at this point, isn't it?
	Sorry.
	Lower in the tone again.
	Oh dear.
	Instead of comparing them to the Soviets, maybe it's time to start comparing them to the other...
	But yes, it is definitely another German power grab.
	You're quite right.
	Alpha of the beta is our democracy is a euphemism for the status quo of lies, manipulation and centralized control.
	Quite true.
	And Az Desert Rat says, if you're going to be a public official or in the public eye be ready for public criticism yeah remarkable how many public officials can't seem to understand this yes uh especially the the MPs in britain i will say as well uh people say mean things about you yeah why do the British choose to use a knife and fork for a burger I said sometimes for a burger and that's only if its structural integrity is such that it's falling apart
	and I couldn't possibly pick it up with my hands.
	Sometimes I get burgers that are too big to physically get my mouth around because why wouldn't you?
	With the burger it is a question of circumstumstance.
	Yes.
	I take burgers by case by case basis.
	Someone online says I have such a low social IQ that they slap me with an Asperger's diagnosis.
	Welcome to our audience.
	And the panel, actually.
	Colin P says, another question for Josh's IQ test.
	At the self-service checkout, do you A get your bag ready before starting to scan your items or B scan your items, then take your bag out and put your shopping in?
	That is a good one.
	And then I'm going to quickly read this rumble ramp before it gets forgotten.
	Chimo says, Freedom isn't a right, it's a duty..

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