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Oct. 26, 2023 - On Brand

03:08:42

OB #26 - Russell Brand Is Starting a Cult

Al and Lauren take a look behind the scenes of Russell Brand's Locals community, and find more than a few troubling things going on. Support us on Patreon! - patreon.com/OnBrand

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	This is On Brand, a podcast where we discuss the ideas and antics of one Russell Brand.
	I'm Al Worth, and each week I go through an episode of Brand Show with my co-host Lauren B!
	And the terminally unserious me, Lauren B, hello!
	It's all the damage, I promise.
	And Lauren has no idea what's coming.
	I have no idea.
	My brain's already wiped from silly little noises I was making when we started recording.
	Great.
	Good for you.
	And I know what's coming, and it's bad, which is why we do the good thing before the bad thing.
	So, Lauren, what is your good thing before the bad thing this week?
	So, Instagram worked perfectly once.
	And recommended.
	So I think that like conveyor belt like sushi spots, that's not entirely uncommon.
	And there are also some like hot pot restaurants that I have heard of.
	I didn't realize there was one in Chicago until this past Sunday.
	We went to this, um, it was like a rotary, it was a, like, conveyor belt, like, rotary restaurant, and you made your own, like, pho.
	Like, your own, like, it was like a hotpot place.
	Ooh!
	Ooh, okay!
	I'm on board!
	It was!
	It's, and it's like, all you can eat, 90, like, there's all these stipulations that make perfect sense.
	Like, if you take too much stuff, they will charge you entree prices for it, if you don't eat it.
	Which, like, fair.
	And you have, like, 90 minutes.
	You get a warning.
	There's a dessert.
	It's, like, all inclusive.
	So it, like, was, for, like, going out, cheap.
	But, like, genuinely, like, certainly, like, reasonable.
	And it was so good and so fun.
	And I stuffed myself to the point where I thought I was Oh, breathing hurt.
	My lungs couldn't fully inflate because I was so full up there.
	I mean, how could you not in that situation?
	It was so good!
	Build your own foot.
	I mean, that's, oh, oof, oof.
	Yeah, I would be in the same boat.
	Everything was amazing.
	I would have problems.
	Yeah, we were like, Mike was like, hey, you want to get a drink?
	I was like, I want to go home and lay on the ground.
	Until I digest this food, because I'm having a hard time walking right now.
	It was rough, but oh my god.
	And everyone was lovely.
	It was tens across the board.
	It was so fun.
	It's not necessarily going to be a regular thing, but we had the event on Saturday that went pretty good.
	Kind of exceeded our expectations, which made it Feasible to celebrate with a little fancy pooh meal.
	And so that was really, really fun.
	We deserve nice things.
	We try.
	Us poohs deserve nice things as well.
	Occasionally, if we can swing it.
	Occasionally we do.
	Occasionally we do.
	So yeah, what's your good thing?
	ALICE Oh, my good thing before the bad thing.
	Y'know, I've had a pretty busy week, and I've had to have a lot of time staring at a screen, not doing much other than that, during which I have been able to catch up on some podcasts.
	So y'know, I've been trying to keep myself entertained while I'm doing otherwise incredibly boring things.
	Um, and, uh, which, I know a lot of you are in that position.
	Um, and, uh, so yeah, put simply, my good thing before the bad thing this week is... the dollop!
	Y'know what?
	It's the dollop.
	I've been listening to a lot of that, cause it's such a great podcast.
	Y'know, I love history, I love comedy, right?
	And American history is especially fuckin' absurd.
	ALICE Oh, it's so bad!
	It is, and there's a specific episode that just had me in stitches just last week.
	So it was a Boston live show, and it was about... shit, what was it about?
	What was the subject?
	How do you not remember the subject, but remember where it was?
	Because it gets into a little bit of history.
	So it's about mostly the Boston riots and the police.
	Oh, it was like an overview.
	Yeah, yeah, they picked a subject.
	There was a specific kind of time.
	But yeah, it was when the police went on strike, basically.
	In Boston.
	And Boston rioted.
	And did that.
	And fuck me, it was funny.
	But yeah, there was a throwout.
	Throw away lying, because it was not long after the Cosby revelations, and Gareth Reynolds, he said Cosby should have a new show called Women Forget the Darnedest Things.
	Fucking slayed me right there.
	I nearly died.
	And it was like, right, I want a show that is just Cosby pitching that show to a network.
	So good.
	And so incredibly topical for what we've been dealing with for the last month.
	No kidding!
	Yeah, that's a feeling and memories of how to leave, is it?
	Yeah, right.
	It's been that.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	I was going to guess the Molasses Flood.
	I don't remember if that was Boston or not.
	I don't know.
	But yeah, The Dollop, everybody.
	Great fucking podcast.
	Go and listen to it.
	It's so fun.
	My favorite is, there's one episode about the Florida legislature in the 70s.
	Right.
	And it's just a couple of Florida... When you learn about a corrupt politician or corrupt person, you know, like a corrupted corporate individual of some kind.
	The depths, like when you actually get to know what's going on with them.
	The depths, there is no bottom.
	There is one, but man, the way that Gareth puts it is very, very, very funny.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Bomb to my soul.
	Yeah, incredibly, incredibly astute.
	Right, we have a show to deal with, but first we should thank some new patrons.
	So, first up, Brendan Luster, you are now an Awakening wonder.
	You are indeed an Awakening wonder.
	Thank you Brendan!
	Thank you!
	Thank you so much!
	Yeah.
	David Lowry, you are now an awakening wonder.
	You are indeed an awakening wonder.
	Thank you, David.
	Thank you, David.
	I keep umming and ahhing over that name as to whether I've already done it or not.
	It sounds very familiar, but I think you're new.
	To David?
	That's very new to me.
	Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
	I know there's something about it.
	Clearly David Lowery is a very familiar presence in my life for some reason.
	Anyway, hi David, you're now- Answer us, David!
	You are obligated to explain yourself.
	To these random people across the internet.
	You don't know how random or unrandom that person is.
	Could be down the road from me.
	I don't, I don't know.
	Maybe that's it.
	Maybe that's it.
	And finally, Nick Farr, you are now an Awakening Wonder.
	You are indeed an Awakening Wonder.
	Thank you, Nick.
	Thank you, Nick.
	Thank you so much.
	Very, very much appreciated.
	If anyone wants to support us in what we do, become an Awakening Wonder, join the Invisible Hand, because seriously, everyone, I really want to play that drop again.
	Or donate on an elevated tier head to patreon.com slash on brand and you will have our eternal gratitude.
	It's this which allows us to be editorial independent and ad free.
	As a patron, you will also get a shout out on the show and access to our patron only show off brand where we talk about pretty much anything but Russell brand.
	And please note that while you can easily listen to our audio version anywhere you can find podcasts, you can also watch us on YouTube, or if you listen in the Spotify app, the video should come up there too, which is pretty great.
	Also, we are provisionally possibly thinking about live streaming the Rugby World Cup this weekend on the Saturday, so we shall see.
	If I can swing it!
	If we can swing it, we will.
	I don't think it's necessarily going to count.
	Well, I guess we'll still have Halloween coming.
	I think I will leave the Halloween costumes a secret for the wider public until I actually pull them off.
	Oh, please do.
	Please do.
	It sounds fantastic.
	It's very stupid.
	You will all be immensely surprised and amused and it will be fantastic.
	Yeah, it's great.
	It's great.
	But that's contingent on me making those fucking things.
	Fingers crossed.
	So it'll be this Saturday the, what, 28th?
	Is that it?
	I think that's the final.
	Yeah.
	New Zealand versus South Africa.
	I will be supporting New Zealand because the South African team are dicks.
	And I can demonstrate that.
	Yeah.
	And I'm here.
	I got a bunch of Kiwi friends, and you're there!
	I'm here doing my best.
	Yes.
	Well, what's cool, you get to see the Haka, which is cool.
	You get to see the New Zealand team do their war dance, which is awesome.
	Oh, Instagram has shown that to me before, too.
	Instagram knows what I'm into.
	There's something else about seeing it live.
	Oh, of course.
	Of course.
	Yeah.
	So, this week, I promised that we'd be taking a look behind the scenes at Russell's Locals Channel of Awakened Wonders.
	At least, that's the name for now.
	When it initially started, it was the Stay Free As Fuck Community.
	Shut up!
	Oh my god!
	What?
	I've got to say it needed the punching up.
	Yeah, it's just bad.
	In the last couple of weeks he's posted a number of videos to his locals channel that are actual additional content for subscribers and that is something of a rarity for him.
	He didn't used to do that.
	Much of them are at present available to the general public.
	If you sign up for Well, keep an eye out for a class action lawsuit.
	giving him and Rumble your information, which does seem questionable.
	Well, keep an eye out for a class action lawsuit.
	You never know.
	I don't think I've made it super clear before, by the way, but yeah, Rumble owns locals.
	They bought it off Trump a few years ago, back with Telegram.
	It was...
	Yeah!
	Locals, it was a Trump thing, apparently.
	Oh my god, what?
	Why are there eight people?
	It was designed with grifters in mind.
	Which is why Russell and a bunch of wellness grifters make all their money off it.
	So yeah, in any case, this episode might actually be a little bit lighter than usual, as we're not having to deal with any of his propaganda in any depth, but we've just had a couple of war episodes back-to-back, so I think it's warranted.
	Also, listen, we'll see about that.
	We'll see.
	Okay, okay.
	Wait, you gave me a hint about the content?
	We'll see.
	I hope so!
	It'd be great.
	I'm not saying there aren't moments that will upset you, because there definitely are moments that will upset you, but it's lighter than having to deal with our genocide.
	Oh, right!
	Like, oh, all the stolen kids in my soul left my body?
	Oh, okay.
	Yeah, yeah, exactly.
	Oh, good.
	So the first clip is from about a week and a half ago, verging on two weeks, and what I'm going to do is play clips from the various videos he's posted which paint a very specific picture about what Russell is up to with his locals community.
	The nature of our show and the nature of our endeavour has radically changed because of recent events.
	And actually, I would say, even beyond the obvious personal matters that I've been dealing with.
	Have you noticed that the world and the news are kind of heating up in intensity?
	Like it's sort of extraordinary, isn't it?
	The escalation.
	Thanks, Thomas Beard.
	My chin is pretty high.
	I feel I feel that what we're doing with Stay Free and what we're doing here, our Awakened Wonders community, has become very, very clear.
	It does sometimes feel orchestrated, I feel you.
	Now, what Stay Free is about is to continue to talk about government and media corruption And the relationships between, for example, the military-industrial complex, Big Pharma, the news cycle, the relationships between the state, the ability to manipulate and control news cycles, the trusted news initiative, and the global agenda of the legacy media to control and destroy independent news voices, the significance of independent media.
	When it comes to offering the ability for descent.
	Very quiet in the gallery, guys.
	Guys, in the gallery.
	Not quiet.
	Silence.
	I can really... Gallery.
	Gallery.
	Guys.
	Oh, is it?
	Yeah, sort that feedback out, guys.
	We're also sort of doing a tech thing in here because we're going to be sort of going live again soon.
	Oh, you know.
	So, you like the new set?
	It's good, isn't it?
	It's sort of lovely.
	It's beautiful here.
	Okay, so that was Gareth in the background saying, it's the feedback of you that he could hear.
	So what he could hear was his own voice yelling back at him, and he thought that was the people in the production suite, the gallery.
	How long do you have to be doing shit like this?
	Like, I came into this podcast green.
	I don't know shit from Shinola when it comes to any kind of audio stuff.
	We've been on an adventure.
	And I already know that.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Feedback, yeah.
	Yeah, I mentioned last week that there were numerous tech issues going on behind the scenes, and we are going to get a taste of those today.
	It's not good.
	On the bright side, he's back in the studio, right?
	Though now on his own, and he is, well, he's only using a little corner of his studio.
	Which is weird.
	He posted a screenshot of him, and the rest of the studio is way over there, and they put a curtain down and everything.
	You're paying for the whole room!
	Why are you not using- I'm sure there's a reason, but- I don't know, because the thing is, he could still sit at his big table and just have him.
	I don't know.
	Anyway, I maintain that he's had an exodus of staff since the allegations against him and he's still having to scale everything down to compensate for that.
	Further evidence will come a little bit later in the form of his new staff very clearly needing training.
	On top of that, obviously in the main show I've seen constant mistake after mistake that weren't there before, like I've mentioned.
	Likely a byproduct of the inexperienced staff or skeleton crew that he has now.
	Well, honestly, it kind of makes me feel good.
	Yeah.
	We're just two jokers trying to do a thing.
	And if we're like doing pretty OK, I'd say honestly, we are.
	It's listenable.
	It's, you know, it's listenable and watchable.
	We have achieved those two things.
	And that's that's that's that's good enough.
	Which we understand tech issues.
	That's the thing is like, I get it.
	But every week we've had some already.
	Yeah!
	Already in this very show.
	And fireworks!
	Yes, some dickbag is setting off fireworks in my neighborhood, because in any of the weeks anywhere near November 5th in this country, Guy Fawkes Night, Bonfire Night, just random fireworks could be going off at any time.
	You just don't know, because people are fucking stupid.
	Anyway, anyway.
	So we get it!
	I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna calm myself Oh
	Oh I just... fucking... yes. - Oh, hey.
	Getting old means you're... Listen, we're gonna shake our fists at these youths!
	I would have been exactly this pissed about it ten years ago, I promise you.
	I'm sure, I'm sure.
	I trust you.
	So Russell is saying what needs to happen with Stay Free has become very, very clear.
	Interesting.
	Where could he possibly be going with this?
	Well, we're going to move over to his next Locals release to show you.
	As you know, We are in a reconnaissance phase right now.
	We regard the function of Stay Free, the channel, to be about critiquing the plain, repeated, observable problems of cultural recidivism in the mainstream, i.e.
	elite institutions and establishment interests are represented globally in a way that appears to benefit from geopolitical conflict, a legacy media that amplifies and normalizes the interests of the powerful There is financial corruption, media corruption, state corruption everywhere we look.
	Bad food, bad pharma.
	We've observed and reported on these problems for a long time.
	What we're interested in, in the Awakened Wonder community that you have joined, is solutions to these problems.
	Are we able to form new alliances?
	Are we able to overcome the fissures and fractures that our culture has been creating for a long, long while now?
	Do you notice how often there are polarizing issues just raining down abundantly upon us?
	This must become a place where we can talk about solutions, where we can talk about democracy, where we can talk about spiritual evolution, where we can talk about awakening, where we can talk about stepping outside of this system.
	If I was a member of this, this is what I'd want.
	I'd want to know about communities that are doing life different, that are running democratically, that have stepped outside the mainstream, that are able to meet their energy needs and their food needs and their health needs.
	Do you know about communities like that?
	What about Ina May Gaskin and that midwife community?
	Do you know about that?
	We're going to investigate that community.
	We might even go there because I suppose in the end what this community has to become about is making a political difference through running through recognized political channels, moving into those areas of establishment electoral politics and trying to make a difference there.
	Is it even possible?
	And two, establishing physical communities outside of the mainstream.
	What are the ideas that are going to change the world?
	Is cryptocurrency one of the ways that the world could change?
	Is that a way of trading, communicating, transacting without centralized financial authority being able to intervene?
	It's one of the things I'll be talking about.
	Russell Coyne's coming next week.
	No!
	So physical communities, I wonder what he could mean?
	No!
	No no no!
	No!
	I am going to get into Ina May Gaskin a little bit later, because his discussion of that specific community develops as we go along, and I find it pretty entertaining.
	Um, alright, so on the surface it kind of sounds like, okay, he wants to get into politics, that's not a great, you know, he mentioned possibly political channels, not sounding great.
	I would like it if I told you so.
	I feel like... I don't know what kind of options he's got, but...
	I did.
	He does.
	He does mention them a little bit later.
	I don't want any like credit.
	I would just like to say.
	He does have an idea.
	He has an idea a little bit later on that I think you are going to hate.
	It's the money.
	It's the following the money.
	It's like if stuff is not working, run for office.
	Yeah, he's got other ideas, too.
	And from just this little vaguely vague clip, he's talking about living off-grid and being self-sufficient and sustainable, I guess.
	In and of itself, not the worst kind of thing.
	But yeah, I think it depends on how you mean it.
	And we'll find out how he means it.
	It's almost entirely contingent on how you mean it.
	And also, yeah, that's a lot of really great ideas.
	That's a whole other griftosphere, is gardening in general.
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	It's crazy.
	I know that sounds insane, but like there's there's little weird debunking communities that are popping up all over the place that are so great and way more needed than I think we realize.
	Like there's folks that are like debunking fitness influencers that like edit their bodies because people will like Develop disordered eating and they will hurt themselves to try to make themselves look like fake pictures.
	That's actually really harmful.
	It's not this kind of like, it seems very pithy and silly, but, um, when you're like reshaping your torso to an impossible, like to look like a Barbie doll and you're like, take my course and you can look like this.
	Well, that's a lie.
	And that's selling people something that's very dangerous.
	So, I mean, I've just ruined a bunch of plants.
	From bullshit, but also wasted a lot of time and energy and kind of been very, I mean, the rats are the main problem in my garden generally, but.
	Fucking rats.
	Everything under that is, a lot of things were kind of my fault for not really knowing better.
	And there's like folks that are out there debunking it.
	It's a whole like blog thing.
	And everything under that is just more rats.
	So like, man.
	Yeah, like.
	They get under things, we've discovered that.
	And they jump on stuff, it's gross, it's terrible.
	And they go on stuff too, yeah.
	It's very easy to hop onto the grift.
	They undermine-- - Agile species.
	Wow, monsters.
	But yeah, it's very easy to hop onto the grift.
	I mean, yeah, I feel like fitness influencing, like these kinds of things that seem pretty benign
	and they're actually like kind of bad.
	Oh, they, yeah, exactly.
	Intention matters.
	They can be a real fucking problem in the wrong hands.
	And you can shove a lot of very bad ideas and seemingly benign homesteading.
	Attitudes and all kinds of things.
	There's all kinds of horrible things you can package into something like that when you're in a position of trust.
	Exactly.
	It's extremely frothed.
	Which Russell knows all about.
	So next we have a question about location from a member of Russell's Locals audience.
	Where shall I buy my... do better from now.
	Where shall I buy my farm, Russell?
	All right.
	I've been thinking a lot about Nicaragua, but apparently that might not be the answer.
	Is it going to be Latin America?
	Is it going to be, is it Venezuela?
	I mean, where, where is it?
	Is it New Zealand?
	Possibly not, because a lot of those sort of countries that seemed like anglophonic, easy countries, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, let me know if you're in one of those countries.
	They're getting more authoritarian by the moment.
	More authoritarian by the moment.
	When he says that, he doesn't mean it in the same way that we do.
	Because Australia, like, typically the public there does not vote in a way that I particularly enjoy.
	But there are reasons to be fucking disappointed in Australian politics right now.
	But that's not what he means.
	He means Oh, censorship!
	People don't want me to be able to say the things I want to say because I'm a liar.
	Were the countries that corporations have let... I mean, corporations are his complaint.
	And corporations kind of get to do whatever they want most places, I don't think.
	Yeah, no, no, absolutely.
	Well, he just, he wants to be able to go somewhere where, you know, there aren't fucking laws about misinformation in the pipeline.
	That's all he really wants.
	But I do find it kind of curious that he's mentioning, you know, South America and places like that.
	I'm like, what happened to your little homogenized, you know, everyone kind of stays in their own boundaries, little things?
	You're supposed to stay in the UK, Mae.
	That's where you're from.
	You stay there.
	That's how that goes.
	You said that people shouldn't be mixing it all together.
	I mean, okay, there's leeway in terms of British and American people.
	We're all related.
	Yeah, we're stuck with each other.
	That's legit.
	Kind of.
	Kind of.
	We're in this predicament.
	I would give him a pass.
	I would give him a pass on that.
	But at that point, you have two options in that case.
	You can be in the UK or you can be in America.
	Those are your two options.
	And that's not where he's looking.
	It just sounds like he's shopping around for a Jonestown or Colonia Dignidad.
	I'm not happy with that.
	At all!
	At all!
	Yeah.
	Well, um, I've got something else for you to be unhappy about, because next, someone from his local's channel asks where they should find a reliable news source, right?
	It's a pretty good question in this day and age.
	I'll give you three guesses as to his answer.
	Go on, what do you got?
	Oh, news source?
	Reliable news source.
	Him!
	Like, I don't... Got it!
	Bingo!
	Megan Maggie May.
	Good morning, I've been painting murals non-stop the last few months and never have time to catch up on the news.
	Any way to find a news station that will keep me updated quickly and truthfully?
	Megan, Maggie, Mae, you're in luck.
	You found it.
	Here is the news.
	Even quickly, sir.
	It ain't going well.
	It's gotten pretty intense.
	It's me!
	I'm the news!
	Yeah, he never does actually give any suggestions or actually answer the question at all.
	Had he said Jack, he would have been like, at least that's a news outlet.
	I was too reasonable.
	You were very reasonable.
	I brought logic.
	You found it, Maggie Mae!
	It's me.
	Here's the news.
	It's bad.
	Give me money.
	Um, yeah.
	I can only imagine, like, if pressed, he might direct people to Tucker's show, maybe, or something like that, but mostly he just wants to keep people not only within the alt-right misinformation grifter ecosystem, but within his ecosystem specifically.
	So, oh no, don't go anywhere else.
	Come to me.
	Come to me.
	I've got the good stuff.
	I've got the good stuff back.
	No!
	Give me the money!
	Give me the money!
	I have thought about how abusive it is.
	I feel like we've...
	We've, like, turned over a rock that I can't flip back.
	And it's just, it's an idea- Yeah, the last month has felt a lot like that.
	Yeah, no shit!
	Oh my god.
	But, like, this kind of rock has sort of overturned and just, like, you know, the insects keep spilling out from it and making me think about this idea that, like, how abusive it is to convince people that you are the best source of news and information while actively Giving them puzzle pieces that will not fit in with knowledge from the rest of their lives.
	Yeah.
	It's so abusive and manipulative and not only are you making them rely on people because again like I love that you brought up the dollop because I feel like I've heard Dave Anthony for years now call out this kind of like why they want to talk about history is because There's all these, like, ugly bits and pieces, maybe most of the fabric, really, of the human, like, the human suffering in America, the American experiment, and how really, truly poorly it's gone.
	And there are efforts, there's a lot of very coordinated, moneyed, moneyed, moneyed, have almost all the moneyed efforts that are That are creating this, like, whole history bubble in education and in just popular culture that is so antithetical to, like, any of the real stuff that happened.
	And the abuse, I think, now that I've, like, seen it and I, like, knew about it, but something about just doing the show and having to be confronted with this, I think, and think about this one person, this avatar of a human being, which I will say that pause face is Top notch.
	I just looked over and that's classical for the viewers.
	Yeah, I've been staring at that for a good minute there.
	Yeah, I just got it.
	For listeners, Russell is currently pulling a face that makes him look exactly like a goat.
	Yes.
	Anyway.
	No offense to goats.
	But yeah, that kind of like the generation of this total misinformation bubble, because at the end of the day, it's still so small and it doesn't make any sense.
	And so being able to mold that is just so, like it's, you know, even like what I was talking about, you know, bringing up like Jim Jones, bringing up Jonestown is like you're creating this high pressure, you know, like high control environment.
	And that's a lot of work.
	It's very, very hard.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And, you know, I mean, the thing I think it fundamentally comes down to, and it's been very clear since the allegations and everything, is that you mentioned manipulative and abusive, and those are two words that just accurately describe this man that we're covering.
	That's just him!
	And unfortunately, that's lucrative, also!
	He's found a way to make a lot of money off that, so that's what he's doing!
	That's where we're at!
	That's where we're at.
	We're behind the scenes within the abuse.
	We're in the eye of the storm.
	Yeah, there's this little ecosystem where there's like eight goofy-ass dudes that will kind of reinforce each other and make this echo chamber.
	It does a lot of the work that a cult used to have to do all of it themselves.
	No, that's true, that's true.
	You can outsource.
	They've made it much more efficient.
	Made it much more efficient.
	Game recognises game a lot of the time, and then they all just fucking go around in their little sewer circle.
	So, in the next clip, we learn Russell's thoughts on a childhood classic.
	I've recently been doing a mural as well for my daughters, actually.
	Me and my wife spent a little bit of time listening to Watership Down by Richard Adams, which I say is the, I'd say it's the, it's the animal farm for the alternative community.
	Like if you think about it, oh yes, yes, yes, the Awaken, the Awaken stage.
	Because if you think about it, if you think about it.
	Then what was Animal Farm?
	Animal Farm, we all know about that.
	It's a magnificent book.
	What do I say?
	Informative.
	It's informed our understanding of totalitarianism, corruption, posturing, two legs good, four legs bad, changing of rules, changing of meaning.
	You know, I prefer it to 1984, frankly, because it's got animals in it and it's easier to read.
	There's horses and stuff, rather than sort of complex, depressing rat rooms and all that kind of business.
	But warship down, they're renegades.
	They step outside of the warring system.
	They bring a diverse group of, admittedly, rabbits.
	I mean, I don't know how much diversity there is among rabbits.
	Probably quite a lot if you are a rabbit.
	And they manage to establish a new community.
	But first, they encounter a community of rabbits that have created a culture because they've become detached from their true nature.
	Then they encounter General Wunder's Stalinist totalitarian regime before building a fairer and better society.
	So, Watership Down is the animal farm of the alternative community.
	Have you read Watership Down, Lauren?
	I have not.
	No.
	But George Orwell was the, like, if that was the type of book, you know, the... Well, Watership Down is a very different type of book.
	Right.
	I don't know why I feel like it was one or the other.
	In my personal experience, I think it was just a school system thing.
	Well, Animal Farm is a very completely different thing, right?
	So for anyone who hasn't read it, including yourself, I am going to give a brief synopsis as to why it is completely unsurprising that Russell loves this book, right?
	So to start, rabbits have a society, right?
	That's a thing, right?
	They have like a whole thing going on to the point of like military castes and all that shit.
	And it's in a warren in England and one of the rabbits is apparently psychic and has a vision.
	Right.
	His vision tells him that the warren is going to get destroyed and they all need to leave.
	He yells at everyone but only manages to convince nine rabbits, all of which are male.
	After much adventure and hardship, the bunnies leave and they find their way to Watership Down, where they're starting a new warren.
	It's on the top of a hill elsewhere in England.
	One of the rabbits eventually realizes, oh shit, we're all dudes.
	If we don't get some chicks in here, we're gonna die out.
	They then decide to send a small embassy of rabbits to a nearby warren that's apparently overcrowded so they can acquire some lady rabbits to breed.
	The embassy learns the nearby warren is a bunny police state led by the despotic General Woundwart, not Woundwart as he puts it, who doesn't let anyone leave.
	The embassy then finds some lady bunnies that want to escape the police state, which very much seems to be a case of, well, I guess popping out kids is better than indentured servitude.
	And so they strike a plan to free a bunch of the ladies and escape on a boat.
	They manage it, but not without killing one of the women in the process, but who cares?
	There are eight other useful wombs to bring home.
	Unfortunately, they're followed by one of General Woundwort's captains, and later on Woundwort himself shows up to fuck up Watership Down and reclaim his breeding stock.
	The bunnies manage to unleash a nearby farm dog on the attacking bunnies.
	Most of them run away, except for Woundwort, who is never seen again, and nor is his body recovered.
	The Warrens prosper with the death of Woundwort in the years after, and he becomes a folk legend to some people and a bogeyman to frighten children to others.
	Later, Watership Down is visited by the spiritual prince of all rabbit kind, who is the legend of many stories told throughout the book, and the main leader rabbit leaves with the prophet prince.
	The end.
	The author, Richard Adams, wrote that for his daughters, which is a great message to send, I suppose.
	Here you go.
	You are cattle.
	Congratulations.
	And oh, there's an animated film version of it from the 70s.
	That's genuinely terrifying.
	What I have had experience with.
	Yeah.
	It's the source of trauma for many, many British former children.
	I remember none of the story.
	I just know it was terrible.
	Terrifying.
	You can remember that fucking rabbit with the look in its eyes, right?
	That immediately springs to mind.
	Anytime someone says, Watership Down, it's, yeah, I hear bombers overhead.
	It's honestly very frustrating that it's just, that's, I just have the like deep-seated, like, it was like between commercial breaks It was very like, I'm cultured!
	Look at my cultured child!
	We're watching literature cartoons!
	And the British ones!
	Horrified child!
	Just a sad, horrified child!
	It's horrifying.
	And the story itself is very traumatic.
	And again, you know, he wrote this for his little girls.
	Like, why would you want to give that message?
	But also, it's completely unsurprising that Russell would be on board with all of the messages in that book.
	It's like, well, yes, I mean, women are basically, you know, who cares about them?
	And also, yes, we should be rising up, okay?
	Fine with that bit.
	I mean, it's kind of a nicer version of like a lot of actual historical events throughout warfare.
	And so maybe it's easier with... I feel like the argument could be made that it was an experiment to teach that History lesson that's happened over and over again with money, but I think maybe that's a failed experiment.
	Is it even any nicer?
	There have been parallels drawn with Homer and the Iliad and all that.
	Mammax Fury Road.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Because it is such a, for lack of a better word, trope, I guess.
	Yeah.
	But yeah, yeah.
	And that book is also absolutely nothing like Animal Farm at all, in any way.
	Right, right.
	Again, like I said, a reading section, like what books were at, you know, that were already purchased by a school district, I think is what dictated which books we were reading.
	Because there was definitely like a contingent of like wherever you grew up in like just the towns I was around.
	But!
	Dad stole cable.
	So I was upset about Cartoon Bunny, that's for sure.
	That I know.
	Yeah, I'm still upset, to be honest.
	I still don't want to watch it.
	But you were talking about it right before we started recording!
	Yeah, no, I know.
	As we were talking about it, because we were talking about childhood traumatic films and everything from the 80s and whatever else, you know, and as we were talking about it, I was like, ah, this is very relevant.
	It's a shame that we're talking about it beforehand, but I'm not going to spoil it.
	I'm just going to say the one word.
	Artax.
	Artax.
	That was where it started.
	And here's where we are!
	So many things that I'm not going to show my daughter until she's 16.
	That's just... because I know better!
	I know how horrible it is!
	I know how horrible it is!
	But yeah, Russell's playing this for his kids.
	I'm like, oh, that's great.
	You have daughters.
	Fantastic.
	Please, yeah.
	It may instill a sense of rebellion.
	Because that's the gamble you're taking as a parent, is either I'm training up this person to be this exact thing, or they're going to loathe me as soon as they can get away from me.
	Yes, and I hope that is the case for his kids.
	So next we get a little bit more clarity on what Russell is up to, just a little bit.
	And we definitely need a discussion on location, says Pizzolo.
	I'll let you know this.
	I want to be warm, but it's, I mean, uh, what hemisphere are we in?
	The northern.
	We're in the northern hemisphere.
	It's gone, it's gone bloody cold.
	Alpine sweet.
	My life is not so great.
	I would move to a Russell Brand commune.
	Do you know what?
	After some of the things I've learned across my life, and particularly recently, it is not going to be a Russell Brand commune.
	It is going to be an egalitarian democratic commune without my name in the title.
	I could do without that these days.
	Okay.
	So it definitely won't be a Russell Brand commune, despite it being formed by him and his locals community, who are literally connected around supporting him financially and in whatever other ways he deems appropriate.
	So there is a commune in the works, but it won't be a Russell Brand commune.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	Other than that, I mostly find that comment really sad.
	Like, oh, my life isn't so great.
	I would move to a Russell Brand commune.
	We talk about it all the time.
	So, not the Russell Brand commune, but like, living somewhere better.
	And, less rats.
	Yeah, but the idea of my life is terrible, so I'm just gonna, you know, I'm gonna go to the sky and be taken advantage of.
	Where your life is going to get demonstrably worse, it is.
	Because that's what happened.
	Because that's what has happened over and over and over and over again.
	There are, the thing is that I'm like, I know he's not going to mention like alternate social systems that are being implemented in small groups and like little places that have He's been able to organize around more, like, communist ideas, ideals, philosophy.
	Those places exist, and I'm sure he has no idea about them.
	I'm positive he doesn't.
	Well, well.
	We shall see.
	Next we get a tirade that is almost a throwback to our Talkins episode.
	I believe in technology.
	I believe in advancement.
	But I don't believe in this idea that we're trying to get somewhere fast.
	Like, we must rush!
	We're going to solve the world's problems through technology!
	I don't think that we're going to solve the world's problems through technology.
	I think it's going to be through science, technology and medicine.
	Taken out of the corporatist framing that they currently exist within.
	As we've long been saying, and now I'm confident to say it to you guys, science is a subset of corporatism.
	That's why you only get clinical trials for drugs that are ultimately going to be profitable, and they have carefully managed systems about the way that information is released.
	That's why you have what you might call the ivermectin challenge, where ivermectin, which was a sort of a Nobel Prize winning, brilliant piece of medicine presented as horse paste when it was convenient.
	What I'm saying to you, I suppose, is that you can't query science.
	But do you remember there was a moment where science and religion were somewhat interwoven?
	Much science emerged out of monastic traditions, particularly botany and biology.
	And then there's the great fissure of astronomy.
	When the Church was suddenly at odds with new cosmological and astronomical findings because it challenged their Weltanschauung, their worldview, their perspective on reality.
	And where we are now, I believe, is at the limits of rationalism.
	If you want to get a good perspective on rationalism, you should listen to C.S.
	Lewis, writer of the Canarnia Chronicles, essayist and Christian, talking about How he arrived at his own Christianity via atheism.
	There's a brilliant, brilliant bit in an essay that I was just listening to where he says that rationality is the perspective that gives us the mainstream science perspective of reality, i.e.
	there was nothingness and there was a point, a sub-molecular point from which all reality emerged and was created.
	And then eventually, nihilistically, with no meaning or purpose in mind, It created human beings and the rationalism that itself is an inadvertent by-product of all of these telos-less processes.
	These aimless, endless processes of evolution and change from single cellular creatures to complex mammals.
	And eventually we become rational and are able to observe some far-flung nebulae and deduce, based on our own reason, what's happening there.
	And that what's happening there is nothing.
	And that our own reason, though, our ability to do that, emerged just as a byproduct.
	C.S.
	Lewis demonstrated much better than I can, evidently, how that is a sort of a complex, circular argument that it doesn't make sense.
	In the end, you have to invite the potential of the sublime and the divine.
	And I don't think we're going to advance politically without incorporating divinity and the sublime in.
	Um, yeah.
	Full bramble going on there.
	So yeah, he doesn't believe in the Big Bang and any of that, and he later claims that there are holes in the theory of evolution, which he never explains.
	ALICE But I didn't cut that clip because there was nothing else relevant, but also, y'know, what?
	The thing I do enjoy about him being on Locals is that, to a degree, the mask is off.
	There's no dancing around what he's trying to say here, he's just saying it.
	He believes that until religion is infused into government, we will never progress as a society.
	He seems to be basing a Good amount of this from badly interpreted passages of C.S.
	Lewis' various essays and non-fiction works.
	We covered him a while back, but as a reminder, C.S.
	Lewis was a Christian apologist in his day, firing out a good number of the foremost academic defences of Christianity when put opposite science and scepticism.
	His arguments are well-constructed, but I find them to be lacking.
	Lewis was a prolific writer, so it is difficult to be certain, but I'm quite sure the essay that Brand is referencing here is C.S.
	Lewis's most renowned Christian book, Mere Christianity.
	It deals with Lewis's arguments for the existence of God, his defense of Christian theology, and defense of Christian ethics.
	He also argued, and this was in, I want to say late 50s, maybe early 60s, late 50s.
	He also argued that Jesus must have been a divine being because if he wasn't, then he was either insane or evil.
	There are many, many holes to poke in that argument, not least of which is that this argument is based around the notion that we as a species haven't exaggerated and mythologized tales of people when writing them down for millennia.
	And also, it's completely believable that he would otherwise be a lunatic or evil.
	That is definitely Definitely possible.
	All of them.
	All of the Bible characters.
	Yeah.
	If you change it just a little bit, you're like, oh!
	Or you just read the story.
	I feel like the idea of this kind of thing since the 60s has kind of lost its absurdity.
	You're just like, oh no, okay, yeah, maybe he was insane, or maybe he wasn't.
	That's definitely, in my experience, more probable than someone, you know, doing miracles all the time.
	But I don't know.
	I mean, even the red words, like the Bible with all the red words of like, well, Jesus probably actually said asterisk.
	Those things sound kind of nice.
	Yeah.
	All the fluff around it is not fluffy at all, but actually quite bad and hard and mean and terrible.
	And also very pointed at sometimes specific individuals, because they were lecturers to specific individuals.
	And people still think that's somehow relevant.
	Yeah.
	Now, here's a quote from mere Christianity, a bit more relevant to what Russell is saying.
	Quote, "'Supposing science ever became complete so that it knew every single thing in the whole universe, is it not plain that the questions, why is there a universe, why does it go on as it does, has it any meaning, would remain just as they were?' Unquote.
	To which I say, no, it is not plain, because if science knew everything, it might well know the answer to those questions, but we can't know that yet, can we?
	For now, the answer to all of those questions is, I don't know yet, and not a single person on this planet can reach further than that.
	Exactly right.
	And science is the thing that, to me, my understanding, just me, some Midwestern jackass, understands that science is like, well, this is what we know, and there's a lot we don't know, and we have a system for learning that.
	And faith is like, yes and no!
	This is it.
	The problem is when people start saying, well, no, but I do know that because this book that was written in the Bronze Age says so.
	And I'm like, okay.
	Yeah, so who's thinking is concrete?
	Let's wind it back a little bit.
	Who's dealing in definitive?
	You know what I mean?
	It's absurd to the point where I can barely engage with the thought process.
	No, I know.
	I know.
	I know.
	Like, please.
	It's difficult.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Don't tell me that the Bible answers the question, why is there a universe?
	Oh my God.
	Why does it go on as it does?
	Has it any meaning?
	Like, none of those answers come from any religious text that I have ever seen.
	And believe me, I've seen a lot of them.
	Yeah, the answer, "'cause I said so, dash God," is not good enough for me.
	That's not the answer I... Yeah, well, "'cause someone said that God said so," is the actual thing.
	And don't get me back onto fucking Burdens of Proof, I swear to God.
	Yeah, anyway, so Lewis disagrees with my perspective, and so does Russell.
	He's claiming that only some form of divinity is the answer to everything, and that science eats itself in some nihilistic, ouroborous snake.
	Great.
	You are!
	You are!
	Rubber glue, you are.
	That's so absurd.
	It's hard.
	It's hard to have to hold on to that idea because it is so absurd.
	Yeah.
	Beyond that, I would like to challenge the notion that only medical trials completed are for financial gain.
	This is why governments give money to pharma companies to make sure that the less profitable medicines are still researched.
	Uh, but Russell and his ilk instead take that idea of government giving money to a pharma company and scream conspiracy.
	What's more, it's not like the pharma companies aren't trying to find cures to things.
	Like, if one of them managed to cure cancer, they'd stand to make an absolute fucking fortune, so a good chunk of the medical research is being carried out anyway.
	I do feel like his overall problem here, yet again, is capitalism, but that's never the problem in his eyes for some reason, for some unspeakable subscribe to my locals channel reason.
	That used to be his problem.
	He used to identify that issue.
	He used to moan about that ten years ago.
	He also used to whinge about climate change, which he doesn't do anymore.
	In fact, he deliberately doesn't fucking bring it up when half the world's on fire.
	Interesting.
	As for Ivermectin, yes, once again, it's a Nobel Prize winning anti-parasitic drug, and it's horse-paced, and it is a wonderful thing, but it doesn't do shit against COVID-19, which is why idiots like Rogan were dragged through the media for promoting it.
	Yeah, that was some... I half expected Dawkins to be sat there opposite him, sweating in a jacket.
	Ask him for advice!
	How do I start my podcast?
	Hate trans people?
	Okay, I'll do that then!
	I don't even think... I feel like even Russell would be like, hey guy.
	I don't know.
	I don't know if he would.
	I don't think Russell would offer any pushback.
	I don't think Russell would do the same thing.
	I don't think Russell would engage in the same transphobic comments, but I don't think he would offer any pushback to Dawkins.
	Well, we saw that with Candace Owens.
	Yeah, we saw that with Candace Owens, we saw that with Tucker Carlson, we saw that with fucking everyone.
	I've been thinking about that a lot too late.
	It's like, he's not that good of an actor because he can't, like, He can't pretend to hate gay people.
	I feel like that is still a bridge too far, is pretending to hate gay people.
	Maybe he'll get there if it's worth enough money.
	I think weirdly there is a part of him that just doesn't get that, which is good if he wasn't platforming people like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson.
	Yeah, it's a half measure.
	At best a half measure.
	It's not enough.
	Not even that.
	Not even that.
	Because he doesn't bring it up in the moment, so it's just like, well, you might as well just not be there.
	It might as well just be them saying hateful shit, you know, to your audience, and you being like... He's like, well, meh, vague, vague is easy, let's do vague, like, okay.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, basically.
	It's so obvious that he's uncomfortable.
	Yeah, yeah.
	When's that going to change?
	Is that going to change?
	Doubt it.
	Anyway, we should incorporate religion into government.
	Woo.
	Shockingly enough, we get a second slightly weirder throwback to the Dawkins episode in this next clip.
	Hanuman-01, what are some of the things you think we can do here in America to create a community like you're talking about?
	I think at the moment we're at the accumulation stage and I think we're at the design stage.
	Here are some principles that I know may work.
	Although I know that saying I know and may work is pretty oxymoronic for the beginning of a start to a community.
	Democracy.
	Small-scale democracy.
	People's assemblies.
	This is the only way to govern.
	I don't think you can ever have a professional political class anymore.
	That's one of the things I don't believe in.
	I think you have to decentralize wherever possible.
	Democracy should be the smallest conceivable number of people.
	The smallest conceivable, not the largest.
	Have a look at history and systems of aggregation and note who they benefit.
	People will say that, you know, agriculture solved like, you know, sort of hunger issues.
	And it's certainly an argument that's worth contemplating, but what it also does is it creates elites and reduces the quality of diets more broadly.
	And by the way, it's not 10,000 years ago anymore.
	We could have agricultural ideals that go way beyond monoculture, but we could be having varied diets that were respectful of geography and of seasons that are ecologically harmonious and again, decentralized.
	That's one of the things I want to have a little look at.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Can I say, can I say before, I know you have things to say but it's the same thing with the last one.
	I do.
	Alright.
	Carry on.
	I feel like there's, if he hasn't been reading it in the last week, he can articulate stuff he learned reading from the back of a shampoo bottle.
	That sounded like the back of a fancy shampoo bottle, what he just said.
	It's like corporate speak-lip service, and how he was describing the history of the education system as started in monasteries.
	Or like, you know, one of those, like, squishy books for little kids?
	Like, it's very, like... And now my hair smells of patchouli!
	Yeah, it's very, like, basic.
	Because he can, obviously, he can articulate the C.S.
	Lewis thing, because he's like, oh, I was just listening to that.
	It's, like, very clear, like, whatever is present in his mind, he's got a good grasp of, and then everything else is just a squishy book or, like, Dr. Bronner's book.
	Yeah, yeah, they're...
	There are problems.
	So he goes from wanting the smallest possible democracies, which, again, 10?
	20?
	How many?
	To saying systems of aggregation always benefit the elites, to which my question is, what systems?
	What?
	Okay.
	To shitting on agriculture yet again.
	It's like because the words aggregation and agriculture are somewhat similar, he's like, ah, fuck them both.
	Squishy book thinking.
	Squishy, but just, they're the same.
	They're the same.
	They look the same.
	They've got the same letters, mummy.
	So agriculture creates elites, apparently, with Which reduces the quality of diets more broadly.
	And it reduces the quality of diets, agriculture does.
	And it's not 10,000 years ago, so we could be having varied diets respectful of geography and seasons that are ecologically harmonious and decentralized.
	I can't speak for anyone else, but centralized farming isn't really an issue in the UK, so far as I'm aware.
	I don't know how it is with you guys.
	Do you have a lot of big farming corps?
	Generally speaking, we have a union.
	There's the Farmer's Union.
	That's a thing here.
	Corporate farms are a gigantic problem in America.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.
	But like, I don't know.
	The kind of decentralization is a very specific thing.
	I don't know.
	I don't know.
	You know what?
	Futurepin, I'm curious about this.
	I want to know.
	We, mostly in Off-Brand, we explore differences that maybe we didn't know were even there in UK or European systems versus in America.
	This is one, because yeah, corporate farming is like a huge problem.
	It's like, what's going to make the next COVID here in America?
	Again.
	Interesting.
	Okay, we'll get into that in more detail in a few...
	Interesting.
	Because there are various kind of corporate monopolies and things over here that fuck the farmers.
	I know that for sure.
	Now, I grew up in Wales, right?
	I was surrounded by farmers.
	I know there are big problems with farming in the UK, but I can't say centralization is one of them.
	I can see a difference of policy, because what he's pitching are policies.
	Like, if you want, because like a monoculture, the monoculture problem is created because of certain policies and subsidies and it's bad, right?
	So the way to fix that is to just institute different, better, more ecologically sound Policies.
	So dismantling the whole system and just letting everybody do what they're gonna do, that's bad.
	That's not how we fix this problem.
	It's a bold thing.
	Ecologically harmonious, shipping apples grown in the UK to a different place and then importing apples grown elsewhere for British people to eat does seem fucking stupid.
	I do get that it's just how import-export markets work, but at some point we probably should consider the environmental impact of such a ridiculous practice.
	But both of us right now are filling in the gaps for him there because he's made no such fucking argument.
	He has made no such argument whatsoever.
	It's so easy to do when you have even the tiniest fraction of knowledge on a subject, to just fill in the gaps for him for what he's saying, because he's not said any of this!
	As for diets respectful of geography and seasons, It sounds like when we have these little theocratic ethnostates he's envisioning, we're also only allowed to eat what's grown in our little areas, which to me sounds utterly insane and goes against that little thing called trading that civilizations have done for thousands of years!
	I mean, because of the way that the internationalization of Foodstuffs has gone completely out of control.
	I don't think that we need to have a perfect beautiful ripe cantaloupe in every supermarket in in the western hemisphere every single day of the year.
	I think but like I know that he's he's going to this like what he keeps going to is like you you can't Decomplicate.
	You can't uncomplicate society.
	You already live in a complicated society.
	What he wants is different regulations, which at least that's what I want.
	As with a lot of these things, there's a kernel of a good point in there.
	There's a kernel of, ah, yes, this is a thing that should be dealt with.
	And then it's just like, no, not like that, for fuck's sake.
	That's not how we deal with the problem.
	And this is distracting from the actual solutions, like re-indigenizing food systems.
	There's so much tangible, useful knowledge.
	People that have been fighting for these things for a long time, and they're out on the streets every day.
	They're in respective government houses, either The US government, parliament.
	They're shouting about it and they're giving specifics.
	Yes, people have already figured this stuff out or known about it and you should support them instead of your wild ass silly little notion about a commune because that's the other thing that people learn right away whenever they do.
	They're like, we're gonna have a commune.
	Wow, growing food is fucking super hard.
	ALICE Yeah, and I gotta say, like... LAURA Boy, humans eat so much.
	ALICE He'd better be hoping that wherever he sets up his commune, they've got fucking good soil, right?
	That's, uh... LAURA And no rats.
	ALICE And no rats, because if you're only allowed to fucking eat what you grow, then you're in trouble, buddy.
	LAURA It's a lot of work.
	It's very hard.
	People used to starve a bunch.
	ALICE Almost like it's constant.
	It's so frustrating.
	There are a myriad of reasons why farming is the profession with the highest rate of suicide in the UK.
	There are a good number of reasons for that.
	And one of them is that it's fucking hard and fucking grueling.
	I'm glad to hear your dentists are doing well.
	That's good.
	I feel like dentists are very high here.
	It's sad.
	It's a good thing.
	Okay.
	I can't speak to British dentists, and I feel like there are just too many jokes to walk through there, so I'm just not going to do it.
	I'm just not doing it.
	There are too many rigs for me to step on, and I'm not going down that road!
	So anyway, speaking of Russell's commune and the fact that he seems to be possibly pitching policies, let's have a look at how far he plans to take this.
	So yeah, that's what I'm interested in.
	Decentralized democracies.
	That's one of the things we're going to be learning about here.
	So the first raft of stuff, we're going to look at communities and then how those communities can, how they can form confederacies.
	So we have some sort of bloody political clout.
	He wants to form a confederacy.
	He doesn't want political clout.
	A confederacy, so we have some political... Now, I know the word confederacy essentially just means group of people who agree on a thing, but the modern day usage of the term has some very specific connotations, mostly of wanting to be able to keep slaves.
	Like, he wants to form a confederacy out of various communes and communities to have some political clout to achieve.
	I feel like accusing him of condoning slavery because he used the word confederacy is a little... No!
	That's filling a different gap.
	No, no, no.
	I'm not saying he's condoning slavery, but I am saying that, you know, and it's perfectly possible that it's just a reach into his fucking human thesaurus of a brain and that's what he came out with rather than alliances or coalition, which is a more complex...
	Something.
	Definitely possible.
	But also, that is a very specific word that is going to have a very specific meaning to his audience, especially on locals, that are primarily Trump people.
	Like, oh, I don't feel good about you having a confederacy.
	It doesn't fill me with hope and joy.
	Yeah, as to what they want to achieve, it's a bit unclear.
	What they would do with that political clout is left completely up in the air.
	But yeah, I'm willing to bet very little of it would benefit society as a whole.
	I just don't see how.
	Yeah, he's not giving specifics.
	He's not.
	And we are filling in specifics left, right and center because it's so vague.
	What he's saying is so vague.
	Yeah, no, absolutely.
	I have no idea what kind of form it would take, where it would even... In what country they would have political clout, I don't know.
	In whatever country they decide to go to, I suppose?
	Or would it be like a global confederacy?
	At which point, well, then you're a globalist, Brandon, and that's what you're against.
	Yeah, like, what are we doing?
	What are we doing?
	I mean, the real long and short of it is he doesn't know.
	He is just kind of making shit up on the fly to a certain degree in these shows.
	But he likes the idea of political clout, and that worries me.
	Yeah, but also, like, the argument is... I mean, he just got done saying that no one should have political clout.
	So then what?
	You just want your organization to pull political clout for yourself?
	Or everybody gets the same?
	Pretty much.
	I think he wants all of us.
	Very smart people.
	That have very complex ideas, have been discussing this in new, interesting, and exciting ways.
	There have been experiments that have succeeded, there have been experiments that have failed, and I don't think Russell is even remotely acquainted with any of those ideas.
	He's just off the dome.
	It's so frustrating to me because like, there are really interesting ways to organize your society,
	what your society prioritizes and how people can form a more perfect union.
	Not use the same constitution from anyway.
	You know what I mean?
	There are so many exciting ideas and he's co-opting the language just enough to distract people and keep them in his little weird bubble of fake history mind palace that I want people to be excited and interested in new ways of organizing society or very old ways that actually still kind of work.
	In a more egalitarian, more healthful, more like, you know, ecologically sound.
	Not as nightmarish way?
	And he's instead taking that energy, he's usurping that energy.
	Obviously, I'm pretty fucking passionate about this particular set of ideas.
	Like, every day.
	Food, not lawns.
	Every day.
	But also, oh my god, you might have to deal with rats destroying parts of your garden.
	Yeah, I was gonna say.
	We all have to deal with it.
	Yeah, you can't just do the one thing and say that's the fix.
	Like, yes, that's an idea within a larger structure.
	Russell is the type of person, you know, I imagine him getting into politics properly.
	If he stood for election anywhere and got in, which he probably would, which is a fucking depressing thing to have to say, but there we are.
	You know, I would liken his immediate response to being very similar to when Trump was being in that handover session with Obama, just looking into middle distance going, oh, fuck, what have I done?
	I think that's very much... What is my cat doing?
	That sounds like a basketball.
	[laughter]
	Kaylee.
	Bye.
	ALICE Stop fucking shit up!
	Oh, cats.
	Yeah, that's very much what I picture when Russell decides to get into- it's just like, oh shit, this is way harder than I thought it was gonna be!
	Oh dear!
	I mean, I get it, but also... It's been there, and I can listen to people that know more than me, and I can read what people that know more than me have said, and not... Yes.
	Well, you have an advantage there in that you bother to read, and that could be a key difference between you and Russell.
	Back of shampoo bottles, he's got it.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I mean, even C.S.
	Lewis, he seems to be listening to rather than reading.
	In the next clip, he does at least acknowledge some communities that didn't end so well.
	Mizari Moon.
	Has there ever been a community that's existed successfully?
	There was Jim Jones's community, but that went horribly wrong.
	Yeah, Jim Jones and the Jamestown massacre, that's not our starting point.
	I mean, the first bit of Jamestown was good.
	And by the first bit, I mean before they moved to, was it Guatemala?
	That, it went wrong fast.
	Now, evidently, as best I understand it, Jones was sadly on drugs, I think, and I think that maybe influenced a lot of his decisions, most notably his decision that everyone should end their own lives and that they should shoot those visiting FBI.
	I mean, it just was a badly run community, ultimately.
	It was a senator!
	It was a senator!
	I think it went pretty wrong pretty fast.
	What I would say is, it's much more like that Steven Gaskin community is what we're looking at.
	A lot of the ones that are successful aren't so radical.
	They're not like, they don't have mad confrontations with the FBI because they're just sort of chilling.
	So what we're going to look at, again, we don't have to scale this stuff up.
	You only scale these things when there's one lunatic or a cadre of lunatics that want to Accumulate power.
	Michael L. Ross, Waco.
	Also, not a great outcome for the people of Waco, I think it would have to be agreed.
	Started well.
	Muji has got... Started well!
	I think Muji has an ashram.
	Yeah, I guess kibbutzes, ashrams, these are sort of... Kibbutzes?
	Radical versions.
	I don't think it needs to be sort of super radical, does it?
	We should look at autonomous zones, we should look at ashrams, we should look at kibbutzes.
	That's the kind of thing.
	Yeah, scale it down, Claude, you're right.
	So Lauren, I'm forced to ask you, as I can only imagine you know a fair bit about the specific examples that were just mentioned.
	I do.
	I sure do!
	Which bit of them do you think was good?
	Because I've looked pretty damn hard for positives in any of those situations, and I really can't find any.
	And especially if you're a woman or a kid!
	Yikes!
	Yikes!
	You can't see the good parts in any of the- where were the good bits?
	Where were the good bits?
	Even if you just take the branch Davidians, I'm like, that's still bad.
	That's still bad.
	How do you not know how fucked up Jim Jones- you think he was on drugs?
	He was chewing all of his own head- his teeth out of his own head.
	This is the thing.
	And here's the thing, right, he's bringing up very specific American examples, and he's British, and he doesn't know any of this.
	Because that's not information that is readily- like, I had to look this shit up of my own volition when I first encountered it, I don't know, several years ago or whatever.
	I was like, huh, what the fuck was Waco?
	Huh.
	Interesting.
	Because it's- Ohhh, that did not occur to me until this second.
	That's not a thing that people know about here.
	If I say the word Waco over here, people are like, are you high?
	And that's it.
	Jonestown may be- Lived it.
	It lived through all of it.
	It was terrifying.
	Right, yeah.
	Jonestown people might get a little bit more, because I think that was a little bit more internationally kind of infamous, because it was just such a unique fucking thing.
	Infamous is a great- It was incredibly, like, it's a crazy story.
	Insane!
	But, like, no, it's a tale, it's a great story.
	And it's where the don't drink the Kool-Aid thing comes from.
	It was actually Flavor-Aid, we know, it's fine.
	I know, I know it was Flavor-Aid, I know, but that's the saying, isn't it?
	The saying.
	Absolutely.
	I mean, even, dude, okay, there was a California senator that was hearing about all these Californian transplants that were suffering and there was a problem.
	I mean, I don't remember exactly which security, it might have been, there's probably FBI people there because there were crimes, like international crimes that were happening.
	I don't remember, but like, that was a senator who, like, it's honestly, it's so sad to me because it was a senator who cared, like genuinely cared, and was concerned, and murdered.
	Like, it's terrifying.
	The whole scenario is so scary, and even the way that he's framing it is like, oh, the FBI went down, like, That was like, that was a government official doing what they were supposed to do.
	Mm-hmm.
	I honestly can't think of a lot of instances of that.
	There are a lot of things that fuck me up about it.
	Not least of which is the fucking recording.
	There are, yeah.
	That's just one thing.
	The thing that fucks me up the most is the recording.
	The final recording of Jim Jones.
	I listened to a bit of it.
	I've heard bits and pieces.
	I can't do it.
	You can listen to the whole thing.
	Well, the problem is you can hear the children as they are being given poison, right?
	Oh, I can't.
	I'm upset.
	It's like, oh my god.
	I'm upset thinking about it.
	Honestly, it's so harrowing.
	Even just taking a glance at the Wikipedia page, like, oh no!
	Yeah, and like, the first people to have the poison was a woman and an infant, a baby.
	She was holding a baby and they syringed it into the baby, like, oh my god.
	And Russell is here being like, oh yeah, the first days of Jonestown, though, they were okay, weren't they?
	They weren't.
	They literally weren't.
	Does he mean at the location, or does he mean the church?
	Yeah, he means before that.
	The People's Temple.
	Yeah.
	I think he thinks that that was more of a thing than it was, to be honest.
	I think in his conception of events there was a bigger thing.
	Again, he doesn't know what he's talking about.
	Right.
	Well, but I mean, that's the thing is like, they were like,
	I'm so frustrated I could scream.
	Just because like it's, but even, I mean, you're still talking about the inherent fallibility in a religious organization that is still, and all of them that are being named are top down.
	There's a man, like there is one like egomaniac in charge who has been ordained by God to be right no matter what.
	And what's also very fucking scary, and I thought about this too, oh my God, is of all the people I can believe that could very easily slide into a role, because for folks that don't know about Jonestown, one of the really oppressive moments, and it's something that is echoed in other high pressure groups and other cult dynamics, is someone, is your leader, or maybe a group of leaders, Just inundating you all the time, talking to you all the time.
	And so in Jonestown, there were very loud speakers set up everywhere where Jim Jones could talk for hours and hours and hours, usually all day, every day, in addition to their meetings.
	And so he was in your ear constantly.
	And the person I think of first that I think could slide into that role very easily is Russell.
	That's scary to me.
	I mean, if there was anyone that could talk for hours and hours and hours, uninterrupted, it's this fucking guy.
	Just playing on people's emotions!
	Because that's all it was.
	And it was just this kind of like, you know, this feedback loop.
	And I mean, I hope I'm being an innie.
	I hope that I'm being Chicken Little.
	Because that quality, there's a lack of self-reflection.
	It's like someone with a compulsive, impulsive maybe, compulsive personality is just gonna keep going.
	And that's a recipe for disaster.
	I would say wait until the end of the show and tell me if you're being Chicken Little.
	Anyway, Gaskins the Farm has come up again, here being used as an example of a successful community, very interesting.
	Still not ready to get into it, but very interesting, okay.
	And next up we have... well, something that probably shouldn't be broadcasted from Bran's next Locals video.
	I like this comment from GeekHazoo.
	It might have been on YouTube, you'll have to tell me.
	Look at this still, where if you put it up, post it up on the screen, can you?
	In fact, I'd love to see the output.
	Can I see the output in the central screen here?
	And I don't normally like to see that.
	Is it possible for me to see it?
	Or do you know how to?
	It's quite a good thing for locals because locals is not so... We're working on it.
	Intensive.
	Okay, we're working on that.
	Yeah, let's have output on that screen because then I can see that and then... Oh, there I am!
	Oh, it's a lovely shot.
	How far are we from Russell's health bar?
	Can we see that image in Vision?
	The, and by which I mean, Geek Hazoo's post.
	In the top left corner, you can see Russell's health bar.
	Okay, is that possible to pull that up into output?
	There's one of the things we discussed in the last broadcast, the ability to see posts.
	How far are we from that?
	Not today's broadcast.
	When do we think?
	[BLANK_AUDIO]
	Ready for tomorrow.
	Ready for tomorrow.
	Brilliant.
	Okay.
	Now, you know, now we know what the process will be.
	The process will be, we actually have done it several times because, you know, that's one of the things we've learned.
	All right.
	That's good.
	So, um, so there's no, I can't really show anyone that commenting because we can post it in the chat, but that's it.
	It's good.
	Like, it's good for me to know that.
	Yeah.
	We can't, but we can't bring it on the screen because we don't know how to.
	Yeah, tech is hard, you fucking turd.
	Is that true?
	Ask before now!
	It's so quiet.
	I mean... Still going.
	Guys, is that true?
	Would we post it in the chat?
	Let me know.
	Could we get an answer on that?
	I do feel like we just pranked our listeners.
	I probably need a floor manager in here on Kant so that I can have good gallery comms.
	Are you all going to be on Kant?
	Right, let's get into it.
	Alright, so if you trace this back, it means that item 1, the YouTube health bar, it doesn't work because you have to see that for it to work.
	So if you can't see it, it can't be an item in the thing because I can't refer to it.
	What did we just witness?
	Why was this not done in a production rehearsal?
	Like, I know his locals audience is smaller and the numbers are immensely opaque so it's impossible to know, but I'm quite sure that they're in the thousands.
	Like, I've seen polls that have had thousands of responses to them.
	And he's just broadcasting this to them, completely not giving a shit about his audience whatsoever.
	I wish I was more surprised.
	I wish I was.
	So much dead air!
	Like, very unusual for Russell.
	Like, just complete silence.
	So, the short version, in case it isn't clear to listeners, is that he's mad that this comment that was supposed to be shown on screen, and wasn't, it just wasn't shown on the screen when he wanted it to be, which means it should have never made it into the running order in the first place.
	So, you know, don't put it in there if you can't, you know, technologically Do the thing that's for the show.
	I agree with that principle, but Russell, that's why you do production rehearsals.
	We even do them for this show when we need to and there are only two of us.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, we gotta figure shit out a lot.
	Yeah, we were fucking around with something just the other day, because there are things, there are things, and you do that beforehand, you don't do that with an audience.
	Fuck me.
	But, I will asterisk, I think that there is, the comfort people find in long form Mmm quote-unquote lifestyle content which like he's not selling but he's absolutely selling like he's absolutely trying to be like he's he wants to be a political person he wants to be like a news person but what honestly I what I think he's actually selling is a lifestyle brand.
	Pun intended.
	Interesting.
	To me, that's what it actually is.
	You want a celebrity influencer lifestyle brand, except that brand includes misunderstanding the news.
	Yeah, I mean, I think there is something that is... This kind of back-behind-the-scenes thing.
	People respond to it, but I don't think that's... There's a comfort there that maybe...
	Loneliness responds to the humanity, you know, like the naturalness.
	I don't know, maybe.
	This is just him having a conversation with his crew.
	I don't know.
	I don't know.
	I do see that being something.
	I think it's crazy.
	I've heard that from other, like, parasocial exploitation.
	Like, it's almost like a device.
	I'm not saying he's doing that, but if there is no incentive to tighten up... I think, yeah, no, for him he just doesn't give a shit.
	He's just like, ah, we'll do this and we'll, you know.
	That was the point that I was deriving at, basically, but like, people do respond to it, you know?
	I do think there is something in the lifestyle brand thing, potentially, in that his specific style, his specific kind of drawing people in is very much all-encompassing, more so than other people in his genre.
	A lot of the time it's much more about the politics and the hate than anything else, whereas with him it's like, no, no, we'll talk spirituality and we'll talk about all of these other things as well.
	And these other various products and services that I sell.
	Well, but I mean, even Steven Crowder, as an example of like a different influencer kind of guy, is like, he's selling the like, I'm wearing the gun holes, like, I look like Kojak.
	Yeah.
	And like, and the cigars and the leather chairs, I think, I think this, like, the way that Russell packages himself is more accessible and less like, this like, niche, like, angry man, like, in sell, like, Well, yeah.
	you know? And I think that being more like wooey I think works in his favor.
	Yeah, no for sure. I think it's much more disarming. I think a lot of people struggle
	to deal with him because of that. Because he feels more slippery. He's harder to pin down.
	Um...
	Anyway, this YouTube comment that he's been pitching about will reappear a little bit later, but for now, the on-air production meeting is not quite done, there's a little bit more.
	So this is from Michael L. Ross.
	Good morning.
	Let's discuss communities like the farm.
	My family and I are so interested.
	I had a family that lived in Alaska in the 70s.
	They were like a homestead.
	So let's look at the farm and Stephen Gaskin.
	Some of you know that Ina May Gaskin was like a midwife and I think those two was partners.
	In fact, have we got this in the teleprompter?
	No, just on the page.
	All right, but it would be good to have a teleprompter.
	Lauren, do you remember I asked you, is this in the teleprompter?
	That's what I said in the barn, mate.
	Thank you, you lot, for joining us, because what we're doing, in a way, we're rehearsing this stuff, so it's really good for us, our team, record these and watch them back, and you better go, right, there's a few, you know, it'll be invaluable for And then you can even say, like, those things we've not been able to do, these things we have been able to do, so we'll sort of meet the expectations, like we'll have a shared vision of what we're doing together.
	ALICE Yeah, yeah, right.
	Um, yeah.
	It must feel pretty weird for Russell to say your name, huh?
	LAUREN Yeah, I didn't expect that.
	And he pointed, I looked at it right, and I was like, that's what, the parasocial connection is so funny, because I was like, ah!
	I'm an adult!
	ALICE It's what he told you in the barn, Lauren, right?
	That's what he said.
	LAUREN Hold on!
	Why are you bringing women into a bar?
	Anyway, uh, yeah.
	So he's coming off very much like a typical boss in this one, like, I can't tell you the number of times I've been in a workplace and had a boss tell me that some exercise or other would be invaluable for future use, and with this it's like, well, there are just things that people need to be trained on and taught, and the only way of poking holes in your system is by doing a tech run or a production rehearsal.
	But now we must show the awakened wonders!
	And here's the thing as well, I'm 99% sure that we use the same broadcasting platform as Russell.
	Shut up.
	I'm 99% sure.
	I think he'll use it on a bigger scale, because there are kind of, basically the sky's the limit in terms of how much you pay, in terms of the customizability of it.
	Yes, exactly.
	Um, but yeah, so I'm pretty sure we use the same platform, and I'm a huge nerd, so going through the kind of tech stuff is at least a little bit interesting to me, but like, to the people watching, I don't know, I can't think that, that must just be like fucking paint drying, you know, it's like... Well, but like I said, I think that you and I being like, having a reasonable conversation about it, I don't disagree with you at all, but I have learned about I would be very curious to ask the locals community.
	And the thing is, I could make a post on there.
	I could.
	I can.
	I have that ability.
	And the other members will see it, because that's one of the things you can do in there, which is weird, to be honest.
	So I guess I could ask them, how do you feel about Russell doing tech rehearsals in the broadcast for us?
	I think that if you're not a tech-savvy person, then technology is just magic.
	Well, it should be able to do it.
	I've seen it happen other times.
	I've seen it on a screen before.
	Why can't our screen do that?
	And if you've ever had to make a thing, Ever!
	You're like, oh, there's literally a million reasons why that's hard.
	But it looks easy because someone produced it.
	Yeah, I mean, there's a million things that you and I are even trying to take care of and deal with that's like, boy, it should be easy, but wow, holy crap, it's not.
	Yeah, my workflow has become incredibly convoluted.
	It makes no sense on paper, and yet it's the only way I can get things to work, so here we are.
	Yeah.
	Listen, there's a lot of Rube Goldberg device situations that we have to deal with.
	Honestly, if anyone could see my back end, just even my editing process that I have to go through after the show, it's so convoluted.
	The steps I've got to take to schedule an Instagram post.
	Oh girl.
	Oh girl.
	It's so much more complicated than it's supposed to be, and it should be.
	That's the thing.
	Because, like, on the other side of it is, like, if you're not particularly sex-savvy, which, like, I'm not.
	I can struggle through something that usually goes poorly, but to me, oh, well, that's all impossible.
	Like, I'm on the other end of, like, oh, nothing is possible.
	There's like this misunderstanding of like, a kind of maybe boomery understanding of like, well it's technology, so you can make like the, you can make Tupac Shakur real in a hologram, so you can do that for me next week, right?
	I hired a guy on Fiverr to do that and he'll be fine.
	No.
	I'm the other end of the spectrum.
	We're like, do we need flint?
	Do we need bronze?
	What are we doing?
	How basic is this gun?
	How difficult and how basic?
	Do we need to build a car from the ground up?
	Because if that's what we have to do, I guess we gotta.
	Yeah, I guess that's where we're at.
	That's kind of like the other end.
	People that don't have to do the thing.
	Either everything's possible or nothing's possible.
	And usually a rich person doesn't have a fucking clue, and they just demand to make the beep boop on the screen go!
	Yeah, I mean it is interesting, given how much of his life he has spent in television and movies.
	That's shocking to me!
	Surely you have a better idea of what is possible and what isn't and why and how this stuff Works in any way, but I'm guessing apparently not.
	Yeah, yeah.
	That's really surprising to me.
	Yeah, I know.
	It's baffling in its own way.
	One of the things about Steven Gaskin slash The Farm, that situation being raised so frequently, is that it becomes abundantly clear that Russell doesn't know anything about it.
	So in this next clip, he decides to remedy that by reading live from Steven Gaskin's bio.
	It's not quite the Wikipedia page, but it is very similar.
	Before he is visually interrupted in the middle.
	So, Stephen Gaskin was a counterculture icon and spiritual leader known for founding The Farm, one of the most famous intentional communities in the United States.
	Born in Denver, Colorado, Gaskin's early life took a turn when he discovered the teachings of Eastern spirituality and psychedelics in the 60s.
	He gained prominence as a speaker and leader within the emerging hippie movement.
	In 1971, he led a caravan of hundreds of like-minded individuals on a cross-country journey known as the Caravan to the Promised Land.
	Sounds fun.
	From San Francisco to Tennessee, seeking a utopian community, this endeavor culminated in the establishment of The Farm, a sustainable community.
	You lunatics, you're doing that now, are you?
	That's kind of funny.
	All right, so that's that health bar thing.
	All right, so you've... Okay, I get it now.
	All right.
	That's good, you've practiced that principle.
	That's good, that little process has taken place.
	But now, let's do this now, though.
	Thank you, well done.
	What you could do there is tell her, you could say, we're able to do that if you want to, Russell.
	That's a good protocol.
	And so like, so I guess we're doing this now.
	So he is not pleased with his stuff.
	Uh, yeah.
	Okay, so!
	Listeners!
	Right, yeah.
	So, what just happened is Crew managed to figure out how to get that YouTube health bar comment up on the screen.
	It was with a screenshot of him.
	With a screenshot.
	Of him, and there's like a red rectangle in one corner that happened to be there from the lighting in one video, and that's what the comment is.
	Yeah, and it looked like a health bar from Mortal Kombat.
	From a video game.
	From a fighting game.
	Exactly.
	Or I guess a video game.
	I'm old, I thought Mortal Kombat.
	I'm sorry.
	That is true.
	I still get endorphins from those commercials.
	make this. I think we're on like 15 or something dumb.
	Anyway. I still get endorphins from those commercials. I haven't played that video game since I was
	in grade school. Maybe I should.
	But yeah, that was cute. So he's crude.
	So his crew have managed to figure that out, and they've figured out how to do that and get it up on the screen.
	And while Russell was reading about Steven Gaskin, they decided that would be the best time to say, look daddy, we did it!
	And Russell just chided them gently, much like he would a child.
	I mean, he's reading from a piece of paper.
	It's fine.
	No, I know, I know.
	You just deprived entertainment from the people.
	You can give him double for a minute.
	Oh, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know.
	I don't disagree with that.
	Like, it should have been funnier?
	You know what I mean?
	His response as well was like, OK, very, very good.
	But we're doing this now, OK?
	Yeah, I'm surprised at how humorless He's a comedian.
	Roll with it, Bunny.
	He was annoyed.
	This specific broadcast that he put out, there were so many tech issues.
	I know, but still.
	This is way down the line.
	He's run out of patience.
	Yeah, but you get less annoyed by making a... by being like, okay, like that.
	I mean, sure.
	You know, no windows into the hearts of men, of course, but like, come on, guy!
	Why you wouldn't just take a break for like two minutes to be like, oh look, wasn't this a funny comment?
	Right, back to Steven Gaskin.
	Instead, like, we're doing this, guys.
	You mad bastards, you know?
	Yeah, that was like a whisper fight between a couple in Ikea.
	Kind of.
	There's a lot of passive aggression behind the eyes going on there.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, he's a comedian, but he's also a moody bastard, and I think that's a little bit of what we just saw.
	It feels like there's not a lot of comedy or lightness in his heart.
	The one thing that's very noticeable is the utter lack of communication between him and his staff.
	It's like the normal thing to do in a studio situation like this is to have an in-ear monitor so the producer of the show can communicate with you, but either Russell hasn't thought of it or more likely doesn't want an earpiece for whatever reason.
	Regardless, he needs one.
	Especially with the fucking audio in this show.
	Jesus Christ.
	He's all up on the mic and the gain is at like a thousand.
	So he's just all clipping and it's really loud and very unpleasant.
	So yeah, maybe a monitor would stop him from doing that.
	Just a thought.
	Again, he was on TV!
	A lot!
	He was a presenter!
	He had to have one of those in his ear!
	He knows what it's like!
	I'm quite sure he had one for Big Brother's Big Mouth at some point.
	I'm quite sure that was a thing.
	I don't know.
	He's definitely had that.
	And I'm like, okay, it makes you look a bit like Agent Smith, but you know, roll with it.
	You need it for the show.
	Yeah, exactly.
	I'd kill to bring that kind of experience to the production.
	It's just absurd to me.
	Yes, I completely agree.
	There is nothing about this show that makes sense.
	Russell, generally speaking, preaches egalitarianism and at least says that everyone in society is equal.
	But next up, one of his audience talks about being elderly and a part of his commune and, well, I have some concerns.
	I definitely need a discussion on location, Pizzolo, and Chanita952, since I'm old, I'm not of use, no commune would want me.
	It's a good point.
	Have you ever heard this though?
	This is sort of an anti-Rousseauian idea, when we talk about the principle of the noble savage.
	When you live, I understand, in some South American indigenous communities, There is a sense of cohesion.
	There is legitimate democracy.
	The tribe are bound by mutual need.
	They have elders.
	They have strong familial relationships.
	The parenting is done across the tribe.
	But I did hear that when you get old, they sort of just leave you.
	Like, they just go, you've had a good innings.
	You know, because they don't fetishize individual life so much.
	It kind of makes sense in a way, doesn't it?
	That's more squishy book learning.
	I mean, yes, but also, like, that's great, Russell.
	Thank you for reassuring the elderly member of your audience that, no, they would be accepted into your community and wouldn't be left alone to die in the woods.
	These are the kind of tropes, straight up, that's like...
	A coffee commercial in the 40s.
	Like, you know what I mean?
	Like, I'm sorry, I'm not, you know what I mean?
	But like, there's these kind of weird old wives tale sounds like wisdom thing.
	When he says anti-Rousseauian, I was like, that's code.
	That's code.
	That's code for I have antiquated, slightly racist views.
	That's what that is.
	I'm not pinning it down well, because all the examples I can think of are just, they're all disparate.
	But even just a lot of the weird literary tropes, a lot of- No, no, no, 100%.
	They can boil down to a book that was very popular that no one's even heard of.
	What springs to my mind is one of my favorite video games of all time, Fallout 3.
	There's a song in that, and it goes... What is it?
	Bongo bongo bongo, I don't want to leave the Congo, oh no no no no!
	Right?
	Okay.
	Bingo bongo bongo, I'm so happy in the Congo, I refuse to go!
	Yeah, and it's all talking about savages catching fish, and it's saying like, oh, I'm having a great time here, I'm swimming in clean water, and blah blah blah, and I'm free to do whatever I want, but also, it's also incredibly racist at the same time.
	And that's very much what I'm kind of getting from this.
	Yeah, well, I mean, or even just like the, the, you know, the Swiss family Robinson, like, or, you know, like, there's, there's like episodes, like,
	There's these weird tropes that are just in the world that are like an understanding that people are just like, Oh yeah, sure.
	You can just build your tree house and live on an Island and everything's cool.
	If you've got these like plucky kids, like it's just, I'm not, I'm not bringing it to mind to comment.
	If y'all are picking up what I'm putting down, as far as just like, there's, there are these tropes that are like, just kinda, Like, it's just learning history through, like, weird crazy facts, like, on a cereal box.
	Fucking shows from the 50s.
	I don't know.
	There is something very antiquated about what he's saying.
	It's just not true!
	Like, that's not true.
	No, I know.
	It's complete nonsense.
	But I will also qualify that later he did say, I'm not sure about it in terms of, you know, like, leaving human beings to die alone.
	Elderly human beings, but after he's already said, oh, it does make sense, doesn't it?
	Like, I'm not willing to take his indecision very far, because he's already essentially just been like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it.
	Like, yeah, leave the elderly to die.
	That's fine.
	Yeah, like that's even probably like, you know, I mean, I don't know.
	Now I'm thinking of all the weird shit that I was told when I was a kid.
	We know that he is right-wing now, and despite the right-wing generally, a lot of their voter base is fucking ancient, despite that, the economic view, especially in the UK, is that old people are useless and should die.
	It's why there was a very specific response in this country, and there were text messages between Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson discussing old people dying and being like, well, you know... Oh, they said that on the news!
	They're a drain on the economy anyway.
	They're like politicians and like pundits just saying it on the news.
	It's going to cost us less in pension funds, so okay, okay.
	Un-fucking-real.
	So, you know, it does kind of tie into that saying like, oh, you can't be a productive member of society, whatever that's supposed to be, so we're going to leave you to die.
	I guess it does make sense, doesn't it?
	Thanks, Russell.
	How sad that you don't understand that you don't know enough about indigenous cultures to know the role of your senior- Of the elder.
	Yeah, of your elder members, of which there were myriad.
	There's so many functions that were integral to a social structure and to daily life.
	That's obscene to me.
	What the fuck are you doing?
	What do you do all day, Russell?
	There's enough out there at this point that you can accidentally happen upon interesting stories that are real.
	Oh, that makes me sad.
	But also, I'm a gigantic weird nerd, so I don't know.
	Maybe what I am interested in and what, you know, I like going to little weird dusty museums.
	I don't have a good Like, general grasp.
	Well, I think it's clear that you definitely have different tastes in literature, I think.
	Like, from his perspective, unless it's misogynistic children's books or C.S.
	Lewis, then he's not interested.
	Or the Bhagavad Gita, he did a reading of that the other day as well, which was great.
	Though he mostly just used it to shit on science, again, that was mostly his point.
	ALICE And he keeps getting his locals audience to vote on what to read next.
	And the Bible is up there, that's a frequent flyer.
	They love a Bible reading, but because he keeps harping on about C.S.
	Lewis, they're like, oh, do a reading of some C.S.
	Lewis!
	Which hasn't come up- LIAM I think he is way more fun than both of them, that's for sure.
	Agreed, agreed.
	But I will say, I don't think you would very much enjoy Russell's reading of the Bhagavad Gita.
	I definitely wouldn't.
	No, no.
	Firstly, because he's bad at reading it, but secondly, because his interpretations of it are horrendous and misguided.
	I can't even.
	Yeah, I cut those clips out from this one, but yeah.
	Not great.
	It's like, yeah, no, obviously I'm a nonfiction boy, duh.
	But, I mean, just, okay.
	Now I gotta think about that.
	Yeah, right.
	Russell Brand's take on the Bhagavad Gita.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, on the Bible, on all of it.
	He's very much doing spiritual texts for his locals audience, which is interesting.
	However, we finally now get to learn about the farm and Stephen Gaskin.
	The word on the street is the farm morphed into a haven for drug use.
	Course it did!
	Of course it bloody did.
	That's always what happens to Lightfulness, isn't it?
	In the end, decentralized but unified describes medieval Iceland.
	I see, Neongramir, and that's what you were talking about.
	Excellent.
	Well done.
	Um, yeah, well, decentralized but unified.
	And also, Wakanda, I feel like, in the Black Panther film.
	What?!
	There was various different tribes and then they come together, though there was ultimately Black Panther was the Don, wasn't he?
	Let's all live in Wakanda.
	It's a movie!
	It's so real!
	I'm down for living in Wakanda, but again, with 80% of Russell's audience being Trumpers, I'm willing to bet they're not so on board with the idea of moving to one of those shithole countries where all the black people live.
	They want Waikonda!
	Yeah, Waikonda!
	They want Waikonda!
	Yeah, but also, it's a story, so it can go really well when you're writing a story.
	Fuck me, dude.
	They just can't help it.
	They can't help it with the pop culture references.
	No, I know.
	It's absurd.
	It's the only way they understand things.
	Also, medieval Iceland, is that the suggestion that someone made?
	Uh, yeah, someone was talking about, yeah, separate, but, and yeah, I just got finished listening to the live show that The Dollop did in Iceland that kind of goes into some of Icelandic history, and it's not completely wrong, just a bit wrong.
	Um, you know.
	Well, there's, honestly, there's plenty of medieval systems that worked very differently, and some were a lot more egalitarian than we have now, because It's a simpler society.
	It's also a smaller society.
	That's what I'm saying.
	Many fewer people.
	Exponentially simpler.
	Especially in Iceland.
	There are barely any people there now.
	Right.
	But I'm saying, you can't devolve society without a fucking nuclear winner or some shit.
	No, exactly, yeah, yeah.
	The concept of decentralization is great when there are fewer people, but it becomes something of a necessity.
	Yeah, it feels like he's hoping for a smattering of prolific genocides, and then maybe he can make his little idea work.
	Well, I mean, Russia are trying.
	Yeah, so the farm turned into a haven for drug use.
	Like, all of this build-up, him mentioning it across literally a two-week period in these locals' videos, saying how great it is and how it should serve as an example for what they want to do and, hey, they might go there to investigate, and it turns out it's actually a haven for drug users, according to one of his audience.
	Or is it?
	Because Russell sure as shit doesn't know.
	He's been touting this place as the answer, but doesn't know the first thing about it!
	So he's been talking about this specific thing for weeks, and then didn't read anything about it until he read it right now on air.
	Correct.
	Thankfully, thankfully, I do know the first thing about it.
	So let's have a little rundown of The Farm, which was run by Stephen and Ina May Gaskin.
	So, right up top, I'm gonna say I haven't found any evidence of the farm being a haven for drug use.
	At least, not hard drugs, anyway.
	But Russell is painfully unwilling to even do a cursory Google search, and his staff of researchers are probably at the moment busy being his production crew, so they can't do it.
	Or looking for a new job!
	Yeah, right.
	The farm has almost always been accepting of smoking pot because Stephen Gaskin was a massive hippie.
	In the early days, he served in the Marine Corps in the 50s for a few years before becoming a teacher of English, creative writing, and general semantics at San Francisco State College in the 1960s.
	He had a discussion group that would involve up to 1,500 students on a Monday night, which is a fucking lot of people, for a discussion group.
	And suffice to say, Stephen developed quite a following and became known as the Acid Guru.
	In 1970, he led a caravan of 60 vehicles across the U.S., engaging in a four-month speaking tour on the way, which recruited more people to the caravan.
	And after already becoming something of a community, the group would eventually settle in Tennessee and set up the farm.
	And they set up there because it was cheap, basically.
	They were initially, ah, let's go to California, but they couldn't afford the land, so they went to Tennessee.
	In the original manifestation of the farm, all members were believers in the holiness of life and believed in the reality of a spiritual dimension and in living out universal brotherhood.
	Whatever that means.
	When it first started, members were required to take a vow of poverty and relinquish all material possessions.
	They were also prohibited from using birth control, alcohol, and tobacco or animal products.
	So every member was vegan at that time, as per the rules.
	The farm formed a non-profit corporation called The Foundation to provide a common financial structure for the community and all members contributed their incomes to it.
	So it all gets put in a pot and then distributed after.
	A security crew constantly maintained a welcome center at the entrance gate where all traffic passed through and was logged in.
	Due to the farm's notoriety and outreach, they went through a population boom that eventually peaked at around 1,600 members living on the main property, which spanned 750 acres.
	Wow.
	Again, fuckload of people.
	That's huge.
	This was combined with a baby boom that occurred because of the banning of birth control.
	Premarital sex was greatly discouraged and most couples on the farm were, of course, married because of that.
	It's like, well, we can't fuck unless we get married.
	Well, I guess we better get married then.
	Stephen Gaskin considered marriage to be a sacred act.
	Abortions were prohibited in the community.
	As an alternative to abortion, the farm publicly offered to deliver any baby for free and then to find a loving family to raise the child.
	And then if the birth mother ever wanted the child back, she could have it back.
	And ultimately, most kept their baby.
	Which... I mean, that's more than in some states of America.
	I mean, banning birth control and abortion is like...
	Well, birth control, I'm sorry, abortions were banned probably for at least part of the time.
	Yes, no, no, no, I mean the option of, oh yeah, we'll find a loving family to raise this child.
	Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm just, I don't like that one bit.
	We'll stick your baby in an institution.
	Goodbye!
	Speaking of babies and all that, Stephen's wife Ina May Gaskin is a midwife, known these days as the mother of authentic midwifery.
	Scare quotes around that.
	When the farm first began, however, she didn't have a fucking clue.
	But she assisted with a birth while the caravan was going through the US, and between that and her own unpleasant experiences giving birth in a hospital, her curiosity was piqued.
	So when the farm took hold, she founded the Farm Midwifery Center and enlisted the aid of family physician Dr. John Williams, who had experience doing home births with the Amish communities.
	So he taught her and a bunch of the other women there what to do, basically.
	As far as I'm aware, they both still run the Midwifery Center today, I think.
	Gaskin's specific methods involve having a lot of family and friends around for the birth, and she pioneered what's known as the Gaskin Maneuver, which is giving birth on all fours, basically, after learning it from a Belizean woman who, in turn, had learned it in Guatemala.
	The technique reduces shoulder dystocia, a type of obstructed labor which can lead to the child dying.
	Ina May has released a few books on babies and breastfeeding, and her work Spiritual Midwifery is considered to be a classical text on midwifery with a lasting impact.
	I do think that this woman is something of a badass, to be honest.
	Like, she was like, hey, didn't like my birth, that sucked, because they used the clamp thingy to pull the baby out, which is like, ooh, that's not cool.
	And she was just like, hey, this- That's incredibly dangerous.
	Yeah, yeah.
	She's like, oh, this whole thing is completely fucked, so I'm gonna learn about it and try and do it in a better way, and I'm gonna become, you know, one of...
	One of the most important people in midwifery at all.
	And I'm like, yeah, you know what?
	And what's interesting is studies were done on the kind of effectiveness of the way they do things at the farm versus hospital births and that kind of thing.
	And they were found to be just as effective and just as safe, basically, with way less intervention and everything else, just in a more comfortable environment.
	Very interesting.
	I had my heckles up going into Ina Mae, because I was like, ah shit, this random woman just decides she wants to start delivering babies, that's a minefield!
	Well, I mean, but if you think about women's roles...
	Oh no, no, no, I know for sure, traditionally.
	Almost all women-bodied persons got thrown into it one way or another.
	No, no, absolutely, but I think this happening in recent history as well, in America, in the 70s, someone just deciding they want to do a thing, that could have gone in a very different direction.
	Well, it did.
	For other people.
	Yeah, for other people.
	But not her, yeah.
	But no, she went on to do some pretty amazing things.
	My hackles are up because of a ban on birth control and abortion.
	Right.
	Yeah, it should be.
	And, you know, if you're talking about re-indigenating, if you're talking about indigenous practices, then family planning, as the blanket term that we can use, has always been present.
	Yeah, they were advocates of the rhythm method, as they called it.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I know.
	So what happened to the farm?
	We don't need to talk about it.
	Google it.
	I'm not going into specifics of it.
	I mean, but also just like the complexities and the problems with any, you know, it's, it's not, it's, it's not, yeah.
	I mean, the percentages aren't great for like, if you, I mean, but also, I don't know.
	I just, I, No, I think it's a little bit bunk.
	I imagine they'd probably be also fine with the pull-out method, I don't know.
	Anyway, what happened to the farm?
	So in 1983, due to financial difficulties and also a challenge to Stephen Gaskin's leadership and direction, The farm was forced to change its residential community agreement and began requiring members to support themselves with their own income rather than donating all income to the foundation.
	This period was called the changeover.
	A lot of people left, because they were disillusioned with the sudden, like, hey!
	Communism isn't a thing anymore!
	The surrounding local rural area to the farm provided very few possibilities for employment, and the nearest large city, Nashville, was 75 miles away.
	Those who couldn't adapt to the new dynamics of the changeover were forced to leave, and those who had made their own independent business opportunities or had reduced overhead could afford to stay.
	So basically, capitalism won out in this experiment, which completely sucks.
	The population went down to around 200, where it's remained ever since, but it has meant that there's a lot more stability in the place and they can focus more on their charitable works.
	So they've helped out with hurricane relief, earthquake relief, taught EMT techniques to the Mohawks, enabling them to set up their own Mohawk-run EMT service, which is cool.
	They run midwifery programs in underprivileged countries in Asia and South America to help improve child survival rates.
	They've set up medical clinics and they help run a school lunch program in Belize.
	Other projects include several bands and jam bands.
	Surprising for a bunch of hippies, right?
	And a book publishing company as well.
	Stephen Gaskin died in 2014 and Ina May is still going today at the age of 83.
	Around 70% of the farm's current residents are from the Baby Boomer generation and have been there since its creation, which to me means the farm will probably not be around for that much longer.
	Or if it is, it'll be a lot smaller within the next 15 years or so.
	Yeah.
	So in summary, a real mixed bag!
	All of it feels a far cry, however, from what Russell seems to want to achieve.
	Yeah.
	Also, I don't know about the resounding success No, that's not a success story to me.
	No, it's definitely a mixed bag.
	There were more problems that I left out of my summary there.
	Yeah.
	They had fucking issues from the off.
	Their inception was not good.
	You know, yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, and that dude is, so I'm at least like, it's been a long time since I learned about them, but I'm certainly peripherally familiar.
	Yeah, it's not...
	So before there were blogs, there were books.
	And if you could sell a bunch of books, you know, like before there was like ad revenue for your cooking blog.
	Before there were podcasts, there were radio stations.
	Yeah, well, you know what I mean?
	Like there's a reason there's a book publishing company.
	Yes.
	And there's a reason that they're doing a good work, you know, they're NGOing around.
	Because I bet a lot of parts of rural Tennessee could use a student lunch program.
	Yeah.
	But in Belize...
	I don't know.
	Charity's incredibly fraught.
	And it's only gotten worse, you know, if you're talking about like the 80s, like when they had to just kind of regroup.
	It's a mess.
	It's a mess.
	Yeah.
	I wouldn't, like, I'd say there's some good things in there and there's definitely some bad things in there that I completely disagree with.
	But it's not appointed, you know, I'm not pointing them.
	No, no, no, no, no.
	There's challenges with the way charity works in general.
	Yeah.
	And they're just part of that.
	I mean, with the thing in Belize, they sent some of their farm people to actually have an office over there.
	You know, with the earthquake relief in, I think it was like '73 or something like that,
	they sent a bunch of people over to, I cannot remember, it might have been Guatemala, I'm
	Some kind of country in that kind of area.
	And they were over there for months, just helping out and doing stuff.
	So they do kind of put their money where their mouth is, I think, for the most part.
	Yeah, like I said, it's a mixed bag.
	I do have respect for some of the things that they've done and achieved, but then also much less respect for other crazier things that I don't like, and that I think are bad ideas.
	But all of that is to say, I don't think it can be touted as the answer to anything.
	I'd argue it absolutely isn't.
	Yeah.
	Russell seems to disagree, or I mean, he did up until deciding that because someone said so that it's become a haven for drug use.
	Yeah, I couldn't couldn't find anything of that anywhere.
	Well, because you don't read John Birch Society material.
	That could be it.
	I'm in the wrong social media space.
	Yeah, I need to pop over to Stormfront or something, maybe it's on there, I don't know.
	So, next up, Russell gets some idea of location for his commune, but his reasoning might not be particularly wise.
	I've been thinking about Bali for years, is being.
	Yeah, Bali, oh, it's so relaxing.
	Have you been Bali on holiday?
	Like, it's pretty amazing.
	It's got, why not do it somewhere bloody warm?
	Have you ever been somewhere on vacation and thought, oh, I could live here?
	I think almost anyone who's ever been on vacation has thought that, because you're out of reality, right?
	You're in this magical place where you don't have to do any work and life is beautiful and you can just go and do things or relax, probably, with a drink in hand.
	You can experience new things and new environments.
	Whereas the reality of the situation is you would be working if you moved there, and most parts of your life would be just as stressful but in a different place.
	Because capitalism.
	Or, in Russell's case, because of his ego and demand for more wealth.
	That's the only actual reason he needs to work.
	But yeah.
	Yeah.
	That's a lot.
	Let's go there because it's relaxing.
	Yeah, because you're on fucking vacation, Richie Rich.
	Exactly.
	This is supposed to be a commune where you work, Russell.
	You're supposed to put in equal amounts of work.
	That's the way that's supposed to go.
	Interesting.
	His conception of that is... He's picturing himself relaxing at his tropical commune.
	That's called being a fucking pharaoh, my dude.
	While people work around him and he occasionally pops in to do his show.
	Being fanned with palm fronds and getting fed peeled grapes.
	Sorry, honey.
	That's not life.
	That's your life right now.
	Where you can get away with despicable acts.
	And then you just hire a guy, put him a fence, take it down.
	Fucking boohoo.
	Hire a goon, hire a mook.
	Next, someone from Russell's Locals Channel has what feels like a good point.
	Yeah, we only look at the nightmare ones, don't we?
	If you say communities, what do you think of?
	You think of the Rajneeshee cult?
	You think of Waco?
	Is it me, or are there some Earthships in Wales, says DoodleMania?
	You might be right.
	Yeah, the Bhagwan.
	We can't.
	We're not going to.
	It's not a cult, Victoria Rose.
	We're not doing anything culty.
	No one is in charge.
	I'm just doing my little broadcast over there.
	Some people have got medical skills.
	Don't shit where you eat.
	Thomas Beard, that does seem like a pretty good principle.
	What about mosquitoes?
	Yeah, no, I'm not doing Louisiana.
	TN.
	Bass girl.
	Yeah, no, I'm not doing that.
	I'm not doing that.
	Ah, if only mosquitoes just existed in Louisiana.
	I'm pretty sure there are mosquitoes in Bali.
	It's hot and humid, that's where they thrive.
	But anyway, it's not a cult, we're not doing a cult thing, I'm not in charge, so how can it be a cult thing?
	Also, you should all listen to everything I say, politically and spiritually, and give me money.
	But it's not a cult, honest.
	Dude!
	Dude!
	When you go on vacation.
	Dude, yeah, what?
	Those pictures of vacations with mosquito netting over the beds.
	Do you think that's just for show?
	I bet he fucking does.
	That's insane to me.
	That's fucking insane to me.
	He's been to Bali, so I'm like, surely you noticed that there was some there.
	What a fucking dumb baby.
	That's crazy.
	Yeah, I'm mosquito food as well.
	Like, there are places with less mosquitoes.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I agree.
	Most of them are cold.
	I mean, you know, we just came from the desert.
	Like, there are places less... There's gonna be bugs.
	Yeah, true, true.
	Places have bugs.
	I don't think he wants the desert either.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Outer space?
	What the fuck has happened?
	The lack of, like, curiosity.
	About his own idea is so baffling to me.
	I've been very curious about how people can live on the land and make it work, and it's incredibly difficult.
	That's part of why I'm so fascinated with how regular people used to live throughout history, because when you try to grow even a little bit of food to put in your own belly, it is shocking how fucking hard it is.
	And then you're like, man, yeah, like how much work, how much effort, how much failure.
	And like, abundant food is new.
	That is a new fucking thing for humans.
	Feels like one of those good problems to have.
	Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, again, rats, we need to deal with it, but like, it's still being misplaced, you know, there's still massive amounts of waste, it's crazy, but that's a capitalism problem.
	But that's the thing, it's like, I just, I'm shocked at, like, I'm so curious about different ways of living, and so I've learned about the real ones.
	I'm not telling anybody about fucking Wakanda!
	If I want to talk about a movie that's super neat or whatever, let's talk about it all day.
	But as far as a sustainable society of any kind that's a commune, he's so uncurious.
	That's shocking to me!
	There is a degree of... I don't know if it's a lack of curiosity or if it's just he's so lazy.
	I do think he is such a fucking lazy human being.
	Sure.
	Because he does ask the questions, because the painfully uncurious don't tend to at least be like, oh, what about this?
	He asks the questions, he just never follows them up.
	He never goes to that next step of like, oh, I'll just type that in, or I'll ask someone.
	No, he just says it out loud and moves on.
	That's his approach to it.
	So yeah, I'm going to put it down to laziness for now.
	But yeah, it is completely, completely absurd.
	I mean, I just like...
	Post-verbal.
	This man has the resources and has, I'm positive, has the time.
	Lauren's just had a seizure, everybody.
	Yeah, right?
	Sorry, I just blanked.
	This man has the resources and has, I'm positive, has the time.
	Maybe not, I don't know.
	'Cause being a manipulative abuser is very, very labor intensive, so maybe not.
	That's true, especially for money.
	I'm saying.
	Ah, jeez.
	So what we have next is a little bit special, and it's Russell going full mask off for the briefest of moments.
	And it's prefaced by a comment from someone looking for suggestions about communes and alternative living, all right?
	Yeah, well this is what we're exploring, Lady Brittany.
	This is exactly what we're exploring.
	We're going to create a little poll around locations, all right?
	Basically, warm.
	Like, I think warm, and then you might have to look at the tax laws.
	An extradition treaty.
	I mean, there's lots of things you feel like we're going to have to look at.
	Did you catch that?
	We're going to have to look at a lot of stuff.
	Let's have a look at the rest of these comments.
	Did you catch that?
	I'm going to wind it back to Alfred through the clip, just to make sure that you've got that.
	Might have to look at the tax laws.
	An extradition treaty.
	I mean there's lots of things you like we're gonna have to look at
	Extradition treaties We might have to look at the tax laws and extradition
	treaties I think we can at this point basically confirm that Russell Brand is setting up a cult in a commune somewhere in a faraway, presumably hot country to be able to prevent being tried for his crimes while still being able to do his show, of course.
	So he is trying to set up colonial dignidad.
	Fucking cool, man.
	Great.
	He's setting himself up to flee the country to avoid the legal ramifications of the things that he has done.
	That's what he's doing.
	Nazis to Argentina.
	More powerful and with a camera in front of him.
	Well, I mean, like, again, like, you know, you know, whatever.
	That's like, that's, I think, or John McAfee, like, yeah, sure.
	Like criminals do!
	I almost, I do wonder if it became more urgent for him.
	Well this is it, this is it.
	Because he talks about it all the time.
	There is an urgent feeling to all, like he's very insistent on action being taken now.
	He's very much like he really wants to go with this and it's very interesting.
	I wonder whether there's something behind the scenes that maybe the world doesn't know about.
	I don't know.
	Considering what already was brewing behind the scenes that we didn't know about until we did?
	Exactly, exactly.
	I think that's feasible.
	It's pure speculation, but at the same time, something has got him riled.
	And again, this is only within the last couple of weeks, so he had a good month of not really Going down this road at all and still doing a show and everything else, whereas now in the last couple of weeks, he's like, hey, we should all go somewhere else!
	Okay, Russell, this idea has come on you very suddenly.
	What's going on?
	Nothing, nothing.
	I just think we should all go somewhere where there isn't an extradition treaty to bring me into anywhere like the UK or the US.
	Oh, okay.
	Okay, well, let's look into that.
	I don't like this.
	I don't like this at all.
	I'm upset.
	You shouldn't.
	You shouldn't be upset.
	I'm upset.
	Yes.
	Good.
	Yes.
	I thought that would happen.
	Because here's the thing.
	We have example after example of men who have done that very thing.
	Ensure maybe the end result is bad for them sometimes but a lot of them just get to be a horrible monster until their ripe old age.
	No consequences and they get to continue abusing and in fact like scales up their abuse and their manipulation to like a.
	Dude!
	Dude!
	I don't want to have to watch this.
	I don't want to have to sit here and fucking watch this guy turn into that.
	And yet.
	And yet.
	Do you know, this episode here, it's one that I almost kind of tacked on to last week's episode.
	I had kind of a good chunk of the clips, and that was before this one had come up.
	But even then, you know, I was like, you know what?
	This needs a little bit more investigation.
	This needs just a little bit more looking into it.
	Can I read this?
	So for those of you that are listening and not watching, can I read this Lady Britney's?
	So what we're looking at right now, there's a comment And it says alternative communities, and then Lady Brittany, I'm assuming is a woman, is... I would assume.
	Can I read her comment real quick, what she said?
	Because there's like, I'm alarmed.
	All right.
	So, just joined your locals yesterday.
	I want to say channel.
	Just joined your locals yesterday.
	Was looking forward to meeting new people and getting ideas.
	Suggestions?
	Oh no!
	My husband and I have been talking about a homestead for years and are working towards it, but I also am wanting a community of other homesteaders to help and support each other.
	It's readily available.
	But it almost seems impossible to do such a thing.
	It's not.
	Personally, I'm in the states and looking at a few different states to move to.
	I found the types of communities I'm looking for don't advertise their setup and it's difficult to find good information.
	Does anyone have thoughts or suggestions?
	Thank you and looking forward to seeing what this community has.
	All of those queries This is the last place I want her to enthusiastically pursue further information.
	Yeah, no, I completely agree.
	And kind of the funny thing, you know, you heard his response there was at the very start of the of the clip was was, oh, these are the kinds of things we're looking into, Lady Brittany.
	And then he just writes the rest of it off.
	He doesn't actually respond to any more of it at all.
	It's more just like, right, yeah, let's let's let's look at tax and extradition.
	Well, yeah, she's looking specifically like the thing is, Is if you're white and you're like a big fan, maybe exclusively, of being white.
	Yeah, there are communities in Idaho.
	Oh yeah, you've got options.
	You have got options.
	Your husband might have to pile in the back of a U-Haul twice a year, but they don't get caught.
	He'll come back home to your little you and your white brood.
	There's There's ways to go about it that are available.
	Options aren't great!
	They're not great.
	No.
	No.
	You gotta be honest.
	Gotta be honest.
	Not looking good.
	So what is she looking into?
	And the thing is, the vulnerabilities are screaming at me from what she's looking for and this comment in particular.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I mean, all of the people who are responding to him, you know, all the ones saying, oh, my life's not that great.
	Yeah, I'd move to a Russell Brand commune.
	It's like, oh, I'm just sad now.
	The one, like, well, I mean, he's, you know, he's making offhanded comments, but the concrete thing that I know he has in his head because of how he talks about it, it's like, I just want to go in my studio and make my show and then you guys can do whatever.
	Oh yeah, in one of the clips that I cut out, he said, um, yeah, we'll all have our own separate cabins, um, on our own separate spaces, I need a lot of space, I need a lot of alone time, anyway.
	On your commune?
	Yeah, right?
	I'm sorry.
	That's somewhat antithetical to what you're proposing.
	Also, maybe not pop out a bunch of kids if you need a lot of alone time.
	Oh that's fine, Laura will look after them.
	I'm unhappy.
	I'm unhappy about this.
	Across the board.
	I don't like this.
	This is not what I expected.
	No, we've gone from dealing with a propagandist to dealing with a rapist to now dealing with a fledgling cult leader.
	That's where we're going!
	That's the fuckin' escalator that we seem to be riding, and we cannot get off, because here we are.
	I mean, he just, like, he wants the- man oh man.
	This is all the hallmarks of a problem.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, no, I agree.
	This is why all of this is in the show.
	I'm like, we need to keep an eye on this, because something is happening.
	I've also seen the distant heartbreak in the face of a reporter, or a family member, or someone that has had to follow these stories.
	Here we go!
	I don't wanna be a guy!
	I mean, we've already had a taste of that, haven't we?
	Yeah, we have.
	But I think, yeah, I think the thing that you're very adept at is recognizing patterns, and I think that's why you're upset, because there's a recognizable pattern based on what has come before.
	He's like hitting the whole bingo card!
	He really is!
	And we mentioned urgency, and for clarity, listen to the next clip and tell me if it sounds like he is urgently setting up a cult.
	I want to welcome a few of our new members.
	Guy Pearce.
	What, Mike from Neighbours?
	That'd be nice if it is you, Mike from Neighbours.
	Thank you for coming.
	Nina Rose, Lady O, Shaman95, Val UK.
	Thanks all of you for supporting us.
	You know now how important it is, not just to keep the old woodpile burning and a-growing, but because we are clearly and plainly now transitioning from a period where it's a nascent media uh independent media movement to a potential well movement that's a lot more significant than that and that's why we're already talking about potential locations
	A movement that's a lot more significant than that.
	We're already talking about potential locations- LET'S GO EVERYBODY!
	Let's get outta here!
	Let's go to a place that isn't here.
	Okay, where I'm less likely to be arrested.
	Alright, let's do it.
	Dude!
	Also, Guy Pearce is one of the guys from Neighbours, but Guy Pearce is also a very famous actor.
	I don't know why that was his first pull.
	If that was me, I'd be like, holy shit, Guy Pearce, let's do it!
	Okay, okay!
	No, it's just gonna be a guy called Guy Pearce, but still!
	Still!
	I mean, that's crazy.
	Like that.
	The thing is, that sounds, I guess, kind of like he's just a guy talking.
	It does.
	And it could just be a guy talking.
	Sure, but then you hear the words that he says.
	Yeah, there's like something in there.
	We are moving from a nascent independent media organization to something more than that.
	We are escalating, one might say.
	We are, you know... Looking at locations.
	Exactly, exactly.
	I've never heard... And given all of the surrounding context, that comment is a fucking problem.
	Yeah, like, that's the thing.
	It's like, oh, I've never heard... I mean, okay, so, of course, it's so hard to even keep a bead on all these different weird propagandist fucking ghouls, but like...
	I know there are people and places that have tried to organize communes based off of their influencer status and their kind of burgeoning cultiness.
	And some of them end up in a weird mansion in Miami or whatever.
	And it's always, not always, it makes the news regularly, we'll say, for not great reasons.
	But looking at locations is specific.
	Because of our media diet, we are very familiar with mostly what Alex Jones says on InfoWars, and I cannot tell you that I've ever...
	Alex will talk about, and because I use that as a, I think to be an excellent benchmark of comparison, Alex talks about his potential redoubt, you know, like his land, his family.
	He does not breathe a syllable of y'all are coming with me, literally ever.
	He wants nothing to do with his fans in real life.
	No, not at all.
	At all.
	Not at all, whereas Russell is more like, ah yes, you are human shields.
	I want more.
	Yes, yes, you are armor to protect me, which is exactly what they are.
	And a pool of humans to pull from, for question mark.
	Yeah, oh, all manner of things.
	Anything he wants.
	The extradition thing is, like, sitting in my spine.
	I know!
	He just, just offhand before moving on.
	Because, like, I mean, I mean, come on!
	Keep it in!
	Keep it in!
	For me!
	As a favor!
	Like, just...
	Oh, we'll look into taxes and extradition treaties.
	Anyway!
	You're also telling other people!
	If you have a reason to not potentially be extradited, come along!
	If anyone pressed him on it, he would just say, oh yeah, you know, so they can't come and get me and, you know, cancel me or do whatever else.
	That's what he would say.
	Sure.
	That means nothing.
	He's like, that's okay.
	No, with good reason.
	I've not been pleased about this.
	In terms of location for his cult, he put up a locals poll and is not best pleased with the results.
	We did a poll earlier about you know we chatted last time about where would we ideally and hypothetically at this stage build a community and let's have a look um so see that envisioning screen well done so ideally where would you build a community together like i was very pro bali a lot of you though it's in wales I'm no disrespect to Wales and the Welsh, and as you know, we do community on the very periphery of Wales.
	It's sort of Wales-adjacent.
	And I love Wales, and I love the Welsh, and I love Keogh Mythology.
	But if we're gonna start a community, for God's sake, let's go somewhere Warm.
	I mean, who in the chat is in the Northern?
	Sadly, everywhere will be warm soon.
	Benny B. I've got such a 1980s attitude.
	I'm not over the bit where they used to call it global warming.
	That's because I'm just the age I am, I suppose.
	But I don't, you know, embrace the apocalypse.
	I mean, hell will be warm.
	So, Costa Rica is just ahead of Wales.
	If someone has voted for Wales, can you tell me why?
	Iceland, I know the air.
	That's why mum's gone to Iceland, because it's a potential... Okay.
	So, first of all, Hay on Why is in Wales.
	It's not Wales-adjacent.
	Also, go fuck yourself, Russell, and please do stay the fuck out of my country.
	We don't want you there, and I hope it rains for the next 50 years, if only to keep you out of it.
	So, for anyone who can't see the poll, Costa Rica is number one, followed by Wales, then Iceland, then Bali, so that came in fourth, then Belize, and then Peru.
	My money is on him deciding he wants to do Bali anyway, and the Awakened Wonders will go along with it happily, because who argues with their own cult leader, right?
	He wants temperate to warm all the time.
	Mm-hmm.
	Which, welcome to his own set of problems.
	Well, he said bloody hot.
	That's stupid.
	Well, it's only gonna get hotter.
	Even like, earlier he said hemispheres.
	Do you think the whole Southern Hemisphere is warm, you fucking idiot?
	I heard that, and I was like, wow, that's dumb.
	Just because you think South Hemisphere is warm?
	Buddy.
	Yes, yes, that is true.
	I know, and I was taking it back, and it just came and went.
	But I got to bring it back to that.
	You think below equator warm, above equator cold?
	Stupid.
	And like, so he wants constant temperate to hot, which plenty of land is available.
	It's true.
	In reference to the distance from the equator, not which hemisphere it's in.
	That's incredibly dumb.
	But then also no bugs.
	No distasteful bugs.
	I'd imagine snakes to be a bit of an issue that maybe hasn't occurred to him because he's a vacationing rich person.
	I think a lot of things haven't occurred to me yet.
	I'd say so.
	I'd say so.
	Infrastructure.
	Like, what broadcasting do you think that you're going to do on Gilligan's Island?
	The thing, again, I didn't cut this clip either, but the main thing he said is like, right, the main factor really is Wi-Fi.
	As soon as we got that sorted, we can go anywhere.
	Yeah, call your buddy Elon Musk and get Starlink.
	See how that goes.
	How about that?
	Even Starlink doesn't get up to the speeds that he needs.
	My house didn't until we had to wrench it out of a company.
	That's the thing, there's so many infrastructure Concerns and issues.
	Yep.
	That just this person's head is empty.
	Like there's just the total like, this is a, this is a location poll on where you want to go on vacation.
	Not where you want to live.
	Apparently lots of people want to come to Wales.
	I mean, I'm curious.
	Well, I mean, you know, I'm generally speaking fine with people coming to Wales.
	Sure.
	No, you were pointed specifically at him.
	I get that.
	Yeah, yeah.
	My issue is I don't think he should ever come to Wales.
	I think he should stay the fuck out of Wales and his community festival should fuck off elsewhere.
	Like, you picked the place to have your festival and you're shitting on it.
	That's weird, also.
	You have the balls to say it's Wales-adjacent.
	Fuck you, it's in Wales.
	And also, I don't know why he's picked Wales, to be honest, because the weather is famously bad there.
	Yeah, you made the poll.
	Yeah, well, like, Wales, it constantly rains.
	Like, that's a thing that Wales is known for.
	It's known for being fucking wet all the time.
	Why would you host a festival there, especially if you don't like rain or the cold?
	It's almost like he doesn't think these things through.
	Crazy, right?
	He shouldn't be in charge of his own outfit, let alone his family or community.
	Honestly, between his wife and Gareth and the fucking production crew and whatever else, I don't know how much of his life he is in charge of.
	I think he's got so many people nannying him around his existence that he just doesn't actually have to deal with any of the things.
	You know, and I do think that that's, like, that's, we've certainly danced around that idea and I feel like it's just, that's an underlying theme.
	I think maybe I'd like to highlight a little that that's like something that we've seen a lot of.
	Because he has baby brain ideas!
	Yeah.
	He has little golden softbook ideas.
	He has back of shampoo bottle ideas, not like tangible understandings of how, like, do you have any idea what it takes to even, to build a sewer system?
	To not get shit in your water?
	That is something humans absolutely take for granted and it drives me crazy!
	Sorry, I just got the mental image of Russell Brown dying from drinking shit water.
	I'm here for that.
	I'm 100%.
	You know what?
	The thing is, it's all the funnier because it's so very possible.
	Party horn emoji.
	I'm here for that.
	But that's what I'm saying!
	It's so very possible and probable.
	That's also, I mean, and I don't want to say I'm just a true crime guy, because I'm so fascinated with how many things... No, I don't disagree with your point.
	Very often infrastructure problems are the things, like that's when the rubber starts hitting the road, people start getting hungry, people start, like there's, yeah, on small scale, Homesteading.
	Honestly, I think it's fascinating.
	I think it's interesting.
	I think it's cool.
	I think peat toilets are neat!
	It's great!
	Because it is crazy how we have organized cities to be so foreign from how humans lived for most of time.
	And obviously we got this far so there were things that we were doing right and there's things that we're doing wrong and so there's a lot of very fascinating you know either like there's back there's there's like good things out of all these different little movements that have happened the back to the lands and communes and whatever and just the the lack of curiosity is astounding to me that this person is like oh I made a poll and But the top, obviously the top two concerns on my list is vacation feeling temperature outside and extradition slash taxes.
	Buddy, you have no idea what you are exploring.
	No, you don't.
	Pay to build a road.
	Just try that.
	See how much it costs.
	And even just the time it takes.
	What time do you want to move there?
	Do you know when monsoon seasons are that you don't know about because you don't vacation there whenever it's a season that is torrential rains that will destroy your home?
	This is off the top of my fucking head!
	Like... Yeah!
	How no one has had this conversation with him, I don't know, but... I don't know, it's something that he's gonna have to reckon with at some point.
	I don't think it will ever be fucking sustainable in the way of making nails or any of that.
	I don't think that's ever a road that he's gonna go down.
	I think it's gonna be, hey, if I can throw money at the problem, then I will.
	Um, and I think that's where they're gonna end up.
	I guess.
	Our comic fantasies are different, because I think Mickey Mouse would be the real hoot, and I know how difficult it is, it just seems like difficult things are fun.
	But I'm being facetious.
	I think it'll be fuckin' like, prefab cabins, right?
	It'll be like, honestly, honestly, this is the laziest man on the planet.
	One monsoon.
	The laziest and most babied man on the planet.
	There have been libertarian projects before, and it's not an Ayn Rand fucking psychotic paradise.
	The libertarian town was overrun by bears.
	That happened.
	I bet he doesn't know about that.
	Yeah, America's fucked up, honey.
	There's a lot of very silly things that people have tried to do.
	A lot of bears.
	There's a lot of bears.
	A lot of bears.
	Yeah, there's a lot of panthers.
	There's a lot of pythons.
	I'm thinking he's hoping that there isn't wildlife in Bali, I don't know.
	That's hilarious!
	So next up, we get yet another mask-off moment, coming right up after some tech issues.
	Just a little slip here.
	Thanks very much.
	Michael Ross, and you can show it in, can we show it in vision, just to practice that tech?
	Oh, well, no, not fully split screen, guys.
	You don't want to bombard the audience with that.
	And that's more like it.
	Well done.
	Well, guess what?
	I'll be driving right.
	I will be driving right past the farm, which is a cult.
	No shit.
	I've made that a community, a community that we were talking about yesterday.
	Oh, which is a cult.
	Wait, shit.
	Now I keep telling myself, don't I?
	Yes, Russell.
	Yes, you do.
	So it's a cult. Oh It's a chemical Colton
	I also I also just love that his team decided to take that comment on the screen and make it full screen
	as though it's just the best thing to broadcast as a chunk of text and
	And and also as though Russell wouldn't take any issue with his face being off screen for more than three seconds
	His crew are learning I will give them that I
	Mean and it's like this So for those of you that are that are listening and not watching, it's gas can farm update.
	It's just a guy saying I'm going to drive by there with like way too much information.
	It's and I'm going to drive by the farm.
	So let me know and I'll report or interview even though they've well.
	Well, here's the thing.
	One of the hallmarks of gang and cult indoctrination is giving the new recruit tasks, usually small stuff, and then emphasising its importance, right?
	It's a common tactic.
	And I say this completely apropos of nothing.
	So Russell, if you need me to pop in the farm, better let me know ASAP.
	I'll be there sometime tomorrow.
	I've never done any reporting, but I will.
	Yeah, I do need you to, Michael.
	Are you on the chat now?
	Go there, say you're there on behalf of a community of like-minded people, say what are the five things we need to know before starting a community?
	And how do you transition from virtual to actual?
	Okay, so go and do that please.
	It's very important that you do this work.
	It's very important that you do this work.
	He's even got the lingo down.
	How dare this influencing grifter not just buy one of the fucking books that I'm sure they've written Ad infinitum about, like, you just want somebody to show up and ask the top five things for free when clearly they fund their asses on books.
	Are you serious?
	You can't even shell out 15 bucks?
	It is very interesting how, in the start, a couple of weeks back, in the very first of these broadcasts, he was like, we may even go there!
	But now he knows that there's someone nearby, he's like, you go there, that's free!
	And asking them, like, give me, okay, y'all have been here for decades, give me a BuzzFeed article, just the headlines.
	And how to go from virtual to physical You think these people are gonna know that?
	They're in their 80s for God's sake.
	Like, what do you think they're gonna tell you?
	Yeah, right?
	Again, I was just bringing up a different- It's very important that you do this work.
	I completely agree with everything that you brought up.
	Yeah, of course.
	What do you think they're going to say?
	The issues are exponential.
	I can guess at some of the things that they would say based on their history.
	It's like, don't do it with too many people, which he already is going to because he has too many fucking followers who will want to move there.
	Yeah, it's very important that you do this work.
	Parasocial, like, exploitation influencers that are setting up GoFundMes, and they're like, we're all gonna move somewhere, and then they find out it's hard, but they don't give back the money.
	That happens on the regular.
	It's definitely possible here.
	Which shouldn't be legal, but it is.
	So I do know for a fact that Michael here, the person who offered to go, didn't end up going to the farm.
	As his friend, he was supposed to be picking up, bailed.
	And Michael ended up having sex in the shower instead.
	I know this because- Why do we know that?! !
	Because he told Russell in the locals chat, and Russell got annoyed with him about it and told him to go back.
	You must go there and do this work, is what he said.
	I'm annoyed that I didn't cut that clip, but yeah, that's what he said.
	No, you know what?
	That's enough.
	That's all we need.
	It's in another broadcast.
	Oh, that's right.
	It cut me off because there was a paywall on that one, which is annoying.
	I appreciate your reporting.
	Oh, thank you.
	That's enough.
	So, next up, we learn a little bit more about Russell's idea of what happened at Waco.
	Another one.
	Graham Comey says, watch Leonardo DiCaprio in the beach.
	I love that film.
	Doesn't end well.
	It starts so well.
	Like, oh, It doesn't!
	What you've got to think about is it will start well.
	I mean, imagine if you start a community and it don't start well, you're in serious trouble because all of the ones that ended appallingly started lovely.
	Waco, the first weeks of Waco, they've gone down in folklore as a glorious time.
	People relaxing, playing the guitar, gun practice, trouble free.
	It's just so divorced from reality, I don't even know how to deal with that!
	I don't have words!
	I don't have words!
	I need the bell!
	I don't have words!
	It's just so not... none of that's true.
	At all.
	In any way.
	How does he think this?
	How has he gotten to this point?
	I've been... tirade time.
	I can't... like, there's plenty of ink has been spilled about Waco, and... this is... What does he think he's talking about?
	I don't know.
	This is the thing.
	I know he doesn't know anything about Waco.
	I think I know that.
	But in terms of like, I don't know where he's getting this information, this idea that, oh yeah, for a couple of weeks Waco was a lovely time.
	Who do you think was just, yeah, I can't.
	Who do you think these people are?
	I hope to god you cut out some of the absolute rambling that I've already done because I'm just furious at the specific, like, I know plenty enough To be livid.
	But Waco, buddy?
	Do you think it started like kumbaya and everybody was just shooting guns and playing the guitar?
	Yeah, yeah, exactly.
	And I don't know, singing Born in the USA unironically.
	He has no concept of how those people spent their days in the best of times.
	No, he does not know.
	He has no idea who these people are.
	I don't know what he's talking about.
	Neither does he.
	I'm trying to squeeze blood from a stone is what I'm doing right now, I get it.
	Yeah, I know, I know.
	If pressed, he would flounder and then probably smoke bomb and then run away.
	Yeah, I think he's talking about camping.
	Yeah, maybe he's confusing Waco with camping.
	With, I don't know, fucking... I mean, you can camp close to Waco.
	Sure, sure.
	I can point out some great spots.
	Flys are a problem.
	So in our final clip of the show, we finally learn exactly what happened to Gareth, and we also learn a little bit about Russell's tendency to fail upwards.
	Thunder 1200, Gareth, Gareth, where did he go?
	Apologies as I'm rarely on live shows.
	He's there.
	He's right there.
	Found him.
	I'm looking at him now.
	We made some decisions during that time that we might refine what we're doing, make it very, very focused.
	Also, you might imagine that going through that period of time, And then straight into the sort of geopolitical tensions.
	A lot of the stuff that we did, that the kind of, let's call it whimsy and frivolity, felt a little bit, well if I can be blunt, inappropriate.
	Said it now!
	And so we kind of revised our model.
	It broke my heart.
	It broke my heart.
	Sensitive hearts, don't you worry about being heartbroken.
	Do you know what?
	I believe in God.
	Do you know what that means?
	Everything is as it's supposed to be.
	Everything.
	This is, you know, we've moved from why is this happening to me to why is this happening for me?
	Why is this happening for me then?
	What does God want now?
	Um, so firstly, and I'm surprised I'm saying this, believe me, but I am crushed about Gareth's
	absence and I really do hope he comes back.
	[Laughter]
	Yeah, yeah.
	Good night!
	The show is genuinely so much harder to watch without him.
	Even if he is the source of all Russell's alt-right bullshit, just having someone to bounce off who isn't such a fuckhead, oh my god.
	It's incredible.
	It does tickle me, the theme of most of these broadcasts that he keeps doing is, Hey, where's Gareth gone?
	He's even had tips directed just at Gareth at times, which annoys the shit out of Russell.
	It's really funny.
	Oh, his $5 just for G. Yeah, I know, I know.
	It's very funny.
	Anyway, yeah, so what does God want for me now?
	Like, why is this happening for me, not happening to me?
	That might genuinely explain his failing upward trajectory, right?
	Because if in any crisis or moment of consequence, you see it as an opportunity to profit rather than to learn or accept punishment, then you'll probably catch people pretty fucking off guard and do quite well.
	Yeah.
	Yeah!
	That's a great point!
	This is the moment you should be fucking contrite and, you know, learn something about yourself.
	I'm gonna make some money!
	What?
	Okay.
	Yeah, and I think that's what he's done at every fucking turn.
	Every single thing he's ever done.
	It's like he just never got a humility gene.
	Like there's just no, there's nothing in there that's humble or like, cause that's the thing is like, this is his, this whole episode, this whole like little endeavor.
	And I guess it's been going on for a hot minute that he's been talking about this vacation, extended vacation in Bali.
	And it's just, Like, the thing is, is people that start these goofy weird commune ideas don't necessarily have more planning or understanding than Russell.
	They get themselves into pickles.
	Real pickles.
	If we're talking about crypto, specifically, Sam Bankman Freed made a little compound and a real mess without a lot of plan.
	And that went poorly quick.
	Yeah.
	So... Yeah, there does feel like there's a lot more haste than there is planning going on, which is disconcerting, because, I don't know, this might be a short podcast.
	This might not go for that much longer if he decides to go down that road, but who knows?
	Yeah.
	I mean, if other humanity wasn't at stake, it'd be amazing to just watch him crash and burn.
	But he's not going to be the one that does, because of what you just said, is that it's an opportunity.
	Yeah, no, for sure.
	And, you know, he is king of avoiding consequences.
	I will give him that.
	Especially if he fucks off to Bali, then he can avoid some more consequences that may be in the pipeline.
	He also might be disappointed to find out that Bali has laws also.
	They have laws, but as long as they don't have an extradition treaty, then he can't get- Well, right, but there are laws- And then he can move somewhere where they don't have extradition treaty with Bali, and then there we- He can just keep going.
	Just leapfrog.
	I mean, but that's the thing, is I think that, you know, Andrew Tait could have probably gotten away with a lot more.
	Had he not been so flippant about Romania!
	Yeah, I was gonna say, he went to the wrong place.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	Did you really, again, like, I don't know, like I think there is, there are notions
	that privileged, spoiled babies don't necessarily internalize until it's a little too late.
	It's a little too late.
	Yeah, maybe.
	And the thing is, there are definitely places he could go and do whatever the fuck he wants pretty much without consequence.
	I dare say, he's so much of an asset, he could probably move to Russia tomorrow.
	I'm also convinced that he would hate it.
	So, maybe not.
	Yeah.
	That was in the back of my head too, yeah.
	It's also famously cold.
	Especially in the winters, they're pretty famous.
	And again, he's talking about countries that he fundamentally doesn't understand.
	The cultural differences and the social system.
	God, no.
	He doesn't care about that.
	So there's gonna be something you hate.
	He wants to stay in his own little compound and never leave that area, you know, unless it's to go to the beach or something.
	And not confront any... I want land and to be left alone.
	That's what I want.
	That's his idea.
	And you know what you get?
	A neighbor That feeds bears because they're cute and they overrun your town.
	That's like, that's straight up.
	That's what we have found happens.
	That's the experiment.
	That's what happens.
	Yeah.
	And in Russell's case, he'll also have to put up with all of his fans being there, which I know to a degree his ego will love it, but the rest of them will hate it.
	I don't think he'll hate it that much.
	You don't!
	The amount of people, women, that were cycled through, they talked about it more in the documentary, less than we covered, more in the documentary itself, but like, he wants a volume of humans.
	But that is to fuck them and then they leave.
	Like, that's not the same as having to live with them, which he would have to do.
	He said he wants a lot of alone time at his commune.
	I don't think he's thinking that far ahead.
	Do you reckon he'd just have a queue of women just waiting to go in?
	a queue, a queue of women just waiting to go in.
	I mean, there's a number of ways that cult leaders make that work.
	There's a question that I haven't really asked here.
	Um, it.
	Is Laura gonna go?
	And the kids?
	Are they going with him?
	I'm assuming that's the plan.
	But are they on board?
	Is Laura on board?
	Do you honestly think that matters?
	She sounds... Well, no, not to him it doesn't.
	That's what I'm saying.
	Yeah, oh, do we care?
	I don't think he cares either way.
	Because we're human fucking beings.
	I'm deeply curious what her thoughts would be on moving to Bali.
	It is crazy that he's going to pull his locals channel and not mention...
	I talk about Mike all the time.
	Y'all know about my partner and our travels.
	That's the first thing, because also that's how I relate to the world.
	That's my life.
	That's my world.
	That's how I relate is with this other person.
	So it's very natural for me to think in those terms and to see this person not thinking in those terms is shocking.
	Yeah, you know, well, I think, you know, it's been a long time since he's ever thought of anyone but himself or his mum.
	Also, is his mum going to get... he's very close with his mum.
	Right.
	You know, I... Yeah, the mums that get dragged along, usually it works out bad for them first.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, usually they die pretty quickly.
	Well, I'm cycling through the options.
	It's worse when they die slow, man.
	This is bad.
	Oh, that's true.
	That's true.
	I don't know.
	I've seen a couple of videos of him with his mum.
	I'm not convinced she's the kind of person who would enjoy living on a commune.
	That's just my take.
	I think that she's had a lot of health issues.
	It's not feasible.
	She's had a lot of health issues, and also, you know, she's had a pretty tough life.
	And also, judging, I don't know, I remember seeing a couple of videos of them at her home and everything, and she seems to quite like nice things in her own space.
	It's very, very British, very quintessentially British.
	So I don't think she'd want to go to Bali, you know?
	Yeah, I'm like picturing taking my mom, my Midwestern-ass mom, to Bali.
	Oil and water, friend.
	It would not go well.
	To live.
	Not just to visit.
	I mean, a vacation would be bad enough, but to live!
	Fucking hell.
	No, that's not going to happen.
	I don't think my mum would like... She'd get off the plane and be like, nope!
	And then just get back on.
	Too hot!
	Goodbye.
	My mum would find an awesome last minute excuse that would be impenetrable and not do it.
	Sorry, I've died.
	Okay.
	Right.
	Well, can't argue with that, Mom.
	Alright.
	Would hurt someone's feelings, but accidentally.
	So I did have a question that I wrote real big on a little piece of paper next to me that I've been curious about because when we talk about, there's been like police investigation, because I think it's exactly like, I was afraid it would be a non sequitur.
	It ties exactly into what we've just been talking about.
	So whenever, and I do feel like this is a cultural difference in some way in the legal system is because whenever, you've told me that there's two different, Police investigations that Russell's currently undergoing, or is going to be involved.
	Now, in America, whenever police are like, hey, we're going to investigate this thing, it's usually that's the hurdle to achieve to get anything done.
	And then the onus... Just actually getting them to investigate is the hard thing, is it?
	Very often, yes.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, like there's some kind of misconduct or whatever.
	You need the press to get the police involved, and then it usually takes a lot of groundswell.
	And I mean, it could still be very difficult, and it could obviously still fall through the cracks or be kind of like Peter out.
	But that, to me, is like if the police are willing to say, yeah, we're going to do something about it, Then that's when the accountability starts, and so I'm curious if that's just a cultural difference, because that's entirely feasible.
	No, no, I think it's very similar here, in that for the police to bother looking into it, there has to be something there.
	Not just public pressure, but some form of evidence.
	Sure, sure, sure.
	And same, yeah.
	But the reality is no one outside of the two police forces that are looking at it has a bloody clue what's happening.
	So I have no idea what the status of those investigations are or could be.
	I know that neither of them were that recent.
	I think the most recent was like, what, 2018, I think?
	So, you know, we don't have statute of limitations in this country, so it doesn't really matter in that respect, but it does matter from an evidentiary perspective, because things get increasingly difficult to prove the more that time goes by, often.
	So, yeah.
	Basically, there's something happening.
	Possibly.
	And that's the best that we can know.
	Whether things are coming of that, and that is the reason for this sudden, like, hey everyone, let's go!
	Maybe.
	Maybe.
	I hope so.
	I hope there are legal things in the pipeline that are coming to slap him in the face.
	That's my preference for life.
	Um, but we shall see, I guess.
	Okay.
	Um, yeah.
	Yeah.
	I guess I'm just curious because it's like, that's usually whenever, cause it's like, it's, you know, if it's a saving face thing or like, that's, I just wonder if it was a different kind of point that, you know, that's when the cops are actually willing to do something.
	Cause it's like, you have to go through like a DA, you know, someone's willing to press charges.
	Like that's kind of, No, we don't really have that same kind of mechanism here.
	We don't have to deal with DAs and that kind of thing.
	I mean, there are lawyers, but it doesn't work in the same way, basically.
	But yeah, if there is anything there, then hopefully they'll find it.
	Maybe they are, because this is what he's talking about.
	Maybe they have found it, and maybe that's why he's running away!
	It doesn't seem like this is where his content otherwise was leading.
	Because if it's just a fun jpe that they're talking about, it doesn't feel fun and silly.
	No, it doesn't at all.
	It feels urgent and serious.
	This is a stupid option, dude.
	I didn't see this coming quite so quickly.
	I thought, maybe this will happen a few years down the line, but there's no immediate rush because he's avoided all consequences so far and he has only profited off of this whole mess.
	So, yeah, but... I mean, the, like, thinking maybe, to me, I'm like, I'm trying to, like, put myself in that kind of mindset, and also what I know of other, like, parasocial exploitation influencers, what they've been up to, and it gets fucking crazy that, like, because it's all about just chasing the money.
	Yeah, kind of like that's the so like maybe, oh, his festival makes him a fuck ton of money, which like festivals don't if you're like a responsible event organizer, is it like, oh, we make tons and tons of money at this event.
	So then we just have this event all year long.
	And I just make You know, like, you extrapolate, like, well, if I make X amount of, like, big profit in this weekend, then if that just happens all the time, then we'll just do that.
	Like, is that the thinking?
	There's definitely, as we've demonstrated, a lack of thinking things through.
	It's also when people get hurt.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I don't think he minds when people that aren't him get hurt.
	So that's, you know, that's that's been demonstrated pretty clearly.
	Well, that's our show, everybody!
	That's us.
	Alright, that's a bleak note to finish.
	Ah, good.
	Oh no, I have a fun event to talk about, that'll be great.
	What a fun energy to bring to my regular life stuff.
	What's your event?
	We'll do that first.
	Yeah.
	So, uh, well, let's see.
	I still have some stuff left from these events that I've been doing this weekend.
	I have just a little limited run of very cool things.
	So this is like a hand design that is, it is spooky, but I mean, we're, we're goth 24 seven.
	So it's, it looks a little Halloween-y, but, um, it's the design that, Mike drew and then screen printed and then I've made little there's a couple of pillows and a couple of banners that I will be putting up, you know, because I don't know what Tim Curry is going to bring you for Halloween, but I hope I was a good girl all year so that I get some treats and tricks.
	Because, you know, it's still fuckin' Halloween.
	Halloween's great.
	And... ALICE Oh yeah.
	But, you know, I showed April the Nightmare before Christmas the other day.
	I was a bit worried, because I remember as a kid being quite scared about it, but she wanted to watch it, and I was like, okay, but if it gets scary we can switch it off.
	She fucking loved it.
	Loved every second of it.
	Even loved, y'know, Oogie Boogie at the end and all that, which I found terrifying as a child.
	She was like, ah, this is great.
	C, I loved it.
	I loved it.
	We saw it in the theatre.
	And we sat in the- Oh, did you?
	I'm old.
	And we sat in the front row because that was the last like spot.
	And so my head was completely back.
	It's like my neck was killing me and I was a child.
	Giant Jack Skellington.
	So yeah, that was such a moment.
	Oh, my God.
	That's so fun.
	I saw the Grinch in cinemas.
	I remember seeing that, the Jim Carrey one.
	And I saw the first Harry Potter.
	I've got vivid memories of that as well.
	Ah, good times.
	Nostalgia.
	There we go, that's a bit lighter.
	That's a lighter note to finish the episode off.
	That's making me feel old, but okay.
	And me!
	And me!
	You look at how young Daniel Radcliffe is in the first Harry Potter film and I'm like, ooh, I feel old.
	I remember seeing this in the, oh god, I'm so old.
	Yep.
	Okay.
	Well, and so let's see, so the next very cool event, if you're in Chicago, or if you're going to be in Chicago, Sunday, November 19th from 10am to 4pm at the National Museum of Mexican Art.
	It's so, the vendor fair is just that Sunday, but it's a whole weekend.
	It's called Grabitalania, and it's a really, really, it's like the coolest, like it's a print fair.
	I mean, it's sponsored by the National Museum of Mexican Art, but there's a bunch of, yeah, like Pilsen Arts Community House, like there's a bunch of, Events all weekend.
	It's extremely cool.
	Um, it's really fun.
	And you know, a bunch of fantastic printmakers that are, um, that come together and we get to go do it.
	And it's really, really great.
	It's, it's really fun.
	I would check it out.
	If you are anywhere near Chicago, this is like one of our favorite events every year.
	And we're whenever we get invited, we're like, it's always really exciting.
	So, uh, It's just so fun.
	Tons of demos, and good for kids, and it's a whole thing.
	Everyone who can go, go and report back, and this is very important work, you must do this.
	No, no, but go along if you can!
	You need to ask the top five questions.
	The top five.
	How do we take it from digital to physical?
	Um, yeah.
	So just, uh, go along if you can, I'd love to go.
	I probably can't, so, um, cause that's a little far.
	A little bit expensive to get there.
	A little soon.
	A little far.
	Yeah, and it's free.
	I forgot that.
	It's free.
	It's a printmaking festival.
	You people have to go.
	Go, everyone.
	Go see the thing, because that sounds cool as shit.
	Also, I mean, that museum on its own sounds cool as shit.
	Even without the cool events.
	Alright, everyone.
	Well, if you want to support us and what we do, which we're very appreciative of, because we are Paul's, patreon.com slash onbrand, and you can support us, and that would be awesome.
	And I'll be putting these up on Instagram, and I know they're never on Instagram, so I'll try to...
	Share the fun little, yeah, just some of the cool art stuff.
	I promise it's cheaper than you could possibly think.
	Yeah, and Lauren's Insta is at made.buy.lauren.be, so go check it out there.
	And I'm at Al Worth Official.
	If you want to get in touch, drop us an email.
	We're theonbrandpod at gmail.com.
	We'd love to hear from you.
	You can also like leave us a voice note or whatever and you can leave a voice message there should be a link in the thing that goes to a Spotify thing and then you can record like up to a minute and say hello!
	I know folks have thoughts out there about the cultiness and about the commune of it all.
	There are thoughts.
	Please share them.
	I'm not alone in my terror.
	Subreddit, onbrandoverscorepod, go over there, there are other people saying other things about things, and that's cool too.
	Yeah, and on socials, we're at the onbrandpod at most things, I think.
	But yeah, you'll find us, we're about.
	YouTubers, like, subscribe, thank you, we love you.
	And if we're hard to find, look for the logo.
	It's very obvious.
	Yeah, it's true.
	It's true.
	The logo is, yeah, everywhere.
	I made it.
	This is the one.
	I made that with my paws.
	So if you find this picture that I'm pointing to, if you're looking.
	It's true.
	There is a physical version of that somewhere.
	Yes.
	Right, okay.
	We, uh, yeah, not exactly sure what's going to come next week.
	Obviously we've kind of taken a week off of regularly scheduled Russell content, so I'll get back to you.
	I would like to touch in back in on the present.
	I'm glad we covered this though, this is...
	Needed doing.
	So we're a little surprised.
	Considering that, again, this happened over a couple of weeks for me, I was like, huh, this seems to be going somewhere bad.
	Huh, this seems to be going somewhere bad much faster.
	Aha!
	Okay, oh it's a cult.
	Yep, he's doing it.
	Okay.
	That's just, that's what we've gotten to.
	So I hope you've enjoyed that journey in a condensed format, audience.
	So yeah, we'll see what comes next week.
	I can guarantee you it won't be good.
	I know he's done a whole piece on Hillary Clinton again, so I don't know whether to cover that.
	I know!
	Let's just leave it alone!
	But yeah, anyway, we'll see what comes up.
	We love you very much, thank you for listening, and we'll see you next week, everybody.
	Take care of yourselves and each other.

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