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July 29, 2020 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
58:01
"ANIMAL FARM" - A KID'S REVIEW...
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Time Text
Hi everybody, it's Steph.
And Izzy. She's back.
I am back. She's back.
I am back. And we are...
Now, so let's talk a little bit about the history of our book reading.
We used to read a lot more books together, then you got into your own series.
Yes. And then, recently, I suggested that we read Animal Farm.
And you told me it was a scary story, so I agreed.
Yeah, you do actually are quite a fan of the scary story.
I was on it when I was younger.
I really liked scary stuff.
And then when I was like 10 or something, I was like...
I just wasn't too interested in them.
And now I'm kind of like, okay, I can give this a try again.
And it's funny because it's not like a boo scary story.
No. Or like a, I don't know, creepy doll in the closet story.
It just basically tells you that any type of communism doesn't work.
And that's scary.
No, it's not scary.
It's nice, actually. But here's the funny thing, because it does kind of work for the pigs.
And that's it. That's the challenge.
If it didn't work for anyone, nobody would be tempted at all, right?
No. It only works for the rulers.
So here is a quote.
So the guy who wrote it, his real name is Eric Blair, but he had a pen name called George Orwell.
And before he even wrote Animal Farm, this is what he wrote.
See if it makes sense. He said, history consists of a series of swindles.
What the heck is a swindle?
So a swindle is like a cheat.
Like, let's say there's somebody online who says, hey man, I'll sell you an iPad today.
For 200 bucks. Yeah.
And there's a picture of a nice big white iPad box, right?
And so you send him 200 bucks and he sends you the box.
And that's it. And there's nothing in it, right?
Well, I remember, this is not exactly a cheat, but this is something fishy.
So I remember a long time ago, this is a while ago, I was probably like, again, nine.
I think I mentioned that like five seconds ago, that I was nine years old.
I was watching this YouTube video, and sometimes I'll scroll down the videos, right?
Sorry, not the videos, the comments.
Yeah, yeah. And this one comment just sent some random link, and it said, click me!
And I was like, sure, no.
Don't do it. And I remember actually the owner of the video, sorry, like the person who owned the channel basically, said, hey, sure, I'm not doing that.
And he said, oh, why not?
And it just went back and forth, and he was trying to be funny and tempt him into clicking the link, and pretty much everyone was like, no.
Okay, so let's get back to our...
Yeah, let's actually do this review.
So history consists of a series of swindles in which the masses are first lured into revolt by the promise of utopia.
Now, utopia is the best society that you could imagine.
Right. So, where you could stay healthy by eating M&M's.
That's pretty much the standard definition of utopia for everyone, right?
So by the promise, utopia would be...
So for me, it's a society where the children are raised peacefully, and there's no government, and there's lots of private companies competing to keep you safe, to...
Keep you healthy and all of that.
That to me would be utopia.
And all types of hackers that leave mysterious links under YouTube videos get removed from the world.
That's right. So it says, history consists of a series of swindles in which the masses are first lured into revolt by the promise of utopia and then, when they have done their job, are enslaved over again by new masters.
Right. So that's, I think that's kind of what he's, I mean, obviously that's the kind of thing.
That's kind of what he wrote about too. So let's real briefly, we'll just go over the story.
Yes, you do it.
Me do it? Okay. So Farmer Jones is a drunk.
Yeah. And the book is really anti-alcohol because just about everyone who touches alcohol ends up corrupting me.
Well, they thought Napoleon, who was basically the communist leader, was going to die because he drank too much.
Oh yeah, yeah, that's right. Which was actually, I was really excited about that.
So, he gets drunk, passes out, the animals are hungry, and then when he comes to feed them, they get aggressive, you know, he's going to whip them at least, something like that, and then they basically attack him and drive him away, right?
Yeah. Now, the book Animal Farm has a subtitle that's rarely printed called A Fairy Tale, right?
But... There's actually a lot of similarities between the Russian Revolution, 1917, and Animal Farm.
So the drunken Mr.
Jones, who's kind of corrupt and lazy and so on, they are considered to be the last rulers of the Russians before the communists had a rebellion and so on.
And he treats the animals so badly.
And Major, who was the old...
Boar. He's a boar. Boar, right?
Yeah, yeah. I feel like he's related to Snowball and Napoleon.
It feels that way, right?
Yeah. I don't really know, but I know he's the same color, at my guess, because I think they described him as a white boar, and I know Snowball is a boar, I think.
Well, and Snowball, I assume, is white or pale because of the name, right?
Well, yeah. So, the old major has a speech wherein he says, you know, all of our stuff gets taken from us by the farmer.
Yeah. The eggs get taken, we end up being slaughtered for meat and we don't have much of a comfortable old age and if we were in charge of our own farm without what's called the overhead.
So the overhead is the money that is charged over and above the value of Your labor, right?
So you do your cleaning chores, right?
Yes. But we don't charge you for like the cleaning implements or the electricity to vacuum or the mops or anything like that, right?
But so overhead is you go and work in a factory, you sell your labor for 10 bucks an hour, but the factory sells what you make for 15 bucks an hour.
Yeah. And they probably pay four bucks of that for the factory, the heating, the taxes.
And then the rest of it goes to the government.
Yeah, well, so they keep a little bit of money, right?
Yeah. So what happens is, we talked about this a little bit when we were doing the Communist Manifesto, so what happens is people look and say, well, wait a minute, my labor gets sold for 15 bucks.
Yeah. An hour.
But I only get paid $10 an hour, so I'm being ripped off $5 an hour.
It's like, no, you're not.
Why? Because without...
So the boss needs to make money off the company, so that's why he charges it more than you get paid, right?
But if there was no boss, he wouldn't get any money at all.
Why? Because nobody would be there to supply you a job.
There'd be no factory, there'd be no business sales, marketing, advertising, all of that.
If I was a boss at a company and I heard someone say, you're fired because you're too dumb.
It's not too dumb, it's just that they haven't figured it out yet.
Right, right. Exactly. I mean, if you were just dumb.
But it's really tempting for people, right?
Because, listen, I'll tell you a story.
So when I was working up north doing my gold panning and prospecting all of that after high school, I was working with a friend of mine.
Now, they gave you an extra $100 a month for every year of university you had.
Oh, I remember that. And your friend had an extra year, right?
He had an extra year of university and he got paid.
$100 more. We were doing exactly the same work.
I'm totally over it by now because, you know, it's so long ago.
It doesn't look like you're over it.
I'm fine. Guys, guys.
35 years ago, he stole my $100.
Listen, guys, in the comments, if you think he's over it, say so.
If you don't think he's over it, say so.
In the comments of this video.
Edit video, remove this part.
Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.
That's going to happen. No, but that is...
And it bothered me that he got paid more.
It's not really fair. Okay, so the reason they do it, though, is that every year that you have extra university, you're more tempted to not go and work doing this back-breaking labor in the snow or in the bugs or in the swamp with the leeches where we had to wade through to look for, like, to put the claim on the land.
We had to go, like, a kilometer square and we had to nail a little metal plaque to a tree to claim that land for a certain amount of time in case we found gold there.
Is that I would be happy doing the entire thing with the swamp except for the leeches because I could find like turtles, snakes, frogs, tree frogs, that's it.
Do you know what else we found? What?
Bears! Bears!
Yeah, that was a camp dog attacked by a bear.
I remember I did tell you that story. It was pretty, pretty bad.
Anyway, so it bothers you when you think you could be making more.
Like if you have a great life and someone comes along and says, well, wait a minute.
You could be making more, you could be doing more, you could be all of this kind of cool stuff, right?
Yeah. Then what happens is you go from, a lot of people will go from feeling satisfied, like I was satisfied with what I was being paid.
When I was working up north because I got paid...
It's hard to remember. It was something like $2,000 or $2,200 a month, which meant a lot more back then.
But I didn't have to pay for anything because they paid for all of the food, the lodging, like everything was paid for.
And the money was just kind of deposited in my account in Toronto.
So that's why I saved up money to go to university.
Cool. So it was a good job.
Yeah. Hard job, but good.
It was a hard job, yeah. But that's also fine too, right?
So it was a good job.
And I was satisfied with it until...
Until I found out about the extra hundred dollars a month.
Again, remember, you can comment if he's still over it or not.
No, but it went from, hey, this is a great job, to I'm incredibly decisive.
No, it didn't last super long, right?
And the reason they did that is they wanted to have people come back, because once you've trained someone in a job, you don't want to train someone new, because they may not work out, they may not like it, or it just takes a while to train them.
They might just quit, day two.
So it was cheaper for them.
So let's say you worked up there for three months in the summer, right?
So that's $300 a month that they were paying extra for every year of university, but they didn't have to train someone new, which was a good idea.
Yeah, because it probably cost more than $300 to train people.
Oh, yeah, training people is a lot.
So just a little example of how you can go from being like, yeah, this is a pretty good job.
That was about the most money that I could earn.
Well, because I didn't have to pay for my expenses, right?
Otherwise, I'd have been paying $1,000, $1,500 a month for expenses.
Even if I made a little bit more, I wouldn't have made as much at the end, right?
So I was like, yeah, this is a great job, too.
I can't believe I'm underpaid.
It's just the way that the brain works.
And there's nothing wrong with it, I think.
Is there something wrong with it?
Comment below. There's nothing wrong with it because people are dissatisfied with having to go up and change the channel on the television.
Yeah. And so they create remote controls.
And they still have big issues, I don't know, like 8,000 years later.
Go on. They still have like, I remember that one time where I didn't have my remote.
Oh no, they're not all as petty as me.
No, no, they're not all. But let me tell you about changing the channel when I was young.
I feel like you have a story about that too, that you still have.
I do have a story about it.
Okay, you don't need to tell that because people are going to think you're insane.
Need is a very interesting word.
Okay, on with the review.
So that people don't skip the video.
Oh, right, right. Okay. So...
So there's this farmer, and he's organized everything, and he's a bad farmer.
He's really bad. And he's mean, and he's drunk, and his farmer's going to fail anyway, because once people get addicted to alcohol, it's really tough for them to be productive, it's tough for them to be sensible, and they tend to be...
Unless they have someone near their life, just give them a nice fat smack and fix them up.
Yeah, I don't think that's specifically the way that you deal with alcoholism.
It is. It's like, you're drunk, I'm going to smack you.
Yes. And then I can call the police on you for you signing me back.
Not recommended treatments.
Yeah, don't do that.
All right. So he says that, here's a quote I got from the book.
He says, this is major, why then do we continue in this miserable condition because nearly the whole of the produce of our labor is stolen from us by human beings, right?
Yeah, that's true. Now, that's an interesting question, right?
So the cows on the farm, what's the difference?
Because cows originally were in nature, right?
Yeah. So what's the difference between cows on a farm and cows in nature?
What are the big differences? Well, the cows in nature basically give all their milk to their young.
Yeah, that's right. And they basically get to roam free and do whatever they like.
And the ones in the farm, I don't know if they're allowed to have babies.
They have babies because you need new cows, right?
Sometimes cheaper to breed them than buy them, right?
Yeah. And someone's got to breed them, right?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So they're breeding cows, yeah.
But they basically breed, but they give most of their milk to humans, which gets sold.
And barely any of that goes back into food for themselves.
Right. So, they get fed.
Again, it mostly goes to government.
I'm kidding. Yeah, no, so they get fed.
But here's a big difference between the cows on a farm and the cows in the wild.
So, what would like to eat a cow in the wild?
Oh gosh, piranhas.
What else? Oh, if you've seen our tadpole reviews, I don't know if you've seen them.
We put in, like, the meat, the lunch and meat, beef, and then it's, like, two minutes completely covered.
So, tadpoles.
Right. Wolves?
No, wolves, foxes, a whole bunch of raccoons.
Poyotes? Maybe wild dogs.
Yeah. Well, see, now the raccoons, if the cow is old or wounded or sick...
Or young. Or young. Yeah, that's right.
They'll say, like, nice snack.
Now, of course, the fences on a farm keep the predators away from the cows, but also the cows are not free.
And cows sometimes are not treated very well.
I know. Like, they just put in these tiny stalls.
That bothers me. I think, like, if you're going to run a farm, give a big field...
Like, if you're going to do that, then you must make a lot of money, I guess, if you're a farmer.
Because you have, like, so many animals and all that.
So just maybe get some room.
Or even if you're going to keep them like that, maybe the majority of the time you could just let them free roam.
Like, in a big field or something.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. In your backyard. So, it's complicated because...
They may live longer.
They will not be as susceptible to disease because if a disease hits the cow herd, the farmer will give them antibiotics or medicine or get a vet in to help them.
If it's not Mr. Jones. If it's not Mr.
Jones. Yeah, because he's pretty bad.
So... Whether the cows have a better life when they're free or a better life in the farm, it's not a totally simple question, if that makes sense.
Yeah. Right? But here's the idea.
So, they look at the farm and they say, well, we only get a portion of what we produce, right?
But they don't have to maintain the fencing, the buildings, they don't have to pay the vet bills, the medical bills, they don't have to pay taxes, they don't...
Like, there's a lot of things that they don't have to do.
They don't have to do all the trade.
To get jam and stuff like that, you know, that pigs like.
So it's complicated.
Like, is it better to be self-employed or is it better to work for someone else?
It kind of depends on a lot of different things.
If you're self-employed, then you have to do all the work that if you're employed by someone else, that they do, right?
Yeah. And so, yeah, I can remember when I worked in a hardware store, I had a boss named Tony, and Tony wasn't around very much.
But Tony spent a lot of time doing paperwork and ordering things and if something was delivered but it was broken he'd have to send it back and you know he did a lot of that kind of stuff and he sort of sit in this dusty back office upstairs in the back of the hardware store And it didn't look like that much fun.
At least we were out roaming around cutting keys, mixing paints, and I was cutting glass a lot.
I know you said you loved mixing the paint.
I loved mixing the paint. Cutting the glass was fun.
That would actually be kind of cool. If you came out with a really beautiful color, maybe it wasn't the exact color that someone wanted, but it was much prettier, so you're just like, you want this?
And I'm like, sure. I was the guy, because I was considered so honest as I was, I was the guy who would take a giant sack of cash to the bank to deposit it.
That's what Tony would trust me to do that.
And this is back, very few people used credit cards back then.
So literally, it was just like a massive sack of coins and bills.
I actually think I would have liked it before people used credit cards.
Oh yeah? Because now it's weird if you pay it with cash.
It is, yeah. If you're like more than say like 10 bucks.
Well, especially in COVID now too, right?
It's like, how dare you? So anyway, but he's selling them a dream, which is, look, the farm has been created by someone else, but if you take over the farm, you get all of the profits that are currently being used.
Now, it kind of makes sense in a way because Farmer Jones is taking a lot of the profits from the farm and buying alcohol, which is not good for the farm.
It's not good for him.
It's not good for his management or anything like that, right?
No. So, basically, they have this revolution.
Now, there was a guy named Lenin, L-E-N-I-N, Vladimir Ilyevich Lenin, and he was the leader of the communists in 1917, and he died, I guess, relatively young, and he would be equivalent to Major.
He had sort of the dream of the revolution, and then there was a fight between a guy named Leon Trotsky, Who had just about the biggest hair in most of revolutionary history.
How big was this hair?
It was like, so there's a photograph of him for his passport and it looks like they kind of had to zoom out because he just had this crazy hair.
And then there's this guy, he started his career as a violent bank robber.
His name was Joseph Stalin.
Okay. And he looked like a really mean uncle and, I hate to say this, he had a mustache.
Mustache men are... So in case you're not aware...
Enemies! So there was this guy.
There's nothing too wrong with him.
I think he was like a friend of my mom's or something.
And he had a wife. Do they have kids?
I think they have kids. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
And he came over and he was kind of like playing around with me.
Hello! But it was very scary to me because I was like two at the time.
So later that year...
And he had a mustache. And he had a mustache.
So later that year...
I came up with this song.
Again, I was like two at the time.
No, this is on a podcast, believe it or not.
Oh my gosh. You published it?
I did. I did. It was very funny.
I came up with this song.
It was like the whole elaborate song.
It was like, I love everyone except men with mustaches.
I put a rainbow on you.
I love everyone except men with mustaches.
Why did I say I put a rainbow on you?
It's probably something from My Little Pony or whatever.
No, this is before My Little Pony.
You just loved rainbows and you wanted the world to be happy and you loved everyone except...
With mustaches, right, right.
I bet you if that guy ever heard that song, he'd be very confused.
Right, right. Especially if he ever heard the podcast, he'd be like...
So... So, Trotsky and Stalin, after Lenin died, Trotsky and Stalin had a fight over who was going to be in charge of communism in Russia, or it was called USSR, the Union of Socialist Soviet Republic.
Soviet is like, you know how they had these meetings on Sundays for Animal Farm?
Yeah. They would get together and sing the song called...
Base of England. Right. I remember at first you tried to make it Canada, and then you just gave up.
I did. I started off thinking, oh, it'd be more interesting with Canada, but we made it.
And then you just gave up. Yeah, yeah. And so a Soviet is when everyone gets together and they vote on things that are going to be happening.
So what happened was Stalin kind of won and he exiled, which means he banished from the country.
And then he banished Trotsky, the guy with the big hair.
And Trotsky fled to Mexico.
And his story came to an end.
Yeah, sure. Stalin chased him down, basically.
They shot him? No, they actually hit him on the head with an ice pick.
Ouch. Yeah, ouch indeed.
So basically Stalin then had all of the power and went kind of crazy.
Well, he was kind of crazy at first, I guess.
Yeah, he was, right? Just like in the story.
By the way, if you haven't noticed this yet, there are spoilers in this story.
Oh, yeah, yeah. We should mention that.
We should probably mention that in the description.
Yeah, we'll put a text at the beginning, maybe.
Yeah, or maybe we could just like leave some big text over your forehead and just say whatever.
So when things first take over at the animal farm, the pigs are considered the smartest and the sheep are really dumb.
I remember when they found this thing.
It's a bit of a cliche because people call people, there's a sort of, sorry to interrupt, there's kind of a cliche about people who just follow orders and don't think for themselves are referred to as sheeple.
Because it's a combination of sheep and people, right?
It's a little rude, but...
No, it's not. Yeah, it is.
No, I remember there was this one thing in the book.
It was the sheep that adopted the phrase as their new motto or whatever it said.
I don't really know what they said in the book.
Oh, yes, we do. I forget.
No, no, no. I remember what they said.
I don't remember how they described it, though.
How the writer described it.
Now, can we imitate them?
No. Can I? Yeah.
Okay. I would say it'd be like...
Four legs good!
Two legs bad!
Something like that. Hey, that's everyone's ringtone now.
What can I tell you? It's going to multiply like a virus on the web.
Oh, do you remember? I don't know if you remember.
Come on, you want to do it? No, I don't know if we...
I do, sorry. Okay, go.
You barely even touched you!
I still remember to the day the person who introduced you to flicking.
Don't say. That was you. Don't say.
That was you. Was it me? Yeah.
You told me about flicking.
No, it was that guy I worked up north with.
No. Just kidding.
I'm done here. No, I remember they basically described it as they just sat on the field shouting it for hours at a time.
Well, and every time anyone had a criticism of something the pigs were doing...
You said it. They just, you know, four legs good, two legs bad.
And by the time it quieted down, the discussion time was passed.
I remember you read this to me at night.
So I was trying, not trying to fall asleep.
I'm a night owl if I haven't mentioned this to some of their shows before.
Who, you? Okay, go ahead.
Oh, gosh. But so I basically, I will go to bed at like...
No, let's not get into all the details.
But yeah, let's just say you are not a 9pm kid for bed, for sure.
Yeah, so he basically comes in, he sits on a chair, and we basically read the story, and then we read it more on the drive.
And what happened was, I remember I was just kind of sitting there, and we were reading the story, and then you just, before you just said four legs good, two legs bad, and then you did it in that sheep version, and I just got freaked out for a second.
It just startled me because it was very loud.
Absolutely. Yeah, no, we should actually make that your wake up.
Alarm. Alright. I would probably freak out and smash myself.
So what's interesting is that...
So there's Snowball is, I guess, kind of like a more reasonable pig.
He's good. Kind of bossy.
I mean, no, he's good though.
No, they're pigs. Aren't they boar?
I think Napoleon is the boar.
I thought they're siblings. No, I don't think so.
Okay, I didn't know. I remember when we watched the animated version, which all I can say had about the worst dialogue ever.
There was one guy who did all the voices.
Yeah, one guy did the voices for all the animals and there was not enough difference and there should have been more females.
There were no females, right?
Clover wasn't even in there.
And Benjamin was nice, which doesn't suit him.
No, no. Benjamin's more like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, just kind of dour and depressed and negative.
Anyway, go on. I remember a negative character, but since I read that when I was like four, I don't really remember much.
What was I saying? Oh, I thought they were related because in the animated movie, they were both the exact same size pretty much.
Yeah, no, I don't think they're related.
So what happened when Stalin took over?
And this is kind of something that happens when communists or fascists or whoever take over, right?
So, yeah, communists, like, the group is, the most important group is class.
For fascists, the most important group is, like, the nation or the race or something like that.
It's just whatever it is that's not an individual.
It's, like, something you have to kind of bow down before.
So, Stalin came up with these five-year plans where, like, electrification was, like, the huge thing.
They were going to electrify the entire country.
That was in reality.
Like, they kept trying this.
And, you know, sometimes it would work, sometimes it would fail.
I thought they were going to, like, put electricity in everyone through the entire country.
And I'm like, why would you do that? Wait, electrocute?
Yeah! Electrify!
Electrify is somewhat different.
Then I realized it. At first I'm like, what?
You hate that many people?
Electrification is when you plug a plug into a power outlet.
Electrocution is when you plug a fork into a power outlet or a screwdriver.
So what happened was I'm like, you hate the majority of your country so much that you...
Sorry, I messed up that sentence.
That there are so few people that you actually still like so you just gave up and did it to everyone.
Hold this wire. He's like, go ahead.
Right. Let me see your skull briefly.
Yes. So, Snowball and Napoleon...
Snowball wants to build a windmill to produce electricity, and he promises all these great things.
Do you remember what he promises to the animals?
He promises hot and cold water.
He promises warm barns, and he says possibly a three-day week or something like that.
Three-day week and...
When it's done.
Yeah, heat for their stalls, like in the...
Yeah, that's what I said. Clack, clack, moo, clack, clack, moo.
Click-clack-moo. Click-clack-moo, yeah.
That is actually a really funny book.
Whoever sent that, I know a listener or follower or whatever sent that.
And I remember I loved it when I was like six or seven or whenever I got the book.
It was really funny. Do you know, you can actually get a keyboard for your computer or your tablet that is like an old manual typewriter.
Yeah, I know. It's pretty weird. Pretty weird.
I'm sure you do that because you love old technology so much.
Let's not speak of it. Let's not speak of it.
So here's what's interesting. So Snowball is trying to...
He comes up with all these speeches to get everyone to build this windmill.
But Napoleon, what did he do from the very beginning?
So at the very beginning...
Did we say this before? No.
No, I don't think so. At the very beginning, there were these nine puppies.
So I think there was... Since they were considered the smartest, I know in the animated movie it was different, but we're basically based off the book right now.
So, the book, basically, the dogs, I think it was Bluebell, and there was someone else who I can't remember the name, but there were three dogs, adult dogs, and two of them had puppies together.
They had nine, and Napoleon said when they were done breastfeeding from their parent, I was going to say parents, and I'm like, wait, that's not possible.
Yeah, one, one. From their mom, that he was going to take them into his private education because he was like the smartest.
The bigs basically were considered the smartest.
So the dogs were like, okay, we want smart kids, you know?
So that didn't actually turn out so well.
But he must have planned it from the very beginning.
Now this is something else that's kind of common under communism.
Is that they will try to separate children from their parents and have the children be raised by the government or by the teachers or whatever it is.
And that way they can have the most influence over the children.
There's an old saying. It says, give me a child until the age of seven and he is mine for life or she is mine for life.
In other words, if you can tell the child right and wrong or what your view of the world is from birth to seven, then it's very hard for people to undo that kind of thinking, if that makes sense.
I mean, they can, but if they start hearing the arguments again, I guess they're like, ah, you're not right.
It's tough. It's tough. And of course, the more people who believe something, say, that's said by the government, the more difficult it is for other kids or teenagers to go against it because, you know, we all want to have friends and We're going to have friends and companions to be invited to parties, and if you go against what the general story is in society, and that story could be right, it could be wrong. I would probably just be like, sure, I totally agree, and then I'd be like, nope.
Right, right, but it's tough, right?
It's tough. Or I'd find other kids that sounded fishy when they said, yeah, I love this!
Right, if there's a sideways glance or something. And I'd be like, hey, you want to be my friend?
So, Napoleon, from the very beginning, separated the pups from the mothers.
Napoleon raised the pups, and then they only answered to him.
They were totally loyal to him. So, after Snowball works really, really hard on these plans for the windmill, and then tries to convince everyone, say, oh, you know, you should do this windmill.
He gives this big speech. Now, Napoleon, what does he do?
He's just like, nah, but I got dogs.
Yeah, yeah, you can have all this rhetoric, all this eloquence, all this cool stuff.
You can do what you like, but I got dogs.
I have chompy dogs.
Yeah, with like brass studded collars or something it said.
Now, I did want to mention something, and I wasn't sure I was ever going to say this in my life, so here's a unique sentence for you.
Have you said it before? Are you ready? No, I've never said it before.
Wow. Now we have another topic.
Betrayal for the family. No, so here's my statement about all of this.
Chompy dogs are not an argument.
It's fair to say, right? Chompy dogs are not an argument.
So they chase Snowball away.
Pretty much. And in the book, he seems to get away.
But in the movie, not so much.
This is the movie from 1958.
I think he does get away, doesn't he?
In the movie, I don't think so.
Oh, you don't? I don't think so, no.
Because, remember, Napoleon comes up and looks at the dogs and the dogs say, like, we got him.
I thought they basically just said something.
They were kind of scared from Napoleon, so they're like, yeah, we got him.
It could be. It's not confirmed, but that's sort of the theory, right?
So there's this crazy thing like, well, if we electrify the country, it's so much better, and we're willing to do anything to get that.
But if you look at how much work and effort and crazy resources those animals worked for years on the windmill.
And first thing was the windmill blew down.
Now, one thing that's kind of true, this is true for a lot of people, but it's not everyone, but it's very true of really bossy governments.
So when the windmill blew down in the storm, The logical thing would be to say, whoever made the plans, or whoever was designing it, made an error.
They didn't make the walls thick enough, right?
The walls were 18 inches, and I think they doubled them to 3 feet, or something like that.
So, given that Napoleon was in charge of the windmill, when it blew down in the storm, he should have said, I'm so sorry, comrades.
You know, I made a mistake. You worked hard for a year, a year and a half, or whatever.
Crazy, back-breaking labor.
But instead, do you remember...
He's like, Snowball did it!
Snowball did it, right? So the guy who's been chased out now becomes what's called the scapegoat, right?
Which is everything that goes wrong gets blamed on that, on Snowball.
And that way nobody ever has to take responsibility.
It's lucky that Snowball's not actually still in the story.
Everyone would hate him. Now, do you remember the hens?
The rebellion of the hens? Yep.
What happened? So, they basically, they were running, everyone was running low on food, so they needed to get the money from selling the eggs to buy oats and stuff, like, or whatever.
But what happened was, they didn't, the hens weren't going to have enough, they wouldn't, they would have to give up older eggs.
Well, at least most start with, right?
No, all they said. Was it all? No, they can't give up all because they still need new hens, right?
Well, no, that's what they said.
They said you're going to have to do it during the summer, not the spring, so that you're going to have baby hens during the winter, too.
Okay. So they basically have to give up.
Well, the whole promise was you won't have to give up your eggs anymore.
That's why they did the rebellion.
You'll have to give up some of your eggs because they can't have a new chicken every single day.
Do you know what I mean? I see what you mean, yeah, yeah.
So they give up some of their eggs, I guess.
So they ended up rebelling.
Do you remember what they did? What?
Oh yeah, they flew up to the rafters and laid their eggs there, except for the fact that they fell down when it got windy.
So basically they would rather destroy their eggs or destroy their babies, so to speak, rather than give them up for money, right?
And then... And I remember when I first read this, because it kind of starts out like a funny or cool fairy tale, because there's that character, Molly.
Do you remember? The silly vein, I need ribbons in my hair, you know, all of that, right?
She bothers me. I remember she only learned, like, what?
She only learned five letters of the alphabet.
Something like that, yeah. And that was to spell her name.
I just paused for a second to count out the names.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because there's two L's.
Two L's, right, right. Molly.
That's funny. And she decorated it with, like, twigs and flowers.
And then she just kind of pranced around it, they said.
And she was also being petted by a human or fed by a human, right?
Pet and fed by a human.
So she basically disappeared.
So it's kind of funny at the beginning.
And it's kind of cool. And, you know, you're like, hey, great.
You know, no mean, drunken farmer.
Good luck, right? Yeah. But then...
Oh my gosh, if I was like the...
I'm just saying, if I was in this story and I was the farmer of this, then this would have happened because I'd be good.
So then... I'd be like, sure, I will be nice.
When I first read the book as a kid, I was about your age, I think, I was like, when the dogs just kill the chickens who were trying to protect their young, I'm like, oh man!
They kill the chickens later though, right?
No, I remember what happened.
Yeah, go ahead. There were these four pigs that got dragged up because they apparently had some plot or whatever and they got killed.
And then there were these three chickens who they said if anybody else...
Is confessing to having bad thoughts about...
And then the three chickens came up and they said something like, Snowball told us to make a plot against you to kill you.
And I remember finding that kind of weird.
Like, why... It's like they didn't want to live anymore.
After the dogs kill creatures...
You know you're about to die. So it's like they don't even want to live there anymore.
They'd rather just get killed by the dogs and continue living there.
Or maybe they imagined that they did something or maybe they had a dream that they confused for reality.
But I remember as a kid being like, well, why would you confess to something?
If you knew you were going to get killed, unless you wanted to die.
It's kind of dark, you know?
All I would have said, say something did happen, like Snowball or whatever did come up to me if I was one of the chickens, I probably would have said, well, I had a dream that this happened, but it never actually happened, so I don't think I really need to get executed right now.
Yeah, it's very strange. It's very strange.
I was, like, very stubborn, and even in the dream I said no.
Right, right. Now, when Russia was set up as a communist country, A lot of the Western governments, they funded an invasion, they funded a war against Russia because they were scared of Russia and communism.
And that's mirrored in the story about how the farmers keep coming back to try and take over.
But then eventually, in 1943, during the middle of the Second World War, the Allies, which were America, England, basically America, England, and Russia, Russia was communist under Stalin back then, they met in a Middle Eastern city called Tehran.
And they basically all work together and they figured out, oh, here's what the world's going to look like after we defeat the Germans.
And that's the pigs and the humans working together is a mirror of that kind of conference.
Because they say, oh, you know, we're over our dislike of communism.
We're going to work together. I'm sorry about all the misunderstandings.
Remember that speech that everyone gives, right?
And there were actually two big rebellions in Russia.
One was the farmers. So what happened was, they said to the farmers, you all have to produce your grain, give it to the government, and we'll just give you stuff back as we see fit.
I didn't want to do that.
And so production went down.
Because, look, if you have to work really hard to produce your crops and you give it all to the government and they just give you some of it back, I think you'd say, well, I just won't work that hard.
Like, what's the point? Like, let's say I give them a thousand bushels of grain and they give me back 50.
Yeah. Right? Well, why don't I just grow 50 bushels of grain?
Yes. It's the same results, right?
Yes. So they stopped producing as much, and then the government said, you know what they said?
Where's my thousand bushels of grain?
Right. Because that's what you produced last year, and they said, well, last year it was my farm.
Now it's a communist farm, so I don't want to produce as much.
All I would have said is, well, we got no brains while the plants died.
You would lie to the communist government.
Well, what else would I do? Well, anyway, so what they did was they said, you are hiding grain.
You sold it, and you're keeping the money just for yourself, and you've stolen from the government.
And so they went in and they started ripping through everything and they basically threw some farmers in jail.
They really were quite aggressive because they needed all of this for their troops and all of that, right?
Their soldiers. Well, I remember in the...
Sorry, really fast. In the book, this is what happened.
They basically took a little bit. I remember, again, I know we said we'd stick to the book, but in the animated movie, there's this one pig who's taking one bite of an apple and then just throwing it behind him.
Oh, that bothered you. He had, like, 50 apples.
That's when they were in the house, right? Because it showed, like, even in the animated movie, it showed the rib cages and stuff like that of the animals.
Yeah, yeah. Because they were really thin. It's like, just...
Well, if you don't have a right to your food, you don't actually have a right to life.
No. Because if all the food that's grown goes to the government and then the government just chooses who gets the food, the people in the government will almost always use that power to punish their enemies and reward your friends.
I'd probably pretty much say like, oh sure, I'd be like the best person in the government ever and I'd just take food and I'd just give it to the people.
I'd be like, go, take it quickly.
Well, except you're not the only person in the government.
There's lots of other people. No, I know.
I'd try and get to one of the top positions so I'd get lots of food.
Do you think that bad people would know that you're a good person and would keep you away from power?
I could try. I could try very hard.
You could try. Absolutely. You could try.
I've been on it for 15 years.
It's a challenge. No, I could try and be a bad person.
I could pretend to be a bad person and then I could secretly be good.
That's interesting because a lot of people think that.
Like, I'll just fake being a bad person.
I'll get to the top and I'll make it all better.
But it never seems to happen because the bad people are pretty good at sniffing out good people and fighting them or keeping them away from power.
I just randomly walk up to someone and sniff them.
Were you Joe Biden? Yeah, probably.
So the horses in the story represent what are called the peasants, who are the people who work the land.
Oh, sorry. I was just going to do rebellions.
So what happened was then Stalin got so angry at the farmers, he just took all their food.
Say bye-bye farmers.
Oh, it was bad.
Like millions of people starved to death.
It was just terrible.
Because the farmers ran out of food and they couldn't farm.
Well, yeah, because if you've got no, you need to keep your seed crop, right?
Yeah. So you need to keep some portion of whatever it is that you're planting as a seed so that you can plant it for next year and grow more, right?
Yeah. Like if you eat all your cucumbers, you've got nothing left to plant.
You need the seeds, right? Well, I know I do this.
I basically, during the winter, I started growing some farms.
Sorry, not farms. I found these little containers that I had bought a year or two ago.
And I basically just started planting them.
Sorry, not planting the containers.
Planting stuff in the containers.
Peppers, carrots. Carrots are still growing.
This was in February.
Peppers, carrots. Peppers haven't even given me anything yet.
Peas have died. The peas basically give you flowers and they die.
Are you ready for a dad joke? Rest in peace.
Oh, that's so good.
Wait. Okay, go ahead. No, I'm not flicking you.
I'm flicking you. Wait, wait, wait.
That's a microphone. I don't care about the microphone.
Come on, that was not the worst joke you've ever heard.
That was a terrible joke.
I mean, for a dad joke.
Okay, comment in the video below if rest in peace is a great joke.
For dead peas. Alright, okay.
Comment how bad it is and dislike the video if you agree with me.
Nuke the whole video for one joke?
Yup. Actually, that's reasonable.
That seems fair. Okay, so go on with your veggies.
Rest in peace. Yeah, it's a good joke.
No. It's depressing.
Go on. So, I'm still growing stuff.
There's a pot outside since it's summer we can leave them there.
Yeah. And I can show you on the video, I guess.
Yeah. So, my biggest pepper plant is like this big.
And I've been growing it since like February.
Right, right. Now, they're not spicy peppers though, right?
No. Just green peppers? I mean, I'm going to say that they're not spicy so that I can prank you and feed you them at some point.
Excellent. Fill your guts, fill your guts.
Ah! So, there were also a bunch of sailors who revolted, and they were also dealt with very harshly.
So, yeah, it is...
The not-so-smart horses and the male boxer is less smart than the female.
What's her name again? Clover.
Clover. I mean, he gets smarter over the time, and so does Clover.
Well, yeah. Do you remember his two slogans?
The boxer, who's the big giant horse.
So it was originally, I will work harder, and then it added Napoleon is always right.
I remember when you were younger, you always said Steph is always right.
Dad is always right. Yeah.
It's a great motto. I mean, it's a lot.
It's not a great motto for everyone, but it's a great motto for you.
It's a lot. Whoa. Okay.
So, the saddest thing to me.
See, here's the thing.
As a kid, I don't know what you think of him, but Boxer was really frustrating to me.
Because you get that he's noble in a way.
He works super hard.
He just tries. Like, he wants to help.
He's working really hard.
And, you know, he gets up early.
He drags all of the stones.
They couldn't build anything without him.
They make him too powerful. Yeah, a bit unbelievable.
He's not one of those working horses.
He's just a normal horse. That's what they describe.
I forget what it's called, but they're these horses that would probably fit his description of strength, but they just say...
Dre horses or Clydesdales are very sort of big, powerful horses.
But they say he's just a horse. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I'm going to just pretend he isn't.
And the funny thing is, if I remember rightly, the writer, George Orwell, never actually had any kids of his own, but he adopted a child who ended up being a salesman of agricultural stuff, I think in Scotland or something like that.
So it's just kind of funny how he did one of the famous books, Animal Farm.
So he really frustrated me.
Boxer, because he's like, he's so committed.
He's so hardworking.
And he has his doubts, right?
Because they keep changing the rules.
Yeah, he's like, I don't...
So they keep changing the rules.
So I'll give you the rule.
You tell me what they changed it to.
Okay? No animal shall sleep in a bed.
With sheets. That's right.
With sheets, right? With sheets, right?
Give me more. No animal shall kill any other animal.
Except... I forget what it's called.
I forget what it's called, but it's basically without reasonable cause.
Yeah. Actually, without clause.
No, no. Without...
Without cause.
No, it wasn't that. No, it is.
It is. Yeah, it is. No animal shall kill any other animal without cause, which means as long as you have a reason...
Oh, I think it's a different one. No animal should drink any alcohol to extent...
To excess. To excess.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, sorry. To extent.
The most important one...
The most important one.
All animals are equal except more animals are equal.
Some animals are more equal than others.
So help me understand the logic of that because I do have some...
It's not. It's not. It just doesn't work.
So if you say...
Let's say you have twins, right?
I mean, you do the other ones in the attic.
But let's say that you... So you have twins and they're exactly the same height, right?
So you say, my twins are equal in height, but one twin is more equal in height than the other.
Like, it doesn't make any sense, right?
Your eyes are blue, but one eye is more blue than the other's.
Actually, that probably is kind of true in a way, because eyes are a little bit different.
Like, this eye sees less well than this eye.
I have that too.
Like, my eyes are really good, but my right eye sees slightly less well than my left eye.
I know, that's why whenever I stick my tongue at you, I stick it at your right eye.
Okay, anyway. Okay, when I say slightly less well, I can read something at the opposite end of the room with my left eye, and it's like 1% more blurry with my right eye.
Stop saying that. I saw you.
You did it twice, and that was my left eye.
Oh, it was more than twice. That was my left eye.
Oh, sorry. Can you turn your head the other way?
Okay, okay, okay. Sorry, wait.
Sorry, I didn't mean to do that!
Don't tip! Don't tip! But now I'm doing it.
Anyone who's watching the video will be very confused.
They now get seasick. Yeah.
So, yeah, so he frustrated me because he is so strong.
He's so well-meaning. He has his doubts when the rules keep changing, but then Squealer...
Really annoying kid. I liked Squealer at first.
At first he seemed nice.
I'm like, maybe since Napoleon and Snowball are always arguing Snowball, Squealer should be the leader.
I think Squealer was one of those loyal pigs who would basically just follow any leader and help them.
It's like a weathervane. You know, like those things on top.
They blow wherever the wind goes.
Or a wind sock at the airport.
So he's like a weathervane.
So I think if Snowball had been in charge...
He would have helped Snowball. He would have helped Snowball.
That's what I said. If one of the chickens was in charge.
I'm kidding. He's like a slave to power.
You know, like those striped fish that swim under the shark's jaws and just nibble up their bits when they chew something?
Yeah, or they clean their teeth.
That's right, that's right. The sharks must be like, this is disgusting, but why not?
I know, I know. I keep waiting.
I'm a dentist to drop some fish in my mouth, but it doesn't really happen, sadly.
Yeah, just stick your mouth underwater, Steph.
So Boxer drives me crazy because he is noble, he is hardworking, he is well-meaning, but he is so unthinking that...
He's serving bad guys with good intention, with a good heart.
He's serving bad guys. That drives me a little crazy.
Yeah. What drives me crazy is that they basically don't even thank him and let him live out his old age.
They basically just send him to turn into blue.
When I read that, because I had this ambivalent relationship with Boxer when I read it, but that's a sad ending because they promised these old age pensions, right?
They're not even all the attention.
It's like, oh yeah, you get this whole section of the garden for your retirement, and then you also get apples, corn, or carrots on special days and stuff like that.
But then, do you remember what they do?
It's a paddock. It's a little area.
Do you remember what they do?
They turn it into barley. They turn it into barley.
Why? For Napoleon and his drinking addiction.
Yeah, yeah, his alcoholism, right?
So it's funny because the whole thing started because of alcoholism and then the pigs end up as alcoholics, right?
Yeah. So with Boxer...
Honestly, I think the cows should have ruled because they're the ones who actually stopped.
What's it called? Mr.
Jones. They were in the cow shed, right?
And he went in and he started whipping them and they just kicked him out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the question of who's in charge is, who will watch the watchers, right?
So let's say that you have police to keep order.
Well, what if the police go a little crazy?
Let's say, oh, we have the government to keep order.
What if the government goes a little crazy?
Who will watch the people who are supposed to be taking care of everyone else?
Well, that's why for me, a society with no government, you've got these people competing to try and provide best services.
Anyway, that's a topic for another time.
Yes, for another time.
So it drives me crazy that he was just, well, Napoleon was always right.
He gave up on thinking.
Now, he wasn't smart. He couldn't really figure out the alphabet and all that.
He cannot get past the letter E. Something like that.
He got stuck on E. E, right, right.
Which is funny, because E should be easy.
Anyway. Okay. No, no, no, no!
No! Don't take a link!
Wait! I gotta continue!
My peas and potatoes are shifting around too much.
Alright. So...
But his ending was just awful.
Yeah. Right? Because he gets old, he gets...
Sick. Sick, and...
They basically send him to a slaughterhouse.
They send him to the slaughterhouse. And it was like, the lie, it's like, oh, but it was just, it was actually a hospital, but he bought it from a...
It was a vet's. He bought it from the horse slaughter.
But he bought it from the horse slaughter. And I like, imagine if you owned horses and animals and cows, and this vet, the supposed vet comes up and is like, oh yeah, we're taking your horse now.
It's like, but wait, what?
It's like, why? And they're like, oh, we bought it.
And I'd be like, actually, I don't trust you.
Could you send it to someone else?
And all of this, um...
You know, Squealer with his tears.
Oh, I was there with him at the end.
He said Napoleon was always right.
Napoleon was always right and keep working for the revolution and all that.
Yeah, it's a very sad story, at least for me.
We don't have to go through the plot anymore because we kind of got the hang of it.
I'm sure anybody who's listening to this has already read the book.
Yeah, probably in the time that we've been doing the show.
Tell me what your thoughts are.
Because somebody wrote about this book.
They said there are no morals.
There's no moral at the end, and there's no morality anyway.
True. But I don't think, I don't quite agree with that, but I just want to know what you think of it.
So, do you think it was a fair story for your age?
Yeah. I think they used to do it in grade seven, and since I basically just finished grade six, and now I'm going into green seven.
Yeah, yeah. No, it's one year closer to the end.
No, but I think it's a reasonable, I mean, the deaths of the animals is...
It's upsetting for me. At least it was when I was a kid.
It's rude. Yeah, it's rough, man.
But there is brutality in the world.
And, you know, I mean, the question is always, like, how long do you keep kids shielded from that stuff and all of that?
But, you know, we...
I think it wasn't too...
I mean, I guess it was violent, but it wasn't too bad.
Right, right. I mean, certainly in the movie, there was no blood.
No. And in the story, it's, you know...
Well, there was a tiny bit of blood when Boxer got shot in his leg, and that's it.
Oh, you're right, you're right, you're right. You're right, I forgot about that.
So, I think it's what's called an appropriate story.
I don't think it would have been appropriate when you were six, because, you know, animals, stories where animals die is not good when you're six, right?
Or if, like, it's like, oh, they just got right, they just ran away.
They got kicked out of the farm.
Okay. Well, because when I read The Hobbit to you when you were little, they just chased the spiders away.
The goblins fell asleep.
There was lots of changes in the story.
It's like, oh yeah, they shot the goblins with arrows with sleep darts.
Sleep darts, that's right. Sleep darts are very important.
Something like that. Like alias, yeah. Yeah, if you're ever reading your story to...
Well, by the way, make sure your kids are not listening to this so that they don't know all the plots that you get to tell them when you read them adult stories.
Right, right, right. No, but when you do this, just say like, oh, they shot them with sleep darts, or oh, they fell asleep, or oh, they fell asleep.
How would they fall asleep in the middle of a battle?
They're tired? Nappy?
It's the nap, the non-aggression principle.
I remember when I was learning how to read, I was like three at this point, because you made it very kid-friendly.
You still didn't like it at times.
I know, but you made it really kid-friendly.
I know, you're like, everything...
Wait, wait, The Hobbit or Learning to Read?
The Hobbit. Oh yeah, The Hobbit was very kid-friendly.
No, I'm thinking about learning when you learned to read, right?
No, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about The Hobbit.
So, I was like three when you were teaching me how to read...
Yeah, you were three, that's right.
And we worked pretty hard, and you would definitely get upset sometimes.
I think when I was four, it was kind of nearly finished.
Oh yeah, and now, of course, because you read so fluidly, and we talk about this, like, sometimes a little bit of suffering at the time is worth it, because you're such a good reader now.
My kid's going to be like, what does this mean?
No, no, but so it was definitely upsetting.
I remember we had the, we put it on the TV. I remember I was crying.
And there was like Jet and Pig. Yeah, occasionally you would cry.
And, you know, we'd take a break and all of that.
But you became such a good reader so quickly because, I wouldn't say we kind of pushed it, or I did kind of push it, but...
Yeah. I just knew for me, reading is such a fundamental pleasure in life.
Yeah. I just, you know, a little bit of suffering.
It's like going to the dentist. You know, nobody wants to have that stuff scraping along your gums, but it's kind of good for you, right?
Okay, since I had so many teeth, last time I went to the dentist, which was actually pretty recently, I was bleeding like so much.
Oh yeah, it doesn't look like it would be healthy.
It wasn't that actually...
And you've never even had a cavity.
No, I never have had a cavity.
Yeah, that's right. The most I've had is like Tardar.
So let's go back. Wait, let me just say one thing.
Yeah, sorry. So with the Hobbit, I'm so kid friendly and I'm like three and I remember on the page I was learning how to read so I was just saying like up.
Up was your word. Yeah, yeah. Up was your word.
Up was my word. I remember the first two syllable word.
How old was I? Two? One?
Oh gosh. Elbow?
Yeah. Oh, I think you were just about 11 or 12 months maybe?
That's young. Yeah, it is.
It is. I was really, I was really, because I was very keen on figuring out, like mapping your developing brain.
When did I say elbow?
Like, I mean, what was your reaction?
Oh, I just thought, wait, that's two syllables.
Why did I say elbow?
And I felt distinctly threatened.
No, I'm kidding. Why? It's going to be smarter than me.
Yeah, I don't blame you. No, I just thought it was, I've always really, really enjoyed the development of your brain.
Like, your new cynicism and eye-rolling is just delightful to me.
It actually kind of is. It is, right?
Just like the tickling? No, there's nothing.
But no, I mean, I loved the development of your brain.
Still do, right? I mean, it's just really cool for me seeing how this stuff all develops.
Well, the thing is, I hate praise, so if you want to continue to do this.
Yeah, yeah, I can't praise you because you just hate praise.
I don't like praise at all.
No praises, no apologies, right? Yep.
Okay, so let's get back to just your final thoughts on the book.
I thought it was a good book.
I just thought that Snowball should have come back, and that's it.
Right, right, right.
Right. The ending was a bit confusing, that's all.
They go back and forth and they kind of tell the difference.
Yeah. Between pigs and humans.
I thought they actually turned into humans.
And I'm like, well, this is a pretty realistic book.
Like, there was no magic and that's what I mean.
Right, right. Well...
There was a little magic. Well, not magic, but, I mean, the idea that a pig could come up with a plan for a windmill.
No, I get that, but I'm saying, like, there was no actual magic.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. It was just, like, I happen to be a very smart pig.
Right. And the thing is, all these animals are so dumb, but they can both speak, they can speak their own, they can speak, like, as an example, chicken and human.
And human, yeah. It's like, how are they that dumb if they can speak two languages?
To me, it's a bit of a hopeless book, because there's no solution, right?
So, to me, the solution to this stuff is a society without...
Government, right? It's like, maybe if you just take Napoleon and poof him.
Make him go poof him. Well, no, but you see, the issue is not Napoleon.
The issue is not Napoleon, in other words...
No, but that's what I mean. He's the main ruler, and without him, there was no ruler.
Yeah. So there was this argument about communism in Russia where they said, well, the first guy, Lenin, was pretty good.
It's just that the bad guy took over.
But the first guy was not good.
The first guy also set up these camps where they would send people who disagreed with communism and lock them up and half-starve them and work them half to death.
Do you remember? We were looking at a canal that was built in Russia.
This was for a debate I had a couple of months ago.
There was a canal that was built in Russia.
120,000 people, slaves basically, were used to build this canal.
Like 40,000 died?
40,000 died. That's insane.
That's worse than it was.
So before the...
For about a couple of decades before the communists came in, there were only a couple of dozen people who were thrown in prison or executed for disobeying the government.
Afterwards, it was literally millions.
Yeah. So things got a lot worse.
So to me, the trouble with animal farm is you say, okay, well, let's have this rebellion because we've got a mean boss.
Okay, well, now we've got a new boss.
So what's the point, right?
Well, yeah. Well, that's why you should have just been like, there's no boss.
Everyone votes. Like, everyone comes up with ideas and And everyone votes on them.
So maybe they're like, every little while, maybe the pigs is an example, since they're smart.
The pigs are, I think the dogs were smart-ish, but they weren't quite as smart.
But they were smart, but they were too obedient, right?
Yeah. Dogs bond. Yeah.
Right. I know dogs are smart, because they can like, if you say, like, good boy, they will put their ears up and down, and bad boy, they'll put their ears down, as an example.
Or we see those videos where it's like, bath or walk.
Yeah, like bath, they hide.
Some dogs love bath, and other dogs are like, eh!
It's like you're about to die.
I know there are a few cats that love the water.
Right, right. That loves the water. Sorry, I just dropped something.
That was why I stopped talking. Right.
But that's it.
I don't know why we're on Cats now.
No, we were just talking about whether the dogs are smart.
No, but I think it should have been, like, the pigs come up with ideas.
Like, all the pigs, or three pigs, or five pigs, get chosen to come up with ideas a week.
And then anyone who...
And then if the majority like those ideas, then they vote for it, sort of.
And, I mean, that's an idea.
And then if that doesn't work, then they can kind of just get rid of the whole ruler.
Right. Yeah, well, I think, see, the problem with the voting thing is that the pigs, through Squealer, they kept changing the rules, they kept lying about the past, they kept blaming Napoleon for everything, and they kept, so Napoleon, sorry, they kept blaming Snowball for everything, because Snowball was originally on the side of the animals, of course, against Mr. Jones, and then eventually they changed the story to the point where Snowball was fighting on, was on the leader of Mr.
Jones' army, and, you know, so they, the problem is with the voting is that They just lie.
Like, they just lie to them. Yeah.
And then what are you voting on, right?
Well, I'm just like, can't just everyone be good?
Oh, wouldn't that be nice?
Well, for that, we need more peaceful parenting.
All right. Well, I just want to say thanks everyone so much.
Thank you for, it was a really great experience.
Thank you if you didn't actually skip too much of the video.
Nah, it's a good video. That's a big accomplishment, guys.
A lot of people don't know that an 11-year-old can do a sustained hour conversation on a complicated book.
But anyway. Seriously? Yeah, I'm serious.
So, wait, what is it I always forget to say at the end?
Oh, I'm not sure. Maybe you can subscribe!
Yeah, like, share, and subscribe.
You can check me out how to connect to me now on freedomain.com forward slash connect.
Yes, sir. I'll stop you trying to do your outro.
You should also check out the tadpole videos.
Yes. We have these updates.
I'm growing baby toads, basically.
That's right. So we have this pond near us.
I basically took some eggs. I thought it was only like 50, and then we ended up with like 300.
Oh, it's crazy. I want to get this in under an hour, so let's stop here.
No, we have to go an hour and one minute.
No, no. All right. Thanks, everyone.
Like, share, and subscribe. Thanks.
See you. It was great chat. Yeah. Bye. Well, thank you so much for enjoying this latest Free Domain show on philosophy.
And I'm going to be frank and ask you for your help, your support, your encouragement, and your resources.
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