Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / THE PANEL: Elon, Vapes & Lyin' Politicians
Transcript
- 0:00G'day humans welcome to The Safe Space for Dangerous Ideas. It is time today for the Friday
- 0:04panel. We're two of Australia's most captivating minds, gently hand-fluck, a bespoke
- 0:10selection of the week's most scintillating stories, like a pair of exotic birds,
- 0:17gently regurgitate those stories into your and my grateful earholes. We're just today,
- 0:22Jesse Stevens and Sarah Wilson. Hello Jesse, here at Pillow Sarah. Hi. Hi. It's the first time
- 0:27we're trying this. Do you like the set? If you're not watching this on YouTube, you should go
- 0:31and check it out on YouTube, because there's a very pretty set. And a couple of very pretty ladies
- 0:37might I add. That's a good way to get started. Isn't that nice? A couple of broads.
- 0:42A couple of sexy birds, didn't we? Yes. A couple of sexy things. No, the birds is just,
- 0:47that's just I always say that even if it's a guy. If this is on YouTube, it's like Sarah and Jesse
- 0:53call out sexism in capital letters and then you're looking at expression. Yeah. That'll work well
- 1:00for the audio content and sharp expression. First story, a judge in Delaware has voided Elon Musk's
- 1:06payout. He was supposed to get $55 billion and it's the boss of Tesla, US. Yes, thank you for adding
- 1:14that. Not talking in Italian. So the shareholders, I don't know, but this
- 1:23goes quite a long way back. This is not like he's just given this to himself. He put this in
- 1:29years ago saying that if Tesla's performance exceeds XYZ metrics or XYZ for our American
- 1:38listeners, I'm always inclusive, then he's going to get so much compensation. So the wild
- 1:44compensation is a result of the wild overperformance of Tesla. Is it fair for that to be clawed back
- 1:50from him because it's now what the judge calls an excessive amount? Well, I mean, the background to
- 1:56that is that I think shareholders have kicked up a stink and have flagged that the the board of
- 2:02directors who are I think they've got a bit of a reputation for being yes men, predominantly yes men.
- 2:08Yes, birds. Yes, I think maybe a couple of years. One, two, yeah. I think they're claiming
- 2:15that the process was not a proper process and in fact Elon just kind of dumped and not on them
- 2:21and they were, it was beholden upon them to to pass it through such as Elon's general way of
- 2:26doing things. Right, but isn't if you're like the creator of everything, don't you get to do that?
- 2:30Is he though? I mean, this is the story he puts out there. There's always that counter argument
- 2:34as well that I think a lot of commentators are speaking to now as we're all starting to go,
- 2:40is that you're all right? Is that the government subsidies would Tesla be there? Would space
- 2:45X exist if he hadn't got all those government subsidies? There's a whole bunch of things that
- 2:50people are starting to question. Well, I mean, he just because the government, I mean, of course the
- 2:56government subsidises space travel, like the government needs to sell lots of things into space.
- 3:01So, but that if you flip the question and say would someone else have been doing space X
- 3:07if the government subsidies existed but Elon Musk did not? Yeah, I don't think it necessarily
- 3:12would. I think you do need, I think he is the indispensable figure in all of this. The government
- 3:17government money will come and government money will go, but there's only one person who has
- 3:20created like three world changing companies. Yeah, but I think that this was a little bit
- 3:25manipulative is what they're saying that it was almost like Elon Musk was negotiating with
- 3:30Elon Musk over this. That's just a Elon Musk created everything. Yeah, but I don't mind going
- 3:35through billionaires, like going through Australia's rich list and going too much. Yeah, you have
- 3:40too much. Pointless. And I think this is the point. I'm a bit of a, um, communist social
- 3:46socialist terrorist comes to tearing down or very much regardsly questioning billionaires.
- 3:52And especially off the back of I think out of Davos, the latest Oxford report that they generally
- 3:55put out at the same time said that the five top billionaires doubled their wealth since 2020
- 4:02while the bottom, the bottom five billion, the rest of us pretty much have gone massively backwards.
- 4:08And I think the concern. Wait, is that true? We haven't gone backwards. Five billion people have,
- 4:14we're not in that five billion, we're in the top. Well, what measurement are we going backwards,
- 4:19though? In terms of poverty, we're talking numbers, real numbers, not even percentages. So this
- 4:24is a world to start true. Oh, dig it up for you. I just heard about it on my sub stack the other
- 4:29week. Did you? Yeah, I got to be true then. So is there a Wilson sub stack? Do do do do do do do do do do do
- 4:35week? Was it in the years last week? It was like hundreds of millions of people have been lifted
- 4:39out of poverty in the past 20 years. Do we want to go down that Stephen Pinker Bill Gates discussion?
- 4:44You do right now? Sure. All right. Um, can I finish my point first? I was the original one. So
- 4:49one of the concerns related, the concern I have. And I think this is the debate that we need to be
- 4:54having around this is much broader. We're living in the world where the experts are saying that
- 5:01the massive unrest, which is just, you know, simmering at the moment. So the polarization
- 5:06or this kind of thing can very much be point, we can point to larger and larger gaps in equality.
- 5:14That is the thing that's going to trigger. And it's also the thing that's going to exacerbate
- 5:18the kind of collapse, the decline unrest that I think everybody is very concerned about at the
- 5:25moment. The anger and the discontent that exists within workplaces even that you've got a CEO
- 5:29that's earning a thousand times, 600 times, whatever it is, more than their worker and then
- 5:34there are all these stats that come out that it would take you five lifetimes to earn what you
- 5:38see, oh, ends in a year or whatever. And that's getting larger and larger. And as someone, I mean,
- 5:44I didn't grow up. My family's not business people. I didn't, didn't, didn't grow up
- 5:48understanding it. But I look at CEOs and go, okay, but you're taking a risk, right? You're,
- 5:53and you're going to wear the risk. But then COVID happened. And it was a CEO that went under.
- 5:58Like if you look at a lot of the statistics, it's like they actually stayed very well afloat.
- 6:04And so you go, are you actually wearing the risks here? And Elon Musk, I just think in this case,
- 6:11you go, there's an issue with the system. It's an astronomical unfathomable amount of money
- 6:16for anyone to make. And I understand why they're doing it because they're thinking, Elon Musk's
- 6:21time is divided at the moment. Like he's got all these projects. Yeah. I mean, let me be the
- 6:29capitalist and also the anti-capitalist at the same time by saying, I think it's true that
- 6:34inequality is too high. And there are like official measures of this, the genie coefficient,
- 6:39which measures like overall inequality is getting to almost like Latin American levels in the
- 6:44United States and the UK. And global, the global genie coefficient is overall. Yes. The most
- 6:52it's ever been. I think you might be getting that confused with the poor people actually getting
- 6:57poorer because everyone's getting richer. It's just that the richer getting richer at a faster pace
- 7:00than the poor are getting richer. Well, according to Oxfam, no. But I will, you can put it in the
- 7:05most probably. I mean, they were probably part of the October 7th terror to tax as well at Oxfam.
- 7:09Probably. So the inequality is bad. Lots of people just enjoy their privilege of going to
- 7:15private schools and going into finance and getting high paid jobs. And they should be taxed more.
- 7:20And life should be easier for poor people and for the working poor. I don't see that as similar
- 7:25as in any way part of the conversation about Elon Musk. Elon Musk is a once in a generation
- 7:32freak like he is a quasi autistic like asshole boy genius who just because he's becoming a nasty
- 7:43like bitter Twitter troll does not detract from the fact that with a Messiah complex is not to
- 7:50track from the fact that he has revolutionized our approach to climate change by making electric cars
- 7:57cool. He's revolutionized, you know, the automotive industry is revolutionized space travel. He is
- 8:03an extremely influential person. I think if you're one of those people, if you're a Thomas Edison
- 8:08or Steve Jobs or an Elon Musk, yeah, you get to just say I'm going to take $55 billion of the value
- 8:14that I have produced. The value that the $55 billion that would not exist and much, much more.
- 8:22He's been financially accomplished. He's a rich businessman in the world already. He's worth
- 8:26$210 billion. It's like to have this clearly like the state is sort of going, this isn't sustainable,
- 8:34this doesn't make sense. Even when you look at the numbers, it didn't entirely make sense that he's
- 8:38written it in that he'll earn this amount and blood. Like they've clearly looked at it and gone,
- 8:43this isn't make sense. I mean why don't you keep all of it? Why don't you why stop at $55 billion?
- 8:48It's huge. It wouldn't exist without him. That end, I think there are broader discussions that we
- 8:54can have and shareholders can go to the court. Was it Spring Court? No, it was a Delaware.
- 9:01Well, it was a Delaware because that's where his business is incorporated. Delaware is,
- 9:06if you look at the incorporate where almost all the big companies are incorporated in the United
- 9:11States, it's Delaware because it's supposed to have very friendly. It's supposed to be a very
- 9:15pro company state. Obviously it's not so pro company that is willing to go along with it and
- 9:22be tweeted out saying I would advise anyone who's incorporating a company in the United States not
- 9:25to go to Delaware, but that's just sour grapes. Yeah, I look boo-hoo. I mean maybe that's my
- 9:31the best answer. I can give boo-hoo in terms of Elon, but I think that I see it signifying
- 9:37a great thing that people are actually pushing back against this rampant runaway wealth.
- 9:45It is we're all suckling at the Elon Teet and someday that cow's going to dry up,
- 9:51but you're not going to be left with no more electric cars. Well, while he's pissing off
- 9:55to Mars, right? The rest of us will be kind of, I don't know, going back to his farm. Save, save,
- 10:01by his peers attempts to battle climate change, as opposed. Look, the second story today is
- 10:08the biggest trade in news, but it has ramifications for people all over the rest of the world as well,
- 10:12which is that these tax cuts, which the previous Conservative government had promised,
- 10:18which would you to be phased in over a period of stages with the biggest tax cuts for the
- 10:25top end of town kicking in in stage three, which was due to drop next year. The incoming,
- 10:32the Labor government, the centre-left government, which had just we don't need to see that video
- 10:37anymore if we're still on it. The centre-left government came into power by before the election
- 10:42they were like, don't worry, we're going to keep all of these tax cuts. If you're a super
- 10:46wealthy and you're worried about us going full socialist on you, you're going to be able to keep
- 10:49all of your tax cuts. We thought they've seen it around and they've gotten rid of the stage three
- 10:53tax cuts anyway, which raises the question, should politicians do what they think is right,
- 10:58or should they do what they promised to do, Jesse? I think they should do what they think is right.
- 11:04And I want a government that looks at the evidence, looks at the current climate, looks at the
- 11:09current issues that they're being presented with and pivots, because I've looked closely at these
- 11:15and gone, yeah, they make sense. I think it's something like 90% of us are going to be better off,
- 11:23so the coalition is clearly going to go down the line of lies, lies, lies, because that's the best
- 11:29kind of political angle they've got. But I think it's going to be difficult to turn people on this
- 11:34when they look closely at what has actually been done. I love your faith that people
- 11:39look closely at the news. When the average vote actually starts reading the 923 page document
- 11:48that the government has put out, they will then come around. But I think the later party is in a
- 11:54good position because it is actually a good news story. So I think Julia Gillard, there's also John
- 12:01Howard that got hauled over the coals for going back on a promise, an election promise,
- 12:06they, their pivot was to something that were put Australians, most Australians in a
- 12:11a worth of position. So this one is a good news story. Where were they broken promises?
- 12:15One was the GFT and then what was Julia Gillard? Wait, that was a broken promise.
- 12:20GFT wasn't broken promise, because he took a tour. Yeah, no, both the hang on, John Howard didn't,
- 12:25and now I say I'm really conservative in Capitalism. John Howard, who was Australia's second
- 12:29longest servant prime minister and a conservative icon, he didn't break a promise. He went to an
- 12:36election saying that if he wins the election, there'd never be a GST. No, so he had said they
- 12:42will never be a goods and services tax in Australia. And then he said, he is later, let's do this,
- 12:48there should be a goods and services tax. He said it before an election. He said, so vote
- 12:52us in and we'll do it. To me, that's different, because then you're not lying. You are going,
- 12:59you are changing your mind about something, but you're not voicing it on the people after having
- 13:05been elected. I think he thought it was a long promise as well. Yeah, that was over that line as well.
- 13:11But I mean, I think the thing is, I'm with Jess on this. I want a government that actually does
- 13:18adjust and is agile and moves with where they want to go. And circumstances have certainly changed.
- 13:24I think there's also, I'm sure you would have come across that work that was written a decade or
- 13:29so ago called On Bullshit by Henry Frankfurt. I think it is an American philosopher, but he makes
- 13:34that distinction between line and bullshitting. I love who there was a philosopher who literally
- 13:38wrote a book called On Bullshit. Yeah, exactly, literally. To talk the title, I'm sure we all would
- 13:43like to have on our own. So line is very different to bullshitting. Line is something where you've
- 13:50got an awareness of the truth and you're doing something that the end of contravening. Bullshitting
- 13:58is showing a disregard for the truth. So I don't think in this case, you know, at the
- 14:04Albanese, you went into the election thinking that I don't really care whether I keep this promise
- 14:10or not. You know, and I think this is where I think all right. Wait, so are you saying he was
- 14:14bullshitting or lying? I think it's the type of lie that's not bullshitting, if you're not
- 14:19I mean, a bullshit lie is the kind that I think many Australians really rile up against.
- 14:24Is that when they feel and seriously about this in the first place? Like they feel manipulators
- 14:29sort of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think he did that. I think you're right. Yeah, I think that
- 14:33this is just a new set of an exceptional set of circumstances. Wait, I don't think for a second
- 14:39that he thought that he was going to keep the promise keep the promise. I think he knew that he
- 14:44was you think he did it just to get I think everybody except extremely ideological conservatives
- 14:52and very rich people knew that the stage three tax cuts were a joke giving that much money to
- 14:59to the super rich. That like they were a way to smuggle it that the tax stage one and two,
- 15:05which were the tax cuts for you from normally income earners that those were a way of opening
- 15:12the door to the post-poned tax cuts that were quite beyond the pale and there's no way that
- 15:19led us in a left party would have wanted to go along with that and they probably knew that at
- 15:24some stage if they could and if the political circumstances were right that they would reverse that.
- 15:30How do you think it's going to fare for them? Like because calling a politician liar is like the
- 15:34oldest, you know, I mean, yeah, it's a good question. Yeah, did I just turn seniors? Yeah,
- 15:40they'll sustain for the question. Um, I don't know whether or not people care about that.
- 15:45I haven't got a leg to stand up because the oppositional leader they consider it. Yeah, sorry,
- 15:49I'm sorry. We've got a lot of Americans. Yeah. So, so he'll get shouty because that's all he
- 15:54does is get really, really shouty. Um, and it's going to be, it's going to be two stories to tell.
- 15:59If they're a late party, get it right. They, they don't try to explain to stage three tax cuts
- 16:04to the Australian people. They just go, you're going to be better off, right? It's changed. We
- 16:08want to make sure you're not left out. We want everybody to move ahead. And there are still some,
- 16:12some tax cuts, right? They're not developing all of them. If they're just skewing it more towards
- 16:17the lower end of time. Yeah, yeah, lower the middle income earners don't fare as badly.
- 16:22Is, is I guess how you could say it? Dutton, however, all he can do is go lies, lies, lies,
- 16:26and I think we're a little bit sick of it. The flip side also is if he gets into power, how's
- 16:31he going to reverse that? So if I was a later party and if I were journalists, I'd be pinning down
- 16:35to make sure you're promised that he's not going to reverse it or he will reverse it.
- 16:39In which case, that's very unpopular. That's very unpopular. That's right. So, right. Yeah,
- 16:44I see what you're saying. Because if you were just going to bring in the stage three tax cuts
- 16:49as a standalone policy, everyone will hate them. Yeah. They were only palatable because they were
- 16:55tied to more reasonable tax cuts for everybody in stage one and two. We've already gotten those
- 17:00tax cuts. So to go into an election promising to bring in stage three, yeah, would look pretty
- 17:06kind of tough. Unless he can peg it to Labor is ruining a insert barbecue, you know, weekend or
- 17:13something. There's something that the live jet brigade. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
- 17:20No, I mean, I and Jesse, the oil question of like, will it damage? I mean, I've read a lot.
- 17:27Like Mohat Peter Van Oncel was writing in the, he was a political, you know,
- 17:32analyst and economics writer and he was writing in the Australian saying, this isn't,
- 17:37this is going to be hugely damaging to Anthony Albanese because they're not going to be able to
- 17:40make any promises before the next election that anyone will take seriously. So all of the boogie
- 17:44men that the conservative opposition party likes to scare people with about what will happen if the
- 17:52if the left retains control, then become more plausible. Like they might get rid of negative
- 17:59gearing, which is this, you know, property tax raging that we have in Australia that benefits
- 18:03the wealthy or they might, you know, I don't know, whatever it is. But and none of their insistences
- 18:08that they're not going to do those things will count as much as they would have had they start
- 18:13by the stage three tax cuts. Yeah. I guess, I mean, and again, that depends on how much the average
- 18:19Australian pays attention to the new story. If they just have to be repeatedly pointed out though,
- 18:25doesn't that by the opposition? Yes. They lied about this so you can't trust them about that.
- 18:30Yes. But I think that if it's clarified that if stage, it depends on what the
- 18:35shorthand of stage three tax cuts ends up meaning. If it's synonymous with lie or if it's synonymous
- 18:40with better living standards, or better, you know, the situation for the average Australian,
- 18:45and it depends on who wins and I think it's a communication telling. Yeah. And there's an
- 18:48opportunity here, I think, to actually tell quite a good story. I think, you know, you're a father of
- 18:54two young kids, like you can explain to a child. All right. Mummy and Daddy said that they would
- 18:59never divorce. However, situations. What do you have even done on my part? What should I know?
- 19:06But kids can follow that, right? I mean, life is full of adults, well-meaning adults,
- 19:13even if they're caught up in the politics of the time, making promises and then things change
- 19:18and you have to explain it. Why don't they not make an effort in your role? Why don't they have
- 19:22the cajonas to just go, you know what? It's a bad policy. We'll see how we go. Yeah, look, I
- 19:28would love that too. I would like it. You know, Albanese could have stood up there and said,
- 19:31personally, those tax cuts offend me. If we're up to me, I wouldn't, I would never have conceived
- 19:36of that policy. At the moment, you know, let's not worry about that. It's a couple of years down
- 19:41the track. I suppose then they would just say, they'll run a whole scare campaign about how your
- 19:46taxes are going to go up on the labour. Exactly. Or, you know, stay in the same amount. I mean,
- 19:50this is a topic that comes up constantly. American friends would well be well aware of this
- 19:55in their own country. I mean, you're damned if you do. You're damned if you don't. And the
- 20:00polarisation and the screaming and yelling and shoutiness, it is exceedingly difficult. I agree
- 20:07that I think we are moving into an era where some really fair income honesty and really good
- 20:15storytelling could actually shift things. And at the Albanese, it could have done that pre-election,
- 20:22I agree. But it was so touch and go as to whether he would get in. And so, you know, desperate times
- 20:29caused, call for those horrible, you know, futile juvenile kind of statements. But yeah, now that he's
- 20:37empowers and, you know, he's probably in a position where he can actually tell a nice,
- 20:41a good story around it that speaks to maturity, that we're all wanting to be treated. We're all
- 20:46wanting to rise to a more mature way of going about things instead of being dragged back into
- 20:52this fragmentation and bifurcation, which it's just horrible to observe. It really is horrible. It's
- 20:59the second kind of war that's going on. There's the other battles that are going out there on
- 21:03in the world, in politics and in the Middle East and so on. And then there's the fact that we're
- 21:08not handling things war, you know, and yeah, so maybe just in I might be idealist.
- 21:17It comes back to the bullshit thing as well, because once people feel like there's no one to trust,
- 21:23the response can be this kind of nihilism to watch truth and war. And like the greatest avatar of
- 21:28the bullshit phenomenon is Donald Trump, and where, you know, where it's, yeah, exactly,
- 21:35they don't lie in order to get you to believe the lie. They lie in order to corrode the idea
- 21:40that lots of truth at all. And you know, that anyone, it's sort of like he won by saying,
- 21:47I'm going to lie to you, but I'll lie directly to your face and you'll know that I'm lying.
- 21:50Instead of being a sneaky, sniveling, Hillary Clinton type liar who, you know, who's in bed with
- 21:56lobbyists and, you know, they're working today. Well, code for also sitting around large conference
- 22:01rooms, committees, dealing with multitude of opinions and interest groups to come up with a
- 22:06decision that is invariably watered down and compromised. I mean, yes, that's how politics works.
- 22:11Trump sidesteps that. Exactly. And then gets nothing done.
- 22:15That's a result. There's a new ad campaign in Australia against vaping, big crackdowns on vaping
- 22:20in Australia. It's now illegal to buy or sell nicotine. First country in the world, isn't it? Unless
- 22:27you get, is it? I felt like the New Zealanders or some other columnists would have acted
- 22:32authoritarian. We expect that this when it comes to security type things. We are the nanny state.
- 22:38We are the ultimate nanny state. This one I agree with, though. I've got to say, if you're driving
- 22:43along more park road, 40 kilometers an hour with the speed cameras snapping at you and you're
- 22:49vaping with a nicotine fate, then do you go to jail forever? Or do you get headed if you get caught?
- 22:55Oh, wow. Great point. I think we also need to give some context here as to what more park road is.
- 23:03It's a road where the speed limit is too slow. It's like a safe lane freeway where the speed limit
- 23:10is literally 25 miles an hour or 40 kilometers an hour. It's a bloody sport. It's right next
- 23:18to the stadium. So once every three months, they're drunk. And that's a great revenue raise.
- 23:23Football fans staggering across the road. Make it 40 kilometers an hour once a month.
- 23:28Well, there's police there at all times. Anyway, back to the vaping. So it's illegal. So you need
- 23:32to go to your doctor and get a prescription now and you're going to be able to go to the pharmacy
- 23:37and get a script for a nicotine vape if you're a smoker. Apart from that, not supposed to do anything.
- 23:43We've got these ad campaign to open with young people about how surprisingly addictive vaping
- 23:48was and how they couldn't stop and everything. Is that okay? What about? I think it has to be.
- 23:54I think it's like a desperate time calls for desperate measures. Like the fact my mates who are vaping
- 23:59were never cigarette smokers. Why don't you start doing it? Because it doesn't stink.
- 24:04It does stink. It also smells like jewelry. Yes, but it doesn't have that. I think that what we did
- 24:10so incredibly well stink. Yes, exactly right. And what we did so well in Australia was make it ugly
- 24:17to be on the side of the street with a cigarette became synonymous with it was almost a working class
- 24:23thing. It was almost worse than working class. The way it smells, the way it looks, it just it became
- 24:30so uncool that then what happened with the vapes is that they came in. They didn't stink. They
- 24:35were kind of cool because people would go, well, what's that? This is even just five years ago.
- 24:40And I've got mates who again would never pick up a cigarette, but you're sitting there having
- 24:44brunch with them and they can't sit at a table for 20 minutes because they've got to run over and
- 24:49start sucking on the van. And all they just do suck on the vape anywhere everywhere.
- 24:54Yeah, right. And with the exception, with positive difference in aeroplane, I've seen people vape
- 24:58everywhere. Yeah. Like everywhere. Well, the aeroplane thing, I was at the airport recently and I
- 25:04got pulled over by security. I was pregnant and my bump went off in the thing and I had to go
- 25:08and get put down with all the anyway. Wait, your embryo. Yes, it must have had some mentally
- 25:13and I got pulled into a room and the woman was a bit shuddy because we're waiting and she said,
- 25:16you're not pulling into a room. Yeah, I have to be touched up. I really don't think I run.
- 25:21Yeah, that's right. Exactly. What are they going to go on?
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