Latest / UK Column Radio / Alternative Narratives and False Dichotomies | Jerm Warfare

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Alternative Narratives and False Dichotomies | Jerm Warfare · UK Column Radio

0:30
Speaker 1: My name is Jim.
0:31
Speaker 2: This is germ warfare, the Battle of ideas wedding gents.
0:35
Speaker 2: So a comment or a question that comes up quite often,
0:39
Speaker 2: and not just in the UK column forums, but just
0:42
Speaker 2: in general in general discourse is how do we navigate media?
0:49
Speaker 2: How do we know who to believe what to believe?
0:52
Speaker 2: And how do we test it? And I think it's
0:55
Speaker 2: a really good question. I mean it's I don't think
0:57
Speaker 2: there's a simple answer, and I suppose it's very complex.
1:01
Speaker 2: But I've got a rule of thumb. I'll just quickly
1:03
Speaker 2: throw it at you and then we can unpack the
1:04
Speaker 2: question a bit. And it's just it's just a rule
1:07
Speaker 2: of thumb. It doesn't mean that it's terribly reliable, but
1:10
Speaker 2: I think it is fairly reliable.
1:12
Speaker 1: Generally.
1:13
Speaker 2: I look at media and I consider how close to
1:16
Speaker 2: power the uh.
1:19
Speaker 1: The source of information is.
1:20
Speaker 2: So in other words, UK Column is much further away
1:24
Speaker 2: from a center of power than say the BBC or CNN,
1:28
Speaker 2: and as such I put more faith in those with
1:32
Speaker 2: more to lose, and those with more to lose generally
1:35
Speaker 2: generally are further away from power. Now that doesn't mean
1:38
Speaker 2: that UK Column is always going to be correct, but
1:40
Speaker 2: I think it's it's it's more it's there. There's a
1:47
Speaker 2: there's a bigger responsibility from UK Column to try and
1:51
Speaker 2: be more accurate than it is safe. For this for
1:53
Speaker 2: CNN or for the BBC doesn't make sense because the
1:56
Speaker 2: BBC doesn't care if it gets things wrong, whereas UK
2:00
Speaker 2: Column can lose membership.
2:03
Speaker 3: I think I think your entire premise here is incorrect. Actually,
2:08
Speaker 3: this is this is something I feel very strongly about.
2:12
Speaker 3: Just to give one example, I got it, we got
2:14
Speaker 3: an email. What are the very few emails that were
2:17
Speaker 3: negative in response to the initially negative in response to
2:21
Speaker 3: the the sorry, the rebuttal that we did, and that
2:26
Speaker 3: was saying basically, from now on, I will be looking
2:30
Speaker 3: at the UK Column through the same lens that I
2:32
Speaker 3: look at the BBC or RT.
2:34
Speaker 4: And I wrote back and.
2:36
Speaker 3: Said, good, this is exactly Look at our bud page
2:40
Speaker 3: on the UK Column website. This is exactly the point
2:42
Speaker 3: we're trying to make. You should not be putting your
2:45
Speaker 3: trust in blind trust. I'm talking about here in any
2:49
Speaker 3: media organization, you've got to make your own decisions based
2:53
Speaker 3: on not what they say, not their analysis. Their analysis
2:58
Speaker 3: may come across as being it doesn't matter which plant.
3:01
Speaker 3: I'm not taking being completely platform agnostic here. Their analysis
3:05
Speaker 3: might come across as being very accurate to you or
3:11
Speaker 3: to me, but that may be because we have a
3:14
Speaker 3: confirmation bias situation going on. What we've got to do
3:18
Speaker 3: is to make our judgments based on is the primary
3:21
Speaker 3: source material made available and in the mainstream media. Over
3:25
Speaker 3: the last five six years in particular, I have seen
3:28
Speaker 3: them beginning to refuse to put links to the source
3:32
Speaker 3: material that they're talking about into their articles, and that
3:36
Speaker 3: is a massive red flag for me. The second of all,
3:40
Speaker 3: have you read the primary source material and made your
3:43
Speaker 3: own decision about what the primary source material is it says?
3:47
Speaker 3: Has the media outlet been selective in choosing the quotes
3:52
Speaker 3: from the primary source material? And to give examples, I
3:56
Speaker 3: have seen cases where I've gone to the BBC, or
3:59
Speaker 3: I've gone to the Telegraph, for have gone to the
4:00
Speaker 3: Daily Mail and they've talked about a report that's come
4:04
Speaker 3: from a scientific group or from a government agency or whatever,
4:08
Speaker 3: and they have absolutely twisted the meaning of what the
4:12
Speaker 3: report said, or they've pulled they've cherry picked a particular
4:16
Speaker 3: point which, in the context of the whole report doesn't
4:19
Speaker 3: say what they said that it says, and of course
4:22
Speaker 3: then they additionally don't link to the original report. So
4:25
Speaker 3: it's really hard to find the original report, and it
4:28
Speaker 3: takes time, and I appreciate there's effort in this, but
4:32
Speaker 3: it's important to do it. It doesn't matter whether it's coming
4:35
Speaker 3: from us or from mainstream media or whomever. It's important
4:38
Speaker 3: to do it. And you've got to decide. People have
4:40
Speaker 3: got to decide for themselves whether our analysis or their
4:44
Speaker 3: analysis or anybody else's analysis is correct.
4:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the question is how do you how do
4:50
Speaker 2: you begin that process of asking how do you differentiate?
4:55
Speaker 3: Well, look, Jerem, most of us have the intent being
5:00
Speaker 3: reasonable in our approach to life and what people say
5:04
Speaker 3: and so on. You read, you make the effort two
5:09
Speaker 3: actually see what it was was said in the first place,
5:12
Speaker 3: and then you then you assess that against what was
5:15
Speaker 3: said in the media out let. Remember, every media outlet
5:17
Speaker 3: is at best a secondary source, and at best, it
5:21
Speaker 3: doesn't matter who it is, is going to bring their
5:23
Speaker 3: own biases into their interpretation of what of what has
5:29
Speaker 3: been said or what has been done. And so we've
5:33
Speaker 3: got each of us has got to be able to
5:35
Speaker 3: trust that in fact, the only people that we should
5:38
Speaker 3: be trusting as ourselves to make a subjective a decision
5:43
Speaker 3: on whether on whether something that somebody has said is
5:47
Speaker 3: accurate or not. But only if you put that effort
5:50
Speaker 3: into And it's not like you can just go and
5:52
Speaker 3: read read an article and then compare that to what
5:55
Speaker 3: was said in the media and immediately come to the
5:58
Speaker 3: right conclusion.
6:00
Speaker 4: This is a process that takes time.
6:01
Speaker 3: And you've got to be able to You've got to
6:03
Speaker 3: see how does any particular media organization perform against what
6:07
Speaker 3: was actually said or what was actually done and uh
6:11
Speaker 3: and make it make a decision then and then perhaps
6:14
Speaker 3: you you are prepared to let your guard down a
6:16
Speaker 3: little bit. But my opinion is guards should never be
6:20
Speaker 3: let down, no matter who the the source, whether it's
6:23
Speaker 3: a secondary source or primary source, guards should never be
6:26
Speaker 3: let down. And we should be always analyzing and considering
6:29
Speaker 3: what's being said and making a judgment based on our
6:34
Speaker 3: own experience and based on what we actually discover for ourselves.
6:39
Speaker 2: So what you're suggesting is sorry I jumped in it,
6:42
Speaker 2: but what you're suggesting is approach all media kind of
6:45
Speaker 2: with the same lens.
6:49
Speaker 3: Look we are if we take just take the column
6:53
Speaker 3: for a second. We are accountable to our membership, right,
6:57
Speaker 3: but if our membership is not actively holding to this
7:00
Speaker 3: account to Sorry, if our membership is not actively holding
7:04
Speaker 3: us to account, then what is the point of having them.
7:08
Speaker 3: That's our audience. It doesn't matter whether the members are not.
7:12
Speaker 3: If you if our audience is not challenging us and
7:15
Speaker 3: what we say, then, first of all, that doesn't do
7:18
Speaker 3: us any good because because we can just just we
7:22
Speaker 3: can relax, and we can become lazy and we can't write.
7:25
Speaker 3: So we've got to be challenged by the people that
7:27
Speaker 3: are watching us. That is something we absolutely encourage. And
7:32
Speaker 3: I would be very disappointed if anybody came and looked
7:36
Speaker 3: at what we produce and just said, yeah, well the
7:38
Speaker 3: column said it, so it must be true.
7:40
Speaker 4: No, that's not. That's not how we should be approaching
7:43
Speaker 4: these issues.
7:44
Speaker 3: We are immune information war and it also assumes that
7:48
Speaker 3: we can never get anything wrong, which of course is
7:50
Speaker 3: complete nonsense as well. So we've got to be held
7:53
Speaker 3: to account by our audience.
7:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, so my angle is, I mean, I'm with you,
8:00
Speaker 2: but I'm also using Nassim Teleb's sort of risk analysis mechanism. Okay,
8:06
Speaker 2: so he got COVID completely wrong. I get that, but
8:08
Speaker 2: he's written some very very good books on how one
8:11
Speaker 2: approaches risk. And you only have so much time in
8:13
Speaker 2: the day. So when you open something to read about
8:16
Speaker 2: what's going on in the world, you're making a choice.
8:19
Speaker 2: Am I going to go to CNN? Or am I
8:21
Speaker 2: going to go to Yuka Colum?
8:22
Speaker 1: Am I going to go? Yeah?
8:23
Speaker 3: Sure, I'm sorry, Just just just let me hold on,
8:25
Speaker 3: hold on one second there, because equally dangerous is to
8:28
Speaker 3: immediately assume that everything that's in the mainstream media is false.
8:31
Speaker 3: It's not like that, right. Of course, the mainstream media
8:36
Speaker 3: is used as a conduit for intelligence agencies and for
8:40
Speaker 3: establishment figures, and for think tanks and the rest, and
8:44
Speaker 3: the mainstream media effectively, to a large degree, it does
8:48
Speaker 3: a simple job promoting a particular narrative. But there are
8:52
Speaker 3: good people working in the menstream media. They are very
8:54
Speaker 3: good journalists working in the menstream media. And sometimes your
8:58
Speaker 3: stuff gets out, and so we should be looking at
9:01
Speaker 3: everything with a critical eye, not just to see whether
9:03
Speaker 3: it's nonsense or not, but to see whether actually somebody
9:06
Speaker 3: has done a good job. And when they do do
9:08
Speaker 3: a good job, they should be commanded for that.
9:11
Speaker 1: You know, that doesn't only apply the media. That applies
9:13
Speaker 1: to science.
9:13
Speaker 2: You also have good scientists in the mainstream, for example,
9:16
Speaker 2: who genuinely believe that they're doing good science, even if
9:20
Speaker 2: the starting premise is something with which we disagree. Doesn't
9:23
Speaker 2: I get what you're saying. Charles looked like you want
9:28
Speaker 2: to say something, Well, thanks very much.
9:31
Speaker 5: Yeah. I think what I would say is just go
9:35
Speaker 5: back one step, which is to consider what it is
9:40
Speaker 5: the person who is listening to or viewing news or not,
9:46
Speaker 5: what do they want to get out of it? And
9:49
Speaker 5: it's acknowledged, you know, we've talked about it a lot.
9:52
Speaker 5: It is acknowledged that in general there has been a
9:55
Speaker 5: big switching off of news over the last few years.
10:00
Speaker 5: And I can understand, I can, I can sympathize with that.
10:04
Speaker 5: And I think where there might be a fault line,
10:09
Speaker 5: a more obvious fault line between mainstream news in general
10:15
Speaker 5: and UK column in general, is that whilst to a
10:20
Speaker 5: certain extent we are we are bound to follow or
10:24
Speaker 5: deal with the news cycle, I think the way in
10:28
Speaker 5: which we treat it is different in that we are
10:32
Speaker 5: absolutely not trying to use any particular story to obscure
10:37
Speaker 5: something else. That's going on, and in actual fact, it
10:39
Speaker 5: would very much be the other way around. We would
10:41
Speaker 5: we would endeavor absolutely to bring out those things that
10:45
Speaker 5: would otherwise be hidden or suppressed. So I think that's
10:51
Speaker 5: I think that's quite an important thing to make. But
10:53
Speaker 5: as I say, going back to what people want out
10:56
Speaker 5: of it, you know, for those people that have switched off,
11:00
Speaker 5: they think that they can absolutely go about their business
11:03
Speaker 5: and conduct their lives and get out of their lives
11:05
Speaker 5: what they want without the requirement for what we're describing
11:10
Speaker 5: is as news. Now, does that mean that they're not
11:13
Speaker 5: reading or watching or listening to anything. No, it absolutely doesn't.
11:19
Speaker 5: And I think it's easy to think that people who
11:22
Speaker 5: have switched off would therefore be not not very well informed.
11:24
Speaker 5: I think that's that would be an erroneous conclusion to
11:29
Speaker 5: jump to. I mean, I can think of plenty of
11:31
Speaker 5: people that don't watch the news, and yet they are
11:32
Speaker 5: well informed because they've they've looked into the things that
11:35
Speaker 5: they consider that do matter. So I think that is uh.
11:42
Speaker 5: I think I think that's a significant consideration. And and
11:47
Speaker 5: with specific regard to UK column, I would say that
11:52
Speaker 5: you know that people by and large are drawn towards
11:57
Speaker 5: us because because of that distinction, because we're not simply
12:00
Speaker 5: puffing out, you know. I mean, you look at the
12:03
Speaker 5: front page of the BBC, for example, today, and consider
12:07
Speaker 5: how many of those stories are we likely to be
12:10
Speaker 5: reporting on. Probably not that many, some necessarily so, but some,
12:16
Speaker 5: I mean they are they are really not. They're not
12:19
Speaker 5: stories they don't add significantly to I wouldn't have said
12:24
Speaker 5: to the sort of, you know, the mountain of information
12:28
Speaker 5: that people need in order to make better decisions about
12:30
Speaker 5: their lives. So I think that's I think that's an
12:33
Speaker 5: important point to make. And then I think the other
12:36
Speaker 5: thing with regard to the idea that you know that
12:42
Speaker 5: there's going to be a better version or a more
12:47
Speaker 5: accurate version of something than another thing. I mean, I
12:50
Speaker 5: just echo Mike's points about typically mainstream and this is
12:57
Speaker 5: when I say typically, of course, there are exceptions. Of
13:00
Speaker 5: course some mainstream reporting. Mainstream journalism is very good and
13:04
Speaker 5: absolutely does get to the heart of what it's supposed to.
13:07
Speaker 5: But in general, it is absolutely fair to say that
13:11
Speaker 5: the sources are not gone to, quoted, accurately, used responsibly.
13:18
Speaker 5: And I do think that is a massive problem, and
13:25
Speaker 5: it does confirm what you're talking about which is which
13:29
Speaker 5: is the proximity to power? And I think proximity is
13:32
Speaker 5: an interesting one because there is also, I think this
13:36
Speaker 5: sort of assumption that proximity to let's say a story.
13:40
Speaker 5: You know, if you've got somebody who has been in
13:43
Speaker 5: the location where a particular events unfolded, that therefore they
13:48
Speaker 5: must know what's going on. And again I think that
13:54
Speaker 5: it could be the case, but absolutely it doesn't have
13:57
Speaker 5: to be. And I think that's another element in this
14:01
Speaker 5: day of sort of video from everywhere, because everybody has
14:07
Speaker 5: a means of recording stuff. You can see video footage
14:11
Speaker 5: from anywhere and you immediately make the judgment that therefore
14:14
Speaker 5: you've seen what happened, and you know what happened. And
14:18
Speaker 5: of course the ability that the mainstream has to pull
14:21
Speaker 5: that sort of resource in gives them, in a way
14:27
Speaker 5: an asymmetric advantage in terms of being able to convince
14:30
Speaker 5: people of one thing rather than the other and without
14:34
Speaker 5: then necessarily having to qualify it by giving a detailed
14:37
Speaker 5: analysis of how it is that such thing did take
14:40
Speaker 5: place and all the rest of it. So I think
14:42
Speaker 5: it is a very complicated picture. I mean, and then
14:47
Speaker 5: one other thing is just thinking about, say the two
14:52
Speaker 5: things that sprang to mind would be raw milk and vaccines.
14:56
Speaker 5: You can say they're by sort of health related, but
14:58
Speaker 5: when it comes to it, the BBC see in particular,
15:01
Speaker 5: actually has a specific so called public health responsibility, So
15:06
Speaker 5: there are going to be certain things that they are
15:08
Speaker 5: absolutely bound that they have to say or have to
15:11
Speaker 5: not say, and I think that is incredibly dangerous. And
15:16
Speaker 5: raw milk again, you know, illegal in certain parts of
15:20
Speaker 5: the United Kingdom, and there's a great sort of campaign
15:26
Speaker 5: of fear mongering which is just parroted by mainstream media.
15:31
Speaker 5: I mean, it's completely and utterly pathetic and there's no
15:35
Speaker 5: attempt to get closer to where the truth lies. Now
15:40
Speaker 5: is that actually news, Well, it's only news if the
15:42
Speaker 5: Food Standard Agency make a greater push to try to
15:46
Speaker 5: outlaw to a further extent how raw milk is either
15:50
Speaker 5: produced or sold or any of those things, then it
15:53
Speaker 5: does become news. But it does fall into one of
15:56
Speaker 5: those gategories that people should be informed about. But if
15:59
Speaker 5: you go to a mainstream source, you are really never
16:02
Speaker 5: ever going to get to the truth of it. And
16:05
Speaker 5: that is where you then see how corporate influences manifest
16:11
Speaker 5: in a way that they cannot with UK column, for example.
16:16
Speaker 1: So I've put up an image here.
16:18
Speaker 2: I don't know if you can see it, so for
16:19
Speaker 2: those listening, it's just like a map of the media.
16:25
Speaker 2: And this is obviously biased because it comes from a
16:29
Speaker 2: particular source.
16:29
Speaker 1: It comes from Swiss policy research.
16:31
Speaker 2: But it's a really really interesting way of looking at
16:34
Speaker 2: power structures and the media. So you'll see UK column
16:37
Speaker 2: is actually down towards the bottom right.
16:41
Speaker 1: You'll see the logo there.
16:42
Speaker 2: Now, what it's suggesting there is that UK column is
16:45
Speaker 2: fairly far away from a center of power, which would
16:49
Speaker 2: be on the far left hand side of the of
16:52
Speaker 2: the graph. Now, why I'm showing you this is that
16:56
Speaker 2: it's not necessarily accurate, and it does go against what
16:59
Speaker 2: you're saying there might because it's placing different media outlets
17:05
Speaker 2: in different categories. But I think the message is coming
17:10
Speaker 2: through here is that you're more likely if you're looking
17:13
Speaker 2: for an element of truth, you're more likely not always
17:17
Speaker 2: necessarily so, but you're more likely to want to lean
17:20
Speaker 2: over towards the right hand side of that of that
17:23
Speaker 2: diagram because those media outlets are further away from centers
17:29
Speaker 2: of power. If you look at CNN and Fox they're
17:31
Speaker 2: very close to the US government, so whoever's in power,
17:34
Speaker 2: So like, if it's Trump, then it'll be Fox. If
17:36
Speaker 2: it's Biden, then it'll be CNN, And it kind of
17:39
Speaker 2: swings around that way, and you know that you're going
17:42
Speaker 2: to get media that's editorially biased in that direction. Now,
17:47
Speaker 2: it's not necessarily the case that it's different and a
17:52
Speaker 2: further away you move, but it is more likely to
17:54
Speaker 2: be the case that independence becomes more dominant as you
17:59
Speaker 2: move further away from that from that source of power.
18:01
Speaker 2: This is just a variation of sort of risk analysis
18:05
Speaker 2: that you know, the whole skin in the game concept.
18:08
Speaker 2: It's not necessarily accurate, but it is an interesting rule
18:10
Speaker 2: of thumb if you want to split your time into
18:13
Speaker 2: what it is that you read and how it helped
18:17
Speaker 2: me during COVID, for example, is back in twenty twenty,
18:21
Speaker 2: when I was trying to figure out what the hell
18:22
Speaker 2: was going on, I found Nick Hutson and Panda, and
18:26
Speaker 2: I found UK column as it as it Happens, and
18:28
Speaker 2: I immediately went in in their directions because UK Column
18:34
Speaker 2: and Panda had more to lose than the Washington Post,
18:38
Speaker 2: you know, or CNN.
18:41
Speaker 1: If CNN got it wrong, it didn't really matter. They
18:43
Speaker 1: weren't going to lose money.
18:45
Speaker 2: But if Panda, if Nick Hutson got it wrong, if
18:47
Speaker 2: he got the data wrong, he would just not be
18:50
Speaker 2: followed and Panda would lose their own donations that they
18:54
Speaker 2: were getting. So they had to kind of try and
18:56
Speaker 2: be as accurate as possible with the interpretation of the data.
19:00
Speaker 4: Is that is that true? Is that true? Though? Is
19:03
Speaker 4: that true? Or or could it be said?
19:04
Speaker 3: And I'm not I'm not in any way casting any
19:07
Speaker 3: expersions on Panda or us or anybody else, because I
19:11
Speaker 3: know that everybody concerned was doing things absolutely to the
19:17
Speaker 3: best of ability, and I think we we ended up
19:21
Speaker 3: they and we ended up producing content which was much
19:24
Speaker 3: more objective than than was found anywhere else. But is
19:29
Speaker 3: it the case that, because if we're being completely objective here,
19:34
Speaker 3: that the motivation would be to absolutely be as objective
19:42
Speaker 3: as possible, because otherwise you would be losing membership, subscriptions, donations,
19:48
Speaker 3: whatever it happens to be, or was it? Would there
19:51
Speaker 3: actually be at at a at I don't put this,
19:58
Speaker 3: Would there be at a case to be made for
20:01
Speaker 3: providing content which a certain section of society wanted to
20:04
Speaker 3: hear which was no more.
20:06
Speaker 1: Truthful than was coming from you.
20:09
Speaker 5: Right.
20:10
Speaker 3: This is why, this is why I'm extremely determined that
20:14
Speaker 3: people should not be just blindly following anybody, and that
20:18
Speaker 3: everything that everybody says should be treated with the same
20:23
Speaker 3: skepticism and the same determination to challenge anything that they say,
20:28
Speaker 3: because otherwise we're no better following alternative media than we
20:32
Speaker 3: are following mainstream media. It's it's the same problem. It's
20:36
Speaker 3: it's done to everybody. It always comes back to this German,
20:40
Speaker 3: no matter what you know, if we think about the
20:42
Speaker 3: conversations we've had over the last year or two, it
20:45
Speaker 3: always comes back to this. It's all about us as
20:48
Speaker 3: individuals making the right decisions. And in the case of
20:51
Speaker 3: the media, and no matter who the media is, the
20:53
Speaker 3: right decision is to treat everything that said with a
20:57
Speaker 3: healthy dose of skepticism and can firm as much as
21:00
Speaker 3: possible what anybody says is true for ourselves.
21:05
Speaker 2: And yet UK column and Panda was certainly more on
21:09
Speaker 2: the mark than any of the guys in the mainstream
21:14
Speaker 2: with COVID that.
21:14
Speaker 4: Is well, absolutely.
21:19
Speaker 5: Imagine there will still be people who are operating completely
21:22
Speaker 5: within the mainstream paradigm. I don't mean working in I
21:26
Speaker 5: mean being who will think both of you for us? Yeah,
21:31
Speaker 5: everything they were told was greater.
21:34
Speaker 2: Maybe you'll come back to a moment and confirm. Yeah,
21:42
Speaker 2: I was making the comment that there was a novel
21:44
Speaker 2: illness people still talk about it, decided to leave more
21:47
Speaker 2: into UK was doing as well as as well as
21:51
Speaker 2: few in the alternative people. And I can't tell you
21:54
Speaker 2: why that is because something that while but.
22:01
Speaker 5: The case in the mainstream and significant interest.
22:06
Speaker 1: In Charles is completely gone.
22:09
Speaker 2: You'll be better ads, And I don't know, I don't
22:13
Speaker 2: know how to say it. I just there was something
22:15
Speaker 2: inside of me that that that's it.
22:17
Speaker 5: Sorry, can you still hear me?
22:19
Speaker 2: I'm more likely to get the truth from UK column
22:21
Speaker 2: and from the BBC.
22:23
Speaker 1: Now why would I think that.
22:29
Speaker 3: I think you would think that, because because there is
22:32
Speaker 3: a recognition.
22:33
Speaker 4: Well it is a long you know.
22:35
Speaker 3: I'm not saying that what you were saying about the
22:37
Speaker 3: difference between corporate media or the BBC, which is corporate
22:41
Speaker 3: media of a special kind and independent media like UK column.
22:46
Speaker 3: I'm not suggesting that what you were saying there was
22:48
Speaker 3: wrong because because largely it is correct. And the fact
22:52
Speaker 3: of the matter is the BBC has demonstrated and and
22:56
Speaker 3: also the the other mainstream, big mainstream titles in the
22:59
Speaker 3: UK have demonstrated a willingness to simply regurgetate and promote
23:07
Speaker 3: every press release that comes from government, and they've done
23:10
Speaker 3: this for a very long time now.
23:13
Speaker 1: A lot of.
23:16
Speaker 4: A lot of the.
23:18
Speaker 3: Reason for the fact that those organizations have been finding
23:23
Speaker 3: things increasingly challenging from a financial point of view has
23:26
Speaker 3: been put down to the difficult transition from print media
23:31
Speaker 3: to digital media and the fact that advertising revenues have
23:33
Speaker 3: fallen in all these kinds of things, and so they're
23:35
Speaker 3: scrambling around trying to look for other revenue sources. The
23:40
Speaker 3: bottom line here is that you can't fool your customer,
23:45
Speaker 3: and their customers are the general public, and the general
23:48
Speaker 3: public aren't stupid, no matter how much people like to
23:51
Speaker 3: think that they are, and so they recognize when they're
23:55
Speaker 3: being propagandized, and to a large degree in the majority
24:01
Speaker 3: of cases, the mainstream media does that. Now, how does
24:04
Speaker 3: that come about? That has come about because as these
24:08
Speaker 3: so called financial pressures have come on the mainstream media.
24:12
Speaker 3: This applies to the BBC equally, they have felt the
24:17
Speaker 3: need to bombard people with content. But the content has
24:23
Speaker 3: increasingly been extremely low quality. And by that I mean
24:27
Speaker 3: they're employing youngsters to come in straight out of university
24:31
Speaker 3: or straight off an apprenticeship, or straight out of wherever.
24:36
Speaker 3: And you know, one person is being expected to write
24:40
Speaker 3: eight or ten articles in a day. Now, the articles
24:43
Speaker 3: are relatively short, they're six, eight hundred words, whatever it is.
24:47
Speaker 3: But how does anybody actually physically do that? How does
24:52
Speaker 3: anybody write eight articles in a day and have any
24:58
Speaker 3: time to consider whether the words that they're writing are
25:01
Speaker 3: accurate or not. What they're simply have become. What a
25:05
Speaker 3: journalist has become these days is someone who takes a
25:08
Speaker 3: press release, uses whatever techniques that they learned in journalism
25:13
Speaker 3: school to rewrite that press release into their own words.
25:16
Speaker 3: But it's basically just a rewrite. It's not there's there's no,
25:19
Speaker 3: there's no there's nobody's going back to that to the
25:22
Speaker 3: the author of that press release and asking questions. They're
25:25
Speaker 3: simply regurgitating that information and publishing it as an article. Now,
25:31
Speaker 3: nobody can do that, and and as I say, produce
25:35
Speaker 3: anything which is objective or you know, the media is
25:39
Speaker 3: supposed to be there to hold party account.
25:42
Speaker 4: Nobody can do that.
25:43
Speaker 3: If they're expected to produce that that kind of content,
25:47
Speaker 3: and so, uh, that's that's part of the reason. And
25:52
Speaker 3: so once you're in that situation where you recognize mainstream
25:55
Speaker 3: media isn't doing the job, then as someone who's working
26:00
Speaker 3: in alternative media, what's our role.
26:02
Speaker 4: Our role is.
26:03
Speaker 3: To try to hold the mainstream media to kind as
26:06
Speaker 3: well as the people that are pushing out the press
26:09
Speaker 3: releases in the first place.
26:11
Speaker 2: Just enough feed I'll begep one go on, No, no,
26:14
Speaker 2: you go ahead. So I mean, just to feed into
26:18
Speaker 2: what you're saying now about viewing alternative media with the
26:22
Speaker 2: same lens. So Doc Melick, who did a thousand words
26:26
Speaker 2: one of those thousand words episodes on.
26:28
Speaker 1: Uk Con recently, he's a great guy. I'm good friends
26:31
Speaker 1: with them.
26:31
Speaker 2: He put out an interesting little video on sub stack
26:35
Speaker 2: a few days ago in which he said he's disappointed
26:37
Speaker 2: at house some in the alternative media are approaching him
26:42
Speaker 2: now with this massively binary critique and attack, just saying
26:49
Speaker 2: that if you are somehow nuanced, you're on the wrong side.
26:53
Speaker 2: You you're playing.
26:55
Speaker 1: Into the end.
26:55
Speaker 2: I mean this, this this kind of false dichotomy that
26:57
Speaker 2: gets created when you have to make a claim that
27:03
Speaker 2: is diametrically opposite to whatever the mainstream claim is, and
27:06
Speaker 2: that in itself is an ideologically flawed position. So in
27:10
Speaker 2: other words, if the mainstream says there're's a pandemic, then
27:17
Speaker 2: you must say, well, viruses don't exist. This is a
27:19
Speaker 2: very bad place to be because it's one or the other,
27:23
Speaker 2: there's nothing happening between, and you find yourself falling into
27:27
Speaker 2: the same trap. And it's a critique of the alternative
27:30
Speaker 2: space that that needs to occur. There has to be
27:34
Speaker 2: a room for complexity.
27:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm sorry to say that that there are quite
27:40
Speaker 3: a number of people that consider themselves to be part
27:43
Speaker 3: of a truth movement who wouldn't know the truth of
27:47
Speaker 3: buying them over the head with a big stack. The
27:50
Speaker 3: fact of the matter is that that that if there's
27:53
Speaker 3: an accusation from the truth movement that science is a religion,
27:57
Speaker 3: that science has become a religion, or that mainstream media
28:01
Speaker 3: is religious in a certain sense of promoting certain beliefs
28:05
Speaker 3: and ideologies and based on ideologically based the so called
28:10
Speaker 3: truth movement is equally so in many respects, if not
28:17
Speaker 3: even worse, because because then there's a certain arrogance comes
28:22
Speaker 3: with it, because well, I know the truth now, and
28:25
Speaker 3: I'm the future of humanity, and this is this is
28:29
Speaker 3: first of all completely wrong. And second of all, if
28:34
Speaker 3: some of these people are the future of humanity, then
28:36
Speaker 3: humanity is really screwed. We we have to we have
28:40
Speaker 3: to recognize that that things are not black and white.
28:43
Speaker 4: It's all shades of.
28:44
Speaker 3: Gray and and there is massive yuordance and everything that
28:49
Speaker 3: goes on.
28:50
Speaker 4: And I have to say, you know, Charles.
28:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, sorry, I was just saying, Charles, Charles is
28:57
Speaker 2: is attempting to make a come back there.
29:01
Speaker 3: So I'll just I'll just finish this point if it
29:04
Speaker 3: makes so. So you know, if if since everything is nuanced, basically,
29:16
Speaker 3: if you dumb everything down to being you know, absolutely
29:19
Speaker 3: black and white, that you're you're doing exactly what the
29:24
Speaker 3: mainstream does. So so if you're if you're not prepared
29:28
Speaker 3: to accept the mainstream simply unchallenging and regurgitating press releases,
29:33
Speaker 3: it applies on the other side as well, and and
29:37
Speaker 3: of the argument, and it's equally bad. So we've got
29:41
Speaker 3: to find we've got to find a way to to
29:44
Speaker 3: try to understand the nuance and not try to dumb
29:47
Speaker 3: everything down to to sort of this guy against that guy.
29:50
Speaker 4: It's not that's not how.
29:52
Speaker 1: The world works.
29:53
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, that's exactly right. It's disconnected from reality.
29:57
Speaker 2: So in other words, if if this is the mainstream view,
30:01
Speaker 2: then we must hold this view, and that's the only
30:03
Speaker 2: truth that exists. And it's it's extremely dangerous. It's a
30:08
Speaker 2: slippery slope and it will get you actually no way.
30:13
Speaker 4: Indeed. But Les Charles was going to make a point
30:17
Speaker 4: before before we disappeared.
30:19
Speaker 5: I was, yes, My my point was that there are
30:25
Speaker 5: still plenty of people who do absolutely subscribe to the mainstream.
30:31
Speaker 5: And the word I was wanting to use, I don't
30:34
Speaker 5: know how far you got, because I dare say I
30:36
Speaker 5: was kind off even before I realized. But I think
30:39
Speaker 5: the word I would like to insert is paradigm. And
30:43
Speaker 5: I think that what is very difficult with all of this,
30:47
Speaker 5: and we talk about it, we do talk about it
30:48
Speaker 5: quite a bit, is the element of peer pressure and
30:54
Speaker 5: feeling like you're part of a group of tribe or
30:58
Speaker 5: you know, whatever it is, and the tendency of the
31:02
Speaker 5: absolutely overwhelmed majority of people to go along with what
31:06
Speaker 5: the supposed consensus or indeed the paradigm is. And I
31:11
Speaker 5: think that is exactly what we see on both sides
31:15
Speaker 5: of let's say, the fence that vaguely runs between the
31:22
Speaker 5: two sides. Let's say, I mean, I think it's much
31:25
Speaker 5: greyer than that. But nonetheless, I think we've seen that
31:29
Speaker 5: absolutely with say the UK column audience. I think there
31:33
Speaker 5: have been certain topics that have assumed a greater and
31:38
Speaker 5: greater significance, let's say, in people's minds, and to the
31:43
Speaker 5: point where people who've never really given it much consideration
31:47
Speaker 5: before have just fallen in line with it. And I
31:49
Speaker 5: think and that is absolutely no different from what people
31:52
Speaker 5: have done on the mainstream side, which is thinking, oh, yeah,
31:56
Speaker 5: the most important thing we've got to do is support
32:00
Speaker 5: Pride Month. I drove past a housing new yet another
32:06
Speaker 5: flipping new housing development on the outskirts of a town
32:11
Speaker 5: that's already got lots of houses, and they I think,
32:15
Speaker 5: I hate to seem so out of touch, but I
32:17
Speaker 5: think we might be in yet another Pride Month. And
32:20
Speaker 5: their banner they've they've actually changed their logo so that
32:24
Speaker 5: the it is basically the Pride flag with their logo
32:27
Speaker 5: across the front of it. Now, that is basically what
32:31
Speaker 5: I'm talking about. Why the heck has building houses got
32:34
Speaker 5: anything to do with that, anything to do with what
32:36
Speaker 5: is obviously a very politicized agenda, but it works both ways.
32:41
Speaker 5: And to have the moral courage and the sort of
32:47
Speaker 5: intellectual restraint I suppose from just going along with whatever
32:56
Speaker 5: the next thing is, I think is challenging. And that's
32:59
Speaker 5: why what I was talking about at the beginning, the
33:02
Speaker 5: idea that there is a news cycle, that this is
33:06
Speaker 5: news as distinct from things that are or are not.
33:12
Speaker 5: You know, we're talking about situations that are evolving. I
33:17
Speaker 5: think all those things are interesting when when put together,
33:20
Speaker 5: and as I say, it comes back to in many
33:22
Speaker 5: cases the human element. Are you in a profession where
33:25
Speaker 5: if you were to hold views that the Guardian or
33:29
Speaker 5: the Telegraph or whatever doesn't necessarily support, are you going
33:34
Speaker 5: to be ridiculed by those sorts of people around you?
33:36
Speaker 5: You're going to find that too difficult, even if what
33:39
Speaker 5: you're actually seeing in front of you is is different
33:43
Speaker 5: from what you're reading. And I think that for a
33:46
Speaker 5: lot of people that is it is just too uncomfortable.
33:51
Speaker 3: Sorry, it's interesting that you bring up a building company
33:56
Speaker 3: doing that. You know, that's I guess a form of
34:00
Speaker 3: virtue signaling in the sense that they they want to
34:04
Speaker 3: they want to align themselves with that particular campaign, or
34:07
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter which campaign it is, they want to
34:09
Speaker 3: align themselves with the campaign because they think that from
34:12
Speaker 3: a pr point of view, they're going to, you know,
34:16
Speaker 3: effectively sell more product at the end of the day
34:20
Speaker 3: by aligning themselves with that. I think where there's a
34:22
Speaker 3: line crossed is because it has happened in the past
34:26
Speaker 3: where we see a media let doing the same thing
34:30
Speaker 3: and you know, the same ghost in a certain sense
34:34
Speaker 3: to whenever poppy Day comes along and and the poppy
34:38
Speaker 3: appears on the media company's logo or any other kind
34:42
Speaker 3: of campaign, it doesn't matter where it sits on the
34:45
Speaker 3: political spectrum. If that appears on the logo for a
34:48
Speaker 3: media organization, then there's there's an overt declaration of bias
34:53
Speaker 3: right there. And so, you know, my view is that
35:00
Speaker 3: media companies in particular, if they if they are going
35:04
Speaker 3: to at least offer some kind of pretense of objectivity,
35:08
Speaker 3: have got to stay well away from any of that
35:10
Speaker 3: kind of overt signaling that that they are aligned with
35:15
Speaker 3: any particular policy or politics.
35:19
Speaker 2: I was smiling a few minutes ago when you were
35:21
Speaker 2: talking to Childs because I was thinking of the discussions
35:25
Speaker 2: I've had in the past around chemtrails. Now I've been
35:29
Speaker 2: accused of of having a mainstreamline. Well, this is a
35:34
Speaker 2: great example of that false dichotomy. So in other words,
35:38
Speaker 2: unless unless I argue that we are deliberately being sprayed
35:43
Speaker 2: from from the sky, I'm now pushing a mainstream narrative.
35:47
Speaker 2: Of course that's not true at all. There's a whole
35:49
Speaker 2: complex discussion that goes on there, which I know, you know,
35:54
Speaker 2: But it's that it's that nuanced discourse that that that
35:58
Speaker 2: doesn't occur, and that's what we're offering to you.
36:01
Speaker 5: That that was what I was had in mind, because
36:07
Speaker 5: I thought it was I thought it was a bit
36:10
Speaker 5: daft at this stage to trigger word to toss that in. No,
36:13
Speaker 5: but it's but it is a very important one. And
36:15
Speaker 5: actually it is not said with any attempt to either
36:20
Speaker 5: make fun of anything or anyone, or to ridicule the argument.
36:25
Speaker 5: I think what I would say, actually sorry, because I
36:27
Speaker 5: think we probably haven't perhaps done a good enough job
36:30
Speaker 5: of doing this. I would like to make the distinction
36:33
Speaker 5: between two totally totally different things, one of which is
36:39
Speaker 5: the absolutely endless lines of aircraft that fly at over
36:46
Speaker 5: thirty five thousand feet that are commercial airliners and aircraft
36:50
Speaker 5: that fly at lower altitudes and are known to be
36:54
Speaker 5: spraying things to either disperse oil, to kill bits of
36:59
Speaker 5: growth owned or you know, to chuck herb beside out,
37:04
Speaker 5: or indeed that are engaged in experimental weather modification. I
37:08
Speaker 5: think it's a really important distinction to make because as
37:11
Speaker 5: I look at comments on this issue, it seems to
37:14
Speaker 5: me that part of the reason that we appear to
37:17
Speaker 5: get ourselves in hot water in that we are saying, oh,
37:20
Speaker 5: you know, that's not going on. I think it's because
37:23
Speaker 5: we are talking at cross purposes. There are two totally
37:26
Speaker 5: totally separate things, in my mind, and I just think
37:32
Speaker 5: that is worth qualifying with. But you see they're there
37:36
Speaker 5: is that is where mainstream is presented with a total gift,
37:42
Speaker 5: because if you say chemtrails and by that you mean
37:46
Speaker 5: anything that you see or indeed don't see in the sky,
37:51
Speaker 5: then the mainstream can have a field day. And that's
37:55
Speaker 5: certainly not what we want to do. I mean, my
37:57
Speaker 5: feeling very much on it, and I know I've said
37:59
Speaker 5: this times before is what I can't understand is why
38:02
Speaker 5: people are only concerned with what they can see and
38:06
Speaker 5: this is I'm not saying this as oh, we've misground
38:09
Speaker 5: all flights immediately, because that's the only responsible thing to do.
38:13
Speaker 5: I'm not saying that at all. But all I'm saying
38:14
Speaker 5: is I think if people want to investigate this and
38:17
Speaker 5: get to the bottom of it, well, is what is
38:20
Speaker 5: coming out of aircraft when you can't see anything? And
38:22
Speaker 5: well exactly had here for I think large parts of
38:25
Speaker 5: you goo which had a completely clear weekend, well what
38:28
Speaker 5: was going on? Flights were still flying and stuff's still
38:31
Speaker 5: coming out out of those. Sorry I'm talking here about
38:35
Speaker 5: high level commercial flights anyway, I don't want to get derail.
38:38
Speaker 5: But it is a very very good example because it's
38:41
Speaker 5: a very lazy thing to do in the mainstream and
38:44
Speaker 5: this was being done, I mean a classic example. This
38:46
Speaker 5: was being done by the BBC in twenty twenty four,
38:50
Speaker 5: when it was just after Michael Gove had rewritten the
38:53
Speaker 5: definition of extremism in order that it fell in line
38:57
Speaker 5: with the definition that Soviet Union had one hundred years previously,
39:01
Speaker 5: and almost immediately after that the BBC published article about
39:06
Speaker 5: what it was to be a conspiracy theorist and how
39:08
Speaker 5: a conspiracy theorist was in effect an extremist. And the
39:12
Speaker 5: one example that was used very obviously with sort of
39:15
Speaker 5: imagery over the text was was Chemtraal's contrails whatever you
39:21
Speaker 5: want to call it, but the visual spectacle of them.
39:23
Speaker 5: And therefore that even in considering that these things existed,
39:27
Speaker 5: made you an extremist. And of course now we know
39:30
Speaker 5: that that makes you a terrorist. So that again with
39:34
Speaker 5: regard to what it is the mainstream does and how
39:37
Speaker 5: this as you say, this proximity to power, why that matters. Well,
39:41
Speaker 5: I think that's a very good example of why that matters.
39:44
Speaker 2: Yes, but it also shows how language becomes a problem
39:49
Speaker 2: because if you, if you and I are meaning different
39:52
Speaker 2: things when we talk, we're never going to be able
39:54
Speaker 2: to arrive at some kind of understanding. And I've had
39:59
Speaker 2: this as now a few times over the last few
40:02
Speaker 2: days with people that are in a circle about the
40:04
Speaker 2: importance of semantics. Sometimes are you just playing You're just
40:08
Speaker 2: playing around with semantics. No, these things matter if you
40:10
Speaker 2: actually want to If I need to understand what you're saying,
40:13
Speaker 2: and you need to understand what I'm saying, we need
40:15
Speaker 2: to know what words mean. And this is a major issue, Charles.
40:19
Speaker 2: If you look at and it's not. The Chemp trails
40:21
Speaker 2: is just one topic of many. But a lot of
40:25
Speaker 2: these things come down to what we mean when we
40:27
Speaker 2: say things, and there's a lot of misunderstand That's why
40:30
Speaker 2: I argue that right wing left wing don't exist, because
40:33
Speaker 2: until we can agree on what they mean, there's no
40:35
Speaker 2: point in using these terms. They're just divisive and they
40:40
Speaker 2: don't help at all. You know, these are just empty labels.
40:43
Speaker 2: But if you had to say to me, so I'm
40:46
Speaker 2: going to talk about chemchils, but here's what I mean
40:48
Speaker 2: when I say chem trials, then I can say, okay,
40:50
Speaker 2: based on what you mean. Now we can have a
40:53
Speaker 2: discussion that goes somewhere. But the problem is this is
40:56
Speaker 2: not happening anywhere. Mainstream alternative space doesn't matter. It's it's
41:01
Speaker 2: just intellectually lazy.
41:05
Speaker 5: I quite agree. I mean I think I think it's
41:07
Speaker 5: very very important with anything. And sorry, I'm gone, Mike Well,
41:13
Speaker 5: I was just.
41:13
Speaker 3: Going to say that I was listening to the Radio
41:16
Speaker 3: four Today program on the way into the office this morning,
41:19
Speaker 3: and because I do this so that nobody else has to,
41:23
Speaker 3: and they had they were talking about the fact that
41:26
Speaker 3: Starmer has decided this morning to announce that he's going
41:30
Speaker 3: to implement a ban on social media for under sixteens.
41:35
Speaker 3: And they were bringing various commentators on to talk about this,
41:38
Speaker 3: and there was one commentator and academic came on and
41:44
Speaker 3: I was obviously I was driving, so it was sort
41:47
Speaker 3: of half less, had one ear on it while I
41:49
Speaker 3: was concentrating on the road. But it just took me
41:52
Speaker 3: a little moment or two to twig what she was doing. Uh,
41:57
Speaker 3: And then I realized she wasn't using the word children.
42:02
Speaker 3: She was using the words young people. And so she
42:07
Speaker 3: never used the word child or children. And of course
42:11
Speaker 3: this is this is something this is part of the
42:13
Speaker 3: manipulation of people's minds because we start using terms which
42:19
Speaker 3: we have never used before. Because she's implying that that
42:23
Speaker 3: people under the age of sixteen are simply young versions
42:27
Speaker 3: of people that are over sixteen, and therefore they have,
42:32
Speaker 3: you know, they have should have the same rights and
42:34
Speaker 3: the same ability to do things as older people. And
42:40
Speaker 3: there's no consideration of the fact that you are, you know,
42:44
Speaker 3: helping you should be helping as a as a parent
42:48
Speaker 3: to guide their view of the world into adulthood now,
42:56
Speaker 3: or helping them achieve their own view of the world
42:59
Speaker 3: however you want to put it. But the point is
43:01
Speaker 3: that that you know, she was using very specific language,
43:04
Speaker 3: which which therefore, if somebody's paying attention, she would immediately
43:09
Speaker 3: color their view of everything that she says because she
43:12
Speaker 3: is coming at the whole thing from an ideological standpoint.
43:16
Speaker 3: She's declaring that. But but most people when they if
43:21
Speaker 3: they just give you know, the mainstream media a cursory
43:26
Speaker 3: listen or a curse cursory watch, or a cursory read,
43:30
Speaker 3: aren't going to get the nuance of the language that's
43:32
Speaker 3: being used, and aren't going to get those clues as
43:35
Speaker 3: to whether something should be actually considered in a bit
43:40
Speaker 3: more depth than than they're being given at that particular moment.
43:45
Speaker 2: Another example is of language is social created school. And
43:53
Speaker 2: I spoke about this when I got back from China,
43:55
Speaker 2: and again it's a it's a breakdown in what we
43:59
Speaker 2: mean when we say things. Someone said, oh, you're saying
44:01
Speaker 2: there's no social credit school in China, and I'm saying
44:04
Speaker 2: the answer is yes, and the answer is also no.
44:06
Speaker 1: It depends on what you mean.
44:07
Speaker 2: Because when I was in Sydney, alreading the early two thousands,
44:11
Speaker 2: I was driving with my buddy and he said to me,
44:14
Speaker 2: We've got a scoring system, your demerit system here where
44:17
Speaker 2: if you break the road rules, you lose a certain
44:20
Speaker 2: amount of points, and if you lose too many points
44:22
Speaker 2: in a space of one year, then you lose your license.
44:26
Speaker 2: Now you didn't call it a social credit score, but
44:27
Speaker 2: that's a social credit score. It's based on your behavior
44:30
Speaker 2: on the road. And I'm not saying it's good or bad.
44:32
Speaker 2: What I'm saying, too, is that a social credit score
44:35
Speaker 2: exists around the world in all various forms. We don't
44:40
Speaker 2: have a demerit system like that. Yeah, you might have
44:42
Speaker 2: it there, and so for me, that's a novel thing.
44:45
Speaker 2: Another social credit score is if you commit a crime,
44:51
Speaker 2: you're going to struggle to get a home loan or
44:52
Speaker 2: a car loan or something like that. That is also
44:54
Speaker 2: based on your behavior. So that is social credit scoring.
45:00
Speaker 2: So in that sense, China has that, but in the
45:03
Speaker 2: in the in the New World Order Agenda twenty thirty
45:07
Speaker 2: sins no, it doesn't have that. And and so this
45:10
Speaker 2: is why language is important. And I'm saying that because
45:13
Speaker 2: it's it's yet another example of that false dichotomy that
45:15
Speaker 2: gets credit. Oh well, you're pushing the establishment line.
45:19
Speaker 1: No, I'm not.
45:20
Speaker 2: I'm just saying that we need to know what we're
45:22
Speaker 2: talking about. And there's an awkward silence.
45:28
Speaker 5: No, no, no, I thought I thought it is it's
45:31
Speaker 5: hard to sell when one's rematee. But I was sure
45:33
Speaker 5: Mike was about to say something. But no, I absolutely
45:36
Speaker 5: quite agree. And there are I mean, that's so many ways,
45:39
Speaker 5: and in fact, you know, what the what the United
45:42
Speaker 5: Kit I mean, what I find hilarious is that the
45:45
Speaker 5: the idea that that China is in effect the oh,
45:50
Speaker 5: I don't know, the model that nobody should be seeking
45:54
Speaker 5: to replicate because the very mentions of the word, the
45:56
Speaker 5: mention of the words Chinese social credits is and I'm
46:00
Speaker 5: suppose to sort of strike fear into the heart of
46:02
Speaker 5: anybody and consider that it's it's so far off, you know,
46:06
Speaker 5: we would struggle to get there. But the reality is that,
46:09
Speaker 5: I mean, in many ways, I think the United Kingdom
46:11
Speaker 5: is beyond anything that the Chinese might have set up.
46:16
Speaker 5: And certainly my understanding of it, from having spoken to
46:18
Speaker 5: people in China about this very thing, is that it's
46:21
Speaker 5: it's it's very it's it's sort of insignificant, it affects,
46:27
Speaker 5: it's related to banking, and I mean it affects things
46:31
Speaker 5: like whether you can hire a bicycle on the street
46:36
Speaker 5: or whether you can take out one of the they
46:38
Speaker 5: have these power bank things on the street, you know,
46:42
Speaker 5: whether it will let you use one of those. I
46:44
Speaker 5: mean that these these are not big things. Again exactly
46:48
Speaker 5: like so, I'm not trying to dismiss it. I'm not
46:49
Speaker 5: trying to say that that that nothing exists. But when
46:52
Speaker 5: you think that here we are in the United Kingdom,
46:56
Speaker 5: and first of all, exactly what Mike's just said, you know,
47:00
Speaker 5: Starmer saying that social media is being switched off for
47:04
Speaker 5: young people well as as shown on UK column News recently.
47:09
Speaker 5: Of course, you don't have to think very far to
47:11
Speaker 5: realize that that means everybody has to have their identity verified,
47:16
Speaker 5: because otherwise, how on earth do you know that that
47:18
Speaker 5: you're either a young person or not. So that's that's
47:21
Speaker 5: one very significant thing. But I mean, yeah, it's so childish,
47:24
Speaker 5: even the.
47:27
Speaker 2: But I mean, sorry, Charles, if you sorry, I'm jumping
47:29
Speaker 2: if you don't mind, But why was nobody moaning about
47:32
Speaker 2: Australia's driving de merit system? Have you have you guys
47:35
Speaker 2: got a demerit system in the UK for driving.
47:38
Speaker 5: Yeah you have, you have twelve points in effect on
47:42
Speaker 5: your license, on your driving.
47:43
Speaker 1: That's a social credit score.
47:46
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, it is because and that's actually a very
47:49
Speaker 5: interesting point because it's supposedly to do with road safety
47:54
Speaker 5: or use of the road. But it's a very interesting
47:57
Speaker 5: area because almost, well certainly, anything that's worth three points,
48:04
Speaker 5: which is the sort of standard fixed penalty. First of all,
48:08
Speaker 5: it's fixed, and secondly it's that these are for strict
48:12
Speaker 5: liability offenses. So what I mean is that if you
48:17
Speaker 5: say your car had a mechanical fault and you know
48:21
Speaker 5: absolutely you were not able to do anything about it
48:24
Speaker 5: at that time, and you went through a red light
48:26
Speaker 5: and you had a photograph taken, and you would immediately
48:30
Speaker 5: get three points deducted off your thing. Okay, you might
48:34
Speaker 5: argue that retrospectively you would be able to appeal and this,
48:36
Speaker 5: that and the other, but that would be a very protracted process.
48:40
Speaker 5: The point is that there are anything that's a strict
48:42
Speaker 5: liability offense. It is automatic that you have committed the
48:47
Speaker 5: offense and that you are penalized whatever it is. And
48:50
Speaker 5: of course if you go over to our points, you
48:51
Speaker 5: lose your license. Then that's that and they can be
48:53
Speaker 5: for a whole range of things that have nothing to
48:56
Speaker 5: do with your use of the road. So yeah, it's
49:00
Speaker 5: a very point. Now, all I was going to say
49:02
Speaker 5: was that's now morphed across some you know, business administration.
49:06
Speaker 5: If you submit returns late returns, force a vat you
49:10
Speaker 5: get it's the same thing. They've introduced a points system,
49:15
Speaker 5: so you get fined and you get points, and it's
49:18
Speaker 5: the same. And look at these look at low emission
49:21
Speaker 5: zones for example. Rather than being sincere in their desire
49:26
Speaker 5: to keep diesel vehicles out of wherever it is, oh yeah,
49:30
Speaker 5: you can still bring the vehicle in. You just have
49:32
Speaker 5: to pay money, you know, as there somehow the money
49:36
Speaker 5: changes the nature of the diesel emissions or whatever it is.
49:40
Speaker 5: You know, it's totally ridiculous. Yeah, I completely agree with you.
49:45
Speaker 4: Just just to add to that a little bit, you know,
49:49
Speaker 4: the the.
49:51
Speaker 3: Narrative that we all have to be afraid of Chinese
49:55
Speaker 3: social credit, that this is China which is originating this
49:59
Speaker 3: whole thing, and that it's all going to be exported
50:03
Speaker 3: from China into the West. Mat Rat's wife, Cynthia has
50:08
Speaker 3: just published something which exposes the fact.
50:13
Speaker 1: She's going so much did you talk about that?
50:15
Speaker 5: Right?
50:15
Speaker 3: That exposes the fact that any kind of social credit
50:20
Speaker 3: system that exists in China has actually come from the
50:23
Speaker 3: West in the first place. Now, and she's explaining who
50:28
Speaker 3: it was brought it in and what the nature of
50:30
Speaker 3: it is and what effect it has on people's lives,
50:35
Speaker 3: you know, setting aside the points on the license thing
50:38
Speaker 3: being a social credit system, which it is. People's credit score,
50:43
Speaker 3: which is something that we absolutely do have in the
50:46
Speaker 3: UK and the United States and the EU, which is
50:49
Speaker 3: largely run by companies like Experience, and absolutely determines whether
50:56
Speaker 3: you have access to any form of credit, how much
50:59
Speaker 3: you pay in interest rates on a credit card that
51:03
Speaker 3: you get, whether you're entitled to a mortgage. These things
51:06
Speaker 3: are absolutely dependent on your reputation financially and your behaviors
51:14
Speaker 3: financially your prior behaviors equally and increasingly and in fact
51:20
Speaker 3: is probably universal at this point anybody that's applying for
51:24
Speaker 3: employment in the UK or the US or the EU.
51:28
Speaker 3: Companies are giving your information to third party screen screening organizations.
51:38
Speaker 3: They're looking at your social media profile, they're looking at
51:41
Speaker 3: your past history and so on, finding out as much
51:44
Speaker 3: as they possibly can about you building effectively a social
51:49
Speaker 3: credit profile of you, and that will determine whether you're
51:52
Speaker 3: even invited for interview or not. And so you know,
51:58
Speaker 3: this is something which pervades our society. It's not something
52:02
Speaker 3: that relies on the Chinese exporting anything to us.
52:05
Speaker 4: It is there.
52:06
Speaker 3: It is right at the core of everything that we
52:09
Speaker 3: interface with. And the idea of Chinese social credit drives
52:15
Speaker 3: me nuts because it absolutely destruction was the reality of
52:21
Speaker 3: the lives we already are experiencing.
52:27
Speaker 2: Got a few minutes left when you disappeared, Charles, I
52:29
Speaker 2: wanted to show this, so let me show it quickly.
52:32
Speaker 2: Now it looks a bit small on the screen, so
52:35
Speaker 2: for those who can't see its graph, it says the
52:39
Speaker 2: propaganda Multiplier, and then at the top it's got basically
52:44
Speaker 2: the US government and the Pentagon, and then below that
52:46
Speaker 2: it's got three major global media what did you call them, agencies,
52:52
Speaker 2: ap AFP and Reuters, and then below that it's got
52:56
Speaker 2: a whole pile of mainstream news networks, and below that
53:00
Speaker 2: it's got the population at large. And what it's saying
53:03
Speaker 2: is basically that media multiplies from a very very select
53:11
Speaker 2: few collection of sources and they just present it in
53:17
Speaker 2: different ways. And you were asking earlier, Mike, how somebody
53:22
Speaker 2: can you know, write eight articles or whatever in one day,
53:25
Speaker 2: And it's because I think of this. It's just it's
53:27
Speaker 2: the amplification model where they just get presented stuff and
53:31
Speaker 2: they just change the words around, and they.
53:34
Speaker 1: Don't need to do their own their own research.
53:37
Speaker 2: They don't need to be on location, you know, like
53:40
Speaker 2: Patrick Henningson is one of the one of the few
53:44
Speaker 2: journalists I think who still goes to places. There are
53:48
Speaker 2: very few left. They just get fed information from from agencies.
53:52
Speaker 2: And that's also quite an interesting way of thinking about
53:56
Speaker 2: how the media operates. I mean, you think that you
53:59
Speaker 2: are looking at twenty or thirty different media outlets, but
54:03
Speaker 2: they're all getting the news from the same place, which
54:09
Speaker 2: again feeds into what you were saying, I suppose, Mike,
54:13
Speaker 2: is that you need to try and be critical of
54:17
Speaker 2: every source that you're reading, not just not just because
54:20
Speaker 2: it's alternative.
54:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, the role of a secondary source should be,
54:26
Speaker 3: in my opinion, simply to point you at the primary source,
54:30
Speaker 3: and that secondary source will give their analysis of this
54:33
Speaker 3: is basically what I was saying earlier. We've got to
54:37
Speaker 3: be looking at the primary source and deciding whether they
54:41
Speaker 3: are reliable or whether we need to ask further questions
54:44
Speaker 3: of them, and hopefully, hopefully we at the column ask many,
54:52
Speaker 3: if not all, the questions that need to be asked.
54:54
Speaker 3: But that's our primary role, isn't it.
55:00
Speaker 5: I think even that, I mean, you know, it is amazing.
55:02
Speaker 5: It's a very very complex environment, and I'm just thinking of,
55:08
Speaker 5: you know, primary sources, especially where say government documents are concerned.
55:14
Speaker 5: We mustn't forget that even well, not even, but perhaps
55:18
Speaker 5: especially primary sources are still very economical with the truth
55:23
Speaker 5: or or the way that they actually present things. And
55:27
Speaker 5: I can think of numerous instances, but one that one
55:31
Speaker 5: that was very interesting recently was the way in which
55:35
Speaker 5: relations with Iran were characterized by various government publications. And
55:40
Speaker 5: of course what they don't do is link back to
55:44
Speaker 5: the previous document that dealt with the same subject in
55:48
Speaker 5: order that if you do go and look for the
55:50
Speaker 5: primary source now in twenty twenty six, you won't see
55:54
Speaker 5: how the position has been changed one hundred and eighty degrees.
55:58
Speaker 5: And that is a thing that is not done I
56:03
Speaker 5: think sufficiently in fact across the piece. But I think
56:06
Speaker 5: this is where with UK Colin First of all, we've
56:09
Speaker 5: got twenty years of experience and a twenty year catalog of,
56:14
Speaker 5: you know, where things have come from. But I think
56:16
Speaker 5: that this is another thing that people are not good
56:18
Speaker 5: enough ass is not just taking the primary source as
56:22
Speaker 5: a sort of standalone document looking back to see where
56:26
Speaker 5: that has come from. Because that is in many cases
56:29
Speaker 5: where you will find the inconsistencies and the contradictions, the hypocrisies,
56:36
Speaker 5: and specifically where governments and corporations are concerned, where they
56:40
Speaker 5: will simply change direction according to what seems to be
56:45
Speaker 5: more expedient at that particular time. And you know, this
56:49
Speaker 5: is again never never pointed to. I mean, first of all,
56:52
Speaker 5: if you're not even going to quote or properly reference
56:55
Speaker 5: the primary source, and how on earth you're ever going
56:58
Speaker 5: to get any closer to that? And I think, you know,
56:59
Speaker 5: we we then returned to the whole idea. But what
57:01
Speaker 5: is it that people are actually wanting to get from
57:04
Speaker 5: consuming news in the first piece? What are they going
57:06
Speaker 5: to do with that?
57:09
Speaker 1: Yeah?
57:09
Speaker 2: But the thing also is that primary sources get abused.
57:13
Speaker 2: I mean, somebody can literally say something on camera, but
57:17
Speaker 2: in the way it's edited will make it seem as
57:21
Speaker 2: though they've said something else.
57:25
Speaker 3: That's why I said at the very beginning that we
57:28
Speaker 3: you know, it's one of the things that people have
57:32
Speaker 3: got to work out for themselves is whether a quote,
57:37
Speaker 3: for example, has been cherry picked taken out of context.
57:42
Speaker 3: So context is everything. And so the number of I
57:46
Speaker 3: mentioned this earlier, the number of times I've seen a
57:50
Speaker 3: primary source document being presented by the midstream media in
57:54
Speaker 3: a way that the document itself just simply does not
58:00
Speaker 3: It just doesn't stand up to that interpretation. But you
58:03
Speaker 3: only find that out if you go to the original
58:06
Speaker 3: report or the original document. So, you know, what what
58:11
Speaker 3: Charles just said is very important to also put that
58:15
Speaker 3: original document in the context of what might have been
58:17
Speaker 3: said before. But just just even just establishing whether whether
58:23
Speaker 3: the the media coverage of of which of whatever has
58:28
Speaker 3: been published is fair is a good starting point. And
58:33
Speaker 3: then you then your journey begins, all.
58:38
Speaker 2: Right, Tim's against us, Mike Charles, thanks for joining me
58:44
Speaker 2: in the trenches.
58:44
Speaker 1: I'll catch up with you next week quick.
58:47
Speaker 5: Jeremy H.