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Return to Analogue and Beauty | Jerm Warfare Weekly Banter · UK Column Radio

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: My name is Jerm.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: This is Jerm Warfare. The Battle of Ideas. Okay, so
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: hold on. I just said to you before I hit
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: record that I want to wear a watch so that
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: I can look at my phone less for the time.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: And it's been such a long time since I wore
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: my watch that the battery in it has gone flat.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: It's an old school watch with the hour and minute hands.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: And you said now that I mustn't use a battery.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: What are you talking about?
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, it's still, this is still, it may
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: have hands on it. It may be analog, but it's
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: still using a battery and electricity. This is ridiculous. There's
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: a thing called mechanical watches. Get one of those.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Okay. But now you're talking serious money. I imagine.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: No, no, no, no, you're not. No, no.
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: I'm intrigued because I haven't had a wind-up watch for years.
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: All right, let's say for the British audience.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: I'm also interested. No, no, I'm very interested, actually.
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but we can go shopping together when you come over, Jerm.
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: Where are we going to get one of our wind-up watches?
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: Well, let's wait and see, shall we?
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Wait, wait, wait.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: This watch I'm wearing here, Jerm, is a mechanical watch.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: It was made in the USSR, probably in the 1970s.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: It's Seconda. Most people don't know that Seconda was a
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: Soviet brand and I bought it off eBay for about
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: 25 quid and then fixed it. It works.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: I actually do like the idea of not using a
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: battery because then you save money down the line anyway.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: Not much.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: There is that.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: They do last two or three years, you know, and
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: you only have a couple of quid. It's not that
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: big a deal. No, it's just, you know.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: How often do you wind up your watch? I can't
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: even remember.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: This one every day.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: But it becomes a bit of a ritual. It's actually,
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: you know, it's a bit of a, it's part and
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: parcel of owning the things. But I mean, if you
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: get a modern mechanical watch, they have heavy rotors on
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: them that automatically wind them. So you never have to
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: wind them. You just wear them.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: I did not know actually any of this. I'm actually
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: now intrigued. Charles, you also don't know much about this, eh?
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: I'm not alone yet. That's what I'm trying to say. Yeah, no, no.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: To be fair, I've not had a wind-up watch for decades.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: I have had.
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: I mean, I've always worn a watch, but battery-powered recently. And, yes,
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: like you, I mean, I would far prefer to use
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: a watch with hands. I've used a digital watch recently
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: because it has an alarm on it, and that's.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Actually why we started. I was just showing you this.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: That was where this started.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll tell you what. These things are–
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's so retro, but it's actually very nice.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, it has a little light on it also,
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: so– If you wake up in the middle of the night,
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: you don't have to hold up your phone to look
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: at the time.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: It has a light on, so it has a battery on.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: So that's a battery. It does have a battery, yes.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: It does have a battery. It's not a wind-up.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: That's cheating. That is completely cheating.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Look, I didn't know about these things, Mike. I didn't
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: know you get this as a wind-up.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: But then.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there is. There absolutely is. Look, it's a start
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: because one needs to get away from the screen, and
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: I'm trying very hard. I'm writing stuff a lot more
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: now in sort of pocket notebooks also just to get
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: away from, you know, looking at the reminders on a
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: phone and all that. I mean, this is all personal growth,
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: which I think is hard.
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but hold on a second, Jeremy. Are you telling
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: me that you used to, or you possibly still do,
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: have your phone in your room when you're sleeping?
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: I do.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: This is a very bad idea.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: I know it's a bad idea. I know it's a
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: bad idea. I'm actually trying to get away from it.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: But at least I'm not being a hypocrite. I'm actually
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: saying that I do keep it in the room. But
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: I do turn it on to airplane mode, if that's
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: any consolation.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: A little.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: I used to turn off my Wi-Fi. I just got
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: too lazy. Because my Wi-Fi is not, there's not one
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: of those little routers where the bunny is in my house.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: It's in the ceiling. So I've got to go all
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: the way to my garage to switch it off at
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: the box.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: Well, I think I've said this before. If you're living,
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: you know, in the countryside or somewhere that's where you're
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: spread out from your neighbors, then it's perhaps worth the effort.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: But living in a city, it's not worth the effort
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: because where I live, there's at least a dozen Wi-Fi
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: networks that are detectable by my phone at any particular
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: moment in time. So switching mine off isn't going to
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: make any difference.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: And you, Charles? I mean, you're out in the countryside. Yeah.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: No other wireless signals here. Yeah.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: That wasn't quite the question. Do you turn off your
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: Wi-Fi also? I see.
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: In actual fact, I would prefer not to have it
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: at all, but it's a sort of logistical necessity at
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: the moment, which it might not be. No, it's in
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: a separate building. So if I'm where I am now working,
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: I get Wi-Fi anywhere else.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: It doesn't happen. So in the house is on a
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: hard line, a plug-in cable.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: I've got friends who do that. This is the problem.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: It's difficult to get away from the cellular signal. But
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: in their own home, they only have plug-in cables around
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: the house. So if you need to connect to something,
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: you've got to plug your phone in. There's no Wi-Fi.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: I think it's interesting because Just your comment there about
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: having the telephone in your bedroom. It's not so much
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: a question of, well, when are you going to just
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: stop doing that? The way I look at it is,
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: why did that ever start? For people of our generation
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: or above where that was never a thing.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: Habit is the answer. Yes, I know.
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: But what I mean is when people first acquired mobile telephones,
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: I don't think anyone immediately kept the thing in their bedroom.
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe some people did, but I don't
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: feel there were... there were enough telephones at that point
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: or enough telephone communications, mobile communications for anyone to think, oh, yeah,
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: it would be quite useful to have it.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: In the bedroom.
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: I think the thing that changed that though, Charles, was
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: first of all, doom scrolling just before you go to sleep,
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: which is insanity, but mainly alarms because people started setting
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: alarms on mobile phones.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: I think that's pretty much it. It's the alarm and
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: the time. I think those two things are the driving factors.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: The time and the alarm. Okay, but still, all right.
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: So the question is, I mean, come on, don't tell
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: me people couldn't tell the time or set alarms before
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: mobile telephones. So, because I have to say, I've never
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: done that.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: What happened then? You just got rid of your alarm clock?
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: Well, the thing is, when you've got your little travel
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: clock that has an alarm on it, the alarm goes off,
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: you switch the alarm off and you go back to
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: sleep again. And then people started buying... clock radios that
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: had snooze functions. And now your mobile phone, you can
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: set as many alarms as you need to set. And so,
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: you know, lots of people set an alarm, then they
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: set a second alarm to wake them up 10 minutes
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: later and all this kind of nonsense. So that's kind
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: of why they've done it.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: Okay. All right. And we've spoken about this before, Charles,
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: where it's also convenience. And as Mike has said, you know,
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: sometimes we need to embrace inconvenience. Well, I think that's
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: my point, really, with regard to that kind of thing.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: But anyway, I mean, let's face it, it's really not
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: very difficult to undo. The more serious part of undoing
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: is actually using, presumably in a bedroom context or kind
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: of sleep context, is using a telephone for anything other
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: than setting an alarm. I'm sure if you're looking at it,
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: that cannot be a good thing. Look, I mean, I'm
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: not making excuses, but one of my own vices is
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: because I'm constantly wired and I'm always being sent stuff.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: You know, look at this, watch this video, watch that.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: And it's not always doom scrolling. It's possible ideas for
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: my work.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: And it just becomes a habit. Like, oh, let me
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: just quickly see this video that someone sent me. It's
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: a very slippery slope.
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: You see, it should be, you know, the way you
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: live your life should be up to you, not up
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: to other people. So you should be deciding when you
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: do or don't look at that or think.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: About it, would be what I would say. Well, 100% agreed. Hence,
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: all these attempts now, at least on my part, particularly
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: now with the advent of more kids in the house.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: I need that extra time for sleep. Yeah. Wow.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: Who needs it?
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Because, what?
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: I said, who needs it?
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Well, there's a segue.
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: We don't have time for sleep, Jeremy. This is ridiculous.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Funny enough, I have long rejected this idea of eight
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: hours of sleep a day. I don't know where that
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: idea came from once upon a time. We've heard this
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: our whole lives. You must get eight hours sleep. And
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: I think it's nonsense. I think as much sleep as
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: you need, you will figure that out. I mean, some
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: people can operate very effectively on five hours sleep.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: People even less? Yeah.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yes.
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: I suspect, sadly, having tossed that subject out, none of
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: us is sufficiently qualified to go into this into significant depth.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: No, but I brought it up because we have a
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: newborn in the house.
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: I'm suddenly realizing. No, but what I mean is that
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: there is– I would absolutely agree with you. It is
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: possible to operate and operate fairly effectively on– less than
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: eight hours sleep and and it will vary according to
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: individual but i think the bits that we don't know
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: that we don't understand is what our mind and body
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: is not getting if we do reduce our sleep and
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: that's the bit that i think somebody who knows rather
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: more about it would be able to chime in here
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: and um and explain i mean what you know it's
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: probably more i would imagine it's more of an issue
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: if you're if you're younger if you're growing in terms
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: of sort of development and whatnot. Being deprived of sleep
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: cannot be a good thing. But no, I mean, I
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: think what I would agree with you, and I feel
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: like we've talked about this before, is the idea that
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: it's a requirement to have eight hours sleep in one
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: go and eight hours sleep in one go at the
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: same time every day. I'm not sure that necessarily stacks up.
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: It depends completely where you are in the world, what
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: the climate is doing at that particular time. Now, there's
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: so many other factors, I think. So, I don't really
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: buy the idea of having this sort of absolutely rigid routine.
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: I don't see that that necessarily makes sense. But then again,
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know about you, but I think
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: the body clock is absolutely a thing. I mean, I
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: certainly find that once in a routine of waking up
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: at a particular time, maybe with an alarm, then actually
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: after a while, the alarm becomes unnecessary and the body
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: just does it. But again, I'm not sure I really
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: fully understand that because you could say the same thing
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: about sort of hunger or what's perceived as hunger and
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: appetite and those kinds of things.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: It's just routine.
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: It's your body thinks that it's used to it and
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: therefore you think that you're requiring it, but you might
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: not be. It might just be a sort of, you know,
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: almost more of a mental process or just a blood
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: sugar issue, you know, due to.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: I find this really interesting because, you know, in my
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: younger days, I definitely was less... I required less slower.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: I was less dependent on when I had sleep.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: So.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: didn't matter when I went to bed. I find now
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: that if I don't go to bed at 11 o'clock latest,
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: if I'm not going to sleep at about 11 p.m. latest,
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: then I'm really struggling the next day. But if I
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: do go to sleep at 11, I'll wake up at five.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: That's the way it goes. So six hours is definitely
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: what I do as a natural thing because I never
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: need an alarm, or at least very rarely need an
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: alarm to wake up in the morning. So I'm usually
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: awake well before any alarm would go off. So six
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: hours isn't a problem for me. but if I don't
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: go to bed till one and then get six hours,
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: then that is still a problem. That is a problem
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: for me. And I find that quite interesting that the
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: time that I start sleeping is, and you know, I
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: do hear people talking about sleep before midnight being more
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: important than what comes afterwards. So I don't know, I
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: don't know what the truth of that is, but that's,
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: that's just my personal experience at the moment.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Mike, I would argue that even talking about times like 11, 12, 1,
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: I think that's all potentially artificial because you have something
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: called a sarcasm rhythm, as you know. And an easy
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: way to test that is, and I know in the
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: future you're going to come join me in the Kruger
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: National Park, an easy way to test how your sleep
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: actually works is when you're in the bush. and you
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: have no TV, you have no cell phone signal, you
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: have no reason to actually be awake once it's dark,
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: suddenly you find you get tired. And that, I think,
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: is the natural way in which we are supposed to operate.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: And you'll find that you tend to wake up more
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: or less when the sun starts coming up, naturally, without
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: an alarm. But when you're in the city, you are
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: surrounded by noise and lights and everything. And so we
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: end up using the time to decide when we should
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: go to bed. And that's just, I have no theory
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: behind that. That's just my own experience. I would absolutely
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: agree with that. I mean, yeah, I would agree with
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: you in that context, exactly in that context, being in
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: the bush. Absolutely.
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: Although I would say, I mean, it depends where you are,
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: but But typically, you do get a long night. I mean,
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: even in your summer, your nights are still quite long.
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: But yeah, I mean, recently, we've had Christmas by candlelight
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: or firelight, so no electric light. So therefore, it's a
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: lot darker. And it's absolutely been the case that we
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: have all felt not exhausted, but just sort of ready
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: to go to sleep. I would say quite a bit
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: earlier than usual and then felt totally refreshed waking up.
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: But before, I mean, quite well, obviously the winter here,
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: you know, the cold, Mornings, it's a late start, but
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: still waking up early. So getting, I don't know how
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: much sleep it would be, but plenty and that feeling
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: of refresh. Because I think part of it is that transition,
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: isn't it? I mean, that's what you get if you
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: are in a place where you're living by natural light.
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: It's not just the light gets switched off. It happens gradually.
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: The temperature starts to drop gradually. Everything changes gradually. When
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: you're not expecting this right, then you just shut down
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: and just go to sleep straight away. And I think
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: that's a bit the way of look, which is why
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: I go back to having the mobile telephone in the bedroom.
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: How really can you expect your brain and your body
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: to be engaged with that thing, that stuff, all of
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: the rest of it, and then to be going to sleep? So, again,
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: I don't really understand enough about it, but I dare
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: say it's possible to go to sleep, to actually be
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: physically asleep, but not to have gone through all those
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: stages of kind of winding down. And I think that, again,
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: must be another factor.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: And, of course.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: somebody will invariably say, ah, but you talk about soccer
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: as in rhythm and the light, but what about those
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: northern countries where it's very light or very long? I
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: don't know. I have absolutely no idea.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: Well, that's why they're all alcoholics in those countries.
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: Well, it's not altogether a joke. There is absolutely a
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: relationship between the two. Is that true? Yeah, I think so, yeah. Certainly, yeah,
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: I think in those– well, both ends, actually, because, of course,
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: you then get the very, very dark winters. So both ways,
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: you've either got a long period of extreme dark or
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: a long period in the summer where it's just– it
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: doesn't get dark. So either of those are quite difficult
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: to deal with.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess you could argue that humans then shouldn't
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: really be living in those areas ultimately.
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I mean, you know, that is a curious thing,
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: isn't it?
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Because why not?
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: I mean, you know, animals sleep and somehow they manage.
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: So this goes back to the, well, why does it
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: need to be eight hours at the same time? And again,
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: I know we've talked about this before, but certainly there
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: is documented evidence that this wasn't how people lived. I mean,
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: those people who wrote during the Middle Ages and whatnot,
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: kept diaries of stuff. The day absolutely worked differently. People
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: would sleep at different times. And moreover, they would get
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: up during the night and do stuff. So I think
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: we're just in an age where we have decided to
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: do it this way. And that's how the world works.
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: Not for everyone, for most people. I think continental Europe,
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: the siesta is still a thing. People do sleep in
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: the afternoon. Yeah, but they've got normal sunshine hours there.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: Okay. Like in Spain or whatever. They don't have like... Yeah, no, no.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: Fair enough.
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: But the point is that if they're sleeping in the
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: day that, you know, it is light. So people do
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: do it.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: But I don't know.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: I'm not sure anyone's really struck upon exactly the right thing.
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: But no, I do agree. Your point about extremes, you know,
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: extreme sort of long days or short days and the
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: idea that humans... sort of can exist in those conditions. Yeah,
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: I mean, it is a reasonable question. And yet people
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: have done it for as long as we know.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: I think it's not necessarily light, Charles, because, you know,
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: the vast majority of properties in southern France or Spain
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: all have shutters and then they close the curtains as well.
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: So it's actually, you know, it's not really light in
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: the room.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mean, that does, I mean, I've asked
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: this question before, but it does make me wonder if
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: human progress is a real thing. Obviously, technological progress is
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: a thing because that's how you can build shutters and
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: curtains and make it dark during the day.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: Well, I think it could be argued that technological progress
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: theoretically moves you forward in one direction, but it perhaps
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: moves you backwards in another. Yes.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: Well, that's kind of what I'm asking.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: If the health implications are negative, then you're not moving forward.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I don't know if you listened to
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: that episode I did on LED lights. I mean, that's
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: a big, big, big negative health implication. And yet LEDs
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: are absolutely normal now.
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not a fan of it. I mean, you know,
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, one of the things that really strikes me
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: because I'm sitting in studio two here and I've got
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: a massive big LED key light just to my right here.
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: And what I notice is that I cannot stop blinking
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: in the studios. I don't know why that is. It's
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: not something that used to be the case. It's something
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: that's happened in the last couple of years. But I can't,
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: you know, and I I don't know whether that's because
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: of the frequency of the light or the style of
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: the light. I have no idea, but for some reason
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: that just causes me to, I just can't stop it.
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: And it actually is very uncomfortable. just to try to
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: keep my eyes open the whole time, like I'm doing
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: at the moment. As you see, I can't do it.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: But that's something relatively recent. I don't know why, but
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: it is something I'm interested in finding out.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: I'm going to get my guest back, Nisa Khan. I
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: spoke to her before I joined UK Column, and she's
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: probably one of the most prolific scientists in the field
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: of LED, and she argues very, very aggressively against LEDs.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: I don't know how you get around it, though, particularly
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: in a studio environment. I don't know how you get
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: around it.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: Well, you can't because there basically aren't. I mean, you know,
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: lights which are not LED are prohibitively expensive now, but also,
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: you know, you swap the issues that LEDs have with
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: heat and, you know, the old tungsten lights or lights
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: that used to be used in studios were unbearably hot,
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: you know. So, one problem for another?
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: The basic argument around the danger of LED is that
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: it's an artificial light. So, in other words, your normal
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: tungsten light bulb, it actually has a physical spark, right? So,
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: she argues that it's a 3D light that basically replicates
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: a fire or the sun or something like that, right?
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: That's natural. What LED does is that it's 2D, but
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: it uses like a some sort of circuitry board, and
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: it doesn't create a spark. I don't know how to
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: explain it, but it's not natural light, and therefore it
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: suppresses various aspects of the spectrum, which is why you
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: can adjust it, which you cannot do with a normal
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: incandescent light bulb.
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: Well, I think to have another conversation about that would
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: be really interesting. I think it'd be very timely. But yeah,
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: you're right. I've had some of that explained in the
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: past and I must admit, I can't, I don't remember
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: the exact detail, but it is fascinating. And I think,
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: because I remember the bit that I was being told
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: about was when you use, because it's very easy to
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: get sort of pretty cheap And what seemed to be
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: very effective LED torches, really super bright torches. But in
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: actual fact, what it is that the torch is doing
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: when it looks like it's illuminating something is different from
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: what we imagine. But rather tantalizingly, I can't remember exactly
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: how to explain that. And that's probably another reason. probably
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: another reason, Charles, why our sleep cycles get so messed
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: up because of the artificial nature of LEDs. You know,
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: I love China. I'm sure you guys also love China.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: We've all been there. One thing I do not love
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: about China is the huge amount of LED light that
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: they've got in the cities. I just cannot see that
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: as healthy. Well, I don't think it's healthy anyway.
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: No, indeed. And, you know, we live in a, in
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: a Victorian terraced house and planted in the lane between
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: us and the next row right outside our house is
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: one of these blooming LED streetlights and I would just
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: not suggesting that this is the way to deal with
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: it but I would like to chop it down because
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: it is horrible. It is horrible light when it gets dark.
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: It would be really lovely, you know, on a summer's evening,
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: it would be lovely to sit outside there, but we
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: could not do that at the moment.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, going to your blinking comment earlier, it made
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: me think about myself because I've also got an LED
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: key light. I mean, my eyes can't handle more than,
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: you know, an hour and a bit of this. Yet,
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: you can test it for yourself. Sit in front of
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: a fire and you can watch that fire the whole night.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know what the, yeah, I need to
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: investigate more to find out what the possible reasons for
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: it are. Because obviously, you know, increasingly computer screens are
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: LED and that's not so much of a problem.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: By the way, I mean, what are the regulations in
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: the UK around incandescent lights? I know that here... We
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: can't get them anymore.
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: Unfortunately, I'm disgusted to say, Jerem, that this year we
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: ran out of our stock of incandescent light bulbs because
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: we stocked up on every one we could possibly get
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: our hands on for that exact reason.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: Can you import them? I mean, can you buy them off, like,
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: I don't know, Amazon or Timi or something?
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: You could do.
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I haven't looked recently, but you certainly could. You
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: were able to do that. But that really was a lottery.
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: I certainly had a batch of bulbs that I think
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: had come from China. And I mean, some of them
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: lasted half an hour. And that was that.
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: That's basically why we ran out because they were crap
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: quality and they just were blowing after five minutes.
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Wait, did I mention this before? I feel like
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: I have, but it's got to be said in case
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: it was missed by anyone who might be listening. The
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: light bulb at, I think I've got the name of
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: the place right, the Livermore Fire Station in the United States.
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: Can't remember where, can't remember which state it's in. has
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: been burning continuously. And I know Mike will say that
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: this is part of the reason that it is still going,
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: but it has been burning nonstop since either 1900 or
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: even 1899. One light bulb.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: There was never, no, there was never, there was never
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: any reason.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: There was never any reason for bulbs to the life
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: of a bulb to be short. That was, that was
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: engineered in. You absolutely can engineer a light bulb that
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: just does not blow. What's it called?
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: I want to look it up. Livermore. Livermore. Yeah, yeah. Liver, M-O-R-E.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: The light bulb there.
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: I think there's a webcam where you can actually watch it.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: I might be wrong. But I mean, it's a glorious,
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: it's a lovely bulb. Wow.
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: The shape of it is amazing. And I'm pretty sure,
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: am I right, 1900 or 1899? I think it's been
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: switched off once.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: The Livermore Centennial Light is the world's longest burning light bulb,
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: a four-watt hand-blown light. carbon filament lamp installed at livermore
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: fire station number six in livermore california in 1901 and
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: still burning 24 hours a day that is i don't
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: know that's unbelievable.
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah Yeah, I mean, you know, it's just so great
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: that there are still examples like that out there. So
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: when anybody does try to convince you that this, that
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: and the other is progress and you can point.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: Back to something like that.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there we go.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: I'm on a webcam now. Yeah, there you go. Well,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: now you know what to watch at night.
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: If you do persist in taking your mobile telephone into
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: your room, you can go to bed looking.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: At the Livermore. It's literally just a light bulb hanging. Yeah,
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: but come on.
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think there are webcams out there that
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: show things that are not nearly as engaging as that.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: That is absolutely fascinating. So that really does make you
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: ask questions about the lifespan of these things. Yeah, well,
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, again, that's well documented. That was absolutely a
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: deliberate policy to reduce all the light bulb manufacturers got
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: together whenever it was, 1920s or 30s, I can't remember when,
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: and agreed that they would limit the lifespan of a
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: light bulb. So, you know, it is one of the
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: great conspiracies. Say again, Mike?
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: I thought you had to keep buying them.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: And so, you know, you think if that's documented, that's
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: absolutely known about, there's no doubt about it.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: Can it do 25 years, Charles? Why would anything else
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: be different? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Isn't it great?
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: It's unbelievable. It's the best story of the day. Early 2000s,
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: I was good friends with someone who was working for
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: 3M or one of these types of companies. And, uh,
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: his job was literally to engineer failure into the, into
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: their products. That was, that was what his job was.
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: So this is, this is absolutely something that is done. Um, and,
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: and the, well, no, I'm going to clarify that his
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: job was to engineer failure into the product one day
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: after the, the one day after the, uh, um, The
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: warranty ended.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: Right, so that was the aim. It couldn't fail the
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: day before the warranty ended. It had to fail the
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: day after. So this was what they were aiming for.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It is phenomenal. I'm still trying to figure this out.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: It's mind-blowing.
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but then you set it alongside. I mean, for
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: some years, I have wrestled with the logic. Oh, right,
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: there we go. an oil-fired boiler. The boiler is designed
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: in such a way that in order to service it annually,
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: you have to switch off the electrical supply to it.
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: When you switch the electrical supply back on, there is
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: a high chance that you damage or break the electrical
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: control panel. And that is how these boilers were made.
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: It was known at the time they put the thing together.
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: And yet, you know, decades on, that's still a thing.
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: Whereas you go back to a time before everything was
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: controlled electronically and therefore there wasn't a control panel in
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: the same way.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: No issue.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: The boiler would run for years and years and years
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: and years with no problem.
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: You know, it's amazing. And yet, of course, we're told
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: that's progress. Oh, yeah, it's much more efficient. I'm not
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: quite sure how.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: So listen to this. The usual explanations are that it
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: almost never is switched off. And I didn't know this either.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Switching on and off is what actually kills incandescent light bulbs,
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: not the continuous burning. That's the exact opposite of what
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: I thought I knew about light bulbs. That's remarkable. It
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: started as a 60-watt bulb, but it's now 4 watts.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: So it's gradually got weaker. That is very interesting. But
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: that does say something about the industry. Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: it does. So there's an interesting little blurb over here.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: So this bulb is often used as evidence for the
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: planned obsolescence idea. The claim that the light bulb industry,
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: in particular the Phoebus cartel of the 20s and 30s,
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: deliberately agreed to limit bulb lifespans to around 1,000 hours.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: so people would keep buying replacements. But that actually, I think,
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: sounds absolutely plausible. I mean, they did the same with cars.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: There's no doubt about that.
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: They do it with everything. Everything. They do it with everything.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: You're quite right. Yeah, you're quite right. Short lifespans and everything.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, sometimes ridiculously short, I would say, and yet somehow
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: we seem to accept and tolerate it.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: I don't really know why. So the Livermobile was briefly,
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: it was moved a few times, including to new fire
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: stations and famously went dark for about nine hours in
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: 2013 during a power supply failure. But it came back on.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: Of course, that's the other thing you must remember. Blackouts. Yeah.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: They wouldn't work very well here. Or it would last
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: a very long time. Actually, it wouldn't because the constant
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: switching off would kill it. But we can still get
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: incandescent bulbs here. It's not a problem at all. I
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: think the attempt to regulate that completely failed. Okay.
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: Right. So that's fine, Jerm. We'll be placing our orders.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: I can get it right here.
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: My local shop. So you can send me 100 light bulbs.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: You can send them to me. Can you get them
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: both bayonet and screw mounts? Imagine, imagine what going to
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: through the bulbs. I mean, I'm sure I'm, I'm, I
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: do know the difference. What are you talking about? I've
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: got them in my house. No, no, no. I'm talking
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: about the connectors.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: Is it?
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: I've got one right here. And if I can, there,
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: there we go. This right here on my desk.
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: And is that a screw in or a bayonet? That's
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: a screw in. Yeah.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: There you go. It's a screw.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: This is how I use this regularly. The, It's easy
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: for us to buy these sorts of bulbs.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: We'll be placing our orders later today.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: Can you imagine a flight to the UK in a
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: couple of weeks to come join you guys and I've
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: got a bag full of incandescent light bulbs? Two cases
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: full of light bulbs, yeah. We'll just stick them in
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: the UK golden shop. Imagine the security at the airport.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: What's going on here, sir? Are you smacking drugs in
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: some weird kind of... Just gifts for my friends. Light
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: bulbs as gifts. How times have changed. But that, I mean,
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: that goes back to that point you were making earlier then, Mike,
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: that if technology progresses, it comes at a cost of
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: regression in another field. I was thinking about this earlier
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: before we started recording because of So people on X
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: have been talking about vaccines as usual and how it's
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: a massive, massive jump forward in medical progress. I see
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: it as a jump backwards. And it's so interesting to
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: me how people make the claim that we have progressed
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: so much, yet it appears to me that people are
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: the unhealthiest, I would even argue, in human history. I
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: don't think we've moved forward health-wise.
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: No, no. Health-wise, we've absolutely moved back. But there's a
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: simple reason for that. Because human beings have become the commodity.
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: And we are the profit center. Uh, and so, you know,
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: this is, this is very, it's very much like the
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: planned obsolescence of light bulbs. Actually, you, you plan the
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: obsolescence of the human being because you know that as,
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: as the, um, human body starts becoming more obsolete, uh, it,
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: it costs, uh, the taxpayer lots of profit to be made.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: So you, you, you make it feel, you make it
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: feel on a, on a planned, on a planned, uh,
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: schedule and and that it seems to me that it's
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: a very effective uh business model it's certainly making lots
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: and lots of money for some people.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: But i mean that is transhumanism what you're talking about
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: and that is well that is part of multiple agendas.
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: Yes i'm not sure i'm not sure it would apply
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: quite that term but still let's let's say more uh
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: we're being farmed.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah that i mean that's true but i mean if
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: you're constantly making people sick And then you're giving them
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: a product to help them with that sickness. That is,
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: as you say, planned obsolescence of the human. Yeah, but
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: I think it's being done to everything, isn't it? I mean,
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: it's not just humans.
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: It's being done to everything that runs up and down
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: our food chain. It's the same with animals. It's the
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: same with plants. It's the same with the land. Water,
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: I mean, we do it or rather it is done
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: to absolutely everything. You know, you set in motion a
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: sort of mechanism that crashes or degrades it. And then, hey, presto,
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: you come up with a terribly expensive solution that will
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: apparently rejuvenate or extend the life of it.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: A good example of that actually in the real world,
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you travel to Europe, we don't have
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: anything like this in Africa. But if you look at
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: those cathedrals across, let's say, France, I mean, some of
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: them are 1,000 years old and they're still standing. I mean,
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: that is not planned obsolescence. That is absolutely beautiful, beautiful architecture.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: I don't know if anything being built right now is
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: going to stand for 1,000 years.
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: No, I don't think, but as well as that, but
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: as you say, beautiful, beautiful architecture, you know, doing something
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: which was presentable has been up until, I don't know,
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: 1960s maybe, you know, something that humans took pride in.
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: You know, if we were going to change the environment
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: we lived in, we wanted to do it in a
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: way that was.
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: Well, beautiful in most cases. And then at some point
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: we decided that we wanted something which is stark or
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: ugly or whatever. I'm not quite sure why that change happened,
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: whether it was purely because it was cheaper to do
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: it that way or because somebody had decided that there
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: needed to be some kind of population scale psychological change done.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: I'm not entirely certain. But you've still got beautiful architecture.
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: The effect of that kind of brutalist architecture has been profound.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, still, at least in the UK, you
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: have beautiful architecture that has stood the test of time.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: We don't really have much of that here.
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: No, I don't. I mean, there are instances of it, yeah,
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: for sure. But, you know, if we take Plymouth as
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: an example, the city council did more damage to Plymouth
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: than the Nazis did. And all the original, I won't
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: say all, but a significant proportion, the vast majority of
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: the original architecture was was knocked down and replaced with
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: 1960s slop, which, and of course you add onto that
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: the types of public art that we've been foisted on
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: us in the last 30, 40 years. And it is,
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: the effect that it has on people's minds is profound.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: My brother-in-law just got back with his family from Italy.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: And he will show me some photographs that he took
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: of some Rembrandt paintings. Now, I've never seen a Rembrandt
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: painting in real life. And we're talking like centuries ago.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: And he would show me the photograph and it looks amazing.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: And then he'd say, but wait. And then he would
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: just keep zooming in. And the amount of detail at
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: such a small level is just beyond comprehension. And I
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: can think of almost nothing today by any artist that
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: has that amount of, of precision and, and, and creativity
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: and detail. Um, and it's so sad.
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's very sad, but equally, uh, we are, of course,
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: I mean, sadly quite a bit has been destroyed, but
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: we are very lucky that, that for example, much of
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: the work of Rembrandt and, um, many other artists does survive.
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: And yes, you know, there are city councils up and
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: down the land in the United Kingdom that have wreaked
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: or wrought total havoc on the places that should really
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: have been protected. It is totally disgraceful, but an awful
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: lot has been preserved. And one has to hope that
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: we are going through something of a dark age from
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: which people will emerge and be able to create works
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: of art or architecture that do match the splendor of
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: the past. And in a way, I don't really see
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: why that can't or won't happen. I think it's very
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: easy to zoom in too much and to look at
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: the last 100 years as though that is representative of
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: a change that only goes in one direction. And I
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: don't think I really see it like that, you know,
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: with cathedral building being a great example. So, you know,
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: I would say let's see. I mean, the chance are
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: we ourselves won't see. But I think I have to
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: be very hopeful that people will come back to it.
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: You know, I mean, I often think this looking at
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: For example, wind turbines, talk about changes that are just unsympathetic.
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: I mean, there is nothing sympathetic to a landscape about
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: a wind turbine that's 100 metres or more in height.
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: It just doesn't, it's so obvious to the eye, it
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: just doesn't look right. And one hopes and imagines, and
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: I think in my case, I believe that, you know,
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: after a certain period of time, they will all disappear.
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: They will come down. That experiment, that project will have failed.
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: and something better will happen instead. And I hope that's
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: the case with the majority of what we consider to
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: be sort of ills or blights.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: Nick Hudson makes a very similar argument about music and
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: how it also has been brutalized. He's a big fan
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: of classical music and in fact he's done a few
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: talks on the beauty and the depth and substance of
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: the classics and when he talks about classics he's not
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: talking about 1960s, he's talking a few centuries ago and
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: everything now has been reduced, minimized to basically four bars
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: with three instruments and that's pretty much music today.
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's getting worse because now we're starting to
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: see artificially generated music. And I would be careful about
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: even using the term music with it. But yes, I mean,
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: but not to be too pessimistic. I do want to
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: make the point that, OK, it requires a little bit
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: of digging, but there are people on YouTube, for example,
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: that are maintaining um, skills that, that the majority of
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: humans have long since forgotten. And, uh, you know, whether
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: it be building things or art or music, whatever it has,
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, it is there. Uh, and so, and it
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: is possible to find it. So I would just encourage
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: people to go hunting for that kind of thing rather
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: than the typical, um, nonsense that, that, uh, the algorithm provides.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: I think it's a very good point. I think so too.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: I'm just a quickly thinking while we, while we're discussing this, um,
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: It seems as though there's a trajectory in modern history
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: to push everything to the lowest, simplest common denominator. Am
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: I right?
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: Sorry, I'm just going to break the rules here a
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: little bit. Sure. And grab my laptop because there's something
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: I want to read if I still have it here.
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: I think I do.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: Um, there are no rules, right?
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: This is, this is a, this is a quote from
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: Hannah Arendt, um, who was, you know, Jewish American political theorist.
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: What was she when she died and died in the seventies?
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: Was that it? I can't remember, but anyway, uh, it's
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: fascinating quotes. So she said this in an interview with, uh,
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: for the review of books, right? So she said, the
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen.
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed. How
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: can you have an opinion if you're not informed? If
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: everyone always lies to you, the consequence is not that
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: any longer. This is because lies by their very nature
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: have to be changed and a lying government has constantly
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end, you
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: get not only one lie, a lie which you could
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: go on for the rest of your days, but you
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: get a great number of lies depending on how the
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: political wind blows. And a people that no longer can
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: believe in anything cannot make up its mind. It is
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: deprived not only of its capacity to act, but also
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: of its capacity to think and to judge. And with
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: such a people, you can then do what you please.
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: So that is where we are at at the moment,
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: I think. And that was written when? No, that was
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: said in 1978.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: Good heavens. Relevant now as ever, eh?
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: Well, I think it's more relevant than it ever was. Yeah.
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: I'm fascinated by it, by that quote, because I look
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: around and I listen to what people say and people's
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: view of the world and the pessimism and the difficulty
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: in being able to see the truth. But more than that,
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: the fact that they feel unable to act in any
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: way And she's explaining why there and what has been
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: done to people. So, you know, we've got to hunt out,
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: in my opinion, we've got to hunt out the inspirations
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: that we need. And many of those inspirations come from,
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: you know, pre the 1960s, let's put it that way.
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: Whether it be music or art or literature.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: How much of this, Mike, or Charles, do you think
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: is by design and by emergence?
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: No, it's 100% by design. Because we are systematically lied to.
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: I mean, this is her point. When you are systematically
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: lied to, it becomes impossible, or at least very hard,
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: to discover the truth. That's a skill that has to
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: be relearned. And, you know, we have, most of us
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: have forgotten how to discover the truth.
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: I think also sort of alongside that is the, sounds
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: like splitting hairs, but the understanding the significance of the truth.
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: It was such a feature of the sort of 2020
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: turmoil that it was almost as a lot of people
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: who supposedly went along with the official version of events,
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: that there was a deadly virus and this and the other.
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: It seemed that people's relationship with the truth was very odd.
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: It was very distorted because when you lined things up,
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: they they didn't make sense not you know not all
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: of those things could have been true at the same
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: time and yet so many people were absolutely determined that
• 49:28
  Speaker 4: they would believe them regardless and so it was as
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: though um you know, not just the effects of, as
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: you're describing, or that Hannah Arendt describes, but the way
• 49:43
  Speaker 4: in which that, what sort of the importance of the truth, or,
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: you know, a truth or things that connect to that,
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: that people have become now so used to so many
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: things that are apparently connected or apparently disconnected and yet
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: not wanting to investigate further themselves, not wanting to see
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: that if, well, if that is true, then that can't
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: be true and all those sorts of things. I mean,
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: what people will just take sort of on the nod
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: is completely bizarre now.
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, OK, I agree with that, Charles, but I'm going
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: to say that the so-called truth movement is not immune
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: from this and in fact possibly even worse because they
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: come from the ideological standpoint that everything that is coming
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: from official sources is a lie. Therefore, they are absolutely
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: open to being told the biggest pile of nonsense and
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: just accepting it without any kind of critical thinking. And
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: that is equally, if not more, dangerous. Yeah.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: No, I'm not suggesting anyone has sort of exclusive rights
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: to that. But yes, it's a very good point. And
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: I would take agree.
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And add to that purity tests. Big, big, big problem. Jerm,
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: how can you have so-and-so on your show when he
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: believes in viruses? Well, that wasn't what we were talking about.
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: We were talking about Ukraine. You know what I mean?
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: I know exactly what you mean, yeah.
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: This is the problem with the purity test. Oh, he
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: said Earth is a globe. I can't listen to anything
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: he says. So in other words, unless somebody is a
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: mirror image of you, you are the only arbiter of truth.
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: You have the monopoly on truth. And this is a
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: major issue for me in the independent space, is the
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: purity tests.
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: So it's not... just a major issue for you it
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: should be a major issue for every one of us
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: and uh you know i i completely agree with you
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: on that point um as far as i'm concerned information
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: is is information that i don't care what the source
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: is i want to analyze i want to assess that
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: information on its own merits and make a decision about
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: whether it's correct or not um If you just say, well, no,
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: I'm not gonna, that piece of information is irrelevant because
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: the person who said that said something else that I
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: disagree with. This is gonna end up, it's gonna end
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: in tears. Let's just leave it like that.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: Because what it assumes is that humans aren't able to
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: hold multiple ideas concurrently. You have to have 100% of
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: ideas that are in alignment with you or zero. It's
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: a false dichotomy. You know, you are able to think about,
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: I don't know, using my own examples, viruses and the
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: shape of Earth, while also thinking about Putin and what's
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: going on in Ukraine and 9-11. You can hold multiple
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: ideas that are not the same as, you know, person
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: B or person C. But this, it's weird that I
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: have to say that, but this is where we are at.
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: It's because we need, you know, there's the feeling of
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: belonging to a tribe and, you know, people feel safe
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: if they belong to a group that basically thinks the
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: same thing as they do. I mean, this is what
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: humans have always done, I suppose, to a certain degree,
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: but I think it's much, well, is it worse now?
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: I mean, in the past it was perhaps along religious
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: lines or whatever, but yeah, it's this feeling of being
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: part of a club, maybe.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: But I mean, ultimately also, I mean, if you're talking
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: about the truth movement, and I hate that term, and
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: I didn't ever consider myself part of any movement as such.
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: It was just this weird kind of label that was
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: created at some point. But What strikes me as odd
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: is it's as though those who want to then be
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: in the truth movement assume that everybody else doesn't want
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: to know the truth and deliberately wakes up in the
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: morning thinking, well, I'm going to accept the lies. I
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: don't think anybody actually, if we just Taking a step
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: back for a moment, I don't think anybody, even if
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: they're evil from our perspective, believes that they are following
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: lies necessarily. Unless they're politicians. But I mean, I think
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: people who we argue.
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: you know, decades about whether the average journalist that's working
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: for the BBC actually believes what they publish. And of course,
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: I would say that for the vast majority of them,
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: they do. There is without doubt a section of the
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: mainstream media and perhaps the alternative media as well, I
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: don't know, that is professional in the sense of they
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: may be working for an intelligence service or they may,
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: or in fact, they may just be working for a
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: PR company that wants to push out a particular, or
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: for a politician that wants to push out a particular narrative,
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: which they know to be untrue, but which suits them
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: for commercial reasons or for so-called national security reasons or
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: whatever it happens to be. So there's undoubtedly intentional There
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: are undoubtedly intentional lies that are pushed out through the media,
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: but the vast majority of journalists, I believe, believe what
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: they are writing or saying.
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, but even big name people.
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: That then comes down to the question of the fact
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: that they have a different opinion. and and what you
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: know and why do they have that opinion well it
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: may be because they haven't researched it probably themselves it
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: may be because they trust the source that gave them
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: that opinion in the first place it may be that
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: they just have a different opinion and and uh you
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: know sometimes we've got to live with that and and
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: we shouldn't immediately assume that someone that has a different
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: opinion is a limited hangout or uh you know it's
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: simply evil then yeah i mean that's that that that
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: is perhaps a failure of our ability to or yes
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: if someone has a different opinion to me that that
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: may well be a failure of my ability to properly
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: argue my case this is.
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: What todd hayden was saying on my on my show
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: a couple weeks back um As much as I dislike
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: Bill Gates, does he wake up in the morning honestly
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: thinking that he is evil or he's gonna commit evil?
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know. I think he genuinely
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: believes the things that he says.
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's just possessed by the devil.
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: But I mean, I dislike him intensely, but I don't
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: think he wakes up thinking that he wants to destroy
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: the world. I think he genuinely thinks his perception of
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: evil of how the world should be is better. Do
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: What I mean?
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I think like an awful lot of people,
• 57:33
  Speaker 4: he wakes up and thinks about what he's going to
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: do that's best for him. And it just so happens
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: that because of the way in which many events have
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: transpired over the decades, the best thing for him will
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: be X, Y, and Z, because it returns a certain
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: number of billions of dollars back to his various projects,
• 57:57
  Speaker 4: and he can therefore push his influence. But no, I mean,
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: I don't think, or at least I think the number
• 58:03
  Speaker 4: of people who are committed to believing that what they're
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: doing is evil, I think can only be a very,
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: very small number. And I think with regard to sort
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: of the everyday person, I think the bit that we
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: have a tendency to overlook is that that people, of course,
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: have had it reinforced their whole lives that if you
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: do veer off course and you start to think about
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: such and such a thing in a different way and
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: you start to question it, well, you're entering into the
• 58:36
  Speaker 4: wrong territory because you know you've been told and you
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: know that people who do that are troublemakers they are
• 58:44
  Speaker 4: extremists they are you know you there are so many
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: barriers to going in that direction mentally and so i
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: think there's a there's a terrific reluctance to look and
• 58:57
  Speaker 4: therefore why not why not just believe what it is
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: that the bbc say it's it is a much much
• 59:04
  Speaker 4: easier way path and let's face it there is a
• 59:08
  Speaker 4: logic you know all of these things are made to
• 59:11
  Speaker 4: make some sort of sense. So it's people are, you know,
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: I genuinely believe that the vast majority of people are
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: trying to make the best decision for themselves, for their family,
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: for their lives, based on the information that they're seeing.
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: But what they are seeing.
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: Is very limited. And, you know, it is difficult to
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: break out of that, I think.
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: I noticed you said veering off course and not veering
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: on course.
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: Well, yes.
• 59:40
  Speaker 4: Good point. Yeah, but it is. But that is how
• 59:47
  Speaker 4: it's perceived to be. You know, you think how people
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: get described. Anyone who does have different views, it is
• 59:55
  Speaker 4: as though they've gone off course, they've gone off the
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: rails or they're, you know, a bit crazy, this, that
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: and the other.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, it is amazing.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: I'm not sure I can necessarily bring anyone to mind,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: but if I were to think back to having someone
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 4: described to me because they had differing views on such
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 4: and such a subject, and in your mind's eye, you
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: can't help but think, right, well, they must be a
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 4: raving lunatic. They've got to be They've got to be
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 4: wrong on everything only to then meet the person in
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 4: question and find that they're not wrong at all. They've
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: just found a different way. And actually, the chances are
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 4: that your viewpoints might well coincide. But I think fundamentally,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: it's the sort of right and wrong. So-and-so said that
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: about Ukraine or whatever it is. They're wrong as well
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: as being bad and all the other things. So many
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 4: devices employed. to put people off even thinking about going
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 4: down that route.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: Well, not just about right and wrong, but also just
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: about having a different view. And I have found on
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: my own show that discussing ideas with people with very
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: different views is remarkably interesting if you just give them
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: a chance. Because that person doesn't necessarily think that they're
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: on the wrong side, if that makes sense. You might
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: think they're a raging lunatic, but they actually don't. So
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: now what?
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, you know, I think that's it.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: That's the sort of fundamental, it's got to be the
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: fundamental approach to a conversation with anyone. I mean, you
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: can't start from a position of being convinced that they're wrong,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: you're right, or, you know, any variation on that, or
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: that the whole point of the conversation is to convince
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: them to think what you think, just that is so
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 4: spectacularly unlikely to work. That's to be not worth trying.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: But to understand where that person's coming from. I mean,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: I had, well, actually, to go back to some of
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: what we're talking about in terms of taking heart. Yes,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: you know, we see the music industry or whatever taken
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: over by AI nonsense and all the mainstream gives one
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: the impression that that's the only thing that exists. I
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: went to a church service last night with sort of
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: musical interludes from this incredible collection of musicians young i
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: mean you know some teenage really you know really really
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 4: heartening stuff um and uh and then the second point
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: has just escaped my mind uh it's it's veered onto
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 4: a different course i can't remember where i was going
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: to finish that finish that point which is really annoying
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 4: because i know we're nearly out of time anyway that
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: was good um No, it's gone.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: Can't remember. Well, speaking about a time, my analog clock
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: says that it is time for us to come in
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: for a landing. Mike might argue it's not analog because
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: it has a battery. Yeah, sorry. I've just remembered. It was, yeah, sorry.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: I had a conversation with somebody who, we're talking about
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 4: community and sort of strength of community and this, that
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: and the other. And he said that he thought there'd
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 4: been a change since COVID days. And I thought, oh,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: this is interesting. You know, I wonder where he's going
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: to go with this. And his point was that he
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 4: thought that people really came together because there was a
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: sort of a sense of unity in supporting each other
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 4: and this and the other. And he actually specifically cited
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 4: banging pots and pans for the NHS and whatnot. And
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 4: of course, I wasn't going to stand there and ridicule him.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: I simply presented the way that I've seen it, which
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: was that so much of what was shut down in
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 4: 2020 hasn't really started again in terms of sort of
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 4: in-person events. So we could both see the other's point
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: of view and we both went away with something to
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 4: think about. There was no, you know, there was no
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 4: source of conflict and I certainly wasn't going to tell
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: him he was wrong. It was just a different point
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 4: of view.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: Okay. Well, on that note, We have to obey the
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: analog clock and also my eyes are taking strain from
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: the LED that's off to the right of me. I'll
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: catch up with you guys next week.