WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 162 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:05.400 As media. Hey everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:08.440 to let you know this is a compilation episode, So 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:12.119 every episode of the week that just happened is here 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:16.159 in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package for 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:18.360 you to listen to in a long stretch if you want. 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:20.880 If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:22.680 there's going to be nothing new here for you, but 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:25.520 you can make your own decisions. 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:29.280 Hi, everyone, and welcome to it could happen here. It's 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:32.320 me James, and I'm joined today by Kevin McDonald, who 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:36.080 previously served as a senior officer in the Irish Defense 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:40.440 Forces with Special Forces experience and has significant experience working 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:42.640 all over the world after that with United Nations and 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:46.320 other organizations. And Kevin, welcome to the show. I'm glad 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:48.279 to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, hopefully I've 0:00:48.280 --> 0:00:51.680 done a good job introducing you. I'm always terrible at that. Yeah, 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:54.560 what we thought we talked about today, Kevin is you 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:59.400 have significant experience in Lebanon with UNIPHIL and I think 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:02.640 obviously when we've spoken about this before, we've spoken about 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:04.960 it from a sort of looking at it from above, 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:07.720 strategic level. But what we've not spoken about is what 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:10.640 it looks like on the ground. So hopefully you can 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:14.000 give us some insight into that, especially having been there 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:16.640 both as like an enlisted soldier and as an officer. 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:21.520 I think ye, can you explain at first? I think 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:25.080 there's been a lot of the confusion or misinformation about 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:27.960 like how did these Irish If we look at the 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:30.640 Irish soldiers, that's the one you've obviously the most experienced with, 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:34.520 how do they end up deployed to Lebanon. Is it 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:37.039 a voluntary thing? Do they sort of say, put a 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:38.440 hand up a sat I want to do this, or 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:42.000 is it your units going so you're going, okay? 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:45.840 Well, just I suppose as a brief reminder to your listeners, 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:50.040 UNIFIL is the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, and 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:53.560 it's been interim since nineteen seventy eight. What it started first, 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:55.320 the Irish were one of the first countries to sign 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:58.320 up to deploy a battalion there, and we had a 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:03.360 battalion in Lebanon nineteen seventy eight until two thousand and 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:06.600 In two thousand, the Israelis withdrew from what they called 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:11.320 a security zone about like a ten kilometer buffer zone 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:12.760 in southern Lebanon. 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:14.640 So when they did that and. 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:18.079 Retreat to the frontier between the two countries and a 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:20.760 part of its battalion, it left a few staff officers there, 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:24.280 but it didn't supply a battalion anymore. It was concentrating 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:27.840 on the missions in Syria and other places. And then 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:29.800 after the two thousand and six war they were asked 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:32.320 to come back with a battalion and we've been there 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:35.240 ever since with an infantry battalion. In relation to your 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:38.320 question about it, is it a volunteer mission, it is 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:42.520 for most people. However, there have been people who will 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:46.000 be what's known as mandatory selected if they have certain 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:51.519 skill sets, whether it be a doctor, whether it be whatever. 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:51.680 Happens to be. 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:54.320 If you know, if the army can't get sufficient volunteers, 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:58.040 then they will mandatory select. But generally speaking, certainly in 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:01.600 the early years, it was actually quite difficult to get 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:04.240 to become a volunteer for Leblon because so many people 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:07.040 wanted to go there because there is, you know, there's 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:09.800 a bit of a financial incentive to do that as well. 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:14.040 I deployed there as a private soldier in nineteen eighty four. 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:17.000 I wasn't even twelve months in the army at that stage, 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:19.600 and within two months I was made in acting corporate. 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:22.240 So then I went back as an officer in nineteen 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:26.440 ninety three where we had a seven day war operational accountability. 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:29.600 I was back in ninety ninety six as an officer 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:32.440 for another seven day war, operation Grapes of Wrath, and 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:34.560 I ended up there with my family as an unarmed 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:38.200 military observer in two thousand and six for a full 0:03:38.240 --> 0:03:43.720 thirty four days of carnage. So yeah, Lebanon was always 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:47.640 well regarded by the Arish Defense forces because it did 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:51.200 the couple of things. It exposed troops to not just 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:53.680 new cultures and new areas, but it'll exposed them to 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:56.800 danger as well. And it also gave a chance for 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:01.920 young NCOs and young officers to to physically lead their 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:05.480 troops in a challenging environment, which you don't always get, 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:07.920 you know, when you're at home in Ireland or with 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:10.480 the UK or whatever, you don't always get that type 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:11.520 of leadership experience. 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:11.840 Yeah. 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:14.640 Plus you're exposed to other cultures, whether it be the 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:19.160 Nordic countries or you know, you're exposed to different ways 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:23.279 of operating and yeah, all in all, it's been it's 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:25.640 been a positive experience. But I would find out that 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:28.440 since we started there, we've lost far to get troops 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:29.359 killed in Lebanon. 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:32.839 Yeah, it's because not an insignificant amount, especially considering like 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:36.120 the Irish Defense Forces are much smaller when if people 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:38.440 are more familiar with the US military, right, which is 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:40.720 more than a million people, you know, forty eight is 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:44.200 a significant amount. You talked about how it exposes you 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:46.480 to look at other cultures, and obviously one of them 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:50.920 is like the Lebanese people. But it's a very international deployment, right, 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:53.040 It's you're not just sort of sitting there on your 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:56.280 Irish based with Irish Defense Forces. People are not interacting 0:04:56.320 --> 0:04:59.000 with other military So can you explain like some of 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:02.119 the other country bees that have this long history there. 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:04.520 When I went there in nineteen eighty four, there was 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:10.400 a battalion from Fiji, Finland, France, Ghana, ourselves, the Netherlands, 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:14.080 Norway and Senegal with a strength at the time of 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:16.799 about six thousand. When I was there as an unarm 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:19.719 Military Observer with UNSO, which is a different mission, the 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:22.480 strength had dropped to two thousand in two thousand and six, 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:26.039 which just two battalions, a Caname battalion and an Indian battalion. 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:30.120 And now essentially since after the war in two thousand 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:32.479 and six they started building up, there's probably about ten 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:38.160 thousand troops there at the moment. There recently huge interaction 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:42.559 at the battalion level between different nations. In other words, 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:45.360 a battalion will have its own area of responsibility, it's 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:46.960 responsible for patrolling. 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:47.679 In that area. 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:50.560 Now with the likes of unso that you're much more 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:56.080 exposed to other armies, other nationalities because essentially every time 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:59.279 you go patrolling, you can't, like two Irish officers couldn't 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:04.040 patrol together because if they see an infringement, whether it's 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:08.240 a firing clause, whether it's one side sending drowns into 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:11.359 Lebanon an the other side sending controcial rockets in Israel, 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:14.240 they are all violations. Yeah, but to record it as 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:17.239 a violation, you can't have two people from the same country, 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:20.320 So okay, you're you're much more exposed as as a 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:21.440 foreign nationalities. 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:23.599 Yeah, yeah, and there's certainly a lot of national I know, 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:27.880 the Indonesians are there now and the contingent from India. 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:31.719 When people talk about UNIFIL now a lot you'll see 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:34.479 one of two accusations, right, You'll see that they're either 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:39.000 like they're as allies of Hezbollah in Lebanon, which is 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:41.400 not the case, or you'll see that they're there as 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:45.000 observers for the IDF or spies for the IDF. And like, obviously, 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:47.200 the fact that they're being accused of both probably suggests 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:49.440 that they are neither, because it would be fairly obvious 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:52.960 if they were. But can you explain the tripartite agreement? 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:55.400 It seems to me like that might make it difficult 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:58.320 to do the things that uniform is supposed to be doing. 0:06:58.760 --> 0:06:59.240 Is that fair? 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:02.719 It's I think it's I think it's a fair assessment. 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:06.280 And if you're if both sides are complaining about you, 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:10.360 as you say, it probably does indicate that you're you're at. 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:11.360 Least doing something right. 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:16.080 So UNIFIL, it's it's a peacekeeper mission and they're there 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:18.880 with the agreement of both parties. So, in other words, 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:21.600 the Lebanese government and the Israeli government have agreed that 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:24.600 UNIFIL be established in Lebanon. That's the first thing to 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:27.600 point out. The second thing, which is kind of contentious now, 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:32.640 especially with the extent of hes Budus Tunnels is being exposed. 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:37.280 Is that there's a lot of generally misinformed chatter about 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:41.800 what UNIFIL can and cannot do. So after the two 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:45.680 thousand and six War Resolution seventeen oh one was enforced 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:49.960 or was brought in to develop more thoroughly the mandate 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:53.400 for what UNIFIL can and cannot do, and one of 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:58.480 the stated paragraphs is that UNIFIL will assist the Lebanese 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:01.800 and forces in taking steps towards the establishment between the 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:04.440 Blue Line and the Latanian River of an area free 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:07.560 of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:10.200 of the Government of Lebanon and of UNIFUL deployed in 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:13.320 this area. And this is one of the failings. But 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:15.880 it should be pointed out that it's the responsibility of 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:18.760 the LAUGH of the Lebanese armed forces to instigate it, 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:22.280 supported by uniform right, not UNIFIL going in looking for 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:24.320 arms and weapons supported by the LAUGH. 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:25.240 It's the other way around. 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:28.400 And one of the difficulties that you're always going to 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:32.040 have is that Lebanon has a divided society. It's an 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:35.840 extremely rich and significant society, and I've lived there quite 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:38.120 a lot and have great respect for the people and 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:43.840 their traditions. However, the sectarianism is kind of baked into 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:46.200 how the government works, and that kind of works its 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:48.880 way down. So the president has to be a Marianite 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:52.360 Christian speak of the House has to be Shia, and 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:56.400 the Prime Minister has to be Sunny. And that division 0:08:56.679 --> 0:08:58.440 was based on the last time there was a census 0:08:58.480 --> 0:09:01.760 in Lebanon, which was nineteen thirty two, and since then 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:06.840 the dynamics have changed. So Hesbela is not just a 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:11.760 military organization. It's a political organization, and it's a wealthier organization. Yeah, 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:13.839 I think a lot of people don't get that. And 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:16.560 it's Shia and the majority of the people in the 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:19.480 south are shere and you know a lot of them 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:25.000 get their schooling and their medication from Hesbulla. So it's 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:29.400 not just a military organization. And there's various estimates, but 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:31.439 you could be looking at them. But we say, prior 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:37.000 to the present conflict, maybe seventy thousand Hesbela in south 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:39.840 of Beyrootsa. We say, yeah, And some of them are 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:42.040 full time, some of them are part time, some of 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:47.199 them are just sympathizers, helpers, friends. You know, it's difficult 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:52.160 and another factor that has proven extremely difficult is so 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:56.120 when UNIFIM patrol with the Laugh, there is certain restrictions 0:09:56.200 --> 0:10:01.200 that even the laugh have in terms of entering certain areas. 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:04.240 And what has Bullet have done is that they have 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:09.960 designated certain nature reserves and generally speaking, the laugh won't 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:11.480 go win there. And if the laugh won't go win, 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:14.640 Uniful can't go win. So the laugh for kind of 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:16.440 you know that they have a balancing act to do 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:19.920 in terms of retaining the trust of the people in 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:23.720 the South and also not causing a sectarian divide within. 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:25.079 Their own ranks. Yeah, of course. 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:28.120 And also they have another problem in terms of equipment. 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:32.640 They're sort of relying on other countries the UK, the US, 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:36.120 France to supply them with equipment. But like they have 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:40.040 no tanks, they have a few helicopters. They're very much 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:41.920 like there's no way they will take on. 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:45.199 Has Bullet no way, right, yeah, or the idea and 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:47.120 Uniful itself. 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:49.120 Is lightly armed, you know, it's not gone round in 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:50.760 tanks anything armored carriage. 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:51.000 Yes. 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:53.319 The only time the last time UNIFAL had tanks in 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:55.920 Lebanon was just after the war when the French deployed 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:57.239 with the La Clerq. 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:00.080 Tanks, which did not please. 0:10:59.880 --> 0:11:03.640 The locals because the Clerk tanks driving up and down 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:06.080 the roads was nearly doing as much damage as the 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:11.440 Marcava tanks during the war, and plus Lebanon isn't a 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:14.199 very tank friendly area to be operation against what we. 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:16.360 Say, right, Yeah, was that when the IDF came in 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:19.240 in then Macava tanks and the French like physically blocked 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:21.839 them with their own tanks. I can't remember when that was. 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:24.840 And I'm not aware of that, but it could will 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:27.199 happen because I know certainly back in the nineties. 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:27.520 That may have been. 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:30.960 When it was when Israel was operating the security zone. 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:33.880 We the Irish and our colleagues from Finland and Norway 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:39.040 had had numerous standoffs with Israelis trying to enter certain villages. 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:41.040 And yeah, but. 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:45.400 Yeah, I saw the day before yesterday the two I 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:48.280 think two bulldozers in the Marcava or I said, yeah, 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:50.400 two d nines broke down a U and watchtower and 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:53.199 a un fence at the un had Unifild headquarters in 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:56.079 the Cura, which is a few k from the from 0:11:56.120 --> 0:11:59.520 the frontier with with Israel. Yes, I should I note 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:03.080 as well for your listeners that Israel and Lebanon have 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:05.719 been at a state of war since nineteen forty eight. 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:08.640 Yes, they've never had a seattler or a peace agreement, 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:11.800 and the Triparte Agreement is the only place where they 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:12.920 actually meet, right. 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:17.680 Yeah, So there is a UNIFIL post a meeting normally 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:21.200 right at the frontier where you can cross between one 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:23.160 country and the other. And I keep using the word 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:26.040 frontier because it's not a border. It hasn't been officially demarketated. 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:30.280 The blue line which I mentioned earlier on simply verifies 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:34.280 that the IDEF have withdrawn into Israel, but it's. 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:35.200 Not the border. 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:39.600 Right However, going back to your point about the Tripartheid Agreement, 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:43.480 and that's where the senior Israeli officials senior Lebanese officials 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:48.520 under the chairmanship of UNIFIL meet and they discuss items 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:52.960 of concern that maybe UNIFIL can help or no between 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:55.920 the two of them. And in twenty twenty two they 0:12:56.000 --> 0:13:01.280 managed to organize a maritime boundary okay between Lebanon and Israel, 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:05.400 which was kind of fascinating because on the western side 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:09.600 of Lebanon and the northwesterns coast of Israel, the huge 0:13:09.640 --> 0:13:12.760 gas fields. Yeah, so the two countries actually they've agreed 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:17.120 their maritime boundary onto the auspices of UNIFORM. This is 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:19.800 still han't agree their land, but it's the first time 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:23.800 that a peacekeep mission has arranged and courage developed and 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:28.800 led successfully discussions about a maritime boundary. So the Uniform 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:30.360 does have some successes. 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:32.400 Yeah, yeah, no, I think it would be wrong to 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:35.360 overlook these. We'll take a quick break for adverts, then 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:49.720 we'll come back. We're back and Kevin, you'd mentioned that 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:51.920 you were in Lebanon in two thousand and six. I 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:53.679 think you said you're an unarms observer at that time. 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:54.880 Is that right, Yeah, that's right. 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:57.520 Yet, so one of the oldest missions in the world 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:02.520 is one so the United Nations True Supervisory Organization, and 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:06.600 that essentially was established I suppose after the forty eight war, 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:14.040 and it had well say, offices and observers in Egypt, Israel, Syria, 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:17.960 Jordan and Lebanon. You know that they were quite effective 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:22.360 in certain ways, Like certainly the eventual peace agreement between 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:25.760 Egypt and Israel was very much helped along by the 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:30.640 presence of Onso in Cairo and Shamer Shehak. The peace 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:34.840 agreement between Jordan and Israel again was very much assisted 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:37.360 by by Onso. So they have a kind of a 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:40.120 fairly good track record. And what they bring to the 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:45.640 table is that first of all, they're unarmed military observers, 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:48.880 which which takes some of the sting out of heaven. 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:51.360 You know, a heavily armed guy with a helmlets and 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:55.680 sunglasses walk around, you know that. And and some some armies, 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:57.920 as you know, can tend to be more intimidating than 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:02.520 others in how they how they carried themselves. So I 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:04.760 went there. I went to the region in two thousand 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:07.880 and five and I was working on the occupied Golden Heights, 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:10.600 living in the in Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:13.520 with my wife and two kids who then were four 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:17.479 and five. And in February zero six, I was transferred 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:20.200 to Lebanon and we were living in the city of Tier. 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:22.920 The kids were going to a local English speaking Arab 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:28.280 school and Lebanon was absolutely thriving. It must happened. We 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:30.040 had the kids in bear Rouge, we had them in 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:34.040 a man doing what they run and my normal routine. 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:39.120 We had four observation posts along the frontier with Israel. Yeah, 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:41.760 Staft by five guys who spent a week seven days 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:42.600 up there, and then you come. 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:44.440 Down for four or five and then go back up again. 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:49.280 And each team had its specific area to operate with, 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:52.800 and we say a specific battalion that we would interact with. 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:57.160 And also quite importantly, we had liais and assistants who 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:00.520 were locals, like translations, but they're a lot more important 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:05.440 than that. And based on the sectarian nature of the area, 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:07.960 you know, you'd always have a Christian, you'd always have 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:10.080 a Shia, but you could have the Jews. If you 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:12.080 were further up to the north, you could have Sunneny. 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:14.920 And each team had four or five of these because 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:17.040 we used to send two patrols out each day. So 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:20.360 we had huge interaction with the locals and armor, with 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:24.000 the mayors and the mucktars, and we were very much 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:28.520 a force multiplier for UNIFIL because we could get information 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:31.160 from people. You know, we used to stop and have 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:33.680 lunch in some of the little restaurants, and we were 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:36.560 always talking to people, and you know, it was the 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:39.360 window down, waving out, having a chat, learning a bit 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:44.120 of Arabic. Whereas UNIFIL by its nature goes around the 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:47.800 armor cars and even if you stop and you get 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:50.040 out and you take off the sunglasses, people will just 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:52.920 react differently to two guys with a local that they 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:54.280 know in the car. 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:57.400 Yeah, as about someone in full battle rattle again. Now, 0:16:57.760 --> 0:16:58.640 we definitely were. 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:02.560 But the or kicked off on the twelfth of July 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:05.360 two thousand and six and I was I had done 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:09.040 on patrol to pick up or Christian liaison assistant in 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:13.120 her village and literally we were heading off on patrol 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:16.760 and over the radio, all stations go to the nearest 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:20.600 uent position immediately. The nearest U went position tours at 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:23.119 the time was an Indian platoon position on top of 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:26.080 a hill. From my past experience, I had reckoned that 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:28.960 there was a bit of stuff going on either in 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:33.679 shape the farms, which is a disputed area in the 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:37.320 southeastern part of Lebanon, up in the mountains. So I 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:38.920 said to the guy that was with me, I said, look, 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:40.639 this could be over a couple of hours. Let's go 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:43.600 straight back to our patrol base. And you know, we 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:46.440 knew we had a food the facility, and we also 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:49.440 knew we had a good bunker in the place, so 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:51.600 we had it back at a fair age of nuts. 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:55.879 Shall we say, and normally when we would have two 0:17:55.960 --> 0:17:58.440 patrols out, there'd be one guy left in the patrol 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:01.439 base and he'd be responsible for radio checks and all 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:04.400 that kind of stuff. But what we do is, when 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:08.160 we were about maybe a kilometer away, we would inform 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:13.080 our headquarters in the Kura that were closing down at 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:16.600 our final destination, which would give this guy time to 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:18.360 come out and unlock. 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:18.840 The gate to let us in. 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:21.800 Yeah, and just as I had transmitted that, he comes 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:23.080 up on the ear and said, don't come in, don't 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:25.199 come in, we're getting hit up. So we at that 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:30.160 stage we were restigate, and about maybe two kilometers away 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:33.280 there was a huge IDF position and they were just 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:38.000 banging with pine fives and gpmgs, not directly at us, 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:40.000 but kind of in the general area. 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:43.080 Yeah, explain those weapons systems for people who aren't familiar, 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:45.480 Like what's a GPMG if as somebody is. 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:49.199 Not, okay, sorry, So you've everyone's familied with, well, say 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:52.640 in AK forty seven or and M sixteen, which would 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:55.200 be known as small arms. In other words, that caliber 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:58.280 is five point five six or seven point six two. 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:02.320 Then you have medium machine guns, which are generally belt 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:05.160 fed and there are seven point six two and then 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:08.119 you have heavy machine guns again belt fed and they're 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:11.960 twelve point seven or fifty caliber. So we were getting 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:15.680 a fair bit. But it took us maybe an hour 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:18.560 of listening to various news channels both in Lebanon and 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:21.800 in Israel to realize that Hesbela had carried out a 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:25.600 cross border attack, hit up an idea of convoy, kidnapped 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:29.000 two who were seriously injured and subsequently died and killed 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:33.879 initially four and then against their own orders, and Israeli 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:37.440 Mcalva went into Lebanon to have a kind of commanding 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:40.960 view over where they thought that Hesbal, we're bringing these guys. 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:45.840 Hesbala knew that that's what they do, and big anti 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:49.080 tank mine and killed four guys inside the Murcava. So 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:54.359 Israel had lost eight and two kidnapped in the space 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:55.920 of maybe maybe an hour. 0:19:56.720 --> 0:20:01.920 So the reaction was was was fast and furious, and. 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:07.760 Yeah, it took us nearly six days to get our 0:20:07.880 --> 0:20:11.000 liais and assistant back back to her village. It took 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:13.399 the un nearly two and a half weeks too, have 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:17.320 actually with the families, because at that stage once it 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:20.000 was a family mission. And where I was, I could 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:23.840 see the jets dropping bombs into Tier, and my wife 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:25.800 could look up on the skyline, knowing where I was, 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:29.000 and see the same thing happening. I was sort of 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:31.080 used to being under fire, but it's a different thing 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:35.800 to see your family under fire as well. And eventually 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:39.199 when the charter the sort of a cruise bliner from 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:43.280 Cyprus to come over and stand offshore and sending its 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:47.719 lifeboats to bring the families out. So when this has 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:52.000 been planned and so had tried to organize that an 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:55.639 armored convoy would bring those onmos that were deployed on 0:20:55.680 --> 0:20:58.560 the four posts down to Tier to say goodbye. But 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:01.480 where I was, we were getting hamored with artillery fire and 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:04.359 tank fire. So I was the only one with family 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:06.160 that couldn't get out. So when my wife and two 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:08.400 kids that were five and seven at that stage were 0:21:08.400 --> 0:21:11.040 getting into the lifeboat to bring them out to the ship, 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:13.800 I rang her and I said, look, I'll say you 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:16.400 want to see you, which is not. 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:18.280 A great way to end the family mission. Let me Retalia. 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:21.879 And then in the space of the next three days, 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:24.600 we had a strength of fifty two officers and in 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:27.560 about three days we lost over ten percent. We had 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:31.200 one Italian captain shot in the back. He's now in 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:35.040 a wheel chair. We had another Australian captain seriously injured 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:39.240 when the convose she was in was I suppose target 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:42.119 It is probably the way to explain it. But she 0:21:42.840 --> 0:21:45.399 she was thrown up against the inside of the armored 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:48.760 car and essentially her back was broken. She was evacuated 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:52.399 with my wife and kids. And then I think it 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:55.679 was the day later or two days later, the Israeli 0:21:55.760 --> 0:21:58.680 dropped the Jadam, which is a bunker busted missile into 0:21:58.720 --> 0:22:01.159 the post just up for me, killing four very good 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:04.240 friends of mine. So yeah, two thousand and six was 0:22:04.240 --> 0:22:04.760 a bit rough. 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:09.000 Yeah, if you're comfortable, could we talk about that last 0:22:09.040 --> 0:22:10.840 one a little bit, because I think it's one of 0:22:10.920 --> 0:22:14.520 the ones that, like, there's no mistaking that un position, right, 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:17.280 it's you don't and you don't accidentally disco dropping jadeams 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:19.479 left right in center all over the place. Like. 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:22.120 The first thing I should say is that twenty one 0:22:22.200 --> 0:22:26.440 years previously, that observation post was completely destroyed, but there 0:22:26.440 --> 0:22:28.920 was no one in it at the time, so when 0:22:28.920 --> 0:22:32.040 it was rebuilt, it had the best bunker in Lebanon 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:35.480 so that they dug down first and had like a 0:22:35.480 --> 0:22:38.600 lot of the the bunkers currently in Lebanar are overgrown 0:22:38.640 --> 0:22:42.119 to bunkers, but this this was dug down into the 0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:47.600 into the rock essentially and it had its roof was 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:51.760 about a measure and a half of reinforced steel and concrete. Yeah, 0:22:51.840 --> 0:22:54.000 with the two story concrete building on top of it. Now, 0:22:54.080 --> 0:22:56.480 so without doubt it was the best bunker in Lebanon. 0:22:56.680 --> 0:22:57.040 Yeah. 0:22:57.160 --> 0:22:59.120 So that on this this happened on the twenty fifth 0:22:59.160 --> 0:23:03.080 of July, and on that particular day we'd already lost 0:23:03.440 --> 0:23:06.840 the patrol base in Maruna Ras when when Roberto was 0:23:06.880 --> 0:23:10.840 shot and they had to I have to say in fairness, 0:23:11.720 --> 0:23:14.159 but on the are liais on branch that kind of 0:23:14.240 --> 0:23:19.760 liaises between IDF and UNIFIL okay, and UNIFIL couldn't launch 0:23:20.920 --> 0:23:23.919 one of the helicopters to do a medevac. So the 0:23:24.000 --> 0:23:25.800 decision was made that the guys would get into an 0:23:25.880 --> 0:23:30.720 armored land cruiser and follow Israeli tank tracks back into Israel. 0:23:30.600 --> 0:23:32.959 Where they couldn't decafflict the air space to launch it 0:23:33.040 --> 0:23:37.120 or what was stopping them launching their helicopter to evacuate There. 0:23:37.040 --> 0:23:41.119 Was too much kinectic activity at that we wouldn't have 0:23:41.160 --> 0:23:42.280 been able to land it like it was. 0:23:42.280 --> 0:23:44.119 It was a battle long ago, okay, Yeah. 0:23:44.000 --> 0:23:47.600 So they essentially followed Israeli tank tracks that had come 0:23:47.600 --> 0:23:50.359 into Leblon. They followed those tank tracks back into Israel 0:23:50.640 --> 0:23:53.880 where they were met by an Israeli patrol and Roberto 0:23:54.000 --> 0:23:58.359 was flown through Rambam Hospital. But yeah, gone back to 0:23:59.560 --> 0:24:02.320 going back tom on the twenty fifth of July, as 0:24:02.359 --> 0:24:05.240 we were all taking a fair bit of incoming where 0:24:05.240 --> 0:24:09.480 I was. It wasn't targeting. It was more sort of 0:24:10.000 --> 0:24:10.840 harassment fire. 0:24:11.359 --> 0:24:14.840 Yeah, like that. The house next door. 0:24:15.320 --> 0:24:18.720 Took three direct tank rounds and it was five meters 0:24:18.720 --> 0:24:21.919 away Jesus from our post, and our post was tiny. Yeah, 0:24:21.960 --> 0:24:25.560 but in the guys in Kam were taken a coup 0:24:25.560 --> 0:24:28.640 bit of artillery, but there was a lot of air 0:24:28.680 --> 0:24:34.920 strikes coming in close. And again for your listeners, the 0:24:35.280 --> 0:24:38.919 UN has a designation what it calls a firing close. 0:24:39.400 --> 0:24:43.359 So we'll say a firing close from a sixteen is 0:24:43.440 --> 0:24:46.760 I know, something like fifty meters or something like that. 0:24:47.800 --> 0:24:51.520 Firing close from an artillery shell is five hundred meters, 0:24:51.880 --> 0:24:54.840 and a firing close from an aerial bomb is a kilometer, 0:24:55.440 --> 0:24:58.359 So if glands within a kilometer, it's officially designated as 0:24:58.359 --> 0:25:01.480 a firing close and it's orders and you know, both 0:25:01.520 --> 0:25:04.680 sides get you know, it's it's an official account of 0:25:04.680 --> 0:25:07.679 of what's happening. So the guys who are getting the 0:25:08.400 --> 0:25:11.200 you know, a good few firings close from area bombs 0:25:11.720 --> 0:25:15.800 and there was three distinct weights of attack in the 0:25:15.880 --> 0:25:20.359 general area. So naturally force commander uniful, chief of staff on. 0:25:20.520 --> 0:25:23.080 So you and a quarters in New York were screaming 0:25:23.119 --> 0:25:26.960 at the Israelis, you know, stop targeting disposition. Yeah, what 0:25:27.000 --> 0:25:28.960 was there hes bull in the area? Of course there 0:25:29.040 --> 0:25:33.440 was kemp Is a has been a stronghold. But eventually 0:25:33.520 --> 0:25:36.480 that that evening the decision was made that the patrol 0:25:36.520 --> 0:25:38.920 bus is going to be evacuated. But because of the 0:25:39.000 --> 0:25:42.639 level of kinetic activity that evening, it was going to 0:25:42.680 --> 0:25:43.200 be done at. 0:25:43.080 --> 0:25:44.480 First light the next morning. 0:25:45.520 --> 0:25:47.280 And since the war started, we had all been on 0:25:47.280 --> 0:25:51.000 the twenty four to seven twenty minute radish, so every 0:25:51.000 --> 0:25:53.560 twenty minutes you had to respond to a radio check. 0:25:54.280 --> 0:25:58.800 So the last transmission from the post was from Canadian 0:25:58.840 --> 0:26:01.040 friend of mine x special for horse is really really 0:26:01.080 --> 0:26:03.720 cool and I could hear it in his voice. He 0:26:03.880 --> 0:26:06.040 was requested a luck in time for a firing close. 0:26:06.480 --> 0:26:09.719 It's danger close, it's danger close, get them to stop. 0:26:09.960 --> 0:26:12.440 And that was the last transmission. So when they missed 0:26:12.440 --> 0:26:15.439 the next radio check, we presumed another shell had come 0:26:15.480 --> 0:26:18.040 in and blown all the aerials of the. 0:26:17.760 --> 0:26:18.359 Of the building. 0:26:18.520 --> 0:26:22.680 Yeah, so myself and an assie friend of mine requested 0:26:22.680 --> 0:26:25.440 permission to take our armored land cruiser and try and 0:26:25.520 --> 0:26:26.800 drive up and see what was happening. 0:26:27.480 --> 0:26:28.720 That was refused by UNIFILM. 0:26:29.280 --> 0:26:31.840 So they sent a patrol from the Indian battalion, which 0:26:31.840 --> 0:26:33.760 was kind of in fairness that it was nearer. So 0:26:33.800 --> 0:26:36.199 we switched on to their radio frequency to hear what 0:26:36.240 --> 0:26:39.000 they were saying. And so they approached the base. They 0:26:39.000 --> 0:26:41.600 had obviously had to break down the gate and said 0:26:41.600 --> 0:26:43.600 the base had taken a direct hit by an aerial bomb. 0:26:44.080 --> 0:26:46.400 And at that stage we were still thinking maybe they're 0:26:46.400 --> 0:26:48.800 trapped under the rubble or something like that. And then 0:26:49.880 --> 0:26:51.840 the one of the transmitters we have found the body 0:26:51.880 --> 0:26:55.040 of a Chinese officer, so we knew the four guys 0:26:55.040 --> 0:27:02.400 were were were killed. And the Indians found three bodies 0:27:02.400 --> 0:27:05.679 that night and brought them to the Marchary in marja Un, 0:27:05.720 --> 0:27:06.120 which is. 0:27:07.720 --> 0:27:08.760 A large Christian town. 0:27:09.920 --> 0:27:11.879 So the next morning there was I think five of 0:27:11.960 --> 0:27:14.600 us tasked to open identify the bodies. 0:27:15.280 --> 0:27:15.639 Yeah. 0:27:15.920 --> 0:27:19.240 So the first guy was Chinese, was over pressure killed him, 0:27:19.240 --> 0:27:22.320 so that that was an easy one to identify. The 0:27:22.359 --> 0:27:24.840 next guy had no arms, no legs, and we head 0:27:25.040 --> 0:27:28.920 Jesus and where his head should have been was the 0:27:29.000 --> 0:27:30.760 chain of a dog type and I went down into 0:27:30.880 --> 0:27:37.720 his his body Paris, yeah, and the other guy yeah. 0:27:37.760 --> 0:27:40.920 So yeah, it was a difficult different procedure, and then 0:27:41.119 --> 0:27:45.000 we had to try and arrange to get the bodies 0:27:45.240 --> 0:27:49.000 transferred into Israel to where you and colleagues from Jerusalem 0:27:49.160 --> 0:27:52.280 so they could go to Rambam Hospital and have have 0:27:52.440 --> 0:27:55.560 you know, a proper identification and all that sort of stuff. 0:27:55.920 --> 0:27:58.520 Yeah, eventually be returned to their families, I suppose. 0:27:59.119 --> 0:28:03.399 And that was a difficult procedure because where the IDEF 0:28:03.440 --> 0:28:05.720 said they could meet us, there was a minefield in 0:28:05.760 --> 0:28:08.199 front of us, and where we said we could meet them, 0:28:08.600 --> 0:28:12.680 they thought it was too exposed. So eventually we went 0:28:12.720 --> 0:28:17.560 into an old, small, tiny Indian platoon position and about 0:28:17.560 --> 0:28:20.679 one hundred meters away there was a gate that the 0:28:20.720 --> 0:28:22.920 Israelitis used to use to come in and out when 0:28:22.920 --> 0:28:25.560 the security's own was there. But the area between the 0:28:25.640 --> 0:28:27.919 UN position and the gate hadn't been mind swept in 0:28:28.240 --> 0:28:31.240 six years. But we had no choice. We couldn't bring 0:28:31.440 --> 0:28:33.480 the guys back to the marcher because it had resorted 0:28:33.520 --> 0:28:36.440 to using refrigerated trucks to store. 0:28:36.200 --> 0:28:38.920 Bodies because the marcher was full. Yeah, so there. 0:28:38.880 --> 0:28:41.880 Was an IDEF company there under a I think it 0:28:41.960 --> 0:28:45.200 was a full brigadier, and there's a war going on naturally, Yeah, 0:28:45.240 --> 0:28:49.440 all the time, gunships and katouoscha's passing each other over 0:28:49.480 --> 0:28:53.640 our heads. So when we had the three lads transfer 0:28:53.680 --> 0:28:56.040 over to our colleagues from Jerusalem, I stood in front 0:28:56.080 --> 0:28:58.840 of the IDF brigadier and I lined up all the 0:28:58.920 --> 0:29:00.480 uent troops and it says, we're not and have a 0:29:00.520 --> 0:29:03.240 minute silence and memory of our friends who were murdered 0:29:03.240 --> 0:29:06.600 on the cause of peace, and no having a minute 0:29:06.640 --> 0:29:09.680 silence them in the middle of a battle is not 0:29:10.240 --> 0:29:13.600 a no experience. In fairness to this guy, he stood 0:29:13.640 --> 0:29:16.680 to attention, and because I lived in Tiberias, I had 0:29:16.880 --> 0:29:19.400 a small bit of Hebrew, and I went over afterwards 0:29:19.440 --> 0:29:23.560 and thanked them for his respect. And we didn't find 0:29:23.680 --> 0:29:26.480 the fourth body on the laughter sease fire Jesus. 0:29:27.440 --> 0:29:30.840 Yeah, yeah, that's rough. Sorry, that's terrible to think about. 0:29:31.120 --> 0:29:33.560 So the obvious question is, I know, what the one 0:29:33.600 --> 0:29:37.480 you want to add? Why I should have said that 0:29:37.520 --> 0:29:39.680 at the start? Anything I say here, it's it's my 0:29:40.000 --> 0:29:44.600 personal opinion. So it can't be construed as being the 0:29:44.680 --> 0:29:47.320 views of the Irish Defense Forces, yes, of course, are 0:29:47.360 --> 0:29:49.360 certainly not the views of the Niger nations. Are my 0:29:49.440 --> 0:29:52.280 personal views. So you know, people should just take it 0:29:52.280 --> 0:29:55.160 that it's it's Kevin McDonald describing what happened to him 0:29:55.440 --> 0:29:58.600 and what his personal views on it are. So why 0:29:58.640 --> 0:29:59.120 did they do it? 0:29:59.120 --> 0:29:59.280 Well? 0:29:59.560 --> 0:30:02.000 I think there's a couple of things. Hubris is one. 0:30:02.640 --> 0:30:05.320 I think at that stage they were like a schoolyard 0:30:05.360 --> 0:30:08.000 bully who got better and wanted to lash out of 0:30:08.120 --> 0:30:12.800 anything and everything. A second, probably more tactical reason is 0:30:12.840 --> 0:30:16.160 that the village of kim Is on a ridge, would say, 0:30:16.200 --> 0:30:18.200 at the end of the Redge Ridge, closest to Israel, 0:30:18.200 --> 0:30:20.040 because it's only about four miles away, is where this 0:30:20.440 --> 0:30:22.680 op was. And that's the reason that was there. And 0:30:22.800 --> 0:30:26.640 between Kam and we say, the frontier with Israel is 0:30:26.760 --> 0:30:29.640 the Hula Valley, which is the biggest maneuver space. If 0:30:29.640 --> 0:30:32.080 you want to maneuver armor and stuff into Lebanon with 0:30:32.240 --> 0:30:35.920 plenty of space, that's where you do it. In fact, 0:30:36.200 --> 0:30:38.680 beside it is an old Vichy French airfield from the 0:30:38.720 --> 0:30:41.480 Second World War, so it's low space and I think 0:30:41.520 --> 0:30:44.800 they didn't want eyes on the ground seeing what they 0:30:44.800 --> 0:30:47.000 were doing. And like one of the things. 0:30:46.760 --> 0:30:49.600 For mility observers is you observe in your report. That's 0:30:49.600 --> 0:30:50.000 your task. 0:30:51.120 --> 0:30:55.000 So was there Hesbola in the area around the around 0:30:55.120 --> 0:30:58.440 the op, Yes, there was, But as you probably know, 0:30:58.680 --> 0:31:01.400 if you want to attack true in the open, you 0:31:01.560 --> 0:31:04.720 use airburst artillery shells, which the Israeli is dated in 0:31:04.760 --> 0:31:06.920 nineteen ninety six when they fired fifteen of them into 0:31:06.960 --> 0:31:09.480 a UN battalion head quarters, killing one hundred and six 0:31:09.520 --> 0:31:12.640 eleven these men, women and children. See Conceultu shelter in 0:31:12.720 --> 0:31:15.640 the UN headquarters. Yeah, what you don't fire a bunk 0:31:15.680 --> 0:31:19.320 or bust and missile into a UN post to attack Hesbulla. 0:31:19.520 --> 0:31:22.840 The's subtle difference. Yeah, there's a huge difference. Yeah. I 0:31:22.880 --> 0:31:26.280 suppose what people will ask is like it's I think 0:31:26.280 --> 0:31:27.920 it's important to explain this from the point of view 0:31:27.960 --> 0:31:31.040 of someone on the ground, it is obviously un troops 0:31:31.080 --> 0:31:33.800 are not there to fight, they're there to keep peace. 0:31:34.000 --> 0:31:37.920 But they are an armed presence, and so they'll wonder 0:31:38.080 --> 0:31:42.160 how or why the un can or can't defend itself 0:31:42.720 --> 0:31:47.080 the uniform troops specifically in these positions. So, like, can 0:31:47.120 --> 0:31:50.880 you explain how your rules of engagement and how that 0:31:50.960 --> 0:31:54.040 works for from the sort of on the ground perspective. 0:31:54.400 --> 0:31:56.760 Okay, Well, the rules of engagement we said for a 0:31:56.760 --> 0:31:59.960 peacekeeper mission, like we pack on so to onside because 0:32:00.080 --> 0:32:01.440 they're unarmed, but for. 0:32:01.400 --> 0:32:02.320 A peacekeeping mission. 0:32:03.440 --> 0:32:09.000 So peacekeeping is generally based on three principles consent, impartiality, 0:32:09.520 --> 0:32:12.160 and the use of force in self defense of the mandate. 0:32:12.480 --> 0:32:15.280 So naturally, like the guys there at the moment aren't 0:32:15.320 --> 0:32:17.680 going to try and take on through or former KAFA tanks. 0:32:18.000 --> 0:32:21.880 First of all, they don't have the capability. 0:32:21.560 --> 0:32:24.560 To to it. Yeah, that's an interesting Do they not 0:32:24.720 --> 0:32:27.440 have the guinances? That's fine? Do they have for instance, 0:32:27.520 --> 0:32:29.520 javelin and things like that? Do they have those weapons 0:32:29.520 --> 0:32:30.520 systems available? 0:32:32.120 --> 0:32:34.840 I'm not sure what they have currently. Certainly we didn't 0:32:34.880 --> 0:32:38.760 have okay, and it wasn't ever going to be an 0:32:38.840 --> 0:32:41.760 issue because that's kind of not our job. 0:32:42.480 --> 0:32:42.640 Like that. 0:32:42.800 --> 0:32:45.520 The sole responsibility to protect the people of Leblon is 0:32:45.520 --> 0:32:48.560 the Lebanese government. Uniful is there to assist. It's not 0:32:48.600 --> 0:32:52.080 there to say, okay, you step back, we stemmed up 0:32:52.080 --> 0:32:55.600 and protect you. That's not what Uniful or any peacekeeping mission. 0:32:56.040 --> 0:33:01.560 The only peacekeeping mission that eventually had enough offensive capability 0:33:02.040 --> 0:33:04.840 built into its mandate was the mission that's now closing 0:33:04.920 --> 0:33:07.880 down in the DRC, the Democratic Republic of the Congo 0:33:08.200 --> 0:33:12.600 and it's MENUSCO, and they specifically changed the mandate to 0:33:12.680 --> 0:33:16.480 include an offensive capability to go after them twenty three 0:33:16.520 --> 0:33:19.720 rebels in the Kivus in sort of the northeast and 0:33:19.760 --> 0:33:21.959 when they did it, like you know, attack helicopter special 0:33:22.000 --> 0:33:25.960 forces a lot. Yeah, it was quite effective. But which 0:33:26.040 --> 0:33:28.040 kind of brings me to another point because I just 0:33:28.160 --> 0:33:30.200 last year I completed a Masters in Peace and Conflict 0:33:30.240 --> 0:33:33.560 Studies and mandates was the evolution of mandates is what 0:33:33.720 --> 0:33:37.360 I sort of looked at, and having wrote bus mandates 0:33:37.640 --> 0:33:40.280 is all well and good, but the TCCs, the true 0:33:40.280 --> 0:33:43.880 contriping countries have to have the ability, the capability of 0:33:43.920 --> 0:33:46.840 the training and the will to carry out the robust 0:33:46.920 --> 0:33:50.080 nature of the mandate. So you know, we were saying 0:33:50.120 --> 0:33:53.200 in Ireland paper never refuses, inc. You can put whatever 0:33:53.200 --> 0:33:55.440 you want into a mandate, but you have to be 0:33:55.520 --> 0:33:59.800 able to effectively implement the mandate. Yeah, and I think 0:34:00.080 --> 0:34:02.800 and that's that's the reason that that maybe people are 0:34:02.880 --> 0:34:06.840 kind of broad in how mandates are written, but that's 0:34:07.120 --> 0:34:10.600 that's that's for someone we're further up to food chain 0:34:10.640 --> 0:34:10.920 the moon. 0:34:11.520 --> 0:34:24.800 Yeah, So for those like the people on the ground 0:34:24.840 --> 0:34:28.319 then and now that's not a great deal. They can do, right, 0:34:28.360 --> 0:34:30.800 They can attempt to ask the idea have to stop, 0:34:30.840 --> 0:34:33.960 which they did, which has historically not work. And they 0:34:33.960 --> 0:34:36.359 can take shelter in their bunkers, which they did, which 0:34:36.880 --> 0:34:39.280 it's only helpful that they're not going to use bunker 0:34:39.320 --> 0:34:42.880 busting missiles to to des try that bunker. So, like 0:34:43.719 --> 0:34:46.080 it must be terrible. Like it's one thing to be 0:34:46.080 --> 0:34:48.600 engaged in combat with someone, especially if you're a soldier, 0:34:48.640 --> 0:34:51.719 bro it's another thing. And I found myself in this 0:34:51.760 --> 0:34:55.200 situation last year to be effectively like I'm able to respond. 0:34:55.719 --> 0:34:59.240 I'm thinking here of the Turkish drone bombing and fighter 0:34:59.320 --> 0:35:02.640 jets and as in Syria where I was, but it's 0:35:02.680 --> 0:35:04.719 a horrible thing to be in that situation, and is 0:35:04.760 --> 0:35:08.000 it for those peacekeepers? It must be a really difficult 0:35:08.080 --> 0:35:08.640 place to be. 0:35:09.080 --> 0:35:11.160 Well, it is, yeah, and of course you know that 0:35:11.480 --> 0:35:14.279 they're all conscious of the fact that their families back 0:35:14.320 --> 0:35:16.320 in Ireland are fully. 0:35:16.040 --> 0:35:17.480 Aware of what's going on. 0:35:17.520 --> 0:35:23.319 And yeah, shortly after the invasion, the IDEF decided that 0:35:23.640 --> 0:35:26.600 they're told usually for the want of them out essentially, 0:35:27.000 --> 0:35:31.319 and not just the Irish, but but what other nationalities 0:35:31.320 --> 0:35:34.359 that were not going, you know, So the idea if 0:35:34.600 --> 0:35:37.279 everywhere they go in Lebanon, the first vehicle is a 0:35:37.320 --> 0:35:40.640 dena in Bolthozer because that is more robust than a 0:35:40.680 --> 0:35:44.200 marcava and it can also very quickly throw up earth 0:35:44.239 --> 0:35:47.560 and ramparts to sort of you know, protect from direct fire. 0:35:47.760 --> 0:35:49.400 Yeah, the idea of troops. 0:35:49.560 --> 0:35:53.320 So they decided that they would literally conjoin an IDEAF 0:35:53.400 --> 0:35:56.760 position to the Irish position, hoping that they could intimidate 0:35:56.800 --> 0:36:00.200 the Irish into leaving. And the position's name was six 0:36:00.320 --> 0:36:04.120 ash five two, very close to the frontier. Ironically, when 0:36:04.360 --> 0:36:07.799 the Israelis withdrew in two thousand, they recognized that this 0:36:07.840 --> 0:36:10.120 particular area was what we in the minute would call 0:36:10.200 --> 0:36:14.880 key terrain because that area overlooked a vulnerable part of 0:36:15.120 --> 0:36:18.880 northern Israel, villages like Avavem and a few others. So 0:36:18.960 --> 0:36:21.439 the idea to requested UNIFIL to put a position there 0:36:21.719 --> 0:36:24.960 which would say stop has bulletin put in the position there, 0:36:26.239 --> 0:36:28.640 and then suddenly they're up close and personal, trying to 0:36:28.640 --> 0:36:33.319 intimidate the Irish and other nationalities as well. Yeah, so 0:36:33.600 --> 0:36:35.840 it's one of the things, and I think one of 0:36:35.840 --> 0:36:38.919 the reasons that they didn't want unifilled, and there's about 0:36:38.920 --> 0:36:42.760 twenty small of these small positions, mainly close to the frontier. 0:36:44.000 --> 0:36:46.319 I think one of the reasons that they and again 0:36:46.360 --> 0:36:48.960 this is a personal point of view, I think one 0:36:49.000 --> 0:36:51.960 of the reasons that they didn't want UNIFIL in any 0:36:52.000 --> 0:36:55.040 of these positions was eighty turn it into a free 0:36:55.040 --> 0:36:59.200 fire zone would be. One of the things that UNIFORD 0:36:59.239 --> 0:37:01.600 is supposed to do is to monitor and report, monitor 0:37:01.680 --> 0:37:03.680 and observe, and of course if you're not there, you 0:37:03.680 --> 0:37:06.160 can't do it. That's actually one of the things that 0:37:06.160 --> 0:37:09.160 the Uniform, even though they're hunkred in their bases, would 0:37:09.200 --> 0:37:12.680 with very little mobility, they can still monitor and observe 0:37:13.200 --> 0:37:14.840 what's happening in the general area. 0:37:15.000 --> 0:37:15.480 Yeah. 0:37:15.600 --> 0:37:17.440 Now, I would say in the case of Disposition six 0:37:17.520 --> 0:37:22.239 A five to two, if the ideas ultimately gain our 0:37:22.320 --> 0:37:25.640 goal was to take a major has been a stronghold 0:37:25.640 --> 0:37:28.920 which is called Binchabael, that's a good further north than disposition, 0:37:29.040 --> 0:37:32.759 so that the focus of attention would move on from 0:37:32.880 --> 0:37:35.839 with the our guys and go a wee bit further north. 0:37:36.440 --> 0:37:41.680 Yeah, So that's sort of where they find themselves now, right, 0:37:41.880 --> 0:37:45.560 is these can you explain like you've got these positions 0:37:45.600 --> 0:37:47.759 along the frontier and then you've got the headquarters that 0:37:47.800 --> 0:37:51.640 you just mentioned two days ago have been infringed by 0:37:51.640 --> 0:37:54.400 a bulldizer attacked, depends how you want to say it. 0:37:54.880 --> 0:37:57.280 Well, it makes a change from having a tankerun fired 0:37:57.320 --> 0:38:00.320 into an op which they didn't yeah a few days previously. 0:38:01.080 --> 0:38:03.439 Yeah, and they've done consistently right for for a month 0:38:03.560 --> 0:38:07.759 or so. Now is firing directly into these observing positions? 0:38:08.520 --> 0:38:11.920 Are these positions that are now? Are they left isolated 0:38:11.960 --> 0:38:15.040 as the idef wull advance passed and around them and 0:38:15.080 --> 0:38:17.200 in addition to biring directly at. 0:38:17.040 --> 0:38:21.239 Them, there's somewhat isolated. Now all these positions would be 0:38:21.280 --> 0:38:24.960 well stocked with water and emergency rations and stuff like that. 0:38:25.600 --> 0:38:28.480 And as I mentioned before, UNIFIL do have a liaison 0:38:28.520 --> 0:38:31.680 branch which I'm sure are talking to the idea IF 0:38:32.320 --> 0:38:37.560 on an early basis, and they will coordinate the movements 0:38:37.560 --> 0:38:41.399 of UNIFIL with say, supply their positions or I think 0:38:41.480 --> 0:38:44.439 last week they had a convoy went into the city 0:38:44.480 --> 0:38:48.799 of Tier, which is probably twelve k from the headquarters, 0:38:49.360 --> 0:38:54.720 to distribute aid, especially medical aid, because tiers getting fairly weacked, 0:38:55.239 --> 0:38:57.840 like all of the self, I suppose, so there is 0:38:57.880 --> 0:39:02.120 engagement to make sure that these posts are like completely isolated, 0:39:02.120 --> 0:39:05.600 that that there is a means of doing resupply. 0:39:06.040 --> 0:39:08.680 Yeah, it's real, stopped one of those at some point, 0:39:08.719 --> 0:39:10.959 didn't it, Like was it a resupply and movement. 0:39:11.360 --> 0:39:14.040 The stop things that are on a regular basis. As 0:39:14.080 --> 0:39:18.160 I said, there is interaction, like nothing happens in the vacuum, 0:39:18.320 --> 0:39:22.400 like we said, Yeah, the Irish Italian headquarters would not 0:39:22.480 --> 0:39:25.919 send a convoy to Sixtas five two without it being 0:39:26.360 --> 0:39:29.120 communicated to the Israelis and saying we're going to go 0:39:29.160 --> 0:39:33.040 on three vehicles that or seven hundred hours blah blah blah, 0:39:33.480 --> 0:39:37.000 and and and get the confirmation back that yeah, that's okay, 0:39:37.440 --> 0:39:40.520 because you know, they mentioned the foul the war, and 0:39:40.560 --> 0:39:43.480 that that's all from the fairly real as you can 0:39:43.480 --> 0:39:44.200 imagine yourself. 0:39:44.719 --> 0:39:45.719 It's a fairly real. 0:39:47.280 --> 0:39:50.880 Thing that happens, you know sometimes you know, yeah, instructions 0:39:51.360 --> 0:39:55.759 don't get passed down, or sometimes instructions are ignored for 0:39:55.800 --> 0:39:58.080 whatever reason. So it's it's a bit of a delicate, 0:39:58.440 --> 0:40:03.080 delicate balancing act. But from what I understand, it's working well. 0:40:03.600 --> 0:40:06.000 That's good. Yeah, yeah, And I think it's working well 0:40:06.000 --> 0:40:09.560 in terms of like what's happening in Lebanon is bad 0:40:09.920 --> 0:40:12.759 and it'd be better if it wasn't. But it's not 0:40:13.520 --> 0:40:15.960 at the same tier as it has been in Gaza. 0:40:16.560 --> 0:40:18.720 No, you're looking at maybe three and a half thousand 0:40:18.719 --> 0:40:20.759 compared to forty three and a half thousand kild. 0:40:21.280 --> 0:40:25.120 Yeah, and so many of those being civilians, right, people 0:40:25.120 --> 0:40:31.360 who absolutely no business targeting, and like that genocidal violence 0:40:31.400 --> 0:40:34.239 that we've seen in Gaza hasn't come to Lebanon, and 0:40:34.239 --> 0:40:36.399 in part I think we can attribute that to their 0:40:36.440 --> 0:40:39.239 being observed. Is there is that fair to say? I 0:40:39.280 --> 0:40:40.080 think it's a fair point. 0:40:40.800 --> 0:40:44.759 Of course, there's no real the UN footprint in Gaza. 0:40:45.360 --> 0:40:49.719 My understanding is it's extremely extremely light. Yeah, and as 0:40:49.760 --> 0:40:53.840 you know that would say banished genre, Yeah, whereas I 0:40:53.880 --> 0:40:56.920 mean unifor the ten thousand troops in southern Lebanon. So 0:40:57.239 --> 0:41:02.600 there's very much more, maybe a more consciousness, but they're 0:41:02.600 --> 0:41:06.359 still flattin in the place. But it's in terms of 0:41:06.800 --> 0:41:10.560 civilian casualties. As we said, it's not going on as 0:41:10.600 --> 0:41:14.360 long as Gaza either, but on the we'ld say the 0:41:14.400 --> 0:41:17.799 combat front, but not exactly having things the wrong way either. 0:41:18.200 --> 0:41:19.840 They've been trying to take the village of Kian for 0:41:19.920 --> 0:41:23.000 the last I think two weeks, and my understanding is 0:41:23.040 --> 0:41:25.920 that haven't have destroyed it, right, but they haven't taken it. 0:41:25.960 --> 0:41:30.440 And it was like in two thousand and six they 0:41:30.440 --> 0:41:33.000 claimed that the town of ben Chebail was the Hesibla 0:41:33.080 --> 0:41:35.160 capital of the South, which and suppose't the way it was, 0:41:35.640 --> 0:41:36.840 but the turn of then draws me. 0:41:36.880 --> 0:41:39.520 But they never controlled it. They were still getting. 0:41:39.440 --> 0:41:43.399 Attacked, you know, days after they had seized it. 0:41:44.080 --> 0:41:44.239 Right. 0:41:44.320 --> 0:41:47.840 Yeah, they've never really established like control or like monopoly 0:41:47.920 --> 0:41:50.640 and on violence in the area. And yeah, they've not 0:41:50.680 --> 0:41:53.560 done that this time. And I think I suppose the 0:41:53.640 --> 0:41:56.759 last thing I wanted to ask about is like we've 0:41:56.800 --> 0:41:59.359 just talked about like why this mission is important, and 0:41:59.400 --> 0:42:01.879 we've spoken about for like you had your family there 0:42:01.960 --> 0:42:06.560 when they were being bombed, and like this investment in 0:42:07.239 --> 0:42:10.120 being there in Lebanon, being alongside the Lebanese people in 0:42:10.480 --> 0:42:13.560 your case with your own family, like it's it's one 0:42:13.560 --> 0:42:17.319 that island has had for a long time. Ireland has historically, 0:42:17.680 --> 0:42:21.640 amongst European nations, been much better on the rights of 0:42:21.680 --> 0:42:27.040 Palestine and Palestinian people than most European nations. How is 0:42:27.120 --> 0:42:30.880 this peacekeeping mission perceived in Ireland? Like, are people proud 0:42:30.920 --> 0:42:31.640 that they're there? 0:42:32.280 --> 0:42:32.440 Oh? 0:42:32.480 --> 0:42:33.520 Yeah, oh, hugely proud. 0:42:34.200 --> 0:42:38.320 And and you know, the Irish have always been extremely 0:42:38.360 --> 0:42:42.160 proud of what our defense forces have achieved, despite us 0:42:42.239 --> 0:42:44.880 being a very small defense forces. Like I think at 0:42:44.920 --> 0:42:49.719 the moment between the Navy, the Army and the Air 0:42:49.760 --> 0:42:51.879 Corps were probably looking at in total. 0:42:53.560 --> 0:42:55.120 Total, well, yeah, very small. 0:42:55.480 --> 0:42:58.480 And then we're overseas in a lot of places as well, 0:42:58.520 --> 0:43:00.719 so like the doc Dad from the nine, you're probably 0:43:00.760 --> 0:43:04.080 down to eight. Yeah, but we do tend to punch 0:43:04.160 --> 0:43:08.400 up over with internationally. We obviously had no colonial baggage, 0:43:08.440 --> 0:43:12.960 which affects some other countries. Yes, and I think generally speaking, 0:43:13.160 --> 0:43:15.880 we're seeing as a I'm not sure if annest Brooker 0:43:15.960 --> 0:43:19.040 is the right word, but certainly not as threatening and not. 0:43:19.000 --> 0:43:22.440 Coming with an agenda, right yeah. 0:43:21.600 --> 0:43:24.200 Whereas other other countries might have a certain agenda for 0:43:24.360 --> 0:43:28.880 whatever political reasons at home. And it's certainly in Ireland 0:43:28.920 --> 0:43:30.760 s caes As I said, we were there from seventy 0:43:30.800 --> 0:43:33.279 eight two thousand and now from two thousand and six 0:43:33.400 --> 0:43:36.319 to present day, and a lot of it has been 0:43:36.360 --> 0:43:40.200 in the same general area, so people would know Irish soldiers. 0:43:40.440 --> 0:43:43.200 Some Lebanese talk with an Irish accent. I've heard that. Yeah, yeah, 0:43:43.239 --> 0:43:46.080 it's mad. Yeah, yeah, it's true. 0:43:47.000 --> 0:43:51.000 And depending on what part of Ireland the troops were from, 0:43:51.480 --> 0:43:53.359 you could even go further down, like some of them 0:43:53.360 --> 0:43:55.839 talk with a very broad Dublin accent. Some of them 0:43:55.840 --> 0:43:59.719 would talk with a very broad Cork accent. Because of 0:43:59.719 --> 0:44:02.480 that interaction. And I know one of the first big 0:44:02.520 --> 0:44:05.719 projects the Irish did, certainly from the early yearies, was 0:44:05.760 --> 0:44:10.600 to build an orphanage in a provincial capital coll tip name, 0:44:10.960 --> 0:44:13.920 and they've been doing that even when we know troops there, 0:44:14.080 --> 0:44:17.040 guys were still sending money and toys and everything. That's 0:44:17.080 --> 0:44:18.480 been demolished last week. 0:44:19.360 --> 0:44:24.520 For Jesus An Orphanage. It's like storybook evil stuff, isn't it. 0:44:24.600 --> 0:44:28.759 Like, Yeah, well, you know, it's just there's a lot 0:44:28.760 --> 0:44:30.239 of evil stuff going on in the Middle East at 0:44:30.239 --> 0:44:31.200 the moment, unfortunately. 0:44:31.520 --> 0:44:35.760 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean I've personally seen hospitals bombed 0:44:35.760 --> 0:44:38.360 and all that kind of stuff myself, and it sometimes 0:44:38.400 --> 0:44:40.840 doesn't even make the news. I mean that Orphanage evidently 0:44:40.880 --> 0:44:44.160 didn't really make my news. Diet Kevin, thank you very 0:44:44.239 --> 0:44:46.680 much for sharing some of your experiences over there, and 0:44:47.040 --> 0:44:48.399 I'd love to have you on again to talk about 0:44:48.400 --> 0:44:50.440 the things you've the work you've done in Africa and 0:44:50.560 --> 0:44:53.520 the line after leven. And you've written a book right 0:44:53.600 --> 0:44:57.520 about your experiences peacekeeping and other things. Where could people 0:44:57.560 --> 0:44:57.960 find that? 0:44:58.280 --> 0:45:02.240 Okay, So this initially starting off as a lockdown project 0:45:02.440 --> 0:45:05.279 during the COVID lockdown in the Central African Republican And 0:45:05.280 --> 0:45:08.080 initially it was just from my wife and family. But 0:45:08.239 --> 0:45:10.799 as it starts writing, you kind of started remembering and 0:45:11.200 --> 0:45:14.800 it's not just your typical military guy tell us about 0:45:14.800 --> 0:45:17.520 how Bravey was. I have a separate career in mountaineering 0:45:17.560 --> 0:45:19.799 and a separate career in archaeology. As well, So it's 0:45:19.800 --> 0:45:25.040 a kind of a much more different missimash of of 0:45:25.160 --> 0:45:27.840 stuff going on. So that the book is called a 0:45:27.840 --> 0:45:31.160 Lifeless Ordinary and it can be purchased online at male 0:45:31.239 --> 0:45:31.919 Books Dot. 0:45:31.960 --> 0:45:37.000 I m a y orb Orchas. Yeah, I like that balance. 0:45:37.040 --> 0:45:40.000 I've always thought that, like, I'll go somewhere and I'll 0:45:40.000 --> 0:45:42.640 write about the worst things I saw there and the 0:45:42.680 --> 0:45:45.320 worst days I had there, and that'll be my story. 0:45:45.440 --> 0:45:47.960 But I've always wanted to write about the mountains of 0:45:48.080 --> 0:45:51.960 Kurdistan are beautiful and I really loved being there, and 0:45:52.000 --> 0:45:55.040 there are other places that people think of them as wars, 0:45:55.080 --> 0:45:57.799 not countries, and I think it would be I'd love 0:45:57.840 --> 0:46:01.359 to write about mountaineering back acting in these places where 0:46:01.719 --> 0:46:03.959 often it's really sad that you don't get to share 0:46:04.000 --> 0:46:06.120 that part. Read. I'll write about this in the book. 0:46:06.160 --> 0:46:10.080 I mean, like, I've lived a few times in Lebanon, 0:46:10.320 --> 0:46:12.840 and I've lived and worked in Jerusalem a few times, 0:46:13.960 --> 0:46:16.720 and it's a fascinating region. Oh yeah, and the people 0:46:16.800 --> 0:46:20.440 on in both countries some I have some really good 0:46:20.480 --> 0:46:22.400 friends in Israel and have some really good friends in Lebanon, 0:46:22.800 --> 0:46:26.560 and I've been treated extremely well by people in both countries. 0:46:27.200 --> 0:46:30.600 Certainly if you've an interest in archaeology to be else 0:46:30.680 --> 0:46:33.200 could put ship not want to be? You know, like 0:46:33.600 --> 0:46:36.320 the Phoenicians in Tier, and no matter where you go 0:46:36.360 --> 0:46:38.400 in Tier, you can pick up Roman partially or you 0:46:38.440 --> 0:46:43.759 can see all these amazing sights, whether it's from the Phoenicians, 0:46:43.760 --> 0:46:47.400 from the Romans, from the Crusaders, it's just it's all 0:46:47.440 --> 0:46:48.080 there in front of you. 0:46:48.520 --> 0:46:51.279 Yeah, yeah, cratile of civilization there. Well, thank you so 0:46:51.360 --> 0:46:54.320 much for showing your experiences, Kevin, thanks so much. Okays, 0:47:27.600 --> 0:47:31.120 about twenty years ago, maybe thirty, a circus fitted to Majoro, 0:47:31.800 --> 0:47:34.840 the largest island on the Marjorro Atoll, in the capital 0:47:34.880 --> 0:47:38.680 city of the Marshall Islands. They came to Majoro, as 0:47:38.719 --> 0:47:42.600 almost everything that isn't breadfruit, pandanas or fish does on 0:47:42.680 --> 0:47:47.120 a boat. After performing, they couldn't find a boat to 0:47:47.160 --> 0:47:50.040 take them to the next destination, and so the resident 0:47:50.120 --> 0:47:52.760 of this tiny island, which at times is no wider 0:47:52.800 --> 0:47:56.240 than the single road which travels its whole length, decided 0:47:56.280 --> 0:47:58.200 that they'd have to share the food that they themselves 0:47:58.200 --> 0:48:02.719 had imported a great cost, and they set about gathering apples, bananas, 0:48:02.960 --> 0:48:05.000 and anything else that they thought an elephant might like 0:48:05.080 --> 0:48:07.320 to eat while it waited for a way off an island. 0:48:07.760 --> 0:48:09.640 The belly has enough for im for his own people, 0:48:10.200 --> 0:48:14.240 let alone the largest land animal on earth. The people 0:48:14.280 --> 0:48:17.399 of the Marshall Islands, for whom hospitality is as natural 0:48:17.440 --> 0:48:20.000 as the tides are to see, greet each other the 0:48:20.040 --> 0:48:24.279 same way they do strangers, by saying your quay. The 0:48:24.320 --> 0:48:28.080 word has several meanings, but I'll let David Kabua explain them. 0:48:28.360 --> 0:48:30.440 He's the President of the Republic of the Marshal Islands, 0:48:30.440 --> 0:48:31.840 so he seems like he'd be a good source. 0:48:32.280 --> 0:48:38.400 I would say the word yuppet, yuppe, our greating word yaguey. 0:48:40.440 --> 0:48:43.920 There's a lot of several meanings, and you can't say 0:48:44.120 --> 0:48:47.759 when you meet someone first time, you say yagoehe when 0:48:47.760 --> 0:48:50.600 you greet someone, and when you also say goodbye, instead 0:48:50.640 --> 0:48:57.239 of saying goodbye, you also say yape, so you can instead. Also, 0:48:59.080 --> 0:49:04.319 like the weekend, there was a tournament, fishing tournament, and 0:49:04.400 --> 0:49:07.239 if you were fishing and you got it. You have 0:49:07.320 --> 0:49:12.640 a big fish on the land and you really you're 0:49:12.680 --> 0:49:15.839 about to land the fish, but the land snap. So 0:49:15.920 --> 0:49:16.439 what do you say? 0:49:16.480 --> 0:49:16.640 Say? 0:49:16.760 --> 0:49:20.520 Oh, yeah, way and hello to the fish. 0:49:20.560 --> 0:49:23.280 But you just say yeah, because you lost the big catch. 0:49:23.800 --> 0:49:26.279 So it can't be used that way, like when you 0:49:26.360 --> 0:49:28.920 lose someone or someone passed away. 0:49:29.640 --> 0:49:30.880 You've missed that prison. 0:49:31.040 --> 0:49:33.080 Yup way, so and so he was here but no 0:49:33.080 --> 0:49:35.160 one could hear, so we can said yeh way. 0:49:35.800 --> 0:49:37.160 So it has several meanings. 0:49:37.200 --> 0:49:41.640 But the deeper meaning of yuppay is you are beautiful 0:49:41.680 --> 0:49:47.080 like the rainbow. Yeah means rainbow and ways, so we 0:49:47.200 --> 0:49:50.239 combine the two words, you are a rainbow and you 0:49:50.280 --> 0:49:51.640 are beautiful as a rainbow. 0:49:52.640 --> 0:49:55.160 On the map, the Marshall Islands looked like the little 0:49:55.200 --> 0:49:57.840 dots that appear in my photos of the beach at Margie. 0:49:59.000 --> 0:50:01.399 But unlike there's little of dust that managed to slink 0:50:01.440 --> 0:50:04.759 their way onto my camera center, Marshall Islands belong here. 0:50:05.680 --> 0:50:09.200 Here is a pretty vague turn. The twenty nine coral 0:50:09.239 --> 0:50:13.040 atolls and five islands that allow fifty four thousand Marshalies 0:50:13.120 --> 0:50:15.360 to live on one hundred and eighty two square kilometers 0:50:15.360 --> 0:50:19.400 of land span an oceanic territory of two hundred thousand kilometers. 0:50:20.200 --> 0:50:23.160 It's like you took a small American town and scattered 0:50:23.200 --> 0:50:25.080 it across an area more than a half times the 0:50:25.120 --> 0:50:28.759 size of Alaska. Even though the Rami is ninety eight 0:50:28.760 --> 0:50:32.560 percent water, every inch of land is precious to the Marshalies, 0:50:32.920 --> 0:50:36.560 whose matrilonial society ensures that land passes from mother to 0:50:36.680 --> 0:50:39.839 daughter and ties families to the remote islands that make 0:50:39.920 --> 0:50:43.319 up the low lying atolls of the Republic. It was 0:50:43.360 --> 0:50:45.160 on one of the bigger chunks of land that I 0:50:45.200 --> 0:50:48.920 recorded the music you heard a minute ago. Marjorro is 0:50:48.920 --> 0:50:52.040 an atoll that's a coral ring that encircles the lagoon 0:50:53.239 --> 0:50:56.360 and its biggest islands, about thirty miles long but often 0:50:56.520 --> 0:50:59.759 less than one hundred yards wide. There's one road that 0:50:59.800 --> 0:51:02.200 runs the length of it and sometimes also spans the 0:51:02.200 --> 0:51:04.960 width of it. It's also home to about half the 0:51:05.080 --> 0:51:09.279 Romised population. The highest point on the atoll lies just 0:51:09.320 --> 0:51:11.719 three meters above sea level. If you want to get 0:51:11.800 --> 0:51:14.480 higher than that, then you're only options are houses or 0:51:14.520 --> 0:51:17.719 palm trees. From the top of the fifth floor of 0:51:17.719 --> 0:51:21.160 the NAPA Auto Parts Store, which also houses the UNDP 0:51:21.560 --> 0:51:24.440 and the Marshal Arwns Olympic Committee, you can see the 0:51:24.440 --> 0:51:30.000 whole island for Marshallese people, these tiny pieces of paradise 0:51:30.040 --> 0:51:32.040 that barely poke their heads out. From the top of 0:51:32.080 --> 0:51:35.360 the ocean are everything. Their land and their ties to 0:51:35.440 --> 0:51:39.160 it defined them. Without their place, they can't be themselves. 0:51:40.719 --> 0:51:42.960 Even though many thousands of marshal Leise live in the 0:51:42.960 --> 0:51:46.520 diasper of the United States, they're still important handicrafts made 0:51:46.560 --> 0:51:49.920 from little shells and the outer islands and coconut husks. 0:51:51.080 --> 0:51:53.160 Many of them come back to the islands to retire, 0:51:54.680 --> 0:51:59.520 but slowly the ocean is taking those islands back. Rising 0:51:59.560 --> 0:52:02.480 sea level and more extreme tidal surges have placed this 0:52:02.600 --> 0:52:06.560 tiny Pacific nation on the front lines of climate change. 0:52:06.600 --> 0:52:08.839 There isn't an exact estimate as to how long the 0:52:08.840 --> 0:52:11.719 Marshall Islands have or what they can do to halt 0:52:11.760 --> 0:52:14.960 the creeping advance of the ocean. They've always existed on 0:52:15.080 --> 0:52:17.759 just a few square kilometers of land among millions of 0:52:17.760 --> 0:52:20.720 square kilometers of ocean, and they depend on that ocean 0:52:20.760 --> 0:52:23.760 for everything. But now it's threatening to take everything away 0:52:23.760 --> 0:52:27.880 from them one day. They fear their islands will become uninhabitable. 0:52:28.000 --> 0:52:31.080 A salt water invads of water table, and their trees die, 0:52:31.480 --> 0:52:34.560 while storms bring more and more frequent floods that sweep 0:52:34.560 --> 0:52:37.959 away their homes and their possessions. They don't want to leave, 0:52:38.520 --> 0:52:42.560 but they can't stand alone against climate change either. But 0:52:43.080 --> 0:52:46.440 the marshally Is are resilient people. They've weathered many storms 0:52:46.440 --> 0:52:49.240 to get to where they are now. The tiny museum 0:52:49.239 --> 0:52:53.120 in Madro hosts artifacts of several crises that would seem apocalyptic, 0:52:53.960 --> 0:52:58.239 a nuclear bomb, the Second World War, but in the 0:52:58.360 --> 0:53:01.600 end these did little decressing incredible kindness of the tenacity 0:53:01.640 --> 0:53:06.360 of the Marshalise. The islands that make up the Rami 0:53:06.800 --> 0:53:09.440 have been inhabited by indigenous people for thousands of years. 0:53:10.200 --> 0:53:14.279 They've been variously ruled by the Spanish, German, Japanese and 0:53:14.440 --> 0:53:20.360 United States governments before becoming an independent republic. Before they 0:53:20.400 --> 0:53:22.640 were named by a British sailor, the islands had their 0:53:22.680 --> 0:53:26.560 own name. I Let Jeff, a Marshal's renaissance man who 0:53:26.640 --> 0:53:29.200 was at one s driver, the head of the World 0:53:29.239 --> 0:53:33.360 Health Organization's EMT program on the islands, a registered nurse, 0:53:33.960 --> 0:53:36.960 and the Custodi uns. An incredible collection of marshalse music 0:53:37.400 --> 0:53:40.640 explained what they were called before that, or before he 0:53:40.760 --> 0:53:44.600 used to call la la la larli like. 0:53:46.280 --> 0:53:47.239 L or l. 0:53:49.600 --> 0:53:53.920 N l o lpluck lap lap. 0:53:55.120 --> 0:54:00.680 That's before it turned out turns into Marsham. Does this 0:54:01.120 --> 0:54:02.320 work Marshalls. 0:54:02.080 --> 0:54:07.320 Capes from this bad oh A found these islands. 0:54:07.560 --> 0:54:12.480 Captain Marshall undeniably, the Marshall Islands are not a bad 0:54:12.560 --> 0:54:15.680 place to find yourself on a summer afternoon, and in 0:54:15.680 --> 0:54:18.000 the time I spent there, I took several trips to 0:54:18.040 --> 0:54:21.880 the smaller islands around my dro atoll. They look like 0:54:21.880 --> 0:54:25.520 the Platonic idea of a tropical island, complete with coconut palms, 0:54:25.719 --> 0:54:30.040 vibrant coral reefs, white sand, and turquoise water. I love 0:54:30.080 --> 0:54:33.239 free diving and dropping down onto a wrecked aircraft and 0:54:33.280 --> 0:54:36.480 dozens of brightly colored species of fish in almost infinite 0:54:36.560 --> 0:54:39.279 visibility without even needing to put on a wet to 0:54:39.440 --> 0:54:41.359 or a weight belt. Might be the closest I'll ever 0:54:41.400 --> 0:54:44.440 get to flying. But I wasn't just here for a 0:54:44.440 --> 0:54:47.000 dip in the ocean. I'm actually here to tell you 0:54:47.040 --> 0:54:51.359 a story of incredible resilience. Much of America, both on 0:54:51.400 --> 0:54:53.520 the left and on the right, spends much of its 0:54:53.520 --> 0:54:56.360 time and money preparing for its own imagined version of 0:54:56.400 --> 0:54:59.960 the crisis. For some, that's the unimaginable destruction of duke 0:55:00.120 --> 0:55:03.040 a War. For others, it's the encroaching of the ocean 0:55:03.080 --> 0:55:05.040 on it's a land and the resulting loss of places 0:55:05.040 --> 0:55:07.600 to live and grow food, and for others, it's a 0:55:07.640 --> 0:55:10.400 collapse of basic services like power and clean water that 0:55:10.440 --> 0:55:14.000 we take for granted. These are all storms. So the 0:55:14.040 --> 0:55:17.320 tiny island nation who hath already weathered, and it hasn't 0:55:17.360 --> 0:55:19.799 done so in the atomized and individualistic way that so 0:55:19.840 --> 0:55:24.920 many American preppers fantasize about online. It's done so as 0:55:24.960 --> 0:55:29.640 an incredibly strong, optimistic, and welcoming community. There's a lot 0:55:29.640 --> 0:55:31.440 we can learn from the people of the Marshall Islands 0:55:31.440 --> 0:55:33.839 and their story, and so this week I'll be doing 0:55:33.840 --> 0:55:35.880 my best to share the stories that they shared with me. 0:55:39.560 --> 0:55:42.239 If you're familiar with the islands, it's likely because of 0:55:42.280 --> 0:55:44.759 the history of one of the other atolls in the group, 0:55:45.200 --> 0:55:49.040 Bikini Atoll. The name is the German bastardization of a 0:55:49.040 --> 0:55:54.200 Marshal lease word pikini pick meaning plain surface, and knee 0:55:54.320 --> 0:55:58.240 meaning coconut tree. It's a flat based where coconuts grere, 0:55:59.200 --> 0:56:01.920 but you likely don't know the island for its coconuts, 0:56:02.320 --> 0:56:05.520 and those aren't safe to eat anymore anyway. If you've 0:56:05.520 --> 0:56:08.160 heard of Bikinia Toll, it's because of what the United 0:56:08.200 --> 0:56:11.239 States did there after the Second World War. On the 0:56:11.280 --> 0:56:14.240 eighteenth of July and nineteen forty seven, the Marshall Islands 0:56:14.239 --> 0:56:17.240 were placed in a Strategic Trust Territory by the United Nations. 0:56:18.120 --> 0:56:20.880 This territory was administered by the United States, which are 0:56:20.880 --> 0:56:23.120 supposed to administer the islands in the best interest of 0:56:23.120 --> 0:56:27.520 their inhabitants out of international peace and security. But a 0:56:27.600 --> 0:56:30.160 year before the trust territory was created, the US began 0:56:30.480 --> 0:56:33.960 nuclear testing and the lagoon at Bikinia Toll, a site 0:56:33.960 --> 0:56:37.040 that would over the next fifteen years become the most 0:56:37.120 --> 0:56:40.920 heavily bombed place on Earth, with some islands entirely removed 0:56:40.920 --> 0:56:44.760 from the map and much of their population left dead, sick, 0:56:45.280 --> 0:56:47.640 without the land that defines them and their ability to 0:56:47.680 --> 0:56:50.280 thrive on these ti iny islands amidst the endless ocean. 0:56:51.400 --> 0:56:53.720 As far as possible, I want to let the Marshal 0:56:53.760 --> 0:56:57.520 Lease survivors of the nuclear tests and their families tell 0:56:57.560 --> 0:57:00.680 their own stories. They call what happened and don Bikini 0:57:00.680 --> 0:57:04.879 In and Awatakatoll the nuclear legacy of their country. Talking about 0:57:04.920 --> 0:57:07.400 the nuclear legacy is a difficult topic for the Marshallese, 0:57:08.000 --> 0:57:10.000 especially the time when none of them have been paid 0:57:10.040 --> 0:57:14.120 the compensation they were allotted, and the US was negotiating 0:57:14.160 --> 0:57:17.360 a new agreement with the Marshalise government. It was very 0:57:17.360 --> 0:57:19.800 far from settled and the numbers of the US were 0:57:19.840 --> 0:57:23.320 offering were very far from sufficient. I was very fortunate 0:57:23.360 --> 0:57:25.400 to join a few other journalists on the tiny island 0:57:25.400 --> 0:57:28.560 of boken bowten, a short boat right away from Mitro 0:57:29.160 --> 0:57:31.840 and home to perhaps most beautiful coral reef I've ever seen. 0:57:32.800 --> 0:57:35.920 We had lunch, walked around the island and then had 0:57:35.920 --> 0:57:38.400 a talk on the nuclear legacy from descendants of some 0:57:38.480 --> 0:57:41.400 of the survivors. I'll let them introduce themselves. 0:57:41.720 --> 0:57:47.960 My name is Zakabekibion. I'm from the Marshall Ellen. I 0:57:48.000 --> 0:57:51.440 am a student at CMI College of the Marshall Ellen 0:57:51.520 --> 0:57:54.720 and I am currently the president for the CMI Nuclear Club, 0:57:55.120 --> 0:58:02.320 which we mostly work under National Nuclear Commission with with 0:58:02.400 --> 0:58:06.120 our director Mary Sock and now our Commissioner Arianna. 0:58:07.920 --> 0:58:08.280 Allreat. 0:58:08.400 --> 0:58:08.560 Yeah. 0:58:08.600 --> 0:58:14.000 Well, once again, my name is Ariana. I work as 0:58:14.080 --> 0:58:18.000 a Commissioner and Nuclear Justice Envoy for the RMI National 0:58:18.080 --> 0:58:22.280 Nuclear Commission. Him once again, thank you very much for 0:58:22.320 --> 0:58:24.080 having us this afternoon. 0:58:24.320 --> 0:58:26.680 Yael, Welcome to the Marshall Island. 0:58:27.280 --> 0:58:28.600 My name is Evlin Ralpho. 0:58:28.600 --> 0:58:32.120 I'm the director for Education and Public Awareness. 0:58:32.440 --> 0:58:35.280 Once again, welcome, enjoy the rese of your days here. 0:58:37.680 --> 0:58:40.920 My name is sincerely in Pernet. I work with the 0:58:41.000 --> 0:58:45.040 National Nuclear Commission as an headman and physical officer. I'm 0:58:45.080 --> 0:58:47.400 not sure if it's necessary for me to come, but 0:58:47.520 --> 0:58:51.520 since the post that we all go so important, support 0:58:51.560 --> 0:58:54.520 the post go work on the same poet, Welcome to 0:58:54.560 --> 0:58:55.520 the Partial Islands. 0:58:56.200 --> 0:59:01.560 She's from Mayatta, She's from Yeah. The three of us 0:59:01.600 --> 0:59:06.640 are all descendants of nuclear survivors. They were exposed to 0:59:06.720 --> 0:59:10.160 fall out. Her mother was exposed to fall out. Her mother, 0:59:10.480 --> 0:59:14.320 Grace's mother was also exposed to the radioactive fallout, as 0:59:14.400 --> 0:59:17.880 well as my great grandfather. I think that's what really 0:59:19.320 --> 0:59:21.320 drives us to share this with you. 0:59:21.960 --> 0:59:25.120 Almost everyone in the RMI has a family member directly 0:59:25.160 --> 0:59:27.640 impacted by the testing and the decades of mistreatment that 0:59:27.680 --> 0:59:31.640 came after it. Although we know the name Bikini A Toll, 0:59:32.000 --> 0:59:36.520 the entire Republic was impacted by nuclear fallout, including Mardro itself, 0:59:37.280 --> 0:59:39.600 thanks to the elevised decision to drop bombs on a 0:59:39.680 --> 0:59:42.360 day when the populated atolls were downwind of the test site. 0:59:43.480 --> 0:59:46.280 In fact, right next to our hotel, showing the same 0:59:46.320 --> 0:59:50.480 parking lot. There's the US Department of Energy office. Hou's, Jeff, 0:59:50.480 --> 0:59:52.720 what that was doing there? Yeah? I saw there's a 0:59:52.760 --> 0:59:56.840 diary office health office on the street here. 0:59:57.320 --> 1:00:00.480 The one in the next to the autel, that's the 1:00:00.560 --> 1:00:04.800 office where they do the radiation testing. And there's the 1:00:04.800 --> 1:00:09.040 one near the AMI. R. Marshall that's the planet for 1:00:09.120 --> 1:00:14.560 those survivors. Now, the survivors, there's few of them, like 1:00:15.080 --> 1:00:16.800 maybe less than fifty. Wow. 1:00:17.200 --> 1:00:19.320 The RMI is saw fighting in the Second World War. 1:00:20.080 --> 1:00:26.200 It's memorialized in murals across Marjorro. In nineteen forty three 1:00:26.240 --> 1:00:28.680 and early nineteen forty four, the USA bombed and then 1:00:28.800 --> 1:00:32.280 fought the Imperial Japanese military who have been occupying the 1:00:32.320 --> 1:00:37.160 island since nineteen fourteen. US soldiers and Marines, along with 1:00:37.280 --> 1:00:41.800 marsh Lea's scouts, landed on Marjorro Quadulan in anywhere, took 1:00:42.120 --> 1:00:44.840 on Higgins boats that were virtually identical to the boat 1:00:44.840 --> 1:00:48.160 we took across the lagoon to Bocan Boten. The fighting 1:00:48.240 --> 1:00:52.440 was fierce and the scale of the destruction was a mets. Overall, 1:00:52.480 --> 1:00:55.480 the Americans lost six hundred and eleven men and suffered 1:00:55.480 --> 1:00:59.200 two thy three hundred and forty one wounded, two hundred 1:00:59.240 --> 1:01:03.640 and sixty one were missing. Meanwhile, the Japanese lost over 1:01:03.640 --> 1:01:09.440 eleven thousand men and had three hundred and fifty eight captured. Today, 1:01:09.720 --> 1:01:12.440 the Bikinia Toll Lagoon still holds the ghostly remains of 1:01:12.440 --> 1:01:17.320 the ships and plains that fought that battle, alongside the Nagato, 1:01:17.640 --> 1:01:20.680 the flagship of the Imperial Japanese Navy, and the ship 1:01:20.680 --> 1:01:24.240 from whose bridge Admiral Yamamoto launched the attack on Pearl Harbor. 1:01:25.640 --> 1:01:27.840 It was a shadow of this war that was evoked 1:01:27.840 --> 1:01:30.520 in nineteen forty six when one hundred and sixty seven 1:01:30.520 --> 1:01:33.880 of Bikini A Tolls inhabitants were forcibly relocated by the 1:01:34.000 --> 1:01:38.680 United States. They initially accepted this settlement quote for the 1:01:38.720 --> 1:01:41.640 good of mankind and to end all wars, in the 1:01:41.680 --> 1:01:45.640 words of the US commandant at the time. Assisted by 1:01:45.760 --> 1:01:49.560 US Navy seabees, they disassembled their church and moved to 1:01:49.560 --> 1:01:54.800 different atolls. Nine of the eleven family heads from Bikini 1:01:54.960 --> 1:01:57.320 elected to be transported one hundred and twenty five miles 1:01:57.360 --> 1:02:00.400 to Rohngerikatoll, an island, with about one order of the 1:02:00.480 --> 1:02:04.400 land mass of Bikinian. Many believed the island to be haunted. 1:02:05.040 --> 1:02:06.680 By the time the navy left them with a few 1:02:06.720 --> 1:02:09.520 weeks of water and food, they had every reason to 1:02:09.560 --> 1:02:13.560 be afraid. I let Ariana explain what that removal process 1:02:13.640 --> 1:02:13.880 was like. 1:02:14.440 --> 1:02:16.800 They had asked the people if they were willing to 1:02:16.960 --> 1:02:20.040 give up their homelands for the good of mankind and 1:02:20.080 --> 1:02:23.960 to end all wars. And because our people are people 1:02:24.000 --> 1:02:28.800 of faith in Christianity, they the and they were very afraid. 1:02:29.160 --> 1:02:33.120 They did not want to leave. But because of the 1:02:33.160 --> 1:02:37.880 amount of power that the that the military showed up 1:02:37.920 --> 1:02:40.960 with with their big ships compared to our small canoes, 1:02:41.040 --> 1:02:44.720 and the amount of troops that were on that island 1:02:45.440 --> 1:02:48.360 on that morning, it was very hard for them to, 1:02:48.720 --> 1:02:52.959 you know, fight against what was being asked of them. 1:02:53.440 --> 1:02:59.240 And if you have time to look through documentaries of 1:02:59.320 --> 1:03:02.640 the nuclear like you will see a certain part where 1:03:02.800 --> 1:03:05.880 the commander a commodore, his name was Ben Wyatt. He 1:03:06.000 --> 1:03:08.800 was sitting down and asking the chief at that time, 1:03:08.880 --> 1:03:11.000 can we use this island for the good of mankind? 1:03:11.040 --> 1:03:16.400 And in response the people all respond in unison elman 1:03:16.640 --> 1:03:21.080 which means okay. And from their testimonies they had to 1:03:21.120 --> 1:03:25.600 take that shot over forty times to make sure that 1:03:25.920 --> 1:03:28.000 you know, they all said mmin at the same time, 1:03:28.040 --> 1:03:31.000 to get the best shot they could for you know, 1:03:31.320 --> 1:03:34.040 maybe for reports to the UN, but it was a 1:03:34.120 --> 1:03:35.760 very frustrating time for them. 1:03:36.240 --> 1:03:40.960 Following their removal, the testing began. The idea was to 1:03:40.960 --> 1:03:44.320 test nuclear bombs on ships, so the US bought ninety 1:03:44.320 --> 1:03:48.640 five ships fully loaded with weapons and fuel. At this time, 1:03:49.200 --> 1:03:51.440 this would have ranked the navy of Bikinia Toll just 1:03:51.480 --> 1:03:53.919 out there the top five biggest fleets in the world, 1:03:54.320 --> 1:03:59.880 but those boats didn't stay afloat for long. Now. You 1:04:00.200 --> 1:04:03.240 might think that, given the testing was on ships, the 1:04:03.280 --> 1:04:06.240 atoll's navy would be some kind of mid century Mary Celeste, 1:04:06.800 --> 1:04:12.160 but you'd be wrong. Three hundred and fifty experimental rats, goats, 1:04:12.240 --> 1:04:16.000 and pigs died in the service as its strange nuclear experiment, 1:04:17.280 --> 1:04:19.640 some of them after being subjected to the great indignity 1:04:19.680 --> 1:04:23.600 of being covered in sunscreen, which bizarrely scientists thought might 1:04:23.640 --> 1:04:27.640 be useful in alleviating the impact of radiation. It's rather 1:04:27.680 --> 1:04:30.880 staggering that this research was being done three years after 1:04:31.000 --> 1:04:34.240 the United States dropped nuclear bombs on whole cities full 1:04:34.280 --> 1:04:37.919 of human beings. But as you've maybe already picked up 1:04:38.000 --> 1:04:41.600 in this story. The possibility of unintended but entirely predictable 1:04:41.680 --> 1:04:43.640 human suffering does not seem to have been top of 1:04:43.680 --> 1:04:48.440 the priority list. The first test of the island somehow misfired. 1:04:49.200 --> 1:04:51.760 The gathered press were disappointed, and many of them went home, 1:04:52.240 --> 1:04:57.640 But the second code, named Baker didn't. Chemist Glen t Seborg, 1:04:58.200 --> 1:05:01.560 the longest serving chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, called 1:05:01.560 --> 1:05:05.320 the Baker test the world's first nuclear disaster. It drove 1:05:05.360 --> 1:05:08.160 a two thousand foot wide pillar of water into the air, 1:05:08.880 --> 1:05:12.640 It sunk the USS Arkansas, and released massive amounts of 1:05:12.680 --> 1:05:15.800 radiation across the islands of the atoll, which at the 1:05:15.840 --> 1:05:20.200 time the residents had been expecting to return to. Just 1:05:20.320 --> 1:05:23.360 five days after the first bomb went off, Louis Road, 1:05:23.800 --> 1:05:27.000 a French mechanical engineer who was working as manager of 1:05:27.040 --> 1:05:30.920 his mother's lingerie shop in Paris, introduced a new swimsuit 1:05:30.960 --> 1:05:35.400 designed named the Bikini after the atoll. It was one 1:05:35.440 --> 1:05:40.720 wright equipped the atom bomb of fashion. The people of 1:05:40.720 --> 1:05:44.080 the atoll, however, gained little from the outfit or the testing. 1:05:45.160 --> 1:05:47.840 In January of nineteen forty eight, just two years after 1:05:47.880 --> 1:05:52.120 their removal, doctor Leonard Mason visited the Bikinians on Rongerick 1:05:52.480 --> 1:05:54.880 and was appalled to find the people there had almost 1:05:54.880 --> 1:05:59.440 starved to death. We were dying, but they didn't listen 1:05:59.480 --> 1:06:03.160 to us, one of them said to him. Mason, an 1:06:03.200 --> 1:06:06.880 anthropologist at the University of WAYI asked that food and 1:06:06.920 --> 1:06:11.280 water be bought immediately. The US built houses for Bikiniatol 1:06:11.400 --> 1:06:15.880 residents on Ujilangatoll, but it decided to use these for 1:06:15.960 --> 1:06:18.800 the residents of Aniwata Katol, where it was also about 1:06:18.800 --> 1:06:23.680 to begin conducting nuclear experiments. Instead. The Bikini Islanders were 1:06:23.680 --> 1:06:27.560 placed in tents alongside a runway before they eventually chose 1:06:27.640 --> 1:06:30.920 Kille Island, a line of less than one square kilometer, 1:06:31.440 --> 1:06:37.800 as their next home. Also evacuated were Anewatak, Wrongalap, and 1:06:37.840 --> 1:06:41.800 Warthaw Islanders. They too, thought this was a temporary arrangement 1:06:41.960 --> 1:06:43.560 and that they could go home in a short period 1:06:43.600 --> 1:06:47.160 of time. They too, found out later that this was 1:06:47.200 --> 1:06:50.880 not the case. Over the course of their exile, they've 1:06:50.920 --> 1:06:54.120 been moved several more times, staffed half to death, cheated 1:06:54.160 --> 1:06:58.560 of their compensation, and stripped of their ancestral homeland. For 1:06:58.600 --> 1:07:01.840 the next twelve years, the United States would drop increasingly 1:07:01.920 --> 1:07:05.880 large bombs, culminating in nineteen fifty four with the Bravo 1:07:05.920 --> 1:07:10.280 Shot of Operation Castle, also known as Castle Bravo, the 1:07:10.280 --> 1:07:13.800 biggest nuclear device that we know of the US ever deploying. 1:07:14.160 --> 1:07:17.840 Within those twelve years, there were sixty seven known devices 1:07:17.880 --> 1:07:20.360 that were tested here. There could have been more, but 1:07:20.720 --> 1:07:23.640 all we know of is sixty seven. One of them 1:07:23.840 --> 1:07:28.760 was the Castle Bravo shat that yielded fifteen megatons, which, 1:07:29.280 --> 1:07:34.760 when scientists calculated the equivalent of the Bravo shat, would 1:07:34.760 --> 1:07:38.520 have required testing the Hiroshima bomb one and a half 1:07:38.560 --> 1:07:41.320 times every single day for twelve years. 1:07:41.720 --> 1:07:45.560 That fifteen megaton Bravo shot yielded more than two point 1:07:45.600 --> 1:07:49.000 five times the estimated six megaton explosion. When it was 1:07:49.040 --> 1:07:53.160 detonated on an artificial island in the Bikinia Toll, the 1:07:53.200 --> 1:07:56.840 device's mushroom cloud reached a height of forty seven thousand 1:07:56.840 --> 1:08:00.400 feet which is fourteen hundred meters, and a dam of 1:08:00.440 --> 1:08:04.520 seven miles or eleven kilometers in about one minute. Eventually 1:08:04.560 --> 1:08:07.680 it reached a height of forty kilometers and a diameter 1:08:07.720 --> 1:08:10.720 of one hundred kilometers. This took less than ten minutes, 1:08:11.440 --> 1:08:14.760 traveled more than one hundred meters per second and covered 1:08:14.800 --> 1:08:18.280 seven thousand kilometers of the Pacific Ocean and everything in 1:08:18.320 --> 1:08:22.799 it with nuclear fallout. On the eve of the Bravo shot, 1:08:23.240 --> 1:08:27.160 weather reports indicated that the quote conditions were getting less favorable, 1:08:27.840 --> 1:08:30.200 but nonetheless the decision to go ahead with the first 1:08:30.240 --> 1:08:35.000 test was taken by to Alvin C. Graves jointed task 1:08:35.080 --> 1:08:39.040 for seven ships located thirty miles east of Bikini and 1:08:39.040 --> 1:08:42.439 what was thought to be an Upwin position began detecting 1:08:42.479 --> 1:08:45.240 high levels of radiation just two hours after the test. 1:08:46.800 --> 1:08:49.479 Very soon after, they began traveling south at full speed 1:08:49.479 --> 1:08:53.479 to avoid the fallout, but directly downwind of the blast 1:08:53.560 --> 1:08:56.639 and unable to travel were wrong. Alap and a Lingene 1:08:56.720 --> 1:09:01.479 Atolls Ariana explained the impacted to four there which residents 1:09:01.520 --> 1:09:04.800 were not warned about. American service people there want to 1:09:04.840 --> 1:09:08.719 stay inside, not eat or drink anything, but no such 1:09:08.760 --> 1:09:10.840 warning was given to the local residents. 1:09:11.240 --> 1:09:15.040 Some said it looked like the guy was changing colors 1:09:15.040 --> 1:09:17.360 from red to yellow to orange. It was just a 1:09:17.560 --> 1:09:21.200 very very bright morning and then they started hearing like 1:09:21.320 --> 1:09:23.920 thunderous roars a couple of minutes later, and it was 1:09:24.040 --> 1:09:26.920 just like roars after Wars, and it was a very 1:09:26.920 --> 1:09:31.160 frightening time because this was just not something you know, 1:09:31.360 --> 1:09:35.080 does not happen every day. And then around ten am, 1:09:35.479 --> 1:09:39.519 the fallout had started to arrive. And these are accounts 1:09:39.560 --> 1:09:42.040 from ronlap at All, which is the closest to Bikini. 1:09:42.600 --> 1:09:45.680 The fallout had started to arrive and they were not 1:09:45.720 --> 1:09:48.840 sure what was going on. There was men out fishing. 1:09:49.439 --> 1:09:54.880 There was also stories from these witnesses that prior to 1:09:55.040 --> 1:09:59.720 this test, the military had gone to rout and they 1:09:59.720 --> 1:10:03.160 had movie nights and they would show the community of 1:10:03.600 --> 1:10:04.919 movies where it's snowing. 1:10:05.720 --> 1:10:08.719 Tomorrow we'll hear more about the consequences of the Bravo 1:10:08.720 --> 1:10:11.679 show for the people who, despite never having any quarrel 1:10:11.680 --> 1:10:14.719 with the USA, with the recipient of the largest nuclear 1:10:14.760 --> 1:10:20.080 bomb it's ever decimated. 1:10:44.880 --> 1:10:49.800 Ho Ho, Merry Christmas. Robert Evans here, and we had 1:10:49.840 --> 1:10:53.200 been planning to make a Newcome episode to give you 1:10:53.200 --> 1:10:55.559 all a white Christmas this year. But you know what 1:10:55.880 --> 1:10:59.000 I didn't wind up wanting to do right during the 1:10:59.040 --> 1:11:02.400 holidays when we didn't have to work, is spend hours 1:11:02.439 --> 1:11:06.559 researching some other weird Come conspiracies on the Internet. So 1:11:06.600 --> 1:11:08.280 we're just going to play the old Come episode for 1:11:08.400 --> 1:11:11.519 you as a rerun. I know that's not the most 1:11:11.520 --> 1:11:14.040 effortful version of our job that I could have done 1:11:14.040 --> 1:11:16.679 this year, but also it's been a real shitty year 1:11:16.760 --> 1:11:19.559 for everybody. So let's just listen to an old Come 1:11:19.600 --> 1:11:22.240 episode and pretend we gave you a new Come episode. 1:11:22.479 --> 1:11:32.200 Merry Christmas, everybody, dearly beloved, Welcome to it could happen here. 1:11:32.360 --> 1:11:34.800 We are gathered here today to get through this thing 1:11:34.880 --> 1:11:39.080 called life. Electric word life. It's a thing that only 1:11:39.240 --> 1:11:42.400 happens with the addition of a couple of ingredients, and 1:11:42.479 --> 1:11:45.799 one of those ingredients is the subject of our episode today. 1:11:47.680 --> 1:11:50.600 Oh yeah, you guys like that? Everybody really happy with that? 1:11:50.720 --> 1:11:52.880 I love that. Yeah, I'm feeling not at all like 1:11:52.920 --> 1:11:54.280 I want to kind of shower. 1:11:54.800 --> 1:11:56.679 Okay, can you can you can hear the moment where 1:11:56.680 --> 1:11:59.639 we're all simultaneously questioning every single decision. 1:11:59.640 --> 1:12:01.120 We higher lives. 1:12:02.840 --> 1:12:06.599 Now we're all bonded together. So how's everybody doing today? 1:12:06.600 --> 1:12:12.080 We've got Miil Wong, Garrison Davis, James Stout, and I 1:12:12.120 --> 1:12:14.880 should let people know I wasn't joking about the Come thing. 1:12:15.439 --> 1:12:19.840 So those of you who are too online will know this. 1:12:19.920 --> 1:12:21.920 Those of you who are not online enough. This is 1:12:22.000 --> 1:12:24.360 one of the online things that you will want to 1:12:24.400 --> 1:12:26.720 know because it's very funny. And the gist of it 1:12:26.800 --> 1:12:29.920 is that like four days ago, doctor Jordan B. Peterson 1:12:30.760 --> 1:12:33.680 got sent a link to a Twitter account that is 1:12:33.920 --> 1:12:38.200 that purports to be spreading like hidden news about the 1:12:38.240 --> 1:12:42.439 evils of the Chinese communist regime, and they put out 1:12:42.439 --> 1:12:46.360 a video that was a segment from a British milking 1:12:46.479 --> 1:12:50.679 fetish pornography video. Now, if you're not aware the milking, 1:12:50.800 --> 1:12:52.160 as far as I can tell, I believe it kind 1:12:52.200 --> 1:12:57.439 of descended from the long lineage of like rubber fetishists, right, 1:12:57.720 --> 1:13:00.160 and there's like a lot of medical fetish stuff it 1:13:00.200 --> 1:13:02.040 tied into it. But the idea is that men are 1:13:02.200 --> 1:13:05.519 entirely wrapped up on hospital gurney's and giant pumps sucked 1:13:05.520 --> 1:13:08.439 the sement out of them. 1:13:07.479 --> 1:13:10.760 So it's like a cow milka. The machine is very 1:13:10.840 --> 1:13:11.719 like milk. 1:13:12.920 --> 1:13:17.600 This Twitter account put this up claiming that it was 1:13:17.600 --> 1:13:21.080 the Chinese government stealing the semen of young men, and 1:13:21.200 --> 1:13:25.080 Jordan Peterson shared it saying it was an unbelievable act 1:13:25.080 --> 1:13:28.400 of evil and then everyone had the best day of 1:13:28.400 --> 1:13:31.519 their lives and an hour of two later he deleted it. 1:13:31.560 --> 1:13:34.439 Now I have been continuing. 1:13:34.680 --> 1:13:39.840 Coward, coward, coward. Yeah, so strange, so strange that he 1:13:39.920 --> 1:13:41.560 left the world of pay reviewed academia. 1:13:41.760 --> 1:13:47.200 Yeah, it's wild that he's no longer professor. It's very funny. 1:13:47.600 --> 1:13:50.240 We're continuing to give him shit for it online. But 1:13:50.320 --> 1:13:53.240 it set us off down an interesting road. And because 1:13:53.240 --> 1:13:55.759 some other stuff fell through, we're going to talk about 1:13:55.760 --> 1:13:58.920 the wide world of weird right wing come conspiracies. Most 1:13:58.920 --> 1:14:00.639 of them are leased, are going to be right. There's 1:14:00.680 --> 1:14:05.879 a surprising number of semen based conspiracies. Everybody did research 1:14:05.960 --> 1:14:08.720 on their own special thing. I wanted to start by 1:14:08.800 --> 1:14:12.760 talking about this this Jordan Peterson cum video and given 1:14:12.880 --> 1:14:15.960 kind of some of the some of the background on it, 1:14:16.120 --> 1:14:20.519 so I believe it was. Last July, the Chinese Human 1:14:20.600 --> 1:14:23.200 Sperm Bank of Shanghai announced that it was hosting a 1:14:23.240 --> 1:14:27.000 competition for college students to find out whose semen was 1:14:27.800 --> 1:14:32.040 the best in terms of, like, you know, a number 1:14:32.040 --> 1:14:34.559 of modal sperm per milli leader I think is the 1:14:34.600 --> 1:14:37.479 way that they judge it. And basically the idea was 1:14:37.520 --> 1:14:40.719 that they were trying to find like people with sperm 1:14:40.720 --> 1:14:43.760 concentration greater than sixty million per mili leader, and if 1:14:43.760 --> 1:14:46.200 they visited a sperm bank a set number of times 1:14:46.200 --> 1:14:48.719 in a six month period, they could receive a prize 1:14:48.720 --> 1:14:52.400 that was equivalent to about twelve hundred dollars right now. 1:14:52.439 --> 1:14:55.400 The reason this is happening is that China, for the 1:14:55.439 --> 1:14:58.120 first time, as a result of a number of different policies, 1:14:58.880 --> 1:15:02.000 had negative popular growth very recently, and this is a 1:15:02.040 --> 1:15:03.880 thing that can cause a problem for a country for 1:15:03.880 --> 1:15:06.000 a variety of reasons. So the government is trying to 1:15:06.680 --> 1:15:09.559 shore up birth rates, and there are a lot of 1:15:09.800 --> 1:15:14.120 couples in China that have had issues conceiving, and so 1:15:14.160 --> 1:15:17.000 there's a huge amount of demand for sperm in the 1:15:17.000 --> 1:15:20.160 country right now. So this is not a weird story. 1:15:20.439 --> 1:15:22.800 It is actually a thing that happens all around the 1:15:22.840 --> 1:15:26.639 world regularly. But right around the time that this happened, 1:15:27.720 --> 1:15:30.720 a little bit after that, it came out that a 1:15:31.960 --> 1:15:35.839 Japanese company started selling what is called in the articles 1:15:35.840 --> 1:15:41.080 I Found an automatic sperm extractor to Chinese sperm banks. 1:15:41.439 --> 1:15:47.759 Now this is I'm going to send you all the link. 1:15:48.080 --> 1:15:52.080 I was hoping you would oh yes, good friends, thanks, 1:15:52.160 --> 1:15:55.759 but yes, we're all going to see this. So the machines. 1:15:55.800 --> 1:15:58.400 Price listing on ali Baba, where it sells for about 1:15:58.400 --> 1:16:01.759 five to six thousand dollars, describes it as a device 1:16:01.800 --> 1:16:05.920 that quote merges modern digital technology, automatic control technology, and 1:16:05.960 --> 1:16:12.080 simulation technologies with seamen collection and premature ejaculation desensitization training function. 1:16:12.640 --> 1:16:15.519 So it has a number of purposes including just to 1:16:15.600 --> 1:16:21.280 help guys stop coming too early, which no shame. It's 1:16:21.320 --> 1:16:23.760 funny that someone built a machine for it. 1:16:23.720 --> 1:16:26.519 It's extremely funny, and that you can buy on Ali Express. 1:16:26.600 --> 1:16:29.559 It's like, I personally, I'm not attaching anything. I bought 1:16:29.560 --> 1:16:31.960 an ali baba to sensitive part to my body makes 1:16:32.040 --> 1:16:33.040 thousand dollars. 1:16:33.080 --> 1:16:36.040 It's not cheap. Now, the primary these are not being 1:16:36.120 --> 1:16:39.560 used for people who are coming too quickly. 1:16:40.000 --> 1:16:44.000 Is like the worst every are to detwo this it is. 1:16:44.080 --> 1:16:44.759 It is weird. 1:16:44.800 --> 1:16:47.160 What's the orientation? Does it stand on the ground and 1:16:47.240 --> 1:16:50.400 you just approach it? You you have to stand up? Yeah? 1:16:50.439 --> 1:16:51.920 But what if you're a shot king. 1:16:53.200 --> 1:16:55.559 I say, I'm sure they have options. It has like 1:16:55.600 --> 1:16:59.799 the rough shape of like by a handheld massage device, 1:17:00.000 --> 1:17:03.000 but it's kind of like formed like almost an art 1:17:03.080 --> 1:17:06.720 deco robot vagina And basically from what I've read. Kind 1:17:06.720 --> 1:17:08.920 of the reasoning is that, like, hey, we need people 1:17:08.920 --> 1:17:12.600 to donate sperm. Some people feel weird about just masturbating 1:17:12.640 --> 1:17:14.280 in a clinic, and we hope this is a more 1:17:14.280 --> 1:17:18.280 pleasant experience for them. So again this we're laughing because like, look, 1:17:18.520 --> 1:17:21.040 a machine designed to capture semen is kind of a 1:17:21.080 --> 1:17:24.000 funny thing. That's okay, no shame on anybody for that. 1:17:25.400 --> 1:17:28.120 But the fact that you have both the government trying 1:17:28.160 --> 1:17:31.280 to encourage people to donate sperm and this weird machine 1:17:31.880 --> 1:17:34.680 kind of created fertile ground for a bunch of right 1:17:34.720 --> 1:17:38.599 wing weirdos to start making the grounded, I know, fertile 1:17:38.640 --> 1:17:43.600 ground to to make the completely un ungrounded claim that 1:17:43.720 --> 1:17:47.000 like the government was trying to steal people's semen, right, 1:17:47.040 --> 1:17:50.480 And that is the basis of doctor Jordan B. Peterson's 1:17:50.800 --> 1:17:53.880 fun little freak out on the internet. And I will say, 1:17:54.280 --> 1:17:57.000 you should try to find the videos of the automatic 1:17:57.040 --> 1:18:01.080 sperm extractor, this amazing Japanese machine, because it is fun. 1:18:01.240 --> 1:18:02.120 Its fascinating. 1:18:04.080 --> 1:18:06.519 On the cosign account, do they have to like like 1:18:06.520 --> 1:18:07.880 like change like I assume. 1:18:07.640 --> 1:18:13.240 They yes, the chang Yeah, you can't clean that. If 1:18:13.240 --> 1:18:15.640 you watch a video, there's like a there's a rebapod 1:18:15.760 --> 1:18:18.400 that like, uh, comes out like let's see it. 1:18:19.360 --> 1:18:21.600 The thing that the penis goes in is also the 1:18:21.640 --> 1:18:25.439 captured device, so it is removed with the sperm donation 1:18:25.600 --> 1:18:29.320 when you take it out. So again this is you know, 1:18:30.000 --> 1:18:33.439 funny because come, but there's nothing sinister here. It's just 1:18:33.520 --> 1:18:36.680 in the same way that literally everything is. People have 1:18:36.760 --> 1:18:40.400 like spun it up into a nonsense thing. But because 1:18:40.640 --> 1:18:43.240 of this beautiful, beautiful story, which I hope we've all 1:18:43.240 --> 1:18:45.439 gotten to enjoy, I got to do a lot of 1:18:45.479 --> 1:18:48.000 work on the some of you. If you live, if 1:18:48.000 --> 1:18:50.120 you've worked in agriculture, you're not going to be surprised 1:18:50.160 --> 1:18:52.760 that stealing come is a massive industry, like it is 1:18:52.760 --> 1:18:54.679 a There is a lot of money to be made 1:18:55.000 --> 1:18:57.600 in stealing semen. There's enough money to be made in 1:18:57.640 --> 1:19:01.080 stealing semen that there are two different official terms that 1:19:01.160 --> 1:19:05.320 I have found for seamen theft. The first is sperm jacking. 1:19:09.080 --> 1:19:11.000 How could they get better? How could they get better 1:19:11.040 --> 1:19:11.240 than that? 1:19:12.280 --> 1:19:15.920 It gets better because the second the second is spurgling. 1:19:23.120 --> 1:19:26.240 These are like professionals who like come up with these terms. Huh, 1:19:26.320 --> 1:19:28.599 these are a genius. 1:19:29.360 --> 1:19:32.160 There actually is. I did find in my research there 1:19:32.240 --> 1:19:37.840 is one actual Chinese based sperm conspiracy. It's just not 1:19:37.920 --> 1:19:43.800 a very sinister one. There's this Chinese businessman, Jesse jabet Zoo, 1:19:44.920 --> 1:19:47.400 who stole there. There's this I think it was a 1:19:47.439 --> 1:19:51.160 Canadian company. It was a US company who had So 1:19:51.240 --> 1:19:53.920 this is for like bull semen. And one of the 1:19:53.960 --> 1:19:56.360 things that you want for bull semen is you don't 1:19:56.400 --> 1:20:00.400 want if you're inciminating cows, you want all of the 1:20:00.439 --> 1:20:03.720 babies to be female generally, right, because bulls are not 1:20:03.880 --> 1:20:06.880 very with outside a certain specific If you're like trying 1:20:06.880 --> 1:20:10.360 to make more breeders or whatever, if you're in industrial agriculture, 1:20:10.360 --> 1:20:11.920 you don't want any of the boys, right. You just 1:20:12.000 --> 1:20:14.000 want to keep making those sweet, sweet lady cows that 1:20:14.280 --> 1:20:16.719 are you know, more useful to you in a financial sense. 1:20:17.120 --> 1:20:20.160 So there's a US company that developed a method of 1:20:21.400 --> 1:20:25.400 before insemination looking through the sperm and like sorting out 1:20:25.479 --> 1:20:31.280 the sperm that will make female cows. And that is 1:20:31.320 --> 1:20:33.360 apparently hard to do. I mean, it sounds like it 1:20:33.360 --> 1:20:36.680 would be hard to do, right, And this this this 1:20:36.760 --> 1:20:40.840 Chinese businessman was like reverse engineering there. It's kind of 1:20:40.880 --> 1:20:44.719 actually it's basically the same story as Jurassic Park and anyway, 1:20:44.760 --> 1:20:47.760 this guy has has gotten sued for a bunch of money. 1:20:49.439 --> 1:20:50.280 He got checked down. 1:20:50.680 --> 1:20:54.280 I hope, I hope it works out just as well 1:20:54.320 --> 1:20:55.200 as Jurassic Park. 1:20:55.760 --> 1:20:58.639 Yeah, it's very funny. I will say there's a couple 1:20:58.640 --> 1:21:02.479 of really wild lines from this the CBC story I found. 1:21:02.479 --> 1:21:05.840 I'm just going to read one to you. Zoo's activities 1:21:05.840 --> 1:21:08.760 could best be described as machiavellian. At various points he 1:21:08.800 --> 1:21:11.639 outlined a plan to make x Y that's the American company. 1:21:11.720 --> 1:21:14.720 Quote feel all the time, the sort of damocles is 1:21:14.720 --> 1:21:17.479 on their heads and brag the law is strong, but 1:21:17.520 --> 1:21:24.400 the outlaws are ten times stronger. Okay, look Jesse Jabez, 1:21:25.080 --> 1:21:28.960 my hero, the sperm Bandit incredible sperm jacker, one of 1:21:28.960 --> 1:21:30.479 the best spur layers in the business. 1:21:31.479 --> 1:21:34.400 This man lives on an island with his cow raptors. 1:21:34.600 --> 1:21:37.559 What a hero. There was also a case of a 1:21:37.720 --> 1:21:41.679 Japanese man who illegally took wagyu cattle sperm to China 1:21:41.960 --> 1:21:44.920 to try to give them sperm, and like the Chinese 1:21:44.960 --> 1:21:47.280 government immediately caught him and was like, no, this is 1:21:47.320 --> 1:21:49.920 actually incredibly dangerous, Like you're not allowed to just take 1:21:50.000 --> 1:21:53.280 animal breeding material into the country. Without because you know, 1:21:53.320 --> 1:21:55.160 there's a wide variety of reasons that that could be 1:21:55.280 --> 1:21:57.639 in horribly so he got in a shipload of trouble. 1:21:58.160 --> 1:21:58.439 Yeah. 1:21:58.479 --> 1:22:01.400 Anyway, that's my that's my stories. Everybody. 1:22:01.960 --> 1:22:03.679 Thank you for rob. 1:22:04.240 --> 1:22:10.439 Yeah, thank you, thank you for spurgling my knowledge. Garrison. Oh, 1:22:11.240 --> 1:22:13.960 we're back, and James is here to talk to us 1:22:14.200 --> 1:22:17.080 about the kind of sperm jacking that you do when 1:22:17.120 --> 1:22:20.559 you don't jack. I'm talking about jacking your own sperm 1:22:20.680 --> 1:22:23.840 by keeping it inside of you semen retention. 1:22:24.479 --> 1:22:29.080 Yeah, it's how is that Jims beautiful? Unscripted? Did you 1:22:29.120 --> 1:22:34.760 just yeh didn't even write that, garrisons on the back 1:22:34.800 --> 1:22:36.400 of his hand. He had a brain wave at two 1:22:36.439 --> 1:22:37.840 in the morning and I got that down. 1:22:37.880 --> 1:22:39.280 But those are the kind of things you can do 1:22:39.320 --> 1:22:40.920 when you've been podcasting as long. 1:22:40.800 --> 1:22:45.559 As I cum space for several years. 1:22:46.200 --> 1:22:48.840 I've been in those soggy trenches for a long time. 1:22:50.600 --> 1:22:53.800 Yeah. All right, we are, after all at work, so 1:22:53.920 --> 1:22:56.800 let me continue. So I'm going to talk about what 1:22:56.840 --> 1:23:00.599 happens when you keep your home inside you. Uh okay, yeah, 1:23:00.680 --> 1:23:07.240 this is the thing. What are we doing today? 1:23:07.280 --> 1:23:09.960 This is this is critical journalisten. 1:23:10.560 --> 1:23:16.720 We are making content, doing talking of content. Let's talk 1:23:16.760 --> 1:23:21.439 about the content of some Reddit posters. So the what's 1:23:21.479 --> 1:23:25.280 called the seamen retention movement, and this will this will 1:23:25.280 --> 1:23:29.639 shock many of you began on Reddit dot com. 1:23:29.840 --> 1:23:34.720 Oh my god, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah, like 1:23:34.800 --> 1:23:35.320 so many one. 1:23:35.400 --> 1:23:40.280 I feel like on Reddit, I feel like if you 1:23:40.439 --> 1:23:42.439 type that endo your phone, it would have finished the 1:23:42.520 --> 1:23:43.519 sentence the same. 1:23:45.640 --> 1:23:49.000 What has auto directed to Reddit? Believe me, we're gonna 1:23:49.040 --> 1:23:51.760 go there, Garrison, because when you google sperm retention, you 1:23:51.800 --> 1:23:56.240 do indeed find some stuff on Reddit. So now they've 1:23:56.280 --> 1:23:58.400 spun off from Reddit, right, they now have their own organization, 1:23:58.439 --> 1:24:01.760 which is no FAP dot com uh and No fat 1:24:01.840 --> 1:24:04.840 dot com is a community centered sexual health platform. I'm 1:24:05.400 --> 1:24:07.720 I'm using, I'm allowing them to define themselves here, I 1:24:07.720 --> 1:24:10.960 guess designed to help people overcome poor addiction and compulsive 1:24:11.040 --> 1:24:15.200 sexual behavior, which is is not necessarily like like the 1:24:16.120 --> 1:24:18.920 this isn't the like not all cemen retention, as we're 1:24:18.920 --> 1:24:21.479 going to learn, is based in helping people become addiction 1:24:21.600 --> 1:24:25.280 to porn, but so far as that is a thing 1:24:25.280 --> 1:24:28.639 that that people actually have. And if someone was accusing 1:24:28.720 --> 1:24:31.680 Robert of being addicted to porn on on his timeline, 1:24:31.720 --> 1:24:32.320 this weekend. 1:24:33.680 --> 1:24:36.320 That would be because I eat ratio and Jordan Peterson 1:24:36.479 --> 1:24:40.120 with the Yeah, the pornography video that he mistaking the 1:24:40.240 --> 1:24:41.599 post that's correct. 1:24:41.960 --> 1:24:43.120 Yeah, yeah. 1:24:43.320 --> 1:24:46.080 I just want him to respond so I can ask him, Jordan, 1:24:46.200 --> 1:24:48.200 tell me in your own words, what you thought was 1:24:48.240 --> 1:24:49.360 happening in that video. 1:24:51.840 --> 1:24:53.680 I really hope he thinks it's like milking, Like they 1:24:53.720 --> 1:24:56.000 have rfi D collars and they get fed based on 1:24:56.040 --> 1:24:57.719 their production level. That would be great. 1:24:57.800 --> 1:25:01.240 Yeah. And what did you you're you're medical doctor, did 1:25:01.320 --> 1:25:05.639 you think that cum actually worked that way? Just stick 1:25:05.680 --> 1:25:06.640 a sucker. 1:25:07.360 --> 1:25:12.719 Anyway, Yeah, just get it out. Okay. So after after 1:25:12.800 --> 1:25:14.799 this movement began, I read it dot com. It quickly 1:25:14.840 --> 1:25:18.400 pivoted to kind of offering all kinds of weird physical 1:25:18.600 --> 1:25:22.320 and mental health benefits, and that's where it was adopted 1:25:22.360 --> 1:25:26.120 by friends of the podcast, The Proud Boys. Luckily, we 1:25:26.160 --> 1:25:28.639 do have a bit of insight into why and into 1:25:28.680 --> 1:25:30.800 the exact nature of the no fat fascism that the 1:25:30.800 --> 1:25:34.519 Proud Boys practice thanks to Kyle Cheney, who's a Politico 1:25:34.640 --> 1:25:37.240 reporter who was reporting on the trial of one of 1:25:37.280 --> 1:25:40.040 the Proud Boys accused of tradition on January sixth, called 1:25:40.160 --> 1:25:44.040 Zach Rell and that trial for reasons that I'm not 1:25:44.240 --> 1:25:48.760 exactly clear on the proud boy. I guess it's like 1:25:48.800 --> 1:25:50.880 the handbook like that, the kind of prowdboy Bible was 1:25:50.920 --> 1:25:53.920 introduced and into the record. 1:25:54.400 --> 1:25:55.240 Yeah's in there. 1:25:55.680 --> 1:25:58.720 Yep, it's in the court record, buddy, because on the 1:25:58.760 --> 1:25:59.760 lawyers decided that it was. 1:26:00.120 --> 1:26:00.639 To the case. 1:26:01.360 --> 1:26:04.080 So a proud boy may not ejaculate alone more than 1:26:04.080 --> 1:26:07.920 once in every thirty days. That means he must abstained 1:26:07.960 --> 1:26:11.680 from pornography during that time. And if he needs to ejaculate, 1:26:12.040 --> 1:26:14.960 this is really weird, it must be within one yard 1:26:15.000 --> 1:26:19.600 of a woman. Fascinatingly spec yeah, yeah right, And I 1:26:19.720 --> 1:26:23.400 like that they've they've gone with imperial measurements with her consent, 1:26:23.479 --> 1:26:26.440 so that's nice. The woman may not be a prostitute, 1:26:27.000 --> 1:26:30.160 so that that's the proud poison nature. There no fat fairstuism. 1:26:30.240 --> 1:26:34.000 But I think I think the way of understanding why 1:26:34.080 --> 1:26:36.680 some people practice this perhaps best is to is to 1:26:36.720 --> 1:26:38.559 go on to reddit dot com. So I found a 1:26:38.560 --> 1:26:41.519 post by Reddit user u slash monk one nine one 1:26:41.680 --> 1:26:45.040 eight one seven. It seems like a nice guy, and 1:26:45.840 --> 1:26:48.040 there are four hundred, four hundred hy up votes on 1:26:48.400 --> 1:26:50.120 What I did was I went to seaman retention and 1:26:50.120 --> 1:26:54.200 I looked at you know, sorted by popular posts, found 1:26:54.240 --> 1:26:58.559 this one from a bunch of numbers. And so this 1:26:58.600 --> 1:27:02.640 guy has nine years of experience with semen retention. So 1:27:02.680 --> 1:27:04.799 I'm just going to read I'm presuming oh. 1:27:04.680 --> 1:27:10.120 Boy, yeah yeah, yeah yeah, him and some months off 1:27:10.120 --> 1:27:12.000 the coast of fucking lind Sparring. 1:27:13.080 --> 1:27:15.519 That cannot be healthy. Yeah no, I don't think it is. 1:27:16.160 --> 1:27:17.720 There is I will get to this evidence that you 1:27:17.760 --> 1:27:21.840 shouldn't do this. Uh So, in his nine years of experience, 1:27:21.920 --> 1:27:25.559 he has experienced the following things. Semen, when retained in 1:27:25.600 --> 1:27:29.160 our bodies, has healing, rejuvenating effects. Loss of seamen has 1:27:29.200 --> 1:27:33.600 the opposite effects. This may not be scientifically proven, but 1:27:33.680 --> 1:27:38.120 it's proven by experience. That's a red flag. That's interesting 1:27:38.520 --> 1:27:41.719 getting Reddit medical advice. While attempting any task that demands 1:27:41.760 --> 1:27:44.679 high physical, mental, or intellectual abilities, if we are semen 1:27:44.800 --> 1:27:47.840 retention powered, we would actually enjoy the task, which would 1:27:47.840 --> 1:27:52.439 otherwise seem dull. This is called sexual energy transmutation in 1:27:52.520 --> 1:27:53.320 layman's terms. 1:27:53.479 --> 1:27:58.040 Oh no, wait, that's the layman's what's the non laymen term? 1:28:00.680 --> 1:28:06.200 It's got even more. I have no idea spermozoic fucking fission. 1:28:07.840 --> 1:28:10.280 So for peak performance it's always necessary to be powered 1:28:10.280 --> 1:28:12.920 by semen. It would be best to use semen only 1:28:12.960 --> 1:28:17.360 for regenerating purposes, since nature originally intended it for regeneration, 1:28:17.720 --> 1:28:20.240 and not use it for sexual purposes apart from the 1:28:20.280 --> 1:28:23.759 create a child. If not serving that purpose, Master whatever 1:28:23.840 --> 1:28:26.720 teach techniques are useful in not letting the seed out 1:28:26.760 --> 1:28:29.800 while having sex. At the end of the day, don't 1:28:29.840 --> 1:28:33.479 let your seed out like a worthless thing. There's more so, 1:28:33.680 --> 1:28:37.840 just contain yourself great great, which is exactly the reason 1:28:37.880 --> 1:28:41.280 why core religions are based on celibacy, because opposite of 1:28:41.280 --> 1:28:44.080 regeneration is degeneration, which will cause a man to fall 1:28:44.120 --> 1:28:46.720 into a lower state controlled by his lower nature, rather 1:28:46.760 --> 1:28:49.920 than when he's subduing it. We should let semen retention 1:28:50.040 --> 1:28:52.160 be part of our lives, not something that is done 1:28:52.200 --> 1:28:55.320 for superpowers. For superpowers are in my experience, it's the 1:28:55.400 --> 1:28:57.760 sudden ecstasy that we feel once we transition from the 1:28:57.800 --> 1:29:01.559 degenerated to the regenerated state, and that will stabilize after 1:29:01.640 --> 1:29:04.880 some time, similar to how a flight maintained stable altitude 1:29:04.880 --> 1:29:09.720 after take off. Very very similar. Actually, yeah, that's that's 1:29:09.760 --> 1:29:12.040 what you can hear when the when the engine are 1:29:12.080 --> 1:29:14.120 spinning up. If just a do track really hard not 1:29:14.160 --> 1:29:17.080 to nut and it makes that noise. 1:29:17.360 --> 1:29:19.920 So excited for the next Marvel film where the where 1:29:19.920 --> 1:29:21.360 the superheroes. 1:29:24.479 --> 1:29:27.360 Not come so he can get tiny. 1:29:27.040 --> 1:29:31.400 No fat man. So yeah he didn't. I should add 1:29:31.400 --> 1:29:34.160 that this person confesses to having lapsed at some point 1:29:34.200 --> 1:29:38.479 in the nine years. Yeah it's. 1:29:40.479 --> 1:29:43.400 Armstrong was on steroids. It's just disappointing. 1:29:45.000 --> 1:29:47.519 No one would have seen it coming. See what I 1:29:47.520 --> 1:29:52.040 did there. Okay, So this person then urges other posters 1:29:52.080 --> 1:29:54.479 on the Semia retention subreddit to not use streaks to 1:29:54.479 --> 1:29:57.439 outperform others or look better about ourselves or bring others down. 1:29:57.680 --> 1:29:59.920 The battle with luster is a lifelong fight, and then 1:30:00.160 --> 1:30:06.840 we get better at finding victories. Yeah yeah, buddy, finding 1:30:06.920 --> 1:30:09.439 victories over internal battles, the better we become as high 1:30:09.479 --> 1:30:09.960 valued men. 1:30:10.720 --> 1:30:16.439 Hell yeah, I've often wished that, you know, if the 1:30:16.520 --> 1:30:18.559 if the pandemic hadn't been a thing, and I could 1:30:18.600 --> 1:30:21.559 force you all to work in a central location, I 1:30:21.600 --> 1:30:24.000 could have like a wall of murals where I put 1:30:24.080 --> 1:30:26.759 under each of your faces a quote from an episode 1:30:26.800 --> 1:30:29.640 that you've participated in, and James that that would be 1:30:29.680 --> 1:30:33.160 your quote the battle it's lusts a lifelong struggle. 1:30:37.560 --> 1:30:39.519 Yeah that, I'll get some T shirts knocked up and 1:30:39.560 --> 1:30:40.120 we can do a fund. 1:30:40.280 --> 1:30:42.200 Would we eventually get the cools on media offices? But 1:30:42.280 --> 1:30:43.840 you have a portrait hanging on the wall if you 1:30:44.439 --> 1:30:46.080 one quote underneath. 1:30:45.760 --> 1:30:49.599 Yeah yeah, yeah, on a plaque with a yeah, let 1:30:49.640 --> 1:30:50.479 me get the cools. 1:30:51.000 --> 1:30:53.880 When we when we take over the meta offices three 1:30:53.920 --> 1:30:54.719 weeks from now. 1:30:55.120 --> 1:30:59.320 Yeah, there is a marketing company that has been emailing 1:30:59.320 --> 1:31:02.000 me for about six months telling me how cheap it 1:31:02.040 --> 1:31:03.840 is to buy a billboard by the side of a 1:31:03.920 --> 1:31:05.840 road and send a message to a loved one. So 1:31:05.920 --> 1:31:13.400 maybe great, maybe doing bang array Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, 1:31:13.439 --> 1:31:15.960 Well there will be until I put my positive messages 1:31:16.000 --> 1:31:18.639 about the controlling lust and holding semen inside our bodies 1:31:19.439 --> 1:31:24.080 true and return men to their former glory. So a 1:31:24.120 --> 1:31:26.240 lot of the a lot of the Reddit posts rely 1:31:26.320 --> 1:31:29.000 on a couple of different studies, right, and one of 1:31:29.040 --> 1:31:31.920 these studies measured participants. A lot of what they're doing 1:31:32.000 --> 1:31:34.639 is are claiming to increase testosterone right right at the bat. 1:31:34.960 --> 1:31:38.360 Testosterone does have Aslan's Armstrong can tell you some performance 1:31:38.439 --> 1:31:43.759 enhancing benefits so yeah, you know, increases your muscle growth, 1:31:43.840 --> 1:31:48.120 your your coverage from exercise, all that stuff. One of 1:31:48.160 --> 1:31:52.519 the studies measured participates testosterone levels baseline before masturbation and 1:31:52.600 --> 1:31:56.800 then in ten minute intervals after masturbation, right, And then 1:31:56.880 --> 1:31:59.040 they were asked to abstain for three weeks and they 1:31:59.080 --> 1:32:02.120 came back and they did the process again. Testosterone was 1:32:02.240 --> 1:32:05.840 higher in the baseline measurement at the at the end 1:32:05.920 --> 1:32:09.240 of the three weeks of abstinence, right, But the sample 1:32:09.280 --> 1:32:12.600 size was pretty small, and there's some theorizing that the 1:32:12.600 --> 1:32:15.880 boost was actually caused by the anticipated masturbation that they 1:32:15.880 --> 1:32:19.439 were about to do. At the second it was so 1:32:19.520 --> 1:32:22.800 ready to go. Yeah, yeah, he's guns. Yeah, you're just 1:32:23.160 --> 1:32:27.840 ready to pop. After three weeks, the second study looked 1:32:27.840 --> 1:32:29.800 at a forty five percent intury, so after a few 1:32:29.880 --> 1:32:33.800 days seven days of abstinence. But even the study showed 1:32:33.800 --> 1:32:36.120 this was a temporary peak that returned to normal even 1:32:36.160 --> 1:32:40.200 with continuing abstinence. So there's there's just these two studies. 1:32:40.200 --> 1:32:45.280 They're pretty they happened a long time ago. We'll post 1:32:45.360 --> 1:32:46.639 them all in the show notes if you guys want 1:32:46.640 --> 1:32:49.800 to read more about novap science. But we should just 1:32:49.840 --> 1:32:51.800 point out that there is, in fact a multitude of 1:32:51.840 --> 1:32:54.960 evidence this is a bad idea that having sex is 1:32:55.000 --> 1:32:58.559 actually good for you. Having sex will toward trying not 1:32:58.600 --> 1:33:01.720 to ejaculate. It's probably not for you, probably not good 1:33:01.720 --> 1:33:10.519 for your relationship either. One would surmise, there are that whatever, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 1:33:10.560 --> 1:33:12.519 well yeah, if that's your thing, you do you do you. 1:33:13.640 --> 1:33:17.160 There was a study that investigated the motivation for semen 1:33:17.160 --> 1:33:22.080 and retention among semen and retainers, and a lot of 1:33:22.120 --> 1:33:24.960 it it seemed like it people were people who felt 1:33:24.960 --> 1:33:27.599 that like either sex or masturbation was unhealthy or wrong 1:33:27.680 --> 1:33:30.880 or sinful. And there is evidence to show that like 1:33:31.280 --> 1:33:36.759 feeling like guilty about yourself or like living with stress 1:33:36.760 --> 1:33:38.439 and self learning like that is bad for you, right, 1:33:38.479 --> 1:33:42.040 and that will reduce your test asterone level. There's also 1:33:42.080 --> 1:33:44.320 some evidence to suggest that not ejaculating can give you 1:33:44.360 --> 1:33:46.080 prostate issues. 1:33:46.960 --> 1:33:52.880 Which yes, yeah, there's there's and this is like pretty debatable, 1:33:52.960 --> 1:33:57.080 like most things that people talk about with in regards 1:33:57.120 --> 1:34:00.000 to coming and health, like you can find some studies, 1:34:00.200 --> 1:34:02.760 like the studies on testosterone. Some of them are kind 1:34:02.760 --> 1:34:06.680 of sketchy anyway, Yeah, I don't think oh, come or 1:34:06.760 --> 1:34:12.120 come either way, you know it's whatever, but if you 1:34:12.200 --> 1:34:13.960 do have a chance to fuck one of those Ali 1:34:14.040 --> 1:34:18.160 Baba robots, I recommend it keep out. 1:34:18.800 --> 1:34:20.240 Let's talk about cum demons. 1:34:20.360 --> 1:34:26.040 Hell yeah, wait, okay, okay, hard, hard pivot here from THESS. 1:34:26.640 --> 1:34:31.240 So, okay, we we are not going as far afield 1:34:31.800 --> 1:34:33.120 from the no fat. 1:34:32.880 --> 1:34:35.160 People as as as as you would think. 1:34:35.800 --> 1:34:39.559 Okay, but all right, now, the year is twenty twenty. 1:34:39.640 --> 1:34:43.640 Everyone on Earth has collectively gone insane. This is this 1:34:43.720 --> 1:34:45.240 is this is the summer. This is the summer of 1:34:45.280 --> 1:34:47.479 twenty twenty. So this is the part of twenty twenty 1:34:47.520 --> 1:34:51.839 where fun stuff is happening. This is like late July, oh, Garrison, 1:34:51.880 --> 1:34:52.639 that's when we met. 1:34:53.040 --> 1:34:57.360 So yeah, we were getting just incredibly poisoned. 1:34:57.640 --> 1:35:02.200 Yeah yeah, we sure we're that'll be fun in like 1:35:02.280 --> 1:35:03.120 twenty years. 1:35:03.640 --> 1:35:04.040 Well. 1:35:04.040 --> 1:35:06.960 Well, while life or death struggle for the sort of 1:35:06.960 --> 1:35:09.200 the life for death struggle for the fate of the 1:35:09.280 --> 1:35:11.240 United States and whether or not people are going to 1:35:11.280 --> 1:35:13.439 be conducing murdered by the cops is being waged in 1:35:13.479 --> 1:35:14.120 the streets. 1:35:14.360 --> 1:35:18.439 Uh, Donald Trump, but Donald J. Trumpron, Donald J. Trump, Wow, 1:35:18.520 --> 1:35:21.280 Donald Trump Junior. That one, that's that's that's the Trump 1:35:21.600 --> 1:35:26.120 little Trump here. Yeah, Trump we're you know, looking for 1:35:26.400 --> 1:35:28.960 looking looking for their their their their curre to COVID 1:35:29.040 --> 1:35:33.720 nineteen on Twitter. And okay, so as we probably all remember, right, 1:35:34.040 --> 1:35:35.960 the thing that they found was hydroxy. Okay, so one 1:35:35.960 --> 1:35:37.880 of the first ones that they found before before I've 1:35:37.880 --> 1:35:39.840 remact him, this is, this is before we found much. 1:35:40.200 --> 1:35:41.960 Yeah, was it inside of them all along? 1:35:42.040 --> 1:35:45.000 Mayn No, this is this is this is hydrogy chlorically 1:35:45.120 --> 1:35:46.080 the thing that was probable. 1:35:46.520 --> 1:35:50.120 I hope they weren't full of hydrocic I thought it was. No. 1:35:50.120 --> 1:35:51.960 No, Well we'll get to that where there there's a 1:35:53.800 --> 1:35:56.080 The road is long, but it ends with cum demons. 1:35:56.200 --> 1:36:00.360 We first must walk the road. So the road here 1:36:00.720 --> 1:36:05.960 is Donald Donald Trump Junior posts to tweet saying like this, 1:36:06.120 --> 1:36:11.000 saying this is necessary watching about this video from this 1:36:11.200 --> 1:36:16.920 doctor named doctor Stella Emmanue. Now, okay, who is this person? 1:36:17.240 --> 1:36:21.960 She she is part of ah okay, I say part of. 1:36:22.040 --> 1:36:28.960 She runs this thing called Firepower Ministries, which so you're 1:36:28.960 --> 1:36:30.960 going great, she's also part. 1:36:30.800 --> 1:36:33.600 Of I know, broadly Yeah, okay, cool. 1:36:34.840 --> 1:36:40.040 She's also part of America's frontline doctors who are yeah, yeah, 1:36:40.439 --> 1:36:45.320 I've forgotten. Yeah, these dipshits, Oh my god, Okay, so 1:36:45.560 --> 1:36:47.439 this is this is very very very much in the 1:36:47.439 --> 1:36:51.559 same vein as architect nine to eleven Truths. They found 1:36:51.600 --> 1:36:54.040 a bunch of people who technically have medical degrees or 1:36:54.160 --> 1:36:58.400 like nurses who were like, no, no vaccines are bad 1:36:58.479 --> 1:37:03.519 and hydroxychloricalleine contractor corn clean is we'll covid cork with 1:37:03.600 --> 1:37:06.240 that one. Yeah, it's it's, it's been, it's it's been 1:37:06.280 --> 1:37:09.800 a long day. I've slept for eight hours, but in 1:37:10.880 --> 1:37:14.560 like several distinct parts of the day that were not continuous. 1:37:14.600 --> 1:37:14.920 It's been. 1:37:15.120 --> 1:37:17.599 Things are going, things are going great. 1:37:17.680 --> 1:37:19.879 Fact, if you've taken some horse medicine first. 1:37:20.120 --> 1:37:21.880 Quite possibly, I mean it's not like it could have 1:37:21.880 --> 1:37:27.400 gone worse, all right, right, So so that this person's 1:37:27.400 --> 1:37:30.559 from the very sketchy doctors who are trying to sell 1:37:31.360 --> 1:37:35.160 like a bunch of random ship to to cure covid. 1:37:35.680 --> 1:37:40.800 And okay, so who actually is this person? She is 1:37:40.840 --> 1:37:46.760 from camera Rooon and doctor Stella. Meant Immanue was caught 1:37:46.880 --> 1:37:52.040 up in uh, the unbelievably sort of like i mean right, 1:37:52.080 --> 1:37:56.320 like yes, objectively right wing, also very very weird wave 1:37:56.520 --> 1:38:01.040 of Pentecostalism and charismatic Christianity that been sweeping across that 1:38:01.080 --> 1:38:03.000 part of Africa and as part of sort of a 1:38:03.520 --> 1:38:05.920 you know, sort of like a very sort of long 1:38:06.000 --> 1:38:09.160 range of coordinated effort by by right when Christian missionaries. 1:38:09.720 --> 1:38:13.040 So okay, So for for people who don't know your 1:38:13.120 --> 1:38:18.639 Christianity very well, the Pentecostals and the charismatic Christians are 1:38:18.680 --> 1:38:23.240 like firmly in the very very weird camp of Christians. 1:38:23.560 --> 1:38:25.679 Like these are these are the people who do faith healing. 1:38:26.280 --> 1:38:28.160 One of the very common sort of Pentecostal things is 1:38:28.200 --> 1:38:31.360 this belief that like like you just you talk to God, 1:38:31.640 --> 1:38:34.000 like God's in your head and you just have conversations 1:38:34.000 --> 1:38:36.360 with Him. Now, unfortunately for like all of us, and 1:38:36.600 --> 1:38:38.559 this is you know what a thing that is a 1:38:38.600 --> 1:38:41.479 non insignificant contributing factor to why the last I don't 1:38:41.479 --> 1:38:44.040 know ten years have been so bat shit is that 1:38:44.120 --> 1:38:47.479 like this originally was kind of an isolated Pentecostal thing, 1:38:47.600 --> 1:38:50.519 and like the broader evangelicals were like, no, no, no, God 1:38:50.520 --> 1:38:53.040 only talks to me like your pastor like it's probably 1:38:53.080 --> 1:38:55.439 not like you're you're not like having a conversation in 1:38:55.479 --> 1:38:58.880 your head with but like change that's changed. Yeah, this 1:38:59.400 --> 1:39:02.639 shit has, this shit has fucking taken over everywhere. It's 1:39:02.720 --> 1:39:06.880 really bad. And these people believe a lot of very 1:39:06.960 --> 1:39:10.320 very weird stuff. So well, I mean, okay, so, like, 1:39:10.320 --> 1:39:12.479 you know, she she has like some of the sort 1:39:12.520 --> 1:39:17.439 of standard like really really hardline like David iike shit, 1:39:17.640 --> 1:39:19.879 Like she believes that the world's being run by aliens 1:39:19.920 --> 1:39:24.799 and like reptiles, and like the vaccine has like alien 1:39:25.280 --> 1:39:26.960 DNA in it to like take over your data. 1:39:27.160 --> 1:39:27.280 You know. 1:39:27.320 --> 1:39:30.000 It's just like sort of kind of Facebook moments Alex Jones, Shit, 1:39:30.080 --> 1:39:33.519 yeah right, okay, but okay, I'm gonna read this quote 1:39:33.520 --> 1:39:36.559 from will Sumner. This is a quote from one of 1:39:36.560 --> 1:39:41.240 her her sermons. They, which is, demons are responsible for 1:39:41.320 --> 1:39:45.639 serious guynecological problems. And Manuel said, we call them all 1:39:45.720 --> 1:39:49.360 kinds of names, and Tromesus and Travisius, we call them 1:39:49.439 --> 1:39:52.759 molar pregnancies, we call them fibroids, we call them cysts, 1:39:53.200 --> 1:40:00.920 but most of them were evil deposits from spirit husband. 1:40:00.520 --> 1:40:00.840 God. 1:40:01.200 --> 1:40:01.400 Yeah. 1:40:01.560 --> 1:40:05.960 No, they are responsible for miscarriage's impotence men that can't 1:40:06.040 --> 1:40:06.599 get it up. 1:40:07.360 --> 1:40:09.559 So all right, immediately we we have like we have 1:40:09.640 --> 1:40:10.240 there are. 1:40:10.200 --> 1:40:13.040 Several kinds of cum demons here that we're dealing with. 1:40:13.200 --> 1:40:16.559 So there are like there, there's, there's there's Okay. So 1:40:17.560 --> 1:40:20.960 a lot of this is drawn from what is a 1:40:21.200 --> 1:40:23.160 very like a genu widely. 1:40:22.960 --> 1:40:25.080 Unbelievably dubious piece of theology. 1:40:25.320 --> 1:40:27.599 So when I was researching this, right, I saw, I saw, 1:40:28.360 --> 1:40:30.160 I saw someone there there was there was like a 1:40:30.200 --> 1:40:33.040 religious scholar who was writing this. He was like, oh, 1:40:33.040 --> 1:40:35.840 I immediately recognized the theology of this. This is from 1:40:35.880 --> 1:40:37.800 this is from Genesis six. 1:40:38.600 --> 1:40:39.000 So okay. 1:40:39.000 --> 1:40:40.240 So I was like, Okay, what what the fuck are 1:40:40.280 --> 1:40:42.720 they talking about? So I went back and I read. Okay, 1:40:42.760 --> 1:40:44.800 So I went back and I read the Genesis, and 1:40:44.920 --> 1:40:47.920 I'm going to read the two this is. This is 1:40:47.920 --> 1:40:50.720 from Genesis chapter six, verses one and two, and I 1:40:50.760 --> 1:40:53.639 am just going to read these two sentences, and I'm 1:40:53.640 --> 1:40:56.040 going to see if you two can produce cum demons 1:40:56.080 --> 1:40:56.400 from this. 1:40:56.920 --> 1:40:59.160 Okay, happy, I. 1:40:59.160 --> 1:41:04.120 Mean I could produce com demons from almost anything. That 1:41:04.280 --> 1:41:05.680 is that is the power. 1:41:05.840 --> 1:41:08.679 With the right machinery. 1:41:08.840 --> 1:41:10.800 You know what, I think we know exactly what the 1:41:10.880 --> 1:41:11.880 right machinery is. 1:41:12.400 --> 1:41:15.360 Look, we know that we can produce com demons mechanically. 1:41:15.400 --> 1:41:20.639 Our challenge here is to produce them theologically. Okay, try 1:41:20.760 --> 1:41:22.280 I will, I will use all of all of. 1:41:22.240 --> 1:41:23.200 My claim knowledge. 1:41:23.360 --> 1:41:25.840 We must we must find a way to evacuate the 1:41:25.920 --> 1:41:27.400 vast deference of the soul. 1:41:30.360 --> 1:41:33.160 Okay, so I'm using I'm using the King James translation 1:41:33.240 --> 1:41:36.760 because that's the translation that all these psychos use. And 1:41:36.800 --> 1:41:39.680 it came to pass when men began to multiply on 1:41:39.720 --> 1:41:42.479 the face of the earth and daughters were born onto them, 1:41:42.800 --> 1:41:45.080 that the sons of God saw the daughters of man 1:41:45.200 --> 1:41:47.559 that they were fair, and they took them wives of 1:41:47.600 --> 1:41:51.240 all which they chose. Okay, so I I do know 1:41:51.320 --> 1:41:54.800 where they're I do know what they are doing. So 1:41:54.880 --> 1:41:56.719 the sons of God those would be what like fallen 1:41:56.760 --> 1:41:58.719 angels that have been procreating with women. 1:41:58.880 --> 1:42:01.400 Yeah, yeah, I think. 1:42:01.360 --> 1:42:03.559 This ties into like the Book of Enoch stuff, which 1:42:03.600 --> 1:42:06.720 was made a little bit like after Genesis but kind 1:42:06.720 --> 1:42:10.479 of like retconned a lot of like the creation story. 1:42:10.680 --> 1:42:14.559 So I can see where they're they're pulling cum demons from. 1:42:14.920 --> 1:42:17.000 But it is it is a bit of a stretch. 1:42:17.560 --> 1:42:19.680 Yeah, they're kind of you could say cum demons in 1:42:19.680 --> 1:42:23.200 the way that like God seed. Yeah, you could see it. Yeah, 1:42:23.280 --> 1:42:24.599 it's that's it is a stretch. 1:42:25.160 --> 1:42:25.320 Now. 1:42:25.360 --> 1:42:28.080 Okay, my my my analysis, because I I think I 1:42:28.760 --> 1:42:30.679 I think they're pulling this out of their ass. 1:42:30.760 --> 1:42:32.320 And I think they're pulling this out of their ass. 1:42:35.080 --> 1:42:39.519 It's also about cum demons. So yeah, okay. 1:42:39.479 --> 1:42:42.960 Like I I I have it is well known for 1:42:43.000 --> 1:42:44.479 people who follow me on Twitter that I have an 1:42:44.520 --> 1:42:49.200 immense and powerful disrespect for theology. But what what part 1:42:49.280 --> 1:42:53.400 of the sons of God? What what part of that 1:42:53.560 --> 1:42:54.920 gets you to demons? 1:42:55.040 --> 1:42:55.360 And not? 1:42:55.560 --> 1:42:55.600 Like? 1:42:55.640 --> 1:42:58.680 Because again, isn't the whole point of Christianity that we 1:42:58.760 --> 1:43:00.800 are all God's children? Like, isn't it? 1:43:01.160 --> 1:43:03.400 Is this not a thing that they tell you in 1:43:03.479 --> 1:43:04.559 every single fucking sir? 1:43:04.800 --> 1:43:07.679 How do you read that and not think they're talking 1:43:07.760 --> 1:43:10.479 about people and immediately jump to come to you a 1:43:10.520 --> 1:43:12.240 bit like, here's what's going on? 1:43:12.320 --> 1:43:14.160 I could, I could explain this because this is the 1:43:14.240 --> 1:43:16.759 King James version. So this was made in a post 1:43:16.760 --> 1:43:19.840 Book of Enoch world. Around the around the alleged birth 1:43:19.840 --> 1:43:22.680 of Jesus, the Book of Enoch got very popular and 1:43:22.760 --> 1:43:25.320 this this introduced the idea of a fallen angel. The 1:43:25.320 --> 1:43:27.479 fallow fallen angel isn't really in the Bible at all, 1:43:27.520 --> 1:43:32.320 It's only it's only in like non biblical Abrahamic texts. 1:43:32.680 --> 1:43:36.320 So this this idea then kind of got planted into 1:43:36.360 --> 1:43:39.360 a lot of like Catholic mythology as well. So when 1:43:39.400 --> 1:43:42.040 they're there caused they have a distinction between like the 1:43:42.360 --> 1:43:45.080 like the sons of like the sons of God versus 1:43:45.800 --> 1:43:47.839 what was the what was the thing they used to 1:43:47.479 --> 1:43:48.759 refer to the daughters. 1:43:49.439 --> 1:43:52.560 The sons are the daughters of men exactly, So the 1:43:52.920 --> 1:43:56.960 daughters are human, where the the the sons are like 1:43:57.160 --> 1:43:57.880 came from God. 1:43:57.960 --> 1:43:59.720 So that is some type of fallen angel that has 1:43:59.720 --> 1:44:04.200 been asked down to earth. They are doing a specific thing, 1:44:04.600 --> 1:44:06.559 but it's it's it's it's a result of a whole 1:44:06.600 --> 1:44:09.320 bunch of like mistranslations and a whole bunch of various 1:44:09.560 --> 1:44:12.640 various like Christian and Gnostic texts that been that have 1:44:12.680 --> 1:44:14.880 been misinterpreted for thousands of years by the Catholic Church, 1:44:15.080 --> 1:44:18.120 and it creates a really weird theology that is indistinguishable 1:44:18.160 --> 1:44:19.160 from like Castlevania. 1:44:19.439 --> 1:44:22.640 So yeah, I blame I blamed Martin lud This is 1:44:22.680 --> 1:44:27.599 Martin Luther's fault, like like, here's. 1:44:27.400 --> 1:44:32.480 The thing, here's the thing. Keep it in high latins, understand. 1:44:32.680 --> 1:44:34.599 This, this is this is this is what Martin Luther. 1:44:34.680 --> 1:44:36.479 I'm specifically because okay. So this was already happy. The 1:44:36.479 --> 1:44:38.439 cath the Church was already doing this right. But Martin 1:44:38.520 --> 1:44:41.559 Luther had a chance to fix this ship. And she 1:44:41.800 --> 1:44:43.519 was like, do you know what I'm gonna do and say, 1:44:43.640 --> 1:44:45.680 is that I am going to I am going to 1:44:45.760 --> 1:44:48.000 turn against the peasant revolts and I'm going to do 1:44:48.040 --> 1:44:49.880 a lot. I'm going to bring about a level of 1:44:49.920 --> 1:44:52.760 anti Semitism that is going to allow me to outflank 1:44:52.800 --> 1:44:56.799 the Inquisition on the right. She could have been fixing 1:44:56.840 --> 1:45:01.840 this bullshit no anti seven is I gotta keep my 1:45:01.880 --> 1:45:03.640 patron lords and down he was. 1:45:03.920 --> 1:45:07.120 He was German, like, there's only so much you can ask. 1:45:07.080 --> 1:45:07.799 That's true. 1:45:08.479 --> 1:45:10.920 Yeah, well I'm happy that we can all go to 1:45:10.920 --> 1:45:14.000 sleep at night worrying about the sons of God implanting semen. 1:45:15.000 --> 1:45:16.880 There's okay. 1:45:16.920 --> 1:45:20.040 So that that's that's com demon type type one, right, 1:45:20.439 --> 1:45:22.640 That is okay. So though those are those are the 1:45:22.640 --> 1:45:25.479 demons that like they they have they have sex with 1:45:25.520 --> 1:45:30.360 women and they produce nephilim from or sometimes also nephelin. 1:45:30.600 --> 1:45:32.479 There's there's a lot of sort of conflicting sort of theology. 1:45:32.560 --> 1:45:34.000 All that stuff comes from the Book of Enoch, All 1:45:34.000 --> 1:45:36.720 that stuff is non canon to the modern Bible, but 1:45:36.800 --> 1:45:38.280 it's where it's where it comes from. 1:45:38.400 --> 1:45:39.960 Sucking Council of nicea. 1:45:42.880 --> 1:45:45.360 Okay, but there's also there's also a second there's also 1:45:45.400 --> 1:45:47.960 the second kind of cum demon, right, which is these 1:45:47.960 --> 1:45:50.000 are the these are well okay, so so succuby and 1:45:50.040 --> 1:45:51.639 incuby are based here. 1:45:51.520 --> 1:45:52.320 We go, I do it. 1:45:52.400 --> 1:45:57.599 I was it was counting down the the other kind 1:45:57.640 --> 1:46:00.559 of of demon. So you have your incub by, right, 1:46:00.600 --> 1:46:02.879 who are another type of sex demon, and the incuby 1:46:02.920 --> 1:46:06.120 fuck men so they can steal their semen and they're 1:46:06.160 --> 1:46:08.080 they're they're you know, there's some statements are reasons that. 1:46:08.040 --> 1:46:10.360 There's another thing that she talks about, which is that 1:46:11.040 --> 1:46:13.920 there are witches who have like astral spirit sex with 1:46:14.000 --> 1:46:16.000 men in their sleep. And if you're like having a 1:46:16.080 --> 1:46:18.759 sex stream, it's because you're having actual spirit sex. 1:46:19.680 --> 1:46:19.840 No. 1:46:19.840 --> 1:46:22.280 No, yeah, I mean like I like Bill Murray, I've 1:46:22.320 --> 1:46:25.639 I've experienced that. Oh no, that was Bill Murray. Sorry, 1:46:26.240 --> 1:46:26.719 my mistake. 1:46:28.960 --> 1:46:33.679 Oh wait, yes, okay, okay, the cloud the fog is clearing. 1:46:33.720 --> 1:46:36.240 I've I've had I've had sex with too many sex demons. 1:46:36.280 --> 1:46:37.880 It's it's a real issue. 1:46:38.040 --> 1:46:38.920 Okay. So, so all right. 1:46:38.960 --> 1:46:41.960 So we have the sex demons who are like trying 1:46:41.960 --> 1:46:43.680 to pregnant. You have the sex demons, you're trying to 1:46:43.680 --> 1:46:45.920 steal your cump. We also have the actual we have 1:46:45.960 --> 1:46:48.799 the actual projecting projecting witches, right, and the actual projecting 1:46:48.840 --> 1:46:51.640 witches are trying to steal people's come as part of 1:46:51.680 --> 1:46:54.800 an Illuminati plot to create like an even more powerful witch. 1:46:55.040 --> 1:46:57.200 And the even more powerful witch is going to use 1:46:57.240 --> 1:47:00.439 gay marriage and children's toys to like destroy the fabric 1:47:00.439 --> 1:47:04.439 of Western civilization. That does bring about sort of jen 1:47:04.560 --> 1:47:06.720 general new World order, ETCA have heard this. 1:47:06.840 --> 1:47:11.360 Honestly, Lan Witch meetings, Yeah, it is not as far 1:47:11.800 --> 1:47:15.120 from the backstory to Warhammer forty thousand as it should be. 1:47:15.560 --> 1:47:18.080 That's very sadly true. 1:47:18.200 --> 1:47:20.519 I didn't want Warhammer forty thousands coming to our com 1:47:20.600 --> 1:47:24.120 episode if I'm honahed, No, it's. 1:47:24.000 --> 1:47:26.000 I mean, look, there's a lot of people who are 1:47:26.000 --> 1:47:31.920 interested in both Semen Retention and Warhammer forty thousand. 1:47:32.439 --> 1:47:34.599 That's a tight vendram. 1:47:34.960 --> 1:47:38.320 Yeah, yeah, they all play Ultra Marines. That was ah, 1:47:38.840 --> 1:47:41.479 that's yeah, pretty good Warhammer forty thousand joke for those 1:47:41.520 --> 1:47:42.320 of you who play. 1:47:43.479 --> 1:47:45.679 I also learned a couple of days ago that I 1:47:45.960 --> 1:47:48.160 one of the many crimes of the Emperor forty K 1:47:48.320 --> 1:47:50.880 was passing off in a Miri Bakara quote as his own. 1:47:51.920 --> 1:47:54.240 Oh yeah, that that is that was That was a 1:47:54.240 --> 1:47:57.120 good bit. That was a really good bit. It's little 1:47:57.160 --> 1:47:59.920 pieces like that that let you know that Dan Abnetz 1:48:00.040 --> 1:48:06.599 pretty bass. That was my favorite part of the book. 1:48:07.040 --> 1:48:09.599 So funny. That's like, that's literally cannon. 1:48:10.400 --> 1:48:14.479 I do have like three pages written on Tanning. So yeah, 1:48:15.080 --> 1:48:17.360 little bit. That's that's that's the end of the same 1:48:17.400 --> 1:48:20.639 stems go off. Well, okay, I The one thing I'll 1:48:20.680 --> 1:48:23.160 add on is that one of the more funny modern 1:48:23.240 --> 1:48:25.920 versions of these, if you go on the betted drill 1:48:25.960 --> 1:48:30.200 subreddit the recreational pedetul subreddit, you can fight pop who 1:48:30.280 --> 1:48:32.920 try to take enough beta drill to have sex with 1:48:33.000 --> 1:48:36.120 the hat man, which is another. 1:48:37.560 --> 1:48:42.000 Another form of trying to sum a shadow people. Maybe 1:48:42.000 --> 1:48:43.439 you have to you have. 1:48:43.400 --> 1:48:45.240 To explain your terms for people here. 1:48:45.320 --> 1:48:46.519 Yeah, I'm a man. 1:48:47.120 --> 1:48:50.200 The man is a tall, thin man wearing a hat 1:48:50.240 --> 1:48:53.400 who appears when you take hallucinogenic doses of ben a 1:48:53.479 --> 1:48:56.720 drill because you can't afford better drugs because you're seventeen. 1:48:57.080 --> 1:49:00.000 Yes, we're younger, and there's some people the hat man. 1:49:00.240 --> 1:49:03.320 Some people find the hat man extremely attractive, or some 1:49:03.400 --> 1:49:07.280 of like the female shadow people variants and they try 1:49:07.320 --> 1:49:11.120 to I have read multiple reports of people explaining their 1:49:11.160 --> 1:49:13.040 sexual experiences with shadow people. 1:49:13.960 --> 1:49:16.519 Anyways, the President of the United States and his son 1:49:16.640 --> 1:49:19.040 were promoting this, so this is great. 1:49:19.880 --> 1:49:23.120 This website, by the way, absolute adventures on here. I'm 1:49:23.160 --> 1:49:27.719 just reading about how to use Christ's blood as a weapon. Amazing. 1:49:27.880 --> 1:49:28.519 Oh that's good. 1:49:28.840 --> 1:49:32.240 Yeah, yeah, no problems here. Yeah. Do you know who 1:49:32.280 --> 1:49:33.919 won't steal your semen? Everybody? 1:49:34.560 --> 1:49:35.360 We can't promise that. 1:49:35.720 --> 1:49:36.240 I can. 1:49:36.360 --> 1:49:39.120 I can promise any advertiser on this show. I've personally 1:49:39.160 --> 1:49:41.760 approved to make sure they will not come into your 1:49:41.760 --> 1:49:42.960 bedroom and steal your semen. 1:49:43.680 --> 1:49:46.519 Wow, how do you do? How's the approval? Press work 1:49:46.600 --> 1:49:50.360 is out of interest. I cannot divulge privately. 1:49:50.479 --> 1:49:51.519 Since Garrison for. 1:49:55.880 --> 1:49:58.200 We are we are going to close off by talking 1:49:58.320 --> 1:50:04.800 about a an testosterone, two of our favorite topics for 1:50:04.840 --> 1:50:09.040 this episode. For some reason, about a year ago, a 1:50:09.080 --> 1:50:12.200 trailer on Fox News dropped for a new batch of 1:50:12.240 --> 1:50:17.719 Tucker Carlson originals, titled The End of Men. It opens 1:50:17.760 --> 1:50:20.840 with the text that reads, in the current year. 1:50:21.439 --> 1:50:23.120 The cycle continues. 1:50:26.800 --> 1:50:30.880 Once a society collapses, then if you're in hard times, well, 1:50:31.880 --> 1:50:35.719 hard iron sharpens iron, as they'd say, and those hard 1:50:35.720 --> 1:50:39.880 times inevitably produce men who are tough, men, who are 1:50:39.960 --> 1:50:44.519 resource for, men who are strong enough to survive, and 1:50:44.560 --> 1:50:47.200 then they go on to re establish order, and so 1:50:47.439 --> 1:50:48.679 the cycle begins again. 1:50:53.920 --> 1:50:57.360 Now there's a few funny things about this video, from 1:50:57.479 --> 1:51:00.840 the ripped shirtless dudes milking cows, to wrestling each other 1:51:01.240 --> 1:51:05.559 and shooting bottles of canola oil. There's had a hundred 1:51:05.560 --> 1:51:08.960 inche that is shooting like ten bottles of canola oil 1:51:09.000 --> 1:51:10.000 for some reason. 1:51:10.240 --> 1:51:14.759 Maybe the Mussolini's leg there into the Mussolini staff. 1:51:15.000 --> 1:51:18.320 He was bye by far the most bizarre. 1:51:18.479 --> 1:51:20.720 I suspect they're shooting the canola because it's like a 1:51:20.720 --> 1:51:24.400 seed oil thing. They think that like a right wing thing. 1:51:25.160 --> 1:51:28.040 Oils are like sucking out your testosterone. 1:51:28.040 --> 1:51:30.960 Anyway, it's something very silly, but by far the most 1:51:31.000 --> 1:51:34.640 bizarre thing in this trailer is a shot of a 1:51:34.760 --> 1:51:38.320 naked man with outstretched arms like Jesus on the Cross 1:51:38.320 --> 1:51:41.120 of style, standing in front of a lake at dusk, 1:51:41.200 --> 1:51:44.720 with a white machine shining a glowing red light on 1:51:44.800 --> 1:51:51.840 his Dick. What and again powerful image at the clibax 1:51:51.880 --> 1:51:54.320 of the music from two thousand and one Space Odyssey. Uh, 1:51:54.479 --> 1:51:58.360 there's this there's this man facing balls first in front 1:51:58.360 --> 1:52:01.000 of this large red light at the end of this trailer. 1:52:01.640 --> 1:52:05.479 I there should never have been any cause on our 1:52:05.520 --> 1:52:08.880 podcast or on Fox News for anyone to save the 1:52:08.920 --> 1:52:12.280 line after the end of the climax of the music 1:52:12.320 --> 1:52:14.720 from two thousand and one a Space odysty. 1:52:15.560 --> 1:52:18.719 Oh, that's the thing we're objecting to from this episode, 1:52:19.080 --> 1:52:19.840 that's the line. 1:52:20.000 --> 1:52:23.680 Yeah, yeah, because it shouldn't a climax. It lost its 1:52:23.720 --> 1:52:27.200 power in that moment. Considering both like the No. 1:52:27.560 --> 1:52:29.760 One second James, that was a very good joke. 1:52:30.160 --> 1:52:33.679 Thank you, thank you, thank you for seeing me, buddy. 1:52:34.760 --> 1:52:37.599 Yeah, So considering both like the text at the beginning 1:52:37.600 --> 1:52:39.639 and then some of the narration that we just heard 1:52:39.640 --> 1:52:41.960 in the trailer, they're kind of doing this weird like 1:52:42.080 --> 1:52:45.240 Cali yoga thing, right that is that is a bit 1:52:45.280 --> 1:52:46.639 of a bit of what's going on here. 1:52:46.800 --> 1:52:50.519 Because again you can listen to our episodes on Savitri 1:52:50.640 --> 1:52:52.880 Devi for a little more information about this. But it's 1:52:52.920 --> 1:52:58.639 like this weird right wing con like quasi apocalyptic concept 1:52:58.680 --> 1:53:01.519 that evolved during an in between some of the early 1:53:01.600 --> 1:53:05.640 Nazis and some of the people who are currently behind 1:53:05.800 --> 1:53:08.959 the present leader of India. It's it's way too esoteric 1:53:09.000 --> 1:53:10.720 and weird to get into, but it's one of the 1:53:10.760 --> 1:53:11.120 things that. 1:53:11.160 --> 1:53:15.920 Like, yeah, it's the real fun like it. We're not 1:53:15.920 --> 1:53:17.679 going to get into it too much. But I think 1:53:18.360 --> 1:53:22.600 the previous. 1:53:21.160 --> 1:53:23.960 Wound up adjacent to at Tucker Carlson episode because it's 1:53:24.000 --> 1:53:26.639 some like weird esoteric Nazi wizard ship. 1:53:27.200 --> 1:53:31.439 Yes, and that previous November, Joe Rogan posted a Cali 1:53:31.479 --> 1:53:34.759 Yuga meme which went viral. It's it's about how hard 1:53:34.840 --> 1:53:37.760 times creates strong men, which create good times, which lead 1:53:37.800 --> 1:53:40.360 to weak men, which create hard times. It's a fucking 1:53:40.439 --> 1:53:45.320 silly his, his, his, the h The accompanying text on 1:53:45.360 --> 1:53:49.120 the Instagram post that that Rogan did said, civilizations move 1:53:49.160 --> 1:53:52.200 in predictable cycles. We are in the Kali Yuga, the 1:53:52.240 --> 1:53:54.800 age of conflict. All of the chaos we're seeing right 1:53:54.800 --> 1:54:01.000 now is predicted in Hinduism thousands of years ago. Rogan 1:54:01.280 --> 1:54:04.000 was probably just like parroting something that he heard from 1:54:04.040 --> 1:54:07.000 one of his many Fashy or new ag friends, which, 1:54:07.080 --> 1:54:09.960 considering Rogan's social circle, that could very well, just be 1:54:10.000 --> 1:54:10.639 the same person. 1:54:10.960 --> 1:54:13.559 Yes, yeah, yeah, one of his fucking sparring buddies is 1:54:13.560 --> 1:54:15.960 either friends with the Nazi or just stumbled upon a 1:54:16.000 --> 1:54:18.880 fucking the wrong podcast and then told him that when 1:54:18.880 --> 1:54:22.160 they were smoking weed. And you know, yes, I mean 1:54:22.160 --> 1:54:26.200 that's honestly to it's problematic because of his platform, but 1:54:26.200 --> 1:54:29.040 that's how I learned. Everything about esoterica that I learned 1:54:29.080 --> 1:54:31.240 when I was in my twenties was some I was 1:54:31.280 --> 1:54:34.120 smoking weed with some sketchy dude who was going places 1:54:34.120 --> 1:54:35.520 I shouldn't have been on the internet. 1:54:36.440 --> 1:54:40.360 So a few months after Rogan posted this meme, we 1:54:40.440 --> 1:54:43.360 have Tucker Carlson making this whole mini series surrounding this 1:54:43.760 --> 1:54:48.480 Hard Times Creates Strong Men kind of trend. It's taking 1:54:48.520 --> 1:54:52.920 cues from the online manosphere, and Tucker posited that weak, 1:54:53.160 --> 1:54:56.680 unmanly men are leading to the collapse of civilization and 1:54:56.760 --> 1:55:01.080 a hardening of men is necessary to save it. According 1:55:01.120 --> 1:55:03.080 to according to Tucker, one of the one of the 1:55:03.120 --> 1:55:06.480 threats to manhood is a quote unquote total collapse in 1:55:06.520 --> 1:55:11.280 testosterone levels amongst men in recent years. And the solution 1:55:11.600 --> 1:55:14.800 goes beyond just your typical like anti soy crusading that 1:55:14.840 --> 1:55:18.760 Tucker has done in the past. Now, Tucker has turned 1:55:18.800 --> 1:55:24.840 to the cutting edge science of bromiopathic medicine as advocates. 1:55:25.160 --> 1:55:33.080 God damn it, as advocated for by a quote unquote 1:55:33.120 --> 1:55:37.960 fitness professional named Andrew McGovern who touts that infrared light 1:55:38.560 --> 1:55:42.840 and testical tanning is this disex marketa for plummeting tea 1:55:42.920 --> 1:55:43.560 levels in men. 1:55:44.080 --> 1:55:46.760 So obviously half the viewers right now are like, what, 1:55:46.840 --> 1:55:47.920 that's testical tanning. 1:55:47.920 --> 1:55:48.640 That's crazy. 1:55:49.640 --> 1:55:53.200 But my view is, Okay, testosterone levels crash and nobody 1:55:53.240 --> 1:55:57.280 says anything about it. That's crazy, So why is it 1:55:57.320 --> 1:55:58.520 crazy to seek solutions? 1:55:58.600 --> 1:56:00.000 It's not crazy to seek solutions. 1:56:00.000 --> 1:56:02.800 And I think I was recently exposed to a term 1:56:02.880 --> 1:56:05.560 called bromeopathy, and I think there's a lot of people 1:56:05.560 --> 1:56:10.839 out there right now that are don't trust the mainstream information. 1:56:11.560 --> 1:56:15.480 This TV special is constantly referred to as a documentary, 1:56:16.120 --> 1:56:19.280 so surely you would expect Tucker to try and like 1:56:19.320 --> 1:56:22.640 interview scientists or like anyone with expertise on this topic. 1:56:24.360 --> 1:56:30.680 Of course, not actually not the case. Andrew McGovern are 1:56:30.880 --> 1:56:36.480 our bromeopathic hero. Works as a personal trader at Lifetime 1:56:36.520 --> 1:56:40.320 Fitness in Columbus, Ohio, and he hasn't even been a 1:56:40.360 --> 1:56:47.040 trader for very long. About a decade ago. About a 1:56:47.120 --> 1:56:50.120 decade ago, he was the manager of an Abercrobie and 1:56:50.160 --> 1:56:51.240 Fitch store in Miami. 1:56:51.960 --> 1:57:01.160 Perfect now descriptions from works at the Grumby and Finish store. 1:57:01.400 --> 1:57:03.920 Wait, but in Miami. 1:57:06.320 --> 1:57:08.200 Hey, if you want to get trim that's where you 1:57:08.240 --> 1:57:08.960 get trimmed. 1:57:09.040 --> 1:57:13.080 Yeah, that is That type of dude is emerging here. 1:57:13.480 --> 1:57:15.960 As of twenty seventeen, he was the director of operations 1:57:16.200 --> 1:57:21.960 for Petland retail stores. 1:57:22.240 --> 1:57:23.400 He's getting funnier. 1:57:24.080 --> 1:57:27.000 But this guy's resume is finally amusing. 1:57:27.320 --> 1:57:30.839 But Tucker, being a competent journalist, did not just interview 1:57:30.840 --> 1:57:34.400 one person. However, Kid Rock was brought on to be 1:57:34.480 --> 1:57:35.960 the sole voice of reasons. 1:57:37.000 --> 1:57:39.560 You know, Garrison, you left, But Kid Rock is the 1:57:39.600 --> 1:57:42.240 other person. I've gotten prescription drugs from so. 1:57:44.040 --> 1:57:47.280 Real bastion. In the platonic cave of men stands Kid 1:57:47.360 --> 1:57:50.240 Rock and a guy from Abercrombie and Fitch. We must 1:57:50.280 --> 1:57:51.360 only beat their shadows. 1:57:51.720 --> 1:57:56.280 Dude, stop testicle Danny, come on, I mean, yeah, I 1:57:56.320 --> 1:58:02.280 haven't heard anything, Bobby. I'm starting a punk rock band 1:58:02.320 --> 1:58:03.840 and it's called Testical Tanning. 1:58:03.880 --> 1:58:04.680 That's the end of it. 1:58:04.800 --> 1:58:07.360 I mean, don't you think at this point, when so 1:58:07.480 --> 1:58:10.280 many of the therapies, the paths they've told us to take, 1:58:10.560 --> 1:58:12.360 have turned out to be dead ends that have really 1:58:12.400 --> 1:58:16.920 hurt people, why wouldn't open minded people seek new solutions. 1:58:17.800 --> 1:58:19.680 I don't know what the hell is going on in 1:58:19.680 --> 1:58:22.000 this world. I'm not even sure if I understood that question. 1:58:22.080 --> 1:58:24.560 But some days I just want to stop this planet, 1:58:24.640 --> 1:58:25.240 let me off. 1:58:25.400 --> 1:58:29.520 Like Kid Rock was not did not buy into testical 1:58:29.560 --> 1:58:31.200 tanning the same way Tucker seems to. 1:58:31.880 --> 1:58:39.280 How, oh God is kid. 1:58:35.560 --> 1:58:36.120 What I said? 1:58:36.320 --> 1:58:38.200 I said he was brought out to be the sole 1:58:39.720 --> 1:58:41.640 but we thought you were joking because it's Kid. 1:58:42.040 --> 1:58:42.760 You were joking. 1:58:44.200 --> 1:58:50.200 No, he's the only kid Rock stands with science. 1:58:50.880 --> 1:58:53.960 It is indeed sweet Home, Alabama all summer long. 1:58:55.040 --> 1:58:58.360 Tucker was not the first person to advocate for testicular 1:58:58.400 --> 1:59:01.760 tanning as the solution to an allegedly problematic dip in 1:59:01.840 --> 1:59:04.800 testosterone levels. Dating back to twenty fifteen, you can find 1:59:04.880 --> 1:59:09.360 articles online such as quote former MLB player Gabe Kapler 1:59:09.440 --> 1:59:11.880 says men who want to get stronger should tan their 1:59:11.920 --> 1:59:15.720 testicles from complex and quote I put a giant red 1:59:15.840 --> 1:59:18.800 light on my balls to triple white testosterone levels from 1:59:18.840 --> 1:59:20.160 a Men's Health twenty seventeen. 1:59:20.440 --> 1:59:22.760 Is that written by Ben Greenfield Benny Johns because he 1:59:22.800 --> 1:59:27.080 normally pops up with these things, which one the Men's 1:59:27.120 --> 1:59:27.800 health one. 1:59:28.000 --> 1:59:29.720 Me Let me see a guy who injected to have 1:59:29.840 --> 1:59:32.040 a dick to make it bigger. I have it in 1:59:32.040 --> 1:59:34.760 my show notes here. This was written by someone named 1:59:34.800 --> 1:59:35.760 Ben Greenfield. 1:59:38.880 --> 1:59:42.360 Pot this balland has one games. 1:59:42.920 --> 1:59:45.600 So proud of you today, buddy. 1:59:44.920 --> 1:59:47.600 I'm so happy we have you on our team. 1:59:47.840 --> 1:59:51.800 Dates are you taking? Are you taking performance enhancing drugs? 1:59:51.800 --> 1:59:52.800 For this podcast? 1:59:54.000 --> 1:59:58.760 Should be Robert I'm not. This is so funny. We 1:59:58.920 --> 2:00:02.240 have stepped into a gold mind of contact with Ben Greenfield, 2:00:02.240 --> 2:00:04.560 the guy who injected his own dick with stem cells 2:00:04.600 --> 2:00:10.000 to make it bigger. That's so funny. Then you compel you. 2:00:10.080 --> 2:00:12.240 If you have any free time in your day, just 2:00:12.320 --> 2:00:16.160 google Ben Greenfield penis. There will be several articles. It's 2:00:16.160 --> 2:00:21.120 supposedly reptible outlets. It will just fucking make you unwell. Well, 2:00:21.280 --> 2:00:22.520 that's that is great to hear it. 2:00:22.600 --> 2:00:25.560 But despite not being the first person to talk about 2:00:25.560 --> 2:00:30.120 testicular tanning, Tucker was certainly the most impactful. After the 2:00:30.160 --> 2:00:34.200 airing of the End of Men testicular tanning showed a 2:00:34.320 --> 2:00:37.880 seven thousand increase in relative search interest on Google and 2:00:39.160 --> 2:00:42.880 thirty five thousand increase in tweets on the topic. Now, 2:00:42.960 --> 2:00:45.680 surely some of these things are stuff like making fun 2:00:45.720 --> 2:00:50.000 of it right some weeks, I'm sure, yeah, but a 2:00:49.520 --> 2:00:51.920 lot of it also a lot of it's also people 2:00:51.920 --> 2:00:54.800 who are just talking about it genuinely. To quote a 2:00:54.800 --> 2:00:59.480 study published in j M I R, a dermatology publication, quote, 2:00:59.520 --> 2:01:03.240 the promotion of testicular tanning generated significant public interest in 2:01:03.280 --> 2:01:07.000 an evidence lacking and potentially dangerous health trend. Dermatologists and 2:01:07.040 --> 2:01:09.960 other healthcare professionals should be aware of these new viral 2:01:10.000 --> 2:01:14.200 health trends to best consultations and combat health misinformation unquote. 2:01:14.920 --> 2:01:18.839 So like in terms of actual data, a twenty seventeen 2:01:18.840 --> 2:01:22.440 meta analysis of studies on sperm counts found that in 2:01:22.480 --> 2:01:26.320 North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, men's sperm counts 2:01:26.320 --> 2:01:29.920 have declined by about fifty percent between nineteen seventy three 2:01:30.120 --> 2:01:33.320 and twenty eleven. Now, these results have not been enough 2:01:33.360 --> 2:01:36.400 to really cause broad concern unless you're like a right 2:01:36.440 --> 2:01:39.280 wing influencer for men, because there doesn't really seem to 2:01:39.360 --> 2:01:42.720 be an equal drop in testosterone levels compared. 2:01:42.400 --> 2:01:45.640 To previt problems mankind has had on the whole, not 2:01:45.920 --> 2:01:47.600 enough seamen comshot. 2:01:47.760 --> 2:01:51.200 It's not one of the yes and like compared to 2:01:51.240 --> 2:01:54.160 previous decades. There is this maybe like a twenty percent 2:01:54.240 --> 2:01:58.000 decrease in total testosterone levels amongst adolescent and young adult males, 2:01:58.200 --> 2:02:01.440 but that's highly fluxtual and it's packed it heavily by diet. 2:02:02.160 --> 2:02:08.080 It's suspected that pollution environmental degradation are also suspected of 2:02:08.200 --> 2:02:13.720 being contributing factors, with plastics like a thighlight being known 2:02:13.960 --> 2:02:17.280 to interfere with the production of hormones like distosterone. But 2:02:17.360 --> 2:02:20.280 this area of research is still heavily contested. But still 2:02:20.480 --> 2:02:24.000 that has not stopped fitness YouTubers and conservative influencers from 2:02:24.400 --> 2:02:27.360 tying this to like the soy boy feminization of men 2:02:27.720 --> 2:02:30.400 and drumming up panic to grow their social media followings, 2:02:30.480 --> 2:02:34.760 sell their supplements and advertise affiliate products. The krem Dela 2:02:34.840 --> 2:02:38.320 creme of red lights for testicular tanning is the Juve 2:02:38.440 --> 2:02:43.960 Light A Light. Juve is a light therapy panel company 2:02:44.400 --> 2:02:48.520 which sells these LEDs. They're like this, They're like this 2:02:48.640 --> 2:02:53.240 upscale wellness brand. The smallest model they have costs over 2:02:53.280 --> 2:02:56.120 one thousand dollars, with the full body ones going for 2:02:56.200 --> 2:02:57.320 around ten grand. 2:02:59.120 --> 2:03:01.320 This is when you know it's a grift. If someone 2:03:01.400 --> 2:03:04.040 is telling you that they need to sell you sunlight, 2:03:04.400 --> 2:03:06.000 they are having a fucking laugh. 2:03:06.520 --> 2:03:13.040 Our friend Ben Greenfield advocates a quote that advocates that 2:03:13.080 --> 2:03:15.120 you spend the big bucks on juve lest do you 2:03:15.280 --> 2:03:18.040 quote fry your balls to a crisp with a cheap 2:03:18.120 --> 2:03:18.720 knock off. 2:03:20.240 --> 2:03:21.680 You wouldn't want to do that, would you. 2:03:23.880 --> 2:03:26.560 Wise, Yeah, it seems like it's maybe a bad idea. 2:03:26.880 --> 2:03:29.360 I can teach you how to how to how to 2:03:29.360 --> 2:03:32.280 cook your balls safely without spending any money at all. 2:03:32.480 --> 2:03:34.480 Get a pair of double A batteries, take them right 2:03:34.480 --> 2:03:37.320 out of your out of your uh, your your your 2:03:37.800 --> 2:03:41.280 your remote control. You stick the active in in a 2:03:41.280 --> 2:03:43.600 bottle of water, and then you put your hand on 2:03:43.640 --> 2:03:47.280 your testicles and you're a it'll it'll complete the circuit 2:03:47.480 --> 2:03:50.840 and power your testicles up with electricity, which you can 2:03:50.880 --> 2:03:52.560 then ejaculate instead of come. 2:03:52.920 --> 2:03:54.520 They'll probably give you superpowers too. 2:03:55.480 --> 2:03:57.080 Almost certainly, Garrison. 2:03:56.920 --> 2:04:00.280 Legally, this is not a recommendation to do this. If 2:04:00.280 --> 2:04:02.760 you do this, that shit's not on us. You did 2:04:02.760 --> 2:04:05.880 that your olation yet, please do not connect batteries to. 2:04:05.840 --> 2:04:09.800 You dick to quote that JMR study evaluating the public's 2:04:09.800 --> 2:04:13.000 interest into secular tanning quote. The interest in this topic 2:04:13.040 --> 2:04:16.200 may be partially explained by the men's attention and advertising 2:04:16.280 --> 2:04:19.680 men's of sexual health on hormone replacement or homone enhancing 2:04:19.760 --> 2:04:23.400 therapies receive in the US. Although subsequent media coverage largely 2:04:23.440 --> 2:04:27.200 disfavored testicular tanning due to lacking evidence and potential dangers, 2:04:27.520 --> 2:04:30.640 other health influencers came to defend and encourage the practice 2:04:30.680 --> 2:04:35.720 of testicular tanning, specifically by using UV light as an unquote. 2:04:35.760 --> 2:04:38.800 As an example, here is a clip from fitness YouTuber 2:04:39.080 --> 2:04:44.560 Elliott Hulsey's Strength Camp with one point seven million followers. 2:04:45.120 --> 2:04:50.200 Blast your balls with sunshine to increase the stosterone. Now, 2:04:50.240 --> 2:04:52.240 you can drop your draws and let your balls get 2:04:52.320 --> 2:04:54.640 kissed by the sun, or you can try one of 2:04:54.680 --> 2:04:57.480 these light panels to roast my nuts and be more manly. 2:04:57.760 --> 2:05:01.200 Nineteen thirty nine studies suggests that you UV light exposure 2:05:01.280 --> 2:05:05.320 to your testicles increases testosterone by two hundred percent. If 2:05:05.320 --> 2:05:07.000 you want to join me in this experiment, you can 2:05:07.040 --> 2:05:09.720 find one of these bad boys a Hoseyhealth dot com. 2:05:09.760 --> 2:05:12.520 Then just go to personal labs dot com, get your 2:05:12.520 --> 2:05:16.160 blood tested, get your testosterone. Then after eight to twelve weeks, 2:05:16.240 --> 2:05:18.520 check it again and find out if the nut rusting 2:05:18.800 --> 2:05:19.440 really works. 2:05:20.040 --> 2:05:23.839 So this whole idea goes back to this one nineteen 2:05:23.960 --> 2:05:26.480 thirty nine. Studies eighteen thirty nine. 2:05:27.080 --> 2:05:30.280 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now let's of goot schied to nineteen 2:05:30.320 --> 2:05:30.920 thirty nine. Man. 2:05:31.080 --> 2:05:33.640 And if there's one thing I trust, it's science from 2:05:33.720 --> 2:05:34.840 nineteen thirty nine. 2:05:35.360 --> 2:05:39.320 Yep, got any comments on or on race in this study. 2:05:39.720 --> 2:05:42.680 So this study was published in the journal ender Chronology, 2:05:42.920 --> 2:05:46.520 and it found that frequent UV irritation to the genitals 2:05:46.560 --> 2:05:52.600 increased urinary and drostererone, a metabolite of testosterone. It increases 2:05:52.680 --> 2:05:55.960 levels by nearly two hundred percent quote unquote. Now you'll 2:05:55.960 --> 2:05:58.120 be shocked to learn that there may be problems with 2:05:58.160 --> 2:06:02.600 this study. Guess how many test subjects were included in 2:06:02.640 --> 2:06:04.160 this In this study. 2:06:04.240 --> 2:06:07.560 I'm gonna be generous and say eight. So Mia says eight. 2:06:08.280 --> 2:06:11.680 James and Green failed just one. One. You say one, Robert, 2:06:12.120 --> 2:06:14.000 how many? How many do you think you're in the study? 2:06:14.320 --> 2:06:16.919 Geez I think like seven was sacred to the Nazis. 2:06:16.960 --> 2:06:19.880 So I'm going to say that five, a grand total 2:06:19.880 --> 2:06:21.320 of five people are in the study. 2:06:21.520 --> 2:06:23.160 Wow, I give the too much credit. 2:06:23.600 --> 2:06:26.160 They had to pick this sacred discordion number. Bullshit. 2:06:26.760 --> 2:06:30.200 Three of them are fifty four years old and have 2:06:30.440 --> 2:06:32.160 manic depressive psychosis. 2:06:33.600 --> 2:06:36.680 The other two are twenty. 2:06:37.320 --> 2:06:42.160 Honestly not a bad apparently representative sample for Tucker's audience. 2:06:42.440 --> 2:06:44.920 I was about to say the same thing, is actually 2:06:44.920 --> 2:06:45.760 who watches his show? 2:06:46.040 --> 2:06:48.400 The other two are twenty eight and forty five and 2:06:48.520 --> 2:06:53.040 have a quote psychopathia with depressive features. 2:06:52.600 --> 2:06:56.680 Which is a very old timey term everyone on Twitter, 2:06:56.720 --> 2:06:57.560 et cetera, et cetera. 2:06:58.600 --> 2:07:00.880 But I think what actually and is I think they 2:07:00.880 --> 2:07:03.400 did this study at an asylum. I just found people 2:07:03.440 --> 2:07:06.800 with depressive psychosis to do the study on it. It's 2:07:06.840 --> 2:07:10.960 just these five, these five rand people. No, no individual 2:07:11.000 --> 2:07:13.680 graft results were produced. It only showed the quote unquote 2:07:13.680 --> 2:07:17.000 typical reaction and there wasn't even a control group for 2:07:17.080 --> 2:07:25.240 the study. That not to mention, there's many problems with 2:07:25.280 --> 2:07:27.840 like measuring distosterone in the first place, because it changes 2:07:27.880 --> 2:07:29.880 broadly day to day and by age, and it's very 2:07:29.960 --> 2:07:34.520 kind of unreliable to quote the JMIR study again. Quote 2:07:34.680 --> 2:07:38.120 Beyond this questionable study, research has shown that exposure to 2:07:38.200 --> 2:07:43.200 UV radiation may increase sex steroid hormone levels. However, these 2:07:43.200 --> 2:07:46.440 studies either do not include human participants or do not 2:07:46.480 --> 2:07:50.960 specifically evaluate UV radiation exposure to the genitals. There is 2:07:51.080 --> 2:07:53.840 there is not a single other study since then that 2:07:53.920 --> 2:07:57.320 has done anything resembling like peer reviewed science. 2:07:59.280 --> 2:08:03.240 You know what why everybody go to go to go 2:08:03.440 --> 2:08:07.480 fund me, help cool zone determine whether or not testical 2:08:07.520 --> 2:08:10.200 tanning works and we'll get that control group. 2:08:12.480 --> 2:08:14.240 Okay, so what my my other question about this, aren't 2:08:14.280 --> 2:08:16.280 aren't all these people getting fucking ball cancer? 2:08:17.200 --> 2:08:21.040 We are? We are. Okay, we are about to get 2:08:21.080 --> 2:08:21.400 to that. 2:08:23.520 --> 2:08:26.040 Because yes, you may think that shining you for you 2:08:26.160 --> 2:08:28.680 lights on your balls might have some long term problems. 2:08:28.760 --> 2:08:30.680 Yeah, it's great, a lot of sound. Sturt's come back 2:08:30.680 --> 2:08:31.600 to the episode again. 2:08:32.560 --> 2:08:37.240 So uh Vice interviewed Seth Cohen, a urologist and the 2:08:37.320 --> 2:08:40.000 director of the sexual Dysfunction Program at n y U 2:08:40.120 --> 2:08:40.760 Langdon Health. 2:08:41.120 --> 2:08:41.560 Quote. 2:08:41.680 --> 2:08:43.600 I'm not aware of any science or data or any 2:08:43.640 --> 2:08:48.080 journal publications proving that red light therapy improves male testosterone. 2:08:48.160 --> 2:08:51.600 End quote, we change recommendations on medical therapies based on 2:08:51.640 --> 2:08:55.800 a double blind, placebo controlled randomized trials, large studies with 2:08:55.840 --> 2:08:59.120 thousands of patients. That's where you'll find if there's any 2:08:59.280 --> 2:09:03.360 really cistical significance between red light therapy and a placebo 2:09:03.640 --> 2:09:05.920 Could these men who underwent red light therapy and came 2:09:05.920 --> 2:09:08.760 out and felt stronger and more manly, could that have 2:09:08.800 --> 2:09:09.760 been a placebo effect? 2:09:09.800 --> 2:09:10.520 Of course it could. 2:09:10.600 --> 2:09:14.280 Unquote so and as Mia mentioned, we have not really 2:09:14.320 --> 2:09:19.080 even gotten into the potential dangers yet. Close direct heat 2:09:19.160 --> 2:09:23.320 to your testicles actually damages sperm count on top of 2:09:23.360 --> 2:09:27.280 the risk of giving yourself ball cancer by blasting concentrated 2:09:27.360 --> 2:09:29.680 UV light on your genitals for twenty minutes a day, 2:09:29.720 --> 2:09:32.200 every day of the week, which is what is recommended 2:09:34.880 --> 2:09:39.720 to quote that study one last time quote research shows 2:09:39.800 --> 2:09:43.280 that excessive exposure to UV radiation may lead to higher 2:09:43.360 --> 2:09:47.200 rates of genital tumor formation and decreased sperm counts, as 2:09:48.040 --> 2:09:52.800 spermo to genesis is temperature dependent. Thus, given the current 2:09:52.840 --> 2:09:56.440 obsession with optimizing mail hormone levels, the high cost of 2:09:56.440 --> 2:09:59.880 red light therapy, and misleading information labeling of testicular tan 2:10:00.360 --> 2:10:03.200 by prominent influencers, there may be an increase in men 2:10:03.240 --> 2:10:07.959 exposing themselves to UV radiation and developing associated complications. Unquote 2:10:08.160 --> 2:10:14.000 great heroic, So guys, almost done here. But man, it's 2:10:14.040 --> 2:10:16.320 pretty it's pretty funny that all of the worst people 2:10:16.360 --> 2:10:17.800 you know are going to get ball cancer. 2:10:18.520 --> 2:10:21.280 Yeah, don't stop them. 2:10:21.480 --> 2:10:23.640 Yeah, I you know, there was a period of time 2:10:23.680 --> 2:10:25.600 in my life when I said where I will never 2:10:25.760 --> 2:10:29.520 rich cancer on anybody. But if you are deliberately exposing 2:10:29.520 --> 2:10:31.800 your testicles for the sun, to the sun and the 2:10:31.840 --> 2:10:36.160 hope of getting superpowers because of Nazi science, it's okay. 2:10:36.400 --> 2:10:39.200 It's it's okay, Like I'm not going to warn that. 2:10:39.520 --> 2:10:42.440 To be fair, the nineteen thirty nine study was from 2:10:42.760 --> 2:10:46.800 the United States, so it. 2:10:46.280 --> 2:10:48.640 Be talking about the other Nazi science. 2:10:50.360 --> 2:10:55.800 Yes, yeah, yeah, well yeah, And I think I think 2:10:56.120 --> 2:10:58.520 a part of this whole narrative of like the total 2:10:58.560 --> 2:11:02.320 collapse of men's to stosterone levels, as as Tucker puts it, man, 2:11:02.400 --> 2:11:03.520 I fucking wish. 2:11:03.840 --> 2:11:05.600 Yeah, it's so much easier. 2:11:06.000 --> 2:11:08.400 But I think this is more about men in power 2:11:08.720 --> 2:11:13.080 feeling that their position of assumed superiority is being threatened. Really, 2:11:13.160 --> 2:11:16.080 all of our quack science and conspiracy theory stories today 2:11:16.520 --> 2:11:20.040 all revolve around this like subliminal dog whistle. It's no 2:11:20.120 --> 2:11:23.360 mistake that Tucker titled his program the End of Men. 2:11:23.840 --> 2:11:25.800 In all the stories we're covering today, it is the 2:11:25.800 --> 2:11:29.160 fear of emasculation that is the hook used to drum 2:11:29.200 --> 2:11:32.800 up fear and anger about how liberal feminism is eroding manhood. 2:11:33.240 --> 2:11:36.960 It targets some of young men's sexual insecurities while promoting 2:11:36.960 --> 2:11:40.280 this like anti woke return to the old ways of 2:11:40.320 --> 2:11:41.400 rugged masculinity. 2:11:42.000 --> 2:11:44.960 Yeah, I might add, because I think you're missing one 2:11:45.000 --> 2:11:48.120 aspect of it. I think you're identifying what he's signaling 2:11:48.160 --> 2:11:50.320 to his listeners and what they get out of it. 2:11:50.960 --> 2:11:53.240 But I also think that what he and the other 2:11:53.280 --> 2:11:55.600 folks who are kind of in positions of power and 2:11:55.720 --> 2:11:58.680 influence in the right get out of this because they're 2:11:58.680 --> 2:12:01.840 not they don't believe this, they're not actually motivated by that. 2:12:02.160 --> 2:12:05.080 Now what this is, and because we do not know 2:12:05.120 --> 2:12:09.320 specifically why, like testosterone rates, maybe lower white sperm counts 2:12:09.360 --> 2:12:11.400 are definitely lower, but it likely has to do with 2:12:11.520 --> 2:12:16.440 a massive variety of industrial pollutants in the environment, and 2:12:16.600 --> 2:12:22.080 with the fact that industrial agriculture and the process nature 2:12:22.080 --> 2:12:23.680 of a lot of our foods is having a negative 2:12:23.680 --> 2:12:27.920 impact on all these things, like it's consequences of capitalism, right, 2:12:28.360 --> 2:12:31.760 and because the consequences are getting increasingly hard to ignore, 2:12:32.040 --> 2:12:34.840 the thing that people like that need to do is 2:12:34.960 --> 2:12:37.960 find either a cure for them or another way to 2:12:37.960 --> 2:12:40.160 blame or another thing to blame them on. 2:12:40.280 --> 2:12:40.440 Right. 2:12:40.480 --> 2:12:43.640 And so if the aspect the things that are horribly 2:12:43.680 --> 2:12:47.520 unhealthy about the society that we have built is causing 2:12:47.560 --> 2:12:52.280 men to suffer consequences in their bodies, the thing to 2:12:52.360 --> 2:12:54.600 do on the right is to blame that shit on 2:12:55.000 --> 2:12:58.280 the liberals and masculating men. And the solution is whatever 2:12:58.360 --> 2:13:00.360 kind of shit we can sell you, right, Like, that's 2:13:00.400 --> 2:13:03.800 what's going on here, that's the motivation, and it happens 2:13:03.840 --> 2:13:07.200 outside of like manshit too, Like that's all the right 2:13:07.240 --> 2:13:11.960 has anymore, Like their economic theories have been proven disastrously wrong. 2:13:12.360 --> 2:13:15.879 They have no actual ability to govern in a meaningful 2:13:15.920 --> 2:13:18.000 way other than by causing harm to people. So it's 2:13:18.160 --> 2:13:21.480 entirely about taking the consequences of the world that they 2:13:21.520 --> 2:13:24.880 advocate and blaming them on someone else and selling you 2:13:24.960 --> 2:13:26.200 snake oil to deal with it. 2:13:27.240 --> 2:13:30.800 Yeah, exactly, and so is that is most of the 2:13:31.920 --> 2:13:35.160 of the Testicular Tanning Fund that I got into. 2:13:35.880 --> 2:13:39.040 We haven't covered all the things that bank Greenfelt did 2:13:39.040 --> 2:13:40.600 to his dact in twenty seventeen. 2:13:41.080 --> 2:13:43.600 We'll get back on this subject, but it is time 2:13:43.640 --> 2:13:45.720 for us to end. This is already over an hour, 2:13:46.480 --> 2:13:48.560 so I want to leave you all, all of you, 2:13:48.680 --> 2:13:50.320 all of you beautiful. First, I want to thank all 2:13:50.320 --> 2:13:53.120 of our beautiful correspondence for their research, and I want 2:13:53.160 --> 2:13:55.640 to leave all of you with this simple piece of advice. 2:13:56.000 --> 2:13:59.879 If you feel like your testicles aren't getting enough solar radiation, 2:14:00.440 --> 2:14:04.720 simply purchase a glass cutter in an old microwave, cut 2:14:04.760 --> 2:14:08.240 a circular hole in the microwave, and you bag it 2:14:08.320 --> 2:14:12.200 while it's on. You'll be okay. That is our legally 2:14:12.280 --> 2:14:29.879 binding health advice. That's the end of the episode. Welcome 2:14:29.920 --> 2:14:32.920 back to It could happen here the podcast. That's happening 2:14:33.000 --> 2:14:35.720 here in your ear. And one of the things that 2:14:35.760 --> 2:14:41.000 we love talking about here is a critical ingredient towards 2:14:41.080 --> 2:14:46.320 creeping authoritarianism, towards growing corporate control and surveillance over all 2:14:46.320 --> 2:14:49.280 of our lives, which is of course technology that makes 2:14:49.320 --> 2:14:53.160 it even easier to monitor you than it already is. 2:14:53.280 --> 2:14:56.840 We're not talking primarily about like the government monitoring you 2:14:56.960 --> 2:14:59.120 because they can, you know, do stuff like just pull 2:14:59.160 --> 2:15:01.760 your phone data from a uh you know what which 2:15:01.800 --> 2:15:04.440 cell towers is pinged. We're talking about the kind of 2:15:04.440 --> 2:15:08.520 stuff that allows basically whoever can get an app on 2:15:08.560 --> 2:15:12.600 your phone to track and stalk you. And uh, yeah, 2:15:12.640 --> 2:15:15.960 I'm gonna first introduce Mia Wong Miya. Welcome to the 2:15:16.000 --> 2:15:17.320 show that you also host. 2:15:17.920 --> 2:15:19.640 Yes, I'm here. 2:15:20.200 --> 2:15:21.920 So what are we what are we talking about today? 2:15:21.920 --> 2:15:23.400 And who are we talking with? 2:15:24.640 --> 2:15:24.880 Yeah? 2:15:24.920 --> 2:15:27.240 So we are talking about stalker wear, which is the 2:15:27.280 --> 2:15:30.120 sort of broad name for the category of software that 2:15:30.200 --> 2:15:33.320 Robert's been talking about. And we are talking about someone 2:15:33.600 --> 2:15:39.920 who hacked well a stalker where stalker Yeah, one of 2:15:39.920 --> 2:15:43.800 the stockerware companies my arison Crime, the Fame Hacker, the 2:15:43.840 --> 2:15:47.040 No Fly List, yed returning guests, always happy to. 2:15:46.960 --> 2:15:53.320 Have you on, Yeah, always happy to be on. Yeah. 2:15:53.360 --> 2:15:57.600 So I think I think, I don't know. I think 2:15:57.600 --> 2:16:01.360 there's a real tendency among and I see this among 2:16:01.480 --> 2:16:04.360 leftists a lot, for kind of good reasons and kind 2:16:04.360 --> 2:16:09.600 of not good reasons, to really only focus on state 2:16:09.760 --> 2:16:14.160 and like large corporate actors in terms of surveillance. And 2:16:14.560 --> 2:16:19.920 that's a mistake. Yeah, totally yeah, and so I guess 2:16:19.920 --> 2:16:21.600 I guess the place where I want to start before 2:16:21.640 --> 2:16:24.560 we get into the specific company that you do do. 2:16:24.880 --> 2:16:26.160 Is it still called owned? 2:16:27.120 --> 2:16:27.560 I kin't. 2:16:27.920 --> 2:16:31.400 It's fine to call it owned or pond or whatever. 2:16:32.080 --> 2:16:34.400 I still do that sometimes people get confused. 2:16:34.840 --> 2:16:37.440 But yeah, yeah, But before we get into that, I 2:16:37.440 --> 2:16:39.320 want to I want to ask you a bit because 2:16:39.320 --> 2:16:42.360 you've done a lot of sort of I guess you 2:16:42.400 --> 2:16:46.360 could call it research, both actual research wise and then 2:16:46.560 --> 2:16:50.000 in terms of poking around their servers. 2:16:50.200 --> 2:16:53.600 Research and journalism and whatever you want to call it. 2:16:53.680 --> 2:16:58.280 Yeah, yeah, So I wanted to just start off by 2:16:58.480 --> 2:17:00.480 asking if you can give sort of like a brief 2:17:00.680 --> 2:17:02.440 summary of what stalkerwaar is. 2:17:04.000 --> 2:17:04.200 Yeah. 2:17:04.280 --> 2:17:08.440 So stalkerware, like as a category, encompasses like a number 2:17:08.480 --> 2:17:10.720 of different types of apps. Most of them, like on 2:17:10.800 --> 2:17:14.920 the service, advertise themselves as like parental control software, which is. 2:17:14.920 --> 2:17:16.000 Already bad enough. 2:17:16.720 --> 2:17:19.360 Just to be clear that there's like advertised for like 2:17:19.440 --> 2:17:22.400 spying on your children's phone, like seeing their location in 2:17:22.440 --> 2:17:26.440 real time, seeing their messages that they receive, any photo 2:17:26.520 --> 2:17:30.080 they take. Ostensibly this is to like prevent bullying and 2:17:30.280 --> 2:17:33.120 help with them when they get depressed because they don't 2:17:33.160 --> 2:17:36.160 trust you. And talk to you for whatever reason. But 2:17:36.800 --> 2:17:40.119 obviously a lot of these are then furthermore, because that's 2:17:40.320 --> 2:17:42.920 like that, sure, that's a like target audience, that's a 2:17:42.920 --> 2:17:45.760 demographic you can advertise too. But then there's this even 2:17:45.800 --> 2:17:50.840 bigger potential target demographic of people who are insecure in 2:17:50.879 --> 2:17:54.120 their relationship, mostly men, not only men, but who are 2:17:54.160 --> 2:17:56.600 then solved this idea that they can use software like 2:17:56.640 --> 2:17:59.720 this for stalking their partner, for finding out if they 2:17:59.720 --> 2:18:02.720 are eating on you, things like that, which is obviously 2:18:02.720 --> 2:18:05.320 an even bigger problem, which once again not to discount 2:18:05.320 --> 2:18:08.880 the problems that's spying on your children's already like bad enough, 2:18:09.040 --> 2:18:11.160 But yeah, this lead, this leads to this whole like 2:18:11.240 --> 2:18:16.480 big industry of these apps being used by partners against 2:18:16.560 --> 2:18:19.560 each other, like also just by people, like against anyone 2:18:19.640 --> 2:18:23.000 in the in their surroundings that they suspect might be 2:18:23.160 --> 2:18:27.400 doing something shady, might be like talking behind their backs. 2:18:27.760 --> 2:18:30.240 It often kind of turns into like it obviously turns 2:18:30.280 --> 2:18:33.039 into this obsessive thing, especially if you solve this idea 2:18:33.120 --> 2:18:36.680 that this this app can magically solve like interpersonal issues 2:18:36.720 --> 2:18:39.440 like with anything that sells you this magic idea of 2:18:39.480 --> 2:18:42.200 being able to solve any problem that these people start 2:18:42.280 --> 2:18:46.200 kind of spying on everyone in their like circles. To 2:18:46.640 --> 2:18:48.800 some of them like not everyone. Most like a lot 2:18:48.800 --> 2:18:51.080 of people only spying like their partner or like their 2:18:51.160 --> 2:18:54.000 child or whatever. But it often like spirals out of 2:18:54.040 --> 2:18:57.600 control into this like controlling everyone in their surroundings, knowing 2:18:57.640 --> 2:18:59.920 what everyone is up to where they are, and spend 2:19:00.240 --> 2:19:02.360 like hundreds of dollars a month on doing so. 2:19:03.040 --> 2:19:05.640 And yeah, that's pretty fucked up if you ask me. 2:19:06.080 --> 2:19:09.160 Yeah, yeah, one of the things that's interesting too. It's 2:19:09.160 --> 2:19:11.640 also in a lot of cases illegal. This is going 2:19:11.680 --> 2:19:13.720 to vary, you know, from country to country, in state 2:19:13.760 --> 2:19:16.400 to state, but in the US there are states like California, 2:19:16.440 --> 2:19:18.640 which gets pointed out in the very good tech Crunch 2:19:18.720 --> 2:19:22.959 investigation on truth Spy, where there are really strict laws 2:19:23.000 --> 2:19:24.880 that journalists like you have to abide bias to when 2:19:24.959 --> 2:19:28.520 you can record someone that these these apps absolutely break. 2:19:29.080 --> 2:19:31.520 Yes, it's specifically a thing that doesn't. Most of these 2:19:31.520 --> 2:19:33.560 app will have like a disclaimer at the bond that 2:19:33.600 --> 2:19:36.120 it is like this might be legal in your jurisdiction 2:19:36.440 --> 2:19:39.520 and please ask for consent before doing this, And then 2:19:39.520 --> 2:19:41.560 they have lots of tutorials on how to install this 2:19:41.640 --> 2:19:45.039 in someone's device with out there. Yeah, but it's like 2:19:45.120 --> 2:19:47.560 always like a we do not take andy like we 2:19:47.720 --> 2:19:50.520 we it's not our fault if you break the law basically, 2:19:50.640 --> 2:19:53.680 which obviously, like it's so far not a lot of 2:19:53.680 --> 2:19:56.040 this has been challenged in court, but I don't think 2:19:56.080 --> 2:20:00.520 this would hold up too long. But I think just 2:20:00.600 --> 2:20:02.920 saying we make a product to do crimes with, if 2:20:02.959 --> 2:20:04.720 you do crimes of it, it's not I mean, it 2:20:04.760 --> 2:20:07.959 works for the gun industry, so yeah. 2:20:08.360 --> 2:20:11.240 The difference is that, like the with the gun industry, 2:20:11.280 --> 2:20:13.680 it's a product where there is a legal and an illegal, 2:20:14.160 --> 2:20:15.800 like clear way to do it. 2:20:16.160 --> 2:20:18.240 The thing with Stocker we are as well is that 2:20:18.360 --> 2:20:20.240 like a lot of them will also explicitly say the 2:20:20.280 --> 2:20:22.959 only real use of this we allow you to to 2:20:23.200 --> 2:20:26.520 use it for is to surveill your child, which unfortunately 2:20:26.760 --> 2:20:30.080 is legal in most jurisdictions because children are property of 2:20:30.160 --> 2:20:30.680 their parents. 2:20:31.160 --> 2:20:33.200 Yeah quo, it's because I do not agree with that. 2:20:33.320 --> 2:20:37.040 But yeah, it's one of those things where people using it, 2:20:37.080 --> 2:20:39.959 like someone installing an app on their exes or their 2:20:40.040 --> 2:20:44.600 their partner's phone or whatever without consent, could very easily 2:20:44.959 --> 2:20:47.879 would lose any court case, whether or not the company 2:20:47.920 --> 2:20:50.199 would get in trouble. I think is going to rely 2:20:50.320 --> 2:20:52.959 a lot on the stuff the videos they're posting about, 2:20:52.959 --> 2:20:54.880 like how to put how to get these apps on 2:20:54.920 --> 2:20:57.240 people's phones without them knowing, but like they do have 2:20:57.280 --> 2:21:00.039 that out with like no, it's just for surveilling children. 2:21:00.120 --> 2:21:02.880 Is green for anyone else you need consent or whatever. 2:21:02.920 --> 2:21:04.720 But I think it is important, yeah, to point this 2:21:04.800 --> 2:21:07.600 out very early for anyone who's listening to this because 2:21:07.640 --> 2:21:10.520 they think they might have stock Aware on their phones, 2:21:10.560 --> 2:21:12.720 or because they know they have stock Aware on their phones. 2:21:13.040 --> 2:21:15.360 You can use this in a domestic abuse case. This 2:21:15.640 --> 2:21:19.240 will immediately this is explicit proof that abuse is happening 2:21:19.520 --> 2:21:22.440 and no matter anything else, because like that's the thing 2:21:22.640 --> 2:21:25.480 generally with domestic abuse cases, it's really hard to prove 2:21:25.520 --> 2:21:30.400 abuses happening. Stalkerware and any other type of spying device 2:21:30.480 --> 2:21:33.920 like also physical GPS device trackers and stuff that is 2:21:33.959 --> 2:21:37.680 immediate proof that there is a there's controlling behavior going on, 2:21:38.280 --> 2:21:40.800 that you are being spined on. This it cannot only 2:21:40.879 --> 2:21:44.600 be used and it is explicit admissible evidence. This is 2:21:44.600 --> 2:21:48.560 also usually like makes cases worse, like not for you, 2:21:48.640 --> 2:21:53.600 like it just yeah, it like can potentially add charges 2:21:53.640 --> 2:21:55.959 and make it more serious, and that it can help 2:21:56.000 --> 2:21:59.920 making cops give a shit about like abuse, which yeah, 2:22:00.200 --> 2:22:02.480 I hate that I need to say that, but yeah, 2:22:02.640 --> 2:22:05.400 it's like it makes it more serious because there's like 2:22:05.480 --> 2:22:06.480 spyware and whatever. 2:22:06.560 --> 2:22:08.920 It's easy evidence first off, like you can prove they're 2:22:08.959 --> 2:22:10.880 spying on you, and second, if you are in one 2:22:10.920 --> 2:22:13.280 of the states where that violates the law, then you 2:22:13.320 --> 2:22:16.240 can immediately say this person is breaking the law like 2:22:16.760 --> 2:22:18.560 this is we don't have to debate whether or not 2:22:18.680 --> 2:22:20.320 they've they've crossed the line. 2:22:20.959 --> 2:22:23.680 Yeah, and even if it doesn't directly break the law 2:22:23.760 --> 2:22:26.600 to spy on someone on a partner like it, depending 2:22:26.640 --> 2:22:28.560 on the on the on the region, it can be 2:22:28.680 --> 2:22:31.040 kind of a hazy like thing, especially if it's a 2:22:31.080 --> 2:22:33.840 device you might co own, if it's like a state 2:22:33.879 --> 2:22:36.280 where you were with like cod possession or whatever. In 2:22:36.280 --> 2:22:38.560 the US, I do not know US law very much 2:22:38.560 --> 2:22:41.280 around this, but yeah, there's like laws like that. But 2:22:41.400 --> 2:22:43.920 usually still the fact that you're being spied on can 2:22:43.920 --> 2:22:46.920 be used as proof for other abuse things you might 2:22:46.959 --> 2:22:50.320 be alleging because it's like hard proof that something is happening. 2:22:50.520 --> 2:22:54.520 And also usually these companies will somewhat have to respond 2:22:54.520 --> 2:22:56.240 to some point us, so they will have to give 2:22:56.240 --> 2:22:58.960 out like who the account on there is behind like 2:22:59.040 --> 2:23:01.680 the spine on your phone. For some of them, we 2:23:01.720 --> 2:23:04.119 can also there's also tools that help you find out 2:23:04.120 --> 2:23:07.039 who is spying on you, or there's like someone with 2:23:07.160 --> 2:23:08.400 forensic background can. 2:23:08.280 --> 2:23:12.280 Help, yeah, and I think people. One thing we should 2:23:12.320 --> 2:23:14.879 note is that if you're kind of curious, has my 2:23:15.080 --> 2:23:18.200 device been infected by some of these tools, the one 2:23:18.200 --> 2:23:20.959 that we've been talking about most truth spy. If you 2:23:21.080 --> 2:23:23.279 go to that tech Crunch article. 2:23:23.360 --> 2:23:25.640 Or to my article that also has a link yet. 2:23:25.600 --> 2:23:28.199 Or to you to your article on your website, there's 2:23:28.400 --> 2:23:30.400 a tool you can use where you it'll tell you 2:23:30.440 --> 2:23:34.840 how to get your IMSI I think, I am I yeah, 2:23:35.360 --> 2:23:37.080 which you just dial a thing on your phone and 2:23:37.320 --> 2:23:40.359 it gives you that number. It's basically how you identify 2:23:40.600 --> 2:23:43.879 specific bones and you plug that in. It will let 2:23:43.879 --> 2:23:46.680 you know if your device has been compromised. 2:23:46.640 --> 2:23:49.720 Now like December last year, up until there is the 2:23:49.800 --> 2:23:52.920 data and if you yeah, it can pretty much tell 2:23:52.920 --> 2:23:55.640 you if you've been spying on using this specific tool 2:23:55.720 --> 2:23:58.240 until then. For other stuff, there's also guides, usually on 2:23:58.320 --> 2:24:01.560 tech Crunch and otherwise also on Stop stockerwear dot ARC, 2:24:01.640 --> 2:24:04.480 which is the US coalition against stocker where and also 2:24:04.560 --> 2:24:07.560 just generally, I think a lot of like more local 2:24:08.360 --> 2:24:11.520 anti stocking, anti abuse works are not as informed yet 2:24:11.560 --> 2:24:13.959 as they should be, but there's still a good like 2:24:14.080 --> 2:24:16.680 point also to reach out to or like. 2:24:16.800 --> 2:24:20.520 Yeah, yeah. One of my questions about truth Spy that 2:24:20.520 --> 2:24:23.280 I'm hoping you can answer is, I know that you 2:24:23.440 --> 2:24:28.000 can like text messages get transferred via it, your call records, 2:24:28.040 --> 2:24:30.400 all that kind of stuff, get and who you were calling. 2:24:30.800 --> 2:24:33.959 Does that include messages for like encrypted apps like Signal 2:24:34.160 --> 2:24:35.879 or is that not accessible through this? 2:24:36.040 --> 2:24:38.959 It depends, Like for some of these, it will like 2:24:39.080 --> 2:24:42.080 get signal messages, what's the messages and everything, generally by 2:24:42.080 --> 2:24:46.760 reading the notification content because like from notifications, you know, 2:24:46.840 --> 2:24:50.320 like what messages are have been like received. Sometimes it 2:24:50.360 --> 2:24:52.440 will only then have the received messages and not the 2:24:52.480 --> 2:24:55.160 send messages. Often these also include like a key logger 2:24:55.520 --> 2:25:00.320 component that maps messages then sent back as well. Depends 2:25:00.360 --> 2:25:03.800 a lot what these apps collect, but for most of them, 2:25:03.840 --> 2:25:06.800 also the collection for other texting apps is usually kind 2:25:06.800 --> 2:25:10.000 of broken. None of these apps are really well maintained. 2:25:10.000 --> 2:25:13.160 They're mostly just quick cash graps. Yeah, are there to 2:25:13.240 --> 2:25:15.280 maintain features usually don't really work. 2:25:15.840 --> 2:25:19.080 And it seems like based on that, one thing people 2:25:19.120 --> 2:25:21.240 can do outside of checking to see if their device 2:25:21.280 --> 2:25:26.679 has been compromised, is do stuff like turn off notifications 2:25:26.840 --> 2:25:29.640 for apps sling signal, right, like, and that's that's actually 2:25:29.680 --> 2:25:34.120 just generally good advice. Notifications are a compromise of the 2:25:34.200 --> 2:25:39.360 security that that signal offers. Don't have them enabled, you know, yeah, or. 2:25:39.320 --> 2:25:41.400 At the very least disabled them on the lock screen 2:25:41.400 --> 2:25:43.840 on Anthros. Yeah, I don't know how. I think that's 2:25:43.879 --> 2:25:46.240 also possible on iOS, but I think I doesn't show 2:25:46.280 --> 2:25:49.160 message content on the lock screen anyways. I'm not sure anymore, 2:25:49.959 --> 2:25:52.760 but yeah, it's just also small things like that. And also, 2:25:52.840 --> 2:25:56.160 like one of the key tells that someone probably tampered 2:25:56.160 --> 2:25:59.119 with your phone, especially for Android, is if Google play 2:25:59.160 --> 2:26:02.640 Protect is the disabled and you do not remember disabling 2:26:02.680 --> 2:26:06.480 it for something else, it was almost definitely disabled because 2:26:06.520 --> 2:26:09.680 someone installed something on your phone. Just try re enabling it. 2:26:09.720 --> 2:26:12.200 Then they will probably tell you something. The thing also 2:26:12.240 --> 2:26:14.680 to keep in mind, if you find starckaware on your phone, 2:26:14.920 --> 2:26:18.240 please get professional help. Do not just delete it. Do 2:26:18.400 --> 2:26:21.800 not like necessarily confront whoever you think might be your 2:26:21.840 --> 2:26:24.640 abuser about it unless you're very sure that that's the 2:26:24.680 --> 2:26:29.000 situation you can handle, because like, yeah, that is one 2:26:29.000 --> 2:26:31.320 of those things that like bringing it up or just 2:26:31.440 --> 2:26:35.039 deleting it can very quickly lead to like yeah, yeah, 2:26:35.440 --> 2:26:37.280 complicating the situation a lot. 2:26:38.080 --> 2:26:53.280 You know what else complicates the situation These ads and 2:26:53.600 --> 2:26:54.280 we are back. 2:26:55.280 --> 2:26:58.480 So when it comes to the actual fight against this stuff, 2:26:58.480 --> 2:27:00.959 obviously what you're doing is a big part of it. 2:27:01.120 --> 2:27:05.480 Getting inside these companies and finding out like what they're 2:27:05.520 --> 2:27:08.879 doing and their capabilities is huge for in terms of 2:27:08.959 --> 2:27:11.640 like what regular people are people who are interested in 2:27:11.640 --> 2:27:14.960 becoming activists about this can do? What is the what 2:27:15.080 --> 2:27:17.800 is the struggle to actually fight this stuff? Look like? 2:27:17.800 --> 2:27:20.240 Like how do we how do we put a bullet 2:27:20.240 --> 2:27:21.360 in this industry's head? 2:27:21.720 --> 2:27:23.640 I think one of the biggest things. And also like 2:27:23.720 --> 2:27:25.600 why I do the work I do with like hacking 2:27:25.600 --> 2:27:27.960 and with encouraging others to like send me data, be 2:27:28.120 --> 2:27:31.039 that insiders from these companies sending it I do to 2:27:31.080 --> 2:27:34.360 me or like tech Crunch specifically currently because like me 2:27:34.440 --> 2:27:36.800 and tech Crunch are like the only people really doing 2:27:37.000 --> 2:27:41.680 like journalism on this like regularly. And the important thing 2:27:41.720 --> 2:27:44.080 with like journalism and all of this is like awareness. 2:27:44.240 --> 2:27:46.600 It's very important to create awareness about this. That's also 2:27:46.640 --> 2:27:48.440 why I do the media work with like being on 2:27:48.440 --> 2:27:51.480 this podcast and things like that. I think the most 2:27:51.480 --> 2:27:54.840 important thing is to make people aware, like talk about 2:27:54.840 --> 2:27:58.039 this in your feminist circles or whatever, things like that, 2:27:58.560 --> 2:28:01.480 especially bring it up just also in general info things 2:28:01.600 --> 2:28:04.160 about abuse or how to detect abuse. I think the 2:28:04.280 --> 2:28:07.840 most important thing to do against s soccer whereas demastify it, 2:28:08.200 --> 2:28:10.560 because most people don't even know that this is a thing, 2:28:10.720 --> 2:28:13.959 that this is, like that there's just commercially available spyware 2:28:14.560 --> 2:28:17.280 anyone can install on your phone. It's as important to 2:28:17.280 --> 2:28:19.640 not like give in to some sort of paranoia as 2:28:19.680 --> 2:28:22.879 with any of these things. It's just important to like, yeah, 2:28:23.000 --> 2:28:26.720 generate awareness, talk about it and like spread these articles, 2:28:27.680 --> 2:28:30.880 let friends know that this is a potential thing, and 2:28:30.920 --> 2:28:34.640 then yeah, I I The hard thing with this is that, like, 2:28:34.720 --> 2:28:37.760 obviously it should will probably help if there was some 2:28:37.800 --> 2:28:40.440 sort of legislation against some of this, It's going to 2:28:40.480 --> 2:28:44.039 be very hard to get any proper legislation that ends 2:28:44.040 --> 2:28:47.440 this industry because in most Western countries, which are the 2:28:47.480 --> 2:28:50.440 only countries which unfortunately they would have enough power to 2:28:50.600 --> 2:28:54.039 like actually get these apps shut down, because that's the 2:28:54.080 --> 2:28:56.800 world we live in. But the problem there is usually 2:28:56.800 --> 2:28:59.080 that like this notion that children are owned by their 2:28:59.080 --> 2:29:01.840 parents is too strong to really make a full case 2:29:01.879 --> 2:29:04.800 against these apps. And at the very best what I can, 2:29:05.240 --> 2:29:09.320 like the very best time kind of hoping for from 2:29:09.720 --> 2:29:13.959 from legislators is just a ban on advertising these apps 2:29:13.959 --> 2:29:17.119 on use against other adults, which would be big already, 2:29:17.200 --> 2:29:20.280 but that doesn't really solve the issue because there's still 2:29:20.320 --> 2:29:22.240 going to be enough people who know of their use 2:29:22.320 --> 2:29:24.880 for use against adults, and there's going to be enough 2:29:24.879 --> 2:29:28.600 people on like credit threads talking about, hey, well yeah, 2:29:28.720 --> 2:29:31.199 you oh you're not sure if your government is cheating 2:29:31.200 --> 2:29:33.200 on you, look you can just use this app, you know. 2:29:33.760 --> 2:29:36.199 That's also how most of this marketing for this works. 2:29:36.240 --> 2:29:38.280 It's just yeah, at the end of the day, this 2:29:38.360 --> 2:29:43.320 is like a patriarchal issue. So yeah, I think that's 2:29:43.320 --> 2:29:46.120 also why like I am so focused on like the 2:29:46.200 --> 2:29:49.199 hacking and the like blowing these companies up and showing 2:29:49.240 --> 2:29:51.600 like who's behind them. It's because at the end of 2:29:51.640 --> 2:29:54.040 the day, the most effective thing we have against these 2:29:54.080 --> 2:29:57.400 companies is like the grassroots movement of making them too 2:29:57.400 --> 2:30:00.000 scared to run in this business, making it not profitable 2:30:00.160 --> 2:30:02.280 enough because as I said, most of this is like 2:30:02.920 --> 2:30:08.680 quick cash grabs from like web design studios and outsourcing companies. Yeah, 2:30:08.760 --> 2:30:11.600 that a're just making a quick buck from this because 2:30:11.600 --> 2:30:14.000 otherwise they don't get paid enough. Like that's the sad 2:30:14.040 --> 2:30:16.080 thing really is how much of this industry is in 2:30:16.800 --> 2:30:20.600 all of these countries. Western companies outsource their IT too, 2:30:21.200 --> 2:30:23.800 because there's lots of IT companies there and they are 2:30:23.959 --> 2:30:29.080 entirely reliant on like Western companies giving them very underpaid tasks. 2:30:29.640 --> 2:30:31.560 And you have this problem that you now have a 2:30:31.560 --> 2:30:34.720 bunch of employees and not enough money to always pay them. 2:30:34.920 --> 2:30:36.920 And what do you do, You like find some weird 2:30:37.000 --> 2:30:40.560 niche of like a tech product you can quickly build. Yeah, 2:30:40.600 --> 2:30:42.720 and this is like one of those easy niches. It's 2:30:42.760 --> 2:30:47.160 like always the scummy stuff and like yeah, it's that's 2:30:47.200 --> 2:30:49.280 also why like so many of these companies are like 2:30:49.320 --> 2:30:51.840 based out of Vietnam, out of Iran and whatever. It's 2:30:51.879 --> 2:30:55.120 just companies that already have it hard enough to do 2:30:55.200 --> 2:30:59.560 business globally, where the IT industry is like falling apart 2:30:59.720 --> 2:31:03.320 because there's not enough like local customers and anything that's 2:31:03.360 --> 2:31:07.840 international you're just the cheap workforce, right, So yeah, it's 2:31:08.000 --> 2:31:10.600 it's once again also like a class problem. I don't 2:31:10.879 --> 2:31:13.480 like most people working in this industry know that they're 2:31:13.520 --> 2:31:15.520 working in a like scummy industry. 2:31:15.920 --> 2:31:18.560 Yeah, of course, but like, yeah, you got to get 2:31:18.600 --> 2:31:20.240 paid and that's yeah. 2:31:20.000 --> 2:31:22.920 And that's like why I think making it more scary 2:31:22.959 --> 2:31:25.600 to operate in this industry is like, yes, the way 2:31:25.680 --> 2:31:28.520 to go, because like with just like these like four 2:31:29.080 --> 2:31:31.840 hacks that have happened against these companies over the last 2:31:31.879 --> 2:31:35.440 like half a year or so, two of them, three 2:31:35.480 --> 2:31:39.480 of them, three of them have shut down completely. Others 2:31:39.640 --> 2:31:44.520 seem to be slowly moving towards just building other software primarily. Yeah, 2:31:44.840 --> 2:31:48.400 it's just like, yeah, it's it's it's like with any 2:31:48.480 --> 2:31:50.760 other like shady industry that the best we can do 2:31:50.920 --> 2:31:54.080 is just do not make it profitable to run the software, 2:31:54.160 --> 2:31:57.680 because at the very best, anything else we will get 2:31:57.680 --> 2:32:00.000 it's just pushing them more into the shadows, which is 2:32:00.120 --> 2:32:01.680 not going to solve the issue at all. 2:32:02.280 --> 2:32:03.200 Yeah. 2:32:03.320 --> 2:32:07.200 I think a lot about like strategic thinking, which I 2:32:07.240 --> 2:32:09.280 do believe is kind of often in part because of 2:32:09.760 --> 2:32:12.760 how rightfully negative most people on the left think about 2:32:12.760 --> 2:32:16.480 the military. There's a tendency to ignore some of like 2:32:16.560 --> 2:32:20.200 the theory around how to actually win a conflict and 2:32:20.320 --> 2:32:24.200 all of it all strategy really when you're talking about 2:32:24.200 --> 2:32:28.920 like defeating an opponent, revolves around denying and taking operational 2:32:29.000 --> 2:32:31.600 area from them, right, And that's what you're talking about 2:32:31.600 --> 2:32:33.200 when you talk about, well, we need to stop this, 2:32:33.360 --> 2:32:34.959 you know, one of the first things we can do 2:32:35.040 --> 2:32:37.240 as part of fighting this is to stop them from 2:32:37.280 --> 2:32:39.440 being able to advertise certain places. 2:32:39.520 --> 2:32:39.760 Right. 2:32:40.120 --> 2:32:43.320 It's making sure that they're not able to operate without 2:32:43.320 --> 2:32:47.600 being seen. It's basically cutting down their area, their space 2:32:47.680 --> 2:32:51.240 to maneuver, their ability to profit, which cuts down their money, 2:32:51.320 --> 2:32:55.320 their access to people, their ability to actually operate. 2:32:55.440 --> 2:32:55.640 Right. 2:32:55.680 --> 2:32:58.039 Like, that's what we're looking at in terms of how 2:32:58.080 --> 2:33:00.240 do you kill this stuff. It's not one single really. 2:33:00.280 --> 2:33:02.920 I use the comparison of like a bullet, but it's 2:33:02.920 --> 2:33:05.520 never going to be one bullet. These things are too durable. 2:33:05.560 --> 2:33:07.240 There's too many countries in lay to do that. 2:33:07.920 --> 2:33:10.920 Yeah, that's also why I put so much emphasis on 2:33:11.040 --> 2:33:13.760 doing media work about this and getting more people to 2:33:13.840 --> 2:33:17.199 talk about this and getting more awareness of this out there, 2:33:17.600 --> 2:33:19.280 to the point where I'm willing to work with more 2:33:19.320 --> 2:33:22.800 conservative newspapers on this because everyone needs to know about this. 2:33:22.920 --> 2:33:24.600 At the end of the day, this is how we 2:33:24.920 --> 2:33:27.959 like stop people from falling victims to this. Most people 2:33:28.000 --> 2:33:30.920 who are a victim of stocker apps have never heard 2:33:30.959 --> 2:33:34.240 of stocker apps before, and I think that's like one 2:33:34.240 --> 2:33:36.120 of the biggest ways to tackle this. And on the 2:33:36.120 --> 2:33:39.040 other hand, we also have I think another big leverage 2:33:39.080 --> 2:33:41.480 point with how many of these are getting hacked because 2:33:41.640 --> 2:33:44.240 none of these apps are very secure. That's another thing 2:33:44.680 --> 2:33:48.280 is this can also be leveraged against like the abusers 2:33:48.280 --> 2:33:50.760 in this scenario. I think just pointing out to them 2:33:50.800 --> 2:33:53.120 that all of these apps get hacked all the time 2:33:53.360 --> 2:33:55.120 and that this is how they get found out, that 2:33:55.120 --> 2:33:58.160 that this is how their data of them as abusers 2:33:58.320 --> 2:34:01.039 ends up landing on the internet. I think it's also 2:34:01.240 --> 2:34:03.560 like a very important angle at the end of the day. 2:34:03.560 --> 2:34:05.800 It's just to make it clear like yeah, no, not 2:34:05.840 --> 2:34:10.440 even you are like secure from this having consequences for 2:34:10.520 --> 2:34:14.480 your life, like beyond like direct interpersonal or legal consequences. 2:34:14.600 --> 2:34:18.200 This can and in the past has result in like 2:34:18.280 --> 2:34:20.560 your email adders being on a list of people who 2:34:20.560 --> 2:34:23.879 have du abuse to people online. You don't want to 2:34:23.920 --> 2:34:26.480 be on such a list. I think that's also important 2:34:26.640 --> 2:34:29.760 just to like point out there isn't one stock of 2:34:29.800 --> 2:34:32.119 a app that's not eventually going to get hacked. There 2:34:32.160 --> 2:34:34.640 is a big war against these apps. They're all like 2:34:34.879 --> 2:34:37.760 there's so many different hacking groups that keep sending me 2:34:37.879 --> 2:34:40.800 data from these Like I'm already working on another article 2:34:41.120 --> 2:34:44.200 that already once again affects like the data of like 2:34:44.800 --> 2:34:48.600 I think like eighty thousand more like abusers, and it's 2:34:48.720 --> 2:34:50.760 just the abuser data this time. But I'm still going 2:34:50.800 --> 2:34:53.880 to report on it, like it's it's it's this is 2:34:53.920 --> 2:34:56.760 not going to stop. It's even also not going to 2:34:56.800 --> 2:35:00.000 stop when I stop reporting on this myself, like I've 2:35:00.560 --> 2:35:03.080 that there's been work before me downe on this. I 2:35:03.160 --> 2:35:05.879 also the first time I got involved in finding stockover 2:35:06.120 --> 2:35:08.920 was back in twenty twenty. People have been hacking these 2:35:08.959 --> 2:35:11.720 apps forever and will keep hacking them, Like just look 2:35:11.760 --> 2:35:15.240 at the Wikipedia page for Stockover. There's an ever growing 2:35:15.320 --> 2:35:17.720 list of these apps that have been hacked, and I 2:35:17.720 --> 2:35:20.840 think at this point that like official count being kept 2:35:20.920 --> 2:35:22.920 by one of the people at TechCrunch is at like 2:35:23.680 --> 2:35:26.959 thirteen apps, a few of which have been hacked two 2:35:27.080 --> 2:35:31.800 or three times. Yeah, these are not these are not 2:35:31.920 --> 2:35:33.359 secure apps for any. 2:35:33.200 --> 2:35:36.959 No, no, no, of course not. Yeah, and they yeah, 2:35:37.040 --> 2:35:40.240 I mean it makes sense that like an app dedicated 2:35:40.320 --> 2:35:44.720 to violating people's privacy for money would also basically violate 2:35:44.760 --> 2:35:46.760 the privacy of the people using it. 2:35:46.920 --> 2:35:49.680 Yeah, and also they don't care. Like I said, of 2:35:49.720 --> 2:35:53.080 course it's a cash crap. It's nothing else. There's a 2:35:53.080 --> 2:35:55.200 few apps that are like a little more than a 2:35:55.200 --> 2:35:57.840 cash crap, but it's usually just because they're made, Like 2:35:57.840 --> 2:36:00.640 there's still a cash grap, but they're like more well made. 2:36:00.640 --> 2:36:03.000 But it's because they're a cash graph from a company 2:36:03.040 --> 2:36:06.680 that has better developers or more money to do the 2:36:06.959 --> 2:36:10.039 initial investment. The thing is also like most of these 2:36:10.040 --> 2:36:12.240 companies don't have a lot of initial investment, And I 2:36:12.320 --> 2:36:14.960 think the important thing to consider as well. Here is 2:36:15.680 --> 2:36:18.400 one big area of this that I have not yet 2:36:18.440 --> 2:36:21.440 started tackling, but I do want to like look into more. Sometimes. 2:36:21.600 --> 2:36:24.960 Is a big reason this industry is so big and 2:36:25.760 --> 2:36:28.359 most of these apps have a lot of users despite 2:36:28.360 --> 2:36:32.520 there being so many of them, is the affiliate marketing industry. 2:36:32.640 --> 2:36:36.400 Once again, our very beloved friend. Yeah, all of these 2:36:36.440 --> 2:36:39.800 apps are parts of various affiliate marketing networks. Some of 2:36:39.840 --> 2:36:43.440 them started by stocker Ware company, and some of them 2:36:43.800 --> 2:36:47.360 just other like things to advertise all the shady things 2:36:47.400 --> 2:36:49.959 like all those phone number locator apps or whatever that's 2:36:49.959 --> 2:36:53.240 also part of those same affiliate marketing networks. And there's 2:36:53.320 --> 2:36:55.720 lots of money flowing here, and there's lots of money 2:36:55.760 --> 2:36:59.200 flowing to very big tech YouTube channels, and I might 2:36:59.240 --> 2:37:02.080 soon have some proof for some of that. But that's 2:37:02.120 --> 2:37:05.760 how these are advertised. It's everyone who advertises stock Aware 2:37:05.800 --> 2:37:08.200 to you, who has a big platform, is doing that 2:37:08.240 --> 2:37:11.440 because they're getting money, not for any other reason. 2:37:12.560 --> 2:37:17.000 We need to do more ads. We will be back shortly, 2:37:28.360 --> 2:37:29.959 and we are back. 2:37:30.879 --> 2:37:33.199 Well that's all I had, Miya, What do you got? 2:37:33.920 --> 2:37:36.520 Yeah, I guess there's there's another thing I wanted. 2:37:36.360 --> 2:37:39.400 To ask a little bit about, which Zach Whitaker, who's 2:37:39.440 --> 2:37:41.680 been one of the journal journalists at tech Crunch doing 2:37:41.720 --> 2:37:44.640 a lot of the research, is great. One of the 2:37:44.680 --> 2:37:47.480 things that he brings up that I think is another 2:37:48.120 --> 2:37:49.920 I don't know. It's kind of a plane with fire 2:37:50.400 --> 2:37:53.360 angle on them. But one of the issues that these 2:37:53.360 --> 2:37:58.920 companies seem to have is payment platforms, because a lot 2:37:58.920 --> 2:38:03.320 of payment platforms look at this and go wait, hold on. Yeah, 2:38:03.360 --> 2:38:05.119 so that's yeah, we've talked about that a little bit. 2:38:05.120 --> 2:38:07.560 That's an angle. We've also been fighting on a lot. 2:38:07.640 --> 2:38:09.680 Like me and Sick, we work on most of these 2:38:09.720 --> 2:38:13.240 stories together. Like it's kind of funny. We both got 2:38:13.280 --> 2:38:16.040 each other into the stockow thing back in twenty twenty. 2:38:16.160 --> 2:38:18.680 As I mentioned, that was the first time I stumbled 2:38:18.720 --> 2:38:21.920 into a stockerware app with a security issue. I reached 2:38:21.920 --> 2:38:24.600 out to some random journalists that tech Crunch about it. 2:38:24.920 --> 2:38:27.000 And now he is the only one talking about this 2:38:27.160 --> 2:38:29.760 forever because I reached out to him that one time 2:38:30.240 --> 2:38:34.200 and he got sucked into this horrible, horrible world of spying. 2:38:34.640 --> 2:38:37.160 But yeah, Like one of the things we focus on 2:38:37.200 --> 2:38:40.520 a lot is reporting these companies to their payment providers, 2:38:40.560 --> 2:38:43.760 to their server hosters, to the point where sometimes like 2:38:43.840 --> 2:38:46.360 for weeks, Sack will just wait for them to switch 2:38:46.400 --> 2:38:48.440 to a new provider after we got them taken them 2:38:48.440 --> 2:38:51.200 from like PayPal, and then from their other PayPal account 2:38:51.200 --> 2:38:54.160 where they're just using like the checkout experience from one 2:38:54.160 --> 2:38:57.560 of their completely unrelated software projects, which they will later 2:38:57.600 --> 2:39:01.240 claim is not related at all the different companies and whatever. 2:39:01.760 --> 2:39:04.039 But then like eventually they get taken down from that 2:39:04.120 --> 2:39:06.480 as well, and usually we can get them taken them 2:39:06.480 --> 2:39:09.520 from most like Western hosters, like especially US housters, will 2:39:09.520 --> 2:39:12.360 immediately take them down. You do not want to risk 2:39:12.560 --> 2:39:15.880 being the company hosting spuywire on US grounds. 2:39:16.120 --> 2:39:16.600 Yeah. 2:39:16.840 --> 2:39:20.160 Yeah, it's just like same with EO hosters. Like the 2:39:20.240 --> 2:39:22.720 few companies that we've seen that were on Headsnerd, they 2:39:23.000 --> 2:39:27.320 immediately react because it's like yeah no, like under EULO, 2:39:27.480 --> 2:39:29.400 you don't want to like risk that, and also just 2:39:29.640 --> 2:39:31.520 because you don't want to host that, like there's no 2:39:31.600 --> 2:39:34.600 reason for you to host shit like that. It will 2:39:34.640 --> 2:39:39.360 have like image consequences, and that's an important thing that 2:39:39.560 --> 2:39:41.840 is maybe also something you can do as more like 2:39:41.879 --> 2:39:44.520 a grassroots thing. It's also like if you find one 2:39:44.520 --> 2:39:46.720 of these apps and if you see, oh they're using 2:39:46.800 --> 2:39:50.840 like PayPal or whatever, just reach out. I think PayPal 2:39:50.959 --> 2:39:53.080 is even harder to reach as like just an average 2:39:53.120 --> 2:39:56.240 LA person. Don't expect them to reply. They might still 2:39:56.280 --> 2:39:59.160 take action. You will have to manually check PayPal doesn't 2:39:59.320 --> 2:40:02.840 really reply. Two things ever, but yeah, same as like 2:40:02.879 --> 2:40:05.439 hosting company. If it's either hosted on like a European 2:40:05.520 --> 2:40:08.320 or American hosting company, I just just reach out and 2:40:08.360 --> 2:40:11.800 be like, hey, there's someone running spyware on your thing. 2:40:11.840 --> 2:40:14.120 Also use the word spyware, not stocker, where they will 2:40:14.120 --> 2:40:18.520 not know what that is, and it is spyware. So yeah, 2:40:18.560 --> 2:40:21.720 and that can usually get them taken down. And often 2:40:21.760 --> 2:40:24.280 they don't have proper backups and we'll have a few 2:40:24.320 --> 2:40:26.959 months of data missing and it's like, yeah, that's how 2:40:27.000 --> 2:40:31.039 you slowly grind them to a halt. Yeah. And also 2:40:31.080 --> 2:40:33.680 once again, like if you have tips about any of 2:40:33.720 --> 2:40:37.400 these companies, be it having found a vulnerability just or 2:40:37.440 --> 2:40:40.800 insider info especially I'm always very happy about the insider info. 2:40:40.920 --> 2:40:42.840 You can reach out to either me or Sack White. 2:40:43.160 --> 2:40:45.200 We're both very happy to talk about this. 2:40:45.800 --> 2:40:47.119 Yeah. 2:40:47.240 --> 2:40:50.360 Yeah, that's something that's been used really effectively by right 2:40:50.400 --> 2:40:51.920 wingers to target sex workers. 2:40:52.400 --> 2:40:54.080 There's been a huge. 2:40:53.879 --> 2:40:57.440 Thing, there's been a bunch of campaigns to get platform 2:40:57.440 --> 2:41:00.119 companies and yeah, so it's. 2:41:00.720 --> 2:41:03.440 It's interesting that for once we can use the very 2:41:03.600 --> 2:41:07.840 restrictive and conservative rules of payment providers for our good. 2:41:08.200 --> 2:41:08.640 Yeah. 2:41:08.800 --> 2:41:11.400 But yeah, basically, any of the big payment providers will 2:41:11.440 --> 2:41:14.400 not respect something like this. Some of the small regional 2:41:14.480 --> 2:41:17.400 odd ones probably won't really give a shit. They have 2:41:17.480 --> 2:41:21.360 no reason to. It's like revenue for them. But yeah, 2:41:21.720 --> 2:41:24.840 it's generally worth trying. And I'm always glad like if 2:41:24.879 --> 2:41:27.360 someone just reaches out to these companies and we don't 2:41:27.360 --> 2:41:30.640 have to do that ourselves. I think me and second 2:41:30.720 --> 2:41:33.560 to few other people like actively working on this are 2:41:33.600 --> 2:41:36.800 doing more than enough work currently. But yeah, just if 2:41:36.840 --> 2:41:38.920 you find one of these things that don't go digging 2:41:38.959 --> 2:41:41.640 too deep. It's a depressing world. But if you stumble 2:41:41.680 --> 2:41:45.800 upon one of these somewhere or whatever, just just report them. 2:41:46.040 --> 2:41:48.760 It's it's it's going to disrupt their operations and if 2:41:48.800 --> 2:41:50.080 it happens often enough, they. 2:41:50.080 --> 2:41:50.959 Might just give up. 2:41:51.280 --> 2:41:54.840 Yeah, And I mean, like in cases like the truths by, 2:41:54.879 --> 2:41:58.400 they are willing to do extreme amounts of fraud to 2:42:00.040 --> 2:42:03.280 get to money easily because they like started with like 2:42:03.360 --> 2:42:06.640 mostly just in like with the market they could get 2:42:06.640 --> 2:42:10.240 with their Vietnamese payment providers, right, Eventually they realized, well, 2:42:10.320 --> 2:42:12.960 the US is like this really big market, right, but 2:42:13.120 --> 2:42:15.720 for really easy like US stuff, we need like a 2:42:15.720 --> 2:42:19.440 paypoal thing, right, So they might like over twelve fake 2:42:19.480 --> 2:42:23.760 American identities with fake passports and fake addresses and sign 2:42:23.879 --> 2:42:26.400 up to PayPal a whole bunch of times and had 2:42:26.480 --> 2:42:30.279 various employees that the company move money around. Yeah, that's 2:42:30.920 --> 2:42:34.600 obviously not a thing the US government will like if 2:42:34.640 --> 2:42:38.879 you do that. Generally speaking, they moved like millions like that, 2:42:39.160 --> 2:42:44.279 so yeah, which is pretty crazy like that. The amount 2:42:44.280 --> 2:42:48.359 of money that's moving in this industry is crazy. Like yeah, actually, 2:42:48.400 --> 2:42:51.280 like most of these app apps will be half broken, 2:42:51.440 --> 2:42:54.040 which no one ever complains about because like it's shady, 2:42:54.240 --> 2:42:56.640 like you don't expect like if you go online and 2:42:56.720 --> 2:42:58.959 you search for something shady like anything like be it 2:42:59.040 --> 2:43:01.640 piracy or whatever, you don't expect it to be the 2:43:01.680 --> 2:43:04.320 best experience ever. Like you know, you're getting some weird 2:43:04.360 --> 2:43:07.080 service and it's probably going to be half broken. But yeah, 2:43:07.160 --> 2:43:09.959 like most of these talkover apps started like forty dollars 2:43:10.040 --> 2:43:13.560 a month and more, and in some days for more 2:43:13.600 --> 2:43:16.160 features you pay like up to sixty or seventy or so, 2:43:16.840 --> 2:43:19.200 and then all of these have like tens of thousands 2:43:19.240 --> 2:43:22.640 of users, sometimes hundreds of thousands of users. Yeah, you 2:43:23.120 --> 2:43:26.960 can do them at yourself. It's crazy. This is a 2:43:27.000 --> 2:43:29.600 really big industry, which makes it so crazy to me 2:43:29.680 --> 2:43:31.680 that it's like not a thing that's talked about more, 2:43:31.760 --> 2:43:35.200 especially in like feminist spaces and things like that, because 2:43:35.400 --> 2:43:38.600 this is such a big angle of like modern tech 2:43:38.680 --> 2:43:42.039 enabled abuse that they really think should should be more 2:43:42.040 --> 2:43:45.240 of a topic, especially on the left, like this this 2:43:45.280 --> 2:43:45.760 is bad. 2:43:46.360 --> 2:43:49.720 Yeah, no, this is like critically bad. I agree entirely. 2:43:49.959 --> 2:43:51.840 And also like that the whole thing with like all 2:43:51.879 --> 2:43:54.400 of this data being so easily accept your data can 2:43:54.720 --> 2:43:57.440 end up getting sold on some dark web forum. You're 2:43:57.920 --> 2:44:00.879 both as the abuser and that's the target, right and 2:44:01.040 --> 2:44:03.360 the corter government can find these like I have no 2:44:03.760 --> 2:44:06.280 like this. This is not me making a statement of 2:44:06.360 --> 2:44:10.680 that's a thing that's happening, but there's nothing preventing from 2:44:10.760 --> 2:44:14.080 hacking these companies and getting yeah, like like I sometimes 2:44:14.240 --> 2:44:16.800 like when whenever I get these data sets, and it's 2:44:16.840 --> 2:44:19.200 always hard to work with data sets that include like 2:44:19.720 --> 2:44:23.080 non consent essentially collect the data of people, right, Yes, 2:44:23.080 --> 2:44:25.720 but like I do always like do some due diligence checks, 2:44:25.760 --> 2:44:28.080 like mostly trying to find if the government is using 2:44:28.080 --> 2:44:31.640 a specific app. Sometimes yes, there's always like the odd 2:44:31.760 --> 2:44:34.520 correction law of facility officer who has signed up for 2:44:34.520 --> 2:44:38.520 one or two of these apps or like education people 2:44:38.600 --> 2:44:41.160 and whatever. But then I also only search through the 2:44:41.200 --> 2:44:43.280 text message just for just some code words and the 2:44:43.320 --> 2:44:47.560 amount of people moving drugs have stockerware on their phones. 2:44:48.000 --> 2:44:51.160 It's you know, yeah. 2:44:51.160 --> 2:44:54.600 And it's it's one of those things where there are laws, 2:44:54.640 --> 2:44:57.520 Like technically, if I if my understanding of the laws 2:44:57.520 --> 2:45:00.160 around this are correct, it is illegal for an organization 2:45:00.320 --> 2:45:02.600 like the FBI to utilize these apps. 2:45:03.000 --> 2:45:06.760 But yes, but we have an organized and called the 2:45:06.920 --> 2:45:07.760 NSA who. 2:45:09.520 --> 2:45:12.200 And it is it is on paper illegal for them 2:45:12.240 --> 2:45:14.879 to do this with a third party app. But one 2:45:14.920 --> 2:45:18.720 thing that often gets done, particularly by the FBI, but 2:45:18.720 --> 2:45:21.080 but you know, not just by them, is it's not 2:45:21.160 --> 2:45:26.320 illegal for law enforcement agencies to contract with private agencies. 2:45:26.480 --> 2:45:29.400 And if those agencies you don't you just don't check 2:45:29.440 --> 2:45:32.480 in on what they're doing, you know, what they're using. 2:45:32.640 --> 2:45:34.960 But like, yeah, or like if an inform or like 2:45:35.000 --> 2:45:37.720 if an informant like sends you to state that, like 2:45:37.720 --> 2:45:38.879 you're not going to say. 2:45:38.680 --> 2:45:40.320 No exactly exactly. 2:45:40.320 --> 2:45:42.640 And also you don't really need to disclose that because 2:45:42.640 --> 2:45:45.120 it's information from an informant. You do not need to 2:45:45.120 --> 2:45:46.960 disclose an informant in court ever. 2:45:47.400 --> 2:45:48.359 So yeah, it's. 2:45:49.840 --> 2:45:52.360 It's it's very there are there are ways around you know, 2:45:52.400 --> 2:45:54.600 the laws that we put up, not that we shouldn't 2:45:54.640 --> 2:45:58.120 continue to extend those laws, but you shouldn't like just 2:45:58.160 --> 2:46:00.840 because well they're not allowed to use this doesn't mean 2:46:00.879 --> 2:46:02.520 they can't get access to the info. 2:46:02.680 --> 2:46:03.680 Yeah yeah. 2:46:03.720 --> 2:46:05.960 And also there's all this important thing like there's more 2:46:06.080 --> 2:46:08.920 like also globally, like there's other governments that can just 2:46:08.959 --> 2:46:10.640 be using this. Like for one of the apps I. 2:46:10.560 --> 2:46:13.720 Got, the government, the Russian government doesn't give a ship. 2:46:14.240 --> 2:46:17.160 That was also like another thing where I's like for 2:46:17.240 --> 2:46:18.959 one of the apps I got data for. There was 2:46:18.959 --> 2:46:22.000 some indication that at some point the Colombian National Police 2:46:22.040 --> 2:46:27.960 did a bigger evaluation of using commercials spyware for their use. 2:46:28.040 --> 2:46:30.400 Because you're in the country with not that big of 2:46:30.440 --> 2:46:33.360 a like police budget in comparison, you cannot afford like 2:46:33.400 --> 2:46:36.480 all the coolest Raeli tools everyone else has. So what 2:46:36.520 --> 2:46:39.039 do you do? You just look for random apps you 2:46:39.040 --> 2:46:42.279 can find, you know, yeah, you find the Walmart, the Kirkland, 2:46:42.760 --> 2:46:45.039 the wish to conversion, I guess. 2:46:45.000 --> 2:46:48.680 Yeah, yeah yeah yeah Ali baba spyware, right, yeah. 2:46:49.560 --> 2:46:51.680 I don't think most of them moved forward with this 2:46:51.800 --> 2:46:54.520 because these apps fucking suck, Like they're bad, Like that's 2:46:54.640 --> 2:46:56.720 that's the other thing, Like they don't even really do 2:46:56.760 --> 2:46:59.320 their jump. Well, they're bad, and you don't know who 2:46:59.400 --> 2:47:01.440 is behind them. You cannot even go up to someone 2:47:01.480 --> 2:47:03.800 and be like, yo, don't do this. You also kind 2:47:03.800 --> 2:47:05.720 of go to the cops and be like, this company 2:47:05.760 --> 2:47:09.840 is scamming me, because yeah, I assume some people have 2:47:10.040 --> 2:47:13.200 probably done that before, but it does involve admitting to 2:47:13.240 --> 2:47:17.800 a crime. So yeah, it's like, yeah, these companies just 2:47:17.840 --> 2:47:20.280 get away with not giving a shit about their product 2:47:20.360 --> 2:47:20.879 because like. 2:47:21.040 --> 2:47:25.680 Yeah, yeah, well I think that's that's all we had. 2:47:26.000 --> 2:47:29.440 Thank you Maya for both the work you're doing and 2:47:29.520 --> 2:47:31.600 for talking to us. Yeah always, is there anything you 2:47:31.600 --> 2:47:33.879 wanted to plug before we roll out here? 2:47:34.000 --> 2:47:36.440 Just just my blog I think where we're like, I 2:47:36.480 --> 2:47:39.039 do this journalistic work and also more, there's about to 2:47:39.040 --> 2:47:43.360 be another cool investigative piece out soon which tincantually involves 2:47:43.400 --> 2:47:47.520 more tracking and whatever and also involves like Hollywood and more. 2:47:47.600 --> 2:47:50.720 It's it's it's it's a crazy big story. I promise 2:47:51.480 --> 2:47:53.600 that will be out like hopefully in a month or so. 2:47:54.120 --> 2:47:58.160 But yeah, my blog at Maya dot CRIMEU dot gay crime, 2:47:58.200 --> 2:48:01.360 you as in crime w yeah and kay yes and 2:48:01.520 --> 2:48:06.680 gay yeah yeah. Just check out my blog At the 2:48:06.680 --> 2:48:08.600 bottom of the blog, there's all my links to my 2:48:08.640 --> 2:48:11.200 social media for anyone who's like listening to this and 2:48:11.400 --> 2:48:13.520 has been wondering where I am. I am back on 2:48:13.560 --> 2:48:14.360 Twitter as well. 2:48:14.800 --> 2:48:18.840 Yeah for now, for now, that's for all of us 2:48:19.160 --> 2:48:19.800 these days. 2:48:19.800 --> 2:48:22.240 That's always like now this point. 2:48:22.320 --> 2:48:25.240 But yeah, I am back on twether. I'm posting there 2:48:25.360 --> 2:48:27.560 sometimes yeah m hmm. 2:48:28.800 --> 2:48:32.120 All right, well, thank you and thank you all for listening. 2:48:32.240 --> 2:48:34.760 We will be back tomorrow, unless this comes out on 2:48:34.800 --> 2:48:37.440 a Friday, in which case we'll be back at some 2:48:37.560 --> 2:48:38.840 other point but soon. 2:48:59.640 --> 2:49:04.160 Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh. 2:49:05.480 --> 2:49:07.920 If Robert can do his atonal shreaks, then I can 2:49:07.959 --> 2:49:12.040 sing off key yo, I'm back. Help me all up 2:49:12.040 --> 2:49:15.080 in your feed. Wat these raps get all up in 2:49:15.120 --> 2:49:19.000 your feed. That's a wu tang reference again to the 2:49:19.040 --> 2:49:21.840 Black delegation. Shout out y'all showing up on the in 2:49:21.920 --> 2:49:24.800 the subreddit. You feel me, Black folks showing up and 2:49:24.879 --> 2:49:26.360 showing out. I appreciate y'all. 2:49:26.520 --> 2:49:28.760 I was wrong. It's more than five of us. I 2:49:28.840 --> 2:49:29.680 shout out to you, man. 2:49:29.720 --> 2:49:30.480 I love y'all. 2:49:30.480 --> 2:49:32.680 Thanks for showing up, and shout out all the Latinos 2:49:32.680 --> 2:49:34.480 who tapped into and le puez. 2:49:34.840 --> 2:49:39.000 Hey, gontodo me hint ben at guy When. 2:49:38.920 --> 2:49:42.959 Valilo listen, we gotta really invite our Latino brothers and sisters, 2:49:43.240 --> 2:49:46.959 our Theos and diaz and also our Asian black people, 2:49:47.280 --> 2:49:51.000 the penoise and pen eyes, our athes and Quias. You're 2:49:51.040 --> 2:49:54.640 all a part of our delegation here, all of our usos. 2:49:55.080 --> 2:49:58.240 We love y'all, the whole diaspora of people who seizing 2:49:58.320 --> 2:50:00.840 their chicken and wash their legs. I love y'all, and 2:50:00.920 --> 2:50:03.280 to this whole delegation. Once we add it all together, 2:50:03.280 --> 2:50:05.760 it is about twenty of us to you. I say, 2:50:06.480 --> 2:50:09.080 y'all want something from the gas station. I got you 2:50:10.560 --> 2:50:13.480 so today. I don't want to ruin your breakfast. I 2:50:13.480 --> 2:50:15.720 don't want to ruin your coffee. I'm just gonna ruin 2:50:15.760 --> 2:50:22.119 your music. This is about the death of the music festival. 2:50:22.920 --> 2:50:26.879 It already happened here all right now, y'all know I'll 2:50:26.920 --> 2:50:29.600 be playing. I'm playing about all this like I'm only 2:50:29.640 --> 2:50:31.040 talking to the melanated folks. 2:50:31.080 --> 2:50:31.280 Y'all. 2:50:31.480 --> 2:50:32.600 Y'all know I'm playing right. 2:50:33.040 --> 2:50:36.000 I mean, this is why I while I slowly wink 2:50:36.040 --> 2:50:39.520 at brown folk, I'm just playing, y'all. I'm sorry, I'm 2:50:39.560 --> 2:50:42.600 messing around. It's called opening. You know, you guys got 2:50:42.640 --> 2:50:44.360 a great sit to you right here, all right, let's 2:50:44.360 --> 2:50:47.720 get to it. Festivals, like, am I right? You know, 2:50:48.600 --> 2:50:51.680 if you're anywhere within a five to ten mile radius 2:50:51.720 --> 2:50:55.360 of my age, I mean, festivals is like these are 2:50:55.400 --> 2:50:59.120 like a write of passage. You know, I am not 2:50:59.240 --> 2:51:03.000 only a goer but a festival performer and as an artist, 2:51:03.120 --> 2:51:05.600 it was like festivals were kind of in a lot 2:51:05.600 --> 2:51:07.840 of ways how I marked the years. There were people 2:51:08.160 --> 2:51:11.200 that I really only saw like once a year when 2:51:11.240 --> 2:51:13.240 I was at that festival, whether it was other acts, 2:51:13.560 --> 2:51:16.480 other bands, or even a lot of times the volunteers 2:51:16.560 --> 2:51:19.000 or the people that like put the event together, like 2:51:19.120 --> 2:51:20.760 you believe it or not, you kind of make friends, 2:51:20.840 --> 2:51:22.640 you know. And he's again these people, You're like, dang, 2:51:22.640 --> 2:51:24.440 I can't believe it was a whole year, you know. 2:51:24.560 --> 2:51:26.640 And it was a good way to make sure as 2:51:26.640 --> 2:51:29.640 an artist that you were making new music and had 2:51:29.640 --> 2:51:31.720 something new to perform. Oh and make sure you had 2:51:31.720 --> 2:51:33.880 some new merch because you know, if you played your 2:51:33.879 --> 2:51:36.200 cards right, if you've listened to my show, I've talked 2:51:36.240 --> 2:51:39.080 a lot about, like, you know, the science of festivals 2:51:39.080 --> 2:51:42.160 and as a performer of like this could either be 2:51:42.360 --> 2:51:45.000 a complete waste of time and money, if you're on 2:51:45.200 --> 2:51:47.760 at like the main stage at like twelve noon when 2:51:47.800 --> 2:51:50.039 it's like a trillion degrees outside, you know, but if 2:51:50.040 --> 2:51:52.640 you can get that right as the sun set, like 2:51:52.640 --> 2:51:54.440 if you're not the headliner, if you could get that 2:51:54.680 --> 2:51:58.640 right at sunset, right where the sun just breaks the 2:51:58.720 --> 2:52:02.520 horizon line coming down on that golden hour set. The 2:52:02.560 --> 2:52:05.879 crowd isn't shitfaced yet, you know, they're at the top 2:52:05.920 --> 2:52:11.240 of their MOLLI you feel you're riding the high. It 2:52:11.320 --> 2:52:14.280 is just settled in or whatever drugs that these people 2:52:14.320 --> 2:52:17.360 are on. They've kind of just settled in right there. 2:52:17.680 --> 2:52:23.160 They're relaxed, they're willing to sing along. Nobody's getting trample jet. 2:52:23.360 --> 2:52:26.360 It's not like the frenzy that kind of happens at 2:52:26.360 --> 2:52:29.879 the headliner situation, where like somebody might die. Shout out 2:52:29.879 --> 2:52:32.360 astro world. I say that not as a joke. I'm 2:52:32.400 --> 2:52:36.240 saying things can go wrong, but oh the experience. Man, Like, 2:52:36.520 --> 2:52:38.360 I don't know how old you are, and obviously you 2:52:38.400 --> 2:52:40.959 can't answer me. Do you remember the last like big 2:52:41.000 --> 2:52:43.680 festival you went to, you know, back when your knees 2:52:43.680 --> 2:52:45.960 were good and it was okay for you to stand 2:52:46.080 --> 2:52:49.080 for twelve hours and there's somebody, you know, having sexual 2:52:49.120 --> 2:52:51.720 intercourse in the porter potty. You know, you're stepping over 2:52:51.840 --> 2:52:55.480 barf right, and you just paid thirty dollars for a 2:52:55.480 --> 2:52:57.800 bottle of water, you know that you could stuff into 2:52:57.840 --> 2:52:59.520 your clear backpack because you weren't allowed to. 2:52:59.520 --> 2:53:00.680 Bring anything else in there. 2:53:01.000 --> 2:53:05.320 But man, that's probably a euphoria, especially if it's a 2:53:05.320 --> 2:53:07.280 group or a band that you really like that you 2:53:07.400 --> 2:53:09.640 saved up all year to go see. You know, some 2:53:09.680 --> 2:53:11.800 people were like festival operas, like that's their thing. They 2:53:11.840 --> 2:53:15.000 spend their summer going to music festivals. Since twenty twelve 2:53:15.040 --> 2:53:18.760 up to twenty fourteen, like the music fest has been guys, 2:53:19.320 --> 2:53:21.920 we've kind of been on borrow time. We've we lived 2:53:22.000 --> 2:53:27.279 through a music festival renaissance. According to NPR, since twenty thirteen, 2:53:27.720 --> 2:53:32.840 everything sold out, the four mega giants, right, so, Coachello, Bataru, 2:53:33.200 --> 2:53:37.080 Lolla Palooza in Chicago, Austin City Limits Music Festival in Texas. 2:53:37.680 --> 2:53:40.640 It was like this never. 2:53:40.680 --> 2:53:45.200 Ending flow of amazing, amazing events, and you know what, 2:53:45.280 --> 2:53:48.280 they were kind of affordable. In the next five years, 2:53:48.520 --> 2:53:52.200 you had things taken forth like Pitchfork in Chicago, Hangout 2:53:52.320 --> 2:53:55.800 Music Festival on the Beach, and the Gulf Shores, Outside Lands, 2:53:56.480 --> 2:53:59.800 Bali Music Mount o Asis Electronic Music. 2:53:59.560 --> 2:54:01.720 Festival, Forecastle Festival. 2:54:01.959 --> 2:54:04.760 Right, and I'm even gonna add in this before all 2:54:04.840 --> 2:54:06.279 this for hip hop stuff. 2:54:06.080 --> 2:54:08.359 Dude, we had rock the bells. 2:54:08.680 --> 2:54:12.000 Like we lived in a time where you could see 2:54:12.160 --> 2:54:16.800 all of your favorite artists in the most epic locations. 2:54:17.320 --> 2:54:19.320 You'd see people who if you were to try to 2:54:19.360 --> 2:54:22.480 buy their tour ticket, it would cost the same amount 2:54:22.640 --> 2:54:25.040 if they were headlining the thing. But you could see 2:54:25.080 --> 2:54:27.879 all your favorite acts. Part of this was because we 2:54:27.959 --> 2:54:32.440 listened to radio, you were exposed to more things. And 2:54:32.480 --> 2:54:34.840 it was probably the fun part about a lot of 2:54:34.879 --> 2:54:38.560 times about music festivals because you probably saw that act, 2:54:38.600 --> 2:54:41.280 your favorite band, your favorite rapper, you saw them at 2:54:41.280 --> 2:54:44.120 a Hole in the Wall five years ago, which was 2:54:44.160 --> 2:54:46.080 like ten bucks to get in, and you might have 2:54:46.120 --> 2:54:47.800 snuck in or got on the list because you knew 2:54:47.840 --> 2:54:50.960 somebody that knew the DJ. And now you're like, I 2:54:51.160 --> 2:54:54.240 followed this crew from when they were like playing a 2:54:54.280 --> 2:54:56.240 hole in the wall with ten people, where there was 2:54:56.280 --> 2:54:59.760 more staff at the bar than on this and now 2:54:59.800 --> 2:55:02.200 you're like, dude, you feel like you were a part 2:55:02.240 --> 2:55:06.119 of their evolution, Like you saw Chance at the subterranean. 2:55:06.600 --> 2:55:09.840 Now he's headline at Bonnarou. What a feeling. You're part 2:55:09.879 --> 2:55:13.440 of the story. Well, that's probably a relic of the past, 2:55:13.800 --> 2:55:16.920 and let's talk about it. So festivals for most of 2:55:16.959 --> 2:55:20.440 the last decade have been everywhere, like, whatever type of 2:55:20.520 --> 2:55:23.199 music you like, whatever subgenre, whatever part of the world 2:55:23.240 --> 2:55:26.200 you want to go to, there's a music festival that 2:55:26.240 --> 2:55:27.600 you can show up at. 2:55:27.800 --> 2:55:28.080 Now. 2:55:28.720 --> 2:55:32.000 In twenty twenty four, more than half of them across 2:55:32.040 --> 2:55:35.120 the world were canceled. I lost count on this page. 2:55:35.120 --> 2:55:38.680 I'm about to read to y'all from musicfestival wizard dot com. 2:55:38.800 --> 2:55:42.680 Festival's canceled so far in twenty twenty four. Okay, you're 2:55:42.680 --> 2:55:45.760 ready for this. Shindig twenty twenty four, Melt twenty twenty four, 2:55:45.840 --> 2:55:51.560 Sideways Festival, Nostock, Field Maneuvers, Tower z The Quintinine, Big Slap, 2:55:51.879 --> 2:55:55.640 Electric Zoo, Peach twenty twenty four. All the Music Festival 2:55:55.680 --> 2:55:59.959 Life Is Beautiful Festival, Country Thunder Florida, Swanee Roots Festival, 2:56:00.360 --> 2:56:04.840 edc China, Lucidity Festival in Santa Barbara, Desert Days in 2:56:04.920 --> 2:56:09.039 Lake Paris, Pinefest in the UK, Good Vibes Festival in 2:56:09.200 --> 2:56:14.120 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Siattra Nevada World Music Festival in Booneville, 2:56:14.480 --> 2:56:17.760 El Dorado Music Festival in the UK, Sudden Little Thrills 2:56:17.800 --> 2:56:22.840 in Pittsburgh, Big Ridge Rock Fest in Virginia, Lollapalooza, Paris 2:56:23.120 --> 2:56:27.279 Music Midtown Atlanta, Lovers and Friends Fest in Las Vegas, 2:56:27.440 --> 2:56:31.120 which I was really sad about. Riverside Festival, Glasgow in 2:56:31.240 --> 2:56:35.640 Where Glasgow, Soul Bloom Sacramento tw Classic twenty twenty four 2:56:35.720 --> 2:56:40.840 in Belgium, Kaylamijas in kay Lamijas, Spain, Caldoora Music Festival 2:56:40.840 --> 2:56:47.119 in Queensland, Made an America Festival Philadelphia, Oblivion Access Austin, Texas, 2:56:47.440 --> 2:56:51.039 Meadows in the Mountains twenty twenty four in Bulgaria, Imagine 2:56:51.040 --> 2:56:55.480 Festival in Rome, Georgia. Splendor on the Grass in Byron Boy, Australia. 2:56:55.720 --> 2:56:59.000 Body and Soul Festival in Ireland, Moon Rose Festival. I'm 2:56:59.040 --> 2:57:01.480 tired of I'm not even done yet, I'm not even 2:57:01.560 --> 2:57:06.240 halfway through this thing. Festivals died in twenty twenty four. 2:57:06.879 --> 2:57:09.440 Digital News reports that sixty festivals in. 2:57:09.440 --> 2:57:11.640 The UK alone canceled. 2:57:11.920 --> 2:57:14.840 Ashley King wrote this article on August twenty third, twenty 2:57:14.840 --> 2:57:17.240 twenty four for Digital Music News, and in that she 2:57:17.320 --> 2:57:20.520 says the United Kingdom has lost one hundred and ninety 2:57:20.560 --> 2:57:24.520 two music festivals since twenty nineteen, according to the Association 2:57:24.800 --> 2:57:28.760 of Independent Festivals the AIF, which is a not for 2:57:28.800 --> 2:57:32.240 profit trade festival association that represents the interest of over 2:57:32.320 --> 2:57:36.080 two hundred independent UK music festivals that range from five 2:57:36.240 --> 2:57:40.240 hundred to eighty thousand people. The AIF estimates that the 2:57:40.320 --> 2:57:43.600 UK lost ninety six events during the COVID pandemic, thirty 2:57:43.640 --> 2:57:47.480 six festivals and in twenty twenty three, more than sixty 2:57:47.720 --> 2:57:50.160 to date in twenty twenty four. That brings the total 2:57:50.280 --> 2:57:55.080 number of festival closures either due to cancelation or postponement 2:57:55.440 --> 2:57:59.200 up to one hundred and ninety two since twenty nineteen, 2:57:59.240 --> 2:58:03.840 one hundred in ninety two festivals. Some may argue that, well, damn, 2:58:03.879 --> 2:58:08.600 you shouldn't have had that many festivals, Coachella, Lollapalooza, and 2:58:08.720 --> 2:58:13.360 of course the infamous Burning Man with the most on 2:58:13.600 --> 2:58:17.400 brand people that go that call themselves Burners. Now, I 2:58:17.440 --> 2:58:19.880 don't want to sit here and make fun of you burners, 2:58:19.879 --> 2:58:21.640 because I'm pretty sure a lot of y'all listen to 2:58:21.680 --> 2:58:22.039 this show. 2:58:22.360 --> 2:58:23.800 Number one and number two. 2:58:24.200 --> 2:58:27.920 I don't know if there's anybody more free, anybody more 2:58:28.640 --> 2:58:32.360 comfortable in their own skin. Listen, this might sound like 2:58:32.400 --> 2:58:36.080 a joke, Okay, I'm dead serious. It's like the white 2:58:36.120 --> 2:58:39.520 guy with dreadlocks. I mean, white people with dreads are 2:58:40.720 --> 2:58:43.800 just most of the time. Okay, Like this may sound 2:58:43.840 --> 2:58:47.320 like a joke, I'm deadly serious. They be so okay 2:58:47.360 --> 2:58:50.400 with themselves and will do whatever they got to do 2:58:51.400 --> 2:58:54.679 to continue to stay present and be cool with themselves. 2:58:55.080 --> 2:58:58.520 No notes, it's the guy doing hypostatic breath work, freestyling 2:58:58.600 --> 2:59:00.720 for way too long and the digital do section. You 2:59:00.760 --> 2:59:04.560 know what I'm saying, Like he's super okay with himself anyway. 2:59:05.240 --> 2:59:09.120 Burning Man, for the first time since twenty and eleven 2:59:09.800 --> 2:59:13.039 did not sell out for the first time, And the 2:59:13.080 --> 2:59:15.720 tickets are usually released in tears and some go on 2:59:15.800 --> 2:59:18.000 sale in the beginning of the year, and then this 2:59:18.120 --> 2:59:21.120 part I'm getting from the Guardian, but the main starting 2:59:21.280 --> 2:59:25.240 in April right, which typically gets snapped up in minutes, 2:59:25.560 --> 2:59:29.400 like Burning Man sells out in minutes. Seventy three thousand 2:59:29.440 --> 2:59:32.720 people are able to attend Burning Man, but this first 2:59:32.720 --> 2:59:35.720 time since twenty eleven, they did not sell out. Coachella, 2:59:36.200 --> 2:59:40.600 saying they saw a fifteen percent decline in tickets. It's 2:59:40.600 --> 2:59:44.400 the biggest festival in North America. Coachella is fifteen percent 2:59:44.440 --> 2:59:47.600 ticket decline. Festivals were a way for you to discover 2:59:47.720 --> 2:59:49.240 new music, to meet new friends. 2:59:49.600 --> 2:59:51.600 It's like camp for like your twenties. 2:59:51.840 --> 2:59:55.280 You know, you get to wear your dumb ass outfits, right, 2:59:55.520 --> 2:59:57.119 You get to stand out in the sun, You get 2:59:57.160 --> 2:59:59.960 to drink, you get to day drink, and you get 3:00:00.240 --> 3:00:02.040 just lose your mind for a little bit. 3:00:02.240 --> 3:00:05.400 This might be the end, the endling. 3:00:05.680 --> 3:00:08.720 You may have attended your last music festival as we 3:00:08.840 --> 3:00:13.320 know it. So the question is why who killed the 3:00:13.400 --> 3:00:17.200 music festival? Why is the festival not festiving? Why is 3:00:17.240 --> 3:00:20.280 it not festive? Why can't y'all sell no tickets? Do 3:00:20.360 --> 3:00:23.200 we not like music anymore? Do you like music still? 3:00:23.320 --> 3:00:25.400 I thought I still like Do you like music still? 3:00:26.120 --> 3:00:27.440 What the hell happened in y'all? 3:00:28.000 --> 3:00:31.720 Oh oh oh oh oh oh. 3:00:42.360 --> 3:00:49.520 Weird back back back back yack back uh uh. To 3:00:49.680 --> 3:00:53.320 understand the future as to what the hell happened, we 3:00:53.440 --> 3:00:55.720 have to ask ourselves how we. 3:00:55.720 --> 3:00:57.800 Even got here such a nerd? 3:00:57.879 --> 3:00:58.200 I am. 3:00:59.000 --> 3:01:00.520 I don't think I need to tell you what a 3:01:00.640 --> 3:01:03.880 music festival is because I mean, I think you know 3:01:03.920 --> 3:01:08.320 what it is. It's an incredibly overpriced concert that features 3:01:08.520 --> 3:01:11.960 maybe four groups that you like. Where you are going 3:01:12.000 --> 3:01:17.800 to stand outdoors somewhere brave the weather day, drink and 3:01:17.840 --> 3:01:19.800 then get to lose your mind for the last like 3:01:19.840 --> 3:01:23.920 three hours and just really enjoy, you know, a moment 3:01:23.959 --> 3:01:27.120 that you'll really never forget. Depending on how nasty and 3:01:27.240 --> 3:01:29.800 ratchet you are, how outside you are, you might look up. 3:01:29.920 --> 3:01:31.360 You know what I'm saying. I don't look. 3:01:31.440 --> 3:01:34.680 It's none of my business. I suggest you don't. That's 3:01:34.720 --> 3:01:37.039 just me being an old head. But either way, man, 3:01:37.120 --> 3:01:40.600 they're a great time. But please understand that festivals. Music 3:01:40.640 --> 3:01:45.560 festivals go like back to get this five eighty two 3:01:45.680 --> 3:01:49.720 b C. At least according to white people's history, because 3:01:49.720 --> 3:01:53.880 you know, silly you, nothing happened anywhere else except for Europe. 3:01:54.160 --> 3:01:58.400 There was no music festivals in Africa, Central South America, Asia, 3:01:58.760 --> 3:01:59.520 no nowhere else. 3:01:59.560 --> 3:02:05.440 You don't history started in Greece. We were too busy 3:02:05.480 --> 3:02:06.440 building pyramids. 3:02:06.520 --> 3:02:09.959 Right anyway, I'm gonna lead out put oh what every 3:02:10.040 --> 3:02:12.800 crack of you up. They'd be like the first music 3:02:13.240 --> 3:02:19.320 festival on record in ancient Greece. During the Pytheon Games, 3:02:19.600 --> 3:02:24.240 which is fine, it's it's fine, it's fine, but understand, 3:02:24.600 --> 3:02:26.120 ain't no way in the world, just the only one 3:02:26.160 --> 3:02:30.040 that ever happened anyway, So five eighty two BC, right, 3:02:30.440 --> 3:02:34.080 And like the Olympic Games, the Pytheon Games took place 3:02:34.120 --> 3:02:38.640 every four years and included poetry reading, a speech, right, 3:02:38.760 --> 3:02:42.880 and other musical game like competitions. People gathered to enjoy 3:02:43.080 --> 3:02:48.600 like hymns and instruments instrumental performances at the Apollo at 3:02:48.600 --> 3:02:51.760 the Apollo I'm So Black, dedicated to Apollo, which was 3:02:51.800 --> 3:02:54.480 the god of arts and music. Now fast forward to 3:02:54.520 --> 3:02:57.840 like the seventeenth century where you have like classical music 3:02:57.920 --> 3:03:01.279 festivals and like the type of like exclusivity right where 3:03:01.320 --> 3:03:04.600 like when in the seventeenth century when like classical music 3:03:04.680 --> 3:03:09.000 just basically ate Europe and music festivals originally were like 3:03:09.280 --> 3:03:11.120 supposed to be a gathering where people could, like what 3:03:11.240 --> 3:03:12.800 you think, gather and celebrate music. 3:03:12.840 --> 3:03:15.199 However, here's where it starts coming in a focus. 3:03:15.240 --> 3:03:19.720 The wealthcat was widening across Europe, so festivals gradually became 3:03:20.240 --> 3:03:21.840 kind of like out they are where they're a little 3:03:21.840 --> 3:03:27.720 bit exclusive, catering primarily to more higher educated upper class, 3:03:28.040 --> 3:03:33.439 and the shift became apparent as events became more exclusive 3:03:33.959 --> 3:03:41.480 and had increasingly restricted access. This is from ndlbeast dot com. 3:03:41.600 --> 3:03:44.120 They have a whole section on like the history of 3:03:44.200 --> 3:03:47.920 music festivals. One could argue like this like the prototype 3:03:47.920 --> 3:03:50.600 of like the VIP section. You know, I'm saying, like, 3:03:50.640 --> 3:03:52.640 you know, you can get the pit tickets or you 3:03:52.640 --> 3:03:55.520 could stand outside with the pores and just listen from 3:03:55.560 --> 3:03:58.680 the outside. So this trend kind of continued for centuries, 3:03:58.720 --> 3:04:02.680 where like elea class I think almost like was the 3:04:02.720 --> 3:04:06.280 beginning of the breaking of music in general. They were 3:04:06.440 --> 3:04:11.039 control the access to culture. I have a friend that 3:04:11.080 --> 3:04:13.640 wrote a book called Don't Be Precious. Now, me and 3:04:13.680 --> 3:04:16.640 this friend differ in a lot of ways, but he's 3:04:16.680 --> 3:04:21.279 just a punk rock dude, and his approach to making 3:04:22.280 --> 3:04:27.800 art is like you can't have this like restricting access 3:04:27.879 --> 3:04:32.280 right because it becomes It's just like upper class art 3:04:32.360 --> 3:04:36.200 is this creation of the leisure class because one they 3:04:36.240 --> 3:04:38.920 have the patron to pay for them to be able 3:04:38.959 --> 3:04:41.280 to sit down and contemplate the stars, like you got 3:04:41.280 --> 3:04:44.160 all precious about it, you feel me? So some of 3:04:44.160 --> 3:04:46.440 that has to do with again the wealth gap. So 3:04:47.080 --> 3:04:51.160 when you restrict access to hearing music. It draws deeper 3:04:51.200 --> 3:04:54.720 into the divides between like the educated upper class and 3:04:54.760 --> 3:04:58.360 then the traveling folk musicians who performed for the commoners. 3:04:58.360 --> 3:05:01.480 And that's like the stuff you see on you know, 3:05:01.959 --> 3:05:05.280 corny little movies. Then the world wars come right, and 3:05:05.320 --> 3:05:09.160 there's like a music revival, right. So when the First 3:05:09.160 --> 3:05:14.000 World War broke out, obviously change of lifestyle, meaning everything 3:05:14.040 --> 3:05:18.320 went to like, you know, war effort. So this is 3:05:18.360 --> 3:05:21.760 a really interesting quote. It says, I'm the same MDL beast. 3:05:22.560 --> 3:05:25.760 As society focused on wartime efforts and staying safe, the 3:05:25.879 --> 3:05:29.879 exclusivity of music festivals to the upper class disappeared. In 3:05:29.879 --> 3:05:33.000 a turn of events, the working class population was now 3:05:33.000 --> 3:05:36.600 turning to music more than ever. Jazz and folk emerged 3:05:36.600 --> 3:05:39.960 as popular genres right to avoid the scrutiny of the elite. 3:05:40.040 --> 3:05:43.400 Groups of musicians with similar tastes would gathering died bars 3:05:43.400 --> 3:05:46.600 and underground clubs. By the time the war had ended, 3:05:46.959 --> 3:05:51.920 jazz cemented itself as the genre of the era. So 3:05:52.640 --> 3:05:57.800 now we're talking Harlem Renaissance juke joints and the emergence 3:05:57.840 --> 3:06:01.280 of like again this we're black people come in a 3:06:01.320 --> 3:06:06.000 lot of times the role that just the all out 3:06:06.080 --> 3:06:13.680 anti black racism has unintentionally because of it, created some 3:06:13.800 --> 3:06:18.240 of the most dopest things, some of the most dopest 3:06:18.280 --> 3:06:22.200 American experiences. Well, I just read up on how with 3:06:22.480 --> 3:06:27.480 HBCUs which are historic black colleges that now white people 3:06:27.560 --> 3:06:34.080 trying to attend. They like your school of fund well, 3:06:34.120 --> 3:06:38.000 because we wasn't allowed in yours anyway, So let me continue. So, 3:06:38.080 --> 3:06:40.480 World War two played a pivotal role in creating the 3:06:40.680 --> 3:06:46.160 Newport Folk Festival, organized by Lewis and Elaine Lauryland, a 3:06:46.200 --> 3:06:48.560 couple met during World War Two and came together to 3:06:48.600 --> 3:06:53.680 revolutionized Rhode Island's music artistic community by promoting jazz. With 3:06:53.720 --> 3:06:56.920 the foundation in jazz and blues and country and pop music, 3:06:56.959 --> 3:07:01.480 they expanded to attract over eleven thousand people in nineteen 3:07:01.560 --> 3:07:05.520 fifty four. Then the sixties the birth of the modern 3:07:05.560 --> 3:07:12.320 music festival. Right obviously Woodstock, which was the invention Monterey 3:07:12.360 --> 3:07:16.800 International Pop Music Festival. This is the rock festival as 3:07:16.840 --> 3:07:19.480 we know it, Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin who it was 3:07:19.520 --> 3:07:23.920 the place to be a cultural experience as we know it. Again, 3:07:24.400 --> 3:07:27.160 is that then you got like the Berlin Wall and 3:07:27.240 --> 3:07:32.560 the music revolution. This is where festivals become political and cultural. 3:07:32.640 --> 3:07:37.600 They become a statement, and a big one was in 3:07:37.680 --> 3:07:41.520 the nineties when they did the Berlin Wall tearing down 3:07:41.600 --> 3:07:46.400 music Festival, which was an amazing thing, right where underground stations, 3:07:46.440 --> 3:07:49.800 power plants, World War Two bunkers and abandoned buildings all 3:07:49.879 --> 3:07:53.360 started to serve as makeshift concert halls. This is why 3:07:53.480 --> 3:07:57.840 Europe became such a place for music festivals. It became 3:07:58.360 --> 3:08:02.200 a sign of free beat them in solidarity, and then 3:08:02.520 --> 3:08:06.920 the music festival took a shit They just. 3:08:07.200 --> 3:08:08.359 Died in the nineties. 3:08:08.840 --> 3:08:14.600 After this all can be explained in when they tried 3:08:14.640 --> 3:08:19.039 to redo Woodstock just a shit show with like Limp 3:08:19.200 --> 3:08:24.560 Biscuit and all them you a shit show. There's a 3:08:24.640 --> 3:08:32.480 documentary on Netflix about the absolute disaster that that new 3:08:32.520 --> 3:08:36.480 Woodstock was, y'all. I'm talking like y'all thought Astro World 3:08:36.560 --> 3:08:38.879 was bad where them kids was raising so much and 3:08:38.920 --> 3:08:42.920 people die. You talking about understaffed y'all think Firefest was 3:08:42.959 --> 3:08:45.320 a disaster, my nigger, Well, nah, I don't think anything 3:08:45.400 --> 3:08:47.360 was worse than Firefest, so far a good thing. It 3:08:47.360 --> 3:08:53.560 didn't happen like y'all remember Firefest. Oh lord, honestly, I 3:08:53.600 --> 3:08:55.879 can't believe I made it almost twenty minutes into this 3:08:55.920 --> 3:08:59.800 and then mentioned Firefest because it is the perfect example 3:09:00.200 --> 3:09:05.720 of what went wrong in the music festival world. Because, 3:09:06.440 --> 3:09:09.640 like I said, this disaster in the nineties to two thousands, 3:09:09.920 --> 3:09:12.920 if you were able to survive, like I said earlier, 3:09:13.400 --> 3:09:17.200 like the Bonnarous Coachella's Austin City limits, if you were 3:09:17.240 --> 3:09:21.520 able to survive Lollapalooza, then you came out the other 3:09:21.720 --> 3:09:25.960 end and became the go to places right tell your 3:09:26.040 --> 3:09:28.760 ride for folk music, you became the go to places 3:09:29.200 --> 3:09:31.120 that if you were going to try to have a 3:09:31.160 --> 3:09:31.720 career as. 3:09:31.640 --> 3:09:33.680 An artist, you have to play one of these festivals. 3:09:33.720 --> 3:09:37.039 No matter how much money you don't make at these things, 3:09:37.200 --> 3:09:39.800 you have to do it because this is where not 3:09:39.920 --> 3:09:44.119 only do you get the necessary co sign, you also 3:09:44.200 --> 3:09:47.960 get discovered. Like as far as fans like, you make 3:09:48.000 --> 3:09:50.200 new fans, you sell merge people, walk away with the 3:09:50.240 --> 3:09:52.760 T shirt. You're on the T shirt that says Bonnarou 3:09:52.879 --> 3:09:56.840 twenty twenty one and your name is so like even 3:09:56.879 --> 3:09:59.960 if you're way down on the bottom, grab your little screenshots, 3:10:00.120 --> 3:10:03.960 take your little Instagram photos, because now you're in the game. 3:10:04.440 --> 3:10:07.120 And the game it was which leads us to what 3:10:07.280 --> 3:10:12.400 went wrong because this was not only a money making endeavor. 3:10:12.680 --> 3:10:18.119 This was a money making endeavor in twenty fourteen. 3:10:18.160 --> 3:10:20.320 Are y'all ready for this? I don't think you ready 3:10:20.320 --> 3:10:20.600 for this? 3:10:21.280 --> 3:10:25.560 In the boom years, According to an analysis done by 3:10:25.680 --> 3:10:29.760 a Finance Buzz, in twenty fourteen, general emission prices for 3:10:29.879 --> 3:10:35.720 major and music festivals increased by fifty five percent. That 3:10:35.840 --> 3:10:39.160 outpaced just inflation period. Y'all jacked up the price. 3:10:39.360 --> 3:10:40.360 So listen. 3:10:40.720 --> 3:10:43.760 So if your jaw rule head ass, of course I'm 3:10:43.760 --> 3:10:46.680 gonna build a festival. You're looking at Burning Man, You're 3:10:46.720 --> 3:10:49.440 looking at Bonnarou, You're looking at all these things. 3:10:49.480 --> 3:10:51.400 You're like, bro, let's just get an island and make 3:10:51.440 --> 3:10:53.960 a festival. There's so much money to be made. 3:10:54.200 --> 3:10:57.879 But you know what, capitalism being a capitalism, it's gonna 3:10:57.959 --> 3:10:58.920 keep capitalism. 3:10:59.320 --> 3:11:01.040 Let's talk about what killed the festival? 3:11:01.640 --> 3:11:02.520 Oh oh. 3:11:19.280 --> 3:11:21.880 Oh, you see, I just did my own fade out 3:11:21.920 --> 3:11:25.000 and fade in music. Y'all see that. No, don't ask 3:11:25.040 --> 3:11:30.640 me what note that was? So what killed the festival? 3:11:31.760 --> 3:11:34.280 There well number of things. First of all, yo, ask 3:11:34.320 --> 3:11:37.800 for not going I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. We're 3:11:37.840 --> 3:11:40.760 not blaming the victims here. Some of these answers are 3:11:40.760 --> 3:11:44.800 pretty obvious, like again, you know Astra World like, but 3:11:44.879 --> 3:11:47.360 astral World is just a good picture of everything that 3:11:47.400 --> 3:11:51.400 went wrong in the concept of a music festival. 3:11:51.600 --> 3:11:54.160 So the first problem is, yeah, capitalism. 3:11:54.640 --> 3:11:59.600 Sometimes you are led to believe that what is will 3:11:59.680 --> 3:12:05.640 always right. That's what a stable economy lulls you into believing. 3:12:06.480 --> 3:12:10.840 But anybody that knows how money works, it's booms and busts. 3:12:11.160 --> 3:12:15.160 The bubble will pop, and how a bubble pops is 3:12:15.280 --> 3:12:19.880 almost always our own fault in this sense. The housing bubble, 3:12:20.280 --> 3:12:22.520 you know of two thousand and eight when your mama 3:12:22.560 --> 3:12:24.879 and him lost their house because the reality was they 3:12:24.920 --> 3:12:26.959 shouldn't have never got that loan in the first place. 3:12:27.200 --> 3:12:29.800 These people knew good and well that you was not 3:12:29.920 --> 3:12:32.040 able to keep up with that mortgage. But we were 3:12:32.040 --> 3:12:34.879 selling too many houses. It was going too good. So 3:12:35.840 --> 3:12:39.720 the thing was for almost the you know, almost a decade, 3:12:40.040 --> 3:12:43.480 you couldn't make enough festivals. The industry couldn't keep up 3:12:43.480 --> 3:12:47.720 with the demand. And yo, this the blog error. This 3:12:47.879 --> 3:12:53.039 the two Doe Boys, Yeah, Pitchfork like this the blog error. 3:12:53.080 --> 3:12:53.640 You know what I'm saying. 3:12:53.680 --> 3:12:55.560 When Fader was like a thing that you would want 3:12:55.560 --> 3:12:56.000 to go suit. 3:12:56.160 --> 3:12:58.800 So like it all kind of worked together around this 3:12:58.920 --> 3:13:01.560 time before all these spots got bought out hip Hop 3:13:01.640 --> 3:13:03.959 d X, like all these pages. 3:13:03.600 --> 3:13:04.360 Got bought out. 3:13:04.520 --> 3:13:07.039 Like I said before, it was like this boom in 3:13:07.040 --> 3:13:11.400 twenty fourteen of a trillion festivals that started happening. Now 3:13:11.920 --> 3:13:15.879 what happened was ticket prices. This is the first one. 3:13:16.360 --> 3:13:19.039 We're making so much money. You realize, Dang, if I 3:13:19.120 --> 3:13:21.160 charge a hundred, I bet you I could charge two hundred. 3:13:21.240 --> 3:13:22.600 If I charged two on it, I bet you I 3:13:22.640 --> 3:13:25.360 could charge foe hundred because if you charge foe hun 3:13:25.400 --> 3:13:27.640 and then I could argue I'm getting bigger acts. So 3:13:27.760 --> 3:13:31.240 in the boom years, according to this analysis by Finance Buzz, 3:13:31.480 --> 3:13:36.760 ticket prices since twenty fourteen for most music festivals increased 3:13:36.800 --> 3:13:43.280 by fifty five percent. Like that's super outpacing even inflation 3:13:43.800 --> 3:13:46.920 in the same time period. This isn't like cost the 3:13:47.000 --> 3:13:49.320 living type shit type beat. 3:13:49.600 --> 3:13:52.160 No oh, I'm raping y'all. 3:13:52.520 --> 3:13:56.280 Do you know that Burning Man costs five hundred and 3:13:56.440 --> 3:13:59.680 seventy five dollars to go to If you was going, 3:14:00.280 --> 3:14:02.320 you was probably gonna make some sort of like art 3:14:02.360 --> 3:14:04.920 installation to destroy you doing that all your own money, 3:14:05.200 --> 3:14:05.959 which meant what. 3:14:06.440 --> 3:14:08.359 Same thing happened in the seventeenth century. 3:14:08.440 --> 3:14:11.480 It just becomes a place for the elite because can't 3:14:11.480 --> 3:14:14.000 nobody else afford to go. You know what else happened 3:14:14.040 --> 3:14:16.959 to a lot of festivals is corporation's bottom. You know 3:14:17.000 --> 3:14:20.480 who bought complex BuzzFeed, and you know who bought it 3:14:20.520 --> 3:14:26.080 from BuzzFeed n Work nt WRK. 3:14:27.000 --> 3:14:28.320 It's an investment firm. 3:14:28.680 --> 3:14:32.440 You know who owns the Pitchfork festival, condy Nast a 3:14:32.600 --> 3:14:37.080 media company. They bought the blog and folded it into GQ. 3:14:38.160 --> 3:14:41.200 It's just a corporation. Capitalism. 3:14:41.480 --> 3:14:45.879 Capitalism broke the festivals under the banner of capitalism, not 3:14:46.040 --> 3:14:49.280 so much the cost of the ticket and the soaring 3:14:49.440 --> 3:14:53.160 cost of living. It also costs too much to make 3:14:53.200 --> 3:14:57.720 the festival. According to John Roston, he's the CEO that AIF, 3:14:57.840 --> 3:15:02.600 the Independent Association of Festivals. He says, the toilet higher 3:15:02.760 --> 3:15:05.720 I just need to buy Porter potties. In twenty twenty 3:15:05.720 --> 3:15:09.640 one was twenty eight thousand dollars for the exact same 3:15:09.800 --> 3:15:13.280 amount of toilets at twenty twenty four is fifty four 3:15:13.440 --> 3:15:20.760 thousand dollars. That's just the toilets. You know what happened 3:15:20.879 --> 3:15:25.000 at Astro World. He can't have enough security. It costs 3:15:25.080 --> 3:15:30.720 so much, you honestly cannot afford to put together a 3:15:30.840 --> 3:15:38.400 festival that will be alluring enough to consumers to justify 3:15:38.520 --> 3:15:41.040 spending that much money. So what do you get? A 3:15:41.160 --> 3:15:43.640 gang of corporate sponsors? And you know what, a gang 3:15:43.680 --> 3:15:47.039 of corporate sponsors at a music festival is whack. It's 3:15:47.080 --> 3:15:50.280 a horrible ass experience because you're just watching a gang 3:15:50.280 --> 3:15:53.039 of commercials. Sometimes it just be labels who be putting 3:15:53.040 --> 3:15:54.880 on these artists that they trying to break. And then 3:15:54.920 --> 3:15:58.360 the artists be trash. They don't be trash because they trash. 3:15:58.400 --> 3:16:01.959 They be trash because they're not ready for this size stage. 3:16:02.720 --> 3:16:04.680 They ain't put in the work. They didn't do the 3:16:04.760 --> 3:16:08.840 you know Gurney Illinois experience that I think I've told before, 3:16:08.920 --> 3:16:11.520 what is the most terrifying experience I've ever had on tour? 3:16:11.600 --> 3:16:14.199 You don't had him experiences. 3:16:14.360 --> 3:16:17.080 You ain't played shows when it's more people at the bar, 3:16:17.760 --> 3:16:19.720 or it's more people that work there then come to 3:16:19.760 --> 3:16:22.600 see you. You're not ready for no festival stage, so 3:16:22.600 --> 3:16:23.920 it's just not fun for the concer. 3:16:23.959 --> 3:16:26.360 So I'm not gonna buy it. You can't justify this price. 3:16:26.680 --> 3:16:30.039 If I'm gonna spend that much money, I need to really, 3:16:30.280 --> 3:16:31.840 really really. 3:16:31.840 --> 3:16:35.000 Really like this man. This need to be my favorite artist. 3:16:35.360 --> 3:16:38.480 I'm not gonna stand around twelve hours pay this much 3:16:38.520 --> 3:16:40.560 money to really only see one act I like. 3:16:41.040 --> 3:16:41.160 That. 3:16:41.160 --> 3:16:42.360 Don't make no damn sense. 3:16:42.560 --> 3:16:44.560 And we'll talk about why they only like that one 3:16:44.680 --> 3:16:46.000 artist a little bit later. 3:16:46.200 --> 3:16:47.720 So remember this point I'm making. 3:16:48.240 --> 3:16:51.119 The second and most obvious one is COVID, which leads 3:16:51.160 --> 3:16:53.720 into the third and fourth. You had to cancel stuff. 3:16:53.920 --> 3:16:58.680 Nobody knew this was coming. Like the el's companies took, 3:16:59.120 --> 3:17:01.920 I took person answer the tour. Not only I canceled 3:17:01.920 --> 3:17:04.440 the tour, I released the poetry book that I couldn't tour. 3:17:04.959 --> 3:17:09.440 I mean I personally lost tens of thousands, maybe even 3:17:09.560 --> 3:17:13.920 hundreds of thousands of dollars in touring revenue, in book sales, 3:17:14.200 --> 3:17:17.720 in merch sales, and all of it. Like I lost 3:17:18.320 --> 3:17:21.240 so much because you just had to, and I'm still 3:17:21.280 --> 3:17:23.600 trying to get that money back. A lot of festivals 3:17:23.640 --> 3:17:26.360 just have never been able to make their money back 3:17:26.440 --> 3:17:30.280 from what they lost, so there's not enough money now. Obviously, 3:17:30.400 --> 3:17:32.440 when the pandemic ended. There was a lot of pent 3:17:32.600 --> 3:17:35.280 up energy to be like, I need to go outside. 3:17:35.680 --> 3:17:40.640 But that's because me and you didn't spend two years 3:17:40.640 --> 3:17:43.640 of our high school experience, our two first years of 3:17:43.680 --> 3:17:46.800 college stuck at home. Remember that's the time when you 3:17:46.840 --> 3:17:49.600 get the taste to go outside, when you start finding 3:17:49.640 --> 3:17:53.520 your drinking buddies, yo outside friends, your music friends. You 3:17:53.600 --> 3:17:57.440 have to remember those years, dude, dude, those years are 3:17:57.480 --> 3:18:01.360 when you're discovering. All research says is like your taste 3:18:01.440 --> 3:18:03.800 in music happens in those years. 3:18:04.040 --> 3:18:04.200 Right. 3:18:04.320 --> 3:18:06.879 If I were to ask you, what's your favorite area 3:18:06.879 --> 3:18:07.360 of music? 3:18:07.520 --> 3:18:10.720 Most likely it's not always, but most likely it was 3:18:10.840 --> 3:18:14.240 like the music you listened to in the eleventh grade, 3:18:14.360 --> 3:18:16.959 it's probably your favorite era. Whatever you was listening to 3:18:17.040 --> 3:18:20.080 the n is probably still your favorite era. Now, obviously 3:18:20.440 --> 3:18:23.480 that's not true for everybody, but hey, if you were seventeen, 3:18:23.560 --> 3:18:25.480 you were discovering new music, you want to go to 3:18:25.560 --> 3:18:27.840 like the Cornerhouse of Blues, right, you know this is 3:18:28.000 --> 3:18:29.520 obviously I'm California centric. 3:18:29.560 --> 3:18:30.760 You wanted to hit the Glasshouse. 3:18:30.800 --> 3:18:30.920 Man. 3:18:30.959 --> 3:18:33.400 Could you just heard about this new band Little Stings 3:18:33.440 --> 3:18:36.959 like that, The Dragonfly Whiskey of Go Go the viper room. 3:18:37.200 --> 3:18:40.440 All these like smaller spots that when for us out 3:18:40.440 --> 3:18:42.280 of La these were like rights of passage. 3:18:42.440 --> 3:18:44.000 This is how you get to say I. 3:18:43.920 --> 3:18:44.640 Saw them win. 3:18:45.240 --> 3:18:47.320 I knew who Will I Am was for the Black 3:18:47.320 --> 3:18:50.280 Eyed Peas because I saw him at the little temple 3:18:50.480 --> 3:18:52.760 which is now called the Virgil when he did a 3:18:52.800 --> 3:18:55.240 beat battle. They were at the corner. You know what 3:18:55.280 --> 3:18:59.879 I'm saying. And it was fun. I knew Foster the people. 3:19:00.000 --> 3:19:03.160 They're in San Diego. You would just drive down like 3:19:03.360 --> 3:19:06.840 just at the gas lamp, like Leon bridges Hell he 3:19:06.959 --> 3:19:09.600 opened for us, you know what I'm saying. Like again, 3:19:09.640 --> 3:19:11.600 like we said in the earlier these these bands that 3:19:11.680 --> 3:19:12.840 you was passionate about. 3:19:13.080 --> 3:19:15.640 You was seventeen with your little emo hair swooped over 3:19:15.640 --> 3:19:16.120 your eyes. 3:19:16.200 --> 3:19:18.880 This is you was crying over you understand what I'm saying, 3:19:18.959 --> 3:19:22.160 Like hugging onto your little iPad, you know, doing that 3:19:22.200 --> 3:19:24.400 MySpace picture when you looking down. You know it's the 3:19:24.400 --> 3:19:26.840 white people think like this is when you went to 3:19:26.879 --> 3:19:31.400 go see them. If that era for you was a pandemic, 3:19:32.120 --> 3:19:34.400 you didn't acquire a taste for going out like that. 3:19:34.879 --> 3:19:39.960 You saw concerts inside a fortnite. So what I'm saying 3:19:40.080 --> 3:19:43.280 is one of the biggest things about gen Z is 3:19:43.760 --> 3:19:44.600 they don't go out. 3:19:46.240 --> 3:19:49.880 It's just it's just the reality. Not only do it. 3:19:49.959 --> 3:19:50.920 Ain't got no money. 3:19:51.360 --> 3:19:54.959 They ain't got no money because again inflation and finances, 3:19:55.000 --> 3:19:58.160 the cost of living is insane. But look it, gen 3:19:58.240 --> 3:20:00.360 Z don't drink like we used to drink. They do 3:20:00.400 --> 3:20:03.600 fewer drugs, they have less sex. Part of that is 3:20:03.640 --> 3:20:06.360 because one they Hella anxious and I. 3:20:06.320 --> 3:20:07.080 Don't blame them. 3:20:07.160 --> 3:20:10.039 I'm looking at my daughter now and I'm like, I'm sorry, baby, 3:20:10.160 --> 3:20:12.199 you probably not gonna buy no house ever. 3:20:12.680 --> 3:20:14.440 I don't even know when you're gonna move out. I 3:20:14.480 --> 3:20:16.400 don't know what to tell you. I'm not mad. 3:20:16.440 --> 3:20:18.000 I ain't gonna push you out of this house because 3:20:18.040 --> 3:20:20.080 where you're gonna go, you're gonna get seven roommates. 3:20:20.280 --> 3:20:22.600 I don't know what to tell you. I'm sorry. 3:20:23.400 --> 3:20:26.360 They do fewer drugs, they drink less, and they don't 3:20:26.400 --> 3:20:31.000 go nowhere because one, they anxious as hell. They nervous 3:20:31.000 --> 3:20:33.840 around being around that many people. And if they are 3:20:33.920 --> 3:20:36.920 gonna go out, if you ask them, the number one 3:20:36.959 --> 3:20:37.640 thing they say. 3:20:37.560 --> 3:20:38.840 Is like, I ain't got nobody to go with. 3:20:39.200 --> 3:20:40.600 I mean I could go I ain't got nobody to 3:20:40.600 --> 3:20:42.199 go with you, cause you ain't got no friends. 3:20:42.240 --> 3:20:44.240 You don't go nowhere, right. 3:20:44.879 --> 3:20:47.720 I've been looking at my own child, like why you here, Cuz, 3:20:47.800 --> 3:20:49.959 like don't you You're a go nowhere. 3:20:50.760 --> 3:20:54.760 She's starting to now, but listen, you gotta. 3:20:54.720 --> 3:20:57.880 Really really, really really really want to see this person 3:20:58.160 --> 3:20:59.240 that you're going to see. 3:20:59.480 --> 3:21:04.320 She bought Billie Eilis tickets in February the concert next month. 3:21:04.440 --> 3:21:07.840 She decided, if I'm gonna spend this money this one, 3:21:07.840 --> 3:21:11.560 I'm gonna spend it on right, because it's worth her money. 3:21:11.600 --> 3:21:14.360 She loves them, she loves her. She got the album. 3:21:14.560 --> 3:21:17.039 She went to the listening party. She's like, this is 3:21:17.040 --> 3:21:19.160 who I'm gonna go see. They don't look and see 3:21:19.160 --> 3:21:21.760 who's playing, or just pull up an adult music spot 3:21:21.800 --> 3:21:23.240 and just be like, oh, Wane, who's play. I'm gonna 3:21:23.240 --> 3:21:25.240 discover new music now that don't happen. You can't put 3:21:25.280 --> 3:21:27.520 on no festival if people ain't willing to come, which 3:21:27.640 --> 3:21:30.040 leads me to one of the other problems they did, 3:21:30.600 --> 3:21:35.080 which is the music industry itself is shocked themselves in 3:21:35.120 --> 3:21:39.440 the foot because the big dogs, just like I said, 3:21:39.440 --> 3:21:42.920 happened in the seventeen hundreds are doing fine. If Live 3:21:43.040 --> 3:21:48.520 Nation and ticket Master own every venue, they only gonna 3:21:48.520 --> 3:21:51.600 put the artists that they won't own their it costs 3:21:51.640 --> 3:21:52.320 too much. 3:21:53.360 --> 3:21:55.320 So they're like, oh, I don't understand what's going on 3:21:55.360 --> 3:21:56.160 with y'all festivals. 3:21:56.200 --> 3:21:59.160 I know we doing all right, because if you are 3:21:59.200 --> 3:22:04.240 an industry artist with the machine behind you, number one, 3:22:05.040 --> 3:22:08.720 you don't need a festival. You booked the Greek Theater yourself. 3:22:09.120 --> 3:22:13.039 Why would I allow myself as an artist for you 3:22:13.160 --> 3:22:16.640 to pay me. Guess who turned down Coachella next year? 3:22:17.320 --> 3:22:20.600 Rihanna and Kendrick. Why would either of them play that 3:22:20.680 --> 3:22:23.080 when they know they can be the only artist and 3:22:23.160 --> 3:22:26.560 sell just as many tickets. Kendrick played Staples. I'm calling 3:22:26.560 --> 3:22:28.680 his Staples because I'm from La. I know it's just 3:22:28.720 --> 3:22:33.199 a corporation. He played Staples four nights in a row 3:22:33.560 --> 3:22:36.680 where the Lakers played, but that was after doing four 3:22:36.760 --> 3:22:40.640 nights at the Honda Center in Orange County. These are 3:22:40.760 --> 3:22:45.000 eight Southern California shows, sold them all out. Why the 3:22:45.120 --> 3:22:48.440 hell would I give that money to Coachella when I 3:22:48.440 --> 3:22:51.760 could do it myself. Live Nation already taking a huge 3:22:51.800 --> 3:22:55.640 ass cut, Ticketmaster already taking a huge ass cut. Scalper's 3:22:55.640 --> 3:22:59.120 already taken a huge ass cut. There's no reason for 3:22:59.160 --> 3:23:02.039 me to give my time and my ticket draw to 3:23:02.160 --> 3:23:04.640 you when they can all go to myself. You did 3:23:04.640 --> 3:23:08.080 this to yourself music industry by locking out all the 3:23:08.120 --> 3:23:11.240 small venues. You know what else the music industry did 3:23:11.240 --> 3:23:16.119 to itself, streaming the algorithm that also killed the festival. 3:23:16.680 --> 3:23:20.959 You know why because you're fed the same music. Algorithm 3:23:21.000 --> 3:23:25.000 says you like this, you probably don't like that, which 3:23:25.080 --> 3:23:27.520 means we know all people be like music all sound 3:23:27.560 --> 3:23:30.440 the same because it does. Because the goal is to 3:23:30.640 --> 3:23:34.840 play music that feeds the algorithm. You create music that 3:23:34.920 --> 3:23:37.280 gets your streaming numbers up. This is the point I 3:23:37.360 --> 3:23:39.280 was making earlier. While you like, I don't know nobody 3:23:39.280 --> 3:23:41.680 else on this thing, and I'm only really concerned about 3:23:41.720 --> 3:23:42.240 the headliner. 3:23:42.280 --> 3:23:43.760 This is the point I was making earlier. 3:23:44.200 --> 3:23:48.440 Algorithm, you create music that works on TikTok so music 3:23:48.720 --> 3:23:51.680 has this formula. They did the same thing with coffee shops. 3:23:51.840 --> 3:23:54.920 You know why coffee shops look like brutaliss mid century modern, 3:23:55.360 --> 3:23:59.439 all of them Instagram. We're all looking at the same aesthetic, 3:24:00.080 --> 3:24:03.000 So therefore all coffee shops look the same. The same 3:24:03.000 --> 3:24:08.560 thing happened with music the algorithm. So you have these entire, 3:24:09.480 --> 3:24:11.520 very specific niches. 3:24:12.040 --> 3:24:15.439 But can everyone in your weird niche? 3:24:15.640 --> 3:24:19.440 Are there thirty artists in your very weird niche that 3:24:19.480 --> 3:24:23.160 can bring ten thousand people out to a field. No, 3:24:23.480 --> 3:24:26.720 because there's only forty of y'all that like this music 3:24:27.120 --> 3:24:32.360 that's online streaming. There's no human editorial, there's no DJ 3:24:32.560 --> 3:24:34.480 that's saying, yo, dude, lo, look at this. 3:24:34.520 --> 3:24:35.160 No, look at this. 3:24:35.560 --> 3:24:38.280 You're stuck to doing it yourself and hopefully you can 3:24:38.280 --> 3:24:39.480 climb out your algorithm. 3:24:39.600 --> 3:24:39.720 Right. 3:24:40.080 --> 3:24:44.680 J McDonald says, a genre unfocused festival poster lineup starts 3:24:44.720 --> 3:24:47.279 to just look like a playlist that has been made 3:24:47.600 --> 3:24:51.440 and personalized for somebody else. Okay, you want to do 3:24:51.480 --> 3:24:53.840 a genre specific one, let's just say, okay, k pop, 3:24:54.240 --> 3:24:56.560 you're finna fly on him acts from Korea? How much 3:24:56.560 --> 3:24:58.879 you're gonna sell all these tickets for? How many K 3:24:58.920 --> 3:25:01.400 pop acts do you get? You don't book nobody local? 3:25:01.600 --> 3:25:04.280 Do you how much money that would cost? Or you 3:25:04.320 --> 3:25:05.840 say I'm gonna do a K pop day? 3:25:06.360 --> 3:25:08.600 All right? So you do a three day festival. 3:25:08.600 --> 3:25:12.199 One day's k pop, one day's DM, one day's hip hop, Uh, 3:25:12.240 --> 3:25:14.640 nobody's boy a three day pass, so one day might 3:25:14.680 --> 3:25:17.560 be trash, And how do you build it? What does 3:25:17.560 --> 3:25:20.320 the flyer look like? I don't know half of these people. 3:25:20.400 --> 3:25:23.920 I ain't never even heard of that. No single act 3:25:24.200 --> 3:25:27.760 can sell a festival. And if you try to do 3:25:27.800 --> 3:25:30.279 a multi different act thing, it's just gonna. 3:25:30.000 --> 3:25:31.359 Confuse the consumer. 3:25:32.120 --> 3:25:34.440 So if you're putting on the festival, your only option 3:25:34.680 --> 3:25:37.280 is to just go big. This has to do with money, 3:25:37.520 --> 3:25:42.200 So you are going to overspend, right, because it's like, 3:25:42.440 --> 3:25:45.240 how are you gonna get people here? You you get Taylor Swift? 3:25:45.480 --> 3:25:47.360 Do you know how much money you got to offer 3:25:47.440 --> 3:25:50.160 somebody like a Taylor Swift for her to give her 3:25:50.240 --> 3:25:53.879 performance to your festival rather than just to do her 3:25:53.920 --> 3:25:59.240 own show. And the consumer says, again, is this worth 3:25:59.320 --> 3:26:03.039 my money? I'm willing to throw this money at this 3:26:03.120 --> 3:26:05.400 big act because that's what the algorith that's who I know. 3:26:05.920 --> 3:26:09.000 They're not gonna risk no more because music discovery is 3:26:09.040 --> 3:26:11.560 now algorithmic. You're not just gonna go pull up at 3:26:11.560 --> 3:26:13.680 a spot and be like, who's this open? Or they're dope. 3:26:13.760 --> 3:26:16.520 The industry did it to itself. You killed your own 3:26:16.680 --> 3:26:20.720 performance market. And because Live Nation brought up all the 3:26:20.720 --> 3:26:24.080 small venues where artists really get their chops and really 3:26:24.120 --> 3:26:27.440 create fan bases and really you get to discover and 3:26:27.480 --> 3:26:29.880 make connections with it. There's no places for them to play. 3:26:30.520 --> 3:26:35.039 All that's left are the big industry artists, and why 3:26:35.280 --> 3:26:38.000 again would they give their ticket sales to a festival. 3:26:39.360 --> 3:26:43.080 And lastly, climate change. It's hot as hell. 3:26:43.920 --> 3:26:48.800 The last two burning bands poured rain and flooded. Before that, 3:26:48.920 --> 3:26:52.760 it was like one hundred and twenty nine million degrees. 3:26:53.600 --> 3:26:58.240 It's hot. It's too hot to be out there like 3:26:58.320 --> 3:27:01.080 this climate, y'all. And enough water. 3:27:01.360 --> 3:27:06.359 It's hot as hell. It's hot as hell, or it's floody. 3:27:06.640 --> 3:27:10.119 It's hot or its floody. Ain't no more nice days outside? 3:27:11.040 --> 3:27:14.960 I find the stand outside all day. You crazy? You 3:27:15.080 --> 3:27:18.000 gonna make me pay extra for shade. It's an extra 3:27:18.040 --> 3:27:20.040 one hundred dollars so I can have a humbrother. 3:27:20.600 --> 3:27:22.480 I'm good. Just hold on. 3:27:22.640 --> 3:27:23.680 We're staying home. 3:27:24.560 --> 3:27:31.360 Staying home, Okay, now again, let's rebuild the world. 3:27:31.760 --> 3:27:34.520 What can we do better? That's in our control. 3:27:36.080 --> 3:27:39.360 So festivals might be done, but it doesn't mean we 3:27:39.440 --> 3:27:42.880 don't still love music. If you're a music lover, here 3:27:42.920 --> 3:27:46.600 are some suggestions I can give you that would keep 3:27:46.640 --> 3:27:51.600 your favorite bands in the game. The first is the 3:27:51.680 --> 3:27:55.160 easiest one for you, which of course is buying or 3:27:55.160 --> 3:27:58.600 streaming their music. If you're gonna stream, here's the thing, dude, 3:27:58.720 --> 3:28:01.200 I'm not an old guy to say that, like your 3:28:01.280 --> 3:28:07.240 release Radar or your New Music Friday, that algorithmic playlist 3:28:07.320 --> 3:28:10.160 that's like customized just for you, it's great. 3:28:10.280 --> 3:28:12.840 My request that I think would help is this. 3:28:13.480 --> 3:28:17.080 If a song pops on and you dig it, save 3:28:17.160 --> 3:28:19.200 it number one and then too, go to the album, 3:28:19.520 --> 3:28:22.840 go to that artist's page and give them a follow, 3:28:23.360 --> 3:28:26.360 and listen to the album. You heard the song, the 3:28:26.400 --> 3:28:28.280 song was dope, and if it really resondent, I'm not 3:28:28.320 --> 3:28:30.280 begging you to do something that you don't like, listen 3:28:30.280 --> 3:28:33.600 to that album, you know the whole Like artists blowing 3:28:33.680 --> 3:28:36.160 up on TikTok. That's why Universal was just like man 3:28:36.920 --> 3:28:41.440 tried to dead all that, you know. So if artist 3:28:41.480 --> 3:28:43.880 blows up on TikTok, you you really like that sound, 3:28:43.959 --> 3:28:46.160 like yo, like, go to that artist page, go to 3:28:46.200 --> 3:28:49.240 their music, like, you know, instead of just like shooting 3:28:49.360 --> 3:28:51.920 video like that stuff short lived. If you're artists, like obviously, 3:28:52.240 --> 3:28:55.760 you hope that one day that happens. But that's not sustainable. 3:28:55.800 --> 3:28:57.920 You can't tour off that. That's what happened to a 3:28:57.959 --> 3:28:59.920 lot of ours. Why I Spice cancel half her tour 3:29:00.400 --> 3:29:02.400 is because there's not songs. 3:29:02.640 --> 3:29:05.680 There's TikTok audios. You feel me. 3:29:06.400 --> 3:29:09.840 That helps the artists know when they try to go 3:29:09.879 --> 3:29:13.000 get a show, that they can prove that, like, hey, listen, 3:29:13.520 --> 3:29:16.720 these are listeners. When you go to my Spotify page, 3:29:16.800 --> 3:29:19.000 we go to any Spotify page, the first number you 3:29:19.080 --> 3:29:22.520 see is monthly listeners. But that don't mean followers. I 3:29:22.680 --> 3:29:25.800 have this weird upside down thing. Most people have more 3:29:25.959 --> 3:29:29.320 monthly listeners than followers. I'm the opposite. I have three 3:29:29.360 --> 3:29:32.920 times more followers than monthly listeners, which means these people 3:29:33.200 --> 3:29:37.119 are going to be alerted when I drop music. Why 3:29:37.240 --> 3:29:41.480 I have that is because I toured so hard. I 3:29:41.600 --> 3:29:46.560 played every possible dumb, ugly venue I possibly could, like, 3:29:46.959 --> 3:29:52.640 gotted out the mud, shook hands, stayed after, stayed at 3:29:52.640 --> 3:29:58.520 the merch table, took pictures, got email addresses, got phone numbers, 3:29:58.959 --> 3:30:04.000 came back, you know, signed everything. I would stay after 3:30:04.240 --> 3:30:08.000 the show for an extra hour until everybody got their 3:30:08.080 --> 3:30:13.320 picture and everybody got their stuff signed, hard fought, so 3:30:13.520 --> 3:30:17.600 that way, You're right, I'm not cranking out music that 3:30:17.600 --> 3:30:18.640 feeds the algorithm. 3:30:18.640 --> 3:30:19.000 You're right. 3:30:19.400 --> 3:30:20.840 But when I drop an album, they know. 3:30:21.440 --> 3:30:24.960 So my request as the consumer is follow that artist, 3:30:25.240 --> 3:30:28.160 like close to the album. And secondly, the most obvious 3:30:28.160 --> 3:30:31.840 one is like, dude by merch. Oh my god, y'all. 3:30:32.520 --> 3:30:35.800 I'm saying like merch has been the difference between car 3:30:35.840 --> 3:30:38.880 insurance and not. For me, merch has been the difference 3:30:38.920 --> 3:30:44.280 between can my daughter stay in her you know, dance 3:30:44.320 --> 3:30:49.640 class her after school, like ballet class. Merch Like merch 3:30:49.720 --> 3:30:52.440 is how we paid for our daughters. So during the 3:30:52.480 --> 3:30:57.959 pandemic hell merch it paid our rent Kasai had. Now, 3:30:58.000 --> 3:30:59.960 as an artist, you need to have dope merch. 3:31:00.520 --> 3:31:01.080 That's what I mean. 3:31:01.879 --> 3:31:03.600 If your merch sucks that, I mean, it is what 3:31:03.640 --> 3:31:06.200 it is. I can't ask you to, you know, purchase 3:31:06.240 --> 3:31:10.600 something that's trash. Artists make don't merch. You know, I 3:31:11.200 --> 3:31:13.160 have vinyl. Vinyl costs a lot, but you can go 3:31:13.200 --> 3:31:15.280 to my website there's vinyl like that stuff. 3:31:15.560 --> 3:31:16.840 Those make a difference. 3:31:17.560 --> 3:31:20.760 And then I'd also ask, like, if you really dig 3:31:20.800 --> 3:31:23.120 an artist, this is on the artist's job to like 3:31:23.400 --> 3:31:27.360 sign up for their newsletter, find out when they're touring, 3:31:27.560 --> 3:31:30.080 and just and go to their shows. And when you 3:31:30.120 --> 3:31:32.080 get there like another game. I think I told this 3:31:32.160 --> 3:31:34.720 on the Politics podcast too, where it's like most of 3:31:34.760 --> 3:31:37.640 the time as the artist, I keep the door, like 3:31:37.720 --> 3:31:40.879 meaning the ticket sales, and then the venue keeps the bar. 3:31:41.320 --> 3:31:43.240 So their thing is like, well, they're gonna make a 3:31:43.280 --> 3:31:46.200 ton of money on the bar. But that's how I 3:31:46.240 --> 3:31:49.560 get to come back is if this venue says, oh, yeah, 3:31:49.640 --> 3:31:52.800 he brought you know, three hundred people here. They respected 3:31:52.840 --> 3:31:56.879 my staff, they bought drinks, and me as an artist, 3:31:56.959 --> 3:31:59.760 my team, i'd be silly on stage, but we're very 3:32:00.200 --> 3:32:00.959 very professional. 3:32:01.120 --> 3:32:05.119 Can I take my reputation very serious? We make sure. 3:32:05.000 --> 3:32:08.440 That like the talent buyer, the venues, everybody taking care of. 3:32:08.640 --> 3:32:10.760 We're not yelling at the sound man, you know, we 3:32:10.840 --> 3:32:12.640 keep a clean green room. Like those are things you 3:32:12.680 --> 3:32:15.720 could do as an artist, but as a consumer, like 3:32:16.240 --> 3:32:19.360 I know, the algorithm's fighting against you. But like, if 3:32:19.360 --> 3:32:22.120 you really like a group, go out of your way, 3:32:22.280 --> 3:32:24.640 even if it's on the Discovery things. Again, the big 3:32:24.680 --> 3:32:27.800 people is easy. Beyonce's tickets are gonna come find you. 3:32:27.800 --> 3:32:30.680 You ain't gotta go find him. But Johnny swim but 3:32:31.240 --> 3:32:34.000 the hot shakes, right, that's what they call go find 3:32:34.080 --> 3:32:36.720 them because at the end of the day, it's your presence. 3:32:37.040 --> 3:32:39.000 If you're gonna stay in music, you have to get 3:32:39.040 --> 3:32:42.360 butts in seats. Is this for us to save music festivals? 3:32:42.360 --> 3:32:44.800 I don't care they did that to themselves. I'm just 3:32:44.840 --> 3:32:49.879 trying to save live music because truly, truly, there is 3:32:50.000 --> 3:32:50.840 nothing like it. 3:32:52.640 --> 3:32:57.599 Oh oh oh oh oh oh. 3:33:00.680 --> 3:33:00.880 Hey. 3:33:00.959 --> 3:33:04.080 We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from 3:33:04.120 --> 3:33:05.800 now until the heat death of the universe. 3:33:06.280 --> 3:33:08.800 It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. 3:33:08.959 --> 3:33:12.039 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 3:33:12.120 --> 3:33:15.680 coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, 3:33:15.760 --> 3:33:19.320 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can 3:33:19.360 --> 3:33:21.720 now find sources for It Could Happen here, listed directly 3:33:21.720 --> 3:33:23.000 in episode descriptions. 3:33:23.200 --> 3:33:24.000 Thanks for listening.