Speaker 1: The Flex and Rooms Daily Podcast brought Welcome to the
Speaker 1: Party Party.
Speaker 2: It is us two little girls running around the forest,
Speaker 2: carefree and totally cute and nice. On this episode, we're
Speaker 2: talking about a little situation I had a few days
Speaker 2: ago at a cafe. Two men sitting beside me speaking
Speaker 2: in the somewhat unsavory ways about a certain demographic here
Speaker 2: in Sydney, and I responded in a way that I
Speaker 2: thought maybe at the time was Karen.
Speaker 3: Upon reflection, was it right? Was it wrong?
Speaker 2: Is this indicative of a larger problem that I'm not
Speaker 2: yet ready or willing to face, which is racial what
Speaker 2: do you call it?
Speaker 3: Inequalities?
Speaker 1: I guess.
Speaker 2: So we're just gonna be reckoning with that. It's a
Speaker 2: short one. I think we need to go into this
Speaker 2: in more depth later on. I need to collect my thoughts.
Speaker 3: Chap, you are great.
Speaker 1: Chapter one of the chapter Lifelong, three part sequel.
Speaker 3: We need clown college for this shit. Anyway, let's go
Speaker 3: Flecks and Frooms.
Speaker 1: It's not very often I come across videos on TikTok
Speaker 1: that render me a little bit speechless, not because I
Speaker 1: don't have any thoughts, but because I am surprised at
Speaker 1: the person who is speaking has that thought. So this
Speaker 1: guy I don't really know his content that well, but
Speaker 1: he comes up on my page quite a bit. You
Speaker 1: can definitely tell he makes the classic what a man
Speaker 1: thinking content that's marketed to women or just providing a
Speaker 1: safe space for him and his guy friends to talk
Speaker 1: about general stuff that's not, you know, doused in traditional masculinity.
Speaker 1: So listen to this video he's posted and let me
Speaker 1: know how this makes you feel.
Speaker 4: I've never met a girl that I like enough to
Speaker 4: where it's like, I would love to hang out with
Speaker 4: you just as a friend all the time, never, I
Speaker 4: don't think.
Speaker 5: So WHOA, So you don't have any girlfriends?
Speaker 4: Well, it's like, what do you classify as friend? Like,
Speaker 4: you're my friend, Yeah, we hang out a lot.
Speaker 5: I guess I'm kind of the same. I have girls
Speaker 5: that I say are my friends, but none that I
Speaker 5: hang out with all the time. I don't know if
Speaker 5: that's me like just perceiving that relationship in a weird
Speaker 5: way or no. It's it's hard to be friends with
Speaker 5: the opposite sex because sex is going to ruin it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the odds of you, it's like, and what
Speaker 4: do you do? Just explically pick girls to be your
Speaker 4: friends that you find.
Speaker 5: Ugly, like you're my friend because I'm not attracted to
Speaker 5: you like introd friends are girls.
Speaker 4: And she looks around, she's like, wait a.
Speaker 6: Minute, that's what we said, like to the world say
Speaker 6: no ridiculous things, and then laughing about it and then
Speaker 6: just moving on. So let's get to the key points
Speaker 6: of what's just been discussed. The first point is that
Speaker 6: they both agree they've never met a girl that they
Speaker 6: feel like they can just be friends with and hang
Speaker 6: out with all the time, platonic vibes like they would
Speaker 6: with their guy friends, and that they can't imagine being
Speaker 6: in a scenario where like they would be friend a
Speaker 6: girl they don't have some kind of attraction too.
Speaker 1: In jest, kind of said that, you know, the only
Speaker 1: reason that would work if she was ugly, But like,
Speaker 1: why would I be friends and an ugly girl type
Speaker 1: of thing? Was that surprising to you to hear?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 2: I can hear from their voices the exact type of men.
Speaker 2: These are these little American podcast bros, our brothers.
Speaker 1: Our kin, our bread rackin and.
Speaker 2: I must be ugly because I got a lot of
Speaker 2: male friends and there's no sexual at.
Speaker 1: Tension tension, chemistry.
Speaker 3: No, well there's like I have chemistry with me.
Speaker 2: You kiss your friends, so yeah, but I don't like
Speaker 2: for example, Marty Smiley, he does the sleeping on weekends
Speaker 2: here at Catera with Nat. We are really good friends.
Speaker 2: He's one of my good friends. Of course, There's never
Speaker 2: been any sexual attention, never any interest. And would I
Speaker 2: say that I'm ugly. Maybe we do a poll, Maybe
Speaker 2: we ask these guys, let's reply on the DM and say,
Speaker 2: what do you think they don't have any female friends.
Speaker 2: I'm making an assumption, but this is what I think
Speaker 2: because they can't see past women. They don't see women
Speaker 2: as the same fully formed being as them. Because at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, I believe there's no difference
Speaker 2: between men and women. I think they have an issue
Speaker 2: with how they view women.
Speaker 1: Clearly, I know a ton of women who don't have
Speaker 1: male friends. I know a ton of men who don't
Speaker 1: have women friends. Not in the way that he's describing,
Speaker 1: where it's like, if I'm going to go out to
Speaker 1: Kiki with my girlies, I'll go out to KICKI with
Speaker 1: the guys. The same same. If I'm you know, sending
Speaker 1: the girlies a little TikTok meme, I'm sending the guys
Speaker 1: the same same like replicating the same kind of friendship
Speaker 1: with everybody despite their gender or non gender. That's what
Speaker 1: he's describing that. I think I can imagine that, like
Speaker 1: I have guy friends that I would do that with.
Speaker 1: But I don't think it's uncommon that people do not.
Speaker 1: It's not. It's a very common thing to not have
Speaker 1: like a broad spectrum of friends. But the bit where
Speaker 1: he drops off is this idea of, but why would
Speaker 1: we just be friends if there's a possibility in some
Speaker 1: real maybe not this universe, but one of them, that
Speaker 1: we could potentially sleep together. It's almost like the idea of,
Speaker 1: like the possibility of there being a sexual connection means
Speaker 1: that this cannot stay platonic, Like if we were just
Speaker 1: to be in a room together, we'd have no choice
Speaker 1: that's gonna happen.
Speaker 3: I was powerless in that moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I get the point they're making, but they kind
Speaker 1: of out of themselves in the way that like the
Speaker 1: inability to see women or the women that they're interacting
Speaker 1: with as anything but like sexual potential. If the opportunity
Speaker 1: were to arise and in order to not ruin the
Speaker 1: potential for a future sexual relationship. We cannot be friends.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I don't even think they know that themselves.
Speaker 1: They didn't do a follow up, so you know, we
Speaker 1: won't ever know.
Speaker 3: But I think that what one quite bold statement.
Speaker 1: No follow up, but I will say the comments really interesting.
Speaker 1: They were like, wow, all men with Mike her friends
Speaker 1: are the same exactly because these guys had us for
Speaker 1: a second. They were like, We're not like them, We're
Speaker 1: different kinds of guys. This is flex and frooms on.
Speaker 1: It's not often we talk about Dolly Parton. I don't
Speaker 1: think I've ever talked about her. Actually, no. One time
Speaker 1: it was at this festival in Hobart and there was
Speaker 1: this drag show and the theme was Dolly Parton, so
Speaker 1: everybody dressed up as Dolly Parton in different eras and ages.
Speaker 1: And I'm not really familiar with Dolly like that, so
Speaker 1: I don't really know, but it was enjoyable. Nonetheless, plenty
Speaker 1: of celebrities are subject to really absurd rumors about their careers.
Speaker 1: Some are true, some are merely you know, observations, some
Speaker 1: are just conspiracy theories, but none as peculiar as this
Speaker 1: one that Dolly Parton has been subject to a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago, people were speculating whether her husband of
Speaker 1: fifty something years was even real because nobody has quote
Speaker 1: unquote ever seen him ever, not even a little peep.
Speaker 1: And so I don't know what she was doing in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty that she's doing so many media interviews, But
Speaker 1: that was the go to question, are you still with
Speaker 1: your husband? Where is he? And if you've really been
Speaker 1: together for fifty plus years, why aren't you sharing him
Speaker 1: more often? She basically said, like, I don't want to
Speaker 1: show him because like I don't want to show him facts.
Speaker 1: I said, okay, let's cut the cameras bay, but no,
Speaker 1: she went on to say, like, he doesn't want to
Speaker 1: be in the spotlight. It's not who he is. He's
Speaker 1: a quite reserved person. And also he's not the most
Speaker 1: interesting thing about me. She's like, it wasn't even a
Speaker 1: conscious effort not to share him. He's just not a musician,
Speaker 1: he's not a celebrity. He's just a random guy that
Speaker 1: I love that I got married to. He does not
Speaker 1: need to be integrated at all. And what I think
Speaker 1: is really interesting is she didn't necessarily get backlash. People
Speaker 1: were kind of like Okay, people don't believe. Yeah, alright, no, right,
Speaker 1: why is it so hard to believe? And then I
Speaker 1: had another thought that I'm still trying to process. But
Speaker 1: I was thinking about how we're definitely like women celebrities,
Speaker 1: how easily their partners become like cornerstones of their popularity.
Speaker 1: Like I was thinking about how Pete Davidson went from
Speaker 1: like a full on comedian with his own separate career.
Speaker 1: Now he's Kim Kardashian's professional handbag, like man stays in
Speaker 1: the back of her photos with the sonnies on hoodie
Speaker 1: on what are you there? Like, what do you do now?
Speaker 3: Man handbag?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fascinating. And then I think about the Ariana
Speaker 1: Grande's of the world, like the Rihanna's of the world.
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily see it working the other way around.
Speaker 1: Like I can imagine Rihanna does an interview, somebody wants
Speaker 1: to know, like tell us about who you're dating, and
Speaker 1: then how's that going? What's Rihanna's boyfriend's name, asap Rocky?
Speaker 1: Asap Rocky does an interview, are they asking Hi about
Speaker 1: Rihanna in the same way? I don't know. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: imagine I can imagine I would read a whole Tyler
Speaker 1: Creator interview and not get any reference to a boyfriend
Speaker 1: or a partner. But it's just a speculation. I'm still
Speaker 1: processing that.
Speaker 2: I think it's cool, perfect, like it's kind of been
Speaker 2: a defining career thing of Dolly as well, the fact
Speaker 2: that she hasn't shown him because it's so unusual, because
Speaker 2: she's so big and she's been so big for a
Speaker 2: long time. She's so cool. I'd recommend going and watching
Speaker 2: the documentary about her. It's so smart. She's like the
Speaker 2: definition of diplomatic. She made a lot of political statements
Speaker 2: through her songs, but she never made political statements because
Speaker 2: so much of her audience is like midwestern.
Speaker 3: I get it precisely, but she's quite progressive.
Speaker 1: Did she do it that one time? No? And then
Speaker 1: we kept playing the song again and again and again again.
Speaker 1: Well did she continue to make statements?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 1: There's this song Joline is a big one. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: Joline that's about sisthood. Yeah, so Dolly Parton and Fidelity
Speaker 1: is a real.
Speaker 3: G This is Flex and Frooms on Kita NEWFLEXI.
Speaker 2: I know that you're always looking for a way to
Speaker 2: make money. You're very much money minded, which I appreciate.
Speaker 2: I like that you're very honest about that as well.
Speaker 2: Poe found it quite inspiring.
Speaker 1: What's that thing? Fifty cents said, get rich or die trying,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: Apparently in the nineteen nineties there was a con by
Speaker 2: a man, which I think is the most genius thing ever,
Speaker 2: he said, men con.
Speaker 3: Doing what he does best.
Speaker 2: This guy put an ad in the paper for selling
Speaker 2: solar powered dryers for forty nine to ninety five, so
Speaker 2: a way to dry your clothes using solar power. His
Speaker 2: name was Steve Commisar and he was from California.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking like you mean the sun like.
Speaker 2: Since solar energy was one of the buzzwords of the
Speaker 2: time the nineteen nineties, he put an advert in magazines
Speaker 2: and newspapers selling this amazing new gadget, solar powered clothes dryers.
Speaker 2: Just forty nine ninety five people across America brought into
Speaker 2: the idea and sent their money to get this incredible
Speaker 2: advice that would help them cut bills and have their
Speaker 2: clothes dry efficiently while saving the planet. They waited anxiously
Speaker 2: for the mailman, and.
Speaker 1: We're trying to save the planet since the fifties nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: but I swear like since Nemo it's been on the brain.
Speaker 3: But before then it didn't exist.
Speaker 2: They waited anxiously for the mailman to deliver their new
Speaker 2: solar powered clothes dryer, but when they received the parcel,
Speaker 2: they couldn't believe their eyes. It was just an average
Speaker 2: one of them more clothes line, yeah, my king, like
Speaker 2: the type you buy at the iron monger's.
Speaker 1: They tried, an ironmonger does this kind? I know you're plagiarizing,
Speaker 1: like those you can buy. They tried contacting the cellar
Speaker 1: because the device had been it wasn't what it was expecting.
Speaker 1: They tried contacting the cellar because it wasn't what they
Speaker 1: thought they bought. However, Steve replied what they received was
Speaker 1: exactly what he was advertising. The product was an actual
Speaker 1: drying device and it worked with solar energy, which is facts,
Speaker 1: and this is the truth of words. Words mean things.
Speaker 3: He eventually went to Shell due to other.
Speaker 1: Free my man, he didn't even do nothing.
Speaker 3: Where's Steve Comisan?
Speaker 1: Now? I stand by him. That is just genius to me.
Speaker 1: And the thing that gets me is I think the
Speaker 1: idea laughable. The fact that so many people fell for it,
Speaker 1: that's the real issue right there. Your media literacy needs
Speaker 1: a lag.
Speaker 3: They need to teach media literacy in schools.
Speaker 4: I swear you're listening to Flex and Frooms on Kita Flex.
Speaker 2: I was in a cafe yesterday. So I'm sitting next
Speaker 2: to a man who is literally thirty centimeters away from me.
Speaker 2: Tight not COVID safe, not at all in this outbreak,
Speaker 2: be absolutely growing. But sitting there and the guy like
Speaker 2: comes in and he's like what, I don't know if
Speaker 2: boisterous is the right word, but like he's a man.
Speaker 1: He walks like his presence was noticed, his.
Speaker 2: Presence was definite noticed, and like no like smile or anything,
Speaker 2: kind of just keeping to himself. And he's like, Yep,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna order a coffee and I'm gonna order a
Speaker 2: certain type of food for me and my friend. My
Speaker 2: friend's coming ten minutes later, his friend.
Speaker 1: Rocked type of food.
Speaker 2: Why are you saying like that, because if I if
Speaker 2: I dos what the food is, you'll know where I'm
Speaker 2: talking about.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, right right right right?
Speaker 2: Friend comes in, sits down, they start having a chat.
Speaker 2: Clearly they're like investment men. They're in there, ones in
Speaker 2: like their forties. I was in probably in his fifties, sixties,
Speaker 2: and they start talking about their cars, like, have you
Speaker 2: bought me more cars lately?
Speaker 3: What's going on with your investments?
Speaker 2: They're talking about like a company they invested in now
Speaker 2: five years later it's worth five billion.
Speaker 1: Oh. I thought you meant they invest in cars, like
Speaker 1: they didn't know cars were investments. I thought they'd appreciated
Speaker 1: when you drove my fullot.
Speaker 2: Some do, some do increase in value. So I'm like
Speaker 2: kind of listening in. I was actually preparing to come
Speaker 2: into Cato, so I got my little notepad out. But
Speaker 2: you know, as I am to do, if someone's thirty
Speaker 2: centimeters away from me, I'm gonna ease drop. And so
Speaker 2: I'm sitting there and these guys are talking about insurance
Speaker 2: on their cars. So one's got a Porsche that he
Speaker 2: drove there, and he also has.
Speaker 3: A Mercedes that he just bought. And the guy's like, oh,
Speaker 3: tell me about Mercedes. He's like, you know.
Speaker 2: What, I got insurance for the Porsche, and then I
Speaker 2: went to get insurance on the Mercedes and it's you know,
Speaker 2: ten thousand dollars to insure it for one hundred thousand
Speaker 2: dollar car.
Speaker 3: I don't get it. Why And he was saying.
Speaker 1: So I call my insurance was expensive two five because
Speaker 1: I'm a peek player at twenty eight? What's the big deal?
Speaker 2: The stitch up cause the insurance guy and he's like
Speaker 2: can I I can't work it out. He's like, I
Speaker 2: call this insurance guy who was really nice, and I said,
Speaker 2: why is it? And the really nice insurance guy said, oh,
Speaker 2: it's because insert ethnic the.
Speaker 1: Other way around, like, he said, is it because insert
Speaker 1: ethnicity buy a lot of these cars? And then the
Speaker 1: insurance guy was like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it was that way. I'm a bit
Speaker 2: iffy on which way it was, but I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It was the guy at the cafe who said, is
Speaker 2: it because ethnic minority drive Mercedes? And the insurance guy
Speaker 2: was like yes. Upon hearing this, I look up from
Speaker 2: my old cappuccino at the other guy. So the guy
Speaker 2: saying it is next to me, and the guy listening
Speaker 2: is opposite him. So I look up and make eye
Speaker 2: contact with the guy that's listening, and he's looking.
Speaker 3: At me at that moment.
Speaker 1: Oh, so he clocked it.
Speaker 3: He clocked it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I give a little look, but then I look away,
Speaker 2: which it says enough if he clocked it. So I
Speaker 2: look this guy in the eye, he clocks me, and
Speaker 2: then in that kind of like fraction of a moment,
Speaker 2: all these thoughts flew into my brain. I'm like, why
Speaker 2: did I look up? Obviously I thought it was a
Speaker 2: bit rude. Did I think it was rude? Because I'm
Speaker 2: offended because I'm not even this ethnic minority and I'm
Speaker 2: the same.
Speaker 1: Ah, you're all white, we're all white. I'm with my people,
Speaker 1: and my people are community. My community's acting up, and
Speaker 1: yet I am one of them. And so it's kind
Speaker 1: of like a split second of like a am I
Speaker 1: stepping out of bounds by like acknowledging this thing because
Speaker 1: there's also a conversation to be had around listening into
Speaker 1: other people's conversations, Like this was not a conversation that
Speaker 1: I was a part of. It's in a public space.
Speaker 3: Yeah, however, almost asking for it.
Speaker 1: Let's not use that phrasing, please please, please please bring
Speaker 1: that out a lot.
Speaker 3: And it's really not how my brain.
Speaker 2: I don't mean to say that, it's just something that
Speaker 2: I fall into, but yeah, I thought, is it really
Speaker 2: my place? To be I guess policing this. I felt
Speaker 2: like I was policing it. Is it worth me doing that?
Speaker 2: Because when I stand up for things in public, it
Speaker 2: often goes badly because I have some sort of online presence,
Speaker 2: And then you think.
Speaker 1: That's why it goes badly. Yeap, not your approach, probably nah,
Speaker 1: But yeah, was it with me in that moment having
Speaker 1: a look. I'm going to say, yes, it was the
Speaker 1: thing that I want to understand because I'm painting a
Speaker 1: mental picture is like the subtext behind it. We know
Speaker 1: the context. What was the subtext when you looked up
Speaker 1: and saw him looking at you? What was the realization
Speaker 1: you think had happened in that split second that made
Speaker 1: you have all these additional thoughts about his interaction, Because
Speaker 1: I think what we discussed briefly before is that if
Speaker 1: he didn't look at you, if he was just kind
Speaker 1: of looking around, being just a passive listener to his
Speaker 1: friend's insurance discussion, then you might not have had these
Speaker 1: additional thoughts. But it was the fact that he had
Speaker 1: looked at you as if to see if you had
Speaker 1: noticed what his friend had said made you then second
Speaker 1: guess your reaction.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I get that.
Speaker 2: I think it was because he wasn't the one that
Speaker 2: said it, so therefore I almost felt like I was
Speaker 2: making him feel awkward because he's not the one that
Speaker 2: said it and he knows there's a witness there seeing
Speaker 2: him not do anything about it. And also kind of
Speaker 2: with I felt judged because they're looking at this little girl,
Speaker 2: this quirky little.
Speaker 3: Angel cafe.
Speaker 1: Last week and I'm looking up it's giving a liberal
Speaker 1: vibe from me, liberal in the like Australian politically liberal sense,
Speaker 1: And yeah, it just made me question when you're not
Speaker 1: of the race or the ethnicity that they are making
Speaker 1: judgments and what's it called stereotypes? Like exacerbating stereotypes? Is
Speaker 1: it my place to like acknowledge that those phrases as
Speaker 1: just a random lady in a cafe that has definitely
Speaker 1: used the same term in a past life, like I
Speaker 1: would be a reformed them people.
Speaker 3: Is it my place or should by just studying my lane?
Speaker 1: I think a better question is what scenarios do you
Speaker 1: think it is your place to quote unquote police strangers.
Speaker 2: See, this is the thing because this isn't the first
Speaker 2: like restaurant conversation that I've overheard and felt angry about.
Speaker 2: I think it's an issue when it's properly impacting your
Speaker 2: dining experience. Like, if it's properly racist stuff that's like
Speaker 2: fully not acceptable, then you've got a right to like
Speaker 2: give them the look or be like and like do
Speaker 2: something that makes them feel uncomfortable back, Like I'm all
Speaker 2: about the approach back, Like I don't like taking things
Speaker 2: on and not punching back.
Speaker 1: I get in bold and a bit more as I
Speaker 1: get older and I'm around people and I see them
Speaker 1: being negatively affected by the kind of people that make
Speaker 1: these comments. And then what do you think the correlation
Speaker 1: is between the instances where you have addressed somebody in
Speaker 1: a discussion that you a part of, Like broadly, what
Speaker 1: were they talking about that offended you that you were like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say something, Well, if you've had any kind
Speaker 1: of interaction with an altercation with someone based on something
Speaker 1: that they said that you were a part of, what
Speaker 1: was the general theme or subject matter?
Speaker 2: I guess yeah, things that I feel emboldened to say
Speaker 2: something about is probably yeah, like sexist things or like
Speaker 2: people being really boisterous in public settings where it's like
Speaker 2: genuinely affecting you. And if they're saying stuff that's like
Speaker 2: really either offensive to like probably the hills that I
Speaker 2: die on, and probably like queer style stuff like usually
Speaker 2: from superhero men growing down, Like I can't deal with
Speaker 2: bro culture, I guess is where I the hill that
Speaker 2: I die on?
Speaker 1: Are you sure why? I'm just saying, are you sure
Speaker 1: you can't deal with bro culture?
Speaker 3: You know what? I guess.
Speaker 2: What I'm trying to say is if I didn't have
Speaker 2: any kind of profile, I would be a complete fucking
Speaker 2: banshee out there.
Speaker 3: Minute I hear something, I I'm scray. I used to
Speaker 3: be a band chief likes. You don't understand.
Speaker 1: You've had so many discussions here where I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I think you should be more mindful about like how
Speaker 1: you carry yourself in public, because you know, you get
Speaker 1: backlash from people who are observing you. And then you're like,
Speaker 1: oh shit, like they notice me, and you're like, but
Speaker 1: I don't want to change your behavior, like I'll do
Speaker 1: whatever I want. And then today you're like, if I
Speaker 1: wasn't if I wasn't a celebrity, I would say something.
Speaker 1: I just think you didn't actually care. I feel like
Speaker 1: that's some of the concern. A lot of people have
Speaker 1: when quote unquote trying to do the right thing is
Speaker 1: your motivation is situational and not ethical because your kind
Speaker 1: of thing was. I would say something if it interrupted
Speaker 1: my dining experience. I would say something if it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, like getting in the way of like me
Speaker 1: enjoying myself. But I think fundamentally you just don't care facts.
Speaker 2: Nah, well, like, yeah, I reckon it didn't really. I guess, yeah,
Speaker 2: it didn't really affect me. I'm not prepared for the
Speaker 2: conversation that that would create in that setting, and I
Speaker 2: don't necessarily have the language to then back it up
Speaker 2: and be like you said this and offensive because xyz,
Speaker 2: because I know that he could throw it back in
Speaker 2: my face, and I guess there's bigger hills to die on, like.
Speaker 1: If someone was being super offensive. Yeah, I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: I think you should unpack that. Yeah, process it, Let's
Speaker 1: process it. Let's go back to this. Yeah, because I know,
Speaker 1: I feel like I know what's happening, but I feel
Speaker 1: like the dots need to connect for you. By you,
Speaker 1: I think that there are tons of people who will
Speaker 1: relate to your sentiment, And in my head, I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's the.
Speaker 2: Point is this like the climate change thing, which is like,
Speaker 2: you know what's happening, but you're not going to do
Speaker 2: anything about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and your motivation to care is purely superficial in
Speaker 1: this instance, not generally in this instance. Yeah, because he
Speaker 1: clocked you, you were like, oh, we should I have
Speaker 1: said something? Like should I have policed him? And like
Speaker 1: he's only clocking you because he's like should I have
Speaker 1: said something? Should I have done something? When realistically it's
Speaker 1: like it's not about should have could have? It's like
Speaker 1: do you actually care? And if not, leave us out
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 2: I guess I do believe though you can only care
Speaker 2: about so many things.
Speaker 1: Play And there's been a conversation about whether or not
Speaker 1: a lot of millennials and Gen Z people will be
Speaker 1: having children. It's become really popular to advocate for not
Speaker 1: having children for various reasons. Some are social, some are environmental,
Speaker 1: and some are just like cause you don't want to.
Speaker 1: It's not a big deal. But more recently there was
Speaker 1: this article that came out that the UK in particular
Speaker 1: is dealing with huge issues based on having like this
Speaker 1: starkly aging population and fewer people than ever having kids
Speaker 1: almost at the implications of this issue are going to
Speaker 1: show themselves or are going to be a parent far
Speaker 1: sooner than we anticipated, Like we need to figure out
Speaker 1: what we're doing the next five years type of thing,
Speaker 1: Like what is the plan when we have an aging
Speaker 1: population that needs care and nobody can do it, a
Speaker 1: millennial population who doesn't want to have kids, and a
Speaker 1: whole economy to keep afloat, Like, what is the plan here?
Speaker 1: How we get money into the economy. Some man on
Speaker 1: the internet started rattling off a few suggestions to tackle
Speaker 1: this crisis right His first suggestion was like a bit
Speaker 1: more like small scale and frivolous. He should He's like,
Speaker 1: you know, we should start implementing like more like national
Speaker 1: days to celebrate parents, because if we have, you know,
Speaker 1: more days where we can socially incentivize people to be
Speaker 1: parents by like having days off and cards and like
Speaker 1: public holidays and stuff, people will be like, oh, I
Speaker 1: want to be parents because like look at all the
Speaker 1: pretty flowers they get us. Like you know, he was
Speaker 1: you can know it was spitballing with that one. You know,
Speaker 1: that's an idea. His next one was to you have
Speaker 1: the queen send parents a telegram on the birth of
Speaker 1: their third child, So not the first two, but for
Speaker 1: the third one, you get a personalized telegram from the queen.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what a telegram is. I was like,
Speaker 1: do we have those in this century? How do you
Speaker 1: get it? Almost coming from like the matriarch herself celebrating
Speaker 1: maternal you know, celebrations that could be fun, right, not bad?
Speaker 1: Still spitballing. His next idea, there should be more incentives
Speaker 1: around first home ownership and having children, that you could
Speaker 1: have more tax breaks and more financial incentives if you
Speaker 1: were to have kids. And I was like, okay, now
Speaker 1: you're talking, we can get a little bit. And then
Speaker 1: the one that he said was really going to change
Speaker 1: the game, Like this is the one he's banking them.
Speaker 1: We should just start introducing a negative child benefit, which
Speaker 1: is a tax that childless people are meant to pay
Speaker 1: to subsidize the fact that their offsprings contribution into society
Speaker 1: isn't going to happen. So if you won't bring them in,
Speaker 1: we'll just take from you what they would have offered.
Speaker 1: Isn't that so dystopian? Imagine end of financial year extra
Speaker 1: ten on the tax bill because you didn't want to
Speaker 1: have a baby, And at that point, I feel like
Speaker 1: you'd pay more just as much in tax not having
Speaker 1: the baby as having the baby. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I guess that's his whole thing, because I just have
Speaker 2: the baby, babe.
Speaker 3: What about people that can't biologically have babies?
Speaker 1: Look, this is where we start getting philosophical. He was
Speaker 1: just spitballing. He's like, look, I got some ideas, think
Speaker 1: about it. Let them simmer, because it's going to be
Speaker 1: a problem, and at the very least we should figure
Speaker 1: out a few solutions just to table in the meantime.
Speaker 1: But I don't think that we are prepared for a
Speaker 1: reality where we start to get like unfairly punished for
Speaker 1: not wanting to participate. It's one thing to opt out
Speaker 1: and be like, oh it's not for me, you know,
Speaker 1: like I don't want to own a house. Imagine they
Speaker 1: were like, oh, no, we need to sell houses, so
Speaker 1: you don't want to buy a house five percent penalty?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, would that ever work? I thought, I
Speaker 2: think overpopulations and issue, just have one each. Just replace
Speaker 2: yourself like that and get out of here.
Speaker 1: I think anything's possible. I mean, we pay for bottled
Speaker 1: water that's not is free.
Speaker 3: That's the real real crime of our lives.
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