TRASHFUTURE - Frenemies with Benefits feat. Juliet Jacques
Episode Date: July 17, 2023This week, friend of the show Juliet Jacques (@zinovievletter) joins Riley, Milo, Nate, and Alice to discuss her brain-destroying foray into ‘sensible disagreement’ politics podcasts in the UK, fe...aturing guys with definitely no baggage such as George Osborne, Alistair Campbell, Rory Stewart, and more. We also discuss a startup that promises a revolution in being even more annoying. Check out Juliet’s work on her site here! https://julietjacques.com If you want access to our Patreon bonus episodes, early releases of free episodes, and powerful Discord server, sign up here: https://www.patreon.com/trashfuture *LIVE SHOW ALERT* We're going to be recording a live podcast in London on July 26! Get tickets here: https://bigbellycomedy.club/event/trashfuture-live-in-london/ *STREAM ALERT* Check out our Twitch stream, which airs 9-11 pm UK time every Monday and Thursday, at the following link: https://www.twitch.tv/trashfuturepodcast *WEB DESIGN ALERT* Tom Allen is a friend of the show (and the designer behind our website). If you need web design help, reach out to him here:  https://www.tomallen.media/ *MILO ALERT* Check out Milo’s upcoming live shows here: https://www.miloedwards.co.uk/live-shows and check out a recording of Milo’s special PINDOS available on YouTube here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRI7uwTPJtg *ROME ALERT* Milo and Phoebe have teamed up with friend of the show Patrick Wyman to finally put their classical education to good use and discuss every episode of season 1 of Rome. You can download the 12 episode series from Bandcamp here (1st episode is free): https://romepodcast.bandcamp.com/album/rome-season-1 Trashfuture are: Riley (@raaleh), Milo (@Milo_Edwards), Hussein (@HKesvani), Nate (@inthesedeserts), and Alice (@AliceAvizandum)
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hello everybody and welcome once again to this episode of TF.
We're recording two today, Mylon.
There's no idea which one it is and I'm not going to tell him.
So wait, yeah, no, this is the bonus, I think,
because we moved the other one.
Uh-huh, it's going to like back to this like prom.
You're like, so I'm pretty sure this one was the one
that was scheduled for Monday, so this is the bonus.
But however, could I not have mixed them up
because I decided the content of this one was better
for the free one, I'm afraid you're wrong.
This is actually the free episode
and you have lost your privileges
of saying you're a little radio thing for this episode.
So, that's what, let's show him his consolation prize.
I'm really glad because you could probably see my eyes
start to widen knowing that we're doing a double recording
and that I have to edit this one, have it out tonight.
I was like, please God, don't miss a second recording tonight.
I got to wait for you.
It looks absolutely terrifying. Yes, yes, yes. It's just a second recording tonight. I got to wait for you. Looks absolutely terror.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes. Yes.
Yes. Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes. Yes. Yes. That's right. I have subjected you to listening to several episodes
of The Rest is Politics.
What vengeance would you like to rig on Milo today instead of me?
It strikes me that Milo is not the person to blame here.
But he lost the contest to decide if it was the free one
through the bonus policy.
Milo is sort of like a malice child of this podcast now.
Well, I sent it to you all when the time comes to listen to the first episode of George Osborne
Ed Ball's frenemies podcast.
That's going to be an interesting sort of like news section they do up front.
I think I think that email was sent not to disrupt George Osborne's wedding,
but to try and stop that podcast from happening.
Like from from the future from like a terminator.
There's like a Lupa type situation.
Like Ed Balls from the future is trying to stop Ed Balls
in the present from doing the George Osborne podcast.
I upset Ed Balls once.
So he was chairman of Noritz Sissy for a while
who I support and he came to one of our support's meetings.
And my centrist friend wanted a photo with him.
So I took his phone, told everyone to say Ed Balls and Ed Balls was I was like, haha, you may be same own name. And then I ended up
taking every photo so I made him do it about 15 times. He resigned shortly after.
So it's so depressing to want a photo with Ed Balls. I don't know what kind of life
you have to have led up into that point. It's like in an RPG game where you've chosen
like the truly cursed path and like it leads you inextrable it towards having your photo taken with
that ball. I feel like bad and there is the possibility that a not British person would
seek it out just because like I actually got a photo with a guy whose real name is Ed
Balls. It's on his birth certificate. Like that there is a degree to which you're so
you're normalized to that in Britain. It's been all is a degree to which you're normalized
to that in Britain.
It's been all that a man could be named Ed Balls
and he tweeted his own name and that was called Ed Balls Day.
Lord Sugar, Lord Adonis, Ed Balls, there are others.
Right, like the fact that there was this Brexit argument
happening between a guy named Lord Sugar
and a guy named Lord Adonis genuinely made me feel
as though I was living in like,
like the simulation was glitching,
like parody Britain had just become
real.
And it got into the machine from the fly with a copy of Charlie and the chocolate.
Yeah, you understand why Roldole wrote it the way he did.
Like he was just describing reality.
Anti-semitism notwithstanding because that was his other thing fucking to and that's not
a libel thing.
Roldole was literally kicked out of some, he literally kicked out of some like private
members club in Kensington for being too anti-Semitic in the early 80s.
Can you be easy?
What got the rest for that act to be?
Answer's on a postcard.
No, no, do not post.
You'll spend all my money to post anti-Semitic thing.
We've set up this thing, right?
Well, we've got, please post us the most anti-Semitic thing you can imagine.
Yeah, I would recommend you not to research.
Please don't do that.
Oh yeah, do not do that.
Answer's on a postcard and then shred the postcard.
Just walk away.
I've quit the labor party.
They can't do anything to me.
Yeah, so when you write those letters in therapy
that you don't send, write the most antigen thing
you can think of on a postcard and then shred it
and don't show it to anyone.
And then you will have cleansed yourself.
That's right.
No, so we have a few.
Let's never speak of this again.
We have a few things today.
We have a few news updates.
We also have a startup.
We're going to be talking a little bit about
the phenomenon of the polite disagreement podcast.
It's an episode I've wanted to do specifically with Juliet
for a few weeks ever since,
I think my tolerance to just exist
in a world with that kind of boiled over with the George Osborne and Balls thing.
And then I want to read a little bit about a little article from the Times by the, one
of the world's most just gentle and reasonable man Matthew Paris.
First news updates. Number one, sag after a on strike,
infinite solidarity to striking workers.
And we will be doing a fuller episode on this
at some point soon.
However, I just wanted to note very quickly
that exactly as we were talking about
in the writer strike episode,
one of the demands of management is,
no, come on, let us just
capture your picture once and then remake you with AI forever and not pay you for it.
Well, not even that.
The sort of like proposal was we can put you in the machine and we can like then use
AI likenesses of you forever, but we will pay you one day's wages for it.
You know what this is?
This is the Russian privatization voucher scheme
for Hollywood people.
Basically, we'll give you one shiny pair of Levi's
for using your likeness in movies forever.
Yeah, you don't want a shiny pair of Levi's,
so that's probably fake.
Probably popular in New York.
Probably aster.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Man, I on the crease in front of my Levi's. Now they look very smart. Yeah. I got to Roman
Abramovich gave me my dress Levi's in exchange for my shares of Roscoff.
My pinstripe Levi's on. Yeah. So we will be talking about that in much, much fuller detail,
but it was a little detail I couldn't miss. Another small detail as well, I couldn't miss,
of course, is the ongoing report on the well, I couldn't miss of course,
is the ongoing report on the Elon Musk variety hour,
where of course, as you'll all know,
Twitter's ad revenue is down.
Sorry, if I missed the Elon Musk variety hour coming out.
I just had to check because in the era we live
and it's perfectly possible
that Elon Musk would start releasing a variety hour.
What like a purely spiked based talk show.
Yeah, like a really with like memes from 2009.
Like he's just basically doing a TV show from 2009.
This is basically like he would be much happier.
Like genuinely that's what he wants to be doing.
But Elon Musk interviews the Star Wars kid or something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, Elon Musk recreating David after dentist.
Yeah, fuck, the reappearance of the Honey Budget drinks
when he wants to eat this week is really, well,
so a few updates, because as you know,
as listeners to this podcast will know,
I am fascinated with the ongoing transformation
of Twitter as a company, because it represents
the cathedral in bizarre
theory being worked out in a world where money sort of almost doesn't really matter or it didn't
enough to get him into the situation where he can do what he wants. That doing literally
anything that could be done in order to find this cathedral and thus far no cathedrals.
And the new plan of course as I'm sure some of you will have seen, is to take all that money that they get from advertising the
Annabolic dwarves and the device that shocks you.
Right.
And that's to...
The Annabolic Dwarf that shocks you.
Yeah, indeed.
I was expecting the Annabolic Dwarf.
Yeah, two jumping out of your wardrobe.
Things like that, nature.
To now monetize creators, which means if you're verified and people who are verified view your posts
and view the ads under your posts, despite the fact that by being verified, they see 50%
fewer ads, then if you are someone who Elon Musk likes and interacts with regularly,
he will send you a message promising to pay you at some future point.
I mean, this is the other thing.
He's not just someone who is not just a frustrated talk show host. He's also a frustrated like 18th century French king because he loves
to bestow his little boons upon his reply guys. And as we've seen, this has immediately
descended into sort of like courtly squabbling because some of the guys who have been like
very big on the new right wing twitters of like some energy
have not got that Elon Musk money because they have pissed him off in some way.
Oh no.
We could have predicted this.
And if he's lost a vice com to cat turds, I mean, I'll be honest with you, I wouldn't
worry if I were them because I cannot imagine Elon Musk has ever gone back on a promise to provide something that he's ever said.
As I got to the studio in my self-driving Tesla, hung out with my best friend, the Thai soccer kids that were saved by his submarine.
Lots and lots of things Elon Musk has delivered on.
You know, a friend of the show Devon, they're in America.
I'm sure they're taking the super fast hyperloop from, what was it?
DC to New York or like DC to Baltimore or some fucking thing.
No, they got to the two most difficult areas to connect, which is the Las Vegas airport
to the Las Vegas convention center.
Oh, using only a guy.
Yeah, just a guy.
Exactly.
And I have to say, Alice, you know, if Elon Musk is going to be any era of French king,
I think 18th century is a pretty good era.
In Chilane, you know.
Yeah.
So the, but in losing, in losing a comped cat turn of all Jew, he also is essentially what
I think is extremely funny is his turned into a channel for Morgan Stanley to fund Andrew
Tate directly, or indirectly.
You always. for Morgan Stanley to fund Andrew Tate directly or indirectly.
Because all of Morgan's family presents Andrew Tate.
It's just very toned down.
Drink water, it's good for you to hydrate.
Do you remember the things that they used to have in McDonald's with the like the coin
thing where it's spiral down and you'd put like a pound coin and it would go all the
way down and it would donate, the kind of kid with cancer
who isn't wealthy enough to have a pool.
They're a bad house.
Exactly.
They're a bad house.
Oh, yeah.
Cool back to a class of it.
Yeah, so that's Elon Musk now.
He is the McDonald's thing that eats coins,
but for funding human trafficking in Romania, allegedly.
Yeah, I mean, at this point, you know,
it's got a...
Morgan Stanley presents Twitter can't come soon enough.
Yeah.
All funds donated go to the upkeep and proceeds
of the Andrew Tate House.
Oh, God.
So, I want to move on to one last piece of news
before we move on to our start-up, which is Liz Truss.
You couldn't keep her down.
She's not out. She's back in UK politics with a new project. And she says, um, Liz,
was he in Truss, Kuzvani? No, this is my favorite Liz Truss clip of all times when she just
walked out on stage. And then there was some kind of like tech problem. And there's like
all the press are just sitting there watching her and then was some kind of like tech problem. And there's like all the press are just sitting there watching her. And then she just kind of like looks to either side
and then just goes, um, and then just doesn't say anything again.
Like before you got to the Kassani, I thought you were doing like a Barak Kassani Obama
bit about Liz Truss. Liz Truss. It's a secret muscle. Barak, I'm saying. So, so the Liz Trust is back.
If you like her bent, you can give it.
She has, what she has done is she has created a growth commission to try to solve the
age old problem of how come economies and then the global North have not been growing since
the 1980s?
We're going to, we're going to grow Liz Trust.
We're going to inflate Liz Trust. It's just going to be sister me and this trust competing see who can spend the most money in the
norat sissy club shop turns out the UK would have turned a profit but someone stole all the
government both votes it basically the growth commission is trying to answer the riddle
specifically as to why we don't have per capita growth, GDP growth, of 3%, but that hasn't happened since like the 50s
when Europe was just a big container
marked in cert martial plan here.
Also like, I mean, I wonder if under investment,
say anything to do with it.
I mean, maybe, a little, tiny bit.
I have some of their theories here in front of me.
Wokeness, right?
Well, these are more like the technocrats.
They're looking for more stuff to cut.
I'll jump to my quote from the end, actually,
which was really fun.
It was Shankar Singam, one of the big brains
of Brexit type people.
Speaking on behalf of the Growth Commission,
which is just a panel of economists, essentially,
one of whom is Tyler Cowan.
For economists' heads, they'll be giggling
at the Tyler Cowan for economist heads will be giggling at the Tyler
Cowan has joined yet another body to try to say what if we made Hong Kong but Britain.
Tyler Cowan is a guy who should be a surfer, but that's how that name sounds.
That is not a name that should be attached to an economist.
So he is a so shankersen gums.
Part of the problem is because we've not done a good job in the last 20 years and identifying
what the cost event of regulation is. The assumption in advanced economies is that we've not done a good job in the last 20 years and identifying what the cost event of regulation is.
The assumption in advanced economies is that we've exhausted all the gains of pro competitive
reform, meaning cutting regulations.
So look, there was stuff that like Liz Truss didn't get to do because she imploded the economy
in like three days.
Because like she basically got in the plane and immediately retracted the landing gear
and it just fell.
Yeah. Yeah, essentially.
Yeah, so the argument here is, look, the problem is,
we don't actually know what the regulations to cut,
which other programs we could cut.
So what we have to do is figure out which ones to cut,
which is essentially gonna be the growth, the commission.
There might be a whole other bottom beneath the bottom
of this barrel, and we've got keep like scraping until we find it. Yeah, so they they they issued a report which once again I have
read I think I'm one of the few very small number of people who actually also lay the only person.
They say as of today UK GDP per capita is about 36k compared to about 53k in the US.
The average American is earning a third more than
the average Britain. How many, if the next two days, the UK economy could achieve annual GDP
per capita growth of 3% as we achieved in 1950s and is currently being achieved in, for example,
Poland, the economy will be 65% bigger by 2040, which is just what I, if this is...
Look at the numbers I'm typing into this calculator. Precisely. Yeah.
This is what's happening here is that is that Liz Truss is having some fun with numbers
and because she's a big important person, all of her fun with numbers cannot be just
ignored out of hand as it ought to be.
A hundred pounds. That's a lot. Look at it on this calculator screen. Now look if I press
this double zero button here. Ten thousand pounds pounds. Pretty cool. I think the number, um, fucking, uh, Jesus Christ,
eight, eight thousand and 80 is that we're eight thousand. I was going for the one that
spells boobies upside down, but I couldn't remember. I got to like eight thousand eight.
And I was like, is that it's trying to do? Yeah, that was the calculation. I was to like
really advanced shit going on in my head. I mean, 58,000 eight is the one we trying to take. Yeah, that was the calculation. That was the like really advanced shit going on in my head.
I mean, 58,08 is the one we flip it up.
So it has this boobs.
I can't remember boobies.
We weren't that advanced in the Midwest.
We had to settle for simple country pleasures.
Mm-hmm.
So essentially, the argument here essentially is that we need
to find out what as a fully developed,
chronically under-invested country that used to be in the
European core is now kind of in the European periphery can do to match the percentage growth
rate of a country that is coming from the European periphery into the European core with huge
amounts of investment. It's a real fucking head scratcher, but they're going to find the
final regulation to cut that makes that happen.
I hate it when the growth of the final regulation to cut that makes that happen.
I hate it when the growth of the European periphery comes to my European core.
The last thing though is I want to say is of course it wouldn't be a Liz Trust project
if it wasn't shitty and hasty and fucked up immediately on release because of course
slightly soiled boss right somewhere along the way.
I looked at there if you look at it.
You did talk about looking for a false bottom or a second bottom of the. I was like, if there's anyone who could find another bottom,
it's Liz Trust. Is there they published their team, their advisory board, but they forgot
to take out the lower M. Epsom and the AI generated same picture of a red haired hiker 10 times.
So 10 10 identical red haired John Smiths are going to deloore sit and met the economy
until it's growing again like pulling. Are we sure that this we haven't just sort of
like discovered the conservative economic cloning program where it's cranking out John Smiths?
And pretty soon every advisory board is going to be 10 of these identical guys Laura Mipsome
in it. In a way though, it's funny because like obviously we laugh and we point out how absurd it advisory board is going to be ten of these identical guys is Laura Mipson-Mingett.
In a way though, it's funny because obviously we laugh and we point out how absurd it is,
but this is the same thing with the reason why you have fully devoid of any charisma whatsoever
politicians constantly running this country.
The system is set up in this country that basically you either don't get a say or the people
who are sort of dictating received wisdom, just get your keys jingling. And it's like, you read this,
no one else has to read it basically
because everyone is gonna be like,
oh, what a great idea.
It sounds like no one even wrote it.
Oh yeah, exactly.
It's a shame.
It's like,
it's one of the things that these are writing.
It's so ridiculous.
A bunch of people are going like,
why is nothing growing in Britain anymore anyway?
The second half of the report will be written by chat G.P.T.
Exactly. It's like the solution to the British economy. It's like even in a fully
developed and underinvested country, it's a reminder that sometimes it concludes with we propose
to undertake a research program to investigate the underlying causes of this extremely weak
growth in GDP per capita in the most advanced economies, but without looking at any of the investment side.
Just what can be cut?
And this is four of these suggestions
are from the 10 crack commandment.
Did I tell you my story about using chat GPT
that I was like, I wanted to see what it would do
and I was interested because,
Alice and I had looked at potentially trying to do
a side project about doing a podcast about the Bellapoc.
And I thought, uh, uh, uh, uh, eight, uh, eight, uh, I'd off
here is the, is the best guy to talk about to start out because his life went from basically
born right before the revolution right after to like literally lead France after the, uh,
Paris commune and the Frank impression more.
But I was like, I wonder if there's some good biographies I can find and I asked chat GPT
and it kind of demure and I was like, no, no, just find me a list.
So it made up a list of real authors, but fake book titles.
And said, here's some books you check out.
And one of them was by a guy who was a professor at Maritus of European history at UC Santa
Barbara, but died in 1971.
And the book was entitled Adolf Tier, the Napoleon of the French. That's the real guy. Because the real guy was Corsican, which doesn't count.
Yeah.
We've reached the French race science portion of the show.
But every single author was a real person
and every single book title was fake.
And I was just like, that's Britain.
Look up those solutions right there.
You know what?
I think before we move on, I'd like to...
This is the reason why you can't get,
like a doctor's appointment, for instance, is because of 10 John Smiths all telling you the
different positions of the lesser end in the word mayonnaise and all guessing them wrong.
Before we move on, I just want to sort of bring in Juliet on the growth commission.
I've already mentioned I would just base it entirely around like investing in the North
Sissy Club shop. I don't have any other solutions. I mean, Liz trust might want to buy some
like branded bathrobes, I don't know. We just socialized the entire economy, but through
the prism of Norwich City. If we can improve the footy scrant at all of our football clubs,
maybe the British economy will run. We don't do Smith's like the chairman, right? So, yeah. Oh, he's still. Yeah.
Amazing.
Humane AI is the name of the company.
It's called Humane AI.
If you follow the tech press as I do, you'll have known that these people have been in stealth
putting out press release after press release about believing and building innovative technology
that feels familiar, natural, and human, that improves the human experience and is
born from good intentions. Products that put it back in touch with ourselves, each other
in the world around us, experiences that are built on trust with interactions that feel magical
and bring joy, found it on the principle that we all deserve more from technology, etc., etc.
They've been releasing press release after press release since 2018, saying some version of that.
Right. They've finally released a product, so I finally can talk about them on the show.
I've been wanting to for a while.
Juliet, starting from you, human AI, based on all of that stuff, I just said, what do they do?
Oh, boy. You can't spell Dignitas without AI, right?
You cannot. No, that's true.
So I reckon it's something around, you know,
around that whole area.
Yeah, the dignitas of it all.
Milo.
Okay, humane AI.
Is it, I wonder if they're going for something
like slightly, you know, more like the humane society.
And maybe it's like an AI that will put down your dog.
Like, you know, I find it AI that will put down your dog.
Like, you know, you're like, I, I find it too upsetting to put down the dog. So it's kind of like a robot suicide booth for dogs.
So you were basically saying, what you're suggesting is a kind of robot police officer
that mostly kills dogs.
That was going to be my guess for fuck's sake.
Okay. I was doing a register that is kills dogs. That was going to be my guess for fuck's sake. Okay, Alex, do you want to register that as a guess?
Do you want to do human doing what?
No, no, no.
Okay, humane AI, very similarly, but I'm going to thread the needle here between Milo and
Juliet and say that it's an AI that gives you the bad news medically as a human.
It tells you that all the test results look a bit grim. And it's like,
so it's designed to be a bit like more touchy-feely, but I suspect it will not be. That's my thing.
I'm sorry, sir. You're completely cured. You'll have to continue living in Britain.
I think that it's going to be a thing where when your Facebook profile gets switched to,
like, remembering your name because you're dead, it's a thing you can pay as a service
that it continues to post, the annoying shit you used to send to your relatives on Facebook,
you know, sharing new like Sarah Palin blog or something like that.
Just the remote Kelly thing, just like lights up at 3 a.m. like damn this Pepsi strong as
fuck.
Yeah, the best thing you can do actually before you die
is change your Facebook name to the milkman.
So, or then say, remembering the milkman.
And your page can become a homing beacon
for all kinds of entertainingly kooky racist posts
about the vaccines.
Humane is an experience company
that creates the technology and platforms
for the intelligence age.
So I actually clear it up. Yeah, that doesn't mean anything. Well, it waits for the intelligence age. So I actually heard up.
Yeah, that doesn't mean I'm just like, wait, wait, it's for spooks.
I struggle sometimes because I really do, I try to not zone out when you read,
but there's something like just hypnotic and I don't know, like,
sleep inducing about this stuff that I cannot follow any of it.
So that tells me nothing other than to says to technology. So is it actually any kind of fucking
it's a thing. So it's an object. They've made a little thing. Oh,
okay. Like so many like many of them don't make a thing. It's an item.
It's a do not can I add it to my inventory?
Alice, you can add this to your inventory. A little creative
some kind of actual love this to your inventory. Oh, crazy.
It's a creative some kind.
A contextual love going into my inventory.
Mm-hmm.
So it was designed by two ex-ath apple people,
Imran Chaudhry and Bethany Bungiorno.
Fuck off.
Bethany Bungiorno, the inventor of hello.
Maybe it's a wearable tech that once it's determined
that your house has a carbon monoxide leak,
it just posts helpful reminders or even says them out loud
when you have interactions with people in real life.
Like caution, this wearer has been exposed to carbon monoxide.
This wearer's bone marrow lead content
is consistent with people in 1973.
Imagine this woman like moving to Queensland, but on Australia and Ellis Island,
they change her surname to Bethany Gideycon.
So yeah, an Australian Ellis, Australia.
Yeah, so together.
Hello, I like.
Together, Imran and Bethany envision a future
that is more intelligent and even more personal
and have committed humane to building not
for the world as it exists today.
That's even more personal.
What is that even me?
The future's gonna like touch and kiss you.
Now it's gonna be fun.
Yeah, cool.
The future's gonna be like,
may very cutting remarks about your like individual flaws.
Is it like a wearable sex thing?
No, no, no, it's wearable.
That I'll tell you what it is.
Hem, it's what I'll finish this,
I'll tell you what it is.
So that, that, not threw me in a whole different direction
of imagining a future product,
which is the like sex toy that there's like AI trained
on your dick or whatever.
I'm just gonna be like rotating that in my mind.
I thought Riley was doing shoe-horning stuff in with this
after following up on from Liz Trust.
Guess what?
Nope, there's a link.
Rethinking, reconsidering and remembering and remembering. Honest human connection in
the context of computing, they seek to reshape their old technology in our lives. Based on
all that grandiose shit, what have they actually done? So they debuted something but hadn't
fully described it a couple of months ago, which was a standalone device. It's just a
little pin that goes in your lapel, which is,
they call it a small light waste clothing based wearable.
It can be worn in different ways.
A clothing based wearable.
Okay, you pin it on your shirt.
So it's a lapel pin.
It's a lapel pin.
And basically,
Please say that directly into my lapel pin.
And what they do is they take a,
as they say, we've created a phone,
put it in a lapel pin and then you interact
with it by like gesturing at it and talking to it.
Gesturing it your own lapel.
Yeah, everyone's going to be looking like secret service agents.
It's cool.
This is kind of starting to remind me of the wearable microphone that tells you where you're
getting shot at from as long as you stand perfectly still like you're getting shot at.
So it uses optical sensors that allow new kinds of contextual and ambient compute interactions
that are seamless, screenless, and sensing.
And then the live demonstrated a few of the features.
One was taking a phone call and basically it vibrates and then you hold your hand up
in front of it and it projects onto your hand like mom calling.
And then you gesture to answer it.
I thought it was gonna be like actual actual Gator that it assessed body,
language, and emotions and stuff. And it goes to it in the ear like a like I
like one of those.
Toss you the Kinsey scale rating.
Right. Auditory aid things that you have is like this person is extremely gay.
Just letting you know.
And like is it your phone goes off in like your lecture?
And before you before you know it, your fucking phone is projecting twinkbussy calling
like onto the projector screen and honesty, 100 people.
I really didn't like it when everybody got those like clocker, like lapel pins and every time I walk in front of someone,
they get a little alert on the lapel pin that just goes,
He's transsexual.
With the music too.
I was gonna make the joke about projecting the emoji for a brick,
but I don't know if that's a reason to emoji for a brick.
So this is basically, this is, this is,
is it in run commenting.
We believe AI presents a huge opportunity for us
to redefine that relationship for technology.
The first humane device will allow people to bring AI
with them everywhere and we're really looking
forward to revealing more soon.
So it, what else did it do?
Wait, what was this AI?
It's actually AI, yeah.
Well, so the, what it incorporates a lot of AI technology.
So for example, you can hold a chocolate bar up to it
and say, hey, can I have a hungry lapel bin?
You can hold a chocolate bar up to your lapel pin now.
It's just, you can like be insane already.
And it will have the same effect.
Everyone will redo the same way.
It's just the wearable tech that makes everyone think that you got fucking caught in the
DEA is making you wear a wire.
Yeah, it's going to be, it's so many people are going to be like warning killed because
this is the end.
In case you're looking to be commit suicide by cartel.
Mm-hmm.
So in one memorable moment,
Chaudhary shows the AI pin a milky bar and asks if he can eat it.
The device that informs him that the chocolate contains cocoa butter,
saying, out loud, given your intolerance, you may want to avoid it.
To which I then say,
have they not considered that people might not want to share this information with everyone?
I kind of like this now. It's camp. It's like the fucking car from night rider
Well, this is my best avoid this
You want to spend all afternoon on the toilet
Stewie from family
I mean you're a little pale
Could you could you interact it Could you interact with this thing via AirPods?
Sure.
But what really they're saying is, just like what we did with the phones, right?
You are connected to a constant deluge of information all the time.
And we've seen what happens now when people grow up with that, which is that they're like
four screening different family guy, try not to laugh challenges.
Right, we've seen that.
And what they're suggesting,
and there's like this wig history thing of like
carry your pigeon to letter to, you know,
telegram to telephone to iPhone, et cetera.
Right.
Two bodies, 70s hospital,
the fellow-
Err, two plastic rolling, sir.
Yeah.
Should I tell them you're busy right now?
Yeah, and, right, they say is that now what's gonna be is,
this isn't just gonna be the way in which you interact
with like infinitely everyone ever,
this isn't just the penopticon,
it's now the barrier between you and everything else
is the AI thing through which everything will be filtered.
So like, hey, do you wanna give yourself mental illness?
Then why not constantly have a barrier of an AI around you all time?
The panel up to Kenneth.
I mean, it is interesting because it's like, I feel as though all of the kind of bomb
bass about a tech release being accurate exactly once in 2007 with the iPhone because
for better or a smartphone's did change pretty much everything as far as tech goes.
But there's like the the the the the bombastic announcement
has gotten dumber and less accurate as time has gone on
because it was the iPad.
Okay, great.
It did change something not as much.
Then the segway is like it didn't fucking change shit.
What are you talking about?
No, it gave us a wonderful object lesson
in inventors killed by their own inventions.
Yes, but then now now it's it's like every it's like
this is the change,
change the way humans interact with one another.
It's like, it just sounds unbelievably annoying.
It sounds like the thing that like,
I would hope that you would be bullied for wearing
when you start talking,
you know, and like gesturing and it's projecting
whatever the fuck,
but also like,
it just seems incredibly distracting.
Like, remember there was like the dystopian thing
when people were like, oh, Google Glass
is gonna be this big paradigm shift.
And someone's like, this is actually what Google Glass
is gonna be.
They just made like a video where like,
you wear Google Glass and everywhere you look,
it's just popping up fucking ads.
Yeah, you're like the terminator of that.
It's like that, but everyone's excited about it.
Like, here's the parody worst case scenario
and everyone's like, hell yeah, this fucking rule.
Or at least the people involved with this project.
This will only work if it can't play
owns your bullies for you.
You know, like someone calls you gay for wearing it
and then it goes,
and I thought it was me who was supposed to be projecting.
All right, we're gonna hire you for the,
yeah, for the bullies.
Basically, you're gonna get a swirly
before the car tell kills you as we say, yeah, yeah.
To my car, to bullies.
So what is being sealed into an oil drum
but a kind of acid swirly?
Mm.
So I have been following,
I've been following Humane AI for a while.
What the fact that what they came out with was basically
a what if we tried to fit the concept of the iPhone
into more cracks and crevices of your life.
When we've seen what that does to people in order to again surround them with some kind of an AI
agents, which they interact with everything is hilarious. This is going to be really funny.
If it takes off and we accidentally train a generation of kids to, as you say, only interact with
the world through it, because at some point they're going to be like holding up a candy bar in front of their torso,
and the thing hasn't challenged and be like, oh, what is this? I don't know if I can eat this anymore.
Yeah, all of the boomer political cartoonists are about like, oh, the kid's trying to swipe the page
left, but the book doesn't swipe. Like, that's going to be real. It's going to actually happen.
I was also going to say maybe this is the thing Alex
is playing with in Children of Men,
maybe the whatever the fucking brain toy thing.
This is it.
We miss Williams in there.
He's so entranced with Kenneth Williams.
His dad has to scream at him to take his pills.
So yeah, that's the check of men.
I'm sure he's right.
I'm sure he's right.
Maybe we're possible I'd have managed it.
Oh Kenneth Williams.
All right.
Julia, I want to talk a little bit about polite disagreement.
And you can politely disagree with me if you'd like to.
Is there a few examples of this genre of entertainment
that's emerged in the UK?
And I've recently found out from a Lithuanian friend
that there's one in Lithuania.
There's a polite disagreement.
I assume that polite that's disagreement,
that's this is like of the form of,
we're two friends with like different politics,
but and we're gonna like hash out the issues together
in like a fun way, right?
Yeah, basically, you get, you know,
two people from across the political divide.
So one of them is like a very right wing,
labor person who hated Jeremy Corbyn and one of them is a very sort of like Tory wet,
who was pro-asterity. And they come together and talk about, you know, their differences
and what they disagree on and they get very angry about Brexit and don't really care about anything else.
angry about Brexit and don't really care about anything else. So the most famous and successful of these is the rest as politics hosted by Alice Campbell and Tory Rory Stewart, who I just
always refer to as Tory Rory. There is one apparently forthcoming with George Osborne and Ed Bors as we talked about earlier. I believe
you guys listen to a bit of G&T with Gloria DiPiero and Tom Newton done on time with the radio.
I mean it's dead now, but I think about it every day. There's dining across the divide in the
observer where you know two people come together and they meet and maybe they
disagree about Brexit or Trans rights or something. But they have, you know, not to activate
myself for the Kenneth Williams, like, epic put down thing for hypocrisy. But I know this
is the thing with all podcasting, we're now a bit middle class, isn't it? Or a bit upper middle class.
The sort of like the abiding fixation politically
seems to be, why can't we have nice things anymore,
including civility in the discourse or being in the EU?
Why can't we get along at the dinner party?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm feeling awkward at.
Also, like I feel it's a little bit of a
send up to assume these people aren't already friends
in real life, just all things considered.
I want a different mashup.
I want a podcast where it's the guy from fucking Just Stop Oil or Extinction Rebellion
who was the carpenter that fucking might Graham tried to argue that Wood isn't a sustainable
resource with him and Julie Bertchell have to disagree.
And it has to just be him, him just stone face reacting and Julie Bertchell just doing
the voice that she does that I can't do.
Yeah, you're easy to climb to like trees, but also you cut them down. How does that make
sense? That's that's what I guess I'd like to listen to.
This this country generates some truly interestingly deranged. And I'm interested to hear from them more than I am to hear from people who have been,
we talked a bit about how, you know, a lot of the articles about how AI is going to
replace government or whatever, right?
How that doesn't really make sense because so much of what these people believe and can
do and have done and can say,
is completely predictable and completely scripted
to the point that it seems impossible for them
to offer any kind of insight other than just tidbits
of what color napkins do they serve in the Clinton White House?
Yeah, and also the fact that like all of this stuff
has just been done to death,
even if it's not explicitly the sort of,
I'm put doing scare quotes, opposite sp opposite side of the spectrum because all of these people
are right-wing liberals.
That's been done like in fucking moral maze.
I mean, literally everything on moral maze is just a bunch of either torres or crypto
torres, and of course fucking Melanie Phillips basically being like your racist against white
people also cut down the tall trees.
Like that is absolutely a fucking thing like that has been on all British radio
and whatever like fucking entertainment for so long.
Like none of this is newest just slightly.
So more annoying, Juliet.
We've sort of established what these things are.
You've described them as a kind of cultural product
of the centrist counter-reformation
in a draft article you've sent me.
Can you go into that a little bit?
Yeah, I mean, what's been very interesting
and very notable is the centrist restoration
we've got in Britain, two-party system
where both the parties are led by a night of the realm
and a former Veson Banker, is that none of that
was done through argument.
None of that was done through persuasion.
It was all done through, you know, kind of lying
and leadership contests fixing the rules, purging.
Also just top down in position.
I mean, that's the thing that I always explain
to friends back in America, like America sucks
and there's maybe the veneer of it,
but like you couldn't have a AOC style upset
in a primary or a Dave Bratt style upset
for the fucking Republicans because they just,
it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter who a constituency party selects.
They just fucking impose shit.
Yeah.
And that's every echelon of politics in this country is just like, no, don't think you'll
be doing that.
Yeah.
And since 2015 and especially 2020, that's been very strongly reasserted because they've
realized that whenever they have any kind of like open discussion about ideas, they just
get tanked. So this really is a kind of victus piece, I think, it's an attempt to
reestablish the kind of boundaries of acceptable debate,
whether it's the illusion of disagreement from people who don't really meaningfully disagree,
or if they do, the only disagree long after the issue has actually been settled.
I mean, I spent some time with Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart, the rest is politics.
I've now listened to two episodes of that, which was at least three too many, quite frankly.
And there was one where I actually talk about the art of disagreeing agreeably.
It starts off with them congratulating themselves on... And there was one what I actually talk about the art of disagreeing agreeably.
It starts off with them congratulating themselves on all ad.
I listened to this as well and I read your transcript of this particular discussion.
This is from last year and I very nearly had to message Milo to say I need a new computer
because I have ripped my old one in half.
I mean, that was very much, yeah.
I really want to see a disagreeably disagreeing podcast.
I want to see it get properly nasty.
Well, later on, they get quite heated and they talk about austerity and they kind of politely
agree that Alice Sardarling would have been better at doing austerity than George Osborne.
But then they get animated about the only thing these people ever get animated
about, which is Brexit. They get onto Northern Ireland and Tory Rory provide a trigger warning,
basically saying, look, we're going to disagree here, but don't worry everyone, we all end
up being friends in the end. And then that's not what I want. I want one of them to have
spilled the other ones pint. Right? I want to of them to like spill the other one's pint.
Right? I want to hear the phrase you're lucky I'm on parole.
There's no way.
It should be Rory Stewart on a podcast about Northern Ireland,
but with a guy who's in a balaclava in front of an Irish flag.
Well, be very careful.
Earlier today, I saw, I'm sure it's done because they want to do it
for like kids to not be freaked out by medical stuff
If it is an emergency, but I saw it was a regular London ambulance, but it was the library was painted to be the Peter pambulance and
When I see it's like it's like you've been stabbed nearly to death and you waited 19 hours for an ambulance
But it's the Peter pambulance that's fucking what this feels like it's just like
I mean I'm always stabbing each other to be fed the people can
fucking what this feels like. It's just like, who in the world is it always stabbing each other to be further people can just bleeding out in the fucking Paddington bear ambulance
just like thinking about the relentless march of tweenness in this country. Oh, I'm
doctor hook. Oh, wait, that's a different guy. Well, there is a great bit where they're
talking about the Northern Ireland protocol around Brexit.
And they're not even disagreeing really.
They're just talking past each other.
But Alistair Campbell is getting very angry and he just says, look, I'm going to disagree,
disagree with you if you're not careful.
And I thought, yeah, we'll remember what happened to the last guy who did that.
So this is also either way, they say that they reassure you at the end of that episode,
they've gone into a more agreeable position in that they quote, love having argument.
Let me see, this is the thing though.
Yeah, they have such great makeup sex.
But like all of these people have like so much actual blood on their hands,
whether it's from being in government or from being in media, and none of this it seems ever actually makes
it in. And there's a real darkness in there that I think like disagreeing, disagreeably
could interestingly explore, but instead we're all, you know, rule chumps.
Well, it's a, in the sense that it's a piece of cultural production that is partly to politically
reinforce a particular centrist to Germany.
These are the things that we can disagree, disagree agreeably about, which means they're
the only things worth discussing, because other things are in the realm of the technical
management or to outsource or whatever, right?
Or, you know, foreign policy stops the waters edge.
Yeah, for sure. And water's edge. Whatever.
And that's why I'm not interested.
That's why I want this sort of like really
venal personal attacks.
I want to talk, I want to see you see here,
like Alistair Campbell talk about Rory Stewart's mum, you know?
You want to hear Alistair Campbell call Rory Stewart
a fucking dope fiend.
Yeah, I really fucking do.
I want to hear him threaten to do
and fucking David Galley style. Like, I want to have a hair and threaten to do and fucking David Gellie style.
Like I want Alistair Campbell to say to Rory Stewart,
basically implying that he was a sex tourist in Afghanistan in 2002,
and he's walked across for some reason.
But also like, didn't they do a similar thing where they had like a head-to-head conversation
with Alistair Campbell and John McDonald in like 2019?
Oh my god.
Similar fucking thing.
And it's like McDonald couldn't bring himself
to say that Campbell was a work criminal.
No, it's the constraints of the form.
It's the constraints of the form.
Cause like genuinely, that's one of the things
about this as a medium is it forces this kind of niceness.
And it's like, no, I don't wanna see that.
I wanna see Alistair Campbell sit down with Rory Stewart.
Rory Stewart says something anodine.
And Alistair Campbell says, I'm interesting,
butchered barzy much.
Like that's it.
Yeah, I want him to do the thing where,
if you were, I don't know if you've ever heard this,
but what the sort of inciting incident
for the drummer from Blur getting sober, Dave Rountry
was they were doing an interview with Nardewar,
the human serviet, which incredible music journalist,
Canadian guy who's one of the most annoying people
on the planet.
And I guess Dave Rountry was coming off a really bad night of coke the night before.
And the video is the three other guys of the band kind of awkwardly trying to answer the questions in order
where being slightly panicked.
Well Dave Roundtree is full on fucking Essex in his face like,
this, are you fucking cut?
Or a fucking destroy you!
And he says he keeps that video in his phone to remind himself in case he's ever tempted to not be sober.
But I've just want that kind of confrontation.
I know Alistair Campbell want that kind of confrontation.
Like, I know Alistair Campbell is fucking capable of that.
We need these, we need a two drink minimum on polite display.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Exactly.
It's like, Alistair Campbell is the fucking,
the bodyguard and the, the, the, the, the,
the embassy meeting in Turkey just holding a fucking finger up
after having shot the ambassador.
Like, but it's, I don't want to name the person he shot,
but I'm sure there's, yeah, we can pick, pick one.
This is, this is essentially right, a, a safety blanket that is to reassure you that things are
settled and everything is nice and that the people in charge are all essentially things are back
as they should be. This is God's and His heaven, all's right with the world. Mummy and daddy aren't
really fighting, you know, their best friends again.
What's really funny about it is that none of these people
are in charge anymore.
Like, it's not only is it a lie on the face of it,
but also like now people who are like quite a bit more
right wing than these people are the people in charge.
Like even this consensus has moved on.
Like the kind of the sort of shit
that like fucking Kirsta and Rishi Soonak are agreeing about
is like, is different shit from the Blair area.
It's been pushed further to the right.
The best illustration of that is the fact that you have,
you know, this centrist restorative project to,
you know, make political discourse civil again
and more as reminded of that line about how liberals
are like dogs because they can't hear content only tone. And then they've got, you know, they're like suited sort of,
you know, financial establishment men in charge of the two parties. Then they just immediately
turn the election campaign into like, who can yell the word not to each other the loudest.
Yeah. And it's absolutely the outcome that this whole fucking thing deserves.
Right. It's that it is essentially the, these two people are sort of quite happily with one another documenting
the world that they created, right?
And they are documenting the version of it that they can see because the world that they
created does not threaten them or their friends.
It threatens a lot more people than it used to.
The number of people on the inside of the people who the system protects but does not bind is getting smaller and smaller and
smaller all the time. And they can't and won't see it. And it's comfort food. This is what I was
driving at earlier, Milo. You kind of alluded to this. It doesn't matter that things are very
different. This is a kind of cultural product to cover for that. I mean, the whole point
of centristism as a political ideology is to actually create a very rational technocratic
wrapper around successive lurches to the right. And if you see this not as necessarily directly
involved, but a kind of cultural product in the service of.
Gen X, I remember the milkman. Yeah.
Oh, remember when we could do the arachwo,
couldn't do that now.
I've got the results.
But that is the thing too, bring up the arachwo,
it's just like, here are the people,
here's one person who really helped sell the case.
Now sort of in the position of kind of bemoaning
that we've fallen so far from, he's like,
Halcyon days of agreeing upon things.
And it's like, are you gonna see, I don't fucking know,
like who's gonna be the figure in that position 15 years
from now when things have gotten even more right wing?
And all you threw the shoe at George Bush
is gonna do a podcast with Alistair Campbell.
With George Bush.
That's the ultimate.
It's called, it's called a mile in your shoes.
Okay, copyright, copyright.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's a R's, you know, TM.
But I listen to a couple others, right?
In fact, that's not true.
I have listened to another episode of the rest of the politics
on the anniversary of the Iraq war, where Al-Straight Campbell was like,
we got a few things wrong, but you can't play me.
It wasn't actually my responsibility.
I was barely involved.
I wasn't there.
I was bullshit.
I was feeding him shit.
Thanks, Alistair. Thanks. So I listened to the one that I was barely involved. I wasn't there. I was bullshit. I was feeding them shit. Thanks, Alastair. So I listened to the one from last week where they talked about
things like Stramar versus Sunak. They talked a little bit about Biden versus Trump. And
they talked a little bit about Israel, Palestine. And hearing them talk about like, it's a great
three fight card that one. I think the I think the best illustration of how they understand
the world that they talk about,
and what they're giving to their audience.
And I think, Julia, this is something
that you sort of hit on your article as well,
is that when they talk about the two-state solution,
they say it really felt like it worked in the 1990s,
and then they just wonder why it didn't
without offering any idea of why it did.
I mean, like, there's this weird steadfastness
about clinging to like, wow, it was just a great idea.
It's like, yes.
And then the Israeli right murdered the Israeli politician
who negotiated it.
Like, you kind of have to acknowledge
that that did happen.
And everything has been basically like moving away
from it since then.
No, no.
Or you can be, well, right.
But British, like, British from it since then. No, I don't. Or you can be, all right, but British people,
like British people, particularly upper middle class,
upper class British people, especially in politics,
like just have this ability to maintain perfect k-fape,
even when like the set of the play or the fucking wrestling match
has burned down, they're still doing k-fape.
Like the fucking paramedics are trying to recessitate them
after they accidentally got their neck broken and they're still doing K-faving characters.
And never get out of it.
And all the audience came here to watch Israel vs. Palestine and we're going to hold out.
You know, Palestine is already up the ladder. What do you want from me?
My impression was what these really, this really is, and so, Julia, I mentioned to you
your thoughts on this, is two old men talking about their feelings.
Pretty much. Yeah. I mean, the lack of contextualizing
is really important, as you say,
and this memory-holding and this inability
to really put things in a historical position.
I mean, there's also the lack of self-awareness,
which I don't know is kind of deliberate or not. I mean, there's
an astonishing bit where Campbell is talking about Netanyahu and complaints that we live
in the age of impunity. And it's like, yes, Alice, so we do, don't we?
About that. Yeah. This is like serial killer taunting the police stuff,
sure. Pretty much. Yeah. But it almost says that it's like, it's like, there's almost,
the serial killer being confined
by the limits of the medium of like the note with clipped out magazine letters sending to the police.
To podcast, I gave you all the clues. I really, I really hated it when Hannibal
Lecter and Wil Graham started that podcast together, you know? Because they fundamentally,
if they acknowledge things like, if they acknowledge things like the things
that led to the two-state solution failing,
all of a sudden they cannot disagree agreeably.
They have to pretend those facts don't exist,
and then just say we had this same goal of peace
and it didn't happen and we felt like it would.
I mean, one of the most astonishing examples
of that in the older episode I Listen To is where they start off
by talking about austerity because listeners have sent letters
saying, can you challenge Tori Rory more on austerity?
Again, what universe, this is like having the photo
with Ed Bulls, you're writing in to the fucking polite
disagreement podcast asking, can you disagree more?
Listen to a different fucking podcast.
This is like buying speedy boarding on Ryanair.
What are you doing?
Fly out of better airline cunt.
What is this?
You shouldn't have to buy speedy boarding on Ryanair.
If you're a veteran, you should get it for free.
I mean.
But yeah, so Stuart says that the problem was that the tour is cut very deep in certain departments
and they should have cut across the board rather than ring fencing the NHS.
And it's just like, Rory, come on.
Like, I mean, I'm just struggling to put it into words because I promised myself I would
remain fairly zen when talking about all of this stuff and not to start kind of like screaming like that labor staff adip when he first saw the Ed Stone but like you know just the
the number of things you'd have to sort of like deliberately miss to think that you know the problem
with austerity was that the tour is like protected to the healthcare service and move those cuts elsewhere. Yeah, it's like you've created a hot dog costume
out of people who died when they were fucking forced.
Like go, they were declared fit to work
when they were like quadriplegic
and then you're wearing that hot dog costume
and saying we're all trying to find the guy who did this.
And it's like every single,
I mean, if you're a member of the Tory party, you're complicit.
If you're in Blair's fucking inner circle when he was in power, you're complicit. Like all of this
stuff, it's right out there. And it's like, I guess, I don't know if you, I don't think
these people feel particularly guilty. I really don't. I've never got a lot of pressure.
It comes from like a place of total impunity and safety.
Yeah. I genuinely just think that all of this stems from more like saying we want to create
this argument that it's immoral for people to point it out.
It's rude, foremost, and it's also immoral.
And let's just all get along and talk about politics like serious, sensible, grown-up adults,
like, and never acknowledge that any of the complaints people are bringing when they've
suffered under this are actually real.
You know what it is, it's a kind of to bring everything back to football and nor it's this
again. It is the kind of like post-match analysis from people whose careers are over and now get
to be common tases. And it's like that's such an insulting, horrifying way to think about something
that has life or death consequences.
Well, on one of the ways Campbell tried to rehabilitate himself, one of the first approaches he took was
to do sports journalists, and I remember I had these constant kind of, who was the greatest sports
person of all time, and really just reinvent himself as this like, but now sports commentator.
And I think, you know, realized that before he could rehabilitate his politics,
had to kind of rehabilitate himself personally.
And having done all of that through being
on like various like entertainment shows,
you know, I mean, he tried to rehabilitate himself
by talking a lot about his mental health problems
and then I think that didn't really wash
because people thought about why he might have
mental health problems. Honestly, if you kill a really wash because people thought about what he might have mental health problems.
Honestly, if you kill a guy, it's tough on the...
Exactly.
Yeah, and if you kill hundreds of thousands of them and you hear the screams of their children
when you go to bed at night.
I mean, I'd do think the British public would be surprisingly receptive to the myrhyenly
and Ian Brady, mental health and wellness podcast.
My thoughts.
If it was pushed hard enough, it's interesting though, because sport washing really does begin
at home without a Campbell.
Well, the podcast is produced by Gohango, which is Gary Linnaker's like co-founded production
company.
And it came about through Campbell being friends with another Burnley FC fan, who initially suggested that he should be on with Dominic Cummings.
And Campbell was like, no, that would be an interesting show because Dominic Cummings is insane.
Yeah, too much.
He's an asshole too. He's absolutely an asshole.
And so like the civility rules wouldn't work.
Like, we are not saying we like him, but like he's a dickhead.
And he says the things that in the sort of British journalist slash politician Omrata, you're never supposed to say.
Where's these guys?
Don't.
I'm won't.
Yeah, he's kind of got a Trump quality.
He's like agent of chaos.
Like you could send him in there and you could expect him to wind us to Campbell up in a way that Roy Stewart is simply not going to.
But when Campbell does stop short of bullying Stuart on the podcast, but the dynamic
is very much like Campbell is like top dog.
Yeah, yeah.
Why me?
He's sort of like a haunted Pinocchio puppet, isn't he?
Well, I would like a treat from mother, but like a haunted Pinocchio puppet who was brought
up, reading like annuals from 1928 with strips like, you know, Rupert goes to Kenya.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you, Alistair? Have you ever read Tantano Conk?
It's an interesting reversal of the sort of the usual dynamic of these things, because
I remember when this was a thing on like, sort of right wing, but free, the kind of psycho
right wing that it is now Fox News, even where you had stuff like Crossfire where a younger,
still wearing the bow tie Tucker Carlson would like do some right wing shit and then you'd have
like a tepid liberal on to be like, well, I actually think we shouldn't do that to get owned.
Another example of that, I think, would be Hannity and Colms, which they eventually got rid of,
because like even the Holland Colms was like, the, you know, like you said, milk toast, liberal,
he was sort of cast because like he would be seen as like ugly and like squishy
and just like all of the caricatures
that Fox News viewers have of liberals.
Like that was the thing in the early 2000s
where that was part of their program.
It's pretty popular.
And then eventually it was like, no, we just want,
viewers just want Sean Hannity saying dumb, insane,
like fucking hit yourself with a brick
right before the broadcast, right wing bullshit.
Like, and that, I feel like is indicative of that sort of shift.
You know, there used to be that sort of appeal for that I suppose, but like, I don't think,
I don't think there's any appeal for this besides.
The journalist contains the opinions of Sean Hannity.
If you wish to continue watching, please hit yourself with the supply brick now.
The thing I want to say is that I don't really think that this is meant to have appeal
beyond to be a thing that journalists kind of point to is journalists, commentators,
whomever asked sort of like, oh, isn't this sense, isn't this good?
Aren't they doing a good thing?
Aren't we, you know, mending the rift of Brexit, which fundamentally is just an elite dispute
that, you know, fucking had no, the
rhetoric around had no bases in any kind of reality at all.
Now, I mean, just to bring it around to the close here as well, I mean, while we are,
while this projected polite disagreement, entertainment product is, you know, how sort
of so many people are, how we are be asked to remember the kind of the trend, the imposition
of things like austerity, the Iraq war, right?
What's happening at the same time is polite disagreement continues on the national stage,
where, for example, the labor party is committed now to not just to keep the two child benefit
cap, but basically says, if you are a poor family family you cannot have more than two kids or we
will starve the third one essentially you know as a matter of policy and who are now.
And that's called a nudge. And who are now saying that you know the job center is going to have
to be reformed using a we're reforming benefits to support people better without increasing the benefits bill by using AI, the magical reform
magic will happen at the DWP. The thing that it's only possible to believe, the thing
that is function is to provide rhetorical cover for further cuts, but that rhetorical
cover only works if it's not challenged. If Jonathan Ashworth says we're going to use
AI to transform the service and raise the
amount of people who are coming off of benefits and finding employment and lower the bill
without reducing anyone's quality of life, you just have to ask him impolitely how that
will work and the rhetorical cover is gone.
And what they lose is they lose the consent manufacturing of the ability to talk about it
as though it's sensible.
Right. And looking to sign on, are you strapping young lad? they lose the consent manufacturing of the ability to talk about it as though it's sensible.
Right.
And you're looking to sign on, are you? You're strapping young lad. Why don't you get yourself
down to some hard manual labor?
I got to ask this question, Juliet, since we're close in Asian, you've lived through
all this shit in Britain, like seeing this stuff, the kind of fake, self-excolpatory retrospective
that these guys put out.
What's your reaction,
like beyond the psychic dammit,
or maybe go into detail about the psychic damage,
because it just feels like,
like when I see this kind of things about retrospectives on shit,
I have personally experienced in Britain,
I want to fucking go insane.
And I've only lived in this country about five years.
So what's that, what were your reaction?
Yeah, I mean, it just felt like a kind of mass,
gaslighting. I mean, like I feel like a kind of mass gaslighting. I mean,
like I said, I sort of pulled out certain lines and I mean, so a lot of this stuff that's not even
that long ago. I mean, you know, sort of Campbell complaining about Kierstama, you know, not having
any kind of like radical policies and saying that like people are crying out for politicians who are
promising change. Why aren't there any?
And it's like, you know for well-wide because you did everything you could to destroy it.
Yeah, as I say, never mind the spent casings from this enormous blister that we use to shoot Jeremy Corbyn with.
Exactly. I mean, the sort of whitewashing through the media and through new labor protagonist,
use of light entertainment is not that bigger surprise to me
because that government was always very bound up with the media
and with seeking the approval of the murder press,
but also seeking to ingratiate itself with, you know,
in the 90s, it was to the young British artists
and to the Brit pop musicians.
And now it forms of light entertainment
like strictly come dancing or the mass singer or good morning Brit and or whatever.
Who could forget Alan Johnson? Well, I mean, if you want,
then Ross had to explain to the other two judges who that was.
I mean, if you want the image of the start of the centrist restoration, it's the 2019 election
when Ed Bors and George Osborne are sat next to each other at the table in the ITV studios
turning around and glaring at Alan Johnson, like screaming at John Lansman about the result.
But it is just maddening. I mean, you know, the the new Labour government was at home incredibly authoritarian, particularly after September 2001.
You know, very ambitious, very uninterested in using its majority
to do anything other than just like in trench a version
of that direct consensus.
And seeing all of that, you know, just kind of like whitewash,
especially during the Corbin years.
And their political project relies on people forgetting what they're actually like.
And I still, you know, I talked to friends of mine who are just like, well, you know,
who still seriously think that the stammer and Rachel Reeves and Westreeding don't mean
the things that they're saying at the moment, and that they might get into power and do
something, you know, half decent.
It's like, well, no, they won't.
What's that the green lantern thing or something? I can't remember if there's something people are talking about.
The green lantern theory of politics
that the idea is only a lack of political will
is preventing progressive transformations from happening.
It's a kind of conservative head off argument that says,
well, we can't do Medicare for all
because there are all
of these complexities that you haven't considered.
This is usually used in the US.
Yeah, I'm using it incorrectly,
but I guess my impression here was more like,
it sounds like they're just,
they think that they're gonna do like a stealth.
Oh, what was the, I don't,
I won't chase the metaphor here,
but basically there's like stealth stormer
who's actually gonna do like Nordic social democracy
or even further, you know, further left and right.
He's invisible to radar.
They're not gonna be able to stop it.
High altitude storm.
I mean, the thing is, right,
if there is a secret stealth socialist stormer
on the inside, he's so deep-covered,
he doesn't even know he's there anymore.
You know, honestly though, I appreciate it.
Like, and beyond the, I appreciate the recollections,
and I also appreciate you being willing to, to subject yourself to this stuff, because I'll be perfectly straightforward about it.
I would struggle to do what you're doing for this article, and I don't even have anywhere near as much of the personal kind of connection to it. It's just the lying, the just fucking in your face lying that they're doing nonstop,
the lack of challenging it, like that sensation of just screaming at your TV, but screaming
at anything that's playing anything on the radio or wherever we're in this country,
like, it's maddening.
It's so offensive. I mean, it really is just on the front, this whole thing. And, you know,
the fact that it's so popular, I mean, it's not popular enough,
you know, to kind of win election, this type of politics, I mean, this type of politics was popular
enough to screw us in 2019, but that's about it. Yeah, I just find the whole thing so offensive,
and so ludicrous, EA historical, kind of simplistic, anti-political, anti-intellectual. I mean, I don't think the
centrist restoration that this is an attempt to sort of uphold. I don't think that's going
to last. I don't think that what comes next is necessarily going to be better and it may
well be much, much worse. But I think, you know, things like this are going to be one reason
why. What comes next might be much, much worse because people are going to look at it and
quite rightly think that parliamentary politics is just like chummy
upper class stitch up and they won't be wrong.
Well, on that cheery note, I think it's time for us to close down to say number one, Juliet,
thank you so much for coming on the show.
Thank you.
And where can people purchase your new book, Monaco? They can get it via the publisher, Toothgrind,
depress or go to my website,
gdhx.com and all the details are on there.
Yeah, it is a piece of auto fiction about the
principality of Monaco, which if you are
listened to this show at all, you will know small, let's say
hyper right wing countries, such as Monaco off occupy a particular
fascination for me. So it is a book. I'm going to be reading very.
Somebody might find Dario item. Indeed. That's right. You would find him there. Yeah. Also, I would like to remind everyone,
there are two live shows coming. That's fucking right. There is one in Britain. One in Britain. One in
Britain. One in Britain. One in Britain. One in Lichtenstein. Yeah, that's right. One in
Barbuda. One in Linden in London. On the 26th, are there tickets remaining? I believe
so. Yes. At the last time of checking there were. So please do buy tickets to that. That's
in between the bridges in Morsaloo. Alsoo also Edinburgh the fourth of August is now on sale
That is this is the first time we're mentioning it on the podcast as being on sale, but it is now already I think half sold so wow
Please do please do snap those on mmm and
Finally there's a patreon five bucks a month second episode every week
If you want to hear us talk to Ross and Liam from, well, there's your problem about cruise
ships and a secret gated community in Scotland that's employing Navy SEALs.
We're going to be politely disagreeing with Ross and Liam.
Yeah, yeah, we're going to be pull.
That's what we're going to be doing.
There's that.
There's also the $10 tier for extra Britain,ologies for extra left on reds.
You know all about what it is.
And finally,
there's the stream, 9 to 11 p.m. Mondays and Thursdays. Have I left anything out?
No.
I don't think so.
There we go.
Oh, if you're in Bedford, 25th of July, which is next Tuesday, I'm going to be in Bedford
doing a show. I'll put the link up on my website soon. It might not the
minute might have been website when this comes out, but you'll just you know
have a look. I'll tweet about it, etc. Also our theme song is here we go by
Jinseng. It's all one word. Look it up. Great song. Play it. Get some stream
cash. Jinseng who let us use that song for our show. We appreciate him.
Yes. Okay. I think that's about all the end matter. So we'll see you on the bonus episode in a few short days. Bye, everyone. Bye. Bye.
you