Decoding the Gurus - Supplementary Material 53: Matthew the Succulent, Bin-faced Politicians, and Very Very Tired Economists

Episode Date: July 21, 2026

We endure the ravages of time to deliver you this exhausted Supplementary Material. Bowed but never broken, the decoders persist.The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (Full Episode: 2hr... 20 mins)Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurusSupplementary Material 5300:23 Introduction: Matthew the Succulent's Post-Holiday Report02:15 Pickle Ball Injuries & Bouldering Curses07:40 They Won't Let You Talk about Middle-Aged Sports Injuries08:37 New AI Models09:31 Cory Doctorow, Trevor Noah, and Confirmation Bias23:45 The Glorious Past and the Terrible Present28:28 The Horror of Tinned Asparagus30:26 The Collapse of Industries & Stores36:16 Negativity Bias37:11 AI Prompting 10144:30 AI and Research Applications50:28 Nigel Farage vs Count Binface59:10 Nigel Farage Knighted on Russia Today01:02:53 Hasan's Advice for Ukrainians01:07:51 Russian Apologetics01:13:32 Vlad Vexler and soft Anti-Vaxx rhetoric01:19:35 Guru Red Flags01:23:48 Bret Weinstein in 2020 on Vaccines01:28:53 Gary vs Piers Morgan01:30:58 Piers Morgan being a blustering idiot about Elon Musk01:36:55 Gary's Pitch01:41:55 Alternative Tax Proposals01:46:18 Matt and Chris' Economics01:47:22 Gary's Wealth01:52:07 Piers the sleazy liar01:55:25 Gary is the best inequality economist in the UK01:57:08 Gary's Predictions02:00:40 Gary is Very Tired02:07:14 A message from anyone else to finish?02:14:25 Final Takeaways02:16:55 Matt attempts to wrangle another holidayLinksThe Verge: China delivers a one-two punch to America’s AI dominance What Now? with Trevor Noah: Why Google, Apple & Big Tech Keep Making Everything Worse — Cory Doctorow and Trevor NoahBaumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Finkenauer, C., & Vohs, K. D. (2001). Bad is stronger than good. Review of general psychology, 5(4), 323-370.Count Binface on BBC Morning Live — full interviewCount Binface on NewsnightHasan offers Ukraine his advice to “give peace a try”Report on polling from Ukraine in 2025 that does not show what Hasan claimsReport on more recent polling that still does not show what Hasan claimsVlad Vexler tweets about vaccinesBret’s Tweets in 2020 on Vaccines (and here)Chris noting Bret’s anti-vaccine rhetoric in 2020 (see the comments under the tweet)Kyiv International Institute of Sociology: Ukrainian views on exchanging Donbas for security guaranteesDecoding Academia 34: Matt and Chris’ EconomicsPiers Morgan Uncensored: “I’m QUITTING!” Gary Stevenson vs Piers Morgan on Wealth, Economic Growth & Elon Musk

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:24 Hello and welcome to decoding the guru's supplementary material with your trippy co-host, Chris Kavana, coming all the way from Japan via Northern Ireland. I'm a cognitive anthropologist of sorts. Teaching a psychology department, the man over there is a purebred psychologist, a status matrician, a psychometrition, statologist. A psychom magician. Psychomagician, all sorts of things. It's Matthew Brown from Australia, line there in the thing.
Starting point is 00:00:58 How you do, Matt? Hello, you are chippy this morning. You were asking me just before we turn the recording on. Are you ready, Matt? Are you ready? And I was thinking to myself, God, I don't think. Am I? Yeah, Chris, it's a very philosophical question.
Starting point is 00:01:13 If I was a king, I'd be Matthew the Unready. That's what they'd call me. So some of the kings got good titles like Matthew the Bold, Matthew the I don't know I can't think of anything I'm than bold but I know that one of them
Starting point is 00:01:27 was like Ethel Red the Unready or something I'd be known as Matt the fat and unready God that's a fat hot shit
Starting point is 00:01:35 come on like Mount the Tired yeah I am a bit fat Some King was known as so and so the fat
Starting point is 00:01:42 which Oh really Not as good Maybe better than unready but not as good as bold Matt the succulent tender
Starting point is 00:01:50 Yeah Let the succulent. Metta succulent. Matt the succulent. Wow. You sound like a demon from Warhammer 40K, like the pleasure god. I was thinking of a succulent Chinese meal. Yeah, well, that too.
Starting point is 00:02:07 That speaks to the differences in our references. But that exists. And you know, what about with you? You know, your holidays, I've finished your back to the Dealey grind. Have you been okay? I haven't been okay. No, I haven't been okay. I'm actually, now this is going to sound worse than it is. I'm struggling to breathe, which sounds, don't worry, everyone, calm down, relax, it's fine. What happened was I tried pickleball, Chris, pickleball. I didn't know what pickleball was. I went with my wife.
Starting point is 00:02:41 Everyone there was between 10 and 30 years older than me. We were far away, the youngest people there. and I discovered that it's if you don't know what pickleball is it's it's like tennis for old or disabled people that's how I describe it but I really liked it I thought it's really fun and I was thinking it far more seriously than everyone else there I was lunging I was getting trick shots back I was diving which which I shouldn't be doing at my age and I dived for and they were all they found me very amusing with with my antics they were all laughing at me and then when I made a massive lunge and tripped and stacked it and landed on my shoulder slash chest. They weren't sure whether to laugh or to call an ambulance.
Starting point is 00:03:26 And so now I've got a pickleball-based injury, which is not my finest hour. I'm not very proud of that. But some people did find it funny at the time. I did injure my back recently when bouldering two days in a row. I kind of pulled the muscle or did something like that. Don't worry, I'm back. I'm back. I was on the wall yesterday and I almost cleared EQ, first grade in Japan, which is an achievement for me. But I know I'm not really at that level. So it's, if it happens,
Starting point is 00:03:58 it will just be for a specific group. But point is, I was on the wall, not haveling around like an old band of the rumors, but that's what I was doing. They were spread by haters and liars. Okay. I'm still young. I'm with it. Thicketyke. Yeah. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, actually think a guy cursed me. I cursed me. What's? Well, yeah, because I went to a new boulder and gem, this group it out from me and my son.
Starting point is 00:04:25 We were going to go there, right? So I was, you know, checking it out, making sure it's all okay and good. And there was a friendly, middle-aged Japanese man who was there. And he befriended me and we were talking about, you know, mostly about climbing and stuff. But, and he was better than me. I'll also happily, that's a given for it. In any case, very friendly guy.
Starting point is 00:04:45 And then he started packing up early and he said, I'm going to go, I've hurt my back a little bit. So be careful with your back. And I looked at them a bit pitying and thought, yeah, yeah, I understand. He's good. But, you know, his body's given way. He's a bit older than me. So I don't have to hurt my back in years. Then Hooper Smith struck as I injured my back that very session.
Starting point is 00:05:13 His warming was prescient. You climbed too close to the sun. That's right. I even thought in my head, yeah, yeah. You know, some of us need to worry about injuring our back. And apparently that was me. Did you go too high?
Starting point is 00:05:32 You went too high? I don't know. I literally don't know. It's just climbing like normal. But I obviously, you know, maybe I didn't warm up properly or whatever. Just foolishness far. then I will say I did something that was probably ill-advised. I'm not going to, I'm directly not recommending this.
Starting point is 00:05:51 Okay, I'm saying I'm not recommending this. I'm doing the strategic disclaimer. But at the weekend, my bank was still sore. You know, it wasn't really moving, right, and stuff. But my son wanted to go bouldering. And I went to get out of the house, so I said, you know, let's go. And I went, and I didn't want to just be sitting there and not climbing. So I climbed, and I was careful.
Starting point is 00:06:11 You know, I didn't at any point jump down or whatever. but it was still feeling very sore and whatever. But I climbed a couple of things that were, you know, relatively tough. But I had to claim them much better because of, you know, my back not feeling right and making sure that I could get down. And afterward, I felt like much better on my back. Felt good.
Starting point is 00:06:30 So I'm not recommending that. You climbed your way through it. You climbed your way through it. Yeah, just didn't help. It didn't make it worse. But, you know, it could have gone another way. I could have, like, falling off and damaged it worse. So it's one of those things where it's very easy,
Starting point is 00:06:43 I'd be like, oh, so maybe that's, that was good for it, but it could have been bad, could have went the other way. Like, that's a respectable injury. That's a, that's a masculine, manly injury to have. I think rock climbing or bouldering, whatever you call it. Like my son, you know, he's quite a good soccer player. He's 15 or 16 or maybe 17. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:07:02 He's around that age. He's a 10, but he plays in the men's open thing as well as his age group thing. And he's very good. And he had a, like, serious sports injuries just from, like, overstraining. Like, you know, like a professional sports people do. Like they just push themselves too hard. And I think you did get kicked a few times by some big blokes. But that's respectable.
Starting point is 00:07:22 I don't think a pickleball injury is in the same categories. I don't know. You know, when you see the old people getting out there and doing their exercise, I think we got to start off. We're going to grade these things on an age curve. That's what you're saying. Yeah, thank you. Thank you.
Starting point is 00:07:38 That's it. Well, okay. So, you know, I'm just reminding people. that we are like to do this because this is a supplementary material. You can't stop us. This is this part of the deal. We don't put this in the decodents anymore. They don't want us to say these things, right?
Starting point is 00:07:53 They don't want us to talk about this stuff, right? They're trying to shut us down. They're trying to shut down the pickleball and the bouldering talk, but we won't let them. We wouldn't let them. Chris Williamson and stuff. They're always talking about, you know, you have to make the land acknowledgement,
Starting point is 00:08:07 the schemers about, oh, women are all oppressed and whatever. What about us, Matt? Like, all these gurus out there. complaining. Can we not just talk about our middle-aged hobbies and illness? Come on. Why won't they let us, Matt? As we have just done it. So, yeah, they can't stop us. That's the reality. And there you go. But we really can't talk about it. We can't. What? Oh, sorry. Did you want to continue? No, no. I was going to introduce a completely random topic that just... Oh, sure. Go ahead. Go ahead.
Starting point is 00:08:38 Well, did you see another Chinese model has just come out? This is the news of the day. cutting news did it do it do it um but you we pull our release for releases for a week or two but yeah k me k three is out and it might be benchmark maxed but it appears to be one open source to as as they all are significantly cheaper than the american models but it's also for the first time really apparently a frontier like a true frontier model um i didn't see that yeah on the same level as you know GPT's soul 5.6 or or Fable, Claude's Fable. So that's interesting. I was just about to say that I'm quite happy with the new models that came out from
Starting point is 00:09:23 Open AI, the sole models and the various other ones that I don't use. But that's actually topic on my, you said it's off topic. And I haven't seen the AI news you have, but it's almost like you, via the ether, I'm honed in on my psychic vibrations because the first two clips I was going to play for you are from a discussion between Trevor Noah and Corey Doctoro, where they're talking about technology and how things are developing or not developing, as the case might be. So this is, I'm just saying, you know, pretty much on topic for
Starting point is 00:10:08 the first clip. So congratulations. Do you know Corey Doctor Roe? He wrote Ready Player 1, didn't he? No. No, he did not. He wrote Ready Player 1. Misinformation.
Starting point is 00:10:24 But Corey Dr. Roe wrote in shittification, why everything suddenly got worse and what to do about it, radicalized, down and out in the magic kingdom, so on and so forth. He is a science fiction offer.
Starting point is 00:10:41 That's probably why you got. What science fiction did he write? Yeah, Ready Play One written by Ernest Klein. Sorry, everyone. Sorry for the misinformation. Okay. Well, what science fiction did he write? Well, apparently it has a thing called the Martin Hens series,
Starting point is 00:10:58 Little Brother universe. He's got novels. Like I mentioned Donor Night in the Magic Kingdom, Eastern Standard Tribe, makers, the rapture of the nerd. there you go, Matt, all those. I may have read them, I can't remember. Some of them ring a bell.
Starting point is 00:11:16 Really? Well, I mean, you've probably read him, but like I know him for his tech commentary, and he's probably most well known in the public discourse more recently for incitification. There are these public intellectuals with like a specific term attached to them
Starting point is 00:11:32 and his incitification. But he has been like a tech commentator for quite a while. Yeah. So, and Trevor Noah is the comedian who went on to replace John Stewart on The Daily Show, right? So, and a left-leaning comedian slash TV host person. So let's listen to them discuss the issues of the day. Even when I was telling Eugene about this episode, I was like, I'm so excited to talk to Corey because he has done for society, what I think society has been pining. to do for itself, but just sort of hasn't been able to piece together. And that is that like everyone everywhere feels like everything that we're getting and experiencing is becoming more and more shit.
Starting point is 00:12:21 Yeah. Right? We feel like the amount of food that we get for the money we pay is becoming shitter. We feel like the amount of things that our time can do is becoming shitter. We feel like our cause and the value that you get are shitter. You feel like everything in your life. Seats are getting smaller. Yo, everything.
Starting point is 00:12:41 Everything. Your advice has last three years, not 30. Yes. Yeah. Yes. You can get, like, you can, my grandmother in her house, till the day she died, had the fridge that I knew from when I was a kid. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:12:53 Even that term, lifetime guarantee is gone now. Yeah. I didn't even think of that. Yeah. Well, almost everything had a lifetime guarantee. They say 20 year guarantee store or a life camp guarantee. Yeah. And the thing is, this is why I appreciate your work so much is because
Starting point is 00:13:08 there are things that are so pernicious. Is that the word in society where they're like, they steal away and they're like in, but what makes them so insidious is that we all think we're being individually crazy and cramagony. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:13:24 So you just feel like in your life, you're like, I feel like old cars were made better than it's like, oh, here we go again, grandpa. You know, I feel like this was, and it's like, and what you've done is you've taken all of it and gone, hey, we're not crazy. things are being made shittier.
Starting point is 00:13:42 Yeah. I mean, it's a great concept in certification. It applies to all products, I think, across the board. Like my wife's car, this old van, a Toyota type type van. It's been going for like 300,000 kilometers now. And I mean, it's never broken down or anything. But, you know, and it's comfortable in just. just works and is good and very functional and quite fuel efficient and all of that.
Starting point is 00:14:13 But I still think that 1971 Ford TT clone XY Holden basically it was that I used to own as a kid. That was cooler. So, yeah, cars have gotten worse, much worse over the decades. Well, like similarly, you know, when I was growing up, we had these like cassette player things, right? And you like, you eat. Awesome devices. You had to turn them over, right, in between, and, you know, the little tape could get unwound and all that stuff. But the sound quality. That's the thing. The sound quality on the...
Starting point is 00:14:49 The sound quality was fantastic. And also, like, now, you know, then I had an iPod where you could print, you know, a couple hundred songs. Now, I have unlimited storage on my phone, but, like, it's on a phone, Matt, and it doesn't, you know, the buttons are cocky. I can access it from everyone. It's the same with me. I've got this streaming device attached to the hi-fi in the lounge room, which has an app connected to my phone on Spotify, which has, you know, I subscribe to it. It's obviously got a library of like every single song ever recorded.
Starting point is 00:15:22 And I stream at a lossless streaming rate. But it's not the same. It just doesn't feel the same as the old days when we're playing it on the cassette tape play. Well, your son's in the vinyl, isn't he? That's, I mean, that's vinyl. Actually, vinyl, I can't tell the difference. Actually, a good vinyl recording and the lossless digital thing, to be honest with you, they both sound good to me.
Starting point is 00:15:47 I wonder if people in controlled conditions could in general. But like, we're being sarcastic here. A little bit. Yeah, because the thing is, what struck me about this? It's like Trevor Noah is basically saying, you know what? people have always said that things were better in the past. Like they always, in my grandpa, everyone, they were saying, when I was a kid, we did things like this. So that was better. You were your fancy new dongles and jangles, right? It's all, it's all terrible. And Trevor
Starting point is 00:16:18 Noah is like, and, you know, they were talking like kind of nonsense, right? Like, it was based on this, like, imagined romanticized past. And then I started feeling like that's it, like, that's the popular sentiment. And, you know, and, you know, and, you know, and, you know, And then you feel like, oh, wait, am I becoming like, is it, is it me? That's how you know. That's right. And then it's like, no, then you came along and you said, I'm right. And I was like, oh, great.
Starting point is 00:16:45 He's telling us exactly what we want to hear. Like, it completely confirmed what I already believed. So that was perfect. That solves it. And you're like, doesn't anybody realize you're describing confirmation bias, almost directly said, I really wanted this to be true. I came across your book which said, it is true. And then I stopped. I felt this click in my brain where everything made sense, and I stopped. Yeah. I mean, look, that's true. But, you know, to be fair, I mean,
Starting point is 00:17:21 there's some truth in the insurification idea. Of course. Of course there's some truth. There's three ways where stuff is made to be more disposable. and all that kind of stuff. But like in the same way, Matt, I don't know if the people that are talking here, their lifetime in the past was like this, you know, glorious world of great technology and fun times. I grew up in the 80s in Northern Ireland.
Starting point is 00:17:48 And that all was pretty grim. That's pretty grim in lots of ways. But one of the ways is just things like technology. You know, like the Internet developed, my lifetime. And I was seeing this little clip on TV where it was like an old school kids TV show about technology. And they were covering the internet and people putting up streams on the internet. And they were talking about these videos that regenerate every five minutes a still image. And they're like, it's not really video, but that's what we're at. And it was like the very
Starting point is 00:18:25 early stages and we're like, you know, in the future, imagine that people will be able to actually put videos and you know you'll be able to broadcast from your your own room with actual live video and that was you know it wasn't that long ago so like yes there's things where stuff has become more disposable but just things like the quality of TVs it's so much better than when I was a kid yeah I mean just pure the pure psychology of it I do find it interesting the kinds of opinions that are very broadly held because they they feel right right due to whatever reasons. In this case, there's a few things at play.
Starting point is 00:19:05 Like, everything is getting worse. That is something that is, like you've heard Corey Doctor O's version of it. But it's also a paleo-con right-wing thing as well. And it's also like a militant left kind of thing as well, late-stage capitalism, et cetera. And there's grains of truth in it. But everything isn't getting worse in terms of people's material well-being and society, etc. are. It's just not the case on any meaningful time scale. Another interesting one is, I don't know about other parts of the world, but certainly in Australia, I would say 80, 90 percent of the
Starting point is 00:19:39 population are absolutely convinced that the major supermarkets are absolutely screwing us. They are absolutely ripping everyone off. They're charging more money for less stuff and worse stuff, and now you can't even feed yourself anymore where it was fine, right? you know, obviously inflation has got a lot to do with this and there's a lot of economic things and stagnating wages. All that's good. That's one thing. But there's a lot of vitriol targeted at the duopoly of coals and Woolworths, right?
Starting point is 00:20:11 And so this interested me because I thought, well, if they are ripping people off and, you know, and there is stuff they do do, for instance, you know, like they obviously can control the supplies and stuff like that. They can screw down farmers and stuff and pay less for milk or whatever. You don't know what I mean. I'm sure there's any number of dodgy business practices they do. But big picture, if they're ripping everyone off and making excessive profits, these are publicly traded companies. You can read their financial reports. We should be able to see that, right? If there's monopolist, essentially it's a case of monopolistic behavior where you should see it at their bottom line.
Starting point is 00:20:51 And you look at those, which I did. And man, their margins are razor thin. The margins are raised it in. So Australians will hate me to be telling them this. But if you're unhappy about how much your shopping cart and groceries cost, you know, it feels like it's way too much. It's not it's not Coles and World War's fault. But everyone believes that because of course you do, right? Because that's the point.
Starting point is 00:21:18 Like when you're at the checkout, when you're paying and you're, oh my God, it's $370 or $250, dollars, that's a lot more than I would have guessed. You know, they're naturally going to attract the blame for whatever, both our, just our natural perceptions of not keeping track of just normal inflation. And, you know, and the fact is I think people are spending a much smaller proportion of their income on food and groceries than they used to. So it shouldn't be the case that we're feeling like we can't afford it. Anyway, long story short.
Starting point is 00:21:55 it's just interesting where these sort of biases and beliefs come from. Yeah, there's a lot of, there's also a lot of different circumstances, right? A lot of different countries, a lot of different economic paths and so on. So there can be cases where, you know, things legitimately have gotten worse in various areas. Or Corey Doctor-O does have a habit of, you know,
Starting point is 00:22:15 documenting an investigative journalist kind of way, or at least reporting investigative journalist stuff, about, you know, companies that are trying to skirt regulations or that are doing shitty shit, right? You should call it because it's certainly not the keyest that like all of these technology companies or whatever, you know, like they're not out for people's best interests all the time, right? They're out to make money for the most part.
Starting point is 00:22:42 Yeah. I mean, look, sorry to interrupt, but I think to also support Corey, I think the part of the thesis, which is absolutely true, which is that there is a business, procedure, which is it's followed by big companies like Google and whatever, which is you gain market share, you dominate the market by subsidizing and providing a service for free or very cheap, good value. Once you get the network effects and you've dominated the market, you obviously
Starting point is 00:23:12 then can then exploit that by then cashing in, by getting the value through more advertising and basically making the service worse. But everyone's kind of like. locked in. So that's when you've got basically a license to print money. And so, you know, this is a reason why, you know, Apple has obviously done this with their closed ecosystems and the ridiculous amounts they charge for their hardware. So, you know, like, it's absolutely all of this kind of, you know, various versions of monopolistic practice certainly occur, right? Yeah. And also, Matt, like, you know, if you compare my life to that of my parents, for example, right. They have a house. I don't have a house, right? I'm renting and I'm living that kind of
Starting point is 00:23:57 story that people have. I have multiple jobs. They had a single job, right, for basically their whole life. I've changed various jobs and have simultaneous jobs and sidegigs and all these kind of things. So there are differences, but I would also say that like when I look at the life in Belfast or life for my kids, right, in general, it's just so much. better than it looked for me in the 80s, you know, access to different kinds of food, access to leisure activities that are not just like getting drunk in forests, right? And especially in Northern Ireland, you have the fact that there was the troubles and so on, right? There's obviously been significant improvement there from the threat to violence and so on. But it's just that
Starting point is 00:24:46 thing where like if you focus on housing, you could present it that, oh, I'm living in a much more precarious circumstance. But I would take my life over, you know, return to the 70s at any point. So anyway, I just feel like you can place way too much emphasis on this. And in liberal spaces, there is this very strong emphasis that everything is getting worse. But like you said, there is the flip side, I suppose, on the MAGA and P. really a con thing, but in the past, we used to have real communities and real people and all that kind of stuff. And you just have to question it. Yeah. I mean, you just made me think about my, you know, so if you go back, if you look at my father and father's father and so on,
Starting point is 00:25:33 it's, it's, there's an interesting trajectory which I think illustrates that. Because you can pick and choose, but this is just me, right? There's no cherry picking. So, so my great grandfather, Irish Australian, he's gassed on the song, drank himself, came back to Australia and drank himself to death, domestic violence, not a very happy Samaria. His son, my grandfather, had a better life than him. But still, he had to go to some island in the Pacific and wait there, hoping the Japanese Navy didn't turn up. And, you know, he worked incredibly hard, but was poor, you know, like, and eventually became a bank manager. So he did well for his time. But, you know, really had to struggle pretty hard. My dad had an easier life than him.
Starting point is 00:26:15 but he still worked an awful lot more than me in terms of the struggle to just comfort ratio. And in turn, I think, you know, my kids are still pretty young, but I've already noticed that I've been able to do a bit more for them than my dad could for me. And I think they've had a, they actually have had a better lifestyle, right, from zero to up to 20 or so than that I had. That is just an objective fact. So, you know, maybe we're just an upwardly mobile family. But I don't, you know, I don't think we are really.
Starting point is 00:26:52 Actually, we're pretty, you know, there's been to a great arc there. I think what you're sort of seeing there is just the general arc of increased material living standards in a greater degree of security and comfort that you see in Australia generally. Just as an example, which has nothing to do with, you know, most of the things we've been talking about, my mom's siblings, two of them died, right, from illnesses that now you would be unlikely to die from. My mom has a pacemaker installed where she had open heart surgery, but it was, sorry, she didn't have open heart surgery because she got it installed, you know, via. Is it open heart, but like it's the small incision version, but they installed it. And the point is, in all her time, she would have likely.
Starting point is 00:27:43 you know, had either very more serious health things or that just wouldn't be an option. So like, there is stuff that has improved with medicine, with technology, with the quality of food. Quality of your food in Northern Ireland. It's really gotten better. Actually, speaking of which, cervical cancer, they developed a vaccine for it. And in Australia anyway, it's basically been given to everyone, or women anyway. And I think last year, I read the news, the count of cervical cancer cases, zero. Zero.
Starting point is 00:28:22 They eliminated it. That's great. That's fantastic fucking news. There is no way that's a bad thing. Not quite on the same level, but speak, but back on your food point, when I was growing up, you couldn't get things like fresh asparagus. It didn't exist, right? I'd never tasted fresh asparagus, nor any of the fancy Japanese mushrooms or a million other things, right? You can only get asparagus in a can, and for many years, that is pretty much what I thought
Starting point is 00:28:48 asparagus was. Just the can sounds like torture. I thought it came in a can. And Chris, when I first tried fresh asparagus, you know. Change your life. It should change your life. It sounds like a vegetable. So I think, yeah, I think there's spargis in the can.
Starting point is 00:29:06 I thought I had a broth in Northern Ireland. I'm just thinking of a genic. genetically engineered some kind of super asparagus is going to taste even better. It's going to be onwards and upwards. Yeah, I just think that these people, almost all of whom tend to be like very rich people living in relative opulence in America. Perhaps your life wasn't worse in every facet when you were a kid. Perhaps maybe you aren't just a bit mooney.
Starting point is 00:29:36 Like that's maybe, I don't know, maybe they're right and everything's getting worse. But well, it's always a lot. a mix of the two. Look, this is going to be the final thing I say about it. It's a mix of the two. I think there's a bunch of technical points that someone like Corey Docterotro is making, and it's totally right. And at the same time, there was the broader narrative sweeping claims, right? Not a bit more questionable. Everything is getting worse, and, you know, things are going to fall apart because of this sort of terminal cycle of intrudification and exploitation and
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