The Blindboy Podcast - Mourners Portion

Episode Date: December 5, 2018

How would humans be portrayed in a nature documentary made by Aliens? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

hello you jolly fontler eyes you bent decklins you ten foot antennets grease your feet on the communal lard it's time for the blind buy podcast first podcast which I suspect it may be because there's a lot of new listeners every week if it's your first podcast do you know what go back to the very very start start from the

beginning that's the best way to do it the podcasts are not time stamped what's the word for it

just go back to the start you cunt how are you getting on have you had a lovely week last week's podcast do you know last week's podcast was good crack I was terrified

putting it out because I thought you wouldn't be happy with it because it wasn't particularly prepared it was just me riffing on a story about Bizon and how we wrote a song about Bizon based on a real experience of seeing a man masturbate in front of half of Bizon in Edinburgh, but yeah, I was sick, I had a bastard of an ear infection, a really nasty ear infection, two weeks, I've had two weeks of illness, not particularly bad illness, but just enough to, enough to kind of take the wind from underneath my wings, you know,

I haven't been doing much i'm only recently back running and going to the gym my ear is fully cleared i've uh done my antibiotics and my fucking steroids and whatever but for those asking because i did thank you very much for all the lovely messages last week people concerned about my ear but uh yeah i no longer have an ear infection however it's uh temporarily weakened my eardrum so i don't have proper hearing in the right side of my head and it's going to be like that for about two months i think it's like when Like, when your ear gets sick, your ear fills up with fluid. This then stretches and puts pressure on the eardrum. And then when the fluid goes away, the eardrum is like, I don't know, a baggy condom.

It's like a condom. A condom that's just shorn from a flaccid penis. So it's kind of wobbly, so it doesn't have the tension that an eardrum should have, so I haven't got proper hearing on the right side of my head, which is quite unpleasant, because as you know I fucking love music, I love listening to music, and making music and producing and I've been trying to sit down in my studio and like when I when I listen to music if I'm really actively listening you know I'll stick my head right in the middle of like I find what's called the sweet spot two speakers and you find that spot right in the middle where the sound converges and you can hear music perfectly so i'll do that if i'm actively listening to music we'll say um not only to enjoy it but like if i'm

trying to figure out why a song is so good or if i'm trying to figure out how to replicate a drum sound i listen to music in this way and haven't been able to do it. Because I don't have proper hearing on the right side of my head. So there you go. In the past week. I've become acquainted with. Two stray cats. Out the back of my studio. Yeah just two little strays.

They're neutered. I think because their ears are clipped. But they're most definitely wild cats. They don't have socialization skills, and they just look kind of... Like, it's a brother and sister cat, you know? Two white cats, brother and sister, and... Now, I don't know why I know that. I just feel it, you know?

They both look the exact same. They're about the same age. And they seem to have this brother-sister relationship. But, yeah, like, the male cat, he's a big tomcat, you know. And there's this deep sadness in his eyes. big tomcat you know and there's this deep sadness in his eyes but you can see behind it there's um a real gentle kind of sweetness to him you know like he's got scratches and shit all over his face from all the fights he's gotten into and he's just weary from being alive because it's tough for cats tough for cats who don't have an owner, you know, and there's a field at the back of my studio, and him and his sister, they just sleep there,

because I've seen them over the summer just sleeping on the ground, you know, so I've started feeding them the odd bit of food, and then what I did is, because it's freezing outside, I made a little, just like a little little hutch like a little wooden hutch you know a covered thing and i put some old clothes on the inside to make a bed a covered bed and they're both using it now which is fantastic i love it's just it's just a good feeling i like going to bed myself when it's freezing cold outside and knowing that those two little cats aren't sleeping in a freezing field. That at the very least they now have a bit of shelter and warmth.

But they're weirdos. The male cats... First off, there's plenty of room in the shed for the two of them. But they don't go in there together because they're too paranoid about being inside this enclosed space. So they appear to sleep in turns, right? But what happens is that, first off, the male cat, the brother, he's the dominant one in the relationship. So what he does is, he goes in for a sleep most of the time and then his sister she just lies outside the door of the hut and stares into his face the

whole time and growls at him so he's not even getting quality sleep they're in this continual fight over who gets to sleep in the bed then the sister is a little bit more charming he doesn't have um he's definitely not socialized but there's a sweet gentleness to him his sister's a tiny bit more charming she'll come up to the window and meow at me and stuff or do this when they want food and then he gets embarrassed when she does that and then he lashes out at her so it's this very funny complex relationship that the two cats have but again i'm it's just a nice feeling it's a nice feeling i think what it is it's it's recognizing my agency as as a thinking sentient being recognizing my agency to be able to improve their quality of life.

Do you know what I mean? It's like there's two little stray cats outside. They don't look too well fed. They don't look too happy. A few small choices. From me. Can make a massive impact on their life. So I get a kick out of doing that.

So that's what I've been doing the past week a bit of animal husbandry oh that's not husbandry is it husbandry is when you what the fuck is animal husbandry I think it's when you get when you get cows to have sex with each other

that's not what I've been doing, I've been looking after cats, but anyway, yeah, looking after the cats, and doing that small, that small act of kindness, you know,

and, and you know, every podcast, I usually end every podcast by, asking ye, you know, for the week week ahead to be compassionate towards yourself and to try and be compassionate towards other people if you can

just little acts of soundness that you can do to improve the quality of life or happiness of people around you just small little things and the reason I kind of promote this is... I've said it before. As humans, we're ultimately selfish beings, you know? And there's nothing wrong with that.

We're social creatures. We're social animals. I don't believe true altruism exists for human beings I don't I don't think that's the case because we're social animals and there's nothing wrong with that by which I mean if you want to I don't know do something nice for a friend if you want to work, do some charity work or contribute to a charity or do these nice things, ultimately it's a selfish act because we're doing this to make ourselves feel better. So those two cats out the back, you know, I'm helping them because it gives me a sense of personal meaning. Makes me feel good.

It doesn't mean... Yeah, that act of selflessness is ultimately a selfish act. But that doesn't necessarily mean that that selfishness is bad. So it's recognising that responsible hedonism of just being a human we're social creatures to improve the world around you

is what humans do in our social structures but it got me thinking more and more about like there's a thing that bothers me often and I've spoken about it in

previous podcasts which is how it's almost impossible right for any no matter how good we are in our daily lives no matter how much we try and help other people no matter how much we try and better our communities ultimately it's impossible to live a truly ethical kind life like your man the buddha you know if the buddha was around today he'd be fucked it would be impossible for the buddha to live a life of pure compassion because somewhere along the chain of his existence his very life requires the suffering of something else right and that's the modern 21st century condition so for example a couple of weeks back there's a podcast episode called sugar push which was about the it was about the history of sugar and how sugar drove the north atlantic slave trade and it's about it was about how today you know we all use smartphones and laptops and technology and how even using even even listening to this podcast you know how it requires

blood in order to survive because phones are made from like phone screens and laptop screens are made from conflict minerals which are essential minerals that come from the congo in africa and in order for these things to be cheap to go into all the phones child soldiers child slavery all this horrible shit goes on you know in the mines where these raw materials are taken out of the ground you know so even having a fucking waking up in the morning checking your fucking phone that very act is an act ultimately an act of cruelty that exists off the back of the suffering of some human somewhere in the world so I often struggle and battle with just the reality that to exist

in a developed western country to simply be alive and live your life is dependent upon human suffering somewhere else and I got thinking, like, sometimes when I can't figure out what the crack is with the world,

I imagine if there was aliens on Mars and they were looking at us with a telescope, what would the aliens say about humanity? And I came to this kind of, this hot take. Do you know, it's hard for us, it's hard for us to analyse this because we live on the Earth, you know, we're too entrenched in the systems of humanity to have an accurate self-assessment.

So I would imagine if there was Martians with a telescope looking at Earth and they had to write kind of a report on what the humans are up to like do you know the way you can look at a colony of ants or something and you can see

oh there's loads and loads of ants and there's a few ants and they're doing fuck all and there's a load of ants then around it that are doing loads I think if Martians looked at

humankind at the earth and had to do a report what they would say is there appears to be between 1 and 5% who are operating as a type of enhanced human these are have supernatural abilities and then the other 95 they have a parasitic relationship with the other 95% who do all the labour.

And this small minority of enhanced humans achieve their enhancements at the expense of the vast majority of humans who are operating at a regular level. They suck the life out of the majority. Now, when i say enhanced humans i'm not referring to one group of humans being better than the other you know that's uh it's not some mad type of nazi ideology with a master race what i mean is, through luck and advantages and colonialism and all of this, the Martians would see one group of humans

kind of outperforming the evolutionary expectations of the human animal, but at the great expense of the vast majority of other humans. A relationship that isn't too far on like sticking your head into a beehive and you just see one big fat bastard queen doing nothing and then a big load of worker bees all around it doing all the labour.

So who are this 1 percent we'll say well it's anyone living in a developed country so now when we think of one percent because we hear about the one percent you know if you're from Ireland or another developed country, when I say to you 1%, you're probably thinking, oh yeah, billionaires, fucking Bill Gates, Elon Musk. No. Again, from the Martian looking at Earth, the 1% is anyone living in a developed country. anyone living in a developed country even someone in a developed country who is in poverty they are part of the 1% because of their simple access to

kind of amenities so I am the 1% you are the 1% the 99% are people living in what are known as developing countries or third world countries. Like roughly 5 billion people live on less than $5 a day. So again, back to this enhanced human idea that the Martians would see.

enhanced human idea that the Martians would see. And what I'm kind of trying to get at with it. So let's just take life expectancy. Humans in, if you take with, say, Paleolithic times, or even just the Bronze Age.

Bronze Age is, I think it ended about 4,000 years ago, I think, right? Human life expectancy in the Bronze Age was 26 years of age. The average human lived to be 26. Okay, so that's... The bare human animal as we evolved were supposed to be 26. Today, in the developed world, the average life expectancy is, it varies between 70 and 90 years of age. So that's three times the life expectancy of what a human is supposed to live to.

Okay? Now why is this first off the biggest one is obviously infant mortality right humans are kind of strange in this in our natural state we say take it back to the bronze age infant mortality is very very high in the human animal. It's somewhere, I think it's about 50%. The reason being is when we're Homo sapiens, when Homo... No, I think it even goes back further than that. I think it's like even Homo erectus. But there was an evolutionary trade-off basically, right?

So in order for humans to be able to walk upright, it meant that our hips needed to be narrower, okay? Now, the reason upright walking was so important to early humans or hominids, you have to go back to Africa a couple of million years ago. So, Africa would have been grasslands and plains and the first hominids, our ancestors, that started standing upright, they had an immediate advantage because they were able to see over grass. If you've got these vast grasslands,

as well as that, the climate was changing at the time too so humans got out of Africa humans went on vast and there wasn't man I think it was a bottleneck of about nearly 2000 humans but humans anyway needed to get the fuck out and walking

upright wasn't as advantageous because you could see above vast plains of grass also our brains were developing massively the use of tools became essential to being a human when you're walking on two feet you've got a pair of hands to manipulate and play with tools if you're hopping around on all fours like a monkey you have to stop if you want to fuck with tools it just two feet is better for long distance exploration so this was a huge evolutionary advantage to humans but again like i said the trade-off was narrow our hips now the other thing too the one thing that sets humans

apart from all other creatures is gigantic brains okay our brains are ridiculously there's no no competition from any other animal regarding the size of brains okay all humans are essentially born premature like a giraffe comes out of the fucking womb and it's able to walk in a half an hour it takes six months for a human to be able to walk like humans are born premature humans are born completely fucking helpless with these massive heads so the human body isn't great at actually giving birth. And that's why, like I said, the natural state is an infant mortality rate of something like 50%. That was an evolutionary trade-off.

In the developed world, because of advances in technology, medicine, infant mortality has dropped by 70%, more or less. In the developing world, infant mortality rates are not as bad as Paleolithic times, but they're still absolutely terrible. The highest rates of infant mortality in the world today are in Afghanistan, the Congo, Somalia, Mali. So the Martians are looking at this one minority with a three times enhancement on the ability to live longer. And then a huge majority who don't have access to this enhancement.

What else is causing the small minority to be able to live to the enhanced age of three times longer than they were supposed to live? Well, kind of basic diseases that you and I completely take for granted. basic diseases that you and I completely take for granted. Diarrhea, do you know? Like, throughout human history, diarrhea is a killer, an absolute killer. It's severe dehydration that'll take you out in a week. Because of our, in developed countries are we take for granted that we have access to clean water which we do we can have clean water whenever we want we can hydrate ourselves

a dose of diarrhea for us is merely an inconvenience in parts of the developing world across Africa it's killing millions of people a year because they don't have access to sanitation and clean water so again that is an enhanced ability

that a small minority have access to clean water malaria malaria kills millions and millions of people in developed countries malaria isn't an issue we can either

protect against it easily with a prophylactic like tonic water or when malaria does hit there's drugs that can treat it but for the majority of humans on the Earth, as the Martians would see it, malaria is killing millions. Tuberculosis is another one that's unheard of,

practically unheard of in the West in the past 50 years, killing people all over the developing world. HIV, a relatively new disease, it's only 40, 50 years old. But HIV in a developed country is now a manageable disease. The treatment is incredibly expensive. It's often subsidised by governments,

but in Africa, HIV is killing millions. I believe the country Swaziland, I think, has the lowest life expectancy in the world because the levels of HIV are so high and there's no access to any treatment for it. So just these things that we consider to be absolute givens, you know, basics, clean drinking water, access to medication,

access to doctors, the ability to wash ourselves, the fact that we have sewage systems, the ability to wash our hands. All these small things that are just a given in existence for 99.9% of people in a developed country. These things are actually huge enhancements to our existence as human animals and they should be viewed as utter privileges because we are the minority and the majority billions of people in developing countries they don't have access to these things and that's reflected in the mortality rate and the life expectancy now here's the thing and you know the again to take it from the point of view of the Martians,

the Martians are looking at us, trying to figure out, right, what's the crack, what's the dynamic? Who are these small, that this small amount of enhanced, these humans that appear to be operating in an enhanced level, what's going on here? appear to be operating in an enhanced level what's going on here and what's the deal with the parasitic relationship that they have going on with the majority of humans who don't have access to these enhancements like i'm using the word developing countries a lot now i'm only using that word because that's what we have established to, when I say developing country, ye know what I mean. You know, or same with third world. You know what I'm talking about.

Afghanistan, Pakistan, fucking the majority of equatorial Africa, parts of South America. You know what I'm talking about there. But the term developing is even wrong because what it does is it suggests that like, okay, we're grand in our developed country with our sanitation and our water

and our healthcare. To say developing suggests that the developing world just needs to catch up and they'll be grand. That's the great lie. That's not the case. We have a parasitic relationship.

The reason that clean water, plumbing, sanitation, healthcare are a given for us in the first world is because of huge amounts of wealth and resources the wealth and resources of the developed world quote-unquote only exists because the that wealth and those resources have been mercilessly and continuously extracted and stolen from quote-unquote developed country or developing countries. Do you get me? So this developed developing is harsh shit. Realistically, there is no developing. Realistically, there is no developing.

These countries exist in a system where we parasitically steal and drain from them in order for us to have our enhanced human abilities. And that's what David Attenborough, the Martian, would be saying in his documentary. And that's the lie we're telling ourselves. They're never going to be developed, not under this system of gross inequality. If Martian David Attenborough was to ask, how did this come to be? The answer is simply colonialism, okay? the answer is simply colonialism okay the great European

colonizers right fucking Britain, France Spain, Portugal the Dutch they plundered Africa, South America, the Middle East throughout the

16th, 17th, 18th centuries and even though those colonies are now technically gone, right, that's just an illusion. The plundering and inequality that colonising achieved, that still exists. The resources are still being taken. The countries just have the illusion of being independent and half those countries aren't even real like like the middle east is just made up like the sykes pick out agreement of 1916 carved out half those fucking the territories between french and british. Same with Africa.

The colonisers decided what each country was called and what it is. That means nothing to the actual tribes and the people that were living there. It's a complete social construct. So over the last couple of hundred years, the vast majority of natural resources that allows the developed world to be so wealthy comes out of the continent of Africa right minerals ore chemicals mostly from Africa South America too absolutely stripped and continuing to be stripped of natural resources and in particular for pharmaceuticals that's what gives us our access to healthcare.

Middle East, of course, you've got your oil. And then in a contemporary sense, the likes of your Pakistan, parts of India, that's where a lot of the human resources come from so what martian david attenborough would say is that the quality of life that you and i in the one percent that we enjoy our enhanced humanity our warmth our long lives these things are incredibly expensive but we experience them as a given but they're actually incredibly

expensive that's why we're the 1% but the trick that our culture is playing on us is we don't actually see the value of it the expense is completely hidden from us the expense is on you know the expenses in africa the expense is in pakistan the expense is in fucking Chile or Honduras. Do you get me? We've hidden that expense from us.

So we're not actually saying that we're paying... A lot is being paid for our fucking enhanced humanity. Just we're not paying that bill. We're paying a tiny part of that bill. That bill is being paid by the people of these developing countries with their lives because we have a parasitic,

symbiotic relationship with those places. And I'm only talking about the basic stuff. Sanitation, health, stuff like that. I haven't even broached the subject of our luxury existence. Because again, that's what it is even if you're listening to this in a tiny little flat and you've trouble paying your rent you and i live a luxury existence we live as kings when it comes to the overall standard of the world

martian david attenborough is looking at you and sees you as royalty. Right now I can tell you, whether you know it or not, you and I and every member of the developed world, we each own between 60 and 70 slaves, okay? And I didn't pull that figure out of my arse. That is what human rights groups, when they look at all of the products that we consume in the developed world and what goes into making them, we each own between 60 and 70 slaves.

There are people in bonded labour in slavery so that you and I can simply exist do you eat chocolate? chances are if you eat chocolate you've got quite a few slaves working for you and I know there's certain chocolates

you can say that they're fair trade or whatever but the chocolate, the cocoa industry relies heavily upon slavery. The developed world's demand for chocolate is massive. Cocoa should be quite expensive. It isn't expensive. Why is it not expensive? Because slaves are used to harvest cocoa. Not expensive because slaves are used to harvest cocoa. Like Mali for instance. Families sell their children into slavery to cocoa plantations for like 30 quid. Now why is a family in Mali selling a child for 30 quid to make my chocolate bar? Because that family in Mali, what can they do with 30 quid to make my chocolate bar because that family in Mali what can they do with 30 quid 30 quid to them is like getting a mortgage they want 30 quid so that they can have access to

basic diarrhea medication that you and I take for granted we've spoken about electronics my smartphone my laptop you know something I went into deals and bought for 5 quid a fucking charger or something how does that work? the resources and the minerals the config minerals

that are required to make this piece of electronics they come out of artisan mines in usually around the Congo these are run by warlords they rely upon child slavery again

in order for the minerals to be extracted they rely upon child slavery so that the minerals can be cheap these minerals are then brought to China or to Bangladesh or to Pakistan they're manufactured into electronic products again using slaves in order for this to be done or to Pakistan they're manufactured into electronic products again using slaves

in order for this to be done and this exists so that the iPad or the smartphone or whatever the fuck that you and I buy is affordable so that it's under a grand because

if it was to be truly fair at all parts of the process, we probably wouldn't be able to buy our smartphone. Our smartphone probably should be prohibitively expensive, but it isn't. Do you own affordable high street clothing? We all do. A pair of jeans for 50 quid, a top for 20 quid. a pair of jeans for 50 quid a top for 20 quid

these are manufactured often in places like Bangladesh and Pakistan using slave labour why? so that we can own a jumper for 20 quid jumpers really shouldn't be 20 quid but they are

because of slave labour rubber the tyres on your car the soles on your fucking your runners a huge amount of rubber comes from Liberia Liberia is a country in Africa

with a problem with corruption rubber plantations use slave labour cheap food products that use palm oil which is a type of oil that's incredibly cheap why is palm oil cheap it's grown in like indonesia and sumatra and barneo massive amounts of forests are just stripped away palm oil is grown there again huge amounts of slave labor is used in extracting the palm oil

so that this vast quantities of it can be shipped to the developed world so that we can live a luxury lifestyle without actually being aware that we are living in luxury shrimp shellfish fuck ton of that comes from around Thailand Southeast Asia slave labour is used in the fishing industry so that we can have cheap shrimp and then aside from we'll say actual slave labour there's a load of products

completely unethical that we're not aware of that don't use slave labour but have massive detrimental and violent repercussions for communities in developing countries avocados

avocados shouldn't be as cheap as they are but they are a huge amount of avocados because avocados have exploded in the past 10 years you know because they became very popular as As a healthy food. But. A huge amount of avocados.

Come from Mexico. The. Mexican drug cartels. The same people that are fucking. Murdering. Destroying communities. Shipping cocaine around the world. They've got a huge foothold.

In the avocado industry they profit massively off it they burn down plantations so that avocados can be grown there to the point that in Mexico cities and regions have had to set up militias to protect themselves to protect the avocado industry

from drug cartels. Another product is quinoa. Quinoa is again a very hip, trendy, superfood as they call it. Quinoa is a staple food to people in Bolivia. The people of Bolivia have been eating quinoa for thousands of years, right? And their relationship with quinoa is kind of like the Irish's relationship with the potato in the 18th century. That's their staple food. Quinoa has a full amino acid profile. You can pretty much live on just quinoa and be grand the irish lived on just potatoes for many years and we were fine because it will give you all of your nutrients but quinoa started getting incredibly popular and in vogue in the past 15 years

so now the people of bolivia can no longer eat qua. All their quinoa is being exported. So that it can be sold to developed countries. They're now priced out of it. Because of demand. And. There's people left without food. Olive oil. You know.

Olives themselves I think are produced. Within the EU. Ethically. But the olive oil trade has been massively infiltrated by the mafia and 70 of the olive oil that we consume in supermarkets is counterfeit it's mixed with other oils but the same kind of the same lads that are counterfeiting the olive oil are the same people involved in human trafficking I could go on and on and on with a list of everyday products that we use

that are dripping in blood it is basically impossible to exist in a developed country That are dripping in blood. It is basically. Impossible. To exist. In a developed country. Fully ethically. You own 60 slaves. I own 60 slaves.

That's the way it is. And. Our society has us completely sanitized. To that knowledge. We don't know this, you know. You're probably listening to this podcast going, fuck off, are you talking out of your hoop, blind boy? I'm not.

We just, this is uncomfortable information. It's cognitive dissonance. If the developed world was a person, it'd be someone who's smoking loads of fags and then trying to eat healthy at the same time thinking it'll be grand our system exists because of huge massive inequality we are a parasite and that's how the martians would see us how does all this happen it's a system it's a complex system first off our culture

and our religion is consumerism since the past 150 years less maybe 100 years the culture of the developed world is to try and medicate any form of emotional discomfort

with purchasing things that's what drives this um it's enabled by corporations combined with corruption. So this idea of justice and this idea of fairness and equality, that too is a luxury illusion that developed countries get to have. Massive, massive corporations who are making our chocolate making our clothes making our electronic products these corporations they get to be ethical up until a certain point and then a certain point in the chain of production and then they reach a point where they just go i don't know so when it comes to where did you get the minerals for your laptop the company gets to go i don't know we spoke that we spoke to some lad who's uh he's he's like he's in congress in liberia he's a liberian politician we spoke to him and he told us that

these minerals were all right or we spoke to a dude in pakistan and the lad in pakistan said that you know he's not sure but he he told us that these clothes are fair trade so the corporations are ignorant up until a certain point and that's what enables this but the corporations know well otherwise they wouldn't be getting these things for so cheap they just can legally deny it within the laws of the developed world to allow this to continue happening and ultimately the only solution is that the current system, the current system can't operate. There's too much amenities that we have access to, that we consider to be a given. And these things, the true value of them they're very very expensive health care clean water sanitation a wardrobe full of clothes these things used to be

just something that kings had something that the nobility had you know in medieval times a king might have 10 pairs of pants or a lord would have 10 10 pairs of pants and that lord would have maybe 150 serfs who are essentially in servitude to that lord they were the ones growing the cotton or making the pants or doing whatever the fuck we've just taken that system of serfdom essentially but

made it so big that we can't see it unless you're an alien on Mars looking at us with a telescope so it would mean the developed world unless you're an alien on Mars looking at us with a telescope. So, it would mean the developed world having to really take a step back in our standard of living, in order for true equality to happen, I think. But ultimately as well, what I want to kind of get at,

because thus far, this is a very depressing podcast. It's the great conundrum. It makes you kind of go, what's the point in trying to be ethical? What's the point in social justice? What's the point in trying to be ethical. What's the point in social justice? What's the point in trying to improve things when merely existing as a member of the developed world requires me to have a parasitic relationship with between 60 and 70 people who I'll never meet? That's the fact. That's the actual

fact. A parasitic relationship with 60 incredibly poor people who have very low life expectancies and horrible lives that's the truth well yes you can strive to try and be ethical you can strive to try and find out if the products you're buying how ethical are they how unethical are they you can try and improve the world in the little way that you can, is that ultimately it comes down to a sense of personal meaning. That's why we do it. That's why... Like, the thing is with this podcast,

yes, it's shocking to hear all this shit, right this podcast yes it's shocking to find out, to hear all this shit right yes it is shocking but let's be honest it's not really it's not really we've all grown up with images of Africa

on the television, images of Bangladesh we know that there is this other part of the world with unbelievable poverty and we have been conditioned from a young age by the media to not really give a fuck. That's what we've been conditioned. So it's not really that shocking to find this out.

We know it. It's just not nice when the mirror is held right up and you go, no, that's the reality. So support fair trade products do decent research educate other people but absolutely take a sense you can take a sense of personal meaning for the quality of your own life knowing that at least you're trying, do you get me? and I'm not on a fucking high horse

with this shit too I've blood all over my hands you know the very Jesus, recording this podcast putting it out through the channels that I'm putting it out on we're all complicit in this I don't know how to avoid it

so I'm not on any high horse I'm not judging anyone we are all equally complicit in this system and I think it's no harm too for us to acknowledge every single day acknowledge that you we exist as enhanced human beings Every single day. Acknowledge. That.

You. We exist. As enhanced human beings. We exist as human beings. Who have special. Privileged access. To enhancements. That allow us.

To live long. Healthy lives. And that these enhancements exist. Off the back of a parasitic relationship and i think to be reminding ourselves of that every day it's the type of it's the type of humbling thought that will at the very, inspire us each individually to try and be some type of change as best we can. Do you get me? Fucking hell.

Anyway, I did not plan for the podcast to be this grim. It, uh... How the fuck did I even arrive at this? I was talking about helping a pair of cats and trying to find personal meaning in the fact that I was doing something good for another creature but then reflecting on the fact that even by being sound to a pair of cats

my actions of that day required 60 slaves fucking hell so it's time for the ocarina pause 50 minutes in for a fucking ocarina pause alright I have managed to the ocarina was stuck to the bottom of my chair it's not anymore I have it in my hand this is the bit where an advert may play

it may not play but i'm gonna play for you my delicious ocarina will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever join the sunrise challenge to raise funds for cam age the center for addiction and Mental Health to support life-saving progress in mental health care. From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone. Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind.

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you don't have to everyone gets the exact same podcast some people like to become patrons some people don't if you everyone gets the exact same podcast some people like to become patrons some people don't if you do become a patron there's other people who'd like to become patrons but they just don't have the price of a pint a month when you become a patron you pay for that person to listen it's a kind of a fair model i find so anyway I will now answer a couple of your questions and then fuck off

David McNaboo asks what is your opinion on Banksy Banksy is interesting Banksy is if you don't know he's that artist that does he'd be most famous for stencil art Banksy is interesting

when Banksy first started producing art, like his public art in the 90s, it was really cutting edge and relevant because it was being made at a time when social media wasn't really a thing. So the whole thing about art is that scarcity can make it valuable. So if Banksy put up kind of an artwork on the side of a building in London, you know, a journalist might take photographs of it, it might make it onto the paper, and its lifespan would exist longer, it would become a conversational point. But social media has completely devalued what Banksy does Banksy essentially was just making memes before memes were a thing and the where Banksy kind of I don't want to say falls down his work is very binary it's

it kind of when you see his work he he operates on he uses the language of advertising he started off using the language of advertising to use public spaces where advert advertisement should be to subversively question reality and inequality like the subject of this podcast you know sweatshop slavery stuff like that Banksy would make work that would try and highlight that in a space where advertising should exist and he would do it in a very simple binary way where you'd look at a Banksy work and you'd go oh fuck that's clever and then you'd walk away from it and it'd make you think but that there's not many layers of meaning behind a lot of Banksy work it's immediate it's effective and it uses the subversive language of advertising to communicate but the problem with that is

there's been so many Banksy rip-offs in the form of memes, internet-only memes, that this continued and repeated copying of his style has devalued the original work. So now, context has changed so much that Banksy itself has become kind of, his work is a little bit cringy now. And it's not the fault of the work it's just that culture has moved on we've moved on now to deeper levels of irony to post ironic stuff

and his irony is very binary and it no longer operates effectively in the cultural context of now so there's a bang of cringe off it but it's not really his fault someone asks what do you think of americans look americans are just human beings same as uh same as myself uh the one thing i find strange

about america is that america is unquestably, like this developed world business that I was talking about for the majority of this podcast, the foundations of this developed world were set up by the old empires of Europe, but that power was handed over to America. So America is the leader of the developed world. America sets the tone for kind of values and certainly culture.

We look towards America for leadership, whether we like it or not, cultural leadership. And what I find so ironic about that is that even though America sets the cultural tone, when I'm in America, I've never experienced such intense culture shock. I don't understand the relationship with guns. I have no frame of reference for the gun thing. The levels of poverty and inequality are utterly shocking.

America itself is a culture shock and i just find it strange considering that it's the main exporter of culture all right that was the last question um go and have an enjoyable week i hope i didn't hope i didn't bring you down with the theme of this week's podcast, but you have to analyse and look at these things. You have to question these things. Here's the thing. These are very dark, very dark themes. I'll tell you why this podcast was so dark this week and why it made me uncomfortable.

It's because I'm reading out a very long list of complaints a very long list of very serious complaints and ultimately i have no fucking solution you know i mean the best i can do is to say that even though there is massive inequality and all of this you can still find personal meaning. I think that's fair enough, okay? Like, suffering and pain, these are inevitable parts of the human experience. We don't have to be self-flagellating. Even though there is so much pain and inequality in the world,

that doesn't mean that we have to shamefully self-flagellate or that we should not have a reasonable quality of existence. It doesn't mean that we should stick our head in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist, but put it this way. but put it this way how can you or i be any good or how can we be effective in trying to enact change if all we're doing is wallowing in a pitiful self-flagellation every one of us is entitled to happiness that that that is an entitlement i believe to have happiness and a quality of life and a sense of meaning to simply exist even though everything around you might be on fire but if you're not having if you don't have a sense of meaning a sense of purpose and a sense of personal happiness then then you can't even begin to try and put the fire out, is what I'm saying.

It's pointless. Wallowing in a guilt or a shame or self-flagellating, it doesn't improve the source of that pain one bit. It's just an unhealthy level of guilt. So. Find your personal meaning. Find your happiness. Despite. The pain.

And inevitable suffering of the world. And once you find that peace and happiness. Then you can effectively. See what you can do in your own life. To try and live. More ethically. Or more equality okay but

just this idea that the world is terrible and must be sad says who? who made up that rule? do you know? it doesn't have to be like that either alright God bless go fuck yourselves have an enjoyable week Thank you. rock city you're the best fans in the league, bar none. Tickets are on sale now for Fan Appreciation Night on Saturday, April 13th when the Toronto Rock hosts the Rochester Nighthawks at First Ontario Centre

in Hamilton at 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com.