The Chaser Report - Is The World F*cked? | CHASER TALKBACK

Episode Date: August 13, 2023

We are very pleased to unveil our first ever CHASER REPORT TALKBACK SHOW! Thank you to all those who tuned in at 3pm last Thursday to inform Charles and Dom on why the world is/isn't fucked. Stay tuned for future Talkback times! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigall Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. You know, if there's one thing podcasting just doesn't have enough of, it's talk back. And so today, we're trying an experiment. We put out the call on our social media, people to ring in to a Zoom call on Thursday afternoon between 3 and 4 p.m. to chat about a very important question. is the world fucked, a topic that's come up quite a bit in the podcast in recent weeks.

Surprisingly enough, quite a few people jumped on the call to share their thoughts. Here's an edited version of some of the highlights of what you had to say about the fuckness or otherwise of the world. By the way, for those who pay for subscriptions, just four bucks a month, we've got a full unedited version of the conversation. Check that out if you're a subscriber. Otherwise, the regular version is after this. Hello, Shane. You're on air with the Chaser report. How are you?

Great. Very good. Thanks, Charles and Dom. Welcome. Our first caller for this bizarre talkback via Zoom experiment. Have you been on talkback radio before? I think I might have spoken to Ray Hadley in the past. Oh, do you want us to say something incredibly racist? Would that help? It would make me feel more comfortable, for sure. Oh, someone's got a phone call in the background. So Shane, the topic today, what was their topic? I can't remember that. Is everything fucked?

Is everything fucked? What's your perspective on that? I would agree with what you guys say. I think things are pretty fucked. In your own life, Shane, are there any examples for or against the notion that everything is terrible? I'm pretty much the same age as you, gentlemen. And same thing. Home ownership is, you know, seemingly out of reach for people of our generation, a lot of us.

And so people younger than us, I've got kids. And it's pretty hard to imagine that they are going to be able to, you know, climb out of this hole that the vast majority of us find ourselves in? Have you thought of moving somewhere terrible? Well, funny you said, I last year moved from Sydney up to Queensland. There you go. That's not all the way terrible. That's only a couple of degrees.

Yeah, yeah. Like, Sammy Shah, our good friend, when he migrated to Australia from Pakistan, he had to go and live in a place called Northern. Yeah. Which is rural, western Australia. Yeah. Amazingly, he's stuck with living in Australia. I think due to the relative lack of bombings.

But other than that, I mean, you could go to northern, Shane. I hear it. Sammy pretends it's very nice. No, I think I'll stick with the Gold Coast where I currently am. The Gold Coast. You can't play about the Gold Coast? Don't you just live in a sort of constant haze of strippers and partying? Isn't that what the Gold Coast?

I'd never been there. It's a big area. It covers a lot of space. So it's not all surface paradise, but, yeah, the Gold Coast. The weather's much nicer up here. I haven't had a much nicer winter experience than my last 40 winters in Sydney. That's good. Well, we'll get to everyone else who's waiting on the call, by the way, in a few moments.

Welcome to the talk back. We're pleasantly surprised it. So many of you are willing to take part in this. So, Shane, if we did a live show at the Gold Coast, let's say we wanted the full Gold Coast experience, including potentially being mugged and waking up in a gutter, having taken some bizarre substances. Talk us through the night.

Where would we go? What would our itiner be? I've only been up here less than a year, but so far, Southport seems to be the place that bill. All right. Okay. So is that where we should start the night? Start the podcast. And then do we slip sort of drugs into everyone's drinks on arrival?

How do we, how does it work? I think that's probably going to already happen, I think. Probably a lot like the sort of rap that the Central Coast has, the same sort of vibe. Wow, the Sene Coast with skyscrapers, that's quite a, it's quite a heady brew thing there. Do they still have, I remember reading about the meter maids and being astonished that that actually was a thing in Australia in not just 2022, but actually in, you know, the 2000s at all. I think women on Roller Skates who put money in your parking meter for you, is that still a thing on the gold card? At surface? No, the parking meters, the parking meters are all just pay with your phone or tap and go now.

so they don't accept the metermaid's coins anymore. Well, see, that's the real reason why the world is so fucked. Yeah, demeaning jobs for women of just disappearing left, right and centre. Ah. All right, well, Shane, I think by reinventing your life to end up on the Gold Coast, it's a pretty solid vote for everything being fucked. Thank you for joining us. Feel free to stick around on mute.

Yes. Now, next up, I think we have A Parker. A. Parker, welcome. Hello, hello. Nice to finally chat. Welcome. The question we're asking, this is really scientific research, isn't it, is everything fucked? Yes or no, and please justify.

A lot of people who have emailed us about this, and there have been quite a few now, have cited academic references, which is, I mean, impressive, but also, have they not heard the podcast? We've no, we don't do academic references here. Half-baked opinions is more our style. What do you think? Yeah, I have to agree. Yep, it's fucked. I'm about the same edge as you guys. Again.

Again, no, yeah, this is... This is turning into a support group. I'm here for that. I think that's great. What in your life makes you say that that's the case? I'm unfortunate enough to run a small business in just slightly south of Sydney. And it has been a bad time. But I don't have...

I'm not working on one side. The ice is melting. Do you, in your business, do you sell terrible merchandise that no one wants to buy? I haven't like any avocado lounges yet. I love it. Everyone knows that this exists. Like the awareness of the avocado pool toy is enormous. You think that, you know, with awareness would come sales.

No, I don't know. I think with awareness comes understanding of why they don't sell. What's your business? Do you get, yeah, do you get the impression that it's, we're heading into a recession? Like, has your business sort of gone off the, you know? Yeah, yeah. I mean, we sell burgers and beers. and um the most resistant surely the most resistant product usually possible yeah i would

have thought so but uh there's there's less and less around at the moment i guess now if we're on the a bc we wouldn't if we're on the abc we would ask you not to plug your own business but this is podcasting uh we've got about what six other people listening do you want to plug you maybe people can go go down and help you out well i actually i think uh at least one of you has actually been to this business. There might have been an ABC afternoon party with Robbie Buck and Wendy Harmon that one of you attended at the Hive Bar a couple of years ago. Oh, the Hive Bar, I've been.

I love the Hive Bar. That was wonderful. Don't tell me what the Hive Bar is doing. If the Hive Bar is not making money, then we're all doomed in Erskineville. That's brilliant. I love the Hive Bar. Oh, excellent. Well, tell all your friends.

Bring him down. During the darkest days of lockdown, I think I had to go to ECHO with my pet or something. And I got a burger through the window of your bar, and it honestly made my week. It was the only human contact I had other than with the vet about my dog vomiting everywhere. And it was a brief moment of just actual happiness in a shit month and a shit year. Well, that's good. Maybe things aren't as far. No, no, they are.

No, they really are. And actually, Dom being made happy makes the world even fucker, really, if you think about it. Thank you, Charles. All right. So there you go. Well, I can endorse the Hyver Bar. It's very, very nice. And we will come down.

I'll do my beer and I'll buy more beer from now on. I mean, selling beers and burgers, if that's not happening, we may as well make Peter Dutton Prime Minister now. Mind you, burgers are made of cow and cow is one of the three major emitters of carbon in the world. So in some ways, you are the reason the world is fucked. This could be true. You can always hook into a vegan burger as well. We'll share it around. Yeah, but no one actually buys.

Oh, no, this was Ursquitville, yeah. Are we in such dire straits as a planet that we have to have vegan burgers? Yeah, that's the way the world's fucked. All right. Vegan food. Fucked if you do, fucked if you don't. That's the truth of it. Thank you for joining us.

Who's next? I think, Daniel. Good afternoon, Charles Dom. How are we? Hello, welcome. Hello, Daniel. What do you think? Facked or not fucked?

The world. This is the most one-sided debate I can remember. Daniel, why do you think the world is fucked? Or is the world fucked? Oh, it's absolutely fucked. Yeah, right. And why? You know why?

We've got to be optimistic. The world's not fucked. I think we're fucked. I let's be honest. The world survived the dinosaurs. Yes. Dinosaurs were fucked. But the world's still around.

Yeah, those dinosaurs were assholes, were they? Absolute assholes. I'm glad they got extended. But I think this is what I was trying to incoherently say the other day, which is we have now reached the Anthropocene, right? where our own actions are the only way to, like, for every action that we make on the planet, like we're now completely in charge.

Yeah, like the only way, yeah, we broke it. And everything is dependent on us sort of continuing, right? But that's actually better than, that's a reason to be optimistic, because unlike the dinosaurs who had little tiny hands and couldn't do anything with their hands, We've got four limbs that actually work and brains that can come up with technology. Like nuclear weapons.

Maybe the boy and he's... The only problem I see there is Donald Trump is potentially going to be the next president of America. And he's got really tiny. He's got really tiny hands on the dinosaur. He's a dinosaur. Listen, if the tiny hands people are in charge, like, well, we're going to have some problems. Well, you know the only person who can save us from that. There's only one man who can save us.

It's King Charles with the sausage fingers. Biggest hands on the planet. He's a man. There's a guy in Indonesia who's got extraordinarily large hands and feet for his body. He's like 5 foot 6 and he's got 17 inch feet. I thought you were talking about tree man. Do you remember tree man? I don't remember tree man.

There was an extremely insensitive song about Tree Man on the Chaser Live show. Our only hope might be genetically modifying as humans. So we end up like those sausage finger world from everything everywhere all at once. And that way, maybe that way. Our hands are big enough to actually control our own destiny and, you know, make sure we're not proper fuck. That's true. Our future is literally in our hands. Evolution is the solution here.

Gills are the thing we're going to need when the entire planet, every part of the Earth's landmass goes underwater. As long as we have gills will be fine. I think Kevin Costner's water world is going to look eerily prescient very soon. All we need is a titanium submersible. You said we've got to be optimistic. Can you give us any optimist? No, not of optimism at all, really. Can you think of anything that we should be optimistic about?

Well, listen, I think the big, I've just recently heard that there's been an announcement that Alba is meeting Biden. So, you know, once those two geniuses butt their heads together, I'm sure they'll solve all the world's problem. Heavy-handed sarcasm is very good. You should do the official introduction. Here's Biden and Albo.

The people we've charged with fixing everything. Go, you good. thing. Listen, I guess there's things to be optimistic about. You know, I think, as he said, you know, maybe we're in charge of our own destiny. We're just going to have to kind of create some kind of solution where we can unfuck the world. But however we've managed to do that, it's because we've completely fucked it.

We're just going to have to have these islands of refugees where humans can't go so we can preserve the world, but we can't go there. Oh, okay. Actually, that's true. The whole first world should simply not. be able to go. So anyone, if you're from Kiribati or something and we've basically destroyed your home, you should get a second shot that we don't get. I think that's more than reasonable. You know, if we could get to North Sentinel Island, I'm sure they'll give us the solution to our

problems. Yes. Yes. That's exactly the way to do it. You just, well, because actually, if you look at the history of people fucking things up, the way it works is all the men run things for decades, and then they put a woman in charge to solve all the problems. So maybe that's the, maybe we just need a woman. And then they just get rid of her off to two years. Yeah. Let's bring back Merkel or Arden. Oh, yeah.

I thank you very much, Daniel. For your insight. There, boy. On the talk back. Keep up a good way. Thanks for being with us. None of the medical advice contained in the Chaser report should legally be considered medical advice.

The Chaser Report. This is fun. Someone's texted in that they, they prefer texting Charles directly to his mobile phone, a far sillier solution. Yes, I think that's a good idea. I want to text me direct my phone. It's 0419-282-188. And that means you can do side comments that Dom can't see.

Oh, fantastic, right. Nah, to place the blame on them and they fail to clean up their mess. Okay. Oh, that's a good idea, yes. Let's go to JT. That's JT. Unmute, please. Unmute yourself.

I really like this idea. So what you're saying is. even though, you know, like the carbon footprint of somebody living in New York is, I think, something like 99 times larger than the carbon footprint of somebody living in Kenya or, you know, something like that. And so what you're saying is that we blame the people who weren't responsible anyway, like when it all full-time. I mean, I know you're being sarcastic, but that's actually definitely what's going to happen.

It's definitely what's going to happen. J-T, welcome. Apputations. Hello. Good to have you on board. So is that your solution? Actually, I was referring to what you said about having a woman in charge because it's a known phenomenon where they will bring in a female CEO.

Yes. So that they attempt to clean up the previous male CEO's mess. And then when they inevitably fail to do so, they get blamed and fired. I love it. Unceremoniously. But I actually do agree with what you just said as well. That is also something that I struggle with, you know, being a radical lefty myself. And radicals, enrequé, because.

obviously in the US, the political spectrum is so fucked up and skewed that the most basic moderate is seen as a radical. But anyway, that's another tangent. We're due to a female president of the United States, surely at this point, rather than Trump or Biden, to then somehow get impeached halfway through and kicked out. Just after two years of solid cleaning things up, they'd be the first person to actually removed from office through the impeachment process. Who are the leading women? I mean, there are no, as far as I can think of, female kind of moment. All the women...

Nikki Haley's the only one. All the women... I can think of. All the women are under 80, so they're not really... Oh, they're not eligible. Yeah, maybe Diane Feinstein. Well, that's quite disappointing. I mean, Warren turned out to be quite hawkish and AOC is also problematic for a number of reasons.

So I'm... Oh, really? Is AOC cancelled? What did I... Did AOC work on Lizzo's tour? Is that what happened? No, I remember reading a while back. There were a couple things that troubled me.

First off, that she had suddenly stopped. helping to campaign for more progressive candidates. She clearly had had some kind of conversation with the establishmentarian Democrats and she was being told to kind of like hold off. I personally have theorized that they may have promised her like a senatorial or presidential run down the line. They got to her.

She's keeping her mouth shut now. They got to I.C. But the other thing is also at one of the previous Met Gala, there was someone who designed her, I think, underwhelming dress. The one that said tax the rich on the back. Yeah. And that person was, like, in all sorts of weird legal trouble for not paying her employees.

Was it made in a sweatshop? Are you telling me that the taxed the rich stress was made in a sweatshop? Wow. It was just something like who was just in a lot of debt and she was known for, like, creating some kind of, like, toxic workplace. Like, people weren't getting their paychecks or whatever. I don't remember the exact details. But if you want, I can Google it later when I'm more awake. We can.

It's almost 1.30 here. All I'm going to say is we don't know that Liz is we don't know that Liz is. I wasn't involved. Anyway, where are you, J-T? Oh, I'm in New York. Oh, wow. International guest. Yes. See, this is a global phenomenon. Okay. But I do not want an avocado pool toy. How did you...

Why are you here? How possibly did you know about this? Oh, I've had a huge fan of the Chaseers since college. I love you guys. We were in Australia for college or something, or did you somehow stumble upon us through the... Oh, no. Although I did actually consider doing an underwater archaeology program in Australia briefly. But anyway, no, I just, well, you remember, like, before they were required by Google, YouTube was practically the fucking Wild West.

So I just, I'm a massive British comedy fan, so it was just a natural progression. Well, I mean, give it 10 years and I think all archaeology in the South of Hemisphere will be underwater. So, that's so exciting to have someone from the States. Excellent. There you go. You should be president, J.T. You should be the president. Why don't you run?

Are you 35 yet? Well, I actually am just old enough now because the minimum age of. I believe's 35. I'm 36 now. So technically I do qualify. But I also hate politicians. And I also think that... You're with the most Americans on that.

You could be the Trump of the Democrats. Oh, God. Oh, don't say that. That's disgusting. All right. Jake, what a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for... Why aren't you myself?

That way. Thank you for being... No, we're very grateful. We're baffled, but grateful. Our one American listener has now become a non-listening. Thank you very much. That's very entertaining. Who was next?

I think Ari might be the next person. Hello. Hello. Welcome. Thank you. It's an honor to be here. So you're drinking Coke Zero, according to the chat. Like me.

I'm sorry. It's my coffee break, but it's actually a Coke Zero break. I'm just mainlining something to stay awake here. We didn't actually ask JT's vote on the world being fucked, but it sounded like a yes to me. We're trying to definitively determine whether the world is fucked or not. But the one solution, just to key you in, the one solution that we've come up with so is to put a woman in charge

and blame it on her. So do you agree with that? Okay, excellent. I sacrifice myself as tribute. Very good. Very good. What would you like to run? God. We have no influence, but we can try. Yeah, we'll put it word in.

I guess I'll be the prime ministeress and I will lead Australia to I guess we will suck up to everybody in the surrounding area and we will beg for them to let survive. We will just, yeah. That is actually a more coherent

strategy than we've got at the moment as a nation. It's been submarines, I think. It's best if we lay down like a doormat and allow people to walk all over us because that way we kind of survive and they're not thinking of us as a threat, but we are still present. That is actually, in the Second World War,

that is actually what the then Prime Minister Robert Menzies proposed, which was the Brisbane line. Oh, yes. Because the Japanese were invading Darwin and his whole strategy, because he wanted to send troops over to France to help defend England and, you know, the allies, didn't really care about his own country. So he proposed that they just seed everything north of Brisbane to the Japanese because there wasn't really anything worth anything up there. I mean, imagine how much

plan that is. Imagine how much development there would have been. There'd be so much more. Darwin would be a megalopolis by now. And they'd have those really good toilets. And the trains would be fast and on time. Oh my gosh. Imagine, yeah.

That's true. A working public transport system. Yes. It's all I've asked for. What a missed opportunity. We can only dream. So should we call this the Gillard principle? The idea of putting in a woman.

Because it used to happen with premieres. I remember, well, actually, put women in to fix things. I think Christina Kenealy was the end of that model, but until that point. unfortunately. Somebody in the chat has posted a link to, Andrew, I think, in the chat has just posted a link to a Wikipedia entry called the Glass Cliff, is what it's called. And it's a hypothesized

phenomenon of women being likely than men to achieve leadership roles, such as executives or, you know, political elections during periods of crisis or downturn when the risk of failure is highest. It's the Glass Cliff. Charles, have you not put a war? woman in charge of the chaser. I wear decades beyond that being. So I'd only recently discovered the women exist. So, yeah. Well, I'm just, it's so special that I could be one of the first women you speak to.

Yeah, this is an amazing moment for Charles. So, Ari, do you have a solution? Apart from begging for our lives and protection from others and taking no meaningful, proactive action ourselves. No, unfortunately not at this time. Okay. Can we have a T-shirt that says not my fault? Oh, absolutely.

That will be your first job as Pride. Oh, that is your catchphrase. Actually, that's amazing. That's an amazing. I've been called out numerous times. For any. You must be really good at relationships. Oh, clearly.

For any female campaign, just we didn't do it. It was the men. Oh, that's just true. Yeah. I like it. All right. Ari, thank you very much. Oh, no, thank you.

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