TRIGGERnometry - Konstantin Kisin Defends Joe Rogan, TRIGGERnometry & Alt Media

Episode Date: October 21, 2022

Konstantin's appearance on the 'Decoding the Gurus' podcast. Aired 16th October 2022. Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: https://www.subscribestar.com/trigger... https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ | Channel ID: UCo_8zzSxKeL3arKWVuP8wdQ Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/​​​ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/sign-up/​​​ Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media: https://twitter.com/triggerpod​​​ https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod​​​ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod​​​ About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Okay, so today with us we have Constantine Kissen from the Trigonometry podcast. So podcast host and comedian, I guess Constantine is an accurate description as of now. I haven't done stand-up since the pandemic started. So a comedian in retirement or on a break or whatever it is. I still write a lot of satirical stuff. So I sort of think of myself more as a satirist. But yeah, you're right about my background, podcast, a comedian, satirist, whatever you want. Yes.

And I think you're biased in England, right? That sounds threatening. That sounds threatening in your accent. But yes, it's like I confess guilty. Yeah, I lived in London for, I guess, about 10 years. So I'm familiar with that neck of the world. but not based there now. So Constantine kindly agreed to come on

because I think we talked a while back about potentially having a discussion about areas that we might agree or disagree on. And then I listened to your recent appearance on Joe Rogan and some of the same issues that I thought would be useful to discuss came up and you kindly agreed to. And broadly speaking, I would say, I don't know how familiar you are with our podcast,

but we tend to focus on online gurus or secular gurus. So this is people that fall into the Jordan Peterson, Nasim Pala. We've also done Abram Kendi and who's that guy that we, the science writer Matt, that we like. You're here. Not like I was going to say, I was going to say, No, not Elrole of I've got to say you guys treat your guests with a lot of respect.

I love it. Yeah, well, so just to highlight that we do try to range widely across the guru's fear as it exists, but we do have a tendency to focus on the kind of IDW

heterodox fear, in part because that's where a lot of the most dramatic bombastic style gurus are, the Weinstein's, for example. But in any case, one of the things that we've come across quite often is that people within the heterodox sphere tend to see a much bigger concern emanating from the mainstream institutions and mainstream media sources and to have less of a concern about the kind of alternative ecosystems and guru figures that we talk about.

So I thought it might be good to talk about the relative problems in each of the spheres and where you might disagree with our emphasis and we might disagree with yours. So maybe it would be useful just to start if you kind of outlined where you're coming from or where you see your position being, you know, in the online discourse or commentary space or whatever you want to call it. It's a very big and open question, I suppose. So the way I self-identify is a kind of enlightened centrist. I don't, I'm not interested in partisanship or party politics at all.

In fact, I can't really understand people who are party political. It boggles my mind. It's like, why? could wed yourself permanently to one side of the political spectrum in hugely varying circumstances. I find strange that people are willing to do that. I'm certainly a fierce critic of a lot of the mainstream institutions and the direction they've taken.

I hope that that hasn't prevented me from being an equally fierce critic of where the old media is going wrong and the war in Ukraine and the way some of the supposedly heterosexual People are covering that is something I've been calling out from the moment that it started because that is an issue I understand pretty well being half Russian, half Ukrainian, having grown up in both countries, etc. So when I see people going off the deep end on that issue, I haven't been shy by calling that out. But yes, I guess that's my position. I see myself as being somewhere in the center looking at both extremes and going, you're both crazy. In terms of the mainstream and the old media, I mentioned, you know, some of the areas where I think the old media can go wrong.

I do think you have to be careful when you're comparing institutions or systems of communicating information. I'm going to sound very woke here, but it's kind of like stupidity plus power. Like if a guy on a YouTube channel with 30 followers is saying something really stupid, I'm less concerned about that than I am about a mainstream publication saying something equally stupid because the reach is bigger. And so I do think the mainstream media, which for the moment still has a much bigger reach and therefore more influence should be subject to more scrutiny.

But apart from that, I don't know if that gives you enough to start sticking pins in me. Yeah. Yeah, so I know, for example, that you had run-ins with James Lindsay over Ukraine before his ignoble exit from Twitter discourse. And I think in general, you have been in the trenches over the Ukrainian conflict. Even actually on the Rogan appearance, I noted that, you know, he was more skeptical about the validity of sending arms to support Ukraine. American involvement and you push back, which I think is due credit. So I guess from what you said, the value of like being able to criticize people on both sides of the political spectrum, and including people that might agree with you, is something that

you would seem to regard as like an important value, right? Well, Ukraine is just the latest example. So I've been very clear, for example, that even though because of some of the people that I've interviewed, there are a lot of people that think I'm massively on the Trump trend. And I have friends who are big Trump supporters. I'm good friends with someone who used to work for Donald Trump at a high level. But I'm very clear that what I was very clear on January the 7th, on the morning of January the 7th, when appearing on the Lotus Eater's podcast with Francis, that I thought what happened,

that it was a complete abomination and completely wrong to the, let's just say, dissatisfaction of many of the people in his audience. So I'm not really ever hesitant to criticize either side when they're doing something wrong. I just see that the threat from the, I don't like the word woke anymore because it was, first it was co-opted and now it's been re-coopted. But the threat from the progressive left, particularly in the re-whole, action it will trigger from the right is to me a far bigger, far bigger concern than some of the other stuff. So that's why I've been a vocal critic of that because I think it's very, very

dangerous. Yeah. So I guess one of the points that I would read is that whenever I listen, and we listen to a lot of content where people are being critical about the institutions or the kind of social justice left or progressive left or however you want to frame it. And one thing that often seems to go unmentioned in those conversations is, first of all, that there is a very large receptive audience for critiques of those mainstream positions and of social progressivism on the right. And those tend to be not what you're talking about with like small YouTube channels. You have huge media entities.

You have national newspapers and you have like channels dedicated to pumping out right wing takes. And I often see that if it is recognized, like just kind of gesture that that there is right wing media. But the right wing media is like a huge ecosystem. And in terms of disinformation or, you know, kind of pumping out partisan rhetoric, it seems equally, if not much more guilty than the left-wing media ecosystems. You know, if you're looking at Breitbart or the Epoch Times or the Fox News, there's definitely a very strong tolerance there for partisan positions. So I wonder in those terms, I rarely see that, like on Joe Rogan, that's very rarely discussed, for example.

And do you think that is a case of there being just more of a focus on the issues of the left? Or why does the right-wing ecosystem tend to get a pass in heterodox spaces? I don't think that it gets a pass. I just think to liberal people like me and Joe, the idea that Fox News is full of bullshit and his right wing propaganda is taken as given. I've been on Fox News once, I think. I don't consider it to be an objective source of information, just like I don't consider CNN to be an objective source of information.

However, when you talk about the ecosystems being equal, I wouldn't agree with that. I mean, look at, so I went on Twitter this morning, and I saw a tweet from Joe Biden talking about how he was basically criticizing the right, but what he was saying is we have a situation where, people either, if there's an election, either they win or they believe that the election was stolen. And this is treated as a perfectly reasonable thing for Joe Biden to say, even though it's very clear that the mainstream media spent four years after the election of Donald Trump in 2016,

lying endlessly about his election, the reasons for his election, claiming it was Russia collusion, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia to the point where at the time even I believed it. And one of my reasons for being so disenchanted with the mainstream is how much they've been lying to us. So, but nonetheless, Joe Biden can go out and say that and no one is going to flag up his tweet for misinformation in the way that they would do with someone on the right if they tweeted something like this. So I think the idea that there's an equal and opposite echo chamber is untrue. I think the number of outlets and how seriously they're taken by the ordinary person is completely different.

If I was to give an ormy friend of mine, quote, unquote, an article from Fox News, the way they would treat that would be very different to an article from the Guardian. Even though in my experience, they're both equally frequently, equally as inaccurate as each other. And in some cases, the Guardian is more inaccurate and the bullshit that they're peddling is worse. And so I think that to present these as equally significant is inaccurate, in my opinion. So in that case, Constantine, like one thing I'd push back on, though, I listened to Rogan's podcast, and we've covered him in a couple of episodes. And it's not accurate to kind of present Joe as having just a complete wide variety of perspectives in terms of political takes. Generally speaking, he tends to be more in line in modern terms with the right way. positions like the conservative right I mean the politicians that he is in favor of are like

desantis and ternie sanders um but if bernie sanders joe said that he would possibly vote for him in the primary and then when it was presented as an endorsement he himself clarified he wasn't endorsing just saying he liked bernie but but he had bernie sanders on the show and he had cornell west on the show who's a radical leftist professor. I'm not, by the way, I wouldn't claim that Joe's show is entirely politically balanced. No show can be.

And I am not pretending that Joe is a left winger. I think by the current conception in the current climate, I think he would be sent to right on most of his politics. Although I actually, I think I pissed him off a lot

by saying that open borders is a really stupid idea. I heard him later talking about how maybe it's a good idea. So I don't know what his take is on that. But I don't think presenting him, as conservative is at all the correct way of presenting his views. Yeah, I think that probably Matt and I have a slightly different perspective.

I would agree with you. There are various issues where, you know, like people are complex. They have, you know, different takes on Joe has a famous clip where he took the urban the task about the need for regulation, right? And Candice Owens on green stuff and others. Joe is someone who seeks the truth and he's willing to challenge people when he disagrees. So granted, you know, no person, there are exceptions, but like not an outright polemicist, but I think if you take a look at Joe's content over time, and especially during

the COVID period, it's heavily leans towards the right-wing narrative. And not lightly so, because we covered his episodes with Robert McCulloch and Peter, sorry, Peter McCulloch and Robert Malone. And the level of kind of endorsement of conspiracyism around COVID, it wasn't a light asking questions. It was not too far from Majid Nawas. And those figures were introducing that the pandemic had been planned by the authorities that the amount of deaths were being covered up,

that people with bullet wounds of the head were being counted so doctors could profit, that no doctors were interested in curing the disease and so on. And these were quite extreme positions. And then Joe made it clear on that that he saw it as his duty to kind of promote these people that were being silenced. And that to me is not taking, you know, I'm just going to see both sides and ask, because when Joe had on figures that were pro-vaccine and there was much less of them, but when he did have them on, it was a grilling of, you know, taking them to task.

And that is not what happened with the people who were anti-vaccines. So I know that's a specific example, but I think that Joe and all the figures in the heterodox spheres have a tendency to retreat to. We're just asking questions and having it to be it when the reality is more advancing a specific narrative. And often that narrative is on the right. And it's, I actually think it's perfectly fine. for that to be the case, but just it feels like it should be acknowledged more than it is.

So I agree with you on a lot of what you said, and I disagree on some of what you said. So what I agree with you is, I do think when we had the peak of lockdown and vaccine enforcement and talk about mandates and all of this stuff, I do think during that period, the people that Joe had on and the way that he talked to them, he accurately described in that it was more to one side than the other and the way that guests from one side were treated was different to the guests from the other side. Where I don't agree with you is, first of all,

I don't see those issues as being right versus left at all. There were plenty of people on the left who were leaning more in the direction of people like Robert Malone and Peter McCullough and many, many apolitical people too. So I wouldn't see that issue as right and left, even though I agree with the premise of what you say. And I said at the time, by the way, that I don't agree with Robert Malone and whatever, but I'm glad Joe had them on.

And I'll tell you why. I didn't discuss this with Joe. So I don't know why he made the choices that he made. But from my perspective, the biggest issue that was happening at the time was the idea that government must censor people for having these discussions, that we must prevent people from having these conversations. And to me, that's a very dangerous idea. I don't agree with this at all.

And I was relieved that the most powerful podcaster in the world was forcing the government to essentially take note of the fact that they don't have that option if that is what they're trying to pursue. So while I disagreed with some of his guest choices and I disagreed with the balance, you know, I actually, when he said, I'd like to have people from the other side on. I suggested a couple of people to him that I thought would put the balance, the balance. view. And, you know, like, it wasn't like he sort of like cut me out and never talk to me again. Do you know what I mean? Like he's open to hearing people's ideas. So the main points of disagreement with you is I don't think it's right versus left. And number two, I don't necessarily see the job of the old media is as always being balanced. The job of the old media is to provide balance. So these are very different things. So if the mainstream media refuses to do something, then

Joe Rogan or Trigonometer, whoever, may do that thing. And then they both look unbalanced. But what we are trying to do is say, look, there's this other point of view that's not being represented. And I think it's important. And in the case of the pandemic, my big issue was we mustn't force people to take a vaccine and we mustn't censor people who have even wacky, crazy ideas about the COVID, the pandemic or whatever. Because at the end of the day, if we want to live in a rural society. We've got to be able to have these conversations openly. And so I was simultaneously not happy that certain people were being promoted and also happy that they were not being censored. I know that's a complex position and it sounds quite difficult,

but that that's the way that I was coming at it from. So and I think that that will happen on a lot of issues. If you look at the people we had on trigonometry during the pandemic, I think we were a lot more sensible about it. We we had one guy on who. who was Dr. Sucharraf Bhakti, who I think people would consider very problematic. And really, it's not like we were endorsing his point of view. We just wanted to hear what he had to say for himself. YouTube then banned that video and gave us a strike for that. Based on the rules, the way they updated them at the time, our interview did break the

rules of YouTube and we therefore didn't appeal it because we felt it was a fair thing for them to take down. And after that, you know, our own views on that issue evolved. When we had COVID, we put an episode out talking about how bad it was for both me and Francis discussing, you know, I've updated views and all of this stuff. So, you know, we tried to, I certainly always tried to approach it from a position of honest inquiry. And my concern with all of the stuff is the mainstream media were not doing honest inquiry. They were, they became a propaganda wing of the governments, governments which as we now know were prioritizing public health over truth. And I don't believe that a government should ever do that.

So there's a bunch of points that you made there, Constantine. I know I will say that I saw your episode where you discussed with David Fuller, you know, and he was critical about some of the ways that you covered COVID. And it was your credit that you had that discussion with him. And he pushed back quite forcefully, I think. and also the subsequent discussion that you had with Brett Weinstein on his podcast, just personally speaking, it was very nice to hear someone saying that I don't have the expertise. I don't think I should be commenting on this.

And, you know, not everybody needs to issue their takes on everything. People are not experts on every topic. So I acknowledge that, you know, you have had, I'm not saying that your position on this has been entirely, you know, like just endorsing right-wing partisanship or that kind of thing. But some of the bits I'd push back on are when it comes to figures like Malone and McCulloch and the kind of anti-vaccine movement, although traditionally there's been opposition on the left and right, particularly the kind of health and wellness, left side of things, and the anti-vaccine movement has traditionally had a lot of support from kind of mullers who link it to autism because of Andrew Weir.

field and that kind of thing, right? So, but I would definitely say in COVID era, there is a strong right skew to anti-vaccine sentiment and that you can see this by the fact that most of the figures who you're talking about not getting a hearing in mainstream media are regular contributors now to right wing media. Fox News are in most cases of the people that appear in Joe Rogan show Infoors as well, which is like, may I, may I pause you just for one second? I don't mean to derail you at all. I would agree with you in terms of the media that have these discussions, but that's not who's in my

experience, who's watching that. I know loads of people in my life who would come up to me and go, thank you so much for talking about, you know, the vaccine mandates and all of this. And when I speak to them, my sense is they're not political at all. And they're certainly not right or left wing. So I agree with you that the right wing media grabbed that as an issue and promoted it because it aligns with some of their beliefs. I don't think that's who the audience are. Obviously, I don't have the empirical data to be able to prove this to you, but I'm just going based on my own experience. Sorry to interrupt. No, that's fine. And I would take the point that there were plenty of people who think there are valid debates to be had about school openings or the length of lockdowns and so on.

But I tend to think that, you know, I'm not saying there are no missteps or that there aren't cases where there's skewed towards the government's position on like mainstream media or that kind of thing. But I do think there was a lot of debate about those topics in the media and like that the media is now such a fractured ecosystem that it was not difficult at all to hear. In fact, if anything, it's more like it was very easy to hear the contrarian takes on things. And that when it comes to stuff like vaccines, you know, there always has been a vocal minority anti-vaccine movement with Andrew Wakefield, RFK Jr. These figures, right? And typically, they're not giving mainstream media coverage because their position is not equally well-supporting. And those figures are now, like, for example, Brett Weinstein headlined an event with RFK Jr. and Del Bigtree and a whole cadre of anti-vaccine figures in the UK. So the linkages between the like modern kind of critical of COVID vaccines is very tied into the anti-vaccine movement.

And, you know, in the same way that we don't say we need to give equal hearing to the climate skeptics as the climate scientists, it does feel that you can create a false equivalence by seeking out, you know, the kind of meme is in Joe Rogan's forum, for example, that nine out of ten dentists recommend this. Let's get that one dentist and see what he says, right? So what about that? Yeah, I hear you. So first of all, I don't think the equivalent. to you're making between vaccines that have been tried and tested for 30 years and the current conversation about COVID, well, not the current conversation, a conversation from around a year ago, are in any way comparable. I don't think they're the same issue at all. There's a big difference between a set of vaccines that's been around for decades and a new vaccine whose long-term consequences we do not by definition, no. So that's the first point I'd make. The second point is I don't think it's true that the contrarian view was represented in the mainstream media at all for the first year or so of the pandemic.

I mean, I remember the press conferences and Boris Johnson was having where never a single journalist ever questioned him about, have you done some analysis on how many people lockdowns will kill, right? And that is a fundamental input data set that is necessary to make a decision. if you're making a decision between two choices to go left or to go right, you need to know what are going to be the outcomes of the left one and what are going to be the outcomes of the right one, estimates at least. Otherwise, you cannot make that decision being fully informed. So I don't agree with you that it was well represented in the mainstream media. In terms of Brett and all of this stuff,

the only issue I have with the way we're having this conversation, and I'm really enjoying it, is you're kind of getting me to defend other people a lot. Whereas I'd prefer that you just attack me and I can speak for myself. Because Brett, I can tell you what I think about Brett. I disagree with Brett's approach to COVID. I also am not qualified to agree or disagree with Brett's approach to COVID, but I instinctively do not agree with the way that he's approached it. At the same time, Brett is a very good friend of mine.

He is a man I respect tremendously. Him and Heather are two of the finest human beings that I've ever encountered in my life and fortunate to have encountered quite a few very high quality human beings. So I believe in being able to disagree with people about important issues and still appreciate the good qualities. But yeah, if you if you want to have a go at me personally, I'd probably find that a lot more interesting and easier to have that conversation. So there's some interesting points, Constantine. And I think the the point that you read is at the end about the personal relationships between people is a good point to to switch to from the

COVID issue. But I just want to respond to one or two of the things that you said because Matt and I have spent quite a bit of time looking at anti-vaccine rhetoric. And this has been an interest long before COVID. There's papers from 2012 and stuff talking about the kind of tropes that you see in anti-vaccine communities. And I can say with complete confidence that most of the rhetoric that is in the COVID debate is exactly the same as the anti-vaccine rhetoric that you would see 20 or 30 years ago with the same arguments about it's not all vaccines, it's these vaccines, it's long-term consequences of triple dose MMR vaccines and so on and so forth. And you're right that we cannot know with 100% confidence the long-term consequences of

these specific vaccines yet. but billions of people are being dosed. And if there was a genuine danger and the technology was very risky, there is debate about those kind of things. Like the doctors are not villains wanting to mass murder people. So this would be the greatest controversy ever, right? If that in 20 years, hundreds of thousands of people are dying early and so on. So the clinical trials that were conducted were extensive.

and they're misrepresented by the anti-vaccine people. But I'm not asking you to get. Sorry, but that is an argument that I'm making with all respect. I was talking about lockdown, if you remember. So in terms of the anti-vaccine stuff, I'm not saying I thought Andrew Wakefield was going to be pro the COVID vaccine. Of course he wasn't. And of course, all the people who were anti-vaxxers before

are going to be against this particular vaccine. I'm not disputing that at all. What I'm saying is that there were a lot of people like me who were simply saying, is the lockdown the solution to this problem? And is having a second and a third one, the solution to this problem? I never got an answer to that. Nobody ever, ever. And I speak to people in government.

I speak to ministers in the British government occasionally. None of them can answer this question. How many people did you estimate that lockdowns would kill? And if you can't answer that question, how on earth could you have made the decision to lock down in the first place? and how on earth could you've made that decision to lock down further? And when I'm talking, by the way, about kill, I'm not talking about the vaccines going around killing people.

I'm talking about we do have a record in excess deaths at the moment. It's not just suicides. It's cancer treatments that end up being cancelled. It's whatever it is. And it's going to run for decades the consequences of these decisions. And all I wanted, number one, was to have a transparent conversation about that. Number one. Number two, I thought that in the desire to achieve their public health objectives,

which is to get everyone vaccinated, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The government attempted in this country, I mean, don't even get me started on Canada and Australia and Germany and Austria. But even in Britain, the government went way too far in attempting to deny people their basic civil liberties and their rights and attempting to force people to take a vaccine against their will. I mean, I made this point on Joe Rog. it again. Does it make any sense to anyone that you've got a health minister like Sajid Javid,

who is not a medical expert, forcing doctors to have an injection that they don't want to have? Yes. Does that make any sense? It makes sense to you. It does. Okay. Explain to me why that makes sense. Because the public health procedures are not just decided willy-nilly. And I've heard you in other contexts talk about how people with utopian world views about how the world can be perfected and if we just get the right political system. That one, that's inaccurate representation of human nature and it can lead to very bad places, right, utopian worldviews. So you have to price in constantly when you're dealing with government, if you're dealing with public health, that there will be miscommunication, there will be inefficiencies, there will be like miscommunications, right? And

And so when you price that in, and my experience of the pandemic, it does sound very different to yours because I did see not only in mainstream media, like politicians being questioned about policies, but also in podcasts with phorologists who are very strongly pro-vaccine, debates about what public health measures are appropriate and not. and robust discussions about it. And it was presented as if that was never allowed. But I heard it all over the place, and I heard heterodox people endlessly complaining Joe Rogan

complaining every week about it. And the reality is that you weren't forced to get vaccines, right, unless you were working in health services or education or government. Or care. Yeah. Right, right. But the reason for that, is to avoid vulnerable populations being impacted. So there is a public health rationale for it.

And individual doctors saying, well, I don't want to do that. That is their right to do so. But you can't say that if you have a regulation where like if a doctor says, you know, I don't believe that I need to clean my hands in order to stop viruses spreading. And he's medically trained. You don't say, well, you know, he's got reasons for. How many doctors are doing that, though? Well, yeah, but no, no, no, no, no, no, no, but this is the point. This is exactly the point. Because it wasn't 0.0, 0,0, 0, 0, 0, 1% of doctors saying, I don't want to have this vaccine.

It was quite a lot of them. And we were going to lose a lot of medical staff. When my son was born four and a half months ago, several of the nurses who, or the midwives, rather, who helped to deliver him in private, told me that they, were not vaccinated and that they were going to leave the National Health Service if they were forced to do it. So I'm not just talking based on just, you know, something I invented in my head. I'm telling you there were lots and lots of people who were medically qualified who did not want anything to do with this vaccine. Now, why they did or didn't is a different issue. My point to you is that in a situation where a significant minority of doctors and medical experts don't want to have a vaccine,

I don't think it makes any sense for that to be enforced upon them, particularly when we don't have any evidence that the vaccine was hugely effective of preventing transmission from one person to another. Yeah, but the vaccine has proved extremely, like when we're talking about the impacts of COVID, right, the death statistics and stuff make it very clear that this did lead to excess deaths across the world, a large impact on public health. services and medical facilities. And transmission, the way that it's often presented in, I find in the heterodox sphere, is as if the vaccines are, you know, practically useless and do nothing.

But when you look at the literature, I don't think that at all. Yeah. I'm not saying, I'm not saying you specifically, Constantine, but I mean that transmission relatively less effective with later strains, right, with the earlier vaccines. But in most cases, not. on the par, just less effective. And when it comes to stopping the spread amongst the population of the virus, public health has to take something of a one-size-fits-all approach. I mean, I'm sure you think that, but I disagree with this completely. I mean, this argument can be used to push all sorts of tyranny onto the population.

Because if the interests, hold on a second, let me answer your point. If the interests of the grit of the nation require some sort of health measure, I mean, you know, we've got to protect their NHS. Why don't we just shoot obese people? They are the real epidemic. They're the ones that are doing it. How far do you take restrictions of people's civil liberties and forcing people to inject stuff in their body? Why don't we invent a vaccine for obesity and force fat people to take it? Almost everybody in our society would completely agree that that would be unethical. Forcing people to have a vaccine. an injection they don't want to have, would be considered unethical in any other circumstance other than when everyone shits the bed over COVID. So how about childhood vaccination for things like polio and tuberculosis, which are not optional? I'm in favor of it and I want my son to have it. Why? Why, but why? Because I think those vaccines would be advantageous to him. But if they are not mandated like childhood vaccination and you choose not to have a

for your kid and the polio virus comes back or your child gets polio and is badly injured. So your preference would be that we don't mandate any vaccinations for any diseases and allow them to return. Or is it specifically COVID? I think it's slightly different with children because children are incapable of making that decision for themselves. We're talking about adults. So if we're talking about adults in the context of COVID, I don't think COVID vaccination.

should ever be mandated now. But just COVID vaccine, so you do think there are circumstances where if the disease is infectious enough or debilitating enough that it could be right to mandate it in order to keep immunity and to protect children. I think for me the issue is less about the disease, although obviously that's a factor. I don't think you'd be stupid to pretend otherwise. If Ebola had the levels of spread of COVID, we'd be having a different conversation. Although I don't think you'd need to force a lot of people to take it because they'd be

taken at themselves. But for me, the issue is children. Children, you know, they have to have adults make decisions for them. And that's a bit different. So that would be the difference for me. But my point is is something else, which is the taking away of people, all sorts of rights that people normally have during COVID. That was the thing that annoyed me. And those were the rules, the principles that I thought were being violated that I thought were important to stand up for, which is why, again, I encourage you to ask me about my views as opposed to defending people who think the vaccine is, you know, a 5G plot or whatever the hell that is. Sure.

So that leads. Maybe we can leave, you know, the vaccines behind. I know it's a topic that endlessly becomes a sinkhole for conversation. And I appreciate you responding about it as you have. But the point that you raised before that constant team was, you know, that like, for example, with Brett, you might disagree with his views about COVID. and you're not responsible for his particular views and that you find him to be a very, you know, nice person, principled person and his wife Heller as well.

And that raises me something which I hear a lot of in, again, I'm going to use the term like the heterodox space or whatever, but there seems to be an over-reliance on this heuristic. If somebody is interpersonally nice to you, that that, this is somehow indicative that they can't actually be promoting misinformation or actually be somebody. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on a second.

The very first thing I said is that I don't agree with Brett about COVID. Okay. So let me finish what I, the point I want to meet there. Because it's, I'm not saying that that. Okay. Sorry. I mean more in line with like in most occasions, I don't find it hard to. imagine that people are able to have positive interactions with someone.

So recently with your appearance with Rogan, you talked about meeting Sebastian Gorka and him being a fun guy to hang out with to go to a shooting rage to eat steak or whatever the case might be. And I find that to be like when it's presented as a novel insight or something that we need to bear in mind, it strikes me as potentially rather than insightful and interesting. to be obfuscating of the reason that that person's criticized, because usually the reason is not that, you know,

they are a fun person to have dinner with. It's because of the particular ideology or information that they're promoting, that they get the criticism. And I see constant kind of refrain to personal relationships and the importance of them, as if that is something that we aren't considering enough and that if, I mean, if you could sit down, I know this is going to, I'm just, I'm using an extreme example. I'm not saying Sebastian Corker is this, but I mean, if you could sit down and

have a nice dinner with Victor Orban and, you know, he can have a nice chat with you about the problems of woke culture. It doesn't mean there's any less repression of the media or authoritarian steps to control opposition parties in Hungary. And yet you have lots of people who are really, against authoritarianism and the woke and going to Hungary. Have I done that? Again, you're talking to me about other people. I am not a fan of Victor Orban, have never defended him, and have never commented about him,

not least because I don't know anything about Hungarian politics. But let me come back to your point about what I said about Sev Gorka. You're doing a disservice to what I said, because I didn't make the point that Seb Gorka is a good guy, and I went for stake and shooting guns with him, and therefore, blah, blah, blah. blah, blah, blah. What I said is, not only that, we had dinner with him and some of his conservative friends. And what I said was, these are people who love this country, they care

about this country. They're actually well-intentioned, even if you may disagree with the way that they behave, right? And that is my point. My point is twofold. First of all, we have to get back to the idea that we can disagree with people without hating them. And I do think that is something that we've lost a lot with the emergence of social media. Would anyone disagree with that? Number one. Number two, when you talk to people whose behavior you sometimes don't approve of or don't like, you may often find out things about them. So, for example, Seb gave me a copy of his book, and I read the first few pages on the plane as he gave them to me.

And he talks about how both his daughter and his son were being, I think one of the newspapers called his son, his 17-year-old son, a traitor in a national newspaper headline. and his daughter was nearly kicked out of her university for quote unquote being racist, for being his daughter and for being his son. Now, do you think it's possible that the version of Seb Gorka you see on CNN defending President Trump after he's constantly lied about for four years and his children are being attacked, do you think it's possible that the angry version of him that you see on TV has something to do with those things as opposed to to do with what kind of person he is?

because my four and a half a month son is next door. And I can tell you, if someone was going after him in a national newspaper, because he's my son, I would go fucking ballistic. Right. So in some ways, the way that said behave sometimes is quite restrained, given the experiences he's been through. And I'm not saying that justifies his behavior. I'm not saying I agree with everything he says.

I don't support Donald Trump in the way that he does. However, I do think that is an important context that gets lost. When we have these debates in this clip, clip, clip, this is the worst of the Seb Gorka ever kind of way. And that was the point that I was making. It wasn't that the fact that I had stake with him means that he's a good guy. I think I'd push back that I sincerely doubt. One, I would not automatically accept the way that Gorka would present how he's been treated or the, it may be the case that he's had, you know, harsh media coverage and his family have been targeted. but I doubt that before those events, that he was a very mild-mannered soul, who was not a

polemicist, I think that there's a culture of victimhood on the right, which is quite ironic because there's a constant complaining about it on the left. You yourself, Constantine, have mentioned in lots of the discussions that you've had with people that, you know, we shouldn't spend so much time feeling sorry for ourselves because things are pretty good for us. We've got big audiences and people listen to us and we have nice conversations, right? And I completely agree with that position. But I guess the point, one of the things that you emphasize at the start of conversation was the importance of being able to criticize both sides and people that you broadly agree with.

In some ways, that's often more important than being able to attack the people on the other side of the political aisle. And that's part of why I am raising these examples like people. people traveling in Hungary to Orban or the, you know, the anti-vaccine stances. Because what I see, for example, is that when people in the heterodark sphere get together, they're often fine to talk about their collective enemies, the progressives and the woke and what they're doing wrong. And they avoid those topics, which might be... What have I avoided? This is a problem when you talk about Hungary, are you talking about? Maria you talk about. What am I avoiding? So, for example, Constantine, would you, if you had

Peter Burgosian on, are you likely to hold his feet to the fire about why he's in Hungary doing tours for Orban's government? When you've spoke with Douglas Murray, have you ever raised the issue of his defenses of right-wing populist leaders across the world? Because I don't think his support for right-wing populist leaders around the world needs defending. I don't know anything about Peter Bogotian's tours. Like I said, I don't think about Hungarian politics. If I did, I wouldn't hesitate to ask him about it at all. No.

But isn't there something where you can basically take that stance? Because, you know, you can prepare for interviews, right? And you can check what stances people have taken on things. And if you choose to go with, like, let's say you had James Lindsay on, right? And many people have and discuss with him the issues of the sort of, social justice left, his kind of me in focus. But the astutely do not discuss his conspiracy. Again, you're talking about other people.

I had James Lindsay on my show with Peter three years ago, at which point we talked about the things that were interesting to us at the time. We haven't had James Lindsay on the show since. And one of the reasons is his Twitter behavior to me makes him a completely discredited person. And so if we wanted to have him on and talk about it. about his Twitter behavior, we'd happily do that. The problem is a bunch of people have already done that with him.

He has his bullshit excuse, which is Twitter doesn't matter. What do you want me to do with that? Get him on for an hour and talk about that. There's no benefit to that. I said what I said about James, both publicly and privately. I think I chose my words very carefully and described what I think he's become. So my problem with this conversation, I'm really keen for us to have the robust discussion. is you keep presenting other people as being somehow contaminating of me.

When I'm not connected, I'm not doing those things. It's not about contamination. It's about willingness to challenge and more if people are going to. Tell me, where am I not challenging people that I should be? Okay, so an example. You interviewed Brett and Heller about the book, The Hunter Galler's Guide to the 21st century. This was at the height of their promotion of antivis. vaccine rhetoric.

Sure. You didn't raise it at all. And other people have noted that when they were arranging interviews with them, their publicists asked them not to address that controversy. You got a lot of criticism from your audience that I saw at the time for not raising that issue. Michael Shermer did the same thing. So that's a case where it looked a light like you were avoiding a controversial issue

to talk with someone about a position that you agree. That's specific issue. That's not accurate because what happened is we had Brett on like a couple of months prior. And so to talk about the COVID stuff again would have been completely pointless. I think that publicists did say they wanted to talk about the book. I was much more interested in the book than talking about COVID. That's why we didn't talk about COVID. So, but I don't see that as shying away from challenging people on difficult things. It's just we wanted to have a conversation about a different issue at the time.

And as you saw in my conversation on Brett's podcast, I had absolutely no problem saying what my opinion was about the issue of COVID and what my disagreements are with him. So it's not an unwillingness to challenge. It was just an individual instance in which that was how it was. Again, if you've got other issues where you think I'm not challenging someone, I'm open to hear it. Okay. So another example then, because it's like specific to the podcast. So when you talk about enlightened centrism and an approach which is apolitical, the advertisements on your podcast, for example, are for Nigel Farage's cryptocurrency and...

No, no, no, it's not cryptocurrency. Sorry, no. It's for an investment company that he founded 30 years ago that gives people investment advice. It's not a cryptocurrency. Okay, so Nigel Farage's... No, no, it's not Nigel Farage's. it's an investment advice company that happens to have been founded by Nigel Farage. I'm not selling it as you love Nigel Farage, therefore buy this thing.

It's useful information for people who want to make investment decisions. Okay, but would you not, so you, I think the branding involving Nigel Farage is incidental to that product. It's suggested by the people. That's what they wanted, right? Right. We advertise people who give us money. So, but that would be my question. question to then. So the epoch times, for example, is a far right publication by most metrics

that has promoted like anti-vaccine, the big lie, it's promoted Q&N conspiracies, and it's associated with the Falun Gong movement. And it is not hard to locate critiques of it. Now, when you have advertised for it, it's quite a ringing endorsement. And the point I want to make there is if the majority of advertisers for you are leaning in that particular direction. You have no evidence to make that claim whatsoever. You've picked out two examples and called that the majority. We advertise hundreds of different businesses every year. Would your contention be that those are unrepresented? My contention would be that the overwhelming percentage, I'm talking 90 plus percent of our advertisers are apolitical in any way, shape or form.

So in that case, Constantine, if a far left organization wanted to promote on your show, would you also read an endorsement? Depends on what it was. I'd have to say it. I don't know what you mean by far left, first of all. We've had people who I consider to be weird lefties of the kind that I massively disagree with who are currently peddling to Ukraine Nazis bullshit and whatever, people like Aaron Mate and Jimmy Dorn and whatever.

And if Jimmy Dahl wanted to advertise his YouTube channel on our channel, I'd say, you know, we'd have to have an internal conversation about that. But also, I don't know that your characterization of epoch times as far right is accurate. That's certainly not been my impression when I've read it. So I don't accept that either. I don't think Nigel Farage is far right by any stretch of the imagination. So again. Out of UKIP.

Yeah, UKIP were not far right. Nigel Farage is a Thatcherite economically, and he was pro-Brexit. Where's far right in that? Well, for example, like during the Brexit campaign, the poster that they produced with the large crowds of people, colored people, anti-immigration sentiment. I don't think wanting to restrict immigration makes you far right. How about the implication that Turkey was on the precipice of joining the EU,

and there would be millions of Muslims entering the UK with visas because that was likely to happen. Politicians lie to embellish their case all the time. I didn't think that was a good look, but I don't think it can make some far right. So what is far right that's kind of neo-Nazi? Yeah. Yeah. Or someone who's openly fascist. That's what far right actually means.

Remember? These words have meanings. They have meaning. So you would say, for example, Stephen Miller. The left wing media has been spreading all this stuff calling these people far right. Doesn't make them far right. These words have meanings. My ancestors were killed by far right people, right?

So I'm kind of picky about these things. It's important. Certainly. So like Stephen Miller, for example, in the Trump administration, you would regard him as moderate conservative. I've never met him. I have no idea who he is. I've never, don't think, interacted with him. So you suggested Constantine that, like, you know, you wouldn't advertise something without an internal discussion and from your reading of the epoch times.

It's not far right. It's, you know, it's maybe conservative tinged or that. But, I mean, in your political spectrum, so things like the big lie promoting that is simply a moderate position now. What's the big lie? The big lie is that the election was stolen by fraud. fraudulent voting behavior. No, to me, that's an extreme position that I disagree with very strongly. As I disagree with the spreading the big lie about the 2016 election,

which the mainstream media comfortably spread for four years with absolutely no criticism, I imagine from people like you as well. Well, so the distinction there would be that while there's plenty that you can criticize about, for example, Rachel Maddo's position, if people came in the Russia completely decided the election for Trump. I would agree. That's not true. But equally, the notion that there was no interference from Russia in leaking the emails from the Democratic Party or arranging various online campaigns right to support Trump, those have been documented quite extensively to actually have occurred and that every step along the way denied, denied, denied the right way.

Yeah. The people who peddle the big lie can give you lots of, lots of, lots of. of little bits that in their mind add up to influencing the election. The definitive answer on 2016 is Russian involvement did not decide that election. That's a fact. So, right? And that's the thing to just, sorry. But you see, you're you're not being fair to these two different sides. I think they're both completely wrong and both deeply unfair and both shouldn't have been done. What you are doing is you're downplay the behavior, downplaying the behavior of one side and playing up the behavior of the other side to make it look imbalanced. To me, there were two big lies, and one was peddled by every major institution in America and around the world. The other one

was condemned by the very same institutions that spent four years peddling the first big lie. Surely an important difference is that the Democratic candidate conceded on the night and the party acknowledged the transfer of power. And also to speak back to your point that I would automatically defend a claim that the left wing would make. So in the Brexit campaign, when people claim the Cambridge Analytica, swayed the election by targeted psychographics, I wrote two articles explaining why that was very likely not the case, and the Brexit vote was just won by, you know, standard political campaigning

and I would say plain oppesanophobic sentiment. But in any case, you didn't need the psychographic expert, explanation, it's just, you know, there was an anti-institution sentiment and dissatisfaction with the EU, so that's what you get. But I think that that speaks counter to the point that I wouldn't be willing to criticize that, but I definitely do not think there's an equivalence between the Trump and the Republican Party, the mainstream Republican Party stance on the fraudulent nature of the election and how many are willing to now endorse that stance, versus the accusation that the Russians were responsible for the election.

Because I don't think that is the same level of support. So let me take back the allegation that you might be unfair about it because it's unfair. I don't know. We were talking about media coverage. You started this conversation by talking about the epoch times. I don't see how it's any different for the epoch times to suggest that the 2020 election was stolen after left wing. media spent four years suggesting that the 2016 election was stolen. Now, the behavior of Trump

and his supporters, I've already told you my position on January 6th, but that's separate to the issue of media bias. And so if the center right and the center left both want to lie about elections, I disagree with that very strongly, which is why I immediately said that this bullshit about the election being stolen, you know, shouldn't get all this attention. But I'm just not comfortable with all this pearl clutching about the epoch times when CNN are perfectly allowed and have and did for a long time not only lied, lied, lied, lied, lied, but also then in 2020 participated in what was effectively an attempt to steal the 2020 election together with the big tech companies by suppressing information about the Hunter Biden laptop, right? That was an attempt to influence that election.

and we know from polling afterwards the Democratic voters, the people who voted for the Democrats, some of them would not have voted for the Democrats, for Joe Biden, had they known about it, right? So all I'm saying is, I'm not comfortable with all this pearl clutching. Yes, the Epoch Times is right of center. I don't think it's far right by any stretch of imagination, at least in my opinion. Do I agree with everything the Epoch Times published? God no. Do I agree with anything any publication publishes?

God, no. Do I agree with everything guests say on chicanometry? God no, but I do think we need a media ecosystem where people are allowed to express their opinions. Yeah, I'm fine. I think I completely agree that, you know, there's a broad church for different opinions and political stripes. And I would actually argue that there is a lot of space in the media ecosystem for a whole range of views. To me, the Apple Times is quite clearly farler right than Breitbart, which I've, think that most people would recognize as being on the farler right of the spectrum.

Well, I have to look more into it. I haven't read everything on the Epoch Times. My main contact with it is a guy called Yankee Kellick, who hosts a program called American Thought Leaders, which, you know, again, some people I agree with it. He has on some people I don't. But my experience of him has been that he's very honest and very principled. So I can look into it more. That certainly hasn't been my impression from a cursory.

look at it. Yeah. And I will say, Constantine, I'm using that example purely because you asked me to speak to. No, no, no, no. I'm like I said, I'm very, very happy for you to challenge me. So, let's just come back to the point, though, right? We started this conversation with you saying that the majority of our advertisers are right wing or far right or whatever. I think we can agree that the majority of our advertisers are not, right? The majority of our advertisers are apolitical. Nigel Farage's investment company, not Nigel Farage. You've got to understand this, right? We're not advertising Nigel Farage, right? Although we've had Nigel on the show a couple of times, I have absolutely no problem with Nigel Farage. I don't agree with some of the things he said.

And the last time we had on, I challenged him very strongly, not least on Ukraine yet again, right? So it's not like I'm unwilling to challenge him, but we weren't advertising him. In terms of the epoch times, you know, we've talked about that. That's one example. I don't think is fair to deduce from one example that our advertising strategy is aimed at people on the far right or even on the right, frankly. I'll definitely concede that I haven't done, you know, an inventory of your advertisements. This was just take my word for it. Yeah, it was on the Sam Harris episode.

Yeah. Like, you know, there was quite a jarring shift from the conversation with Sam to the epoch time. So that's what it was that made it stick of my mind. But in any case, Constantine, I know that you had a hard art and you have a young infant. I can do another, I'm guessing another five minutes if you want. And then I'm really going to have to run if you want. Okay. Yeah, that's, that's great.

I just didn't want to. No, no, no. I really appreciate you being respectful. But I'm enjoying this conversation so much. I'm going to move something and we'll do another five minutes. Go for it. Okay. So now my brain was in.

You've been extremely quiet. I feel bad if I don't at least give you the option if you wanted to chime in. No, by the way, just being quiet so you guys would have room to talk in the time that you had. No, sorry, my brain was heading towards wrapping up as well. So I wasn't preparing something. Okay. There was one last thing I wanted to bring up. And I wanted to see if this was your position or I'm presenting it unfairly.

And it's a bit different from the things that we've been talking about. So I'll try to do it quickly. So I listened to your conversation with the ex-police officer talking about the overreach, you know, the police visiting people's eyes over. Yes, yes, about tweets and Facebook posts and that kind of thing. Right. And I actually would agree with a lot of the points made about potential overreach from the police in those kinds of circumstances and how the balance between freedom of speech and the

policing of offensive like he had speech, right? There is clearly trade-offs there. And the one thing that did strike me in that conversation was, though, that there was this concern expressed about graduates being preferred for the police. And there was, there seemed to be a consensus, and I included you in this. And if I did it unfairly, please correct me. But that The view was the police force is hiring graduates because they want people who are kind of drenched in woke ideology that will make it so that they can promote a progressive agenda. Did I say that? That was, I mean, so I think Harry was it with the name of the guy that said that?

Harry, Harry. He talked about this primarily, but yourself and Francis seemed to agree with this assessment that like the emphasis on hiring graduates was likely to be because they wanted to instill a particular ideology. And I got the impression that in general, you viewed it as graduates being sought was an indication that an institution was likely to be captured. So is that not a fair representation? I'd have to go back and see what I said.

I certainly, I'm not conspiratorily minded. So I don't think that they're getting in graduate. because graduates are woke and they want to wokeify the police. That's not really my opinion, no. Okay, that's good. That's good. That was part of what I wanted to check. And I guess that would be the kind of thing where I would say, in my case, and obviously I'm argumentative and have my little bug bears,

but I would tend to want to push back when somebody like a Majid Nawaz, or Jim Sli, introduces this notion of like a grand, conspiracy to, you know, wokeify the world in order to introduce Chinese-style communism. And I know that you are concerned about the far left and it's, it's blasé nature to the threats of the far left. But I wasn't sure if you found those conspiracies like the focus on the W.EF and Klaus Shrub to be equally concerning or if you agreed with them. I just wasn't clear. I don't agree with them. I don't agree with them. As you can probably tell from the conversations we've had on trigonometry,

have you ever heard anyone invited on to talk endlessly about the WF? I think one guest mentioned it in the last question we always ask, which is a complete free hit. And generally, we don't tend to debate that one. It's just sort of left there as a free hit for them. With what Harry said, I have to go back and see what I said or didn't say, but it's not my view that there's a conspiracy to infiltrate the police. with graduates, that does not mean that I don't think that the College of Policing,

for example, wouldn't quite like to have as many graduates as possible because it makes their job easier, which is enforcing their particular views, right? I mean, the way that conversation might be is we've got to get the right people in, quote unquote, right? And that is people with the right mindset who are able to take the police into the 21st century. That may be the way that that conversation is being had. And it doesn't seem to me conspiratorial to think that that might be possible. But no, I'm not really on board with most of that stuff.

I don't find it particularly persuasive. And I just, the more I learn about the world and the more I interact with people who are actually in government or actually at the head of the police or actually doing stuff or whatever, the more I realize how bloody difficult it is to get anything done. And so the idea that a few people in the room are going to get together and have this sort of conspiracy seems to me just, you know, impractical, if actually, you know, I mean, I look at trigonometry. We have, in addition to the three of us, Francis, myself and our producer, we have seven staff.

Like, we can't get an episode to go out on time the way I want. Like the idea that there's, you know, people, maybe they're that much better at conspiring than we are. But yeah, I'm not, I enjoy a good, like, I'll happily go and listen to David Dyke for entertainment, but I don't believe it, no. Yeah. So that, maybe that's an interesting point. point to round off on that I find that there is a, there's a spectrum of concern, right? And there is sometimes the presentation of all our institutions are captured.

Science is no longer trustworthy. Governments are just purely getting ready to make everybody eat bugs and live in pods, right? And to be, that veers distinctly towards hyperbole and kind of catastrophizing in the way that Jonathan Heightwood. And I kind of see, again, I know you're not going to like me doing this constantly, but I tend to see amongst the heterodox. I'm not necessarily saying you a greater concern about the hyperbole and catastrophizing of

the world left. I agree. I agree completely. And I guess I have noticed in your content a note of optimism that you think there is a greater tolerance for different opinions emerging and there is a kind of push. back for different perspectives. So I might be giving you an undue note of optimism, but I've noticed when people are saying everything is going to shit that you do on

occasion push back and say, well, we are having this conversation and that kind of thing. So yeah, I don't know. I'm going to do a lot more of that going forward too. I'm going to do a lot more of that going forward because I think it's important. We're shaping the culture by the conversations that we have influencing it. And I think the doomsday scenarios from both left and right are completely unhelpful and actually very arrogant in some ways. There's a sort of hubris to this idea that we are the first generation of people who can't solve their own problems. Actually, I think we can.

That's a positive note the end on. And we often criticize the people that we listen to for undue and lengthy backpadding about the conversations that they've had and how great it is that. they're able to do these things. But I genuinely do appreciate you coming on and having the discussion robust as it was. And yeah, so if you want to tell people where they can find you, if they want to hear more of that kind of thing, please do. I'm not very good at doing the wrap up. No, no. I really appreciate it. First of all, I really enjoyed this. It was a lot of fun. I'm glad we had it. I can be very passionate, particularly when I'm defending things that I believe in or defending myself or whatever, but I hope no one confuses my passion with a lack of respect

or a lack of enjoyment. This is exactly the sort of stuff that I love doing. So first of all, thank you. People can buy my book. It's called An Immigrants Love Letter to the West. It's a Sunday Times bestseller. They can find my podcast, which is Trigonometry on YouTube and on all the podcast apps. And I'm on Twitter and Substack, which is where I put a lot of more substantive pieces out at

the moment. People can find me there as well. my name is Constantine Kishon and thanks for having me. Cheers, Constantine and that was very professionally done. It was. That's how you do it when you're good at this kind of thing. So cheers for coming on and yeah. Well, that was that.

That was that interview. How was that? It was good. I'm now casting my mind back to the ghost of Christmas past, remembering how the power went out. I listened to almost all of it, enjoyed it. I thought you both argued your corner pretty well. And then what did I do afterwards? I probably had a drink.

Had a drink. Well, I'll definitely say one thing to Constantine's credit is that, you know, you can take whatever position you like about the arguments that myself and he made in the preceding interview. But he did listen to the argument that I made. and then allow me time to respond in full, which I've just said that was nice. That's nice to deal with. That's what you want.

He was responsive to points, and he did engage in turn-taking. So full marks to Constantine as a podcast guest for that. And Andy also, you know, robust exchange. He wasn't walking away in a strap at the end and that kind of thing. So that's also to his credit. That's right. 10 out of 10 for interlocutory skills. You too.

You did well as well. You both took friends. Thank you, Mike. Thank you.