TRIGGERnometry - Sargon of Akkad on Big Government, Immigration and Censorship

Episode Date: January 20, 2022

Carl Benjamin aka Sargon of Akkad of the Lotus Eaters joins us in the studio.   Check out The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7edjYPNhTm5LYJMT7UMt0Q Episode SPONSORED by The Alder Files, check them out for all your branding, visual, & motion graphics needs https://www.thealderfiles.com Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: https://www.subscribestar.com/triggernometry https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 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

I think that one of the reasons that people have less faith in experts now is because the experts have essentially been ignoring the conspiracy theories and just censoring them. And when you do that, that makes people think, right, you don't have an answer to this, but you are a tyrant. Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kishin. And this is a show for you, if you want honest conversations with fascinating people. Our brilliant and returning guest today is a YouTuber and the founder of lotus heaters.com. Carl Benjamin Sargonovacad, as you're formerly known. Welcome to back to Trigonometry. Thanks so much for having me back. It's a much nicer studio than the previous. Thank you very much.

Lovely. Not least in part to guests like you who were willing to come on it when it wasn't a very nice studio. And, you know, one of the things that I always really liked about our conversations is I think when you first came on the show, we probably didn't agree on very much. I think we've probably moved somewhat since towards some of the views that you had, or maybe we unearthed some of the views we already had over time. But one of the things I always really appreciated by you is your willingness to engage with people in conversation who have different opinions.

I mean, I think that a lot of disagreement is merely about framing, right? So it seems that if you just learn how to frame things in just, you know, just literally turn the situation around and just frame it in a different way, that you find people actually, things just slot in this place, actually, no, that is something sensible, right? And so without conversation, you can't do that. And this is one of the things that makes your show great, is that you have such a wide variety of people,

such radically different views. And yet, you know, you always go away from those conversations with something interesting. Well, speaking of conversations, the last time we spoke was, we're recording this on January 6th, 2022. the last time we spoke was, I think, January the 6th, 2021. It was January the 7th, right?

It was the day after you had us on your show. And I think we may have not framed things correctly because your audience really struggled with our moderate point of view. Well, it's about the paradigms you come from, I think. Because, like, I'm not happy with the sort of mainstream Westminster paradigm that seems to have been sort of the, you know, sort of the, the, Blairite's paradigm that the, but the all parties seem to be trapped within. What do you mean by that paradigm? Explain now.

Yeah, the sort of administrative managerial paradigm that sits there and looks at the world and says, right, I need to impose a speech code in this way. So someone can't offend someone else and things like this. I think that matters of offense aren't actually anything to do with the state. I think they're to do with the individuals involved because it's also subjective and nothing can be really properly proven, that it's something that, you know, people should be negotiating for themselves. But the managerial state looks at that and goes,

right, there might be harm involved in this. I need to impose a law. I need to impose bureaucrats. I need to impose people who will sit there and start getting involved in the relationships between people. And it's that kind of paradigm where it's the sort of overarching, I don't want to say like big government, because it sounds cliche,

But the scope of the state is in everything now. And this, I think, we see reaching its full, the sort of full blossoming in the COVID crisis, where literally there is nothing outside of the purview of the state now. And I'm genuinely worried about where this paradigm's going, because, I mean, I don't see anything good at the end of it. And I can't see who's happy with the way things are being run at the moment. It's a great point.

For example, you look at what's happened to civil liberties, right the way through this crisis, they're in the toilet. And everyone's kind of went, yeah, we don't need them anymore. Why do you need the ability to protest? What good came of that? Well, as your friend or former friend,

I don't know, put it, why do you need free speech in the pandemic? You said bad. What kind of question is that? Why do you need your inalienable rights? Yeah. Well, I mean, because they're a part of me, you know? And if you take that away,

then you're taking a part of me away, you know? But this is the... problem, though. The administrative state looks at rights as things that are constructed by the state and therefore can just be taken away by the state at any given time for any given reason. And that really concerns me because

that's not like the English view of rights. You know, the English view of rights is that these are ancient and hereditary. I mean, you can look back through any piece of like English constitutional legislation and you'll find the phrase, ancient liberties and customs. And it's really weird. Like, Edinburgh

basically came to the conclusion that the English are dull, sluggish people who have never innovated anything, and because they've always assumed to have everything they needed, like going back to, like, Saxon times in the woods, you know, and this sort of inherited ideal, I mean, at least is tied to something, you know, it's at least tied something that, you know, we've got 1,500 years of English liberty. Okay, great. Now we've got, like, human rights. Okay, well, what's that tethered to, you know? What guarantees that I will have the same human rights tomorrow that I had today? Or that the day after I will. won't have any human rights at all. You know, it's, it's all bound up in the, the whims of the people

who are running the state. And I really hate this paradigm, you know, and Tony Blair has sort of, like, snuck it in and reformed our country. And the conservatives are just sat with it. And essentially now being buffeted around by the Labour Party on every issue. And it was, through the pandemic, it was the most insufferable thing, wasn't it? Boris Johnson was, you know, the instinctive sort of the Englishman, like, we're not going to do that. We're not going to do that. And then Keir-Stama would say, we have to lock down. And the 24 hours later, Boris Johnson, there's going to be a lockdown. It's like, well, there we go.

The creature of the Labour Party, because you're within their paradigm. And so the logic of the paradigm dictates that that's what you have to do at any given stage. But again, like, you know, who put us here? You know, nobody asked for this. And how do we escape it? That's the question. And that's the worrying point in that there doesn't seem to be any escape. Well, you look through the journey that we've had through the lockdowns,

the vaccine passports introduced in Scotland and Wales. They're now going to introduce them here. And you think, I didn't sign up for any of this. And not only did I not sign up for any of this, it doesn't fucking work. So why are you introducing it? Can you imagine what William Wallace thinks of the SMP?

Can you even imagine? Like, the word freedom is just a joke. And, I mean, it's mad watching it, isn't it? Like, in Wales, you can go to the pub, but you can't go to work. it's like, sorry, whose idea of health care is that? A Welshman. Exactly. But that's because it's not tied to anything, is it?

You know, it's like the whims of this arbitrary state that just lurch from crisis to crisis and make up rules off the top of the head because now they have absolute power. You know, now they have nothing that restrains them from just being like, right, well, we're going to do that, we're going to do that, we're going to do that. And so they end up with this wild contradictory, like, route through the past like six months. And it feels like you've been doing it for 20 years. you know, it feels like just so much time has passed when it's, it's been one year, you know, or two years.

And it's like, right, okay, this has got to stop. You know, we need to get some sort of constancy, some sort of level-headedness. The government has to understand that there are limits on it. You know, it can't just say, right, all your businesses shut down, apart from, you know, Amazon, Tesco, St.Sbury's small businessmen, too bad. You know, you're all locked. This has got to stop, you know. So, Carl, it's interesting.

What you're talking about that, it seems to me, is that we seem to have got to a place where if there's a problem, the government is supposed to fix it. And we've forgotten that some problems can't be fixed, some problems can't be fixed by government. And also a lot of the solutions to problems have trade-off. So yes, you can solve this problem, but you're going to hurt a lot of people over here or take away certain freedoms. And if you embrace that fully, particularly in the pandemic, when there's fear, people are dying, et cetera, and you don't have those checks and balances of inalienable rights, things that can never be taken away from you, then you end up in the sort of Austrian-German position

where it's like, well, these people, these people will stay at home and pay a fine. And it's like, why? When did the government have the authority to put people in their homes and never let them out because they haven't followed government advice? And we're already seeing that. We're only seeing that in France, in Austria,

where the unvaccinated, as if that's a constituency, as if there's anything that connects them other than they haven't had a particular injection. You're mispronance 18. You're mispronagnated? That's how you do it. I think more colloquially, they're just called the Jews. I'm being targeted by the state because they're not obeying the commands of the administrative class that's commanding everything that's going on.

And notice how you're exactly right about the trade-offs because this, there was a, in the 20th century, there's a British philosopher called Michael Oachot, who pointed out that this kind of administrative form of doing politics reduces time to, being into the now, you know, and it's always now. And so that turns politics into the politics of a felt need. So whatever is immediately in front of us, oh, we have to do something. And because essentially nothing is out of the scope of the state, that means we can do everything right now. And so, right, lockdown right now. It's like, okay, that's fine. The NHS didn't get overwhelmed, brilliant, but is that worth tens of thousands of cancer patients who are now going to die of cancer. You know, that seems to be what's, you know, is being revealed from the lockdowns. And so this is one of the trade-offs that you were saying. It's like, okay, well, if we'd take a slightly longer

view of the proceedings and actually been concerned about what was going to happen in a year's time, we would have said, well, we can guarantee that tens of thousand people will die of preventable diseases, or possibly preventable, that could have been treated now, but, you know, we were just worried that the NHS would be over. Well, the argument would have been from those people, if the NHS had got overwhelmed, the cancer patients would have died, and also loads of people would have died of COVID and other things too. Possibly. Yeah, possibly.

But we don't really know the answer to that. Exactly. And look at the predictions. I mean, we're sitting here in early January. We were told that if no restrictions are imposed in this country in December, there would be 6,000 deaths. I think there was 400. Well, this leads on to another point that Oakhshodmake, actually,

about the models and the theories and how they match up to the process. practical reality that we're actually living. Because, I mean, look at the sage modeling. The sage modeling, you can find the graphs online. They're just so wildly wrong. You know, they're so catastrophically and embarrassingly wrong. You may as well go to predictions from Mystic Meg. You know, these are literally, you know, Russell Grant predictions are more accurate

than these models. And yet, you know, these people are still informing government policy. And so you end up in a position where the theory just does not match the reality. Is that okay, so what are we doing? You know, we're sat in this, we are misinformed by the people who are considered the only legitimate authorities. And, I mean, I'm not saying I have any authority to inform anyone about anything either. You know, I don't know anything about, you know, any of the problems that we're having,

really, other than what we can commonly see. But we can see that, like, a bit of prudence, you know, sure, it's scary and the felt need is that, oh God, you know, the NHS is going to be overwhelmed. So be it. You know, so be it. You know, that's not a justification to tyrannize our entire society. I didn't sign up to the glory of the NHS. You know, the NHS is meant to serve us.

You know, if the NHS, you know, has problems, then we do our best and muddle through them, you know, which has always been the traditional way that we do. And maybe also it needs more funding. I'm open to that possibility. Well, it's a black hole of funding anyway. It is. But also, I think the problem is capacity. And it's not just at the moment.

It's been that way for decades. Every winter there's a crisis. Well, maybe we need to find some way of not having a crisis every winter, right? I agree. I agree. No, no, I totally agree. And, I mean, another problem that ties into this is numbers. It's immigration.

You know, during 2020, when we're having all the lockdowns, 700,000 people came to live in this country. But how did that happen in the middle of a pandemic? You know, when we're all confined to our homes, and why would 700,000 people come to a country that's locked down? And yet this still happened. And so these are people who can get sick from COVID and then end up in a hospital in a country that they've just arrived in.

So they've contributed nothing to the system. The system is not prepared for these extra numbers. And so we end up again in crisis after crisis after crisis with no end in sight. And it's the paradigm that we're in that's creating the problems. And it's like, okay, well, I mean, what's the solution? But there is no solution. And the problem as well is the government's attitude, which what you're talking about, which is a reactive one, it's not a proactive, it's completely reactive. The thing that I find worrying as well is that encourages a passivity in people. They're very passive. And it's not

any more about solving your problems, thinking about how you're going to improve your life. You look to government to solve it. And once that happens, we're in a really, really dark, place because people give up agency. Well, you're not really free, are you? Yeah. That's the problem. And what's worse is that you've given up your agency to an institution that is not capable of looking out for your future because they're too busy panicking about the problem of the day. And so, okay, this is going to end badly, isn't it?

It feels like a car that's about to crash. Every day, it feels like we're in a car that's about to crash. And so the problem, I think, is that the government do know what to do, they are just essentially so henpecked by the people who support the Blairite paradigm that they feel they can't step outside of it, which is very bizarre because I think a lot of people in this country do want to step outside of this paradigm. I mean, for example, the government could just say, well, look, we're just going to have to reduce the number of people who come here. You know, this is just one of those things that if we want to save the NHS, this is an inevitable

thing, or we continue to just pour money down the black hole that might not even be a success. you know, we're assuming that just simply more money, more money is going to solve the problem, whereas in fact, it's just the numbers of people trying to access this service that's, you know, overwhelming it. And so, okay, well, that's one thing they could do. But you know that tomorrow, if they came out and said, look, we're just going to, for the next five years, just refuse visas. You know, I'm sure they've got a website where it's like, apply for your visa here. And if they just took that down and said, sorry, we're not receiving applications for visas at the moment, nobody's human rights are violated. Nobody gets hurt. Nothing changes. Nobody's, you know, nothing wrong.

happens, except that would be advantageous to the country and the NHS. I think it's probably a little bit extreme in the sense that that would actually, you know, there are some people who are coming into the country who need to come into the country, the benefits this country as well. Hang on a second, hang on a second. Like, this is one of those trade-offs, though, because, sure, there are going to be, like, you know, GDP benefits and things like that. No, no, that's not what I mean.

I mean, there are people who are coming here to be top-level doctors who are going to work in the NHS. What I'm saying is, I'm not saying, you know, I'm not saying. reducing immigration is not a worthy goal. I think it has been too high since the Blair period. I always, when people say who's responsible for Brexit, quote, unquote, I say Tony Blair. He made it, right? But what I think, in my opinion, you need, which is actually the Brexit argument, ironically,

which I voted remain in, is you need an immigration system that is calibrated to the needs of the host country. That means you get to choose how many people come, what their skills are, what they're going to do here, et cetera, and then you can have the number of people that you need to come in and do the things that you want them to do, that you allow them to do, rather than just saying, we're not letting anyone in. Well, I mean, I'm honestly, I'm of the opinion now that maybe a zero-in policy is actually what we need, because it's not just the material needs of the country that are at issue here.

There are genuine social problems. There's a widespread, I think, problem of alienation. and I think the next census is going to show us just how deeply that's going to cut. What do you mean by it in Aisand car? As in the English people thinking they're no longer at home in England because you can look at cities like Birmingham where we're waiting for this latest census but I found the Birmingham Council's data on children in their schools and they happen to have an ethnic breakdown of children in their schools

and only a third of them were English. and so now you've got London and Birmingham, which are the two largest cities in England, that are majority non-English. And I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with immigrants or anything like that, but I'm saying it's a bit of a strange state of affairs when that's the case.

And if I went to other countries and found, if I went to Nigeria and found that Nigeria's major cities were populated with Chinese people, I would wonder why. They probably will be to be fair. No, they'll just be the ones running it, mate. That's the thing. I would understand.

that the Nigerians would feel a sense of alienation from their own civilization. But what I'm saying to you, Carl, and this is why I'm pushing back on you, is I understand that concern. I do understand that concern. And it's uncomfortable for people to hear, but I understand the concern. What I'm saying, though, is I think the reaction, to me, reducing immigration to zero would be an overreaction, the trade-offs of which would hurt this country. Well, what do you think the trade-offs would be? First of all, a lot of people who come here on visas come here for only a few months to do a particular job. People from abroad to come and do a trade delegation or whatever, all that sort of thing.

There are also people who come here and contribute, start businesses, as I have, etc. And I would like to think my contribution as an immigrant to this country is not only in the taxes that I've paid. And so there are people who will come and contribute. They will come and invent things. They will come and create things. There will be huge benefits. And so to lose, if you had an immigration, look, when I came to this country in 1995, 3% of the British public thought that immigration was a major issue.

3%. Why? Because immigration was about 30,000 or 40,000 people a year. That was manageable. People could integrate. People could learn the language. People could fit in. People didn't end up in a ghetto of their own community.

What we've seen is that when you have levels of immigration like we've had since, hundreds of thousands every year, that has a detrimental effect. To me, it's about scale. And I'm wary of the overreaction, that what we need is to just go, okay, that's it. I think there are some trade-offs at that extreme end that are not going to be good for this country. I don't really see why this is a major concern, though, right?

I'm not suggesting that we should remove anyone who's here or anything like that. No, no, no, no. And I totally wouldn't. No, actually, I totally wouldn't, obviously. Because it... Wouldn't you? No, absolutely not. He would. Yeah, I would.

I think that there's extra strength in the immigrant who is also the patriot, right? And you see this with like Eric Zamor in France at the moment. His family are Algerian Jews. And he is the most patriotic of the current candidates for the presidency of France. And arguing most strongly from, like, traditional France. perspectives from them in order to make his points because he's he obviously loves the country right and you you obviously like you know really love the place no but but we don't want to deport or not deport people based on their beliefs right so you don't want to deport anyone no no

I don't deport anyone and I wouldn't want the state to become intrusive like that one of the one of the main problems I have with the COVID problems is that the state has become unbelievably intrusive and I can't stand the idea of the state being intrusive but there are just normal bureaucratic things that we can do we can just have a five-year moratorium on immigration. As in we just say, sorry, we're not giving out visas. Because, I mean, we've literally had tens of millions of immigrants

come into the country. And, I mean, even in small... Tens of millions. Yeah. In what period? Since 1997. We've had tens of millions. Are you sure? Yeah, I think it's probably in the... I think it's about 15 million, something like that now. Since 1997?

Yeah. It's a huge... I mean, we had 700,000 last year. You know, it's a... Are you talking net or just people coming in? Gross. Gross. But the population of this country is not increased by anything like that in this time. Well, I don't know.

We actually don't know. I mean, like Sainsbury's thought that we were feeding 80 million people. Because we don't know about illegal immigration, obviously. And in 2011, it was something like 68 million, but I'm sure it's going to be probably around 75 million now. It's just been a huge number of people, you know. And so it's like, right, we, and even if I'm overestimating it, it's still one of those things that you can see. Like, I walk around my town of Swindon now, and I can see that it's different.

Like, after Christmas, I went to the local shopping centre, and I swear to God, half of the people in there were foreign. And not native, like, native-born people from somewhere, you know, from a foreign descent, but people with strange accents, speaking in strange languages. And I was feeling this sense of alienation that I hear about from lots of people. around the country. And so I'm not, you know, we don't need to do anything other than just say, well, look, we can just for five years refuse visas. We don't need to give visas to foreigners. We can, I think, surmount the problems that you're bringing up from within.

I don't think that we have to look elsewhere. And I'm actually a bit wary of the, well, why don't we get doctors from some of the country? Because it feels like an inversion of the sort of colonial argument where it's like, well, we'll just take their resources. Because that Indian doctor, who was born and raised in India, trained in India, was born and raised and trained in Indian resources. Resources I don't think we have a right to.

And then so if we're like, yeah, but we can pay three times more than you can get in India, he's naturally inclined to come over. And so that's essentially us taking a good doctor from India, where I'm sure they need good doctors in India. No, it's a good argument. And I'm sure that we can train. No, no, it's a good argument. The thing I would disagree with you very strongly and just give you a personal example is

you said no one gets hurt. Well, that's not true if you don't allow people to come. For example, my wife is about, we're about to have our first child, right? My in-laws might want to come and see their grandson. My family might want to come and see them. I'm not saying people can't visit. We said no visas. Yeah, but residential visa.

We don't give citizenship to those. Oh, right, right, right. So basically, you can come and visit. Of course, yeah, yeah, of course. Fucking outcome. Let's get rid of the tourism industry. We just spent things. 15 minutes arguing about something based on a misunderstanding.

I didn't wonder why you were quite so angry. I was like, hang on a second. Not allow anyone to come in, really? No, no, no, I'm not thinking about building. What you're saying is you don't want anyone coming here for permanent settlement. Yes. Sorry, I should have been more clear. Yeah, that's what.

Because when you say visas, that includes stories. Yeah, I should have been more clear about that. Okay, great. You've just wasted 15 minutes of your time listening to people argue about something that they actually misunderstood. Yeah, sorry about that. because like we've got a genuine housing crisis as well at the moment. I mean, and all of the problems that we're having, honestly, seem to stem from just an excess number of people.

But it's part of it. But there's also a large part of the housing crisis, Carl, is corruption. And it's corruption in the housing industry. It's the fact that the, you know, councils as well. Companies, you know, what they do is a drip, drip, drip of building houses because that way you can sell them for far more money. Nobody's doing anything about it.

I mean, another problem is allowing non-British people and companies, you know, agents, to purchase land in Britain. I mean, why are Russian oligarchs able to buy up tracts of London? Why are Saudi oil-baths are God-given right to buy property in London? Exactly, right? And before Factor and Reagan, it just wasn't allowed. You know, you just don't allow foreigners to buy up your country. And it's like, well...

The Swiss don't allow it. And why should they? You know, it's this, it's very much a neoliberal way of thinking. And I'm not a neoliberal. So I'm just like, okay, well, then why would I allow that? And I, you know, I would totally understand any country saying, well, look, this is one of the things that predatory capitalism does. This is what Chiquita did in Guatemala. They basically bought up half the country.

And it's like, okay, well, now they were called the octopus because they owned everything. They had the tentacles and everything. And, you know, you've got to take a more broad and deep view of what's going on. And so I'm not, you know, there are things that we should be doing that we're not doing and they exacerbate the problems that we're having. And it's outside of the Blairite sort of neoliberal paradigm that the solutions are found. And yet the media, the activists and all of the parties are essentially trapped within this paradigm. And nobody seems to be willing to be like, okay, well, we could just stop giving out citizenship.

You know, people can still come to visit, obviously. But, you know, we don't have to allow 700,000 people here to become citizens. It doesn't have to be the case. And so that saves us a lot of trouble, you know, in the future. And we know that this isn't something that is, let me from that. We also know that a lot of people leave, right? And so if the problem is, well, too many people have come in, the infrastructure is under too much pressure,

well, there are people who are just here temporarily. They only come here temporary, and then they personally leave. If we're not allowing loads and more people in, then the problem solves itself, in effect. And you don't have to do anything. You know, you don't have to be invasive. Because the last thing I want is an invasive state. But there has to be a solution to these problems. Hi, Francis.

Do you have your own business? No. What do you think trigonometry is? An opportunity for me to annoy people and shout catchphrases. Birds love it. One, two, three, four, five, six. 6, 7, 8, 910. Well, if you do run your own company, you'll know how important branding is to have a successful business.

That's why you should work with the older files. Every project is carefully considered and tailored to ensure your brand is consistent and memorable to everyone it reaches. Most big city agencies are going to cost you an arm and a leg just so they can pay their overhead costs. The older files work remotely, so you don't have to worry about being overcharged. Not only that, there are one-stop shop for all your branding needs, including brand development, online ad design, email design, web design, print design, motion graphics and more. They do design, guys. Visit theolderfiles.com forward slash triggered and fill out the project request form to get

10% of your first project and a free consultation. That's the orderfiles.com slash triggered and get 10% off your first project and free consult Where I'm with you is I personally are in favour of the Swiss model. I don't understand why people from abroad, companies from abroad can come in by huge swaves of London, and that is deemed to be fine. And then the government does nothing to solve the housing crisis on a multitude of different levels. And it's just worsened. And it's just deepened.

So I am with you on that. Well, one interesting thing I learned the other day is that 30% of the companies, Servative parties funding comes from housing developers. Yeah. Which is why there's so many new builds. And I see this all around the West Country, where I live, is constantly, oh, well, there are going to be, you know, a thousand new houses built there. But that's our countryside that we're building over to house foreigners.

You know, I'm sorry, I don't really want to do that. It's not just to house foreigners, though, is it called? It's the house. Well, yeah, but the British population isn't growing. Like we've got a sub-replacement rate population. It's something like 1.6, I think, is our. population replacement rate. So if we had no immigration, then we would have decreasing housing prices, because there'd be houses that were just available because there wouldn't be enough people

to fill them. So the fact that we have 700,000 people come here a year is why we have such a problem with houses. But it's also as well the fact that we also have an ageing population. And we do need younger people to come in, to do the work, et cetera, et cetera. You're smiling. I am smiling because doesn't that feel a bit vampiric? We need to steal your youth to look after our old people. I mean, it's not the worst thing we do, let's be fair. It's not. But again, it's got that kind of imperial vibe about it, right?

As in we're not doing what we should be doing to maintain ourselves. We're looking at other people who are doing that thing. And we're like, yeah, we just have the money and the resource and the prestige to steal your thing. And it's like, is that right? And then what happened? But the thing is, hang on, hang on. I'll push back on you. Is it stealing?

Is it really stealing? Kind of is. Or are you just offering someone an opportunity? Yeah, but you are. To better their life. Yeah. But you are leveraging a superior position over their position, right? But then the question is, what stops them from just following in our footsteps?

You know, what stops them? Oh, they do. Ukrainians go to Poland to work and Polish people come here to work. But the problem with the demographic issue is that we're not, having enough children because we're enjoying our material comforts too much. But what stops them from doing the same thing? Because they come here, they work for a few years, they become prosperous. They're like, yeah, no, I'm going to just follow the same example.

And so, you know, they are like, well, now I need to like get, you know, now we need to get someone else's children to come over and look after me as an old person, you know. And so it doesn't solve the problem. It actually turns us into a bit of a sort of black hole of lineages, you know, where it's like this is where your grandchildren come not to have grandchildren. But isn't the problem? Is this right? You know, is this what we want for our civilization?

And I'm really glad we're having this conversation because it's something that you would never see on any mainstream platform, really, especially done to this detail. But isn't what you're really talking about, Carl, the problems of globalization? I think the problems are the problems of the Enlightenment, actually, as a philosophical movement. The problem is every standard is a material standard. None of the standards are something immaterial.

For example, like happiness has been equated with material pleasure, right? And physical pleasure as well. Well, that's not me, physical pleasure. Happiness is equated with taking drugs, playing a video game, you know, drinking, you know, whatever it is. Sex? Very much sex. Well, done, yeah. No, no, I forgot that.

but it's not equated... You have been married for a long time. I have, yeah. But it's not being equated with the general sense of well-being you have of being satisfied with your life. And who can say that? They've got that. You know, how many young people today are looking at the world and being like,

yeah, I'm quite satisfied on the path I'm on. They're all depressed. You know, look at depression drug-taking and things like this. Like, we are creating a world for ourselves that we're becoming deeply unhappy in, and we don't understand why we're deeply unhappy. and we're becoming increasingly more atomized, addicted to our phones, and we're building a trap, a prison for ourselves,

in which we're going to just keep killing ourselves, frankly, because when you look at the suicide rates, and it's just like, right, okay, we need to reassess what it is to be a human being, and I think the Enlightenment paradigm of just having a materialistic frame is not sufficient. You know, this is the incompleteness of this paradigm. And so I'm not saying that it's bad.

It's been wonderful to do as Francis Baker, and wanted and to relieve man's estate because it used to be really bad, you know, but now, I mean, I can't even imagine. I went, I went to a Victorian hospital in London with my wife because she's fascinated of all this stuff. And they were telling us about how they didn't have, you know, antiseptic and painkillers and things like that. And so, you know, here's some whiskey, hold him down, boys, and then we'll get that

leg off or something. It's like, oh, my God. So everything that's happened, great, but that was 150 years ago. And now we're at a point where we're trying to solve problems that we ourselves have created. You know, these aren't problems that we've inherited from nature and the fact that we, you know, we get pain and infections and things. Now we've created a world for ourselves that is making us depressed. And so it's like, right, okay, we need to look into this. And I actually think that ties into the demographic problem.

We've totally devalued the institution of marriage and parenthood. And there's a lot of human meaning in it. You know, like, it's, it's, I'm very happy with my life because I have children, because I'm married, because every day I come home from work and my boy's like, Daddy, he comes over and gives me a big hug, my one-year-old, you can, he sits there bouncing up and down with his little fat cheeks bouncing, and he's thrilled to see me. And honestly, I would be so terribly depressed if this wasn't my life, you know? Okay, so isn't the problem, Carl, and I'm going to be, go very left wing here, Isn't it capitalism the problem what you're talking about?

This excessive consumption, the idea that the acquirement of material goods, material possession will lead to happiness. When the reality is, we all know that happiness is not found in that particular place. I would just pick up one point there. The thing is, I think you're absolutely right, but I don't think we all know that. I think actually most of us are brainwashed into not acknowledging that fact. I think that anything that follows from, capitalism arrives at that same point.

Look at what the communist ideal is meant to be. It's meant to be a point at which nobody wants for anything. And so everyone has everything that they'll ever want at all times, which means a bunch of sort of bugmen sat in the metaverse, you know, constantly consuming their soma and eating their bug burgers and things like that. You know, well, they're just, you know, like the fat people from Wally, you know. Whereas that's where the communists are going to take us with super abundance.

It's like, okay, but that's not virtuous, isn't, you know? They're not good and virtuous and happy people. They're just people who have constantly enjoying or suffering from chemical pleasures in their head. And it's like, look, that's not what a human being should be. That's not a good outcome. And so capitalism is doing that, but any other sort of post-en, you know, enlightenment system, like, you know, socialism, communism, will aim for that as well. And the problem is aiming for that is actually, I think, unhealthy for us.

and we should just change directions. Okay, why can't we aim more for wholesome communities, you know, because, I mean, you get countries like Poland that start introducing pro-family policies. And if you've got to 50 years, it's unthinkable that we have anything other than a pro-family policy. Because families are the bedrock of what a civilization is. They're what, maintains the continuum through time for producing new generations. And we've severed that. You know, we've been like, ah, well, we need to focus.

successively on the margins. You know, we need to focus successfully on those sort of, you know, the, the, the, the, the activists and the, you know, gay rights activists, things like this. It's like, okay, but what are they doing for the future, you know? So, they're not producing succeeding generations. And so, you know, why are they given focus? It's interesting that you make this point, Carl, because with my wife being pregnant now. Congratulations.

Thank you. And we've obviously put it off until fairly late later in life. but as that process goes on, I think about this stuff more and more. And I, you know, the people that I know mostly, or a lot, are comedians in London who live four to a flat, and mostly they're not really coping with life, and then they're not really...

Well, mate, chill out, come on. Personally, mate. Two to a flat, I think you'll find. Two to a flat, plus I stay here sometimes. Is this the hoisty to oocy. I'm not talking about front. I think Francis is kind of across a lot of this stuff, really, and he's always been thinking about it quite deeply.

But a lot of people, young people now in society, live these lives where, as you say, it's material pleasures. It's going out, getting drunk, going to a show. These are all great things, by the way, having a drink with your mates and going to, they're all great. But they don't nourish you from within. They don't give you that deep satisfaction. And we somehow got to a position, like,

I get this like cringe when you mention pro family because I think Poland, Hungary, these like, you know, these super like, you know, I don't even know what the right word is. I know what you mean? You know what I mean? It's weird and old-fashioned and uncool and not, it's not, how to put it? Like, it's not going to set the world on fire. No, right?

It's not exciting. No. It's not progress. No, you know, like in inverted comments. It's not progress. It's not progress. Yeah. But it is, it is wholesome.

And it does make people, you know, appreciate their position in the world. Rather than constantly being depressed, I'm, you know, posting on Twitter, I'm depressed, I'm depressed. Okay, well, take some more medication, I guess. You know, what are your options here? Right. And, yeah. Because you're not living a life that produces something else. Yeah.

And you can't not be that way if all you do is go on Twitter and go out and get drunk and whatever. You are the accumulation of your habits. It's interesting. You are the things that you do over time. It's very interesting. So you talk about the enlightenment. The reason it's interesting to me is because there are cultures that do this differently, right? Japan, for example.

I have a friend who I went to school with. He's of Korean descent. Third generation living in Japan. His grandfather came to Japan from Korea, made a business, made a life, was very successful, could afford to send all their kids to an English boarding school. They're not Japanese. They haven't got Japanese passports. You know, Japan made a very clear decision.

that they want to keep their country the way that it is. And you can take whatever view of that that you want. Maybe you think that's racist or wrong or whatever. But this is what I'm getting at is, why is it that here in the West, we are deeply uncomfortable with the idea of preserving what you have, maybe to the exclusion of others? Is it colonialism? Is it our history?

Well, we came over there, now you're allowed to come over here. Is it that that? Like, what is it? I mean, I think it's probably a combination of all of those things. But I think that at base, it begins and ends with Enlightenment philosophy. I think that the Enlightenment has a constituency, holds rational thoughts to be the key component of any decision-making process. And it's like, sure, but actually, in reality, most of our decisions are not made through reflection. Most of them are habitual.

You know, I got up, I went to the cupboard, I called myself. a bowl of cereal, and I didn't think about it at all. I just did it. Every day I do it. And, you know, but there's a good reason because I'm hungry. You know, I need to get my breakfast. And so this constituency of rational agents is universal because every human is a rational agent. And so it becomes so outward looking that it is essentially demands an imperial perspective, where now I've claimed all of humanity as being part of my constituency. But they're not. You know, there are people all around the world who don't agree with the way that we do things and don't want to be part of us and yet we're laying claim to the many ways. You can think,

right, you're ours. It's like, well, hang on a second. That's a bit arrogant, isn't it? You know, I mean, that's a bit presumptuous. And we could look at it through what I suppose we'll just call the traditional lens for now, which is the continuum of our civilization and the accumulation of any sort of inherited wisdom through time. And suddenly you get a much more like parochial and particular perspective. You think, okay, well, actually, it's not my job to solve problems all around the world. It's my job to make sure that my kids have got a safe environment to live in and go to school and get enough to eat. And, you know, I'm kind to my neighbors. And so it's a much more sort of relational world. You've got to have a direct

relationship in some way. And it might just be like, you know, I'm in a country with Scottish people in the Highlands. But if something were to go terribly wrong in Scotland, I would contribute to the charity fund, you know, because I view them as my countryman, because that's what we are. Whereas, sorry, if something happens, you know, in the jungles of South America, well, it's not really my problem, you know, and, you know, I know that they have people down there who are close to them, who have relations with them, who will help them out, you know. I assume the goodness of human nature that that will be the case

and at the end of the day ultimately if something were to happen that you know desperately need to help I'm not above or against helping them or anything like that I'm just saying like it's the charity begins at home mentality you know your affections begin with those things closest to you

and radiate outwards rather than abstracting to everything at all times you know and and it's this this rationalistic view of the world that's very thin and totally universal and also can only recognize that which is common to mankind, right? And this is exactly, this is what Scruton pointed out about the Europeans.

They went around the world and they're like, wow, look, men everywhere have common things about them. You know, they'll eat, they all have, you know, I was going to say two sexes, but dare I. Not anymore! Dare I say that. But there's a string that unites all of humanity in these commonalities. But to do that, you have to abstract away from those things that make them different. And those things that make us different are the inherited traditions that we've had, the unthinking but reflected in us.

And Francis, you're a great example of this, actually. You know, you're an Englishman. You know, you've got particular cultural traits. You've got values. You've got beliefs that Constantine, as a Russian, doesn't have. But, I mean, I'm not saying you can't be friends. We can't. But the point is there are differences between you both recognize.

recognize. It's respect for the differences. It's absolutely true. It's absolutely true. And these differences are particular, you know. And so it's that view of the differences being important rather than the universal nature of mankind being the only thing that's important that I think is the bifurcation. And we've arrived at the universal managerial state that just doesn't recognize that there are these accumulated cultural habits. And it's destroying them. You know, it doesn't recognize that it's destroying them as it allows hundreds of thousands of people to come here, as it legislates from an ivory tower over the norms of our local civilizations, you know. And I can't remember where I was going with this.

Well, I think what I think the problem is. No, no, that makes sense. I think the thing that strikes me about what you're saying is, and I can chart this because in some ways it charts my de-chance. of my thinking as maybe I've got older, maybe as we've done the show, I talked to different people, but I think there was some kind of point where we suddenly decided

that progress was the only value that we should have. And the entirety of our existence is about unshackling ourselves from the former traditions, which of course they were more sexist and more racist and more this and more that than what we are now. And so our job

is not to live lives of meaning and purpose and to do things, and yes, to improve as we can, our job is to become the most advanced progressive people ever. Our job is to unshackle and unburden ourselves from these traditions which are all about oppression and dominance and all of that. No, that's not our job anymore. Our job now is to do everything we can to overthrow the restrictive patriarchal norms of the past. And in our addiction to this progress, I think the point we've got to is we've started to forget some very basic things

about human biology, about the need for human beings. You know, what we are is we're communal apes with smart phones. Yeah. We need the little community that we have. We need to have children and grandparents and grandchildren and all of these things

that actually give our lives meaning. But no, we're more interested in repainting crossings in transgender rainbow flags or whatever. because that's what we think is the purpose of our lives. Notice where progress is going, right? Like they always say, oh, well, it's progress. Okay, well, that sounds good, you know. But to where?

Like, if you're going to go, you've got to have a destination. And so what's the destination? Because you're exactly as exactly as you're framing it. They are acting as if our minds are being imprisoned in our bodies, you know, as if our consciousness is being oppressed by our material self. And it's like, okay, but that's lunacy. You know, I mean, like, I'm not a science expert, but as I understand it, the consciousness is a product of the body.

Like, so you can't say, ah, my consciousness is being generated by my body. It's not being oppressed by my body. No, that's not how that works, surely. You know, that seems to be insane. And therefore justifies you doing anything. to your body in order to appease the consciousness. It seems to be back to front, you know, as in you need to come to terms with what you are in the world, you know, you're, and everyone, like, used to have to do this.

As you're young and you sort of be a particular thing, but it turned out you weren't that particular thing. And so, okay, what am I, you know, what are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? You know, and then you center yourself and you become accepting of your position and you, you know, become a proper human being rather than some lunatic on Twitter who has lots of stuff in their bio that makes no sense. So, Hey, Constantine, do you love trigonometry? Of course, incredible interviews, hilarious

live streams, hard-hitting satire, plus my handsome jawline. Whatever takes away from your hairline. But if you do love trigonometry and you want to support us, there's only one place to do that, and that's on locals. Yes, locals, is a brilliant platform that has been incredibly supportive to our show and other problematic creators. The great thing about locals is that it's a community for people who love trigonometry. That's right. It's a place for you to hang out with like-minded people, share thoughts, memes and discuss the show. You can enjoy it for free, but it also gives you the option of supporting us for as little as $7 a month. And if you want to give more, you can. We have incredible rewards for our higher tier supporters as well.

We've got everything for mugs, monthly group calls and one on two chats with me and KK. Get in. Join our community by hitting the link in the description and the pin comment below. See you there, guys. Carl, I'm talking about Twitter. Not just about Twitter, but big tech. Because to me, you are the one who started on YouTube right when it was in its nascent phase. You gained this huge following. and then you made the decision before everyone else

to leave YouTube and strike out on your own. And we talk about big tech censorship with lots of people, we've talked about it, with loads of great people, but people who haven't experienced what it's like. Can you explain to us that journey of starting out and then leaving why you left? Because I think this is really important. I wouldn't say that I've left YouTube

because lotatosec.com does have a YouTube channel, which is podcast and the Lotus Cetas, you can go find it. We do have a YouTube channel, but we don't just have a YouTube channel because it used to be that YouTube was the wild west of the internet. You could literally put anything on there, and you could find anything, and no matter how crazy or normal, it was a huge range, and it was very exciting. You know, it was a fun place to be. They weren't heavy-handed with their moderation, and then the administrative state got

involved and therefore YouTube are like, okay, well, we're going to have to crack down. They now have a very, very strict set of editorial rules. And it became apparent that if I wanted to be able to talk about certain things, whether it's an offensive take on something or not, why risk it, basically? And so we've started a website, we've got a big team, and we produce lots of good content,

because that way we can at least be sure that we have a place to be able to do these things. And, you know, people can subscribe to our website, get access to all the premium stuff we do, and therefore see the things that we want to talk about. But honestly, the editorial standards of the Silicon Valley social media platforms forbid. I mean, like one example is Twitter

and talking about gender binary. You know, if you want to question whether man and woman have any connection to male or female, you can find yourself getting banned from Twitter. Just for... And I think that's a conversation that's very much up in the air needs to be debated, and yet one of these platforms just said, nope, not at all. Questions about COVID and vaccines on YouTube are also just verboten.

You know, we have had videos struck because we cited doctors, people like Dr. Malone, who of course is not on any of these platforms now, the co-inventor of the MRNA vaccine, because they are not in total lockstep to a particular narrative. And that's quite scary. And so this is why we started. It's very scary, man. And the thing is, like, we put a video of my Twitter thread out recently about why people are vaccine.

It doesn't mention the vaccine at all. It's really talking about the media context. The psychology of it. The psychology of why people trust the experts a lot less than they ever used to. And that didn't get censored outright. They just put an 18-only restriction, which dampened the growth of the video for a while. And then they took it off, I think Jordan Peterson or someone retweeted it. Yeah, so we've had our video at the beginning of the pandemic of Peter Hitchens.

It was shadow banned. We have a video clip on our channel showing exactly how you couldn't find it on Google and you couldn't find it on YouTube. It was shadow banned for a few days. Then they take it off. And there's never any explanation of why those decisions are made. It is very worrying. But at the same time, do you think this is less about the administrative state,

but it's a product of the fact of how big these companies have become? And when you become, it's like as we grow, people are like, well, you've got to think about this now and you have an audience. So you've got to be responsible about that. Like those pressures are quite natural. I'm always very wary when, when any, and I know you're not like this anyway. You're not conspiratorial in this way. But I'm wary of people like they go, there's a small, there's like a thing that explains everything. And it's a cabal of small people, small cabal of people somewhere that are pulling all the strings.

Do you know what I mean? Yeah. It's not about conspiracies. That's the problem. If it was a conspiracy, then it would be a lot easier to expose it. And people go, oh, well, good. We'll stop doing that then.

Because the conspirators have been caught and, you know, and it's not saying there aren't conspiracies. There are, but this isn't one of them, unfortunately. This is to do with the paradigm that we're in, as in the governing principles of public life, they put you on a set of rails. And the question is just how far down these rails are going to go. And so if you,

adopt the principle, well, vaccine misinformation is wrong. Well, then now, oh, we're in control of YouTube. Well, we've got to do something about vaccine misinformation. And so they can't help themselves. And this is how, I think was it, Nadine Doris in, or one of the conservative cabinet members in parliament, I think was today or yesterday. It is Nadine Doris.

It is, yeah. Yeah, who was saying that they have a special squad that monitor the internet for vaccine misinformation and remove it. Because the Labor Party, concerned that they didn't. Well, our disinformation and misinformation unit is working and we've done everything possible. I mean, I know that there have been accusations is a strong word, but concerns possibly for the opposition front bench that the disinformation and misinformation unit was no longer in existence. That's not the case. It's not true. It is there. It is

working. We did have a pilot which ran for six months, which stopped, but the work from that pilot now continues with the misinformation and disinformation unit. And daily, that work takes place daily. And daily we work to remove that content online, which is both harmful and particularly when it comes to COVID-19 and vaccinations, which is harmful and provides misinformation and disinformation. It's like, sorry, you've got this, you've got this, what, like private, opaque group in the government that censors things from the internet?

Yeah. Like, what are you talking about? Okay, so that being the case. And look, I am broadly on your side. When it comes to this, I think we would... Yeah, exactly, get rid of them. You know, they've done enough now. Right.

We're just messing with... But the problem comes with... What do you do with quite blatant medical misinformation? 5G is COVID, of course, it's COVID, etc., etc. What do you do with that? Does that come within the Overton window? Do you remove that? What do you do?

I think that one of the reasons that people have less faith in experts now is because the experts have essentially been ignoring the conspiracy theories and just censoring them. And when you do that, that makes people think, right, you don't have an answer to this, but you are a tyrant and you are lying to me. And so essentially, Chris Witty is going to have to come out and explain why 5G isn't whatever the conspiracy is about 5G. and they're going to have to explain it. And they might think, well, this is beneath my dignity or something, sure, but you're dealing with people who don't know anything about these things and won't believe you unless you actually engage properly with what they're saying. And the thing is, there are some kernels of truth in some of these conspiracy theories

that when you censor them, what you're saying is, well, that's not a kernel of truth. The things people have recognized this with their own eyes. They can see that whatever the kernel of truth that the insanity has been built around, they can see that that is true. And so if you deny that, well, you're denying all of it, which means it must all be true, you know. And so it's unfortunately requires more interface from these public experts. But they hold themselves very loof.

I'm not even going to dignify that with a response. That's misinformation. Gone. And it's like, sorry, that's not how you build trust. That's how you build distrust. It's a great point. I remember I watched this documentary on Flat Earthers. And, you know, it was quite joking.

They were taking the piss. Are you saying the Earth and a flat? I love flat Earth as a conspiracy. It's hilarious. Yeah, it is. It is. And they interviewed this NASA scientist. And she made such a great point.

She was like, no, the reason they believe this is our fault. It's a scientist's fault. Because we are not explaining it in ways that they can understand. And by mocking them and by censoring, all you're doing them is pushing them into the fringes and the margins of society. instead of welcoming them in and going, so these are your beliefs. Let me explain to you in very clear, easy, simple to understand ways why what you believe is scientifically incorrect.

See, that requires a sort of level of kindness, doesn't it? You know, a level of consideration. It's not there's a lunatic who I consider a threat. It's, oh, there's someone who I can help, you know? And look, let me show, because, I mean, like the, I always had this video that I saw that was of a belief, that goes up into the atmosphere, and you can literally see the earth become round, right? And so I would send that to Flat Earth as when I was on Twitter and whatnot, because it was

just like, well, look, and then, oh, the video's, oh, okay, now everything's fake, you know. But, you know, like that's exactly the point. Then instead of treating them like a hostile enemy, treat them like people that you're responsible for, because you're the elite, you're the experts, you're the people they're looking up to, and you're the people who are losing the confidence of those people below you. So you have to do something in the way of outreach if you've got this position of social responsibility. Well, that's one of the problems, isn't it? Because all they're doing by censoring stuff and not engaging with it, and I've made this, you know, we had a controversial

scientist on the show very early in the pandemic, who I think said some things that probably were completely wrong, in my opinion. Now, when I look back at it, but when we went on Rebel Wisdom, David challenged us on it. And I made this very point. What the government should be doing is going, here's a video of trigonometry interviewing Dr. Sucherra Bagdi, and here's what he says, and here are the facts. And answer people's questions. I mean, look at this current vaccine discussion that we're having. You know, there are people who are concerned about myocarditis, for example, right?

I think if you address that issue, you would either explain to people what's going on or assuage their fears, and there's probably a way to do that. For example, yes, people are getting myocarditis from taking the vaccine, but it seems that it doesn't last very long. it's not lethal to the overwhelming majority of people. Let's have that discussion instead of just keeping it underwrapped where people are going, well, they're not talking about Mike. That means probably everyone fucking has it.

Well, they probably don't. But you need to have the sensible conversation. And the problem is we've got this situation now where the big tech companies are employing a 20-year-old in California or a 20-year-old in India to decide what the conversation that we're allowed to have is what the truth is. Look at the LabLick thing, right? year ago, wouldn't be allowed to be discussed, now probably is what happened. You know what I mean?

Notice, though, that the, I think one of the reasons they don't do this is because they've got this desire for certainty and correctness under all circumstances. Like, because it may be that there is a problem with myocarditis. I'm not a doctor. I don't know. But if this is something that's coming up, then they may have to give a bit on the vaccine narrative, which is the vaccine is perfect and it's flawless and will save us all and we'll do no wrong in any circumstances. It's like, well, nothing's like that. You know, that's an unreasonable standard that you're setting for yourselves,

and then you're censoring things that might actually force you to come a bit closer to the centre and say, well, look, okay, there are some problems. But overall, it's a general good, which I'm sure it is, you know. But by demanding a standard of perfection for yourself, you are setting yourself up

to be an untrustworthy narrator on your narrative. And that gives credence to, you know, people who, I guess rightly, we would call fruit loops, you know, crackpots, you know, and you make them right by being wrong, by claiming perfection when you don't have it. And it's also the way that, you know, people in the public eye, shaming and use it in the language that they use. I take Tony Blair, for example, saying, you know, saying that people who, see, even I use the language, anti-vaxxas, they're not.

People who haven't taken the vaccine are stupid and selfish. And you think, well, how is that going to help anyone? You're not going to persuade anyone. you're just going to drive someone even further into not taking the vaccine. Well, that's because the reason he's doing it is not to persuade anyone. He wants to signal to his own side that he's got the right opinions and that he's virtuous and he's trying to look good in public, which... A bit late for that, mate. As I said before, you would not expect from Tony Blair.

But I tell you what, if I was someone who'd like, you know, I'd been got my vaccine, got my booster, and then Tony Blair's like, yeah, those anti-vaxxas are idiots. I'm like, oh, God, maybe they've got a point. You know, Tony Blair's saying it. Take this out. But anyway, Carl, it's been great having you back. It's always great to have the conversation.

We've got a couple of questions for our locals-only supporters. But before we go, as you know, I haven't been on the show many times now. Our last question is always the same. What's the one thing we're still not talking about as a society that we really should be? How many discounts does USAA auto insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi-vehicle discount. Safe driver discount. New vehicle discount.

Storage discount. How many discounts will you stack up? Tap the banner or visit usaa.com slash auto discounts. Restrictions apply. One thing. I actually don't think I can boil it down to just one thing. But I think the general theme of what we're talking about, the abolition of the administrative state is, I think, the main issue to get out of this problem.

You know, we have to get out of the mindset that the government, as you were saying earlier, is the source of all solutions. Or it should be, you know, that's a problem. me seems like the key issue of the time. You know, one thing that just occurred to me, as you said that, that actually, I'm trying to think it through, but it seems to me that a form of soft authoritarianism, best case scenario, is the inevitable consequence of that thinking. Because if you think the government is supposed to do everything, then the government

will do everything, and that means that it will control increasingly large ways of your personal life and your conduct and your interactions with other people. So, like, not doing that is the only way to preserve freedom, essentially. Yes, absolutely. I mean, we're already in this position. You know, we've already been through the lockdowns. We're already getting to, in Scotland and Wales, with vaccine passports and the insane, contradictory tyrannies that they're going through.

Not to say what's going on on on the continent or in Australia or in various other places. We're already at that point. And it's going to be very difficult for the people who have enforced those kind of regimes to admit that we made a mistake. Because then they have to essentially admit that they're not heroes, they're the villains. And the problem is, though, Carl, is that a lot of people quite like this. There are some. No, I wouldn't say some.

I would say there is a majority. It's a small majority, but I think there is a majority of people. How can it be a small majority? Because 52% 51. Not 80. Yeah. But you know, I don't know if you saw our interview with Stephen Hicks about the And this is one of the points he made right at the end, which is a lot of people, particularly people who feel that they're not necessarily well prepared for life.

They're not necessarily able to live their life if they are the sole person responsible for their life. A collectivist mindset, a mindset of, well, big daddy government's going to sort of out and tell people what to do is appealing. It is a very good criticism of liberalism to say that fundamentally you are on your own. that you are an individual, you have your life, and you are a free agent. You have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Now, what's distinctive about liberalism, though, is to say that making your life is a do-it-yourself projects, not to say that you won't be very social and other people won't help you, and you'll have wonderful support networks, right, and so forth,

but there is a bottom-line responsibility that liberalism puts on each individual. And then we do find a big divide among individuals in a liberal society. Those who are grateful, who are energized, who are delighted by the fact that I am a free agent and I can do whatever I want with my life and I'm going to go out and do something pretty special with it versus those who feel that as a burden, as a weight, as I'm not sure that I'm up to the task, and that sounds a little bit scary. And for that psychological type, I'm just going to call it a psychological type right now, I do think the collectivisms are going to be more psychologically attractive.

And it's not just as appealing as well. It's, I think there are people, you know, around 20 years old now who have known nothing else. You know, I can remember a time, I was an adult before all of the, before Tony Blair, well, about when Tony Blair came into power. And so I remember what it was like before, you know. Whereas, like Callum, one of the hosts of the podcast. He's 25. He just doesn't remember a before time.

That's reassuring to me, because kids always rebel against what they see. Wow. So we may get an ultra-freedom-loving generation coming next. I don't know, actually. I'm not sure. Francis is shaking. The statistics on Generation Z are actually in, and it's worse than the millennials. Good.

Look, kill them all. We'll end on that. That's a joke, YouTube. It's just a joke. I'm not actually suggesting violence against anyone, except millennials. Now, Carl, thanks for coming back on the show. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you all for watching and listening at home. We'll see you very soon. Another brilliant episode like this one or a show. All of them go out at 7pm UK time.

And for those of you who like your trigonometry on the go, it's also available as a podcast. And before you go, I should say, Carl, obviously, lotus eaters.com. People should check out your work there. Yeah, yeah, and they can go to a podcast on Lotus Cetas on YouTube. They will watch our daily podcast. Fantastic. Thanks for much. We'll see you soon. Take care and see you soon, guys. We hope you've enjoyed this incredible interview. Remember to subscribe and hit the bell button so that you never miss another fantastic episode.

And if you believe that the work we do here at Trigonometry is important, support us by joining our locals community using the link below.