Ep. 166: global outlook fubar

[00:00:04] Speaker A: How to kick this off. How to fucking. How to kick this off. All right, so listen, why don't we take a trip, you and me, to New York City, right? [00:00:17] Speaker B: New York City, yes. [00:00:20] Speaker A: New York City, but not modern day. No. No. [00:00:24] Speaker B: Have you watched what we do in the shadows? [00:00:27] Speaker A: I've watched a season. [00:00:29] Speaker B: Okay, fair enough. You'd never mentioned it before, even in a passing way, so I wasn't sure if you'd ever seen it. [00:00:37] Speaker A: I've watched a season, and I fucking loved it. And I don't know why I've not kept it back to it. [00:00:41] Speaker B: I know it gets better and better. You got it. [00:00:43] Speaker A: I know this. But I will. I will. So anyway, come with me, please, to New York? Not New York. [00:00:53] Speaker B: All right? Not present. [00:00:55] Speaker A: Absolutely not. No. We, my co host and friend, are going to New York of the 1920s and 1930s, all right? [00:01:04] Speaker B: That's an exciting time in New York. [00:01:07] Speaker A: Depression era New York. Fat Sam's grand slam, blousey brown. You know what I'm saying? Bugsy Malone. And amongst those characters in New York City lived an irishman by the name of. [00:01:24] Speaker B: All right. [00:01:28] Speaker A: Erstwhile a firefighter. But Mike's life had taken a downturn. Mike had unfortunately gone on a path which led him to unemployment, to alcoholism, and ultimately to homelessness. He'd fallen on hard times, and Mike had kind of drifted in and out of various jobs. He'd spent some time as a street cleaner, he'd spent some time as a coffin polisher. But most of the time he spent as a drunkard, all right? This man fucking loved a drink. [00:01:59] Speaker B: Listen. Yeah. I say this as a descendant of irish people from New York. It's a pretty normal existence for an irish man in New York in the 1920s. It's a tough time. There's a lot of booze flowing. It's hard to get a stable job anyway, even if you have the best of luck, let alone hitting the depression at the end of the decade. So Mike Malloy here, he's a relatable dude. [00:02:33] Speaker A: Yes. He's an every know. He would stay in a job for as long as he could fucking stay upright. Frankly, right now, Mike spent most of his time in a local speakeasy, okay? The back of an abandoned think, you know, rudimentary plywood bar. Mike would be there night after night, knocking back hooch and spending his evenings with anyone who would really give him the time of day. [00:03:02] Speaker B: Sure. [00:03:03] Speaker A: Now, in that speakeasy in January of 1933, which I think is the last year of prohibition, I believe in that speakeasy. Go on. [00:03:18] Speaker B: It's like, sure, I'm not sure. I'm never great with exact years. [00:03:21] Speaker A: Nor am I. I'm led to believe that it was roundabout there that prohibition was coming to a close. But in that fucking bar in that year, a very dark plot began to unfold. Now, the boss of that speakies was a guy called Tony Marino, all right? And he and a few of his friends were in there one night drinking fucking bathtub gin or whatever it was they sold and fretting about the depression. Now, they were all broke. They all wished they had better luck. They all wished they had richer friends. Maybe a rich relative, maybe a wealthy aunt or an uncle who'd kick the bucket and leave him a fortune. Maybe even a friend with a huge life insurance policy who could maybe go deep six and leave them everything. And as the story goes, one night in that speakeasy, the five stopped talking at the exact same time. And all turned to look at Mike, pissed up, passed out on the wood bar, all having the same idea at the same time. [00:04:33] Speaker B: Buddy, no one's going to miss you. [00:04:35] Speaker A: Exactly this. So with a promise of all the rot gut he could drink, five people in that bar. Marino, the bar owner, along with Joseph Red Murphy, along with the undertaker Frankie Pasca, Hershey Green, and a fruit merchant named Daniel Creesberg, they all persuaded Mike to pose as Red's brother. [00:05:01] Speaker B: Okay? [00:05:02] Speaker A: And they took out a couple of life insurances on Mike, totaling three and a half grand, which is equivalent to almost 80 grand in 2023. Okay. Wow. [00:05:11] Speaker B: Okay. [00:05:12] Speaker A: Yeah. They even gave themselves a name. They formed a macabre alliance, called themselves the murder Trust. [00:05:20] Speaker B: Wow. I mean, it's cool, don't get me wrong, especially with the balloons now coming up in front of your screen. The murder trust. [00:05:29] Speaker A: Not intentional. [00:05:34] Speaker B: I'll give it to him. They named it. [00:05:35] Speaker A: Well, they did. Then. Nefarious plan, in case you hadn't got the gist yet, was to ensure Mike's life to the hilt and then orchestrate his demise and cash in and make out like bandits. [00:05:48] Speaker B: So what did Mike think was going to happen? [00:05:51] Speaker A: What a great question. I don't think he gave a fuck. [00:05:56] Speaker B: Oh, you guys need me to do this. All right. [00:05:58] Speaker A: Exactly. They promised him free booze, and he was there. The guy was deep, deep into his alcoholism. [00:06:06] Speaker B: Sure, okay. [00:06:07] Speaker A: And that, in fact, gave them the first plan was to exploit his vulnerabilities. Was to exploit his alcoholism. And they offered him an unlimited tab in the bar. But time went by, and that failed to deliver the goods. I mean, Mike was a fucking animal. For the drink. And he kept, night after night, week after week, so, desperate for results, the murder trust started to escalate their efforts. [00:06:35] Speaker B: Okay. [00:06:36] Speaker A: First, they started spiking Malloy's liquor with antifreeze. [00:06:42] Speaker B: Oh. [00:06:44] Speaker A: Didn't kill him. [00:06:46] Speaker B: He kept coming back, this Rasputin motherfucker. [00:06:49] Speaker A: Exactly. You've absolutely nailed it. Later on, he became known as the Rasputin of New York. [00:06:58] Speaker B: Awesome. Go on. [00:07:00] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I know. They started off spiking him with antifreeze. When that didn't work, they started using turpentine. But he thrived on it. He was back night after night. When the turpentine didn't do it, they switched. [00:07:12] Speaker B: So it wasn't even that. He was like, oh, this tastes too sweet with the antifreeze in it. Or it wasn't like he was like, this tastes like dead things. [00:07:19] Speaker A: Keep in mind, this is prohibition alcohol, right? [00:07:23] Speaker B: Yeah. I guess a lot of it would have tasted pretty chemical. [00:07:26] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:07:28] Speaker B: You have one thing you're trying to do, and that is get wasted. [00:07:32] Speaker A: Get wasted off the fucking radar. Right? They tried antifreeze, like I said. They followed that up with trying to fucking spike him with turpentine. He didn't die. They moved on to horse liniment. [00:07:46] Speaker B: Horse liniment? [00:07:48] Speaker A: Equine fucking massage oils. Poisonous fucking horse grease. [00:07:54] Speaker B: I feel like that after antifreeze and turpentine. That doesn't feel like that's going to work. Better. Yeah, that feels like a backward move. [00:08:03] Speaker A: Yeah. They're just chucking everything at the wall. Sure. And when that. [00:08:07] Speaker B: What do you have in your house? [00:08:10] Speaker A: Through his fucking cupboard? I got some horse liniment. It's all I can afford. And when that didn't work, they even tried to fuck him up with rat poison. Right? [00:08:21] Speaker B: Oh, that usually does the. [00:08:24] Speaker A: Yeah. But not on Mike Malloy. Not on the Rasputin of New York. [00:08:28] Speaker B: Wow. [00:08:30] Speaker A: Astonishingly, shockingly, not only did he remain standing, he seemingly was immune to all of these deadly concoctions. And he kept coming back undeterred. [00:08:39] Speaker B: He's like, straight up like Barney from the Simpsons. [00:08:42] Speaker A: He's Barney Gumble, 100%. Here we go. He's Barney Gumble. He fucking loves it. But they dialed it up because they weren't deterred. They invested a lot of time, a lot of product, a lot of investment in this plan. So they resorted to ever more. [00:09:00] Speaker B: They'd even made a name. [00:09:03] Speaker A: We're a club. We can't quit now. They had church printed, so they started to try and poison him with food. Right? They fed him oysters. Raw oysters that they would soak in wood, stain wood alcohol. They gave him sandwiches laced with various poisons. They crushed up broken glass into his food. They put fucking carpet tacks in sandwiches and fed them to him. [00:09:31] Speaker B: And this whole time, he's just like, man, they are really treating me super good lately. [00:09:35] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Hey, what are I doing to fucking Desoi for you guys? [00:09:38] Speaker B: Something like that. [00:09:40] Speaker A: I imagine he would have said. Yeah, like hiccuping. [00:09:43] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [00:09:45] Speaker A: So after all of this ingestion kind of strategy didn't work again, they decided to step it up. And this is where it gets even more cruel, okay? They decided to try and freeze him to death, waiting until he was fucked up. One night, they dragged him outside and dumped him in the snow on a freezing cold New York evening and soaked him in. Yeah, yeah. Fucking cruel shit. Certain that he would freeze to death and that finally the good times would roll. While they were soaking him with water, Malloy didn't so much as fucking wake up. Yet, incredibly, he was back at the bar a few nights later, ready to rock again. [00:10:31] Speaker B: You guys won't believe what happened the other night. I woke up frozen solid like an icicle. Bananas. You guys should have seen it. [00:10:42] Speaker A: The crew, increasingly desperate. The fucking murder trust. They paid a taxi driver to run at Mike in his car in a deserted alleyway. The taxi hit him at 45 miles an hour, knocked Mike completely fucking do lally. But God smiled upon him, and a cop found him. Acab, obviously, but a cop found him right after the accident and took him to hospital with nothing more than a broken collarbone. And much to the murder. [00:11:10] Speaker B: You know how in car accidents, it's like if the drunk driver always survives because they're so loose and relaxed? [00:11:17] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:11:19] Speaker B: Nothing breaks. Yes. [00:11:21] Speaker A: And I can only imagine that saved Mike because they were stunned when, after he got out of hospital, he was back at the bar again a few weeks later, ready to go. [00:11:31] Speaker B: What almost makes you feel worse for Mike than the fact that they're trying to murder him is how clueless he is about it, that he's just, like, going back to hang with his buddies who are trying desperately to murder him. [00:11:43] Speaker A: Every night, as is the. You know, we approach these topics with some levity. We try and keep it upbeat, but they were fucking horrible, horrible fuckers to. But stay tuned, please. [00:11:57] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, go on. Go on. [00:11:59] Speaker A: Now, they were frustrated. They were amazed, astounded, but not defeated. And this is where the murder trust resorted to a much darker method. And towards the end of February in 1933, after a night of very, very heavy drinking. Red took Mike home to his home, to his room, and connected a hose to a coal gas jet and put it in Mike's mouth and turned it on. [00:12:29] Speaker B: Wow. Mike is so out that it can put a hose. [00:12:33] Speaker A: They stuffed a gas hose in his mouth. And finally, within an hour, I and Mike finally succumbed to death. Officially, his cause of death was pneumonia. Low bar pneumonia. So pneumonia. True to form. True to form, these rat bastards paid a local doctor to bury him super quick. Like it. He split, no questions asked. And then they went back to the Speakeasy, sat back and chill before attempting to get their payout course. However, this is where the speakeasy network, the fucking underground hotline, caught wind of the story of this indestructible motherfucker. He started to get talked about, like I said in that nickname, the Rasputin of New York. He earned the nickname Mike the durable. [00:13:27] Speaker B: Ooh, what a fucking name. [00:13:29] Speaker A: Mike the durable. The story of this indestructible drunken bastard was too good to stay secret. [00:13:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I love Mike the durable because have you ever seen the show the adventures of Pete and Pete? [00:13:42] Speaker A: I have not. [00:13:43] Speaker B: I think I've mentioned it to you before because I think you would enjoy it. It was a kids show from. Yeah, not that you'd remember. There's a kid show on Nickelodeon in the early ninety s that is notorious for the fact that it often had alternative and grunge and punk figures as characters on it. So, like, iggy Pop played one of the characters. Dad, Michael Stipe was an ice cream man on it. Like, all these different people show up in this show, and it's amazing. It's such a weird show. But there was one of the things on it is that it's kind of from the perspective of kids, but not. [00:14:27] Speaker A: Like you just get. It's more. [00:14:30] Speaker B: Yeah, it's not that kind of kid show. It's more for older kids, like ten ish. And so there's always, like, these figures at their school that they give nicknames to. Like, there's a guy who always has pit stains, and so his name is Pit Stain, but there's one character who's, like, the central bully. Yeah, there's one character who's the central bully of the whole show, and his name is endless Mike. And they never explain why he's called endless Mike, but it is the most badass nickname. And I feel like that's now my origin story for endless Mike is simply, you can't end it. [00:15:09] Speaker A: Fucking has to mean, you know, the story of Iron Mike. Mike the durable has been. It's found its way into lots of kind of pop culture here and there. So it fucking has to be. That has to be the origins of that. [00:15:21] Speaker B: It could be. I don't know. [00:15:23] Speaker A: I'm convinced. But anyway, listen, card games, poker games, card circles, drinkers, all started talking about this guy, and the tale caught the attention of the police, and that led to the exhuming of his body. They conducted a forensic examination on his body, and the truth just unraveled from there. And that led to the arrest and the trial of not only the murder trust, the five members of the murder trust, but also the doctor who was complicit in the crime, the doctor who arranged the quick burial. He faced charges as an accessory as well. And justice was served, folks. Friezberg, Marino, Frank and Red, they all went to sing sing, and they all got the electric chair. [00:16:07] Speaker B: Oh, dang. [00:16:09] Speaker A: All of them. The final chapter, June the 7th, 1934. [00:16:13] Speaker B: Man, they didn't even get like a minute to enjoy that insurance payout or anything. [00:16:18] Speaker A: Sweet payout. [00:16:19] Speaker B: Straight to the chair. [00:16:20] Speaker A: No, sir. The tale of Iron Mike, Mike the durable, Mike the indestructible, the rasputin of New York saw justice in the end. In the city that never sleeps. [00:16:31] Speaker B: I think what I like about this story, I mean, rest in peace, poor Mike. That's terrible. But it very much speaks to kind of like, the vibe around organized crime and prohibition, all that kind of stuff at the time, because crime was high. Prohibition caused a ton of crime begats crime, of course. Right, exactly. So you've got poverty, you've got prohibition, you've got all these kinds of things. And then, of course, the depression coming in and throwing things into even more chaos. But one of the things about that period is that people liked gangsters, a like Bonnie and Clyde becoming like a heroic tale instead of just a bunch of idiots who were riding around being reckless and then got themselves shot to a bajillion pieces. They become like, know, and like a lot of mafia figures and things like that gained kind of a mafia reputation. Like the banks have crashed and stuff like that. We're all in the pits. Or they've taken away our ability to have alcohol, all this. They've taken so much from us. And these mobsters are representing the little man fighting back against the best government. And so what I like about this story is it really shows. It's like when people got hold of this larger than life mythology of this rescue. Yeah. People were looking for people to champion like that. And so these guys who orchestrated this become like huge villains to everybody because it's like you've killed a hero. And something that would have flown under the radar ended up being like, a thing just because of how Americans sort of mythologized crime and who was deserving of it and who you should protect at the time. So it's fascinating. [00:18:27] Speaker A: So, as we speak, I have a rum and coke in my hand, and I'm raising it tonight. To Mike the durable. [00:18:33] Speaker B: To Mike the durable. Cheers. [00:18:38] Speaker A: Let me quote directly from my notes, if I may. [00:18:40] Speaker B: Yes, please do. [00:18:42] Speaker A: Fucking look at these nerds. Oh, misel Sen. [00:18:45] Speaker B: I don't think anyone has ever said misel Sen in such a horny way before. [00:18:49] Speaker A: The way I whispered the word sex cannibal. [00:18:52] Speaker B: Worst comes to worst, Mark, I'm willing to guillotine you for science. [00:18:56] Speaker A: Thank you. That's really, really sweet. It's cold outside, but my pancreas is talking to me. I'm going to leg it. [00:19:02] Speaker B: You know how I feel about that, Mark. [00:19:04] Speaker A: I think you feel great about it. So nowadays, everybody wants to talk. Like something to say, but nothing comes out when they move their lips. It's just a bunch of gibberish. And motherfuckers act like they forgot about Jo? Ag. [00:19:28] Speaker B: Unforgivable. [00:19:29] Speaker A: Unforgivable. Now, there's a reason why I say that, right? [00:19:32] Speaker B: Okay. [00:19:33] Speaker A: Because interestingly, Owen, who is ten tomorrow, has discovered Eminem. [00:19:41] Speaker B: Has he really? [00:19:42] Speaker A: Yes, he has. Thank you, Fortnite, you fucking absolute motherfuckers. Because Eminem is now a downloadable character in Fortnite. Right? Weird, I know. And not to want to sound like an old cunt, obviously, but it's becoming more and more clear that Fortnite is a fucking graveyard. Ip. Now it's an Ip cemetery. That's what I mean. Any fucking character or franchise will at some point now arrive in Fortnite. Name it. And if it isn't in Fortnite already, it will be in Fortnite at some point. [00:20:17] Speaker B: It's just like literally ready player one. [00:20:20] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. And one has to suspect that that's the goal. Because it isn't just a shooter now. It's a community. It's like second life, only accessible. Second life, only good, I guess. It's a hyper monetized. And the formula has been weaponized where a game meets a community, meets a culture. And I am constantly astounded at the. Pardon the fucking pun. But the second life, it is giving to forgotten ips. Right before popping up in Fortnite. Over the past couple of weeks, Eminem has zero cutthrough with kids. You know, he hasn't been artistically relevant. He hasn't had that cut through in God knows how long. But fucking hell, he turns up in Fortnite doing a stupid dance with, like, a 22nd clip of the real slim shady. And all of a sudden, Owen is like, oh, dad, Eminem. Can we listen to Eminem? I'm like, no, you're nine. [00:21:27] Speaker B: No. Yeah. Absolutely not. [00:21:30] Speaker A: No. But here's the thing, right? He can't quite get his head around the fact that I saw Eminem during his first ever UK gig. I can do the real slim shady from start to end, right. [00:21:45] Speaker B: Without missing a fucking beat. [00:21:47] Speaker A: Without missing a beat. And he's like, what. [00:21:52] Speaker B: Son? Eminem is older than I am. [00:21:54] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. And he can't get his head around it. And more and more, it's really kind of opening my eyes to the fact that my children occupy a completely fucking different reality to us. To me, the world is completely different from their height than it is from ours. Another example of this. So last weekend, as is kind of a post Christmas tradition, we jumped in the car, drove to Milton Keynes to Smith's toys for them to use their vouchers, right? [00:22:26] Speaker B: Okay. [00:22:27] Speaker A: And we play a little game of. I'll play a track, you play a. Right? [00:22:32] Speaker B: Mm hmm. Nice. [00:22:33] Speaker A: Really nice. It's a good way of sharing music. It's a good way of bonding. It's a good way of. Really nice finding some cultural kind of common ground. [00:22:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I like that. [00:22:40] Speaker A: Owen asks for Mr. Brightside by the killers. Right. Hey, great song. It doesn't have great connotations in the UK because it became kind of co opted by very laddish kind of boozy culture. You put Mr. Brightside on the club and everybody's fucking jumping up and down with their pints and la la la. [00:23:05] Speaker B: That album is the anthem of my transition from high school into know. [00:23:10] Speaker A: There you go. Yes. Many's the time I've done that myself. I've jumped up and down to it myself in fucking sweaty bars with sticky floors. I've been there. But Owen is singing the lyrics, right? He's singing along and the line and I'm falling asleep and she's calling a cab while he's having a smoke and she's taking a drag. Right? [00:23:32] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. [00:23:34] Speaker A: Owen sang that line as and I'm falling asleep and she's calling it Caprice. Those are the lyrics. He. [00:23:52] Speaker B: Just. [00:23:53] Speaker A: What the fuck did you just say? He's calling it cap. She thinks he's capping. Falling asleep. [00:24:02] Speaker B: What? No, they live in a complete. [00:24:05] Speaker A: We share the same temporal kind of space. We share the same physical fucking space, but they live in a completely different fucking world. [00:24:13] Speaker B: That's incredible. [00:24:14] Speaker A: And I'm falling asleep and she's calling it cap. [00:24:18] Speaker B: Sorry, we didn't have that word 20 years ago. [00:24:22] Speaker A: That's what, literally, that somebody has made up in the last, like, 18 months. But yet in the lyrics, that is what he heared. And that is what in his head that song was until I vigorously corrected him, of course. [00:24:36] Speaker B: That's like how my mother hears lyrics. She's always got the most insane interpretations of everything. [00:24:42] Speaker A: Listen, Laura is brilliant at this. Laura is really so fucking good at doesn't. She will just say any old shit in a song. I've since realized that this is quite commonplace. But you know, the song. What's it called? My love has got no money. He's got his strong beliefs. What's it called? [00:25:03] Speaker B: No. [00:25:03] Speaker A: Freed from desire by gala. [00:25:05] Speaker B: No. Is this recent or is this, like, an old song? [00:25:12] Speaker A: Oh, fuck, no. It's got to be. It's late ninety s. I would say mid to late ninety s. Is it british? No, it is british, but I thought it had crossed over. [00:25:22] Speaker B: Don't think this one crossed the pond. [00:25:24] Speaker A: Okay, so it has a line. My love has got no money. He's got his strong beliefs. Okay. My Love has got no money. He's got his strong beliefs right now. All her fucking life, Laura has been singing, my love has got no money. He's got his music. No, it isn't. And in her head, she's like, is that not a musical instrument that he's playing? What? A trombolis? What the fuck is that? It doesn't exist. But she's been all her life. My love has gone to money. [00:26:02] Speaker B: I love that. [00:26:04] Speaker A: I've since found that. That's actually really commonplace, that loads of kids have grown up. [00:26:08] Speaker B: People think it's trombolise. [00:26:10] Speaker A: Yep, loads of. Listen to immediately post podcast tonight, please get on your Spotify and go for freed from desire by gala. Gala. And a generation of kids have grown up wondering what the fuck a trombolisa or a strombolis is. [00:26:27] Speaker B: That's incredible because it's like, I can imagine, like, oh, a lot of people have. They mishear that line, they fill it in with something. But it's hilarious that it's the same wrong thing. [00:26:38] Speaker A: Yeah, we've talked about mass delusions and mass hysterias before, and collective fucking reality shifts a load of kids have grown up wondering what the fuck a strombelies is. [00:26:52] Speaker B: Is it a mondogreen? Is that the thing where I'm trying to think. Anyway, there's like some term for. Or like, egg corns. Have you heard of. Yes, like egg corns, where you just hear, like, pedal stool and stuff like that. [00:27:07] Speaker A: That was exactly what I was about to say. I roundly mock one of Laura's mates for posting on Facebook in a status that I can't stand it when people put you up on a pedal stool. And I was like, ba ha. What? [00:27:21] Speaker B: Insufferable. You're a giant dick on there. But it's been like 15 years since the it crowd came out, hasn't it? Like, by now you should know it's not pedal stool. That's all I'm saying. But anyways, there is, like a phenomenon, obviously, of people, like, hearing lyrics wrong and often them being the same thing, like hold me closer, Tony Danzo, various things. [00:27:45] Speaker A: Like kiss this guy. [00:27:46] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. But I find that fascinating that it's like a mass delusion of an entirely made up word that is incredible. [00:27:56] Speaker A: And you bet your bottom dollar that if Owen is singing that, I'm falling asleep and she's calling it cap. All of the fucking kids in his school are, you know. [00:28:03] Speaker B: Yeah. They think of the exact same thing. [00:28:05] Speaker A: Another generation grows. Yep. [00:28:07] Speaker B: Oh, it's amazing. I used to sit know, I actually did this the other day and I was like, oh, this is so nice. When I was a kid, anything that I was listening to, whether it was like a CD, take out the liner notes, or if it was something like an m p three that I had gotten online, I would pull up the lyrics online and read it as I listened to the song. [00:28:29] Speaker A: Write a passage, man, every fucking kid, it's the best. [00:28:32] Speaker B: Well, probably not your kids, I'd imagine. They don't live in liner notes times, so it doesn't even occur to them. I bet. But as such, I'm usually pretty good with lyrics because I read the lyrics to everything. But yeah, I had, like, my mother, she just makes up whatever. Famously, like, the stone Temple Pilots album that had, like, big bang, baby and all that on it. Every single one of the songs on that album, she has her own lyrics, too. And I had, like, rim Bates in college, Monica Michelle, the twins, who they would boldly sing the wrong lyrics to. Things they still do to this day. Whether it's just like, just making up sounds or just whole different words, they will boldly sing the wrong thing. And I just don't double so charming. [00:29:17] Speaker A: I've got vivid memories of in GCSE music. For our performance exam, a good friend of mine wanted to perform plush. Wanted to play the guitar and perform plush. And I sang it with him and it was great. And he got an a. [00:29:31] Speaker B: Hey, and you helped. I did, early. And, you know, I didn't like, start drinking till I was like 25. And like, most of my friends didn't really either because we went to christian school. And obviously you can't drink here till you're 21 anyway, aside from whatever illegal way you might do that. But we had had like a party and it was amongst the first times that everyone was like getting wasted or whatever. And my friend Jerry was like, you were so drunk that you were claiming interstate love song is the best song of the best song of the meant everybody. I will stand behind it. Love interstate love song I'm a big STP simp. [00:30:20] Speaker A: Yeah, they got some bangers, there's no denying. [00:30:24] Speaker B: Anyway, hello and welcome. How did we get there? I don't remember why we were talking about that at all. Eminem in the Fortnites. [00:30:35] Speaker A: Eminem the Fortnites. My kids live in a different dimension. Killers. It's a rabbit hole, is what it is. [00:30:44] Speaker B: It is a rabbit hole. And just to go just a little further down that rabbit hole, I think this is another thing about when I was a kid, I always thought, when I get older, I'm not going to be clueless about pop culture, like our parents are, things like that. I'm going to be cool. I'm always going to stick with it and all that kind of stuff. And I did not do that deeply. Like my new year's resolution, like I said, one of my new year's resolutions, to listen to a new ish album every week, which my two weeks so far I have very much enjoyed. But I'm not listening to young people music. And I don't always hate that. I love pop. The current mode where pop is right now does not work for me, where everything kind of. In particular, it's like the Taylor swiftification of pop, which means that all the songs have, like, one. Like, it's just like, are we out of the woods yet? Are we out of the woods yet? Are we out of the woods yet? Like, things like that. I'm like, you need more notes. Let me elaborate. I hate that. [00:31:50] Speaker A: Right? [00:31:51] Speaker B: Please do. Yeah. [00:31:52] Speaker A: With Taylor Swift in particular. God, I hate fucking even talking about things I don't like in the current era. [00:31:59] Speaker B: Because you don't want to be the get off my lawn. [00:32:01] Speaker A: Painfully. [00:32:03] Speaker B: And she's nearly my age. [00:32:06] Speaker A: Fine. [00:32:07] Speaker B: We'll give you a pass on this. [00:32:09] Speaker A: A very, very good and close friend of mine is an unapologetic swifty. A fucking die hard swifty. An adult man. Right. And that's fine. [00:32:16] Speaker B: Many are. [00:32:17] Speaker A: Yeah, of course it's fucking you. Do you. It's fine. Life is short. Love what you love. But the argument that she's this fucking amazing songwriter. [00:32:26] Speaker B: Yeah. That's what gets me just to pick. [00:32:29] Speaker A: A song off the top of my head. Right. Her bad blood. Let's just go through the fucking melody of that. You see where I'm going. One more time. [00:32:42] Speaker B: Hey. [00:32:45] Speaker A: Fuck me. [00:32:46] Speaker B: And all of her songs are like, that six. [00:32:49] Speaker A: They're all fucking notes. And that's the song. [00:32:52] Speaker B: It drives me insane. And it's not like it's like any of it's lyrically brilliant, either. It drives me crazy. And I feel like, as a. Like the female pop stars are kind of, like, making all of their music sound like that now, which is. And then the use of auto tune is out of control. [00:33:17] Speaker A: Taylor Swift. You don't get your fucking Rita auras, your Dua Lipas, your fucking. [00:33:21] Speaker B: Whoa. Dua Lipa's on a whole different plane. Dua Lipa actually, like, she's not, like, deep pop, but she's not trying to be. She's doing, like, an updated disco pop thing. And she's got a know. She doesn't sing one note over and over. That's. But it's like, the Olivia Rodrigo's and things, like, of. [00:33:48] Speaker A: One of Owen's tracks was Olivia Rodrigo actually in the car. [00:33:51] Speaker B: Can't do it. I listened to her whole album because I've always loved pop. I'm, like a huge pop person, but it's just like, we're in a window that I'm not enjoying, and give it two years, and I think we'll be back in one that, like, again. But what's happening right now is just, like, a piece of everything that annoys me about music is in this stuff. But, yeah, it's like I always, like, I'm going to be so on top of it, I'm going to be with it. I'm going to know what the kids are about, all that kind of stuff. And I'm like, not only am I not with it, but I am not bothered by not being with it. And now I understand why our parents weren't. They were not rushing out to be into what we were into. [00:34:32] Speaker A: I kind of do my best. I watch and I listen to what they listen and watch. I do my best to keep an eye over their shoulder and to at least fucking keep a kind of a finger, if not on the pulse, then in the vicinity of the respiratory system. [00:34:52] Speaker B: I don't know, would be the cardiovascular. [00:34:55] Speaker A: Cardiovascular system. Maybe that's it. I'm trying to. Wrong system. [00:35:03] Speaker B: That's the problem, folks. [00:35:05] Speaker A: I'm always finger in the wrong system. [00:35:11] Speaker B: Anyways, how are you doing, Mark? [00:35:14] Speaker A: I'm really good, mate. And I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it. And I think you can tell I'm doing fine. [00:35:20] Speaker B: Yeah, you seem good. I appreciate. Yeah, doing well. My sister's here, which I always enjoy. [00:35:27] Speaker A: Hi, Erin. [00:35:30] Speaker B: She sends her love from downstairs. I'm sure she and my mom are watching something at the moment. She's very good at. Like, one of the great things about my sister is that we are similar in a lot of ways, but very different in others. And amongst the ways that we're different, that my sister is much more extroverted than I am. And so I'm, like, deeply exhausted by interaction with people. [00:35:53] Speaker A: But when you have to do it, you're great at it. I mean, I remember that birthday party of Nick's that we were at last year. And you're the life and soul, you know what I mean? Even if you're dying inside, which that does not come across. I can't fake it. [00:36:13] Speaker B: Until I'm fucking sport drinks masker. Yeah. That's my spiritual gift, is masking, which is not to say, like, I'm always having a bad time or anything like that, but it is tiring more than anything else. And my sister is much more energized by being with people and talking and stuff like that. So, as you know, me and my mother are on completely different wavelengths. My mom is very extroverted, wants to be interacting all the time. So when my sister is here, she will sit down there and watch things and talk to my mom all day long. And they'll eventually start fighting with each other, but for the most part, they just hang out. [00:36:54] Speaker A: If you were to guess where the friction would come from this time, what do they often butt heads about? What is the. [00:36:59] Speaker B: Any number of things, domestic or political? Yeah, it can be any number of those things. They've gotten into political fights. They will argue about things that the other one does that are annoying them, or any number of things that I normally am. Like, I'm too tired for this. Walk away from my sister will engage. So it's good. It keeps my mom entertained. And then I get to have my sister around, which is fun. Someone to watch wrestling with for the next two weeks. [00:37:34] Speaker A: All that beautiful. [00:37:35] Speaker B: Yeah, it's delightful. Let's see here. We've got a couple of things coming up. [00:37:42] Speaker A: We do. We did have one in December because we had my birthday watch along, didn't we? But it absolutely watch along o'clock. I think it's way past watch along time. So let's get one in the fucking book, shall we? What? [00:37:57] Speaker B: We're going to be talking 27th, is that right? Yeah. [00:38:03] Speaker A: Fuck. [00:38:06] Speaker B: I was going to say that feels right. And then I changed directions and I don't know what came out of my mouth as a result. Is it the 27th? [00:38:17] Speaker A: Saturday the 27 January? Right. And I've got a theme in mind. So we're deep into January right now. And if you're prone to the sads, they're probably coming out. If, you know, whatever financial stresses you might have, family stresses you might have, work stresses you might have, they all tend to feel sharper, more pronounced, more jagged, more kind of the friction that they cause just feels to cut a little deeper at this time of year. So why don't we, on Saturday the 27 January, why don't we indulge? Why don't we meet together, friends, and warm ourselves with some comfort horror. [00:39:01] Speaker B: What do you think? I like it. [00:39:02] Speaker A: What do you think? [00:39:03] Speaker B: Yeah. What are you thinking? [00:39:05] Speaker A: And I'm leaving it wide open. Right. [00:39:07] Speaker B: And. [00:39:10] Speaker A: I would love some suggestions on the socials, on the facey, on the blue sky, on the Instagram. What are your comfort horrors? What are the horrors that give you the fucking warms? Because love that there are weirdly, one of mine is the thing, and I watched it today. I watched it this very fucking day. [00:39:25] Speaker B: Very cold movie to give you the warms. [00:39:27] Speaker A: The coldest, most icy, frigid movie. It just gives me the warms. It's comforting. Elm street three. It is the most comforting fucking horror film. I'd love to know what yours are because we're going to pick one and we're going to just warm ourselves on the embers of comfort horror. What is your go to? Like a fucking horror blanket? Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me. And we'll pick one. And on the 27th, we all gather round, we'll fucking roast ourselves and warm ourselves and cheer ourselves like a shot of brandy on a mountainside delivered by a St. Bernard with a barrel under his fucking collar. Do you know what I'm talking about? [00:40:08] Speaker B: No, but I like it. [00:40:10] Speaker A: You know what I mean? A St. Bernard dog with a little barrel of fucking brandy on his collar going to rescue lost mountaineers, warming the cockles of your heart. That's what we're doing this Saturday. Not this Saturday, but this watch along on Saturday the 27th. We're going to cheer ourselves up with some warm, comforting horror movie. [00:40:31] Speaker B: I feel super good about that. That's going to be a lot of fun. I will have my good good tea and my pajamas ready for the whole experience. It's going to be a good time. [00:40:40] Speaker A: And I will have a fresh jewel pod and a fucking rum and Diet Coke. [00:40:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:47] Speaker A: Look, I've got to have a vice, right? I've got to have something. I've got to have something. [00:40:55] Speaker B: Oh brother. We got to find a better one for you. Can it be just being like really in a. [00:41:00] Speaker A: There's loads of better ones but I can't do them anymore. [00:41:04] Speaker B: It's not what I meant. But this Saturday we also have book club, first book club of the year, devolution by Max Brooks, which has, according to Ryan, a very good audio cast. I'm only on chapter three or so of it so far, so I think there's only like two characters at this point, but really well read so far. Quite enjoying it. So if you made a new year's resolution to read more. If you're like, I'm going to join a book club this year. If you just want to add to your horror reads, why not start the year outright by coming to book club this Saturday the 20th? Head out. Check out jackofallgraves.com book club for information on it. If you'd like, you can email me in advance. There's a contact form on there to tell you how to do so. But you don't have to tell me you're coming unless you want to. You can just show up and it's a grand old time. It's free. You can tell your friends to come. They don't have to listen to this podcast. You don't have to listen to this podcast, but it'd be wild if somehow you were hearing this without listening to the podcast. [00:42:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I did wonder then for Corey if they don't. And the same goes for watch along, obviously. [00:42:22] Speaker B: Yeah, you don't have to listen to this. [00:42:24] Speaker A: We have a beautiful, beautiful community of friends who show up to the watch alongs on the reg and fucking hell, man, every single one of them leaves me so fucking seen and validated and warm and just proud of our friends and our community that we have. But I got to tell you, watch alongs are always a fucking hell of a good laugh. Yes. So all of the deeps will be publicized hours in advance. [00:42:55] Speaker B: As per custom. [00:42:59] Speaker A: So, yes, it would be a sincere delight to see you there. [00:43:02] Speaker B: Yes. Watch long book club. Join us. The more the merrier. We're just happy to have you in this year of our lord and 24. [00:43:12] Speaker A: Is this our fourth or third year? [00:43:15] Speaker B: So we're in our fourth year chronologically? [00:43:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Yes, we're in our fourth year. Wow. [00:43:21] Speaker B: Yeah. We will have been doing this for four years in August. [00:43:24] Speaker A: By that logic, my life has spanned six decades. [00:43:31] Speaker B: That's true. Yeah. Sorry, I had to think about that for a second. [00:43:35] Speaker A: I just did the maths on my hands. I've just crunched the numbers. [00:43:40] Speaker B: It's kind of bananas to think about. [00:43:42] Speaker A: Holy fuck, I'm disturbing. [00:43:49] Speaker B: Yeah, pretty much at this point, I'm disturbed. [00:43:53] Speaker A: Hey, one thing we like to talk about here on Jack of all graves, one thing that we chat about every week is movies. Is horror movies. You like the horror movies, Corrigan? [00:44:04] Speaker B: I'm a little bit of a fan of the horror movies. I've been known to dabble in the spookies. Yeah, scary movies. [00:44:10] Speaker A: Have you seen any this week? [00:44:12] Speaker B: I have seen some. I've seen some interesting flims this week and docs and things like that. For one thing, I got to talk about this outright. Our household. By that, I just mean Kio and I have become deeply entrenched in the curious case of Natalia. Grace. Have you dabbled in the Natalia yet? [00:44:36] Speaker A: Completely blank on this? I have no. [00:44:38] Speaker B: So this, the first season of this came out in, like, six months ago, I think somewhere in that general vicinity on Max. And it is a documentary docu series about a family that adopted a little girl from Ukraine and then became convinced that she was an adult woman who was terrorizing them in their home. Orphan, basically, yeah. And so this kind of goes through the process of, why did they come to think that? And all of this kind of stuff before obviously coming around to she was just a child. [00:45:26] Speaker A: Okay, so it's not orphan. [00:45:28] Speaker B: Okay, it's not orphan. [00:45:29] Speaker A: Reverse orphan. [00:45:30] Speaker B: Yes, reverse orphan. And the adoptive parents are horrendous human beings. [00:45:39] Speaker A: Reverse orphan would be if a child was pretending to be an adult. [00:45:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess maybe. [00:45:50] Speaker A: Sorry, I've overthought it. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? [00:45:53] Speaker B: Overthought the quip. But regardless, she was a normal child, but they basically didn't want to take care of this kid. Made up this whole story about her being an adult, leading to them being able to just drop her in an apartment by herself to live alone, disabled. She's got a very rare and difficult form of dwarfism in an apartment in a really shitty, dangerous neighborhood with stairs, where basically, you can tell they hope that she would eventually fall down the stairs and die and be off their. [00:46:34] Speaker A: Did they really think this? Or was it just a front? Was it. [00:46:38] Speaker B: They'll claim they thought this, but it's very clear they did not think. And so basically, the first season, you're watching the dad tell the story, who is very clearly a narcissist, and he thinks that he's pulling this off. He is acting. He'll even prep himself. He'll be like, okay, give me a second to get into the mode. And then he'll act as his wife and things like this. And he really thinks he's winning sympathy with us, when in fact, you're just watching a guy hang. Yeah. With his own rope here. And then the second series just came out, and you actually get to hear from Natalia. There had been a gag order on a lawsuit, so she couldn't talk when that last part was being filmed. But now she can talk and start telling her side of this and all of this kind of stuff. The thing about it is the docuseries is hugely, unethically made, and you can't help but watching it go like, these filmmakers are garbage. But the story is so fascinating, and you're invested in Natalia and all the horrible things that happened to her and trying to get justice for that. And, you know, it's like, you watch it despite knowing that, you're like, is this made? You know, we're invest in this story. Theo is not hugely into true crime like I am, but he is, like, reading Reddits and articles and all kinds of stuff about. [00:48:18] Speaker A: He's gone deep. [00:48:19] Speaker B: Yeah. For like several days on our daily walks, he was like, so I just read this and people think this is. [00:48:24] Speaker A: Going, has he got the board with the red string? [00:48:29] Speaker B: Straight up super into it. So, yeah, this is like one of the first times that it's been like some sometimes watch along with me if I'm watching a Dateline or something like that. But he doesn't get super invested. This is the first time I've ever seen him get invested in one of these true crime shows. So, yeah, curious case of Natalia Grace is fascinating and infuriating. And really, if the filmmakers were better people and not just going for the most salacious thing they could make, it's also an incredible commentary on disability in America and how disabled people are treated and their rights and how easy it is to violate them, and adoption and how often that is horribly exploitative and all kinds of things. I recommend it. And I don't recommend it at the same time. [00:49:24] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, obviously on a completely different scale and on a completely different level, there's money to be made here in the UK for families who want to home, international students, and I know of at least one or two families who do that simply to get to pocket the money themselves and pay no regard to the experience that they're given. The people who are living with them in a fucking strange country, in a very formative and vulnerable time of their lives, potentially. So, yeah, it's a horrific mindset. [00:50:01] Speaker B: That's the thing is, I think whenever I watch stuff like this or hear about things of that nature, I'm just amazed at how horrible people can be, because it's just like, I've always been a very empathetic person and very attuned to how other people are feeling and stuff like that. And I get so, like, if someone else is sad, I get so sad. If someone's happy, I get happy and things like that. The idea that people just can be so horrendous to other humans and not give a shit is, like, incredible, isn't amazing. So if you want to see someone like, whoo. Michael from the curious case of Natalia Grace is a real piece of work. [00:50:50] Speaker A: I'll probably skip that one. [00:50:52] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. [00:50:54] Speaker A: Don't. I'm not as empathetic as you. Right. [00:51:00] Speaker B: Sure. [00:51:01] Speaker A: In that I consider myself an excellent judge of character. My first impressions of somebody are often right, and even when they're not, I find it difficult to break out of them. [00:51:19] Speaker B: Right. [00:51:20] Speaker A: But I am way better at kind of. I am somebody who is easily upset at the depths of cruelty that people are capable of. There have been seemingly lots of cases in the UK over the past kind of years or whatever, where kids have been mistreated and that really fucking hits home. I hate it. I absolutely hate it. So I'll skip that one. [00:51:46] Speaker B: Thanks. Yeah. It's a feel bad piece. If you're the kind of person who has a hard time not taking that to heart and feeling for people going like a child going through something like that. Trigger warnings all over the place, obviously. But, yeah. So I watched that. I watched society of the snow in other things that everyone is talking about right now. So society of the snow is about the uruguayan rugby team, the one that I mentioned last week that crashed in the andes and a handful of them survived, but they had to. Their teammates. [00:52:32] Speaker A: Now, wait a minute. Not the same documentary, but the same subject has just been on a channel five documentary over here. [00:52:42] Speaker B: It's like in the zeitgeist right now. [00:52:44] Speaker A: Clearly and obviously, Laura, being a qualified aircraft investigator, has been lapping it up and she's been watching it with the boys. And I've caught the last episode of that and fuck me, it is as inspirational as it is shocking. And that's. [00:53:00] Speaker B: Yeah, that's exactly it. So, like I said last week, I had been listening to the last podcast on the left series on it that came out a couple of weeks ago and exactly that. When you're listening to it, it's, like, horrifying. Just some of the worst things that can happen to people happening in this kit. But at the same time, there is this thread of inspirationalness through it because. [00:53:23] Speaker A: I know full fucking well I would not have been able to survive that. [00:53:26] Speaker B: I would not have had it in. [00:53:27] Speaker A: Me to go to the lengths they went to. I'd have eaten the dead, don't get me wrong. Fucking hell. [00:53:31] Speaker B: Yeah, of course. [00:53:33] Speaker A: When else are you going to get the chance to do that and emerge unscathed? I would have done that while there was food left. [00:53:39] Speaker B: But keeping in mind, these guys were, like, most of them were fiercely catholic and really worried about what it meant for their immortal soul to eat another person. And they eventually kind of had to come to the conclusion that it's like, it would also be a sin if God left something here for you to eat, for you to choose to die instead of. [00:53:59] Speaker A: Which is how they contextualized it in press conferences, isn't it? It was the bounty taken of the body and the blood and whatnot, right? [00:54:07] Speaker B: Yeah. All of that to say if you're watching something that's really in depth or reading or listening to something really in depth about it, you really get to know the people who are involved with it and what they went through, what they were thinking, how they related to each other, all of that stuff. And society of the snow has been sort of, like, hailed as a film. Like, people really raving about this and it doesn't do any of that. It really is just a very one note movie that's like, basically, like, terrible things happening and then someone monologuing and more terrible things happening. And I will tell you, the plane crash scene is graphic. Like, not bloody, but graphic. It actually kind of answered a question for me that I've had, that I've discussed since the beginning of this podcast, because you know how you have your princess Diana as your thing that you're like, I just really want people's princess, right? She's the queen of hearts, right? My thing that I've wanted to see the photos or how it happened of is the limo crash that killed the 20 passengers that were in it. How did that happen? How did all of those people die in that limo crash? And in this movie, in the plane crash, basically they hit the ground, and then you see all of the seats just slide forward, smashing everyone, breaking skulls, like, breaking people's legs in half and stuff like that. You're like, oh, that's how that happens. [00:55:46] Speaker A: Did you say it's called the society of the snow? I think, laura. [00:55:49] Speaker B: Society of the snow. Yeah. But it's not like a whole thing about the plane. This is just like kind of the opening of this movie, and it just. [00:55:58] Speaker A: Said plane crash graphic. I was like, I know. [00:56:01] Speaker B: Yeah, she might be interested in it. Maybe she can critique how well they did it. But even stuff in the plane crash, I'm like, the last podcast in the left went to more detail about. So I'm noticing things like, oh, well, that person should have been standing up over here, and all this little details in it were like, so they hear on the radio that the search has been called off for them. And in the movie, then it goes to a commercial on the radio, and I'm like, but in the series on this, they talked about how it was like a song that they played that was really on the nose as to what had happened. Either the people who sang it died in a plane crash or something like that. La bamba, la bamba right afterwards. Right. So it got little details wrong that I thought were interesting and easy to get right, and then it just didn't have any of that. There's nothing inspirational about society of the snow. You don't watch that and go like, wow, the power of the human spirit or community or teamwork or anything like that. You're just like, oh, that sucks. Well, it's a good thing someone found them. [00:57:09] Speaker A: The version that we just watched over here was quite the opposite. It had survivors, it had the actual human being, the actual survivors talking about their experience footage. They went out there to the place where it happened, helicopter shots of the fucking landscape that they had to survive through. And it really brings home. How the fuck did they fucking do that? [00:57:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I loved that. In the podcast, there was like a moment where they're kind of talking about how all these guys, one of the things was the fact that they just didn't even question they were going to survive. They were like, okay, what do we need to do? We'll get through this, whatever. And Ed Larson, one of the hosts, just said, this really speaks to the delusionalness of men like young men. This is just how delusional young men are. I was like, yeah, it's probably true. You're a 20 year old man. [00:58:05] Speaker A: You're like, sportsman. [00:58:06] Speaker B: Sportsman. Yeah, I got this. No problem. We're totally going to survive this. Where. Yeah. Certainly the older of us would be like, what's the most comfortable way to die? [00:58:19] Speaker A: I was astounded at how many cigarettes they had on board. [00:58:22] Speaker B: An incredible amount of. [00:58:24] Speaker A: They were smoking like fucking months in. [00:58:27] Speaker B: Yeah, it was like all they really had was just a shit ton of cigarettes, which is lucky for them, I guess a mild appetite suppressant while you're out there starving. But golly, yes. The society of the snow did not do it for me. I did not have the same experience. And maybe that's because I know more about it and what the actual interesting part of the story is. And so just watching people suffer for. It's like 2 hours and 20 minutes long of just watching people suffer and monologue. It just feels like it needs more than that. [00:59:04] Speaker A: Yeah, there was another angle, I'm sure. [00:59:06] Speaker B: Yeah. What did you watch? [00:59:11] Speaker A: Okie dokie. I'm going to talk a little bit about the witch, right? [00:59:17] Speaker B: I love the witch. [00:59:18] Speaker A: Oh, man, I love the witch. You know, I don't just toss out five stars. I don't do that. Right. But I've talked about my kind of rating ideology on letterbox before. I will only give a four and a half or a five star to those movies that make a real fucking connection. I'll expand on that a little bit. And I think I only give five stars to movies that leave me no choice to do anything else, right? And the witch is exactly one of those movies. There is no other fucking choice than to award this the highest fucking mark possible on letterboxd because it's astounding. Every time I watch it, I'm blown away by a different facet of the film. Right? On this occasion, I was taken by the fact that family in that movie, and for those who haven't seen it, what the fuck? Watch the witch. [01:00:14] Speaker B: Yeah, for one, get your shit together. Watch the witch. [01:00:17] Speaker A: A british family who settled from the UK in. [01:00:24] Speaker B: Like. I like that framing just as an american, because that's not how we would put it. [01:00:29] Speaker A: Oh, go on. [01:00:31] Speaker B: Well, just because we don't really call them british settlers or whatever. We're like, okay, invasion force. Yeah, they're pilgrims or puritans or pioneers or whatever, but we don't go like, oh, they're british people in America. [01:00:49] Speaker A: The only reason I refer to them as such is because they refer to them as themselves. Now. I mean, halfway through the mother goes, I want to go back to Britain. I want to go back to England. I won't be happy until I see England again. But, right. There's very little for me in my privileged fucking white boy, 45 year old british life to relate to in their circumstance. I can't build shit, let alone a barn. Right? Tell me to build up. Even if you gave me all the tools with which to build a barn and like a YouTube from a really good barn builder, I would still fuck it up. Sure. But somehow, somehow this family who speak in old English beautifully, beautifully written and performed. Old English by the. Yeah, somehow Ben Wheatley makes that family so fucking relatable, you know what I mean? After about a third of the way through, you completely tune out the fact that they're speaking in know, old world Chaucerian or whatever Fucking. And you just have a dad and his kids and his wife and their fucking struggle against the elements and their own fear and their own faith. And it's as though you immediately fucking. It's like you're living their life. It's incredible. As much as it is an historical movie, it's a fucking a mystery. It's a who done it? Who the fuck is bringing this satanic influence into their life? Is there even a fucking satanic influence? Or are they just all full of shit? The interplay, is it the kids? Is it the goat? For fuck's sake. Is it bullshit? Every little clue that you get? Whose fucking eyes are you seeing this from? Because it's the child. It's the young boy who encounters the titular witch. Is he a fantasist? Is this true or not? The unreliable narrator? Who the fuck do you believe here? And then when it plays its hand, God damn. The last 1520 minutes of the film where the prestige happens and you see what's really going on, it is devastating. Oh, fucking hell. I am apeshit for how good this film is. It is astounding. [01:03:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Literally every time I watch it, I have the same sort of reaction of just being like, holy shit, that was next. [01:03:34] Speaker A: That was really something. [01:03:35] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [01:03:37] Speaker A: And yes, like I said, you get hints of supernatural kind of witchcrafty, satanic nonsense throughout the film, but you don't know who to believe you don't know if you're seeing it through a fantasy size. But in those last minutes, there is no doubt. All fucking doubt is revealed and some real, true fucking satanic puritan shit goes down. And it is so good. [01:04:01] Speaker B: And I think that reveal is handled so well too, because you know how a lot of times that can be so ham fisted in immacity, like, oh, you spent the whole time not knowing. [01:04:16] Speaker A: Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing or, no, no, this is it. You see nothing. You see so little. When black Phillip is fucking revealed and his voice is a whisper, what's out? [01:04:29] Speaker B: Like, the taste scared the shit out of me the first time that I saw it. [01:04:34] Speaker A: What's out? Like a pretty dress. Oh my God. [01:04:39] Speaker B: I think I've said it on here before, but yeah, the first time that I saw that, I was sitting next to my friend Juan in the movie theater and we both literally grabbed each other's, like, at the same time when black Phillips started talking, just instantly, both had the same reaction to like, fuck. Oh God. Okay, so that's what's. [01:05:02] Speaker A: And the, the economy of dialogue. When fucking Satan is revealed, he says nothing extraneous. Everything he says is like a fucking knife cutting to the bone. It is beautiful. He instantly targets Tanya Taylor's joy's desires. What's that like to see the world? It is so good. It was a joy to watch, and I don't even know why I watched it. I was just seized by the, yeah. [01:05:33] Speaker B: I thought it was a funny thing for you to have randomly watched this week. But yeah, as an american religious history nerd too, I find all of that super fascinating as well. Just like this is often at the heart of a lot of the root of the early settlers coming here who came here for quote unquote religious freedom. But it's like a very narrow band of religious freedom they were talking about. And if you were outside of that, it's exactly what would happen. You would get banished. They did not want you in the Massachusetts Bay colony if you did not adhere to the exact form of religion that they were adhering to. And so a story that the root of it is religious disagreement in colonial America and this family being ostracized because of their different religious views that are still christian and still insane, but not the right kind of fundamentalist Christian. I think that's just such a cool place to start this too. Like really entrenched in that history. [01:06:39] Speaker A: And even, even on a more superficial level, it appeals to me in that much know. Lars, Montreal. It's a film that isn't shy about killing kids. [01:06:48] Speaker B: Oh, sure isn't. Nope. [01:06:51] Speaker A: Doesn't give a fuck about killing kids. That's fine by me. You know what? [01:06:54] Speaker B: Do do it. [01:06:54] Speaker A: It do it all. This film has everything. [01:06:57] Speaker B: It does. [01:06:58] Speaker A: Corn, trees, sheep, satanic goats. [01:07:04] Speaker B: Satan, Satan. [01:07:07] Speaker A: It's got it all. [01:07:08] Speaker B: It's got it all. That's a good time. [01:07:15] Speaker A: I'm going to talk about the black coat's daughter super briefly. [01:07:18] Speaker B: Yeah. It's interesting that you. Well, we were going to watch it, or I suggested it one night and you said you had, like, started it and you were bored by it, so I've never watched it because we didn't watch that time. [01:07:32] Speaker A: I think that might have been Xanax, Mark, because it's good movie. Okay, it's her off. Totally. [01:07:43] Speaker B: Kiernan Shipka. [01:07:46] Speaker A: If you say so. But it's the madman. Is she in madman? [01:07:50] Speaker B: I don't remember that. Don Draper's daughter. [01:07:54] Speaker A: Yeah. No, you say that definitely. Yeah, it is definitely. But a perfectly serviceable low budget. Again, I'm on a satanic tip, clearly. Satanic horror movie about some girls who are stranded in their super expensive boarding school and satanic shit happens. It's a perfectly, perfectly serviceable three star little satanic horror movie. Their family kind of family trauma is a big factor. But yes, the baddie is Satan. Yes, it has the courage of its convictions, and Satan is the evil and not. Oh, I had a bad time when I was a child. [01:08:47] Speaker B: Not boarding school trauma. [01:08:49] Speaker A: No, it's the devil. [01:08:51] Speaker B: Amazing. [01:08:51] Speaker A: Fine. [01:08:52] Speaker B: All right. I'll have to revisit it then. Pin. [01:08:55] Speaker A: Let's talk about pin. Let's talk about pin, baby. [01:08:59] Speaker B: Oh, boy. So, movie from 1989, what inspired you to watch this one? Because it was your pick and you were like, let's do this guy. [01:09:12] Speaker A: I have often seen Pin mentioned in lists of kind of slept on horror movies that you need to check out. And I've often scanned past it on shutter, seen that image of pin, the medical doll with the plastic and the sinews and the eyes and the time finally know. [01:09:35] Speaker B: Fair enough. [01:09:35] Speaker A: It's time to watch pin. So Pin is the story of Locke from lost before he know, crippled, and before he was put in the wheelchair. It was his previous life before getting on that plane. And he is a doctor, a very strict, authoritarian father figure with his two kids, who he raises, spare the rod. And spotted a child very much that kind of school of parenting. And in his office, the doctor has an anatomical dummy, which is a member of the family, and they call him. Pin and dad communicates often through pin, through throwing his voice through ventriloquism and chicanery. And these kids grow up seeing pin as part of the family and they talk to pin and they communicate with pin. And Pin teaches them things, doesn't he, Corrigo? [01:10:28] Speaker B: He does teach them things. [01:10:30] Speaker A: He's like a good older brother, but not see? Right, I'm going to share this. One of the first messages I sent Corrie as we were watching Pin, was, I'd quite like to see Pin's dick and balls. I'd quite like to see if pin is all there. [01:10:47] Speaker B: Little did we know that would be a recurring theme for the film entirely. [01:10:52] Speaker A: What the movie is about in this one, I think the baddie is poor parenting, isn't it? The evil is poor parenting. In this, horrible things happen with Pin. There's a brother and a sister, and the sister falls pregnant at an early age, and the fucking father performs an abortion on her in full view of her brother. In full view of pin, which is a big contributing factor into the deep seated fucking scary relationship and sexual trauma that these kids have had to endure. And dad dies, and the brother takes on the role of pin, speaks for pin, dresses pin, gives pin some skin, gives him a covering of latex skin. And pin turns out to be just a giant cock block. [01:11:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Essentially. [01:11:44] Speaker A: Gets in the way of relationships. The brother fancies himself something of a poet, an artistic, kind of a beat poet, and he speaks through pin. And it's an idiosyncratic, lovely little bit of late 80s horror, I think. And I'm really glad that we got to it. [01:12:06] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. I think pin is a worthwhile watch. Very well made sort of example of the genre. [01:12:14] Speaker A: Yes, completely agree. Because the late 80s, early ninety s was a very, I think, fertile and creative time for horror. It's where we got chucky. It's where Freddie was at his best. You know what I mean? Yes. Pin is great. Seek it out. [01:12:33] Speaker B: Definitely. I watched with the screaming chat a movie called phobia, which I think is probably one of the less said about it, the better ones. But it's directed by John Houston, which I think is weird. And basically. [01:12:52] Speaker A: What Uncle Buck. John Houston. [01:12:54] Speaker B: That's John Candy. [01:12:56] Speaker A: No. [01:12:58] Speaker B: Oh, you're Hughes. [01:13:01] Speaker A: John Hughes. Yes. [01:13:02] Speaker B: John Hughes. No, John Houston, as in like the maltese Falcon and things like that. I'm trying to think he did a lot of huge things, like the treasure of the Sierra Madre, stuff like that. Like classic old director made phobia in 1980, which is a movie in which basically you're watching this psychiatrist who is trying to do, like, is it aversion therapy? What do they call it when you have a fear and they try to get you to face it? So if you're afraid of spiders, hold a spider. Like that kind of thing. [01:13:46] Speaker A: That sounds about right. [01:13:47] Speaker B: He's doing something of that nature with his clients, and it's going terribly. And as he does these sort, he has one that's like, afraid of snakes and one who was clearly, like, gang raped. [01:14:06] Speaker A: How do you. Aversion therapy that. [01:14:08] Speaker B: Exactly. He has people basically act out gang raping her. Not the penetration, but the rest of the grabbing and all of that kind of stuff. And it's like, what? And then all of the patients start dying off. And so it's like, is the doctor killing them or is there some sort of serial killer in the hospital or whatever? It's awful. [01:14:36] Speaker A: Okay? [01:14:37] Speaker B: It's a terrible movie that is just deeply baffling on every possible level. Because one of the things that I said while watching, well, one of the things I said at the beginning of it, someone made a joke about what phobias would be in this thing. And I was like, I hope it deals with some of my very specific phobias. Like, oh God, what was it I said? I said like, elevators. Bloody elevators on cruise ships. Right? And then there was a scene so specific, so specific. And then there was a scene where a guy got crushed to death in the roof of an elevator. [01:15:11] Speaker A: No. [01:15:12] Speaker B: Yeah. I was like, yo. Okay, fair enough. To this movie that it managed to do that. But, yeah, the thing about it is you're supposed to wonder. I think you're supposed to be kind of on the psychologist side, like thinking he's doing something important, but he's doing something so horrible. Yeah, that. When was it, 1980s, the villain? Yeah, it's 1980. And so it's like, I think you're supposed to be on his side. And then I'm going to spoil it right now because. Don't watch phobia. It's so terrible. He's the killer. And I think that's supposed to be surprising to you. But from 2024, watching this movie, you're like, yeah, no shit. That guy's a total asshole. [01:16:05] Speaker A: To try and be open minded. Is it maybe a product of a time where, you know how movies in like late seventy s and the eighty s didn't know really what computers were, right? And movies in the kind of early 90s didn't really know what the Internet was? Is it a product of a time maybe where psychiatry and psychology was. [01:16:25] Speaker B: They had no idea what they were doing in there. Yeah, maybe to a degree. I have no idea. It's just fascinating because it's very strange the way they frame it. Like we're supposed to. We're watching his love life and all this kind of stuff. We're really supposed to be rooting for this guy, I think. But it's like the whole time you're just like, this guy is awful. Even if he's not the murderer. Like he's a villain in this fucking medical practitioner. Right. So, yeah. Phobia is not on my recommend list. On the recommend list. [01:16:58] Speaker A: I think, though, Nobia. [01:17:00] Speaker B: Nobia. It's a big hail. Nobia to you. I think we both would recommend, though. Destroy all neighbors. [01:17:08] Speaker A: Yeah, we would. A movie that bludgeons you into liking it. [01:17:15] Speaker B: It's a good way of. [01:17:16] Speaker A: Forget it. Forget not liking this film. Right. You will like this film whether you fucking want to or not. And I started off kind of a little ambivalent towards it. I thought it was trying a bit hard, but it doesn't stop trying hard. It carries on trying hard. [01:17:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:17:34] Speaker A: It's like an eager puppy. It wants you to fucking like it, and you will. It is so energetic and so kinetic and so you call it chaotic, and you were bang on. This film is fucking just insanely fucking energetic. It doesn't stop, and it will win you over. It's Prague for fucking no reason why. Right? It tells the story of a frustrated and weary, world weary Prague musician who works at a shitty fucking studio in the outskirts of his town. He's doing his best to finish his magnum opus, his prog track, which is going to validate his life and change his world. And his relationship is struggling because of it. His work is unfulfilling. He encounters the same fucking homeless guy outside work every single day. He's in a rut creatively and professionally, and he accidentally kills a bunch of people. And those people then go on to help him form a band and realize his ambitions. It's brilliant. [01:18:35] Speaker B: Yeah. It's a delightful little movie. I think you just have to lean into that. I think that it is. It's like a little puppy. It wants you to like it. It's super high energy. And it's a fun time if you let it. [01:18:48] Speaker A: Yep. Due in no small part to the involvement of Alex Winter, who, of course, in multiple roles under layers of fucking latex, is. Oh, man, I fucking love. He's. He feels like one of these guys that's just always there. In the background, just plugging away, championing great little creators. He's not what you'd call prolific in terms of the movies that he makes and puts out there, but when he does, you know, it's for a reason. This, in fact, destroy all neighbors has the same chaotic, relentless energy that freaked. Does the movie that he made with Randy Newman fucking decades ago. Have you seen freaked? [01:19:37] Speaker B: I don't think so. [01:19:39] Speaker A: It's nuts. If House of a thousand corpses was fun, okay? That's what freaked is. It takes a circus freak show where the freaks are all a good laugh and a great bunch of lads. [01:19:53] Speaker B: Oh, no, I've definitely seen this, but, like, not since childhood. [01:19:56] Speaker A: Yeah, but same. I haven't seen it since then either. But what I do remember from freaked is that it has that exact same just. It's like a locomotive. You get on or you turn it off, basically. [01:20:11] Speaker B: Look at the cast in here. Alex Winter, Randy Quaid, Keanu. [01:20:16] Speaker A: Mr. Randy Quaid. Sorry, not Randy. Who sang you've got a friend in me? [01:20:19] Speaker B: I know. I was like, that's a Weird different. Like, I accepted it, but I was like, okay, yeah, bobcat. John Hoffman, Newman, Brooke Shields, William Sadler, Morgan Fairchild, Deep Roy. Yeah, it's Sam Raimi. Yeah. [01:20:38] Speaker A: Holy shit. I don't remember Sam Raimi being in it. [01:20:41] Speaker B: Yes. I'm going to have to check that one out. I definitely, once I saw the picture from it, I was like, oh, no, I do remember this, but not in any details. I have to check that one out again. [01:20:51] Speaker A: Similar vibes. Destroy all neighbors has just a load of really fun, practical gore. Limbs are fucking chopped off, heads are run over in vans, entrails playing the drums. Yeah, they take on a life of their own. And it's also really smart. It's really funny. Even if a particular joke doesn't land. Don't worry, because there'll be another one along in a few minutes. And that one is one of those. [01:21:21] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. [01:21:23] Speaker A: So good. We've seen some good movies this week. [01:21:25] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a pretty good week, I'd say. [01:21:27] Speaker A: Dupe, dupe, dup, dup, dupe. I just want to quickly talk about the suicide squad again. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason lately as to why I'm watching the movies I'm watching. I'm very much going with my heart right now with what I put on and watch sometimes. [01:21:42] Speaker B: You got it. That's a January thing, isn't it? See, it's like, you know, you're in that zone where it's like things could get dreary. [01:21:50] Speaker A: Yes. So you got to follow your heart, feed your soul. You have to go with your instincts. And I watched the Suicide Squad. James Gunn's the suicide Squad. And fuck me, I'm so glad I did, because such a good. Again, five stars. It leaves you no choice. This movie doesn't miss. It doesn't fucking miss. It's to peacemaker, who's incredible. Idris Elba is fucking brilliant. And every one of these fuckers, every single one, every single character in that story has such a brilliant, redemptive arc. There's good in every one of those characters. David Dasmalchian is so incredibly good in this film. Even king shark man. [01:22:34] Speaker B: Oh, right. [01:22:36] Speaker A: That wonderful scene when he's in Jotunheim, he's in that fucking huge tower, and he finds that aquarium, and the fish are following him, and the fish are following his hand. And the rest of the movie just stops. The rest of the movie just pauses. And there's this wonderful fucking space where he realizes he's got friends, he realizes he's got people who share his experience. And it brings a fucking. Amidst all of the idiocy of that film, because a lot of it's stupid comedy as well. But amidst all that, everyone has a really beautiful beat. Everyone has a really beautiful space where it's outsider art, man, this film is massive budget outsider art. And it's that good that you can see yourself in these redemptive arcs. It's fucking brilliant. The Rat King story, it only gets like, maybe 1015 minutes of screen time, but it hits you like a ton of bricks. It's fucking stunning. In my letterbox review, it was only a couple of lines, and I stand by this. There is more authentic humanity and soul in that film than there is in all three guardians. And I love the guardians films. [01:23:49] Speaker B: I love them. They're great. [01:23:51] Speaker A: But remember what I said about the third one, where it feels a little bit forced, that the big emotional moments feel as though they have to be there. They're shoved in. That was the vibe I got. Anyway, in Suicide Squad, you are unprepared for just how authentic that film is. [01:24:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I've been a gun stand forever. I've said before that one of the first ten people I ever followed on Twitter in 2008, I've always been a big fan, so maybe I'm a little bit of a mark. But, yeah, I love the suicide squad. I just think it's brilliant. And it is one of those ones that I go back to and am. [01:24:39] Speaker A: Always delighted by you know that if a movie is on my shelf, if the fucking disc is on my shelf, it's a keeper. Every time I see it has the same effect. It's brilliant. The performances are great. Peter Capaldi is fucking, as usual, brilliant, by the way. Oh, by the way. So you know that Peter is my son. Peter, at twelve, is. He's in a big old doctor who phase at the minute, right? He's watching all of the Doctor who's. Do you remember? [01:25:05] Speaker B: Is he like, watching all of the Doctor who's or like, new who? [01:25:09] Speaker A: He's gone from Christopher Eklas. [01:25:11] Speaker B: Okay, got you. [01:25:13] Speaker A: However, with the appetite that he's got for it, I fully expect him to go all the way back. But do you remember? He would have been like ten or nine. And I chose as a parent, the stupidest thing I could have done was I sat him down and the first episode of Doctor who we ever watched was one of the scariest I've ever fucking seen. Right. [01:25:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:25:40] Speaker A: I'm not exaggerating for effect. This is absolutely 100% true. He made me turn it off at a scary moment and I felt so fucking ashamed of what I'd done to him. It really fucking actually scared the hell out of him. He didn't sleep properly that night or for at least two or three nights after. I would hear him crying in his bed at how frightened he was. Right, I know. But now, two or three years later, he's in his rewatch. He's hit that episode again. Brilliant. And he sat on me. Dad, dad, dad, I'm at that episode. Should we watch it again? I was like, all right then. And we sat down and we watched that same episode that absolutely fucking ruined him when he was nine. And we laughed about it. And it is a really effective episode. [01:26:24] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [01:26:24] Speaker A: Really super scary. But we just enjoyed it this time without the trauma, scarring. [01:26:32] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, when it comes down to it, obviously it was a traumatic couple of days, but something that now, just a couple of years later, is a laugh. [01:26:40] Speaker A: We can laugh about it now. [01:26:41] Speaker B: Yeah. He wasn't permanently scarred by that episode. [01:26:45] Speaker A: Yes. Good shit. Anything else? Let me see. No, that's our watches for this week. So the witch pin blackout's daughter destroy all neighbors. [01:26:59] Speaker B: The one about the snow society of the snow phobia. Yes. I did go and see american fiction this week, which was delightful as well, but not really in our purview. But if you're thinking about going and seeing it, I highly recommend it. [01:27:14] Speaker A: Yeah. And again, not within our purview, but because it's Owen's birthday on Tuesday. He gives you the big one. Oh, and fucking hell. I've never known anyone to be able to binge a show like he does. He finished Brooklyn nine nine and has gone straight back to the beginning. Right. [01:27:29] Speaker B: Oh, nice. [01:27:32] Speaker A: I'm enjoying it as well. It's funny as fuck. So as a little treat to him, I let him watch pop star. Never stop. Never stopping. [01:27:37] Speaker B: I saw that you had watched that and Keo had watched it like the day before. That's like one of his comfort movies. He watches it over and over again. [01:27:45] Speaker A: But I hadn't quite remembered just how explicit it. [01:27:48] Speaker B: Extremely explicit. [01:27:53] Speaker A: The entire time Laura was shooting me fucking our tribe was mom. The two of us laughed uproariously the whole time. [01:28:03] Speaker B: Here's the thing. He's ten. [01:28:05] Speaker A: Yes. [01:28:06] Speaker B: You know what school is like when you're ten. [01:28:09] Speaker A: Yes. [01:28:11] Speaker B: You know, he's got a little dirty, little vocabulary and all that kind of stuff that he deploys at school and all that. So pop star is just sort of a thing that he's going to go to school and his friends and him are going to chuckle about and say the explicit things in it, and it's fine. It's just part of being a kid. [01:28:33] Speaker A: It's what life is. [01:28:34] Speaker B: Yes. There's something kind of fun about you being a part of the process instead of it just being something I'd rather. [01:28:41] Speaker A: Exactly be controlling in some way. Yes. I'd rather you do it here than. Yeah. So, yes. A really good movie week. [01:28:50] Speaker B: Good. I love that. Hopefully. Here's to another one. We'll see how it goes. Let's do it. [01:28:55] Speaker A: Following our hearts. [01:28:57] Speaker B: Yes. Speaking of following our hearts, this week we followed our hearts and our Facebook page to our main topic that we're just kind of going to shoot the breeze about. And this came from John Benfield, who is one of our listeners in the UK. [01:29:15] Speaker A: One of our longest listeners. One of our. I'm going to say it, Ben, as one of our favorite listeners, he was the father of the first joag baby, I believe. [01:29:24] Speaker B: Yes, it's true. Yeah, I think so. [01:29:26] Speaker A: And, yeah, one of our great. Yeah. Unbeknownst to us, John works in risk management. [01:29:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I knew that. He travels for work and stuff like that because he comes here to the US from time to time for work. But I did not realize that was what his particular field was. I never know what anyone does for a job. No, that's just not a thing. I know. Why would we bless my friends? They've accepted that I don't know what they do at this point. Every now and again, someone will just ask me what I think they do just for fun. What do you think my job is? I tend to get, like somewhere in the ballpark, but that's about it. But risk management apparently is what old benners does. And he posted on our Facebook this global risk report from the World Economic Forum, which I kind of looked at what the World Economic Forum is. And basically it's a sort of nonpartisan, independent group that meets together with people from all over the world to sort of talk about corporate ethics. And the idea of if we all have a stake in society is an oximeron, if ever. [01:30:52] Speaker A: Have you had one? [01:30:53] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. I mean, this is what they say their mission is or whatever, but they all get together and sort of try to analyze where the landscape of the world is and what responsibilities corporations have to making sure they don't destroy the world. And basically kind of looking at it as like, we all share this place, we should all have a stake in it, including the corporate overlords. So ideally, I don't know who these people are. It says, made up of both private and public business people, all that kind of stuff. But for whatever reason, all of these people assemble and they talk about, one of the things that they talk about, it's not the only thing they talk about, but amongst the things that they do is they come out with this global risk report, which kind of looks at the whole landscape of the world and what's going on and our various crises and things like that, and then sort of tries to list, in order to the best that they can, which threats are the most imminent to us. [01:32:00] Speaker A: As a global society, which is very mean. Last week we covered Jo ag rule number one, you are not safe. [01:32:10] Speaker B: Yes. [01:32:11] Speaker A: And this report clearly outlines Joag number two. Joag rule number two, which is we are all fucked. Yes. [01:32:20] Speaker B: Right. So this has been going, I think, since like 1970 or the 70s, somewhere in that general city. So they've been doing this for a while, coming out with this. And I think the first line of their summary here, the first years of this decade have heralded a particularly disruptive period in human history. Which is like, when you've been doing this for like 50 years and you're like, yeah, the past three. [01:32:46] Speaker A: This one's bad. [01:32:47] Speaker B: Yikes. Not great. In the next paragraph, they say, as 2023 begins, the world is facing a set of risks that feel both wholly new and eerily familiar. We've seen a return of older risks, inflation, cost of living, crises, trade wars, capital outflows from emerging markets, widespread social unrest, geopolitical confrontation, and the specter of nuclear war, which few of this generation's business leaders and public policymakers have experienced. So that's fun. [01:33:20] Speaker A: Where to begin? [01:33:21] Speaker B: Where to begin is basically the question. [01:33:27] Speaker A: There's a little tiny sliver of validation here for you. And I think because if you go down this list, and helpfully, they've done it in kind of severity. They've done it. [01:33:38] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. [01:33:39] Speaker A: Not only have they just listed what's going to fuck us, they've listed it in order of fuckitude almost. They've attached a percentage of fuckability for every one of these factors. And it's quite good. [01:33:54] Speaker B: Yeah, go ahead. [01:33:55] Speaker A: When I'm talking about this validatory bit, they're all stuff that we've covered on the cast essentially, over the past couple of years. So Joak is the fucking place that sees it come in, right? [01:34:05] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. I was thinking the same thing as I looked at this. It's actually our fears that we have discussed on this podcast. So it's a kind of validation that I don't know that you totally want. At the same time, I'd like to think I'm overreacting here on this podcast. But then you see this, and like the headline on the summary page for the global Risk report says, a deteriorating global outlook, which is great. There's all these kinds of things, obviously, with going all the way into Gaza at the end of the year, we've got more Covid-19 things that are issues. All of this kind of stuff is still very much a thing. [01:34:52] Speaker A: Are you, Holt, something that John mentioned in his post, actually, when he shared this with us on Facebook, was a fascinating fact that. Did he say that more people are going to be voting in national elections now than have kind of simultaneously at any other point? [01:35:06] Speaker B: Is that. Yeah, it was something along those lines. Yeah. [01:35:10] Speaker A: Because it looks as though your next election is going to tie in quite nicely with ours. [01:35:16] Speaker B: Yeah. It's like all of these different global elections are coalescing at the same time, which is really fascinating. Yeah. So let's look at what some of these things are, shall we? [01:35:30] Speaker A: I would ask listeners, I mean, what do you suspect might be number one in the chart that you don't ever want to win? What do you think might be number one? What do you think might be the number one suspected cause of our forthcoming extinction? [01:35:51] Speaker B: Yeah, take a moment, give yourself, maybe pause for a second, whatever you need to do. But what do you think? [01:36:00] Speaker A: Oh, you know what that theme is countdown, friend. [01:36:06] Speaker B: You know how much I love eight out of ten cat. [01:36:09] Speaker A: Of course. [01:36:12] Speaker B: So have you guessed? What do you think it is. [01:36:17] Speaker A: At number one? We have extreme weather. [01:36:21] Speaker B: Extreme weather. And again, great catchy headline here. Environmental risks could hit the point of no return. [01:36:34] Speaker A: What timescale are they given here when. [01:36:37] Speaker B: Yeah, so it says environmental risk continue to dominate the risk landscape over all three time frames, which is. Let me go back here. But I'm not sure which time frames it actually says. Are you looking at the page? [01:36:57] Speaker A: Well, no, I'm not. But what I am looking at is some of the fucking evidence that backs that up. [01:37:04] Speaker B: Go ahead, I'll see if I can figure out what that. [01:37:06] Speaker A: Absolutely no doubt it isn't as your trumps would have us believe. It's just a blip in the stats. If you go back through the history. [01:37:17] Speaker B: They'Ve always happens all the time. [01:37:19] Speaker A: No, that's not the case. California wildfires, for example, just the last couple of years in Europe, a european fucking massive heat wave. 23 in fact was the warmest year ever in history. Ever. Yes, the last four hottest years ever on record have happened in the last five years. [01:37:47] Speaker B: That's neat. But there was one that wasn't the warmest year on record. So take that liberals, clearly. [01:37:55] Speaker A: Where's your science? [01:37:56] Speaker B: Fully normal. I made a snowball. There's no such thing as climate change. [01:38:01] Speaker A: Yeah, it's hot as fuck. And to the point where the year before last, the year before last was so goddamn hot there was just no sleep to be had. There was no comfort to be had. It was fucking vile. And it's great to know that that is now pretty much the norm. [01:38:23] Speaker B: The coolest. [01:38:29] Speaker A: It'S ever been and the coldest it's going to. [01:38:34] Speaker B: Was. I was just telling Kio earlier today that on our local Facebook group someone had posted a video from nine years ago of one of the ponds in Montclair having frozen over and everyone ice skating on it. And they had said, I wonder if this will ever happen again because this used to be a thing here, that the pond froze over and everyone went ice skating and it has not done that in years. It doesn't get that this. [01:39:04] Speaker A: I know my brother Alan, if he's listening, will remember this. When we were kids, there would be snow drifts in Wales right up to our upstairs. Snow drifts that you could fall into right up to your know. And that doesn't fucking happen anymore. It just does not happen anymore. [01:39:22] Speaker B: Right. It's like just from a bare observational outlook, just thinking about things. For any of us who are over the age of, like, 30, I think it's very easy to look back over our lives and see how much the weather has changed wherever we're from. It's not the same. Places that didn't get snow, get snow. Places that did don't rain and drought and all those kinds of things. Like I've said before, this house flooded, like, three times in the 70 years that my grandmother lived in it, and now it floods at least once a year. That's a problem. On top of that, it's not just that we're all uncomfortable and our basements are flooded, but according to this, you also have to deal with biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, which is awesome. Critical change to earth systems. Essentially what this says is that if we make it to. Basically, it calls a three degrees celsius, right? Celsius, yes. Okay. That's what c stands for, right. A three degree celsius world explores the consequence of passing at least one climate tipping point within the next decade, which, to be clear, that's a really high tipping point. We've already passed tipping points to this already. Recent research suggests that the threshold for triggering long term, potentially irreversible and self perpetuating changes to select planetary systems is likely to be passed at or before 1.5 degrees c of global warming, which is currently anticipated to be reached by the early 2030s. We're in 2024 now. That was a thing that kind of felt, like, a little bit distant. And now that's like when Owen gets his driver's license or whatever. That's how close this is. Do you get your driver's license at 16? [01:41:27] Speaker A: Yeah, you can apply for it at 16. Yes. And alongside that is the fact, the stone cold, incontrovertible fact that every single target. I know I've said this before on the cast, but every target that every government has ever set itself to reduce emissions has been missed. [01:41:44] Speaker B: Just black. [01:41:45] Speaker A: No one ever hit a fucking target. [01:41:47] Speaker B: That they've set, which is cool or not. Yeah, it's the opposite of that, actually, which is how we get, like on last week's episode when I talked about the fact that the Northwest passage is not, like a difficult crossing anymore because we just straight melted the ice. [01:42:08] Speaker A: Speaking of which. And then humans cool that we are, are still doing the most ridiculous mean. You know, the story in the news this week. Know, upscale bars and restaurants in the UAE and United Arab Emirates are now importing glacial ice to use. In fucking. [01:42:32] Speaker B: Mean. That's almost too on the nose. Right. Like rich people importing the ice from the dying polar ice caps as this cute little relic of before they destroyed the world. It's just too incredibly on the nose. Ridiculous shit. Although I do kind of wonder what it tastes like. I have drank glacial water and it was delicious. So I'll grant that if I were handed one I would drink it, but I would be grumpy about it. [01:43:10] Speaker A: The startup that is shipping this fucking ice claims that it's carbon neutral. How the fuck can it be? Get fucked. You're not fooling me. You're not fooling. [01:43:19] Speaker B: Carbon neutrality is like the biggest just greenwashing nonsense that we have right now. And I can't believe we're letting people get away with it. Same with your carbon offsets. When you fly and all of that kind of stuff. None of this is real. The company says it's carbon neutral. It's lying to you. That's just not a thing that exists. So let's just keep that in your. [01:43:45] Speaker A: Pocket so that's cool. Straight in at number one in the history. Number one, it's extreme weather. Now I'm delighted, kinder, in a mark way. Yes. To find that number two. Friends, what do you think it might be? Number two is AI generated. Miss. And disinformation. [01:44:09] Speaker B: Yay. [01:44:11] Speaker A: The global fucking risk report says that's the number two threat to mankind's dominance. AI generated misinformation. Disinformation. And that's kind of why I mentioned how pertinent it is that there's such a global moment for democracy this year, because that's where that threat is going to come from. It's going to come from bad actors using that tech to fuck with democracy and to tilt the balance of power. I'm tempted to say in nefarious ways, but is there a non nefarious authority? [01:44:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know that exists, nor do I think that. I think the problem is that non nefarious agents, in any case, are powerless against something that is so easily leveraged for nefarious things. Like, you can't just like, I'm going to make a truth telling thing. Who the fuck cares? Because one of the things about this that it highlights is not just the AI itself and the disinformation coming from AI, but the polarization that comes as a result of this. They call it societal polarization. And basically that the use of AI to create disinformation creates further unrest and further this divisiveness between people, which of course, I don't want to sound like I'm like, oh, everything is so polarized now. We used to all be able to get along. That's not how it works. And obviously things are going to be polarized. When you've got people who want to take everybody's bodily autonomy or who are sponsoring genocides or things like that. There's going to be polarization, but there's polarization over real things, and then there's polarization over disinfo that is easily being spread everywhere, that we don't have the media literacy to understand, that people don't have the tools at their fingertips to be able to parse what is disinfo and what isn't. [01:46:23] Speaker A: It might be huge. These two words, miss and disinformation. My understanding, I don't know if this is the same as yours, but my understanding is misinformation is people sharing stuff, which is untrue, that they believe to be true, whereas disinformation is people specifically. Sharing lies on purpose. [01:46:42] Speaker B: Exactly. [01:46:42] Speaker A: To sway opinions. Is that accurate? [01:46:44] Speaker B: Yeah, that's exactly it. And so there's overlap between that, obviously, too, because there are people making disinformation that is then shared as misinformation by people who don't know any better. So it comes from nefarious places, but it's shared in earnest. [01:47:02] Speaker A: I'm seeing this because I'm a TikToker now, right? And I'm seeing this in real time because I don't know why the fucking algorithm is serving it to me, but every ten or twelve swipes, I'll get a fucking flat earther. [01:47:16] Speaker B: Right? Which should be, by TikTok's own terms of service. [01:47:23] Speaker A: Yes. [01:47:24] Speaker B: That shouldn't be on there in the first place, let alone served to you in your algorithm. [01:47:30] Speaker A: And in the same way, as I think, of psychics. You either believe it, so you're nuts, or you don't, and you're a liar. It's the same principle. You're either sharing this because you think it to be true, so you're a fucking crank with a fucking loud, loud, loud amplification tool here, or you don't believe it and you're sharing it on purpose. For what fucking reason? Why, right? [01:47:53] Speaker B: But it's kind of like it goes back to me, to the people who create conspiracy theories. It's like the people who are taking them in, believe them. They really think, for whatever reason, whatever combination of things in their lives, have caused them to distrust authority to the point where they will believe anyone else on these kinds of things. The people who are like your Alex, Joneses and things like that, then are the ones who are perpetuating this kind of. Like, they have so much control over what people think. But when it gets to us, right, when it gets to your TikTok feed or when it gets to Facebook or things like that, you're largely looking at a group of people who believe these things in earnest. Like, the disinformation agent is so far removed from the thing at this point. [01:48:55] Speaker A: I guess that's where disinformation becomes misinformation. By the time you're sharing it to the wider audience, it doesn't matter what intent you shared it with. [01:49:02] Speaker B: Right. [01:49:02] Speaker A: The end user is sharing it at face value. [01:49:07] Speaker B: Yeah. And this is one of the reasons why I hate TikTok so much, is that it's just so easy for disinfo to spread on pretty much every possible topic. There's so much of that out there going to people who are sort of not in a place necessarily to be super literate about the stuff that they're taking in. And so you can see that this kind of idea of the disinformation being spread, the polarization, how easy it is algorithmically to place disinfo into people's lives, it's at a place that it never was before. [01:49:53] Speaker A: And what has just occurred to me is that how closely number one and two link together and feed off one another the misinformation. Find me somebody who is actively campaigning to reverse climate change, and I'll find you someone else who doesn't fucking believe in it in the first place. [01:50:11] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. And that's totally it. Like, the people at the top of that problem know they're creating disinformation. Those people who began running those counter studies, again, scare quotes around that. But in the 70s, they started running that campaign to be like, but we're not sure about it, as all of the scientists were like, no, this is bad. And they started that campaign intentionally, knowing what was happening. And politicians know, but they're being paid by oil companies to not believe. But when it gets down to your neighbor who doesn't believe in climate change, they're not doing that for nefarious purposes. The disinfo has gotten to the point where now it's just political belief. [01:51:06] Speaker A: Good old late stage capitalism is doing its thing. You know what I mean? Just chugging away merrily, like we spoke about offhandedly just before Christmas. Shell, I've got a fucking fort like map, which is just an advertisement to buy their new fucking petrol. Christ, how fucking insane. [01:51:25] Speaker B: It's so bleak, horrible. What's next on the list? [01:51:31] Speaker A: Societal and or political polarization? [01:51:35] Speaker B: Well, that was part of the. Yes, so we did that one and then next we have cost of living. Cost of living, which I think in both of our countries is a huge issue. I think the Brits do a better job of highlighting this than we do. I think being there, you see on the news talks of the cost of living crisis, the talks of the electricity and, you know, all that kind of. [01:52:04] Speaker A: Stuff here, property prices, electricity, food, everything is not only more expensive, it's smaller. And again, I'm not a guy yelling at a cloud. I'm not. [01:52:16] Speaker B: Right. No, this is real. [01:52:18] Speaker A: It is a fact. Everything is more expensive and smaller than it was before. Right. [01:52:23] Speaker B: And here we are basically gaslit about this whole thing where the people here can tell everything costs more, we're getting less for it, people are getting evicted, everything is terrible. But our media is telling us that's not true actually. Everything's gotten better and there's no more inflation and everybody has a job and what are you guys talking about? Everything's fine. While we are feeling squeezed by all of this stuff. It's basically know because the media is largely working to get Biden elected, it's important that we ignore that people are worse off than they were. And ending Covid emergency funds and the things that they put in place to keep children out of poverty during COVID all of these kinds of things, Biden has ended sending people back into poverty as a result. Well, all of know in any income bracket are certainly feeling the fact that it is so much more expensive to go to the grocery store than it was. [01:53:34] Speaker A: There's a very similar situation playing out here with the upcoming election. I mean, thanks to our politics, it's a two party system. There's only two fucking parties that realistically are going to govern the. And no one, no one is voting for Labour right now because of their policies. [01:53:51] Speaker B: Yeah, because they're so much better. [01:53:53] Speaker A: They're only voting for labor because they're fucking sick of the Tories. And Labour are drifting ever more towards the right wing because they know full fucking well that that's the only chance they've got of gaining power and that's the fucking market they have to please. [01:54:08] Speaker B: Or they think they do. Here we have the same sort of thing in the two party system and the Democrats consistently drift, right, thinking that that's how they get the know and it doesn't work. Doesn't work that way. The reason people are going to vote labor is not, ah, they're finally right wing enough for me to sign on. No, it's because the Tories have fucked up and so now people. Yeah, like maybe a degree to it, but largely as a Labor party person, you're not really going to win over a Conservative. As a Democrat, you're not really going to win over a Conservative. You just have to present something better than what the assholes who were there before had. [01:54:56] Speaker A: But it's all about hedging their bets. [01:55:00] Speaker B: Well, that's the thing. I know what they think they're doing and I think maybe that works a little better there than it does here. But, like, here they consistently keep moving to the right and thus just fewer people vote for them and they just keep losing because conservatives are going to keep voting Republican and fewer progressives are going to vote Democrat because now they're right wing instead. Oh, it's so frustrating. And the two parties isn't such a huge pain in the ass. [01:55:31] Speaker A: Isn't it interesting how so many of these factors are basically interwoven? [01:55:35] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. I mean, that's the thing is, like. [01:55:38] Speaker A: When you look at all beginning, these. [01:55:39] Speaker B: Are all the same problems. [01:55:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:55:44] Speaker B: Just coming around. And most of it doesn't have to do with us, which is why, I mean, obviously this is the World Economic Forum, right? So they're talking about corporate responsibility and they are the people who are responsible for they. We cannot change any of this stuff from here. This is all stuff that from a corporate and governmental level is all interwoven together. [01:56:08] Speaker A: We've always kind of low key thought, oh, maybe one day, joaag, we can solve a crime. Imagine if we could solve the world. That would be great through this. [01:56:14] Speaker B: I would love to solve the world. Please. I am so on board. [01:56:19] Speaker A: Make it a better place. Corey and me and the entire human race. A little bit of Michael Jackson for you there. [01:56:29] Speaker B: That was good. [01:56:30] Speaker A: I like that. In at number attacks, I love a cyber attack. The lawn mower man and shit. [01:56:42] Speaker B: We've clearly been seeing plenty of those. Lots of places that have been hit with various cyberattacks, including like airlines getting hit with them or hospitals. Hospitals have been a huge target of cyberattacks in the past year. Many systems and hospitals have gone down because of that, which is a hugely disruptive thing. In fact, we talked about that in our hospital series when we were sort of talking about the various terrible things that can happen to you in a hospital. One of the codes that they have developed in hospitals now is depending on the hospital, there are always different colors, but a code that you can call for cyberattack, because if your systems go down in a hospital, you're fucked. Yeah, that runs everything. Your patients die as a result of. [01:57:34] Speaker A: Your cyber system over here. A year or two ago, the NHS was hit with a colossal attack. But it isn't even the targets that you might suspect would be vulnerable. The British Library, of all institutions. Fucking british library is just recovering from a massive ransomware attack. [01:57:50] Speaker B: Leave the library alone. See, like, why do they attack the banks? Didn't you all see fight club? Don't go after the library. That's bringing information for free to anyone who can have it. Go after the people who are holding us all down, who are destroying the world. Go after them. What are you doing? [01:58:13] Speaker A: Take out. [01:58:15] Speaker B: Right. Like one of many cases of the villain is right in a. [01:58:22] Speaker A: Did nothing wrong. [01:58:24] Speaker B: Am I supposed to be on his side? Yes. [01:58:27] Speaker A: Apart from that, you merely adopted the dark. I was raised in it. [01:58:33] Speaker B: Have you seen the ad for God? What's it called? It looks like the most annoying movie I've ever seen in my life, but it has Tom Hardy in it. It's a new movie, and it's like, I think every cast member in this is british, but they're all doing some sort of extreme american accent in it. And it is. Oh, my God, it is. Wait, I need to find this, because. [01:58:56] Speaker A: While you're finding that, I'm going to give you a little treat. I did read recently the best way to do a bane voice is to do it in a glass. And I have a glass right here. [01:59:03] Speaker B: Please do. [01:59:05] Speaker A: It will be extremely painful for you. [01:59:13] Speaker B: It works. You killed it. The bike riders is the movie that I'm talking about. Yeah. Jodie Comer is the lead, and whatever weird ass midwestern accent she's doing is nails on a chalkboard. It's so terrible. And then it has Tom Hardy. Who knows what space accent he's doing. [01:59:36] Speaker A: I've come to love him for to. [01:59:39] Speaker B: I will forgive that any day of the week. Tom Hardy can do no wrong in my eyes. [01:59:44] Speaker A: Every director is too fucking terrified of him to go. Can we try one without the voice? [01:59:50] Speaker B: He just glares, holding his know, it's fine. It's great. Yeah. And then it's got, you know, he who transformed into Elvis and has never come back from. Yeah. Dialogue wise, this movie seems deeply annoying, and I will be skipping it. Anyways, what's next on the list? [02:00:15] Speaker A: Economic downturn. Again? [02:00:16] Speaker B: Economic downturn. [02:00:18] Speaker A: It's woven through everything that we've just spoken about. You can't extricate economic downturn and deal with it on its own terms. It doesn't feel like a factor in itself. It's a symptom of everything else that we're talking about. [02:00:36] Speaker B: Just cool. [02:00:38] Speaker A: Disrupted supply chains. Yes. That's your economy. That's your fucking climate. Escalation or outbreak of interstate and armed conflicts. I mean, without even consulting parliament, without even in the space of like a twelve hour period, Britain made the unilateral decision to just fly the fuck on in and start chucking bombs down at the fucking Houthis. Interesting that that decision was made when there was just a hint of threat to the economy. [02:01:07] Speaker B: Exactly that. Right. People have been using that Brita from community meme, and basically it says, I can excuse genocide, but I draw the line at disrupting the supply chain. Yes, pretty much. Yeah. It's like everyone's really quiet until commerce was a thing, and now we're bombing people who have not hurt anybody, they have not killed anyone else. They've simply disrupted the supply chain. [02:01:41] Speaker A: I'm sure some people died, but on the scales that we're. [02:01:45] Speaker B: No, they literally have not killed anybody. Nobody. [02:01:48] Speaker A: Really? [02:01:49] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I'm going to google it right now, but I'm fairly certain they have not killed anyone. My keyboard is in kind of a weird place. [02:02:02] Speaker A: Do the bane voice again, if you'd like. [02:02:04] Speaker B: Yeah, please. But no, as far as I can see here, no, the Houthis have not killed anyone. [02:02:15] Speaker A: My God. Yes, my God. [02:02:21] Speaker B: Right? Fucking right. It's so transparent. That's so crazy about this whole thing. Yeah, I was talking to Richard earlier today about this, also on the note of sort of gaslighting and everything. And we were talking about Israel specifically. But this goes for all of this. Like, basically, we all witness things with our eye holes and in our experience of life and all of that kind of stuff, and then these governments come in and they go, no, you didn't. No, I know how I get. You thought that you saw that, but you didn't actually see that. What? I don't think that's how this works. And that's all of this climate change, it's not happening. [02:03:14] Speaker A: It's just crushing me. Crushing me. [02:03:22] Speaker B: Let's do one more before we. And it doesn't have to be the next in order. Pick your favorite left on the. [02:03:28] Speaker A: Let's summarize the rest. All right, so coming in, we got attacks on critical infrastructure. Yes. Makes total sense. Bomber, hospital bomber, fucking power station, disrupted supply chains for food. Look, it's interwoven. It's all part of the fucking same mess. Censorship and erosion of free speech. Fascinating. That comes in about midway down. Disrupted supply chains for energy, public debt, distress skills and labor shortage. This one's beautifully worded. Accidental or intentional nuclear event? [02:04:04] Speaker B: Listen, I worry honestly more about the accidental ones, to be honest. So I get it. [02:04:10] Speaker A: Like some guy's going to drop a wrench. [02:04:12] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. Blow up Arkansas. [02:04:17] Speaker A: Violent civil strikes, accidental fucking or intentional release of biological agents. [02:04:25] Speaker B: Yeah, love that. [02:04:26] Speaker A: International collapse of the financial sector, housing bubbles, and finally at the bottom, the bursting of the tech bubble. [02:04:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I was watching a YouTube video earlier today actually, from some more news, and it was kind of talking about like, this is not the tech bubble per se, but I'm just in the ballpark of this kind of thing. It was talking about the economy of youtubers and that kind of creative work and all that kind of stuff and how the way that it started, you had all these people making like bajillions of dollars on YouTube and all that kind of stuff, getting a hundred million views, blah, blah, blah. And then like little changes to the structure of ads or the structure of how know let your channel have certain views and stuff like that. So people who would get a hundred million views on something going down to like a million, and then it's like, well, we're not going to give you money for this, but we're also going to force ads into your stream and then going to like, okay, well, now everyone uses Patreon or Kickstarter or things like that. Lovely. [02:05:30] Speaker A: Had a little issue like that, didn't they, recently where they did. [02:05:33] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like host was just chucking. [02:05:34] Speaker A: Ads right in the middle, mid sentence. [02:05:36] Speaker B: Yeah, right. Literally in the middle of a word Ben was saying in one of the episodes, but then he was basically saying like, okay, so then I think it was Kickstarter. They decided to do like a blockchain thing for their payments or whatever, which of course caused an uproar. And everyone was like, no, don't do this, thankfully, because then the blockchain crashed and all of these people would have been out of their money if they had done that. But having these companies like that, which is a small number of employees and people at the top who control an entire economy, right? So if Kickstarter collapses, that's not just like, oh, fuck, that website went down, or like Patreon collapses, that's an entire economy that collapses as a result of that. Which I relate then to sort of tech as well. If we have crashes of these systems, which we all rely on, in various ways. And these small numbers of these tech corporations and companies and things like that that control our world. When something goes down, you destroy entire economies, you disrupt societies. [02:06:50] Speaker A: The kind of the biggest impact of this cyberattack on the british library was research. Fucking actual valuable medical and sociological research was completely fucked, right? Because the biggest fucking seat of readily available, freely available learning was just completely taken out of action. [02:07:09] Speaker B: Fuck, man. Right? And with more consolidation of things that we kind of. We're always just like a step away from monopoly in every single realm of our lives. Now it's not one corporation, but there's like three that own every sector of life. [02:07:31] Speaker A: Take the fucking. The free Internet. It used to be just a fertile ground full of creativity, message boards, forums, discussions, open fucking exchange of ideas. And now it's four fucking websites. [02:07:45] Speaker B: Exactly that. And searching for something on them right now because my browser was automatically edge on. Here it's bing, which is way better than Google, as it turns out. [02:07:57] Speaker A: Tell me how you edge. [02:08:02] Speaker B: As the tweet went. [02:08:04] Speaker A: You don't want to see how I edge. Trust me, Microsoft, you don't want any of that fucking smoke. [02:08:12] Speaker B: Oh, boy. You might say mark is the edge lord, if you will. [02:08:17] Speaker A: You don't even know. [02:08:19] Speaker B: But all that to say that I think a lot of times we don't totally understand how few people are in charge of every aspect of our lives. And if any of that goes down in some way, so much more of our world is destabilized than we realize that it is. [02:08:46] Speaker A: Time to wrap this up. Yes, I genuinely can't deal with any more of this. [02:08:52] Speaker B: Yeah, that's enough. Oh God. That's enough. [02:08:55] Speaker A: I'm tapping the fuck out of this. Listen, cheers, Benners, for bringing this to our. [02:09:01] Speaker B: Thank you for that. I mean, here's the thing. Like you said, it's not giving us anything new per se to worry about. We have talked about pretty much everything on this list. But there is something to the fact that it is validating in the most negative possible way going like, yeah, we're right to be worried about they. Now what is the World Economic Forum doing about. Maybe Benners can help us understand that too. [02:09:32] Speaker A: Manage the risk, Benners. Come on, it's your. [02:09:34] Speaker B: Please manage this risk. Help us save the world. [02:09:38] Speaker A: Come up the hour. [02:09:42] Speaker B: Friends. Let us know. Did anything on this list surprise you? Was it all your fears? Is there something that you're surprised isn't on here? Does any of this give you nightmares? Please just let us know what you think on all the socials as well. As helping us pick a comfort movie to balance this out for our end of the month. Watch along. [02:10:06] Speaker A: God damn it. Feels like we need it. [02:10:09] Speaker B: I think so. You were in such a good mood when we got here. [02:10:13] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks for that. That's in the fucking rear view mirror now. Let's look over the report. [02:10:20] Speaker B: She said it'll be fun. Look. [02:10:24] Speaker A: Hey, this is what Joak does. This is our fucking happy place, right? We know you're not safe. We know the world is fucked. And we know that we aren't going to get out of this alive. So let's try and have some fucking chuckles while we can here. [02:10:39] Speaker B: And on top of that, it is important that we stay spooky. [02:10:43] Speaker A: Risk number one is that you don't stay spooky. [02:10:45] Speaker B: It's the biggest thing. I don't know how it didn't make the list. [02:10:48] Speaker A: People deciding to remain unspooky.