Freedom, overpopulation, and perceptions | Jerm Warfare

Finding a hoodie that lasts through the season can be tough.

The American Giant Classic Fulza Putty is made to last a lifetime,

so you can count on it year after year.

The iconic Classic Fulza Putty is the jacket that started it all for American Giant.

Custom heavyweight fleece and side panels for mobility make it the best hoodie ever.

Every American Giant piece is made in America and designed to last.

No exceptions.

The result is durable clothing.

Like the premium slub crew tee, no BS high rise pant,

and slim rough neck pant that become part of your life.

Snag the hoodie that will bring you comfort for life.

The American Giant Classic Fulza,

save 20% off your first order at american-giant.com

when you use code staple20 at checkout.

My name is Jim. This is Jim Wolfe, the Battle of Ideas.

As you can see, I was in the Krueger Park guys,

and I just want to make you very jealous.

Mike, I know I spoke to you when I was there,

and we were chatting briefly about that video that I sent,

and I happened to have it here.

I'm going to give it a go and see if I can share the screen,

because it was just such a cool moment with that line.

Let's head to the works.

It does look like it's working.

Okay, cool. Let's hit play.

So, I don't know if you can hear me,

but I can hear you.

I had my window rolled down, and I had my phone, as you can see there,

just outside the window, and I was trying to see how long I could

last without rolling up that window.

But my blood sugar levels were dropping at a rate,

but you cannot believe how big those animals are.

Charles actually does know, he was telling me earlier,

because of when he was in Africa.

But I cannot describe the feeling of seeing those things.

I think the structure, but it was as a walking towards you,

you don't get a hint of the sheer power,

but as he walked past you and you see those rippling muscles,

pretty see it just how powerful those animals are.

Now, look at this one right next to the car.

There, that's when I rolled up the window,

because I decided, no, no, because it would have started.

Now, she's the mother.

You can see that she's the one with the milk.

So, if there was to be any drama,

it would be her that would be likely to get cross.

Yeah, and what made that even more daunting

is the fact that there was a cub, and you know,

you don't really want to mess around with the,

with the mother of all a lioness with a cub.

And as you saw it, you walked past the car.

Her shoulders were above my window level.

I mean, that is huge.

You can see that, that, that's majesticness.

Just by the way, for those watching or listening,

I'm sitting in a coffee shop.

You guys know my fiber line was broken

while we were away.

Construction workers dug into the ground,

and they snapped the cables.

So, I have to use the Wi-Fi yet to local coffee shop.

But one of the things that I love about living in Africa

is, and Charles, you've spent time in Africa,

so I'm sure you'll, you'll agree to some degree.

But there is a sense of freedom in our broken infrastructure,

and I quite like that.

Did you find the sense of freedom when you were in Kenya?

Very much so, and, and, and in plenty of other places as well.

I think I'm, it's very interesting, especially as a,

well, it depends whether you are a, in any of these countries,

by returning the Sub-Saharan countries,

whether you're a citizen, whether you're resident,

or whether you're just a visitor.

And I think that does, that does definitely make

quite a considerable difference on your experience there,

and your perspective.

And I've, I've been lucky enough to travel

in a lot of Sub-Saharan Africa, but also work there

in different capacities as well.

And, yes, I mean, I would absolutely agree,

but to a point, and there are differences

in what I would say, and I'd be interested in your thoughts

on this in South Africa.

But certainly, in East Africa, what I would say is that,

whilst there are great big expanses of land,

and it's very easy to feel like you're off the beaten track,

it is actually incredibly hard to find a place

where, after more than 30 minutes, at least one child

with a dog or a goat has to not found you.

And that, I'm not suggesting that,

doesn't still give a sense of freedom.

But it does mean that you're never quite

in the middle of what you think is nowhere.

And, and I, the reason I say this is because the spaces,

lots of Africa are regulated or controlled, you know,

the Kruger, obviously, you have to either,

well, presumably you actually, even if you're citizen,

you'll still have to pay to get in, you know,

you have to be registered, you have to be booked in

and this and the other.

Now, of course, you've just showed us a video

that demonstrates the sort of thing that you might see

when you're in there.

But what I would say about the United Kingdom,

British Isles, and a lot of Western Europe,

is that the critical difference is that whilst you might not be

in a situation like that with regard to wildlife,

you don't have the same process by which you're,

you're sort of booking into here and there's a,

there's effectively an audit trail of where you are,

what you're doing and indeed that you have to pay for it.

So the way that the park system, the wild spaces,

let's call them in the United Kingdom work, the British Isles,

so far, it's completely unregulated, completely unmonstered.

So you can travel exactly where you like and in the places where

there are sort of botteys or lodges or whatever.

That's a matter between you and the person that owns it.

There's no park authority that you have to deal with,

which is not, say, these authorities don't exist.

They do, but they're there effectively for the sort of land

husbandry and that sort of thing.

So there is a difference and also it is absolutely possible

to walk in particularly the north of England or Wales or Scotland

for very long periods of time without saying a single person.

And oddly, and I always find this odd because Africa is so big

and the spaces in a lot of these countries that we refer to are so big,

but it is bizarre to feel like you're on the edge of the earth

and then suddenly, and I think you know what I'm talking about,

suddenly, usually a little boy or a couple of little boys will just appear

and they won't appear and again, I'm not having a go at them

because I totally understand the natural curiosity,

but they won't appear and just carry on doing what they're doing.

They will appear and come and talk to you and they

absolutely will not leave you alone.

So it's a really interesting difference

in so far as evaluating what exactly we mean by freedom.

And I don't say that to sort of do down the African freedom

or the African experiences, but I do think for context,

it is quite fascinating that at the moment,

and the reason I say at the moment is because this idea

of natural capital and everything being turned into a commodity

means that the situation as it is is probably unlikely

to continue forever and ever, it looks set to change.

But nonetheless, it is quite a fascinating distinction

whether if we did have the wildlife,

and there's a place up in the North of Scotland called Allardale,

which was a huge estate bought up by a chap

who was called Lister, Paul Lister,

and his plan was to reintroduce a lot of the wildlife

that these islands did contain, wolves, bears, links,

that sort of thing.

He's been very much frustrated by the authorities,

as you'd imagine, and of course people say,

oh, you know, what about sheep and this and the other.

Now, that's a private place, so therefore, yes, of course,

you do have to pay, but so some of what I'm describing

with regard to Africa is happening here, but not with regard

to what we describe as national parks here.

So it is a really interesting sort of contrast, I suppose.

I wasn't really referring to open space,

necessarily being equivalent to freedom,

but I suppose being more philosophical in the sense that

the lack of top down infrastructure

lends itself to a kind of freedom of the mind in a way.

Let me give an example, when I went to Europe,

now you guys are right there, so for you, it's normal.

But for me, the amount of bureaucracy

that was required to enter Europe was unbelievable.

Someone said to me this morning that, you know,

that in China, you have to, you are compelled to obey.

I was heavily compelled to obey when I was in Europe,

and I don't have that sense where I am,

which is one of the reasons why I do enjoy living well,

but it comes at a cost, and it's that cost-benefit ratio

that one has to balance.

I was chatting to Vanessa actually when I was in Krueger,

and she was saying, you know, she lives in one of the most

ravaged countries in the world, Lebanon.

And she says, yet, she feels the safest and probably, you know,

the happiest that she could be of all places,

which in a weird way, underpins what I'm saying.

It's interesting you say that about Europe,

but I mean, to a certain degree, that's true.

If you have to engage with population centers,

but if we look at France, for example,

which has, we've got to acknowledge one of the worst

bureaucracies on the planet.

Its population is largely gathered into, you know,

four or five major cities, whatever it is.

I don't know many major cities it is,

but anyway, the point is in between.

It's, you know, relative to England.

For example, the population density in the countryside areas

is very, very low.

And so, you know, we went to live there for a couple of years

when my kids were very young.

Well, were they three, four years old, something around that?

And we were there for two years and basically,

we didn't have to deal with bureaucracy at all.

We never saw the police.

We never, we just went and played with the wild boar

and the wolves sort of thing.

You know, what I'm not being quite serious about that,

but the point is we just walked in the mountains

and saw nobody.

And it was absolutely fantastic.

And yes, sometimes we ran up against wild boar,

but there was never any concern about that.

And the only time that we ever had to worry

about sort of personal safety was when the hunters were out

once a year for a few weeks.

And then you did have to be a little bit careful

because they, you know, you just had to be careful

that you weren't going to get shot by accident.

But aside from that, there was no engagement

with bureaucracy whatsoever.

And it actually was extremely free.

So you're absolutely able to,

if you organize things properly, get away

from the bureaucracy that we face in Europe.

But that's actually a good point that you're making

because when I was engaging in the UK conum forums,

there was a brief discussion about overpopulation.

And one of the members was saying, yes,

it's his perception that the world is overpopulated.

And I don't see that at all.

Based on what you're saying, for example,

where you can go into the middle of a country

and there are very few people.

If I travel between Cape Town and Johannes,

it's a two hour flight.

95, 98% of the land below me is empty, completely empty.

And it's only that concentration in sort of localized areas

where you get the perception of overpopulation.

And of course, perhaps then excess of bureaucracy.

The keyword there was perception.

And a lot of it has to do with the state of infrastructure.

And at the end of the day,

are we able to just live our lives?

And when society is feeling overpopulated

because the roads are bunged up and you can't get from A to B

or you can't get a seat on a train or whatever it happens to be,

that's when it starts to feel overpopulated.

Go to China and see what population density is like.

But the infrastructure works.

So actually, it doesn't feel, it clearly feels populated

and clearly you're in amongst hundreds or thousands of people

as you're walking through the streets of Beijing or whatever,

but it's not that same feeling of disruption

and I just can't get on with what it is I want to do.

So, but you know, as you say,

in the meantime,

why we're all stuck in our cities,

there are ways to get away from that.

And that's a question of how we organize our lives.

Just bureaucracy, I just think a couple of anecdotes

that either support your case or not.

I think the particular African country does make a difference

and by two contrasting examples

and not forgetting, of course, given Africa's colonial history,

bureaucracy is a legacy and what's been unfortunate about it

is that quite often the situation now will be in effect

a sort of an upgraded version of the colonial bureaucracy

because anyway, I was reminded of crossing

a very, very underutilized border post

in between Mozambique and Malawi in a vehicle.

And I turned up at the post and for those who have not

traveled in this part of the world, I mean, we're talking,

it's described as a border post.

Actually, it is a mud heart with a stool,

a rickety table and a big, really boggied book

and everything is just done by handwriting.

So, the idea that, you know,

yeah, okay, I'm either entering or leaving the country

and anyone in Blantire or anywhere else

is going to know about this for six months is a joke.

That's not going to happen.

Anyway, I turned up and there was no one there,

at least no one visible at the time.

So, I thought, okay, well, this needs to be done properly.

So, I opened the book, looked at all the various columns

and I just filled it in all the filled everything

in my self, you know,

possible details, vehicle details,

a carnator, passage or all that kind of thing.

And then the guy walked back in and saw me sitting in his desk.

I, you know, immediately took the Mickey out of him

for desserting his posts and said, you know,

I'm here, I am doing your blinking job for you.

Come on, what's this country coming to?

And you can imagine how that would have gone down in the UK,

you know, if you'd sat behind some administrators desk,

I mean, I would not be here having this conversation now.

I've been sent off the gulag.

But anyway, this chap broke into a broad grin

and roared with laughter.

I mean, he thought it was absolutely priceless

to see this idiotic white man sitting in his chair,

trying to, trying to fumble around doing his job.

So terrific.

And we did it and that was that across the border.

Whereas, I remember years ago in Ethiopia,

I was organising a sort of training conference in Addis.

And I don't know how it happened,

but two of the guys that I took with me

from the headquarters, I was, sorry,

when I was in the army,

from the headquarters, I was working in in Kenya,

turned up without passports.

But they, so they were allowed to fly out.

But when we got into the airport,

at Addis, they said, although, you know,

immigration people said, where's your passport?

I haven't got it.

So they were trapped.

They couldn't, they, I couldn't get them on a flight back,

but nor were they allowed into the country.

Anyway, the reason for mentioning it is that

it was like a Monty Python sketch.

I went round every single office of the,

whatever it was, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,

although, you know, both actually,

because they had to, and then, and then the,

the final, the final bit was

that having been to about 12 different offices

and then constantly being told, no, no,

I need that in triplicate.

So you'd give you one piece of paper,

I need that, I need two more copies of that.

All right, okay, well, could, could you just give me two more copies?

Or can you copy?

No, no, no.

But there is a photo copy.

If you go out the door here,

you take a taxi, you go to, you know,

so we had to do all this, got back,

finished all the things,

and then, um,

and then, number hold,

the last station that I went to to get the thing signed off

to say that, yeah, they can come into the country

was the first bloke I had spoken to.

So we could have said all of that,

all of that stuff,

which took me half a day to do,

could have been done in the course of 15 minutes,

and, and indeed,

if they'd ever bought a photo copy

that the public could use.

So, so that's just how many jobs I've provided.

Oh, crikey.

Yeah, and, and how many after dinner anecdotes

for those guys who have given me the run around.

But, um, but, but even that,

there was a sort of,

there was a perverse pleasure to be taken

in being messed around to that degree.

I mean, I did find it absolutely hilarious,

rather, of tiring.

And it worked, you know, we got them in,

whereas if that had, again,

going back to Western Europe,

I mean, okay, let's say for the sake of argument,

it were even possible,

but if two guys had arrived in this country

without passports,

I might be going in a funny direction here.

But, um, but, but to try and to say,

I only don't worry,

I'm running some training for them.

It's fine. Let them in.

And to think that that would happen.

Obviously, it's not credible.

So, so, yes, I do absolutely agree with you.

There is even where there exists bureaucracy.

There is almost always a way to get around it.

I'm not suggesting corruption,

but to just come to an arrangement that's reasonable.

And, and I think that is deeply refreshing.

But, check here.

So, this was when Colin and I were in China,

I'm riding a bicycle there in the middle of Shanghai.

There are a few people there.

This is a weekday.

If we're going to talk about overpopulation,

I'd love to know what it is that people mean

when they speak about overpopulation.

And I think this is a trope that is constantly used

to, to submit us into a sense of fear.

No, no, it comes, I think it comes back to what I said earlier.

And I completely get it.

I mean, England does feel overpopulated.

England feels overpopulated because, because of course,

we're comparing what the situation today with what was 20, 30, 40 years ago,

when you were able to drive from one place to another without having to sit in the traffic

queue for four hours.

And so, you know, my daughter went climbing in South Wales

just a few days ago.

And last weekend, and to get from Plymouth to South Wales,

she'd be what, three hours.

It took seven hours to get there because of, you know,

because of the population on the motorways.

And so, that's when it starts to feel that way.

No, but Holden, my call made an interesting point

when we were discussing exactly that in Shanghai.

He said that it's the management of the people that matter.

In other words, if it takes you that much longer to get between two places,

is that not because of the infrastructure management, rather than the number of people?

Yes, because the infrastructure is not built to support the population that inhabits the space

that you're in at the moment.

The infrastructure that we have in this country was designed,

you know, a hundred years ago, whatever, I don't know when the motorways were built,

but it's 70, 50, 60s sometime around then, I guess.

Charles told me from wrong about that, but that was a different world,

frankly, at that time.

And certainly Britain would not have felt overpopulated at that stage,

but we have put how many cars does the average family have?

How many additional families do we have in the country?

How many families are not families anymore because they've split up?

And so, you know, the issue,

not never mind the immigration issue, the issue of the way that we are living our lives,

compounds the effect and the feeling that we are in an overpopulated society.

But it's just about the fact we cannot go about our daily lives in the way that we should be able

to because the infrastructure is now, you know, we should not in the UK, for example,

be experiencing host pipe bands in the summer because it rains, you know, so much in that we are,

we are on the eastern end of the Atlantic Ocean, of course, it rains.

And yet we have water shortages, is it because there's less rain?

No, it's because we don't have the water infrastructure and the reservoirs sufficient

to support the population that we've decided to have in this country.

But that's not an overpopulation issue in and of itself.

It is an infrastructure issue at the end of the day.

Because my resistance to the whole of the population discussion is,

okay, now what?

What do you mean?

In a sense of getting rid of the population,

or you have a war, you have a war, or you have a, you know, a pandemic and you

kill people in the hospitals, whatever, or you implement a euthanasia,

vaccines, all these things together have an effect, and but frankly, the big

population bomb that we have at the moment is the demographic of young versus old,

and the fact that we're not breeding.

We have, you know, and this is not a, this is not a western problem either.

This is happening right across the world, but humanity knows.

It's everywhere if humanity is not breeding, and you know, so our population problem that we

have at the moment is absolutely, if we, if it is a problem, is absolutely temporary.

So, but in the meantime, we are going to, we are absolutely coming up against major pressures

in terms of, in the next 20 years, the number of older people that are going to need help and

support, the fact that we are not going to have young people there to help and support

those older people, and that's where I see even more pressure coming on for legalized

killing of old people.

It has taken, well, it'll just come to the Krueger Park and climb outside the

core when the Alliance is walking past, but I mean, this overpopulation thing is,

is a very, very multi-layered conversation because at the beginning, Mike, you know,

you pointed out that perception is the, is the, is the important word yet, because it is about

perception, because as Charles pointed out, it depends where you go, and you'll find that there

are a lot of open spaces, with perhaps there are people, but not that many people, and so,

so what happens is that you end up with a, with a concentration of localization, and that's

precisely what we're seeing in cities, perhaps that's one London is the way it is.

But I mean, surely, yeah, but you're, you're introducing a whole other talking point there,

because, because the concentration in cities, of course, is also something which has been

engineered, and is, is the agenda, right? But yeah, something that Charles can comment more on,

on this, the other issue that, that, of course, we face as, over the next couple of decades,

it's going to be how we feed ourselves, and, you know, that, that's a large part of the,

of the equation here is, if we have allowed our, our transport and energy and water

infrastructure to collapse, we're also allowing our food production infrastructure to collapse,

so that also feeds into the idea of our population. But, you know, Charles, what are your thoughts?

Well, this, you know, we, we discussed this following Wednesday's news program, because having

been put on to it by Mike in the first instance, I, I reported on, actually, quite disturbing

piece from the food standards agency, and for, for the, well, actually, both the United Kingdom

and the non-United Kingdom audience, the food standards agency holds the task of regulating

how food is produced in order to, to, well, really, how food is sort of meeting the end user

that the, who I was going to eat it, to make sure that it's safe. Now, of course, it doesn't take

much thinking to consider that what they might mean by safe is not necessarily what your eye might

mean by safe, but, um, but what was, what's been completely staggering is that in the face of exactly

what Mike's describing, you know, both of you, you know, the idea that, um, food may become scarce,

you know, the answer to the regulator, frankly, who has nothing to do with deciding where food should

come from, all they're there to do, all they should be there to do is to evaluate what you hold

under their noses. And yet, the lady running it has taken it upon herself to, to list in this

rather extraordinary document, a load of effectively tech solutions for food. So it's all to do

with growing or producing fake food, growing, when I say growing, I mean, from cultures, you know,

we're talking everything being in a controlled lab-based environment. It's, it's as though she

really does not understand what food, what part food plays in the, in life as in the relationship

between the land, the environment, the animal and plant kingdoms, and mankind. She, she doesn't

get it. So, so that in itself is disturbing. But the reason I mentioned that is was where the

conversation went was when there is pressure put on a system, I think in the first instance,

that system, or at least the people using it are forced to make it become more lean for one

to the better word. And the way I see it, and this would be applied the world over, but because

of the industrialization of food, the amount of waste and indeed unnecessary inputs and outputs

is completely phenomenal. So there's a huge amount of efficiency that could be derived from just

changing some of the ways in which food is produced and transported and purchased and everything

else. So that's one thing, people wasting less food, which they do waste an enormous amount of,

that really is a big one. And then people just making better choices, you know, is the answer,

because again, this is going back to this food, this food standards agency document, what was

completely absurd is that in the whole of her written piece, the only two foodstuffs that were

actually referred to as something that might end up on your plate were chocolate and mashed potato.

I mean, we don't need either of those things. You can live life without chocolate and mashed potato.

And yet that was sort of her answer way. You can just 3D print chocolate and mashed potato.

We're all, you know, we're home dry. No, I don't think that's really how it works.

So I think, again, go on the population and infrastructure thing, it's just exactly like what

you quoted Carla saying, it's just having a system that matches its intended use. And it's,

you know, if you try and put 20 people on one bicycle, it's probably not going to work.

But, but if you're, if you're city, and this is what Mike and I saw when we were in Chongqing

back in January, February, exactly like your Shanghai photograph of riding bicycle and thinking

where the heck is everybody, it had the same sort of feel. That wider city area has over 30 million

people living in it at no point except for one very, very touristy place at night, which is always

busy because people go there to take photographs stuff. It didn't feel congested or busy at all.

And the, the UK from having with the rose-tended spectacles on did have, I think, I believe,

an infrastructure that was absolutely appropriate for the population then and the population as it

was projected to be. And then it was, I think, post-war, the beginning of the destruction of all of

that. And the idea of, actually, I did want to talk about this because I was thinking about it with

your fiber cable. But the idea that rather than creating things that are genuinely innovative and

new and a good idea is just been a constant process of replacement. So what did they do decided,

okay, well, let's, let's get rid of all the railways because they're really good and they work

really well and they're, they're affordable. And let's, let's put the, put the owners back on

the individual to go and buy a car to use one of these new motorways. And okay, fine, there may

have been a period of time where that works. But of course, with the way in which population has

increased and the continued deterioration and overpricing of the railways, you're then, you're

then trapped in this, well, hang on, this is definitely not better than than how things were before.

And by creating something that you're calling a motorway, this is not a new thing. You're just

trying to replace the railway and it doesn't work in the same way that this, you know, all these

digital things, so many of them are just intended to replace a perfectly good analog existing system

rather than creating something that adds to what we already have. And I think I do see that as being

at the heart of quite a lot of our problems, just this incessant drive to just re, oh, you know,

in effect reinvent the wheel to what end? It's just pointless. And now you talk to people who are

younger. And I remember having this conversation trying to set up, we're sorry, which is why the

fiber thing prompts me. I was asking, well, look, I want to have a landline telephone. And I don't

want to use a wireless, what you call it, cordless. And she, you know, she had never even seen a plug

in landline telephone like you'd have had, you know, 20, 30 years ago. So the whole concept to her

was one that required her to think in digital terms, how you could achieve that and all the

all the various component parts you might have to facilitate this coming off a fiber cable.

And I just said, look, seriously, 15 years ago, this is just how it worked. But

Charles, I mean, our cell phones are are are are charging so often that we might also call them

landlines. Well, there is that. Yeah, but don't they, I'm anyway, let's not let's not get dragged

down that. Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned my, you mentioned food shortages earlier. And I had two

great episodes last week, right? One was farm angus, but regenerative farming and food and

market disease. But the one that was actually about solutions with Jim girl gets as predicted

very little traction. And yet it is such, such a good talking point, you know, you're growing,

growing food in schools, growing food in around prisons on church grounds. Instead, they have

graveyards, which excuse the pun on just dead space. What they could be doing is growing food,

perhaps in and around prisons, perfect opportunity schools, perfect opportunity. This isn't really

being done on on any on any. So you do understand why that is. So I mean, the reason isn't that because

because during the Second World War dig for Britain, whatever was, whatever it was called,

the kind of remember exact brand name. But anyway, the point was everybody was doing exactly that.

Every piece of land was doing exactly that. And as Charles mentioned in a previous program,

when we went to Chongqing and we're driving through the countryside outside Chongqing,

this was the same thing. Every piece of land is being cultivated that they can possibly cultivate.

This is not being encouraged now because for exactly the reason that Charles has just described,

the food standard agency being the regulator for food safety in the UK is now in the job of

promoting the types of lab-grown non-food products, which are going to be sold to us in the

not-to-distant future. The point is we are humanity at this point in time is already being farmed,

it's being farmed on many, many levels being farmed digitally for our data. And it's certainly

being farmed through the healthcare system because because we are just a commodity for the big

farmer companies, something that they pump their drugs into and they get paid for. And the same

is going to be for the food and all these startup companies supported by the likes of Bill Gates

and others that are going to provide these proteins and lab-grown junk. I mean, as opposed

in popular culture, if you remember the matrix, when Neo comes out of the battery bank that he was

in and ends up on whatever the craft was called, I can't remember now. And what was it they were

eating this sort of gluby slop that was supposedly nutritionally capable of supporting a human body,

but actually it couldn't have been described as the food in the sense that we know it. That's the

direction we seem to be heading in. And again, it's another profit center for a corporation that is

farming humanity. We got to recognize that that's what is actually happening to us and reject that

that entire way of life. My discussion with Cynthia Chang kind of overlaps this because she's

talking about Malthusianism, Malthusianism and the Lymistic Rose narrative. And the point that she

was making is that humans have always had the ability to adapt and innovate and they never

needs to be scarcity. And of course, the idea of scarcity is directly linked to the idea of

overpopulation and having to reduce families and break apart all these things and not grow food

independently. And it just becomes this whole web that just gets pulled down over you because

there are so many loads that you need to try and disconnect. And it becomes very, very confusing

for the average person, nothing to figure out which way to look.

I would agree. I think it is terribly confusing, but it is to be fair. I think it's a very confusing

world that we live in. I mean, if you think scarcity, if you say at its simplest level, scarcity is

really just a question of being in the wrong place. And to change that at the individual level

can be quite challenging. Sorry, what I mean by that is that prior to the decision by people to

agglomerate in urban areas, what we might now describe as urban areas, you would follow

the food or you would follow whatever you needed. So that there was idea of scarcity,

therefore was in effect self-imposed if you found that something was scarce. It's because you

were just in the wrong place because that thing wasn't there. You either exhausted it or it had

moved or whatever it was. So you followed it. Of course, centuries have passed since that

state really has existed for the vast majority of people on Earth now. And it means that our ability

to engineer the outcome with regard to scarcity is much more difficult or it's all the relationship is

sort of is inverted because we by and large, we don't have the ability to go somewhere that there is

not a scarcity. I mean, a really good example at the moment is looking at what's happening to the

prices at the petrol pumps across certainly Europe. I mean, even I was down in Plymouth, Tuesday,

Wednesday this week. I saw on my way back on Wednesday night, I saw a petrol price that was

what was it? £1.71 per litre. Now, nowhere I live. Just before the current conflict in Iran started,

the average price of fuel round here was about £1.27. And that, sorry, the point is that even

between Tuesday and Wednesday, that price has jumped by another 10 pence a litre. And that is,

you know, okay, there is basically price fixing going on. But that is because the conditions of

scarcity are being created by not necessarily the actions, the hostile actions of any particular

player in that region, but because of for insurance purposes, vessels carrying oil won't move it.

So there's not actually a scarcity of oil, but the conditions make it appear as though there's

a scarcity. And what can we do about it? That's why I'm just going to push back a little bit, Charles,

on your comment that the food standards is you see Lily doesn't get it. I think she does get it

or at least she is part of an overall picture here. If we consider the economic disaster around

the COVIDocracy, and then we had immediately hit by the Ukraine situation and the resulting price

rises there. And now we're getting this conflict, which was, as you know, as everybody knows, was

absolutely a matter of choice. That was a decision that was made to do this at this time. And

absolutely, I believe, understanding the economic consequences of doing it. We are building

away, but they are creating an economic environment, which is going to be ripe for this new food,

whatever food and inverted commas to be brought to market. We got to look at this in the context

of the fact that Bill Gates has been buying up huge quantities of land and so on. All these

stars seem to be aligning in a particular direction. Is that a coincidence? I find it very

hard to believe that it's a coincidence. I think it's it's absolutely part of an agenda. And

therefore, you know, she herself may not quite understand her role in that agenda, but she is,

I think it's we got to we got to understand that this is being set up for us in a particular way

that we are prepared to accept a particular future, which has already been designed.

Some of us have said the other day, sorry Charles, someone said the other day, Mike, that this

fuel price hike, they're kicking the can on the road and blaming the war in Iran. But in actual

fact, it was always going to come because of the advent of plug-in vehicles and going EV and

pushing for for the whole sustainable future that the UN is driving.

It's I mean, I don't know the answer to that, but but again, it it it all seems to just slot into

place, doesn't it? And so, you know, it some people would view that as being a very conspiratorial

worldview, but it doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be conspiracy in the sense of of, you know,

a couple of hundred people sitting in a room and saying we're going to do this, but when when

people's people's visions for the future align, then then inevitably you end up with the same

kind of effect, whether it's a formal conspiracy or not, the effect is the same.

But the thing is just again on that, I think it's very, very absurd to think that agenda 2030

would now suddenly be forgotten. Obviously, the UN and its aligned organizations and governments

are still very much in the game and they are going to push for all of these goals, no matter what.

People have forgotten, I mean, everybody was talking about it during COVID and now suddenly,

what are they just going to now no longer attempt those goals that they were attempting?

Obviously. No, no, look at this. These agendas have been flow, that doesn't change. They never,

they're not, nothing has gone away. They they have been flow and things take precedence at this stage

it doesn't matter whether it takes five years or 50 years to get to a point in time and so

whichever is the, and of course part of this is just the way it is presented in the public mind

by the mainstream media or whomever it happens to be, by politicians and so on, but

the agendas themselves don't disappear. They just take precedence for a while and then take a

back seat for a little bit and then they come back with the vengeance. So no, it hasn't gone away.

And I think nor will it because what it, since it's articulated in across 17

goals, all of which have specific criteria attached to them, it's absolutely perfect because it

provides the ready answer to why, why doing any of that? Well, it's because we're pursuing,

in line with the sustainable development goals, according to our policy of whatever,

so you just, you can make it all fit. I mean, like, like when, when we went back to, we look back

to 2020, default answer for any decision whether idiotic, catastrophic or worse, whereas due to

COVID, doesn't matter, didn't, didn't matter what anyone did, how much exactly like you say,

this was coming down the track, that you know, you're shutting down the economy, it's going to be a

disaster. People are going to die, yeah, but I mean, we've got to do it, you know, due to COVID.

And it was amazing. And people, it was like it just flick to switch and people's brains.

They, you just heard the words due to COVID and you just think, ah, right, yeah, okay, yeah,

yeah, I'll go along with that then because that makes sense. We have to do it due to COVID.

And it's what, I would say, it's the same. So if you're, you know, if you're challenged with

anything, well, it's because we're, you know, I mean, what are you saying? You, you're saying,

we shouldn't pursue the UN sustainable development goals. What do you want the world to

explode? So I think it always, it will always retain that value. That's why when I bought my

car recently, I made sure that it was petrol and not hybrid or battery. Yeah, I mean,

we know, wouldn't it be interesting if, um, if Iran was the world's leading producer of Lithium,

I, I wonder what would be happening now? The thing is though, it creates a strange psychological

dichotomy because there's nothing inherently wrong with electric vehicles, you know,

or sustainable energy. There's nothing wrong actually with solar panels on your roof. But when

you talk about it, you get this, this, this resistance because you know what the agenda is and

it makes it difficult then to have a reasonable conversation because it becomes so polarizing.

Yeah, but I would say, I mean, you don't even have to get so far as the agenda. It's just,

it's just the absolute hypocrisy of writing zero emissions on a, on a vehicle because it doesn't

have an exhaust pipe and trying to convince somebody that therefore there's absolutely no ecological

or environmental consequence of building that car or the battery that sits in it or the charging

processes or all the rest of it. I mean, I totally agree with you. The idea of making an

electric car, which let's also point out is, is well over a hundred years old as a concept and

as something that's actually been done. So we're definitely not, you know, back to reinventing

literally the wheel. But, uh, so there's the, it's just the, the, the great con of, yes, um,

we're going to preserve our landscape by putting these ghastly wind turbines in it.

Rather than just saying, look, actually, if you do make a wind turbine, you can generate

a certain amount of electricity at some points during the day. If we do do it everywhere,

we'll look horrible and we'll make a complete mess, but we might have a little bit more power

at times, which might suit certain communities due to certain factors, rather than trying to pretend

that this is in the name of protecting the environment, which is apparently being destroyed by

activities that are simply not destroying it. It's just the bare-faced stack of lies that

accompany it. Because I totally agree to create, you know, if you are somewhere in the middle

of nowhere and you're able to generate power from soda panels and wind or water turbines or whatever

it is, well, why wouldn't you do it? Of course you would. It is incredible. It's exactly the same as

COVID again, right? Because, you know, we were told that you've got to take this vaccine.

It's going to save the world. And of course, there was no full disclosure about anything.

Some people were told one story about it. It's exactly the same with electric cars or electric

anything. Because you're told it's environmentally clean that there's no emissions, that it's going to

help deal with the global warming problem. But of course, there's no full disclosure about

the lithium mining, the cobalt mining, the action production process for the turbine itself.

The fact that you've got to put a mass of concrete base in the ground in order to attach it to

and no discussion of the environmental impact of any of that stuff, no discussion of child labor

used in cobalt mines or lithium mines. And all the other rarest that are required in the

generating kit that sits at the top of it. So, you know, without people getting the full picture,

no real decision can ever be made about whether this is the right way to be running our lives.

You know, people are just so propagandized on everything that there can never be any real

proper decisions made about anything. That's why people become sort of non-playing characters to

use that old trope. And they just allow the world to drift past and of course become victims of

events. What's really ironic though, Mike, is I've noticed people, you're correct when you say

people don't have enough information so they make poorly informed decisions like injecting

themselves in the arm or whatever, right? Yet it's inverted because they'll put huge amounts of

of energy into knowing what's in the next cell phone that they're going to buy. They'll spend

days researching the next gadget. But there won't spend five minutes thinking about what's

being injected into the phone. No, no, no, they won't do that. They will investigate the features

that are provided by that device, but they will not consider. But that's only part of the picture.

They won't consider the environmental impact of the production of that device in the first

place and even, you know, and I include people that are absolutely leading the charge for

on the global warming issue. They don't consider these things either. I don't see very many

of the big campaigners on these sort of environmental issues that aren't using devices that are

that are environmentally devastating. You're going to say, Charles?

I mean, disappointingly, there's just been a really sort of opposite example of this because

there's what's being described as an outbreak of meningitis in the southeast of England at the

moment. I heard young, because it happened, I think, sort of supposed to have first started on

a university campus, I think I'm correct in saying. So they've interviewed a couple of the young

students to say, you know, so what about it? Because of course, what have they done? They've offered

dusted off the vaccine and offered it to people. And of the two people I heard

saying that they'd accepted it. The first said, well, you know, I know that I know antibiotics

do do do a good job. But really, you know, the vaccine is the vaccines, the real deal,

the sort of that's where that's where it's at. I mean, it was just it was basically she was

just susceptible to the marketing. So she said, yeah, so so therefore I took it. And the next

chap said, said, yeah, usually, usually I wouldn't, but this they were offering this one for free

and usually, you know, normally you have to pay for it. So yeah, so I took it. And it'll be

paired forward for the rest of his life. Yeah, no, absolutely in the NHS system. But seriously,

I mean, can you imagine basing, you know, I don't have his health even the right word, but a health

decision on whether or not it costs you sort of five or six pounds. If you genuinely believe,

yes, this thing might save my life. But at the moment, they're still charging a five before it.

So I probably just leave it. Yeah. You know, I arrived home the other day and there was a letter

sitting waiting for me and I thought, what the heck's that? So I opened it and inside was was a

invitation from my doctor's surgery, which by the way, I did not register with. I would

somebody registered on my behalf, but that's neither here or there suggesting that I haven't had

a blood pressure check in a very long time. And maybe I should come and have one. I'm sure you

could imagine what happened to that piece of paper. Yeah, and indeed your blood pressure. Yeah.

I see we're coming in for the last few minutes. So I want to circle back to the beginning of this

chat and just just make you feel a jealous about my trip. Take a look at that. That is yet another

reason why I live on the African continent. Charles, you experienced that, didn't you?

What's a giraffe through the window of a vehicle many times. And actually what I would say is for

anyone who's not really spent any time thinking about giraffes, but wants to see something amazing

and in this must exist on YouTube, go on to YouTube and search for giraffes running because there

is nothing quite like watching actually or drinking watching giraffe's drink is incredible. But

watching a giraffe run is probably quite difficult on video, but it basically giraffes look like

they're running in slow motion, but my goodness they run quickly. They are they are extraordinary

creatures. Speaking of extraordinary. Yeah, go on. Well, speaking of extraordinary, this right

here. You saw your leopard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is something that is something you almost never

see. Even if you even if you go on a game drive, a leopard is incredibly difficult to spot.

Ha ha. Made a pun there. Mike, have you been to I've never asked you have you ever been to a

game park? I have never been to Africa at all. And that is absolutely a continent. I've got to

knock off my bucket list because it is on my bucket list. I think I absolutely would love to

visit, but that's such a huge place. Where do you go? You go to Kruger.

I mean, look at this. That was just right next to the vehicle. I mean, that is huge and magnificent.

It is just it's difficult to explain from a photograph until you are right next to it. And

if you're only listening to that, we're looking at an elephant.

Yes. And of course, yes. And of course, that was the the lionness of the mom. She was looking

for her cub that that went missing right in front of our vehicle. But I want to point out that

through all of the negativity of what's going on in the world, just for a brief moment in time,

I think it is so healthy to get out into nature, if you can, get out. We also had no

cell phone signal, pretty much for the entire trip. I mean, and it's very difficult when you

are used to having connectivity all the time to suddenly not be in that. And then there's a sense

of liberation that comes with that. And then you are forced to enjoy the moment to be present.

Yep. Well, that is a really good point. And I have to say that that was one other aspect of China

that was fascinating because, you know, in the UK, you go into the countryside and quite often,

the mobile phone signal becomes patchy or worse in China. There's nowhere you can go where there

isn't one. I think there are massive advantages to the African way of doing things. Just don't

build that infrastructure in the first place. Yeah, I second that call made an interesting point.

I don't know if it's true, but he said, because Tibet is part of China, and if you want to climb,

not get a majority, Everest, Everest, he says they've set up cell phone towers now that you can even

talk right from the very summit. I don't know if that's true, but I don't think I'll be nonsense.

All right, Mike Charles, appreciate chatting to the internet connection here in the coffee shop

has lost it. And hopefully by the time we chat next week, my fiber line will be up and running.

But thanks, guys, for joining me in the train.

Warning, the following Zippercruder radio spot you are about to hear is going to be filled

with F words. When you're hiring, we at Zippercruder know you can feel frustrated.

For Lauren, even, like your efforts are futile, and you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous

people, only to get flooded with candidates who are just fine. Fortunately, Zippercruder figured

out how to fix all that. And right now, you can try Zippercruder for free at zippercruder.com

slash zip. With Zippercruder, you can forget your frustrations, because we find the right people

for your roles fast, which is our absolute favorite F word. In fact, four out of five employers

who post on Zippercruder get a quality candidate within the first day. Fantastic.

So whether you need to hire four, 40, or 400 people, get ready to meet first straight talent.

Just go to zippercruder.com slash zip to try Zippercruder for free.

Don't forget that zippercruder.com slash zip. Finally, that zippercruder.com slash zip.