Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of The Weekly Zeitgeist. These are some of our favorite segments from this week, all edited together into one NonStop infotainment laugh stravaganza. Yeah, so, without further ado, here is the Weekly Zeitgeist.
We are very, very very lucky to have this fantastic journalist, someone who covers a lot of stories that don't get enough coverage. If you obviously listen to this show, there's probably a very good chance that you're already familiar with him from his work with Cool Zone Media. It could
happen here, et cetera. If not, maybe you know him from his work with places like The Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, etc. Not only is he a fantastic avid cyclist, he's a polyglot and has a PhD in Modern European history, where I merely know trivia from antiquity. Okay, so together we create one of the best trivia teams of all time. Please welcome to the Microphone. James.
So Hey, that was great intro. I feel very hyped up on thank you. That was amazing. Yeah, if I ever die, if you could just do the like, you know, the initial bait when they're coming into the funeral. I presume I will die here. He is, Oh you think so, Yeah, I think so. I don't feel like I'm immortal.
I had a friend recently, like really confessed to me that they were so afraid of dying in like the most real way, And I was like, yeah, man, the thing about that is it's pretty autopoid.
Do it?
Not much we can do. I would. I would try and sort of have a reckoning with a therapy. I don't know, however, you need to.
I mean, that's why people turn to religion, you know, for sure, for sure the idea that. But then then I start getting my head about living forever. I'm like, I don't want that either, forever. My friend, that would suck me up as a kid.
You know.
When I was like thinking about that.
This my friend, he's like the sort of I don't know if like the old Ricky Gervais radio show with Carl Pilkington where you're kind of a straight like he's just like a uniquely strange guy. And and he said it to me so earnestly. I just don't because he was I saw I hit some weird ass supplements and it's kissing. What the fuck is this, He's like, it's like assault. They're like your body absorbed. I'm like, what is that?
I can live forever?
Guy? No, like he's he's he's getting blood.
Boy, he's getting his.
Head is turning that way. But he would never actually go through with it. He's just like healthy, Like it's never like but then he'll be also that.
It's not your friend is this? But it's very funny that sort of like in the genre of like like techie, billionaire, crypto fascists, whomever, whomever, who are like obsessed with being you know, like the most alpha male that they're like also trying to live forever, meaning they're just like pussy's about dying. Like okay, so you think you're so fucking hard and you're like.
Straight up, bro, exactly.
Not up and die, Yeah, sooner than later if you're elon.
No, like it's no. His is more like a childlike fear of like what happens after It's not even like, bro, I'm too fucking hard to die, Like he's like what if? But then what happened? I'm like, Bro, you are forty years old and you just stop fooling with these supplements man, And I was like, did you you would really go through the like act of seeing many people you know die over and over because you're immortal. He's like, yeah, yeah, okay, man,
maybe you should read some vampire books. They seem pretty fucked up and they can live forever.
You know.
It just says, like a primer more Burke, what is something from your search history that's revealing about who you are?
Yo?
I was just looking up Carl Jung's explanation of synchronicity just because I find that sort of interesting and I'm noticing more synchronicities of my life.
Okay, now I know the Police album Synchronicity, but I'm not much up on Youngian theory.
Yeah, you're more into like stings, psychologic series.
Yeah wait, what's the way?
What happened? What's what? What education?
So yeah, yeah, so he just talks about the occurrence of meaningful coincidences that seem to have no cause. So something come for me. It'll be like something will come in my life and then something will come up again or again, or I'll be thinking about something and somebody will say it it's like this weird thing that happens. And he would talk about how that is we find it meaningful because it suggests that things are connected in a way that we can't see, Like it suggests patterns
that are beyond our ability to understand. So it's sort of this weird, like magical thing that happens. And if you're like a wacky, if your spiritual dude like I am, it kept people think it suggests you're like on the right path somehow.
Like if you notice like a bunch of synchronicities, you mean, yeah, yeah, you.
Know, you're probably going in the right direction. That's I think it's like an optimists confirmation bias. You know, that's very healthy.
You know, I've noticed, you know, there was a time when I noticed like a bunch of synchronicities. And then I was like out in a cabin, like in a beach town with some family members, and I just kept noticing the shit lining up.
You know.
It was just like kept lining up, and like at night, like looked out my window and saw like other people who were exactly like us, and they like broke into my house and like they looked just like me and my family, and they were like living underground.
This is the plot of Us.
When you got to the part that the broken your house. I was like, no, no, no, the scot in the story got sad.
I was.
Look, I didn't I didn't want to be like, motherfucker, this is that's us. And but again I wanted to honor your you.
Know, you never know these things you never know.
We should have let you described the rest of the podcast. Should have you justrib.
We're like, no, what And then and then at the end of the next morning, like a bunch of people were just holding hands across.
America, Chuck, what is something you think is underrated?
Uh? Naps?
Oh?
Yeah, I came out. Yeah.
I came out very publicly on stuff you should know when we did a full episode on napping, and I came out as a napper, a daily napper if I can. And I got a lot of email from people that not were shaming me, but just you know, I can't believe you can find time in the middle of your days just to lay down and do nothing.
I'm not doing nothing, I'm sleeping. Yeah, that's something you're reading charging Yeah. Also, how are we talking here?
How long? Well?
They say, And this is the you know, the stuff you should know part, like the science of it is is that whatever your your one sleep cycle. One rim cycle is is the best nap, So you don't want to cut it short, and you don't want to go over that because both of those can make you feel sleepy. So I set my alarm for forty five minutes, but it usually ends up being like thirty five to forty. I'll just sort of naturally wake up feeling good.
Yeah.
It's funny when people are like, how do you find the time, and like, meanwhile, we're scrolling on our phones for like an hour and a half street screen time number and ask about your time exactly. Yeah, what do you mean, how do you?
Nobody anybody who says that, I guarantee you does nothing for seventy percent of their day, right because because people who are actually busy know how you can find the time. Yeah yeah, but it all depends ye, because we actually have little blocks of time where we are in between ship that we could fucking nap.
Yeah. Well that's why, you know, we gotta I think we just have to normalize napping across the board, like dreams and things, you know what I mean? Can I all right, so you're a napper? I agree.
I was gonna ask you, you know, because some people, And I like my girlfriend naps too much, Like she'll take to sleep for like two to four fucking hours. Like that's not a nap. You're fucking yourself.
Up, making it worse. I mean, yes, but like.
But also like I you know, I try to do like the set the alarm for like twenty to forty minutes somewhere in that rain. No one that will take me a few minutes to go to sleep. Yeah, blah blah blah. But I also do not nap in my bed. I only save same like actual sleep time for my bed. Is it just like couch or chair napping?
Yeah, I got a nap.
I got a napping couch in my uh my threat, my office area.
So that's where I go.
All right, turn on the white noise actually brown noise, and put on the sleep sleep.
Mask and brown noise like a bunch of farts. Yeah, if white noise is this brown noises? Yeah, oh okay, just lowered lower frequencies. Oh I like that too. There's my beat.
There's also pink noise, I think, yeah, I've heard of Yeah, there's a.
Bunch of noise. There's a bunch of noises. Yeah, a bunch of noise out there, a bunch of noise. The noise economy is thriving right now. Yeah, Chuck, what is something you think is overrated?
Uh?
Well, I have a I have a whole list of people I think are both overrated and overexposed that I sort of off about to my friends all the time.
Spill that tea.
I think we should get Peyton Manning, Dave Groll, Matthew McConaughey, Jimmy Fallon in the Rock and put them on a rocket ship and shoot them out to the Iss and tell them just to spend a couple of quality years there.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I'm tired of all those guys.
Okay, I can I can rock with you, except on a rock because I'm a wrestling fan. So he'd become he'd be coming back sometimes.
He'd becoming I think that would be tolerable, right, the rock, just coming back to do wrestling. It's all the other stuff.
I'm like, that's fair, that's fair, Just too much with all those guys.
He's he's I mean, I'm not a big Dave Girl fan, so I should say I'm probably a little biased. But he's dialed it back a little bit since he got outed with his uh extra marital affair, but before that he was just one of those overexposed guys. He was everywhere all the time, showing up like McConaughey these days, Like I don't need to see Matthew McConaughey on the sideline of every Texas football game fifteen times, you.
Know, right, or selling me insurance yeah cars? Oh yeah, that lad.
I'm like he does he does a few. He does like Hulu commercial. He'd be doing a lot of commercial.
It was true, like Dave Groll for a second would be like in so many like viral internet videos, like there was a stretch. It's like Dave girl showed up to play with this kid's birthday and it's like sort of how Jackie's you know, It's like how John Ham kept showing up at you stuff and like doing comedy stuff all the time. We're like, okay, John, we get it.
Bro.
You like comedy, yes, and we get it. You have a big dick and you like get every character you come in when sorry John, one note for your improv every time you come in you go, doctor, my penis is so big?
What should I do?
Really?
No, it wasn't surprised. Yeah, wait, so he said, Okay, fallon Yep, we said fallon Peyton Manning man just go like eyes on the list now too. But god, I'm so tired of those guys.
They do a lot, They do a lot, especially just I mean, I do think Peyton is funny ish, like he has a natural like time. Yeah, but the bars, but the bar is low for athletes. Yeah, so that's that's fair. But he is he is out there in these streets.
Yeah, no, he's And don't they have like a whole Manning show. It isn't like a show with all them too or something. I don't know.
Well, I mean you can watch Monday night football with just those two brothers as the you know, like in their bedroom watching it or whatever, like the Manning cast.
Oh right, right right, Because Tom Brady is not great on Mike.
Put him on that rocket too.
I'm tired of that guy. Yeah, yeah, I'm tired of touchdown Tommy June. What is something that you think is overrated?
Something I think is overrated? And I chose this independently of before we were going to talk about the tariffs and Curtis Yarvin. But I Curtis Jarvin in particular, his writing and his quality of writing is insanely overrated for someone who is like the intellectual of like the anarcho capitalist movement right now and like the neo reactionaries. I don't know if you've ever actually read any of his writing, but oh my dude, he is god awful at writing.
Like I'm not a good writer, Like I am horrible at writing. There's the reason why good I'm a good like shit posty short form writer. I'm not like a good like article writer. I don't do like, you know, two thousand word article when I was when I was in college, my girlfriend at the time had to proofread and like ghost edit everything I wrote, because you know, I'm just like my writing long form, it gets a
little messy. But Curtis Jarvin, I'm better than that dude. Yeah, Like, I think most people are better than that Dude's writing as dog shit boring.
I think. Yeah. There is a Behind the Bastards episode which I would encourage people to check out if you need it primer for Curtis Jarvin.
But June.
Give people a sort of not I guess there's so much you can say about Curtis Yarvin. But what what would be your log line for people who are like when they say who is Curtis Yarvin?
Such as me, I might say that.
Break down, break it down for it you did. Yeah, so this is a guy that he continues and this this is a guy that went under my radar for a long time and I think continues to because he's not really talked about in the media. He's not really acknowledged in any way, so people are just like, oh, he's People make the mistake of, oh, he's just some like online weirdo, he's not important to focus on. But he's not just an online weirdo. He is much like many of us, but he is a particular type of
weirdo who is like genuinely like he is. He calls himself neo reactionary. He is essentially what amounts to I guess, a right wing economic theorist. And he has very close ties to Peter Teel, who is you know, very close friends with Trump, you know, musk run Jadie Vance, he owns JD, he owns genuinely he owes his entire career to him basically, but he is like an anti democracy, anti freedom. He what he wants is to destroy the US government and most governments through his theory called the
Butterfly Revolution and his rage theory. To basically, long story short, he wants to destroy democratic governments in favor of creating small city state like technocracies run by people like Peter Teal and yeah.
As the figurehead.
And he basically wants it to like you have to up into different zones so you could like free movement to like, oh, I'm sick of living in the Elon Musk zone. I want to move to the Peter Teal zone. He basically what it amounts to, I think the easiest way to put it is he just wants pure global anarcho capital. Yeah.
Yeah, and they're on their way. I mean, you look at it right now. It's it's in happening in real time. We have Elon Musk acting as the CEO of America making wild cuts, destabilizing the government. Because of the other huge part of it is like accelerationism too, for sure, is that they're like we need everything to fucking crumble and die so people are ready for a just cataclysmic societal change.
That's what's super relevant with all of this, is it does seem like the powers behind Trump's second term are all believers in the butterfly revolution and the destroying the economy government to get us to that point. That is like it's playing out in front of us like his theory. If you take a take a read of his butterfly Revolution from twenty twenty two, it's it's kind of scary how it's all lining up on Trump on Rice.
So how dare he be smirched the good name of butterflies.
I love butterflies. I studied biology in college. I love the monarch. I love you know, milkweed. I love the connection between the like milkweed and monarch butterflies. He is shaming, shaming the beautiful creature. Really, what the fuck?
All right, Look, we're gonna talk about this, So we're gonna take a quick break and we're gonna get into the tariffs. Because even though these people think they're smart, they're I think they're doing like the dumbest version.
Of the dumb thing they're trying to do.
Even like, I feel like there are other ways to bring a total economic collapse, I guess the world markets, but we're doing it in like this weird car salesman way with like.
Discount rates and shit, it's our dealerships have full control.
Yeah, we'll take a quick break and we'll be right back.
And we are back.
So James, like in the build up to having you on, I was like, Okay, I wish we talked about yet many topics that you to discuss. I think the one that absolutely is front of mine. I think, even if people don't realize or not, is me and Mar because on Friday right there was a just devastating magnitude seven point seven earthquake. As of right now, the death toll has passed two thousand, and people say it's probably gonna
be much higher, but maybe even five times. And again for me, and I think a lot of people unless people you know who are very much like knowledgeable about it and keeping their eye on the story. To me, me and Mar has been this thing where it's like, okay, there was a coup and since then there has been
a civil war and things have become very terrible. And I get drips and drabs to either like weird videos on Twitter when you see some of like the gorilla fighting or other just occasionally you'll see things about the workers in me and Mar being like a huge force
for change and other many all kinds of stories. But I guess to take it from the earthquake, can you kind of just paint a picture of how sort of how destabilizing the civil war has beginning to be to begin with, and now adding on top of that a catastrophic earthquake and what that means for the people living there.
Yeah, for sure, I like to conceptualize it in terms of a revolution, not a civil war.
Okay, good, I think, thank you, thanks, thanks.
A wad and like reporting it because what happened right there was a coup in twenty twenty one where effectively, like it's not a direct one for one, but you can imagine like what if the US military supported the J six thing and then they stuck the landing on that right, like, an election happened. The election was not what I would call free and fair, like there were problems with the election, but it was broadly the best
election that Miamar has had. Mianmar was moving towards a sort of neoliberal pacted democracy, and that democracy had some deep issues right, as we can see in the hinge of genocide, which we're going to circle back to but what happened was that the military see East Power, it arrested most of the members of the National League for Democracy, which was the sort of pre eminent neoliberal party in Myanmar, and it began to rule like a in a military
hunter kind of way. Right, people went out into the streets when like fuck that, no, like, we're not having this because me and Marris has had military dictatorships for most of its independent history, right, and every generation there's this uprising for democracy, and every time they get killed in the streets. So they came out like a lot of people in this country came out in twenty twenty. Right, they came out with science at first, and then the
cops tier gastens. So they came out with like hard hats and gas masks, which they learned about from folks in Hong Kong. And then they got shot with rubber bullets. So they came out with shields, and then they got shot with real bullets. And they at that point decided that like they weren't going to be then another generation that died in the streets. So they went to the mountains.
And in the mountains there are ethnic resistance organizations. There are more than fifty different ethnic groups in Myanmar, many of them have been fighting a against the majority ethnic group, the Bama, who dominate government and have done since ninety forty eight when the UK left or Britain left in the traditionally like the Burmese government and by extension, the Burmese military had used like a divide and rule strategy, just the way that other empires do, right, being like, oh, you,
young Bama people can't be friends with the Koren because the Koren fucking hate you and will kill you, and they're like savage, wild mountain people. I'm using heavy air quotes there for people who don't see this podcast. But these young folks were like, well, fuck it you, the military is pretty savage, are killing my friends. They went to the mountains, and they of course found that these folks were perfectly accepting to them, or that they shared
a common enemy. Right. Since then, they've formed units called PDS People's Defense Forces, which are mainly composed of young people from the cities, and they fight alongside the ethnic revolutionary organizations. And they've been fighting the military since twenty twenty one, so we're four years into the revolution. More than half the country is now liberated, right, it's considered to be controlled by the eros or the PDFs. My friend Robert Evans and I have done a couple of
podcast series. We went over in twenty twenty two to meet some young people. One of the big issues they faced was that they didn't have any guns to fight back, right, So they told they all sold all their shit to try and buy guns, but guns are very expensive there. It's not like it, and so what they started doing was three D printing guns using just like two hundred
dollars three D printers. And the way we came across this story was that I found a guy on a reddit who was in the gun three D printing subreddit posting pictures and I was like, you're not in America, Like those pictures aren't in America, right, So I DM the guy and it came, man, I think you might maybe be in Mema, Like can I come hang out?
And you know, we chatted for a while and then it kind of worked out roughly the area they were, and I went over and we visited them and we talked to them about like what it was like to kind of they had no support from anyone, right, like all the governments of the world, the UN, the US, EU, all these places where we talk about democracy, like, they didn't do shit when people were being killed in the streets.
On twenty fifth of April Armed Forces Day, one hundred and fifteen people were killed in a single day at a protest unarmed right, not aggressive, not that it matters, they shouldn't be killed anyway, but that was kind of the big changing point for people, and they realized that, like, if they needed to fight back, they needed to fight back with guns, and the word wasn't going to give them to them, but some people on Reddit did, and so they went into jungle with their three D printers
and set up these print farms in the jungle, and they started out with printer guns. Those guns allowed them to acquire better guns, and they fundraised. The way they
fundraised is fascinating too. They have these hued telegram channels for the revolution right, and they use pay per click adverts, So they do YouTube videos or write stories with pay per click adverts in them and then direct like ten thousand, one hundred thousand people to go to the article and click the advert, and that they generate revenue.
Holy shit. Yeah, the guys like yeah, gaming basically paid media like for the Yeah.
I like selling mud coffee is like, well, I'm helping
the mean mar revolution. Uh no, that is why it's it's like the most gen Z revolution and and it's yeah, I mean I think that just thinking about how things got this way and just like watching like in preparation for this, watching like a quick little explainer and realizing, yeah, that the international community has been, despite a lot of cries from the UN, kind of a zero on this, and there's been no coordinated response, unlike the response to
you know, Russia during the invasion of Ukraine, you know, and on and on. It's like that me and Mar has largely been left to its own devices, and China and Russia are actually fueling the obviously the military side of it, and and so they've got plenty of weapons there. And what's crazy to also learned about, like the history, is that the army has representation in parliament like heats well, is just fucking like any kind of like you know, any kind of country trying to be a democracy, Like
that's wild. That's so terrifying.
Yeah, And like for years the US kind of boosted this kind of ensan Succi like way. Of transitioning to democracy. It's going to be the next growth economy in Asia. They called them tiger economies for a while, and the US really didn't demand inclusion for those different ethnic groups, right, but they stood up and fort fit themselves. And I think in a sense, like it don't get me wrong, it fucking sucks how many people have died. Some of those people are people I really cared about, and it
was really hard to lose them. And like the revolution has been hard for a lot of people, right, Like four years at war. It's not a joke. Like some of these people, you know, they're nineteen twenty now, they were sixteen years old when they started seeing people die every day, and that they shouldn't have to anyone. But like because they haven't had so much of this, like his aid from the United States, his aid from the European Union, and then you will have a nice neoliberal
democracy afterwards. Like they've done it themselves and they found their own way, and like that gives me a lot of hope because like nobody came to help them, right, they did it all by themselves, and they built something really beautiful as a result. That like isn't you know, I'm sure there's someone on Twitter dot com he thinks it's a fucking color revolution. But those people are dumb. Like these people entirely from their own refusal to be like under the boot heel of the state, have created
this beautiful revolution that's liberated half the country. And in the process they've like so to give an example, right, the Rahinja genocide happened in Mianma, and it happened largely because Facebook doesn't have any content moderation in Burmese, right yep, And that allowed for horrific Islamophobic lies to spread through the Hunter's botnet for a large part. Right that they have a huge network of bots. You can see them
in the replies to my tweets. This happened less than a decade ago, right, like in Islamophobia was like and there's a massively British nationalist movement in Memmar which draws inspiration from groups of the English Defense League, like right wing anti immigrant groups, and this was pretty much the population, with some notable exceptions from the anarchists, the punk movement and other groups who are opposed in the genocide. Let it happen right now. This earthquake that happened is sagang
In on Friday, right seven point seven earthquake. It happened during Friday prayers the day before Eid, right, Id being the festival at the end of Ramadan. People aren't familiar. It's kind of like church at Easter for Christians. Right. So a lot of people are at mosques now because the country has fundamentally sort of aligned Buddhism with being Burmese for decades. Mosques haven't been allowed to build or
repair their structures since nineteen sixty two. So all the fucking mosques fell down during Friday prayers and like, this is horrific. It would have been inconceivable five years ago for twenty three year old Bahma Buddhist people to be like, hey man, this happened during Friday prayers and all the mosque had been destroyed, and like, what can we do
to help the Muslim community in these places? Like how can we reach out to solidarity groups from Muslim communities around the world, Like that would never have happened five years ago, right, And like that they've built that solidarity now and just from like sharing experiences, right and realizing that there's a lot more that unites them that divides them, you know, likewise.
So that's happening now, that's a conversation in the wake of the Rohinga obviously genocide the Muslim minority and the fallout and the Hunter turning people against them. That now when this happens and these mosques are you know, disborginately so many Muslims have been killed, that like there's solidarity now because of their revolution and what it has built.
Yeah, because they began they were the same They were attacked by the Hunter the same way that Muslim people were, right, and they saw the Hunter doing the same shit, and
they realized, like, this is how the state operates. It turns up against each other, so we don't turn against it and like not there are resistance groups which are still Islamophobic and will still like there's been there have been serious problems with killing of Rehinja people, and then the Hunter has trying to turn co op the Rehder people. Like it's absolutely insane that the people who did the
genocide have now got Hinji people fighting alongside them. Some of those people are forcibly conscripted, but some of them are not. So like that, there are still definitely issues, but Yeah, to have young Burma folks like messaging me concerned about Muslim people and this has happened, Like this isn't just a Muslim Buddhist thing, right, Like you'll see it with for instance, women fighting on the front line now, which would have been inconceivable five or six years ago.
Right.
One of my friends told me a story that I like to repeat, where like in Burmese culture, it's really a taboo for men to walk under a woman's like under garments. I guess like they would they would like lose their masculine energy if they did that, if they're like drying across the street. You know, have people tried to clo oh.
I was like, how would you walk onder? Like you're violating it.
They just h you're doing the.
Limbo underneath someone's skirt, Like what's happening?
Yeah, important context missing. It's taboo to do the limb like someone's skirt, I think in most part.
So it's it's like it's like like like walking under a ladder seven years bad luck. But if you walk under a clothesline with panties.
Like you yeah, immediately so your matro energy. So like they were they had a barricade, right, and they had set some tires on fire and they're trying to stop the cops coming in, but the cops are still coming in. And then they were like, oh, ship, what about this taboo thing? And so the girls like picked off their ship put it on the washing line, right, and the cops didn't come in.
That's amazing. Yeah, use their own homophobia against.
Them, Yeah, totally.
And like for like, you know, twenty year old guys that don't generally like the great at this but like to have like twenty year old guys being like and that's how sexism hurt to everyone is like, yeah, you know, that's.
What I want to Sorry, Miles, I'm sure I just like wanted to ask because like the headline I woke up to today was that the government is has bombed the areas that were affected by the earthquakes. So every day really But okay, so can you just explain how since the earthquake the war hasn't stopped? I mean, yeah, well, and how is that turning people against them? Possibly?
Yeah, So the PDF, which is the mainly Bama sort of revolutionary forces that's slightly distinct in their command structure from the ethnic revolutionary organizations, and there was something called a National National Unity Government which was formed of the people who were elected and then deposed by the coup.
Right.
Not everyone is fighting necessarily to install the energy, but ENUG and the PDF declared a ceasefire for two weeks after the earthquake. Some of them even offered to go into Hunter control territory to help a risk to their own.
Lives, right, because they were fighting each other.
They were no, the ENUG and the PDF and the Eros are fighting against the Hunter.
Right, but they were. They were like, we won't we'll start yeah.
Yeah. They're like, oh, we won't bring our weapons. We want to come help.
That was denied.
They So what the Hunter of Dying response is continue to bomb civilian targets, right, which is something that it has done since the coup began. It's because they get their ass handed to them in like small arms combat. Right, Like if they're fighting, if two groups of soldiers are fighting, the Hunter soldiers are conscripts. Their weapons are absolutely shipped here like I've never seen worse maintained weapons. But they just rely heavily on drones, artillery and air strikes. Right,
And they've continually as struck civilian targets. They as struck Karni Christians during Christmas celebrations, right, they as struck kitchen civilians during a Kagen music festival. Jesus, they like they are on some like a sad regime level shit, but the world just doesn't report on it, like or it doesn't get reported on it as much. So, Yeah, they did continue air striking even when so it looked like in the day of the earthquake like that afternoon. I
don't know if their runways were damaged. It seems like maybe not because they've been doing regular asteroiics since they used fucking paramotors.
Yeah, I saw you post about that.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's like to drop bombs like they couldn't take a break like a half day on rhyming civilians. They continue to keep bombing shit. And now they're demanding international aid, right, Like, I think we need to be really careful that what they will do is hold that aid. They will use it against a revolution and they did this with cyclone nargots in two thousand and eight. Right, they have declined
they won't let certain aid come in. They didn't let a Taiwanese rescue team enter like they'll let Chinese, they'll let Russian, right, I think that's an Indian group, Vietnamese. They're fucking down with North Korea. So I don't think North Korea will be sending help. But like they get weapons from North Korea, they'll let those people come in,
but they wouldn't let other international aid come in. And they did this with nagats a US warship is south of the coast, and they were like, no, we don't want the stuff that you have. So like they will continue to use this as an opportunity. They don't care how many civilians for dying. It will be very hard for you to get accurate numbers on how many civilians have died a because they don't care, and be because they don't want to look bad, you know, they don't want to put that out there.
Are there estimates, I mean, are there entities that do kind of an estimates of the toll, that's all.
Yeah.
I saw the US Geological Survey had said that a quake of that magnitude and that location would result in between ten and one hundred thousand death, which is obviously a pretty big number. We can expect to see the death toll go up. I've heard from people in everyone's still sleeping outside and lots of places because of aftershocks.
People have left their neighborhood because of the smell of rotting bodies in the color acted buildings, right, And they've been trying to get people out themselves, right, pulling stones off. The National Unity Government and the PDF have a large number of elephants that they liberated from the Hunter's timber camp. So they'd be, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I.
Love that you didn't mention that freed elephant.
I love this.
They have an elephant unit. They have like an elephant. I'm hoping to go and spend some time with them. I feel like it's one of the last chances in human history for someone to ride an elephant to war, like put it on the resume. But also like, of course, the elephants are like a symbol of Burma, and they were being mistreated by the Hunter, right, and they didn't want them to fall into the black market, so they liberated these elephants and they're living with a PLA now,
which is one of these resistance groups. But yeah, they use the elephants to clear the rubble. They've used whatever vehicles they have, but they desperately need international support and the Hunter's not going to let them get it. And as a result, way more people will die than need
to die. Plus you combine that with fucking we've cut USAID now, right, Yes, eighteen case officers I believe got laid off the day of the earthquake, like the I know, the World Food Program already scaled back operations in Myanmar because of this, like and globally there's kind of a reduction in funding for humanitarian aid, right, so that's it's like a double whammy. I know that, like when they
shut down USAID funding. You know, when Elon Musk and his little kids went into the USAIDA and shut it down. Like I'm aware that they literally turned off life support machines in some refugee camps. I'm aware of women having to give birth outside of like locked clinics.
Jesus Christ.
Yeah, it's it's a lot of Burmese refugees end up living just across the border in Thailand and USAID has and this is wrong, Like it's institution itself kind of as the only provider in some of those cases, or it's like one of the main ways to get medical care. So when it pulled out, at least people really in a shit situation.
Well, let's another quick break. I have a couple questions and you know, and also a bit of optimism to offer, I think, James, because you do you do see that there is something inspiring about everything that's happening. So let's take a quick break and we'll come right back, and we're back. Bill Burr, he has been getting a lot of attention recently because he's you know, says funny shit and is mean to Elon Musk and hates billionaires, so
that that's kind of getting people's attention. But recently he was at this Kennedy Center event where Conan O'Brien was getting like the Mark Twain Prize, and these journalists really tried to like do this thing where they wanted to kind of poke the beehive and try and get like
a quote out of him and maybe some news. And Bill Burr, I mean credit to him, he knew exactly what the fuck was going on, and it's just this is just I just want to play this exchange because it's very interesting to see how like the media was going to try and get a little bit more sort of stuff that they'd like try and maybe paint his words or his worldview as being like, I mean, look at look at.
What he said.
He's crazy, He's off the mark. He said, Elon Musk is a laminated face with air plugs.
Cunt. That's so terrible.
Wow.
So here is Bill Burr on the red carpet, just trying to support Conan O'Brien, and he gets hit with, hey man, what about Luigi ma.
That your reaction to Luigi Maggion is reading up? You know that perhaps you've been supportive of what he did.
What is your take on that?
So if you were reading up, I don't think you read up on it because I said what I felt about it, and I said what a lot.
Of people said took it that way? So could you clarify how well you No, I'm.
Not going to just have some controversial moments.
You can get clicks. I'm not doing that. I mean, I'm hit a for Conan. I'm not I'm not doing all of this. What are gonna bring up next to the Middle East?
I went to summer school three four years in high school. I'm not qualified to talk about this.
Warming about Elon that he was ruining ear if I saw in the view you're critical of him?
What do you think of all the boycotts, even the viol.
I don't watch the I don't watch the news. I have no idea what's going on.
I watch Instagram.
I watched people wipe out on motorcycles. I watch lions and hyenas fight each other.
This is the things that I do.
And I don't think you should be asking a comedian.
Your GM medians are on top of turn events.
You're no, no, that's that's weak that you guys passing the buck. You guys need to have balls again, which you don't. You guys always goes.
Should we be thinking this?
He dous presents stuff like that, you used to guys, just have balls. You get your balls back, and it's not my job. I am a dancing clown.
God is he's so real for that? Like, I respect that so much because, like I just mentioned earlier that like so many people look at comedians as like the profits of today's age is like having a perspective of that.
Surely no one else can. But they're trying to catch them up with that because he's straying away from like the right wing version of that where like Joe Rogan sits down all right, today we will Today we will learn about how vaccines are killing everyone, right, and people like seals right exactly.
And I think it's funny too. All the comments this, this is a clip from Twitter, Like the comments underneath are a mix of people like there's my king and other people like dude, he's compromised. You had that page that the Twitter page up. I saw that reply that said something about like, oh, he might not be a George Carlin fan. It's like, I'm sorry not to be
like a George Carlin like lover. But like one of George Carlin's most famous bits was about how he was ready and excited for the destruction of the entire world. Like George Carlin would be loving the era we live in right now. Hell, you would be going out being like thank god, these capitalist pigs are destroying everything, like like going for everyone to see it. Yeah, yeah, it is, Yeah,
I mean. Bill Burr continues to to to say that shit, it's funny to just see like again, how just merely again because what he's saying isn't necessarily like novel in the sense like no one has said these things, but It's that he's connecting his sense of outrage and his sort of comedic perspective on how absurd and obscene the inequality is around us and our lack of ability to contend with any of it, and the absurdity or like
the capitulation of media, et cetera. Just he's like just brings it all together for a lot of people be like, yeah, that's right, that's this is this is something so we will see I feel like the Democrats are like, do we do we get Bill bird a run?
But no, he would never he would never know that, he would never do No. No, But I'm saying, like, when you think about how lazy the thinking is, Like I saw something where they're like Adam twenty two needs to be the new Joe Rogan of the left. I was like, Okay, wow, we're.
Really we're really just think again. The lesson for Democrats after this election was we need to find a podcaster.
That was like, it's not I'm honored that they think that. Yeah, Frank, yeah, and you should be too.
Right, But I'm like, no, motherfuckers, you need to blow up the status quo and stand for something in opposition to the status quo, because that's the thing that people are fucking responding to, not a podcaster. Absolute buffoons. But again they're they're here to maintain that. So anyway, let's move on. I asked everybody. He said, gave a little homework to Caitlin. In June, I said, look, we got to a movie trailer I want to talk about for the film Primitive War. The trailer just dropped for it,
and I we have to look. Let me first give people the log line about this. I know up top it is a non war about dinosaurs. This is the log line or the paragraph they used to describe this film. Quote set in Vietnam in nineteen sixty eight. What a big year for to set this in the Vietnam War. The Primitive War movie will follow a search and rescue team known as Vulture Squads into an isolated jungle valley to reveal the fate of a missing Green Beret platoon.
As they hunt through the primordial depths of the valley and the casualties mount, the Vulture Squad members must embrace their savage instincts to survive the horrors they face, interesting including the ultimate aprec apex predators, Americans, Oh wait no, dinosaurs.
Okay, so that's really convenient that dinosaurs were the villains, the true villain that that was the first thing that struck me.
So we all watched the trailer, yeah, and I was like, this is a weird reframing of such a bad conflict that is so on its face backwards and just unjustifiable.
But then they're like, but then they got.
Then they got sucked up by the dinosaurs, so then they.
Were back on their sides. And it's not even just like a reframing of entirely what happened. And of course it's like fictional and all of that, but I still love at the end of the day that the true victims of this war were not the people that we, the Americans, invaded, but the Americans. Yeah, exactly exactly, they're the victims. They were destrayed by the Dynasts.
Not the Mong people or the people of Laos, where tons and tons of munitions were just dropped like a fucking drop, like a bomb drop off on their way back from doing bombing runs. No, no, no, it's it's Jeremy Piven with a bad Southern accent. Caitlin, what's a what's your take? On seeing the smashup of Tigerland and Jurassic Park.
Thank you so much for asking. This is my time to shine as a thought leader, yes, a.
Thought leader and film expert.
Yes, and a master degree haver in cinema. It seems to me as though someone wind up.
It seems.
I'm an intellectual academic, if you will. It feels like someone watched Godzilla minus one and was like, wonderful, great movie, got the complete run, and they're like, okay, that, but like, let's change it a little bit. It'll be the Vietnam War instead of like we know, World War two, it'll be it'll be dinosaurs instead of god So, you know American afayat right, right, right, and then and then it's and then they made that, and you know, I a plus filmmaking.
I think, Yeah, the shot with the knife in the philosophertors, I like, I can't lie. That's kind of that was gaster.
Yeah, I'm I'm that it's so fucking wacky that I'm like.
I kind of I might check it out, check this out. I might check it out. The perfect slop pure yeah, and a lot of adult traded beautiful slop.
Yeah, it's actually I didn't realize this is based on existing ip there's a book that came out, mixed on a book that the director options. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but apparently so this is being released in July, which not coincidentally is also when Universal is putting out Jurassic World Rebirth. So look, we might have a Barbenheimer summer with I don't. I mean, they're always trying to make this happen. I don't know how we match these two.
But okay, what's it called Primitive War, Primitive Jurassic.
World War World War.
Of the World's, Jurassic Jurassic War of the Primitive.
World's twenty twenty five, the Year of the Dinosaur.
Yes, let's yes, exactly, let's put it. Let's yeah, okay, let's run that by Hollywood because we do have their number. Yeah, and we'll just see what they think. But yeah, this is going to be this is like they're calling it a mockbuster. I hadn't heard.
That term before. I haven't either. What is that, did, Caitlin? Have you heard this term before? No?
But I see where it's going.
Yeah, because they're like, clearly they're not trying to say this is like we saw the production quality. It's less than big budget studio, but they're.
Doing not horrible, no like B movie slop.
Right because they are getting like like they're using a lot of visual effects techniques, like the sort of VFX studio, like how they did for a lot of Disney shows where it's a projected behind them, like clearly you can tell there's a lot of blue screen and stuff like that.
But yeah, this mockbuster sort of thing is interesting because then I clicked on another article about how this is kind of like becoming like a burgeoning sort of like lane where people are like lending, like people from Star Wars worked on another movie this director did that had Ken Jong in it that I had never heard of before.
It was called, uh, it's called Occupation Rainfall. Never heard of it, but like it only costs like sixteen million dollars to make, and then it like it made money back from it even though no one really heard about it, and like you were like, oh, this is an interesting lane where you can kind of turn a profit without spending all your money and trying to do all this big budget shit.
Did it get a theatrical release in the US, Like, I don't know why they like export it to like over it must be like.
On streaming or some shit, you know what I mean. I have no idea, but it they apparently people watch it and like Temurera Morrison, isn't it who you know plays Django fet and was Boba Fett and all the Star Wars shit?
But anyway, is the mockbuster like a natural evolution of like like the like early two thousands to like early twenty ten's era of like weird parody films where they were like kind of not super serious. Everyone knew they weren't super serious, but they were still like taken seriously as movies. Is this like the next era of that? Is that like what it kind of is saying?
Yeah, I think it's basically sort of like this kind of gave way to like the B movie. Yeah, so like that were sort of informed by blockbuster films that then they're just gonna draft off of and then be like, hey what about this kind of thing?
So someone who recently rewatched cinematic masterpiece Snakes on a Plane, Yes, yes, yes, oh on, I feel like there's there's some correlation there.
Yeah, oh absolutely absolutely, because like there's there's like also other ones like this. There was like a Misus Doubtfire sort of send up that was called uh wanted Perfect Father? Yeah and A yeah, then have you heard of Titnick? These these films are from the Philippines that are using there's like a Filipino version that's where the Missus Doubtfire, Perfect Wanted Perfect Father came from. And then there's a
Titanic parody also from the Philippines. And they also have Bobo cop a parody of ROBOCOPSA how.
Do you spell the Titanic one? I need to watch this immediately. I can't believe I didn't.
C A T A Y.
And I see there's not It's not even hyper LinkedIn the Wikipedia article. But I'm sure we can ask Brian, the editor, who has found many obscure films for us that we've tried to watch, to locate this one for us too. Caitlin, the way your face just immediately went to your computer from like, I must find this now?
What is this?
I thought?
Because there are so many bad either like knockoff kind of Titanic sequel, because there's Titanic two, right, there's Titanic six sixty six, There's a bunch of animated movies that came out in.
The late nineties or like Italian or something.
Yeah, they're yeah, there's like a legend of Titanic is one of them, and then I think that's a sequel.
Legend of is that the one with like the mouse? It was a mouse the mouse. I saw that in high school and I was blown away. Like one of my friends was like, you got to check this shit out. It's one of the most astonishingly like bad but like good because it's so bad movieever.
You remember, Yes, tentacles, Yes, the giant octopus. Because not to spoil legend of Titanic listeners, but here's what happens.
Hold on, hold on, hold on, I do I do owe a debt of responsibility to the listener. This is a spoiler alert. Yeah, just so you know, if you need to skip ahead, skip ahead two minutes so you don't ruin. What is Titanic too?
You said, Legend of Titanic animated feature from I think nineteen ninety eight. Okay, it is a story in which, I mean lots of lots of stuff happens. It's a rich text.
It's very bad, but.
The climax is basically Titanic strikes the Iceberg, it breaks and you know, breaks in half, the all the classic stuff. But there's an enormous octopus named Tentacles, and he uses his tentacles to put the Titanic back together and he saves everyone.
Oh, it's very positive lives. And if I remember correctly, there's like a wonderful like music sequence. It's like a film for everyone. Basically, it's what you're trying to say exactly exactly.
Oh wow, wow, wow, fantastic.
I know we've just blown you away.
Where can I find that? Where do I watch that?
On YouTube dot com?
Oh?
So YouTube?
Oh I'm pretty sure it's still there.
That's the best movies though, for real, are on fully on YouTube. It's not a good movie on the whole thing is on YouTube without ads, that's truly. Or it's like broken up into sixteen clips. That's fine because I was like earlier back in the day when you had to string together.
Oh yeah, there's like a ten minute time limit on YouTube.
Remember that?
Yeah?
Oh my god? Yeah not now when I just now listen to what is love the ten hour loop version.
Kids these days they don't understand how hard consuming video was.
No, no, now, sh it's just popping up on their servers or whatever the fuck they're using these days.
It's on your sam phone in your dang little pocket. You can pull that up. It's everyone time. Yeah.
As a speaking as a Jen Alpha child me myself, Yeah, I guess I didn't really know what it was like.
Canonically Gen Alpha yes, yeah, in my head canon, you are Jen Alpha. Yeah, thank you.
All right, that's gonna do it for this week's weekly Zeitgeist. Please like and review the show if you like. The show means the world of Miles. He he needs your validation, folks. I hope you're having a great weekend and I will talk to him Monday. Bye.