You're listening to a podcast from News talksed B. Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio. It's time for all the attitude, all the opinion, all the information, all the debates of this now the Leighton Smith Podcast powered by News Talks EDB.
Welcome to Podcasts two hundred and seventy one for February twelve, twenty twenty five. You know, there's so much choice when considering content, and that's the only negative I can think of when it comes to a weekly program. So many issues from international sources a at home. Many of those are crossovers that affect more than one country. Many of them have global impact. But of course I'm stating the obvious. But this is only the second podcast of the year,
and I will approach it this way. On the thirties of August last year, at nine fifty three a M I received the following email. Peter wanted me to reach out to you as he will be in New Zealand from December three until the end of January and wanted to see if we can schedule an in person interview. He said that you gave him the best model of
wine he has ever had, and still thinks about it. So, having dampened my palate, I decided that we'd follow up and arranged for something at the end of his Well, actually we didn't arrange it then. We just agreed that we would talk later, because with the holiday period and going away, etc. It threw things into a bit of confusion. But we ended up getting together right at the very end of his stay in the country. And what you will hear shortly will either aggravate you, maybe even beyond belief,
or it will satiate you. But Peter Bagoshian lost his position as assistant professor at the university he was at because he refused to bow too. Matters woke and one could only say good on him. We interviewed him twenty fifteen, so it was ten years ago, and this came quite out of the blue. We hadn't communicated since he was here back then. He is an author. The publications could be found in well, there's too many to read, to
be honest, let me name some that you'll recognize. New York Times, Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Quillette, The Philosopher's Magazine, Philosophy's Future, Skeptical Inquirer, The Spectator USA Today, Scientific American. You got the picture, and that isn't even half of the number of outlets that has been listed.
He is currently a founding faculty fellow at the University of Austin, and the fact that he's involved with the University of Boston, that is the new university that I have that I have commented on a number of times, was impressive. So on near his last day in the country, he came to the house and we recorded for about an hour and a quarter. It came down to a little less than that, but nevertheless it's a reasonably lengthy interview.
It turned out in the end that the Free Speech Union was responsible for his visit here, not all of it, because he stayed those couple of months, as you'll hear. But coincidentally, around the same time, I received this from the Taxpayers Organization or Taxpayers Union should I say, dot Org from Jordan Williams. And it's relevant to where we're going, so let me include some of this trigger warning. This email is likely to upset you. This email is longer
than usual but important. It will likely see kickback from those who like to attack anyone who dares to criticize spending when it relates to indigenous matters. The media won't touch it. But frankly, unless we take on these sorts of roughts, new Zealand's reputation for accountable government won't last long. A few months ago, the Taxpayers Union, when public exposing
the taxpayer funded science project. Our research is uncovered to and this is no joke, record whales, mixing those sounds with recordings from healthy Carrie forests to take into unhealthy Carrie forests, playback the audio recordings and assess whether the whale music could be effective in soothing Carrie trees and beating myrtle rust and Carrie dieback. You really couldn't make
this up. Now to recap it was part of the National Science Challenges, which are to bring together the country's top scientists and use the best science to address the challenges. One of the challenges related to protecting New Zealand's by a diversity, including our iconic trees. Now recall that MBIE officials insisted that as part of the project made range Mary must be on the same footing. That's traditional mari must be on the same footing as colonial science. Their
description not his. As in Jordan, Williams. Mbie's justification for this project is that, according to Mari legend knowledge, sperm whales and Carrie trees are brothers. The hypothesis taxpayers are forking out to test is whether the whales have a calming effect on the trees and therefore helped the trees resist disease. We're not making this up. It's literally on the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment website. That's MBIE.
After we blew the whistle on the project, official spent months playing games and refusing to answer our basic questions on the oranga that is well being project. The project is managed by MBIE, but the actual payments are from Land Care Research and after much determination that is staff time, James and the research team have finally got to the bottom of how much was spent on the na Rakau Taki Taki project. Officials are still refusing a line by
line breakdown. I wonder why. But in total, this Madenga Mari based research cost taxpayers four million, twenty seven twenty dollars. That's right, four million plus GST was paid to investigate whether recording whale sounds mixing them with recordings from healthy Kai forests and playing them to unhealthy cari forests and other nonsense such as the language of the domain of tane, all in the name of healing them and science. Here's what the four million paid for. There's only one thing listed,
sonic tapestries of rejuvenation and well Being. And then there's a bit about the project. As part of this investigation, we've uncovered that the research was outsourced to a private, not for profit company, te Tira Wakamataki Limited. And that's when we came to a stunning realization which now explains why the departments have been so cagey about giving us information on the project. According to te Tira Wakamataki Limited's website, its co founder and trustee is Melanie Mark Shadbolt. And
here's the startling thing. Miss Mark Shadbolt is also the co director of the very same bio Heritage Science Challenge Science. That's what it is, bio Heritage Science Challenge Science. I e. The government initiative funding the project. I had the team work through the Finances and Charities Commission records of Miss Mark Schadbolt's company. Company's casts are almost entirely salaries and its charitable purposes merely provides advice, information and advocacy. Nice
work if you can get it. Now there is more you want it, I think. So it's bad enough that this taxpayer money was spent in the first place to research what we all know is nothing more than a myth Wales being brothers of the ki and that they're able to communicate with each other. But when the provider of these nonsense projects playing music to trees is also one of the two co directors of the Overall Science Challenge, what hope is there that the taxpayer will get value
for money or scientific knowledge will be advanced. And here's the kicker. The project leaders openly admit that this isn't even real research. They describe it as a way to give Mari knowledge equal footing with science, claiming it doesn't need to meet scientific standards because it's about restoring maudi, that is life force, rather than achieving measurable effective results. Now it is more than that, but I think you get the drift. So within a few moments we will
join Peter Bagoshian. So what is the one thing that people are not talking about in this country?
The Maori's indigenous ways of knowing? We're not being honest about that, and the fact that the Maori have been a stagnant society around for people keep exaggerating it. The longer we go on, the more people make preposterous claims of how long the mari have been around as indigenous people here. And the fact that stagnant societies like the Maoris, like the Marii society, is something to be proud of.
It's not something to be proud of. Being stagnant and a miserated and having no method of error correction, or no fruits of the Enlightenment, or no freedom of expression, freedom of the press. These are not things to be proud of. Quite bluntly, anybody who says so should be. There are things to be ashamed of as a culture, not a genetics, not a race, but as a culture. It's not a good thing to be a stagnant society for X thousands of years.
So you've been in the country for about two months, correct, and you picked that up when you first came. I picked that up.
You know. I was tuned into the whole Maori the controversy around the listener letter and the Maori ways of knowing. I interviewed Elizabeth Ratza and Kendall and other people. And I'm just stunned by how people have a kind of deference to anything and everything with the word Maori in it. They're not speaking openly and honestly about tribal violence. They're not speaking openly and honestly about the fact that a society has pretty much remained unchanged. They're not speaking honestly
and openly about anything. They're to their cowards to in fear. And everybody knows it, just no one speaks it. When you say everybody knows it, how do you know it? I mean, how do you know that they know it? Because they'll give pause, or they'll prevaricate, or they'll obfuscate,
or they'll change the subject. But when you bring them back around to the conversation, they'll at some point, if you press them long enough with questions, they'll just say I don't want to talk about it, or we shouldn't talk about it, and they'll make an explicit acknowledgment that they just don't want to talk about it. But you know, to paraphrase Feineman, the the easiest person to.
Fool is yourself Fineman, the scientist. Yeah, the easiest.
Person to fool is yourself and not talking about your problems does not make them go away, It only exacerbates them. So the problems with you know, and then you're trying to fix the problem on the back end with affirmative action, with diversity initiatives. Those are neo colonial American exports. You're trying to fix the problem on the back end, but you're not being honest about the culture or the Maori culture. You're just not being honest about it. I mean, you can keep not being honest.
About what's to be honest about.
Well, do you think it's a good thing that a culture has been stagnant for thousands of years, not developed basic technologies, dental technology, telecommunications, any kind of paved any kind of modern technological infrastructure, medicine. These aren't good things. There's there's nothing to be lauded. There nothing, And the people who loud it should be ashamed of themselves. They're keeping people miserated. They're making a virtue of being a misery.
Who's doing that identitarian left, the left, but the whole society. I see the whole society in the grips of this, being terrified of being honest about the Maori. Again, I have harbor no animus against the Maori. And it's again I want to make crystal clear, I don't think that this is a genetic thing. I think this is strictly cultural.
All right, let's run through a couple of things. Sure, it is only recently, including the first podcast of this year when I when I made a comment that I came here forty forty five years ago to this country and people were talking about marry issues. Yeah, constantly, there was problem here and the problem there, and they had you know, they weren't getting this, and they weren't get it was it was a it was almost a full
time conversation. Here we are forty plus years later. Yeah, and as far as I'm concerned, nothing's changed, because really.
Okay, of course it hasn't changed, because the only way to change, the only way to solve a problem is to be honest about it. You can keep dancing around the problem or keep lying about the problem, but that's not going to make the problem go away. That's actually going to make the problem more difficult to solve, and then you're going to have to jerry rig outcomes on the back end. So, for example, you're going to have to demean things that we have developed in our culture
that we know work. We know the meritocracy works. We know it works. I mean, just look at the California fires as a recent example of dea I hires and deranged firefighters. You know, needing more women, female lesbians as firefighters. No, so you can't fix the problem on the back end by creating spaces for individuals who are indigenous people who don't get in on the basis of merit I mean, that's a recipe for the decline, the rapid decline of civilization,
because you're undermining what you know works. These are just to be clear, I do not consider this to be I know people are going to be just to be a conservative value. This is not a conservative value.
Well what is it? I don't want to put boids in your mouth.
I don't know. An enlightenment value, a value of falsifiability, a value of something that's been tested and tried. I mean, meritocracy work.
We just know where nobody wants to go to.
People will lie to you and they'll say, oh, yeah, I'll fly in a place if the plane, if the pilot was a diversity higher. But if you say to them, what would you put your kid in the plane? You have two choices. You know that the pilot has been hired as a means of by an honest, meritocratic system one pilot and the other pilot was a diversity higher Who are you going to put your kid? You got to get your kid from A to B, from Auckland to christ Church. Who do you want flying the plane?
I mean, we know the meritocracy works. Do you want your surgeon to be have have gotten there because of the color of the skin or his last name? No, that's truly insane. That's a recipe to destroy the whole civilization.
So let me ask you then about your thoughts on IQ. What would you say about the about the IQ of different different racial groupings around the world. Does it vary?
Yeah, So that's out of my area of expertise. That's the one thing that literally nobody can talk about. It's very difficult to parse out those issues. Let me say this, I think it was Krick said, there's no reason to believe people whose ancestors have been subject to different evolutionary pressures would have similar kind of cognitive attributes. It's outside
my domain of expertise. I can't say. But one thing that I can say is, even if it's conclusively found, as Richard Hayter and Charles Murray and others have argued that there are direct cause or relationships between where one's ancestors were from and iq r G. More generally, that doesn't mean you should treat an individual based differently based upon that data, because there are always outliers for that. But it's just another thing that we're not being honest
about it. And I can already tell you what's happening. We're hiding IQ data or we're not letting allowing people to research that because we don't.
If you truly believe.
Like if you genuinely, from the bottom of your heart believed that there were no racial differences in IQ, you should be screaming from the rooftop that we demand a rigorous investigation of this with the best available tools and scientific methods. But no, they're not doing that. They're claiming that, you know, this is an ethical we can't do this, This is hurtful.
So that tells you right there that the people don't believe it. Are you talking about here or are you talking about it anyway? In general?
You know I'm talking primarily in the well in the anglosphere, but in the United States in particular.
I mean, that's really.
The last thing, that's really the last taboo, because there's there's kind of cultural relativism. There's no reason to believe that all cultures are the same. In fact, by definition, there's some people do some things better in their cultures than others. But when you're talking about IQ, you're talking about an immutable characteristic. I mean, it's really interesting if you look at the data on you know, Nobel Prize winners, for example, the overwhelming majority haven't been just Jews, but
Askanazi Jews. Stephen Pinker, the Harvard psychologist, has done some really interesting work on identical as well as other people. Identical twins separated at birth. So identical twins separated at birth. There, you know, with the Gaussian distribution of Caucasians with one hundred.
Being in the mean.
Heredity had and again heredity and race or different concepts. But if heredity had nothing to do with it, you would expect that if you could pluck two people off the street, their IQ would be identical. Then identical twins separate at birth, there'd be eight points but identical twins separated birth are only four points difference. So that shows you that it has something to do with that. Genetics have some and again those are not those terms are
not interchangeable. But genetics has something to do with it. But again, we're not talking about it. We're not being honest about the nature of the problem. We're just not talking about it.
There's a row of books behind you, all written by Thomas Soul. I love Thomas sol indeed. Yeah, and he is a prime example of how you can succeed if even though people think you fall into a lower category of whatever you're thinking of talking about. Yeah, so we should, we should.
Just so you know, Thomas Soul just defines a conservative as someone who wants to conserve the society. That's why I said, this isn't a conservative point of view. I don't think wanting to conserve a culture that is stagnant for thousands of years is a good thing.
And nobody. The fact that people are.
Not willing to admit something that is so incredibly obvious on the face of it tells me that there's a that people are just not being honest, they're just lying, or that either that or they're just fund they're just incredibly ignorant.
All right, So let's let's take a prime example in this country. And it's not it's not solo of there aren't enough married doctors. And I'm looking back behind us now, but it's a bit of history. And so you make it easier for them to get into medical school. Or if you've got one hundred applicants for medical school and you're only taking thirty, then you reload the you reload the values of the applicants. Yeah, is that wrong?
Well, I mean if it's wrong in a number of it's not just wrong morally. I mean because to do that, if you only have a certain number of slots, then by definition, you're discriminating against people on the basis of their race. So that's a moral wrong. I don't believe people should be discriminated against the base of their race.
But you're arguing the argument here is that there are not enough of a particular race, and you've had the problem in America recently with the Japanese.
That's not an argument, that's a claim. People are making the claim that there should be more Maori physicians.
Yes, yeah, so okay.
So if you want to do that, then the way to do that it's a longer term solution that nobody Again, I guess the emerging theme in this conversation is people just don't want to be honest about it. You have to provide everybody with a public education of the first rate. That's John Rawls's ide the American philosophers.
But then you've got to make them go to go to school and get the education that you're providing.
So if you wanted Jerry rig the outcome and say well X number of people have to be Maori, then the problem is that nobody is going to trust a Maori physician because they're going to think they're all affirmative action in and that if there are some wonderful Malori physicians in the same way that there are some you know, the best physicians, it's just taken as what people it's just normative in the UK are people from India, but they don't have asterisks over their heads.
Right.
So if you do that, not only do you undermine the meritocracy, not only is it racist, not only is it unfair to those people. Not only are you not going to improve patient outcomes, but you're going to achieve exactly the opposite.
Of what you wanted to achieve.
People just aren't going to trust Mallory physicians, and why should they because they didn't earn the position.
Well, the quote is something along the lines of give them time and they learn. Great.
That doesn't mean that you need to It doesn't mean that you need to throw away an entire system of the things that you know what works. So that's the other thing we're not being honest about. If you place people in positions, assuming that there's some kind of a competence hierarchy, if you place people in positions and I'm not talking about like you know, writing, creative or something.
I'm talking about something that's something about which there's a right and the wrong, like boxing or jiu jitsu or something because of combats, but basketball or something. If you do that, then you will have people who are not capable of achieving those outcomes by definition, because they would
have already achieved the outcome. Now you could say long term, they'll achieve the outcomes, but at any given time, like time t you're going to be having physicians and pilots and fire fighters, etc. Who are not capable of discharging the responsibilities of their office. It's just that's what it means to not hire some of the base of merit. So you're undermining your whole civil not just your society,
the whole civilization. You're bowing to people, you're bowing in a Again, as much as I try not to make this to be political or ideological, it simply is you're bowing to a group of leftists, you're bowing to radicals. You're basically saying that people who have lived in a stagnant society for thousands of years, there's something virtuous about that. There's literally nothing virtuous about that, and anybody who argues that there is should be ashamed of themselves. They're a charlatan.
They're just a fraud.
I don't think people have the capacity to realize that.
Well, if that's true, part of the reason is because you're not having honest conversations about the nature of the problem. You're just not No longer you don't have honest conversations, Like you said, you've been here for forty years, the more difficult it is going to be to solve the problem.
What about rates of.
Incidents of violence in these communities?
What are you gonna do?
Just ignore them or say that's just their way of knowing or and that's the other thing that the whole idea that you want to would want to include something in the canon of science that is simply not science because you want to be deferential to certain groups of people's collective sensibilities. That's completely insane. That's my friend Gad. Sad would call that suicidal empathy.
By the way, speaking of GED's head, Yeah, what's his best word?
To consumer instinct? I think was really a great book. He has another book that's coming out. I haven't read that yet. I think it's still in the process of being written. It's almost completed now. But he's an evolutionary psychologist who's done some phenomenal work with consumer behavior. I'm going to do an event with him, i think in two weeks at the University of Austin.
The reason I'm interested in, Gad said, is because I bought The Parasitic Mind only just recently, great book. Phenomenal sec of books just over there are all new, and I'm just itching for the time to get into that now. He's fantastic. It's a fantastic there's my hobby over the Christmas holidays, It's my hobby all year, but I made it a bigger hobby over the Christmas holidays to buy more books the parasitic mind, How infectious ideas are killing
common sense? Correct? The guy's a genius, He's great. So I'm avoiding another aspect of this discussion for the moment. I want to postpone it because it's more to be said in the vein that we're discussing. Take Austraight in Aborigines as an example. During the vacation period, I drove Carolyn and a couple of friends to a place in New South Wales where I lived for a couple of years, three years actually, when I was in six and nine,
and it's basically countrified. And we drove down the street and I said, that house there was the house that was the home of the only Aboriginal in the school that I went to, primary school that I went to. And they made the exceptions for him with his footwear because his toes were already splayed and he wouldn't he refused to wear shoes, and they tried to get into wear shoes and he wouldn't wear shoes, so they made exceptions for him. But he was he was not adopted.
He was taken in under some scheme. It wasn't he wasn't living there with his parents, and so he was being taught the European way, if you like, or the advanced way of living. Now in the end, he left because he didn't fit in. Now, I can't tell you, because of the age that I was exactly what went on, what happened. All I know is that one day he
just didn't come back to school. So what I'm really driving at is how do you transition the knowledge from one group to another when you're confronted with people who who either don't want to know or won't let their kids know, or what a live.
Yeah, that's a great question. I mean I was just in spent some time in Romania, and I was talking to people they used to be called Gypsies, they are called Roma now who.
Kind of blew my mind.
With some of the things that he told me. I was asking him about problems with I don't know if I can swear on your show, but right, problems with the you know, the Roma encounter, and he said, you know, one of the problems is you need to fill out on paper for applications for things like licenses, and they just cannot. And this guy was an advocate for these folks.
They have tremendous difficulty writing between the lines. I mean, such strong cultural bonds of the things that they value that are completely normative in those societies, and yet we don't live by the rules that they live by. The key is not to bow or to bend your whole society to that. The key is that you have to have certain values like well, you know, people have to have shoes, people have to be dressed when they go
to school. Now, if the argument is well, you've been wrong about things in the past, that's one hundred percent correct. We have been wrong about things in the past, and we've treated people of different races horribly, and that's something that we should talk about. You know, what does that entail? Does that entail?
Now?
People think in entails reparations or homosexuals, Like, we have done some pretty terrible things to people in the past, But that's not a reason to throw away the norms of civil society, right. That's that the bigotry of low expectations is expecting that people who are indigenous can't put shoes on their feet. I mean, that's completely insane. Anybody can put shoes on their feet. I mean they maybe they don't have a value of putting shoes on their feet.
But public schools are by definition public and their public institutions, and there are certain norms that people should adhere to when they participate in and function in civil society, and that that shouldn't be even remotely controversial, but evidently it is. You know, I just gave a talk to the University of Ucklhand. Evidently there's some people upset about my upset
about me going there and speaking to the faculty. And I said, well, let's tell them to come home and they'll give I'll just talk to them the whole time. I'll give them the hopeful you disagree with me, you come to the front line. But they can't do that
because they themselves are kind of epistemic victims. They themselves are trapped in their own web of deceit and lies, and they're they're really they're trying to institutionalize these ideas virtue signal that they believe these things, think that they're better people, so they don't participate in dialogue. Okay, well, then then you're contributing to the problem. You're contributing to the Again, the best words admit of a miseration. You're
contributing to the miseration of the Maori. There's no reason people anybody can put shoes on their feet. And if the kid legitimately can't afford shoes, I guess this is my leftist impulse for economics, then then the school should buy them shoes. If a kid can't afford healthcare, I mean, I guess I'm a leftist in that sense too. I think that anybody up to the age of eighteen to twenty one should be afforded public health care.
What's your angle on school lunches.
Well, again, so the view that I adopt, and I strongly believe that this is a rationally derivable view, is that John Rawlsey interview. We shouldn't try to fix outcomes through affirmative action or diversity hires. We should so it's not a quality of outcome. We don't want so many physicians to our Maori. We want opportunities for people. We
want a quality of opportunity. And the best way to give a quality of opportunity, for example, in school lunches is everybody should not only have public education in the first rate. But everybody should have fantastic food, they should have great vegila, and if that means that we have higher taxes.
Then will so be it. But that is when you have when you.
Try to do the best that you can as a society to have strong institutions to level the playing field. And then if you don't have Maori doctors, you don't have them. But you don't try to just make more Maori doctors by admitting then people who aren't qualified. You try to give young people a quality of opportunities so they can rise and achieve in the society and then let the chips fall where they may.
How do you break the custom hold on groups of people growing up with and being can I say brainwashed with customing habits? Well, we're all brainwashed and indoctrinated with with you know, you're you're talking about escaping escaping the thousand years true, and if you're going to have them as part of your initial education first seven years stuff, then how do they break out of that?
I said, very it's a very complicated question. The number one thing is that you don't have people And again I'm trying to not make this political or ideological but it just simply is. And I'll criticize the right in a minute. You don't have people on the left saying, oh, you know, they're not good enough, we need to lower the standards. You don't have people who patronize them on the left. You don't have people who make exceptions or excuses.
You treat everybody fairly. I guess on the right you see a kind of I think the right, at least I can't speak to this country, but the right in America has been a catastrophic failure on that. They're just expecting that people who come from you know, this isn't only racial people who come from poor socioeconomic backgrounds, broken homes, et cetera. They're expecting them to just achieve. In Detroit, certain school systems in Detroit, people have to bring in
their own toilet paper. That's a public disgrace, right, yeah, it's a disgrace. It's as can tell you a crazy story about my kids school. You met my son who they closed all the men's rooms in the schools, so they had to go to someplace else when they wanted to use the restroom, the toilets.
But I think the right has been.
A failure, and they've not funded or gave adequate funding to the things they should have. And as a consequence for that, we get a bunch of truly, truly crazy people on the left advocating completely insane ideas, and that has That was a spell that was cast over the whole society. That only now was Trump is at being loosened. The diversity, equity, inclusion, the well, anything that falls under that umbrella.
You don't think you're racing too well the finish line too early.
No, I think these people, I think the average American is sick of it. But I do think that the bureaucrats, the apparatuic chicks are still in the institutions. They're still in the educational institutions. They're still in colleges of education and teacher training programs. And it's is going to take a long time to finally extirpate the last vestiges of the derangement syndrome that's overtaken us. It's going to take
a while, but Trump has. I mean, if you've seen the videos of like Trump going or random places like La casinos, I'm not La. Yeah, people are cheering him, et cetera. Like I think he has right now, he has he certainly has the mandate by votes. But you know, you know, and that's the other thing. A lot of
these people are on the run. They know he's coming for them, they know he's and they should be terrified because they've thrown the whole society in assesspool for fifteen at least fifteen years, probably twenty.
Where would you start with accountability for that?
It's hard because the people when you've changed the raison detra of the institutions, when you've you've changed the mission of the institutions, they these folks believe that they're accountable to you know, you mentioned Gad said pretty much exogenous values. You know, these are values that have paresthetized liberalism. I wrote about that in my first book in twenty thirteen. These are not values that are endemic to liberalism, you know, the idea that.
It By and large, they b.
They bartered class for race and gender, and so they're obsessed with anything that has an identity level salience because completely obsessed by it, and so they're willing to do literally crazy things like completely destroy institutions, destroy the family, like truly crazy things.
And what makes them what drives them to do that. I mean, why do they do it, Why did they do it? And why do they get the idea in the first place? Then what drives them to try and fulfill it? Are they aware of the damage they're doing.
No, they want to do the damage because they think that the society itself is racist, patriarchal, homophobic, ableists.
Have you heard any arguments that count of that that make you think, well, maybe they run.
Well, no, because they don't talk to you. They don't engage in conversation, because conversation is as Aubrey Lord said, the Master's tools cannot disable to dismantle the Master's house. Conversation, dialogue, dialectic, all of those things at the root of the problem.
That's why.
One of the reasons they don't talk to you, that's one of the reasons they so. My writing partner, my primary writing partner, James Lindsay, is coming to New Zealand, to Auckland and around New Zealand next month. And I told Jonathan from the Free Speech Union that they brought me down here on tour. I'm like, listen, he should not be given any talks. I'll take exactly what he should be doing. He should be debating people, and that's what you should do every single day, seven days a week.
I think he's here for ten days or something. He should just debate people, and you call him out, name and shame him. I go after every single one of these people, like the New Zealand Herald. I'd target every single one of them, these far left maniacs who have actively just tried to destroy the civilization, and I would call him out. I would name and shame them, and I would say, you want to play by the you want to see at the adulta. You come and you
have a debate. We've brought our guy, let's go. They won't do it. They won't do it because they're cowards, and they know at some level that what they say is not sustainable, it's not rationally drivable. It's conspicuously ideological. And these people are not only intellectual midwies, but complete cowards because if they weren't, but prove me wrong, prove me wrong, great, prove me wrong. Have them come and debate. Jim, you're not a coward. You think your ideas are rationally drivable.
You're not an idealogue. Great James Lindsay will be here in March, we're going to set up debates.
Okay, here's I think this is a fair question. Sometimes I hate being fair. You've got somebody who's coming who's an expert, knowledge, speaking, power, approach everything. Right.
Well, he's a content knowledge expert.
So he's he's top of top of his grade, right.
I mean, I mean he's my writing partner, he's a friend of mine, and I think so, okay, that's my opinion.
Okay, yeah, so it's not everybody that can that can argue successfully what they might think. Okay, so you're saying that they should come along and be destroyed.
I'm saying that, Well, then maybe there's a reason to reconsider what you believe. Maybe there's a reason to that's a reason to be more.
Humble because you can you can have an opinion about something. Yeah, believe believe something, but lack the ability to express that appropriately in a verbal battle.
But belief is not binary. It's not on off, belief takes. Belief is on like a Likert scale, strongly agree, agree, Like that's just not how belief operates. But okay, we'll give them ten guys. I'll put Jim against ten guys from the New Zealand Herald. I'll call out the whole New Zealand harold all of them, the editors and the staff, all of them.
You any need to, and I can provide you with names. Yeah, well give it. Okay, So there's something people in New Zealand don't do. Name them. Go ahead, name them. I'll name them. I'll tweet them out.
I'll personally challenge them to debate James lindsay, are they left as maniacs? Are they identitarian lunatics? They're perfect. I want them to feel what it's like for the damage that they have caused, for the madness that they have
inflicted on society. Now I can't speak to these people as individuals, but I can say that their ilk and the legacy media, and the lies and the corruption they have spread, and the fact that they've used their platform, you know x formally Twitter has made the legacy media irrelevant to a certain extent. But if you want to make the claim that, okay, well some people can't defend what they believe, then my response to you is maybe they shouldn't believe it.
I'm an atheist.
I could put out a tweet or something tomorrow saying I'm leaving Auckland in a week. I would like to debate Christians. I would like to challenge Christians. I literally I could do that round. I have a one hundred Christians lining up to debate me. I guarantee you, I can tell you with total confidence that's true. The apologists would come out of the woodwork. You cannot do that with the identitarian left. I mean, look, the New Zealand Herald is a discretion race. It's just a disgrace. It's an
it's it's filled with ideologues. It's like the Guardian. The Guardian is is just a an organ of the Democratic Party of Labor. I mean that's you have to call these people out. You can't push, you can't push your foot around. You just have to call them out.
You do realize there is a there's another media athletic that's worth.
Which one stuff. Well, let's let's get them to debate too. Let's get them with James Lindsay.
They want debate, they want, they want, they want print you later, they want they won't give you the space.
Okay, then you know what would make make a rational person respect them? If they say, listen, you know we're not going to debate because we're ideologues. We have no reason to believe what we're going to we believe other than it make it gives us status that we jockey for in our own communities. If you said that, if they came out and said that, okay, we're conspicuous ideologues, there's really no reason to believe it. We just want to gain, we want a virtue signal. Okay, great, that's
then they're honest. So they're also dishonest because they don't say that.
I mean, you can't.
So people in New Zealand are really nice, they're really pleasant, they're just but this is a cultural war. Like you have to get over that, Like you have to call these people out. They're attempting to brainwash citizens and they're not willing to they're not willing to defend their ideas in a public venue. A shame on you.
Now, what kicked this off was my question to you about who was most who would you hold most responsible? Yeah, legacy media exactly. That was the answer that I would have given your legacy media. And well I wouldn't have even called it legacy media. But you know, because there's the other sorts of media that's just as bad. Maybe.
I mean I heard a little of an American commentator on the radio this morning who was as usual because right from the very get go, when Trump came down the escalator, this guy I headed in for him, sure, and and he rips him at every opportunity he can get. And this morning he was he was picking up, he was picking up points of what Trump's done in this in this first period, and well either faking it or
lying about what the what the real story was. Yeah, I mean, I'm used to it, and therefore it usually saves me the trouble of sweating over it because I don't listen. This morning, I caught it accidentally.
All right, listen, I want to I want to linger on this because I think this is really important. Let's go back to what you just said. Okay, So these people they're not expert debaters or they have no they're not used to speaking in front of the public. Great, okay, great, no problem. I have zero problem with that. Why don't you find four or five academics. Why don't you find people who move it fairly high? I mean, there's a
country of five million people. Find people fairly high in the public space and say these people were going to host a debate in New Zealand. Herold is going to host the debate James lindsay versus our experts, like or they don't even have to say our experts. We're gonna invite and I guarantee he'll show, he'll come. Well, why don't they do that? They can make money from it. They'll sell tickets, they can monetize it on YouTube. They probably make ten grand easy.
You probably feel this. So they don't do it, not.
Because they can't find people, but because they know their ideas are bankrupt.
They just know they're not true.
Look, if you if you got somebody here.
Look, they don't know that I can agree with you. They don't know. They don't know that it's not true.
Look look, look, let's say that I had somebody coming here who was an expert in I don't know, electromagnetism or you know, radioactivity or something, and then I got a bunch of other people who are like, well, you know what. Or I have someone here who doesn't believe there's any such thing as electromagnetism. And let's say he has a massive political plat, a massive platform across social media.
You have no problem finding people to do it. You know, there are a bunch of people who actually believe, like Mark Sergeant, that the Earth is flat. They literally believe that the Earth is flat. Mark Sergeant. I had him come in for a guest lecture in my class once. It was fascinating, like he actually believes the Earth is flat.
But my point to you is, if you're not willing to defend your ideas publicly, if you're not willing to be more humble about what you claim to believe, then at the very least you should be able to present experts for people. When somebody comes to the country and you don't have to pay him, so there's not a financial argument there, so that people can hear the argument and decide for themselves.
So you should.
Your goal is not to indoctrinate people ideologically. Your goal is to present the news and have people made decisions for themselves. You're laughing.
I'm laughing silently, and it's killing me.
Yeah. I mean, I feel really strongly about this because because I think it's a tremendous problem that's overtaken the West. The ideological capture of our institutions is a tremendous problem, and That's why I think the move that we need to make now or in New Zealand is we have to call out these people. We have to name names, we have to call it specific people for what they're doing, for the damage they're doing to society. The trans thing
is another thing. That's another form of damage that they're doing to children. I mean, the damage that these people are doing is more or less endless.
Well we go on with that. There's two words that stress strung together. Say it all. Now. I had a guy once tell me there is no such thing as common sense.
Well, I would have said to him, well, first I would have asked him to defy it, but I would have said to that if that's not the case, then why don't more people die from just wandering out into the middle of the street.
I'll just write that down. I mean, to have somebody say that to you in all sincerity, yeah, just leaves you. It leaves you speechless.
Well, yeah, I mean I The first thing that I thought of was just to think of cross cultural examples where people had common sense, like putting her hand on a stove, like if it really wasn't true, then you'd have the number of people who would be randomly, or who would not randomly, who would be injured from things that you would think common sense would be a prophylactic against, would be just in order. In fact, it would almost be infinite if there were those things, as common sense,
I'd open that door and walk off the balcony. Right, So I just don't. I mean, that just seems to me, on the face of it to be false.
I'm just thinking of another example. Yeah, and it involves the corporal punishment. Okay, so your kids sticking a knife into the into the light socket, or he's about to put his hand on the on the stove for the second time.
Yeah, usually it only takes once.
But okay, yeah, but he didn't get there, I said, going to put his hand on okay for the second time. Yeah, you've already warned him off. Yeah, it's a little four year old or whatever. Yeah. What do you do on the second occasion when he's being disobedient and about to burn himself? Well, I'm gonna say, wipe out his hand forever? Maybe? Okay, Well those are different.
If the stove is just hot and he's gonna burn his hand, you let him burn his hand. But if the stove is red hot, you do not let him put his hand.
On the stove. Is it not appropriate to take the first example? Yeah, and deal with it then, so that the second example doesn't have to be played out only if.
He knows there's this reason that it's not being imposed on him externally. If he knows that, once he understands the reason for why he shouldn't or she shouldn't put her hand on the stove, and then that's just a trial and error thing. Haven't touched a hot stove. I mean, I have no problem with I used to do in my kids when they did stupid shit.
Did you punish your kids physically? No? Never?
Never, never ever?
Why?
I guess a certain extent I might have. I guess got lucky with great kids. But I don't really believe in corporal punishment. I think that there are other ways.
That's the point that I'm that I'm arguing with. We we had a corporal punishment band, Yeah, put the whole country.
Yeah, and in schools or for parents hitting their kids anyway, okay, okay, anyone anyway.
Yeah, so that you your kid, your kid disobeys you because he's a little monster. Yeah, and you can't literally Smakey's backside.
Yeah, the same Denmark. Other countries, you know they have. So if you're asking me what I think about that, I don't really know. I think that's the kind of thing that seems like a moral question, but it's really an empirical question.
It's like, what is that?
You know, we have these moral sensibilities about it, but I think it's really and there are so many variables it's hard to tease out. But I guess you'd have to just look at the data for how effective is it. I will say that if my mentor told me an interesting story. He never raised his voice at his kids, or certainly never hit them. And then one day his son wanted to get a tattoo and he slammed his foot in his fists on the table and he screamed no,
and his son was freaked out. And he told me that, So this is fucking If you don't mind, I'll just go down this rabbit hole for a second. He told me this super interesting story about his neighbors. You know, the guy is always yelling in his kid, your shit, your life is worthless.
You're never gonna mount to anything.
And then you know, if a kid left his bike. In the car, he'd drive over his bike. The problem with that is that you well, there are many prompts that but among those is that you become inured to a censor, you become immune. He told me this story, this is if you give me and it indulge me for like a minute, it's a great story. So I think it is of chickens. So if you have chickens in a pen, there's a pecking order of the chickens.
So Chicken one will pack all the chickens. Chicken two will get pecked by chicken one, but will not be packed by the other chickens. Chicken three will get pecked by one and two, and we'll pack the others. And he was a psychologist, and they tried to reverse the pecking order of the chickens to make chicken one chicken
seven and chicken seven chicken one. And they did that by putting an electrical collar around the chicken's neck and giving them a zap, so whenever they like, can't see it her, but whenever they went down to pack another chicken, they'd zap it. So now my question to you is was it easier to make chicken one chicken seven or chicken seven chicken one. Yeah, it's a hard it's a hard question. How long have I got Yeah, it's a
hard question. Yeah, I'll go for the last one. It's easier to make chicken seven chicken one.
Yeah.
So no, it's easier to make chicken one chicken seven because when chicken one doesn't get packed, one single jolt makes some chicken seven. So there's a profound lesson there in you know, recidivism, how we call programming, what program we give prisoners for, how we punish kids in school. If you're told your life is shit and you're never going to mount to anything by your father, then when you get to schools, you need increasingly harsh disciplinary punishments.
But that's why we know, I mean, the data is pretty overwhelming that it doesn't work. You know, those Scared Straight programs that we had when I was growing up, when they had these guys come in and they who were in prison and there like these big tattoo muscle guys. The outcomes are pretty clear on that those didn't work. And among the reasons that harsh punishment doesn't work is because you're talking about people who are like chicken. You know, four, five,
and six the most minor punishment. That's why the criminal justice system is in a sense backward. We should be punishing people most severely for their first defense.
Well, i've realized that I'm What I meant to say when I opened my mouth was it's easy to make one number seven.
Yes, yes, yeah, it's easier to make one seven.
That's what it takes. One jolt, and so here's here's another one. Here's another way to think about it.
My mentor was also telling me this story about a guy who kept punching himself in the head. He was in a mental institution, and they tried everything and they could not make this guy stop punching himself in the head. So what they did was they attached electrodes to his arms and when he went up to punch himself in the head. Yeah, it's a behaviorism. It's the same thing. And it took only two jolts for this guy to
never punch himself in the head again. Now I'm going somewhere with this story because it gets back to an earlier question that you asked me. So, I don't know if your listeners will know what a VCR is.
You know, yea.
So he had that recorded on a VCR and he sent that. You know, those tapes used to get you know, messed up. When you played him enough, the tapes would kind So he sent that to the IT department and he told them to fix it, and it came back. They cut out the part where they zapp the guy. Now why did they cut out the part when they zapped the guy because it was against the ethics the ethics board, it said, it's showing the harmful exploitation of
you know, people who are wards of the state. So is a consequence for that that critical piece of human knowledge that can be used to help people is now forever lost from the canon of knowledge. It's been erased. It's been erased. So that's an example. Because you asked me, how do we get in this situation, whether it's IQ
or what have you. We got in the situation because we have norms that we've imposed upon, systems that have made the method of error correction less transparent and impossible to understand. That's how we're in this situation. It started with the French postmodernist Drria Leotard Fuco. It metastasized throughout our academic systems, and then we're in this nightmare situation that we're in now with these lunatics who have controlling institutions. I mean, these people are total lunatics.
Is it now appropriate to draw on the most recent experience of American politics one thousand percent? Because you and I had a discussion a couple of days ago with regard to what was happening. I asked you how you reacted to the well to the election result, and what happened since January twenty. What was your response.
I remember my exact response, but I will say Harris was an abomination.
She's the worst.
Possible person one could have picked. She would have been not only more of the same, but more racism, guys as anti racism, more anti meritic, detocracy, more division, more strife, more enmity, more illegals. I mean, truly the worst possible candidate. We could have had, more legacy, media and more. I mean, I could go on and on. I am incredibly relieved with seeing, among those things that are in my domain of expertise in purview, I am incredibly relieved to see
some of the things Donald Trump has done. And to be clear, I think he is a deeply he was a deeply deeply flawed candidate.
I'm sorry who Trump, It was a deeply flawed candidate.
Yeah, but I think he's done a phenomenal job. He wasn't my first vivak Ramaswami I thought would have like he's sharp. But I think given the context, I think Trump is the man to do what he's doing. I mean, we need that in our country.
That'd be quite just something. Sure why Activist politicians are up in arms this week after Trump signed orders effectively shutting down all DEI related officers within the government, seeing employees on paid leaf pending inevitable pink slips. The usual suspects, including House Minority Reader leader Hakim Jeffries and the Democrat rip ilhan Omer, held a press conference to voice their outrage over the fast paced elimination of DEI. And that's
just the start. Good can't come soon enough. Democrats threaten righteous litigation over Trump's shutdown of the EI officers. That's the that's the headline. What chance have they got? Oh? I don't know.
I mean, I probably not, probably not much. I think Americans are sick of it. I probably not much, but we'll see. Maybe the wage and effective campaign. I would say it's small. I mean, look, it's discriminated against people on the basis of their race, like Asian Americans are discriminated against in the base of the race for admissions to elite institutions.
We know that.
So you're but don't don't lie about what you're doing. Just say what you're doing. We don't want Asians, we hate Jews. Just say it.
What would happen if they did so?
Well, I wouldn't respect your beliefs, but I'd certainly respect them more. Well, thanks for being honest, you know when I used to say when you know, I had a debate with the Islamic scholar once and I couldn't get him to say that the punishment for apostases should be death. Finally he said it. It's a little I can tell you how I got him say it, but I at least respected him more for saying I would have respected him more if he set it up front. But don't,
just don't deceive yourself. These people hate Jews and they hate Asians, and they should just say it, we hate Jews and we hate Asians. Okay, Well, then now we know who we're dealing with. Right now, now, no one's lying to each other. And we know you hate Jews and we know you hate Asians, so great, all.
Right, Now, there are some sources, one in particular that I'm thinking of, some sources that will tell you that straight not because they believe it, because they know that that's what you just said is correct. And I'm talking about public figures. But there are very few of them who will simply call a spade of spade and call them out when when it's uh, when it's appropriate. So is that the media's fault.
I think it's a combination of things. It's you know, it's it's it's a Calvin Trilling said that things are really attributable to a single cause.
You know.
I mean I've seen people holding on college campuses pro Hamas science. I mean Hamas is a terrorist organization. I've you know, at the Sydney Opera House there were cantidates. They're chanting gas the Jews.
No no, no, no, no, no no no no no no. Are you're saying that? I think it was wigs the Jews.
Oh no, they lied about it, right, they lied about it. But but but but that's the other thing that that but that makes my point, they're lying about it.
They're just lying about it. So there are people say, so are the politicians, Well yeah, they're lying about it, and the police, well they're also lying about it.
I'm saying you should if you hate Jews, just say I hate Jews if you will, like, there's no reason to lie about it.
I think, I think in your part of the world there are plenty of people who are prepare to say that.
Well yeah, well yeah, it doesn't mean I in fact, I detest those views. I think that they're an abomination. But at least they're being honest with you. You know, like with these people with the DEI, people with the radical identitarian leftists, they're they're they're even worse than that because that they're operating under a system, you know. I mean, did you see the whole Claudine Gay thing when she
went before Congress. Remind me it's a it was so I mean, it was the really the beginning of the end of DEI.
She was which which university?
She's Harvard, She's the serial plasirest at Harvard. Yeah, and so, you know, the slightest thing is a microaggression if you say, you know, where are you from?
What have you.
But chanting death to the Jews is fine? Are you kidding me? Like? Are you kidding me? But that's who the type of people you're dealing with, and so let's I just think we need to be honest about who we're dealing with.
Is is the transition, which is of course still underway, will be underway for quite some Timere's the transition likely to hold? Do you think? And I'm talking not just not just not just for the next couple of years, I mean, I mean, is it going to roll on because finally people have been working up.
It's a great question, I with a potentially unintended pun of waking up. I think if you look at intellectual history, every generation is subject to a zeitgeist or a value. You know, in Homer's time it was strength, Aristotle's time was the Athenian gentleman. Voltaire's time it was humor. Every every society has some every kind of epica, every age
has some value. Our society has been beset recently by multiple simultaneous mass delusions, and so it's very difficult to predict, to predict the next mass illusion, but suffice it to say it's coming. I don't I have some suspicions about what it is. That's kind of but who knows what it would be. But you can only addres us one mass illusion is at a time. It's very difficult to have a kind of universal prophylactic against people becoming delusional.
It's almost impossible. That's why you need strong institutions. That's why you need corrective mechanisms. Capitalism, democracy, free speech. That's why those things are indispensable.
Let's deal with free speech. Okay, just for a moment. Sure, how far can we cope with free speech being free speech in its fullness?
Yeah, up to the incitement of violence? And then what happens, Oh, then it's illegal. There are other things that are illegal, like slander, defamation. I mean, we have a pretty robust pedigree in the legal infrastructure for this. You know, the history of jurisprudence is, you know, when we come from broadly the same tradition, although the Americans kind of veered off. We have a pretty good infrastructure for this, and.
It's worked until it becomes violent.
The incitement of violence.
Yeah, well, well so so it happens, right, there's an there's an instance, and it's patently obvious and there's a conviction, So what what what do we do? And those words that were spoken? Or ban people who are speaking those words? No, I mean you know, and when you and when you've when you've got and this I have, I have to throw this in. Sure, when you've got X now doing the job that it's doing. I've seen some pretty rough stuff on there.
Sure. So here's a good rule of thumb people can think about. Ideas do not deserve dignity. People deserve dignity. And so if you want to say what should or should not if you're trying to think of a how do I know what can what cannot? What I can or cannot say? I mean, there's a general rule of just don't be a dick. But the next rule down is if it's an immutable characteristic of a person, there's no point to criticize it because they can't change it.
But if it's all ideas should be subject to criticism, and those include religious ideas or atheist stick ideas as well. Anything that's an idea should be open to criticism. But any immutable property of a person like me, criticizing your age, your eye color, that's not open to criticisms. That shouldn't be open to criticism. But I'm not saying that should be illegal either.
Sorry what you like, I don't care.
Yeah, But but I mean the whole point of of you're trying to you're trying to offer some kind of corrective mechanism so that we can fix errors in our thinking.
Right.
So that's one of the reasons that's Is it about cognitive liberty, yes? Is it about hearing different epistemic systems and different ideas?
Yes.
Andrew Doyle has a great little book about this.
He's the.
English PhD from Oxford called Free Speech. It's very easy, very simple to read, little book. Yeah, he's Titiana McGrath and I think he's working with Rob Schneider. Now in in he was on gb News he had free Speech Nation. But anyway, he details this in his in his book. But that's one of the things that people don't talk about that I've talked about on tour here is free speech is a means of error correction. I mean, that's the other thing. To get back to the Mallory and
get back to these tribal civilizations. They've just quenched that, they've quelled any kind of free speech you see that in the Islamic world like you can't. Really, that's why you need blasphemy laws. There are no blasphemy laws against electricity or gravity. You don't need them, right, you don't.
You don't need them.
There are corrective mechanisms there too, but you only need them if there is insufficient evidence to warrant belief in a conclusion. That's why you need blasphemy laws.
There's no other reason for it. But there are no blasphemy laws against Christianity.
Yeah, there are no blasphemy laws against electricity either. I could go out in the street and scream all day long that electricity is a right wing conspiracy, our Martian conspiracy. We don't need laws against that.
So we don't need laws against Christianity.
Against criticizing anybody should be able to criticize any any religion or any thought system they want or atheists and atheists fall into that pasca too, and any idea is subject to.
Criticism, all right. I mean I'm not arguing with that at all. Yes, I was just I was just intrigued. You've got you've got you've got laws against speaking about Islam, yes, but no laws against speaking about correct it's a standard. So what I'm what I'm asking, what I'm really driving at, I suppose is what you said to follow on that you you need it because or you have it because you have laws against criticizing Islam because.
Well, the real I'll give you the real reason there are lies against criticizing it in the UK is because they're afred. People are afraid. That's why I they don't criticize it.
Oh you mean English people.
Or people people in general. I mean I never criticize it because I don't. I'm not particularly keen about having my head signed off with the butter knife. Yeah. So, I mean I would never go around burning the Quran, defecating on it.
Probably ill advised, but but there's no trouble was putting across.
Serrano's piss christ Yeah that's right.
Yeah, well, I.
Mean that's because Christians aren't going to rise up and just start killing people. I mean, it's like the Book of Mormon, right when we're fundamentally afraid. That's why many atheists have no problem criticizing Christianity but will never criticize Islam. Part of its fear, part of it. There are other reasons for that as.
Well, but.
Yeah, they're also beholden to this kind of sacredness of the brown people. Nonsense, there are no sacred people. There are no sacred ideas either. They're just ideas and people, and no one people and no ethnicity or no race has dominion over any ideas.
So I think to wind this up, almost reluctantly, you've been here for two months, living here, loved it in the in the middle of Auckland. But you've done plenty of travel. You were here in twenty fifteen last Yeah, with you, we read a great time, we interviewed, and there's another part of that story. Maybe we'll get to it in a minute. The point is that we have replaced, we have replaced the government that was garbage a little every year ago, and we are making progress in the
right direction. But it's not satisfactory, not if you stake it against what's going on now in your country. So from your perspective, from what you've seen two months here, a long time, what what would you say was the advantage to this country and the disadvantage of this country compared to America?
Oh boy, what a question. Holy moly. I mean, there are a lot of incredible things about this country, and a lot of less than incredible things are few.
It very much.
Reminds me of the US and the nineties. It's safe, clean, I hope knowing people here think, oh, it's not that say it trusts me. It is compared to so to blue cities with blue governors. You know, the city where I was living was a it was a cesspool of degenerates and lunatics and homeless people. It was terribly it's truly dangerous and frightening. So it's clean, it's safe. Public
transportation isn't that great here the whole. I've never heard of a major metropolitan area who's literally closed its whole, its entire trade station, dia literally train lighted.
I've literally never even heard.
Of such a thing. But you know, I had dinner the other day with the Minister of Justice. He just comes waltz is in, sits at the table, doesn't in a security escort, doesn't need like guys surrounding with guns. One of the first things you notice here is that the air is crisp and clean. I think I think somebody mentioned to me they're not used to seeing English signage without homeless people. It's interesting, you know, like you
see a lot of birds and stores here. I still can't get used to people driving on the left side of the road. It's just like it literally cringe every time I'm it.
Is the one area that I disagree with with you so far. Anyway, driving in the road, Well you're talking about driving on the right, Yeah, and that's where I belong.
But yeah, yeah, and it's better I could. I could never there's something terrifying to me. You know, I'm fifty eight. I'm just driving on one side of the road the whole my whole life. But I think that the first thing you notice, particularly coming from uh A, Buddhapest where I was, that the people in Buddhabet, like so many people smoke, which I think is completely insane. It's a truly horrific activity and obviously grossly detrimental to one's health.
But people vape here, which is kind of weird. It's like a weird culture. But I'd much rather have them vaping than smoking, because when I walk by them vaping, it doesn't really bother me, but smoking's like it asphyxiates me. The climate's been been really good here. The building codes are kind of weird to me. I live in the CBD and I've been in some buildings like I don't
know they I just can't. The whole idea that you know, you would push a button to exit a place is weird to me, Like, why don't you just open the door? What do you need to put a push a button for? It just seems like an extra layer of thing.
Uh, you know.
And the other thing is, you know the place where I'm staying in the CBD has glass doors, Like you could never do that in a lot of people just destroy the doors.
Just completely about them to get out.
Yeah, well I don't.
Yeah, Well the reason for that is to keep the people that you don't want in your in your bi out.
But they're walking in anyway every time you open the door. It's not it's not keeping out. You're not keeping on anybody issue. How you're keeping them, How you're keeping them on?
Well, because every time you open the door they walk in.
Well, we just have a sensor that opens the door when you're there. What's the difference.
Oh, I see what you mean. You're not you're not you're not you're not concerned about having the door locked.
No, I don't think you could do that in us because people just destroy it. But I don't, I don't, No, it's just weird to me. The public restaurants here buying large are good. The buses are buying large clean, they have you know, I think they have had felt seats if I remember correctly. No, I think so. I think the bus I rode on I took. I think I can look later. I think I took a picture of it. There's not a lot of graffiti. People are very nice here.
It's very uh, it's a very but you know, Kiwis are very I don't know, they're they're they're really like they have a kind of innocence about them, you know, they have a kind of like it's hard to explain. They have a kind of anti cynicism about them in a certain way in relation to other people, in relation to interpersonal interactions, I find them very easy to deal with. Maybe that's just because they treat me. They're extra nice to me because I'm a foreigner.
I don't know. Could be, yeah, but most most people say, most people say when they come here that the locals, the natives, if I may, are very friendly. Yeah.
But the number one thing that I like about this, beside the vistas and the view and the people are great. It's truly it's the air. The air is incredible here. Like I sleep with a seapap. I was telling you this. I sleep with a seapap and there's an air filter on that and I've only changed it once in the two months i've been here. Usually I have to change it every three weeks. It's because it gets black. I mean, even when I change it was just barely.
But I don't know. I really like it here.
There's not a lot of hustle and bustle, which I don't think I could live here, but I could certainly retire here.
Well, from what you've seen, if you were going to live here, where would you choose?
Christ Church is pretty nice. I don't think I could live in Wellington. Know that that's nice. It's super windy there. I almost got lifted off my feet.
I know. Auckland might be kind of nice.
There's a lot happening, a lot of restaurants is good. Jiu Jitsu in Auckland is a great jiu jitsu.
I don't know.
I don't know where I choose. I could see myself. I guess retiring here. I guess you didn't ask me this, but I'm gonna. I'm gonna give you my unsolicited advice, my unsolicited, sincere advice to you is And I realized I'm gonna say this, and people are gonna roll their eyes and they're going to sink this is never gonna happen.
This is like some crazy.
American do not let large numbers of unskilled Muslim men into your country. That's it, that's my that's my unsolicited advice to you.
Join the club.
Yeah, that's another thing no one's talking about, and no one's being honest about.
Quite true, It's it's now, I'm not gonna you're the guest. I'm just I'm just here the guide here. I've got plenty of opportunities to say what I really think. But I but you, you're correct, And you've only got to look at Britain at the moment to see exact people. All of Western Europe we're talking about.
And and and the all three of those things together unskilled Muslim men and it's not seek. Seeks have extremely low rates of crime, poverty, homelessness, et cetera. If anything, they are a lubricant to the society.
My last question is you were a professor once. Yes, we know the story of you becoming a non professor. Question is you are now a philosopher, public philosopher? Any become a public philosopher.
That's a really good question. I still haven't figured that out.
You how do you how do you.
Become a philosopher?
I guess you have to.
Like I go around the world and my YouTube channel Peter Bogosian bog h O s SI N, and I just interview people. I do this thing called Spectrum Street Epistemology, and we ask people how confident they are in their beliefs and if they're calibrated to the evidence. And I go to do it in multiple languages all across the world. It's very difficult to move in the public space unless you're on Twitter, you know currently X It's very you can be done, but it's hard, especially the angles here,
it's hard to do. So you have social media metrics, you know. I have a university affiliation now, which helps a lot. I'm affiliated with the University of Austin. I'm a Funding Faculty advisor, so that I was a funding faculty fellow, So that helps a lot to have university affiliation.
Yeah, and I tour around.
I do debates, I give lectures, I give talks, I talk to I've talked to literally. I mean, you can watch a few thousands and thousands people about people I don't know.
There are no actors on anything I do.
They're just random people off the streets or people who come to my events, and I'll talk to them about anything.
I'll talk to anybody about anything, and it's all I still hold that.
You know, in the Gorgias, Plato says it is better to be refuted than it is to refute. That's the thing that the people at the New Zealand Herald have to get into their heads. It's not a good thing to be an ideologue. It's a good thing to change her mind in the base of evidence. It's a good thing to be honest about what you believe. It's a good thing to not deceive people about what you believe. It's a good thing to not deceive people about what
you think is in the best interest of society. When you're just drank your own kool aid, I mean, this is a disgrace and people aren't calling them out. So you be a public philosopher. The other thing is you just be honest with people. I'm beholden to no one. I can say I've said in this interview exactly what I think. I'm literally beholden to no one.
So how do you How do you make a living? Oh? I make a living in a bunch of ways.
I have a nonprofit foundation that people donate too, and that enables me to do things for free, like to come to New Zealand. They paid for my airfare. But I don't take any money, you know, I give talks here, the economy, the economy. No, I just do things. I just do a lot of stuff for free, a lot of it.
No, No, No economy on the plane.
Oh, always economy always. It's you know, I'm sixteen hours or twenty one hours in this little flight. I'm like a chicken and a coop. Yeah, it's not comfortable, and I'm fifty eight, so it's not exactly great.
But so yeah, so here's here's another question. Then you're fifty eight, you're sitting in this little coop seat and you're crowded around, and the tortots are dirty and yeah, everything. So one of my favorite questions is to promote age a little bit and say, well, ask so where do you want to be sitting when you're seventy eight?
Funny, I just did a show with a comedy seller on this, my friend Noam. I think that there are to be in good health, and I think that there are ways to do that are that enable one to level up as a human. I can talk about those, but no one will do it, so there's no point. That's what I do. I mean extremely good shape. I just wrestled today for an hour with guys uh half literally half my age, So I think I want to be in good shape. I want to keep doing what
I'm doing. I want to do work that matters. I want to have people who love me and care about me, and people I love and care about. I want to be somewhat financially secure so I don't have to worry about money. I think ultimately I want to make sure I leave the world a better place than when I entered, and I think I'm I'm doing the best that I can to do that. Now, you know, to bring my Remember once when I was a kid, I saw this movie of the Some some people were like butchering apes
and he's a ghastly movie. I started with my dad and I said to my dad, man, we've got to do something about the apes. My dad turned to me in just no entertain and said, what the fuck are you going to do about the apes? You can't do a damn thing about the apes. Why don't you do something you can do something about? And I'm like, Wow, why.
Don't I do so?
Then then I think, well, what can I do something about?
Well? I can.
You know, I love working with prison inmates. I love working with gang members. So I'm working. I might come back to New Zealand, hopefully I'll work in the prisons. I love working with it's with schools with disadvantaged kids.
You know.
I'm doing this thing at Vertex Academy and we'll I'll be you know, helping It's an all black school system in New York. Taking what I'm good at, teaching people how to engage ideas and be honest with themselves and honest about their beliefs.
So, yeah, where I.
Want to be at seven eight is I want to keep doing work that matters.
Okay, Now, now let's get to the question that I asked, Where do you want to sit on the plane when you're seventy eight? Oh?
I probably won't be flying at seventy eight very much. But I mean, I just it's a gratuitous expense to spend in first class. I just wouldn't do that, even if I had the money. I don't have the money, but I wouldn't do that even if.
I did a class below that. Yeah, probably that class. That's probably a good one. It's probably a good one. That's probably where finally I got the answer I wanted. Yeah, when you were here last Yeah, there was a standout of that trip. Yeah, I found out later, what was it? The best bottle of wine I ever had? That one? That's the one.
Yeah, it was the best bottle one I have ever had.
You know that?
People told me, Oh late in Smith. You know, he's New Zealand's Russel and Bob.
You got to be careful of him.
You got to be people telling like truly terrible things about you.
And I really loved you.
I got there and I had a great time. I thought you were really great into lawk with her and I had really like what are these people talking about? I have literally no idea what they're talking about.
And then you gave me I think you.
Kept inviting me back for segments, right and then you gave me a bottle of wine. I thought it was a nice gesture. I didn't think too much about it, and I drank it. I was completely blown wise. It's literally the best bottle of wine I ever have. I've probably told literally a thousand people about that bottle wine.
That's what you That's what your pa told me when she it's true to be six months ago and said he's coming down. Do you want to? You know? And here we are, so I have for you another bottle of wine. I'm not sure it's going to measure up to the one that you had last time because because of circumstances, but I might even give you two just to make up for it. It's very kind of, very kind of you.
I find you to be an honest person, and I appreciate you give me the time to think, and I appreciate the opportunity to have gotten to a little know you a little bit more with my son and having dinner with us. And I'm just very grateful.
I'm glad I met your son. He's a good boy. Thank you.
Appreciate that.
Peter Bagotia, where do we find you?
As the saying goes, I'm on XT at Peter Bagosian b O G H O S S I N. I'm on YouTube, Instagram, on pretty much every every platform. I have a podcast like everybody, and I do these street events where I go around I talk to random people I don't know, so fun stuff.
Man, you are now free to go.
Thank you.
I'll be tired. I'll be tired to this for the next two hours editing. Okay, well cool, well, thank you. Maybe maybe maybe before that, we'll shear something on the way out. Liverrix is an antihistamine made in Switzerland to the highest quality. Leverix relieves hay fever and skin allergies or itchy skin. It's a dual action antihistamine and has a unique nasal decongestent action. It's fast acting for fast relief, and it works in under an hour and lasts for
over twenty four hours. Leverrix is a tiny tablet that unblocks the nose, deals with itchy eyes, and stops sneezing. Lebrix is an antihistamine made in Switzerland to the highest quantity. So next time you're in need of an effective antihistamine, call into the pharmacy and ask for Leverrix lv Rix Leverrix and always read the lake will take us directed and if symptoms persist, see your health professional farmer broker Auckland Layton Smith. All right, missus producer in for the
mail room at number two hundred and seventy one. How are you doing good? How are you? I thought you were too hot.
It's a pretty hot day. But rather have this than the pouring rain and freezing cold.
Thank you?
Okay, now, good morning, mister Smith. While I enjoyed the exchange with mister Jones, there was an issue that I believe encapsulates the actions of the Mary Elite and Mary Party, a concept extensively explored by historian Christopher Lash in his nineteen seventy nine work The Culture of Narcissism American Life
in an age of diminishing expectations. Let's strung around a bit lately, hadn't anyway, goes on, We've witnessed the self absorbed Mary elite promoting Maori interests to the clear detriment of the rest of the country. Their actions aligned with the principles of cultural narcissism, where a group's self centeredness
leads to prioritizing their interests above national well being. This approach fosters division and weakens national unity, which ironically seems to be their objective all the while they claim victim status from those oppressive colonizers. Now, while advocating for cultural identity is important, it should never come at the expense of marginalizing others. A balanced approach that respects and integrates the various cultural perspectives is essential for fostering a cohesive
and inclusive society. However, the Marrie elites have shown no interest in that superb piece of thought and writing. Thank you from someone in Brisbane.
Leyton Wayne says, what a start the new year of your podcast. Since the Coalition was formed, I've found Shane very interesting. When he is interviewed, he gives credit where credit is due to his coalition partners, which is unusual in New Zealand politics. Your podcast drew him out further on several issues. And most people I know just want to have a constructive debate on the treaty, but all legacy media want to do is cover protest, which just
ostracizes them as the media. Soawce even more, I put TV one News on the other day for the first time in weeks and after the first two items turned it off. Can't anyone just report the news objectively anymore and let the receiver decide their views are at all,
rather than being told what to think. I was impressed with many of the ways Shane put things such as Trump's inauguration speech unmanacling and unfettering people from being cocooned as unjust for all the wrongs of history to party Mauri's foul conception of where Mary sits is a crutch which stops people from taking responsibility. They use it as a recruitment tool, waste land of TikTok and other such intellectual deserts. He asks, what is the essence of being
a New Zealander? We must rail against the conceptions of history's worst actions forming everything we are now and deliberate and deliberate on Wow what statements? And the echo chamber of social media represents microaggression and amplify as the environment we have by seeing small slites amplified, which fuels grievance, culture and legacy media celebrates it. There was a lot more, so, thank you so much, and I do trust we hear
from Shane further in the future. I've already sent your podcast link onto two sets of friends who I am sure will appreciate it a lot.
And that's from Wayne.
Wayne, that's very much appreciated. Thank you, and just see if you can double up on your two Yeah, think double up every time. It's varied mail room this week, and I'm pleased about it, Laton. As an ex member of the RNZ Navy, it's been a very difficult time to watch a proud navy turn itself into a woke cult outfit with very little integrity. The hm n z S munawood Nui was sunk on a reef in Samoa by a DEI appointed commanding officer who had never commanded
the ship before, but came from the Royal Navy. She and her wife did a motor home tour of New Zealand a few years back. She loved New Zealand so much that she did in exchange to the New Zealand Navy. They gave her command of a ship that had a very complicated drive system that no other naval ship has, hence its sunk on a reef. There have been two other occasions where female DEI appointed officers have been relieved of command. One crashed her ship on the jetty in Auckland,
causing hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage. The second for being a bully of the crew below her and her use of standover methods that the crew found very difficult to deal with. So the complaints came flying from all levels that of hence budget is point nine of one percent zero point nine of one percent of GDP and the Navy is losing a seventeen percent of personnel
every year since the COVID lockdown. I had two young neighbors that left the Navy after five years and are now in the Australian Navy twice the pay and far better conditions. No DEI and no marie culture and married bullies that's so rife in the New Zealand defense forces. No white intelligent guys want to stay. When people complain that, they get told to get on with things as the married culture is part of the New Zealand way of life,
so these highly intelligent people leave. The Navy has forty percent women and forty percent marry that's the DEI quota, so it's no longer the defence force. I knew she is from Trevor I'm not sure about the I can't confirm those forty percent figures, but Driva sounds like he might have a good idea.
Lad Allister says Lad and I know many people say this, but your podcasts are such a blessing. I just listened to podcasts two seventy and must say I like to interview with Shane Jones. Now there's a man that has common sense, which is in such short supply with most politicians. On that note, Minister Watts could do with a large dose of common sense, as well as quite a few of the national ranks, and in my view, their leader, who has been an utter disappointment as the leader of this great nation.
I wouldn't get carried away about the great nation at the moment. It's small to be a great nation.
I think I'm involved in the grocery industry, says Alistair. And something has to be done on shoplifting, which is just an epidemic at the moment. Some stores are having theft multiple times a day, and at the end of it, we the honest shopper pays for it all. I remember a few years ago the number was a million dollars a day lost. I hate to think what it is now with all the weakness on crime of our government. What really worries me labor Greens that will get into
power the next election. Then we will see our nation disintegrate with more debt. I voted for New Zealand first and agree with most of their policies, apart from Winston talking about a two state solution which will never happen. I do like what President Trump has to stay on that matter, and I'm so happy he won the election. People who don't like him, in my opinion, don't know that man or what he has done for people over the years. I've just ordered The Builders Stone by Melanie
Phillips herd her on Outsiders Today. Very good, he says. He says, keep up the good work and not long to podcast three hundred alistair.
Apart from my little bit of nitpicking, it was an excellent, excellent piece of correspondent and thought. Thank you from Chuck. Thought you might be interested in this if you have not seen it already. Climate the movie this shows there are many climate scientists who do not support climate change hysteria. They may have different views as to whether COTWO affects the climate at all, or say the science is unsettled, like doctor Stephen Coonan, even if COTWO warms the planet
a little, is that harmful? More people die from extreme cold than extreme heat. I note you said the government supports Simon Watt's view on climate change. You just interviewed Shane Jones. It appears he does buy into this nonsense. The same could be said about David Seymour. I would bet there are a few National MPs who would not support Watts. Remember Maureen Pew, Yeah, but you remember the
beating she took. I just hope that many more people vote for ACT or New Zealand First, so that Luxon is not able to dictate climate policy that will cost New Zealand billions that we cannot afford. Somebody said, somebody said recently, no one's ever heard of Simon Watts. I think they need to.
Layton Judath says, it's wonderful to have you back. Laighton.
So enjoyed listening to the lovable rogue Shane Jones. The country needs more of his common sense and straight thinking. I look forward to more of your wonderful interviews with intellectuals. We don't have enough of them in this country. I have high hopes that twenty twenty five will be the dawning of growth and prosperity after what has been an austere a few years.
Cheers, says Judith, and keep up the excellent.
Work Judith appreciated very much. This week's podcast with Shane Jones was so entertaining, if only the government would take more notice of him. Below is the email I sent to Simon Watts for your interest from Leon. Dear Minister, I wish I could afford to purchase enough copies of A Clime of Climate actually by Andrew Hollis and two others, and send a copy to every MP in New Zealand. There are many facts included in this book which the general public are not aware of, or not just the
general public. Leon. Seventy percent of all gas emissions are from volcanic activity. If all the ice melted, the sea level would rise fifteen millimeters that's two inches. We are shown melting ice from the Pacific Ocean side, only not the Atlantic side, where the ice is building up. We are not told that there is volcanic activity beneath the
Antarctic shelf. New Zealand produces zero point one percent of the world's emissions that our government continues to lead the world with emission deduction at the cost of our primary industries and much of our table food in the not too distant future if we're not careful. All plant life is dependent upon the supply of carbon dioxide to remain healthy so that they can supply oxygen to humans and all air breathing species. Yet we're trying to reduce carbon
dioxide from the U s atmosphere. Thankfully, President Trump is leading the way as he recognizes climate change theory as a hoax, and the USA is withdrawing from the Paris Accord, actually has already done it. Also, I understand that the Australian MP Peter Dutton has already indicated Australia will withdraw as well if they win the next election. When will your government wake up? Leon, Here's the answer that I'd
give you. They won't wake up, and the reason is because they will not avail themselves of any rational thinking because they don't seek it out. They say that's the way it is. That's what Luxelon has said too. Anybody something along the lines. In fact, I'll include the quote in the podcast elsewhere because I haven't got it here. I know what I would say to him anymore, Layton, worry.
Before one more from me, David says, I was reading the news this week about the half year economic fiscal update, whereby the government kept a four billion dollar ACC for the year off the books. I was intrigued by that figure, so probed around the ACC website and found the linked report for the year ending thirty June twenty twenty four, published a month ago. Now, I know nothing about audits,
but some of those numbers are disturbing. If the idea is to keep the entity above water over the coming years. It mentions that ACC is liable to lose two billion dollars a year over the next few years. It seems that so called sensitive claims and David Scott's sexual abuse here in brackets, are now and will be in the future a major factor in contributing to the deficit. Far be it for me to downplay these sensitive claims. But I'm flummoxed by the table shown on page forty five.
And he does send you a copy latent that states the average cost of each sensitive case equates to one hundred and fourteen million dollars. In view of the governments struggling to balance the books. I wondered if there was an appetite to scrap ACC and let Vivid Insurance take up the slack. After all, New Zealand is the only country in the world that has gone down this no
blame policy. It would appear that ACC has something like fifty seven billion dollars in investment assets that the government could use to retire debt if the entity was sold off to private antipart enterprise. And David goes on to continue to make his case. And it's a very good and lengthy email, but that's the guts of it.
Basic.
That's it right now. This one is this one is longer than yours, and I'm just wondering if I might leave it till the I will. I leave it to you. But it's to do with the gene Technology Bill, but covers more ground than that.
Good that means I can get out of this oven. Well, I haven't.
Actually too hot to carry on, all right, remind me of that in three months time. I'll just give you a quick one. Deborah says, thank you for interviewing Shane. That was really informative. I just wish we could have him as Prime Minister so much old fashioned common sense. Regards Debbie, and I'll give you this quick one from Paul High. Layton, Jeffrey Tucker and Rummish the Kerr have
been doing superb work at Brownstone Institute. George Friedman has pointed at and still is pointing at the big cycles that bring this type of upheaval into reality. And he's talking about the narrative shift in modern history that George has written about. So says Paul. So we listeners to the radio and podcasts of Leyton Smith, we're aware of the storm. Thanks for all you do. It's priceless and that's me, Paul.
That's very generous. Thank you, and you can go good. I don't want your melting I.
I'm fanning myself with a four paper.
See you next week, you will, okay. So from Mario, the quality that you show in every podcast is very much needed and appreciated in this information battle in New Zealand and triumph of reason over the current madness. I'm writing to you regarding the proposed bill that is now in Parliament past the first reading on the seventeenth of December twenty four, the Gene Technology Bill and then lists of one, two, three, four, hundred conduies a lot, so
bear with us number one. With this horrendous bill, it seems that we have no right to know what we're eating. The people behind this bill, in their infinite wisdom, are not envisioning any labeling of genetically released products after so many years of caution, as advised initially by in two thousand and one by the Royal Commission, we are facing a potential deregulation that will inevitably change New Zealand forever.
Since there are no safeguards contrary to the advice of the Royal Commission in two thousand and one, the impact of this bill can be very devastating for New Zealand agriculture. Primarily affected will be organic food industry. All farmers will be in danger of losing their ge free status and the exporters will be hit by the significant downturn in
sales to their overseas partners. It just seems that the Gene Technology Bill is accommodating the biotech industry and shows total disregard for a large number of farmers, organic farmers and wider public who would not like to have ge crops or ge contaminated crops. Secondly, economic losses. According to the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research report, there would be ten to twenty billion dollars drop in the export
demand across the whole agricultural export sector. Number three sovereignty sold, Foreign regulators and trade deals decide what is safe for US. Number four environmental harm. Once the ge free image is lost, it'll be impossible to restore that image since the ge contamination is impossible to recall anyway. This is just a short and simple introduction to a possible harm that New
Zealand is facing. I didn't go further than agriculture, but other areas adversely impacted would be tourism, no doubt, because once New Zealand's clean and green image is tarnished, there will be negative consequences in tourism as well. You already had Guy Hatchett in your interviews, and I think he would be an excellent choice on the subject of the
gene technology bill. Also, Professor Jack Heinemann from the University of Canterbury, in his submission to the Health select Committee explains why the proposed bill is not up to scratch, and yes, perhaps you could have him on your podcast too. Oway en Z's commissioned n z Eier economic report that clearly highlights the economic risks to the country and our Ministry of Foreign Affairs MPAC agrees that it is rushed, poorly thought through and has very real negative trade implications.
I would like to express, Mario concludes. I would like to express my thanks to Linda Grammer from get free dot org dot NZ for vital information and links. Now, Mario, I didn't know who Jack Heineman was, so I ran a check and there's quite a bit of detail. So let me let me just touch on this because it will be included somewhere somewhere else. I suspect, let's cut
the crap on gene technology. Society should be asking itself why it needs to trade the security of its regulations for unsecured promises from the visions of genetic engineers, argues molecular biologists to Jack Heineman. The government has proposed to reset and to remove some regulations on making and releasing genetically modified organisms GMOs. Is it a new conversation based on a new risk equation or an ultimatum? Now, initially I had another two and a half or was a
three and a half page. It doesn't matter. It was getting very complicated, and it's the sort of thing you need to say in print in front of you unless you are a medical genius. Of course, see the print in front of you, and we able to go back on and reread it so that you can grasp it appropriately. But I can tell you where you can find it
if you want to want further. It is from the Spinoff was published on August twenty nine last year, August twenty nine, twenty twenty four, and it's by Jack Heinemann h EI n em A double N and it's entitled Let's cut the crap on gene technology. Now. It wasn't my intention to include anything major on climate matters in two seven to one. But on account of the fact that this has just arrived in my inbox as I was preparing to send it send it off for production,
let me let me adopt this for today. The atrocities in current government policies are nowhere more evident than in
the area of energy policy. The overarching policy atrocity is to be observed in any and all of the measures designed to reduce anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions to net zero, a bizarre concept when natural emissions, for instance from volcanoes and oceans disgorging absorbed carbon dioxide in a currently warming climate, greatly exceed anthropogenic emissions, and of course cannot be abated. The policy vehicle to achieve net zero is to replace
energy generated by fossil fuels with so called renewables. There is nothing, well, not much. There is nothing wrong with renewable energy in some applications solar cells, operating water pumps and the like in remote locations, for instance. But nobody hailing from local institutions and businesses that have the government's ear, nor the international associations to which they pander, seem to have told the government that electricity costs increase logarithmically with
increasing percentage of renewables in baseload supply. This is because large scale renewables incur massive costs avoided by controversial fossil fuel, nuclear, TiO energy sources, including but not limited to the cost of very large tracts of land. Now I shall put the rest of it aside, and we shall assume consumption of it, very likely next week. But there is one
more headline that I think deserves quoting. It also is from an Australian Publication, as was the previous outtake from The Australian yesterday from Judith Sloan, Government's pride in carbon tax is proof it's out of its depth. Government's pride in carbon tax is proof it's out of its depth. You don't suppose that's applicable that in this country? Also? Do you? It most certainly is and that will take
us out for podcasts two hundred and seventy one. If you would like to write to us then please do latent at NEWSTALKSB dot co dot nz or you can address Carolyn if you want, c O. L y n at NEWSTALKSB dot co dot nz. Love to hear your opinions for some reason, especially today and today's discussion. So we shall return within the week with podcasts number two hundred and seventy two. So there is only one thing left to say, thank you for listening, and we'll talk soon.
Thank you for more from Newstalks EDB. Listen live on air or online and keep our shows with you wherever you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio