To Post or Not to Post?

There's reality, which is loving awareness,

unconcerned by the arising and passing away of phenomena.

And then there are the 10, 000 things.

Hello and welcome to The 10, 000 Things. My name is Sam

Ellis. I'm Joe Loh. And I'm Ali Catramados.

Oh, I just, I was just having a, a sook, and, and I absolutely have been, or could be guilty of doing this as well, but just white middle class people posting stuff on social media like, you know, political things and, you know, and I, I want to preface this with, it's not coming, it's coming from a place of love usually, and it's, it's, it's wanting to do the right thing.

Yeah. So when you judge, you do it kindly.

Yeah, I try to, I try to. Like, I try not to be an arsehole, and I just, and I, like I said, most of the time it's really well meaning, sometimes it's a little bit misguided, but sometimes it's just, I also want to just say, yeah, shut the

fuck up. Okay, so without naming any of your friends or acquaintances, can we...

They all do it, everyone does it.

Would you believe I've said nothing about anything of consequence for quite a long

Yeah, I learnt that too. I mean, Facebook's kind of dead. It's stumbling on, I guess, but... Oh,

no, man, if you want to find out how cooked the boomers are about No hang around on Facebook. I was going

to say, yeah, like the comments on an ABC article. I

mean, that's true. I mean, that's true going to... Have a democracy with this huge bulge of boomers and then you just ignore Facebook because it's not cool and then you turn around and Yeah, things happen democratically that you don't quite understand.

Oh, no, no, no, the no vote was no surprise to me because I've been on boomer book this whole time keeping an eye on things. All

right, so Facebook is still somewhat relevant. Oh, hugely. Ali, you said I'm one of the few people that still posts on there. Yeah, you do. But I don't do... I think I, I think I said something about maybe Dan Andrews wasn't that bad. That's about my only political post of the last year. Oh, did you?

Yeah. But that's something like, I would say. Did you go out on a limb and say, yeah, Dan Andrews is not that bad. Bloody hell.

But I feel like people haven't been, like, I think maybe 10 years ago, a lot of people were saying, might've posted or made a post about that, whereas I feel like now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Barely a

most of us have learned to shut the fuck up on social media.

Is it, is it our age and our demographic or is it just that it's just no longer the place to have those discussions? Are we

all, are we all just over shouting into the void, is that what it is? I think there's

a lot of that. Or there's maybe even... So

who are these people that are still doing it? That's the, that's what I want to know. I just, I

think it's, like I said, it's well meaning people, like, and it's just like, you know, Hang on,

spill.

they're my age. Right. Yeah.

Okay. Fascinating stuff.

And they're just doing a bit of freelancing about some big political opinions. Yeah. And what you should think about them.

And I think, and this is perhaps my experience, and so for a little bit of background, I went to an all girls school, a private all girls school. Um, our voices were very important. It was also very, uh, you know, a very, um... Oh, we told you your voices were very important and, you know, it was a very, I'd say, homogenous kind of... That was a lie! Yeah!

I mean, it's a lie on more than one level. Yeah. Uh, I mean

mean yeah, but like, but that the, the illusion that somehow, yeah, what we have to say is really important.

Yeah. No, no. But they trained you to be articulate

as well. Yes. No, no. Look, of course, but also they probably, no, no. I don't wanna speak for you Ally, but was there, was there a diversity of opinion that needed to be safeguarded in, you know, or, or are we talking a fairly uniform?

It was a pretty uniform. Um, sort of opinion. Um, like it was a fairly conservative school, but I would say that the vast majority was sort of, I suppose, raised, it was very much ingrained in us to have like a sense of social justice. That was very much part of like the school, I would say curriculum. And so you've got a lot of, a lot of those Anglican. So a lot of those women then went off into the workforce and work.

feel like how many First Nations people in your Facebook group

Yeah, no, I'll take it. So

this is the fatal flaw in your plan. Is that if your white middle class friends stop posting, that just doesn't mean that suddenly your indigenous and Palestinian friends start posting. They don't exist. So all that happens is there's no content. Which is maybe not a bad thing, but that's kind of the

The thing is, I don't, I don't need, I don't look to friends for guidance on these sort of things, honestly. And like, I'm, and I don't need the spokesperson for oppressed minority to be someone I actually know, I verify or derive trust in other ways. And for example, the meta algorithm on Instagram knows exactly what I want right now. And I'm not spending a long time on there. But it is like, it's, it's, it's Orthodox Jewish person telling me the occupation needs to end.

knows where it out a bit. So there's only a few people posting on Facebook really, and they've annoyed you a little bit, but whatever. They're not really taking up a space that would be taken up by some mythical other person. But what about people sharing things? from decent sources about big world, cause I suppose that's where my ick kicks in a little bit. It's like people sharing stuff that's way beyond their pay grade of stuff they could ever really

understand. Are you on the same page, you two, with this rant that Ali went on with you?

I roll my eyes on Instagram, where I'm just there to post cute photos and see cute photos of cute people. Oh yeah. When there's some heavy duty political stuff posted there. Yeah. From someone who is, you know, if... I remember I had a, I had a girlfriend in 2020. And she was fucking smart, economist, like, really switched on person. But there was some trend that went around where it was like, Turkish women are being silenced, post a photo of yourself.

I'm not mad about any of this.

Yeah, but I was like, what's with the, I said to her, what's with the posting the hot photo for the Turkish women oppressed by Erdogan? And she's like, oh. It's just an excuse to post a hot photo. Hey, hey, come on. Like she was... Come on. I'm not saying she wasn't... She was smarter than me, you know. But like, but, but I had an ick around that where I'm like, really?

I have an ick about that. Or like, or

like people who went... Sam's, Sam's fine with it. I remember during the, the, the Black Lives Matters, like people all posted black tiles. Yeah.

Sure.

And I posted a photo of the sandwich I was eating that day because it was pissing me off, you know?

Okay.

Because it's like, I don't... I never should have gone on Facebook and ranted, and once I stopped drinking, I stopped doing that, and it was a good move for my life. And the other week when I posted something about Dan Andrews, it wasn't a long rant about how amazing he was, it was just like... Oh, maybe he wasn't that bad. And that was only a response to a few people like rejoicing him, him retiring. Right? It was a, it was a mild response.

Come on, you knew what you were getting into

and I thought I might start a fight and I did not. I was a fight on Facebook. I think it's those days are gone. Then Instagram, it's like, wow, is it really the place? I don't know. That's, you know, like, I feel like Twitter was, was that place if you, if you, and I was no good at Twitter, so I didn't get anywhere with it.

No, super confusing.

so that was the place for politics. Facebook is a place to, to know who's, who's birthdays, and what. How racist that guy went to grade four is now.

I've said this before, I love seeing my dad's content on there and, you know, like stuff like that. And I, like I said, it gave me an absolutely amazing insight into what the, I don't know, I guess over fifties and sixties thought about the referendum. And man, there were lots of passionate older people on both sides and for all sorts of reasons.

But in Ali's scheme of things, of what this topic of this podcast is about, is if he doesn't have personal experience of that shit, and that shit is being... Indigenous. Should he be posting? Under your regime, he would not be posting.

No, no, but what he has his personal experience of, you know, watching the Australian political system for a very, very, very long time and reading, just reading a ton of news and current affairs, like he's well rounded, none of, like he's in a position to repost an article. With a brief comment at the top,

what I would say

reposting, like sharing an article or sharing, like say an opinion piece of somebody. Yeah. Like say for the, you know, he's a First Nations person speaking to that.

He's not centering himself.

That's it. I think that's the thing is in that, like you said, like. Your ex girlfriend, like she's posting a photo of herself and making it about herself rather than, you know, people taking selfies in front of these, like, or making it about themselves. It's a bit of a Nicky Wynmar thing, you know, it's like, Hey, I'm Turkish. I'm beautiful. I'm brown. I'm here.

No. Well, she was not Turkish, but Yeah. Yeah. Like I, I think it should be, no, it wasn't just Turkish women. It was all women posted photo. It was just something that went around.

Oh, weird.

But those things go around a bit. Yeah, yeah. But she didn't care. Like she was totally self-aware that the only reason she was doing it was to get a hot photo up, up there. Oh. Yeah. Okay. She didn't have any cringe about.

So ali, this is like, this is like the, the apex of the thing you're talking about, like putting yourself in the middle of it and doing nothing useful.

Absolutely nothing constructive, useful, or, and I think, I think that's where I, I like, is this contributing to the discourse in a meaningful or helpful way? That's where What goes around isn't

guys. I just thought a hot photo of me might help everyone calm down. Let's all just take a moment and smell the roses. You know, appreciate, appreciate something beautiful.

That's how I felt about my one, my photo of a really nice sandwich during the, everyone else's black tiles.

It's the same

I don't know. Yeah, no, no, no. But, but yeah, maybe, so maybe Ali's regime is a bit harsh and maybe your dad posting well considered things is about stuff he does. What I would say is this though, stuff that I have lived experience of, It's the powerful stuff. So when I've posted about sobriety or mental illness, that's when I've got the most likes, the most engagement. That's when people contacted me and said, I really moved them.

me propose the... The grey area, like case by case problem that we're actually facing in this conversation because I would love to just adopt a shorthand like middle class white women be quiet and then, and then obviously include myself in that basically,

but it's just, it's not just women. I should, I should preface it. It's just like middle class white people just need

to be quiet. I think. Yeah. And there's probably a lot of truth in that. And especially if.

And like the, you know, the silent majority

is like No, they're looking to the herd. Well, they may not be aware, for example, you know, this happened in a staff meeting and I don't want to trigger anyone, like, it's not the kind of thing I expected to hear, but basically I heard some like, very libelous rhetoric about trans people, like, in a staff meeting. And so like, this is a context.

So let me ask you this. So I'm not Sorry, Ali, I'm yeah, no, I

was just going to say like with the, but having that, like having conversations as they happen, having those discussions, white people talking amongst themselves, that absolutely, I'm not, I was just talking more, I suppose, in the public forum, but I think absolutely appropriate, you know, in that, you know, situation. Yeah. And

of course it is a public forum, but it's like a very small public forum. And like, for me, I'd make that as like, that's a clearly in. Okay, so that's not a lineball, right? So the lineball's somewhere between that and like... Okay, let me tell you what's in my mind. The thing that I imagine sometimes is... There's someone undecided out there, and just the right two sentences could come their way.

That's an illusion. And could... How many minds do you think have ever been changed, or have been changed by social media in the last ten years? Well, I've got... Maybe at the start, when people were listening, but people...

I've got

many examples from My online contribution to the yes campaign was taking a photo of my dear old mum, handing out how to votes for the yes campaign, and posting, here's my mum, the lefty ratbag, handing out how to votes for the yes campaign. That was my one statement on the yes campaign. But I do not, do not ever think that I will change a single person's mind on social media. Yeah, okay. Well, I think that you don't actually that's a dry gully and I think I

think overall you might be right, but there are marginal cases but also I don't know I want to disagree with you your model about human decision making is incomplete and that for people forget all the times they've changed their minds like and I've said this before on the pod There's a whole science to this. Basically, we heal over the scars and, like, maintain this illusion that we've been the same person the whole time. Which is, like, a bad concept to carry around for lots of reasons.

and different. Yeah, I mean I'm, I'm wider, I'm too susceptible. I, I'll basically take on whole, like I've spoken about it before, I'll read one blogger for a month and then I'll just have all their opinions. Yeah, I'm wide open. I'm completely open. yeah. You know, I'm a completely open field for other people's opinions and I, the one thing I've learned is to watch out for that. Yeah. and I can't switch it off.

or boy or whatever? Yeah, or just mostly getting ignored. I would say. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And look, I think if a lot of it gets treated with the contempt it deserves, and I'm including my own comments here a lot of the time, and you know, just it, something being ignored is way more hurtful than getting a pile on even like, you know, and it does send the message eventually. but you know, there were times, yeah, look, I'm not going to claim to have an enormous track record of like rescuing drowning puppies here or anything, but I do think.

show. Have you ever posted about your own struggles with, say ADHD on Facebook? No. No, no, no. Have you ever seen what impact you could have by revealing some vulnerability rather than

being an expert on things? No, no, no. I've been vulnerable in a different way. And actually, now that you mention it, the one thing I could mention as a listener of the show, Craig, there's one thing I wanted to mention. I didn't really change his mind about a particular issue. It was more just like a shift in perspective. That he was ready for anyway, and then I say something and it like, it just, it forms a small piece of like a change in the heart that was taking place anyway.

but that's how much, how much, yeah. What you're going to say is going to, it's like, yeah, I would use the argument of like, you know, talking to. So you're trying to convince my conservative boomer parents of something it is like against a brick wall right like it is it's like there's there's gonna be so people just dug in with their opinions that you just no matter what you say it's not going to they're not gonna change have a change of heart or a change of mind

I wouldn't no there's no nuance either and that's what Like a format like this is much better to us because we talk a lot of shit, but like, yeah, to listen to someone in depth for an hour and a half. I know you're a big fan of that. That's, that's, that's the experiences I've had. If I've, if I've spent an hour really listening to someone, that's, that's changed things for me. Um, What I would say is that maybe Ali's gone a little bit hard.

There's better use of your time, is what I feel, but like, like you, Joe, like I similarly, the very few times I've ever spoken about anything, I suppose, mental health related on social media, and it's not often, like I don't put a lot out there, but the few times, that's when I've had the most meaningful, I suppose, feedback or people message me then directly about stuff, and I think, yeah, because it's coming from a place of experience, like, and I think those things.

then there's the other cringe and people find it cringe if people share about mental health on Facebook, you know, and, but it just depends. Like if the share on mental health on Facebook is. When the people don't do it anymore, but they did 10 years ago, oh, having a down day today. Oh, you see, and I

didn't, that wasn't so, yeah, no, no, I see, it wasn't stuff like that, but like, I might, but like, yeah.

It's gotta be, like, a bit of a story, it's gotta be a bit of a narrative. Yeah, there's gotta be

something to it, like, I did something at New Year's last year, like, I just sort of was... You know, like a little personal wrap up of what was quite an unhinged year for me personally and like a lot of people reached out and messaged me about that and I just wanted to say thank you to some people that, you know, that's one of the very few times I've ever posted on Facebook in recent memory. Yeah,

and I think you're someone that people would say, it's like all the people that write into us constantly. to tell us to stop interrupting you and we have meetings about it and we try and do it and whatever but you're just so much more polite than me and Sam that it's quite hard. I think that you're someone that people think you have a good perspective on things. Yeah, agreed. I mean, listeners to the show have written in and said the same thing, so people want to hear more from you, you know.

Yeah, okay, I think, look, I think I guess it's useful to say... If it's all getting filtered through, like if your statement is really just kind of just a pale echo of whatever the narrative is in the mainstream media on that particular day, or even just, no, no, sorry, I'm going to introduce a fancy term, whatever the dominant narratives are in the information space at that time, don't talk about media. It's an information space. Okay, that's a thing I learned on

the weekend. I've been talking about the information environment, but only for the last week or two. Someone, someone did ask my opinion on the... on the referendum. And I said, I think it has a lot to say about our information environment. Yeah. Big time. That's what I think. Yep. I think it's a referendum on that. Because so confused. Yep. Big time. Uh, I think it was like, how's your information environment? Oh, it's poor. It's

cooked.

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, which is no joke, but if you didn't laugh, you know. Uh,

yeah. No, it is, it is funny to me because. I've been living with this knowledge for a really, really long time. But you know what

happened at the last federal election was... Somehow dropped into the information environment was Skomo is a dickhead, and then that just spread like wildfire and that was it because

clearly it was helicoptered in by

headquarters, not a progressive country looking to do progressive things for some reason people just decided to vote against Morrison all of a sudden, right? If you look at the referendum, we're not a progressive

country. No, no, no, no. See, that's not... So what

happened in the same intervention environment, you elected a Labor government, but how? That's what the referendum got me wondering.

Well, you're averaging a bunch of stuff here and then concluding that everything's in the middle. That's not how it works. Like, there are plenty of extreme positions in this country, progressive, anti, like, reactionary, and then there's a real rainbow spectrum in between. So it's not that there's no appetite for progressive action in this country, but it is It's inchoate. The energies aren't being directed in any particular direction. So that's the main issue that I see. What

does inchoate

mean? Oh, it hasn't started to, it's not lumping. It's like incoherent. Yeah, inchoate. It's not lumping together. Right. It's incoherent and inchoate.

goes there. How else can you go from Obama to Trump, right? Yeah. Yeah. No. And, and, but the funny thing is in your herd or in, like in mine in Footscray or in yours here in Thornberry and yours in Preston, we're talking like 90 percent of people voting yes. Right. If you look at the polling booths. Yeah. Yeah. So we're in this, but, but see, I know that I'm in the bubble. Yeah. So, and I have kicked against it somewhat by becoming a bit more centrist.

Really differentiate yourself. You have alt right, Joe.

Well, yeah, I mean, I've flirted with the alt right. Yeah, you have. Like, at times, It's

there to be

flirted with. That's what it's for. And the herd thing. It's like, oh

man. You just want to be a rebel. It's just like, it's just rebelling against

like... No, but it's contrarian. I know a few people who are just contrarians on everything. It's,

it's... If they detect a majority emerging, they go

the other way. Northgate and voted no, did it purely to be a contrarian. Sure. Or possibly. Like they found some marginal position that they could then secretly go and... And

you know what? And quite a few people voted no because they thought that a lot of other people were going to. And they want to back the winning side and they're not really that invested. And that's why News Corp ran so hard. on Aussies don't want this,

yeah. My uninformed take is it became very much upper middle class, inner city liberals. A, a issue. It looked like that to me. Yeah. From somewhat outside of that class. I wasn was strongly invested in it class. Yeah. I wasn't. And you know, I remember we were at a party a couple of weeks out and I'm one of these treaty s we were joking about Yeah. We were joking about someone having a a Yes. Sign out the front because they're middle class.

That's not a majority. This is what I'm saying, this herd thing. It affects freethinkers like you and me, just as much as it affects the masses. This is what I'm saying. I felt that same shame about putting up a yes sign. I'm like, this is not where the herd's at. It was

a political

disaster. And I knew it was. I saw it coming from, I don't mean to sound like such a smart ass, but the whole thing did not. Like I remember when I first heard about the Statement from the Heart and the Uluru thing, and I'm like, yeah, they're gearing up for a thing here. And I just saw this three years ahead of time and going, this is not where to put the energy. This has, this has

Coming back to the topic, all of us, and I think we need to hear from Ali. Yeah. God knows our listeners want to hear more from Ali. Yeah. Coming back to the topic, all of us basically played dead on the referendum, right? 100%. We certainly didn't do a show about it, uh, we didn't post about it, I've posted one photo of it. No, no, no, we endorsed

it quietly. Quietly.

Four or five weeks ahead. yeah, of course, we should do something.

Yeah, we're all voting, we just confirmed we're all voting yes. That's it. That's it. But

we didn't get excited about it, we weren't posting about it. Did you see? I saw

a lot

of people posting about it. I saw a lot of people online getting very excited about it. Yeah, for sure.

I

was actually surprised. All those same people now want me to sign a petition to somehow stop a war in the Middle East from Melbourne. And I'm like, what the fuck? I thought you were in mourning from the fucking referendum. No. When do you get to this? Come on, we can. Do

you ever get a day off? No, you can't. We can chew gum and walk at the same time. No,

but just can't you work out that you're completely fucking like impotent?

Well, no, that's where we don't agree, Joe. See,

you think just, you know.

So you think people power is non-existent. You're basically, you're not persuaded that there's any such thing as social movements because you haven't seen one for a while. But you've forgotten what you and your kind did at Jabba Luka. You've forgotten. Yeah.

Or on the docks with the MUA. I was at, I've been at a lot of frontline protests. That, that was before

social media. Now stopping, yeah, stopping a war, that's a whole nother story, but nonetheless.

I was going to say like an interesting one that happened, I suppose, in the time of social media that was a social change was like marriage equality that we did see. Yeah. That was just a home

run.

Yeah. Yeah. But, but like, I think that. As far as seeing like a social movement on social media in a positive

way. Yeah, the groundwork was laid for that 15 years earlier. A lot of careful work was done over a very long

period. Yeah. So I think like, it's one thing, yeah, to be like just sharing things. Yeah, that you've seen. Versus like, like the actual groundwork or like, as you would say, quiet supporting, which is like stuff you do behind the scenes or stuff you do, discussions you're having with people directly or organisations you choose to support, you know, that sort of thing.

So, I mean, but what I'm saying is it's the same people that, you know, the people who are going to post about the latest issue and you roll your fucking

eyes. Well, yeah, I mean, I do too sometimes, but then I'm like, look, man, I'm glad someone is out there. Doing something like on this, at least, even if it's just to like, cause look, don't forget the consensus on not talking about the actual politics on the ground, the facts on the ground over there. But I will say this, we need to keep in mind how much the consensus has shifted and like people, this is what I'm saying, about talking about.

very quickly I might add, it's very like

I want this to be a show that people can listen to in a year's time. So I'm wary of talking about things that It bears on the matter at hand. I'm about it was decided. I didn't want to talk about it before it was decided because it won't

age very well. None of us had to discuss that.

We all knew. And

I about the discourse. I'm talking about how people feel they need to say something. And I'm not going to shit on that.

their stuff. Oh yeah, and it's the, it's the pet issue, Palestinian causes, the pet issue of leftists of the last 20 years. Well, it has been since the second intifada, yes. So I know who the ones who are going to pipe up on it. And to, to, to be fair, if they're there at the rally on Sunday in Melbourne, full respect. And if you're posting yourself a photo of yourself at a fucking rally, I actually respect that. No, I

was going to say that's fine. It's not that it takes

guts. I don't know. No, I think it does. But I think that it shows that you've, you're willing to get off your ass and off your phone and actually go and be somewhere. And I've been to climate rallies and I'll go to more climate rallies. Yeah. so I kind of respect that more. Look, I do find it interesting who pops up and he, oh, someone who's 10, 20 years younger than me popping up with a Palestinian flag and I, I just note that and think, oh, that's interesting.

there's been a, yeah, a grounds, a ground shift.

Within like a matter of

a week. Yeah. It's been huge. But, but I strongly, strongly feel. That no one needs my fucking opinion. No,

but

that's where you're wrong. I don't know how much further from my lived

experience. They don't need a detailed, they don't need, they I don't think they need, I don't think they need...

No one's asking us to vote on this.

They don't need you sounding like an expert.

Yeah, no, they don't need your opinion, but they, but I don't think there's any harm in sharing other people's stories. I wrote to Ali.

That's right.

Ali started posting about Gaza and I wrote... Centering voices. Yes. Yeah. Ali started posting about Gaza on

Joe. And...

I'm disappointed. Well, she's a middle class, she's actually working class, she just thinks

she's middle Okay, Joe. Guess, guess who, guess who spoke up against horrors all through the 20th century? Often, it was white middle class people. And guess who marched besides the people at Selma? The Jewish

Antith So Ali, was it really you want to get embroiled in this particular ancient fucking word? No, it's not,

not an ancient

converse. No, no, no, let's not get sidetracked. Okay. But Ali?

I, what it was is seeing, and I, and I, again, being really careful not to share any of My, cause I have no, absolutely no personal, you know, experience of that. Yeah. but sharing things that I felt really just questioned my sense of humanity, really horrific things that I feel like we need to all be aware of this.

doing the exact thing that this topic of this show came from you telling people not to do. I'm a hypocrite.

no, okay, but let's do the checklist. Were you centering yourself?

No, I was absolutely, yeah, no, it was absolutely not. I shared our Jazira footage. Yeah, that's it. That was it, like I felt, you know, that

it's... Yeah. At some point, because it's not just the information itself, or, you know, the images itself or whatever that you're resharing, what you're, the metadata. is important and the metadata is, I find this to be of significance and I'm, I think this is, I'm going to turn my head towards this and you're inviting others to turn their heads towards it. Don't underestimate the power of that and yes, white middle class women actually have done a hell of a lot of good.

I'm, I'm, I'm, like I feel like. Like the overall, who knows, but the topic came across as like very judgy and bitchy, which I really, I'm a hundred percent there for it. I want to have it both ways, but I feel like, yeah, there is nuance

I mean, this is a case where I think you should practice what you preach and shut the fuck up.

You might, look, you might tempt me, you might tempt me to like, raise an eyebrow if you went, uh, uh, I don't know, Hey everyone, do you like my, uh, Palestine flag cupcakes or something? I don't know. I'd be like, I'd be tempted. No, I'd be like, nah, you know what, it's, it's something. That's what I'd say. Look, I just got an email today. From a member of my, you know, my sub branch of the union, asking us if we're going to pass a motion or not.

A motion on what?

Basically taking a position. They're asking to take a formal

position. Does anyone realise where we live? Do you realise how irrelevant we are?

We have family and friends over there.

It matters. It does matter. Anywhere less relevant than

where we live. No,

but like, like, I'm talking to my friend in Lebanon, like every other day, checking in on him and that's how I, I mean, and I'm asking him and he should be posting and that's fine. And he is.

Yeah. Like, and you could post about your friend in Lebanon. I think that's fine. But I just think. Generally posting about the Middle East, it's just like, fuck, it's exactly what you're talking about and I agree with you and now we've turned it complete 180 and it's like oh well no, actually I definitely should be posting about Gaza and it's like,

no. I don't think, look, it's not like But it's not like you went out and staked out like a particularly hot territory. You just kind of like go here. But yeah, it

wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't a position. It wasn't a side. It wasn't, it wasn't.

You said, we, we can't take, we can't feel bad about what one group of children dying and not feel bad about the other group.

I think that's a pretty good statement. I'm fine with that.

But it's taking a

position. No, but like, no, it really wasn't.

No, it's

taking humanity's position. Yeah, the footage I shared was just simply sharing something that is going on over there at the moment. And I felt that that was worthy of, of people seeing.

Yeah. But I, I go, you're not imagining it, Ali, that you feel this way, but we're not imagining

your Insta stories. I expect to see. Some stupid meme about being a Sagittarius, and instead I'm creating some gruesome image of a hospital, and it's like, whoa, it's just like, I just don't think Instagram is that place, like, it's either one or the other, it's a

category error.

Nah, man. It's just like, it's either trash or it's not trash. And Instagram is pure trash. Nah, I see. I disagree. And you can't then put serious heavy duty shit. Man,

everyone said Twitter was just for, like, for irrelevancies and like, uh... And look how bad that's ended up. No, no, Hold on. Hold on. Everyone's forgetting how crucial that was in a number of... Well, like the Arab

Spring. Yeah, the Arab Spring didn't fucking work out anyway. No, agreed, but... It was exciting at the time. But

the platform had an impact on events. Yeah. That's all I'm saying. But there, but, but,

but what I'm saying is I don't think there is a platform at the moment. Good one. No,

I disagree. Meta good one. I hate, I hate to give everyone the bad news, but meta is kind of kicking ass at the moment. Unfortunately. I, I,

I don't see it. I don't, I don't see anywhere where I would go to see my,

I'm not saying they're do, I'm not saying they're doing good work, but they're winning the information

space. I don't, yeah. See I, 'cause I don't wanna be on Twitter. It's horrible. I want trash on Instagram. Yeah, Facebook is a fucking dumpster fire. Of course, at best that's when something's happening. But nine, nine time

dad's sunset

photos are on there. Well, 99% of the time nothing's happening on Facebook. That's what I see. Sure. I get my Cricket Club updates and that's it. No, I was hearing from Nazis in New, I tried to be on Threads. I tried, I thought, I thought I'll try threads 'cause it's a new platform and whatever. Sure. And I've already got an Instagram account.

ladies telling me about books and like, Oh, I wrote this poem. Anyway, my

experience is. Mine's all just like people with poor mental health sharing their poor Oh, I get a lot of that. That's all my social media. Can you not

see what I'm saying? That Ali's like consistently... Light hearted. This is what music I'm listening to. Here's a meme about being bipolar. You're telling it to go back to cats.

Just stay

on brand. Well, get on threads and share your fucking Gaza stuff or get a Twitter account or go somewhere else where people want news at that moment. Maybe I've just been reading the news for four hours. Instagram is the white middle

class woman's domain. That's where she speaks. Alright, let's

finish up. But in the end, the conclusion of people should only post shit they have heard.

Ali doesn't do it. She has personal experience of being horrified by images she saw. Right,

so suddenly we've broadened it out to just post whatever you want on any platform. No, no, no, no, no, no. One minute it's a Sagittarius joke, one minute it's a cat photo. Oh look, there's someone's guts ripped out.

Welcome to post modern, post modernity. All of this was described in 1985 by Frederick Jamison. It's

all flattened. Welcome to the present. It all has a similar

impact. Oh my God, you read these essays in like 1995. All of this has been described and said and done. It's just reality. It's what we live in. You don't

really do it. Ali's out there doing it. She's, she's the problem. I am the problem.

Have you seen my reshares? It's all kinds of, it's all over the shelf.

Sam likes a political reshare. I've seen you share some.

But I'll also reshare like, he's a funny guy and

I'll share anything that takes your interest. And I think that's the thing, like our social media is a reflection of us as complex. People who are, and unless you're trying to curate a certain experience of like very certain, like it's always going to be a bit of everything.

I'm always touched by Sam's post because I know that someone is watching Greens speeches in parliament and posting them. Oh, there's a Greens Senator making a speech and Sam's posted that up and good for Sam. I'm sure him and that guy with the hyphen in his name will get together one day and have a chamomile tea. Oh,

I love it. I love it. Do you know what? I love how much hate Max Chandler Mather attracts, because it tells me I'm onto something. This guy's a star, I'm telling you. Anyway, I think we should wrap it up. He upsets you. I don't know where that went. No, no, I think it was fun. And it went serious for a bit there too. Sorry everyone. Well, we

pretty much stayed out of Gaza. Yeah, we did. We certainly didn't invade. God knows we don't want to do a three hour

episode on that. No, no, no, no, no. It's beyond our expertise. I'll agree with that. I don't think it's beyond anyone's expertise, though, to say... Gee guys, I'm a bit upset by what I'm seeing, I'm, you know, I'm worried that there's an awful lot of human suffering taking place, um, on all sides, I'm very concerned that it might become a larger problem, I'm very concerned that there might be some cynical people that are to some degree behind this or...

that's kind of, yeah, that's not what Ali's like, see this, feel horrible. Well, like you watch this, you feel horrible. It's not like, Oh, I'm watching this and I'm worried about the world. It's like, here's something horrific. I'm just going to shove this in your face. Even though you were looking for a cat video, ah, sucked in. That's my experience of interacting with her on Instagram. Okay. I

love that.

Like, no, I

just,

I don't know. It's a marvelous narrative. I just felt like it was, yeah, it was horrific. It really genuinely was horrific. And I felt like. Yeah, we need to be talking about this, or we need to be aware of

it. While you're raising awareness, you need a hashtag for that, Ali. White people do love to raise awareness. Gotta raise that awareness. Look, we should have a day for Ali, Ali Day, where we raise awareness of whatever's on Ali's mind that day. Oh

man, I've done some awareness raising myself. We're all guilty

here. You work There's a lot of days.

Why work in public service? There's a lot of days.

Wear, wear purple. Wear fun. Don't even

get me started. Oh, hey. Teacher's Day was the other day. I gave that the big wide berth. favourite.

You can

get mental health.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Guys,

guys, guys. We're fading. We're still recording here. I

boycott Teacher's Day. I told, I told my students to take no interest in it and they all obeyed

me. I don't think people are taking much more interest in this episode, so we should shut it down. No, no.

Yeah. No, I agree. I just want to add one more thing. I think there is something hopeful to take out of it, which is that there's a desire in Ali to... To encourage thoughtful and useful communication and maybe creating a note, a little note to self in amongst the observation about the peers. And I'm going to have a bet each way, genuinely, I do agree with you. There's a whole lot of, look at me, look how right I am.

We're all hypocrites to a certain extent. Alright, see ya. See ya.