None. I have a very good friend who emigrated to the UK few years ago and he sent me some videos. Yesterday he went to the beach. Looks like you have great weather at the moment. The weather has been very, very pleasant. Yes, there are lots of people who have suddenly decided that anything approaching 30°C means death, but for the rest of us it's it's really pleasant. I'm surprised about your beaches. They are Seriously neat if if if that video is anything to go by.
Very clean. That's only on the surface. Once you get into the water and you watch the stuff floating by then, then that's that's another thing. No, our our water companies are appalling at the moment for just dumping raw sewage into places where people swim. There's a problem everywhere though, isn't it? Well, I don't know that it is quite to the same degree. I mean, I don't know, I don't know.
But but in this country we have a really special arrangement with, with these big corporates where we basically said we're going to privatize water or we're going to privatize electricity. And in fact, what all we did was privatize the retail side of things.
So, so or, or at least in, in the water, in the case of water, we just permitted them to, to extract profit and and dividends for shareholders and we did not in any way require them to actually invest in infrastructure in the meantime. And sorry to mention it again, but of course it is such a big issue because we have increased our population by so many extra millions in the last number of years, but we haven't provided any additional infrastructure to cope with that either.
Then things are creaking at the seams. And so, you know, instead of treating the treating the sewage properly, it just gets dumped in the sea and in the rivers. You mentioned private privatization. That's an interesting segue because I've been chatting about that with some people the last few days and they argued that sometimes state ownership of various services is superior. It depends. And I think the idea that privatisation is what you imagine it might be is
completely wrong. So for example, with water, it doesn't create an open marketplace. So if you live in the southwest of England, you have to use Southwest Water. I mean it stands to reason, but I think a lot of people don't necessarily consider it in those terms. So with water, which is what we are talking about, the privatising doesn't actually change anything for the consumer in terms of what they get. The price, well exactly accept the price.
So that so in every regard or at least the two important ones, which is first of all what are you getting and secondly, what are you paying for it. The state still sometimes actually controls, but certainly on price they have the ability to introduce caps or taxes or tariffs. So therefore what you're paying for can in large part still be dictated by the state and you don't have any choice in terms
of products. So one big topic at the moment in the UK and what should be a big topic anywhere else in the world is the introduction of fluoride into the water, which has been covered on a number of interviews by UK column.
And even if you think there's benefit to consuming fluoride, which even if you know it's a byproduct of an ammonium smelting process, nonetheless, if you think it's a good idea, you do still have to acknowledge that it is a a medicine and therefore that turns water into a medicated product. And of course that's with anything medical medicinal. Rather, it has to be done on a dosed basis, which isn't or
can't be done. If I drink more water than Mike, I will end up having more fluoride and that may or may not be appropriate. Isn't really is what I should say. So there are lots of issues with it in that actually handing over what they're describing as privatisation is a completeness neighbor. And so, so nobody wins except for the people that run the companies and receive dividends from them. It's, I think it's, it's been a disaster, which was fairly obviously going to happen anyway.
And I'm struggling to think of an example where that in some way isn't actually the case. It's the same with the the railways to a certain extent in that you don't really have a choice, I don't think between different companies to pursue the same route. It's the same. So if you live in a particular place, you, you have to get the water off those people. So yeah, but bit of a joke, but
I'm glad you raised beaches. So just to just to jump back for little bit the beaches, I, I'm biased because I know, I know how much you like to a wax lyrical about South African beaches with which I totally agree. But there are lots of very, very beautiful beaches in particularly the Wilder parts of the United Kingdom. And luckily many of them are still very under visited.
But what I would say about those beaches that are visited is that they tell quite a tale about the way in which people behave. And it's not uncommon to go to a large beach and find that 95% or more of the people there are all crammed into one tiny bit of it. And that's, I would say, indicative of the way in which people do do stuff. And, and I can think of a particular beach in South Wales that I go to on occasion and
it's totally fascinating. The beach itself is actually over a mile long and the eastern end of it is always jam packed with people. If there are people there, if the conditions are are nice enough. And then there's a massive expanse of sand and there's never anyone there. And and part of the reason for that is that the jam packed bit is close to the car park, but also there's a sort of de shallow river to cross and people don't want to do it. But hold on, they're about to go
in the sea. Exactly. Or not. Or just be on the beach but not get in the sea, just get the sunburn. I think we're bad at recognising what's around us. And often, you know, this has come up before. Often it does take going away to a different place that does have a different culture, landscape and all the rest of it to appreciate what you have at home. And I think one of the things about the UK, just before we started this call, you were talking about going hunting.
Obviously, I'm not exactly sure the setup of that area, but by and large, one of the comparisons with Africa, let's say, is that if you want to go and visit a beautiful wild place where you're going to see amazing scenery and wildlife mostly, you'll have to pay for it. And it's all regulated. You go through gates, you stay in official authorized places, and this, that and the other. OK, the UK doesn't have the wildlife element in the same
way. Nothing's going to jump out of the Bush and kill you probably, but you can go where you want. You don't have to tell anyone and it's all free. And I think a lot of people don't appreciate that.
And OK, the the spaces aren't as big, but there are large parts of Wales, north of England, southwest, even where we are, Dartmoor, Exmoor and the Highlands, there are huge tracts of land which we have at the moment pretty much unfettered access to and I think people don't really appreciate that. So sorry that I've drifted a little bit from privatisation.
Well, what, what, what look, let me just say something here because because part of the reason that people don't appreciate it is because it's so difficult to get out of cities. And, and this comes back to infrastructure again. So you know that the, the, the roads are usually jam packed. So unless you're leaving at 3:00 in the morning, it can be tricky to get out. So it does take a bit of effort
to go to, to these places. I think it's worth the effort, but but that's probably one of the things that puts people the same way that they don't move more than 100 yards from the car park when they get to the beach. But getting back on the infrastructure thing again and the question of privatization or nationalization, the, the, the main issue with, with basic economic infrastructure is things like railways, roads, water, power, these kinds of things is you can't have
competition. You can't have a private sector in these areas because you can't have pipes belonging to every possible player in the, in the retail market running under the street to provide you with your gas or your, or your water supply. So, so you've got a, a basic infrastructure there which can't really be privatized in the, in the genuine sense. It could be handed over to a private company for them to operate it in the same way that a state owned business would operate it.
And it's just as inefficient, but it's even more expensive because they're trying to profiteer from it. But the point here is nobody is then left with the infrastructure, with the responsibility for maintaining the underlying infrastructure. And so what's happened with every major, uh, system of infrastructure that the UK has privatized is that they have allowed the infrastructure to degrade, not being properly maintained, or at least doing them the absolute minimum to maintain it.
They, they might fix the odd leak, but if we look at the water companies, for example, you know, the amount of water that's lost every year to lakes that they just don't know where they are because they don't know where the pipes go is just unbelievable. So, so this is, this is the problem that we're left with. We've had the profiteering from the private companies. No one has maintained the
infrastructure. And at some point a decision is going to have to be made about who's going to take responsibility for repairing or renewing or whatever the the current infrastructure. And that's going to fall on the taxpayer. And that's when people are really going to appreciate that that was a pretty bad deal.
So, you know, I, I'm not a fan of nationalized industry as a rule, but I believe that the basic economic infrastructure like that should be a function of the state and the state should be held to account for its the the fact that whether it operates or not. So, so anyway, that's just that's just a a thought. But to add to what you're saying, Mike, is the the typically capitalist or free market argument that well the state simply doesn't do it as
well? Yeah, I mean, the, the, the, the, the fact that Britain's infrastructure is in state of such a state of collapse is, is a perfect demonstration of how privatization doesn't work in that context. And that doesn't mean that that by default nationalization works either. You've got to, it's got to be, there's got to be some kind of understanding about how it's going to work, where the responsibility lies.
And the people that are running any business, whether it's private or national, have a responsibility to somebody. In the case of a private company, it's to the shareholders normally. And of course that means to maximizing profit. And the only, in fact the only interest that the shareholders have is in maximization of profit. There should be an accountability for a nationalized business as well.
And certainly there should be a requirement that if, if a manager or whatever the CEO or whatever fails to fulfill their obligations, that that that they're, you know, they are fired effectively or there's some kind of economic sanction. And of course that one of the problems of, of nationalized industries in the past has been that because it's effectively seen as some kind of civil service role and nobody ever gets fired from the civil service.
They've, they just get promoted out of the job that then of course that doesn't work either. So, so there's got to be, you know, in principle, I think the state needs to be in control of this type of infrastructure, but there's got to be a proper framework for that so that so there's proper accountability. And that's something that's never happened in this country at least. Technically, though, the state doesn't actually produce anything it outsources.
Yeah. Well, now it does in the in the past it is, it has, I mean, businesses have been state owned. So so effectively the state is the shareholder. You could look at it from that point of view and perhaps if there was shareholder value for the taxpayer, then then maybe that's that. That might be a good model. That is it's run like a private company, but any profit goes to the to the taxpayer.
I don't know, you know, I don't have, I don't have an answer that's guaranteed to work here, but that's what I what was, what's absolutely clear is that the current model is insane because we are going to be left with a, a bill for a replacement of infrastructure that we simply can't ever pay. I think you're talking about the point that Jason Kristoff was making earlier in the week about a friend of his who built roads in Canada. And I totally agree.
And I think if one winds the clock back, then you look at a situation in which roads or railways were built by people who had to maintain because that was their business. And unfortunately, we've moved into a situation where either the infrastructure has been built by an organization or an entity that doesn't have control of it anymore because the state
has taken it over. And that's created either an uneasy relationship with whoever provides the service on it, which is exactly what Mike's describing, or, and this was Jason's point, the state is paying somebody else to to do that. And therein lies, well, I mean a number of problems, but I think the most obvious one being that that organization, having been contracted to do it, doesn't actually have any interest in what happens next.
So, and as an example of that, it's a small scale example, but I live in a rural environment and the government's been banging on about rural broadband for ages. Then something was done and where we are, a fibre network, whatever you call it, was was dug into the ground. In some places it was done relatively well and others it was chaotic. Anyway, the point is that that was said to be a project that was owned by the County Council.
And therefore if used as sort of microcosm of the state, then we think OK, yeah, it's a state project. But of course it wasn't. It was done by a third party commercial enterprise and then they folded and no records of what they did, what they put where the infrastructure survive absolutely outstanding. And that happened immediately the project reached its, well, I think in fact may not have quite
concluded. So everything that's been done so far, IE something I did eventually, reluctantly sign up to, if there's any drama with it, no one knows. No one has any idea what was done, how it was done. So yeah, too far another. Great example of this. You mentioned France. France is another great example of this actually, because French motorways are generally toll roads, mostly toll roads. And so the French government commissioned companies, private companies to build these roads.
They're absolutely brilliant roads. They're relatively traffic free compared to the to UK motorways, for example. So it's, it's quite easy to move over long distances in France. But the original deal was you build the road and you can put your toll booths on it for 20 years. Well, the 20 year period came up about 3-4 five years ago, can't remember exactly when. And they, they just the, the government then just entered into a new 20 year deal with the companies and they just shafted
the taxpayer. You know, the agreement was 20 years with tolls and then it was owned by the state. Now you could argue that that's fair enough because those roads are well maintained and, and so on. But nonetheless, you know, at the same time, there's still you, you enter into an agreement with somebody and, and it's supposed to be for a fixed term and that's it. And then suddenly the rules get changed so that there, there are, there are things to consider here.
And, and I'm not sure that there was any, ever any proper consultation. It was just done. If there perhaps would have been a consultation with the, with the, the road user and the taxpayer, then, then it might have been a different situation. But that was a pretty unpopular move at the time. There's. A bridge that goes between mainland China and Hong Kong. I forget the name of it now. It's very long. I think it's like 20 kilometers or something. It is a magnificent piece of architecture.
It was not done by a private company, it was done by the state. Will it become a white elephant in 20 or 30 years time? Well, I suppose that. Depends on the economic impact that it has. If it if it's if that's allowing economic activity to happen, which is generating tax dollars, then then it's not a white, it can never be a white elephant. It's only if it's if it's a vanity project that never had any real economic value in the 1st place that it would end up that way.
No, but I think. A lot of Chinese stuff is vanity. I don't, I'm not sure that that's necessarily fair. I think some, some I'm certainly when I look at at wind turbines and the, I think perhaps you could argue that because they are selling those products to, to other countries. But I mean, you look at some of the really big infrastructure projects like 7 Gorges Dam or whatever. Is that what it's called 33 Gorges Dam? I mean, I mean, not that has
that has changed people's lives. So, so it's not just a vanity project. I think, I think they and high speed rail is certainly not a vanity project. For example, even the Maglev well that certainly was a research project and, and, but it's it's still working, although they haven't developed built anymore, it's still functioning and it's still operational and so on. So, so I'm not sure that I'm not sure that much of it is is could be just called a vanity project just.
To be specific, I think don't you mean the bridge to Singapore? No Hong. Kong. Because Hong Kong is connected to mainland Jonas by land. You mean the one that goes? Under the sea a bit. There's also that one, but there's one that goes over the over the sea.
Right. OK. No, no, I was, I was only wondering about the Singapore one, which sorry, this is red herring and sidetracked, but there are two ferries a day, 2 hydrofiles a day, which which make that route very busy and therefore that that bridge has been completely justified. But sorry, I thought you're saying that one because that you could say that there was a bit of vanity in that, in that it does.
You may have seen it online, but it it goes under the sea or exception in order to allow bigger ships to pass effectively over the top of it where there wouldn't be room to go underneath the COVID. ERA should have very, very blatantly shown us that the dichotomy between state ownership and private ownership is a false one. It's a fake binary, because technocracy is really not about either one of those. It is this merger which which Ian Davis refers to as stakeholder capitalism.
Yeah, I mean. This is the, the global public private partnership where you've seen the, the rollout of PPI and PPP projects over the last 40 years or whatever. And, and, but what we're starting to see now is, is something which is, you know, order of magnitude bigger and worse. And it's not just, it's not just a merger of, of state and corporate, it's state corporate and Tony Blair's third way, you know, that all the NGO think tank charity sector as well. It is, it is a total merger of
everything. And, and yes, so it is true that in the not too distant future, the whole issue of public versus private is going to be moot because there's not going to be any difference between them. They're going to be the same thing. It is incredible what they're building at the moment and how fast they're doing it. And that's what Catherine Fitz is constantly warning about. You know, if you, if you, if you arguing about red versus blue in the States, you, you're being distracted.
Well. And and increasingly everywhere because, you know, we, I mean, I think everybody's referring to this idea of the UNI party now, you know, a perfect example was was because I only mention it because it's in everybody's immediate memories. But you know, Keir Starmer was elected here one year ago pretty much on the idea of change. It was a change agenda. We've heard politicians talk
about change. There's always been somebody in the last 40 years that's been running on a change platform. Well, he ran on a change platform and quick as a flash, no sooner had he become Prime Minister then absolutely nothing changed. All the same legislation simply got rebranded and pursued. The only difference, the only change in fact, was the speed. So they, they've attempted to run through the same agenda in a much faster pace. And so there's absolutely zero change.
And it's a perfect example of how the UNI party works because policy just continues. And you know, the, the question is where does policy come from? And, and it's certainly not coming from political parties anymore. They might, they might pay some lip service to being, you know, Labour being a Socialist Party and there's nothing socialist about it anymore. They got rid of any semblance of socialism in two stages either partly with Tony Blair.
And then when there was an attempt to move back towards being some kind of basically a Socialist Party with Jeremy Corbyn, they, they, they pulled the full strength of the anti-Semitic card to get rid of him and every Corbynite influence in the party. And so the Starmer party is, is much even even further away from being socialist in the, in the Tony Blair version of it. So it's, it's been an incredible operation to, to, to change that.
So if, if we're talking about a change agenda, maybe that's where the change was. But nonetheless, you know that the Tories even reform in some respects, but although we haven't really had any indication of exactly what kind of policies Reform will pursue because they haven't really
published anything yet. And so the, the, you know, they're mainly talking about the issues that are most motivating the general public like immigration and so on, but they're not actually getting into the gritty or the weeds of, of actual policy at this point. But nonetheless, none of the mainstream parties have anything different to say.
So it is genuinely a uni party and, and anybody that's watching the news yesterday, the UK column news yesterday will have seen us talking about the fact that they've redefined the what it is to be an MP in the UK. And they've removed from the definition or from the page that describes this, any reference to elections and any reference to representation of an electorate.
And so we're clearly seeing that in the documentation that they are publishing, the role of, of MPs changing and therefore democracy changing. And we have been arguing for a long time that democracy no longer exists, we only have dictatorship. And I think the a dictatorship run by uni party is exactly the model we're looking at. So basically. An election is just moving the chairs around on the Titanic. That would be a reasonable way to pull it. You think that's unfair,
Charles? No, no, no. I think there's probably a bit more to add to it in that what it does is it provides the public with what they think they need, which is the opportunity to influence what's going on in their country. And therefore they to, to a great extent, excuse things that continue to go disastrously wrong or to prolong the Titanic analogy, to strike the iceberg or whatever it's supposed to have done. But so yeah, I think the the election process is a, it's just
another part of the theatre. If we didn't have elections, I think people would far more readily understand exactly what is happening. But because we've always got this transition, just going back to the plan for change thing, it's fascinating. Now you read any government document and exactly like Mike says, the policy is the same, the legislation is the same, everything that's coming is the same, might be dressed up in a slightly different way and the
and the pace is different. But you see this tagline under Labour's plan for change, which is meant to convince the reader that this is happening. And it's completely different from what would have happened if they hadn't been there. And it's the same way in which the changes that were made during the 2020 to ever after the, the sort of due to COVID bid, you know, due to the change of this and the other. So there are many elements to it.
I had an insight recently. I went to an event that I'll be reporting on, but it was a an event that describes itself as being about regenerative agriculture. Of course it's not really about regenerative agriculture, but I listened to a discussion that was chaired by somebody called Henry Dimbleby, who's son of one of the broadcasters, I can't
remember which. He has worked with five successive governments to advise them on food and food strategy, qualified as he is by having run a restaurant. And he was speaking to a former government minister called George Eustace and a former boss of Sainsbury's called Justin King. And it was fascinating because they were all agreed that the government was the problem and that farming was suffering because the government wasn't providing any long term solutions.
Then we had the climate staff and all the all the various bits that were rolled in to create this very complicated web that the government had apparently made a mess of. So they seem to be agreed on that. And then as a sequitur, they described the government as being the solution. And everybody in the audience seemed, as far as I could tell, to be thinking, yes, this is right. We have absolutely no evidence that the government can and will create the right conditions
because they never have. But we're going to continue to back them to have a go. And this seemed to be the theme throughout a lot of the talks at this event, which I'm not surprised by. I mean, I didn't go there. I think, oh, crikey, this isn't what I thought it was going to be. I knew exactly what it was going to be. But it's very interesting to see people sit there and talk about it like that.
And particularly to hear Justin King, who's at Sainsbury's, talking about the way in which the relationship with government worked and how government really, especially if they've got people like Dimbleby there who's not an expert in how to produce food. And again, OK, sidetrack. And I mentioned this last year, and it might seem unfair, it might seem petty, it might seem personal, but it is true.
They all sit there and talk about health and highly processed food and this, that and the other, and they're all considerably overweight. And I know it seems like an unkind point to make, but seriously, where does one draw the line? You know, there's only so long you can talk about this sort of thing without actually doing any of it yourself or setting an example. But this seems to speak to the wider problem.
So King at Sainsbury's was talking about a supermarket leading the consumer, rather than listening to as though there wasn't a situation in which the consumer might know enough to be able to demand such and such a thing from a food producer. And that in turn is informing government policy. And that's very obvious now because they've set up something called the Food Strategy Advisory Board, which is entirely populated by people
with big industry interests. So at no point is this ever designed to benefit the people at the individual level, or actually the people who are supposed to be producing the food. It, it is a system that perpetuates. And, and this again is the, is this sort of public private partnership And, and the, you know, the UNI party is, is absolutely a part of it.
And the way that the civil service is informed and pushed by a sort of combination of commercial leaders and so-called think tanks means that it's a it's an absolute stitch up. So I go back to the point about the the four year cycle, five year cycle or you know, or less whatever it is for elections where people are presented with a well, totally false choice and that being false choice between voting red or blue. I mean a false choice as in that they think they're actually
choosing something. They're not. They get no choice. But. That's what Noam Chomsky said. You keep people controlled within a parameter, and then you encourage lively debate within that parameter. Exactly. Totally. So, yeah. And then this is what's such a joke to see people going to an event that's supposed to be about regenerative agriculture and letting naked nature take over.
And yet every single stand there is about letting somebody else do the work that nature's supposed to be doing and to have some sort of input, whether it's through some government scam slash scheme or, you know, commercial enterprise that come on and sort this out for you. So, yeah, it's a, it's a massive diversion. Red herring a good friend. Of mine, Farmer Angus, who I know you know, Charles is a strong advocate of regenerative agriculture.
Yeah, he is. And he, he actually knows what it means and he knows how to do it. And further, he understands that if you do do it properly, then it works as a business and it works for, for the land. It does improve the environment. It creates a healthy situation for the soil, for the livestock and the people that eat it. I mean, it is not that complicated, and it's how things
used to be done before. As with anything that's been tinkered with before, greedy people saw opportunities to subvert the way in which things can be done naturally with minimal inputs and minimal costs. I for the. Longest time was part of the sort of free market mindset. I mean, I read Adam Smith and Rothbard and and Mises and and Murray. No, not Murray. Is it Hayek? Sorry, Hayek and a little bit of Milton Friedman too.
But you come to realize, particularly when you think to the thing back to the COVID era that it's just all kind of academic wankery. It sounds great on paper, but in but reality is is a lot more complex. I think, I think, well, I don't know that the reality is more complex. I mean, I think, I think the wankery as you put it, is, is, is, can be made as complex as you like. And, and they often do.
I think, you know, at, at a very basic level, economy is about providing something that somebody wants, producing something. I think, I think with respect to food production, that the, the, the, the idea of producing something that that people can live on has been replaced with just profiteering. And you know what it's, it's a
very interesting conversation. I think with with, with someone to, to ask the question, are you producing the food that you're producing and the way that you're producing it, which is effectively devoid of proper, proper nutrients? Because you know that for somebody to get the, the level of nutrition that they might need, they have to therefore buy more of it and therefore you can profit more from it.
The problem with regenerative farming as far as this type of mindset would be is is that of course, if you're producing much less, but it's much more nutrient dense and therefore people don't need to eat need to eat as much of it, they can't sell as much of it. Now then you get into the question of whether you can charge more for that. Well, at the moment you can because because it's it's, it's
a a minority project. It's a niche thing and people are willing to pay more for it. But if it becomes, if it were ever to, to become once again a sort of the mainstream, then then the question is how you make it pay. And, and if, if you're, if you're only looking at things from a corporate standpoint and you're wanting to maximize profit rather than from a, an industry which is based on this, on the small family farm where actually people are just need to
make a comfortable living. And then, you know, it becomes, that's where the complexity starts to come. I mean, I would, I would love to see more farmers take the risk. And because I mean, I, I get it. The, the current farming model is it only works if you're massive corporate.
And so if you're a small farmer trying to play in that, in that game, in that pool, you're really struggling and you're therefore absolutely reliant on government subsidy of whatever form it is. And so they are the small farms of the medium sized farms that we're seeing at the moment are therefore pulling more and more land out of food production in order to get involved in these renaturization schemes, because that's where the government subsidy in the UK is at the
moment. And of course, that then puts people more at the behest of the of the big corporate, you know, hyper processed factory food industry. And this is, this is a very bad place to be going. I would, I would like to see some farm into it. I've not underestimate the risk. I would like to see more farmers take the risk of stepping away from that model and actually thinking about how they might produce high quality, nutrient dense food that in the short term, medium term at least, they
can charge more for. And you know, it's going to require more people. Sorry that you were speaking to Ivor Cummins last night. It was that went out last night, wasn't it? And, and the basis of that discussion was, you know, if you're not well, you can't fight, you can't resist if you're, if you're having to, if all you're doing is spending time dealing with your health.
I sort of touched on this last week as well, but, but you know, I, I hope that, I hope there's been a good response, a good audience for that discussion. I've been disappointed in, in the response that we've had to similar discussions from other people in the past. We have got to, this goes back to this whole business of looking after ourselves first. We've got a, we've got a appreciate that in the past a larger proportion of our monthly, weekly, monthly income
was spent on food. And, and we have got used to the trade off between cheap supermarket rubbish that we consume that fills a hole, that makes us feel as if we've eaten something but doesn't actually do us any good whatsoever. We've, we've chosen that so that we can take our two holidays or three holidays a year in foreign countries. And, and we've, we've got to start making the right decisions. And one of those is to look
after ourselves. And that might mean actually supporting farmers and encouraging farmers to take the right steps and going towards a more regenerative model instead of this mass food production thing that where they're totally beholden, you know, let's let's grow some weight. Well, actually, how much is weed selling on the global markets at the moment? And, and that model has to change because those farmers are on a hiding to nothing.
They're reliant on the state. The state can withdraw the money at any moment. And, and they're in fact, at the moment, as we know, pulling land out of food production in order to get that government subsidy. And as soon as you've got a farm, which is no longer its primary purpose is no longer food production, then what's the point of it? So anyway, that's that's. My thoughts on that, I mean, I
agree with you. My complexity comment was, was more around the idea that public bad, private good, you know, that that that dichotomy that we've seen over the years is just simply not realistic. And we can certainly see that now with the sort of the stakeholder capitalism, the public private partnership concept taking taking hold in a in a very strong way. Now that that it, it is more nuanced. Maybe nuanced is the better word, but. Absolutely.
And part of the problem here is, is that that that one is seen because it's so ideological. 1 is seen as being left wing communist if you like and therefore no we don't want that and the other is seen as being, you know, capitalist and
therefore good at the extremes. Neither of these things is good and and we are being royally shafted by corporate entities every single day of the week and it it just beggars belief that that nobody is prepared to set aside ideology and have a serious conversation about what would be the best thing to do at this point. The comparison that Angus made
was a really good one. He talks about the food to his workers and says, well, in actual fact, the beef that we sell by weight costs less than the potato chips that you go and buy in the shop. And you get a hell of a lot more nutrition out of it. And you'd always be surprised. You know, we talk about nutrient density. What does it actually mean? OK. I think in the first instance if you change from a diet of largely. Processed food that has to be consumed by volume to make you feel full.
Then switching to say nutrient dense, properly farmed beef, you'd probably want to be consuming more of it than you necessarily need to. But after a while you adjust and then it is quite incredible how little of something you need in order to feel full and how long that will keep you feeling full
for. So I think the the whole way that we're, you know, the sort of three squares a day for some people, yeah, OK, maybe that absolutely is what they need to do. But I think people don't even recognise the signs that they get from their body. And people can't distinguish between what is hunger and what is just a blood sugar low and how long you can be sustained for by a particular food. OK, There are there absolutely are issues with one size does not fit, does not fit all.
And I think there are a lot of different things to to look at in terms of metabolism and the way your blood type informs your digestion and all that kind of thing. But the principle of it is that food of the right quality, the right type goes so much further than that doesn't. And I would say in overall cost, there's no contest.
Proper nutrient dense food costs you far less because it enables you to be in the right state of health and state of mind to be able to do all the things you want to do. Don't get ill, you don't get tired, you don't miss out on this out on the other. You don't have to go to why we do anyway, but you don't have to go to a doctor. You don't have to engage in all sorts of things that either cost you money or certainly prohibit you from making money.
So I think that's how people need to look at it rather than the upfront thing of Oh well, I could buy something and I can stick in the microwave for X amount or something next to it that I know has been produced properly, which appears to cost more. So, but it is a transition. I think it takes a while to work that out and to understand your body's response to any of these things and, and conditioning
your way into. Which reminds me slightly of what James Walton was talking about with his prepping discussion. And because he, I think he, he'd been going through something that I can't believe that all his family necessarily signed up for voluntarily. But he was talking about going through a period of time where they would eat for X number of days of the week and then not eat for some of them, which people would otherwise describe. If you take the prepping side of it, you know, it's just
intermittent fasting. So, but nonetheless, it's very interesting and I think a lot of people, probably a lot of people listening, they're saying, oh, there's no way I wouldn't be able to do that. I would not be able to go for a day or two days without food. Well, OK, this is not advice, but if you are interested, then look into it.
I mean, personally speaking, it's something that I probably didn't think I'd really wanted to do, but it's very achievable and it is really interesting and I think it does have a beneficial effect on the body. But again, that is not medical advice. So try these things, but not necessarily under the label of prepping. You don't have to think. Oh, well, go. You just never know. I might have to be stuck in the woods for a day or two days rather more.
Just think, well, why don't you just embrace that as a system of life? And then if you do get stuck in the wood for a couple of days, you're already adjusted to it and it's fine. Yeah, but that's what. He says. He says prepping is just a a term that was coined years ago, but effectively it's just a lifestyle that's about thinking about how to approach certain events, which is something that we all talk about anyway. It's solutions orientated thinking. Yeah, totally. I mean, this is it.
But I still well he yeah, he markets himself for his product, his website and all the all the content as as prepping or you know, that they are preppers. And yes, of course, he's, he's quite right to go into the, the whole language element of it, because I don't think it does describe at all what it is that you're doing. To me. It's simply a process of living how you should.
And if one of the consequences of that is that if there is a shock to such and such a system, you're, I mean, you might not even know about it doesn't make any difference to you. Rather than thinking, OK, well, I've got a bagpack for that, I've got a freezer for that, and everything's a sort of what if? I don't think any of it should be a what if it should be. This is how I live my life. Well, I mean, personal
anecdotes. My wife and I were at a music festival, I don't know, a year and a half ago, whatever. And and we we camped and while setting up the tent, I accidentally slipped and I stuck my knife into my hand. So I've got AI mean I've got a scar here now from it. Now, if you don't know how to handle a situation like that, you're in trouble because there's a lot of blood and and you get light headed very, very quickly. I mean, the whole thing just becomes very complicated very
fast. Yeah, but that. That's what I mean. I mean that that should be part and parcel of life. Everyone should know that stuff from the earliest possible time because that can happen. I mean, you can do that in the kitchen. I wouldn't. Put a label of prepping on that, that that is that's, Charles says. That's just life. And, and actually a lot of people just need preparation. Yeah, but. But, but it has this connotation that you're prepping for some
major disaster. You know, I, I think a lot of what is labeled as prepping is actually just living and, and something that we should. These, these are skills we used to have. They're skills we absolutely should have that we have remove from ourselves by giving ourselves up to the to automation in many ways and to the the state provided healthcare system and big pharma. So food, health, these types of things. This is again comes back to the conversation we had last week to some degree.
These are things that that we should view as being areas of personal responsibility and, and something that we can control in our own lives if we choose to do so. And, and so, you know, it's, it's a matter of, of choice about who we decide is going to be responsible for these things. And if we're going to outsource that ourselves to, to, to the state, that's perhaps not the best form of public service that
that we should be encouraging. And we need to, we need to relearn these skills, that thing. With Facebook and the gathering of data to influence the American election, can you remember that whole thing? It was about around 2016, yes. Alex created about it and I can't remember what it Yes, I know. I know what you mean. And Steve Bannon? Was part of it. Damn it, I've gone blank now are. You talking about Palantir and
and? No, no, no. No, no, no. And Zuckerberg was still held in front of Congress to ask about it. Does Cambridge Analytica. Sorry, yes, yes. Yeah. Well, yes. But again, how was that? How is that even possible? That was possible because we decided that that's giving our data to all these these types of companies is a good thing. And instead of having personal relationships just among a small group of people, we suddenly decided to, to want to talk to
the world. There have been, there have been plenty of benefits to Facebook, as I've said before, and, and, and that's a regeneration of, of Internet service, because ideas have propagated amongst people that would never have been exposed to them otherwise necessarily. But, but I'm not, I'm still very much not convinced that the benefits of outweighed the, the negatives at this point. I, I would be delighted to see Facebook not exist or Twitter or
any of them. What, what we're seeing there is, is the influence of these guys. And, and you know, I'm very, very cynical about any of these big tech leaders, Zuckerbergs and Peter Thiel's of the world. A lot of these peoples have, OK, some of them have, some of the founders have come directly from the intelligence agencies.
There's no question about that. But a lot of the influence that we see coming from the tech sector is from nerdy types that were probably bullied at school, that are probably have a very anti human view of the world. And, and if we want to see where the whole transhumanist agenda is coming from, it's coming from
them. And when we start seeing them ending up at at a level where they are actually influencing presidents and prime ministers, that that is something I don't think anybody, very few people in the world are even conscious of. And, and they need to be conscious of it because, you know, if you want to merge with the machine, that's up to you. But but the destination ain't
going to be nice. So, so, you know, if we're human, but we consider ourselves human beings to a certain degree, we've got to reject this merging with the machine that we are, even to the degree that we already have and, and relearn the, the basics. And that starts with regenerative farming. It starts with taking
responsibility for own health. It starts with taking responsibility for our own navigation from one place to another and relearning skills that we lost because we're going to end up, you know, with, with a permanent connection. You know, wearables are going to be embedded soon. And well, exactly. And, and you know, the UK has just announced that that every newborn baby is going to be genomically sequenced. This is, this is just the next
step along that road. We, we've seen this, this infrastructure building, the disinformation industrial complex, if we want to call it that. We've seen a building particularly since 20/15/2017. And we, we've seen the use of terms like post truth world. We've seen the use of terms like trust, who are trusted sources and so on. And, and it's very clear to me now that that AI is a part of this in a very big way.
It is there ultimately, in my opinion, to so pollute the information space that people are going to be increasingly or they're going to be encouraged to rely on the trusted sources. And the trusted sources are going to be the BBC, for example, or CNN or the Guardian or the Times because they are the Orchard GBT. No, I don't think, I don't think that's, I don't think that is actually the ultimate
destination here. I, I think that if, if you have an AI system which is hoovering up data from the Internet and spitting out answers, the purpose of that in fact is, is just to pollute the information space. Now what comes next? I, I, I don't know yet, but what, what we are going to see is, is the point where it's increasingly, it's already increase increasingly difficult to know what the truth is. But once we start seeing generative AI being seriously used and we start seeing videos
appearing. I mean, for example, 2 videos that appeared recently that got people very excited were the one with the the guys on Macron and Co on the train who were possibly snorting something white. And then Georgie Maloney, who apparently was doing the same thing, although the Italian government seems to have said that she accidentally took a contaminated medication.
But anyway, they, they were, there has been, you know, evidence of these people effectively being off their heads at various Times. Now, in the not too distant future, generative AI is going to get to the point of being able to produce videos like that, which look absolutely convincing. And for somebody that is outside of the system, it's going to be very, very hard to work out or discover whether that is a real thing or not.
And I believe that's the main purpose of this version of AI that we're seeing at the moment, because we've got to remember there's nothing, it is artificial, but there's nothing intelligent about it. So this it's, it's a marketing exercise And but it's, it's, it's got a purpose at the end.
And the purpose is to to so pollute the scene that, that we're going to not, not us specifically, but people are going to be encouraged to rely on the official sources as being the only reliable trustworthy source. So trust has been something trust coalition, the trust this, the trust project here, trust project there that's been trust is been developing over the last number of years and we're going
to see that accelerate. And so so that that's, you know, that's that's basically I think where we're going and and we we got to start thinking about how we're going to deal with that now do. You remember a few years ago when Jacinda Ardern said on TV that the government should be the primary source of truth? Yes I do. Maybe that was a fake video. No, she didn't that that No, well, well, you think she did, but maybe it was generatively
generative there. No, I, I believe she did say that and I and I think that is giving an insight into exactly what's in their minds. It really does.
And this. Is this is something that people have got to start appreciating that, that that a lot, that large proportion of what they see is, is intended to create a it is applied psychology being used as intended to create, create a psychological effect on somebody who's intended to make behavioural change behavioural insights, behavioural this that. And the other isn't about encouraging people to take a vaccine that that certainly was used for that.
But it's it's much it's, it's much more broadly used than just that rather limited thing. This is something that that we are, that we are being bombarded with on a daily basis, every minute of the day. And, and the idea is to drive people in particular directions. And that applies to the so-called freedom movement as much as anybody else. That the one of the real issues with social media is, is the data collection aspect of it, as you say.
And, and the, they, they have been for, for many, many years now from the, from the beginning. That's why it was set up in the first place, pushing out little bits of information just to see how people react to those it. But it's done in a scientific way. It is a scientific dictatorship that we're we're in a technocracy if you like. And so we've got to consider that every time we see something on on the Internet.
Yeah, just with regard to ChatGPT, we'll probably only have the other AI stuff that you can ask questions to, apparently in the belief that it knows something. If you know people that do do this and do go to it for information that has any nuance to it, rather than, you know what colour is the stop traffic light, then ask it a question, let it give you the answer and then say to it that's not true and see what it does because it is being designed to be terribly
polite. But it will concede absolutely that it hasn't got its right it right. So we'll say, Oh yes, of course, I failed to mention this that and the other and you just keep going, just keep going. That's not true, That's not true, that's not true. And see what it does. It's very interesting. So that would be my advice if you're tinkering around with it thinking is that can't, can this in any way provide information that is accurate in any way, a whole view of whatever it is
you're asking about. But I would also say that if you know young people who are being encouraged to use it, tell them to do that. Just say that they're aware that if you do challenge it, it will just start casting around in other directions and try to pull in bits of information that it thinks you want. So that the, the whole idea is that it's, I've said this before. It can be like asking for directions in a place where there's not really a common language.
And you say, is it that way? And you go yes, yes, yes. And then you say, is it that way in case? Yes, yes, yes. And it's the same thing. So it just wants to please and it wants you to continue to use it. So so challenge it and see what happens. Gentlemen, thank you for joining me in in the weekly banter.