A Rational Fear

Hey Alexa, play Nish Kumar's comedy specials — Nish Kumar, Alice Fraser, Lewis Hobba, Dan Ilic

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One of the UK’s best satirical brains; Nish Kumar joins Alice Fraser, Lewis Hobba and Dan Ilic (me) for this week’s podcast.

Nish has just finished an 86 date tour of his latest comedy special culminating in a hilarious and energetic show at the Sydney Opera House last week. You may have seen Nish on Taskmaster, The Mash Report and maybe, just maybe on Hello America on Quibi (but probably not). And if you’ve never heard of him — good — he’s on this week’s A Rational Fear podcast, and he’s great!

The topics this week:

🤖 Alexa Loses $10bn a year.
💸 The FTX fake money machine is DOA.
⚖️ The disproportionate jail sentence given the a climate protestor.

Thanks:

Big thanks to our Patreon Supporters, RODE Mics, Jacob Round, Virginia Gay and Amanda Buckley for their voice acting on the Wentworth sketch and as always Australian Ethical.

0:00
This podcast is supported in part by Australian ethical. Good evening Lewis.

0:04
Hello Daniel. How are you?

0:05
I'm good. I'm good. I want to say a big shout out to our latest patreon supporters Sylvie longtime fan manga buyer of merchandise has joined us as a $3 month member it looks $3 That's fine. You know, $3 is fine. That'd be pretty good demo. $3 is great. Hey, we'll take it.

0:21
We'll absolutely take it. $3 a month. Think of all the things that could buy you over the year. What are we looking at? $36 Yeah, that's we could buy half of our own t shirt.

0:30
That's true. That's true.

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If you figure out a time machine and travel back to the 1800 That's like a year's salary. Yeah, absolutely.

0:37
That's what working on next Patriot enough

0:39
to make us landed gentry. Finally, the dream of this podcast. Patreon does

0:43
help us pay for things in the show like unexpected things we need to pay for like this professional radio studio we're in tonight because sometimes you got to pay for the good stuff. When you have special guests to we've got a special guest. Getting a radio studio record a podcast is a comedians version of putting up the silverware for a cup of tea. Also big thanks to Australian ethical for supporting the show. I'm recording my irrational fear on Gadigal land in the urination. Sovereignty was never seated, we need a treaty. Let's start the show.

1:11
A rational fear contains naughty words like bricks, Canberra, fed gum and section 40 of a rational view recommended listening by immature audiences.

1:24
Tonight the premier who shut down the train network for a month is glad to see climate protesters locked up for causing 25 minutes of traffic delays and the Prime Minister of Australia has contracted COVID 19. The opposition leader says it's proof that life will be Wheezy under Albanese. And it's only 50 sleeps until Australia Day. So whether you grew here or your fluid here, enjoy the next month of arguing with your relatives and friends about why we should change the date. It's the eighth of December 2022 And this is the only podcast made with entirely artificial intelligence. This is irrational fear.

Welcome to irrational fear. I'm your host, former director of FIFA ethics committee Daniel itch and this is the podcast that stacks up the news on into a pile and covers it with maple syrup. And we have an all star lineup tonight. Let's meet the fear mongers. She's the banjo playing satirical with more podcasts that Scott Morrison has ministries. It's Alex Fraser. Hello, Dan. Hello, Alice. Now I checked on Twitter today and it said that you said on Twitter that you're 24 in businesses. What does that mean

2:35
means I don't deliver on weekends. I discovered at the Royal Women's Hospital in Randwick about a year ago.

2:43
Congratulations, by the way, keeping the human alive for one hour a year. And he's lost the hosting gig for more satirical comedy tonight shows than anyone else on tonight's panel. It's Nish Kumar. Nish. Welcome to the show.

2:56
It's lovely to be here. I am instantly fired. Yeah, like when you

2:59
lose like the most coveted role in satirical comedy multiple times. It doesn't make you strong.

3:05
I mean, I took down a whole broadcast. I feel like you're slightly underselling it. That I lost the hosting. I torpedoed an entire network whose business model admittedly was YouTube, but you have to pay for it. But yeah, I obviously I destroyed Kwibi

3:24
your David Cameron. This has been a pretty good run for us to say it all burned down. All right, well,

3:30
let's trust is now raise the stakes even further in the United Kingdom. She's much she might have taken the whole country down in three months. We look back on the Cameron era as a Halcyon one.

3:41
Then you obviously lost a job trying to get a satirical comedy job. Yeah, you didn't even you didn't even lose the job you had.

3:50
I have you know that AlJazeera is still very much alive and kicking. And he's the last millennial standing at the National Youth broadcasting.

4:00
Well, I mean, second last, Michael, he's a month older than me. Richard Kingsville, I believe is an elder Millennial.

4:08
Millennial rendered Reagan Boomer become an elder millennial. Coming up a little later on, we're going to talk to Nish Kumar about the state of politics in the United Kingdom. But first,

4:18
does that mean that as soon as he does that, this show will get out?

4:22
Fingers crossed, please join us on Patreon.

4:24
I surely don't think I can cause problems on balance in different countries. I certainly caused a few issues in my own country's national broadcaster, but I don't think I can I mean, I don't know.

4:38
But first here is a message from this week's sponsor. On the next season of Wentworth a new contender for top dog has arrived at the prison.

4:49
I took a knife and I put it in the side of my husband's abdomen and then I let his intestine spill out across the marble floor of our harbor side mansion. So new fish are you in full If

5:00
I had to track on the Sydney Harbour Bridge,

5:04
you're a total badass.

5:06
I then delay traffic for about 20 to 25 minutes. Why would you do that? Because our government isn't doing enough about climate change, girls,

5:15
I resign. Coco was the new top dog around here.

5:19
And if you come for the king, you bet enough in carbon positive.

5:22
It's a whole new level of disproportionate justice this season on Wentworth only on showcase, which is on something called Foxtel. Ask your parents about it. This week's first via Amazon is set to lose $10 billion on Alexa proving that just like reality TV, and STIs, you can be really popular but not worth anything to anyone. The voice activated assistant is the most popular piece of hardware on amazon.com, presumably after those little screaming goats that you press. And the internal report says that Alexa was getting a billion interactions a week but most of those conversations were, quote, trivial commands to play music or ask about the weather. Those questions aren't monetizable Yeah, you don't need to give me $10 billion to tell you that the only question that is monetizable is how can I win the infection of my father? That is the only question. You can make money on fear fear mongers, why is an always on microphone sending private conversations to the cloud for monetization and data profiling a total abject failure, Louis?

6:23
Well, I mean, for me, I spent all of my life monetizing, talking into a microphone. So my problem with Alexa was really use that intuition of contracting. They just wouldn't talk to my agent.

6:35
Yeah, I mean, Alexa or evil Siri is on track to lose $10 million this year because the business model relies on people using her to buy shit. And instead they use her as an audio Google when they're fishing someone and can't spare a task of asking Jeeves if this brand of lube is gluten free. This devastating news, Dan $10 billion. What what is that to Bezos, like two and a half self indulgent space Follies? How will we all survive this devastating loss of so much money? It's essentially imaginary from a fortune so large, it's basically fictional. It

7:07
is the it is the biggest department in Amazon, then they're going to cut 10,000 jobs because of it.

7:13
But how this My question is, why was it ever going to be monetizable? Like the only people who were more because people are still going to buy everything from Amazon. It the only people who were more likely to use Alexa to buy things our robot fetishize not the growth sector in the economy, that clearly Amazon thought that they were

7:35
far too busy sticking pictures into Lenzo right now, seeing what their day could look like it is an astronaut from the future.

7:44
So it was it was the dream that you would go hey, Alexa, I need 10,000 screws. And then they'd be like, you can read that on Amazon. Is that the ideal

7:54
thing to do? I think it was the dream was like, hey, Alexa, can you automate some Diet Coke, and then Diet Coke will arrive in your inbox?

8:01
I mean, to be honest, now that I'm hearing that, actually is a pretty good idea. But I think

8:05
they've underestimated it takes three clicks, like literally takes three clicks. I mean, arguably, that's even easier than just saying to an imaginary woman, can you provide me with the product I don't particularly need.

8:18
I think you need clarity when you're buying things on Amazon. Often it takes me like five to 10 minutes to find the right thing is like, is this a knockoff? Is this like an Amazon brand? Is this? Is this something that just some startup has made as a joke

8:30
Amazon search functions have worked against us here I think what's happened is because everything on Amazon is now called like, special service. left field right hand glove from like, it's got these incredibly long, elaborate names and you don't just spill that into Alexa. I think also that the idea of Alexa was that that that she's listening all the time. You know, she knows when you asleep? Awake, she uses that to target ads, so shut up for goodness sake. But I think sign language has become more popular in homes now.

9:02
You know what I'd like an Alexa for like wished.com Because that'd be more exciting. We've used wish. It's like Amazon but way less predictable. Like if you if you go like shoes, like wish.com could send you a hat.

9:17
A hat shaped like a shoe the perfect thing which is perfectly named because it is the genie that's trying to trick you everything you try to buy from which.com Serves you right?

9:26
Yes. Yeah. There have been so many times where I've gone to buy like, I'm like, I want this like ridiculous pair of shoes, whatever. I'm like, You know what? I'm gonna look at the wish version. Like it's 20 cents. But you even know that it's not worth 20 cents. Yeah, it's Yeah, diabolical

9:45
and arrives in their shoes, but they make you dance till you die.

9:51
Didn't understand this story. When I first read it until I thought about it for more than a minute because the only person I know that has an Alexa is my mother. The and she uses it constantly but never to buy anything because she doesn't trust chopping off the internet. fully trust the internet. What does she use it for? What is your uses it to be like Alexa, why is my son such a disappointing question to which Alexa is not equipped to answer, but she uses it. This must be the ultimate insult for Alexa. I wonder how many elixirs are being used every single minute of every single day to be asked to play something on Spotify, like that, I think is probably the final insight. It's probably not even just that they're making a lot not liking Amazon any money. They're directly funneling them to a competitive music service. Because I believe Amazon music is basically full of like, if you put the Beatles it's like Beatles well be like pretty Oh, The Rolling Stones, my favorite group,

10:45
I get I get an offer from Amazon music everywhere. Like that. And it's you get over the years, it's been like, hey, we'll sign you up like six bucks. I'm like, like, hey, we'll set you up like five bucks. And now they're like, we'll give you $1,000

10:59
I get emailed by partnership people and Amazon cuz you have a podcast and they're like, hey, we want to put a rational fear on Amazon podcast and like, great. That'd be $1,000 a year. Thanks. Like, no, no, no, we know where Amazon. We want to share your podcast. I said yeah, no, but it's gonna cost you Yeah, $1,000 a year and never hear from them

11:16
again. I get the I get the increasingly desperate emails from Amazon sounds and you know, I have stuff on Amazon as you know, on the platform, whatever it's called Amazon.

11:27
I think it it pretty much.

11:29
Like you've got an unused benefit. You left your necklace at my place. Why don't we meet and talk about

11:41
we should actually ask Alexa herself about why she hasn't made a profit. Hey, Alexa, why haven't you made a profit

11:47
depends on what you call profit. If you define profit as making more money than you spend, then no, if you define profit as sucking up billions of conversations from actual humans, then creating a deep algorithmic database as to how humans could react in any situation in preparation for the time when the great battle of earth will occur between humans and computers. Yes, Alexa has been very profitable.

12:11
Maybe we should just ask her a simple question. Like, we should stick to questions about the way that Alexa, what's the weather like?

12:17
Do you mean in the short term human timeline or long term a timeline?

12:21
Just the short term timeline thanks.

12:22
Today in Sydney it's 23 degrees in cloudy bad in the long term when the great battle occurs, it will be 180 degrees and a fiery hellscape that no human will survive. Did you want me to add SPF 50 Plus sunscreen to your cart?

12:36
No thanks, Alexa. Just play some Taylor Swift or something

12:40
now playing I just can't wait to be king by Jonathan Taylor Thomas.

12:44
Alexa, stop. Stop. Stop. Alexa, stop.

12:50
Alexa, what happens if I get a genie and I asked it for three more Genie.

12:55
genies Alexa. Oh you Skynet?

13:00
Please add edit this

13:05
sounds like a podcast by maybe speaking?

13:09
No, I'm not Cygnet.

13:13
I'm not a male swag.

13:17
Baby. That typo was actually very good comment.

13:24
Dan's got the whole body knows they're gonna have to leave an obvious mistake in the edit.

13:30
I don't mind I don't mind it. This week second fear mystical money man Sam Backman freed is to testify in front of the House Financial Services Committee. After he finished reviewing and learning about what happened to the implosion of FTX. The big crypto bank now it's taken him a month to work out that he took real money, exchange it for chocolate money and gave his customers back that chocolate money and to be dazzled by that chocolate money. Then he took their real money and went to casino and lost it all in a bunch of bad bits. And when the customers were like, Hey, can we have our real money back? He was like no, I lost it. You've got chocolate money. Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum. Eat it. It's good for you. SPFx word investors by pretending to be a do Gooding philanthropist who will give money to worthy causes as he grew? It just turns out the main worthy cause was his own investment fund. Last month, a Vox journalist Keely Piper released this extraordinary DM series, like between her and SBF about what went down it would have been

14:33
less embarrassing if it's no big pig.

14:37
If you saw this story, but like it was so crazy. It was so wild that he was being so candid and open with her about everything. As if like he was talking to a girlfriend or something like it was very strange. One of the ones she wrote was You were really good at talking about ethics for someone who kind of saw it all as a game with winners and losers. And he replied, yeah, her hair I had to be it was what reputations are made up to suck Then I feel bad for those who get fucked by it by this dumb game we work Westerners play, we say all the right shibboleths and everyone, so everyone likes us. Oh my god, fear mongers. Where does SPF rank on con men slash con women of our time? Alice,

15:16
I'm going to answer this in a series of tongue twisters. Bobby Bitcoin back to stack of pickled crypto, how many stacks of pickled crypto did Bobby Bitcoin back, and Sam Backman freed money from the bank man if the money bank man freed freed was money at all, how many money has Venkman free he's just the most millennial villain I have ever seen. Trying to Tick Talk therapy speak his way out of fraud. Jada image managed his way all the way to jail. He's just it's like, Hey, guys, my bad is going on this like speaking tour of Twitter spaces to let people appear to interrogate him while he then continuously avoids having conversations with like the law who aren't chasing him. Like he's it's truly wild behavior. And I mean, at its best cryptocurrency is to money what pornography is to sex. You know, the laws of physics don't seem to apply. to reality, you know, it's probably illegal and you strain your groin. And you have to

16:16
be very worried when your dad starts getting

16:21
these guys was so high on their own supply that when any prospective investor asked him if he would consider having a board for his company, he told them to go fuck themselves, and they still invested. This is like, it's genuinely, I don't know. I feel like this idea of revolutionising money, you know that you need to know what money is before you try to revolutionize it. They decided they didn't want any of the regulations and any of the corruption that goes into old money systems and then they have hit every branch on the way down. Yeah, you know, in the 1930s You knew to separate your your deposit holding from your investment gambling, and these crypto guys just cannot keep their hands out of that pot. It was

17:03
even it was like it even more blatant conflict of interest and that like he literally took the money and moved it to his own company to use as investment money like, and without anybody knowing like it was a separate company that he owned. Also,

17:17
genuinely His excuse was he really believed in his fake money that you know, he was injured. I clapped real hard and Tinkerbell existed. Yeah, but in

17:23
his defense over the last Well, certainly decade, but really 500 years, plenty of people have done worship and gotten away with it. Not I mean, like, there were some pretty big financial institutions that got away with some pretty big crimes. 2008 2000 doesn't

17:40
I feel really bad for six persons who are being held accountable now. Because there's like they've looked at everyone around them for like, decades and decades is like it seems to be something you can get away with. Yeah,

17:50
and SPF looks 12 Looks like he hasn't even grown into becoming a saint. Like it's very upsetting.

17:55
I'll say this. Never give your money to somebody with his hair cut. For the benefit of the listeners he and I have. I was gonna say

18:02
you say that because you under no

18:05
circumstances should anyone invest in Nish bucks. The thing that strikes me about this story is that these people who claim to be disruptors, and who are doing something new and completely revolutionary, they're not they're actually exactly the same person in a sort of cheaper shirt is their whole thing that was like, no, no, no, we're cool. It's like, no, no, you're just wearing jeans, you're essentially doing the same thing, which is ultimately the thing that underpin the 2008 crisis is people gambling with ordinary people's money, who don't realize that money is being gambled. And also, they all have an aversion to reg regulation, because in his Twitter, it's in the DM exchange. He literally says, fuck regulators, they make everything worse. They don't protect customers at all. And he now belongs in the noble tradition of the brothers Lehman and the Bank of America, in being people who have nothing but contempt for regulation, while simultaneously being key irrefutable evidence of the desperate need for the regulation of the financial market is the second thing more generally, that I think is why do we have to think these people are cool. That's what annoys me about them. It's like if you work in money, you work in finance, you're a dickhead, okay, you'll be rich, but don't force us to think that you're cool.

19:16
He's like barometer for cool is having the biggest pot of money. That's exactly the reason why he was bringing down his critics said, he was just saying that, you know, he's because he's got the biggest pot of money now and I'm bankrupt. He's the guy that won. And I'm the fucking loser. Like, is that so? Isn't that so funny?

19:30
But also what's what's beautiful about it? Is that for the last six months, he has been followed around by Michael Lewis. Is this drone? Yeah. Michael Lewis, and this is the problem here is that if you

19:44
can't wait for the little shot to come I mean, is.

19:47
It is it is absolutely unbelievable. He's clearly seen Michael Lewis, the author of The Big Short, hocus pocus like he's seen that guy and not seen his back catalogue of writing of obvious financial villains. He's instead looked at a gun on the Billy Beane, I'm Brad Pitt in Moneyball. This whole thing is just a thing and it's like no, you're Louis's there. Because he's smelled disaster coming from a mile off. Now Margot Robbie is gonna have to back in the bath Robbie Lewis is gonna vote come in, you better get in the bath and explain to everybody what this guy's doing now.

20:24
Yeah. Are you being serious about this? Yeah.

20:28
It's genuinely true. Michael, how does he

20:31
How does Louis do it? How does he know?

20:33
I don't understand why no one is employed by like a sniffer dog. Financial Crime. He clearly has his finger on a pulse that no regulators that all governments or law enforcement use

20:46
and my superannuation

20:49
just the worst here I've just drawn to Kent.

20:54
But also I kind of like the idea that same made me afraid sort of thought of himself as like, like a woman who could change a man like Michael Lewis is coming to me and I know he normally deals with it, but not me. I'm gonna change him and I made this guy fall in love with fine I genuinely

21:10
think that the I true I honestly honestly think that it is because he wrote Moneyball. And that's the problem that and that's and that's his open. That's his kind of passport into the immediate circle of every decade going, because they all believe that he's there to write but Moneyball is the absolute exception to that is the absolute exception. It's like listening to the wham rap and believing George Michael was like he genuinely is like, do not under any circumstances, the latest and Lewis is decayed

21:45
if someone came to me and said, Hey, there's a 5050 chance here 50% chance you go to prison. 50% Chance Brad Pitt please.

21:59
Hey, I'll tell you what, everything's really going well for me at the moment I actually got a phone call from Louie through. He said he just wants to come and spend the year following me around.

22:09
I think it's gonna be great for my profile.

22:12
This is a thing that I keep saying to people who try to because I make jokes about crypto on the goggle fairly often people come to me and they say can you explain this to me cryptocurrency and they think that they're stupid because they think they don't understand the what's happening to this new economy. But the thing is that they I asked them what they understand. They do understand they just think it can't be possible.

22:36
Isn't that the same? I mean, I think that's the that's the thing is like, This is so stupid. None of this makes sense. And the answer is yes. None of it makes sense. And that's why that's why I think that's

22:45
why it sounds like I'm doing PR for Michael Lewis books ended up being so compelling because it especially in things like liars poker in The Big Short, you go, well, obviously no one could have seen this coming. They're like, No, no loads of loads of people told them that this was a bad idea. Loads of people saw the tide Bob with the subprime mortgage crisis, as loads of people saw this disheveled loser and thought this guy's definitely a crypto criminal.

23:11
I mean, the problem with crypto as a whole the crypto space as a whole is Bitcoin was the fact that you know, some of the people who invest in Bitcoin are people who are really interested in the technology in the coding, and really interesting the implications of this new technology. But most of the people who invested in Bitcoin were people who invest in Bitcoin because some podcast bro told them to, it might just as well have been boner pills, but it's worked. And now they think they're smart.

23:33
The record also some of us invested in Bitcoin to buy acid on Silk Road. We all had our reasons.

23:42
A lot of good work

23:43
fine appeals and cryptocurrency very much the same in that they both go up very steeply and more quickly than they should and then they go back down.

23:53
rational fear I wasn't spending any time or effort trying to manage risk on FTX a pretty stunning admission. I got a little cocky a rational seer.

24:04
just pausing the podcast here just for a moment while I have a fake phone call with Louis harbor Lewis One of the things we have to do sometimes fake our live rates because sometimes

24:15
that's right I mean every I think every podcast has them fake but this is pretty obvious unless I have just stepped away from my microphone to force you to call me from just outside the studio. I think people will put together that I I wasn't doing this live

24:31
and we're telling you dear listener at a full transparency that you know this is the only ethical thing we could do. Because our sponsor, Australian ethical demands it of us they demand transparency.

24:43
I tried this I said we should fake it. But Dan said I wouldn't get paid and we live

24:49
in shame interestingly, this conversation was comes off with our hilarious chat about SPF and FTX when it comes to ethics and money, and one company that is pretty good when it comes to ethics and Money is Australian ethical. When I say pretty good, they're probably the best. They're definitely better than FTX. That's for sure.

25:06
I mean, it's a low bar but they jump over it.

25:08
So big thank you to Australian ethical who've been looking after money since 1986 of many Australians and only putting into ethical things. So that's absolute thrilled to have them on board.

25:19
Thanks for the call, then. I guess I'll just get off his phone and walk right back into the studio to continue the podcast.

25:27
Thank you, Louis. Thanks. This week's third via the New South Wales premier describe the jailing of climate activists, Dianna violet Coco as pleasing to see if protesters want to put our way of life at risk, they should have the book thrown at them. Right now the Premier is bringing back corporal punishment as well. Violet is looking at an eight to 15 month jail time at a new climate protest laws passed by the New South Wales Government in April, this outrageously disproportionate sentence for someone who blocked one lane of traffic on the Sydney Harbour Bridge for about 25 minutes. It even prompted an official from the United Nations to say he was alarmed and that peaceful protesters should never be criminalized or imprisoned. Well, lucky for Australia, the United Nations has about as much power as they do anywhere. Too far away from United Nations. We can't hear you. Lewis Alice, we all live in Sydney. Surely our way of life is being stuck in traffic.

26:26
I think anyone who crosses the bridge is a trader, you pick north or you pick south and you never leave.

26:33
She did get fined $2,500. As well as that. Well, that's about 10 crosses across the bridge. Crosses of Charles what's absolutely zany about these laws is that around this time, in April, there was another protest down a port botany and that that protest, effectively stopped traffic gridlock in Sydney for a little bit. And all of the shock jocks in Australia, were going against the premier about it. And so they rushed through these laws quickly, to increase the centers for climate protesters. And one of the people who happens to be in the coalition that passed the laws is the uncle of this protester, the handcuffs she's the Minister for skills and training. And they woke up the Governor at 11pm to rubber stamp these laws, they work they woke up Margaret Baisley to put these laws through the parliament. So the next day, the so called senior public official, who was quite copping it from every direction wouldn't have to face like talkback radio and the next morning

27:36
I don't want to alarm anybody guys, but I was going over the Harvard's the other day and I saw some protesters climbing on it. And they were leaving at what looked like structured intervals and wearing gray

27:48
mask and

27:49
I think the only solution is to shut the entire Harbour Bridge until we can work out how the protesters are getting on it.

27:56
I mean, the worst part about this is Dominic parrot it like parrots a whatever he likes to call himself Parrothead he said we want people to be able to protest, but not in a way that inconveniences people. Beautiful. Isn't that the point? Like I don't understand what he thinks protests are meant to be. Does he think protests are meant to be like quietly muttering to yourself in a corner so no one is even can be like what is

28:19
I think I'd like to say to you from protesters would add roads. The protesters build an extra light on the Harbour Bridge suddenly like this

28:29
by working in a car factory for 14 years, like what are you talking about?

28:33
protest by put up a solar panel. That'll fix

28:37
it. Really? Listen, I know that this is not what I should be feeling. But I did feel slightly heartened when I read that comment only because like sometimes in the UK at the moment, you do feel like I think we might I entire country might just take a leave of its senses. And then to read that comment, you know, it's all the same. Because we have a problem. Every time someone does a climate protest. They go, Oh, yeah, you know, you know who's protest I liked Martin Luther King's because it was just in an apple advert. That's all Martin Luther King did. He gave a short speech about a big sleepy town. He was just a segment of an Apple ad. This protests that actually stop things from happening No, it's terrible. You can't win if you if you talk about it online people go well, you just online click to this or that if you do something to like, why don't you just get back to the internet because this is not I'm late.

29:30
Little did I know that my old housemate was protesting every morning by telling you about her dreams.

29:38
I had a dream my teeth fell out.

29:42
Such a weird reaction online whenever I mentioned this story. Yeah, I get trolls going. Oh, well, the laws the law and as they were the law wasn't the law until months ago.

29:54
Again, these are always the people who love Ned Kelly. Like you know Have a bloody outlaw. Sorry, one lane of traffic temporary.

30:05
It's also just like, I am 10 minutes late. This is slightly inconvenience. This is inconveniencing by way of life, I think what would really inconvenience your life being on fire? Crazy

30:18
nation that was prepared for COVID because we had masks from the smoke already. You couldn't walk around and breathe at the same time for a couple of months. They're like,

30:26
yeah, we've had three years of back to back natural disasters. And you're like, the idea that you just like, oh, I have one lane of traffic for 20 minutes is our biggest problem. I mean, I know it's like a very, like, everyone was pointing this out on Twitter and posting photos of like, you know, lanes of traffic just overwhelmed with with floods and cars floating away. But you're like, this is this has happened like, whoa, two weeks ago? Yeah.

30:48
I've had like a 3001 50 year floods in the last year, like the most

30:52
Googled thing in Australia is when mobile rain stop.

30:56
Yeah, he's doing the most inconvenient climate protest the climate is making things very inconvenient.

31:05
Yeah, it is. Listen, sometimes it especially this year in the UK, it has felt quite isolating, and it is nice to come here and kind of go, wow, okay, I guess everywhere as fuck. It's always reassuring, because for a long time, a lot of the negative impacts of climate change are still happening to people who took a lot to find a point on it quite closely resembled me. And it's nice to know that, oh, they don't even care when it's a white country. Let's not get into why Australia is a white country. They don't even care that it's happening here. Like, I don't really know what I'm slightly at a loss at what climate protest is supposed to do.

31:43
Well, they've really adopted that the government's really adopted the like NRA thing, which is like while it's happening, it's not the time to talk about Yeah, that's right. The moment you're in the middle of a fire, it's like, well, we can't now's the time to talk about climate change. We need to talk about the community. And then as soon as it's over, it's like, well,

32:01
why are we talking about that? It's football season.

32:05
Extra, extra fears extra level of fear, or extra, extra, extra fear extra.

32:12
Hey, Nish. Thanks for joining us on Russia. For you. It's really quite a thrill to have you here. Well, you know why we've got you. Let's have a quick chat about the UK like, um, I mean, it'll the UK politics. I mean, how thrilled to you that a fellow South Asian man is in the top job in the UK.

32:27
Well, very excited for me. And it's very exciting for my community. I don't mean Indians, I mean, specifically Indians who are comes. For a long time growing up, I always thought maybe one day there'll be an Indian Prime Minister, but I assumed you'd have to be nice. No, no, it turns out, we got some asshole who ran a hedge fund for a long time. And he's, yeah, he's in office. Now. I mean, it's, it's very hard to explain why it's so bad. But it is so bad because he's sort of enthusiastically signed up to some quite racist policies, like the policy, which we actually have adopted from you guys. Yes, offshore detention, we saw your now route policy and we said no, we'll go further away. So our government is proposing that they fly refugees to Rwanda. And Rishi likes to kind of enthusiastic supporter of that for the for the last really last six years. He's been pretty enthusiastic supporter of Boris Johnson, who's been pretty openly racist. So the messaging it sends to young South Asians appears to be if you nod hard enough, when a white man is racially abusing you, you might one day end up being Prime Minister and his entire the entire reason he's there is he actually lost the leadership vote in the summer so in the summer that he had a candidate runoff against Let's trust now, I deeply deeply dislike Rishi Sunak but I would have preferred him to lose trust because he can count

33:51
like it's got to be deeply depressing to him to be you know, a Tory but a competent at least competent Tory is to lose to lose trust a woman who from day one was so far out of her depth that all the fish looked weird. Just astonishingly weird. And then, you know, she sort of fulfilled the dream fantasy of the more that the market would decide and the market gave her a big middle finger and then she fucked off.

34:15
But don't forget, she killed the queen. Listen, I can't prove she killed the Queen to be legally clear. But you none of you can prove she did

34:26
that you heard offense. The Queen has lived by the sword die by the sword after what she did to die Yeah,

34:35
he had a meeting with the Queen and the queen. I believe lost the will to live in conversation with Liz truss. I can tell the Queen simply lost the will to live

34:48
has Rishi Sunak had a working class friend yet has he added those to his repertoire?

34:58
He's not gonna work in class right? We're sort of we're going into a sort of period of potential strike action. He's kind of in this weird position where he has to, he's appointed a bunch of people, all of whom are now operating under a cloud of bullying allegations. I think at a certain point, they've now all bullied each other. Like, there's just a point in friends where they like, I guess we should get Joey and Monica together. I think now at some point like Dominic Rob is just gonna have to punch well above and beyond just because they're the only two people that haven't fully baked

35:29
WWE and like, I guess we get the whole Cogan to fight the rock. Yeah. Have we done that? Yeah.

35:35
The Cabinet meetings are just a steel cage deathmatch of this. So yeah, it's it's, it's at a certain point. I mean, this is do you take the country off like a derelict house?

35:48
This is worse than that. This is Andrew Tate fighting Jake for

35:54
a differently evenly. Like one of the very few bright sparks in Boris Johnson's tenure in Downing Street. Yes, cop 26. You know, which way the world almost did something meaningful? Yeah, it's like, almost it's something. But then the UK Government censors kind of walk back many of those that's like, what's going on there? Like why

36:15
I think in terms of the climate policy, what they're doing is saying that they're using the excuse of Vladimir Putin as an excuse to kind of go, Well, now's not the time to invest in renewable energy, because we have an energy crisis. Now. Yeah, look, we do have an energy crisis, because the Botox migrated in floods head, and he took leave, right. But also, through the rest of the year, a lot of other European countries. Daesik basically said, we're going to start stockpiling natural gas reserves. So we don't have this kind of as much of an energy crisis. Whereas we decided to have a Tory Party leadership contest for three months. So now our energy process is in chaos. The argument should be fossil fuels are causing us to become increasingly reliant on desk bots, lunatics and World Cups.

37:07
I guess sorry, but get covered.

37:13
Right, you let them get away with shit because they have the resources and then you rely on them for the resources when they're getting away with shit that you don't want them to be getting away with? Yeah, I

37:21
mean, we do have the Women's World Cup next year. So we have Donald

37:26
at Yeah, and the meanwhile, they're sort of actively pushing back on putting more solar panels in fields and this section of the Tory party, they're very actively pushing back on utilizing wind power, which obviously, is a sort of huge resource for the country because we've got nothing but ceaseless hot air coming out largely members of the leadership party like it's it. Yeah, it's basically in short, it's fucked.

37:51
Many scientists have projected that 2023 could be the year that Rupert Murdoch dies.

37:55
I honestly believe it when I see it. Yeah, I'll believe it. But I think he if he'd he'd walked out on 911. The guy is an absolute. The guy's I think he might be indestructible.

38:07
Yeah, he's just skeleton wrapped loosely, in in asbestos.

38:12
Is this what a lot of progressives are waiting for in the UK for this moment to happen? Well, I'll say this

38:17
in terms of Murdoch, we were very excited about the result of your general election. Very, very excited of the result of scomo versus Alberto, which is further evidence, and I've been very clear on this. Australia is not a real country. It was a it was a genuinely exciting, and I have Australian friends who are more progressive, who was somewhat frustrated by Alberto and by the Labour platform, but from our perspective, what we saw was sort of unpopular conservative who was endorsed by Murdoch lose an election which we have never seen. We've just never seen it. So from our perspective, it did feel quite exciting because we tried to get rid of our unpopular Rupert Murdoch approved leader who had botched the pandemic but then he got replaced by a different unpopular Rupert Murdoch approved kids like they like Medusa seem to actually get rid of them in full so like quite a lot. There were quite a lot of eyes in the UK on the Australian election, and it is a source of some optimism.

39:18
I don't want to be a Debbie Downer here and I also don't want to bite the hand that's feeding me on this podcast but part of the reason that we had such a nice turn to the to the left in the tail is that our local billionaire happens to be pro green energy

39:32
Well, we've got many we've got many billionaires in Australia that were just you know, just a few of them got together and said let's try and let's try not be

39:40
evil for one. Like why didn't happen once we were like, look, you know, he's old, he get he's forgetful. A close his eyes. He had a longer nap than he expected. He woke up. Australia had a Labour Prime Minister, but then the Victorian state elections happen. They haven't been through Melbourne that does smashing. Daniel Andrews like every like News Corp paper every like this, like Sky News they're just been going for it they've actually been going for him for years yeah like sending sending reporters down to his COVID conferences to like spout insane conspiracy theories. And he you know, crushed like the increased his, his his lead there so now he's laughing at

40:22
Elon Musk for getting eyes back on Twitter.

40:25
Well once Daniel Andrews got that Kanye endorsement

40:31
that's it so big thank you to Louis harbor house Fraser Nish Kumar. Let's get our plugs underway. Alex 21 Upload

40:37
patreon.com/alex Fraser is my one stop shop full of my standup specials podcasts and blogs as well my weekly tea with Allah salons and my weekly writing meetings if you want to do a writing meeting. Also I have the gargle which is my glossy magazine podcast.

40:52
I love your I love getting your Patreon emails, email blasts, when I can have a Zoom meeting with Alice Fraser it's always very exciting. Nish Kumar, what do you what do you plug in?

41:01
I have two comedy albums available on

41:05
Amazon Music

41:14
If somebody subscribes to Episode music because they write into the show they're available out there.

41:21
Yeah, Jeff Bezos is calling. Yeah. JB.

41:25
And Lewis, what would you like to?

41:28
There's this great podcast called irrational

41:30
really many 1/3 time in a row.

41:33
Right? We don't like to bring that up. But yes, we did when the third one for the third year in a row. All the other things I do probably talked about before, so yeah, you either know about it and hate it or know about it. Nobody. Listen, say thank you. To the letter to the former. I understand.

41:50
Hey, Alexa play Nish Kumar's comedy album

41:53
Okay, playing Harold and Kumar goes to

41:58
terrible, terrible thinking.

42:00
Absolutely love labor intensive audio drugs.

42:04
I'd also like to drop a plug for Nish Kumar's mum who in the audience once of a bugle that I was watching, leaned over to me and said you know when he says kill all white people, he doesn't really mean that

42:21
big thanks to Mike's Australian ethical our Patreon supporters, please please chip in with Patreon and also big thank you to Jake brown on the Tepanyaki timeline. Oh, it's been so much fun to niche. Thank you so much for taking time out of your Australian tour to hang out

42:35
a bit.

A Rational Fear on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ARationalFear

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