Change your online presence. Stay exactly what you're looking for and how you can help. Be explicit about remote hybrid or location preferences. Show your personality to differentiate you from other designers. Try a nickname like the workshop guy or the freelance designer. And finally, change the compensation that you asked for. Don't be unrealistic. Adjust your rate to the market and industry that you're in. Speak to designers within the industry to understand this. Pay scale, glass door are some good online salary resources. After trying all of that, getting zero interviews is highly unlikely. However, the market conditions are actually out of our control. So in the meantime, get work from Upwork, Freelancer.com and your network. Keep at it, you'll find something best of luck.


Hi, I'm Chris Thompson for Investor Intel and today we are speaking with Trevor Dirksen who is the CEO of ePlay Digital How are you today Trevor? Excellent ePlay Digital is a ticker is EPY on the CSE and that's also trades in the US on the OTC with the ticker EPY FF ePlay Digital, it's a very interesting company. You've got some interesting products in both the eSports and entertainment as well as exercise space. So maybe for our first time investors looking at your company, you can give a quick overview Sure, absolutely. Thanks, Chris. I'd like to emphasize three key reasons why investors should be looking at ePlay perhaps over anything else at this moment. The first is metaverse, something hopefully a lot of people have been hearing about. We'll dive into that just briefly eSports and what we say is Peloton goes outside, very important and that's clocked and the third is fanfreak. So metaverse, eSports, Peloton goes outside and fanfreak and I'll go over each briefly, but first he plays built games for ESPN, Sony Pictures, Intel Time Warner Cable and others games for sports, the Academy Awards, Los Angeles Lakers, FIFA World Cup We've also built games with seven time NBA champ Robert Ori, Olympic Catholic Michael Smith and comedian producer Howie Mandel He plays launched two major collab game series with two more about to launch Really, they are launched in some way already. The first two are Robert Ori and Howie Mandel already with over a half million or nearly half a million downloads in the last five months. The Ori and Mandel franchises are now focused on marketing, driving revenue and informing the approach with the next two product launches clocked and fanfreak. So four product lines over 15 SKUs, Accelerating Innovation and Revenues in the ePlay metaverse. Howie might be a world, ePlay is a metaverse. Facebook has WhatsApp, Instagram and Oculus forming what they call meta. ePlay sports metaverse has clocked Howie, Big Shot and Fanfreak. Our augmented reality sports platform converges human performance and we think that's the ultimate killer app, your epic achievements. So we've done this before, we do this at the highest level and we do it every day. Maybe I could just ask you a quick question about clock. When you talk about clocked, I've heard you mentioned about the physical, the digital. So how do you get into clock as a runner, someone who goes to events? I'm not quite a marathoner yet, but how would I get involved with clock and use it to help improve my times? Well, so how you get involved with clock is great. It's a great question. Registration opens Saturday for our first 5K events. So it's not a marathon, it's not a half marathon, it's not 10K, it's a 5K. So we're hoping to bring some people from couch to 5K and we believe clocked is Peloton if Peloton could go outside. So if you want to stay inside and run on the treadmill and ride a stationary bike, you've got options for that, there's competition for that.  So you can get started right away registering for that November 27th event in Boston. What you'll do with clock is you'll first download the app, then you customize your avatar, and then you'll send your avatar to Boston on race day. And you talk about physical, the digital is really, really important. So your avatar is in Boston, but it ain't going anywhere else. You send it to Boston, it's ready to go, it's on the start line, and unless you move your feet and have your phone with you, it's just going to stay standing on that start line. And so that's where the physical, the digital really comes in. It's a really, really important part for clocked, we can dive into this and any questions you might have, and that's audio. And we sometimes forget about audio, and it's to our peril, look at what's happening in podcasts, look at what's happening with Clubhouse, and clocked has a huge audio, augmented reality audio and video experience. And so that audio experience is very important. And it actually starts 30 minutes prior to start line time, to the start time on November 27th, that whole audio experience. There are other revenue generating potential from these types of virtual races. I've seen other things like virtual billboards, as well as special gifts you may get, which are the non-fungible tokens, which are NFTs, which are now becoming big into the marketplace. How do you foresee putting these into your product? Let me just deal with one minute time. Let's deal with billboards first. So on a 5K course, we've got five kilometers of real estate on your right, five kilometers of real estate on your left. And an audio experience that you're already listening to, where we can deliver ads triggered by landmarks, by key moments, by your performance, by other things that are happening to you in real life. Your phone is in your pocket, so you're not watching while you're running that race. And neither are the other, hopefully, thousands of people running on November 27th with you. I hope all their moms are, I hope all their dads are, their kids, their families on the Clock Sportsnet. And they're going to see those ads in real time during the live broadcast and on video and demand. And when you're done your event, you're going to watch the whole thing. It's 30 minutes long, 40 minutes long, depends how long it took you to run the 5K. You're going to watch that whole thing because it's going to be so compelling to see who passed you, what their names were, what pace they were running, where they passed you. And then you'll see those ads and you'll share some of those moments, those replays and those highlights. And the app helps you create those replays and highlights, almost like a sports broadcasting package. So you can share those on social media. So yes, billboards are banners and different advertising along the course. Imagine a marathon course, 84 kilometers worth of advertising. We're not going to put 84 kilometers of advertising, but that's how much real estate is available for us to sell in this metaverse. Now, what are you going to wear? That's another revenue model. So you mentioned banners and advertising. What are you going to wear? It's cold in Boston. It's November 27th. We've got a major sports brand, Spartan, with their sneakers, their tops, their bottoms. You can outfit yourself and everything clocked for free, but we've got some premium brands available for purchase. And your other big recent announcement was the fan free gap. And I think maybe spending a couple of minutes on that because the sport apps out there, they're very popular, especially the fantasy events and the fantasy applications. So maybe just a couple of minutes on that app. For sure. So fan free, we've talked about clocked up 22 million transactions in 2020, $50 each. The market for fan free, there's 4.5 million daily fantasy players in a market estimated to be about 10 billion. So we think that as a global market versus the 1.25 clock market of this North American. So 10 billion in 2020 for that daily fantasy market. Fan freak is, it doesn't want to be a copycat of daily fantasy of Draft Canes or some of the other competitors out there. So we created a streak game. And we're really committed to this. This came to us during pandemic when we started putting challenges out and how you go viral and other games to try and get people to play every day of the week. With clock, we want you to train five, six days a week and join us on the race on the seventh maybe or maybe get a day off.  Now you can buy lives. If you miss a day, you can buy lives or you get a wrong prediction on a sporting event. But you'll guess from NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, soccer, college sports, you'll put in your predictions. And the more predictions you get, they contribute to your streak. You get certain cash out levels. You can say, I'm done. I'm not going to do any better than this. I'm cashing out or you can let it ride. And so it's free to play, got playing every day. Why don't you play in every day? Got to build that streak. And cash prizes start kind of at 10 cents. If you don't have the guts to keep going, you can cash out at 10 cents or all the way up to... We've secured insurance for a million-dollar prize, kind of like hole-in-one insurance for a million-dollar prize. We're not going to launch with a million-dollar prize. We're going to launch some smaller prizes in the thousands and tens of thousands and let people build their streaks. Well, that's great. Oh, thanks for the update. I look forward to seeing how this first event takes place coming up, the first 5K run. And for people looking for the app, it's clocked with a K on the Apple App Store. I've downloaded it myself. And I just want to tell you I appreciate your time today. I was speaking with Trevor Durkin, who is the CEO of ePlay Digital.


Green Mountain Support Services to empower neighbors with disabilities to be home in the community. Major support also includes Washington County Mental Health where hope and support come together. Welcome to this edition of Abledon on Error, the one and only program that focuses on the needs, concerns, and achievements of the different label. I'm your host Lauren Seiler, my wife Arlene could not be here today. With us to discuss a very important issue of Team 2 is Washington County Mental Health Christian Chandler and Tony Fakus, the chief of police of Montpellier Police Department. But before we get to them we would just like to say thank you to our sponsors Washington County Mental Health and Green Mountain Support Services. Welcome to Abledon on Error. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Team 2 is in the missions and goals of Team 2. Sure. Team 2 is a training program for, it's run statewide for, started off for first responders for police, law enforcement, and mental health crisis workers. And it has sort of evolved in the last five years that it's been in existence to a training for lots of different first responders. It's a one day training in teaching people how to respond collaboratively to mental health crises. When we say respond collaboratively, give us an example of what that means. So that means that what we hope would happen is if an officer got a call out and knew that there was some type of mental health component to that call. And that officer felt like they could probably use some help from somebody with expertise in mental health that they would then reach out to their local mental health agency and those folks should be mobile and able to respond with the officer to the scene. Or if they can't respond to the scene to at least provide some kind of assistance. That's how it started as, and that's why it's called Team 2, is it initially started as just law enforcement officers and mental health crisis clinicians training together in this one day training. Chief, when we talk about breaking barriers, because with this show today we want to kind of break barriers and what has been your experience with Team 2 and how did you come to be part of it? Well, it was then Commissioner Mary Moulin's idea to come up with this Team 2 type program. And I got to say it was a really interesting journey for me at the time being a career Montpelier police officer and I started working in the city since 1985. We always had Washington County mental health, they were always just a seamless partner to us. We were very closely with them. So when I got involved in the law enforcement side of being part of this Team 2 collaboration, building it out, I realized how much I've taken certain relationships for granted in terms of Washington County mental health. When I started going around, when we started doing it, training the trainers, other parts of the state of Vermont, that type of relationship, that resource wasn't always available to a trooper or a deputy sheriff or a police officer in a variety of areas. And so that was very sobering to me that what happens in these communities when they don't have that mobile clinician that can come out and work with somebody that is in crisis or sometimes it's just that human checkup. How you doing? It's so vital. And I got to say, I want to just say that the chief was somebody who Mary Moulton identified really early on as what she called a champion, meaning that he got it, he got the police when they respond to people in a mental health crisis that they've got to take a different tactic. They've got to take a different tone in a different stance. And Chief Fecos understood that. And so he was part of the original team two steering committee that helped form the curriculum along with lots of other folks, but he was really instrumental to that. No, we say mental health, but I mean, okay, let's do a what if here. Does team two or can team two help someone with who is mentally and physically challenged if the case presents itself? Sure. And the way the training works is now we go to five different regions around the state and we invite as attendees people from mental health agencies who work in both mental health crisis response and in intellectual disability response. And sometimes there are other folks who might be working with people with a physical disability who might also attend the training. But that's not our primary focus. It's definitely people in either a mental health crisis or an intellectual disability crisis. Describe, without mentioning names, a mental health crisis. How would you guys really go into a situation? You want to take it? Yeah. If you don't mind. Yeah. All too often those calls will come right to the police department or police agency to respond because somebody's behavior is very much out of the norm where they might be dangerous to themselves or others. Hurting somebody else. Or potentially, you know. And so the way team two works, but we also, we're going to put a call into Washington County Mental Health, which is our designated agency in Montpelier. And the police are really there just first and foremost to establish a safety. And as soon as practical, the whole goal of team two is, okay, police are there.  The sooner that we can just, you know, remove ourselves, the police from that call and introduce, you know, the clinician to really help provide that level of support and even treatment if need be. That's really then their role. And we just are there to facilitate whatever may need to happen, whether it could be a transport to the hospital, or maybe we're not needed at all at that point. As opposed to just law enforcement going to the scene. What do we have here? Yeah. So ultimately we want to make sure that if the conduct that the person is presenting, ultimately what do they need? Why are they doing that? And how do we best help them? Just arresting somebody because it's disorderly conduct, for example, is that really going to get us the best outcome, the right outcome? Well, putting the cops on somebody might, probably, might scare them even more. Exactly. We don't want to escalate it. But again, we have to do what we have to do to make sure the scene is safe. But ideally, again, as soon as we are no longer that safety piece, you know, that concern is no longer there, it's safe. We have that clinician right there to have that, you know, to really start supporting that person. So what's the difference between the clinician or a clinician that goes into a scene and the screener? Or is it different? Is the screener involved? I'm using an interchange. Yeah, interchangeable. Yeah, we use that interchangeably.  There are a few police agencies around the state, including a couple barracks of the Vermont State Police that have what they are calling an embedded worker. And that's somebody who is employed by the mental health agency, but they actually sit with the local police. And I believe Montpelier and Barry is starting out. We are right now working with Washington Mental Health, Barry City Police, Montpelier Police. Are you guys working together? Well, we're trying to establish funding right now with legislative support for an embedded mental health worker for the two departments that we would share. Because that model really works really well. And that model's proven to work in large jurisdictions and other parts of the country as well. That part's not unique to Vermont. The challenge is, you know, Ken and how will Vermont fund it? And that's really where we're at right now. Team two is just Vermont. But what you're trying to do is bring it nationally or bring it? Well, team two is, it's really unique to Vermont. And it is a great collaboration between the Department of Mental Health and the Department of Public Safety. So the Vermont State Police basically and the Department of Mental Health have a, it's a year-to-year grant funded position or program.  We've been invited to speak at various conferences. And in fact, the Chief and I and Mary Malton went to the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference in Chicago in October to present what we're doing here in Vermont. And we were the only, the only state where we're doing this type of training where we bring those folks together for one day so that they can all learn each other's language, understand each other's limitations, and build those relationships that are really necessary that Tony's talked about for when you're in a crisis, you want to already have that relationship established rather than trying to figure out who everybody is. So we've been recognized internationally, really, for this model that we've put on here in Vermont for the last five years. And it's just, there's been a great response from law enforcement. Vermont State Police have identified Team 2 as a priority to put all their troopers through the training. So they're doing that. Now before Team 2, there was nothing else in its place. Well, the mandatory training that all law enforcement officers get in Vermont is what, it's an eight-hour training. It's mandated by statute. And that's for, it's called interacting with persons in a mental health crisis. Or some people refer to it as Act 80 training. And I teach that at the police academy along with a law enforcement officer and a clinician. And that's, every single officer in the state who wants to be certified has to go through that. So that is what is required. And that is in what we call, it's like a 100-level course.  And then Team 2 would be like a 200-level course. It's sort of like first aid for mental health? Mental health first aid is a different, that's a different program that focuses on different things other than that Act 80 doesn't focus on. And then the other training that is available is crisis intervention training or CIT. That's a 40-hour training. It's a police agency in Vermont that does that. And that's Hartford Police Department. That takes five days in a row, which is what a lot of smaller agencies really can't afford to send an officer to a training for an entire week. And that's why Team 2 kind of fits nicely for a rural state and rural jurisdictions, because it's a lot easier to send an officer to a one-day training as opposed to a five-day training. Talk about some of these presentations and the real importance behind having this important training. Well, as Kristen mentioned, it's so much about relationships. So it's a table-top, scenario-based training model. So it puts, again, the screen or the clinician, they're talking about what they would do, what's their responsibility, their role at this phase of this situation. And then police will talk about what their response would look like. And it's a chance to really start understanding how each see their responsibilities, but then they start working together, because when you're at a scene in somebody's own crisis, sometimes it can be very volatile, very dangerous. Yelling, screaming, even worse than that? Even worse than that. There could be weapons involved. And that's not the first time you want to meet that, your partner, if you will, from that designated agency. And one of my roles, back when I was a sergeant, was being a crisis negotiator in the department. We now have three operational crisis hostage negotiators. Even with having a trained negotiator, holding at the level of training to have a training, it's still important to have, even when I negotiate, it's important for me to have that screener from Washington County Mental Health backing me up, or maybe they can do a better job than I'm doing when in a certain situation. Or maybe they can get information that would be helpful for the police to use in order to try to negotiate with someone. That's why that collaboration is so key. And as the Chief mentioned, the training itself, it's a scenario-based training. We work through, in that one day, they get three different scenarios to work through in small groups. So you have a mix of people. Dispatchers are also invited to training and attend. So we've got law enforcement, mental health folks. You've got dispatchers. Sometimes we've got EMTs coming as well. And sometimes a disability, or the folks from the DS side of things might also be in the conversation. And it's just a great way, as the Chief said, for them to learn from each other about, okay, this is what I've got to do. And what we really focus on in that conversation is the legal, the clinical, and the safety aspects of each of those scenarios. So everybody's bringing something to the table. And during the day, before they do any scenarios, they first hear, for about an hour and a half, they get from me a legal overview of the mental health laws, any updates on what's going on. When you say legal, I'm sorry, when you say legal overview, explain what that means. Well, I was an assistant attorney general with the Department of Mental Health for eight years. And prior to that I was a prosecutor. And so I work a lot in the criminal system. But also I did, I tried cases here in Vermont for involuntary commitment. We talk a lot about that process, about we spend a lot of time on mental health warrants. And who they apply to and who they don't apply to. And what the limitations of the law are. And so the group gets an overview of any changes in the law. Anything that they, I feel like they should know about. But we usually spend a lot of time talking about mental health warrants because it continues to be a little bit of a mystery for lots of people. So is it hard? I mean, you can also answer this as well. So is it hard to get, because I understand the process of getting a warrant.  Why or why not? I wouldn't say it's harder. But it's the, in Vermont the law says that there's only two people who can write one. And that's either a qualified mental health professional or a law enforcement officer. And so those are the people who are in the room. So we want to talk about who. So what's it says, you must do something, you know. Can they override or help override the situation? They can't. The law says the person has to meet the legal standard, which is they've got to be a person in need of treatment. So first of all, they have to have a major mental illness. And then secondly, as a result of that illness, they are a danger to themselves or others. And that can look a lot of different ways. And that's something that where that mental health person and the officer can exchange information. The mental health folks may know about a pattern of things that have happened in the past, or they may know about that they're actually currently in treatment and this is just a little slip. You know, they're just this great exchange of information if they're working together. And so, and then there's no, they can also decide which one of us is going to write the warrant and how this is going to go if it comes to needing to write a warrant. And that's usually the very last thing they want to do. So they'll go to a treatment program, not a jail or... Correct. They'll go to a hospital. Yeah. Yeah. They'll go into a hospital. Because we want to... We want to get them some help. Yeah. And the mental health warrant is, that's what it's for, is to get somebody to a doctor who doesn't want to go. It's really, it's a way to take them there against their will involuntarily, but a judge has weighed in and said, you know, this is what needs to happen in order to keep this person safe. Safe. And healthy. Without hurting someone else. Or themselves. Or themselves. Yeah. And that's, you know, and that's a really important piece which you kind of talked about is so much of why we have Team 2 do all the things that we're doing is that we're really trying to, again, provide the most appropriate outcome and whatever, you know, possible and the right thing to do is we're trying to keep people out of the criminal system and get them, again, to a treatment or anything. And that even includes a philosophy, even with addiction as we're dealing with that as well. And many times too, those are two co-occurring problems. And ultimately, that's how, you know, we're all trying to best serve our monitors is that getting them the help that they need and not just putting them in, you know, sometimes certain conduct is criminal and it needs to be dealt with that way. But generally speaking... Explain what do you mean by...  But it doesn't prohibit us from also trying to get you some help at the same time. You can be in both systems at once, if need be.  Now, I mean, before the mental health warrant, let's say if you have team two at a situation and then the person says, okay, I need some help, do you take them to a hospital first or can the person sign their own paperwork without other people? No paperwork really needed. If they say they want to go voluntarily. Yes. The only issue then is how are we going to get you there?  Are you safe enough to get yourself there or can we help you somehow and give you a ride? Yeah. So there's not really paperwork involved if somebody wants to go voluntarily until they actually get to the hospital. Yeah.  Well, it's going to depend on the situation, what their needs are. Oh, okay. But that's something that that clinician or the screener is going to help determine is what is the least restrictive method available to actually help this person and keep them safe. Okay. Now you mentioned legal. Can you go through the other, some of the other parts of this? Parts of the curriculum? Yes. Sure. So besides the legal overview, we do the three scenarios. We also have a piece, show a short film on working with individuals on the autism spectrum, just because those calls have really increased in the last couple of years. We have a panel presentation that's a really key part of the day where somebody with lived experience comes in and we also have a law enforcement officer and a mental health clinician that sit on a panel and they just tell another, they talk about something that either worked really well in the past for them or something that didn't work well. And there's usually really very positive response to getting to hear from somebody with lived experience who is now in a position where they're well enough that they can actually reflect on and give some great advice to law enforcement officers really about, you know, this really worked well for me. You know, just be aware that if you're yelling a lot of commands at me at once, it's going to be hard or whatever it might have been, their experience, it's just helpful to hear from somebody who's actually been through it. And then we do a resources piece. So it's another part of going around the state is there are different resources available in different parts of the state. So we talk about what do you use in this part of the state? So let's say we're down in the Southwest region. So that's Bennington County, Rutland County, and we actually include Addison County in that. But we might say, you know, what do you do here if somebody needs a ride or they need a shelter, they're homeless, or if they need some kind of substance abuse addiction treatment, like what do you have in this area? What do you use? What's available 24-7 and what isn't? And it's different everywhere. So that's why we really encourage people to attend in their region where they work. People can't always do that, but it's really a much richer conversation when they're, you know, attending a training in their own region. And they're also then working with people at the training who they might then see out in the field in the future. Now, what if, let's just say, you go into a situation in this, you know, lots of situations. You know, you said that some work and some don't, or vice versa. What happens if you go into a situation and it doesn't work, do you, I mean, obviously you're trying to talk the person down or you're trying to speak to them in a manner that they can understand. How long do some of those situations can they last hours? So like a negotiator or... Sometimes they absolutely can last hours. And, you know, and usually if it's something that's lasting hours, there's usually a dangerous, dangerous moment to that. And in some cases, we're already involving a psychiatrist, you know, so again, working to think about the mental health warrant piece, but also what's the safety planning around how we're eventually going to make sure that this has a, you know, the best outcome that we can help facilitate. But they're all, each one's a little different, but certainly even at the, that baseline training that we talk about, you know, for the police training, it's just trying to slow things down. Having one person, you know, just trying to communicate. And sometimes, whoever has that rapport, I mean, we've had situations where we have a trained negotiator on scene, we've got mental health screener standing outside of a scene that's very dangerous, but we've got another officer that has a rapport with this person and is talking. Just because it's a negotiator on scene, we'll keep that other person, you know, in play, if you will, that other officer. Or it could be a screener, you know, whatever's working. You know, we don't want to upset that rhythm, and that's really important. So, but each case is, you know, we only have so many tools, if you will, and options.  Yeah, and that's why we also, in those scenarios that we, the three scenarios, every year they're different, but we try to incorporate many different types of issues in those scenarios that somebody might see. So, we usually have a scenario that involves a child or a kid. We try to have a scenario that involves somebody with a developmental disability or an intellectual disability. Just so, again, people can learn, like what's different about them? Because children, if it involves kids, would seem to, it's a different thing, right? Well, the law is the same as far as voluntarily committing children, but it might involve a different team. Depending on what part of the state you're in, some mental health agencies have different people who would respond if there was a child in crisis. It also involves completely different resources, and as you might know... But how is the law the same with a child? It's the same exact law regarding involuntary commitment. They still have to be a person in need of treatment before they can be committed against their will. And regardless of what their parents might want. And a lot of people don't know that. But, meanwhile, we only have one hospital in the state where kids can go if they need that level of care. And that's the Brownborough Retreat. So, scenarios also usually include, try to include somebody who might be a veteran or somebody who's elderly. Lots of different things, and they're very purposefully written so that to bring out these issues so that people will talk about them. You know, we try to talk about things that are hard. And you get different responses depending on people's either their level of experience or maybe it might even be based on what they're used to have happening in their particular region of the state. For example, let's say persons elderly. Alzheimer's. Team two is called in. Because, for example, we've had family members ourselves that with Alzheimer's, they throw things, they yell, they scream, and you try to bring that situation down. How would you deal or how would team two deal with a situation in that case? You know, whether it's... Yeah, throwing things. One is, can we at least isolate the person? In other words, get other people out of harm's way. It might be the first approach. And, you know, and then from there, just trying to establish that human rapport as best we can. Yeah. Finding out why the person... You know, and sometimes they can't articulate why they're doing what they're doing. And again, each well's cases are different. Each one gets hurt. That's the big thing. Yeah, and sometimes it can be simple as if there's other members of the family that could be in that harm's way or other roommates. Just like, hey, have them get out of that environment so at least we know that they're safe. And now we're just dealing with the one person that is acting the way they are. And so... And you picked a situation to fall neatly into the law, either, because... Alzheimer's is not considered a major mental illness. I apologize about that. No, it's a good point to bring up because it can be really frustrating for family members who don't know that, like, I just want you to, you know, this guy needs to be in the hospitals but we can't just write commitment papers on a person. If all they're presenting with is Alzheimer's. People on the autism spectrum also don't fall necessarily into that law. People with a traumatic brain injury. People with dementia. So there's a few folks that we're going to have to be pretty creative to figure out how to best help them and to keep the community safe. And that's a really important piece too with these hard cases that don't fit squarely in a box. We still get the calls from the police. The dispatchers are still on the phone or, you know, whomevers. Whoever's making that call. And we still have to show up and do what we can to make sure that everybody's going to be okay. At the end of the day, that's why we do what we do. Making sure people are okay. And that's what's so hard because sometimes the officers, jeez, what can we do? Who do we call? As we're working through that. And sometimes with dementia patients and Alzheimer's can be absolutely frightening to people that especially when someone's throwing things up there. Yeah, they're agitated. Yeah, agitated. And it's really, really hard too when it's like a family member that's not even, you know, fully aware of maybe what their actions are. Number and where people can turn to for Team 2? Well, Team 2 has the grant is administered by the Vermont Care Partners. Their website has all kinds of information about it. We have a Facebook page where, but it's the trainings themselves are not open to the public. They're really limited to an audience that's invited. Yeah. So there's that. But if people want more information there, there's a general Team 2 email which is team2vermontatgmail.com I welcome questions. Well, anything else you want to say about Team 2 before we end? No, I just... Future goals? The good thing is it's an ongoing goal. It's to keep making sure that as many, if not, all police officers are trained. The other real big challenge, making sure we have capacity statewide with the designated agencies, with the screeners and the clinicians out there throughout Vermont so they can respond with law enforcement or with police when they need to. Now with Team 2, does it all have to do... because you mentioned that it was a grant funded program. So does it all have to do with money per se? You mean whether it continues? Yes. And when I say grant funded, I mean that it's funded by the Department of Mental Health and the Department of Public Safety jointly. It's a relatively low cost program given... so if you get a lot of bang for your buck, I think is the way I like to think about it because it really doesn't cost a lot to put it on. And the value that we've found in being able to reach this group of people and the... I just can't say enough about the collaborative nature of the training itself. You know, it's very purposefully laid out and I have a great group of instructors from around the state in each of those regions that... so people are getting trained by their peers by law enforcement officers. I have a couple of dispatchers who are trainers and a lot of mental health crisis clinicians who are trainers. And they got trained back in 2013 as the chief mentioned during the train the trainers sessions that we did around the state. So we have a good core group of about 35 or so instructors for each of those five regions. Well, we would like to thank you for joining us again. Thank you for having us. Again, we would like to thank our sponsors Washington County Mental Health and Green Mountain Support Services for sponsoring us on Able that on Air. This puts an end to this decision on Able that on Air. I'm Loren Seiler again. Arlene could not be here today. Thank you for joining us. See you next time on the next edition of Able that on Air. I'm Loren Seiler. See you next time. Major support for Able that on Air. Green Mountain Support Services to empower neighbors with disabilities to be home in the community. Major support also includes Washington County Mental Health where hope and support come together.


All right welcome back everyone after that rather short break and so we're going to carry right on with our second to last paper of today and that is with Dr Martin Robson from University of Exeter. So Dr Martin Robson is a senior lecturer in strategic studies and head of top programs at the Strategy and Security Institute at the University of Exeter. He specializes in the utility of history for contemporary application and his research focuses on the formulation and implementation of British policy and grand strategy. His historical work encompasses numerous aspects of 18th and 19th century naval and military history in a global context including aspects of seapower joint operations and economic warfare. Dr Robson has been involved with civilian and military education at undergraduate and postgraduate levels since 2008. During his career he has worked as an advisor to the Royal Navy's Maritime Warfare Centre and has also worked with the MOD's Development Concepts and Doctrine Centre, the Met Office and the National Archives. Really happy to have you with us Martin and with no further due. The floor is yours. Thank you Anja and good evening to everybody and I caught the end of the previous discussion which was quite interesting and a great comment about more discussions about the First World War so I'm going to caveat that with the fact that I'm actually going to talk about 1914 to 1918 largely because if I look at international law and discussions in the debates about international law with reference of the South Atlantic I think there is a clear recognition certainly on the side of Germany on the side of Great Britain that international law had probably spread its course by the time we get to 1914 in the sense that international law had the concept of international maritime law had broken down and we can see that in some of the decisions enacted. I'll also caveat further that I am not a lawyer. My job here as part of my job here I teach students on a third year law module and I see my job as undermining their faith in the concept of international law because strategists and the role of the applied strategist is to find the work around, is to find the loophole, is to find the way to achieve national interests within an international more construct but certainly to look for opportunities to bend the rules maybe and one of the other things I wanted to consider in the in the sort of like the long pull-through of this subject is the development certainly following the declaration. Paris in 1956 which has been well put by Anne Lenner said then into certainly the first hate conference of 1899 but specifically the second hate conference of 1907 and and the London conference of late 1808 to 1909 and the follow-up to that in terms of decision making in a strategic concept. And why South America, why the South Atlantic, why does this matter? Well it's an area where Britain and Germany both conflicted over international maritime law and what I'm going to largely be looking at today and concepts of the use utility auxiliary cruisers wrapped into concepts of a good course. And again while in South America within that context well it's where you can see the intermeshing of policy-enabled strategy in a globalised context. We get the combination of trade and finance and concepts of economic warfare which I think is really important and we're thinking about economic warfare in this period. I might talk for a little bit longer than 20 minutes if I do I apologise but I'm sure Greg or Annette will probably shout at me and I'll find all stumps at a suitable point. And again the South Atlantic and South America is really quite interesting because we're not necessarily talking about huge tracks of formal empire either for Germany and certainly not not for Great Britain but we're looking at how you project power in an area where you have significant trading in economic interests. And certainly from a British perspective in terms of finance to start off with when we look at British overseas investments in places like the millions and the dependent empire by the time we get to 1913-1914 they're totaling about 1.7 and 6 billion a year the largest of which is between Canada which is over 500 million a year. But Latin America as a whole would receive more UK investment than a single dominion in 1913-1914 about 1.18 billion pounds. I mean this is a significant amount of British capital prior to overseas. Significant in that is Argentina. In 1910 British investment in Argentina amounted to about 2.9 to 269 million pounds and by 1913 it was into 257 million pounds and was approaching 500 million on either the First World War. And what's crucial here is that this trade is growing and it's new capital of being invested to and being attracted to Argentina. If we look at the years 1907 to 1930 it's about 180 million pounds of new British capital investment has been attracted to that country. The key here is trade and while by the time we get to 1912 the United States is Britain's largest trading partner with a total import and export trading about 186 million that's followed by British India and Germany sitting third perhaps raising some questions there about concepts of economic independence in terms of you know countries who are linked together economically don't fight each other and what yes they do because national interest often trumpets in strategic interests. And while Argentina has further done a list of trading partners I mean it's only sitting about 48 million pounds per year um you know British investments about 60 percent of all investments in Argentina so it's a key trading partner. Now it's not just the value of the trade it's the strategic nature of this trade that is concerning British naval thinkers and planners pre first and development of the First World War set in the context of international maritime war. In the years before the First World War the UK was the largest import of food in the world importing about so just need to about more than half its food by value and at least 58 cents of its calories. Significantly it's the South American Latin American food supply here which is key between 1909 and 1913 grade imports accounted for 78.7 cents a week for power consumption in Great Britain and Argentina was the second largest foreign supplier outside of the Dominions around the United States but 60 percent of the Argentinian wheat trade destined for Britain was controlled by foreign big German firms. And by the time we get to 1913 the British minister of Buenos Aires the Reginald power is warning the foreign office that this German control of trade is giving them a stranglehold of the sinews of a future British war effort i.e food supplies. What goes for wheat also goes for meat and between 1909 and 1913 imported meat accounted for about 35 to 40 percent of meat consumption in Britain. In 1907 the Britain obtained the majority of its wheat from the USA but by 1911 the largest supply was Argentina accounting for about 16 percent of the British import trade mainly as frozen beef. 61 percent of this was shipped from the river plate itself and for frozen and chilled beef South America supplied 82.6 percent of British imports which is about nearly 30 percent of domestic consumption. To the Argentinian supply must be added meat and pork which came from places like New Zealand around the Cape Horn and followed the South American freight routes leaving the official historian of the great war Seaborn Freight to calculate from official figures that in the years of peace 84 percent of the beef and 67 percent of the mutton imports in Britain came from poor food south and open waters and in a broad sense about 40 percent of British meat and wheat imports came from this route and the river plate had become an irreplaceable source of food for the island kingdom of the island. Start to add some naval granularity to this it's got to be moved somehow and here obviously merchant shipping in Britain's dominance of merchant shipping was important conventionally as pointed British shipping in 1914 being about 45 to 55 percent of global shipping so a significant domination of the market and the trade itself is housing large ocean gun vessels of over 3000 gross registered funds there the ships moving this stuff around now of course Britain and allies control nearly 80 percent of this shipping and that provided the vital means to conflict the trade itself in terms of South American nations the South American aspect of the trade and the exports was entirely dependent upon on registered shipping in 1910 Britain only 56 percent of shipping punished entering Argentinian ports and by 1912 under about 16 watt percent of the tonnage of Buenos Aires the Germany lagging well behind was only 12 percent but from this period on German trade and German shipping numbers and inside the land in the South Atlantic and South American ports start to increase for the meat trade key was refrigerated shipping and that kept the supply chain flowing between the river plate and the UK by 1914 there were 200 British steamers working in the refrigerated trade alone although not more long the South American route of course there's a strategist thing that the Norwegian pops out is obviously the cruisers or potential of some of the cruisers here so what is the German threat in British allies well Germany was seeing significant growth in its import export frame with Latin America about 1902 onwards and while Britain maintained a lead it was losing out in relative percentage terms one with the United States given ambiguity over the United States' role in any future European conflict and significantly with Germany the German trade is growing and along with that the growth of German shipping by the time we get to 1912 Germany was planning to use naval training vessels to join with the West African squadron and to be equipped as auxiliary cruisers and German planners are also thinking about mobilising the commercial vessels vessels that are those of the Hamburg South American line and HSVG as auxiliary cruisers picking them out with naval officers and arms and a number of warnings come out from the area with the admiralty about the concern and the growing concern of a danger posed by a significant portion of German shipping in the Sweden you must remember that by 1914 Germany possessed the world's second largest merchant shipping ring with more than 500 million tons of shipping and sailing under the German flag. Clearly huge potential for auxiliary cruisers and other cruisers of course. So how did the British respond to this threat? Well the initial response is strategic not legal focusing upon an offensive strategy to attack German merchant shipping therefore removing the danger of Germany converting these ships to auxiliary cruisers at source. This would be done by utilising one of the cruisers in both defensive and offensive roles and April 1905 there's nothing to be conference on commerce war which rules out convoy rules out patrolling and focuses instead upon positioning cruiser squadrons of strategic modes and the admiralty considered that the German go to course could not be effective but of course we roll on in a million decade and we've enhanced numbers of German shipping and the situation starts to change. A number of naval war college games simulate the German cruisers before it really proves as we can have it upon German upon British commerce in South Atlantic and the 1907 war plans delegate the suppression of German trade in the South Atlantic to cruisers station like the Cape and Sierra Leone. But it's the Hague Convention of 1907 which offers a different route not this strategic route but the legal route and picking up upon some of the previous conversations clearly this the idea of Hague formulating some kind of consensus on international war doesn't hold up to expectations why because national interests trauma concepts of international war. German thinking clearly focuses upon the ability of the adds to the dangers that they pose of British shipping so of course they will not give up their desire to outbid and take into naval service merchant shipping at sea and this is the key ability to do this on the policies while going forward so when this starts to break down this leads to essentially two options you continue the strategist route which is again using while maybe cruisers in that offensive defensive role and then certainly a use of international war or do you start to think about arming your own merchant ships as a symmetrical response to the potential journey but after 1907 British naval thinkers are thinking that the legal route is still in option and you can see the development of this between Hague in 1907 and into planning for the landing conference in late 1908 and into 1909 and it's interesting thinking about the nature of the Gürde course which is often seen as an asymmetrical response to a government battle fleet whereas when you look at the example of this in the South Atlantic what you see is the Gürde course becoming ever more important in British thinking in this offensive role to negate German shipping and remove the effect of being covered for auxiliary cruisers but on the other side of the coin almost the symmetrical response of arming British merchant ships to take on that defensive role to deny Germany the ability to interdict those absolutely crucial food-based sea lines of communication so we move on to the London conference maybe later 1809 where there are a number of divergent views and practices amongst the nations of the world as a convent which we've heard about blockade, continued voyage, mutual vessels, there was fries and fries of the wars for ships and crucially here the legality of the conversion of merchant ships to warships on the high seas etc and the British government British naval thinkers go into the conference hoping that there will be some agreements on these vexed issues but of course the Germans will not pledge they want to retain the right to transform merchant ships on the high seas into warships and from here on we can see the failure of the ability of nations to agree on international law being a key driver in further thinking about the strategic use of auxiliary cruisers from the German perspective and both the British perspective. In essence Britain is looking with its global interests it's focused upon the growing threat in the North Sea and European waters about how to protect an absolutely vital supply line with not enough resources and clearly the obvious option is to take up is to take up our merchant shipping and convert them into auxiliary warships. There's a huge amount of intelligence gathering that starts to happen at the London from 1909 in the summer of 1909 and HMS Amethyst is sent into South American waters to conduct a systematic intelligence gathering exercise from British merchants about the growing presence of European merchant shipping and to also engage a perspective about the value of the freight and by the time that we get to 1911 where there have been three formalized positions the Pernambuco, Cape Bird Islands and a month of the day where British officers are in that intelligence gathering role we can see that the growing menace of the German auxiliary cruises is being a bit large in British thinking without us. During peacetime there's only generally one long navy like cruiser in the South African station and the Admiralty placed their hopes in the fact that much of the British shipping can actually outrun its pursuers which is not necessarily a great strategic response. I'm almost by the time that we get to 1912 the Admiralty had sort of closed its eyes to South America following the example of maybe the Committee for Imperial Defence, the Foreign Office and the rest of the UK just at a time when the German military cruisers was growing to be a significant concern and so the symmetrical response from British naval thinkers is to turn to this concept of defensively armed merchant ships and the Duff Committee reports of May 1912 considered the effect German commerce rating might have on crude supplies and the resultant panic in the UK which is exactly the intended effect in German naval thinking. That would lead to a rise in insurance rates, prices, food shortages, etc all of those vexed issues that set apart a concept of economic warfare. So what happens? Well the first trial ship is the Royal Mail steam packet Company Aragon which is sent to South America in the 2050s on the 1912 on with a couple of 4.7 guns and it gets delayed and finally sets out in 1913. The concept being that adding either mountains or the ability to hold guns will be enough to deter German surface raiders because of course with the submarine setting is an unrealised technology in terms of conflict the majority of thinking in terms of South American security in a maritime sense is about the surface not submarine. And by the time that we get to 1940 I think we hit a crit 39 ships as defensively armed merchant ships in order to try to meet that and German cruiser threat. So I'll just say a few words to sum up because I'm doing quite okay for time. By the eve of the war the ability to assess that Germany's regular cruisers were too few to be an issue. And if we look at Corbett's thinking in the first world war about the German cruiser threat the regular cruiser threat being dealt with pretty quickly he's sort of proven right but it's the auxiliary cruisers those German ships which are printed out as raiders which are causing the real headache for the enemy. And as we have seen rather than the thrusting place in international law or in essence in essence regular naval deployments it's the sort of the middle policy or the part job or taking what you can in terms of the resources available to fit out and British merchant shipping in a defensive capacity which sits at the heart of strategy on the outbreak of the First World War for defending this important South American threat. So I think in that sense you know there are many and when I talked to my third year lawyers about international and international war and they look at this this period following the declaration of Paris the interdict to Hague conventions etc is also like the birth of not just international war but concepts of the international community and that's all that's all fine and well but from my perspective it does one significant learning point from looking at this period it's in essence the failure of international war and why does international law fail it fails for the reasons international war tends to fail which is it's not international interests of states whether it's Germany or whether it's Britain to subscribe to policies and law which will harm either their national interests or their ability to conduct warfare on a on a on a on a scale or on a type which is necessary to deal a blow to their expected enemy and because at the Hague Conference of 1907 and the London Conference of 1909 Germany refused to guarantee its merchant men would not be turned into commerce raiders because of course why would they give that guarantee when that is their best way to harm British interests if the if the high seas fleet can't escape the sea um the British response is a symmetrical one in terms of looking for a similar similar um a similar way ahead so if Germany's got on merchants and ships as a cruiser then that is really the only response set against pressing international commitments the focus upon upon European waters and the inherent value of the trade because as Ivan Block wrote in 1898 um you can't you can't fight and the primacy of protecting that sea-lady communication while visible in British thinking wasn't necessarily enacted until war actually breaks out in 1914 okay I think that's probably enough from me um I hope that was interesting and it's a it's a piece of thinking a piece of work that I've been sort of uh watching along with for a number of years and the inability to get into archives of the past eight few months has limited the the ability to work on this but it's something I'm developing as this broader construct of certainly the maritime sense why debates about international war as noble or international maritime law as noble as they are why do they fall down and as the as the arch realist it's you know a fundamental thing that certainly in this period states will be states and we can see that about debates about um about consumer merchant shipping about the conversion of merchant shipping but we also see that in debates which I'm sure you've discussed already about how the First World War will be conducted and that you know this agreement between the practitioners um whose job it is to win and some of the legal arguments and Paul with himself um being on the side of the debate but thinking about the the primacy of international war well as we know that falls down pretty rapidly and it's not just in 1914 what I've looked at um concept of international maritime law operating down as early as 1907 so that's that's enough for me delighted to field any questions um thank you very much for your time great thank you for that Martin that was super super interesting um I will just kick off with it with a small question because this is certainly not my era of expertise how much if any role did the South American governments have in this debate did they have stakes in being neutral nations did they have stakes in the company exceeding were they involved at all in this debate um a small part um if you look at the the example of Brazil for instance Brazil is very keen on that mutual realm that neutrality that essentially let's think about it in a sense of you know export trade is really really important as is obviously its financing investments in the development of say the Brazilian economy the Argentine economy so they don't really want anything to rock the boat but they hampered and although they've they've gone through a period of um trying to look up in their own interests by um made an expansion in the 19th century by the time we get to this period um clearly in terms of the the work that I've looked at and the British and German thinking there was no concept at all of say the Argentine perspective or the Brazilian perspective or even the Chilean perspective this is very much seen as a as a as a as a northern hemisphere external conflict been you know taken to South American waters and ports largely from European national interests from their German interests or whether they're or whether they're British interests I mean the other interesting aspect here is the role of the United States because there's many people in this conversation are aware um there's thinking within British circles that um this is a massive opportunity the first of all is a huge opportunity to clean out those German companies which are controlling either leak processing certainly aspects of the canning trade in terms of the preservation of food stuffs and this is seen as a great opportunity to basically blacklist German companies a fortnight of business and then British companies will take them over but of course by creating the vacuum what happens is the great competitive aspects of the US economy means the United States then steps in to take over those roles and again you know there's very little of what I've seen debate whether it's in British or or German or United States circles about the national interests and so there's a lot of Argentina this is you know informal empire by you know empire by essentially informal arrangement it's it's it's it's it's taking a dominant almost hegemonic position in the global trading environment and use it to maximize one's own interests now obviously Brazil Argentina etc benefit from this trade but in no way is it done on equal terms and I think that's reflected certainly in some of the discussions about one protecting of the protection of say South American aspects of South American neutrality and that has infringed a number of times in the First World War but also about their their voice in terms of inputting into what international law looks like I mean if you're thinking about this in a systemic way if you're not inputting into the system significantly you don't have a voice and I think if you look at the difference between say the pre First World War period the interwar period and post 1945 I think one of the most significant changes in that concept of what the international community thinks international law is for is there are more voices in that debate post 1945 than there are at this at the period that I'm looking at in terms of say 1900 to 1940 which I know is a very long and convoluted answer to your question but you know you'll get paid to talk so we all quite like to talk anyway no absolutely no no that was great that was perfect thank you I know that Greg has the question and then Marta also has a question so Greg let's let's go with you no let's go with Marta first well that's fine too all right thanks Greg and thanks Martin I have a question because my conceptualization of international law is quite different from yours and I study the same period which is all as it should be of course but I'm wondering whether you're overstating the separation between national interests and international law and if you're almost overstating the nobility of international law at the time and even whether you're underselling Latin American voices in the formation of international law because 1907 they were at the Hague and they were very loud and and very proud and it's really more about no one seeing what you said I don't disagree that there is planning for war and there is planning among the British for war with Germany but I do think that there is also a planning there is no conception of the first world war is is going to happen right so so we have that knowledge they didn't and I think there is in much of what you say there's real issue about how do we protect our various futures and so auxiliary cruises are absolutely central to this because it might bring back the age of privitering it might bring back this fear of merchants going out as merchants or seeming like their merchants and then turning them into warships at sea and if we lose control of that then we lose control of global trade our imperial connections and all this trade and that would be true whether Britain will be at war or not and I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about the so not so much about sort of thinking about what a war with Germany might look like but what it might look like if Germany was at war but Britain was neutral in this period because I'm seeing when I read these sources and I admittedly look more at the foreign policy foreign office ones and the legal ones as opposed to the Admiralty ones so this is where that contestation about what what the roles of various institutions in the formation of planning at state level plays of course how do you see this the Admiralty engaging with the possibility that there might be a future in which Britain is neutral and in which these auxiliary German auxiliary cruises might be become belligerent how does that play in their conceptions of of what they are planning for I think in terms of the big issue is I think a disconnect between concepts of national policy and those charged with the formulation of strategy to deal with specific threats and challenges and you can you can see this time and time again between tension between say the Admiralty and the foreign office which you alluded to in terms of if we're dealing with this in a high level in terms of the formulation and implementation of British policy how is that linking or not linking into the practitioners who are thinking about solving naval issues and naval problems in this perspective and you can you can see this in either work with Ottley or Slade etc who you get the feeling of being quite frustrated in the sense that as practitioners they have a role and obviously the London Congress Slade is there as a delegate in terms of kind of represent the naval strategists approach to solving problems set against concepts of national interest so I think there is a bit of a disconnect there in terms of the way in its specifically something that I think in this period the Admiralty struggle with as opposed to say the war for some terms of planning for a future conflict either in Europe or Britain's role on the side of a future conflict because the Admiralty is charged with a broader remit and say the war for us and the Admiralty is charged with not just looking at the threat in a symmetrical way from either France or Russia or Germany but it's also charged with the security of those vital arteries and where the war is isn't it so I think the Admiralty is going almost through a sort of a period of contextualising how does it defend British interests in the realm on a global level when you have a disconnect between policy and strategy but also within the naval service itself I mean the efficient barris industry being a classic example of this about exactly how to do that in terms of security in home waters or security overseas and if you can't provide for security overseas who helps you out of course leading to the debate with France about taking on Mediterranean security in order to allow that greater concentration of benefit in the North Sea and I think and you mentioned privateers is quite interesting because I think one of the one of the developments that you've got going on in this period is the enhanced ability to sort of have a more controlled approach to a good cause so it's not just a case of sending out privateers with letters of mark to to ravage with economic self-interest enemy trade it's the ability to take up shipping in an auxiliary role and control it in an almost like a state sponsored proxy and control it to a degree with developments in wireless technology etc and I think the fear is of a highly coordinated German offensive in the very start of a conflict whether it's wars declared or whether it's that pre-war inter-conflict period which is going to significantly damage the British food supply which is a significant issue for the admiralty whether whether policy makers actually fundamentally get the nature of the danger I'm I'm still not entirely convinced but this is a significant concern for many of the admiralty itself even the fact that they are charged with detection and if this doesn't work they're going to get the blame and they're going to be held accountable for this in some way shape or form and in terms of neutrality I think I mean I know that and looking at the the I'm sorry I couldn't make you a talk but looking at the title in terms of might is right and again you've got this feeling within the naval service that within the construct of the Anglo-German relations with the construct of economic conflict within the construct of or what Germany can do to harm the UK to either keep us out or force us out of the conflict once it starts and the biggest opportunity that Germany has maybe is not you know the traditional invasion of the French islands stair but it's the ability to affect British British trade British supply lines etc and that therefore I mean I think you know if you look at naval thinking of this period I mean I think you find it hard maybe to think of inconceivable you know a broadly European conflict of which British interest are at stake and Britain remain neutral on the sidelines now I'm not as familiar with the foreign office I'll say because you are more so the admiralty files but I think thinking like the practitioners did about the reality of this it is about planning for a future war with initially Russia France but then increasingly so Germany of which that war will inevitably escalate and spread into into South America and South American war with the British investor thank you it's a good question if you can imagine. No that was great Martin thank you for that I'm going to move to a question that's in the chat from John Bodie I'm sorry if I mispronounced that and so John says what a fantastic lecture thank you and he goes on to say I was wondering if you could comment on the modern interpretation of your ideas regarding international humanitarian law that is do you feel the same state interests apply today in regard to political interests taking supremacy over legal theory or law in the same manner as they did in 1907 to 1918? Thank you John for your current comments in terms of when we look at concepts of say national interests versus human rights today not all states are the same I mean we must recognize that in Western liberal democracies like ourselves we have a we do have a different interpretation of the role that human rights and whether they sit as a priority for other parts of the world I think that also sits within the construct of of the international community and things are RTP responsible in effect which you know the UK has used itself as a as a justification for action I think about Libya in 2011 but they're non-action in Syria in 2013 so the human rights aspect of this is is significant in terms of say the UK's interpretation of the world around it but I suspect that human rights don't necessarily sit very high on Vladimir Putin's list of priorities unless Russian human rights are being or are being infringed maybe in Eastern Ukraine or the Baltic states etc so I think you know they are we have seen the concepts of human rights being weaponized to agree by states to achieve their national interests I'm a I'm a liberal realist I like the world to be a nice fluffy place where everybody's great to each other but sometimes going to do bad things so you know I think it'll be it's I think it's very problematic to categorize states as states when we need to maybe think about and again it's one of the criticisms of the Western liberal rules-based international order that is a Western liberal rules-based international order which might not suit say China's way of thinking about how it and achieves its interest either internally as a sort of a nation or externally in say the way it acts in the South China Sea I think we have to realize that there are different interpretations about human rights globally now as an international community we can agree on many things so the United Nations the hard part of strategy is getting it to work in practice where people fundamentally disagree on aspects and I think in that sense when it when push comes to show national interests in many cases still from the concept of human rights now that's not necessarily a good thing but we have to we have to call it as we see it. Well that's great thank you Martin I think you know if if this conference has showed anything is that there is a fascinating tension always between conceptions of international law and strategic thinking and clearly in the maritime sphere this is very much true which is great because that's what we hoped would come out of this. Greg I'm going to give you the last question of this panel and then move on to our final panel. Thanks Anna just a quick one then Martin changing nature of you mentioned this kind of humanitarian and the food link debates schools of thought within the the admiral team that actually the indiscriminate use now of of a general food blockade was immoral unethical and or illegal was there much of that prior to the outbreak of the war. To be honest Greg I don't know because I haven't been looking at blockade specifically in the sense that if we're thinking about this in terms of economic and humanitarian consequences of economic activity which is essentially you know is starving civilians to death and legitimate use of of state power. Yes because that's the whole nature of blockade. As you know that the huge amount of work done by people at the time, you already mentioned some of what I'm getting in the previous session about about the reality of understanding that blockade is a you know it's not a soft tool it's a hard tool why because people will die because of it it may take them longer and it's not like they've gotten fond on their heads but we're talking about the blockade of food dust means means the death of women and children. I think from the work that I have seen and the thinking that I have done this is done in a very detached way and while the concert is always for one's own in the effect of one's own population etc and not you know cutting the South American supply line is going to be highly detrimental to the UK free supplies it's often seen from what I have seen as a political concern in the sense that if we're thinking about blockade as a tool to starve enemy populations to make them rise up and overthrow their governments as a way to force government to do maybe a more a less provincial line of policy. This figures quite often but I think and maybe it's the nature of the times and maybe it's the nature of the naval approach to this which is often detached from those large population centres online where you can see this I mean you know maybe it's contained about seed line that's from policy but of course maybes are also often behind to be affected what they do and how it happens and impacts on views of them in the same way that maybe sort of you know street and former crews in the second world will detach themselves from what they were doing. So I think in that case Greg I mean although I have looked at the yeah Admiralty files on this I hadn't seen things that make it bigger highly but of course we're talking about official documentation and I think there's there's concern but there's a strategic realisation that you know war is a massive group of business and that people get killed and you want to hope that you lose less of your people than the casual people on the other side. If that shortens the war then that's maybe a good thing in terms of the word up people approaching this thinking I know that's quite a woolly answer to your question Greg and I'm not trying to avoid the issue but it's certainly something that I think needs further investigation so that was a that was a that was a sort of straight back one for that one Greg but it's important aspect because I think when we think about areas that have not been traditionally covered certainly in terms of either naval work or maritime work the impact of things that happen at sea on land is integral I mean that's why we that's why naval operations that's why maritime warfare is conducted it's to have an impact upon political entities upon societies to make them change their policy you know to impose one's will upon the other and I think the humanisation and the humanising aspect of that are as yet possibly untapped areas for further research thanks Martin cheers thank you Greg thank you Anna all right brilliant thank you so much Martin for a wonderful paper and a wonderful Q&A session


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Everybody forced here up in twenty one twenty two NT basketball hobby for box case. This is number 21 tier random team style. You can always find the results at late in sports cards calm Thank you everybody for joining a good luck. All right, first up. We've got a born. It's LaMelo ball base card to 99 printing plate Mavericks Josh Green Terrell Terry from iMac It's a dual logo man printing plate Thunder rookie jersey card Josh giddy. Nice the 99. That's awesome bucks. Look at that patch to 25 Yanis onto the kumpo Three color bucks patch fantastic it That's going to Daniel a Magnet for you Daniel Demshaan Lakers Thomas Talens signatures gold Kareem Abdul Jabbar Let me make sure that it's Lakers There you go Lakers gold the 10 on the timeless talents auto from Kareem NBA 75th anniversary RPA for the Thunder Jeremiah Robinson Earl the 75 Great hit for the Thunder now Good box here that mag as well Pistons Jersey card Isaiah Thomas 62 out of 99 Hornet Turkey dual Jersey Herbert Jones 18 of 99 Rockets definitive ink Christian Wood 63 out of 99 Pacers old-school action here a vet action I don't know if I don't know if the mid to early 2000s are old-school, but Steven Jackson and met a world peace auto 425 Pacers cool hit there, man. They should get a malice at the palace auto with like eight signatures just get like Metta world peace Steven Jackson and Ben Wallace. I don't think they put that on a licensed card though I don't think they'd want that the best look The NBA be a little upset that the license is being used like that what relics. Yeah, I mean Probably are some Kyrie to 99 go calves. Dude. Check this printing plate out. It is a rookie downtown Anthony Edwards printing plates Look at that T-wolves. That's pretty sick actually Jersey card Raptors Pascal. See y'all come to 99 Warriors NBA materials James Wiseman 17 of 25 game-worn patch That's pretty good. How to retail Mufasa Dual Jersey Clippers Ricky Otto Brandon Boston, Jr. to 99 nice hit clips. He spruced up his auto Just a bit used to just be BB now. It's like a swiggle there, too. He's getting there Improvement we'll take it got Ricky material auto dual Jonathan Kaminga Warriors redemption Nice, man.  I would imagine that's the 99 I would think could be to 49 though or less Suns validating marks Frank Kaminsky to 49 Colossal rookie Jersey Otto Warriors Juan Toscano Anderson 44 of 99 other solid hit for the dubs there Nick's Jersey card Kim Reddish to 99 that is almost certainly a Hawks game-worn. Yep Hawks game-worn Nick's card and jazz Mike Conley Jumbo Jersey to 99 Alright guys, this is our last basketball break of the night. We've still got some football. We got to get filled up Check spots here So We're at one to go on the serial number break number 45. I'm gonna get you only for 46 21 to go on it 21 to go Thank you. Excuse me. All right T Wolves Anthony Edwards on the base parallel to 75 Hawks pretty play Oh a Trey young sneaker spotlight There you go Hawks Mavericks Jersey car Dyrton of Vitsky 8 of 99 Nt horrible Warriors game use Jersey Steph Curry to 99 what we're each allowed to have ours There you go warriors Peerless auto green the five thunder Alexi Pokhasevsky low numbered hit there. I Will be there Brandon. I will be one of the few gold RPA magic Franz Wagner boom What a hit. I Love Jose What is that patch? Gotta be I don't even know His chest logo or something It's I think it is the G Yes, that's pretty sick. What a card man Jersey card sons Cam Johnson to 99 magic Jersey card RJ Hampton to 99 clutch factor Signatures on Yaka Okangui 1 of 49 for Atlanta the Jersey auto and Hornage triple patch Rookie Auto Kai Jones 7 to 25 beautiful card there Kai Jones Hornets Last one last basketball box of the night At least until person a Shaq magic order. That'd be pretty cool Magic Shaq is awesome Wizards Chris apps for zingas to 75 base parallel printing play Pacers Jeremy lamb from prism a Chris taps Jersey card for the Wizards here to 99. It's a game used Mavericks Jersey for the Wizards card Thunder Rookie jumbo patch Jeremiah Robinson Earl 13 to 25 First live triple auto. I have seen and it is a hornets Rookie auto triple Kai Jones James book night Scotty Lewis 7 of 10 boom Sick hard Hornets Stephen R. There you go, man Not a lot of triple autos in this set are very rare. There we go, man Ron's RPA to 49 for the Pacers Isaiah Jackson nice one Pacers Mavericks Jersey cards Sean Marion to 99 Magic Darrell Armstrong patch to 99 Love it on the Darrell Armstrong, man Those magic jerseys right there. Those are the ones that I remember as a kid most That was like the T mag Jersey Lasting legacies Jersey auto Lamar Odom Lakers to 49 And NBA greats auto Sonics going to the Thunder David Thompson to 49 thunder on this one Yeah, the penny and check pen stripes are the next but I remember the most from when I was like watching the most I remember the most with those jerseys for sure D strong Jersey for the magic Sean Marion Mavericks Robinson Earl Thunder Chris steps for zingas for the Wizards RJ Hampton Cameron Johnson Steph Curry Dyrton Vitsky Mike Conley Kam Reddish James Wiseman Pascal Siakam Isaiah Thomas Herbert Jones and Josh Giddy Got David Thompson Lamar Odom Kai Jones Onyeka Okong will Alexi Pocasevski Juan Toscano Anderson Frank Kaminsky Brandon Boston Jr. Christian Wood Isaiah Jackson met a world peace dual auto for the Pacers Redemption Warriors Jonathan Kaminga Ricky material triple Ricky material auto dual. Sorry bronze RPA Pacers Isaiah Jackson Triple auto Hornets Ricky's Kai Jones James Book Knight and a Scotty Lewis to 10 Goal RPA magic Franz Wagner 8 of 10 a big card. Congrats. Jose 75th anniversary RPA Thunder Jeremiah Robinson Earl Yanis patch card for the Bucks to 25 and redemption on the back was Lakers Timeless talent signatures gold Karim Abdul Jabbar. That's gonna do it. Thanks again, everybody. We got basketball coming up next