Oh, thank you already. Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WOZO Radio, 103.9 LPFM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Today is May 29th, 2022. I'm Larry Rhodes or Doubter 5. And as usual, we have our co-host Wombat on the line with us. Hello Wombat. Hey, that's me. I'm the Wombat. All right. And our guests today are Boudreaux from Kentucky. Hello, Boudreaux. Yeah, George Brown, the second and a half, formerly from Brooklyn, now of East Tennessee, and Dred Pirate Higgs, all the way from the west coast of Canada. Pretty much. Welcome. Digital Freethought Radio Hour is a talk radio show about atheism, free thought, rational thought, humanism, and the sciences. And conversely, we'll also talk about religion, religious faith, God's holy books, and superstition. And if you get the feeling you're the only non-believer in your town, well, you're just not. You're in Knoxville, in the middle of the Bible Belt. We have a group of over a thousand of us. And we'll tell you more about that group after the mid-show break. Wombat, what's our topics today? We're going to be talking about value and all that comes with it. I think it's going to be an interesting conversation. But I forgot to mention that I'm not just the Wombat. I'm carrying... I was going to make a bad joke. I'll say, I'm the Wombat plus these guns. Let's go. That's me. The transformation complete. Yeah, we're going to get into a really meaty topics regarding value today and a bunch of other stuff. But before we get into those meats and potatoes, we're going to throw it up to Dred Pirate Higgs for our weekly invocation. Arrrrrr, our noodley Lord, who art in a colander, al dente be thy noodles, thy blood be run, thy sauce be yum, with meat, as they are with vegetables. Give us this day our garlic bread and forgive us our cussing, as we forgive those who cuss against us. And lead us not into ketoism, but deliver us some carbs. For thine are the meatballs And the sauces and the grog whenever and ever. Robbin. I love it. I love it. I love it.  I've been having some fun with enjoying the weather.  I hadn't seen her since COVID. So that was what's been going on with me. And now she's back home. She's safe. We had a great visit. I'd love to hear how everyone else has been doing. Let's go around the horn. Boudreaux, what you been up to? How have you been? Hey, everyone, been great. Two shows in a row for me. This is great. Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Fully tuned bass guitar or it looks like a bass guitar in the background. Not bad. No, wait, that's not a bass guitar. I feel bad now. That's a five string bass. Yeah. OK, let's go. All right. Nice. Nice. Nice. DJ. So actually, I've been I've been playing some Chris Cornell songs with some friends. Nice. Just this month was his five year. The five year anniversary of his death. So we're going to play a bunch of Chris Cornell songs for some friends. And yeah. Fantastic. Oh, and I caught COVID. No. Are you sure? Is it right now? Right now, you're sick. I'm not sick, but I've tested positive. So let me tell you the great thing about this, isn't it great to be sick now when most people are vaccinated? The the hoarding has stopped. You know, you can go to the doctor's visits. There's plans in place like that. That's the how it should be working. Like now it's not as big of a deal. And I'm I'm really happy. Happy for you to get it now. And then the rest of it, it looks like you'll bounce back. I did have a funny story about Boudre when I visited his home.  You can play guitar like he has some guitars on the walls, but they're all like condition tailors, like very high level guitars that you don't just like pick up and strum. I'm like, I don't want to break this. I barely know this guy. I feel like he's setting me up for an insurance fraud sort of situation. Please take back your instrument. Thank you. Hey, how have you been? I've been doing pretty good over the last week, getting lots of stuff done now that we're finally getting some half decent weather. So nice and doing a lot of catch up for our spring has been a month and a half behind. So, you know, the the things that need to be done pile up rather quickly. And and so, yeah, the moment the sun shines, I'm out there getting it done. But the weird thing is you have too many hobbies.  I'm not I'm not firemanning anymore. I that's been done for a while. I have you touch the top of the iceberg. It's the Higgs boson particle discussions, classroom. Anarchy, driver's license, rebellion, hosting weddings, fighting off Cougar, security guard, tech talk, man. That's right. I don't know what just doing. I'm just getting things done, Ty. I was like, that could mean 40 different things for Dredpire. Who knows? Yeah. Well, the latest thing that happened was that I had been issued my security and private investigator license with with my tricorn. So now you're Dredpire Higgs PI. That's it. But interestingly enough, just in this was in February when I was issued the license. I just got a letter from security programs division on Monday saying, hey, we've made an administrative error. You have to send back that license. And and here's the one without you wearing the tricorn.  And I am seeking counsel because this represents an existential threat to my livelihood. And I will not have it. Good. So because you said they they put a a self-aggressed stamped envelope in there saying, put the put your old license in there and send it back by June 5th or something. Right. And and so anyway, like I said, I'm I'm I'm running with this. I'm going to go for it. Go for it in the office and your job and tell them our religion's silly, you know. If it's for everybody or not or no, that's for anybody. But don't start picking. That's right. That's not your job. Can't pick and choose. Can't pick and choose. I dig it. I dig it. Keep fighting it. Like I said, if I was in Canada, I'd be doing like, get me a license to. I got free time. Give me whatever you want. George Brown, second and a half, man of mystery. Well, I won't stand for it either. So I'm on I'm on your side. I'm on your side. It's it's easy. Yeah. Now, we're investigators. You're watching the watchman. That's right. So there, yeah. Now, to comment upon Boudreau's bass guitar, I would say if I were reincarnated as a musician again, I would want to come back as a bass player because I think there's nothing cooler than to play the underpinnings for everybody else. I think that's really cool, like to sit there on the low notes and just do whatever is going on above. Let's go for it. Let's go for it. Let's go. Yeah, I would do that. Isn't that cool? So something that in my in my county where I live, the vaccination rate against covid is about 41 percent, if I understand it right.  It's the number that I look at is is the covid death rate. And sometimes when I tell people that I'm concerned about this, they say, oh, the numbers are misreported. The hospitals are getting paid extra money for reporting covid bodies, you know. And so I just when people say stuff like that to me, I check it out and believe it or not, no, no less an authority than Fox News said that the numbers were not being inflated by the hospitals. They were being paid. They are being paid extra for covid covid deaths, but they're not taking advantage of it. Yeah, I mean, the thing is, why would they get paid to report deaths because you don't care, take care of dead people. You take care of live people who are sick. Well, the deaths probably, in other words, the deaths happened in the hospital, so they had to do something. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's the corners that actually record those numbers, not the hospitals.  And that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. And when you look at it, we have like a hundred what was it, one million excess deaths from a disease that was largely preventable with just good planning and vaccination in America only. Even accounting for excess, you know, mental health deaths, they've even they've even seen an uptick in that and and and pulled those out of the equation and said, even even ignoring this. Right. And in highway deaths, we've had more highway fatalities than than previous years, even though we've had fewer crashes.  It's new thesis stats. If we remember correctly, he's doing a touring dissertation highway public safety. That's some true facts from Virgil. You can only get that here. I was I was going to say this before you transition to the main topic. You may ever want to try buying a violin or a violin bow and playing it with your base. It actually plays and oh, OK, he's gone. It looks like he's already had the idea. But what about the basses usually come with bow? I mean, people buy bows for basses. Oh, he's got it already. Yeah. Oh, it's a nice short one. Yeah, that's probably a lot better. Yeah. This is for the double. It's for an opera.  When I figured you could do that, I was like, what? So out of a bass guitar, you can do it as well. You have to worry about the little rosin getting on. But it's it's basically turns your base guitar into like an electric violin that has like a deep sound. Anyway, you're right, Larry. We thank you for helping us get back on topic. I haven't even found out what doubter fires been up to. Oh, yeah, doubt or five. What have you been up to help? He's been waiting for us. Yeah, I put a picture up. I actually went to this church this weekend. I didn't internally combust. But it's the first time I've been in a church for a long time. I had a few a funeral. Yes, this is the Big Butter Jesus Church in just north of Cincinnati, Ohio. But it had set through the usual sermons that they do in addition to the eulogy to the deceased. And in this particular time, they were telling everybody what actually is going on in heaven with her, which was kind of a stretch. Even, you know, I would think for a Baptist church. So the whole story behind Big Butter Jesus for folks who who haven't been catch up on the show, we're a radio show and we play music in between the break. And there's a song that we love on the show called Big Butter Jesus about a yellow statue of Jesus that is at the location that Larry went to to go to church that actually got hit by lightning and melted and fell apart as if it was made out of butter.  I was corrected there. It was what the preacher imagined was happening in heaven. So he wasn't making it plain, as it were. OK, fair enough. It's still a weird picture at the end of the day because you only see Jesus from the back, right? You know, OK, well, guys, we got emails. I made a friend playing disc golf. He was actually at the Sunday Assembly National. We had he came to our course and he sent me a follow up email based on the recommendation of this show. And I just want to share it with you guys. Hello, Ty, I really enjoy watching your podcast. I'll be playing it when I'm on disc golf courses in the future. Hello, Ty. Sorry. Your latest. So he goes into talk. I'm hearing a little bit of an echo. OK. So he does say does religion have the capacity to add value to anything or does it imply value by devaluing other stuff such as women's rights, personal freedoms, et cetera. And this is the the meat of why he's asking that. Your latest show topic reminded me of a show called Severance. It's a streaming show about corporations that can sever your work life persona away from your home life in a way creating two versions of yourself. The work life personas are stuck at work for the rest of their lives and find it a living hell, but can't get out of it until their home life versions agree to set them free. And so there's an interesting comment on value that I like to get your thoughts on, given that the characters, the home life characters get value by devaluing the lives of the workers. A character on the show stated something that resonated with me. Things have value because we devalue other things. People are no different. So does religion have a capacity to add value to anything or does it simply imply value by devaluing other stuff such as women's rights, personal freedoms, et cetera. And we'll go round table. Does religion add value to anything or does it actively add value to anything or does it operate by devaluing other things and changing, arranging that hierarchy? We'll throw it out to Bujo. I'd love to hear what you think about it. Oh, does it add value? I think, yes, it does. And in absence of of other, you know, codes of morality, for sure. I mean, you know, if we were all just born without anything, let's say we were born with just language and that's it, no, no source of morality or anything like that. That's not at all values. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think.  You can add value in some ways, but take away devalue things like women's rights or and really any of the religions, most of the religions, it seems like they're, you know, devaluing other religions, right? Or at least saying if, you know, you don't believe in this God or these gods, you're going to have a bad time in the afterlife. So I don't know that first bit, though. I've struggled with that in the past because I, you know, I like to think that there's there's value in kind of just like the core, some of the core morality pieces of the Bible. But also, I've been kind of just told that all my life. So I don't know that, you know, I'd love to separate, right? Like, yeah, yeah, Catholic, but I don't know. I wasn't I was never very involved in pay attention a whole lot. So I don't know if it's just subconscious or not. You know, so, yeah. OK, OK. Dredg Pirate, what do you think? Does religion add value to anything or does it operate by devaluing? Maybe a mixture of both? I don't think it adds value, but I don't think it necessarily operates by devaluing, though in some cases it does. What always interests me is the sort of Mexican standoff between the three abramic religions where they are, of course, mutually exclusive, even though they all believe in the same God. So, you know, in terms of what Budra was saying is, you know, people make fun or devalue other people's religions to elevate their own. So in that sense, yes, there's a bit of devaluing going on. But again, I've always I was having this image in my head.  So that is just be careful if you draw. Just be careful if you draw that. That's all right. Yeah, right. I don't want to be a hubbill or whatever. OK, George Brown, love to hear what you say. Yes, I your hand raised. What's up? Well, well, that's just like a joke, you know? Rabbi and Imam and a minister walk into a bar, you know? Right, right. And I don't know.  Yeah, I don't know the rest of the joke. But that's I'll start of maybe we can make up make up the rest of the joke among us. Sure. But OK, about has religion given us anything? Yes, it has, in a way, or at least it has formed a focal point for the arts at different times. I mean, thinking in my own discipline and music, the the Catholic Church during the Renaissance was a wonderful arena for musical musical composition and performance. And then in the Baroque period, the Protestant, you know, the German Protestants could give us wonderful, wonderful music. And so I have to honor that part of it.  But, you know, at least in those period and that artwork, too, I think. I hear what you're saying. I definitely I definitely think it was like a university. It formed a structure where like-minded individuals can get funded to generate some beautiful art, right? I like that. I like that. Yeah. And then in more extreme cases, religion, the same religions even are also responsible for saying no music is allowed. You can only sing these holy texts or no dancing is allowed. Or this this instrument is too suggestive in its form and is no longer holy. And we don't accept that here anymore. So long saxophones, stuff like that. So, you know, it makes me feel like it's not so much the generator of the brilliance, but instead just got brilliant people in the room for our moment in time to come up with work that they could have made without religion being a part of it anyway. Though I definitely don't think we would have some of the chamber music that we have if we didn't have the religious impact. Larry, would you like to add to this? Do you think you're basically saying that inspiration is responsible for or this quality of the stories are responsible for it. But it also brings I think the inspiration is what you're talking about, to bring people together to act on it, to be able to generate music or plays or whatever artwork. However, as far as devaluing, I think it goes a long way to devaluing humanity itself, saying that we're sinful creatures and not worthy of you know, life as it were without divinity in it. But what is it? Morality itself, a societal morality is devalued in the divine command theory because it says, you know, you can't really be moral if you don't have a moral agent telling you what to do as represented in the holy books. So it does devalue some things to make itself more valuable. I would agree, because otherwise you would have been a regular person. But once you fall into a religious dogma, you're now a sinner or subservient to a thing that you can't even see, view, test, talk to, et cetera. It's it's right. It's a devalue of your humanity. Pujo, do you follow up that? Yeah, I guess the other piece I didn't make that I think is important. There's a temporal aspect to the question, too. If we're talking, you know, thousands of years ago, that I like to plug the podcast Hidden Brain, NPR is Hidden Brain Podcast. They had an episode called Inventing Religion that went back to kind of a good hypothesis that, you know, religion was kind of invented as we as we grew as a society to where we got so big that people could kind of freeload and they could not do the work or they can they they wouldn't be caught doing bad things because the group was so big. So they said, Hey, just like we do around Christmas time with our kids, you know, we can't watch them all the time, right? So, hey, the big guy in the sky is watching you.  It kind of got us to to operate in bigger groups, at least more successful. I totally agree. And I hear what you're saying. And I'm going to devil's advocate that point, too, because it feels like that put our society on the path where you have to have the God fear to be a good person. Whereas if we if I know it, I know this is the part where I push. But like if we set ourselves up to where independently we knew the consequences of our actions, that we really made it a diligent matter to educate children on their behavior, their inhibitions and what it means to be empathetic and in a in a society where our actions affect other people, maybe we could have had a society where we never needed to have that God fear to to manage our conduct. We could have just had good behaviors from the get go because we've had it indoctrinated in us to teach our kids to be compassionate members of society. And because we haven't done that, now we're in a situation where, you know, every single time we turn on the news, there's something terrible going on, right? I'm and I wonder if that could have put us on a better track than where we are now. And now we're trying to struggle to get ourselves caught up. And I think maybe that's the cost that we had, like, because we take a shortcut. I agree, except I wonder if it would have taken us a lot longer to get there, possibly. But but no, you're absolutely right. It seems like it backfired or it had some some some pretty bad consequences. It would have been a cost either way. I think there's probably no perfect option for that. But I do like what you're alluding to. And then we get to Dredd and in fact, let's get to Dredd. I'll go back to what you're going for, Eric. What? Yeah, well, I was just going to, of course, point out that value is, of course, an entirely subjective matter, right? Talk to him. So well, I mean, you know, people who are in Sconston religion will certainly say, yeah, I see all kinds of value to my religion and my belief system.  OK, that we can actually refer to and say these values actually don't kind of match up with the meta value. Say meta value is the advancement or the, you know, improving the lives of people, generally speaking, sure, in more empirical ways. If that was the meta value, then we could say that the values of different religions may vary as they progress towards that or don't at all. I got an epistemological approach to this, because I really don't care too much about objective value, but I do care about how we measure value. Right. And like the process that we're going to say, this is more valuable than this or less valuable than that, that I can't ever assess the truth because I agree with you, Dredd. I do agree that it's ultimately subjective. But I do think we can come up with some sort of objective standard and lacking that, at least for the sake of this conversation. I can say that if I if it is subjective to an extent, I can say, let's start off with an even playing field, right? And be like, there's people, there's my car, there is my disc golf collection. There's this empty can of soda that's at my desk. Are they all the same value? If not, how do I am I going to rank them, right? And then I have like people at the top and then like my car and then my items at the bottom of stuff like that, right? But then that's what I was talking about meta values, right? Right, right, right. And I guess and I guess I put people at top because I'm a person, right? And I sort of bias in that way and that's the subjectivity to it. But I do feel like religion takes another step and says, OK, what's these people or it's this group of people who are more valuable than this group of people? And I'm wondering like what criteria you're basing that on other than God said so or some tribalistic benefit that you get from that belief because they're going to do the same that other groups are going to do the same thing with their gods on the top of the list. So God tells you he's on the top. It's true, true. God says, don't look at any of the other gods. I'm the one guy that's like, wait, they're the most valuable guy. I'm the most valuable. Only one of my thing that is better than all the other ones are the things that are here. That's the first commandment. Terrible first command. We'll get into why that could have been better. We got like eight minutes before the end. I want to highlight something that you were saying, Eric, in that way back when, when we had to use religion and had to pass a word of mouth and make that that story recorded through volume of people speaking, that was like the best way that we could record folklore and stories of people who aren't around anymore. And in my sense, I think like we don't know what happened on a normal Tuesday in Viking culture, but we know the stories of their gods. We don't know about Egyptian culture. What happened 14 on the fourth month of every year. But we know stories about Anubis. We know stories about what Kanchu, all their gods, right? Because that's what gets passed down. That's what gets recorded. And it gives us impressions of their culture. That mythology, as we accept it as a mythology, is what gets recorded. And I think there's value in understanding how people thought, how they set up their values through religion. But we can accept it as a mythology. And what I would appreciate is can we teach religion now, like the Christian religion and other popular Abrahamic versions as mythologies, and we just accept it as models that are similar to how other people use those similar models in the past. Just don't teach it as a literal truth. And then it'll be, in my opinion, all value and no devaluing. If we just like, here's a good story that people pass down as part of human mythology. And I can study in comparative religion. Right. And this is the way people thought then. Yes. Yes. The exact same situation is like when we hear the story about Icarus and the wax wings and he's flying up to the sky. We understand the the story of hubris from that story. There's a good underpinning of human behavior and psyche and why we should be wary about pride coming before a fall. Right. We got that story. We don't have to actually believe Icarus had wings. Right. So can we look at the stories of Jesus and be like glean whatever nice things you want from it. But we know that it's not a literal truth. And and then you're happily free to teach that to kids. And there's some silly things that can go on there. You can still teach the Moses story. You can still teach the Noah story. But we don't have to accept it as true. And we can still pull useful idioms from it. What's up, George Brown? Well, I was just wondering if if Elon Musk's rocket ship has Dr. Zarkov on it. I don't know what any of those words are. Yeah. Yes, Larry. Yes, Larry, I got the reference. Is that from Dr. Who or something? No, no, no, that's from Flash Gordon. Oh, yeah, I think it was a bit. There was a guy there was a guy on the rocket ship who was the scientist who just kind of sat there and grunted, you know. OK, so I guess we'll do a quick review that before we head out to the break. So we do see some value ads by religions to societal value ads, morality value ads, folklore, recording story ads. And then also we understand that value is subjective. And so there could be some problematic ways of how religion sorts things for us. But if we were to accept religion as a non real model or like fiction, if we were to accept it just simply as fiction, maybe we can glean the values that we get from other cultures, mythologies from the ones that are currently, you know, oppressing us at that. Well, how else can I put it? And then we move ourselves from all the devaluing that comes with subjecting ourselves to a supernatural being or thinking that we're sinners or controlling lives of people who should have autonomy over their body or whether they cover their face or not, etc. I think there could be a lot of value given to us if we just accepted religion as the fiction as it is. And leaving it there, let's go to a break. How about that? It works. Stay tuned to this channel for the second half of Digital Freethought Radio R and WOZO Radio 103.9. I'll be up and right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. And we'll be right back after this short break. Question, Larry. Yeah. Can I. Welcome back to the second half of the Digital Freethought Radio Hour. I'm Dr. Five and we're on WOZO Radio 103.9 LPFM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Let's take a moment just to talk about the atheist society of Knoxville. ASK was founded in 2002. We're in our 20th year now. ASK has over a thousand members, and we have weekly in-person meetings in Knoxville's Old City at Barley's Taproom in Pizzeria. Look for us inside at the high top tables or outside on the patio if it's warm and nice as it is nowadays. We're usually the loudest and happiest group, so you can find us easily. We also have a Tuesday evening Zoom meeting. Ask Meetup. If you'd like to join us on Zoom, send us an email at askanatheist at Knoxvilleatheist.org or let's chat SE at gmail.com. And we'll send you the link for that. You can also find ASK on Facebook, meetup.com or go to the website at Knoxvilleatheist.org. By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you should still go to Meetup and do a search for an atheist group in your town. Don't find one. All right. Right. What do you want to pick up? Hey, I want to give thanks to KTroy for sending me that email. It was a really good conversation that we had. KTroy, good friend of mine from Sunday Assembly, looking forward to playing more with them in the future. Guys, I had another conversation about atheism as well. This is not an email. It was just a standard conversation we were having. It was based on a comment that Larry made on a show a couple of weeks ago where he was saying that he played, wow, World of Warcraft, which is a long game that has been around for a long time and has been diligently designed and retooled to make itself entertaining for more players over generations now. The thing is that game was beta tested. That game was very diligently made so that all the mechanics of that world worked or compatible. And when it was released, was retooled as needed to make sure that the players had a very good and pleasant experience as they're playing. Does not sound like reality. If you look at reality, while reality is constantly retooling itself, it's almost doing it against the interests of life and happiness and almost every every turn in every advent, whether it be climate change or pandemics or just our own societal, you know, manifestations coming about just due to lack of good human behavior.  And what kind of tools would we suggest that any god would employ in order to sort of improve some of the things that we've been facing recently? Like, what would be your comment section if you had a means of sending concerns to the the original manufacturer? And I guess we'll throw this out. Dred Pirate, you got a very stern look on your face. What do you think? Well, you know, that's funny. It's a funny question. You know, God created the universe. How would he know what tools he needed in order to improve it? Like, I don't know. Like I like I always maintain, you know, if there was a God that created the universe, there wouldn't be need for atoms and forces and constants. And we'd all just be made a goop, and it would just all be a magical thing. And working goop. Yeah, working goop. Why do we got to need physics in this? Just like just make everything work just magical, right? I mean, exactly. And that's and that's why it works so well, you know, thousands of years ago is because they didn't have a pre-appreciation and appreciation for the, you know, the constituents of nature outside of Aristotle. I guess he was the first one to kind of start figuring that out. But certainly, you know, in the culture of Jesus and the Jews, they had no idea everything was magical. And there was no need for explanation outside of a God created it. And that's all there is to it. Let me get right to that point, too. I if you look at a game like Minecraft, which is a very popular game, kids love it. If you don't know, ask your six year old. But that game has things like fire and diamonds, et cetera, has different elements and stuff. But fire is just hot. There's no oxidation that takes place in that world's physics. It's just a bit of data that says fire is hot. That's it. Diamonds are hard. They're like one of the hardest things. That's it. It doesn't have to worry about the crystalline structural carbon molecules right enforcing the rigidity of a structure. No, it's just or that is made of carbon, right? Exactly. Anything. Right. It's all bits of data that simply and it states what it is and it isn't broken. And there's no way to, you know, cheat through the system. It's just fires hot. Diamonds are hard. What else? What else you got? And I feel like we could have benefited from a simple system like that. Larry Rose, what do you think? Well, I just want to know why you think this isn't a beta test. No, it could be the virtual reality testing, you know, the testing ground for new worlds, you know, and here's my complaint going wrong. It's just part of the plan. So here's my complaint. And this is coming from a person who is making a virtual system for my job right now in terms of like handing paperwork. You always have a survey section at the bottom of the experience where someone can rate the experience from one to five stars or one to 10, whatever you want. And then they add a little comment section detailing the problem that they had. You've seen it from Microsoft. You've seen it from billion dollar companies that size.  It works and it's helpful and we need that. What do you think, Pedro? How do you know we don't have to take a survey when we die? Oh, that would suck, man. That could be the pearly gates right there. The exit interview. If I'm doing, I would love to see that as a movie. That was one, first of all, that's a great pitch for a movie. The good place, the series.   See you later, bye. I don't know, whatever you want. Throw me back in. Throw you back in, powerful, powerful, powerful. So there are some good thoughts there. I love that, that was great. George Brown, second and a half. Are you familiar with beta testing of the concept? Oh, yes, very much so. Remember, I've worked in high tech and usability testing is usually not in the picture. And I have the proof of it here.  Because nobody tested it for usability. Wow. It's just a totally frustrating experience to try to use this telephone. I'm stuck with it because it's the only flip phone offered by my phone company. And usability to me is a very, very important thing and aspect of beta testing. And in the software world, usability is very rarely a part of the equation. Now it is on the internet. I think Google has it down very well. Their products are very seductive. They are very user friendly. But in my experience, most software is not user friendly. And so as a person who's done a lot of technical writing, I find that the leading word processing programs are just awful to use. Right. Because they're just dreadfully user unfriendly. Right. Whereas the programs that were user friendly from the days of DOS, wonderfully, well handling, they had like a good professional musical instrument when you were trying to write the program Xyrite in particular, X-Y-W-R-I-T-E, never made it into the world of Windows, the graphical interface. So I find that we've gone backwards. Right. There's a competitive market. There was a competitive market of both industries and ideas to help facilitate good customer experiences and funnel out the bad ones. And if anything, the ones that are winning still do surveys where they can reply back and say, hey, please fix these things. I hope people read them. If anything, comment forms. But like we need that for reality because right now it does feel like reality has not been beta tested, which is what we're talking about today. Swedish Steve, thanks for coming in. Boudreau, did you have any comments? What do you mean by reality? Don't make me define it. Boudreau, did you have any ideas on like bugs in reality that you think could have been beta tested out if the system was just a little bit stronger? Yeah, I think the fact that our source of light gives us cancer and you can't even look at it. I mean, like, how, I mean, how was that not just a no brainer to put a source of light? Here's the thing, too.  But for all the wars that have happened, have been energy resource based. If we had just made the sun not cancerous, the light that it gives us non-cancerous and a little bit more efficient in terms of how it impacts Earth, we would have had all of our energy problem solved. Maybe that could have been world peace like ages ago. Dredpire, Higgs, PI, what do you got? I saw you added that in there. That's funny. Well, just the fact that the universe is 99.99999 unlivable, uninhabitable. Right. That's a pretty bad beta testing point there that, you know, it should have been much more habitable if it was to be of any use at all. Sweetest Steve, I also have this one, too. This is my personal pet pee with the state of our reality build right now. There's just twice as many nipples. There doesn't need to be that many nipples. Wouldn't you agree? Like world capacity of nipples is two times higher than it ever needs to be. Like, you could have reduced it in half and everyone would have been totally fine.  But if a woman get twins. She let women have the nipples. Oh, but males have nipples. We don't need that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We need nipples. Why? The ones was a Kenyan man who started lactating when his wife died. Yes. So, and for the kinky people with the fetish of shit, sorry, BDSM and stuff. You can buy plastic nipples on Amazon and just put them on you. Yeah, I've seen them. When I lactate, I lactate wine and beer. Yeah, I also disagree with the concept of, it's not a bug tie, it's a feature. It's like, no, no, no, it's stuff like that that you need to get out of your compiler as soon as possible. Yeah, but if you're going to reduce the nipples, then we can reduce a lot of things. Why two testicles? Why two ovaries? Why two kidneys? You're only needing one kidney. Just one simple one and then get rid of the thing that would cause you to have extreme landing life, right? Just put it in the middle. Put it in the middle all the way up, you're done to go. Why do, okay, butchering what we have. Can we point out here, though, that we're arguing against intelligent design when really we should be thinking about the only reason we have men have nipples and all these other things we're talking about is just a byproduct of evolution, which has no purpose. It doesn't have a goal. We're going to end up with inefficient things. We're going to end up with things that are useless, tailbones and such. So I think in some ways... Right there, that's a good argument against a beta test. Yeah. Yeah, just be like, make the thing that works on the thing that we need to be on and call it that's done. Please, save us all a lot of problem. Think about all the life forms that didn't make it through evolutionary process. We're lucky that we're here. We're six successful organisms to an extent, right? I was going to say that's a point that Richard Dawkins makes is that there's far more many ways not to be alive than there is to be alive. Right, right, right, right, right. It's staggering the thought that there's just...  I mean, all these things, like, yeah.  It's the idea of even for a perfectly healthy person they still have no control of their sensory feeling of pain. And wouldn't it be great to have pain be like a notification on your phone where it's like, yes, I agree. I'm in pain. Check, mute for the next 24 hours. I still have other stuff to do. I get it. I get it. I get it. But you don't have to keep reminding me. It was like, I understand my foot hurts. Especially chronic pain when it's not a serious illness that's not causing you a lot of harm, but you still have to experience the pain. We have a lot of things we would write down in that room. Give me that purgatory room. I'll write down some bullet points for you. And then I'm checking out. Wasn't that someone's wish list? Didn't someone wish for... We did some kind of a wish list on the program once and someone said, I wish we had a check box for pain. Yes. Yeah, that was great. I think it was that conversation. Yeah. So we basically promoted two really good movies before we close out the show. Larry promoted the whole, what if we are in a reality? And this is the beta test. I love that. I'd watch that. I'd watch that student film for a half hour. I have the attention span for that. And then the second one is the, you die and it's just an empty room with a survey.  And it's your exit description form. And you just basically, if you want to, detail all the things that you hated about reality so that they can, you know, consider your comments on the next build.  And loved if you want to. Sure. Why not? Why not? The next universe expansion pack. The next universe expansion pack. I love it. Yeah, like, wow, expansion packs. Guys, we're nearing the end of the show. We've got six people on here. Let's do a round table. Things that you'd like to talk about or things that you would like for our audience to check out next week. And then anything that you'd like to plug. We'll throw it up to Dred Pirate Higgs, PI first. Anything you'd like to plug? Yeah. Well, I didn't bring it down here, but I'm still working on Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell, which is an awesome book about religion. And it's actually addressed to people who are currently in religion or have religious faith. And he doesn't pull a lot of punches, which is nice, but at the same time is very articulate and respectful on why people believe the things they do and why it's a good reason to reconsider your position in the face of evidence. So nice. I dig it. I dig it. Nice. Daniel Dennett, right? Yes. Boudreau, anything you'd like to plug or anything that you'd recommend to check out? Yeah. Yeah. How about something that ties nicely into what we talked about today? A plug for one of my favorite bands, Bad Religion. A lot of their songs are about about religion. And one of their songs, Better Off Dead. I'm not going to torture you and sing it, but a quick read of the first, the opener here. It ties in nicely. Bad Religion, Better Off Dead. I'm sorry about the sun. How could I know that you would burn? And I'm sorry about the moon. How could I know that you disapprove? I'll never make the same mistake. The next time I create the universe, I'll make sure we communicate at length. Nice. I love it. I love it. I love it. Sweetest Steve. Bad Religion. Okay. Producer at large. Anything that you'd like to plug? Anything that we should check out before next week? No, just, just, just help your local abortion organization. I love it. I do love that. That's a good one. And we need it. If there's something I'd recommend, I know George Brown, the second and a half is setting up for a joke. So I'm going to say my part before he takes the show, but I found a really good story folklore related. It's also a religious sort of thing from Africa, where the common is between the sun and the moon, the moon is more trustworthy, even though it's always telling a lie. The lie that it's saying is that I'm bright when all it's doing is reflecting the sun's light. However, you can keep an eye on it. And I like that. And that's what that's something like. So it is lying, but it's also more trustworthy than the sun. So it's one of those weird colloquialism. George Brown, second and a half. Well, I decided to put my joke off for another time. All that buildup. Yeah, I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll do it another time when it's more appropriate. I'm as disappointed not as a religion. I just wanted to say this, this flip phone was made by a company called and you, you this is the one that has been frustrating me so much because it is so user hostile. So I want to give them special credit for making the most user hostile consumer product I've ever tried.  No, I'm down for and you, you. Yeah. No new here. I am small correction. That's not an African story. That's a West Indie story, which I just found out I have as part of my ancestry. So that's like kind of cool. Good visit. Like I said, with my mom being like, no, no, no, you're from here. Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't know. Anyway, Larry, feel free to take us out. Okay. I'd like to recommend that if, if you're going through the throws of really just deconversion, a lot of times it helps to read what other people have gone through for that. And Reddit has a collection of deconversion stories that I'd like to have people look at and at least be knowledgeable off. It's called the great project. And if you just do a Google search on Reddit, the great project, it will take you straight to it. This is the digital free thought radio hour. My, my content can be found at digital free thought.com. Be sure to click on the blog button. You can find our radio shows there. All our archives are atheist songs and many articles on the subject. My YouTube channel can be found by searching for doubter five or Larry Rhodes. I have a book at Amazon called atheism. What's it all about that. We'll give you the incident as well. Atheist thinking is about. If you're having trouble leaving religious beliefs behind, you can get help at recovering from religion.org. Thank you for joining us on the digital free thought radio hour. Remember, if you're watching this on YouTube, be sure to like and subscribe. And remember everybody is going to somebody else's health. The time to worry about it is when they proved that religions and health and souls are real. Until then, don't sweat it. Enjoy your life and we'll see you next week. Say bye everybody. Bye everybody.


I think preseason so far has been great. Everybody's come in and worked hard.  We did graduate kids that played a lot of minutes for us, but very excited to see what the younger group can bring in and to see the senior class that's really been waiting their turn to step up. So just really excited. I think everybody's working hard and that's all you can ask for in the preseason. Morgan Penic has been a solid point guard for us since her freshman year. She had to step into that starting role due to injuries when she was a freshman and has really just maintained that solid player for us. In our two transfers of Morgan DeBerry and Asia Ferguson that are also seniors, I think that they bring a ton of athleticism and they have experience as well and I think that that's going to bode well for us. In Malia Smith and Ellie Boswell coming as our other two seniors, they're going to have to step up and take some minutes because you don't get to your senior year without some sort of experience. So even though we might be looking to some of the younger kids to really step up and take some major roles, they still bring a level of experience. Really excited about sophomore Lacey Johnson. She's showing us a lot at practice as being able to score. I know it's tough to put that much pressure on a sophomore, but I think that she can do some of the scoring for us. And then we got a huge freshman class. There's six freshmen. We're very excited about them. We are teaching them everything that we can teach them and they're really absorbing it and they're very, very athletic. So we're very excited. We're going to test ourselves pretty early going up to the Williams tournament and play in Eastern Connecticut State and Williams and then follow right up with Salisbury. So we always play a tough competition. And then of course our in-conference schedule, the strength of schedule is always good. There's not one team that you show up and you think that you're going to win. So we respect our conference a lot. And that alone is going to give us a lot of competition. I'm most excited about just having the freedom to be able to come and go. I think this is probably the most normal it's been in two years.  We're heading down to Daytona. So we're able to get out. We're able to get back into hotels, get some team bonding going. And I just want to see things back to normal. Goucher is one of those schools I'm talking about. They have a brand new coach. She's been very successful where she was. So I think that when that happens, they're going to play with a level of excitement.  So that's one of the reasons that we put it on the schedule. And so I think looking to that, that's going to be our home opener whereas they're going to have a couple of games under their schedule, under their belt before they get to us. So I think that's going to be very challenging because we just don't know how we're going to respond yet in a first real game. So we're going to have to be ready and be as prepared and as coaches, we just got to get them as ready as we can.


I want to welcome you all to St. Patrick's Hall here in Dublin Castle. I want to welcome you particularly to hear this address by President von Rumpuy on building the European future. On your behalf, I particularly want to extend a warm welcome to him on this first visit to Ireland in his capacity as the full-time chairman of the council, during which visit he has met with the T-shirt and the Kenny and of course with President Macalese. I would want to say that we're particularly grateful, Mr. President, that you accepted our invitation to be here and all the more grateful in view of the very heavy workload and the demands on your time, which are evident and not least in this week in which you are preparing for the next meeting of the European Council. In fact, so great has been the interest in what it is you have to say that we have to transfer the address from the institute where accommodation is limited to this splendid and very gracious facilities here in St. Patrick's Hall in Dublin Castle and we want to thank the government and particularly the Tornishter for placing the hall at our disposal. Mr. President, I hope that being here in the heart of Dublin Castle will introduce you in a very tangible way to the history of the Irish people. An ancient nation and a young state. It was here on this very spot that foreign rule was imposed on the Irish people over the centuries and here too in the yard outside where I received you, that power was transferred from the occupying forces to the representatives of the independent Irish state in 1922. And it's here in this very hall every seven years that the inauguration of our president takes place and under our written constitution the people are the sovereign power, an obvious reflection of our history and the president under the constitution is both the symbol and the guardian of that sovereignty. By joining the European Economic Community as a den was in 1973 the Irish people voluntarily chose to share elements of their sovereignty with other democratic states in Europe in order to bring about the closer union amongst the peoples of Europe which makes of course your title all the more apt. So I trust that you will understand that we value our sovereignty greatly and I trust you will understand why we so zealously guard it. As someone born into a small state whose sovereignty was violated in the past you can well understand the strength of our sentiments. And that is why Irish policy inside the European Union has always given primacy of place to the principle of the formal equality of all member states and that is why we have so consistently defended the community method of decision making and that is why we are opposed to the emergence of a direct toire composed of larger member states. At this very moment our sovereignty Mr. President is more circumscribed than we would ever have believed possible be it said as a consequence of our own folly not of anybody else's. The threat of a direct toire is now more pressing than we have ever previously experienced. The need for solidarity amongst the member states is now greater than we would have anticipated even three years ago. If we recognise that the Union grows organically and that the European Council has taken on progressively has taken on additional responsibilities which lie outside the legislative field and concern matters of high politics not least connected with economic and monetary Union which is in a sense the driving force of these developments. And we perceive that the Union method as Chancellor Merkel has described it is the next phase of the evolution of Europe. And these are cogent reasons why we supported the creation of your office and why we welcome you and your appointment as its first occupant. The times have dictated as Johnny Shine said the person that we need to lead the European Council through the perilous years ahead and my in my view Mr. President to the in your personal characteristics your professional qualifications and your personal experience professional experience as a politician you satisfy all these requirements I think on this occasion fate has been good to us as Europeans and I truly believe that you have been destined for this role. Ladies and gentlemen Herman von Rompuy is the true European in the sense he was born in Brussels into the Flemish community true European and that at secondary school he took ancient Greek and Latin as amongst his major subjects he went to the Catholic University in Leuven which has such historic connections with our country and from which he received a bachelor's degree in philosophy at the early age of 21 later taking a masters in applied economics quite a change. He then went into the Belgian central bank and afterwards during the 1980s was a lecturer in economics in Antwerp and Brussels. He comes from a political family in the Christian democratic tradition and he entered view politics before serving in the Cabernet's of Leo Tindemans and Gertrond Gays and he began his parliamentary career interestingly in the Senate in 1988 and became national chairman of his party in that same year being elected then to the Chamber of Representatives in 1995 where he served until two years ago. At the relatively young age of 46 he was the deputy prime minister and minister for budget serving in two governments led by Jean-Luc de Hanna and along with Philip Meistat who was well known to us who was then finance minister he helped drive down Belgian government debt from 135% of GDP in 1993 to below 100% in year 2000 and lower still to 87% in 2007. A good pedigree you might add for the task now in hand. He later became prime minister in 2008 but only served for less than a year because on the 19th of November 2009 he was unanimously chosen by the European council to be its first full-time president an office in which he will serve at least the first term for two and a half years. As we know under the Lisbon Treaty the council has now become an institution of the union and the full-time president a new constitutional officer of the union. Incidentally of course the European council is to a great extent the creation of the first Irish presidency of 1976 in which Gareth Fitzgerald played such a prominent and key role and we are very grateful to you Mr. President for the very kind words of appreciation you expressed on Dr. Fitzgerald's death. The task of the president as Johnny Shine has said is to ensure that the council consisting of 27 heads of state and government works efficiently and effectively and to a great extent in unity of purpose and his primary role is to create consensus and to build agreement in the pursuit of the common European interests. His style he has described himself which was mentioned by Johnny Shine, neither expectator nor a dictator but a facilitator and he outlined his philosophy on negotiations which again Johnny has outlined so well and he concluded by saying having said he wanted no losers that I will consider everybody's interests and sensitivities even if our unity remains our strength our diversity remains our wealth he said. As we all know on becoming president he was instantly plunged into the sovereign death crisis and his great skills as a conciliator were immediately put to good use. His first achievement being the creation of the European financial stability mechanism and then the European financial stability facility which provides loans to Greece, Ireland and Portugal a matter of no little interest to us all. The European Council then asked them next to chair a task force on economic governance which reported last year in October and which recommended stronger macroeconomic coordination in the Union and the strengthening of the stability and growth act, the pact which was of course in the first instance devised and agreed in this very building. In addition he has drafted an amendment to article 136 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union which enables a permanent financial stability mechanism to come into place, a matter of profound interest to us all and the odd occasion a matter of some shepidation as we contemplate the prospects of that late at night. So I think therefore that his topic on building the European Union reflects his historic perspective of the European project as a process which evolves as Schumann said on the basis of a very well-known phrase on the basis of concrete achievements which first create de facto solidarity. Mr. President is now my honor to invite you to address this distinguished audience on building the European future.


Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Five human rights activists were recently arrested on charges of inciting violence during the Bhima-Koregao celebrations. These activists are also being alleged to have Maoist links, and there's also talks of a letter being found in the possession, which talks of a bid to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi. So today we have with us civil rights activists Gautam Navlakhar to talk about the charges against these activists and the draconian laws that have been used to put them in prison. So hello Gautam. Thank you. Firstly, talking about this letter, which now we have also seen Sharad Pawar talking about saying that it doesn't really follow protocol for the police to release the contents of such a letter to the public without any internal investigations and perhaps it's a bid to gain sympathy. So what do you think about that? Well, Mr. Sharad Pawar has said it. And it seems very clear from the contents of the letter which have been made public. And I would like to compliment the police for sharing the contents of the letter with the Indian public because the letter makes it clear that it is one of the most unlikely plot aimed at assassinating a Prime Minister if it was supposed to be that. It's one of the most ridiculous letters I have come across especially from so-called very dreaded underground movement. So and I think I agree with Sharad Pawar that not only does it break protocol much more than that its authenticity has yet to be established. And this letter is one of the primary evidences against these activists. Talking about these activists, while they are being blamed for this Bhima Kurega violence, we know that the two Hindutva leaders who were largely responsible, Milindig Bote and Sambaji Bheede, they are still free. Bheede was not even called for questioning. And these activists, the work they have been doing is of course can be seen as threatening to the government because they were also involved very active in Gachiroli in land rights issues and human rights issues. So what do you think is the larger motive of this? Is there a larger motive to this, rather than just the Bhima Kurega violence? Well, let's look at the two issues which are very important. They have referred to the fact that the violence in Bhima Kurega on January 1st, was a result of conspiracy, which was engineered by these so-called 5% and maybe they will drag some other people also into this dragnet. This flies in the face of facts as we know it because the violence that took place on 1st was directed against Dalits. It was not the Dalits who were coming to commemorate 200th anniversary of victory over Peshwas by the Mahar, largely Mahar army of the British to commemorate that. They had no reason to engage in violence when they had been gathering there for years. Since 1927, when Dr. Ambedkar started this practice. This year, we knew that there would be much larger turnout also primarily because of its 200th anniversary, the bicentenary of Bhima Kurega. So Dalits had no reason to. In fact, that everything to gain from a peaceful if that had been allowed to be held that would actually the political message would have been far bigger an issue than what happened later. I mean, by allowing the Hindutva forces, which were led by I mean, which leaders are Millindegbote and Sambhaji Bheede. Sambhaji Bheede is personally very close to our Prime Minister, it seems. So that's one of the reasons why he's not been touched. But the important thing is that there are court orders, both the lower court, high court as well as the Supreme Court on February 20th of this year, where it admonished the Maharashtra police that on the one hand, you say that Ekbote and others are evading arrest, whereas they are going about it and you are making no efforts and efforts to arrest them. So they ordered that instead of making excuses, they should go and arrest the person who had been mentioned in the FIR, which they didn't follow because Sambhaji Bheede still remains scot-free and Millindegbote is out. No, he was in Bheede. So it also depends on what kind of sections or what sections of law that were invoked against Ekbote and Bheede in contrast to, for fomenting violence, for actually fomenting violence. In contrast to these five who have been, I believe, been charged under a fictitious claim of offenses against them without there being any link or fact of any link between the violence that took place at the hands of the Hindut forces and these five people who were actually part of the organizers, I mean, they played, Sudhir Dhavle played an important role in organizing this rally. He was one of the leading organizers of it and it was perfectly legitimate what he engaged in. So it depends on what kind of charge he is because here we see these people have been charged with the most draconian provisions of law in contrast to the provisions of law invoked for those who actually engaged in violence. There is no claim of violence on them. There is not a proof that they engaged in violence or they encouraged people to plot to create violence on the bicentry when families would be present, consider the way in which the police acts. This when it went to arrest Millindegbhote, Millindegbhote claimed that he was sitting in puja and the police would have to wait. Our police now which has become so faithful waited for two hours till he finished his puja and then arrested. When they went to arrest Sudhir Dhavle, he was not, he was in his night pajamas, he was not even allowed to change his clothes, they just dragged them out and took him into prison. I mean this shows also that the police are sympathetic towards the Hindutva elements who are actually involved in Bhima Koregaon violence and therefore they are doing nothing to bring them to book but they are going out of their way to change the narrative, divert attention from the real culprits and arrest people under the most draconian laws. Now what does it mean if once unlawful activities prevention act or provisions are invoked? Look at it, I mean the provisions that have been invoked against them for unlawful activities prevention act, they are sections 13, 16, 17, 18, 18, B, 38, 39, 40. Each one of them more dreadful than the other. The whole thing about unlawful activities prevention act as it was true of Tata and Pota is that it creates an offense, allows for the authorities to ban an organization in the name of curbing that offense and then brings under its dragnet everybody that they can by suggesting that they have some link either they are members or supporters or sympathizers or they are helping a banned organization. This is precisely what happened in the infamous Gadchiroli case where five people were given life in prison and including Jee and Sai Baba, Prasanth Rahi, Hemishra, Pandu, Narot and Tikri, Mahesh Tikri I think these five people were given and Vijay Tikri has been given ten years rigorous imprint. The only basis for it is membership of an unlawful organization. There was no evidence of them having committed any crime or even plotting to create a crime but the sheer fact that they could be made to appear as being members or supporters of a banned organization and that too based on so-called recovery of banned literature. The banned literature there is no such thing under Indian jurisprudence which is called banned literature. Of course the Supreme Court also says that just made by membership of a banned organization is no grounds for. But what unlawful activities prevention act does is that once you ban an organization it allows for two things it can drag in people that you want to ensnare and charge with all kind of charges as has happened in this case and it was true of the Gadchiroli case in which J. N. Saiba and others were implicated. Here are five people. Sudeed Dhamle is a very well-known Dalit activist, ideologue writer and literary figure. Sureen Gardling is a practicing lawyer of 25 years and he has been defending the most downtrodden and those who are most marginalized for whom very few people are willing to come forward. He is defending them. He was defending many U.S.P.A. cases. Shoma Sen teaches English and yes she is an activist in civil liberties and social movements as well as women's rights movement. And then you have Mahesh Rawat who has nothing to do with it. His case is related actually to Gadchiroli because he has worked there as one of the research fellows who was selected by the prime ministers to implement all the rural development programs in Gadchiroli. He worked for them. He has been active actually in the Visthapan Virodi Janandolan in Gadchiroli which is aimed at stopping, stalling and scuttling attempts to increase mining operation in Gadchiroli. In fact, there are 27 mining licenses against which the people are agitating and exactly as in Niamgiri, please remember exactly as in Niamgiri, Surajgarh Hilltop is a sacred place and there is a Supreme Court order very clearly spells out in the Urisa mining case where the layout that it is Gram Sabha's right to decide what is sacred, religious, what activities can affect their religious practice, etc., ignoring all the, without holding even a public hearing properly. In fact, doing it in such a way that it's, I mean it did not allow people to participate in a public hearing in Surajgarh. They have been pushing for increasing mining and mining production and clamping down on everybody who protests accusing them of being Maoist. Now once Unlawful Activities Prevention Act comes into play and once you have banned an organization, it seems that anybody who has anything to say can be accused of being a Maoist and people get scared, yes, and they get scared by being associated with Maoist. I would like to point out that despite prescription of an organization, an idea cannot be proscribed, an ideology cannot be proscribed. And this is something which is there in the Supreme Court of judgments one after another which make it very clear that advocacy of an ideology on an idea including violence is not a crime, it's inciting violence which is a crime. Given this as a principle, it's very clear that if somebody espouses or somebody writes in favor of or suddenly says that what is being done to the Maoist or people who are being accused of Maoist is unfair, wrong, and so on and so forth, they are fully justified. I mean people have a right to believe in the ideology of Godse who is an assassin of Gandhi, civil liberties movements and all have not come out and said please ban these people and put them behind bars, that would be absurd. If an idea is absurd, it will sink, but if an idea carries weight, that is what scares the authorities. And I think what has happened in this particular case, it is that both in Karchiroli and Bhimakoregaon, the protests, the resistance is making the government very, very nervous because neither the Adivasis are giving up in Karchiroli, their protests and resistance against the mining corporations that are trying to move in a big way, which would completely transform and destroy one of the prime forests that we have, especially in this day and age when we talk about climate change. My point is that Karchiroli, where the Adivasis are resisting, and please remember when the judge passed his judgment in the Karchiroli case, he made this point that these people are thwarting development and they are coming in the way of development. And one of the reasons for the problems that Karchiroli Adivasis faces is because of lack of development. Not even once he asked whether the development that the Adivasis wanted is the development that the government is imposing on them or not. And if you look at Bhimakoregaon similarly, where again there is been, I mean the protests and the resistance against it and demand for bringing the real culprits to book has galvanized a large section of the population and they are not giving up, they are not giving up. So I think that these calls for taking a serious look at unlawful activities prevention act, which is worse than Tata and Pota. It's also I think important to point out that when important provision of Pota was actually removed which called about, which illegalized communal clashes, inciting of communal clashes as being, was one of the sections which was actually removed from UAPA, under which we could have had Milindegbote and all of which, it could have been put against them, but that section was removed. Not only that section, I mean it's very interesting that the Tata and Pota definition of terror acts and terrorism is identical in UAPA. They also did away with one clause of Pota, which was that if any police officer engages in malicious prosecution, that police officer can be prosecuted under that act. Now this too was removed from Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. Quite apart from that actually there is nothing like Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. If you compare UAPA with Tata and Pota, Tata and Pota are a pale reflection of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act as well as its draconian provisions for two reasons. One, there is no sunset clause in Unlawful Activities Prevention Act unlike Tata and Pota, which if not renewed, they would lapse. The second is because it's a permanent act and because there was Unlawful Activities Prevention Act in 1967, which dealt with Unlawful and you made terrorist activities also part of this act, this act has become an omnibus act in itself and it creates two categories of banned organization. One banned as Unlawful for what they claim, preaching or propagating say, secession or separatist, you know, support for separatist movements, etc., etc. And the other is terrorist act, which is divided, defined as acts which threaten or likely to threaten the integrity and sovereignty of the state and things so on and so forth. My point is that when you have such an omnibus act, which has such provisions from Unlawful to terrorist, what this act does is that allows the police to charge a person even with the most fictitious or fake information or evidence that they can make knowing fully well that they can retain a person in the police custody for more than 30 days if they need, which is dangerous in itself because the normal Indian penal code does not allow that plus it may be years before you get bail because getting bail once Unlawful Activities Prevention Act is invoked is next to impossible, judges are very of giving bail because the law also abridges. There is a provision here that without the concurrence of the prosecutor, the bail cannot be given to an accused. The point is that this becomes a way in which you keep a person incarcerated, a person whom you dislike or you fear or whose activities you fear thinking that it is going to galvanize opposition to the government etc. So Unlawful Activities Prevention Act may not result in conviction, it really does because even in the semi-cases you will notice that 75 to 80% of the people who have been charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act for various crimes have been acquitted as the Jamiya Milia Teachers Association in their reports and documentation have brought out so very well. Unlawful Activities Prevention Act like Tata and Pota is not meant primarily to ensure higher conviction rates rather to enable the police to keep imprisoned those people or those groups silence those groups that it finds problematic for its own reason and this allows them to keep a person behind bars without the bother of a trial as a form of punishment for years together. And this is despite the Supreme Court pontificating that bail is a right not jail, well it seems that the rich, the privileged and the powerful can avail of this provision that the Supreme Court has spelled out of bail whereas ordinary citizens of this country and especially those who have been condemned and declared as criminals by the sheer fact that UAPA has been invoked against them, they have to suffer incarceration for years together. The primary example of that is committing Jain Sahib Aba who despite being 90% disabled has been in prison for a very long time. So thank you Gautam for joining us today and thank you for watching next clip. Thank you so much.