My name's Leah Blevins, and this song is called Clutter.


Namaskar dear learners. My name is Chainika Srinapati and I am from Maniram Devan School of Management, Krishnakanta Hondikore State Open University. So dear learners, today we will be discussing on a topic from a business environment course which is on labour environment. So let us now discuss about the various aspects of labour environment. By now you have got some idea on the concepts of business, then business environment, then natural and technological environment. Also you have gone through the what is called business and business society and also the industrial policies. This unit has been divided into two parts. In the first part of the video it will mainly focus on the concepts of labour market, principles of labour legislations, labour legislations and definitions of labour welfare. So after going through this unit you will be able to learn the concept of labour market, explain principles of labour legislations, classify labour legislations, define labour welfare. So what is labour environment? The labour environment is an important component of business environment. The quality of the workforce helps in achieving the goals of the organization and the labour forces should be extended the benefits of labour legislation and they should be given opportunities to take part in the decision making process. So in this unit we shall discuss the aspects of the labour legislation, the trade unions, workers participation in management and VRS and Golden Handshakes like concepts in this part of the video and also in the second part of the video. So dear learners, let us now discuss about the concept of labour market.  Employers compete to hire the best and the worker compete for the best satisfying job. Thus a labour market in an economy functions with demand and supply of labour. In this market the labour demand is the firm's demand for labour and supply is the supply of workers as labour. The supply and demand of labour in the market is influenced by changes in the bargaining power of both the parties that is the employer and the workers or the employees. Suppose in a city a lot of civil constructions are going on like construction of the building or construction of the bridges. So a city will attract the labour contractors and the workers. If the supply of labour is more labour cost will be less and if the number of workers is less then the required number the cost of the labour will be high and the industry will suffer from shortage of labour. So this is the supply and demand of labour in the market. Let us now discuss about the labour legislation. Establishment of social justice has been the principle which has guided the origin and development of labour legislation in India. The setting up of international labour organization gave a stimulus to the consideration of welfare and working conditions of the workers all over the world and also let the growth of labour laws in all the parts of the world including India. Here in this video we have to mention about the principles of labour legislation. First principle of protection. The principle of protection suggests enactment of labour legislation to protect those workers who are not able to protect their interest on their own and also workers in particular industries against the hazards of industrial processes. Then the principle of social justice. The principle of social justice implies establishment of equality in social relationships. It aims at removing discrimination suffered by particular groups of labourers. Then principle of welfare. The main purpose behind the enactment of labour laws in this principle is to ensure the provision of certain basic amenities to workers at their place of work and also to improve the living conditions of the workers and their family members. The principle of social security. Social security legislation may be kept under two broad categories that is social insurance, legislation and social assistance legislation. Then the principle of economic development. Improvement of physical working conditions, establishment of industrial peace, provisions of machineries for settlement of industrial disputes, then formation of forums of workers participation in management, then provision of unfair labour practices, also the restrictions on strikes and lockouts, then provision of social security benefits and welfare facilities, then certification of collective agreements and regulations of hours of work have a direct or indirect bearing on the peace and it extend to the economic development. Then the principle of international obligation. This principle postulates enactment of labour laws with a view to give effect to the provisions of resolutions adopted by the international organizations like ILO, UN and similar other bodies. Dear learners, let us now discuss about the classification of labour legislation. So, on the basis of specific objectives, it is sought to achieve the labour legislation in India can be classified into some categories. Number one is the laws related to industrial relations. The laws related to industrial relations are trade union act 1926, industrial employment standing order act 1946, industrial dispute act 1947. Then there are laws related to wages such as payment of wages act 1936, minimum wages act 1948, payment of bonus act 1965, then working journalist, fixation of rates of wages act 1958. There are laws related to working hours, conditions of service and employment such as factories act 1948, plantation labour act 1951, mines act 1952, industrial employment standing orders act 1946. Then there are some other laws like laws related to equality and empowerment of women like maternity benefit act 1961, equal remuneration act 1976. There are laws related to the deprived and disadvantaged section of the society such as bonded labour system, abolition act 1976, labour, child labour provision and regulation act 1986. And there are also laws related to social security like workman's compensation act 1923, employee's state insurance act 1948, then employee's provident fund and miscellaneous provisions act 1952, payment of gratuity act 1972, then employee's liability act 1938. Now let us discuss about the concept of labour welfare. The meaning and implication of labour welfare differ widely with times, regions with countries, then industries, also the social values and customs, the general economic development of the people and the political ideologies that prevail in that particular moment of that place. However, there are some good definitions given by different scholars. So let us discuss about the definitions. So according to Labour Investigation Committee, labour welfare is anything done for the intellectual, physical, moral, economic benefit betterment of the workers, whether by the employer, by the government or by the agencies over and above what is laid down by the law or what is normally expected on the part of the contractual benefit for which workers may be bargained. According to NM Joshi, welfare work covers all the efforts which employers take for the benefit of their employees over and above the minimum standards of working conditions fixed by the factories act and over and above the provisions of the social legislation providing against accident or old age, unemployment and sickness. So in a very simple way, we can define the labour welfare as the labour welfare implies the setting up of minimum desirable standards of the provision of facilities like health, food, clothing, housing, medical assistance, education, insurance, job security, recreation, etc. Such facilities enable the workers and families to lead a good working life, family life and also social life. So dear learner, with this we have come to the end of the first part of the video on the unit labour environment. Thank you so much for watching this video.


Any Mendoza here alongside Stevenson head coach Ed Hoddle coach a tough one Obviously this this evening really a tale of two halves in this game What did you see what kind of adjustments you guys making the second half that really got the offense going and the defense Get some stops there in the second half. Well, I mean, I think we we just didn't tackle well the first half Defensively I think you know what they do scheme wise create some extra gaps And we knew it'd be tough to defend and we were able to you know get enough stops in the second half You know obviously giving up the two touchdowns was was big But you know, I think we were able to clean some blocking stuff up offensively in the second half And then give Ryan a little bit of time and we were able to start to run the ball a little bit But you know at the end of the day, you got to be around the ball and you got to be to stop the run And I think we struggled in both areas tonight and it's something we have to look at and clean up You mentioned Ryan obviously Not the outcome that that he would want or that you would want but a lot of positives I thought coming from that game, you know a young quarterback staying in the pocket taking some hits It's something that maybe you can build on obviously has a connection with Keenan now had a great game What can you say about Ryan? What can you say about Keenan and the effort they gave tonight? Well, I mean they spend a lot of time together, you know, they work for the game They work post-practice. They spend a lot of time working together And I think they there is a chemistry there and I think as you look at you know a guy coming out of you know I mean, this is a second college start. So I think you threw for 286 and haven't thrown an interception yet You know, he's taking some sacks taking some hits that we'd rather we'd rather not take and he and I He and I talk about that often But I think you know where he is as a you know God's starting a second game's done a good job and I think that you know the way Keenan plays I mean he plays with his hair on fire all the time and brings a lot of energy to the group and you know He's a good compliment to Chas and Vince and You know, I think they're gonna do some special things The remainder of the season last one for you Obviously a tough one tonight, but you got to kind of shake it off quickly a tough conference opponent next week On the road against Delaware Valley How do you get your guys kind of to shake this one off and refocus for next week? You just got to work, you know We'll get in the film tomorrow You know look at what we need to do to improve and we'll get with the guys on Monday And it really is just work just go to work and it doesn't matter who we play You know the way we look at it, you know the expectation of success is you know every Saturday That we strap it up and play and you know, we've got to be the best football team that we can be You know, we don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about who we're playing But we spend a great deal of time trying to go out and execute at a high level consistently and that's you know A very introspective look that we choose Because we feel like if we're playing the best football we can play a week We're gonna be an average footballer. Absolutely show that in the second half coach. Good luck the rest of the way Thanks so much for the time. I'll appreciate it. Thank you for more Stevenson athletics You can go to gomustanksports.com


Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of League of SC Reviewers. Three best friends getting together. Finally, after the long wait to talk about what we love to talk about, which is talking to other people. Isn't that ironic? Anyway, I'm here with some of my best friends in the world. Linda Mako! Hello, everybody. It's so nice to see you, Tyrone. It's so nice to see you, Ben. I've missed you guys so much. It's like, it's been hurting.  And I'm really glad to be here today. Let's not forget the notorious, the one and only, Ben Diesel. Hey! Good to see you guys again. Linda, I've been so jealous of everything. You've been doing the last couple of weeks. Very true. Just like an adventure. Not even that. It's the whole cabin thing. But we're going to get into that today. Absolutely. Me too. My name is Ty and we're going to talk about so many things in this show. I want everyone to get really excited. But before we get into a whole plethora of stuff that we're going to talk about, mostly just catching up, we're going to go over some of the comments that we had in the last episode. In a subject dialogue to call, where is the love? Where is the love? Linda! You mind sharing some of the love that we got in the last episode? Yeah. So, this is the feedback we got from our last episode, episode eight from Engut Engut 40. He says, Geez, you guys are really pushing the word play to smuggle in your fruity words. Thank you. Engut Engut 40. We appreciate criticism. Oh, yeah. And then P-B-T-M-I-T-A-S-O-L. Is that it? Right? Correct. Says, Dr. Tyrone Wells, S-E, sit down. I couldn't take my eyes of the lovely Linda Mokko, immersed intently in the discussion. She's such a sweet soul. I don't practice S-E, but enjoy the content the three of you guys put out. Thanks for the great energy and enthusiasm. Nice. Oh, thank you. P-B-T. And I just would like to recommend starting taking up S-E. It is fun. Then you'll be a part of the, you know, fun in another way. And then Reid, nice wonder, also known as... Reid, nice wonder. Curiosity. Says, great show. Thank you, Reid. That's so nice.  Any chance you could drop it? Hey, that's a great question. I'm thinking let's do a change of pace because I'm always up to new things. Let's try a different game today. Let's do a game called Goals. All right? Goals are pretty simple. We won't interrupt each other during the show, but what we will say at the beginning of the show, what our goals are, that we need to complete by the end of the show. And they can be about anything you want. For example, my goal by the end of this show is to level up to level... those levels. I've been grinding recently. I'm like at about level seven right now, but I'm going to push myself up to that level 20. There's one big boss battle that I think I'm going to prepare myself for, but I got the right equipment. My stats look good. I'm ready to do this. Level 20, let's go. Linda, what's your goal? My goal today is to encourage people to go out and try SE, even if they have never thought of it before. So please give me feedback on that. Like in the comment section, like did it work? Like if you've never thought of it, did you think about it this time? That's my goal. I love it. Ben, what is your goal? My goal for today is to teach you guys a new Afrikaans word. Awesome. I can't wait for that. And we'll try to make sure it's not a rude one. Your family-friendly show after all. So yeah. No promises. Guys, I had, or I've got a secret about greed, which you shared on the SE Discord. Excellent. It's actually where cordial curiosity comes from. It's literally just synonyms for his last name. Nice, wonder, nice, cordial, wonder, curiosity. Mine! That's a lot. That's deep. That's really, really deep. That's not bad. I like that. I think I was there during that Discord. Maybe we should plug the Discord thing. Hey, why not? SE Discord. So we have a street epistemology Discord. If you guys want to join the chat or learn more about SE or want to engage in role-playing sessions, you're free to drop in anytime you want. Just search for street epistemology when you're in Discord. And I don't think we have any, like, ins or out. We've had everyone from straight-up atheists to apologists, really anyone that's friendly to having a really cordial conversation and exercising the curiosity can come by and join the chat. Also, if you like just SE in general, but don't necessarily make content, but you want to give your feedback, I would also recommend the SE League Messenger Group. It's pretty easy to get to, and more people are joining every day. I think it's really cool. In order to get into that group, give either me, Linda, or Ben a shout-out on Messenger, and we'll be free to add you in, and we can talk more about how to talk to people. Okay, you guys, we're into the real heart of the show, catching up. This is an extended session that I like to call Ben, Linda's and Ty's Excellent Month. All right, Ben. I know Linda's got the card, so we're going to work with you and me. You and me are going to work with you and me. Ben, how was your Excellent Month? My month has been super interesting. About six weeks ago, I started something which I call Alpha, and it's this course for Christians with questions. It was developed by a guy in the UK, Nicky Gumbel, and as part of one of the guys at the South African Circular Society, of which I'm a member, suggested that we should check this out so that we can, number one, expose ourselves to ideas that we might not necessarily subscribe to, which I think is always a good thing, and also to maybe promote some critical thinking among the people who attended the course. And it's been very interesting. It's actually become one of the highlights of my week. Very nice people. It was good conversation. Very, got very philosophical, which I enjoy for some weird reason. Started enjoying the last couple of weeks. So that's been awesome. They've got a camp this weekend, so I'm actually going to ask the one pastor there if he'd be happy for me to do some interviews. So if that works out, I'm going to be super psyched. I'm going to set up a table, see how it goes. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Did you just say set up a table? I said table. It's going to be really cool. Yes. That's going to be really, really cool. What kind of, I shouldn't say props, but what kind of tools do you have from the table? I still need to get like a second camera, but I'm thinking of maybe crowdsourcing that. I know a couple of people who might be able to sort me out. It's going to be super super big, and it's going to be. Yeah. Because unfortunately in South Africa this September has been very bad for going out and recording September and October. It's been so windy and there was a school break. So I haven't even had the chance to go out for like a couple of weeks, at least, some itching. Even in the States right now, it's getting really, really cold. And I'm thankful for everyday that it's kind of warm out. you know, like yesterday to do some interviews, it was not enough foot traffic for me to even justify setting up.  But for me, it's kind of a commitment, like where I set up, the time that I invest is setting up, and then sitting out there hoping I can catch some, catch people. So yeah, I definitely feel like we're getting towards the winter is coming era. That's the key. Hey, by the way, Tyrone, have you thought about trying that with the, just a little camera, like with the harness thing? Like you just said, like. Yeah, so when I first started doing that, I didn't have a table set up. I was doing it kind of like in the Anthony style where I didn't have a camera even set up. I would have my cell phone. I'd have my cell phone and a microphone app playing and I'd just go up to people and talk to them. And I was able to have a really good conversations and that helped bolster my confidence. So it was like a non-video aspect of that. And there were some early attempts of that on my YouTube channel. But for the most part, I like the table set up only because the stand up session kind of stresses me out because I feel like not only am I having a conversation, but I also have to keep the person talking to me because it's very easy for them to be like, okay, well, thank you very much, walk away.  But I think it'll be really cool to hear from Ben, his ideas of what it's like doing as he's standing up since he's so well-versed with that. You've probably been doing it for about a year now versus doing it on a table. I'm really interested in that kind of thing. Well, I'm going to have a captured audience that might not be the most unbiased view, but I'm going to see how it goes. If it works well, I think I might actually try it, go and sit up in an ice park over the summer and see how it goes. And Christians with questions, what's that? I mean, is that a Christian led event or is it like a secular briefing event? No, it's hosted by a church. So it's a very conservative church. I was actually amazed. One of the pastors asked to speak with me and we had a separate lunch chat and he was just like the nicest dude. Well, maybe to be expected, but also in the way his own beliefs are very, very liberal. Like I did not know that there are people in that church who subscribe to those specific views. And so much so that if he took what he said and just removed the God part from a lot of it, I'd be a hundred percent on board. So that at least for me was something which was made me think a lot to see, even can Christianity, and that's kind of his point of view, Christianity needs to be reformed to be more receptive to the problems that the world faces at this point in time. And the idea is interesting to me, but the question I have is the baggage that comes along with that, can it be justified? That's a completely different conversation. I think I could be busy on that for a couple of hours. That would be good. I also think it just as a tip from my point, if you're gonna do SC with people, if you're doing SCs with actual pastors versus the people that go to the church and then there are pastors, maybe not as well-versed, do you think you'll gauge the expectation that you have of the kind of goal that you might set for yourself as part of the SC conversation? Do you understand what I'm saying? For a person who just goes to a church, you might ask them, is faith a reliable way to come to a true conclusion? But for a pastor, you might have a unique opportunity to try a different goal of what are some of the best benefits to secular thinking? Or could you see a value to doubting everything? Maybe you could privately ask pastors different things because they might have the other answers kind of down pat. The man I'm really thinking about a lot of critical thinking to it, but if you ask them, it's like, hey, is critical thinking valuable? Is questioning everything valuable? Are there things that we shouldn't question? Why is that not a good thing anymore? It might be- Our conversation actually naturally went in that direction and it was very, very cool to get us points of view. At the end of the day, I actually shared a couple of SC videos with him because the challenge he faces, he wants to get rid of fundamentalist ideas in his congregation. And he sees that as probably one of the biggest challenges that he faces. So I explained that this idea behind SE is to, bypass those defenses and get people to honestly and critically analyze why they hold beliefs. So I don't know if I convinced him. I'll keep going in that direction because I think that'll be amazing if he could get some benefit out of it. For me, both of what you both, both of you guys just said was just like, honey to my ears. The whole, you know, getting- Oh no, watch me or I'll see. What? Honey, like sweet. Like- Like getting to the pastor to think of different things and not get into the defending of the belief, maybe or like that. I thought that was like brilliant. And then the whole like, what you just said, Ben, I won't repeat it. But yeah, both of those are like, all right on. Just wanted to say that. Nice. One other random question, Ben, is the churches in South Africa typically divided based on like racial lines? Cause even in here, particularly in USA, you'll have things that are called like black churches or white churches have very distinct styles of how they teach or pastor or preach. Yes, we've, I think we've got pretty much exactly the same landscape as you do in the US. All of ours is very much driven by the segregation of apartheid. Actually, I drove past one of my old church a couple of months ago and they still had a sign up which basically says, the service for white people is from seven to eight in the morning. And you can bring your gardeners and domestic workers from 10 to 11.   Yeah, but I think I might just be something which they might not have funds to update the sign or something. I know a lot of the churches are struggling but there's also this rye similarity in the US of these mega prosperity driven churches that are super charismatic and very fundamentalist. And I've recently spoken to a couple of people from those churches and it's quite concerning the ideas that they drive. We also recently had a case where a pastor convinced his congregation to take insecticide and spray that into their own faces as like a test of their faith. So, and the same guy even had his congregation eat dog meat. So, and I'm not saying this is at all what Christianity leads to or a mainstream thing but these people accepted it because they were convinced this is what is expected of them. And I think that's where spreading ideas like street epistemology is so important in our country. Right, I also think, go for it. No, and also I was just thinking that it, that I think example really illustrates how it's not about atheism, which we're so often linked to in the whole book, a manual for creating atheists and all that, even though, you know, it's, well, you can talk about that later but it really is about challenging those ideas, understanding what people believe, why they believe the pesticide is necessary to test somebody's faith, regardless of what the church is or the ideology behind it. But is there a better way maybe to do things than dog meat? Also dog meat's delicious. I don't care what people say. I'm just playing. I like monster. It kind of feeds into my excellent month. Okay, so I live pretty close to a Walmart and that Walmart shut down so it's no longer there. And it's kind of a cool thing because now there's way less traffic around where I live. I feel like the area's got a lot safer. Everything just feels a lot nicer.  It's just really, really nice. Just nice and open right. You also bought like a two year supply of taco shells or something at the closing out sale. What was that? So yeah, there was a closing out sale that was like 90% off everything in the store.  And like lines were just like all the way through the store. But like, I'm like, I'll pick up some stuff. And I was finally able to get some like, where's my cat? There's my cat buddy right there. Vinnie. I was finally able to get some like super high quality cat food, like really, really high quality. And I opened it up and I'm like, this is basically a Campbell's soup. This is basically the soup that I eat. I don't think there's a difference. There was just smaller proportions, but as far as things that I did that were kind of cool in the last month, I did two cool things. One, I finally have a chance to really set up at the University of Kentucky, which is the school that's nearby here in Lexington. And I have friends here in Lexington that helped me with my Essie stuff. It's kind of cool. There's a guy named Eric Green who gave me a parking pass to be able to work there. He's staffed on school and he hooked me up with a parking pass, even helped me at a park. He was like out there looking for a spot because parking in university is always super hard. So he was like, I found a spot. I mean, helped me get there in part, helped me move my stuff. He had friends that also know that I do street epistemology come and just check in on me, watch my table if I had to use the bathroom, give me water, give me food. I'm like, this is like really, really high class teamwork. And I really appreciate everyone here for helping me out. But the interviews that I got at University of Kentucky are probably some of the best ones that I've done. When I look at the quality of the questions that I ask, then compared to the first time I was out, I can tell how much nervous I was in the past because a lot of times I would try to keep, I guess, my position off the table. But a lot of the times when I was on campus, I started off saying like, hey, my position is I don't know. I don't subscribe to any religion. I'm trying to figure out, you know, honestly the best way about learning things. And I felt like I was just so comfortable about that that the people who were in front of me were like, oh, okay, sure. Yeah, I'll be happy to tell you whatever I got. And it wasn't a big issue. And I felt like a really good back and forth. I had maybe seven conversations that day and I got progressively more tired as we went going on. So the last two were pretty bad, but I'll probably share those on my Patreon. But for the most part, they were like, they were pretty good, but I was definitely asking questions that were like, just throwing things out to see if they would work enough. But I've been releasing those on my YouTube channel and I found a really cool way to just, you know, assess how much better I've been getting at this because now I've been doing it for about a year and it's just cool to see that progress on that part. And then the second thing that I did was did another's talk at Dalton State College in Georgia. This was over Skype, but it was with one of the people who are in the SE League messenger group. And he contacted me like very, very early on in my SE, you know, hobby. And he said, hey, would you like to come over to our school and do a talk? I'd be like, yeah, I would love to. And we came back and set up a date and I was able to talk to his secular student alliance group. There was about maybe nine people there and it was really, really fun. I gave basically more or less the talk that I did when I was in Tennessee, but this was more of like a Q&A session. And I got to actually hear a lot more from young people who are interested in trying to ask people questions and figure out like, how do you even start this process? How do you even like figure this out? What kind of mindset do you have when you go out there? And I love questions like that. I have one more talk coming up in Newport, Kentucky, which is just below Cincinnati, Ohio. And this will be at the Atheist, American Atheist convention. There'll be about 80 people there and I'm already stressing out, but I got my slides ready. But it's really cool that I'm getting a lot more comfortable with talking about stuff like this. Cause when I first started out, man, I can't tell you how nervous I was about like putting my name out there, about letting people know about my position. I thought there'd be just a lot of shame behind it or a lot of public backlash. I put like an American Atheist label on the back of my car and I was worried that it'd be scratched up the next day. But like now I'm just like, it's not even a thing on my mind anymore. And it's just making me a lot more, that's feeding into the way how I have conversations with people. And I'm just really happy that not only have I had gotten better at this, but people are a lot more receptive to it and accepting of my position once they understand me better, rather than like this idea that they had of me. It's like, oh, Tyrone, he's so nice. He must love God. Or like, no, Tyrone's an Atheist, but he's still a nice guy and I like this guy still.  I think that's really cool. And my mom's, who's Joel Witness is like super supportive of me. When I first told her I was an Atheist, it was kind of like, I don't know about this, but I think being out about where you are on God is like one of the best kind of free advertisements to people who know who you are and know that they can put a face on atheism and it's the face of their friend or their son or like a really family member. So I think it's really helpful for her and I think it's really helpful for my sister and just people at my work, just don't know where I'm coming from and still be willing to like have fun with me. I got friends who are Mormons at work and I'm like, oh man, I'm Mormon from Hawaii. Like I didn't even know how it's possible because I get stronger. And I'm asking him questions, he just asked me questions and we go back to talking about Marvel movies and it's just like the most free, most freeing thing about just, hey, like we all have religious or non-religious beliefs but we can still communicate with each other and that's what SC is all about, just a good communication. And I think that's, go for it. Yeah, I was just thinking that I think one of the cool things also about putting a face on atheism because I mean, I just said that we can ditch the title of the book, A Manual for Creating Atheists and that's not the main thing in SC. And I still hold by that but I also think there is like other work to be done when speaking honestly and openly and saying the word atheist, just because to educate people that it's not that we don't want to believe. Just as little as they, it's not like always the choice that I don't want to be a Muslim or I don't want to be Christian or I don't want this or that. It's not that we don't want to believe, it's just we're not convinced. It's like what it is for me and just to have the opportunity to educate people about that and use the word atheist when doing that I think is really valuable. And we're open to having our minds be convinced. Yes, if we just want to get evidence, it's like, okay, then. Let's assess it. Yeah, let's think about it a little bit more. Okay. Do we have the good evidence for it? All right, not about it. When I started out doing AC, I had this phase where I had to tell literally everybody about it. Ah! And... It didn't work. The one of my colleagues at work, after which he came to me and she said she is so grateful that I spoke to her and I said, what was it? What means something to you? And she said she was having doubts and she thought she was alone. She had no fact that never made anybody else who had doubted the beliefs that she was brought up with. And it was just refreshing to her to find out that no, she's not alone and it's okay to actually question. And if that's all I achieve, I'm super happy just to do that. Right. And even with the conversations that I was having at UK University of Kentucky, where I knew that the conversation wasn't going so well, those are like the last two, I realized that if I just set back my goals from trying to analyze a belief or whatever to just, hey, I'm an atheist, can I have a good conversation with you? You won't have that for me for like five minutes? That does weigh more than a lot of people give credit to. Just having that fun conversation, short little talk with someone that you didn't think you would ever be able to talk to face to face. Yeah. And let it end on a positive note and say, hey, thanks very much for telling me about that. I love that. And then move on. I think that's one of the great powers of just being able to talk to people. One other weird thing. So I found out that Peter Pugosian didn't even want to call his book, I'm Daniel for Creating Atheists. It was his publisher that wanted to do it. And the publisher was like, man, gotta sell these copies, guy. This is a nice book, but we gotta sell copies. And Peter Pugosian was like, I just don't want to make waves. I think it's going to lead to long-term problems like, nah, we gotta sell the copies. He's like, okay, fine. So they titled it that way. It's very unfortunate name. But if you ask me, the way how I say it is, the true manual for creating atheists, at least for me, it's always been the Bible. I read that. I was like, I got questions. I think I'm gonna have to change my mind on some things. Anyway, we're about to open up the floodgates right now. Linda's about to roll into the conversation. Before you do it, do we want to take a wee little break or a shameless plug, intermission or anything like that? Ben, what's your channel? Seize of Thought. Nice. We'll soon be active again after a big hiatus. So what type of that? Very, very nice. My channel is called Let's Chat. Feel free to comment or subscribe. We would love that. Linda, what's your channel real quick? Super Curious. Boom. And you're watching this video. You're probably on that channel right now. Don't forget to subscribe, check her out. And you've got a video coming up soon, right? Well, you see. I was just thinking as I was listening to you guys talking and that, I mean, the three of us almost started doing AC at the same time. So we've all like done it for about a year, but I haven't uploaded a single in the street conversation yet. The conversations that I've loaded up have been in the kitchen and they've been live streamed. And a big reason for that is that I really don't know how to edit. I have taped four conversations in a park in Finland, but I just haven't had the time to edit them. And I noticed that I don't really like editing, like at all. Like I think it's like the most tedious, horrible thing. And it's like, oh, I have to do it. I have to figure all of this stuff out. And it just doesn't come like naturally or eagerly to me.  And I see how your stuff is like developing on all levels, like the edit, the captions, the content, like everything. And you upload a lot, very productive. Yeah, and you said that you can see your development. And for me, I feel that my development since I started is that I'm becoming better at talking about street epistemology to other people and kind of convincing them to give it a go. And that's where I get into where I went, not this weekend, but last, the QED convention. And I'm really excited about that. So I think I'm finding kind of my niche in SE, which would be more doing the talks, teaching, and yeah, enthusing people to give SE a try. Cool. I don't know if I need to do videos. Hey, I'll tell you one thing. One, if you need me, I would be happy to edit your videos for you, because I don't actually mind it. And I figured out a really nice template that allows me to just drag and drop stuff in. I think Ben has a background with developing programs and stuff like that. So, and I've done animation for like about eight years. So we're both like very familiar with like sitting in front of a computer and wasting like daylight hours. I feel productive afterwards, like we did stuff. Meanwhile, the sun rises and sets, like you missed everything. It's like, nah, we made some child listening and now there's no errors. That's our college for the day. But yeah, editing does take a very, very long time. Even when I did the first video, Anthony said, you're gonna be surprised how long it takes to edit even short conversations and it does. So if you want, we can work on that offline and I'll be happy to at least output the four talks that you did. And if you're cool with that, I definitely would love that. Oh, man, I really appreciate the help and I really felt that I got stuck because I didn't have the know-how and I had limited time. So then I just kept on pushing it away. Cause I've done those, I, what's it called? I did the videos, did the actual conversations, like it's at least two months ago. So of course I have had like evenings and stuff. And while I was in the cabin in Lapland, I didn't really have access to electricity in the same way as I would at home. But of course there were opportunities if I would have the know-how and the want to actually sit and do it. For me it's like picking, I don't know, what's the word? Something really awful that you have to do. So yeah, I really appreciate the help so I can move forward with that because I'm just stuck. Doing SE with just yourself versus working with a team of people is monumentally completely different things. And the whole point of the league, the point of the league is to find a group of people that are willing to help you out. Like when I did the talk at Delta and I was helping out another guy who wanted to just have people talk to him or his group about Street of Pistemology. When Ben did his talk or did his survey, Ben, your survey is really popular. I've seen other people use it in their videos. But it's just this feedback center and a helping center. And I think the whole point of the league is that you're not alone when you do Street of Pistemology. You're not just one person with a camera, part of a group, a group of losers. The league of Pistemology. And one thing that I would like to put out there that I would like to help other people with. And I hope somebody takes me up on this that if you are giving talks, if you're doing anything publicly with SE, I really like giving feedback, doing hangouts with stuff like that. Because that's where I have experience in like watching people perform and helping them do it better or not perform but giving talks and stuff like that. Like putting people at ease if they think stuff like that is like nerve wracking and maybe going through the talk as it is being created. Did that make sense? No, it makes sense. Did you get an opportunity to do that at QED? Did some people speak to you? Well, I kind of bounced in with this T-shirt. It's a two-day conference. It started on a Saturday morning. What's the T-shirt say? What's the T-shirt say? It says Street of Pistemology. Let's examine how we know what we know. I love that. I like that. How we know. Yeah, I think it's a really good T-shirt. I like that. That's very good. I know where you got that. From Anthony Magneboske, thank you so much. He was giving them out in Norway. Yeah, and I wore this T-shirt for four days. So I was wearing nothing else during this conference. It was like two days with like talks but before that there was like a space quiz, like a social gathering where they like ask questions about, you become a team and then you, they ask questions about space and conspiracy theory and astrophysics and physics and stuff. I got all the physics questions, almost all of them, right? Who knew? And then that was a lot of fun. Yeah, so it went to the point where people were asking me, like, don't you have any other clothes? But then again we're intrigued by the title street epistemologist and that would start really good conversations where I got to practice my elevator pitch, my a little bit longer, like let's talk about SE and then like it even went to like hour long conversations with people about the possibilities within SE and if we experiment with it and how it is a conversational tool and how it can help people think in a not so polarized manner and find nuance and like the whole tool for world peace. So like all those kinds of different types of conversations because that's how I think of street epistemology. It's a dialectic that will help us become more peaceful with each other. Where was QED? How did you get there? How long did it last? Like what were the kind of people there, the events there? Like as I know nothing about QED, walk me through it. And I saw you hanging out with a very weird looking dude. He kind of looks like a Disney movie villain. Yeah, Aaron had a lecture on Thursday. So that was prior to the conference, but it, okay. QED is Question Explore Discover. It's a skeptic conference. QED, I should, anyway. So far. And it's in Manchester in the UK. It was held the two days of the like actual conference for the 13th and 14th. The space quiz was on the 12th and Aaron Ra spoke on the 11th. So I went back to the front there. Yeah, what was the other question? Now I've got all sidetracked. What kind of events or speakers were there? Was it strictly just for secular activities or were there like anti-science? You said there was conspiracy theorists there as well. What's going on? Well, it's a skeptic convention or a skeptic conference. So skeptics unite. It begins Saturday morning, nine o'clock. Everybody gathers into this big like hall. Okay. And it begins with this video, a fantastic video. I'm going to link it in the description because it's available on YouTube for anybody to watch. It was the coolest thing I've seen in a long, long while.  You get this booklet with the program. Oh, it's a booklet. Yeah, so it's got the program inside. So you've got it with you all the time. So you can like choose which talk you want to go to.   So it's really easy to talk to anybody at any point, anywhere like queuing for a beer or outside in the smoking section or waiting in line to get into a talk. People will be like, oh, so what? For Americans queuing for a beer means you're waiting in line. They're just helping out. Yeah. And yeah, so it begins with a video where they had done like a parody, not a parody. They used like they, what's it called? You imitate David Attenborough. And David Attenborough did this talk or like was explaining about the skeptic species and have it migrate once a year to come to QED at Manchester the biggest skeptic conference in the world. Oh, it was so good. So that video will be linked. Just watch it. It's hilarious. I at least, I am definitely identifying as a skeptic species of the skeptic species.  Yeah, so it starts like really fun, a lot of anticipation, a little laughing in the audience and crying and so on and so forth. And then I just met like really cool people everywhere I'd heard there was somebody interesting who had something interesting to say. And just this mindset of more like questioning, it kind of felt like people were kind of naturally doing SC or at least like just asking a lot of question, questions and challenging what I was kind of there to sell because I did go there with the whole thing like I wanna promote street epistemology. And what was cool was that Anthony did speak at that convention last year. So some people recognized it and say like, oh, that was really cool. Could you tell me more about it? And then there were a lot of other people people that just kept on seeing me in the same t-shirt and then eventually they asked like, so what is that? How do you even say it? And that is how the conversation. Yeah. And that's how the conversations would begin. Yeah, and so they've got like four different like spaces where there are talks and workshops and stuff at the conference. So you kind of like have to choose. You can't watch everything. And initially I was like, oh no, but I would really like to see that critical thinking thing and see that other neuroscientist thing. But they're going on at the same time. Actually those two weren't at the same time. I got to see them both. But anyway, but the thing that was good that in between talks, when you're queuing for the beer or something and it was really casual and nice and people don't get like sloppy drunk. It's just like a nice kind of chill sipping on a beer kind of fun drinking. So yeah, when you're waiting in that queue you'll ask the person, so what did you see and how was that? And if you're lucky, they went to something else. Or I don't know, if they went to something else you get to hear about that from their perspective. And if they went to the same thing as you you can start talking about it and like nitpicking it and like asking questions about it. And like, this is what I thought and I didn't really agree with that. And like, you know, I think that's really cool. Skeptics unite. I felt like I was free. It's really risky to be part of a group like that. I found that I also joined this local Skeptics group, Skeptics and the pub and we have a meetup every two weeks and it's just like the highlight of my calendar really. And it's what I found is every day conversation tends to become boring. It's really nice to have these conversations where you're challenged and you're exposed to new ideas and just to go back to the office and discuss, you know, how the team did over the weekend. That just doesn't do it anymore for you. I don't know if you guys have the same experience. No, that's absolutely true. I think I strongly encourage joining like a local humanist free thought or Skeptics group if you can. I think we have three great examples cause Linda goes out to these conventions where she can finally like let loose and then you have this local meetup group that you can go to Ben. And then for me, I have not so much that in Kentucky in the heart of Kentucky. So what I do is like I try to have my sessions with street cosmology. That tends to be sort of my outlet. And then I meet with you guys on the internet. So like whatever situation that you're in, you could always find a group that's willing to talk to you about things that you believe in. And even on Discord, we have like these like role play sessions where we can like freely talk afterwards or before, even during the acting that we do. Well, we just try to engage in street of cosmology with each other and then hang out and play video games and talk about like issues that we're going through with regard to our more rational mindset. I think there are a lot of ways more than ever before if you just want to have an outlet to talk to and find people that think the same way you do. And I thought it was a challenge that. Sorry, my bad. And I thought it was just like wonderful. I felt completely at home and at ease because we were constantly, we at that convention I felt it almost felt like a little festival because the atmosphere there was really like liberating free and like we were all playing and having fun together. I liked that aspect of it. And then I liked that very rarely did we start with, hello, my name is Linda, I come from Finland and all that kind of small talk thing that I as an introvert find kind of strange to do. I don't always get it. Like why are we doing this? And there I felt like we just jumped into conversation and then the whole, oh, so you're so and so and you come from there and that makes sense because now we're talking about something where it's relevant for us to exchange our life stories. And I think kind of like, I guess I'm used to in other situations that the whole life story comes first and then people start talking about things that are important to them. I like this way much better. But of course we're at a convention so we're thinking about ideas the whole time but I really liked that and it felt so comfortable. And I haven't just had that really. Well, maybe the first time in Norway with the skeptics there, but I didn't even know. I feel like I didn't even know that this, this way of being existed. Like it's, you have to watch the second time being there. That's, that's crazy good. So what? That was your second time being there and you still felt like. No, no, no, no, my first time at QED. Oh, okay. I was talking about the time in Norway when I went to the skeptics in the pub in Oslo was my first experience with like a group of kind of skeptic people that are there to question. And I remember saying this to Anthony too that I just, I feel like, wow, like, where have I been and what have I been doing? And like, I can't describe it. But it was like, all of a sudden everybody's like rational, rational is a bad word. It's something else. It's that then they're not like a hundred percent there. Like, this is the way it is. And they're not like defending ideas to the death. It's like, oh, so you see this differently. Oh, well, tell me about that because, you know, I've got good reasons. I'll tell you my reasons. And it's kind of, it's like working on the problems for reals. It was interesting the whole time. I was not bored one single second. I could have gone for a week doing that. Excellent. Very cool. What else did I want to say? I feel like I started by going like, yeah, I think my skill is speaking like really well about S.C. But I feel like now that I'm trying to do it, it's all over the place. So there, go figure. Sorry. I don't know what happened. You know something I'd be really interested in seeing? I don't know something I wanted to say, but I keep on forgetting it. Sorry, what? Have you live streamed or live streamed yourself talking about the convention to put up on your channel? Cause I would love to see like just a Linda Mako. Yeah, free flowing. Free flow, the QED event, just taking your time. And that'd be really, really cool. And I think it'd be a really strong recommendation for other people who are in the area to be able to check it out themselves. And you're in Finland, you went down to Manchester. In my mind, jumping three different worlds apart. But for you, I guess it's like, not too long would drive, right? You see, I love to travel and I love going to, but before like doing these skeptic things, I've been going to watch like a scientist, like the great Richard Dawkins talk or Brian Cox in his show. And there it's like, you're the audience and then you're watching the show and the scientists saying brilliant stuff. But this was different, both like Anthony's talk and the skeptic convention in Manchester, QED, which are my two experiences where I go specifically to engage with skeptics. It was different. We were engaging, we were thinking. It was different because we all got to talk about it afterwards. And yeah, it was that. We got to talk about it. So there were like conversations happening everywhere. And oh, and there was so much food for thought and there was music and comedy, but everything had that little kind of either science-y flair or that like question, discover. Cool. Explore. I said them in the wrong order, but it doesn't matter. But just that feeling of wonder and question, explore, discover. Very nice, very nice. It was the perfect place for me. Yeah. And I thought I wrote down here that I might have learned something and that was the best thing I really feel when people are open like that and interested like that and want to explore and learn things and question. It's just the best environment for learning. I had so many moments. It was like everybody was essaying me too. And then I could essay them back. And it was so much fun. And also having the tool in my toolbox of SE, I felt was really cool. I felt like I could really get to understand the other person's point of view. And I think this was so funny because we're all kind of like almost thinking the same way. We had the same kind of attitude, I guess, more. So when our ideas might have differed or somebody was maybe not understanding what street epistemology is, I used street epistemology to get the idea across better. So it was kind of like this meta thing where I felt that having street epistemology and talking to skeptics using street epistemology kind of like it's not like it's a weapon or anything. It's just a way of talking, really.  And I guess if anyone's watching this video now, what would you tell them that you told people at QED? What I would tell them that I told the people at QED. To encourage them to try out and see themselves. Like what was the pitch to encourage people? Well, I guess for me, it's not so much the pitch. It's like really listening to the person I'm talking to and trying to understand them and how it would be valuable for them. And then like helping them see where they could maybe use it and then, because you can use SE so many different ways as we see every week now on YouTube and different styles. And I think we can use SE in negotiations. We can use it at work. We can use it when we order food. You can use SE anywhere the way I see it. Yeah. I would like the prize, please. But I don't know. Do I want prize? How confident am I? Do I want prize right now? You tell me. I don't know, sir. Meet him. I think that's all just asking the way too. So what's your best dish at the race to run? Is that really good? Yeah, and why? Isn't that? How do you know that? Yeah. But that's something that I would just like to add to what you have to say, Linda.  These guys, the ideas they have, how easily it flows from them. And remember, you have to start somewhere. Right. And what I found, what EC has really imprinted on me is the value of when you go somewhere, being inquisitive and asking questions. When I went to my first skeptic meetup, I was terrified. I thought, all of these people have this completely different mindset and they're going to see straight through me and think I'm an opposer. But when you go in there and you ask questions and it basically automatically gets you to engage and it gets the people you speak to to engage with you and it's such a rewarding experience. Really, anybody who's never tried it, go out and just ask questions. It's the best thing that you can do. It's really fun. Something I worry about is a language barrier. I don't know if, or like, you know, the facial, but language barrier, all that stuff. Ben, do you have any tips? If I'm talking to someone who might, for example, only speak Afrikaans, how can I get to them? What's like a good keyword that I might be able to use to get through to a person like that? Buy a donkey. What does that mean? First, you have to say it. It's literally you say, buy a donkey. Okay. Buy a donkey. Can you say that? Yeah, buy a donkey. Yes! Thank you very much. See, Afrikaans, the lightness is key. So you need to be, always say, thank you very much. Buy a donkey. Oh, is that, thank you very much? Yes. Very, very cool. I'm writing that down. Buy a donkey. Buy a donkey, Ben. You guys have perfect pronunciation. I am just, I'm astounded. You know what's crazy? Is I met a guy from Pretoria in Lexington. Dude, I enjoy that conversation so much. Really? Because I want to be posting that in like about two weeks. And I'm really excited because I was like, my friend, Ben Diesel's from South Africa. This is so crazy right now. But he's like, who's Ben Diesel? I was like, don't worry about it. Let's keep talking about it. Really cool dude though. All right, so we're getting near the end of the show. Is there, well, let's do one final round. We're gonna go and basically say, hey, Ben, thank you so much for telling me about the alpha, the community event that's held by pastors in South Africa, allowing kids to question their beliefs. And I think you'll be an absolutely excellent asset in that kind of development. And I hope you get a lot of it too. I'm really looking forward to if you can get like any kind of recorded talks out of that, it'd be really, really great. And then Linda, you sound like you had a wonderful competition or convention in Manchester for QED. I think that was really, really cool. And I love the enthusiasm. And I think you really touched a lot of people with regard to why they should be interested in talking to people about how they came to their beliefs. And I think that's always a useful thing, especially out of spectus conversation. Because a lot of people will call themselves skeptics but not really engage in that stuff. Well, actually now, and I don't think that the thing that I did there with SE and the interest that I kind of created towards SE wasn't about people having to question their beliefs, but rather see that there is another way to communicate about beliefs, about opposing beliefs, a way to have conversations without it turning into a debate. This is what I think is most valuable for skeptics and how skeptics can go out and be like great skeptics and have fun talking to people and maybe make this movement spread even quicker. If we get all the skeptics on board and they're having fun with it, I, yeah, I think it's great. I'm gonna do one weird thing that I just had. I had a random thought. And we might give it again this later, but like SE is always based on the Socratic method for me or like Socratic examination. And I found that like the difference between like the Socratic method versus SE street epistemology is that when you're using the Socratic method, you tend to be trying to teach someone something. Like you try to be like, my position is I'm right and I'm asking you questions so that you can see my opinion. You've already got a destination in mind. Exactly. Whereas SE is very much, this is a conversation that I'm trying to have with you and I might learn way more from it from just asking questions for you. But what we're trying to do is put the evidence on the table and see if it's reliable. If it is, holy crap, I'm following that because you just showed me awesome. And I think that more evenness as you approach the conversation is what makes SE really distinct. And I think it was the missing key ingredient that we've probably been missing since like 400 BC. Like just being able to meet on the even ground. What do you think? And also the whole thing about really trying to listen and understand what the person is saying, going with their definitions, going with their understanding of their belief. They're expressing what they believe. My job is to understand what they're saying, not to impose my ideas of the words they're using or something else or this concept. Like example with you, Tyrone, when you went to the ARC encounter and the guy is like, are you atheist? And we see already that he has an idea that is not matching with you. So he was actually doing kind of good SE on you in that moment also because he then, or you helped him do that because then he realized he needed to ask you a little bit more to understand what your position really is, what you mean by atheist. That's the most important thing, not what he thinks atheism is if we are talking about you or me, then it's what I think and my definitions. And also with SE and the dialectic, I think the really cool thing is to like say it back to the person so that they feel that they are heard and they can hear it themselves and they can correct it, I think is the best thing. I was doing that the whole weekend here and there with different things when I was trying to understand what anybody was saying to me about anything that they had learned. It was saying it back and going like, did I understand that? And then I feel I get it more. Like they are hearing it and I hear it more and then I learn more from them than if I would just be making up my own ideas because I'm just listening to somebody kind of. Right, right, right. Like really precise listening. That's when we know that we're talking, we're working together, we're not just butting heads or maybe not even talking the same thing, you know, like doing this thing. What is this? This is, I'm talking about this. What is this? What is this? We thought you don't ASR. We need to talk like this and not like this. Very cool. I see. And this is a Socratic method, maybe. Hi, I think it might be pretty close. Ben, you got any closing thoughts before we close up? Just want to add to what Linda said. I asked a question at one of the sessions at Alpha and the one girl explained how she knows that she's following the true God. And she explained that it's when you, you can live your life fully. And I just repeated, I'm like, so when you live your life fully, does that mean you're serving the right God? And she said, I've never said that aloud before. I need to go think about this. And I was just like, yes, that is the best. It needs to happen. This is the best. And if anybody, like, I think this is a good place. If you are interested in engaging with people who are religious and you want to try and promote some more critical thinking, Alpha is a good place to do it. It's there, actually the course promotes openness, a non-judgemental approach. I dropped the Atheist bomb in our very first session there. And I didn't have any issues, which I thought I was going to basically empty the table when I do that. Yeah. If you're interested in looking at it, there's a website, just Google Try Alpha. Try Alpha. Basically, whenever there's a course that where they use this material, somebody registers it and they've got a map up of the entire world where people are hosting these courses and it's usually open, it's for free. So it's worthwhile. Explode yourself to some other ideas, go and model openness and maybe get somebody to think a bit differently about what they believe. That was so great. You guys really are some of my best friends in the world. This is really, really great. I can't imagine where I could have a really fun conversation with you guys. I love you guys. But we got to end- Can I- Oh my God, we're gonna go for it, go for it. Can I please say a quick, I just destroyed my mind. I wanted to say one more thing about QED. I wanted to thank all the organizers for it, because it was so great. And like the stuff like there was, do you know Doctor Who, the show? I don't know. Yeah. So they had like a police box. Oh wow, that's great. Like in front of the, sorry? The TARDIS? Yeah, the TARDIS. Oh yeah, that's what? The police box? Is that called the, oh, constantly learning. I didn't know what it was called other than the police box, but it was really cool. Cause it looked really like some Doctor Who and everything. Linda, that's just how our British telephone boxes look. Do they still have- But it was Doctor Who, it was, really. Do they have legit phone boxes in England since you were there? Like, do they still exist like phone booths? The red ones, yeah. Whoa, they got rid of all of them in the US. There's like only like two more or less. I saw three on the way to the convention. Wow, that's impressive. Wow, that's cool. And Quaint, I love that. Anyway, we're closing up the show. I hope everyone had a good time. Thank you for listening to us. Let's, before we end, we got two things we gotta do. First is review goals. Ben, did you accomplish your goal? I did. I got some help from a friend and we can all say bye, donkey. Bye, donkey. Thank you for teaching me that. That's so funny because I was thinking that I got Ben to take care of my goal because he did a, he did like a comprised version of what I said where I think you took down the like, the like, what's it called? Oh my gosh, I can't speak anymore. I also helped you down like the- You helped me- Wiggly fingers.  You helped me express that SE, you don't have to like go full force and do like something super magnificent.  Okay, I can't talk today. I don't know what's going on. Sorry, guys. It's the excitement. It's the excitement. Ben, you got a point for completing your goal that gives you up to two points this year. You're at happy humans number two, two points. Happy humans, let's go. But you're happy humans. Oh, am I happy humans? You're casual canines. Casual canines, let's go. Oh my gosh. Linda, did you accomplish your goal for the talk today, which was- Yes, with help of Ben. Okay. Hey, we got a pro team work, and that's what this is all about. We will know definitely next time when we get feedback. So that gives Nordic Neckos two points for this year so far. Nordic Neckos! All right. Guys, I'm a little, I'm not sad. I'm not sad. I'm more motivated. I said I'd get to level 20, but you know what? That boss battle was a little bit more frustrating. It spawned a bunch of little smaller bosses when I got it down to about a quarter health. And I thought, that's unfair. I didn't know where that was coming from. So you know what I'm gonna do? I'm just gonna, I'm not giving up. I'm gonna go back to the grasslands and just like wail at some level two to threes again. Just bring up the AXP, just make sure my controls are good. I'm thinking if I just come out with a good mindset, I won't lose. And I'm just gonna probably stock up some potions. I think if I do that, everything should be okay. I think that's the goal. So level 17, no point today, but you know what? I'm gonna keep working on it. That puts everyone on, thank you. That puts everyone on an even playing field at two points a piece to the end of the year. Let's go, everybody. Good job. Let's go. All right, let's close out the show with our cat treats, Rupert and Blue. Are you guys ready? Three, two, one. I am Bo, I am Bo, Rupert, and Blue. Yay, blue. Bye guys, bye.


Let me turn to you. You and I have talked a lot about the black agenda you pinned. We've co-authored a few op-eds together So I want to ask you you represent a few different constituency Constituencies here quite honestly. We can have black faces in high places and it can't it can turn out to not be great for us, right? Wrong. Hello. Welcome back everyone. Merry Christmas and happy Hanukkah I hope everybody's having a good time Despite the media's best efforts to replace all those good feelings with hate and anger while these Orwellian nightmares talk about unity from one side of Their mouth. They're doing their best to divide and conquer from the other side. I gotta tell you people I love watching the media so that you don't have to but they're making it increasingly difficult Especially when you're trying to enjoy Christmas. One of MSNBC's resident racial hate mongers Tiffany Cross Welcome the BLM co-founder and self-labeled Marxist Elisa Garza not to unify or to spread joy during this Christmas season But to a cost black people who dare to think for themselves One of the worst things you can do on the modern left now before we get into this clip Give me just 30 seconds to tell you about the only collagen I trust and use collagen is an essential building block in the youthfulness and glow of your appearance folks I decide to take ageless multi-collagen and the results have been astounding get yourself a bag of ageless multi-collagen today While it's still 51% off as an added bonus if you order today They'll give you free shipping free VIP live health and fitness coaching for life and a free e-report on the 14 foods for Amazing skin and a 60-day money-back guarantee go to www.healthwithdronetech.com and order today or click the link in the description or pin comment Here's where we stand in relationship to the black to the future action fund Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Did she just call it the black to the future fund according to the website It's goal is all about race-based political power saying quote political power that is independent progressive and black Requires resources your donation goes directly to resourcing policies and campaigns that have our interest at the center building black political power Means we have to organize the resources determination and power of black people in the present in order to shape our future first of all I'm fascinated by a group that centered around black power that uses the name of a movie that had all white main actors And was created by a white guy. I also love how Orwellian the entire page is Framing a communist black supremacist group as quote independent look There's nothing independent about a racially focused group that demands that all people of a certain skin color comply and fall into line Or else they'll be targeted by powerful media organizations Let's not forget that blm and garcia in particular are getting money from chinese groups that are linked to the ccp And they're open about it blm and garcia are essentially ccp assets that are sowing discord in this country For china's purposes. It's not some kind of crazy coincidence and all these chinese spies are aligned with democrats Democrats are clearly the closest aligned to the ccp and are obviously the most willing to be useful idiots What we know is that We can have black faces in high places and it can't it can turn out to not be great for us Right like in the case of what's happening with daniel cameron in in kentucky and yet we also know that people like Uh congresswoman deb holland would be an incredible resource right for the secretary of the interior because of her experiences And because of what she represents in terms of the makeup of this country So that's what I think is at stake here.  They're being told to follow an ideology and puppets of a country that hates black people Look, I want the best for black americans, but i'm not seeing that from the democrat party And that's why I oppose their policies now We have a possible incoming administration that literally said that if you don't vote for him then you're not black By the way, this msnbc racist far left marxist hatefest is brought to you by such capitalist companies Such as del and fidelity try to avoid using them because they apparently hate you for your skin color That's about all of this negativity that I can stand in this time of good feelings So i'm gonna end it there Let me know what you think in the comment section and hit that like button on your way out If you'd like to support this channel, you can find all those links in the description or pinned comment Thanks for watching. Keep coming back


I'm going to start this session with some group participation. You don't have to stand up.  So it's not too much hard work, but we're going to get some arm exercises in. Great example right here, please. Follow us along. What I want you to do is answer a couple of questions and we're just going to test from this. You'll see every so often I'll ask you to put your hand. So, to get started, how many people in the room are at their first PHP conference? Wow, that's amazing. Welcome. All right, another question just to make sure that we're all alert. How many people here attend a local PHP use group? That's even more of you. That's fantastic. I did some research for this session and within the UK there has been 26 different user groups that I am aware of. And I say I'm aware of because obviously things might have happened and the internet doesn't exactly keep a history of things. So let's have a look at this timeline. Can anyone guess? And to the people who helped me do the research, don't answer because I know they're at the front of the room. Can anyone guess how long we've had a PHP user group in the country? Anyone? 15 years? You're close. 14 years. 2004 was the very first year that we had. At least I found a user group in the UK. It started in this city, London, which is pretty amazing and it's still going today. In 2005 we have two user groups in the UK, PHP West Midlands. To put this into context, this is the year that YouTube was founded. Which makes us all feel really old now, I'm sure. And it's also the year that Facebook opened their doors to universities only in the UK. So that's a long time ago and also yet it's not that far ago. Jump three years later we have PHP North West. Feel free to cheer if you're from one of these user groups, because literally there's a lot. 2009 we get PHP East Midlands. And then in 2010 we get six user groups in total. What's interesting at this point is that they're all still based in England. 2011, that trend keeps going. In 2012 we have Brighton on the Seathfront joining us. And in 2013 we have 13 different user groups across the country and Northern Ireland has joined the ranks. Now 2014 is an interesting year. It's the year Scotland came to the group. Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow all had their first meetups that year. Which is pretty cool. And by 2015 that's 23 different user groups across the UK. 23. Now 2016 we didn't get any new user groups but we did see one call it a day. 2017 a few more called it a day. But we also had last year PHP Essex and PHP Milton Keynes being the latest ones to join the family of PHP user groups in the UK. And to be honest with you this is really impressive. And it doesn't even stop there. This month if you are in the Birmingham area a big shout out to Brun PHP who are basically bringing back PHP West Midlands and have renamed themselves. So if you're in the Birmingham area it's at the end of the month they're called Brun PHP do check them out. Because they are going to be the latest user group to join the PHP community in the UK. Why am I telling you all this? I mean it's pretty impressive for one, slides look pretty. But for two, what I find more impressive is that all those user groups are run by volunteers for the community by the community. It's a method of contribution that we see encode quite often. We could argue that it's the open source way. It's even more closer home the way that PHP is built. If you think about it all those people who have volunteered their time to build a language we use daily and many of us use our day jobs. And it's not just PHP but it's also the frameworks, the ecosystem and the libraries around that. All volunteer driven to help us in our day jobs. I think that is pretty awesome because it means that as a community we don't have to reinvent the wheel. If you want an auto loader you go to the symfony auto loader and copy and paste. That's pretty handy. The other thing about our day jobs though is that PHP is not the only thing that we work with. In fact PHP is part of the technological mashup that allows us to build the solutions for both our clients and our products, whatever kind of work you're doing. With each of these technologies comes a community, a community of code, a community of add-ons and plug-ins and a community of events. In a mega city like London it means that you can go to a user group almost every working day of the week throughout the year. Now I know this is not the case in everywhere in the UK but it does bring up a good question. Why do we choose to go to our local PHP user groups? I'm a co-organiser of PHP Barcha. We're based in Reading and last meet-up one of our attendees came up to me and Chris, one of the other co-organisers and thanked us for the work that we'd been doing. They explained that we had opened the doors for him but what was even cooler was that the reason why he was explaining it to us was because unfortunately he had switched jobs, which is a good thing, right? But it also meant that he wouldn't be able to make it to our user group, which is a bad thing, at least for the fact that I like to hang out with this person. But as a quote, he basically told us how those putting up a meet-up about PHP on meetup.com in their local area meant that he could learn things that he didn't even realise existed. He'd been doing PHP way longer than I had but didn't realise there was a community there. Yet when you look around this room there is definitely a community. The things that they learnt at the user group were instantly able to improve their daily job, which is really cool. I mean, who doesn't want to be lazier at work? I mean, I know I do. Like with code, the community events are a series of features compiled together. So what I want to do is take this moment to go backstage at a user group and see what features it takes to build a user group. And this can be applied to many other PHP events and actually other events that are being built around technologies. This is not a complete list of things that every organiser does, but it's a pretty good list. This has to be done every month and this list is only the things that are about time and effort-based. It includes things like finding venues, finding sponsors, speakers, thinking they're even just trying to work out what topic we should be talking about next month, what's hot, what's not. But then when you look at the financials as well, because there is a financial cost, depending on the meet-up that you're running, the financial cost can go anything from the meet-up.com fees because meet-up.com is not free, all the way down to paying for food and drinks to encourage attendees to turn along. If we put some numbers around this, and some of my colleagues told me that my original numbers were a bit too high, but maybe I'm just used to London, meet-up.com works out about £11 a month. It's $14.99 USD, so obviously it depends every week how much it costs. Domain registration, if your user group has a domain that obviously costs money, if you can't have a free venue that costs money, and so on and so forth, it means that, roughly, just looking at these numbers, it could cost you a meet-up per month around £207. Now, I don't know about you, but I know I can do something else with that £207, like go shopping. So why is it that user group organisers spend this money to do something that they're doing for free? They're literally losing money from you and a user group, which is absolutely mind-boggling. I circulated a survey on Twitter, because Twitter is the answer for all things, and I put together a set of questions to ask PHP-related events organisers, both past and present across the world, to share their experience of what they have learnt from winning an event. So we're going to have a look at the results of that survey. One of the questions I ask is, why do you organise your event? Why do organisers put in this time and effort? Lee, from PHP Southwest, basically starts off by explaining he wasn't an attendee at first, and then gains so much that organising was a way to pay it forward to keep it going for other people. Danny, at Aberdeen PHP, moved to the city and wanted to meet people to enjoy talking about tech. Somebody else wrote, initially, to improve their resume, later, the feeling of contribution kept them going, but currently, obligation. The word obligation is an interesting word, at least for me, it has a sense of they feel they have to do something, and considering this is volunteering, you shouldn't feel like you have to do something, surely. Like with code, there are issues which can be sorted into both books and features. Ultimately, it comes down to the priorities of the community, which one they are. One of the questions I ask in the survey is how many groups and how many events went on a break. Just under 37% of groups have been on a break. That's quite a lot. The most common reasons for those include lack of speaker, organisers not being available or nobody else offering to host the event, and a lack of venue. There were some groups that have been disbanded, and they said that their reasons for disbanding and stopping included the organisers getting too busy, no support from other people, or just simply moving away from that location. One of the other questions I asked, because you can't do a survey like this without asking it, is what do they struggle with? Now, this is a list of things going from top left down, and then onto the second column, in order of which were the most popular answers. This was a chat box-style question, so they could pick multiple things. Both attendees and speakers were joined first. This is what user group organisers are struggling with. Let's get those arms going. How many people here have a fear of speaking in front of a group? It's a fair amount of you. I should put my hand up too, but I'm on stage, so if it's weird. Organisers know this. Nick from Glasgow sums it up pretty nicely. A lot of tech-focused people don't like to speak in front of clouds. Nick also points out that a lack of time from an organising point of view means that they can only spend so much time looking for speakers. I met a guy called Matt. He's actually speaking at this event. I noticed that Matt had been going to quite a lot of user groups in the UK speaking about various different topics, and I asked him, why did he spend so much of his time doing this? This is the answer I got back. I've been going to user groups and giving talks where I can improve my confidence in speaking in groups both in public and at work. It has resulted in me being better at my job. I think what's even more interesting is that this was something that he agreed with his boss as a way to improve his professional development. I think that's such a cool way to look at speaking. Now, I know, just because Matt tried it and it worked, he's not going to work for everyone, don't worry. I'm not encouraging you all to speak, but secretly I really do wish you will. We've all been at user groups or even talking to our colleagues and we've heard someone having something interesting to share. If you know somebody who has an interesting story to share or even a great bug that they've managed to find and how they conquered that bug or even sometimes not conquered that bug and they're still trying to figure it out, why don't we just introduce them to the organisers? Why don't we just make that no group link? It means we don't have to speak, we're just getting someone else to do it. I think that's called delegation. Another common issue was venues. Venues are always tricky to sort out. Simon mentions in PHP Cambridge that they even found a commercial venue that was free which sounds fantastic. That's £100 saved right there. But the commercial bookings soon pushed the user group away. Yes, a lot of us work in offices that might have a meeting room. Why are we not offering those up? I asked the user group organisers and I feel like this was a rabbit hole that I was opening up. What they wished people knew about event organising? Finding the right theme, subject, topic for the audience is never easy and at times finding speakers proves a challenge too. Antonis from PHP mines in Nottingham. It's true. The concept to just figure out what people want to hear. We're literally going like, I'm trying to be telepathic right now, I'm not sure I can do it. But then it made me think. Why aren't we as attendees not just telling our organisers, hey, I'd like to hear about this? I think Andy from PHP Essex would say it's quite lovely. That's a fair bit of hassle to get much thanks for. So please join me in thanking all the user group organisers because I know there's quite a lot in the room for all the hard work that they've been doing over the last 14 years. Organisers, what would make their life easier? Then it's no surprise that some of the answers included something as simple as more help. People stepping up as speakers and co-organisers. I mean, this is the dream for organisers, honestly. People just coming up to us and saying, can we do this thing? I will be amazed if you get the answer, no, because usually the answer is yes. This is another arm movement exercise. Working a company that sponsors their local meetup.  It's a tiny amount. Yet Ben from PHP Warwickshire points out that having sponsorships is actually an amazing thing because then they could pay for venues and stuff like that. Maybe if a speaker lives quite far away, they could at least pay for the train fare. Because at least in the UK, that's expensive. I didn't even realise this, but Ben and the Warwickshire community are splitting the payments between themselves to keep things going. That's how determined they are to keep PHP Warwickshire going. And I feel really bad because I didn't even think about this. One of my co-organisers have been paying for everything and I've basically not given him anything in return, like any money. So I felt really bad. But I think it's amazing that people are literally willing to split the costs and keep our user group going. And how many of us actually contribute? A few of you? I'm not sure if I'm contributing. That's cool. I'm not sure who wrote this in because I did allow people in the survey to write in anonymously. It gave me some very, very blunt feedback. But if people contributed more to the user group, it would have made this person's life so much easier. And they sum it up quite nicely. It's quite similar to Open Source, the way we contribute to our code. And a user group lives by its contributors. And it can be both the developer, yourselves, and all the companies that we work for. Things that we can do to make a difference. We asked the organisers if they could remember a time when someone at their group had helped them out. And what actually happened. Rowan from Brighton PHP mentions how an attendee who then turned co-organisers started by helping out informally. All they did was engage in conversation whilst they were having discussions. They helped to break the silence in a group of people. How many people here have helped set up an event? You turn up to the meet up a bit early and you see people doing things. The few of you, the few of you. Craig from PHP London remembers how people who turn up early help handle the drinks, making sure the drinks are cold by putting them in the fridge before everyone else turns up. And setting up the tables. That's pretty easy to do. I think it's easy to do. If you are going to user groups, how many of you help clean up afterwards? That's good, we're getting there. Fedrick from PHP Antwerp mentions people who help clean up are cool. Everyone who just put their hand up, you're cool. And I totally agree. My favourite thing is at PHP Berkshire is an attendee who then turned co-organiser because I didn't really give them much of a choice. At the beginning of the year, we always do this post-it matrix where we get people in the user group to say what things they want to learn about or even discuss. It's all on post-it notes, which is great, and then we organise them and put them on the wall and it's all nice and pretty. One of our co-organisers took a photo of it and then threw it up on meetup.com where there was something. And what was amazing was that the next morning I get sent a link to a Google Doc where all the post-it notes had been organised as it was in the picture and written up. About five minutes beforehand, I'd been like, oh, I really need to write up those post-it notes. It's going to be such a bore work. And then just getting that link and hey, that has been done for me. I was like, oh, this is easy. Copy and pasting, I know how to do that. It made my life so much easier and I was so thankful for that. Small acts can have a big effect. We've already seen how some of the people in our local communities are doing just small things but how organisers do notice. It can go further than this. If you are part of a Toastmaster community, which I'm not, then there is a thing called a greeter and basically it's the person who is at the front of the door and invites you in. That's a really polished, condensed version of what it is, so I went on Toastmaster and actually got the official thing. The greeter's role is to welcome everyone to the club meeting, particular visitors and people who are new to Toastmasters, making everyone feel welcome at our club. It's important as this may be the start of their Toastmasters journey. Now, if you get rid of all the Toastmastery stuff, it still applies to the PHP community and to other communities too. Having a greeter role say, hey, my name is, in a certain name, just knowing that you're in the right place is a big relief when you're going to somewhere new. This could be all of us. Literally, I quoted you all. If you don't want to be the greeter because you don't want to be the first in line, that's cool, then start a conversation with the people around you. I know, as a group of people, starting conversations with strangers is scary. I mean, I do it a lot and it's still scary to me, and I practice a lot. Now, there is a trick to this. Anyone I've talked to this morning will probably have seen me do this already, so I feel like I'm opening and sharing a big secret with you. Are you ready? Conversation starters. Go to questions that you can literally pick up and ask anyone, and it's pretty much fault-free. Asking anyone how they're travelling was in the UK pretty much guarantees a response of how bad the public transport in the UK is, so it's a wide-known recognition that you can just acknowledge and feel some kind of companionship between them. These are good questions for this event, but also, if you're at your local user group, or any group for that matter, most groups happen on a weekday, which means most of us are at work, so just asking the question, how is work? Is a really nice way to start a conversation with a lot of people. There's a thing called the Pac-Man rule. How many people here know about it? There's a few of you. Well, all of you are going to know about it now. It was popularised by a gentleman called Eric Holster, and his definition is, when standing as a group of people, always leave room for one person to join your group. The idea being that, if anyone wants to join your conversation, there's a space for them to be able to just stand right in.  Now, these are quite active things to do. So, what about some inactive stuff? Most of you have phones. I've seen a few phones go up already. Retreating and sharing event information is probably one of the organisers' dreams, because it basically means free marketing and reminding other people without them being too nagging. So, if you're going to an event, treat that you're going. It's quite simple. You know, I'm going to this. I was talking to one of my colleagues last night, and they mentioned how it was actually through Twitter that he was reminded to go to events because he'd always forget because you know, work. So, I'm tweeting about it. Even if you have two followers or a thousand followers, it doesn't really make a difference. Just tweet. You're like a little reminder, because it's from different people, it sounds less nagging, and that way the organisers of the events kind of appreciate it. If you have ideas, opinions or feedback, share them. Share them with your local user group, organisers. You can share them with the organisers of this event. You can share them with speakers, but more importantly, share them with each other. In conclusion, there are many different ways we can all help out. Some of them take a lot of effort, some of them don't take a lot of effort, but more importantly, you can pretty much forget all this, because all I want you to do is have fun, and have fun at PHP UK for the next two days. Thank you.