Welcome back to the 21 convention 2018 in Orlando, Florida. I'm excited to introduce our next speaker Obviously throughout the duration of the conference. We've heard a lot about how masculinity relates to our relationships with women But our next speaker is someone who talks about it in a much deeper and more Tribal context. He is a barbarian. He is someone who walks what he preaches It's interesting to me because I know that he wouldn't want anything to do with this But my own personal opinion is that in a hundred years from now We'll be reading about this man in history books and what he has done to help revitalize masculinity Even though he wants nothing to do with any of that. He just wants to build his own gang and be left alone He is the author of the way of men becoming a barbarian in his latest book a more complete beast Please welcome Jack Donovan. All right last year at 21 My speech was titled a more complete beast. I Developed that speech into a book and I released it about a couple months ago I talked about overcoming resentment and anger and hatred and focusing on a more creative path We don't live in a time where men need to be men We aren't forced by circumstances to become better at being men No one needs us to be stronger or more courageous Or more adept no one even wants us to have anything approaching honor Our world is fairly safe. We don't have to hunt for our food as I said in the book Masculinity is a hammer seeking a nail in a house that's already been built so If you want to be good at being a man today It's because you believe that being good at being a man is better. You're doing it for you To be the best version of you that you can be If you're here if you're watching this You're on a path of self-creation and recreation You're creating a better version of yourself You are taking what life has given you And creating a better man from it So today I'm going to talk a little bit about some ideas that I think will help you along that path of self-creation And these ideas are captured by an ancient symbol The or boroughs and I'm going to give you a little background first And then we're going to talk about some ways that we can apply this kind of ancient concept of the snake eating its own tail as you create your own life in the tomb of Tutankhamun Inscribed on the second shrine in case you're the boy King's famous sarcophagus There is a version of the book of Am Tuat a guide to the underworld This book tells the story of the Sun God Ra and his evening descent into the realm of night told hour by hour Ra travels across this harrowing world of water and sand tonight with either his own soul Or Osiris the God of the dead This unification initiates his regeneration He rises Overcomes the prophets the Egyptian God of Chaos and Then begins his journey to the dawn and the rebirth of his solar rain on the version of the book inscribed in tin-tuts tomb at the moment of unification of renewal The Sun God is protected by a serpent shown in a circular position With its tail in its mouth This snake God is Mayan and this circular Self-consuming orientation is the first recognized representation of the symbol known as the or boros This symbol recurs again and again Throughout Greek and Western magical and alchemical and religious traditions In an early alchemical drawing the snake that feeds on itself forever He's found in circling the words the all is one the or boros is linked to alchemy again and again Specifically in relation to the great work the magnum opus the production of the philosopher's stone The philosopher's stone was a substance or perhaps even a concept That could turn both base metals into gold and perhaps produce the elixir of life The elixir of life was believed to be the key to rejuvenation and immortal life In Germanic lore The or boros can be recognized as your man gumt The sea serpent that encircles the world bound to itself almost holding the world together Because when the snake releases its tail from its mouth It's a sign that the age is coming to an end and that gods and men will meet their final destiny Carl Jung Studied the symbols of alchemists and the lore of folklore of many peoples He saw these recurring symbols as keys to the unconscious or subconscious mind of men You wrote that the or boros is a dramatic symbol For the integration and assimilation of the opposite i.e. the shadow This feedback process is at the same time a symbol of immortality Since it is said of the or boros that he slays himself and brings himself to life Fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself now symbols mean what they mean historically and They also mean and take all the meaning that we choose to give to them Symbols are quick references there like logos and trademarks almost even acronyms They are compact devices semiotic devices that allow us to communicate effectively and efficiently to those in the know About a much bigger and more complicated concept So today I'm going to use this esoteric alchemical symbol to talk about ways to change the way that you think about time and training and The great work of creating your life. I'm gonna start with the body and I'm gonna build up from there. I Started talking thinking about the or boros Maybe oddly since it's so esoteric or whatever, but really I'm just a dude bro juice Dude bro a douche bag at heart. I just want to go to the gym and be left alone and so I think about things in terms of lifting maybe first and I Started thinking about the or boss because of this question that I get all the time And I talked to a couple of the trainers here to the over this weekend, and they all get this question too It's kind of the basic bro question that like dude. What's your workout like? you know what workout do I do to look like that and You know people who have been conditioned especially in the realm of fitness to Look for the one program to rule them all They're looking for a magic answer and the answer is magic But it's not linear or simple The answer is a mystery Because there actually is no one answer The answer is a series of strategies employed cyclically and artfully over time This answer generally involves experimentation and inspiration and You know I talked to tanner goosey about this early this weekend and the same thing actually applies to personal style You know, there is no one answer that is always going to be right So instead of asking the simple linear question Approach the problem with cyclical thinking. It's not just that it is a process because people say it all the time It's a process. It's the most advanced results actually require a series of processes You know elite athletes didn't start at a and keep repeating the same thing over and over and over and over again until they got to be You know if you think about the Olympic athletes at the Olympics Bodybuilder the day of the show they're in a state that they can only maintain for you know a few hours You know I've trained a lot with power lifters and you know What they lift on that day of the meat when they get that record that everybody gets excited about They maybe couldn't lift that two weeks prior or two weeks after that They're on a long training cycle and that's a peaking day and sometimes they don't get it right And they were stronger two weeks before the meat and then they fail their lift You know a fighter the day of his fight You know is that guy always as good as he is that day? No He did a long fight camp To get ready for that fight with a weight cut and all kinds of things involved with that You know so all these things that we see that are exemplars these goals that we want to get to they are peaks in cycles They aren't static states These guys aren't at that place all the time You know the trainers look at things in terms of macro cycles and mezzo cycles and micro cycles cycles of work and recovery bulking and cutting Chemical cycles nutritional cycles cycles of preparation and evaluation of learning and reflection You know to reach a peak state to even reach a level of initiation at which you can conceive of how to reach a peak state Requires a lot of trial trial and error a lot of running this program and that program and this exercise and that exercise and finding out what works and What doesn't what produces the most best, you know the best and most reliable results for you understanding what's works for you and when You know is the point at which just this art and mastery becomes your science And even the science may change over time Must be continually challenged because sometimes what works stops working and What works right now could be replaced by something that works a little bit better You know even with the best advice Progress is not guaranteed to be strictly linear And it can't be because there is no real end You know you don't just get there and stay there no matter what you're doing, you know only points You know moments benchmarks There'll be a series of ends and goals and victories But there also be tangents and discoveries and unforeseen obstacles You know sickness injuries Changes in trainers gyms that open and close The rules could change or some future version of yourself may see a new opportunity or a different way you want to go or a new goal And that moves you in a different direction closing doors and opening others You know nothing stays exactly the same as you receive new input and your environment changes Your training will change and you will change One of my prospects for my group. We'll call him pork chop When I gave him his prospect patch for a group and it's a long process that they have to go through and He had some physical goals because he was already really smart and you know, he had a lot of things going for him. I Said to him at the end of this process You can't even imagine what you will want then Because you will be a different person You know that the you that you are right now is going to change so much That what you think you want for your long-term future now is going to change completely You know, and you can apply this not only to training obviously, but to all aspects of life You know like the or boros the snake that consumes and regenerates itself You feed on and internalized your past your experiences and You adapt and create new manifestations of yourself You know based on who I've been and what I've seen What can I do now and? Who will I become next you know contemplating these cycles these loops? Brought to mind the work of a fighter pilot John Boyd who's best known for his develop development of the Oota loop As you can see You know, this is a decision-making loop that everybody goes through He does he Came up with it for dog fighting and you know military operations and strategy, but it applies to everything You know you go through this process where you observe You know what's out there? What's our mission? What where we go doing? Orient yourself, you know based on like your previous experiences You know everything you've learned in the past your your cultural traditions your background and then based on you know What your observations are and what you need to do, you know You just decide you make a decision about a direction to go and then you act and that action is a test and Then based on you know the results of that test you go back to the beginning What am I doing next and you know if someone's fighting or they're you know engaged in you know airplane dogfight or whatever that loop happens really really really fast and they teach that a lot of self-defense courses and What he's famous for is actually you know suggesting, you know, what you really need to do is create chaos and somebody else's OODA loop and You kind of disrupt it and do enough put enough chaos in their system that they don't know what's going on anymore And then you can kind of get around them and take take an advantage, but You know it's also a good way to conceptualize and you know evaluate your own decision-making process Whether you're talking about training whether you're talking about business, you know you you make a decision business decision what happened You know based on that what what should be your next step and what what's perhaps even more relevant here Is an essay that John Boyd wrote in 1976 to title the Destruction and creation and you can find that online somewhere if you look really hard He wrote our basic aim is to improve our capacity for independent action To survive and thrive in a changing environment We have to form mental concepts of observed reality So that we can make critical decisions about how to proceed and The goal of this essay Was to try and establish a model or a framework for making those kinds of decisions As our reality changes We have to keep going through a destructive process of taking our perception of reality taking it apart and reconfigure it and Recreating it to assimilate new information So I kind of looked at some of the concepts you talked about in this essay and You know on the destruction side of things as you're you know the dealing with new information. There's chaos in the system You know, that's deduction. You're breaking information down from general to specific You know you're differentiating things like what makes You know, what's the ultimate? Essence of this I mean that's kind of what I did when I wrote the way of men You know like differentiating break down. What belongs in here? What doesn't belong in here? What things go together? You know identifying your analyzing if you read my most recent book more complete beast I talk a little bit at the end about Nietzsche and Dionysian versus Apollonian Thinking in aspects of life and this is the kind of the Dionysian the destructive destructive phase and In terms of alchemy, this is a solvay And in the creation stage you're doing inductive reasoning. You're involved in sense of this You're moving from specific to general. You're finding these concepts and putting them back together again Integrating them into a new hole or an overarching theory You know, this is the Apollonian phase and in terms of alchemy. This is called coagulant. So to understand our reality We're always taking things apart Looking at the pieces and putting them back together to evolve our understanding This is true. Whether you're talking about training or business or life We're always breaking things down and putting them back together to shape a new reality in terms of self-analysis We're always or we always should be examining ourselves internalizing our experiences and creating new self-evolved concepts Who are you now? And who do you have to become to continue to thrive and improve your capacity? For independent action in the words of Boyd the process of structure on structure restructure on structure He's repeated endlessly In moving to higher and broader levels of elaboration Higher and broader levels of elaboration. I love that. I mean, isn't that what we're trying to do as? men and as humans Continually become what we are Challenge and expand our potential reach broader levels of elaboration of the self Boyd also made a point that rigid systems break more easily When you approach to anything is too rigid when your perception is too closed down Your perception tends to become increasingly wrong Because it isn't incorporating and adapting to new information And actually in the essay, it's you know, if you are a math guy or whatever he He gets into the he applies the law of second law of thermodynamics to it and a bunch of actually mathematical theories to prove why this is true You have to keep taking in new information and allowing it to disrupt your system you have to a little little chaos in the system and then synthesize and incorporate and This conference is actually a great Example of how to do that. Personally, I just moved to a small town. That's you know, 13,000 people No one does anything there except for maybe like play video games and maybe they do math and You know, there's just nothing going on It's very I could just sit alone in my office all day and you know coming to a conference like this you know, I get to have different influences and talk to different kinds of people and You know have things that I wasn't expecting here because you can you can sit in a room and Direct your own research like you know, I want to Listen to very specific, you know kinds of ideas and these ideas are connected to other ideas that I'm interested in and so forth and you can curate your Personal fee of information But when you come to a thing like this, you're allowing a little chaos in the system You're talking to people and they're suggesting ideas to you that you weren't looking for necessarily and This is kind of what I'm talking about You have to let that into the system every so often and it's part of the growth process and then you know you walk away from something like this and You incorporate that and synthesize this into your new You know the new version of yourself that it's gonna go forward, you know returning it to alchemy for a moment Carl Jung wrote there we go The alchemists saw the essence of his art and separation and analysis on one hand and synthesis and consolidation on the other For him there was first of all an initial state in which opposite tendencies or forces were in conflict Secondly, there was the great question of a procedure which would be capable of bringing the hostile elements and qualities Once they were separated back to unity again The initial state named chaos Was not given from the start, but had to be sought for as the primal material And just as the beginning of the work was not self-evident So to an even greater degree Was its end and that brings me to the final point that I wanted to make that I think is captured by the Ouroboros The snake that consumes and creates itself over and over When you think in linear terms You are oriented toward an end But there is no end, you know, the only really end is death and you know, most people may not even realize the moment that they die So for you in terms of your perception, it never ends You know, it may never end.  You know, because if you only think linearly you're going toward a goal and then, you know, when you get to that goal What happens? You know, what then? You don't just stop You internalize that victory or defeat and you look for the next goal The next elaboration of the self The next victory. Men of this age is this empire of nothing I've been trained to work for the end You know, the weekend The end of work, the end of life Like prisoners who've been promised an hour in the yard Men have been promised that in return for five days of work, they will be released from their employment To enjoy two days of free time You know, at work, they do what the company wants them to do And take care not to say anything that, you know, the company has deemed inappropriate During these two days, celebrating America as the weekend Working men are encouraged to relax They are free to be who they really are Though increasingly, even in this time, is monitored by, you know, employers You know, who are going to look and scan all your profiles and things for possible signs of undesirable habits or viewpoints I think maybe many of you are aware of that You know, workers describe themselves by listing the kind of leisure activities that they prefer As well as the foods, beverages, entertainment products that they choose The things that they consume in the time that they are permitted to relax Their identities, their very lives are defined almost entirely by their recreational choices By their likes You know, beyond the weekend Men have been taught to work for vacations And eventually retirement The big weekend Granted to workers when they have reached the end of their useful lives You know, a lot of religions are oriented this way as well And I never understood what you were supposed to do in heaven anyway Isn't it a pleasant white blank, a softly lit question mark? An eternal happiness and stasis? A measured consistent drip of your favorite endorphins? You know, those who view life as suffering see death as a reward A forever weekend The time when they can finally relax and end the suffering of living The spirit of this age This, you know, this is the linear struggle to blank That's what I call it This is my broken downtown where I live There happened to be a sign that said recreation there I have to get that You know, men have been trained to struggle to an end And at the end, they are permitted to relax The word relax actually comes from a root that means to loosen And in this struggle to relax A man merely seeks a little slack in his bondage And to break from his chores Recreation is the reward for work You know, to be a great man To be a self-creator, a self-master What I referred to in my last book as a noble beast You need to stop thinking about recreation And start thinking about recreation You know, great man's recreational preferences are the least Interesting thing about him What kind of wine did Caesar drink? Nobody cares You know, it's trivia A tiny, forgettable detail Said against the grand story of his life The master creates He is known by his works Not his pastimes, not his likes His life is not suffering You know, the noble beast is glad to be alive He's glad to be able to exert his strength And his will and intellect He is pleased to be able to continue To create again and again The noble beast doesn't want to relax He just wants to keep becoming To keep making himself anew And I started thinking about this You know, talking to a young guy who has mentoring And you know, we were always working on projects And he was always like waiting for the end I'm like, when are you gonna stop waiting for the end And realize that there's always more to do You know, I think that people who are really Driving businesses and so forth in this world Are like, they're always looking for the next thing They're not like, ah, finally We have to be done And you know, I think that's a difference Between kind of winners and slaves, really When a man is forced to work He looks forward to the slackening of bonds And a break from the whip When a man forces himself to work He works to realize a vision But during the process More visions reveal themselves to him So he finds himself not working towards the end He finds himself not working toward an end of work But toward the next beginning To get to what's next I can't wait to get to the projects Get done with this conference And get to this party I have to host in a couple weeks And then I get to plan the next thing That I'm working on in my life And that's what I'm really excited about So don't struggle to get to the end So that you can relax, that's for slaves Struggle to get to the next struggle Just as a self-creator Your great work Your magnum opus The great work of creating your life Keeps going Until you die The creative man is a self-turning wheel A self-consuming serpent An oral boros Knowing away at his own flesh To feed his own growth The creative beast seeks no end He consumes the end Over and over In a continual process Of regeneration and becoming He dodges life inch by inch And with childlike exuberance He says yes to himself And to choose Ever-forward Okay, I'm going to open up the questions Great talk, Jack The question that I have is Always been like an avid reader That's how I stumbled on the red pill Never ending thirst for knowledge And one of the first questions I asked at the conference is that I do want to be a father one day I don't know if you're a father or not Okay, so one of the fears I have It's kind of like a mixture I do want to be a father But I know that kids They do take away from your time To develop yourself Because obviously you have to be there To collect your kids So how do you process that I don't know if you ever desire to become a father But are they kind of mutually exclusive to you Or is it something you ever thought about How you would integrate that In other words, not letting yourself Development miss a beat Because you have kids Because obviously we're no good to our kids as fathers If we stunt our growth as men Yeah, I mean The advice that I would give someone personally I certainly thought about it myself And now I feel really comfortable with it Like if it happened, I could deal with it I could deal with it and work it in Because I've done a lot of things in my life That I'm already proud of And so I have a base to move from I think where that really becomes a problem Is maybe for really young guys Who they get kind of trapped really quick Because I don't really have the resources To deal with that problem So I mean personally I think men should wait a little bit Maybe until they're a little bit 30 Or maybe they're a little bit 80 Women that's much younger But it gets to the point where maybe they're a little bit You know, I think Getting to the point where you're established And you just have more to offer And I think you have a better selection At that point And you know men kind of age Like wine or whatever So it's better But yeah, that's what I'm going to switch from a practical question To a philosophical question About humility I think especially with Training and things like that I have a lot of humility When I started going down This path myself, I mean I was already like 38 years old And so like when I go to a new Martial arts class or something like that I never really expect to be that good You know I don't have this huge ego That like an 18 year old has That they're like I'm going to immediately be The best person ever I'm just there to get better And so I approach a lot of things That way and I think that that's In terms of learning that's the best way To approach things, the humility is good You know Thank you My question would be What would be The promise For men To Produce a Alchemical change within themselves I mean it just depends I think Perfect example of what We're talking about because there is no one answer You have to look at the bigger picture Like what exactly, what Alchemical change are you Trying to produce in yourself I mean what are you trying to bring about And you know what are the processes That will best get you there And I think that's what you always have to be looking at Is what are the What am I actually trying to achieve And then orient things About the philosophy of the telos Like what is the end, where are you going And I think you need to orient Things around that and a lot of people Orient themselves around maybe the process Instead I think you need to like Pick a spot, head that way And then realize the spot might change Thank you so much sir Thanks Jack for your Presentation What are a couple Of concrete things that you would recommend To men who are Looking to forge a brotherhood with Other men who are Interested in their self-development And Whose self-development you are interested in As friends of virtue In the context of that being somewhat A rare thing in this day and age It's really hard I mean I obviously have the Advantage of maybe being a lightning rod For stuff like that so people reach out to me And talk to me about things like that But even geographically I'm not in a great place for it So I mean I think if I went to Texas I could start some stuff But I think that You know you have to Find like-minded guys Like guys are looking for something similar And it is hard to build a kind of Relationship in the real world Where you can hold each other accountable I mean personally I believe And I've said this before I think Oaths like fraternal brotherhoods And things like that There's a lot of guys who are like I know he's got my back And I've got his And you actually really don't know that A lot of times like it's just a feeling Maybe that you have and sometimes you do You have a good sense of that and sometimes you don't I think that But if you have someone kind of Where you've acknowledged a shared purpose Because I think men are actually really It's part of the honor Hard wiring that we have To once I've said something My word is my bond And that actually means something And so they will knock themselves out To Adhere to that Or do elaborate ways of finding a way To get around it But I think men will really really Worry themselves Around their words And if they've made an actual pact That means something So it's hard to get people to that place But I think to really get that kind of accountability That you need in terms of like pushing each other In the long term That's actually really helpful But in a short term It's like what everybody says Surround yourself with people who are successful And if you keep feeding I think with relationships too Any relationship, what are you giving Has to be constantly your question That you're asking like What am I giving back And so A lot of people approach Someone who's successful And they kind of just Go to them looking for answers And for them to keep giving them And you have to approach somebody With something that you're willing to give as well There has to be reciprocation always So you mentioned You want to struggle on to the next struggle Don't struggle to find the relaxation And I understand that it speaks to me It's going to be It's important for me to take trips To experience other cultures Where do you classify that Where do you fit in I don't want to say the relaxation of the vacation But that's kind of what it is Where do you fit that into this I actually think that That's part of the struggle The struggle I can't see myself Just going somewhere to sit on a beach And just whatever I mean to me There would have to be a purpose Involved like I went to Germany Like three times in the past two years And I went once to give a speech And then the second time I brought my You know Was more of a vacation the second time But I'm still shooting pictures I'm still making content for Instagram I'm doing all this stuff And the third time was for another event But I also brought my photographer with me Things that I'm trying to do So personally when I envision Vacations and travel It's always about Something that I want to accomplish I mean putting yourself into a new Environment is actually a really good way To induce that chaos into the system Like going to a foreign country for the first time Like that's a whole New thing that you have to deal with And you're getting all kinds of new input That you weren't getting before I've been thinking about that in terms of myself It's like if I'm in this small town And I need that kind of input Well maybe what I'm going to start doing Is going to more Two weeks intensive training of this Or traveling to get A real experience and really learn something And so that's where I would classify it Really I mean everybody needs downtime But I think especially If you're self employed You have your downtime Is kind of when you pick it You're not working for your downtime So I'm going to do this today Because I feel like it And everybody has to do that But I don't think that should be the focus of your life And that was kind of the point that I was trying to make Is like the focus shouldn't be For the vacation It should be towards greater work A recurring theme that I'm getting Like Mr. Swift said it And Eric Bonsaito said it Kind of like when you pass the war Your phase and you turn into like an elder And I'm listening to you And I'm like I'm a young woman About children like you need resources You kind of have to get into that other stage Before you can take on that responsibility And my question is about for brotherhood If you are like I'm a younger man What do I have to offer Like the brotherhood Like if I'm looking for mentorship from elders Right they have a lot of resources I have like a lot of energy But what obviously that's a reciprocation Like you just said So what exactly Like them to be able to mentor me Work You know I mean like That's what people have interns right Work and obviously If you can find some other ways to make yourself available I mean like you know people who You know Become part of my group recently It's like I think in any company You know I learned this when I was actually working In the business world and so forth You know You're trying to Justify your existence Always You know I had a manager Who was always trying to take on new responsibilities You know because she saw other things She was doing getting phased out And so you always want to take on new responsibilities So you can keep justifying your existence And so like You know like the photography thing was actually a good example Like I had Someone working with me who You know that was a way That they could add value So you can take pictures Here's some you know I'll pay for you to take classes So that you can take some pictures because that's what I need And then you know That's a way that you can provide value So you always really have to be looking for ways to Provide value I think Thank you Thank you Jack for your Speech and great speech I have a question regarding Your comments How can we Fight The escalation that is going on in our society In our homes Because there is a war against men Against masculinity There is one of the shirts that is being sold Where Slogan in the back If you were in certain places They will shoot you I think it's yellow I would appreciate it Yeah no You know it's a tough one because You know the problem that I ran into And I stopped doing this a few years ago Because I went through my I feel like I put in my time on that particular fight I Did a lot of reading of feminism And I wrote a really long response To it which I have Online for free And the arguments haven't changed They haven't changed in 30 or 40 years They just you know like Masculinity is a mask Well that comes from like the 70s That's not new Over and over again So I feel like once you know the background of it If you have a little bit of background You can respond to it better But I always like the quote I think it's from Putin That says I try never to argue with women And That's kind of where I'm at I don't want to spend my life And I feel like that's the trap That we get stuck in with society Is that They're just Complete sociopaths And they work for these Newspapers And they're just terrible people And they're basically just Provocateurs And so they put out this content And I don't even know if they believe half of it Or maybe they just believe that the moment They were typing it or whatever And the latest outrage You always see it come up in your feed I try to not follow people who put it up there I don't want to see that anymore But the latest outrage The latest dumb thing some feminist said That doesn't make any sense and is obviously wrong It gets to a point where they are Calling the tune and we're dancing to it And so okay Well they said something crazy now we respond Now they say something crazy and we respond They're leading And I think that that's a problem And I think that the challenge for men If they're going to create a different narrative Is not to keep Responding to them all the time But to create a Different A different narrative that goes over that And is separate from it Because if you're always responding to it I said in the book Actually it's Like a boxer, you're always throwing out jabs And moving backwards That's all you're doing You're just keeping the way Like that's what reactionaries do When they keep responding to every Crazy thing that feminists say They're always throwing out jabs and moving Backward and not really getting anything done And I think that that was kind of the point Of my last book was Focus on creating a new direction Rather than Responding and moving backward I appreciate your answer I got a question actually here Cool What call to action would you give Younger men Who are Interested in developing tribes And also How do you see this Tribal element Unfolding in the future As the world becomes more and more digital As more and more things become Globalized and everything How do you see tribes interacting with this With these changes Well you can't go out in the woods And live by yourselves and not interact with anybody That's not real That's You can't just hide From a lot of world I think that if you're actually I always put things in the context Of barbarians at the end of Rome And they're just waiting for something They're just picking off around the corners As the whole thing's falling down And I really think that that's what you have to be doing Is like rather than People get purists About things like I know a lot of people Like technology and whatever But I think Our ancestors who were winners Would have said use every advantage And I think the challenge Is not losing who you are In that But in terms of creating a tribe You can't create a tribe That is just outside of modernity Because that's not a thing Someone's going to have to work And you're going to have to pay taxes And you can't just go to a desert island And create a special utopia But the more you can carve out Something That has its own identity I think that's the real challenge Thank you Alright guys, let's give it up for Jack Donovan Thank you


Hi everybody, it's my first time here, so I'm sorry for the English. One of these days, I would be quite comfortable presenting in French, but today, it's in English. We'll talk about what is OAuth, OAuth, OAuth, it's been pronounced many times. We'll talk about what is HOTP, or how is it from TOTP? We'll talk about what's TOTP suggest, raison d'être. Why not just use Pam OAuth or Pam Google Authenticator or many other things? Why not use Duo, Ubisoft, Linux, OTP, et cetera? And we'll talk about the main goals. So, I've been a programmer since 1995, which is not a very long time. I used to work for McGill. I was head of the web group at McGill University. I was a Python programmer since 2002. I'm a Linux administrator since 1998. I worked at the University of Physics and I co-wrote YUM. Well, I co-wrote, I helped out with the creation of YUM. I'm part of the Linux Foundation IT team. I've been working at Linux Foundation since 2011 in November. The main reason why they hired me is because I used to work for IT security at McGill University and after sad events of September 2011, they were looking for somebody with a bit more security expertise to join the Linux Foundation team. And I'm interested in web and Linux security and I'm also interested in social engineering. For example, if you have a Russian name and you speak with a heavy Russian accent that they present on security topics, people think you are actually much better than you are. So, I don't use it very often because actually, most of my adult life has been in the U.S. and Canada. So, what is oath? O-A-T-H, not to be confused with O-A-U-T-H, which is something completely entirely separate. O-Oath stands for Open Standard for Authentication with an N. O-A-U-T-H stands for Open Standard for Authorization. I'd like those two people to meet and to beat each other because it's very confusing for everybody, not just for you and me. So, we'll talk about the oath without the U, about the authentication.  It's like more than 30 companies from Microsoft, Google, everybody else. They put together a standard for one-time passwords. So, one-time password, the benefit of one-time password is, how many of you have here used two-step verification with Google? Should be much, many more hands, by the way. So, it's basically the mechanism behind it. The parent standard is H-O-T-P. It's counter-based. So, it takes a shared secret between your phone and the Google server. And it uses H-MAC procedure to calculate a string. And then it takes a subset of that string and turns it into a six-digit code. And that's basically how, when you send that code, the server does the same calculation, same H-MAC procedure, take subset, turn it into a six-digit code. If those codes are the same, that's how it knows that you have the device with the same pre-shared secret. T-O-T-P is a subset of it. It's instead of taking a counter. So, with H-O-T-P, every time you authenticate, the server increments the counter by one and your client increments the counter by one.  So, because there's a window of good numbers, usually about 20 to 30, if you've pressed that button more than 30 times and you didn't manage to authenticate during that period, the server will just stop validating you because of the window. It went far beyond the window. So, it's bad for Google who doesn't want to be on the phone with clients, saying, can you please re-resync my counter with your servers? So, the subset of H-O-T-P is T-O-T-P, which is time-based. So, it basically takes the current timestamp from 1970. Everybody knows that's the good time. And it uses that instead of the counter. So, it increments every 30 seconds. If you've ever used the Google Authenticator, you'll notice that it's after 30 seconds of changes. The digits that are on the output on your screen are impossible to, well, impossible, take that with a grain of salt. It should not be possible to use any number of them in any succession to figure out what the actual pre-shared secret is between your server and your device. There's a wide support in hardware and software. There's Google2Step, uses T-O-T-P. Facebook, uses Facebook Verify, also has six digits, uses T-O-T-P. Microsoft even uses T-O-T-P. There is H-O-T-P, uses the number of devices. UB Keys, if you've ever seen them, they're cute little devices. They're like this. They plug it into your laptop. And there's one big button on it that you press and it actually acts like a keyboard and sends a set of keystrokes, which is really clever, I think. It's supported there. So, why did we write T-O-T-P-C-G-I? It's basically, actually it's pronounced 2-PC-G-I after 2-P and B-N-O. Don't ask. The T-O-T-P-C-G-I is back two years ago when we wrote it. There was no fully free oath implementation. There actually still isn't really. It's either non-free or non-libro or frequently both. It cannot be securely used across multiple systems. I'll talk about it in a bit later. There is Duo Security, which is the many people that actually used. It's cloud-based. You put all your eggs in the cloud basket there. It's non-free. There's 10 users that's free. Then you start paying prices. It doesn't scale very much, obviously, if you have over 100 users. There are a number of standalone PAM modules. Some of you may have investigated. There's a PAM Google Authenticator, which was the game in town two years ago when I started writing it. And PAM Google Authenticator is neat, but it cannot be used securely in multiple systems. So the OTP part and the TOTP stands for one-time password. So if you can take the same digit and reuse it in a different server, that breaks the standard. So if you have PAM Google Authenticator installed in server one and server two, and they have shared the same secret in both of them, an attacker can listen for you to authenticate to server one, then reuse the same code in server two because they don't communicate with each other. They don't actually have any idea that server two doesn't know that this isn't really used once in server one. There are a number of ways you can sort of game the system. You could put your secrets on the NFS partition, but don't do that because it travels over the network in clear text, which is even worse. They don't have any provisioning. You can provision Google Authenticator from command line, but it's basically it. So our core goals were to write a server that will solve the problem. That will be free forever. That's open source. It's Linux Foundation. That is open. That is pure Python, excluding some of the crypto-lips that are non-essential features of it. It's simple. A lot of people get hung up on the CGI part and said, what is it, 1990? Well, the CGI is very fast. It is very simple, very well understood. The core of the entire library, the code that you call when you authenticate, when you submit that signature code, fits in 900 lines of code, including comments. So it's extremely simple. There is a very, very small surface of attack. Surface of attack is an important aspect of the security library. Somebody actually asked me, why didn't you just write it in Django? And I just kind of laughed. We gave it a lot of thought about the security. It runs as unprivileged user. That's another benefit of CGI. It can actually transition into its own SELINX context. It relies on mutual server client TLS authentication. We can complain about TLS and open a cell and all those things all day long, but we still don't have anything better, unfortunately. So when the client communicates with the server, both the client and the server mutually authenticate. So an attacker will need to first even steal your certificates and the key before they can actually even get to the application. So the features of TPCGI are we have full TOTP support. We have provisioning CGI, which I'll showcase in a moment. We have a QR based enrollment, all the good things. We have HOTP support for UB keys. We have free radius support because it's been requested so many times. We just wrote it free radius. That's pretty much still the only game in town. It was written in the early 90s. It uses pre-shared secret. That is one for all clients and for the server.  Free radius is really horrible, but everybody still uses it. So we are going to have to write the way to hook TPCGI into free radius. There's LDAP integration. So you can do, you know, have you ever used the secure IDs? And you also type the password, then you type in the six digit code and you can do the same thing with TPCGI. It will check your password with LDAP or any other thing. And it will check your code, then code separately. And there is a fast TGI mode. So if TPCGI is fast, you can write it in fast TGI. It's even faster. It scales really well. It can run behind a load balancer with a few caveats. You have to use a DB database storage backend for this. The default backend is file. You cannot use file backend, sanely, between two members of the cluster. We are working on a potentially MongoDB backend. There are a couple of testing we need to do to make sure we can do it securely. There are a number of things we do to make sure that the one time really always stays one time. So we have to rely on locking quite a bit. There is no locking in MongoDB per se. Because we really want to scale it up. If you have thousands of clients authenticating at the same time, you want to make sure that any one cluster can fail at any time but without it impacting anything. And you can already do it with a database storage backend. The state files that are written per user are actually JSON. So a JSON store that is master-master replication actually is an excellent idea. So we just want to make sure that we can rely on... We can work around the lack of locking in MongoDB. Actually, any JSON distributed server lacks locking for good reasons but bad reasons for me. We'll see. It's not there yet. We'll work on it. So any questions on this before I get to the lab?


Good morning, John. One of the main thing about fish is the swimming.  Like the top performing human in the world right now can get like eight feet off the ground unassisted. And then after all that work, they just come right back down. This doesn't actually sound that bad until you look at it, but like lots of animals have like literally evolved their arms off to be able to swim up into the air. Bugs, bats, birds, flying is extremely useful. It adds a third dimension to the two dimensional world I inhabit. It's easy to forget that air is a fluid until you stick your face onto one of those high performance hand dryers. Water is also a fluid. It's just much more dense. Animals who live there, all of them fly through water. Well, okay, not all of them. John, this is the red hand fish. They can swim, but they almost never do. Instead, when they move, which they rarely do, they walk across the bottom of the ocean on their modified fins that look almost upsettingly hand-like. Hand fish are kind of angler fish, and they live in only one place in the world, south-eastern Australia. And they're not doing great. The red hand fish is arguably the rarest fish on earth. There are only two populations, each with less than 50 adult individuals. So it's not for lack of trying. Hand fish moms vigilantly protect their eggs from potential marauders for weeks on end, never leaving them until they hatch, and every time a clutch of red hand fish eggs hatches, the world population of red hand fish literally doubles. So most fish use these hatching events for what's called dispersal. The little fish are larval forms, and they become like planktonic. They just let the ocean carry them around. Most of them end up in places that aren't going to be great, but some of them end up in places where they can thrive. But no, and this is very weird. Hand fish babies are just hand fish that are smaller. They have no swim bladders, just like adult hand fish. They just sink to the ground because they are very dense, just like adult hand fish. So there are these two isolated pockets where red hand fish are, and all the babies just fall to the ground in the two places where they're left. This is not great for the survival of the species. Indeed, and this kind of blew my mind, the IUCN, which is the organization responsible for this stuff, has classified only one marine fish as officially extinct. That was not meant to be a pun. And this is not to say that there haven't been other marine fish that have gone extinct. This is more a function of not knowing very much about the ocean. The smooth hand fish is known from a single museum specimen that was collected 203 years ago. And after a lot of science and a lot of surveys, it has not been seen since. Will the red hand fish share its fate? Possibly. But the good news is that the Hand Fish Conservation Project is right now raising recently hatched hand fish in captivity, allowing them to introduce new genetic diversity into these two isolated populations and potentially to reintroduce them to new habitats. And as for why these little anglerfish choose to walk instead of fly through their world. This is really important. There is a reason, but we do not know it. We do not know almost everything. We feel like we do, because we have a tremendous bias toward knowing things that are known because of how we cannot know the things that are unknown. Making these Bizarre Beasts videos reminds me that the things we hear about, these amazing astounding facts from the natural world, every one of those isn't something that somebody like picked out of a book. It was something that was discovered or figured out by a person, by people. The most bizarre of beasts. John, I'll see you on Tuesday. Thank you to the wonderful people at the Hand Fish Conservation Project for helping me out with this video and also for all the lovely footage. I love your fish. Thank you for trying to save them. Check out their work at handfish.org.au


If you will have a quick answer about door Good afternoon Regards. The first item of business this afternoon is portfolio questions and the portfolio on this occasion is social justice. Anyone wishing to ask a supplementary should press the request to speak button during the relevant questions. There's quite a bit of interest in supplementary so the usual appeal for brief questions those don't come in four or five parts and similarly, brief responses from the front bench and I call question number one Jorn Mason. Thank you to ask the Scottish government what its position is ond yr increase in the Scottish child payment, or a council tax freeze will do more to help families in poverty. The Scottish child payment is providing well targeted support to the lowest income families and is estimated to lift 50,000 children out of poverty this year. We have committed to increasing it in line with inflation to £26.70 per week from April with 329,000 children expected to benefit in 24-25. The Government is working with local authorities to help them to deliver the council tax fees and provide much-eared financial relief to over 2 million council tax payers. Both of those measures provided for on the budget are unpararilled in the UK and will provide much-needed help for families. Some people, especially some in the third sector, have argued that a council tax freeze does not help the poorest because they are already not paying council tax, but it does help those who are better off paying more council tax. How would but she would respond to people like that. As the proportion of income those on the lowest incomes will benefit the most from a council tax freeze, that is because council tax represents a larger proportion of their income than those who are better off. This is on top of the council tax reduction scheme, which supports those that cannot be expected to afford council tax. However, the cost crisis has seen bills rise for households across the spectrum, and this freeze will give some certainty to them for next year. In supplementary terms, I hear me bawpha. Mae Gw Operaidd dyn останachi y byddai gyrsgyn orbit,お prif, llawerfus gwith hyd y Llywodraeth S trains, Rhag Tisch, Rhywodraeth Crefennod, positonu yn gyfer gwneud erbyn y archerydd iawn hagienedig, ond him manuscripturau'u grenni? Felly, mae'n tuiddwyr cyhoeddol.  Felly mae'n edrych yn gweithio iaill ac morcaid o dystiannod o gyfnoddiadu'r Cymru. Ivan McKee The council tax is recognised as a regressive, contrary to the Government-stated progressive outlook. Can I ask what work is being undertaken to evaluate other models of less regressive and more proportionate property or land value taxes, and when the Government expects to complete this work? The council tax represents a larger portion of overall income for lower-income households than for richer households. The council tax phase recognises the regressive impact of council tax, which underlines the importance of reform. We are committed to a fairer, more inclusive and ffiscally sustainable form of local taxation, as we conven the joint working group on Sources of Local Government Funding and Council Tax Reform, which is co-chaired by Scottish ministers and COSLA. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will update its guidance to local authorities on planning rules for short-term lets, in light of the recent ruling from the Court of Session that deemed the City of Edinburgh Council's planning guidance for businesses on short-term lets to be unlawful. In bringing the digital review of the City of Edinburgh Council's local guidance, the petitioners noted that it was not consistent with the Scottish Government's guidance, in issuing its decision, the Court agreed with the Scottish Government's position on the interpretation of the relevant legislation. Therefore, the Scottish Government does not consider it necessary to update its current guidance, set out in planning circular 1 forward slash 2023. I thank the minister for his response, but I'm sure he would acknowledge that there is confusion around the law on planning for short-term lets with different councils taking different approaches. Some councils now require operators of short-term lets, even if they have been operating for some time, to apply for retrospective planning consent before they will grant a short-term let. Other councils take a different approach. Does the minister not think that updated guidance from the Scottish Government would be helpful so that we have a uniformity of approach across the country instead of the confusion that we currently have? One of the most important points is that, when we set out the policy, it was given local authorities the ability to have their own flexibility and that was something in discussing with Solar that they supported. In coming back in terms of Edinburgh Council itself, I'm aware that they are speaking to petitioners at the moment to try and clarify some of the points that were raised through that. I don't know how discussions are on-going in that regard. The minister made it clear that the court ruling applies only to the city of Edinburgh Council's short-term lets policy and that the national legislation underpinning the licence scheme remains robust and applicable across Scotland with a considerable degree of local discretion. Just as I mentioned in my previous answer, I can confirm that the ruling applies only to a local planning policy of city of Edinburgh Council that relates to the council's interpretation and implementation of legislation for designated short-term let control areas. The ruling does not impact in any way on either planning or short-term licensing legislation, nor indeed was the court asked to consider any matters relating to legislation as part of the judicial review. Our view is that licensing and planning of short-term let accommodation can be operated effectively by authorities so as to respect the rights of hosts and guests. To ask the Scottish Government what social security support is available to people in Motherwell and Wishaw constituency who are experiencing poverty, including fuel poverty. The Scottish Government's priority is to do everything we can to help those who are affected by the cost of living crisis, which is why, since 2022-23, we have continued to allocate around £3 billion a year to support policies that tackle poverty and protect people as far as possible. That includes our investment of over £22 million this winter through our winter heating payment to support around 400,000 households in the lowest incomes to heat their homes. We have also invested over £7 million this year, making over 30,000 payments of child winter heating payment to children, young people in their families in Scotland who may have higher fuel needs due to their disability or health condition. There is no equivalent support available elsewhere in the UK. We continue to raise our investment, increasing all social security benefits in 24-25 by 6.7 per cent in recognition of the challenges being faced across Scotland. Thank the minister for her answer. Energy companies are resuming the installation of pre-payment metres under warrant following updated advice from Ofgem. I have contacted Ofgem and major energy suppliers to say that this is a last resort. However, my constituents in Motherwell and Wishaw at the sharp end of this unfair practice by the energy suppliers tell a very different story. As energy policy remains reserved to Westminster, what engagement has the Scottish Government had with the UK Government regarding the unfair position faced by people who are forced to take pre-payment metres? I very much share the member's concerns regarding the reintroduction of forced pre-payment meter installations of Ofgem's code of practice requiring suppliers to meet a number of conditions before taking such action is an important step. However, too many households remain at risk from this practice, especially with energy costs remaining so high. We believe that energy suppliers must exhaust all options, including meaningful support to sterling households to manage debt before imposing pre-payment metres. The minister for energy and the environment has raised the matter previously with the minister for affordability and skills and will continue to pursue that in meetings with the UK Government and Ofgem in the coming weeks. To ask the Scottish Government how it holds Social Security Scotland to account to ensure that it is fulfilling its responsibility to help claimants who request support to provide supporting information, including obtaining it on their behalf. Social Security Scotland's framework document provides accountability and governance to ensure that Social Security Scotland meets its statutory obligations. The framework requires delivery and keeping with our core values of dignity, fairness and respect, encouraging people to access the benefits that they are entitled to, and assisting them through their application process are rights enshrined in the social security charter. Assisting people to gather supporting information for disability assistance is a fundamental part of delivering those obligations. Reviewing performance on that is a frequent priority in my discussions with the chief executive of Social Security Scotland. I thank the cabinet secretary for the answer. The cabinet secretary recently informed me that Social Security Scotland are committed to ensuring people applying for disability assistance are helped to provide supporting information, which can include obtaining it on their behalf. My constituent advised that, as his claim was considered, he was not contacted once or nor where the clinicals he provided to verify the claims. Can the cabinet secretary advise what data is kept on the number of applicants who may need additional assistance with applications and how often it reviews this? I am afraid that the information that the member has given, or indeed our previous correspondence, has not directed me to a particular constituent and an issue on this. If he has the permission of the constituent to do so, I would be happy to receive that information and work with the agency to look into it. Clearly, one of the integral parts of the work on adult disability payment is to assist those to gather supporting information, which is a very important part of the work. If the member wishes to do so, I know that we have corresponded on this matter previously, but I am not aware that he has raised a particular case where there has been an issue. I would be pleased along with the agency to look into that and get back to the member and correspond it. The support that Social Security Scotland provides to claimants has helped them to build their remarkably high satisfaction ratings, which stand in stark contrast to the reputation of the United Kingdom Government's department of work and pensions. Has the cabinet secretary had any recent discussion with Social Security Scotland as to how it can maintain or even improve claimants' experiences? I have been very pleased to have regular discussions with the agency's executive team on how we can build on the high satisfaction ratings. For example, around nine in 10 survey respondents said that they were treated with kindness and with dignity, fairness and respect. That is in stark contrast to the reports from the DWP's previous system, particularly on personal independence payment. It is still clear that there is work to do to ensure that we are delivering that service for everyone. I am more than happy to always work with members to see what more can be done to improve that. To ask the Scottish Government what support it is offering to local authorities to help people stuck in temporary accommodation. We have committed to reducing the use of temporary accommodation and in response to the recommendations of the temporary accommodation task and finish group, we are investing at least £60 million to the £752 million affordable housing supply programme in 2023-24 to support a national acquisition plan. We are working with partners to develop a new programme for social landlords to maximise the use of existing housing stock alongside targeted partnership plans with the local authorities facing the greatest pressures. Additional funding of £2 million in 2023-24 has been targeted at local authorities with the largest percentage increases in temporary accommodation. What the minister failed to mention is that there are more than 15,000 households stuck in temporary accommodation. The 2020-24 Scottish homelessness monitor predicts that homelessness is expected to increase by 33 per cent by 2026, but what I find shocking is that this SNP Government has chosen to cut the housing budget and to starve councils of funding that are necessary to tackle those issues. Therefore, I ask the Scottish Government if it plans to declare a housing emergency to ensure that the Scottish homelessness monitor's predictions do not come to fruition. I thank the member for her question at a few points, I think that it is important. There is a 10 per cent capital cut from her Government, but I hope that she would take back in terms of that. I am glad that she has mentioned the homelessness monitor because one of the key things that the homelessness monitor actually represents is that the biggest increase is due to the LHA being frozen over a number of years. The report says the exact same thing. It also mentions that benefit rates have been the biggest factor. If she is really serious about that, go back to your chancellor about the budget that is coming in March and discuss those issues. We also spend nearly £100 million a year on discussion housing payments to support that. If we had a decent level of local housing allowance, we would not need to do that. There are three main points that she needs to take back in that regard. I am glad that she mentioned that, because it said that the biggest impact is poverty of which her Government is adding to much more. The new chair, please, minister. Thank you. Question number six, Katie Clark. Ask the Scottish Government what action it will take to ensure that it meets its affordable homes target by 2032. Minister. To September 2023, 15,765 homes have been delivered towards 110,000 target, of which 77 per cent are for social rent. A UK budget has meant a 10 per cent real terms for our UK capital funding between 2324 and 2728. Inflationary pressures, Brexit impacts and wider market conditions have triggered rising construction costs in workforce challenges. We remain focused on our target of delivering 110,000 affordable homes by 2032. To support that, we will also bring forward a review scheduled for 2627 to 2024 with a focus on deliverability. We are also exhilarating more with the financial community to boost private sector investment. Katie Clark. Nearly £200 million is to be cut from the affordable home supply programme. The number of social homes which began construction was down 41 per cent in 2023. An average of 7,700 new social homes need to be built every year to meet the target. So how does the minister believe that that can be achieved if funding is to be cut? Minister. I have referred the member to the previous question just in about the 10 per cent cut in real terms in that. I think that that is an issue. To mention that, we have to deal with that. I think that some of the issues and there was evidence given to the finance committee from the IFS about the cuts in the Scottish Government budget, the cuts in the Welsh Government budget to basically pay for tax cuts. It is a decision that has been made in terms of how we can maximise the deliverability of their programmes on their own. I think that there is also a challenge to Katie Clark and her party if they are successful in the election. I think that one of the key things that they need to look at is about the capital cut and reversing that. I also think that the LHRH is important. If that does happen and there is Labour Government elected later on, we can hopefully discuss that and bring that forward. Those are the main things that are impacting on our deliverability. A couple of supplementaries for Kenneth Gibson. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can the minister confirm that the last Labour administration built only six council houses in Scotland between 2003 and 2007? The SNP Government, despite Tory austerity and Sir Keir Starmer's refusal to turn on the taps if he becomes Prime Minister, is still building 1,157 this year nearly 200 times more than Labour built over four years. Yes, indeed. A total of six council houses were built in the last four years of the Labour-led Government in Scotland. A stark contrast to the last four years of the Government was when 7,564 new council houses were built. That is 1,260 times higher than under the last four years of the Labour-led Government. I am proud that, from April 2007 to the end of September 23, we have worked with the sector to deliver 126,396 affordable homes, over 89,000 of which were for social rent, including 23,625,000 council homes. It comes back to the point that Mr Gibson mentioned during the Keir Starmer saying about refusal to turn on the taps. There is a real challenge for Labour on this, if they are elected, and I will come back to that point later on in the year. Scotland's affordable homes targets at risk becoming an impossible dream, not my words, but the words of the chief executive of the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations across Scotland. The Scottish Government set a target of 10 per cent of all the affordable homes to be in rural and island communities. Last year, though, we saw a record low in approvals and completions. Does the minister accept that the target is unlikely to be met? In my first question to Katie Clark, I mentioned in a bit of review, we are scheduling for 26, 27 to 20, 24, with a focus on deliverability. I mentioned in about some of the issues that have an impact on inflationary pressures, talked about Brexit impacts, and wider market conditions have not helped that. Obviously, the 10 per cent cut mentioned in capital terms in that respect. He mentioned rural homes as well. Obviously, part of the discussions of rural developers that I have been having has been the cost of construction, which has impacted on that. Again, that comes back to where interest rates are, construction inflation over that period of time. Again, I continue to meet local authorities in those areas to bring forward houses in rural areas as well. Question 7, Liz Smith. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to increase the number of new homes started in rural areas. I have been engaging closely with the range of partners, including local authorities, housing providers and business, including a recent round table event, to support the delivery of more affordable homes across rural Scotland. That work is underpinned by a recently published rural and island house and action plan. We will invest over £556 million in affordable homes across Scotland in next financial year, including the demand-led rural and island house and fund in rural affordable homes for key workers fund. We have also provided funding for community housing trust and the Scottish Community Housing House's trust to support communities to deliver more affordable homes in rural and island communities. Thank you. That is helpful, minister, but can I double-check that out of the 110,000 affordable homes that are planned by 2032, 10 per cent is the figure that is supposed to be built in the rural and island communities? Can I just check that figure, please, because there seemed a bit confusion about it? Obviously, the latest housing statistics from the last quarter in 2023 showed that the number of new homes started had decreased by 24 per cent. Can you tell us how that is going to impact on your ambitions to ensure that the rural areas are well served, given that they are so critical to the sustainability of our rural communities? I thank the member for her question. I think that there was a previous debate obviously to refer to where we talked about around about 10 per cent of any minimum target. Again, we will work with local authorities in that regard, so 10 per cent is a minimum that we are aiming for. If we can obviously deliver more than that, we will deliver more than that, so 10 per cent is a minimum target. I mentioned about the round table that we were having in relation to that. That was with major employers talking about the opportunities about the key workers fund, for example, and I talked about the previous answer when working with the community's housing trust and deliverability of that. I think that there are other opportunities that we are looking at as well. We should be aware of some of the developments in the renewable sector, an individual inverness and so on. We spoke to developers up there along with the local community and the local authority in relation to the opportunities around that, not just around a bit inverness but in areas surrounding that. There are six or seven renewable hubs that we are looking to see how we can deliver that in terms of that. Those are mostly in rural areas as well, so there is an opportunity to develop more housing in these working with, the sector working with developers and so on. I am happy to discuss that later on. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Many young people want the chance to live in the rural and island areas where they have grown up and where they have family ties. Even a small number of new properties can have a significant benefit, such as the development in my constituency by the Hathland Housing Association of four new homes and walls. The outcome of methodology to determine where new houses are built can sometimes differ, though, from the needs expressed by communities. What action can the Scottish Government take on that point? I thank Beatrice Wishart for that. She will know that I visited Hathland a number of months ago and spoke to Hathland about that. She will know that there was infrastructure funding provided as well about the site up there. A particular challenge sometimes is about the topography of the area. She knows that we are working very closely with Hathland and the council in that regard. No, Hathland has had its specific challenges around the renewable sector and other sectors where it has grown, which has put real pressure on any area. It will continue to work very closely with Hathland, and we will have follow-up meetings with it in that regard. One of the key things that is coming back is meeting the local authorities to discuss their individual challenges. I will continue to discuss their particular issues with Hathland. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to improve the lives of disabled people. The Scottish Government is working hard to improve the lives of disabled people. The independent living fund that supports disabled people will reopen to new applicants after receiving a £9 million investment as part of the 2024-25 Scottish budget. That will support around 1,000 new applicants. Later this year, we will implement an immediate priorities plan developed in co-production with disabled people's organisations that will deliver a range of actions to support disabled people. In addition, £5 million from our equality and human rights funds supports disabled people's organisations to tackle inequality and discrimination, furthering equality and advancing the realisation of human rights in Scotland. The Scottish National Party Government claims that Social Security Scotland is founded on dignity, fairness and respect. However, Scots with disabilities are being let down by the system. Specifically, the latest Social Security Scotland statistics show that more than a third of adult disability payment applications have been denied, while the average processing times for the child disability payment is around five months. What action is being taken to ensure that everyone in need of disability benefits receive them in a timely manner? The Scottish Government recognises that some people have waited too long to have their applications decided through Social Security Scotland, but work is on-going to address this and has been improving the situation at pace. I absolutely stand by Social Security Scotland being embedded in dignity, fairness and respect, and that is borne out with the customer client reviews that we have received from Social Security Scotland telling us that the process is far beyond those that the DWP down south receive for similar benefits. I urge the member to ensure that the communications going out to constituents who should feel able to come forward to Social Security Scotland for support and know that they are going to be welcomed and supported to do so is the message that people hear. Can the minister outline how the reopening of the independent living fund will align with the work of Social Security Scotland to support the wellbeing of disabled people? The Scottish Government recognises the pressures on household budgets, including those of disabled people who are disproportionately impacted and being stretched due to the on-going cost of living crisis. That is why, since 2022-23, we continue to allocate around £3 billion a year to social security policies that tackle poverty and protect people as far as possible. The independent living fund provides additional funding to disabled people alongside Social Security and Social Care funding to obtain support to help them to live more independently. The reopening of the fund realise our commitment to further support disabled people who need it most and the £9 million extra investment will provide up to 1,000 new recipients the ability to exercise greater choice and control over the care and support that they receive so that they can be better supported both in their homes and in their communities. The Homes for Scotland existing housing needs report this week showed that 85,000 households are living in properties that do not have adaptations or the sport required for the disabled people who live in them. The 27 per cent cut to the housing budget is not going to help in terms of driving forward the progress that we see on age and adaptations. Can the minister, with the responsibility for equality, tell the chamber what assessment was made of the impact that that will have on disabled people across Scotland? We are all too aware that older and disabled people may struggle to find housing that meets their needs, and we are taking steps to mitigate that. We are increasing the supply of accessible and adapted housing. That concludes portfolio questions on social justice. There will be a brief pause to allow front benches to change before we move on to the next item of business.