The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Brook Show. Sunday, I appreciate you all being here, thanks for joining us. Apologize for not doing a show yesterday, it was in the calendar, it was scheduled, and then stuff happened, life happened, things that were unscheduled happened, and couldn't be done, had nothing to do with the earthquakes. Earthquakes are continuing. We had a nice, what was it, five point something earthquake yesterday, and all of those continued. So, we're surviving, we're surviving the earthquakes, hopefully it will pass. Now, you know, I guess I should give my condolences to those of you who are huge Neil Putz fans. My condolences, he passed away, I think it was yesterday or the day before. By all accounts, one of the great rock drummers of all the time, and maybe one of the people most responsible for bringing young people to Objectivism in Italian Rand during the late 70s and the 80s, so I know a lot of you discovered Italian Rand because of the rock group Rush, so clearly a loss. Unfortunately, it says I'm still on, let's jump into this. So, let's start with the issue of Iran.  This has to do with technical issues, whether technical issues are my aunt, technical issues are YouTube ends. That is hard to tell. It looks like the video quality also on YouTube has deteriorated dramatically. I don't know if that's a bandwidth issue, if that's a YouTube issue, but no, this is not social media trying to silence me. That is not the problem that we're having. Anyway, let's start with the protests that we got, students protests in Iran in the streets demonstrating against their own regime because their own regime came out and admitted under international pressure, they had no choice. The internet basically spread the news, the Americans, the Canadians, the Brits, basically everybody in the world knew that the Iranians had shot down the Ukrainian international airlines and the regime had no option but to admit that it had done so and it admitted it and as a consequence, Iranians are pissed off because most of people on that flight were indeed Iranians. Most of the people who died on that plane were Iranians. They are family members who are pretty pissed off at their regime for having killed their own people. So there are students demonstrating in Iran. Of course, anytime you demonstrate in Iran, you're taking massive risks to your own life and it is truly heroic. So first, kudos to those of you demonstrating. I hope and it's not just demonstrations, it's not just demonstrating about the plane. Some of the plaques that they are using are saying we want an end to the Islamic regime. They are tearing down posters of Soleimani.  And they are actually advocating for regime change. They want the Ertugrul Khamenei to resign. Now hopefully they want him to resign and be replaced by a secular government that represents the people. But at this point they want Khamenei to resign. So these are major significant developments in Iran and it is truly heartwarming to see and I hope they get all the support they can get. Now I will say that Trump has in this time actually expressed support for the demonstrations. I'd say it's about time. It should have been done a long time ago. But it seems like he is demonstrating support for them. He says to the brave, long-suffering people of Iran, I've stood with you since the beginning of my presidency, now very true, and my administration will continue to stand with you. We will see, I doubt it. We are following your protest closely uninspired by your courage. And the tweet was translated to Farsi, the local language in Iran, and uploaded to Twitter in Farsi. He also tweeted later to the leaders of Iran, do not kill your protesters. Thousands have already been killed or imprisoned by you and the world is watching. More importantly, the USA is watching. Turn your internet back on and let reporters roam free. Stop the killing of great Iranian people. Now he would have a lot more credibility to these tweets if he had called for regime change in Iran. If he had actually shown support for the Iranian people when the conflict was at its height after the assassination of the killing of Soleimani, I think we will see. It's hard to tell how the protesters in Iran are taking these tweets. But I think given that they're from Trump, not very seriously, and that's unfortunate. I think America still has moral sway in the world. I think America still has incredible impact on the world. The second president saying, we support you, you're on the right, overthrow your regime has a lot of influence, potential influence on people. So it's sad that the president is Donald Trump and you know my view of Trump. But at least these tweets are reflecting the right thing. They are in words the right thing to be saying today even though it's coming from a person who I don't trust and who I don't really believe. So let's hope. I mean, I think it's hard to be overly hopeful, but let's hope that something good is going to come from these protests in Iran and that there is regime change. In spite of the fact that Donald Trump said over and over and over again that he doesn't want regime change, let's hope that ultimately there is regime change and we can finally get rid of these disgusting mullahs into Iran. So I'm with the Iranian people.  I wish, by the way, Trump had tweeted these kind of tweets about Hong Kong. I think that would have been incredibly powerful. And by the way, there's another aspect of these tweets I wanted to mention. I do think they're significant if Trump can stay with them and can stay consistent with them. That is, I think that China is watching. That is, I think that if the United States can be tough on Iran here with the protests, can stand with the protesters, both morally and maybe even smuggling weapons and finances and anything else that they can do, then China will take that to heart and believe that maybe, maybe, maybe this administration will do the same thing in Hong Kong and be super cautious. By the way, just in terms of Hong Kong, great news this weekend. The woman who won the presidential race in Taiwan is a huge anti-China president. She won by a landslide, one of the largest victories ever in Taiwan. It's a huge slap in the face for China. She was not favored just a few months ago, but the situation in Hong Kong turned the Taiwanese people towards, towards, towards an anti-Chinese stance. So together with the elections in Hong Kong that brought in opposition parties that were significantly opposed to the Chinese, I think the victory in Taiwan is significant. It's another slap in the face of a Chinese dictator. She, and it increases the possibility that within the, the Communist Party in China, they will start to undermine Xi and realize that he's actually hurting China. He's actually setting China back and that this could be a real opportunity to bring about positive political change in China. Not all the way, but at least back to the trend that was in China, you know, five, six years ago. So one can be hopeful. I am hopeful right now. So we can be hopeful about Taiwan, about these tweets about Iran, about, I'm not too hopeful about Trump sticking to these tweets, but about the tweets about Iran. I hope he does. And if he does, that would also be taking, be taken seriously by China. All right. Let's see. Let's, let's turn to Kyle. Oops. Wrong one. There we go. This one. There we go. All right. So there's Kyle. So Kyle is commenting on the killing of Soleimani and the reason I'm using this is both it is a reflection of how the left thinks about these things or how many people, by the way, people like Juan Paul, certain people within the libertarian movement will agree with everything you'll hear Kyle say. So there was a, there was a wide array of Americans who think this way about politics. That is basically the idea that America is always wrong. America is always bad, particularly when the president happens to be in a party that you don't agree with. The libertarians tend to be a little bit more consistent than the anti-Americanism than even the left. But Kyle is commenting on assassination of Soleimani. And I've talked about Soleimani. I've talked about who he was, how bad he was, how incompetent he was, how the extent to which he supported and the national guard, the Iraqi, the revolutionary guard, supported the regime, helped oppress the protesters. This was the regime's arm of oppression and of suppression. Now note the left attitude, and again, the certain libertarians who agree with them, towards Soleimani and Iraq. Anyone? Hopefully you can hear that. Donald Trump decided to assassinate a top Iranian general with a drone. We also have... Well, it's assassinate. And it's, rather than kill, as it would be in a war, you don't assassinate people in a war, you kill them. And because, of course, Kyle, like almost everybody in the United States, doesn't recognize that we are at war with Iran, whether we like it or whether we acknowledge it or not. And, you know, notice how he calls him, a general. Just a military guy. No big deal. Just a military, Iranian military general. Nothing special. An Iraqi military leader who was killed as well. He was the head of, I believe, the popular mobilization forces. Yeah, military leader. Now, the Iranian... No, not a terrorist organization. Not a terrorist organization. Killed Americans. Not an organization that's responsible for murder and slaughter of Iraqis and Americans.  Let's... Sam Soleimani. He was the head of what's called the Kuds Force. So, you know, this guy has an interesting backstory. And the more you learn about him, the more you realize that what Trump did here is just totally unconscionable. Yeah, this guy was Soleimani, according to Kyle Kalinsky, was a good guy. He was one of the good guys in Iran. Listen. So, this guy first rose to prominence when he fought against Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war. And then, since then, he's been in charge of providing military assistance to Lebanon. He's been in charge of giving military assistance to Lebanon. Now, I wonder what the Lebanese think about this. Provide... I mean, the dishonesty here. Kyle. I mean, if you watch interviews of Kyle with, like, Joe Rogan and stuff, he comes across as if he's this objective, rational, takes into account all these different arguments. Very level-headed guy, not too radical, not too crazy. He provides military assistance to Lebanon? No, Kyle.  They are not a majority, and yet they control because of their military force. These are anti-democratic, something that Kyle and his leftist friends worship, democracy. These are anti-democratic. Talk about murderers, thugs, who would like to impose a theocracy based on Sharia law, based on the Iranian model in Lebanon. The Lebanese hate them, anybody who's not a Shiite associated with a militia, at least. I'm not even going to talk about what they've done to Israel and the terrorism, the attacks on Israel. Put that aside, just what they've done to Lebanon. No, no, this Soleimani guy is a good guy because he's helped the Lebanese. He's provided assistance to the Lebanese, assistance to the most militant, to the most violent, to the most horrific militia within Lebanon that has caused thousands and thousands of deaths. And again, 244 Marines died in Lebanon in 1983 from bombing by Hezbollah, financed and motivated by the Kuds Brigade, the exact brigade that Soleimani is in charge of today. He was a little too young to be responsible for that. But that's who the Kuds Brigade is, that he, Kyle, so admires. They provided military assistance to Lebanon. It's just, it truly is mind-boggling dishonesty. And I mean, documenting now, you saw, I did the Prager University with Greg and Ankar, the dishonesty there, the dishonesty on the left.   Maybe he's just ignorant, but that's even worse.   Even Iranians know this guy was a bad guy. And Syria? Military assistance to Syria, no. So Soleimani provided military assistance to the Assad regime. Assad is a brutal dictator who is responsible for the death of tens, if not hundreds of thousands of his own citizens. Responsible for using chemical weapons and other weapons to kill, murder his own people. The uprising against him was an uprising, at least initially, a people against a dictator. Now, maybe they were no better, you could argue. But suddenly Assad is pure evil. And the people rising up against him, at least some of them, were much better than Assad. And yet, he presented as, oh no, Soleimani was giving to Syria, not to Assad, to Syria, no. He wasn't giving assistance to Syria. If you wanted to give assistance to Syria, you would guarantee the removal of Assad. You would get rid of Assad, both Soleimani, Iran, and the Russians have assisted Assad against their own people, against the Syrian people. In establishing and giving permanence to one of the most brutal regimes there are and permanence to the oppression of the Syrian people. So again, facts, context, but anything, anything, anything to make the American government bad. Anything to present the American government, particularly one run by Trump, as evil and bad and destructive. To the point, you make the good guys, you make the real evil guys appear to be the good guys. All right, I have to ask, are you guys, can you guys hear me? Is this clack, crashed or hasn't crashed? I'm getting mixed signals from my own monitoring here. I'm asking both for Facebook and for YouTube. Somebody on the chats, just tell me. All right, I'm not getting any response, so maybe you're gone. Is anybody there? All right, you're on. Okay, good. All right, let's keep going here. So yeah, I mean, Soleimani was evil. What he did was evil. You can disagree with the American foreign policy. You can think all the troops should come home. But not to call this guy what he is. Not to recognize his own evil. I mean, Kyle and Ron Paul are the same. The primary focus is anti-American. The primary focus is anti-American. Nobody else is as bad as America. Nobody else is as evil as Trump.  But Trump is no... Ayatollah is in Iran. Trump is no Soleimani. So, and America is not Iran. But they hate America so much. So, his most recent claim to fame is, first of all, allying with the Kurds, which is really important, to fight ISIS and al-Qaeda. The Kurds are terrified of this guy, although because the Shiites are in southern Iraq and the Kurds are in northern Iraq, the Kurds are more terrified of the Sunnis than they are of the Shiites. But the idea, yes, he did ally with them to fight ISIS. And he did succeed and was one of his few successes, together with the Americans, together with lots of other forces, together with the Syrian regime, fighting ISIS. But, all right, for a moment there, for a moment there, he was on the same wavelength. He was an ally, quote, of the United States. At the same time, he was killing Americans. At the same time, killing Americans at every opportunity. By Jihadists that were taking over Syria. And he also aligned with the Iraqi government as well to do this.  Yeah, the Iraqi government, because the Iraqi government was basically a puppet government, a puppet of Iran. A shared government basically installed. Even the Iraqis demonstrating recently were demonstrating against Iranian influence in their own country. Because they, the Iraqis know that they become a puppet government of Iran and they're opposed to that. And again, it's just no context. No context.  And, you know, quite frankly, he was one of the leaders in the fight to defeat ISIS and he succeeded in defeating ISIS.  So, Cal gets that ISIS is bad, but the Shia regime, which Soleimani represents in Iraq is exactly the same as ISIS. There was no fundamental difference between it. It's mildly more civilized, but still committed to Sharia law over the entire world, still committed to the spread of Islam through the entire world, still committed to world domination of Islam. But everybody knows you're supposed to hate ISIS. But the Shiites, Iran, oh, we love them. I mean, the left has been enamored with Iranian revolution from the beginning, partially because Aitul Khomeini strategically used Marxist terminology during the revolution, leading up to the 1979 Iranian revolution and during the revolution in order to get the alliance with the left. So, the left supported Khomeini within Iran during the revolution. And in the first few months of the revolution, then once Khomeini established control, dominated the country, had what he wanted, he turned around and basically slaughtered, killed all of the leftists who had supported him. But international leftists from French socialists and egalitarianists, they loved the Iranian revolution. It was a revolution against the man. It was a revolution against America. It was a revolution against the Shia. It was a people's revolution.  They thought it was a huge advancement. They saw it through a Marxist kind of lens of a people rising up to establish a true dictatorship of the masses. A religious one, by the way. But anyway, Kyle obviously thinks one form of Islam is better than the other. Sunni's a bad, Shiite's good. You know, unbelievable. Relevant information about this guy is that he was kind of viewed by Iranians as like an apolitical figure. Untrue, completely. He's completely affiliated with the regime. He is intimately associated with Khomeini, the supreme leader. There's nothing apolitical about him. He was a supporter when he wrote.  He wrote to the regime, you've got to crush these rebellions when the students marched in 2009. He has repeatedly advocated for the worst of the regime. For the worst kind of actions by the regime. There's not an ounce, not a shred of non-partisanship about Soleimani. He was not involved in the domestic repression at home. Again, just a plain lie. He headed, he headed the, you know, the Islamic Republican God. He headed the arm of the regime. He headed the military arm of the Mullahs. Everything about him was about sustaining the oppressive regime that exists in Iran today. Everything. So this is just plain misinformation. Talk about fake news. So you can blame, you know, the Ayatollah. There's plenty of blame to go around. But generally speaking, even though he was in the Islamic Revolutionary God. Yeah, it's called the Islamic Revolutionary God for a reason. He wasn't viewed as like part and parcel or partaking in the domestic repression at home. And, you know, according to some, he was next in line to be the Ayatollah. No, he wasn't. He was never next in line to be the Ayatollah. The Ayatollah is a religious figure, not a military figure. He was next in line. The rumors were, he had a number of times been encouraged to run for president. President is very different than Supreme Leader than the Ayatollah. Come on, Kyle. Do a little bit of research. This is not hard. This is all publicly available information. You can get it on Google. You can get it from the New York Times. This is not hidden stuff.  But, yeah, Kyle, this is not rocket science. You should be able to get this right. He was going to run for president. He kept denying, rejecting running for president, staying with the military, staying as the sword of the regime. And he defeated ISIS, and that's his claim to fame. You think this is a reformist? You think this has come peace-loving reformist? He assassinated him. Now, I just need everybody to understand that this is a dude who... Dude. He's a dude. Soleimani. Blood of tens of thousands of people. Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, and Americans on his hand. And, by the way, Yemenis and Saudi Arabians on his hands. He's a dude. He's a dude.  We were just allies with. So it wasn't like, you know, while we were trying to take on ISIS, by the way, after we armed them and funded them, various Jihadist groups, it wasn't like we didn't work with this guy. No, we did. We did. He was the front line on the ground along with the Kurds. So he was just our ally. And I'm going to get to a stunning fact later about the situation in which he was assassinated. What he was doing at the time, which is going to absolutely blow your mind. So, the Trump administration says, well, well, we had to do it.  Now, that, you know, Trump administration should have never said that. Is there any truth to that? The answer is no. How do you know that, Kyle? The answer is no. This guy's attacked Americans on various occasions. On various occasions. So, really? Tell you otherwise is absolutely full of it. How do you know? There's zero evidence to support that assertion. The evidence that he's killed Americans and fought against Americans and is targeted in Americans in the past should not suggest that he might be scheming for the future. I'm not saying the intelligence existed, but to unequivocally say what he's saying is just false. And as a general rule, there are no, like, Shia terror attacks. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. No Shia terror attacks. 244 Marines and their barracks in 1983. The Kabul Tower in Saudi Arabia. I don't have the date, maybe 1994. The many, many, many Shia terrorist attacks during the Iraq war. Khizballah. Terrorist attack after terrorist attack. Car bombing after car bombing. All Shiaites. What are you talking about? No Shia terrorist attacks? Against the U.S. Again, Kabul Tower in Saudi Arabia was against the U.S. Marine barracks was against the U.S. Kidnapping of Americans all over the Middle East. Primarily Lebanon during the 1980s and 90s. Against the U.S. The Shia is, I mean, not to mention the taking of the American Embassy in Iran. I mean, this is just, again, ludicrous. Now, you might say there's never been a Shia attempt on American soil. Well, that's not even true. There was a Shia attempt on American soil just four or five years ago. It was crushed by intelligence, but it was targeted towards the Saudi ambassador, but it was on the U.S. soil. That was an attempt. Maybe it's true that there's never been a successful Shia terrorist attack on American soil, but that's not what Khal is saying. He's saying against Americans, which is just blatantly unequivocally false. From the Salafists, the Sunni Wahhabist fundamentalists. Who are all inspired by the Shiaites. If you read the Salafist, if you actually read Bin Laden, if you read the ISIS, if you read these people, they will discover that what inspired most of them, what really got recruitment up dramatically, was the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. If it could happen in Iran, it could happen anywhere. And the greatest recruitment to the Salafists, the Sunnis, was the success of the Iranian Revolution, the success of Iranians standing up to America, the failure of America to do anything about them. And yet, no, according to Kyle, these are peace- That's where the attacks come from. They all come from Shia. They haven't just killed a thousand of their own demonstrators, which is all done by the Islamic God, the Quds Force, the force that, oh no, they're the good guys. They're apolitical, because the guy running them was Soleimani, a hero of the left in America today. When Mike Pompeo was pushed on this, because he went on the Sunday shows, they do a terrible job by and large, though shows do, but there was a little bit of pushback when he was on one of the shows and the person was like, okay, so you say that, you know, Trump stopped an imminent attack here. There was an attack coming against the homeland. And his response was, no, we have intelligence that he was in the process of planning a plot to Americans in the region. He's always in the process of planning a plot against Americans in the region, always. That's what Soleimani's done for 20 years. So look at all the Weasley qualifiers they put in there. Yes, by the way, the assassination of the Saudi ambassador, which was targeted by Iran, which was by the Iranians, was going to not, you know, shoot him and walk away. They were planning to blow up a restaurant in D.C. There would have been many American casualties. That was a planned terrorist attack on the United States soil. Planned, thwarted by the American intelligence services, the same American intelligence services that Trump and other Republicans are calling the evil, deep state. But nevertheless, we're successful in stopping that particular terrorist attack by an Iranian regime. Again, Kyle, you should know this. This is not hard. This is not sophisticated. You can have a show. 200,000 people have watched this video by Kyle. 200,000 minds are being polluted by this dishonesty. Just plain falsehood. It's not that, oh my God, he was going to attack some, you know, Americans. It's no threat to the homeland, no planning against the homeland, and we're saying, so they said he was going to attack us and come to find out even they admit when they're pushed just a little bit, there was no attack plot against us. We're saying that maybe there was one that was coming in the region, which again, no evidence for, and by the way, I do not believe that for a second. And the burden of proof is not on me. The burden of proof is on them to show us that no, he was actually going to do it. That was a mistake of the administration. They should have never said that. They should have just said this is a guy with the blood of Americans on his hands. This is a guy responsible for killing Americans. This is a guy crucial to the Iranian regime, which is at war with us. We're taking him out. We took him out. Hooray, good for America. And then they should have gone on to advocate for regime change, but that's a whole different story. Show the proof. They don't have it. They absolutely don't have any. Now, here's the under-reported, we learned this yesterday in the U.S. and he hasn't touched this at all. So Trita Parsi, who's an expert on Iran, he says the following, Wow, wow, wow. According to the Iraqi Prime Minister, Soleimani was not planning an attack. He was in Iraq. This is where he was killed at the Iraqi airport. He was in Iraq carrying a message to Saudi Arabia on how to reduce Iran-Saudi tensions as part of an Iraqi mediation effort.  One, who cares? Who cares if he was on such a mission? Who says such a mission is good? Why is it good for America? But second, who cares? He's a bad guy. He needs to die. Second, you believe the Iraqi Prime Minister? You believe the Iraqi Prime Minister? You don't believe your own president? Now there's good reason not to believe Donald Trump or the Secretary of State. But those same reasons all should suggest that we shouldn't believe the Iraqi Prime Minister either. But he's going to just take his word for it. Proof? You just said, Kyle, the burden of proof is on them. Well, the burden of proof is on the Iraqi Prime Minister. Has he provided proof that this is true? No. No, but this is the state of things in the world in which we live. This is a tweet by Rose McGowan. I don't know who Rose McGowan is, but some celebrity. She wrote after Soleimani death, Dear Iran, the USA has disrespected your country, your flag, your people. 52% of us humbly apologize. We want peace with your nation. We are being held hostage by a terrorist regime. We do not know how to escape. Please do not kill us. Hashtag Soleimani.  So offensive that, you know, it's hard even to know what to say about this kind of stuff. There's no accident that people hate the left as much as they do. Because these people on the left, at least, this kind of crazy left is so nutty. It's so anti-American. It's so hateful. We're talking about an Iranian regime that just killed about a thousand people in protests and the protests were about rising fuel costs. And yet the Iranian regime put snipers on buildings and shot them. Now, as bad as Trump is and granted, I think he's really, really, really bad. We're not shooting thousands of protesters in the street yet. Who knows? 20, 30, 40 years ago. But we're not. We're not a terrorist regime and we're certainly not a terrorist regime when you compare to Iran.  These people are truly nuts. Despicable. Evil. And this is Kyle Kalinsky's audience and this is Kyle who leads the cause. Leads the cause. Now, that doesn't justify Trump. At all. But it sure puts the context into what the nutty left represents and it represents pure nihilism, pure hatred of America. The left couldn't care less about American life, but or an Iranian life for that matter. It couldn't care less about individual human life. Well, we know that from the environmentalist nuttiness that they have. They're not interested in human life. I don't know what they are interested in. Well, we know. At the end of the day they're motivated by hatred and they're motivated by desire to destroy. I mean, you listen to Kyle particularly in this topic, you listen to Kyle and you read those kind of tweets which, by the way, that tweet was retweeted by dozens of celebrities on the wacky left. They are nuts. As nutty or more so than the nuts on the right. And that's who we have today, those two groups. The nuts on the left and the nuts on the right. No, nuts on the left and nuts on the right are growing. Are growing. And I mean, Kyle in this video this is not just ignorance. This is blatant dishonesty. I mean, because if you don't know a topic you shouldn't talk about it. And if you do a little bit of research other than reading maybe Norm Chomsky's blog then you should know that everything he said is just unbelievable false. And again, many libertarians agree with Kyle in this issue. So, shocking. I didn't expect when I saw Kyle's thing to be this bad and the tweets unbelievable. So, that's where we are folks.   Go figure what the future of this country is. And that's actually not a bad lead in to our next topic. We got a couple of, let's do these quick three quick questions. Off topic and can wait until the end of the show, but any thoughts on shell Silversteins the giving tree. I mean, the giving tree is awful. It is super altruistic. It is basically it's not about creating a value but about altruism about the importance of giving for the sake of giving. Now it all comes back and the world is a better place, but it's just, it's pure altruist propaganda and I think particularly for kids it's just awful and I'll talk about this in a minute that this is the kind of stuff we educate our kids with and then we're surprised when they grow up and they, you know, they're depressed and they commit suicide and they're are holistic and they take drugs and you know, and all of this stuff. It's anti-life and in that sense evil and I haven't read it in a long time you know, I can probably give you more nuance but basically that's my assessment. Your discussion of music and film struck me recently. Have you watched any Studio Ghibli films? They have a melding of romanticism and realism and a non-western context that composer Joe Hisaishi does great work. No, I have not watched any of those films I guess I'll look into it. I'll say that comment and look into it. My opinion of the new Russian weapon, avant-garde, I guess that's the ballistic weapon or the the I mean my general all I'll say is my general my general view based to some extent of first-hand knowledge of Russian weaponry is that it is pathetic. It is badly made not thought out inefficient and inaccurate and just not good. And this comes from experience of fighting T-72 tanks in the early 1980s to the old T-54 tanks to the to MiG airplanes to just experience of the Israeli military fighting Arab countries. Now partially that was a consequence of the fact that the troops, the Israelis were fighting one, motivated and badly trained, but it is also also a function of Russian weapons just not being very good. So I don't know much about this new weapon. It sounds very scary and hopefully the U.S. is developing tools to combat it but I just don't get that excited about Iranian weapons and Russian weapons or for that matter even Chinese weapons because I think that authoritarian regimes have a have a really hard time developing anything very good and the technology is just behind. And I think that's true of all these regimes and that's why I don't think Iran has any kind of significant military. I don't think they pinpointed missile strike to not hit Americans because I don't think they can pinpoint anything. I think they're pretty I think the mind needs freedom. Technology needs freedom and in unfree countries we don't have that and therefore it doesn't exist. All right, you know what I'm going to do? We're going to delay the next topic until until tomorrow and either tomorrow Tuesday because we're ready in an hour and I know there was a lot of technical issues but we're ready in an hour and I don't want to drag this this is it's a big issue so I don't want to shortchange it by rushing through it so we'll do it tomorrow the day after I've got on my prep ready so we can do that so I'll take super chat questions for the next few minutes if people want that. If not we'll call it a night. What podcast do you listen to if any? I don't really I've dabbled with some podcasts some some on economics some on others but I have to say I don't really listen to podcasts I mainly read. I mainly read. What was in 1984 an example of showing technology being better than it really could have been in that setting? Yes, I think 1984 is that example I think that most science fiction movies that depict dystopian futures have a wrong sense of of technology in that these dystopian futures the authoritarians often have always have a really incredible technology at their disposal and I don't think that's real I don't think that could be possible I think the best dystopian novel in that sense is Anthem because it depicts the real kind of technology that a true authoritarian regime would have which is zero none and you know it's why I'm not afraid of authoritarians because to the extent that they are really authoritarian to the extent that they're totalitarians they can't produce anything so their weapons won't work their people won't be motivated and it's there's nothing to be afraid of and that's all right any more super chat questions or should we call it an afternoon and I apologize for cutting it short but I do think that this topic about suicide opioids, alcoholism and generally the fact that life expectancy in the United States is in decline is a big story by the way there's a book by Victor Davis Hansen about the fact that even under the Nazis the weapons were significantly inferior even though they had a fairly industrial fairly somewhat capitalist background but the state took it over the Nazis took it over and national socialism took it over and the quality of the tanks the airplanes was lacking and while they could develop a v2 missile they probably couldn't have taken it much further than that again innovation innovation requires freedom because innovation requires the mind and the mind can only truly properly work when it is free when it is free thanks for watching I hope I've given you more reason never to watch Kyle again I hope you find ways to discourage them watch Asian comedies watch Asian comedian destroy America on Netflix not sure what that's all about okay I'll give you two seconds for no super chat we will talk to you soon bye everybody


Thank you very much, program director. I'm still waiting for the money that they promised with all awards, but I heard there's no money, you know? I'm always looking for a check, so when I win an award, I was thinking that it was going to be in Pound Sterling, and Pound is the only currency that has a name and a surname, so I thought, okay, they can pay me in Pound Sterling. Could you please motivate that I get an award in Pound Sterling, program director? So when the program director started this exercise, I generally grouped you into three groups. Those of you who are the novices, those of you who are the veterans, and those of you who are the geriatrics. So welcome geriatrics, all the veterans, and like me, welcome to the novices. Your Excellency, Ms. Caroline Spellman, the UK Secretary of State for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, the kind participants who have honored us with their presence. Thank you very much for being here today. Your presence and your contributions are certainly very warmly welcomed. To the speakers, the organizers of the event, congratulations to a very well-organized event, and before you actually receive my evaluation, please do know that you deserve a warm round of applause for a very excellently organized conference. Hello attendees, honorable guests, ladies and gentlemen. Former President Nelson Mandela once said, and I was there when he said this, that a good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination. I then only thought with my head, but I was forced by President Mandela to start thinking with my heart again. By then, the ravages of apartheid had forced us to stop believing with our hearts that one day we would smell freedom. We are gathered in this room as good people with good heads and good hearts. We are gathered here with ones who are like-minded in wanting to do good things for the good world we live in. At the very same day, President Mandela was speaking to a small group of us. We were young, we were energetic. He had not yet been released from prison. We had this penchant for making long speeches and giving long explanations. President Mandela sat there and listened to us. Some of us just watched him in awe.  To our surprise, he said, my children, for me, you need a spoonful of words and a bucketful of thought. So let do not give me a bucketful of words with only a spoonful of thought. So when I welcome you today, I hope I'm going to give you a bucketful of thought with a spoonful of words. I'm not here to waste your time. Welcome to the land of founding father of our democracy. Welcome to the land of Nelson Roly-Slatlan Mandela. Welcome to the land of Khosi Albert Lutuli. This is the origins of our founding father of our African National Congress, Khosi Albert Lutuli. On behalf of the South African government, our president, Jacob Ketli Klikisal Zuma, I would like to welcome you along with the Center for International Forestry Research on behalf of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests. It is once more my honor to address you on this auspicious Forest Day Five. The question we need to ask ourselves today is simple. Can we make profits without cutting trees? As the host of the UNF triple C COP 17, in this, the International Year of Forests, the South African government recognizes the importance of forests and the role they play in sustaining commercial industries, providing utilizable natural resources and conserving our biological diversity and mitigating against the effects of climate change. In saying this, Forest Day Five will without doubt highlight the urgency to guarantee the survival of the world's forests, the biodiversity and the millions of people whose livelihoods depend on them. South Africa, as many other countries represented in this gathering, is both a contributor to and potential victim of global climate change, given that it has an energy-intensive, fossil fuel-powered economy and is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate variability and change. South Africa regards climate change as one of the greatest threats to sustainable development and believes that climate change, if unmotivated, also has the potential to undo or undermine many of the positive advances made in meetings of Africa's own development goals and the millennium development goals. The socioeconomic impacts of climate change are predicted to range from severe to disastrous for all and we require extensive action to adjust and adapt to a changing climate. We, as a collective, must therefore deliver a comprehensive international program on adaptation that provides access to significantly upscaled finance, technology and capacity building for all developing countries recognizing the particular vulnerability of countries in Africa. In order to address these challenges, we need to ensure that forest planning tools take into account carbon sequestration in a way that could provide necessary planning information. We need to recognize that the two-degree Celsius goal cannot be achieved by one part of the globe on its own. The globe requires a decline in emissions relative to business as usual. Although we all have committed to do so, we need to strive to reduce our emissions using our own limited resources. However, in order to undertake increased levels of mitigation effort, must be supported and enabled through technology, finance and capacity building. We must therefore deliver a framework for nationally appropriate mitigation action by developing countries, supported and enabled by finance, technology and capacity building, all of which are measured, reported and verified. Climate change threatens to undermine many of the development objectives of countries in Africa in particular and in the rest of the developing world. In order to enable lower carbon and resource efficient sustainable development in the developing world, it requires developed countries to comply with their obligations on provision of finance as well as development transfer and diffusion of technology. Many concerns and issues surround the use of forestry as a carbon sink. Nevertheless, forestry remains an effective, low-cost method of removing carbon from the atmosphere in a sustainable manner. Progress has been made on solving the problems, issues and concerns surrounding forestry and carbon sinks. The science behind carbon sinks is well understood and established in many of the issues and concerns around technical details with misunderstanding existing between scientists and non-scientists. Because Red Plus communities recognize that agriculture is critical in dealing with deforestation and degradation in relation to land use and planning. I invite you to join me as I host a side event on climate smart agriculture on Wednesday, 7th of December. We will continue with our hard work to get a working program on agriculture in the text of COP 17 leading up to Rio Plus 20 next year. Let me again allow to quote from President Nelson Mandela. The great Madiba, our teacher and our leader say that there is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered. Madiba said to us, when you get into a room and it is extremely neat, leave it exactly the way you found it. But if you get into a room and it is extremely chaotic, leave it better than you found it. My challenge to you as delegates is in this chaos, leave the room better than you found it. I thank you.


Yes, hello. My name is Anu. I work at Kaplan Open Learning. I'm a learning technology manager there and I'm talking about learning analytics and how we use dates to improve student success. So we work in partnership with University of Essex to provide University of Essex online and we deliver 100% online undergraduate and postgraduate degree programs. And we strive to give the highest quality experience to our students and this is evidenced by our very high NSS scores which are 90 plus every year. And also we have a TEF Gold and I think we're the only alternative provider to have a Gold. So the key challenge to everyone who does online learning is of course how to keep students engaged and motivated. I'm using word challenge instead of problem because problem is quite negative. Challenge is a positive thing. So how we have, this is our solution in doing so. Our solution has been to create a bespoke learner analytics system which is called LAS. If you imagine Sean Connery saying that it sounds much better than what I can say. So LAS uses engagement recorded through Moodle, some Moodle data to automate interventions and to support students at scale. And the way different is different from other learner analytics packages is that we've designed this in collaboration with our student support team and they've been kind of the driving force behind this in terms of what they, because they are the end users and it's about what they need instead of what the company generally needs in terms of learning analytics. It's also customizable for each of the end users, i.e. the student advices. So the student is very much hard at what we do and through our VLE, which is Moodle, they get access to obviously all the learning resources they need to complete their programs. And the second tier of that is the student support advisors. And they support all the resources and all the platforms the student need access to to successfully complete their programs. Behind that the learning analytics then support the student advisors so they are able to deliver that support in a targeted way. So the key features in our programs are small class sizes, is maximum of 20 per group. We give plenty of synchronous learning opportunities and regular teacher and student advisor contact to all our students. So each of our students has a named student advisor as their first point of contact. Now last has enhanced this provision by allowing individualized support at key points in time. So how does it work then? Well, we have a bespoke student management system. So this pulls the live data from Moodle and LAS is part of, so it's an extension of the student management system. And it does two things. Firstly, it feeds the information into a customizable dashboard which the student advices then use to inform what is happening with their students and allows them to intervene. Secondly, it sends automated emails to students at predefined points in time based on individual student actions. So this is a demo dashboard copy without any student data on it. So you can see that there's sort of a color coded tracker against each student. So that gives you a number of interactions per day. You've got some boxes on the right. So those are inactive students. Those are showing the six most inactive students for that particular student advisor. Down there, the next section is about discussions, how many posts and replies the students have done, because discussions feature quite heavily in our assessment. And this is our email engine. So this allows us to build emails based on criteria or amend existing ones. So we can do this ourselves on site. So the benefits of this for us have been that it predicts learners at risk very early on. So we can do interventions or other student advices can do interventions. It helps us understand what the learner needs are based on their actions or inactions in their programs or in their modules and allows us to do individualized and tailored supports and also timely support for each particular student and give precise feedback at those critical moments, perhaps around assessment times or earlier in the module where the dropout rate is higher. It's also a low cost now that it's being built. It was fairly low cost to build start off with, but now that it's there. So look, if you saw the email generator or the email dashboard, it's a no code for us. So we can build more emails. So we can amend existing emails. We don't need the developer to be on site to do any of that. We can do it all ourselves. So the result has been the ability for us to build that functionality without coding, which is obviously a massive cost saving. It also has allowed us to quite quickly know that the core elements are set up to build in new features. So currently we've integrated our module student feedback into the system. So we can track against these tutor or perhaps a particular question, what students are feeling at any given time. And overall it has had a very positive effect on learner outcomes and especially retention. And that's all from me. Thank you very much. Okay, before we hear from Greg, does anyone have any questions for Anu? Oh, we'll go on here again. Thank you. What are the trigger points that send out the emails? Sorry if I mis-start. Well, there's several. They're usually based on the starting point of the modules. So at the first, well, the first day there would be a general welcome message. Then there might be, if it's an induction, there might be a bit more information about the program in general, et cetera. But generally for modules, it's the first day, welcome to the module. Here is what you need to do. Here is who you need to contact and all that. Then it's about assessments. It's about assessment reminders. And those are the trigger points. So if a student has obviously submitted their assignment, we wouldn't want to send them a reminder that you need to submit assignments. So it comes individualized at that point. We also do a lot of discussion forums. So we use the HSU forum for assessment. And students have to do a certain amount of posts per assessment. It's usually 10 within a sort of two-week period. So we're counting those posts. And if they haven't done a certain amount by a certain time period, then that triggers another email to say that, you know, you're falling behind on this assessment. You probably want to contribute a bit more. Thank you. Another question over here from Mark. It may sound like a silly question, but do you know that the students read the emails? Well, that's the thing, isn't it? You can't guarantee that they will be reading their emails. So it's not... I mean, most students are very happy to receive the emails and actually, you know, receive that customized support. And we have a feature in the platform as well that if there's a student who says they absolutely don't want any emails, we'll switch them off. Or we can switch off individual emails so they only get certain ones if they want. So we can customize it. If you could measure in some way whether they've opened the email, and don't want to pay attention to it, but if you can measure whether they've opened it, I think your effectiveness will dramatically increase. And by that, I mean, you'll be able to say excellent, the students improved or retention has improved. And these ones were quite bluntly lost causes anyway, because they weren't paying attention to our intervention because they didn't even open the email. Because when they don't open their email, that's reducing your apparent effectiveness. Yeah, that's... As somebody who sends out a weekly newsletter, this is... I see where it comes from, Mark, but it's actually really problematic because iOS devices block tracking pixels and stuff by default. So then you're making an assumption someone hasn't opened the email, but actually they have, but their devices... So it's a bit of a dark art sometimes as well. Any more questions for Anu? There's one over here, the gentleman here before we move on to Greg. Sorry if I missed this, but is it pulling in any other data other than the mood-like activities just out of interest? Is it gauging any other type of engagement? So at the moment it's just the Moodle data, because we do everything through Moodle. We're looking at integrating our eBooks, we use vital source, so we're looking at integrating that data from there. We also use Zoom for our synchronous and big blue button for our synchronous platform, so we're looking at integrating data from there as well, so we see how students interact with other sort of engaging activities. And a quick follow-on question, if you don't mind, is are you finding these triggering flags against the same students as like other attendance monitoring is doing? I think there are always students who won't necessarily engage, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. So this is where the individual student advisor comes along, so they'll know that student and they'll be able to see that, okay, just because it's read all the way along doesn't mean that they're not actually performing well in their modules. So that's where the individualized support comes along. Thank you. Thank you again.


Welcome to my talk on walking and digital participatory methods in host Olympic cities. I've been studying how hosting and staging the Olympics and other sporting and cultural events from marathons to food festivals, reconfigure urban space and transform interactions and the behavior of people, mostly residents, tourists, small businesses across these particular spaces. And to do this I have used a lot of different methodologies, most recently walking and digital methods to analyze these relationships, interpret why they occur in the way they do and activate new problems and insights by being present real-time in local settings. In this video I will outline what walking methods are, how one can embed walking methods as a data collection tool and why they can be valuable for those seeking to understand socio-spatial interactions primarily but not exclusively to urban environments, particularly to extreme environments that we'll be talking about. So this three-part video reflects a recent research article my co-author Professor David McGilvery at the University of West of Scotland and I wrote for the journal Tourism Geographies published in April 2019 in a special issue entitled critical and disruptive methodologies and we're going to provide the paper link below. So in part one I'm going to briefly outline the theory and the detail of walking methods. In part two I will illustrate the theory and practice by using a case study and the specific urban environment of the Rio 2016 Olympics with some reflections on London 2012 but also my recent work in Tokyo for the 2020 Olympics. And in part three the final part I will reflect on the limitations of this approach generally and specifically with regards to the Olympic cities as an extreme case or extreme environment that serves as a container for complex forms of interaction and organisation. I'll then close part three by crystallising how David and I brought this together in a research project and coupled it with the digital research dissemination strategy. We called the overall approach the Rio zones approach. So part one I'm going to cover the specific physical embodied methods and how these afford the collection of various different data sets, real-time walking observation, photo, video content and field notes. And really talk about how these methods can produce a deeper disruptive interrogation of the socio and spatial processes and implications of organising in these extreme environments. For example a host Olympic city. So by doing so we hope to help create new lines of inquiry and various different data sets that either can be used on their own by a small research team or as part of wider data triangulation efforts with alongside survey work interviewing and stuff like that. So firstly a bit of background and detail of walking methods. Walking methods have been popularised in recent years across a variety of disciplines and fields including anthropology, human geography, sociology and applied in the context of tourism. Walking can provide access to entangled relationships that exist between humans, non-humans, natural and social environments according to Engold of a Gunst 2008. Walking enables observation of course, experience, sense-making of various phenomena and according to Spring Gay and Truman 2017 it's useful for activating problems and concepts in the midst of an event. So a key principle and strand of walking methods focus towards walking is a means of theorising the world through the consideration of everyday pedestrian practices of others. Urban environments are complex environments rich in data and can by walking and associated activities like riding bikes, being in the back of a taxi or other modes of public and private transport. Increasingly, novel mobile methods are being used to generate corporeal, sensual and effective matters. Depending on the temporal frame, mobile methods can enable the observation of issues unfolding at a street level if only for a short amount of time and they include sensory dimensions. These are key as the city is increasingly viewed as a place where heightened collective sensory experiences are managed and curated, particularly with the proliferation of events as a policy tool. A key principle outcome of events as an urban stage that can be modified at will through light, sound or other stimuli and identifying such dynamics key in helping to unpack the systematic description of events, behaviours and artefacts in the social setting chosen for study. So there's also different types of data that you can collect through walking. Of course, observation, participant observation sets. You've got photography, videography that can be geotagged and tagged to the particular time that it's taken place. You can collect lots of field notes and narration, audio narration in the field itself. You can conduct interviews, Vox pops with people in the particular space that you're looking at and you can micro blog. You can go on Twitter, you can share insights and have that dialogue between those that might be interested in your research. In part two, I'll provide specific examples of how all those different types of data have been embedded within this Olympic city context in part two. And the Olympics and other major and mega events like the FIFA World Cup bring significant change to urban locations over a long period of time and greatly impacts the socio-spatial processes, interactions in everyday lives and livelihoods of those that live in and around these hosting environments affected. They are fertile ground for collecting data and for activating social problems in the field. So this is the end of the first part and then we'll go on to part two to continue this three part video series on walking and participatory digital methods. For more theory, references and resources, these will be shared alongside the video.


Here are the reasons why I chose to go into internal medicine. Number one is that you get to take care of patients from start to finish. You get to have somebody who comes in with a complaint like abdominal pain, work on their diagnosis, come up with their diagnosis, take care of them, and then discharge. Number two is that there's lots of organ systems that you get to learn about, take care of, and thus your job very rarely gets bored. Next is the amount of problem solving that's involved. They have a patient who comes in with one complaint that I've diagnosed, and then one day their labs are completely erratic, and now I have to do more problem solving and investigation into that specific situation. Number four is the amount of flexibility. As an internal medicine doctor, you can choose to be a general hospitalist like myself currently. You can also do this to be a specialist. For example, I'll now be training as a cardiologist where I get the opportunity of taking care of patients as a consultant in the hospital. And then finally is the quick training compared to something like a surgeon who may have anywhere from five to seven years after residency. Internal medicine just requires three years after medical school. You can choose to have no more training or like myself go into three more years of additional training to be a specialist like a cardiologist. If you guys enjoyed that breakdown and behind the scenes, and you want to follow me further on my journey, go ahead and hit that like, subscribe, and follow for more content just like this one.


Hi, it's Fritid. Welcome to Above Life Channel. The purpose here is to inspire your spirit and to fill you up with hope. This video is a comment video to your comments. So I do read the comments. I know there's tons and tons of comments and I try my best to read them all if I can. I do my best. I ignore the ones that are negative and I focus on the ones that are more positive and that add value to the conversation. So today I wanna talk specifically about a few of the things, little details and things about the videos themselves as I'm recording that you may or may not have, that may or may not be distracting to you, let's say that. There's some things that, you know, you maybe love my messages or love the videos, but there's some things that are just kind of annoying to you and hey, that's totally fine. Totally get that. And so I want to talk about some of that stuff. All right, so clearing my throat or coughing or sneezing when I have the microphone on. Now I know that could be so annoying and yet there's really nothing I can do about it because sometimes I'm in the very middle of a channel and I have to cough or I have to clear my throat or I sneeze, I'm not going to stop the channel and start it over or something that I've had really great conversation or content about and just scrap it because I sneeze. I'm also not gonna go back and try to edit that out. I don't really like to do that kind of thing. So I wanna keep the channel as pure as possible and I'm a human being so I have stuff like I clear my throat, it happens. And so I'm sorry if that's annoying to you and I don't mean to be disrespectful by not apologizing for that. I try to just keep going if I can. I just swallowed, you might have heard it. But it's better to use a microphone than to just use the microphone on the camera that I'm using or the iPhone that I'm using because the quality is better with a microphone. So I've tried a multiple ways and this is the best way. So there you go. So hearing everything on the microphone. Sorry if it's annoying, it's just the way it is. The other thing that I'm sure probably bugs you a little bit is or maybe you find it humorous. I hope you just find it kind of funny is my accents. Yeah, when I channel it is really tough to do accents. I haven't been to like a dialect coach or speech coach or an acting coach or anything like that. So I have no idea how to properly do an accent. So whether it's from the UK, from Australia or down south, I'm a midwesterner or anywhere, you know, French, whatever it might be. I am in a, when I'm in a channeling state, I might hear it like that. I'll hear their accent, but I can't bring it through always properly. And sometimes it gets mixed up. Like it doesn't sound right. It sounds like sometimes there's an accent, sometimes there's not. And usually that just depends on how my energy is matching to the channel. So when I'm in a channeling situation, my energy, I adjust, all I do is I try to be as pure of a channel as I can and connect with the energy and I reflect, translate the energy out. And when it comes out of me, sometimes it can come out with an accent and sometimes it doesn't and it's not consistent. There's no consistency to that. Sometimes I'll talk to someone that's clearly a Brit and I'm not using an accent. It's just, I'm trying more to be aware of the fact that my purpose is to channel through the energy and the content, not the manner in which or the way in which I'm sharing it. And that has been a tricky part for me because I really want quality. I want to be as authentic as possible and to be able to do accents would be great, but that's just not in my repertoire of skillsets as a person. And because of that then, to answer some of your questions, you've made some comments about, well, can you speak another language when you're channeling or can you sing when you're channeling a famous singer? The answer to that is no, because you can only do, they can only use what I have capacity for in my intellect. Thus far in my spiritual channeling experience, that is where it's been. That is what my experience has been. That is what my understanding is up to this point that I cannot do that. That doesn't mean that it won't happen in the future. It's not something that other people do. I really don't pay attention to what other people do. I focus on me doing the best that I can do to bring forward and translate the energy. And so how the energy comes forward is how it comes forward and it's not consistent. I might channel the same person and they may have a great accent in one of the channels and you might watch one three months later and there's no accent. I have kind of given myself the leeway to not work so hard to try to get the accent and do it word for word, but more so to focus on the energy of the message because I want you to feel it. I want you to feel the spirit because that's what we usually do. That's how you and I, like everyday people, that's how you connect. And that's the most important thing for me is to share the message, not the way I share it or how accurate the accent is.  No. When I channel someone who might have a different dialect or slang or accent or tone to their voice, I do the best I can. And so I'm not trying to be anybody. I'm just sharing the message and trying to be the best channel, the best vessel I can be. So there you go. I have enough work trying to be myself. Thank you, you know what I mean? So there you go. So I just got to put up with the crappy accents, people. That's just the way it is. All right, so there was another question. Let me see. Somebody asked about, oh, somebody asked about one particular video and I'd love to chat about this where I was one of the Freddie Mercury channels which I loved by the way. He's such a joy to channel. His energy is so sweet and so sincere. Love to channel him. And one of the channels I think it was the very first one trying to remember which one it was. I didn't write it down which one but I wrote down the question was there was a comment about, well, how can you say you don't know that he died of AIDS when you say clearly that he died of AIDS and then when you're doing the channel then you say, well, I don't know what he died of. Well, that's not true like you do know. How can you say that? And my response to that is, and I think it's really important to address this is that when I'm in a channel and I'm doing a channel I switch into a different level of my energy. And so trying to recall everything with my human mind and my intellect does not work. It does not work. I can't be in two places at once. I don't, that's not how it works for me. I can't recall stuff. So for example, if you and I have a session and remember I have like many, many, many, many sessions and I do a lot of channeling and we talk one month and then like a month later we talk again and when I connect in it's not always the same. I can't remember what we talked about. I have no idea what we talked about because my mind cannot keep all of these files that are really no mean and no matter for me. Like it's not my purpose to hold those files. It's not my part of my purpose to take up all that capacity to be able to recall everything I've ever heard about a particular person, for example. I just don't, the memory and the recall does not work well for me. And if you don't believe that, that's okay. That's your belief system. But that's just how it works for me. That's the truth. I don't have great recall when I'm doing channeling. So I may say like, well I don't know how you died and then the next minute I'm like, well wait, you died. I feel like you died of AIDS. I know, okay, I know you died of AIDS. When really, when I'm not in a channel, I'm like, oh yeah, you know how Freddie Mercury died. He died of AIDS. Well, he technically didn't die of AIDS. He probably died of the energy of the pneumonia that I felt in his body and the upper part of his chest where he couldn't breathe. He probably died of not being able to breathe pneumonia or heart failure, that kind of a thing. But eh, potato, potato, semantics, right? But I did want to address that because I think that's, I don't think that's a legitimate question or a comment. Well, you say you don't know, but then you say you know. So which is it? It's both. Depends on who's driving my bus. If my mind is in charge and it's Bridget responding and talking to you about things, then yeah, I can recall stuff. But if I'm in a soul space and channeling, I don't, my mind, sometimes I can recall things but it takes a lot of effort to go back and try to remember, go back into the memory part of my brain, access the ego mind, because why would I want to access the ego mind in a channel? Why? No. So that brings up another really good comment that I've seen a few times is about, well, why doesn't she just Google? Why doesn't she, she should know more about these people she's channeling. Why doesn't she share more details? Why aren't you more specific? And I think that's a legitimate question. And my response to that is there are many YouTube channels and great access points for you on Google. You can Google that. If you want to know details, if you want to know specifics about how someone died or when they died or what their family was like, you can Google that. There's a lot of resources on the internet that you can find yourself. That's not the purpose of my channel. I'm not here as an investigative reporter or as a writer or as a journalist. I'm not here to share a litany of details about a person's life that I don't quite, frankly, I'm not interested in. I'm interested in the afterlife. I'm interested in the messages that they learn or that they share from reflecting upon their human life. I'm interested in the energy. I want to convey the energy because I want you to feel it. I want you to recognize that you can connect with energy, with spirit, because you are spirit. And by bringing forward experience and interesting conversations and dialogue with afterlife celebrities, that brings so much value. My offering, my channel, is not about the details about somebody's death or investigating somebody's suspicious death or getting into the drama of any of those things. That's just not, there are plenty of YouTube channels you can watch for those kinds of things. And that's just not mine. And that's okay. That's just the way it is. But I think that's a legitimate question. I used to think, you guys, I used to think that I had to know the details. Like I had to get the details, not know it before I came into a channel, but that I had to like prove that I'm connecting with that particular person. And then I started to realize, why am I spending so much energy trying to tell people what they already know and they can easily find online?  That is not the kind of psychic or medium I am and that's not the purpose of my work. If you want that, go find somebody else. My purpose isn't to convince you to persuade you to change your mind and your belief system because you already got that. That's your stuff. That's your business. You deal with that. I'm not dealing with your belief systems. You take care of that. My job is to bring forward experiences for you so that you can feel energy, so that you can feel spirits, so that you can know that you can connect and have access to your own spirit, your own guidance and celebrities in the afterlife and your grandpa that died in the afterlife and angels and guides and spiritual helpers. Like you can do that. And by giving you these experiences and you have these feelings and you're like, wow, I felt that. That to me is the point of all of this. Like that's the point. That's the kind of work I want to do is I want to give you experiences. And I want to have thought-provoking conversations with afterlife celebrities. I want to learn from them. I want to learn about life from the afterlife. And so that's what Above Life channel is about. So these have been great comments and great questions that have been asked or posted on the comment feeds of many of the videos here at Above Life channel. And I do try to read them. So thank you very much. I do appreciate it. I hope you found this video interesting. I'd like to do some more comment and reply videos as well in the future. So watch for that. I think it just increases the opportunity for us to get to know each other better and for you to understand what it is that Above Life channel is about so that you can really make the most of your time and your experience when you're watching the videos and the channels. Thank you so much for being here. Remember, what do I always say at the end of my videos? This is your life.  I ain't got time for that. There's plenty of evangelicals that can do that for you online, if you want. I'm not here to change any skeptics or make believers out of, I'm not, I am here because this is your life. And I hope that through the inspiring of your spirit and the filling you up with hope that we do every week here at Above Life channel that you'll believe that, that this is your life and it's your job to live it, just, just live it. Thanks for watching.


Welcome to this show. Today we are going to have a discussion on science communication and with me I have Dr. Manaj Kumar Pateria. He is a scientist and director of National Council for Science and Technological Communication from the Ministry of Science and Technology and Government of India. Welcome, sir, to our show. Hello, thank you. Sir, I just want to know regarding the concept of science communication. Science communication is a discipline of the scientific knowledge and expertise. That means taking scientific knowledge from its source to the end user. And the process is not that simple. It has to go through several hands, several minds and several processes. And that is why it is a full-fledged advanced knowledge and discipline and that is science communication. But science communication is not that simple to just flow of information from its source to the end user. It has several different kinds of annotations, several kinds of meanings, several kinds of definitions. Say for the world, the western world especially, where we call it an advanced society, they consider science communication as a tool for enjoyment, as a tool for exploration, as a tool for fun for the children, for the students. But for us, as far as science communication is concerned for the Indian scenario, especially for the developing country's perspective, it is not that only. We have different kinds of objectives through science communication. Like shaping and saving the lives of the people that is our prime concern. People are dying here because they are lacking petty information. For the want of that information, they are even dying. So, science communication has a larger perspective in Indian context. So, science communication from the western perspective is different from the Indian perspective. Could you just tell me regarding the functions? How does it work out in the society? Well, science communication as a subject, if we can consider. So, science communication, as I told you, it is a process of linking the scientific research with the society. Because a lot of work is going on in our laboratories. And scientists are busy with their work in laboratories. They are doing research, they are conducting various studies, they are doing innovations, they are doing scientific or technological developments leading to development of tools, equipments in various processes, do how, know how kind of things. But these developments remain unused until they reach to the end user. So, there comes the role of science and technology communication. That is one aspect. How to link the scientific research or the scientific laboratories to the common man, to the society? That is one aspect. The other aspect, at the same time society also facing various problems. These problems can have scientific solutions. But scientists are not aware of these solutions. Scientists are not aware of these problems. So, the job of a science communicator is also to bringing the problems are being faced by the society to take them to the scientists. It is a two kind of two way of communication. So, it means that the scientific, taking the scientific knowledge from the scientist to the society at the same time taking the scientific problems and scientific issues of the society to the scientist for their subsequent solutions. So, that is very important role of a science communicator. That is the very important role of science communication in our society. Third one is if you, I think our audience or our students and you might have heard that there is a global crisis of declining of interest in science in general. Yes. General decline in our students has been observed all across the world. It is not the case only in India or developing countries. It is the case of all across the world. That is yet another concern. Science communication can also play its role for developing this interest among the students and the youngsters especially. Let me make it very clear over here that the interest in general science is not declining. The interest is declining in taking science as an active career. Taking scientific research or scientific studies as a career. In that perspective, interest is declining. But in general interest of public in science is enhancing. So, that is very particular. I am very particular to make it very clear that interest in science in general is enhancing. But the interest in scientific research or taking science as a career in particular is declining. So, science communication can popularize science, can attract youngsters to its fold. To develop a kind of science excitement among us then. So, for example, like National Council for Science and Technology Communication, the organization where I belong, we have started various programs to excite the minds of youngsters by way of taking them to the laboratories. Arranging meetings of youngsters with the scientists, active scientists, they can stay with the scientists. They can spend some of their quality time with the scientists in the laboratories. They can understand how scientists are working, how they are conducting themselves in the laboratory. At the same time, they are able to develop the interest in science and technology. Subsequently, they can take up scientific studies and scientific research as a career. But have you taken any steps like to popularize science communication at the grassroots level? I mean those areas where like hardly any laboratory facilities are there, the scientific institutions have come up. So, for them, those students, especially in the rural areas, have you taken any steps or kind of anything like how to penetrate into those areas and develop scientific temperament among them, so, any such steps? Oh yes, so you have said two elements together. One, the science popularization among the rural folk and the other aspect is inculcating scientific temperament. Because scientific temperament is the root cause of the entire development. Scientific temperament gives us a rational ability to analyze things, to perceive things in a proper way and to take decisions without any bias, without any prejudice, without any pressure, without any fear and without any greed, without anything like rational and very specific decision, precision decision you can take if you apply the scientific temperament. At the same time, while taking a decision and you are using your scientific temperament, so, only scientific temperament is not sufficient unless you have the sufficient information. So, you must have information back up with you while taking a decision. So, you require a best combination of the knowledge, the information as well as your right kind of attitude that comes through scientific temperament. So, best combination of these two elements holds the key for the overall development and for that purpose we are organizing various programs from NCSTC and with the help of other organizations like you must have heard about Bharat Jan Vidyan Jattha that was first organized in 1987. Subsequently, it was organized in a different name. It was Bharat Jan Vidyan Jattha. It was organized in 1992. And after that we realized that instead of having the national jattha program we must organize simultaneously some regional jattha also. So, from time to time we are organizing these jattha and these jattha have a kind of mixed media approach. It's a kind of assemblage and the jattha people they go around the country from village to village and they are using various kinds of mass media. This jattha was a development when there was no multimedia technology was not available at that time. So, we used to call, we were using different kind of mass media. It could be a distribution of a booklet or a brochure or delivering a lecture talking to the people, man to man contact, personal contact, public relations. Then at the same time screening some film or some radio something play of a radio skit. So, we were using various modes of communication including various media. Since the advent of this new technology, the digital media, multimedia we have changed that name and now we call it mixed media approach. Because if we call it multimedia, we continue calling multimedia then people can misunderstand. So, we are using this mixed media approach for educating people for linking these scientific messages to the people. But there should be an expansion of information communication technology at the same time together with what you call the spring text materials which is a congregation of different medias. Yes. So, but what do you prefer, which media is best for propagating? All of them. I should not say which is the best. All of them and the key is the combination of all of them. For inculcating this information to the learners and students do you have any specific criteria like who should impart to them? Are there any specific trainers for this purpose or any generals like creatures? Oh yes, that is very important question and that is really very important. I will be happy to address that question for the advantage of our dear students and the listeners and the viewers. Who could be a science communicator? So, a lot of debate is going on the world over and generally there has been the debate that one segment of the experts think that a science communicator must have a degree in science and technology. So, they feel that it is a prerequisite for becoming a science communicator or becoming a science communication expert. At the same time the other set of people they believe that no it should not be a prerequisite for having a degree in science or technology. The only ability that is required that should be required for becoming a science communicator is to be able to understand the scientific jargon, to be able to appreciate that scientific contents and to be able to deliver and to express in a manner so that it becomes comprehensible to the common man. So, that kind of ability is required. So, not the science degree but the communication expertise is required but at the same time he or she should be able to understand the scientific jargon. Scientific jargon I mean in the science and scientific contents you will find lot of technical terminologies, technical subjects, technical terms, technical words, technical vocabulary. So, that has to be changed in a manner that has to be explained in a manner because you are dealing not only with experts you are dealing with the common man even illiterate people. So, how to convey these complex scientific messages to the common man those who have not undergone with the scientific training. So, that ability is very much required. So, these people should become a science communicator. For becoming a science communicator it is not required. General, that is general view, general view is there that science communication, science degree or technology degree should not be a prerequisite for becoming a science communicator. Even a scientist if he or she has a bent of mind for communication can become a communicator. At the same time a communicator or a journalist if he or she has an influence towards science can become a science communicator. Even a person who has done MSC or BSC working in bank, working with railway or as a businessman he or she can also undertake science communication as a hobby or as an amateur activity. So, it is open to all and mostly people in this area are coming from a passion. They have some kind of attitude towards science communication but this is not the age we can only work along on passion. So, we have to develop a scientific expertise especially in science and technology communication and we require a trained manpower in this area for developing enough science communicators not only in Hindi and English but in all regional languages including Assamese. So, for that purpose we have started various courses in science communication. We have started short term programs, training programs on science communication like science writing for radio, science writing for television, science writing for folk media, science writing for digital media, science writing for interactive media. So, all these things we are doing through NCSTC. Yeah, you have said that we use different media to reach out to the people especially about science communication but can you just tell me the format of writing? I am going to like whether it is print media, electronic media and radio how does the format need to be to propagate the science based reports and messages. Okay, I will present a kind of five, I will tell you the five elements of science communication. So, what are these five elements especially our students can understand clearly. The five elements of science communication are number one there should be some scientific contents because we read a lot of material in newspapers or in mass media we find out of material in the name of science communication in the name of science and technology but there is hardly any science. So, there should be some science stuff should be there. Some scientific content should be there. Some science principle has to be explained over there. So, that is the first requirement. The second is the language should be very simple, very lucid it should be understandable to the common man. So, you are not addressing the literary people you are addressing the common people. So, your language should not be literary your language should be very common, very simple and small paragraphs, small phrases, small sentences so that is the requirement for the language. The third element is you must address the how and why part of the science subject whatever you are dealing with. So, third element is how and why you have to explain it is how and why it is happening, how it is happening. So, that analysis should be there. Then fourth is analysis. What is your contribution? What is the contribution of a communicator? So, that is more important for science communication because generally science communicators are blamed as the pleasurisers. Like you are taking information from here you are taking information from there and giving it to the media. So, what is your contribution? Your contribution comes only when you are able to add some analysis because you being an enlightened person you are able to see what your audience is unable to see. So, your role should be to be able that your audience is able to see what you are watching what you are able to perceive. So, that communication must come through your analytical power and fifth and very important point is humor. It should be interesting. It should be interesting. It should be lucid. It should be humorous. So, combining all these five elements you can make a science communication piece very effective and very meaningful. Now, how to do that? These are five points, five elements. Now, I will come to further five points of science communication. For any kind of science communication you have to have a topic. So, first element is, first point is you have to select a topic. So, you have to find a topic of science communication and mostly the topics come from the current affairs. If something is happening today, suppose there is some earthquake or there are floods. So, you can take up the issues which are important to the daily lives of the people which are important for the day to day affairs of the people. So, first one you have to select a topic like if there is an announcement of Nobel prizes then you can prepare a writer or you can take up an interview of a scientist who is working in that area where some other scientist has got a Nobel prize. So, you can prepare an interview or you can write a report. So, selection of topic. Then, second one is selection of language. So, take up the language where you feel comfortable. You can write an asmese. You can write in English and whatever. Incidentally, India has 22 regional languages. So, you can write in any one or two of the languages where you feel comfortable. Then, third one is you have to select your media for which media you are writing. Whether you are writing for print media or you are writing for broadcast media. That includes radio and television. Then, whether you are writing for the folk media or whether you are writing for puppet show or you are writing for a skit or you are writing for theater or drama or street play, whatever. Or a folk song, folklore. So, whatever the media you are using or you are preparing for a presentation for a management contact, for a personal contact. So, these kinds of media you have to identify. Fourth point is you have to identify your target audience because if you are very clear in your mind that with whom you are going to talk for whom you are writing for whom you are preparing your communication then your mind will be very clear because if you are communicating with the experts your way of presentation, way of communication way of conversation would be different. If you are talking to a common man your way of working, way of communication will be different from the experts. If you are coming further down you are talking to children then your way of presentation will be different. So, you have to identify your target audience. Then fifth and last point is you have to identify the format. Format is very important. Generally the science communicators and science writers, they used to write very hard, very long, very boring articles. So, we must discourage the writing articles because in this age of dynamism in this age of innovation nobody likes boring articles. There should be innovation and communication also. Incidentally in literature we have various formats of writing. We can write a story that is called science fiction. Science fiction is very common, very popular. It is very easy to understand even for the children you can communicate through science fiction, writing, science stories, science points, science drama, science interview, science discussion. Satire can also be written on scientific themes. So, survey based articles, features is very popular format for science communication. So, there are many formats for science communication in general. But if you go for the TV, go for the radio, there are some subsequent divisions are also there like documentary, doku drama, discussion, interviews. So, a lot of and that is not the end. It is up to you, you can evolve, you can develop your own format. That is also welcome. So, always look for some kind of creativity. And that creativity will come from within. Sir, I just want to know regarding this, can you just give a brief overview of like health and environmental communication since these are the very most important parts of science communication. So, can you just give a brief review of it. When we call it science communication, so we generally mean all kinds of sciences. It includes agriculture, it includes physics, chemistry, zoology, botany, earth sciences, all kinds of including environment and medical science also. But since we have asked very particularly about environment and medical communication, so I must say that generally these environmental and medical communication they have a risk. And the risk is that generally these most of the medical industry is governed by the industrial houses. Similarly, in the there are market driven forces in environmental aspects also. Like you must have heard about some new GMOs, genetically modified foods, genetically modified organisms, genetically modified crops, fruits, etc. So, there are a lot of other other connecting pressures and risks. So, a science environmental communicator or a health communicator should be cautious while reporting any such environmental or medical issues. Because sometime there have been instances not only in India but at global level also that even researchers, even communicators, even those who are lobby lobby workers they have the links with the industries who are supporting, who are funding these kinds of researches and subsequently to promote their products. So, a cautious science communicator, a cautious environmental communicator, a cautious medical communicator should be very, very, very, very careful while reporting on all these issues. That is the only difference I could make at this point as a general science communicator was a specialized science communicator. Otherwise the only ability that I can recommend that is to be able to underestimate the scientific jargon. Like environment also a kind of science and applied science. Similarly medical science is also a kind of science communicator. So by way of developing that kind of expertise only thing you should be valuable about the market forces. So you should not be campaigning for them. You should not be writing on behalf of them. So that has to be made very clear. As far as health communication is concerned like we have seen in most of the areas and especially in rural areas like our society is steeped into all these religious dogmas and superstitious and so on. So people like the hesitant to go and accept the scientific innovations and discover and use it in their own day to day lives. So like this is in the mindset of the people. So how do we change this mindset so that they accept it and utilize it for the daily needs and uses. I think that is also very important and how to change the mindset of the people because those who are and generally I used to say that these age old superstitions they have dual roles. One at one end they are hindering our developmental process at the same time they are also impacting our day to day decision making like if the snack bite is there. So people go to some ojha or some self style dogman or somewhere. Rather they should go to anti-venom injection. So our programs should be built around in a way so that we can inculcate a kind of understanding into the minds of the people that we should not approach such people rather we should go to the hospital and get this. And this stage is scenario is changing earlier you can recall that earlier if there was a small pox then people used to go to some goddess and have some casual rituals but now they are going to the hospitals and they have the vaccines and most of the people they are getting their children vaccinated so the changes are coming but these are age old these notions it will take some time to have a change. Incidentally I will tell you something very interesting if you remember I don't know whether you were there at that time or not in 1980 there was a total solar eclipse it was visible from various parts of India Northern India also and most of the people they were confined to their homes, their offices they did not go out and everybody was just keeping themselves inside their houses curfew like situation streets after the advent of NCSTC various media houses CSIR efforts NGOS efforts, a collective efforts that has changed the scenario now look at the total solar eclipse that happened in 1995 and during 1995 it was in October sometime around Deepavali and it happened in the morning and we have arranged a campaign across the belt of totality in Rajasthan and there is a superstition that during the eclipse you should not eat anything and deliberately we have arranged the breakfast at that time the eclipse has started simultaneously we started the breakfast and the rural folk who were confined into the houses, they came out and they also told us sir we also want to see this how and throw these mylar film filters this spectacular event and they were very happy then came 1999 and there was yet another total solar eclipse and total solar eclipse was going its own way people were going on their own way nobody bothered so this was a change in a span of something like 20 years you look at the situation of 1980 now you look at the situation of 1999 and subsequently 2009 we also had solar eclipse and you can remember, well remember that there was not that kind of suppression that prevailed two decades before and like what do you think about the scope and the development of this particular branch of communication which we call science communication especially in north-eastern part of India from this perspective is there any scope for development for propagating this among the masses is still there I am very happy to notice that north-eastern part of India is very rich in science communication I have seen many people are writing science fiction here many people even have prepared encyclopedia here so this popular science magazines are also available in north-eastern region so I am very happy with the progress that the north-eastern people have made especially in terms of science and technology communication in north-eastern region and like other areas north-east also requires some development and I am happy that KK Handek State Open University has started various courses on science and technology communication and I think all these efforts will go a long way to develop a trained manpower in the area of science communication who should be able not to meet the current challenges as well as the future challenges also and meet the regional requirements as well as the national international requirements in the area of science and technology communication so I am very hopeful and optimistic about that ok sir thank you so much for the wonderful discussions and communication I am delighted to be with you so that's all we come to the end of our discussion thank you