Iran War and Global Effects

g audio newspaper for a visual world. Hello buuglers and welcome to issue four thousand three hundred and seventy nine of the Bugle, the world's leading competitive yoyoing The Industrial fruit canning indndustry Crossover podcast also recently voted the podcast most likely to misrepresent what it does as a show in the opening fifteen seconds of an episode. I'm AndyZlzan here in the shed of Truth and distraction in South of the horse out the windows, it sppider? No's nothing And joining me today from all the currently available major hemispheres of the world From the south and the east, it's Alice Fraser and from the north and the west, Josh Gondlman, hello to both of you and thanks for spanning the entire planet for me You're very welcome, Andy, Hello vgers Thank you, Andy, for having us and thank you for letting us have you surrounded How are you Jos I'm well, thank you. Yeah, just it's been nice weather here. So I've been taking my dog out who she's a twenty pound pug and she likes to fight all the other dogs in the neighborhood. So it keeps me sharp and keeps me off my phone. so I'm grateful to her for that. A not are there official rankings for the loc local dog fighting? or is that just something that you keep in your head I would say my dog is near the bottom of the rankings in talent, but near the top in enthusiasm I can take you a long way Yeah She's kind of the roudy of dog fighting Alice, how you're just back from back from Sydney Yes, I got back from Sydney this morning, which was I had a lot of fun at the Sydney Comedy Festival doing my passion for fashion show. and then I'm about to begin the long planned pincer movement of Josh and I coming in to London on the eighth of June and then doing a bunch of shows before Edinburgh in London and the rest of the UK. I'm going to move my tactical I'm going to do my tactical part of this aggressive incursion Reolonization, I'm calling it as long as gosh Keep telling me you're right behind me with your angry dog leave me hanging, bro I don't think I could take all the Bits on my own You and me and Maggie the Bg, we're flipping the script We are recording on the eighteenth of may twenty twenty six on this day in the year three hundred and thirty two. Emperor Constantine the Great announced a free Distributions of food to the people of Constantinople, also known as the birth of woke Setting humanity on a path of dependency. on the state that has led us to this horrible state must stop reading the Daily teelegraph As always, a section of the buglist going straight in the bin this week. We have a commemorative pullout section marking David Attenenborgh's hundredth birthday. we were off last week In the week they Atam returned one hundred, but we've teamed up with Sir David to produce an exclusive audio commemorative pullout to mark his entry into the well the second U century of his scheduled millennium of existence. And we have David's own top tenens exclusive for the bugle ten creatures he most enjoys snooping on whilst they're having sex. He's got a weird job. ten animals he would like to hunt down, slay with his bare hands and teeth and eat raw if he was an apex predator And his top ten outtakes, which include when he said what's black and white and red all over? That fucking Zebra. Jeez, that was a massy one alsoso when he said, let's be honest, the naked mole rat is the kind of creature that makes you think Darwin was off his fucking chops on the shrooms And also famously a bit that I might have been broadcast on the BBC when he said personally, I couldn't actually give a shit about dolphins Massively overrated for me, the evolutionary indecisive fish mammal mash upp and failed mermaid, Make a choice, your herring bothering losers Starwiny and love Ch of the shark, the Jetsky in the Garaga counter U That's quite what the BBC we were looking for And also perhaps his most famous outtake chomp chomp, chom, O O Ow yum, yum, yum, another successful morning for Herbert the Hyena I mean so Oh, I would love to hear David Attenborgh's top ten list of animals that when he's observing without interfering on them getting eaten, he feels nothing I think that's all of them That's all of them I don't know if I can forgive David Anenborgh for not taking the brief window of opportunity that he had to marry Queen Elizabeth It is it is what this country so desperately needed Um ye King David Yeah, exactly. He learned from the Queen and didn't try to reach his sanctuy in a blaze of glory. He just patiently ticked off the years rather than trying to get there in one shot And we also have an exclusive report on Sir David Atburgh's special hundredth birthday commemorative event of the Albert Hall Last weekend, which featured several of Sir David's co stars from his long career, including Hundreds of the animals who' appeared in these shows Sadly, but predictably it descended into complete chaos, although police in London have now reported that all the major carnivores have now been recaptured. either by the police themselves or by local kebab jobs, and that most audience members escaped at worst only slightly nibbled. and we can confirm after the event For those who had been worrying that polar bears can indeed get the rappers off penguins but you don't want to watch them do it Absolutely gruesome. and that might be a reference that is specific to people who to chocolate bars in the United Kingdom in the nineteen eighties But the nichice reference we've never shied away from it on this show I'll tell you what, it's niche, but it's vivid It really paints a picture. Y. anyway, the atom resection in the bin story this week. Kir Starmer is let me just check Still Prime Minister, as we record, you can never quite tell from Day to day, hour to hour or minute to minute in this country these days. for our British listeners, if you've been having a strange feeling over the last couple of weeks that our politics has become impatient, infantile, irresponsible, and Inurable that you're watching the slow decay of democracy well You might just be onto something we are just we are not even two years into this current labor government who won a big majority. in the twenty twenty four general election as exclusively reported on the bugle And Starmer is now clinging onto power as if he's been in for about six terms and has started multiple illegal wars around the world and started kidnapping children and selling them on for a profit on the slly. It's a very strange time politically. So I turn to you two for an objective outsider's view on exactly how fucking mad British politics is right now Alice I mean, I thought Australian politics was bad for spills of reigning Prime Minister. There are more sort of threatened spills and spills and firings and hirings and resignations and tricks and backstabbings than more spills than a bunch of butter fingers in an earthquake simulator holding champagne flutes I mean this is I feel like them the central problem with politics is that it keeps selecting for people who love politics. Who's ever said,, I love my work. We're so effective because the workplace is so full of politics. But these are either people who love politics or they're wildly disillusioned people who got reluctantly into politics in the hopes that there would be a pathway towards making real effective change of the world, but then came up against the fact that in order to get anything done, you also need to be good at politics, the thing that gets in the way of getting anything done One labor official said to Stara, Why are we even doing this? You can't go around saying the PM has to leave and we don't know who will replace him. It's wildly irresponsible It's not just wildly irresponsible, it's also increasing evidence from my ongoing hypothesis that democracy cannot survive the internet. Like in the same way as like the traditional model of aristocracy did not survive the printing press. L sure there's still aristocrats who sort of but they're mostly vestigial, performative, humiliating remnants of a failed system beholden to the push and pull of brute capital in the way that governments increasingly seem Also to be. like printing press, you're like, Oh, aristocrats are people too. ye people we could pull out of their houses and stick pitchfalk in. And then the internet is like all of these institutions Full of people. Have you heard about people? They're awful It's true at this point, you're like silent green, you know, those folks probably had it come in Well what do they think What do they think about pronouns? So that great This is I mean, like, I do look upon this chaos with a little bit of jealousy from my side of the Atlantic Ocean because what I see is a leader who has become unpopular and being potentially on the verge of being replaced through democratic policy that he acccedes to, That's the dream over here, we are Like, wow, your dysfunction is so functional as I often feel And I mean, you had a u Health minister retire from government. When RFK Jr. has to be removed from office kicking and screaming, it's going be so hard to do that because of all the supplements he's taken and all the weird animal bones he has around to like cling to for purchase Well, yes, the health secretary you talked about was was streeting Qat as health quQat, I think is the correct word, isn't it? last Thursday saying he lost confidence in Kist Damma's leadership. This followed disastrous election results in the local Elections in England and national elections in Scotland and Wales And Star has clearly failed to win over a sceptic public and a septic Labour partarty And he's come out fighting the Prime Minister, come out fighting like a potato in a compost bin and vaguely still there, but long term, it doesn't look tremendously good. He warned that any potential leadership contest and West Streeting has says that he will stand for leader of the Labour Party would quotes plunge us into chaos whichich given the state of the Labor Party is a bit like plunging the Titanic into the North Atlantic now in the year twenty twenty six Um So It's quite hard to see how it's come to this so quickly. It's something we've sort of discussed in previous issues of the buule, but People clearly tired in this country of the sort of chaos we had with Brexit and then Boris Johnon and then Liz Truss and Kis Stmer represented A kind of dull, managerial technocratic option Yet unfortunately, he's managed to be dull, managerial and technocratic in a completely chaotic way. So in a way, I guess that's something for everyone. And as I said, it's less than two years since Stara won a mandate from the voting public at the election, albeit with our first past the post voting system, one of those weird half asked conditional mandates in which the elector clearly had its fingers crossed behind its back. He got about twenty percent of the overall vote thirty three percent of the actual votes were a low turnout and still got a massive majority, which is essentially the public saying, we're really not sure about this. Like using a dating app at your own wedding. It's not sending the right signals, Oh, speaking of dating apps, half asked mandate was the original post grinder Yeah I feel like some people promise a full alaet up U I I love the u Streeting has pushed for Britain to rejoin Europe, which I think like obviously was not for Brexit, but that's like what an alarming thing for someone to leave the government and be like, actuallyually, we need a whole bigger government figuring out our government. That's like being like, I bought a new car and then I got a tow truck to put it on. and we only drive around on the tow truck. Well, in terms of rejoining Europe, it's next month will be ten years since Brexit which happened during the bugle hiatus between the the John Oliver era and the The well, what everyone clearly thinks of as the Alice Fraser Josh Gondalman plus others era. Brit, I not don't think this nation is thirsting to rejoin Europe Now ten years on from the vote And I think it's what five or six years since Brexit actually came into effect. But I do think a significant majority of this country is thirsting to go back in time to before Brexit, which is definitely wanting to rejoin Europe and possibly equally achievable to be honest. I mean, clearly, you know, Brexit It has not been an unqualified success as yet. I think even the most ardent Brexit fans would acknowledge that And I think what we have to do we have to give it time It's probably too early to reopen those still open wounds still further. What we need to do is let Brexit take its course. And if it's going really, really well after forty years thenen we abandon it and rejoin the EU. That's basically the principle by which Brexit happened itself in the first place. we're street wre a letter of resignation in which he said Where we need vision, we have a vacuum and where we need direction, we have drift Um whichich is, you know, a fair, probably a fair criticism of Kiss Tama. but in terms of you know what you want in politics, vision and direction necessarily what you want. As Josh, you were hinting at in America, Donald Trump has a vision and direction, the problems are the hallucinations that he's seeing and the fact that where he's going is as fast as possible simultaneously off a cliff and into an iceberg. So you vision and direction, not necessarily good things politically. Wa is hearing you put it that way has given me some hope because I have watched the Fast and the Furious franchise since its inception. and I would have said after the Fast and the Furious I three, what they really needed was direction, but what they got was drift. And actually that was quite a fun movie, even though it didn't have l a minute Direction and drift also Absolute keys for successful spin bowling in in test cricket. Benys that's a different show Um, The question now for Labor is, you whether it does seem that a leadership challenge will happen at some point It might be a few months away because they have to wait for Andy Burnham former Cabinet mininister, current mayayor of Manchester to get back into Parliament because he's not currently an MP although an MPN Manchter has said he will step down and allow Burnham to stand, But even then, they might not win that by election because they won at the election in twenty twenty four with not a particularly big majority. So basically It's chaos, but Labour is faced with this unappetizing job. I guess as the old proverb goes Don't shoot the horse midstream But as the other old proverb goes, don't continue to ride a drowning horse midstream. Either way They're getting worse basically out of the frying pan into an almost identical frying pan, whatever they choose to do One feature that we always get whenever we have sort of political Uheavals like we're going through at the moment is journalists standing in Downing Street shouting questions at politicians as they walk into and out of ten Downing Street. And obviously the politicians never answer those questions But those questions You still get shouted, Are you going to resign? Who's going to be leader? all that kind of stuff I think it might be time for the journalist to just try a different approach and just start shouting quiz questions Instead based was the name of the Argentinian footballer who sent off in the nineteen sixty six Wor Cup quarter final against Eland at Wemmbley Or just wild conspiracy theories, Minister, is it true that King Charles is plotting with the army to bring down Parliament and reintroduce a proper fucking monarchy or just, you know, questions such as Minister, what is love And yeah, they might get more of a More of a reaction questions that we're asking our leadership over here is which one of these pictures is an elephant, Mr. President And he's doing great, he says. He says he always knows which one is the elephant, and there's no problem with him taking that test several times I mean another thing stara struggles with is how hard it is to turn round perceptions in modern politics, particularly from with a very hostile media that there's even the left wing media didn't like him because he was not left enough and there's no he's quite a hard politician to warm to and the right wing media doesn't like him because hiss labour and fundamentally Kirst armer could save a drowning puppy from a river and give it back to its distraught eight year old owner And most of the British media would report it as here Starmer tries to feed weeping childild to Carnivore. So it's hard for him s out It's tough. I mean, the whole business of politics is tough as some of the newly elected reform councillors are discovering. Well, yeah, so reform did pretty well in the local elections, but they do seem to have plateaued somewhat. No sign that they can get beyond the twenty five percent to thirty percent of voting voters who support the things that reform support that are massively unpopular. So it's hard to see how reform can become more more popular. But yes, so a reform council has s. Um Because it turns out that being a councselor is quote, dull and boring Alice, that's I mean Is this just a rare blast of actual honesty from a politician Well yeah, I mean, it will sort of couch in lies. I don't know. I feel like this is the absolute sort of pinnacle of the downside of the millennial obsession with authenticity that has just come back to bite us all in the ass because this guy said do I really want to do this? It's the pay is so poor for all you do Eless boring meetings. you know, basically just throwing up his hands at the whole concept of what it is to be involved in local government. And it makes it really makes you wonder what he thought he was getting into What did he expect local government to be. I mean, it is these are the people who run the bins and clean up the dead posossum on main Street. Like this is the that is the job. And then old ladies call you and ask you where Kevin is and you don't know who Kevin is. you have to pretend you know who Kevin is because a votess a vote and she sounds like she might last another three years. Like this is The nightmare of local politics. And we can't move for dead possums on the roads over here,. He's the only person remaining who hears parliament and still thinks he's going to be hanging out with George Clinton. That was what he thought he was being elected to. It is, but that that's what the job is. It's dull and it's boring. and we want dull, boring, competent people to do it and reform like this guy has this on arch consonservative attitude, right? where they don't want to govern, they don't want to make a government that works for people. These people that far right just want to be racist and on TV. and it's only a shame that he retired too late to get booked for the Netflix roast of Kevin Hart. I mean, who would have thought that the everyday drudgery of trying to actually help people in the area you represent and trying to find some actual money to pay for some actual stuff to be done was less fun than barking on about immigrants ring the country and twerking an imaginary statue of King Arthur. No one could possibly have foreseen that. H his leader Nigel Farage is facing a parliamentary investigation after receiving a A five million pound donation from a Thai based crypto billionaire with which he instantly bought a one and a half million pound house for and is now facing a parliamentary investigation for not declaring the gift, which happened before he was an MP Um, But I guess you know, like he who has never received a five million pound donation withith no strings attached from a dubious offshore crypto billionaire and then bought a house with the money cast the first stone. You know've all We've all been in very similar positions you know, I hate to u I hate to look at everything through these red, white and blue stars and stripes glasses that I have on Hey, hey, all our flags are red white and blue Josh. That's I'm sorry That's why I specified stars and stripes. We got stars too, Motherfuck. That's fair, but we got way more stripes.. I'm getting really competitive about this. Yeah You know what? then maybe we all feel the same way. from where I'm sitting, I look at someone receive a five million dollars bribe and only spend one point five million dollars on a new house and I think restraint. It is like such a it is so obvious, right? And after years I think this is really a clarifying news story because after years of arguing whether the blockchain whatever be a viably useful technology and whether cryptocurrency serves a purpose other than as like a speculative asset, it's nice to have settled into like kind of an international consensus Yeah, the answer is yes cryptocurrency in the blockch chain exists to make bribery simple and intuitive. It has done for corruption, what generative AI has done for the worst and most factually incorrect pros in human history. It has just made it possible at the stroke of a key. I don't I also, I'll say this, I don't think Fge should live in that fancy new house. And to put it in terms the Reform Party will understand, I think he should go back where he came from U So If Stalmer is turfed out of office at some point later this year It will continue this insane prime ministerial churn Let put it in context. U Prince George, the son of Prince William, who's the son of the current king, who was the son of the previous queen Prince George born in twenty thirteen, Kir Stahmer would be his seventh prime mininister And he's not even thirteen years old yet. So I mean it's possible that he might receive his seventh Prime mininister on the day of his Baar Mitzf. Sorry, that's not public domain. Prince William has Well, he had five prrime ministers By the time he was thirty four By the time he was thirteen He'd only had two, but now here is the key point of difference. So in his first thirteen years, William had two prime ministers George set for seven But William had had nine different England men's test cricket captains and George On four. So we've had a lot more stability in the really important public positions, but the Prime Ministers have been chaos I think the real problem with democracy is elections, Andy The winning of the election is sort the process of winning an election in the modern s of bribery and corruption ecosystem almost renders you entirely unfit for office by the time you acquire it. So I reckon, I don't know, we need to figure out a new system, maybe some sort of bloodline situation Rong. Yeah being in the pie random allocation lottery Thnder Dome. I've got got I've got a whole list of options They all sound preferable, to be honest to what we have. at the moment. And of course, we have the option there, as I mentioned earlier,ing King Charles, we have a monarchy Ready to go. That's been sitting there since Pretty much the late sixteen forties thinking, lookook, you made a mistake. It's time to give us full uncontrolled executive power. againgain and he he did the Kings speech last week. So when they have the state opening of Parliament one of the you know bizarre remnants of medieval csplay that we still have in this country is the king is trooped into parliament, sits in the House of Lords, and reads out the government's slate of policies It's basically constitutional karaoke, someone else's words, not the best delivery and Probably best, listent it when not completely sober H we have the royal mumble, as is also known, and unveiled a raft of government plans might not be the most durable of rafts in the current stormy political seas and also unveiled a new facial expression Charles, which was cononstitutional exustboro Baffled them. And I think he found it particularly hard this time Um King Chuck because he's just come back from that trip in America that we talked about recently where he was cracking gags. He was cracking his historical gags about the burning down the White House, about the Boston Tea Party. and now he's back home and he just has to read out a l list of stuff that no one thinks is actually going to happen in the dullest possible tone of voice. And you could see that in his eyes that that that sense. I used to be someone We miss some It's fun to have a royalty that's not in charge of anything. That's what was so wonderful about Prince. He just made good music. Um And J just quickly, amongst the headline policies in the King' speech were the well would be headline policies if policies were ever headlines now But and by now, I mean at any point in the last ten years Um The European Partnership Bill, also known as the Mbe nextext time, start sewing your parachute before you jump out of the aeropplane bill The Immigration and Asylum Bill, also known as the Unworkable Local Solutions to Unsolvable Global probleblems Bill the Digital ID. They're bringing in plans to entroce compulsory digital ID, which will have access to the inner recesses of all of our British souls and send us real time percentage Britishness readings to our mobile phonone so we can keep tap on exactly how British we are at all times and they've also reached a compromise under which digital ID will be compulsory but only for people planning to commit benefit fraud or other crimes Education for all Bil. That sounds like a fucking bad idea. frrankly, we need education for none. Education only upsets people and the NHS modernization bill which will streamline medical data with the introduction of a single patient record, who the single patient will be is to be decided by a TV reality show with the illest people in the country pitching to a panel of celebrity medical judges We'll have full updates on how all those bills do on their process through whatever's left of Parliament Over the next ten years on the bugle Donald Trump meets someone he's obviously scared of news now and Josh Exciting times in America. Donald Trump has been to China U for a meeting with president cricket team of sorry, President eleven sorry, President Xi got there eventually I'm in it U it was I mean, it was a tough one I found watching Trump and G made me think, ye if I was a fly on a wall at that meeting Whose sandwich would I vomit on first? It was a tough call U But how did Trump's visit go down in America? I mean There was an element of awkwardness about it I thought Yeah It it didn't seem especially effective either. Like these meetings, much like Trump's hair lot of pomp without much going on underneath. that The talks didn't bring the Iran war any closer to ending unless you're counting the sense that every passing moment brings us slightly closer to the inevitable heat death of the universe Bide Elon Musk and Pete Hgseth to China with him to meet President Xi, which is like a Mount Rushmore of people who think they should be on Mount Rushmore. People talk about a nightmare blunt rotation. This goes beyond nightmare and is a full sleep paralysis conclave The Chinese military band played YMCA which is one of Trump's favorite songs. Although if you didn't know that fact about the song, you would assume China had amassed a powerful gay army that it was threatening the United States with. The kind instince ancient Greece U and Jop Some who doesn't drink was allegedly spotted sipping champagne with President Xi Jinping. and as the old saying goes, what happens in China becomes whatever the Chinese word for compromat is Trump said he describes he as a friend which is like, you know, it it's controversially C G a friend. And it's like, I don't even believe that because there's like no pictures of Trump She and Jeffrey Epstein all together. I was like, Oh that's how you know someone is a friend of Donald Trump. And in a departure, this was like a little bit alarming. in a departure from U S. diplomatic tradition didn't bring up China's human rights violations. you know, notot even to say like Good job with the human rights violations or, do you have any tips on how I could commit more human rights violations? whichich I think must have hurt President X when that didn't happen? Well, yeah. you think that's, if you're like a journalist, you're interviewing Roger Federer getting through a whole interview without mentioning his tennis career. It'site. It's like, hey, I've been working really hard on this stuff Well it is so bizarre because this whole interaction was marked by sort of two facedness on both sides because on the one hand, you have the Chinese people being allowed on their extremely censored social media sites to openly mock Donald Trump even while this diplomatic event was taking place. And then at the same time, Donald Trump is shaking hands with President Xi and then and not mentioning the human rights violations and also you calling him and a friend, while the entirety of the American economy is currently precariously balanced on top of the AI, boosterism, hype train, accelerationist do mechanism, which is entirely the argument for that is just, o, if we don't do it, China will and they'll eat us. So it feels extremely like I I don't know how to say it. what's the point of this conversation? Well said to Trump, we should be partners It might not be language Trump is overly familiar with. The art of the partartnership, not amongst his many book titles, partartnership for Trump partnership generally involves elements of give and take orr as Trump's career suggests that for him give and take means you give he takes. So it's hard to know, you know, and obviously two big big big characters again update you on for those of you who've who've not heard of them Donald Trump is the punchline in the classic joke What do you get when you cross the excesses of unaccountable basically unregulated free reign capitalism with a crumblingly outdated democracy and a self interested, irresponsible media And B And Xiin Jinping is the freedom of expression skeptic, professional accusations of genocide ignorer bravely overcome a longstanding human rights intolerance to become the undisputed Taylor swwift of the Chinese Communist Party. So yeah, big characters meet. And China has spent much of this millennium giggling quietly to itself about how fucking easy it's proving to continue its steady blood towards being the world's number one power. Um I don't know what they chatted about. I mean, how's your wall obviously would have been a bit of a conversation starter. What is the Greenland of Taiwan exchange rate right now? And whoo were you picturing asking, how's your wall? It couldould go either way, couldouldn't? Yeah could go either way U And obviously sharing tips on her care and stifling media opposition. But that a Taiwan issue was something that was rather skirted around President Xi told Trump that disagreement over Taiwan could be, and I quote, telling your auntie and your uncle toddle off and fetch the commemorative brass porcupine that you've just whacked off the top of a mountain with a golf club I might have overranslated that. I think more simply it could send relations down a dangerous path And the American position on Taiwan has been described as strategic ambiguity. Essentially America is a little bit sort of hamstrg at the moment in terms of what possible sort of threats or leverage it can use against China given that They are in a current state, America of struggling to impose martial will on opponents with a barely functioning military, so getting On the wrong side of the world's biggest military power seemeems like something worth avoiding, especially now China no longer make all their soldiers out of terracotta, which makes them so much more flexible The world being overwhelmed by technological based panic news now. Alice, you always keep us up to date on the well the latest progress of technology rightly disposing humans to the dustbin of history where we so conclusively belong And well, a couple of stories this week, including Atlanta in the USA being well overwhelmed by several driverless let's talk it up dozens. hundred thousandousands of driverless cars rampaging around terrified neighborhood as the future. came to America last week Yeah, it was more than a handful of driverless cars. I mean, that's not a very particularly useful metric given that a car is more than a handful in itself. Nearly fifty driverless cars descended on for apparently no reason on an Atlanta neighborhood and just sort of drove around menacingly in the background I mean, at that point, you're sort of hoping that there's an ex boyfriend there who's done someone wrong who happens to be very good at hacking because otherwise it's just the idea that these drivervelless cars might have decided of their own accord to do it or become possessed by the ghost of some taxi driver on their way to pick someone up who unfortunately died with that ride unfinished. I It is unsettling. when these kind of confluences of technological incompetence sort of make themselves very publicly known, People were unsettled and upset by it, and I think it has led to an increase in the vandalization of Waymo Cars. This is the most ludicrous story to come out of Atlanta since the rapper ludicrous came out of Atlanta. and similar To that instance, people are yelling, move, get out the way. I did the radio edit family show. A fleet of Waymo driverless cars drove to a cul deac in suburban Georgia and then just went in circles for hours. The cars were white, which may have dissuaded residents from calling the cops or straight up opening fire on them, which is A joke about the South being racist. It's a joke about people who live in cul deacs being racist U I didn't like this. If I'm going in circles in a car for hours, I want it to be for the classic reasons. I won't admit that I'm lost I think the the upshot of this whole story is that I'm less convinced that technology will usher in the apocalypse I'm more convinced it will cause a traffic jam, making it way harder to flee if and when the apocalypse occurs Inccidently Cul deac is a French term for vasectomy, I believe in another room U will tech panic Alice. Well, anthropic have sparked more mayhem. around the world. And well in the world of essentially gambling on technology in a way that really we should have grown out of by now. Yes, they have made a lot of people in the investing in AI and secondary market panic by suggesting that they are they are not going to honor any investments that have been made in these secondary markets. There's been widespread panic, sell offs, peopleople are terrified that they're hypothetically valuable. So basically just as a primer for anyone who's not super into economics. All stocks and shares are hypothetic valuations. They're sort of abstractions on the nature of real business. And then AI on top of that is an abstraction on the nature of real business. And then on top of that, these secondary markets are abstractions on the concept of value itself. the problem The probleblem with the wild overvaluation AI hype train is that everyone knows it's a hype trarain and they all know that they're playing poker with a potentially disastrous hand. But the game is that they have to sell at the exact right moment because all these other suckers don't know that it's a bad hand except they all have the same hand and it has an unquantifiable chance of turning out to destroy the world an unquantifiable chance of turning out as well as this all saying very loudly that it will. But it's now past the point where in order to justify the investments that have been made in the technology, it would have to be significantly more impactful and economically valuable technology with more uptake email So You know, anything that nudges the elbow of the players at that particular table, I think is likely to lead to extreme panic, a flipping of the table and everyone pulling out their shotguns because it feels like everyone in that area is getting increasingly wild eyed, both as the technology progresses and improves and as it still continues to fail to deliver the crushing blow to all of human economic activity that it seems to be designed to deliver So are you essentially saying that basing the entire global economy on essentially pretend money and even more pretend stuff is not necessarily long term s going to work for us Yeah see, the thing is there is this incredible technology that is available and yes, it's very expensive and costly to the environment, but there's incredible use cases in medicine and other areas of, you know, not not doing your own spreadsheets. But the problem The problem is that on top of that, they're sort of selling it as though it's about to become God. There's not a lot of technology that can live up to that. and And also it is promising to do a lot of the things about being human that we quite like doing. Right As David Perll said, it's offering to write for me. I might as well have someone I might as well pay someone to have sex for me It is there's just so much terrifying about this story from an economic standpoint, but there's something that's kind of like satisfying. L watching an AI company complain that their kind of abstract, intellectualized property has been acquired without going through proper channels. It's like, o. Is that hurtful? Does that endanger your business model Interesting that you should feel that way And Anthropic has warned They So they weren't all these people that bought shares on secondary markets that those shares in their company might be worthless And I thought that was an admission that their business model appears to be an environmentally catastrophic ponzi scheme where three companies cook each other's books like some kind of deranged top chef challenge. but apparently' people aren't allowed to do that. Well if you want more science and tech updates, do catch Alice's bugle sister podcast The Ggggle And on the twenty sixth of June, there is a live gogggle at the Bill Murray in London. tickets available now. or link in the show notes haveve been reliably informed ser tech stuff Moving on now to Nipples news and well, the UK has been rocked by this story. the Royal Navy is set to be forced to redesign jackets worn by female officers because s on the jackets. too much like nipples, and we in Britain simply cannot cope with seeing someone wearing an item of clothing. with some things above where their nipples would be It's important to emphasise that these jackets have been worn for a long time and no one has really noticed this issue before. But now The Royal Navy is set to spend two hundred thousand, let's talk it up, two hundred million pounds of public money redesigning these uniforms because as I said, the buttons look like nipples, if your nipples are made of brass, and you've got eight of them. So for any metal wolves thinking of joining the Navy This is a huge issue that needs addressing right now. Alice I mean, Andy, as they say every one finger that you point at someone else, three fingers are pointing back at you. this feels like somebody telling on themselves that they put they in person that we know a lot. we know a lot about somebody's nipples right now. We know that one person in a position of power with influence over the British Navy Navy has big bobbly brass nipples It's so funny that the ornamental buttons, this is my favorite part that it's only on uniforms for women. That's so funny because it's also like Men also have nipples. We've had them since D' Angelo made the untitled How Does it Film Music video, and we all just kind of sprouted them to be in alignment ust and P peace student Not to be outd done though, Pete Hgseth proposed new formal military dress for women in the American military, which is just a t shirt that says milk milk, lemonade aroundound the corner Fud just madeade. So it could be worse I do feel like there is gender at play here because No one's ever suggesting that any of men's buttons are purely ornamental and men have a history of suggesting that at least one of women's buttons is purely ornamental and they can't find it anyway The problem is the top two buttons on this jacket, the formal number one jacket is' called are in the same sort of upper midfrontal torso region as nipples are so often found on the human body And ever since God told Eve to cover herself up with a fig leaf bikini, the female nipple has been one of the most controversial body parts in the entire history of the human chest. So this kind of button based smut just won't wash in Britain these days and The jacket in question which is apparently too damn suggestive in these days when nipples can never be seen anywhere, least of all on the internet is made of dark blue wool and is double breasted. Can we even fucking say that now? I'm sorry if I just made anyone uncontrollably horny. Other parts of our military uniforms that may also have to be revamped or devamped for this apparently prudish age Include well some very, very questionally shaped hats that are knocking around the British military that are certainly overdue a bit of a what's the term Dphallus similitudification, I believe. And when they notice all the tassels on those military metedals, there's going be there's some serious redesigns needed there. whilst other bits of the Ared Forces getups could also be redesigned because and I quote They look absolutely fucking ridiculous. So there we are. I mean, this is this is what we are as a nation now And finally, on this week's buugle, Iran war knock on effects update news now. Well the Iran warar has continued to rumble on like the indigestibly undercooked political chicken sheiche that it is. What's actually going on right now It's barely even worth bothering to try to keep up partly because no one believes anything that anyone says about it anymore, at least of all, Trump, and I'm not sure he even believes himself Anymore, you might as well sayr Iran has promised only to build nukes if they don't explode and we've agreed that pogo sticks and pedalos are now the only legal forms of transport across the entire Middle East. pull my finger and call me Donill Washington. And the world would shrug and get on with its busy schedule of despairing at what we have become But the side effects of the war are continuing to radiate outwards kind of inverse chaos theory. a war breaks out in Iran and somewhere in the Amazon rainforest, a butterfly flaps its wings who tried to change the channel on the TV. It's had enough news and wants to watch some tennis. We've already seen airlines cancel flights, various other impacts. and now a Japanese stnack food company to switch to a black and white color scheme or lack of color scheme on some of its products as supply chain issues have left it without enough ink packets colorful enough to prompt children properly to pester their parents in supermarkets. So this is huge in terms of inerm in terms of pester power And the impact that could have on the global economy. it's a very concerning time for everyone. Yes, Andy, it's the worst form of time travel goingo back to war shortages and everything being in black and white It's bring mystery back to televised Snooker. I was going to say it's going to bring the mystery back to snacks because who looks who reads the packets of snacks? You just you sort of are drawn to it by some sort of primordial affection for a particular color scheme that made a nest in your head at some point in your early childhood and nothing will ever feel like home again except for that combination of colors in plastic Ink shortage is tough I knew that when we went into this illegal and unjust and unnecessary war, gas prices would go up. But I'm a professional writer. I'm not ready for B pens to cost fifteen dollars apiece. This is gonna break me. And you know what? Andy and Alice, I'll say it Trump's lost me. I'm out. I'm out on Trump. Imagine if that guy existed. Someone who loves racism and also writing Lghand, those are his two priorities and they're now in conflict Also, return to a black and white world would make news bulletins much perkier. They tend to be quite serious and quite ominous a lot of the time, but go back to old black and white Pae news bulletins. and there goes the plucky American missile off to find a nice little school to blow to pieces. Jolly good show everyone. and I think it would just make everything seem a little bit better Well, that brings us to the end of this week's Bugle. Thank you very much for listening Buglers. Don't forget that this week there is a special opportunity, as indeed there is every week to join the buugle Voluntary subscription scheme which is available three hundred and sixty five and a quarter days of the year. that's averaging out over a four year period That will enable you to help keep this show free, flourishing and independent. Go to the Google podcast and click the donate button P part of your voluntary subscription, you will have access to the Universe exclusive almost monthly askk Andy show in which you get to ask me any question that you like and I will choose whether or not to answer it. I mean, if that doesn't sell it I don't know what we're Josh, anything to plug Yeah, I have a newsletter that I read every Monday. It's called That's Marvelous. You can get it at That's Marvelous Nsletter. com. I am one of the co hosts of the podcast The Nightly, which is it comes from a Hatch and it is for going to sleep to. So I host the Friday, Saturday, Sunday and it is entertaining enough that you'll listen and soothing enough that it won't keep you up. And I have a standup special called Pitive Reinforcement You you find on YouTube, on M's YouTbeage my only real road dates coming up are Bristol, Tennessee at the Blue Ridge Comedy Club the twenty ninth and thirtieth of May. and I'm considering I'm trying to figure out if I can go to Finge for a week and pop around to do some spots on shows. So that's like something I'm very excited to attempt more info on that unfolding. It will be in the newsletter I have gigs in the UK coming up from the eighth of June all the way through. signign up at patreon. com slash Alice Fras. You can subscribe there for free. getet my weekly updates on where I am and what I'm doing, what's coming up because I don't trust the algorithms anymore. If you are in the UK, you can buy my book A passassion from Passion passassion for passashion from the Bgle website buglepodcast. com. If you're in Australia, you can buy it directly from my website. I'm shipping them out with a little Fabio sketch because I get a bigger margin if you buy it from my website that's aliceraaser. com or Alice comedyphraser. com Pendy I if you think comedy is my middle name or not And do can see all the other bugle co hosts who will be appearing at the Edinburgh Festival who include this is not an exhaustive list, but we will have exhaustive lists over the next few weeks Tom Ballard is going to be there and Tiff Stehvenson and others besides. nextext week we will have Felicity Ward and Anoab Pal until then, goodbye.