Cognitive Dissonance Blues
π΅ 7880 characters
β±οΈ 9:15 duration
π ID: 11829995
π Lyrics
So I was in the supermarket the other day
Picking up stock cubes for this vegetable curry
That I survived on for most of 2020
And I, and I, and I flipped them over
To look at the ingredients on the back
No idea why
I should know what's in them by now
But as soon as I did I remembered why I don't do that anymore
And I felt my mood just nosedive
Cos I realised that I had forgotten again
About palm oil
Which, and I don't intend to go on and on about it
But which is used in 50% of all packaged products on the market
It's leading to mass deforestation in Malaysia and Indonesia
Destroying the environments of endangered animals on a massive scale
Etc, etc, etc
You know the rest
We all do
I am
Tired of hearing about it to be honest
And I realised at that moment
That I've been actively putting this shit out of my head
Whenever I can
Because to be honest
To do otherwise is to wander from aisle to aisle in a hollow daze
Remembering that
In the 90s Coca Cola was hiring far-right paramilitary forces
To assassinate trade union leaders in Columbia
To keep their manufacturing costs as low as possible
Remembering that
NestlΓ©'s CEO believes access to drinking water
Shouldn't be a human right
As they drain and bottle
Billions of gallons of the world's freely available water for resale
It makes you tired
You know
It makes you wonder what's the point?
And so fuck it
I pick up my coke
I pick up my Oreos
I pick up my stock cubes
And I put the truth away again for a while
Which, every time I do it
Feels just a little more like a tacit nod of approval
Here's a short horror story for you:
It is conceivable at least
That the distant stars that inspired Jules Verne and Gene Roddenberry
Are orbited by planets that are intellectually empty
No galaxy spanning civilisations or glittering cities or Dyson Spheres
No one blinking back at us through alien telescopes
Wondering if they're alone out here
Just us
Humanity
The smartest
Wisest
Kindest
Of all the creatures
In God's deep blue infinity
And personally
I'm still trying to reconcile that possibility
With the aforementioned list of crimes we commit against ourselves
Our political systems that incentivise corruption
Health care systems that punish anyone guilty
Of being both sick and poor at once
And all of those things
Underpinned by a rusted, groaning economic system
That can only function when lubricated with blood
If there really is no one out there
No one smarter, or wiser, or kinder than us
If this
He says
Gesturing wildly at the entirety of existence
Really is as good as it gets
Maybe
This is an opportunity for us, you know?
To do the humane thing for once
As a novelty
Do it quickly
Do it cleanly
And together
Our first and last act as a truly global society
To surge forward and embrace autoerotic euthanisia
Fill our coat pockets with gold bullion
And walk hand in hand into the ocean singing kumbay-fucking-ya
I've been hearing more and more of this
Disingenuous eco-fascist bullshit over the last few years
And I understand it
I understand the despair when we mighty look upon our works
But I am sick to the clogged gills of accepting fault for it
Because the fact is
That we do not all share responsibility for this
The vast majority of us are preoccupied with struggling to survive
On a monthly, if not weekly, basis
On wages barely high enough to keep us alive
Sometimes not even that high
It is insulting to suggest that the average person has any influence
Whatsoever over the corpo-political incestual fuckfest
That determines how the people of this planet ultimately coexist
When the direction of society is influenced significantly less
By who the majority elect to govern it
Than it is
By who can afford to underwrite the biggest brood of lobbyists
When the only crime the mega-rich consistently serve time for
Is fucking the money up
When 2020 saw the empires of billionaires expand like wildfires
While hundreds of thousands of workers lost their homes, livelihoods
Sometimes even lives
And with this in mind
Here's an alternate short horror story for you:
The human race
I think
Is fundamentally good at its root
At its core
A species gifted with, to varying degrees
A seemingly infinite imagination that has filled our libraries
Over the centuries
With 30 million unique works of fiction
An unprecedented capacity for tool use
That took us from inventing the aeroplane
To punting a person into space
In less time than it takes a human being to reach retirement age
We are, let us not forget, the Mother of The Welfare State
And Penicillin
And mid-90s era Green Day
This is us at our very, very best
But this machine we are wired into without our consent
It stretches us thin, it wrings us dry
Anything good
Anything pure
Anything that cannot justify its existence
By pointing to a rise in share price
Is deemed
Ultimately
Unfit to survive
Take the internet for example
In 1969
Data was sent from a terminal at UCLA to a terminal at Stanford
Hundreds of miles away
And lo
Fifty years later
The internet has single-handedly changed the world more dramatically
Than perhaps any invention in human history
It should
By all rights
Have been the next great step on the path to a borderless society
A global neural network
Allowing us to share art and science and philosophy instantaneously
Allowing the ideas blooming in our collective consciousness
To evolve at the speed of imagination
Rather than at the speed of the postal service
Instead though
It became a means to forcefeed each of us
Our own personal advertising campaign
Targeted with the precision of a Raytheon Maverick
And if you think
They have run out of ways to shotblast that wilderness
With shit from corner to corner
Then strap in
Because the Internet
As we have known it isn't even likely exist for much longer
Because the governments of the world
Have been twitching uncomfortably for years now
As they realise how hard it is to control a populace
Who have real time access to
All of the information about everything ever
On a tiny computer that lives in their pocket
We built this brilliant, beautiful thing
Out of plastic and wire
And it was deliberately and maliciously lobotomised
By people who thought it gave the packmules too much freedom
Too much power
And this is just one example
In a list that seems to stretch on and on into forever
Like a Star Wars title crawl
With new crimes against humanity being added so fast
That no one could ever hope to read it all
And I am done with sharing the blame for the state of this place
With the fucking dragons
Who have the resources to feed everyone
Clothe everyone
House and Educate and Heal everyone
And who choose not to time and time again
Who actively and often violently
Push back against attempts to beg for more pebbles
From their mountain of wealth
For example
Did you know that Amazon workers
Frequently earn so little that they rely on government top-ups
And overtime
Just to tread water above the poverty line
While their CEO Jeff Bezos has so much fucking money
That if you counted by one number every second
Every day
Without sleep
It would take you over thirty years
Just to count up to the amount of money he has
Oh no, wait a second, I misread that
He actually has 185 times that amount
He has more money than the human mind is capable of imagining
More than anyone could ever spend in multiple lifetimes
And that's just money we know about
Because remember in 2015, it was headline news across the world
A global conspiracy by the financial elite
To hide TRILLIONS of dollars
In unreachable, illegal bank accounts in Panama
And what happened there?
Oh yeah
The journalist who broke the story was assassinated
In broad daylight
With a fucking carbomb
And the story just disappeared
And I am standing here
In the supermarket
Wondering whether I can forgive myself
For buying a pack of stock cubes that has fucking palm oil in it
Fucking god damn it man
Picking up stock cubes for this vegetable curry
That I survived on for most of 2020
And I, and I, and I flipped them over
To look at the ingredients on the back
No idea why
I should know what's in them by now
But as soon as I did I remembered why I don't do that anymore
And I felt my mood just nosedive
Cos I realised that I had forgotten again
About palm oil
Which, and I don't intend to go on and on about it
But which is used in 50% of all packaged products on the market
It's leading to mass deforestation in Malaysia and Indonesia
Destroying the environments of endangered animals on a massive scale
Etc, etc, etc
You know the rest
We all do
I am
Tired of hearing about it to be honest
And I realised at that moment
That I've been actively putting this shit out of my head
Whenever I can
Because to be honest
To do otherwise is to wander from aisle to aisle in a hollow daze
Remembering that
In the 90s Coca Cola was hiring far-right paramilitary forces
To assassinate trade union leaders in Columbia
To keep their manufacturing costs as low as possible
Remembering that
NestlΓ©'s CEO believes access to drinking water
Shouldn't be a human right
As they drain and bottle
Billions of gallons of the world's freely available water for resale
It makes you tired
You know
It makes you wonder what's the point?
And so fuck it
I pick up my coke
I pick up my Oreos
I pick up my stock cubes
And I put the truth away again for a while
Which, every time I do it
Feels just a little more like a tacit nod of approval
Here's a short horror story for you:
It is conceivable at least
That the distant stars that inspired Jules Verne and Gene Roddenberry
Are orbited by planets that are intellectually empty
No galaxy spanning civilisations or glittering cities or Dyson Spheres
No one blinking back at us through alien telescopes
Wondering if they're alone out here
Just us
Humanity
The smartest
Wisest
Kindest
Of all the creatures
In God's deep blue infinity
And personally
I'm still trying to reconcile that possibility
With the aforementioned list of crimes we commit against ourselves
Our political systems that incentivise corruption
Health care systems that punish anyone guilty
Of being both sick and poor at once
And all of those things
Underpinned by a rusted, groaning economic system
That can only function when lubricated with blood
If there really is no one out there
No one smarter, or wiser, or kinder than us
If this
He says
Gesturing wildly at the entirety of existence
Really is as good as it gets
Maybe
This is an opportunity for us, you know?
To do the humane thing for once
As a novelty
Do it quickly
Do it cleanly
And together
Our first and last act as a truly global society
To surge forward and embrace autoerotic euthanisia
Fill our coat pockets with gold bullion
And walk hand in hand into the ocean singing kumbay-fucking-ya
I've been hearing more and more of this
Disingenuous eco-fascist bullshit over the last few years
And I understand it
I understand the despair when we mighty look upon our works
But I am sick to the clogged gills of accepting fault for it
Because the fact is
That we do not all share responsibility for this
The vast majority of us are preoccupied with struggling to survive
On a monthly, if not weekly, basis
On wages barely high enough to keep us alive
Sometimes not even that high
It is insulting to suggest that the average person has any influence
Whatsoever over the corpo-political incestual fuckfest
That determines how the people of this planet ultimately coexist
When the direction of society is influenced significantly less
By who the majority elect to govern it
Than it is
By who can afford to underwrite the biggest brood of lobbyists
When the only crime the mega-rich consistently serve time for
Is fucking the money up
When 2020 saw the empires of billionaires expand like wildfires
While hundreds of thousands of workers lost their homes, livelihoods
Sometimes even lives
And with this in mind
Here's an alternate short horror story for you:
The human race
I think
Is fundamentally good at its root
At its core
A species gifted with, to varying degrees
A seemingly infinite imagination that has filled our libraries
Over the centuries
With 30 million unique works of fiction
An unprecedented capacity for tool use
That took us from inventing the aeroplane
To punting a person into space
In less time than it takes a human being to reach retirement age
We are, let us not forget, the Mother of The Welfare State
And Penicillin
And mid-90s era Green Day
This is us at our very, very best
But this machine we are wired into without our consent
It stretches us thin, it wrings us dry
Anything good
Anything pure
Anything that cannot justify its existence
By pointing to a rise in share price
Is deemed
Ultimately
Unfit to survive
Take the internet for example
In 1969
Data was sent from a terminal at UCLA to a terminal at Stanford
Hundreds of miles away
And lo
Fifty years later
The internet has single-handedly changed the world more dramatically
Than perhaps any invention in human history
It should
By all rights
Have been the next great step on the path to a borderless society
A global neural network
Allowing us to share art and science and philosophy instantaneously
Allowing the ideas blooming in our collective consciousness
To evolve at the speed of imagination
Rather than at the speed of the postal service
Instead though
It became a means to forcefeed each of us
Our own personal advertising campaign
Targeted with the precision of a Raytheon Maverick
And if you think
They have run out of ways to shotblast that wilderness
With shit from corner to corner
Then strap in
Because the Internet
As we have known it isn't even likely exist for much longer
Because the governments of the world
Have been twitching uncomfortably for years now
As they realise how hard it is to control a populace
Who have real time access to
All of the information about everything ever
On a tiny computer that lives in their pocket
We built this brilliant, beautiful thing
Out of plastic and wire
And it was deliberately and maliciously lobotomised
By people who thought it gave the packmules too much freedom
Too much power
And this is just one example
In a list that seems to stretch on and on into forever
Like a Star Wars title crawl
With new crimes against humanity being added so fast
That no one could ever hope to read it all
And I am done with sharing the blame for the state of this place
With the fucking dragons
Who have the resources to feed everyone
Clothe everyone
House and Educate and Heal everyone
And who choose not to time and time again
Who actively and often violently
Push back against attempts to beg for more pebbles
From their mountain of wealth
For example
Did you know that Amazon workers
Frequently earn so little that they rely on government top-ups
And overtime
Just to tread water above the poverty line
While their CEO Jeff Bezos has so much fucking money
That if you counted by one number every second
Every day
Without sleep
It would take you over thirty years
Just to count up to the amount of money he has
Oh no, wait a second, I misread that
He actually has 185 times that amount
He has more money than the human mind is capable of imagining
More than anyone could ever spend in multiple lifetimes
And that's just money we know about
Because remember in 2015, it was headline news across the world
A global conspiracy by the financial elite
To hide TRILLIONS of dollars
In unreachable, illegal bank accounts in Panama
And what happened there?
Oh yeah
The journalist who broke the story was assassinated
In broad daylight
With a fucking carbomb
And the story just disappeared
And I am standing here
In the supermarket
Wondering whether I can forgive myself
For buying a pack of stock cubes that has fucking palm oil in it
Fucking god damn it man
β±οΈ Synced Lyrics
[00:04.14] So I was in the supermarket the other day
[00:05.79] Picking up stock cubes for this vegetable curry
[00:09.85] That I survived on for most of 2020
[00:11.51] And I, and I, and I flipped them over
[00:13.49] To look at the ingredients on the back
[00:15.76] No idea why
[00:16.31] I should know what's in them by now
[00:18.34] But as soon as I did I remembered why I don't do that anymore
[00:22.29] And I felt my mood just nosedive
[00:25.59] Cos I realised that I had forgotten again
[00:28.93] About palm oil
[00:30.75] Which, and I don't intend to go on and on about it
[00:32.88] But which is used in 50% of all packaged products on the market
[00:35.98] It's leading to mass deforestation in Malaysia and Indonesia
[00:39.07] Destroying the environments of endangered animals on a massive scale
[00:41.62] Etc, etc, etc
[00:43.04] You know the rest
[00:43.79] We all do
[00:44.54] I am
[00:45.78] Tired of hearing about it to be honest
[00:48.04]
[00:53.55] And I realised at that moment
[00:55.04] That I've been actively putting this shit out of my head
[00:57.09] Whenever I can
[00:58.71] Because to be honest
[01:00.11] To do otherwise is to wander from aisle to aisle in a hollow daze
[01:03.29] Remembering that
[01:03.94] In the 90s Coca Cola was hiring far-right paramilitary forces
[01:07.34] To assassinate trade union leaders in Columbia
[01:09.57] To keep their manufacturing costs as low as possible
[01:12.56] Remembering that
[01:13.19] NestlΓ©'s CEO believes access to drinking water
[01:15.77] Shouldn't be a human right
[01:16.65] As they drain and bottle
[01:17.64] Billions of gallons of the world's freely available water for resale
[01:21.08] It makes you tired
[01:22.12] You know
[01:22.79] It makes you wonder what's the point?
[01:24.37] And so fuck it
[01:25.43] I pick up my coke
[01:26.34] I pick up my Oreos
[01:27.33] I pick up my stock cubes
[01:28.30] And I put the truth away again for a while
[01:30.21] Which, every time I do it
[01:31.37] Feels just a little more like a tacit nod of approval
[01:36.24]
[01:43.73] Here's a short horror story for you:
[01:45.88] It is conceivable at least
[01:47.36] That the distant stars that inspired Jules Verne and Gene Roddenberry
[01:50.55] Are orbited by planets that are intellectually empty
[01:53.43] No galaxy spanning civilisations or glittering cities or Dyson Spheres
[01:57.42] No one blinking back at us through alien telescopes
[01:59.68] Wondering if they're alone out here
[02:01.47] Just us
[02:02.71] Humanity
[02:03.74] The smartest
[02:04.59] Wisest
[02:05.26] Kindest
[02:06.05] Of all the creatures
[02:07.04] In God's deep blue infinity
[02:08.99] And personally
[02:09.94] I'm still trying to reconcile that possibility
[02:11.88] With the aforementioned list of crimes we commit against ourselves
[02:14.87] Our political systems that incentivise corruption
[02:17.55] Health care systems that punish anyone guilty
[02:19.40] Of being both sick and poor at once
[02:21.15] And all of those things
[02:22.55] Underpinned by a rusted, groaning economic system
[02:25.02] That can only function when lubricated with blood
[02:28.53] If there really is no one out there
[02:30.70] No one smarter, or wiser, or kinder than us
[02:33.58] If this
[02:34.70] He says
[02:35.33] Gesturing wildly at the entirety of existence
[02:37.47] Really is as good as it gets
[02:39.00] Maybe
[02:39.72] This is an opportunity for us, you know?
[02:41.64] To do the humane thing for once
[02:43.28] As a novelty
[02:44.64] Do it quickly
[02:45.87] Do it cleanly
[02:46.71] And together
[02:47.54] Our first and last act as a truly global society
[02:50.49] To surge forward and embrace autoerotic euthanisia
[02:53.95] Fill our coat pockets with gold bullion
[02:56.60] And walk hand in hand into the ocean singing kumbay-fucking-ya
[03:02.06]
[03:13.69] I've been hearing more and more of this
[03:15.21] Disingenuous eco-fascist bullshit over the last few years
[03:18.51] And I understand it
[03:19.53] I understand the despair when we mighty look upon our works
[03:22.49] But I am sick to the clogged gills of accepting fault for it
[03:25.17] Because the fact is
[03:26.15] That we do not all share responsibility for this
[03:28.97] The vast majority of us are preoccupied with struggling to survive
[03:31.95] On a monthly, if not weekly, basis
[03:33.99] On wages barely high enough to keep us alive
[03:36.82] Sometimes not even that high
[03:40.52] It is insulting to suggest that the average person has any influence
[03:44.04] Whatsoever over the corpo-political incestual fuckfest
[03:47.95] That determines how the people of this planet ultimately coexist
[03:50.86] When the direction of society is influenced significantly less
[03:53.93] By who the majority elect to govern it
[03:55.72] Than it is
[03:56.11] By who can afford to underwrite the biggest brood of lobbyists
[03:58.77] When the only crime the mega-rich consistently serve time for
[04:01.79] Is fucking the money up
[04:03.27] When 2020 saw the empires of billionaires expand like wildfires
[04:06.85] While hundreds of thousands of workers lost their homes, livelihoods
[04:11.31] Sometimes even lives
[04:13.58]
[04:32.76] And with this in mind
[04:38.08] Here's an alternate short horror story for you:
[04:43.78] The human race
[04:45.68] I think
[04:47.07] Is fundamentally good at its root
[04:52.76] At its core
[04:54.63] A species gifted with, to varying degrees
[04:57.47] A seemingly infinite imagination that has filled our libraries
[05:00.45] Over the centuries
[05:01.12] With 30 million unique works of fiction
[05:06.17] An unprecedented capacity for tool use
[05:08.16] That took us from inventing the aeroplane
[05:09.78] To punting a person into space
[05:11.60] In less time than it takes a human being to reach retirement age
[05:15.13] We are, let us not forget, the Mother of The Welfare State
[05:19.53] And Penicillin
[05:21.18] And mid-90s era Green Day
[05:23.02] This is us at our very, very best
[05:25.44] But this machine we are wired into without our consent
[05:29.34] It stretches us thin, it wrings us dry
[05:33.51] Anything good
[05:34.82] Anything pure
[05:35.79] Anything that cannot justify its existence
[05:38.30] By pointing to a rise in share price
[05:41.07] Is deemed
[05:41.83] Ultimately
[05:42.96] Unfit to survive
[05:45.88]
[05:47.62] Take the internet for example
[05:50.89] In 1969
[05:51.97] Data was sent from a terminal at UCLA to a terminal at Stanford
[05:55.05] Hundreds of miles away
[05:56.67] And lo
[05:57.65] Fifty years later
[05:58.70] The internet has single-handedly changed the world more dramatically
[06:01.54] Than perhaps any invention in human history
[06:03.58] It should
[06:04.15] By all rights
[06:05.27] Have been the next great step on the path to a borderless society
[06:08.70] A global neural network
[06:10.01] Allowing us to share art and science and philosophy instantaneously
[06:14.06] Allowing the ideas blooming in our collective consciousness
[06:16.45] To evolve at the speed of imagination
[06:18.51] Rather than at the speed of the postal service
[06:20.99] Instead though
[06:22.16] It became a means to forcefeed each of us
[06:23.93] Our own personal advertising campaign
[06:26.08] Targeted with the precision of a Raytheon Maverick
[06:29.48] And if you think
[06:31.28] They have run out of ways to shotblast that wilderness
[06:33.93] With shit from corner to corner
[06:35.67] Then strap in
[06:36.93] Because the Internet
[06:37.69] As we have known it isn't even likely exist for much longer
[06:40.63] Because the governments of the world
[06:41.93] Have been twitching uncomfortably for years now
[06:43.72] As they realise how hard it is to control a populace
[06:46.28] Who have real time access to
[06:48.50] All of the information about everything ever
[06:51.63] On a tiny computer that lives in their pocket
[06:55.46] We built this brilliant, beautiful thing
[06:57.83] Out of plastic and wire
[06:59.45] And it was deliberately and maliciously lobotomised
[07:02.59] By people who thought it gave the packmules too much freedom
[07:05.41] Too much power
[07:06.55] And this is just one example
[07:08.28] In a list that seems to stretch on and on into forever
[07:10.80] Like a Star Wars title crawl
[07:12.78] With new crimes against humanity being added so fast
[07:15.49] That no one could ever hope to read it all
[07:17.90]
[07:23.20] And I am done with sharing the blame for the state of this place
[07:27.00] With the fucking dragons
[07:28.39] Who have the resources to feed everyone
[07:30.90] Clothe everyone
[07:32.13] House and Educate and Heal everyone
[07:34.60] And who choose not to time and time again
[07:37.31] Who actively and often violently
[07:38.78] Push back against attempts to beg for more pebbles
[07:41.33] From their mountain of wealth
[07:42.82] For example
[07:43.88] Did you know that Amazon workers
[07:45.18] Frequently earn so little that they rely on government top-ups
[07:47.84] And overtime
[07:48.35] Just to tread water above the poverty line
[07:51.00] While their CEO Jeff Bezos has so much fucking money
[07:53.54] That if you counted by one number every second
[07:55.76] Every day
[07:56.69] Without sleep
[07:57.84] It would take you over thirty years
[07:59.20] Just to count up to the amount of money he has
[08:00.92] Oh no, wait a second, I misread that
[08:02.66] He actually has 185 times that amount
[08:06.07] He has more money than the human mind is capable of imagining
[08:09.28] More than anyone could ever spend in multiple lifetimes
[08:12.52] And that's just money we know about
[08:14.38] Because remember in 2015, it was headline news across the world
[08:18.81] A global conspiracy by the financial elite
[08:21.69] To hide TRILLIONS of dollars
[08:23.42] In unreachable, illegal bank accounts in Panama
[08:26.60] And what happened there?
[08:27.42] Oh yeah
[08:28.00] The journalist who broke the story was assassinated
[08:30.01] In broad daylight
[08:30.70] With a fucking carbomb
[08:32.59] And the story just disappeared
[08:35.18]
[08:40.83] And I am standing here
[08:43.99] In the supermarket
[08:47.55] Wondering whether I can forgive myself
[08:50.74] For buying a pack of stock cubes that has fucking palm oil in it
[08:58.29] Fucking god damn it man
[09:15.00]
[00:05.79] Picking up stock cubes for this vegetable curry
[00:09.85] That I survived on for most of 2020
[00:11.51] And I, and I, and I flipped them over
[00:13.49] To look at the ingredients on the back
[00:15.76] No idea why
[00:16.31] I should know what's in them by now
[00:18.34] But as soon as I did I remembered why I don't do that anymore
[00:22.29] And I felt my mood just nosedive
[00:25.59] Cos I realised that I had forgotten again
[00:28.93] About palm oil
[00:30.75] Which, and I don't intend to go on and on about it
[00:32.88] But which is used in 50% of all packaged products on the market
[00:35.98] It's leading to mass deforestation in Malaysia and Indonesia
[00:39.07] Destroying the environments of endangered animals on a massive scale
[00:41.62] Etc, etc, etc
[00:43.04] You know the rest
[00:43.79] We all do
[00:44.54] I am
[00:45.78] Tired of hearing about it to be honest
[00:48.04]
[00:53.55] And I realised at that moment
[00:55.04] That I've been actively putting this shit out of my head
[00:57.09] Whenever I can
[00:58.71] Because to be honest
[01:00.11] To do otherwise is to wander from aisle to aisle in a hollow daze
[01:03.29] Remembering that
[01:03.94] In the 90s Coca Cola was hiring far-right paramilitary forces
[01:07.34] To assassinate trade union leaders in Columbia
[01:09.57] To keep their manufacturing costs as low as possible
[01:12.56] Remembering that
[01:13.19] NestlΓ©'s CEO believes access to drinking water
[01:15.77] Shouldn't be a human right
[01:16.65] As they drain and bottle
[01:17.64] Billions of gallons of the world's freely available water for resale
[01:21.08] It makes you tired
[01:22.12] You know
[01:22.79] It makes you wonder what's the point?
[01:24.37] And so fuck it
[01:25.43] I pick up my coke
[01:26.34] I pick up my Oreos
[01:27.33] I pick up my stock cubes
[01:28.30] And I put the truth away again for a while
[01:30.21] Which, every time I do it
[01:31.37] Feels just a little more like a tacit nod of approval
[01:36.24]
[01:43.73] Here's a short horror story for you:
[01:45.88] It is conceivable at least
[01:47.36] That the distant stars that inspired Jules Verne and Gene Roddenberry
[01:50.55] Are orbited by planets that are intellectually empty
[01:53.43] No galaxy spanning civilisations or glittering cities or Dyson Spheres
[01:57.42] No one blinking back at us through alien telescopes
[01:59.68] Wondering if they're alone out here
[02:01.47] Just us
[02:02.71] Humanity
[02:03.74] The smartest
[02:04.59] Wisest
[02:05.26] Kindest
[02:06.05] Of all the creatures
[02:07.04] In God's deep blue infinity
[02:08.99] And personally
[02:09.94] I'm still trying to reconcile that possibility
[02:11.88] With the aforementioned list of crimes we commit against ourselves
[02:14.87] Our political systems that incentivise corruption
[02:17.55] Health care systems that punish anyone guilty
[02:19.40] Of being both sick and poor at once
[02:21.15] And all of those things
[02:22.55] Underpinned by a rusted, groaning economic system
[02:25.02] That can only function when lubricated with blood
[02:28.53] If there really is no one out there
[02:30.70] No one smarter, or wiser, or kinder than us
[02:33.58] If this
[02:34.70] He says
[02:35.33] Gesturing wildly at the entirety of existence
[02:37.47] Really is as good as it gets
[02:39.00] Maybe
[02:39.72] This is an opportunity for us, you know?
[02:41.64] To do the humane thing for once
[02:43.28] As a novelty
[02:44.64] Do it quickly
[02:45.87] Do it cleanly
[02:46.71] And together
[02:47.54] Our first and last act as a truly global society
[02:50.49] To surge forward and embrace autoerotic euthanisia
[02:53.95] Fill our coat pockets with gold bullion
[02:56.60] And walk hand in hand into the ocean singing kumbay-fucking-ya
[03:02.06]
[03:13.69] I've been hearing more and more of this
[03:15.21] Disingenuous eco-fascist bullshit over the last few years
[03:18.51] And I understand it
[03:19.53] I understand the despair when we mighty look upon our works
[03:22.49] But I am sick to the clogged gills of accepting fault for it
[03:25.17] Because the fact is
[03:26.15] That we do not all share responsibility for this
[03:28.97] The vast majority of us are preoccupied with struggling to survive
[03:31.95] On a monthly, if not weekly, basis
[03:33.99] On wages barely high enough to keep us alive
[03:36.82] Sometimes not even that high
[03:40.52] It is insulting to suggest that the average person has any influence
[03:44.04] Whatsoever over the corpo-political incestual fuckfest
[03:47.95] That determines how the people of this planet ultimately coexist
[03:50.86] When the direction of society is influenced significantly less
[03:53.93] By who the majority elect to govern it
[03:55.72] Than it is
[03:56.11] By who can afford to underwrite the biggest brood of lobbyists
[03:58.77] When the only crime the mega-rich consistently serve time for
[04:01.79] Is fucking the money up
[04:03.27] When 2020 saw the empires of billionaires expand like wildfires
[04:06.85] While hundreds of thousands of workers lost their homes, livelihoods
[04:11.31] Sometimes even lives
[04:13.58]
[04:32.76] And with this in mind
[04:38.08] Here's an alternate short horror story for you:
[04:43.78] The human race
[04:45.68] I think
[04:47.07] Is fundamentally good at its root
[04:52.76] At its core
[04:54.63] A species gifted with, to varying degrees
[04:57.47] A seemingly infinite imagination that has filled our libraries
[05:00.45] Over the centuries
[05:01.12] With 30 million unique works of fiction
[05:06.17] An unprecedented capacity for tool use
[05:08.16] That took us from inventing the aeroplane
[05:09.78] To punting a person into space
[05:11.60] In less time than it takes a human being to reach retirement age
[05:15.13] We are, let us not forget, the Mother of The Welfare State
[05:19.53] And Penicillin
[05:21.18] And mid-90s era Green Day
[05:23.02] This is us at our very, very best
[05:25.44] But this machine we are wired into without our consent
[05:29.34] It stretches us thin, it wrings us dry
[05:33.51] Anything good
[05:34.82] Anything pure
[05:35.79] Anything that cannot justify its existence
[05:38.30] By pointing to a rise in share price
[05:41.07] Is deemed
[05:41.83] Ultimately
[05:42.96] Unfit to survive
[05:45.88]
[05:47.62] Take the internet for example
[05:50.89] In 1969
[05:51.97] Data was sent from a terminal at UCLA to a terminal at Stanford
[05:55.05] Hundreds of miles away
[05:56.67] And lo
[05:57.65] Fifty years later
[05:58.70] The internet has single-handedly changed the world more dramatically
[06:01.54] Than perhaps any invention in human history
[06:03.58] It should
[06:04.15] By all rights
[06:05.27] Have been the next great step on the path to a borderless society
[06:08.70] A global neural network
[06:10.01] Allowing us to share art and science and philosophy instantaneously
[06:14.06] Allowing the ideas blooming in our collective consciousness
[06:16.45] To evolve at the speed of imagination
[06:18.51] Rather than at the speed of the postal service
[06:20.99] Instead though
[06:22.16] It became a means to forcefeed each of us
[06:23.93] Our own personal advertising campaign
[06:26.08] Targeted with the precision of a Raytheon Maverick
[06:29.48] And if you think
[06:31.28] They have run out of ways to shotblast that wilderness
[06:33.93] With shit from corner to corner
[06:35.67] Then strap in
[06:36.93] Because the Internet
[06:37.69] As we have known it isn't even likely exist for much longer
[06:40.63] Because the governments of the world
[06:41.93] Have been twitching uncomfortably for years now
[06:43.72] As they realise how hard it is to control a populace
[06:46.28] Who have real time access to
[06:48.50] All of the information about everything ever
[06:51.63] On a tiny computer that lives in their pocket
[06:55.46] We built this brilliant, beautiful thing
[06:57.83] Out of plastic and wire
[06:59.45] And it was deliberately and maliciously lobotomised
[07:02.59] By people who thought it gave the packmules too much freedom
[07:05.41] Too much power
[07:06.55] And this is just one example
[07:08.28] In a list that seems to stretch on and on into forever
[07:10.80] Like a Star Wars title crawl
[07:12.78] With new crimes against humanity being added so fast
[07:15.49] That no one could ever hope to read it all
[07:17.90]
[07:23.20] And I am done with sharing the blame for the state of this place
[07:27.00] With the fucking dragons
[07:28.39] Who have the resources to feed everyone
[07:30.90] Clothe everyone
[07:32.13] House and Educate and Heal everyone
[07:34.60] And who choose not to time and time again
[07:37.31] Who actively and often violently
[07:38.78] Push back against attempts to beg for more pebbles
[07:41.33] From their mountain of wealth
[07:42.82] For example
[07:43.88] Did you know that Amazon workers
[07:45.18] Frequently earn so little that they rely on government top-ups
[07:47.84] And overtime
[07:48.35] Just to tread water above the poverty line
[07:51.00] While their CEO Jeff Bezos has so much fucking money
[07:53.54] That if you counted by one number every second
[07:55.76] Every day
[07:56.69] Without sleep
[07:57.84] It would take you over thirty years
[07:59.20] Just to count up to the amount of money he has
[08:00.92] Oh no, wait a second, I misread that
[08:02.66] He actually has 185 times that amount
[08:06.07] He has more money than the human mind is capable of imagining
[08:09.28] More than anyone could ever spend in multiple lifetimes
[08:12.52] And that's just money we know about
[08:14.38] Because remember in 2015, it was headline news across the world
[08:18.81] A global conspiracy by the financial elite
[08:21.69] To hide TRILLIONS of dollars
[08:23.42] In unreachable, illegal bank accounts in Panama
[08:26.60] And what happened there?
[08:27.42] Oh yeah
[08:28.00] The journalist who broke the story was assassinated
[08:30.01] In broad daylight
[08:30.70] With a fucking carbomb
[08:32.59] And the story just disappeared
[08:35.18]
[08:40.83] And I am standing here
[08:43.99] In the supermarket
[08:47.55] Wondering whether I can forgive myself
[08:50.74] For buying a pack of stock cubes that has fucking palm oil in it
[08:58.29] Fucking god damn it man
[09:15.00]