[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is a strange thought, but I believe a correct one, that 20 or 30 pages of ideas and information would be capable of turning the present-day world upside down, or even destroying it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have often tried to conceive of what those pages might contain. But of course I cannot do so because I am a prisoner of the present day world. Just as all of you are.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We cannot think outside the particular patterns that our brains are conditioned to, or, to be more accurate. We can think only a very little way outside, and then only if we are very original.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is that right? Tell them we appreciate their assistance.


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[Assistant] Just who was it that leaked the information about our base? I'm the spy and you're asking me that?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Deck one and deck two, opening hatches. Zerevi, Arios, prepare to launch.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's right, it's Christmas time and of course it's my duty as an English teacher to give you a Christmas themed lesson. Today we're going to be learning a little bit of pronunciation. We're going to be learning about the dark L.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're also going to be learning a few Christmassy phrasal verbs and of course some vocabulary along the way. So let's begin by talking about pronunciation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The reason why I'm teaching you the Dark Elle today is number one, because loads of people have been requesting it. And secondly, lots of Christmas words involve...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know why, don't ask me, but I just managed to find quite a lot of words which involve the dark L in Christmas vocabulary. So we're going to be focusing on some of these today, trying to get that pronunciation of the dark L correct. Now firstly I need to explain to those of you who don't know what the dark L is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We actually have two pronunciations of the letter L in English. We have something called the light L and we have something called the dark L. The light L is the easy one. It's the one which most of you already know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's in words like yellow or hello where we create this l sound. The tongue touches the top of the mouth and as we produce the sound the tongue goes down. L, okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now I want you to imagine the dark L as a lazy L.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We don't fully produce the sound, we kind of half pronounce it so the tongue stays up in the top of the mouth the whole time and we create quite a small shape with the mouth. Look at my face when I pronounce a word like tall.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Tall. So my tongue is not moving, it's staying up, kind of floating at the top of the mouth, as if I'm about to pronounce a l sound, but I'm just kind of stopping and not producing the full l sound. So tall, or


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Always, always. Okay, tongue's going up and curling back slightly, and we produce this uuuh sound. Let's give some Christmassy examples for where we might find the dark L. First word I want to teach you, I have it right here. This thing. This. That didn't go as planned. This thing. This is called tinsel. Gonna take that off my head now. So, tinsel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This lovely thing we get in many different colours. We usually decorate our Christmas tree with tinsel. Okay, so we wrap it around the tree or we put it on parts of our house to make it look


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Christmassy. It's, uh, it's just a general decoration that we only get out around Christmas time. So, tinsel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're finishing this word with the dark L, so we're not saying tinsel. We're not doing the L sound. And this is where lots of my students who are taking my course make mistakes, and I have to teach them how to train their mouths to produce the dark L.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'm going to give you the basics right now. Like I said, imagine you're not completely pronouncing the L. It almost feels like we're just producing a vowel sound.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Look at the shape of my mouth. That's the most important thing, firstly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so don't let the tongue move. Keep it up high. Tin-saw.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, don't be afraid. If it feels unnatural in the beginning, that's very normal. The more you produce this sound and you repeat, repeat, repeat, eventually your muscles will start to relax and feel like this sound is more comfortable. The next one. Another thing we decorate our Christmas tree with is this. A bauble.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Firstly I want you to get the two sounds, the most difficult sounds here, correct. So the vowel sound, ooooh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's difficult to understand that this is still an L that we're pronouncing when it sounds nothing like an L. It sounds more like we're just ending with a vowel sound. But this is where you need to understand that whenever there's an L at the end of a word,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're not going to pronounce it with a luh, okay? There are other rules for the dark L. I'm just focusing on these today.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Also at Christmas time, there are these songs which tend to happen. Uh, we have Christmas songs, of course, on the radio, but we also have some more of the religious-style Christmas songs. The songs which you would hear in a place like church, if you do go to church. Uhm, and these are called Christmas carols. Again, carol. Now try and add an S on the end. Carols.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Orss. Carols. But can you pronounce the word Christmas correctly? I hear lots of my students say Christmas. Remember there's a schwa sound at the end. Chris-mus. Chris-mus.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Christmas carols. And another word which involves the dark L is a very British word. Now most of you, and also most Americans, will pronounce this word as movie.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Film. Again, we're creating this very round shape for the dark L. Fi-oom. Film.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we might watch a Christmas film.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A very, very popular Christmas film which I watched last night, in fact, is a film called Elf. Again, a dark L. Elf.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So let's do some phrasal verbs. Firstly, let's talk about Christmas trees. We put up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Christmas tree, and we might also put up...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] our decorations and really there is no way to actually explain this because we would only ever really say put up a Christmas tree or put up decorations and it simply means to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Put them in your house, to have them in your house. Enter them into your house and, and have them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What about when we're finished, when Christmas is finished, usually about one week after Christmas? People will take down


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Would be to put the present you've bought for somebody into some paper and ready for them to open on Christmas Day. We might also put these presents under the Christmas tree. Put under the Christmas tree. Okay. So we wrap up the presents. So we wrap up the presents, which means to cover them in paper. We might then put them under the Christmas tree.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For them to then be torn open on Christmas Day. Try that with me. We wrap up the presents to put under the Christmas tree and then they are torn open on Christmas Day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To see what present we have. I can't wait to tear open my presents on Christmas Day. I really hope I have some good ones and not loads of socks. Which is what everybody seems to give me. I have plenty of socks now. Please, no more socks. Maybe around Christmas time you might want to pop on a film or pop on some Christmas music. Again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's just the same thing, it means the same thing. We just like to use the word pop sometimes. I'll pop out for a drink with my friends, meaning I'll go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'll pop on some music, meaning I will turn the music on so we can hear it. I'll pop on a film. I'll pop on the TV.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Marie, Marie! Marie Parfassi!


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[Assistant] And I feel the same way, Marie. When I found out that you were Soma Pyrrhus, I couldn't stop thinking about you. I wanted to save you so much. But now that I've done it, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do next. Someone like me doesn't really have anything to offer you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, that is good news. Who's there? How did you know I was here? I knew because we're the same.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's because we have the exact same DNA. Base sequence pattern 0988 type.


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[Assistant] Noah Claypole was given a free pardon for telling the police about Fagin.


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[Assistant] He soon became employed as an informer for the police, spying on people and telling the police about anyone who had broken the law.


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[Assistant] Mr. and Mrs. Bumble lost their jobs and became poorer and poorer, eventually living in poverty in the same workhouse that they had once managed.


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[Assistant] In that quiet country village, the years passed peacefully.


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[Assistant] Mr. Brownlow filled the mind of his adopted son with knowledge.


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[Assistant] And as he watched the boy grow up he was reminded more and more of his old friend, Oliver's father.


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[Assistant] The two orphans, Rose and Oliver, led lives that were truly happy.


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[Assistant] The hardships that they had once suffered had left no bitterness in their gentle souls, and all their lives they showed the mercy and kindness to others that God himself shows to all things that breathe.


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[Assistant] Director Peter Jackson is here. While you may not have heard of his first two films, Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles, or even his 1994 Oscar nominated Heavenly Creatures, you most certainly have heard about his latest


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is the Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring. It has grossed over $700 million today and has been nominated for


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I am pleased to welcome Peter Jackson to this table for the first time. Welcome.


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[Assistant] What's amazing about it is that you have made three films in one... Yes. ...span of time. Yes. Yes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Here you are, at 18 years old, in New Zealand. English parents who moved to New Zealand.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, 34, 35. Began, right? The whole process. Yes. You're now 40, 41? 40, yeah. 40? Yeah. You're investing a lot of your time


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But then, uh, are you gonna go through the rest of your life, people saying, how can you top this? Or do you have to do something dramatically different?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You mentioned New Line for a second there and the bet that they're making on this. Yeaah. The interesting thing is that I understand that you always wanted to make the three of them at one time. But you presented the idea to Bob Shay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To do two, hoping that he would bite and say, why not three?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so all of a sudden, it's a go. You're gonna spend how much money for three movies?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And New Zealand as a place contributed to that for you as the movie.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, talk about the casting. First of all, we'll see in a minute Frodo, but Elijah Wood. Yep. The most important casting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Roll tape. Here's a scene in which, uh, Frodo is being chased by the evil, dark writers. And he decides to leave the Shire.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That you didn't make the movie that Torkin would have made, but you made the movie he would have enjoyed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did you have some kind of mechanism in a sense so that you could make sure that you were true to Toykin?


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[Assistant] Someone, one of your actors said that there was, that the most inspired moments of making this movie came from doubt and panic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One thing you added to this is female characters.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To enhance it a little bit, or expand it. Speaking of Aragon, here's where Frodo meets Aragon, played by Viggo Mortensen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is it adults and kids? Yeaah, it's a whole range.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nothing, now that you look at it, that you would have, I mean, do differently.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Your fascination with the notion of escapism.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because that is your passion, whether it's this kind of genre or not, is that what you think distinguishes you as a filmmaker?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Some sense of being urgent about that idea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they react with each other. And so everything has to be different. The size of a glass in your hands can't be the size of a glass if I'm a little person.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Answering Tolkien's question about himself, what period of history would you prefer to have lived in?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, but the attraction of you and movies is it gives you the tools to tell movies, tell stories.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, she's been your partner in the filmmaking business for a while.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Much success at the Oscars. Thank you. It's good to have you here. Thank you. Peter Jackson, director, The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, the most Academy Award nominations, uh, currently seen in theaters around the country. Thank you for joining us. See you next time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So uhm, it's a complicated kind of answer, but the short of it is, if you're talking about the YouTube trend that started around 2007, where people uploaded playthroughs of video games that they called Let's Plays,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Those are traceable back to the Something Awful forums in what we called at the time video let's play, uhm, distinct from screenshot let's play, which I did not create or whatever, although there's a funny story with that too, but at any rate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That particular trend on YouTube is traceable back to my Let's Play of the Immortal. And I think part of the reason it's kind of considered the progenitor, not because, not just because people like that one and like the next one I did was also because, since we were on a forum,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We can kind of share, I can kind of share out how I did it and we can all share tips and things, you know. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you're like talking about just the concept of like, you know, narrating over video game footage, like no, we have that in the eighties, like absolutely not. And other people had actually done that on YouTube and other, um, places on the internet. Uh, in fact, actually that immortal let's play I did was on a Google video before Google had bought YouTube.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, but when you're on a forum, you can share that out. So other people are like, hey, I wanna do it. And if you just go dark, then that's that. But like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I was like, hey, check out what I did, I used like, Camtasia, I think, which was my recording. Oh shit. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] January, I think, 2007. Uhm. Wow. And then, yeah, it's...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I will tell you how I feel, uhm, cause what's really, it's funny cause somebody made a post on reddit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, about like, you know, sadly, the creator of Let's Play doesn't get to do it for a living. And it's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I get a really nice view into like the people who stream and like do what's plays for a living cause I'm like friends with a bunch of them. Sure. And I get like cooperatives to talk like this, but I also get to like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, Guile told me go home and be a family man and you got it. General or corporal or, I, I, it's been a while since I saw the movie, but whatever, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, I, please rescue me. No, uhm, it's okay. It's, uh, it's, you know, I work with technology, which I think I'm like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm better at than like just sort of being on and all that, you know, so like if, if I had like a job that married kind of like what I want to do with like that kind of thing, it's like, um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Another thing I'm known for is I did the translation rom hack of Policenauts, which is like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hideo Kojima's like game he did like before Metal Gear Solid and it was never translated before as a fan translation and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I really enjoy translation rom hacking, like the programming of it. And uhm, it's really hard work and it's something like that you can't get paid for cause it's not really legal, you know? Sure, sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that's like the kind of perfect marriage of gaming and technology. Like I got into computer science to make games and then when you see what it's like to actually make games and be in that like industry, it's like, wow, I would never want to do that in my life, you know, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I do like mobile dev, I like, uh, I do management now, like, I have like, like team and all that fun stuff. Uhm, yeah. And I like, I like, I like talking, I like dealing with people and I like, like kind of solving the challenges and things like that and,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right now where I am, like the balance I think, I kinda like it where, you know, I can go to a con for a weekend and have my wife watch the kids and like just completely nerd out and like, occasionally someone will wanna take a photo, but like, I'm not like mobbed. Like, I had this- Sure, sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had this one really bad experience once, which was kinda my fault at a pax where like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What we would do is we would go to PAX and we would record a podcast episode in our hotel room, like me and, uhm, Diabetes, the guy I do stuff with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But one year, like, you know, we kinda tweeted out, like, hey, we're over here. I think he wasn't there that year, actually, now that I think about it. And I tweeted out, like, hey, I'm in this room. A bunch of people came, so I went back to my hotel room with a couple people, and a bunch of, like, fans and stuff followed me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I kinda saw a bunch of them, like, boarding the shuttle. I'm like, hey, just so you know, I'm going back to my hotel room. Like, that's kinda it. Like, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I guess I should have been like, don't follow me. But like, there were, there was like a big group of them in the lobby and then like, some of them like followed a friend of mine like back to his hotel room and just kind of like, it was really awkward.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's still like an experience I don't know how to handle, you know, so it's kinda like, I don't...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm not like against it, but like, I don't love like fame and celebrity like other people do. You know, I'm not like shy, I like to meet people, but it's also like, let's just everybody take a step back, laugh at the YouTube videos, say hi, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and I mean, again, I'm not like, I'm really like zealous, so that was like one time and things like that, but I don't know, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, I will say, like, I find something sort of oddly therapeutic about streaming. Like, I don't know what it is, but I actually, like, prefer to, I actually don't play a lot of games. I do, I do play some, like, I'll play with my kids or things like that, but like, if I want to, like, just screw.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Excuse me, just screw around for a couple of hours. It's like, whatever, I'll have chat to talk to you. I don't mind that. You know, that kind of thing. Or even like, discover a game. Cause like, there's also something I like too about like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is actually something I like, I didn't quite get when I had first started Let's Play. Like, I really wanted to do it to show people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, if you, eh, or Snatcher from, uh, Hideo Kojima, again, before he found, like, fame with Metal Gear Solid, this was like his take on Blade Runner, and it's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's great because it's Blade Runner without all that pesky, like, nuance and moral ambiguity. It's just like, screw it, the robots are evil. Like, alright, I'll take it, you know? And it's like, it's really cool, but it's like, it's basically like one step up, but more gameplay than a visual novel. Like, you are just clicking menu options, like, the whole time, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you were to watch a gameplay video of it, you pretty much played it. So things like that were why I wanted to do it. But I think like a lot of people kinda just made it their own thing and had more fun with it and things like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've kind of come to appreciate that, but like, I definitely had a very narrow view of it back in the day, I will say.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was just gonna say, you know what I like about Twitch over YouTube is I feel like the sense of community is way better on Twitch, where like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, if you're, if you're, like, if you play Kingdom Hearts and die, like, stupidly, like, your Twitch chat's like, ah, I did that too the first time I did it, no big deal, but like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you play like Dark Souls level one soul run and like walk one step past a door, everyone's like, you moron. Like what is wrong with you? Just get off of YouTube. It's like, I'm sorry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, yeah, and I, uh, I mean, I think part of the reason like, you know, uh, you know, you're like, let's say, successful and creative too, is cause you know not to like, burn yourself out or do things for an audience, whereas I'm just like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm just completely id where I'm like, I don't care, let's just play, let's just play a game. And if you like it, great. If you don't, ah, whatever. I'm just going to be silent for three hours. No, which is not good, honestly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, I used to write a lot, uh, you know, and, um, it's, it's funny cause like, um, I, I got a couple of things published on polygon, which, uh, you know, it came from the whole like streaming let's play thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But uhm, but it was funny because like on Twitter, I remember like some, uh, somebody asked me about like writing an article about some kind of game and I was like, yeah, sure, I'll do it. And then like a friend of mine jumped in like, haha.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, but Slowbeast's not a writer, you know, and I was kinda like, I absolutely am, thank you very much, you know. I mean, you wouldn't know it from my Twitter, but still, uhm, uh, as far as hobbies, like, I'm a huge, I'm a huge beach person, like that's kind of my, uhm, that's kind of like my dream is to like, live by the ocean and stuff. Uhm, I'm like here kind of in like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, the suburbs of New Jersey, you know, kind of like, um, somewhat proximity to like, I'll go like every year, like, you know, on vacation there and stuff like that, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm, I'm like a big ocean kind of person. That said, I hate boats. Uhm, it's real, it's really weird. I don't hate them, hate them, but like, it's funny, I like met someone who is just like, you know, I don't understand why anyone would want a beach house when you could own a boat. And I was like, I've never felt more opposite to anything than that. Is it cause you feel uncomfortable?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it's, it's that. It's like, I don't know if you've ever had to sleep on a boat, cause I've done it twice in my life. I don't think I've ever actually gone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So what, what happens is if it's not like a big ship, like a yacht or a cruise ship or anything, which I haven't, well I've been on a cruise ship, but like if it's, if it's like a normal kind of boat that like a person you might know will own,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the room you're gonna sleep in is shaped like the letter L. Uhm, it's, and it's kinda like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Off to the side and you go in and the idea is you sleep on the floor but your bottom half of your body is under that main living room. So it's like you're in a little tiny coffin. Now I'm not, I'm not claustrophobic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Plus, you're rocking constantly. Not in a soothing way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And kinda the earth's shifting back and forth way. And some people, yeaah. Some people spend a lot of money to do this like constantly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then, and then you're on a marina, right? And there's a whole marina culture. There's like, some guy, he's single, he's got a vest and a bathing suit on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And like, your boat friends will be like, oh, that's, that's Slippy Pete. And you're like, Slippy Pete, that's someone's name. He goes, yeah, he's great. And he looks and he's very oily, Slippy Pete. He's like, how you doing? And you're like, hi, okay. You know, that kind of thing. And there's, it's, it's just, it's just boat life. I don't, and I don't get it. And.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm okay not getting it. It's the one part of the life I don't need to explore.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's, it's kinda like, before I had kids, it was the place I could go to like, kind of, just kind of reset. It was like, I would like, sometimes I would bring a notebook and I would just write in it, like, or make diagrams or stuff. I felt like, really wildly creative at the beach, and like, um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, and not like, I'm gonna make a YouTube video or anything, even just stuff like, I'm gonna write a novel, I'm gonna make a video game, I'm gonna make a painting, like I don't know what it is, but it's like, it was just like kind of my like relaxing muse place. Sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you have kids, then it becomes like, I have to keep them alive because they keep like trying to run directly to the ocean and things like that, you know, but I just, I like being, I like swimming. I like being in the water. I like just relaxing there and that kind of stuff. Uhm, anything that's not work. So like the minute you said barbecuing, I'm like, nope, not. Okay, got it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly. I wanna be done. I just want, I just want like my brain to go on complete cruise control and I don't have to think about a computer or a website or a mobile app or anything. That said, phones. But whatever, you know. It's, it's, yeah. That's like, that's like my happy place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That would be, uhm, probably, probably Wobble at New Jersey. Okay. Because I'm so familiar with it. It's a terrible beach. Uh, no it's not, it's not. It's, uh, it's right next to Seaside Heights, New Jersey, which you might know from the show The Jersey Shore.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you probably know of the Jersey Shore. I know of the Jersey Shore.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I started, like, when I, I started dating, uh, my wife, well, you know, my girlfriend at the time, and then she'd become my wife, you know. Uhm, that would be a little odd if you just started dating, whatever, but at any rate. Just direct a mirror, yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She, uhm, no, she was into the Jersey Shore. Sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Me being the new boyfriend, I'm not gonna be like, this show is trash and you're an idiot. So I was like, alright, I'll give it a college try. And we watch a couple seasons and I hate it. Uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But like, it's like, it's the beach I'm kinda used to, but like, there's a boardwalk there and everything, and the people there are, I really don't like to admit that they are a lot like the TV show, but yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I used to like have this whole defense like, you know, six of them aren't even from New Jersey, but then like you go and you're like, yeah, you know, um, you know, it's, there's a lot of drinking and a lot of like that stuff. And I liked that when I was younger, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, now I'm just like, I don't know, it's uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just like to go like one beach over where it's a little more family oriented and just relaxing and I kinda know it and I can go see the boardwalk off in the distance and it's just like the kinda, the place, you know? Cause I've been, I went to another beach, a rich person's beach once, it was called a Byte, B-I-G-H-T, and we had like friends of friends who like invited down, we got, you know what I mean?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was a really secluded, like, bay kind of thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, and there was like this no trespassing signs and you had the feeling there was some kind of like drone or sniper where it's like you didn't make a certain amount of money you'd be shot on sight or something.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We slipped through, we slipped through. But like, I hated it, cause the beach was, were, they were just like these smooth, but like, big rocks. You know, it wasn't like sand, you just walked on rocks, and I'm like, this is awful.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And like, you know, our friends are like, isn't this great? We brought wine with us. There's nobody around. And I'm like, I'm going to break my frigging ankles on this. What's the matter with all of you? You're walking on rocks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly, yeaah. It was just, it's terrible. I think it was like out in Long Island or something. I don't know. It's, you know, yeaah. I used to, I used to, uhm...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Boogie board, I hate, I wish there, I was trying to hope for a technical term I could latch onto to make it sound more adult. Sure, sure. You know? Yeah, but like that kind of stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know how like adults, uhm, with coordination use surfboards that they stand on and children have those like half like styrofoam things that they hold onto?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, no, uhm, it's basically that, yeaah. I don't like, again like nowadays not so much, but like that was like, I would, I would do that because, uh, to be totally fair actually, you can't really surf on like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, there's like certain surfing sections and the beaches I go to aren't really good for that. Like I think like California and stuff, there's like bigger beaches and everything that like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can go to, I mean I know it's a friggin' ocean, somebody's gonna be like, what the hell are you talking about, bigger beaches? But like, the times I've been out to the west coast, it's like, you can see like, there's more surfing and stuff going on. Sure. When you go to the east coast, it's like, nah, not really. Yeah, I am. Yeah, I, my big thing is I like to try new things though, that's my thing. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's, it's, it's so funny cause yea, like lakes and stuff. I'm like, this is nice, but it's, I could go for a wave. I could go for just something. I, um.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I got caught out in a riptide once too. Oh shit. Where I couldn't get back in. That was really scary. I remember cause I was dating my wife and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I went out, I went out into the ocean and I was out kinda like far and then I was like, I better like come back in. And then it's like, it's scary when you swim and then you woke up kind of and you're like, I haven't made any progress. I'm still out here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And like I kinda, I remember thinking like I was in trouble and I noticed like a bunch of people were having trouble so I managed to like ride waves back in but like a couple people like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The lifeguards kid with like jet skis and stuff. Oh shit. And yeah, it was, it was frightening. I mean, then I got back and I'm like, well, I made it, but you know, I'm kidding. I was, I was really scared. So, um, yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So this is my big challenge, and uhm, what I'm glad about is, my wife is not really into nerdy stuff, so she won't, she might not hear this podcast. Don't take that insultingly, she doesn't listen to any podcast. It's not like, pro-z or whatever. No, uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay. And the thing is, like, cause I was looking it up and it's like, you gotta go to school for it and get a license. Yeah. And I'm like, my, my, uh, well, my mom, that's kind of creepy that I almost called her my mom. No, but my mom wouldn't like it either. But my wife is like, you can't drive a motorcycle. You got kids. And I'm like, oh, just around a parking lot. I don't mean like out on the highway cause lord no. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's like, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'm like, you know, it's like, you have to go to school for a bunch of like, you have to go to these classes and then get a license. And I'm like, I probably can't get away with that. And like, I wouldn't like totally lie to her about it, but it would be one of those things where it's like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, uhm, it's one of those things where it's like, it depends on the commitment level and things like that, because if it were, let's say 10 years ago, absolutely, but like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, I just need, I need to make sure I'm alive to help my kids out. Sure. Cause my wife, uh, she, she's just like, she gives up like half an hour in of parenting. I'm not joking, but like, um, no, it's one of those things where like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, uhm, I actually, uh, this year though, under quarantine, this is gonna sound, I hope this doesn't sound like creepy or weird or anything, but uhm, I went shooting for the first time ever. Okay. I'd never, I, I, I always grew up like very anti-gun and everything, and I've really like kind of calmed down on that a bit, uhm, I won't say calmed down on it, but like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, I've like kind of been like, oh, okay, maybe there's something here. So I, um, I went to like, like, uh, I get, they have like classes for it and everything. And like gun people in New Jersey is a very like half and half kind of state, you know, it's like half blue, half red. And it's like South Jersey is very ag and like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you have like Philadelphia and New York kind of capping it. So like, gun people, like they kind of know you're not a gun person, but like if you're trying to enter their world, like half of them like love you. They're like, Oh my God, please come in. I'm going to teach you everything about this stuff. And like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then some of them are like, I don't like you. Like, you know, like, you didn't grow up with this. You, I, you know, and they kind of like intimidate you a bit, like, cause they're like, well, what do you want? And you're like, I want the gun. You know, and they're like, what kind? And you have to like learn all that stuff. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and you know, I kinda get now why people are so into them, because like, it's scary, but like, there's, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's no machines that are really engineered that well, which is so, which is like the scariest thing about it. Like when you actually like use one and it like does like all it's like, it's like magic. It's like you pull it and then it's all of a sudden like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The thing comes back, the bullet ejects, and it just like, reconfigures itself like a transformer. Like again, you're like, that's scary that there's nothing else built this well or any, you know. Sure, sure. But uhm, yeah, it's like, it's one of those things, like, I'm really not like a gun person still, where I'm like, screw it, this is the best thing ever, but like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I will, this is, this is the saddest part too. Any gun I recognize from a Resident Evil, I'm like, I'll shoot that one. So I did, I fired the Beretta M92F.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Glock 19, which I actually, I did the Glock 19, the Glock 45, and the Glock 17. Uhm, I did, I, I actually went back to the place, cause they let you rent the guns, and New Jersey's like really weird with like, gun licensing and stuff, but like, uhm, I did a pump shotgun,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I did a Weatherby SA-429 and I did fire, what the hell is it? I fired an AR-15, but like, that whole thing, that's like, oof, over my head, you know? Like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's, it's like I learned all this stuff because then I got really interested in it, but then like when you get into the AR thing, which is like the whole controversial stuff, I feel like what they do, I feel like it's kind of an unfair argument in the sense that like it's, it's like there's all these technicalities and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like they almost feel like gotchas in a way where you're like, I don't know if people really need to have that kind of gun. And they're like, what kind of gun do you mean? And you're like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, the ones that shoot really fast, like the, you know, that kind of thing. So like, you know, I, I, I get it in the sense that like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's probably annoying to people when it's like, you kind of go into like, hey, I want to take away something that you really like, and I don't fully understand it. But it's also, I feel like there's a lot of like, get you on the technicality kind of stuff to it and stuff. Not to go too like, deep or anything on, you know, your podcast and stuff. Like, let's, you know, let's talk about gun control and the second amendment here on, you know, but like, it's uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At any rate, it's something like I'm, I'm happy I did just to say that I did in a way, you know, but like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and now when I play out the Rambo fantasies in my mind, at least now I feel like, you know, well, I could actually do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't really understand why you would ever want to even own, you know, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm just saying like, you know, I understand having a rifle. I understand like maybe like the long gun thing in general per se, but like there's specific guns that I think are meant to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's like the dopamine rush with it. I get that. Then these are like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They make loud noises. They like, they move. And I know I'm like saying this and it's like, I'm almost sound like I'm being condescending and I'm really not. I'm just saying it from actually doing it. There's something completely thrilling about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And something about when you're handling something that could potentially kill you if you do this wrong, you know what I mean? Like, especially for the first time, it's-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's frightening and it's like an adrenaline rush kind of thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, you know, so I really understand it and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I do understand like the notion of, I really like this thing, don't take it away, but if you're gonna try to take it away, at least try to understand what the hell you're talking about. It's kinda like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When the whole violent video game controversy came out and like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, they like brought up like Mortal Kombat and Night Trap and then like you're kinda like Night Trap? Like what the hell are you even talking about? You know, like that's like not even like a violent game. So, I get it, but it's also like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I can't have, it's like you can't have everything either. Yeah, exactly. You know what I mean? Like you can't, yeah, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's, I think what sucks is that like, in America, the whole situation is just so intractable anyway. You know, like, I don't even know how you could get all these guns. I don't mean like, let's not do nothing. You know, but like, it's, it's like one of those situations where you're like, wow, we are really, really screwed on this one. You know, that kind of thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, and I don't want to paint myself either like I'm this complete daredevil or something. It's usually like, oh, is there a store for that thing? I want to try perfect. Here's my credit card. And guns, guns, it turns out at least in, in New Jersey, I think in most states, like if you want to try them at a range, it's like very easy to do. And so far as you take like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In our long class and which is basically like, here's not how not to like accidentally shoot somebody at the gun range kind of thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But like, you know, it's, uh, it's, it also introduced me to gun YouTube, which is very funny.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which like, it's like, the one video, cause I was looking up this one, this one, uh, shotgun and like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This guy I guess gave a review of it and it opens on like the sky with like a prairie kind of, you know, like that kind of grass, deserty kind of prairie land sort of thing. Just completely serene. And then he just fades in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, like, they, they tend to use like effects like that and it's, it's pretty, it's pretty nuts, honestly. Interesting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, yeaah, I uhm, I'm a big like, I'm a big eater in the sense of that like, I'm a, I'm a heavy guy, but like besides that, I like to try like, you know, like different things, like unusual things, you know, so like, uhm, my wife and I went to Thailand for our honeymoon, and, you know, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who is with us? Hell yeaah, I'll do that too, let's do it. So they cooked up a rat and we ate a rat. How was it? It was delicious.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like it was like a very tender beef, like it worked out like pretty well that way, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It just like, it reminded me of like, if you've ever had a bony fish, but like times like five, you know, where it was like every bite you were picking something out of your, your, uh, yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's like, I think if you're in like more of a rural area in Thailand, people will do it, but like, you know, I mean, it's not like it was out in the city. Like the night markets at Thailand had a lot of stuff like that, and they had a lot of bugs, which I have a lot of trouble with bugs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'm working my way up, like uhm, my daughter, she's like six, I don't know why or where she saw this, but uhm, for some reason she got into, there's like a YouTube series of uhm, of women in Asia who will like, will capture like centipedes or millipedes or


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I think it's around like the Myanmar area and I was reading more about it and it's basically like if like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Food supplies, like, can't get to that region for whatever reason, like, people will, like, actually, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Catch like centipedes and like bugs and like live off the land a little more kind of, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And like, give it like, you know, sort of modern, like they'll use like, you know, cooking oil and like, you know, uh, chili, like, and things like that, but like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That said, she likes to watch people cook and eat centipedes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uhm, that is like, like my total phobia, you know, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'll do it to be a good dad, but like, you know, in the inside I'm shaking, you know, but uhm. Have you, would you ever try one? I'm, I'm working my way up to it, in the sense that...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, you know what it is, so, we have a frog, uhm, cause she, this is very cute, when she was like three or four, she wrote a letter to Santa,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But we got the terrarium, but the thing is, if you're a frog owner, you're also a cricket owner, so you need a cricket house, you need to buy bags of crickets, and you need to do a whole thing with crickets, so now I'm like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Way more used to bugs than I used to be, you know, um, cause you gotta deal with it. So I feel like maybe I can't eat centipede, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe someday? And like, again, this would never present itself, unless, well, actually they do sell vacuum-sealed, like, centipedes, I will say, online, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, it's funny because the reason it came up too is Resident Evil 7 VR. Uhm, one of the DLCs, like the guy will eat bugs to regain health, which I didn't realize.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was, you know, it was, it's so real, it's like you're there. Yeah, yeah. Uhm, yeah. So, I've, I've had, I've tried silkworm, that's the closest I've ever gotten to it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Same, yeaah. Like, I think the texture was maybe the worst part. Yeaah. Not worst, but like, yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I will tell you, I prepped for this podcast by listening to the episode prior, about like 30 minutes of, and I'm like, I think I got this. Okay, okay. And now I guess at like the 40 minute mark is the question for you. Now I'm like, oh god, uhm, uuuh, looking around the room, Minecraft, what do you think? Which episode did you listen to?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I listened to the previous one with, I wanna make sure I get her name right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thank you. Gotcha. Yeah. Uhm, yeah, she mentioned like living in Japan and stuff and I've been, I've been when I was 20 but uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, you know what I hate? I went to Japan when I was like really young and I was like, I want to go to bars like a total idiot, but then I didn't really appreciate it. So I want to go back. But anyway.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, yeaah, anything I wanna talk about. No, I'm really bored. Okay, yeaah, no, that's totally fine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And alligator ra- that's nothing really. Uh, rattlesnake.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I liked it. Uhm, actually, uh, I was hanging out with my one friend and, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, he was Korean and he took me to a Korean place and basically he ordered like exotic stuff, I guess to kinda try and freak me out. You know? But half of it was like, I love that kinda thing. But the one he got was, and I don't remember what it was called, but uhm, it was basically like kinda like fish bones.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like they like kind of take like the bones and you eat like the bones and they're like breaded or something which was


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was odd and another, he had like the head and basically the head of the fish was there and he was like, do you want to eat the eye of the fish? And I'm like, and he told me it was considered a delicacy, which I'm going to be honest, he could have been screwing with me. I have no idea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, it was this thing where like, I had the chopsticks and I was like, on this, after the second like, I like kind of approached and I was like, ehh, and then he was like, well I'll just eat it. I'm like, no, no, no, I got it. And then I like ate it and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, it was absolutely delicious, uh, just really really good, salty, it like kinda just like melts in your mouth except it leaves behind this like tiny solid thing of cartilage which is awful.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was like eel or something, like something I don't even really remember because it was like, oh come on, like I'm almost insulted now, you know, like I could have gotten this at a sushi bar, that kind of thing. But uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm actually taking notes on things. Sure. Like, I clipped it 14 minutes and then beef heart tartare and then tripe taco are my takeaways from this podcast. Have you ever had a pig sweep?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know what I uhm, I had once was uhm, do you ever have prawn head?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, like the shrimp, like, but the actual face and stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I, I, I went to, um, I, when I went to Tokyo, uh, the one time I did again, I looked up at this place, um, in the Tsukiji fish district called Edo-Gin, and they had like a fish tank in the back, and they're kinda like claim to fame or whatever, it's like you couldn't get fresh for sushi, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, uhm, at the time, like, I was, you know, I was in my eternal, like, I wanna learn Japanese to play Japanese video games, like a big nerd. Uhm, so I, I ordered the, it was called Live Prawn on the menu, you know? So I ordered that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they brought everything else, but they didn't bring anything. I can see like a prawn, but then.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, I'm sorry, they brought out like, it looked like just shrimp, but blue, so I'm like, yeah, whatever, but then,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like the chef came out with the head of the prawn on a plate by itself and he puts it down in front of me and all these people in the restaurant started looking, so uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I, I go, uh, sumi asengah, which like for anyone who doesn't know is like, excuse me, but, you know, so I'm like, and I said this exactly, which was sumi asengah, um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just eat this or what? Cause like I couldn't think of how to possibly. So he made a motion like that. So I had to like bit through the head and everything. It was delicious. And then.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Years later, uhm, I was in New Orleans with my friend and my friend Emil ordered prawns and he is, I was eating, I was like, what do you do with the heads? He goes, ah, you eat them. So I did. And he goes like, no, no, you don't, no, you throw them out. And I'm like, oh, but I thought, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've had that, yeaah. Yeaah. I like it, I don't love it, but I like it, you know. Gotcha.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I'm 42 years old and I've never played Kingdom Hearts. I've obviously seen, like, I know about the infamous, like, goofy dying kinda thing, you know, and stuff like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's the bundle I want, I should say. Okay, is that on PS4? Yes. PS3? Okay, okay. PS4. What do you think?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm like a very Johnny-come-lately kind of person to this stuff. I only played Pokemon for the first time like ten years ago.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm, I was just like old enough to have just kind of missed it in a way. Like I had a Gameboy, I could have bought it and I didn't. I still haven't played Minecraft. Um.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But like, Kingdom Hearts was one of those things, basically what happened was, one of my stream moderators got a PlayStation 5, and I was like desperate to get one, he was like, I'll sell it to you, but I want you to Platinum Kingdom Hearts too, cause I like the Platinum games. Okay. But I was like, yea sure, whatever, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, basically, uh, you know, I bought his PlayStation 5, then he got another one somehow, like the week after, so he just has the best luck with that. So uhm, I started with Kingdom Hearts 1, and then I liked it enough, and I brought on, uhm, a friend of mine, she, uh, co-commodates with me, and she's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She's like done speedruns at Kingdom Hearts, like, not like she's not a speedrunner, but she'll tell me whenever I say that, but uhm, so she'll like kinda help me with like, here's how you synth grind in here, so like, I've really gotten the full Kingdom Hearts experience. Okay, okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What I really like about it is like, it never goes where you think it's going to, and where it goes is really frickin' funny.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All of a sudden it's like, hey, here's Squall. And I'm like, why is Squall here? I mean, I know Kingdom Hearts, and then I'll look down and he's got zippers on his shoes. And I'm like, wha- and I'll point that out and like, people in chat will be like, I never noticed that. I've played this game a million times. And like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's like this whole like, there's this extra video you get if you like beat proud mode and do something else at the end and like, it's just like these goth people fighting with keyblades in a city.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, no irony, and like, it's like mind-blowing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, he's like, there it is, Kingdom Hearts, and we're going to open it or something. And I'm like, did anyone mention Kingdom Hearts before this outside the title? And you, you, you think like, after you beat him and all that and that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're, we're gonna try to close the door if we can, but Riku's pulling it from the inside, and like, I get it. Riku's kinda sacrificing himself by sealing him inside Kingdom Hearts so you feel that pathos for him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like how did they get away with this? Like how does-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it's like Disney, Disney's a company that's that like, sued a children's hospital. You know, where they're like, hey, hey, hey, I don't like the way you painted those Mickey heads, not quite symmetrical. Right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let me tell you my friend, I am gonna play Chain of Memories. I uhm. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm gonna correct you now as people have told me that it is actually three five eight days over two.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then PlayStation 2 again for like, so you had to like, be kinda like a rich kid with a lot of consoles and stuff to really get the Disney experience.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'll, I'll tell you what I know going in, okay? So, I heard you got extra cards if you have gone through the free 50, three, five, eight days over two.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My friend Kabanaut tweeted a picture of fighting someone named Zenmes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then I looked at that and I go, oh my god, do you know what Zenmas is the anagram for? Sex man. Holy crap. Look at that Kingdom Hearts. And like, it's complete idiot. I actually didn't put two and two together on that for like a couple of days. And then I'm like, oh, it's Ansem with an oh! Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know, again, I know that scene where Goofy dies. That's like kinda infamous, you know? Sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That sword guy and you're like, what the, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, I don't know, like somebody spoiled that Atlantica is in Kingdom Hearts 2 again, but, and I know Toy Story is in 3, but that's kinda all I know. Wow, that's great.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think just like, it's so, it's, it's just, I, I just seen like Clayton, cause he's riding an invisible heartless, you know? I didn't know that, so I was like, oh my god, Clayton's a demon?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, you know, it's really fun. I didn't expect it to like it as much as I did, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've heard that, I've asked chat, chat not to spoil, and like, I try not to read when they start talking about that stuff, cause like, people don't dance around it super well, you know, so like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think there's like, not quite A-listers, but there's people com- I know there's people coming, but I don't know who. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that's, no, that's it, that's the, that's actually really white, like what I love to do, like with, back with Let's Play in the day, with when people are like, I can't watch this anymore because I want to go play. So, even a case like this where it's like, you, you want to go back to Kingdom Hearts, that makes me happy to hear that, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wrote things down actually, just to bring up too, just in case. Yeah, what's up?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm worried about my daughter getting into Kingdom Hearts because I won't be able to explain it. Yeah. Cause she'll have questions. She saw me play it once and she's like, why are Donald and Goopy with that grizzled old man? Meaning Sora. So, kids are weird.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause, no, she, you know, the, you know how like the, every parent's like worst fear is kinda when their kid goes like, where do babies come from? Like that's, no, she asked me what happens to fall guys when they die.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, like, I'm like, are you sure you don't wanna know about babies? Cause I think I'm ready to handle that one. Yeah. No, that's why I fear her getting into Kingdom Hearts, because I can't explain any of it. I don't know what happened, or...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She watches Let's Plays on YouTube Kids. Uhm, okay. So she watches Minecraft Let's Plays with like the Mario Pack, you know. I see. And like, the, you know, and like, I'm obviously like, I'm like there or something, you know, just because I'm kinda worried about that, but. Yeah, yeah. Uhm, she plays over, we play Overcooked together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's like infuriating for me and I have to like really keep it inside because like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She's like, I want to unlock a new level. So I'm like, well, we have to get hard. So we have to play serious. And then she'll like start a little serious, but then like, I'll make a full burger.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh man, like I'm supposed to be having a good time with my daughter, but this is killing me inside.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, we, we play Super Mario Party before, uh, bed every night. Not the board game, you know, obviously, but like, we'll like play, there's like that rhythm kind of thing. I don't know if you play Super Mario Party for the Switch. I actually have not played it yet, no. Oh, okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they have like, uhm, they have a cool rafting minigame where you play like the minigames while you're on the river.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's like, so we'll do like the stuff like that, not the full on, like, because the board game, I think, like the few times I've played Mario Party takes like, like a weekend to fully finish, so. Sure, sure. You know, uhm, that sort of thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's, it's like one of those things, it's funny, like my son, who's four, he has like no interest in games, like he just likes it, you know, so he's probably just gonna call us nerds, but my daughter like absolutely loves video games, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's funny cause like, um, she saw me playing Monster Hunter World once, which is like, I don't stream that one. That's kinda like my, I just wanna like chill for a minute kinda thing, you know? Sure. Uhm, and unfortunately my friends who are into it are like really into it to a level where like I feel like I can't help or contribute in any way, so. Uhm, but she's like, I wanna play Monster Hunter World, so I'm like, mmm, okay. So like, I let her go up against like Puke Puke,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But like, I feel like Anjanath might be a little too scary, so like I try to like kinda level, like limit like what she can see and things like that. She's-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She'll say like, oh, I can handle whatever, that's not scary. But then she gets like nightmares about stuff, you know? So it's like, you don't wanna like it, you know? So it's funny like watching Kingdom Hearts, cause I'm like, oh, she would love this. But then like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That like ship of chaos thing at the end, you know, that like when, when it's all of a sudden the final fantasy, like body horror thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then I have to explain who all the square characters are to her, you know, cause she's not gonna know, uhm, Tidus, which I have now learned is the pronunciation of his name, but. Ugh, it's Titus. I'm gonna say, no one's gonna change that. Thank you, it's Titus, thank you. Thank you for saying what we were all thinking. Yes, yes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'll put it this way, uhm, one time I told a friend of mine, like, I like obscure anime, I've seen Prince of Tennis, and they're like, get the hell out of here, you're an idiot, you know, so I'm like, alright, I guess I don't know anime as well as I thought I did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I kept it broad for you in case you wanted like just to pick one of those things, but I'll take all three. Absolutely.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, I didn't. Yeah, I didn't like it either. But the first two are great. I didn't hate it. I didn't hate it, but I kinda hated it. Like, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know what I actually loved about that was, I think everyone who liked 999 kind of admits like the final puzzle is very disappointing because it's Sudoku pretty much. And it's almost like they kind of made up for it in Virtue's Last Reward because like the, the queue room.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] being like an escape the room with just nothing in it to start with and then it's an amalgamation of all the puzzles that you saw culminating in an iterative prisoners dilemma puzzle is like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just, I was really like floored by how good that one was. Yeah, I am.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, I played Virtue's Last Reward on DS, on Nintendo DS, and I lost my save to the MPs. Oooooh, I see. That was, yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nah, I got nothing. No, uhm, I, I brought up, I brought up Snatcher, I think, honestly, like, it's somewhere between a visual novel. I think you should watch, I do have a lot to watch anyone's, and he doesn't have to be mine, I don't care.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but watch any even just standard playthrough of it or play it yourself. Uhm, it's a Sega CD game and it's the only English release in Sega CD.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you like like kind of a light cyberpunk sci-fi story that because it's Hideo Kojima goes places that you wouldn't expect, but it's like, it's very light. It's very fun. Um, and it's like about like a goofy kind of Blade Runner and he's like kind of silly and he gets serious when he has to. And then like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When it goes serious, it goes hard, and it just, it's not at all what you expect. I really, it's like my favorite game, so much so that I like, spent a year translating its spiritual sequel, which I don't like as much. Uhm. Is it kind of like adventure game-ish? It is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is. None of the puzzles in it are particu- one or two, but like most of them are not particularly satisfying. It's usually like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did you talk to that person 20 times before you can like get the next plot flag, you know, that kind of thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's not like Metal Gear Solid 2 where it's like very like abstract and it has a lot to say, but it's like it masquerades as a very light silly take on Blade Runner and then it kind of goes places and you're like, whoa, that's pretty cool, you know? It's like more of a restrained Hideo Kojima, but like not too restrained.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, yeaah. And it's rare to see other stuff that's not Metal Gear, but anyway. That does sound really cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, it's unfortunate, it didn't, it sold like crap in the west, like a copy of, a legit copy of Snatcher Ghost for like a thousand dollars. Uhm. Jesus, okay. Cause it sold so little.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is a horror game. It's first person. It's very good at what it does. So I will say, yeah, if you don't like horror games, maybe not, but it's so incredibly good. The story is like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't use the word touching, and maybe because it deals with like parenthood and family and stuff, but like, it really gets ya. And it's, oh, mwah. It's like, it was a travesty that game got taken out, but it's back available again, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can get it on PC still. Red Candle Games, who's the company that made the game, uhm, they have a shop now, like an e-shop of their own. You can't get it on Steam, but you can just buy it directly from them now on Mac, Windows, or Linux.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Excuse me. They have another game called Detention, which is still on Steam, which is also really good. If you like, if you like the old Silent Hill kind of experience, this is like the closest company that's ever captured it, I think, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, make an exception if you don't like horror games. I would say, you know, unless you absolutely can't, but whatever, it's really good. Gotcha.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, I'm slash Slowbeef, kind of everywhere, meaning like YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, you know? Uhm, that's like, spelled exactly how it sounds, like S-L-O-W-B-E-E-F, uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, uh, I am doing Kingdom Hearts, I'm almost done with, I'm doing the speedrun too, just cause I have like almost all the trophies, but like we're gonna start Chain of Memory soon. And uhm, you know. Yeah, and uh, every Wednesday at 9 I do stuff, if you like my old like Retsupere channel, me and the other guy, Diabetes, we do, we're doing Resident Evil 6 now, every Wednesday at 9pm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So grateful to see you here. Good to see you, Chaitanya Charan Prabhu. Thank you for inviting me to your monk


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can briefly, yes, I mean, for many years I was doing


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] About 1989 my service, I had a service that went terribly wrong, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And did various services including book distribution. I was the head cook there for a while. I tried Pujari service for a little while.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, you're in the wrong service, you should get into education. So at that time I, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I did a mail out to some universities and visited some academics and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We started a department in Back to Vedanta Manor called Iskcon Educational Services. We had limited success.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but then I decided to put out a similar brochure that was targeting schools.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the UK by schools, we don't mean higher education as they indicate in America. Schools is really reserved for primary and secondary education. So I did a mail out to schools. Uhm, we probably sent about two initially almost 2000


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think we had about 170 schools who were interested in visits.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So after that my feet didn't touch the ground. The program took off very, very quickly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not specifically, no. I mean, it's interesting. I've been reflecting on this recently.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would describe myself not as a religious person, but more as a philosophical person who believes that there is an absolute truth and that absolute truth is actually personal rather than impersonal. So I'm coming, I mean, obviously there are many personal issues in my becoming involved with this


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And emotional issues and so on. And yet I was somewhat grounded in a philosophical mindset.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was at university, I was studying mathematics prior to my joining, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I was part of a philosophy club, so I had some latent interest in philosophy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Any background in education but then in 1995


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think the VTE, Vaishnav Training and Education, was started by Shona Kurishi.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who's now in Oxford and some other leading devotees like Satchinanda Swami, Bhakti Vaibhava Swami and others. Uhm, and apologies to those I'm not mentioning of course. Uhm, Viti was started in 1992 and in 1995 it launched the first teacher training course.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so my interest in education went from what religion, if you like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If we can call Christian consciousness a religion, can contribute to education more to the role of education within a religious institution, namely ISKCON.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We did draw some expertise from someone who was grounded in Western ideas of education. And indeed we were criticised for


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pieces of knowledge I received was that in education,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, it's not just about knowledge, but anything we learn can be divided into three categories, namely knowledge, which is cognitive skills, which is applicative and values. So very simple.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, when we actually, a few of us went on a teacher training course, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A few months later we decided we were going to teach the course having attended one course.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Facilitate and help facilitate group dynamics.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, very expert gentleman and I will always remain grateful to him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we then taught the course. Uhm, I remember in the course we were arguing what an aim and an objective is and we were trying to, in other words, deeply understand what we were teaching. Uh, and of course we then started to look to our own tradition to see whether this model of knowledge, skills and values


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ask myself, are there various stages at which each of these are emphasized? Or do the three strands of learning


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we did develop with guidance from, from others, uhm, a model that explained


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Absolutely, absolutely and you can never divorce values from the process of knowledge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In some ways quite simple framework, a kind of matrix.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and I will send you that at some stage, which we developed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which suggests that actually you start with information.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think it's similar, but somewhat different. I'd need to, you'd need to give me a little more time to look at it. Certainly, I mean, in terms of Africa,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We actually identified the first stage, educational stage, with both, uhm, factual knowledge, A, B, C, 1, 2, 3, the name of Arjuna's bow. And you know, just memorization. Let's put it here. Factual knowledge. The second stage, knowledge becomes understanding. But the focus there, the focus there is on application.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because as soon as you have some understanding, just a little bit of understanding, then you're going to apply it. And to apply knowledge, you need understanding.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That actually, when you go to any kind of educational institute, it has a practical purpose.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Absolutely, in terms of Bhakti Yoga, yes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, and at the first stage, the, uh, the emphasis is on knowledge, but just memorization.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, at that stage values and practices are more or less latent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's the stage at which values are really stressed and at that point application becomes spontaneous.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Assimilates that knowledge, it becomes part of oneself, one becomes a devotee or one becomes a teacher or one becomes a lawyer, whatever it is. So the emphasis there is on being, which is to do with values rather than doing or knowing. But this is a,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Complex subject and perhaps it could be the subject for a podcast.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In its own right, actually, and I can send you that, but what is interesting to come back to our discussion is that because the emphasis was on values, uh, and which include moral values, then there is a naturally a huge component of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've got a slightly different idea of morality, though the two are connected. But the question you raised is a pertinent one, uhm, whether or not Krishna consciousness and the virtue


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, whether that stands above morality. My take on this is that it's actually counterproductive to assume that all morality is material. Because it tends us, because it tends for us, it tends to imply that in transcendence there is a moral void. It becomes nihilistic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're a kind of knocking, uh, of chipping away at the foundation or perhaps.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because in my studies I am basing, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or trying to formulate a framework, a normative framework.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For a chitannuation of moral philosophy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If we're not that mature in Krishna consciousness, I would suggest is that we're kind of climbing up this ladder. And once we go to one step, we decry the lower step. And so we decide, yeah, let me burn.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we, we burn the step beneath us and then we go to the next step and we get out an axe and we destroy the step beneath us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Absolutely. And you're alluding to the verse in the first canto, second chapter. Is it verse nine? Six, I think. Absolutely. Yes, one, two, six. Yes. So actually, this is an interesting observation. Of course, the word dharma is extremely rich. It's a very rich concept, very, um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it can't really be translated so easily into English. There isn't a single word that actually suffices in translating the word Dharma. However, uhm, the question I may ask, and have asked in classes occasionally, is,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If we had to choose between two words.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And of course keeping in mind that the word religion has different meanings depending in which, you know, cultural setting one is answering that question.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, absolutely, we could extend that metaphor, yes. I mean, there are many quotes and, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, Sheila Bhakti Siddhartha Saraswati also makes it very, very clear, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Rupi Velasthi's book on, I think it's called The Ray of Vishnu, on Sheila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati, um, page 88.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and there's some justification to this, of course, is that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Morality is about right and wrong, good and evil, and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Krishna consciousness transcends such dualities.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And therefore, for that reason, it has nothing to do with morality. However, Srila Prabhupada addresses this question directly. And if I can read this, yes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ethics form the basic principle of purification. We cannot be purified unless we know what is moral and what is immoral.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And here, I'll just pause the same, but here he addresses the above duality issue. Unfortunately, everything in this material world is more or less immoral, but still we have to distinguish between good and bad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I think probably the reasons are multiple, very often causes are not singular.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think also another thing, and I mentioned this in my article in the ICJ, is there was a tendency to abandon and encourage other devotees to jettison our current


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, moral sensibilities, what I sometimes call our cultural capital, that had to be thrown out completely for us to adopt Krishna consciousness. Now, one may argue that when one converts to a religion, if Krishna conscious can be described as a religion, then that process of jettisoning one's previous identity


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And all the cultural baggage or cultural capital that goes with it is necessary. I'm not so sure on that. I think we need to ask that question.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Some sense of what is right and wrong, uhm, and we can assume that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sometimes it's wrong, but maybe sometimes the Lord is giving us some direction from within as well. After all, we came to Krishna consciousness.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Through the direction of the Supersoul. One can't find one's Diksha Guru without the guidance of the Lord. Uhm, so we were, we were kind of encouraged to abandon that. I mean, in my own Krishna consciousness, after a few years, I started to ask myself, well, my intuition seems to be right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Quite a lot of the time, even though I'm encouraged to be skeptical.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] About my own thoughts and my own apparent insights.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I think a degree of skepticism about our own perception of the world is very healthy, but also we do actually have to develop some


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A subjective opinion has to become the same as Shastra, ultimately. That's the assimilation of knowledge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But simply by scriptural literacism, Krishna consciousness will not go on. Uhm, our tradition


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Srila Prabhupada mentions this in the first canto again, that actually, uhm, it's not so much as in the kind of karma khanda tradition, karma yoga, where it's about just what you know, but it's based on realization. It's for that reason that actually,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Our tradition values not just the Diksha Guru.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Simply memorizing truth, which is very, very important and parroting truth, if you like, which is also very important to actually understanding first, to engaging with truth, to asking questions, not engaging in Niyamagraha.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But asking what is the purpose of these rules and regulations? What is their goal? And so on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But beyond that second stage, which is critical and is more or less the Majjhima Adhikari stage, according to Shila Bhakti Vinod Thakur, we have to go through that stage in order to reach virtue and also to reach transcendental sentiment. If we don't go through that critical stage, our sentiment is likely to remain mundane.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, expressing one's doubts is far more beneficial than concealing one's doubts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, I, I am very skeptical as whether one can go from the stage of being sentimental as a Kanisha to the ultimate stage without passing through the stage of being self-aware, self-critical and asking questions. Uhm, you know, we are,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It may be that the heart ultimately rules the head. And I think there's a strong case for bhakti, that once one has to wish for bhakti, then the head will operate, will function properly as well. There is a story, I'm not sure whether it's true, about Sir Walter Raleigh, who eventually lost his head. Sir Walter Raleigh was


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Eventually he lost his head, I don't think it was to Elizabeth, excuse me, I'm not fully aware of the story, but the story goes, uhm, that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When he came to the block to have his head chopped off, uhm, the Axeman was very polite, polite, uhm, the executioner was polite. So he, he asked him, which way do you want to put your head? And he apparently replied, if my heart is looking in the right direction, it doesn't matter the direction of my head. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think that's a profound truth, when the heart is immersed in Krishna praying.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] However, the danger is that if we put sentiment before reason at the immature stage, we are in danger.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Rather than moving on. Therefore, if we have an anti-philosophical approach, let's put it like that, uh, that may not be good for our spiritual life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, perhaps one of the biggest differences is that the object of knowledge, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it's very important to go into our tradition to primarily evaluate ourselves.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is also pertinent to the idea of morality because we might be keen


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we still do that in Iskcon in evaluating the moral conduct of others. But unless we have our own house in order, not just spiritually, but also morally,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then our reaching out to others will be less effective.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To effectively spread Krishna consciousness. And integrity means it's that stage where our cognition


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[Assistant] Our words, our feelings, our whole being is aligned.


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[Assistant] It's moving, it's what some have called flow. It's powerful. I mean, I can speak. And very often, because I'm not mature, I say one thing, but do I really feel it?


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[Assistant] I do recall once many years ago giving a class, uhm, speaking about the perils and


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[Assistant] In the sense that I'm saying, not negative critical, but he asked questions. Do I mean this? No, it doesn't mean this. Listen.


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[Assistant] To his, I'm listening at the moment to some talks in 1973, some of them here in London at the Manor, on the first 20, 30 verses of the Bhagavad Gita, explaining how we know the body. Very precise.


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[Assistant] And I've written about this in my recent essay in the ICJ. Uhm, there is a challenge with, one of the big challenges is sexuality and maintaining celibacy.


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[Assistant] We need to know, we need to address the ethical of issue of how much free will do we have and how much are our actions predetermined, determined by our nature. So this tension between free will and determinism, which is a long ongoing, a prolonged philosophical debate.


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[Assistant] Yeah, it may not be helpful. Too much guilt or shame, toxic shame can be unhelpful. But coming back to ethics, we do need to ask the question, what am I capable?


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[Assistant] And what am I not capable of? And I made the rather, um, strong statement.


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[Assistant] That some young men and young women are not capable of avoiding sex.


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[Assistant] The misconception was the Brahmachari Ashram is higher than the Grihastha Ashram. Give me scriptural evidence for that.


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[Assistant] Announced that he was getting married. He called it coming out.


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[Assistant] Come out as gay, it's like a confession. Why confess? What's wrong?


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[Assistant] You've now finished one stage successfully. Now you move to the other positively.


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[Assistant] I cannot find any evidence for that view.


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[Assistant] And the corresponding attitudes in our tradition.


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[Assistant] Where do we have free choice? Where do we not have free choice? If we try to exercise free choice, where we do not have it, it will be counterproductive. Because we are all svakarmajam. We are born with our nature.


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[Assistant] You cannot change, there are certain things we cannot change in this lifetime while also becoming Krishna conscious.


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[Assistant] Absolutely. I mean, obviously a certain amount of disconsent with one's own moral and spiritual status is healthy.


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[Assistant] So I think we need to look at some of those issues and the issues of morality and ethics can be useful.


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[Assistant] That moral philosophy is there in our own tradition.


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[Assistant] But I think we've missed it in many ways. I think we're sidestepping it. We're favouring spirituality over morality.


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[Assistant] A non-discourse, a non-dialogical approach to morality. Are we discussing morality explicitly? Or are we somehow sidestepping the issue? Very importantly, are we addressing the moral issues that, quite naturally, are there in our own society? Or are we simply telling others how they should be moral?


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[Assistant] Uh, in other words, you have this ideal of not judging, but uhm, we're gonna put the Nazis in the gas chamber or shoot them.


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[Assistant] It's problematic. I think it's very important for us.


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[Assistant] That has happened, and this has been happening for a long time, probably with the beginning of utilitarianism, is that ethics, uhm, generally is something that is actually discussed in the social arena, the public arena.


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[Assistant] And personal morality is now not considered that important.


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[Assistant] Yes, in other words, and this goes back to utilitarianism and John Stuart Mill and Bentham and so on, uhm, with the idea that actually


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[Assistant] In fact, based on his philosophy, there were certain communities set up based on free love. And today, when it comes to sexual morality, uhm, some hold, and there are academic articles on this, uhm, that actually consent is the only criterion


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[Assistant] For actually determining whether sexual activity is moral or immoral.


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[Assistant] Uh, you know, we may consider important, the kind of what a important question. That's true. Uhm, the challenge I think I've, that even though we, well,


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[Assistant] About the contribution that personal sadhana and chanting the holy name makes to our


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[Assistant] Moral development as well as our spiritual development. But we have rather tightly framed, uhm, our understanding of, uhm, what is morality and is gone. For example, when we take a vow to follow the Four Regative Principles, we're not only taking that vow to follow them, but we're also making a promise, I would suggest,


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[Assistant] To develop the corresponding virtues, cleanliness, mercifulness, truthfulness and austerity.


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[Assistant] Now if we're developing those virtues, one would imagine those virtues would be exercised not just in the temple room before 8.30, but after 8.30 and in the wider world.


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[Assistant] And when we're taking the vow to chant 16 rounds, we're also making a promise, if you like, to develop Krishna Prema.


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[Assistant] But there's also the tensions, some of those dilemmas are actually tensions not just between conduct, but between various virtues also.


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[Assistant] We want to apply one virtue, but we may not be able to apply another. Oh, okay. Yeaah, okay. True. So the virtues, so yeaah.


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[Assistant] I've mentioned a little bit some of the moral challenges we have.


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[Assistant] Generally, or in some cases, some meanings, means the conscious consideration and application of moral principles.


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[Assistant] Right? So it includes such things as moral philosophy.


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[Assistant] For medical ethics, business ethics, psychological ethics, and so on.


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[Assistant] So it's more a system and a structure of where one is actually, uh, deliberately critical


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[Assistant] Uhm, of moral issues, one's thinking about those issues and trying to develop systems to apply.


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[Assistant] So I use it in that sense. So when I talk about ethical issues in ISKCON, there are some issues where we're uncertain. There's some issues where we know this is right, but we're not able to live up to it. And that happens to all of us in our lives.


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[Assistant] Ethical issues, and I'm just using this somewhat according to my own definition, uh, although it reflects some of the dictionary definitions, are those issues where we're not sure what's right or wrong. Should we drink milk that's commercially produced and implicated in violence? Should we go vegan?


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[Assistant] Where we don't meet our own standards and that means we don't meet our standards individually and we don't meet our standards collectively. And how do we deal with that? First, do we acknowledge it?


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[Assistant] And you expressed it earlier, I think, in talking about Dharma.


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[Assistant] And there's a famous, uh, moral philosopher, Alistair McIntyre, who said it's about where we are at the moment and humans as they could be.


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[Assistant] Of course we don't quite see it as humans as they could be. We see it more in terms of spirit souls as we could be.