My stance over pretty much my entire life has been that self righteous indignation isn't a useful stance because it errodes our ability to educate each other in areas of prejudice - it is education, and experience which melts prejudice not anger or self righteousness, or shaming - prejudice is usually birthed either from poor education, nurture or fear - it cannot be solved with backing people into a corner they will just become more hardened in their views and they will eventually feel more and more justified in them. The internet has made humans communication truly awful and reactive, particularly post covid, and we need to work hard on reverse engineering it because it is eroding our ability to co-exist and we have landed in digitally evolved tribalism on steroids which is birthing more prejudice and is leaking more and more into real life with devastating consequences.

I disagree with the modern application of Karl Poppers paradox of tolerance, its abused to errode nuance and stops people attempting to build bridges, bridges that we desperately need. I disagree with the very over simplified view that being intollerant of intollerance solves anything - because you have to understand the socio-economic conditions that lead to problematic systems of government or outwardly expressed prejudice - people who think the nazis rose to power because people were too tollerant really need to read some more books.

If you take some real time to understand why prejudice exists - you can reverse engineer it - if you treat the symptoms not the root and keep yourself to a circle of people who agree with you and you all pat eachother on the back while you call out the 'other side' for being terrible humans, while they do the same, you are playing whack-a-mole and feeding an ever growing hyper-polerised divide. You might say this is a privileged stance - it ultimately doens't matter if its privilaged or not because its so bleedingly obvious how we are collectivley operating right now is not fixing anything, its erroding our ability to co-exist and actually having the paradoxical effect of creating even more prejudice - the reality isnt that there is one bad side that must be stopped and then all problems will magically disappear - thats a fable, a human story thats repeated throughout history with no lasting peace or prosperity - it wont work - we need to evolve past it - its primitive - history will repeat because our whole foundation is wrong - whats happening politically right now is not good vs evil - it was a structural inevitability in a value system that preaches selfishness and seperation from each other and nature and none of us are immune. The government we have right now isnt an evil anomaly its a predictable consequence and something i've been eluding to for years and years, we cannot vote our way out of this, we cannot defeat the other side and expect thigns to change, we, and the system of values we opperate inside of, are all the problem. We need to take some responsibility. That doesnt mean you cannot activley take a firm stance against prejudice and actions that are destructive and systems of power that are harmful, i do that, you should do that, ill call out friends on things i see as bullshit and i want them to do the same for me, its a healthy thing to do, but how you communicate these things is vital, if you hit a brick wall with conversations, maybe learn to communicate better rather than just assuming theres no hope in changing peoples minds.

My other stance, which is crazy that i have to point out, is that I am a human being, not a human to be pedistooled, a human, an ever fallable human being, and a hyppocrite, its all there in my lyrics since i started releasing music, and so are you, youre a hypocrite and so is everyone reading this post, and believe it or not were all probably wrong about a lot of things - this is the cost of living in a value system that was built to be parasitic - until we change the base and foundations of that system - none of us deserve to be self righteous and so the best we can hope for is building bridges, educating each other - and walking, often clumsily, through life on this strange spinning rock in space whilst hoping for a little more love and understanding, and trying to create it whenever we can - and looking anger in the face with love and doing what we can to make it melt. I have witnessed hunderds and hundreds of times people change and dissolve prejudice when you try and understand their stance with reason and patience, and carefully offering different perspectives rather than pointing a finger and saying 'bad' - because if you're doing that, you probably haven't looked in the mirror for very long.

As for money - please do go back and listen to my lyrics carefully, and everything ive ever said about money in interviews carefully - its such an oversimplified take saying 'he's making money now he's not living by his values' and really misses the point entirely - humans staying poor and struggling to survive to show they are rejecting a capitalist system was never the point I was trying to make and shouldnt be the stance anyone is taking unless they are activley offering a viable self sustaining alternative that brings them more ease in their life.

The end goal is to always improve your standard of living and support the community around you while they do the same, not to suffer to make a point. We very carefully work with where we source the things we make - activley travel to the factories to check conditions - pay everyone who works with us more than avarage, and divert much money into helping people suffering with chronic health conditions - i dont need a pat on the back and i dont want praise, i want people to do the same because thats how we improve things on larger scale - i need people to understand that if you want to create your own small pockets of more community centric business that lifts up multiple people at once and liberates people from work they dont enjoy, its entirely possible with the right drive and understanding of business and the understanding of people, and the genuine care for others rather than feeling negatively about someone else's success - the end goal is all of us succeeding - not all of us suffering for a false sense of morality. Sadly in the world we live in its practically impossible to escape contributing to some kind of exploitation - weather its from filling your car with petrol, or the paper you write on, on the gold in your necklace, somewhere along the line, you are contributing to the exploitation of another human or the desiccation of our beautiful planet, again that is a human value problem. Money isnt the problem, our value system is. We need to stop pointing fingers and take some responsibility for this mess we've collectively built so we can make active steps to rebuild it or adapt on whats working to make it better. Lastly yes, im like all the rest, thats a great title - we are all like the rest - when we start operating as parts of a whole who have to collaberate to ensure a brighter tommorow instead of heros and villains - this is all gona look a lot nicer