00:00:00
I think we're getting to the point that
00:00:01
normal porn has gotten really sick that
00:00:06
if you're not approved about
00:00:09
eroticism um some of the things that
00:00:11
you're seeing pushed have to do with the
00:00:13
fact that our brains are now habituated
00:00:17
to all sorts of things that you probably
00:00:19
would never have seen visually unless
00:00:21
you were like gingas
00:00:22
K right because everything's on demand
00:00:26
and so the search for novelty
00:00:30
uh I think is taking in some cases quite
00:00:32
a dark term even for people who are
00:00:34
pretty okay with the idea of pornography
00:00:37
and eroticism as being a an important
00:00:40
part of an adult diet for the Mind where
00:00:44
where it worries me as kids for sure and
00:00:47
I'm maybe even less worried about today
00:00:49
than I am in 15 years when you have VR
00:00:53
that is bordering on Photo realistic and
00:00:57
that's where Photoshop whoever you want
00:01:00
in you know choose your own experience
00:01:02
that's very disturbing but I I'll be
00:01:04
honest I'm more concerned right now
00:01:08
about um people
00:01:11
finding Partners to have children with I
00:01:13
think that this is a an economic
00:01:17
epidemic that we don't feel comfortable
00:01:19
talking about and why AR people
00:01:21
comfortable talking about well because
00:01:22
for example if you have a fair idea that
00:01:26
you're at risk for not having the family
00:01:28
thing work out like it's gotten a little
00:01:31
late in the day and you don't see a lot
00:01:33
of prospects lined up and you've had a
00:01:34
few relationships that haven't ended in
00:01:38
commitment and resources in children and
00:01:40
the economy doesn't seem to want to come
00:01:43
up with a 30-year plan to fit a morgage
00:01:46
and getting some kids through college um
00:01:49
I think that the transition from the
00:01:51
previous world has been pretty brutal
00:01:55
and a lot of people don't want to say
00:01:56
yeah I really want a family and if it
00:01:58
doesn't work out I'm going to be it's
00:02:00
going to be a major hit to my life and
00:02:02
my sense of myself and we need you know
00:02:06
in part I think that a lot of us don't
00:02:08
want to see um young women forced onto
00:02:11
the apps you know which seems like it
00:02:14
turns life into this ever from a dating
00:02:17
perspective yeah like a sing it's just
00:02:18
you know somebody somebody said this is
00:02:20
a singles bar in my pocket and wherever
00:02:22
I'm board I just go to the singles bar
00:02:24
and start swiping and I thought okay and
00:02:28
how do you feel about he said well the
00:02:30
aggregate I feel pretty terrible about
00:02:31
that but I can't stop and so now you've
00:02:35
commodified all of this stuff and I
00:02:38
don't think it's a good deal for young
00:02:40
women at
00:02:41
all um I think that you know young women
00:02:44
have been used to putting men through
00:02:45
their paces and demanding a lot and you
00:02:49
know saying you know jump this high and
00:02:51
seeing who can clear the bar and when
00:02:55
that power is not present and when men
00:02:58
can't win
00:03:00
these competitions and have those
00:03:02
competitions really mean something we
00:03:05
derange as a society because Society is
00:03:08
about continuity and continuity is about
00:03:10
babies so no matter what you want to do
00:03:12
you can take it away from babies I
00:03:14
remember um I was talking to a young
00:03:16
woman who was like 26 or something and
00:03:19
she asked me if I had kids and I said
00:03:20
yes and I said do you have kids and she
00:03:22
like practically spit out her beer like
00:03:24
what and I thought do you think it's
00:03:27
really the crazy question that I would
00:03:28
ask a 26-year-old woman woman if she had
00:03:31
kids um and then you know she thought
00:03:33
about it it just feel felt very remote
00:03:36
and this is the economy that would
00:03:37
bething to people and my belief is is
00:03:40
that if the median individual cannot
00:03:43
count on being able to you know have a
00:03:46
home in a reasonable city that has lots
00:03:48
of jobs so that if one job doesn't work
00:03:50
they can switch and one person can stay
00:03:53
home doesn't have to be the dad doesn't
00:03:55
have to be mom and a dad can any pair
00:03:58
but you need some somebody with the
00:04:01
freedom to stay home to raise children
00:04:03
while somebody else can be counted upon
00:04:06
to go be the bread winner in an economy
00:04:09
that isn't you know absolutely Razor's
00:04:12
Edge this is nuts and you know was
00:04:15
driven home to me recently my father
00:04:17
turned 85 we were at a party for his
00:04:19
friends and some of their closest
00:04:22
friends lived in in our neighborhood
00:04:24
when I was growing up they were saying
00:04:25
oh yes you know when we moved in all
00:04:28
those years ago so um there were 14 boys
00:04:32
who used to play on the street and now
00:04:34
there are none oh and I said what do you
00:04:35
mean there are none she said what young
00:04:37
families can't afford to live on the
00:04:40
street and I said do you have any
00:04:43
thought in your mind that that was a
00:04:45
catastrophe that happened to your street
00:04:48
and that maybe your generation had some
00:04:51
responsibility this is the silent
00:04:52
generation so before the baby had
00:04:54
something to do to say hey maybe this is
00:04:57
not good for society if Young amilies
00:05:00
she said well these homes are perfect
00:05:02
for families I said but you just told me
00:05:04
that there are no families on your
00:05:05
street so this is an epidemic and this
00:05:08
is deranging us and this is a lot of
00:05:10
what's behind this kind of sense of
00:05:12
Injustice and people trying to
00:05:16
um find groups I think to take care of
00:05:19
because you have got a lot of maternal
00:05:21
instincts that are not grounding in
00:05:25
happy hopeful homes raising kids that's
00:05:29
really interesting what do you think is
00:05:31
um the sort of key driver is this uh
00:05:35
student loans is it um the average
00:05:39
salary isn't going up like and part of
00:05:42
the what drives my question is I know
00:05:44
what I pay so my my previous company I
00:05:47
had at 1 Point 3,000 employees about
00:05:49
1500 full-time and then another 1500
00:05:51
part-time here I have 20 plus employees
00:05:55
full-time and then another I don't know
00:05:57
seven or eight part-time and I know what
00:05:59
I pay them and it's it's a good wage um
00:06:01
it's a hell of a lot more than I was
00:06:03
making at their age that's probably the
00:06:04
easiest way to say it okay
00:06:07
so where is it that just the way that we
00:06:10
are and what we pay is not indicative of
00:06:12
what other companies pay is it um is it
00:06:16
something else is this it's just going
00:06:18
to be um really kind of brutal first of
00:06:21
all uh we we're in an orchard with lots
00:06:24
of lwh hanging scientific fruit where
00:06:27
you could take the scientific fruit and
00:06:28
turn it into technology in short order
00:06:31
we're still making scientific advances
00:06:33
but most of those that are even fairly
00:06:36
profound are not instantly convertible
00:06:40
into technology so there might be lwh
00:06:43
hanging fruit in a new Orchard but we
00:06:44
haven't found the new Orchard so we're
00:06:46
picking fruit that has a very different
00:06:48
characteristic so that's the first part
00:06:50
is that our pipeline got screwed up but
00:06:53
how does that really play out in like
00:06:55
dollars and cents so I'm thinking of
00:06:57
this street right it's the Perfect
00:06:58
Analogy so you have a street the houses
00:07:00
have a price to buy they have a price to
00:07:02
rent so when I think about okay what is
00:07:05
stopping somebody from either buying or
00:07:07
renting so if the prices are too high
00:07:09
prices are too high so then is it that
00:07:11
the prices are artificially too high
00:07:13
because we have a bunch of empty houses
00:07:15
and people who are buying as an
00:07:16
investment and they're just being stupid
00:07:18
so you're fairly familiar with my
00:07:21
theories and acronyms and things so you
00:07:23
you've probably heard about the embedded
00:07:24
growth obligation the ego but what I I
00:07:27
and I get that and that scares me and I
00:07:29
totally buy into it what I don't and for
00:07:31
anybody listening and tell me if I [ __ ]
00:07:33
this up but like basically we have a
00:07:34
system that's entirely predicated on
00:07:36
continued growth and that growth slowed
00:07:38
down starting in the 70s or 80s and
00:07:41
we've done a lot of [ __ ] Shell Games
00:07:43
to make it seem like we're growing the
00:07:46
one that when you give I'm always
00:07:47
freaked the [ __ ] out by is the
00:07:50
essentially Ponzi scheme of Education
00:07:53
where higher education you're teaching
00:07:54
people to be professors um but there's
00:07:57
only going to be so many professors or
00:07:58
the law firm there only going to be so
00:08:00
many partners so it's like every graph
00:08:02
tells the same story so but what I don't
00:08:05
understand is if that's been the same
00:08:08
since the 70s like I didn't even
00:08:11
graduate high school until the mid 90s
00:08:13
and this has nothing ever SE I mean look
00:08:15
there were times I couldn't quite pay my
00:08:17
bills there were times where um you know
00:08:20
I was sharing an apartment with a bunch
00:08:21
of people but it's like it it never felt
00:08:24
like the system had broken in some
00:08:26
impossible way and this isn't me saying
00:08:28
that it is broken this is me just saying
00:08:30
I want to really understand like where
00:08:33
we've gone wrong well so this is what I
00:08:35
say to my friends in San Francisco so
00:08:37
they've got good jobs they're
00:08:38
programmers they're having a blast
00:08:39
they're going to Tulum and you know
00:08:41
traveling to Bali and all these things
00:08:43
and so I say um you're living in a group
00:08:46
house what do you think about buying
00:08:48
your own home and asking that gal you've
00:08:51
been um going out with for a couple
00:08:54
years to get married and like the
00:08:56
conversation just gets really weird uh
00:08:59
well I'm not not so confident that I can
00:09:00
commit to a 30-year mortgage and you
00:09:03
know prices are insane and I'm not
00:09:07
positive that she's the right one for me
00:09:10
and you know all these things or if I
00:09:12
talk to my female friends they have a
00:09:14
set of different
00:09:16
stories um which is like I'm so tired of
00:09:18
little boys who never grow up um is this
00:09:22
a psychological Mala like because that
00:09:24
explanation I can understand we're not
00:09:27
excited about
00:09:30
low variance Futures needed for children
00:09:34
as we see because we don't see things
00:09:35
popping off like this isn't uh Beijing
00:09:37
in 2006 where it's just like the sky's
00:09:40
the limit or well I think people have a
00:09:43
have a pretty strong sense well like I
00:09:47
hired a millennial who I'm very good
00:09:49
friends with and I noticed that he was
00:09:52
like not that committed to
00:09:54
certain kinds of projects He would work
00:09:57
hard but he also had a very clear sense
00:09:59
of you know my obligation ends at this
00:10:02
point I said I know this person I think
00:10:04
they work here okay keep going and um I
00:10:09
said well why why why do we have a
00:10:12
difference in in a sense of work ethic
00:10:14
and he said oh because my generation
00:10:15
watched your generation get screwed by
00:10:17
the Baby Boomers and we're not falling
00:10:19
for it do you buy that yeah that sounds
00:10:23
like [ __ ] to me and and when I say I
00:10:26
am happy to be convinced what I want is
00:10:27
the [ __ ] truth dude because I have no
00:10:30
interest let's get to the truth because
00:10:33
so I have a psychotic work ethic why
00:10:35
because I didn't used to and my entire
00:10:38
life changed when I changed my work
00:10:40
ethic but you f look you're talk sounds
00:10:43
to me like you're talking about founding
00:10:45
companies I've done both I've been an
00:10:48
employee and I've founded companies so
00:10:50
I've played both sides of the fence and
00:10:52
how did how did the employe well look I
00:10:54
I don't want to over index on I mean
00:10:56
because you know there are particular
00:10:57
lawyers in particular law firms who
00:10:59
aren't founding anything who doing just
00:11:01
fine but it's a minority position and
00:11:04
what I believe is is that we are in a
00:11:06
situation in which we are not excited by
00:11:10
the future and the people who are real
00:11:13
stakeholders in the system have in
00:11:15
general been very focused
00:11:18
on making sure that the pyramid is
00:11:21
always supplied so this idea for example
00:11:24
of you have to go to college the debt
00:11:26
has to become non-dischargeable in
00:11:27
bankruptcy we get to load up the
00:11:29
universities with administrators all
00:11:31
that kind of stuff and then of course
00:11:35
the main one which is really bizarre
00:11:38
which is there's the secret weapon and
00:11:40
the secret weapon is immigration and the
00:11:42
great part about immigration as a as a
00:11:45
invidious tool for one generation to
00:11:47
screw another generation with is that if
00:11:50
you call it out there's only one
00:11:52
explanation for why you would fight
00:11:55
having other people added to the bottom
00:11:57
of a pyramid scheme which is you must be
00:11:59
a xenophobe or probably a racist and the
00:12:02
answer is no I'm really just trying to
00:12:04
choke your supply of new virgins to add
00:12:07
to this pyramid scheme so that you can
00:12:09
continue to transfuse
00:12:10
yourself yeah that's interesting um so
00:12:15
let me see if I can uh steal man this
00:12:17
quickly I this is the one time in my
00:12:20
life where I am the one that has a heart
00:12:22
out in 5 minutes I'm so [ __ ]
00:12:24
horrified this is so interesting to me
00:12:27
um so I'll try to do it quickly okay so
00:12:30
um we have a pyramid scheme in that
00:12:34
there are only so many jobs and I'll
00:12:37
even abstract it from being a lawyer
00:12:38
which is very easy to understand there's
00:12:40
only so many people make partner being a
00:12:42
teacher it's easy to understand you can
00:12:43
only create so many other teachers and
00:12:45
obviously we're talking at higher
00:12:46
education um and I'll just say your
00:12:49
normal job I've told my employees this
00:12:51
like look every step you go up you
00:12:55
there's fewer available positions until
00:12:57
you get to the CEO and there's only one
00:13:00
so there's only like you can get
00:13:03
promotion I've never thought of there
00:13:04
being sort of a a money does not strike
00:13:07
me as the finite resource the promotion
00:13:09
strikes me as a finite resource you can
00:13:11
keep making more and more money
00:13:12
depending on the health of the company
00:13:13
and your contributions to it so that's
00:13:15
part of my bias is that when I try to
00:13:17
use just first principles I'm like if
00:13:19
this person is that valuable to me I'm
00:13:20
going to [ __ ] pay them because I have
00:13:22
fear of loss I don't want to lose them
00:13:24
so which is why default to create fear
00:13:26
of loss in your employer if you want
00:13:27
more money but the company has to be
00:13:28
doing well so let me stick to the Ponzi
00:13:30
scheme here so um very interesting take
00:13:32
on immigration so you have people coming
00:13:34
into the system they're willing to work
00:13:36
cheaper than the other people would
00:13:38
otherwise work in the system you got to
00:13:40
be careful about that but keep going
00:13:42
it's interesting I'm trying to represent
00:13:43
your position no no no but what I'm
00:13:44
trying to say is that really the biggest
00:13:46
issue is push out the labor supply
00:13:49
curve you say that another way your wage
00:13:52
is your price yep and I bring people
00:13:55
from foreign countries to make sure you
00:13:56
can't compete because they'll do it for
00:13:57
cheap no that's not that I mean may
00:14:00
maybe the idea is that you're you'll
00:14:01
you're a superior source of Labor who's
00:14:04
you whoever you are you're the
00:14:06
domestic let's assume that you're a
00:14:08
worker inside of the US yep the big play
00:14:11
in some sense of the previous
00:14:13
generations the silent generation and
00:14:15
more importantly the Baby Boomers was
00:14:18
internationalism which they called
00:14:20
globalization and the hidden part of
00:14:22
globalization that wasn't the United
00:14:24
Colors of beniton was the idea if we can
00:14:27
just break our dependence on each other
00:14:29
other and look abroad and talk tell a
00:14:32
beautiful story about what we're going
00:14:33
to do for Africa and Asia then the idea
00:14:36
is is that we can continue to grow our
00:14:38
slice of the pie even though the pie
00:14:40
might not be growing at the same rate
00:14:42
because from my perspective as a silent
00:14:44
generation or baby boomer I'm focused on
00:14:47
a slice not the pie and so there was a
00:14:50
huge amount of value gotten from
00:14:53
tricking people into thinking that
00:14:57
globalization was this beautiful Davos
00:14:59
inspired uh kind of philanthropy that
00:15:02
was going to be a rising tide to raise
00:15:05
all boats
00:15:07
and those Americans who had rights
00:15:10
inside of our system and this goes for
00:15:13
Brits who had British rights and French
00:15:15
had French rights
00:15:17
whatever had a right that was valuable
00:15:19
which is I have asymmetric access to my
00:15:22
labor market and that's how we worked as
00:15:24
a nation so now you start the the
00:15:26
world's greatest PR Campaign which is
00:15:28
patriotism doesn't exist it's only
00:15:30
nationalism and of course nationalism is
00:15:32
really Ultra nationalism which is
00:15:33
jingoism which is a precursor to Nazism
00:15:36
so you start saying you know I kind of
00:15:39
believe in citizenship and patriotism
00:15:42
and now you're telling me that that's
00:15:43
I'm a bad person and now you've got the
00:15:45
Davos crowd talking about financial
00:15:47
inclusion in Africa and Asia and you
00:15:49
notice that they're not really that
00:15:51
interested in Michigan or
00:15:53
Alabama and it's a it's an tell me why
00:15:57
they're not because I felt like I
00:15:58
understood it until told me that I was
00:15:59
getting because the amount of value you
00:16:01
see if I had to purchase your rights
00:16:04
uhhuh and I wrote to what well your
00:16:06
asymmetric access to your labor market I
00:16:08
wrote a paper called migration for the
00:16:10
benefit of all published in the
00:16:12
international in the um International
00:16:15
Journal of Labor I forget what the title
00:16:17
is migration for the benefit of all
00:16:20
which said if you pay people for their
00:16:22
rights like if the Baby Boomers in
00:16:24
silence said look we think we can get
00:16:26
better labor outside
00:16:29
and we want to pay you for the right to
00:16:31
shop
00:16:32
elsewhere then the idea is that
00:16:34
everybody would have been better off and
00:16:35
we would have all screamed Kumbaya each
00:16:37
other as we got rich together but
00:16:39
instead what they said is you're a
00:16:40
protectionist and a jingoist and a
00:16:43
xenophobe we loaded them up with as much
00:16:46
negative imagery as we could POS you're
00:16:48
just a bad person and they were doing
00:16:50
that though so they can get cheaper
00:16:51
labor right so they can keep you from
00:16:53
having leverage you keep saying it as
00:16:55
we're we're willing to work below but my
00:16:57
point is is that if this coffee mug MH
00:17:01
cost
00:17:02
$10 and now we have 10,000 coffee
00:17:06
mugs it's not that those coffee mugs are
00:17:08
are willing to be uh bought for Less the
00:17:12
entire cost of coffee mugs plummets it's
00:17:15
just pushing out the supply curve on
00:17:17
labor and wages its price so it behaves
00:17:21
much as supply and demand should now you
00:17:23
can then point out you can make lots of
00:17:25
other arguments like well some of these
00:17:27
people are starting business and people
00:17:28
are not coffee mugs and these are the
00:17:30
most vibrant members of our so you know
00:17:32
you cue Stars and Stripes Forever you
00:17:34
put your right hand over your heart but
00:17:36
the key point was is that all of these
00:17:40
arguments were necessary to keep the
00:17:42
institutional structure going as the
00:17:44
Ponzi scheme ran out and a lot of this
00:17:48
has to do with what I've called fake
00:17:51
growth downsizing offshoring immigration
00:17:55
securitization it's just this mind
00:17:58
numbing
00:18:00
uh parade of different techniques that
00:18:02
these older Generations have used to
00:18:05
keep a system afloat that has been
00:18:07
saying we're exhausted like the law
00:18:10
firms are supposed to fail the
00:18:12
universities are supposed to fail all
00:18:14
sort the newspapers are don't make sense
00:18:17
as a business model and things that
00:18:19
you're creating and that we all might
00:18:21
create would be replacing these things
00:18:24
but instead what we've done is we've
00:18:26
come up with an exotic kind of economic
00:18:28
parabiosis where we're going to
00:18:30
transfuse our fellow Americans and the
00:18:33
younger generations to pay for a group
00:18:35
of people who are just far too expensive
00:18:38
to keep living in the style to which
00:18:40
they have unjustly become accustomed so
00:18:43
I'm sorry about your hard stop but I
00:18:45
think that there's a tremendous amount
00:18:46
to be excited about and enthusiastic
00:18:49
about because in essence getting back to
00:18:51
your original Point you're right about
00:18:53
the Matrix for 50 years we've been in a
00:18:57
constellation of ideas suppressing the
00:18:59
really interesting new ideas and calling
00:19:02
names on anybody who would propose ideas
00:19:05
that would point out the unstable nature
00:19:08
of of our Market democracy and right now
00:19:11
what we're doing is is we're living
00:19:12
through the beginning of a global
00:19:15
lowgrade revolution of a type that we've
00:19:17
never seen before if you like that clip
00:19:19
check out the full powerful episode here
00:19:21
and I'll see you there
