WEBVTT - The Man Who Pioneered Libraries and Sexual Harassment 0:00:02.840 --> 0:00:10.879 All right, all right, Sophie, is that do we need 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:14.680 to do anything else? All right? Well, this is Behind 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:17.320 the Bastards podcast about the worst people in all of history. 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:26.239 This is our first recording session of what years. To Jamie, 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:30.960 how was the New Year treating you? I mean, it's 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:34.760 it's already been a roller coaster, the ups, the downs. 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:36.879 I wish I was kidding. We just talked about it 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:39.960 off my talk about wild catch up session, and I 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:41.680 guess we're just going to have to let the listeners 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:44.800 fill in the blanks for themselves. Yeah, this is Behind 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:49.080 the Bastards. This is Behind the Bastards. I just I 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:52.600 just I missed you guys. So your brain, Jamie, is 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:57.520 like a library of of different screenwriters. Je. Speaking of that, 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:01.000 how do you feel about libraries? Understand the gift I 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:07.319 say yesterday your librries big fan of libraries. I like libraries. 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:09.520 I used to have. I used to scare my little 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:12.480 brother with. Okay, this is the reason my little brother 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:15.120 is not very well read. Sorry for calling him out. 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:19.360 But when I I loved libraries when I was a kid. 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:21.360 And then I told me I made up a weird 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:23.119 lie that I'm very proud of because I was very 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:26.160 young when I made it up. I told my brother. Yeah, 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:28.120 I told me a little brother that there's one book 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:30.680 in every library and you don't know what book it is, 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:32.840 but if you pull it off the shelf, the whole 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:36.480 library blows up. Oh good, that's a good one. And 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:40.600 then he didn't go to the library and didn't read books. Yeah, 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:43.800 that's that's a good one that I was very proud, 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:47.680 very ambitious. My favorite lie I've told a loved one 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:50.600 is I convinced someone I cared about very much that 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:52.960 the band Hanson had died in a terrible bus crash. 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:56.240 And then like a year later, at a party, somebody 0:01:56.280 --> 0:01:58.400 brought up Hanson or I think that's one of their 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:01.280 songs started playing and the person I had told this 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:03.120 lie to was like, Oh, it's so sad that they 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:05.200 died in that bus crash. And it was the funniest 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:09.679 moment the world. To me, that is an incredible live 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:14.919 because it is believable. Yeah, because where did hands go? Right? Yeah? Right? 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:18.680 I kind of fella, Wow, I would believe that. I 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:20.680 think that there would have been And then I because 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:23.000 I know better because I keep up with hands, and 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:25.680 I'd be like, that's not true, but most people would 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:28.799 believe that most people would be the only way to 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:32.160 really make yourself immune from those kind of lies to 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:35.000 spend a lot of time at the library. Now, Jamie, Yeah, 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:39.880 have you ever heard of Melville Dewey? Is that of 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:44.000 the Dewey decibel system? Ye, yep, I've heard of nothing 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:48.560 about him. He's a tremendous piece of shit. Um. This 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:52.680 episode is titled Melville Dewey Library asshole, um, and it's 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:54.880 about Melville Dewey. And this is this is going to 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:57.760 be interesting. This is we're taking a little bit of 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:00.880 a different sort of task when we do. Most of 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:03.400 our episodes are about bad people who do bad things, right, 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:08.400 but sometimes like there are bad people who make broadly 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:10.400 good things, and the opposite is true too, right, Like 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:12.560 you look into the atomic bomb project and a lot 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:14.840 of the dudes who were like responsible for that, We're 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:18.280 basically decent men who were either like the war was 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:21.040 so bad they thought it was you know, necessary, or 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:24.760 they were just overwhelmed by scientific fascination. They weren't like monsters. 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:28.120 They were just like guys who because of you know, 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:31.480 wound up contributing despite the fact that they were basically 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:34.440 decent to something that wound up being terrible. That ship happens, 0:03:34.600 --> 0:03:37.440 and the opposite happens. Like people who are shitty can 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:41.680 make good things, I'm sure, like Big Bush's art, George W. 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:47.400 Bush's art, um beautiful artes. Yeah. Um, so this is 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:51.440 a story about a terrible man whose influence was not 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:55.560 entirely but like probably broadly positive. Although we'll talk about 0:03:55.640 --> 0:04:00.200 some ways in which the Dewey decimal system reinforces um racism, 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:02.760 which I did not know and I found fascinating. Um. 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:06.880 But he was an extremely influential man and his achievements 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:10.960 were significant parts of the foundation of like the global 0:04:11.040 --> 0:04:14.240 library systems. Right, so, like nations around the world that 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:17.640 have national and public libraries, almost all of them, pretty 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:19.480 much all of them owe some sort of a debt 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:22.520 to the way Melville Dewey, not just the Dewey decimal system, 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:24.839 but other kind of library infrastructure. He was one of 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:27.120 the people who helped to come up with I feel 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:29.920 like bookstores as well, like don't don't use it, probably 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:34.200 but definitely influenced. Yeah, there's probably a couple of billion 0:04:34.240 --> 0:04:37.159 people who have been alive that could credit some degree 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:39.320 of their education or at least their love of reading 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:41.760 to the work of Melville Dewey. That's like a significant 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:46.400 legacy for anybody. Melville was also a real, real unpleasant motherfucker. 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:53.320 Um So. Melville Louis Cossack Dewey was born on December tenth, 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:57.000 eighteen fifty one, and Adam Center, Upstate New York. At 0:04:57.040 --> 0:04:59.760 the time, this was known as the Burned Over District 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.280 to the fact that successive waves of evangelical Christian movements 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:06.080 had swept the area repeatedly during the half century before 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:10.599 Melville's birth. The Burned Over District gave us Mormonism, Millerism, 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:14.120 the Oneida Colony a huge influential chunks of the suffrage 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:17.560 and abolitionist movement as well as the Temperance movement. So 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:19.839 it was like, this is a place where a lot 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:22.560 of these like major social movements in the US kind 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:25.840 of repeatedly. If it's not the only place where they start, 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:28.360 it's one of the places where they really get their start. 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:31.279 Um It was also not an easy place to live. 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:34.360 This is not like comfortable country. It's it's a heart 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:37.280 like if you think about like Upstate New York and 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:39.640 like what the weather is like there and how difficult 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:42.200 it can be to subsist in like the winter there. 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:45.839 With modern technology, it's like a rough motherfucking place to 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:50.279 be a human being with modern technology, it fucking sucks. 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:55.560 There's there's there's difficulties. Yeah. Um. One Wilson Library bulletin 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:57.680 right up that I found refers to it as hard 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:00.800 bitten country quote where survival was the ole, and adherence 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:04.240 to the basic codes of industry, frugality, and self reliance 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:07.640 were the guide posts. In other words, Melville was born 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:10.480 to a part of the world where influential people regularly 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:13.559 set out to fundamentally change major aspects of the world 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:16.200 around them. And it was also a place where working 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:19.840 people had thin margins for success or failure, and precision 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:22.560 and efficiency were crucial. So this is kind of what 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:24.800 is molding him as a person. Is this place where like, 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:27.359 not only is this place where people set out to 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:30.960 change everything on a pretty regular basis, um, but also 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:33.159 it's a place where you learn as a kid, you've 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:35.520 got to be ship's got to be on point. You know, 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:38.560 there's not that margins here. You have to you have 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:42.000 to be a high achieving person in order to continue living, 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:45.960 to keep your housewarm, you have to be industrious and 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:50.240 ship on your ship to not die. Right, Okay, that 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:52.480 makes that makes sense then for the region, Yeah, it 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:56.520 really does. Um Melville's parents were bootmakers and bootsellers. Now, 0:06:56.560 --> 0:06:58.839 some sources will claim that they were the hardest working 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:01.159 people in town, although it's quite likely this has its 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:04.520 origin in the various hagiographies of Dewey rather than an 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:06.960 objective reality like that. I mean, that just sounds like 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:10.400 an American origin story. Yeah, they were the best, that 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:12.920 they were the hardest workers in the town. And you know, 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:15.680 maybe it's because he said that, and that's just he 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:18.080 was the only person from his town who lived long 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:20.239 enough that people cared about what he said about the best. 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:22.720 I don't know. Well, as we all know, in this era, 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:25.720 the best and the most shoes were coming out of 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:29.200 my hometown, Brockton, Massachusetts, ak shoe city. So it's kind 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:33.880 of hard to say that they were because it sho shoes. 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:41.560 It's Roberto like my assum So, his parents were not 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:45.560 very affectionate or emotionally engaged, and do we inherited from 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:48.200 them a maniacal work ethic and what some might call 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:53.600 a romotic attitude towards productivity. And efficiency. Um right here, Yeah, 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:56.360 he's one of these people who's just like he's like 0:07:56.400 --> 0:07:59.800 a machine the way that he works. Um now it 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:02.080 age five, he took it upon himself to take an 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:05.080 inventory of his mother's spice cabinet. He decided that she 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:08.480 was basically a messy motherfucker and like, this isn't efficient 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:10.600 at all. You've done a terrible job of organizing your 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:13.120 spice cabinet, mom, And it's a five year old He 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:16.920 rearranges everything without asking her. This is the first story 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:19.440 you'll hear about what will become a lifelong predilection for 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:23.720 what he called self improvement activities. He's obsessed with organizing things, 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:27.600 making them more efficient. And I wonder if that is 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:30.080 actually true, because that does it just sounds like something 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:31.920 you would make up about the guy who would go 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:36.200 on to invent the Dewey decimal system so he couldn't 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:38.520 stop organizing things. It's like when you find out Chucky 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:40.920 Cheese was an orphan and you're like, yeah, well that's 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:49.080 an interesting Charles Alexander, Charles Entertainment Chess. Yes, he was annoyed, 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:51.400 and then he became a rat who smoked a cigar. 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:56.400 You know, classic American origin story. Yeah, really really evidence 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:59.960 of yes, sorry, do you think he was organizing spy 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:01.520 says or do you think that that's kind of like 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:05.240 a sythology. So I have to think back to our 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:09.080 Jeff Bezos episodes, which kind of start with very similar 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:11.440 stories about him when he's like seven or eight years 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:15.359 old doing this stuff like, um, like grading his teachers 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:18.680 and his his parents and like this very analytical like 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:21.920 and you know, it's the same question I have with Bezos. 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:24.360 I think it's a little more likely that the stories 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:26.480 are real just because you hear them from like they 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:29.320 come from people who were like his adults around him 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:32.640 when he was a kid. Um. But so I don't know, 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:35.160 like maybe do we made them up? But also like 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:37.640 maybe he and Bezos are just kind of similar people 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:40.800 and there's kids who have that kind of mind. Um. 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:43.920 But I think the fact that Dewey and Bezos that 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:46.360 like the there's elements of their childhood of like their 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:49.200 behind their childhood isn't similar because do we grows up 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:51.199 in a very difficult part of the world and Bezos 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:55.319 does not. But they both kind of have this organization 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:58.640 brain where they're they're kind of obsessed with efficiency. Um, 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:01.160 that does sound kind similar to me, and I kind 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:03.200 of am inclined to think that there might be some 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:06.440 truth to the spice cabinet story, just because yeah, there's 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:10.840 there's there's people like that, you know. Um maybe um. Now, 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:13.319 his parents were successful enough that they could afford to 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:16.160 pay him for doing his chores. The first product he 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:18.160 remembered saving up to buy with his money was an 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:21.200 unabridged dictionary, which he had to walk ten miles in 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:25.000 order to purchase. Now, a weird kid, That part of 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:28.160 the story maybe apocryphal, the ten miles part, because Dewey 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:30.280 was obsessed with the number ten, and he may have 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:34.160 retroactively inserted it into his past and later recollections because 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:37.200 he was just like absolutely obsessed with the number ten 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:39.880 um and with like decimals with based to like all 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:42.760 this kind of stuffy fucking loves ten, big, big huge 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:49.000 ten nerd Um. Yeah. As a teenager, Melville extended his 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:52.440 organizational mind to the family business. From a nineteen eighty 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:55.360 one right up in the Wilson Library bulletin quote, he 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:58.000 made a thorough analysis of his father's store, proved its 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:00.600 business of inefficiencies, and made arrangements for the transfer of 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:03.880 its inventory to its competitor down the street. Apparently, Joel 0:11:03.960 --> 0:11:08.160 Dewey accepted his son's criticism. He closed the store. So 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:10.840 his dad both made shoes and stole them. And Dewey's like, 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:13.800 this isn't deficient. You should just be making shoes. You're 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:16.199 not good at selling them. Like, let's have a competitor 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:18.160 on the streets sell the shoes, and Folcus entirely on 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:20.760 manufacturing and for whatever whatever else is going on. His 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:24.080 dad is like, yeah, I guess that makes sense. For 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:27.280 some reason, I do believe that over the Sun story, 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:29.679 because I feel like there are some parents that I 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:32.200 don't know. I'd like did My parents were asking me 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:35.280 for a marriage advice way too young, and like they 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:37.480 were just like, do you how do you feel about 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:39.320 how this is? And I'm like, well, I'm six and 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:42.480 I'm not having a good time, you know. Yeah, yeah, 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:44.360 I mean my parents asked me if they should cash 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:46.440 their four one case out to buy beanie babies, and 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:50.880 I said absolutely. He said yes, this bubble never gonna burst, baby, 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:53.360 And that's why you're the world's most famous economists. That's 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:55.000 why I got them putting all their money into n 0:11:55.040 --> 0:12:00.880 F t s now, you know, stop it. So high 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:03.400 school is when Dewey grew first grew obsessed with the 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:05.600 number ten um, and it was he learned about So 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:07.280 he's in high school and he learns about the metric 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:09.600 system and he's just like, oh, this is so much 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:11.960 better than the way that we count things in America. 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:15.080 I fucking love the metric system. Um. The thing that 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:17.640 was particularly striking to him was that his birthday was 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:21.680 December one, which was exactly fifty two years after the 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:24.480 French Assembly adopted the meter bar as a standard unit 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:27.920 of measurement. I don't know why he found that meaningful, 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:33.000 but he found that intensely meaningful. Whatever, go figure out how, Like, 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:36.439 I don't know, I mean, that's an important moment in 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:39.360 the development of the metric system, like deciding what a 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:42.160 meter is. Like that that is meaningful. I feel like 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:44.560 that's like his version of astrology. Though some people have 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:47.120 moments with astrology where they're like, yes, this means this, 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:49.360 means this means this and and this is just like 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:52.840 his weirdo version of that. Yeah, he just he fucking 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:56.480 loves the metric system. He loves decimate ship, he loves 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:58.559 the number ten he's just that's he's a it's a 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:02.720 thing for him. Uh, that's his father's son. Holy ghost. Yeah, 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:06.080 it's fine. Um. When he was sixteen, Melville started attending 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:09.720 the Hungerford Collegiate Institute, which is a college prep school. Now, 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:12.280 this is a period kind of the mid to late 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:15.120 eighteen hundreds. This is when college starts to become vastly 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:17.880 more common. Right, for a long time, it had just 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:19.960 a bit like you had if you were very rich 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:22.240 and powerful, if you were in the aristocracy, you would 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:25.240 go to college and like a man obviously, Um, the 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:27.600 eighteen hundreds is when that starts to change and college 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:30.400 become something that like the middle class and like people 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:32.920 who are rich but not of the aristocracy can reasonably 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:36.600 expect to experience. The number of colleges a second week. 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:41.480 We extorted every class for this semi useful thing. I 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:43.600 don't know if they're even extorting because right like it 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:45.560 is I think more reasonably. I don't know how it 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:47.080 is at this point. I know when my parents went 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:48.600 to college, it was the kind of thing you could 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:51.120 accidentally pay for if you had a decent job bart it. 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:57.679 My parents went to school. Yeah, the number I think 0:13:57.720 --> 0:13:59.200 it is. I don't think it's quite I think it 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:01.640 is still pretty ex at that point. Obviously there's not 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:04.560 as many colleges. The number of colleges actually doubles in 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:07.560 the first half of the eighteen hundreds, um And so 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:10.559 by the time Melville starts prep school, it's become much 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:12.600 more common to go to college, but it was still 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:15.439 not the norm for teen boys to prepare for higher learning. 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:17.760 In fact, the fact that he goes to high school 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:21.560 means that he's gotten more in education than most kids 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:23.600 probably could expect to get in the United States. My 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:25.880 fucking grandfather never made it past the fourth grade because 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:28.280 the Great Depression happened right like that wasn't abnormal in 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:32.480 that period. Um. So the fact the fact that he 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:34.280 makes it to this is both the mark of the 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.160 fact that his family has some money. They're certainly not rich, 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:40.280 but like they're comfortable enough that they can afford the sacrifice. 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:43.720 And also he's obviously brilliant. You do not, in this 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:46.880 period of time just for bragging rights put your kid 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:49.080 in this kind of program. You do it if they're like, well, 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:52.960 this this kid has a mind that everyone around us 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:55.320 has noted, and we have to get him into a college. 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:59.480 This kid's doing ship with spices since he was spic 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:03.720 get in a program. Yeah. So during his first year 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:06.400 of prep school there's a terrible fire in the building, 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:09.640 and do he risks his life to rescue not other classmates, 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:12.560 but as many armloads of books as he could manage. Um. 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:16.200 And he almost dies doing this. Like that's how dedicated 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:19.520 this kid is to books, which I do find admirable. Honestly, 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:22.040 I wouldn't rescue people first, but I don't know that 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:24.000 I was going to say, I mean, there is an 0:15:24.040 --> 0:15:26.640 asterisk but that. But you know, at its core they 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:28.480 may have all gotten out. I didn't hear that anyone 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:30.600 died in the fire. I don't know that he was 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:34.240 running past people who are I'm kicking people to get 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:37.680 we got to get these R. L Stein's out of here. 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:41.920 He was an author the right Yeah absolutely, Um. But yeah, 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:44.640 he inhales enough smokes, saving as much of the library 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:47.680 as he could that he gets bedridden for like six months. Um. 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:49.920 And his doctor actually warns his parents that he's probably 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:52.720 going to die. Obviously he does not. Are you're really 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:55.280 going to be like a great person one day quote 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:57.560 unquote if you don't have a long childhood illness that 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:00.520 is such a common thing. You just got in bed 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:03.400 and be like, Wow, life really is fragile, isn't it, 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:05.000 And then you go on to do the most horrific 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:07.600 ship you can think of. Yeah, I think it, Like, 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:10.200 I think it's worth noting that. Like I think probably 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:13.040 most kids have a near death experience in the in 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:17.600 the midstruments, you know, would I would have such um, 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:19.560 I would have such a failure complex if I had 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:21.440 a long childhood illness and then went on to be 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:23.680 a regular person, because it just seems like you have 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:26.760 to be like Proust after that. I don't. Yeah, that's 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:29.360 the only way. That's why we have so many proofts. 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:32.520 So for do Wey, this experience drives home the almighty 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:35.320 importance of efficiency. He believes that death could come at 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:37.720 any time, which obviously it can um, and you needed 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:39.760 to get as much done as possible before you die. 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:42.560 Before he graduates from high school, do he gives a 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:45.960 speech to his classmates about how wasting time is immoral. 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:55.480 As a graduation present, he buys himself projects No, it's 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:58.680 not um. As a graduation present, he buys himself cuff 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:03.240 links inscribed with the letter are, which meant reformer. Um 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:06.960 so there you go. Okay, I'm gonna teach her that 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:09.280 says I'm going to get a buncho as. I'm like, 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:13.160 because I'm Sam, that's what a what a weird man? 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:16.760 All right, he's he's he's a weird man. Um also like, whatever, 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:21.439 nothing bad yet, Yeah, I'm just I'm just hearing a 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:25.000 weird teenagers on weird He's he's definitely a little bit 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:28.240 of a weird dnager. Right, Yeah, a weird virgin is 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:30.720 on the loose, which does not usually lead to good things. 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:34.600 I will say, oh, read it's gonna get angry at 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:36.720 that one. Jamie cut it out, Chris cut it out, 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:38.679 cut it out it out. I don't want them to 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:42.520 get mad and read it gets angry about Jamie. The 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:47.399 products and services this podcast. They do probably mean. Please 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:49.840 don't yell at me read it. I'm sorry I called 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:58.040 weird virgins. Jamie loves virgins. I know. I don't say 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:01.800 do whatever you want, do whatever, don't do whatever you want, 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:05.680 or don't do whatever you want. Sure, and now I'm 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:08.560 flashing my r cuff links so you know that I'm serious. 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:19.520 There you go, all right, here's some ads. Oh, man, 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:24.199 we are are some products. Those those were some products, 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:26.879 and it might have been a service or service or two. 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:30.080 To be honest, I can't can't can't say it. There's 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:32.000 certain I can't say it wasn't a service or two. 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:34.960 You know that that I certainly wouldn't argue. We've got 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:37.160 a teen on the loose. We got a teen on 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:41.080 the loose. Melville Dewey is out in the motherfucking wild, 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:44.920 and by the wild, I mean Alfred University. UM. That's 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:48.360 where he gets accepted after high school. Before he leaves home, 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:52.159 he changes his name from Melville m E l v 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:54.320 I l l E. You know the way that people 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:57.480 spell Melville to M E l v I l, which 0:18:57.480 --> 0:19:04.719 he considered more efficient. No, oh, this goes real far, Jamie. Yeah, 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:09.920 trimmed off the letters. He trimmed off two letters. Do 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:12.160 you have to make it more efficient? You don't need 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:16.760 that last. You can pronounce Melville fine without them. It's synetically, 0:19:16.840 --> 0:19:20.360 it still works. It's just wasted time and space. I'm 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:23.919 kind of loving him. It's very funny at this phase 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:26.120 in his life. I feel like we would have been 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:29.119 friends in high school. I feel like I would have 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:31.880 been exhausted by him, but I am exhausted by him 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:35.000 just reading about him. So as a university student, he 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:38.280 continues his old habits. He was offended by the fact 0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:41.160 that many of his classmates smoked cigars, which he thought 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:44.879 was financially inefficient, and he calculated that their smoking habits 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:47.280 would cost them each in average of fifteen thousand dollars 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:49.680 over the course of a lifetime. He tried to tell 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:51.960 people this, but I don't think it actually made anyone 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:55.000 stop smoking. Um No, it just got his as beat. 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:57.760 It's where Bezos did kind of the same thing with 0:19:57.800 --> 0:20:03.119 his fucking grandma. U right, yeah, yeah, Jesus, it's just this, 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:06.439 like just let people do It's it's the eighteen fucking 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:12.400 what's like sixties? Like life is terrible. Smoke cigars, yeah, top, 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:15.920 and it's gonna suck for most of that m They're 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:17.920 not going to live long enough to get throat cancer. 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:20.840 Come on, they're gonna die because they touched a nail wrong. 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:27.400 So at any rate do we quickly transferred to Amherst College. 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:30.880 Um he was inspired by their physical education program, which 0:20:30.880 --> 0:20:32.800 was one of the best in the world. But once 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:35.560 he gets there, he doesn't actually enroll in any sports classes. 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:38.359 The only athletic course he took was horseback riding because 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:40.000 it was more efficient, because it would get him to 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:42.920 class fester, Oh my god, which is like a weird 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:49.359 series of decisions to make. I mean, I I love 0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:54.440 a singular goal. This one is gonna you can already 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:57.679 tell the goal of efficiency is gonna is gonna slide 0:20:57.680 --> 0:20:59.640 at some point and get very scary, but right now 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:02.640 it's still fun. I would also argue that horseback riding 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:05.800 isn't a sport. Look, there are two sports. One of 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:08.679 them is that that game they play in Afghanistan with 0:21:08.760 --> 0:21:12.639 goat heads on horseback where they kill each other sometimes, 0:21:13.080 --> 0:21:16.159 and the other is I don't know, hot dog eating. 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:18.840 Hot dog eating. Those are the nothing else is a sport, 0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:20.679 and fuck you if you disagree. You know, That's what 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:24.200 I gotta say. So the official stance pe does not 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:27.159 wind up appealing to him in practice. But Amherst had 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:30.560