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Speaker 1: Welcome to had to Money. I'm Joel and I am

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Speaker 1: Matt and today we're talking the future of work with

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Speaker 1: Derek Thompson.

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Speaker 2: That's right, Yeah, So we are undoubtedly going to have

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Speaker 2: a wide ranging conversation with our guest today, Derek Thompson.

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Speaker 2: We are big fans of his work. It hardly seems

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Speaker 2: necessary to introduce him, but he is a senior editor

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Speaker 2: over at The Atlantic. I think he's been there for

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Speaker 2: around fifteen years now and has since been recognized for

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Speaker 2: his work his narratives on topic like the future of

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Speaker 2: work and the science of popularity. His notable book, Hit

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Speaker 2: Makers that was a bestseller that delves into the secret

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Speaker 2: histories of pop culture, hits and the dynamics of what

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Speaker 2: makes something popular. But Derek also hosts the podcast Plain English,

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Speaker 2: which I rarely missed an episode of personally, where he

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Speaker 2: offers weekly insights into the latest news things he's most

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Speaker 2: interested in, as well as important issues that our society

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Speaker 2: faces today, like the changing views of what work should

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Speaker 2: and shouldn't be. So that's what we'll be talking about today.

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Speaker 2: Maybe we'll touch on the Vibe session. Plenty more to

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Speaker 2: cover today with you, Derek. Thank you for joining us.

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Speaker 3: Great to be here, Thank you guys.

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Speaker 1: Of course. Yeah. Okay. First question we ask anybody who

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Speaker 1: comes on the show, Derek, is what do they like

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Speaker 1: to splurge on? Because Matt and I we drink craft beer.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes it's a little expensive and people might say, wait,

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Speaker 1: but you guys are supposed to be frugal. Why are

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Speaker 1: you spending so much on beer? And it's because that's

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Speaker 1: our craft beer equivalent. Everybody has one something they splourage

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Speaker 1: on while they're being smart, they're saving and investing for

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Speaker 1: the future. So what's yours?

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Speaker 3: Mine is wine. There's absolu no question that mine. That

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Speaker 3: wine is my luxury item. When my wife or anybody

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Speaker 3: else asks me what do I want for my birthday?

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Speaker 3: I say, please, don't get me anything that I can't

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Speaker 3: finish in one night. Make it a bottle of wine,

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Speaker 3: or make it a bottle of ribon, which I tend

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Speaker 3: not to finish in one night because that would be

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Speaker 3: extremely dangerous. But I suppose if you invite enough people

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Speaker 3: over to your house to share in the bottle of

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Speaker 3: burb and it's possible. But seriously, the only thing I

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Speaker 3: spend money on our liquids, essentially alcoholic liquids. I love wine.

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Speaker 3: It's incredibly important to me. My dad, my late dad

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Speaker 3: had passed away a few years ago, was a wine

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Speaker 3: critic for the Washington Post. That was his side job

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Speaker 3: to being a lawyer in Washington, d C. Got introduced

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Speaker 3: to wine when I was a really young kid, and

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Speaker 3: I wish I could tell you that I liked all

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Speaker 3: different kinds of wine and you know, could totally drink

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Speaker 3: the cheap stuff and enjoy it. I have an incredibly

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Speaker 3: annoying palette, as they say, I think even describing saying

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Speaker 3: the word palce probably annoying itself. I really like fancy wine,

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Speaker 3: and I love spending money on it. And you know,

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Speaker 3: my wife and I this is maybe a longer ranch

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Speaker 3: than you were prepared for, because wine is such an

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Speaker 3: important indulgence.

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Speaker 4: MA go them.

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Speaker 1: I love it.

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Speaker 3: My wife and I have a saying in our household

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Speaker 3: that you know, sometimes it'll be like a Tuesday or Wednesday,

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Speaker 3: nothing in particular will be important happening, there's no birthday,

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Speaker 3: no anniversary, but we'll just feel like really great it

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Speaker 3: will have had like maybe just like a great day,

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Speaker 3: or just be in a particularly good mood, and we'll

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Speaker 3: really want to open up a bottle of really nice wine.

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Speaker 3: And we used to sometimes think, oh, you know, like

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Speaker 3: opening up, like, you know, a fifty to sixty seventy

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Speaker 3: dollars bottle of wine on a Tuesday makes no sense

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Speaker 3: because they need to finish the whole thing. That's like

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Speaker 3: so much money to spend on, you know, for nothing.

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Speaker 3: But now we have a saying in our household, which is,

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Speaker 3: drink the wine. Whenever we feel excited and giddy about

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Speaker 3: the world, even if it's a Tuesday or Wednesday of

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Speaker 3: no import we say, what the heck, drink the wine.

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Speaker 3: And yeah, Wine's incredibly important to me, and I love

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Speaker 3: spending too much money on it.

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Speaker 4: I love it?

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Speaker 1: Okay. Two followup questions on that. If I came over

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Speaker 1: to your house and I brought over a bottle of

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Speaker 1: Kirkland's signature wine, Yeah, how would you feel about that?

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Speaker 1: Would you automatically turn me away? And two? Is it

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Speaker 1: possible to get good wine in the twenty dollars bottle range?

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Speaker 3: Number two, I'll answer them in the opposite door of

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Speaker 3: the usk them. Absolutely as possible to get great bottles

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Speaker 3: of wine in the twenty dollar range. I think it's

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Speaker 3: easier for whites I think it's easier for you know,

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Speaker 3: whites like Shin and Blae that aren't like you know, Chardonnay,

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Speaker 3: things that go up to the moon in terms of

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Speaker 3: price because they tend to be grown really highly out

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Speaker 3: and app and Sonoma. But absolutely it's easy to get good,

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Speaker 3: often great twenty dollar bottles of wine. You just have

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Speaker 3: to work in varietals that aren't you know, the biggies.

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Speaker 3: You're probably not going to get a fantastic twenty dollars

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Speaker 3: cab from California. But if you're talking about something like granache,

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Speaker 3: or you're talking about maybe a Spanish wine, Italian wine,

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Speaker 3: absolutely you can get fantastic stuff from the twenty dollars range.

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Speaker 3: And then first, what would happen if you brought over

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Speaker 3: Kirkland Select or something. Well, look, I remember I once

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Speaker 3: with my grandmother. To give you a sense of how

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Speaker 3: much I drink and how much my family drinks, we

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Speaker 3: want sa a vodka test. My grandmother loves vodka. She's

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Speaker 3: ninety six years old, and we did a vodka test

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Speaker 3: with us. She had some Belvitere and some Gray Goose

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Speaker 3: and some Kirkland Select and some regular Kirkland and we

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Speaker 3: tried all the various vodkas and she, like Kirkland, select

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Speaker 3: the best that was for vodka. As for wine, I

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Speaker 3: think I would smile politely and say thank you if

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Speaker 3: I thought that maybe you didn't realize what you had bought.

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Speaker 3: But if I knew you better, I'd think you're probably

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Speaker 3: probably playing a prank on me, and I would laugh

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Speaker 3: and ask you to jrug the whole thing before you

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Speaker 3: stepped into my house.

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Speaker 2: What's funny is like you mentioned the kirk Sig vodka

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Speaker 2: and the rumor is is that it's great. Curious is

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Speaker 2: the maker of the French vodka. So yeah, good to

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Speaker 2: know that Joel can't bring over a bottle of.

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Speaker 1: Josh over to Derek's house.

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Speaker 2: Derek, you're your writing it tends to operate in a

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Speaker 2: bunch of different topics, like across a broad spectrum, but

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Speaker 2: like it also kind of feels like there is a

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Speaker 2: common thread in all of your work. Like when I

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Speaker 2: think about your writing, it seems like like we live

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Speaker 2: in a disorderly kind of chaotic world, and I feel

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Speaker 2: like a lot of your writing it tries to bring

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Speaker 2: some sort of order to the world that we live in.

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Speaker 2: Like I guess what I'm asking is, do you have

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Speaker 2: like a mission statement behind your writing or are you

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Speaker 2: more or less just sort of following your curiosities.

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Speaker 3: I'm absolutely glad about my curiosity, and if you can

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Speaker 3: see a thread that connects my work, that makes one

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Speaker 3: of us. I'm not entirely sure that I operate within

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Speaker 3: anything like the strictures of a beat. I'm very, very

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Speaker 3: very lucky in both my writing life at The Atlantic

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Speaker 3: and my podcasting life at The Ringer that I can

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Speaker 3: pretty much write whatever I want, and I do write

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Speaker 3: just about whatever I want. Working on an article right

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Speaker 3: now for The Atlantic about the history of work, working

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Speaker 3: on a podcast right now about NYU psychologists research into

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Speaker 3: how social media warps our brains and our sense of reality.

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Speaker 3: I'm interested in doing future podcasts right now on the

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Speaker 3: future of cancer research and health fads. I'm sort of

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Speaker 3: interested in the world, and I like the concept of

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Speaker 3: sense making, as you put it. I like the idea

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Speaker 3: that my job is to investigate mysteries in the world,

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Speaker 3: and that's pretty much what I see my job as

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Speaker 3: being to find important mysteries that affect a lot of

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Speaker 3: people in the world and to do my best to

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Speaker 3: make sense of them.

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Speaker 1: I remember hearing you talk about getting the job offer

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Speaker 1: at the Atlantic and the kind of convoluted the way

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Speaker 1: that went down, and you ended up getting at least

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Speaker 1: to start out with. I know you've branched out since then,

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Speaker 1: but you ended up getting the economics speak and it

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Speaker 1: was like what you most didn't want to write about?

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Speaker 1: Why was that?

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Speaker 4: Well?

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Speaker 3: I was given right. So I'm twenty two years old

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Speaker 3: to twenty three years old at the Atlantic and I'm

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Speaker 3: basically an intern at the time, and they come up

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Speaker 3: to me in the eighth floor, which is where the

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Speaker 3: sort of communications interns sat, and they said, hey, do

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Speaker 3: you want to write for the Atlantic dot com for

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Speaker 3: the economics desk? And my first answer was absolutely not.

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Speaker 3: I don't know anything about economics. I grew up in

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Speaker 3: the Washington, DC area, and when we got the Washington

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Speaker 3: Post every single week, the only section of that newspaper

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Speaker 3: that I would throw in the trash was the business section.

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Speaker 3: I was interested in everything in the world except for

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Speaker 3: business and economics. And so I told them no, like,

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Speaker 3: please don't make me do this. I'll embarrass you and

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Speaker 3: I won't have a good time doing it. And they

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Speaker 3: were great about it. They said, look, we think you

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Speaker 3: can do it. And the truth is, if you're bad

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Speaker 3: at this will just fire you back to your old job.

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Speaker 3: So the opportunity cost of taking this position is absolutely zero.

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Speaker 3: So I gave it a shot and ended up realizing,

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Speaker 3: you know, to my own surprise, that economics was for

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Speaker 3: me a really useful lens through which to see the world.

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Speaker 3: I write about macroeconomics quite a bit, and podcasts about

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Speaker 3: macroeconomics quite a bit. I'd say that my interests are

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Speaker 3: more wide ranging than simply economic, But there's ways in

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Speaker 3: which economics. I think it's provided a useful lens because it,

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Speaker 3: at least in the way that I looked at it,

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Speaker 3: economics was the study of how people live and how

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Speaker 3: the incentives of their life influenced their life. And when

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Speaker 3: you think about economics from a really abstract level like that,

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Speaker 3: well it opens up a lot of fields of interests

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Speaker 3: that have nothing to do with specific businesses.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I think I saw that you are like a triple

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Speaker 2: major in Northwestern and economics wasn't one of them.

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Speaker 3: So I should say the triple major thing is a

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Speaker 3: little bit BS, so I would Yeah, I got it,

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Speaker 3: I got it. Yeah. First off, it was a Quinn

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Speaker 3: double major. How So I went to the journalism school,

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Speaker 3: the Middle School of Journalism, and they encourage everybody, just

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Speaker 3: for everybody, to get a double major. So I double

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Speaker 3: majored in political science. I should hasten to say, I

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Speaker 3: don't think political science it is a very useful major.

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Speaker 3: I've joked before that practically all the classes that I

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Speaker 3: took seemed to be about why World War One happened,

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Speaker 3: and the answer to all those classes is we don't know.

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Speaker 3: So I didn't get a whole lot out of my

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Speaker 3: political science major. And towards the end of my four

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Speaker 3: years at Northwestern, which I overall loved, I thought that

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Speaker 3: I might want to be a lawyer, and so I

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Speaker 3: picked up legal studies as a third major. And it

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Speaker 3: was one of these majors where you can take a

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Speaker 3: few seminars and write a thesis, then double count a

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Speaker 3: lot of other classes, then get credit for a third major.

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Speaker 3: This is probably not the you know, disquisition you wanted

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Speaker 3: on triple major. But basically I thought I wanted to

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Speaker 3: be a lawyer because I thought that being a lawyer

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Speaker 3: meant acting like Lieutenant Danny Caffey and a few good

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Speaker 3: men as played by Tom Cruise.

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Speaker 1: That's exactly what it's like, right.

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Speaker 3: A lawyer's job is just to scream at Jack Nicholson

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Speaker 3: and then get clapped at. And it turned out very

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Speaker 3: quickly that that was not what a lawyer's job was,

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Speaker 3: and so I decided to sort of abandon the lawyer

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Speaker 3: path and stuck with journalism.

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Speaker 2: Well again, it makes sense you growing up there in DC.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, it sounds like, do you ever play man?

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Speaker 2: This is such a tangent, but do you ever play

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Speaker 2: a Ticket to Ride board game?

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Speaker 3: Oh? Hell yeah, I love Ticket to Ride?

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Speaker 2: Okay, So Derek, this is you getting that legal studies agree?

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Speaker 2: Was you drawing other routes and realizing that all you

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Speaker 2: had to do is build one more train segment and

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Speaker 2: all of a sudden you have like at coast kind

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Speaker 2: of yeah, I don't.

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Speaker 3: Know if you guys have played Ticket to Ride the

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Speaker 3: European version, but all you really have to do is

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Speaker 3: just build through like sort of modern Siberia Poland, Like

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Speaker 3: you have to dominate in the northeast, right, The Northeast

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Speaker 3: essentially was my journal was was my journalism. I realized

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Speaker 3: that's where I really needed to extend my train line,

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Speaker 3: and all those tiny little rails in the center of

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Speaker 3: you know, Western Europe, where you know it's it's big cities,

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Speaker 3: it's attractive, but you realize you're not getting a lot

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Speaker 3: of points from them. That was legal studies, major.

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Speaker 2: Just stay away from London, no matter better. Okay, let's

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Speaker 2: talk about money finally and not board games. But what

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Speaker 2: is your take on where the economy stands right now?

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Speaker 2: Because it seems like a lot might depend on your

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Speaker 2: stage of life, Because if you purchased a car, if

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Speaker 2: you purchased a home, say five years ago, you're thinking, oh,

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Speaker 2: the economies, it's great, everything's firing on all cylinder.

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Speaker 1: Lot equity and low interest rate.

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Speaker 2: But if you missed out, like that period of time

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Speaker 2: was such like a golden window for folks to enter

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Speaker 2: into adulthood. So I'm curious of your overall thoughts on

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Speaker 2: sort of I guess the vibe session and how folks

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Speaker 2: are feeling about the economy.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, let me try to do a really quick summary

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Speaker 3: on how I see the economy right now. And we

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Speaker 3: can do bad news first and good news second. So

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Speaker 3: bad news inflation is coming down, but it's still positive.

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Speaker 3: And inflation describes the rate of change in prices. So

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Speaker 3: when the rate of changing prices goes from a really

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Speaker 3: high number to a less high number, that means that

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Speaker 3: prices are still getting higher, and prices still are really

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Speaker 3: very much above where they were four years ago. In

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Speaker 3: things like groceries. Also, interest rates are elevated, and so

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Speaker 3: if you are a addle class person buying a lot

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Speaker 3: of groceries, and especially if you are looking to buy

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Speaker 3: a new car, lease a new car, buy a new house, well,

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Speaker 3: then the economy is really tough for you right now.

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Speaker 4: Because lots of prices in the.

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Speaker 3: Economy are high. Your wage might not have grown very much.

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Speaker 3: We'll talk a little bit more about the stratification of

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Speaker 3: wage growth by inflation in just a second. But if

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Speaker 3: you're trying to buy a house, you're trying to buy

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Speaker 3: a bit ticket item like a house or a car,

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Speaker 3: interest rates are high enough that that's a really really

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Speaker 3: expensive thing, and so you're going to kind of feel

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Speaker 3: locked out of that part of the economy because of

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Speaker 3: higher interest rates. Now, here's the good thing. Wages overall

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Speaker 3: are growing faster than inflation, and they have been for

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Speaker 3: just about a year. They're growing fastest at the bottom,

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Speaker 3: and they're growing slowest toward the top. So this is

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Speaker 3: a pretty good economy if you are a lower income

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Speaker 3: worker who does not necessarily need to find a new apartment,

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Speaker 3: find a new home. Your wages have been growing, you've

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Speaker 3: been able to trade up for a lot of you know,

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Speaker 3: trade out, maybe from a low paying service sector job

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Speaker 3: to a higher paying service sector job. And if you

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Speaker 3: don't have to find a new apartment, you can stay

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Speaker 3: and the department that you have, and you haven't had

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Speaker 3: to suffer the same kind of retinflation. We've seen wage

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Speaker 3: growth be positive compared to inflation. Unemployment is unbelievably low.

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Speaker 3: Inequality is falling because low wage workers are getting raises

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Speaker 3: faster than high wage workers, and productivity is growing. Plus

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Speaker 3: you have the strong equity growth over the last few

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Speaker 3: years if you do own, so you know, in a way,

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Speaker 3: it's kind of like there's you know, obviously, the economy

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Speaker 3: is not just one thing. It's three hundred and thirty

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Speaker 3: million people's experience of an environment and of different prices

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Speaker 3: in different states, in different places. If you own, if

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Speaker 3: you are a highest income worker, this is a pretty

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Speaker 3: good economy for you. But if you're trying to break

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Speaker 3: into the housing market and you're still relying and you know,

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Speaker 3: sort of not making as much money as you want to,

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Speaker 3: and you're suffering from grocery inflation. It's a much harder economy,

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Speaker 3: very good in some ways, not as good a oothers.

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Speaker 1: You said we're gonna start with bad news, and then

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Speaker 1: pretty quickly we got into good news, and you had

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Speaker 1: a litany of good news. And it feels like the

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Speaker 1: difference between perception and reality, at least from where I'm sitting,

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Speaker 1: have never been farther apart. And the doumeristic tendencies right like,

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Speaker 1: they are just significant right now. There was some new

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Speaker 1: recent study in Nature magazine saying like that the most

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Speaker 1: dumeristic headlines with the pessimistic outlook got more clicks. There's

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Speaker 1: like this incentive too, I think, from the media to

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Speaker 1: talk about what's bad sometimes even when things are overwhelmingly good.

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Speaker 1: And I think maybe that colors how we perceive things

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Speaker 1: and maybe how we even think about our own lives.

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Speaker 1: So I don't know, do you think that's true? And

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Speaker 1: how do you square the actual reality on the ground,

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Speaker 1: the largely positive economic numbers, with how people are feeling

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Speaker 1: about things.

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Speaker 3: It's a great question, and it's one that I've wrestled

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Speaker 3: with quite a bit. I don't think there's any value

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Speaker 3: to or, let me put a bit differently, I think

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Speaker 3: there is limited value to telling people who are having

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Speaker 3: a negative experience in the economy that they're wrong. People's

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Speaker 3: experience is their life, and if they're experiencing hardship, then

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Speaker 3: there's no point in saying, well, you're not actually experiencing

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Speaker 3: hardship because look at these productivity numbers. You're not actually

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Speaker 3: experiencing hardship, because look at this unemployment rate. Parts of

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Speaker 3: his hardship. That said, I do think that a lot

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Speaker 3: of the general pessimism of the economy is what my

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Speaker 3: friend kylela Scanlon calls a vibe session rather than something

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Speaker 3: that is like a recession. While Street Journal recently had

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Speaker 3: a study where they ask people in swing states to

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Speaker 3: estimate the or excuse me to express their sentiment of

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Speaker 3: the quality of the economy where they lived in their

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Speaker 3: state and the equality of the national economy. In every

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Speaker 3: single state, their assessment of the economy was positive, and

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Speaker 3: in every single state their assessment of the national economy

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Speaker 3: was negative. And this feeds into a phenomenon that I

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Speaker 3: have just described in a previous essay as everything's terrible,

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Speaker 3: but I'm fine. That is, there seems to be some

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Speaker 3: psychology at work whereby our attitude or sentiment gets more

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Speaker 3: negative the more national or universal we're asked to reflect

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Speaker 3: on the world.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of like how we hate Congress but love

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Speaker 1: our own congress.

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Speaker 3: Person absolutely, Or we think America's school system is going

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Speaker 3: to hell in a handbasket, but how's your own school? Oh,

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Speaker 3: we quite love it for young Tommy. I think there's

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Speaker 3: a lot of ways in which our assessment of our

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Speaker 3: own lives tends to be more positive because of resilience

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Speaker 3: and because of experience, and our assessment of the world

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Speaker 3: is mediated by the news media, and as you pointed out,

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Speaker 3: there's some NYU research that suggests that the news media

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Speaker 3: has a negativity bias in parts, by the way, because

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Speaker 3: news audiences have a negativity bias, and so as news

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Speaker 3: media is clamoring to get attention, they realize that the

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Speaker 3: cliche is true. If it bleeds, it leads, or more precisely,

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Speaker 3: I suppose I don't know how to make this rhyme,

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Speaker 3: but if it.

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Speaker 4: Bleeds, she will clip.

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Speaker 3: People tend to when they see a five alarm fire

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Speaker 3: feel their attention gravitate toward it, And in a way,

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Speaker 3: I don't want to sort of open up too many

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Speaker 3: tabs here, but in a way, I think that this

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Speaker 3: goes to the fact that I think we are, or

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Speaker 3: our attention is dis evolved for the world we live in.

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Speaker 3: I think that we're probably evolved to have our attention

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Speaker 3: gravitate to bad news. After all, if you're a hunter

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Speaker 3: gatherer on the savannah, and you see a bunch of

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Speaker 3: things that look fine, and then one thing that looks

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Speaker 3: like it's really not fine, right, like maybe the head

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Speaker 3: of a panther or tiger that's about to kill you, Okay,

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Speaker 3: we should clearly pay attention to the danger in your environment.

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Speaker 3: And I think in the same way, readers on the

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Speaker 3: internet are attuned to negativity for the same evolutionary impulse,

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Speaker 3: and news media have queued into this negative impulse and

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Speaker 3: just flooded the scene with negative news stories. And that's why,

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Speaker 3: to go to the first question that you asked, I

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Speaker 3: think our impression of our own lives, which is mediated

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Speaker 3: only by our own experience, has been more positive, while

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Speaker 3: our impression of the country, which is mediated by actual

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Speaker 3: news media can's been more negative.

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Speaker 2: It's interesting how it's something that is programmed into our mind.

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Speaker 2: It's essentially being used against us in order to generate

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Speaker 2: clicks and to generate ad revenue. But you're saying that

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Speaker 2: it's being decided upon by media or legacy media. But

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Speaker 2: also not to go down another tangent here, but social

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Speaker 2: media and you kind of touched on this how it's

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Speaker 2: warping our view, but the actual algorithms and what it

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Speaker 2: is that we're being fed. It continues to polarize individuals,

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Speaker 2: whether I think it's negative, maybe sometimes in positive ways what.

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Speaker 1: They choose to amplify as often the angriest was it's

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Speaker 1: the angriest, it's the most violent. It's the things.

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Speaker 2: I mean, like I constantly I still get fed a

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Speaker 2: bunch of like car wreck videos, and I'm like, what

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Speaker 2: is it that the algorithm thinks about me?

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Speaker 1: That I want to see this?

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Speaker 2: But it's hard for me to look away because who

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Speaker 2: gets It's difficult.

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Speaker 3: And it's also difficult, you know, not that everyone should

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Speaker 3: cry for news media editors, but it is difficult for

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Speaker 3: us to resist that impulse. Right, Like every day journalists

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Speaker 3: across the country, around the world obviously wake up and

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Speaker 3: think not only what stories will I pay attention to,

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Speaker 3: but also how will I present the truth or at

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Speaker 3: least my reporting of those stories. And if every single

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Speaker 3: day journalists operating in a scarce and declining industry are

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Speaker 3: fearful for their own jobs and their organization's ability to

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Speaker 3: eke out an existence an incredibly competitive ecosystem, if every

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Speaker 3: day they think, well, we're going to get more clicks

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Speaker 3: and more attention and more subscribers if we frame the

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Speaker 3: world negatively, what you're going to get is news media

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Speaker 3: that over time optimizes towards negativity. And I mean that

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Speaker 3: very literally optimizes towards negativity, because I think that sometimes

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Speaker 3: there's this mis understanding that negativity in news is a mistake.

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Speaker 3: Of course, in a way, I think that negativity bias

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Speaker 3: is bad for accurate representations of reality. But in many

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Speaker 3: ways it represents a kind of optimization of engagement. And

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Speaker 3: that's really that's the issue here. In a way, the

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Speaker 3: best way to represent the world clearly and honestly is

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Speaker 3: to resist that kind of optimization. It's to be suboptimal

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Speaker 3: in terms of getting people's attention. That's very, very difficult

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Speaker 3: to ask any one news organization to do. To essentially

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Speaker 3: embrace what they understand to be a suboptimal strategy.

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Speaker 1: How do you think the fracturing of the media space

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Speaker 1: is impacting how we encounter news and kind of the

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Speaker 1: world around us because the substatification of everything, the podcastification

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Speaker 1: of everything, is really changing where we go to get

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Speaker 1: access to the things that we then we need to know,

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Speaker 1: And in some ways maybe we're entering into more of

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Speaker 1: an echo chamber, but in other ways it's also I

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Speaker 1: think allowing for certain news organizations to flourish in a

436
00:21:30,280 --> 00:21:33,000
Speaker 1: way that they weren't able to before. Some of the

437
00:21:33,040 --> 00:21:37,840
Speaker 1: individuals or small organizations that create, you know, newsletters that

438
00:21:37,960 --> 00:21:40,480
Speaker 1: are reaching hundreds of thousands of people even at this

439
00:21:40,560 --> 00:21:43,800
Speaker 1: point and are kind of taking a different tact, Like

440
00:21:44,040 --> 00:21:45,400
Speaker 1: I'm just curious, what's your take on that.

441
00:21:45,840 --> 00:21:50,320
Speaker 3: Abuttons of media is good in so many ways. I

442
00:21:50,359 --> 00:21:52,960
Speaker 3: think in the nineteen sixties, nineteen fifties, when news media

443
00:21:53,040 --> 00:21:55,600
Speaker 3: was much more scarce, when uncle when you know, Uncle

444
00:21:55,640 --> 00:21:58,760
Speaker 3: Walter Kronkite reached whatever it was, sixty seventy million Americans

445
00:21:58,800 --> 00:22:00,880
Speaker 3: a single night. We think that as the golden age

446
00:22:00,880 --> 00:22:02,800
Speaker 3: of media, but in many ways, it was a dark

447
00:22:02,840 --> 00:22:05,280
Speaker 3: age of media. It was an age where only a

448
00:22:05,320 --> 00:22:09,160
Speaker 3: handful of voices commanded our understanding of reality and truth.

449
00:22:09,720 --> 00:22:12,520
Speaker 3: I don't think that's optimal. I think as a news consumer,

450
00:22:12,560 --> 00:22:14,439
Speaker 3: I would much prefer a world that is like the

451
00:22:14,440 --> 00:22:16,919
Speaker 3: world that I live in, where I can listen to

452
00:22:16,920 --> 00:22:20,640
Speaker 3: a podcast the morning from some of the smartest, funniest

453
00:22:20,640 --> 00:22:24,199
Speaker 3: commentators on sports, and then read an article by a

454
00:22:24,240 --> 00:22:28,400
Speaker 3: brilliant foreign policy analyst. I mean, nothing like that riotous

455
00:22:28,600 --> 00:22:33,679
Speaker 3: abundance of expertise was available before the advent of the

456
00:22:33,760 --> 00:22:37,720
Speaker 3: Internet sort of created this Cambrian explosion of news outlets.

457
00:22:38,280 --> 00:22:42,880
Speaker 3: But that riotous abundance I think has costs, And one

458
00:22:42,920 --> 00:22:49,840
Speaker 3: of the costs is this that competition is antagonistic. And

459
00:22:49,880 --> 00:22:53,800
Speaker 3: by that I mean if you have a news environment

460
00:22:54,160 --> 00:23:00,360
Speaker 3: with ten thousand economic business and finance podcasts and you're

461
00:23:00,400 --> 00:23:04,320
Speaker 3: trying to break in to this field, the best way

462
00:23:04,359 --> 00:23:08,600
Speaker 3: to break in really is to be antagonistic. Is to say,

463
00:23:09,080 --> 00:23:11,200
Speaker 3: these big guys who've been in this business for a while,

464
00:23:11,440 --> 00:23:13,760
Speaker 3: they're wrong. You know, this person that you listen to

465
00:23:13,880 --> 00:23:16,879
Speaker 3: for finance, and this person you listen to for economic news,

466
00:23:16,960 --> 00:23:18,840
Speaker 3: they don't know what they're talking about. I'll tell you

467
00:23:19,240 --> 00:23:21,399
Speaker 3: the truth, right, that's the way to break in is

468
00:23:21,440 --> 00:23:24,320
Speaker 3: to be antagonistic. But if everyone does this, what it

469
00:23:24,359 --> 00:23:29,879
Speaker 3: does on net is create extraordinary everyone loves. It's a

470
00:23:29,880 --> 00:23:34,240
Speaker 3: little bit like everything's terrible, but I'm fine. Everyone loves

471
00:23:34,640 --> 00:23:38,840
Speaker 3: their own news source but believes that quote the media

472
00:23:39,040 --> 00:23:41,919
Speaker 3: capital T capital M is always lying to them. And

473
00:23:41,960 --> 00:23:43,600
Speaker 3: so I do think that there's a way in which

474
00:23:43,640 --> 00:23:48,560
Speaker 3: the abundance of media might lead somewhat linearly to an

475
00:23:48,600 --> 00:23:53,560
Speaker 3: increase in distrust and increase in conspiracy theorizing, and a

476
00:23:53,800 --> 00:23:57,000
Speaker 3: decrease in a shared sense of reality. And I'm not

477
00:23:57,160 --> 00:23:59,560
Speaker 3: entirely sure that that's good for us. And so this

478
00:23:59,640 --> 00:24:01,200
Speaker 3: is why I just sort of round out the answer.

479
00:24:01,720 --> 00:24:04,400
Speaker 3: I think that the evolution of news toward abundance has

480
00:24:04,440 --> 00:24:08,160
Speaker 3: been very complicated in terms of netting out whether it's

481
00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:11,080
Speaker 3: good or bad. On the one hand, we have more

482
00:24:11,119 --> 00:24:15,119
Speaker 3: direct access to expertise than we've ever had before, and

483
00:24:15,160 --> 00:24:18,919
Speaker 3: that's awesome for a diletan dish news consumer like me.

484
00:24:19,440 --> 00:24:21,159
Speaker 3: But at the same time, I think we have to

485
00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:23,760
Speaker 3: utterly give up on the idea that we're ever going

486
00:24:23,760 --> 00:24:27,199
Speaker 3: to have something like shared reality in America. It's just

487
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:28,000
Speaker 3: not going to happen again.

488
00:24:28,080 --> 00:24:31,840
Speaker 2: No more wanting for what used to exist, because yeah,

489
00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:33,800
Speaker 2: there's no going back, no putting the genie back in

490
00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:35,959
Speaker 2: that bottle. Derek, Okay, we're not only going to talk

491
00:24:35,960 --> 00:24:37,960
Speaker 2: about media. We are actually going to talk about the

492
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:40,040
Speaker 2: future of work and talk about labor markets. We'll get

493
00:24:40,040 --> 00:24:45,640
Speaker 2: to that more right after the break.

494
00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:51,600
Speaker 1: Our we're back to the break still talking with Derek Thompson.

495
00:24:51,600 --> 00:24:53,720
Speaker 1: We're talking about the future of work. Let's talk about

496
00:24:53,760 --> 00:24:56,840
Speaker 1: work now, because that is a topic, Derek, that you

497
00:24:56,880 --> 00:24:59,480
Speaker 1: focus on regularly. I'm curious, I want to kind of

498
00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:03,000
Speaker 1: start this off. Maybe can you talk about the uniqueness

499
00:25:03,040 --> 00:25:06,399
Speaker 1: of Americans and our country and how we view and

500
00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:08,520
Speaker 1: think about work. It seems like our approach to work

501
00:25:08,920 --> 00:25:11,720
Speaker 1: differs largely from so much of the rest of the world.

502
00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:15,200
Speaker 3: There's absolute no question that Americans are the worker bees

503
00:25:15,359 --> 00:25:18,280
Speaker 3: of the Western world. There's really no other country in

504
00:25:18,320 --> 00:25:22,159
Speaker 3: the West that is as rich as the US that

505
00:25:22,359 --> 00:25:25,840
Speaker 3: works more than the US. It should be said that

506
00:25:25,920 --> 00:25:29,879
Speaker 3: over time, Americans have worked less and less. The typical

507
00:25:30,080 --> 00:25:35,919
Speaker 3: American worker in the late nineteenth century three thousand hours

508
00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:38,840
Speaker 3: a year. Today he or she works closer to seventeen

509
00:25:38,960 --> 00:25:41,720
Speaker 3: hundred eighteen hundred hours a year, and that difference, right,

510
00:25:41,800 --> 00:25:44,720
Speaker 3: working thirteen hundred hours less a year, that's the equivalent

511
00:25:44,760 --> 00:25:47,560
Speaker 3: of like one hundred and fifty vacation days the typical

512
00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:49,960
Speaker 3: nine to five worker. So we don't work like we

513
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:52,479
Speaker 3: did during the Second Industrial Revolution, but nonetheless we do

514
00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:55,359
Speaker 3: work a lot more than other countries. And I think

515
00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:58,160
Speaker 3: you hear this experience sometimes when you talk to immigrants

516
00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:00,760
Speaker 3: when they come from Europe to the they say that

517
00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:05,439
Speaker 3: there really isn't the same cultural centering of work in

518
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:08,040
Speaker 3: Europe that there is in America. And I think that

519
00:26:08,040 --> 00:26:11,040
Speaker 3: this is a complicated blessing. On the one hand, I

520
00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:13,720
Speaker 3: think that the centrality of work in America is one

521
00:26:13,760 --> 00:26:16,439
Speaker 3: reason why we tend to have so many of the

522
00:26:16,520 --> 00:26:18,840
Speaker 3: largest companies in the world. Like, if you look at

523
00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:23,359
Speaker 3: the biggest companies in the US, their average age is

524
00:26:23,359 --> 00:26:25,560
Speaker 3: like forty fifty years. It's a lot of companies that

525
00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:28,840
Speaker 3: were built in nineteen seventies, eighties, two thousands, you know,

526
00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:32,200
Speaker 3: Apple and Microsoft and Meta. If you look at the

527
00:26:32,240 --> 00:26:34,280
Speaker 3: biggest countries in Europe, a lot of them are from

528
00:26:34,280 --> 00:26:37,359
Speaker 3: like the early twentieth, late nineteenth century. They're really really old.

529
00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:40,040
Speaker 3: And so I think that this love of work feeds

530
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:42,760
Speaker 3: into and maybe it's intertwined with its entrepreneurial spirit that

531
00:26:42,760 --> 00:26:45,119
Speaker 3: I think is quite lovely. But I also think that

532
00:26:45,320 --> 00:26:47,960
Speaker 3: over work, or what I sometimes call workism, which is

533
00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:49,960
Speaker 3: sort of the you know, centering of work in one's

534
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:52,520
Speaker 3: life and treating one's career like it's a religion, also

535
00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:54,680
Speaker 3: has a lot of downsides. So, you know, I think

536
00:26:54,720 --> 00:26:56,880
Speaker 3: all the time about, like you know, is American's relationship

537
00:26:56,880 --> 00:26:58,960
Speaker 3: with work good or bad for us? And like so

538
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:02,640
Speaker 3: many things that I report on, it is complicated and

539
00:27:02,800 --> 00:27:04,160
Speaker 3: there are a lot of goods with the bad.

540
00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:06,720
Speaker 2: I mean, do you think that perception towards work is changing?

541
00:27:06,720 --> 00:27:08,639
Speaker 2: Like you mentioned workism, right, it makes me think of

542
00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:11,239
Speaker 2: younger generations view towards work. It makes me think of

543
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:14,600
Speaker 2: the bill that Bertie Sanders proposed, the thirty two hour

544
00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:16,639
Speaker 2: work week, where that's going to be something that's mandated.

545
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:18,760
Speaker 2: It seems like that there is this cultural shift that's

546
00:27:18,800 --> 00:27:22,679
Speaker 2: taking place. So like, yeah, it's a double edged sword.

547
00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:25,399
Speaker 2: It's being wielded as something that is good but also

548
00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:26,800
Speaker 2: something that's negative.

549
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:28,280
Speaker 3: I think that's good to it. I think that there's

550
00:27:28,320 --> 00:27:30,520
Speaker 3: negative to it, And I also think to the first

551
00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:34,919
Speaker 3: thing you said, it's true that it's possible that attitudes

552
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:39,479
Speaker 3: toward work are changing across generations. Right when I wrote

553
00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:42,480
Speaker 3: my initial essay on the phenomenon that I called workism,

554
00:27:42,960 --> 00:27:45,800
Speaker 3: I was looking at a lot of data that centered

555
00:27:45,920 --> 00:27:50,639
Speaker 3: on workers between the nineteen eighties and the two thousands,

556
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:53,200
Speaker 3: And essentially what the data I was looking at found

557
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:56,359
Speaker 3: was that while you know throughout the world and throughout

558
00:27:56,400 --> 00:27:59,080
Speaker 3: history which people have tended to work less.

559
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:01,480
Speaker 4: Instead, in the late.

560
00:28:01,400 --> 00:28:03,520
Speaker 3: Twentieth century in the US and early twenty first century

561
00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:05,359
Speaker 3: in the US it was only the rich who are

562
00:28:05,359 --> 00:28:08,159
Speaker 3: working more. And I asked it, why would rich people

563
00:28:08,280 --> 00:28:13,160
Speaker 3: who can do anything with their money choose to work more. Well,

564
00:28:13,160 --> 00:28:16,280
Speaker 3: maybe it's because work is what they wanted to do

565
00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:19,320
Speaker 3: with their free time, that work had become so central

566
00:28:19,359 --> 00:28:21,320
Speaker 3: to their life and to their identity that they were

567
00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:24,840
Speaker 3: choosing to work more and creating cultures where over work

568
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:29,920
Speaker 3: was being valued. I think that may have been true

569
00:28:28,520 --> 00:28:32,880
Speaker 3: for older workers, but it might be changing among young

570
00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:36,239
Speaker 3: millennials and gen z. I do think that, you know,

571
00:28:36,359 --> 00:28:41,600
Speaker 3: fear of overwork movements like anti work and the anti

572
00:28:41,680 --> 00:28:44,800
Speaker 3: work subreddit. Not that that's like it's just a subreddit

573
00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:47,080
Speaker 3: on the one hand, but I think it reflects an

574
00:28:47,120 --> 00:28:50,200
Speaker 3: evolution and thought. And I also think that that gen

575
00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:53,360
Speaker 3: Z with the rise of hybrid work, also someone has

576
00:28:53,400 --> 00:28:55,520
Speaker 3: a different attitude toward work and they're centering new things

577
00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:57,760
Speaker 3: in their life. What exactly it is, I'm not sure what,

578
00:28:58,600 --> 00:29:01,040
Speaker 3: but I do think it's possible that workism is on

579
00:29:01,120 --> 00:29:03,520
Speaker 3: the decline. But again, this might just be a seesaw.

580
00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:05,239
Speaker 3: It might be that gen Z that you know that

581
00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:08,600
Speaker 3: the Boomers were work as gen Z is pulling back

582
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:10,160
Speaker 3: from it a bit because they don't want to be

583
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:12,080
Speaker 3: just like their parents. But maybe you know the next

584
00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:14,680
Speaker 3: generation is going to throw itself into work even more.

585
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:17,360
Speaker 1: You you've mentioned that we're not as unhappy in our

586
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:19,680
Speaker 1: work as a nation as some folks might lead us

587
00:29:19,680 --> 00:29:23,160
Speaker 1: to believe, and that because there's so many headlines I mean,

588
00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:26,600
Speaker 1: and especially in the COVID area of people like the

589
00:29:26,680 --> 00:29:29,560
Speaker 1: quiet quitting, people abandoning their jobs and saying screw this,

590
00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:32,200
Speaker 1: I hate work, I'm going to go hike for the

591
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:33,600
Speaker 1: rest of my life or something like that, which I

592
00:29:33,680 --> 00:29:36,160
Speaker 1: and now we see more people re entering the workforce,

593
00:29:36,240 --> 00:29:38,640
Speaker 1: But like, why do you think we're not as unhappy

594
00:29:38,680 --> 00:29:40,200
Speaker 1: as some people might lead us to believe. I saw

595
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 1: the stat from Monster the other day, ninety five percent

596
00:29:43,440 --> 00:29:46,400
Speaker 1: of US workers are planning to apply or at least

597
00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:49,160
Speaker 1: look for a new job this year. So that's a

598
00:29:49,240 --> 00:29:51,200
Speaker 1: ton of people in one year who are playing That's

599
00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:52,240
Speaker 1: the vast majority of people.

600
00:29:52,280 --> 00:29:53,920
Speaker 4: Where was that survey?

601
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:54,280
Speaker 1: Monster?

602
00:29:54,440 --> 00:29:56,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, do you think they maybe have an ulterior motive

603
00:29:56,480 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 3: to make people think that people want to pick the job.

604
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 1: That totally could be the case, right, for sure, But

605
00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:04,280
Speaker 1: it's just interesting that you might we would say people

606
00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:07,920
Speaker 1: are actually less unhappy that we might think in work.

607
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:10,680
Speaker 1: But that also so many people, there's all these headlines

608
00:30:10,680 --> 00:30:13,000
Speaker 1: and the other stats that people are saying, I'm gonna

609
00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:14,760
Speaker 1: look for something else or I just want to work less.

610
00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:15,600
Speaker 1: All together, I.

611
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:19,160
Speaker 3: Think it's totally fine and predictable that most people would

612
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:22,280
Speaker 3: be somewhat ambivalent about their job. Most people would say,

613
00:30:22,840 --> 00:30:26,040
Speaker 3: I like my job just fine, and I absolutely hope

614
00:30:26,280 --> 00:30:29,520
Speaker 3: that next year I have either a better job or

615
00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:31,360
Speaker 3: a similar job with more pey. I mean, that's just

616
00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:35,200
Speaker 3: human nature. What I find very interesting is that there

617
00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:40,120
Speaker 3: are a lot of mainstream media outlets in the general

618
00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:43,880
Speaker 3: business and economic space, your Wall Street journals and Fortunes

619
00:30:43,920 --> 00:30:47,840
Speaker 3: and Bloomberg's who run lots of stories every single year

620
00:30:48,280 --> 00:30:52,440
Speaker 3: pointing out how miserable they think or want us to

621
00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:57,600
Speaker 3: think the workforce is. Again, you have to go back

622
00:30:57,640 --> 00:31:00,360
Speaker 3: to the most fundamental bias of news media, which is

623
00:31:00,360 --> 00:31:02,560
Speaker 3: not a bias toward the left or the right. It's

624
00:31:02,560 --> 00:31:05,760
Speaker 3: a bias toward bad news. It's a bias toward negativity.

625
00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:09,160
Speaker 3: Americans are miserable at their jobs. Is a negative headline

626
00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:13,239
Speaker 3: that's going to cue the amigdala to look at it

627
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:15,160
Speaker 3: and say, oh, that's a five alarm fire. People are

628
00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:16,960
Speaker 3: miserable somewhere in the world. I have to figure out

629
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:19,480
Speaker 3: why and then click on it. A headline that says

630
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:21,920
Speaker 3: most Americans are more or less fine in their jobs

631
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:24,560
Speaker 3: offers no equivalent five alarm fire to the mind, and

632
00:31:24,560 --> 00:31:26,600
Speaker 3: therefore people aren't going to click on it. But if

633
00:31:26,600 --> 00:31:29,000
Speaker 3: you look at studies like Gallop or Pew or the

634
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:31,440
Speaker 3: Conference Board, who ask Americans every single year, how do

635
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:32,880
Speaker 3: you feel about your job? How do you feel about

636
00:31:32,880 --> 00:31:34,920
Speaker 3: your job? How do you feel about your job? Not

637
00:31:35,120 --> 00:31:37,760
Speaker 3: only are people steadily positive about their work, but at

638
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:40,560
Speaker 3: least according to the Conference Board, I think every year

639
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:44,080
Speaker 3: for the last decade more people have said if they're

640
00:31:44,120 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 3: happy at work. I think this is generally a good thing.

641
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:49,880
Speaker 3: I think that it's a good thing that people are

642
00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:53,920
Speaker 3: generally happy at work, even though media headlines are consistently

643
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:56,000
Speaker 3: trying to tell us that people are miserable. The last

644
00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:58,520
Speaker 3: thing I guess I would say about the phenomenon of

645
00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:03,680
Speaker 3: the media reporting on workplace misery is that it's just

646
00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:07,239
Speaker 3: way more fun to read about other people hating their

647
00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:09,480
Speaker 3: job than it is to read about other people liking

648
00:32:09,520 --> 00:32:11,680
Speaker 3: their job. I don't want to read about other people

649
00:32:11,720 --> 00:32:13,600
Speaker 3: liking their job. That's just gonna make me feel bad.

650
00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:15,880
Speaker 3: I want to read about how other people are miserable.

651
00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:17,920
Speaker 3: It works that I can feel the same way I

652
00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:19,960
Speaker 3: feel when I know that, Like you know, celebrities that

653
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:22,200
Speaker 3: are incredibly beautiful hate each other and are breaking up

654
00:32:22,240 --> 00:32:23,800
Speaker 3: and are cheating on each other, Like I want to

655
00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:27,440
Speaker 3: feel like other people are miserable. That's a totally human instinct,

656
00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:30,720
Speaker 3: and I think that's also why you see news media

657
00:32:30,800 --> 00:32:33,840
Speaker 3: gravitating toward these negative headlines abou people's appreciation of their jobs.

658
00:32:33,920 --> 00:32:36,920
Speaker 2: Okay, so what would you say then to folks? I

659
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:39,640
Speaker 2: feel like there's been a swing from some folks saying

660
00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:43,960
Speaker 2: that like, and we've actually had Simon a on the

661
00:32:44,000 --> 00:32:48,120
Speaker 2: podcast talking about work and the role of work, stoles off.

662
00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:48,360
Speaker 1: Yeah.

663
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:48,520
Speaker 3: Right.

664
00:32:48,960 --> 00:32:51,440
Speaker 2: On one hand, you've got somebody who sees their work

665
00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:55,160
Speaker 2: as something that Okay, I'm I'm ambivalent, I'm indifferent. It

666
00:32:55,200 --> 00:32:57,240
Speaker 2: allows me to pay the bills. On the other hand,

667
00:32:57,520 --> 00:32:59,400
Speaker 2: you've got the school of thought that says, oh no,

668
00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:01,760
Speaker 2: it needs to be the fulfilling thing where you find

669
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:05,040
Speaker 2: meaning and satisfaction on multiple levels. It doesn't just provide

670
00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:08,280
Speaker 2: for you financially, but it checks all these other boxes

671
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:11,600
Speaker 2: as well. Do you have an opinion on where an

672
00:33:11,640 --> 00:33:14,680
Speaker 2: individual should essentially find themselves on that spectrum.

673
00:33:14,720 --> 00:33:17,000
Speaker 3: I think we live in an age of impossible expectations,

674
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:22,080
Speaker 3: and that's true for so many things. You can start

675
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:24,200
Speaker 3: with a category that has nothing to do with work.

676
00:33:24,240 --> 00:33:26,400
Speaker 3: In fact, in many ways, is the opposite, you know, marriage.

677
00:33:27,040 --> 00:33:30,240
Speaker 3: There's lots of really interesting research pointing out how our

678
00:33:30,280 --> 00:33:36,040
Speaker 3: expectations of our romantic partners are really unlike historical expectations

679
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:40,000
Speaker 3: of a spouse. You know, today we expect our wife

680
00:33:40,120 --> 00:33:44,200
Speaker 3: or our husband, you know, maybe our partner, girlfriend, boyfriend,

681
00:33:44,840 --> 00:33:49,960
Speaker 3: to be sexy, to be our best friend, to be able,

682
00:33:50,040 --> 00:33:54,000
Speaker 3: to be our intellectual equal, to be stimulating, in conversation,

683
00:33:54,240 --> 00:33:56,880
Speaker 3: to be the perfect mother or father, to be the

684
00:33:56,960 --> 00:33:59,520
Speaker 3: perfect you know, person to clean up the house, the

685
00:33:59,520 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 3: person you want to follow a stately. We have all

686
00:34:01,960 --> 00:34:05,560
Speaker 3: of these expectations for a modern partner that I think

687
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:11,040
Speaker 3: are somewhat disconnected from historical expectations of a partner. Right, So,

688
00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:14,719
Speaker 3: in romance, it is the age of impossible expectations. I

689
00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:18,600
Speaker 3: think it is also true in work that we expect

690
00:34:18,640 --> 00:34:21,399
Speaker 3: our jobs and our companies to be much more than

691
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:24,200
Speaker 3: just a job or just a company. Not only do

692
00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:26,200
Speaker 3: we want our jobs more than just a job, the

693
00:34:26,280 --> 00:34:29,239
Speaker 3: whole concept of workism, which Simone picked up on in

694
00:34:29,280 --> 00:34:31,920
Speaker 3: this book is that a lot of people expect that

695
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:35,760
Speaker 3: their jobs, through their careers, do the so called work

696
00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:40,160
Speaker 3: of religion. That it should provide meaning and a possibility

697
00:34:40,160 --> 00:34:43,080
Speaker 3: of transcendence, It should provide a community, It should provide

698
00:34:43,080 --> 00:34:46,240
Speaker 3: for self actualization. That you know, having a job. According

699
00:34:46,239 --> 00:34:50,720
Speaker 3: to Pew, having a job that you love is now

700
00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:55,279
Speaker 3: more important to Americans than religion or marriage is.

701
00:34:56,120 --> 00:34:57,239
Speaker 4: So obviously, we.

702
00:34:57,280 --> 00:34:59,879
Speaker 3: Have really high expectations of our jobs, and I would

703
00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:03,320
Speaker 3: add conclusion that we also have really high expectations of

704
00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:07,680
Speaker 3: our companies, the organizations that we work for. This is

705
00:35:07,680 --> 00:35:09,720
Speaker 3: not going to turn into any kind of political point,

706
00:35:10,080 --> 00:35:15,560
Speaker 3: but you see a lot more employees demanding that their

707
00:35:15,640 --> 00:35:20,920
Speaker 3: companies make political statements when the news cycle turns toward

708
00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:23,400
Speaker 3: that political topic. Whether it's the.

709
00:35:23,280 --> 00:35:25,480
Speaker 4: War in Gaza or.

710
00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:28,760
Speaker 3: That don't say gay law in Florida, or the bathroom

711
00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:32,239
Speaker 3: law in North Carolina, or some other political crisis of

712
00:35:32,280 --> 00:35:35,839
Speaker 3: the day, there's an expectation that certain companies and organizations

713
00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:38,439
Speaker 3: comment on that news in a way that I don't

714
00:35:38,440 --> 00:35:41,200
Speaker 3: think they were pressured on to comment on that news

715
00:35:41,320 --> 00:35:43,279
Speaker 3: twenty thirty years ago. Now what does this have to

716
00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:46,560
Speaker 3: do with wives and jobs? Well, I think we expect

717
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:50,279
Speaker 3: that our companies, our in a way, do much more

718
00:35:50,400 --> 00:35:52,480
Speaker 3: than just be a company. We ask that our companies

719
00:35:52,560 --> 00:35:58,600
Speaker 3: reflect our values in the public square, so across the board.

720
00:35:58,680 --> 00:36:01,960
Speaker 3: I think in romance and in work and in politics,

721
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:05,480
Speaker 3: I think we live in an age possible expectations, and

722
00:36:05,560 --> 00:36:07,800
Speaker 3: it just happens to also be true for our careers.

723
00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:08,600
Speaker 1: Totally agree.

724
00:36:08,680 --> 00:36:11,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like someone's probably thinking, I just we just want

725
00:36:11,160 --> 00:36:13,719
Speaker 2: to make tires, Like you don't necessarily need to make

726
00:36:13,760 --> 00:36:14,840
Speaker 2: a statement when it comes to.

727
00:36:14,960 --> 00:36:16,560
Speaker 1: Israel and wa sir.

728
00:36:16,680 --> 00:36:19,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, But to play Devil's advocate, though, I do think

729
00:36:19,239 --> 00:36:21,200
Speaker 2: because you recently, like I guess a couple of weeks

730
00:36:21,239 --> 00:36:24,600
Speaker 2: ago at this point, you wrote about just the decline

731
00:36:24,640 --> 00:36:29,120
Speaker 2: in religion and like, essentially it's an institution, and to

732
00:36:29,160 --> 00:36:33,239
Speaker 2: a certain extent, like I think our workplace can provide

733
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:37,239
Speaker 2: a sense of community and the sense of belonging that

734
00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:39,480
Speaker 2: I think a lot of folks are missing out on,

735
00:36:39,600 --> 00:36:42,680
Speaker 2: especially like in earlier you mentioned hybrid work, and just

736
00:36:42,760 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 2: as more folks are shifting to working from home full time,

737
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:47,800
Speaker 2: I do think that there is a sense of identity

738
00:36:47,800 --> 00:36:49,760
Speaker 2: that folks are missing out on that in the past,

739
00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:53,160
Speaker 2: they had some sort of shared reality that you talked about,

740
00:36:53,239 --> 00:36:54,839
Speaker 2: right how there's no longer going to be that sort

741
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:56,680
Speaker 2: of shared reality. But I think it's because of this

742
00:36:56,800 --> 00:37:00,680
Speaker 2: atomization that's taking place of individuals as they stepped away

743
00:37:00,719 --> 00:37:02,400
Speaker 2: from different institutions.

744
00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:03,520
Speaker 1: Are you what are your thoughts there?

745
00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:06,560
Speaker 3: You're talking about community and community is a hard thing

746
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:08,920
Speaker 3: to define. But the best way it was ever defined

747
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 3: to me is that community is where you keep showing up.

748
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:16,880
Speaker 3: And you think, where do Americans keep showing up these days?

749
00:37:17,480 --> 00:37:18,160
Speaker 3: Is it a church?

750
00:37:18,440 --> 00:37:18,720
Speaker 4: Well?

751
00:37:18,840 --> 00:37:20,719
Speaker 3: Last year, for the first time in American history, if

752
00:37:20,719 --> 00:37:22,920
Speaker 3: here than half the Americans said they go to a

753
00:37:22,920 --> 00:37:26,560
Speaker 3: house of worship regularly. Okay, so it's not church anymore.

754
00:37:27,239 --> 00:37:29,239
Speaker 3: Is it the bowlding leagues? Well, no, Robert Putnam talked

755
00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:32,719
Speaker 3: about the demise of bowling leagues and various organizations and

756
00:37:32,760 --> 00:37:38,839
Speaker 3: associations the nineteen nineties. Is it a school Well, Interestingly,

757
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:44,040
Speaker 3: school absences have doubled since COVID. It seems like, you know,

758
00:37:44,080 --> 00:37:46,040
Speaker 3: a lot of both parents and students feel like school

759
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:49,160
Speaker 3: isn't a place where kids necessarily need to show up

760
00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:52,000
Speaker 3: the same at the same rate that they previously showed up.

761
00:37:52,200 --> 00:37:54,480
Speaker 3: You know, what is the last community standing? Well, for

762
00:37:54,520 --> 00:37:56,960
Speaker 3: a lot of people, the last community standing is the office.

763
00:37:57,400 --> 00:38:00,319
Speaker 3: And by community again, I just mean where people keep

764
00:38:00,360 --> 00:38:03,240
Speaker 3: showing up. So in many ways, I think the office

765
00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:05,920
Speaker 3: was not necessarily built, or our work, our company is

766
00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:09,040
Speaker 3: not necessarily built to be the last community standing. They

767
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:12,200
Speaker 3: just happen to become the last community standing because every

768
00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:15,879
Speaker 3: other community pretty much has wilted away in the last

769
00:38:15,880 --> 00:38:20,000
Speaker 3: thirty years. But that's not a defense of the workplace community.

770
00:38:20,040 --> 00:38:23,439
Speaker 3: That is an acknowledgment that work, for many people has

771
00:38:23,480 --> 00:38:26,919
Speaker 3: just become maybe the last community that exists for them,

772
00:38:27,239 --> 00:38:29,480
Speaker 3: and I see that maybe, as you know, for some people, wonderful,

773
00:38:29,719 --> 00:38:31,399
Speaker 3: I loved the people that I've worked with, and I've

774
00:38:31,480 --> 00:38:33,880
Speaker 3: definitely made a community, But for a lot of other people,

775
00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:35,440
Speaker 3: I think that that's sort of a sad thing to

776
00:38:35,480 --> 00:38:35,919
Speaker 3: fall into.

777
00:38:36,200 --> 00:38:37,839
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I think you're right. One of the things

778
00:38:37,840 --> 00:38:40,200
Speaker 1: you're pointing to as well is maybe, in some ways,

779
00:38:40,239 --> 00:38:42,960
Speaker 1: at least in the previous answer, we're talking about how

780
00:38:43,120 --> 00:38:45,160
Speaker 1: we're putting more of our eggs in the work basket.

781
00:38:45,239 --> 00:38:48,040
Speaker 1: We're like giving it more credence, more say over our

782
00:38:48,080 --> 00:38:50,000
Speaker 1: lives and how we feel, and that is maybe the

783
00:38:50,080 --> 00:38:51,960
Speaker 1: last baschon of the community that so many people have,

784
00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:54,799
Speaker 1: and they're losing that too as they're working from home more.

785
00:38:55,120 --> 00:38:57,040
Speaker 1: You've talked you've kind of like talked about that as

786
00:38:57,080 --> 00:39:01,440
Speaker 1: the worship of work, and you've talked to negatively about that,

787
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:03,440
Speaker 1: but you've also admitted that you engage in it. So

788
00:39:03,440 --> 00:39:07,280
Speaker 1: I'm curious how you reconcile kind of that reality, that duality,

789
00:39:07,640 --> 00:39:10,400
Speaker 1: and if you've changed your approach to work after all

790
00:39:10,400 --> 00:39:12,120
Speaker 1: the thought you've given to this subject, plus the fact

791
00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:14,480
Speaker 1: that you're a dad now that changes everything, right, I mean,

792
00:39:14,680 --> 00:39:18,640
Speaker 1: I know I'm completely rethinking how much of my efforts,

793
00:39:18,680 --> 00:39:21,840
Speaker 1: my time, my mental faculties go to my work versus

794
00:39:21,840 --> 00:39:24,680
Speaker 1: to my family. What does that look like for you?

795
00:39:25,200 --> 00:39:29,040
Speaker 3: So I wrote this essay on the religion of workism

796
00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:33,400
Speaker 3: several years ago, and I'm proud of it, but I

797
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:37,800
Speaker 3: also think I mildly disagree with it for the following reason.

798
00:39:39,120 --> 00:39:42,080
Speaker 3: I think I came down very, very hard on the

799
00:39:42,160 --> 00:39:47,399
Speaker 3: idea that workism was mostly making people miserable, and now

800
00:39:47,440 --> 00:39:54,280
Speaker 3: I feel more ambivalent, ambivalently about the possibility that work

801
00:39:54,480 --> 00:39:59,400
Speaker 3: provides a really important ballast for lots of people, and

802
00:39:59,440 --> 00:40:03,120
Speaker 3: that in the absence of work, lots of people can

803
00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:06,960
Speaker 3: really struggle to find something else to fill their life. Now,

804
00:40:06,960 --> 00:40:09,200
Speaker 3: it doesn't mean that work is the best thing to

805
00:40:09,280 --> 00:40:12,080
Speaker 3: put at the center of your life. It's rather to

806
00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:17,640
Speaker 3: acknowledge that in a country where community is generally in

807
00:40:17,719 --> 00:40:23,080
Speaker 3: decline and association is generally in decline, we need something

808
00:40:23,680 --> 00:40:26,760
Speaker 3: to keep us together. We need some kind of organizing

809
00:40:26,760 --> 00:40:30,799
Speaker 3: principle to consistently connect us to people. And if we're

810
00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:33,560
Speaker 3: gonna have fewer book clubs, and we're gonna have fewer churches,

811
00:40:33,920 --> 00:40:36,560
Speaker 3: and we're gonna have fewer unions, and we're gonna have

812
00:40:36,640 --> 00:40:41,920
Speaker 3: fewer neighborhood associations, Well, then what's gonna be that binding principle?

813
00:40:42,080 --> 00:40:43,960
Speaker 3: And if for some people that thing turns out to

814
00:40:44,000 --> 00:40:47,120
Speaker 3: be work and they like their job, and I should

815
00:40:47,120 --> 00:40:50,000
Speaker 3: point out that, you know, jobs in general are a

816
00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:51,840
Speaker 3: lot more fun certainly than they were like one hundred

817
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:54,400
Speaker 3: and fifty years ago, you know, when you know, common

818
00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:56,520
Speaker 3: jobs were like, you know, going out on the sea

819
00:40:56,600 --> 00:40:58,319
Speaker 3: to kill a sperm whale and then crack open its

820
00:40:58,320 --> 00:41:01,040
Speaker 3: skull and climb inside and get the pus you need

821
00:41:01,080 --> 00:41:03,200
Speaker 3: to you know, light lamps in the street.

822
00:41:03,400 --> 00:41:05,439
Speaker 1: At least in theory, that sounds awesome, but I don't

823
00:41:05,440 --> 00:41:06,279
Speaker 1: want to really actually do.

824
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:08,799
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, and it does reading about it is awesome, right,

825
00:41:08,880 --> 00:41:11,160
Speaker 3: So yeah, we can have comfy jobs where we talk

826
00:41:11,200 --> 00:41:13,200
Speaker 3: on podcasts and then read Moby Dick in an air

827
00:41:13,239 --> 00:41:15,839
Speaker 3: condition room rather than actually have to go out and

828
00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:16,759
Speaker 3: get our boat.

829
00:41:16,520 --> 00:41:18,400
Speaker 4: Crushed by a huge spirm whale.

830
00:41:18,960 --> 00:41:20,879
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so I think I think that's there's lots

831
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:23,480
Speaker 3: of ways in which I think the phenomenon of centering

832
00:41:23,520 --> 00:41:27,040
Speaker 3: work can for some people be really important. I'll say,

833
00:41:27,080 --> 00:41:29,000
Speaker 3: as a personal note, you know, I lost both my

834
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:32,520
Speaker 3: parents to cancer in my twenties, and you know, one

835
00:41:32,520 --> 00:41:36,680
Speaker 3: of the difficult things about grief is that it so

836
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:40,320
Speaker 3: utterly discombobulates your life. And one of the things that

837
00:41:40,360 --> 00:41:41,879
Speaker 3: I found most helpful. I think a lot of things

838
00:41:41,920 --> 00:41:44,560
Speaker 3: people find most helpful about getting over a major loss

839
00:41:44,560 --> 00:41:47,720
Speaker 3: in their life is returning to some kind of regular routine,

840
00:41:48,200 --> 00:41:51,040
Speaker 3: and having work be the anchor of that routine actually,

841
00:41:51,120 --> 00:41:55,160
Speaker 3: in many ways made me happier. I think it's pretty rare.

842
00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:59,080
Speaker 3: I think to hear that having a job helped you

843
00:41:59,160 --> 00:42:02,520
Speaker 3: get over but there's no question that having a routine

844
00:42:02,760 --> 00:42:05,400
Speaker 3: helps people get over grief, and work is an important

845
00:42:05,480 --> 00:42:08,040
Speaker 3: routine that helps to anchor people's lives. So that's a

846
00:42:08,040 --> 00:42:10,080
Speaker 3: long winded and somewhat personal way of saying that I

847
00:42:10,080 --> 00:42:11,920
Speaker 3: think I might have gotten aspect of the work is

848
00:42:11,960 --> 00:42:14,879
Speaker 3: a thesis a little bit too negative that I do

849
00:42:14,960 --> 00:42:18,719
Speaker 3: think that a religion that centers work is probably not

850
00:42:18,840 --> 00:42:21,879
Speaker 3: good for people's souls. But having work be a really

851
00:42:21,920 --> 00:42:24,520
Speaker 3: important core part of your life can absolutely be part

852
00:42:24,600 --> 00:42:27,080
Speaker 3: of a of a balanced and wonderful and rich life,

853
00:42:27,160 --> 00:42:29,560
Speaker 3: even when, as I do, even when you become a

854
00:42:29,600 --> 00:42:32,520
Speaker 3: father and just want to spend all your time, you know,

855
00:42:32,680 --> 00:42:34,479
Speaker 3: snuggling with your adorable, chubby eight.

856
00:42:34,440 --> 00:42:36,719
Speaker 1: Month old and sometimes that's fun and then you want

857
00:42:36,760 --> 00:42:38,279
Speaker 1: to get back to work too, so you.

858
00:42:38,239 --> 00:42:40,760
Speaker 3: Know what, yes, yeah, I mean right, like five hours

859
00:42:40,760 --> 00:42:42,960
Speaker 3: of snuggling an a month old who can't talk is like,

860
00:42:43,120 --> 00:42:45,040
Speaker 3: you know, thirty minutes is really fun, and it's twenty

861
00:42:45,040 --> 00:42:47,080
Speaker 3: five minutes. You know, you have three hours, three and

862
00:42:47,120 --> 00:42:49,480
Speaker 3: a half hours. Sometimes you're like, okay, I'd like to

863
00:42:49,480 --> 00:42:51,279
Speaker 3: sort of diversify my day a little bit, you know,

864
00:42:51,680 --> 00:42:55,200
Speaker 3: refresh the joy of you know, squeezing this little baby.

865
00:42:55,719 --> 00:42:56,680
Speaker 3: You go to work and then come.

866
00:42:56,560 --> 00:42:57,960
Speaker 1: Ver I speak, you appreciate it all that much more.

867
00:42:58,239 --> 00:43:00,360
Speaker 1: Twenty four to seven cuddles sounds like over yes, yeah.

868
00:43:00,400 --> 00:43:02,320
Speaker 2: Recently, Jill and now we're talking about let's too just rhythms,

869
00:43:02,360 --> 00:43:04,040
Speaker 2: like you're saying, and you're talking about with the rhythm

870
00:43:04,040 --> 00:43:06,480
Speaker 2: of work, but even just the rhythms of movement and

871
00:43:06,800 --> 00:43:08,879
Speaker 2: coming back from spring break. We were both sharing how

872
00:43:09,239 --> 00:43:11,480
Speaker 2: you know, it's good, but it's also really good to

873
00:43:11,520 --> 00:43:13,439
Speaker 2: be woken up by your alarm at five forty five, Yeah,

874
00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:15,000
Speaker 2: and to kind of get on with your day and

875
00:43:15,280 --> 00:43:17,000
Speaker 2: doing the things not only that you love, but the

876
00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:19,319
Speaker 2: things that also bring you health. But Derek We've got

877
00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:21,840
Speaker 2: just a couple more questions that we want to get to. Specifically,

878
00:43:21,840 --> 00:43:24,600
Speaker 2: we're gonna touch on AI. We'll get to that and more.

879
00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:35,080
Speaker 2: Right after this, we're back still talking with Derek Thompson.

880
00:43:35,120 --> 00:43:37,799
Speaker 2: We're talking about work and Derek, thanks, thank you for

881
00:43:38,160 --> 00:43:40,719
Speaker 2: just kind of getting personal with in that response to

882
00:43:40,719 --> 00:43:41,279
Speaker 2: that last question.

883
00:43:41,360 --> 00:43:43,400
Speaker 1: That totally. I think there's a lot of truth that

884
00:43:43,400 --> 00:43:46,680
Speaker 1: people feel to that that sometimes even there's a maybe

885
00:43:46,680 --> 00:43:48,480
Speaker 1: a negative attachment to some parts of work, but there's

886
00:43:48,520 --> 00:43:50,600
Speaker 1: a positive attachment in other ways. And I think we

887
00:43:50,680 --> 00:43:52,719
Speaker 1: all feel that. But let's talk about the future of

888
00:43:52,760 --> 00:43:56,040
Speaker 1: work real quick. Like everyone is asking the question about AI.

889
00:43:56,120 --> 00:43:57,920
Speaker 1: How's AI going to change the way we work? This

890
00:43:57,960 --> 00:44:02,000
Speaker 1: is something that you have dedicated some of your thinking

891
00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:04,640
Speaker 1: and writing to as well. I guess I'm curious where

892
00:44:04,640 --> 00:44:06,520
Speaker 1: do you think things stand right now? It feels like

893
00:44:06,560 --> 00:44:08,920
Speaker 1: actually things have calmed down for a second, because maybe,

894
00:44:08,960 --> 00:44:10,400
Speaker 1: like a year and a half ago, a lot of

895
00:44:10,400 --> 00:44:12,680
Speaker 1: freak out about AI and how it's going to impact

896
00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:15,759
Speaker 1: all of us, Maybe people aren't as worried right now,

897
00:44:15,800 --> 00:44:17,600
Speaker 1: Like where do things stand on that front?

898
00:44:17,680 --> 00:44:19,720
Speaker 3: Before I went on book leave, I wrote a piece

899
00:44:19,920 --> 00:44:22,799
Speaker 3: that at the time I thought might not hold up

900
00:44:23,200 --> 00:44:25,279
Speaker 3: very well, but in retrospect, I think has held up

901
00:44:25,840 --> 00:44:28,839
Speaker 3: pretty well. Which the headline of which was AI as

902
00:44:28,920 --> 00:44:32,120
Speaker 3: a waste of time, And what I meant was not

903
00:44:32,239 --> 00:44:35,680
Speaker 3: that AI is the genitive AI at Chatchabt and Claude

904
00:44:35,680 --> 00:44:37,880
Speaker 3: three from Anthropic, not that they are a waste of

905
00:44:37,880 --> 00:44:40,520
Speaker 3: time for everybody, but that one way to understand the

906
00:44:40,560 --> 00:44:44,520
Speaker 3: majority of use of these genitive AI tools for people

907
00:44:44,520 --> 00:44:46,920
Speaker 3: that maybe don't work in computer programming, where I think

908
00:44:46,920 --> 00:44:49,279
Speaker 3: it's just become a kind of permanent copilot. He said,

909
00:44:49,280 --> 00:44:50,560
Speaker 3: a lot of people are just sort of playing around

910
00:44:50,600 --> 00:44:54,040
Speaker 3: with this thing, and that's fine. You know, lots of

911
00:44:54,080 --> 00:44:57,120
Speaker 3: important products. The computer, for example, starts off as a

912
00:44:57,200 --> 00:45:00,920
Speaker 3: kind of toy and then evolves to become something that

913
00:45:01,040 --> 00:45:04,400
Speaker 3: is central to our working lives. But the truth is

914
00:45:04,400 --> 00:45:07,799
Speaker 3: that I don't think I think it is still too

915
00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:13,759
Speaker 3: early to say exactly how and where artificial intelligence is

916
00:45:13,800 --> 00:45:17,520
Speaker 3: going to change the world. Just two specific thoughts that

917
00:45:17,560 --> 00:45:19,799
Speaker 3: I have about that sort of that frontier, maybe like

918
00:45:19,800 --> 00:45:22,360
Speaker 3: the edge of the present. One is I am really

919
00:45:22,440 --> 00:45:28,319
Speaker 3: curious about AI and medicine. There are lots of scientists

920
00:45:28,640 --> 00:45:33,120
Speaker 3: that are using protein folding tools and large language model

921
00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:38,480
Speaker 3: tools to essentially speed run the search for molecules that

922
00:45:38,640 --> 00:45:42,239
Speaker 3: can bind with certain proteins do certain things in our

923
00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:46,160
Speaker 3: bodies that can make us healthier, or fight diseases or

924
00:45:46,200 --> 00:45:49,960
Speaker 3: cure cancer. And I'm really interested in at least trying

925
00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:54,359
Speaker 3: to stay at that frontier to understand how we're using

926
00:45:54,360 --> 00:45:59,200
Speaker 3: these tools to discover new medicines. The second thing that

927
00:45:59,360 --> 00:46:03,319
Speaker 3: I read recently, and this came from Ethan Mallick, who's

928
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:06,319
Speaker 3: a really brilliant AI writer, has a substack I leave

929
00:46:06,360 --> 00:46:08,520
Speaker 3: called one Useful Thing, and just wrote a book called

930
00:46:08,560 --> 00:46:10,959
Speaker 3: co Intelligence, and he has a section in that book

931
00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:15,040
Speaker 3: about cointelligence where he talks about how AI might change

932
00:46:15,480 --> 00:46:18,560
Speaker 3: the career pathway. He says that, you know, a lot

933
00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:23,480
Speaker 3: of young people start off learning skills that are very

934
00:46:23,840 --> 00:46:27,000
Speaker 3: very basic, and they move from those basic skills sort

935
00:46:27,000 --> 00:46:28,640
Speaker 3: of the one oh one skills to the one O

936
00:46:28,760 --> 00:46:30,680
Speaker 3: two skills, to the two oh one skills, the three

937
00:46:30,719 --> 00:46:33,560
Speaker 3: on one skills. But one way to think about what

938
00:46:33,760 --> 00:46:37,200
Speaker 3: chat GPT is good at is that it's good at

939
00:46:37,320 --> 00:46:41,440
Speaker 3: being like one hundred entry level employees at once. Right.

940
00:46:41,480 --> 00:46:43,399
Speaker 3: It does the work essentially of like one hundred entry

941
00:46:43,440 --> 00:46:46,839
Speaker 3: level employees. It's not a great CEO, but it's a

942
00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:51,080
Speaker 3: really great research assistant. Well, what happens to the career

943
00:46:51,280 --> 00:46:55,879
Speaker 3: path as lots of the work previously assigned to twenty

944
00:46:55,960 --> 00:46:58,160
Speaker 3: two and twenty three year olds turns out to be

945
00:46:58,600 --> 00:47:02,160
Speaker 3: more efficiently done by having maybe just one twenty three

946
00:47:02,239 --> 00:47:04,000
Speaker 3: year old or maybe just one twenty five year old

947
00:47:04,440 --> 00:47:08,160
Speaker 3: working with CHATGBT, Right, maybe rather than hire ten twenty

948
00:47:08,200 --> 00:47:10,480
Speaker 3: two year olds, you hire one twenty four year old

949
00:47:10,640 --> 00:47:14,600
Speaker 3: and give them genitive AI and that's and that does

950
00:47:14,600 --> 00:47:17,520
Speaker 3: the same work. That really changes the entry level path

951
00:47:17,600 --> 00:47:19,720
Speaker 3: for a lot of different companies. And so I'm interested

952
00:47:20,000 --> 00:47:23,680
Speaker 3: both both sector by sector with the changes, but also

953
00:47:23,680 --> 00:47:26,600
Speaker 3: a cross sectors maybe how it changes career development.

954
00:47:26,719 --> 00:47:28,600
Speaker 2: It's interesting that you kind of refer to it as

955
00:47:28,600 --> 00:47:30,240
Speaker 2: a tool. It makes me think of like when personal

956
00:47:30,280 --> 00:47:33,320
Speaker 2: computers first came out, and so it seems to reason

957
00:47:33,360 --> 00:47:36,239
Speaker 2: that a good takeaway would be to play with these

958
00:47:36,239 --> 00:47:38,880
Speaker 2: tools in a way that maybe you are intentionally wasting

959
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:41,000
Speaker 2: time because you're playing with it's sort of like I

960
00:47:41,040 --> 00:47:43,600
Speaker 2: did with like an Apple two whatever back in the day,

961
00:47:43,680 --> 00:47:45,120
Speaker 2: like back in the eighties, where you're just playing these

962
00:47:45,160 --> 00:47:48,400
Speaker 2: alphabet games with a snake and you have to cob.

963
00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:49,239
Speaker 1: The letters in order.

964
00:47:49,560 --> 00:47:52,000
Speaker 2: But it seems like you said that that over time

965
00:47:52,040 --> 00:47:54,520
Speaker 2: it will have an impact on the career path of folks,

966
00:47:54,560 --> 00:47:57,279
Speaker 2: not just for individuals who are like medical researchers, but

967
00:47:57,320 --> 00:48:01,920
Speaker 2: the ability to slowly, over time adopt to whatever it

968
00:48:02,040 --> 00:48:05,840
Speaker 2: is that AI is is going to lead different industries towards.

969
00:48:05,880 --> 00:48:06,480
Speaker 1: Is that what you're.

970
00:48:06,320 --> 00:48:07,840
Speaker 4: Saying, Yeah, I think that.

971
00:48:07,880 --> 00:48:09,880
Speaker 3: Well, I think about it for my own in my

972
00:48:09,920 --> 00:48:12,120
Speaker 3: own industry, right, I'm I'm I pretend to be an

973
00:48:12,120 --> 00:48:14,160
Speaker 3: expert about many things, but I'm only really an expert

974
00:48:14,200 --> 00:48:16,160
Speaker 3: in my own life. And you know, one of my

975
00:48:16,280 --> 00:48:19,000
Speaker 3: jobs is to explain new ideas to people in ways

976
00:48:19,040 --> 00:48:22,040
Speaker 3: that they can remember and understand and then communicate again

977
00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:24,719
Speaker 3: to other people, right to get mice the software of

978
00:48:24,719 --> 00:48:27,240
Speaker 3: my ideas running on as many pieces of hardware as possible.

979
00:48:27,600 --> 00:48:30,200
Speaker 3: And jenetai is really brilliant at doing a lot of

980
00:48:30,239 --> 00:48:33,080
Speaker 3: the work that I think of as quite essential to

981
00:48:33,200 --> 00:48:35,640
Speaker 3: my job. You know, I'm interested in a lot of

982
00:48:35,680 --> 00:48:38,839
Speaker 3: different things, work in macroeconomics and the frontier of you know,

983
00:48:39,160 --> 00:48:44,000
Speaker 3: cancer research, and these tools are really really good at

984
00:48:44,000 --> 00:48:46,719
Speaker 3: explaining novel concepts. So like, if I don't understand what,

985
00:48:46,760 --> 00:48:49,560
Speaker 3: like you know Carti Therapy does. I can just plug

986
00:48:49,560 --> 00:48:51,440
Speaker 3: that right in to chat GBT and it can explain

987
00:48:51,480 --> 00:48:54,440
Speaker 3: to me what this how to you know, engineer T

988
00:48:54,600 --> 00:48:56,839
Speaker 3: cells in order to fight cancers. I'm like, oh my god, wow,

989
00:48:56,880 --> 00:48:59,680
Speaker 3: Like that's that's what Carti's cell therapy is. That's really important.

990
00:48:59,760 --> 00:49:02,319
Speaker 3: Unders and I can do the same thing for you know,

991
00:49:02,400 --> 00:49:06,640
Speaker 3: economic concepts, and so I find it very useful to

992
00:49:06,800 --> 00:49:10,359
Speaker 3: allow me to surf the world as a dileton with

993
00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:13,240
Speaker 3: this little thing in my pocket that will explain certain

994
00:49:13,320 --> 00:49:16,080
Speaker 3: key concepts I don't understand. Right. It's a little bit like,

995
00:49:16,280 --> 00:49:18,240
Speaker 3: you know, how if you're traveling in a foreign country

996
00:49:18,600 --> 00:49:21,240
Speaker 3: and you don't understand the language and a certain sign,

997
00:49:21,520 --> 00:49:23,120
Speaker 3: you can, you know, hold out your phone and maybe

998
00:49:23,160 --> 00:49:25,759
Speaker 3: open up like the Google app and just point it

999
00:49:25,840 --> 00:49:28,120
Speaker 3: at the sign and then it translates the Danish word

1000
00:49:28,160 --> 00:49:30,879
Speaker 3: for stop into the English word stop and you're like, oh, okay,

1001
00:49:30,920 --> 00:49:31,520
Speaker 3: great stop.

1002
00:49:32,560 --> 00:49:33,319
Speaker 4: Imagine that.

1003
00:49:33,760 --> 00:49:37,560
Speaker 3: But for all linguistic mysteries, for all things that you

1004
00:49:37,600 --> 00:49:40,680
Speaker 3: don't understand in the world, right, to have essentially a

1005
00:49:41,200 --> 00:49:46,160
Speaker 3: travel assistant that can translate the world. That's sort of

1006
00:49:46,200 --> 00:49:48,279
Speaker 3: how I use these tools right now. It's a kind

1007
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:53,759
Speaker 3: of universal translator of important ideas and concepts that I

1008
00:49:53,760 --> 00:49:54,480
Speaker 3: don't understand.

1009
00:49:54,480 --> 00:49:56,719
Speaker 1: Well, okay, last question for you. So when we're talking

1010
00:49:56,760 --> 00:49:59,760
Speaker 1: about something like the ATM, there were all these beliefs,

1011
00:50:00,120 --> 00:50:01,880
Speaker 1: beliefs that it was just going to get rid of

1012
00:50:02,360 --> 00:50:06,480
Speaker 1: the need for real humans at bank locations, or like

1013
00:50:06,719 --> 00:50:09,200
Speaker 1: when you talk about kind of what like kiosks, or

1014
00:50:09,200 --> 00:50:11,359
Speaker 1: are we actually going to need physical employees at fast

1015
00:50:11,400 --> 00:50:15,040
Speaker 1: food restaurants anywhere now? And it seems like every time,

1016
00:50:15,080 --> 00:50:17,239
Speaker 1: at every turn, there are all these new jobs that

1017
00:50:17,280 --> 00:50:20,879
Speaker 1: open up. When when new forms of technology come into being,

1018
00:50:21,080 --> 00:50:22,200
Speaker 1: do you think that's going to be the case with

1019
00:50:22,239 --> 00:50:24,319
Speaker 1: AI or do you think it is going to kind

1020
00:50:24,360 --> 00:50:28,840
Speaker 1: of eradicate eradicate a bunch of jobs that it won't

1021
00:50:28,880 --> 00:50:30,400
Speaker 1: like that won't pop up in other places.

1022
00:50:30,719 --> 00:50:32,799
Speaker 3: One thing that humankind seems to be very good at

1023
00:50:32,880 --> 00:50:37,239
Speaker 3: doing is thinking of new ways to spend money, which

1024
00:50:37,320 --> 00:50:40,480
Speaker 3: means thinking of new ways to employ people. Yeah, because

1025
00:50:40,480 --> 00:50:42,320
Speaker 3: in it was any category in which you spend money,

1026
00:50:42,680 --> 00:50:46,279
Speaker 3: someone accepting that money has money to hire people to

1027
00:50:46,280 --> 00:50:49,920
Speaker 3: go their business. So you know, in the late nineteenth century,

1028
00:50:50,120 --> 00:50:54,680
Speaker 3: the economy was fifty sixty percent farm workers. In the

1029
00:50:54,760 --> 00:50:58,920
Speaker 3: nineteen sixties, the economy was thirty forty percent many fashion workers. Today,

1030
00:50:59,000 --> 00:51:00,719
Speaker 3: if you add all the many facts ushing workers with

1031
00:51:00,800 --> 00:51:02,719
Speaker 3: to all the farmers in America, you get less than

1032
00:51:02,719 --> 00:51:04,920
Speaker 3: ten percent of the labor force. So we found a

1033
00:51:04,960 --> 00:51:07,479
Speaker 3: way to take that ninety percent and turn it into

1034
00:51:07,480 --> 00:51:10,080
Speaker 3: ten percent, And now the other ninety percent of the

1035
00:51:10,160 --> 00:51:12,160
Speaker 3: labor force is doing stuff that we couldn't have even

1036
00:51:12,160 --> 00:51:14,759
Speaker 3: imagined in the nineteenth century. I mean, how do you

1037
00:51:14,800 --> 00:51:17,719
Speaker 3: explain the concept of computer programming, which now is the

1038
00:51:17,719 --> 00:51:20,560
Speaker 3: most popular major at most of America's elite universities. How

1039
00:51:20,600 --> 00:51:22,720
Speaker 3: do you explain that to someone in like eighteen sixties,

1040
00:51:22,840 --> 00:51:25,319
Speaker 3: You'd be like, okay, imagine a computer. Oh okay, well,

1041
00:51:25,400 --> 00:51:27,880
Speaker 3: imagine like an abacus that can do a lot of

1042
00:51:27,920 --> 00:51:31,000
Speaker 3: other stuff. It's like, very very hard to do. And

1043
00:51:31,200 --> 00:51:32,759
Speaker 3: we were very very good to think of new ways

1044
00:51:32,760 --> 00:51:35,759
Speaker 3: to spend money. We're pretty good at inventing stuff, although

1045
00:51:35,760 --> 00:51:38,120
Speaker 3: I wish that we were better, And so I could

1046
00:51:38,120 --> 00:51:41,160
Speaker 3: always choose to say history for the next one hundred

1047
00:51:41,160 --> 00:51:42,799
Speaker 3: and forty years will be like history for the last

1048
00:51:42,800 --> 00:51:44,319
Speaker 3: one hundred and forty years, and we'll just find new

1049
00:51:44,360 --> 00:51:49,280
Speaker 3: ways to reemploy people. It's always possible, however, that AI

1050
00:51:49,960 --> 00:51:55,000
Speaker 3: will do for humans what essentially the automobile did for horses.

1051
00:51:55,680 --> 00:51:58,280
Speaker 3: You know, one way to tell the story of horses

1052
00:51:58,520 --> 00:52:03,000
Speaker 3: in horse history is to say that for thousands of years,

1053
00:52:03,040 --> 00:52:05,799
Speaker 3: we came up with new technology that made horses more

1054
00:52:05,840 --> 00:52:10,160
Speaker 3: powerful with each you know, every millennium, right that we

1055
00:52:10,200 --> 00:52:13,480
Speaker 3: invented stirrups, and we invented horseshoes, and we invented saddles,

1056
00:52:13,520 --> 00:52:16,480
Speaker 3: and we invented armor in all these different ways and plows,

1057
00:52:16,560 --> 00:52:18,560
Speaker 3: you know, to make horses more and more and more productive.

1058
00:52:18,600 --> 00:52:20,360
Speaker 3: And then finally we invented the machine that was just

1059
00:52:20,400 --> 00:52:22,920
Speaker 3: better at horses, at everything, and we replaced them with

1060
00:52:23,000 --> 00:52:23,720
Speaker 3: tractors and cars.

1061
00:52:24,280 --> 00:52:25,840
Speaker 4: It's conceivable that.

1062
00:52:27,840 --> 00:52:34,000
Speaker 3: Agi artificial general intelligence will do for the human mind

1063
00:52:34,520 --> 00:52:38,279
Speaker 3: what the internal combustion engine did for the horse, but

1064
00:52:38,360 --> 00:52:43,000
Speaker 3: that would truly be an unprecedented thing in human history,

1065
00:52:43,360 --> 00:52:48,200
Speaker 3: and it's always very risky to make strong predictions about

1066
00:52:48,320 --> 00:52:49,680
Speaker 3: utterly imprecedented things.

1067
00:52:50,120 --> 00:52:52,080
Speaker 2: Like Yeah, and what you're referring to as well, is

1068
00:52:52,440 --> 00:52:54,799
Speaker 2: you're talking about like moving the goalposts, which we have

1069
00:52:54,840 --> 00:52:57,560
Speaker 2: a love hate relationship with because on the personal level,

1070
00:52:57,560 --> 00:52:59,759
Speaker 2: it's a terrible thing because it means we're never satisfied

1071
00:53:00,120 --> 00:53:02,520
Speaker 2: but collectively, when you're talking about a general population, that

1072
00:53:02,640 --> 00:53:06,200
Speaker 2: is what continues to that's progress, that's progress and innovation

1073
00:53:06,280 --> 00:53:07,760
Speaker 2: and technology, and so.

1074
00:53:07,920 --> 00:53:10,000
Speaker 1: That's the part that I love. Derek.

1075
00:53:10,040 --> 00:53:12,080
Speaker 2: We really appreciate you taking the time to speak with

1076
00:53:12,160 --> 00:53:15,040
Speaker 2: us today. Working folks. Find all of your different writings

1077
00:53:15,080 --> 00:53:16,480
Speaker 2: of what you're up to these days.

1078
00:53:16,880 --> 00:53:19,560
Speaker 3: You can find my writing at The Atlantic. You can

1079
00:53:19,600 --> 00:53:23,000
Speaker 3: listen to my podcast Plain English with Derek Thompson with

1080
00:53:23,040 --> 00:53:25,560
Speaker 3: the Renuer podcast Network, and I guess you can follow

1081
00:53:25,600 --> 00:53:28,279
Speaker 3: me on Twitter at dk thomp.

1082
00:53:28,000 --> 00:53:30,080
Speaker 1: There you go. All right, Derek, thanks again for joining us, man,

1083
00:53:30,080 --> 00:53:32,319
Speaker 1: We really appreciate it that pleasure. Thanks us all right,

1084
00:53:32,360 --> 00:53:34,600
Speaker 1: mat what a great conversation with somebody who just an

1085
00:53:34,600 --> 00:53:37,279
Speaker 1: incredible thinker. And we've been reading this stuff for many,

1086
00:53:37,320 --> 00:53:40,120
Speaker 1: many years. And I could have just honestly, I could

1087
00:53:40,120 --> 00:53:42,719
Speaker 1: ask Derek a million questions, but if only he had

1088
00:53:42,719 --> 00:53:44,080
Speaker 1: the time, right, It's true.

1089
00:53:44,160 --> 00:53:46,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like we talked a lot about media,

1090
00:53:46,680 --> 00:53:48,480
Speaker 2: So hopefully folks stuck around.

1091
00:53:48,480 --> 00:53:51,240
Speaker 1: But what's your big takeaway? Is it more personal finance related?

1092
00:53:51,280 --> 00:53:53,360
Speaker 2: Is it going to be more media technology?

1093
00:53:53,400 --> 00:53:53,840
Speaker 4: AI?

1094
00:53:53,960 --> 00:53:56,319
Speaker 1: I think when he said we live in an age

1095
00:53:56,320 --> 00:53:59,640
Speaker 1: of impossible expectations, I thought that was just to me

1096
00:53:59,680 --> 00:54:02,160
Speaker 1: that like boom, that struck me like a ton of bricks,

1097
00:54:02,360 --> 00:54:04,120
Speaker 1: And I think it's spot on. I think it really

1098
00:54:04,160 --> 00:54:07,040
Speaker 1: goes to a million different things, the expectations we place

1099
00:54:07,120 --> 00:54:09,239
Speaker 1: on what our job should be for us, how it

1100
00:54:09,280 --> 00:54:11,360
Speaker 1: should make us feel, and the sort of way like

1101
00:54:11,400 --> 00:54:14,440
Speaker 1: we expect it to place replace religion and marriage at

1102
00:54:14,480 --> 00:54:16,239
Speaker 1: the same time, all of these things that have been

1103
00:54:16,280 --> 00:54:18,680
Speaker 1: foundational to kind of how we go through life in

1104
00:54:18,680 --> 00:54:22,840
Speaker 1: the past. Now work has become is taken top billing

1105
00:54:23,120 --> 00:54:25,359
Speaker 1: in our lives and we expect a lot from it

1106
00:54:25,400 --> 00:54:26,080
Speaker 1: and guess.

1107
00:54:25,880 --> 00:54:29,480
Speaker 2: What wasn't necessarily designed for that. It's shouldering a massive

1108
00:54:29,480 --> 00:54:30,000
Speaker 2: load right now.

1109
00:54:30,080 --> 00:54:31,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And it's not that work is bad, Like

1110
00:54:31,680 --> 00:54:33,160
Speaker 1: I love how he touched on like some of those

1111
00:54:33,200 --> 00:54:35,560
Speaker 1: great things that work can provide too. But that is

1112
00:54:35,600 --> 00:54:38,520
Speaker 1: so true that we live in an age of impossible expectations,

1113
00:54:38,520 --> 00:54:39,880
Speaker 1: and I think it's the same is true for us

1114
00:54:39,960 --> 00:54:42,359
Speaker 1: on a consumption standpoint. We just think that we need

1115
00:54:42,400 --> 00:54:44,600
Speaker 1: to keep moving up the ladder, and we're very rarely

1116
00:54:44,600 --> 00:54:48,120
Speaker 1: content kind of with the way things currently stand. It's

1117
00:54:48,120 --> 00:54:50,120
Speaker 1: always got to be the next thing, and we all Matt,

1118
00:54:50,120 --> 00:54:52,160
Speaker 1: you and I included to find ourselves in that camp

1119
00:54:52,200 --> 00:54:54,960
Speaker 1: at different points in time, like oh, you know what,

1120
00:54:55,200 --> 00:54:56,719
Speaker 1: this house? Is it big enough? Like do I need

1121
00:54:56,760 --> 00:54:58,799
Speaker 1: to move on up the property ladder? There's all of

1122
00:54:58,840 --> 00:55:01,040
Speaker 1: these ways that we think about our lives content in

1123
00:55:01,120 --> 00:55:03,640
Speaker 1: this is a hard thing for us to feel for

1124
00:55:04,160 --> 00:55:06,560
Speaker 1: very long, I think as humans, and I think, yeah,

1125
00:55:06,600 --> 00:55:09,840
Speaker 1: Derek eloquently discussed that when you mentioned that totally.

1126
00:55:09,880 --> 00:55:12,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think maybe related to that somewhat is my

1127
00:55:12,600 --> 00:55:14,520
Speaker 2: big takeaway, which is going to be that he said

1128
00:55:14,560 --> 00:55:17,040
Speaker 2: it's hard to be suboptimal. And this is back when

1129
00:55:17,080 --> 00:55:19,799
Speaker 2: we're talking about media specifically, and how he said that

1130
00:55:20,320 --> 00:55:23,239
Speaker 2: media companies or publishers or individuals have to choose to

1131
00:55:23,400 --> 00:55:26,200
Speaker 2: not be the most antagonistic. And we have seen that,

1132
00:55:26,280 --> 00:55:28,640
Speaker 2: Like let me just look at our political discourse over

1133
00:55:28,680 --> 00:55:31,839
Speaker 2: the past four to eight years specifically, I think it

1134
00:55:31,880 --> 00:55:33,839
Speaker 2: was mostly nice and friendly. I think the thing could

1135
00:55:33,840 --> 00:55:35,640
Speaker 2: be true though, when it comes to what it is

1136
00:55:35,680 --> 00:55:38,560
Speaker 2: that we are pursuing, because yes, to be more successful

1137
00:55:38,600 --> 00:55:40,840
Speaker 2: quoe unquote successful in the eyes of the world is

1138
00:55:40,840 --> 00:55:42,520
Speaker 2: going to lead you down a path that maybe you

1139
00:55:42,520 --> 00:55:45,360
Speaker 2: don't necessarily want to go down, but to live a

1140
00:55:45,360 --> 00:55:47,480
Speaker 2: life that you want to lead that that is more

1141
00:55:47,520 --> 00:55:51,080
Speaker 2: important than being fully optimized essentially, and so you.

1142
00:55:51,080 --> 00:55:53,399
Speaker 1: Might have to give up to a certain degree some

1143
00:55:53,440 --> 00:55:55,440
Speaker 1: of the ways you want others to perceive you. Yeah,

1144
00:55:55,480 --> 00:55:56,080
Speaker 1: I totally agree.

1145
00:55:56,160 --> 00:55:58,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess what we're pointing out here is the

1146
00:55:58,480 --> 00:56:01,600
Speaker 2: fact that there's like a there's a conscious choice that

1147
00:56:01,640 --> 00:56:03,960
Speaker 2: we have to make in order to live by the

1148
00:56:04,000 --> 00:56:06,360
Speaker 2: ideals that we think are most important to us as individuals.

1149
00:56:06,560 --> 00:56:09,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they're not necessarily the ideals that our society

1150
00:56:09,960 --> 00:56:13,120
Speaker 1: and our workism culture are proliferating, right, And so I

1151
00:56:13,120 --> 00:56:14,560
Speaker 1: don't know, I'm thinking about that a lot right now,

1152
00:56:14,600 --> 00:56:16,600
Speaker 1: just reading some books kind of on that very topic,

1153
00:56:16,840 --> 00:56:19,640
Speaker 1: The Second Mountain by David Brooks, highly recommend it. But yeah,

1154
00:56:20,040 --> 00:56:23,000
Speaker 1: if you want to live a life that is deep

1155
00:56:23,040 --> 00:56:24,920
Speaker 1: with meaning, work is going to be a part of

1156
00:56:24,920 --> 00:56:26,719
Speaker 1: that puzzle, I think. But you might want to find

1157
00:56:26,760 --> 00:56:29,080
Speaker 1: community and meaning in other parts of your life too,

1158
00:56:29,080 --> 00:56:31,080
Speaker 1: and in fact, yeah, you're going to need to if

1159
00:56:31,080 --> 00:56:31,960
Speaker 1: you want to live that kind of life.

1160
00:56:32,040 --> 00:56:33,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I was thinking about it somewhat through

1161
00:56:33,719 --> 00:56:35,680
Speaker 2: the lens of work, but just all the other things

1162
00:56:35,719 --> 00:56:38,000
Speaker 2: we do too. How it is that we consume, how

1163
00:56:38,040 --> 00:56:40,000
Speaker 2: does we spend our money that we spend our time.

1164
00:56:40,080 --> 00:56:43,279
Speaker 2: The things that we find interest in aren't only a

1165
00:56:43,320 --> 00:56:46,520
Speaker 2: reflection of like our natural interests, but also the things

1166
00:56:46,520 --> 00:56:49,839
Speaker 2: that we are intentionally placing value upon. But all right, man,

1167
00:56:50,440 --> 00:56:54,000
Speaker 2: let's quickly cover the beer you and I enjoyed Long Haul.

1168
00:56:54,440 --> 00:56:57,279
Speaker 2: This is a beer by creature comforts. This is a Doppelbock.

1169
00:56:57,560 --> 00:56:59,480
Speaker 1: Did you dig it? Yeah, found a lot of comfort

1170
00:56:59,520 --> 00:57:01,759
Speaker 1: in this beer. In fact, it was delicious. I was

1171
00:57:01,800 --> 00:57:04,080
Speaker 1: gonna say I had like brown bread vibes going on

1172
00:57:04,160 --> 00:57:05,719
Speaker 1: for sure. Takes it like a fresh loaf coming out

1173
00:57:05,719 --> 00:57:08,600
Speaker 1: of the oven. And it's also it's something I feel

1174
00:57:08,640 --> 00:57:10,440
Speaker 1: like if I were to do this, which I would

1175
00:57:10,800 --> 00:57:12,640
Speaker 1: go to an abbey and drink beer with monks, this

1176
00:57:12,680 --> 00:57:13,680
Speaker 1: is the beer they would serve me.

1177
00:57:13,800 --> 00:57:15,840
Speaker 2: So on the label here it literally says something that

1178
00:57:15,880 --> 00:57:19,240
Speaker 2: we have said before when drinking Brown Ales and Popple

1179
00:57:19,240 --> 00:57:22,720
Speaker 2: Box in particular are daily bread in liquid form. And

1180
00:57:22,840 --> 00:57:25,000
Speaker 2: I couldn't agree more. It's the kind of beer that

1181
00:57:25,040 --> 00:57:27,560
Speaker 2: I would expect to drink fireside in an abbey because

1182
00:57:27,800 --> 00:57:29,680
Speaker 2: you know, there's not there's not like central heat or

1183
00:57:29,680 --> 00:57:30,240
Speaker 2: anything like that.

1184
00:57:30,320 --> 00:57:30,920
Speaker 1: Right, So you got it?

1185
00:57:31,040 --> 00:57:32,560
Speaker 2: You need to have a rage in fire going it's right,

1186
00:57:32,600 --> 00:57:34,160
Speaker 2: but uh yeah, glad, you know. I got to enjoy

1187
00:57:34,240 --> 00:57:37,120
Speaker 2: this one. Will make sure to link to some of

1188
00:57:37,160 --> 00:57:39,240
Speaker 2: the different how about some of the different articles that

1189
00:57:39,280 --> 00:57:43,080
Speaker 2: we referenced that we spoke about today with Derek and

1190
00:57:43,240 --> 00:57:45,320
Speaker 2: we'll link to his profile over at The Atlantic as

1191
00:57:45,320 --> 00:57:47,960
Speaker 2: well as his podcast as well, because it's fantastic. Yep,

1192
00:57:48,000 --> 00:57:50,720
Speaker 2: but that's gonna be it for this episode until next time, Buddy,

1193
00:57:50,760 --> 00:58:04,360
Speaker 2: best Friends Out and best Friends Out the fo