Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of The
Speaker 1: Weekly Zeitgeist. These are some of our favorite segments from
Speaker 1: this week, all edited together into one NonStop infotainment laugh stravaganza.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, So, without further ado, here is the Weekly Zeitgeist.
Speaker 1: Miles in our seat. We are thrilled to be joined
Speaker 1: by a professional futurist with a PhD in the history
Speaker 1: of science. He's been a visiting scholar at Stanford and
Speaker 1: Oxford Universities and is the author of four books, including
Speaker 1: Shorter and rest. Please, welcome to the show, doctor Alex
Speaker 1: Sujung King pang Eli.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, and happy national Angel food cake?
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah right? Are you a fan of angel food cake?
Speaker 2: I love angel food cake? Oh and cake decorating actually,
Speaker 2: so you know two for one?
Speaker 1: Oh wow?
Speaker 3: Is that like is that a like a hobby of
Speaker 3: yours decorating cakes? Or you know you admire the artwork.
Speaker 2: I admire the artwork though my wife and my daughter
Speaker 2: are both pretty pretty amazing bakers.
Speaker 3: So okay, okay, okay, Well, we're so glad you joined
Speaker 3: us here today. Obviously the listeners probably have heard me
Speaker 3: really talking about my grindset mindset, how I get to.
Speaker 1: Lambeau is the thesis statement of this show. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: as quickly as possible. You know, Tim Ferriss gave me
Speaker 1: some ideas. They aren't working very well, not fast. I
Speaker 1: don't know why. Yeah, I wasn't able to outsource enough
Speaker 1: of my work two enough, but yeah, people who work
Speaker 1: for five dollars an hour, it didn't work that way.
Speaker 3: But we are curious to pick your mind because yeah,
Speaker 3: it was the talk of shortened work weeks and if
Speaker 3: that's better, I don't know. The jury is still out
Speaker 3: in my mind. We figured it's good to enlist the
Speaker 3: help of someone who hasn't like their area of expertise
Speaker 3: is and precisely that to fight the voices that tell
Speaker 3: me to keep grinding every day and every night.
Speaker 1: We're main going off vibes on this end. And you've
Speaker 1: actually looked at data whatever that means. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: dig into it. But before we get to before we
Speaker 1: get into that, we do like to get to know
Speaker 1: you a little bit better and ask you what is
Speaker 1: something from your search history that is revealing about who
Speaker 1: you are or what you're up to.
Speaker 2: Well, this morning I was on a Google Translate for
Speaker 2: a while looking at four day week in other languages.
Speaker 2: So it's something that I've been interested in for several years,
Speaker 2: and it's a movement that keeps growing and I have
Speaker 2: to keep like tracking it now in like Turkish and
Speaker 2: Hungarian and stuff. It used to be relatively simple. It
Speaker 2: was like English and maybe one or two other languages,
Speaker 2: but now it's like just all over the place.
Speaker 1: How is that spreading? Is it just like kind of
Speaker 1: word of mouth that different companies are learning about it,
Speaker 1: or is it coming usually from the workers themselves or
Speaker 1: how do you see that kind of happening?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know a lot of it is spreading through
Speaker 2: sort of word of mouth with like within industries. So
Speaker 2: you know, you get a couple of people in like
Speaker 2: HR and recruiting who try it in their organizations and
Speaker 2: then sort of, uh, then their competitors will do it
Speaker 2: because those competitors are starting to lose people to sort
Speaker 2: of the company that did it first. And then you know,
Speaker 2: it gets written up in the news and some you know,
Speaker 2: and there's some ambitious politician who thinks, you know, this
Speaker 2: is how they become you know, governor or senator or something, right,
Speaker 2: championing the four day week, and so you know, and
Speaker 2: it kind of builds from there, and it's fortunately been
Speaker 2: something that's gotten you know, plenty of press and plenty
Speaker 2: of attention, and so it's you know, it's it's it's
Speaker 2: been really great to see it acquire that kind of
Speaker 2: momentum and take on a life of its own.
Speaker 3: Yeah, is there is there anything to like you think, like,
Speaker 3: are there certain cultures where the just like innately some
Speaker 3: cultures are gonna be a little bit harder for them
Speaker 3: to like cross the barrier into the four hour work
Speaker 3: week just based on sort of like ideas of what
Speaker 3: productivity or what you know, someone's worth is based on
Speaker 3: work or is it or is there also a thing
Speaker 3: where too, like humanity is just kind of naturally maybe
Speaker 3: progressing towards this where it's like, I mean culture or not,
Speaker 3: it's like this is this feels better?
Speaker 1: This works better?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I think if you've got twenty four
Speaker 2: hours in a day, you're gonna you're gonna value this. So,
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I have seen this in like
Speaker 2: two of the hotspots for the four day week are
Speaker 2: Japan and Korea, which are both countries whose languages have
Speaker 2: their own words for working yourself to death. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: you know, it's not just like Sweden and Denmark in
Speaker 2: places with really good work life balance. You actually see
Speaker 2: it most in places that have really serious issues with
Speaker 2: like stress over work, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's that yet, I haven't hit Yeah, we're not
Speaker 1: We're we're not on board yet.
Speaker 4: But you said, you said twenty four hours in a day,
Speaker 4: My man, you gotta find some more hours.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 4: I got thirty in a day over here. But anyway, oh,
Speaker 4: that's another story.
Speaker 1: It does cut against the standard narrative that we see
Speaker 1: in the mainstream media. I feel like that. That's one
Speaker 1: of the things that made to jump out to me
Speaker 1: is like, this wouldn't be getting coverage unless it actually worked,
Speaker 1: because so much of the mainstream like narrative is focused
Speaker 1: on emphasizing the impact of these like billionaires and how
Speaker 1: they worked so hard and did it all by themselves
Speaker 1: and bootstrapped their way up, and so to have this
Speaker 1: thing that keeps getting media attention that feels like really
Speaker 1: counter to the logic that the entire that is, like
Speaker 1: the software that the entire media that we consume runs on.
Speaker 1: Like that, that's one of the things that made me
Speaker 1: be like huh. I feel like there's must be something
Speaker 1: here because if it wasn't true, like the media wouldn't
Speaker 1: to allow it, you know, like weapons of mass destruction.
Speaker 1: We were saying, why would they talk about that? The
Speaker 1: yellow cake? That's right, it's got to be true. But
Speaker 1: what is something Alex you think is overrated this week?
Speaker 5: I think having having an opinion that you feel like
Speaker 5: you really need to share immediately. I feel like, so, yeah,
Speaker 5: speaking on things that you haven't read about or have
Speaker 5: no experience with, big overrated, stating allegiance to particular foreign
Speaker 5: policy campaigns without knowing anything about them. Yeah, these things
Speaker 5: are you know. I know that this is like an
Speaker 5: old man complaint, but the Internet's kind of like, hey,
Speaker 5: if you have an opinion, share it here. I don't
Speaker 5: think you need to all the time, even if you.
Speaker 1: Don't, just like kind of make one up, just go
Speaker 1: with it, and then you state it as if.
Speaker 5: You yeah, zealously put it forward, right right right.
Speaker 3: A lot of people I feel like you had to
Speaker 3: like have to jump in with all the time.
Speaker 1: When you don't. You don't always have to.
Speaker 3: And I get that the internet makes it feel like
Speaker 3: the spotlight is on you and everyone is waiting for
Speaker 3: what you're gonna say, but you can just say I'm
Speaker 3: just kind of just kind of just just checking this out,
Speaker 3: having my own feelings about it. I'll address them if
Speaker 3: I feel appropriate publicly whenever that happens.
Speaker 5: Absolute, And I think like there's like a symptom of
Speaker 5: a feeling of like powerlessness with that. It's like, I
Speaker 5: think everyone feels like generally powerless. And I think that
Speaker 5: like if they immediately have a take on something or
Speaker 5: share it immediately or whatever, it like might do something
Speaker 5: and it won't. And it's fine to not know for
Speaker 5: a minute. So and that's especially you know, obviously this
Speaker 5: is a big international news week, and that's when, Yeah,
Speaker 5: it happens more more often than not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's it's really apparent, like when you see
Speaker 3: so how many celebrities just deleted shit so quickly, and
Speaker 3: you're like, hold on, did you are you doing this?
Speaker 3: Because you feel like everyone's posting about the thing, I
Speaker 3: have to also post about the thing. No, Oh, this
Speaker 3: is okay, I'm not I'm not actually sure what foreign
Speaker 3: policy is, so sure I'm gonna I'm just gonna delete that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I get all my foreign policy information ideas from Jack Black.
Speaker 1: Exciting to see where he came down, and fortunately he
Speaker 1: came through with the heater. So it's such a we're
Speaker 1: all good here.
Speaker 5: It's such an overshare week that I know exactly what
Speaker 5: Jack Black said, So that's where we're at.
Speaker 1: Wait, did Jack Black come out with him? Jack Black waited,
Speaker 1: We're good. Oh. It was also one of all like yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, JB. You know, yeah, it does feel like
Speaker 1: people are hurting in a very particular way that that
Speaker 1: they are asking people to, like a lot of the
Speaker 1: things that are going viral are like come out and
Speaker 1: say what you think about this or else you are
Speaker 1: not doing the right thing. So I also understand why
Speaker 1: people are making this mistake, you know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no doubt, I think especially it's just like especially important,
Speaker 5: and it's always been important to like pause generally, but
Speaker 5: like now as it seems that like every place we
Speaker 5: get information has been particularly the one owned by Elon Musk,
Speaker 5: has been crushed and stripped of context and sort of
Speaker 5: like disinformation is increasingly more prevalent by the day. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it's it's maybe a perfect time to hone your reflex
Speaker 5: to find, you know, to substantiate your news.
Speaker 3: This was like, this was the moment I was like,
Speaker 3: I can't use Twitter for shit anymore now, like it's
Speaker 3: only for jokes. It's only for jokes, because I've dude.
Speaker 3: I on the other one, like I've I felt for
Speaker 3: like what I sadly mistakenly had regurgitated something that was
Speaker 3: not true on the show about the eight billion dollars
Speaker 3: being okayed from the administration to go to Israel, and
Speaker 3: that was like that shared by a couple accounts that
Speaker 3: I was like, Oh, I think they have their shit together,
Speaker 3: And now I'm like, it's a fucking absolute cesspool now,
Speaker 3: So apologies for any listeners who thought that was actually
Speaker 3: your true fact was in fact not and now I'm like,
Speaker 3: all right, sticking to actual, like legitimate news sources as usual,
Speaker 3: because even the times that like, you know, journalists or
Speaker 3: people who appeared as journalists were sharing things were very
Speaker 3: quickly We're out of that era and it's so unreliable
Speaker 3: to the point that like, like I've I've just gone
Speaker 3: through thread after thread of people who are like disinformation
Speaker 3: misinformation specialists, and like you're the most prevalent things that
Speaker 3: are being talked about like this week on this platform,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, this is useful, yeah, because so much
Speaker 3: discourse is shaped by Twitter.
Speaker 1: Still. Fortunately, I think most people just come to us
Speaker 1: for like lifestyle things and like how to get to
Speaker 1: Lambeau and you know, how to yeah, their life, not
Speaker 1: necessarily for information, no, no, no, well yeah, considering that
Speaker 1: it's mostly just our opinions, man, Yeah, Miles, we do
Speaker 1: want to check in with a report from Dane van
Speaker 1: Kirk on the ground in a Midwestern airport, filing from
Speaker 1: his phone and just he's just like recorded it send
Speaker 1: it to us over email this morning. So let's listen.
Speaker 1: This is an interview with somebody who.
Speaker 3: Works for one the airlines and wanting to I think
Speaker 3: he starts off just from the little bit I've heard
Speaker 3: the very beginning, getting some some travel tips from from
Speaker 3: who else who would know best than somebody who works
Speaker 3: at the airport.
Speaker 6: Here we go. Hey, it's Daniel van Kirk. I am
Speaker 6: doing an on the ground reporting for the Daily Zeitgeist
Speaker 6: best podcast to get all the happenings going on around
Speaker 6: the world. I'm how did he know our new Midwest?
Speaker 6: Right now? Talking to somebody who.
Speaker 1: Knows TM the best place to get.
Speaker 6: All this better than anybody. They worked for an airline
Speaker 6: in the Midwest. I want to I want to ask you.
Speaker 6: Let's call you Max. I don't want you to not
Speaker 6: Let's call you Max saying anything. What's the what's the
Speaker 6: best tip? Like wrong Thanksgiving, Christmas season? How early should
Speaker 6: somebody get to the airport? Because I had my theory,
Speaker 6: but I want to hear you.
Speaker 1: I'm two hours a miles.
Speaker 7: You have three hours early three consolidate your bags?
Speaker 4: Can swear you really think three hours? I mean, I
Speaker 4: don't think that's too far off. Have you been to
Speaker 4: the airport?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Has been given yourself two two hours? Traveling domoric
Speaker 1: during the holidays, Yeah, maybe the holiday is a little different.
Speaker 1: But I have a hard time getting I don't do
Speaker 1: that extra hour, getting myself to commit to the extra hour.
Speaker 4: I do two hours.
Speaker 1: That's like my standard for domestic flights usually because that's
Speaker 1: usually what it is, unless I'm flying out a Burbank
Speaker 1: shout out Burbank, which I'll pull up thirty minutes before boarding,
Speaker 1: and I'm good Burbank like a like I'm catching the bus.
Speaker 1: I'm like waiting plane. As people are boring, I'm like wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: hey you do, Hey, don't close the door. Don't close here.
Speaker 1: Let me. If you're gonna make me walk outside to
Speaker 1: get to my plane, you better assume that I'm going
Speaker 1: to be a little bit Yeah haphazard, exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, here we go, moving on. So he's saying three hours.
Speaker 6: Yeah, security, I mean that's what they because it's you
Speaker 6: just never know what you're gonna run into. I tell people,
Speaker 6: even if you fly twice a year, you should do
Speaker 6: clear m R.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's a good tip, assuming stress.
Speaker 1: I love this guy's and these guys.
Speaker 4: DVK pulls up to this dude like, hey man, let
Speaker 4: you into an interview real quick, Like yeah, all right.
Speaker 5: You are a.
Speaker 1: Proof that day Man Kirk could get along with, like
Speaker 1: truly anyway, not that there's anything wrong, but like, this
Speaker 1: is just this is how he talks to you, This
Speaker 1: is how he talks to me, This is how he
Speaker 1: talks to the guy in at the airport, airport who
Speaker 1: works for an airline. Also clear, I don't know you
Speaker 1: have clear. No, I don't know. I don't have TSA
Speaker 1: pre check. Yeah I got TSA PreCheck check. Isn't it clear?
Speaker 1: Like I feel like clear, I didn't do it because
Speaker 1: like it involved more steps, and I was like, nah, dude,
Speaker 1: like well you have to like do it at the airport,
Speaker 1: and you have to like my wife keeps being like,
Speaker 1: all right, let's do it. Let's let's like get you
Speaker 1: clear now that we're at the airport, but we're we're
Speaker 1: never there in time. Why are you taking me to
Speaker 1: sign never I'm traveling. I'm like, I have a bag
Speaker 1: that's half open with paper streaming out of it just
Speaker 1: behind me.
Speaker 6: So yeah, now I want to ask you this. Do
Speaker 6: you have more or less drunk passengers around the holiday season?
Speaker 6: Way more real because there's people don't fly as much
Speaker 6: and they have anxiety.
Speaker 7: Yep, thinking for the airport, they wait and they drink.
Speaker 6: No, man, how often do you know ahead of time?
Speaker 6: Like you know who your people are going to be
Speaker 6: before they ever even approached the gate?
Speaker 7: Usually see him sitting at the bar.
Speaker 1: That's a good point, though, your drinking is fully on
Speaker 1: display at the airport, you know, it's not like there's
Speaker 1: like a back a back bar, like yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: And so it's just interesting to hear that, Like the
Speaker 1: people who work for the airline are clocking you as
Speaker 1: they walk by and see you at bellied up to
Speaker 1: the bar with like an empty like double pint of
Speaker 1: beer and three shot glasses. The next the thing, it's
Speaker 1: just like a whole row of empty shot glasses side
Speaker 1: down on the bar, Like all right, this one's trouble squire.
Speaker 6: See you later. I want to see you later. I'm
Speaker 6: going to see you later. Okay, here's the only question
Speaker 6: I have. Is there a limit to how many dogs
Speaker 6: can be on a plane?
Speaker 4: Like physically, like by the laws.
Speaker 6: Of animal you could have that service like five or six.
Speaker 6: Have you ever seen an animal that wasn't a dog?
Speaker 6: Where I can't? Have you had a bird? No, I
Speaker 6: haven't seen a ny No. There was a story once
Speaker 6: I don't know if it was true or not that
Speaker 6: somebody tried to bring a like a goose or like
Speaker 6: a peacock onto a plane.
Speaker 7: Actually, I've seen penguins on the plane.
Speaker 6: You've seen the movie Penguins on a plane.
Speaker 7: They had the Sea World flight coming in, No kidding,
Speaker 7: they had penguins coming off. They walked off.
Speaker 1: Okay, now here's this guy might be a little bit
Speaker 1: tik but it's like it's hard to tell.
Speaker 3: It's like, is he like fucked up on like on
Speaker 3: Benzo's on the job or is he like one of
Speaker 3: those super laid back like one note people, because like
Speaker 3: I have friends like like like where they have like
Speaker 3: Stephen Wright kind of cadence.
Speaker 1: And delivery and you're like, this guy's fucked up. You're like, nah, man,
Speaker 1: this is just this is them. They got one tune
Speaker 1: they play and it's this one.
Speaker 6: If I'm wrong, If you're only allowed to bring so
Speaker 6: many items onto a plane, right, personal item and carry
Speaker 6: on bag, I think that's pretty universal around airlines. But
Speaker 6: if you have a bag of food that you bought
Speaker 6: at the airline, does that count towards one of your items?
Speaker 1: Of course not the Daniel.
Speaker 7: No. If it's a huge bag, they do count it.
Speaker 7: But if you're a regular sized food bag, no.
Speaker 6: So could it be possible if you have some third
Speaker 6: item you have to bring on.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a great food bag.
Speaker 6: Put it in the food bag and then you probably
Speaker 6: will get on the flight with that item because they'll
Speaker 6: just assume you got like a twenty seven dollars chicken sandwich.
Speaker 7: People get creative.
Speaker 1: Carry on bags that look like McDonald's bags. I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: I'm putting it out there that's a brilliant idea, just right,
Speaker 1: that we all have all these like new stealth bags
Speaker 1: to bring on because like, yeah, every airline's like hold on,
Speaker 1: hold on, man, is your boy your baby needs formula?
Speaker 1: Oh that's that's forty bucks? Man, it's forty bucks. Oh wait,
Speaker 1: oh it's McDonald's all right. Never br exactly, Wow, this
Speaker 1: is heavy.
Speaker 5: What is it?
Speaker 1: Sixty pounds?
Speaker 7: Man?
Speaker 1: Just put in the overhead please, my McDonald's. I just
Speaker 1: like to keep it up there.
Speaker 6: In most airports if you need a quick bite to eat,
Speaker 6: because I have a theory that those those premde peanut
Speaker 6: butter and jelly sandwiches what do they call the ones
Speaker 6: that are circular.
Speaker 7: They've got a seventeen dollars half a ham sandwich right here.
Speaker 1: Is it worth it?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 1: Ok? Never, no, it's never been worth it. No one
Speaker 1: has ever bought airport food and been like this was
Speaker 1: the right price. They've priced this correctly. It is pure
Speaker 1: price gouging. It is the cruelty of capitalism on display
Speaker 1: for all to see.
Speaker 3: I will give it up to like in like an
Speaker 3: airport in the UK, like you can always go like
Speaker 3: a Mark and Spencer's type thing like m Ands or
Speaker 3: Sainsbury's and get like just like the meal deal sandwich,
Speaker 3: which is like like three pounds, Like I'm like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: cut to Burbank. I thought the sandwich weighs three pounds,
Speaker 3: three pounds sterling, three Great British pounds g GBP. And
Speaker 3: then at art like in fucking Burbank, bro the other
Speaker 3: day I got a fucking turkey sandwich.
Speaker 1: You know how much that ship was? Yeah, I don
Speaker 1: guest sixteen. Yeah, I think they talk about together, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a fucking anyway. But that's he That's that's
Speaker 1: what it'd be sometimes out here in the US. I
Speaker 1: think people should be able to carry on guitars and
Speaker 1: play a nice little song about you know, Jesus slippery exactly.
Speaker 4: That's the thing though, it's gonna be. It's gonna be
Speaker 4: like fucking raise you up on Eagles Wings or like Wonderwall.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know Wonderwall, but like it ends up being
Speaker 1: about how much you love Jesus. You know.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's talking about a couple of lyrics. Can you
Speaker 3: make wonder? Can you make the wonder? Wonder be about
Speaker 3: like the passion of the Christ? Oh yeah, like his crucifixion,
Speaker 3: like to day is going to be the day of
Speaker 3: the throw effect.
Speaker 1: Whoa, it's just Jesus talking to Judas.
Speaker 4: Like wow, backbeat, the word is on the street that
Speaker 4: the fire while talking to Ponta's pilot on that one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, okay, all right, we got a point. Moving on.
Speaker 6: And then where would you do you recommend people park
Speaker 6: on the line, like at the actual airport?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 6: Hell, I think it's usually better to find it something
Speaker 6: somewhere else.
Speaker 7: Now, it's easier and more secure to park in the garage.
Speaker 6: Okay, so that's what I did here today, So it
Speaker 6: makes me feel pretty good about that.
Speaker 1: I recommend you just park in the loading area, the
Speaker 1: passenger loading area, and then pick up your car when
Speaker 1: you get back. You know it should be there. That's
Speaker 1: my advice. I don't travel much.
Speaker 3: And then yeah, when you hop out, throw the skycap
Speaker 3: your keys like they're the valley or the airport cops like, hey,
Speaker 3: you can't pass. You're like, hey, man, you don't have
Speaker 3: to get Just make sure you don't got any in.
Speaker 6: Her flights where people have opened up literal three course meals.
Speaker 1: On a fight.
Speaker 6: Is there anything that somebody could ever say like, hey,
Speaker 6: I'm sorry, you can't eat baked salmon on the flight
Speaker 6: only if that's offensive, okay, And that's a discretionary decision
Speaker 6: as well, somebody. It's up to somebody, they decide if
Speaker 6: they think that's too offensive or non offensive enough. Man,
Speaker 6: all right, well that's that's gonna be my report where
Speaker 6: I talk to somebody who's in the know. Here at
Speaker 6: an airport in the Midwest. I assume just from both
Speaker 6: of our dialects, you can tell that we are in
Speaker 6: Saint Louis and everybody hates it down here because it's
Speaker 6: Saint Louis. I throw it back to you, guys, this
Speaker 6: is Daniel van Kirk on the ground.
Speaker 1: Wow, on the ground, not in the air brilliantly but
Speaker 1: what a report from the street. Yeah, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: we learned a lot, learned a lot, learned a lot
Speaker 1: about each other, that one for sure. Like you, you
Speaker 1: really like to cut it close in the holidays. You're
Speaker 1: trying to do like a MacAllister family, trying to make
Speaker 1: the flight through the airport. If we are not frantic,
Speaker 1: we are not traveling. Oh it is Yeah, what am
Speaker 1: I gonna that doesn't give you? I mean, like if
Speaker 1: I get three hours. So the earliest I've ever I
Speaker 1: think this is part of it. The earliest I've ever
Speaker 1: gotten to the airport was the flight for my honeymoon.
Speaker 8: And we got there three hours or early, right, And
Speaker 8: we did it up a little bit and we got
Speaker 8: access to the like Captain's club or you know whatever.
Speaker 1: The lounge the lounge area, and went in there, and
Speaker 1: we missed an international flight because we were having too
Speaker 1: much fun. Just and also I hadn't changed. It was
Speaker 1: back at a time when like the phones didn't automatically
Speaker 1: change with the time though, so oh my god, I've
Speaker 1: been married fifteen over fifteen years. My wife still hasn't
Speaker 1: forgiven me for that ship.
Speaker 3: Well, like, but also I feel like the airline is
Speaker 3: usually like at a lounge like that, they they scan
Speaker 3: your boarding pass so they have an idea of where
Speaker 3: a passenger might.
Speaker 1: Be if it's going to take off. Yeah, yeah, no
Speaker 1: it uh maybe they added to that after you.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it's called the O'Brien rule. Yeah. But we
Speaker 1: we got there, the plane was still there, but they
Speaker 1: wouldn't let us on it. Yeah, And I was wearing
Speaker 1: an internet video. I was wearing a T shirt I
Speaker 1: had had since like eighth grade and it had holes
Speaker 1: in it, and my wife had told me not to
Speaker 1: wear it to the airport because she was like that, like,
Speaker 1: it's just you're not gonna be nice to you, they think.
Speaker 1: And I was like, no, what are you talking about.
Speaker 1: I just want to be comfortable when I'm traveling. The
Speaker 1: shirt is it is vintage, And they were like, no,
Speaker 1: you're not allowed on this plane. Get the fuck out
Speaker 1: of here. Go back outside to rebook that you have
Speaker 1: to go back through security. And yeah, probably was at
Speaker 1: least partially due to my ratty ass T shirt.
Speaker 4: You know, man, classiest bullshit man, just a man of
Speaker 4: the people wearing your vaporized whatever was like an r
Speaker 4: EM shirt. It was a House of Paid T shirt.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, that's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you ain't getting on that plane, Boston, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, all right, although they're from LA anyway. Anyways,
Speaker 1: well we're all a little bit wiser heading into this
Speaker 1: holiday travel season. We're going to take a quick break
Speaker 1: and we're going to come back and talk some news.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back and we're back. And yeah, so
Speaker 1: you started as a historian of science, and I've heard
Speaker 1: you talk about like what you learned from Darwin. And
Speaker 1: you know, Ernst Mocked talked about kind of these ideas
Speaker 1: of you know, letting the subconscious take its turn. Look,
Speaker 1: can you just talk about like just looking at the
Speaker 1: historical record around these great thinkers and what they what
Speaker 1: they knew.
Speaker 2: Right, So you know, part of the reason that I
Speaker 2: talk about these these folks unrest is number one, their
Speaker 2: lives are really really well documented.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: There were fourteen thousand letters in of the Darwin archive
Speaker 2: at Cambridge University, so we actually know an awful lot
Speaker 2: about their daily lives. We also have enough perspectives so
Speaker 2: that we can say with a pretty high degree of
Speaker 2: confidence Charles darn Darwin was an important person who's you know,
Speaker 2: who made an enduring contribution to or to our understanding
Speaker 2: of the natural world. And you know, finally, in contrast
Speaker 2: to today's great so many of today's great achievers, they
Speaker 2: don't you know, we can see them without the filter
Speaker 2: of like pr handlers and sort of you know, people
Speaker 2: who are worried about their stock price, sort of making
Speaker 2: the argument that you know, these people actually sort of
Speaker 2: never rest there, always serving the customer, you know, creating
Speaker 2: delightful products, blah, blah blah, And so we have actually
Speaker 2: a better understanding of how they worked and how they
Speaker 2: did their work than we do of many inventors and
Speaker 2: entrepreneurs today.
Speaker 1: That little fish with feet that Darwin came up with
Speaker 1: was pretty sick. Marketing. I gotta say that branding is
Speaker 1: pretty tight. He's kind of a marketing genius.
Speaker 2: He did have his moments, you know, it's it's us.
Speaker 2: It's us too bad that he was working before there
Speaker 2: was actually any you know, social media.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I've always thought him more than an influencer
Speaker 1: than anything. But yeah, okay, I think he did other
Speaker 1: important stuff.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, he definitely had a lot of influence,
Speaker 2: no question about that. And the other thing you see
Speaker 2: when you look at these lives is there's a there's
Speaker 2: an amazing consistency in things like their daily schedules and
Speaker 2: sort of when they worked, when they took breaks, and
Speaker 2: how they kind of layered these periods of really focused
Speaker 2: work of only like ninety minutes or ninety minutes to
Speaker 2: two hours and then a break and then another deep
Speaker 2: dive what Cal Newport calls deep work. And you do
Speaker 2: that like three times a day, and that's about all
Speaker 2: they needed in order to you know, come up with
Speaker 2: ideas that sort of changed the world. And I think
Speaker 2: that's a you know, it is a it's a great
Speaker 2: challenged the assumption that in order to do you know,
Speaker 2: world changing stuff, we have to work enormously long hours.
Speaker 2: We have to in effect sacrifice ourselves and our happiness
Speaker 2: and our health and sometimes our families in you know,
Speaker 2: sort of to make, you know, or to reach some
Speaker 2: mountain top, make a discovery, et cetera, and that it's
Speaker 2: possible to have you know, long sort of lives that
Speaker 2: are longer, that are more sustainable, but also still let
Speaker 2: us do really amazing work that or of you know,
Speaker 2: lets us express our passions and that sort of is
Speaker 2: deeply satisfying for a really long time. So that ultimately
Speaker 2: is you know what Darwin taught me along with the
Speaker 2: fish with the feet.
Speaker 4: Yeah, which is I've got I've got a ton of
Speaker 4: those in my garage trying to get rid of if
Speaker 4: you want to buy something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is kind of the whole point of this
Speaker 1: episode is actually trying to help Miles move that product
Speaker 1: because he.
Speaker 4: Is I shouldn't haven't made it in pure gold? And
Speaker 4: I think that's right I shouldn't have pure gold? Yeah,
Speaker 4: but what do you think?
Speaker 3: Like so you know from my we talk about culturally right,
Speaker 3: like how some places work themselves to death. I know
Speaker 3: that from like I'm I'm a Japanese family who when
Speaker 3: I first was working in media, they thought my job
Speaker 3: was not serious because I wasn't like working day and night.
Speaker 3: Are what like sort of what was sort of the
Speaker 3: evolution of being able to be like I don't know,
Speaker 3: Darwin works like a couple hours a day to sort
Speaker 3: of this like new like the exaltation of like the
Speaker 3: non stop working person and that is why they're successful.
Speaker 3: How did we like what what jumps did we make?
Speaker 3: I'm assuming the industrial age had a lot to do
Speaker 3: with that, but what what like where where were we
Speaker 3: and where are we now?
Speaker 2: Essentially it did have a lot to do with it.
Speaker 2: But even you know, one hundred years ago, there was
Speaker 2: this sense that you know, super successful people of kind
Speaker 2: of earned earned the right to leisure because of their success,
Speaker 2: you know, not that getting rich met that you had
Speaker 2: to never ever stop. Like if you look at old
Speaker 2: issues of Forbes magazine from the nineteen tens nineteen twenty, right,
Speaker 2: Forbes Magazine has never been one that's been especially critical
Speaker 2: of capitalists. But you know, lots of those profiles have
Speaker 2: stuff about how these guys spend like you know, still
Speaker 2: go to Minnesota to tramp in the woods where they
Speaker 2: grew up before, you know, sort of coming back to
Speaker 2: Wall Street and you know, sort of you know, and
Speaker 2: sort of cornering the silver market. I think, you know, so,
Speaker 2: you know part, But what happened to change that? I
Speaker 2: think really starts like in the seventies and eighties, when
Speaker 2: you have sort of the realignment of the American economy.
Speaker 2: You have sort of the sort of along with the
Speaker 2: growth of the computer industry, of the high tech industry
Speaker 2: and finance simultaneously, both of which teach us that the
Speaker 2: way to be successful now is not to start at
Speaker 2: the bottom, pay your dues, and work your way up. Right,
Speaker 2: the age in which both General Electric and General Motors
Speaker 2: could be run by guys named Charlie Wilson, both of
Speaker 2: whom started in the mail rooms of their companies, was
Speaker 2: now over right. The way you became rich was to
Speaker 2: be like Steve Jobs right, or of overnight success or
Speaker 2: like you know, Charlie Sheen and Wall Street, and that
Speaker 2: becomes that becomes the model for what a successful career
Speaker 2: looks like in a sense, sort of you get rich
Speaker 2: before the next you know, either before your technical skills
Speaker 2: become obsolete, before the next turn of Moore's law means
Speaker 2: that someone else has a sort of chance at bat
Speaker 2: or you know, or of the next or of you know,
Speaker 2: the next stage in the global economy or economic turndown,
Speaker 2: or of you know, wipes everybody out. And then you know,
Speaker 2: other structural factors like sort of the growth of or
Speaker 2: of increasing reliance on sort of temporary labor, stalling of wages.
Speaker 2: And culturally, I think the sense ability that you know,
Speaker 2: work goes from something that is important in every American's
Speaker 2: life to essentially the only thing right, more important than family,
Speaker 2: than community, than religion. It means that it is like
Speaker 2: the undisputed champion of everybody's existence. And so, you know,
Speaker 2: all of that stuff together means that it's been really
Speaker 2: hard to push back against all of that and to
Speaker 2: imagine an alternative. And it's taken something as dramatic as
Speaker 2: the pandemic right to sort of shift, to make a
Speaker 2: lot of us shift gears to see that actually, you know,
Speaker 2: all these things that we took for granted that we
Speaker 2: thought were like inevitable and inescapable turned out to be
Speaker 2: things that we can change and to begin to take
Speaker 2: seriously the possibility that we can actually, you know, or
Speaker 2: rather than have our workplaces changed by a virus, make
Speaker 2: these changes ourselves for ourselves for the better. But you know,
Speaker 2: that's that's a that's a brief history of how we
Speaker 2: got how we got in here, and how we're getting out.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to me that it happened in like the
Speaker 1: seventies and eighties at a time when like people started
Speaker 1: really like hoarding and getting immoral amounts of wealth for
Speaker 1: like doing things that like building things that weren't lasting,
Speaker 1: or you know, doing corporate rating and stuff. Yeah, corporate rating.
Speaker 1: Like it reminds me the anecdote from the People's History
Speaker 1: of the United States, where like the War Department changes
Speaker 1: its name to the Department of Defense at the moment
Speaker 1: that they start waging non defensive wars because they're like
Speaker 1: they need this you know, linguistic defense mechanism to like
Speaker 1: throw people's attention away. And it's like the the powers
Speaker 1: that be in capitalism need this idea that like, well,
Speaker 1: you just have to work harder, you just outwork everyone
Speaker 1: to justify that they're actually not doing anything that is
Speaker 1: harder or more worthwhile, and certainly not millions of times
Speaker 1: more important than the people who they're out earning by
Speaker 1: a factor of a million.
Speaker 2: You know, Jack, That points to another important thing, which
Speaker 2: is that you know, we've we've come to see or
Speaker 2: of both success and challenges in the workplace as totally
Speaker 2: like sort of individual and personal. Right, sort of, my
Speaker 2: success is because I worked enormously long hours, not because
Speaker 2: I have a social network, I have patrons, friends, you know,
Speaker 2: et cetera. Right, and if I have are you know,
Speaker 2: sort of if I have if I have a problem
Speaker 2: at work, or if I want to be more successful
Speaker 2: sort of the you know, the key is all in
Speaker 2: what I myself do right, get up earlier, hustle harder,
Speaker 2: et cetera. And I think that we've you know, of
Speaker 2: even even those of us who turn out whose clock
Speaker 2: have thirty hours in a day, rank you discover that
Speaker 2: you know, at some point you run out of hours,
Speaker 2: and the ability, you know, the ability to solve problems
Speaker 2: that way hits a limit. And the fact that we
Speaker 2: all share that we all have these kinds of problems
Speaker 2: suggests that actually maybe a more powerful and enduring way
Speaker 2: to deal with them would be to solve them together, right,
Speaker 2: to act collectively. And that's one of the big things
Speaker 2: behind stuff like or of the four day week is that,
Speaker 2: you know, it's something that's done in companies when where
Speaker 2: everybody does it from the CEO or of you know,
Speaker 2: CEO on down. And I think part of the success
Speaker 2: of the movement has been that it has you know,
Speaker 2: it has shown us, that shown us the power of
Speaker 2: collective action to change how we work and to make
Speaker 2: work better for us.
Speaker 1: All. Yeah, that just made me think of the fact
Speaker 1: that Zach Morris is the ultimate capitalist because because he
Speaker 1: can freeze time, he can freeze time, and that saved
Speaker 1: by the bell. Yeah, of course do. I don't think
Speaker 1: I have to explain that to anybody here, but I'm
Speaker 1: sure this comes up all the time in academic circles.
Speaker 1: But what like that he was and that that was
Speaker 1: a fantasy, that was like a thing that I was
Speaker 1: when I was younger. I was like, oh, man, to
Speaker 1: be able to freeze time, you have like so much
Speaker 1: extra time, I can like get so good at things
Speaker 1: or like do all the all my work. And then
Speaker 1: just like come back, and it's really you know, living
Speaker 1: my life on Zach Morris's clock, you know how like
Speaker 1: I'm curious to like, you know, when I got a
Speaker 1: lot more on Zach mount Morris here, Miles, if you oh, No,
Speaker 1: I was about to.
Speaker 3: I was actually about to talk about the Jack Morris
Speaker 3: when he had to take two people to the same dance. Jack,
Speaker 3: let me finish the question. No, But Alex, like we
Speaker 3: I think when we talk about what we talk a
Speaker 3: lot about on the show just sort of the just
Speaker 3: terrible habit we have, especially in America and other like
Speaker 3: western capitalist societies, just like it's all about work. Productivity
Speaker 3: is the only metric to define your life, and like,
Speaker 3: you know, we see that obviously, like at in the
Speaker 3: more professional level, but I feel like it's also really
Speaker 3: difficult for people who like have like you know, hourly
Speaker 3: wage working jobs and things like that. What is the
Speaker 3: sort of same way because obviously I feel like when
Speaker 3: people go like, I'm sure if you tell business owners like, oh,
Speaker 3: four weeks, what for all my productivity to go down?
Speaker 3: How do those sort of lessons apply to various industries?
Speaker 3: Because I can easily see how like in a professional
Speaker 3: thing it's like, well, we've got all these like invoices
Speaker 3: we have to process as an accounting firm or whatever.
Speaker 4: Once you're done, then you have something there.
Speaker 3: But like for something that's like sort of like an
Speaker 3: always on business, like retail consumer sort of facing business,
Speaker 3: what is the same way What is the way that
Speaker 3: that needs to be messaged to those people for them
Speaker 3: to not think, well, my line will go down if
Speaker 3: this happens. And how does this how does this sort
Speaker 3: of vision offer a new sort of form of I guess,
Speaker 3: you know, time liberation for workers that are like in
Speaker 3: like in every sector.
Speaker 2: Right, So okay, first of all, I think that the
Speaker 2: you know, it's the four day week is something that
Speaker 2: the very you know who's very earliest adopters tended more
Speaker 2: to be in like professional and creative services. And partly
Speaker 2: because that work is kind of more malleable and more
Speaker 2: shapeable by individuals, it's also tends to be a little
Speaker 2: more project based and so right, and you know, you're
Speaker 2: not like actually moving physical things around, so sort of
Speaker 2: easier to imagine how to redesign it. But one of
Speaker 2: the really interesting things is that we've seen is it
Speaker 2: move into places like nursing and I'm actually working with
Speaker 2: a police department that's moving, that is experimenting with thirty
Speaker 2: two hour work weeks for officers, you know, and talk
Speaker 2: about you know, talk about two industries where you don't
Speaker 2: want you know, sleep deprived or of overworked people coming
Speaker 2: in and making mistakes is like in an ICU, and
Speaker 2: you know, sort of during any interaction with sort of
Speaker 2: with law enforcement. And what we found there is that,
Speaker 2: you know, okay, a couple things. Number One, that that
Speaker 2: kind of work turns out to be just as creative
Speaker 2: as what we think of as you know, creative work
Speaker 2: of like people sitting around in meetings, you know, drawing
Speaker 2: on whiteboards. It's just we don't recognize it as such. Right,
Speaker 2: There's just as much ingenuity, sort of problem solving skill,
Speaker 2: et cetera required to either defuse a situation, to you know,
Speaker 2: assess what's going on in an emergency room, to calm
Speaker 2: down people. And that's and so this kind of work
Speaker 2: is just as responsive to the benefits of a shorter
Speaker 2: work week on the part of individuals. Now, the way
Speaker 2: that organizations make it work is for nurses, you know,
Speaker 2: like places like nursing homes, they have huge issu is
Speaker 2: around sort of turnover and sort of recruitment and retention. Right,
Speaker 2: these are of these oftener jobs that are not very
Speaker 2: well paid. They're highly stressful and so you know, in
Speaker 2: so it's easy for people to come into those jobs
Speaker 2: work you know for maybe a year or two and
Speaker 2: even if they like it, to find the stresses you know,
Speaker 2: ort of are too much and for them to leave.
Speaker 2: Moving to a shorter work week means that they have
Speaker 2: more time, more time for recovery, so more time to
Speaker 2: you know, and then but also it means that the
Speaker 2: organizations themselves, like nursing homes that have moved to six
Speaker 2: hour shifts while still paying people the same amount of
Speaker 2: money that they were that they were paying for eight
Speaker 2: hour shifts, they save enough in like in temp agency fees.
Speaker 2: You know, when someone calls in sick, you've got to
Speaker 2: get someone from a temp agency and it's like five
Speaker 2: times is expensive per hours to sort of you know,
Speaker 2: have the regular f time person. You save so much
Speaker 2: money on that that the programs pay for themselves and
Speaker 2: you get higher quality of care, so less administration of
Speaker 2: psychotropic drugs, fewer like bed sores, slips and falls, all
Speaker 2: the kinds of things that indicate whether whether you know,
Speaker 2: whether nursing home residents or people in a hospital are
Speaker 2: being well cared for. And so you know, in a
Speaker 2: sense basically there are there are industries in which there
Speaker 2: were hidden costs to overwork and high turnover that a
Speaker 2: four day week are subsidized by I think that's andre
Speaker 2: and we're seeing, you know, we're seeing that in the
Speaker 2: restaurant industry, in healthcare. The trial with the police force,
Speaker 2: it's an eighty person force and they've saved something like
Speaker 2: two hundred thousand dollars in overtime, which is like incredible
Speaker 2: in like the last you know, four months or so
Speaker 2: that they've been that they've been doing it, and so
Speaker 2: you know, it's and so it's not just that you know,
Speaker 2: these are sort of these are jobs that you know
Speaker 2: in which individuals benefit. But it turns out that once
Speaker 2: you dive into the numbers, there often are kind of
Speaker 2: systemic savings that justify moving from sort of sort of
Speaker 2: from you know, eight from eight hour shifts to or
Speaker 2: to shorter ones. So you know, even when you have
Speaker 2: to pay more people, you have to hire more staff,
Speaker 2: it's you know, the numbers still work out. And then
Speaker 2: with retail. The most interesting thing I'm seeing has been
Speaker 2: sort of places that will stay open now for twelve
Speaker 2: hours and have two six hour shifts. So that means
Speaker 2: that you get more walk in. You know, you get
Speaker 2: more walk ins. People can you know, come into the
Speaker 2: store or the garage before work, you know, maybe get
Speaker 2: some work done or before they've got to you know,
Speaker 2: drop the kids off. And it means that you know,
Speaker 2: for you know, you get more customers and more revenue.
Speaker 2: And so even if you have to hire of one
Speaker 2: or two more people, it often can pay for itself
Speaker 2: that way, or you know, sort of on sort of
Speaker 2: more sales.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's about to think about the creative work that
Speaker 3: police do. That's crazy because every time I'm pulled over,
Speaker 3: they're like why are you in this?
Speaker 1: Why are you in this neighborhood? Because they're coming up
Speaker 1: with like really interesting reasons why I shouldn't be there,
Speaker 1: But in their yeah, they have that's an exhaustion issue.
Speaker 1: I'm like, you just get some rest, anybody, maybe you
Speaker 1: could you need a nap? Sorry, sorry officer, sir, you
Speaker 1: you seem so sleepy. He seems so sleepy.
Speaker 3: But no, it is like is there are there any
Speaker 3: is there potentially any like this could apply to any job, right, Like,
Speaker 3: is there like when looking at sort of the way
Speaker 3: we toil in labor, is there any job where you're like, Okay,
Speaker 3: maybe that one has to kind of stay that way.
Speaker 1: That's it's sort of it seems. I don't know.
Speaker 4: For my perspect I'm like, I think it supplies everything, right,
Speaker 4: Can we just can we just call it a day?
Speaker 1: Everyone goes to four days?
Speaker 2: I think, you know, there were or of looking at economically,
Speaker 2: I think if you commute to work by helicopter, it's
Speaker 2: going to be hard to move to a four day week.
Speaker 2: So like if you're working on an oil rig or something, right,
Speaker 2: it's like ten days on, ten days off. Just the
Speaker 2: cost of getting to work and back is such that
Speaker 2: a four day week is probably not going to work
Speaker 2: very well. And then after that it becomes it really
Speaker 2: becomes a matter of like a professional ideology.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 2: Hedge funds are not going to do it because they
Speaker 2: have constructed incredibly profitable systems for hiring twenty two year olds,
Speaker 2: working them to death, and then discarding, you know, discarding
Speaker 2: the desiccated husks three years later and hiring new kids, right, right,
Speaker 2: So until they're you know, Viking freezers are full of
Speaker 2: woggu beef right in their like apocalypse bunkers. They're not
Speaker 2: going to have a lot of vision board. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 2: you know, but there were, you know, and then places
Speaker 2: like law and medicine, you know, they pride themselves on
Speaker 2: being able to work these kinds of tightically long hours,
Speaker 2: and they even though they recognize that there are high
Speaker 2: costs to it and it leads to sort of instability
Speaker 2: for organizations and unnecessary burnout. Until now, it's been hard
Speaker 2: to envision constructing something different. But so, you know, and
Speaker 2: some of the you know, there were there definitely are
Speaker 2: older people in these fields who really resist the idea
Speaker 2: that you can, you know, sort of you can scale
Speaker 2: back hours and make the work better without making the
Speaker 2: work worse.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 2: Occasionally you get people who say that I can't do
Speaker 2: this because look, I don't have another life other than
Speaker 2: reading SEC filings or you know, X rays, So don't
Speaker 2: ask me to do this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, let's actually let's take one more break, and
Speaker 1: then I have another thing that I heard you say
Speaker 1: that kind of made the whole thing fall into place
Speaker 1: for me. So we'll be we'll be there and we're
Speaker 1: back and this this report miles from Moodies. Nothing has
Speaker 1: ever made more sense to me in my life in
Speaker 1: the news that the cheesecake factory is propping up America's
Speaker 1: consumer economy. Yeah everything, you know.
Speaker 3: The Moodies likes to get in the business of business
Speaker 3: and put out their little analyzes about what's going on.
Speaker 3: They talk a lot about malls, apparently for mean Girl's
Speaker 3: Day that we completely fucked up, so sorry about that.
Speaker 3: On October third, humiliating, they released this like report on
Speaker 3: like the state of certain malls and like the top,
Speaker 3: like the observations are like the most obvious one at
Speaker 3: the top was pretty clear to everyone obviously, like e
Speaker 3: commerce has like obliterated mall traffic. Then there are a
Speaker 3: few others I didn't really think of, but like totally
Speaker 3: make sense in terms of the survival of a mall,
Speaker 3: Like people prefer lifestyle centers or outlets that are more
Speaker 3: that aren't enclosed, because people just kind of these days
Speaker 3: rather park and walk directly to the store they need
Speaker 3: to go to, rather than walking through nine dead department
Speaker 3: stores just to get to like the inside part of
Speaker 3: the mall like we used to have to and having
Speaker 3: like non traditional businesses like an arcade or a trampoline
Speaker 3: park or a bowling alley helps like plays a I
Speaker 3: guess somewhat a measurable role in the ability of a
Speaker 3: mall's you know, survive survival factor, survival rating. But here's
Speaker 3: the other part, right, Malls that do not have a
Speaker 3: cheesecake factory are twenty one percent more likely to be
Speaker 3: behind on loan payments than malls that do have a
Speaker 3: cheesecake factory.
Speaker 7: Yep.
Speaker 4: And they're like and again they're like, we're not saying,
Speaker 4: you know, the causation is correlation here, or correlation is
Speaker 4: causation here. But it's clear that people go to a
Speaker 4: fuck cheesecake factory. It's like having an apple store.
Speaker 1: People.
Speaker 4: If you got it there, people will go to it.
Speaker 4: And maybe has somewhat to do with the layout. But
Speaker 4: these are the kinds of stores that no matter what,
Speaker 4: people will be like, oh, you have to go to
Speaker 4: the mall because that's where the apple store is, or now.
Speaker 1: The cheesecake factory. And now I'm just like, what is it?
Speaker 1: Is it the brown bread? Is it? The menu as
Speaker 1: thick as phone books? Yeah, I've been saying for a
Speaker 1: long time I think the Cheesecake Factory menu is the
Speaker 1: height of Western colonial culture. It is like the thing
Speaker 1: that will be in our like the the wing of
Speaker 1: the museum dedicated to this period in history, in this
Speaker 1: place in the world. How did they fucking fit this
Speaker 1: many places into a single kitchen like that? That doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense. PIF Changs is probably, but like PF Chang's,
Speaker 1: they like took two things from the PF Chang's menu
Speaker 1: and like that's in there, you know, like that they
Speaker 1: did it all.
Speaker 5: I'm from. I grew up as a teenager. I worked
Speaker 5: at them all for five six years and uh and
Speaker 5: our mall was like and I grew up white trash
Speaker 5: and so our mall the the anchor restaurant was a
Speaker 5: Ruby Tuesdays, which is really yeah, but like when I
Speaker 5: grew up again, like Cheesecake Factory was like aspirational, like
Speaker 5: you it was like a fish.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Our family wasn't going out to the Cheesecake Factory every
Speaker 5: every night, you know, like once a year maybe.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: One of the first dates that like I went on,
Speaker 4: like as a freshman in college, I was like, fuck here,
Speaker 4: I'm like we're here, dude, Like I've saved a little money,
Speaker 4: and it's time to take Shorty.
Speaker 1: The cheesecake factory. I was, and so yeah, and therefore
Speaker 1: we're therefore we're doing and I'm having chicken littles again, don't.
Speaker 5: I was a big like. I was a big like
Speaker 5: as a teen, as a like feral team, I was
Speaker 5: a big like, let's go with your girl to the
Speaker 5: restaurant and like go to like what I considered a
Speaker 5: nice restaurant, which and run respect all was like incredibly cheesy. Yeah,
Speaker 5: but yeah, I loved.
Speaker 1: That Robin or something.
Speaker 5: Yeah, bottomless fries forever.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Fud Ruckers. Those are like the early date spots where
Speaker 3: you're like, these are places my parents would take me,
Speaker 3: and therefore this is all I have in terms of
Speaker 3: knowledge of a restaurant.
Speaker 1: For a days.
Speaker 5: It's the only proximity to adult knowledge I have.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly is like I know there's a fud Ruckers
Speaker 4: over there.
Speaker 1: We used to go.
Speaker 5: There was an east Side Marios in the mall parking lot,
Speaker 5: and there was a guy from my town named Pete Finkel,
Speaker 5: and he would play like contemporary covers of songs at
Speaker 5: the east Side Marios, like like Green Day's Time, of
Speaker 5: your life and you'd go and see this guy from
Speaker 5: your town play music at east Side Marios on your
Speaker 5: date with some whatever, some girl, and it was so
Speaker 5: of a time. It was remarkable. I really miss how
Speaker 5: weird that.
Speaker 1: Was at the simpler times, at the simpler times.
Speaker 3: Have you ever can you think of a cheesecake factory
Speaker 3: that's gone. Have you ever seen a cheesecake factory go
Speaker 3: out of business?
Speaker 1: I've seen. Yeah. No, they relocate cheesecake factory desides when
Speaker 1: it's done with you, But the cheesecake factory is not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it'll just be like, we're gonna move over here to
Speaker 1: bless this other establishment with our present. Never like no
Speaker 1: one's coming here.
Speaker 4: Everyone goes and these things they're probably going to be
Speaker 4: standing that people are going to do an analyzes and
Speaker 4: be like these are made of Roman concrete. Why they
Speaker 4: still stand to this?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the only thing that's left standing of America
Speaker 1: in three thousand years. It's just cheesecape factories. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: like it's it's interesting. Is this because the cheesecake factory
Speaker 1: brings so much people to you know, so much business,
Speaker 1: or does the cheesecake factory have like some magic understanding
Speaker 1: of like where to locate, you know, based on all.
Speaker 5: The all the malls I know that do or do
Speaker 5: not have a cheesecake factory ball and ship. Yeah, the
Speaker 5: balls that are like predisposed to already of people who
Speaker 5: are regularly going to come with with dispassible income are
Speaker 5: hitting that cheesecake factory exactly. I'm shocked that our mall
Speaker 5: that had that had Ruby Tuesdays as an anchor is
Speaker 5: still trucking because it is Oh yeah, the main mall
Speaker 5: in South Portland, Maine is still somehow vibrant.
Speaker 1: Do you know what they put into the what they
Speaker 1: put into the department stores? Like are they are they
Speaker 1: now like the bubble world? Oh you mean, like what
Speaker 1: did they replace all this?
Speaker 5: I don't. I don't know, although like that is that's
Speaker 5: some of my favorite There's a there's a mall unfortunately
Speaker 5: that maybe I can't remember, but there's a mall in Portland,
Speaker 5: Oregon that has like a full comic and zine shop
Speaker 5: and like any spot and that's I love that. It
Speaker 5: feels like truly you know, sideways apocalyptic in a way
Speaker 5: that I enjoy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I feel like that there's probably there's got
Speaker 1: to be a lot of haunted houses that have gone
Speaker 1: into those sure, right, oh yeah, you got to, yeah,
Speaker 1: got to.
Speaker 4: It's always interesting to see, like because it'll always be.
Speaker 4: Then there's like the small businesses where you can see
Speaker 4: it and you're like, oh, this poor fucking motherfucker, this
Speaker 4: ship is not gonna last, and like you probably put
Speaker 4: your whole fucking life into this terrible retail concept. And
Speaker 4: then you see ones that have been there one off
Speaker 4: in a mall, like a one off retail concept in
Speaker 4: a mall. Oh god, and I get like and you
Speaker 4: like seeing her, Like, no, I feel so bad. I'm
Speaker 4: so sorry you are, You're just anyway. Then but then
Speaker 4: it lasts for like ten years and you're like, oh,
Speaker 4: it's a drug front.
Speaker 1: Never mind. Yeah, okay, I don't have to feel bad
Speaker 1: because you don't care that no one's in there because
Speaker 1: you're just laundering money through here. Yeah.
Speaker 5: The one, the one I was just talking about in
Speaker 5: Portland Oorgan is called the Voyd Center and it's like
Speaker 5: just like it feels like a flea market. It feels
Speaker 5: like it's all just like small businesses that people like
Speaker 5: put it all on the line for and they're like,
Speaker 5: you know, it's like custom snuggies or whatever, and you're like,
Speaker 5: all right, I guess, okay, I hope that. I hope.
Speaker 4: That's what I love about like Portland is the specificity
Speaker 4: of the businesses like it. The entrepreneurial spirit of Portland,
Speaker 4: Oregon is fucking I've never seen anything like it where
Speaker 4: they're like, yeah, man, it's like a bespoke hot sauce
Speaker 4: and beer place.
Speaker 5: And it's like, there's what there's another so our my
Speaker 5: podcast like a host with Sarah Marshall from You're Wrong
Speaker 5: About And there's another Sarah Marshall from Portland, Oregon who
Speaker 5: runs a bespoke hot sauce company.
Speaker 1: Oh really.
Speaker 4: And it's funny too, because like I'm like not knocking
Speaker 4: it because instantly I'm like, I mean, yeah, beer's cool.
Speaker 3: But I love hot sauce and I love to see
Speaker 3: when people are just like, you know, aggregating a ton
Speaker 3: of local hot sauce.
Speaker 4: I'm like, this is great. And I was asking some
Speaker 4: people lokaland like.
Speaker 1: Is it high turnover like in this area, like with
Speaker 1: the business, Like yeah, yeah, it can be. It can't be.
Speaker 1: It can be, but some.
Speaker 5: Things for me for sure.
Speaker 1: All Right, Well, at the top, we mentioned that there
Speaker 1: has some has been some misinformation going around, and I
Speaker 1: have to assume that you guys were talking about skittles
Speaker 1: when you you mentioned that, h yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: because there have been erroneous claims that Skittles are now
Speaker 1: banned in California, specifically Mario Lopez, who, along with Jack Black,
Speaker 1: is the person who I go to for most of
Speaker 1: my information. Most of my reported reportage has to come
Speaker 1: through Mario Lopez. He tweeted crime is through the roof,
Speaker 1: worst drug epidemic ever and homelessness at an all time
Speaker 1: high in California. Let's focus on skittles and then posted
Speaker 1: a video or posted a picture that says California becomes
Speaker 1: first US state band skittles and twelve thousand additional products
Speaker 1: for cancer causing additives. Maybe maybe this is first step
Speaker 1: Mario Lopez gonna run for president. We can all hope.
Speaker 4: At Mario Lopez Viva.
Speaker 5: Did this news come from next door? I feel like
Speaker 5: this is something that would work, Yes, right next door.
Speaker 5: The other day I was like, I got I don't
Speaker 5: even know why I'm on next It was like I
Speaker 5: found to Pet once Pet, and I was like, I
Speaker 5: should go in next door and now I'm never gonna
Speaker 5: get off. But they people were very up in arms
Speaker 5: about the fact that I think California, there's a law
Speaker 5: that was passed that you can't make your employee run
Speaker 5: after a shoplifter anymore rightfully so, so like that should never
Speaker 5: have been anything in the first place. And people were
Speaker 5: angry as if the government had come into their house
Speaker 5: and taken all their money and then burned it down.
Speaker 5: Why this is like this Skittles news is another one
Speaker 5: of those that feels, yes, so is it true. It's
Speaker 5: not true. It's not true. It is not true.
Speaker 1: So I mean they tried it. Gavin Newsome signed to
Speaker 1: build banning certain food additives. And one of the things
Speaker 1: that he pointed out because everyone was like, oh, you're
Speaker 1: gonna ban Skittles, Skittles go out of business. Then dude, California, Yeah,
Speaker 1: not gonna be able to buy Skittles. Fuck that. And
Speaker 1: he was like, here is a bag of Skittles from
Speaker 1: the EU, where the shit the car arsinogenic chemicals that
Speaker 1: they put in the American version of Skittles is illegal.
Speaker 1: They just made it less cancerous in the EU and
Speaker 1: are still able to sell both things and not go
Speaker 1: out of business and people were like, nah, fuck that,
Speaker 1: And so that that got taken out of the bill,
Speaker 1: the skittles ban, there's like, just keep it as it
Speaker 1: like they could have made it less potentially cancerous and.
Speaker 5: That just isn't going to happen.
Speaker 1: Yes, So he held a package of skittles from the EU,
Speaker 1: argued it's demonstrable proof that the food industry is capable
Speaker 1: of maintaining product lines while complying with different public health
Speaker 1: laws country by country, and so therefore. An earlier version
Speaker 1: of the bill had a ban on titanium dioxide, which
Speaker 1: sounds like a thing that you want to ingest with
Speaker 1: your food, just like you know pepper a little. It's
Speaker 1: got two oxenium dixides dioxides on there, which we've talked
Speaker 1: about it before. It's a controversial food additive found in
Speaker 1: skittles and a bunch of other foods, and it's been
Speaker 1: banned in the EU. It was banned last year, and
Speaker 1: you know, it's just not great, like they think it
Speaker 1: could be bad, like when it gets into your cells.
Speaker 1: But it was removed from the California bill after lobbyists
Speaker 1: argued that it was safe to use in these applications.
Speaker 1: Don't worry small amounts and products like skittles. This is
Speaker 1: how you know Gavin Newsom is running for president eventually,
Speaker 1: Like he's already doing like he's like, you know, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not like we'll fine, We're good with titanium dioxide,
Speaker 1: or like the thing where he's like, I'm going to
Speaker 1: cap insulin costs. No, I'm not.
Speaker 4: Actually I'll say that out loud, and then when it
Speaker 4: comes time to cut time to sign a bill, I'm
Speaker 4: not going to do that, or be like we're gonna
Speaker 4: get striking workers unemployment. He didn't, right, So he's like
Speaker 4: really good at that, like presenting himself as someone who's
Speaker 4: like got his head in the game and as this
Speaker 4: like progressive credentials will also be.
Speaker 1: Like and I'm a friend to business and healthcare. Don't
Speaker 1: worry my man.
Speaker 5: Still am I making up that he was like a
Speaker 5: progressive guy At one point that was the case, right,
Speaker 5: Like here was the here was like an actual progressive
Speaker 5: politician from saying yeah, like as.
Speaker 3: The mayor of San Francisco, like I guess comparatively, but
Speaker 3: he's always I think the thing that people have always
Speaker 3: that the sort of criticism is like he's He's always
Speaker 3: been very sly about it. He's very coy, you know,
Speaker 3: and he so he knows what to say when to
Speaker 3: say it, and not say things when to not. So
Speaker 3: it's you're always like he presents like a total piece
Speaker 3: of ship, but he might be a total piece of
Speaker 3: ship too.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So that that pushed back hair though, you know you
Speaker 4: got to you gotta push a head of hair.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like back jack. We already know. I can't
Speaker 1: think of somebody whose hair I would want to touch
Speaker 1: less than Yeah, his hair feels like it. Whatever you
Speaker 1: would get on your hand from touching it would be
Speaker 1: on there for a while.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Like I'd rather touch like
Speaker 3: all like the male leads and like Boardwalk Empire, who
Speaker 3: you saw them put like lard in their hair.
Speaker 1: I'd like, I'm having to go. I'd rather touch that
Speaker 1: or like palmade than like the whatever Gavin Newsom's got
Speaker 1: going on.
Speaker 5: You know whose head I bet is filthy as Bill
Speaker 5: Maher I bet his. I bet you would touch his
Speaker 5: head and your hand would never be the same. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: I just wanted to get that Bill.
Speaker 1: Yeah hair new rules.
Speaker 5: Your hair is terrible.
Speaker 1: You just could be like stuck to your hand like
Speaker 1: a spider web, you'd like wash.
Speaker 5: It, And I say, this is someone with like a
Speaker 5: radically receding and depleting hairline. But yeah, I don't ever want.
Speaker 4: To take the texture the texture of it, though I can.
Speaker 3: It feels like it could be like like a cat's
Speaker 3: tongue somehow, when you're like.
Speaker 1: Ah, what the fuck that's hair? Yeah, yeah, buddy, sure
Speaker 1: is so karma does it's not hair? Okay, Oh, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Have you never touched a nest of spider
Speaker 1: webs before? Islamophobia?
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, sorry, snowflake.
Speaker 5: It's scary you. Both of your impressions, like facially are
Speaker 5: scarily accurate.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
Speaker 5: We have like a people I've had to listen to
Speaker 5: that for thirty years. We're outside about it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so this is one of those things. The
Speaker 1: science is uncertain, but usually like if all things being equal,
Speaker 1: the you know, people in charge of making making decisions
Speaker 1: on behalf of millions of people would be like, we
Speaker 1: don't know, and therefore you can't put it in food
Speaker 1: that is mostly eaten by children, just as like a precaution. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's how it works in the EU. But in
Speaker 1: these United States, you you know, you got you got
Speaker 1: lobbying groups that are more powerful than the young children
Speaker 1: candy eating lobby.
Speaker 3: But it's it's funny though, how much like my brain
Speaker 3: has been shaped by this like American attitude towards stuff.
Speaker 3: When I'm like, well, yeah, he can't even prove it though,
Speaker 3: so like, fine, let it ripe, rather than be like,
Speaker 3: no it we don't know.
Speaker 1: It's better to know. It's our thing is.
Speaker 4: It's better to know what you're putting in your body
Speaker 4: than letting it rip. And I'm like, okay, well maybe maybe.
Speaker 1: Yeah they did.
Speaker 5: Why you American to me is kind of like why
Speaker 5: don't you suck it up? And then I realized that
Speaker 5: I've just internalized a terrible ideology.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then you're like, oh wait, that's the titanium
Speaker 1: dioxide talking shit. You've internalized a bunch of microplastics in
Speaker 1: addition to American it's fine, it's fine, it's fine, let
Speaker 1: it rip. Let her in my teeth talking to how
Speaker 1: can the red ones taste the best?
Speaker 3: It's because of the flavor inside, it's not because of
Speaker 3: the let's they tell you.
Speaker 1: All right, that's gonna do it for this week's weekly Zeitgeist.
Speaker 1: Please like and review the show. If you like, the
Speaker 1: show means the world de Miles he he needs your validation. Folks.
Speaker 1: I hope you're having a great weekend and I will
Speaker 1: talk to you Monday. Bye.