WEBVTT - Antiwork Part 2: Lying Flat and Petting Fish 0:00:03.920 --> 0:00:12.479 Fuck work. Hey hey, hey, hey, good introduction. I'm Robert Evans. 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:15.080 This is it could happen here. That was Chris Garrison's 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:19.040 also here, so is Sophie, who is changing her name 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:22.119 to Sophie. What is your new name, Sophie dot Com Arena, 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:24.599 Sophie dot Com Arena. She's doing this to deal with 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:27.040 the trauma of the fact that Los Angeles just agreed 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:29.080 to change the name of the Chase Bank Arena to 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:34.400 the Crypto dot Com. Oh, Staples Center, Sorry, I'm getting 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:42.400 my arena's named after venal brands mixed uff. Speaking of 0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:46.720 the pointlessness of work, there are people laboring right now 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:50.120 who worked at Staples so that Staples would have enough 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:52.599 money to name a place where people go do sports 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:56.760 after a place where people get fucking pencils um. And 0:00:56.840 --> 0:01:01.680 now Staples has declined enough at it's just crypto dot com. 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:07.080 Fucking Crypto dot com, look upon, look upon the worst 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:14.680 cryptocurrency e formerly Mighty Staples in despair, fucking the Osmond 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:17.279 Dius of the office supply world. I don't know whatever 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:22.600 what are we talking about. We're going to no that 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:26.319 comes in the middle, but right now we're gonna go 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:28.679 to a place where they banned crypto mining for the 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:32.840 most part. So and that that places China, and I 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:35.480 wanted to talk about specifically a lot of stuf us 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:37.200 been going on the Chinese Internet, what's been going on 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:41.479 in Chinese labor because so Garrison Garrison told me we're 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:43.160 doing an at work episode and I went, oh, yeah, 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:46.120 there's a there's you know, there's a version of this 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:49.280 in China. And then I realized that like a almost 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:52.120 no one has heard of lying flat and be it 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:55.320 rules and see that nobody really know in the US 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:57.560 knows what's going on in the Chinese Internet because it's 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:00.640 effectively siloed. And I mean, you know that there's there's 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:02.400 there's there's there's lots different ways to stile out. I 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:04.520 mean there's there's literally the Great Firewall. There's factors and 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:06.520 different languages, people use different apps, and you know, the 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:08.960 Internet has become this sort of like you know, it's 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:10.680 it's it's it's a bunch of bubbles that don't interact 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:12.400 with each other. Yeah, the wald Garden thing, and it's 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:16.200 you know, the sort of national level world garden stuff 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:18.880 is I think, in a lot of ways, way more 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:22.280 dangerous than the stuff you know that, like people complaining 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:24.399 about it was sucking Audie logical bubble and like that's bad. 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:28.000 But the fact that we have bubbles like this where 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:31.359 it's like you know, the like with with like actual 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:34.880 they basically borders but online yeah yeah, because they're enforced 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:38.360 by governments with force. Yeah. Yeah, the place it was 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:42.040 always going to go. Um, once we decided not to 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:45.840 be rad with the Internet, which everyone collectively decided in 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:51.920 I'm going to say one thousand four, Yeah, do you 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:53.600 think do you think? Do do you think? Do you think? 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:57.600 That was nine eleven fault nine eleven played a role. 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:00.760 Nine eleven did play a role. Um, the dot com 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:03.600 boom played another role. Um, there were there there, There 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:08.160 were a number of factors. Um, but we can all 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:11.720 blame it on let's blame it on low tax and continue. 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:16.200 So anti work in China before we get into lying flat, 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:19.040 which is China's version of anti work, isn't the right 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:23.000 word because this actually started a few months before sort 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:26.160 of anti work blew up in the US. But before 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:29.400 we fully get into that. To understand what's going on here, 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.679 we need to talk about something called involution. And did 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:39.440 you say that again? Like evil involution in involution, Yeah, 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:41.600 so this this, this is this is originally this is 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:45.080 a very obscure anthropological term developed by my old nemesis, 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:48.760 Clifford Geertz, who's one of the most famous and most 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:51.840 important anthropologists in history, who also sucks ass and I 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:56.640 hate him. I thought your nemesis was Noam Chomsky. Yes, also, 0:03:56.760 --> 0:04:00.800 but for different reasons. Should I cancel the hit sub 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:04.400 sub nemesis something I I have many I have many 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:07.600 nemesses that I have been on the side O God 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:12.560 here Jody Dean episode at some point. Now, thank you. 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:17.880 I appreciate allies in my one person intellectual wars, although 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:21.640 this does seem to be a pretty boring intellectual war, yeah, 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:27.440 said most of them. Yeah yeah, but what what what 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:30.200 Gears was describing? Basically, so she doesn't feel work in Java? 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:33.320 And what are you describing? What what involution means? It's 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:35.480 the system where people keep working harder and harder for 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:37.839 there's no increase in output, and so that there's no 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:40.479 there's no rewards for working harder, and so you know, 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:42.919 in Java you'd have these plantations, right, and the plantations 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:45.039 would get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. But 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:48.000 because each new person was only like harvesting just enough 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:51.680 to feed themselves, you never actually got any productivity increases. 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:54.440 And so you know, yeah, there's no there's no output 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:58.640 increases and in not really the case in America in 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:02.559 a lot of ways. Yeah, and what's interesting, Well, okay, 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:04.680 So the reason I want to talk about this also 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:08.640 is because basically everyone who's been writing about this formation 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:11.200 news outlets has missed about half of the story of 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:14.360 how how this like incredibly obscure anthropological term that like 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:16.960 I don't like again, I was an anthropology major. I 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:18.920 don't think I ever ran into involution while like while 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:22.480 I was studying anthropology. Yeah, and no one has ever 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:26.560 heard of this, Like fucking everyone in China has like 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:31.200 like a treatise they can spout at you about this now. Um. Yeah, 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:32.680 and and you know, I want to talk a bit 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:35.919 about how to emerge. And part of this is because 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:39.600 you know, in the last about two years, people will 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:42.400 be getting increasingly piste off at you know, just the 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:45.839 sort of incredibly competitive nature of Chinese society and particularly work. 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:48.840 And you know, a lot of this is because everyone's 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:52.000 working what's what's called which is nine am to nine 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:54.680 PM six days a week. And she actually didn't make 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:57.120 this good. When I say everyone, that's like an average schedule. 0:05:57.200 --> 0:05:59.400 The schedules get a lot worse than that. But in 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:01.120 the nine six is the one that sort of gets 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:03.560 the attention because a lot of people work it, especially 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:06.040 the tech industry. This is you know, we do, but 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:08.240 you know, everyone focused on the tech industry, everyone ignores 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:10.680 a bunch of myrket workers who also do this and worse. 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:14.080 And you know, there's just a normal societal pressure to 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:16.479 sort of keep moving and keep competing and keep working. 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:19.839 And simultaneously, you know, people in China today are working 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:23.920 like basically as hard as anyone's worked in China since 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:26.520 like people would literally collapse and missastion in the fields 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:29.839 and the great leap forward, Like that's lots of people 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:33.760 are working this hard. And but but instead of you know, 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:36.520 getting rewards for this, Chinese growth rates have been collapsing 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:40.240 for a decade. And yeah, this is you know, this 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:41.400 is this is the thing that you get. In the 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:43.000 U s too, was like, well, okay, people were like, well, 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:44.840 if you work out to get into the middle class, 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:48.320 but then you know everyone's working nine six. No one's 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:51.600 getting into the widdle class, the like China has incredibly 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:56.000 low rates of social ability, and you know it into 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:59.920 this comes involution. But the weird part of what's happening 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:06.840 year is that involution doesn't enter the Chinese discourse through 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:10.160 like people complaining about work. It's it's actually a product 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:12.640 of a bunch of middle class people complaining about Chinese 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:15.160 industrial policy. And this is the hardest story that nobody 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:17.239 really talks about, even though I think it's it's really 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:21.040 interesting because again like this, you know, anti anti work 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:24.440 in the U s RS and the left right involution, 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:26.160 which is the thing that's going to bring about sort 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:28.600 of the Chinese version of anti work is the right 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:31.800 way is originally a right wing discourse, um and and 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:33.840 and it's interesting, it's it's it's a right wing, very 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:36.760 nationalist discourse that gets you know, the right wing part 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:39.120 of it gets essentially expunged and it gets pulled left. 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:45.000 So originally, you know, China is I don't have a 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:48.000 more elegant way of saying this than China's leaders, and 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:51.560 more online than ours, like significantly more like they Actually 0:07:51.920 --> 0:07:57.880 that's hard, that's hard to bash it. It's people people 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:02.040 like like local government offices right have like they have 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:05.000 these like internal sites that like show them what people 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:06.880 are posting. And this this goes from the from the 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:08.960 bottom levels, it goes away to the top. Like people 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:12.400 actually listen to bloggers, like like they're there, you know 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:14.640 some of them, some of the people I'm about to 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:17.080 talk about it are incredibly influential. And there's a bunch 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:18.760 of arguments in the early two thousands about how China 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:24.000 is gonna industrialize and these are basically online arguments. Um 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:28.520 and the guys who win that argument, she Shanping basically 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:31.800 takes their industrial policy and implements it, which is you know, 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:33.520 which is which is scales Like how online these people 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:35.480 are that Like, yeah, people are taking economic policy from 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:37.720 like literally, I mean, you know, it's it's not solely up. 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:39.840 I don't take acon on policy people arguing on the internet. 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:42.880 Right this is this is an incredibly online society and 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:45.440 it you know, but the worst part is that for 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:48.679 a while it works. You know that their econart policy 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:50.800 basically is they're gonna increases size of the Chinese economy 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:52.680 by investing in sort of high tech industry and moving 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:54.200 up the value chain. This is this has been very 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:57.040 standards or Chinese second on policy for a while. Um, 0:08:57.120 --> 0:08:59.640 the problem is in the last about decade, it's it's 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:03.320 it's after working. And you know the CCPs response was 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:05.880 to do more financialization, and this piste off the like 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:08.640 the the online they were called like the Industrial Party. 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:10.520 This this this is off those guys because you know, the 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:13.480 whole thing was don't financialize, just keep investing in like 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:16.720 building airplanes and stuff, and the Chinese economies will work 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:21.200 itself out. And but eventually even they can't keep making 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:23.640 this argument because you know, I mean like like he 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:26.120 doesn't tend right, Like the Chinese GDP growth rate was 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:29.839 ten percent and now it's like maybe five and last year, 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:32.320 I mean last yearwies, so you know it was really low. 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:35.439 But I mean the Chinese growth rate has been imploding. 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:38.440 And so what you get out of this is is 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:41.560 this group of people called the Taoists based on this 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:44.600 guy named cow Okay, So, so how's the guy who 0:09:44.679 --> 0:09:48.920 who who essentially introduces the concept of involution and he's 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:53.840 arguing that this is happening. Because I'm gonna quote him here, 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:58.320 people can't get quote a peaceful life, get a pretty girl, 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:01.480 live in a big house because of the US. And 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:04.120 so the solution to this basically is is to deal 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:06.360 with like to destroy America as a hedgemon. And then 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:09.480 once you do that, you know, you can get all 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:11.360 of these things. And as you can tell, like, you know, okay, 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:13.800 peaceful life, get a pretty girl, live in a big house. 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:17.360 This this is like a very conservative framing of this. Yeah, yeah, 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:19.000 I mean this is this is the Chinese equivalent of 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:20.840 two point five kids in a a white picket fence. And 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:22.960 it has all of this sort of associated gender politics 0:10:22.960 --> 0:10:26.000 and class politics to go along with that. And you know, 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:28.439 and when when Cow and the cows are talking about involution, 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:31.040 what they're talking about is they literally they literally means 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:33.760 Chinese technated economy, right, so that they're talking about, Okay, 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:35.800 that you have more inputs, you have labor, technology inputs, 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:37.600 but the output for input is declining, and the only 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:40.679 way to restore economic growth the chief prosperity is by 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:45.120 solving a decline output by defeating the Americans. But you know, 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:47.000 and and this this is kind of a big deal. 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:49.600 And for a while, in sort of like twenty this 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:53.640 this is, this is going places, but very quickly people 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:56.959 are like, my life fucking sucks, Like I don't care 0:10:56.960 --> 0:10:59.960 about this econ ship or this like grand national struggle 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:02.600 against the world hedgemon, Like I care about the fact that, 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:05.640 like my life is this incredibly pointless, ever escalating rat 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:08.720 race with like literally no rewards. Yeah, that would that 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:11.120 would concern me too, if that were a thing that 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:14.559 we were capable of feeling in our country. Yeah, it's 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:17.120 why there's there's been some really funny stuff with involution 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:20.680 where like you read accounts of it and you'll get 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:23.200 like anthropologists going like, oh, yeah, this is this is 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:25.040 the thing that this is the thing that's unique to China, 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:28.920 and it's like have have you worked a job in 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:34.760 in the US? Like but you know involution, you know 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:36.920 what happens to it over over the course of sort 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:40.199 of it goes from being the general you know, it 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:41.920 goes it goes from being this thing that's about like 0:11:42.559 --> 0:11:46.320 very specific like technical industrial arguments about industrial policy too. 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:50.400 Is when one anthropologists put it, quote the experience of 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:53.640 being locked in competition that one ultimately knows as meaningless. 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:59.200 And so people, yeah, we could we couldn't imagine that 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:03.080 this is yeah, and it's you know, and people people 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:06.760 start talking about finding individual solutions to this, and so 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:08.680 you know, then this is things like working last moving 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:13.200 to lower tier city, is getting less protgious jobs. Um. 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:14.840 But you know, and I want to think about this 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:18.480 again because this this is a really interesting thing where 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:24.160 you have a very incredibly right wing, nationalistic and sort 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:27.600 of like like middle class like nostalgia kind of like 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:34.000 you know, like Milt aggressive foreign policy thing and then 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:37.840 it just flips and and part of how it flips, 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:40.560 and this is a part of the story that is 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:44.040 almost completely ignored, but I think it's really important. Did 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:46.199 you guys know about this? The YouTuber named leads It. 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:50.079 She she's the biggest Chinese YouTuber. She has sixteen million followers, 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:53.200 and most of her followers are not on YouTube because 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:56.080 you know, YouTube like blocked by the firewall. But she 0:12:56.160 --> 0:13:00.079 has she has fifty five million followers on the the 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:03.400 sort of Chinese version of TikTok, and yeah, she has 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:05.880 across the world. She has a hundred million followers, right 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:07.760 like she she's she's one of the biggest media stars 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:10.720 in the world. And her origins are kind of unclear. 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:13.840 The like official biography basically says that like when she 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:15.560 was twelve, instead of going to high school. She's being 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:17.600 a waitress, and then she had to like you know, 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:19.040 but she she she'd gone to the city, and then 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:20.680 she had to return to Realville to take care of 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:23.440 her grandma. And she makes these videos that are these 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:27.440 like very soft and calming videos or like calming music 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:30.119 of her going into the woods and like harvesting materials 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:34.360 and making fires out of logs and like cooking things. Okay, 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:36.240 and it's it's it's just like it's you know, it's 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:39.120 it's very much this this really utopianism. There's there's basically 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:45.280 no industrial technology like Cottage corp returned to nature. Yeah. Yeah, 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:47.000 I know a lot of people who watched it like 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:49.240 that just to like soothe them after a day of work. 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:52.080 Like see somebody like dig a cave and turn it 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:54.800 into like a bath or something using just hand tools 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:57.400 or whatever. Yeah, And there's it's interesting this kind of 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:00.640 it's almost like turned into a sub genre. But she's 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:05.920 by far the biggest like version of this. And you know, 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:07.800 so she she gets picked up by a media company 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:13.000 and from goes viral, and you know, its interesting because 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:15.520 so she's doing this because so she she has to 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:17.360 go back to take care of her grandma, and so 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:20.000 she like opens a store and she's trying to support 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:21.920 herself but in like her grandma by opening a store. 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:23.560 And so the videos were like a way to promote 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:26.000 the store. And then you know, now she has a 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:28.280 hundred million followers and she she gets a doctored as 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:32.040 this kind of like like national culture ambassador, I guess 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:34.680 by the state. Sure, And and it's just you know, 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:37.360 so there's nothing overtally political about these videos at all, right, 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:39.920 which is especially offering and like trying to sell is 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:42.240 this you know, this like fantasy of retreat from industrial 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:45.240 majority into world life. And I think it's really easy 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:47.040 to look at that esthetic and go like this is 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:49.720 basically fascist, Like this is rejecting majority embraced here issues. 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:52.800 Some people online when they see that immediately sees off. 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:57.280 I was like, oh no, it's eco fascism, yes that yeah, 0:14:57.280 --> 0:14:59.280 And I think, you know, and I think like that 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:01.800 interpretation think is actually a lot of y I got 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:03.720 picked up by the Chinese, by Chinese media companies and 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:06.560 then like sort of by the Chinese state because you know, 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:10.120 like having an actual positive utopian image of rural life 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:11.680 is politically easeul with them, and something that's like not 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:16.080 hasn't been true since like we've had this for a 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:19.160 long time. Yeah, well no, and I think I would 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:20.320 say this this. I think this is the thing that's 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:22.200 different in China is that there hasn't been like a 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:27.200 positive conception of rural life really since I guess the 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:29.440 Great Leap Forwards and then are like there there were 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:31.000 some people in the Cultural Revolution, but then they actually 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:33.800 went there and we're like, oh god, this sucks, and 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:35.360 so you know, so they didn't need a new one. 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:38.280 They come up with this. But you know, the thing 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:42.560 that's different about China than the US is that China's 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:45.840 market worker population like is almost the entire size of 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:47.520 the population of the US. I mean it's it's like 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:50.280 two seventy million people, right, I mean it's it's enormous 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:52.240 and and a huge number of these people. You know, 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:54.000 I'm some of these people are going from like city 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:55.240 to city. You're like town of town, but a lot 0:15:55.280 --> 0:15:57.920 of these people are coming from from rural villages into cities. 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:00.280 And you know, I mean these are this this is 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:02.040 the background of the Chinese workforce. And like these people 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:06.000 like they see their family once a year because you know, 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:08.040 like they can't afford to go home. So they go 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:09.840 home once a year for New Year's because they get 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:11.560 some time. Often they come back and and this is 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:16.840 where you know, like these videos are obvious fantasy, but 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:18.960 you know, they suggest an alternative to work in the 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:21.040 capitalist city that's sort of plausible, you know, especially if 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:23.800 you come from rural village. And this is where this 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:28.480 whole thing completely backfires on the Chinese ruling class. And 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:31.680 you know, because this this this this cowisted involution discourse 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:35.840 is about diffuse with this style of rural rural utopianism 0:16:35.920 --> 0:16:37.720 into a movement that is going to shake the foundation 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:42.880 of work itself. But first, but first, ads again also 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:47.640 not connecting to anything we're talking Connectionever, why Garrison don't 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:50.160 even bring that up. There's no needs, there's no reason 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:53.800 for people to think about about the fact that about that. 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:58.240 Don't think anyway, here's about ads. Yeah, think about the 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:02.320 Washington State Highway, but role primary sponsors. If it could 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:06.240 happen here, if it happens to you, you'll want the 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:13.280 Washington State Highway, patrol the border. It's so funny. Anyway, 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:17.320 We're trying, but I think it's we're working on it. People. 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:21.960 I think it's hilarious. Yeah, please don't, please don't join 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:35.879 the Washington State Highway Patrol. Ah, we're back. And I 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:38.639 don't know about y'all, but I thought I knew what 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:41.399 I was talking about, and I after those ads, I 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:45.000 am fully Washington State Highway Patrol build. I'm on board. 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:49.000 Let's do it. Yeah. In April, a guy in Chinese 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:55.480 social media makes a post and I'm just gonnae So, yeah, 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:57.040 I'm just gonna read this post because it's kind of 0:17:57.040 --> 0:18:00.359 short and it rules. I haven't been working for two years. 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:02.440 I have just been hanging around, and I don't see 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:05.320 anything wrong with This pressure mainly comes from the generation 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:07.520 with your peers and the values of the older generation. 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:10.760 These pressures keep popping up, but we don't have to 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:13.359 abide by these norms. I can live like Diogenes and 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:17.360 sleep in a wooden bucket. I can live like Heracleitus 0:18:17.400 --> 0:18:20.240 in a cave thinking about logos. Since this land has 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:22.879 never had a school thought that upholds human subjectivity, I 0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:25.280 can develop one of my own. Lying down is my 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:28.520 philosophical movements. Only through lying flat can humans become the 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:33.359 measure of all things based. Oh my god, that's the best. 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:39.159 I love that. Can I talk about Diogenes now, My 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:43.160 my man Diogenes is he's from this trennd in Greek 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:46.879 philosophical thought during kind of the high period of Greek 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:50.320 civilization where a bunch of things come out of it. 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:53.280 You kind of get anarchism, Western anarchism out of it, 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:56.760 You kind of get you get elements of like Puritan 0:18:56.920 --> 0:18:58.639 culture from it, because there are a lot of them 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:01.240 are very much anti like the the pleasures of sex 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:03.680 and like anything pleasing, and like you don't you don't 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:05.880 do anything that feels good because then you become dependent 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:07.240 on it. Like there's a whole bunch of ship going 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:10.320 on um. And Diogenes was like one of the one 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:12.840 of the first motherfucker's who were kind of playing around 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:16.800 in this in this philosophical space. And when he gets 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:21.680 into so his early life is his dad is uh 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:24.920 kind of a grifter. It sounds like we know that 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:27.760 he got in trouble. He and his dad got exiled 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:31.840 for debasing currency, which could be as simple as they 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:34.480 were watering down for lack of a better term, like 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:37.160 the gold or silver and currency with less precious metals 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:39.560 and hiding it in order to make a profit. Right, 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:41.800 and like keep the extra gold. That could be what 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:44.119 they were doing. It also could have been like it 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:46.400 could have been political, because some people who were doing 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:48.840 this in Sinope, I think is the city which is 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:51.480 now in Turkey. We're doing it for political reasons. We 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:55.040 don't really know why. But there's actual documented archaeological evidence 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:56.800 of this, including right around the time he would have 0:19:56.800 --> 0:20:00.240 been a child, we found from that period a cash 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:03.960 of debased gold and silver coins that had been destroyed, 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:06.680 so someone had like realized they've been debased and destroyed 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:08.719 them so they couldn't be used. So there's evidence. Anyway, 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:10.800 he and his dad get exiled, which means from an 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:13.600 early stage he goes from being someone of means, if 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:16.959 your dad's making the currency, you're not probably not like 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:20.959 a poor family um. And then they get kicked out 0:20:21.000 --> 0:20:22.960 of their city state and they're like kind of stateless. 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:28.160 And so Diogenes evolves over time and like gets into philosophy. 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:30.439 He tries to there's this I always forget the name 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:32.159 of the guy that he he loved it first, but 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:35.679 there's this philosopher who's like, you know this cynical like 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:37.520 that's the school of thought he comes from he's like 0:20:37.520 --> 0:20:40.320 a cynic um that Diogenes really wants to study from, 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:43.520 and the guy like assaults him as as Diogenes is like, hey, man, 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:45.400 I want to learn from you. Like he like hits 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:48.440 him or something. This keeps happening, and eventually he's like 0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:50.800 this guy is like why do you keep doing this? 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:54.640 And Diogenes is like, you have something I can learn from, uh, 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:56.240 And so I don't really care what you do to me. 0:20:56.280 --> 0:20:58.280 I'm gonna I'm gonna keep persisting. And so he becomes 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:00.679 this guy's student, YadA YadA. And the guy who he 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:03.000 becomes the student of is like kind of a poser 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:05.240 because he's talking about, like we need to give up 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:07.560 you know, these kind of like pleasures of of like 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:10.960 civilized life and and return to a more simple time 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:13.119 and like not enjoy all of these, you know, the 0:21:13.160 --> 0:21:15.240 benefits of wealth. But he like he's also a rich 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:18.080 guy and he doesn't give up his money, and Diogenes 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:21.560 is like poor as hell um and stays that way um. 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:23.719 And so he becomes famous for he goes to Athens 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:25.879 and he becomes famous for a bunch of like troll 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:28.520 ship we don't actually have. He wrote like ten books 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:30.920 we don't have any of them, so we don't actually 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:34.159 like know what he actually wrote in his philosophy. We 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:37.320 just have stories from other philosophers and it's all Diogenes 0:21:37.359 --> 0:21:41.040 being a fucking troll. So like um on one occasion, 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:44.320 he one of his big things was he believed that 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:48.119 people that if if something was an acceptable behavior, it 0:21:48.160 --> 0:21:51.160 was an acceptable behavior everywhere, right, And so the start 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:53.440 of this was in in Athens, you were supposed to 0:21:53.440 --> 0:21:55.520 go buy your food in the market, but you weren't 0:21:55.560 --> 0:21:58.080 supposed to eat it there. That was like considered rude, 0:21:58.320 --> 0:22:01.920 like like like like kind of seen almost, and Diogenes 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:04.600 would like get food and then usually by begging, because 0:22:04.600 --> 0:22:06.119 he was that was the way he got everything. He 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:08.000 had no money. He would like get food and he 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:09.520 would eat it right in the middle of the market, 0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:12.280 and everybody was like, that's disgusting, and Diogenes would be like, well, 0:22:12.400 --> 0:22:14.119 if it's okay for me to eat, it must be 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:17.679 okay for me to eat here. That's great. Diogenes took 0:22:17.720 --> 0:22:20.000 it a little bit further than that, because yeah, yeah, 0:22:20.080 --> 0:22:21.800 I can see a few ways you can take this. 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:24.200 He extended that too, if it's fine for me to 0:22:24.320 --> 0:22:26.840 urinator ship. It's fine for me to do it anywhere. 0:22:28.920 --> 0:22:32.199 He defended himself masturbating it. You can get people in 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:35.119 public as if this is okay for me to do 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:38.640 in my bedroom, why can't I do this here? Right? Um, 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:42.880 it's very like he's he's he's a troll um Diogenes, 0:22:42.920 --> 0:22:45.800 and he's also like again, the stories we have him 0:22:46.080 --> 0:22:49.000 is he is like uber an aesthetic, so like at 0:22:49.000 --> 0:22:51.239 one point, for a long time, the only thing he 0:22:51.280 --> 0:22:54.159 owns is a wooden bowl that's his cup and and 0:22:54.359 --> 0:22:58.000 for his food. And then, according to you know legend, 0:22:58.040 --> 0:23:01.240 he sees this poor peasant child drinking from like cupped 0:23:01.240 --> 0:23:03.200 hands and he throws away his bowl and he's really 0:23:03.240 --> 0:23:05.359 angry and he's like, god, damn it, I spent all 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:08.280 this effort carrying around something useless, like I could put 0:23:08.400 --> 0:23:13.160 ship in my hands. He's he's a very entertaining character 0:23:13.240 --> 0:23:18.320 and a very like yeah, yeah, he's absolutely an eugle 0:23:18.880 --> 0:23:21.800 um and he's yeah, he's just kind of like an 0:23:21.920 --> 0:23:25.640 endearing piece of shit, is like his the idea you get, 0:23:25.680 --> 0:23:30.200 but also like smarter than I mean, because because fundamentally 0:23:30.200 --> 0:23:32.840 what Diagenes is doing is he's he's saying like, hey, 0:23:32.840 --> 0:23:34.880 all this stuff that we think is important and good 0:23:34.880 --> 0:23:38.800 about our culture and and like valuable. What if it wasn't, 0:23:38.840 --> 0:23:41.120 what if none of it matters. He's like he's provoking 0:23:41.119 --> 0:23:43.600 the thick and he's he's big into like one of 0:23:43.640 --> 0:23:46.000 his his Like the things he comes back to a 0:23:46.000 --> 0:23:49.000 lot is that like, dogs are clearly happier than us 0:23:49.040 --> 0:23:51.000 and like better creatures than us, so we should just 0:23:51.000 --> 0:23:54.280 seek to be like dogs. Um. And one of the 0:23:54.320 --> 0:23:56.240 ways he might have died is getting bitten by a 0:23:56.280 --> 0:23:58.439 dog and his bike getting infective. We don't really know 0:23:58.480 --> 0:24:02.120 how he died. Um. Everything about Theogenes, this guy fucking 0:24:02.440 --> 0:24:08.960 hates rich people. Oh he's he's and he's very funny 0:24:09.000 --> 0:24:11.920 about it. So Alexander the Great apocryphal Lee Maybe this 0:24:12.080 --> 0:24:14.760 probably never happened, but the story is that Alexander the 0:24:14.800 --> 0:24:18.400 Great comes to Athens, you know, while he's on his 0:24:18.400 --> 0:24:22.480 his blitz through conquering the known world, and finds Diogenes. 0:24:22.480 --> 0:24:24.679 And Alexander the Great was like raised by Aristotle, right, 0:24:24.720 --> 0:24:28.280 so he knows his philosophy. Guys like he's he's he's 0:24:28.359 --> 0:24:31.040 seeking Diogenes out because he's a fan of this dude. 0:24:31.200 --> 0:24:33.359 Probably through stories that were told to him in the 0:24:33.400 --> 0:24:35.760 same way that like I'm telling them to you now. 0:24:36.040 --> 0:24:37.960 So he comes up to Diogenes and he's like, oh 0:24:38.000 --> 0:24:40.480 my god, I'm Alexander the Great. I'm a big fan. 0:24:40.760 --> 0:24:42.880 If I couldn't be Alexander the Great, I would want 0:24:42.880 --> 0:24:46.040 to be Diogenes um. And Diogenes response, well, if I 0:24:46.080 --> 0:24:49.240 couldn't be Diogenes, I would just want to be Diogenes, 0:24:49.400 --> 0:24:53.520 which is a fucking flex Again, probably never happened, but like, 0:24:54.480 --> 0:24:56.760 I want to, I want to read this meme that 0:24:56.880 --> 0:25:01.240 Garrison sent me because it it happens. It's absolutely a 0:25:01.240 --> 0:25:03.600 perfect riptan to what what this whole thing is sort 0:25:03.600 --> 0:25:07.040 of about. So okay, this is me. The philosopher Diogenes 0:25:07.119 --> 0:25:09.480 was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen 0:25:09.520 --> 0:25:12.480 by the philosopher and not a process gust name Aristippus, 0:25:13.080 --> 0:25:16.800 who lives matter some dead ass Greek guy who's about 0:25:16.800 --> 0:25:21.320 to get absolutely destroyed. He's living comfortably like flattering the king. 0:25:22.000 --> 0:25:25.159 Aristipis says, if you would learn to be subservient to 0:25:25.200 --> 0:25:27.000 the king, you would not have to live on lentils. 0:25:27.119 --> 0:25:30.159 Diogenes should flied, learn to live on lentils, and you 0:25:30.200 --> 0:25:32.960 will not have to be subservient to the king. Oh, 0:25:34.640 --> 0:25:37.199 all sorts of based ship like that my favorite. But 0:25:37.400 --> 0:25:42.200 know so our guy Plato is like, is like trying 0:25:42.200 --> 0:25:44.480 to determine, trying to define like a human in the 0:25:44.560 --> 0:25:48.119 simplest way possible. Yes, yeah, like the Platonic idea. And 0:25:48.119 --> 0:25:50.359 he was, so he comes to the inclusion that like, well, 0:25:50.480 --> 0:25:53.960 it's a it's a it's a it's an unwinged biped um, 0:25:54.040 --> 0:25:57.560 and Diogenes supposedly goes grabs a plucked chicken and says, 0:25:58.000 --> 0:26:04.879 behold a man, Like I found it, dude, rules um. 0:26:04.920 --> 0:26:07.480 He would he would famously walk around town in broad 0:26:07.560 --> 0:26:10.199 daylight with like a what do you call it, like 0:26:10.240 --> 0:26:12.800 a lantern, like looking around and people like, what are 0:26:12.800 --> 0:26:14.400 you looking for? It's like I'm looking for a man. 0:26:14.560 --> 0:26:15.800 He would like, look at a dude, and you're like, 0:26:15.800 --> 0:26:18.879 I'm looking for a man. And as it is to say, like, 0:26:19.000 --> 0:26:21.160 none of your motherfucker's are people like you all think 0:26:21.200 --> 0:26:23.360 that you're human beings, but you're really just pieces of ship. 0:26:24.240 --> 0:26:27.080 It's just an amazing asshole. Sorry that that we should 0:26:27.119 --> 0:26:31.840 move back to anti work, but that's yeah, yeah, but 0:26:31.880 --> 0:26:33.760 and this is this is the funny that both both 0:26:33.800 --> 0:26:36.840 both American and Chinese like anti work people both fucking 0:26:36.840 --> 0:26:43.160 love Diogenes. Yeah, you know, very popular on our slash 0:26:43.200 --> 0:26:46.960 anti work. Yeah, and you know, and the thing I 0:26:47.000 --> 0:26:48.800 was reading about the like, you know, learn to live 0:26:48.800 --> 0:26:51.800 on lentils and you'll never like after such a game 0:26:51.880 --> 0:26:55.600 by King that that's a lot of what lying down becomes. 0:26:55.600 --> 0:27:01.520 So very rapidly, this whole thing spreads into you this 0:27:01.840 --> 0:27:05.480 like really it's a sort of astounding, you know, it 0:27:05.560 --> 0:27:07.840 starts out of the meme and it spreads incredibly quickly, 0:27:07.960 --> 0:27:12.400 and the CCP gets like really really mad about this. 0:27:13.280 --> 0:27:15.919 Um so, so it's like so this this starts in April, right, 0:27:15.960 --> 0:27:18.639 and in May there's they have this like enormous media 0:27:18.720 --> 0:27:23.440 blitz where like like the party is like outlet basically, 0:27:23.440 --> 0:27:26.280 and Guandong publishes like a four page long attack on 0:27:26.320 --> 0:27:29.000 the concept of lying down, Like the cc They the 0:27:29.080 --> 0:27:31.919 newspapers everywhere published this stuff. Like the CCP like bands 0:27:31.960 --> 0:27:35.480 the term flat wheat yet Yeah, and it's funny because 0:27:35.480 --> 0:27:36.920 it's like if they do this, but it's too late, 0:27:36.920 --> 0:27:42.920 like it's yeah, and you know, so so part part 0:27:42.920 --> 0:27:44.480 of a lying down is is about, you know, you 0:27:44.560 --> 0:27:47.520 have this incredibly fast paced intense work culture. You have involution, 0:27:47.600 --> 0:27:49.359 you're working more and more and you're getting nothing out 0:27:49.400 --> 0:27:52.119 of it. Lying flat is just going no, like you 0:27:52.280 --> 0:27:55.480 just lie down, you refuse to work. But it's it's 0:27:55.480 --> 0:27:56.879 it's also it's more than that. And I think this 0:27:56.920 --> 0:27:58.720 is this goes back to the sort of broader conception 0:27:58.720 --> 0:28:01.719 of anti work. So on one of the slogans of 0:28:01.760 --> 0:28:04.960 this movement is don't bribe property, don't buy a car, 0:28:05.119 --> 0:28:09.440 don't get married, don't have children, and don't consume. And 0:28:09.480 --> 0:28:11.040 you know, the last part of this is implied is 0:28:11.080 --> 0:28:13.960 don't work. And you know, there's a lot sort of 0:28:14.000 --> 0:28:17.080 going on here. I mean, you have you know, it's 0:28:17.119 --> 0:28:19.520 not just sort of a critique of like we work 0:28:19.640 --> 0:28:21.560 too hard. It's about you know, it's about the sort 0:28:21.560 --> 0:28:23.840 of fall system. It's about the sort of patriarchy involved 0:28:23.840 --> 0:28:26.320 in this. It's about this sort of like force capitalist consumption. 0:28:26.320 --> 0:28:30.040 And it's about like, you know, the fact that like 0:28:30.680 --> 0:28:33.560 literally a quarter of Chinese of China's economy or Chinese 0:28:33.600 --> 0:28:37.679 GDP is like all this real estate bullshit that everyone 0:28:37.720 --> 0:28:40.040 knows is going to collapse and even when it gets built, 0:28:40.040 --> 0:28:43.000 like sucks. Thank god, we don't have anything like that here. Yeah, 0:28:43.040 --> 0:28:44.840 I know, it's great. It's one of one of the 0:28:44.840 --> 0:28:46.880 fun things about learding histories. You get to just watch 0:28:47.040 --> 0:28:49.680 every country do exactly the same thing with their housing market, 0:28:49.800 --> 0:28:52.719 like Japan do it. It's like, it's great, It's just 0:28:52.760 --> 0:28:56.120 like you also you think this will work. What what 0:28:56.120 --> 0:28:58.200 what extra fun thing is you get to watch every 0:28:58.240 --> 0:29:00.560 country do the same thing with farms and it always 0:29:00.640 --> 0:29:07.200 ended the same anyway. Yeah, So there's there's a lot 0:29:07.200 --> 0:29:11.000 of you know, in order to sort of like facilitate this, 0:29:11.240 --> 0:29:13.040 you know, you get back to the Diogenes, So a 0:29:13.080 --> 0:29:16.120 lot of it what's happening is people sharing tips about 0:29:16.160 --> 0:29:18.960 how to make the cheapest food you can possibly survive 0:29:19.000 --> 0:29:21.840 on so you don't have to work, and so, you know, 0:29:21.880 --> 0:29:26.640 and people the guy who wrote the Diogenes post like 0:29:26.760 --> 0:29:29.320 he spends thirty dollars a month and he does this 0:29:29.360 --> 0:29:35.120 by only eating dried ramen and eggs and like rice. Yeah, yeah, 0:29:35.120 --> 0:29:39.680 it's the way to do it. This is like the 0:29:39.720 --> 0:29:41.959 most extreme example. I actually, I don't even think it's 0:29:41.920 --> 0:29:46.080 the most atreme example. A lot of people. One of 0:29:46.120 --> 0:29:47.400 the things that happens a lot is munch of people 0:29:47.480 --> 0:29:50.240 just like have left their jobs to become monks. This 0:29:50.240 --> 0:29:57.560 this is like a whole thing Buddhist, like honestly, like absolutely, 0:29:58.080 --> 0:30:00.520 like and I used to live in a place in 0:30:00.560 --> 0:30:03.440 the middle of fucking nowhere, one of the most like 0:30:03.600 --> 0:30:08.400 isolated places I've ever lived that like had power um 0:30:08.480 --> 0:30:10.600 and one of the people who was like by neighbor, 0:30:10.680 --> 0:30:13.840 they were within several miles of us, was a monastery. 0:30:13.920 --> 0:30:16.320 This is in the United States, and like I went 0:30:16.360 --> 0:30:18.280 there once too because I heard they made good wine 0:30:18.280 --> 0:30:19.880 to try and get some of their wine, and like 0:30:19.960 --> 0:30:21.640 none of them would answer the door. I could see 0:30:21.680 --> 0:30:24.800 them inside all staring at me. They didn't do ship 0:30:25.120 --> 0:30:27.880 and my my overwhelming thought was like, yeah, that seems 0:30:27.880 --> 0:30:30.720 like a pretty good way to do it. Yeah, yeah, 0:30:31.040 --> 0:30:33.640 I see why you guys have picked this life. It 0:30:33.680 --> 0:30:38.120 was also during the election back from the r n 0:30:38.200 --> 0:30:40.280 C and the d n C and was like, yeah, 0:30:40.360 --> 0:30:44.760 that seems smarter than what I'm doing. Yeah. So there's 0:30:44.760 --> 0:30:46.920 a lot of you know, yeah, that'd mean the stream example, 0:30:46.920 --> 0:30:48.560 like if people going to become monks. But like one 0:30:48.560 --> 0:30:50.680 of the things that's happening a lot is again you know, 0:30:50.760 --> 0:30:54.200 China hasn't known it mactworker population and people are just 0:30:54.280 --> 0:30:58.480 like fuck this, I'm going back to my village and 0:30:58.520 --> 0:31:00.280 so and you know, and this is you know, this this, 0:31:00.280 --> 0:31:02.000 this is where they really screwed up with the YouTube 0:31:02.040 --> 0:31:05.320 stuff because you know, people were people, you know, they 0:31:05.360 --> 0:31:07.680 were gambling that that you know, you could just sell 0:31:07.720 --> 0:31:09.520 this as an aesthetic and you know, you can sell 0:31:09.560 --> 0:31:12.920 it as an aesthetic like Chinese TikTok has this integrated 0:31:13.000 --> 0:31:15.000 thing in it where like if you if you if 0:31:15.040 --> 0:31:19.200 you plug like something to buy it, like you can 0:31:19.240 --> 0:31:21.280 like click it and it'll just it'll take you like 0:31:21.320 --> 0:31:23.320 to a link like to to to to the thing 0:31:23.320 --> 0:31:26.120 it's selling, you know. And so yeah, they're making a 0:31:26.120 --> 0:31:27.720 no amount of money on this, but you know, the 0:31:27.880 --> 0:31:30.040 the the other side of that sword is a bunch 0:31:30.080 --> 0:31:32.440 of people were like, I don't have to work this 0:31:32.920 --> 0:31:36.120 Like I don't have to work in a city. I 0:31:36.120 --> 0:31:40.440 can just go home. Yeah, and you know, and you know, 0:31:40.480 --> 0:31:42.240 and you know, so you know, as you're talking about 0:31:42.280 --> 0:31:45.360 the antiwork stuff, it's not actually possible for a lot 0:31:45.400 --> 0:31:49.600 of people to leave their jobs. So the solution to 0:31:49.680 --> 0:31:54.800 this was there there's a culture that developed called petting fish, 0:31:55.120 --> 0:31:57.560 which and but but before you talking about petting fish, 0:31:57.640 --> 0:32:01.200 you said something about, uh, plug things on TikTok and 0:32:01.320 --> 0:32:04.320 you know who you know, you know like plugging like advertisements, 0:32:04.560 --> 0:32:08.080 and you know who also plugs plugs advertisements. Chris, Oh no, 0:32:08.360 --> 0:32:12.960 is it us Joe Rogan. But our new sponsor is 0:32:13.000 --> 0:32:17.320 the Joe Rogan Experience, brought to you by Honda. Honda 0:32:18.080 --> 0:32:24.760 Drive a Car, Do Fascism? Honda? Really yeah, Honda Garrison. Look, 0:32:24.800 --> 0:32:26.960 we don't We're not nearly a big enough podcast to 0:32:27.000 --> 0:32:31.240 get fucking to get a Toyota ad Are you crazy? Yeah, 0:32:31.360 --> 0:32:34.400 that's what we can dream big. Yeah, I mean that 0:32:34.560 --> 0:32:39.200 is the dream to sell Toyota's. I mean we could 0:32:39.240 --> 0:32:42.960 become used car salesman in the valley. All right, here's 0:32:42.960 --> 0:33:01.720 that ah right back, cut the heat and fish handle 0:33:01.760 --> 0:33:07.880 it to keep it all in baby. Yeah. So there's 0:33:07.880 --> 0:33:10.000 there's all this thing called the petting fish, which is 0:33:10.000 --> 0:33:11.920 like Chinese slack off culture, and you know a lot 0:33:11.960 --> 0:33:13.720 of people sharing tips abo how to slack off at work, 0:33:13.760 --> 0:33:16.840 and it's it's kind of the equivalent like I love 0:33:16.880 --> 0:33:19.840 that it's called petting fish. And then also like yeah, 0:33:19.880 --> 0:33:21.800 it's it's kind of the Chinese equivalent of like boss 0:33:21.800 --> 0:33:23.560 makes a dollar, I make a dime. That's why shoot 0:33:23.600 --> 0:33:26.680 on company time. So people do just a lot of 0:33:26.720 --> 0:33:28.760 like they have a lot of like genuinely fun things 0:33:28.800 --> 0:33:31.920 they do. Like people people started putting like fake beatings 0:33:31.920 --> 0:33:34.680 on their calendars and people wouldn't bother them. They like 0:33:34.920 --> 0:33:37.520 they just like like, that's that is also that's that's 0:33:37.560 --> 0:33:39.840 that's also what I do. Yeah, yeah, I mean the 0:33:40.440 --> 0:33:42.400 if you want to make I love the term petting 0:33:42.400 --> 0:33:44.160 fish as well, but if you want to like make 0:33:44.200 --> 0:33:48.240 it sound cool. They're waging an insurgency from within capitalism 0:33:48.720 --> 0:33:53.280 by by by trying to take resources away from their employers, 0:33:53.560 --> 0:33:56.760 um without being spotted. Yeah, there's a there's a thing 0:33:56.760 --> 0:33:59.840 in volume one of Capital about this that I was like, 0:34:00.120 --> 0:34:01.600 I could pull this up, and then I was like, 0:34:01.640 --> 0:34:03.360 that is too much work. I'm not going to do it. 0:34:03.400 --> 0:34:04.960 So I don't have the thing in volume one where 0:34:05.000 --> 0:34:08.600 talks about struggling between about labor time. But instead you 0:34:08.600 --> 0:34:10.400 get a bunch of people like the Smike, smuggling whiskey 0:34:10.400 --> 0:34:13.080 into work, taking through our lunch breaks. My favorite one, 0:34:13.480 --> 0:34:21.160 absolutely favorite drink at work, especially if your nurse, Oh boy, 0:34:21.640 --> 0:34:27.440 you've probably killed about fifty people crossed fingers crossed, so 0:34:27.600 --> 0:34:29.880 you know how like companies all have these like these 0:34:30.160 --> 0:34:34.040 really annoying like mindfulness fitness things. So one of these 0:34:34.040 --> 0:34:35.719 people started doing was okay, so you know the thing 0:34:35.840 --> 0:34:38.080 like you have to drink eight hour, eight times a day. 0:34:38.120 --> 0:34:40.719 So they would set these alarms that's like, oh, I 0:34:40.760 --> 0:34:42.239 have to go drink my water. And so like every 0:34:42.360 --> 0:34:44.640 like every like fifty minutes or something, they just go 0:34:44.719 --> 0:34:47.640 up and like spend twenty minutes getting water and they 0:34:47.640 --> 0:34:50.320 sit back down, and it's like you've just eviscerated and 0:34:50.440 --> 0:34:53.120 enormous part of your work day. And and the product 0:34:53.200 --> 0:34:55.520 of this, you know, this CP is really piste off 0:34:55.520 --> 0:34:57.520 about this, and you know, you get these giant billboards 0:34:57.600 --> 0:35:00.200 to say no lying flat, no petting fish on him 0:35:00.560 --> 0:35:03.120 or something. It would have been literally incomprehensible like a 0:35:03.239 --> 0:35:09.399 year ago. It's amazing. And you know, and I think 0:35:09.400 --> 0:35:11.879 this is something you know in the U. S anti work, 0:35:12.080 --> 0:35:15.040 like the actual political class kind of has been ignoring 0:35:15.040 --> 0:35:16.160 in I mean, you see a couple of f acial 0:35:16.200 --> 0:35:20.080 antists in China, che Ching Ping like made a speech. 0:35:20.160 --> 0:35:22.040 It was like, you know, he have a private speech 0:35:22.000 --> 0:35:24.160 to a bunch of how people in the party, and 0:35:24.680 --> 0:35:27.240 so a part of it a printed like a month 0:35:27.280 --> 0:35:29.440 ago or something I've I've lost track of all time. 0:35:29.840 --> 0:35:32.080 But like like like specifically in this speech that Ches 0:35:32.160 --> 0:35:34.800 and Ping is making that is published in the official 0:35:34.880 --> 0:35:38.759 like theoretical journal, he's like explicitly saying like don't lie 0:35:38.800 --> 0:35:41.799 flat and saying quote happy life is earned through heart, 0:35:42.080 --> 0:35:45.160 hard work. And yeah, and he's also has this, he 0:35:45.200 --> 0:35:48.319 has his ranch. But like denouncing welfare ism, which is 0:35:48.400 --> 0:35:53.120 great the the communist vanguard there. Yeah, yeah, preaching the 0:35:53.200 --> 0:35:59.480 immortal science. Yeah, socialism with Chinese characteristics. Motherfucker's don't be 0:35:59.520 --> 0:36:04.319 a welfare queen. Fo. It's great, you know, but it's 0:36:04.360 --> 0:36:06.840 interesting people. This is the one people are really freaked 0:36:06.880 --> 0:36:08.759 out about. Like I saw I saw like an American 0:36:08.760 --> 0:36:11.080 writer about this, who you know, They wrote like an 0:36:11.160 --> 0:36:12.799 article about this whole thing, and then they were like 0:36:13.200 --> 0:36:17.080 this is gonna this is gonna cause inflation. It's like, 0:36:17.080 --> 0:36:20.760 this is gonna be the driver of like what people 0:36:20.840 --> 0:36:23.839 just use the word inflation to mean whatever scary thing 0:36:23.920 --> 0:36:25.839 they want. Yeah, well they're they're like, oh, this will 0:36:25.880 --> 0:36:27.800 this will increase wages and that will lead to inflation 0:36:27.800 --> 0:36:32.919 and we'll get the seventies again. And I'm like, god, maybe, 0:36:32.960 --> 0:36:35.200 but a tallow disco again, did you ever think of 0:36:35.239 --> 0:36:38.600 that guy that we that were are reserves of a 0:36:38.640 --> 0:36:43.120 tallow disco are critically low? Do you wonder what a 0:36:43.120 --> 0:36:46.319 tallow disco is? No idea, that's a shame. All right, 0:36:46.400 --> 0:36:48.440 let's continue what what what type of like is there 0:36:48.480 --> 0:36:50.239 is there like any like you said this kind of 0:36:50.239 --> 0:36:52.600 stuff started to like move left words. Is there any 0:36:52.600 --> 0:36:55.360 like actual like leftist organizing in these types of places? 0:36:55.400 --> 0:36:56.799 So so this is the thing I was getting to, 0:36:56.960 --> 0:36:58.560 which is that, like, you know, people are starting to 0:36:58.600 --> 0:37:00.680 do reading groups. But the problem, the problem with leftist 0:37:00.719 --> 0:37:03.880 organizing in China is that, you know, so state policy 0:37:03.880 --> 0:37:05.880 in the past three years has been like if you 0:37:05.920 --> 0:37:08.800 poke your head above ground, you get arrested. So you know, 0:37:08.840 --> 0:37:12.120 I mean, for example, there was there was a strike 0:37:12.160 --> 0:37:14.600 at Jasick and you know a bunch of student groups 0:37:14.600 --> 0:37:16.840 who've been organizing for a long time like tried to 0:37:16.880 --> 0:37:18.480 do all dreaty with it, and they all got arrested. 0:37:18.880 --> 0:37:20.399 The people who are stri people who let the strike 0:37:20.400 --> 0:37:21.920 got arrested. All that. The students who are doing so 0:37:21.920 --> 0:37:25.000 ald already got arrested. People like people got arrested for 0:37:25.080 --> 0:37:28.560 like like dancing with like University students got arrested for 0:37:28.600 --> 0:37:36.839 like dancing with the people who were like cleaning the floors. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, 0:37:36.880 --> 0:37:41.799 like the emotional impression, yeah, like it's it's incredible and like, 0:37:41.840 --> 0:37:44.040 you know, and the other thing that you can see 0:37:44.080 --> 0:37:45.920 about this was so so For example, there was there 0:37:45.920 --> 0:37:48.880 was a guy doing like delivery driver organizing. It was 0:37:48.920 --> 0:37:50.520 kind of weird. He was like kind of an entrepreneur 0:37:50.760 --> 0:37:54.080 kind of doing livery driver organizing. Like he got arrested, 0:37:54.760 --> 0:37:56.239 and then you know, like a couple of weeks later, 0:37:56.280 --> 0:37:58.000 this is people like, oh, we're gonna like do things 0:37:58.000 --> 0:38:01.680 to improve the conditions of of delivery drivers, and you know, 0:38:02.400 --> 0:38:04.520 who knows if that's going to happen. But like, you know, 0:38:04.880 --> 0:38:08.600 basically like any anyone out for some reason that the 0:38:08.640 --> 0:38:10.520 people in the tech sector have been able to get 0:38:10.560 --> 0:38:15.040 away with more for reasons that are probably class based, 0:38:15.080 --> 0:38:16.719 and I think this doesn't take them seriously in the 0:38:16.719 --> 0:38:20.719 way they do with students factory workers. But you know, 0:38:20.880 --> 0:38:22.880 and actually I mean the fact that the tech workers 0:38:22.880 --> 0:38:24.800 like kind of recently like that there's a tech worker 0:38:24.800 --> 0:38:27.600 thing calling for like like democratic control of production, which 0:38:27.600 --> 0:38:31.000 is wild. But other than those guys like you can't 0:38:31.400 --> 0:38:33.480 you know, you can't stick your head up, you get flattened. 0:38:34.120 --> 0:38:36.440 So this has sort of been the result of this, 0:38:36.480 --> 0:38:39.400 which is this like you know, the sort of the 0:38:39.480 --> 0:38:41.600 like lying flat is this. You know, it's this mass 0:38:41.640 --> 0:38:44.920 decentralized movement that you know, there's there's no one to 0:38:45.000 --> 0:38:49.120 hit with a hammer, and you know, and and I think, like, okay, 0:38:49.120 --> 0:38:50.640 so one of one of the other quotes that's that's 0:38:50.640 --> 0:38:53.000 been going around about lying flat is it's it's a poem. 0:38:53.120 --> 0:38:57.799 It doesn't poem as well in English, but this, this 0:38:57.840 --> 0:39:00.400 is the best you've got. Lying flat is to not 0:39:00.440 --> 0:39:03.600 bow down. Lying flat is to not kneel. Lying flat 0:39:03.680 --> 0:39:07.120 is to stand up horizontally. Lying flat is a straight spine. 0:39:07.840 --> 0:39:10.360 And so you know what was basically happening here is 0:39:10.360 --> 0:39:13.600 is it's a combination of the tendencies you see in 0:39:13.640 --> 0:39:16.840 the US, where you know, a bunch of people terrible jobs, 0:39:17.120 --> 0:39:20.080 realizing that everything is pointless. And then also this is 0:39:20.080 --> 0:39:22.920 a way you can, like this is the way you 0:39:22.960 --> 0:39:26.960 can like fight your boss without like the police showing up. 0:39:27.960 --> 0:39:32.520 And so there's there's some interesting like political stuff. So there, 0:39:32.560 --> 0:39:34.400 there's there, there's there's there's if if you look at that, 0:39:34.560 --> 0:39:36.640 there there's a bunch of memes here because they're great. 0:39:37.200 --> 0:39:39.440 So there's there's been a thing with these people talking 0:39:39.480 --> 0:39:41.759 about how people are leaks, which are like their leaks, 0:39:41.760 --> 0:39:44.800 they're harvested over and over again and they're being exploited 0:39:44.920 --> 0:39:48.359 and like the plants, Yeah, plants like leaks like yeah, 0:39:48.400 --> 0:39:50.520 you eat. And so they have this thing that's leaks 0:39:50.560 --> 0:39:52.880 that life flat cannot be so easily harvested. It's just 0:39:52.920 --> 0:39:55.319 like a knife go like try like a machete, like 0:39:55.320 --> 0:39:56.880 trying to swing out a bunch of leaks, but the 0:39:56.920 --> 0:40:00.200 leaks are flat, so they can't hit them. And I 0:40:00.280 --> 0:40:03.080 see what, you know, I like, I like all of this. Yeah, yeah, 0:40:03.160 --> 0:40:06.120 it's it's it's it's you know, and so and so 0:40:06.239 --> 0:40:09.000 what the product of this is that yeah, like this this, this, 0:40:09.000 --> 0:40:11.759 this has this stuff has actually been effective enough that 0:40:11.840 --> 0:40:14.880 the CCP, like you know, I mean, the CCP is 0:40:14.880 --> 0:40:16.839 is taking it seriously, but you know, there's not much 0:40:16.880 --> 0:40:20.600 they can do about it. Because like if someone's just like, oh, 0:40:20.880 --> 0:40:23.640 I'm going to go from a job that's really high 0:40:23.680 --> 0:40:25.839 stressed to one that's less high stress, like what are 0:40:25.840 --> 0:40:27.520 you're gonna are you just gonna arrest them? Like what 0:40:27.520 --> 0:40:30.759 what are you gonna do and so this, yeah, this, 0:40:30.920 --> 0:40:35.360 this has been building for a while now, and I 0:40:35.400 --> 0:40:38.920 don't know who who knows exactly like where it's going 0:40:38.960 --> 0:40:43.680 to go, but it's it's it's already you know. It's 0:40:43.680 --> 0:40:46.160 something that people can do as an individual in a 0:40:46.200 --> 0:40:49.640 place where organized political action is impossible in a way 0:40:49.719 --> 0:40:51.960 such that you know that their individual actions have a 0:40:52.000 --> 0:40:55.520 collective effect, but one that can't be just you know, 0:40:55.760 --> 0:40:59.279 pounded down. Yeah, I mean, it is certainly interesting to 0:40:59.320 --> 0:41:03.560 see two completely separate, like anti work style movements around 0:41:03.640 --> 0:41:06.359 basically around the same same exact time, with the same 0:41:06.400 --> 0:41:10.240 exact points, if you're totally different languages. If you're someone 0:41:10.239 --> 0:41:15.120 who's interested in massive global revolutionary change, this should probably 0:41:15.320 --> 0:41:17.840 be a thing that you are looking at and studying 0:41:17.920 --> 0:41:21.800 and thinking a lot about, because perhaps while we're arguing 0:41:21.840 --> 0:41:25.360 about ship that people started talking about in the eighteen seventies, 0:41:25.760 --> 0:41:28.680 this this might be a better thing to do than 0:41:28.960 --> 0:41:32.719 than that, because because it's it seems like there's some 0:41:32.760 --> 0:41:35.560 potential here. Yeah, and I think, yeah, I mean, you know, 0:41:35.600 --> 0:41:38.000 if if if you if you know any any any 0:41:38.000 --> 0:41:40.560 any actual revolutionary project that makes the world better is 0:41:40.600 --> 0:41:43.920 going to have to be international and that's been you 0:41:43.960 --> 0:41:45.840 know that that that that that's been the bane of 0:41:45.840 --> 0:41:50.680 all revolutionary movements forever. But you know, okay, so we 0:41:50.760 --> 0:41:53.080 have you know that we we have something to Chinese 0:41:53.080 --> 0:41:56.520 the American working class agrees on, which is Diogenes is 0:41:56.560 --> 0:42:01.560 based in work sucks. Yeah, So as you go forward 0:42:01.719 --> 0:42:05.200 into your life this week, um, take a page from 0:42:05.280 --> 0:42:11.040 Diogenes as his book and the people ship on the 0:42:11.120 --> 0:42:14.759 floor of a free people or yeah, free people are 0:42:14.760 --> 0:42:17.560 an h and M. Go walk into one and just 0:42:17.560 --> 0:42:23.920 just just go absolutely ruin that tile. I mean, fuck it. 0:42:24.520 --> 0:42:27.440 This is why my my my biggest political advice to 0:42:27.640 --> 0:42:31.640 friends who has always been learned to run fast, because 0:42:31.719 --> 0:42:34.080 if you learn to run fast, you can do so 0:42:34.120 --> 0:42:38.120 many more fun things in a store and then run 0:42:38.200 --> 0:42:40.719 fast that it's done right. The problem is that a 0:42:40.719 --> 0:42:42.880 lot of people like who who want to do this 0:42:43.120 --> 0:42:45.920 can't run fast enough. So learn to run fast to 0:42:45.960 --> 0:42:49.200 do this. There. It's like Moose said, all political power 0:42:49.440 --> 0:42:52.319 comes from being able to ship really fast and from 0:42:52.360 --> 0:42:54.719 the doors of a free people. Just get that hell 0:42:54.760 --> 0:42:58.880 out of there. The immortal silence. Look, I think I 0:42:59.160 --> 0:43:02.919 think I think we should eve with with the real 0:43:02.960 --> 0:43:08.319 immortal science, the the immortal words of a skeleton from 0:43:08.360 --> 0:43:12.040 the share Zone. Just walk out. You can leave work, 0:43:12.360 --> 0:43:18.440 social things, movie, home, class, dentist, close shops to fancy 0:43:18.480 --> 0:43:21.960 weed store cops, if you're quick, friendships, if it sucks, 0:43:22.280 --> 0:43:26.960 hit the bricks yeah yeah. As as some comedian who 0:43:26.960 --> 0:43:30.040 I can't remember now said, always have an exit plan 0:43:30.719 --> 0:43:33.320 like that. That that should be your thought for everything 0:43:33.640 --> 0:43:37.439 everything in the world. Bricks. Hit the fucking bricks, Get 0:43:37.480 --> 0:43:45.279 out anyway, Get out of this podcast episode now. It 0:43:45.280 --> 0:43:47.560 Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. 0:43:47.800 --> 0:43:50.480 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 0:43:50.480 --> 0:43:52.640 cool zone media dot com, or check us out on 0:43:52.640 --> 0:43:55.200 the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 0:43:55.239 --> 0:43:58.040 listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could 0:43:58.040 --> 0:44:01.040 Happen here, updated monthly at cool zone media dot com 0:44:01.080 --> 0:44:03.000 slash sources. Thanks for listening.