Speaker 1: Flex and Frooms, Flex and Frooms. This is the Flex
Speaker 1: and Frooms catch up podcast.
Speaker 2: Listen Zoom you know video remote work. People want their
Speaker 2: workers back in the office. And that is an issue
Speaker 2: not just for remote workers, not for corporate babes, not
Speaker 2: for me, not for you, particularly for every single one
Speaker 2: of us. Why because I'm noticing a trend. What happens
Speaker 2: when the people who make the product or service they're
Speaker 2: pedaling to you don't use it as intended. It worries
Speaker 2: me and I'm concerned. So Zoom if you're not familiar,
Speaker 2: you don't you don't work in an office. It's a
Speaker 2: remote work company. And it created a better version of
Speaker 2: Skype or FaceTime for the office. Right, and so if
Speaker 2: you can't find your way into the office because it's
Speaker 2: COVID or because you're unwell, no stress, you don't get
Speaker 2: a day off, you can just plug in via Zoom.
Speaker 2: And they blew up during the pandemic. Naturally, the stock
Speaker 2: options went wow. It was like a dollar to like
Speaker 2: the twenty dollars or whatever people were making bank anyway,
Speaker 2: So they've told staffers who work within fifty miles of
Speaker 2: the company that they'll have to come back in two
Speaker 2: days per week. And the irony is not lost on
Speaker 2: me at or because it's not the first time I've
Speaker 2: heard something similar.
Speaker 1: I remember hearing and.
Speaker 2: Also seeing on TikTok, but also beforehand, how people were
Speaker 2: skeptical about Lasik eye surgery because a lot of ophthalmologists
Speaker 2: and eye doctors wear glasses. So like, what is that, Like,
Speaker 2: you're peddling this really invasive surgery. They say it's not invasive,
Speaker 2: but you're pedaling this potentially dangerous surgery for the common
Speaker 2: folk at a premium. But you will just do You'll
Speaker 2: do glasses. That works fine for you.
Speaker 1: Frame fine.
Speaker 2: Then we have this former Facebook executive who I kind
Speaker 2: of perceived to be a bit of a whistleblower.
Speaker 1: His name is Oh, okay, let's reject it. Yeah him,
Speaker 1: matter of it.
Speaker 2: He doesn't let his own kids use social media. He
Speaker 2: says it's destroying how society works. And he was saying
Speaker 2: this when he worked at Facebook as well, Like he
Speaker 2: definitely was not I think they kind of used him
Speaker 2: as a representative of the every person, thinking that it
Speaker 2: was a bit of like a performance act. But he
Speaker 2: was like, nah, I can't be here, I can't work here.
Speaker 2: I don't respect what we do. He said that he
Speaker 2: feels tremendous guilt for helping build Facebook into the beast
Speaker 2: that it is today. He says, I think we all
Speaker 2: knew in the back of our minds, even though we
Speaker 2: feign this whole line of unintended consequences. I think in
Speaker 2: the back recesses of our mind something bad could happen.
Speaker 2: It literally is at a point now we've created tools
Speaker 2: that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works.
Speaker 2: This is literally where we are. I would encourage you
Speaker 2: all to internalize this. If you feed the beast, the
Speaker 2: beast will destroy you. This is from the person who
Speaker 2: built it, he says.
Speaker 1: I I don't use it.
Speaker 2: He said, in his whole time working at Facebook, he
Speaker 2: made two statuses his kids don't use it. He doesn't
Speaker 2: encourage anyone to use it. If anything, he encouraged you
Speaker 2: to stay far, far, far away from it. This worries
Speaker 2: me in a lot of ways because a lot of
Speaker 2: the concessions we've made to live in a more convenient
Speaker 2: world are actually blowing back on us in a very
Speaker 2: severe way. And I think that if you don't remain informed,
Speaker 2: like if you didn't know that people at Facebook don't
Speaker 2: use Facebook. If you didn't know that a lot of
Speaker 2: optimoles just won't get lacy, you didn't know that Zoom
Speaker 2: wants its work is back in the office, you'd be like, oh,
Speaker 2: everything is as it should be. Next thing, you know,
Speaker 2: people who make cryptocurrency aren't even using it.
Speaker 1: I'm off it.
Speaker 2: I've been really suspicious these days, and I don't like
Speaker 2: being suspicious that it doesn't suit me. It just is
Speaker 2: at odds with my ideal state, which is whimsy and
Speaker 2: fantasy and like in another like vortex. But what I've
Speaker 2: been finding is that so many analog traditions that we
Speaker 2: have are just going by the wayside, and they're becoming
Speaker 2: increasingly difficult to do. And I've been thinking, like, okay,
Speaker 2: cool the average person, or like even if I open
Speaker 2: up a news site, right, all this information is about
Speaker 2: futurism and progression and where the world is going and
Speaker 2: what we have to look forward to. But I'm like,
Speaker 2: up until this point, the stuff that you've been peddling
Speaker 2: people to be their salvation hasn't really worked as intended.
Speaker 2: You know, like we can make things more convenient and
Speaker 2: put your money here and invest in this it's just like, oh, sorry,
Speaker 2: it didn't work, but like, here's a brand new thing that.
Speaker 1: Could work really well.
Speaker 2: And like I don't want to be a lot at
Speaker 2: I love advancements in the world, but I also think
Speaker 2: that as we're advancing, we're forgetting things that worked fine.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Like part of the critique about social media is that
Speaker 2: we optimize a place about life that didn't need optimization.
Speaker 2: Human connection didn't need optimization. We didn't need easier ways
Speaker 2: to connect, or we didn't need to reach people on
Speaker 2: the other side of the world in the way that
Speaker 2: we do so now right, it was kind of cool,
Speaker 2: It's very cool, but I think at what costs? We
Speaker 2: keep coming back to that, Like there is always a
Speaker 2: hefty price to pay, and we don't necessarily know at
Speaker 2: the time, but I think right now, like twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: in this given moment, we're very fortunate to be on
Speaker 2: the precipice where we can.
Speaker 1: See the past.
Speaker 2: We have access to so much information that details what
Speaker 2: history was like, what worked, and what didn't work because
Speaker 2: we're here, like we get to look at that in retrospect,
Speaker 2: and we also have this gift of foresight where we
Speaker 2: can project and predict and say, well based on behavior. Now,
Speaker 2: like if we don't get our act together with climate change,
Speaker 2: and this is what is going to happen. If we
Speaker 2: don't understand how to communicate better with each other, this
Speaker 2: is what's going to happen. If we don't assess our
Speaker 2: relationship to media and pop culture, this is going to happen.
Speaker 1: And everyone's like, I've been thinking.
Speaker 2: A lot about COVID because that juste was like, that's
Speaker 2: just a real time we were literally in lockdown.
Speaker 1: That was wild.
Speaker 3: It just you know what that made me realize maybe
Speaker 3: I've said on the podcast before. You know, they always
Speaker 3: saying nobody, adults don't know what's happening, nobody knows, like
Speaker 3: you really illuminate at that point with COVID. Nobody knew
Speaker 3: what was happening. The governments didn't know. Like we fell
Speaker 3: in a heap. Yeah it could have been much worse,
Speaker 3: but yeah, like there was no leadership really.
Speaker 2: No, And I don't think we're respecting the gift of retrospect.
Speaker 2: It's like, Okay, now we do know what happens. Now,
Speaker 2: we do know the consequences, but we also don't act
Speaker 2: with that information in mind, you know, like I feel
Speaker 2: like I would imagine for a lot of Australians, especially
Speaker 2: those in Sydney and Melbourne, New Southwest Victoria, another lockdown
Speaker 2: would send a lot of people spiraling immediately. But what
Speaker 2: precautions are being made? I mean, I just saw a
Speaker 2: news article that was saying that we're due for another
Speaker 2: COVID outbreak, right, and so like great, let's not great.
Speaker 2: But like, now we have that information, are people doing
Speaker 2: the extra bit to sanitize No? Are people wearing masks?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: Are people being mindful about not hanging out in crowds. No.
Speaker 2: But when it happens, or if it happens that we
Speaker 2: go into another lockdown, people feign this ignorance. Yeah, why
Speaker 2: is this happening? Where are we going?
Speaker 1: What's going on?
Speaker 2: And so I keep thinking about the future and the
Speaker 2: type of person I want to be and the type
Speaker 2: of life I want to live. And the part of
Speaker 2: the part that I'm struggling with is this sense of
Speaker 2: instability where you could create stability. So for example, like
Speaker 2: if we think about, you know, like what would we
Speaker 2: do tomorrow if the truck driver's got COVID again and
Speaker 2: couldn't deliver food to the grocery stores, and those restaurants
Speaker 2: couldn't buy the food, and then I get no uber eats, Right,
Speaker 2: It's like, why don't you know how to fan for yourself?
Speaker 1: I couldn't even plant something if I wanted to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't even know how to keep a flower alive.
Speaker 2: Literally, wish learn and like the flower they've given us,
Speaker 2: we don't even have to go forage for like the
Speaker 2: right seed to make the flower, you know exactly, the
Speaker 2: instructions are on the back, and we're still suffering, you know.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Like I have a friend of mine whose family lives
Speaker 2: on a farm, and his mum is really into making
Speaker 2: like natural medicines and stuff. So when he grew up
Speaker 2: the whole time, if he had an ailment, his mom
Speaker 2: would like go and pick a plant and like make
Speaker 2: him a tea or something. And I was like, damn,
Speaker 2: she's really onto some thing. Because what happens when we've
Speaker 2: got a bit of a tummy ache, panda, old babe,
Speaker 2: Literally it's not go drink some fizzy water. How do
Speaker 2: you even make fizzy water without a soce stream TM?
Speaker 2: I think I'm a bit fearful about the future, where
Speaker 2: I used to be really idealistic.
Speaker 3: I thought you'd always be fearful.
Speaker 2: No what I say, the apocalypse is coming, Like you
Speaker 2: don't hear the smile in my voice.
Speaker 1: I love suffering together. That's where I'm at me too.
Speaker 1: If you're gonna suffer, let's do it together.
Speaker 2: But I think I'm fearful because I don't feel like
Speaker 2: we have a sense of community necessary to suffer together
Speaker 2: in the best way. I don't think we could rebuild.
Speaker 2: I think if things turn to absolute bit we would
Speaker 2: turn on each.
Speaker 1: Other in a heartbeat.
Speaker 2: And I'm just like, damn, how do we get how
Speaker 2: do we like circumnavigate that and get closer to cult
Speaker 2: commune and further away from like anarchist looting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're religious.
Speaker 1: There You've been listening to the Flex and Frooms Daily podcast.
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