December 22, 2024 • 54 mins
Hello Show Notes Readers!
This week, turned into a bit of a bookclub episode. We compare our notes on the start of Sovereign Individual and talk about areas where the authors imaginations hit or missed the mark. The one thing we both agree on, so far: it's a long book. The discussion turns towards the attitudes we've witnessed on the heels of the assassination of Brian Thompson, CEO of United Healthcare. Are the ugly attitudes we see around our healthcare institutions symptoms of a larger scale fragmentation of society envisioned in Sovereign Individual?
Books Recommended
Five Decembers by James Kestrel
Artemis and The Martian by Andy Weir
Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole Series
The Winter of our Discontent by John Steinbeck
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Chapters
00:00 Synthwave and Futuristic Sounds
04:14 Exploring Literature and Reading Recommendations
08:35 Diving into Non-Fiction: The Sovereign Individual
14:03 The Future of Government and Digital Economy
22:29 Healthcare System Reactions
33:22 Cultural References and Language
38:30 Doomsday Predictions and Societal Fragmentation
40:28 Comparing 'Sovereign Individual' and 'The Fourth Turning'
43:25 Books That Challenge Us
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Because also our nature, like intrinsically, when we before humans were civilized andmodernized, and you know, we were evolving.
(00:08):
If you if you think about it, they were always looking out for threats constantly, right?
So you're, it's in your nature to want to look at these potential threats and analyze andsay, what's the risk?
What's the risk?
What's the risk?
it's your survival instinct at work.
And you when you're reading that
you know, doomsday article it's feeding that.
But if you actually look at the data of what's happened over time, it's probably not gonnacome to fruition
(01:23):
Sean, kind of went down the rabbit hole and before we joined here this morning, it's justbeen a pipe full of synth wave over here.
And I'm ready for like some workout videos and some wrist warmers and stuff, you know?
That's perfect.
I've been taking some trainings on AI stuff, which has put me in a weird head space.
(01:48):
So I think you might be in a little bit of a head space that I'm at right now.
I don't know, maybe it's similar.
I was thinking to myself while listening to some of these eighties jams, like, you know,it seems so, it seems so you could peg the decade pretty easily if you're, you know,
exposed to music or whatever, but like, you know how futuristic some of this stuff had tohave sounded when you just like put on a seventies playlist and then move it over to like
(02:16):
synth wave, which was six years later.
It's like, Whoa.
Does it still feel futuristic to you today when you listen to...
of it, I feel like it could be, know, especially if, I don't even know if this is right.
I'm not educated enough to know, but like, if it was recorded with newer equipment, likethe instruments don't have to be newer, the, something about the recording, the clarity or
(02:42):
like the fidelity or something, I think would, if it was fuller, I don't have the words,but I feel like there are times when I wouldn't be able to tell you definitively that that
was.
40 years ago.
40 years ago.
That's crazy.
right.
Almost 50 on some of them.
(03:07):
When I hear that music like, what was when you shared with me yesterday?
Rain girl, make it rain.
Well, I wish to notice I'm seeing specifically night call by Kavinsky by Kavinsky.
You know, that's a you know, a modern song that sounds very much like the 80s.
But also to me when I hear it, I it feels still futuristic, like I almost it almost feelslike it belongs in like a futuristic dystopian movie.
(03:35):
I think it's in Drive.
But it feels like it could belong in it could belong in
Or stuff that genre just feels like could belong in the next Blade Runner when they makeit.
yeah, okay, I'm with you there.
I was gonna say something like futuristic as if we landed on the moon.
Yeah, that too.
Because it feels like we haven't because it's been so long
(04:01):
That's been a minute.
you know, we did it.
We said, but what's the point of this?
No, that's true.
Yeah, we need to be we need to be out in outer space for synthwave to feel right, I guess.
So maybe maybe Elon will get us there.
my god, yeah.
I wouldn't, yeah, what'll be the first song played on Mars?
(04:22):
maybe Grimes has that locked down.
Good answer.
Good answer.
think, well, I mean, I wouldn't, well, or will NASA be able to on like a Rover have aspeaker, you know, and just like symbolically play.
(04:47):
Yeah, I don't think so.
Yeah, I don't think so.
Actually.
Good point.
You need an atmosphere, wouldn't you?
Yeah, it's gonna have to be a radio transmission.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, so it'll be a long time because you're have to terraform it.
And well, I guess, you know, if you're there in pods, right, you have pressurized pods.
That would be the first instance of music being played.
(05:12):
Yes, I watched it.
I forgot the book.
should actually probably check that one out.
It was such a good movie.
Yeah.
His other one, now I'm forgetting, I'm spacing on the name, the newer Artemis.
also good.
Just like blast through it.
Really fun read.
Really hard.
Like I lost sleep because it was hard to put down at night.
(05:33):
Yeah.
Okay, those are good.
I haven't had one those in a while.
The last one I had, the most recent one was five December's.
I am by someone with the last name Kestrel or something.
It's like a cheesy, not cheesy.
Well, maybe the cover.
It was recommended to me.
And then I saw the cover.
If I saw the cover, I wouldn't have bought the book.
(05:54):
Like without the recommendation, right?
It just seems like a cheesy detective novel, but it was just fun.
Fun read.
Honolulu, Hong Kong, Manila, five December's.
around, it was the five December's like proceeding and after World War II.
Okay, interesting.
Yeah, all in the Pacific theater following like one dude's life in those five December.
(06:19):
Interesting.
Okay.
I have to give that one a check out for some fun reads.
feel like the, I feel like the, like the last book I had that was one that just kept me upwas, it's been a while, but I think it was like a, maybe a Joe Nesbo even, like the Harry
Hole series.
I was really into Scandinavian crime for a period and read.
(06:44):
crime what makes Scandinavian crime different than
It's just the dark, like, I don't know the Scandinavian writers when they write, they havethis like darkness about it that I enjoy.
this is what I thought I would get out of Seattle when I moved there, but it didn'thappen.
I like the Scandinavian darkness.
Yeah.
(07:05):
like in tone and in like the description of the places.
and so who, who have I read from there?
Harry, Harry holes series by Jonas bow.
the Erlender series by, Arnold or in Dredison who's Icelandic.
(07:28):
Hmm.
And then the series, it's a Swedish series.
It was also made into a BBC series of films.
was his name.
Okay, I might give this Harry Hole thing a go.
Yeah, I think it all started with actually Stieg Larsen's, Girl with the Dragon tattooseries.
(07:49):
Henning Mankell is the other author.
And he wrote a series
about,
Kurt Wallander, Kurt Wallander.
Henny Mankel wrote a series about Kurt Wallander, this lead detective that spanned, youknow, more or less, it was like a 20 year coverage of his life, in the series.
(08:11):
That was really interesting.
For some reason, all these authors end up going into like Africa.
At some point there's always a book in Africa.
don't know why.
Yeah.
Why did Toto write that song?
I haven't listened to Toto in forever.
(08:31):
Wait, you gave me a question and I lost it.
Well, here's my question.
Where would you recommend people start with this Scandi detective crime genre?
You know, I think Nesbo's Harry Hole is definitely the, they made a couple of movies outof those because they were really popular.
I would just pick one of series, start at the beginning.
(08:55):
Yeah.
I think that was the, Actually I wonder, I don't know if he's written any new ones lately.
I haven't looked in a couple, a couple of years.
He might have a couple of more.
I might have to go check back out.
You can pick up Artemis or Martian or 5 December's.
All three of those are just like, I thought they were just really fun.
(09:15):
I'm gonna pick up Harry Hole.
Now for our study session slash homework slash non-fiction assortment, I think we've bothbegun Sovereign Individual.
have, I'm about a quarter of way through it so far.
good.
Okay, further than me.
I think I just finished chapter two or something.
(09:37):
Okay, yeah, what chapter does that put me in?
Like four or five?
What are your, all right, first couple chapters, what are your impressions with whatyou've seen so far?
It's a big slog of a book.
Yes it is.
It's very long.
yeah.
It seems as though the ideas are just sprinkled throughout.
(09:58):
I really wish there was like a PDF companion.
Because I can't say that like, I'm, know, nonfiction can be tricky for me sometimes.
And I would imagine it's this way for everyone except for the top 1 % smart.
weirdo people that we've got.
(10:18):
I felt, I feel like it's a kind of book that like, if I lose grasp of my attention, I'mextremely likely to miss like an important sentence mixed in with the pages and pages of
detailed history about knighthood that I don't care about.
(10:38):
I like, do I need the lesson on why chivalry existed and why it was romanticized and whyour view of chivalry is?
completely mismatched with reality of what chivalry was back in the day?
Is that somehow going to set something up in chapter seven that I need?
I don't know either.
It is.
Yeah, I doubt it too.
(11:00):
Yeah.
there were some interesting things that I did learn around the, some of the knighthoodconcepts and how that was, What did I learn versus no, like it reinforced the ideas of,
their importance, the economy.
(11:22):
Knights?
What how?
And maybe this is something he's building into that I may be a little further in, how sobasically a knight to, you know, become a night, the set of armor was basically the
equivalent worth of like 30 sheep.
The horse was worth like 20 sheep.
(11:43):
I'm sorry, the armor was like 60 sheep in the horse, like 20 sheep.
And so thinking about how
really to, you know, get the technology, you know, at that early stage, it was it wasreally, it was really, you had to be wealthy or be sponsored, right.
So it's kind of interesting how that and that you I understanding a little more on thatmilitaristic side of the importance of that technology and the feudalistic landscape and
(12:11):
the way that the feudal economy worked and developed into then these little clusters thatwere, you know,
kind of almost in they were almost in individual sovereignty is in a way right little citystates.
Well, that's, that's the build that he got or they, whoever got into, right?
Is this feudalistic atomized.
(12:33):
And so I agree, they spent a little, they went a little too much on it maybe, but therewere some stuff I gleaned at least.
Yeah, maybe.
But at the same time, like if you, if they were to present the argument of like, well,feudal States worked like this and they were nights and blah, blah, blah.
(12:54):
And, you know, it might seem like a raw deal, but the serfs kind of had like no option.
was basically foreclosure or give everything to your Lord.
And now you had these little fiefdoms and the nights protected you and the nobles wagedwar of expansion and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But it wasn't England.
Right.
(13:14):
Mm-hmm.
Then all of a sudden it was about nation states and it was England.
And he'd be like, wait, wait, how did we get there?
What's your, what's your.
So I feel like they do a good job of despite the meandering, they do build you into theposition that like I didn't have any trouble understanding where we came from to explain
(13:38):
where we got to.
And I suppose,
We're getting, you know, the whole point is to show statehood, nation statehood intowhatever this next thing that they're proposing.
they're trying to, yeah, what they're doing is exploring that.
they kind of say it early on, forecasting through the use of historical analysis,essentially looking at how these trends played out at these transition points during the,
(14:07):
they start getting into the industrial revolution, which is actually, I learned a fewthings there, They posit that it really started much earlier than most, a lot of
historians say.
because the technology was really starting to be used earlier.
And we measure it by when we see, start to see improvement in living standards a lot oftimes, which is like 18th century timeframe versus a lot of that was the, the living
(14:35):
standards kind of lagging indicator.
And really a lot of it was happening much more in the like 14th and 15th century in termsof how the
politics of the society changed and you know, the church becoming displaced as a result.
I'll let you get to it in the book.
They do a wonderful job of kind of building an interesting argument there or interestingpoint.
(15:01):
what was there was another term that they was like mega, mega political or something likethat.
yeah, I need to get my head wrapped around that term a little more.
It's, it's.
feel like in context, I'm like, I follow I'm on board.
And then I'm like, then I go back and I'm like, Can I explain mega political movement,whatever it is the term that they're
(15:25):
trend, right?
It's like, it's like, there's like, it's the, it's the yeah, no, yeah, exactly.
It's more about policy and like, so, philosophy.
Yeah.
Political economy philosophy of how the people believe and behave and think.
and the society around that, I think it is, it's kind of like that the mega political.
(15:51):
term is kind of a Mac, I'm just using it macro economic is like the closest analog I canthink of.
Then maybe the maybe as they continue to use it all, develop more insights into what theirtheir meaning is.
Yeah, so I think I think we'll probably learn more about that term and have a muchdifferent feeling of it.
(16:12):
When we're at the end of the book, the more rare right now is what I will predict.
I don't know.
That's a good question.
I think
Coming into it, I had heard a lot of comparisons to the fourth turning, which obviously,we talk a lot about.
And so I just wanted to understand maybe why those comparisons were being made as much asanything.
(16:37):
And to see if I thought they were, you if it was of that level of thought and...
I would say so far it's an interesting companion piece as they're, they're taking asimilar tact of analyzing this, these historical cycles, in, predicting, you know, more of
what the future, I think they're going to get to specifically what the future governmentthey think will look like.
(17:00):
one thing I'll say is I think they were kind of short-sighted about,
the capability and ability of the government to actually handle some of the things andcontrol the digital economy in a way that I don't think they envisioned.
And I think that was a little short-sighted on their part because they're positing thatthe...
world is going to change because you won't have to rely on fiat currency or really thegovernment won't be able to control how taxes are levied on online purchases and things
(17:32):
like that.
And Dan, as you know, that is not the case.
So.
no, there was a lot more skirting of taxes before e-commerce.
Way more.
Because everything is legible now.
Legible by machines and therefore by government, you know?
If I go pay a guy five bucks cash for something, no one needs to know.
(17:56):
And that happened a lot.
I mean, it's still happening, but that used to happen a lot more.
Or be more, you were...
there were more opportunities to do.
Yes.
Now you cannot buy something on my site and do it in an illegible way.
Exactly.
Yeah, there's, there's a permanent record of everything, in a, you know, in a much moreorganized way than ever before.
(18:19):
And even, you know, you could say, well, crypto is, is that new, you know, taking away thestrength of the fiat currency.
And sure.
I don't, I don't see it because,
it's not nearly as anonymous as it was, said to be when it was first coming out.
Like these wall, mean,
(18:42):
Yeah, because of the way we're having to actually utilize to make crypto actually usablein our economy, you have to build in these other systems.
with the KYC, the Know Your Customer requirements, it's basically impossible to use it ina way that would replace the dollar in our economy at the moment.
(19:09):
At least that's my view of it.
Maybe I'm sort of excited or not seeing something.
No, I don't know.
mean, I always keep, mean, USDC maybe is like something, the whole Bitcoin thing, it's notas, it's too volatile.
a different argument to say for digital transactions.
There's, there's utility in it, but I don't see it's going to, I will say though, I know,I know people who transfer money internationally, get a lot of utility out of it.
(19:39):
So there's, there's, there's use cases and it can be a lot cheaper for certain things.
So I think it's going to continue to be.
idea of a window into what their alternative was prior to?
I mean, just Western Union wire transfers.
Very like that were relatively slow and also the fees would be, you know, 50, 80, 90 bucksto send a transfer.
(20:02):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So they were able to do it much lower, which is if you're only sending 200 bucks.
Yeah.
Right.
I mean, I just sent a wire transfer the other day of $85.
I'm like, this is stupid.
I had to, it was just a thing that needed to get done, like, I can't, it's a long story,but yeah.
(20:25):
That sucks.
Cause yeah, what's the wire transfer cost at a bank?
25 bucks?
50 bucks?
Yeah.
it depends on your benefits at the bank.
My situation is one where I think it's normally $45 and then sometimes they discount it to35.
And then if you are a certain tier member, then it gets waived.
(20:46):
So on my account, I get charged and then it disappears at the end of the month.
Not bad.
not so bad.
I can't complain for zero dollars.
I only send a handful of wires each month.
But a handful of wires every single month at 35, 45 bucks a pop, know, that begins to be areal expense.
(21:07):
Exactly.
again, with your, internationally, you're, might be wiring money back to family.
might not be a large amount.
A lot of times it might be, you know, smaller portions.
So, it's a big, it can be a big percentage.
so if they're able to reduce that with better technology by all means, let's do it.
Cause the, the, the way ACH works, automated clearinghouse, it's just, it's a, it's anoodley mess.
(21:35):
of a view ever look at if you ever look at who was who's all the parties involved it'sit's it's it's a nut it's nuts.
It is nuts.
Yeah.
And it's no wonder it takes so long.
Like even with the wires, it's like, yeah, cool.
Wires work this way.
And then it's like, but if you don't send it by three o'clock Eastern, what?
Why, why isn't your computer just there doing this?
(21:57):
That's, know, it's why is it tied to?
Mm hmm.
Yeah, yeah.
And I understand that like, I don't know, probably more used to be than is now, but likeit's gotta get cleared or checked by a human or something.
like, I don't know, I feel like computers can do those checks better than humans thesedays.
So like, let's get on that.
(22:19):
Anyway, between banking and healthcare, there's a lot of like, well, healthcare blew up.
Well, that's probably bad.
There was a big...
happening in the world of healthcare that exposed, think, an attitude amongst the Americanpeople that some people had no idea existed.
It appears.
(22:41):
Yeah, you're clearly talking about Luigi Mangione.
Yeah, the United healthcare assassination is.
I am surprised at the spread of the reaction, right?
The spread of the, like the diversity of the reaction and some of the size of like.
(23:01):
The diversity of the reaction?
Yeah, like I'm pretty like, this is terrible.
what the hell this is.
Yeah.
Murder's never okay.
And then there's people saying, well, you have to understand that they see denial ofclaims as violence.
like, is it?
I guess.
I don't like.
Yeah, just, mean, I, yeah.
(23:25):
Yeah.
Exactly.
I feel like there's more, I don't know.
There's more defending of, of,
Well, and I guess it's really not that much.
It's, don't know.
It's just, there's a few, there's some loud, you know, it's a few loud people, right?
Is it though?
I thought it was much.
Okay, so for the camp of murder is okay.
It is way bigger than I thought it would be.
(23:47):
And there are, would say, people maybe in your life that feel that way that have not saidit out loud to you.
That's what I mean by bigger or like way bigger than I thought.
Like when it happened, as soon as I saw the head on, was like, kind of not surprised.
I, yeah.
surprise me that this occurred at all.
It was not a shocking occurrence.
was a...
(24:08):
Frankly, I'm surprised it hadn't happened before.
thinking about it.
says a lot about where people are at with their relationship with healthcare.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
It, it does not function properly at the moment.
I don't know if it does anywhere, but I guess it does, but
I think it's little broken everywhere.
Yeah.
(24:28):
It's either, you know, it's like totally accessible and you can get anything you want forpennies and it's terrible.
Like level of care isn't high or it's like modern care, but either it's like gettingaccess to it is true troublesome because there's not enough capacity because it's all
single payer and government controlled.
And then I don't know.
(24:48):
Yeah.
Look at every, like, look at any of the advanced countries and there's, you can pick upyour flavor of failure.
somewhere in there, right?
Yeah, I think that's very true.
think any system, if you go and look closely, there's problems under each of them.
So, you know, you don't scrap the system, I think you gotta keep just iterating it, right?
(25:14):
But it's such a big thing to iterate that it's hard to, just the sheer volume of dollarsmoving through it and all the transactions and like the way that hospital price books,
work is just insane.
How they set their standard.
Yeah, no, because and they set their standard costs so high.
(25:35):
So that like, I think it helps them then when they negotiate with an insurance companysay, well, we gave you a 30 % break off of our standard cost of this $300 nitrile glove.
And they don't ask why is the I don't know.
I'm sure they do.
But it doesn't feel right sometimes.
is two ibuprofen $85?
Right?
(25:56):
because it was delivered to my room.
I could have door dashed a whole bottle.
For less than that.
No shit.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, you didn't even get a cut of this.
Did you nurse?
(26:18):
That's a fun idea.
It is, it is, yeah.
Actually, that's the thread to pull on.
How do you change like really, really broad strokes?
Like how do you change the incentive structure so that you get like more outcomes of whatlike.
That's a good question, yeah, like...
Because the incentives are all screwed up.
(26:39):
you know, the person that took the fall here was an insurance company executive.
Where's the main problem in the healthcare structure?
And I was like, you know,
I don't know that it's just health insurance.
think there's like some deep seated other things in there that like.
It also leaks into education too.
I was thinking about this driving down the interstate this week, driving by, University ofTexas' MD Anderson cancer center.
(27:08):
And it's like, what's the relationship there between, cause there's also UT has a numberof branches of different hospitals around the area that they're somehow partnered with.
I don't know what, like, I assume that their med school is feeding into these hospitalsand helping create, you know,
giving them places to work and stuff like that.
like, think about then how that system is not just, it's endemic in like how, how deep theroots go is what I explore.
(27:37):
I'm to say, to understand then how, how the economic incentives aligned, like where, whois getting paid for the care?
Is it going to, by whom and, and is it going into, yeah, like
If they're saying this is a teaching hospital or it's a sponsored by the university ofTexas, somehow what, what, where does, how is that money tied up or where, what's funding?
(28:00):
What I don't.
you know what?
Okay, like, it's fun to talk about, but like you and I are both gonna, we're like alreadyout over our skis in terms of understanding the different players and money movements
here.
But you know what I want?
You know how, what's the Twitter account conks?
He does these like federal reserve or like Fed repo, like flow chart things, super crazydetailed things about money movements.
(28:30):
I didn't know BNY Mellon did so much stuff, man.
Yeah.
It's crazy.
But anyway, that I want him to do healthcare, like just do one hospital system and then doone like small independent pediatrics center, right?
Like, because you know, there's still like 85 counterparties.
(28:50):
Yeah, yeah, for just like one hospital payment, essentially, like what are the what is theYeah.
I wonder I wonder
begin to disassemble the incentive structure.
I wonder how publicly transparent that is to be able to even be researched and diagrammed.
I'm sure it's possible, but I don't know where you would begin.
(29:17):
Somebody, there's some hedge funds with one, with an analyst at a desk somewhere that'slike got it all in his head or her head.
Yeah.
I guess you, yeah.
because it's a private transaction versus, well, and how regulated are those transactionstoo?
There has to be some regulation on how they flow and how they're recorded and documented.
(29:41):
That would be like the next pane of what I would want, right?
If you're gonna double click on anything, it would be, and this is why this particularrelationship or transaction has to be the way that it is.
You can't change it without Congress.
Yeah.
Yeah, right.
The blocks in red are locked in by law.
(30:02):
Locked in by which I think would be illuminating, right?
Like where, yeah.
If you want to fix anything, it's like.
Yeah, you gotta know the source of what you wanna fix.
Is it people's attitudes?
Is it, we've always done it this way, why should we do it differently?
Or is it, awe?
Yeah, so yeah.
Because you know in healthcare there's a bunch of those.
That's true.
(30:22):
like people's attitudes about the system here and with this assassination and sayingthey're frustrated, they're angry.
Absolutely.
Again, I think very understandable.
Like I think it's related.
don't, I don't, I'm not even, I'm not even, I'm not even, don't, I don't even thinkthey're crazy for feeling this.
I think I get it.
I just, I'm surprised how many people do feel that way.
(30:43):
in a way.
And I guess, yeah, I don't know.
by, I think the author's name is Graham Wood in the Atlantic that sort of wrote up a pieceabout this, about the ugliness of this particular attitude and how from his take it just
feels sort of uncivil, un-American, you know, sort of.
(31:08):
I'd have to go back and pull more of the right words out of it.
But ugly was one word that I know that he used, yeah.
Like I said, like I can understand why and where it's coming from.
Yeah.
but that doesn't mean it's okay.
But why is it, why are so many people capable of feeling this?
(31:28):
Virulent.
Is that the right word?
I mean, is it easily spread?
Could you cope?
If you get butter the right temperature, could you call it virulent?
Just get rid of this part.
Sorry.
(31:50):
Yeah.
Ooh, yeah, so maybe either maybe virulent might be a right word.
Yeah, is the right word.
It's
as soon as I find two other people that I'm close-ish with that feel this way maybe itbecomes okay for me to feel this way right
yeah, nobody throws rocks in the crowd until one person does, right?
(32:13):
That it's that first shot that's fired then.
And that's.
happen, right?
Someone throws a rock and then someone throws a bottle and then the next bottle has aflaming rag in it.
Yeah.
I don't know how he, I don't think you could escalate this in that way, but I'm notthankful.
Thank gosh.
But, yeah.
(32:34):
I don't- I wouldn't.
I don't know that I would say that.
Anything is escalatable.
Although security teams have probably completely blown up at this point in size andbudget.
a good day to be in this independent security contractors, right?
Yeah, all the retired green berets and seals have like gotten pay raises, I'm sure.
(32:55):
Mm-hmm Axon's doing all right, I guess
Axon.
What they do body cams, yeah?
Private security aren't gonna be wearing those.
I think they do tasers and stuff too.
okay.
I don't know your former seal doing private security like you're packing man.
Hmm, true.
Well, you might be packing both is what I'm saying.
(33:17):
I don't know.
Yeah.
you could be.
don't know about the inner workings of those decisions.
Much less public scrutiny than police officers.
I'm gonna do some wildfire here on things I don't understand in our shared note.
ennui and the zeitgeist, zeitgeist is zeitgeist nine buffalo.
(33:40):
Okay.
by the way, if you want the American version it's bison.
I learned that by living in the Great Plains here.
Yeah, they are buffalo.
is why has that been allowed to?
The same reason why we call a certain kind of person an Indian here, even though they arenot.
Maybe.
That's a conjecture.
(34:01):
know.
Yeah.
Hmm.
Okay.
That's interesting bison.
So I was just like noticing like you had mentioned it.
And then I just heard people use the word ennui a lot in the last month or a couple ofmonths.
So I'm like, why is, why is this, why is the term ennui now suddenly kind of in, in thezeitgeist and same.
(34:21):
for a forerunner and then all of a sudden seeing lots of forerunners.
Okay, I'm gonna disagree with you on this.
I have one reason why, because I have a book on my shelf by Kurt Vonnegut.
I forget which book it was in, but I know I have, because it's the first time I saw theword, I underlined it and I looked it up and I'm like, that's an interesting word.
(34:44):
And I've dropped it occasionally from time to time.
I it in a song years ago.
It just blew up.
I swear.
I think part of it is Inside Out 2, right?
That's one of the main characters is ennui So I think that's gotta be it.
that's gotta be yeah.
It's it's just interesting to me.
Like I've loved the word for so long and like it never heard anybody use it.
(35:07):
Now I'm just like all the fricking time.
I love it.
Like it's great.
Excellent.
We're all, we're all learning this like complicated emotional term.
It's kind like in a way, one of those Japanese words, feels like it has like a veryspecific meaning that like you can't just replicate with other words type of situation.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
It's like, okay, yeah, that you can't describe that with any other word.
(35:31):
Well,
going to say the English sentence that it takes to say up that word.
I'm going to, you know, move that word into my lexicon.
Yeah.
exactly.
Exactly.
and then, yeah, and I also feel like I've been hearing zeitgeist more the last couple ofmonths, but, or maybe that's just me.
Cause we were talking about that one, that one very well could be the, shopping for a ravfour and, start seeing rav fours everywhere.
(37:14):
Just delete that off.
I can get that out of my headspace now.
Speaking of words, another thing on our list here, one word that kind of.
Crystallized for me a little a little differently this week was the word overkill from thebook That we're reading that we're discussing earlier Sovereign individual.
Thank you
Yeah.
Cause like in there they do, he doesn't interest they, he, who wrote it?
I don't even know.
Anyway, lots of discussion around hunter gatherer societies and how, know, you might workeight to 15 hours a week.
there was no wake up schedule, you know, it's like remarkably lazy because there was noincentive for overworking and overworking often meant you needed more calories, which put
the group in danger.
Exactly.
And we, I've used the term so many times just saying, that's too much.
That's overkill without really thinking about what it means and what it was describing.
Wasted food because you made too big of a kill, yeah?
Yeah, and it's like, man, that really is a more powerful word than we really give itcredit for if you know what it means.
Yeah, because we've been so disconnected from...
Yeah, exactly.
the outcomes that made this word what it is.
Yeah, it's just become a meaningless kind of throwaway term in a way, but it really is a,it has a deeper, a much deeper meaning.
I don't know those words pop up every once in I'm like, man, I've never really thoughtabout the word in that way.
And it's just a stupid compound word that has become part of of our lexicon in, in, youknow, different ways.
(37:39):
And that's fine.
Language changes.
Language is allowed to change.
I'm just interesting to me.
not complaining.
I'm just noting.
for, for, answer your question, it's a sovereign individual is written by James DaleDavidson and Lord William Reese Mogg.
Wow.
with a intro by Peter Thiel.
Yeah.
One of the other things that I'm having trouble with is like how quickly, or maybe thiswas in the pro, maybe this is the Peter Teal section.
(38:06):
don't know, but like all this doomsday ish stuff around the year 2000 and like just somuch time spent on that.
And so many going back to reference that.
And it was just so wrong.
he really sat in this book up for like how often the conjectures are going to be wrong.
(38:26):
Mm-hmm.
that's kind of where I am as well.
And again, I think they underestimated the power and responsiveness of some of ourinstitutions and our society and humans generally.
(38:47):
think from the looks of it, they're saying,
They're trying to paint this picture of why they predict that we're going to be a muchmore fragmented society where the nation state is weaker and.
Their argument is that, the individuals will be stronger and won't need to rely on thenation state.
But also I would argue back people like it.
(39:09):
Like you would be making society worse with this.
And I don't think people by and large want that.
Which is we like the doomsday stuff.
Yeah, we like this doomsday stuff because it's interesting.
It feeds something in our inner selves that like we...
(39:31):
Because also our nature, know, like intrinsically, when we before humans were civilizedand modernized, and you know, we were evolving.
If you if you think about it, they were always looking out for threats constantly, right?
So you're, it's in your nature to want to look at these potential threats and analyze andsay, what's the risk?
(39:54):
What's the risk?
What's the risk?
It's, it's your, it's your survival instinct at work.
And you when you're reading that
you know, doomsday article or that, that, that, that, doomer article it's feeding that.
But if you actually look at the data of what's happened over time, it's probably not gonnacome to fruition in such a dramatic way.
(40:17):
Like I think there's interesting things that are bringing up and I want to see whatinteresting ideas they have that might actually apply.
But yeah, think a lot of it's going to be well off the mark of what really happens.
Yeah.
I couldn't agree more.
think it, no, it is totally fun.
And I, and, and going back to you saying it was like a, it's a good companion piece forthe fourth turning.
(40:37):
I couldn't agree more.
the thing about the fourth turning is like, I think it would be easy to like, listen to ustalk about sovereign individual here when we're both like two to four chapters into it.
even though we're like raving about like, you got to the fourth turning.
It's a, there's so many interesting concepts in there that.
you know, may or may not be true, but do somewhat map onto history.
(41:01):
So maybe we can, you know, use it to be predictive of possible future outcomes.
Mm-hmm.
But with the fourth turning, feels like a map that is trying to do its best to lay onto aterritory.
(41:24):
Whereas Sovereign Individual feels a little bit more like I went to the crystal ball.
And it's like they're having to spend so much of the book on history so that they so thatit feels more grounded in something rather than saying like, we're just super idealistic.
And we are the 10 % of all human beings who are extremely, not highly extremelyindividualistic and highly agentic and want to carve our own path.
(41:56):
And we would like to apply this upon.
all other humans, even though it's not gonna work like I agree with you, I don't thinkit's gonna work that way.
I don't think it's gonna be attractive to most people.
Most people like safety and comfort and kinda chillaxin'.
Exactly, because it'll seem like a degradation and why would we allow that to happen?
Why wouldn't we then say, is a degradation, let's fix it?
(42:20):
The hunter gatherer thing was like exemplifying where they went wrong.
thought I was like, so like humans prefer to not have alarms and prefer to like work 18,15 hours a week.
Like that's, that was nice other than the maggots in the food.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, and, yeah, and also, what do you know of the then the other work that they you saythey weren't doing?
(42:47):
Like, I question like, were they, you know, I don't know, I guess, they have some somebasis there for some argument.
But I don't know, I felt that was a point that didn't resonate with me either.
I'll just say that.
Yeah.
It felt dissonant, if anything.
It didn't ring true.
didn't even serve their purpose is how I felt.
(43:09):
No.
Then again, we're too early in.
well, maybe, you know, don't judge a book by its first, don't judge a book by its firstquarter or something.
I don't know.
I've always taken the fail fast approach.
(43:29):
Yeah, there's a book.
There's a book on my nightstand right now that's like, I don't know, got awards andeverything.
And I'm like, not hitting me right now.
It might.
Demon Copperhead.
Not heard of it.
Okay.
Yeah.
I'll be honest, it felt too much like back woods Indiana.
(43:52):
And I'm like, yeah, I've been there.
Yeah.
Did you ever read any Ayn Rand?
I have not, actually.
I've gotten through the fountainhead about three quarters of way twice.
hahahaha
is funny to me.
(44:13):
Did you did you listen to the made you think episode on they did one or two Ayn Rand booksWorth it worth it.
Yeah
yeah.
Yeah.
Like part of it, I kind of like but then it just just it just ground like it just like
I hear the writing is terrible.
The ideas can be...
yeah.
(44:33):
Okay.
Okay.
like, I'm just like the, the, the, prose is not good.
The, the communication, like the idea is fine.
Sure.
Okay.
I get what you're going for, but I just, I don't care for the, yeah.
Right.
get it from the, I'm 18 years old and I'm reading the fountain head and I've beencompletely converted into this ideology.
(44:55):
And then later I'll sprout into a more balanced version of it or whatever.
That makes a lot of sense to me.
think as an 18, like that age group, think there's a reason, you know, you don't need mostpeople, you aside, don't need great prose You at 18, you know, you made fun of me for not
knowing the word esoteric when I was like 20.
(45:18):
I I believe that.
Well, you just dropped one on me.
You just dropped one on me, agentic.
I was like, that's a bingo word there.
shit, I'm so sorry.
I was a dick when I was a kid.
Don't be sorry It moved me in a good direction, you know, sometimes sometimes those thingsare good, you know Sometimes you need a slap in the face, especially when you're a young
(45:46):
man
Read a book, damn it.
What other books have been like that for you where you've gotten, where you've started andhadn't finished?
Anything that you started and hadn't, didn't finish and you came back to and read, gotback into later?
I have a couple like that.
have found me at different times.
(46:06):
I'm going to have trouble coming up with an example though.
Steinbeck did that for me with Winter of our Discontent.
It's one that comes to mind.
and then when did it work?
Ages.
Initially tried in college, worked in after being out in the world for a couple of years.
It was like four or five years later.
Okay.
(46:27):
Why do you think it worked that way for you?
A lot of the core story is kind of around the relationship of the main character with hisfamily and I think, and like his wife, and I think having just more experience and know,
love life at that point probably made it ring.
Yeah, I just, think I got it a little bit more at that point.
(46:50):
I needed a little more life experience.
I stopped reading East of Eden, speaking of Steinbeck.
I keep wanting to come back to that one because I felt like I enjoying it, but I don'tknow why I stopped.
I would like to read that one.
Yeah, I haven't read any Steinbeck in a while.
Yeah, it's like 600 pages maybe?
500-600?
(47:11):
Kinda chonky boy.
That's how I'm feeling right now.
I'm feeling like a chunky boy.
My November didn't treat me all that great.
Or like, guess, trailing 30 days.
You know, I'd have to go and like...
That's fair.
was just curious if there's anything that might come to your mind.
(47:32):
I'm trying to think of other books like I've picked up and then put down.
Murakami, Haruki Murakami, he wrote...
These, I guess these would be books we specifically don't recommend.
Wait what?
I was just thinking, I saying, was trying to think of books I picked up and put down.
I'm like, why?
So I can specifically say I don't recommend these books.
(47:55):
Yeah.
no, I'd rather stay on the positive.
Like my Goodreads account is that way.
It looks, it looks like I'm an, a non discerning reader, but I'm like, I'm just one thatlike, I just put it down.
And then if I didn't finish it, then I don't think I can put a star rating on it.
So almost everything I've got on my Goodreads account is four or five stars.
Those are the ones I finished.
You know, that's, self-selection bias on that.
(48:16):
You're totally right.
Because who, if you don't finish the book, you don't, you don't, yeah.
on something when I didn't give it a fair shot, but like, I'm also not going to spend amonth reading something I don't want to read.
Yeah.
Anyway, more Murakami.
(48:37):
I think I tried to start 1Q84, think is, it was like, it came out big fanfare about like,like the book found me and I'm like, Ooh, Japanese author.
That's cool.
And I couldn't, it wasn't even like, I didn't like it.
just like, wasn't the right time of my life or something.
And then when we were traveling, I picked up his, I think only nonfiction.
(49:02):
And it was what I think about when I, what's it called?
Hold on, I have to look it up.
It should be noted, this is when I picked up my running habit when we were traveling.
And it's like a miniature memoir of his, what I talk about when I talk about running.
And I just, it was short, quick, not hard to read.
And I just really loved it.
(49:23):
And then I went back and read two more of his fiction books.
And I want to read more.
They're fantastical is what I would call them.
Have you ever read any of his work?
this is first time hearing it.
It looks interesting.
Yeah, it's weird.
Weird in a good way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Weird in a good way.
That's yeah so it's hard to describe but in a good way.
(49:46):
Okay.
No it sounds kind of it sounds it sounds intriguing.
I really I really haven't read much fiction this year.
I need to make a point to finish something over a winter break.
Something fun.
Can you make the decision right here?
Do it live.
you know?
(50:07):
You got me thinking of a couple ones.
What did you recommend earlier in the episode?
There was something you'd said.
five December's you would burn that in an afternoon, dude, like.
right.
I'll commit to that.
I'm going to try that one over a winter break.
But yeah, maybe then I'll get onto some Murakami if I'm still feeling it.
(50:28):
I don't know.
Yeah.
2009, 10.
One Q84 came out, yeah, 2009.
Mm-hmm.
or published in English in 2011.
All right.
Well, that's when I thought I was so high brow.
(50:48):
What does that even mean to be high brow at this point?
Does it, does that term still apply today?
I think it always applies to you.
think it's a state of a state of projection.
Okay.
That doesn't mean that you are.
It means that you're trying to be interpreted as.
Yes, there you go.
Okay, yeah, that feels right to me.
That feels right to me.
(51:08):
Okay, that makes sense.
think it's very like, and the reason why people don't like it is not that, not that peopleshouldn't be punching up and trying to get better.
It's just that it's fake, but also fake it until you make it.
I don't know, you know.
Yeah, yeah, you can't be the...
If you want to be something, you have to be it, right?
(51:29):
I guess.
To an extent, or at least, or be its antithesis, if you're, I don't know, yeah,something's there.
Like the complete embodiment of contrarian.
Mm-hmm.
That's very high.
Feels like that'd be a conflicting thing to be.
I guess what I mean is like the phrase like be, how am I supposed to change the system ifyou're telling me to leave the system?
(51:58):
I need to change it from within.
Something like that, right?
Where it's like, you kind of have to be the anti-power or something in order to.
Man, we're getting, this is very high thoughts right here, yeah.
can, it's a bit high bar of you.
Hahaha!
But I can grock what you're saying though.
It makes sense.
(52:18):
okay.
Let's get off of that one, I'm getting uncomfortable.
Well, that's another interesting compound word high brow.
What is I wonder what the origins of that are like?
Is it literally a brow?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I'm gonna have to poke it, poke around find a etymology of it.
(52:39):
And I was going to say, yeah, what's that?
Yeah.
What else we got?
Anything?
man, I don't know.
No,
let's say.
Adios to everybody have a great week and thanks for, thanks for joining.
hope you guys are enjoying, the weekly episodes that we're putting up here for, the restof the year, trying to hit that goal, probably go back to bi-weekly after the start of the
(53:01):
year.
but the extra content for the holidays for y'all.
Otherwise, Dan, got anything else you want to say?
Send us notes, feedback.
Yeah, well, just in any way that we can get better, but we appreciate all who are hangingout with us.
Absolutely.
Peace out everybody.
(53:22):
Bye.
Because also our nature, like intrinsically, when we before humans were civilized andmodernized, and you know, we were evolving.
(00:08):
If you if you think about it, they were always looking out for threats constantly, right?
So you're, it's in your nature to want to look at these potential threats and analyze andsay, what's the risk?
What's the risk?
What's the risk?
it's your survival instinct at work.
And you when you're reading that
you know, doomsday article it's feeding that.
But if you actually look at the data of what's happened over time, it's probably not gonnacome to fruition
(01:23):
Sean, kind of went down the rabbit hole and before we joined here this morning, it's justbeen a pipe full of synth wave over here.
And I'm ready for like some workout videos and some wrist warmers and stuff, you know?
That's perfect.
I've been taking some trainings on AI stuff, which has put me in a weird head space.
(01:48):
So I think you might be in a little bit of a head space that I'm at right now.
I don't know, maybe it's similar.
I was thinking to myself while listening to some of these eighties jams, like, you know,it seems so, it seems so you could peg the decade pretty easily if you're, you know,
exposed to music or whatever, but like, you know how futuristic some of this stuff had tohave sounded when you just like put on a seventies playlist and then move it over to like
(02:16):
synth wave, which was six years later.
It's like, Whoa.
Does it still feel futuristic to you today when you listen to...
of it, I feel like it could be, know, especially if, I don't even know if this is right.
I'm not educated enough to know, but like, if it was recorded with newer equipment, likethe instruments don't have to be newer, the, something about the recording, the clarity or
(02:42):
like the fidelity or something, I think would, if it was fuller, I don't have the words,but I feel like there are times when I wouldn't be able to tell you definitively that that
was.
40 years ago.
40 years ago.
That's crazy.
right.
Almost 50 on some of them.
(03:07):
When I hear that music like, what was when you shared with me yesterday?
Rain girl, make it rain.
Well, I wish to notice I'm seeing specifically night call by Kavinsky by Kavinsky.
You know, that's a you know, a modern song that sounds very much like the 80s.
But also to me when I hear it, I it feels still futuristic, like I almost it almost feelslike it belongs in like a futuristic dystopian movie.
(03:35):
I think it's in Drive.
But it feels like it could belong in it could belong in
Or stuff that genre just feels like could belong in the next Blade Runner when they makeit.
yeah, okay, I'm with you there.
I was gonna say something like futuristic as if we landed on the moon.
Yeah, that too.
Because it feels like we haven't because it's been so long
(04:01):
That's been a minute.
you know, we did it.
We said, but what's the point of this?
No, that's true.
Yeah, we need to be we need to be out in outer space for synthwave to feel right, I guess.
So maybe maybe Elon will get us there.
my god, yeah.
I wouldn't, yeah, what'll be the first song played on Mars?
(04:22):
maybe Grimes has that locked down.
Good answer.
Good answer.
think, well, I mean, I wouldn't, well, or will NASA be able to on like a Rover have aspeaker, you know, and just like symbolically play.
(04:47):
Yeah, I don't think so.
Yeah, I don't think so.
Actually.
Good point.
You need an atmosphere, wouldn't you?
Yeah, it's gonna have to be a radio transmission.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, so it'll be a long time because you're have to terraform it.
And well, I guess, you know, if you're there in pods, right, you have pressurized pods.
That would be the first instance of music being played.
(05:12):
Yes, I watched it.
I forgot the book.
should actually probably check that one out.
It was such a good movie.
Yeah.
His other one, now I'm forgetting, I'm spacing on the name, the newer Artemis.
also good.
Just like blast through it.
Really fun read.
Really hard.
Like I lost sleep because it was hard to put down at night.
(05:33):
Yeah.
Okay, those are good.
I haven't had one those in a while.
The last one I had, the most recent one was five December's.
I am by someone with the last name Kestrel or something.
It's like a cheesy, not cheesy.
Well, maybe the cover.
It was recommended to me.
And then I saw the cover.
If I saw the cover, I wouldn't have bought the book.
(05:54):
Like without the recommendation, right?
It just seems like a cheesy detective novel, but it was just fun.
Fun read.
Honolulu, Hong Kong, Manila, five December's.
around, it was the five December's like proceeding and after World War II.
Okay, interesting.
Yeah, all in the Pacific theater following like one dude's life in those five December.
(06:19):
Interesting.
Okay.
I have to give that one a check out for some fun reads.
feel like the, I feel like the, like the last book I had that was one that just kept me upwas, it's been a while, but I think it was like a, maybe a Joe Nesbo even, like the Harry
Hole series.
I was really into Scandinavian crime for a period and read.
(06:44):
crime what makes Scandinavian crime different than
It's just the dark, like, I don't know the Scandinavian writers when they write, they havethis like darkness about it that I enjoy.
this is what I thought I would get out of Seattle when I moved there, but it didn'thappen.
I like the Scandinavian darkness.
Yeah.
(07:05):
like in tone and in like the description of the places.
and so who, who have I read from there?
Harry, Harry holes series by Jonas bow.
the Erlender series by, Arnold or in Dredison who's Icelandic.
(07:28):
Hmm.
And then the series, it's a Swedish series.
It was also made into a BBC series of films.
was his name.
Okay, I might give this Harry Hole thing a go.
Yeah, I think it all started with actually Stieg Larsen's, Girl with the Dragon tattooseries.
(07:49):
Henning Mankell is the other author.
And he wrote a series
about,
Kurt Wallander, Kurt Wallander.
Henny Mankel wrote a series about Kurt Wallander, this lead detective that spanned, youknow, more or less, it was like a 20 year coverage of his life, in the series.
(08:11):
That was really interesting.
For some reason, all these authors end up going into like Africa.
At some point there's always a book in Africa.
don't know why.
Yeah.
Why did Toto write that song?
I haven't listened to Toto in forever.
(08:31):
Wait, you gave me a question and I lost it.
Well, here's my question.
Where would you recommend people start with this Scandi detective crime genre?
You know, I think Nesbo's Harry Hole is definitely the, they made a couple of movies outof those because they were really popular.
I would just pick one of series, start at the beginning.
(08:55):
Yeah.
I think that was the, Actually I wonder, I don't know if he's written any new ones lately.
I haven't looked in a couple, a couple of years.
He might have a couple of more.
I might have to go check back out.
You can pick up Artemis or Martian or 5 December's.
All three of those are just like, I thought they were just really fun.
(09:15):
I'm gonna pick up Harry Hole.
Now for our study session slash homework slash non-fiction assortment, I think we've bothbegun Sovereign Individual.
have, I'm about a quarter of way through it so far.
good.
Okay, further than me.
I think I just finished chapter two or something.
(09:37):
Okay, yeah, what chapter does that put me in?
Like four or five?
What are your, all right, first couple chapters, what are your impressions with whatyou've seen so far?
It's a big slog of a book.
Yes it is.
It's very long.
yeah.
It seems as though the ideas are just sprinkled throughout.
(09:58):
I really wish there was like a PDF companion.
Because I can't say that like, I'm, know, nonfiction can be tricky for me sometimes.
And I would imagine it's this way for everyone except for the top 1 % smart.
weirdo people that we've got.
(10:18):
I felt, I feel like it's a kind of book that like, if I lose grasp of my attention, I'mextremely likely to miss like an important sentence mixed in with the pages and pages of
detailed history about knighthood that I don't care about.
(10:38):
I like, do I need the lesson on why chivalry existed and why it was romanticized and whyour view of chivalry is?
completely mismatched with reality of what chivalry was back in the day?
Is that somehow going to set something up in chapter seven that I need?
I don't know either.
It is.
Yeah, I doubt it too.
(11:00):
Yeah.
there were some interesting things that I did learn around the, some of the knighthoodconcepts and how that was, What did I learn versus no, like it reinforced the ideas of,
their importance, the economy.
(11:22):
Knights?
What how?
And maybe this is something he's building into that I may be a little further in, how sobasically a knight to, you know, become a night, the set of armor was basically the
equivalent worth of like 30 sheep.
The horse was worth like 20 sheep.
(11:43):
I'm sorry, the armor was like 60 sheep in the horse, like 20 sheep.
And so thinking about how
really to, you know, get the technology, you know, at that early stage, it was it wasreally, it was really, you had to be wealthy or be sponsored, right.
So it's kind of interesting how that and that you I understanding a little more on thatmilitaristic side of the importance of that technology and the feudalistic landscape and
(12:11):
the way that the feudal economy worked and developed into then these little clusters thatwere, you know,
kind of almost in they were almost in individual sovereignty is in a way right little citystates.
Well, that's, that's the build that he got or they, whoever got into, right?
Is this feudalistic atomized.
(12:33):
And so I agree, they spent a little, they went a little too much on it maybe, but therewere some stuff I gleaned at least.
Yeah, maybe.
But at the same time, like if you, if they were to present the argument of like, well,feudal States worked like this and they were nights and blah, blah, blah.
(12:54):
And, you know, it might seem like a raw deal, but the serfs kind of had like no option.
was basically foreclosure or give everything to your Lord.
And now you had these little fiefdoms and the nights protected you and the nobles wagedwar of expansion and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But it wasn't England.
Right.
(13:14):
Mm-hmm.
Then all of a sudden it was about nation states and it was England.
And he'd be like, wait, wait, how did we get there?
What's your, what's your.
So I feel like they do a good job of despite the meandering, they do build you into theposition that like I didn't have any trouble understanding where we came from to explain
(13:38):
where we got to.
And I suppose,
We're getting, you know, the whole point is to show statehood, nation statehood intowhatever this next thing that they're proposing.
they're trying to, yeah, what they're doing is exploring that.
they kind of say it early on, forecasting through the use of historical analysis,essentially looking at how these trends played out at these transition points during the,
(14:07):
they start getting into the industrial revolution, which is actually, I learned a fewthings there, They posit that it really started much earlier than most, a lot of
historians say.
because the technology was really starting to be used earlier.
And we measure it by when we see, start to see improvement in living standards a lot oftimes, which is like 18th century timeframe versus a lot of that was the, the living
(14:35):
standards kind of lagging indicator.
And really a lot of it was happening much more in the like 14th and 15th century in termsof how the
politics of the society changed and you know, the church becoming displaced as a result.
I'll let you get to it in the book.
They do a wonderful job of kind of building an interesting argument there or interestingpoint.
(15:01):
what was there was another term that they was like mega, mega political or something likethat.
yeah, I need to get my head wrapped around that term a little more.
It's, it's.
feel like in context, I'm like, I follow I'm on board.
And then I'm like, then I go back and I'm like, Can I explain mega political movement,whatever it is the term that they're
(15:25):
trend, right?
It's like, it's like, there's like, it's the, it's the yeah, no, yeah, exactly.
It's more about policy and like, so, philosophy.
Yeah.
Political economy philosophy of how the people believe and behave and think.
and the society around that, I think it is, it's kind of like that the mega political.
(15:51):
term is kind of a Mac, I'm just using it macro economic is like the closest analog I canthink of.
Then maybe the maybe as they continue to use it all, develop more insights into what theirtheir meaning is.
Yeah, so I think I think we'll probably learn more about that term and have a muchdifferent feeling of it.
(16:12):
When we're at the end of the book, the more rare right now is what I will predict.
I don't know.
That's a good question.
I think
Coming into it, I had heard a lot of comparisons to the fourth turning, which obviously,we talk a lot about.
And so I just wanted to understand maybe why those comparisons were being made as much asanything.
(16:37):
And to see if I thought they were, you if it was of that level of thought and...
I would say so far it's an interesting companion piece as they're, they're taking asimilar tact of analyzing this, these historical cycles, in, predicting, you know, more of
what the future, I think they're going to get to specifically what the future governmentthey think will look like.
(17:00):
one thing I'll say is I think they were kind of short-sighted about,
the capability and ability of the government to actually handle some of the things andcontrol the digital economy in a way that I don't think they envisioned.
And I think that was a little short-sighted on their part because they're positing thatthe...
world is going to change because you won't have to rely on fiat currency or really thegovernment won't be able to control how taxes are levied on online purchases and things
(17:32):
like that.
And Dan, as you know, that is not the case.
So.
no, there was a lot more skirting of taxes before e-commerce.
Way more.
Because everything is legible now.
Legible by machines and therefore by government, you know?
If I go pay a guy five bucks cash for something, no one needs to know.
(17:56):
And that happened a lot.
I mean, it's still happening, but that used to happen a lot more.
Or be more, you were...
there were more opportunities to do.
Yes.
Now you cannot buy something on my site and do it in an illegible way.
Exactly.
Yeah, there's, there's a permanent record of everything, in a, you know, in a much moreorganized way than ever before.
(18:19):
And even, you know, you could say, well, crypto is, is that new, you know, taking away thestrength of the fiat currency.
And sure.
I don't, I don't see it because,
it's not nearly as anonymous as it was, said to be when it was first coming out.
Like these wall, mean,
(18:42):
Yeah, because of the way we're having to actually utilize to make crypto actually usablein our economy, you have to build in these other systems.
with the KYC, the Know Your Customer requirements, it's basically impossible to use it ina way that would replace the dollar in our economy at the moment.
(19:09):
At least that's my view of it.
Maybe I'm sort of excited or not seeing something.
No, I don't know.
mean, I always keep, mean, USDC maybe is like something, the whole Bitcoin thing, it's notas, it's too volatile.
a different argument to say for digital transactions.
There's, there's utility in it, but I don't see it's going to, I will say though, I know,I know people who transfer money internationally, get a lot of utility out of it.
(19:39):
So there's, there's, there's use cases and it can be a lot cheaper for certain things.
So I think it's going to continue to be.
idea of a window into what their alternative was prior to?
I mean, just Western Union wire transfers.
Very like that were relatively slow and also the fees would be, you know, 50, 80, 90 bucksto send a transfer.
(20:02):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So they were able to do it much lower, which is if you're only sending 200 bucks.
Yeah.
Right.
I mean, I just sent a wire transfer the other day of $85.
I'm like, this is stupid.
I had to, it was just a thing that needed to get done, like, I can't, it's a long story,but yeah.
(20:25):
That sucks.
Cause yeah, what's the wire transfer cost at a bank?
25 bucks?
50 bucks?
Yeah.
it depends on your benefits at the bank.
My situation is one where I think it's normally $45 and then sometimes they discount it to35.
And then if you are a certain tier member, then it gets waived.
(20:46):
So on my account, I get charged and then it disappears at the end of the month.
Not bad.
not so bad.
I can't complain for zero dollars.
I only send a handful of wires each month.
But a handful of wires every single month at 35, 45 bucks a pop, know, that begins to be areal expense.
(21:07):
Exactly.
again, with your, internationally, you're, might be wiring money back to family.
might not be a large amount.
A lot of times it might be, you know, smaller portions.
So, it's a big, it can be a big percentage.
so if they're able to reduce that with better technology by all means, let's do it.
Cause the, the, the way ACH works, automated clearinghouse, it's just, it's a, it's anoodley mess.
(21:35):
of a view ever look at if you ever look at who was who's all the parties involved it'sit's it's it's a nut it's nuts.
It is nuts.
Yeah.
And it's no wonder it takes so long.
Like even with the wires, it's like, yeah, cool.
Wires work this way.
And then it's like, but if you don't send it by three o'clock Eastern, what?
Why, why isn't your computer just there doing this?
(21:57):
That's, know, it's why is it tied to?
Mm hmm.
Yeah, yeah.
And I understand that like, I don't know, probably more used to be than is now, but likeit's gotta get cleared or checked by a human or something.
like, I don't know, I feel like computers can do those checks better than humans thesedays.
So like, let's get on that.
(22:19):
Anyway, between banking and healthcare, there's a lot of like, well, healthcare blew up.
Well, that's probably bad.
There was a big...
happening in the world of healthcare that exposed, think, an attitude amongst the Americanpeople that some people had no idea existed.
It appears.
(22:41):
Yeah, you're clearly talking about Luigi Mangione.
Yeah, the United healthcare assassination is.
I am surprised at the spread of the reaction, right?
The spread of the, like the diversity of the reaction and some of the size of like.
(23:01):
The diversity of the reaction?
Yeah, like I'm pretty like, this is terrible.
what the hell this is.
Yeah.
Murder's never okay.
And then there's people saying, well, you have to understand that they see denial ofclaims as violence.
like, is it?
I guess.
I don't like.
Yeah, just, mean, I, yeah.
(23:25):
Yeah.
Exactly.
I feel like there's more, I don't know.
There's more defending of, of,
Well, and I guess it's really not that much.
It's, don't know.
It's just, there's a few, there's some loud, you know, it's a few loud people, right?
Is it though?
I thought it was much.
Okay, so for the camp of murder is okay.
It is way bigger than I thought it would be.
(23:47):
And there are, would say, people maybe in your life that feel that way that have not saidit out loud to you.
That's what I mean by bigger or like way bigger than I thought.
Like when it happened, as soon as I saw the head on, was like, kind of not surprised.
I, yeah.
surprise me that this occurred at all.
It was not a shocking occurrence.
was a...
(24:08):
Frankly, I'm surprised it hadn't happened before.
thinking about it.
says a lot about where people are at with their relationship with healthcare.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
It, it does not function properly at the moment.
I don't know if it does anywhere, but I guess it does, but
I think it's little broken everywhere.
Yeah.
(24:28):
It's either, you know, it's like totally accessible and you can get anything you want forpennies and it's terrible.
Like level of care isn't high or it's like modern care, but either it's like gettingaccess to it is true troublesome because there's not enough capacity because it's all
single payer and government controlled.
And then I don't know.
(24:48):
Yeah.
Look at every, like, look at any of the advanced countries and there's, you can pick upyour flavor of failure.
somewhere in there, right?
Yeah, I think that's very true.
think any system, if you go and look closely, there's problems under each of them.
So, you know, you don't scrap the system, I think you gotta keep just iterating it, right?
(25:14):
But it's such a big thing to iterate that it's hard to, just the sheer volume of dollarsmoving through it and all the transactions and like the way that hospital price books,
work is just insane.
How they set their standard.
Yeah, no, because and they set their standard costs so high.
(25:35):
So that like, I think it helps them then when they negotiate with an insurance companysay, well, we gave you a 30 % break off of our standard cost of this $300 nitrile glove.
And they don't ask why is the I don't know.
I'm sure they do.
But it doesn't feel right sometimes.
is two ibuprofen $85?
Right?
(25:56):
because it was delivered to my room.
I could have door dashed a whole bottle.
For less than that.
No shit.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, you didn't even get a cut of this.
Did you nurse?
(26:18):
That's a fun idea.
It is, it is, yeah.
Actually, that's the thread to pull on.
How do you change like really, really broad strokes?
Like how do you change the incentive structure so that you get like more outcomes of whatlike.
That's a good question, yeah, like...
Because the incentives are all screwed up.
(26:39):
you know, the person that took the fall here was an insurance company executive.
Where's the main problem in the healthcare structure?
And I was like, you know,
I don't know that it's just health insurance.
think there's like some deep seated other things in there that like.
It also leaks into education too.
I was thinking about this driving down the interstate this week, driving by, University ofTexas' MD Anderson cancer center.
(27:08):
And it's like, what's the relationship there between, cause there's also UT has a numberof branches of different hospitals around the area that they're somehow partnered with.
I don't know what, like, I assume that their med school is feeding into these hospitalsand helping create, you know,
giving them places to work and stuff like that.
like, think about then how that system is not just, it's endemic in like how, how deep theroots go is what I explore.
(27:37):
I'm to say, to understand then how, how the economic incentives aligned, like where, whois getting paid for the care?
Is it going to, by whom and, and is it going into, yeah, like
If they're saying this is a teaching hospital or it's a sponsored by the university ofTexas, somehow what, what, where does, how is that money tied up or where, what's funding?
(28:00):
What I don't.
you know what?
Okay, like, it's fun to talk about, but like you and I are both gonna, we're like alreadyout over our skis in terms of understanding the different players and money movements
here.
But you know what I want?
You know how, what's the Twitter account conks?
He does these like federal reserve or like Fed repo, like flow chart things, super crazydetailed things about money movements.
(28:30):
I didn't know BNY Mellon did so much stuff, man.
Yeah.
It's crazy.
But anyway, that I want him to do healthcare, like just do one hospital system and then doone like small independent pediatrics center, right?
Like, because you know, there's still like 85 counterparties.
(28:50):
Yeah, yeah, for just like one hospital payment, essentially, like what are the what is theYeah.
I wonder I wonder
begin to disassemble the incentive structure.
I wonder how publicly transparent that is to be able to even be researched and diagrammed.
I'm sure it's possible, but I don't know where you would begin.
(29:17):
Somebody, there's some hedge funds with one, with an analyst at a desk somewhere that'slike got it all in his head or her head.
Yeah.
I guess you, yeah.
because it's a private transaction versus, well, and how regulated are those transactionstoo?
There has to be some regulation on how they flow and how they're recorded and documented.
(29:41):
That would be like the next pane of what I would want, right?
If you're gonna double click on anything, it would be, and this is why this particularrelationship or transaction has to be the way that it is.
You can't change it without Congress.
Yeah.
Yeah, right.
The blocks in red are locked in by law.
(30:02):
Locked in by which I think would be illuminating, right?
Like where, yeah.
If you want to fix anything, it's like.
Yeah, you gotta know the source of what you wanna fix.
Is it people's attitudes?
Is it, we've always done it this way, why should we do it differently?
Or is it, awe?
Yeah, so yeah.
Because you know in healthcare there's a bunch of those.
That's true.
(30:22):
like people's attitudes about the system here and with this assassination and sayingthey're frustrated, they're angry.
Absolutely.
Again, I think very understandable.
Like I think it's related.
don't, I don't, I'm not even, I'm not even, I'm not even, don't, I don't even thinkthey're crazy for feeling this.
I think I get it.
I just, I'm surprised how many people do feel that way.
(30:43):
in a way.
And I guess, yeah, I don't know.
by, I think the author's name is Graham Wood in the Atlantic that sort of wrote up a pieceabout this, about the ugliness of this particular attitude and how from his take it just
feels sort of uncivil, un-American, you know, sort of.
(31:08):
I'd have to go back and pull more of the right words out of it.
But ugly was one word that I know that he used, yeah.
Like I said, like I can understand why and where it's coming from.
Yeah.
but that doesn't mean it's okay.
But why is it, why are so many people capable of feeling this?
(31:28):
Virulent.
Is that the right word?
I mean, is it easily spread?
Could you cope?
If you get butter the right temperature, could you call it virulent?
Just get rid of this part.
Sorry.
(31:50):
Yeah.
Ooh, yeah, so maybe either maybe virulent might be a right word.
Yeah, is the right word.
It's
as soon as I find two other people that I'm close-ish with that feel this way maybe itbecomes okay for me to feel this way right
yeah, nobody throws rocks in the crowd until one person does, right?
(32:13):
That it's that first shot that's fired then.
And that's.
happen, right?
Someone throws a rock and then someone throws a bottle and then the next bottle has aflaming rag in it.
Yeah.
I don't know how he, I don't think you could escalate this in that way, but I'm notthankful.
Thank gosh.
But, yeah.
(32:34):
I don't- I wouldn't.
I don't know that I would say that.
Anything is escalatable.
Although security teams have probably completely blown up at this point in size andbudget.
a good day to be in this independent security contractors, right?
Yeah, all the retired green berets and seals have like gotten pay raises, I'm sure.
(32:55):
Mm-hmm Axon's doing all right, I guess
Axon.
What they do body cams, yeah?
Private security aren't gonna be wearing those.
I think they do tasers and stuff too.
okay.
I don't know your former seal doing private security like you're packing man.
Hmm, true.
Well, you might be packing both is what I'm saying.
(33:17):
I don't know.
Yeah.
you could be.
don't know about the inner workings of those decisions.
Much less public scrutiny than police officers.
I'm gonna do some wildfire here on things I don't understand in our shared note.
ennui and the zeitgeist, zeitgeist is zeitgeist nine buffalo.
(33:40):
Okay.
by the way, if you want the American version it's bison.
I learned that by living in the Great Plains here.
Yeah, they are buffalo.
is why has that been allowed to?
The same reason why we call a certain kind of person an Indian here, even though they arenot.
Maybe.
That's a conjecture.
(34:01):
know.
Yeah.
Hmm.
Okay.
That's interesting bison.
So I was just like noticing like you had mentioned it.
And then I just heard people use the word ennui a lot in the last month or a couple ofmonths.
So I'm like, why is, why is this, why is the term ennui now suddenly kind of in, in thezeitgeist and same.
(34:21):
for a forerunner and then all of a sudden seeing lots of forerunners.
Okay, I'm gonna disagree with you on this.
I have one reason why, because I have a book on my shelf by Kurt Vonnegut.
I forget which book it was in, but I know I have, because it's the first time I saw theword, I underlined it and I looked it up and I'm like, that's an interesting word.
(34:44):
And I've dropped it occasionally from time to time.
I it in a song years ago.
It just blew up.
I swear.
I think part of it is Inside Out 2, right?
That's one of the main characters is ennui So I think that's gotta be it.
that's gotta be yeah.
It's it's just interesting to me.
Like I've loved the word for so long and like it never heard anybody use it.
(35:07):
Now I'm just like all the fricking time.
I love it.
Like it's great.
Excellent.
We're all, we're all learning this like complicated emotional term.
It's kind like in a way, one of those Japanese words, feels like it has like a veryspecific meaning that like you can't just replicate with other words type of situation.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
It's like, okay, yeah, that you can't describe that with any other word.
(35:31):
Well,
going to say the English sentence that it takes to say up that word.
I'm going to, you know, move that word into my lexicon.
Yeah.
exactly.
Exactly.
and then, yeah, and I also feel like I've been hearing zeitgeist more the last couple ofmonths, but, or maybe that's just me.
Cause we were talking about that one, that one very well could be the, shopping for a ravfour and, start seeing rav fours everywhere.
(37:14):
Just delete that off.
I can get that out of my headspace now.
Speaking of words, another thing on our list here, one word that kind of.
Crystallized for me a little a little differently this week was the word overkill from thebook That we're reading that we're discussing earlier Sovereign individual.
Thank you
Yeah.
Cause like in there they do, he doesn't interest they, he, who wrote it?
I don't even know.
Anyway, lots of discussion around hunter gatherer societies and how, know, you might workeight to 15 hours a week.
there was no wake up schedule, you know, it's like remarkably lazy because there was noincentive for overworking and overworking often meant you needed more calories, which put
the group in danger.
Exactly.
And we, I've used the term so many times just saying, that's too much.
That's overkill without really thinking about what it means and what it was describing.
Wasted food because you made too big of a kill, yeah?
Yeah, and it's like, man, that really is a more powerful word than we really give itcredit for if you know what it means.
Yeah, because we've been so disconnected from...
Yeah, exactly.
the outcomes that made this word what it is.
Yeah, it's just become a meaningless kind of throwaway term in a way, but it really is a,it has a deeper, a much deeper meaning.
I don't know those words pop up every once in I'm like, man, I've never really thoughtabout the word in that way.
And it's just a stupid compound word that has become part of of our lexicon in, in, youknow, different ways.
(37:39):
And that's fine.
Language changes.
Language is allowed to change.
I'm just interesting to me.
not complaining.
I'm just noting.
for, for, answer your question, it's a sovereign individual is written by James DaleDavidson and Lord William Reese Mogg.
Wow.
with a intro by Peter Thiel.
Yeah.
One of the other things that I'm having trouble with is like how quickly, or maybe thiswas in the pro, maybe this is the Peter Teal section.
(38:06):
don't know, but like all this doomsday ish stuff around the year 2000 and like just somuch time spent on that.
And so many going back to reference that.
And it was just so wrong.
he really sat in this book up for like how often the conjectures are going to be wrong.
(38:26):
Mm-hmm.
that's kind of where I am as well.
And again, I think they underestimated the power and responsiveness of some of ourinstitutions and our society and humans generally.
(38:47):
think from the looks of it, they're saying,
They're trying to paint this picture of why they predict that we're going to be a muchmore fragmented society where the nation state is weaker and.
Their argument is that, the individuals will be stronger and won't need to rely on thenation state.
But also I would argue back people like it.
(39:09):
Like you would be making society worse with this.
And I don't think people by and large want that.
Which is we like the doomsday stuff.
Yeah, we like this doomsday stuff because it's interesting.
It feeds something in our inner selves that like we...
(39:31):
Because also our nature, know, like intrinsically, when we before humans were civilizedand modernized, and you know, we were evolving.
If you if you think about it, they were always looking out for threats constantly, right?
So you're, it's in your nature to want to look at these potential threats and analyze andsay, what's the risk?
(39:54):
What's the risk?
What's the risk?
It's, it's your, it's your survival instinct at work.
And you when you're reading that
you know, doomsday article or that, that, that, that, doomer article it's feeding that.
But if you actually look at the data of what's happened over time, it's probably not gonnacome to fruition in such a dramatic way.
(40:17):
Like I think there's interesting things that are bringing up and I want to see whatinteresting ideas they have that might actually apply.
But yeah, think a lot of it's going to be well off the mark of what really happens.
Yeah.
I couldn't agree more.
think it, no, it is totally fun.
And I, and, and going back to you saying it was like a, it's a good companion piece forthe fourth turning.
(40:37):
I couldn't agree more.
the thing about the fourth turning is like, I think it would be easy to like, listen to ustalk about sovereign individual here when we're both like two to four chapters into it.
even though we're like raving about like, you got to the fourth turning.
It's a, there's so many interesting concepts in there that.
you know, may or may not be true, but do somewhat map onto history.
(41:01):
So maybe we can, you know, use it to be predictive of possible future outcomes.
Mm-hmm.
But with the fourth turning, feels like a map that is trying to do its best to lay onto aterritory.
(41:24):
Whereas Sovereign Individual feels a little bit more like I went to the crystal ball.
And it's like they're having to spend so much of the book on history so that they so thatit feels more grounded in something rather than saying like, we're just super idealistic.
And we are the 10 % of all human beings who are extremely, not highly extremelyindividualistic and highly agentic and want to carve our own path.
(41:56):
And we would like to apply this upon.
all other humans, even though it's not gonna work like I agree with you, I don't thinkit's gonna work that way.
I don't think it's gonna be attractive to most people.
Most people like safety and comfort and kinda chillaxin'.
Exactly, because it'll seem like a degradation and why would we allow that to happen?
Why wouldn't we then say, is a degradation, let's fix it?
(42:20):
The hunter gatherer thing was like exemplifying where they went wrong.
thought I was like, so like humans prefer to not have alarms and prefer to like work 18,15 hours a week.
Like that's, that was nice other than the maggots in the food.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, and, yeah, and also, what do you know of the then the other work that they you saythey weren't doing?
(42:47):
Like, I question like, were they, you know, I don't know, I guess, they have some somebasis there for some argument.
But I don't know, I felt that was a point that didn't resonate with me either.
I'll just say that.
Yeah.
It felt dissonant, if anything.
It didn't ring true.
didn't even serve their purpose is how I felt.
(43:09):
No.
Then again, we're too early in.
well, maybe, you know, don't judge a book by its first, don't judge a book by its firstquarter or something.
I don't know.
I've always taken the fail fast approach.
(43:29):
Yeah, there's a book.
There's a book on my nightstand right now that's like, I don't know, got awards andeverything.
And I'm like, not hitting me right now.
It might.
Demon Copperhead.
Not heard of it.
Okay.
Yeah.
I'll be honest, it felt too much like back woods Indiana.
(43:52):
And I'm like, yeah, I've been there.
Yeah.
Did you ever read any Ayn Rand?
I have not, actually.
I've gotten through the fountainhead about three quarters of way twice.
hahahaha
is funny to me.
(44:13):
Did you did you listen to the made you think episode on they did one or two Ayn Rand booksWorth it worth it.
Yeah
yeah.
Yeah.
Like part of it, I kind of like but then it just just it just ground like it just like
I hear the writing is terrible.
The ideas can be...
yeah.
(44:33):
Okay.
Okay.
like, I'm just like the, the, the, prose is not good.
The, the communication, like the idea is fine.
Sure.
Okay.
I get what you're going for, but I just, I don't care for the, yeah.
Right.
get it from the, I'm 18 years old and I'm reading the fountain head and I've beencompletely converted into this ideology.
(44:55):
And then later I'll sprout into a more balanced version of it or whatever.
That makes a lot of sense to me.
think as an 18, like that age group, think there's a reason, you know, you don't need mostpeople, you aside, don't need great prose You at 18, you know, you made fun of me for not
knowing the word esoteric when I was like 20.
(45:18):
I I believe that.
Well, you just dropped one on me.
You just dropped one on me, agentic.
I was like, that's a bingo word there.
shit, I'm so sorry.
I was a dick when I was a kid.
Don't be sorry It moved me in a good direction, you know, sometimes sometimes those thingsare good, you know Sometimes you need a slap in the face, especially when you're a young
(45:46):
man
Read a book, damn it.
What other books have been like that for you where you've gotten, where you've started andhadn't finished?
Anything that you started and hadn't, didn't finish and you came back to and read, gotback into later?
I have a couple like that.
have found me at different times.
(46:06):
I'm going to have trouble coming up with an example though.
Steinbeck did that for me with Winter of our Discontent.
It's one that comes to mind.
and then when did it work?
Ages.
Initially tried in college, worked in after being out in the world for a couple of years.
It was like four or five years later.
Okay.
(46:27):
Why do you think it worked that way for you?
A lot of the core story is kind of around the relationship of the main character with hisfamily and I think, and like his wife, and I think having just more experience and know,
love life at that point probably made it ring.
Yeah, I just, think I got it a little bit more at that point.
(46:50):
I needed a little more life experience.
I stopped reading East of Eden, speaking of Steinbeck.
I keep wanting to come back to that one because I felt like I enjoying it, but I don'tknow why I stopped.
I would like to read that one.
Yeah, I haven't read any Steinbeck in a while.
Yeah, it's like 600 pages maybe?
500-600?
(47:11):
Kinda chonky boy.
That's how I'm feeling right now.
I'm feeling like a chunky boy.
My November didn't treat me all that great.
Or like, guess, trailing 30 days.
You know, I'd have to go and like...
That's fair.
was just curious if there's anything that might come to your mind.
(47:32):
I'm trying to think of other books like I've picked up and then put down.
Murakami, Haruki Murakami, he wrote...
These, I guess these would be books we specifically don't recommend.
Wait what?
I was just thinking, I saying, was trying to think of books I picked up and put down.
I'm like, why?
So I can specifically say I don't recommend these books.
(47:55):
Yeah.
no, I'd rather stay on the positive.
Like my Goodreads account is that way.
It looks, it looks like I'm an, a non discerning reader, but I'm like, I'm just one thatlike, I just put it down.
And then if I didn't finish it, then I don't think I can put a star rating on it.
So almost everything I've got on my Goodreads account is four or five stars.
Those are the ones I finished.
You know, that's, self-selection bias on that.
(48:16):
You're totally right.
Because who, if you don't finish the book, you don't, you don't, yeah.
on something when I didn't give it a fair shot, but like, I'm also not going to spend amonth reading something I don't want to read.
Yeah.
Anyway, more Murakami.
(48:37):
I think I tried to start 1Q84, think is, it was like, it came out big fanfare about like,like the book found me and I'm like, Ooh, Japanese author.
That's cool.
And I couldn't, it wasn't even like, I didn't like it.
just like, wasn't the right time of my life or something.
And then when we were traveling, I picked up his, I think only nonfiction.
(49:02):
And it was what I think about when I, what's it called?
Hold on, I have to look it up.
It should be noted, this is when I picked up my running habit when we were traveling.
And it's like a miniature memoir of his, what I talk about when I talk about running.
And I just, it was short, quick, not hard to read.
And I just really loved it.
(49:23):
And then I went back and read two more of his fiction books.
And I want to read more.
They're fantastical is what I would call them.
Have you ever read any of his work?
this is first time hearing it.
It looks interesting.
Yeah, it's weird.
Weird in a good way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Weird in a good way.
That's yeah so it's hard to describe but in a good way.
(49:46):
Okay.
No it sounds kind of it sounds it sounds intriguing.
I really I really haven't read much fiction this year.
I need to make a point to finish something over a winter break.
Something fun.
Can you make the decision right here?
Do it live.
you know?
(50:07):
You got me thinking of a couple ones.
What did you recommend earlier in the episode?
There was something you'd said.
five December's you would burn that in an afternoon, dude, like.
right.
I'll commit to that.
I'm going to try that one over a winter break.
But yeah, maybe then I'll get onto some Murakami if I'm still feeling it.
(50:28):
I don't know.
Yeah.
2009, 10.
One Q84 came out, yeah, 2009.
Mm-hmm.
or published in English in 2011.
All right.
Well, that's when I thought I was so high brow.
(50:48):
What does that even mean to be high brow at this point?
Does it, does that term still apply today?
I think it always applies to you.
think it's a state of a state of projection.
Okay.
That doesn't mean that you are.
It means that you're trying to be interpreted as.
Yes, there you go.
Okay, yeah, that feels right to me.
That feels right to me.
(51:08):
Okay, that makes sense.
think it's very like, and the reason why people don't like it is not that, not that peopleshouldn't be punching up and trying to get better.
It's just that it's fake, but also fake it until you make it.
I don't know, you know.
Yeah, yeah, you can't be the...
If you want to be something, you have to be it, right?
(51:29):
I guess.
To an extent, or at least, or be its antithesis, if you're, I don't know, yeah,something's there.
Like the complete embodiment of contrarian.
Mm-hmm.
That's very high.
Feels like that'd be a conflicting thing to be.
I guess what I mean is like the phrase like be, how am I supposed to change the system ifyou're telling me to leave the system?
(51:58):
I need to change it from within.
Something like that, right?
Where it's like, you kind of have to be the anti-power or something in order to.
Man, we're getting, this is very high thoughts right here, yeah.
can, it's a bit high bar of you.
Hahaha!
But I can grock what you're saying though.
It makes sense.
(52:18):
okay.
Let's get off of that one, I'm getting uncomfortable.
Well, that's another interesting compound word high brow.
What is I wonder what the origins of that are like?
Is it literally a brow?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I'm gonna have to poke it, poke around find a etymology of it.
(52:39):
And I was going to say, yeah, what's that?
Yeah.
What else we got?
Anything?
man, I don't know.
No,
let's say.
Adios to everybody have a great week and thanks for, thanks for joining.
hope you guys are enjoying, the weekly episodes that we're putting up here for, the restof the year, trying to hit that goal, probably go back to bi-weekly after the start of the
(53:01):
year.
but the extra content for the holidays for y'all.
Otherwise, Dan, got anything else you want to say?
Send us notes, feedback.
Yeah, well, just in any way that we can get better, but we appreciate all who are hangingout with us.
Absolutely.
Peace out everybody.
(53:22):
Bye.
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