02:00 New Yorker: Work Sucks. What Could Salvage It? https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/work-sucks-what-could-salvage-it
19:00 Elizabeth Anderson Lecture: The Work Ethic: Its Origins, Legacy and Future, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzRKsprglDs
22:00 Are half of jobs bs?
23:00 NYT: Your Neighbors Are Retiring in Their 30s. Why Can’t You? https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/07/magazine/retire-early-saving.html
35:00 “Is Vegetarianism Healthy for Children?,” Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition 59, no. 13 (2019): 2052–2060., https://nathancofnas.com/papers/
36:00 My father said I would only learn through pain
49:40 The Scent of Luke, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=96311
1:39:00 David Graeber, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Graeber
2:00:00 Vouch nationalism applied to work, https://vouchnationalism.com
2:15:00 NYT: Your Neighbors Are Retiring in Their 30s. Why Can’t You? https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/07/magazine/retire-early-saving.html
Podnotes transcript:
Speaker 0: Good I mate 40 here, so Nietzsche has a great saying. That I think is the best saying for this topic, alright? Decoding work, and Just said when you have a y, Right, you can you can do almost anything. If you have a reason to do something that’s strong enough, you can pretty much do anything that’s within the realm of possibility for you so I have friends who have 3 kids, 4 kids, 5 kids, 6 kids, 8 kids, 10 his 12 kids. The Right?
And just providing for 12 kids, that’s all the why that the parents need to get up every morning. Right? If you’ve got kids to support, send him to a Jewish day school, which is gonna cost you anywhere from 20000 to 50000 dollars a year. You want to is build a legacy. Alright.
We’re through through your children. Alright. That’s the why. And that’ll keep you going. Sub mornings.
Alright? I’m not married. I don’t know kids. But supporting, I’ll get up at 2AM, and I won’t write for 4 hours, And then I’ll work for 8 hours, and then I will come back here and live stream for for another hour. Right?
I am passionate about what I do. I think that I have in some areas. I have clarity, I I think I bring something to the table that you don’t easily get elsewhere. I think that my show is superior to almost other, , all other right wing commentary. Guy And so that fills me with a way.
And so I can get up early in the morning and start writing and getting more clarity and work and and pay my bills and and save some money for retirement, read books, Right? Research, academic articles and then come back and talk to you about them because… I’m filled with passion So whether you’re are passionate about politics or culture or traveling overseas, you’re passionate about your community, your religion, your friendships, your… Hobbies. Alright?
Your your favorite sports, whether you’re passionate about learning. How am I doing? Can you tell me a bit about myself? Yeah. I am from Australia, I have been blogging since 07/03/1997.
I started live streaming almost every day in January of 20 18. So I just have a niche audience, but you’ll get insights here that you’re not gonna get anywhere else. Right? You’ll get some rules for life. You’ll get some principles for decoding reality that you’re not gonna get elsewhere.
Because pretty much every, , successful live streamer is predictable. Right? You come to them and they give you what you expect. So if they’re on the left, they’ll give you the reasons why the left is just totally awesome. And if you’re right, , right wing.
Alright? You’ll find at some right wing live stream it tells you you’re totally awesome, and they’ll they’ll hand out the heat porn. Right? That they’ll, , ramp up the outrage, and they’ll tell you y’all. This is the problem.
Right? This is this is why you are struggling in life. The these are the people who are holding you down, Alright? It’s the elite or it’s the capitalists or is the comm. Right?
But I I didn’t have those kind of easy answers. How am I doing? I like that you were here already talking when I joined in? Am I y? Yes.
I’m y? Alright? I wanna talk about the the nature of work. And I have a long lu history with work. Right?
I… Best known for 10 years, 12 years, I I wrote about the pornography industry. So that’s why I arrived on 60 minutes. That’s why I as interviewed on entertainment tonight. That’s what has in Los Angeles Times and the the New York Times and most major media news organizations in the United States because I broke a lot of stories about people who were transmitting deadly diseases such as Hiv, And what of my interests?
I love reading. So probably the noble 1 topic is is related to philosophy, I’m particularly like the philosophy. Of the social sciences as embodied by a Stephen Turner. I like, trying to understand the phrases and the ideas that dominate popular discourse that are just bunk. So For example, 1 1 idea that just dominates popular discourse is that democracy is the most beautiful expression of a communal feeling.
When in reality, I don’t know about your life, but in my life, democracy as very little to do with it. Alright? The world runs on hierarchy. And yet all the elite discourse or the mainstream media discourse is about how wonderful democracy is. But I I…
I’m glad that we get to have elections every 2 years or every 4 years here in in the United States. But overwhelmingly, life still runs on hierarchy. All those rights, that you think you who have God given rights for freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom to practice your religion. Alright? It’s freedom to go to work and earn a living, making Get taken away just like that in the name of emergency.
So you think, oh, dictatorship, democracy. These are opposites. They’re not opposites. All dictatorship contain considerable elements of democracy. Right?
There were things that Ado Hitler wanted to do and he could not get done because of popular resentment. For example, Jews in Germany who are married to Germans. Right? To the best of my knowledge, most of them survive World War 2 because of the opposition of their non jewish spouses. Right?
They did not permit the the rounding up of the the Jewish spouses. Joseph Stalin. Alright? Dictate number 1, Alright. During World war 2, he wanted to get the people on his side.
So we reopened churches. He reopened all sorts of freedoms that he’d had previously taken away so that he could get people on his side. Make nikita K chef. Alright? Dictator, Leader of the Soviet Union, Right, he was peacefully removed from power and he went off into retirement because the rest of the poll bureau did not like the way he conducted the cuban missile crisis.
As opposed to say, the democracies like the United States. Well, in the United States, the chief executive, the president of the United States, has all the foreign policy powers of King George the third in the eighteenth century. Right? No significant difference. Right?
The president of the United States can essentially go out, outside of the United States and kill anybody. Right? And no one’s effectively going to stop him. Right? He can drop nuclear bombs, he can…
Launch troops. He can launch drone strikes. Alright, Barack Obama the the drone warrior killed thousands of people, and there are essentially no restrictions on what a president of the United States can do with regard to foreign policy at least initially. Okay. Gay people transmit Std the mice.
Well, not gay people, homosexual men. Seem to transmit a dis disproportionate number of Std and yet, our elites overwhelmingly and our media overwhelmingly thought that it just wasn’t on to ask a gay men during the monkey parks outbreak, that those gay men who are participating in Org ortiz, maybe should tone that down during the massive monkey parks outbreak, but there was very little talk from public health authorities, and it was not the dominant immediate narrative regarding the Monkey pox outbreak because we have groups that are essentially regarded as sacred by the dominant liberal left elite. Who control and run almost all of our institutions. So you cannot make group wide criticisms of Jews of gays, of transactions of blocks. Right?
They’re there are only sacred minorities who are regarded as exempt from criticism So many right wing comment have gotten into trouble because they cannot give a give a pit the answer of what his work, but 1 great answer to what his work. Is, say, to admit that from a work perspective, there there are many sacred groups for exempt from criticism Alright. Chief, Jews, gays, transactions, African Americans, blacks. Alright. The these groups.
Should not be subjected to any group wide criticism. So my difficult topic when we don’t have a lot of problems in Finland except the problems caused by immigration. So, yeah, why does Finland have far more immigration than its citizens 1? Because much of the world, including most of the first world is not run on democratic principles, nearly as much as on hierarchical principles. So you have a tiny number of people who essentially decide how many immigrants your country is going to accept, whether they come legally or illegally.
So the the general opinion of the people doesn’t really have much to do with it. Alright? Immigration is decided by an elite. So as a reaction to the 30 year war in Germany in the seventeenth century, we’ve had more and more of of the most dramatic and ru parts of life removed from the realm of the political and instead turned over to the realm of the experts. And so A tiny number of experts essentially decide how many immigrants first world countries get to have.
And the the major political parties, the the polite political parties of the center right, the center left. Right, The acceptable alternatives. Right? They have governed, and they have run for political office through a mutual agreement to remove immigration from the topics that they’re gonna bite over because it’s thought just too inflammatory. So after world War 2, nationalism got a dirty name More and more of life was removed from the realm of the political.
We got more more real by experts, and we had a neutral of vital political problems such as immigration. Now there’s only 1 sector of politics that is consistently addressing the overwhelming numbers of immigrants into Europe. Right? The numbers that came in 20 22 were double over 5000000 compared to 20 21. Only 1 sector of the political spectrum is willing to address this, and that is the far right.
The scary far right. The the Nazis the fascist, the… The the racist, the Islam folks, or those awful awful people well, they’re the only ones who are willing to meet the needs of the people. Right? So if only the far right or the far left, are willing to meet the most pressing needs of the people, then, then politics is gonna shift away from the polite alternatives from the media appointed alternatives from the elite alternatives, and instead, you’ll get the rise of a different elite.
Right? Elites are not around forever. Right? They will be replaced when they don’t do their job effectively. So elites can operate and destructive for a number of years, but eventually, there will be a revolt and there will be a replacement of the elites with a new elite.
So under 200 people choose for over 5500000.0 says this chatter from Finland. And the 2 biggest parties make the choice and those 2 parties are essentially friends with each other, and they’ve have tac agreed to keep many of the most hot button issues. Off the table. Alright. Number 1 topic for today comes from a New Yorker article work sucks What could salvage it new books examine the place of work in our lives and how people throughout history have tried to change it and The author who gets the most love from this New Yorker piece is Elizabeth Anderson.
You all know her as the John, Dewey we distinguish university professor of philosophy and women’s studies at the university of Michigan…
Speaker 1: Pleasure to be back in London. With the opportunity to address you about my latest work, which is all about the work ethic. Here, I’m going to be focusing in my data I’m the American work ethic, Of course, Americans inherited the work ethic from the English, who were the great inventor, So I will be going back to the origins of the work ethic. In seventeenth century, England.
Speaker 0: I guess what? Effectiveness at work, and a healthy attitude to work, Like everything else Like a healthy attitude to Sac institute to religion to hobbies to how you spend your fair time. Depends on the quality of your relationships. Right? If you have a family, and you like your family, if you have extended family and you like your extended family, if you belong to a community, if you belong to a nation, if you identify with a particular tribe or people or or religion, then you have a why, a why to go to work.
Right? Why to push yourself. Why to try to earn as much money as possible to take care of your family to provide to protect. To create a reserve for difficult times to support causes that you believe in Alright? If you’ve got that wire, then you can go out there and you can accomplish anything.
And the Chat is rocking over on kick dot com backslash forward. The smartest thing would be for there to be no parties, but for everyone to come together, try to build a better country together. And their different parties and the task is to disagree with the other the potty in which case nothing gets done, different pot equal different opinions. Well, sometimes, a liberal democracy is the most efficient way to meet people’s needs and to deal with the situations that come up, but sometimes, a hierarchical authoritarian regime, a xenophobic police state will be more adaptive. Alright?
If you are fighting for your survival, Whatever type of political system, a best suits you for survival. That’s the way you to go. Whichever type of politics, best enhances the development and flourishing of your people of your nation, then that’s the way to go. Right? Effective politics does not depend upon the beauty, of its principles.
Right? The transcend of its rhetoric. It’s adherence to this seventeenth century liberal philosopher wrote that eighteenth straight liberal philosopher. Alright. What primarily matters in politics and in life is providing for the flourishing, the protection and the survival of your people.
Treat Right? And your people should be a particular nation or tribe, which should feel to you like an extended family. Alright? When you have a family, when you have an extended family, then you have reasons to go to work, you have reasons to sacrifice. If you don’t feel much in common with your fellow citizens, like, where are your reasons to spend more time in social activities if you have great fear of, people around you.
In Los Angeles, half the residents don’t speak English. Right? Los Angeles is incredibly fragmented and fractured los Angel feel almost nothing in common with each other. And so you can’t expect that you’re gonna get a whole lot of sacrifice. On behalf of people who don’t speak your language who don’t practice your religion, we’re not a part of your tribe who You don’t feel like you’re a part of your nation who you’re you’re just saddle with, and you can’t talk to them.
You have very little in common. You’re not gonna make sacrifices sacrifice for those people. Alright? You’re not going to look forward to spending time with them. Right?
The more you have in common with people, right? The more willing you’re gonna be to sacrifice. Right? The more, genetically, you have in common. Right?
The more you’re gonna sacrifice, so parents will routinely make sacrifices for children that no other group will. Right and people make sacrifices for their aunts and their uncles and their nieces, right, for for extended family. Right? That’s the the normal thing to do. You primarily make sacrifices for your family for your spouse, for your children, and then your extended family.
And your nation, your tribe, your community, your religion should effectively be as an extended family to you. And then that will fill you with passion and purpose and excitement, and that should be everything you need to keep going in life. If you’re a normal person. Now I… I’m a bit off the beaten track.
I I need my books. I need my ideas. I need dialogue with people who are smarter than me. I need to constantly exploring new ideas, but that’s for Eccentric. Right?
That’s for people who are intellectual gig such as myself. Right? I I fall love with pretty new ideas on a regular basis, but I ultimately stay loyal to none.
Speaker 1: But first, let’s take a look at the work ethic American style. So these are common norms that arise in the american context. Americans think of work as central to their personal.
Speaker 0: So there’s nothing. No longer much of an American identity because we’ve become so diverse. Alright? Diversity means we don’t have much in common. So work Ethic think American style, for many groups.
Right, they are not characterized by the work ethic. Alright? I have friends who are employers who have found that 1 group in particular is very easy to hire and impossible to fire without getting sued. So, unfortunately, people I know. Some people I know were never hire members of a certain group that does not known for its work ethic.
Because they’ve paid the brutal price of being of being sued when they gave someone an opportunity Right? So this idea that the work ethic is just central to the American personality, it’s central to the traditional American personality. It’s not central to the the personalities of all sorts of different groups in America who are under achieving. So on average, right, Americans of northeast Asian heritage work harder, do better in school, make more money, save more money, have more solid families than Americans of European heritage. And then, Latinos are all over the map, many Latinos are of European heritage and have life results just like other Europeans.
Other latinos, come from a different genetic mixture, and they have their own strengths and weaknesses. African Americans dominate large swath of American life, they come with their own strengths and weaknesses. So due to the massive amount of immigration we’ve had in the United States over the past 50 years, we no longer have much of an American identity. And this idea that, Americans are united by a work ethic that it builds character, they’re on call times, much and they would feel great stigma against taking social welfare. But that’s true of many Americans, Alright?
Maybe Christian, Americans of protestant European background, not so true. It’s also true of, Americans from Northeast Asian background, not so true for other groups.
Speaker 1: Identity, we take a builds character. Many of us are on call at all hours. Certainly myself. I’m receiving emails and sending emails at all hours. There’s a huge stigma attached to being unemployed and also to receiving free stuff from the government any kind of welfare benefits.
And there’s a kind of culture of performative of work h showing off it’s showing that you’re working really hard and demonstrating to other people that you’re working really hard. Here you can see the United States in the far right with the only rich catalyst country in the world that has 0 days of state mandated, paid vacation 0. Now, of course, , that many workers do have paid vacation through their employment contract, about half of workers, a little more than half of workers have pay vacation days through their employment contract. However, the vast majority of workers do not take all of their contractually eligible and tight…
Speaker 0: Right. Very is the early country without, government specialized, welfare for all. Right. Essentially, if you’re a man, you will have a very hard time getting government welfare unless you manage to find a way to get disability. People lose their jobs.
They gotta scramble for for health insurance, thousands of Americans go broke because of, medical care that they can’t afford.
Speaker 1: Titled vacation days.
Speaker 0: And this is not a my criticism of America. Just pointing out that we live in incredibly fractured. Comparatively, low trust society compared to even Australia, England, France, Germany, Little alone. Places like Japan and and Korea. We’re incredibly competitive society in large part because of the fear of falling through the cracks or not having the money to pay for vital health care.
Right? So we work harder. We’re we’re more productive than almost all other countries, we’re more creative, We’re more influential. Right? We lead the world.
1 reason I say in Los Angeles is you, just so many exciting people to meet. Run into billionaires I run into poets. People who write movies, Tv shows, novels, or professors at the top of their field.
Speaker 1: Let’s take a look at the history of the critique of the work ethic, and I’m gonna start the president and I work backwards. I was in London last weekend, having a discussion bullshit jobs with David Grab from Ls, he defines bullshit jobs as paid employment so pointless unnecessary or per niches that even the employee can’t justify its existence although the employee must pretend that this is not the case. Grave goes on to discuss a variety of bullshit jobs that were reported to him. And he can contrast bullshit jobs with shit jobs which are actually socially useful jobs, socially necessary job things like cleaning bed pans and patients and so forth, but which are poorly paid, get no respect, and forms of dr. Grave suggests that half half of all worked.
His bullshit. He does this on the basis of a sort of half ass survey 37 40 percent of of workers in the Uk and Netherlands who were polled, suggested that they were working at bullshit jobs, another survey. This is not particularly scientific. Suggests that American office workers report half of their tasks, or bullshit. Or they just have to look busy or something like that.
But I’m gonna tell you some cases for my student.
Speaker 0: Right. That’s a very telling remark that the author of this book on… Bs jobs. Right? He didn’t do the walk to subs his case.
Right? Does not speak well of him. People with a negative attitude towards work and not usually people that you will have good reason to respect.
Speaker 1: Since last esther, I I had a course all about work, and we just did a section on bullshit jobs, and I asked them how many of you have ever worked in a bullshit job in long haul behold 40 percent of my students raising their hand. Okay. So what what what were their job. So I had 1 student who had a summer job at a firm in which he was assigned to write a that business analysis of operations within the firm.
Speaker 0: So a joined to this as a big article in the New York Times today, meet the neighbors who are retiring in their thirties. Why can’t you? Right? Meet the scheme and savers obsessed with ending their careers as early as possible. Now, this sounds like very impressive group of people.
Right I’d much rather hang out with them than those who talk about most work being just Bs.
Speaker 1: And he would have to upload it into this, internal website at the firm, and the website would count the number of times this report was downloaded 0. So his job was to write reports that no 1 read. There I can discuss other cases in q A, but I’m gonna move on. So grave proposal is, look, let’s just eliminate bullshit jobs, and then we can cut the work week in half. Share around the rest of the…
, the actual socially necessary task and introduce a leisure society. In this respect, he was echoing the Great economist, John Maynard Kane, who in his 93 essay economic possibilities for our grandchildren criticized the work ethic, because this goal of the endless, accumulation of wealth is pathological. The idea that we should be working and and until we’re practically dead is embassy postponing pleasure, and leisure, and that’s just preposterous.
Speaker 0: So my my father. Was a Christian theologian and evangelist. He did 2 Phds. He was very hard worker. He got into the habit of, getting up at 4 in the morning, to work on his Phd thesis, he completed both of his Phd in 18 months each.
He did 1 in rhetoric at Michigan State University. He In both cases did his thesis. Wrote his thesis while also meeting class requirements. So took 18 months each got 1 in rhetoric 1 in apocalyptic, and then he went on to be an influential evangelical Christian at the theologian and scholar, Well, it really wasn’t so strong on the the scholarship. He wasn’t so great on the details.
Kinda like me. So with with the new iphone. Alright. I I had to get a new adapter or my sure mic. And so I’ve been going around when I’ve been doing my live streams with with an adapter and this Sure mic.
And I I’ve just been using… It’s just been using my phone’s built in Mic. So the adapter that that I bought Amazon for audio. Right? It was an audio adapter from China.
It just hasn’t been working, but I was so s that I didn’t even realize I was only using my iphones Built in microphone, not the the beautiful sound quality that you get from the Shure mic. So that kind s lack of attention to detail characterize people with Adhd, people like myself and my father and other people in in the close genetic relationship to me. But I with my father out many things. Obviously, I converted it to orthodox judaism but I was just thinking today just before starting the show. Maybe a major reason I do so many live streams is that I was influenced by my preacher daddy.
Inspired by my preach daddy or at least, having having a a preaching mentality got just got written into my Dna. And outside the realm of my consciousness, it’s really important to me to be a better preach than my father. And this probably wasn’t it was driving me. It… It’s not something that I consciously think about.
But just outside of the conscious where I simply raise that as a possibility to myself, just before lent launching this livestream stream, I thought, heck. This is probably why I do so many eat live streams. This is why I work so hard at this because it’s important to me. To to be a better preacher than my father, because I I did not agree with many of the The ways that my father would operate because the poor man had untreated Adhd. And he had all all the results that come from that, for example, when of have Adhd tend to blur things out, you don’t allow people to finish you interrupt people.
And so when people would try to ask my father a question, he would he would out the very quickly and and blur out what he thought their question was. Okay. So my father, for my disagreements and for all his laws, He had some pretty sharp observations about me and he would often get this look of deep pain on his face. So my father was not someone who radiate happiness. So someone, people who know both of us would, often remark that the your primary personality difference between us was that my father did not come across as as a happy man, and I do tend to come across as someone is pretty happy.
But 1 of my father’s shop observations? He’d get with with a look of great pain on his face, and he would say, kinda shaking his head and feeling great pain. And you’re looking video my father out doing what it loves more than anything in the world. Alright, you you never saw my father happier than when he had an audience. And he particularly loved giving funerals because he felt that people were listening more closely to him while he was delivering a funeral, that then any other time that he was speaking publicly.
And so he just absolutely love giving funerals, he was pretty much obsessed with death. And so someone close to me would call my father desmond, he would call him death. So, yeah. He was often thinking about death, and he had this sharp observation, about me, says you’ll only learn through pain. And he’d say it with so much pain.
And I remember the last time I really tried to talk to my father was approximately 19 92. So a new friend of mine had come over. Someone that I’d I’d had a couple of the very positive encounters with, and someone who was related to very stern theological opponents of my father. I was kind of healing to be to make make friends with with this couple, and I was very lonely. I was house bound by chronic fatigue syndrome.
I lived with my parents and isolated a part of Northern California, I was in New newcastle, 95658, about 45 minutes north of Sacramento. And so I really need friends and This this 1 new friend came over, and after we had this enjoyable conversation, I I thought, oh, I should, , bring you out to sail hello to my father. He was out on the deck. And soon as she came out and joined my father? He started public her.
What do you think about evolution. What about this? So what about that? So I was kind of a an Adhd, 40 yen intensity that she found incredibly upsetting and she just fled. And that was effectively the the end of the friendship.
She would never come back around and I was so upset because I was so lonely, and my father’s un wit behavior and intense questions challenges and theological argument of style had driven away 1 of the the few new friends in my life. And I said, , please don’t, provoke arguments with my friends. And so my father’s reaction was fine. I just won’t talk to them. So For my father, there only there are only 2 modes that he likes to interact with people.
1 where he electro lectures them or provoke them and tries to get into arguments with them. Or 2, he would just minimize or contact. And so after that, he just decided he who would try to minimize or contact. And so that was around that time… That was the last time that I tried to have a conversation with my father because it it never…
It never bore much fruit over the course of my life, but I said, , Dad, why don’t? You tell me about what’s going on with you. He had a… An embarrassing personal problem? And and I said, , why don’t you share the sort of things with me?
So, I wouldn’t wanna worry you? Well, when people can fight me, it doesn’t worry me. Do it do I look pain? At out sp, people can find also sorts of horrible difficult challenging things at me, and it just… Doesn’t doesn’t it bother me.
But for my father, every time someone would con find something or every time there’s something in the news, like, oh, And oh, he would just be so burdened by the news by anything he heard, , any difficulties. It’s like, oh, 0, this this world. I don’t can’t give a a cracker for this fallen world. That’s 1 of my father’s favorite sayings. Right?
He was just all about Heaven where he gets to reunite with his beloved first wife. And he was obsessed with death. He would look at people and see that they weren’t exercising. They said to put on weight and he go, oh, that person will be dead in 5 years. So it’s another reason.
He got the nickname, doctor, doctor Death. So not a happy man, particularly, when he was pushed out of the Seventh Adventist as church ministry. So he was or a rockstar star evangelist within the Seventh adventist church. But in 19 80, he got kicked out of the church, and he formed his own evangelical court, nonprofit foundation called Good news unlimited, but his life became increasingly isolated. And It was very, very sad for him.
It was it was devastating for him because he was removed from the college campuses where he’d been such a start where he had received so much attention. And if if my father wasn’t getting attention, he was just dying inside. But my father would would take bad things happening. Very personally. They would be a tremendous burden on him.
And he’d get a very sad look. And so, he would win and grim when he’d he’d hear bad news, and he would say to me with this winston and grim you’re only going to learn through pain. And he was right. But the solution for 95 percent of the problems that he saw me The solution was Adhd medication, and b 4 capsules. So my father, wrote all these books about preventative health.
K My father loved a lecture about preventative health. My father made preventative health is life mission, but his message was overwhelmingly destructive to people and to himself. My father believed that a 90 10:10 diet was ideal. Right? 90 percent carbs, 10 percent fat, 10 percent protein.
This is an insane diet. Right? You’re much better most are gonna be much better on something like the the zone diet, where it’s, like 40 percent carbs, 30 percent, fat 30 percent protein. And as a result of this insane diet that my father had whereas 90 percent carbs. Right, he he got diabetes.
In in his sixties, even though he’s so fan about his health regime about running 4 or 5 miles a day and walking the the same amount But also his Adhd interfered with his ability to sleep once you got into the habit of getting up at 3 or 4 in the morning, he couldn’t get out of that habit for the rest of his life, which… Severely curtail opportunity to have, , normal social life. And he he pushed the vegetarian diet, the vegetarian dies is really bad for people just look at Nathan Kaufman research. Right? There are significant cognitive problems.
With the vegetarian diet, and there are all sorts of social problems. Right? Kids but who who are raised vegetarian. Makes it very unpopular. Vegetarians very unpopular.
In in social settings because they are a big pain to try to deal with. Right? To accommodate. So is vegetarian healthy for children, very important essay here by Nathan C, who did his Phd in the philosophy of biology. He did that at Oxford University.
So go to nathan ka dot com. Click on the button that says papers, meaning academic papers. You can you can see. His work on the on the dangers of vegetarian. So my father largely devoted himself to something, which he thought was doing good, but To the extent anyone took him seriously, it did far more harm than good.
Proof for the definitive of C coordination, I assert not denying the probability, look at Nathan Kaufman article on is vegetarian good for children. Right? Cough starts from an evolutionary perspective on most parts of life whether morality or vegetarian, obviously, from the shape of our our feet, teeth, right, to how our our digestive system works, we were built to eat meat And vitamin B 12 very difficult to assimilate outside of meat. Okay. So right, my father was right that I’d only learned through pain and the pain eventually got bad enough.
That I went and got checked out for Adhd. And I knew that I had to find some way of ingesting meat and about 3 years ago, I found b 4 capsules. I took a chance on them and my health problems completely turned around. My statement that my father’s died was the cause of his diabetes. I I am not a medical doctor.
I can’t accept that for for sure. But just think, what are the likely results having a lifetime diet where you aim for 90 percent carbohydrates. Right? So my absolute assurance that I knew better. Right?
It was particularly strong in my teens and twenties like, most people, but obviously, that was something that I had to get beaten out of me. My attention seeking. Right, always needing to be a star, my hypo reactions, my dramatic rhetoric, Remember 1 girl who shared media class with me in my sophomore year at plus or High school said nobody knew what to do with his brain because I was like my my father, a hyper active squirrel. Always he’s trying to get into debates with people. The Adhd makes you…
So touch a pain to be around that it reduces your normal ability to connect with others, which isolate you, which makes you get filled with shame. You also have disproportionate hyper emotional reactions, you have extreme sensitivity to rejection, rejection sensitive d euphoria, you can call it And so to provide a shield for that, both my father and I developed, , strong strong attributes of na, where we only got to feel okay when we were the… The center of attention. My father notices, , very early on that I was not able to complete tedious tasks, either at be the star, either it had to be exciting either task had to be immediately fulfilling or I just struggled. Constantly seeking attention to qualities are both my father and I.
20 once I got the Adhd deep medication that just calmed down considerably, unwilling to stick to anything, that does not lead to immediate rewards. My my father exhibited more discipline than I did. I… I was never able to stick at anything unless I got immediate rewards. I consistently showed disrespect for other people, including Tea.
And bosses, and I would use work time to do my own thing. So I probably been fired from about 30 jobs in my life, cheers hasn’t it been such a problem over the last 6 years, right, now I’ve got the skills and the recovery from underwriting and dead and various emotional addictions that I I don’t have to walk around out, , fearing poverty and homelessness. In 9… What was it? 19 90 45I was rushing in the reign over Malibu Kenyan Road to rehearse the scene with a very attractive actress and I was rushing our board tires in the rain.
My car spun out and went into a light pole, how was totaled, didn’t have much money. But I was in a precarious financial position. I thought, I I need a vehicle that I can live in if necessary. And so I bought a 19 82 dodge Van. A 1 ton dodge van that got about 10 miles to the gallon, and that was my vehicle from 19 94 until 2010.
Boy, it it it looked like a serial killer van. I remember I’d be flirting with women’s sitting outside my van and and they’d get the best, hey, , to go out with this guy. Look at look at his van. Now Don’t get into the back of van, the women would usually say something like, well, I’ll make him buy me dinner first. So it’s a symptom of Adhd as well, a just b things out, which comes across to other people as disrespect.
And also lead to disrespect for yourself. Right, constantly pursuing excitement, romantic liaison, pursuing inappropriately intense relationships at work. Alright. I do everything at work about work. I was took my first job at age 12.
And then until I was 17, I lost every single job, but I got fired from about 5 different jobs. My Knee rebellious attitude to life. Right, Always wanted to dominate every group that I joined. I wanted to take it over. Right?
This this Adhd need for constant stimulation. Right. Doesn’t need to show other people how smart I am. Right? I I try to pose questions in the most, , cognitive demanding way possible, and by my classmates or other people who were stuck at my lectures said, , we’re tired of you’re sharing off.
I can never understand what you’re talking about. My lack of inclination to internalize the priorities of my teachers or my bosses, in attention to detail, So the these are the things my father said you you’re only gonna learn through pain. Right? I I was I was willing to work hard if I could be the center of attention if I was getting immediate rewards if I was being the the star, Right? I I did well in journalism.
Yeah I did fairly well as a as a blogger, right? Where I I got to be the star of my own website, but Lack of attention to tedious details has cost me tens and tens and tens of thousands of dollars, not to mention just opportunities of normal life. Just being so sure I knew better than everyone else. Disregard for the ordinary rules thinking that I was above them that the normal ordinary rules do not apply to me, I still struggle with this at times right using work tie workplace, using Wifi, and then finding out later, tracked everything I was looking out on my phone even when I was outside the office. Right, that that was a shock.
Remember once I pulled up luke 4 dot net on on in in the bathroom. Right? I was outside of the workplace, but I was still within 50 yard, hundred yards. Of company Wifi and company Wi detected that. I I got this, like, warning on my phone.
This is a hate side. My own, Beloved blog luke 4 dot net is is called a hate site. I mean, how hurtful is that? And then I was just I was doomed after that. Right?
Once once my boss googled me. Is like, oh, this guy’s we’re way too much liability. That’s the number 1 reason people get fired. Because they come to be seen as a liability. I I remember another thing that I I struggled with was there a sexual harassment.
Remember this wet woman. Very vol woman was I constantly rubbing up against me at work, rubbing her large breasts on me. And then when I reciprocate any kind of connotation she reported me to Hr, reminds me of someone close to me who love to tell jokes and 1 day, this group of girls in his, like, tenth grade class said, oh, tell us some jokes, so he told them a r joke and they laughed and laughed and laughed to tell us more, tell us more they insisted, so he told them a bunch of dirty jokes and they just sq with absolute delight. They through the whole process, and then they went in and reported him to the teacher. Okay.
The opposite, of assume everyone knows everything. So much my life, I just tried to get away with things as a preacher kid. Alright they were substantial moral and speech and behavioral standards to live up to that I found overwhelming. I would look quickly learn to code switch once I got out of the house. I talk like everyone else.
But if I said bloody. Right? Just the word bloody. This is a swear word in Australia. Alright?
I would get reported but for saying bloody. And I’d get into trouble and I’d get back to my father. And so then he would assign me 30 to 40 pages of Christian ap for eat every day, which helped me understand these very convincing philosophical arguments for christianity, but also developing me an intense emotional, disregard or dis taste or hatred, for Christianity. So as a preacher kid, I tried to get away with everything and didn’t didn’t work out so well. Women.
My father told me you can’t talk to a woman the same way you can talk to a guy and still still learning that lesson, showing difference in respect to people who can hurt me. People have been trying to teach me that lesson, but the the rebel in me, the the preacher care the rebellious preach kid that still is just under the surface is still getting me into trouble over my my own talent. When, , unique skills that I bring to the table, not caring about who I offend, Life of selfish would not make me happy my father was right about that satisfying my animal appetite, there’s not a strong foundation for happiness. You will only learn through pain. That’s what my father would say shaking is head.
At age 12, I started running marathons. I finished 5. My father said this kind of, , extreme endeavor. It’s not good for you. And I’m sure he’s right about that.
And then, I started working extreme hours. Started working 90 hours a week, and my fellow said, , this kind of extreme exhaustion exert, not good for you. And then I was taking 21 units at school. And working 30 hours a week, and and then I broke down into chronic fatigue syndrome. So my father was right that I was doing too much too intensely and I broke down.
And my father was right. The most of my misery was self cause, but not deliberately caused. It was… Largely result of my Adhd, the emotional addictions that I developed to try to handle my Adhd and my disabling vegetarian diet. So terrific New Yorker article out on work I don’t wanna share with you.
But let’s get a little bit more from Elizabeth Anderson.
Speaker 1: From the English, you were the great inventor, So I will be going back to the origins of the work ethic. In seventeenth century England. But first, let’s take a look at the work ethic america…
Speaker 0: Hi. Work ethic. Began in seventeenth century, England. Right Jews have had a strong work I think of working 6 days a week. For approximately 3000 years.
So Jews had the protestant work Ethic think for 2500 years Or, no. A thousand to 1500 years before the protestants develop the protestant at work out there.
Speaker 1: American style. So these are common norms that arise, in the American context. American stan of work as central to their personal identity. We take it builds character, Many of us are on call at all hours. Certainly myself.
I’m receiving emails and send emails at all hours.
Speaker 0: Yeah. People of protestant heritage, people of northeast Asian heritage. Right? And maybe maybe some other groups, this is true of, but for a third of the American population that’s on very stuff. Types of welfare, not so much.
Speaker 1: There’s a huge stigma attached to being unemployed and also to receiving free stuff from the government any kind of welfare benefits. And there’s a kind of culture of performative of work h showing off it’s showing that you’re working really hard and demonstrating to other people that you’re working really hard. Here you can see the United States at the far right is the only rich capitalist country in the world that has 0 days of state mandated paid vacation 0. Now, of course, , that many workers do have pay vacation through their employment contract, about half of workers, little and than half of workers have pay vacation days through their employment contract, However, the vast majority of workers do not take all of their contractually eligible entitled vacation days. So let’s take a look at the history of the critique of the work ethic, and I’m gonna start the president work backwards.
I was in London last weekend, having a discussion bullshit. Jobs with David Grab from Alex. And he defines bullshit jobs as paid employment so pointless unnecessary or per, that even the employee can’t justify its existence, although the employee must pretend that this is not the case. Grave goes on to discuss a variety of bullshit jobs that were reported to him, and he can contrast bullshit jobs with shit jobs, which are actually socially useful jobs, socially necessary jobs, things like cleaning bed pain
Speaker 0: How did I repeat the the same excess?
Speaker 1: Ends of patience and so forth, but which are poorly paid, get no respect and forms of dr. Grave suggests ever half half of all work. Is bullshit. He does this on the basis of a sort of half ass survey. 37 to 40 percent of, of workers in the Uk and Netherlands who were polled, suggested that they were working at bullshit jobs,
Speaker 0: Okay. So Sandra Singh lo, teachers creative writing and performance at Usc and about 15 years ago, she had this dinner party. With largely Jewish professional women, high achieving very well dressed, and turned out they’d all dated me, they’d all had the same experience. Initially, they were very excited to to meet me, and then the more they learned about me, the more they got to know me, then, the more intense their disappointment and the more quickly they cut ties. So 1 woman wrote a bunch of blog posts about dating me in June of 2006.
She says, I met Luke Ford recently you shared with me that he lived in a h. Interesting I thought. I I also been living in what I consider a H. And she was living in something it was, like, 3500 square feet. So I made this character.
This colorful powerful and perhaps even multiple personality acquaintance look forward to show me his hubble. Now that I know what it means. This colorful Poor Sc. Right? Yes.
Far less than I do. It doesn’t feel pity for himself team completely content to live in the H. Ask him how long he’s been there, and I think he says more than 9 years. So I sit on the desk chair in Luke’s H as he makes a lemon tea with water from the bathroom sink. There is no kitchen.
I watch him, and I wanted to myself how he feels inside right now. I feel empathy for him. I know that for a man, their finances are major source spot for them, Luke, obviously, is it’s not rich. He’ll this need to let him know how much I adore and that his lack of material possessions only make him more attractive to me. So at a similar dynamic with Holly Rand.
Who remarked on a podcast that she tends to to pay for for most dates and most man take offense at this. But for some reason, never bothered Luke when she would pay for me. So I’m ready to pack Luke up, put him in my person take him home, is lack of material possessions only make it easier It takes less time. I read on his website that many people ridicule him because of the way he lives in AHI read some of the postings they break my heart for him, they make me feel protective. I realized as I watch him dipping the tea bag for me, how genuine and kind and imp.
The energy is that radiates from his soul. Yeah. A lot of people said I got good energy. I feel like I wanna a shout at all those people at this moment to refer to him as evil. Looking at him.
He now appears to be at angel Now he’s talking to me and smiling as he dips the tea bag, I’m completely h by this man. Even though we are sitting in a room that brings memories of a jail cell to me. Yet when he touched me, touches me. I feel completely safe. He lights a candle, he hands me the t, then in what I feel is a romantic gesture, he turns on air supply.
I remember reading on his blog how much he loves air supply and how their lyrics translate his true feelings toward love and his search for a partner in life. Lost in love and I don’t know much, plays on the stereo and we both giggle. Magical. We lost some more. He reaches over and puts tea on the desk.
I get nervous all of a sudden like a school girl. I feel completely out of control. My heart is racing. I’m flushed. Thank God.
I want my trusty black. Turtle, so we can’t see how flushed and turned una I am. Why am I so nervous? I’m not exactly a virgin. Puts down the tee up he leans toward me, With both his hands, putting my hands in his.
His eyes sparkle with boys laughter. His lips are gently parted as he moves closer to me. Saying take my name. Yes, look. Yes, look luke.
And then I… Say nervous would laughed at Luke, What is it? You wanna fill out an application for the position of my husband number 3. We both explode in laughter and yet we are still connected with our hands ent in 1 another. I feel such warmth from him and I am.
Lost in love. So 1 of the greatest dating moments I’ve ever had in my life, and I am the queen of dating. Feel like a school girl being kissed for the first time, like loves sick, puppy, puppy love. And the handsome prince in his job kisses me, my eyes gently close. He runs his hands through my hair.
He turns off the lights. We both giggle again. Luke is an amazing kiss. Trust me when you can orgasm from just kissing someone. That’s a damn good kiss.
Through I was feeling my body out of control. I felt a mixture of both excitement and embarrassment. We kissed for several minutes when he reached behind my shirt and un busting fastened my bra. The pop snapped me a bit out of the kiss, and I laughed again. I feel like I’m in high school.
But the crush on the guy who’s the poet, we’re sneaking out in the parent’s garage is fun. I fantasize emphasize about hanging out in a serial killer van. I love the idea because when you drive a car like that, people love you for you and not your money. Luke, the handsome prince does not have a bed. He sleeps on the floor.
Then I ask him the magic question. If you could have or be or anything in the world right now. With all your desires, what would it be? Let’s say, my needs are simple. I want a wife that I love, life that I love with god and the ability to share by writing with other people.
So this is a series of blog post that got got the title the ascent of luke, pictures from Holly Holly Randolph throwing my fort birthday party, with Holly, I am at Los Angeles press club. I wanna take care of him and put my arms around him and love him unconditionally. I remember in the 19 eighties listening to public radio, and I think I think it was a poet. At Louisiana State University, who was from some foreign country at a very thick accent. And he he was told very early on in his life that he would be doomed to live off women, the rest of his life that I heard this in, like, 19 86 when I was working like 90 hours a week, and I was just stacking away the money and savings, but somehow that resonated with me.
I… I’ve always kinda had this sense that I was I was doomed to to live off women.
Speaker 1: Another survey. This is not particularly scientific. Suggests that American office workers report happened… Of their tasks or bullshit, or they just had to look busy or something like that. But I’m gonna tell you said cases where my students half Last semester, I I taught a course all about work, and we just did a section on bullshit jobs, and I asked them how many of you have ever worked in a bullshit job in long behold 40 percent of my students raising their hands.
Okay. So what what what were their job. So I had 1 student who had a summer job at a firm in which he was assigned to write… That business analysis of, operations within the firm, and he would have to upload it into this, internal website at the firm, and the website would count the number of times this report was downloaded 0. So his job wise write reports that no 1 read.
There I can discuss other cases in Q A, but I’m gonna move on. So grave proposal is, look, let’s just eliminate bullshit jobs, and then we can cut the work we in half share around the rest of the… , the actual socially necessary task and introduce a leisure society. In this respect, he was echoing the great
Speaker 0: Okay. So New Yorker Article just came out. Works sucks, what could salvage it? New books examined the place of work in our lives and how people throughout history have tried to change it. And the article begins.
There’s a lot… 1 of my favorite songs has been tripping me up recently, We take care of our own kicks off B. Bruce Springs 20 12 album wrecking ball. And here’s the stumbling block? Where’s the work that set my hands my soul free.
So I think because America’s a Christian nation, there’s something deeply embedded in the western Christian and post Christian psyche that y for redemption. That year for salvation, and I don’t resonate with that. I, I don’t year for redemption. I know where I’ve gone off the rails where I’ve heard people where I be more of a burden than an asset to community and so I have put into practice, right, amend to try to where , turn around and reduce the harms that I’ve done previously and build up something good instead, But I don’t feel that the need for some dramatic redemption. I don’t feel the need for salvation, but it’s yearning for salvation, it just seems to be just out of the surface throughout Christian and post Christian societies, including this New Yorker essay sa.
And and for the author, right, the idea of work setting people free was ominous. This why was it ominous? Because the Nazis had over some of their concentration camps work will set you free. Like, just because the Nazis, say water boils at a certain temperature doesn’t mean they’re wrong. And just because the Nazis put over a concentration can’t work will set you free.
Doesn’t mean that’s an ominous idea. So Right? Why do we just hand over so much about discourse and so much about thinking. Why why are the Nazis like the 1 sacred value in the west? That that can be invoked for the ultimate of evil.
So activists on the left have increasingly thought that the idea of work setting people free is ominous. 20 15, the art scarlet at Mia Tokyo Mit sue to debunk to the notion in a book. Do what you love and lies about success and happiness. Well, everything situational or for 5 percent, 10 percent of the population, doing what you love and doing it really well is a good path forward in pursuing work and pursuing an education. Right?
If you love engineering, If you love computer programming, you love being a lawyer or a doctor, for a professor, than doing what you love is the path forward. But 90 percent of people I would estimate doing what you love is not the best strategy for paying the bills. So do what you love is a lie about success and happiness for 90 percent of people. But again, it’s all based on this foundation of we need redemption. We need salvation.
So even these Marxist. Are coming from this perspective, we need redemption. We need salvation. And I just don’t share it. Like, if you have people in your life that you love, and you are contributing to them, if you have family and extended family, right, you should have all you need to be fulfilled in life and to not have some desperate yearning for redemption.
I… I’m not married with kids, but I have plenty of people in my life who I love, and I have my hobbies. And I… Just don’t feel the need for redemption. I don’t resonate with it.
I don’t don’t share with that. I don’t empathize with this big yearning for. I some ultimate redemption, some dramatic type of salvation. Right? Now the left wing historian here, James Livingston, least a book no more work.
And he explained why. Fallen employment is a bad idea. So I and that is secular people kinda swing often to extremes. Like, religious people generally understand that work is just how the world works. Right?
From book of Genesis, after Adam and eve kicked out of the Garden of Eden, God says to the woman, you will give birth in pain, and the man will have to earn his bread. Through great exert and sweat. Right? So usually, traditional people, religious people take it for granted that work is hard and they don’t look for redemption or salvation through work or through sex or through art or through nationalism. Right?
That they have all the redemption, and meaning and purpose and transcend and salvation they need from their religion, from their family extended family community or tribe. Right, If you are a trap, if you’re traditional, if you’re right wing, right, you will have a skeptical view of human nature, you have more likely a tragic, sense of life, and you’ll take it for granted that we will all have to engage in a lot of tedious activity if we want to be ups outstanding members of our tribe family, extended family or or nation. Right? So this is just another example. Why I think the traditional perspective, the tribal perspective, the nationalist perspective is a far more effective, far more profound understanding of life rather than the liberal perspective, which is we’re primarily individuals, for born with certain ina rights.
What is it about bus driver’s man? They’re just getting weighed on boiled on. It it’s crazy. Like, bus drivers in La that they walled off front from passengers. Bus drivers in La are going on strike, I mean, the The assaults are on bus drivers are are crazy just out of control.
Hey, another symptom of the low levels of social trust, and then we’re not getting super predators. Out there. Alright? We could solve our crime problems very simply. Just take the super predators, the most violent disruptive predators and put them away prison for a long time.
By people who commit violent crime, if you put them away in prison for a long time, we can reduce our murder rates, say violent crime rates to 10 percent if what they are currently all we need is the will, the legislation, and the political dominance to enforce that. And you see what happens when law enforcement incentivized to to back off and United States is going to hell. Even though the mainstream media wants to tell you that motor rates are dropping. Yeah. Compared to 20 20 and 20 21, Murder in 20 22 and 20 23 dropped.
By compared to 20 14, 20 13, Right? Motor rates are significantly higher. Right? Thanks to Black Lives matter exploding in 20 14, and then again in 20 20, Right? We’ve dis police and law enforcement for doing their job, and we’ve had a massive explosion in voter rates when our technology is getting better.
Right? Both law enforcement technology and life saving medical technology technologies. So all things being equal motor should be dropping about 2 percent a year. And that they are much higher than they were in 20 13 is a s. It’s a scandal.
It’s it’s outrageous.
Speaker 1: Economist john cane. Who in his 90 30 essay economic possibilities for our grandchildren criticized the work ethic because this goal of the endless accumulation of wealth is pathological. The idea that we should be working and until we’re practically dead is postponing pleasure,
Speaker 0: But, some people are far better off working until they’re almost dead. Right? Some people can’t handle freedom. Right? If you got…
Family extended family friends community, hobbies, interest, commitments. You got a coherent value system, here system. Alright. Then you can probably handle freedom. But if you don’t have those things, you’re unlikely to make responsible use of your spare time and your freedom.
Right? Lot of people, their lives just fall apart and they die. Shortly after retirement, we all need purpose. Right? Once people have a why, Right?
They can overcome almost anything that’s within their realm possibility. So this idea of following your bliss, right? Doing what you love. This is very much a liberal notion. Right?
Liberals believe that we’re primarily individuals. And liberal wisdom comes out of the enlightenment, and believes that people are basically good, which is the most ludicrous perspective, and that we can create meaning and purpose am morality just in here. Alright? We have a buffett identity from this liberal left dominant ethos that just in here, we can create all the meaning and purpose. Morality and moral systems and understanding right wrong or on our own.
This is not the traditional perspective. The traditional perspective on life whether a religious perspective or just traditional is that meaning and purpose and right wrong exist outside of the individual. That we are not primarily individuals. We are primarily members of families extended families, tribes and nations. Right?
As I go around in the world, I don’t look at most people as primarily individuals. We all recognize people primarily as muslim or as Orthodox Jews, or as gay or transgender, or African American. Or originally. Right? We don’t go to the cognitive expenditure of energy into looking at most people primarily as individuals.
Now, for our loved ones our friends. Yeah. We’ll look at them as individuals, but as we navigate our way through life, we primarily look at people as members of extended families otherwise known as tribes and nations. But because Liberal left, which dominates almost all of our institutions and dominates the news media and it emerged out of the enlightenment. I believes that we have a buffett identity that we can decide right and wrong and meaning a purpose on our own.
Alright. Out of that comes this idea, that you should pursue your bliss. Right? Follow your bliss. Right?
Very liberal left enlightenment notion, not a conservative notion, Not a traditional notion, not a tribal notion, not a nationalist notion. Right for a nationalist and a tribal, and a devote of his in group. Right? The welfare of your in group is pretty much your highest priority, and you try to shape your life in accordance with the well being of your group. So in Judaism, for example, virtually, all the prayers are in the plural.
Right? The prayers that you say in Judaism at were not for oneself. Right? It’s overwhelmingly for the people. Right?
The focus of judaism is not the individual. Focus of protestantism is the individual. The focus of sec human is the individual. The focus of liberal and much of left is the individual. Right?
The focus of the news media and our dominant Elite discourse, the focus is on the individual, but for right a center perspectives is the religious perspective. Do the tribal perspective, the nationalist perspective, the the familiar perspective, the focus is on the family and extended family. Do which is represented as a nation or or a tribe. So from a right wing perspective, either as a tribal nationalist or religious person, Right? The ethos is do your duty.
Right. Not follow your bliss. The liberal left ethos is follow your bliss. Right The traditional ethos is do your duty. Right?
Or traditional approaches to life of which I’m aware. Understand that life is brutal at times. It’s difficult, and I’m not just talking about the happily married man who boasts to his wife. , my penis is a weapon of ass destruction. Right?
, that that kind of destruction that goes on in the bedroom of of lawful married couples. Right? I’m not gonna cost judgment. There there are rabbi to say Anal sex is permitted as long as you don’t finish there. Remember a major rabbi in Los Angeles gave a shoe, a a lecture based in jewish text.
On whether or not Anal Sex was permitted. And when people arrived at the home for this she or on whether Anal sex was permitted, there was a big sign at the front door, please enter through the back. But if if you’re permitted to engage in Anal sex, but you’re not allowed to finish there. I mean, My god, you need to do a whole bunch of very thorough cleaning before you finish in the front door. I mean, that could be…
That could be very lucrative business for for, traditional who believe that it is a sin to finish in the backdoor door but they still want the the erotic pleasure provided by the backdoor door, but then they want to conform to the teachings of their Hero system, So they p the back door, but then need to do it very, very, very, very thorough cleaning before entering the front door, that there’s a a massive business opportunity that I’m sharing with you. All these people I know. They’re always talking to me about, oh, this could be a great side hustle for you. Well, I don’t want the side hustle of, , helping men who traditional, , observe Hal Jewish law. But not finishing in the back door and providing some cleaning mechanism that is, , incredibly thorough, so they can finish in the front door Right?
That’s not the kind of side hustle I want. But when when people, , watch my videos, my my friends. Alright? These are friends or they they check out, , the various areas of my online endeavors Like, oh, this could be a great great side hustle for you. Right you could teach people how to succeed online.
And I’ll admit, it’s absolutely into right now to be speaking in front of 7 live viewers. Alright? Yeah. What’s the point of henry entering the back door if you don’t finish it. That’s that’s because you’re not an Orthodox U, bro?
The the whole point of entering the backdoor door, like entering the front noise to do god’s will. Alright? You should have a sense of the almighty. Either which ever set door you’re entering, but you’re not allowed to… You’re not allowed to finish in someone’s mouth either, Right.
Very serious sin. Alright. Not supposed to sp. I if someone’s breasts. Alright.
You’re you’re wasting seeds. So Don’t finish over someone’s breasts or don’t don’t use their arm pit for or for finishing. Don’t use their mouth and don’t use the back. These are all serious serious sins. And as…
This could be a great side hustle for you brandon Smith. A great side hustle for. Yeah. Oh, my friends got this idea. Is it’s like, great side hustle.
Look, I work hot enough. I’m I’m fed dink and working. Right? I I don’t need any more side hustle. All I wanna do is contribute to humanity by providing clarity by providing, , a strong moral ethical and realistic psychological, social foundation for life.
Right? I I I’m busy enough en writing my rules for life and my principles for detecting reality. Right? I I don’t need any more side hustle. Poet is a eu for unemployed.
So you don’t have to take the highest paying jobs that are offered to you. Right? If you can make 40000 dollars a year as a poet, and you love poetry and you’re good at it, that that might be worthy endeavor. Is most people probably better do a job that you love at 70000 dollars a year than an incredibly demanding taxing job at a hundred and 15000 dollars a year. So we don’t always have to have to go for for the money.
But the the ethos behind this new Yorker article is that we need redemption. We need salvation, and that’s Ethos behind much of culture that’s created by the the left. It’s the ethos behind dominant. Elites and media discourse. Right?
We need some dramatic form of salvation, and some people seek it in sex and others in drugs and others in alcohol, and others in extreme sports or in being just a sports fan or through having a big Tv and a home entertainment system or through work, going on various adventures or travel, but if you have a family that you like, if you have people that you like, if you’re part of an extended family and community, let alone a a religion. Right? You don’t feel this desperate yearning for redemption and salvation unless you’re Christian. Alright? I I know that being raised the Christian.
Right? It leaves an imprint on unused. So I’ve had orthodox jewish friends who who would comment during my more difficult days that a year to be a matter. So where my life was struggling, when my life wasn’t working, when my life was just rico sharing from humiliation to humiliation. Alright.
Then are yuan for some grand dramatic gesture. And we you heard Elliot B. Yesterday. Talked about. He wanted to make a a grand dramatic gesture of leaving a big a big tip for for this woman with lobster claws for arms.
So if you… You’re into lobster claws for arms, you’ll like the 3 season Tv show, which I believe is on Netflix louder milk. It’s about a mis philanthropic drug and alcohol counselor. And there’s a rock drummer with lobster claws for arms. Who’s a prominent figure in louder milk.
So… Solid show, and some some wisdom in it as well and funny. It’s made by 1 of the Farley brothers who did, there’s something about Mary.
Speaker 1: And at leisure, and that’s just preposterous. And he too argued that we should just, bring about a leisure society as soon as we achieve enough prosperity that everyone can live decently.
Speaker 0: Look, that there’s no work that will set you free. There’s no sex that will set you free. There’s no 1 relationship. There’s no marriage that will set you free. It’s no hobby that will set you free.
There’s no livestream stream that will set you free. Right? Freedom has to begin from within with a sense of ease with oneself. Right? A sense of peace with oneself.
Right? If you have, , a decent relationship with yourself. So you didn’t hate yourself. Then These external things can come along and unleash freedom and and opportunity. But as long as you’re filled with self loa as long as you don’t understand yourself and don’t like yourself.
Right? There’s no external redemption salvation that’s going to come along. Right? You may be tempted to don’t invest yourself in religion for ultimate salvation or psychotherapy for ultimate salvation, but until you do the internal work, coming to sense of ease with yourself. Right?
These external solutions won’t work. Right? There’s no external solution for an internal problem There’s no non spiritual solution for a spiritual problem. There’s no non biological solution for a biological problem. It’s no non social solution for a social problem.
There’s no non psychological answer for a psychological problem.
Speaker 1: And suggested that by sharing around the remaining work, maybe we only have to work 3 or 4 hours a day. And finally, we can go to the
Speaker 0: Look, that there there are forms of work that can unleash you if you’ve otherwise got yourself together. I mean, my work is a journalist and a writer, but I could just rightful full time which I pretty much did between 19 97 and 4000 and and 12 because I kept writing during my Alexander technique training. Alright. Those were into years. And to whatever extent, I had quite quite good energy.
Alright? When we say someone’s got good energy. Means that they largely live in reality. They’re not filled with delusions about themselves and the people around them. Alright.
So to the extent that I have good energy, and then I could build on those opportunities to devote myself to writing that Right? That was incredibly into and freeing. Yeah. Work work meant freedom when your work is writing when you’re producing cultural artifacts. Right?
When you are producing leonard tones, Right When you are shaping the culture. Right? That that kind of work is incredibly into and freeing, if you have some sense of reality and basic ease with yourself.
Speaker 1: Original critique of the work ethic, scholar… Critique. And that is in Mo Favors. Partisan ethic and the spirit of capitalism. They didn’t do a half ass job.
He did her like a really serious job studying the original work ethic text, and in 19 20, having read the P ministers who invented the Work ethic, he argued that the P had bestowed an amazingly good conscience and the acquisition of money. And as the ethic secular, that good conscience about wealth accumulation continued without its theological, basis. And ultimately ended up rationalizing capitalist exploitation of workers, internalized willingness to work. So the internal, of the P work ethic by workers that carried over even under secular centralization, just enhanced the ability of capitalist to slate workers. He described the situation as an iron cage and famously argued, the p didn’t wanted to work in a calling, but we are forced.
To do so. I think it’s worthwhile then to go back and actually read the bear invented the work ethic sent
Speaker 0: as p in the event, the worker I think they just took it from the juice. I cage. That’s sound familiar. What of my favorite concepts were all locked in an I cage together, and nobody’s is coming to rescue. Us.
Now coming to rescue you, Right? Now one’s coming to save you. Now it’s coming to rescue you, and no one’s coming to rescue us. Alright. Yet, we’re it locked in an iron cage.
With people who hate us, to people with people who wanna take everything that we have with with people who want to eliminate us from from life. And so the best way to survive when you’re locked in an I cage with people bent on killing you is to make yourself in in your people, your nation as strong as possible. So that’s 1 of the the foundations of my worldview.
Speaker 1: T figure that weber, I think properly identifies as Richard Baxter from the seventeenth century, He’s articulating a p in theology which is essentially calvin. So you start off with justification by faith alone, salvation. It’s based on faith alone not works. However, baxter also argued that you can’t really know whether you have faith, except through your behavior. So the p were behavior.
You can’t know by intersection whether you really have faith. The only
Speaker 0: If you have a traditional conception of life that largely revolves around the family and you’re a man, you understand that you’re gonna have to devote yourself to work. Mean, the Jewish way of life in particular is incredibly expensive. Right? Days go tuition 20000 to 50000 a year. So try to understand that people are not basically good.
They they recognize that life is going to largely revolve around work. Not something that people on the left generally understand. So pass most influential back to this New Yorker article on Works sucks, what can we do about it? The ana ant anthropologists, David Grab, who doesn’t take the time to do solid scholarship. He just emo.
But he can construct words in a way that’s appealing It’s just that he lacks factual foundation for his very attention grabbing language. So you fired off a best selling, Sal in 20 18 against the bullshit jobs. He says were ubiquitous in 20 first century, and I’d noticed so many people who are chronic under owners who have inherited this disdain for work? I I have not had good experiences with people who stay work. Then they’re not the time of people that I wanna build my life around.
The idea that work was necessary to our flourishing. Right? This is a liberal left idea. Right? T understand that the life is inherently difficult and pursuing our own flourishing.
It’s not really what life is all about. What we should be doing is building strengthening and protecting our families, extended families, our our community, our tribe and our our nation. Right? As… Tribal and a nationalist.
You you understand that the locust of your attention is the nation, the tribe. It is not your individual pursuit of of bliss. So it’s just so jarring to hear this, , little left rhetoric, which is just so contrary to the the way of life of most people that I’m close to. So But on the liberal left. Right?
Some of them have the idea that work is inherently evil, and others have the idea that work is necessary to our flourishing both, extremes are absurd. Right? That that’s why I think the traditional right wing conception that life is hard and people are not basically good. And we’re all locked in and I cage together. So if we’re gonna survive, we need to make ourselves and our loved ones as strong and protected it as possible.
Right, it’s so much more realistic. Right alright? That’s why my rules for life and my principles for detecting re reality are so much more profound than what the New Yorker and the New York Times. Hands out, but for the… But much of the left.
There’s this idea that work is necessary to our human flourishing. Since I hear the term human flourishing. Like human empowerment. Has tricked us into force swearing the increased leisure that nearly 2 centuries of mounting economic productivity made available to us. So this is largely an argument between Marxist.
So this shot S ant anthropologists, David G. We have act we to the schemes of capital to stuff our hours for a pointless and per work. And then Covid struck millions of people found out that they were in essential. And the anti work forum became 1 of the most active communities On reddit. I didn’t think Orthodox used and traditional people with families, are spending much time on the anti work forum on Reddit.
New York Times announced an age of anti ambition, right? Not true for tribes, not true for people with families. New York review of books res issued, nineteenth century pamphlet, the right to be lazy. Right? Then some on the left, Defend the idea that work is an important site of self realization.
So because the liberal left ethos is that we’re buffet, right? That meaning purpose morality can be created inside our head. There’s also a dominant perspective in this liberal left way of thinking that the most important thing in life is self realization, from a trap perspective, a right Wing ain’t perspective, a conservative perspective, or a religious perspective, a nationalist perspective. Alright? It’s absurd to think that the purpose of our life is self realization.
But if you’re on the right, generally speaking, you understand for the purpose of life is the well being safety and survival of your people. So Elizabeth Anderson is leading the charge that work is import for self realization. She’s a philosopher at the University of Michigan, leading scholar and critic of workplace politics In a 20 19 book. Private government, how employers rule allies are why we don’t talk about it. 1 of the century where support works a political philosophy Henderson argues that Americans have essentially outsourced totalitarian to the private sector, this is a very profound point.
Normally, when you go to work, you’re essentially a slave when you’re at work. And there are better ways of being a slave and there are worse ways of being a slave, but you are a slave. But anyone who who is decent and holds to any kind of of thoughtful hero system is going to be a slave to that hero system. Right? If you’re an orthodox jew, you’re a slave to the kingdom of heaven.
Right? If you’re an orthodox jew, you’re a slave to protecting and providing for your family. If you’re North Orthodox Jew or you have any kind of tribal a national identity, you’re a slave to a higher morality to the well being and protect action and survival of your people. And so from a traditional perspective being a slave is just something we take for granted. That much of life is dr Much of life is tedious, but the good person, the outstanding person, the person who deserves to be honored.
Is willing to undergo that which is difficult and tedious. Is unwilling to undergo dr to provide for people they love who constitute family and extended family. But on the liberal left, it’s all about self realization and human flourishing. But this is this is an interesting point that we’ve outsourced totalitarian, for the private sector for all our talk about the Sac sent values of freedom and democracy, most of us spend our days toil and sub coordination to bosses who will control over many aspects of our lives. Yeah.
It’s simply doing a show like this would make me too much of a liability for big employers, generally speaking. And they would find a way to fire me. Because even though I’d never talk about any work that I I do for them or reveal anything, Right? They would still just consider too much of a liability that I’m, a public bigger, , saying my piece on Youtube. Even though any 10 people are watching.
Speaker 1: Sure sign of faith is constant disciplined labor for the greater glory of God. Any moment of idle and sloth as a sign of backs sliding in your faith. So, , and, , both of lightning to come down and take you out at any moment. So you should be in constant terror Right. If you’re stripped down in a moment of idle list, you’re just heading for hell.
Better nose of the guy grinds down then, or as baxter says, give diligence to make your calling an election sure. The citation is his wonderful work saints ever lasting rest. So here are the principal components of the work ethic as the p developed it. Duty number 1. Engage in disciplined work in a calling.
God has called everyone to some specialized occupation. You gotta figure out what that is and then dedicate your life to it. Secondly, don’t waste any time. Don’t be idle. Importantly, even the rich must work, I’m going to get back to that point.
Thirdly, don’t waste any material goods. God has given natural resources for people to use to act to carry out God’s will. It’s an aesthetic doctrine. So people shouldn’t indulge in world of goods and pleasures and any anything that is just tending to their vanity. 1 must not be cove.
That and he defines cove that’s a sin very, very strictly. It consists wanting more material goods than 1 strictly needs to do one’s duty. Think about that. That’s not very much that anyone needs. However at the same time, he also argues that every man should frugal get it and save if as much as he can.
Any… What essentially that means is, given a choice of Gina higher paid and a lower paid occupation, you actually have a duty to choose the higher paid 1. I’m…
Speaker 0: I was just telling a friend that I’m dropping truth bombs. That decoding work. It’s deeply philosophical and yet so practical and sexy.
Speaker 1: Trying to discuss later up. What appears to be an evident contradiction between, points 5 and 6 baxter knew about this and he had a solution. Weber correctly argues that over time time, the work ethic got secular. And on that point, I’m in full agreement with favor. But here’s the point, the critical point where I disagree.
Weber only reveals 1 half of the work ethic. What I’m calling the conservative path to secular centralization that rationalize harsh discipline of workers. And their exploitation. What I’m going to be arguing and that’s the chief thesis of this talk is that they would…
Speaker 0: So traditional. Tribal nationalist religious people by and large don’t expect to get fulfillment from work. They expect to get fulfillment from family. That’s the normal thing. And a normal healthy person primarily expects to get fulfillment from family.
And then if there’s not enough family to occupy them from extended family, primarily There’s not enough family and extended family to occupy them, then they have more room in their life for friends, and for hobbies Only a tiny percentage of people have any realistic shock at shot. Being occupied and fulfilled. Through work.
Speaker 1: It was another side of the work ethic that is profoundly pro worker, and that side of the ethic work ethic. Had its own, history and profound influence on the subsequent history of political thought as it got secular. But first, we’ll just take a look at the conservative path,
Speaker 0: So so much of left wing thought is… Oh, it’s just so incredibly naive and and utopian. Right? The people on the right. Right?
We understand that people are not basically good, but people on the left, influenced by the alignment do see people is is basically good. And so they have these utopian aspirations to find redemption and meaning and purpose through sex, through hobbies, through work, through therapy, through political activism, through saving the planet, through extreme sports through art and culture. Right. People on the right don’t need to find redemption of salvation and purpose a meaning from these things nearly as much as people on the left. Right?
People on the right understand your primary person source of meaning and fulfillment and and purpose in lives should be from your family.
Speaker 1: On the left hand column, we’ll see the theological doctor. On the right hand Collin will see how that doctrine gets secular. So theological, it p thought that the poor stood to the as lazy sinner stand to the hardworking working. In secular terms, this amounts to the idea that, honor, receipt of honor and esteem is conditional on achieving self sufficiency that is not depending on others, either charity or government welfare payments or something. To survive.
And also, a presumption at the poor I’m, a presumption that if 1 is poor and able bodied it must be that 1 is lazy. That inferences is licensed by the conservative.
Speaker 0: I don’t know about your life experience, but when I look around me… Noticed that rich people have worked a lot harder, and many more hours than the poor people. I know. Generally speaking, I in the world I see, those who become rich have worked hotter and smarter and more effectively, and many of the the really poor people I know have worked ineffective, suddenly and careless.
Speaker 1: Path to secular categorization. Theological, I was considered a abortion duty need to maximize profits by disc
Speaker 0: Love is a bourgeois duty. What’s that what’s that song by patch up boy something about Bourgeois duty.
Speaker 1: Workers. And that turns into the modern neo liberal doctrine of shareholder capitalism. The idea that the sole duty of the corporation is to maximize profits. And that public policy should be oriented towards facilitating that by systematically favoring capital over labor. I take that to be practically definition of neo liberal policy.
Thirdly, theological, , in order to maximize profits, you gotta squeeze the workers wages, and that’s going to lead to a class of working poor The P tense favorite.
Speaker 0: Okay. That was the pet shop boys Love is a Bourgeois construct. Now I’m digging through my student paper box, flicking through Karl marx again, searching for the song… Of England, drinking tea like Tony Ban, who is a big left wing politician in England. Love is just a Bourgeois construct.
So I’m giving out the Bourgeois z until you come back to me. A big big fan of the pet up pet up boys. So what happens when you put more pressure on a ben. Or on anything a balcony, then it can hold. It crashes.
Right? So if you expect your a redemption meaning and purpose in life to come from work or from Sex or from art or cultural or political activism. In all likelihood, you’re gonna put more pressure on that construct, then it can handle. Right? If if you get, , you’re meaning a purpose in life from feeling romantically in love.
Right? This is a construct that is going to collapse. Right? You expect sex drugs, alcohol sports, culture, political activism, art, Right, to be your foundation, for meaning and purpose in life, you will put put pressure on this construct that it can handle, and it will crash. And and you will crash with it.
Right? And only people on the left who have this idea that meaning purpose and morality is something that we can just develop inside our own head. Right? Because we lead Buffet lives. Right I think people on the left are gonna be much more vulnerable to constructing these constructs for meaning and purpose and foundation in life that simply will not bear up under the pressure of life.
Speaker 1: Biblical phrase, quotation was he who does not work shall off eat.
Speaker 0: But not a bad idea. Like, you don’t want to reward anti social behavior and not working and taking welfare is generally and Our social behavior if you’re capable of work. So many people dis just fall apart without the discipline of work. Generally speaking, I noticed that the work is among the enabling pursuits. It it consistently seems to make people better.
If you’re gonna be effective at work, you have to internalize other people’s priorities and replace your own ego and your own presumption and your own inclination with what other people want you to do. Because So many people just fall apart and die when they don’t have their work. Right? Many people just fall apart upon retirement. Others do fine.
Right? What type of people do find with freedom and a retirement. Right? Those who have family extended family, a coherent. Hero system, a a religion, community, commitments, hobby interests and people that they love.
So nothing is intrinsically good for everyone. You can drink too much water. Right? What is a great thing overall? Fire is a good thing when used appropriately, but fire can’t kill.
Water can’t kill. There’s nothing that is just intrinsically good for everyone, Not work, not religion, not marriage, not sex, not sport. Not Youtube. Not look for. Right people wanna be relieved from responsibility.
People wanna get a break from making choices so they can just say, oh, the whole purpose of life is work or religion or psychology or therapy or political activism or sex or sports or or culture or art. Right? People love a magic key to life. I’ll, whole key to how the world works is the Jews While the capitalists or the communists or antifa. Right?
There’s no magic key at life. Right? There there’s no 1 thing that’s always intrinsically good. For you. Right?
People wanna be relieved or responsibility by clinging to a magic key and that magic will then enable them to point fingers as it say, look, the problem with the world is the bosses, the Jews, the capitalists, the blacks, the the the Muslims. Key Right? So whether you’re trying to base your meaning and purpose in life on a foundation of work or on love or on religion or on therapy or on yoga on starbucks Right Or in sex. Right? These can these can all seem red addictive briefly, but they will all fall apart Now, there are many part paths through a a better life.
Right? There there are many fraudulent are purchased to life. But went used appropriately, alright, , marriage religion, community, political activism, hobbies art culture. Right? Can be 1 part of a…
But good good life. Let me play a little bit more from Elizabeth Anderson.
Speaker 1: And in secular terms, that turned into a public policy preference in favor either of work there over getting…
Speaker 0: So everything that we think about work. Is something that we’ve gotten from society. Right? In all likelihood, almost none of us come up with any original thinking on this topic. And so because almost everything is socially influenced, if not socially created or conditioned.
Alright? There really isn’t an intrinsic quality to Jews, to gays, to Muslims to lax to Europeans to Norwegian. Right? How these different groups manifest themselves would depend on the situation and and the context. Everything is either socially constructed or at least socially influenced.
Right I Had been fired over 30 times in my life, that that all occurred in the United States, which has fewer worker protections and any other first world of which I’m aware. And I I didn’t necessarily want the United States to develop more worker protections haven’t thought it through. I don’t have any position on that, but even getting fired. It’s not just something that has to do with me. It’s partly to do with me.
But it’s also socially conditioned. Right? I started working at age 12, most people don’t start working, 20 hours a week at age 12.
Speaker 1: Free stuff, , if you wanna receive… If you’re too poor to survive on your wages alone.
Speaker 0: So why do 70 of my friends want me to develop side hustle. Right? Because starting in the 19 seventies, there was this widespread idea. That the awesome thing is to work for yourself. But that’s entirely socially constructed idea.
I I can’t I know it. Half the people, I talked to about work. Think that the ultimate goal is to work for yourself, Edits Bo baloney. It’s a socially constructed idea that developed in the havoc of the 19 seventies, It doesn’t work for 90, 95 percent of people. It’s usually a delusion, and that as people go into 12 set programs like, under anonymous or.
Financial is anonymous or debt is anonymous, and they have these projects and they think these 12 step programs will make their entrepreneurial dreams come true, and that almost never happens. Right, to really get the benefit of 12 set program, you have to allow it to transform you and to transform your priority you can’t just use it to try to accomplish your entrepreneurial dream.
Speaker 1: Rather than just getting free stuff from the state you should work for it or rely on private charity. Theological, the doctrine was that nobody is entitled to leisure that hasn’t been earned, Rest must always follow labor. Said Baxter. And that turns into the American doctrine that…
Speaker 0: So, yeah. I usually feel… It would feel incredibly degenerate just watching Tv, watching a movie, watching a documentary in the morning. Yeah, I feel that that’s only something I deserve after I’ve worked hard. Watching And and most people from Northeast Asia such as Japan China and Korea certainly agree with me as well as people of protestant heritage.
Speaker 1: Nobody is entitled to pay vacations if they haven’t earned them and secure them in their private wage contract.
Speaker 0: So as opposed to Australia where everybody gets a month… A paid vacation a year with something like 15 percent loading on top.
Speaker 1: Obtained in the labor market, and also no paid leaves as well, another condition of American workers. Theological work was considered a kind of aesthetic discipline. If your nose to the grinds stone, your mind doesn’t have any time to wander the sinful thoughts of lust since sloth and so forth. And in secular terms that turned into the dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie. That is it’s the imposition of labor.
The the the fact
Speaker 0: And on Twitter, the Mighty Puck says David G who died recently was an interesting writer. Here he is talking about his book. Debt, the first 5000 years. He is at Marxist. He likes big ideas.
He does tend to gloss boring details, different people have different gifts.
Speaker 1: That 1 is working under the thumb of a boss who is putting 1 to this aesthetic discipline. However, Ir argue that there’s a completely either side of the work ethic that is pro worker, and 1 can read that in the original text. So I’m going to start. With Robert Sanders and another famous P, who wrote a, a wonderful sermon on how 1 will discover? How can 1 discover what is one’s calling?
God has is calling each person to a distinctive, occupation, a specialized occupation, but how you supposed to know that? Sanders?
Speaker 0: Right. So Elizabeth Anderson. How is speaking in this video. She has a new book out. She believes it’s possible to redeem work for managerial.
This is the New Yorker article. Pan new book is called hijacked how neo liberal, which means un capitalism. Turn to the work ethic against workers and how workers can take it back. So most people think neo liberal isn’t, that’s a, an updated version of a left wing politics. Nah.
Neo liberal. Generally it stands for un t capitalism. So she argues that demands for freedom at work should go hand in hand with efforts to make work morally valuable. Workers deserve liberation because working is or ought to be intrinsically good, and she approves to the progressive work ethic, the intellectual tradition, that connects mid century European social democracy marxism and the classical political economist. And she believes that this all originates with the P to rail against the idle rich and the idle poor, the shu they’re divine imposed obligation to find a calling and keep at it.
Pearson get a bad rap these days of Pro descent. Work ethic nowadays makes us think less of Marx association of free and equal producers and more of ulcers and back pain and Willie Le, spiritual dis disinformation. Well, I I think that’s true. The partisan work, I think it’s a bad rap in perhaps circles who read the New Yorker. So Anderson says is because the work ethic has been hijacked conservatives in the early days of industrial capitalism such as Thomas Malthus Jeremy.
So Ban, Joseph Priest and Edmund Burke per the principal into a gospel of un complaining submission to bosses. Even when they fail to demonstrate their own commitment to productive epic Work didn’t need to be made good. It was always already good, so the poor should be forced to perform it by whatever it means necessary. And from Andersen anderson’s perspective, these 2 visions of the work Ethic developed in parallel, the progressive 1 expands the P for the idle rich into a systematic critique of economic inequality, inspiring the creation of the modern European welfare states and the conservative critic aimed used by capitalist contempt for poor that we see at the heart of social policy making in the Us today. This is delusional.
I didn’t think that intent for the poor is at the heart of social policy making in the Us. Day the work ethic starts to feel a bit like the force in Star Wars. There’s a light side in the dark side You have to choose 1 because its power is so irresistible. It’s power. It’s not irresistible to those who love their families.
Right? Those who… Feel connected to particular people, particular tribe, particular religion, particular nation. Right? The all of finding red addictive power in work is easily irresistible.
For anderson, however she’s on the left, the stakes of that high confronting global issues such as inequality, democratic Decay and climate change. Right? You have to be on the left to make these your priority normally. We’ll require a great deal of work. So today’s progressive should Reclaim the idea that work can be red, but are these 2 sides really so easily dis entangled.
She acknowledges that the work ethic contains the seeds of its own corruption. Can any work ethic worth the name, be be a good thing. Ask the New Yorker human flourishing requires diversion to productive work as the work ethic insists surely war to instead frown on institutional arrangements that encourage loaf thing. Okay. You have to be on the left because to talk about human flourishing and to be so diluted to think that human flourishing requires devotion to productive work.
If you’re on the right. You understand that productive work and paying attention to Mundane details is just an essential part of your obligations as a member of an extended family. Right? People on the left turn about talk far more about rights. People for traditional talk far more about obligations.
The case against the dictatorship of bosses is so I glad. According to the New York. Well, sometimes a dictatorship is the most efficient way to run things. Now I don’t think the case against dictatorship of bosses is Iron clad If you get paid more, if you get better working conditions a more exciting job, right, or more productive and rewarding career. By sub your ego to the dictatorship of bosses.
Alright? You may well be better off than more democratic arrangements Right? Sometimes the democratic arrangements better than an authoritarian dictatorship, but plenty of times, xenophobic. Authoritarian regime is the way to go. Now, perhaps the solution from left wing perspective is not union power or collective walker ownership of the means of production, but rather self employment.
This is the most widespread delusion Ia about work around me today. Benjamin Ward house, is a historian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a deaf chronic alert of executive class es, and he tells the history of this clever. Maneuver in his new book 1 day. I’ll work for myself.
The dream and delusion the Conquered America and conquered it has, man. Rise near liberal policy making in the Us has channel the conservative work ethic to a new direction. It’s channel in the direction of the entrepreneurial work ethic. That’s the ideal isolation of self employment and the self actual job creators as a model, for the workforce to emulate. Right?
That’s a good model for perhaps 5 percent of people to emulate. 95 percent of people are better off having a boss So I worked for myself for a long time when I was a blogger and writer and just all around bond for violent personality. But when I I took a job here in 20 12. It was a relief. Right?
Because I didn’t have to think about work when I wasn’t at work. I could just go to work. And I could do the things or asked of me, and I got a guaranteed paycheck. And the benefits go with that, and I didn’t have to think about work when I wasn’t on the job, and didn’t have to think about , making new ideas, new strategies. I just didn’t have to worry.
I just… Showed up, did my job. Gotta got a paycheck. So but for most people, most of the time, you wanna be an employee. The easiest way to make money is to go work for someone.
Right? Not taking seminars on how to make money online. The aspiration to self employment is not something that’s intrinsic to the American character. It has a history. It has a context like everything else.
Right? Everything we think and feel pretty much is socially created. So it This idea that we should aspire to self employment is a product of the late twentieth century, particularly the economic crises of the seventies and early eighties. So during the prosperous decades after the second world war, not many people thought working for oneself was appealing. Right?
Large corporations were generous. Right. Workers desired a piece of the pie, and they desire to work for someone else. Poor black workers in a march On Washington demand it not freedom, but jobs. Alright.
Very different from Richard Nixon program created a few years later for minority business enterprise. Right? The young elites featured in William White, the organization man came out in the 19 fifties. They showed a little interest in into going into business for themselves instead, focus their energies on climbing the corporate ladder. Then in the seventies things fell apart, Got stag and unemployment oil shocks.
They Jobless recoveries financial turmoil, so the big, hierarchical corporations that be str the business landscape of the 19 fifties and sixties look like outdated Relics, so back in the seventies as much discussion about the evil of multinational corporations. He done hear that nearly as much today. So America began to listen to a new generation of business, guru, Americans love guru. It’s individual ethos. Believes that there’s, , some more exciting way to live that just gonna set your apart from everyone else while people in must Everywhere else in the world, don’t primarily want set themselves apart from their friends.
They want to bond with their friends and family. What we had in the seventies and eighties, these new business guru and management experts, people like Tony Robbins who claimed that the road to renewed growth would be paid by these brave entrepreneurial risk takers to embrace change. It’s not their own companies. And you had this Mit economist, David Budge producing a widely cited by statistic p the idea that small businesses were responsible for 80 percent of job creation in the Us. Right?
This study was bunk. Right? And serious method issues. His findings do not replicate. But the idea just constantly gets invoked.
In conservative talk radio and among many Americans who have this idea that entrepreneurship, that’s the path the self actual industrialization. They went upward promotion at a traditional job came out of reach for many people, the American dream seemed to instead require building a business yourself. Or buying 1 and reaping the rewards. So you got major corporations in industries like fast food and direct selling that created organizational schemes such as franchising independent contracting, and they depicted themselves as engines of small business creation even though they had continue to exert significant control over the working conditions and decision making of their ostensibly entrepreneurial workforce a bit like today’s gig economy. People who gave self employment to try, , usually found it required more work and more difficulties and just didn’t pay off.
Right? It was much worse than, being a worker among workers. Now being a worker among workers, it’s not exciting. It’s hard to have some Grand conception of yourself when you’re in want to internalize the priorities of your superiors, but it’s just an effective way to go through life. So there’s a Mexican immigrant Antonio Perez, graduates from selling merchandise on the street to earning his own grocery store in Chicago, but his sales at the store were so inconsistent, found himself driving a truck around the city, who pe products on the street in his spare time.
I know professionals who given serious consideration to driving for Uber. I mean, the the gig economy has has been lifted up as, , some kind of entrepreneurial vision. That’s why 70 many of my friends want me to develop a side hustle.
Speaker 1: Like periods generally tend to be dismissive of any kind of super idea that, died will just reveal his will for you in a dream. That’s not how it happens. How do you find out what you’re calling is well? You can consult your talents? What are you good at?
Your education, What skills have you manage to develop? And your personal taste, What kind of work would you like to do? And if you absolutely load something, even if you’re good at it, maybe you shouldn’t choose that. He also suggests he recommends that people searching for their calling. She can consult their parents who love them and know them very well and probably have some good advice.
In other words, what Sanders did was invent modern career counseling. Now another beautiful thing that you can find in periods and thought is the way they turn duties into individual rights. And here you can see. If you have a duty, A God given duty to follow your calling, but your calling is fundamentally based on your personal dispositions and talents and and preferences. That duty has a corresponding right to free occupational choice, which is actually profoundly liberating.
1 must work for the duty… For the greater glory of god? And what does that amount to? Well the p things are very earthly about this. 1 thing that they despise with it was monkey activity.
So they thought just praying all the time or lighting candles and rituals. This just a bunch of nonsense. It’s just rubbish. No. It was not works in the religious sense that mattered.
It was work in the profane sense, which gets sacrificed by the P work for the greater glory of God consists in advancing human welfare. So the p were the original utilitarian. Work has to have that positive social function, helping other people. Another p, John on said, commanded that all must spiritual their calling and earthly businesses. In other words, what he’s saying is that what’s ordinarily considered profane activity, actually should be considered sacred.
Working for the greater glory of God is equivalent to working to help your fellow human beings.
Speaker 0: Right. So many people who start their own businesses, they have this idea that they’re gonna become, , far superior to the bad bosses that they endured. They’re trying to get away from. But what creates a bad boss? It’s not usually intrinsic horrible qualities in a person, it’s a very difficult situation.
Right, being a boss is not easy, which is why boss make more money than workers. So you had people who seeking to become entrepreneurs, and they joined with the corporate Goliath at a full court press against regulations and worker protections, He rep imp the organization made paradigm of the post war corporate world, but it didn’t make the American economic landscape any less corporate, it just made corporate dominance harder to see. So should we turn back the cultural clock. Board house is re on this question? He the message trumpet on a billboard, he just saw it working for other people’s sucks, and you should stop it.
Well, life frequently sucks. Like, what what’s the alternative? Right? The but most people the alternative working for someone else is an inferior alternative. Right?
The billboard sounds like an ad for some sort of gig economy scam, for for some libertarian propaganda milk, but it’s also true. Right? Working for other people does suck, and it would be nice not to have to do it. Yeah It sucks Income In comparison to some ideal isolation of reality. But in comparison with realistic chances, it’s usually the best way to go.
We usually don’t have a choice. Right. So anti work thought has gained tremendous traction largely on the left. So the idea that the good life occurs mostly outside the workplace has a long history. Yeah, because for most people, the good life occurs with their family.
Right? The the idea that you should primarily get the good life at work is a bizarre conception. Alright. Another new book that’s come out free time, the history I’m an elusive deal. By Penn state cultural historian Gary Cross.
It says abundant meaningful leisure tire remains a distant fantasy, especially in the United States. Right alright? We have far less pre time the people in Europe and Australia. Pre time is a scarce resource in the way we use it be lies its precious. Yeah.
People often can’t handle every time. They don’t use it effectively. But the more you track things, the more you’ll have of them. So if you track how you earn money, and how you spend money, more money you’ll have, if you track, you spend your time, you’ll have more time. So We often drive ourselves insane on our phones, spend hours watching garbage on Netflix, then drive ourselves insane by fighting on our phones about the garbage we watch our Netflix.
Yeah. But if you have substantial obligations to your family to your extended family to your community to your religion to your nation and tribe, Right? You’re not gonna waste time like this. So this professor argues the quality and quantity of free time are intertwined easier to devote out dwindling leisure to buying stuff than to pursue deeper forms of social and personal exploration. And Well, the more diverse society gets, alright, unless we have in common with each other, the less inclined people will be to spend time in society.
The more dangerous society gets and just a sense of discomfort being ill at ease with people who very different from you, is hurts. But people overwhelmingly wanna spend time with people like themselves. You’ve made society more diverse. That we’ve made the society more painful to participate in and people increasingly withdraw from society and throw up big know, locked doors and and safe communities, to try to avoid society. So our free time is dominated by consumption Well, people who close with their families, I don’t think their free time is dominated by consumption.
So you may have a lawyer who balances a 70 hour work with sip of expensive Scotch. Also relevant to low wage hourly workers. If you never have enough time to really relax. Why not agree to your boss’s request to pick up an extra shift. Yeah.
All things being equal. I’d rather make money. It’s also So our free time is both vanishing and worsening. And so this academic says that this spiral. Started with the transformation of consumer capitalism after the end of second world war, working hours stop declining in the Us after dropping in the early twentieth century consumer capitalism became fast, would use transportation and communication technologies along with marketing known as planned obsolescence to speed up the pace of consumption.
We consumer capitalism have funneled new products, allowing us to interface with the world without social mediation. Yeah. At the same time, we became increasingly diverse, which meant we are less in common with a society. And so we were more incentivized to interface with the world without social mediation. Automobile lets you travel without needing to take a train or walk in a crowd.
1 reason the left hates automobiles because it gives you freedom. Of who you wanna hang out with. Photograph allows you to hear music without needing to go to a concert hall. So we had these quantum leaps in consumer goods with the Tv, the Internet and smartphones, and they resulted in the colonization of our free time by fast paced and anti social modes of consumption, While people are strongly incentivized advised to be anti social by many of the unfortunate criminal developments in wider society and increasing diversity. Which gives us, , less reason to participate in society because we just don’t feel comfortable with people who are incredibly different from us and don’t share out here a system or our loyal, and, not closely genetically related to us, the more genetically, related we are to people the more at ease, we will feel and the more likely, we will be to sacrifice for them, So the 8 hour day became standard, right around the 19 thirties.
After world war 2 workers were never so strong and organized. Right. You had very strong gui movements, but they workers apply their strength to ensuring access to the fruits of the consumer economy. It was the best option at the time. So idea of much shorter work weeks fell to the margins.
So the tam of the labor movement led to the deterioration of not only our free time, but also are working lies, the ent of private government. And to the deprivation, that has driven us to the dead and dream of self employment. So quoting this New York call the degraded quality of our leisure and labor have the same root cause. Though we should fight for improvements in both domains. Call I say the traditional perspective on life that we’re not primarily individuals, but members of extended families.
We’ll sort this out for us.
Speaker 1: And so the duty to God becomes a right to meaningful and respected work. Don’t bullshit jobs don’t count. The only jobs that count as fulfilling your duty to a calling is jobs that actually
Speaker 0: And rem have you experienced what it’s like to go to work with people like you. Right? So Fran says, let’s bring back workplaces at a patriarch hierarchical get far generous to support to own it and homogeneous, meaning that people are out others like themselves and free trade practices that screw industrial workers, Unions were good for industrial mining jobs, but they are largely obsolete now and they incentivize workers to be lazy and reasonably entitled. And constant hearing Marxist talking points from employees at the office, it just sounds like W Nietzsche slave morality in my opinion. Another the friend said we need to talk about quantity versus quality, satisfying work should evolve intellectual and a manual component.
Dave’s computer work is head dominant, gives little satisfaction to the hands. I I don’t agree. I think you can be very satisfied with a with a purely intellectual component to your work, and you can engage in some manual component in your own time mental versus physical, most modern work is mental and sedentary. Sedentary work sap the body and then the mind of health. Mental not if you do it in a wise way.
Right. If you don’t just sit in a chair for 8 hours if you take good care of yourself, The modern office is an unhealthy petri dish of disease rec circulating through air conditioning the social environment is toxic and riddled with Gossip and power games. And then There is Hr. Those are some reactions I got from friends.
Speaker 1: Believe promote human wealthier here. And that… Work has to be respected because… And they’re quite explicit about this. Every worker even the most men is doing god’s work and following God’s duty, Everyone whatever their specialization has dignity in the fact that they are fulfilling the duty.
That God has assigned them. And consequently, what we see here is the seeds of a pro worker work ethic, the sign of the work ethic that I think weber neglected, although it is there in the texts. We have then, the elements of a pro worker work ethic, namely an insistence on the dignity of all workers, even the most meaning. That every calling must consistent meaningful work or as baxter put it honest labor profitable to the commonwealth? These citations see these stands for the Christian direct directory, Baxter Magnificent 5 volume comprehensive guide to Christian ethics…
Speaker 0: Okay. That kind of dignity and egalitarian approach is not gonna come primarily from work. That comes naturally from a tribal or national identity. As an inherent egalitarian to a nationalist perspective. And if you believe they are part of the same extended family, you will be much more likely to treat other people with dignity.
So all the things that this woman and and left who who believe in maximum human flourishing and what self authentication from from work? People are much more likely to find these things from from a national religious tribal commitment.
Speaker 1: Thanks. I was working from an addition that was printed deep into the nineteenth century and talking to pre presbyterian ministers in America I find, oh, they love Baxter. They know Baxter. He’s still read today and highly influential. Baxter are also argued that workers who were entitled…
Speaker 0: I mean, does the good life exists primarily outside of work? Yeah. It does for 95 percent of people. For very few people, is the good life primarily found at work. It’s just an absurd left wing idea.
I mean, I made a living as a writer for, over a decade. Yeah. That that was the good life. It would felt incredibly freeing and exciting. But not many people can make a living as a writer.
That people would be much more, incentivized to put effort into developing a good social life if we are less crime and more freedom of association and if you’re a civil rights laws. Right? And I’m thinking about my friends who never hire from certain groups. They just don’t wanna deal with the the litigation that comes if you have to fire a member of… Certain groups.
Right. If we restore the ability to discriminate, we took away civil rights laws. We returned the traditional understanding of the Us constitution where we returned freedom association, allow employers to hire who they want to. You’d have more homogeneous workplaces, which would be far more pleasant. Right?
It’s incredibly taxing to interact with people very different from you in a workplace? Compared to the sense of comfort when you all share the same hero system when you’re genetically related when you have, similar national or or tribal identity. I mean, people make their lives much smaller. Less social in multi multicultural settings. And this is a good good way to use spare time.
Right about the great moral philosophical and and political issues. Right? We’re not just fret away our time talking you about how Netflix produces so much crap. Think Right. Hundreds of years, so now people gonna look back on these live streams, representing a profound step forward in moral thinking.
Did you guys see the Netflix roast of Tom Brady? That was brutal. I mean, that was brutally funny. That was That was amazing, man. I mean, that was as good as having a penis that was a weapon of ass destruction with your lawful wedded spouse.
To who likes it. Alright. Young men with free time and few obligations wreak havoc Right. So there are plenty of people you don’t want to have more freedom. That many people can’t handle freedom.
You think you want freedom? You can’t handle the freedom. I think we need to apply vouch nationalism to work. Imagine if you take a job and you have 20 or 10 adults who vouch for you that you’re not gonna steal at the job or 10 adults who vouch for you that you’re gonna be a hard worker. But that would make hiring so much more efficient.
If you’re an employer, imagine what to enjoy it be, to only hire people who have at least 10 vouchers from law abiding adults. So many privileges we can extend effectively and efficiently and productively and create human flourishing if we implement a system of vouchers. You should have to have these 10 law abiding dose with a clean criminal record who vouch that you’re gonna be a responsible driver. You’d be a responsible gun owner but Los Angeles or Beverly Hills or Manhattan won’t be diminished by your presence.
Speaker 1: Entitled to relief from employer abuses. Among his guides are, he tells employers that they must not rule their servants, and that workers must be provided safe and health conditions. He also argues that all workers are entitled to fair and living wages, and they have a right to charity. Anyone in desperate need is entitled, the charity. And finally he argued that the ultimate reward of labor was the same ever lasting rest.
It is true. It’s nose of the grinds stone in this world.
Speaker 0: Looked does it bother me that Sailor is hosted at owens dot com considering that most of the content on Un Find repel. Not terribly. I recognize that Steve Stanley doesn’t have a lot of options and and That’s just the the nature of reality. The New york times of the Washington post went went beating down his his door. Any thoughts on the Bank of America men who will work to death be a amen.
I am completely unaware of this story. Always easy to… Yeah. Guys. You have a choice.
Vouch, nationalism or va, nationalism. Ba, meaning the left wing streamer who’s into pornography. Always easy to self righteous condemn and to dilute South Mount one’s ensign virtue in principle from the distance from temptation and the opportunities to succumb. Is what went Reverend Billy Graham said about Bill Clinton. Don’t don’t judge him until you have had his opportunities.
Speaker 1: But the reward of that is, you go to heaven, and that is any… Eternal vacation with God. What could be more awesome than that? Furthermore, Baxter was very strict about the work ethic. It impose stern duties on the rich as well as the poor.
The rich too have an obligation to engage in productive labor. God hath strictly commanded it to all. Baxter like to quote, or, or sight.
Speaker 0: Large part of the reason that many people have trouble at work and at school, about 5 percent of the population. They un diagnosed and untreated Adhd.
Speaker 1: Adams Curse. When God expelled Adam and Eve from paradise, he commanded that Adam worked by the sweat his brow. Did the end of his
Speaker 0: So Cc Sail often talks about in the 19 sixties being controversial was thought a good thing. But nowadays it’s not. It really isn’t. So the the positive side of me being independent person who was fired from many jobs over the course of his life. Is that I can produce something that that’s different that I’m not just some ideological drone to 1 particular commitment.
So we all have traits that have both positive expression and negative expression. Right? It seems to be most people who livestream stream. Don’t contribute much that’s positive and create much that’s negative advice for themselves and for other people, but it is a medium that he’s capable of human improvement.
Speaker 1: Stays, and that is commanded to every last person including those idle landlords. And England.
Speaker 0: That men often have a much more romantic perspective on life. On romance aren’t relationships aren’t hunt work. Romantic, meaning seeing more there than is really there. So I think a far higher percentage of men get there, meaning and purpose in life, from from work compared to women. Women overwhelmingly have a much more pragmatic and realistic attitude towards relationships and towards work.
Speaker 1: I think even more importantly for the present day is that he opposed activity that just consists in extracting wealth from other people.
Speaker 0: He So I still even with my Adhd medication. I still have… Have some narcissistic tendencies. Someone just gave me a slight compliment the other day said that I had a nice name, I just went on and. Oh, that’s so nice to hear.
Thank you very much. I’m from Australia, not many people named Luke in Australia. So that just gives me, like, a 1 sentence compliment, and I just like, seize on it and go on and on and on. So adhd medication is not going to cure everything. I I think part of what means to be a man is that you have to conquer.
Right? Man are are driven to conquer the outside world. And most of us primarily do this through earning and providing and protecting. The the best advice I think I ever got from a psychiatrist is back in, The end of 19 93 after he got me on Na deal, and I made a partial recovery from chronic fatigue syndrome doctor Daniel Go, psychiatrists and, Florida encourage me go out there and show me how much money you can make. And I didn’t follow that advice, but I’ve never forgotten it.
Peep… Yeah. People who have the discipline of comrade, community, family, extended family, and at least the normal level of human connections will generally be after to handle freedom and people who don’t have those things will generally go downhill with freedom.
Speaker 1: He called this a prison and constant calamity to be tied to spend one’s life in doing little good at all to others, though he should grow rich. By it himself. So Baxter has some chapters in his Christian directory, which basically amount to a guide to Christian business Ethics in which he condemns a variety of business models, which amount to mere wealth extraction, what he calls a spiritual calamity to be engaged in these kinds of businesses, all kinds of unfair and exploit business models, which he defines as oppression. That’s a quote for him. He says, do not tread on your brethren, stepping stones of your own advancement.
That seems to have application today. Do not enter your inferior who are unable to resist, don’t exploit the vulnerable. He rail against some annapolis, users, H, and grocer, And grocer are people who try to corner the market in in some commodity and make profits that way. He also argued against unfair eviction and unfair raising of rents beyond what was customary. I think that also has contemporary application.
And and also, here’s a lock version of this lock. I think, also, I have a reading of lock is as totally a work ethic guy and unlock argues against price discrimination against the poor and desperate. Just because you can extract a higher price from a poor and desperate person for some good. Doesn’t mean you’re entitled to get it, you…
Speaker 0: Have you guys even red john unlock.
Speaker 1: Know, you could get it on the market. You should be willing to sell that good at whatever price you would sell it to be willing to sell it for somebody who who’s desperate for it. Another duty of the rich is effective alt, and, Peter Singer, has, of course, famously articulated that same doctrine, but it originates in baxter, and I want to show you that it’s possible to derive the duty of effective alt, without taking utilitarian as a first premise. It goes back to…
Speaker 0: Have you guys heard of buyer? Big article about it in the New York Times. Financial independence retire early movement. Right. Fire, I gotta start in the early 2000?
With a mantra of extreme saving. Alright? You might have heard about stoic, ultra minimalist living off beans and friends couches. Right now it comes to include all the people who would like to exit the workforce on their own terms at an age of their own choosing, rather than hustling for a paycheck, all the way into their sixties and seventies and eighties. So many fire, aspirin still get to early retirement by the traditional route of simply saving madly.
Others truffle hunt for high paying W two’s, tax loopholes, board risky market bets or big entrepreneurial employees. What is the overarching cr of fire? In today’s unpredictable financial landscape, 9 to 5 and decades, long careers have become bad investments. Right? I think this is a much wiser perspective on work.
So old school benefits like pensions and job security are a thing of the past. Wages aren’t keeping up with inflation. So after decades are to worker culture as the norm, employees are tired, afraid to show it and yearning to yank back control of their lives. So for fed up, workers is willing to do a bit of math, fire offers a straightforward antidote, you can just leave it all behind. So the author says long before Side hustle became a Miriam webster lingo.
I was working Costco snack arbitrage on the elementary school playground, I did that. I would buy drinks at a dollar and sell them to my classmates for 2 dollars. In adulthood, I moved on to online surveys research studies, plasma donation, vintage retail parts modeling and dog setting. In Lieu paying rent, I’ve left no income source un unearned. I’ve toured every page of Nerd Wall in the points sky.
I’ve made questionable margin calls. I’ve made I’ve woken up at the crack of dawn to day trade. I have flipped and I have churn. So well, the 60 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. The average American is in 5 to 6 figure debt, and he has a customary knowledge of how he got there.
So understanding finance will feel like a secret weapon. The original fire doctrine revolved around delay of gratification or the good life. Always revolves around delay of gratification. Save your money. Ideally as much as 50 to 75 percent of each paycheck instead of spending it immediately.
When you’ve amassed enough of a nest egg, quit your job, take the rest of your life for yourself. Right? It’s a simple philosophy as the main principles fit on a post note. It’s not easy because everything, the typical middle class, consumers been raised and trained to believe goes against these principles, people have grown up associating success with money and spending money with happiness. They’ve been trained to sit still and perform repetitive work first by a teacher then by a manager.
They’ve been educated to be specialists in a narrow field. And and to never think outside the box. So here are the 7 old books in this movement. 20 10 book early retirement extreme written when the author lived out in of an Rv on 7000 a year. This is 1 seminal text for early retirees.
To others are your money or your life 19 92 Personal Finance Bible, and the blog mister Money Mustache. Saturday in 20 11, By Peter Ad retired from a software engineering job in 2005 at age 30 and figured out how to shrink his family expenses down to just 24000 a year. So the tower of ore 3 terms is that minimalist spending and anti consumption half of the keys to barely living. It’s true. This is good stuff.
Make yourself rich so you can retire early. So conventional adherence of this perspective and not necessarily big earners or genius mathematicians with incredible impulse control. The super superpower is their expert planning. It’s the ability. To see the finish line from miles away that is allowed even some minimum wage workers to achieve early retirement.
1 simple fire rule of thumb is the first calculate your target F I number. Reply anticipated annual retirement expenses by 25, fire in squirrel way as much as possible into interest acc or tax advantage buckets like 04:01, low index funds, advocates of deposit Hsa and Roth ira until you hit that number, Then there are many offs shoots of this movement some more bra than others. Not many people want to get to too early retirement by living off beans. So you have lean fire. Right?
These are the people with the stringent penny pinching. Then you have coast fire, more measured approach, means front loading your retirement savings and coast on compound interest working lightly until you’re ready to quit or barista a fire, bidding your main job, butt your retirement with a side gig. Or fat fire, a luxurious no sacrifice approach to retirement, the Polar opposite of lean fire. Though you may think these early retirees are lay about just soaking up the Sunshine while everyone else toil, but why not see them as brave Man x. Daring to build an entirely new vision for the world.
Retirement has long been framed as a reward for a job well done, Well, maybe we should be in it for ourselves and do the job effectively and do it when we’re young
Speaker 1: For that contradiction and the original commandments of the work ethic. So it goes like this. You have a duty to maximize your income. But you also have a duty not to waste anything that you acquire. But you are forbidden from…
Spending that massive accumulation wealth on yourself because that would be ind in vain, luxury and cove. But you guys spend your mind. When you gonna spend it on. You nothing else suspended it on, spending But your needy brethren. Right?
And also public works he allowed, , so pay your taxes, right? Because public works will arise from that, and that’s helpful to the community. I wrote to Peter, and I I when I when I discovered these passages in baxter, and I wrote to Peter an email. And I said, Peter, are you aware? That you are simply channel the thought of the seventeenth century period minister.
And he was allowed to learn that. Anyway, here here’s like a perfect calculation. This is baxter now, but it’s it’s incredible the parallel with singer. He says the portions are as clothing of your children must rather be neglected than poor be suffered to perish. It’s pretty much an abstract.
Singers famous article on Famine and Affluent. It’s right there. Okay. So this gives us the aggressive path to secular… And again, we have the theological version on the left hand column, and then this version of the work ethic also gets secular, and we have the secular parallel aggressive
Speaker 0: Okay. Here’s the Bank of America story that we mentioned earlier, according to Twitter. Amazing this hasn’t hit the media yet. Bank of us America associate was worked to death this week. Did someone have a gun to his head?
He chose to work death. The veteran with a young family dying after being worked hundred 20 hours a week. Wasn’t that he was work. He chose to do this. Make some crusty rich guy’s money.
He chose to do this because it was the best of his options. So this is on him. This is an on Bank of America. So I’m not a big fan of the… Victim hood mindset.
On a set deal, he was made to work a hundred and 20 hours a week before weeks straight. Yeah. Does someone have a gun to his head. Right. He took this job and stayed in this job because in his mind, it was the best.
Of his options. Right? It’s up to you to stop people from abusing you. If you’re unable to stand out for yourself, you can’t expect other people to stand out for you. Now one’s coming.
No one’s coming to rescue you. I was gonna rescue you from your own willingness to accept abuse I’ve often put out with Abusive bosses, but as I’ve gotten older and wiser. I I noticed that my more successful productive friends would not put up with the kind of abuse that I put out with for years, they were not put up with it for 30 seconds, they would walk out. So if you’re unwilling to stand up for yourself. The Right.
I I don’t blame Bank of America.
Speaker 1: Else on the right. So theological, workers are honored as following a sacred calling that God has called them to. In secular terms that amounts to the demand that all workers are entitled to dignity and meaningful work, no bullshit jobs. Both signs believe in
Speaker 0: Dignity ass to come from we’re. If you’re willing to put out whether abuse. Right. Dignity is not gonna be be s upon you by government regulation or by, , particularly, , indulge boss. How does working to death relate to underwriting?
Well, it’s underwriting, working yourself to death because you’re not gonna be around to enjoy yourself? It’s like the… How does the urge to rescue relate to the urge to be rescued. Right? The flip sides are the same coin?
Right, if you do something so extreme that you do yourself permanent damage. Right? That is an incredibly m yourself destructive choice. My my father would talk to me about people who when they were young, they would spend their health to get their wealth. And then once they had wealth, they felt they would need to spend their wealth to try to get back their health, and that that doesn’t work well.
What’s your favorite mindset, gorilla mindset, bronze age mindset, need that mindset. I like the P mindset as as a non p non non Christian. So the P came from the highest Iq portion of Britain, I believe it’s still the highest Iq part of Britain, and they came to Massachusetts, which is still the highest Iq state in United States. So working yourself to death or under working, are both reflections of a m adaptive approach to reality, a lack of self respect. You must not be at ease with yourself if you are unable to stand up to demands that incredibly strongly aligned against your your best interest Work this is the final stage of the protestant reformation.
Yeah. Modern liberal left. Is a a development upon the protestant approach to life. So the Catholic and Jewish approach life is incredibly physical Right. Their are sacred objects, sacred spaces.
Their sacred time, and protestantism came along and ether everything, and then work is an realization. On top of that?
Speaker 1: Free occupational choice?
Speaker 0: It’s like, how many women are attracted to and deliberately connect themselves to men who beat them. Right? How many men deliberately connect themselves with and say committed to bosses who abuse them. Right? There is a mas self destructive, m adaptive tendency in human being that welcomes abuse because if you’re not at ease with yourself, you feel like you deserve abuse.
So plenty of women are attracted to men who abuse them because they feel like these men see them for who they really are. Plenty of men are attracted to bosses who abuse them and work situations that abuse them because I feel that these abusive situations recognize them for who they are. Like, when you’re called by your true name, you recognize it. And if you have developed the mindset that your true name is , piece of feces. Right, you are again to resonate to opportunities that make you feel like a piece of feces.
Speaker 1: You have a arrived for that? Theological, workers are entitled to a frugal living rage, in it’s mid 70 century, you don’t yet have the concept of, ever expanding economic growth. It’s not really there. But once we get that concept in play, We get for instance, Adam Smith’s call that workers are entitled to high and rising wages. Theological, there is both a right and a duty to charity if 1 is, desi.
And that becomes in the secular version of right to social insurance, rather more dignified then you don’t have to beg for particular other and accept some kind of, submission to another person’s will. Theological you…
Speaker 0: Okay. That’s enough for me. I gotta do some pull ups, some push ups, some weights. Have some Have some me time. Take care.
Bye bye.