We're Open for Business | Ep 001 - Lemonade Stand

This is what I've been really

staying up at night over, Atriok.

Unreal.

Can you tell me about what's going on with the culture and whether people are canceling?

Absolutely.

Look, I get that AI is going to be disruptive, but it's way more disruptive.

Can I ask a question about your dad?

Because you bring up your dad a lot when we're talking about anything serious.

You're like, I talked to my dad about it.

Yeah, yeah.

Your dad is Canadian?

Yeah, he is.

Okay.

And American.

And American.

Don't take that away.

One thought.

It might be one thought, sir.

That's the big question I have.

That's the big question I have.

I want to know your dad's thoughts on Canada 51st State.

Where is he?

Because that's changing everything in Canada right now.

Everyone's freaking out over it.

You know better than me.

Well, he's starting to spoil a topic.

Oh, you have a topic

from our new show.

This is still cold open, by the way.

From our new show, Lemonade Sand.

A new podcast

where the three of us talk about business, talk about tech, talk about politics.

And for those who don't know, I'm Aiden.

What do do you do?

I also, you know, I have a different, why?

I'm getting, I've gotten like six phone calls as soon as we started recording.

This is curse.

Don't worry.

This is all part of the

fake culture of busyness.

We're going to talk about this later.

For those not familiar, I'm also a podcaster where I talk about very similar things to this show.

Definitely tune in to that one if you like business.

It's and

I'm

doing this together with Framework.

By the way, we need to give you guys an intro because otherwise we're not eligible for awards.

Apparently,

you talk to learn.

Aiden pulls us aside at the beginning.

He's like, hey, we can't be eligible for podcasts.

We're in the same place.

We're bidding this to the austere.

Unless we introduce each one of our by full name, by the way, and you have to drop Social Security.

The arrogance of thinking we're up for a podcasty on our first episode.

I'm Doug Doug.

I make videos about things and stuff, particularly with a technology bend.

I'm really interested in technology.

You're going to hear me rant about AI all the time.

I'm going to to be the AI guy who talks about AI and other things and makes fun of Aiden's dad and stuff.

That's good.

That actually happens on the other podcast.

We'll be two for do on podcasts that make fun of my dad.

Such an easy role.

I'm Atrioch.

I do a lot of this stuff already normally.

But then these two guys

had really, I like talking to them about all this stuff.

And so we sort of had this idea of doing a podcast.

And I think it's going to be pretty fun.

We were going to call a podcast Marketing Monday 2.

And Atrioch said.

I had my lawyers know I've already submitted Marketing Monday for an award, and I'm not eligible if we have a sequel.

You're incredibly selfish.

I've had that thought about that.

Yeah.

But I'm really excited.

I'm excited about it because I think before we even talked about this, we were just talking, I was just messaging you constantly about AI stuff and asking about your thoughts on tech because you're really deep into it.

And hey, we've been talking about politics.

And it's like, oh, this could be.

fun.

Yeah, I think the ethos for people tuning into this first step is we all have a shared shared interest in these things, like talking to them, talking about them with each other, and kind of wanted an opportunity to bring that together because I think we lack maybe a creative outlet in the rest of our work to be able to talk about this type of stuff.

So,

I think YouTubers said we are talking about it.

Particularly, Aiden and I lack an outlet to talk about these things.

What are you talking about?

You have a massive platform, but you take some older stuff.

It's just not the same.

That's for fart jokes, okay?

That's for an AI to call me small dick.

Okay.

That's not for me to talk about business.

Introducing the AI small dick segment.

Yeah, there will be.

I've got nine pages on that right here.

Yeah.

It's going to be fun.

It's going to be good.

It's going to be a good time.

I think, and you guys probably agree, so I'm going to speak for you.

Okay.

All right.

I'm going to do that a lot.

Hearing someone talk about something they're really passionate about is really fun.

It's just fun.

Yeah.

So you guys have all the unique interests.

We're going to bring our own topics and you're going to hear about things from someone.

Oh, why don't we each say one topic that is going to happen today to give you an interesting smattering of what we might talk about over the course of the next 90 to 190 minutes?

I'm going to talk about why Aiden is a massive flake and the damage that causes to people around him.

And this is a real joking.

This is actually a year here.

So, we're going to get into that later.

It's called cancellation culture, not cancel culture, cancellation culture.

And Aiden's at the forefront.

And now, I want to talk in a lighter news.

I'm going to talk about the way that technology impacts jobs globally.

Yeah, so just I like that one better because it doesn't revolve around criticism of me.

I feel like the average user wants to hear more about Aiden's We're gonna kind of sandwich it.

It's gonna be Aiden canceling the impact of technology Aiden's dad's dad listening.

I'm gonna talk about my dad just him and like what he's been up to.

We'll get a live call.

We'll get a live call in.

And we're gonna get Cornwind on the live stream.

Now,

the main reason that I bring up my dad at all is I actually do want to talk about Canadian immigration to the United States

and also the tariffs that are currently affecting the relationship between the U.S.

and Canada specifically.

But I think that is a

good question.

I want to talk about this.

I'm interested in it right now.

I want to talk to you.

I want to hear your thoughts.

Okay, well, I think to just like set the backdrop, because I think a lot of people know that there are tariffs that have been put in place or had been threatened for a while as like Trump was approaching

to his presidency, right?

By the time this airs, they could be gone.

Yeah, it seems

tomorrow, but it's hated news.

So we're filming this.

We're filming this on March 5th, a Wednesday, and it should be coming out on the Thursday right after this.

So the,

and already in the past three days, there's been like daily updates and changes.

So leading up to this point,

there was

the threats of tariffs like incoming.

Trump gets into office, passes a 20 or through executive order, imposes 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico.

And then almost immediately

paused these tariffs in exchange for

the fentanyl czar in Canada and basically more control and effort of like the borders from like the Canadian and the Mexican side.

That's what he's asking for, at least.

And then he paused for 30 days.

And I think something that I didn't quite understand is like when this happened, I thought like he, at least from the Trump administration's perspective, had like met goals that they had in place.

And then during that 30-day time period, he said

they wanted to see whether or not a final economic deal with Canada can be structured.

That's what Trump said.

Can I just say, it's very cute that you have notes because whenever I do this stuff live and I don't know what I'm talking about, I just make it up.

But you're referencing.

Well,

actually, for the audience, there's nothing in that notebook.

It's just blank.

I memorized the quotes.

Interesting.

That's when Donald Trump said, Aiden's great.

And I,

and he doesn't flake that much.

Interesting that he wrote that.

But

so there was a goal, apparently, during this time period, that out of the initial concessions that he thought he got from Canada and Mexico or that they did get from Canada and Mexico, which I'll talk about in one sec, that a further deal needed to be made, which I didn't quite understand in the sense that I don't know what that ideal trade agreement looks like for him, especially because in the previous administration, Trump had renegotiated aspects of NAFTA.

Like a large portion of NAFTA as it currently, or sorry, as it formerly was, I guess,

was from his decisions in the previous term, as far as I understand.

Anyway, this Canada puts in place this like, quote, fentanyl czar, in which some, I had seen people saying that this was part of a plan that Canada already had in place, or like people were saying that Canada was only taking actions that it was intent on doing already, which might be the case.

My understanding is that this pushed it forward a bit, and they did pick a fentanyl czar.

Yeah, I mean, so timeline everyone's not doing it.

He's like, he asked for tariffs, right?

And then there's 30 days.

It starts out.

And then immediately before it happens, Canada says we're going to have more guards on the border and a fentanyl czar.

Yeah.

And then Mexico says the same thing.

And then similar from Mexico, I think Mexico actually

did more.

Something that I didn't know is like part of this, Mexico sent 29

drug lords into U.S.

custody from Mexican custody.

In an effort to extradited people, in an effort to like appease the tariffs being frozen.

So that's what, yeah, his messaging has been all over the place, which is initially this is for fentanyl, and now it's for economic disparity.

And then I saw a quote yesterday, which is that nobody really knows what he wants, so there isn't anything they can do to stop it.

Like, it's not clear what he's saying.

That's been the latest.

That is the latest update to this story, right?

Raymond's only issue with Trump.

His only issue.

You've been really pro

Trump.

You've been really pro-chat is coming on soon.

Especially in private.

When you're away.

When you're away from your population later.

Okay.

But I think that is the frustration from what I can see, right?

Because this 30-day freeze runs out.

And then the tariffs are just back in place.

And Canada and Mexico are like, we did what you wanted.

Why are they back?

And then, and then the tariffs, apparently, there's an exception.

There's a 10% instead of 25% tariff on energy, specifically, Canadian energy exports.

They exempt the cars too, right?

And then today, that was the update today, is that the auto asp, the auto exports or the auto industry gets like a carve-out now.

And so that's the thing.

It changes every morning.

The Canadians and the Canadians and the Mexicans seem very frustrated that the goalposts continue to be shifted, much like me in an argument.

And

I'm kind of, that's the kind of the introduction to this topic is that's what's going on with the tariffs.

I think it seems crazy inconsistent.

I don't fully understand what the goals are.

Here's the deal.

Zoom out.

Tariffs are

problematic, right?

And this is like a weird thing.

It's not consistent.

But like for Canadians, it seems like the bigger issue is that all of these tariffs seem to be in service of turning the country into the 51st state.

He keeps talking about that and like in a less and less joking way.

Yeah.

So I'm really interested because I don't talk to a lot of Canadians because they're gross and they disgust me, but I would love to hear, like, do you have a Canadian POV on like what that means?

Wait, wait, remind me.

And I guess everybody watching.

You born in Canada?

Came here.

Yeah.

So I, I, I, a brief backstory on me.

I am a Canadian immigrant to the U.S.

I was born in Canada.

I grew up in Canada when I was young.

I like permanently, I moved around a bunch when I was really young to the UK, back to Canada, to the US, back to Canada, permanently moved to the U.S.

in sixth grade.

And I lived in on a border town

in northern Washington.

So I literally lived on the Canadian border.

Like one of my growing up, one of my cross-country practices was they would take us to the border, drop us off at the border crossing, and then we had to run back to high school.

Awesome.

And uh

so that that was a little experience of like

dude okay and this is just the canadian child running from the border into the parrots you know what's funny it's so like they uh when people talk about like border security and things like that right now i always joke about what the canadian border is actually like growing up because uh i'm not kidding the border in canada like the border between canada and the us and like where i grew up it's a ditch about the width of this table like this like i would be running to high like back to high school on this side and then finding

canada pay for it we're digging the ditch and we're gonna make canada pay for it's well known canadians can't climb

that's a well fact and then if you fall and throw

poor balance

and then you you're you're literally a hop away from jumping into it's very easy sure like if you wanted to hop the border i guess yeah with a bag full of footnote which i do occasionally

and then that's kind of the circumstance that I grew up in.

And also, there's a lot of like kind of basic economic ties in that area.

Like, a really common thing is like, if you went to the Costco in our area on Sundays, like 80% of the cars in the Costco parking lot would be British Columbia license plates.

Like, it's like they're just driving over the border for Costco.

People, people that live in Canada come down to the bottom of the bank

in the nation.

I swear to God.

And the fentanyl there is super cheap.

Well, you buy this.

No, that would put the dealers out of business.

You buy this ball.

You're a fucking fentanyl.

Yeah.

That's it.

Hey, Parrot,

you get a free soda on the side.

No, oh my God.

You get your hot dog, your fentanyl.

And then who knows?

You go in for the fentanyl.

You come out with a TV.

Do you think the cartels can offer a remotely comparable experience to a Costco?

The consumer will choose the Costco every time.

It's just a better experience.

So pitching the cartels mean, like, I'm telling you, man,

if you kill a few less people, you put some TVs up front, and you sell the, and you give them...

You put a hot dog for cheese situations.

You give them cheese samples, they'll buy so much more fentanyl.

Yeah.

You give them fentanyl samples, they'll buy some more fentanyl.

Costco fentanyl sample.

Woo!

Whoa.

Just people like passed out on the fucking concrete in Costco.

It's like an aisle full of people.

He's with 19 disguises on his 30th

fucking fentanyl samples line.

I think that, but yeah, so my family's Canadian.

Pretty much all of my family lives in Canada

except for my parents and like my brothers basically.

Okay.

And

I decided to like call a few people.

Okay, as I was hoping.

Yeah, I wanted to.

So

just to get like a general vibe on what's going on, because I think you've talked about this quite a bit.

And this is like, I think, a somewhat well-understood topic is like Canada is kind of also in a...

bit of an economic crisis in general right now.

Yeah, it's not.

Yeah.

Like the dollar.

Like I remember growing up, there was a period of time.

my dad got paid in Canadian dollars because he worked out of Canada, even though we lived in the U.S.

So there was a time when the Canadian dollar was like worth more than the US dollar growing up.

That's like for like a year and then basically on par for a long time.

But now it's like, I don't do at least like 70 cents to the dollar.

I made a video game with a Canadian developer.

And so we got paid.

We got our pay balance theme.

And he's like, I need to pay you now because every day it sits here, you're losing money as it as the Canadian dollar devalues.

It is so bad.

It's like, it was like losing big percentages of what we got paid.

And I think the like the real estate crisis there is pretty out of control.

Like housing is in the biggest cities in Canada is even more relatively unaffordable than it is in the biggest U.S.

cities.

And

there's all these economic issues in Canada that from loosely talking to my friends prior to this, that they're grappling with.

Like they're worried about their prospects of a future.

for uh and especially if they like went to college and like have a specialized profession they're supposed to go into, working in Canada kind of sucks because if you could get a job in the U.S., you could get paid way more.

Yeah.

One of the things I didn't know about until recently is the fact that there's the trade agreement where basically if you're a professional in certain categories, but in most like good categories, and then you get a job offer from the U.S., you just get to come here.

Like you don't.

You don't have to get a visa.

If you get a U.S.

job offer, yeah, this is part of what was previously NAFTA.

And so if you're a Canadian professional and you're like an accountant or a software engineer and you get a job from an American company, you just go to the border.

You don't even have to pre-plan this.

And you're like, I'm here.

Here's the job offer.

Here's all the stuff.

You just get let in.

I didn't know this until really recently.

Which is a huge brain drain, like, because it's that easy.

And it's just like, oh, if Google in the U.S.

is going to pay you three times as much relative, you can just go, which is wild.

So like 10,000.

Canada is trying to deal with this too, apparently.

Because so I read it, I read this article that I pulled up, and this was focusing on Canadian to U.S.

immigration in 2022.

And

from the previous year, it had more than doubled the amount of Canadians leaving Canada to go to the U.S.

in that year.

And it seems to be an interesting split among like age groups and why people are going.

There's a quote from an immigration lawyer in that article where he talks about most of the inquiries he's getting now are from young people that are like looking to move for financial.

I actually tried to call the lawyer today and like ask him about like what it's like right now.

And he and they didn't get back to me but i called my uh so my one other relative that lives in the u.s is my cousin and she works in biotech and she moved to san diego with her also canadian boyfriend a few years ago and i was letting her kind of break it down for me and she's like at the end of the day like it just came to like money and like my profession and she says like all the people in her field and like who studied with her in canada also want to move to the us because she gets 3x her pay down here and she pays like a comparable amount in taxes.

So like financially, it makes sense.

And then even if she wants to go back to Canada, and I think a lot of people in her situation, it sounds like they would want to go back to Canada one day,

save money faster to buy a home in Canada when they go back.

And so that's like her experience as someone who's already made the move, right?

Speaking of homes, can I show this?

Are you going to show my actual home and my address?

Yeah, I'm going to show your home and address and your dad where he lives.

And you can draw on it.

This is here at Lemonade Stand.

I can remember this, yeah.

Oh, sure.

Yeah.

Here at Lemonade Stand, we have fancy Telestrator technology

to really make it a worse experience for the audio listeners.

Just that your people don't know.

You're going to look right here.

If you're going to look right here, that's actually Atriarch's real home.

I commute from Toronto.

I got a $2.5 million shag in Toronto.

Fun fact, Ari is not allowed to leave the house between 9 and 5.

That's That's for religious reasons.

But anyway, you know, Canada's real estate market, if you don't know, is like one of the worst in the world.

Basically every major city, the prices have gotten astronomical.

They had no 2008, 2009 housing bubble.

Like they had it, but they didn't pop it the way we had it here.

So it just kept growing.

Weird.

And it's continued to grow.

And at this point, like any Canadian you talk to talks about how they'll just never own a home.

Like essentially at their wages.

They've like given up.

They've given up completely.

So this is the interesting thing to me is like I was reading this article and I was like, this makes sense.

Like the thing that my parents tell me all the time is like the reason we moved to the U.S.

or the reason we wanted to be in the U.S.

was it afforded me like job and like economic opportunity that we wouldn't have had in Canada.

You knew you make dick jokes on a podcast world.

Exactly.

And I said, mom, you're right.

I never could have made it doing this work in Vancouver.

And they, but I think that shared story is very similar between all the people I talked to.

It's like, it basically, like, they had some sort of specialized job, job, like, especially like software engineers, for as an example that I can think of.

In the tech industry, when I was still in the tech industry, so many Canadian software engineers, like so many companies in Silicon Valley have a Canadian branch, like really smart people.

And then, again, now with these new rules, well, they've been here for a while, but like those people can just come to the U.S.

now and just make way more.

Right.

And they, and it seems like the financial aspect of it is, is the key mover on that over kind of everything else.

Because I ended up talking to another closer friend a close friend of mine that uh still lives he lives in alberta he lives in calgary and he's trying to get a job in like finance right now and i was like what is like for you who's in canada trying to find a job in canada how do things feel to you right now and he's like well things are pretty like doomer here in terms of like economic, you know, like owning a home, like the job market's really bad.

It's, it's tough to find work if you're a young person, even like if you're a new college grad.

And these things are all like shared frustrations among my friends.

But then, then, and a big question I wanted to answer is: okay, this trend of like people leaving Canada for the U.S.

because of pay, like primarily because of pay, or maybe like they're the data that I looked into, there's a ton of retirees as well, like wealthier Canadians that want to move like

to Florida or they want to move somewhere with like lower taxes where they can settle down and it's warmer.

The question that I wanted to answer was: okay, so you can see this trend in,

you can see this trend in immigration happening, but is it still happening in 2024 and 20 and now in 2025, which was not in this census data?

Like it doesn't go up to that point yet.

And I was really curious because like politically things are changing so significantly right now.

And then on top of that, it's like not just the general politics of someone like Trump being elected in the first place, but the follow-up of the tariffs.

and the 51st state

even more of a squeeze.

And my friend was talking about how even in Alberta, which is a place that's in Canada, pretty conservative and has people, has more people than like BC would that are like Trump sympathetic or maybe fans of Trump from like the Canadian side.

He's never seen this level of anger among like all people.

People there, my relatives, my friend is saying all of his relatives and his friends, everybody I talk to that lives in Canada is angry.

They are like, this is fucked up that this is happening.

Like, fuck the U.S.

This is kind of what brings us together right now.

And the idea of like, he said it's like the highest sense of like national pride he's seen in a long time, where it's like, you know, fuck the states.

It's like, we're Canadians.

And

that plays into people's idea or the appeal of moving into the U.S.

too.

He was like, compared to like a year ago, I think a lot of people.

Poison us from the inside.

They used to want to poison us from the inside, but now they don't even want to get in.

So maybe it's working.

Maybe it's working in that regard.

We're keeping, we're keeping the Canadians.

The Albertans are like, how are we going to get over that ditch?

It's just so, it's just

accountable.

I thought it was really interesting to hear him say, like, if you asked me or my friends a year ago and

offered me a similar salary in the U.S.

for some type of job, I might have said yes.

But now I would definitely say no.

And the difference, but then the overarching like economic theme here is like, he was like, but I would still say yes if the pay was like way, way higher.

And that was like what my cousin was wrestling with, too, is that she's like, I don't like the political direction of the country.

I don't know how long I want to stay here, but my career and my pay is so high here that I can't leave.

So that's kind of what's going on.

Is like, I think my parents are different.

They're very proud to be American and they feel like more obligated to defend to the rest of my family, like why they live in the States and like why they like chose to live here basically.

But the rest of my family is like dogging them for it.

For just being an American?

They're very angry about the 51st state rhetoric, all of the tariffs and like how they're going to suffer economically.

I've got a Canadian friend and I have been making 51st state jokes, obvious jokes, right?

For a little while now.

And then recently he's like, hey, I don't think it's funny anymore.

Like

he told me just privately that he's like, he's like,

like, I know you don't mean it, but like, I don't like it anymore.

Cause like they're, cause.

It's seeming more and more serious politically.

It seems like, you know, Trump said it was a joke at first.

And now he keeps saying like, he keeps calling it governor Trudeau.

He keeps saying, like, you know, and so they're like, they just don't want to have their sovereignty threatened so regularly by the nuke

with all the nukes.

Canada has no nukes, by the way.

So, I wanted to bring this up too.

I got two things I wanted to bring up.

One is that this is the craziest outcome that I ever could have expected.

Recently, like a few days ago, Canadian politician went to the UK and they're trying to get a deal where the UK's nuclear umbrella applies to Canada.

I have a oh my god, so so they're going to like Canada, to UK and France to make a world where theoretically the UK would be threatening the United States with nuclear war if the United States invaded Canada.

Wow.

Like how crazy are things getting?

That's how wild.

You know.

I had a major turnaround

from like

a year ago.

Like what from like two months ago.

And I just didn't expect Canada specifically to get involved in this.

I didn't expect this to become a Canadian.

Were you double gunsing us?

I'm picking a side.

Oh, yeah.

Okay, a a number to reiterate this, which I think is so interesting, is like, I think you might have seen this, like two decades ago, something like that, the amount of people coming in and out of Canada to the US was like about, it was like a few thousand on either side net in a given year.

And there was even a year or two where there was more people going into Canada than out.

And then the most recent tract was like 126,000, right?

Or like that was in 2022.

2022, right?

So like, just to give a sense, it is massive, the amount of people who are going from Canada to the U.S.

two years ago.

And then you're right.

It's like, is that going to increase?

Is that going to get worse?

Yeah, that's right.

Like in 20, like this year, is that going to get even worse because of economic conditions?

Like,

the amount of Canadians who are immigrating to America now is gigantic compared to any amount in the past for like a two to three year period.

Right after COVID, it just like shot way up.

Well, no wonder things are getting worse here.

There's so many damn Canadians.

If they would just stay in their own state.

I don't think you should make jokes like that anymore.

The friend was Aiden.

Told you in comment.

I told you in comment.

Yeah, that's what I'm super curious about is like how that trend is going to hold up in the next like year or two.

There's this convergence of like sovereignty and national pride and being wanting to be like, I am Canadian, like fuck the U.S.

converging with like the economic hardship, basically.

So that's great.

I want to bring that up.

That brings it up politically.

So.

you know you flash backwards one year everyone in canada is so doomer it's just like it's over right it's people are depressed.

Housing prices too high, jobs too low.

They're mad at Trudeau's the

Governor Trudeau.

And there's fuck Trudeau signs everywhere.

And it's become a foregone conclusion that him and his party were going to lose.

That's the idea.

And then this 51st state thing starts happening.

And it's the most shocking

poll.

I mean,

the conservative government is still leading, and I think we'll still win.

But it's become like way closer to the side.

Okay, this is what I was actually thinking about this.

And I'm glad you brought this up because I hadn't looked this up, but I was so curious if polling had picked up for Trudeau's party because I feel like

a crazy surprise

where he's like defending the sovereignty of the nation.

And I think this was in a video you made about how he like boxed one of the people from the other party.

And that was a first, that was the first swing in like the, his liberal party picking up was him choosing to box someone from one of the other political parties.

And

he won the fight.

And it was kind of like a, it was literally like a liberals aren't pussies campaign.

Like it was, and, and, and his polling dramatically picked up.

And then he found himself in a position of prime minister like a little while after.

And I was like, this is when he's been making the tweets and these things that I've seen, it's like, I wonder if the polling is following.

But he's not running again.

So he's getting someone else.

I think he's getting Mark Carney, but he's just pushing the liberal party to be, we're against Trump, we're fighting back.

And that's why we're rallying people.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

You know, it reminds me me of, you know, George Bush was a divisive president with pretty low polling numbers by the end.

But after 9-11, it was like 98%.

It was like the country was united.

Yeah.

And right now, it seems like

Rudy Giuliani posted that.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

So right now the polling is like really rallying behind it because it feels like from the Canadian side, you know, from my side, I still think of it as like, it's a little mean-spirited, but it still feels like a joke.

As an American, I don't, I can't imagine we have tanks rolling in in Toronto.

Yeah.

But from the Canadian side, it sounds like they're like really pissed off, like really really rallying behind this idea of like, stop calling us a state, you know?

And I would love to get more of yours because I'm not a Canadian.

If King George in the UK kept referring to us as the colonies,

I would be pretty annoyed.

Yeah.

Right.

Like if he's dropping that like on Twitter every day, I would be pretty fucking pissed.

We're in the war.

We want, like, bro, we want.

We want.

Get over it, George.

Jesus Christ.

No, that's a good point.

I think about that.

Man, just thinking about it.

I'm fucked wild up just thinking about it.

I tried to dig into my inner Canadian, and I'm like, I think if,

yeah, like it wouldn't, it annoys me.

It's like, it's, it feels stupid.

It feels like intentionally antagonistic because

even though I think there's no realistic path for that becoming the case, also, from my perspective as a Canadian, psych, even in the world where it somehow happened, maybe this is a dumb thing to worry about, psychotic that it would all be one state to me.

It's a good

it's just about logistics, dude.

Yeah, even the second biggest country in the world?

And he's like, maybe.

That's one state.

Maybe if we respect it.

It's like, all right, we're adding on

nine provinces as states, three territories.

We respect the.

And then Trump looks south and he's like, we're thinking of all South America, a 52nd state.

That's what I'm saying.

It would be insane if it was one state.

It would be insane if it was one state.

40 million new people.

Not the top priority issue with this, but

that was honestly my first thought when i heard about it i was like which it just wouldn't be one that doesn't make any sense why

trump is probably like most americans though and does not realize you guys have states and that it is it is not just a big well we don't have states

we have provinces

provinces and territories i i try trump arguably like nobel peace prize level stuff here in terms of uniting canada as a people right uniting europe as a people because they're all terrified now of he's uniting the world

i mean i've never seen not a bad time historically where Europe wants to spend a whole fuck ton of money on military.

I think that historically is always a good thing.

We're piece to peace.

And I think Trump's really cooking this.

I think

Germany just got a, they have this thing called a debt break where they can't spend more than their budget.

They're breaking it.

I mean, they're like finally, after, it's been a long debate.

They're finally like easing the debt break to spend 500, 800 million, billion euros.

Sorry, billion, not million, on military.

They're going to start doing this militarization of Europe.

And I think that's based that's awesome it's gonna be great the more the more the merrier that's no one can what's

never gone wrong

dude i think when germany militarizes the world smiles

that's the old saying right

that's yeah i've heard that i've heard that saying i'm not a big student of history i just sort of go off the vibes uh the so the i guess maybe the the last thing that i was thinking about with the the candidate thing is uh

the the 51st state, like I can see why it frustrates people so much.

And I've seen something similar with a few Danish friends about the Greenland stuff.

They're like,

it's gone from like, I think when the initial reaction that I got from talking to friends when these things first hit the news was like, what the fuck is this guy talking about?

It's like, this is obviously so dumb.

This is like borderline a joke.

But then he keeps talking about it.

And he keeps talking about it.

And now people are angry.

Like,

and I find that i i it makes sense like i from from their perspective i mean i as an american i'm also not happy with it like i don't think yeah that one's an interesting one though it's such a

more even more complicated because i feel like the people of greenland keep saying they don't want to be danish or american they want they kind of want their own thing eventually right now they're they're still danish

Yeah, I think that part is more divisive, though, from my understanding.

Right.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know.

That one's tough.

I don't know.

I think there are a lot of people that are like pushing for Greenland independence.

From the bit I've read and like asked about, it sounds like that is just more because there's aspects of Danish like society or like social systems that are like so integrated and like the Greenland is so reliant on.

So people are not like there's there's a big chunk of the population that's not ready to relinquish those things, basically.

Yeah.

It's a tough country.

I saw a good video on it.

They talked about how, you know, because some of the ice caps are melting, the real estate up there is becoming more incredibly valuable in terms of like

open shipping lanes, and there's a ton of rare earth metals.

So I feel like there is some sort of global gold rush.

And I don't, I don't fully understand.

I don't, I don't know

where I stand.

I really haven't made up my mind on where I stand on it, but I do think it's complicated given that there's like three distinct parties that all kind of want ownership.

I think my

general, my general general opinion on these things is that like in this era of like kind of global free trade like national sovereignty and things like that is like it

the

there's probably some some other analysis to do here in terms of like the the costs of that system and like deconstructing like uh the global economics and stuff like that but but in general i think that you know this has led to like unprecedented relative peace and things like that.

And we're starting to like pull back the like walls of like these institutions and rules around like invading and co-opting other countries.

I think that's bad.

I think that's bad.

And I, because it's such a regression of like what global society is like built around, which I think is

in a lot of ways good.

And I'm not saying that there's no scrutiny to be had of that sentence either, but it makes me fearful is like, okay, well, if nobody's following the rules anymore and we're going back to old times of invading and taking

sacrificing this like

economic system that we've that we've made,

I don't know, the costs of that worry me.

There's a good book by Peter Zahan.

I don't know how you say his name.

You might, but called The Accidental Superpower.

And it's basically about how the global order got set up.

amongst other things after World War II.

And basically, the U.S.

did this.

The U.S.

could have continued the previous World War or after World War II.

And instead was like, let's do this global thing.

We, America, will basically make it happen.

And we will pay for all the global shipping to be safe.

And we will basically institute this order across the world.

Asterisk, asterisk, right?

And then, and then there's so many different things.

I feel like from a short-term perspective, may even have come across as like generous.

But in the long term, like, ultimately, it was way better.

More than you have come out of poverty.

The issue, and at least what he talks about in the book, and I think that there's value to this, is as the world has gotten bigger and more complex, it is more expensive to do that.

So the one area where there is, I don't want to say I agree with him, but there's truth to what Trump is saying is like, it is not feasible for America to

police the world order anymore.

And that is particularly true with like Russia doing what it's doing and China doing what it's doing.

And so I don't think the extreme of, okay, let's pull back from everywhere and just be internal is good because then the whole thing collapses.

But there is, I think, truth to the idea that that order can't go forever the us is 34 trillion dollars in debt we cannot afford to police everything in the world europe doesn't spend much on military we do it for them same with you know particularly germany and japan right like at some point it's not feasible for the u.s to go in this direction forever and so i think this is inevitable to a degree it's been what 80 years exactly Basically, 80 years exactly of the current world order.

And Trump is very explicitly trying to tear it down.

But

I'm not convinced that like if he wasn't there, then this wouldn't be in motion you know what i mean i agree with that 100 agree with that he's accelerating the motion a lot

but that that is the motion like we we can't afford this just straight up we it doesn't it can't continue in its current i guess it has to change that's funny because i let me let me hear my thoughts is uh i think that's super interesting and i like your p of but you guys talked about it like this was generous or whatever and in my mind it was like and i'm i'm

like a patriot dude i'm actually like

no i wouldn't say i wouldn't actually

set up to our benefit.

No, no, yeah, I agree with that.

It's self-serving, yeah, it's self-serving.

And I don't, I don't think that unwinding it is to our benefit.

I think,

I think you're right that as these economies, you know, China is now a bigger trade partner with most of the globe than America is.

Like, the fact that they're not stepping up to this doesn't make much, you know, Brazil is a much bigger economy than all these countries are bigger economies, and they want a bigger say in the globe.

I think it's going to shift because of that.

But I think America trying to unwind it is kind of crazy because it's all helped us.

it's all been to our benefit for so long.

Like the system, NATO, the United Nations, like we say that we say that Europe is spending too much on, or not enough on military, because we're spending too much, but it's given us so much power over European decisions.

Specifically, like if we're like, hey, we want to build our EV industry outside of China, let's tariff Chinese EVs.

Europe just goes along with it.

They just do the same thing.

Yeah, that's it.

And they do that because we have to.

And

once the U.S.

unwinds, if it continues to happen, you know, I don't think you get it back.

Like, yeah, I think that's a good idea.

There's a particular situation in the world where the U.S.

was in this position where all the previous global powers were decimated after World War II, except the Soviet Union.

They had all the industry, they had all the trade, they were the sole sort of standing, you know, we, I guess, were the sole standing power and were in the position to dictate whatever we want.

And there was this argument of like they could have been like, we are going to be the new British Empire.

We're going to fuck all y'all.

And instead, they were very kind, generous people who we are all thankful for.

And that's what we're taking away from it.

Yeah, but it's comments.

And they were, according to

quotes here, they were very generous.

Absolutely no meddling.

Yeah.

Zero meddling.

Famously.

Famously zero.

Show me the documents where we meddled one time.

No, I think that's the, yeah, I think that is the pro.

Like, I kind of agree with Brandon is like the deconstruction of...

This is why it's a hard topic topic to it is hard by the way.

This is a hard, okay.

I'll just, I think I'll say it in a more straightforward way.

This is a hard topic for me to argue about, not at like a personal level, but I feel like there is a conflict as someone who I think I lean like pretty left on like most, like, most issues in general.

And I think there's like a, uh, a, maybe a, I don't know if I would call my, I definitely wouldn't call myself a socialist like outright, but I think there's a socialist viewpoint here where that is also advocating for like deconstruction of this

global order

to not for American fiscal reasons, but to like dismantle the like systems of

oppression that

they would identify exist across the world among this current system.

Not that oppression and like people being exploited didn't exist before World War II.

It didn't.

And that

level of like American empire and like control is

the

it's interesting.

I don't know.

It's it's super interesting because it's like, yes, that has such a demonstrable positive effect if you believe in,

I don't know, like getting rid of all these things has like such a harm, identifiable harm on the U.S., but there's two, there's different perspectives on like why that all needs to be deconstructed and come down.

I think because because there's all these different layers of what people see as the most important outcomes, who are the people that need help the most,

what actions would help those people.

The solution is,

I feel like I'm a very like solution-orientated person, and this problem is so layered.

It's like, oh, of course, I'm not going to solve it.

I'm running on lemonade.

So, I don't, I don't have the answer because I like, I like a lot of what, like, global, like our globalized, safe economy and society gives me i like a lot of those things and i also it you know selfishly benefit from a lot of like the power and control that the us has as somebody especially as somebody who immigrated here and found you know got to make a

ditch

the ditch

um and but at the same time i feel like i'm i'm wary of you know something like the can the debt grow forever right if you listen to that one economist who wrote the deficit myth apparently can

apparently can stephanie Kelton has some interesting ideas.

Or from other perspectives, like maybe you have a strong like moral stance, like built in what you'd call like socialist values, and you want to see the deconstruction of the global order for those reasons.

Like, I don't know.

I don't know what paths are.

I don't have that take, but I can respect it, right?

I can totally see it and make sense.

You know, maybe a loss here is offset by a greater gain in the world if you're all humans.

benefit the rising tide.

I get that.

I actually have no problem with that.

The thing that makes me mad is

americans that don't realize that the reason that a guy managing a buckies in texas makes more than a european doctor yeah is because of these systems of power that have america at the core and like they think they can vote to dismantle this stuff and it's all they think they're just born better that they're just yeah they're getting they're not and they're gonna they're gonna feel the punishment from this stuff unraveling as they you know are more and more not protected from equal competition with the globe.

So I don't think it's fair.

I agree it's not fair, but I'm saying as an American who wants a certain thing, it's crazy to not understand the consequences of dismantling this stuff that's all to your benefit.

I do, I definitely agree with that take, which is that it is not to America's benefit to dismantle this.

Like we have benefited from deciding the global order.

And then there's, if you dismantle it, there's like, like you said, there's arguably,

I mean, there's all sorts of crazy complex things.

I don't think it's great that American

spy agencies have picked winners in various countries over the past hundred years.

Like that's fucked up.

The thing about it is like I can't think of a single time that that right.

That's true.

That's true.

The thing about it is like, it's just

always worked out so smoothly.

So I just really don't see deeply immoral.

The idea that

they do that.

The CIA simply batted a thousand.

They were kind of the shohei otani of government agencies.

And I think the Venezuela they pitch and bat.

The CIA was the Otani of government agencies.

Firebar.

That is fire.

They just kept knocking.

They just keep, they just, it just.

Every coup.

Because if it moved back, if it had blown back, out of the country.

If it had blown back, I'd be critical.

I'd be critical.

Yeah, I think that's what I'm saying.

I think they're, this is why these things are like hard to

come to any.

like solution or determination of, I feel like, is like, there's so many little aspects of like how your lives are impacted by these decisions, especially over the long term.

And it's hard to make confident decisions of like this thing should be this way because

I think for the average person, including me, it's hard to identify the costs, like the pros and cons of what those decisions will be.

I can tell you that it doesn't matter.

We don't have to worry about any of that because AI is going to come in and it's going to replace all of this.

Oh,

organic segue.

We have to go to global order.

Organic segue.

We don't have to worry about the global order because all of our jobs are going to be taken by AI, as Doug's about to explain.

Board of podcasts, you know, you're probably at work.

You think, God, these PowerPoints are so exciting.

I wish that I could watch a podcast where there's a PowerPoint.

Let's fucking go.

Let's go.

We are upgrading podcasts.

We're moving to the first ever lemonade stand presentation.

Hot diggity damn.

No other podcast has this, folks.

Is this still the cold open?

All right.

Time for classroom.

So what I was interested in is, obviously everybody's talking about AI and how it's going to steal a bunch of jobs or that it's going to make the future incredible and everybody's kind of all over the place on this.

What I thought would be interesting as we try to understand what AI is going to do is to look at some of the recent technological waves and what they did for job creation and destruction, right?

Because it's really easy to be like, oh, AI is going to destroy X, Y, and Z job, which is true.

It's going to destroy a shitload, but...

it's going to create a lot, presumably.

And so I thought it'd be interesting to specifically look at real numbers of previous technological waves, like personal computing.

So this happened starting in the 80s, let's say, and obviously has continued till now.

So personal computing.

uh destroyed a lot of jobs turns out there was a lot of people that worked on typewriters those don't really exist anymore lost like a hundred thousand jobs type setting for people who didn't read old newspapers and stuff you had to manually put like type and print and font stuff to to make things right because you didn't just print it brandy you're probably like super familiar with that is right

don't make a boomer joke i it's funny because i i watched a movie from 93 yesterday and one of the main plot points is this woman trying to get a job as a typist and like yeah you just there's a whole office people just typing up things other people telling her it's crazy and that's not even what this is you know in microsoft word how you can change two words or two letters and it's just changed you had to physically do that for the entire world operating before a few decades ago right so that's not even the same as a giant amount of people who lost work.

Clerical and secretarial work.

There was three to four million people in the U.S.

who just did what you're describing, just typing, putting in numbers, spreadsheets, because this is all done by hand.

If you think of all the finances and all the accounting and all the paperwork of every company in the world, they were writing all this by hand.

Bookkeeping, accountants, hundreds of thousands are lost due to spreadsheets and all the different software that PCs introduce, right?

Office equipment manufacturers.

We lose tons of that because now all this is consolidated into a computer.

So we lose a ton of jobs, right, based on personal computers.

And probably a lot of people are really upset and scared at that time.

But obviously computers have generated an obscene amount of new jobs.

Programmers alone, there's 28 million globally, approximately.

These are estimated numbers from like, you know, labor bureau, but it's, you know, 28 million globally apparently are working as programmers right now.

28 million people to send to the farms.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, given how annoying programmers are on Reddit, this is the biggest mistake we've ever made.

So some of these, it's a mix of whether we have numbers, say U.S.

or globally, PC and parts manufacturing, millions of people globally, hundreds of thousands just in the U.S.

alone of like good jobs of people making parts.

And if you think about the actual PC itself and all the chips and all the peripherals and all the sales distribution that goes into all the different PCs, all the different equipment, IT and networking, hundreds of thousands.

Did you guys know I used to solder the chips themselves when I worked at NVIDIA?

Like they would send me the parts and I would go in my garage.

Because we didn't have computers then.

And so the chips were made by hand.

Yeah, it was actually an American-made operation.

And I wasn't very fast, so I'm not a shortage, but I did a real long time.

And then they outsourced your job to Taiwan.

That's why you became a streamer.

That's the story, folks.

Freed you up for creative work, as they say.

Video game industry.

Remember, that didn't exist when you were a kid, Brendan.

Hey, dude.

There's 500,000 people who have a job working in the video game industry.

Yeah, sorry.

Right, this is crazy.

We just take for granted that these things exist, but these didn't even exist.

Same with manufacturing support.

If you think about the amount of technicians, sales, distribution, I mean, just Apple stores alone, right?

All of these things are based off of this industry that did not exist.

The internet comes in.

Internet's even crazier, right?

Retail stores.

Now let's look at what the internet has destroyed, right?

Retail stores are super bad, right?

We're looking at at least 700,000 jobs in the U.S., obviously millions globally.

As essentially, physical stores get totally fucked.

Malls get wiped out all the time.

And so this is, I think, more so than the computing one.

This is a real, like, we've all seen and felt this, and it's sad.

This is is not a fun thing right and this is this is now it's going to continue

because then you're getting a lot of free why is your spirit halloween um newspaper and media over half of the people working in newspapers and like news update media uh lost their jobs globally over the past few decades thanks to the internet we have podcasters now We do as it comes, as we'll bring up later.

Turns out there used to be way, way more travel agents, and you don't need that if you can just look up what you want to do on the internet.

Hundreds of thousands lost.

Brokers, financials advisors, lots of people where the internet essentially just invalidated their job.

Can I just say something?

I'm sorry.

Yeah, yeah.

Both my dad has worked in the military for 30 years and then he quit and he works at a military contractor now.

He doesn't really like it.

I mean, he's ready to leave.

And he's always had this dream of being a travel agent, and I don't know how to break to him.

No, I

told him like softly, many ways, like, oh, that's cool, but I just don't.

It doesn't really exist anymore.

It's just not.

Based on what I've seen in the east part of of LA County, if he can speak fluent Chinese, he can make a business.

Yeah.

That's odd.

Dude,

there's weirdly a large amount of travel agencies like

the east part of L.A.

County, but they're in Chinese.

They're only in Chinese.

And this is what we call retraining for a new opportunity.

See, I'll tell my daddy.

We're going to be a little bit more lingo right now, Mandarin.

Postal service has dropped dramatically, but obviously the internet has created an unbelievable amount of jobs.

E-commerce is absolutely massive.

Obviously, Amazon doesn't have a great reputation, but 1.5 million people work for Amazon.

200K for Alibaba alone.

Millions and millions and millions across the world in logistics and delivery, right?

Like arguably every industry in the world has been touched and largely benefited from e-commerce.

Cybersecurity and IT,

these are industries that are created because of the internet and computing.

There's millions globally.

Content creation.

There are approximately 50 million content creators, at least globally, at least 2 million full-time.

These numbers are very hard because so much of this is kind of interwoven.

But if you think about some of the numbers, like TikTok alone has millions of people doing it professionally, right?

So it's hard to exactly say, but the estimate is like it's at least 50 million worldwide who are making content to some degree professionally.

That is wild.

And that's all, again, that's 50 million people who weren't doing that two decades ago.

I think maybe

it's time.

You know, maybe a World War III is fine.

Well, you say that now, but think about how many people love driving Uber.

Everybody loves Uber.

And gig platforms.

Again, you can, you know, obviously not all of this is sunshine and rainbows, but objectively, demonstrably, there are many, many, many millions of jobs.

And if you think about gig platforms like Fiverr or

these other ones where people are just freelancing themselves for different roles, I mean, I probably all three of us have worked with people who professionally make YouTube thumbnails or logos or do art.

Yeah, but I don't pay them, though.

You know, it's like, for me, it's always like exposure.

Exposure.

Right.

An exposure-based economy.

What's the formula for adding exposure to GDP?

Do we have 3.4 or 34 trillion in exposure lying around?

Right.

We can put it into the treasury.

What if Trump tweets out everyone we owe debt to for exposure?

They call it even

she.

She's big.

I'm going to make you a star.

We've got a slot in a new Mr.

Beast video.

And then, interestingly, one I thought was particularly interesting, even in traditional media, there was about 4.5 million people in the U.S.

who now are working TV, film, music that weren't there before because the massive amount of additional opportunity that has opened from the internet.

Tens of millions of people now are working in media jobs globally that weren't there before.

And I'll move through mobile devices pretty quick.

This is another very recent tech change.

It's the lost jobs from mobile phone, I'm going to be honest.

It's like Black, people who made BlackBerry and Nokia, digital cameras, that used to be a thing that people buy cameras.

You don't do that anymore.

You used to buy a Zoom.

You don't do that anymore.

Taxi services.

People used to have jobs making maps.

You ever heard about the

taxi tragedy in New York?

Do you know how you need to buy like a yellow taxi medallion?

Yeah.

of those like inflated like super super high because like there's a limited amount of them to go out and then a bunch of people bought at like peak market, basically.

People that are putting like their life savings on the line, taking out loans to buy this yellow taxi medallion in New York.

And then Uber picks up and the price of them plummets.

But all those people are locked into the loan that they took out to buy the medallion.

Yeah, so just a crazy, crazy.

We need to add a medallion to become a content creator, and then that'll fix the problem for the

limit.

We need a limit.

And who will hand out the medallions?

You.

Doug.

i guess it should be me yeah take on the authority yeah so going through this quickly the app economy as it's labeled like jobs and business and and economic productivity that comes from apps on mobile devices is absolutely insane and i'll briefly touch on it later there's millions of jobs in the u.s that benefit from this alone millions globally again all of this kind of intertwines right so it's hard to exactly distinguish what is a phone job versus an internet job but smartphone manufacturing there's millions of people who do this worldwide in wonderful conditions social media again, like millions on TikTok alone.

You know, cloud service, there are millions of devs.

Speaking of somebody who used to be a software developer and has dozens and dozens and dozens of friends in this industry, these are really high-quality jobs.

These didn't exist.

And that's one of the things to note when thinking about job creation and destruction.

Most of the jobs that are destroyed, not all, most jobs that are destroyed from tech trends are generally not as good as the ones that are created.

Obviously, big asterisks there.

Not everybody would.

agree with that if you're working in an Amazon sweat house or whatnot.

But like programming, for example, is a really good industry industry to be in.

And so overall, just some numbers on this that I think are pretty crazy.

If you look at these trends, PC personal computers in the U.S., thanks to PC, estimates are we lost four to six million jobs and made 20 to 30 million, right?

We're talking like a 20 million increase potentially.

Globally, same thing.

Tens of millions of jobs increased going to internet.

Again, hard to exactly quantify.

And there we go.

Millions of jobs destroyed because of the internet, right?

And then we're making tens of millions.

It continues to benefit essentially every business on the planet.

Globally, hundreds of millions are likely either directly employed through internet services or benefiting from them.

Mobile devices destroyed millions, made millions.

And so what's also interesting about this is when these trends happen, generally they destroy a lot of jobs early in the wave, and then they create the jobs later.

If you think about mobile devices, right?

Like it's destroying Nokia and Blackberry right away, but it took time for Uber to pick up and it took time for for TikTok.

It took a decade, two decades for TikTok.

So, generally, the trend is the destruction happens quickly, early on, and then the creation of jobs happens later.

Quick other notes that we'll talk about.

I'll get back to the desk.

You know, new tech obviously affects all industries.

There's a McKinsey study that said the internet has created 2.6 jobs for everyone destroyed.

That's wild.

Mobile apps account for 20% of all new U.S.

jobs from 2008 to 2022.

That's crazy.

Mobile apps are like crazy good at generating new jobs for Americans.

It's like Uber, and I'm assuming.

I mean, that's crazy.

Yeah, but if you, so you also think about like every single business, banks, a huge portion of what they're doing with their energy resources staff is mobile banks.

Right.

There's so much that goes into mobile devices.

It's not just, you know, oh, some guy made a meditation app, right?

It's it's all these things.

It's games, it's gig economies.

It's the fact that every single business also now has a major mobile app.

I wish we could hire some of these people for their mobile app because it sucks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, yeah, we created some jobs there.

We created some jobs not a Twitch.

I'm kind of a big fan of how you just have a 30% success ratio on loading the clip.

Just I open a Twitch clip and it

sometimes doesn't.

That's it.

We'll create some new jobs.

The new jobs will fix that.

Create some jobs.

Obviously, in this, maybe we get into this in a future episode or now, but there's a lot of ethical ramifications to new technology.

I'm simplifying this to just job creation and destruction for the sake of like narrowing the scope of this conversation.

But obviously, if some, you know, know, if somebody in rural Brazil has access to resources, which I believe AI will do, that allows them to access businesses or opportunities that they couldn't before, I think the internet has largely been a massively positive thing for people around the world.

There's also downsides, though.

A lot of jobs have been shifting.

to towards gig work, which I think many people do not feel is nearly as sustainable.

And locations of jobs shift as well, right?

It's not like every job that's destroyed grows in that same spot, like a plant.

In rural Arkansas.

You might have roots.

Them losing jobs in rural Arkansas, a lot of those jobs then go to Silicon Valley, right?

So this is not evenly distributed.

And I had some ideas, maybe AI future, there could be virtual worlds and experiences.

Like we don't know what's going to happen with AI yet.

I believe there will be crazy ass stuff.

AI-run public service sectors, imagining like traffic lights and utilities actually being managed by really smart AIs who optimize this.

More scientists who can use AIs to run experiments.

genetic engineering and customized medicines, like the healthcare industry being far more sophisticated with people and cyberpunk where we all have cool ass fucking additions to our head and our face.

If you think about this alone, dude, on a serious note, that is going to happen.

And if you imagine

the number of industries and

in the, I didn't watch the end.

I assume it's a happy ending.

Oh, it's good.

If you think about the number of industries

in the world that are around fashion and people expressing themselves in interesting ways, the millions of people who do little Etsy crafts, the millions of people working in in fashion or hairstyling or tattoos, different ways to express yourself.

And you imagine it in the future, as we will get like essentially bionic parts of ourself, the amount of customization and flair and personalization.

One of the things that I think is interesting, we all, you know, laugh about

the metaverse and stuff like that.

But as virtual worlds become really, really sophisticated, people are going to do crazy stuff.

And maybe there's going to be a whole industry where you manage a bar in a virtual world in a way that you couldn't before, right?

So I really do believe that there's going to be enormous, crazy different types of technologies and industries that we can't even imagine right now that come from AI

specifically as part of this product wave that will happen largely after the current wave of destruction.

This is oversimplifying things, but I think it is very interesting.

And now I will go back to the table and we'll talk.

Okay, Lemonade.

I got a lot of things.

I want to talk about it.

This is very interesting.

First thing I want to say is: I think it's cool to have a techno-optimist who can articulate your points on this podcast because I think the vibe I get from my audience, especially when I'm talking to them, and they're younger people in America, most of them, is doomerism, right?

They're very doomer.

And I don't know necessarily where I stand.

I'm going to bring up some points they might make, right?

I'm going to, when I talk to you, but I think it's cool that you have this idea because I don't like the idea that everyone is constantly doomer in general.

I just think it's like it's self-serving.

So I are self-defeating.

It's a bad snowball.

Yeah, I think the

in the same vein, kind of we did like a test recording before this episode, like last week, and we talked a bit about, I think that, that feeling or that anti-AI sentiment, maybe among our audiences, like collectively, or maybe like young people in general being so negative, I think like has valid points at its base.

I think also what hurts is a lot of people at the forefront of like the face of people who are like fans of this stuff is often like the people who

like I brought up the tweet that was that guy who's really excited about fully AI movies and we'll be watching fully.

That's not really why I consume art.

That's not, it is defeating the purpose.

Finally, we can delegate art.

Finally, we're offloading art.

It's been a big load on our collective human mind for so long.

There's a really good, there's a really good Stavros clip, the comedian, of him being interviewed, I think by like Theo Vaughan.

And he's talking about like, isn't this fucked?

Like, it's like, we're like, this, like, the AI is like taking all the art and like, we're working in the Amazon warehouses.

This doesn't make any sense.

This isn't what we wanted.

Um, and I think when these things get talked about, uh, because like the positive outlooks for me, like when I read through, for example, you sent an article from a while back or a sub stack of

the very,

uh, very, very good piece of that all the potential benefits of AI.

And the first section was was all about health and the way it could help

diagnose

and deal with like modern health issues.

And I was like, that is exciting.

That is awesome.

And I think that's the like

when you talk about these things,

being like sensitive to those concerns, or like, maybe not, I don't even think sensitive is the right word, is like being ready to like answer those concerns with like good,

like good positive answers i don't i don't know those those things are important because i feel like the sentiment is so overwhelmingly negative yeah let me let me address that really quickly so i think the part of what i mentioned in my important powerpoint documentation is uh is the fact that with tech trends with major technology waves again you generally see job destruction at the beginning yeah and then the new industries start to emerge and so i i think that I agree that there's a lot of doomerism with AI right now.

And it's justified if you're just looking at what's in front of you, which is right now it is destroying artists' jobs straight up.

Yeah, that's what I wrote.

I actually wrote this down is like, I think that people get really caught up in the short-term cost of situations like this because it's very visceral.

It's very, it's happening.

It's hard not to do if it's your job or it's your job.

Exactly.

And I'm not saying that people, I can't look, it's like, I'm fucking, I'm a podcaster.

And I can't look at the guy, the guy

told the writer that it's got laid off.

I think I was listening to a story on The Daily about manufacturing in America and this guy who had worked at a lock company, like a lock manufacturing company.

And after decades of working there, he loved his job.

He lost it because

they offloaded all the manufacturing or outsourced it to another country and he lost his job.

And it was a huge part of his identity that was lost.

He lost his income.

And Aiden was standing outside the factory.

And the caster's head said, well,

the long-term consequences of the government.

And I think when talking about these things, something that I think about a lot is like, overall, in order for society, like a small scale example of this is in business.

I remember hearing an anecdote about how a lot of like tech, early tech companies and tech

would be worried about their products cannibalizing each other.

And Steve Jobs like notably said when I think the iPhone came out that he had no,

like he had no fear of this.

Like in order to progress the products and the company forward, you cannot be afraid of like cannibalization, basically.

And I think at like a society level, the idea that like you can't replace old jobs, like, oh, what, well, you've got to keep the horses and buggies.

Okay.

We can't get it.

Here's a bid, though.

I want to jump in.

Cause, okay.

I agree.

Like, I am not a Luddite by any.

I don't follow Ludwig nor.

I'm not a Ludwig.

I'm not a Ludwig fan.

I should just say, fuck Ludwig.

I'm going to start by saying.

I'm going to take this guy.

If it was any other technology, my instant response is exactly what you said.

I know that if you invent the tractor, some guy loses his job, but the farm gets bigger, we get more people, whatever.

I know always historically, I think people are maybe not correctly and nobody really knows, but are intuiting that AI is a little bit different, that it feels different, because it feels like the first time where maybe you just don't need a human at all.

Maybe it's like, it's not that we're making this thing convenient so the human can do a higher order task.

It's like the human has now truly been lapped.

And I'm not saying AI is there yet.

And I'm not, I don't know exactly where I stand on this.

That's right.

i think it's like

this one's different is what i'm trying to say and i want i want your question on that because this one feels to me

i have thoughts if you want to add on it before i respond yeah yeah that and that's why uh there's a there's a cgp gray video from like a decade ago about this not necessarily about ai but about automation in general and like why this leap in technology is different from previous times ultimately and i think if that is the case or that's something that we worry about i think something i think a lot about is like, well, if it's going to reach that point, and you might disagree with that, is how you change like society and legislation and

things around

jobs to accommodate for that.

Because at a certain stage, it's like the way day-to-day life works and like jobs work.

If that's going to be the case, if the human is going to be like lapped and replaced

for labor, then

the structure of society also needs to start changing.

So I think I'm just curious, I'm curious what your response is to him and like also what you've, what you think about that.

Yes.

So, and

again, to set the stage for people who maybe aren't, I am very optimistic on AI.

I do think the net positive on Earth is going to be extremely high and for humanity.

However, there's going to be a, it's going to be more destructive in the short term than any other technology, probably.

And I think a lot of people are concerned about that, even the optimists like myself.

So three kind of categories.

I think one, there's this idea of like, we're going to destroy all these jobs.

This will happen.

This is going to happen quickly.

And there's going to be a time lapse before new industries are created that can fill some of that space.

However, I think people are overplaying the amount at which a company will simply fire the people that they can replace.

So, imagine you have company A, B, A, B, C, you have company ABC.

They make 100 products a day.

And then with AI, company Aiden and company Atra.

Company Aiden and company Aiden.

You know, actually, this is good.

Company Aiden and Company Atra.

Okay.

Okay.

Two different companies.

You guys both employ a hundred people.

Okay.

You employ a hundred people.

Okay.

And then you realize with AI that each person in your company can be twice as effective because instead of just completely changing their jobs, every person's job, for the most part, in most offices at least, is a mix of different skill sets.

And people realize that they can actually replace a certain amount of work with AI and it allows them to do more.

So each person can now get twice as much done.

Okay.

You,

given just your background and your nature as a human being, you fire half the people immediately.

You think

I don't need half of them and I can replace them, right?

If they're all working together, fucking fire them, right?

And you know, and you go home and you get in your fancy Toyota Prius and you're very proud of yourself.

Leave them to the dog.

Adrioch, you notice the same thing.

Uh-huh.

Now, what?

But I am a little different.

There's two values.

Right.

There's two options you could do here.

Yeah, I mean, there's only one option.

Oh, it's

fire the ball.

Oh, fire the ball.

Yeah, yeah.

And I'm out.

I sell the stock.

I sell it to a private equity firm and I'm on Bermuda Beach.

Yeah, yeah.

Now, what I believe most companies will do is go, my employees are twice as productive.

Let's make twice as much stuff, right?

Why would your reaction be, yeah, let's fire everybody and do the same amount?

Instead of if you are a material science company or a manufacturing company or a software company and suddenly your employees are twice as effective as they were before, they can produce twice as much because AI can do so many of the tasks that simply took time before.

Why wouldn't you make twice as many things?

If you are a business, you want to make more money, you want to succeed in the market, you can free up some of those people to develop new products to be competitive in these other areas.

Why wouldn't you grow?

Every company is incentivized to grow.

You know, obviously.

There's individuals who won't do that.

There's going to be horrible leaders who are like, yeah, fuck all the human beings.

They're going to be profit driven.

But in general, even if you take this very, very cynical, capitalistic, you know,

they're just doing it for money.

Even in that case, I believe the vast majority of the time, the incentives are to make more.

And that's the hope: is that what this does is it enables all people and businesses around the world to be more effective, more productive.

I've seen this in my own life.

I've talked to dozens of people for whom AI has made their writing better, their planning better, people who are now able to do businesses in a way they weren't before, tackle taxes better.

There's going to be so many fewer barriers to people starting businesses and creating things because AIs will allow everybody to engage with this.

It's going to destroy a lot of jobs, but it will hopefully allow people to make more.

And that means not just firing everybody, it means doing more stuff.

And each person is more productive.

And of course, this is also going to happen with a lot of job disruption.

There's going to be a lot of people who use this in a very evil way.

There's going to be a lot of people in certain areas who then can't recover and get the opportunities that are created.

But I think that fundamental idea of if you can replace, if a person becomes more productive, you fire everybody is flawed.

My, I mean, my first, I think I, I definitely agree with like parts of what you're saying.

My first response to the your original uh original idea is that like the demand doesn't necessarily exist for more to exist, right?

So, at some point, it's like, well, if I can't, if demand does not match this like shared increase in output that my company has, and all the other companies in my industry are also choosing to make moves that are similar and increase their like productivity.

Well, eventually I do have to like let people, let people so the quick counteroffer, and again, obviously these things are complex, but compared to five decades ago, people have far more leisure opportunities now, right?

There are literally every day, if somebody's listening to this podcast, presumably you are picking between literally thousands of different options on your TV, devices, video games of what to do every day.

The amount of leisure options are massive.

And these industries have exploded and we are currently benefiting from it.

None of these existed five decades ago, right?

And probably those people were like, oh, if everybody started being five times as productive, what are we going to do with our time?

Well, it turns out we as humanity have a huge portion, as I was pointing out, has now developed these industries.

I just want to drill down on the question though, because

I fully agree that if it's like

artist versus artist plus AI, that second one's more productive.

Yes.

I get it.

But I don't.

know what happens when there's the leap of why have the human part of it at all.

I guess guess i don't understand that that a human can't be completely lapped to the point where they are cut out and maybe you have one human as a overseer or manager but i just i don't see i i see the transitional period because that's what's happening right now writers with ai can research stuff really quickly and it's it's great they're improved sure but but i don't see what happens when i don't need to hire a writer for because i hire people for videos and stuff and if they use ai they can get stuff back i don't i don't see what happens when they're like because ai just feels to me different that's what i'm saying it just feels it feels to me like

it's better at all of the human things.

So I don't, it's like almost inconvenient to have a human.

Maybe, maybe

the direction, the direction that you're thinking in is

in the past, like changes in technology or tools or automation

free up the time of the human that couldn't do that job before so they could like move on and like like do something else.

But in this case, if like the AI goes far enough or the AI is good enough, whatever task or job that the human could move on to next,

the AI would just also be able to do.

Yes.

And that is like the, the, maybe what's different is like the chain you get stuck in.

It's like, there's no new ship to jump to anymore.

Right.

Because the AI can also always do that thing.

Yeah.

And obviously there will always be like exceptions.

I truly believe there will always be exceptions to the rule in that like we have,

I think there's an underlying desire to like connect with people and I totally agree.

Like there's there's there's still that, but that's what I'm worried about as well is like there's there's

a point you get stuck at it I get what you guys are saying.

I want to make a counterpoint to my own point and just argue against myself is that

people said this about chess when computers got better than humans at chess.

Completely better.

There's no human on earth that can beat even like a calculator,

like a phone at chess.

It gets better.

Chess has never been bigger.

People, you know, at the end of the day, still want to watch humans play.

They still enjoy the art and sport of it.

And the entire industry of chess has never made more money, nor been bigger, than decades after computers lapped humans.

So I don't think it's unreasonable to say that could happen for a lot of things where AI is completely better than all of us, but we still want to do a human thing.

We want to watch a human-made play or a movie or whatever.

I get that.

But for the totality of industry, so many things are just profit-driven and they will pick the best option.

And I'm worried that if humans are not involved involved in that,

I even agree with you that it could be a good thing, but we have to restructure society.

Our system, I don't think, will work in that situation.

That's, that's.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I basically agree with that.

And it is possible.

I just think broadly

we should trust that in the long term, we as humans, when given opportunity, find things to do and create new things.

So I think that in this case where, let's say, you described, well, this writer that you would normally hire

is outsourced to an AI and you're not hiring that person at all.

Well, what does that person do now?

He has free time and energy.

And you imagine that he's now just adrift in the world, but he's adrift in the world where AI is incredibly capable of doing creative things, right?

And he would have access to the same tools to go make things, to make a new business, to create leisure opportunities, to go find something and build one of these new industries that I think will exist.

So I think what is sometimes lost is the assumption that the benefits of AI are only going to go to certain people.

But if you you assume that every human gets these same things, that even if a person is pushed out of a particular type of market, that we should not assume that we as humanity won't create new ones.

And I think I agree society will need to be restructured.

There's a possibility it's just a shitload of pain.

And I hope that's not the case.

And I'm somebody who thinks I'm optimistic because I think the good can be so incredibly good.

And the bad is very possible.

And we need to like fight against the bad.

But do you like, do you get what I'm saying though?

Like, yeah, that's, I think it's, it's

that world is terrible up until we do have all, and like, probably a lot of our economic system and what people do is around human leisure and creativity.

And that I don't think AIs can replace, at least in its entirety.

That part, I mean, that part I

agree with.

Those are the parts that we want to like emphasize and not let go of.

I think the issue that I can think of is like a like a lot of new technology, policy and

the way society works does not catch up very quickly with like the realities or the pace of technology.

So like what I get worried about in the US, something that I can think of is the cost of the person who loses their job to AI or automation or a factory being moved abroad or anything like that situation is the cost of losing your job in that scenario or the cost of losing your industry on the whole is very dire.

Like you, you lose your, you could lose your home.

You could lose your ability to support your family.

The social systems in place to support that person

are not very good.

And I think the pace at which the technology is accelerating right now does not leave a very good safety net for the people that are like caught in the crossfire.

You are definitely right.

We need to restructure things so that we have a way for people to transition to this new new world.

And we don't have that right now.

And if this happens without any of that other support system coming in, it will be very hot.

It will be very bad.

Yeah.

And a lot of the, and I think the incentive structure that is like building AI right now and like building the technology is sort of this

say capitalist system like even in even in China, right?

Like they're they're using private companies to develop and like to develop the technology, which I think is

a lot of like merit to that approach, right?

Giving private companies the ability to explore and innovate.

And that's like very powerful.

I don't think those companies necessarily share the incentive structure that saves the people that are the externality, basically.

Yes, yes.

And

that's what I get worried about basically is like, I'm sure the net benefit in society in the most idealistic version of what you're talking about could be really, really good.

But the guy who like lost his job to AI along the way, his like he might have lost his job, gotten a divorce, gotten addicted, and the government has not caught up.

No,

I'm sorry, I'm

just making the saddest possible story.

But I'm making it dramatic, but this is true, right?

People who have lost their manufacturing jobs in like middle America and their life crumbles because, like, that was their identity, they can't get work.

Um, people are attached to like the places they grow up and they uh they turn to things like like drugs and uh like drug addiction, and like you're absolutely right.

There's a huge spike in like i don't know like drug addiction suicide like all those things right these things like compile and affect each other and that externality of the people affected by this race to create technology is what i worry about and i don't want to leave i don't want to leave the cure for alzheimer's at the door that ai could bring for example right i don't want to leave that behind me

hundreds of thousands of people get injured or die every year in car accidents in the u.s alone which would be prevented by self-reporting by making changes like this There's so many.

We just, I want there to be a conscious, a conscious recognition of the costs and positives of both things and do our best to

manage this.

Yeah, to be very clear, I am an AI optimist.

I believe the net positive will become extremely high for humanity.

And getting to that high could be a super rocky road.

And there needs to be a lot of support and basically thoughtfulness on how it's done.

Yes.

Absolutely.

Yes.

What you're describing is super possible, frighteningly possible, I would say, even though I firmly believe 30 years from now, we're all going to go, holy shit, the world is so much better because of AI.

And I hope so.

Something, a smaller version of this that I was thinking of, I watched this video breaking down like France's relative economic position in Europe right now.

And they have like very high productivity, but also uh low hours worked per week.

So their overall like economic output seems like lower or comparable comparable to a lot of a lot of Europe.

But when you look into the problem, it's actually, oh, the French people, because of the like the rules and the laws they have set up, they actually just work less and they have like more time in life for other things.

And their society, like their populace of workers is very productive and uses that time very effectively.

Like that's, that's what I would, that's an example of what I would want to push towards, right?

Right.

Yeah, I mean, you guys brought up two points that are very interesting, which is you talked about saving lives from

cars being able to self-drive, for example, and crash.

And you mentioned jobs, and it's like 37 of 50 states, the number one job is truck driver.

The number one job.

Yeah.

And the second self-driving trucks are good, all of those jobs are going to be instantly.

That's probably the biggest inflection point of chaos from all of that.

It's going to be

really, really bad.

Yeah.

And that there was three years of Andrew Yang campaigning.

Basically, yeah.

That's actually,

that was his platform, right?

It's like, I don't disagree with that.

I don't know if I think Andrew Yang would have been the best president ever, but I think that fee, accounting for that and knowing that that's coming.

I really agreed with him on it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's the only politician I ever donated to.

And then I regretted it because they still text me all the fucking time.

And I'm like, dude, it's been like 10 years.

It's been like 10 years.

Go stop.

Andrew Yang is not going to be president.

Yeah.

I mean, obviously there's so much to go into.

And I'll keep bringing this stuff up because this is like talking about these types of things is one of the biggest reasons I am excited for this show and excited to talk with you guys because this is so deeply complex and so impactful.

And I can see in my own life, like as an example for the people who are doomers, I employ like 10 to 15 people on any given basis.

I do that because AI is enabling to be enabling me to be more productive.

I'm able to code more things.

I'm able to get more creative ideas out the door.

And I've used that, I've used that success to hire more people who are now supporting my creative visions.

And there are real world examples right now already where AI is allowing creative people to grow and expand what they're doing and hire more creative people and make more stuff.

And I think in a lot of cases, that's going to happen.

And it's not always going to be the capitalist asshole who's like, and I like capitalism, but you know, the guy, capitalism is good at incentivizing people to be shitheads.

And the shitheads are going to be shitheads, right?

That's going to happen.

And this, we'll talk about another episode.

This is why DeepSeek, which is an open source, is super important because open source is going to prevent companies like Microsoft from hoarding this all themselves and preventing it from benefiting the broader people.

Like, I think that is critically important, but it's too big of a topic, and I'll stop there.

Well, I, again, like I said, I'm glad you're talking about it because I do think.

There's many, many, many people, especially that will watch the show that don't see that side of it at all.

Right, right, right.

They don't even have both sides of the argument.

They have one side of the argument and they're really deep into it.

Which makes sense when what you're looking at in front of you is a fire.

It's fire.

It is.

It's a fire in front of you.

And the guy's like, no, no, no.

Once the forest burns down, it's going to be vibrant, bro.

Like, yeah, no, I get it.

And it's easier to say when we're in good, comfortable positions.

It's just vibrant.

Also, that's so, but I think it's fair.

And I think it's interesting.

And

I want to talk to you more because I want to share that optimism because I don't like the idea that this technology is so different that I should just be sad.

You know what I'm saying?

Like, I like, I have used

AI for research stuff.

It's been helpful.

Like, I think, I think I'm close to where you're at, but I still have some reservations because I I can just see the pain that it's going to cause, like guaranteed going to cause some people's pain.

Absolutely, yes.

It's going to be more destructive than any previous time.

But I'll tell you who's getting more pain than anyone.

And that's me when I invite Aiden to something and he flakes on me.

This is what I've been really

staying up at night over, Atriok.

Unreal.

Can you tell me about what's going on with the culture and whether people are canceling?

Absolutely.

Look, I get that AI is going to be disruptive, but I think it's way more disruptive to have an event like a fun dinner or something.

Oh, I don't know.

And then Aiden cancels on you last minute.

And Business Insider did a very interesting thing.

Can you tell us right fuck Aiden on that, please?

Yeah, please write fuck Aiden.

Wait a second.

Please write fuck Aiden.

This thing on the rise of cancellation culture, which is basically they interviewed some people, they did some studies, and it looks into the idea that people now more than ever have been flaking.

They've been, they've been, it's a post-COVID thing.

People have been more than ever resorting to,

you know that good feeling you get when there's an event you don't want to go to and then last second you cancel on it well people have called that um

you know self-care or whatever this study goes into the idea that hey it's actually kind of negative long-term for your mental health for our ability to form friendships for um our loneliness like there's a loneliness academic epidemic it shows average time spent alone is like at an all-time.

We had the COVID peak and then it dropped a little bit and it's going right back up.

Like people are compared to the decade before COVID, astronomically lonelier.

They're astronomically more alone, more time at home, more time ordering in, more time.

And I wanted to get a sense from a serial canceler like Aiden, like what it's actually a joke.

I actually want to get your thoughts because you are somebody who I think is the exact opposite of this.

You like make a point to do all this stuff and you do a lot of social events.

I have a high sense of guilt about canceling, to be honest.

Yeah.

So I wanted to get your sense of whether you thought that was a benefit to you or why you do it.

Because I think there's a lot of people who fall into this mindset that they talk about here, which is like

it can feel so scary or anxiety-inducing or whatever to just leave your house sometimes.

It's still comfortable.

We have built really houses to ourselves lately.

And

why it's worth it to leave.

Like, I want you to sort of make the pitch because you're the one I think who does it the most.

I, you know, I think we hang out in our houses a lot.

Get them out.

I go out, but like, I have you tried out video games?

Yeah, video games are awesome.

And

I don't know.

And I like my reading.

I like watching watching stuff.

So I want to hear from your POV why you're so against this.

Why this is not your attitude at all?

I mean,

I think I have actually dealt with this.

And this was a big thing coming out of COVID that I thought about personally.

Because before COVID, I think I was a person that had abundant social energy.

I got a lot of like joy and...

energy from going to social events and hanging out with other people and talking to other people.

And I felt like after COVID, I actually am a different person in that regard.

I think it, I developed a sense of,

I don't know if I would use the word anxiety or dread about like going to social events that I had planned.

Even though whenever I go, whenever I get there, it's always good.

Like I've never regretted going to anything that I've like committed to.

And I really I spent a lot of time thinking about it because I felt like a different person.

I felt like I lost part of me coming out of that.

And I wanted, I was like, is this part of getting older?

Or is this because I just effectively spent a year and a half at home?

And I, that was a really tough question that I think I really, I still haven't answered like fully.

I think the guilt or like where the desire to like show up comes from or like why I hate canceling is because

I know it's annoying for the other person.

It like it sucks to be canceled on for sure.

Everyone knows that.

You know what's funny is like, I don't mind, I don't mind that at all.

Really?

Yeah.

But I find that's, that's like pretty rare.

It's like, I know the other person, if I cancel, is like probably going to give me shit or like will, they'll be sad.

Or I think something that I think about a lot is I know that if I cancel on the same like group or person like a few times in a row, you'll stop getting invited to things.

And I don't want to stop being invited.

So being a friend and participate, like that is saying yes and showing up, even when you have that feeling of like not wanting to go.

And then like I said, whenever you actually get there, it's great.

There's been so few, maybe not

when once you get through the discomfort of like the plan and going that, and I have a bunch of, I have a bunch of other thoughts related to this topic too, but that's the main thing is like I.

I think about how it would make the other person feel.

And I also think about the social consequences of what saying no often means.

And both of those things like are just hurt in the long run right they hurt your relationships with people and that's funny that the article talks about that because that's that is a big

underpinning what is the like or what are some of the theories about why because i i like i'm curious why yeah we wouldn't have bounced back now that it's been a couple years and now that covet is one hundred articles

are um

this this busyness culture this idea of like people feel busier than ever they feel like they have to climb the economic ladder more they feel like there's you know we're in a spot where jobs are harder to get everyone's trying to be a a little bit performative busy and also is busier.

And so the idea that is the first thing you can cut is time with friends.

You can cut, you can cut the superfluous stuff that you can always.

I thought that was a really good, they put it in a really nice ways that we don't, that culture doesn't place your time spent with friends or time spent as leisure as like a prior, as a priority or as an integral part of your life.

But it is.

Like that, that is a meaningful part of part of your life.

And in one way, it might be the most meaningful part of your life.

It also talks about that, right?

The literal meaning of life coming from that.

So there's that.

And then there is

more anxiety.

So again, people just self-report

dramatically more anxiety.

They think the friends...

Since COVID, you're saying that's right.

So people will report thinking their friends want to hang out with them less than they do.

Like if you ask the friends, they would say 80 to 85% or whatever.

The people would say 40 to 40%.

Like they would, people are generally more in their own heads.

They think they're less important to social events they go to.

They think they don't need to be there.

And they also think that,

you know, if you have a friendship with somebody, if I cancel on you, my general thought would be like, we're friends.

It doesn't matter.

And it probably doesn't.

But what this article goes into is like, it sort of does, like, it does add up over time.

All these lost encounters are...

are like deposits in a friendship bank that aren't earning interest.

You're just not, you're not paying into that bank.

And over time, your savings at retirement are a lot

like a real financiality as well like socializing is how you get most opportunities, you know, it's how you expand anyway.

Yeah, yeah, like all the best things in life.

It's not necessarily the party itself.

It's the person you meet there that leads to the thing, you know,

I'm really shocked by the level of inertia that a year and a half of walk-ins has caused.

I'm so glad I wasn't a student at the time.

I just feel like for

it feels like it was, it was a dude.

I think it's going to be so, I think it already is so bad.

Like it has such resounding negative social effects as like outlined through something like this.

But just anecdotally, like, I think, and I think about like what a transformative and like important part of my life, like, those years were like end of high school, beginning, and like through college, and even just like learning.

Like, I think I wouldn't have learned very much if I wasn't in classrooms.

And then also going out to like parties and meeting people and like making friends and doing stupid shit.

Like, that is all,

I don't know.

Like,

that's how you, that's how I learned things about myself.

It's how I like made mistakes that drastically changed my like value system and like how I behave.

Like it's such an integral part of

life that it's just three years of school in like junior, senior, college, or high school.

You should get your money.

It's not fair.

You didn't get, you didn't get anything or even close to what I think you deserve or what you were earned.

I don't know if you guys feel this too.

And I thought a lot about like bringing this up because I feel a little like I'm going into old man mode complaining about X generation, but I think it's not actually the generation below me.

I think it's a lot of the people like around my age as well, like a little older than me, younger, and then definitely the younger generation too.

Is like talking to people in like public spaces feels like pulling teeth.

And like the level of like conversation ability, conversational ability of somebody like age 35 and below is so poor.

And it's kind of why,

genuinely, it's kind of why I think I've always liked talking to adults and older people, like adults when I was a kid, but older people in general is because if you go up to any person, I feel like if you go up to any person above the age of 40, they can have a conversation with you.

And I think this is also, this is also like a cultural thing.

This feels too general, but you've done it more than anyone.

So

no, no, I think this is also a cultural thing in that

I wonder how COVID and things like this and people's anecdotal experiences play into this.

But I found like going to, compared to the U.S.

and also compared to Canada,

going to like the UK and Australia, like the average young person there.

that you meet is like also better at having a conversation with you.

Like they feel more socially comfortable just like interacting with strangers, which is a little odd to me.

Like, I wonder what it is about

the way people are growing up and like going through their lives now that makes like baseline socializing so difficult.

It's got to do with practice because everything is like, if they're not getting practice and they get more anxiety and it's a snowball.

Yeah, and it stacks.

And like, COVID, I feel like COVID like makes something like that so much worse.

And it makes like the uh like making plans and like showing up to them makes it feel like such an ordeal in a way that it wouldn't be normally.

This uh, this thing talks about striking up conversations with strangers and how it says, you know, if if you're thinking about, hey, I want to sit in that stranger, you get nervous and don't want to think they're going to, they're going to think I'm annoying.

Yeah.

But if someone does it to you, generally, you're like, oh, this is kind of cool.

Like, it's like fun.

Exactly.

But it's a mismatch reward system.

I did that at a coffee shop this week.

You do it all the time.

That's why I know this article.

You actually do it too much.

You are the annoying person.

There's not an Uber driver who's not tired of

thinking, I don't want to talk.

I'm upset this person said something to me.

Most people hate when Uber drivers talk.

Uber drivers hate when you talk.

The one more thing I was thinking about with this was

I feel like a big thing that maybe changed more post-COVID too is like, and something that

maybe is really

pervasive in like American work culture is I feel like the fluidity of socializing matters a lot.

Like, people used to move less.

People used to like just hang out more by default.

Like, they, I think they talk about it in the article.

Like, the percentage of Americans that report they have a best friend is like

way down.

30-year low or something.

I think people lack a, I think the

making plans and like hanging out with people is increasingly a task you have to do versus how it used to be.

That's, that's how I feel.

I think a lot of people like grew up or were in community spaces where hanging out happens like very naturally.

You're not necessarily making a plan.

You just have to kill you.

You just have to be around each other.

Right.

And then you just do something together.

But now making plans turns it into like a task, which I think when like people are so busy with things like work, it's not like.

and enjoy you don't enjoy making the plans so to speak and you don't enjoy the build up to how you get get there and like figuring out the logistics and all of those things.

You enjoy actually hanging out.

So when like we as people have so many barriers between us to hanging out by default, and then you build, you add the anxiety and the isolation on top of that.

I just wonder how much of the inertia that is

like the difficulty in people ramping back up into the previous lifestyle is the fact that

tech has gotten really, really good at keeping people's attention.

Right, View Ham's gotta go.

Yeah, and you know, and again, I want to be clear.

I'm not, I don't, I don't think every tech is, is good.

I think there's plenty of obvious downsides.

And, like, the, you know, if you think about COVID, it's like a year and a half where every single person making entertainment on the, in the world got a chance.

They got a shot at everybody.

You know, like, everybody is like, all right, I'm going to take, like, me, I captured like 200, 2 million people, dude.

I fucking caught him like Pokemon, and they haven't knocked.

And like,

and like, I'm probably so many of my viewers are like, would be hanging out with their best friend right now, but they're like, oh, well, Doug, dropped a new video.

They couldn't escape, and now they buy my mugs.

They buy my mugs.

Not committed to me.

I made a new AI character.

This AI character calls me.

This calls you gold.

No, that's, I think that's a huge part of it.

It might have been, it's like glue.

Like, we put like cowtrops all over the ground and they have to like crawl over them to get back out to a non-digital social life.

It's so funny if you talk about code with anyone who's not a concentrator, they're always universally negative.

But then consecrators have to do that thing where they're like, oh, yes, this is bad.

Like all their numbers,

all of their numbers, like 10x.

Just three merchants of death at the table.

Yeah.

It's like, I talked to Ludwig about COVID.

I just don't think he's eating millions.

I mean,

it worked out so well for him.

I just don't think the Sacklers should have to pay that much.

No,

I think you're right.

Fentanyl damage panel, and it's all the Sackler family.

Three different opinions.

We like put them all in like a mirror maze.

And it's like, look, normal life is outside the mirror maze, but you got to find your way out.

You know, you got to get out.

And we got a lot of pop-ups.

I would like,

for the people listening, I would love people's opinions about how they've dealt with this and how they feel about this.

Cause it's something that is so...

Not just like the cancellations themselves, but this like general topics.

Like how did COVID like affect you socially?

How, how do you feel about socializing now?

Something I think about a lot is it wasn't just, I, I tried to dive back in.

I was excited to go to big events and socialize and be out again once you could.

And I remember feeling so fatigued in a way that I wasn't before.

It was harder.

Not just, and like I said, I enjoyed being there.

but being there was harder than it was before.

And that was a strange feeling to me.

And I don't know why.

I think harder, and I also want to give one more note, because we don't talk about this because of being contractors, I guess, but it's also more expensive.

Like, I heard this from a lot.

I talked to people about it.

I talked to my old friend Jay Witz, who

used to go to a lot of basketball games.

He told me, like, he's got a family now.

It's just really expensive.

Like, it's just everything's like the prices have gone way up.

It's hard for him to get out.

And I think when you talk to a lot of young people, especially, it's like every restaurant's expensive.

A lot of things that normally would be a good third place have become monetized and more expensive.

And so they're running out of spots.

Now, I don't think that, I think that's still a little bit of a cop-out in that you can always find something cheap to do.

You can always,

I think a lot of things we

drop off the battle bus.

But that's part of it.

Even that, though,

it's another layer of friction.

It's another, like,

it's another work item that you need to figure out instead of just

hanging out.

Something I, you know what, the office, working at the office is really nice because

conveniently,

i work at a company i work at a company with friends and the people who are around and come to do stuff at the office it's like we just hang out and talk and and social play mario kart we like and play mario karbi and play mario kart we with my headphones on and don't talk to anyone

but uh i just want to be clear i've been to the office many times 98% of the time you are locked in, headphones in, no talking to anybody, playing Mario Kart Wii.

It's not a den of socialization.

I'll show you my ladder page.

I'll show you my Elo.

I'm on a hot streak right now.

But having those spaces

is so

important.

Like

having spaces where you can just be around people to begin with.

So the layers of friction don't have to happen between.

And I think...

Like, I'd be curious too, if, if people back this theory up at all, but I feel like a lot of other countries I've been to, even in the modern day of technology, even post-COVID, like culturally different places don't seem to deal with this problem as much.

And I'm sure things like cost and like

layer into that.

But

I don't know.

I'm curious about people's.

Yeah, you said it well.

I would love to hear some people's responses, especially because we plan to do follow-ups on some of the

comments in future episodes.

Maybe that's a good time to bring that up too.

I think like everything we talk about, I think a big thing we had talked about on the show is like, I think all three of us like have like have pretty similar ideals and values, and like our good faith in the way we like bring stuff up and like argue about things.

And if you guys have thoughts, like, I like when people engage in that same way, like, if you have new information or something relevant to what we talked about, and you think it would be good for us to know, or like your opinion on something, I want to read that.

I think a cool thing about this show is that as we dive into stuff, there will definitely be things we like miss or get wrong.

And if, and if you,

and if you bring stuff up in like the comments, or I think we've talked about more structured ways to do that in the future, I, it'd be nice to like reapproach topics or things we talk about here.

Absolutely.

Um, I don't want to pretend like I'm like, as I try to like navigate the geopolitics of global trade, pretend like I have it locked down.

I spent two hours on Monday making a podcast episode about cream pies.

It's just, guys,

I know where I stand, and I'm very very all about cream pies.

Okay, it's not all about cream pies, but it was like a good 15 minutes, and it's just, it's, we didn't eat it.

Which leads me to my next topic.

So, AI cream pies.

Porn is going to be, you know, porn pieces.

Porn is wild.

Porn is going to be, unfortunately.

Click the link below for our porn hub follow-up episode.

Yeah.

They're paying the most, right?

Guys, this is really fun.

I really like this first episode.

I had a good time.

Want to do a room handshakes?

Oh.

I'll give you an inch.

Great stuff.

Just convoy.

We're going to be making an episode every week.

We're going to be covering whatever is going on and whatever we feel like and posting on Thursday.

Unless we're late, which none of us are ever late.

We wouldn't have hurtful on you like that.

You just heard how seriously Aiden takes that.

I walk in.

And now, this is the part of the show where Atriach eats an entire raw lemon.

No, that's not me.

That's you.

I've been baited.

I forgot the lemons.

There's one right there.

We have real lemons on set.

Atriac, we'll take a bite up until the skin ruptures.

This is plastic.

Oh,

do you want to see any more lemons?

Leave a comment.

Thanks for watching.

Thanks for watching.

Thanks for watching.