Loading summary
Transcript159 lines
- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Welcome back to Firewall. I'm your host, Bradley Tusk. It's a Tuesday episode, so with us is our friend and producer, Hugo Lindgren. Hugo, how are you?
- [00:15]
B
Good morning, Bradley. I want to issue a happy Passover.
- [00:18]
A
Thank you. I asked you to ask me that because I wanted to show you.
- [00:21]
B
Don't say that. I wanted it to sound spontaneous. Now I'm just sounding like I'm.
- [00:24]
A
Were you otherwise going to wish me a happy Passover on the air?
- [00:26]
B
You know, I have to say, even though my family celebrates Passover, I'm always confused about whether it's meant to be happy.
- [00:34]
A
It's not. So that's interesting. And so here's the thing about it commemorates, I guess it's happy in the sense that the Jews escaped from slavery. That's good.
- [00:43]
B
Also, Seders are kind of upbeat.
- [00:45]
A
Yeah, yeah. We had a fun one last night with the family. But here was the thought that I had sort of wanted to share, which is the reason to me that not eating bread during Passover made sense, was not because you're supposed to. Because ultimately, to me, overall, I don't think religiosity per se is inherently good or bad. Meaning, if you believe, as I do, in an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God, I don't think whether or not you engage in various rituals makes a difference one way or the other. I don't think God cares. So I think you do it for. For you. And you can. If you think it benefits you, fine, great. And if it doesn't, it doesn't. But to me, the reason not to eat bread was Jews. Whether it's, you know, in Egypt, you know, thousands of years ago, or even in the Holocaust, less than 100 years ago, have always been persecuted, always been sort of murdered for. For our religious beliefs and for being different. And because life as a Jew in America has always been, in my experience, so easy. It felt like. Well, the least I could do is inconvenience myself in sort of a very mild way to show some level of empathy for what my people have gone through. And then this may be the first time in my life where I feel like that act is insufficient. Meaning that, you know, I was born in 1973, actually, right during the Yom Kippur War. I was literally born, I think, a day or two before Yom Kippur. And. But since then, I mean, Israel has obviously had conflicts, but a few. Yeah. But I mean, but ultimately, it hasn't felt like until recently that there's been sort of either an existential threat to Israel itself or a massive global wave of anti Semitism. Right. So this is really the first time in my life, I think, that it has either happened or at least that I've noticed it.
- [02:50]
B
Right.
- [02:51]
A
And because of that, it feels like just not eating bread just doesn't feel meaningful enough. It feels insufficient. I don't know what the answer is. And I was talking last night to Elliot Regenstein, who was on this podcast a few weeks ago, and he kind of made the opposite argument and said it's more important and more meaningful because it's some level of minor sacrifice to show that our people are struggling and people in Israel especially are at physical risk. And therefore. So I can see the other side of it. And I don't know the answer here, but it just feels like this is a very different moment that I've seen in my 52 years. And this minor act of sacrifice just feels meaningless. But isn't it?
- [03:36]
B
It is just symbolic.
- [03:37]
A
Right?
- [03:37]
B
And the purpose is to be together thinking about it. We are Jews together in this moment, thinking about our history, our traditions, thinking about what it means to be Jewish. Like, I'm not Jewish, but I'm in a Jewish family and I really enjoy seders for that reason. Is that it just. It is just getting together with people and thinking about, like, oh, we are connected in this way.
- [04:00]
A
Yeah. So I agree with that. And again, we had a lovely one last night, and it was, you know, it was great. I just don't quite know what to do. Meaning that, like, do you just want
- [04:11]
B
a more intense ritual or do you want.
- [04:12]
A
No, no, I don't really. Because I don't really want the rituals, by and large, because I don't. To me, that's what's meaningful about being Jewish. What's meaningful, Being Jewish is just trying to be the best possible person you can be. And because you don't believe in an afterlife, doing it all for the here and now because it's the right thing to do and because that's what produces a better life. You know, as a Jew in New York, you know, I'm obviously very supportive of my synagogues. I guess that's something. And in fact, we just moved our soup kitchen, which the listeners might remember, we got evicted by that. By St. George's Church. And that asshole Jacob Smith, town of Village Synagogue, where I go, has taken over. And as our new host kicks off April 15, I think we opened the doors at 10:30. Or no, I'm sorry, 11:30, sits on 334 E. 14th St. If anybody does need help or, you know, anyone that needs help. But I don't know. And, and it's, you know, I'm supportive of Israel, but I'm also not totally on board with everything Netanyahu does, and I don't really trust his motives or intentions. And so while on one hand, I do believe very deeply in the need for Israel to exist as an insurance policy, if nothing else, because I don't think that we will indefinitely be safe in this country or any country, because we never have been. And therefore having our own homeland to prevent another holocaust is critical. I don't believe in the need for Israel as the super Orthodox do, in order for the Messiah to come to me. That doesn't, you know, mean anything. So I don't have an answer. I just, I'm struggling with it because I feel like the act this year feels insufficient, but I don't quite know what to do. Instead, I'm going to not eat bread, but that's not the point.
- [05:59]
B
Yeah. Okay, let's talk about. You have two sort of essays that you want to go through. The first one, I'll just say what they both are. One of the first one is Show Don't Tell, which is a sort of a reflection on parenting. And the second one is called Are Human Beings An Evolutionary Aberration? Let's start with the parenting one.
- [06:17]
A
Yeah, sure.
- [06:17]
B
So go ahead.
- [06:18]
A
So here was this came out last week in Substack. So those of you who both listen and read the substack might have already seen this, but the core.
- [06:25]
B
The core fan base.
- [06:26]
A
The core fan base, all 14 of you. So look, I don't know a parent that doesn't want their kids to be happy. And happiness means a lot of different things. But as we talk about in this podcast incessantly, there are only two things that are proven to really matter to human happiness. Assuming you have the basics right, you're not living on the street or anything like that. It's having people in your life who love and support you unconditionally, and you love and support unconditionally. And it's doing things that give you some sense of meaning and purpose. And I think as parents, a lot of us understand this. But just thinking about being a kid today, there are just so many more obstacles in the way of that, of seeing it, accepting it so much more than even when I was a kid or when you were a kid. So I, I broke it down in some different categories. The first is the attention economy, which Just didn't really exist when we were kids. Because social media didn't exist.
- [07:20]
B
Right.
- [07:21]
A
You always had blowhard politicians or whoever trying to get on tv, but it was much, it was really limited to a very small group of people.
- [07:27]
B
You had to search for things to pay attention to.
- [07:29]
A
Yeah. Actually physically search for them.
- [07:31]
B
Right.
- [07:32]
A
And we've created a world where getting attention for the sake of getting attention is now seen as equally valid to just getting attention for doing something worthwhile, or even better, just doing something worthwhile without even needing attention for it. And the latter is something that I personally struggle with quite a bit. I like to and try to do a lot of worthwhile things, but I also have a deep seated need for getting credit and attention for it. And I wish I didn't and I work on it, but nonetheless, you know, when you can become the president, the mayor of New York City just because you're good at social media. Right. Neither of them were in any way qualified for their Mondami or Trump for their jobs, but they're great at social media. And if, if the skill set of attracting attention now is considered equal to the actual skill set of running the country, running the city, or anything else for that matter, the lesson is that the means in the end, which are both attention are now the same thing. It tends you're not just getting attention to then drive to an outcome, you're getting attention for the sake of getting attention. And that's seen as somehow a valid thing. And so two weeks ago now, I guess it was a week and a half ago, Scott Galloway released a really good podcast about Robert Mueller. So Mueller was the director of the FBI. He ran the special investigation into Trump. But Galloway was more going through his life as someone who enlisted in the Marines during Vietnam, when he certainly was from a position of privilege and didn't have to, and most people got in that position, got deferred, and spent his whole life basically in public service. And at least, you know, from what I saw of Mueller, I didn't know him. And from what Galloway's take was, it was that, you know, this is someone who really lived a life of service to his country and his community and his family. And he didn't make choices based on what would generate the most immediate affirmation or validation. It was based on what he believed would do the most good. And even that meant being viciously attacked by Trump. But he endured it. And as a result, he lived a life that was really well lived. And Galloway said, you know, on his podcast, and I actually Quoted this Are you optimizing for attention or for service? Attention offers a dope, a hit that evaporates into the ether, sending you chasing after things that will never merit mention in your best man's wedding speech, the story your partner tells about why they chose you, the eulogy your children give. But that's not what we're teaching our kids. Right. So there was a Morning Consult poll that said that becoming an influencer is now the top career choice for teenagers. Now again, they're teenagers, but still it's an indication of what they believe matters. There was a 2025 report.
- [10:04]
B
What do you think the top choice was when we were kids?
- [10:08]
A
So I like to think it kind of partly depends on a lot of this. By the way, must depends on where you're coming from in the first place. Right. So it's when I was a kid, sort of doctor, lawyer was kind of the what you would strive to be. Now I was from a, you know, upper middle class family in Brooklyn and Long island, so in a Jewish family. So that was maybe just the culture. Very much so.
- [10:32]
B
I think that was probably broadly shared.
- [10:34]
A
Yeah. So, and then, you know, another one said that for Gen Alpha, the top aspirations, becoming a YouTuber. Right. So same thing. Yeah, basically. But the thing is, let's say that you're. You succeed, Right? I don't know one in however many millions actually succeed at becoming a successful influencer. But even if you do, odds are it's not going to produce eudaimonia, it's not going to produce contentment. So the World Habits Report this year, which we talked about briefly in the last podcast, and the reason we actually, I didn't do a substack on it specifically or an episode, is it didn't feel that insightful to me because it was just about the impact of social media on teenagers, which is a critically important subject. But I didn't just kind of confirm what we already knew, which is it's really harmful. America now ranks for people under the age of 25, 62nd globally in happiness. And so the kids in the richest and most abundant and most successful country probably in the history of the world are less happy than their counterparts in 61 other countries. Right. And even Trump himself, with all of his power and all of his fame
- [11:36]
B
and all his money, most miserable person.
- [11:37]
A
Yeah, he was fucking miserable. Always angry, he's always upset, aggrieved. Right. So that clearly is not a path to happiness. And yet I think kids really struggle with that because everything that they're told is the Exact opposite. And it's not just that they're told it, they see it, actually adults validating it by electing people like Zoran, Madame or Donald Trump. Right. So that's first. Second would be kind of the checklist economy, something we often talk about on this podcast, which is this attitude that happiness can only come from success. And success is the product of accumulating as much status and wealth as possible. And therefore the only career you should pursue is something that will make you as much money and garner as much status as possible. I remember that when I was teaching business school, I said to the kids, so every year at the end of the semester I would ditch the materials and at the last class just say, okay, we're going to spend the next three hours, talk about whatever you want. Ask me any question about work, about life, about happiness, relationships, anything else, and I will give you my best and totally candid answer, whether you like it or not. And I am sure the business school would absolutely freak out if they knew I was telling you half the stuff. Because one thing I'm telling you is you shouldn't have come here in the first place. And at one point, too late for them. Yeah, one of the years I just sort of said in response to the question, well, none of you are going to be billionaires. And they all freaked out. Like, what do you mean? I was like, well, you're too risk averse. If you were going to be a billionaire, you'd either be building the thing right now or you'd be failing at something that would teach you lessons that would let you.
- [13:20]
B
There are some billionaires who went to
- [13:21]
A
business school, there are some, but by and large, it's a hedge. And the reason I stopped teaching business school was because the vast, vast majority of my students all went into like management consulting. I was like, why the fuck am I spending 10 hours a week effectively as a volunteer? You know, adjuncts are paid extremely little to help people. Then, like, go to bcg, like, who cares? But the. But the kind of example I gave to them was all of you. If all you wanted to do was make two or three million dollars a year, probably because you have this degree, I guess could get a job at, you know, some consult, managed consulting firm, some something. And if you slaved away for a couple of decades and just did all the shit work and everything else and were good enough at it, you could probably get there. You guys could also probably find jobs that pay a tenth of that, let's say $300,000 instead of $3 million. And it's not that those jobs are going to be volunteering at a soup kitchen, but they can be things that have more meaning and purpose in and of itself, or at the very least, take a lot less of your time to give you time to do other things that you find meaningful and purposeful. And so let's compare your life in those two different situations, because all of you believe that the $3 million job is the better answer. And Columbia Business School desperately wants you to believe that. Right, because they rank their own success based on where are their graduates working and how much money can they raise
- [14:47]
B
from those graduates and how good their life is.
- [14:49]
A
Correct. And so I use the example of if you have $3 million a year and $300,000 a year, you're probably both going to take your kids to Disney at some point. And the $3 million person sitting in the front of the plane, they're not flying private, but they're sitting in the front of the plane and they're staying at the Four seasons, and the $300,000 family sitting in the back of the plane, and they're staying at, like, the Log Hotel or whatever. But the reality is, it's effectively the same trip I get. I know there's this whole thing about how Disney has stopped becoming something that's affordable for most people, but, like, you know, maybe the $3 million family skips a few lines or whatever it is. But basically, the thing that the $3 million person is justifying being miserable for 50 weeks of the year is slightly better than the thing that the $300,000 person is. But otherwise, the other 50 weeks of the year, the $300,000 person is probably a lot happier. And the truth is, they're not unhappy just because they didn't fly first class. They're just like, fine. So, therefore, you are far better off taking a job that you think will give you the ability to find meaning and purpose, as opposed to a job that just gives you status and prestige and wealth. But that's not how our society works. And yet again, I think social media is a big part of this, because if the ultimate conclusion of capitalism is that it's only about accumulating as much as possible, and I think America, probably for better and in many ways for worse, is the manifestation of the ultimate conclusion of capitalism. And I think capitalism, to be clear, is the greatest force, economic, governmental, systemic, in any way ever, because it has done more to lift people out of poverty than anything else by a lot. But nonetheless, when you go on Instagram, and everyone has these sort of fictionally curated lives that look much better than your actual life that produces misery. Or if we have a society that believes that you can only be happy if you're successful in a specific way and that success requires you to be in the 1%, the other 99%, according to this theory, have to be unhappy. Right. So, like, this whole notion of a checklist economy. I don't know if you remember this when it came out or if you saw it, but David Brooks, this was back in, like, 2015, I think, when he was kind of at his peak.
- [17:10]
B
I don't recall individual David Brooks college very well.
- [17:13]
A
This one sat with me.
- [17:15]
B
Let's hear it.
- [17:15]
A
And it was about eulogy versus. Which is what you want people to say about you when you.
- [17:20]
B
Oh, I do remember this one.
- [17:21]
A
Yeah, it was really good. I think Brooks was probably a little overrated overall, to be honest, but.
- [17:25]
B
But I think, well, he has to do it every. You know, like, when he was.
- [17:28]
A
There was a lot of, like, pseudo intellectualism, in my view, but I thought this was a great.
- [17:32]
B
Okay.
- [17:33]
A
I mean, I think it was good, but he jumped the shark a while ago. And contrasting with resume virtues, which is what we were just talking about, and what Brooks wrote is we all know that the eulogy virtues are more important than the resume ones, but our culture and our educational system spend more time teaching the skills and strategies you need for career success and the qualities you need to radiate that sort of inner light. Many of us are clearer on how to build an external career than how to build an inner character. And then he characterized the people who pursue eulogy virtues as stumblers, because rather than pursuing a totally linear, conventional path of success, they discover through trial and error what really matters to them, and then that's what they pursue. And Brooks says external ambitions are never satisfied because there's always something more to achieve. But the stumblers occasionally experience moments of joy. There's joy in freely chosen obedience to organizations, ideas, and people. There's joy in mutual stumbling. There's an aesthetic joy we feel when we see morally good action, when we run across someone who is quiet and humble and good. When we see that however old we are, that there's lots to do ahead. And I think that's right. I mean, and. And I think that most people chase resume virtues. And I think most of those people know somewhere that they probably shouldn't be right. They're not stupid. Like, they understand on level that this is not the path that's making them happy. And I don't know. You tell me. But when I think about my friends who have gone into careers at law firms and investment banks and management consulting firms, like, none of them ever, like, I love my job. I can't wait to get to work every morning. Right. You know, they.
- [19:08]
B
Do you feel that way?
- [19:09]
A
Yes. I mean, there are moments I don't like it, and every day when I open up my schedule, there's inevitably something on there that I'm like, I'd rather not do. Why did I say yes to this meeting? And then, by the way, it turns out to be fine.
- [19:20]
B
Right.
- [19:21]
A
But like, no, I. And by the way, I will say in the. You know, my endless patting myself on the back that, you know, in 1999, I was graduating law school from the University of Chicago. And if you graduate law school from the University of Chicago, you have a lot of job offers because it's a small class, it's 180 kids, and they're from all over the country because you're in the middle of the country and they're going back to all over the country. So there's. Given that the law firms. It's an amazing law school. And given that the law firms want to say, we have graduates from Harvard. Yeah. Chicago, whatever it is. There's actually real competition. There was back then, at least, to get you. So I had all these offers. I'd spent one summer practicing law, Kirkland and Ellis. Because in my second year of law school, I was so broke. That's the only time in my life I've ever sort of lived off of a credit card. And I had to pay it back. And even the summer wage was fantastic. And they made me an offer, and I turned and I picked Kirkland because they had the number one ranked summer program, meaning the most fun, like, the most, like, activities and whatever that out. I was some ranking somewhere. And that's what I. And then it's funny.
- [20:22]
B
It was fun.
- [20:23]
A
Well, so they assign you like a mentor, Right? And my mentor was my friend Chris Peters, now my friend. I know him then. And Chris didn't like being a lawyer either. In fact, he stopped fairly soon afterwards as well, practicing law entirely. And we would just go out every night on the company credit card and have a great time. So it was like. It was fantastic. Yeah. And Chris is like a lifelong. He's like the trustee for my kids. You know, like, all this stuff. I was, you know, when his kids were minors, I was the person to take care of them if something happened to him and his wife A lot of good cameras. Yeah. Like really close. Close friend and, you know, so. But. But I had a lot of law school debt and nonetheless said, I know I will be miserable. And I took a job at the parks department for $28,000 a year instead. I think I was.
- [21:13]
B
Who in your life did you consult about that? And you were crazy.
- [21:16]
A
My family thought I was crazy. My parents, my grandparents. Because I think that, you know, on one hand, my view was, screw you. I paid for law school, so therefore it's my responsibility to pay it back and I'll decide what to do. And I had this feeling. I didn't know why or what, but that, like, if I never really prioritized making money at that point, I just was. I just lived off of what I had and it was kind of fine. Right. I mean, you were working in journalism. Had to be the same thing. Right. And I don't know, I never felt that poor. I don't know if you did, like, just lived in my means, it was fine. And maybe because I didn't. Wasn't in a culture where I was around a lot of people who had a lot of money.
- [21:53]
B
That's the great thing about New York. It was easy to stay out of that culture.
- [21:56]
A
Yeah, yeah. Whatever money I had, I would spend on, you know, bars and pizza and whatever, and it was all right. But. But, yeah, they were really upset, I think in part because if you go back to our discussion earlier about how sort of doctor lawyer was the thing, here I was like, I already went to law school and then pivoted away from it, and they're like, what the fuck? You're at the one yard line and now you're not going to do it. I kind of had a feeling that if I ever wanted to really focus on making money, I would somehow figure it out. Which, luckily, is exactly what happened. But, you know, that's really, really hard to do because society, even back then, was so insistent that you had to take the specific path to be successful and that without that, you couldn't be happy. Right. And so, you know, I think the people who do chase resume virtues kind of know this. But the problem is eulogy, virtues don't usually offer the same kind of dopamine hit the same kind of immediate validation, the same kind of immediate attention. It's like when you buy something or you do something that people find prestigious or whatever it is, you can shrug it off and look, even in my own sort of eternal quest to get external validation, I brag way too much about all the good things that we do. And I'm turning eulogy virtues, ironically, into resume virtues. But when our kids see us prioritizing wealth and status, they do the same. So the third is the tribal economy, another topic we talk about a lot on this podcast. And it's the belief that we validate and elevate ourselves by condemning others. And this happens both by looking down on others because of their race or their gender or ethnicity or religion orientation. And so for those of you on the left who are saying, right on, I'm better by looking down on people because they don't ascribe to the exact political values you espouse. Condemning someone for not parroting the words you want to hear or for their race or gender or anything else is exactly the same, in my view. And like, to me, like, who gives a shit, like, what religion or nationality you are? Like, when you're born into something, like, that's not an achievement and it's not a flaw, right? It had nothing to do with you. It's what you do after that that I think the same thing is true for those who think that somehow actual service and actual eulogy virtues come from, like, tweeting and ostracizing and complaining. Right? All of that is irrelevant. All that matters, in the way I see it, is how you tangibly help people who are in need. And that could be someone who lives on the streets. It could be helping your elderly neighbor with their groceries, right? But our kids, I think, hear the opposite from their parents, from their teachers, especially in the school that our kids went to, right? Very much. Sort of this constant preaching of sort of intolerance, I would argue, and from so much what they see online. So that gets into their heads. And then the fourth and final category would be AI itself. And, you know, you can't write a 23 states of banned writing columns that don't mention AI, so I had to include it. And I mentioned some podcast, I think, a week or two ago. But I asked Lyle, my son the other day, what kind of what his greatest societal concern is. And I really thought he would say climate change tyranny, the kind of stuff that I thought that a kid in his position would be. And he said limited job opportunities in a time of AI. And this is a kid who goes to an incredible high school. Wherever he goes to college in a year and a half is going to be a great school. He's always going to have a strong kind of safety net because I've been fortunate. And yet he's still really worried about what AI means for his future. And unlike the first three categories, where I can at least say, or we can say, attention is not the same thing as meaning and status and wealth does not lead to happiness necessarily. And elevating yourself through identity politics or just flat out racism and discrimination does not make you a morally superior person or superior in any way. I didn't really know what to tell Lyle. There was an interesting story in the Times this morning about how economists are now really worried about the impact of AI on the job market. And one of their things was, well, policymakers need to do better. And I was kind of like, but with what? Right? Like, you can't tell companies they can't fire employees they don't need, and everyone just has worker training. Everyone's not going to become an H Vac person. Right. So I'm an early stage venture capitalist and I don't know what the jobs and industries of tomorrow are going to be. Yes, there's some jobs around knowing how to use AI fine. And I do believe, like every major economic transformation in history, there will be all kinds of new jobs industries that we don't know about today. But, like, I don't even really know, you know, other than obviously, universal basic income, which is something that I think we should do. And we've talked about it a lot on this podcast before. Like, I don't even know what the job market's gonna look like when Lyle's out of college, let alone in 10 or 20 years. And so if you're facing all of this, the question is, what can parents do? And if there's a definitive answer, I certainly don't know it. But at least to me, the lesson is show, don't tell. I'm sure that you took a bunch of writing classes in college, like I did too. And that was what you. If there's three words that all of your writing classes basically amounted to, it was show, don't tell. Right.
- [27:25]
B
There's a little bit of a rebellion against online recently.
- [27:27]
A
Really?
- [27:27]
B
Yeah. People have been saying that it's not as ironclad rule in writing as people say, but the reason it's a corrective to what people's instincts are when they start to write. So it's very useful, I think. So.
- [27:41]
A
You know, I know that my writing is good when I show. I mean, the reason that I try to use examples both in my writing and then even as we're just walking through this column is because when you make things illustrative, it's so much more relatable for people and so much more interesting for people. People. So. But, you know, you can tell your kids that social media are empty calories. You can tell them that money and status isn't everything. You can tell them that judging others for their demographics or their inability or unwillingness to conform to demagoguery on either side is wrong. But I think the one thing that at least as parents, we can sort of know and follow is the notion that, like, all that really matters is what they see you doing, not what you're saying. So if you're constantly strolling Instagram and chasing likes, they will, too. If they see you spending all of your time chasing money and status, they will, too. If they see you basing your self worth on external factors or identity or putting down others, they will, too. And on the other hand, if they see you treat strangers respectfully, if they see you tangibly donating your time and your money and your resources to help those who have less, if they see you extending people grace, if they see you standing up for what you truly believe, if they see you being consistently generous, and maybe even most important, if they see you being willing to recognize your own faults and then put in the work to improve them, they will too. And is that enough to combat everything that's being thrown out in my society? No. But, you know, parents have more influence with their kids than anyone else does, even with teenagers. And tangibly showing our kids the right path at least gives them a better chance at happiness. And it makes our lives better, too.
- [29:25]
B
Well, it's a great essay, Bradley. And I think the one theme in there, particularly as you get to the end, is these things are a struggle. Right. We have a lot of bad instincts in ourselves that we need to sort of deal with all the time. And we obviously make mistakes or we do chase after likes in whatever way we do that. Right.
- [29:45]
A
It may not be we're trying to get you to look for us in the Webbies.
- [29:48]
B
Exactly. We want some likes.
- [29:49]
A
Yeah.
- [29:50]
B
But I think part of being a parent too is. Is being not trying to hide the struggle. Right. Not trying to be like, hey, it's not just like, oh, a moratorium on like, don't do this because it's bad. Yeah, it's, it's, it's really about, like. No, it's hard to resist a lot of these things. And it's, and it's easy to, like, I mean, to, to indulge yourself.
- [30:08]
A
Right. In I, I think, at least to me, the, the, the balance that I try to strike and I certainly don't get it right all the time is how are you? It's to be open with your kids about the struggle, like you said, and to make sure that they know that you both see it and then let them see that you're putting in the work to deal with it, but at the same time not making it their problem. Right, right. But you don't want, like, one of the things that I've always been ultra adamant about as a parent is not making my problems theirs. Not asking them to parent me.
- [30:39]
B
Right.
- [30:40]
A
Not asking them.
- [30:40]
B
Not making them anxious.
- [30:41]
A
Yeah. Anxious. Not making. Asking them to sort of help solve my emotional problem. Problems. But at the same time, if you just act like everything is perfect all the time, that's not a great lesson either because they, like all 8.2 billion people on the planet, are going to struggle, and they have to know that that's okay. An important thing is that when you are struggling, you take the time to think about why and what are you doing that could be done differently and better and put in the work, whatever it is, to try to do that. Right. And so I don't know about you, like, I always find that balance tricky. Like, for example, I have always struggled with weed. Right. Which is. It's, you know, just something that I find in some ways very helpful because it calms my brain, which just moves really, really fast. But, you know, I, as a result, struggle to sort of use it in moderation. And I kind of go back and forth between starting and stopping and everything else. And, you know, now my kids are a little older, like, I'm fairly open with them about that because one, I do think there are addiction genes in our family that I want them to be aware of. I don't know that they necessarily have them, but. But I. I think I do. And I want them to know that, like, you know, yes, you know, I. I hopefully are seen by them as a good parent. And yes, you know, you can look at things in my life and, you know, as much as I just condemn chasing wealth and status, and I do have a lot of that. Right. Although I like to think by taking my own path and not a kind of a linear path. And so I think it's important for them to see that I have my own issues and I'm working on them and I'm open about going to therapy and the transcranial magnetic stimulation from my ocd and. And, you know, everything else. I don't know. Do you. How do you strike that balance?
- [32:40]
B
Well, I think it is A struggle, because I think sometimes I do take my anxiety about things and sort of, you know, make it almost too explicit or open with the kids. And I think it does freak them out sometimes. And. But I mean, we live very closely with them. I mean, they're away at college now, but we're the same with you and your kids. And so, you know, you don't have a lot of control all the time about what they're seeing or what they're hearing.
- [33:05]
A
Right.
- [33:05]
B
And.
- [33:05]
A
And what they see about you on the Internet.
- [33:07]
B
Yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't think about that very much. But in your case, because you're, you're more of a public figure. That's a real.
- [33:14]
A
Yeah, I mean, there's, you know, a lot of good. But there's definitely people who don't like me and.
- [33:17]
B
Right.
- [33:18]
A
And by the way, I don't use social media, so I don't even see what's on there, but they do, so God knows what they're seeing.
- [33:23]
B
You know, should we, should we do the.
- [33:27]
A
Yeah, the next one's even more depressing.
- [33:28]
B
Well, I don't think this one's depressing at all, actually.
- [33:31]
A
But you should have seen the first draft. It was real because Megan saw it.
- [33:34]
B
Oh, really? She drew it back.
- [33:35]
A
She was like, I don't know about this one.
- [33:37]
B
I don't think it's depressing at all.
- [33:38]
A
No, I made it. You know, it's funny, Megan and I were joking about this yesterday, which I sent her. The updated draft said, what do you think now? And it was. I wrote the first draft, like late at night a couple of nights ago. And then yesterday I had like a free hour in the middle of the day and I rewrote it and it was like, sometimes I think it might be like, the clarity of day is helpful for writing, you know?
- [34:01]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
- [34:03]
A
I remember once. Remember when we.
- [34:04]
B
Writing is all in the editing.
- [34:05]
A
Well, remember when. Yeah, totally. By the way, for people in school, one thing that I think I got right in school was anytime I had a paper or anything due, you know, that was, you know, a reasonable amount of work, I would just get the first draft done as quickly as I could. Yeah, I would often even just pull an all nighter and just get it on paper because I wanted to spend pretty much almost all of the time editing it. And like, it was like, I don't really care how bad the first draft is. I just want something to work with. And then I really used the most of the time to then because you just, no matter how brilliant, I don't know if this happens to you. This happens to me all the time where I write a first draft, something and I think it's brilliant. Right. And then I realize after again, in the light of day, like it's not and it needs some work. I don't know. Were you a last minute writer or early writer?
- [34:57]
B
I was all over the map. Sometimes I did it early, but I typically did it pretty late because I would get, you know, I would get really caught up in my own thoughts and sort of like, like it really build up a lot of pressure in my head and then finally I would explode.
- [35:10]
A
And then I contrast. Okay, so in journalism you were mainly a magazine writer.
- [35:15]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [35:17]
A
How did that process work in terms of when you would write? You obviously had real time deadlines, but it also wasn't, you know, for that you'd have to get copy up the same day either. So how did that process work?
- [35:29]
B
Well, I mean, again, there's no, there's no process. I mean, I think the, I think my, my particular difficulty is that my editing instinct is like way over, sort of determined. And so I start editing right away. And that's a real mistake because I think what you're talking about, there's a. There's many little aphorisms this topic, but one of them is, you know, write drunk, edit sober. And there's a really good. That's obviously a silly thing because you shouldn't write drunk. It doesn't really work out.
- [35:58]
A
It's never good by the way you think.
- [36:00]
B
But the, but the point is, is let yourself go. This is what you're trying. I actually have a little, I have a. I have a little. I have these three index cards that I put out when I'm writing something. And it's a loud, fast and sloppy as the rules for like your first draft.
- [36:14]
A
Yeah.
- [36:15]
B
And in some ways the really, the first one is like sloppy. Let it be sloppy. Don't, don't try to fix things. Don't like, do, do as little as you can. One of, one of the things that helped me, and this is a discovery recently is I, I stopped writing in paragraphs and I would just write sentences and I would just. And I would like do it literally. Yeah. And, and it was really helpful because you, you know, one of the things I would realize all the time is I'm trying to compose these little like sort of mosaics and like it would get really. And then you can, you can actually go back and do that really. And it usually works.
- [36:43]
A
Eventually. Has to become paradox. Yes.
- [36:45]
B
Yeah, it does.
- [36:45]
A
And.
- [36:46]
B
But it actually works really easily, I found, is like, you can sometimes you just, like, literally take out the returns and there it is. But sometimes you do a little bit of.
- [36:52]
A
How much did you outline before you wrote?
- [36:55]
B
I'm a big, like, outline person. I don't do a super detailed outline, but I definitely do a kind of like. I do like, almost like a map of what I want the piece to be, as opposed to.
- [37:03]
A
I'm sort of in the MO right now. So, as you know, I think I mentioned past four, Jay Carson and I are working on a TV show about the prediction market, a scripted show. And CAA told us that kind of the new trend in pitching TV shows is to write a short story. And so that's what they wanted me to do. And I wrote a first one. You showed it to me. I showed it to you. It wasn't good enough, right? And then, interestingly, Jay, who, when we had dinner the other night, said, listen, it's not only that it's not good enough. It's not a. This is a sales pitch. This is not a work of art, and this is not what we need. This is not what we would want to sell. Right? So it's okay. So I have to. I'm gonna spend this weekend recording this on Friday, this time, writing. I really have almost nothing else on my calendar. I'm just gonna write pretty much all weekend. And I'm sort of debating. I'm really struggling with the whole thing. I can't figure out how to start it. I kind of know what the plot is and I should outline it. And for some reason, I don't. I just don't want to. I just want to start writing. And I think that's a mistake.
- [38:15]
B
You know, I. I don't. I. I don't think it's a mistake. I think the most important thing is if you're doing it this weekend, start writing. Like, you know, if you. If you have another couple extra days, maybe outline it. But, like, if your goal is spend the weekend writing it, just get generating. Just stop, stop, stop thinking about the process and start doing. Get up and, you know, six in the morning, get ready, get some coffee and just, just.
- [38:36]
A
I think the reason I'm really struggling here is it's not how I write or want to write. It's not that I have a problem taking the story that I wrote and rewriting it or scrapping it completely because it was okay, but it wasn't good enough. There's no question about it. I knew that, too. You told me that nicely, but I knew it when I sent it to you. It said, I'm writing kind of almost like a. You know, it's funny when we write proposals for clients, it's a little bit like that, but even then, my style is so much more blunt and like, kind of, this is what you need to do. Here is why. And basically, if you don't see that, don't hire us.
- [39:18]
B
Right. And actually works in your voice. In that sense, you know exactly how to.
- [39:22]
A
Here, you know, when it's a startup needing a regulatory solution, the presumption going in by everyone is, if I'm saying it, it's probably at least directionally right, if not actually right. Whereas here, the people at Netflix don't know who I am and don't give a shit. So I can't do that.
- [39:42]
B
I would just say try to get the audience out of your head completely and really try to connect with the story yourself, because if you get down something that you really love, it's going to be the best. It's what you really have to please yourself first and try to block out the reader, because otherwise it does become a sales pitch.
- [40:01]
A
And when you're writing and when you're
- [40:03]
B
writing good and when you're writing for a client, that obviously is a sales pitch. Right?
- [40:06]
A
But it is. Right. I don't see that as a work of art. You need to see that as a
- [40:10]
B
business sort of connection and really enjoy the. Kind of enjoy the process and try to take pleasure in the unfolding of the story yourself. Like, what is gonna happen next? You know?
- [40:24]
A
Right, right. Yeah. And it needs to start with a bang. And that's where I'm really struggling with. Anyway, let's go to the next one.
- [40:30]
B
Let's go to the next one.
- [40:31]
A
So the next one. And it'll come out the same day as this podcast. The title is Are Human Beings An Evolutionary Aberration? And I did slightly mention this for the Close Westerners podcast last week, but. So I've always held the view that human beings are highly imperfect in large part because we're a pretty new species, right? So we. So Homo sapiens have only existed as behaviorally modern humans for about 60,000 years. And compared to, like, cyanobacteria, whatever that is, you know, it's been around, according to Claude, for about 3.4 billion years. Sponges, 600 million years, even sharks have been around in one form or other for 450 million years. 60,000 is like not even 1%. And so, or it's just over 1%. So it stood to reason to me always that if humans could exist long enough to evolve over millions of years, the norms that lead to better lives, right? Working together, helping each other, a lot of what we just talked about before would become our instinct. And rather than having to choose to do the right thing, it would happen automatically because from an evolutionary standpoint, that's what would ensure our survival, right? And if all that evolution wants you to do is survive, working together for the collective good is the greatest way to do that, right? The surest path of downfall is everyone working against each other. And. But I started wondering the other day, like, what if the problem isn't that we're too young, but that we're too smart? Like, what if species aren't meant to be this intelligent and our existence itself is an evolutionary aberration that can't ultimately survive? So this is not an entirely, this is not like a question on the first ever think of this, the Fermi paradox back in 1950, and then an economist from George Mason named Robin Hansen, who I didn't know about until I started researching this, that's what they call the Great filter theory in 1998. So the question's been posed before, but it seems to me that even 1998, which doesn't sound that long ago, so almost 30 years ago. And we're now in an era of extreme climate change, much higher risk, I think, of both new bioweapons and even nuclear weapons becoming accessible to non state actors. And then in the advent of AI itself, the question just feels more relevant and urgent to me. And I guess the first question is, why do I feel this way? Why might this sort of be the case? And I think it's because our progress and our potential downfall are in many ways one and the same, right? We invent things that make life a lot better, and then those same things have negative externalities that then put our lives at risk. So like for example, fossil fuel emissions might end up and already are causing catastrophic damage. So heat waves, droughts, floods, tsunamis, hurricanes, wildfires that you know, could really lead to and make it even worse. Mass crop destruction, mass famine, and you know, we're already starting to see examples of this. But what did it come from? You know, the invention of the steam engine or the coal fired power plant, or the car or cement production or refrigeration that produced all those emissions, Those were all really good things, right? Those were legitimate, genuine forms of progress that made people's lives exponentially better, exponentially easier. And none of the inventors of those products were doing it to destroy the environment or cause global warming. But yet their ingenuity also created existential risk. Or take AI. You know, you can look at AI and say, in some ways it's just the next step of automation. Right? It's just another advance in computing power. And Moore's law says that the pace of technological progress doubles every two years. And that's great. So, like, when I wrote this specific column, I was literally writing it on my iPad while I was on watching the Mets and the Knicks on the same screen and eating scallion.
- [44:09]
B
Do you double screen for sports when
- [44:10]
A
the Knicks and the Mets are playing at the same times? I do. Or sometimes Lyle and I do. If there's each a game we want to watch, we'll double screen. And I was eating scallion pancakes and I ordered all my volume.
- [44:22]
B
Or do you have, like, when I'm
- [44:24]
A
writing no volume, usually if it's meanwhile he gets the volume and I, I watch.
- [44:29]
B
Okay.
- [44:31]
A
And I kind of feel like with sports, I don't really need the volume. You know, I know what's going on.
- [44:36]
B
No, no, I don't like the volume.
- [44:37]
A
I turn it off, it doesn't matter. So that's great, right? But at the same time, those same advances may also mean creating a level of AGI that can make it easy for a madman to assemble the materials for a devastating bioweapon, or a chatbot convincing a teenager to commit suicide, which has already happened in a couple of cases, or even allowing AI to commence warfare itself without any kind of human authorization. And it feels like we're in a constant race to save ourselves before we destroy ourselves. So technology has led to massive advances in quality of life, and it also led to climate change. And then technology, probably in the form of mass carbon capture and storage, may be the only way to mitigate climate change. Technology in the form of the atomic bomb ended World War II and the risk of species annihilation has now existed ever since. Technology has allowed us to combine different types of molecules to create life saving drugs. And it also allowed us to create deadly bioweapons and then perhaps will allow us to create vaccines to those bioweapons. And so it goes on and on. But what I'm worried about is if the means of mass destruction become so democratized that it falls into the hands of someone crazy enough and resourced enough and capable enough to actually use them at scale, then all of a sudden we're in serious trouble. And just to believe that humans can fly perpetually survive this sort of never ending cycle of life's on the razor's edge. It's a lot, right? And I think that might be the underlying problem, which is we're just too smart to last that long. We almost succeeded too quickly, and we know how to destroy ourselves, but we're not evolved enough to know instinctively and universally to not actually do it. And if the rate of technological change vastly outpaces the rate of evolutionary change, maybe the two can't coexist. And perhaps our greatest strength is our species. Our intelligence is also always going to be our demise. Because if you're always playing with fire, eventually you get burned. So the answer isn't what the Luddites would suggest. They would say, yeah, turn everything off, put our heads in the sand, deny change. That doesn't work. Human nature demands progress and it will happen whether we like it or not. And while the individual solution to any of the risks might be more technologies, I just mentioned, whether it's carbon capture or vaccines or anything else, I think the underlying solution can only be forcing ourselves to evolve faster morally and mentally and psychologically. And that sounds crazy, but at the same time, norms, institutions can evolve pretty quickly. So even if you just take sort of the last 60 years or so, the Civil Rights act, the Voting Rights act, same sex marriage, the Americans with Disabilities act, mental illness is far less stigmatized. Drunk driving is far less accepted. Countries all over the world in Latin America and Asia and Africa and eastern and southern Europe transformed into democracies, or at least some approximation of it. We've built institutions that facilitate cooperation and have led to major breakthroughs like the Treaty on the Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which was a big part of why we have not had a full scale nuclear war. And none of those things were inevitable. They only all happened because enough people fought hard enough and long enough and worked together enough consistently. The status quo, which doesn't ever want change, that's why they're the status quo, had to give in. And so the risk keeps growing because the means to destroy ourselves keeps becoming more and more accessible. But it doesn't mean we're inevitably doomed. It means though that you have to stop, we have to stop seeing the world in a zero sum way. Because in my view that's the fast track to extinction, right? The every man for himself. The we're all in competition with each other for everything. The I'm right about everything. And if you don't agree with Me, you're evil. The life is just about whoever has the most toys wins mentality that's captured. And, you know, I know it all sounds like I'm just describing Trump, but it's not just Trump, right? It's leaders in politics on both sides who use demagoguery to gain power. It's people in business, it's a lot of people in academia. That's why academia, I think, is so widely disliked and distrusted right now. That mentality has to be rejected. And it especially has to be rejected by the people who have a lot to lose but choose to do it anyway. People who can personally benefit immediately from a zero sum approach and yet say, I will sacrifice and take less and have less because ultimately I want my children and my grandchildren and my descendants to live and survive. And the only way to do that is to change the way that we approach the world. But it requires a really tart, the fundamental change in the way that we think and act. Right. There are definitely policies and ideas that can make democracy stronger. Mobile voting, obviously, in my view, it can make our economy more equal, like universal basic income or approach to life less shallow, like mandatory service. The underlying problem here can't just get solved by passing laws or winning court cases. It really requires us to reject the empty calories of identity politics and prioritizing attention. Above all, it requires us to buy into the value of advancing humanity ahead of just advancing ourselves. Homo sapiens, when I mentioned earlier, we've existed for about 60,000 years in our current form. We weren't always the only human species. And the reason why we survived and Neanderthals didn't. And by the way, it wasn't just, I think, the popular views that they were much bigger and stronger. Their brains were bigger and they were considered smarter too, but they couldn't work together and we could. Right. And since then, we've achieved so much in so little time and we've gotten away from that spirit of cooperation and that attitude has significantly increased our existential risk. But we have overcome problems that seemed intractable before. And I do believe that with enough hard work and enough leadership and enough sacrifice and enough belief in the common good, we can do it again.
- [50:31]
B
Well, I think we should leave it there. I think that's a good wrap. Thank you.
- [50:34]
A
I don't have any recommendations.
- [50:35]
B
Okay, well, then we'll. I have one recommendation I was going to ask you, do you read obituaries?
- [50:41]
A
No. Only if it's like someone that I, whose life I was interested and admired.
- [50:45]
B
So every Once in a while I get into reading obituaries and just read, like, randos. And I read one of Chip Taylor, who wrote Wild Thing. You know that song, right? Wild Thing. So that guy. A fantastic little obituary in the New York Times. I recommend you go read it. The guy who wrote, like, this big pain to, like, sex and the wild thing married his middle school sweetheart. Middle school sweetheart.
- [51:09]
A
And stayed together.
- [51:10]
B
Stayed together. She died last year.
- [51:11]
A
So like, they were together for like 60 years.
- [51:13]
B
Yeah.
- [51:13]
A
Wow.
- [51:13]
B
Yeah. And he wrote Wild Thing. Anyway. The great.
- [51:16]
A
Did he do anything else?
- [51:17]
B
Like, he had a career as a songwriter, but that was really the high water mark.
- [51:21]
A
Everyone knows that. So I think. Do you think our kids know that song?
- [51:24]
B
No, I don't think they probably do.
- [51:25]
A
It's too bad.
- [51:25]
B
But someone should cover it and bring it back.
- [51:28]
A
Does any. Sorry. Obviously, in the great, great cinematic triumph, Major League.
- [51:34]
B
It's great.
- [51:35]
A
You know, what was Ricky's last name? The relief pitcher.
- [51:39]
B
I'm never gonna remember that.
- [51:40]
A
But he came into that. Right. And like, do you think any relievers come into that now? Into a wild thing?
- [51:47]
B
No, definitely not.
- [51:49]
A
Edwin Diaz clearly has the best by far, the whole Timmy Trumpet thing. But we should have a minor campaign to get a relief pitcher to come in and have their entrance song be a wild thing.
- [52:01]
B
Okay. I think that's a brilliant campaign. We just. Okay, so first we have to figure
- [52:05]
A
out if we're right, that no one does it. Maybe someone does. We don't want to hear this.
- [52:09]
B
What's gonna happen for next time? I'm gonna do the research on that and figure out. Someone's probably used it because since. Since the movie. Because the movie's had an influence.
- [52:17]
A
So successful. Yeah. But by the way, if you. If you haven't seen it and you just want a really dumb, funny baseball movie, it is really good.
- [52:25]
B
It's pretty good. Yeah. All right, Bradley.
- [52:27]
A
All right. Thank you. Firewall is recorded at my bookstore, PNT Netware, located at 180 Orchard street on the lower east side of Manhattan. We'd love to hear from you with questions, feedbacks or idea for a guest. Just email me at Bradleyirewall Media or find me on LinkedIn. And to keep up with what's on my mind and my latest writing, please follow my new substats@bradleytust.substock.com thanks again for listening.