Why Do We Call Successful People Dumb?

[0:00] Matt: It comes like a fleeting memory. Whatever you grab just turns to dust. Like eye contact with strangers. I was thinking about. Did you read the breath book?

[0:28] Michael: Yeah.

[0:29] Matt: By James Nestor.

[0:30] Michael: Oh, yeah.

[0:30] Matt: He was talking about how like a lot of religious incantations, like the sort of call and response that they do in like a Catholic or Episcopal church or even like the aum that like monks or yogis will do, tends to correspond with. In about six seconds of exhale and inhale. I think it's like six second exhale, six second inhale. And that pattern is shown to lower your heart rate. And I was kind of like, I was feeling. I was having some anxiety this week and something I tried was singing. I was just like, I had this instinct to kind of go to vibrate my vocal cords. And so I just started singing songs. And it's interesting because limits your exhale. So when you're singing, you're breathing in short breaths and exhaling long breaths to sustain notes. And that's one of the breathing techniques that James Nestor teaches you is to like, if you're feeling anxious, breathe in for four seconds and exhale for six seconds. So really any exhale that's longer than your inhale slows down your heart rate and calms your nervous system. So I wonder if singing inherently taps into that.

[1:51] Michael: Yeah, that makes sense. It's interesting. There's so many like physiological things that you can do to sort of impact your. Your, you know, mental health. You know, it's like whether it be breathing exercises or exercise in general, it's like. But I don't think I want to jump there all the way. But there's something about the. Because I find this with myself is like there's a certain part of the mechanics of things. Like I know like an ice bath is like super great. I feel so good afterwards and focused or the breathing stuff. But then it's. It's like. But then it becomes kind of mechanical and it's like you still feel the effects, but you don't really. Like, you start missing out on the satisfaction or the enjoyment of it. It becomes a task. Something like, okay, hey, I'm stressed, so I need to do the.

[2:46] Matt: Got to go do the thing. Yeah, yeah.

[2:48] Michael: And it helps, but it also doesn't help. And I think the reason why I didn't want to jump all the way into. I think where this may lead. I don't really understand it, but is it's really good to have those tools in your belt. And I kind of feel like it's along with some of the things we've been talking about, like, the law is good, you know, but it's not what the law is. It's what it's pointing at. And I feel like there's some things in the. The breathing and exercise and all stuff is like, those are good things, but if they become a thing in and of themselves, they. They lose their. It loses its power.

[3:28] Matt: Is it almost like when something that's true and useful becomes rigid and dogmatic?

[3:36] Michael: Yeah.

[3:36] Matt: It starts to be more of a tyrant or an overlord or an idol, less than or more than something that was actually helping you, you start seeing it that way.

[3:49] Michael: Totally. It's also the whole idea of when you first do something, almost anything, and you start feeling success at it. It's like you're like, oh, my gosh, this is changing everything. Everybody needs to know about this.

[3:59] Matt: Right. And then after a while, it just becomes part of what you do, so you don't feel the effects as much. I wonder if it's something like, we're not. Whatever we are as humans. We're not here to necessarily just use tools to optimize experiences. It's like we're also meant to live. To live a life. One of my favorite things to do in the summer is go down to Barton Springs every morning and jump in the water, and I do breathing exercises. I'll lay on the grass, lay out on the sun, do breathing exercises, jump in the water, and I feel great afterward. But there's a way in which that becomes really monotonous after a certain amount of time. And you have to remember that I'm not doing this for the sake of doing it. I'm doing it because I'm living a life in which a broader context of life in which that is a good thing to do. I don't know if I said that just made any sense, but if you forget about the living the life part and you're just doing the things, then all of the SAP runs out of them. You know, all the blood runs out of them. Maybe that's a good analog, a good metaphor. It's like we need to live a life filled with blood, with hearts that are beating. You know, we're here to do things, things that are worth doing, you know, and not just to sort of optimize. Not to just all be Brian Johnson and optimizing our health and optimizing everything.

[5:33] Michael: Yeah. Well, it's definitely like the law of diminishing returns. You kind of like, especially, I think, millennials. It's like this whole travel Everywhere. Go see things, go be out in the world. And it's like, well, at some point it's like that just becomes normal and it's not as exciting. You're in a new town, a new city, meeting new people. It's like there's an exciting aspect to that in it. But if you start, after a little while, it actually just becomes normal life and kind of like, okay, at some point I need to start living if it's doing that traveling. But it's like you start. You. You move into like a different cadence or rhythm whenever you kind of hit that place where it's like the novelty's gone. So now do you, like, you. You start to live that life rather than just the novelty of that life?

[6:24] Matt: I mean, are we supposed to live a novel life? Is novelty what makes life good?

[6:31] Michael: I think. I think novelty in moderation. Yeah, it's like it. But not as a, like, not seeking novelty. I think that's, again, you kind of come back to the idols thing. It's like, now novelty is my idol. And so I'm always. I'm always seeking that the next new experience that's going to like, keep me in that space of novelty.

[6:53] Matt: No, I don't want to go to St. Bart's I've been there too many times.

[6:58] Michael: Yeah, Well, we just jumped right into it.

[7:04] Matt: Yeah, I know.

[7:04] Michael: I don't know where we're going with it. Well, the breath work and just like, I think there's. There's something that is. That's powerful in that novelty, especially when you first start doing that stuff.

[7:13] Matt: Well, and maybe the other side of this coin is something that I wanted to bring up that you said before we started recording, but you were talking about how we. We tend not to have the patience to let things play out. And perhaps the pursuit of novelty is one of the reasons why it's like, we have a hard time sitting with the way things are. We want things to change, and so we lose patience and we don't see things through to the end. I mean, doesn't it require a bit of that monotony to see something out, to see something through to the end?

[7:51] Michael: Yeah, that makes sense. Well, I think that you see that within relationships in general is like, you know, there's a. There's a part where you kind of have to experience that monotony and. And I think sometimes you start to see things you don't like. Cause you have to. You have to kind of like. Like this. The. In the water, the. The dirt starts to settle and it becomes more clear. But if you're. If it's always. You don't know what's underneath there. And I think that's something about, like, whenever you do sort of get into some monotony, it's like, oh, like, stuff starts to kind of surface that you didn't know is there. And that's kind of like. That's a space where you. You kind of deal with that stuff. It seems like

[8:35] Matt: there's just so much that we're not aware of. I was. My car's in the shop right now, and so it has been for three days. And you. And I went to leave earlier, and I was like, something is wrong. And I was like, patting my pockets, and I was like, oh, my car key is not in my pocket. I'm not used to walking out the door without my car key. And then I noticed that. I'll save that story. But there's so many things that we're not aware of. Until something small changes, and then all of a sudden we're like, oh, I've been seeing it. I've been seeing that every day, and I never noticed it. I guess you were using the example of a relationship. It's like, when there's monotony, sometimes

[9:23] Michael: stuff

[9:24] Matt: starts to stand out.

[9:27] Michael: Especially change starts to stand out, you know, because it's like you kind of settle into sort of a way of doing things, a way of being. And then when something shifts, you're like, oh, whoa. You start. You see, I have not seen that correctly or clearly. You know, I think, you know, one thing, I'm watching the Chosen right now, and. And I feel like there's so many things I've forgotten, you know, just by, like. It just brings back a lot of imagery of, like, you know, you know, as you follow the disciples, whether it's in the different gospels and things you might have noticed in the past that, you know, through this medium is kind of like, brought a lot of them back to my attention. And I'm like, oh, wow. I didn't see it that way, but I remember kind of experiencing it in that. In this way or something like that. And so there's something about. But I feel like you can't see those things if you don't have sort of. If you don't have a. If you don't allow yourself to be in sort of a monotonous. Maybe monotonous is the wrong word.

[10:26] Matt: Yeah. None of this is really, like. I'm not landing in a groove here. I'm not sure where we're going, well,

[10:35] Michael: let me try this. Like,

[10:41] Matt: I mean, is the question that we're pursuing, like, what is that phenomenon where something which seems really good and helpful when done long enough starts to lose its marrow? It starts to become just something you do and you forget. Is that what it is? You forget the goodness in it. You're just caught up with the doing of it?

[11:10] Michael: Yeah, it's hard because I'm trying to. I'm trying to look at like. Like the. The. The two inch of the spectrum right now is like, one is like, you're always seeking new experiences, and so you have this sort of. Everything's. Everything's new and changing, and if anything starts to be stagnant, then you kind of, like, you. You quickly jump because you. You're. You want things to be not stagnant. You want it to be moving. But then there's also this, like, hey, I need everything to be chill around me. I need to kind of get into a groove. And so I. I need to kind of have some stability in my life. And so you kind of get into that groove of stability, but then, like, and it's really helpful and healing and whatever it might be. And then at some point, it. You begin to stagnate. And so it's like there's some way to, like, kind of like that. You kind of have to move in and out of those different spaces. You can't spend your entire time in novelty and newness, and you can't spend your whole time in sort of comfort and predictability, but both of those things are good for you. Well, by the time we get into this podcast, we'll have gone around to something here.

[12:34] Matt: Yeah. I wonder if it's something like, you know, you get. You get introduced to breathing exercises, and you start doing it, then you're like, this is amazing. This changes. Like you were saying, this changes everything. And the more you do it, you start to think you understand what it's doing for you. So you sort of articulate. It's like, I'm doing this to give me mental clarity. I'm doing this to bring me calm, et cetera. And so you start doing it for those things, forgetting that maybe it's about more than those things. Maybe an analogy would be, you know, a young man experiences sex for the first time, and he thinks, that was amazing. I want more of that. But what he thinks was amazing about it was the smallest piece of it, just the pleasure of it, right? So he goes after as much of it as he can get, and before long, it's run him through. He's hollowed out because he thought he understood what it was when he really didn't. And maybe when we get into monotonous periods where we're doing the same things over and over, the things that we thought were really good, maybe it starts revealing to us that we didn't fully understand what those things were in the first place and that we have an insufficient view of them. There's this quote by Lewis I was trying to look up. He says something about how things have a tendency to become dumb idols and break the hearts of their worshipers, because that's what an idol does. You worship an idol and it's going to break your heart. And so we pursue these things thinking we understand them. And the more we do that, the more we minify them. You know, we reduce them to our understanding of them, making them into idols. And that reduction goes all the way down to where it breaks our hearts.

[14:49] Michael: Yeah. Something that you kind of made me think of is like kind of the 8020 rule too. As far as, like, you know, 80%, you can get there pretty fast. And it's the last 20% that's like, takes time and work and kind of blood, sweat and tears. As far as, like, gaining that last 20%.

[15:06] Matt: Is that different than the Parito principle?

[15:08] Michael: That is the. I think it is the Prado.

[15:09] Matt: I thought that one was 80% of outputs or 20% of inputs are responsible for 80% of outputs.

[15:17] Michael: Yeah, I think it's the opposite of that. I don't know what that's called. It's like, it's easy to kind of get, like, it's easy to kind of get. Be sufficient at basketball or a sport or some sort of skill. But it's that last 20% that's really difficult. Yeah, but the Pareto is different.

[15:38] Matt: I looked up the 8020 rule and it describes the Pareto principle. I think the one you're talking about, I've heard it more commonly expressed as like 90 10. Like the first 90% is God.

[15:49] Michael: My percentage is wrong, easy.

[15:51] Matt: And the last 10% is not easy.

[15:58] Michael: Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Whatever the percentage is, it's like. Like there is something that to get proficient in something, it's like it does take a. It actually starts to become more work and dedication.

[16:17] Matt: I've heard Elon Musk talk about how difficult manufacturing is, which is interesting because you would think if you imagine a sort of like robotic car manufacturing facility, you would think the more that you automate things, you put things on an assembly line, the Parts are the same. It's a robot arm that does this and you know, it's the same moves over and over again that the easier things would become. Right. Like you're doing this because it makes it easier. Right. But I've heard Musk and other people talk about like, no, that that thing's really, really hard. Manufacturing things is very difficult.

[16:56] Michael: They did this. They just came out with this new battery and I watched this whole thing on it and I don't understand it. But there was one process Tesla, Tesla did. It's a. It's. It's so much more efficient. It's something about powder and, and anyways. But there's this something about powder. But there's one part of, that's what made me think of this is like there's this one part of the manufacturing that like you actually have to run this metal through the. It's like the. Makes it, it squeezes it kind of like a planer or whatever, you know, But I don't know what that's called, but you have to run it through 10 times in order to get the thickness that you. That's desirable. And so that was like 50x the cost of the whole process because it would just bottleneck in that one spot. Well, what Elon did is like he actually made it to where it was only three passes. And so it made it like that made it like hugely so much more efficient. And it's like. I think that's the.

[17:51] Matt: Do you know how he did it?

[17:52] Michael: I don't, I don't know how he did it, but it was just, he

[17:54] Matt: was able to just convince the metal relax basically.

[17:59] Michael: Yeah, but I think there's like so many of those, those parts that like in the, in the manufacturing process that you think is, is. You just don't, you just don't consider like like one bottleneck could, could like decrease your efficiency by you know, 50% or something like that.

[18:14] Matt: Right.

[18:14] Michael: Just crazy because there's all these little things like this week I keep kind of like scratching on these little like. I don't understand that, but it's like it's. But when I put it into like into like the whole slew of things that kind of stood out to me this week is like follows this one account called rocketry. And they were talking about just all the different things that Musk has figured out with, with the, the super, super giant or whatever that's called.

[18:42] Matt: Super heavy. Yes, the super heavy and like the Merlin engine.

[18:44] Michael: Yeah, keeping the engines cool and how they have the. Have the, the heat go through the engines and it keeps it cooler. I mean, there's so many different little marvels in that whole process that just like. Or the sloshing of the tanks. So it's like, you know, as, as it's going up, if it's moving at all, the liquid in the tanks can slosh, so it can actually throw off the balance of the, of the rocket. It's like. And then also just like being in space and like the chips and how they react to being in 150 degrees and negative or like, I don't know, 30 degrees Fahrenheit. I don't know what it was. But the differences. But these super extreme temperatures and what the effects and then the heat that has to get off of the chips and stuff. I mean, I just.

[19:32] Matt: Yeah. Space is crazy.

[19:33] Michael: It's so crazy.

[19:34] Matt: Have you ever heard the story of the fuel tanks in the lunar lander in Apollo 11? As Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin are descending down to land on the moon for the very first time, they're getting low fuel warning lights, and they had just enough fuel to be able to land and then take back off. And low fuel on landing most certainly meant that they would not have enough to take back off. And so they're getting these low fuel warning lights. They decide to commit to the landing. They're silencing the buzzers and the lights and all of that. And this is a story. I, I think they glossed over it in first man, the movie with Brian Gosling. Or is first man in the series

[20:22] Michael: for All Mankind is a series. Okay, yeah.

[20:24] Matt: First man is the one with Ryan Gosling, but I just don't think this story is talked about enough. So when they landed, they thought there was a chance that they weren't going to take back off, which I guess is kind of the chance they were taking on the whole mission, like as soon as they took off from Earth. But they did take back off and they didn't have enough fuel to get back home. And what was determined after the mission was that the baffling in the fuel tanks was not sufficient. As you were saying, it was sloshing around. So the baffling wasn't sufficient to keep the fuel kind of in one place where you could actually measure the volume of it. So as they were coming in for the landing and moving around, the sensors were thinking there wasn't much fuel in there as there was. I just think that's a crazy thought, that right before you hear Neil Armstrong say one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. Like, he's like, I might never leave this place.

[21:26] Michael: Yeah. And we just don't understand, like, what. What goes into the world around us, you know, I mean, just, you know, whether it be, like, sending rockets into space and the complex. How complex that is, or just

[21:45] Matt: how

[21:45] Michael: our bodies function, it's like, whoa, I can do breathing exercises, and I feel different. That's weird. You know, and you start to, like, you know, it's like, you know, why. What is this for? Like, why. Why are all these, like, tools available to us to do things with and that we've created and that we've, like, you know, manufactured or, you know, it's like, what are we. What are we doing with all this? And, you know, like, even, you know, I questioned stuff like, you know, I'm in business, but it's like, you know, what am I. What am I doing this for? Is it to sell coffee? Is it to create spaces for people? Is it to provide for my family? It's. It's. And then you're kind of like, well, it's kind of all of those things. But, you know, it's. I think it kind of comes back to kind of the theme that you and I have been talking about a lot is like, what's the. What's that higher purpose? You know, And I think you. You start to kind of, like, have to start to kind of frame all those, like, all these little things that we do and something. Something greater. You know, it's like a lot of this is framed like, oh, we're going to go to Mars. Why? Because we need to be an interplanetary species. Why? Because. Because a meteor might hit the Earth

[23:00] Matt: or we might not. Somebody might launch a nuke. Yeah, I don't know if I. I'm not compelled by that narrative. Yeah, I know Musk is, and Eric Weinstein is and a bunch of other people.

[23:13] Michael: But, I mean, I. Like, it's exciting to me, but it's not like, I don't. Yeah, that's not my.

[23:19] Matt: It's sufficient for me to say we should go to Mars, because that's cool.

[23:23] Michael: Totally. But why is it insufficient for you? Like, what is that. Why does that not like. Well, it does sound like it inspires

[23:32] Matt: you, but it's not like the species becoming interplanetary. That's less interesting to me. I don't know why it is. It just is.

[23:40] Michael: Yeah. Why?

[23:43] Matt: But why, though?

[23:44] Michael: But why, Dad?

[23:49] Matt: I guess I feel like,

[23:59] Michael: Well, what

[23:59] Matt: does God say to Adam? What is the charge God gives Adam after he creates him, it's to subdue the Earth. Is that the word he uses?

[24:08] Michael: Yeah.

[24:10] Matt: I think there's something very, very much. Whatever we are as humans is very much tied to the Earth. And I think even those who aren't religious have a sense of that, which is why people love nature to the extent that they even worship nature or why it's understandable why you would have sort of a Green Party or Greta Thunberg would be worked up to such a tizzy about saving the planet. It's like we're very much tied sort of spiritually to this. This planet. And the idea that we're going to hedge humanity on moving away from this planet to another planet, something about that seems off. Like, it seems uninteresting. Why would you want another planet? I mean, it's kind of like I need to look up the quote. I've been talking about Lewis a lot lately, but he says something about how a man who complains about only having sex with one woman clearly doesn't understand what sex is. It's like, if you complain about only having one planet, maybe you don't really understand what the planet you have is. And the idea that we have to leave in order to avoid catastrophe just feels like the wrong solution to me.

[25:36] Michael: I get you. I kind of. I feel like that's kind of more of the. The doomsday interpretation of it. I think probably what I would. I would phrase it as for me is, what's out there? Can we colonize? Can we colonize Mars?

[25:52] Matt: Yeah, that's super interesting to me. That's why I said, I mean, going. Just because it's cool, that's totally sufficient. And if we terraform Mars and set up, you know, a space base there, and I had the opportunity to go, I would totally.

[26:05] Michael: Or like, mining asteroids, like, that sounds badass. Like you. You know, we're all fighting over these resources here on Earth. Well, what if we could find it on asteroids and bring it back? Well, maybe that's some of the supply and demand of that. Or the tension between countries could be mitigated.

[26:22] Matt: You know, you were saying a bit earlier, like, we have all these tools and we don't understand them, and yet we build all these amazing things. I heard this story. I was listening to. I can't remember her name. I think it's Catherine something. Recently on the Joe Rogan podcast, she's like an astrophysicist. She was telling the story about our discovery of helium. Do you know how we discovered helium?

[26:50] Michael: No clue.

[26:51] Matt: Spectral analysis on Light coming from the sun. We discovered that there was helium on the sun. We discovered helium on the sun before we discovered helium on the Earth. That blew my mind. We didn't discover helium on the Earth until 1868. We didn't know existed here. So the idea that, you know, I think it's a very modern idea that, like, we know. We know things, right? We know all the things. Trust the science, trust the experts. We know the things. That just isn't true.

[27:25] Michael: Yeah.

[27:26] Matt: We don't know what this Earth is. We don't know. You know, I think the idea of scarcity has more truth in narrative than it does in reality. You know, I don't know how scarce oil is, but I don't think it's as scarce as we were led to believe by whoever named it fossil fuels, because it doesn't come from fossils. I know.

[27:50] Michael: It still blows my mind, honestly. Like, I can't, I still can't believe that, honestly.

[27:54] Matt: I mean, the story I heard was that J.D. rockefeller and like when basically they discovered oil was valuable because before the internal combustion engine, it was just used as a lubricant and it was worthless, basically. You know, could barely give it away. Just bubbled up out of the earth for free. And it was annoying when it did. And then all of a sudden it was going to be really valuable. And so Rockefeller got somebody to go to this conference in Europe where they tried to decide what it was and what to categorize it as. And this guy came up with the term fossil fuels because they wanted it to be organic so that it would be scarce, something like that. And that seems to be true about so many things. We just sort of came out of, I think the climate change hysteria, the idea that carbon and measuring carbon was the answer to everything, that everything's value could be determined by its carbon footprint. The more and more that story unfolds, the more I think it's absolute nonsense. It's just, it's just a story. It doesn't really have any root in reality.

[29:10] Michael: Yeah. So that does seem to kind of be unraveling right now. I think that's still a hard, a hard thing to accept. You know, I think that's, you know, what, what do plants want the most?

[29:28] Matt: Carbon dioxide.

[29:30] Michael: Yeah. And it's, it's, it's like, well, that's going to lead to something like if, if more and more of that, it's. You're going to have more and more vegetation.

[29:37] Matt: Well, and that's demonstrable. The, the, the Earth has greened by something like 20% in the last 15 years.

[29:47] Michael: Yeah.

[29:47] Matt: Was my understanding that there's more green area then it's like, well, is that a good thing or a bad thing? If that's the consequence of carbon dioxide, then is reducing it still what we want to do? Yeah.

[30:01] Michael: I mean, because you can, I think just. There's so many things that are. That are tied into that emotionally.

[30:06] Matt: Yeah.

[30:07] Michael: But also, you know, I remember going to California in the 80s and 90s. 80s and 90s, and going into LA, and this is, you know, someone from Amarillo, Texas, where you have so much wind, you don't have any sort of, like nothing's hanging around at all and just seeing this yellow fog, you know, and then there's a smell. My. My grandfather lived in San Bernardino, and there's a smell that's really nostalgic for me. And it's kind of like. It's kind of like car fumes mixed with fruit that is just really nostalgic for me. And, and I, I just remember that about that. It's like, you know, and there's, there's definitely things that we, that we, you know, I think we can, like, do less of, you know, as far as, like. Yeah, it's like the car spitting out like black smoke. Let's not do that.

[31:00] Matt: Yeah, but.

[31:03] Michael: But I feel like we've kind of gone beyond just being good stewards to sort of like this catastrophizing our impact on the world. It's like, it's like. But at the same time, it's like, yeah, we need to. We need to do a better job of how we cut down trees, you know? You know, there's, there's. I think there are some things, but I think a lot of those things have. Have been sort of catastrophized into, like, maybe we were heading in some bad directions at certain times, but really like the capitalist system, like, kind of like sort of corrects for that. It's like, oh, if I cut down tree too many trees, then that whole business, I'm not gonna have a business anymore. So how do I manage this better so I can have a consistent return on my investment, you know? Yeah, that might be oversimplifying. And sometimes, you know, people don't care about that. Sustainable. Yeah.

[31:54] Matt: I mean, certainly greed and indifference to suffering exists in some number of people, but I think it's a fairly small number of people.

[32:02] Michael: Yeah. Or maybe to that extent.

[32:09] Matt: Well, what can we do with that idea?

[32:15] Michael: I don't know. Well, I kind of don't know. Where we're going with these things. I feel like we're just kind of firing off a lot of things that we've been kind of thinking about and stewing on. And there seems to be kind of a theme, like, underneath that as far as, like, it's like sometimes we're trying to deal too much with symptoms rather than, like, the bigger problems. And, you know, we, We. We talk about climate, but is that really the biggest problem? And, you know, there's all the stats about, like, you know, people who. Countries and nations who produce the most energy have the least amount of, like, you know, or. Or don't have as much poverty. And so there's a. There's a direct correlation to. From. From energy to poverty. And so, you know, it's like, so what are we. What are we trying to solve here? And then. And then, like, people are trying to control narratives to fit their own agendas, and it's hard to know, like, what is. What is true and what is what is not. Because, like, there's a. There's a level of truth of, like, let's take care of the world around us and do good things, but at the same time. Yeah, I don't know. I'm kind of just rambling.

[33:47] Matt: Well, it goes back to this conversation we've been having for a while that, you know, figuring out what is good is not as easy as you might think. You might think that it would be obvious, you know, what's good for the environment, but it's not. It isn't. You know, I, I don't know if we've talked about this, but do you know about the windshield problem? Do you remember when we were kids, how much time you had to spend cleaning bug guts off of the windshield of a car or the front of a car when you were washing your vehicle? When's the last time you did that?

[34:26] Michael: Well, I'm kind of weird, and I do it every time, but it's not as bad as what you're like, I didn't even. Until you said that. I didn't really think about it in the same. Yeah, like, extremity. Like, what happened.

[34:37] Matt: What happened to the bugs?

[34:38] Michael: I'm curious.

[34:38] Matt: Where did they go? And I've looked it up, and the answer, as far as I can tell, is we don't really know the bug populations have been affected by something that we've done, probably.

[34:49] Michael: Oh, interesting.

[34:50] Matt: You know, and it's like, that seems. That seems a little scary, a little questionable, like, what's. What's the. What are the effects of that.

[34:58] Michael: Dude, you just gave me like a research project. That's, that's, that's interesting. I wonder if that's pesticides and stuff like that.

[35:02] Matt: Probably is pesticides. Yeah.

[35:09] Michael: Like, that's an area that's, that's, that's really interesting. Like, I mean, we have like, you know, the food we eat and we can kind of agree though, it's like, it's not the same quality as it was and, but same. I'm not sure.

[35:23] Matt: I heard this comedian talking about food. He was like, he's like, I go to Europe and you just eat whatever you want and walk around and feel great. He's like, eating a meal in the United States is basically like picking up a mysterious pill off the floor of a public bus and just taking it. It's like, I don't know how I'm going to feel in 20 minutes. Diarrhea. I got the diarrhea pill again.

[35:49] Michael: It's like the mystery,

[35:52] Matt: you know, there's so much anti American sentiment in popular culture right now. It's very popular to talk about how terrible the food is in America. I don't know how true that is. I just know it's a popular thing to believe and it gives you a way to sort of organize your life. Right. Like, I'm gonna, okay, I'm gonna buy all organic now. I have, you know, less choices to make. I just look for the label and I just pick the thing. I don't have to look into as many things. It's aligning my life in a certain kind of way or I've decided to be gluten free. You know, it's like, it gives me some rules to live by. I don't know how true all of that stuff is. Is the food really bad, is it not? I don't think it's as bad as people make it out to be. Just like America is not nearly as bad in many dimensions as people make it out to be. In most cases, it's actually the opposite. People say that America's racist. And I would say, actually, I think it's probably the least racist place that you could be. I don't know why we have this software installed in our zeitgeist that's this anti American zeitgeist that sure seems to be there.

[37:17] Michael: Yeah, well, I think there's something about. I don't know what this theme is. It's easy to hate on Elon Musk, my son. I always get into it on this and he knows how to push my buttons. He'll say something like, something about Elon. And I'll be like, well, actually. And he looks at me, I'm like,

[37:37] Matt: ah, let's talk about that for a second. Because you say it's easy to hate on Elon Musk. I don't understand why that is.

[37:49] Michael: I. I don't either, honestly.

[37:51] Matt: Because, like, I see people, you know, on Twitter or on X retweeting him and saying, this is Elon is incredibly dumb. And I'm like, that is a dumb thing to say. You don't understand what dumb is if you think that's true. Because whatever Elon may be, you can dislike him, you can hate him, you can think everything that he does is wrong, but the one thing he isn't is dumb. Look at what he's accomplished. A dumb person doesn't accomplish that. A dumb person cannot accomplish that. You know, I had got into a lot of trouble about this. There was, I think it was maybe pre2024 election when Elon was just coming out in support of Trump. And that's when the public sentiment on Elon turned, as far as I can tell. And it was started to become very popular to rip on him. And this is around the same time that he caught the heavy booster with the chopsticks. And you could quibble with me and say, well, he didn't do it. It was the SpaceX team. Okay, well, he put the SpaceX team together and he's incredibly involved. Read any story about it. You take Elon out and you don't get those results.

[39:13] Michael: Yeah, there's no chopsticks.

[39:15] Matt: There's no chopsticks. So you simultaneously have people saying that he's an idiot, and footage going around of this absolutely astoundingly incredible thing happening. And I think on Instagram posted the video of the rocket landing on the chopsticks, being caught with the chopsticks. And I said something like, if this is what we think of our most productive, most successful individual, I worry about the future of our society. If we're teaching our kids that this isn't inherently a good thing to do. Things like this. If you have the wrong politics, and so we're going to pretend that you're dumb, what is the future of our society going to look like? I mean, that's how you get to war is Peace, 1984 style reversals of truth or Idiocracy. Idiocracy. Yeah. So I don't get it how it's easy to hate on Elon Musk. I understand how it's popular to Hate on him. I understand how there's some social signaling in that, saying, I'm on the right side of this issue or the right side of that issue. But to say he's dumb, it's just like, could you could the social narrative as such, like, why does it choose to say something that's so obviously not true? Do you know what I mean? Like, they did it to him with the Nazi salute thing. He obviously was not doing a Nazi salute because nobody does Nazi salutes. Why would anyone think to do a Nazi salute, first of all? Second of all, if you just watch the video, he clearly didn't do that. It's like it's looking at a thing and seeing its opposite and saying it's its opposite.

[41:16] Michael: Especially when you see those clips of, like, every politician putting their hand in your hand. Yeah. Whether Democrat or Republican in that way of, like, touching their heart and then like. Like, my heart goes out to you or whatever it might be.

[41:26] Matt: You know, what I'm just trying to puzzle through is there's plenty of things to critique about Elon that are demonstrably true.

[41:36] Michael: Yeah. Like? Like his not being able to be in a relationship and having kids that, you know, some know, the father, some

[41:43] Matt: donor, about five baby mamas. Yeah.

[41:46] Michael: It's like. Yeah, it's like, that's not ideal. Yeah. You know. You know, there's, you know. Well, there's just the human factor of, like, you know, what are you expecting to be, like, perfect, you know, or like, I love his SNL skit where he is, like, what you expect, like, somebody who, you know, fires rockets in the sky and does all these different things. You think he'd be normal?

[42:09] Matt: Like, I didn't see that.

[42:10] Michael: Oh, yeah, it's great.

[42:12] Matt: Was that before he fell reputationally?

[42:15] Michael: I think so, or I kind of forget. But it was definitely in that possibly pre Trump era.

[42:22] Matt: I can't imagine they'd have him on snl.

[42:24] Michael: Yeah, it's like. I think it's when Dogecoin went to, like, 60. I think that might have been 2022 or 2023 or something like that.

[42:30] Matt: Ah, I remember those days.

[42:32] Michael: I remember that, too, because I think I bought some that when he was on snl and it was like, went way up now, way, way down. It was back in our crypto crazy days.

[42:43] Matt: But what is that move to seemingly almost ignore the valid critiques and say something that's so obviously not true, to go after him for being dumb? People did this with Trump, too. Trump's an idiot. I'm like, I Don't think that you get to be New York's famous, most famous and richest stars, have the career that you do have. The family that's obviously whatever you think about them, they're obviously close and tight knit and supportive of one another, which we used to say that would be a good family. You raised your kids well and then run for president and win twice. You don't get to, you don't do those things as an idiot. An idiot cannot do those things, you know, so why. It's funny.

[43:49] Michael: It's almost like, why say it? Well, the like idiot is no longer. It's like, almost like being an idiot is now a, a badge of honor. It's like you're basically saying like you're human and participating in the world and you're an idiot because we don't want you to participate in the world. Because if you participate in the world, you're actually making us look like an idiot. The more you succeed and the more that you participate and fail and succeed,

[44:22] Matt: the more you reveal our own inadequacy.

[44:25] Michael: Yeah.

[44:25] Matt: And so our own inadequacy is definition, definitionally exists at the thing that's revealing it to us. So you're the idiot for making me feel like an idiot.

[44:40] Michael: Yeah. But I mean, it makes sense to me just even as an entrepreneur, like whenever I see, you know, people that have, that have worked for me, like, really succeed, it's like part of me is like, well, they learned that from me and it's like, oh, no, man. It's like, no, they took what I, what, what they learned from here and they just made it their own and did something different. And it's like, it's like when I can shift my heart into celebrating for people, it's it. I have a different stance to that. Rather than competing with somebody like, oh, they did that well, I'm trying to be better than them or, or they just did that because of this and it's, and that kind of leads just to a dark place rather than being able to see like, oh, wow. When I see people that are successful, let's just say business wise, it's like I want to emulate them. What do they do? What did they do right and can I learn from what they did wrong? And I think the more that we can see that, then it's like it actually propels people into the future, you know, but if it's always like, you know, if you're tearing down people and not, and not celebrating them, it's like, I think that just leads to more. I mean, maybe that's kind of part of like victim culture, you know, it's like, oh, you succeed because you succeed on everybody. On, on the backs of all these other people. Like they'll say about Elon with, you know, oh, you didn't really catch that rocket, is the people who work for you is like, yes and yes.

[46:16] Matt: Right.

[46:17] Michael: It's like it's all of those things and you have to. You have to be able to hold all those things together in one place, you know. But there's something about what is. I don't know if it's jealousy or it's certain my own inadequacies as far as, like, you know, when someone does something better than me, it's like, oh,

[46:40] Matt: well, as much as, you know, people like to talk about the greed of capitalism, I think there's much more greed and resentment on the side of the people who would move towards communism, for example. You have more than me and that upsets me. I want your stuff. I'm entitled to your stuff. Jealousy of. I mean, I don't think I would want to switch lives with Elon Musk. But there certainly is. I can see in my own heart. It's like, why is everything going well for him? And things don't seem to be going well for me. And that can either make me resentful or maybe curious and inspired. I tend to feel curious and inspired by Elon and the things that he's done and accomplished. But I can see how one might be resentful of that and say he shouldn't be the world's richest man in that narrative. It's almost kind of like, well, nobody should be the world's richest man. There shouldn't be. Rich men eat the rich. Well, Ayn Rand had some things to say about that.

[48:03] Michael: Solzhenits had some things to say about that too.

[48:05] Matt: Yeah,

[48:08] Michael: what is that? It's kind of naming that sort of resentment or like spirit of death almost. It's like I want everything to die and I want it to come down to the level that I determine is the right level.

[48:28] Matt: Well, it reminds me of the Death Eaters in Harry Potter. That spirit does exist, I think, and it's similar to what we were talking about earlier, that when you sort of. You think you know what something is and you reduce it to your own definition of it, that becomes a dumb idol that's going to break your heart and hollow you out. That's the Death Eater. It sucks your soul out.

[48:54] Michael: Talking about the Dementors or the followers Of.

[48:58] Matt: I thought Death Eater was a thing.

[49:02] Michael: I think that, yeah, they're the followers of Voldemort, I think.

[49:05] Matt: Yeah, okay. They're sort of the henchmen of Voldemort, the Black Riders of Lord of the Rings. Similar kind of character. But I think another. Another thing is it's very easy. I think when you're outside of a story, it's very easy to have sort of an intuition about what's going well and what's not going well, or who's right and who's wrong, who's dumb, who's making a dumb decision and who's not. You know, you read Lord of the Rings and you kind of have, you know, you think, you know, you have a sense of them. But when you're in your own story, it's like, just think about how often you feel befuddled and confused by your own circumstances. And it's easy for someone outside your story to have an opinion on it. It's not easy for them to replace themselves with you and do any better than you're doing.

[50:06] Michael: Totally. Well, I think even I can see in our friendship, too, it's like, you know. You know, I think sometimes I know what's best for you and what you should do.

[50:16] Matt: Yeah.

[50:18] Michael: But I think time and time again, whether it's you or Allison or my kids, it's like I just see that I did not see the full story, you know, And I think. I think we all provide valuable insight to each other in expressing like, hey, this is what I see. But you also have to know that you don't see clearly and that you kind of have to hold that lightly. It's like. It's like you can have opinions, like, you know, criticisms, but. But you also have to recognize you don't see the whole story. It's like, oh, he shouldn't have all the money that he has. It's like, but you don't know the price he's paid for that, the risks he took, the risk he's took that happened to work out, that could have just as equally not have worked out.

[51:09] Matt: Well. I think we also just don't know what we're talking about when we talk about wealth at that level. It's not like that money is sitting in a bank account not doing anything. I mean, people don't get wealthy by hoarding money. They get wealthy by redeploying their money into productive means. And those means generate value for people that purchase it, which increases the value of the mechanisms that you put together. Generally, companies and businesses to produce that value. So your value is tied up in all of that. And if you extract all of what we say is your value, you destroy all of those productive things and all of that goes away. And how many lives does that touch? Oh yeah, millions. Millions and millions, probably Neons.

[51:55] Michael: I mean, like if, if you just think about all the Starlink and the connection he's made all across the globe,

[52:00] Matt: just I wonder if somebody's done this. It's like, okay, Elon shouldn't have. What is he worth? 150 billion?

[52:07] Michael: Well, with SpaceX going IPOing, he'll be the first trillionaire, right? Okay, let's call him a trillionaire.

[52:16] Matt: Let's say that's morally wrong. And what we should do is take his trillion dollars from him and redistribute it. Have you ever seen somebody do a study? It's like, what would the ramifications of that be? I mean, Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink, all these things. Boring, knurling, go away, right? Because in order to extract that wealth, you have to destroy the entities. And how many lives does that touch? How many good things have happened as a result of all of those businesses running and providing value to humanity that you undo? And if there was an analysis of all of that, would any rational person say, yeah, that's a good trade just for me to sleep well at night knowing that Elon doesn't have a trillion dollars, I'm willing for this much destruction to happen. I mean, how many lives? I think the Tesla is one of the safest by far cars on the road. And I'm taking Elon at his word about it, but he says that the airbags in that car are so good that they probably just don't even need seat belts. How many lives have been saved?

[53:26] Michael: Well, there's that one. No, I just want to.

[53:31] Matt: It's like, are you willing to sacrifice those saved lives so that you can know that Elon doesn't have a trillion dollars?

[53:40] Michael: Or just even the innovation that it's not even just current value, it's also like future value of the things that not only is he as his companies, but what he. What comes from those, like the people who work under him and have learned things, what do they go on to build?

[53:58] Matt: Totally.

[53:58] Michael: Well.

[53:59] Matt: And not to mention that when Elon first started to try to. Or SpaceX first started to try to land a rocket, I think pretty much everyone was like, that's a stupid idea, you know? And how many of them exploded? Yeah, before they got it. And now how many companies have Rockets that can land themselves.

[54:18] Michael: Oh, did you see that? The Blue Origin explosion.

[54:21] Matt: Oh, that was fantastic.

[54:23] Michael: It was amazing. It was crazy.

[54:26] Matt: Nobody was hurt, so I feel like I can see. Exquisite to watch. Apparently, that's a huge setback for Blue Origin because that was their only landing pad. And it's toast.

[54:38] Michael: Yeah.

[54:39] Matt: But other companies are building rockets that can land themselves now, and it's like they only did it. It's kind of like, you probably know this story better than I do, but the time to run a mile was, like, stuck forever. And then one dude broke it, and then a bunch of people started breaking it. It's like, once one person demonstrates that what you thought was stupid and impossible was not stupid and impossible, it's like it unlocks you to go and do those things. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, I think Elon's effect on all of our lives is monumental. And there's many, many such men. I mean, Jeff Bezos is another one. It's pretty popular to hate on him as well. But, you know, it's hard. It's hard to wrap your head around how different the world would be without Jeff Bezos. Yeah, I mean, Amazon is sort of like the obvious thing, but I think what a lot of people don't realize is that Amazon Web Services, which is a whole infrastructure that he set up to support the Amazon business, transformed the way that we write and deploy software and was a new paradigm for deploying servers for everything that you use every day. I would say, you know, probably at least 50% of the services that you use rely heavily on AWS. Amazon Web Services. You delete AWS, half of the Internet goes down. It's crazy.

[56:24] Michael: Yeah, that's fascinating. I mean, dude, it's like even. It's like even the whole. What Elon's doing with Colossus, I think it's called Colossus, the data centers and stuff like that. He's just way ahead of a lot of these things that we don't think we know or we even need. And I think that's the hard thing. I think Michael Saylor is another one of those people where what he's doing with his products of Stretch and Microstrategy and Bitcoin is like. He's so much further ahead in the moves that he's making that even the setbacks are not setbacks. They sold some bitcoin this last week, and everyone's like, oh, you said you never sell bitcoin. But if you start to understand why he did that, it's like, oh, my gosh you're going to open up a trillion dollars worth of money to, to come into STRC and MicroStrategy. Because that was one of the things that the credit agencies, you get credit like triple A, double A. Like I think they're B plus or B minus right now. But they, they, they said their Bitcoin is not worth anything because one of the reasons was, is like, you're not willing to sell it. So it's not, it's not really an asset if you're not willing to sell it. So part of him selling it was saying, hey, no, actually I am willing to sell it. So now he validates the, the thesis that the $65 billion he has on his balance sheet is actually like worth that is an asset. And you know, and he's not thinking about tomorrow. He's thinking about six months from now, two years from now, three years from now. It's like, it's like, how do I create a product that's actually going to be helpful for humanity in the future? And there's just very few people that explain, think that way.

[58:15] Matt: Explain how he's creating a product that's going to help humanity.

[58:19] Michael: Well, that's the whole thing is like, you know, so, you know, I think the, the of dollars is like 6, 6% I believe. So 6% more dollars are being printed every year into the supply chain. So we, we have this whole idea that our money is being decreased by 3% like inflation, you know, but it's actually way more than that.

[58:39] Matt: Yeah.

[58:40] Michael: And so like what he's doing, he's creating a product that, for people who need stable income. Like, like my mom, I put her

[58:47] Matt: in stable store of value.

[58:48] Michael: Stable store value that's not actually losing money. And so he's providing a product that basically, you know, Bitcoin goes up 30% year over year for the most part. And so what he's doing, he's basically saying, hey, I'll give you this, I'll give you 12%. I think it's 11.5 right now. I'll give you 11.5% of that gain now today, stable from here until whenever. And, but you're giving up that extra 20% on the top. And so, so he's just basically saying, okay, I'm going to take that 20% and I'm going to give you 11% of that 30%.

[59:26] Matt: And, and what's that product?

[59:28] Michael: STRC.

[59:29] Matt: Okay. Yeah, so that, that's the product he's giving to improve humanity.

[59:32] Michael: So it's like a money market account for the most part, but it's just. It's just in a.

[59:36] Matt: It's so that people can access the monetary. How would you say this, the storage capacity of value of Bitcoin without the volatility?

[59:52] Michael: Yeah. And so it's like. It's like. So if you just stuck a million dollars in your bank and then for retirement and you just drew off that million dollars. Well, I think it's after like, you know, 17 years, it's like the value's halved. I think it might be more than that, but something like that. It's like. So the buying power of that million dollars, even though you're drawing on it every year, is becoming less and less and less.

[60:13] Matt: Right.

[60:14] Michael: So this way he's like saying, hey, I will give you that million dollars you put in the stretch. You're going to get $120,000 every year for that.

[60:21] Matt: Doesn't it just like. Don't you feel that in your just day to day spending?

[60:28] Michael: Totally. Yeah.

[60:29] Matt: Like, we had dinner before we came here. I got a burger and half fries, half tots. I drink water And I paid $25.

[60:40] Michael: Yeah.

[60:41] Matt: And it seems like that's everywhere except Pete Terry's. There's these holdouts. It's like the Costco hot dog is still a dollar. And I think they're probably losing money on that. But everywhere you go, that's pricing things sort of rationally. From their perspective, everything seems crazy expensive. And I don't know how we're doing it and how we're keeping up with this.

[61:08] Michael: I don't. I mean, I don't think we are really.

[61:10] Matt: It's like, I mean, I guess I'm just gonna sound like every sort of inevitable old timer, we're heading there, man. But it's like, I think my dad gave me like $5 a week for lunch. Mm. If my daughters, who are teenagers, are going to eat lunch during the school day, they need at least $10 to $15 for lunch. $5. You still ask me a week. They need at least $50 a week. That's 10x. And I feel it increasing all of the time.

[61:51] Michael: Yeah, well, I think that's the part is a lot of. A lot of people don't see the problem. And you just get angry at people that are doing something now, whether they're solving it or not. That's a whole nother thing. Or solving it better or worse or whatever.

[62:12] Matt: But

[62:14] Michael: it's just easy to get angry at people that are participating in the world. And it's like they Will be judged. I think that's the worst and the hardest thing about actually participating in the world is, like, you will be judged. And you see that with Elon and Trump and Biden, and it's like, whoever it is that's participating in the world, it's like, that's kind of what comes with that, and that's inevitable.

[62:40] Matt: I don't know how much participating Biden was doing there toward the end.

[62:44] Michael: That's true. But just by being in the public eye or even, like, putting something out into the world, I mean, an artist does that. It's like, if you're going. If an artist is going to participate in the world, they have to do something and then put it out there for people to judge. And that's a risk. And it's easier to be the critic and say, like, oh, well, their lines are not tight, or the colors they used were this or that. It's like, well, what do you have? What do you have out in the world that I can critique or judge?

[63:17] Matt: It's like, nothing.

[63:19] Michael: Nothing. Yeah, maybe they're critique. And judgment isn't what you critique and judge. You know, I don't know. But I think that's the hardest thing is, like, you know, I mean, starting a business. It's like you're critiqued and judged by. Do people come in and buy coffee from you?

[63:40] Matt: Right.

[63:40] Michael: You know, is it a better experience at Coffee Shop A versus Coffee Shop B? You know, and. And part of that is it's a honing, and it's like a. What do you call it? It's kind of like testing your vision, too. It's like, is this something that's worthy? And your customers tell you you are not worthy or you are worthy of my patronage?

[64:08] Matt: You know, nothing. Jon Snow.

[64:12] Michael: Yeah. So I think this. It's just dangerous to.

[64:17] Matt: This living thing is a dangerous business.

[64:21] Michael: Well, it's interesting, too, because I've kind of noticed some things about me, too, is like, there's a part where when things get difficult, I also want to hide. I want to make my world smaller. And the smaller that I can make my world, I have this. I have this illusion that if I can make my world smaller, then I can have more control. And I think the hard thing about that is you just keep having to make your world smaller and smaller and smaller. And because you start seeing you actually don't have control. And I think that's a really difficult thing to grasp.

[64:58] Matt: It's like an ostrich putting its head in the ground. It's like dude, all the rest of your body's still out here, and your neck is just, like, perfectly exposed for a knife or a sword.

[65:14] Michael: What is that? Is that.

[65:15] Matt: I don't know why they say that.

[65:16] Michael: Is it. What? Is there a reason why?

[65:18] Matt: Well, do they actually do that?

[65:20] Michael: I don't. I don't know. I mean, that's been a saying ever since I. And I know what you mean when you say that. Yeah, but just. That's just. Yeah,

[65:32] Matt: well, and I resonate with that. I feel that all the time, too. It's like, I want to retreat, I want to hide, I want to go away. I want to make my world smaller and more controllable. And I will just. I will just say, you know, one thing that I feel very inspired by in people like Elon Musk and Donald Trump, Regardless of what I think about them, their politics or their policies, they're not hiding. They feel motivated despite some of the nastiest and worst attacks, both rhetorical and physical, that I've ever seen leveled against anybody in my lifetime. And they're saying, I'm gonna go on. I'm gonna keep going. And I want more of that in me. I want to be able to persevere through failure and persevere through critique and judgment and hate. You know, I think those signs that say vote out hate are really interesting. I mean, they're sort of the same thing as saying, Elon is done. It's like the people calling for the end of hatred are some of the most hated. Hate. Hateful people I see. And I think the thing that you should do with hate is not eradicate it, but stand up to it. It's like, stand up despite it. Stand up, not even necessarily against it.

[67:14] Michael: Provide an alternative.

[67:15] Matt: But to say, I can stand here despite that hate, that's something to be admired. And I do admire that in Trump, and I admire that in Elon, and I would like more of that in myself. I'd like to cultivate more of that in myself, because I'm weak in that way. I mean, I think I've just realized in my 40s, like, I really don't like it when people don't like me, and I want people to like me.

[67:41] Michael: Yeah.

[67:43] Matt: And I want to get rid of that programming inside of me and say, I want to do something because it's worth doing, not because it's going to make people like me. As much as you can say about Elon and Trump, I don't think either of them are doing what they're doing in order to Be liked. It's sort of popular to say that it is that way. But consider the amount of hate both those people are enduring. How much liking would balance that out? If you were hated at the level those people are hated, how quickly would you stop doing what you're doing?

[68:23] Michael: I can't even approach that question. I even think like, mlk. I think the part of it is he didn't just say something was bad, he proposed an alternative. And I think that's the part that people don't want to do, because

[68:43] Matt: again,

[68:43] Michael: you come back to, you will be judged.

[68:45] Matt: You're really sticking your neck out.

[68:46] Michael: Yeah, And I think that's what MLK did was I was like, hey, I, I envision a future where there's basically colorblindness, you know, and, and that was not popular, you know, and. But the thing was, is, like, it caught on and people, but also people did not like that at all. So I think that's the part, you know, that I think that's really difficult is, okay, you don't like the way things are. Propose something different. And I think a lot of things people are doing right now is like proposing communism. It's like, well, I don't like the way things are, so we should do communism. It's like, okay, well, you will be judged. But I think that's the hard thing about communism because it's like, oh, no, it's spread out among lots of different. It's not me, it's us. And it's like, well, who is you? It's like, it's like. I think that's the part that, where in a democracy or a republic is sort of like, you know, you are an individual and you're responsible for your decisions. And I think that's, that's a, that's a lot of accountability. I think that's why a republic is a scary thing, is because, like, it comes back to the individual. There's a collective, but there is an individual.

[69:55] Matt: Well, it seems like if it's your idea to impose communism, the benefit of that idea is that if the idea fails, you get to be the last to die. Whereas in something more like capitalism, you're the first. You're the first to die. If your idea doesn't work right in capitalism, it's like, I can't remember the guy's name, but he built like a wingsuit that he thought would fly, and he jumped off the echo tower and just died. In capitalism, the guy who invents that dies. And communism, the guy who invents that lives and somebody else he hates dies.

[70:33] Michael: That's funny. Just like I was thinking, like, all right, everybody, we're going to do this. And then there's a lot of people die.

[70:40] Matt: Well, that's the way history has gone for a long time.

[70:43] Michael: Yeah, that's true.

[70:48] Matt: Well, we've been all over the place.

[70:49] Michael: They really have.

[70:50] Matt: Should we. You want to keep rambling or should we wrap it up?

[70:52] Michael: I don't know. This has been. This has been kind of good. I think there's a lot of things I think you and I have been chewing on, and I don't have a lot of conclusions in these areas as far as I just see themes. And I think that's kind of what we're hitting on is sort of, if you put something out into the world, it's going to be judged, and rightfully so, because is it valuable, is it worthwhile, and what's it oriented to?

[71:23] Matt: It's like kind of our conversation about identity. It's like, I can tell you who I am, but that's much less rewarding because I kind of have to demand that you bend to my definition. And it's much less rewarding to me than if you reflect to me something that pleases me about myself. You know, you put an idea into the world. Wouldn't you rather have it judged and be pleased to found that it is that the world is well pleased with your idea? Well, in order to do that, you have to take the risk that they won't be well pleased, and you have to work really hard before you take that risk. But if I just demand that my idea is good and everybody has to agree with me, in a sense, that's much less risk for me. But it's also much less pleasing because I know that I've removed all reality. I've removed the truth.

[72:21] Michael: Yeah.

[72:27] Matt: And I would say that the truth is ultimately pleasing. Imposing your ideas on other people might feel like it gives you some amount of control, but that's not very pleasing, not in the long run. In the same way that so many things that we find pleasurable once we reduce them to our own, you know what our own definition of what we want to get out of them, they end up betraying us.

[72:53] Michael: I think that's a part of the whole idea of, like, putting your ideas out into the world is like, it's not necessarily that they're right or wrong, but that they will be refined. And it's like, do you respond, like, to that refinement? I think that's the real key to that, because I. I find a lot of. I see a lot of people putting ideas into the world, but they're not being refined by them. They're just doubling down and not allowing it to correct themselves. And so then that's the whole conversation of idols is like, when you don't allow those things to. That you put out into the world to refine you, they become idols, and then you end up just kind of eroding from the inside out.

[73:36] Matt: It's a good way to put that. When you don't allow something to refine you, it becomes an idol.

[73:52] Michael: Because it's. Yeah, it's a judge. It's like your kids, or. That's why being married and having kids is so valuable is like. It's like your. Your wife and your kids are.

[74:06] Matt: Did you see that DNC autopsy report? Oh, yeah, that came out, and I can't remember all the. Like, I guess the whole point of it was, like, try to figure out how the Democratic party lost the 2024 election. And the report came out, and apparently it was a mess and, like, full of typos and, you know, terribly written, but also, like, the reasons that they gave for why the DNC lost. It was like, well, they didn't prep Kamala enough or they didn't hate Trump enough. And it's like, gosh, you're really not going to learn the lesson, are you? You're not going to be refined by this, are you? It's like, do you even want to

[74:54] Michael: know why you lost?

[74:56] Matt: Like, do you want to know what the majority of Americans think about you?

[75:00] Michael: I think Bill Maher is like, the. Is the greatest example of the Democratic Party as far as, like, it's like, did we not learn our lesson?

[75:08] Matt: Well, I would say he's not an example of the Democratic Party at all. He's just a Democrat who's willing to learn the lesson.

[75:13] Michael: Totally. Yeah. And he's been. He's been going hard on them. Like, he's like, basically like, you guys got to get your. Pull your head out of the sand. You know, it's like. And I think that's the part that is like, if you're not willing to listen, it's like you're going to become irrelevant. And you see that with Karen Bass in California, you know, And I think she's probably going to win. But. But that. That guy who ran against her, I forgot his name right now.

[75:38] Matt: Spencer Prime.

[75:39] Michael: Spencer Prime. Yeah. It's like, he really made a huge dent and brought some, like, awareness to what's going on in California, and. And it's like you kind of feel hopeful for. And this is not a Republican or Democrat thing. It's like. It's like, no, we need to be. We need to learn from our mistakes. And. And passing a bill that says, like, you can't look into fraud of minority groups, it's like. It's like, no, fraud is fraud. It doesn't matter if it's a minority group or a majority group or whatever. It's like. It's like you passed a law. Do you not. Do you understand, like, what you're saying there is, like, you cannot research or investigate fraud.

[76:26] Matt: Just.

[76:26] Michael: It's just, like. It's just baffling. You can't write this stuff.

[76:29] Matt: We should decriminalize crime.

[76:30] Michael: Yeah, yeah. It's just. It's just baffling. But.

[76:39] Matt: All right, let's wrap it up.

[76:40] Michael: Let's do it. All right. Thanks. We didn't even say welcome to the Shores.

[76:43] Matt: Oh, my gosh. We didn't.

[76:44] Michael: Well, welcome and also, goodbye.

[76:46] Matt: See you next time.

[76:47] Michael: See you guys. I think that was probably our most disjointed 100%.