Ever pondered the line where comfort meets stagnation, or how the echoes of Shackleton's incredible survival in Antarctica might apply to our daily struggles? Our latest episode wades into these waters, inviting you to reconsider what it means to truly live. We're joined by celebrated thinkers like Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris, whose insights on destiny and self-determination are bound to challenge your convictions. And through the seemingly simple life of my cat Annie, we'll uncover whether the pursuit of comfort is really all it's cracked up to be—or if, like Kilo on his Home Depot escapades, we're all missing out on some much-needed adventure.
As we navigate the traffic of life, both literal and figurative, this episode takes a turn down the less-traveled roads of self-discipline and habit formation. The whimsical personification of our cars leads to a profound discussion on the human need for connection, while the grooves of our brain's pathways reveal how habits can both confine and liberate us. Sharing in the journey, I confess the paradox of postponing change and the freedom that discipline affords, allowing us to savor our downtime without a hint of remorse. Buckle up as we cruise through these topics, offering laughs and enlightenment at every twist and turn.
Wrapping up with a hard look at sustainability, our conversation becomes an urgent call to action against the backdrop of modern consumerism. We humorously juxtapose the work ethic of ancient Egyptian slaves against today's social media "gurus," before diving deep into the recycle bin to sort out the truths and myths of our environmental efforts. Ponder the past's glass milk bottles against today's plastic predicament, and join us as we champion local businesses, long-lasting goods, and financial literacy as the cornerstones of a more sustainable future. This episode isn't just a talk; it's a rally for meaningful change, and you're a key player.
Ever pondered the line where comfort meets stagnation, or how the echoes of Shackleton's incredible survival in Antarctica might apply to our daily struggles? Our latest episode wades into these waters, inviting you to reconsider what it means to truly live. We're joined by celebrated thinkers like Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris, whose insights on destiny and self-determination are bound to challenge your convictions. And through the seemingly simple life of my cat Annie, we'll uncover whether the pursuit of comfort is really all it's cracked up to be—or if, like Kilo on his Home Depot escapades, we're all missing out on some much-needed adventure.
As we navigate the traffic of life, both literal and figurative, this episode takes a turn down the less-traveled roads of self-discipline and habit formation. The whimsical personification of our cars leads to a profound discussion on the human need for connection, while the grooves of our brain's pathways reveal how habits can both confine and liberate us. Sharing in the journey, I confess the paradox of postponing change and the freedom that discipline affords, allowing us to savor our downtime without a hint of remorse. Buckle up as we cruise through these topics, offering laughs and enlightenment at every twist and turn.
Wrapping up with a hard look at sustainability, our conversation becomes an urgent call to action against the backdrop of modern consumerism. We humorously juxtapose the work ethic of ancient Egyptian slaves against today's social media "gurus," before diving deep into the recycle bin to sort out the truths and myths of our environmental efforts. Ponder the past's glass milk bottles against today's plastic predicament, and join us as we champion local businesses, long-lasting goods, and financial literacy as the cornerstones of a more sustainable future. This episode isn't just a talk; it's a rally for meaningful change, and you're a key player.
On a desolate, frozen tundra surrounded by mindless, brain numbing cold takes, two bros trek through the nothingness to bring hope to a new generation. You are about to experience brad and dylan's hot takes. Here we go again. Again Hot take biography, if I remember correctly, of the the captain might be wrong about, but I've got the basic story right. What I got the basic story right, and they were there for a whole year a whole year. You know, and none of them died not one day they all lived, not one.
Speaker 2:He kept their I wanted to start this one off in a fun way.
Speaker 1:It was Shekelton's, shackleton's adventure shackleton, shackleton's way, mm-hmm, something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's my thing. This is really turn me down, just all right, you little hot, a little hot.
Speaker 2:Brad's hot takes, got hot oh.
Speaker 1:Oh, you started that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we got kermit on we got kermit Kermit on and then they they took a rowboat across the whole damn ocean and they found this little island, and then they had to climb mountains that no one had never climbed and they still have never climbed. Wow, your Jordan Peterson impressions got, and they did it because, because Life is hard your fingers aren't moving enough and Damn it. So you got to do hard things sometimes. And if you don't do hard things, and what? What the hell are you doing, man?
Speaker 2:Wow, that was good right, that was really. You've been practicing. How many times in the mirror day are you doing? I don't practice.
Speaker 1:I just I, I see all these little kips clips come across and I'm like A hot take.
Speaker 2:The Jordan Peterson's past is prime. Not monetarily no, but From what we was he coming here? Is he? Is he? I don't know? He is he, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I'll figure it out. He's going on a tour now, because that's what people do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he must have a new book. Is he have a new book? No, no, no, so hot take. Brad and Dylan have been going down the modern philosopher rabbit hole with kind of today's. Who are the? What do they call them? The four mod, the four modernist? It's the four horsemen. It's not the four horsemen. That'd be cool though.
Speaker 1:Who the the podcast circuit?
Speaker 2:No, not the but, but it's like they kind of talk about the moderns would be like sam Harris, jordan peterson Um, that's rude for sam Harris, I know. Unfortunately, we're starting to get to the point in our lives where we think everything's predetermined, as Sad as that sounds no, it's, it's just I don't? It's hard to argue with it.
Speaker 1:I don't, I don't want him talking like kermit the frog. He's coming to chicago.
Speaker 2:I'm talking about sam Harris now, and you're going back to kermit.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, sam Harris, I don't think he's. He doesn't tour.
Speaker 2:No, but we're talking about predetermination.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's that, it's not really that. I don't want to go on that right now because I don't fully understand it.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:It's yeah, things go the way they go because they have to go that way, but it's different than predetermination. I guess you're right. Somehow I can't explain that to you.
Speaker 2:I? I had a weird thought the other day, which was what? What you're about to embark on has been Then Determined in a way. But even though what you're about to do is Determined, you still have the capacity to change something in the future, if that makes sense. So you're not actually redesigning your life, you're redesigning the future.
Speaker 1:Yes, and also I. I think there's a little bit of outside influence in that, so we don't live in a vacuum.
Speaker 2:There can't be perfect.
Speaker 1:No, so it's, it's not. Well, I don't know. Yeah, I don't want to do it because I'm I don't want to do it. All right, it's the one thing that I just I don't. I I don't disagree with him, but I I don't understand it enough to agree with him, and that makes me upset.
Speaker 2:So Red hot takes that's not capable of doing it.
Speaker 1:Comfort. My hot take is Comfort is a slow death.
Speaker 2:That's what I think then Annie's been dying for 14 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah and Okay, here's. Here's an example. Okay, I think about.
Speaker 1:Annie's the cat, by the way, guys, obviously my dog I've always wanted to do, like adventures, okay, you see, or read, or Whatever people, that they go camping, they go hiking, they go to this, they go to that and they the dog, is with them all the time, right? And so we have Adopted all of our dogs and and we like to sit there and say what was your life before this? And don't you have such a good life? And blah, blah, blah, but all the while Maybe depriving them of a little bit of their own dog life, making their life too comfortable, not giving them enough adventure, not enough Balto, yeah, I could. I mean, dogs are wolves, right, and wolves roam, and there's got to be careful with that word that triggers me roam.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they do roam, and it's gotta be some of that left in them, right yeah?
Speaker 2:It's funny because you say that and you're like it's gotta be there, and then you look at them on the couch just getting pet.
Speaker 1:You're like nope, it's gone, but but the but he likes it. He like kilo, especially. He likes just, he likes going out, he likes exploring Okay, so what? It's home depot, he's exploring his new shit. Absolutely, it's different, he's domestic.
Speaker 2:Okay, so what you're saying is is you're, you've been a terrible dog parent, father, if you will, and you just haven't made enough for to get them out in the wild.
Speaker 1:No, I think their Domesticated lives is a microcosm for humans that we need to be outside. We need more adventure 100% we need something that's not Pre-determined and set for us. Okay, here's our schedule and we're gonna go here, and we're gonna go here.
Speaker 2:It's really hard to say that. A bear Beating the shit out of you, I'll look getting killed on a hiking trail. It was predetermined. That was a fluke man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you put yourself there.
Speaker 2:Yeah but, what are we saying? The whole world that, I mean, I guess. I guess the bear would have been in places because of predetermined. God damn it. Never mind, we're not going there.
Speaker 1:Not gonna do it. Nope, I don't want to do it. I had wrote this thing down. The comfort and confidence of never having to question your held beliefs, the comfort and confidence they're like yeah, this is it. I don't have to ever worry about anything. Think about anything different. I feel like that in our physical world.
Speaker 2:Is that why people melt down when they have to wait like 10 minutes in line at Costco?
Speaker 1:Okay. So here's a funny thing the other night, when I left here after our memory card meltdown, I ran up to McDonald's to get something to eat because I was starving and there was a Jeep in front of me and then there was a car in front of that Jeep and the car in front was either had a weird order or a big order or something right, so we're sitting in the line, so we paid and Maybe they're having a McFry meltdown.
Speaker 1:They were doing something, because she and I'm pretty sure it was a she, because I think I saw her like pull in in front of me. She jumped the curb and drove around the other car and just left. Didn't like go around to the parking lot and go inside or anything, she just left.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 1:And I was like you paid? You already paid for your stuff. She was so tired of waiting, she just left, and it was, I mean, five minutes. Maybe it seemed long for a drive through, but it was not an obscenely long time, and she just peaced out. She was uncomfortable sitting in her jacked up Jeep waiting for her McFlurry she didn't like it.
Speaker 2:Maybe she got a booty call.
Speaker 1:She got better options Fossible. Sex or McFlurry, it did Sex or McFlurry, it seemed like an angry curb jump.
Speaker 2:Maybe Isn't it funny how you can take something we've talked about dehumanizing objectification but then on the what's, on the poetry side, where you can give human traits to objects, Anthropomorphization, yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't know, but that's what it is. Don't say I don't know.
Speaker 2:But it is funny that you can see intention with it. It's a Jeep, but the way the Jeep was moving you can tell the human interaction through it, what type it was. You can feel it. You're like, oh, that wasn't just a happy.
Speaker 1:Whenever I go to the pediatric group I always jump the curb leaving because it's just like a sidewalk and a curb and I don't feel like backing up 20 feet of bus and trying to pull out into it. So I just wait for a clearing and I go over the curb. And last time we did it there was a truck coming the opposite way and he saw me do it in my big black van and he was smoking a cigarette and he took his hand off a cigarette while driving and gave me a golf club. And I didn't know to take that in a positive respect or if it was like a job asshole. You just jumped a curb for no reason, but I enjoyed it. I took it as a positive. I love myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, anthropomorphism and personification, but personifications, giving human characteristics to abstract ideas, and anthropomorphism is inanimate objects. I already told you this. You didn't give me the personification version, though.
Speaker 1:Anthropomorphization.
Speaker 2:Anthropomorph. No, I can't do it. It's fine, you don't have to do it, ok, it's OK. It's like trying to do Martin's last name, ruthless villain, that's a good one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like it. So, yeah, this comfort idea and not both not having to think outside of your preconceived notions and also not doing new things physically that challenge you to change your ways, you get set in those. I like that idea of the things that you do create the neural pathways, and it's like a steel blade grinding into a granite stone and you just keep doing it and doing it, and doing it and the groove just gets deeper and deeper. So it's just easier to slide right into that groove every single time. And we need some new grooves, emperors, new groove.
Speaker 2:I haven't seen that movie for a long time. You could turn them a llama.
Speaker 1:Never seen it.
Speaker 2:Oh OK.
Speaker 1:Guilty, but so that's what I feel like. So if I have a New Year's resolution for the year, it's going to be too. I do a pretty good job of the mental part of it. I don't do a very good job of the physical part of it. I do.
Speaker 2:You've been looking a little weak. I see A little soft.
Speaker 1:Tomorrow starts treadmill rocking.
Speaker 2:You and 90% of America, congratulations.
Speaker 1:OK, we'll see where we at in two months. Ok, yeah, all right?
Speaker 2:Remember the last episode Uh-oh, carrying only matters, if there's action.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so stop talking.
Speaker 1:I haven't talked about it.
Speaker 2:You just did, still no action.
Speaker 1:But it's not tomorrow yet Exactly.
Speaker 2:If in, all, right, here's my no. You know what Hot take by that standpoint.
Speaker 1:I'm never going to say anything, ever again. How do you like that for either or?
Speaker 2:I think that's great Either or OK, false dichotomy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, either you accept that or I'm never going to tell you anything, ever again.
Speaker 2:Do you know? What drives me Wild is when people decide something for their like I'm going to. I'm going to do the hard thing. I'm going to. I'm going to get healthy OK, but first I'm going to gorge today because I've earned it.
Speaker 1:You're like what why?
Speaker 2:Why don't you just decide not to eat the cupcake right now? That's 200 less calories you have to burn tomorrow when you're going to officially start not saying you, I'm just using a fake timeline.
Speaker 1:It's like when they they're like I'm going to stop. I'm going to stop smoking tomorrow, but for right now, I'm going to nail this whole pack.
Speaker 2:It is just just, if you're going to make a decision, make the decision and do it, then Don't, don't give yourself. You've already given yourself an out If you're like it's the oh, but it's, it's later.
Speaker 1:But also it's it's deepening that groove too.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You're like I'm going to stop this habit, but first I'm going to do it five more times.
Speaker 2:But also I, I, I forget who said this. Dead heart, no, oh, I think, therefore, I am. He did say that, but know, what I was going to say is it was people put too much faith in their future self, and the way you need to think about it when you're making decisions or doing something difficult is the only person you can trust is you in the moment. You have to think of you in the future as the most unreliable person in the world, and that forces you to really kind of change how your responsibilities. You can't just assume that future you is going to be that responsible. You have to assume the responsibility now, and it's not saying everything has to be done in the moment, but you need to really set yourself up in a proper way now, not just shirk the responsibility in the moment and push it down.
Speaker 1:Well, that's that discipline.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, the, the jocco. Discipline equals freedom. But I don't, I don't. I don't get it Like if you're so disciplined, aren't you always doing something? It's like, no, you're doing the shit that you need to do so that you are free to do other things.
Speaker 2:But people miss those posts by him when he's like on a lake by himself, at like one o'clock in the afternoon. He's on a canoe just wandering around and the whole point is I have free time right now because I did everything I needed to do and I also prepared for what I needed to do tomorrow. So now I have some time to myself and I can live in the moment uninterrupted and people forget that they think they and it's easy to do that. You get into like a false sense of, or you get into toxic productivity which I see people do all the time, which is I need to be. If I'm not doing something now, it's like no, you need to cover your bases, you need to be thinking forward, but you've got to have some reset time. But being able to live in the moment means you don't have distractions and so if you're, if you're doing something, like, if your checklist is checked, then you can be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you can't vacate if you have something in the back of your head and it's just you're there, kind of living in the moment. But you see, you got something, you're not getting a true reset.
Speaker 1:The funny part is like Jaco has it, as far as I think, if, if he would say this, which I don't think he does say it. But the discipline equals freedom part is like set your day up, fucking get after it, and then have some things that you want to do. What are things that you enjoy doing? You don't hang out with your family with no distractions. You want to, you want to go outside, you want to read, you want to write, you want to whatever it is you know. And then on the flip side, you have these fucking Tik Tok guys that are like everybody thinks. You know 40 hours in a work week. My Monday I get up six to two, one day, two to 10, day two, 10 to what are day three. I just did three days in one day and you're like what are you doing? That's not how life works. No, you going to do that seven days a week or what well like, what's your end goal there?
Speaker 2:It just it works until your body hits a brick wall. I think if I just wear 24 hours a day.
Speaker 1:There's another guy, there's another hot take going around on Tik Tok right now, where he goes whenever, whenever I feel like I'm kind of being lazy, I just think back to you know, like like ancient Egypt and the slaves, and every hour they were awake they worked. You're like, yeah, that must have really fucking sucked, and he goes. If they can do it, I can do it. You're like what?
Speaker 2:That's a, that is there's, there's, there's connecting dots, and then there's just, you're like well, even if even if why?
Speaker 1:why?
Speaker 2:These guys are just it's getting out of control and it's it's dude it's.
Speaker 1:It's so out of control. Now, though, that there is, there's an entire comedic response to it which is good. That's the natural order of things. So, but those, those guys are comfortable. You can't tell me that you're living like outside of your comfort zone. You just I don't even know if they're doing the shit that they say they're doing, All right.
Speaker 2:We're going to have to do it. We're going to have to do a deep dive on these.
Speaker 1:So question your beliefs, Get outside. That's that's what I'm looking at.
Speaker 2:Get outside.
Speaker 1:Just get outside.
Speaker 2:What are they going to do outside, though? Like a picnic, go for a hike, skiing, biking, it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 1:Just evidence says going outside for a period of time, 90 minutes a week.
Speaker 2:Vitamin D is important. Man, Uh, just yeah, and you can't. You can't get it with Sunny D, you got to get it with oh, I love Sunny D. Oh God, you don't like Sunny D. Do you get drunk on it?
Speaker 1:How.
Speaker 2:Mix it with vodka.
Speaker 1:All right, ready for one more? I got a hot take.
Speaker 2:Okay, no, I no. I may think I'm ready for your hot takes. Oh, I gave all my hot takes last time.
Speaker 1:I've been thinking about this and then I just looked it up and apparently somebody else has been thinking about it as well the and this went back a little bit farther than what I thought. So when I was in grade school and fifth grade, and that maybe this was just the timeframe when they started introducing this to students you know, like fifth grade is a good time to introduce this topic in science and we started talking about reduce, reuse, recycle, and we had the laser discs, the record DVDs, the record size DVDs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember watching the precursor to CDs.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes. Well, laser discs are the precursor to CD-ROMs or just the CD-SR, but the video they had video on them Laser discs dude.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this reduce, reuse, recycle. And we went, you know, all the way through that and it was reduce, reuse, then recycle. So the point being, try to reduce your consumption, try to bring in less shit. That's going to be garbage. Reuse whatever shit you do bring in that you can keep and just maintain, right. So you get a jar of I mean you got to look at our grandparents, or yeah, I mean really our grandparents you go down in the basement, oh there's fucking 300 pickle jars full of screws down here. That was the reuse. So they would save everything and use them for a container or to whatever. And then the recycle was okay, anything that you can't, that you can't not buy or you can't reuse, we're going to try to recycle. And that was that seemed like a great program. And then somewhere along the line, it just turned into recycle and we don't. We don't really reuse anything and we certainly have not reduced anything. And now we all recycle and you think that's a great.
Speaker 1:That's a great thing right, because there's 65 some percent of adults in the US like they have recycling bins, like they recycle on a regular basis. Right, so that's great.
Speaker 2:But I don't have recycling here, you don't? We're a private drive and they won't pay. The homeowner's association won't pay for it.
Speaker 1:Well, let me tell you what you're not missing out on. Okay, and this is specifically in terms of plastic. So, growing up, did you guys get to drink pop at home?
Speaker 1:It's sort of so, like when my mom grew up, that was a super special treat. When my dad grew up, they had one of the coolers in the auto shop, so the slide top coolers, and then they would have the Pepsi guy bring bottled. You know Pepsi, you'd not do whatever, and so they had it on a regular basis. But you'd have the tray, you'd have like a 24 tray, and when you were done you would rinse it out and you put it back in the wood, the wooden tray, and Then the next time the guy brought your delivery he would take all your glass bottles and they go back, they get washed, they get refilled, kept and Sit them all over again. So that's, that's kind of what we Like. That's what I grew up the milk man.
Speaker 1:And even when I was in Like junior high, like around here, high V still did that. So you could buy the case like a plastic case of glass Pepsi, and then you just walk it into the back and they give you your basically your money back for the bottles, like the deposit, donation whatever, and Then you go buy another one and then you go bring it back right. So to me that seemed more like the reduced reuse recycle type program now, we have now everything is plastic.
Speaker 1:Fucking Stanley. Yeah, we're gonna get to that. So now everything is plastic and the problem with plastic is only about six ish percent of plastics that go into recycling Actually get recycled. So in terms of recycling paper products, cardboard, things like that, yeah that's great. All of that goes to post consumer. You know remaking things, awesome plastic. There's Nine different types of recyclable plastic. Most recycling centers don't recycle the majority of that. There's so many limitations on if it's dirty, if it's got stuff on it.
Speaker 2:I'm just looking at the efficacy rates of recycling plastic. Oh, it's, the best out of all of them is polyethylene. Terror terror, follite, terror flight, pet, basically PET people 15% efficacy rate.
Speaker 1:That's the highest.
Speaker 2:That's the highest, yeah. So you think about that, everyone. You put your plastic and you're feeling good about what you're doing for the world. You put your plastic and Dude. Recycling bins are massive, by the way, like in most communities, like they're the bigger of the like recycling and trash can recycle. It's big because you don't break down that we have to, yeah, and you think about that bin size and you go okay, 15% of that is going to actually get recycled, the rest of it's going to a landfill, to so if you have a 65 gallon Recycling container and you it's full and you open the lid, the stuff you see on the top gets recycled.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, that's it.
Speaker 2:The other part is is okay, so we've done our job of, and listen, we're not advocating don't recycle. We're just advocating maybe hot take, I am. Emphasize the first two, for it's that oh right reduce reuse yeah, reduce reuse yeah it's a three-part process. People forget that it's a three-part process.
Speaker 1:That's. That was part of the deal.
Speaker 2:The other hot take is that but do you know how much fuel we expend gasoline oil To melt the plastic down to where it needs to be, to recycle it. Well, that's we are. It's the main problem is the plastic for a 450, just go in bonkers.
Speaker 1:We. The problem is the plastic, and the reason that is a problem is because it costs companies nothing to make it, mm-hmm. So talk about bottles. Yeah, for instance, it costs nothing to make it and it also costs next to nothing to make their actual fucking product. And then you're buying plastic bottles for two to three dollars and they keep making them, and they keep making them, and they keep making them, and they make a shitload of money on it. And then, and what do they push? Recycle and what? Why do they push recycle?
Speaker 2:It does. It's a good feeling. It makes you feel good. It goes back to our last hot takes on caring, but I care about the environment.
Speaker 1:Well, if you care about the environment, you start with the first two yes, you do, because they want you to feel good about buying 30 packs of bottled water. They don't want you to feel like probably shouldn't do this because it's so much plastic it's not gonna get recycled, just gonna go into a landfill. Oh, and I have a fucking tap that I can just drink the water out of and I could probably put it in my reusable Stanley mug, which I have 50 fucking colors of.
Speaker 2:This is getting out of control. The idea of the Stanley or any, I mean, I'll even go as far as yeti and the rest of them one, one, you need one.
Speaker 2:But when you start getting every, they're designed to be. They're designed to be used forever. They build them that strong for a reason. And now you've taken these items and you're making them collectors and it's. It's gonna be trendy for how long? And then you're just gonna toss them and you think those are gonna break down. You think those are gonna be reused. You think those are gonna be recycled.
Speaker 1:No, I don't see a recycling thing on this bottom yeah.
Speaker 2:It's not.
Speaker 1:It's not a good look it's dishwasher safe, though that's good.
Speaker 2:I would hope it's dishwasher safe putting hot coffee and other things in it yeti.
Speaker 1:Designed in Texas. Made in China.
Speaker 2:That's what Apple. Apple has that on their phones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it'll make you feel Texas.
Speaker 2:It'll they say. They say designed, designed in California.
Speaker 1:Yeah maybe so in China, I don't this assembled in China. This all leads to Something I used to think about when I when I was probably not old enough to be thinking about it was like we need to go back to. We need to go back, like in time, farther in terms of how we use things right.
Speaker 2:So, as the pendulum swings, are we making our old butter again? Please tell me we're gonna have a butter, but a turner good nice.
Speaker 1:So as the pendulum swings, we get better and better Morally right. As the pendulum of time swings there, it obviously goes back and forth, but the general direction is forward. Right Now we're in a situation where can we overcome our consumerism to keep moving forward, and a long time ago my thought was, oh, we got to go back to like smaller communities and less shit, like there's so many people. You're like, yeah, but you got to keep up the production, to keep up with so many people. It's like the production of what, though?
Speaker 1:we're producing so much shit if you go back to local farmers Growing real food and then local communities buying that food instead of it being shipped from California or Mexico. Like Does that cover all your bases? No, can it cover a large chunk of them? Yeah they can, it can be done. Okay, so you know you can. Yeah, avocado You're not gonna get avocado.
Speaker 2:No, I just yeah, we that ship sailed. We're never going back, mmm, but we could you. You're talking some Machiavellian. Yeah, I'm talking new cataclysm, nuke some people and be like oh oops, sorry restart, but I have a hard time seeing the, the upside of continuing the way that we are, and the.
Speaker 1:I think the hope is that, you know, someone like an Elon Musk comes by and just here's it through technology. Technology has brought us so far that now it has to take us the rest of the way.
Speaker 2:Well, what's happened is is, sumerism is, and you know you talk about the big machine. But with the big machine comes scaling, it gets bigger, it gets cheaper to produce items. So what we've done is we've More people in the world have the ability To have access to basic needs, and they ever have that's true, but our population has also grown Exponentially the world's the world's dropping in the last hundred years.
Speaker 1:Yeah the world has grown exponentially it has.
Speaker 2:But we're on the way down. We're not growing that fast anymore. We're losing people To a point where China's actually kind of like oh shit, we got to reproduce Russia's in that mode. Right now, hot take there's. They could have had a lot more kids.
Speaker 2:This is the fun part when you this is the fun part of economics is you these things called externalities? When you make a policy, there's always something that you didn't know was gonna come. Yeah, yeah, this is good. We have an overpopulation problem right now, but we didn't realize it was now going to completely flip it and turn it into the other issue.
Speaker 1:It's true. So, but just like use less or Use more of something that will actually last, like buy a Stanley Cup and then just buy one and use it for the next 10 fucking years, that's fine, that's good, that's what it's intended for from a furniture standpoint, like Don't buy shit that'll fall apart in two years, I think. Buy something quality.
Speaker 2:Well, that goes back to what we were just saying. People have the ability to buy low-cost items now, and why are items low-cost? Because they're not made to a certain standard.
Speaker 1:I Think the other thing is people don't know what they want. There's that to look at it in terms of home goods.
Speaker 2:Like the store.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, just yeah, yeah, but just in general, people and and I could be guilty of this but instead of buying just staple products, like I remember my grandma telling me when you graduated high school, you got a bedroom set. It's what you did. You're an adult now, you get a bedroom set, and then they just fucking kept that bedroom set until who knows when. She still had it. I took it when I was like 30 something right, my god so like that's just what they did, and you didn't really change much.
Speaker 2:You got something good and and it just lasted it was expensive, though it was a, it was a chunk. It was a chunk. Yeah, and that's the difference. Is now you can. You go off the, you graduate high school, you go to college, you get the hundred and twenty dollar futon from Walmart, you get the MFD Dresser and then, yeah, Mdfs are medium density fiberboard. Yes, sorry, I'm thinking of yes.
Speaker 1:But yeah, and then it, you step on it and it's like, oh, that fucking broke.
Speaker 2:Mfd is a multifunctional device that comes from my world. That's also a futon. Mm-hmm multifunctional device.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that, but it's so easy to change. Oh, I got a new design. I'm gonna get rid of all this stuff and I'm gonna get all this stuff. Mm-hmm instead of just Gettle, get a leather couch that doesn't go out of style and that's the fucking 20 years.
Speaker 2:That's the thing is the classics will always be the classics. You can and I think the easiest analogy of this is look at somebody's wedding photos. The hair might be there, but if somebody is wearing the traditional white dress and the traditional tuxedo it never looks bad. But then you get. But then you get the weddings. You're like oh, pink was really big at this time. Or this was.
Speaker 1:You know, you can see but you're right, the hair really is the thing that's. The hairs is gonna be that.
Speaker 2:That's always that's the generational thing, but there are definitely outfits You're like yeah, I would a hundred percent wear that now or I would have. You know, it's never gone out of style and that's the point where it's means like the trend is fun, but it's James, yeah, like yeah just rolled up jeans, white t-shirt, jeans and a shirt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, classic, it's like some Paul Newman shit, it's fine.
Speaker 2:Go after the classics. I, yeah, that's not bad.
Speaker 1:Actually, little thing to leave with Stay classic but also you can do on a small scale, like you can do all of those things, like you could have a Local manufacturer of jeans and you just buy from him. You have a local furniture manufacturer and buy from them. You have a local.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, I know what you're saying, but the economy the economist and me said Globalization is good for the world. Because when you start doing that, brad, then you're gonna really start segregating and then you're gonna have way more losers than winners, because they're gonna be economies that aren't gonna be able to do it and then they're not gonna have the outside. You know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but can we do both?
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:Can we mix them? Because, on one hand, you need low-cost items for people that have a low-cost budget and on the flip side of that is, you know, is there a way that we could?
Speaker 2:figure out how. I'm just saying, if you go to Anyone that shops at Walmart regularly, because they have to shop at Walmart and it's not, it's not a the negative thing, it's just my budget dictates I need to go the lowest cost item. Take all those people and now you've priced them out of the market. When you take it all local, there's not I mean, there's not enough. There's not enough industry to sell because there's not enough natural resources in every area. Everyone have a job.
Speaker 2:You got a global eyes. There's that, but there are there's ethical ways to globalize.
Speaker 1:By the way, there is also Something to be said, for I've talked about it for by a pair of work boots across hundred dollars.
Speaker 2:They last me a year.
Speaker 1:About a pair for $300 and they last me five years. Is there something to be said for that? There is and that's, and can I can I be responsible enough to save money over time so that I know that I have the $300 and five years when I need a new pair, or it's easier for me to get a hold of a hundred dollars?
Speaker 2:Every by this pair every year.
Speaker 1:Yeah you know. So I think there's I.
Speaker 2:Agree. I and I'll go back to my statement is I don't think we have enough financial education at a young age.
Speaker 2:Zero, exactly, and that's zero and me, coming from a finance background, like my first passion life is financing economics. That's what I did in college and what I wanted to do after, and I'd still, you know, read on it for fun. And I didn't. I did underwater basket, but, dude, you get out of college, you get out of high school and you're going to college and you have no concept of money. I mean 80% of the people in this country.
Speaker 1:They're my concept was I need some more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hey mom dad, it's more, hey mom dad. So I think I'm going to work. A lot of these items and consumerism in general Could be solved. You know the abundance, the, the problem of abundance with consumerism could be solved if you started teaching Financial knowledge. And then also the implications of your choices are going to be long-lasting, or you know they're gonna stick around for a while.
Speaker 1:So that's indoctrination. I.
Speaker 2:Had to go to church. Man, I'm sorry, don't kill babies can't say that I know doctor nation. But hot take, reduce reuse reduce, reuse.
Speaker 1:Get outside get outside, use less plastic.
Speaker 2:Don't follow tick-tock advice. Don't follow tick-tock advice.
Speaker 1:Don't buy something from the store that you're gonna open up and then throw away when you get home. Don't do that. You know what I'm talking about. Mm-hmm, you don't know what I'm talking about. No, you know. It's gonna come up in a couple months here. What Easter bunnies.
Speaker 2:What Bunnies no, you don't throw those away, we'll get home from the store.
Speaker 1:Huh, no, oh toys from China Like, oh, I'm gonna put this in his basket and he's gonna look at it and then he's gonna throw it away. What was the purpose of that?
Speaker 2:I'm a little like plastic anything.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, yeah, that too. Yeah, just Don't do that stuff.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Get him an experience. What? Do you outside.
Speaker 2:Eat your egg hunt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do that, yeah, with real eggs from bunnies.
Speaker 2:Think about it, think about it.
Speaker 1:You're still here. It's over go home. Go.