70. You Output What You Input

We spend a lot of time thinking about what we make, and not enough thinking about what we take in. What we listen to, what we read, what we let interrupt us, what we hand our attention to without really deciding to — all of it shapes the output, whether we're conscious of it or not. This episode starts there.

From that we get into the systems designed to keep you feeding them — platforms, algorithms, companies that started with a mission and ended with an optimization — and what it actually costs to let those systems run in the background of your life unchecked. We're not against technology. We use it, depend on it, sometimes love it. But there's a difference between using a tool and being used by one.

The thing we keep coming back to is friction. Not difficulty for its own sake, but the kind of slowdown that forces a real relationship with the thing you're doing. When you build something, fix something, choose something deliberately, you feel responsible for it. That responsibility is where the good stuff lives. What you put in dictates what comes out — and most of us aren't being honest about what we're putting in. -Ai

Transcript

Aesthetic Living And Curated Objects

SPEAKER_00 0:00

It'd be in a golden afternoon. And I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with someone else.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

And we've talked about this a lot on the show, but the aesthetic experience. Yeah. Just like what kind of experience do you want to have in your life? Yes. And you know, we uh we talked about it before, kind of like it's not really a hedonistic thing, but it's like uh there's like more of a I think it's just the quality, like the food that you eat, the water that you drink, the people that you you share energy with, the objects that you interact with, the things that you listen to, the things you read, the things you watch, the things you consume, um, obviously all influence the thing like the food you eat and the water you drink influences you know what your body's made up of. You know, the same goes for the mind and the soul and your environment. And I think environment is really important. Like tonight, for instance, we turn this light on. Yeah, right. We just weren't feeling it. Yeah, it just wasn't the vibe, too bright, it wasn't the mood, and so we were like, yeah, we're just gonna sacrifice some of the quality on the cameras. Yeah, because this feels better. These cameras actually have quality under some conditions, they're they're not terrible under certain under certain yeah, certain standards. Um, but yeah, I've just been thinking about that a lot, and just I'm so appreciative. Like, I really feel like I have a lot of really curated things. Like, there's nothing that I interact with on a day-to-day basis where I'm like, ugh, yeah, I don't like this. I it just everything, and it does that doesn't mean expensive, yeah. It just means luxury, it just means thoughtful or like of the world. Like just I can look at it and I can be like, wow. I get joy from looking at that thing that I appreciate that. And I think you know, we live in a world where things are just everywhere, and obviously we you know we consume a lot of things, and there's also just a lot of stuff that's needed, unfortunately. Yeah, that needed to kind of get and it's like I think you should at least surround yourself with, and this goes for all things, it goes for people, it goes for what you're listening to, what you're reading, what you're surround yourself with things of quality. Um I mean, obviously you want things that you like, but yeah. Yeah, what like what are your thoughts on that? Am I just rambling? I'm kind of not at all whiskyed up.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

No, no, not at all.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

I mean, I I feel that. Uh I sent you a couple of texts about it earlier this week, so I was like kicking around with it. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

Yeah, I mean, I you know, I I my experience is a little bit different just because I'm sort of uh buried in stuff right now between reselling and putting stuff in Josh's shop and um all of that stuff that I'm doing.

Estate Sales As A Window Into Taste

SPEAKER_01 3:07

So I think I we're doing an episode from the shop one of these days. That would be cool. We mentioned we just gotta get Josh on an episode. Yeah. No, that'd be cool. I think that would be sweet. We'll have eggs out of the sandwiches and good call.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

Yeah. Uh but I'll just get like slightly stoned and the thought the thought I had when you said that was, you know, I you know, I go to a lot of estate sales and you know, whether it's previewing the um photos of the estate sale, or when you first walk in, if you didn't really look at all the photos ahead of time to get a sense of like who this person was, what they liked or didn't like. Um, I was on a pick the last couple days with multiple visits to this house where this gentleman um had passed away. But there was a strong dichotomy between sort of things that were just kind of cheap and simple, but then some really like is this the designer? Yeah, yeah, some like high-end stuff, and not not like Rolex and luxury brands, but like you know, higher quality stuff.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

I love I love designers. I know they have such a good eye for this stuff, or like this, like typically you go to a designer's home and there is like an elevated, they appreciate everything that's around them because they're taking inspiration from it.

SPEAKER_02 4:33

And with this, you could see that there were like quality aspirations, but a struggle with doing things in a more frugal way. You could tell where the splurges were. Uh, for example, uh he had uh I think a 1986 Porsche 911 Carrera in his garage with like 53,000 miles on it. It's already gone. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Um I say like I'm like prepared to buy this.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

Well, I mean, you know, the kid that bought it paid 30 grand for it. Oh but the Porsche dealership said it needed about$50,000 in work. Take that with a grain of salt because they're you know, it's a conflict of interest to say what something needs when you're hoping to be the one to do the work. Um and you know, there were higher quality stereo equipment, uh, you know, there were certain things where you could tell there was some splurging that went on and a real appreciation. You had a crazy home theater setup, uh, you know, big speakers and a high-end uh receiver and like the nicest Sony flat screen TV. Uh and obviously this stuff wasn't like crazy high-level, you know, items, but you know, he cared about and he spent some money on it. Uh, and then there were like teak furniture, um, beautiful mid-century entertainment um shelving unit in one of the um bedrooms that was like a TV and entertainment room. Uh so yeah, it was sort of like it was refreshing to walk in and be like, okay, there's a real shot at finding some quality pieces here. Whereas a lot of the estate sales you go to, there's usually some area where there's higher quality. It might be power tools, you know, if the person was a craftsman or a mechanic or whatever, you know, snap on whatever their profession was is usually usually the thing that they spent the bulk of their life doing is you got a good shot at finding some decent items there.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

And then the rest is do you think that that's de decaying now as everything is just kind of more digital? Like I mean, I that's uh just a thought I had.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

Not just that it's digital, but that you know, uh maybe maybe more people don't have the kind of free or extra revenue to invest in higher quality pieces. So you're gonna go to estate sales in 30, 40 years and you're gonna look through IKEA furniture. Yeah and not dogging on IKEA. I have IKEA stuff, but it's usually, you know, uh reserved for a little accent table, something for the kids' room uh in a home where people actually have some money to spend on high quality items. The other thing is it's a lot harder to find high quality items. You could go to Nebraska Furniture Martin spend fifteen hundred dollars on a dresser and it's made out of particle board, but it's like really sturdy particle board. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Um so so well, I mean, I I think about like with the camper when we got the camper, like certainly not quality. Yeah, certainly not. Yeah. You're kind of buying it with the expectation that and it'll probably last for a long time, and there's artificial materials in there that I'm sure are pretty resilient, more resilient than they look. But yeah, you look at like some of these airstreams or something, and you're like, Jesus Christ, this thing is made to withstand the apocalypse. It is the Rolex, it is the Bell Bell Southern, it is the you know, made to do the work. And yeah, we just strayed from that. And I mean maybe not, maybe it's just maybe it's just shifted.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

Yeah, well, and you can make an argument like with the phone you showed me. You know, I don't know. You have to give full context, yeah. It's not gonna be Alex has like a really cool 1970s touch tone phone. Um and the body of it is higher quality materials in comparison to the 80s touch tone phone that I have at Josh's shop that's made out of plastic. It has a metal base, but it's made out of plastic. Someone who used a phone from the 1920s or 1930s might go, Well, this was made out of wood and all the fixtures were metal and they were made by hand or this type of machine. This is a huge disappointment in comparison to that. Whereas we look at it as high quality because what we use was plastic or you know, whatever. So I think, you know, uh anytime that you're you know, you have a corporation that makes something, the first things that they might make under the vision of that founder or whatever might be all about their ethos and their uh appreciation for high quality materials and aesthetics and all that. And then as things carry on, move on, yeah, you know, it's how do we, you know, save a nickel here? How do we, you know, do you know, cut corners, how do we race to zero um and have those those quality issues? And there's some companies that don't succumb to that, but um, you know, most most seem like they do. Yeah um I'm sure there's arguments, whether it's Rolex or I mean, even with like um Rolls-Royce being owned by whatever new parent company owns them, you know, I'm sure they found ways to cut costs. Uh, you know, Lamborghini got bought by Audi and whatever conglomerate bottom. So when you repair a Lamborghini, there's parts in there that like say Volkswagen on them, you know, because it was a rubber tube or whatever that went through the whole line of cars, obviously different configuration, but you know, so so there's that kind of stuff too. Whereas, you know, original Lamborghini parts were made by hand, or you know, it's that company oversaw the fabrication process and you know, all that stuff.

SPEAKER_04 10:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:38

So it's it's it's bound to happen.

When Quality Slips Into Cheapness

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Um I I almost like I don't I I want to get back because you were talking about the the gentleman's house and like the quality of things and how you can kind of pick apart. I almost see this. So this is something I've been thinking about with like AI or whatever you want to call it, um, as it's like progressing. It really puts a re it re-emphasizes like the physical experience. Yeah, like it really starts to when you when you take it to a second order effect or you start to think about it, it takes it to a place where you start to think about like what what's the point? Like, what are we here for? Well, we're the ones that are living the experience. We're the one so we dictate what the experience gets to be, and we get really we get really attracted and really you know taken by stories about like oh this like we're gonna exist in this world and it's gonna be digital and da da da. And there's a lot of really good things digital can provide, but I think we're starting to kind of be like, oh, physical is good too, more and more as a on a cultural level, like it's always been a niche thing. And like we have like the shop, like the shop, we see the customers, obviously, they're very oriented towards a physical experience, but I just think it's something that when you were reading your card, it said um it's something that is felt, but maybe not thought. I kind of think of this as the same, it's a good description for this. It's like, yeah, we need a more like physical experience is kind of what we're here for. Yeah. Period. Like what it like life is not worth living without that. Well so you either emphasize that or you stop living.

AI Makes The Physical Matter More

SPEAKER_02 12:26

You know, when I um and this will relate to your point, um, when I go on these picks and you get a chance, and especially this last one, you know, this is a gentleman, I think his name was Sheldon, and um you spend time in their home. I mean, I've probably spent close to four hours in the the home going through and finding these items that have value to me, whether it was something I kept or something that I could put in Josh's shop or resell or whatever. And, you know, I'm kind of a you know, I'm trying to spin a story, like who was this person? What do they care about? You know, I I've even, with permission of the owners in some instances, taken photographs of things sort of as they are, whether the estate sale company placed them or the person had left them that way. Which I'm super pumped that you've started doing that. Documenting that for a photo project. And, you know, you spend time in this person's home and you see the things that they kept, things that they maybe squirreled away to me, you know, uh not necessarily private, like it was lock and key or whatever, but just stuff that, you know, all of that, the books that they had, all this stuff. And the thing that was the most interesting to me, the contrast between how I, before I started getting back into vinyl records and all that, would listen to music in my home. Um there's a home pod mini in the kitchen. I just wanted jazz, and so you just tell it to play jazz essentials. You don't know who the artists are, you don't know what the song's called, you don't know anything. It just plays something. The short, the sh the shortcut to I think I want to listen to this, this device, I can I can tell it what to play, it'll play stuff, and there's no thought, effort, there's no um slowdown, there's no taking your time with it, there's no force connecting it. Nothing. Yeah. Sheldon, who could have easily gone to the store and just bought a receiver, didn't go that route. He purchased from a company that I had never heard of called Heathkit, H-E-A-T-H-K-I-T, where you built it all yourself. They literally sent you a box of parts that you could assemble into a stereo receiver. You have to solder the shit to the board, you have to hook up all the switches. Um, and even though there's I I you know, I you know, pretty detailed instructions, um you have to know how to do this stuff to make a stereo receiver work. Yeah. And this man, I believe, learned, you know, this is me thinking this, not knowing it, but you know, must have learned electronics assembly and principles and all that stuff. Um, as during his service in the war, I think he was a Korean War veteran, but he had soldering irons and electric charge testers and all this equipment and all this stuff. And I'm like, this is the complete opposite of my home pod mini experience. This guy wanted to build a stereo receiver himself instead of just going to the store and buying it.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

The super attractive thing about that, too, is if anything goes wrong, you're like, oh, I know how to fix it. I know how to fix it. And maybe you don't have access to the parts or something, but that's something I think we're losing. And maybe we'll find it, maybe we'll get it back. But just the ability to like understand the things that are in your life. Like if my iPhone breaks in a significant way, I've no fucking clue. No, like I have to, I'm completely relying. If if an app if there are no Apple stores, then I'm done. I'm toast. There's nothing. There's no let me open this up and take a look. Let no. And so I there's something really nice about like understanding how the things work. Now, given like the typewriter from the 70s, right? If that thing broke, I could probably identify the problem. There's no chance I'm gonna be able to fix it. No, you know, uh so that given. But there is something nice about just kind of knowing the basics. Like most things I feel like too are built with most of the components that fail are gonna be the components that you can figure out, like you can wrap your mind around what's failing in them, right? And maybe, maybe fix it. Like if your record player fails, yeah, it's probably the belt, right? Yep. So you'll replace the belt and you're good to go.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

And on a lot of the stuff I've acquired, you know, a cassette player, I've taken it apart and put new belts on it, put it back together, and you know, it's um it's a little hit of um of uh pride that you can stand back and look at this thing. And so every time Sheldon listened to his records, you know, even if he's conscious of it, consciously thinking of it or not, that there is this positive something that's occurring because you feel responsible for your ability to listen to music. With the home pod, by contrast, hey S, play jazz essentials on shuffle.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Yeah, yeah. And I don't know, you know, it it's just very low effort, low thought, low, low, low everything. You're not like developing your taste. I mean, maybe you're developing your taste on like what you're hearing, yeah, but you're not like you're not carrying that forward. You're not like, oh, this is so and so, and I want to tell so and so about this person or this artist and this album.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

And and I think with the projects you've accomplished this week around your studio. Silly yes, yeah, yeah. You know, I I'm like stoked that you're excited to share with me when I get here what you've done. And then I'm also then impressed by it because some of them are pretty intricate as far as Python scripts and coding and little stuff that you did with assistance, of course, but you know, something that like kind of like the typewriter to me. Yeah, I'm like, that'd be like you showing me how you repaired a typewriter. I'm like, I I have no yeah, I'd have no idea what you're talking about or what this is.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

There's something really like I I mean, I I've talked about it a hundred times. There's a reason we do the podcast here. Like this is like my this is like my sacred space. Yeah. And I just love everything. I like I I sat here the other day and I just like looked around. I was like, man, I fucking love everything. Like everything in here has been really carefully selected. Yeah, I had the realization the other day too that we've we've been here for a long time. Yeah. And I started thinking back about like when I came to Omaha, I had like a car. Right. Like I had a but legitimately, I had a cobalt full of stuff. Yeah. Like that was everything. Right. And like now, everything in here has just kind of been like slowly accumulated. And I mean it goes to show like how much you can I I don't know. I'm just I'm very, yeah, very grateful for it. And um just like how curated the the things are, and yeah, I just I don't know. I just there's a real value to just like figure out what you like and just like not there is there can be like a consumer side to that, but it's like I don't mean that. I mean just like start to explore your taste and like ask yourself genuinely, do I like this or do I not like this? Why do I like this? Not what do people think if I like this? Right, what is so-and-so's reaction if I like this? Like Matt'll show me stuff and he's like, I like this, and I'm like, Oh, that's sweet, and it's sweet because he likes it. And like, I'll show Matt stuff and he's like, Oh, that's cool. And it's cool because it's like a genuine experience, it's an exchange of like I enjoy this. Here's my excitement. Have some of my excitement for this item or this, you know, idea, or this thing. And there's not a lot of excitement to just be like, oh, we both have this thing that we agree about completely, and like here's this, yeah. You know, everything's been done for us, and it wasn't even ours originally. It was we got it from you know, scrolling or something, and right, that's it.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

So yeah, I mean or or you know, the ex the the seeing what your peers or what culture in general is interested in, you know, you can be like, oh well, everybody has these three types of carhart jackets, so I like them too because it'll allow me to sort of fit in with that group of people. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

Um, where versus what's the who's the photographer that we I apologize, I don't remember his name, but I've only met him that one, I guess, the one time. The one we saw tonight who bought the jacket. Oh, Kevin, yeah. Kevin. I was like, man, that's a cool jacket. Yeah, like, but it's not cool, like I wouldn't wear it. Right, no, yeah. I wouldn't wear it. It's just not my taste, but I was like, that's cool. Yeah, and he was pumped about it, and he was like looking at it, and I was like, I was just sitting there and I was like, I was observing, and I was like, this is sweet. Like, you're gonna love that. I hope you really like that. Yeah, and it's cool observing the experience of you. Are we about to get popcorn? This is the best day of my life. Holy shit.

Build It Yourself Versus Tap To Play

SPEAKER_02 21:56

Oh boy, get ready for some crunching here. Thank you. Snacks. Smacking to snacks. Yeah, buddy.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

I'm gonna have a little bit more of this Johnny Walker. I'm gonna be like floating by the end of this, just happy on popcorn.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

We're gonna have to explain why I'm so happy at some point, but you better uh we better wrap up the aesthetic.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

We're yeah, 25. Dang, already? Um that is the wild or the uh Eagle Rare. Yeah, Eagle Rare. Okay. I had the Johnny Walker green, but it was too Petey. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Matt's not a hooky fan. Hey, cheers, brother. Yeah, buddy. To New Beginnings. Yum, that's good. Alright. Excuse our crunching, but yeah. Um yeah, I don't know. Just watching somebody be enthusiastic about something. It's the best. Yeah, that's amazing. Um, so do we feel like we have? I mean, we haven't said really or done anything, but we can move on if we if we feel inclined to.

Control Your Environment And Attention

SPEAKER_02 23:13

Well, you know, made the point about Sheldon and talk about the dude building his receiver. I just don't know if um we've sufficiently wrapped up that topic. I'm not saying that I don't think we have. I just want to make sure that if we're gonna draw that to a close, that we feel like we've not solved it, but just kind of touched on it enough to give some kind of interesting or pleasant tie-off.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Yeah. I don't know. I mean, what Matt was talking about, like in the last week, I've I've done several little changes to the studio. So I'm trying to this is a bit extreme and not for everybody.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

It's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

I mean um, I mean, but it's definitely like extreme.

SPEAKER_02 23:57

Like, I think the phone, I don't I think the phone is is an extreme. I don't think it's extreme, the green light, but yeah, I think it's a really it's it makes sense for your situation.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

Yeah, yeah. I mean, what I essentially what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to create I think like the best creative environment we've ever had was probably like 1940 to like 1995. I don't I don't know. That's a complete obviously there's like unbelievable works that came with just like handwriting and but just in my like you had the ability to call somebody on the other side of the you know, oh I need to call somebody up. You could do that, yeah. Um I mean I guess even in the other side of the world to an extent, maybe not completely, yeah, definitely not easily. Um, and I'm not saying like look, the best time to be alive is right now. I don't think like if I get a cut, I'm not gonna die. Like, that's a good thing. Like, there's a lot of like the we we live in a very good period in terms of what we have access to, and like there's also just a lot of things that are like fighting for our attention. There's a lot of things that we don't understand. There's always these things, but I think the best thing is to kind of and this is just my just my thinking on the whole thing, and like obviously I'm just one person, it's just kind of my experience. Um but I think things that fight for your attention and like force you to interact with them are kind of I just I I mean they're just not I don't want to say they're not the bet they're just not useful, they're not I don't I don't know how to phrase it, but essentially the idea is like I want my environment to be as I I want to control my environment. Yes, I guess if I had to put it like I don't want my environment to control me, right? I want to be the one that determines how I deploy my time because it's very limited. Deploy your attention and deploy my attention. And so anything that pulls from that is something that I'm like, I I'll check mark essentially. And I'm like, okay, I need to figure out how to turn this from something that is taking my attention to something that I can give my attention to and take it away whenever I want.

SPEAKER_02 26:35

Especially if that thing is designed that even if you just give it a breath of attention, it's gonna take more. It has the ability to seduce you into giving more and more, whether it's an algorithm, just the internet in general, yeah, um, all of that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

I mean, I've this is coming from a person who doesn't have social media. I've had a flip phone for like two years. Like I obviously I've taken it to more of an extreme than most people. And I'm not gonna get here and say, like, oh, you need to do this. Because it's just like every bit audit your own situation. Like there's plenty of people that are completely happy, and that would be just devastated if they try to do any of the stupid shit that I I do. But for me, like I'm like, what is the most important thing? And the most important thing is to me, the thing that I care about most is obviously like my family and my relationships, and then what I'm making. Yeah, what am I making? And I don't want other people to dictate what I'm making, and so I'm just trying to like anything that's getting in the way or interrupting that or trying to take that and kind of co-opt that, I'm trying to get rid of it. Yeah, or not get rid of it, but just control it. Like I love watching, you know, stuff on the TV, or you know, like listening to podcasts or like whatever. I I don't do social media. I found that what it gave the benefits it gave me weren't worth the trade-offs. Yeah. And so I got rid of it. I was like, okay, it's not I haven't seen any. It's honestly my uh, you know, I feel better about my life since doing that, but that's not for every everybody. And some people rely on it.

SPEAKER_02 28:38

But as a third-party observer of your life, there is nothing about your choice where I'm like, I have even a morsel of a thought. You really need to get on Instagram, yeah, you really need to have Facebook. Yeah. Um, you know, if I did have one thing, you know, very selfishly wish you were making YouTube videos because I enjoy them so much. But uh I actually am probably more of a place of envy. Like I sit there and go, how can I how can I get rid of these things? Or if I don't get rid of them, what can I do with some of the interesting things you've done with programming scripts and all of that stuff to have Instagram, but not like the the first second that like I'm waiting for something that I'm like, all right, get on there and yeah, just buzz through real quick. And sometimes it's to consume, sometimes it's you know, I'm doing research. I'm gonna see what's going on on the cultural zeitgeist, just be aware of stuff. I can my what I this guy went to this restaurant at Omaha that'll be helpful to Erin for her work. Um what's my friends doing picking up what's where yeah, yeah, yeah, all that stuff. Yeah. And even though that is arguably sort of a healthier consumption of social media, if there is such a thing, it's still time and attention being devoted to that rather than embracing boredom. Or, you know, if my kids are playing at the playground and I'm just standing there, well, go take some photos, go read a book. You know, like you could be doing other things than just the easiest thing you can do, which is you know, to have um media junk food.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

Yeah. Media junk food, it's a good way to put it. Like, and again, I I think like just audit your situation.

SPEAKER_02 30:48

And what that can mean is just don't turn off this podcast because this is this is this is part of social media, but this is good stuff.

Enshittification And Voting With Your Time

SPEAKER_01 30:55

Well, podcast is interesting, like it's the it's the one thing where you're not really renting an audience. I guess like you could technically like we own our feed, you know, we can take it wherever we want. Um obviously the hosting we're renting, but we're not renting the audience, like the audience is not, I guess the YouTube audience, which is an audience of ours, yeah, but like the podcast audience itself. 500 subs, which and the podcast audience itself, like 250, 250 a month. Like, that's not that's pretty good. We just gave our numbers like we're not doing like we're not doing this to we're not blowing up here. If anybody's listening and they're like, oh, that's not bad, or that's not that good. It's like, yeah, well, we just enjoy it. Like, we just enjoy doing it. Documentation of it, exactly. And like I think that's awesome. I hear that number and I'm like, holy shit, like that's crazy. That bit like that's a lot of people. Yeah, it is. That's a lot of fucking people. That's really cool to me. And um like we control that, yeah. Like we that's you know, that's not we're not renting that. And the YouTube, even like, you know, I I feel like it's pretty consistent, but I mean, yeah, that's my thing. It's just like don't rely on somebody else for your own, like one happiness and two just to survive. I don't think that's a good like I there's a lot of shit that I really don't love about the like quote unquote American spirit. But there if there's one thing that I'm like, we got right, it is that like don't rely on somebody else for your happiness. That was kind of the original idea, and like do like the rugged individualism thing gets a little overdone and it gets co-opted, but I think there is a nice thing, there's something good in there, and yeah, I mean these platforms are trying to take your attention, and I mean it's just it's obvious at this point, yeah. And it's a problem, and it's obvious at this point. Like, there, there it is clearly a problem at this point. I don't think it's like in 2020, it might have been kind of counter-culture to say, like, oh social media is hurting us, it's hurting our health. There's studies now that and I mean, yeah, it's like all there's studies for anything, sure. But there's I think there's data, there's more and more data. I mean, and the data are pretty clear, it's not good. Um and yeah, I mean, I you know, I think there's there's benefits, uh, but uh for me, I identified what I wanted to do and the things that mattered most to me, and then I use technology to your advantage. It's really good, it's really good stuff. Like, there's a ma like I'm not against technology, it's amazing. I think again, when I argue that this is the best time to be alive, like that's what I mean. It's amazing, but use it to you know figure out what you want your life to be and then start to think creatively about how can I what makes that? What makes that what gets me closer to that? And I mean, obviously the answer everybody would come up with when pose with that question is like, oh, if I just had like five million dollars. Yeah, like I don't disagree with that either, but like, okay, realistically though, what makes that? Like, what can you do for 30 bucks? Or what can you like learn that can or like do you have an idea of how can this be done? And I mean, yeah, AI is a great tool to be like, hey, I have this thought. Pick like let's explore this a little bit. Yeah, it's like having a yeah, really intelligent buddy that you can just like chop it up with and get ins and inspiration from.

SPEAKER_02 34:54

Yeah, and maybe take something to the next level.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

Yeah, yeah. So, anyways.

SPEAKER_02 34:59

Well, I think you know, we started the conversation talking about quality items, and companies tend to be you know, sure there's a profit incentive, but you know, there's sometimes in those early days there's a feeling of you know, mission-driven emphasis on quality, solving a problem, creating value, creating an experience, um caring about how it's built, the quality of materials, all these things, right? They get success. And then in some instances, other players come in and try to preserve that um the the the soul of what has been created, but let's do it with some cheaper shit. Let's let's start let's start paring things down here. Or they sort of realize, well, you know what we could do with this? Like, yeah, we have this thing, but we could we could tap into this other market with this thing as a as a conduit for that. And that that's very vague and and and not nailed down.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

And the point that I'm getting at is whether it's we can generalize the thing, whether it's get more whether it's social media um or let's say YouTube specifically.

SPEAKER_02 36:27

You know, a couple of guys go, how great would it be to decentralize uh a person's ability to get themselves in front of the public through, you know, basically a TV show or a traditional media outlet, broadcast, film, whatever. You have cameras, audio recording, like you can do whatever you want and put it on the internet, and and there's no gatekeepers for that, there's no whatever. And to me, that's a really exciting idea, especially back then. Like that's interesting. But what ends up happening is it turns into well, now we realize that this tool allows us to watch what everybody's doing on our platform. And when Google bought us, we can watch what they're doing on Google. If they're using Chrome, we can watch everything they're doing, and we can get more and more and more information on them to figure out how we can get them to both spend more time on our platform, buy the shit that's sponsored and advertisements and all that stuff, get revenue from they click on the link and it was our thing, and we get a portion of that. You know, it's it turns into this whole different thing. Like we're trying to build revenue, and this thing that we built to be the thing that we loved is now just a tool to get this other thing.

SPEAKER_01 38:05

And then you can turn to every company and be like, if you want to sell products, you have to use us. We have the best. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:12

You know, McDonald's when it first started. We started the colloquial as like uh in shidification. In shidification, yeah. You know, you you look at early McDonald's and the two guys, you know, and I know the movie is a Hollywood version of it, but you know, there's there's certainly broad strokes that are from what really happened. These two guys were just passionate. Just the founder, yeah, yeah, with Michael Keaton. These two guys are just passionate about efficiency and you know, creating these that you know, literally inventing um mechanical assemblies and different things to be able to solve a problem, which is when you go to a restaurant and you order a burger, it takes like 20 minutes to get it. Well, what if we did all this stuff? And the the scene is when Michael Keaton steps up to the window, he orders something, and then the kid hands it to him, and he's like, What just happened? And he's the person that goes, Well, I want to climb inside this and figure out what they're doing. And, you know, it's a cautionary tale on you know, giving up control of the thing that you built, and he comes in and starts figuring out how to maximize profit and skimp on quality or change the bun. And the guys are like, no, you know, you know what I mean, all that stuff. So I feel like that is just a thing that constantly happens, and that that cycle repeats itself. Um, and it ends up being, you know, sure, McDonald's is all over the world and and all this, but they have scientists that figure out what chemical elements need to be in there to trigger addiction. Um it's like the tobacco industry, yeah, all this stuff. And it's just kind of it's just such a bummer. And if you can find a company where you feel like for however long they've been around, they've stuck with that ethos. And I'm throwing out examples that may not necessarily be true, but I think of Leica, you think maybe of um, you know, some people might think of Apple, maybe you think of Harley Davidson, maybe you think of all of these. I'm like, you know, no, a hundred percent. No, you can you can you you somebody could go, yeah, somebody could go, and I'm saying sort of like at that that that first pass sort of brand positive, whatever. Like, I'm sure if you get into details, you're like, oh yeah, right, buddy, let's take a look at this company or that company. Um and then maybe newer companies like Liquid Death. I'm not trying to be lame or whatever, but I have a very positive feeling about this company.

SPEAKER_01 40:51

They like melted their their cans and there's like a bunch of plastic in there, though. Great. I mean, yeah, I'm not trying to know, but I mean, certainly there are some companies that like hold values above brand perception.

SPEAKER_04 41:11

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 41:12

And there are some companies that hold perception above values. And there's some that manipulate perception to avoid values. And I mean, yeah, I think we'd be in a better way, but the problem is there are plenty of companies without values or with very shoddy values that I depend on. And that we all depend on Amazon. Amazon is not a great company. No, they are a great company. They are not a they're not a morally excellent company. And maybe that's what like maybe to be a great company, like in like definition of what we see as a great company, you have to violate that, which is shitty in and of itself. Right. And it sounds like I'm just like, oh, you utopian whatever. Yeah. But Amazon is a company that we depend on. Like if Amazon, like I can be like, fuck Amazon. And then I'm like, oh, but I need this thing and I need it tomorrow. And so I'm gonna go to Amazon. And I don't want to go to six stores and not still not get it and be pissed. Yeah. And so Amazon solved the problem, and I'm like, okay, I use that. Yeah. Like what's another? Um, I'm just trying to think of like a company where I I use that like I don't know, ATT. Yeah, ATT fucking sucks. Yeah, I hate ATT. They sell your data, they don't give a shit. Google, like, like we use we all use these companies though. And you might be like, oh, I have team. Like, that's not the point. But the point is, like, we all use these companies. And like, usually the biggest companies have the opportunity to be the shittiest. And until we like fully embrace the idea of voting completely with our dollar in terms of quality and in terms of but that's the problem, too, is everybody has different values, right? And so we can sit here and our we're very niche podcast audience can be like, Yeah, I feel this way. But it's like at the end of the day, we're like what 200 people, 500 people, whatever. Like, we're very small. And so, I mean, the market speaks, the market is the market, and you can be like, Well, the markets are not, but it's like at the end of the day, like I I have friends who are complete, like like their ideology is like extreme socialist, and they're like ordering shit on Amazon, like they're ordering their books on Amazon. I'm like, Yeah, there's great, you're really you're really pushing against the system here. Like they're ordering, you know, the Amaz and it's I know it's a cliche thing, but it's like, yeah, you're ordering the Amazon and your iPhone and using your ATT internet and your fucking, you know, it's like okay. Yeah. Eating McDonald's. Yeah, eating McDonald's. So no, I mean we talk about Patagonia on this podcast a lot. Yeah. I think that's a problem. I'm sure they've got their problems too. Yeah.

Using Media Like Street Photography

SPEAKER_02 44:12

And so whether materials they source or the methods they use to construct their garments or garments or whatever. I mean, obviously, I think far heart. I don't know if anybody's batting a thousand, but but well, there's always gonna have to be sacrifices that are made that yeah, yeah. And you know, somebody could look at, oh, you want this telephone and you want that green light, but yeah, you order from Amazon. And not like there's some hypocrisy there, but there's certain areas where you know you care about slowing down, having friction, um, these types of things. But other areas you're like, oh yeah, just order it. Uber, you know, not that you use Uber Eats, but you know, you things like that. It's great though. Right. Like having food delivered to your door is amazing. Yep. Um and it's certainly a better option here, you know, and where where I live, it would take so long to get there that you would pay a premium for a complete loss of quality because it's cold and mushy from being steamed in the container and all that stuff. No good. Um car companies, you know, all all all this stuff. So you you yeah, you're you're trying to you're trying to you know, find the ones that are the the best out of those, even though again they're not perfect. But um but I really try to try to yeah, vote with a dollar and and going back to the social media stuff, you know, vote with your time and attention. Um Yeah. Even when I think, you know, and I don't know if you if your observation, not to start another thread, but your observation to me, I know we don't spend like hours and hours and hours together on a on a like like on a daily or bi-daily basis, but you know, like today I was I had to take some time on on my phone to post a few things to inst to Instagram stories about what I loaded into the shop. And someone in your position who doesn't use social media could be like I'm hungry, I want to go get some food.

SPEAKER_01 46:26

You're essentially working, yeah. Like that's how I see it. And I might, it's foreign to me. Right. Like I'm not like or I know what this is like. Yeah, because I don't. And you know, I might be inclined to see it a certain way, but I understand, like, oh, he's trying to make money to support like I'm not over here like it's online, like chronically. Right. Plus, like we do spend a good amount of time together, I feel like, and I never feel like you're I mean, yeah, we just by you know how close we've gotten, like obviously we've spent a lot of time like pretty engaged with each other.

SPEAKER_02 47:06

Um I feel like yeah, I'm fortunate enough to have grown up in the 90s and be someone whose majority of my formative years were pre-internet. Yeah. Um, I definitely give a little bit too much time to just like generic social media consumption in the morning. You know, maybe having coffee instead of if I'm not feeling like I want to look through a photo photography book or whatever, like sometimes I do just like flipping through Instagram. There there is a little bit of it, sort of like reading the morning paper, where I'm just like, I want to get a Snapchat of the Zeitgeist. What's going on today? You know, I told you earlier a famous person got arrested for DUI and crashed their vehicle, you know. Like, I don't need to know that. Um but there's there's something in my attempt to have a bird's eye view of the zeitgeist where I can kind of like I did with Sheldon's plays, like, how can I look at all these different ingredients and come up with a better understanding of who this person is and like how to navigate the situation or how to find the cooler stuff that might be in this cabinet back here, you know, whatever. I'll take a bird's eye view of social media because it helps me to help my wife find things that are valuable to what they're doing at work. Or like today with Kevin, you mentioned the the um the guy who bought the code. He mentioned that he's been shooting with the Nikon Z R. And I'm like, oh my buddy Brandon is like the guy on YouTube about that camera. He's like Brandon Talbot, like yeah, he's yeah, you know, I see him you know a couple times a year and all that stuff. So there's like a desire to be able to connect people with things that are interesting. I don't know. I I'm probably make sounding like No, I I get it. Like, like I feel like there's I I very rarely sort of catch myself with me. No, no, no, no. It's more about the point of like I'm trying to I'm trying to rack my brain to think of times when I'm sort of just like and I don't know. I don't know if other people when they're on social media feel like they're sort of brain rot, zombieified, just sort of like reflect it's like the the zombies in uh uh day of the dead or dawn of the dead.

SPEAKER_01 49:45

I think you like lose your context to classify things. Yeah, and once you're completely disconnected or able to kind of disconnect from the seriousness that people take these things, you're like, oh my god, this is ridiculous. Yeah, this is insane. Yeah, this is so dumb, this is silly, this is hyperbolic, this is just not worth any time. And that's impossible to see when you're caught up in like the fog of the war. Like, like that's a term, right? The fog of war. It's like when when you're in war, nothing can be trusted. Tunnel vision. But I think the job of like I strive to create art that is worth that it uh that I would think would deem worthy. Yeah. And that's the only that's the only metric I have. I can't get into somebody else's head and see if they so I strive to create things that I look at and I'm like, I think this is up to standard or my standard or whatever. And that's the only thing I can do. And that's you know, that's I want to do that. And I think that to do that, you kind of have to be able to see the world and that like everything is silly. And I think sometimes, I especially think in social media, it's just way too easy to be or like even just like reading the newspaper, like it's just it's way too easy. Like, and I can get like what I found even after being unplugged for a while, like I'll read news articles and things, things that would have used like the things that would have gotten a reaction out of me at one point or whatever. And I'm just like, oh, this is interesting. Like I told you the story about the tomato truck, like, and then once you I told it to you, I was like thinking about it, and I'm like, Oh, I can see I didn't mean anything by that other than like this is interesting, right? And that's like you you talk about like changing your vision of the world. That is like new to me, like that that has just clicked in like the last five or six months where I can just look at a general event and just be like, what is interesting to me? And I'm not taking it, I'm not taking like I'm not tr taking some kind of tribalistic stance on it, or I'm not taking some kind of like cultural stance on it, or trying to fit it into some grand narrative of the zeitgeist or whatever. I'm just like, well, that's interesting. Humans are weird. I want to explore that, like maybe, maybe that's a story, or maybe that's this. Yeah, that's what I'm going for. Like when I do all these little things and like have the stupid phones and try to get off the screens and stuff. Like, that's all I'm going for. I'm trying like because I tasted it and I'm like, fuck, I need more of that.

SPEAKER_02 52:15

Well, honestly, I feel like that's how do I push that?

SPEAKER_01 52:17

Like, how do I push that to 10? Like, that's where the good stuff's gonna come from. If I can get like if I can get this feeling to where I can literally walk out my door and everything I look at, all I'm doing is just able to mine in my vision or in my perception what is close to the objective version of that. I'm like, that's the value.

SPEAKER_02 52:36

And I think that's a really interesting point because and a great um elaboration on something I did not feel like I could articulate until you said that. But when we go out and do photography, we are out looking for something that's interesting. Could be drama, could be the way uh item is sitting on the sidewalk, it could be two cars uh being towed, you know, whatever, and Judge Judy on the Jumbotron in an empty courtyard, Sturgis 2000 on the and we just go, huh, that's interesting. Yeah. And I wonder if there's something in especially how I look at social media. Don't get me wrong, there are times where like I'll be working and I'll I'll just be like, I I don't want to be doing this right now.

SPEAKER_04 53:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:30

Or like I need a I need a break from the work of doing this work. Yeah. And I don't mean that in a negative way. I mean I'm the lame one that's like, oh, I don't want to, it's resistance. I don't want to push through this. When you're doing like line item 400, not even that. Not even that it's tedious. It's just like it's like I'm doing creative work, editing something, trying to figure out what music, and I'm just like, oh, I don't want to do this right now. Yeah. Like I wanna, you know, so it's not sort of street photography on my phone. The point, the, the, the, the main point being there's a the majority of the time where I'm consuming things, like a news article, YouTube, um, social media, like Instagram or a Facebook feed, I feel like it's kind of like that street photography feeling, which is I'm gonna go out on the world and observe. And then I'm gonna wait for things that are interesting to happen. And maybe I'll read that thing, or maybe I'll watch that video that shows up, or maybe I'll take that photograph, or go down that street, or you know, or buy that thing and put it in Josh's shop, or whatever it is. And it's almost like this un hijacked intake of things in a much more objective observational.

SPEAKER_01 54:53

And I agree, I agree with that. I just think you have to be really careful not to get caught in a bubble or an algorithm. Right.

SPEAKER_00 55:01

It had been a golden afternoon, and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summary science.