202. Red Meat for an Anxious Mind

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast. This week's challenge, read How to Do Nothing, Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny O'Dell.

Rabbit, rabbit.

MerlinRabbit, rabbit.

AlexRabbit, rabbit.

MerlinGood morning. I'm sorry I'm late.

AlexSorry, sorry I'm late.

MerlinNo, no, stop doing that. You're not the late sink.

AlexI mean, the USPS has the gall, the gall to knock on my door to get in.

MerlinOn your door?

AlexOn my door. Well, it's Doug's door.

MerlinOh. Are you still using Dougie's door?

AlexThe, well, and I say male person, not to be like a woke Karen, but because I think this is this is actually the first time i've ever encountered a male person at uh see it just sounds like you're saying male as in a man person anyway i have never seen what appeared to be an incredibly incredibly queer usps uh officer like you know the the the nose ring in in between i don't know what it's called purple hair uh yeah yeah yeah um i don't know what their pronouns are

but they definitely seemed like the kind of person who would beat me up if I did not look the way I did. And I mean that in a good way.

MerlinBecause you deserve it?

AlexBecause I, yeah, I really do. Someone needs to at some point.

MerlinWhy aren't more people hitting me?

AlexWhy? How come people only attack my car?

MerlinOh.

AlexOh, have I not told you the story? It's very sad. I'll tell it in the after show. All right.

MerlinIt's very upsetting. Giveusyourfuckingmoney.com.

AlexOh, visit giveusyourfuckingmoney.com. What you get there is the link to our Patreon. And what do you get if you subscribe to our Patreon? Well, you get the after show, which is where I ramble even more and talk about things I shouldn't. I don't know.

I'll never be able to pitch it.

MerlinWhat is it? It's not that fundamentally different. Some people, it is imagined, might enjoy the discussion of challenge things. Oh, that's right. The last few have been, now I'm kind of broadening some ideas for myself about how I think about the challenges. And I think it's fun to basically hear about scheduling and spreadsheets. I think everybody enjoys that.

AlexI mean, I've learned so much about your, I will say your passion for spreadsheets because of the after show. And that's something that even when you had all those folders, you didn't really talk about, I think anyway. Maybe I was a fake fan.

MerlinI mentioned this on the Back to Work program the other day, but Monday evening, a phrase I like to use when I don't have a better phrase, I found myself making a spreadsheet about the different kinds of light bulbs that we have.

I do this whenever I get a new bee in my bonnet. Of course, time was, if I wanted to learn how to use the bash shell, I'd buy an O'Reilly book. You know, if I wanted to learn, you know, I don't know, you know, PowerPoint for dummies, I'd get that book. It used to be about books. And now today, anytime I get a new dive into something incredibly mundane, for me, that turns into a spreadsheet. So my flashlight one is very good. I think I've shown you that one.

AlexYou know, speaking.

MerlinI have it. Good.

AlexOh, man. This. I shouldn't. I shouldn't not have.

MerlinNo, it's me. I'm trying so hard actively. I'm going to put a song actual sign on the wall. Stop interrupting everyone.

AlexNo, it's not. It's not you. It is the freaking internet here. And I...

MerlinYou know what it is? I'll tell you, Alexandra, he said interrupting them. Part of it is my legacy in let's always pretend that we are recording this live.

AlexYes.

MerlinAnd contra what would seem like common sense, you don't... You want to keep it moving.

AlexYes. You don't want the long podcast where you have to use strip silence. You wouldn't listen to it unless it was in Overcast, which is what a feature.

MerlinThere was no remove filler words in 2006. six. So, um, Flashlights is good. so,

well, so, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if,

MerlinI have a spreadsheet of my kids' Halloween costumes.

if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if,

Merlinactually came in handy the other day when she wanted to know what year she was Wolverine,

if, if, if, if, if, if,

Merlinand I was able to produce it very quickly.

AlexOh, interesting. I have started, well, this also gives me an excuse to open up my beverage.

MerlinGrip it and rip it.

AlexYep, which is sparkling ice plus caffeine, black raspberry, naturally flavored sparkling water with antioxidants and vitamins.

MerlinThat's a lot of nouns.

Alex16 ounces. um flowing ounces i don't know if that makes a difference oh 60 flowing ounces but i uh i drink a lot of caffeine lately and people say you're not supposed to have diet coke uh because like it used to be like oh fat people drink diet coke and i'm like i don't care about being fat however now that it's probably gonna it could give somebody cancer and i'm like okay maybe maybe i should get off this a little bit. So I have a spreadsheet of things I drink now.

MerlinYou know, the key with the cancer, the key is to just have different things that cause cancer. You mustn't just do one thing that causes cancer. If you eat meat and smoke and work at an oil refinery, well, don't smoke at the oil refinery, you fucking idiot. But, you know, they're called pathways in science. You want to get the different pathways all moving to different organs. And it's sort of like the way the president floods the zone with misinformation.

Alexthat's your body now well can i uh address the the topic i wanted to oh man see we could never do a live show because there's two things i want to cover other than our challenge it's always two

Merlinthings with you yep i have bad influences uh i have i have that and i have your 3d printing adventure i have my theory of how i became slack uh and then there's some other things but i have top of the list is, I'm not going to say it because you say it. Tell me about your journey.

AlexOh, yes. Well, my journey yesterday was to a doctor's office. Everything's fine. Thank you. Are you in trouble? No, no, I'm not in trouble. Hey, audience, I'm talking to you again. Don't listen to this. Hey, thanks for, I didn't think anybody would notice that for the past two weeks

Merlinthat had a really fucked up voice, but people did and were like, are you okay? Do you have COVID? I

Alexdo not everything's cool thank you a lot of people dm me and they're like are you okay because i guess people can tell when i sound different uh which you you can't i guess how did i not notice that

Merlinis it because i'm a guy because i have bad ears or because i'm old or is it because i'm inattentive

Alexi i think it is because fix me i need your help okay so people noticed your voice and you went to the doctor oh yeah i figured i might have well i was i was waiting out a sinus infection because i didn't want to go to the doctor uh as we know my gigantic uh what my ent calls a juno's which i mean okay uh eastern european nose for my family just because i'm polish doesn't mean i have a nose yeah geez but uh i was like all right i rather be like kind of sick for two weeks and

then roll the dice uh but but people are might remember that my uh brother also known as cancer boy has had cancer there's a big old history of cancer in my family oh that's how he got the name i never knew yeah i know right but uh also it's like we're come we we came about the uh unit the university what uh the anniversary of uh when i had a little smidge of a tumor uh and i had surgery

Merlinand i was like fuck i really don't be a fake cancer girl that was not cancer it was just a

Alexregular it was just a regular i see i feel guilt they're like well you're stealing cancer i don't

Merlinwant to steal cancer valor especially from especially i've talked about i try i talked

Alexto some friends recently about trying not to be an overshare but uh my mom's like you can talk about uterine cancer on the podcast i'm fine now uh but yeah lots of lots of things wrong with my family uh so i was like okay i'm gonna go to the doctor they've got in-person visit in-person visits because i i might be over this sinus infection but i just if i do have cancer like i i don't want it to be a sudden thing i was pretty much like i'm going to die and i should go to the doctor before I die.

That was my mindset.

MerlinOh, yeah. Get your ticket punched. And then you just go home and unwind. I guess I better squeeze some juice or something.

AlexI mean...

MerlinI'm going to have Steve Jobs on the way through this. Get some orange juice. I can't wait to see what I do with this.

AlexOh, I mean, it really speaks to my character, I think, because I did take my cat to the vet. It didn't have.

MerlinAren't you? I mean, quick, quick, quick point of information, though. I mean, again, now I'm just sort of holding you up against the yardstick that is me. But like, aren't you in normal times, aren't you generally not averse to going to the doctor? Like you like you feel like you it's you go to the doctor. You don't avoid going to the doctor like some people do.

AlexCorrect. I just hate it. I hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it so much.

MerlinWell, see, I hate it and don't go. Yeah.

AlexWell, I've learned that if I don't go, real bad things happen. So I'm like.

MerlinWell, typical of somebody who goes to the doctor. That's some serious post hoc medical logic, if you ask me. Well, of course, the doctor tells you you're sick. You ever go to the mechanic and they go, you're good? No. That's how they get you.

Alexoh no no it was uh but it was it was i i was anticipating being very scared uh which which i did because normally most people don't have a literal panic attack during like their you know you go in and like you do the weights check check the blood pressure temperature uh and heart rate which skyrocketed to 120 when I heard the nurse cough.

MerlinSo that, yeah.

AlexBut it was clearly like, and not an actual cough, but.

MerlinIt's more throat clear than according to Hoyle cough.

AlexYeah, no, there was no rationale in the visit, like in terms of my brain space. But apparently that is, they didn't say common um but a few of this i'm so i'm so sorry let me let me risk being as simple as i am no but please please what brought you to the doctor uh i i had been putting this time uh now more than ever i i usually has it had it to do with your voice it uh no no it's been like six

months since i'm supposed to have like my like double checkup of everything like a physical oh your brain parts and stuff right um oh no brain parts i can do over telemedicine which has been great um but the but yeah like the the brain parts the lady bits all all the great things that are fun to talk about on a podcast all the great failures all of the things that are killing me um slowly but you know and uh i was just you're a fire of five tool player you got it going on

Merlinyou got the sinuses you got the brain your little finger tumor

Alexi'm starting to get feeling back in my hand it's really uh it's very weird anyway um but they didn't straight out say that uh this they've seen this happen a number of times except they the nurse was like that's not the first time that has happened recently and i was like oh what do

Merlinyou what do you i'm so sorry what are you talking about what's the physical problem so i was having

Alexa panic attack at the thing at the doctor's office in in the like examination room pre-actual examination and uh the nurse is like that's not the first time i've seen that lately so don't you worry and uh it and that made me feel great i'm like awesome and she's like i know that a panic attack is an irrational thing but statistically you are safer here than pretty much any other

Merlinpublic space and i'm like i i know this is part i mean it's my understanding i've come pretty damn close to some panic attacks i think i've probably had some that didn't quite get on the radar screen But part of my understanding of the panic attack problem is it's not simply that sort of obsessive fear about something. It's also the obsessive fear of like the embarrassment that will come as a result. Like in that anecdote of the woman on the airplane who was worried she'd have a heart attack and it would be horrible and embarrassing. So that must have taken some of the pressure off to realize they don't think you're a weirdo or at least they're not saying you're a weirdo.

AlexThey're faking it real well.

MerlinRight. I mean, that's kind of cool. I mean, it's like when a guy, you know, gets a prostate exam and ends up going and making a queef. They go, oh, that's OK. That's totally normal. I'm sorry. Nothing about this is totally normal.

I'm wearing rings.

AlexBut things then progressed as normal with the exception of they take their damn time in not in a like, oh my god you're sitting there waiting sort of way but like this is what doctors look like on tv sort of way as in like you're having like there were many dialogues that were happening uh like i don't know i don't want to like in terms of just like general health stuff not not not anything like dramatic but like you know normally how they race through the questions of like uh any fever

fever uh congestion like all the right and but it was like okay let's let's talk about this and like let's what are your overall goals for wellness this year and i'm like what the fuck is happening right now um to the point where i'm like should i be worried about anything um just

Merlinbecause so have you just just so terribly terribly sorry it's very early here just is it part of the storytelling process or have i just missed the part where you told me what specifically brought

Alexyou to the doctor it's i again just a general well just a general you're overdue for your

Merlinyour fix me session with the great men okay all right well and also yeah it wasn't the voice thing

Alexwould the how would the voice have to do with that uh because since i had been i was putting off going to get my regular physical and checkup because i knew that i had a low immune system because I had a sinus infection and that's how people knew that.

MerlinThat's so weird. That's so creepy. I've had people tell me, go check out this podcast co-host or that. Because this one, I have fears about their lung capacity. And this one, I'm pretty sure is about to have a heart event. I don't know what definition of podcast co-host you ever received.

I'm just saying there's not a single person that I have ever done a podcast with where I would be comfortable saying, hi, I was contacted by someone that neither of us know. to ask you some rather pointed questions about your health. Why? They think you sound funny.

AlexNo, it was just, I didn't think it was creepy because in the, I don't know, we talk about my nose quite often and we talk about anxieties and doctor fears in general. I don't know, people are nice and like, hey, you sounded a little different. You okay? I don't know.

MerlinNo one was creepy. Hey, no one's in trouble. No one's in trouble. No one's in trouble.

AlexBut I, this doctor was just taking so much time with me and like, hey, should I worry about it? Did anything like pop up in my labs that I should worry about? She's like, no, honestly, I just don't have that much else to do today.

MerlinSometimes, sometimes, sometimes certain kinds of candor can be a little alarming.

AlexNo, it made me feel so much.

MerlinOh, did you have to drive far to get here today? No, I sleep in my car. Anyway, let's get back to you. Let me put my monocle in. Bring in some of my associates. This is old Gus.

AlexBut it was just like such a strange situation because I understand why doctors often like rush through appointments. because the U.S. healthcare system is shit and people in the U.S. probably know exactly what I'm talking about. And yeah, it was super, super weird because again, it was like being on TV or like seeing Grey's Anatomy where they actually talked to the patient.

MerlinYou got housed. You had a little bit of a house situation, right?

AlexWell, except I wasn't hit with a cane or had a giant tennis ball thrown at me. No, yet. I know this is problematic

Merlinit might be lupus

Alexit could be

Merlinput it on the list Alex I told you I don't like going to Walgreens I never like going to Walgreens I go to Walgreens because I can practically see it from my house so that becomes a nexus of little purchases but when I go in there and I gotta stand socially distanced from the people I told you about the lady coughing without the mask on and everybody wants to ask me questions about my scoot-scoot. And I'm like, every second I'm in here,

I am not only, we're not, we're all closer to death in general every second we're in here. But because it's a bunch of sickies in here, we're all super closer to death. And could you all please stop coughing and move further away? Keep moving and get out of the way. So the idea of going to a doctor's office and like sitting around while some people talk to their colleagues, I don't love it.

AlexNo, no. I feel like I'm not framing this in a positive light. Like, it wasn't as if they were bored.

MerlinThey weren't being inattentive. They were being attentive.

AlexThey were being overly attentive, which is what, like, it was. I'm in trouble. I'm definitely in trouble. But no, no. It was, I was literally the only person in the, like, in the waiting area. You sure it's a doctor's office?

MerlinIt sounds like it might be one of those Ashton Kutcher things.

AlexI didn't go into a massage part. No, it was. Well. I mean, maybe they're expanding their services. The economy's hurting. Do you think guys are still doing that? I really genuinely wonder about that.

MerlinI got to be honest. I have to be dead honest with you. I think about it twice a week. As someone who is very happily mostly non-libidinal, I am aware of the fact that there are people who are very into having an orgasm with another person there in some form or fashion or a doll. But the point is, if you're that kind of person, and I hear about these fellas all the time, it's such a shame.

I wish I could trade my hair with somebody who has no hair and hates it. It's not having hair because I couldn't care less. I just take all the hair. I don't care. Agreed. Or people, these self-identified incels who are getting orthodonture and new noses so they can look like a Chad. I'm like, oh, you poor bastard. Take my penis, please. Go, you know, con gusto. Just have fun with it. Take it wherever you want. Don't even bring it back. If you do bring it back, clean it. But those kind of fellas, you know, they like to get their beans into a lot of cans.

You know what I'm saying? Yes, yes. I bet, here's the one I think about. I've thought about this. I'm almost done. I've thought about this since March. You know there are so many, there must be so many people out there having affairs in the before times.

AlexOh, yeah.

MerlinI mean, there are people who are, as the youths say, hooking up. But I'll bet you there are people who have a pretty casual hang going on with some people. and then I've just known so many people where the divorce, it wasn't what caused the divorce, as we all know, we're adults, but the thing that kind of leads to the final thing that leads to the divorce is like discovering this person's been donking some chickie for years. And everybody knows but them, you know, very Ted Lasso kind of thing.

AlexYes.

MerlinAnd I think like...

AlexNo, I'm sorry.

MerlinAre you watching Ted Lasso? No. You should really be watching Ted Lasso. I shall.

AlexI shall.

MerlinBut the thing is, let's take it on its face. There are very few events in the universe where one remains physically able throughout the experience, where a super horny guy becomes less horny. And the point I'm trying to get is, I don't know. If we take it as read that people are still a dunk in the help or whatever, I doubt they just stopped because it was the month of March and Gavin Newsom said stuff.

AlexMm-hmm.

MerlinYeah. What is your theory? What do you think? Because here's the thing. If you are in a lockdown type situation, if you are one of those poor bastards stuck in a 300-square-foot apartment in Brooklyn, they're going to notice if you're not there for a couple hours.

AlexYeah.

MerlinYou're not going to work. Where were you? Uh, you know, a bistro? No. No bistros. No bistros. Where'd you go? Uh, sporting goods? Nope. No sporting goods. get my jimmy wet yeah okay with that horrible audrey i knew it she's a hussy i always knew she was a hussy well i mean there's a big uptick in in

Alexuh only i know only fans so maybe that's oh i don't know i know that like domestic abuse is way up but it doesn't seem like divorce rates are up and then that's like that's like twitch or that's like patreon for checking your mean bone right uh yeah it's like okay it's it's the you subscribe you subscribe to people specifically it's for like the nudes and then do they show the boobs or something uh if if they want it's kind of yeah it's it's patreon for for some sex workers

or people who just are like, hey, I will show a lot of my boob that Instagram will censor.

MerlinAnd the controversy with that actress is, there's several controversies with her, right? Was that she...

AlexOh, there's a big old thing, yeah.

MerlinThe sex workers are pretty unhappy with her because it affected their payouts because she disrupted this. I haven't read it carefully. I'm getting way off topic. Meanwhile, back in the doctor's office, your doctor or doctoresce...

AlexThat's it, the story's over. The story's over.

MerlinCalls in old Gus. Okay.

AlexThe story was, wow, I wish this is how medicine could happen all the time. Like, instead of, you know, like, poke, poke, poke. Okay, you're fine. Because that's how the little bit of cancer could have become a lot of bit of cancer if I had not been like, no, seriously, this thing on my hand is huge now.

MerlinYeah. Well, I mean, as several people have pointed out to me over the years, I have some issues with authority. and I tell you, this is probably the least of our problems in the healthcare system, but assuming you do have a way to get to a doctor, it's always really super bugged me. So you're talking about how those doctors have to use their time very efficiently, not least because the way they get paid is pretty fucked up, but it's always, until very recently, we'll get to this,

until very recently, I've considered myself to be an extremely prompt person as one of my deepest values at least in my later adult life so far. And it's like, it's really galling to me that you have to be there at this certain time or like you could lose the appointment. Okay, so then what happens? Well, there's a reason they call it the waiting room, which is you're going to fucking sit there. So you're supposed to be there exactly a crack of 9 a.m. You're not going to be talking to anybody apart from the person behind the glass for probably 15 minutes, 30 minutes if you're lucky.

And then what happens? okay, we're ready to take you into the exam room. And then what happens? You go and you sit in the exam room. Is somebody going to see you then? No, no. A practitioner, a nurse, or somebody's going to come in. God, heaven forfend the doctor comes to see you. Because first, it's basically we have to get through the appetizer course. And they come in, they ask you some questions. And they touch your butt and check your temperature and all that kind of thing. And then the doctor comes, Daddy? No. No, no, you wait longer. And why is all that waiting happening? Is this their first day? No. they absolutely know how long people are waiting.

And if it mattered to them, they would fix it. Why did they not fix it? Because it is advantageous to them because now they, as the people who manage and operate that particular office, they can operate by fiat in deciding what the best use of their time is right now. And if you don't like it, you can leave. I just find that, I mean, of course to me that expresses as, man, what a fucking stupid power move. Also, Function says, why are you wasting my time?

You're not God. What are you doing? That's one of the ways that I have to say I do feel very put off by that. A lot of people say these days talking about the postal service. I never heard this until the last few weeks, and now it's really stuck with me. When our wet boy talks about how the post office keeps losing money, people say, well, it's not losing money because it's, what's the phrase people use? It's not a business. It's a service.

AlexIt's a utility, basically.

MerlinBut services cost money. You know what I mean? It's like you don't try to make money with a homeless shelter. There's probably not a lot of money to be made. You could say that homeless shelters lose money. You could say food banks lose money. And I'm not saying that the USPS is a charity, although at this point it might as well be. But I don't know, man. That power differential stuff just – and I'm a white guy. I win everything. But it really grinds my gears when a system is set up so that people can, as part of the way this is true for weddings, this is true for funerals.

It's why Mr. Wonderful loves weddings and funerals. It's because people think irrationally and you can treat them like shit and they have to pay anyway. And I don't like any situation where then now the situation is I'm so fucking happy. It's like Elaine says in the Chinese restaurant, you know, when finally people get called to their table, they're so excited, you know. I think you won the lottery and you're like, oh, the doctor's here. You're like Patty Hearst in a closet.

It's nice to get some fresh air.

AlexOh, boy.

MerlinHow's it going?

AlexGreat. Now, I mean, I'm just thinking about timeliness. And actually, is there like I'm thinking about waiting rooms for handjob parlors? Because.

MerlinOh, sure. Yeah.

AlexAre they sitting?

MerlinI don't know. There's one very near here, and I should go in. As usual, with my finger, that's a fake mustache. I'll go in there and say, hello. I would like to relax physically. I would like to physically relax.

You provide sort of physical relaxation services? Do you take insurance? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, you know, fish got to swim. People got to make money. I don't know.

AlexI just...

MerlinI don't know.

AlexYou know what? Maybe they're using like a... I don't really know how this goes. I assume...

MerlinOh, yeah. Maybe you could just do it if it's outdoors. I bet that's it. Oh!

AlexOh! Oh! dig dig dig dig dig uh uh why why do you think you're uh uh you are slack you've lost your you're

Merlinyou're an app now what's happening slack well it's i i i haven't had i haven't had an opportunity i have got half opportunities to try i unsuccessfully tried to talk about this on two shows because I had this kind of one of those crazy obvious breakthroughs that ends up being really important to me, which was that before we went to, I hate saying vacation, before we went to Yosemite three weeks ago, probably almost a month ago, I don't know, but it was a while back, I made some very purposeful decisions to, given that we're only going to be away for three nights,

a lot of travel in between, you know, travel to get there, travel to get back. And I wanted to really i wanted to not have uh the sort of ramp in to vacation with which i've suffered in the past where it the joke i've always made which is pretty true is that no matter how long the vacation is i never get into it into it until like a day and a half before we come home oh yeah it takes me a really long time yeah so i did a bunch of stuff um and i put some little uh little walls in place and this is going to sound so stupid, Alex, and so obvious, but I said, look, I said to myself,

I said, here's the thing. You have so many different kinds of notifications about so many different kinds of things, and it beeps and boops all day long, and most of it is stuff that, if I'm being honest, doesn't really need anything done about it right now, but more saliently, in this case, is nothing I can't do anything about. I mean, if the house is literally on fire,

well, honestly, that's one of the events that might be most likely to have a stranger jump in and help just because. But like, I don't, I'm trying to think about all this. The one thing I always do before we travel is like I move all of my omni-focus things into the future, which sometimes really screws me up and I have to go fix it. But you know what I'm talking about? Like, I don't need to know that tonight is trash night. because no matter how much I want to take out the trash cans, I'm not home. I can't do that. There's all kinds of stuff like, I don't even want to know when the doorbell rings.

I don't want to know when there's movement on cameras. What would I do about any of those things? And so I made a point of starting, almost three days before we left, I started taking careful notice of every notification I got on my iPhone. Now, I have several iOS devices and a watch, and the only place where I get, like, a noise is on my watch and my phone. So all I really had to do was shut off notifications on my phone.

In other words, I have the volume all the way down on my iPad and stuff like that. But the main thing was I didn't want to be walking, hiking around somewhere, and the tiniest little sip of, like, 3G pops in, and I get this, you know, parade of notifications I can't do anything about. That's stupid. Why would I do that? So for at least two days before, each time I got a notification, I really stopped and I looked at it. And I said, okay, here's a notification for Gmail. What do I need that while I'm away? Could it potentially harm me while I'm away?

And I said, you know, I can. I'm going to turn that off. OmniFocus, love it. Can't do anything about that, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Slack, that one was easy. And that's why sometimes when you and Tiff are talking, that's because I have, here's where we get to the point. I still have all those notifications shut off. I'm not saying this caused me to become slack and sleep more and be slightly less keyed up considering. But I think it kind of has contributed.

There's a ton of notifications I still have not turned back on. and it's weird how dipping out of the real-time rat race for lack of a better word has like had an impact on me it's it's it's fucking weird and and i guess a part of it is so i i figured you know okay well this is a radical experiment because who knows what might happen that's the whole point that is again how they get you is you wondering if there's something that might be happening somewhere that's red meat for an anxious mind and so i ended up not turning most of them

back on that's good it's kind of good it's certainly very privileged and lucky that i can do that but i do think it might be having an impact on a slight impact that could maybe help contribute to this whole like i'm gonna just try to calm the fuck down a little bit and like you know i'm trying to spend less time on Twitter. I try to limit my Twitter time to mostly in the evening. I'm actually also spending less time looking at COVID stuff because I'm not trying to sound like I'm like a

nihilist or like I've given up on life, but I also don't think it's wholesome to assume that every hang-up you have is helping anything, that every anxious impulse you have is necessary for self- preservation, which sounds like a dramatic way to put it, unless you talk about this with most people and that's what you're going to hear back in the same way as they need Facebook for their work they're going to talk about how you never know like I'm practically a doctor I have to have this beeper all the time so anyway that's that's that's part of that's part of my theory do you

have do you ever reevaluate things along the lines take it anywhere you want but do you find yourself wanting to reevaluate stuff like notification mirroring will you have notifications for this at all are there other do you ever find yourself like trying to do like a personal audit of the

Alexthings you don't need to know about i mean that's kind of what this whole i mean yeah since uh the answer is yes uh since this is a podcast i suppose that means i should elaborate uh

Merlini mean no well no no no i'm just like here's the thing though like like okay first of all so much stuff that's a little bit weird and i don't think it's just ios 14 you know how it It drives me crazy when my hygrometers and my thermometers don't agree. You know how upset that makes me?

AlexI do.

MerlinOkay. Well, it also drives me crazy that on all these different devices, screen time has never said the same numbers. Yeah, no. It's very frustrating to me. But it is a little sobering. I'm doing it myself right now on my iPad. I'm going into screen time. And I'm going to, I'm clicking. I'm going to show me activity for all devices for a week. So like, okay, wait, where do I go? Here we go, notifications.

Is it notifications? Is that where I get notifications?

AlexWait, are you looking?

MerlinWhat's the one where it tells you how many notifications you've got?

AlexIt's in screen time. Okay, wait.

MerlinI thought it was in screen time.

AlexGeneral screen time. See all activity. And then.

MerlinHere it is. You scroll down. Scroll down. There you go.

AlexSo you see pickups and then notifications. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MerlinLet's go to last week for a fuller number. So like, I don't even have any friends. Like, I don't know people. I got almost 1,200 notifications for messages last week.

AlexJesus Christ.

MerlinThis is the thing. And because it's below the fold, I know I don't look at it very often. My shopping service, Instacart, 222 notifications. um flex 198 etc etc i mean okay so you take my point though right like it's it does it really is i think it's useful to to look at those things in the aggregate and say even though let me say this as an exercise to the listener make a guess well make two guesses because there's always two things

with you make a guess on which uh app or service it has generated the most notifications for you in the last week. And then, if you'd please, make an estimate of how many you think will be there,

Alexand then go look. And I bet it's a little surprising. I overestimate. Oh, wait, are we doing for? I did it for last week, all of last week. Oh, okay. Hold on then. And that's on my iPad, so I guess that's probably different than my iPhone. So I actually do this, like, once a month i go through my notifications because what i need to be notified for changes um yeah and so

for oh okay fuck daily average 173 messages uh 97 email messages 79 discord is this for a day 64 Or, yep.

MerlinYeah, this is.

AlexThis is bad.

MerlinOh, boy. I mean, like, for example, like Amazon Alexa. Oh, Alexa, stop.

AlexAnd it works now because it has whisper remotes. So we can say, Alexa, stop. And it'll stop. Right. Yeah.

MerlinI love that. I love when they added that. I love it. But I can tell you, Dimes and Donuts, almost all of those are going to be a series of notifications when I turn on my alarm. Notifications when I turn off my alarm. I probably don't need that. But given that it still feels like a fairly new thing, I want to know that it worked.

But, I mean, anyway, not to be all Merlin, man. But I do feel like it's very much one of those things where it's like, well, they can't all be number one. You can't have that many alarms. But I think that's had a contribution. Oh, so you're saying you do this like once a month. You go through and you try to pare down?

AlexYes. And I also misspoke because I was like, what the fuck? I thought I had really pared down. But I forgot that, like, okay, so you can turn off, you know, lock screen and notification center and badges and stuff like that. But it still all counts them. It still counts as a notification, even if.

MerlinIf you have any of those things on, even if it's not a screen notification, it still counts as a notification.

AlexRight.

MerlinOkay.

AlexSo I've actually been using badges more in that I'm like, okay, there's a red dingus. Well, exactly. I'm like, I want to get rid of the fucking red dingus. So if by the end of the day I have any red dinguses left, my day isn't done, basically. Which isn't, it's not always how I've worked. But, like, again, stuff changes.

MerlinI mean, I can understand for certain kinds of applications, that makes a ton of sense. My all-time favorite use of that red badge, I think I've told you, there's a calendar app that I don't have around anymore. But there's a calendar app where the default was for that red circle to contain the day of the month in it.

AlexOh, yeah.

MerlinSo today it would say two.

AlexYeah. uh, someone is, uh, I mean, honestly, one of the reasons I'm just excited for widgets is I can see the date in giant or in, in some, uh, apps that I've been testing. It's just like, okay, I want to see what day of the week it is and what the month, the day of the month it is and the week of the year. And, uh, seeing that just the, the, in giant bold letters, helped me gain some sense of time which didn't happen anywhere well that's anyway that's not

Merlinrelated to badges but that's hey are you uh are you are you loving that photo widget leading question uh no really oh my god i get it i get a gift so often that's how i found that dumb picture of me from 20 years ago last night i forgot about is it just popped up because it gives you here's stuff we think you'll like here's stuff from this day in previous years and like and for me and madeline it's both so happy like invariably there'll be some photo from some year especially the middle years like we we took a gajillion pictures of our kid when when she was

a baby but like and we kept taking pictures but like there'll be this one from like 2012 that pops up of them like cuddling and reading a book and it's like oh i love those well i know you don't

Alexlike yours because why you don't want to see your face uh oh well i mean that always uh i have a feeling i'll like it in the future i i don't know because this feature rolled out when uh there were like a lot of deaths around me personally and around the world so when i see a picture of somebody i will not see again it just is happening a lot lately um and not just my puppy but you know covid victims and stuff like that and i'm just like i'm gonna turn this off for now all right

fair enough fair enough uh but it's again like i and and also uh it it um i don't know right now i'm very iffy on algorithms even when it comes to apple stuff and i'm like how is this doing

Merlini don't know sing it sister i i i totally hear you and i love tiktok i love tiktok so much but

Alexit still scares me like it's right now i think some of the most creative people are on tiktok and or i know some of the most creative people in the world are on tiktok right now and uh the fact that their platform is owned by i mean i can't say this about everything now i'm getting all on the open web rss because that's who i am and i know i i happen i happen to agree with you

Merlinan opinion I don't want to share too widely or often because it sounds insane and really cynical. But like there was a time where I thought like, it seems like a lot of places start with like, how do we make a great product? And then like, how do we make something that people will buy or that will make a company want to buy us or whatever it was. And I do feel like right now, and I could be talked out of this, but there's a, I have this hunch that increasingly today you start with, what is the result we want out of this?

Which is a typical business thing to ask. In five years, we'll know we've succeeded because X, right? That typical kind of thing. But another way I think increasingly I feel like you could put that is, what data do we want out of this? And then what kind of fish food do we throw out there to generate that data? And if that's true, the way that a lot of products get made suddenly not only makes sense, but there's really no other explanation for why. What, you made TikTok because people loved Vine? Well, secondarily, I mean, what was the one?

Oh, God, what was the one that came out the other day, like yesterday?

AlexOh, shit.

MerlinWhat's the app that was? Oh, oh, Ring Doorbells.

AlexHave you been reading about this? No, I do not. Oh, no.

MerlinOh, no. What happened? um it was so i guess there was some kind of hacker group that dumped a bunch of data that they got from companies um i could find them i could do a reading series if i find the specific thing but essentially uh it has been discovered that ring sends a lot of information back so you say to yourself oh okay well like you know uh that's that's that's that's understandable Like, you know, they want to get good and stuff.

It sends back every event. So basically, any time motion is triggered, that gets added as a line in a spreadsheet. Any time the button is pressed. When you zoomed on the image, like essentially every single bit of data. Now, they say, of course, the typical thing is, yeah, we're mostly doing this to improve our service. And, you know, it's all anonymized and DDD. but like when you hear that it's just like oh man really and then on top of it all in bbc yesterday

uh it was announced fbi is worried that ring doorbells are spying on police but one good thing yeah yeah and they cited specifically an example of a guy who was able to monitor police that were like at his house using these cameras that basically it's like oh boy but yeah speaking and speaking of amazon who i'm having a hell of a week with uh i don't know why but for some reason um my echo show here uh i came in one morning and it was like basically

reinstalling the software might have gotten hacked i don't know but boy i forgot what a pain in the ass it is to set up one of these devices sure it's putting in the passwords there's a reason and people have the shitty passwords they do. But also, all of the default settings are crazy. Oh, wow, yeah. Would you like this extreme amount of literal bullshit on the screen? Would you like recipes that are relevant in your area? No! No, I don't want any of that.

Yeah. I'm with you. Algorithms and companies. Companies and algorithms. Not loving it. Not loving it.

AlexI mean, Dick Doug, should we get into our challenge? because that kind of mirrors...

MerlinLet me go check my list. I think that covers everything. Oh, yeah. You have to talk about 3D printing at some point. That's the other one.

AlexOh, yeah. After a show. It's not interesting.

MerlinWell, let's talk about a challenge.

AlexWell, actually, wait. Circling back. I can't tell if you're implying that Slack... What you're saying... I don't know. How would you define Slack? I guess. because it's not clear to me.

MerlinThe Slack of the, I mean, I could describe it in a way that everybody would recognize what happened. I'm talking about mostly, but I do feel like the usage of Slack today feels a little less wholesome than the usage of Slack, say, like a year ago.

AlexOh, okay, okay. So when you, I...

MerlinBut I wasn't, the reason I just turned Slack off because like, I don't have, I mean, the way that you have to go in, especially on a tiny screen, So when do you discover Slack is bumming you out with too many notifications? Well, you discover that usually when you're on your iOS device, personally. I mean, if I have it quit on my Mac, it's not going to do anything. So, okay, let's take this read. You start realizing, let's say somebody creates a new channel and adds you to it, and then everybody's excited about the new channel. Well, guess what? By default, you're going to get notifications on that channel.

And you ever go in and change that stuff, onesie-twosie? like if you let's say you're on a slack what's the term a slack group where there is stuff that you need to know about you can't just go delete it i mean you do have to like if something happens on your team if something happens in the reconcilable differences channel i i would like to know about that generally um but it's it's really a teaspoon by teaspoon affair to get that stuff tuned the way you want again especially on that small screen do you just turn it off well probably not. It's just that, you know, I, there are times when, you know, like I say,

sometimes no is the answer, you know, sometimes no answer is the answer, which is like, I just, I can't deal with this right now. And, and no, I think Slack is fine. I think it's fine. I think it's, I think we, I think the, the salad days of that being so fundamentally different for it to be like a clean version of irc that was easy to deal with and super segmented into groups it's like i still think that's a wonderful a wonderful thing that they made but you know i um you just

end up getting on so many and there's new channels and there's new things and like you know like i used to joke about with our former co-hosts like i don't need to be added to another thing right now like whether that's a text thread or whether that's you know i i bought something from amazon and now I'm getting email from the third party where they want to talk about how I like the hornworms? And it's like, no, that's not okay. Have we just given up on this idea that you have to opt in to get email from people? I guess we're done with that. I guess now you just get email from everybody.

I get email from developers whose app I bought on the App Store. What? How is that happening?

AlexOh, yuck. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.

MerlinAnyway, no, no. Did it sound like I was dragging, slacking, slacking, drag,

Alexdragon slack oh no uh no no no you you were dragging how people use it which is oh no it's mostly dragging amazon well both not dragging but but uh that i have the same well for me my my mac is always or at least it's in sleep mode and slack is always open and i have it so if it is sent to like, I like, okay, send to my mobile device. Like the options are really limited. So

it was like sent to my mobile device if I don't see it on or what, what are the missed on your Mac, it goes to your phone. Well, correct. Because that's the only setting where I can have it. So the badges are still there and but but i just don't um i have slack notifications turned off on my phone uh and including the badges because then the badges will always live on the desktop

version so when i come back it's like hello all of hello all of work uh which is i think

MerlinI cannot reach people will protest about this and they will throw up their hands and talk about how overwhelmed and busy they are but I continue to believe that the people are somewhere between loving this bullshit and just not even realizing that they are literally addicted to it you know like the kind of people who like you know they get a heart attack a week after they retire because there's nothing to fret about I think people are hooked on this shit.

I mean, the busy go-go douchebag guys for sure are. This goes back to the Blackberry days. I mean, it makes people, maybe especially now, I don't know, it makes people feel connected, I guess. I feel infringed upon. It's like, get out of my house.

AlexWell, that's, I mean, that's the thing. We don't, or at least me and a lot of other people, usually if someone wanted to bother you in public, Like, it was, there was a time and a place to bother somebody. And now those lines are, now more than ever, those lines are blurred.

MerlinBut, you know, but at the same time, I do think I'm more thirsty for human contact than I realize. Because, long story short, I ran into our next door neighbor on the street. He was canvassing for the census. And we, you know, had nice, you know, masks on chat. and it was it was you know it's a bummer to hear him say this but at the same time it made me feel good in that he has the same theory that i do and that i think john roderick does and i guess a lot of people do which is oh god what was the phrase that jenna says on 30 rock um something about the

lockdown has been hardest on hot people or something like that um but he's like you know he says he says it's really it's really hard his boyfriend is having a really hard time they've since we lived here. They've been together forever. And he's like, yeah, it's been really hard on him. He says, I mean, I have friends, but I'm more introverted than he is. And he's losing his mind. And I was like, huh, I've had that theory. He goes, yeah, he's losing his mind. He can't go out and have a drink with people. It's like, I'm

fine to stay at home and watch TV, but he really needs to do that. The phrase that I used for this on Roderick was like, extroverts have lost a lot of their platforms in this all the platforms that are left are electronic which are will only get you so much

Alexand you don't own them the platforms that exist are not public spaces uh or this

Merlinthey're context free zones for one thing yep like what can you do in a bar that you can't do on twitter is like make a joke that your friends will understand or forgive you for or yes yeah and it's kind of nice to have that rather than be in this space where it's really it's really more like it's like you and you know 10 million uh simon cowles you know

Alexuh the reason i was like dig dug challenge is i have a feeling not not that you peanut buttered but you didn't read. Okay, hold on. Sorry. The challenge this week was to do nothing or rather read the book, do nothing by...

MerlinToo clever by a half. The challenge this week is to read the official rule going forward. You only have to read the part that's in the Kindle sample.

AlexThat's okay. No, that's okay. But I wanted to ask because you, you weren't parroting, but you were talking about many themes that went throughout this book.

MerlinThat is why. Oh, no, I see what you're saying. Yeah, for sure. I mean, she has a take on this that I find fascinating. So the challenge was to read part of a book called How to Do Nothing by Jenny O'Dell, who's a very interesting person. I discovered her, so I hadn't even realized that I knew who she was until I learned who she was, which was to say, back when I could tolerate the Ezra Klein show, no offense, she was on the Ezra Klein show, And she's just a very interesting person. She is, I think, primarily an artist.

But she's also a teacher of art. She's also somebody who is very... But no matter what label you put on her, you're going to need some clarification on what that means. So, for example, she's an art teacher at Stanford, which must be a very interesting place to be. As far as the art she makes, well, guess what? Guess how I had first heard about her and didn't realize it? Our local... It's not a dump technically, but the like where the trash goes in San Francisco, Recall is ESF. It's such a cool idea. They have an artist in residence.

So they bring in an artist to do stuff with and about the stuff that can be located at their big dump. But her deal, and she describes this in that podcast, is that it's been a while since I listened, but she talks about how like she's not like, I don't know, making crop circles out of diapers or something. But it is entirely about like how these things are presented. She, like, kind of places things. Or in this case, she goes in and discovers what were all the constituent elements of this thing. And it becomes almost like a museum where you go up and see the stuff on a shelf and you can scan something and see, like, where all the pieces came from.

She's a very interesting person. But the other thing that distinguishes her, and she's a writer, but she also has a very strong, she's very strongly attached to the localities of the Bay Area. Yes. In general, Oakland in particular. But the thing that runs through this that's really the wild card is a very heavy, if somewhat unconventional, environmental component, I feel like. This all kind of comes down in some ways to the environment. All the pieces, all these weird disparate pieces about, quote unquote, how to do nothing.

It ends up having a slightly revolutionary political feel to it. It has to do with reclaiming your attention. But anyway, so when I heard, I'm sorry to carry on, when I first heard her on Ezra Klein, I thought she was so interesting. I did at least get the sample. And so the challenge was to read that. Were you able to do that?

AlexOh, yeah. It was my, I read it twice this week. I really. The whole book? Well, okay. I didn't read. I read it once and then I listened to the audio book once, which isn't that, the audio book's fine. She doesn't read it. So it's, meh.

MerlinI'm putting this down for later. We've got to talk about that John Hodgman audio book.

AlexYes, yes, yes, yes. I have not listened yet, but it's in my queue.

MerlinTell me, give me your thoughts. What do you think about this?

AlexI love it. I had stopped listening to Beloved Ezra after 2016 because I'm like, I should probably not. I have to say, that was kind of me in the weeds. Yeah, I'm like, hmm. I'm like, there's, I don't want to be, again, I don't want to be one of those.

Merlinpeople who's like i i never liked hillary i i men men sound so shrill all that vocal vocal uh

Alexvocal grind what do they call it vocal fry yeah it's like it's like let's just admit it we were

Merlinexcited for a woman you're so you're so pretty why don't you let us see your people although

Alexalthough i was such a darling figure i i mean giving giving obama the peace prize though i I remember being like, wait a second. Wait now. Wait now. What? What? Really? Do you remember that?

MerlinI don't know what you're talking about.

AlexObama got the Nobel Peace Prize.

MerlinI do remember that. What does it have to do with Ezra Klein? Oh, 2016?

AlexIt has to do with the idea that progressive folks like to pretend as if we were never excited about the idea of a black man becoming president or a woman becoming president. Like, yeah, we were.

MerlinThese people can't be helped.

AlexYeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, yeah. And, and, uh, well, actually, uh, Starly Kind on, um, election profit makers, which, uh, which I realized I, I unintentionally stole an apology letter bit from because I'm like a week behind. I didn't.

MerlinOh, when he was crying. Yeah. Oh my God. Alex, that show, I'll say it again. That show is so fucking good. So, so good. It's so goddamn funny. So good. Oh my God. It's so good. I love how much their three different characters have diverged, but the way they interact and they seem to so clearly delight each other. The chemistry on that show is top-notch.

AlexAnd the kid. Oh, it's so good.

MerlinOh, the kid who does the Biden.

AlexThe Biden bro.

MerlinWhat's his name? I forgot his name.

AlexNot Clinton.

MerlinWebster, Chapman, Willis.

AlexChester. Oh, fuck. I don't know. the i'm just there for helicopter telling you wait oh boy well she she talks about anyway she she talks about how like um she was caught up in the the biden uh vp race and was like cool

Merlinongoing bit yeah and then she draws draws long john silver into the whole vp obsession David misses that Twitter market Guys listen to this show I'll put it in show notes It's very good

AlexOh we're just a podcast That's a fan podcast For many podcasts And that's okay

MerlinWe need more of those You know what Tell us things you like And don't be afraid to say so It's not undignified To admit you like things That other people do That have your job Grow up

AlexFor example She says That she just broke down Crying one day listening to a podcast because uh it's like holy shit the next veep perhaps next president or soon to be new president is is a black woman like what the fuck like and we're not even well how come when we don't get to enjoy that moment and well and and that's the thing is like oh yeah i didn't even really think about that and maybe it's because i have sort of been sanitized again to the you know in the past few years of like well it doesn't fucking matter uh but it but it

does matter in in some cases and it's like yeah let's just appreciate the little things what are

Merlinyou talking about it matters usually it doesn't this this isn't just true in dewey campaign commercials like little kids need to see people that look like them it fucking matters right right

Alexright and it's like we can't it's like when when pointing out like the issues with identity politics doesn't mean we need to throw everything away like yeah yeah like i the reason i say

Merlina lot you know what fuck it i'm ready to become a beautiful boater i've had it with our side what a bunch of fucking ding-a-lings oh i mean yep they have fuck up a wet dream my god like i

Alexi'm sorry i was like the this the white house being rainbow it was stupid it was a performance But hey, parades and performances are stupid anyway. So but just let us be happy. And that's the reason I always say like I never thought.

MerlinThey're like they're like Chili, the elf who cannot love.

AlexYeah, yeah. Like I never thought it was going to get. I never thought never thought it would be legal to get married. And I just want people to think about like the stupid it's good. It gets better campaign. It was stupid because it was it's true for a lot of people. And if it's not true for some people, we need to help make it true for everybody. Oh, God. All right. Stepping off soapbox. Sorry.

MerlinNo, no, no. But, Alex, this is a gong. I'm only allowing myself to bang in a very racist way on an occasional basis, which is to say stop.

There's this whole – you know what? I'll save it for the show. There's this whole constellation of, like, fake hip judgy bullshit out there right now. What did Chrissy Teigen call it? The thieves of joy. Like the people who are just, they're always there to be standing by to like piss on your shoe on your wedding day. Isn't it ironic? No, but the thieves of joy are, it's not just, it's just we need to have things that help us mark progress.

And I don't think, I'm addressing you, the thieves here. I don't think you are helping any cause as much as you would like to think you're helping that cause. If you because you have basically bought into an extremely Trumpist brand of nihilism. It's just now you're exercising on your friends and you kind of look like an asshole.

AlexLike everyone makes fun of like we go they go. What did she even say when they go low we go high. And it's like, yeah, that sounds, it wasn't like it shouldn't have been like a meme. But I don't know. I think in life it is a good thing to try to be kind and civil to people.

MerlinBut there's no historical accounting for how well a given asshole on the Internet has been successful at marshalling resources to get what? Anything? Like if it doesn't work out, well, then you just, you get to do, it's like that guy who appeared to have successfully predicted the results of every World Cup soccer game years before it happened. And it's a classic, it's one of the simplest tricks that a magician can use, which is you find a way, so like basically if you hide one of every card in the deck

in my office and have a good memory, you know exactly where the two of hearts is. I mean, that's a great effect, but if you don't understand how it works, you won't realize how obvious it is. And in this case, if you just bet on nihilism for every single thing that happens, you get to be rewarded when you can retweet yourself and go, see, the world is garbage and you all suck. But like, so what are you going to change with that? How to Do Nothing by Jenny O'Dell. It's a book.

AlexBut here's the thing. That is what this whole book is literally about.

MerlinIt is. It's so funny because I know it's a somewhat, it can seem like a somewhat flimsy, flimsy but useful, flimsy kind of comparison. But the way that you don't want a monoculture in an ecosystem, well, you also really don't want a monoculture in other ecosystems, whether that's a social network or whatever. And I think what she's kind of saying is capitalism kind of wants to direct everybody's attention in similar ways for certain kinds of similar results.

And a lot of time we don't even know we're doing it. We never realize we're doing it. Is that close? Well, you tell me what you think. You read more than I did.

AlexYeah. Well, first of all, not even first of all, but I was really resistant to this book because she had been on Ezra Klein. and like a Ezra Klein show and a couple other, you know, did the rounds of what you have to do. And I shouldn't hold that against anybody. You know, you go on the Big Lib podcast so people will buy your book because that's what you got to do.

And but it was also on a bunch of like, you know, best help, best self-help books of the year and stuff. And I'm like, no, like I've read Atomic Habits. It's like, yeah, this is all, that's fine for whatever that kid's name is, who's very smart and good. But, fuck, what is it? No, who's the guy who wrote, like, how to succeed in, oh, oh, Tugu, Dugu, Tugu. Fuck, what is that stupid book?

MerlinDugu, Tugu, Tugu.

AlexDugu, blah, blah.

MerlinDugu, Tugu, there is no Dugu, there is only Tugu.

AlexYeah, yeah, I'm the one.

MerlinThere is no, there's only Zul? What?

Alexuh uh so good they can oh i got it i got it i got it uh so good they can't ignore you um and it's like well no people can be ignored like and people are but uh so but i so i finally read this and i'm like oh shit this book is sorry i read this as in how to do nothing uh it's got some pretty large

Merlinideas in it uh and it's not really no no it's i'm just what i'm saying it's like yeah you could considered a self-help book but it's also it's almost it's really close to like a philosophical

Alextract in some ways yep yep like this and uh how how to like i i maybe it's just because it's this point in time but this is another book where i'm like i have a feeling i'm gonna go back to this whole fucking lot uh because the the ideas that she's talking about about uh are revolutionary but they're not new. She's just, you know, trying to bring context to everything.

MerlinBut the way that she's, let me, maybe I'll try and give this, give my thoughts a little focus by pulling up some of my highlights. I mean, again, is it a new idea? I don't know. Does it need to be a new idea to hear it again? I sure hope not.

AlexOh, yes, yes, yes, yes.

MerlinSo, how do I get to my highlights?

AlexIsn't it really hard? I thought I was being a ding-a-ling, but they change it like every time there's even a minor UI.

MerlinAre you on the iPad app or on a Kindle Kindle?

AlexOh, Kindle.

MerlinOkay. Yeah, I'm on my iPad. But where the fuck are my highlights? Do I not get highlights? All right. I'll go through manually like a goddamn monster.

AlexSee? See? Yeah, you can't search highlights. It's wild.

MerlinWell, it's probably because I cheaped out and just got the sample. You're welcome, Tony. I've also learned that patterns of attention, what we choose to notice, and what we do not are how we render reality for ourselves and thus have a direct bearing on what we feel is possible at any given time. That's pretty good. Just as practices like logging and large-scale farming decimate the land, an overemphasis on performance turns what was once a dense and thriving landscape of individual and communal thought into a Monsanto farm whose quote-unquote production slowly destroys the soil until nothing more can grow.

Yeah, and also you hear this thing about resistance. It's just this idea, Like she, of course, not of course, she basically, she calls up specifically Bartleby the Scrivener and says like that is a role that you should consider. You should consider, like you don't have to make a big show about it, but like when requests for your attention at various levels, like you can just say I would prefer not to. And like I think that's a very interesting idea. Oh, the story about the tree, love the story of the tree.

AlexI mean, I think the if the title of how to do nothing turns you off, I totally, totally get it. And I think that the what is it? The sub sub header, the subtitle of or whatever, resisting the attention economy. Like what is that called when you wrote a book?

MerlinWell, in journalism, it's called The Deck.

AlexIs that what it's called with books, too?

MerlinIt's probably just this might be the subtitle, the subtitle, maybe.

AlexI think so. But yeah, resisting the attention economy is like the real what this book is really about.

MerlinEmphasis on resist. Yeah.

AlexI mean, like right off the bat, she talks about the early, you know, early unionization and the idea of eight hours for work, eight hours for play and eight hours for what we will. in order which is what like was kind of the mantra in order like the propaganda to get people excited about you know not working 16 hours a day and I mean that's just super powerful to think about

that and it's like okay so why what happened that that was so important to not just working class folks but like everybody that was kind of kind of the thing like there was three separate

Merlinthings um work play and the way like that that slips into our life in so many ways i want to

Alexread it oh i'm sorry i'm sorry work sleep and what we will i don't know why i wrote that down yeah i

Merlinwas gonna say when do you sleep yeah um but like this uh i want to read a passage in a second i knew the book grabbed me on this particular sentence but um but like this is gonna sound pretty random, but I think this, I believe this is true. I haven't had firsthand experience with this, but I believe this is true, not least because it sounds true. But like you think about like how, you know, I represent, not represent, I am part of a sub-generation that came into a difficult economy, but not nearly as impossible as it felt. So like 1987 felt very bleak,

but it sure could get worse but even there are i have peers i mean i could think of two people two of them are surprising people i can imagine who went on to retire as like pretty high up colonel level people in the military um one of whom um i've seen in congressional hearings like in a full-on uniform. Like, oh my God, he used to smoke so much pot.

And my dearest friend as a child, who we now know in retrospect, was very much on the spectrum, like he became, went to college through the Air Force and became a hospital administrator and retired, you know, 13 years ago, something like that. So like, you know, it's, what's my point in all of this? The, where do I start with this? The military people.

Oh, my God. I just lost the thread.

AlexSub-generation.

MerlinSub-generation. But imagine. Thank you. Thank you. So now you, one generation, like a generation like yours in particular comes up. I hate the word generation. I don't hate the word generation. I just don't know if that's the right word here. But the prospects that you, with which you entered the world out of, say, college, were like very different than somebody in the 60s, obviously. And of course, this all, for various intersectional reasons, varies a lot from people to people. But like, so where are you today? Well, we know a lot of people who are not choosing to be freelance.

They'd probably like a freelance, quote unquote, white color job. But right now they're doing stuff like, you know, delivering stuff for Amazon or whatever. And like, I remember the first time I heard that I want to say Lyft. No, sorry, Uber. I think Uber basically makes you install an MDM profile on your phone.

AlexNot anymore, right?

MerlinDid they stop? But I know at least there was a time. But some company requires you to put a thing on your phone. And if it's not on your phone, you can't work for them. And that gives them, I mean, for a lot of people, that might not seem like a big deal. Well, first of all, no, you can't put anything on my phone. Gross. What are you doing? but I mean apart from that privileged point of view just the idea that holy shit wait a minute so like my phone that I bought is now a thing that you use to track evaluate

and like otherwise try to govern my life all the time like even like you this isn't even a job it's not even I mean who would do that to somebody who's like a director level at a tech company would you make them install something on their phone that you use to track them maybe I don't know fuck that's gross but like the idea that like we this is your this is your property that we need to put a tracker on so we can know what you're doing and like but like and there's a story for now there's a story that came up i want to say this morning where people are hanging

amazon or various kinds of delivery people are hanging their phones in a tree like slightly further away in this one area and they're and they end up appearing somewhere they're not and they're getting good leads for stuff faster so they're trying to gain that system wait hold up This is some real serious William Gibson shit.

AlexWait, what the fuck are they doing? What?

MerlinHang on.

AlexI don't understand. Am I being nuts?

MerlinAmazon drivers are hanging phones in trees to get more deliveries.

AlexHow?

MerlinAmazon's contract delivery drivers are so desperate for work that they've come up with a bizarre way to game the system, hanging phones in trees, Bloomberg reports. Like Uber, Amazon Flex lets drivers make deliveries in their own cars. Amazon's dispatch system can detect which drivers are closest to a pickup location and sends an alert to their phones. So they could go basically hang their phone in a tree, drive somewhere else, and then when they get the alert, they go grab their phone and do the job.

AlexOkay.

MerlinBut I know this is probably like, I mean, this is a very fancy lad point to draw out of all of this. But at the point when they're using that technology to force you to participate in a Panopticon, even though you're not even a part-time worker, you're garbage to them. You're just, you know what I mean? You're like, it's not a job. It is a gig at best. It's not even like you work for a full day. I mean, it's worse off than being a temp. And yet they have the authority to put that on your phone.

It's so, stuff like that is just, it's so dark to me and I think it's straight up the alley of what she's talking about in some ways.

AlexOh, absolutely. And she also points out that, like, I think I'll use the term generation, but millennials, at least for, you know, me graduating in 2009, going going off to college. it was like okay yeah you need to fucking work your ass off and otherwise you're not going to have a job and you're going to

move back home with your parents and you're going to fail and especially because there was so much wonderful discourse about millennials being lazy and getting trophies I still don't have a trophy the only trophy I've ever gotten is from the Relay FM thing we did, the Relay FM game show we did I got a trophy

MerlinIt was so unjust. No. So unjust.

AlexNo, it was unjust, but not the way I won it. Anyway.

MerlinWas cheating?

AlexNo. No, no. Oh, no. Other people cheated. And then I was like, we're going to fucking win.

MerlinWell, it's always other people with you, isn't it?

AlexYeah. What do you mean, you people?

MerlinI'm Alex, and everybody else causes my problems. Do-do-do-do-do. I got a trophy. Fuck.

AlexOh, God.

MerlinNo wonder you can't afford avocados.

Thank you.

202. Red Meat for an Anxious Mind

Show notes

Transcript

202. Red Meat for an Anxious Mind

Show notes

Transcript

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