Flex and Frooms, Flex and Frooms. This is the Flex and Frooms catch up podcast.
Listen Zoom you know video remote work. People want their workers back in the office. And that is an issue not just for remote workers, not for corporate babes, not for me, not for you, particularly for every single one of us. Why because I'm noticing a trend. What happens when the people who make the product or service they're pedaling to you don't use it as intended. It worries me and I'm concerned. So Zoom if you're not familiar, you don't you don't work in an office. It's a
remote work company. And it created a better version of Skype or FaceTime for the office. Right, and so if you can't find your way into the office because it's COVID or because you're unwell, no stress, you don't get a day off, you can just plug in via Zoom. And they blew up during the pandemic. Naturally, the stock
options went wow. It was like a dollar to like the twenty dollars or whatever people were making bank anyway, So they've told staffers who work within fifty miles of the company that they'll have to come back in two days per week. And the irony is not lost on me at or because it's not the first time I've heard something similar.
I remember hearing and.
Also seeing on TikTok, but also beforehand, how people were skeptical about Lasik eye surgery because a lot of ophthalmologists and eye doctors wear glasses. So like, what is that, Like, you're peddling this really invasive surgery. They say it's not invasive, but you're pedaling this potentially dangerous surgery for the common folk at a premium. But you will just do You'll do glasses. That works fine for you.
Frame fine.
Then we have this former Facebook executive who I kind of perceived to be a bit of a whistleblower.
His name is Oh, okay, let's reject it. Yeah him, matter of it.
He doesn't let his own kids use social media. He says it's destroying how society works. And he was saying this when he worked at Facebook as well, Like he definitely was not I think they kind of used him as a representative of the every person, thinking that it was a bit of like a performance act. But he was like, nah, I can't be here, I can't work here. I don't respect what we do. He said that he feels tremendous guilt for helping build Facebook into the beast
that it is today. He says, I think we all knew in the back of our minds, even though we feign this whole line of unintended consequences. I think in the back recesses of our mind something bad could happen. It literally is at a point now we've created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works. This is literally where we are. I would encourage you all to internalize this. If you feed the beast, the beast will destroy you. This is from the person who built it, he says.
I I don't use it.
He said, in his whole time working at Facebook, he made two statuses his kids don't use it. He doesn't encourage anyone to use it. If anything, he encouraged you to stay far, far, far away from it. This worries me in a lot of ways because a lot of the concessions we've made to live in a more convenient world are actually blowing back on us in a very severe way. And I think that if you don't remain informed, like if you didn't know that people at Facebook don't
use Facebook. If you didn't know that a lot of optimoles just won't get lacy, you didn't know that Zoom wants its work is back in the office, you'd be like, oh, everything is as it should be. Next thing, you know, people who make cryptocurrency aren't even using it.
I'm off it.
I've been really suspicious these days, and I don't like being suspicious that it doesn't suit me. It just is at odds with my ideal state, which is whimsy and fantasy and like in another like vortex. But what I've been finding is that so many analog traditions that we have are just going by the wayside, and they're becoming
increasingly difficult to do. And I've been thinking, like, okay, cool the average person, or like even if I open up a news site, right, all this information is about futurism and progression and where the world is going and what we have to look forward to. But I'm like, up until this point, the stuff that you've been peddling people to be their salvation hasn't really worked as intended.
You know, like we can make things more convenient and put your money here and invest in this it's just like, oh, sorry, it didn't work, but like, here's a brand new thing that.
Could work really well.
And like I don't want to be a lot at I love advancements in the world, but I also think that as we're advancing, we're forgetting things that worked fine.
You know.
Like part of the critique about social media is that we optimize a place about life that didn't need optimization. Human connection didn't need optimization. We didn't need easier ways to connect, or we didn't need to reach people on the other side of the world in the way that we do so now right, it was kind of cool,
It's very cool, but I think at what costs? We keep coming back to that, Like there is always a hefty price to pay, and we don't necessarily know at the time, but I think right now, like twenty twenty three, in this given moment, we're very fortunate to be on the precipice where we can.
See the past.
We have access to so much information that details what history was like, what worked, and what didn't work because we're here, like we get to look at that in retrospect, and we also have this gift of foresight where we can project and predict and say, well based on behavior. Now, like if we don't get our act together with climate change, and this is what is going to happen. If we don't understand how to communicate better with each other, this
is what's going to happen. If we don't assess our relationship to media and pop culture, this is going to happen.
And everyone's like, I've been thinking.
A lot about COVID because that juste was like, that's just a real time we were literally in lockdown.
That was wild.
It just you know what that made me realize maybe I've said on the podcast before. You know, they always saying nobody, adults don't know what's happening, nobody knows, like you really illuminate at that point with COVID. Nobody knew what was happening. The governments didn't know. Like we fell in a heap. Yeah it could have been much worse, but yeah, like there was no leadership really.
No, And I don't think we're respecting the gift of retrospect. It's like, Okay, now we do know what happens. Now, we do know the consequences, but we also don't act with that information in mind, you know, like I feel like I would imagine for a lot of Australians, especially those in Sydney and Melbourne, New Southwest Victoria, another lockdown would send a lot of people spiraling immediately. But what
precautions are being made? I mean, I just saw a news article that was saying that we're due for another COVID outbreak, right, and so like great, let's not great. But like, now we have that information, are people doing the extra bit to sanitize No? Are people wearing masks?
No?
Are people being mindful about not hanging out in crowds. No.
But when it happens, or if it happens that we go into another lockdown, people feign this ignorance. Yeah, why is this happening? Where are we going?
What's going on?
And so I keep thinking about the future and the type of person I want to be and the type of life I want to live. And the part of the part that I'm struggling with is this sense of
instability where you could create stability. So for example, like if we think about, you know, like what would we do tomorrow if the truck driver's got COVID again and couldn't deliver food to the grocery stores, and those restaurants couldn't buy the food, and then I get no uber eats, Right, It's like, why don't you know how to fan for yourself?
I couldn't even plant something if I wanted to.
Yeah, I don't even know how to keep a flower alive.
Literally, wish learn and like the flower they've given us, we don't even have to go forage for like the right seed to make the flower, you know exactly, the instructions are on the back, and we're still suffering, you know.
I don't know.
Like I have a friend of mine whose family lives on a farm, and his mum is really into making like natural medicines and stuff. So when he grew up the whole time, if he had an ailment, his mom would like go and pick a plant and like make him a tea or something. And I was like, damn, she's really onto some thing. Because what happens when we've got a bit of a tummy ache, panda, old babe, Literally it's not go drink some fizzy water. How do you even make fizzy water without a soce stream TM?
I think I'm a bit fearful about the future, where I used to be really idealistic.
I thought you'd always be fearful.
No what I say, the apocalypse is coming, Like you don't hear the smile in my voice.
I love suffering together. That's where I'm at me too. If you're gonna suffer, let's do it together.
But I think I'm fearful because I don't feel like we have a sense of community necessary to suffer together in the best way. I don't think we could rebuild. I think if things turn to absolute bit we would turn on each.
Other in a heartbeat.
And I'm just like, damn, how do we get how do we like circumnavigate that and get closer to cult commune and further away from like anarchist looting.
Yeah, they're religious.
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