Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of The Weekly Zeitgeist. These are some of our favorite segments from this week, all edited together into one NonStop infotainment laugh stravaganza. Uh yeah, So, without further ado, here is the Weekly Zeitgeist. Miles in our seat. We are thrilled to be joined by a professional futurist with a PhD in the history of science. He's been a visiting scholar at Stanford and Oxford Universities and is the author of four books, including
Shorter and rest. Please, welcome to the show, doctor Alex Sujung King pang Eli.
Thanks for having me, and happy national Angel food cake?
Yeah yeah right? Are you a fan of angel food cake?
I love angel food cake? Oh and cake decorating actually, so you know two for one?
Oh wow?
Is that like is that a like a hobby of yours decorating cakes? Or you know you admire the artwork.
I admire the artwork though my wife and my daughter are both pretty pretty amazing bakers.
So okay, okay, okay, Well, we're so glad you joined us here today. Obviously the listeners probably have heard me really talking about my grindset mindset, how I get to.
Lambeau is the thesis statement of this show. Yeah, but as quickly as possible. You know, Tim Ferriss gave me some ideas. They aren't working very well, not fast. I don't know why. Yeah, I wasn't able to outsource enough of my work two enough, but yeah, people who work for five dollars an hour, it didn't work that way.
But we are curious to pick your mind because yeah, it was the talk of shortened work weeks and if that's better, I don't know. The jury is still out in my mind. We figured it's good to enlist the help of someone who hasn't like their area of expertise is and precisely that to fight the voices that tell me to keep grinding every day and every night.
We're main going off vibes on this end. And you've actually looked at data whatever that means. So we're gonna dig into it. But before we get to before we get into that, we do like to get to know you a little bit better and ask you what is something from your search history that is revealing about who you are or what you're up to.
Well, this morning I was on a Google Translate for a while looking at four day week in other languages. So it's something that I've been interested in for several years, and it's a movement that keeps growing and I have to keep like tracking it now in like Turkish and Hungarian and stuff. It used to be relatively simple. It was like English and maybe one or two other languages, but now it's like just all over the place.
How is that spreading? Is it just like kind of word of mouth that different companies are learning about it, or is it coming usually from the workers themselves or how do you see that kind of happening?
Yeah, you know a lot of it is spreading through sort of word of mouth with like within industries. So you know, you get a couple of people in like HR and recruiting who try it in their organizations and then sort of, uh, then their competitors will do it because those competitors are starting to lose people to sort
of the company that did it first. And then you know, it gets written up in the news and some you know, and there's some ambitious politician who thinks, you know, this is how they become you know, governor or senator or something, right, championing the four day week, and so you know, and it kind of builds from there, and it's fortunately been something that's gotten you know, plenty of press and plenty of attention, and so it's you know, it's it's it's
been really great to see it acquire that kind of momentum and take on a life of its own.
Yeah, is there is there anything to like you think, like, are there certain cultures where the just like innately some cultures are gonna be a little bit harder for them to like cross the barrier into the four hour work week just based on sort of like ideas of what productivity or what you know, someone's worth is based on work or is it or is there also a thing where too, like humanity is just kind of naturally maybe progressing towards this where it's like, I mean culture or not,
it's like this is this feels better?
This works better?
Yeah, you know, I think if you've got twenty four hours in a day, you're gonna you're gonna value this. So, I mean, you know, I have seen this in like two of the hotspots for the four day week are Japan and Korea, which are both countries whose languages have their own words for working yourself to death. Yeah, so you know, it's not just like Sweden and Denmark in
places with really good work life balance. You actually see it most in places that have really serious issues with like stress over work, et cetera.
Okay, it's that yet, I haven't hit Yeah, we're not We're we're not on board yet.
But you said, you said twenty four hours in a day, My man, you gotta find some more hours.
That's right.
I got thirty in a day over here. But anyway, oh, that's another story.
It does cut against the standard narrative that we see
in the mainstream media. I feel like that. That's one of the things that made to jump out to me is like, this wouldn't be getting coverage unless it actually worked, because so much of the mainstream like narrative is focused on emphasizing the impact of these like billionaires and how they worked so hard and did it all by themselves and bootstrapped their way up, and so to have this thing that keeps getting media attention that feels like really
counter to the logic that the entire that is, like the software that the entire media that we consume runs on. Like that, that's one of the things that made me be like huh. I feel like there's must be something here because if it wasn't true, like the media wouldn't to allow it, you know, like weapons of mass destruction. We were saying, why would they talk about that? The yellow cake? That's right, it's got to be true. But what is something Alex you think is overrated this week?
I think having having an opinion that you feel like you really need to share immediately. I feel like, so, yeah, speaking on things that you haven't read about or have no experience with, big overrated, stating allegiance to particular foreign policy campaigns without knowing anything about them. Yeah, these things are you know. I know that this is like an old man complaint, but the Internet's kind of like, hey,
if you have an opinion, share it here. I don't think you need to all the time, even if you.
Don't, just like kind of make one up, just go with it, and then you state it as if.
You yeah, zealously put it forward, right right right.
A lot of people I feel like you had to like have to jump in with all the time.
When you don't. You don't always have to.
And I get that the internet makes it feel like the spotlight is on you and everyone is waiting for what you're gonna say, but you can just say I'm just kind of just kind of just just checking this out, having my own feelings about it. I'll address them if I feel appropriate publicly whenever that happens.
Absolute, And I think like there's like a symptom of a feeling of like powerlessness with that. It's like, I think everyone feels like generally powerless. And I think that like if they immediately have a take on something or share it immediately or whatever, it like might do something and it won't. And it's fine to not know for a minute. So and that's especially you know, obviously this is a big international news week, and that's when, Yeah, it happens more more often than not.
Yeah, it's it's it's really apparent, like when you see so how many celebrities just deleted shit so quickly, and you're like, hold on, did you are you doing this? Because you feel like everyone's posting about the thing, I have to also post about the thing. No, Oh, this is okay, I'm not I'm not actually sure what foreign policy is, so sure I'm gonna I'm just gonna delete that.
Yeah, Yeah, I don't know.
I get all my foreign policy information ideas from Jack Black. Exciting to see where he came down, and fortunately he came through with the heater. So it's such a we're all good here.
It's such an overshare week that I know exactly what Jack Black said, So that's where we're at.
Wait, did Jack Black come out with him? Jack Black waited, We're good. Oh. It was also one of all like yeah, all right, JB. You know, yeah, it does feel like people are hurting in a very particular way that that they are asking people to, like a lot of the things that are going viral are like come out and say what you think about this or else you are not doing the right thing. So I also understand why people are making this mistake, you know.
Yeah, no doubt, I think especially it's just like especially important, and it's always been important to like pause generally, but like now as it seems that like every place we get information has been particularly the one owned by Elon Musk, has been crushed and stripped of context and sort of like disinformation is increasingly more prevalent by the day. Yeah, it's it's maybe a perfect time to hone your reflex to find, you know, to substantiate your news.
This was like, this was the moment I was like, I can't use Twitter for shit anymore now, like it's only for jokes. It's only for jokes, because I've dude.
I on the other one, like I've I felt for like what I sadly mistakenly had regurgitated something that was not true on the show about the eight billion dollars being okayed from the administration to go to Israel, and that was like that shared by a couple accounts that I was like, Oh, I think they have their shit together, And now I'm like, it's a fucking absolute cesspool now, So apologies for any listeners who thought that was actually your true fact was in fact not and now I'm like,
all right, sticking to actual, like legitimate news sources as usual, because even the times that like, you know, journalists or people who appeared as journalists were sharing things were very quickly We're out of that era and it's so unreliable to the point that like, like I've I've just gone through thread after thread of people who are like disinformation misinformation specialists, and like you're the most prevalent things that are being talked about like this week on this platform,
and I'm like, this is useful, yeah, because so much discourse is shaped by Twitter.
Still. Fortunately, I think most people just come to us for like lifestyle things and like how to get to Lambeau and you know, how to yeah, their life, not necessarily for information, no, no, no, well yeah, considering that it's mostly just our opinions, man, Yeah, Miles, we do want to check in with a report from Dane van Kirk on the ground in a Midwestern airport, filing from his phone and just he's just like recorded it send it to us over email this morning. So let's listen.
This is an interview with somebody who.
Works for one the airlines and wanting to I think he starts off just from the little bit I've heard the very beginning, getting some some travel tips from from who else who would know best than somebody who works at the airport.
Here we go. Hey, it's Daniel van Kirk. I am doing an on the ground reporting for the Daily Zeitgeist best podcast to get all the happenings going on around the world. I'm how did he know our new Midwest? Right now? Talking to somebody who.
Knows TM the best place to get.
All this better than anybody. They worked for an airline in the Midwest. I want to I want to ask you. Let's call you Max. I don't want you to not Let's call you Max saying anything. What's the what's the best tip? Like wrong Thanksgiving, Christmas season? How early should somebody get to the airport? Because I had my theory, but I want to hear you.
I'm two hours a miles.
You have three hours early three consolidate your bags?
Can swear you really think three hours? I mean, I don't think that's too far off. Have you been to the airport?
Yeah? Has been given yourself two two hours? Traveling domoric during the holidays, Yeah, maybe the holiday is a little different. But I have a hard time getting I don't do that extra hour, getting myself to commit to the extra hour.
I do two hours.
That's like my standard for domestic flights usually because that's usually what it is, unless I'm flying out a Burbank shout out Burbank, which I'll pull up thirty minutes before boarding, and I'm good Burbank like a like I'm catching the bus. I'm like waiting plane. As people are boring, I'm like wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hey you do, Hey, don't close the door. Don't close here.
Let me. If you're gonna make me walk outside to get to my plane, you better assume that I'm going to be a little bit Yeah haphazard, exactly.
Yeah, here we go, moving on. So he's saying three hours.
Yeah, security, I mean that's what they because it's you just never know what you're gonna run into. I tell people, even if you fly twice a year, you should do clear m R.
Yeah, that's a good tip, assuming stress.
I love this guy's and these guys.
DVK pulls up to this dude like, hey man, let you into an interview real quick, Like yeah, all right.
You are a.
Proof that day Man Kirk could get along with, like truly anyway, not that there's anything wrong, but like, this is just this is how he talks to you, This is how he talks to me, This is how he talks to the guy in at the airport, airport who works for an airline. Also clear, I don't know you have clear. No, I don't know. I don't have TSA pre check. Yeah I got TSA PreCheck check. Isn't it clear?
Like I feel like clear, I didn't do it because like it involved more steps, and I was like, nah, dude, like well you have to like do it at the airport, and you have to like my wife keeps being like, all right, let's do it. Let's let's like get you clear now that we're at the airport, but we're we're never there in time. Why are you taking me to sign never I'm traveling. I'm like, I have a bag that's half open with paper streaming out of it just behind me.
So yeah, now I want to ask you this. Do you have more or less drunk passengers around the holiday season? Way more real because there's people don't fly as much and they have anxiety.
Yep, thinking for the airport, they wait and they drink.
No, man, how often do you know ahead of time? Like you know who your people are going to be before they ever even approached the gate?
Usually see him sitting at the bar.
That's a good point, though, your drinking is fully on display at the airport, you know, it's not like there's like a back a back bar, like yeah, yeah, you know. And so it's just interesting to hear that, Like the people who work for the airline are clocking you as they walk by and see you at bellied up to the bar with like an empty like double pint of
beer and three shot glasses. The next the thing, it's just like a whole row of empty shot glasses side down on the bar, Like all right, this one's trouble squire.
See you later. I want to see you later. I'm going to see you later. Okay, here's the only question I have. Is there a limit to how many dogs can be on a plane?
Like physically, like by the laws.
Of animal you could have that service like five or six. Have you ever seen an animal that wasn't a dog? Where I can't? Have you had a bird? No, I haven't seen a ny No. There was a story once I don't know if it was true or not that somebody tried to bring a like a goose or like a peacock onto a plane.
Actually, I've seen penguins on the plane.
You've seen the movie Penguins on a plane.
They had the Sea World flight coming in, No kidding, they had penguins coming off. They walked off.
Okay, now here's this guy might be a little bit tik but it's like it's hard to tell.
It's like, is he like fucked up on like on Benzo's on the job or is he like one of those super laid back like one note people, because like I have friends like like like where they have like Stephen Wright kind of cadence.
And delivery and you're like, this guy's fucked up. You're like, nah, man, this is just this is them. They got one tune they play and it's this one.
If I'm wrong, If you're only allowed to bring so many items onto a plane, right, personal item and carry on bag, I think that's pretty universal around airlines. But if you have a bag of food that you bought at the airline, does that count towards one of your items?
Of course not the Daniel.
No. If it's a huge bag, they do count it. But if you're a regular sized food bag, no.
So could it be possible if you have some third item you have to bring on.
I mean, this is a great food bag.
Put it in the food bag and then you probably will get on the flight with that item because they'll just assume you got like a twenty seven dollars chicken sandwich.
People get creative.
Carry on bags that look like McDonald's bags. I'm just saying, I'm putting it out there that's a brilliant idea, just right, that we all have all these like new stealth bags to bring on because like, yeah, every airline's like hold on, hold on, man, is your boy your baby needs formula? Oh that's that's forty bucks? Man, it's forty bucks. Oh wait, oh it's McDonald's all right. Never br exactly, Wow, this is heavy.
What is it?
Sixty pounds?
Man?
Just put in the overhead please, my McDonald's. I just like to keep it up there.
In most airports if you need a quick bite to eat, because I have a theory that those those premde peanut butter and jelly sandwiches what do they call the ones that are circular.
They've got a seventeen dollars half a ham sandwich right here.
Is it worth it?
No?
Ok? Never, no, it's never been worth it. No one has ever bought airport food and been like this was the right price. They've priced this correctly. It is pure price gouging. It is the cruelty of capitalism on display for all to see.
I will give it up to like in like an airport in the UK, like you can always go like a Mark and Spencer's type thing like m Ands or Sainsbury's and get like just like the meal deal sandwich, which is like like three pounds, Like I'm like, yeah, okay, cut to Burbank. I thought the sandwich weighs three pounds, three pounds sterling, three Great British pounds g GBP. And then at art like in fucking Burbank, bro the other day I got a fucking turkey sandwich.
You know how much that ship was? Yeah, I don guest sixteen. Yeah, I think they talk about together, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's a fucking anyway. But that's he That's that's what it'd be sometimes out here in the US. I think people should be able to carry on guitars and play a nice little song about you know, Jesus slippery exactly.
That's the thing though, it's gonna be. It's gonna be like fucking raise you up on Eagles Wings or like Wonderwall.
Yeah, you know Wonderwall, but like it ends up being about how much you love Jesus. You know.
Oh, it's talking about a couple of lyrics. Can you make wonder? Can you make the wonder? Wonder be about like the passion of the Christ? Oh yeah, like his crucifixion, like to day is going to be the day of the throw effect.
Whoa, it's just Jesus talking to Judas.
Like wow, backbeat, the word is on the street that the fire while talking to Ponta's pilot on that one.
Yeah, okay, okay, all right, we got a point. Moving on.
And then where would you do you recommend people park on the line, like at the actual airport?
Oh?
Hell, I think it's usually better to find it something somewhere else.
Now, it's easier and more secure to park in the garage.
Okay, so that's what I did here today, So it makes me feel pretty good about that.
I recommend you just park in the loading area, the passenger loading area, and then pick up your car when you get back. You know it should be there. That's my advice. I don't travel much.
And then yeah, when you hop out, throw the skycap your keys like they're the valley or the airport cops like, hey, you can't pass. You're like, hey, man, you don't have to get Just make sure you don't got any in.
Her flights where people have opened up literal three course meals.
On a fight.
Is there anything that somebody could ever say like, hey, I'm sorry, you can't eat baked salmon on the flight only if that's offensive, okay, And that's a discretionary decision as well, somebody. It's up to somebody, they decide if they think that's too offensive or non offensive enough. Man, all right, well that's that's gonna be my report where I talk to somebody who's in the know. Here at
an airport in the Midwest. I assume just from both of our dialects, you can tell that we are in Saint Louis and everybody hates it down here because it's Saint Louis. I throw it back to you, guys, this is Daniel van Kirk on the ground.
Wow, on the ground, not in the air brilliantly but what a report from the street. Yeah, yeah, I think we learned a lot, learned a lot, learned a lot about each other, that one for sure. Like you, you really like to cut it close in the holidays. You're trying to do like a MacAllister family, trying to make the flight through the airport. If we are not frantic, we are not traveling. Oh it is Yeah, what am I gonna that doesn't give you? I mean, like if I get three hours. So the earliest I've ever I
think this is part of it. The earliest I've ever gotten to the airport was the flight for my honeymoon.
And we got there three hours or early, right, And we did it up a little bit and we got access to the like Captain's club or you know whatever.
The lounge the lounge area, and went in there, and we missed an international flight because we were having too much fun. Just and also I hadn't changed. It was back at a time when like the phones didn't automatically change with the time though, so oh my god, I've been married fifteen over fifteen years. My wife still hasn't forgiven me for that ship.
Well, like, but also I feel like the airline is usually like at a lounge like that, they they scan your boarding pass so they have an idea of where a passenger might.
Be if it's going to take off. Yeah, yeah, no it uh maybe they added to that after you.
Yeah.
I think it's called the O'Brien rule. Yeah. But we we got there, the plane was still there, but they wouldn't let us on it. Yeah, And I was wearing an internet video. I was wearing a T shirt I had had since like eighth grade and it had holes in it, and my wife had told me not to wear it to the airport because she was like that, like, it's just you're not gonna be nice to you, they think. And I was like, no, what are you talking about.
I just want to be comfortable when I'm traveling. The shirt is it is vintage, And they were like, no, you're not allowed on this plane. Get the fuck out of here. Go back outside to rebook that you have to go back through security. And yeah, probably was at least partially due to my ratty ass T shirt.
You know, man, classiest bullshit man, just a man of the people wearing your vaporized whatever was like an r EM shirt. It was a House of Paid T shirt. Oh my gosh, that's right.
Yeah, you ain't getting on that plane, Boston, Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, all right, although they're from LA anyway. Anyways, well we're all a little bit wiser heading into this holiday travel season. We're going to take a quick break and we're going to come back and talk some news. We'll be right back and we're back. And yeah, so you started as a historian of science, and I've heard you talk about like what you learned from Darwin. And you know, Ernst Mocked talked about kind of these ideas
of you know, letting the subconscious take its turn. Look, can you just talk about like just looking at the historical record around these great thinkers and what they what they knew.
Right, So you know, part of the reason that I talk about these these folks unrest is number one, their lives are really really well documented.
Right.
There were fourteen thousand letters in of the Darwin archive at Cambridge University, so we actually know an awful lot about their daily lives. We also have enough perspectives so that we can say with a pretty high degree of confidence Charles darn Darwin was an important person who's you know, who made an enduring contribution to or to our understanding
of the natural world. And you know, finally, in contrast to today's great so many of today's great achievers, they don't you know, we can see them without the filter of like pr handlers and sort of you know, people who are worried about their stock price, sort of making the argument that you know, these people actually sort of never rest there, always serving the customer, you know, creating delightful products, blah, blah blah, And so we have actually
a better understanding of how they worked and how they did their work than we do of many inventors and entrepreneurs today.
That little fish with feet that Darwin came up with was pretty sick. Marketing. I gotta say that branding is pretty tight. He's kind of a marketing genius.
He did have his moments, you know, it's it's us. It's us too bad that he was working before there was actually any you know, social media.
But yeah, I've always thought him more than an influencer than anything. But yeah, okay, I think he did other important stuff.
You know.
I mean, you know, he definitely had a lot of influence, no question about that. And the other thing you see when you look at these lives is there's a there's an amazing consistency in things like their daily schedules and sort of when they worked, when they took breaks, and how they kind of layered these periods of really focused work of only like ninety minutes or ninety minutes to two hours and then a break and then another deep
dive what Cal Newport calls deep work. And you do that like three times a day, and that's about all they needed in order to you know, come up with ideas that sort of changed the world. And I think that's a you know, it is a it's a great challenged the assumption that in order to do you know, world changing stuff, we have to work enormously long hours.
We have to in effect sacrifice ourselves and our happiness and our health and sometimes our families in you know, sort of to make, you know, or to reach some mountain top, make a discovery, et cetera, and that it's possible to have you know, long sort of lives that are longer, that are more sustainable, but also still let us do really amazing work that or of you know, lets us express our passions and that sort of is
deeply satisfying for a really long time. So that ultimately is you know what Darwin taught me along with the fish with the feet.
Yeah, which is I've got I've got a ton of those in my garage trying to get rid of if you want to buy something.
Yeah, that is kind of the whole point of this episode is actually trying to help Miles move that product because he.
Is I shouldn't haven't made it in pure gold? And I think that's right I shouldn't have pure gold? Yeah, but what do you think?
Like so you know from my we talk about culturally right, like how some places work themselves to death. I know that from like I'm I'm a Japanese family who when I first was working in media, they thought my job was not serious because I wasn't like working day and night.
Are what like sort of what was sort of the evolution of being able to be like I don't know, Darwin works like a couple hours a day to sort of this like new like the exaltation of like the non stop working person and that is why they're successful. How did we like what what jumps did we make? I'm assuming the industrial age had a lot to do with that, but what what like where where were we and where are we now?
Essentially it did have a lot to do with it. But even you know, one hundred years ago, there was this sense that you know, super successful people of kind of earned earned the right to leisure because of their success, you know, not that getting rich met that you had to never ever stop. Like if you look at old issues of Forbes magazine from the nineteen tens nineteen twenty, right, Forbes Magazine has never been one that's been especially critical
of capitalists. But you know, lots of those profiles have stuff about how these guys spend like you know, still go to Minnesota to tramp in the woods where they grew up before, you know, sort of coming back to Wall Street and you know, sort of you know, and sort of cornering the silver market. I think, you know, so, you know part, But what happened to change that? I think really starts like in the seventies and eighties, when you have sort of the realignment of the American economy.
You have sort of the sort of along with the growth of the computer industry, of the high tech industry and finance simultaneously, both of which teach us that the way to be successful now is not to start at the bottom, pay your dues, and work your way up. Right, the age in which both General Electric and General Motors could be run by guys named Charlie Wilson, both of whom started in the mail rooms of their companies, was
now over right. The way you became rich was to be like Steve Jobs right, or of overnight success or like you know, Charlie Sheen and Wall Street, and that becomes that becomes the model for what a successful career looks like in a sense, sort of you get rich before the next you know, either before your technical skills become obsolete, before the next turn of Moore's law means that someone else has a sort of chance at bat or you know, or of the next or of you know,
the next stage in the global economy or economic turndown, or of you know, wipes everybody out. And then you know, other structural factors like sort of the growth of or of increasing reliance on sort of temporary labor, stalling of wages. And culturally, I think the sense ability that you know, work goes from something that is important in every American's life to essentially the only thing right, more important than family, than community, than religion. It means that it is like
the undisputed champion of everybody's existence. And so, you know, all of that stuff together means that it's been really hard to push back against all of that and to
imagine an alternative. And it's taken something as dramatic as the pandemic right to sort of shift, to make a lot of us shift gears to see that actually, you know, all these things that we took for granted that we thought were like inevitable and inescapable turned out to be things that we can change and to begin to take seriously the possibility that we can actually, you know, or rather than have our workplaces changed by a virus, make
these changes ourselves for ourselves for the better. But you know, that's that's a that's a brief history of how we got how we got in here, and how we're getting out.
It's interesting to me that it happened in like the seventies and eighties at a time when like people started really like hoarding and getting immoral amounts of wealth for like doing things that like building things that weren't lasting, or you know, doing corporate rating and stuff. Yeah, corporate rating.
Like it reminds me the anecdote from the People's History of the United States, where like the War Department changes its name to the Department of Defense at the moment that they start waging non defensive wars because they're like they need this you know, linguistic defense mechanism to like
throw people's attention away. And it's like the the powers that be in capitalism need this idea that like, well, you just have to work harder, you just outwork everyone to justify that they're actually not doing anything that is harder or more worthwhile, and certainly not millions of times more important than the people who they're out earning by a factor of a million.
You know, Jack, That points to another important thing, which is that you know, we've we've come to see or of both success and challenges in the workplace as totally like sort of individual and personal. Right, sort of, my success is because I worked enormously long hours, not because I have a social network, I have patrons, friends, you know,
et cetera. Right, and if I have are you know, sort of if I have if I have a problem at work, or if I want to be more successful sort of the you know, the key is all in what I myself do right, get up earlier, hustle harder, et cetera. And I think that we've you know, of even even those of us who turn out whose clock have thirty hours in a day, rank you discover that you know, at some point you run out of hours, and the ability, you know, the ability to solve problems
that way hits a limit. And the fact that we all share that we all have these kinds of problems suggests that actually maybe a more powerful and enduring way to deal with them would be to solve them together, right, to act collectively. And that's one of the big things behind stuff like or of the four day week is that, you know, it's something that's done in companies when where everybody does it from the CEO or of you know,
CEO on down. And I think part of the success of the movement has been that it has you know, it has shown us, that shown us the power of collective action to change how we work and to make work better for us.
All. Yeah, that just made me think of the fact that Zach Morris is the ultimate capitalist because because he can freeze time, he can freeze time, and that saved by the bell. Yeah, of course do. I don't think I have to explain that to anybody here, but I'm sure this comes up all the time in academic circles. But what like that he was and that that was a fantasy, that was like a thing that I was
when I was younger. I was like, oh, man, to be able to freeze time, you have like so much extra time, I can like get so good at things or like do all the all my work. And then just like come back, and it's really you know, living my life on Zach Morris's clock, you know how like I'm curious to like, you know, when I got a lot more on Zach mount Morris here, Miles, if you oh, No, I was about to.
I was actually about to talk about the Jack Morris when he had to take two people to the same dance. Jack, let me finish the question. No, But Alex, like we I think when we talk about what we talk a lot about on the show just sort of the just terrible habit we have, especially in America and other like
western capitalist societies, just like it's all about work. Productivity is the only metric to define your life, and like, you know, we see that obviously, like at in the more professional level, but I feel like it's also really difficult for people who like have like you know, hourly
wage working jobs and things like that. What is the sort of same way because obviously I feel like when people go like, I'm sure if you tell business owners like, oh, four weeks, what for all my productivity to go down? How do those sort of lessons apply to various industries? Because I can easily see how like in a professional thing it's like, well, we've got all these like invoices we have to process as an accounting firm or whatever.
Once you're done, then you have something there.
But like for something that's like sort of like an always on business, like retail consumer sort of facing business, what is the same way What is the way that that needs to be messaged to those people for them to not think, well, my line will go down if this happens. And how does this how does this sort of vision offer a new sort of form of I guess, you know, time liberation for workers that are like in like in every sector.
Right, So okay, first of all, I think that the you know, it's the four day week is something that the very you know who's very earliest adopters tended more to be in like professional and creative services. And partly because that work is kind of more malleable and more shapeable by individuals, it's also tends to be a little more project based and so right, and you know, you're not like actually moving physical things around, so sort of
easier to imagine how to redesign it. But one of the really interesting things is that we've seen is it move into places like nursing and I'm actually working with a police department that's moving, that is experimenting with thirty two hour work weeks for officers, you know, and talk about you know, talk about two industries where you don't want you know, sleep deprived or of overworked people coming in and making mistakes is like in an ICU, and
you know, sort of during any interaction with sort of with law enforcement. And what we found there is that, you know, okay, a couple things. Number One, that that kind of work turns out to be just as creative as what we think of as you know, creative work of like people sitting around in meetings, you know, drawing
on whiteboards. It's just we don't recognize it as such. Right, There's just as much ingenuity, sort of problem solving skill, et cetera required to either defuse a situation, to you know, assess what's going on in an emergency room, to calm down people. And that's and so this kind of work is just as responsive to the benefits of a shorter
work week on the part of individuals. Now, the way that organizations make it work is for nurses, you know, like places like nursing homes, they have huge issu is around sort of turnover and sort of recruitment and retention. Right, these are of these oftener jobs that are not very
well paid. They're highly stressful and so you know, in so it's easy for people to come into those jobs work you know for maybe a year or two and even if they like it, to find the stresses you know, ort of are too much and for them to leave.
Moving to a shorter work week means that they have more time, more time for recovery, so more time to you know, and then but also it means that the organizations themselves, like nursing homes that have moved to six hour shifts while still paying people the same amount of money that they were that they were paying for eight hour shifts, they save enough in like in temp agency fees.
You know, when someone calls in sick, you've got to get someone from a temp agency and it's like five times is expensive per hours to sort of you know, have the regular f time person. You save so much money on that that the programs pay for themselves and you get higher quality of care, so less administration of psychotropic drugs, fewer like bed sores, slips and falls, all the kinds of things that indicate whether whether you know, whether nursing home residents or people in a hospital are
being well cared for. And so you know, in a sense basically there are there are industries in which there were hidden costs to overwork and high turnover that a four day week are subsidized by I think that's andre and we're seeing, you know, we're seeing that in the
restaurant industry, in healthcare. The trial with the police force, it's an eighty person force and they've saved something like two hundred thousand dollars in overtime, which is like incredible in like the last you know, four months or so that they've been that they've been doing it, and so you know, it's and so it's not just that you know, these are sort of these are jobs that you know
in which individuals benefit. But it turns out that once you dive into the numbers, there often are kind of systemic savings that justify moving from sort of sort of from you know, eight from eight hour shifts to or to shorter ones. So you know, even when you have to pay more people, you have to hire more staff, it's you know, the numbers still work out. And then with retail. The most interesting thing I'm seeing has been sort of places that will stay open now for twelve
hours and have two six hour shifts. So that means that you get more walk in. You know, you get more walk ins. People can you know, come into the store or the garage before work, you know, maybe get some work done or before they've got to you know, drop the kids off. And it means that you know, for you know, you get more customers and more revenue. And so even if you have to hire of one or two more people, it often can pay for itself that way, or you know, sort of on sort of more sales.
Yeah, it's about to think about the creative work that police do. That's crazy because every time I'm pulled over, they're like why are you in this?
Why are you in this neighborhood? Because they're coming up with like really interesting reasons why I shouldn't be there, But in their yeah, they have that's an exhaustion issue. I'm like, you just get some rest, anybody, maybe you could you need a nap? Sorry, sorry officer, sir, you you seem so sleepy. He seems so sleepy.
But no, it is like is there are there any is there potentially any like this could apply to any job, right, Like, is there like when looking at sort of the way we toil in labor, is there any job where you're like, Okay, maybe that one has to kind of stay that way.
That's it's sort of it seems. I don't know.
For my perspect I'm like, I think it supplies everything, right, Can we just can we just call it a day?
Everyone goes to four days?
I think, you know, there were or of looking at economically, I think if you commute to work by helicopter, it's going to be hard to move to a four day week. So like if you're working on an oil rig or something, right, it's like ten days on, ten days off. Just the cost of getting to work and back is such that a four day week is probably not going to work very well. And then after that it becomes it really becomes a matter of like a professional ideology.
Right.
Hedge funds are not going to do it because they have constructed incredibly profitable systems for hiring twenty two year olds, working them to death, and then discarding, you know, discarding the desiccated husks three years later and hiring new kids, right, right, So until they're you know, Viking freezers are full of woggu beef right in their like apocalypse bunkers. They're not
going to have a lot of vision board. Yeah, exactly, you know, but there were, you know, and then places like law and medicine, you know, they pride themselves on being able to work these kinds of tightically long hours, and they even though they recognize that there are high costs to it and it leads to sort of instability for organizations and unnecessary burnout. Until now, it's been hard
to envision constructing something different. But so, you know, and some of the you know, there were there definitely are older people in these fields who really resist the idea that you can, you know, sort of you can scale back hours and make the work better without making the work worse.
You know.
Occasionally you get people who say that I can't do this because look, I don't have another life other than reading SEC filings or you know, X rays, So don't ask me to do this.
Yeah, yeah, let's actually let's take one more break, and then I have another thing that I heard you say that kind of made the whole thing fall into place for me. So we'll be we'll be there and we're back and this this report miles from Moodies. Nothing has ever made more sense to me in my life in the news that the cheesecake factory is propping up America's consumer economy. Yeah everything, you know.
The Moodies likes to get in the business of business and put out their little analyzes about what's going on. They talk a lot about malls, apparently for mean Girl's Day that we completely fucked up, so sorry about that. On October third, humiliating, they released this like report on like the state of certain malls and like the top, like the observations are like the most obvious one at the top was pretty clear to everyone obviously, like e
commerce has like obliterated mall traffic. Then there are a few others I didn't really think of, but like totally make sense in terms of the survival of a mall, Like people prefer lifestyle centers or outlets that are more that aren't enclosed, because people just kind of these days rather park and walk directly to the store they need to go to, rather than walking through nine dead department stores just to get to like the inside part of the mall like we used to have to and having
like non traditional businesses like an arcade or a trampoline park or a bowling alley helps like plays a I guess somewhat a measurable role in the ability of a mall's you know, survive survival factor, survival rating. But here's the other part, right, Malls that do not have a cheesecake factory are twenty one percent more likely to be behind on loan payments than malls that do have a cheesecake factory.
Yep.
And they're like and again they're like, we're not saying, you know, the causation is correlation here, or correlation is causation here. But it's clear that people go to a fuck cheesecake factory. It's like having an apple store.
People.
If you got it there, people will go to it. And maybe has somewhat to do with the layout. But these are the kinds of stores that no matter what, people will be like, oh, you have to go to the mall because that's where the apple store is, or now.
The cheesecake factory. And now I'm just like, what is it? Is it the brown bread? Is it? The menu as thick as phone books? Yeah, I've been saying for a long time I think the Cheesecake Factory menu is the height of Western colonial culture. It is like the thing that will be in our like the the wing of the museum dedicated to this period in history, in this place in the world. How did they fucking fit this many places into a single kitchen like that? That doesn't
make sense. PIF Changs is probably, but like PF Chang's, they like took two things from the PF Chang's menu and like that's in there, you know, like that they did it all.
I'm from. I grew up as a teenager. I worked at them all for five six years and uh and our mall was like and I grew up white trash and so our mall the the anchor restaurant was a Ruby Tuesdays, which is really yeah, but like when I grew up again, like Cheesecake Factory was like aspirational, like you it was like a fish.
Yeah. Yeah.
Our family wasn't going out to the Cheesecake Factory every every night, you know, like once a year maybe.
Yeah.
One of the first dates that like I went on, like as a freshman in college, I was like, fuck here, I'm like we're here, dude, Like I've saved a little money, and it's time to take Shorty.
The cheesecake factory. I was, and so yeah, and therefore we're therefore we're doing and I'm having chicken littles again, don't.
I was a big like. I was a big like as a teen, as a like feral team, I was a big like, let's go with your girl to the restaurant and like go to like what I considered a nice restaurant, which and run respect all was like incredibly cheesy. Yeah, but yeah, I loved.
That Robin or something.
Yeah, bottomless fries forever.
Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
Fud Ruckers. Those are like the early date spots where you're like, these are places my parents would take me, and therefore this is all I have in terms of knowledge of a restaurant.
For a days.
It's the only proximity to adult knowledge I have.
Yeah, exactly is like I know there's a fud Ruckers over there.
We used to go.
There was an east Side Marios in the mall parking lot, and there was a guy from my town named Pete Finkel, and he would play like contemporary covers of songs at the east Side Marios, like like Green Day's Time, of your life and you'd go and see this guy from your town play music at east Side Marios on your date with some whatever, some girl, and it was so of a time. It was remarkable. I really miss how weird that.
Was at the simpler times, at the simpler times.
Have you ever can you think of a cheesecake factory that's gone. Have you ever seen a cheesecake factory go out of business?
I've seen. Yeah. No, they relocate cheesecake factory desides when it's done with you, But the cheesecake factory is not. Yeah, it'll just be like, we're gonna move over here to bless this other establishment with our present. Never like no one's coming here.
Everyone goes and these things they're probably going to be standing that people are going to do an analyzes and be like these are made of Roman concrete. Why they still stand to this?
Yeah, it's the only thing that's left standing of America in three thousand years. It's just cheesecape factories. Yeah, I like it's it's interesting. Is this because the cheesecake factory brings so much people to you know, so much business, or does the cheesecake factory have like some magic understanding of like where to locate, you know, based on all.
The all the malls I know that do or do not have a cheesecake factory ball and ship. Yeah, the balls that are like predisposed to already of people who are regularly going to come with with dispassible income are hitting that cheesecake factory exactly. I'm shocked that our mall that had that had Ruby Tuesdays as an anchor is still trucking because it is Oh yeah, the main mall in South Portland, Maine is still somehow vibrant.
Do you know what they put into the what they put into the department stores? Like are they are they now like the bubble world? Oh you mean, like what did they replace all this?
I don't. I don't know, although like that is that's some of my favorite There's a there's a mall unfortunately that maybe I can't remember, but there's a mall in Portland, Oregon that has like a full comic and zine shop and like any spot and that's I love that. It feels like truly you know, sideways apocalyptic in a way that I enjoy.
Yeah, yeah, I feel like that there's probably there's got to be a lot of haunted houses that have gone into those sure, right, oh yeah, you got to, yeah, got to.
It's always interesting to see, like because it'll always be. Then there's like the small businesses where you can see it and you're like, oh, this poor fucking motherfucker, this ship is not gonna last, and like you probably put your whole fucking life into this terrible retail concept. And then you see ones that have been there one off in a mall, like a one off retail concept in a mall. Oh god, and I get like and you like seeing her, Like, no, I feel so bad. I'm
so sorry you are, You're just anyway. Then but then it lasts for like ten years and you're like, oh, it's a drug front.
Never mind. Yeah, okay, I don't have to feel bad because you don't care that no one's in there because you're just laundering money through here. Yeah.
The one, the one I was just talking about in Portland Oorgan is called the Voyd Center and it's like just like it feels like a flea market. It feels like it's all just like small businesses that people like put it all on the line for and they're like, you know, it's like custom snuggies or whatever, and you're like, all right, I guess, okay, I hope that. I hope.
That's what I love about like Portland is the specificity of the businesses like it. The entrepreneurial spirit of Portland, Oregon is fucking I've never seen anything like it where they're like, yeah, man, it's like a bespoke hot sauce and beer place.
And it's like, there's what there's another so our my podcast like a host with Sarah Marshall from You're Wrong About And there's another Sarah Marshall from Portland, Oregon who runs a bespoke hot sauce company.
Oh really.
And it's funny too, because like I'm like not knocking it because instantly I'm like, I mean, yeah, beer's cool.
But I love hot sauce and I love to see when people are just like, you know, aggregating a ton of local hot sauce.
I'm like, this is great. And I was asking some people lokaland like.
Is it high turnover like in this area, like with the business, Like yeah, yeah, it can be. It can't be. It can be, but some.
Things for me for sure.
All Right, Well, at the top, we mentioned that there has some has been some misinformation going around, and I have to assume that you guys were talking about skittles when you you mentioned that, h yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, because there have been erroneous claims that Skittles are now banned in California, specifically Mario Lopez, who, along with Jack Black, is the person who I go to for most of my information. Most of my reported reportage has to come
through Mario Lopez. He tweeted crime is through the roof, worst drug epidemic ever and homelessness at an all time high in California. Let's focus on skittles and then posted a video or posted a picture that says California becomes first US state band skittles and twelve thousand additional products for cancer causing additives. Maybe maybe this is first step Mario Lopez gonna run for president. We can all hope.
At Mario Lopez Viva.
Did this news come from next door? I feel like this is something that would work, Yes, right next door. The other day I was like, I got I don't even know why I'm on next It was like I found to Pet once Pet, and I was like, I should go in next door and now I'm never gonna get off. But they people were very up in arms about the fact that I think California, there's a law that was passed that you can't make your employee run after a shoplifter anymore rightfully so, so like that should never
have been anything in the first place. And people were angry as if the government had come into their house and taken all their money and then burned it down. Why this is like this Skittles news is another one of those that feels, yes, so is it true. It's not true. It's not true. It is not true.
So I mean they tried it. Gavin Newsome signed to build banning certain food additives. And one of the things that he pointed out because everyone was like, oh, you're gonna ban Skittles, Skittles go out of business. Then dude, California, Yeah, not gonna be able to buy Skittles. Fuck that. And he was like, here is a bag of Skittles from the EU, where the shit the car arsinogenic chemicals that they put in the American version of Skittles is illegal.
They just made it less cancerous in the EU and are still able to sell both things and not go out of business and people were like, nah, fuck that, And so that that got taken out of the bill, the skittles ban, there's like, just keep it as it like they could have made it less potentially cancerous and.
That just isn't going to happen.
Yes, So he held a package of skittles from the EU, argued it's demonstrable proof that the food industry is capable of maintaining product lines while complying with different public health laws country by country, and so therefore. An earlier version of the bill had a ban on titanium dioxide, which sounds like a thing that you want to ingest with your food, just like you know pepper a little. It's got two oxenium dixides dioxides on there, which we've talked
about it before. It's a controversial food additive found in skittles and a bunch of other foods, and it's been banned in the EU. It was banned last year, and you know, it's just not great, like they think it could be bad, like when it gets into your cells. But it was removed from the California bill after lobbyists argued that it was safe to use in these applications.
Don't worry small amounts and products like skittles. This is how you know Gavin Newsom is running for president eventually, Like he's already doing like he's like, you know, like, oh, I'm not like we'll fine, We're good with titanium dioxide, or like the thing where he's like, I'm going to cap insulin costs. No, I'm not.
Actually I'll say that out loud, and then when it comes time to cut time to sign a bill, I'm not going to do that, or be like we're gonna get striking workers unemployment. He didn't, right, So he's like really good at that, like presenting himself as someone who's like got his head in the game and as this like progressive credentials will also be.
Like and I'm a friend to business and healthcare. Don't worry my man.
Still am I making up that he was like a progressive guy At one point that was the case, right, Like here was the here was like an actual progressive politician from saying yeah, like as.
The mayor of San Francisco, like I guess comparatively, but he's always I think the thing that people have always that the sort of criticism is like he's He's always been very sly about it. He's very coy, you know, and he so he knows what to say when to say it, and not say things when to not. So it's you're always like he presents like a total piece of ship, but he might be a total piece of ship too.
Yeah.
So that that pushed back hair though, you know you got to you gotta push a head of hair.
Yeah, it's like back jack. We already know. I can't think of somebody whose hair I would want to touch less than Yeah, his hair feels like it. Whatever you would get on your hand from touching it would be on there for a while.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Like I'd rather touch like all like the male leads and like Boardwalk Empire, who you saw them put like lard in their hair.
I'd like, I'm having to go. I'd rather touch that or like palmade than like the whatever Gavin Newsom's got going on.
You know whose head I bet is filthy as Bill Maher I bet his. I bet you would touch his head and your hand would never be the same. Yeah, yeah, I just wanted to get that Bill.
Yeah hair new rules.
Your hair is terrible.
You just could be like stuck to your hand like a spider web, you'd like wash.
It, And I say, this is someone with like a radically receding and depleting hairline. But yeah, I don't ever want.
To take the texture the texture of it, though I can.
It feels like it could be like like a cat's tongue somehow, when you're like.
Ah, what the fuck that's hair? Yeah, yeah, buddy, sure is so karma does it's not hair? Okay, Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Have you never touched a nest of spider webs before? Islamophobia?
Okay, okay, sorry, snowflake.
It's scary you. Both of your impressions, like facially are scarily accurate.
I'm sorry.
We have like a people I've had to listen to that for thirty years. We're outside about it.
But yeah, so this is one of those things. The science is uncertain, but usually like if all things being equal, the you know, people in charge of making making decisions on behalf of millions of people would be like, we don't know, and therefore you can't put it in food that is mostly eaten by children, just as like a precaution. Yeah,
And that's how it works in the EU. But in these United States, you you know, you got you got lobbying groups that are more powerful than the young children candy eating lobby.
But it's it's funny though, how much like my brain has been shaped by this like American attitude towards stuff. When I'm like, well, yeah, he can't even prove it though, so like, fine, let it ripe, rather than be like, no it we don't know.
It's better to know. It's our thing is.
It's better to know what you're putting in your body than letting it rip. And I'm like, okay, well maybe maybe.
Yeah they did.
Why you American to me is kind of like why don't you suck it up? And then I realized that I've just internalized a terrible ideology.
Yeah, and then you're like, oh wait, that's the titanium dioxide talking shit. You've internalized a bunch of microplastics in addition to American it's fine, it's fine, it's fine, let it rip. Let her in my teeth talking to how can the red ones taste the best?
It's because of the flavor inside, it's not because of the let's they tell you.
All right, that's gonna do it for this week's weekly Zeitgeist. Please like and review the show. If you like, the show means the world de Miles he he needs your validation. Folks. I hope you're having a great weekend and I will talk to you Monday. Bye.