31: Ryan Holiday - Conspiracy, Manipulation & other Pastimes: Difference between revisions

I was trying to talk to my son who's 14, about the old days-like, What was it like?-and I had to explain to him how important the clock was-when you didn't have cell phones in everyone's pocket-you had to be very precise and careful where you were going to meet someone. On what street corner at exactly what time; and that these things that were broadcast live, like the news, synchronized behavior. We were willing to be synced because we didn't have an ability to be independent. And that now, we've gotten this ability to do everything on demand, we’re surprised that no one carries our information [inaudible].

I was actually-I have a three-year-old, so I was thinking, ‘What’s the-[from] when I was a kid, what's the technology story that I will tell them that will blow their mind?’ And I was thinking about this last night because I got in my friend's truck. It was an older truck, and we had an older version of that when I was growing up. We had this Toyota pickup truck when I was a kid, and it didn't have a clock in it. It was a cheap old truck, and I remember that whenever-on the way to school, to see if we were late, or what time it was, we'd have to turn it to, KFBK. I grew up in Northern California turning to KFBK, because every 15 minutes they said, ‘You’re listening to KFBL. It's 9:45, and traffic-“ So, we'd have to turn on the radio and hope we were close to, but would know that in a minimum of, you know, 14 minutes and 32 seconds, we would be getting the time. Right. And so it was it was it's weird, because yes, things were more synchronized. But also, you could exist in a bubble detached from time also, because not everyone was trying you were you were genuinel

unreachable. It was g

orious. Yeah. It's strange. Not that not that long. I mean, this is I'm telling you probably l

ke 95 or six. So I'm interested in in sort of these old stories, but I also just Am I right that probably we will find that our brain structure was altered by  

ur phone use? I mean, I would think so. There's that Louie ck bit about, you used to have to sit with awkwardness or unpleasantness. But now you can instantly relieve yourself of like, like, let's say, I got here early, and there's no one here. And I was w

iting because the  

ost was late. No, no, I'm just saying, let's say you get to something early. Yeah, you would have had to wait with your own thoughts, right. And now you can go into the portal and not have to have thoughts. And so that idea of reflection or downtime, it's like, one of the things I compare writing a book too, is sometimes if you have your laptop and you shut it and it's just You'd go into sleep mode, but you'd come back and something had happened. And it's been on for 11 hours. And it's like almost like hot to the touch. It doesn't happen anymore. But I remember that happening on my older Mac books. To me that's like what writing a book is like, your brain is not shutting off. And I think social media actually creates the phone, create some version of that, where the you're never getting the downtime between moments, right? Always, alwa

read a book. Well, so related to that one, I think it was Daniel Boston, if you read him at all, he wrote this book, the image about sort of the invention of modern media. He's basically talking about what television radio does, is fascinating. I think it was like the Librarian of Congress or something. But he was he was like, the Lincoln the Lincoln Douglas debates. It was like Lincoln talked for three hours. Douglas talked for three hours. Then everyone took a break and went home and came back. And then they each argued for like, another three hours. You're like, now the democratic debates are like, an hour and 20 minutes and there's eight candidates, you know, like, human beings used to be able to consume incredibly long form complex like these were farmers and blacksmiths and People was sitting here watching one of the smartest people who ever lived. One of the most eloquent speakers of all time talk for three hours without break, you know? unamplified, have you seen certain losses of capability? I mean, I think the I think the ability to consume very long form content whether it's you know, Robert Caro book, or it's a, you know, 1000 you know, line poem. I think those are one of the one of the only bright spots to me as podcasts that people will listen to a three hour Joe Rogan and long form podcasting and long form television. Yes, yes. Although I find long form television to be very manipulative and not a sign of progress. Oh, say more. This is great. So I think okay, so it like, when I watch, I don't know, bloodlines? What I got the sense of is that like, let's say I watched the first three seasons, which I thought were good and then I realized I just watched 22 hours of television and eight minutes of things have happened. What they did is they like instead of having to create beats inside the show to get you to go from commercial break to commercial break, they, they just know that if they if they keep you going, if at the end, you're vaguely interested, you will let it autoplay to the next thing. So it's, it's taking what what could be a compressed really interesting couple hours of television and and it's like how the YouTube algorithm rewards watch time, right so people just make shit longer than it genuinely needs to be. Like as a writer, one of the favorite rules, one of the favorite exercises I heard Raymond Chandler would write on basically index cards and his typewriter and his rule is like something has to happen on every The index card. So if you read a Raymond Chandler thing, it's like beat beat beat beat beat. Now you read, you know, some novel that wins the National Book Award. And it's like, weirdly, it is 2000 pages or 1000 pages, but nothing happens. The characters learn nothing, you know, no lessons are taught. So like, it's it's even some of the long form stuff that we consume. It's mostly just a testament to our ability to veg out or consume it in the background as we're doing another thing, rather than be ver

t empty calories? Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm sure

dn't waste a lot. So you liked it. I did. And look, I would say that the HBO model is different than the Netflix model. The HBO model is like, this has to be so good. You will wait one week and hold on to the threat and come back to right the Netflix model is Can I Can I steal Tuesday from you guys you know like when you call in sick from work and watch a episodes of gangs con or Narcos or whatever. Okay

singular funnel. Yes,

ood at is, is, is being the every man in the sense of like, he's asking the questions that a normal person would ask Malcolm like, like, what would a person who has the opportunity to talk to one of their favorite authors would talk about, as opposed to whatever the subtle political agenda or you know what, like, whatever, somebody in the media would try to use the opportunity of talking to Malcolm Gladwell to

accomplish right. Except that the funny part is that he's so far away from being every man. Sure. The persona and the rapper exactly communicates every man like his vibe. Is what you say yes. And then if you talk to him, or hang out with him outside of his show, you're just aware of what an incredible storehouse of information that's particularly senior human being is. He He has an enormous body of knowledge so that you're always close to something that he wa

ts to talk about. Yeah, that's true. One of the interesting that sounds noting soom at that interview is there was like nothing that Malcolm Gladwell mentioned that Rogan wasn't vaguely familiar with no events in the news there was no he was mentioning this video like this police shooting and this and and he was like he knew all of it. I think I think what defines Rogan to me and good podcasts and why they so exploded is like, actually an earnest interest. Yeah. As opposed to a vague like you've been profiled by media outlets, right? And very little but but what happens is actually very, very little interesting. But but you get the sense that this person is very nice to you and very friendly. But when you read the article, it is clear that their intention was to let the reader know that they

operate with Yes. Right. Yeah, I mean, in fact this this sort of ties tog

rent okay threads is the success of Joe Rogan above all all others telling us more about what is going on with traditional and legacy media. In that he is offering somehow the best antidote to this kind of seamless, endless interoperable wall of institutional corporate and

egacy sense make. Yeah, like so. So I think it's also just genuinely like, most people are fans of stuff, right? And Joe Rogan is a fan of stuff. And when you read a New Yorker profile, or a New York Times profile, or an Atlantic piece, or even some of the, you know, like Recaps of television shows, by outlets that, you know, everyone does this now, there's this weird sense that everything sucks. People that make it suck, the world is falling apart, and that the job of the media is to tell us what's wrong with things. Right. And, and like, why would anyone consume that information? Like what what is the utility of you telling me that things suck? Like I talked to? When I when I talk to authors, it'll, like, the old media model was like, you could write a book about an idea like just generally like, Hey, this is complicated and people are like, I don't have time for this. Like, tell me if it's Tony. Is it good? You know, or tell me that this is bad. But there's this weird sort of thing in a media where it's just like, it's just kind of this is this is it's like a there's an ambiguity to it. And like, it's almost