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

In what ways am I diminished? What parts of my capacity have I forgotten? What I'm really trying to get at, ultimately, is that a lot of transformations have taken place, that have not been well-documented, that divorce us increasingly from what might be termed our super ancestors. Like there are no 400 hitters in baseball. We’ve accepted that that was a different era, so somehow that can’t be. But it seems like we could accomplish all sorts of things recently that we can't now. And it's very interesting the extent to which we've lost capacities. And we haven't documented what it was that took them from us. Like, I can't figure out why I can't read a book.

Well, so related to that one, I think it was Daniel Boorstin, have you read him at all? He wrote this book The Image, about the invention of modern media. He's basically talking about what television and radio does-it’s fascinating. I think he was the Librarian of Congress or something. [In] the Lincoln Douglas debates, 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 another three hours. Now, the democratic debates are an hour and 20 minutes, and there's eight candidates. Human beings used to be able to consume incredibly long-form complex-these were farmers and blacksmiths. People [were] sitting [there] 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.

So when I watched Bloodlines, I got the sense that-let’s say I watched the first three seasons, which I thought were good-and then I realized I had just watched 22 hours of television, and eight minutes of things have happened. Instead of having to create beats inside the show to get you to go from commercial break to commercial break, they just know that 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 taking what could be a compressed, really interesting couple hours of television, and-it's like how the YouTube algorithm rewards watch time, so people just make shit longer than it genuinely needs to be. 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 something has to happen on every index card. So if you read a Raymond Chandler thing, it's like beat beat beat beat beat. Now you read some novel that wins the National Book Award, and weirdly, it is 2000 pages or 1000 pages, but nothing happens. The characters learn nothing, no lessons are taught. So 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 very engaged with-

And look, I would say that the HBO model is different than the Netflix model. The HBO model is-This has to be so good [that] you will wait one week and hold on to the thread, and come back; the Netflix model is-Can I steal Tuesday from you, when you call in sick from work and watch 8 episodes of Genghis Khan, or Narcos or whatever.  

Okay,well then what's going on with Joe Rogan? This is a singular phenom.

I think so. But I think it's a generational, also a lifestyle thing, that is somewhat new. But I was just listening to his Malcolm Gladwell interview, and it's like three and a half hours, and I was literally entertained for every second. I think he's a master of it. And I think what he's really good at is being the every man in the sense of asking the questions that a normal person would ask Malcolm? Like, what would a person who has the opportunity to talk to one of their favorite authors talk about, as opposed to whatever the subtle political agenda, or 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. The persona and the rapper exactly communicates every man-his vibe is what you say. 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 this particularly singular human being is. He has an enormous body of knowledge so that you're always close to something that he wants to talk about.

Yeah, that's true. One of the interesting things that I was noticing about that interview is that there was 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, this police shooting and this-and he knew all of it. I think what defines Rogan to me, and good podcasts and why they’ve so exploded is actually an earnest interest. As opposed to a vague-you've been profiled by media outlets, right?  

So I think it's also just genuinely-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 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  

ike a film on top of this this culture. I mean, you know, this word, the commentary, yeah has elected these people. Right. And why do they have a culture? Yeah. And what is it about their jobs that produces this kind of incestuous? Well, she said, she did this think piece about this. And then I came back to that, and so and so digested the two years think

tions about that. Is it the The economic is it that the system of selective pressures that is choosing these people to sit in those chairs, yeah, is now imparting such a spin that the world is kind of tuning it out increasingly because, you know, for example, there is a piece I've never heard described like a general platonic abstraction which I call envy porn. Yeah. Where the peace talks about fabulously rich people leading shitty decadent lives and you're supposed to be exactly filled with one part envy

in one part pity. Yeah, where some version of that piece is like, I'm gonna write about this person whose life seems very glamorous, but I'm I'm a subtly going to show how they're actually a vapid idiot. Yeah, you know, and and I think what it is is like, okay, so economic like economically and Opera, as far as opportunities, but it's literally never been Easier to reach a mass audience to monetize your work to, to control your own destiny as a creative person, right? So like imagine, imagine looking at the like the the vast opportunity of podcasts out there, the opportunity to write books or to create YouTube videos are to do any of these things and go, my, I don't want to do that. What I would like to do is make $42,000 a year without health benefits and be have a full time job at Business Insider, right? You know what I mean? Like you are either you're insane, or you're fundamentally somebody, or you're fundamentally lacking the talent to cut it in the real world eat what you kill, like, sell stuff dire